Writers' Block

So stealing from Cranium:

12 Thanksgiving Questions


1. If you could stuff a turkey with anything, what would it be?

I'm a traditionalist, I'll admit it. I don't like turkey, but my mom's cornbread dressing (don't hold back on the sage, yes, it's SUPPOSED to be gray-ish green, tyvm) is about as good as it gets.

2. If you designed a giant balloon for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, what would it look like?

This one is hard. I've never actually seen the parade, I mean, I've seen PICTURES, but I've never even seen TV coverage - that's part of being the youngest child in a house full of football fanatics (seriously, I once asked, DURING Thanksgiving dinner, if anyone cared who won and when they said no, I asked "WHY are we watching this during DINNER?!" and the answer was "we like football") the parade was never on the TV in my house.

I guess maybe a really cool sweater carefully showing all the stitches along with the ball of yarn and needles (I'm telling you Ravelry - the pull is strong)

3. You can pick anyone to prepare Thanksgiving dinner for you, who would you choose?

Wait a minute, *I* have to cook this dinner? Ummm, no thanks! Next question, please!

Now, if I'm sharing this meal with someone, let me see. Al Gore, Grace, Tanya, Rani, Jenny, KCB, Sally, Jules, Colin Beavan, Sara, Robert Redford, Ed Begley, Jr., Bill Nye, Paul McCartney - well that gets me started.

4. What invention are you most thankful for?

Toilet paper

5. What’s the best part about sitting at the kids’ table?

The corny elementary school jokes.

6. If you had to eat only one kind of Thanksgiving food for an entire week, what would it be?

Ummm, were you listening? My mom's cornbread stuffing!

7. What’s your favorite Thanksgiving memory or tradition?

I don't really have one. Thanksgiving as a kid meant the day at my dad's aunt's house with all his siblings and their kids plus the cousins and their kids in a 900 sqft house. The only good thing was that the weather was always good and we could go for a walk on the farm.

We're working on making our own traditions. Now we live too far to be expected to go home (I am so NOT complaining) so it's ours for the making.

8. What’s the one thing that could make you brave day-after-Thanksgiving shopping?

Pretty much nothing. Maybe an amazing sell on organic cotton yarn (I'm telling you, Ravelry!)

9. This fall, instead of a pile of raked-up leaves, I’d like to jump into a pile of _______________.

Hmm, how about a walk on the beach and jumping into waves? That sounds about right!

10. A Thanksgiving food I wouldn’t want thrown at me in a food fight is _______________.

Definitely the cranberry sauce - the whole berry kind (since I don't like that kind and it wouldn't feel like a waste).

11. Next Thanksgiving, everyone should wear _______________ to the dinner table!

Crowns!

12. How many times can you say the word “cornucopia” in ten seconds?

I have no idea. There's no one around to time me.

Ravelry

I have discovered the addiction that is Ravelry.com. Sigh. I have so much in my queue right not. I'm dreaming of very nice, expensive fibers for Christmas.

I've stepped up my knitting lately though. And the good thing? More knitting means less eating. I'm working on training my body to want to knit rather than eat. I don't think it will work, but even if I just train myself to do it 50% of the time, I hope to lose a bit of weight before family pictures at Christmas.

Proving I have no sense of humor

I'm reading Scientific American and came across an article by Michael Shermer - Weirdonomics and Quirkology. In it he reports on the "world's funniest joke". I'm sure you've heard it by now. It's this one:

Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to
be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy takes out his phone and
calls the emergency services.
He gasps: "My friend is dead! What can I
do?"
The operator says: "Calm down, I can help. First, let's make sure he's
dead."
There is a silence, then a gunshot is heard. Back on the phone, the
guy says:
"OK, now what?"

Now, I'll admit it was funnier when I heard it the first time and the men were specified as being from Jersey (read: mobster) but even then I didn't find it more than mildly amusing.

Seriously? World's funniest joke? Still? I think these people should read a few Janet Evanovich novels.

I'm not doing nanoblomo (or whatever it is) because I know that there is no way I could keep it up once the holidays start. But out of solidarity for my friends who are doing it, I'm doing my best to keep my posting going. I apologize in advance that my postings will probably suck a little.

Miss

I've noticed lately that my kids call their teachers "Miss" not "Miss Lastname" but just "Miss". It vaguely bothered me but I couldn't quite put my finger on why it bothered me.

Then one day I was with them and they greeted their music teacher with "Mr. Lastname" and it finally hit me. Women, you see, are generic and can be referred to by a generica name. Men, on the other hand, are deserving of the courtesy of their identification and name. Even their coaches are not called "coach" but called "Coach Lastname".

I finally told my kids that if I was their teachers I'd call them "kid" every time they called me "Miss". They didn't quite get it so I explained that everyone deserved the courtesy of being given their proper identification. I asked them how they'd feel if they were called "kid" all the time. Of course they responded that they wouldn't mind, but I've noticed they do it a lot less lately.

Amazing how the patriarchy has infected every part of our world, even elementary school.

Wasting Food

A discussion board I frequent recently had this article up for discussion.

The lost art of leftovers

"We waste too much food and should return to the way we lived during the
war, says a new campaign. It would save us money and help save the
planet."

......

"A third of all the food we buy is now thrown into the bin and half of it is
still perfectly edible, according to the government's waste reduction agency,
Wrap. You're throwing away one bag of shopping in three, it says."

......

"This wanton wastage is not only costing us money - up to £400 a year - but is
hurting the environment: the methane released by decomposing food in landfills
is the most potent of greenhouse gases. Cutting it out would be the same as
taking one fifth of cars off the road, says Wrap."

......

MOST DUMPED FOODS

Bags of
salad
Fruit
Bread
Pasta
Cheese

I can't say that the Gaia household is blameless here. We do let more consumable food turn to non-consumables largely through laziness. We do compost it, though, so it's not fully wasted.

Water saving epiphany

We have a leaky faucet. It's one of the hazards of living in the valley - the water is so salty and so hard that it just destroys all metals including the ones that make the faucets. Seriously, our faucets disintegrate after about 5 years.

Clearly we need to replace it, but meanwhile, I've shoved a cup under it with the plan of using that water in the toilet. This has prompted me to make another change.

We've all heard to turn the water off while we brush. So most of us have stopped doing that.

Lately the news has been all about washing hands well and lathering them for the time it takes to sing the alphabet song through twice. With cold and flu season coming on, I've found that my kids really are washing their hands better. So I'm hearing the water running constantly. The cup overflows before it's time to flush the toilet. What a waste!

My epiphany? Turn the faucet on to wet your hands (keeping a little cupped in one hand) then turn it off. Lather your hands and scrub them for the requisite time, then turn the faucet back on to rinse your hands. Much less water used!

In which I grow a spine

I talked to my mom this afternoon. She asked if I knew what our christmas plans were yet. I told her I didn't for sure other than that we were going to be in Oklahoma. She asked me if we thought we could make it to family christmas (bear in mind, this is my father's extended family). I screwed up my nerve and told her that I didn't really want to attend, even if it worked with our schedule. I explained that I didn't like how mean they were to me and that they weren't exactly nice to my kids.

She said "I never noticed that they were mean to you - what are they mean about?"* "Oh, pretty much everything". It segued into me being different and I said "well, I'm not going to hide that I'm a liberal". She told me that I just had to accept that they were all conservative. I agreed and told her that I didn't start the arguments and didn't answer back when they made fun of my beliefs. *I* don't perpetuate the shit.

I'm sure she'll call me up with a guilt trip in a couple of weeks and the guilt will continue until christmas. But I just don't care. I've re-read my letter and I've decided I'm taking a stand this year. They won't reject me because I'm not going to put myself up for their rejection.


*When I told Mr. Gaia that she said she'd never noticed it he said "That's the problem! *I've* noticed it and it's worse than you will even admit."

Happy Halloween

I'm tired and tipsy (the tipsy came after the T-or-T'ing, I swear).

We walked up and down 4 streets (about 3 blocks long each) and each child had their container filled. I now have about 100,000 calories in my house.

The good news is that I not only gave away all the candy we bought, but even some of the candy that's been taking up freezer space since last year (yes, I not only saved the candy but "re-gifted" it - so sue me, I tasted it, it was fine). Of course, now I have a huge bowl of candy my kids won't eat. Would it be bad if I put some of it in the treat bags for after the soccer game (in addition to the standard healthy snacks I would provide).

The kids looked cute in their costumes and Hyperion's thrifted/recycled costume turned out well.

Buying organic is a social justice issue

Kids in agricultural areas or who have parents who work agricultural jobs face greater risks than kids in non-agricultural areas.

