Practical Applications

Life With Two Kids

2012-01-24T22:12:00.000-07:00

We have survived six weeks so far. How are we doing? I went to IKEA a couple of weeks ago, with my mom and the two little guys. I had H in a sling and A in the cart with my mom. I get in the elevator and this lady gets in and she has a baby carseat with the whole carseat cover on it. She asks how old A is; I answered, "21 months." She looked at me and the baby and then back at A. She said, "You are much braver than me; my oldest is 3 years old." I smiled and nodded and thought to myself, "Welcome to my new reality".

This is it, folks. This is my life. Would I change it? I am not sure, but it is too late now. As my MIL would say, "This is just how it is". No need to regret it or any wishful thinking. Just a "forward momentum" kind of attitude. Some days I don't think I deal with it, usually when the sleep deprivation gets too much or the postpartum hormones get too out of whack. Some days it's like "Wow, that went really well." Most of the time I get through the day somewhat intact with two children somewhat intact as well. I try not to think about it too hard and just take it as it comes. It can be overwhelming otherwise. There are moments like yesterday when I managed to get both children to the children's museum downtown and back. Other than a lost baby booty, I think it went over really well.

On days when the baby sleeps better everything else goes much better. A is happier and watches less TV, and more housework and dinner get done. Six weeks is supposed to be some kind of magic turning point for colic so I hope things can only get better. I prefer colic to high needs because colic ends, high needs babies do not. I am looking for the end in sight and my sleep to come back. Besides, I have lots of craft projects waiting somewhat impatiently to be done, and that won't happen until I get my sleep back.

Fad Diets

2012-01-22T20:59:00.000-07:00

Lately it seems like everyone is starting a new diet. In fact, there seem to be a lot of fad diets around lately. I am not sure why. It seems like all the "real food," "whole food" crowd has gone wild for gluten-free. Then there is the paleo diet. The gaps diet. Oh, and the time-honored vegan diet (not just vegetarian, which I can see to a point, but flat out vegan!), which rolls around every couple of years. I like to eat healthy like any other good old-fashioned 50s housewife, but all of this fad diet stuff is just making me want to have some Twinkies and Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. (Okay, I don't actually like that stuff, but I am making a point). If I have to see yet another blogger post a recipe using Quinoa, I am going to die.

So this is a sad commentary, but I use formula for my baby. So sue me - I have medical issues. We were discussing formula choices with the pediatrician and he said, "Don't use a soy-based formula." This made me laugh. You can't buy milk-based formula these days that doesn't contain a decent amount of soy.

I used to buy as much organic as possible; now I don't because I look at the ingredient list and one of the first things listed is soy. Soy has only been used in small amounts in certain traditional recipes that are mainly found in Asian cultures. Humans have never eaten soy in the forms and amounts that we do now, not even 10-20 years ago.

Does this mean I think soy is evil? I don't know, but you have to wonder - why does everyone seem to get fatter? I think our constant tinkering with our food supply generally (not just soy) has a lot to do with obesity. I wish I had time to cook all of our meals from scratch without using any soy or corn. (Don't get me started about corn syrup.) This, however, is not something I am not able to do right now in my life, as much as I love cooking.

So let me know when bran muffins are back in vogue, right along with bell bottoms and stirrup pants.

Saving MY Sanity

2012-01-12T14:31:00.000-07:00

Super stressed out over here these days. Baby H is edging towards being colicky, at least I like to think he isn't quite there yet. I am sleep deprived and frustrated because I can barely get anything done now that I feel better. I also have a 21 month old bouncing off the walls. I hear that the crying/fussyness starts to get better after six weeks so here's hoping. A was such a good baby, he hardly ever cried and when he did all you had to do was give him a pacifier and he was fine. This kid is not big on the pacifier and tends to get more grumpy when he doesn't sleep well and the worse he sleeps the more grumpy he gets. One of the few things that calms him down is being held, mainly by me sometimes by Mr. Bob. Although Mr. Bob has been having pretty good success since we watched the "Happiest Baby On the Block" DVD. Oh did I mention we now have the 1-4 in the afternoon time slot in church this year? A is going to be a mess, and I am already a mess because I am so sleep deprived. I am going to do some serious cry it out with this little guy once he reaches 6-8 weeks. I need him to sleep through the night ASAP.

A is pretty cute with the baby, he will often bring his bottle or pacifier or blanket over to the baby when he is crying. Although he likes to poke his brothers eyes out or push his nose to make a sound (except he makes the sound for him). We are trying to teach him to gently rub his head. There are also times when he tries to pick him up? At least that is what I think he is doing. My biggest fear is that he is bothered by the crying, although Mr. Bob assures me that he is fine.

So not to gripe or complain too much, what inspired me to do this post was this blog post that I read today. I really needed that and I hope the author realizes what a wonderful thing she has done for me today. Thank you.

Filed under "Our kids are so stinking cute"

2012-01-05T21:46:00.000-07:00

Slacker Chic with a New Baby

2011-12-31T17:47:00.000-07:00

Yes, you read the title right. I am now going to give a rundown of how to be slacker chic with a new baby.

1. Buy pre-packaged meals. I know some women are thrifty and have energy that they can make frozen meals to pop in the oven after the baby is born. I am not one of them. Sure I like to eat healthy most of the time but sometimes you just have to throw nutrition out of the window when you have a time crunch and other people to feed.

2. Get help. This may be easier for some than others, but if you have people you can lean on then do.

3. Do not let your dishwasher get broken. Okay this is more of a complaint since we moved in expecting a working dishwasher and find it broken, and the landlord says he can't get a new one until sometime in January. Errr. Moving on.

4. Try really really hard to get your kids to nap at the same time, so you can nap at the same time. This is where the handy dandy routine you worked so hard to create in your toddler comes in. Good luck with the newborn.

5. Do not under any circumstances expect to get any holiday stuff done. Let everyone else know that as well.

6. Do not expect that you will get that nifty baby blanket crocheted in time for the baby. Also for that matter you may as well table all your craft projects after the baby is born until you get your sleep back.

7. Expect that you will get the baby blues.

If there is anything else you can think of let me know!

Our baby is here in time for Christmas

2011-12-20T22:35:00.002-07:00

Baby H was born last week. He weighed 8 lbs and 2 ounces, he is 22 inches long according to his pediatrician. He is very handsome like his brother even though I don't think they look very much alike :) We are resting and recuperating as best we can. My wonderful MIL came to stay last week after I left the hospital and her support and care made the transition over to being a mom to two boys makes me want to cry it was wonderful.

Anyhow I have been watching way too many Korean dramas lately. A is really unsure what to make of things. First mommy is sick and then we move to a new house and now this baby brother person. He likes to go up to his brother and wrestle him or something.

Mr. Bob is working full time now but since he is so close I have so much less to worry about. I even went to walmart a few times recently since the baby has been born and it felt so good to get out of the house and take care of things. I have even been getting dishes washed and stuff picked up and am hoping to slowly finishing organizing the house.

We will be spending Christmas with our families who live in the same city we used to live. I am glad about that and sad. Glad to be celebrating with our families and sad that we won't be able to get started on our own traditions this year. Having a baby this time of year has made all our traditions fall to the wayside.

We are also experiencing the extreme sleep deprivation that only a newborn can bring. I can't wait until they get to the crawling stage since by then they are sleeping through the night and generally have their naps down solidly. I also can't wait until spring when I will be able to take the kids out for daily walks.

I have had a chance to reflect on how lucky I truly am to be here with a husband who has a good job and two wonderful children, especially since I thought that we might not be blessed with any. Also that they are so healthy. As much as we have been through since being married and even my whole life I am really blessed in this time of my life. Even though I face new challenges. Anyhow the physical relief I feel since having my little boy is just amazing and I wish I had time to do even more projects around the house, but that will hopefully come in time I just need to be patient.

Chinese Food

2011-12-11T14:30:00.000-07:00

This is something that I don't want to forget. A likes chinese food. At least every time we have gotten it in the last several months he always eats it. We ordinarily have been getting it from Panda Express because we are either too cheap or too lazy to go somewhere good. We went out to eat on Friday to celebrate some good news for Mr. Bob at work. Alas no Panda Express where we live now, did we mention it is a small town/satellite community? So we went to the local chinese place. A was so excited and ate everything we gave him. The next day we had the leftovers for lunch. As soon as he saw the leftovers he reached out his hand to try and eat the food off the plates before we could give him any. So I got to thinking how I should make chinese food at home more often because apparently he is a big fan. I pull out the one chinese cookbook that I own and start perusing it. At one point I set it on the floor so we could watch "Road to Bali" that Mr. Bob had turned on. The next thing I know A is making eating noises and is pretending to pick up the food from the picture on the chinese cookbook and eating it, and then he started picking up imaginary food from the cookbook and shoving it into my mouth to eat. This is hilarious to us that he would at the age of 20 months be able to imagine that the food on the cover of the cookbook was something to pretend to eat and to feed it to us.

I remember as a kid that we always went to eat at the same chinese restaurant with my paternal Grandfather. We also ordered the same thing every time. The family meal with fried shrimp, egg drop soup, chicken chow main and sweet and sour pork. I also ate at my next door neighbor's house as a kid all types of chinese since they were immigrants from Hong Kong. We would have as a snack a bowl of rice and crack a raw egg into it. I also got my beloved egg roll recipe from the mom as well. I make it New Year's as part of our family tradition, along with won tons. I think I will be adding more chinese cooking to my meals in the future, because at this point if I can get A to eat something that seems to be half the battle.

We have moved!

2011-11-27T21:51:00.000-07:00

So we have officially been in our new city for a week and a day. Because of the thanksgiving holiday Mr. Bob was off quite a bit so he has been able to help get things situated. Not to mention my mom and sister and brother have helped me put a lot of the kitchen away but also helped with Baby H's bedroom. We are still sorting through boxes and trying to decide where to put things. We know that we purposely picked a smaller townhouse than our house but there are some definitive advantages to the new layout and of course some disadvantages. One advantage being three bedrooms on the same floor along with the washer and dryer and a master bathroom. Another advantage is a two car garage with a lot of storage space built one. The biggest downfall is the much small living room and dining room however.

We went to sacrament today to see if we could meet members of the bishopric but we couldn't figure out who they were since the only comfortable place for me to sit was in the lobby. Only one person said hi, I thought we stuck out like sore thumbs especially since the ward didn't seem all that big so I am thinking they aren't very friendly or maybe they have a very high turnover in the townhouses. Mr. Bob is going to sign up for tithing settlement next week and we will go from there. We want to get involved as quickly as possible since it is part of our nature to be a part of our wards quite actively from the get go. This will be our first new ward since we got married five years ago and it is a little nerve wracking to be starting all over especially since we don't know how long we will be here. One quirky little thing that made me realize we don't live in the valley anymore is a talk a young man gave quite earnestly about that they are grateful for BYU football. I understand we live in happy valley (affectionately know as purgatory) but wow is there no room for diversity down here? I guess I got used to the pseudo tolerance shown in the Salt Lake Valley where there is people who have been to schools all over. The whole talk was quite offensive, but luckily for them it isn't going to insult me into not going to church, because the whole thing was quite childish.

Our boxes are everyone and we are trying to make dents in putting stuff away. It doesn't help that the dishwasher appears to be broken and so we are stuck washing all our dishes by hand. I guess we will be talking to the landlord about it Monday. When we first got here I kept having dreams that I was going into labor and these were freaking me out because I am so not ready for it. Right now I am torn between wanting it to happen soon and wanting it to happen closer to the due date so I have some more time to prepare this house. I also know that physically I should start feeling much better a week or two after the baby is born and this could make it easier for me to get the house in shape. Although I don't know how I will handle having two children at the same time, I suppose it will work out in the end. I want A to have a mommy who has more energy to play with him. But then he will have a little brother who he will have to share attention with as well.

Also all our christmas plans are up in the air depending on when the baby gets here. At least the shopping is done and the presents just need to be wrapped and the tree put up. If I can get the living room in good enough shape to put up a tree.

Anyhow I hope you had a good thanksgiving, Mr. Bob's sister did a great job and we didn't have to worry about a thing besides showing up and helping with last minute things and eating. Now if I can just having nightly contractions I will be fine.

Post 2011 Halloween Post

2011-11-17T20:32:00.000-07:00

I know we are well into November and Thanksgiving is next week. Tomorrow we finish packing and are moving to our new town on Saturday. I am 35 weeks pregnant dilated almost to a 2 and am 70% effaced and am hoping that this baby will wait until they are 37 weeks gestation before being born so we don't have to deal with the NICU and the inevitable bills from that. So we are trying to hurry up and move and hope that this doesn't trigger labor, and this little boy cooks a few more weeks yet. A and I spend an enourmous amount of time watching musicals, eebee baby videos and korean drama. He is lucky if I change him everyday and feed him when Mark is gone to work. The last month of this pregnancy has been very very hard on me, however the baby seems to be doing really well in any case.

I am uploading some pictures from Halloween finally for interest and because we like that sort of thing. Enjoy.

A Season In Life

2011-10-27T20:52:00.001-06:00

I have had this post in my head for several days now; I guess I am finally getting it written down. I visit taught my current Relief Society President for four years and for most of that time she has been president. One thing that sticks out in my mind is that she reminded me how this is "just a season in life". This pregnancy will not last forever. In fact, the baby should be here in about 8 weeks, 6 weeks if they come early like A did. Right now I am trying to hold onto the fact that having kids is a season in life and one that I will eventually get through. Pregnancy is not fun and this one has been a huge trial. Next I will be going through the newborn phase again, but I look at A and is he so big and talkative and mobile and the baby stage is also just a season in life. Although I am not savoring being pregnant in the least, it helps to remind myself that it will be over. So if you've seen me lately, yes, I am miserable but just trying to get through the days as best I can.

We are still collecting boxes and are still looking into rental properties. I think that we are still going to try to move before the baby gets here - which is huge and scary, but I am starting to be less nervous about moving and trying to be more excited. I am having to rethink the logistics of everything, but I know that our family will do better once Mr. Bob no longer has a long commute and can work more hours and be more available to his job.

I wish I had more to give others at this time, but find myself instead being the recipient of so much service - especially from others in my ward - and I am truly touched. I remember giving a lesson on service some months ago, but never dreamed that I would be the one to receive. It is humbling and yet I feel so grateful. I am really going to miss the ward we have here.

My last wish is to get somewhat organized for Christmas. It is still a possibility that I could be in the hospital on Christmas and so it is a good thing A is too little to really understand when or what Christmas is. There will be time in future years to build up family traditions, but those things don't need to happen overnight. Sometimes the best ones are the accidental ones, and sometimes we stress out too much. Seriously, revisit my slacker chic Christmas post if needed. We put way too much pressure on ourselves. I tried to go to the store Tuesday night to get Mr. Bob a Christmas present and was in so much pain that I begged my mom to pick it up for me so I didn't have to go to another store. It will be okay! So maybe the fudge won't get made this year or the Christmas Cards sent out; big deal, we will cope. We have a lifetime ahead of us to make memories in.

I hope that all of you have an enjoyable weekend, Halloween is one of my favorites and this is A's first year doing any kind of trick or treating. I will try to post a few pics next week.

Major Life Changing Events

2011-10-13T21:52:00.000-06:00

So I have been feeling this blog needed an update post since it has been awhile and if you know us IRL, you probably already know some of what I am about to say. Baby boy is due in December and we have theoretically ten weeks to go. Pregnancy has been one series of misery or another and I can't wait until it is all over and we get to meet this new family member. I have high hopes that him and his older brother will be good buddies for the rest of their lives, although it will probably be a rocky start. I am crocheting baby his very own afghan since he pretty much gets 90% of his brother's hand me downs. I am hugging A very close every day but he is turning into quite the toddler before my very eyes. He is so social and loves to play with his cousins and go to nursery, so much so that when it is time to leave he cries. He has a pretty good vocabulary and is picking up new words constantly. He had his 18 month checkup and is hitting all his milestones beautifully. He is average for height but fourth percentile for weight, at this point we are assuming genetics so no worries. It has been fun to have Mr. Bob's sister and family around and I am enjoying seeing them tremendously. M is definitely someone to look up to in my book, she does a great job with her own kids and they are delightful and love to see A.

