Easy Change

Thinking about the recent holiday this weekend has given me a bit of perspective regarding gift giving. Something that I had forgotten until I was recently reminded is how very much people really fill up their emptiness with the shopping and busyiness of the holiday season. I had a conversation with family members recently to reiterate the importance of a reasonable (read small) amount of gifts. For some reason, no matter how much I stress this, there is always resistance. I find the whole ritual can be somewhat frustrating. Gift giving becomes a stressful game of chicken with often little more than wasted money and hurt feelings. Now that I have outlined the problem, what are the solutions? 1. For me, early and often discussions about the issue seem to help. Sometimes the gifts can be a way for people to try to make up for lost time and connections during the year. So to alleviate that, make more time for loved ones. 2. Avoid going nuclear. When doing the gift giving, stay consistent.

This week has been relatively relaxed for me and I will admit that I have really enjoyed it. By my nature, I am a doer. I like to feel like I accomplished something; this goes along with my work ethic I suppose. But one thing that sticks with me about vacations is something that my grandfather told me and it still rings true: Vacations can be expensive. What he means is simply that the more leisure time you have, the more things you'll want to do with that time that take money. This can be things that are hobbies, travel, or even home repair. All of these things take money -- money that you'd otherwise save if you had been working instead. So in that respect, unless you alone in a public park, homeless, and not eating food on your leisure time, leisure time is expensive. Well, this week I noticed that this still remains the case, but I feel like I did relatively well. For a full week off, I spent only about a hundred dollars for travel, food etc. Given that I normally spend abo