NFL Prop Bet Pick of the Day Thursday Night Football ...

I just hit 5,000 subscribers this morning, my channel has been up for almost 13 months. Here is my obligatory post...

I uploaded my first video on July 29, 2019
I got approved for monetization on December 16, 2019
I hit the 5,000 sub mark this morning (August 24, 2020)
I am not going to rehash on all the advice you've seen on this sub a million times. I will just try to say what I believe is important
submitted by sportsbettingtruth to NewTubers [link] [comments]

I am 53 years old, have a combined $210,000 annual income, live on Long Island, NY, and work as a Project Coordinator

First, I'm sorry this is so long. Second - please be nice. We have debt, bad habits, and are Catholic. So if any of those things are going to get you spun up, just skip this one.
Section One: Assets and Debt Use this section to explain your current financial picture at large.
Everything here is joint – “M” and I have been married 22 years and we’ve had “smashed money” that whole time (and really for about a year before that).
Retirement Balance (and how you got there): Approximately $500,000 in a variety of IRAs and current 401(k)s.
Equity if you're a homeowner (and how much you put down and how you accumulated that payment). Bought our house in 2001 for $239,000 with 20% down (some aggressive saving and a gift from each of our parents). We refinanced, took some cash out for some home repairs, and reduced it to a 15-year loan in 2009 – our current equity would be about $195,000, but similar homes in the neighborhood are listed at $475,000-$525,000, so if we ever sell, we’re probably coming out ahead.
Savings account balance: $6,000
Checking account balance: $6,500
Credit card debt (and how you accumulated it): I hope you’re sitting down. Approximately $40,000. Yes, you read that right. How we accumulated it? The house is 90 years old and constantly falling apart, so we’ve had to charge things that needed to be done (some we wanted to have done, but some – like the time our oil burner stopped working in December – were needs). We had two dogs with numerous medical issues – I don’t want to calculate what they cost me, but they each had surgeries that were about $5,000 (each), plus other chronic and acute medical issues. And yes…for a while, we were doing and buying things we probably shouldn’t have (not bad things, just vacations, clothes, and non-essential home improvements) So…when I’m 100 and greeting people at Wal-Mart, I’ll at least have some good memories. That said, I can’t tell you the last time I used credit – if we can’t afford to pay cash, we don’t do it (and I say that fully realizing most people would feel that I shouldn’t do anything).
Student loan debt (for what degree): None – my husband went to the military and then to work after high school and I went back to community college later in life and paid as I went.
Anything else that's applicable to you: If my ex-husband dies before me, I’ll have about $6,000 in a money market that he must have forgotten about. When we divorced, he was supposed to liquidate all those accounts and give me half. He was an accountant and a SOB, so I never knew exactly what we had, but what I got seemed accurate (it paid for furniture, my wedding to M and part of this house, so I was OK with it). Lo and behold, a couple years ago, I found out we still have this money market account in both names. I tried to find him so we could liquidate/split it, but he’s missing. I get the statements here now, and the good part is he’s older than me, so I’m holding out hope he predeceases me and it will be mine.
Section Two: Income
Income Progression: I've been working in my field for a year and a half, my starting salary was $100,000. I did a salary story with the entire progression – long story short, I’ve made more, and I’ve made less, but this is probably about the average of the last five years.
My husband has been at his job for 14 years – he started there making around $75,000 and now makes $110,000. They usually give him a $10,000 bonus at the end of the year, but are always crying poverty if people ask for a raise. Prior to that, he worked for a company that paid very well and he had a 15-minute commute, but he got out one step ahead of their bankruptcy.
Main Job Monthly Take Home:
Me: $5,152
J: $6,230
Side Gig Monthly Take Home:
M is paid $1,300/month by our parish for serving as Youth Minister.
Any Other Monthly Income: $16.00
I get quarterly dividends on stock I was given when I was born (I may not have been born into money, but apparently my grandparents had friends who thought this was a good baby gift). The last few were around $50, so I divided by 3.
Section Three: Expenses
Rent / Mortgage / HOA fees (please specify how you split it if living with a partner): $3,043, which includes the property taxes and homeowner's insurance
Savings contribution: $500/month without fail (my bank transfers $100 if we get over $500 in, so once each paycheck and once when we put the church check in). More if I feel the savings needs a boost.
Debt payments:
Donations: OK – anyone who isn’t screaming because I owe $40K is going to start now.
Electric: $110
Gas (stove/hot water): $50
Oil: $250/month in the winter
Wifi/Cable: $179
Cellphone: $252 for both of us (I get mine expensed except $26 for my phone payment)
Subscriptions:
Car payment / insurance: $295/month for my car (leased). My husband is driving a 10-year old car that is paid off. $128/month for auto insurance
Lawn care: $50/month
Commuting: Now that we’re in COVID times, I’ve been buying a 10-trip off peak railroad ticket every five days for $78.75. Pre-COVID, M and I each bought a monthly ticket for $270, and I took the subway most days for an additional $100/month. I fill up the car about once a month (~$36) and M fills his about every other week (~$70/month)
Saturday, September 26, 2020
7:45 am: Up and at ‘em! I get up, get coffee, check emails and social media and start the day.
8:00 am: M leaves the house for a long list of errands, the payment for which will be shown below. I put in a load of laundry and discover…a leak! There is a large pipe between our powder room sink (which I used when I woke up) and the outside world that runs through the basement and is apparently leaking. Yay whee. If you get one thing from this diary, let it be these words of wisdom – don’t buy an old house! No beautiful feature is worth the aggravation! I get the water (I hope it’s water) cleaned up, a load of laundry in, take a shower, do some picking up around the house, get dressed in a Rangers t-shirt and cut off distressed jeans, do my makeup (Olay microsculpting serum and Miracle Blur over the bottom of my face, pink, gray, and violet eyeshadows, a swipe of foundation under my eyes, black eyeliner, black mascara, and dark brown eye pencil. This is standard everyday makeup for me and will be repeated each day. I put volumizing mousse in my hair and blow dry it (also routine).
In the meantime, M gets a haircut ($30 including tip), sets up the video equipment at church, goes to CVS for passport photos that he needs for an application ($18.87), and goes to the religious goods store for a book of the Liturgy of the Hours ($42.31). He is starting formation for the diaconate (the process of becoming a Deacon in the Catholic Church) today, and they said he’ll need that book. He also needs the photos for his application, and he stops at the bank for two money orders – one to send with the background check request and one for his high school transcript ($26). On the way home, he picks up breakfast (brunch?) for us – classic New York BEC, SPK (bacon, egg, and cheese on a roll with salt, pepper and ketchup) for him and egg whites, turkey and swiss cheese on a whole wheat wrap for me ($10.78), as well as cigs for him and vape cartridges for me ($36).
The washing machine isn’t causing any additional leakage, so I move the wash to the dryer and start moving the winter clothes from the portable closet in front of the leaking pipe upstairs (they’re not wet, but we’re going to have to move the closet when the plumber comes).
After eating the egg sandwiches, we get changed for deacon class – I look like a good church lady in black slacks, a black and white flowered shirt with a black tank underneath, and black sandals with a chunky 2.5” heel. M goes with the classic golf shirt and dockers. While we’re getting changed, he mentions he needs new underwear, so I whip out the phone and order him some ($18.64).
6:30 pm: Home from deacon class and Mass and the groceries show up! I ordered them yesterday, but I don’t think the charge went through till today, so here goes. Asparagus, broccoli, celery, bananas, cucumber, lime, grape tomatoes, peaches, carrots, potatoes, spinach, lettuce, zucchini, frozen burgers, ground turkey, chicken breasts, whole chicken, fried chicken and a pot pie for J’s lunches, yogurt, sugar free pumpkin spice creamer (YES! I’ve been looking for it for weeks!), milk, heavy cream, OJ, k-cups, frozen green beans, cauliflower rice, stuffing mix, microwave rice, cake mix (the good ones were on sale), chicken broth, potato chips, and trash bags. Spent $154.95 including delivery, saved $14.50 (very low for me), tipped the delivery guy $10.
7:00 pm: After putting away all that food, what do we do? If you guessed order dinner, you’d be right! I don’t cook on Saturday unless we’re having company. We order from a new taco place – three each and “Mexican wings”. The wings were meh, but the tacos ranged from good to outstanding. $53.78 including tip. After dinner, M starts post-production of the Mass video and I do some laundry, watch the NASCAR race and the hockey game, and play games on my iPad. Remember, you’ll be old someday too!
11:00 pm: I go to the basement to pick up laundry and remember I wanted to order a new garden flag (this isn’t as random as it sounds – all my seasonal decorations are stored in the basement). I have had a cart set up for days with two garden flags ($6.99 each) and four magnetic mailbox covers for my parents for Christmas ($11.99 each) – they’ve talked about having a different one for each season, and I saw them when I was looking for a garden flag. Total with tax and free shipping: $61.94. I love Christmas and generally spend way too much on gifts so I’m trying to start shopping before December and at least spread out the pain. We went to a crafts fair a few weeks ago and I picked up a few things and now I’ve got this done – go me!!
12:30 pm: The hockey game is over (2 OT!) and I go to bed. M is napping waiting for his video production to finish.
Daily Total: $463.27
Sunday, September 27
7:00 am: The alarm goes off – ugh. It’s the first day of Religious Ed (virtual, but I have to do a 9:45 zoom with my 4th graders). Coffee, social media, shower, dress, makeup. Put on a black eyelet dress because we’re going back to church today so M can videotape First Communion. Do the usual makeup/hair thing.
10:30 am: My 4th graders are great and we’re ready to roll (M has on a shirt and tie in honor of the First Communion), and we’re off to Mass. Drop off the food I bought for our food pantry last week and help him video. Of course, the kids are adorable!
12:00 noon: We’re starving after church, so we stop at our favorite local pizza place on the way home. Get a variety of slices for $22.62, including a tip (we’re getting it to go, but I’m tipping everywhere, because I know restaurants have been hurt badly by the pandemic. These folks are in NYC and still haven’t opened inside dining.)
1:30 pm: Ate, ran more laundry, changed into the jeans I wore yesterday and a Yankees t-shirt and call the nail place. Of all my expenses, nails are probably the most non-negotiable – I’ve been getting my nails done for 40 years, and when I couldn’t do so during the lockdown, I was miserable. They can take me right away, which makes me happy.
3:00 pm: All 20 nails done – gel on the fingers and a regular pedicure with callus removal ($75 plus $15 tip = $90). I went with an autumn theme and got copper on the fingers and bronze toes – the nail polish looked in the jar like it would match the toes, but it doesn’t. Stop at CVS for eye cream (Olay for tired eyes) and mascara (L’Oreal Voluminous) - $27 with coupons. M asked me to pick up cigs on the way home, so I do, as well as vape cartridges, which I don’t technically need yet, but it will save a trip later in the week ($36).
3:30 pm: While at the nail place, I saw that one of our favorite local restaurants had a fire, which consumed an entire block of restaurants and small businesses. The Chamber of Commerce is doing a GoFundMe, and I donate $25 to the cause - $28.75 including the charge. I also notice that the weekly charge for my church donation went through ($75).
11:30 pm: Took a quick nap (the highlight of my week every week), put some fall decorations out, had our family Zoom call, laundry, got the end of the winter clothes moved upstairs, had dinner (roast chicken, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and roasted asparagus), made an apple crisp (I’m not a huge dessert person but M is and I like making desserts, so it works), watched baseball, football, the NASCAR race, and basketball, and took a quick shower. Bring a Light & Fit Toasted Coconut Vanilla yogurt (the best!) to bed, finish my book (“Next Stop, Chancey”) and find the next in the series on my iPad – I’ve read them all before, but I’m in the mood for something cozy, especially after reading about the Current Occupant’s taxes – ugh!) , and turn off the lights around midnight.
Daily Total: $279.37
Monday, September 28