Source

In a San Francisco Bay Area study, children whose fathers were occupationally exposed to pesticides were found to be six times more likely than other children to develop Ewing's sarcoma, a rare bone tumor. Having fathers with agricultural occupations was found to increase a child's risk of contracting this cancer by ninefold.[49] A study of children diagnosed with cancer in the Denver area found a strong association between parents' application of pesticides in the yard and the development of soft tissue sarcomas. This same study found that children with lymphomas (cancer of the lymph system) were twice as likely to have been exposed to insecticides during household exterminations compared to healthy children.[50] In a study of Wilms' tumor (malignant tumor of the kidney) among children in Brazil, consistently elevated risks of Wilms' tumor were associated with parental exposure to pesticides through farm work.[51]

Source The Organic Manifesto of a Biologist Mother:

FARMERS have higher rates of certain cancers than the general population. So do farmers’ children.7 An emerging body of evidence suggests that exposure to pesticides on farms may be partof the reason.Other studies have revealed possible links between agricultural use of pesticides and birth defects. For example, according toa recent California study, living near agricultural fields where pesticides are sprayed raises the risk of stillbirths due to birth defects. Researchers found the largest risk among babies whose mothers lived within one mile of such areas during their first trimester of pregnancy. Similarly, a Minnesota study found that the children of farmers, as well as those born to families living in agricultural areas, have elevated rates of birth defects. Similar findings come from Iowa.8

Studies quoted -
7. Cancers found in excess among U.S. farmers include blood and nervous system cancers. Cancers found in excess among their children include brain cancers, leukemias, Wilms’ tumor, Ewing’s sarcoma, and germ cell tumors. L.E. Fleming et al., “National Health Interview Survey Mortality Among US Farmers and Pesticide Applicators,” American Journal of Industrial Medicine 43(2003): 227-33; L.M. O’Leary et al., “Parental Occupational Exposures and Risk of Childhood Cancer: A Review,” American Journal of Industrial Medicine 20 (1991):17-35; J.L. Daniels et al., “Pesticides and Childhood Cancers,” Environmental Health Perspectives 105(1997): 1068-77.
8. E.M. Bell et al., “A Case-Control Study of Pesticides and Fetal Death Due to Congenital Anomalies,” Epidemiology 12(2001): 148-156; V.F. Garry et al,“Pesticide Appliers, Biocides, and Birth Defects in Rural Minnesota,” Environmental Health Perspectives 104(1996): 394-99; R. Munger et al., “Birth Defects and Pesticide-Contaminated Water Supplies in Iowa,” American Journal of Epidemiology136(1992): 959. Birth defects associated with pesticide exposure include cleft lip and palate, limb defects, heart malformations, spina bifida, hydocephaly, undescended testicles, and hypospadias. See also G. Solomon et al., Pesticides andHuman Health: A Resource for Health Care Professionals (San Francisco: Physicians forSocial Responsibility, 2000), pp. 40-42.

For us, buying organic is not just about protecting our children it's about protecting all the children of farm workers. We live in an area that is sprayed regularly. They'll tell you it won't hurt you, but I have a friend on disability as a direct result of being in the wrong place at the wrong time - she was in a field doing an inspection with US Customs when it was sprayed with pesticide (boll weevil killer, most likely) and her lungs - 3 years later - are still so damaged she can't lead a normal life. She was a marathon runner before the pesticides. Now most people are not going to breath in that much at one time, but it is constantly in the air in agricultural areas.

Further reading

Breastfeeding Does Not Create Sagging Breasts; Study Throws Out Old Wives' Tale

Breastfeeding Does Not Create Sagging Breasts; Study Throws Out Old Wives' Tale


Myth Dispelled at American Society of Plastic Surgeons Annual Meeting
For Immediate Release: October 28, 2007
BALTIMORE – While the benefits of breastfeeding are unquestionable, many new mothers choose not to for fear of sagging breasts. However, breastfeeding alone has no impact on a woman’s breast shape, according to a first-of-its-kind study presented today at the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) Plastic Surgery 2007 conference in Baltimore.
“Many women who come in for breast surgery tell us their breasts are sagging, drooping or are less full because they breastfed,” said Brian Rinker, MD, ASPS Member Surgeon and study author. “Although the amount of sagging in the breasts appears to increase with each pregnancy, we’ve found that breastfeeding does not worsen the effect.”
The study examined 93 women who were pregnant one or more times prior to having cosmetic breast surgery. Fifty-eight percent of patients reported breastfeeding one or more of their children. The duration of breastfeeding ranged from 2 to 25 months, with an average of nine months. Fifty-five percent of respondents reported an adverse change in the shape of their breasts following pregnancy.
As the first study to examine what impacts breast shape in connection to pregnancy, plastic surgeons found that a history of breastfeeding, the number of children breastfed, the duration of each child’s breastfeeding, or the amount of weight gained during pregnancy were not significant predictors for losing breast shape. However, body mass index (BMI), the number of pregnancies, a larger pre-pregnancy bra size, smoking history, and age were significant risk factors for an increased degree of breast sagging.
Nearly 104,000 women had breast lifts in 2006, up 96 percent since 2000, according to the ASPS. In addition, more than 329,000 women had breast augmentation, making it the top surgical cosmetic procedure in 2006.
“Women may be reluctant to breastfeed because of this unfounded myth that doing so means the end of youthful breasts,” said Dr. Rinker. “Now, expectant mothers can relax knowing breastfeeding does not change the appearance of their breasts.”
Breast milk provides indisputable health benefits to infants. Research has shown breastfed infants have improved general health, growth and development as well as a lower risk of many acute and chronic illnesses than bottle-fed infants.
Visit www.plasticsurgery.org for referrals to ASPS Member Surgeons and to learn more about cosmetic and reconstructive plastic surgery.
The American Society of Plastic Surgeons is the largest organization of board-certified plastic surgeons in the world. With more than 6,000 members, the Society is recognized as a leading authority and information source on cosmetic and reconstructive plastic surgery. ASPS comprises 90 percent of all board-certified plastic surgeons in the United States. Founded in 1931, the Society represents physicians certified by The American Board of Plastic Surgery or The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.
Note: The study “The Effect of Breastfeeding Upon Breast Aesthetics” is being presented in electronic format, Sunday, Oct. 28 – Tuesday, Oct. 30, at the Baltimore Convention Center, Baltimore.
Reporters can register to attend Plastic Surgery 2007 and arrange interviews with presenters by registering for the meeting online or by contacting ASPS Public Relations at (847) 228-9900 or in Baltimore, Oct. 27-31 at (410) 649-6205.


This makes a lot of sense, really. No matter whether you breastfeed or not, your breasts still make milk and still get engorged. And in fact, it would seem breastfeeding (on demand) would reduce sagging because you don't allow the breasts to get fully engorged.

Baking Day

It was baking day at the Gaia household today. Unfortunately, not in the solar oven, a combination of soccer game (to make up for a rain day) and clouds prevented any solar oven cooking.

But, I made 2 loaves of whole wheat bread. It rose more than I've ever seen it rise and Mr. Gaia forgot to turn the oven to "bake" from "preheat" so the tops got pretty toasty. I think it will be okay, though.

Then, I made banana nut muffins from my amish friendship bread starter. I used 3 cups of starter (and then fed the remaining starter with more milk, flour and sugar), and then the following recipe (adjusted for the massive amount of starter I used):
2 overripe bananas, mashed
1/3 vegetable oil
1 c whole wheat flour (fresh ground)
1/3 c turbinado sugar
2 eggs
3/4 t baking powder
1/4 t baking soda
1/4 t salt
1/2 c starter
nuts
vanilla
milk

I only used 6 eggs and 1 1/3 c oil then I added milk and vanilla by feel. I didn't use many pecans because I just didn't have many (this is when I miss living in Oklahoma, we used to ALWAYS have pecans because we'd pick them up ourselves).

I ended up with 4 dozen mini muffins and 2 dozen - 2 regular sized muffins. I baked the mini muffins for 10 minutes and the regular sized muffins for 20-22 minutes on 350F.

I didn't have any starter left to share, but it's been passed around so much that I'm not sure who I would share with anyway.

I find that the freshly ground wheat flour makes for a softer, tastier product.

Pseudo-suitable

Bug Hill News

Marcia Jackson is available again. Bob turned out to be "pseudo-suitable - on paper he was perfect to take home to meet mom, in truth he had none of the substance to sustain a relationships". I directed Marcia to this post at Feministe and told her it was good and right to increase her expectations.

But she made me think about all the things in life that are "pseudo-suitable". The things that on paper look perfect, but once you really examine them you find they lack substance. And she added a new word to my vocabulary. Pseudo-suitable, what a perfect word.

Refashioning

Hyperion wants to be a king for halloween. I asked Mr. Gaia to check Target for a costume because I'm lazy - but no go.

So, off to the thrift stores I went. Looking for something red and silky that could be fashioned into a cape.

I've written about Wardrobe Refashion before and now I find myself in thrift stores looking at items figuring out how they could be reused. I spent a lot of time fingering the cotton sweaters, looking for extra large sweaters in a thick weight yarn, before deciding I needed to use up my stash before considering buying a sweater to frog for yarn. Besides, they were all white. Which has lead to me spending a ton of time searching out how to dye cotton yarn (too bad kool-aid doesn't work on plant fibers).

Anyway, back to the costume. I ended up with a red graduation robe. I figure I can take it apart and get a kids' sized cape out of it. I looked for some kind of fake fur, but didn't find anything, so I'm going to have to work on that one. Maybe some white felt? I have a red sash that I'll pin to a dress shirt for him, pin on a few medals (I have a few and I think I have trappings to fake a few others), put him in dress trousers and he's done. My only issue now is I'm not sure how to wash the acetate graduation gown.

Oceanus is going to be Harry Potter again. This is the 3rd year in a row. I can go along with it. It's easy and cheap and it's what he wants to be.

Halloween costumes has always been the only time my creativity has emerged. I once made a triceratops costume out of styrofoam cones, fun foam, a head band and glue. A bat costume was made from cheap black remnant fabric and a black sweatsuit. An incredible hulk costume from green knit pants and shirt with a pair of girl's knit purple pants (cut to look like they were torn - with the cut off ends pushed into the sleeves to make muscles). And a Link (from Zelda) costume made from an adult's long sleeved green shirt, white tights, felt and brown paper bags. No one knew who he was (everyone guessed Robin Hood) but he was happy. I'm hoping I can pull off a similar success this year.

