My life in 30 songs...

Have you ever really listened to a song describe a unique feeling or situation and think to yourself oh my God, I could've written that! And then feel all eerie because you didn't think anyone felt quite that way but you? I know it's happened to me, more times than I care to count. I'm feeling kinda brainstormy tonight, so I'll list off a few here, just for fun, in no particular order.

Our Lady Peace - "One Man Army"
Pat Green - "Southbound 35"
Curve - "Coming Up Roses"
REM - "Carnival of Sorts" and "Wrong Child"
Chris Rea - "Looking For the Summer" and "Texas"
Collective Soul - "The World I Know"
Levellers - "One Way of Life"
Harry Chapin - "Cat's in the Cradle"
Queensryche - "Resistance" and "Anybody Listening?"
Alice Cooper - "Wind-up Toy"
Sinead O'Connor - "You Made Me the Thief of Your Heart"
Rush - "Roll the Bones" and "Dreamline"
Duran Duran - "Too Much Information"
Matthew Good Band - "Everything is Automatic"
Live - "Lightning Crashes"
Chagall Guevara - "Murder in the Big House"
Deric Ruttan - "Take the Wheel"
Wallflowers - "One Headlight"
No Doubt - "Just a Girl" and "Simple Kind of Life"
Pearl Jam - "Rearview Mirror"
Splashdown - "A Charming Spell"
The Who - "Won't Get Fooled Again"
John Mayer - "No Such Thing"
The Cure - "Lullaby"
James - "Born of Frustration"

The hardest to achieve is the least complicated

Everybody knows that moving is a royal pain in the ass. It's one of those things that instantly initiates an autonomic stress response; it takes you back to all the times you had to do it and you feel this mix of sentiments for those who have to do it now: you're happy for them and yet you feel sorry for them because you know what an undertaking this is.

It's one thing when you're moving up in size...it's quite another when you're going the other way. I'm currently trying to move from a spacious 1900-ish square foot 3 bed/2 bath house into what will most likely be a 2 bed/2 bath 900 square foot apartment. Yikes indeedy.

A packrat like me has no business owning a house that big. For what seemed like eternity, we used the place as a med school crash pad, finding ourselves in the frustrating position of being home just long enough to mess things up, but not long enough to tidy back up again (not to mention our energy levels were somewhere south of zero, filing the entire idea of cleaning under "hopelessly not gonna happen".

I also have this other annoying little problem of not being able to politely decline when people want to give me stuff. I do sincerely appreciate their generosity. Half the time, it's actually something I can use. But the other half consists of times when I've been too shy to say no when I should have. Mind you, I'm not a Hoarder...at least, not yet, and I'm doing my damnedest to keep it that way; the important difference is that I do have standards. Not only that, but the semi-annual closet cleanout is a sacred ritual, and part of my post-doctoral therapy.

As much as I dread the fact that I am going to be an emotional wreck when leaving our house for the last time, I also look forward to the idea of slimming down and simplifying our lives. I look forward to scaling back to a skeleton inventory of core items we use every day, and filtering through the rest, donating what we're realistically not going to use and sealing the rest up for some long-term lukewarm storage for a few years while we muster up the courage (and capital) to buy a house again.

For now, I'm OK with the idea of living smaller. We're not trying to idolize IKEA ("Look! A family of 4 can live in 148 square feet!" Well, not bloody likely, unless they're midgets or clinically insane), but at the same time, the girth of our place has outgrown our ability to maintain it properly. A 900-sq ft apartment can still give us plenty of room to live day-to-day and all the practical usable space we're used to, and yet it's half the space to have to clean and a place for only half the stuff that up until now, we've had to devote mental time and energy keeping track of....energy that should instead be channeled into the practice that's about to be born. Those future patients deserve the undivided attention of two down-to-earth docs living modestly, liberated from excess material burdens. Maybe as the practice flourishes and we can afford another house, we could also afford someone to help us keep things neat and clean. Maybe we could even barter with a patient for that service. Until then, though, we'll enjoy our simplicity and we'll just have to work a little harder at politely saying no. :)

The early worm is for the birds

You know the song; it's every 18-year-old's anthem, by the Soup Dragons. It goes, "I'm free/to do what I want/any ol' time" and boy howdy if it didn't hit the mark tonight.

See, graduation was somewhere around a month ago. We've definitely gotten used to the fact that we'll never have school again. Seminars, weekend training, perhaps a 5-day intensive every so often, sure, but not school. For the last 4 weeks, we've been either slaving to the grind in San Antonio trying to find a home base for the practice, or we've been at home downloading albums of new flamenco and watching Cops 2.0 reruns (whilst trying our damnedest to ignore the annoying RSS-feed-like crap across the bottom one-third of the screen).

What I didn't anticipate was this resurgence of new-grad relief and euphoria that hit me this afternoon, quite out of the blue. I had lost track of days (OK, I lost track of an entire week, but who's watching?) and I sort of thought that it was only January 3rd, so when of the former professors I had friended on Facebook started posting "back to school tomorrow"-esque comments in their statuses, I did a double-take. First off, it's that time already?? And second, holy shit! For the first time since I-can't-remember-when (at least 8 years), I'm actually off the hook! That's right, folks, I don't have to scramble at the end of the night tonight because I procrastinated gathering all my school stuff together. I don't have to strategize any manipulation of my body clock to force me to become ready for sleep ahead of schedule. I don't have to set an alarm tonight! And I don't have to wake up at the butt-crack of dark tomorrow morning to go fight traffic just so I can fall asleep through some more classes. And guess what? I won't have any new professor-prepared books of class notes (well, Power Point slide outlines) to sift through to see what sort of a trimester butt-kicking I'm about to receive. And as the week goes on, I won't have to feel guilty about the increasing pile of material I have to study. I don't even have to get in touch with a roster of people to line up appointments (although I do miss treating, and I look forward to starting again). I don't have to lug big heavy backpacks, clinic binders, exam bags, computer laptop backs, or lunch containers over my shoulders. I don't have to surrender the back seat of my truck to a bunch of crap that should, by all rights, have its own safe space at a building other than my house.

Nope, I get to keep watching Cops. While picking out a second movie. And eating that second bowl of ice cream. Because I can. And probably somewhere around 1am, after passing out at the computer for about 45 minutes, I'll wander into the home office and check on a couple of downloads, maybe move a few files or burn a CD-R or 5. When I'm good and ready, I'll go to bed. Of my own free will. Probably sometime around 3am; that's the usual these days. I'll set an alarm, but only because I don't want to end up feeling like I've wasted the day tomorrow. I'll still snooze the hell out of it, though. Because I can.

The cats are tickled pink. My husband is tickled pink, because he's in the same boat. I'm tickled pink. I know these Lazy Days of Slack won't last forever; hell I'm probably the most keenly aware of that fact than anybody. But I do know that they're here now. For the time being, we're sort of beholden to no one, and we have complete control over our schedule. I wonder if this is what being retired is like? You lose track of days (or weeks) and look at each other and say, "well? What do you want to do today?" I could definitely get used to this.