Moving on in our life we are going to be implementing some huge changes in the next few months and I am not talking about adding a baby to the family. Mr. Bob has gotten a new job in a town 1.5 hours south of here and part of the condition is that we will move there by January. We are considering several possibilities for leaving our house and moving down there soon, and even better before the weather gets bad. We have decided to rent a house for a few years until we want to put down permanent roots. The reason for a house is that I got quite spoiled by being in this house for the last seven years and especially this last summer when I was so miserable from being pregnant it was nice to just be able to take A out into the backyard to get some sunshine and let him run around without me needing to chase after him or take him for walkies or to a park or anything. Also my apple trees turned out good fruit this year for the first time ever. I am sad that so many of my projects for this home will not come to fruition. We had just decided that we were ready to stay in this for at least ten more years if not longer. At this point we don't know how we will leave it, we are discussing various options with an experienced attorney and have not conclusively made a decision yet.

Moving so far away from our family means that we will no longer be able to rely on them for support on a nearly daily basis and we will have to create new support systems. After being in our ward for five years and finally getting that base that will also be a hard thing to lose. I am sad but trying to get past that and just move on and do my best with our new situation which long term will hopefully be better for us. Also it is not like we are moving across the country :)

I will try to update progress on our move and the progress we are making on finding a new place to live. One of my requirements is that it has a fenced in backyard so I can continue my tradition with A of playing in the backyard in the summer. I need that little oasis of sanity in the summer. We hope all are finding their way in this difficult economic times and we are truly grateful to have jobs at this time. We hear of so many neighbors who are losing their jobs and struggling and wish we could help them. Also those who have jobs are struggling as well. We are trying to do what is best for our little family and that is requiring us to make some hard choices in the near future. On a positive note next weekend is our anniversary and we are glad to have made it five years and I love my husband so much and want to make him happy and happy at home with his family. I wouldn't change any of this for the world no matter how much difficulty we have been through in our marriage and he is a good man.

Weekend Bedrest

2011-09-09T22:02:00.000-06:00

So this has been a very stressful week. I started out Monday canning lots of peaches with my mom. When then went on our first date in forever to see SIL's play. This was an hour away and started at 8 pm. By the time we got home it was almost midnight. Then A decided to choose that morning to get up at 5:40 am. Not fun. We were really tired but needed to get things done so Mr. Bob could start commuting to his new job on wednesday which is 1.5 hours away in each direction. We managed to get one car's oil changed and check the brake pads and all is well except it might need a new battery soon. The other car we couldn't even change the oil because the bolt was tightened too much. We are taking it to a mechanic next Tuesday. Mr. Bob started his new job on Wednesday and I spent the morning getting things ready for yet another marathon session of canning that evening. I was so tired I was unable to get any of my job done either. Thursday morning Mr. Bob had to go to court and so I took A to the 2 and under book time at the library. I felt a lot of pressure on the way back so took it easy that afternoon instead of doing any work. Later that afternoon I have a panic attack about work so take some medication to help deal with it. Then I start having contraction. They kept getting stronger and stronger until I felt like I should go to the hospital. On the way there they stop so we turn around and go home so that Mr. Bob could get some rest before he had to go to work at his new job. Luckily my sister said she would watch A in the morning and I was able to get some answers about work. I spent the afternoon resting and got a hold of my nurse who has advised bed rest for the weekend and a follow up appointment on Tuesday with my doctor. Whenever I get up and move around I feel a lot of pressure and am worry that I am going to trigger the contractions again. So I am taking it easy and looking forward to seeing my doctor on Tuesday. I hope this isn't a permanent thing because I don't know how I can take care of a 17 month old and get bed rest.

Things I don't want to forget

2011-08-14T21:58:00.000-06:00

It has been a rough summer with my being pregnant and starting a new part time job from home. If I am not sick, I am working or else A is sick or Mr. Bob is sick. We have also had a large amount of family from out of town in the last couple of weeks, and I have been determined to get A out to have some fun this summer because I don't know what it will be like next summer when H is born.

In other news we found out H is a boy and we are really excited about that. Our biggest regret is that we had an awesome girls name picked out that we won't get to use. This pregnancy has hit me harder than it did with A, and I am still hoping for a third in the future but with how miserable I have been we will have to weigh that very carefully with my health.

The economy is really hurting us as well as healthcare for the pregnancy. We seem to keep falling behind. Luckily Mr. Bob seems to be finding some freelance work in the nick of time. I would love to have had a proper vacation this year but between me being to sick to travel and having no spare money whatsoever the best I can hope for is that next year will be different. I try not to play keeping up with the Jones' but it is so hard sometimes when you see so many people around who seem barely affected by the economy still living in their nice houses and taking fabulous vacations.

My biggest concern is getting everything together that we will need for two children in our slightly crammed and smaller house. Part of our house being so small is that we have been unable to finish the basement and this is to our detriment. I hope things turn around for us financially in 2012 and we have better luck.

I wish I could talk about things on this blog that might be of interest to you or that will help in some way but I am afraid I don't have anything new to offer other than to get your house in order because economic storms are continuing to come.

One thing that we finally got around to doing is visiting "This is the place Heritage Park" We really only got to take a tour of Brigham Young's experimental farm and see some animals. I would really liked to have stayed longer but A was tired and we were getting there fast as well. I uploaded some pictures from this experience in hopes they we can point back to them and prove to A that we were there. One thing to note is that I am not fat, just pregnant and showing. I have to remind myself of this or I get deeply discouraged.

A is getting more and more talkative although he seems to go back and forth on his language skills. He runs really fast but has very little coordination. He wears a size 5 shoes and yet he is the pickiest eater alive and he weighs barely anything. He had a rough week by having croup for the first time. Mr. Bob and I were also pretty sick and so missed out on quite a few family activities that were planned. Hopefully we will have some more time before the end of summer since A seems to enjoy our little excursions for the most part. He has been getting rather bored of late hanging around at home all morning since he has dropped the morning nap for good.

Well it is getting late and I probably should get to bed before I crash.

Good Night!

I Don't Explain Myself!

2011-08-08T21:14:00.000-06:00

My friends understand, and the rest wouldn't believe me anyway!

Happy Fourth

2011-07-04T22:30:00.000-06:00

A is a little ghosty looking from the sunscreen, and I am a little roly-poly due to pregnancy. We had fun, A enjoyed himself and then conked out and took a 3 hour nap. We did steak for dinner with my SIL and BIL and right now Mr. Bob is doing some proof reading frenzy for his new gig and I am hanging out on the interwebz listening to the fireworks, trying to avoid thinking about work tomorrow. My job is going pretty well but I feel like I could be doing so much better. However I found a home child care provider who watches A in the morning so I can have some uninterrupted time to work. It is really hard to leave him with someone else and go back to work especially now that I have been home with him for almost a year. However in this economy you have to do what you have to do and I don't feel like moving in with my in-laws and living solely on my husbands salary as a part time attorney in order to be a SAHM. I guess I am selfish like that. Plus we need the money in order to be able afford this next kid. Speaking of this kid I am starting to feel some movement and still incredible amounts of sickness just not necessarily only morning sickness. I will have a good day and then bam I have a really really crappy day. Seems more like a roller coaster than I had with the first. A in the last couple of days has stopped tossing everything automatically overboard when he is done and is instead pushing it to the side of his tray. He is trying to talk so hard but I can't always understand him. He says bye bye and waves, he says shoe, and occasionally Hi and Hello and Ball. Not all very consistently but he is understanding what I say even more. He is walking/running as fast as he can but he is not coordinated enough to pull it off all of the time and so has some bad falls now and again. He is still a picky eater and never seems to eat enough. I spend my free time watching Korean Dramas which is fun and addicting like crazy. Our garden did finally get planted and is surviving aside from the occasional plant that has succumbed to snails. Otherwise I am just trying to keep up with everything around him and finding it hard so I am in survival mode until the baby comes and then we will see what happens. If you actually read our blog because you find my posts informative that is good. We do like to see journal type posts of ourselves and long after they have been written we find them refreshing and fun, so I most likely will be putting more of these back in here. We do this blog for ourselves and don't mind if people want to follow along but don't expect any consistency. Have a great holiday.

I Don't Like to Think of it as One Big Competition

2011-06-15T14:38:00.000-06:00

So this pregnancy was unplanned and well planned. We wanted to have another kid we were trying, we decided to stop trying due to some financial setbacks. Our method of birth control was timing and we honestly didn't think we had timed things well so after all of our struggles with A we thought that we would start trying again another month when the financial stars were more in line. My mom and brother had also moved in with us for a month. That also made things more difficult. Well here we are and we are actually really really happy about it and wished that financially things would be going better for us. Not having any insurance is very scary. Now you are probably asking what does this pregnancy have to do with a competition? Nothing in our minds. We got married later, and started having kids later than we wished. After my first pregnancy I learned that I am really miserable and don't have the energy and stamina that I used to 10 even 5 years earlier. After being able to conceive with A I knew then that I wanted to finish having kids by 35. I am in a race, but with myself and my biological age. I am also concerned because I am bipolar. Compared to most married couples we know we are behind in completing our family. Most people we know are already on two or more. So if anything I think we should be considered behind. This also brings up the bigger picture. Mr. Bob and I are doing our best to well, do our best. We are trying hard not to compare ourselves to anyone else, it is unfair to do that in any case. After being diagnosed bipolar I had to learn to let go and not compare myself to others, heck I was too busy comparing myself to my past self. Which is unfortunate because that is a pretty high standard to keep. When I was in college before I got sick I was amazing and talented and energetic and I did it all and never felt tired. After I was diagnosed in the years of our early marriage I was sick and tired and depressed. I just had to talk myself through each day as it came. Now that I have been stable on my meds for awhile I can do a lot more, but I will never be the person I was in college. Some days I just lay in bed and nothing gets done around the house and it is "okay" because I have learned that if it isn't then I will get sick again. I just let it go. I am trying hard not to compete with anyone and especially not with myself anymore. I am much happier that way.

Peace Gardens

2011-06-11T17:03:00.000-06:00

So crazily enough last Saturday I was feeling well enough that I wanted to go to the park. So here are some pics of A wandering around the Peace Gardens.

By the way. When do they outgrow the need to dump everything on the floor from their highchair tray to show they are done? A just dumped his peas all over my freshly mopped floor. Ugh.

Another Mini Home Ec Lesson

2011-05-31T21:17:00.002-06:00

http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/family/10-ways-grocery-stores-trick-you-into-spending-more.htm

An Irritating Article Makes for Some Very Insightful Comments

2011-05-24T21:12:00.000-06:00

The Article:

Minister: housewives threaten EU economy

I found this article very irritating, and was going to make some clever remarks about it. The comments beat me to it. Some were very insightful.

A few choice early comments:

#4 17:10 March 8, 2011 by spidernik84
It's all about GDP, always. That stupid parameter by which every time I crash my car I theoretically make the society wealthier.
Really, what about just considering life and attention towards children more important than the bare money? Is a children seen just as a replacement for old men and women in the system, just a "spare part"?
To me it seems just ridiculous that we're trading our children's future with money. We're already parking them in the dagis and schools or in front of a TV because we don't have time for them, what's next?

#5 18:57 March 8, 2011 by jackx123
omg another politician that needs a brain check. GDP is all about money in circulation. one can very simply boost the gdp, as sweden has in the past, by having more people on the dole.
unless there is non-government work, this utterly dumb comment from a minister, paid for by the tax payers and, yes is part of the gdp, belongs in a bar after midnight twhen everyone is to drunk to pay any attention.
the question is: where will the new non-governemnt jobs come from and how will they be created.
i thought i had seen a lot and heard a lot but this is a gold medal winner.

#11 22:22 March 8, 2011 by krrodman
The "Law of Unintended Consequences" strikes again. As the standard of living has improved across industrialized Europe, families are now wealthy enough to elect to have one member, typically the mother, stay at home to raise the children rather than work.
The social planners are apoplectic over this situation for several reasons: First, and foremost, in the socialist utopian state everyone will find fulfillment through work rather than through the mundane task of raising children. Social planners cannot begin to understand that some people might find great joy in staying at home.(In any case, shouldn't it be the choice of the individual rather than the state?) And, of course, a core truth of the modern socialist world is that men and women are equivalent, interchangeable worker units. What happens to modern socialism if women elect to stay at home, and as a result more men are in the work place?
The obvious solution to the problem is to make families poorer. That can be accomplished easily by increasing taxes, a favorite socialist trick. With less money, women will be forced to return to the workplace, and socialists everywhere will be able to breathe a sigh of relief.

Food Inflation is Here

2011-05-19T21:27:00.000-06:00

This is about anecdotal evidence that the food inflation monster is already among us. On Tuesday I went to my ward's enrichment night to take a class on organization. The topic of food storage came up and ways people organize theirs. The women commented on how they aren't adding as much to their food storage anymore because of huge price increases in the stores recently. Some women jokingly suggested that Walmart is our food storage until another woman pointed out that a week ago she was there and they literally had a box of eggs in the whole section on eggs, it was that empty and that we can't trust that if we really needed things that they would be available at Walmart. I just bring this up to show that things are probably going to get worse before they get better and getting even a 3-6 months supply of food could be a lifesaver in the near future. Prices are not likely to come down, so do everything you can to get food as cheaply as possible and store it under your beds if you have too. This is just the tip of the iceberg and this info is directly from the women whose job it is to feed their children. They aren't conspiracy nuts just on the front lines on this inflationary war.

Cloth Diapering

2011-05-17T09:44:00.000-06:00

Okay I think I have briefly mentioned on here before about using cloth diapers on A. With the impending arrival of Baby H I have been thinking do I or don't I want to continue using cloth diapers. Surprisingly the answer was yes I do want to keep using cloth diapers. The reason why I had to make the decision all over again is because we started cloth diapering A at 4-5 months and at the time we were debating between two different methods of cloth diapers. One that would start at birth and grow as time went on which was a more hefty expense to begin with, or the system we chose that would start at 15 lbs and go to 30 lbs which according to our growth chart meant that we could probably have him potty trained by the time he would outgrow them. Being the cheapskates that we are we went with the system that would be cheaper at the moment. Which leads us to the fact that we have no cloth diaper system in place for babies smaller than 15 lbs. So I looked up prices for buying a system that would start at birth and continue until we could use the already existing diapers and it seemed fairly reasonable to me and I felt that we could definitely save some money.

So our reason for switching to cloth was we felt we could save money. I felt that we did accomplish this goal and am pleased. We do use disposables at night but at this point I feel like we could probably be using cloth at night and A would still be fine. With the new baby I am excited at the prospect of continuing to save money by also using cloth. We will possibly still be using disposables at night with the little one as well.

Cloth diapering systems: Cloth diapering is a very confusing system with lots of variations and products out there. If you have an idea of what they were like when we were babies you will be pleasantly surprised to find that they are much more advanced and work better than you might expect. A decent system however is not a light investment to make and different people cloth diaper for different reasons and babies have their unique shapes. We use pre-folds 8x4x8 diaper service strength unbleached cotton for the liners and bummies covers. I also purchased a few all-in-ones to use while on the go. I also purchased some flannel and cut it into wipes. After bleaching the pre-folds they have become extremely absorbent and the bummies covers work well and I have leaks about as often as I do with disposables. This system works well for us but A is only 5th percentile for weight so the added bulk actually helps to keep his pants up. Another mom that I know who uses cloth diapers has one of those cute chubby babies so she prefers more trim pocket diapers so she can get pants on her baby. The pocket diapers are less absorbent and therefore need to be changed more often. I want to use pre-folds with covers again and found some great looking thirsties covers that should work from newborn to 15 lbs. Even if the next baby is chubby I will work around that by getting more stretchy knit pants or making my own pants using this pattern that I have purchased here. I only own about 6 covers and two dozen inserts. I prefer doing laundry more often than having smelly diapers around for a longer time. They don't usually smell too bad after a couple of days. I also have a diaper sprayer attachment for my toilet.

Cloth diapers are a little more work but not as much work as I thought they would be. If a mom is interested I would tell her to go for it. Although I find I am saving money I did choose one of the less expensive systems and that makes a big difference in cost. Everyone also has their own opinion about what kind of cloth diaper system is best as well. I did link to one site where I have purchased many products in this post but the other site is here. I have found the best service and prices at these sites and recommend them. If you have any comments or questions about my cloth diapering let me know.

