I’m 31 weeks pregnant and I don’t have health insurance right now.  We are hoping for a good outcome on this, and have an appointment on the 16th to finish our application for benefits.  The problem is that they take 2 weeks for the application to go through…I’m trying desperately to figure out a way to make it go faster.

The midwife clinic I am seeing is very patiently waiting until the benefits go through to bill me, and they have been hippy-helpful – more so than my doctor in Hawaii.  As one midwife said, “we’re like nagging aunties making sure you’re ok!”.  Who knew that I would love that type of treatment?

Every state is different – that’s pretty much the biggest thing I’ve gotten out of this process.

Do you recall a while ago that there was a story about a lottery winner who continued to apply for and receive food stamps and welfare even though she had just won a million dollars?  See, that wouldn’t have happened in Hawaii, as Hawaii has an asset test you have to pass in order to receive those benefits.  But in Seattle, only income matters.  So while we aren’t to the food stamp place yet, we ended up applying for WIC (Women, Infant, Children) benefits.

WIC provides “checks” you can take to grocery stores and redeem for specific grocery items.  When they say specific, they mean specific.

Have you ever stood in the grocery aisle trying to find the exact 46oz can of juice that is pictured in the WIC booklet…or trying to figure out exactly which type of whole grains they are talking about?

It’s an experience.  Especially when you add in the toddler you are trying to contain in the shopping cart holding an iPhone.  Is it wrong to be on welfare while having an iphone?  I think growing up as freakishly as I did, I have a strange inner conflict of what I am entitled to and what I’m not.  In this case, having an iPhone means that I shouldn’t be entitled to state-run programs what are made for people like me. At least says my inner moral code.

But that is the world we live in.  We have 2 iPhones, and iPad and a Macbook, I am 31 weeks pregnant with no job, my husband is in the process of getting a job, we are living on air mattresses and with 3 bowls, 3 spoons and 3 forks between us, and we are on WIC and trying to get healthcare.

I read things sometimes about how the “Millenials” are living off their parents, not able to find jobs but still walking around with their expensive smartphones and tech devices.  A lot of commenters seem to have a problem with the cost of those “toys”, and use the simple fact of ownership of such devices to fuel the debate of whether those young adults are spoiled rotten or not.

I know what Jacob of the now-defunct Early Retirement Extreme would tell me – it would be the same advice that Trent from The Simple Dollar would tell me:  Get rid of the fancy devices, sell them, get prepaid cell phones and cut down on those expenses.

At this moment in time, that’s not something that we really want to do, especially since we know (hopefully) that our situation is a temporary one…but what would you do?

So, while we do currently still have savings, what advice you would give me?

Here are some highlights (good and bad) of the week since we left sunny Hawaii for not-so-sunny Seattle:

1.  As soon as we sat down on the plane, the dude sitting next to me got out his phone and proceeded to tell his wife all about how he was sitting next to a pregnant mother and her 1-year old son.  Dude, I’m pregnant not deaf.  Oh, and air pressure causes bottles to do all types of milk-spraying Olympics.  Just FYI.

2.  Delta, Delta, Delta.  We found our cat in the middle of the aisle in the airport, by herself, sort of just sitting there.  No one around. No other bags.  Just a cat, chilling in the middle of the airport.

oh hai. did someone forget about me?

3.  Applying for welfare.  Topic for another day.

4.  Prices of food are incredibly low compared to Hawaii.  In Hawaii we paid $6.50 for a half gallon of organic milk.  Here we pay $3.99 for a gallon from Whole Foods.

5.  We are stay-at-home parents.  I have had a couple interviews with recruiting and temp agencies, but nothing so far.  My husband has a basic verbal agreement with his old employer, but will still need to hammer out details.  We’re not so worried about him, as he is one of 24 people in the city with the certification he has and has been offered a chance to apply at various places, but he still prefers to work for the boss he did before.  Now, more than ever, we understand the need to work for people you actually enjoy.  A job that feels like home, is how I put it.

Since we’re stay-at-home parents on a very tight budget but with very extravagant tastes, it’s been a challenge to say the least.  How are we making it work?  That too is a topic for another day.

I’m trying to actually get back into my blog after so long in limbo with things, and I thank the people who wander over here and provide words of encouragement and support.  I promise more quippy posts in the future!

But for now, because I’m 31 weeks pregnant (no health insurance!  yay!) and this second pregnancy is harder than the first (anyone else feel that way?  Because damn.), I’m going to leave you with a few of my favorite things about Hawaii.  Just because I don’t live there anymore doesn’t mean I don’t love it still.  We’ll be back Hawaii.  One day.