Heh, I say that now, but I'm one restless chica. I couldn't just sit around like this perpetually. I'd get bored inside of another month, if not sooner. No, I'm giving myself license to do this now because I just got my ass kicked for the better part of 8 years. I became a doctor, earned 2 BS degrees, obtained and maintained a massage therapy license and additional NMT certification, started a massage therapy practice from scratch and built that while simultaneously working at another facility, AND doing all the driving for 2 people working different schedules at different places. And during undergrad, we often attended 2 separate campuses at a time. In short, I both deserve and desperately need this time off, and ditto for my husband, who did pretty much everything I did, and for just as long. We also know that this is the calm before another storm, the "Taking San Antonio By" storm. We have a hell of a road ahead of us, meeting people, making connections, developing relationships, acquiring patiets, diagnosing and treating them properly, meeting and exceeding our expenses, enduring our commute, and maintaining our sanity in the process. Yep, tall orders. My life has never known anything else. So I'm enjoying it while I can, knowing that even though it's for a limited time only, it is pretty damned liberating.

Now where is that ice cream scoop?

2000-2010: My spacey odyssey

Lest I not forget, we closed out an entire decade on Thursday! That one kinda came out of nowhere. OK fine, the nerd in all of us will say, "well, technically, the decade starts next year..." but ignorant pop culture likes to call the decades as the numbers change, which isn't necessarily congruent with technical reality. I'm going to go along with society on this one, for once in my life, and call yesterday the start of a new decade.

Time and probably a gazillion more media are predictably going to run their Decade-In-Review-themed time capsules, and in the exhibition of a rare Sheep Moment, I'm going to follow suit, only with my spin on things. Voyeuristic? Perhaps. I'd like to think not; I'd like to think that I simply offer a perspective, that I calls 'em as I sees 'em, and that reality is essentially a collective experience as perceived by the aggregate of individuals. I'm just but one individual, nurturing my inner couch potato while spilling my life experiences to the whole world.

So whaddaya say?

A long time ago in a galaxy near you... New Year's Eve 1999: My now-husband and I, still a fledgling couple, sat in his warm Anoka apartment and placed half-assed bets on whether or not the world would simply nuke itself. The Ensure hoarders, I'm sure, were inwardly disappointed; about the worst thing that I can remember happening is that the phone lines didn't work for a few minutes, probably due to the load on the system. Yay panicked freaks.

A move (back) to Texas in March 2001 proved probably to be the highlight of the decade, because it's simply where we belong. We returned home and we're tickled pink about it. Our home state has received us very well, too. We snuggled right in. Keeping consistent with nearly all things monumental in our lives, it was bittersweet, for our cat of 15 1/2 years passed away a month before the move.

I wound my way through dead-end and modestly-paid waitressing jobs in various bars and restaurants for the first couple years of the twenty-ohs. I supplemented where I could with whatever opportunities presented themselves at the time: construction, mall retail, election judging for my local voting precinct, you name it.

In 2002, we adopted our first cats together. Not far into 2003, our boy cat, then 7 months, was found to have elevated liver enzymes (meaning faulty liver function) and was given till about age 2 to live. Never being the type to simply accept news like that, we did everything we could: we changed his food, which normalized his liver enzymes completely, and then we started getting them adjusted by a vet who also does spinal chiropractic adjustments, and I couldn't believe the change I saw. His health not only recovered from where it had been, but improved even greater.

The year 2003 was interesting. I was fired for the very first time, which actually ended up to be a blessing in disguise. In a fit of rationalism, I decided right then and there to pursue the massage therapy plan I had been considering and enroll in school in January. I also discovered Hinduism during a Comparative Religions night class in college, and began researching in preparation for conversion.

2004 proved to be an interesting year, as I clawed my way through massage therapy school--classroom and internship--while still taking regular college classes and working part time. I obtained my license late that summer and opened my own private practice that fall. That was also a fun year, in that I had what every bipolar wants: a state of hypomania.

The year 2005 started out with a bang: my now-husband confessed to me that we were deeper in debt than I had ever thought (he had always taken care of the bills so that I wouldn't worry, because I worry easily over money), and so I had to formulate our own debt-restructuring plan and pick up supplemental income. This was the first real test of trust, as I could no longer look at my then-fiance exactly the same way. This growing-pain-turned-turning-point proved to be decent for us in the long run; I boosted my income and built what became a thriving massage therapy practice, gaining lots of experience in many different facets that I benefit from to this day and will continue to forever.

In 2005, I converted completely away from Christianity (as if I ever really was) and instead to Hinduism. An Indian and born-Hindu friend of mine conducted a cozy, special unofficial naming ceremony. It was a casual and impromptu event, but every bit as special as anything conducted by Hindu religious leaders. Hence, I took the name Jyoti, which is a Sanskrit word for "light", which embodies everything I strive to be. It serves as a constant reminder of the goal of spiritual evolution.

My best massage year ever was 2006. Unfortunately, that was also my worst emotional year ever, as I reached the zenith of the depressive episode (half of bipolar disorder) begun in early 2005. It was very strange; it was all I could do to function and hold it together, and yet here I was, very decently successful, and as a fairly new therapist at that.

January 2007 saw us embark on the hellacious journey that is chiro med school. It was a shock to several different systems: nervous, GI, sleep-wake, adrenal, and more. I had a special relationship with Netter's Anatomy atlas, and even though we had envisioned the kind of practice we wanted, we felt perpetually confused. Surprisingly, the massage therapy practice really didn't see much of a decline until late July as the economy first started to soften.

My health continued to deteriorate in 2008. It was tough finding out that what I thought had been a temporary hearing loss due to a wax buildup in the way of the soundwaves reaching my tympanic membrane was actually, instead, a nerve deafness, which tends to be permanent. I also grew increasingly pissed at myself for the continuation of the annoying habit of falling asleep in class that magnified in 2007. I was irritated at the idea that I had missed any information.

Also in 2008, we started adjusting real patients. We had a caseload of a few files that we were responsible for. We had to examine, diagnose, and properly formulate treatment plans, and then treat accordingly. Although it was student clinic, with staff docs and their personal philosophies (that sometimes interfered with our ideas/standards of quality patient care), it was still all about real patients, and it was fun to see them get better under our care.

2008 saw both the birth of an intense interest in Wicca, and probably the most important event of the decade: our wedding! A beautiful and spectacular event, unlike anything anyone had ever experienced. Multiple ingredients came together perfectly that night, to create a complete aura around the entire room, one of magic, mysticism, and signficance. It was magnetic and exquisite.

By 2009, the last leg of our education, we had escalated into the rafters of the upper eschelon, safely segregated from the innocent, corruptible lower tri students. Life became less about grades and more about patient files. We were now treating real patients from the outside, and having to recruit our own. Some were skeptic, some more impressionable. We dealt with all kinds and we got to see a variety of problems. Not as much variety as I would've liked, but hey, it was something. Any experience can be decent experience. It's at least partly what you make it. We entertained the idea of relocating to Mexico, but settled on San Antonio, at least for now. We shall see.

Also in 2009, my parents broke their first bones ever, and boy did they break them good. Plowing into them with narry a tire's skid mark, a large pickup (ironically the same one we drive) completely blew a stop sign and slammed into them so hard that everyone involved ended up in a ditch on the side of the main highway, a 15-foot drop below the road surface. Spending 7 weeks bedridden, they were finally able to start physical therapy in a facility closer to home, only for Mom to develop a hernia and have to stop. I am extremely bitter about this whole thing--toward bad drivers, Canada (although not its individual citizens, especially those who are my friends and practically extended family), government-run vehicle insurance, socialized ("public option") medicine, and even cold weather (because it makes their joints hurt). My parents were forced to part with a large part of themselves--who they are--in the ditch that day, and for that I, too, will never be the same.

