Don't blame it on the avocado

I bought an avocado today.

For the third week in a row, quinoa chickpea salad is on the menu and while it's delicious on its own, I like it even better with the addition of an egg and a bit of hot sauce. Avocado, I figure, will only enhance the taste of the dish further.

So I added it to the shopping list. It cost $1.29 and I didn't hesitate for a second to put it in the cart and carry on with the rest of the shopping.

Tim Gurner probably wouldn't have liked that decision. Actually, Tim Gurner probably wouldn't like most of the decisions I make when it comes to money.

In case you missed it, Mr. Gurner, an Australian millionaire and property mogul, went viral recently with his suggestion that spending money on things like avocados and coffee may be among the reasons why some young people can't afford to buy a house.

Although there have been some who have suggested Mr. Gurner may have a point, a lot of the feedback was...well, exactly what you would expect from the Internet.

I shared that tweet because it made laugh when I read it. It still does - but it also ticks me off, particularly when I consider he's not the only one who thinks this way.

I don't want to turn this into a whiney post about how misunderstood the millennial generation is but I do think it's important to consider a few points Mr. Gurner's comments fail to reflect - and as a 27-year-old who has a well-paying job, significant savings (short term and retirement) and STILL is not in a position to buy a house, I feel I am qualified to raise those points. 

1.  Started from the bottom...and we're still here

As of 2015, borrowers owed $19 billion to the Canada Student Loans Program. And as this report from Global notes, the number of young Canadians declaring bankruptcy is on the rise. 

Gone are the days when you could make enough money during the summer to cover your tuition at university for the year. When once your started your adult life at the bottom financially, I'd suggest many find themselves starting below that today. 

That's challenging enough on its own, without adding in the whole struggle of finding a job that will pay you enough to meet all your financial obligations.  The whole "need experience to get the job, need the job to get experience" thing is a very real phenomenon that needs to be addressed. 

Every generation faces economic challenges but that does not mean it's OK to discount the existing situation with massive levels of student debt as business as usual. It's not. 

2. It's not irresponsible to want to enjoy your life

I really dislike the idea that there is something wrong with spending the money you make through work on things that aren't "necessities." 

Yes, it is important to be fiscally responsible. You should pay your bills on time and you should save for the future. 

But I don't feel bad about spending $6 on a drink at Starbucks or dropping cash to travel to Ontario to see a concert with my best friend. I don't feel bad about these things because I know I was made to do more than pay bills and die. 

We all are. 

3. Owning a house isn't everyone's dream 

Suggesting the reason millennials aren't into the property buying game has something to do with the cost associated with it discounts the idea that there are some who aren't buying property because they simply don't want to.  And that's OK. 

There isn't anything wrong with renting.  Some would argue it's throwing your money away, but that depends on what you value. Not being able to paint your bedroom walls or upgrade the bathroom may not matter as much as the flexibility of a one-year lease with minimal maintenance responsibilities. 

I don't want to rent forever. I want to own a house with room for kids and a yard and all that good stuff.

But I'm OK with waiting for it.  With planning for it and saving for it. We are good at these things - and the avocado in our fridge won't be a huge set back in one day achieving our goal.

#nofilter : the warrior in the field (no.1)

At the end of 2016, I made one of those 101 things to do in 1,001 days lists. I don't usually make goal lists this long - I like to keep them short, both in terms of items and timeline - but this felt right so I went with it.

Some of the items on this list are very specific, like finish (er...start) my basic emergency management course and pay off outstanding credit cards, while others are much more general.

Like number 9, which is to learn how to take better photos with my new camera.

A little backstory: in high school, I was that person in my group of friends who was always taking photos. I always had a camera with me - at school, at dances, at random adventures. This came in handy during my Grade 11 year - most of my best friends graduated and, as a gift, I put together scrapbooks for them filled with photos of our high school adventures.

These photos were not amazing by any stretch of the imagination - shot on cheap cameras by a shooter with very little skill - and even though I cringe looking back at some of them now (like the ones where I have black hair. I'm not sure why 16-year-old me thought that was a good look...) I'm really happy I have them.

My obsession with documenting everything waned after high school. I still took a lot of pictures while on vacation or at concerts, but for the most part, the only shooting I did was for my journalism classes (and even that was limited). By the time I started working at the paper, the camera I bought in 2009 reached the end of its useful life, and I transitioned to using my phone as my primary camera until last summer.

A couple things changed in the lead up to purchasing my first DSLR. First, the paper I worked for - in a move that still baffles to me to this day -  laid off all the photographers and shifted that work to reporters. We were all given smartphones and told that would be sufficient for the photo needs at the paper. Needless to say it did not take long to realize that was not true, so a few of us started to learn how to use the gear that had essentially been left to collect dust in the photo room.

This was my introduction to DSLR. At first, I used two lens and shot exclusively in automatic. By the end of my time at the paper, I started to experiment more with manual settings and while I think my photos improved over time, I was (and am) so keenly aware of the fact that I am not nearly as skilled as my many photographer friends.

The second thing that happened was my trip to Kenya. This trip was, in so many ways, a dream come true for me and after praying and saving and fundraising for more than a year, it was important to me to have a way to document the trip.