Acai bowl from Bogart's

Sunset in Haleiwa

Lava Flow at the Pacific Club

It took a lot of crying though…

It was hard the last few weeks.  I had a few days of full-blown crying because I had had a dream for our children to live in a place where they could run to the beach and into the waves as often as they wished.  My aunt told me that it was a good thing we moved back, because if we hadn’t we would have always wondered if we were making a mistake not leaving Seattle in the first place.  Sadly, and I guess this was an important factor too, the only thing I miss is the beach.  I don’t miss the job that I hated there, I didn’t have many friends, and I definitely didn’t miss my family.  I asked my husband what our boys would do without the beach, and he said “live like 99% of the rest of the kids in the country”.

So I guess in some way, we were the 1% for a little while…

We spoke to some friends we had before we left, friends who are in the same situation we are:  2 boys, better job opportunities on the mainland, the wife born and raised in Hawaii.  They plan on moving out of state as soon as she complete her nursing degree – for the same reason as us.  Neither them nor us can fathom paying $45,000 a year for private school for two kids (after taxes, so pretty much a $60K salary wiped out), live in a small rental that our parents own, not save for retirement or our kids college tuition, just to be near the beach.  As the other wife said, “I don’t go to the beach enough to make it worth it.”  I hear you sister.

I find myself constantly justifying our decision, and I realize it’s because I think I failed.

I had a dream when I was younger, to the point that my husband knew when he first started dating me almost 11 years ago that moving to Hawaii was the end-game.  Basically for 11 years I had an end-game – and my end-game was a big fat flop.  I feel like I let my family down by dragging them 2,000 miles away, only to have us move back three years later.

Who cares if I failed though?  Does my family?

And that’s a big no.  My son doesn’t care (yet).  My unborn son doesn’t care (yet).  My husband doesn’t think I failed, he thinks my parents failed us.  My cat doesn’t think I failed (she’s just pissed she had to go in an airplane twice).  So I guess the only person who thinks I failed is myself.  Maybe I have some friends who think I failed too, but no one’s said anything about it yet.  So it’s still just me who thinks I’m a big fat failure.

Do you think I’ve failed?

Oh, you want to read about more interesting things?  I don’t blame you.  How about how you use WIC checks?  I got you covered on that tomorrow…seriously.  Ever stumble around a grocery store with checks in hand trying to figure out exactly where the 46oz juice in a can that matches the brand listed in the WIC book is…it’s an experience to be sure.  A PF blogger on welfare.  That’s where I’m at now, and it’s an interesting place to be.

My husband freaked when I first did them (as did I, obviously), so I went back through and checked the numbers.  Then I checked them again.  And again.  They were  in fact correct.

Now, I know to many people this is nothing, but we’ve almost always gotten a refund and we have no side hustles that we need to pay taxes out of pocket for.  We have one kid and therefore one standard deduction, and a whole bunch of job expenses that are deductible.  We were confounded as to why we would owe at all.  Finally I went through the numbers again to figure out why we owe so much, and discovered that my husband’s paycheck is taxed a couple percentage points lower than we as a couple should pay.

Knowing why we owe money is refreshing, but still doesn’t mean I’m super happy paying it…

…like my husband’s COBRA, which, albeit dumbly, we haven’t paid in the last 2 months because I never saw a bill for it.  Which was another $950 for the past 2 months and the next one.

It was an expensive day.

The *perfect* day to read Sam’s epically long post about achieving financial freedom.  Dude makes $6,500 in passive income a month.  Right now we don’t even make that much in regular income a month!  But!  In the spirit of the article, I decided to add up our passive income per month.   I am not including any dividend income from IRA’s or other retirement vehicles – to stay fair to the idea that Sam is talking about.  So here goes…

Dividends:  About $35 per month, reinvested

Real Estate Investment Property:  -$221.56

So my passive income comes out to…a passive outcome of $-186.56

Ha!  Not exactly how it is supposed to work…

On the plus side, moving back into our house while we settle down, try to find me a job (my husband has one), and try to find a place to live that is more conducive to 4 humans and a cat, means that we will be able to refinance our house as primary homeowners, which will lower our payments enough that when we rent it out again we should not owe anything after the property management company takes their share.  In fact, if we can find a rate low enough, we might even bank a couple of bucks!  Literally, like maybe $6-8 a month.  On the plus side again, that would mean we would have $500 in passive income a year (before taxes…) which is sort of…nice.

I like seeing small numbers grow.  What can I say, I like playing with money.