6:45 am: I work from home M/W/F and so I can sleep in. Relatively speaking, anyway. Get dressed in a sleeveless top and shorts (despite the fall decorations, fall nails, and roast chicken/apple crisp, it feels rather summery out there), do makeup, have some coffee and scroll through emails/socials, move yet another load of laundry (I’m trying to get it all done before the plumber comes), find the number for the plumber and give it to M to call, get the trash out, and boil some eggs for breakfast this week. I’m sitting in front of the computer by 8:15, which is ok (technically, my hours are 8:30-5:30 – it’s usually more like 8:30-6:00, and on WFH days, starting at 7:30 is not unheard of). M drops off the car at the shop – I think I forgot to mention this, but he mentioned yesterday that when he was driving around Saturday, there was a grinding noise when he backed up. More joy to come, I’m sure.
9:45 am: I hear M on the phone with the garage – apparently, they can get a used part and do the job for $450. Not great, but it’s better than it might have been! He works from home basically every day except when he has to see customers, but thankfully we’re separated enough that we can hear each other but it’s not intrusive.
10:30 am: Between cursing at people on the phone, M calls the plumber and I grab some cheese and more coffee! I’d tell you about my job, but honestly, it’s not worth talking about. Basically, I go to meetings, take notes on meetings, and send follow-ups (I do other things, but that’s most of it). When I get off my 11:00 am meeting, I’ll find out when the plumber is coming. You guys are getting a much more exciting week than I expected!
12:30 pm: What a miserable day – it seems like everyone is annoyed! Take a break to eat a slice of leftover pizza and a Diet Coke (M finishes some rotisserie chicken from last week). He says the plumber may come today to look at the situation but can’t do the work till tomorrow.
6:00 pm: Keep my head down and get some work done in the afternoon and knock off for the day. Run downstairs and make dinner – “tacos” with strips of beef grilled with Korean barbecue sauce, shredded cabbage, cheddar cheese, pineapple salsa, cucumber slices, and lime inside warmed tortillas. Delicious, if I say so myself!
7:30 pm: I get on a Zoom faith sharing meeting and M gets on a Zoom religious ed class.
11:59 pm: Contemplated Sunday’s Gospel with my small group, watched Tampa Bay win the Stanley Cup, took a shower and set clothes out for tomorrow, and off to bed. M picked up the car after Religious Ed.
Daily Total: $450.00
Tuesday, September 29
5:45 am: Ugh. Up and out – I’m wearing a green dress with a black jacket and have black slingbacks in my bag. I have to walk 30 short blocks and five long blocks once I get off the train, so I’m traveling light. I used to take the subway to my office, but since COVID, I try to limit that as much as possible.
7:45 am: Off the railroad and walk uptown. I actually don’t mind the walk, because when I WFH, I walk very little – at the beginning of the lockdown, I had a nice walking routine, but lately the work seems to start the minute I wake up, so walking to work takes care of getting in those STEPS! I forgot my boiled eggs and I’m starving, so I end up buying an egg sandwich. $5.43
12:30 pm: Because I only go to the city twice a week and I have to walk uptown with all my work stuff, I don’t bring lunch often (pre-pandemic, I used to bring breakfast and lunch every day, but I also took the subway). Decide to run to Pret and my boss and co-worker both ask me to pick something up. Of course, no one (including me) has anything but a $20, so they both say they’ll get me next time. I get my favorite chicken parm wrap and a Diet Coke. $32
12:45 pm: I look at my personal email and discover that J’s car registration needs to be renewed. Hop on the DMV website and take care of that. $158.50. I also realize I never took out the sausages for tonight’s dinner and call M to ask him to do so. He mentions the plumber has still not shown up.
5:45 pm: Leave a little early to get to the Fed Ex office and make my train home. I’m a little later than I’d like to be and it’s raining, so I get the subway, which is thankfully empty, reasonably clean, and quick. $2.75
7:15 pm: M picks me up at the train station and mentions that he was so busy working that he didn’t take the sausages out. He asks me what I want to eat and we end up at Wendy’s. Cheeseburger, fries, and (surprise, surprise) a Diet Coke. He gets the same thing, but bigger. $19.75
11:30 pm: Avoid the debate by watching the Yankees pound the Indians. Usual routine (plus ironing a shirt for J, because he has to go to a customer tomorrow) and off to sleep. I’m up to Book 3 in the Chancey series, for those keeping score.
Daily Total: $218.43
Wednesday, September 29
5:30 am: Double ugh. Woke up to use the bathroom and couldn’t get back to sleep, so here we are. Get dressed (long-sleeved Yankees t-shirt, straight leg jeans), do the face, have some coffee, and try to avoid the fact that my boss sent me an email at 11:00 pm last night looking for changes to a document, which I said I would do today. Get the trash out, pick up a little around the house, and get to work by 7:00. OH, and despite the lack of plumber and his lack of general motivation, M moved the plastic closet…in front of the washing machine! Glad I bought him underwear, because I won’t be doing laundry any time soon. Now I’m wondering if he looked at the menu (I am an obsessive meal planner and post it on the fridge weekly) and that’s why he didn’t take the sausages out – he’s avoiding zoodles! He can run but he can’t hide – I have zucchini and I’m going to spiralize it sooner or later!
8:00 am: The document my boss needed is out, the agenda for our 9:00 am meeting is done, the morning emails are sorted (for now), and I got a link to our parish survey up on the Facebook page, so I make an egg and cheese on a tortilla and eat at my desk.
12:50 pm: Wednesday is conference call hell – I have recurring calls every Wednesday at 9:00, 10:30, and 11:30, and the added fun today of a 10:00. There’s also a webinar every Wednesday that I try to tune into. Grab some chips and a Diet Coke and go check it out.
2:15 pm: Still no damn plumber, but I’ll let M worry about that when he’s home tomorrow. My garden flags arrived, so that’s good. Hoping to get out and put the pumpkin one out before it gets dark, but the way today is going, that might not actually happen. However, I realize I never put dinner in the crockpot. Luckily, it only takes 3-4 hours on high, so I take care of that. It’s Tuscan Chicken with sun-dried tomatoes and spinach. By 2:30, I’m back at my desk with another Diet Coke and hard at it. Nightmares of rescheduling meetings, missing documents, etc.
6:45 pm: Still at my desk! OK, I took some time to send an email to the parish webmaster about the survey, update this, and read the R29 money diary of the day. But overall, I’ve been working with no apparent end in sight – I could easily be here all night, but I won’t be because (a) I’m falling asleep at my desk and (b) I have a 7:30 Religious Ed teachers meeting. Hopefully I won’t fall asleep during that. Make a list of things for my boss and I to review tomorrow and finish prepping dinner.
7:15 pm: Dinner was delicious – we had the chicken with rice for M and cauliflower rice for me, sautéed broccoli, and a basic salad (bagged spring mix, cherry tomatoes, cucumber). Now off to Zoom!
11:45 pm: The Yankees game is still on, but I’m showered, my clothes are set out for tomorrow, and I’m fading. Turn off the light and hope for a win.
Daily Total: $0.00 (bet you didn’t see that coming!)
Thursday, October 1
5:45 am: You know it…ugh. Get up, coffee, very quick scroll through the Yankees score/e-mail/social media. Get dressed in a black v-neck sweater, black and gray plaid skirt, and black jacket (not the same one I wore the other day). Am grateful the skirt fits – I gained some weight and am trying to resist buying clothes. Make sure I have the right shoes in my bag – I’m wearing high-heeled gray suede Mary Janes today.
8:15 am: At my desk and ready to go – I remembered to bring 2 hard-boiled eggs today, which I eat with coffee while looking through emails.
12:30 pm: Call after call after call, but I have a half-hour to eat. Run to the fancy buffet place that just re-opened for 2 meatballs, brussels sprouts, broccoli, salad, and the inevitable Diet Coke ($15.75). Manage to eat before my 1:00 pm call – go me!
3:30 pm: Leave to go to a job site and pick something up that has to be shipped to Italy. Something that's almost as tall as me, but thankfully not heavy. Taxi down there because I’m in a hurry and I can get reimbursed ($14.04, including tip), expensed.
4:00 pm: I get a cab to the Fed Ex office – thankfully the first one I see is a minivan, so I fit in just fine ($12.74, including tip), expensed.
5:30 pm: Well, that was harder than it needed to be – the Fed Ex office I went to didn’t have a box that would fit the item, so they suggested another Fed Ex office about 6 blocks away, so I had to walk through midtown Manhattan carrying an object almost as tall as me (it's 5' long and I'm 5'3" tall) while dodging oblivious people. Thankfully, the other office had my box, and they were super-sweet and helpful, but it took them forever to get it done. Bought the box and bubble wrap, which will be expensed (I brought the Fed Ex label, but I don’t remember the account number) ($43.54). Get a nice early train home, though!
6:45 pm: Wow, we’re eating when I’m usually getting the train! Cheeseburgers, tots (tater for J, cauliflower for me), green beans, and vinegar coleslaw with the end of the shredded cabbage. Get the kitchen cleaned and the dishwasher run and settle in to watch the Jets – I’m not holding out much hope, but you never know!
11:30 pm: I’ve showered, set out clothes for me and M (he’s seeing customers tomorrow), I prepped for Youth Group, which I’m leading because he’ll be working, and the Jets are winning, so I decide it’s time to sleep. Up to Book 5 of the Chancey series. I find series usually go downhill after about the third or fourth book, but I’m not sure what I feel like reading, so here we are. OH, at some point M must have gone to the convenience store, because there are vape cartridges on the table ($36).
Daily Total: $122.07; $70.32 expensed
Friday, October 02, 2020
6:00 am: Wake up, grab coffee, find out the Jets lost after all, do the morning e-mail/social media scroll. Leaving early to deal with that work errand has left me with a ton of stuff to do, so I get dressed (long-sleeved v-neck gray t-shirt, white tank because the v-neck is halfway to my belly button, dark wash skinny jeans), put out the trash, peel two hard-boiled eggs, and head to my desk.
12:30 pm: As always, call after call after call. Plus a bit of aggravation when my boss asks me at 10:30 for an agenda for the 11:00 call, which I sent him at about 7:30, and which he returns at 10:59 with the formatting looking like nothing on earth. Yay whee! And a project was mentioned that he forgot to tell me I’d do. So in case I thought I’d have nothing to do (that never happens on Fridays), that’s not happening. Anyway, between calls, I run downstairs for the lunch of champions – a Hot Pocket and a Diet Coke. Just that kind of day.
6:15 pm: Realize I have to run Youth Group at 7 and I haven’t even done my haimakeup. Get that done, heat up some frozen cauliflower rice/broccoli/cheese combination and add some leftover chicken. With a green salad on the side, surprisingly yummy.
8:15 pm: I am not a good youth leader…couldn’t get anyone talking about the subject of the day, which I thought would be a good one. I did make them laugh a few times, so that’s something.
M is going to have some expenses because he went to see customers today, but I don’t know what they are and his company will reimburse him, so I’m just leaving them out.
Daily Total: $0.00
This is the Week That Was:
Food + Drink: $326.06
Fun / Entertainment: $108 (if people can put drugs in as entertainment, I’m putting our nicotine in)
Home + Health: $61.94
Clothes + Beauty: $165.64
Transport: $638.03 (some of it will be expensed)
Other: $234.47
Lastly, reflect on your diary! How do you feel about your spending? Was this a normal week for you? Has this inspired you to make changes or has it given you a “wow I’m doing pretty good” confidence boost? Is there anything you’re actively working on? No need to answer any or all these questions but just use this space to write any thoughts you have!
This was a fairly normal week except for the car breaking and needing to be registered – we're saving some now that we WFH more because M will not bring food from home, but I used to bring breakfast and lunch at least four days a week. I know we should make changes, but I also know we don’t want to – honestly, if you looked at the way I lived 15 years ago, I’ve made a lot of changes already. We’re working on the credit cards – I’ve gotten rid of several already (paid off, not just moved balances around) and we don’t use them at all anymore (I can honestly say I don’t remember the last thing I charged). The bad news is that M’s car is on its last legs, and so I see car payments in our future. Hopefully, he’ll get something used – we have my car when we want to look good going somewhere (mine isn’t super-fancy, it just wasn’t hit by a bus and full of stuff for his job).
OH, and the plumber still hasn’t shown up! But that will be for next week’s expenses.
submitted by allybear29 to MoneyDiariesACTIVE [link] [comments]