This year was interesting for many other reasons--solving medical issues, adopting Buddhism as another religion by taking vows of the precepts during the wedding ceremony (imperceptibly sandwiched in - how sneaky!), graduating with 3 degrees (one being a doctor degree), taking and passing boards, contracting the stomach flu, juicing, Facebook, working out, finding a mentor (!), reuniting with several old friends and contacts, and more.

We start the year 2010 with practically zero answers. As of now, we have no idea (yet) where in San Antonio we're going to practice. We have no idea exactly how our practice will take shape. We know we'll live at my parents' ranch, but we don't know for how long or where we'll end up after that. We don't know what it'll be like staying in San Antonio for longer than a week. We don't know how long it'll take the cats to adapt to the move. (Laugh if you want; it weighs heavily on my mind.) What I do know is that I'll be closing down my massage practice (and my role as an MT) for good. I also know that I'll hate to leave our house, but I have to get out of Dallas for the sake of self-preservation.

But really, it's OK to start out without any answers. This way, the slate is clean. Answers will come when they're supposed to. We'll be guided where we're needed. I'm not scared of the decade, I'm embracing it. I might as well; it's hurling at us at the same speed anyway.

Feliz Ano Nuevo (yes, without the tilde)

My dear Spanish speakers will get it. And hopefully, you'll laugh. As for the rest of you, wise up. :)

Well that (meaning 2009) was interesting, wasn't it? Let's cut to the chase: I bring you the highlights, a la Your Favorite Cat Lady...

1.) It has been a Year of the Miracle (AKA the Year of Immortality). My parents escaped death, coma, vegetative states, and paralysis, by the skin of someone else's teeth. A case against the Click-it-or-Ticket Seatbelt Mafia: listen up: my father is alive because he was not wearing his seatbelt. Had he been buckled in, his head would've hit the windshield so hard he would have died. Got it? He is up walking around with only scar tissue remnants of his wounds (and a nasty concussion, simply because you cannot get hit that hard, buckled up or not, and get away without getting one). My mother on the other hand, was buckled in, and not only did she suffer head trauma as well, but she had more bone fractures than my father did, and severe internal injuries caused by the seatbelt itself that caused serious internal bleeding and thus required major emergency surgery. And again, for the cheap seats: she was the one wearing her seatbelt. I also personally knew one other person who would have been alive today had she not been buckled up. So there.

Anyway, I'm beyond thankful that they are alive, period, injuries or not. By all respects, this is the holiday season that in many parallel universes, they were not around to be able to celebrate and by all rights, we could easily have buried them in May and have spent our first holidays mourning their loss. Miracles do happen, and my parents are proof.

2.) It has been the Year of the Diagnoses. Finally, I have at least a few key answers to several of the mysterious illnesses I mentioned struggling with last year. The first answer came in May, the day before my parents' crash: Meniere's Disease. Now, I have two of the three major criteria, but I am missing a key component, so I think that while we might be on to something, that particular conclusion isn't quite accurate. We shall keep looking.

Also, this year, I joined the gluten-free club. No, it's not a fad. No, it's not a choice. No, it's not easy. Yes, the decision itself was easy. As a result, much of my brain fog has cleared, my memory is slowly recovering, my ability to learn has improved, my mood has stabilized dramatically, and better yet, my night vision has returned almost completely after a decade-plus-long hiatus.

I also began working to correct my anemia by taking iron supplements more diligently, and boy has it paid off. Not only do I have more energy, but my mood is significantly lighter and my exercise endurance has increased a lot. I gained some weight, but hey--the neuropathies in my legs went away. Heh, win some, lose some.

I also discovered a keystone clue regarding the hearing loss: turns out that my father not only has it (and looks like he has lost the same frequencies as I have), and so has his dad, but so has my grandfather's practically-entire side of the family. The deafness is rampant throughout that limb of the family tree. So this whole thing is, in all probability, genetic. This is good and bad. First, it's good because it means I didn't do as much stupid stuff to myself by working in bars and talking on cell phones as I thought I had (although my cell phone ear is still quite a bit deficient compared to the other ear). However, the downside is that since it's genetic, the handicap is leans more toward inevitability and less toward my being able to influence it.

3.) It has been a Year of Closet Mexican citizenship. This year I bought Spanish textbooks from Half Price and broke out my 10th grade Spanish flashcards from 1993 and switched over Facebook and my cell phone all to Spanish, as sort of a full-immersion initiative. I also fell in love with a variety of Spanish-language music from both Spain and Latin America. My horizons have expanded a lot, and this is just the beginning.

4.) It has been the Year of Social Media. My membership on social networking sites thus far has been limited to Facebook (not yet Twitter, nor have I been real active on the cesspool that MySpace has become), but my Facebook involvement has probably been enough to count for all three. Facebook has been both annoying and fun. It's a great timewaster--it got me through several boring spring afternoon classes, and I've made friends with people I knew from high school that I hadn't even really been friends with at the time. The drawbacks come from cludgy slow servers and creepy targeted advertising.

5.) It has been a Year of Student --> Doctor. It's a slow transition. It takes a while to sink in. And of course, the underlying vibe is that "You're doctors now, act like it" on one hand (with all the duties, responsibilities, and legal binding), but "you're not doctors yet, you don't have a license" on the other. Ugh. Make up my mind already. Pick one, but you can't have it both ways. But they do, and who am I to stop them?

Regardless, I birthed and nurtured a caseload of patients, 19 in all. Of the weekly visits our 30-intern pod saw, I accounted for a significant number, (15-20% or so), myself. I'm proud of that, although it's small potatoes compared to what real practice will have to be like. But I had FUN with my patients; that's what really worked for me. We could be heard laughing down the hall. People who had known me before we started school came to see me in a whole new light, and I earned the I'm-a-doctor-now respect. It was kinda cool. I wish I could take them all with me.

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Now that I've looked back on where I've been, it's time to look ahead to where I'm going. Resolutions include:

What's in store for 2010? If I could answer this with any certainty, I'd be earning a side income as a psychic, but at least I can take some educated guesses. Sneak preview: the sale of our house and the move to a radically different living arrangement in a totally new city, the start and hopeful flourishing of our new practice. Hopefully, many new friends and contacts, good luck, fresh music discoveries, miracle treatments, lots of laughs, fond memories, good vibes, healthy bank accounts, well-functioning bodies and minds, and strong partnership. We'll continue with our neuro training, and maybe get my CCN and 100-hour AK certification.

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My 2009 Songlist:

1. Los Aterciopelados - "Complemento"
2. Zero 7 - "Waiting Line"
3. Zero 7 - "You're My Flame"
4. Fiona Apple - "Criminal"
5. Cars - "All Mixed Up"
6. Paramore - "Decode"
7. Los Aterciopelados - "Cancion Protesta"
8. Lucy Show - "Undone"
9. Chagall Guevara - "Murder in the Big House"
10. Kid Cudi - "Day n Nite (radio edit)" (dance version)
11. Tears For Fears - "Cold"
12. Soda Stereo - "(En) El Septimo Dia"
13. Manu Chao - "Me Gustas Tu"
14. Julieta Venegas - "A Callarse"
15. Julieta Venegas - "Eres Para Mi"
16. Mana - "Oye Mi Amor"
17. Los Aterciopelados - "Madre"
18. Cafe Tacuba - "La Locomotora"
19. Owl City - "Fireflies"
20. Nelly Furtado - "Maneater"
21. Mindy Smith - "Hard To Know"
22. Suzanne Vega - "Widow's Walk"
23. Madonna - "Celebration"
24. Aisles - "Revolution of Light"
25. Radio Futura - "La Casa Del Amor"

There ya have it - Hasta La Vista, 2009!

