Monthly Archives: March 2017

Crown Optional, Part 1

A couple of people have asked about the title of my blog, Crown Optional.  I mention the origin of it on my Home page, but it goes deeper than that.

Obviously, my name is Heinis.  Like Your Highness, in case you didn’t read my home page and/or don’t know me IRL.  So there’s this royalty kind of theme going already.  (But my spouse is the youngest of seven kids, so even if we WERE royalty, a lot of people would have to die before we’d be given actual crowns.  Just sayin’.) Funny story about my spouse’s name, actually.  I’m diverging.

I knew Patrick for a few years before we started dating.  A period during which he was just my friend’s boyfriend’s friend.  He was just kind of around. This party, that party.  A group outing to a hockey game. He finally grabbed my rapt attention when we were both in a wedding together (that tends to happen to friends of friends).  I saw his full name for the first time in the program.  I began fantasizing about him.   Yes, like that, but I was a single woman with goals, so also in the whatifwegotmarried kind of way.  Yes, before our first date even.  I was right, wasn’t I? Hush.  As I was saying, I had only ever seen his name in print.  Heinis.  Looks like Heineken.  Promising.  But, dear God, what if it’s heinous!? I was a teacher then, remember.  I’d be unable to take his name if that’s how it was pronounced.  I would not be Mrs. Heinous.

I figured it was rude to come out and ask someone if their name was a grievous insult.  So, we dated.  We dated, and I waited.  Eventually, he or someone else would say it aloud.  I began imagining myself as someone who just wouldn’t take their spouse’s name.  And that’s fine.  Lots of people do it.  I’m a big fan.  (Two of my nephews got married last year, and I was super thrilled when neither of their brides changed their names; both of them have names so lovely they could be stage names.  Seriously, I couldn’t have chosen more beautiful names if I were trying to. Gorgeous. They also reflect their personalities.  Rare. They also both happen to be lawyers, so maybe they didn’t want to give up their professional identities.  I could just ask them. This parentheses has gotten out of hand.) Sometimes, I wonder why on earth some people give up such cool names for something run-of-the-mill like Smith or Olson (digs at my closest friends with said last names).  I could think of a TON of names I wouldn’t change for, especially because my maiden name was pretty solid.  But I always figured I would change my name.  And for Heinis (Highness)? You bet your ass I would.  So, I was reaaaalllllly hoping it wouldn’t be Heinous.

One night after a great date at Chili’s (yes, with the right person, you can have a great date at Chili’s), we were driving home and his phone rang.  He apologized, but had to answer it.  And thank you Sweet Jesus, he answered it like this, “This is Patrick Heinis.” I let out a sigh of relief large enough for him to notice.  When he got off the phone, I had to fess up. We had a good laugh, proving, as he always did, why he was a definite keeper. The rest, as they say, is history.

Except that I just gave your three paragraphs NOT about what Crown Optional means.  I’m going to click Publish anyway and make you come back tomorrow for that story.  Peace.

It’s just a house

When we moved nearly five years ago, we said, “UGH.  We’re never moving AGAIN.”  At least until the kids are off to college.  When we moved from the city to the suburbs in complete stereotypical fashion, we encountered all the problems one encounters when one moves.  Our house sold before we had one to move into.  We had to move in with a generous friend.  For more than just a few weeks.  Our first house fell through.  We had to search again. When we found this house, the appraisal came in low. All the things.  It was hard, to say the least.  Our realtor and family were kind and accommodating, but shit.  We were never doing that again.  Unless, I always modified, something happened.

That something in my head was always my spouse losing his job.  I don’t know why I went to this tragic place, for he is smart, kind, and unmatched in his integrity. Nevertheless, I always modified.  It never occurred to me the modification would come true, yet in a different form.

As the stay-at-home-parent, I feel like my spouse bought me this house.  It’s tragically old-fashioned, but I not only talked him into it, I also had zero income of my own at the time.  It was everything I thought I wanted.  Our home in the suburbs is large, with many bedrooms, almost an acre, and an attached garage.  (Does a more wonderful perk exist in these northern winters?) There is a pond.  Not a koi pond, artificial and round, but an actual large pond with ducks, geese, frogs, and skating in the winter.  It’s idyllic, really.

