Cheryl Flohe

>>I know a guy here in our town who desperately wanted
his own business so he bought an old truck and a half
dozen garbage cans and now operates a thriving
poop-scooping business, where people pay a monthly fee
and he comes and cleans up after their dogs. In our
commute town, such a service is in high demand. He
said he works about three or four hours a day,
including driving, five days a week, and supports his
family doing it.<<


Please, whoever wrote this, tell me this guy is in
Seattle!! My husband is waiting until a big freeze so
it will be easier to clean up the dog poop and while
it pours down rain here it's becoming really tricky to
find a place in the back corner portion of the yard
for our boxer to go. I'd love to hire someone to do
it!!!
Cheryl

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KT

>
>
>I, too, revert to "THE GENERAL" when under stress...especially when we are
>running late.
>

I'm several digests behind, so forgive me for responding late.

The best thing I got out of all those TCP/non-coercive parenting debates
on AOL back in the day was the concept of time coercion and money
coercion.

Lots of time when I'm stressed and not treating myself and others well,
it's because I feel the pressure of time or money closing in on me. I
can usually short circuit the stress and my bad behavior by identifiying
exactly what the pressure is. I am chronically, pathologically early--I
hate to be late for anything. This causes a lot of time-coercion in my
life, as you can imagine. (My husband is chronically late, but he just
thinks it's because he's an optimist. i.e., he thinks he can get more
done than he actually can. :) So when I feel the time crunch and start
hurrying Will, I try to remind myself that it's OKAY to be on time. ;)

(Interestingly, when it comes to a project or job, I work better under
deadline pressure, and often save the largest and most creative tasks
for the last minute.)

The money-coercion thing I handle best by planning ahead for everything,
and using Quicken. :) I put money-to-blow right there in the budget
(luckily we generally have some to blow). It usually goes for the Big
Kid meal on the way home from the skating rink, when Will is
demonstrating the hungry-uglies because he should have eaten something
besides cookies for breakfast, or stuff like that.

So, if you can remember that it's not the kids, it's the time or money
that's making you stress out, you're one step closer to happy childhood.

Tuck

[email protected]

Tuck,

Yeah, you're right. I am a terminal worrier about lateness. Although, I
don't seem to require it of folks coming to my house : ) I do try to think
ahead about where we need to go and how much needs to get into the car before
we leave, etc. I find that the times that are the worst are when I've let
the girls to "just one more thing, Mom." Of course, we move at different
speeds and I get more and more volcano-ish. Not a pretty sight.

And money... that is a whole new stress area. I go through weeks where I can
just think philosophically about the fact that we are just making the
payments. And then some horrid bill comes in that I had not
anticipated...like dh's car breaks down (again) or his yearly professional
membership renewal ($187 and required for him to keep his OT license in the
state) is due. Then I go from bitchin' and moanin' to nearly crying at the
continual stress level regarding money. Boy, that sounds pathetic!

Thanks for the help with perspective.

DiAnna