Sanity Claus

Hi honey, I'm home! Well, as homey as Dallas can be, anyway. It was a spectacular holiday, if for no other reason than it's the holiday that in all possibility should never have happened. A split second here, a seat belt there, but who's counting? The fact is, we all gathered in south-central Texas for another pleasantly small, low-key event (I even endured a full run of "A Christmas Story", which is like the "Better Off Dead" of the 1950s). I'd say it was quiet and peaceful, but Fox News and Peace are mutually exclusive and guess which won? I'm betting the farm: Fox is the new crack. People get very edgy, even downright hostile, when you try to divert their attention away from their addictions. I'm fairly certain that I'd go for the jugular myself, if anyone came between me and my Whole Foods organic chocolate truffles, but conveniently, this isn't about me. Now, my mother has the legit-est of excuses; I mean, how healthy would you be if you had tissue still inside you that had been dead since May? Such is the lovely socialist medicine (make no mistake: no matter what they tell you, "public option" is essentially the same thing). I digress. My father, on the other hand, flirts with a combination of dry drunkenness (sober 25 years but I think he holds us responsible for Mom's highly-justified us-or-it ultimatum), early dementia, and borderline mental illness. I mean, having bare cement floors in your house and those god-awful greenish fluorescent light bulbs to read by would f*ck with anyone's psyche, but to want to paint your ceilings (in your house, mind you) black in an effort to emulate the decor of Willie Nelson's Texas Roadhouse?? (No shit.) Come on. "Ambiance" is not the correct term here, padre.

Don't get me wrong; I love my parents, even--sometimes begrudgingly--my father. As much as we are locked into various levels of on-again, off-again estrangement, we still share our share of good times and plenty of laughs--even when the sense of humor is not exactly up my alley. As screwed up as parts of my childhood were, and as often as I can still be found licking the wounds therefrom, and as deeply as some of the aftereffects have penetrated and unfortunately shaped who I am, I still can't exactly hold a strong grudge. He did his best, after all. It's just that there is a sort of relief that can be felt upon entering your own (carpeted) house (with white ceilings) (and being able to take your shoes off) and watching (not Fox News) Family Guy's new full-length spoofs of Star Wars Episodes IV and V (backlit by normal, everyday incandescent lighting).

Which brings me to another thought or ten: we're about to move into that same house, long term; is this a good idea? Does it bode well for the mental health of all involved? Obviously, for whatever reason, I single-handedly have this knack for setting my father off and driving him crazy. I can't, for the life of me, figure out why I serve this special function in his life, but I do. I've spent a bit too much time trying to devise coping strategies to minimize direct contact (I mean, we will essentially be using the place as a crash pad to recoup from all the long hours spent 75 miles away, right? And there is, after all, that attic upstairs, complete with its own bathroom and temperature control. And maybe if we move this furniture in and that furniture over here...) I oscillate back and forth between feeling like I'm being a spoiled little ingrate and the realization that hey--I have been living on my own (and on my own terms) for the last 14 years and I've basically become a completely different person since I last shared a roof with my 'rents. I'm 32 now, not 18, and I also come with a whole package of complicated accessories: a husband, 2 habitual cats anchored to their daily routine, a politically independent paradigm, special dietary needs, my own truck, a big couch, tons of other furniture, an entire book library, you get the picture. I hardly have the heart nor the energy--nor is it even my place--to enter into a pissing contest with the incorrigible, especially when my existence there is graciously governed by said incorrigible as nothing but a favor to me. As adult as we are, I'm not exactly sure we could suck it up and lease a living space of our own at this point in time. One more (semi-staggering) bill isn't all that appetizing to me. Then again, neither are the inevitable debates-turned-arguments that invariably mushroom cloud between Dad and me after any more than 3 whole days together (which is often a liberal estimate). Because thus far, I've gotten by, by biting my tongue and holding everything back, even when I'm right, a strategy that only works for so long. Eventually my desire to set the record straight is going to win out over any sense of diplomacy I ever might have possessed. With any luck, we'll have an escape route in place by the time that happens, because much like abstinence being the only fool-proof birth control, the only surefire long-term crisis-intervention strategy is to maintain a healthy geographical distance. Until that possibility becomes reality, however, I'll just have to suck it up, be grateful like I should be, and hope that someday soon, there is a 12-step Fox News recovery program. I'm not holding my breath just yet...

Don't look back in anger: Stories from the Upper Echelon

When you go to the tally office for your final clinic checkout, they'll verify your clinic numbers and send you to a little-known office next door. This, my friends, is actually typically the most time-consuming part of checkout. The reason? Because beforehand, they give you surveys to fill out. These don't take much time, but they have comments sections. They're supposed to remain anonymous--they even go so far as to tell you not to sign your name anywhere--but those comments are used as the outline for the Exit Interview [insert Dr. Eckhardt's voice booming "emmmbrrryyyooo" into his lecture mike]. We heard stories of some people being tied up in there for as long as 3 hours, but if there was space for comments I filled it, and my interview didn't even take an hour. That interview got me thinking back....way back...

Undergrad: Ah, yes, undergrad. The year 2006 was the last year in Parker's existence that anything at that school would make sense. After that, the school would not make a single good decision, but we'll save that for later. Undergrad rocked. I learned more about chemistry in the first day of Mr. Fick's Organic Chemistry (O-Chem) class than I had in the previous 2 semesters of Gen(eral) Chem(istry). Dr. Perryman prepared us for no less than 8 future classes (we counted).

Tri 1: The first trimester seemed to take the entire first year. Dr. G said they were going to put us under some stress, and he wasn't lying. I alternated between constipation and excessively soft stools for the first month. My body scent changed. I became sleep deprived. I stressed out and subsequently turned inward. I tried to write everything down. I tried to hang on every word. I tried to memorize every detail. I literally drove myself nuts doing this. Between the stress and an undiscovered gluten problem, I didn't feel like I learned much new info at all. It didn't help that a still-busy massage practice encroached on my study time, and it often won. So much for getting off to a good start. I did learn, during this tri, how to say no. I was still trying to adjust to all the new school demands, and my friends and family weren't used to this yet; in fact, they didn't really know what we were going through, so they didn't know exactly how much stress we were under, and people made innocent requests that I simply couldn't fill. My plate was full--too full--and I learned how to push things back off when I felt overwhelmed. I learned how to set boundaries and say no and not feel bad about it. A piece of advice: palpate EVERYONE! You'll be glad you got that practice later. Oh, and you'll probably have an Ipod (or something similar) by the end of the tri. Ditto with a newer model cellphone.

Tri 2: This trimester was all about TESTS. Sure, we had plenty of tests in Tri 1, but we had more in Tri 2, more than practically any other tri. They weren't nice tests, either--Gross Anatomy, Biochem, Biomechanics, Microbiology, etc. Braham made the tri bearable. Cadaver dissection was AWESOME. There was an art to it. I learned something, and I surprised myself: that I CAN dissect a cadaver, without fainting, and that it's a blast. The characteristic smell of a cadaver lab has faded from memory, but I'm sure it'd come snapping back should I ever step foot in one again. I also learned that it's good to cover up from head to toe, including a hat for the hair and disposable booties for your shoes. I won't say much more but let's just say that Gross Anatomy got its name for a reason. Main learning opportunity for Tri 2: how to cram for finals efficiently. You see, this trimester's final exams were about 80-90% old test questions verbatim, and they let you keep your old exams to study to boot. So studying for finals was actually kind of a no-brainer. Oh, and keep palpating!