An Impending Christmas Present and Slacker Chic Revisited

2011-05-11T22:27:00.000-06:00

So this is a bit early but wanted to get it out of the way now to show why blog posts may be even slower then they currently are. Mr. Bob and I are expecting a new Baby at Christmas time. It is early days and there is still the imminent prospect of miscarriage but I still feel like sharing the news and the fact that I feel utterly and completely like crap and am having a hard time getting half of what I used to get done, well done. Hence the slacker chic revisited part. I had/have so many little plans right now rolling around in my brain and I am not sure if they will get done. I also have a prospect of doing a little engineering work from home in the near future. If that happens I think I will look into getting a mother's helper. No I am not on bed rest yet, but I want to do good at this job and between A and Baby H, I don't want to get behind. I am hoping for a young women at church to help out like I used to do when I was 15 years old or so for a family in my ward.

I am hoping that we can squeeze a quick camping trip in before I get too large to do any kind of hiking around. So we shall see what happens. I plan to spend the summer laying around in the backyard reading and watching A play. I am comfortable with my OB and want the same type of birth as I had before. So I don't really see any major changes just hopefully a little more relaxed and prepared then last time. Winter will be a great time to burrow in while the baby makes the most adjustments in their schedule and before you know it, it will be summer time again and we can all get outside again for some fun. I am grateful at this time to be a SAHM or WAHM and hope that things pick up for Mr. Bob in the future work wise. Although I do love the fact that he is home a lot more since he is back to part time. If anyone has any pregnancy advice please let me know. I am always interested in hearing what others have to say.

72 Hour Kits

2011-05-11T22:07:00.000-06:00

This is a follow up to my last post and yet a completely different aspect of emergency preparedness. I want you to envision the following scenario. It is late at night and you are in bed sleeping, you then hear noises and sirens in the distance. Next you receive an urgent knock on the door. You grab a baseball bat and open the door slowly to peer around it. It is a police officer and some neighbors, they look grim and rather official. They tell you that such and such a thing has occurred and they need you to leave your home. You have five minutes to gather everything up and flee. What is going through your head at this point. Probably everything and as you gather your family together your head feels broken because you don't know what you need to flee, you don't know how long you will be out of your house and you don't know where to go.

This is where your 72 hour kit comes in. First you know that you have a 72 hour kit one for each member of the family including any pets you might take with you. You can then move on to more important considerations like dressing for the climate putting good shoes on, getting important documents, prescriptions and sentimental items. Because of your preparedness you are ready to go. You grab your 72 hour kits and walk out the door confident that you will be able to survive the next few days until help arrives or until you can get back into your house.

Now some people talk about bug out bags, but this is different it assumes that eventually things will return to normal one way or another. Maybe your house will be gone, but you will find another one to live in. Think about all those people in Japan who not only suffered earthquakes and tsunamis but evacuation due to radiation leaks from nuclear power plants. This kit could mean a million different things between living comfortable until the authorities show up and help out or starvation and near death. I am not going to talk about what exactly needs to go into a 72 hour kit. There is information all over the web that can help with that. Their are usually local classes on these as well. You can also buy pre-formed kits as well. One blogger writes posts on how to have kits for children specifically. Her blog is Chronicles of a Babywise Mom she has great advice on how to organize your kits especially for the littlest members of the family. I feel so guilty when I think how I did not plan for anything when A was small and have just now realized how vitally important it is to make him a part of our 72 hour kit. And just when you think you got it all everything changes.

My advice to you is to start a 72 hour kit. You can buy them or make them. Ours are in the coat closet next to the front door, this is so we can say we are ready and grab them and walk out of our house when that knock comes at our door. This is all of the information I could give on this subject but I hope this will be a starting point to use when you talk with your family to get them on the same page.

Emergency Preparedness

2011-05-04T22:00:00.000-06:00

Here's another topic of interest that has been very frequently coming up in my life recently, well before the problems in Japan even. I am not an expert on the subject and have never been formerly trained, but I do have a lot of amateur training and have given this subject a lot of thought and preparation over the years. I am going to in a quick blog post tackle my current thoughts and impressions on the subject.

I was introduced to this subject at a very early age, so early in fact that I don't remember when exactly I learned about it. It was something that is practiced and also preached in my religion. Have a year's supply of food, etc., etc. I think it had something to do with preparing for the end of the world, or maybe not. It is very good advice when you think about it; also, my friends dad was also one of those extreme conspiracy theorists, I kid you not.

Over the years I have attended several classes on emergency preparedness and am currently practicing the best I know how. The natural disaster that everyone here drills for is a major earthquake. However I am not convinced that is the only thing that you need to prepare for. My new fear is an economic meltdown. My FIL and I have been talking about this lately and trying to prepare for what could fundamentally be a change in lifestyle. Maybe for the short term or perhaps the long term. On this subject I have been reading various different survivalist books and reading things other bloggers have written on the subject. My immediate thoughts are as follows:

1-Food: Lots and lots and lots of food. Any food is better than no food, but you do want to think about balancing your nutrition as much as possible. Our church recommends at least a three month supply to begin and increasing to a year supply. We have generally tried to have a least a three month supply on hand and this has come in handy when I have been laid off, so if for no other reason that is a good one. One thing I have been adding to this is vitamins. I have purchased some vitamins from Costco. We are currently using them up but this will be huge if we have to completely depend on our supply of food. As our food stores get lower I will continue to buy more so we have a three month surplus. We also have vitamins for our toddler as well. When he was on formula it wasn't as big a deal, but he no longer is so I bought vitamins. One important vitamin for growing kids and pregnant/lactating women is Omega 3/fish oil. Many multivitamins do not include this. Also, think through what you eat; write down everything you and your family eats for a week. With our son now drinking whole milk, I found I could purchase whole milk powder in the latino section at Walmart. Apparently Nestle doesn't make it domestically, but it is available internationally. Why whole milk? Because he is growing and desperately needs fat. Non-fat does store longer but it won't nutritionally do him as much good. I know that the whole is only good for two years but that is a risk that wasn't worth taking to me. I will use it up or replace it when the time comes. Sometimes it is better to waste a little money (shocking) then to spend it on things that won't do you much good in a crunch.

2 - Non Food Items: Things like deodorant and Shampoo/Conditioner, soap, toiletries, Toilet Paper! Things that might get ridiculously expensive or hard to find. In this category I want to point out getting things like Tylenol, Aleve, etc. When the world is going to hell in a hand basket you will wish that you had something for that headache/heartburn etc. I have again been stocking up at Costco, and maybe you find homeopathic remedies work for you. Usually they don't do me any good and I have no problem with popping an Excedrin when I have a killer migraine. Also VERY IMPORTANT: if you currently take prescribed medication for an ongoing medical problem please talk to your doctor about writing out a 90 day supply. If there is a crises and a shortage at all and if you can't literally go more than a day without medicine, something like this could mean the difference between life and death.

3 - Water: Water to drink, to bathe in and to flush your toilets for a few days to a few weeks. You will have to decide where to draw the line. If you let some water go stale you can freshen it up by putting chlorine in it and aerating it or just don't use it for drinking and only bathing or flushing toilets. If you don't have some for flushing toilets you will need to be able to dig a latrine somewhere. Not pretty.

4 - Self Defense: You think this means you have to buy a gun right? We don't own guns for personal reasons and we don't care if other people do own them or don't; however, if there are riots or a general breakdown in society you will need to be careful. Basic safety should help. Don't go out after dark, keep the house locked, keep obvious Flat Screen TV's out of sight. Install flood lights. If I can, I am installing new strong exterior doors as soon as possible. Plant prickly bushes under windows. Carry pepper spray, and be aware of your surrounding at all times. Stay out of the bad parts of town. Get to know you neighbors and observe their visitors. Observe your visitors, you are more likely to be robbed by someone who has been to your house before. Don't even let the door to door salesman look past your face in the front door. Watch Burn Notice if you want to know what I am talking about.

5 - Grow your own Food: Practice growing a garden and if you so desire get some chickens. I am hoping to do this as soon as I have enough money to invest in getting some chickens. Along with this practice is learning how to store food. Canning, drying, smoking there are plenty of books out there that should help you on your way.

Okay this post should give you ideas on how to get started. I am recommending one book out of however many that discuss these issues. This book is called "Surviving The Economic Collapse" by Fernando "Ferfal" Aguirre. I have read plenty and am of the opinion that for the vast majority of people running off to some secret hideaway is probably not a realistic option, and that I don't think things will get that bad. There are plenty of books out there on this subject and I am not going to go over all of them but the public library should be able to help you out. Other links I believe will be of some help are listed below.

Family Home Storage

Growing a Garden

Family Emergency Planning

Gardening from Scratch

2011-04-21T10:01:00.000-06:00

After a conversation with some young marrieds just buying their first property, I decided that this would make a good post.

They asked how to start a garden, and I started telling them everything I knew about gardening, how I had been learning from my Grandparents and what I thought would be the best way to begin and why I do things the way I do.

So here is my advice on just starting out with gardening, in no particular order. I am also putting up the disclaimer that I have no degree in this area and this is from my admittedly limited success with my own garden.

When I first moved into my house, I tried a variety of different spots in the yard to do a vegetable garden with limited success. I read a very popular book called "Square Foot Gardening," and talked with my WWII generation grandparents who also grew up on a farm and owned a farm in the first years of their marriage. I eventually came up with a couple of different ideas. My next door neighbor at the time was successfully growing a garden on her side of our chain link fence. Her garden did very well every year. I decided that it would also be a good spot for me as well. Plenty of sun etc. However in my yard there had never been a garden there before and it was currently a patch of lawn. I also considered how many people make a say 8' x 8' square garden and then find it very difficult to weed. Growing up in my own family my mom had two long stretches of garden 4' wide by about 20' long with a two foot aisle between them, which made weeding extremely difficult. I decided to do a garden along the length of the entire fence eventually and for my first go at it only did about 10' long and three feet from the edge of the fence out. This way I could easily reach in and weed, and also mow up against the garden. If it was successful then I was going to increase the garden the entire length of the fence on that side of the yard.

The next important step I took was to listen to my grandparents advice and get lots and lots of sterilized steer manure and topsoil to work into the soil. The soil where I live is absolutely horrible and full of rocks. My FIL is always complaining about the soil and how difficult it is to grow things here. However my grandparents also live very close and yet are very successful in everything they grow. The difference I have discovered is because you have to cultivate the soil in the spot where your garden is going to be. They don't happen to magically have better soil, they just continue to enrich it every year. So if your soil is poor, manure and top soil are in order.

The next piece of advice follows the previous one. Start out buying starter plants at your local nursery. Also, only buy one or two of each kind of plant you would like to try. Beginning gardeners often get carried away starting a garden and do too big of a garden without much understanding of the work it requires. Most people these days are not growing most of their food with their gardens so no need to go overboard just a few plants will do. It is also easier to get the hang of it by having live plants to begin with. Also, if it is your first year or two, you probably haven't enriched your soil enough to make starting from seed very feasible. Once you have added manure and top soil "every" year it will increase the quality of the soil and make planting seeds directly in the ground go well.

Money Out of Thin Air and the Banking System

2011-04-20T15:19:00.000-06:00

As a follow up to my post regarding a comment I made on brokeprofessionals.com. A few posts showed up in my google reader that more fully explain what I meant. I do not agree 100% with the views on these blogs but thought they would be of interest to others.

How the Fed Creates Money Out of Thin Air

Banks Should Be Treated As Public Utilities

Pregnancy, Baby and Child Rearing Books

2011-04-12T16:31:00.003-06:00

Okay this one has been kicking around my head lately and decided that this would make a good post. I have talked about the crunchy granola thing and thought that some people would be interested in what books I used and how they did or didn't help me.

Taking Charge of Your Fertility - The definitive book on helping you to understand your cycles and how most normal people can achieve pregnancy as quickly as possible. Also a big part of it is Natural Family Planning. I credit this book a bit for helping us conceive our son.

What to Do When You Can't Get Pregnant: The Complete Guide to All the Technologies for Couples Facing Fertility Problems - I got this from the library so many times I probably should have bought my own copy. Excellent book for explaining infertility and treatments. Up to date info.

What to Expect When You're Expecting - The definitive guide to pregnancy. Although this didn't answer every question I had during pregnancy it is still an important resource.

The Best Birth - Sometimes it seems lately that things are rather slanted toward either natural birth or c-sections. I wanted and was able to get an epidural which is still the most common way to give birth. This book walked me through the process of all aspects of giving birth without being too judgmental about not doing a natural birth. However I recommend highly researching all your options and decide what you can or can't handle. Luckily for me everything went as I wanted except for the being two weeks early part.

Babywise - I was toward the end of pregnancy and realized that I knew nothing about taking care of a baby. I checked some books out at the library and while they were interesting reads none of them was what I needed. I then remembered that I had received this book at my baby shower (although honestly I can't remember from who). I immediately realized that this is how I wanted to do things. This book fit in with my personality. I am a very methodical person and I must say doing things regularly helps enormously. The final selling point was the fact that if you followed the method you were pretty much guaranteed that the baby would sleep through the night by 12 weeks. I needed sleep so badly and I was sold.

The Baby Whisperer - After reading Babywise and doing some online research I came across the Chronicles of a Babywise Mom website. She recommended some other books and this was one of them. This is also a great book with lots of tips and advice. I also used this book a lot.

The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems - Ditto above.

Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Baby - Where Babywise tended to leave off this one begins. I struggled for the first three months with getting my son to sleep regularly during the day, night went well especially when he started sleeping through the night by ten weeks. This book helped me be a bit more relaxed when my son's sleep didn't go as planned. In some respects I eventually phased out using Babywise in favor of the sleep cycles in this book. Next baby I am not going to be as rigid about sleeping in the first three months. I will still feed them on a schedule and try to get them to sleep on a schedule. However at nine months my son started having trouble sleeping through the night and we would rush in there to see what was wrong and then he wanted to play. Using this book's help I was able to figure out that he had a set wake up time and he wasn't getting enough sleep at night, we also implemented cry it out. The problem was solved after three days. Three absolutely I hate myself, I am a bad mom, excruciating days.

What to Expect the First Year - Explains such mysteries as "When can I expect baby to roll over?", "What do I do when baby is sick?". Or we were wondering "Why does he have acne??".

Babywise 2 - I intially liked what was in it but decided to make a change when nothing I tried in this book seemed to work. So...

Montessori From the Start: The Child at Home, From Birth to Age Three - I found this book and discovered that my parenting style in some ways very closely matched this book, and I was already doing some very similar things. One thing that I will point out is that the reviews on Amazon claim that this book is attachment parenting friendly. The authors do not advocate co-sleeping, nor feeding on demand and/or holding your baby constantly. They even refer to Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Baby.

Diaper Free Before Three - This one I am going to implement soon. I slacked a little but now that he is one I am going to tackle this potty training thing before he becomes one of those four year olds who need their diaper changed. Ew, Gross! I also decided elimination-communication starting at birth was a little too extreme an approach for me.

A Mini Home Economics Lesson on Grocery Shopping

2011-04-11T07:47:00.001-06:00

I am a very tiny amateur economist but my strength really lies in home economics which I have been studying on my own for several years. It all started in college when I had to take care of myself. I did my own cooking, chores, laundry etc. Luckily I had a mom that taught me those things. I remember one time she was teaching me how to do laundry and she didn't like the way I did it so she made me wash the laundry for weeks on end. At school I then stumbled onto a selection of home economics books in the university library. I was the first person in about ten years to check them out. After college I started collecting a selection of my own and have amassed quite a few. This leads me to the point of this post.

I have read a few articles in the last couple of days in the news, here and here. This has made me think about grocery shopping coupled with a chapter in an old home economics book that I own. The book is entitled "Food and Homemaking", it was published in 1937-1939. There is a section in there on how to buy canned goods. Apparently back in the day they had standard can sizes and standard food grades to go along with it. The book taught a lesson on how to determine which can would be cheapest.

In light of the food inflation that is coming our way I want to talk about how we can get the most bang for our buck. These days there is no such thing as standard sizes or even food grades. Food grades in some cases don't matter as much anymore because most of our food is of "higher" quality then they were able to achieve back then. However sizes still matter. What compounds this problem is that there is no standard sizes anymore. A can of corn can be any size the manufacturer wants. This is in some ways how they are able to inflate food prices without making it seem that they are to your average uninformed consumer. So what can we do? We can take a calculator along with us to the store, and I actually used to do something similar in college. Most of us don't use calculators and many of us run off to the grocery store at the last minute, at least I know I do. The easiest thing to do is to check the price per ounce on the label underneath the item we are looking at. Or sometimes they have a price per quantity label, i.e. for a package of 24 rolls of toilet paper.

