Category: everyday life

New Ornaments

Saturday was the day of the Holiday Artisan Market on Jarvis Square, and Lena and I decided to take a break from baking and go there. I should have planned it more explicitly and allocated more time, but I only remembered about it a couple of days before the event that it was going to happen. That’s very characteristical of this holiday season – there were only few things which I planned well; it could be much more enjoyable if I won’t have all the extra stress and could leave all non-Christmas thoughts behind for a month.

Anyway, checking out the artists was fun, but as it often happens, I couldn’t decide what I want to buy. I am not showing a couple of things because they will be given to someone who checks out this blog periodically, but I want to show a couple of new ornaments:

Speaking about my Christmas tree, once again, I ordered it from Tree Santa, and don’t regret; just this time, the delivery was late (I suspect, due to the workers shortage, like many things happening these days). Since it was delivered at 7 PM on Sunday, there was no way I could decorate it then. Igor and I did the bulk of it on Monday evening, and then I finished it tonight, placing some additional ornaments, chocolates and candy canes, and gingerbread cookies.

Matching Donations

My firm has a charitable contributions portal where you can pledge to one of the tens of thousands of charities directly from your paycheck, and in addition, you can also upload your donation receipts to be matched.

Last time I did it, it was only $500 match annually, which was very little, but at least something, so I uploaded a couple of the Night Ministry receipts, but I didn’t bother matching the monthly donations.

And I completely missed the moment when the matching amount for a year was tripled, and only saw it when the firm announced an additional $500 matching for two weeks of giving in November.

If you recall, for the past two weeks, I was under a lot of pressure at work and had absolutely no time to upload the receipts. Finally, last Friday, when HR reminded us about the last day of additional matching, I realized I did not want this money to be lost and needed to act fast.

Fortunately, my big project was on track, and I planned to leave early, so I spent the last hour and a half of my Friday workday uploading receipts. I was delighted to see that somebody had already submitted the Ukraine Trustchain to the list of approved charities, so our firm matches donations to them.

Most of my receipts are coming at the end of the year, so to speed things up, I chose from my one-time donations, which were already in my “taxes” list, but it was more than enough to use all of these 2K matching money, and I was so proud of myself that I didn’t let them go!

The Rest Of The Week

It used to be that around Thanksgiving I would announce on my social media that I am taking a month-long break from political and social issues and focusing on presents and cookies. This year, however, it was so much work, that all my Christmas activities would remain in the shade, and I am not even sure how I managed to get all charity presents, order the Christmas tree and schedule the holiday cookie baking.

Now, looking back at the first week of December, I am happy to report that it actually looked quite Christmasy.

I attended the first Christmas party of that season – the WiFi party – on Tuesday, and it was surprisingly fun, having that I barely participate in this group activities. I even added some LinkedIn connections!

Then it was Elf on Wednesday; and also, I went skating twice, once during the day and once after work, and saw this year’s Christmas tree.

I even stopped at the Christkindlmarket, although I want to go again at least twice!

And I already mailed all my international postcards, which is a record!

It’s Beginning To Look Like Christmas

Boris wouldn’t care much about Christmas decorations, but he knows it’s important for me, so he always helps me to decorate during this Thanksgiving weekend.

This year, I made some changes in my decorating routine, threw away some old and worn decorations, and just stopped trying to put everything on display. Boris checked all the lights. One of the light strings was not working, but it turned out that I bought two extras last year just in case:).

The presents are for the Secret Santa for Chicago Public Schools, which I have been doing for at least 16 years. This year, I had three letters, and I managed to fit most of the requests into budget.

Today, I dropped off the presents at a collection point, and in a week and a half, they will be distributed. Next in line are the Night Ministry presents; I already purchased pretty much everything, just need to pack.

A Snow Day In Chicago

Wednesday was windy like never; Thursday and Friday was super-cold, and on Saturday, it was snowing, setting the record of the most snowiest day in Chicago in November!

Boris and I ventured to the Loop, because I wanted to go to the Art Institute, and do some holiday shopping. It was still cold, it was still very windy, plus, it was snowing!

I found this sweater in one of the boxes when we were installing new shelves in our storage unit. It was hand knitted for me by my grandaunt when I was eighteen, and I decided to try it on. Since it looked not bad at all, I decided to take it out :). I have received complements about it everywhere on that day!
That was by our house at 3:30 PM, and it was not it!

Boris and I took turns cleaning our stairs because it was completely unsafe to use them:

By 6 AM, the snow was mostly over, and the cleaning crew came and cleaned it from everywhere, and then the snow started melting. However, it looks like it’s not it, and there will be more cold and more snow during the upcoming week.

Amadeus At Steppenwolf

There were no interesting concerts this weekend, so I suggested to Boris to go see Amadeus at the Steppenwolf Theater. Boris was skeptical, because he does not like the idea of the original play, because it’s based on unjust accusations, but he said he will go. As for me, I haven’t been to the Steppenwolf for a while, and wanted to go.

The Ensemble Theater before the show

During the first act, ot felt like a mock version of the movie, and during the intermission I asked Boris whether he wanter to go home. He said: no, the acting is great! Actually, I believe it was a new experience for him: I got the first row tickets, and because of how the Ensemble Theater is build, the acting was happening right in from of our eyes, so he could see most of it, was watching all the time with his eyes open 🙂

Then, during the second act, they started getting off the films score, and build something else, and that was much more interesting, so in the end, we both enjoyed it 🙂

Shelves

One of many things when you think: why I didn’t do it earlier!

The storage shelves came from our old Palatine home, and we didn’t bother to replace them “just because we can still use them,” until they started to annoy me :).