Tri 3: Finally, you get to adjust! Or so you'd think. A lot of the classes are a continuation of subject area exploration begun in Tri 2. You have Physio 2, Public Health (which is basically a continuation of Microbiology), Gross Anatomy 2, complete with a continuation of the cadaver lab, etc. You have some blasts from the past like Philosophy 2 as well. Newcomers on the scene are Neuroscience and an actual adjusting class. Don't, by any means, think that just because you pass Diversified you'll be a competent adjuster. You're not actually trying to adjust. Yes, that is going to freak you out, as you imagine yourself 8 years down the road, after having had all this training, and you still don't know how to adjust. Well, that has happened; unfortunately, that's not an unrealistic scenario. Parker does indeed have a reputation (not only among its own graduates but also among field docs who graduated from other schools) for graduating students that don't have a clue how to adjust. So, carefully, start honing your skills on other students. You didn't hear it from me; I'll deny I said it. Main knowledge gained in Tri 3? This was the tri in which I learned how to take serious, efficient, effective POWERNAPS between classes. Despite the bright fluorescent light overhead and people talking and milling about all around me (sometimes even trying to get my attention) I learned how to make a pillow out of my afghan, put my head down, and will myself (successfully) to go away for 10 minutes.

Tri 4: Hope you enjoyed Tri 3, because it was kind of a break. Finally, they're nice to you, figuring you made it through Tri 1 and 2 and now you're now "in". Top secret: the other reason they go easy on you in Tri 3 seems to be because they're apologizing in advance for the buttkicking you're about to receive this trimester. Yes! Let's take Tri 1's volume of material, plus Tri 2's testing battery, and there you have it: Tri 4. Let's take the most important--and also time-consuming--classes and put them together in the same tri (despite the fact that we have several other trimesters to choose from). Tri 4 is not a cakewalk, not that any part of chiropractic school is. It's your first hands-on adjusting lab, and you do it in the clinic, with staff doctors, which is cool. You learn a few more things, too. Now, don't get your adjusting hopes up yet, though; you get to adjust 8-10 whole times during the entire trimester, which does not a manual medicine expert make. But keep practicing. Call it "deep palpation", wink-wink, nudge-nudge. What did I learn this tri? Near the end of the tri, I was slowly starting to realize that I could no longer ignore the evidence that the school is pretty much just money-hungry, with questionable (at best) intentions and priorities. Up until this point, I had been a benefit-of-the-doubt kind of person.

Tri 5: Ahh yes. For me, this was a party tri. Not that I partied all the time (I didn't). Hell, not that I even went to the official Tri 5 party (I didn't). But I loved the classes and (most of) the profs. Some people hated this tri. I don't know why. Maybe it's because it's the halfway point--we'd already been there so long and we were so beat up and burned out already and yet as far as we had come, we had just as much more to go, and there just didn't seem to be any light at the end of the tunnel. Hell, we were wondering if the tunnel was even going to end. But no, I enjoyed it. I loved having Perryman and Dr. G again. I loved Brown's Wellness class and--call me crazy--Guest's Lab Dx class. I loved Pearson and I think we had Strader again for something. I also LOVED Thompson (finally, I could move bones with confidence!). The drawback was that I had to adjust Gonstead (and only Gonstead) in the adjusting lab, but what the hell. Neither my lab partner nor myself liked it, so we did as best we could and got signed off anyway. Hall (not Marty) is also a cockbite--you've been warned. Lesson learned this tri? Find outside seminars! They'll preserve your sanity, your motivation, and offer some important clinical application you just plain don't get at school.

Tri 6: If you did not have an emotional breakdown at least twice a week, you simply were not registering vital signs in Tri 6. This tri was a complete downer, which could usually be traced back to a combination of Bodnar's Business class (i.e. crappy insurance and Medicare guidelines that reduce us to glorified PTs without the good PR or MD lapdog status--and thus healthy referrals) and Student Clinic (paperwork, paperwork, paperwork, all of which reinforces Bodnar's depressing class material). Suddenly, the dreams of helping ADD, autism, pregnancy, ear infections, and everything else, get dashed and (temporarily, hopefully) replaced by treatment plans that are "transparent and defendable", meaning that you pretty much treat only back pain, neck pain, and headaches. They strip you and tie both hands behind your back by conveniently omitting the "neuro" part of neuromusculoskeletal and leaving you to compete with the PTs for that sliver of patients. Activator class is cool but boring. You now have some afternoon classes and morning labs, so that really messes with your chi. Don't discount or blow off Communications. It's actually very important. Instead, blow off Philosophy 3; it's completely POINTLESS. BTW, Kearsing is not nearly as much of an asshole as people think he might be. By the time everyone got to know him, they liked him. His PT class, even if outdated, is still very good. Tri's 4 and 5 left you with exhaustion; Tri 6 you're starting to feel a bit brazen due to the burnout.

Tri 7: The burnout gives way to "we don't give a shit anymore". And you don't. And, you're not afraid to say so. All frontal lobe inhibitions are simply gone. You simply don't care anymore, because you've been through the ringer already. This tri *should* be great; after all, the classes are (a lot) easier, testing schedule is (much) lighter, and you've transitioned from the junior high that is Tri 6 Student Clinic to the High School equivalent of clinic: outpatient. You're one of the big kids now. Yes, depending on your staff doc, you just might get treated as an adult, maybe even with respect. But the truth is, even though Tri 7 should rock, it doesn't. Contrarily, it's actually an emotional beating, to use an upper tri student's consoling words at the time. And here I was thinking it was just me. No, it's not. What brings Tri 7 down is clinic, because you typically start off with zero patients. And as a lowly Tri 7, your staff doc's priorities are the Tri 9's in your pod, because they're close to graduating. They get all the new patients off rotation, they get fed all the exams, etc. Meanwhile, you get jack, and you're left wondering why you're waking up with clenched teeth every morning. Relax. As hopeless as it looks, it will pick up for you and you will get through. The only other part that sucks is, you still have a full class load, so your only available clinic time is 3-7. Here's a suggestion: don't go home at 3p every day when you don't have patients. Instead, clock in and stay. Study. Get your Grand Rounds case type written up while it's still fresh. Look over the material from the day's classes. You're gonna have to study anyway, might as well get clinic time for it. Trust me, you'll thank me later when you don't have to come back after all your requirements are done and sit and do nothing because you didn't put the time in now while you have it. What I learned this tri: be in your pod if you can, in front of your staff doc. That way, when someone is needed to sub for a PT or an adjustment (or even--eek!--a new walk-in patient), you're right there, ready to go, and picking you is a no-brainer. (Yes, admin recently sent out a memo prohibiting this. See, whenever too many people finish on time, the school gets disappointed that they don't have enough students paying full tuition to go through a 10th trimester and they start arbitrarily throwing you curveballs, hitting you where it hurts most. Lay low for a few weeks and then gradually start disregarding the "rule", which is not, by the way, an official policy in any of the clinic handbooks. Eventually, no one will notice.)

