The substance of things hoped for

This was going to be a post moaning about the trials and tribulations we endure at the hand of our old computer, which has gotten increasingly impossible to deal with. At long last our new computer was ordered, and I waited impatiently for its arrival. It came, it saw, and it conquered. This it is on which I'm typing right now, and I absolutely love it! For one thing, it's a sleek white contraption, and for another, it's very compact (hence efficient): the whole thing fits on our kitchen desk. No more going upstairs for the hobbit! How, you ask? This is a Mac, and as such it comes with everything loaded onto its flat-screen monitor. That means that all we have of computer stuff sitting on the desk is the monitor, keyboard, and mouse. I wish I could post a picture of it. But our camera memory card is all filled up, and I need to transfer the pictures before I can take anymore. Meanwhile, we just sit in front of the computer and take pictures of ourselves, because the Mac comes with a lovely little camera mounted on the monitor.

If you want to know why we bought a Mac, you really must look at these hilarious ads from the Mac homepage. Well, I haven't figured out how to post hyperlinks yet, but go to the Apple home page, click on Get a Mac, and view the ads. Then do the same thing for the Mac UK site. The British ads are even funnier.

Actually, that's not the only reason we bought a Mac. Michael has been working with them for the past year or so at work and discovering that he really likes them. They run better, have fewer problems, have lots of really cool features, and are hardly susceptible to viruses. I never thought I would prefer one to a PC. But I certainly like this one. Especially the photo booth feature. As soon as I can figure out how to publish the photos I'll post some of us.

What's watt, what?

In the interests of saving even more money (as if snatching cheap butter from the world's population of poor people weren't enough), I have decided to shift my energy consumption to the off-hours. I read recently that electric companies charge less for energy used in off-peak hours, so as of this week I am trying to run all major appliances (excluding things like fridge, A/C, etc.) after 8:00 (p.m.). It's proving to be a good discipline for me, as it forces me to plan my days better and schedule my time such that I'll be loading up the dishwasher or dryer at the stroke of 8:00. We shall see if it makes a noticeable dent in the electric bill next month.

Woman Blogger Opines About Frugality

Recently I read this article, and it interested me enough to ponder it, and consider writing a post about it. Not necessarily a rebuttal, because I agreed with a lot of what was said, but I felt it raised some interesting points which required answering. [For more discussion, see QOC's take on it here.] But the more I thought over it, the more annoyed I got at the tone, which caused the mental composition of this post to degenerate rather quickly such that by the time I got to typing it up in Word it became a full-fledged rant.

In the first place. (Deep breath.) Why on earth appears in the first paragraph the unnecessary and completely irrelevant clause: 'and women in particular'? What's wrong with blogging about frugality? Nothing, perhaps. But why on earth should it matter whether women or men are blogging about it? If the author of the article means to go on to suggest that most people so blogging are missing the boat on this topic (which he seems to imply), does it matter whether more frugal bloggers are women than men? Are women bloggers missing the boat more egregiously on this topic than men bloggers? Is that why we have to throw that distinction in there? Are women, from centuries of not balancing the checkbook, peculiarly ignorant in all matters financial and are therefore ripe for enlightenment ('Duh! The way I can save more money is not by using coupons but by not buying it at all? Boy, did I have it wrong! Thanks, Male Blogger, for cluing me in!') Or are women just so patently ignorant on all topics in general that it naturally follows that if women in particular are blogging about it, they are missing the boat and need this fine fellow to write an article to set them straight? I mean, that clause was kind of thrown in there at the beginning as if it were an explanation for the need to write this article: this article was in response to the proliferation of frugal bloggers out there, and as if that weren't bad enough, many of those bloggers are women. This is reminiscent of R.C. Sproul objecting to women posting advice or spiritual encouragement on their blogs, because men might read it, and that would violate the Scriptural imperative that women must not teach men.

Moving on...

I agree that frugality is a matter of the heart. But both extremes - spending and saving - are equally wrong: spending too much money evinces a love of stuff, while hoarding money evinces a love of money. Both involve making idols out of something.

Under the heading of Necessity, this author states that 'Many people who attempt to be frugal could probably get along just fine without being frugal.' He proffers the example of spending days finding the perfect cheap cake pan in order to invite people over to evangelize them, and suggests that it might be worthwhile to just spend the money on the cake and have people over all the sooner. This seems like a straw man argument to me. Where do any of you read a blog advocating, as one of their frugal tips, 'Spend days scouring thrift shops looking for cake pans'? I mean, hello! Most frugal people probably already bake their own cakes, using pots and pans they got as wedding or graduation presents! I can't imagine a frugal Christian blogger advocating ignoring the prompting of the Holy Spirit in order to save a few bucks. If you really don't have the money, then you will invite people over for coffee or tea and skip the cake.

But what if you do have the money? This is where the author should stop writing his opinions about how things should be done and simply reference Exhibit A, Check Your Heart. And that's about as far as you can go in giving people advice and telling them what the holy thing to do is. You can share what works for you, you can explain how to you it is worth it to buy a cake, in the whole money v. time continuum, but you should not opine about what the better or holier course to pursue is.

I personally could afford to spring $20 for a Publix cake (ouch!), in terms of actually having the money in my bank account, but I don't think it would be a wise allocation of funds. Let's remember that all this hypothetical money and stuff and time belong to God already. 'The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world, and they that dwell therein.' I am a steward of God's resources, both the money and the time, and I will answer to Him for how I allocate those resources. Acknowledging that is the key.

Moving on...

We have next a rather laughable application of the Old Testament gleaning principle to the notion of bargains. For one thing, the author assumes that 'of course the wealthy landowners would have wanted to pick these up and increase their profits,' but I say of course not necessarily. As a former farmer and agrarian, I know that there is a certain unavoidable margin of waste, and when you're working a field or a garden or whatever it is, you just write a bit off. Nowadays machinery has made that margin far smaller than it used to be, but when you have crops to get in and another field to harvest, you're not going to waste your time mucking about with the odds and ends. You have bigger fish to fry. If you're a generous soul, you'd be delighted to know that the stray wheat stalks aren't going completely to waste.