"May you live in interesting times"

Eventful night in the Gaia household tonight.

Oceanus and Hyperion take showers together. It saves water, time and, frankly, energy. There has, of course, been horsing around in the shower which leads to mom and dad stomping in to the bathroom yelling at them to calm down. There have been slips and falls which have not been a big deal and not sufficiently scary enough for them.

Tonight it was a big deal and I think (hope) sufficiently scary enough for them.

Oceanus slipped and banged the back of his head really hard. Hyperion was already out of the shower and drying off. Mr. Gaia, his mom and I were all sitting out in the living room talking. We heard the fall but, like I said, he's fallen before and it's never been a big deal. For the first time tonight we didn't say "are you okay" we sighed and said "quit horsing around".

Hyperion came out of the bathroom hysterical. We go in to find Oceanus curled in the fetal position in a swirling pool of blood. I certainly freaked out. I gathered myself together realized Gaga could comfort Oceanus better than I could (it's a good thing I'm not a jealous woman, the bond between those two is extremely strong) left Mr. Gaia and Gaga in charge of Oceanus and took Hyperion into his room to dry off and get some clothes on.

Hyperion was really freaked. He kept saying "he's losing all his blood" and "I'm not ready to be an only child". I kept reassuring him that it really wasn't that much blood - the running shower water made it look like a lot and that head wounds just bleed a lot, but that there's a lot of blood in the body. It was somewhat easier to reassure him because Oceanus did not lose consciousness and was crying.

I settled into my forced, unnatural calm, called the insurance company to make sure where I could go and what kind of preauthorization I needed. And then leaving Hyperion with Gaga, Mr. Gaia and I took Oceanus to the ER (using the term "ER" so that they didn't freak out more at "emergency room" or "hospital").

We got there at 8:13 and checked in at 8:18 (really, they should be signed better, there were a bunch of signs telling us what not to do, but not what to do and there was way too few staff to direct patients). We were finally seen at 8:53 (yes, 35 minutes with a head wound) by which time Oceanus had thrown up in the waiting room (luckily we brought a bucket).

One CT scan (normal) and 4 staples later, we're home and mostly calm. We were finished at about 10:30. It took a little longer than it had to because Oceanus opted for the numbing gel over the numbing shot (30 minutes v 3 minutes). Oceanus won't be playing in the soccer game on Saturday, but other than that we expect a full recovery.

Dream Job

My dream job is open. A naturalist in a birding center. I really want this job. But I don't speak Spanish. I'm applying anyway, but I don't have the most hope.

The application is difficult. They want a complete job history, including contact information, supervisor name and supervisor title. Several of my jobs were with companies who have since relocated. And I'm not putting my restaurant jobs on there - they're simply not relevant.

The fact that this is my dream job doesn't mean it will be without stress. It will require some travelling. It will require hours other than M-F 8-5. It will require that we find after school care for our boys. It will require that I likely miss soccer games. It will require a 40 mile round-trip commute (which will require a new car). The salary won't be much more than I currently make, so the money for a new car will be a stretch.

But the chance to work outside and in nature? Priceless

Some people are just nuts!

I swear, you try to do something nice and it just pisses people off.

I walk the kids home from school every day. So today we hear a dog barking what sounds like a distress call. I look over and see a small dog right up against a fence and realize that it looks like it's trapped.

So, we cross the (busy) road to go check on the dog. It is trapped - it's on a lead and has squeezed through a small opening in the fence.

I'm looking at it (still about 5 feet away in case it's not so nice and isn't as trapped as it looks) and trying to figure out how to fix the issue when a woman pulls up (on the wrong side of the road - which is, as I said, very busy) and YELLS at me "That's MY dog, so don't even think about taking her".

I tell her that I wasn't going to take it, I was just checking to make sure it was okay because it was obviously in a bad situation and she again YELLS "Well, that's MY dog, you can just forget about taking her".

I wanted to yell "Lady, I don't want your stupid dog, I'm a cat person, I just wanted to make sure it didn't strangle itself". But I just took my kids and walked off.

I swear. I'm trying to tell myself she's had dogs taken in the past, but damn. After I explained that I was checking to make sure it was okay, you'd think she'd calm down, but if anything it seemed to make her more upset.

I swear, I'm going to program the animal control number into my cell phone and call them next time I see a dog outside her fence. Maybe they'll fine her for not taking care of her animals.

Poor dog could have died - either from strangulation or from dehydration (it's still really, really hot here and there was no shade).

Old Married Couple

You know you've been married a long time and aren't listening to your spouse as much as you used to when:

1) You read through a brochure for a conference that looks interesting and look through the talks and the speakers. One of the names seems familiar and it takes you a few minutes to realize, "oh DUH! That's my husband!". Yep, Mr. Gaia is going to be speaking at a conference and I'm sure he told me, but I didn't hear it.

2) His schedule goes in one ear and out the other - "you're speaking to who, when?". "Okay, you have a meeting Monday night - where is that and for what?"

3) Your wife explains the great confluence of events that will lead to her actually getting to see a dear friend and you have no memory of any part of the conversation.

4) Your wife tells you she really likes one of the new shows you're taping and you watch it and erase it while she's at work.

Mr. Gaia and I have hit that stage. Sigh.

Of course, on the other hand, we understand each other's rhythms better than ever.

Faith the size of a mustard seed

I have sitemeter on this blog. It's really cool, it tells me how people got here and if they got here through a search engine, what term they used.

The most searched term is "faith the size of a mustard seed" from this post. The post was about gathering bok choy seeds. Bok choy being in the mustard family.

But all these searches (which have picked up in the last month making me wonder what that's all about) have gotten me thinking about faith. A few months ago I dreamed that someone gave me a winning lottery ticket. Now this is a recurring dream because it is the only way I'm going to win the lottery, I'm not about to buy a ticket. This week I stepped over a lottery receipt on my way to pick up the kids from school. I walked on and then remembered my dream and went back and picked up the ticket. It was, of course, not a winning ticket. But it occurred to me that the deity above might choose to bless me in this way, so now I pick up all the lottery tickets I see. I figure even if they're losers, I've helped by picking up trash.

Right now I feel like I'm hanging my clothes on the line in faith. My new neighbors, who have to come through my backyard to get to their backyard - yeah that was great planning on the part of the developer - have displayed some hostile behaviors. Tonight it was a yard full of small, unripe citrus fruits (I'm not sure if they're valley lemons or oranges, I just know they're citrus, small, and unripe). Other days have had them trimming the trees that are clearly on our side of the property line and scalping the grass on our side of the property line. Dudes! The survey stakes are still in place, how hard can it be to see that you are clearly NOT on your own property? So, I take care only to hang things I don't really care about on that end of the line. And forget getting a dog anytime soon. Clearly they cannot be trusted to not let a dog out of the yard (they often forget to close the gate). Oh, and don't get me started on the night they were messing with the gate (which is right under our bedroom window) at 2am. Yeah, that doesn't disturb a person AT ALL.

Baking

I made fresh bread last week. I couldn't use the solar oven because there were too many clouds, so I made 2 loaves. Would you believe it's all gone already? Sigh. So it's time to bake again.

Oceanus loves my bread, which thrills me because it is such a healthy food. Last week he said "there's nothing better than fresh bread".

I was also given a start for Amish friendship bread this week. I'm looking for a good recipe that doesn't use vanilla pudding because I'm not about to buy pudding for it. I'm thinking a good banana bread recipe would work (we have lots of frozen bananas in the freezer). So if you have one, let me know, pretty please?!

How to make a mom's head explode

My 9 year old is a good kid. I have to remind myself of this often. Very often.

Lately he's not been paying any attention to me at all. It isn't that I'm not consistent. It isn't that I don't dole out punishments. It's just that he doesn't care enough to listen to me.

I spoke to Mr. Gaia about this and we both agreed that this has to stop NOW. It will only get worse as he gets older. So Mr. Gaia talked to him today. Apparently he listens to Mr. Gaia because he's scared of Mr. Gaia (which does not thrill Mr. Gaia at all), he listens to his grandmother because she's so nice. But I'm not scary enough or nice enough so he ignores me.

Sigh.

Yes my head just exploded.

I'm at a loss. Short of beating him*, I'm not sure how I can scare him. I think the playroom tv may have to go away for a while. They can start doing chores and work in the yard in the time they would normally watch TV.


*For the record, Mr. Gaia does NOT beat the kids, I'm not sure why they're scared of him and not me, unless it's just that they've seen my breaking point and know that even when I've completely lost it, I'm not going to do more than yell at them.

Oklahoma is turning 100!

I got this email from my mom (with some additions from me):

Oklahoma Centennial

Oklahoma is celebrating its 100th anniversary of Statehood this year. Because most people think of the Stage play " Oklahoma!" when they hear the state's name mentioned, citizens are attempting to update the state's image by sharing Interesting state facts with others as we celebrate our Centennial.

Oklahoma is not only the home of Ado Annie and AuntEller from " Oklahoma!" but of the parking meter(invented in OKC) and the shopping cart (invented inArdmore).

The electric guitar also was invented in Oklahoma, by a Beggs musician named Bob Dunn. The first "Yield" sign was installed in Tulsa.

**Environmental Protection Agency recognizes Oklahoma as having the most diverse terrain of any state in the nation. The state, according to EPA, boasts 11 distinct eco-regions. The state has more man-made lakes than any other state, which give us more than a million surface-acres of water and 2,000 more miles of shoreline than the Atlantic and Gulf coasts combined.

