A blurb from the Presidential Debate:

As president of the United States, Alan, I would order the secretary of the treasury to immediately buy up the bad home loan mortgages in America and renegotiate at the new value of those homes -- at the diminished value of those homes and let people be able to make those  payments and stay in their homes

Wowsers! Mr. McCain.  Will you also refinance my loan to reflect the diminished value of my house?  I still have equity but not as much as I had when I initially bought it.  It is not my fault that I can make my mortgage payments just like it is not their fault others can't make their mortgage payments.  I was duped into believing that I should live within my means!  Had I of known the consequences of making that decision (to live within my means) I would have made a different decision.  Living within my means is costing me big time and I have come to realize that it was just as bad a decision (if not worse) than purchasing a home I couldn't afford.  I have discovered to my horror that I can't refinance my house because I don't qualify for those special loans that defaulters get and I no longer have enough equity to do it without adding mortgage insurance to the mix.  And I am sure that my bank won't go for refinancing my home based on its diminished value... will it? 

So Mr. McCain... are you going to help me out with my bad decision making?  Believe me... I am starting to think that living within my means was a really stupid mistake that is going to continue to cost me big time as I go without these perks that other home owners are getting.

"Happiness research is showing that it is not material possessions but relationships, community, meaning, a sense of purpose, and use of one's most valued skills that make us happy." - lifted from the No Impact Man blog

What will Piero and I remember from this weekend?  Will we remember his first ride on his bicycle down the walking path?  Or will we remember the box of plastic ocean toys Eduardo bought him?  The kids almost seem happiest when buying things.  This bothers me immensely.  We went out to buy shoes for Piero because his shoes were entirely too small for him by 1 to 2 sizes.  As soon as we hit the store,  Kylie decided that she too needed shoes despite the fact that she already has multiple pair of shoes that fit her.  Piero had 1 pair of shoes.  His was a need... hers was a want.  Trying to tell her that Piero needed shoes and she didn't just wasn't cutting it.  She ended up with shoes.  We bought her boots that were a size too big that she could put thick socks in for winter and would then likely grow into for next spring or fall.

Short of keeping them out of stores - which we primarily do because neither of us are shoppers and both of us hate the whining that comes with going into a store with them - how do we give them understanding that the latest widget/gadget does not make them happy nor does it tell them how much we love them?  Buying a toy takes 15 minutes of our time and very little thought on our part.  Making a memory takes considerable time and effort on our part and in my mind shows them how important we are to them.  Going down the walking path with them on their bikes took a considerable amount of time.  It also took some patience and coaxing to get Piero riding by himself.  He was pretty scared of his bike.  It also took some kisses, encouragement and Neosporin to get them back on their bikes after a tumble.  I will have forgotten the toy in a couple of weeks but going for this bike ride will stay with me for quite some time.  Which will stay with him?  I fear it will be the toy that he bought and I don't think that is the kind of memories he needs to grow into a strong, secure little boy.

As well as the shoes and the plastic ocean toys, we also bought Kylie a little stoller for her dolls and I bought a little 12" baby doll that fits into the clothes that Grandma and Aunt Anna made me.  Kylie has no toys at our house to play with.  Piero has a few that have either been mine or we have managed to pry out of his little hands and convince him to leave it at our place.  They want all of their toys to go home with them to Kelly.  Piero still cries sometimes when I tell him that the movies that we have borrowed from the library do not go home with him to Kelly.  We did it once and getting the movie back before we got fined for being late was a major hassle.  I said never again.  So I wanted to buy a doll that fit the clothes.  This doll was not given to Kylie as a gift.  She watched me buy it.  Piero watched me buy it and asked about it in front of her.  I told him it was for my doll clothes.  Did he remember that I wanted a doll for my doll clothes?  He did and he was satisfied that the doll was mine and not a second gift for Kylie.  Now Kylie will have a doll and some clothes to play with when she comes to our house.  She is a lot more easy going than Piero so I don't anticipate any tears over leaving the things at our house.  We shall see when I get home tonight since Kylie is still at our house today.  I will be pretty upset if they head home to Kelly because those clothes are treasures items that I don't wish to actually give to Kylie.  I don't mind her playing with them but at the end of the day... they are my childhood memories.  