The notion that shopping at second-hand stores (or accepting hand-me-downs from friends, or whatever) deprives the genuine poor people of their source of clothing is ludicrous. Our society is so rich, so overflowing with bounty, that there's more than enough to go around. It's just as well that us rich people (as he seems to define anyone with the means) are willing to participate in the salvage operations, or even more decent stuff would go into the landfills than already does. (Have you seen what some snobs throw away??) By dressing my children in second-hand clothes, I am no more causing some poor child to go naked than I am starving some poor child in Africa by throwing out the leftover oatmeal (which, for the record, I don't actually do either).

There is a lot of stockpile-bashing and entrepreneurship-sneering going on in the comment thread, but since the author of the article wasn't responsible for that, I'll leave that be. Except to say that by what stretch of the imagination is it greedy, nasty, selfish, and cruel to the poor for me to snap up multiples of an item at a good price if it is something I will use for my family, give away to someone, or even sell? It is a matter of the heart, and I am pretty pipped that anyone would judge another for his motives in acquiring something. Joseph stockpiled grain for seven years, which was an incredibly wise decision that had the blessing of God on it and saved the whole known world. The rich fool stockpiled so much grain that he intended to tear down his barns and build bigger barns, but God saw his heart of greed and took it all from him. Let's not pretend that we can read minds and hearts.

Random economic observations:

'Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good?' ~Vineyard owner, Matthew 20:15

'No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions - he had money, too.' ~Margaret Thatcher

Party shots

Recently Michael was talking with someone who mentioned that her daughter was graduating from high school this spring, and, though neither one really cared much about a party, she was going to throw one anyway because the girl really needed the money she expected people to bring in order to help her off to college in the fall. The daughter estimated that she could get as much as $800 out of her guests, which would help a lot with books and clothes.

I was aghast and appalled to hear of this cool and collected intention of, well, collecting. When I tried to express my sense of astonishment to Michael, he asked me how it differed in any way from a bridal or a baby shower. ‘You throw a party and expect people to bring gifts to you! How is that any different?’

Well. That one stumped me for a minute. I admit that I’ve gone through baby and bridal showers sans a blush of shame for the extraction of lovely presents from innocent party guests, but something about this scheme just affronted my sense of propriety. Naturally I could not rest until I had catalogued all the reasons why a graduation party, as a deliberate money-making venture, differed qualitatively from a baby or bridal shower.

First, showers are time-honoured, long-standing traditions with the stated purpose of blessing the guest of honour with the support of the community. A graduation is a big deal, too, but it stands for the completion of something, not the beginning of something. If our culture has changed to the extent that we now need to add college showers as a rite of passage and accept them into our way of thinking, then for heaven’s sake let’s be honest about that and admit that you’re throwing your daughter a going-off-to-college shower.

Which brings us to our second point, which is that immediate family members are not supposed to throw showers. Originally, I suppose, this came from the notion that families were so close and ended up supporting each other’s needs to the extent that a question of conflict of interest might arise. I don’t have a problem with a family member throwing another one a shower. I’ve participated in such showers. But it has to be handled tactfully so as not to give the impression of a money-grubbing domestic enterprise.

Those were the main objections I could think of right off. But there have to be a lot more. So I fell back on elaborating my original points more bashingly. A shower is a shower, with the stated intent of gifts. A party is a party, given in honour of someone, to celebrate with guests. In our greedy and mercenary culture, many people have come to associate parties with gifts. But it is wrong to do so. I am always torn between writing ‘No gifts please’ on invitations, because I truly don’t want loot, and not doing so, because, as Miss Manners admonishes, so doing will imply that one was actually thinking that someone might bring a gift.

(Just to clarify: I love presents! But I don’t really need anything, and I don’t expect them, so they’re always a pleasant surprise when they do happen. And I love being invited to parties, and always enjoy picking out a gift, and only very rarely feel under obligation, and that’s so uncomfortable that I never want to impose that on anyone else.)

So It’s All Downhill From Here?

Recently I was remembering the discussion on Queen of Carrots’ blog regarding the WorldView fiction contest finalist story on a miserable life and the virtue of not being fake. At the time I was pregnant with Jane and horrified at the grim prospect of a life of misery unfolding before me. I can handle a bad day or two now and then, but the idea of being kept forever down by perpetual runny noses and sleepless nights would be enough to frighten the most easy-going of personalities.

At the time, it was easy to explain away my general bonhomie by the fact that I didn’t have two small children underfoot (reportedly the most difficult stage) and therefore had no authority on the topic of inevitable unhappiness. Perhaps my tune would change when my life really became as difficult as the author’s clearly was, and I would lose all the moral high ground of being really, truly happy and fall into the impossible dilemma of fake optimism or honest drudgery.

So it was with a degree of tentative anxiety that I anticipated the arrival of Baby #2 and embarked upon this next stage of parenting, evidently the motherhood crucible intended to show up my mothering skills and character for what they really were and bringing a screeching halt to the era of blissful ignorance. No more coasting on my good fortune to have simply been dealt flow’ry beds of ease as my lot in life.

Well, here we are, three months in (by the time I ever manage to get this posted it will probably be at far past that. O for a new computer that will support something better than Windows 98!), and I really think that things are going to be all right. It’s long enough out to stop saying things like, ‘Well, maybe reality hasn’t sunk in yet,’ or ‘We’ll see how it goes when the meals stop coming,’ because the meals have stopped, the family doesn’t live nearby, and the baby is getting over her initial newborn sleepiness (surely the saving grace of every nap-needy new mother). This is apparently Real Life With Two Kids, and I absolutely love it.

Of course there are moments, and perhaps even days, when I feel worn out with the monotony and feel as if I must just stagger along on through until Michael comes home and rescues me from the incessant drudgery. But I had a few such days with Jane, and apparently survived just fine. It appears that these moments are short enough to be fairly easily bounced back from.