Anyway, that’s my take away from Sam’s article.  That and we are far, far behind where we should be.  But!  Life has curveballs, and I’m only 30.  Seems to me that I’ve got another 35 years to go as a professional, which is longer than I’ve been alive.  But that’s a topic for a different day.

What about you?  Did  you read Sam’s article and add up your passive income to see where you are at in attaining financial freedom?

Sometimes being a good husband means man-ing up and taking the baby for the day while the wife goes to the emergency room for 7 hours.

Thanks,

A friend.

This was our Sunday.  Apparently on Friday I came down with the cold my son had, which progressed into what I thought might be the flu, which progressed into oh-my-god-i-can’t-breathe-i’m-going-to-die.  After 2 days of feeling like I was suffocating (not being able to breathe fully), I got so lightheaded that I immediately became paranoid about little T in my belly not getting enough oxygen either.  He hasn’t been moving around as much, and added to the fact that I felt that I was going to die because I couldn’t breathe and felt like butt, I actually became worried that little T would *really* die because of me.  So I called my doctor and since it was Sunday, he had me go to the hospital.

Can I just say that was the most relaxing experience ever?  Seriously.  I laid in a hospital bed for hours watching the Food Network with an IV drip in my arm.  I mean, it was the most relaxing experience I have had in a long, long time.  They even brought me a sandwich and juice in bed (!!!!).

(Ad now all you child-less folk out there are reminding yourselves to get a refill of your birth control…)

We had had plans to meet up with friends of ours at the beach, so my husband took the baby to the beach, then brought him home and put him to sleep.  Then he took him to visit my parents for a bit (they’ve been pleading to see him before we leave town), and then took him to meet me and my aunts for dinner.

I have to say, my husband was sort of a rockstar in my book on Sunday.

Not because he shouldn’t have done any of those things – on the contrary, we live in a sexism free world (hah!!) in which men and women are able to be both domestic and professional.  Not because he’s a man and shouldn’t be burdened with the baby all day without (barely) any help from me at all.  Not because he played at single-fatherhood all day – because single fathers are just as amazing-beans as single mothers.

Nope.  My husband is a stud because he didn’t complain about any of it.

Especially since part of it was doing things for me that I didn’t want to do myself…i.e. see my parents.  Want to know why else my husband is a stud?  Because he told me to stop body-snarking on myself, and that he wouldn’t allow me to hurl insults at my giant body while pregnant.  He quit drinking until I’m ready to drink again (which for someone who’s job it is to taste wine was very, very difficult to do professionally).  He bought me 4 half gallons of rocky-road ice cream, then promptly killed the remaining ice cream when we found out I’m borderline gestational diabetic (thank goodness I’m not, but I still have to watch my carb and sugar intake).  He’s a stud, in sickness and in health.  I love him.

You know, I started this blog post intending on reminding people of the importance of not letting yourself become dehydrated (yay me!), and ended up segueing into a love note to my husband.  Ah discordant blog posts.  Don’t we love them.

Needless to say, it is holy-freaking-expensive to move stuff from an island to an actual continent.

We’ve tried to pare down our stuff, but still have a whopping 4,300 (estimated) pounds of stuff to move.  One sofa, one king sized bed, one full sized bed.  A crib, our son’s toys, one recliner.  Three wine fridges and the bottles that went into them (approx 150 bottles).  It’s insane.  We thought about not bringing the beds, but given that it will cost $400 to move them or $1500-2000 to replace them…it makes more fiscal sense to bring them with us.  Same with the $1600 couch that will cost $250 to move (inherited from sibling).

The estimated cost to move this stuff?

$5,000.

Hefty price, eh?  It includes packing all our stuff, moving it across the ocean, delivery to our house and unpacking.  Still, it’s insanely more expensive than just moving across town – or even driving from one state to another.

Then, of course, there’s the cost to ship the car.  Ordinarily this wouldn’t cost anything, if we were able to drive to our new home.  But we can’t drive, and therefore have to ship our car on a container ship.  Cost?

$1072

Yikes!  Quite a bit more than just stuffing your car full of stuff and driving to a new apartment!

Then, of course, there’s airfare for 3 plus cat.  We are traveling two months shy of when our son turns two, so we are avoiding buying another seat for him.  Just as well, because the cat costs as much as a ticket.  Cost?

$542 plus $250 for the cat

Did anyone add that up yet, because I’m scared to.  Okay, fine.

