A pretty and sensible engagement ring. No expensive diamonds for me, thank you very much!

So this year Dave and my relationship passed the 5 year mark, which for me was a great milestone to achieve. My last multi-year relationship ended just shy of 5 years and it was very clear for well over a year before the break-up that it needed to end.

This time around things are very different. I’m still very much in love with Dave, and I know he is also in love with me. With that being said, I’ve never been big on the whole marriage thing. I don’t see the difference between living with the man I love, and being married to him, other than the legal and financial changes it causes.

It’s the financial reasons why we’ve avoided even thinking about marriage until recently – I had a very poor credit score and a lot of credit card debt. This would have negatively impacted his stellar credit score and neither of us wanted that.

My financial situation is now doing much better – I’ve been debt free for a couple of years now, my credit score went up to a very respectable level and has remained stable. Also we have discovered the tremendous tax savings we are not taking advantage of by not filing our taxes jointly.

So to that end, in our own unconventional way, we’re transitioning our relationship to the “next level.” We’re starting with the common law marriage. That way we can file as “married, filing jointly” for our taxes, which will save us both money on taxes. Because I am self-employed, between federal income-tax, state income-tax, social security and medicare, about 40% of my gross income goes to the government right now. Considering I’m no where near that much maligned “1%” I feel this is a pretty steep bill I’m paying here and I am seeking legal ways to reduce it a bit.

This will also allow me to be added to Dave’s health insurance plan, which would reduce my monthly medical insurance premium from $187 to $0. Over the course of a year that would save me over $2,240.

In the end, marriage is primarily about money (which is also why money  and finances is the #1 reason cited for divorce). Dave and I don’t need marriage to be in a healthy, loving relationship, but we do need marriage in order to take advantage of both financial and legal benefits that we would otherwise be denied. At this stage in our relationship it makes sense.

However there will be no fancy weddings, no elaborate bridal showers or bachelor parties. We live by the KISS principle (Keep It Simple, Stupid!). When we’re ready (after we have a nice pre-nuptial agreement drawn up and signed), we’ll switch from common law to legal marriage, officiate over our own nuptials and then throw a big party for our friends and family!

So yesterday I turned 40. That’s a fairly big milestone in a person’s life, considering our distant ancestors often didn’t live much past the age of 30 or so. If I was alive some 50,000 years ago I’d be considered a very old woman (and probably look the part), but in today’s modern age 40 isn’t really that old at all.

I can honestly say I don’t really feel that much different from when I turned 30. Sure I have a few more aches and pains then I did then, but nothing really all that bad.

My life is significantly improved since I turned 30, and way more since I turned 20. My 30s was my favorite decade in my life so far – I exceeded my own expectations in both my career and personal life. 10 years ago I would never have imagined being an independent consultant. In fact I remember having a presentation by a lady who was an independent consultant in one of my grad school classes and I thought to myself at the time “I could never do that.” Well I proved myself wrong (thank goodness!).

Also 10 years ago I would be equally skeptical that I’d ever meet a man as wonderful as Dave has been to me over the past 5.5 years. At that time I was still reeling for a big break-up (which was mostly mutual although I did broach the subject first). I wasn’t sure I’d ever find the kind of guy I really wanted and needed in my life. Amazing that he was living less than 1 mile away from me at that time!

I remember looking forward to my 30s, because I was tired of being 20-something and being treated as too young to know anything. Being 30-something seemed to add a level of legitimacy to my words, and people finally started to listen to what I had to say. It was a nice feeling.

I am equally looking forward to being 40-something and having an even stronger level of authority given to my voice. I don’t think your age should matter in how people perceive you, but in our society it still does.

Unfortunately you get to a point where you are considered “too old” to know anything. While I have no problems getting older, I dread the day someone looks at me and says “what do you know, you’re too old!” Let’s hope that doesn’t happen until I’m at least 80!

Until then I am going to keep enjoying my life, and working towards fulfilling the rest of my goals and dreams. I have 2 major goals left to accomplish, living to see my 100th birthday, and buying or building my dream house. Obviously the house goal will be accomplished first and I have no doubt it will be reached before I hit 50.

Now that the leaves have almost completely fallen from the trees, the weather has turned colder and we’ve had our first snow (or two), I have begun to get into the holiday spirit.

I know many people barely tolerate the holidays as they can evoke painful or at least uncomfortable memories of stressful family gatherings.

I guess I got lucky – while my family was full of stress and tension the rest of the year, during the holidays they made a concerted effort to put aside their differences to make the holidays a good experience for me. It was the one time of year everyone seemed to genuinely love each other (at least it felt that way when I was a kid).