Before I formed a conclusive opinion – thinking that perhaps this easiness is just first-stage, and once Ella ceases to be so immobile, portable, and relatively undemanding, things will fall apart – I asked a friend, who has an almost-two-year-old and an eleven-month-old, how she finds her life. ‘Oh, it gets easier every day,’ she told me.

Now, unlike the sad stressed woman in the story, I’d like to think that I’d have the honesty to admit it if things really deteriorated. I’m all for not airing dirty laundry and all that, but the purpose of true friendships is to build one another up, and if I had a valid desperate need, I’d jolly well like to have my true friends come rally round.

I’m part of a wonderful group of friends who meet every week for lunch and playtime and talking, and I was half wondering whether this issue would ever come up. But so far I really, truly have nothing to complain about, and I don’t want to sound like I’m just faking it when I keep insisting that everything is perfectly all right. I’d be quite happy to dish out sympathy and compliments to any obliging soul, in my turn (‘You poor thing! Would you like some butter? Here, take 5 lbs.’), and sometimes wonder whether I should work up a little woe-is-me repertoire just to blend in a bit better (not that anyone in play group ever complains! But sometimes, in the nursing room at church, mothers get a little carried away in one-upping each other with lack-of-sleep, multiple spit-up, or exceeded diaper tragedies, and I cringe down in silence because the one really bad day I had has long since receded into distant memory).

Part of this might be a personality issue, as I tend to have a very high stress threshold. I can enjoy the pressure of adrenaline, and as long as I’m not physically hurting, drastically starving, or dreadfully sleepy, I can pretty much laugh anything off.

So we shall see. But for now, I shall persist in thinking that the cry-worthy vexations of raising lots of little children are rather overrated. (And yes, feel free to check back with me any time in the next few years on that. I may have a second opinion for you.)

Two years ago today

What Time Has Wrought

Note: This post was mentally composed and intended for publication several days ago, but the home computer is proving consistently recalcitrant and Michael's laptop distressingly unavailable during the day. We must buy that Mac this month.

Five years ago, at the end of April:

-I had a picture on my wall of the Canadians holding their gold medal from the Winter Olympics
-I was planning a trip to England for the summer
-I was helping several friends plan their weddings
-I looked forward to a full summer of conferences and horseback riding
-Marriage was not even on the distant horizon

Four years ago, at the end of April:

-I was freshly engaged and planning an August wedding
-Baghdad had been taken, the statue had fallen, and the war was going well
-I was getting pretty much no sleep, what with all the IM chats and phone conversations

Three years ago, at the end of April:

-I was settling into life in a new house
-I was looking for a job
-I went to the Blue Willow Inn for my birthday dinner (thanks to Janice for the cookbook!)

Two years ago, at the end of April:

-I was about to deliver my first child
-For the first time in seven years, I didn't wear my silk party dress on my birthday
-I quit my job

One year ago, at the end of April:

-I went to a Blue Angels airshow
-We were contemplating trying out for the summer musical Hello Dolly!
-I planted a garden (which promptly died)

And now:

-I have another precious daughter
-I own more butter than anyone else I know
-I'm going to make brownies, ice cream, and chocolate fudge sauce for dessert tonight

We all scream

Baskin-Robbins is hosting a $0.31/scoop night this Wednesday, May 2nd, from 5 to 10 p.m. Even if we all buy three scoops each (and I think Jane would need a little help with hers, at that rate) it would cost less than $3 total. Okay, so I know a half gallon of ice cream from the store could cost less than that, but you wouldn't get the variety of nine different flavours. Plus it's the experience.

I Was Mistaken

A few days ago I took the following pictures, intending to post them along with the caption ‘A Really Full Freezer’ or something to that effect. I thought I had really and truly maxed out the capacity of our little fridge-top freezer. I knew I was pushing it when I took out the ice cube trays to make room!

Right before our trip I had purchased eight gallons of organic milk for $0.99 each. Ninety-nine cents! I didn’t think I had room but I knew I would regret not snapping up such a bargain, so I bought all eight, pushed things around, made a bunch of yogurt, and somehow made it work.

Then, within the last week, I found bargains on 6 lbs. of strawberries and 10 lbs. of ground beef. Of course we didn’t have any room. But I would never get over it if I didn’t seize the day, so I pushed things around even more and somehow we found the room. I was so impressed that I took the pictures to prove what a totally-full-absolutely-no-room-left freezer looks like. Look ye and marvel:













Then. I was rushing past the butter aisle in Kroger, and happened to spot a sign: 2 lbs./$1. That can’t be right, I thought. But sure enough, REAL butter. One WHOLE pound. For FIFTY CENTS!!! You can’t buy margarine this cheap! I have NEVER seen such a price and I probably never will again. It would be the death of me to pass this one up, so I made several trips and eventually ended up with 102 lbs. of butter. Now, this is what a really, truly, absolutely stuffed-to-the-gills positively-NO-room-left freezer looks like:

Worthless movie log

On the flight to DR they showed us The Holiday. Owing to regulations on oxygen masks, there was a limit as to how many lap infants (non-ticket-holding passengers) could sit in one row, so Michael - with Jane on his lap - had to sit behind me the entire flight. This made for a complicated carry-on situation, what with passing snacks and diapers back and forth over the seats, but the real nuisance was that I couldn't nudge him and make sarcastic comments as the movie progressed.

When they first handed out the headphones, he declined a set. 'You'd better watch this movie!' I told him. 'If I'm going to watch this miserable, rotten, wretched flick, then I'd jolly well better have someone to talk it over with afterwards. But he resisted. So I am going to have to blog about it.

Well, you know the premise is that a rich LA movie producer and a British typesetter, both trying to get over broken hearts, swap houses for the Christmas holiday. The problem is that nothing in this movie is believable. There are so many cheesy sub-plots but you don't even care if they get wrapped up. One character is apparently unable to cry, and then realises she has just left the love of her life when she starts crying after bidding good-bye to him. Yeah right. One character is engaged to another character and then flies across country to persuade an old girlfriend to - what? He's still engaged, she knows he's engaged, and what sort of future does he envision for them? Another character, whom you just know is destined for someone, is inconveniently already with someone else, but because he's so patently a good guy who would never dump anyone, the movie conveniently has her go off and cheat with someone else so we can drop her from the storyline sans guilt or regret.