Grand Total:  $6,864

Minus $430 that we have so far from stuff we’ve sold.  As soon as the movers take all the stuff we’re moving, we’re having a firesale for everything else.  Hopefully we can get another $100 for everything else…

If I recall, the last time we moved from an apartment to our house in Seattle it cost us maybe $300 tops.  This is a far cry from that.  Ouch!

What’s the most you’ve ever spent on moving?

We’re living a life of vacation now – hitting the beach as often as possible, sometimes twice a day.  Our son is enjoying the endless days of playing in the sand, dumping shovelfuls of sand into the ocean back and forth, back and forth.  My husband and I are lazily playing catch in the surf, in the giant pool that is our favorite swimming hole (if you’re ever on Oahu let me know and I’ll let you in on the secret).  He’s on a limited work schedule now, so we really feel vacation-y.

Things I haven’t been doing:

1. blogging, because I suck right now.
2. studying, because I suck right now.
3. packing, because I suck right now.

Things I have been doing:

1. sleeping, because I’m hella pregnant.
2. thinking, because all I really do is think.
3. going to a therapist, because I needed to
4. accepting that this isn’t my home anymore.

We spent Easter morning at the Zoo Easter egg hunt.  I had gone ahead of my husband and son to scope out where we were supposed to be headed, and when I went back to them my husband told me that a couple of women had commented on my son.

“They said, oh look at how cute he is,” said my husband.

“That’s nice”, I said.

“Then they said, ‘he’s a REAL tourist’ and walked away”, said my husband.

“Eh?”, I said.

“It occurs to me, again, that no matter how long I live here, no matter how many years, I will still never be local to people here,” said my husband.

“That’s why we’re leaving,” I told him.

I can’t have my family live in a place that won’t make him feel welcome, just like he would never make me move somewhere that I didn’t feel comfortable.  Hawaii had always been my home, but living here the last three years made me realize that the place I grew up in wasn’t the same place I lived in now.  Reality is a harsh mistress.  Life isn’t a vacation, and it’s time to find a new home.

But for right now we’re hitting up the happy hours we loved, the restaurants we enjoy, and the beach that will sorely be missed.  I will miss the beach, more than anything.  But you know what I realized today?  I’ve never gone tubing in the snow.  I can’t wait to do that.

Will we miss it here?  Hell yes.  Hawaii was my home; I had never stopped calling it home for the 10 years I lived away.  It was in the past 3, when we lived here, that I stopped feeling like it really was home.  But what is home, really?

To my son, ” ‘ome” is where we go to play, where his bed is, where he gets “nacks!” (snacks) and where his “ma!” is (Thomas the train).  ’Ome is where dada is, where Bee lives (Phoebe, our cat), and is the place he recognizes as his domain, his area to destroy.

He’ll have a new ‘ome soon, and as long as his dada is there, he’ll be a happy boy.

But what about us?  I’ll miss the beach, the sun.  I’ll miss the few friends I have here, although my old friends there are rallying in excitement.  I’ll miss poke.  But I can’t think of anything else I will truly miss.  Things changed from when I was a girl here, 12 years ago.  I think I’ve changed along with them.

I logged into my live journal account…for the first time in almost 3 years. This was the last thing I had posted there, dated 5/29/09.  It was 4 months to the day that we had left Seattle to move to Hawaii.

Grass is always green, but sometimes there’s a shot of vodka sitting unattended on the other side.

Somehow we went from a small 2 bed/1 bath townhouse (about 1000 sq ft) to a 3bed/2 bath house with 1500 sq ft.  I don’t remember adding much to our collection when we moved in…but somehow our house is crammed full.  I do remember moving in and having stuff already here – a couch, loveseat, and dining table that my aunt wanted to give us, more couches inherited from my sister, a few chairs and a bed inherited from my parents.  Boom!  Stuff!

Now that we’re very highly considering a change of locale (99% sure), we have to consider what to give away/sell/give back.  What would you take across the ocean?

-Sofa.  A leather Natuzzi sofa and ottoman inherited from my brother.  Oy, I just looked it up and it appears that it’s worth about $1600 for the sofa and $350 for the ottoman.  Wow!  Score, guess we’re keeping that one.

-Leather Recliner.  Inherited from my father, about 6 months after he bought it.  Didn’t like it, bought it for $1500.  Keeping that too.

-42′ flat screen that is about 5 years old, bought from Costco, Vizio.  It’s sort of sad because sometimes when the TV is turned on only the sound comes on, but in general it’s still usable and works with HD.  Keep!

-32′ flat screen, Vizio.  It’s small and compact, so we can bring that too.

-3 wine fridges and the wine inside.  That’s a no brainer, as they are my husband’s pride and joy.  One day, when we have money, we’ll buy a large wine fridge and consolidate them all.