We may not be able to solve our food inflation problems with this, but hopefully using this technique will help us pinch every penny that we can.

Yet Another Milestone

2011-04-11T07:13:00.004-06:00

I have been busy lately and this is why.

So I have some more posts in mind and just haven't finished them yet.

My response to BrokeProfessionals.com

2011-03-28T22:05:00.003-06:00

Originally posted as a comment on another website called "brokeprofessionals.com" With the article entitled "I Feel Bad for Banks (Sort Of)"

Mrs. Bob said "I think one thing to mention that most people don’t realize is that our money supply is created through banks lending. In a simplistic explanation banks have “reserves” and they lend off a percentage of their “reserves” 10% as a minimum that they should have and they can lend up to 90% the rest of the money. Thereby creating more money in the money supply. As was pointed out earlier they get this “reserve” money by borrowing money from the Federal Reserve which is loaned out to them at practically no interest. Where does the Federal Reserve get this money? Pretty much out of thin air. So like the designer the bank “marks up” the loans by 90%. This doesn’t mean that the items aren’t sold at 100%. But for the banks to make up for the loss they only need to get back 10%. The banks failed for so many reasons that it pretty much takes an entire book to explain it and I haven’t written it yet.

As I was trying to point out to my 8 year old nephew a couple of days ago, gold doesn’t actually have any worth. So that pot of gold he was talking about makes a great paper weight."

This received some positive results from the other commentators. I highly recommend that you visit this post and read the comments. I am posting about this on my blog on the recommendation of Mr. Bob who thinks it is quite possibly the best thing I have ever written on the subject.

I also made a follow up comment that said "Just a note if anyone is interested about learning more about our money supply and where it came from I recommend this book “The Ultimate Depression Survival Guide: Protect Your Savings, Boost Your Income, and Grow Wealthy Even in the Worst of Times”

http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Depression-Survival-Guide-Protect/dp/0470598212/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1301371056&sr=8-1

Visit their website it is one of the best I have seen in a long time.

BrokeProfessionals

Why you would think I am a "Crunchy Granola" Mom

2011-03-19T14:03:00.004-06:00

Reason 1: I had a friend come over to visit who I hadn't seen in a very long time. We were feeding my son lunch and she asked what he liked to eat. I mentioned that he no longer was very interested in eating his pureed food and only liked finger food now. She said "are you making your own baby food?". I replied I was and showed her how I did it. I said that I thought it might take a lot more effort than it did and that I also thought the food was healthier and tasted better.

Reason 2: A lady at church asked me the other day if I used cloth diapers and I told her that I was. I explained how I tried to factor in how much money it would save me if I did and how I cleaned them with the least trouble possible. I mentioned that it might be unrealistic for a mom with several children in diapers and that it did help that we had a bathroom to put things in that guests wouldn't use.

Reason 3: For fun I picked up a book from the library and green cleaning and I also wrote a previous post about this but realized that babies are little people that are still growing and he would be crawling around all over everything soon. I felt that most of the chemicals we use as adults don't usually harm us but that we don't really know what they will do to a baby. I switched some of our cleaning products to green products. We even looked of the MSDS for them. I am glad that I do use those now and also use those products to clean his high chair. Which gives me peace of mind because I usually stick his finger food directly on the tray.

But, I also do other things that are not so "Crunchy Granola" momish.

Exhibit A: I did not breast feed. I formula fed. I did this because due to the medications I was taking I was advised against this, and second I had to go back to work full time. Where in the world would I have a place and time to pump milk?

Exhibit B: Due to the fact that I become completely unglued if I do not have enough rest and I had to go back to work I put my son on a feeding schedule and also did sleep training. I also did Cry It Out. Yes I deserve an evil mommy award for that.

Exhibit C: I do not practice "Attachment Parenting" I loathe it. Last thing I want is my son glued to my leg for the next 5-18 years depending on how bad it is. I see these whiny kids all the time "Mommy Mommy look at me, entertain me, hold me" etc etc.

Exhibit D: I do not co-sleep see Exhibit B above. I want to be in the bed with my husband only! I do not want to be sleep deprived for however many years. Besides how will we ever be able to have more kids if we did?

What do you think?

On Trade Deficit

2011-03-08T09:26:00.000-07:00

Based on my (admittedly limited) understanding, here's how it works:

Let’s say we have two countries – we’ll call them “US” and “’Notherland.” These countries each produce bread. (In traditional economics we’d talk about producing guns and butter, but we’re pacifists and corrupt political scientists around here, so we talk about bread and circuses, instead.)

While each country uses its own currency, there is a uniform currency they use for exchange – the dollar, which represents about one day’s worth of work.

In US, their bakers are very skilled – they can make one loaf of bread for one dollar.

Notherland is a little different – wheat does not grow so well in the rocky soil, so they can only make one loaf of bread per three dollars.

Unsurprisingly, US exports their bread to Notherland, and Notherland exports their circuses to US. US sells bread to Notherland at two dollars a loaf, and Notherland sells circus acts to US at four dollars per circus act.

What does this mean? US merchants are selling bread for an extra dollar, so US gets a profit of one dollar for every loaf of bread sold. So US is importing an extra dollar worth of money every time they sell a loaf overseas. At the same time, Notherland is getting an extra dollar’s worth of bread every time they buy bread from US, so they are showing a profit of one dollar in bread. Or in other words, Notherland has an extra dollar that they would have spent on bread that they can spend elsewhere instead.

So if US sells Notherland one loaf of bread, US gets one dollar more value out of the exchange than they had before. Because US measures things in their terms, they say that they got one dollar in trade from Notherland, or they imported one dollar more than they exported. By importing more than they exported, US has created what is called a “trade deficit” of one dollar.

“Trade deficit” simply means you gained more value than you gave up in an exchange. The amount of a trade deficit is the value you gained minus the value you gave up in the exchange.

But in Notherland’s terms, when they buy that loaf of bread, they get one dollar more value out of the exchange than they had before. So they gained a dollar in goods from US, or they imported one dollar more in value than they exported. By importing more value than they exported, Notherland created a trade deficit of one dollar for their country.

Look closely at those last two paragraphs. Notherland and US both profited from the trade, and both came out better than they were before. At the same time, each country created a trade deficit for itself of one dollar.

So what is a trade deficit, really? It is the amount of increase in value that each country gets for its international trade in a given period. And what is a trade surplus? If there is a trade surplus, it indicates that the countries merchants are losing money, at least from the perspective of whoever measures it. In the above example, from the perspective of US, Notherland has a trade surplus and US has a trade deficit. But from the perspective of Notherland, it is the other way around.

This shows us that (1) it can be confusing for a country to use its own currency to measure international trade, and (2) trade deficit and trade surplus all depend on your perspective.

He loves to hang upside down

2011-02-24T10:35:00.003-07:00

Support the "Student Loan Scheme"

2011-01-22T21:40:00.002-07:00

Infographic by College Scholarships.org

Slacker Chic in the New Year

2011-01-19T13:57:00.007-07:00

In accordance with my slacker chic perspective I belatedly bring you a blog post about being slacker chic in the New Year. Let us make this year a slacker chic year. How much less could you possibly do this year? I am going to share a few ways to be slacker chic this year.

1. Throw a party but leave some dirty dishes in the sink! I know it sounds crazy but I just hosted a game night and did just that. It wasn't a lot but I didn't get them all done in time for the party. And you know what? I think it just makes me look more human. I am not saying to leave your house a complete wreck, but don't get hung up on perfection either.

2. Scale back on the holiday decorations during the year. I think too many bloggers push this emphasis on decorating for the holidays. Especially homemade decorations. I know I have spoken on the evils of trying to make your own decorations. Don't stress yourself out! There are pretty and cute things for cheap in the stores. Also you can always do what I do; not decorate at all!

3. Throw things out! The less stuff you have the less you have to take care of. Yeah this seems antithetical to the idea of being slacker chic and it seems that all other blogs ask the same. But pretend you are going to remodel and redecorate your house - what needs to go? Then just take it to your local salvation store/DI. Don't dump your junk on other people, who will thank you to your face and spit at your back.

4. Try to drink less calories like soda and juice and instead drink more water.

5. Walk more. Don't run, it justs ruins your knees because it is unnatural and most humans were not designed to do lots of running. Trust me: this is how I hurt my knees.

6. Have a quick and easy structured routine in place. Mine is to get dressed to shoes, do my makeup and hair. Then I make the bed and wash the dishes and put things around the house away. Occasionally vacuum or sweep and mop or clean the bathroom. I only dust once a year. This is actually good for your kids and helps prevent them from getting allergies.

7. Keep the little ones on a routine. Makes them happier and you happier. Also gives you some free time now and again to be able to do fun things, like maybe crafty things.

8. Spend some quality time with the old ball and chain. (Hehe ;) He will appreciate and love you more for it.

9. Back to number 2. Keep the holiday celebrations simple. Heck I only make sugar cookies once a year and that is for Valentine's day. Thats it. Birthdays are our family gathered around the homemade cake trying to scrounge together enough candles to put on the cake at the last minute. Sometimes we go out to eat and sometimes we stay home. Mothers Day and Fathers Day we take turns bringing the frog eyed salad and show up the parents places. Easter we don't celebrate with anyone else. We lock the door and hunker down in our home were I cook ham and we watch the ten commandments. In fact this year we are thinking of taking it on the road and visiting the warm part of the state. Fourth of July: City parade, barbecue at home and fireworks from our windows.

10. Try to add a few fruits and vegetables to your diet. Visit Bountiful Baskets for ideas.

11. Don't worry about trying all of the above; do what makes you happy.

I wish you a great slacker chic new year. If any of my non existent readers would like to post a comment on ways to be slacker chic I would love to hear from you.

Why I "heart" Mormon Mommy Blogs

2011-01-18T10:17:00.009-07:00

http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2011/01/15/feminist_obsessed_with_mormon_blogs

Wow a lot of things here. Now obviously this blog isn't really a Mormon Mommy Blog though I do occasionally talk about things like that on here. I love reading those blogs but seriously wonder if those women are sane. With my being bipolar I have to be realistic.

I also went to school got a degree in engineering and have student loan debt like the author talks about. Plus Mr. Bob went to law school so of course we have major student loan debt from that. We live in a teeny tiny house that I bought when I first graduated from college. Our house doesn't look like an anthropoligie catalog even though I absolutely love that store. Maybe more like Ikea since some of it is from there.

I am a SAHM currently but not by choice. We owe on our student loans and mortgage so if I get another job off I will go back to work. I like staying home but I like having money too. I often wonder what their husbands could be doing for a living for them to live so well off. It takes some serious cash for a woman to be a SAHM. I mean if an engineer and an attorney can't make it then who can?

It also takes money to craft even if you get things from the thrift stores/DI. I for one have very rarely found anything particular spectacular at those stores and perhaps I am not crafty enough to see the potential in certain items. I also think that some things are a waste of time when I could buy one for cheaper than I can make it. What actually got me into sewing eight years ago was a perceived lack of cute, modest and cheap dresses. A couple of years later and that changed. Now they are everywhere.

Anyhow so many other things to talk about but it would take me forever to list everything but you get the idea. Not every Mormon SAHM is equal. Most of the moms are crazy stressed out from having so many kids and a lot of them work even part time. It is not all Sunshine and Roses. Lollipops and Unicorns. Most of it is an act. A carefully orchestrated one. Although I had a lot of roommates in college and their are those few rare amazingly talented gals who could do all of that. Maybe.

Getting Closer

2010-12-21T15:18:00.007-07:00

So it is almost Christmas. So far my slacker chic self has done alright. I snuck out once to get an extra Christmas present for Mr. Bob because one I ordered online hadn't arrived yet. I finally finally got all of the usual candy made. I actually wanted to try making Divinity just because I never have and my mom was going to show me but you know (shoulder shrug). No big deal. Oh where was I. A just woke up from a nap. Anyhow. Got the neighbor presents out Sunday. Today I am finishing up wrapping the presents and readying the Christmas cards. Sorry if you don't get one, they are only going out to A-listers this year, I am just not up for anything else. As part of my take it easy routine last week I took it pretty easy. I had some bad days, crying, depression that sort of thing. I try to take it in stride. Being bipolar has its bad days. Sometimes really bad days. Plus I had a series of migraines over the weekend.

Enough about me lets talk about the kid. A started crawling at the beginning of eight months. I kept hoping he would crawl at seven but no luck. He is progressing quite nicely and showed off in church Sunday by crawling after several other children across the entire foyer. When the room isn't as big like at home he can be a bit lazy and crawl/army crawl/roll over. Although in other areas he is showing some initiative. He stood up in his crib on Saturday and has preceded to help himself up to standing on several other things like the love seat. I thought things were pretty baby proof until my sister showed up yesterday with my nephew who is a month older and very mobile. I quickly figured out that not everything was NOT baby proofed enough.

Anyhow the job market has gotten pretty ridiculous. I saw a job posting for an engineer with ten years experience etc.. It was for a 12 month contract position! No benefits, nothing. If it is that bad that they expect some ten year experienced engineer is going to jump at the chance then I am really screwed. The market for attorneys is not any better. Please don't go to law school, save yourself from the extreme student loans and the lousy job prospects. Not that engineering is much better lately. The economy is probably not going to get better, if it doesn't get worse it will most likely stagnate for a long time. I could go on and on about this but other bloggers are much better at it.

Between ourselves Mr. Bob and I still talk politics and economics. However these things usually hit a little closer to home. A court case decision. How much we can afford to spend for health insurance. My mom and I have talked a bit recently about things such as the morality of healthcare in a first world country like ours. Is the federal government really going to spend more money in this economy? (of course) We don't blog about it much anymore.

Anyhow have a decent holiday season.

Slacker Chic: Christmas Edition

2010-12-03T22:42:00.006-07:00

Tis the season and all that. This post is full of tips and tricks about how to be slacker chic at Christmas. The season for most women to feel the weight of the world on their shoulders. Feel like you are doing too much? Not enough? At least not enough to keep up with all the other "cool" moms and super crafty mom bloggers? Me too. However, we will not lose our minds or sanity, and this is because we will be slacker chic to get through the season.

Decorations

First, "Pare it Down." Seriously, you do not need to have a new Christmas color theme every year. The Christmas colors are red and green. Go with the traditional colors and you will never have to worry ever again about being matchy matchy. If you must go with a color theme then go to the store and buy all your Christmas decorations to match. You can get away with this financially about every 3-5 years depending on your budget.

Do not under any circumstances try to make all of your Christmas Decorations each year from scratch by yourself. If you feel the need to contribute some kind of crafty thing then pick "one" item and try to get it done before December! Why December? Because you will be busy then.

Also, another slacker chic rule. You should pick one room and one room only to put your holiday decorations in. This makes set-up and cleanup faster and more efficient. Speaking of which, set up the first Saturday in December and always take it down on New Years Day. This is a great day for this since it is snowy, you're tired and hungover, you don't have work and there's nothing else to do. Voila, Christmas is gone. On to the next thing.

Dressing for Holiday Parties

Next up: Dressing for Holiday Parties. Pick a dress that you can wear to all of the parties at least by November so you don't have to worry about making a mad dash in December. Also pick up a black turtleneck, some dark jeans and some bling for those more casual Christmas Parties. No need to dress too trendy and look silly if you are like me and can't quite pull off the twenty-year-old look anymore and no need to wear a Grandma reindeer Sweater. It should be a requisite to have a fabulous black turtleneck sweater for the entire winter season.

Food

Food! Okay this is where a lot of us go seriously wrong. There's food for parties and holiday seasonal favorites and food for Christmas day and Christmas Eve etc. Let's tackle the holiday parties again. Always make something that you could make blind-folded. Now is not the time to be experimenting unless for some reason you have mad mad iron chef skills. If all else fails and that is too overwhelming, opt to bring rolls. Just make sure you bring the good kind. Quality, even if not made personally by oneself, is always appreciated and noticed.

Now the seasonal favorites. I have seasonal favorites, mine are fudge, caramels and toffee. However I try to make this fun and easy by getting together with my mom, sister and sister in law to make them together. It only takes a couple of hours and it really helps keep one focused. I take a plate of these into the office every year and if you have appreciative co-workers then they will be grateful. Otherwise I generally eat them myself. I don't make enough to give away as presents. It probably wouldn't be too hard but this is where the slacker chic comes in. You do not have to make all your goodies. Just pick a couple that are an absolute must and stick to these. Once again, now is not the time to make a bunch of cookies some of which you have never tried to give platter fulls to the neighbors. If you must do something like this then at least attempt a cookie exchange with some friends and family neighbors.