One of the most telling lines from the whole movie occurs early on, when a main character is breaking up with her live-in boyfriend because she suspects him of cheating. As she empties his drawers, occasionally pausing to hurl objects at him, she says something along the lines of, 'You know, this is exactly why I didn't want us to get married! I knew something like this would happen!' Oh. And so why did you let him move in with you in the first place, under such auspices? This is someone you will fall in love with, live with, etc., but not someone you will actually trust?

That's pretty much all there is to this movie. It's not about love, honour, decency, commitment, trust. It's all about self-gratification, personal happiness and self-discovery, the whim of the moment, and a fair dose of good luck. Just another shallow, forgettable piece of tripe. And now that I've sufficiently vented about it, I can forget it too.

Miss Potter (on the return flight) promised much better. I loved the styles and fashions, both of clothing and interior decorating, and I wish that I'd figured out the glitch in my earpiece a whole lot sooner so I could have listened more intently. At first, from the bits and snatches I was able to pick out, I was afraid it was going to be another tiresome feminist piece on the universal oppression of women in all circumstance prior to 1970s America, with the repeated harping by her parents on the importance of getting herself married suitably off. And the classic heroine rejoinder of self-assertion: 'I'm a published author. I have ample means, and I shall do as I please.' (clapclapclap.)

However, there came shortly after this speech of defiance a charming chat with her father and mother, in which the father says something to the effect that 'Whatever you may think, we have only your welfare at heart. We do not wish you to rush into an improper and ill-considered match. Let me therefore propose a compromise. Keep your engagement secret for now, and at the end of the summer, if you still wish to marry him, we will give you our blessing. If you truly love him, one summer will not cool your ardour. If, however, your mind has changed, we will give that our blessing as well, and there will be no scandal.' What a clever, wise, gracious path to take! I wanted to cheer. My earpiece gave out around here, though, so I have no idea how this story ended. She got on a train and went somewhere. Anyway, it's a fine movie.

Sometimes it pays to be behind the times

The advantage of waiting almost a full year to watch Pirates II is that you have only a couple of months more to wait for the finale.

Random political thoughts

-I find it hard to get enraged at Alec Baldwin over the angry message he left for his daughter, and think all the media attention the situation is getting is very annoying. Sure, it was a nasty message and involved a few nasty words, but we all know that these Hollywood types are pretty lacking in self-control in real life, anyway. Was anyone surprised when Russell Crowe threw that phone? It doesn't matter how nice/decent/genuine the characters they play on screen may be; these people are actors. They smoke and drink and sleep around and have bad marriages and poor parenting skills. (This is a sweeping generalisation, but it's true more often than not.) Aside from not leaving the country like he promised he would do, Mr. Baldwin hasn't really done anything that out of character.

-I still don't get the hoopla over Don Imus' firing. I never listened to him or liked him before, so it's no skin off my nose, but according to several articles, he's made nasty remarks and sarcastic, cutting comments about other people before. In fact, that's pretty much his shtick. Why this particular comment crossed the line is as puzzling to me as I'm sure it was to him. I'm not condoning his remarks, by the way, simply pointing out that it's rather hypocritical of whoever was listening to him before (I mean, for him to be on the air, there must have been a substantial market for whatever he was peddling) to decide that this kind of nastiness is suddenly not acceptable anymore. Kind of like if Howard Stern suddenly got canned for public indecency: one would have to wonder just which straw it was that broke the camel's back. And why no one warned him that they were suddenly changing the rules.

-I'm sure this VA Tech shooting is going to bring on another tiresome round of gun-control legislation, possibly banning whatever type of weapon it was that the shooter used, possibly banning a whole range of weapons. What such reactionary proceedings fail to take into account is that there were already laws against what this guy did, on several levels: there are obviously laws against murdering people, and there are already laws against having handguns on school property. Why do they think that another layer of legislation is going to stop someone from doing something wrong? If someone wasn't intimidated enough by the law against carrying a gun onto school property, is he suddenly going to be quelled by another, higher law stating that he must not carry even this type of gun onto school property?

-While I'm pleased at the decision of the Supreme Court to uphold the ban on partial-birth abortion (and frothing with rage at the spin the major media are putting on it: ''"so-called" partial-birth abortion'; oh, yeah, what else would you call it when a baby is partially birthed and then aborted?), it's a bit hard to muster the spirit for even a minor Hurrah when you consider the reasoning which allowed this decision to slip by: they got away with finding the ban constitutional - sans a health-of-the-mother clause - only because they pointed out that there are alternatives which do have that clause. It's a bit sad that the decision had to include the reasoning that, if all else failed, at least the fetus could still be dismembered in utero.

Words/phrases I love to say

But of course!
Yes, but still.
I think not. (Poof!)
Aha. So [delighted, perplexed] was I that I said it again, only backwards: Aha!
Ah.
Alas and alack.
We are not amused.

One of the Deadlies

It’s been my ponderation, on and off, whether we - as fallen sinners - are all susceptible to the same degree of accountability when it comes to the seven deadly sins. Obviously we are all subject to varying degrees of temptations, depending on what our weak spots are, but are we all equally culpable when it comes to any given action involving any given sin?

The case in point is gluttony. Now, this is not something I feel as if I’ve struggled with at all in my life, because I really don’t think I have any kind of eating/food/addiction problem. I eat a lot, I enjoy eating, and I don’t have any health problems resulting from my diet. I am very fortunate to have been blessed with a very high metabolism, which insulates me from the apparent consequences of my actions, in that I can eat pretty much as much as I want, of pretty much anything, without any adverse physical side effects.

