~ The "FAFSA" Shuffle ~
If "Fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid form" looms large on your to-do list, then you are old enough to have college-bound children. And you're old enough to remember "The Hustle," that disco classic that had us poking our fingers in the air as we danced the night away, probably wearing way too much polyester. Or, so I heard—I was just a child at the time.
While having filled out this form only once before hardly makes me a veteran of the process, I highly recommend keeping this upbeat tune in your head while gathering up your prior year's W-2, bank statements, and other pertinent material. Unlike "It's a Small World," at least "The Hustle" has a good beat and you can dance to it.
I know of which I speak. The college application process has tested my plate-spinning mettle before. Coming through it relatively unscathed, I thought I was ready to start it all over again with my second son, now a high school junior. Like any good second child, he is the opposite of his older sibling in more ways than I can count. If it weren't for the comfortably familiar bureaucratic financial aid form and standardized testing applications, I would indeed be in foreign territory. Yet even these cannot shield me from the great unknown that is my second son's future.
Before starting his college hunt, my oldest had specific search criteria in mind—a mid-sized university that offered a diverse liberal arts-minded environment, located within a three-hour radius from home, and boasting a reputation for cranking out top-notch teachers. On the other hand, son number two's only requirement is that the campus be outside of the Midwest. Beyond that, it's anybody's guess.
In his defense, he's a busy guy, focusing on becoming the proverbial well-rounded student. Working off of a lesson I learned the first time around, universities seem to crave them with much the same appetite I had for blueberries and root beer while expecting him. These mythical creatures do it all—ace the ACT/SAT, rank high in their class, excel in extracurricular activities, serve in their community, and soar high above the clouds wearing a red cape and tights.
Pardon the exaggeration. On closer examination of the fine print, I see that tights are optional.
It's no wonder he doesn't have time to consider the choices before him. My son, studying hard for entrance exams and his advanced classes, is a year-round athlete, a talented musician, and a soon-to-be Eagle Scout. His plate-spinning skills put mine to shame. And he's doing all this just to get the opportunity to spend thousands of dollars for the next four years; after which, he'll walk away with another diploma and a monthly loan payment he can count on receiving for years to come.
At least he'll have a mini-fridge and maybe a futon couch to show for it.
Still humming that old disco classic? Good. Now, get on your dancing shoes and do the FAFSA!
~ The Ties Have It ~
What's a seven-letter word that starts with "b" and ends with "e" and is something every plate spinner needs to succeed? You guessed it. B-A-L-A-N-C-E. It's the one thing that you can't spin without, but achieving equilibrium is an ever-elusive goal.
This was most evident to me when I watched my son head to the tuxedo rental store recently. Clutching a swatch of fabric from his prom date's dress, I knew that he was about to spend roughly the same amount for the rental that his date did for her dress which, by the by, she gets to keep.
Need a six-letter word for the one thing that can knock balance off its feet?
C-U-S-T-O-M.
If I were to turn this prom-prep custom on its ear, girls would be the ones rushing to dress rental stores, clutching one of their date's ties, hoping for the perfect match. Silly, I know. But, I am tempted to ask that my son's date take one of his ties with her before she goes dress shopping for the next big dance. He does have plenty from which to choose.
A dear friend of mine, and mother of two lovely high-school aged young women, is quick to remind me that the girls have expenses of their own for which they, too, must shell out big bucks—the hair, the nails, the jewelry, and the shoes, just to name a few.
Put in its proper perspective, this formal affair can be considered a bit of a pre-wedding primer. With the exception of the rehearsal dinner and maybe a box of toothpicks for the hot hors d'oeuvres, the cost for weddings traditionally falls on the bride's parents. Again, custom thumbs its nose at balance.
To avert this, my then-fiancé and I chose to take matters into our own hands. We decided the kind of wedding we wanted, got estimates on everything from photographers to DJs to florists, then set the date based on how long we figured it would take us to save up for it. One year later, we hand-delivered a check drawn from our joint savings account to the reception hall of our choosing that covered the cost of a lavish reception for a hundred of our closest family and friends.
Striking this balance, we not only maintained control over the details, but we got to test drive our plate-spinning abilities while we planned it, drew up a budget, and stuck to it. We had the time of our lives with none of the debt-induced aftertaste typical of large expenditures. Truly a life lesson.
As for prom, the focus for both genders should be to have the time of their lives, not an evening spent tallying up a scorecard of expenses.
In the end, I'd call it a tie.
~ Financing Prom 101 ~
Dear Plate Spinner,
Prom is an expensive but socially important rite of passage for teens today. What are your ground rules? And how do you keep costs in check?
Signed,
Parent of a Prom Date Wannabe
Dear P.P.D.W.,
While I take exception to it being classified as "socially important," I'll focus instead on the expense of prom by posing this question: If students were mandated to self-finance their attendance at this formal affair, would the whole notion of it fade into a strobe-lit sunset?
When my son announced that he asked his girlfriend to prom, he was quick to point out that he and his date were going to "go Dutch" on the tickets. Whew, what a relief, huh?
