Sunday, May 8, 2011

Today's fortune: Mother's Day, May 8, 2011

Today's fortune: Your efforts in a critical area will soon be rewarded.

The one person whose efforts were most critical to my own success - and whose efforts are not rewarded nearly enough - is my mother. She made me the person I am today. I love you, mom. Happy Mother's Day.

I've never done anything as significant as raising two sons, one of whom turned into an amazing, talented young man (the other turned out to be my brother Marty), but today Jamie and I set off on a seriously difficult effort that will hopefully lead to rewards down the road.

Jamie and I are on lockdown.

That word can mean a lot of different things, but for my wife and I, it means we're on financial lockdown. I'm making good money at Acme Co., and Jamie is pulling in some dough with her school job. But as summer approaches, we're facing the reality that for a few months at least we will be losing Jamie's salary.

Although we've created a budget since I received a fortune telling me to waaaay back on January 11, high gas prices, lack of commitment to the budget and some really fun date nights have torpedoed our good intentions to save money.

So we've come to this: lockdown.

Pictured: Our debit card's jail cell.

For at least couple weeks - longer, if we can take it - Jamie and I are going to survive on just the essentials. Gas. Groceries. Cat food. Paying the bills.

If we can survive this, I know it will make us stronger, both financially and as a couple.

On a more light-hearted note, my efforts on this blog proved rewarding today in a thoroughly unexpected way. This afternoon, Jamie and I were sitting on our porch enjoying this Spring heat wave. We recently noticed that just a few feet away from our lovely but still vacant My Daily Fortune Bird Mansion, an enterprising bird has built a nest in the rafters of our deck. (Seriously, bird! There's an empty birdhouse RIGHT THERE!)

Anyway, Jamie was watering some flowers underneath the bird nest, and some debris from the nest had fallen into the flower pot. One of the pieces of debris she found was this:


That's part of a wrapper from a fortune cookie.

It had probably blown loose from our curbside recycling bin. The bird had found it, picked it up and carried it to the nest. I wouldn't be surprised if there were more wrappers weaved into the foundation of the nest.

The literal detritus from the My Daily Fortune project has been used by a bird to make a home for her babies.

That's pretty cool. And it's certainly a reward I never expected.

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