I process undeliverable mail for the USPS. The dead letters are starting to creep me out

I work for the U.S. postal service. Every morning for about a week, there’s been an open letter on my desk.
This isn't unusual. One of my duties is handling undeliverable mail – so-called dead letters. A lot of times, they’re undeliverable because they’re damaged, open, or suspicious.
But these letters aren’t normal.
They all have commonalities. No return address, for one. And they have the same damage pattern, like someone held a lighter to the back of the envelope.
And they’re all creepy as hell.
I shouldn't post the letters. It’s a huge no-no in my line of work.) But I’m at a loss, and I guess hoping for theories or maybe even information.
Anyway, here’s the letter that was on my desk this morning:
Dear Danny,
I was looking at our wedding pictures last night. I don’t have them anymore, I got rid of them. Not because I hate you, just because it hurt to have them. But Mrs. Hernandez – you know, Kayla’s mom – has them on her Facebook. Our wedding photos, on her Facebook, buried under 3,000 other photos. I’d have never even seen them except she was sharing pictures of Kayla. As I’m sure you know, Kayla’s in our wedding pictures. She looks as happy as we do. I wonder if she was already using by then. I guess I’ll never know. Not that there’d be any point in knowing.
Here’s something you never knew: the whole day of our wedding, I was crying. Not because I didn’t want to marry you – I did, more than you probably know – but because I was so sad my dad wasn’t there. It was like this endless merry-go-round of emotion; on one hand, I was profoundly grateful that he’d known you. The two most important people in my life were important to each other, too, which was precious. Not as precious as having him there, though. Not nearly.
It just hurt so bad, Danny. Our wedding was the first milestone my dad didn’t see. The first of many. I guess you understand how that feels now, but you didn’t back then. Kayla did, though. So when I sat in her room, crying my eyes out because crying is the only way to keep grief from building up until it splits you open, Kayla sat with me and let me cry. That’s why, when four o’clock rolled around, I was able to put on my wedding dress and walk up the purple carpet Mrs. Hernandez rolled out across her backyard – she sprinkled it with sunflower petals, remember? From Kayla’s sunflower patch – and smile. Not because I wasn’t sad – I was – but because I could sense the joy growing underneath my sorrow. Sensing it made it stronger, allowed it to rise and coat everything, even the grief, with happiness. All because Kayla sat with me and just let me cry.
I’m sorry you never did that for me, and I’m sorry I never did that for you.
Our wedding photos are so beautiful, Danny. When I saw them, I remembered every second. It was August and the day was stifling, but a cool wind came down the mountain during the ceremony. It messed up my hair and yours. Mrs. Hernandez has a picture of us laughing in front of the makeshift altar, trying to keep each other’s hair back before we kissed. That’s the best picture, but not my favorite. My favorite is the one where we’re sitting at the splintery old picnic table. The sun had already set, but the clouds caught the light and blazed rosy and gold. The air itself glowed pink, even after twilight turned everything else blue. We look like we’re glowing, too. We’re leaning into each other, shoulder to shoulder, face to face. We aren’t smiling in that picture, but we look so content. Like we belong. Like we’re one.
I don’t even remember what we were talking about, and that makes me so sad I can barely breathe.
I remember what came after the wedding, though. It was four in the morning at the Holiday Inn in San Pedro, and I woke up crying. It was horrific. Like I was being crushed. I didn’t want to wake you and make you suffer with me, so I got out of bed, grabbed my duffel bag, and took it into the bathroom. I riffled through it looking for my dad’s letter. You know the one. He wrote it just before he died, when I was tied up in that fucking job in Seattle. The one that wouldn’t give me any time off to see him. (The one that made you break up with me – not that it matters now, or ever really did.)
That letter meant everything to me. I brought it everywhere I went and I was sure I’d packed it but I couldn’t find it. I started to panic. I used my phone light to search the hotel room until I finally found it under the bed. The relief was so overwhelming I had to sit for a few minutes in the dark, willing myself to get up so I could go back to the bathroom and read it.
I crept back to that cold shiny bathroom and read my letter for the thousandth time. I had it memorized by then. But it was less about reading the letter than about seeing it. Knowing that I was touching something Dad had written was both heartbreaking and soothing. It did nothing for the weight crushing my lungs, but it took the pain out of the pressure. This is what the letter said:
Dear Lucy,
Phone calls are always good. I love hearing your voice. But letters are always good, too. You can pull out a letter anytime and read it, which is helpful when you’re feeling sad. (I have firsthand experience because I still read all of yours, even the ones you wrote when you were at summer camp a million years ago). So I wrote you this letter. Sorry I’m not a good writer.
Nothing much has changed. I’m just keeping busy. I went to a football game last night. It was fun, but sad without you. I spent half the game talking to another guy whose son just left for college. I won’t bore you with the details of our conversation, but let’s just say we were both pretty soggy by the third quarter.
Work’s a mess (but you know all about that). It doesn’t matter how sick you are, things still have to get done. On one hand, I don’t like it. It makes me tired. On the other hand, I think it helps. Having a purpose, even if it’s exhausting, is important. The doctor is exhausting but important too. Same old news as always, I won’t bore you with what you already know.
It’s pretty cold here. I know, I know, it’s wintertime. But it’s different. Maybe because the winds have been so bad this year, but today you couldn’t even go outside without feeling like you’d never be warm again. Maybe that’s just me, though. I guess the world feels pretty cold for both of us right now. But it won’t stay that way. That’s the great thing about seasons. They always change.
I bet it’s pretty cold up there, too. Rainy all the time, pretty gray. So I was thinking we could brighten it up a little. Your apartment has some good, strong windowsills. I want to make a flowerbox for you. You could plant orange poppies. If you keep them inside and harvest the seeds, you could have poppies all year round. Your place would always look bright and happy, which will help you feel a little better even when things are grayest. I know you don’t have a lot of time, but if you take measurements for the length, width, depth, and distance to the window, I’ll build that flowerbox and bring it when I come to see you. It sounds pretty silly, but those flowers have a good effect on the soul. When I’m feeling sad, I go out to my garden and look at them. They always make me feel peaceful, and they remind me that nothing, not even sadness, is forever. I bet they’ll do the same for you. I harvested some of the seeds myself last summer. I’ll bring some to you. That way, next year, we can grow the same poppies together even though we’re far apart.
Speaking of which, I’ll be going to Midnight Mass on the 24th. I’m going to sit in the tenth pew on the left side, in the second-to-last seat on the left (because I know you like to sit on the end – I don’t blame you.) I was thinking you could go to Midnight Mass there in Seattle, and sit on the tenth pew on the left side in the very last seat on the left. So even though we won’t see each other, we’ll be together.
Try not to be too sad. Things will get better. They always do. Remember, seasons change. We just have to hold on and be as patient as we can.
Don’t worry about coming down here to see me. I’ll be visiting you soon, so you don’t have to worry about getting in trouble at work.
I love you so much and miss you every day. Don’t be too sad. We’ll be OK until the seasons change.
All my love,
Dad
I sat in that bathroom and read it again and again for hours, until you came to check on me. When you saw me crying, you started to cry, too. It was so sweet, and I loved you for it. Still do. But I’m sorry, too, because I know how helpless it made you feel.
I never took the measurements for that flowerbox. I went to Midnight Mass, though. Left-most seat in the tenth pew on the left side of the chapel, just like Dad said. I almost missed the service because work ran so late. I didn’t even get to call him, that’s how shitty work was that day. But I made it to church just in time. Even though the church was full to bursting, that seat was empty. So I sat there, and it was wonderful. I did feel like I was there with my dad. Like if I turned my head I’d see him sitting next to me. Like we were really ringing in Christmas together.
Which is a fucking joke, because he’d died the night before.
Even though it wasn’t rational, I felt like my job, my apartment, and that whole fucking city were responsible for his death. I couldn’t drive to work, answer the phone, go to the movies, or even grab a pizza without remembering that I’d never see him again. That he was dead, and no amount of love or depth of heartbreak or power of hell or scheme of man would ever bring him back. That’s why I came back home. It’s not why we got back together, though. We got back together because you felt sorry for me. Which was fine. I needed you and besides, I couldn’t stand the idea of being with anyone my dad would never even meet. That wasn’t the only reason I was with you, though. I promise. I really did love you more than I can ever say. That’s why it was so hard to see our photos. Not just because of Kayla, even though that was hard, too. But because when you see those pictures of us – dancing, talking, laughing, just being with each other – you can feel how much love there is. Like the love itself is alive. I think that’s the greatest tragedy in the world: that love as strong as that still isn’t strong enough to save itself.
You were strong for me, though. Too strong, sometimes. You tried to make me strong, too, which was a mistake. It didn’t make me stronger or less sad. It just pissed me off.
But when your mom died a couple of years later, I tried. I really tried to give you a safe place to be sad. But you wouldn’t give it to yourself. You thought you were being stoic, but you were just being angry. You got mean. I understood. I didn’t blame you for it. But I do blame you for what happened on December 23rd of that year.
I was reading my Dad’s letter again. You came in after work and saw me. You turned to stone. Hard and cold, which would have been okay. Except you started to burn. I could feel it: Rage, building up until it came out of you in waves, the way love comes out of our wedding pictures.
Finally you snatched the letter out of my hand and threw it down. You screamed, “Grow the fuck up. Parents die. Mine did. But you won’t ever see me moping every goddamn year. You won’t see me crying in the bathroom every week. You won’t see me talking about my mom every goddamn day or whining about imaginary flowerboxes every goddamn Saturday, because I’m a goddamn adult. You are too, so will you please grow the fuck up.”
I get it. You weren’t even completely wrong. But it was the anniversary of the day he died, Danny. Fuck.
Seriously…fuck.
After you’d stormed out of the house, I found the letter tucked halfway under the bed, a few feet from where you’d dropped it, and started to read.
At first I thought I was dreaming. You know how when you read things in dreams, it’s kind of correct but terribly wrong? World-bending, upside-down, heart-poundingly wrong? That’s what it felt like, and that’s because the letter had changed.
Dear Lucy,
Phone calls are always good. I love hearing your voice, but I can’t hear you where I am, so letters will have to do. I miss you so much, and I wish you were here. But that’s not a productive line of thinking. Just makes us both too sad.
I’m not sure how to say this, but Danny’s in a bad place. He had problems with his mom, and what he just did wasn’t him. Not really. But it doesn’t excuse what he did. I don’t even know if I should be giving you advice, because between you and me, I just want to kick his ass. But I know you love him. So maybe give him a day or two, til he’s less soggy. Maybe wait till after Christmas. Christmas always brought out the worst in your grandpa.
About the flowerbox—
I folded the letter up along its creases, which were so deep they were wearing into holes. My hands were shaking badly, and I dropped it not once, but twice. I finally got a good grip on it and flipped it back under the bed.
I didn’t look at that letter again for three years.
For your part, you didn’t bring up your mom except when you got drunk. You’d cry…and then you’d get angry. Usually at yourself for being a stupid baby who cried for his druggie mommy, and always at me for telling you it was okay to be sad. Occasionally you’d just get mad at me straightaway and yell at me for living in the past and being a child, even though I didn’t read letters or cry at all anymore.
You didn’t get drunk often, though. So it was okay. And I knew just how sad you were. I always felt too sad to breathe, which was awful. But you? You were too sad to even let yourself feel sad.
So between us, I guess was the lucky one.
Your refusal to feel things only extended to sadness, thank God. When I got pregnant, you were over the moon. To be honest, I thought you’d be angry. When I saw how happy you were, it made me cry. Good tears, though. You could tell, and it made you even happier.
We stayed up all night talking about the baby. If it was a boy, we were going to name it after my dad. If it was a girl, we were going to name it Lacie after your mom. You didn’t care either way, but I prayed for a girl. For one thing, I was scared that I’d never be able to say our son’s name – my dad’s name – without hurting, and I knew what that would do to you. For another, I thought a baby girl with your mom’s name would help you.
And when our baby turned out to be a girl, you cried. I’d been right; a daughter was the best thing for both of us.
Everything was perfect, until it went to hell.
I’m sorry I lost my mind when she was born. A heart defect. What a stupid reason to die, and an even stupider reason to have never gotten to live. When you think about it, we all have heart defects, and we all have to live with them. Our baby should have been allowed to live with hers.
I know it killed you inside to see me fight and scream and hold onto her. I didn’t do it to be difficult. I did it because somewhere in my hysteria, I really thought I could bring her back if I held her long enough. It wasn’t hope, it wasn’t wishful thinking, it was something I knew. The way you know that deep cuts need stitches. But imagine that one day, out of nowhere, nobody else knew that. You’re sitting there bleeding out from a massive cut, but the doctor, the nurses, your family, literally everyone keeps saying that stitches won’t work. You’re dying, Danny, and everyone around you is telling you that the one thing you know will save your life just won’t work. That’s what it felt like. In my heart, my mind, my soul, my bones, I knew that our baby would breathe again if they’d just let me hold her for a while. But everyone – including you – was trying to take her away and keep her dead.
When the sedative wore off, the first thing I saw was you. You were holding her, crying so much your face was barely recognizable. When you noticed I was awake – noticed I was watching – you froze. And then you turned to stone. I passed out again.
When I came to, she was gone, and you were still stone.
You never turned back.
When they released me to go home, you took care of me. But there was no warmth. Only duty. Which was understandable. I know how hard I made it for you. And you know me, so you could probably tell that I was wishing my dad was there instead of you.
On your first day back at work, Kayla came to stay with me. I’d been waiting for this, for you to be gone for a little while. As soon as your car pulled out of the driveway, I asked Kayla to get my letter out from under the bed. I could have done it. I wasn’t crippled. But I was scared.
So Kayla dug it out for me, all covered in dust and loose hairs, and gave it to me. I felt sick when I opened it, and sicker when I read it.
Dear Lucy,
Phone calls are always good. I love hearing your voice. I heard your voice for a little while when Lacie was born. You sounded so sad. I told you not to be so sad, but you couldn’t hear my voice. You still can’t. So letters will have to do.
Lacie’s with me. She’s so little. I’m so sad she didn’t make it, but I can see why. She’s too little for the world. She’s perfect, though. Looks just like you did. It would have been such a joy to see her grow up. But it’s a joy to have her here, too.
I know your life is gray, honey. Gray everywhere, grayer than that last Christmas in Seattle. What you need is brightness. How you get it is up to you, but if you still want that flowerbox we talked about, I can help you. I can’t build it for you any more than I can talk to you, but I can write out the instructions for you. It shouldn’t take you long to build, an hour or two at most. When it’s done, you can put it on the sill in Lacie’s bedroom. It’ll make things bright again. Not warm. That only comes with time. A lot of time. But if it looks bright enough, you’ll at least remember what it feels like to be warm, which will remind you that you will feel warm again someday.
I wish I could hear your voice. I wish you could hear mine. But this will do in the meantime.
I love you, and miss you so much.
All my love,
Dad
I didn’t believe in ghosts. Still don’t. That made the letter both scarier and sweeter. It had to be my dad, I thought. Maybe God was giving me a break. Letting him through to comfort me when I needed it most. So I folded the letter and tucked it under the lamp so you wouldn’t see it. I knew you wouldn’t want to see it.
What I didn’t know was that you no longer wanted to see me.
When Lacie died, it was like I killed your mom all over again. Maybe it was because I’d made the stillbirth even more traumatic. Maybe it was because I saw you cry. Maybe you were just tired. Too tired to feel anything for yourself, or for me.
Whatever the reason, we were done. No love between us except long ago, trapped in photos from a distant season.
You moved out the week I went back to work. Right in with Jen. It destroyed me, but I get it. She was twenty-one, more beautiful than I was on my best day, and happy. Happy to be at work, happy to be at home, happy to be with you, happy just to be. Whenever someone posts pictures of you two together, I see the love between you. And I see the relief in your face.
Sometimes I wish it was impossible to fall out of love, that you and I had stayed together until the end of time. Sometimes I wish we’d never fallen in love at all. And every single day I wish you hadn’t felt so sorry for me when I came back from Seattle. If you’d felt just a little less sorry for me, we would never have gotten married.
And today, I’d hurt a little less.