You almost had me believing this President Bush.  You almost had me believing that if we didn't vote for this bill... the world as we know it would be doomed and nobody would have access to credit for a good long time to come.

Until last night....

Last night,  I went to the bank to cash Eduardo's stipend for attending class.  While at the bank,  I was offered a credit card.  I declined it saying that 2 was plenty.  But it didn't end there... oh no.... but we have 0% interest for 12 months on transferred balances.... and that would be useful how?  I don't carry a balance on my credit card.  The bank employee looked at me oddly and that was the end of his sales pitch.

So tell me why the bank would be pitching me a credit card - with a 0% interest rate no less - if credit was on the verge of drying up??? 

Sadly, Congress believed the doomsayers and today the bailout/rescue bill was passed.

I have stopped eating yogurt a couple of times in the past because I felt like it was giving me intestinal problems.  I have now stopped eating yogurt permanently about 6 months ago or longer.  When I stopped eating yogurt,  I basically stopped getting stomach cramps and diarrhea.  I then switched to cottage cheese thinking it was just the culture in yogurt.  I was ok with that for a while and then decided that I was having the same problem and quit eating cottage cheese a couple of weeks ago.  Stomach cramps have disappeared.  This week, I caved and ate yogurt one morning.  Next morning.... diarrhea (I know TMI).  I seem to be ok drinking skim milk and eating cheese. 

So... could I be lactose intolerant?  Allergic to something?

It is a shame because I love both yogurt and cottage cheese and now I can't seem to eat either.

I recommend that you invest in any company that makes copy paper.  That's right.  I see that stock zooming through the roof based on our usage!

This weekend, Piero went into a drawing frenzy and wiped out more than an inch of paper from our ream.  Most of this was even drawn on both sides.  He had almost an inch of paper used up when we realized what was happening and put our foot down on getting more paper until he drew on the other side.  A little meltdown happened over that.  Luckily, Papa was in bed and he only had me to deal with.  I simply left him in the living room screaming and crying.  Eventually, he quit his crying jag and starting drawing on the other side.  Ahh.... the joys of parenthood.

So we have a pile of SpongeBob and on the other side? SpongeBob dressed as different superheros like Batman and Robin, Superman and IronMan.  It is really cute.  And we have a pile of cat pictures for me.  On the other side is Kylie's scribble.  And then there is a huge pile of dinosaur pictures including pictures that comprise several stories about dinosaurs and volcanoes and this boy called Alex who went back in time to see the dinosaurs.  He truly is creative.   And the last pile is picture after picture of Spiderman.  Some of these he drew and others we drew and he coloured them in and added scenery.

And what do we do with a pile of cute pictures?  I have absolutely no idea.  The front of our fridge is full up.  I am thinking of going to IKEA or some other place to buy strings of clips that you can put photos on.  I am hoping that we could use those to string up his pictures in our hallway.   Any idea on where I buy some?

My mortgage company just went under and was sold to JP Chase.  The bank that holds my personal IRA just got sold to Citigroup.  Now I am not too concerned about my mortgage.  They will simply assume the mortgage and life goes on.  I am much more concerned about my IRA since it actually had bank-owned funds in it.  I like to think that I don't need to worry too much because if the funds were in serious trouble,  I would have had some inkling about it by now - right?  After all, my IRA has been stable the last year or so.

So... I guess I best make some inquiries into the health of my IRA. *sigh*


And in one of those lightning fast updates.... Only the banking side of that bank was sold to Citigroup.  The securities side is alive and well.