Then, I tasked Boris with finding a replacement, and then the shelves arrived, and we assembled them (and then Boris was disassembling the old ones for two more hours:))

I still need to bring back the empty boxes after we finish decorating the house for Christmas!

Communal Fridge

We have a communal fridge near Rogers Park Metra station. Actually, it’s a little pantry with two blocks of shelves and a fridge in the middle (I believe, I posted the pictures earlier). Local stores sometimes drop off some produce there, but mostly it’s people who have some extras, or leftovers, or just want to share. Anyone can drop stuff on the shelves or in the fridge (labeling containers, if they are not industrially packaged). And anyone who passes by, can take anything out.

Yesterday, although I didn’t need to take a train, I walked there to drop off several unused cans of vegetables, a bag of green beans which we decided not to cook after all, and plastic box with roasted vegetables (we had a lot left, and I forgot to give a box to Anna & Family when they were leaving).

There were several people around when I approached to drop these items off, and the pantry was far from being empty, but the way they reacted at my offering made me regret I didn’t bring all of our leftovers there: oh, they are already cooked? Just warm them up? God bless you!

I recently read about one behavioral experiment: theology students where asked to deliver a talk on Good Samaritan, and half of them were notified right before they were ready to leave, that the talk time was changed and they were late. Then, in the way to their talk all of them were presented with a situation when a stranger was in a distress and needed help. While a substantial part of not-in-a-rush students stopped and tried to help, none of the those who thought they were late, stopped.

Unfortunately, being in a hurry is a major reason for not helping those in need. So many times I would plant to bring my leftovers to the communal fridge, but was in a hurry to catch a train, and knew that I would walk a bit slower with the leftovers, and all these minutes would accumulate, and I can always freeze what I didn’t eat, and in any case, what difference a pint of soup can make? I am nit saying “never more,” but ai will try very hard. I won’t forget the faces of those with whom I talked yesterday by the communal fridge, with their gray wrinkled skin and missing teeth.

We all are Rogers Park. Please forgive me. I will try to be better.

Monadnock Bistro

I have a list of Chicago’s new restaurants which I want to check out, but I am increasingly rarely have opportunities to do so. One of these places was Bistro Monadnock. I love the building and it’s story, so I was excited to see this new restaurant. Their web side says:

This project is a homecoming for the bistro’s owners – John, Karl & Graeme Fehr. The three brothers previously operated a boutique law firm in the Monadnock Building from 2011 – 2017. Ditching the courtroom for the dining room, this is their third hospitality concept in 6 years. They considered no other building for this restaurant.

Since Boris is in town (he arrived on Sunday), but I still needed to work from the office (not like I absolutely needed to, but it was easier to organize everything that way, and I had other things to do in the Loop. One of these to-do things was near DePaul campus, so I suggested we go there for dinner.

The menu is all in French, and I knew only a couple of dishes. so I had to Google them to get an idea. After googling, the pictures on the website started to make sense :).

That was Jacques Rose, very nice fruitie and tart cocktail
Frisée aux Lardons salad: “potatoes” in this salad are these very thin laced chips:). I was trying to imagine, how warm bacon could pair with greens, but it was really great.
Bouillabaisse was one of the few dishes I didn’t need to google:)
Beef Bourguignon – I didn’t know that the meet was boneless ribs (it was Boris’ choice after we got instructions from the waiter)
They ran out of a dessert I wanted, so we both got profiteroles with pistachio gelato

The Lifestyle Creep

This is a part of a newsletter from my wealth management company. I was hesitant about sharing this article because the way it is written implies it concerns only very well off people, so I felt like it will be perceived as “rich people problem.” Still, I believe that the issue is rather universal, and that any time someone experience a substantial increase in income, there is a possibility of the “lifestyle creep.” I think, that stories about people who won a lottery and soon found themselves broke, can be attributed to the same effect.

Here is how this article starts:

Lifestyle creep happens when your expenses increase alongside your income. As you earn more, it’s easy to spend more freely, perhaps without much thought. As income increases, it’s only natural to want to improve your lifestyle, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, either, up to a point. Without keeping tabs on the cumulative effect of daily financial decisions like business class upgrades or pricey dinners, it’s easy to lose track of how much you’re saving versus spending. After all, as the name suggests, lifestyle creep happens slowly.

For high earners, there’s enough cash coming in that makes it easy to cover just about any upgrade, so the cost can seem small when considering the big picture. But unless you’re tracking your saving and spending, you risk getting used to a lifestyle that you can’t support once you stop working. So the key to enjoying your success now — and maintaining that standard later — is ensuring your savings rate increases at least as much as your additional spending.

I do not want to cite practical calculation examples from this article, because most people do not have that kind of money, but the general idea is that when a person ‘s income increases substantially, they should use not more than half of this increase for “quality of life improvement” (actually, they recommend 30-40%), and the rest should go to increasing the retirement savings. Again, the principle behind it is that people expect to maintain the same lifestyle after retirement as they had before, so they should budget for that.

The final paragraph of the article reads:

You can only spend a dollar once. But there’s also no prize for being the richest person in the graveyard. Being intentional about how you spend and save your money can help you maximize both. So before upgrading to business class, run the numbers to see how all your incremental lifestyle improvements add up relative to your savings.

I think that balancing between these two (“enjoy the day” and “richest person in the graveyard”) is indeed difficult, and I do not think I always make right decisions. But I know since the time I was very poor (and it happened to me more than once during my lifetime) that budgeting is critical, and good budgeting can improve one’s life more than moderate pay increase. Of course, I am not talking about people leaving below the poverty level, and of course, I am not implying that everyone should be happy with what they have. It’s the season of giving, after all.

Well, I really hope I didn’t offend anybody, and I hope that I was able to express my thoughts.