-The beer/candy mini-fridge.  Lol.  Go.

-Target brand coffee table and side tables.  My husband likes them, I think we can do without.  They’ve got slate on the top and the legs can be screwed off and everything can be flat.  Stay or go?

-King sized bed – 10 years old.  This is a conflict – do we buy a new one or take this one with us?  Stay or go?

-Same with a full sized bed – it’s 14 years old but has almost never been used.  I used it for 2 years before I went to college, then it sat in my parent’s house until it got moved to ours.  Intermittent guests have slept in it, but that’s it.  Pretty much brand new – but old.  Our son will need a toddler bed soon – do we lug it across the ocean with us?  Stay or go?

And…that’s it.  That’s all the stuff we’d bring except for our clothes, our son’s crib and toys, books, pots, etc.

For our stay or go stuff – friends…what would you do?  What do you toss when you move?

And more importantly, will you all still like me when I’m not living on an island in the middle of the ocean?

I haven’t posted in a few days due to a rather debilitating depression that has caused me to curl up in bed and sleep for…awhile.  Is it because I’m in conflict as to what I’m going to do with my life?  Maybe.  Is it because I realized that the exam I foolishly decided to sign up for before realizing that despite being qualified to take it, it will be almost impossible for me to take it?  Definitely.  Is it because I’m pregnant and the little guy is draining me like an Irishman and a shot of Jameson?  Most certainly.

But there’s another biggie that has been weighing on my mind.  Something I refuse to usually post about, something I refuse to talk about with people other than my husband.  Specifically, I’ve been very preoccupied with the GOP attacks on women.

I don’t care if you’re Republican, Democrat, Independent.  I don’t care if you’re a man, a woman, transgender.  I don’t care if you’re Christian, Muslim, Athiest, Buddhist, Hindu, Agnostic, Scientologist.  I don’t care if you’re pro or against abortion.  I care that you’re a person, and you came from the body of a woman.  That person is your mother – love or hate her – and I really hope people remember that the person you came from is human.  Not a cow, not a sheep, pig or chicken.  A human, with the basic human rights that is due to every human.

People shouldn’t be tortured and should be allowed to live.  Basic rights, I think.  

Reading about State Rep. Terry England, who advocated on behalf of bill HB 954 which makes it illegal for a woman to procure an abortion after 20 weeks when a fetus is stillborn or not expected to live to term, made me want to cry.  Literally.  He compared pregnant women to the cows, pigs and chickens on his farm that regularly gave birth to dead or dying animals.  As terrible as it is for them, he says, it’s natural and women should go through that natural process too.

The thing is, I’m pregnant, past 20 weeks.  If this baby died inside of me, and I wasn’t able to have an abortion to take it out, chances are that I will die too.  From infection, from depression, from the torture of having to carry – for the next 4 months, a baby that is dead.  Who is going to tell my son that his mother was killed because the law forbade the medical community to help her?  Who is going to tell my husband that his love, his wife, is dead because another man decided it to be so?  Who is going to tell me that I need to die because my body is no longer mine, my body is property of the government who will decide if and when I will die?

Isn’t this the land of the free?  

We’re arguing whether capital punishment should be illegal for criminals, rapists, murderers – but we’re also arguing whether women should be condemned to death because they’ve done exactly what society told them they should do:  Met a boy, got married, had children, took vitamins, didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, didn’t eat deli meat.  What if you follow everything they told you to do and you are cast aside like – well – a pig?  A pig who, for all intensive purposes, didn’t do anything wrong except try to live a good pig life and was sentenced to die from it.  Who is going to tell my piglets?

Am I no better than a criminal because I’m female?

The sensible arguments – since this is a sensible rationale that Rep England pointed out – is that on farms, cancerous animals are killed.  On farms, horses used to be shot when they broke a leg, bulls are castrated, if one animal is sick than all the animals are killed to prevent infection to the other species (isn’t that what the movie Outbreak was about?).  Should we go back in time then Rep. England?

Even if you’re against abortion, are you against saving a woman from dying because something that was loved, cherished, adored – died?  Should a husband and son have to bury not one body because of fate – but two because of the arrogance of a few government officials?

It is abhorrent.  It is shameful and disrespectful of women and the men and children who love them.  It is against our basic human rights to have medical coverage denied.

I adore this child growing inside of me.  I cherish him, I sing to him, I eat well and take care of my body for him.  If he dies, should I die for him too?

If so, I’ll leave it up to you to tell my living and breathing son and husband why.