I am totally 100% against the bailout that ALMOST(I thought when the parties had agreed to the terms that it would simply pass - boy was I surprised) went through today.  I even emailed my Senators telling them I was against it.  I feel like I am being burned twice.  First the Countrywide bailout where homeowners could restructure their mortgage.  Boy... wouldn't I have liked those restructures with a 4% interest rate.  But no... I couldn't take advantage of that restructuring unless I missed a couple of mortgage payments.  Hmm... rewarding poor decision making?  And now the bailout of companies who were also greedy and made stupid decisions?  Once again... no consequences for stupidity.  I think Americans are going to learn that stupidity comes with rewards not risks!  So I can't get that amazing interest rate and now my taxes are being used to help greedy, stupid people?

Why aren't the people who made prudent decisions being rewarded for their financial acumen?  The world is being turned upside down and no one is thinking anything is wrong with this. 

And I will post more.  I am afraid that I came down with my annual... my child went to school and picked up the circulating bug... illness.  I probably would have gotten sick sooner but I hadn't seen Piero for the first 3 weeks that he was in school.

I am not sure where I ran into this site but I found it out there somewhere in blogland.  The premise of the website is that someone puts up a need/wish and someone else provides for that need/wish.  Some of them are pretty simple like cards for a child's birthday or something like that.  Some of these are far more tragic like wanting a special needs bike or food and clothing for their family.

I thought this was a perfect idea for the children's drawings.  They draw so much that we throw a lot of them out.  We sent some up to Mom that the kids specifically wanted to draw for her (their idea - not mine) and lots go home to Kelly but that still leaves lots and lots of drawings at our house.  This weekend,  I asked the children if they wanted to draw for someone who wanted to get pictures because they were sick or lonely.  I got an enthusiastic YES out of Piero so we signed up for Wish Upon a Hero and selected a special needs boy that wanted birthday cards.  The mother responded back that they would love to get handmade cards/pictures so Piero and Kylie sat down and drew them some pictures.  I was surprised at the level of interest Piero had in the boy.  He wanted to know what his name was.  He wanted to write a little letter to him and what I didn't expect was that Piero would ask if we could send a toy to the little boy.  I told him no but maybe I should get some stickers from the Dollar Store for the next time. 

I hope to continue doing this because I would like to encourage their interest in helping others.  Sending a packet of drawings is so easy for us and yet such a big deal to the person looking forward to mail.

According to one of the blogs that I read,  60% of all taxpayers in America make under a certain amount of money a year per family.   We do not fall in this category.  I have to admit that I was a little surprised to see us in the upper 40% of family income for American taxpayers.  We are not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination but here we sit in the upper income bracket.  We live in a particularly expensive part of the US so your dollar does not stretch as far as it could.  I suppose we would be feeling wealthier if our dollar went further.

It is not very often that I feel affluent.  I look at our house and see the TV and sink that needs to be replaced.  I see the re-tiling that needs to be done in the bathroom and feel the cold air in the winter that comes in through a balcony door that doesn't quite shut properly.  I think of how nice it would be to straighten my teeth or highlight my hair or take a trip to Peru.. or... or .... or

But if I look around,  we have the TV and the satellite dish, our internet, our cupboards full of food, electricity for A/C, washer and dryer, clothes on our back, roof over our head and nice cars in the parking lot.  If having everything you need and some of what you want is affluent, then we are affluent.  So why aren't I feeling it as I pay the bills?

Yet another small stab at getting rid of plastics and reducing chemical use.  I admit that I am likely only going to do those things that a) don't cost a lot and b) don't require a bunch of effort.  Let's face it,  I am already busy enough as it is.  Anything that takes gobs of time is simply going to fall by the wayside.  I have no idea how other people do all the things they are doing to reduce their carbon footprint.  But I suppose several small steps are better than no steps at all.

So... getting back to the title - LUSH Shampoo bar.  I have been reading about how you can clean your hair without using shampoo and conditioner.  Doing this gets rid of the chemicals that go down the drain and of course reduces one or more plastic bottles from your bathroom.  One choice is to clean it with a baking soda mixture and then rinse with a cider vinegar mixture.  I have to say... this sounds like a TON of work.  Another way that seems a whole lot easier is to buy a natural shampoo bar.  Most everything that people mentioned,  I couldn't figure out how to source locally. 