So here’s the question. Am I or am I not subject to the sin of gluttony? If I didn’t have such a high metabolism, and I ate as much as I do, and didn’t exercise to compensate, then my weight would be a visible testament to my lack of self-control. So just because of my genes, do I get a free pass on this one? That doesn’t seem right. (I know, I know, life is not fair.)

'Twas the eighteenth of April in Two Thousand Seven

Cost of Living

So I’ve been thinking a lot about budgets recently.

The Iron Chef Mom’s Challenge really made me ponder the definition of frugality, because while I obviously respect these ladies and admire their ability to stick to a budget, I was surprised at the shock and awe occasioned by other readers at the ability of one of the challengers to stick to a grocery budget of $50 a week.

Of course, these ladies have more kids than I do. But then, we have people over for dinner and bring meals to families who need them, so it probably all evens out.

Also, they are accounting for more than just groceries: they’re including many household goods (tp, laundry detergent, personal care, etc.) because most of these things get bought along with the groceries. So I ran the numbers (which we have at our fingertips because we’ve been tracking our receipts with vicious accuracy for the past 2+ years) and found that our recalibrated totals, including all these household items, still beat out the experts’.

It’s delightful to feel really on top of one’s game. But after pondering what makes our food budget work, and why it seems so effortless to spend so much less on groceries than the average family, I decided that I have the personality factor in my favour. Quite simply, it’s easy for me to budget because I like bargains and I enjoy the things that bring our food costs down.

Therefore, it’s a personal fulfillment issue as well as a budgeting issue, and the quality of life is improved, not dragged down. If I didn’t enjoy budgeting and baking, then pinching pennies would merely be a drudge and a toil and I should probably resent the budget for its shackles and constraints.

The factor that enables me to keep our food costs down is the matter of convenience food. I really don’t rely on convenience food all that much, so in essence I am not paying someone else to do the work for me. I am not paying Betty Crocker to pre-mix my cookies for me, or Uncle Ben to strip down the rice to quick-cooking (and, incidentally, less nutritious) levels, or the instant mashed potato people to peel my potatoes for me, or Perdue to skin and bone my chickens for me. With a minimum of effort and time I complete these tasks myself, and thus save myself a lot of money in the process.

The fact of the matter is that I enjoy baking. I like to mix up recipes, and the two or three minutes that it takes to measure the dry ingredients is more than worth the dollar or two I save by not having someone else do it for me. If I hated the feel of flour on my fingertips, or detested touching a raw potato, then I might consider it worthwhile to hire someone else to do it for me. But that’s not my personality.

I could save even more money on our food budget by not buying, oh, cheese or mushrooms, or cutting way back on our butter consumption. But I like those things more than the money I would save, so I continue to work them into the budget.

There are obvious contrasts to this in my own life, which clearly illustrate the cost v. quality-of-life continuum: diapers and laundry. I could save a lot of money using cloth diapers, but I really detest the idea of washing them, so I spend a lot of money not to have to deal with that. Washing out diapers is not something I enjoy, it is not something that improves my quality of life, and it is not something I want to devote my time to. Hanging up laundry to dry would save a tremendous amount of money on the electricity bill, but it is not something I enjoy nor something I really want to budget time for. Therefore I continue to use my dryer even though it costs more money.

So budgets aren’t really about just scraping by on the bare minimum. They’re about seeking balance in a well-rounded life. Therefore I concluded that comparing budgets is so much more than contrasting the bottom line in dollar signs. Whatever your budget is, for whatever category, if you can afford it and it makes you happy, then embrace it and enjoy!

How Do You Spell Character?

On Wednesday nights we help serve dinner at our church. We enjoy the opportunity to serve people and say hello to everyone who passes through the line, not to mention the free meal afterwards. Generally I serve the kids’ meal and the salads (rocking Ella in her carseat underfoot) while Michael tends to the desserts, wearing Jane in the backpack.

Last Wednesday, as we were waiting for the rush to begin, I glanced down at Michael and caught his eye. He smiled back, so I wandered down and proffered my cheek for a kiss. ‘Hey, Little Miss Haughty,’ he whispered in my ear.

I was perplexed. I had indeed pointed my nose in the air to give him the best angle, but I couldn’t imagine that he would cast it up to me under such circumstances. ‘Well, I’m trying to be humble,’ I told him, thinking of some way to work it into a compliment, like adding, ‘Which is hard with such a handsome husband as you,’ thus heaping coals of fire upon his head.

Michael began to laugh. ‘Your Institute training is bleeding through! Who else would think I meant H-A-U-G-H-T-Y instead of H-O-T-T-I-E?’

Oh. Yes, that sounds much better.

A glimpse of the tropics

A Creature of Habitat

Jane is simply delighted to be back. She had a great time, and enjoyed all the attention from adoring relatives, but she was clearly overjoyed to be back in familiar surroundings. As soon as we arrived back home, she made a beeline for the dresser and came back with a pair of socks, begging us to put them on her hands (we packed only sandals, so she was a week without her socks). Clearly the glove obsession is still going strong.

She has recently begun to baby her toy animals, lining them all up in a row (in order of height!) sitting against the hearth. Or she will line them against the wall, face down (she still sleeps on her front), and kiss them ‘Nigh-night.’ We packed no toys for the trip, and yesterday she was simply thrilled to be back with all her beloved creatures. She runs around naming everything with delight. ‘Fridge!’ ‘Trash! Yucky, yucky!’ ‘High chair! Jane high chair!’

Yo Ho Ho And All That

Back from the Caribbean we are, and it’s just as beautiful as it was when Michael and I were there on our honeymoon. Warm sunshine, low humidity, cool tropical breezes, lush tropical fruits, and plenty of family to take a girl or two whenever we wanted to slip off for dance lessons on the beach. Pictures will be forthcoming.

This one's not so bad, either

What a cutie!

In like a lion, out like a lamb

So pleased were we with the success of our Indian dinner that we called for an encore, only this time we were determined to go entirely all-out with the inclusion of a mango lassi. I didn’t expect to find cheap lamb stew meat marked down again, but I did expect to at least find lamb. Alas, there was none apparent in the specialty meats section, so I settled upon some ground veal.