Oklahoma has produced more astronauts than any other state in the union. Owen Garriott is an Enid boy, of course, while Tom Stafford is from Weatherford, Shannon Lucid from Oklahoma City, William Pogue from Okemah and the late Gordon Cooper from Shawnee. Oklahoma is home to the Amateur Softball Association and Hall of Fame, a world class zoo in OKC, the Cowboy Hall of Fame, Gilcrease Museam (cowboy art) and more F4 and F5 tornadoes than any other state.

Oklahoma is the third-largest gas-producing state in the nation and ranks fourth in the production of wheat, cattle and calves, fifth in the production of pecans, sixth in peanuts and eighth in peaches.

The state's colors are neither OU's crimson and cream nor the orange and black of OSU but green and white.

Oklahomans practice 73 major religions. The largest is the Southern Baptist Convention, with nearly 1,600 churches and more than 960,000 members (pretty large percentage considering the population of Oklahoma is only about 3.5 million or so).

Oklahoma gave birth to Dick Tracy (cartoonist Chester Gould is a native of Pawnee) and Donald Duck (Clarence"Ducky" Nash, the original voice of Walt Disney's Donald, grew up in Watonga). Not to mention, Garth, Reba, Toby (well, you know, even a good state produces some bad apples), Ron Howard, Troy Aikman, Vince Gill, Carrie Underwood, Jeanne Tripplehorn (Big Love), James Garner, Gene Autry, Johnny Bench, Gary Busey, Lon Chaney and Lon Chaney, Jr, Roy Clark, Bart Connor (now married to Nadia Comaneche), Joan Crawford, Walter Cronkite, Dizzy Dean, John Denver, Ronnie Dunn (Brooks & Dunn), Ralph Ellison (author of Invisible Man), Pretty Boy Floyd, Woody Guthrie, The Hansons, Carolyn Hart (wonderful mystery writer), Paul Harvey, Tony Hillerman, S.E. Hinton, Ben Johnson, Louis L'Amour, "Pawnee Bill", Mickey Mantle, Rue McLanahan, Mel McDaniel, Dr. Phil, Tom Mix, N. Scott Momaday, Megan Mullally (Will & Grace), Carrie Nation, Patti Page, Wiley Post, Will Rogers, Jim Thorpe, Tony Randall, Wilson Rawls (Where the Red Fern Grows), Donna Reed, Conway Twitty, and Brad Pitt(and a lot more I'm leaving off - source is here).

Oklahomans have survived the Dust Bowl, any number of killer tornadoes, the 1995 bombing of Oklahoma City's Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building and various oil booms and busts.

Oklahoma is populated by people who are caring, giving, hard-working, patriotic and fiercely independent. Oklahoma is a good place to live, work and play.

The challenge in this, our centennial year, is to make the rest of America aware of what Oklahoma has to offer, besides "beautiful mornings," "fringe-laden surreys" and "a girl who cain't say no."

The official statehood celebration will be in November. In the meantime, individual cities are restaging various events associated with statehood and the settling of Indian Territory which eventually became our state. It's a great time to be an Oklahoman and I wanted to share this with you!

People tell me I can't be a Texan because I wasn't born here and I respond "that's okay, I don't want to be a Texan, I'm an Oklahoman".

Update on Goals

In April I posted that I wanted to become a Certified Arborist and the first step was to get the study guide.

Guess what I got in the mail today? My study guides. Guess what's even better!!! I got them for free. Wonderful Mr. Gaia noticed a little announcement about a research study on the different study guides (CD-ROM and book) and they were giving free guides to participants. You'd better believe I had my name in post-haste.

In April, I also posted a goal to use up my samples. Can you believe I'm still working on using those samples? Granted, Mr. Gaia has traveled for business multiple times and we have traveled as a family so I've gotten more hotel shampoos. But based on current usage plus current additions, I'm good through December, at least.

Unfortunately those are the only goals I can report progress on. I've not maintained the clean house I wanted. It's not bad, but it's not great. MIL comes in 3 weeks, so I need to step it up a little each day so that I'm not going nuts the last week before she gets here. My exercise goals didn't stick after the kids came back home. Soccer isn't helping. But it's my fault. I need to start really getting serious about it.

Ravelry

I finally got my invite to Ravelry. I can't remember when I applied, before school started, so more than a month ago. I haven't done much yet. So far, I'm just looking around.

I think it's going to be a good thing and I hope to find some good ideas.

I need to load my stash into it and then I need to go search patterns. I'm not sure what I want to make next. I need something to take with me to soccer games, something that looks cool, but isn't hard to do.

Something that doesn't require $100 worth of yarn.

Financial Team

One year ago, Mr. Gaia was not my partner in the family finances. He abdicated that responsibility to me prior to our marriage.

I spent the first 11 years of our marriage feeling like the finance cop. Always feeling like I couldn't spend anything, because I knew he was and I felt like I needed to balance him. His constant phrase was "it's only $10/$20 per month".

Finally one day he stumbled upon a blog I had at another site where I was chronicling our financial life. I didn't write anything I hadn't said to him (multiple times), but seeing it written out like that was too much for him. We had a huge blow up fight and then he started getting involved, really involved.

Now I should say, in his defense, he has always been the best shopper I know. He finds the best deals. It was just that he couldn't pass up a good deal, so we often bought things we didn't need or particularly want because they were 90% off. Some of this stuff, I should say, was perfect for gifts for family and friends. It's just that a lot of it became clutter and a reminder to me of where all our money was going.

NOT that I was innocent, you understand. I encouraged him in some of his shopping and I would no sooner give up my high speed internet than I would give up breathing. Same with cable.

All that said, starting just about a year ago, Mr. Gaia came on as my full financial partner, and then some. He turned his skills at finding great deals to finding great bank accounts, great credit card rewards, good investment opportunities, a good refinance rate (at very little cost).

I am now much more relaxed about finances. I no longer check the bank balance every day. In fact, I logged on earlier today and almost couldn't remember my log on. Now, I'm in danger of fully abdicating my financial responsibilities to Mr. Gaia. Sigh.

This came clear to me tonight. We use rewards credit cards (always paying the balance in full each month). This enables us to earn interest on the money we spend for a few days/weeks longer and we get some cash back. It's never much, but it does add up over time. We realized that my credit card available credit isn't as high as it could be without hurting my credit score (and needed to be a bit higher so I'd have a lower utilization ratio), so we (he, remember I abdicated my responsibilities, sigh) decided I needed to apply for some more cards.

He directed me to www.app-o-rama.com. We went through the list of cards they recommend, compared them with bonuses we could get through our current companies and picked 3 cards. Plus one with my credit union.

We're what credit card companies refer to as "deadbeats". We use their cards, pay off the balances and collect our rewards. How are they supposed to make money off of us (you know, besides what they charge the retailers)?

So my goal for October is to take back my partnership interest in our finances.

Sad day in Bug Hill

So Humberto Leal has been deported. Who knew he wasn't here legally? He's legally married to Karen (Johnson) a legal marriage performed here in the US. They have a 4 year old girl, Claudia.

He was dumped across the border from Laredo. INS took his belt and his new boots. They took his ID. He was dumped with nothing but the clothes on his back (I'm not sure if it was his own clothes or a government issued outfit). He was able to borrow a phone to call Karen to wire him money, but without ID he couldn't pick it up.

He was finally able to get in touch with his family in Mexico and they were able to cobble together enough transportation to get him to their home. If he'd had his new boots, he could have traded those for some money and it would have been easier.

So now Claudia has pretty much lost her father. For at least a year, maybe longer. It's not like Karen makes enough money to pay for his transportation back, if he even manages to be allowed to come back. A 4 year old Daddy's girl is going to have to give up her father.

Sigh.

Please keep Claudia, Karen and Beto in your thoughts.

Well, isn't this surprising?

That it's reported, not what it is reporting. What it's reporting has been patently obvious to those of us who have followed birth trends for the last few years.

The C-section epidemic

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last month released 2004 data
showing a rate of 13.1 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. For a country
that considers itself a leader in medical technology, this figure should be a
wake-up call. In Scandinavian countries, about 3 per 100,000 women die, which is
thought to be the irreducible minimum. The U.S. remains far from that. Even more
disturbing is the racial disparity: Black women are nearly four times as likely
to die during childbirth than white women, with a staggering rate of 34.7 deaths
per 100,000.

What's amazing about this report (other than that it's being reported at all) is the lengths people will go through to excuse the differences. Stuff like "new reporting measures" "advanced maternal age" etc. Because apparently only the US has advanced maternal age and new reporting methods really make that much diffrerence (especially in light of this bit from the article "Other reports by CDC epidemiologists have acknowledged that deaths related to childbirth are probably underreported by a factor of two to three.").

Birth in the US is a war zone. The OBs are terrified they will be sued and so they operate (no pun intended) under the idea that "you only get sued for the c-section you DIDN'T do". Patients just want time to talk to their OBs and feel like they're on an assembly line (because they are). So many people have said they just want to feel like their OB listens to them and takes the time to explain what is going on. There's a reason midwives are rarely sued for malpractice - even when they have the same outcomes. Midwives take the time to talk to their clients (and there's a difference - clients v patients) and schedule 30 minutes to an hour with each patient. They limit their patients each month to be sure they will be able to be at the births.