I found a LUSH store a few miles away so I visited it on Friday.  They have all kinds of beauty/personal cleaning products that are chemical or close to chemical free and many of these products do not come in plastic bottles.  I checked out the soap and decided it was WAY too expensive for the amount of soap that Eduardo manages to go through.  I was a little leery of buying a shampoo bar for almost 10$ until the woman said that she bought one in May and STILL hadn't finished using it.  Her hair was longer than mine so  I bought two thinking that 10$ for 5 or 6 months was a pretty good deal.  I bought one for me and one for Eduardo to try.  Let's just say that I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Eduardo to try his.  I suspect that I will have to use it.  The one I bought was called Godiva and is a shampoo + conditioner bar.  It smells wonderful but Eduardo says my hair doesn't smell like anything once it is dry.  I have pretty short hair so I just get my hair wet,  stroke the bar down the length of my hair 3 or 4 times and get a wonderful amount of lather.  I bought something called Squeaky Green for him.  If I have to use it,  I will probably have to supplement it with conditioner.  But that is ok... they also sell conditioner in a bar.  I kid you not!   They also give you a free little tin container to put your soap in if you buy two shampoo bars (hence thinking I would buy one for Eduardo).  The lid of the tin is very handy to use as a soap tray so I have been leaving my bar on the side of the tub in it.  So far... I like it.

And in case you are interested: LUSH Personal Care Products.  And Mom?  They are also in Canada!  I found one in Pickering Town Centre if you want to check them out.  I don't know if you would like the shampoo but the soaps look VERY nice.

This was created by going to www.wordle.net.  It is a representation of the words that I use in my blog.  The bigger the word,  the more it appeared in my blog during the months of July, August and September.  Apparently,  I talk quite a bit about Eduardo and the kids.  It would be interesting to do this in another 3 months and see if my blog has changed direction at all.

My produce bags have arrived.  I ordered 8 of them based on the number of produce bags in my fridge.   These little guys might be a little bigger than I needed for some things.  No worse than those plastic produce bags that are one size fits all I suppose.

Timmie does not have cancer.  She had a mast cell tumor.

Now that I have updated you on my Buy Nothing Challenge,  I am ready to move on to another challenge which actually will be challenging to me - Ditch those disposables.  The blogger has asked that we get rid of a single disposable for September and October.

You can make the switch from:

• Paper napkins to cloth napkins - I might attempt this if I can get around to making some cloth napkins
  
• Paper towels to cloth towels
• Tissues to handkerchiefs
• Paper, plastic or Styrofoam plates to your kitchen plates - we don't use disposable plates
  
• Inexpensive plastic “Take & Toss” sippy cups to Sigg, Camelbak or Kleen Kanteen - don't use sippy cups in this house
  
• Disposable water bottles to (again) reusable bottles like Sigg or Camelbak
• Plastic sandwich bags to reusable containers/bags
  
• Paper lunch bags to reusable containers/bags - we use reusable lunch bags already
  
• Swiffers (or similar products) to a broom and dustpan or mop (or use reusable cloths like cloth diapers/terry inserts in your Swiffer)
• Disposable dust rags to cloth rags
• Disposable diapers to cloth diapers - don't use diapers
  
• Disposable wipes to cloth wipes (inexpensive plain washcloths work really well)
• Disposable feminine products (tampons, pads) to reusables - not necessary for me
  
• Grocery store bags to reusable bags - this is what I am going to focus on!
  

I have collected up the totes I already have from a variety of places.  I have 5 totes of which one of them is used for library books.  This leaves me with 4 totes to take to the grocery store.  I also have 2 totes on order.  The totes were free... I simply had to pay for shipping.  I also decided to take this one step further and get rid of those plastic produce bags.  I have - on order - 8 produce bags to use to bag up my fruit and vegetables.  I will try to keep track of how many plastic bags I have used for whatever reason and also keep track of the number of plastic bags I didn't use by using the totes.  Let's see what happens!  My biggest problem will be REMEMBERING those darned bags!

