Eric Holen

This morning, I was standing in kitchen and eating breakfast, when Yvette strolled in almost fully dressed and ready for work.  She had her boots, pants and . . . . . nothing.

She was standing there in her bra without a shirt.

I joked that while I liked the look, I wasn’t sure it would be appropriate for work.  Here is how the rest of the conversation went.

Yvette:  There is no rule that requires me to wear a shirt.

Me:  There is a personnel policy about dressing professionally.

Yvette:  So maybe this isn’t professional for my current job.

Then she left me wondering what her next job would be that I could watch her running around in her bra.

If you search carefully through our house, you may come across the secret craft room. This was the room, which up until a couple of years ago, was a spare bedroom. After we sold the furniture, it became Yvette’s “craft” room. A few months later, we picked up two IKEA table tops off Craig’s List, one for Yvette’s computer and another for her crafts.

This wonderful secret craft room has all sorts of items if you had the time and were so inclined to craft something. There are needlepoint projects, with enough thread to stretch from here to somewhere else. You can find some acrylic paints and construction paper. Looking a little deeper, you will find containers of foam shapes and letters, which she has used to decorate gift bags. She also has a Cricut personal cutting machine, which I gave her a Christmas present a couple years ago. She used the machine once to test it, after it sat unopened in the box for almost a year. Finally, she has stickers, lots of them.

So Saturday, we were in Hobby-Lobby buying some items to support a theme at an upcoming work-related conference. During our shopping, some obviously non-work related stickers ended up in the cart.

Yvette mom’s and I tried to convince Yvette not to buy the stickers and that she had enough at home, but it was a losing argument.

So, thinking Yvette had spent A LOT of money supporting a craft room that she doesn’t use, I fired up Quicken to report back on how much she had spent at Hobby-Lobby and Michaels over the past two years. To my disappointment, it totaled just a little over $300 or under $13 a month. I was sure it was going be in the thousands, if not tens of thousands. It just seemed like she bought a lot.

So then I took a look back and found that I spent almost $130 to maintain this blog, which even my mother admits she doesn’t read.

So she can have her craft room, where she doesn’t do crafts, and I can keep my blog, which seems that only you and Yvette read.

By trade, I spend a lot of time evaluating and performing return on investment analysis on proposed systems. Then as those systems get older, I end up performing cost benefit analysis to determine whether it makes sense to retain or replace those same systems.

What happens when we use those same terms on relationships? 

When we begin dating someone, we often perform a return on investment (ROI). How much are we putting into the relationship versus how much we are getting in return? Don’t let your mind wander with that statement.  Dating is about the long term goal, finding that special someone who you hope to spend your life with. Early in the relationship, you often find yourself giving a lot of your time, self and money to support and grow the relationship. That leads to an evaluation on whether your investment in the short-term relationship will provide a return; that is a long-term relationship with someone you love.  If you’re investing in a short term relationship with no long term potential, then your ROI fails. 

However, if your ROI works, then you are joined in marriage or in a civil union. 

Now that you “own” each other, I know it’s a bad term, but I couldn’t think of something better, we perform a cost benefit analysis. Maintaining a marriage takes time and effort.  Don’t let anyone convince you that marriage is 50/50.  If they tell you that, ask them what happens when a spouse can’t contribute their 50%?  A marriage requires 100% from both partners.  That way when one partner falls a little short, the other partner picks up the slack.  Throughout marriage, we evaluate the cost of supporting the marriage versus the benefits we are receiving.  Again, don’t let your mind wander.  Do you support each other? Are you happy?  Do you share similar goals and work towards helping each other fulfill those goals?  Continuing to spend yourself on a relationship without benefits doesn’t make sense. 

But if you married a wonderful person and are getting ready to celebrate 14 happy years of marriage in a couple weeks, then my analysis points to a great investment.

Tonight, I received what did, but should not have come as a shock, my new identification cards listing me as support member, not a firefighter.

I joined the Kyle Volunteer Fire Department in October 2003, less than two months after closing on our new home.  I was voted in with 3 other volunteers, but I am the only one left out of the group.  My first big function was our annual fish fry (second Saturday in October).

At that time, you were given your bunker gear, an orientation in the department, and everything else was learned on the job or at the monthly training meeting.  It wasn’t long before I was jumping on the truck and heading out to calls.  My very first call was a motor vehicle accident (MVA) on I-35.  My first fire was a small unattended camping fire just east of the Spring Branch subdivision.  It was long before the calls and fires got bigger.

Eventually, and as the department grew, I was elected vice-president, then president, and after stepping down following two years of dedicated service, now serve as the treasurer helping to oversee a budget that has grown to a little over $2 million.

However, as the years went on and my paying job took more of my time and effort, I started losing the energy to respond. Then as we started adding more paid staff, it came that I might not be one of the senior firefighters on the scene, but one of the volunteers supporting the paid staff, who were doing a great job.

A couple of times, I tried to rekindle the energy to respond on calls, but after increasingly rough times at work, I found that more and more I needed me time to recharge for the following day.  Thank goodness for those volunteer firefighters who have families and jobs and who still have the energy to respond.

A couple months ago, I officially turned in my radio and gear.  Tonight, I drove to station 1 to do what I enjoy, reviewing our financials and signing checks.  Still it was a shock to see the new ID cards listing me as a support member.

My tag line has been “Systems analyst, project manager, and volunteer firefighter. Happily married to Yvette for 13 years, always trying to be a better person and husband.”; however, I am no longer a volunteer firefighter.

My thanks to all of our support members (like me), our volunteer firefighters and paid staff who serve the Kyle Fire Department every day.

Today, Yvette, her mom and I spent the day hunting down and buying school supplies for one of Yvette’s co-workers. It was interesting for me on two levels. First, last year I spent a day with two young girls getting them school supplies while their mom was away on a trip and their dad was laid up at home due to a cardiac condition. Second, it reminded me of the financial struggles I went through during my first marriage.

Yvette had found out that one of her co-workers, a mother of two, was depressed because she didn’t know how she could afford school supplies for her two children. Yvette took it upon herself that she and I would purchase most of the school supplies for the two children. I didn’t have any augments since we do not have children of our own and after having bought (and reimbursed for) school supplies the previous year, I know how quickly they could add up.

I remember the financial struggles I went through during my first marriage. At that time, our local supermarket would not run your credit card unless you charged more than $25. So my then wife and I would make several passes through the supermarket charging just under the limit to ensure that we had food to feed ourselves and our daughter Megan.

While I have some of the worst buyer’s remorse, I did not have any problems spending money on school supplies. Even Yvette’s mom jumped in and bought some supplies on her limited budget. It was nice to be able to give back and give thanks for what we have been blessed with.