Breastfeeding while working

A commenter in the Feministe thread on Bill Maher doesn't think she will be able to exclusively nurse and work full time.

I thought I'd open a post for people to post their tips for working and nursing.

I worked from when Oceanus was 5.5 weeks old until he was 2. He was nursed exclusively - no formula whatsoever. I'll admit that I had an edge - Mr. Gaia was a SAHD and was able to bring the baby to me during lunch hours and occasional breaks. But a mother who has childcare reasonably close to her office could accomplish the lunch hour fairly easily. And I ended up dumping over 200 ounces of breastmilk by the end of our nursing relationship.

Here's how I did it. I realized that pumping was difficult and sucked, so I turned to my LLL friends for tips. The BEST tip I got was to pump while the baby was nursing. Nurse on one side and pump on the other. And to start this fairly early (about 3 weeks for me) so the baby would get used to the sound of the pump.

When I pumped at work to relieve engorgement, I would get maybe 1 ounce in 15 minutes. When I pumped while nursing, I would get 5 ounces in about 10 minutes. The letdown caused by the baby worked in my favor. So, I would pump a couple of times a day at work to relieve engorgement and then pump a couple of times at home and have enough to carry him for the 2 feedings he would need while I was at work.

I also took advantage of a natural tendency of some babies to "reverse-cycle". He cut way back on his feedings during the day (2 or so for 8 hours) and increased them when I was home (every 1-2 hours for the first part of the night).

I also co-slept. I know this is considered controversial and I understand the controversy - but let me point out that most adults know where the edge of the bed is even while they are asleep and don't roll out of bed. If you do roll out of bed - DON'T co-sleep without safety gear (a bassinet for the bed or a side-car, for instance). And it should go without saying that you should never co-sleep without safety gear if you are taking sleeping pills or drinking. What co-sleeping did for me was to allow me to nurse the baby while I slept with no worries about falling asleep in the chair and dropping him.

I know a lot of people who have worked and exclusively nursed. Please share your tips so we can help wishy-washy.

So much to blog about

So little gray matter left.

First, feministe reports that Bill Maher is a misogynistic asshole who thinks that breastfeeding in public is somehow special treatment for women. Nevermind that men go topless all the time. Nevermind that it's about feeding a baby. It's about tits being used for something other than turning him on.

Apparently this is in response to the nurse-in at Applebee's. I'm so ashamed, I knew about this nurse-in and failed to report it. My old LLL group had a nurse-in in Oklahoma City.

I'm so pissed. I nursed for years and never had a nurse-in - unless you count my own private nurse-ins. I was that woman who nursed in public all the time and without using a blanket. I figured the only way to have nursing viewed as normal would be for more people to see it.

Then out of Australian comes this story about a woman who went through IVF to have a child with her partner. Her story is she told them all along she only wanted one child, period. She was advised to put "up to two" on the form and that she couldn't tell them until the procedure based on quality issues. Sounds like she got extremely bad advice from the nurse and was pretty candid all along that she only wanted one child.

It's probably no surprise to most people who know me that I'm on her side on this. Doctors are in too big of a rush and have stopped listening to their patients. Patients are told to sign documents they don't agree with or told they will have the doctor-patient relationship severed. My birth was much more stressful than it had to be because I refused to sign a blanket consent form and marked it up. They didn't want to accept the form and threatened me with child services for putting my baby in danger.

And that's all the brain matter I can squeeze out today.

I'm a mean mom

Oceanus is now old enough to join the Nature Club at his school. He's been a little lukewarm about the idea, while Mr. Gaia and I have been pushing him to get more information.

Well, he finally brought home the information and has to write an essay. The essay he wrote showed he clearly didn't want to be in the Club. Being the mean mom I am, I asked why. Apparently it's because it is after school on Friday and that would mean he would miss TV for a part of that time.

Oooh. Yeah. That brought on the TV lecture. "If TV is so important to you that you're giving up activities you would find interesting, then it's time for the TV to go away" (expand from there).

So, they all went to soccer practice and I took a much needed nap (my jaw stopped hurting for 2 full hours after my nap!!!). When I woke up, they were back and Oceanus had had a change of attitude and re-written his essay.

I don't know that he will get in, his essay still isn't as good as it could be (it's clearly half-hearted to anyone who knows how smart this kid is) but he did at least make an effort. I hope he gets in because I know he will really enjoy this club. The kid says he wants to be a scientist, after all.

But Mr. Gaia and I are going to have to have some long discussions with them and work on limiting TV time.

I'm in pain

Stupid TMJ.

My whole head hurts, but mainly my jaw and behind my ears.

My tinnitis has been really, really bad lately (as in contributing to keeping me awake at night).

I AM not grinding or clenching my jaw, I swear. I'm not chewing gum (as much as I love gum). I'm not eating particularly chewy foods.

It's stress. I know it and I swear I'm ready to quit my job because it's too much. I'm a minimum of 3 weeks behind. I will never ever get caught up. And it's not like these are cases I can ignore, these are some of our biggest cases ever (or at least since I've been there). We just happen to have 4 of them at one time. One would be enough to cause a lot of stress while I tried to get my other duties done. 4? Well - TMJ, canker sores, tinnitis, irritability and extreme snappishness.

I'm not sure that a nightguard would help, really. I'm not grinding or clenching - so what good would it do? I have issues with things in my mouth (they make me gag, seriously if I hold a pencil in my mouth I start gagging).

Just a bit of Monday night venting.

Homesick

I'm watching the musical Oklahoma (for the first time). I know it's not really filmed in Oklahoma, but there are a few scenes that look like home. I've also been reading Foxfire and some of the pics there look like home.

I haven't been back home since July, I'm starting to miss the landscape.

I love where I live. I have wild parrots to wake me up. I have flowers blooming year round. I can see me living here for a good number of years. Even if Mr. Gaia gets transferred, I can see us keeping this house and renting it out (for the first time ever) so that we have a place to retire to.

But, I am an Oklahoma girl through and through. I will always get homesick for Oklahoma. When I see pics that remind me of home, I'm going to miss it.

More whole wheat cooking

Another birthday, another cake.

This time a whole wheat chocolate cake recipe. Again, a modification. First, we started with this recipe:


WHOLE WHEAT CHOCOLATE SHEET CAKE

2 1/2 c. whole wheat flour
1 c. sugar
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 c. cocoa
1 c. water
1/2 c. vegetable oil
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 c. buttermilk
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp. vanilla

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Mix flour, sugar and cinnamon together in large bowl. Bring cocoa, water and oil to boil. Pour over flour mixture and mix 1 minute. Dissolve baking soda in buttermilk; add with eggs and vanilla to mixture in bowl. Mix 2 minutes. Pour into greased and floured 10 x 15 x 1-inch jelly roll pan. Bake 20 minutes. Makes 24 servings.

Then, I left out the cinnamon (I'm aware that it would perfectly fit our culture here, but I'm not into cinnamon and chocolate together) and doubled the cocoa. It still needs more cocoa. I used buttermilk powder, because I don't use enough buttermilk to justify buying a whole container of it.

We baked two cakes, cut them in half and then made a 4 layer cake, using a chocolate ganache (made, I think, from chocolate chips and milk). We iced it with generic cool whip decorated with blue buttercream icing.

It was very rich and 4 layers was way too big. The kids couldn't eat their whole piece, even though I tried to cut small.

The secret to cooking with whole wheat flour, I've learned, is to start with the freshest flour possible. We ground this flour last night (a result of having used almost all the flour last week baking bread), it was still warm from the grinder.

Eventually, I will figure out a per item cost to my recipes.

How is everyone doing it?

I've been thinking about this since the Bitch Ph.D. post about finances.

I think she was very brave to put her financial info out there. So, I thought I'd do the same (to the extent that I can, so much of our stuff goes on credit cards and I don't have the statements in front of me or easy access to them).

Following her format:

Monthly income: $3900/month

Monthly Expenses:
Mortgage: $555
Insurance and taxes: $250
Car insurance: $80
Gas (water heater only now): $20
Electric: $125
Cells: $75
Cable/Internet: $130
Water/Sewer/Garbage: $40
Gas (car): $120
Groceries: $500
Student Loan: $175
Car payment: $200
Debt repayment: $200
Personal Loan repayment (grandparents): $500
Timeshare maintenance fee: $25

What's leftover, per month, to pay for school related stuff, summer camps, books, eating out, clothes, and stupid shit we don't really need: $905.

These are averages, of course. Most months we manage to put about $1,000 in savings even after discretionary spending. Of course, there is precious little of that. It gets swept into the $500/month grocery budget most of the time. We've almost paid back all that we borrowed from the grandparents, so that expense will go away in a few months (yay!). The debt repayment is money on a 0% credit card that we could pay off, but choose not to because we're earning 5% in the bank.

Anyone else willing to put their information out there?

Oops

Yesterday was a bad day at work. It started when I got there and my desk was covered with notes and files from other people and I couldn't even see my own files. Then a note said "couldn't find this file, blah, blah, blah". I walked over to the file cabinet and it was EXACTLY where it was supposed to be. Her excuse? Your desk is scary and I couldn't find it there. Well, yeah, because it wasn't there. It was where it was supposed to be.

So another coworker made a snippy comment to me in front of the boss and I lost it. I sniped back and we had a snipe fest in front of the boss. I think he was shocked and amused. I tend to really roll with the punches and the abuse at work. But I just couldn't take it. He treated me very well for the rest of the day. Alas, it didn't carry over until today.