Presents

Okay, first off: have everyone in your immediate family give you a list by the beginning of November and get those puppies crossed off your list by December. Do not under any circumstances be running around like a chicken with their head cut off trying to find - or worse, "make" - a Christmas present in December! It is all about being Slacker Chic. For some examples this is some of what I do. This is a spoiler alert! If you a sibling or sibling in law of mine, please don't read the next part. The siblings who are married get a nice box of chocolates. For the unmarried, I give a mixture of giftcards to itunes and the movies. If you have a set of parents or in laws who have everything then give them a giftcard to one of their favorite places to eat. I like to give these kinds of presents because nobody feels guilty that they aren't wearing or displaying what you got them for christmas. Here is your mantra: Don't buy them junk. Buy them something they can use, that will not leave behind a physical presence.

This brings me to my next point: the neighbors. I like to have a budget of between 1-2 dollars with a few exceptions. This year they are all getting a bottle of sparkling cider I got at a very very good deal. Add a bow and a tag and voila it is done. I guess my theme here is that not everything nice and decent has to be homemade. Besides, I would feel guilty if I didn't wear that hat you made me, even though I secretly hate it. Past gift ideas have been a roll of Christmas wrapping paper, and clips from Ikea. My idea next year is to use Bountiful Baskets order some citrus and give everyone a little bag full. Simple, quick, cheap and not messy.

Conclusion

Cut back, way way back. Christmas shouldn't strike fear into your heart. You do not have to do everything! If you gentle readers have more ideas to be slacker chic please post them below and as always I refer you to the original. Slacker Chic.

Happy Black Friday

2010-11-26T21:55:00.006-07:00

This post is actually a little bit more about Thanskgiving, however I did buy into the Black Friday hype and actually went to Old Navy at midnight. I thought I had a good reason. I had begun to suspect that I actually had dropped a dress size and my post partum Old Navy jeans were drowning me. The belt was the only thing keeping them up. So yippee I need new jeans I am a dress size lower. One size away from my usual adult size although still two sizes up from before I was pregnant; that was an anomaly, though.

Anywho all jeans for fifteen dollars starting at midnight on Black Friday. I was stoked, I was prepared (or so I thought). I showed up at Jordan Landing at 11:57 am there was a line I got in line at 11:59 and the doors opened and people started filing in. I made it in and made a beeline to the jeans and quickly rifled through to find the style I wanted in the size I wanted in the colors I wanted. I was victorious!

This is where I went wrong. I decided to go in search of other deals and by the time I found snow mittens and snow boots for A and decided on a shirt and got in line the line was very very long. I got home at 2:30 am. That is the longest I have purposefully been awake since getting married, not counting when A was still feeding in the middle of the night. Phew. My mom was nice enough to pick some stuff up for me at Walmart when she went at 5 am. Other than that, my sister reminded me about the half off sale at Carters and I wanted to hit up Hancock Fabric for the .99 cent simplicity patterns. So after a morning nap, some time spent eating lunch and trying to get A down for a second nap which was a nightmare. When A was done we all went over to Carters and finished out all the stuff A should ever need for 9-12 months. Then we went to In n Out, then Hancocks, then home to bed.

Thanksgiving was lovely, after a very frustrating Wednesday trying to get the house in some semblance of order. I woke up early Thursday and got the turkey with stuffing in the oven. Next, I worked on the cranberry juice and then the pumpkin pie. Did I tell you the story about the pumpkin pie this year? So yeah, usually I cook a fresh pumpkin and puree and make pie. Well, my pumpkin I roasted in the oven but got busy so I stuck it in the fridge and kinda forgot about it for the next few days. When I did remember I found out that it had gone hard and dry and was no good anymore. So I decided to try and get a pie pumpkin at Harmons and start over. They didn't have any pie pumpkins so I decided on a lovely looking squash based on the sqaush I made into baby food for A that I got at the farmer's market. Roasted it, pureed it, tasted it and eeww I had to throw it out. This all happened on Wednesday. So off to Whole Foods I go to see if they have a pie pumpkin and if they don't to buy canned organic pumpkin which in my opinion is the only acceptable option I have left if I want a decent pie. So, no pumpkin there, I bought canned organic pumpkin.

Moving on, time was getting short and we still had not started on Lemon Meringue. Mr. Bob took point while I cajoled A and did other last minute things. He got the pie done but is was very runny. We slapped the meringue on and baked it. Then we set it out in the snow on the back porch to cool down.

My grandparents arrived first. My grandpa was so excited to see A he brought a little ball to play with hoping it will motivate him to crawl. Isn't that so sweet? I love my grandparents. I made gravy and starting slicing up the turkey which thankfully seemed fully cooked. My mom and brother came with the rest of the food and my Aunt showed up as well. We talked for a few minutes and then after setting things up and drying dishes and putting them away we made our way to the table which while I was setting my Grandma said "Oh look at all those pretties of yours that we are going to eat off of," "Oh look at all those pretties on your shelves."

Then we sat down and I gave the prayer. Then we started talking. My Grandma said how glad she was that I invited them over for dinner. Then she shared a story of how last Sunday, when it snowed really bad overnight, it was too hard for my grandparents to make it to church so they didn't go. So a lady in the ward called up to see if they were all right because they hadn't seen them and my Grandma just explained it was because of the snow. The lady then asked if my grandparents would be okay for Thanksgiving and my Grandma said that her granddaughter (me) had asked them over to her house for dinner. Her friend them remarked that she wishes one of her grandchildren would do that because she was hosting 35 at her house and she is a year older than my grandmother. This made me so proud that I was able to let my Grandparents know they are special to me by having Thanksgiving at my house. All of the rest of the day went well good food (of course everyone in my mom's family are absolutely known for being good cooks), good conversation and everyone just loving A and sneaking him food off the table ;) We were dog tired when everyone left but I am so happy that I did that.

Happy Belated Thanksgiving everyone.

A few photos for kicks and giggles, not taken the day of, but a week before.

Family Pictures

2010-11-17T20:47:00.009-07:00

All I wanted for our anniversary this year is family pictures. These were taken on our anniversary October 21. Mr. Bob took the afternoon off, I got my hair cut and styled and these pictures were taken. The photographer is www.photosbywendyg.com Love what she did I highly recommend her.

Halloween 2010

2010-10-31T21:23:00.007-06:00

On Thursday, we hosted a Halloween/Birthday party. Here are some of the decorations:

Also notice the beginnings of our remodeling project in the dining room. We are painting the wall surrounding the sliding glass door, and it has been mudded in these pictures. We primed the next day and applied the first layer of green paint the day after that (yesterday).

In the middle of all of this, our washing machine died, flooding our basement. No, we're not going to share pictures of a flooded basement; we were busy doing something about the problem, instead.

After some damage control in the basement, we got into our costumes and went to our local "Trunk or Treat" event. We went as a construction zombie, a zombie accountant, and a little skeleton.

Applesauce on the Fly

2010-10-15T20:18:00.005-06:00

So no pics, which is actually too bad because if I had thought of it I could have taken some great ones. However, this is not a "how to do it" kind of blog post, or blog for that matter. No tutorials, just what we are thinking about things.

Anyhow, the topic is applesauce. I got together with my Mom and sister to make applesauce today. We peeled a pot full of apples and then looked at the recipe. Hmm, 7 pounds of apples is the equivalent of how many cups? We couldn't find a quick answer. We probably should have googled it, but there was no easily available computer. Well, how much do we think we have? Then I mentioned that I don't want my applesauce heavily sweetened. I just want as little sugar as possible. Finally, after checking various cook books and discussion with my mom, I decided to just make a recipe as I go along.

Yup, you heard that right: I just made a recipe up out of thin air. I put about a 1/4 to a 1/3 pan full of water, then sprinkled in some sugar. Not too much, less than a cup for a whole big batch. Lemon juice, fruit fresh. Boiled till tender, my mom pureed while I watched A. She then said, "Oh, did you want cinnamon in this?"

Of course I wanted cinnamon; that is why I had made a special point of packing up the expensive Costco Cinnamon with me. So I tell her yes and just to add it to taste. So she does and she also adds nutmeg. I try it. Mmmm, so, so good. Then my sister wants a taste. She is so jealous; she wants her applesauce to taste just like mine. Hah! So all of the batches were made to taste on the fly. Who knew applesauce-making could be so easy?

Photo Shoot

2010-10-12T13:13:00.006-06:00

I realized that all of my posts lately have been sans pictures and that I haven't posted any new pics of A. I decided to remedy that. I had dressed A to go for walkies but he decided to spit up all over his second pair of pants in an hour. So I wiped them off but that made him wet so I nixed the walkies because I figured that it was too cold for wet pants. He looked so cute though in the knitted hat his Grandma H made (I found the pattern and begged her to make it for me). The camera was lying on the table from a wedding we went to over the weekend but failed to take any pictures at. I grabbed it and started shooting and here they are, the best of the bunch. I am also going to note that today A sat up for about 10 minutes without falling down, such a milestone.

Slacker Chic

2010-10-08T22:19:00.007-06:00

The original intent of this post was to discuss my fabulous new cleaning routine that is going to redeem my house and myself as a homemaker. I do intend to discuss this concept but first I am going to pay homage to a book I just read today. The book is entitled "Life's too short to fold fitted sheets." by Lisa Quinn. Now I will try to explain how becoming a domestic diva is being bought out by being slacker chic.

I have been feeling really energetic lately. My doc upped my lamictal and it has been having a great affect. In fact I have been doing so well that I have become a little concerned I might be going manic. The only reason I think this is not the case is that while I have been very project oriented lately I have been finishing my projects.

So while in this new energetic mood and being at home taking care of A I have had time to come to the conclusion that my house is a total disaster and has been for years. Okay, okay maybe not all the time but certainly a lot of the time. I re-read "Sink Reflections" by the Fly Lady and came to the conclusion that I don't want to be that mom who is still in her pajamas in the afternoon. The mantra in the book is to get a routine and part of that routine is to get dressed wearing lace up shoes, put on your makeup and do your hair. I read the book and started a morning routine. Exercise, Get Dressed (Hair, Makeup and Shoes), make bed, do dishes and tidy up. I decided I needed to expand this daily routine into a weekly routine and really strive to clean up all those neglected spots in my house. I have worked out a weekly routine and hope to start seeing results in the next month. I was flying high until yesterday.

I woke up yesterday to the worst migraine I have had in years!!! I took lots of prescription strength pain killer and it didn't even slow it down. I had a more minor migraine (like there is such a thing) on Tuesday but I wasn't expecting Thursday. Out the window went my new perfect little routine. So this morning I was feeling a bit hung over and concerned that the migraine might come back so I took it easy, I did my new routine but I didn't do any of the deep cleaning or organizing that I am trying to incorporate. I picked up the aforementioned book and read the author's opinion about women killing themselves to be the perfect domestic diva. She skewered all the arts and craftsing and entertaining and cleaning and...you get the picture. Women are trying to hard to do it all and it is killing us. She suggested that we all relax and that is where the term slacker chic came from.

This book reminded me of all the years I spent working and of all the inane things women do because they think it makes them somehow better. I realized that even with all my new free time to obsess about making my house nice that I don't need to go overboard. I can still use all my slacker chic skills and no one besides myself and possibly Mr. Bob is going to notice the difference. For example you don't need to Iron your sheets. I for one have never ironed nor considered ironing my sheets but there are other things I think I should do that really it wouldn't make a difference if I bought it or made it. This book reminded me that just because I am home doesn't mean I still have to do it all. And I needed that this morning because yesterday was so horrible and I had to realize that I am going to have bad days and the dishes won't get done and I might possibly have bad years or months like I have in the past where nothing gets done and it will be okay. So go ahead get a routine; it will save you a lot of time and aggravation. I intend to keep mine. I am just not going to let myself get all worked up if I don't get it all done. I mean I have been a slacker chic woman all these years; why stop now?

Current Reads

2010-09-27T10:24:00.004-06:00

Just thought I would mention a few books I have read recently. Here they are in no particular order.

"What to Eat" by Marion Nestle - An interesting behind the scenes look at where our food comes from. I don't really agree with her dietary philosophy but I am enjoying the book.

"The Gentle Art of Domesticity" by Jane Brocket - Cute book on all things cozy and crafty.

"It's All Too Much" by Peter Walsh - Great book on why we should get rid of junk.

"Real Food for Mother and Baby" by Nina Planck - Hands down great book, I almost completely agree with her dietary philosophy. Must read.

"Nourishing Traditions" by Sally Fallon - I can't believe I haven't read or heard of this book until recently. I haven't gotten all the way through it yet but I am very much in agreement with her.

"Health at Every Size" by Linda Bacon - Interesting ideas that we are genetically programmed not to lose weight. Fascinating studies although I am not thoroughly convinced yet that cutting calories and exercise doesn't work.

"Women Food and God" by Geneen Roth - Great book for those who are over eaters. I don't feel like a really have a problem with my relationship with food but very new age-y.

"Sink Reflections" by Marla Cilley - Okay this is the fly lady book. Yes I am sick of living in CHAOS (can't have anyone over syndrome). Inspirational, I really need to get some kind of cleaning routine down.

"Stay Home, Stay Happy" by Rachel Campos-Duffy - Cute book about the choice to be a stay at home mom. I got a lot more out of it than I thought I would.

"It gets easier and other lies we tell new mothers" by Claudine Wolk - Probably would have been a bit more helpful before I had A.

Anyhow, this isn't everything but just a snap shot of my current reads

Feminist Movement Inspiration

2010-09-26T21:26:00.004-06:00

Yes dear readers, this is another one of those posts where I have thoughts about something and decide to share my view. I was watching the movie "Pillow Talk" tonight while making cookies (Yes I know cookies are unhealthy) (Yes A was watching the movie as well) the movie stars Doris Day and Rock Hudson. I am not going to comment on the actors themselves that is irrelevant to my insight. What I am going to comment on is the characters the actors played. Most specifically Doris Day's character Jan Morrow. She is a single women in what appears to be her late twenties. She lives in New York City by herself in an apartment and she has a career as an interior decorator. Now stop. Think about that. This movie was filmed in 1959. I know because I IMDB'd it. Think of the generation of children watching this movie. That's right the baby boomers. Think what an inspiration that would be to all young girls of that generation watching this movie. Wouldn't that inspire them to live on there own, have careers and then get married? Isn't that what some of the sexual revolution is about? Women working? Who ever would have thought of Doris Day being a harbinger of the sexual revolution as brought about by the baby boomers. Doris Day as inspiration. I know in the past when I have thought of her it always seems in connection to some sort of domestic ideal. A girl like the character she played is just so typical now that we wouldn't even think of it being different and new. I like it. Who knew that Doris Day would be a role model for the sexual revolution. I am now going to look very differently at all her movies. I hope you feel the same.

September Trip

2010-09-26T21:15:00.005-06:00

I already posted most of this on facebook but thought I would repost them here for our own enjoyment. We took a work trip from Manti to St. George to Richfield and back. We saw Cedar Breaks National Monument and the Daughters of the Utah Pioneer museum in St. George as well as the art museum there. A was along for the ride as usual. He seems to be getting past his absolute hatred of the car. I don't know if we will be doing anymore long trips for awhile but we did get out swimming in St. George. A was so-so about the swim, he didn't hate it but he wasn't all excited either. Guess we will have to try it again. Might I recommend the Hampton Inn next time you are in St. George it has a lovely warm pool.

My Letter Organizer

2010-09-09T09:33:00.004-06:00

Not a tutorial but an "I made it all by myself". The first pictures show what I used to have for a letter organizer. It was a shoe organizer I bought at the dollar store and tried to make it less ugly by adding ribbon. It was made out of a really thin almost not fabric and it was starting to tear. So in a daring mode I bought some new fabric and took apart the old one to make the new one. No pattern. I made it up myself. I think the new one is fabulous, don't you?

Moab/I got laid off Friday

2010-08-16T21:40:00.005-06:00

Mr. Bob found out on Wednesday that he needed to be in Monticello Utah for work Monday. I told Mr. Bob that if he ever got sent to Moab that I wanted to go since we have been talking about doing that for ages. Hence Monticello is an hour south of Moab so we decide to take the weekend and go. I found someone to teach the lesson in Relief Society for Sunday and we made reservations for a place to stay. Friday I was going to pack when I got home from work and then we would leave. I came home early because I got laid off/let go due to a lack of work and projects to work on for my company. It was bittersweet. I really want to be a SAHM but we need my income. It is what it is for the time being.