I don't imagine that I will ever get hard core green but it doesn't hurt to make little changes that impact me not at all yet contribute my little bit to not damaging the environment as much.

A month ago,  I wrote that I was going to participate in the buy nothing challenge for the month of August.  The goal was to buy nothing except groceries and gas.  How well did I do? You tell me...

Purchases I could have done better on:

• Shredder - needed but I could have bought this from CraigsList.  Consider this poor execution on my part.
  

Purchases made for the sake of family harmony:

• McDonalds - Eduardo was hungry and wouldn't have wanted to break from errands to go home to eat
• Five Guys - we wanted to go to an outdoor movie but I had no time after work to put together a supper. We did takeout.
• KFC - same as Five Guys.  worked up until we had to leave to an outdoor movie and nobody had eaten supper. We did takeout
  
• erase board for drawing for Kylie.  Piero got one with his school supplies.  Fighting had been ensuing.  Second one bought to keep the peace.

Useful purchases made:

• New sewing machine to replace a 25 year old machine that has been getting testy.  This is also a fancier machine whereas my old one was more basic.  I was going to replace this in October on employee day but a good sale at work moved up my decision to purchase. And I had the allowance money already saved
  
• Tools and supplies for my husband's apprenticeship training
• new glasses to replace the ones my cat broke several months ago.  I was waiting for my annual exam in August to get them covered under insurance.
  

Not so useful purchases made:

• Five Guys - Eduardo wanted to... I was tired and I forgot about the challenge.
• cheap plastic placements for the kids - will this keep things cleaner?  I can only hope.
  

To be honest,  I am not sure I changed my purchasing habits any.  I could have done better on the shredder.  I blew it there.  I needed glasses, he needed tools and the sewing machine was a planned purchase in the making for almost a year.  All I truly brought into the house that was absolutely unnecessary was the placemats and we ate out more than I wished we did.  I am not really one for making impulse purchases to begin with and all the challenge showed me was that even if I didn't change my purchasing habits much... I still didn't buy much.

To go along with the LONG, LONG overdue chore of shredding,  I have went to the condo office and requested a storage box.  Last night,  I trucked down Christmas decorations and MANY empty boxes for collectibles and other things that will never be needed in a hurry in our house.  I cleaned out an entire section of our closet.  I then proceeded to fill up most of that cleared out closet with things that were being 'stored' - and I use that word loosely - in other areas of our house.  I still have a bit of space left in our storage box but I was simply too tired to think of what else I could put in the space after I got the obvious stuff down there.  The only down side to the upper floor condo is that you are 4 flights of stairs from the storage lockers.

My next task is to take the rest of the paperwork that is around the desk and sort through it.  Some of it needs to be shredded and some of it needs to be stored in the plastic boxes that I bought specifically for that purpose.

Last night, we even managed to sell the pendant light that Eduardo brought home from one of his old jobs.  He had brought home several lights that he thought we could use to update the lights in our house.  We used all but two so we were trying to sell the nicest one on Craigslist.  Wowsers.... that was a tough bunch this time around.  We had to bring the price of the light down to 25$ (normally sells for 100$) before we got our only nibble.

Slowly but surely we are paring down on the stuff in our house.  A long time ago,  I had decided to quit buying laying-around/decorative stuff.  For the most part, I have managed to keep to that decision.  But despite that... you definitely manage to accumulate a lot of stuff.  I still have a lot of stuff although I did a MAJOR purge when I moved from the townhouse to the condo.

Hopefully,  I can keep on this roll and continue to declutter the condo bit by bit.

I completely don't understand the world I live in.  Let me relate two examples of the type of people we have in this world....