I told Michael about the change in plans.

Me: But don’t you think that ground lamb will be much the same as lamb stew meat? After all, after hours in the crockpot, the lamb was pretty shredded anyway. And this is very young lamb, hence very tender.
Michael: Veal isn’t young lamb. It’s young calf.
Me: What! I thought it would be young and tender lamb!
Michael: It’s young and tender all right, but it’s beef. Young lamb is lamb. Old lamb is sheep.
Me: So basically I paid a lot of money for very fancy, very tender, very expensive ground beef.
Michael: This is going to keep you up all night, isn’t it?

Off I scuttled, therefore, to the nearest grocery store to buy some genuine lamb. ‘Boy,’ I told Michael when all was said and done, ‘do I feel sheepish.’

Miss Rose’s Linguistics Lesson

Now today we are going to talk about a trendy little phrase that’s taken the colloquial mainstream by storm in recent years to express a sort of apology for one’s mistake: ‘My bad.’ As a gesture of accepting responsibility it’s not bad, and certainly it’s more polite to assume the blame in any way than to ignore the issue altogether. But is it entirely correct, grammatically speaking?

Ah. Let’s break it down into its two disparate parts, namely, the words my and bad. My is a possessive pronoun, implying ownership of or accountability for the object it modifies. So far so good. Bad is here used as the object of the sentence, which makes you think it is the main character, or in other words the thing being possessed. It could be something – anything – as long as it was indeed a thing, or in other words a noun. But alas, bad is not a noun; it is an adjective, meaning it can only describe a noun. An adjective is only a concept insofar as it describes a noun; it is not, in its own right, a real thing. Therefore you cannot own an adjective. You might just as well say ‘My green,’ or ‘My curious.’

This phrase always leaves us floundering in helpless suspense, wondering anxiously, ‘Your bad what? Yes, yes, but what is it you have that is bad?’

Ha. Can you tell we’ve been reading Lynne Truss recently?

Words which, we have noticed, are not so commonly used anymore

A pity:

Oblige
Shall
Should (as in, ‘I should not have thought of calling at so late an hour.’)
Fancy (as in, ‘Fancy an ice cream? Me too! Let’s go!’)
Hasty

A relief:

Gardyloo

Hurrah, it worked!

Apparently Michael's laptop was the key. Fortunately I've been saving a few of my posts in Word against this eventual development. Unfortunately the keyboard is different and long-term access is sketchy. Fortunately we'll be getting a new home computer soon and the browser problem (for such it appears to be) will be solved.

Any luck yet?

Let's try a change of location.

Well, at least the passport came today

Any luck yet?

Still trying...

HA! We'll see if THAT got their attention. (See comments for details.)

Blog ideas, blog ideas everywhere, nor any place to post them!!

Can you hear me now?

Meanwhile, here is the updated template, though I can't say much more about it

Hmm, it doesn't seem to have worked

So I will outsmart it and post my post in the comments

I do NOT like the new blogger!!!

Okay, Blogspot is not posting articles, only titles

First day of spring!

Government efficiency strikes again

I am very much put out at the Department of State.

I realise that they have a lot on their hands, and that they didn't ask for the recent revisions to the passport law - Congress did - and that they are utterly swamped right now, but this takes the giddy biscuit, as Bertie would say.

We dragged ourselves out of the house with a two-day-old baby to get her passport photo taken and then spent about two hours at the passport agency ironing out the wrinkles on her application. At that time, we were promised the passport within six to eight weeks. We had exactly nine weeks to spare, so we chose not to waste the extra money on the expedited fee.

Twice now I've checked up on the status of the application. The first time it had been received. Now it has been forwarded to the processing agency in, of all places, NH, and the email reminded me that it takes up to ten weeks to process a passport now.

This makes me livid. We applied well before the crunch, and I know that they're busy and working overtime, but they need to process the applications in the right order, so that the people who were promised an eight-week turnaround will get it. If my (daughter's) passport is delayed because they're focusing all their efforts on the emergency passports of people who didn't plan ahead as well as I did (and they stand to rake in substantial fees from these ones, of course), well then!!!

The big sister

Perhaps you can't tell, but her lips are pursed, because the finger puppets are kissing.

This girl loves shoes.

Did I mention that she is obsessed with shoes?

A bit of role-playing never hurt anyone.

National Pi Day

If only I had thought to post at 1:59 today!

Jane-isms

Jane has recently become obsessed with playing hide-and-seek. She will put anything out of view and then query 'Where go? Where go?' with a finely accomplished look of astonishment. One time she pulled her sleeves down and then asked me, 'Where thumb? Where thumb?' And then she goes off into fits of giggles at her own cleverness.

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Today when we were shopping, Jane was sitting in the front of the cart while I pushed it. Unless occupied with a cookie, she usually does not like to sit still, and sure enough, before long she was asking me 'Up! Up!' I told her not now, maybe later. After a moment she reached her arms out and said, 'Mama! Hug!' I could see where this was going, but it was so cute that I couldn't resist. And when I leaned forward, she put her arms around my neck and begged again, 'Up! Up!' Clever, that one.

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The wallpaper in the bathroom is decorated with letters, and for the last few nights Michael has pointed out a few of them to Jane as he brushes her teeth. I thought nothing of this until a couple of days ago, when Jane was 'reading' her book, The Runaway Bunny. Suddenly she got very excited and started exclaiming, 'B! B!' Sure enough, she had spotted the B on the cover. She recognised the As too. We have taught her up to J, and only since then did I learn that we are supposed to start with lower case letters rather than capital letters. Oh, well. At this rate, she'll learn them both before long.

Mid pleasures and palaces

I've been delighted to discover how very pleasant it is to stay at home. In the weeks since Ella's arrival I've felt happier and more content than ever, much to my relief, as I was afraid that cabin fever would strike. But it hasn't.