That being said we left for our trip Friday night. We made it to our motel in good time Friday evening. The next morning we had the loose plan of going to Arches and so we made it in the heat of the day. We had no lunch and we ended up eating these energy bars my Mom got us for Christmas as an emergency supply. A got a little grumpy so we headed back to the motel for the rest of the afternoon. We went to dinner at the Sunset Grill in Moab and it was Fabulous! The mushroom vol au vent was superb, the view, I could swoon. All recommended by Mr. Bob's boss (thanks!). The next day we went to Canyonlands which turned out a little better. We hiked (not much) to a great view point and to an arch. We remembered to bring a real lunch this time even though the cheese for the sandwiches did not survive the trip. I am surprised we didn't get food poisoning for all the "refrigeration" everything got.

We then headed to Monticello. Monday morning Mr. Bob got to court and A and I ended up at the visitor center/museum. We then headed to a thrift store on center street where I got 5 cute milk glass vases. I also wanted these great vintage dessert/drink glass plate sets but showed restraint in not buying them because I would probably never use them. Just like my punch bowl and cups never gets used (but bonus is they came from my Grandma). We drove by the temple which was so sweet and pretty and then we headed back to Moab for lunch. After lunch it was a long drive home (A by this point pretty much hates his car seat). The pictures are attached. I am warning however that I still have quite a bit of weight to lose post partum and so I think I look horrible.

Great Grandparents

2010-08-16T21:36:00.005-06:00

A with his Great Grandpa and Grandma A. My mother's parents who are still living.

Rolling Over

2010-08-01T12:59:00.003-06:00

In case anyone actually cares about A's milestones he just rolled over for the first time yesterday. He did the first one from the tummy to his back and the second one from his back to his tummy. Mr. Bob and I had fun with him this morning helping him and hopefully teaching him how to maneuver better with his rolling.

The cupcake review

2010-07-20T18:29:00.005-06:00

Not this cupcake the other one.
I have been desperately wanting some vanilla cupcakes with pink frosting. My mom made the Magnolia Bakery vanilla cupcakes one time and they tasted good. I decided to make that recipe and found it online on the food network site here. I made it just like it said and the cupcake part came out horrible tasting like a corn muffin. It was nasty and I wondered if I had done something wrong, but I couldn't figure out what could have happened. So I looked at the reviews of the recipe and most were positive but every so often someone would post about how the cupcakes came out awful. They said it tasted like corn muffins to them. I checked back and found this comment quite a few times by different people. I decided that I hadn't made the recipe wrong it just turned out that way. I was pretty frustrated at that point and wanted to throw them away, but I remembered the frosting tasting pretty good so I decided to make it anyway (1 CUP of butter). The frosting is fabulous and thinking back on it when my mom made it I really only remember the frosting. In the end I highly recommend the frosting but I am going to keep searching for a better vanilla cupcake to go with it.

Eco-friendly Cleaning

2010-07-17T20:37:00.002-06:00

Today I was reading a book on eco-friendly cleaning. Mostly I just think that those kinds of books are a little extreme. However today I had a wake up call. The author was talking about ingesting all of these toxic chemicals into our systems and how we use chemical cleaners on everything and it is potentially making us all sick. Then I had an epiphany. Pretty soon my baby will be crawling all over the floor and do I want him licking up ammonia from the tile? That is so not good. Now I am trying to re-examine the role chemicals play in my life and decide what is too toxic for my baby and what is probably okay.

The author makes a huge point about Chlorine being bad for us. One thing I want to point out is that although Chlorine in gas form and concentrated is toxic, it has proven to be safe in certain levels in our drinking water. Although if you really want to improve the drinking water supply, ozone purification is best albeit far more expensive than most water treatment facilities can afford.

Father's Day

2010-07-12T20:24:00.004-06:00

I forgot a picture. Here is Mr. Bob's first Father's Day.

A at 3 months

2010-07-06T22:02:00.004-06:00

So here are some from July 3 and today July 6th. In the stroller he is sleeping through the West Jordan fourth of July parade. The ones with the bib were taken today to commemorate his 3 month birthday.

Potpourri

2010-06-26T18:22:00.005-06:00

of ideas.

So, I dragged myself to yoga this morning, and then I came home and was grouchy to Mr. Bob, and tried to clean the bathroom, unsuccessfully. Mr. Bob decided to help put me in a better mood, so he took me to the library. Going to the library had me feeling good finally.

I've been thinking recently about the challenges of living in a small house, and how important it is to not have too much stuff. While I was at the library, I was reminded of the simple living movement that I was interested in a few years ago, and how it is applicable today. Whatever happened to the simplicity movement?

Part of my cleaning the bathroom was to get rid of extra, useless things that are taking up space. Old medicine, old hair thingamabobs, empty bottles and tubes, and all the "trying to get pregnant" stuff and the "post-pregnant" stuff, and I don't dare get rid of the "post-pregnancy" stuff in case we try to get pregnant again, even though it will probably all be expired and gone bad by then.

I feel like I never get anything done any more; not like I got anything done before I had A, either, but it's just gotten worse. I read these really cool blogs where people do cool stuff all the time and make cool things and cook all these fabulous things and stay home and plant gardens and have five kids and live in these nice houses that are clean. A new baby doesn't even phase them. I work and barely get anything done and don't have the energy to cook or clean or even sew any more. And I don't care any more. (Mr Bob: THAT WAS A LIE.) I don't care enough to do anything about it. However today I am sharing this frustration on this blog about how I do care on some level and hope someday to not be so busy working so I can do something creative again.

The Baby Blessing

2010-06-07T17:05:00.003-06:00

Pics as usual enjoy!

Thinking Outside the Box When it Comes to How We Grow Our Food

2010-06-06T22:08:00.005-06:00

I personally am a fan of organically grown food. If I had enough money I would always buy it. However recent research has led me to believe that some so called organic food is not technically organic. How we grow our food is actually dependent on a lot of factors and not everything is black and white. This article makes an excellent point about things that we miss when we only focus our energy on global warming and miss the bigger picture on what is really polluting our environment. As someone who is highly skeptical of anthropogenic global warming and who is a fan of being ecologically and environmentally sensitive I have a hard time explaining my position to other people without coming off as being callous about our environment. I have a firm belief that we should do everything thing we can to balance the earth and keeping toxins out.

Organic Agriculture: A Solution to Global Warming?

A Smiling

2010-05-24T10:12:00.005-06:00

So lots of changes around here. Mr. Bob has a part time job as a criminal defense attorney. I go back to work June 1st. A has started smiling and giggling, not just tentative maybe smiles either but all out grins. I took some pictures and unfortunately I didn't think to do it until he was just about done smiling but I am attaching them anyway.

More Pics of the Kid

2010-04-27T19:53:00.004-06:00

So since Mr.Bob and I have gotten married I have totally hijacked this blog and turned it into more of a family blog. I make no apologies. Someday we will actually post about things besides our family life, but until then just enjoy some of the professional photos taken of the kid from his second day of life.

He's Here!

2010-04-12T21:06:00.004-06:00

"Junior" decided that April 20 was too far away and he wanted to get out here RIGHT NOW. Who are we to argue?

So here are some pictures of our son from the day he was born.

Progress in the Basement

2010-03-01T07:21:00.012-07:00

Just wanted to show some photos of how my progress at reworking our family room has gone.

First a few shots of how it was "framed" before. The boards here are 2x2s, rather than 2x4s, and most of them do not actually touch each other, they're just attached to the wall.

This section of the basement was also "insulated" with pads of fiberglass that had been torn in half and placed between the 2x2s, and there was a layer of drywall over most (but not all) of the area. In the fireplace/nook, there was no drywall or insulation, only boards. So we had a room that was exposed to the raw foundation, and the insulation we had was minimal. As a result, this room was always extremely cold.

Now I have a few "after" shots. These are from after I framed the family room with 2x4s, rather than 2x2s. I've also put in full thickness fiberglass insulation in most areas (with a few left open so I could wire the room).

Since taking those photos, I've also added insulation to the ceiling and put all of the drywall in place on the walls and ceiling. The following pictures show the nearly completed drywall.

My next steps will be to put putty/mud over all of the seams, cracks, and screws, also known as "taping, mudding, and sanding." After that, we'll paint the walls. Somewhere in there I'll finish wiring the room (all I need to do is hook up outlets to the wires) and replace the light fixture. Then we'll get some professionals to install carpet.

Valentines Dinner for Two

2010-02-14T22:02:00.005-07:00

So I have been back on a cooking kick since the holidays got over and Mr. Bob has really gotten into the spirit of things as well. We watched Alton Brown's first episode ever, "Steak your claim," and decided that was what we wanted for dinner this Valentine's Day. Mr. Bob had been wanting a new skillet and I had been wanting a cast iron skillet for years, so we took the plunge and bought one as our Valentine's gift to ourselves.

The next thing we did was go to Costco and buy some rib-eye steaks at a cost of about five bucks a steak, but we figured if the recipe worked it would be worth it.

I made some homemade coleslaw and twice-baked potatoes to go with it, and even pulled some naan out of the freezer to go with it.

Mr. Bob did an excellent job of following Alton's recipe and the steaks were delicious. Everything else turned out well; even my table setting looked pretty and romantic. Wish now we had taken pictures, but just realized we didn't think about it until now.

Other than our dinner party, Valentine's has been a little on the downer side with me being sick with a cold/bronchitis and just being hugely pregnant. We have about 8 weeks until the baby comes. Mr. Bob is hard at work on the basement and we expect to get enough of a tax return to put carpet and an electric fireplace in the basement. Then it is baby nursery time. We have already bought all of the furniture at IKEA; we just need to assemble it. I am actually to going to try and tackle making baby slings for Mr. Bob and me this week, we each chose our own material. Hopefully I start feeling better soon.

New Year 2010

2010-01-03T20:40:00.002-07:00

Junior is Coming

2009-10-28T21:19:00.003-06:00

In case anyone actually reads this blog from time to time, I am announcing the arrival of "Junior" Robertson on April 20th, 2010. During pregnancy so far all I do is whine and moan about how painful it is. No bipolar symptoms to report, pregnancy seems to take up all of my energy. We are tentatively excited or perhaps scared out of our minds about the baby. Will post pictures when we actually have some good ones, besides the one at seven weeks where the baby looks like a blob inside a bigger blob (my uterus). Sixteen week check up on Monday. And yes we are going to find out what the baby's sex is hopefully in time for Thanksgiving.

One Problem With Government Spending

2009-09-20T09:13:00.004-06:00

I had an interesting experience yesterday while in the checkout line at Old Navy. A woman was at the store with her husband, and apparently she had a specific amount of money allocated for her clothing budget. She asked him if he would accept her going over her budget, and justified it by saying that some of the things she was getting were on clearance, and wouldn't be available for much longer. He gave in to her request, presumably reasoning that it would be better to spend a little more on a good deal now instead of paying full price later. (I don't really approve of the enabling aspect of that, but who am I to judge? Maybe he felt there was a good reason.)

At the register, she discovered that something was on sale that she thought was full price. It turned out that she was under budget after all. So what did she want to do? Instead of being happy that she got exactly the same things at a better price, she wanted to go buy more clothes so she would be over budget again.

This teaches us two principles. First, no matter how much we value something a moment before, if we learn that the price is lower we will tend to value it less. ("We" being a general term for the rational human beings that economics attempts to study.) Although the woman valued the clothes very highly, highly enough that she felt it was worth it to be over budget, as soon as she learned the price was lower she valued it less. The item in question (a pair of trousers, as I recall) was exactly the same. Its actual value had not changed in the slightest. But her perception of its value had lessened because she learned more about how the store valued it less than she thought.

Second, this explains a problem with government budgets. If people in a government agency gets a certain budget approved, they will do their best to spend it all. If they get an excess approved, they have no incentive not to use every penny of the excess - instead, they try to spend as much as they can get away with to signal the importance of their agency and how they need more money. This naturally leads to government inefficiency, a widespread problem under all administrations.

(Incidentally, the husband wouldn't let her spend more money, even though she got a better deal than expected. I approve of the restraint because she got a good deal by accident. Had it been a deliberate effort to maximize value, I might approve of rewarding such efforts with more money.)

Murder, Mystery, and Mayhem

2009-06-28T21:33:00.005-06:00

We recently participated in a murder mystery dinner hosted by my brother M. Here are some pictures:

Out of character - L, A, M, S, M, Se

In character: Norman D'Adly, Vicki D'Adly, Enrique Graves, Dr. Chelsea Barren, Michael Nightshade, Kathryn Lawless

Overview: The Sour Grapes of Wrath

California Vacation '09 - Days 4 and 5

2009-06-01T17:28:00.002-06:00

Day 4

Shelly at the haunted theater in the haunted house in old town San Diego

Me, standing in the middle of Old Town San Diego looking ridiculous
Day 5

The two of us in front of the San Diego Temple
A giant panda at the San Diego zooKoalas at the zoo. Guess they like to hide when there are people around (which is pretty much all the time, in my understanding)

California Vacation '09 - Day 2 (continued) and 3

2009-05-23T21:53:00.003-06:00

Day 2 (Continued):

My first Ferris Wheel! (Shelly says it's very slow.)

Me 'n' the Cap'n make it happen:

Day 3
Corona del Mar beach

California Vacation 09 - Day 2

2009-05-23T21:41:00.002-06:00

Spent mainly in Disney's California Adventure, with the evening in Disneyland.

Shelly outside A Bug's World, with a somewhat subtle companion:

A couple of Cars - Mater and Lightning McQueen:

Brief detour to Yosemite? No, just a typical outdoor setting in California Adventure:

Brick Vader - the evil villain from Lego Star Wars. Or something like that.

Shelly in front of the Disney castle, at night after the fireworks:

California Vacation '09 - Day One

2009-05-22T08:25:00.004-06:00

Here are a few pictures from the first day of our vacation to southern California. We spent yesterday at Disneyland.

Shelly and I stand outside the castle/entrance to FantasyLand:

In the entrance to Pirates of the Caribbean - Shelly in front of Captain Barbossa:

Outside the Haunted Mansion:

In front of It's a Small World:

Mr. Bob's Graduation from School 4-23-09

2009-04-27T20:07:00.003-06:00

Visually explaining the truths of life

2009-03-11T07:22:00.002-06:00

If you look closely at my sidebar, I have a fondness for webcomics. I find that they can explain much of life in a form that nearly anyone can understand.

So here are a few comic images I've seen recently that just make sense out of life:

(Buy it Here.)

On correlation versus causation (from XKCD):

Calvin explains some of the problems with the bailout:

The problem with Socialism

2009-03-09T13:29:00.002-06:00

“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
—UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher

Whatever complaints a person might have about Maggie Thatcher, she had a good point here. This is the main reason I'm becoming skeptical about the future of the ~~U.S.S.A.~~ U.S.A.

Image Modifications

2009-02-20T08:08:00.006-07:00

Okay, here they are, alternating between original and modified:

Nearly all done by way of BeFunky.com

An incentive-based web application for writing

2009-01-30T07:38:00.003-07:00

The thing that I find most interesting about economics is not the financial side of things (which I more or less care about only in the abstract, as I perpetually gripe about government incompetence). Instead, I am more interested in the incentive-based reasoning side of things, where someone comes up with an idea to motivate people to behave a certain way. While money is obviously a good way to do this sort of thing, there are others.

One interesting example I recently discovered is Write or Die, a web application that gives incentives to people to write quickly. After only a single experimental use, I find it motivating me to write quickly even now, as I write this blog post.