I'm really burned out at my job. I have too much to do and not enough time to do it. I've explained that and I've shown them my to do list and asked them to priortize it. They know I'm that busy, but they are so concerned with bringing in money (which I'm sure is a valid concern) that they keep taking on new cases. Part of that is that the main source of income (real estate) has slowed down to the point where it's no longer the main source of income. So they pile the work on my and one other worker while the rest of the employees do less and less. Now, my work is for the most part plug and chug. With a little bit of training, anyone could pretty much do 90% of my work. But will they start training some of the real estate workers to do some of my more simple (and real estate related) tasks? Nope. Because they will complain about how busy they are.

Mr. Gaia might have the opportunity to be transferred. If he does get transferred, I will have an excuse to abandon this job. I hate it because there are parts of it I LOVE and find stimulating. It just gets bogged down by all the secretarial crap (they really need to hire someone to handle the simplest tasks so I can concentrate on the stuff that needs specialized training). And I'm getting bogged down by the petty office behavior. Standing outside of my cubicle talking VERY loudly while I'm trying to talk on the phone. Taking 30-45 minutes every morning for a breakfast break. All this while claiming to be sooo much busier than everyone else.

I survived

Not everyone showed up - thank goodness.

My house has an echo and a dozen kids or more are really, really loud in a house that echoes.

Mr. Gaia invited some really, really conservative people and I ended up not mingling much with them. To be honest, I was worried that I'd drink too much to keep from telling them off. I did pop off with "well, no great loss" when they mentioned Dr. Laura was no longer aired here in the Valley. I mentioned I listened to NPR and they went nuts with how liberal NPR is. Okay.

I now have a ton of food in my house. And a little less liquor. We'll be eating leftovers for the next week.

Party at my house!

Just kill me now. After dithering back and forth for over a year (since we moved into the house) Mr. Gaia came home on Saturday and told me that we are having a party this Saturday (I guess that's today).

OMG. My house wasn't even every day clean, much less having company over clean. So, I've been cleaning all week (which is why I've been so silent). I have 33 confirmed yes RSVPs, 5 maybes and 26 non-responders.

So, being environmentally minded, Mr. Gaia and I have been discussing our options for feeding people. We decided to buy the cheap, restaurant grade flatware at Sam's so that it can be reused. We've discussed plates ad infinitum and still haven't decided. I think we're going to go with Chinet that is made from recycled paper and then put it in our compost pile.

We've bought natural sodas, organic veggies, baked bread, brownies and mixed up dips.

I'll report back if I survive.

How are people doing it

Several bloggers have recently had some interesting financial posts.

First up we have BitchPhD with her two posts - But, but, I thought we were rich and Fuck all y'all, how have we been doing it?!? These are an interesting take on how someone making well over the median income still can't afford to buy a house in much of the US.

Then we have Pandagon with Poverty study brings the spin.

Over 36 million people in the US live in poverty. Over THIRTY-SIX MILLION. This doesn't include the working poor who are one small hiccup away from being in poverty. Or the rest of us who are one setback away from being working poor or in poverty.

Here in the Valley we have the colonias. Whole "subdivisions" that live without access to electricity, potable water and sewage systems. On property that is so worthless they can't even grow a veggie garden (if they could manage to somehow irrigate it when it doesn't rain here - which is more often than not).

Wage study

For a good portion of the population, wages aren't meeting needs in even low cost of living areas.

This article is about the Rio Grande Valley of Texas ("The Valley"):

Report: Valley familes’ salaries too meager
By ELIZABETH PIERSON HERNANDEZ/VALLEY MORNING STAR
AUSTIN — Families in the Rio Grande Valley routinely earn less than what they need to buy life’s basic necessities, a report released on Thursday found.

The study from the Center for Public Policy and Priorities, an Austin-based nonprofit that advocates for working families, studied what it takes to live in 26 metropolitan areas in Texas.
It found that in Texas, a family with two parents and two children must earn between $9,000 and $25,000 above the federal poverty level of $20,650 to stay on top of life’s routine bills.

“There’s a big gap between what people are earning and what it really costs to live,” said Frances Deviney, co-author of the study and a senior research associate with CPPP.

The cheapest place to live in Texas is the Brownsville-Harlingen area, requiring $29,982 to make ends meet, the study found. But half of Brownsville households make less than $26,000, leaving many without enough money to live with stability, according to the center.

The McAllen-Edinburg area is more expensive, about $35,000, primarily because housing is slightly more expensive than in Brownsville, Deviney said. Census data shows the median household income in McAllen is $28,660.

The most expensive area to live is Texas was Fort Worth, costing $45,770 a year, the study found.

Just because it’s cheaper to live in the Valley doesn’t mean it’s easier for those with low incomes, Deviney said.

“When wages correspond to the cost of living, you’re actually no better off,” she said.

Preliminary attempts to compare statewide Census data with the study have found that the median incomes, on average, are slightly higher than the salaries the study determined to be necessary, Deviney said.

“Probably over half the families are making what they need, but there’s a good chunk who are not,” she said.

Deviney said the study’s authors used conservative figures. They assumed families would buy food in bulk, buy little meat and never eat out. Housing costs were figured based on the fair market rate of public housing, which is often less than what families pay for apartments.

The authors also assumed families have health insurance on par with those of a state employee, which is often not the case.

The study did not figure that families might want to save for college, a home or retirement. It did not account for unforeseen expenses like a car accident or extra school supplies, Deviney said.

“When you’re living hand to mouth, on a monthly basis, you’re never going to have the opportunity to get ahead,” Deviney said. “You’re kind of on a hamster wheel.”

Becky Sanchez has a good idea of the feel of that wheel. The 36-year-old mother of two from San Juan earns $10 an hour as a teacher’s aide at a charter school. She would like to work full-time, but the school doesn’t have those positions open right now, she said.

To get by, she sometimes relies on help from her mother or her church, she said.

On Thursday the 1992 Buick Sentry she had driven for six years caught fire on U.S. Highway 281. Now she’ll have to think about a car payment in addition to household bills and credit card debt, she said.

The single mother has no health insurance. Her children, ages 12 and 14, are on Medicaid, which she says “is a blessing.”

“Sometimes I deal one day at a time,” Sanchez said.

Although the Valley has some of the poorest communities in the state, the study found low-income workers statewide face the same problems.

Deviney cited the decline of the real value of wages in recent years, less employer-sponsored health care and regressive tax policies as reasons for the gap between wages and what it takes to live.

To close the gap, the state should increase access to community college, make sure families have government aid until they are self-sufficient and attach economic development aid for companies with workforce training for workers, she said.

This is where I live. Salaries are low here. The article says that median incomes tend to be a little higher than the amount needed, but I'm not sure that actually holds true here. I thought it was interesting to see what figures they used. Government housing prices, only the most standard of household expenses (no school supplies, for example). Only what a family HAS to have for the most basic needs.

Cooking from scratch

Tonight we baked a carrot cake, completely from scratch. We started with wheat berries, carrots (and a zucchini for filler), added eggs, honey, agave sweetener, molasses, cinnamon, butter, vanilla, etc and ended up with a delicious cake. We wanted to bake it in the solar oven, but there was no sun.

I used a basic cooks.com recipe with a few minor variations. I started with this recipe:

WHOLE WHEAT CARROT CAKE

2 c. whole wheat flour
1 tbsp. toasted wheat germ
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1-1/4 c. honey
1/2 c. butter, melted
1 tsp. molasses (optional)
1 tsp. vanilla
4 eggs
3 c. finely shredded carrots
1 c. chopped pecans
Cream Cheese Frosting
Grease and flour two 8- or 9-inch round baking pans. In a mixer bowl combine flour, wheat germ, baking powder, soda, salt and cinnamon. Add honey, butter, molasses and vanilla. Beat with electric mixer on low speed until combined. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each. Stir in carrots and pecans. Pour into prepared pans.
Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool on wire racks 10 minutes. Remove cakes from pans and cool completely. Frost between layers and top with Cream Cheese Frosting. Store covered in the refrigerator.

I left out the wheat germ (I didn't have it and didn't want to buy it), substituted a cup or so of zucchini for some of the carrot, and went about half and half with local honey and agave sweetener (both light and amber).

I used their frosting recipe:

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING:
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/2 c. butter
2 c. powdered sugar, sifted
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. molasses or honey
1/4 c. pecans, chopped
Beat cream cheese and butter with a mixer until fluffy. Beat in powdered sugar, vanilla, and molasses or honey. Stir in pecans. If necessary, chill until it is of spreading consistency (about 30 minutes).

But I left out the honey and the pecans. It was really, really sweet already. It turned out kind of cream colored. If I had been thinking, I would have used the clear vanilla we got in Mexico. But it would still have been a little brown because I used an organic powdered sugar that's slightly tannish.

Even Oceanus liked it. We didn't tell him what it was until he said he really liked it.

Still Rain!??!?

While this is the subtropics, it's an area that doesn't get much rain usually. In fact, for the last 2 years rain was almost enough to shut down the city. Now? It rains every single day and rains enough that the water backs up in the streets. Life no longer stops, we just muddle through.

The rain has perfected its timing, too. It waited until I was 2 blocks from home (walking to the school) to start raining. Too far to really want to turn back and get in the car to park 3 blocks (or more) from the school. But had I known the deluge it was going to turn into? I might have seriously considered driving.

The kids have not yet had a real recess. Hyperion's teacher is a saint, she's keeping it together with a class room full of hyper 7 year olds (her reputation as being THE teacher for high energy kids means that us parents of high energy kids request her) - hyper 7 year olds with very little outlet for their high energy.

