Time with Family or More Money? Family. Hands Down.

No, I'm not going to spout studies or reports or link to a news story. This is just pure old anectdotal evidence here. Happiness really is the key to being healthy.

About ten months ago when my husband's start-up tech company was in the middle of pulling together investment capital, I decided that it was time to put the freelance writing away and get a "real" job with steady pay to help out. I'd been a stay-at-home mom for 18 years, my youngest was 9 with two teenagers to help out with watching him, and it seemed quite self-centered to continue to watch my husband's stress level increase as the funding took longer and longer to put together.

I found a job as an events coordinator at a local museum. It was a perfect fit - most of the hours were on the weekends and at night when my husband would be home with the kids. It dealt with people and sales, two things I've always enjoyed. I'd once won a weekend trip to Las Vegas as a newlywed just for talking people into opening up department store credit accounts. How hard could it be to talk people into hosting their events at one of the most gorgeous facilities I'd seen in quite some time?

I took to the job. I liked the people I worked with, and I liked the work. I dove into it with great enthusiasm and went about proving to the staff that they couldn't live without me. In 10 months, event rentals increased 400% over the previous year. When I signed the museum up on Facebook and Twitter, the museum had bragging rights as the first city entity to get into social media. Within a month we had over 500 fans and within six months it was just a few shy of 1000. It felt good to know I could still sell, that I could make a difference in the work place.

The money was nice. In fact, after a few months, they more than doubled my pay. We paid for college books and tuition and trips and new clothes all from my income. But I was unhappy. Miserable, in fact. Not because I couldn't do the job.

I was missing out on so much at home. I missed a trip to watch my son and my oldest daughter compete in one of her last climbing competitions before graduating from high school. I missed out on potlucks and cookouts. And worst of all, I became "that mom" who sent her kid to school half sick because he couldn't stay home if I wasn't going to be there. You see, that 400% increase in rentals meant that the job required 400% more time than it had a year ago as well.

I grew to hate my job. Not because the job had changed, but because I understood the price I was paying for that extra money. Hearing my son tell me he'd tried to stay awake long enough for me to get home so I could tuck him in was the final straw. How long does a mom have to tuck in her kid when he's already 9 and won't kiss her goodbye in front of his friends? Not long, my friends. Not long enough.

And so I quit my job. Money is tighter. The new clothes budget is nonexistent. I don't care. I am home when my kiddo gets off the bus. I am home with him all day when he has a fever. I am there when my daughter gets home from her first semester of college classes. My days of interacting with her on a daily basis are truly numbered, but because I'm home she tells me about the things some of the professors are teaching, bouncing those ideas off me as a litmus test to see whether I buy what they're saying. My opinion still matters to her. I'm there with my teenage son when he gets home from high school. I can once again invite him to go with me to the grocery store where we end up talking about girls he kind of likes and classes and dreams for his future. I am there to greet my husband when he walks through the door, whether it's at 5 PM or 9 PM after a particularly long day at his company.

I am a part of their lives again.

I am happy.

Being happy really is the key to good health. Not more money. Not an easy time making the budget work. Being there, being a part of a family. It's so much better than recognition and kudos from a community, a boss, or even myself.

Someone else will do my job now that I'm gone.

I'd rather that than someone else become that important person in my kids' lives. No one, but no one should be able to do that job but me.

Oh, and things work out. I'm starting my own company I can run from home. No money yet. But that's ok. I had my husband's back when he started his, and he'll have my back now.

Google, Garage Door Mishaps, and Delivering Bad News Via iPhone

Ok, this is sad, but I have to confess it's also a little funny.

Did you know that more people visited my blog last year looking for information about garage door deaths, broken garage doors, and deaths by garage door springs than for any other search using Google, AOL, Search or Yahoo combined.

Seriously. More people than those looking for information about rose colored glasses ... the name of my blog.

And so it makes me wonder if there are that many people getting killed by garage doors or if there are that many people wondering if it would be a viable way to, you know, off that annoying mother-in-law. Who looks up information about death by garage door spring?

And so I've come to the conclusion that as a writer, I really need to give the masses more of what they want. With that in mind, I give you my latest adventure with a garage door, a Honda Pilot, and a very zealous (and worried) wife.

When my daughter - now in her first year in college - was still in a car seat, I distinctly remember the conversation one night around the table.

"Daddy, did you know Mommy drives into the garage before the garage door is up?"

Nevermind that this is an impossibility, the horror of it led to a very lengthy lecture from my beloved spouse about the dangers of driving into a garage without the garage door being up. (I'm thinking garage door springs, broken garage doors, death or maimed for life and a few other dramatizations came up in the memorable conversation.)

And so it was that I learned that I must wait for the garage door to actually go up before I could drive into the garage. Gee. Like that wasn't something I already knew.

Fast-forward to the present. I get in our trusty Honda Pilot, push the garage door opener, start the engine and wait for the garage door to go all the way up. As you can see, I'm a quick study.