After Jane was born, I was so fearful of falling into postpartum depression that I made a point of getting out pretty much every day. She was small and portable, so it was no additional inconvenience to haul her along with me everywhere, and I strung my errands along most inefficiently to make sure I had an excuse to go somewhere. That was all well and good, but I knew that with the arrival of a second one my strategy wouldn't work so well. Taking into consideration a wiggly (and much heavier) toddler with a much more complicated car seat as well as the portable (but still requiring both hands) infant car seat, it seemed that it would almost be more trouble than it was worth to get out and about. That, combined with the fact that Michael takes the car for the carpool 1-2 times a week and I am certainly not about to strap the cars seats into the truck, means that we end up staying home several times a week. And I am thrilled to find that I just love these kinds of days.

It's very satisfying to settle the day's chores early on (and I've scaled back my expectations to a reasonable level, meaning that if I keep up on the dishes, laundry, and basic cleanliness we can let the rest go until the weekend) and spend a happy morning playing with Jane and Ella, the latter having just started smiling and the former already learning to read. I'm experimenting with meal plans to make kitchen time simpler and more Jane-interactive, so that's fun and exciting. And I am finally, finally catching up on sorting all our digital pics and ordering them online. Right now I am keeping current with the Ella pics and am caught up to Christmas '03 on the general folders. This a huge project that I should have tackled long before, but I am finding that breaking it down into manageable tasks makes all the difference. The great thing is that I'm placing these orders with various online promotions, offering anywhere from 10 to 50 free prints, which means that it's already broken down into bite-sized chores for me. Whenever I have five minutes I'll pick up where I left off, click through the pictures in the folder, and save the ones I want to print to a temporary folder in the desktop. Then whenever I get another freebie offer, I select the next 10-25-whatever prints from the folder and voila! Pictures arriving in the mail every few days, with very little effort on my part.

I was effusing to Michael the other day about how wonderful our lives are right now and how happy I feel ('Of course that's just the happy hormones from nursing but still!!'), and wondering whether that was a bad sign. Of course contentment is a good thing, but is it healthy for me to be feeling happier as my sphere shrinks? Culinary adventures are all very well, but I don't want the high point of my day to consist of a crock pot success. I should hope that feelings of accomplishment would stem from overcoming genuine challenges, not just from deflating my goals to an easily achievable level. Fortunately I am still able to converse with him rationally and sympathetically about issues at work, so I know I am not totally losing my connection with the outside world. Still one wonders.

A smile, a smile, to make this life worthwhile

There's magic in the music and the music's in me

Yes, we have no bananas

The local Kroger store (about which I have raved before) often marks down ripe bananas. Since these bananas are very cheap, and since they are usually marked down at exactly the stage of ripeness that I like (just starting to turn brown and spotted, meaning the flesh will be perfect and sweet), I usually buy these up in droves whenever I see them. They stay at the perfect stage of ripeness for at least two or three days, by which time we will have eaten them up, either straight, in smoothies, or sliced over chocolate ice cream. The occasional banana that escapes us pops into the freezer for hibernation until next time we make banana bread.

This weekend I bought a bundle of bananas and I discovered, upon reaching home, that one of the bananas was bruised and blackening. Knowing that its useful lifespan would be short, I started to peel it to make a smoothie, only to discover that the half that had been bruised was black and slimy. I showed this to Michael in disgust before throwing it in the trash and grabbing another banana with which to make a smoothie. When Michael saw me drinking the smoothie, he made some comment on my inability to let things go to waste.

Me: No, I threw away that banana. Even I wouldn't eat that!
(Michael gives me a significant look.)
Me: Okay, even I wouldn't feed that to Jane!
Michael: Ah, that's more like it.

A continual dropping

Yesterday was possibly the most miserable day of mothering yet, with the obvious exception of the day of the stomach flu. (Speaking of which, did you know that what is commonly called the flu - the stomach flu - is not actually influenza? After our last bout I vowed to take the flu shot every year henceforward, until I learned that the annual flu shots are not applicable to it. As one friend put it, 'Influenza can make you dead. The stomach flu just makes you wish you were dead.')

Poor little Jane has been fighting a cold for several days, and while sniffly and hoarse for some time, she remained cheerful in spite of it all. But yesterday the floodgates opened; I litereally spent my whole morning wiping her nose. I had no idea one little body could produce that much discharge. Twice I tried the nasal aspirator on her, thinking that if I could suck out as much as possible it might give me a few moments' respite, but no such luck; she was dripping again immediately. We went through so many tissues and her little nose got sore from the constant wiping, of course, making her even fussier than the misery from the congestion had left her, and of course the more the crying, the more the dripping. It was physically exhausting to be reaching for the tissues every minute, but it was far more emotionally draining to deal with the tears and try to cheer her up, sing to her, and distract her from the discomfort.

Fortunately she cleared up a bit by the afternoon, so I took her to a friend's house for an hour while I kept an appointment downtown, participating in a market research study for big bucks. It was very exciting, but I can't say any more about it because I signed a paper agreeing not to discuss the details until the models of the prototypes I tested are already on the market.

Today Jane is much better, and thoroughly back to her normal happy self, complete with hat and glove obsession.

Why...

...do the cultured voices on the classical music stations always refer to the composer as Dvor-CHAK? His name is very clearly spelled Dvor-AK. Do Czech words just automatically insert random ch sounds?

Overheard during a movie

Me: How many movies can you think of where the title of the movie is the main character's name? I can think of three: Erin Brokovich, Billy Eliott, and Forrest Gump.
Michael: Spartacus.
Me: That doesn't count! He had only one name!
Michael: All right then, Ben-Hur. Or Henry V.

Wow

It just occurred to me that when Ella reaches her golden birthday (29 on the 29th) she will be older than I am now.

Happy Birthday Oregon!

The state song of Oregon - also known as the Beaver State - is Oregon, My Oregon. The official state drink is milk.

Virginia's state song is Carry Me Back To Old Virginia. The state nickname is Old Dominion State and the state dance is the Virginia Reel.

Georgia is known as the Peach State and the state song is Georgia On My Mind.