Given that one ticket to the event runs close to what I recently forked out for a new dishwasher, I informed him that if he wanted to go, he would have to pay for it himself. To support his efforts, I handed him a well-timed coupon that had just arrived in the mail from a formalwear shop along with a lengthy list of chores that, on completion, would help fund the purchase of his date's corsage, a haircut, and a car wash. I can only assume his date's parents would follow suit, suggesting that she do whatever possible around the house to help finance her ensemble and a trip to the salon—like install new siding on their house and repave the driveway.
If you haven't figured it out by now, I did not go to prom. My first big formal dance was my wedding reception. The two events are not without their similarities. In both, the couple puts out big bucks to look their best. And while my son's date gets to keep her dress, just like I got to keep my wedding gown, after the event was over, I got to keep my date, too.
As for keeping the cost of prom in check, if you want to go, instead of sticking your parents with a hefty credit card bill, why not earn what it would cost to go before hand?
Now that's my idea of a socially important rite of passage.
~ Gifts for Grads ~
While filling out invitations for my oldest child's upcoming graduation party, the proactive plate spinner in me sprang into action. I asked my son, who had only just recently lost his hard-fought battle against senioritis, if he had a gift wish list—should anyone happen to ask.
"Well, I need a laptop," he ventured.
"Yes, and I need a vacation in the south of France," I thought to myself before delicately suggesting things of a more practical nature, like a laundry basket or a travel iron.
He rolled his eyes and left me alone with the guest list and memories of my own high school graduation.
Despite heading to different universities, my friends and I were only interested in getting the three T's—a typewriter, a turntable, and a trunk (on which to set said turntable). That, alon
g with a plank of wood and a couple of crates (in which to store our albums), and we would have the equivalent of the modern-day entertainment unit right there in our very own dorm rooms. The vision of it had us excitedly cruising the back lots of fast food places hoping to snag matching plastic milk crates that, we were disappointed to find, only seemed to come in white or black.
In those pre-information-age days, we also had the added thrill of not knowing who our roommate would be until move-in day. Not a big deal, really. We were accustomed to speaking to other people face-to-face or, if need be, on the phone. For me personally, having shared a bedroom with my two sisters, coexisting with just one other female, I figured, would be a walk in the park.
If you can remember a world in which iPods and MP3 players didn't exist, then you can understand why a major source of concern for my friends and I was whether the stranger with whom we would be living shared our affinity for Peter Frampton, Journey, and Supertramp.
A worst-case scenario, we imagined, involved being forced to share the cozy confines with someone who had brought along their collection of opera classics or any of that new icky punk rock stuff. I remember adding "headphones" to my wish list and hoping for the best.
When I did finally learn the identity of my first-ever college roommate, I remember being thrilled to learn that she was not only bringing her brand new electric typewriter, but was willing to let me share it if I would supply the carbon paper and Wite-Out.
My son's return snapped me back to the present. "Hey, how about gift cards?"
"From which place?" I asked.
He rattled off the names of his favorite eateries.
Now it was my turn to roll my eyes. "I've got two words for you—meal plan."
Then I wrote, "Your presence is the only gift needed" at the bottom of his invitations.
CHAPTER SIX
Home Is Where the Plates Are
~ Home Sweet Money Pit ~
The description in the paper read, "Cute split-level farm house, professionally decorated and landscaped."
Looking back, I wasn't aware that a degree in creative writing was a prerequisite for a real estate license.
I saw the house and its newly planted For Sale sign jutting out of the snow-covered lawn on my way home from work. The realtor agreed to meet my husband and I that very night to take a look at it.
With her fur coat and rhinestone covered fingers, the listing agent had all the air of a self-promoted local celebrity. When she blithely referred to the property as a "perfect starter house just loaded with charm," I knew we were in the hands of a pro.
After passing through the lime green and yellow-sponged foyer, the first stop was the kitchen. Squinting out of the window over the sink, I gasped. From what I could see of the dimly lit .79 acre lot, the back yard had a deck, a patio, lots of mature trees, and was fenced all around.
What I couldn't see at the time was that, while the professional landscapers may have actually stepped into the yard at one point, they hadn't been back for years. Not even a Christmas card.
Taking one look at the dining room's busy floral wallpaper that sported colors not seen since before Madonna debuted on MTV, I had to ask, "Exactly how many years ago was this house professionally decorated?"
Much to our realtor's chagrin, we turned up the lights in the living room. It appeared as if someone had taken a stencil to the walls, leaving dusty rectangular imprints where previously hung pictures had been.
Still, we needed a house and this one fit the bill and our budget. We plunked down twenty percent, certain that our realtor would make a beeline to the hardware store with her cut to buy more twenty-watt bulbs.
Two weeks after moving in, our boys, both under two at the time, developed bronchitis. At the same time, the furnace choked out its last warm breath.
Inspecting the filter that was covered with a thick compacted layer of dirt, the HVAC repairman said nothing, but handed my husband a card for a duct cleaning company. It was a wonder we all weren't coughing up a lung.