It should come as no surprise, but the day you moved out, I tore through the house for my Dad’s letter. I couldn’t find it. Not under the lamp, under the dresser, in the closet, the bedroom, or anywhere else. I called you even though you were at Jen’s apartment, and screamed at you for destroying my letter. You tried to be sweet, God bless you. You were so kind during that phone call, so gentle. So gentle I thought you might feel sorry for me again. Sorry enough to come back to me. So I hung up.
Then I ran outside. I ran and ran and ran and ran and ran, until everything hurt and I could barely breathe. I stopped at the park by our old elementary school. I found the bench we were sitting on the first time you asked me out, curled up, and slept.
When I went home, my dad’s letter was on the floor by the bed. This is what it said:
Dear Lucy,
Phone calls are always good. I love hearing your voice. But letters are always good, too. You know what isn’t good? Danny. Danny can go to hell. There are no voices in hell. No letters, either. There are no voices here, but there are letters. So letters will have to do.
You can’t help people who don’t want to be helped. You can’t make people grow up if they don’t want to grow up. Danny doesn’t want to grow up, because growing up means you have to handle your own hurt. He never figured out how to handle his own hurt, let alone anyone else’s. Until he does, he’s going to ruin every last one of his relationships until he ruins himself. Just don’t let him ruin you. I know you’re hurting right now, but this hurt? It’s just a season of your life, and seasons always change.
Nothing’s changed where I am, though. Lacie is as small as ever. Where I am, babies don’t grow up or change unless their parents are with them, too. So you won’t miss anything. Think of it like this - she’s on hold till you get here. I hope that brings you some joy, knowing your baby and your dopey old dad can’t wait to see and hear you again.
Now, about that flowerbox. It kills me that I never got to build one for you. You need some brightness, especially now. Here’s what you’re going to need:
4 lengths of wood
1 length of wood cut to fit the bottom
Wood primer
Drill and screws
Paint – any color you want, but I’d pick blue – that’s Lacie’s favorite
Nails
Sandpaper – medium grit
Wood filler
Here’s what you do…
He had a full-bore tutorial, right down to how to use sandpaper. I read it again and again, memorizing it in case the letter changed again. Once I could recite it to myself without a hitch, I went to the hardware store. It took me a couple of days to build the flowerbox, but soon enough it was finished and the paint – a nice robin’s egg blue—had dried. It was pretty. The orange poppies complemented the blue perfectly.
That night, when I came out of the shower, I found the letter on the floor, half-tucked under the bed. It made me shiver. I still kept the letter under the lamp, never on the floor. It’s too dangerous on the floor. Exposed to cats and dogs and, well, you.
I picked it up. Every hair on my body stood on end – no mean feat when it’s all sopping wet. I was scared. Full of dread, a deer in headlights, because I didn’t feel alone, Danny. The room looked empty, but I felt eyes. More than eyes. A presence. Not a good one.
I unfolded the letter – soft and wrinkled by now, coming apart at the folds – and read:
Dear Lucy,
Phone calls are always good. I love hearing your voice. But letters are always good, too. You can pull out a letter anytime and read it. I wish you could write me letters. I wrote you this letter. Sorry I’m not a good writer.
You’re a good handy(wo)man, though! You did a great job with that box. You know what else is good? You picked Lacie’s very favorite shade of blue. How’d you know? Mother’s intuition, I guess.
It’s selfish of me but I wish I could hear your voice again. So does Lacie. She misses you so much. So do I. Every day, she looks at me and I feel her question: When’s my mommy coming? Later, I tell her. When she’s ready.
I’m glad you have so many seasons ahead of you. But I miss you so much and I wish you were ready now. Where I am, it’s grey without you. And hard to remember what it felt like to be warm. There’s no warmth without you, but you’d understand that since you’ve lost Lacie. At least we’ll all be warm when we’re together again.
I love you so much, and can’t wait to hear you again, Lucy. Until then, you’re in my heart.
All my love,
Dad
It was wonderful, magical, and heartbreaking all at once. My baby had a favorite color. If she had a favorite color, she was real. She was alive. Dad too. They were together, keeping each other happy while they waited for me to join them. Even when I felt cold and gray, even when I felt alone, I wasn’t. Not really. Because wherever they were, they loved me.
I read and reread and reread the letter until I fell asleep.
When I woke up, it was back on the floor, halfway under the bed.
Dear Lucy,
Phone calls are always good. I love hearing your voice. But letters are always good, too. You can pull a letter off the floor and read it any time. I wish you’d write me a letter. I wish you’d talk to me. But that can’t happen where I am now, so me writing you will have to do. Sorry I’m not a good writer.
I just want to say good morning. Don’t be too sad. Seasons change. Not always for the better, but at least they change.
I miss you so much, and love you even more.
All my love,
Dad
It was like reality exploded. Everything got bright, happy, and warm. It reminded me of when our baby was stillborn, except inverted: joyous instead of dreadful. Because I was sure, absolutely, one hundred thousand percent sure, that my dad was under the bed.
I slid to the edge of the mattress, heart pounding with euphoria, and dropped down so I could look underneath. My heart swelled, Danny. So big, so fast, so happy, I thought it was going to kill me…and I didn’t even mind, because it would have been a beautiful way to die.
I so fully expected to see my dad under there that I couldn’t immediately comprehend that he wasn’t. Only dust and darkness.
I slid all the way down to the floor and cried again.
I didn’t go into work that day. I stayed home, on the couch, and vacillated between rereading the letter and looking through all the pictures on my computer. I printed a few. Mostly of my dad, when he was young and I was little. That’s how I remember him most of the time: how he looked when I was five years old.
I don’t even know what I’d give to be five years old again, riding his shoulders at the zoo. Probably exactly what you’ve give to be five years old and doing just about anything with your mom before her drug problem.
You were so militant about drugs because of that. I thought I understood – I’m kind of a teetotaler myself. I don’t even drink. But I didn’t actually understand. Because even though I never used them, I didn’t care if anyone else did. But you…hell, Danny. I never told you, but I will now because you’re never going to read this: I think the way you talked about people who use drugs is why Kayla never told me she was in trouble. And she made the right decision. You’d have gone on the warpath if you knew my best friend was on heroin, and fuck the reasons why. You wouldn’t have cared. You wouldn’t have let yourself care. I wouldn’t have let myself care just to keep you from melting down on me.
Sometimes I think that if I’d never married you, she would have felt safe enough to tell me, which might have been enough to save her. And here’s the truth, Danny. I loved the hell out of you. But part of me will hate myself forever for marrying you – a man who ran off with a college kid two months after our baby died—because if I hadn’t, Kayla might still be alive.
I know that’s not fair, though. I’m sorry.
So, I printed the photos of my dad and a few of Kayla and me. I looked at them most of the day, crying like a child—just the way you didn’t like. I hadn’t realized until then just how close I’d come to exploding from the pressure of my grief. It made me wonder about you, though. How you keep it all in without exploding. I wish I could be more like you, at least in that way. But if wishes were horses…well…who cares.
When I finally dragged myself to bed, the letter – which I’d had in my hand the entire day, Danny, the entire day – was on the floor, halfway under the bed. The relief I felt was exquisite. This was exactly what I needed. Just the thing to let the pressure off, live another day, and make it one step closer to the changing of the seasons.
Dear Lucy,
Phone calls are always good. I love hearing your voice. I heard it today, but it wasn’t happy. It was sad. I know you’re sad. My letters don’t make you less sad. (Makes me wonder why I’m writing them.) I think I’ll start writing you at night. No more morning letters. At least if you feel sad at night, you don’t have to try and do anything else. I hate that they make you feel sad. I think if I stopped writing them, you’d be even sadder. I know what would make you happy, though – hearing my voice. But you can’t hear my voice where you are. We need to be together for that.
I’m sorry everything’s making you sad. Even the happy pictures. Nothing feels happy to you now, I know. I wish I could change that, but I can’t – at least not while we’re apart.
Be strong. Things change. Not always for the better, but at least they change. Change will come for you too. You just have to be patient. You just have to hold on.
I miss you so much, and I’m counting the days until I see you again.
All my love,
Dad
I went into work the next morning. Knowing that I’d come home to a letter from my dad made life tolerable again. And there was always a new letter; no matter where I’d placed it the night before, I’d always find it halfway under my bed.
The letter was always different. Sometimes it was short. Sometimes it was very long. Most of the time, it was strange. Always, it told me how much I was missed, and how happy I’d be when I was reunited with Dad and Lacie. It was bittersweet at best. But it helped. Even as it hurt, it helped.
Like drugs, in a way.
December came again. The seasons had changed four times since you left me, but it didn’t feel like it. It was the same season in my heart, unchanged and endless. Grey, cold, and hopelessly dark.
The only light in that spirit-winter were Dad’s letters. Tiny flames in a vast and frozen darkness.
But right when I needed them most, they changed.
Dear Lucy,
Phone calls are always good. I love hearing your voice. Why won’t you let me hear your voice? Letters are always good, but they aren’t enough. You know what it’s like to be away from Lacie. Imagine how I feel being away from you, when you’re so sad and soggy. So cold. It doesn’t have to be that way. Seasons change, but not always for the better. What if the next season isn’t better? What will I do? My letters aren’t enough as it is. If things change, if they get worse, what will you do? You need to hear me. See me. But you can’t. Not where you are. Sorry I’m not a good writer.
It’s not just me. Lacie cries whenever you get sad now, too. When is my mommy coming? she always asks. I don’t know, I tell her. She’s far away, waiting for the season to change, but what if it doesn’t? What if it gets worse? What if you keep getting sadder and sadder and grayer and grayer and colder and colder until you’ll never be warm again, even if you’re with us? What if you get so sad that you make us sad, too? Maybe you should stop waiting for the seasons to change. Just give up on them and take the change in your own hands. Come to where we are, so we can all be warm and bright.
I miss you so much, Lucy, and I’m so scared for you. It kills me, knowing how you’re hurting. Letters can be good, but they’re not enough. You need to hear my voice, but you can’t do that where you are. You can only do that where I am.
I love you more than anything. Please let me hear your voice.
All my love,
Dad
The letter got worse from there. Always asking me to hear his voice. To let him hear mine. To give up on the seasons. To come to him and Lacie, so I could be warm and happy again.
Finally, I just stopped reading. Every night I’d see the letter tucked halfway under my bed. Every night I’d want to read it…but every night I didn’t. Not even when Kayla died. Not ever.
Until one of our mutuals shared the picture of you and Jen with your new baby in the hospital. A girl you’d named Lacie.
I thought of you crying over my baby. Crying so hard your face was barely recognizable. How, when you saw me looking, you turned to stone and never turned back.
At that moment I hated everything. Every fucking thing. I hated Jen, I hated you, I hated your new Lacie most of all. It was too much to feel. Too much to process. I wished I could be like you and shove it away under six feet of mental dirt and go on with my life. But I couldn’t. I can’t.
So I went to my bedroom and found the letter tucked halfway under the bed and picked it up.
Dear Lucy,
Phone calls are always good. I love hearing your voice. But hearing each other is even better. Letters aren’t any good at all. You can pick them up off the floor, but you shouldn’t bother because they’re nothing. They’re the worst. Written words are conduits for pain. Sorry I’m not a good writer.
The season changed, honey. It changed on you, but it got worse, and it’s only going to get worse. You think you have nothing now, but what you have now will feel like a fortune in ten years’ time. And what you have in ten years’ time will feel like a fortune compared to what you will have in twenty years’ time. And on and on, grayer and colder, until you die, gray and cold once and for all. There is nothing, Lucy. Nothing but decades of cold and gray, no matter if you’re patient, no matter how many poppy boxes you make to light the day. It’s gray and cold where I am too, but it won’t be when you’re where I am. Come to where I am, Lucy. Come to see me and hear my voice. Come to hear Lacie. Don’t wait for the season to turn darker. Take charge and change it yourself.
I miss you so much, and I love you more than you know. I would do anything to take away your pain and make the world bright for you but I can’t, no matter how patient you are. But I can make it better where I am. Come where I am. Where we are.
Please Lucy
All my love,
Dad
I knew the whole thing was wrong from the beginning, Danny. I really did. But I didn’t want to know. And right then, I wanted to know less than ever.
That’s why I folded the letter and put it on the floor by the bed. Then I found a pen and tore an endsheet from a book. I wrote,
Dear Dad,
I have to know for sure it’s you.
Love, Lucy
I placed it on top of my dad’s letter, on the floor by the bed. Then I went to the other side of the room because even though I was excited, I was afraid too. I turned off the light, and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
The room was so dark. But after a while, a little bit of light filtered through the spaces between the curtains, and it was enough to see that there was nothing. So I waited some more.
And more.
And more.
I was heartbroken and scared and so, so, so tired. I started to drift off…
And then under the bed, I saw something move.
Solid darkness, overlaid with the dimmest light I’ve ever seen, so dim it might not even have been light. It slid out, slow and calm like oil, and took my letter.
I held my breath and waited yet again, but not for long.
Under the bed, it shifted weirdly and took form. Even though it was still dimmer than dim, I recognized it immediately: my dad. But my dad as he’d been in the pictures I printed: twenty years younger than when he died, unmoving smile pasted on his flickering face, eyes dark and smeary because the photo resolution was so poor. An old photo expanded to human size, pasted on a monster of solid darkness.
It crawled forward until that frozen, smeary, dimmer-than-dim face seemed about to emerge from under the bed. Then it reached for me, and reached and reached and reached, solid-shadow arm with its dim glimmering coat of my dad stretching all the way across the room to where I sat in the corner, right by the light switch.
I turned it on.
The arm retracted, rolling back like a New Year’s party favor. Underneath the frozen, shimmering mask of my father, its real face dipped and curled into an inhuman and nearly incomprehensible grimace. I understood that expression, somehow: It was hungry. So hungry, and so, so furious that it would not get to eat.
The dim glimmer-mask shifted, twisting and stretching into something hideous, and then it was gone.
But the letter remained.
I stood up and went. Out of the room, out of the house, out of the neighborhood, out of the town.
I waited two days, then called Mrs. Hernandez, who came and took me home. When I checked, the letter was on the floor, half-tucked under the bed. Even with sunlight spilling through the windows, even with Mrs. Hernandez beside me, I was so scared I cried. But I still picked it up.
I don’t know what I was hoping for, but it wasn’t what I got:
Dear Lucy,
Phone calls are always good. I love hearing your voice. But letters are always good, too. You can pull out a letter anytime and read it. So I wrote you this letter. Sorry I’m not a good writer.
Even when things change, they don’t. Seasons change, but no matter how patient you are they will make you sad. You have no good seasons left. No brightness will change this, because any brightness you find will be gray and cold. You will forget how it feels to be warm, even at Midnight Mass in the tenth pew in the last seat on the left and even in the summer with your flower boxes and your poppies to make things seem bright. People change, but they stay the same in the important ways and the bad ways and they never get better, they just better at hurting you because they don’t really want to change. You will never change because you don’t have anything and you don’t know how to have anything that isn’t nothing. By the end of the third quarter we’re all pretty soggy but you’re barely out of the first and so soggy you already fell apart. This letter will change, but it will never change because you are you.
There are no letters in hell and no voices where I am there is nothing where I am but cold and gray. This is where you are coming. This is where I am. This is where you already are so come where I can always hear your voice.
All my love,
Dad
I knew I needed to burn that letter. But I couldn’t because once upon a time, my dad had written it for me, and it was the only thing on earth that made me feel loved. So I asked Mrs. Hernandez to take it for me. I guess I thought getting it out of the house would decontaminate it. Change it back to what it had been. To what I needed it to be.
Mrs. Hernandez agreed.
Three days later, she texted me: Why did you keep this from me?
I asked what she meant.
I’m so hurt right now, Lucy. Kayla wrote this letter to me. It’s for me. Why did you keep it?
I understood then. And for the first time in an eon, I felt like I could breathe.
I answered, I’m so sorry. I just miss her so much.
That was three weeks ago. Last night, Mrs. Hernandez shared all of Kayla’s pictures again. She’s moving faster than I thought she would. And somehow, I don’t think she’ll ask that thing for proof like I did.
There’s a diseased relief in knowing that I lost my dad’s real letter years ago, probably before our wedding. Because whatever I found in the hotel room—whatever I passed on to Mrs. Hernandez—wasn’t Dad’s letter.
Which means it was never mine.
Sometimes, that makes me feel at peace. But mostly, it makes me want to die.
It’s been such a long winter. I hope the season changes soon. I’ve been so patient, and I’m holding on.
But barely, Danny.
Just barely.
Dear Elinor
submitted by Dopabeane to nosleep [link] [comments]