Tri 8: This tri is MUCH better. Classes still start at 7am, but you have about half the class load this time around, and except for 2 2-hour morning labs, you can treat patients pretty much any time the clinic is open, because you otherwise don't have any regular classes scheduled during clinic hours. Also, if you were smart last tri (and this one) you hung around during your staff doc's rotation day and with any luck you picked up a patient or two, so maybe you'll start Tri 8 with a patient or a handful. So, not only do you have to study even less, but clinic is at least starting to look, well, not bright, but less grim. Learning opportunity for this tri: I learned (at the beginning of the tri as my patient load started picking up) how to schedule efficiently. You'll quickly learn who your most reliable patients are; give them first pick of the times. Schedule everyone else around that, filling up the times immediately before and immediately after first. Schedule your least reliable patients at the end of the day (you have a lot of M-F 9-5 patients and those end-of-the-day slots are in high demand for you). This way, should the unreliable patient cancel with short notice (or just plain not show up without calling), you get to go home early without having anyone else to wait around for. I wouldn't put an unreliable patient at the beginning of the day; otherwise, you hurry to get to the clinic by a certain time, only for that patient not to be there. Also, as the tri goes on, patients will drop back on frequency, whether it's because they're getting better and no longer need to come so frequently or they decide it's not working as well or money gets tight and elect to drop back or drop out altogether. Get additional people in there, whether off rotation (although never count on this) or having your own people in mind (preferred). Two classes NOT to let get away from you: AK and Rad Positioning. They're not hard and it's easy to forget about them, but if you do, they'll sneak up on you and they're impossible to cram a couple days before. BTW, you probably won't start feeling super-good about your clinic numbers till the second half (or possibly the very end) of Tri 8. By the end of Tri 8, most people feel like they've hit their stride and they're in their game, but don't feel bad or panicked if you don't feel this way. Many people get practically all their numbers in Tri 9.

Tri 9: Where had this tri been all my life?? There are NO more academic classes, so you barely ever see the main campus or even that whole side of the street, except to park. No more 7am mornings; I tried not to schedule patients before 9.30. I really preferred 10am, if it worked for them, because it pretty much kept me out of rush hour completely. I didn't mind staying late, because afternoon rush started before 4pm and if I had any afternoon patients at all, even one at the earliest afternoon time slot (3pm, and I almost always did), I was going to end up stuck in afternoon traffic. Best to schedule some more patients and resign myself to staying the whole day, and not leave till 7p when traffic has a chance to clear out. Nah, this tri is a sleep-in, study-free, get-your-life-back kinda tri. You get to pick up the odds and ends that got let go and neglected during the last few years. The carpet gets cleaned, the car gets fixed, the dogs get their shots, you dust, you vacuum, you clean out your closet and take carloads to Goodwill and other charities. Try not to spend much money, though; this's the last tri you get any student loan check, and remember that it takes 3-4 months to get your license and be able to start practicing. Unfortunately, by this tri (when I would've had time to start massaging again,) the preceding trimesters had all but killed my massage practice and I had to devote so much time to school in Tri 3-7 that I really didn't have time for any massage clients and so I had referred them all to other therapists and had barely any left by Tri 9, so supporting ourselves doing massage therapy is going to be trickier now without the client base. However, I'm more human again. The burnout and brazen-ness I had felt before is gone and my lost inhibitions have been found again. I've returned to the status of a civilized being. Hint: even if the State Fair falls in Tri 9 for you and you think it's a mute point and useless with only about 7-9 weeks left till graduation, go anyway. Some people get all their recruit numbers in Tri 9, a good chunk from the fair alone.

A Sidebar Extra: During the long, arduous process of checking out of Tri 6 Student Clinic (a fiasco I won't revisit, but let's just say that we were supposed to be out by 1pm or so and we weren't able to leave campus till 8pm), a fellow student Josh and I came up with various songs that should go on a soundtrack CD dedicated to Parker. Well, I had also been thinking of something along those lines (as is a way of life for me), and the soundtrack CD turned into a double CD set. The listing would be as follows... (this list--unlike most of my lists--is in order, for the most part)

CD 1
1. Bon Jovi - "Mister Big Time"
2. Our Lady Peace - "Tomorrow Never Knows" (Beatles cover)
3. Republica - "Ready To Go"
4. REM - "Shiny Happy People"
5. Duran Duran - "Too Much Information"
6. Crystal Method - "Busy Child"
7. Scorpions - "Winds of Change"
8. Pink Floyd - "Money"
9. Smashing Pumpkins - "Bullet With Butterfly Wings"
10. Hoodoo Gurus - "Axegrinder"
11. Don Henley - "Sit Down, You're Rocking the Boat"
12. The Who - "Won't Get Fooled Again"
13. James - "Born of Frustration"
14. Meat Puppets - "We Don't Exist"
15. Alan Parsons Project - "Eye in the Sky"
16. Tori Amos - "Crucify"
17. Twisted Sister - "We're Not Gonna Take It"
18. Pink Floyd - "Another Brick in the Wall, Pt 2"
19. Rolling Stones - "19th Nervous Breakdown"

CD 2
1. Don Henley - "Dirty Laundry"
2. Information Society - (Why are we) "Still Here"
3. Dire Straits - "Settin' Me Up"
4. Pink Floyd - "Us & Them"
5. Hanson - "Where's the Love?"
6. Jackson Browne - "Runnin' On Empty"
7. Eurythmics - "Would I Lie To You"
8. Rolling Stones - "Between a Rock and a Hard Place"
9. Queensryche - "Anybody Listening?"
10. Gloria Gaynor - "I Will Survive"
11. REM - "Draggin' the Line"
12. Fleetwood Mac - "Don't Stop Thinkin' About Tomorrow"
13. Mike & the Mechanics - "All I Need is a Miracle"
14. Pearl Jam - "Alive"
15. Pink Floyd - "Run Like Hell"
16. Eagles - "Hotel California"
17. Third Eye Blind - (Can I) "Graduate"
18. Tom Petty - "Don't Come Around Here No More"
19. Queen - "We Are the Champions"

Yep, that about sums it up. So in case you've ever felt alone in your confusion, frustration, incompetence, insignificance, etc, take at least some comfort: you're not.

Somebody make that CD, make several copies and slip them under key admins' office doors. Heh...

Great day for freedom

Yes, it's a reference to the Pink Floyd song. Really.

So anyway, today was our first day as doctors, as graduates-in-limbo (as we're not yet fully licensed, nor do we have our hard-copy diplomas yet). Whatever we are, however, we are no longer students. For the first time since January 2002 (for me) and September 2001 (for Jay), we're not enrolled anywhere, or having to plan a class schedule at any particular school. Yep, that's right. After 8 years (they're not lying--it does take that long), we finally don't have anyone to answer to, any assignment to complete, any book to crack, or any exam to cram for.

I felt the difference in weight as I left the tally office yesterday after checking out of clinic. I had not realized how immediate the feeling would be. I had walked in there with that perpetual weight, after all. The difference was so profound that I wonder if I really am any lighter. Maybe I got lucky and it came right off my abs and butt. I can only hope.