And that's about all I've learned about the places I've lived.

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Don't buy me flowers
The effect will fall flat;
Flowers will die in a couple of hours~
What lame allegory is that?

Pregnancy brain and beyond

At least I've stopped feeling so scatter-brained and forgetful, but the post-partum hormones are in full swing, and now I remember all those teary nights and days after Jane came. It wasn't the sleepless nights (because there weren't so many of those) but just the facts of the matter: after having a baby, apparently I need to cry at least once a day or so.

The other day we came home from an event at church, where I had nursed Ella, then set her in her carseat (which is still light enough to carry her around in) and gone off to collect Jane. When we got home, I lifted the blanket to discover that I hadn't remembered to fasten her in before snapping the carseat into the base. Thoughts of what might have happened had we gotten into a wreck, and the realisation of how much I love this little person despite hardly even knowing her, produced an immediate display of waterworks. Likewise pretty much every movie we've watched in the past two weeks (which is a lot, since I had just signed up for a Blockbuster free trial before Ella came), even if it wasn't supposed to be a sad one.

On the upside, I am wearing jeans again, which is a huge boost to morale, never mind the fact that they aren't technically my pre-pregnancy jeans and were too big before. They fit perfectly now, which tricks me into feeling really good.

I still haven't printed photos from Jane's birth and onward (yes, that means we have thousands of digital pics stuck on our computer) aside from the random one I took to Walmart and printed to frame and give away as a gift. However, I responded to an offer for 40 free prints, and today received back the first ones of Ella. At the rate we are taking pictures of this child, I can probably keep up with printing all the photos of her for free, since my experience is that Snapfish and all the other competitors offer 25 free prints quite frequently (less shipping, of course). I am trying to be glad that I am printing photos at all, and not feel guilty that we still haven't printed off/started an album for Jane.

I am now one and a half weeks into parenting two children solo (meaning since Michael went back to work during the day) and it seems safe to announce that it's far easier than I thought. Jane is adjusting nicely, after a few days of clinginess, and aside from wanting to climb into my lap whenever it is otherwise occupied, seems to be happily independent.

When Jane naps, I put Ella down and try to sleep myself. Everything else that used to be my free time stuff is now worked around Jane. If Ella is awake, we play with her. If she is asleep, we set her within sight in the bouncy seat and do housework. I am pleasantly surprised to see how nicely the house runs; so far we aren't swamped with mountains of laundry or dishes and the floor looks pretty clean.

I think I must have held Jane pretty much all the time when she was a baby. I remember taking naps, but I also remember just sitting on the couch and looking at her as she slept, and of course I held her whenever she was awake too. I know this because we have a new saying around here, which must only come from setting the baby down now and then: 'Don't sit on the baby!' If one of us leaves the room to change Jane or something, and the other one has to go off and do something, we find that leaving a baby on the couch swaddled in blankets requires an alert, because our couches are already littered with blankets, boppies, and spit rags. Ella blends right in.

Photo gallery

Family portrait

The Thinker

Where's Jane?

Peek-a-boo!

Overheard at the changing table

Michael: Hey!
(I wander in to find him throwing away a fresh diaper.)
Michael: That's the third time she's done that to me! Right after I take the old diaper off, too.
Me: She never does that to me. (giggle) Maybe she's embarrassed.
Michael: Yes, I'm sure that's it. You'd better change her from now on.

Two are better than one

I love having two little girls. It is just what I wanted. Jane couldn't be cuter, and Ella couldn't be a more docile, sweet-tempered, bright-eyed little baby.

Things are evening out nicely after a full but wonderful first week. Michael was able to take last week off work, and it was so nice to have him here as we adjusted to life with a new baby again. It wasn't quite as blissful, idyllic, and restful a time as I had hoped due to troublesome things like pediatrician's visits that ran two hours late (because of our early discharge we had to take Ella in the next day for her PKU) and passport agencies that required paperwork we did not have, but all was well in the end. We had a pleasant weekend with my parents visiting, and I was SO glad that they could pay Jane the attention she merits. We even went to a Super Bowl party last night, and it was grand to get out and about and show my precious baby off. I love Super Bowl parties, because they require so little of me; I don't care enough about the game to pay attention to it, freeing me to socialise with others similarly inclined, and there's always plenty of good food to go around.

A few remarks follow, because I likely won't have time to work them into individual posts.

On the topic of sleep, I quote Tommy Hambledon's request to the hotel clerk after half a night of unexpected visitors and interruptions: 'I am going to my room now, and on no account disturb me. If that part of the hotel in which my room is located should catch fire, then you may wake me, but not otherwise.'

On the topic of names: Do not fear. We have absolutely no intention of naming a daughter of ours Lydia, ever.

On the topic of bouncing back: Being up and about is a good thing! If you see a new mother out and about, you should compliment her (if she looks nice) and praise her beautiful child, not scold her for choosing not to remain in confinement for six weeks. Note to well-meaning ladies of a certain age: The days when you stay in the hospital for two weeks are long gone. (Hospitals don't pamper young mothers they way they used to, anyway. Other than as a means to get free food, it's not so fabulous being in the hospital, what with nurses coming in to check your blood pressure every two hours and whatnot.) It is not dangerous to take a young baby out into society, as long as you are careful about who touches/breathes on her. It may have been more risky when all babies were fed formula, but if a baby is nursed, she will have her mother's immune system to defend her. (Try hacking into MY immune system when my baby's health is at stake!)

On the topic of weightlessness: I LOVE being able to sleep on my back, front, and roll over without flopping an immense belly around! I LOVE the sensation of moon gravity! I LOVE being able to squeeze past people in tight spaces again! But WHERE did this immense appetite come from? Ella doesn't weigh substantially more than she did a week and a half ago, after all!

Carpe Noctem

I think I've found my new window of opportunity for blogging. Unfortunately it means I have to type with one hand and without contacts. So my posts will be shorter than ever.

Oh, well. I don't really want to blog anyway. I want to gaze at my baby.