This week, my “dream home” will go on the market.

Because something happened.  My perfect spouse did not lose his job, as I feared. My mom died.  And she had a perfectly lovely mortgage-free house in my home town.  Having recently completed Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University, we were looking forward to the day when we wouldn’t have a mortgage.  And now, bittersweet though it is, we have that opportunity.

We had always talked about moving home (mine, not his, though he lived there for nine years as he earned two degrees from the local university), but it didn’t seem realistic.  The niche market in which he works didn’t make it easy to imagine a future outside of the Twin Cities Metro.  But it’s happening.

Our kids will go to the same schools I attended as a girl.  The same public pool only a few blocks away.  Most of my family is still there and many of my friends.  It’s exciting and scary and beautiful and so, so very sad.  My mom died, and I’m going to go live in her house.

We are downsizing, 3,200 square feet down to 1,400.  Our 1998 modern home exchanged for an 1898 fixer-upper.  Fix it up we will, too, with a new kitchen, bath, mudroom, windows, siding.  Soup to nuts. We have a contractor we trust, and my spouse is as handy as he is cute. We will make another home together, our third in twelve years.  As someone who never moved as a kid, it is strange to me that our oldest is about to live in her third home.  My spouse never moved either; his mom still lives in his childhood home and has lived there now for almost 60 years. My mom topped out at 46 years in her home.  I have to keep telling myself, “It’s just a house.”

I cry every time I’m in the neighborhood of our old house.  I’m sure I’ll do the same with this one.  Because there are SUCH good memories.  But you know where else there are good memories? Every place in the world.  And with fewer bills to pay, we can travel more as a family.  We can have experiences instead of things.  That’s the real dream.

7 Ways to Find Focus While Working from Home

7 Ways to Find Focus While Working from Home

Please provide them in the comments section.  This is not a list.  This is a plea for help.

I’ve been an at-home parent for more than six years now, but I’ve only been a WORKING-at-home parent for two. Obviously I worked before, but on kid and house and dog and volunteer stuff.  When my obligation is to someone else, easy-peasy.  But as I had to find ways to parcel out my time to make room for business work, it got super hard.

I’ve found my way.  I’m not a total failure.  But I find myself making excuses way too often.  And I hate excuses.  I used to be a high school teacher.  I’ve heard alllllllllllllll the excuses.  I met my sister this morning, and I was nearly twenty minutes late.  Last week, I was fifteen.  The week before, ten maybe? But this morning I said, out loud, “I totally have a good excuse this time: my alarm didn’t go off.”  Which is true, but only because I use my cell phone as an alarm and it had gone dead.  Whose fault is that? Not plugging in her cell phone? Mine, you say? Interesting.

My alarm didn’t go off.  Absolutely juvenile.  It’s embarrassing.  Which is precisely why I’m writing about it: I need your help.  I can get time here and there, but each time I attempt an actual schedule, sticking to it is near impossible.  This needs to be done.  That takes priority.  Facebook beckons.  The three-year-old wants attention.  Kids.  Actually, that’s a list I CAN provide.

7 Ways to Distract Your 3yo So He’ll Let You Do Some MFing Work

  1. Paw Patrol. Obv.
  2. Play-Doh. Worth the clean-up time.
  3. Bouncy house. You think I jest, but ours is in the basement.
  4. A box. Tape it shut.  Just kidding! A box and masking tape.  Let him go nuts.  Worth the cost of tape, trust me.
  5. Cotton balls. As long as he doesn’t eat them, endless fun.
  6. Tell him you’ve hidden coins all over the house. Hide only one or two, so he thinks there’s hope.
  7. Actually spend some quality time with him.

Honestly, the last one works the best.  I frequently set the oven timer.  “Twenty minutes of play time, then twenty minutes [read: 40] of work time.”

Seriously. How cute are they? How’d I get so lucky?

But I don’t even blame the kiddos.  They are the REASON I work, not the excuse why I can’t.  In fact, my least productive times are when they aren’t around.  Because there’s SO much else I can be doing.  A list of household tasks more easily accomplished when kids aren’t around: all of them.

Other WAHPs, how DO you do it? Share your wisdom.