As it is applicable to the post topic, I include what I wrote as part of the post:

Hello. First time to use Write or Die, and it's a new experience. Gotta wonder exactly how the "word count" feature works, as I'm pretty sure I haven't written thirty-two words just yet. Is it the classic, original method of counting every five-letter block as a "word" (like they use in measuring words per minute) or is it just a random setting that I managed to glitch up almost immediately? Interesting to consider, anyway. So the next question is, what shall I write about? I mean, it's a clever application and a downright brilliant idea (tempered by the fact that a person has to voluntarily go to the web site and choose to type the stuff), but I don't have much to write about right now. Perhaps later. Further, I'm wondering if I should turn the sound on. I understand that some of the "penalties" attached to this program include evil sound effects, at least on this level. Being RickRolled is an evil thing to have to suffer. But I don't know if there is anything beyond that for me to worry about. Interestingly, the fact that I know that there will be "negative" consequences keeps me typing quickly; this in spite of the fact that I have yet to actually suffer any such consequences, as far as I know, and if the problems are just sound effects, there's nothing to worry about. Ooh, I waited a while during the last sentence, and the surroundings of the box turned pink. Excellent. Got me going right away. Makes me wonder, how exactly do things work on this web page, anyway? I mean, exactly what do they do to cleverly determine whether I'm actually typing. Can I hit the "backspace" key repeatedly and have it still count, even though the word count would be reduced as I type? It hasn't seemed to cause a problem thus far. Self-critical thinking, somewhat recursive: It has left me thinking about why the only thing I can think to write about is the program itself, and thinking about what I should write about. And as right now I'm writing about thinking about writing about thinking about what I should write about, I think this particular recursion has reached new heights. Or new depths, or something. One thing I've noticed: It is difficult for me to concentrate on anything except writing, and as quickly as possible at that. Hmm, not sure if that's a good thing. After all, if I'm using this to motivate me to write quickly, I'd hope that I would be writing quickly about something beyond my using this web-toy to write quickly. Perhaps next time - if the novelty doesn't wear off and there is a next time. I suspect that the novelty will wear off, and that I will remember the pressing motivation to keep writing stuff as quickly as possible and decide (after the fact) to be very annoyed with this program and myself. Ah, well. At least it keeps me going for a while. Ah, I just opened a word processor window, and it immediately started turning pink, then more red. Interesting. It tells me a little more about how it works. I also tried to get right back here, but it kept blinking over to my word processor window, so I couldn't type. No multitasking allowed on this one, it appears. Or at least it screws things up. Okay, I think I'm done now. I'll post it to my blog just for the abstract pleasure of doing so, and as an analytical piece about the incentives behind such a program. Generally, I approve, and I think I might even use this one again.

End result: It claims I wrote 632 words in 15 minutes. Word counts it as 614. Counting characters (the traditional word count technique) at 5 characters per word yields 676.4 characters, for an average of just over 45 words per minute. It also does not include hard carriage returns (or whatever you call that on a word processor), so all my nice paragraph divisions are not included in the resulting text. I leave it in blockquote tags as it came out, rather than how I intended it, as I'm really too lazy to deal with things in a more complete and thorough way.

A surprisingly effective plan for debt reduction

2009-01-05T18:51:00.004-07:00

It seems complicated, but I think everyone should at least consider this as a debt-reduction plan - Don't Buy Stuff You Can't Afford.

Shocking, isn't it? I can already imagine people's reactions, though:

What happens if I want to buy something and don't have the money? You mean I shouldn't buy it? But that seems so confusing! I don't think I can handle it!!!1!!one!!eleven!!!

Note: If the video has since been taken down, here's a transcript:

Don't Buy Stuff You Cannot Afford Transcript
from Saturday Night Live

[open on couple trying to balance their checkbook ]

Wife: (sighs) I just can't get these numbers to add up.

Husband: Like we're never going to get out of this hole.

Wife: Credit card debt, does it ever end?

Chris Parnell (CP): [walks in] Maybe I can help.

Husband: We sure could use it.

Wife: We've tried debt consolidation companies.

Husband: We've even taken out loans to help make payments.

CP: Well, you're not the only ones. Did you know that millions of Americans live with debt they cannot control? That's why I developed this unique new program for managing your debt. It's called [presents book] "Don't Buy Stuff You Cannot Afford."

Wife: Let me see that… [grabs book, reads] "If you don't have any money, you should not buy anything." Hmm, sounds interesting

Husband: Sounds confusing.

Wife: I don't know honey, this makes a lot of sense. There's a whole section here on how to buy expensive things using money you save.

Husband: Give me that… [grabs book, looks at it] And where would you get this saved money?

CP: I tell you where and how in Chapter 3.

Wife: Ok, so what if I want something but I dont' have any money

CP: You don't buy it.

Husband: Well let's say I don't have enough money to buy something. Should I buy it anyways?

CP: No-o-o-o.

Husband: Now I'm really confused!

CP: It's a little confusing at first.

Wife: Well what if you have the money, can you buy something?

CP: Yes.

Wife: Now take the money away. Same story?

CP: Nope. You shouldn't buy stuff when you don't have the money.

Husband: I think I got it. I buy something I want, and then hope that I can pay for it right?

CP: No. You make sure you have money, then you buy it.

Husband: Oh, THEN you buy it. But shouldn't you buy it before you have the money?

CP: No-o-o-o.

Wife: Why not?

CP: It's in the book. It's only one page long. The advice is priceless and the book is free.

Wife: Well, I like the sound of that.

Husband: Yeah, we can put it on our credit card.

CP: [shakes head]

Announcer: So get out of debt now, write for your free copy of "Don't Buy Stuff You Cannot Afford." If you buy now you'll also receive, "Seriously, If You Don't Have the Money, Don't Buy It!" Along with a 12-month subscription to "Stop Buying Stuff Magazine." So order today!

It's even better when you watch the video

Christmas 2008

2009-01-01T10:05:00.008-07:00

We are really lucky this Christmas to receive so many wonderful gifts from out family and friends. I want to say thank you. Mr. Bob and I are looking forward to the new year in hopes that this year will be better than the last year. The last couple of years have been good in terms of us being a couple, but bad otherwise. Mr. Bob is hopefully graduated from law school and is looking for a job. We don't know how long it could take considering how bad the recession is. Hopefully my job will continue to go on. We are still not having any luck in having kids and are going to take the next step in fertility treatment. Anyhow here are the pics, enjoy.

Cheap and expensive

2008-12-11T11:37:00.002-07:00

"It’s a sad story, in many ways. But it can’t really be undone at this point. If we had wanted to preserve the Big Three, we would have bought more of their cars."
--DAVID LEONHARDT

"It takes a lot of money to look this cheap." --Dolly Parton

My Substantial Writing Submission - A Work In Progress

2008-11-30T17:54:00.001-07:00

(Actually, "A Work In Progress" is the title. It fit my sense of humor, I'm afraid.)

At BYU's J. Reuben Clark Law School, the Substantial Writing requirement is the equivalent to a doctoral thesis, so I put quite a bit of work into it. I've wanted to post it here for a while, and since I'm graduating fairly soon and nobody else will ever read it, I thought I'd put it up here.

Halloween 2008

2008-11-04T06:50:00.003-07:00

Fun stuff from Halloween this year.

First, look closely at this one, as I'm rather proud of the effect:

Next, Shelly's mother pulls off the image of a witch very well:

Third, Shelly's sister's family, as the princess, the princely wizard, and . . . the dinosaur. Not sure where the dinosaur fits into it, but he has very nice spiky hair.

Another image of us in our nifty Chinese costumes.

At the Halloween party, I was in charge of a "hot cocoa walk," and it was my job to convince kids to walk around in circles and stand on assorted bits of colored gaffer tape. Here's me, in my usual dramatic way of waving them on:

PS If you didn't catch it, my shoes are floating about 2 to 3 inches above the ground in the first photo. Silly and childish, I know, and poor Shelly has to put up with it 24-7-365 1/4. So be nice to her; she does a good job of earning it.

Why I am a "retired" political scientist

2008-10-27T08:25:00.003-06:00

These days, I am not very involved in politics. Only rarely do I actually do more than make snide comments about politics. It occurred to me that I have not thoroughly explained why. To explain this, I turn to my good friend, Friedrich Nietzsche:

"Whoever battles monsters should take care not to become a monster too, for if you stare long enough into the Abyss, the Abyss stares also into you."
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, chapter 4, no. 146

When I worked at the state legislature, I found myself reaching new depths of morality, or the lack thereof. Nothing particularly vile or horrible, just behind-the-scenes maneuvering to get legislation through the legislative process in ugly situations.

It disturbed me that I actually enjoyed taking advantage of the rules to make changes in the law.

So I left it behind. No more lobbying, no more working as a "legislative aide" or anything like that. In my mind, the government process should be open. It is difficult enough for people to know what is going on when it is all part of the public record. Using the rules to get things past the public eye was too much fun for me, like when I know I'm about to win a game of chess against a master chessplayer. It's one of the biggest rushes I've ever had, and it could easily become addictive. (Especially to someone with my personality, and who has never done drugs or anything like that. I am particularly vulnerable to addiction.)

So I am afraid that I will become a political animal if I continue wallowing in politics. Consequently, I've left the politics business behind, beyond occasional online commentary.

And here I am now at law school, preparing for a career as an attorney for no reason beyond my desire to be more honest than a political scientist. How's that for a sick and twisted contradiction in terms?

Good capitalist reading

2008-10-27T08:24:00.002-06:00

Since I haven't made a link to this yet, Captain Capitalism has written a book. Since his weblog is one of the few that I find worth checking almost daily, I'll recommend it without having read it. Though I'll add commentary later, once I've read it.

Watch your mouth, and a call to responsibility

2008-10-22T10:06:00.002-06:00

What we say is important... for in most cases the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.
-- Jim Beggs

"[O]nce a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader — the barbarians enter Rome."

Robert A. Heinlein

Good luck on both of those

Necessity - an open letter to the President, public officials, and members of Congress

2008-10-21T07:49:00.004-06:00

"It became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it."

-- An American major after the destruction of the Vietnamese Village Ben Tre

A lot of people are discussing what is "necessary" and what is not in these troubled economic times. President Bush justified the massive bailout package by saying that he signed it into law, not to destroy the free market system, but to save it.

This has some disturbing familiarity to me. Another version of the above quote:

One of the most famous quotes of the Vietnam War was a statement attributed to an unnamed U.S. Air Force Major by AP correspondent Peter Arnett. Writing about the provincial capital, Ben Tre, on February 7, 1968, Arnett said: "'it became necessary to destroy the town to save it,' a U.S. major says." To this day, "Ben Tre logic" is a common saying for whenever a "logical" conclusion is to destroy something out of the perceived best interests of everyone involved. Papa Bravo Romeo - U. S. Navy Patrol Boats at War in Vietnam, by Wynn Goldsmith (pages 184 to 186) attributes the quote to USAF Major Chet Brown.

Well, to all you public officials, I don't agree that it was necessary to destroy the free market in order to save it. Part of a free market system, a very important part, is the ability for private efforts to fail. If somebody screws around and does a lousy job, they need to face the appropriate consequences. You can't just bail out every company that is about to go under. I'm willing to suffer the consequences of my own mistakes, even if my mistakes bankrupt me. But I'm not willing to reward the mistakes of others, especially if they made grossly incompetent policies. I'm also not happy about putting the government in charge of fixing the problems that it caused for Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac.

So in conclusion, it did not, nor should it ever, become necessary to destroy the world's economy in order to save it. Your actions and the actions of Congress and continuing support for Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac have begun an inevitable decline into socialism for the United States of America. I only hope that the world can survive.

Adam Smith on the Recent Financial Woes

2008-10-20T19:15:00.002-06:00

I think Smith would have likened the behavior of most of the banks, mortgage lenders, and the U.S. Government to his statements on the East India Company:

...waste which the fraud and abuse, inseparable from the management of the affairs of so great a company, must necessarily have occasioned.
--Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Book 4

A Market for Destruction

2008-10-20T08:28:00.003-06:00

Interesting article discussing a business that ~~allows~~ ~~encourages~~ insists that its customers destroy things for stress relief purposes.

Sounds like fun. Definitely some money in it, and it would probably be a better (and cheaper) investment than therapy.

Making Sense out of the Financial Crisis 2.0

2008-10-18T15:10:00.003-06:00

Here is how to prevent the next financial crisis.

Dave Ramsey

We are real fans of Dave Ramsey, and try in our own limited way to follow his plan. You will be glad you did.

The Bailout Explained

2008-10-18T08:55:00.004-06:00

From the online comic Sinfest, via Captain Capitalism

This actually sums up the bailout better than almost anything I've seen. Impressive.

(Click to Enlarge)

Making Sense out of the Financial Crisis

2008-10-18T08:27:00.004-06:00

A variety of good reads on the current financial crisis, via Freakonomics:

An explanation of the recent financial upheavals

Everything you need to know about the financial crisis

The financial crisis explained

Bomb-sniffing Dry-Cleaner

2008-10-18T08:06:00.004-06:00

How creative approaches to problems can yield excellent results. From the Washington Post via Paranoia Weblog (they have the complete data trail there):

Sunday, October 5, 2008; Page B02
In recent years, as it has tried to improve its performance in Iraq, the U.S. military has done a lot of remedial studies of earlier counterinsurgency campaigns. This note, passed along by a Special Operations officer, describes a couple of tricks the British learned battling the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland:

I attended a briefing at the CI [Counterintelligence] Center a year ago and one of the speakers was a former British SAS officer who worked Belfast for 10 years. He provided some fascinating insights into their operations and, specifically, some of the "out-of-the-box" methods they utilized to collect and target the IRA, PIRA [Provisional Irish Republican Army], Gerry Adams and their sympathizers.

One of the most interesting operations was the laundry mat [sic]. Having lost many troops and civilians to bombings, the Brits decided they needed to determine who was making the bombs and where they were being manufactured. One bright fellow recommended they operate a laundry and when asked "what the hell he was talking about," he explained the plan and it was incorporated -- to much success.

The plan was simple: Build a laundry and staff it with locals and a few of their own. The laundry would then send out "color coded" special discount tickets, to the effect of "get two loads for the price of one," etc. The color coding was matched to specific streets and thus when someone brought in their laundry, it was easy to determine the general location from which a city map was coded.

While the laundry was indeed being washed, pressed and dry cleaned, it had one additional cycle -- every garment, sheet, glove, pair of pants, was first sent through an analyzer, located in the basement, that checked for bomb-making residue. The analyzer was disguised as just another piece of the laundry equipment; good OPSEC [operational security]. Within a few weeks, multiple positives had shown up, indicating the ingredients of bomb residue, and intelligence had determined which areas of the city were involved. To narrow their target list, [the laundry] simply sent out more specific coupons [numbered] to all houses in the area, and before long they had good addresses. After confirming addresses, authorities with the SAS teams swooped down on the multiple homes and arrested multiple personnel and confiscated numerous assembled bombs, weapons and ingredients. During the entire operation, no one was injured or killed.

By the way, the gentleman also told the story of how [the British] also bugged every new car going into Northern Ireland, and thus knew everything [Sinn Fein leader] Gerry Adams was discussing. They did this because Adams always conducted mobile meetings and always used new cars.

The Israelis have a term for this type of thinking, "Embracing the Meshugganah," which literally translated means, embrace the craziness, because the crazier the plan, the less likely the adversary will have thought about it, and thus, not have implemented a counter-measure.

This could also serve as a great example of creative thinking for problem solvers generally (and RPG gamers in particular) - take a crazy, absurd plan and apply it in such a way that nobody would ever guess that you're doing it, since they can't possibly have a countermeasure for everything. A very practical application of economics (incentive-based reasoning applied to the would-be bombers).

The Second-Life Herald

2008-10-10T07:50:00.002-06:00

Over three years ago I posted a political science paper on political games of various sorts. Still an interesting subject. I started off with the story of the Alphaville Herald at The Sims Online.

Well, the original publisher of the Alphaville Herald has since written a book, entitled The Second-Life Herald, discussing the development of MMOGs and the socializing that goes on therein. Interesting stuff; I highly recommend it.

He also has a website by the same name.

Senator DeMint on the Bailout

2008-10-03T07:19:00.001-06:00

It makes me want to move to South Carolina just so I can vote for him:

Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I have friends and colleagues whom I respect deeply who are on all sides of this bailout issue. One of them just spoke. We all to want do what is right for America, and I believe those who have crafted this plan had pure and noble motives. They want this country to succeed. They want prosperity. I just do not believe that this bill gets the job done. In fact, in the long term, I am convinced it will do more harm than good.

We are the Nation that has been called the bastion of freedom, and we are the Nation that has sacrificed blood and treasure to share that freedom with the world. We have fought communism, dictators, and tyranny. We have helped establish democracies and free-market economies across the globe. Because of America, millions of people are now electing their leaders, and millions have been taken out of poverty and enjoyed prosperity. Yet as the blood of our young men and women falls on foreign soil in the defense of freedom, our own Government appears to be leading our country into the pit of socialism.