In my life, wherever there's sweet, there's at least a hint of bitterness lurking somewhere (and to be fair, vice versa). Nobody told me about the grief process, the loss I would feel over having transferred my patients off of my roster and onto someone else's. The end approached so fast that for some of my patients, it hadn't dawned on me that I was treating them for the last time, and so I never really did get to say a proper goodbye. For others, though, I knew it was the last time and that made it harder, emotionally. I have my sweet elderly couple on Medicare in mind when I say this. We were all almost tearful when we said our final goodbyes. When I thanked everyone for coming in and allowing me the opportunity to treat and care for them, I meant it. Each of them found a little place under my skin where they will live forever, never letting me forget, not that I would want to.

Last night and pretty much all day today was a mixture of elation and uselessness. To be fair and accurate, today was indeed a very productive day; we placed the order for our single most important tools: our chiropractic tables. We also have in our possession two new members of the family: a diathermy machine and an Erchonia percussor. But other than that, we've done jack shit. OK, I downloaded a ton of rock en espanol (the commute from south Austin to central San Antonio will be long, after all), we diathermied and percussed my chest to finish breaking up the gunk from last week's bug, and we did, after all, watch a History International documentary on snow. Now I know how my Medicare couple felt when I said, "Happy Friday!" to them; they said that they lost track of which day it was because they all were pretty much the same. Now I understand.

There's the pure glee that comes from a combination of finishing school, the prospect of leaving Dallas, the joy in moving to south Texas and being in San Antonio, the dream of starting our own practice, and the fun it'll be to make contacts with friendly people for once (my Dallas friends and family aside, of course). I also look forward to the end of the massage days of simply rubbing on people, using oil, asking how the pressure is, and providing services in silence for an hour or two on end.

There's the excitement of picking out our equipment, browsing commercial real estate listings online and dreaming that one day one of them will be ours, of imagining life in a different place.

There's the sadness of leaving our Dallas friends and hangouts (not that we had many of either, but what we had was quality over quantity), of leaving our house (it was such a perfect fit), of leaving our way of life as we know it. There's the grief in saying goodbye to my patients and knowing that the next time they come to the clinic, they'll sign in for another intern and that I'm no longer a part of their care.

There's a sense of urgency as well. The self-applied pressure of studying, learning material, and getting through school is no longer there. We no longer have test dates and deadlines to worry about. Those have been replaced instead by a need to REALLY buckle down now, in a way I hadn't (been able to) before. It's time now to work out, to really learn Spanish, to learn and perfect our mentor's protocol, to research tools and equipment for the practice, to get quickly acquainted with San Antonio and its people and local businesses and its events, to study up for real on subjects like physiology, neurology, endocrinology, immunology, active care, muscle physiology, pathology, adjusting techniques and protocols, and a lot more.

And there's the apprehension. We're considering selling the house, except that property values are seriously low right now and we'd lose out on a lot if we sold now. We're considering renting it out first, but there's a lot of hassle with that from a lot of different angles, compounded by the fact that we've never owned any rental property before, so we'd be shooting in the dark. We're moving into a house that isn't ours, that is owned by someone else, and what it all comes down to it, they call the shots. They have their way of life, and there are customs they share with their neighbors like coming over unannounced, that we don't share and wouldn't approve of. Having lived on my own for 14 years (and Jay a bit longer), we've formed our own patterns and culture and we're fairly set in it. How do we reconcile that?

There is also the uncertainty that comes from starting your own business. Here we are, already six figures in debt, and we're looking at going further into debt by trying to buy a small building. In the long run it's a good lot better than leasing, but still...that much debt scares a lot of people, including me.

And then, there's the optimism. I'm confident that eventually, everything will work out, and if history repeats itself, our future will be better and brighter than I ever imagined. I'm positive that we'll be steered into the right thing at the right time, and led away from anything less. I'm sure that in years to come, we'll have a comfortable, fun, fulfilling practice with fun, pleasant, common-sense, reliable patients. I have the feeling that no matter what curveballs the Universe throws at us, we'll come out ahead, having dodged the bullets and emerging as stronger people. I'm sure we'll have a blast and help a lot of people. The path is steeply elevated; let's face it--two chiropractors, deeply in debt, opening their own practice from scratch, in a city we've never visited very long, let alone lived in.

But it's been my experience that with us, that doesn't seem to matter. I'm reminded of a time 9 years ago when we were buying our house (jobless) in a city we'd never even been to, we found ourselves running across the parking lot of the realtor's office, hurrying to get in before closing to sign the purchase agreement. It was then that the realization of the fact that we were about to quit our good jobs, move 930 miles away and drop a lot of money (for us) on a house we'd seen one whole time in a city we knew precious little about hit my husband. He started to chuckle and said, "my God, what are we doing?" And in all seriousness I grinned and said, "I don't know but we better hurry up and do it!"

What I do--and don't do--to save money

There's probably one thing worse than finding yourself jobless with ongoing bills to pay...and that's being $150k+ in non-bankruptable debt, while also being jobless with ongoing bills to pay. Even tough I'm part of the Gotta-have-it generation that became conscious of the world in the Decadent '80s and came of age in the Decade of Denial (the '90s), I'm still not too young to have been exposed to plenty of the GI generation that went through the Great Depression...and lived to tell about it. I imagine that subconsciously, I took a few cues from them, some of their fundamental concepts seeding themselves in my head and germinating just when I've needed them most.

I don't drive with the tailgate down, nor do I drive with the A/C off or the windows up when it's 100 degrees outside, just to save on gas mileage. Lots of people torture themselves, sweltering in their vehicle because they think they'll reduce engine load or wind resistance/drag. I haven't found these to work in my favor. Instead, I do stick to about 60-65 mph on the main highways, even if the actual speed limit is higher. I do stay in the right-hand lane when doing this, especially if the general traffic flow is traveling faster. Right away this saves me anywhere from 10-25% in fuel costs. I started doing this during the $4/gallon days, and I haven't looked back since. Bonus: your stress level goes down. Even though you deal with more tailgaters who don't understand that the right lane isn't for hot-rodding or passing other vehicles, you still find yourself calmer in general.

I don't automatically buy larger sizes of a bottle of vitamins, for example, just because it's there. A lot of people do this, automatically thinking they'll get more value for their money for buying in bulk. Increasingly, larger sizes are not a bargain at all. What's worse is, some stores will try to disguise this by comparing apples and oranges; on the shelf label, some stores break down the price per ounce or whatever. I've seen math errors, or different units used (thus making it tougher to compare directly, or whatever. Instead, I crunch numbers. Yes, I actually bring a calculator, and I look on the packages themselves to get size and content information. This way, I can caculate an accurate unit price per pound, per capsule, etc.

I don't clip coupons. For some people this is almost a religious ritual without which their day would not be complete, but I disagree. Coupons hardly ever include anything I would actually buy. Usually they "discount" a pre-packaged item that is so over-priced that the value for the money is still rather low, even after accounting for the "discount". I also think twice before simply stocking up on something just because it's on sale. Too many times I've burned myself by stocking up on a shampoo, deodrant, or type of cereal, just to switch brands, leaving me with a lot of useless leftovers...and money wasted. Instead, I only stock up on something when I already have its use planned, or perhaps it's a perishable item but I've been using it every day forever and I have a freezer to store it in. This is especially true for fruit; I try to buy organic fruit when it's in season and freeze it. Sure, I may lose some vitamin content during the freezing process, but at least I don't waste food due to spoilage, and I can buy organic fruit when it's more affordable, and keep it longer. To keep Whole Foods affordable, I try to buy my dietary staples--and their accompanying spices--in the bulk section, instead of in little prefab packages. It's more work to combine the ingredients myself, and it's not as glamorous as buying a cutesy little dinner in a hip designer box, but it costs much less, and as a nice bonus, I have more control over the ingredients. And we do try to cook at home instead of eating out. When we do eat out, I try to order something that reheats well on the stove, because if I can't finish it in the restaurant, then I can get a take-out box and reheat it later. Two lunches for the price of one, and I don't overeat. When I go out, I do not take my thriftiness out on the service staff if I've gotten decent service; they have to make money too, and tipping is a custom that is understood and automatically agreed upon by the very fact that I have chosen to eat at that restaurant. If I can't afford to tip according to custom, then I can't afford to eat there. Those of you who don't want to tip, get over yourselves and go to Burger King.