Was it all a sham? Yeah, but the holidays still evoke such a profound sense of peace and happiness in me that stems back to those days, and I choose to embrace those good memories, instead of focusing on the lies/sham it may actually have been (I’m an optimist, so sue me!). :p

At the end of the day, this time of year always fills me with nostalgic longing and bittersweet memories of holidays gone by. I try and maintain some of the rituals that my family held when I was a child – like putting up the Christmas tree on my birthday, baking cookies and bread, making capon (a young turkey) for Thanksgiving and leg of lamb for Christmas. And of course always sending a Christmas package to my relatives in Germany. Besides my uncle in Chicago, they are the only family I have left from my childhood.

So it may be a tad early, but Happy Holidays everyone!

(Actually I don’t consider it too early – for me the Holidays begins with Halloween and continues until New Years). :)

I am getting tired of people being so divisive around the world today. I may not be part of this so called “1%” of wealthiest people, nor do I identify at all with the folks calling themselves “the 99%.” I also cannot completely identify with “the 53%” either. Nor do I feel that any of those groups should presume to speak for me. I can speak for myself quite well enough, thank you very much.

What also bothers me is the mentality that if I don’t consider myself part of “the 99%” I must be some kind of corporate or government sheep, although nothing could be farther from the truth. I remain self-employed because I’ve had it with corporate politics and politics in general.

While I do not deny that there are people out there struggling and need some help to get back on their feet again. However this mentality of entitlement is really pissing me off, especially the folks who keep talking about the “redistribution of wealth.” I’m sorry, but I worked hard to earn what I have and just because you didn’t want to work as hard as I did, does *not* entitle you to anything I have earned.

The harder I work, the better off I have become, and the more philanthropic I want to be with what I have earned. However, I feel that philanthropy needs to be a choice. I do not feel the government is qualified to make the best use of my money for the sake of the poor. I would rather make my own choices as to how I wish to share my hard earned income with others.

It saddens me that people are vilifying folks for being successful. Yes, some of the wealthy people in the world inherited that wealth, instead of working to earn it themselves. However one fact people are clearly ignoring is that, besides the taxes the wealthy are paying, most of them work on and contribute to philanthropic endeavors, which benefits everyone. If you are going to vilify please target the specific corporations who still provide “golden parachutes” to failed CEOs, and pay outrageous bonuses to executives, while still laying off workers and accepting government bail-outs. If you are going to protest, focus your protest on the actual culprits, not individuals who happen to have had financial success.

I was also laid off back in 2008 and I could have sat back, collected unemployment through endless extensions, while whining about how no one will hire me. Instead I formed an LLC and tried the self-employment route. I figured that while I may not make it long, it covered my unemployment gaps and made me more employable than I otherwise would have been.

Thankfully in the long-run the self-employment route has worked out very well for me. It wasn’t easy – I had to do a lot of networking to make a name for myself and get folks to give me a chance. In the end it paid off and I couldn’t be happier.

Folks out there who can’t find a job equivalent to what they had before, need to consider taking any job they can find, until they can finally find the job they want. I’ve had to work many crappy jobs over the years while I went to school and did what I needed to, to get into the career field I wanted. It wasn’t easy, and life is never easy. Taxing people more is not going to change that.

Take some responsibility for your life and change it yourself, instead of waiting for others to change it for you.

In exactly 40 days from now I will turn 40. To mark the occasion I have been planning a birthday countdown vlog (video blog). I’m doing these vlogs for a number of reasons – primarily I’m doing them for myself, as a way to reflect back on the last 4 years of my life, and as a way to help me remember things as I get older. You never know what memories might get lost in the mists of time. Another reason is perhaps my friends and family may be interested in the little anecdotes about my life. At least I hope my niece and nephew might be interested when they get older.

The final reason I want to share these memories of my life is that I didn’t have the easiest life growing up. I was teased and bullied. I had an alcoholic mother. We didn’t have a lot of money. Yet I survived all that, and made something of myself. I hope that folks out there who currently are living through a similar situation as I did, will see my videos and see that things can and do get better if you can hang in there. I was determined to survive, and to improve my lot in life. I had no intention of playing the victim in life just because of the circumstances I was born into. I didn’t let it keep me down, and today I’m a successful, self-employed consultant.

So stay tuned to my videos page, or subscribe to my YouTube channel, and I will attempt to post a new vlog daily over the next 40 days.

For those of you who know me, you know that I was very close to my maternal grandmother, who I called Omi.

She lived through a lot in her life – including two World Wars while living in Germany, immigration to new countries, and much more.

I have really wanted to share her stories with the world for a long time now, but just haven’t been able to get myself to write the novelization of her life as a book.

So I’ve decided to start a blog and share all the stories and vignettes she shared with me over the years. These are her personal recollection of events that she related to me, as best as I can remember. I believe most of the stories are factual, but I also know that there had to be some fiction woven into them as well. Omi was very good at weaving a good story, even if it meant fudging some of the details at times.

Please read and share her stories, and I hope you find them interesting. This is one way for me to let her legacy live on the way she always dreamt it would.