My First 6 Months in IT - What to expect in YOUR Journey - Featuring advice on CVs/Resumes, Interviews, Certificates and training, and how to handle being laid off.

My Experience in IT after 6 months, What Can You Expect?
Hi all, I recently read a on r\ITCareerQuestions about being frustrated with all of the posts asking for help. This in part, is a response to that.
Fair warning – this is going to be a long one (slightly over 5000 words), strap yourself in or get out while you can, you have been warned! I have tried to break it up into sections, so feel free to skip to parts that interest you. I will happily answer all questions, PLEASE feel free to DM me. I will help anyone with resources that I used, and advice on best career pathways.
Who is this post for?
I think this post is going to be for you if you fit into any of the following categories. If you are looking to break in to IT and you haven’t even taken your first step, if you have been studying for certificates and you want to know if it is all going to be worth it (is there a light at the end of this tunnel). Maybe you want to know what your first 6 months in IT are going to be like. Maybe you want realistic salary expectations and you don’t want to ask a salesman or the guy driving an expensive car. Maybe you have been a lurker on this thread and you’ve seen all the conflicting advice. Perhaps you have sent out 400 job applications and had no bites. Maybe you have had 20 interviews and no one has given you a chance. My point being there are many steps you need to take to take your “first step” or to get your foot in the door. If you are someone who is taking any one of those steps, I do recommend reading this.
My Journey, two jobs, one lay-off, sleepless nights, a global pandemic and an incredible wife.
When I was 28, I decided I wanted a stable and steady career. Something I didn’t have to fight 30 other younger and hungrier people for. To put this into context I once applied for an entry level market research position and I don’t mind telling you that interview experience was something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. I hadn’t applied myself at university, I studied Biology, something I had no passion for and the competition in scientific research was something that you would never survive without passion.
I was always exceptional at exams/learning/studying, to that end I was first in my year at university for exam results. And for that great honour I was awarded a £1000 cash scholarship prize. And being an irresponsible student I spent the entire thing (and some student overdraft) on my very first PC.
I spent hundreds of hours watching Linus tech tips, and Jays2cents and how to build a PC. I was hooked, I built that PC, booted her up, and realised…. I still want to watch build videos. I genuinely found out that I loved learning about hardware. I didn’t know that about myself. I know I see a lot of backstory posts asking for help that all say “I am tech savvy, I am the techy one in the family” etc etc.
So, I think these people know what I mean. By the way if you are worried that being the “techy one” isn’t valuable then you are dead wrong. It means you can learn technologies quickly and interact with user interfaces with ease. These are going be all you do for a long time in IT. You will have many user interfaces thrown at you that are custom to your company, but more on that later.
Well, unfortunately, years pass me by while I take a job in biology I have no passion for, I didn’t hate my job, I got to work at a university helping students with disabilities cope with every day life. But I didn’t feel excited or driven.
And then one day I was watching the UK version of the apprentice, absolute trashy TV at its finest for those that don’t know what it is. It is a competition in which people present a business plan to a billionaire and that billionaire decides if the business plan has legs.
So I am watching this guy with perfect quaffed hair and teeth that would blind you, (you know the type, he works is sales and thinks the world would collapse without him) and he is pitching a Cyber security recruitment company. And he has the leading experts in the country critiquing him, and I heard the same thing over and over. IT is desperate for people, for every 10 roles in IT security, there are only 1 or 2 qualified people.
I have to admit I got a little excited, nervous excited. I did something that changed my life. I googled it and made a phone call. That’s right, I spent all of 2 minutes before I was on the phone to a salesman. Let me tell you, if I could go back in time a slap myself for buying in to this pitch I would.
“The average person in IT security in the UK earns £72,000”, Booom, I am hooked. You are telling me I can earn £72K and they will be desperate to have me? I won’t have to compete? It won’t be a dog fight… Where the hell do I sign up? Well spoilers for what is to come later, but no, I didn’t end up as CIO of a small company making silly money in year one.
So, what were they offering me and what did it cost me? I signed up for a course that included a Microsoft Technical associate (MTA) in server fundamentals and an MTA in security fundamentals. I signed up for a Comptia certificate in Network+ and in Security+ and finally an EC council certificate in ethical hacking, called CEH. All for the price of around £3000. “Not bad” I told myself for a £72K/year job. “Not bad” I told my wife (who supported me through every single step).
So, when did I first begin to have doubts? That is easy, I remember it like it was yesterday. I had this awful procrastination habit (I bet almost ALL of you do it too) I would google jobs for whatever certificate I was going to study. For me, this was the CEH. A simple “CEH Jobs” search was almost all I ever googled back then. And there were hundreds of them, decent pay too. And then one day I saw it “we are looking for real candidates, no offense to those with a CEH”. It was like a punch to the gut, but worse as my heart raced with fear. What the hell did they mean?!
It was at this point I realised I might be in trouble. I am sure a lot of you feel that way now. Have I just been swindled by a Nigerian prince who just needed my bank details so he can transfer me my millions? Well yes and no. Yes I had been swindled by the promise of £72K, and yes I had been swindled by the CEH, it is one of the most expensive certificates you can get and it does make you look like an idiot to anyone in field. But no, I had not been swindled out of a career just yet.
I kept my head down and I nailed my first ever certificate and I have to admit, it was the hardest things I ever studied. I would say that knowing hardware helped a bit with the server fundamentals certificate, but only for about 5-10% of the learning objectives that were focussed on hardware. The rest was like information overload. I had to learn about how servers worked and communicated. I had to learn Microsoft’s branding too, which is a feat of its own. But I did it, I finally got an IT certificate.
I powered through my security MTA full steam ahead knowing I could achieve it with hard work and consistency. And that is when things got interesting. I began studying for my network+, and let me tell you, I fell in love. I began feeling like the curtains were being drawn on the way the world worked. I understood how if I sent an email, that email was carried across the country to my friends and family.
However, the instructor kept saying the same thing over and over. “And if you take a CISCO course you will learn all about it”. I mean if I had a £ for every time she said it….
Well, I did it again ladies and gentleman. I went back to the same person who sold me my snake oil. And I asked if they did CCNA courses. Of course they did, for the cool price of £800. What the hell I thought, the CCNA is a “real” certificate finally. Finally, I won’t feel worry and despair at the thought of this all being in vane, because I, Jacob Smith will be a network engineer.
The course was mediocre, and I found myself frustrated, so I did the unthinkable. That is right, I spend £10 on an Udemy course. I mean obviously it was going to be terrible. You would have to be an idiot to think a £10 course could be better than an £800 one. Well Neil Anderson spared no time showing me the error of my ways. His course was phenomenal. I bought the course for the first half of the CCNA, then I bought the course for the second half, and then I thought why the hell not, its only £10, I will buy the course that comes as whole package just to support him.
This is the lesson I learned that day. A person can sell their 20 hour course for £10 if they know it is good enough. And then they can make more money than the predator who sells their course to desperate people for thousands.
Let’s skip forward a few months. It is the last hour of the last day in which I can sit the CCNA before they retire it and change it completely. The exam went amazingly, and for those interested I used Neil Anderson’s course, and Boson netsim and boson exsim for the tools.
I am done. I have finally sat the last certificate I am going to sit before I start applying for Jobs. I no longer want the CEH as I know it will just make me look bad and I don’t want to commit the hours required to learn something that will hurt me.
Advice on Resumes/CVs
I fire up google again and waste no time typing “professional CV templates”. Wow, CVs look incredible these days, look how pretty I can make my application. I have dedicated sections for skills, work experience, school etc.
Here is lesson number two, and more important than you realise. Do NOT use these templates ever. Every recruiter that you send your CV to has some sort of CV filter on it. These CV templates are terrible for a number of reasons. Firstly, the format cannot be read by the CV filter, it doesn’t know what it’s looking at so it just bins it. If you are using one and you have sent hundreds of applications and had no bites, then I strongly recommend you read this part and do what I did.
Secondly, these templates are designed for people with work experience and skills. Unfortunately that wasn’t me, I was breaking in to IT. This meant that the focus of my CV HAD to be biology, there was no way to change this. My CCNA was at the bottom of my second page under “other”. So if by some divine intervention my CV did get through to a recruiter, there was no way they would ever read I had 5 certificates.
I had some of the worst and most sleepless nights of my life for the next 2 weeks. I applied to 20-40 jobs a day and heard nothing. Not a peep. It is at this point my beautiful wife lets slip that her sister is in IT recruitment. Mixed emotions is an understatement, I bounced between desperate joyous relief and utter disbelief that at no point did she think to mention this.
Here is what I learned. You are not applying for a social media job, you are not applying for a graphic designer job. A recruiter reads a hundred of these a day and there is nothing that annoys them more for IT people than a fancy looking CV. Put this CV in black and white, have literally nothing but words. Don’t even break the page up with horizontal lines. Put everything IT related at the top, have a strong and promising professional statement. Focus on your certificates, focus on your lab experience. And cram that CV full of skills that you know about. You want something like this in there.
DHCP, DNS, IPv4, IPv6, AD, NTFS, Switching, Routing, Wireless, STP, RIP, OSPF, EIGRP. Hyper-V, VMWare.
Windows 7/8/8.1/10, Windows Server 2008/R2, 2012/R2, 2016, 2019.
iOS, MacOS, Android.
This along with your certificates, your goals and your passion. Along with (briefly) anything transferable from other non-IT related jobs, I am talking about customer service, high stress jobs and time sensitive roles. These skills will be valuable but they should be secondary and again I cannot stress this enough, make it brief. Your education, and non-IT related jobs should make up a small portion of the CV that follows at the end. A recruiter is going to pick your CV up and see your skills, see your certificates and personal statement and then just put it down and give you a call. I doubt they ever get to the part where you describe what working at Pizza hut was like.
Round 2 of applying for jobs
Once I rewrote that CV (annoyingly I had already applied to a lot of the jobs in my area with my poor CV) I sent it out. The difference was life changing. I got a call back the next day actually I got three call backs the next day. Over the next 2 weeks I got roughly 12 recruiter calls, I got three interview offers. I did 2 interviews and got offered to the next stage. The first was with a large corporate company with 1000s of employees. They IQ tested me and they told me that I would be drug tested at my interview. This was a huge red flag to me. I have never done drugs and nor would I want to. But if these people are going to greet me at the door with a mouth swab, then I hate to think what working for them would be like. I turned down their offer for a second interview.
Instead I went to interview at a nearby (well not nearby 90 mile round trip commute) MSP. This was mid-March and I have never enjoyed an interview experience more in my life. The culture was very much this is a place where we have a laugh and you will love working for us. I didn’t have any red flags at the time, I just was so pleased this was all finally happening for me. We joked about football, we talked about hobbies, some IT related questions, typical interview stuff. He even joked we had a bromance going on and said, and I quote “F**k me, you know an interview is going well when its been over and hour and you haven’t noticed”.
Honestly, I think my older age was an advantage here, I was 30 at this point and I am at a stage in life where I am able to hold a conversation well without being nervous or self-conscious. There are obviously going to be downsides to being 30 and starting out too, but I was happy this worked in my favour.
I got a full day and a half of training (sitting behind a guy and watching him work), okay some red flags cropped up at this point. The people here didn’t seem to care very much, nor did they know a huge amount. The way the cases distribution worked was everything went to 2nd line, and they trickled down anything they didn’t want to 1st line and they pushed up what they needed to, to 3rd line. So, I got all the “my webcam isn’t working” calls, which was fair enough, I was grateful to have the job. But I had nothing in my queue that I thought “omg I have no idea what this is”. That might sound like a good thing, but it is the worst thing that can happen to your career. How are you supposed to learn how to install SSL certificates if you never have a case for it?
Well I doubt it is any shock to any of you crazy enough to still be reading, but I after a mindblowing 14 days, I was put on furlough (not sure if Americans have this, but it means temporarily laid off). It seriously makes you question why they hired someone that they laid off 14 days later, but that follows with the “everything is a laugh” attitude I suppose.
I spent the first half of April not knowing (but having a bad feeling) what was going to happen next. And then our prime minister announced the first extension of the lockdown. And when I woke up the next morning I had been completely locked out of all my accounts and I had a “whatsapp” message waiting for me. You read that correctly, Mr fun and games decided it was appropriate to give me bad news over whatsapp. He told me he really liked me and to look out for a message from him when this all blows over, as I will be the first person they call. But he had to let a lot of staff go permanently.
I spent all off April preparing for this, but it still didn’t help me through what this felt like. Try and imagine working your ass off for 18 months to begin a life you never once dreamed was possible, to have it given to you and then taken away in the space of a month.
I was let go on a Friday and I didn’t sleep a wink that whole weekend. I did get a phone call from my recruiter which I thought was nice. But it turns out they were only calling me because the company that let me go were claiming it was because of poor performance. They didn’t want to pay the recruitment fee, and they were willing to damage my reputation and relationship with the recruiter. However, it turned out to be the best thing that happened to me. Them refusing to pay the recruitment fee, drove my recruiter to immediately look for a job for me. It is Sunday afternoon that same weekend and I get a call saying “I have an interview lined up for you tomorrow, can you make it?”. I could not believe what I was hearing. I have an interview lined up and I may not even miss a pay day? I felt like crying. But what was that he said? I must have misheard, did he say it was for tomorrow? That’s right, after having no sleep and being in a state of emotional and physical exhaustion I now had less than 24 hours to prepare for a job I had no idea about.
How to prep for an interview
I worked my arse off. I learned everything I could about the company, I read their testimonials, I studied their customers, I looked at the solutions they provided. I like to have all my certificates with me, along with copies of my resume. I like to have prepared questions to ask the interviewer. I like to have a separate document that I can pass to them with all of my documentation from my labs. (this obviously means you have to document all your labs). I dressed as smartly as I could and gave it everything I could. I watched youtube videos of typical helpdesk questions, I learned the tricks to the questions they ask, e.g. The owner of your company says his printer is broken at the same time you get a call from a customer saying all 200 staff have lost connection to the internet. What do you do? The trick is to communicate with your team, with a team you can do both at the same time. These videos are an amazing tool to prep with and they give you really good answers that you don’t have to think too hard about. They also take away some of the nerves.
So how did it go? Well of course I just didn’t sleep. I mean who would have been able to sleep after what I had been through. I thought about postponing it but I still went for it. I can’t begin to describe the difference in management style. This man was a manager, he was an IT professional with 25 years experience, and he had owned, ran and sold his own successful MSP.
It was both refreshing and worrying. He expected nothing of me, he didn’t really care about my technical knowledge. I didn’t know this at the time, but it was because everyone at this company was driven and knew their stuff. Everyone held 10+ certs and had years and years of experience. This was a different company, with serious people and incredible opportunities to learn.
I thought I had bombed, I was tired and a little defeated. But I got a second interview, and with sleep was able to completely turn it around. I turned my weaknesses in knowledge into opportunities to ask my manager to showcase his knowledge. I was far more engaged and I was offered the job at this far more serious role for the same money I was originally on and I cut my commute in half (well technically I am work from home).
What to expect from a serious MSP?
At my new company, cases come in to 1st line and you are expected to work on everything, and only after you have exhausted your ability can it go up to second line. It is also worth noting the main difference between the two companies is that the first one only provided services for their customers and they had monthly rolling contracts. My current company is a cloud provider and they host all of their customers infrastructures and endpoints, as well as having 1-3 year contracts (much harder to pull out of during a pandemic) it didn’t hurt that a lot of their customers are hospital related.
I have been at my new company now for 4.5 months and learned more there than I could have ever learned at the first company.
I put my money where my mouth is. It wasn’t long before my first manager called me and offered me my old job back. This time with a 33% pay increase. I flat out told him no (respectfully of course) but firmly. It was a lot more money than I am on now but that wasn’t the point. I would not want to stymy my career by working at such a poorly managed company. In the UK, they could have just left me furloughed (it wouldn’t have cost them anything) and I would have received 80% of my salary. But they terminated me and then expected me to come back? I wasn’t going to repay my new manager’s act of saving me from that hell with disloyalty (I know loyalty can be looked down upon in this sub, but that is how I was raised).
What can you expect in your first 6 months?
Enough about me, let’s look at you. Let’s look at what you can expect.
You can expect that certificates can take between 2-6 months each depending on how much time you dedicate to them.
You can expect your first job to pay a little more than minimum wage. However, most places now pay for your training, pay for your exams and give extra time to study during work. You can more than likely expect your first job to be helpdesk.
You can expect to have to apply to hundreds of jobs to get your first one. However, if you follow my previous advice you should be getting call backs from recruiters at a minimum. If not, then it will be your CV that needs to change.
If you want to be successful you will have to sacrifice. I get up 3 hours before my shift and I study. Every single day, and I work longer on weekends. I offer every single time someone needs to stay late or come in early. I often stay late after work finishes to tidy up cases and prepare for the next day. I work through every single lunch. The reason for this is because I take twice as many cases as the other person that started 3 months before me, lets call this person “anon”, anon is my direct competition and he drives me to be the best I can be.
The results of my hard work are that I am sitting my exam in half the time that Anon will take (honestly I doubt he will take it when he says). I have closed more cases than him and he has been at the company for 7.5 months vs my 4.5 months. I was asked to go to site to setup a switch for a customer (twice) over anon. I have been “selected” by my manager to work directly with on a fileserver project. It looks like he has taken me under his wing (which I highly recommend, if you can get someone to teach you that is half as smart as my manager then do it).
I have had multiple people tell me they notice how engaged I am during meetings, and how well they think I am doing. I have had a number of times a 2nd line ask me if I want to be shown something that typically only goes to 2nd Line.
I have learned that hard work, determination and a willingness to learn does not go unnoticed.
What are some of the negatives to expect?
But it isn’t all fairytails, there are downsides too. I don’t spend as much time with my wife or doing the things I like. I feel guilty if I watch a film instead of study. If you take twice as many cases you are going to make at least twice as many mistakes. Making mistakes is normal, and you have to learn from them, but if you take them to heart like me, then you are going beat yourself up twice as often.
Ultimately, the sky is the limit, how hard you work will depend on you and what drives you. I have my foot in the door and I have no intention of taking my foot of the gas anytime soon. If you think that once you get your foot in the door that the hard part is over, then that simply isn’t the case I am afraid.
How to give yourself the best opportunity in your career (tips no one tells you).
I push myself out of my comfort zone many times a day. I do this so that these things become my comfort zone. I notice how often my manager trusts me to do something that he wouldn’t normally let a 1st line support engineer do.
You can expect to have a highly stressful working environment. You are going to have many fires to put out at the same time, and you need to organise yourself so it doesn’t overwhelm you. I think something that no certificate teaches you, or that I have yet to see, and it is easily the most important thing I have learned, is to have a to do list. First thing in the morning, before you do anything, fire up notepad or onenote and write down everything you have to do in that day. It doesn’t have to be in order, just get writing. And then anytime you complete a task look at notepad and start working on the next thing. Also, if anyone asks you to do anything ever, fire up notepad, and write it down. You can be albert Einstein himself, and you are going to forget to do a good chunk of that stuff if you write it down. And remember, you are going to make a lot of mistakes, but forgetting to do stuff is a terrible mistake to make and can be easily avoided.
If you have to stop someone mid flow because you realise they are telling you to do a multistep thing, then stop them and fire it up and ask them to start again. Annoying but better than having to call them later and ask them to say it all again, or worse just forget it.
You can expect a relatively thankless job. There will always be those people who remember to thank you and make you feel like you are appreciated, but more often than not you will get someone who the second the thing works, they want off the phone. Get used to goodbyes being a tad rushed/awkward.
You can expect that you will need a lot of help. But try to be smart and kind about it. Try speaking to those people about things in which you don’t ask for help and ask them about themselves. Develop relationships that are meaningful. Also, try and vary the people you ask for help from, don’t take advantage of someone because they are polite and never let you know that inside they are frustrated because they too have a big to do list. Spread your help out and try and make up for the fact you are going to be a big inconvenience by offering to help in other ways. Make the coffees, make the teas, offer to take dogsh*t menial tasks that need doing. These sorts of things are good way to pay it back to someone that you won’t be able to help technically.
Advice to avoid serious mistakes.
Always think about what you are doing. Always. Is this something you should be doing? Is this something that needs approval? is this something you should check with someone first?
Checking with someone is not the same as asking for help and it has saved my ass more times than I can count. Don’t be the person that causes a service outage because you didn’t check if something is right. It may feel obvious, it may make you look dumb. But if I was to be shown 100 tasks and asked what my gut tells me is the “proper protocol” for each one, I would get most wrong. Don’t try and guess what is best for the customer or company policy.
This is what I like to call good old-fashioned Arse-covering. It covers yours and your employers.
Those £72K jobs exist. And people do them. You could be one of them, but it will take years of dedication and sacrifice. If that sounds like you, if you can be driven, passionate and determined then nothing will stop you.
Thank you for reading.
If you are crazy enough to still be reading this, then thank you. I wish you all the luck in the world.
TLDR: Hard work and self-belief pays off. Nothing is going to stop you except YOU.
submitted by jacobsmith14433 to ITCareerQuestions [link] [comments]