Children and Environmentalism

When I first met Mr. Gaia he introduced me to the idea of zero population growth (ZPG) and told me he never planned to have more than 2 kids. I had always thought 4 seemed like a good number, but I agreed with him that our planet was in crisis and we should have only 2 kids.

In my head in the stars view, I was sure that one of my children would be a girl. Ever since I was 7 I've dreamed of the day I'd have my own daughter (why yes, my childhood did suck, why do you ask?). I've planned and accumulated items based on the idea of passing them down to my daughter. I specifically had my mom make my wedding gown in such a way that it would be easily altered so that my future daughter could wear it in her wedding if she chose.

2 children later and I don't have my girl. I love my boys with all my heart, but my heart cries out for a girl. Hyperion has it figured out (he doesn't seem to feel that it in any way reflects on him, thank goodness) and has guessed that when I wish upon a star it's often to have a daughter.

This is where dreams and environmentalism butt heads. I agree intellectually with Mr. Gaia that ZPG is necessary and desireable. I know intellectually that even if we did have another child, it's just as likely to be a boy as a girl. But emotionally? Yeah, it's not so clear.

I would be open to adoption, but Mr. Gaia isn't. He's happy with our current family and feels that it is absolutely complete. I don't feel I can discuss it with him because I knew all along that he only wanted 2 kids. And, of course, with adoption it's still the same crapshoot. You can't say "I want to adopt a girl" and presto! you get a girl. You get what comes. Now there are things you can do to stack the odds in your favor - you can adopt from China, for instance. But adoption is expensive and international adoption is even more expensive, and even then you can't be assured you will have a girl. Plus, you get an older toddler and not a newborn - so formula would have to be used (I can easily relactate, if I spend time with babies I get the tingly let-down feelings and can easily express a few drops). My reluctance to use formula also prevents me from fostering a child (and really, I don't think I could take care of a newborn day and night and then give it back to its parents - which is another issue with domestic adoption).

So a few weeks ago when I was down? This is why. My period comes around and it's a reminder again that there will not be another baby. Ever.

Green TV

Okay, so watching TV isn't exactly green, but watching TV can help you become more green.

Living With Ed just started its second season on HGTV. Mr. Gaia and I love to watch Ed and Rachelle. We occasionally get good ideas for how to live more lightly on Earth from the show.

The Green on Sundance. Different shows every week. Including one that we especially like - It's Not Easy Being Green.

Of course, these shows help us to see just how far we have to go. It provides us with ideas and helps us to see that we aren't all that odd.

I'm happy to report the first day of school went well. Both kids seem to like their teachers and their classmates.

Back to School

It seems that every year there's that one item on the school supply list that you just can't find. This year it's red-checking pencils. We have quite a few red checking pens left over from last year, but no pencils. I refuse to shop at WalMart, so they'll start school with pens. Next time I grocery shop, I'll check their school supply section. I don't hold out great hope for them, though, they had last year's list when I went to look there. I also refuse to pay shipping prices to order something online.

The kids didn't really get any new clothes. My mom bought them some for their birthday and co-worker gave them some hand-me-downs. Their closets are bursting at the seams, so they didn't need anything new. They haven't hit the age where they want to make sure they wear new clothes on the first day of school.

Despite the rain we've been getting (almost daily) I've managed to get the laundry done with just a little bit of dryer usage - to fluff my nice bouses and to take the last edge of dampness off the clothes on the line that hadn't had a chance to finish drying before it rained again. I'd say about 15 minutes of dryer usage. I would think that would have to be less energy usage than an iron.

Tonight we cut Hyperion's hair. It went from a Dorothy Hamill crossed with a pageboy to an extremely short style that he wants to try to spike. I don't know that his hair will spike, it is really, really, really thick and fine. We can try to spike it, but I think he will be disappointed. Oceanus opted to keep his long skater-boy hairstyle.

So, for better or worse, we're back to school tomorrow!

Ack!!!

My alarm went off this morning and I hit snooze. And apparently kept hitting snooze.

At 7:47 I woke up and saw the time. I have to be at work at 8:00. Yeah, the words that came out of my mouth weren't too nice.

I was dressed, made-up and hair reasonably neat by 7:57. Breakfast was McDonald's drive-thru on the way to work (which is where I called and told them I'd be about 5 minutes late depending on traffic). And I was. Which, I think was pretty good. Less than 20 minutes from the time I woke up to the time I was at work. I used to do that when I was in college, but I didn't wear make-up then.

I was discombobulated all day long. I finally got it together about 2:00. What a wasted day!

Bug Hill update

Well, school starts next week. We in Bug Hill have been getting ready (okay, I haven't done diddly squat, but ...). I've been asked to remind everyone that donations of any extra supplies are always welcome. We need to remember that we have a high proportion of low income students who will likely start school without all the needed supplies.

I'm trying to decide whether to cut Hyperion and Oceanus' hair. They both have long hair. Oceanus' looks fine, but Hyperion's is so thick it looks oppressive and heavy. It's also inclined to smell. Technically, long hair is against dress code, but theirs doesn't touch their collars so it's okay for a little while. It's against dress code because "it's distracting". Well, it's only distracting because it's against dress code and somewhat unusual. I imagine the first girl with short hair was distracting, but we got over it. My theory is that if more boys had long hair, it would no longer be distracting. It's the same theory I had about breastfeeding - especially breastfeeding in public. I think I'll keep it trimmed just enough to be above their collar and call it good. Unless, of course, they ask to cut it. Hyperion can't decide if he wants it left alone or not.

I know the preacher's wife is more than ready for school to start. The twins are keeping her so busy - they're just starting to roll over now and they've learned to link rolls to move around the house. She's really going to have her hands full. She plans to send them to school for breakfast as well as lunch - which we all agree is a great idea.

Walking School Bus

The Walking School Bus project is a national project designed to help communities develop a program for walking kids to school.

Around our school we are known as "that weird family that walks". Mr. Gaia walks them to school in the morning and I walk them home in the afternoon. On one occasion last year, I walked with some boys who were walking home.

This year, I want to see if I can spur some other families to start walking. Our neighborhood is actually pretty safe for crossing - the only issue is the occasional train. There are sidewalks (unusual these days) and crosswalks.

So, I'm going to print this information to give to the principal and the PTA president. If you've started or participated in a similar project, let me know!

No hurricane here

We did get some bands of rain, but nothing much. It appears that most of our friends in the Yucatan managed to survive with minimal damage - there was some flooding and water damage, but they'll be open for business in a week or so.

Do continue to remember them, though. Most of them are operating on the edge and a week without business could be crippling.

Waiting for the hurrricane

At this point, we aren't even in the cone, so we should feel safe, right? But it doesn't work that way.

The Red Cross issued a voluntary evacuation for our area, but I doubt most people are leaving. Where will we go? How will we afford to lose time off work and stay in a hotel? Especially if the hurricane actually hits where they project (instead of here)?

So, this is the waiting game. Checking weather underground every few hours to see what the latest projections show. If we evacuate, it will be Tuesday or Wednesday before we leave and really, we won't know until then whether we will or won't.

Do be praying for our friends in the Mayan Riviera. They are pretty much guaranteed a direct hit. They were hit by Emily and Wilma in 2005 and are still recovering from those. If it does hit, there will be a donation link on this site http://www.ceakumal.org/, so if you have any extra, please share.

My wake-up call this morning:

This is what we awakened to at 7am this morning:

Wild Parrots

Turn your sound all the way up to get an idea of what it sounds like from my bedroom window.

(If you know how to add utube video to play without navigating away, please let me know)

Rockin' Girl Blogger

Tanya gave me this Rockin' Girl Blogger award. And now I get to pass it on!!!

Since I can't pass it back to Tanya, she won't be on this list, but that doesn't mean that I don't think she's pretty "Rockin'".

So, without further ado, I present to you my winners (in no particular order):

Grace because she's just too cool. I really want to be like her with her talent with fibers and her science smarts. Seriously, girl has it going on with the science.

Rani for her creativity with clothing and for her great eco-tips. Seriously, if you want to get more green, you should check her out. Plus she just writes well.

Jenny because she is living the green life and is willing to share it with us. She introduced me to Wardrobe Refashion.

Sally because she writes about cool places and she loves cats as much as I do.

An Honorary mention to all the bloggers at Wardrobe Refashion. I'd award them all but there's just too many.

Surprise Father's Day

I'm not sure how we managed it, but we managed to surprise Mr. Gaia. I'm very impressed that both boys were able to keep it to themselves. Of course, I didn't tell them the plan until Friday.

Mr. Gaia had a great day.

I mixed up some bread for the solar oven (finally a sunny day!). Of course, I got distracted and used gluten instead of the softer whole wheat flour (I usually mix 2 different grinds). I realized it when I took it out of the mixer to knead and it was tougher than a brick. Crap!! So, I quickly heated some more water, started mixing another batch - with no gluten this time - and then mixed them together. I'm happy to report the bread is really good, just a tad bit chewy, but a soft chewy. I've got a loaf in the freezer ready to pull out and bake next sunny day.

After we put the bread in the solar oven to cook, we decided to go to some furniture stores. Mr. Gaia and I haven't had a bed in 7 years. We have just had our mattress and foundation sitting on the floor. We also haven't had a dresser or chest of drawers in the same amount of time. I have open wire shelves to hold my clothes. We've decided we'd like to look more grown up. So we went to 3 different furniture stores, but none of them had what we want. We like simple, clean lines. Mission style is always good. We did find a lot that had the simple lines we wanted but the pieces were "Texas sized" and would be overwhelming in our room, not to mention that they would block our windows.