I back up slowly only to hear a loud BANG on the top of the Pilot. I look up through the sun roof to see the garage door is now sitting on top of the rails on top of the Pilot. I push the garage door opener and hear a loud hum, but the door doesn't budge.

I consider my options. I can get out of the vehicle, leave it stranded halfway in the garage, and go back to bed. This seems like the best option, but I don't take it. Instead I decide to gun the engine and pull out faster than the garage door can go down.

Looking back on this, it was definitely a stupid option. But sometimes stupid and luck go hand-in-hand. I back out, put the vehicle in park, and get out to inspect the damage.

Honda knows how to make some tough rails. That's all I can say. Not a scratch in sight - which led the insane part of me to consider the option of a cover-up. I know. I missed my calling to go into politics, but such is life. And then I look at the garage door, suspended in air like a swinging halloween decoration with a large dent in the bottom panel. All I can think of is John Candy in Planes, Trains & Automobiles looking at the burnt-out, beat-up rental car and saying, "That'll buff right out of there."

I tried to buff. And bang. And hammer. To no avail. And so I did the next best thing.

I sent an email to my better half, complete with a snapshot of the damage via my iPhone. You see, I also learned back when my daughter was still in a car seat that bad news is best served hot. That way it has time to cool off before it's time to pay the piper. I wouldn't blame him if my poor husband spent the rest of the day looking up ways that someone could die by garage door spring mishaps, but he didn't share any of the research with me.

Why it

Why it’s a Good Time to Dive into Writing

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Our Defrocked Bird Dog

Our dog, Mia, is officially the worst bird dog ever. Oh, she likes to pretend she'd hunt down a bird and have it for lunch, and she even whines at me to let her out of the house to take care of the pigeons taunting her in our little patch of xeric lawn. But when the rubber meets the road, well, she's just wants the chance to say hi.

We recently had a very bedraggled bird land just outside our kitchen door. When I spied two pigeons pecking it, I opened the door the shoo them away. Mia just about knocked me over rushing out to join in the melee. The pigeons scattered like the playground bullies they were, but the poor little bird couldn't move. Wet and terrified, it crouched in anticipation of the large labrador which was about to have it for supper.

I rushed to block the view of my youngest, not wanting him to see the impending carnage when Mia began tearing the feathers from this poor helpless bird as her bird dog instinct kicked in.

Yeah, right.

Instead, our fearless protector stopped just short of the quaking bird. She then very gently nuzzled and nosed her new friend.

Fearing that the bird might be diseased, I called our now defrocked hunting dog back into the house. She tried to ignore the command, wanting to play with her new friend, but she finally complied when she heard the rattling of the dog treat can. Mia came half way to the door and then looked back - wet bird or dog treat? Dog treat won, and in she came.

The bird hopped right up to our door and spent the night in the relative safety of our covered kitchen patio. Mia begged us to let her join her new friend, but, alas, she was simply put to bed early.

The bird is gone, and Mia is back to pretending that she wants to eat the pigeons in the grass.

What to do for a severe case of Yellow Bus Fever

Ok, tell the truth - we've all done it: hyped of a case of the sickies to get out of some unpleasant task.  I got so proficient at it as a kid that my mom finally created an entire name for the illness which befell me most mornings only to miraculously disappear as soon as the school bus had passed our house.  "Don't tell me," she'd say, "another case of Yellow Bus Fever?"

Well it seems my youngest is testing the waters to see just how far and often he can fall victim to Yellow Bus Fever without losing any of his after-school perks.  After several days of, "Mom, my throat hurts and I think I have a fever and should stay home because I don't want to get the kids in class sick and my asthma doesn't feel very good and, and and..." I got wise to the scheme.

With his first croak of the morning, I'd whip out the thermometer.  "If it's a fever, fine.  If not, then you're going to school."

"Even if my asthma's bad?" he'd ask, totally offended at the callousness of this woman who'd sat by his bedside and stroked his hair as she fretted over his wheezing and poor health only a few weeks ago.

"Even if your asthma's bad," I'd say.  "We'll pump you full of albuterol and send you on your way to fill that brain up with important learning."

And then I'd deliver the secret weapon, "And then when you get home, I'll make sure you get plenty of rest by sending you straight to bed.  You'll have to be careful not to get over-tired in this delicate state, so, of course, the computer and the Wii and even your Gameboy will be off limits."

It is a modern-day miracle how fast that boy recovered.  Within minutes, the croak was completely gone from his voice, and he wasn't feeling a bit of wheezing.  

I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, though - because when you're a mom, every strategy eventually backfires.  I'm waiting from that ominous phone call from the school nurse, "Your son is in the office, and he can barely breathe thanks to a horrible asthma attack.  And did you even look at his throat?  It's obviously on fire.  What kind of mother sends their poor child to school like this?"

I'll have an answer though, "Oh, I was sick in bed this morning.  My husband made that bad decision.  I'll be right there."