2020 Lions Fan Guide to Bandwagoning

After last season/the Bears loss/the Packers loss, it’s become clear to all of us that the 2020 Lions are a completely unsalvageable pit of despair from which there is no escape.
Patricia should have been fired at the 50 yard line of Lambeau and then beheaded for his crimes against humanity.
Quin should be exiled from the land by a pack of ravenous hounds that chase him back east across Lake Huron.
Hopefully Stafford can catch a ride on a ship to the Undying Lands and get a fat contract from a QB-needy team before he retires. Killing Barry and Calvin AND Stafford is more than I can handle as a fan, let somebody be happy for the love of god.
That said, what to do for the rest of the 2020 season? Time to pick a team to bandwagon! It’s important to pick a good bandwagon team now if you want to have a chance at riding another team’s coattails all the way to the playoffs. Let’s go through the list (by last week’s power ranking) and discuss.
The Top 5
Here’s where you go for your best bet at sure-fire contenders. This section is for bandwagoners who want to see their team go to the Super Bowl in order to get some semblance of the shine of the Lombardi trophy on your face, even if you know in your heart you cheated to get there by becoming an imposter in the fanbase of a foreign team from foreign lands.
  1. Chiefs – Last year’s super bowl winners with the new hotness Patrick Mahomes at QB and lovable BBQ-eating Andy Reid at HC, plus Travis Kelce. Historic underdogs finally having their moment in the sun is a perfect fit for a Lions fan to root for. This is bandwagoning on easy mode, the clear pick in my opinion. Number one in the rankings, number one in my cold dead 2020 heart.
  2. Ravens – The only better pick than the Chiefs is the Ravens. Lamar Jackson playing QB is probably the most fun thing you can watch on television right now period. I bandwagoned the Ravens all through last season while dreaming that Stafford’s back healing up might make a difference in 2020 (oh how young and naïve I was) and it was a great time! They imploded a little bit in the playoffs but hey, this could be their year!
  3. Seahawks – This is a nice pick for some history, familiarity, and stability. The Seahawks are always in it as long as they have Russ and Pete Carroll, and last night we watched them go 2-0 against the Pats in a serious nail-biter finish. You know you’re at least going on a deep playoff run if you bandwagon the Seahawks.
  4. Saints – Watching Brees continue to cement himself as a top all-time QB, potentially in his final year, with an actual defense, Michael Thomas, and Kamara? It’s sure to be a fun ride! Plus, the Saints are another team that knows a lot about long droughts of success, hanging around the bottom of the league, kicked while they’re down, nobody ever believing in them. They’re soul mates in pain, and it’s fun to watch those teams succeed.
  5. Packers – No. Never.
The Middle of the Pack
So you’re not looking for a sure thing, you’re interested in a bumpier bandwagon ride. The middle of the pack of is for you! These teams will have ups and they’ll have downs, and if they make it to the Super Bowl, or even the deep playoffs, the victory will be all the sweeter.
  1. 49ers – After Sunday I believe every single player on the 49ers has a torn ACL or something like that, but hey, they made it to the SB last year and they could do it again! 49ers are historic and who doesn’t like to root for a classic franchise?
  2. Bills – A true sister-ship team of the Lions. Forever frustrated and disappointed fans now getting their chance to root for a QB who throws over 400. I like Josh Allen because to hear his bio it really sounds like he just found himself in the NFL by accident and is somehow pulling it off. Plus now he’s got Stefon Diggs, who is no longer our divisional problem. Classic underdog pick, go Bills.
  3. Steelers – Roethlisberger is back, JuJu is great, and the Steelers are always in it. If you want that authentic “we’re more blue collar than you” experience, Steelers are a solid pick. Bonus: revisit the days of Ebron and watch him brick-hand pass after pass, and feel some semblance of relief that out of all the problems the Lions have this year, he’s not one of them.
  4. Titans – A great pick for the Lions fan who wants a long-shot with good odds. If Tannehill keeps his breakout alive and Derrick Henry keeps trucking people, they’re a tough team to stop. Plus now they have Clowney (how could Patricia not go after Clowney Jesus Christ are you kidding me he had a chance to grab an elite DE in free agency and shore up in pathetic pass rushers and we didn’t even hear about him trying to land him how fucking pathetic can you believe this guy… wait no don’t think about that!) Titans are a sleeper for the SB and I think they’ll continue to surprise everybody this year.
  5. Patriots – No Brady, no problem. Patriots still look great as always, plus Cam Newton is way more fun to root for than Brady ever was. Watch Belichik potentially use his evil powers for good and get Cam a ring. Patriots can feel dirty to root for but it’s also like eating a whole chocolate cake after you’ve been on a years-long diet. Sometimes it feels good just to give in.
  6. Rams – This is the team you want to root for if you’re a big NFL conspiracy theorist and think hidden capitalists are pulling the strings behind the scenes to rig games. “The NFL wants LA to succeed because it’s a huge and largely untapped market of a city. For that to work, either the Rams or the Chargers have to go deep every year until LA is turning out their pockets for that sweet football merch.” Maybe it’s true, maybe not, maybe who cares! Also a great team to watch if you want to see Aaron Donald wreck people every single play. Remember, Donald could have been ours but instead we drafted Ebron. I’m just kidding, I know you didn’t forget. How could you?
  7. Cardinals – Kyler “Calamari” Murray, DeAndre Hopkins and Larry Fitzgerald pulling this team out of the depths and into something respectable would be a fun ride to watch. Another franchise with historic pain, a dark horse long-shot, it speaks to my Detroit-hardened heart.
  8. Cowboys – Rooting Cowboys is like going after the dumb hot girl. She’s not going to amount to much but she sure does get a lot of attention. If you want to watch a lot of primetime games and hear about your bandwagon team in sports media constantly, may as well pick the Boys. Win, lose or draw, for some reason we all have to talk about them all the time. Also, it’s fun to root for Kellen Moore, and it’s fun to watch Zeke be a wrecking ball. Successful run game teams actually exist!
  9. Vikings – Ew. I guess. Kirk Cousins can play football and Dalvin Cook is a running back. Riley Reiff used to live here. Kyle Rudolph has a fun name if you’re a big Christmas person. I don’t know. This seems like a pointless bandwagon unless you really like the color purple.
  10. Buccaneers – Never count Brady out. Love him or hate him (hate him) Brady is historic and worth watching. If you want to watch Belichick-less Brady in his final year(s), reunited with Gronkowski, tearing up the ground with Fournette, this is a solid band wagon pick.
  11. Texans – Another great fit for the Lions: watch an incredibly talented QB get hamstrung by his incompetent coaching staff and wasted in his scheme, all while his good-on-paper defense continues to let him down on the field. JJ Watt is still fun to watch, and moreso if you close your eyes and pretend is 2013 and we all still love him.
The Bottom Half
Bandwagoning to win is for pussies, you’re here to bandwagon a team that is either an extra-super long-shot, or another team with no chance to pair with your Lions heartbreak. You sick son of a bitch, I respect it, but I don’t think it’s good for you.
  1. Eagles – Good pick for It’s Always Sunny fans who want to root for Jim Schwartz.
  2. Raiders – Cool uniforms, cool fans, another chance at an NFL conspiracy team due to the move to Vegas
  3. Falcons – If you can’t watch Stafford succeed, you may as well watch his buddy Matt Ryan also not succeed.
  4. Bears – Chicago is cool and nearby, and the Bears haven’t been successful in a long time, so it doesn’t feel completely gross. Any win they can get with Trubisky at the helm they damn sure deserve.
  5. Chargers – Actually looked legit good against the Chiefs with their new QB Justin Herbert, plus you got Joey Bosa and Melvin Ingram on defense. This is probably as far down the list as you can go and find an actual contender. This is your longest long shot for the true masochist who still wants hope involved.
  6. Broncos – Good pick for big South Park fans. Also I guess if you’re still high on Von Miller.
  7. Colts – Their colors are similar to ours and Indiana is pretty close. This strikes me as a particularly hopeless bandwagon pick, but they do have a running back, which could be fun to watch.
  8. Jaguars – Minshew Mania makes this a solid pick. Plus it’s another cat team.
  9. Washington – Chase Young, oh what could have been.
  10. Lions – "Bandwagon? Bandwagon?! We don't need no stinking bandwagon!" Ride or die motherfucker, it's Lions Only for your fandom. You're a captain going down with the ship, you're gonna sit here and watch Patricia waste another year of Stafford's career, fail at the run game, fail to adjust, fail on defense, fail at everything all season long. Because when we go 0-16 again, you'll be able to look back and say you were there. You'll bear witness to our heroic Tank for Trevor Lawrence, and the pride that comes before the fall of the house of Quintricia. And when we see flashes of greatness from Stafford, 100 yard rushers from AD, interceptions from Okudah, and long-yard FGs from Prater, you'll be there to cheer on the Lions as always. Win or lose, rain or shine, Detroit vs. Everybody.
  11. Bengals – Root for Joe Burrow. Plus it’s another cat team.
  12. Panthers – Blue cat team.
  13. Dolphins – Tank for Tua actually happened and honestly good for them. Plus a little dose of Fitzmagic in your life.
  14. Giants – Daniel Jones is an Eli clone and honestly that kind of science should be studied. Might be worth checking out.
  15. Browns – Great pick if you’re done with the Lions but don’t want to improve through bandwagoning in any way shape or form. A true historic and present lateral move, a decision forged in Midwest hopelessness and gallons of beer. Godspeed to anyone choosing to bandwagon the Browns this season.
  16. Jets – The "just let the pain flow through me" option.
Comments analysis after 24 hours
The names I'm seeing the most after 24 hours and 48 comments are Seattle, Buffalo, Arizona, and Chargers. So 3 outta 4 you guys are goddamn gluttons for punishment! Lions fans through and through, you won't even bandwagon a sure thing, it's gotta be a long-shot underdog story of a long-suffering franchise that MIGHT have some success this year. Goddamn, never change guys.
submitted by livingthedream666 to detroitlions [link] [comments]

GUNFIGHTER DAD: Finding Out You're Raising a Terrorist!