Then we went to Sam's to walk around and have lunch. That reminds me, I have to send an email to corporate. This Sam's never has Dr. Pepper on the weekend, or ice. How freakin' hard would it be to realize that you ALWAYS run out of Dr. Pepper and to order an extra canister? To make it worse, they never post an out of order sign on the machine - so you waste what little ice you can manage to get by having it covered in jet water. Today she told me the sprite and powerade canisters were empty too. None of them had out of order signs. Can you imagine the poor people that thought they got Sprite? At least with a cola you can tell the color is wrong.

Then we came home and the boys played on a Slip 'n Slide. These are so not fair, no one over 100lbs or 5' can play on them. Of course, it is wasteful of water so it's a good thing we aren't in a drought this year.

After they'd played for a while, Mr. Gaia sent them to the shower and mixed pina coladas for us.

Then he opened his gifts - a beer butt chicken cooker and a board game - The Game of Life. When I was a kid, my granny wouldn't let us play games with dice. So my mom bought us this game to take to her house (we still had Monoply, etc at home). Let me tell you, the game has changed since I was a kid. I swear I remember retirement was either rich or poor house, now it's comfortable or rich. It was a fun game to play with the kids and it provided some good teaching moments. Oceanus bought a house when he was a starving artist with a salary of $20,000 per year. He had to take out a bank loan. At the end of the game when he was last, we talked about how much money he had spent to buy his house. Hyperion was in a hurry to finish and kept treating it was race to the end. We'd explain that like real life, longer was better. He came in 2nd last.

I'm in a down mood

Does anyone have anything amusing to share?

I'm sure this mood will pass soon enough and at that point maybe I'll bore you all with the details. But for now, I'd like something amusing to jolly me along.

I hate cleaning

I just went Mommie Dearest on my kids. Mr. Gaia doesn't think we can assign them chores until he and I (emphasis on the *I* part) are able to set a good example and do the chores we wish to assign regularly.

The fact that I am overwhelmed by a demanding job and the chores I do stay on top of apparently isn't good enough. The fact that he isn't doing much to help, isn't good enough. Until "we" maintain the house and "set a good example" "we" can't assign chores to the kids. Well fuck that.

The kids were gone for Father's Day. I decided to surprise him with a Father's Day tomorrow. I figured part of that would be a nice clean house. But it has become enough of a sty that I can't possibly do it myself. So I assigned the kids some easy tasks - help fold the laundry, put your own laundry away. They are almost 9 and 7 - more than old enough to do these tasks.

I walked into their bedroom and the closet floor is full of clothes. I get it. I did it myself too when my mom said "go clean your room". But I didn't tell them to "clean their room" I told them specifically to put their clothes away. So tantrum #1 of mine.

"We" finally managed to get all the laundry folded and put away, so I went into their room to give them specific instructions about what to clean. See, I learned from my mom - don't give a generic instruction. There were clean sheets on their chest of drawers. I hadn't gotten around to folding them. I specifically said "these are CLEAN" and then said "fold them". I came back by a couple of minutes later and they were on the floor. Again I said "THESE ARE CLEAN!!!!!! KEEP THEM OFF THE DIRTY FLOOR AND FOLD THEM". I did a few more taskes and came back and the sheets were again on the floor but this time they were laying/standing on them. Wallering on them on their dirty fucking floor. I completely lost it then. Tantrum #2. This time they were told that they WOULD start listening to me the first time, period. I told them if I told them something was clean and then came back and found it in the floor, they would be doing all the laundry, by themselves. They will start listening to me.

I don't have high standards for cleaning. Really I don't. But I'm tired of never being able to have someone over. But, I can't do it myself. I don't make the mess myself and damned if I can clean it myself. And "setting a good example" by cleaning up after myself ala FlyLady doesn't do shit in my house. They see me clean up after myself and I swear it becomes a good excuse for them to make an even bigger mess of their own.

No more. Mr. Gaia is going to get with the program and stand back as I assign them chores. I am not the fucking maid. He feels put upon because when the house is cleaned he does do the majority of it (he is 1000x better at cleaning than I am). Well big f'ing deal. If he would just stop telling me that I *can't* assign chores to these two able bodied boys, then we wouldn't have to have marathon cleaning sessions and he wouldn't have to do the majority of the cleaning then.

I'm really worried for our country

People I trust are starting to agree with me that a depression is inevitable. I've been thinking this for the last 8 years or so, but I am, by nature, a pessimist.

Now, I work in the legal field - doing a mix of foreclosures, probate and estate planning (with a few other things thrown in). I figure my job is fairly secure. Foreclosures will not stop - they're only going to increase. People will continue to die and Wills will need to be probated. People will continue to need Wills, powers of attorney, living wills, etc - and people who don't get them will create even more expensive legal issues.

Mr. Gaia works for the state. I hope that his job is secure. I feel like it is, I figure the worst they will do is freeze any raises, even cost of living increases, and refuse to fill positions as they become vacant.

But I worry about our savings, etc. We've been pretty smart and stuck with credit unions. I feel credit unions will survive even if banks start to fail. Credit unions tend to have more stringent requirements for loans. In fact, in the past we've had difficulty being approved for some loans through our credit unions and we never asked for anything we couldn't afford. But where it is saved won't help if the dollar continues to tank.

This is why, more than anything else, I've been concentrating on becoming more self-sufficient.

Bug Hill update

It occurs to me that I haven't given a Bug Hill update in a while.

Megan is finally in her 2nd trimester, and being the suggestible person she is, she immediately started feeling 100% better. I think she would feel even better if she'd switch to maternity clothes, but I remember wanting to wear my regular clothes as long as possible, so I understand (of course, I was pregnant in the mid to late 90s when clothes were not nearly as fitted as they are now).

It's so stinkin' not, no one is doing much. The city has seen an increase in weed abatement notices. All this rain coupled with all this heat has made the weeds and grass grow 2 feet overnight (or so it seems). No one feels like working in their yards to get rid of the weeds. Whole neighborhoods are having parties to work in their yards and meet the city requirements.

I harvested my first volunteer watermelon. It was pretty small, but the vine had shriveled, so it wasn't going to grow anymore. It tasted about like you'd expect from a volunteer watermelon. It actually tasted a lot like my first watermelon this season. Edible, but really not that good. The second watermelon is a lot larger and the vine is still green and pretty. So there's hope. That vine has a lot of pretty flowers on it, but they apparently aren't getting fertilized - there's no baby watermelons appearing as the blooms die.

All the church kids are back from their various camps. School starts in 2.5 weeks. Parents are scrambling for school supplies and trying to decide if it's worth forking over big bucks for new clothes that the kids won't be able to wear until December (by which time, they will probably have outgrown them).

The local elementary has asked that I remind parents that they always accept donations of extra school supplies. If you can afford to buy an extra package of lined paper, or glue or box of crayons, they will be put to good use.

Paper Beads

I saw a cool piece on Wardrobe Refashion. One of the contributor's used security envelopes to make paper beads. This is a great recycling project and if you look at the patterns on the paper you can see how lovely the beads will look.

So, today while I was at work and sitting on hold, I grabbed my scissors, a security envelope, a glue stick and a large paper clip. I stretched out the paper clip to use as my roller. Then I cut a long triangle out of the envelope. I coated the printed side of the paper with the glue stick and started rolling (this is different - most instructions say to do the backside, but I wanted to do the front and it worked out well). I then wrapped the paper around the paper clip, starting with the wide end. I left one end of the paper clip in a hook shape and made sure the other was bent at a 90 degree angle. I used the hook to hang it over my desk container to dry.

I still need to string them on waste string and figure out what to spray them with to preserve them. I doubt the glue will last long enough to make a wearable item.

When I came home I found some security envelopes with green insides. Yummy! I love green.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Sara has a great post on reducing consumption.

A few years ago someone I know ridiculed recycling as "not worth it environmentally". I agreed that recycling alone won't do it, you really do have to reduce and reuse to make a difference.

Mr. Gaia and I were talking this weekend about how low maintenance I am. I spend very little on clothes, makeup and shoes. I wear things until the wear out and then keep them around with the idea of someday doing something with them.

We're not perfect, but we are working on it. I doubt we'll ever be as minimalist as Sara, but I plan to use her as a role model.

Rani has been working on reducing the number of clothes she has in her possession. Passing clothes on to someone reduces their consumption as well. She's challenged her readers to post a list of clothing they own. I'm working on compiling my list, but I'm embarrassed by it. My only excuse is that a lot of my clothes are really old - like 20 years or more.

Happy August!!

August is a busy month for our family - birthday wise. We have lots of birthdays in August between my family and Mr. Gaia's family.

So this weekend we had a mini-birthday celebration at SeaWorld in San Antonio. I'm sunburned and my legs hurt miserably (I really do need to find a pair of shoes that actually fit my foot, my current ones have the arch in the wrong place for me).

Mr. Gaia decided to make this MY birthday weekend (my birthday is actually in a couple of weeks, but this weekend worked best) so he and the boys gave me my presents this weekend. They were really sweet and I have some fun stuff to mess with. I had hinted for a digital camera but I waffled about it enough that Mr. Gaia decided I didn't really want one. I may buy one myself anyway for my real birthday, if I get some bday money. It would be nice to be able to post pics on the blog.