Perfect starter house loaded with dust…
One new furnace later, we had our ducts sucked out and settled in.
Giving the boys a bath in the upstairs tub a short time later, my oldest asked, "Mommy, why is it raining inside?"
I glumly recalled the same inspector who had given the furnace a "thumbs up" joking that he was sure the house had a roof; he just couldn't see it under the foot of snow that covered it.
New roof. Check.
Thank goodness we had that professionally landscaped yard to stand in as we watched the roofer flick off shingles with the dexterity of a Vegas card dealer.
We didn't mind the big expenditures then, thinking we'd surely get some of it back when we moved on.
That was just over seventeen years ago.
Since then, we've replaced the water heater (twice), the air conditioner, the windows, the siding, the garage doors, and the insulation, and have repainted nearly every single square inch of the interior at least three times.
Imagine our delight when, this spring, we noticed the shingles on the south side of our roof beginning to curl at the edges. It has also come to our attention that we can do a better job cooling the house than our A/C unit simply by exhaling after eating popsicles.
It. Never. Ends.
Maybe the time has come to put it up for sale. Rotten real estate market notwithstanding, I think some lucky young couple out there would love to get their hands on a perfect starter home just loaded with charm.
~ My Junk Drawer Runneth Over ~
Raised in a household in which both parents worked, my live-in grandmother cared for my siblings and me. A loving taskmaster, she had us all help with the housework. Early on, I was assigned the arduous task of pulling the blankets on my bed all the way back up to my pillow when I got up each morning. Once I mastered that, I was handed a dishtowel and relegated to the kitchen so I could dry dishes after dinner. Although still height-challenged, I played the "I'm-too-short-to-put-them-away" card on more than one occasion.
Nonetheless, with three adults and five kids crammed into a modest one-bath ranch, clutter was often a point of contention between my parents. My dad did not believe in keeping anything. As soon as newspapers were read, they were banished to the recycling pile from which my mom would ultimately retrieve them, hoping to someday have time to clip articles of interest and the occasional recipe. In the meantime, the stacks of rainy day reads grew like paper-based high-rises in the corner of one closet or another.
Seeing nothing wrong with this, she was once quoted as saying that clutter was the reason God invented closets.
"One man's junk is another man's treasure," was also a favorite saying that she borrowed from her own mother, my Nana.
Whenever we visited Nana, I made a beeline for her kitchen and pulled open the last drawer on the right because I knew that's where she kept all sorts of cool stuff—an old wooden yo-yo, little bottles of bubbles, an old skate key, jacks, card games, and all of the factory rejects my grandfather would bring home from his job at Tootsie, a local candy factory.
I balked when I heard her refer to this in-kitchen treasure chest as a "junk drawer" until she assured me that all of the best homes had them.
In that grand tradition, the first thing I did when we moved into our house was proclaim the handled pullout space between the oven and the pantry door as our official junk drawer. I christened it with a stray cough drop and a used Pink Pearl eraser.
Seventeen years later, it is stuffed with things like empty thread spools (might need them for a school project), used corks (that can double as bobbers and pin cushions), and things like old wall plates, stray screws and tools for pumpkin carving, a plastic clothes pin, and a replacement bulb for a chandelier that is no longer with us.
Not a treasure in sight.
Diving in to search for a much-needed paper clip or safety pin would likely fill an entire afternoon. The time had come to oust the junk. It took me five minutes.<
br />
After pulling out the drawer and dumping the contents into an empty box, I slid it back into place. Sealing the box, I asked my husband to deposit it in the garbage can for me.
Sorry, Mom, but I'm going to have to side with Dad on this one.
~ Conquering Garage Envy ~
Dear Plate Spinner,
I dread this time of year. Every Saturday, all of our neighbors have their garage doors open because they're either doing yard work or having a yard sale.
Their garages are so clean and organized. My garage, on the other hand, is a cluttered mess.
My husband and I both work and our teenagers, between school, lessons, and practice, are always busy. I'd love to be able to actually pull our cars into the garage, but I'm afraid we'll never find the time to declutter.
Will I ever see my driveway again?
Signed,
Bursting in the Burbs
Dear Bursting,
Not to worry. By following these simple steps, you'll have a garage that your neighbors will envy.
1. Tap your in-house work force.
If you have older children, you're in luck. If you have a high school-aged child and they're attending prom, you lead a charmed life indeed. Several weeks back, when my son announced that he was going to ask his girlfriend to the dance, I immediately suggested that he clean out our garage to help offset the high price of the affair. It may be just another high school dance, but it is one at which formal attire is de rigueur and the cost of attending roughly equals that of a down payment on a Chevy Malibu.
2. Buy a shed.
These little one-room units come in a broad range of styles, shapes, and quality. Some are wood. Some are plastic. All of them will afford you a place to put bulky items like lawn mowers, snow blowers, fertilizer spreaders, and the hammock your husband claims he got just for you on Mother's Day ages ago. But, I digress…
The Plate Spinner Chronicles Page 5