So, after months of research, we went to Costco and I bought my first DSLR.

(I also bought this lens. I got an incredible deal on it at BestBuy - I love it SO much.)

Almost a year later, I still love this camera - and I am still learning how to use it. I don't have as many opportunities to practice at work as I used to, so including it on the list felt like an appropriate way to encourage practice while also finding a balance between experiencing life as it happens instead of through a viewfinder.

All that preamble to say, as I learn, I wanted to share some of my favourite shots in a way that allows for a little more reflection that a Facebook album.

It feels appropriate to start with a shot from my first experience shooting in manual.

This is Philip, our Maasai guide. This was taken in the field by the school on the day we did our warrior training. 

I almost deleted this shot because it looked so dark in the viewfinder. I remember struggling to take photos I was happy with this day - it was really sunny outside and the field was open, meaning there wasn't much in terms of shade. Kind of like shooting into a window - I didn't do TV beyond my second year but I took enough to know that is a no-no.  

I kept this photo because I liked the composition. It's not quite rule-of-thirds compliant, but I like the sky and the clouds and the way the breeze is lifting the left corner of the shuka. Beyond the composition, looking at this picture brings me right back to sitting in that field, listening to Philip explain and demonstrate how to shoot an arrow and throw a conga.  

I hope I get to go back some day.

(Don't mind me here, starting another little blog series of sorts. Am having something of a blog identity crisis, minus the dramatics. Truth be told, the more I think about it, the more I don't want to settle into a niche. So, as a result, you get...a random assortment of topics. I hope you'll still stick around). 

My only tip for remembering your wedding day promises

I thought writing wedding vows would be easy.

That makes sense, right? I am a writer by trade. I have spent thousands of hours putting pen to paper, writing everything from research papers and essays, to news articles, to fiction. Outside occasional writers block, I don't find writing to be a struggle. Yes, the process can be ugly sometimes, and yes, sometimes I get frustrated trying to find the right words, but it's always been the thing I come back to over and over again and there are few things I find more satisfying than telling a great story.

But sitting in the living room with a blank Google Doc staring back at me, I didn't know where to begin.

It wasn't so much not knowing what to say, though.

I look relaxed. Trust me, I was not. 

Photo: James West Photography

I had mixed feelings about writing personal vows at first. Contrary to popular belief, I am not an extrovert. I would not say I am shy but I don't enjoy being the centre of attention - which is an inevitable thing on your wedding day, it turns out.

Don't get me wrong - I was excited to marry Jeff and I was excited to celebrate with our friends and family. We had a beautiful day and I could not be happier with how everything went. But those who know me well know it was never about the wedding for me. It was - and remains - always about the marriage.

The combination of those two things made the prospect of penning vows overwhelming to me at first. I wasn't sure which part made me feel more anxious: the idea of standing in front of a big group of people and sharing aloud some very personal thoughts, or coming up with something to say that accurately reflected my thoughts on marriage.

So I did what I always do when tackling a difficult writing project. I wrote two sentences, paused to re-read them, then deleted them and started again.

And again. And again.

I was probably making a stupid face at him at this point.

Photo: James West Photography

Clearly, it was a super productive and not-at-all frustrating time.

Truth be told, I would probably still be writing my vows eight months later had it not been for our pre-marital counselling sessions. Along with our sit-down sessions with the pastor, Jeff and I read Timothy Keller's The Meaning of Marriage in the lead up to our wedding. Keller's passage on vows was so significant both Jeff and I incorporated it into our vows.

Wedding vows are not a declaration of present love, but a mutually binding promise of future love. A wedding should not be primarily a celebration of how loving you feel now - that can be safely assumed. Rather, in a wedding you stand up before God, your family, and all the main institutions of society, and you promise to be loving, faithful, and true to the other person in the future, regardless of undulating internal feelings or external circumstances.

Thinking about vows from that perspective changed my entire approach to writing. It helped me think beyond the day and, as a result, draw my focus back to determining what realistic promises I could make that day.

In the end, I came up with this: to keep choosing to love Jeff - when I want to, when it's hard and especially when I don't want to and to always commit to our marriage in a deliberate and intentional way.

I'm not naive enough to think either of those promises will always be easy to keep - and that's why it was important to me to find a way to keep those promises in fresh in my mind.

That brings me to my only tip for remembering your wedding day promises:

Keep them in a place where you can review them regularly. 

It's not an entirely original tip. The summer before we got married, I went to a LOT of weddings. At one of these weddings, the pastor suggested doing this for when you need a reminder of why you're doing the marriage thing to begin with.

Not if you need a reminder. When. Love might not be inevitable, but times of conflict in marriage? You can count on that.

The means of display will look different for everyone. In our case, after returning from our honeymoon, we purchased two plain black photo frames, stuck those two folded sheets of paper inside and nailed them to the wall above our bedside tables. Much like my wedding band, it is a reminder of the promises we made to one another at the front of that little wooden chapel in Upper Gagetown that October afternoon.

I am not a perfect wife and Jeff is not a perfect husband. What we are is committed to our marriage - to being loving, being faithful and being true to one another, for better or for worse.

Photo: James West Photography