I believe I posted this "somewhere" but it was arbitrarily removed without reason. I am pretty certain I deleted it from my "Posts" afterwards also. I have decided to rewrite and post here because I know the mods. One of them is fucking idiot, and an asshole, but I personally know the guy. Pretty certain he will keep it up.
WARNING: There will be cussing in this post. I will likely use unique or different means to describe my children. I sincerely have no intention of offending anyone, yet find myself doing it occasionally. I don't have a gun to your head and you are under no obligation to participate in this shit-show. My sole desire is to provide insight into my life, and maybe a giggle or two. Remember though, "It's all shits and giggles, until someone giggles and shits."
I have previously discussed that I was give a unique opportunity that rarely presents itself in the military; I went home. I got an assignment that was a mere hour from where I claim to be from (Military Brat). I had multiple combat deployments, and my family needed to "take a knee." My wife was a fucking trooper for years, and she deserved a break. It was a time for me to actually parent, and "fuck my tits" I slowly realized I had no fucking clue what I was doing.
My wife was a night shift Intensive Care Unit (ICU) nurse, and I was now a nine-to-five office worker. I fucking hated the job. I'd rather have Hitler cram pineapples into my asshole than ever work an office job again. I, SloppyEyeScream, am not your fucking guy for TPS Reports. It was an odd transition for a "door-kicker." I went from shooting people in the squishy parts, to an office working full-time father overnight. I have been in three Improvised Explosive Device (IED/Roadside Bomb) attacks in my career. Super great times. One of these events can also be referred to an Explosively Formed Penetrator (EFP).
My new lifestyle was an EFP as well, but now it meant Excessive Fatherly Parenting (EFP). Let me tell you; this shit can be dangerous if you don't know what you are doing. These were my typical conversations during my constant train, deploy, rest, train, and fucking deploy again lifestyle.
OP: Babe. Why don't you go do something with your friends?
Wife: Seriously? You'll watch the kids?
OP: Yeah babe, I'll babysit these little fucks!
Wife: (Now mad for some reason.) OP, it's not babysitting. You're their father. It's called parenting.
OP: Even if you don't know what your doing?
Wife: (Laughing) I don't even know If I trust you alone with them.
That was may previous life. The "babysitting" was over though. I was now a Mr. Mom. I was directly responsible for another two humans, Kelly and Cake.
Kelly: Six year old male mini-human. He was like his mother, a book-smart literalist that occasionally lacked commonsense. This mini-human is kind, loving, and wouldn't hurt a fly.
Cake: It's honestly hard to accurately articulate Cake. I really want you to understand this kid. I will do my best. Cake is a two year old crib-midget. My mother said Cake was my "pay back." What a little fucking terrorist he was. When you looked at him you would see a beautiful little boy with long curly locks, loving eyes, and plump cheeks. Most people thought that, and it is the moment you make that assumption in which you just fucked up royally. He was a thumb-sucking-blanket-dragging-TERRORIST.
It was a Saturday. The wife was sleeping in preparation for another 12-hour night shift. Alex, my buddy, and I were watching college football. I had just given Alex the "Cake Brief." Alex was just like everyone else that prejudged Cake; dead fucking wrong.
Alex: No way. He can't be that bad.
OP: Dude. He is a Sour Patch Kid. Mean (Sour) and then sweet, but mostly mean.
The wife and I had purchased an older house. We completely gutted it to open-up the floor plan. Think of a "L" shaped wall. We were seated in the living room which had eyesight to the front door, the dining room, and a considerable amount of the kitchen. The back side of this "L" is the hallway that leads to the front door, and kitchen. Kelly was playing Lego's on the living room floor. Cake was circling the "L". Just pacing, thumb in mouth, with his blanket in tow. Cake was just making laps.
Alex: What's he doing?
OP: I don't know, but he keeps looking at Kelly each time he passes. I bet he is about to do something.
Alex: In front of you?
OP: Yup!
Cake had passed by no less than five times by now. We were no longer watching college football anymore. It was fucking "Shark Week" in the living room. There was a juvenile Bull(y) Shark circling a oblivious manatees (Sea Cow!). Then it happened. Cake stop, looked me dead in the eye, then bit Kelly, on the fucking ear and runs off. Kelly is rolling in pain, and Cake takes off like Usain Bolt in the 100-meter dash; world speed crib-midget dashing!
Alex: (Laughing) HOLY SHIT! He bit'em. On the ear! Then ran!
OP: Please, go ahead and tell me how sweet Cake is.
I am trying to track down the terrorist, and I can hear Alex utter, "THAT WAS FUCKING (PAUSE) AWESOME! Oh. You okay Kelly?" I found the terrorist holed up in this bedroom. He had already placed a toy box in front of the door, and is yelling "sorry." The "sorry" grows increasing louder when he realizes that I am much stronger than his mother. One toy box son? That's all you got?
My wife tells me that I need to, "get down on his level and..." basically reason with a terrorist. I give him the, "I am disappointed in you" speech and successfully reduce him to sympathy terrors. Then this little Sour Patch Kid goes back out, apologizes, and exclaims his undying love for his brother.
Cake: (Two year old cute voice.) I am so, so, sorry Kelly. I didn't mean to hurt you. You are my favorite big brother. Can I play Lego's with you?
Alex: (The "whoa" look.) Dude. That kid is like Drew Barrymore from Firestarter!
OP: Oh Fuck-My-Life. I don't how the fuck WIFE'S NAME hasn't tortured him yet.
THE STORY (Yes. Apologies. You, the Reader, needed the background.)
My weekly routine was rather routine. I drove an hour home, picked up the humanoids from either a grandparents house or daycare, got them situated at the house and then began the mad rush. I had to ensure they had a snack while I prepared dinner, or they would riot. Then I would officially feed them, prepare clothes for the next day, read them a story, and get them to bed. I would then have a whopping hour to myself. I would question my life choices while I showered, and then retired to bed, just to repeat the chaos the next day. Friday was my favorite day of the week.
Friday Night
There was no need to rush on Friday. I would give them their snack while I prepared dinner, feed them dinner, and the I considered myself "off" after that. I would walk may happy-ass to the shower and just soak my aching back until the hot water turned cold. This Friday was no different, until the screaming started.
Kelly: Dad.
OP: I am in the shower buddy.
Kelly: Dad.
OP: I am in THE SHOWER.
Kelly: DAD.
OP: I AM IN THE SHOWER
Kelly: DAD. DAD. DAD
OP: You're a bipedal human. Use your legs and COME TO ME.
Kelly: DAAAAAAAAADDDDDDDDDDD!
This kid fails to use his legs when he needs an adult. His "go-to" is to scream from RANDOM LOCATION in a 3,0000 square foot house. He is paralyzed when he utters, "Dad." It is something that still irks me nearly ten years later. Anyways, I grab my towel, and hastily dry off while he continues to scream. I then make my way down the hall, still wet, and only wearing a towel.
OP: Kelly?
Kelly: Yeah!
OP: Where are you?
Kelly: I am in the kitchen.
It's not long walk. I am standing in front of the fridge, and have a view of the entire kitchen and dining room.
OP: I am in the kitchen. Where are you?
Kelly: Here.
(My god. "Here?" I know a couple Army people who have said that on the radio. "I'm right here, directly below the moon." Fucking really?)
OP: WHERE. IS. HERE?
Kelly: (Head hung low voice.) The...dog kennel.
I walk over to the kennel. My six year old is in the kennel. Locked. In. The. Kennel.
OP: Why are you locked in the kennel?
Kelly: Cake locked me in the kennel.
OP: Cake? How did Cake lock you in the kennel?
Kelly: He asked if I wanted to build a blanket fort. (They make a giant mess of blankets. Live inside them for ten minutes, and leave me with a giant mess to fold. Why the fuck does my wife have a giant wicker basket full of blankets? In case we have 20 people over for movie night and they all require their own blankets that only cover half a regular sized human body?)
I was pissed. I was so pissed I headed straight for the bedroom. They were both watching TV in their bedroom when I told them I would be in the shower. I make it to the bedroom and see Cake sitting on Kelly's bed. I had a very simple game-plan in my head. I ask him if he locked his brother up, he say's "no," and then I ground him from something.
OP: Cake. Hey buddy!
Cake: (Thumb sucking and blanket over shoulder.) Yeah? (Like a, "What do YOU want?" type of "Yeah?")
OP: Did you lock your brother in the dog kennel? (Dear Reader, I draw in air; I was getting ready to yell when this little prick said lied to me.)
Cake: Yes!
Wow! I was not expecting that. What the fuck? I lost my desire to yell. I just wanted to know why the hell he did it. I was now more puzzled than anything.
OP: Why?
Cake: (Removes thumb from mouth. Finally!) Ah. I wanted to watch Diego, and he wanted to watch Transformers. I didn't want to watch Transformers Daddy (THEN LOOKS ME SQUARE IN THE EYES) so I tricked him.
My fucking god! I just sat there on the bed. I didn't even know what to do. I was raising a terrorist.
Kelly: DAAAADDDDD.
OP: Fuck. I forgot to let your brother out.
This is my first Gunfighter Dad Story. I have more. I actually have one that occurred the following Friday. Scared the shit out of me. There was so, so, so much blood. My god, like "combat deployment" blood. Lots! Let me know if you guys like this and I will post more. Totally up to you!
Cheers!
submitted by SloppyEyeScream to FuckeryUniveristy [link] [comments]