I do not shop at Walmart--at least, not if I can avoid it. Yes, it's possible. There is life outside of Wally-world. And it doesn't even have to cost you an arm and a leg. The asterisk to those everyday low-low prices is that the stuff is junk. I thought I was saving money by buying a skillet for $40 that would've cost me $150 elsewhere. Well, after going through 3 or 4 of those in a single year or 2, I got sick of teflon coming off in my food and having to replace the thing every few months, and I buckled down, sucked it up, and invested in a product with some quality. Sure I paid more, but 7 years later I still have the thing. (The beauty is, it's not even Teflon--which is all I could find at Walmart.) Instead, to save money, I try to buy quality products locally, if I can. Local mom-and-pop shops are more likely to give cash discounts to promote a turn away from credit cards and the fees they carry. I do not buy extended warranities, especially from large chain stores, or for my truck. I've been suckered in to several in the past, and none of them have ever come out in my favor. Each and every time, I could've survived very well without them. Invest in decent products from decent companies at decent stores, and you do away entirely with the problem that an extended warranty pretends to band-aid. I also don't usually buy generic products. Some store-brand items are fairly good, but others simply don't live up to the pricier brand name. Experiment, because it's a mixed bag.

For things I can't get very easily at mom-and-pop stores like clothes, this is where chain stores come in, and there are plenty of good ones. Some, like Kohl's, sell great styles of decent quality (even if it is made in China, which is indeed a black mark), for a decent price. I also like Ross; sometimes, a lot of last season's Kohl's or even Dillard's or Macy's overstock ends up there, with slashed prices. In these stores, head to the clearance racks first; don't underestimate last season's leftovers. This works in the malls, too, which is how we can afford to shop at malls. In a crunch, don't overlook Goodwill; there's no shame in shopping there. I might check Plato's closet or TJ Maxx, but in my experience, while Plato's closet has good selection, it's a bit pricey for used clothes, and TJ Maxx doesn't have a lot of style--or wonderful prices. Ross is better. In the Dallas-Ft Worth area, Dillard's has a little-known national clearance/overstock store in which the clothes there are regularly 70% off the regular Dillard's stores. During holiday weekend sales, the savings are even greater. The DFW store is the only one I know of its kind, so if anyone else knows of one in their area, speak up. The drawback is, there are no returns, refunds, or exchanges, so try everything on and make sure you're in love with it before leaving the store. It's worth it, though; we bought about $2300 worth of good quality clothes for about $260. We do not, however, frequent any kind of outlet malls. They're practically full retail and sometimes the actual clothes lines are of inferior quality than those found in the regular stores. And the return policies aren't real friendly, despite the retail pricing. I also would never shop at Walmart or Sam's for clothes. We used to, and the shirts would start coming apart as early as the first or second washing. For non-clothing items I can't get locally, I try places like Amazon, Half Price Books, or Movie Trading Company.

We don't go to the State Fair on Pay-One-Price day (you know, where you get the bracelet that you pay a flat price for and ride unlimited all day). We also typically don't get season passes to any parks. Instead, we do other things, like bowl during non-league times or mini-golf during off-peak hours. It's cheap and just as fun. Although it's less glamorous, there's also less to go wrong. We also go to dollar theaters instead of regular ones. If we travel at all, we try to take trips during off-peak times and if we need to fly or stay in a hotel, we've had good luck booking online with sites like Priceline. I've heard less-than-good things about Orbitz, though.

I don't buy into the so-called "green" light-bulbs or low-flow toilets or low-usage shower heads. Why? Because the light bulbs have toxic chemicals like Mercury in them (how "green" is that??) and to flush or wash my hair requires a certain amount of water no matter what, and limiting the amount of water capacity won't change that; it'll just force me to have to flush again or use my shower head longer to get all the shampoo out of my hair. Instead, I do save money (and the planet) by turning lights off when I'm not in the room (what a (lost) concept!!) and turning the water off while I'm working shampoo or conditioner into my hair.

I don't buy used CDs to save money, unless I'm really into the cover art or I simply want to have the hard copy in my collection. Instead, I download music for free. There, I said it. Before anyone goes getting all holier-than-thou on me about starving artists or starts trying to scare me into the consequences of my breach of the law, understand that the artist gets NONE of the revenue generated during the sale of a used CD, and don't worry; the way I do it, I'm not going to get caught. There is pretty much zero chance. I've been using the same method for over 7 years, so have countless others, and I have yet to hear of a single charge being brought upon the users of our system. Besides, I already have a helluva CD collection, legitimately purchased. Oh, and I'm a starving artist myself, on the side.

I don't try to pinch pennies by carrying liability car insurance only. I get full coverage; that way I know I'm generally covered no matter what happens. I do try to save money by shopping my car insurance every year, taking the defensive driving course (online, and it brings your premiums down by 10%), and avoiding accidents and tickets. I also try to minimize my driving by combining trips and not making special individual trips, and carpooling when possible.

Other things? Check with phone/internet/cable companies about package deals. If you're an avid user, look into unlimited plans. If you make international calls, check out those plans. They have them, but they'll never tell you unless you ask. Also, instead of going to a gym, I work out at home. Sure, it's not the same, and there's a lot that I can do, but if you're looking for an aerobic workout, you don't even need a treadmill. Instead I invested in Power 90 and other exercise tapes. I went to used sporting good stores and picked up small sets of free weights. I get a plenty-good workout, without the monthly gym expense, having to drive, or even having to front a lot of initial capital for expensive home machines. It's also good to scrutinize your bills, especially your credit card bills, and especially this time of year. Unauthorized charges should be questioned, investigated, and reversed. Pay everything off every month to avoid interest and other fees. Also, instead of going to the MD for every little thing, I save money by getting adjusted regularly. It seems more expensive, until you realize that it's been forever since you've been sick and you think about all the medical doctor bills you've saved. Instead of succumbing to pharmaceutical medications, I opt for natural supplements and preventive care instead. Don't skimp on a good CPA to do your taxes, either. Chances are, they'll save you more than they charge you. Don't pay unnecessary taxes; seek out a pro. (Note: H&R Block does NOT count!) And above all, I avoid anything that has a monthly charge, like memberships and automatic deductions. I carry one credit card and I have a second one for online purchases only. I refuse to sign up for any store credit cards, no matter how high the pressure to do so, or how tempting the discount is. They don't offer these discounts for nothing - the average discount is 15% off that day's purchases; well, they'll probably get that 15% back in fees, and probably more.

Saving money isn't tough, but to really do it requires common sense. What people think they're doing to save money (i.e. opting for cheap products, or scaling back on a server's tip, etc) often isn't the way to go. In reality, you need to think before you purchase and exercise long-lost virtues like discipline and resisting the temptations of instant gratification.