We have seen this Government socialize our education system and make our schools among the worst in the world. We have seen this Government take over most of our health care system, making private insurance less and less affordable. We have seen this Government socialize our energy resources and bring our Nation to its knees by cutting the development of our own oil and natural gas supplies. And now we see this Congress yielding its constitutional obligations to a Federal bureaucracy, giving it the power to control virtually our entire financial system. Americans understand this and they are angry. They are our judge and our jury. They are watching what we are doing, and they will render their verdict based on our actions.

If we were honest with the American people and explained the failures that have led to this financial crisis, we might have the credibility to ask our citizens to allow us to borrow another $700 billion in their name to try to fix this problem. But we are not being honest. This problem was not created by our free enterprise system. It was created by us, the Congress and the Federal Government.

With good intentions, we made a mess of things. We wanted our economy to grow faster, so we allowed the Federal Reserve to create easy and cheap credit. But this allowed people to borrow and lend irresponsibly. We wanted to help the poor, so we forced banks to make loans to people who could not afford to pay them back. We wanted every American to own a home, so we created Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to encourage and guarantee mortgages for more people who could not afford them. And all of these easy mortgages, many of which required no downpayment, inadvertently increased the prices of homes to unsustainable levels and created a massive oversupply of unsold homes. Now the value of homes has fallen, as has the value of the mortgages attached to them.

We allowed and even encouraged Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to bundle up these risky subprime mortgages so they could be sold as securities to investors in America and all over the world. We guaranteed these institutions with the full faith and credit of the Government so their securities could be sold at above-market rates, allowing them to borrow huge amounts and fuel an explosion in subprime mortgage lending. We also allowed these mortgage giants to use their taxpayer-supported profits to spend over $200 million lobbying Congress to keep us quiet, even when we saw that our brainchild had become a financial Frankenstein.

All of our good intentions are now blowing up in our face, and we are asking the American people to bail us out. We must also plead guilty to other misguided policies that have made the situation even worse. Our foolish energy policies have created a huge financial burden on every American family and severely damaged our economy. By not opening our own energy supplies, we are now sending nearly $700 billion a year to other countries to buy oil. This has dried up capital at home and made us dependent on foreign countries for our credit.

We have also squandered and wasted hundreds of billions of hard-earned tax dollars on unnecessary and ineffective Federal programs and thousands of wasteful earmarks. Last week, we passed a bill with the highest rate of pork spending in history. While our talk of gloom and doom has heightened the financial panic here and around the world, and while we are asking Americans to bail us out, we are still spending money as if there is no tomorrow. Years of wasteful spending and bad policies have resulted in a huge national debt of nearly $10 trillion. Much of this debt is held by China and Saudi Arabia and other foreign countries that some now say are dictating our financial policies.

We know Americans are now the victim of our misguided good intentions, along with our free enterprise system that has been severely damaged and weakened. We know our bad policies have taken the accountability out of our markets by artificially insulating investors from normal risk. This has led to careless lending, careless investing, many bad decisions, and possible criminal activity on Wall Street. While many are blaming Americans and our free enterprise system for the crisis, we know the Government is the root cause of this crisis.

I believe this Congress should admit its guilt, prove we have learned from our mistakes, and correct the bad policies immediately that have caused these problems. We should insist the Federal Reserve end the easy money policy. We should repeal the laws that require our banks to make risky loans, and fix the accounting requirements that force banks to undervalue their assets. We should develop a plan to break up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and sell them to private investors who will run them as private companies.

We should reduce corporate and capital gains taxes to encourage capital formation and boost asset values. We should also repeal the section of Sarbanes-Oxley that has driven billions of dollars of capital overseas. And we should do even more to grow our economy and lessen our dependence on foreign countries. We should immediately pass a law that expedites the development of our oil and natural gas reserves to help relieve the burden of high prices and gas shortages for our families.

We should immediately adopt a freeze on nonsecurity discretionary spending and pass a moratorium on earmarks until we fix this wasteful and corrupting system. We should sacrifice our political pork as we ask taxpayers to sacrifice for our mistakes.

We have caused a terrible financial mess, and we must honestly tell the American people that whether we pass this huge bailout or not, there will likely be suffering and pain for our great country. But Americans and our free market economy are resilient. And with fewer misguided laws and less onerous regulations, we will get through this crisis, as Americans have many times before. But we must tell Americans the truth.

Congress says it was deregulation and capitalist greed that has run wild and undermined our financial system. Instead of reducing our role in the economy, we are trying to use this crisis to expand our power to control and manage the free enterprise system. We are here saying that our banks and mortgage companies have stopped lending money, that people can't get loans to buy cars, homes, or to run a business, and that our economy of the United States is on the verge of collapse.

We are telling people not to worry because we are going to rescue them with their own money. Congress is going to allow the Treasury Secretary to take $700 billion from taxpayers to buy bad loans and investments from anyone he chooses anywhere in the world. This, we say, will free up capital, get the credit markets working again, and put our economy back on track.

But this Congress refuses to change our Nation's monetary policy that created the cheap money and inflated the housing bubble. We refuse to change the accounting laws and regulations, even though they are making the problem worse. We refuse to lower capital gains and other taxes to attract capital and promote growth. We refuse to repeal Sarbanes-Oxley, even though it hasn't worked and it has cost our economy billions. And we refuse to expedite the development of America's energy resources, even though it would help every American and grow our economy.

None of these things are even on the table for discussion. We are telling the American people to hand over $700 billion or the world economy is going to collapse. This is why people are so upset. It is because Congress is being dishonest and arrogant. We are not being honest with them about how we got into this mess, and we are not being honest with them about what we need to get out of it.

I strongly oppose this legislation. It takes our country in the wrong direction. It forces innocent taxpayers to bail out Government policies and Wall Street mistakes. It asks the American people to take a leap of faith and trust people who have consistently misled them.

I am deeply saddened by the tone of this debate. I am afraid many of the supporters of this bill have bullied people into supporting it, using fear. There may be good reason for fear, but I think most people will agree that some of the statements have been reckless and irresponsible. I hope I am wrong and this bill will truly solve the problem.

Let me say again that I know every one of my colleagues is doing what they believe is right for America. But based on what I know, I cannot in good conscience support it. I know the Senate is going to pass it tonight, and I can only hope the House will defeat it so we can pursue better alternatives.

I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

A nifty toy

2008-09-30T08:27:00.003-06:00

Singular Inversions FaceGen Modeller is a fun little toy that converts photographs of faces into three-dimensional models.

Take a look:

My nephew, Brock:

How about another image: Ned the Pieman from Pushing Daisies:

Neat, huh?

Story of my life

2008-09-30T07:51:00.001-06:00

"A man who is 'of sound mind' is one who keeps the inner madman under lock and key." Paul Valéry (1871-1945)

Dinner Rolls for Sunday

2008-09-28T20:29:00.011-06:00

So a short while ago Mr. Bob and I were at TJ Max looking for syrup for italian sodas when we came across some orange marmalade and some red pepper jelly. So in order to help us use some it up, I had time today to make crescent dinner rolls. Today was hectic with the primary program but the kids mostly pulled it off and we are safe for awhile. My primary kids make me so happy, it is fun to see them every week. They are used to my style of teaching lessons now and even ask when we are going to start reading the scriptures and if they can have a longer set of scriptures to read. Wow their parents must be so proud of them, I know I am. I got to take Mr. Bob's mom to the "What a woman wants" conference at the expo center, it was a lot of fun and good female bonding. We got a little carried away with the three dollar jewelry, but hey it was only three dollars. I can't believe the holidays are around the corner, I know what I am going to get just about everyone except J and L. Of course they are both the youngest and therefore the hardest to shop for. I am going to give everyone a very cheap yet nice gift mostly the same. That way I can stay within my budget but I no longer have guilt because I didn't give anything. I would tell you what those gifts are but then everyone might find out what they are getting. We also had a game night Friday with my sister and J and also my cousin J and his wife T, who were in the same singles ward Mr. Bob and I were in. They got married a month and half or so before us and we all meet each other in the singles wards. So yes singles wards can work, I guess since all six of us met our spouse in a singles ward. We got completely carried away playing games and it is so interesting to see what inside gestures and words we each have with our spouse. It is my turn this year to plan our anniversary and I am still a bit undecided on what to do. Last year I suggested that we take turns planning our anniversary each year so it was Mr. Bob's last time and now my turn. I am still studying for the PE again and haven't been my normal self all day. Mr. Bob is getting his paperwork together for the bar exam. I am still stressing about our appointment to see the infertility specialist. I thought that it would be fun to post some pics of ourselves today. Enjoy.

The Truth

2008-09-22T21:10:00.001-06:00

From Americans for Limited Government

The monthly update post

2008-09-22T10:34:00.003-06:00

I haven't been very good about updating. Ever. But I thought I'd give a general update.

I'm back in school, Shelly's back at work, and both of us are studying - Shelly for the P.E. exam, and me for classes and the MPRE. We're both very stressed about it these days, among other things. I'm also dead tired 24/7 because of my class schedule and commute.

My efforts in finding work after my graduation in December have met with limited success. After exchanging e-mails with one potential employer, we both agreed that we had different objectives and wouldn't get along well. (I wanted to practice family law to make people's lives easier, he wanted to destroy the opposition and make money doing it. Quite a fundamental difference in legal philosophy.)

Unfortunately, there are two law schools feeding new attorneys directly into this area, so there's a lot of competition for relatively little work. Makes it hard for me to get interviews, since most people never find out that I managed to keep going in law school in spite of the most hectic, thoroughly chaotic and difficult semesters of my life. Plus the local financial aid office can't seem to get anything right, so they keep promising money and then don't bother to deliver. They're in no hurry; after all, they haven't paid for an entire semester of law school on credit cards.

So I'm continuing my job-hunting efforts, trying to get interviews where I can. Shelly and I are doing our best to stay around here, as she has a great job that she really loves and I want to stay around here for her sake. If it is at all possible, we'll stick around Salt Lake so she can keep doing what she loves.

Anyway, that's my frustrating life. And that's actually the easy part of it, too. (I won't share the more unpleasant side.)

What's better where?

2008-08-21T15:00:00.003-06:00

I saw a sign today outside a Wendy's restaurant that said this:

Wendy's
Now Hiring
Apply Inside
Proof that "It's Better Here!"

Pretty silly way to phrase it, in my opinion. Because the Wendy's in question has been there for years. They haven't recently expanded their operation. Essentially, they're saying "We have job openings; therefore, it's better to work here."

They seem to have missed the point - the reason that they have job openings available is most likely related to the likely facts that (1) they can't hire people to do these jobs at these pay rates, and (2) people have quit because they don't want to do these jobs at these pay rates.

That's sort of like saying, "We have lots of over-cooked, over-salted french fries that have been in our deep-fryer for two weeks; therefore, everyone should want to eat these french fries." Or, in the alternative, "The government spends lots of money for minimal return; therefore, we should want to pay more in taxes."

(Yes, I had to turn it into a gripe about government spending; force of habit, and it's such an easy target that I couldn't resist.)

Dealing with Irrational Co-Workers

2008-07-21T09:38:00.003-06:00

Taken from Scott Adams' The Joy of Work (c) 1998 United Features Syndicate, Inc. pp 152-56. Frankly, my quoting it here likely violates copyright, so if anybody honestly cares they should just reply to this in a comment and I will remove it.

But since on p. 151 Mr. Adams clearly instructed readers to "[c]ircle the irrational arguments that apply to your situation and give a copy to the person who is bugging you," this gives implicit permission to copy it under certain circumstances. I've done this only for the convenience of having it available for copying when I need it.

You Are Wrong Because
For your convenience, I have circled the brain malfunction(s) that most closely resemble(s) the one(s) you recently made on the topic of (fill in topic): _________________________________________.

1. AMAZINGLY BAD ANALOGY
Example: You can train a dog to fetch a stick. Therefore, you can train a potato to dance.

2. FAULTY CAUSE AND EFFECT
Example: On the basis of my observations, wearing huge pants makes you fat.

3. I AM THE WORLD
Example: I don't listen to country music. Therefore, country music is not popular.

4. IGNORING EVERYTHING SCIENCE KNOWS ABOUT THE BRAIN
Example: People choose to be obese/gay/alcoholic because they prefer the lifestyle.

5. THE FEW ARE THE SAME AS THE WHOLE
Example: Some Elbonians are animal rights activists. Some Elbonians wear fur coats. Therefore, Elbonians are hypocrites.

6. GENERALIZING FROM SELF
Example: I'm a liar. Therefore, I don't believe what you're saying.

7. ARGUMENT BY BIZARRE DEFINITION
Example: He's not a criminal. He just does things that are against the law.

8. TOTAL LOGICAL DISCONNECT
Example: I enjoy pasta because my house is made of bricks.

9. JUDGING THINGS WITHOUT COMPARISON TO ALTERNATIVES
Example: I don't invest in U.S. Treasury Bills. There's too much risk.

10. ANYTHING YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND IS EASY TO DO
Example: If you have the right tools, how hard could it be to generate nuclear fission at home?

11. IGNORANCE OF STATISTICS
Example: I'm putting ALL of my money on the lottery this week because the jackpot is so big.

12. IGNORING THE DOWNSIDE RISK
Example: I know that bungee jumping could kill me, but it's three seconds of great fun!

13. SUBSTITUTING FAMOUS QUOTES FOR COMMON SENSE
Example: All things come to those who wait." So don't bother looking for a job.

14. IRRELEVANT COMPARISONS
Example: A hundred dollars is a good price for a toaster, compared to buying a Ferrari.

15. CIRCULAR REASONING
Example: I'm correct because I'm smarter than you. And I must be smarter than you because I'm correct.

16. INCOMPLETENESS AS PROOF OF DEFECT
Example: Your theory of gravity doesn't address the question of why there are no unicorns, so it must be wrong.

17. IGNORING THE ADVICE OF EXPERTS WITHOUT A GOOD REASON
Example: Sure, the experts think you shouldn't ride a bicycle into the eye of a hurricane, but I have my own theory.

18. FOLLOWING THE ADVICE OF KNOWN IDIOTS
Example: Uncle Billy says pork makes you smarter. That's good enough for me!

19. REACHING BIZARRE CONCLUSIONS WITHOUT ANY INFORMATION
Example: The car won't start. I'm certain the spark plugs have been stolen by rogue clowns.

20. FAULTY PATTERN RECOGNITION
Example: His last six wives were murdered mysteriously. I hope to be wife number seven.

21. FAILURE TO RECOGNIZE WHAT'S IMPORTANT
Example: My house is on fire! Quick, call the post office and tell them to hold my mail!

22. UNCLEAR ON THE CONCEPT OF SUNK COSTS
Example: We've spent millions developing a water-powered pogo stick. We can't stop investing now or it will all be wasted.

23. OVERAPPLICATION OF OCCAM'S RAZOR (WHICH SAYS THE SIMPLEST EXPLANATION IS USUALLY RIGHT)
Example: The simplest explanation for the moon landings is that they were hoaxes.

24. IGNORING ALL ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE
Example: I always get hives immediately after eating strawberries. But without a scientifically controlled experiment, it's not reliable data. So I continue to eat strawberries every day, since I can't tell if they cause hives.

25. INABILITY TO UNDERSTAND THAT SOME THINGS HAVE MULTIPLE CAUSES
Example: The Beatles were popular for one reason only: They were good singers.

26. JUDGING THE WHOLE BY ONE OF ITS CHARACTERISTICS
Example: The sun causes sunburns. Therefore, the planet would be better off without the sun.

27. BLINDING FLASHES OF THE OBVIOUS
Example: If everyone had more money, we could eliminate poverty.

28. BLAMING THE TOOL
Example: I bought an encyclopedia but I'm still stupid. This encyclopedia must be defective.

29. HALLUCINATIONS OF REALITY
Example: I got my facts from a talking tree.

30. TAKING THINGS TO THEIR ILLOGICAL CONCLUSION
Example: If you let a barber cut your hair, the next thing you know he'll be lopping off your limbs!

31. FAILURE TO UNDERSTAND WHY RULES DON'T HAVE EXCEPTIONS
Example: It should be legal to shoplift, as long as you don't take enough to hurt the company's earnings.

32. PROOF BY LACK OF EVIDENCE
Example: I've never seen you drunk, so you must be one of those Amish people.

Regretfully, in a recent discussion Shelly and I were both guilty of a number of these. That probably means that we're both wrong.