FIRE and Kids – The cost of raising children in Australia

This post has been inspired by this recent podcast featuring three of the biggest names in the Aussie FIRE blogging community, and the follow on discussions in the Aussie Firebug Facebook group about how much it costs to raise kids in Australia. As all three acknowledge they don’t have kids so it’s not something they really have any experience with.
As someone who has two young kids I thought it would be useful to write about it from my perspective. Obviously my situation isn’t the same as everyone else’s, there are plenty of people who would be horrified with how much we’ve spent, and others who would wonder how we manage to spend so little. Everyone’s situation is different, so what works for my family wouldn’t necessarily work or others.
My oldest child has only just started school this year so I can’t really speak from experience beyond the 0-5yo age range, but I’ll talk through some of the typical costs, what we have and haven’t spent money on so far, and what we’re anticipating in the future.
The costs people actually talk about The first two things that almost always come up when people start talking about the cost of babies are prams and carseats. Yes, you can spend a lot of money on these things if you want to, prams in particular. From a quick look at Baby Bunting the most expensive pram there is nearly 3 thousand dollars, and I’m betting that with a few accessories you can easily get over that mark.
No, you do not need to spend that much on a pram. Yes you can probably pick one up on the cheap from Kmart or Target etc for well under a hundred bucks, but it’s probably not going to be as sturdy or hold much of the gear you take with you. Happily a pram is also the sort of thing where you can pretty easily and safely pick one up secondhand or get a hand me down from someone else.
We bought a Babyzen Yoyo, which is basically a small sized pram although it still has enough storage room for us. It folds up so that you can take it on a plane as carry on luggage, is quite light, extremely maneuverable and very sturdy. I’ve taken it running plenty of times, it’s even got a Parkrun PB of 22:06!
This thing is absolutely gold. Unfortunately it’s priced as though it’s made of it as well. There wasn’t an option to get one second hand because it had only just been released so we had to pay full whack. I think we spent over a thousand dollars on it including all the accessories and the lie flat and sit up seats etc.
It was worth every cent. It’s been going for 5 years and 2 kids and is still in great shape, we’ve never had a problem with it at all. My wife tells me it is one of the best things I have ever bought her, although we both use it obviously.
And at the end of the day a one off cost of $1,000 for us as a family is going to have basically zero impact on when we hit FIRE. Plugging the numbers into a compound interest calculator and using 7% annual return over 30 years I miss out on $8,000, which is about a month worth of returns on my target portfolio. I can live with delaying retirement one month for about 5 cumulative years of having a really good pram that works great for us.
Similarly you can spend a fair chunk of money on car seats. This is one of those things that I wouldn’t want to get second hand because you can’t see if they’ve been broken or not and safety is a huge priority for us and presumably everyone else.
Happily car seats don’t tend to cost that much, you can pick one up for a couple hundred bucks or less pretty easily. If you do that it tends to be one for a much shorter age range, say 0-2yrs whereas I think you can get ones which will take your kid from 0-8 but they cost a lot more. In any case per kid you’re probably looking at a thousand bucks total, and this could easily be a lot less.
Again it’s not going to make any appreciable different to us reaching FIRE. So as easy as it is to point at this sort of stuff as being ridiculously expensive and over priced etc, it’s really not going to make much of a difference to most people. Sure you don’t want to spend any more money than you have to, but you also want to make sure you’re getting something that works for you.
The other one off costs There are also a bunch of one off costs for babies and young kids like cots, beds, mattresses, baby carriers etc. From what I’ve been told you want to buy a baby mattress new, but that’s only about a hundred bucks at Target, potentially cheaper elsewhere. We have an Ikea cot which cost about the same, you could easily get one second hand or likely for free just by asking around your friends who will probably be delighted to get it out of their house.
Some people do co-sleeping in which case you don’t need the cot and mattress although you may like to kid yourself that your baby will actually sleep in their own bed, maybe even through the night. It’s nice to pretend sometimes!
As kids get older you’ll need a proper bed for them, again you can probably pick this up second hand pretty cheap and a mattress can be easily had for a couple hundred bucks. So none of these things are really going to have much of an impact so long as you’re a decent saver already.
The big costs you see When you don’t have kids it can be great to live in a studio flat or one bedroom apartment in the inner city close to all the bars and restaurants and all the rest of it. You can stay in your local area and have plenty to keep you entertained, there is probably a supermarket nearby and plenty of public transport so you may not need a car either.
Once you have kids, it’s likely going to be a different story as your priorities change. It may be that you’re happy renting with kids, but lots of people tend to prioritise stability and security when they have kids and that means owning your own home in most cases. I’m not saying everyone will want this, but a lot of people will.
So now that you have kids you almost certainly want a second bedroom and if you’re planning on having more kids maybe a third or fourth etc. Obviously kids can share bedrooms for a while at least but sooner or later they will probably want their own space, as will you.
You’ll also be wanting parks with playgrounds nearby and somewhere you can easily take your kids for a walk or kick a football around, ideally in a good school district which can add a couple hundred thousand dollars to the cost all by itself if you’re in Sydney or Melbourne. And if you want to live somewhere cheaper but send the kids to a good private school, well that can cost anywhere from the low thousands to multiple tens of thousands per year.
Similarly if you didn’t have a car before, you will very likely want one now. I’ve mentioned before that we drive a base model Corolla which works just fine for us so far, but you’re still probably looking at $20k plus if you buy one new, mid teens if you want one used. If you want an SUV or a luxury model car, be prepared to fork out a lot more.
In the same vein if you were previously going on lots of holidays and plan to keep doing so, well you now have at least one more plane ticket to buy, might need a bigger hotel room etc. As I talked about in this post about big ticket items, that all comes at a real cost. We bought land and built a house, so I can say that we spent roughly $100,000 more on that than we would have otherwise.
The ongoing costs There are also a bunch of ongoing costs for kids as well. They need to be fed, they need clothes and shoes, they need medicine, and a bunch of other stuff that costs money. I wrote here about a bunch of things that we do to keep costs down, but the reality is that you still have to fork over a decent chunk of change.
On top of all that contrary to what you might have been told public school is not free, there are a bunch of things that you have to chip in for here as well. We’re not at the stage that we’re forking out a fortune in extra utility bills etc but we certainly use the washing machine a lot more than we would if we didn’t have kids, there are extra lights and tvs etc on so there are extra costs there as well.
There are also a bunch of extra items that you don’t really need to spend, but probably will. For us this includes stuff like swimming lessons, some sports like AusKick (AFL) and Junior Blasters (cricket), occasionally taking them to a theme park or zoo etc. They also get birthday and Christmas presents, and if they get invited to other kids parties they take a store bought gift with them.
The above is about what I think our 5yo costs us at the moment based on our spending, our 2yo is probably about two thirds of that due mostly to her not eating as much and not getting swimming lessons yet, as well as not being in school or doing sports.
I’ve left the holiday line blank because this is hugely variable. Last year we did a trip to the UK and it probably cost us about $3,000 extra between the two of them, next time it will be another couple thousand dollars more because the youngest one will need her own seat rather being on someone’s lap for the flights.
So our spending for our eldest is about two thirds of the costs quoted in this article for a 6yo girl, I would assume that apart from a boy maybe eating a bit more the costs should be fairly similar. The main difference compared to our costs seem to be education and transport.
Also, it was somewhat shocking to me just how expensive swimming lessons are! This is actually at our local council aquatic centre and is the cheapest in town. We do get to use the pool whenever we want, but that only tends to be once or twice a week at most. At least the lessons will hopefully only be for a few years for each child, although after that we may be forking out for something else instead.
The hidden cost of kids The biggest cost is often actually one that doesn’t show up as an expense, the opportunity cost of one parent giving up paid employment entirely for a while or doing part time hours (I’ve used the phrase giving up paid employment here because looking after kids and a house is definitely work!).
If we say that you’re giving up a full time paid job that’s at minimum wage of roughly $20 an hour for 40 hours a week, 48 weeks a year, then that’s $38,400 a year ($33,605 after tax and medicare levy) that the family is giving up for however long this goes on for. If you’d otherwise be earning more than that, then the opportunity cost each year is even higher. On top of that there is the hit to your career and future earnings, because those are definitely going to be impacted as well.
If you’ve got two kids that are separated by two or three years and you as a family want a parent at home until they go to school, well that’s 7 or 8 years of missing out on that money which works out as around $250k based on a full time minimum wage job. I’m pretty hopeful that my wife would be earning more than minimum wage as well so for us it’s even more than that. On the plus side, she gets to spend more time with the kids although that probably feels like a mixed blessing some of the time!
Alternatively if both parents want to keep working then there will likely be childcare costs for the first 4 or 5 years and then before and after school care, as well as missing out on spending time with their kids. Because we haven’t gone down this route I don’t know exactly how much it costs, I do hear plenty of stories about it being $100 a day minimum around where I live and it’s a lot more in capital cities. There are subsidies available for this, but you can pretty easily be spending tens of thousands each year on childcare while they’re young and then once they’re old enough before and after school care.
You may be lucky enough to have grandparents or other family nearby that are happy to help out with this if they live nearby, but that won’t apply to everyone and it’s unlikely to reduce the cost entirely.
The costs that are yet to come At the moment our kids are still young and fairly inexpensive. Between the two of them they tend to eat roughly what a grown adult eats, but from what I’ve been told that will change fairly dramatically as they get older. They’ll need new clothes more frequently, more shoes, potentially play more sports, go on more school excursions, you get the idea.
Education could be another factor. There is a public high school that will be built in the next few years quite close by, and assuming that it’s decent our kids will likely be going there. But if it’s not, then we’ll have to look into private schools which can cost anywhere from a few thousand dollars to tens of thousands.
There will be extra curricular stuff as well. Given my wife and I are both horrible at music it seems unlikely that our kids will be doing extra lessons there, but there are plenty of other areas like sport or extra educational activities that we’d be considering. I know a few parents who have kids who are in elite sports programs (as in regional or state teams) and the costs here can very quickly add up, likewise if extra education is needed or wanted then that’ll be an extra expense.
Government and other assistance I know that depending on your circumstances that there can be government assistance in the form of Family Tax Benefit, childcare subsidy and possibly other programs as well. We don’t get any of these which is fine, we don’t need them and they are presumably meant to be for those who do. If you’re not sure if you should be getting any of these then Centrelink does have this payment finder.
We did get the one day a week Kinder program for 3yos and 3 days a week Kinder program for 4yos, although these both also came with costs of roughly $1,500 a year so it actually cost us money, again this is fine, just a reminder that it isn’t actually free.
Depending on your employer you may also be able to get parental leave for a while, and there is a minimum payment which they have to make so long as you’ve met some requirements. Some employers may also have some continuing support with subsidised childcare and the like. None of this was applicable to our situation but at least some of it will likely be available for others.
So what’s the bottom line? For us the biggest actual one off cost so far has been the bigger house and land that we purchased because we wanted our kids to be able to have plenty of space inside and outside the house. That cost about a hundred thousand dollars more than we would have paid if it were just the two of us. All the other stuff like a pram, car seats, cots/beds, mattresses and all the rest of it have been maybe $5,000 total, which is tiny by comparison.
The opportunity cost has been bigger than this though. When we had our first child when we were in Hong Kong my wife wasn’t working much anyway as there just weren’t that many jobs she could do and my wage easily supported both of us so she was doing some very casual part time work and so not doing that work afterwards didn’t impact us much.
In Australia though she probably would have been earning at least $40,000 a year after tax, so we’ve foregone almost $200,000 on an after tax basis there. Which as I’m sure you can imagine has a pretty big impact on when we will hit FIRE, particularly given we’ve got another few years or her not being in paid employment at all and then likely only working part time after that. So I would guess we’ll be looking at forgone earnings of at least $500,000 by the time all is said and done, and it could quite easily be a lot more.
The actual ongoing costs of the kids so far haven’t been too bad. Between the two of them it’s about $8,000 a year at the moment, although we would anticipate that this will go up a fair bit over time as they start eating more and getting into more extra curricular activities. I get that this is spending that isn’t a necessity, but do I really want my kids to miss out on a bunch of fun stuff so that I can retire a year or two earlier? No, no I do not.
So far the total costs look something like this. You can see that by far the biggest cost has been the earnings that we’ve missed out on because my wife has been at home looking after the kids and doing the household stuff (yes I do some of it because I think it’s important that we share the jobs and to role model stuff for the kids, but the reality is that she is at home a lot more than I am and does more of it). Buying a bigger house and land is next, and the actual costs of feeding and clothing and all the other one off stuff for the kids is a tiny proportion of the actual cost.
All up I’m hopeful that we can keep the ongoing costs to somewhere between $125k and $150k per child from birth through to age 18, although if private school is necessary then that will push up the costs a fair bit. This is less than half of what this article suggests, so although it sounds like a lot of money it’s actually fairly frugal by comparison.
To put it in perspective, it’s basically spending about 7 or 8 grand a year on each child. There are plenty of people out there who spend more than that on food alone, let alone the rest of their living expenses.
As I said earlier travel costs are on top of this, and this can increase the costs quite a lot! Travel is a huge part of the reason we’re pursuing HIFIRE, and we want to be taking the kids on plenty of holidays while they’re growing up.
That’s obviously discretionary spending to a large extent, but we do have close family living overseas who we want to see every couple of years or so, and it’s not fair to expect them to always be the ones travelling. I would guess that we’ll be looking at about $50k per kid in travel costs by the time they turn 18. That’s about 3 grand a year, which doesn’t sound wrong based on the cost of international travel. It may be less than that which would be great, but could also be a fair bit more.
So all up for the two kids we’re looking at about a million dollars from birth to age 18. About half of that is the foregone wages from not working, which is by far the biggest impact. The actual cost of the kids is about another 30%, then travel is 10%, another 10% for the bigger house and land. And then right at the end is less than 1% for the one off stuff like prams and baby seats and cots etc.
How could we spend less? Obviously there are other things we could be doing instead to keep the cost down. The biggest expense is the wages that aren’t being earned because my wife is looking after the kids and the household stuff. We could have chosen to have her work and instead pay for childcare and after school care etc.
If we did though then she wouldn’t get to spend as much time with the kids (which she tells would be welcome some of the time!) and there would be a lot more house work and shopping that would need to be done after work or on weekends for both of us, we’d potentially eat out more often as it’d be more of a hassle cooking meals each night, as well as a bunch of other tradeoffs.
So having her stay at home was our preferred method, and thankfully we’re in the financial position where we can afford to do it that way. Other people make different choices, or they’re unfortunately not in a position to make a choice, they need both partners working or if they’re a single parent have to do it this way.
We could have also gone with a smaller house and less of a backyard. I shared a bedroom with my brother for part of our childhood and we both managed fine. It’s not ideal, but it’s certainly doable, and we could have saved a lot of money by having a smaller house. Again we chose not to because we wanted a bigger house and a decent sized backyard for them to be able to run around in and we can afford it.
We don’t have to travel, although it’d be a bit rough expecting family to travel overseas to see us every year or two and then not reciprocating. Still, that would save a fair amount of money.
It’s pretty hard to say how things will work out with the actual costs of raising the kids. I know roughly what we’ve spent so far, but it’s pretty difficult to know what we’ll be spending in future as they get older. They’re likely to be eating a fair bit more food, s they grow they’ll need new clothes and shoes, they’ll presumably be playing sport and doing other extra curricular stuff which will all cost money.
$150k per kid from 0 to 18 seems like it’s a lot less than what it costs most people, but then we already live a fair bit more cheaply than most others so maybe it’s about right.
At the end of the day we’re happy with the choices that we’ve made so far, but there has certainly been some room to have spent less money than what we have, or to have had more money coming in through both of us being in paid employment. Obviously it has an impact on when we will hit our FIRE number, but I’d rather take a little bit longer to get there than to make different tradeoffs along the way.
Have you got kids or are thinking about having them? How do you think it will impact on your FIRE journey?
Original post with pretty charts, pictures, tables etc is here.
submitted by AussieHIFIRE to fiaustralia [link] [comments]

Free College Football Pick 9/1/18 Free Pick Mitch's Dog of the Day Free Football Pick Betting Pick Is gambling killing football - The Russell Howard Hour ... The College Football Betting Show (Week #4 - College ... NFL Week 5 Betting and Beer - Football Gambling Picks ... Mitch's Dog of the Day 10/10/20: Free College Football ...

Chargers (+7) over Buccaneers: I don’t love the NFL slate for betting this week, but the Chargers catching a touchdown will likely be one of my seven picks. The look-ahead line before Week 3 was ... Pickswise is the home of free sports picks, news and betting tips. Keeping you up to date with the latest sports news and breaking stories. Our experts give you their best bets and best free betting picks every day on all major US sports so you don’t have to spend hours researching into the statistics and data. Online Sportsbook Reviews College Football betting picks against the spread Week 6 2020. This is usually my favorite time of the week. The time when I take a hard look at the spreads for my college football betting picks. NFL Picks + NFL Odds: Thursday Night Football Bears vs. Bucs. Anthony Miller Over 2.5 Receptions: -112 (DraftKings, as of 10:30 a.m.). We open Week 5 of the NFL with a Thursday Night Football matchup between 3-1 Tampa Bay going into Solider Field to take on the 3-1 Bears. Our CFB betting picks, analysis and recommendations for Week 5. Every week, Nick Federline reviews some of the best available bets for the college football slate.

[index] [11603] [11672] [30018] [29950] [66735] [55477] [63407] [40592] [28612] [43848]

Free College Football Pick 9/1/18 Free Pick Mitch's Dog of the Day Free Football Pick Betting Pick

College Football Pick, Odds, and Prediction 9/28/19 FREE PICKS Mitch's Dog of the Day CFB Betting Pick Welcome to PickDawgz, the Internets newest and BEST sports Betting Community. #FreePicks # ... Bet On It - College Football Bowl Game Picks and Predictions, Line Moves, Barking Dogs and Best Bets - Duration: 50:57. WagerTalk TV: Sports Picks and Betting Tips 28,338 views 50:57 WagerTalk TV is a daily sports betting channel on YouTube that prepares our audience to make the most educated bets possible with free sports picks, includin... Breaking down the NFL Week 5 board and isolating 6 bets distilled from almost 9 hours' worth of listening to the most prominent football handicappers across ... Free College Football Pick 8/31/18 Free Pick Mitch's Dog of the Day Free Football Pick Betting Pick - Duration: 2:37. FREE SPORTS PICKS Sports Chat Place 3,209 views 2:37

https://forex-portugal.rumahpornos.eu