Example #1:
Apparently, the hotel at which Eduardo is working is next to a homeless shelter.  The homeless hang outside this shelter when it is closed over an area that covers several blocks.  On Saturday,  Eduardo parks as always on the street.  The parking lots are closed (which are danged expensive anyways) on Saturdays.  A homeless girl walks up to him and asks for money.  He says he doesn't have any (which he probably doesn't since we don't carry cash) and goes into work.  When he relates this story to a co-worker, his co-worker responds that he pays the homeless a couple of dollars whenever they ask for money because he doesn't want them to mess up his car.  Eduardo heads outside but it is too late.  They have scratched a line down the side of his car under the window from the back of the car to the back of the front window.   So now... if Eduardo doesn't want his car damaged he has to pay protection money on Saturdays?  Who knew...

Example #2:
On Friday,  I discovered that someone covered up some facts and told a lie.  I was not very happy.  I was even less happy when I confronted that person and they told me that I made them lie to me.  Say what????!?!?!  Indeed, because they knew that I would respond badly to them telling the truth, they decided to lie to me so they wouldn't have to deal with my response.  I presume that their hope was that I would never find out.  And this makes it my fault?  For the love of all that is holy... PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE act like an adult and own up to your actions.  I did not force you to lie to me.  You chose to lie to me because you thought it was the easy way out.  And then as I was minding my own business,  a little conversation popped into my head.  I wasn't even thinking of this situation but there it was running through my head.  This is when I realized that multiple lies were told to keep this entire situation a secret.

Now I am definitely guilty of lying and covering up things.  As an adult,  I have maybe done this once or twice.  And after the last time,  I swore it simply wasn't worth it.  If  I was doing something that required covering up... then I shouldn't be doing said something.  But I never once said to the person that I was being deceitful toward... but you made me do it!  At the time,  I felt the circumstances dictated a cover-up but I didn't believe for a moment that anyone but ME was responsible for what I was doing. 

Combine that cover-up with some other little lies (about nothing important) that were said and I am now wondering if anything that comes out of that person's mouth is truthful.  The trust between us is basically destroyed.

We got to spend the entire long weekend and my mini vacation without air conditioning.  That was fun... NOT!

We spend the long weekend (such as it was for me) with the kids.  We started out with an outdoor movie on Saturday night.  Sunday we completely relaxed since neither of us had to work on Monday at our regular jobs.  That included spending several hours at the pool as they were closing the pool Sunday night.  We also felt no motivation to go back into the house because the house was HOT.  Little did we know that Sunday was our best day with respect to our lack of air conditioning.

I also took a mini-vacation on Tuesday and Wednesday.  My goal was to get some straightening out done in the record keeping department and get some other things done.  I got side tracked by a couple of items so I didn't actually get everything done that I had hoped for.  The first order of business was to get Timmie to the vets and see what they thought about a small mass growing on her eye.  They are thinking the possibility of cancer and wanted to put her under for a biopsy.  They also wanted to clean her teeth and were concerned they might have to extract a tooth if we didn't clean her teeth like right now.  They had a cancellation for Wednesday so I booked her.  Waiting for the pathology on the mass.  No tooth extractions were needed.  This required a second and third trip to the vet on Wednesday to drop her off and pick her up which was unexpected.  The second unanticipated thing was a sewing machine class that took 2 hours.  I finally (and unexpectedly) purchased a new sewing machine (from saving up my allowance) to replace my 25 year old Pfaff.  I got a really good deal at the place I work so I purchased it before I was planning on it.  I was originally going to purchase in October on our employee discount day.   I managed to perform one little bit of home repair,  I caulked around a couple of tiles that were losing their grout.

And what else did I do for my mini vacation?  I literally sat in front of our little shredder and fed it a diet of old paper.  I had tax returns and other records going back to 1992.  I shredded everything from 1992 to 2000.  I also shredded selected records like car insurance and car bills and medical insurance bills and so on for a number of years.  Everything took up close to a double sized bankers box.  At the moment, I have it down to about 2/3 of a bankers box and I now have 2 large garbage bags of shredded paper that I need to get rid of.

Doesn't that sound like an exciting mini vacation?  Clearly, I need a life.

The following resonated with me.  Sometimes I get frustrated with the way Eduardo is and think to myself... Well I will just treat him the same way I perceive he is treating me and he will see how that feels like.  But in reality,  I don't think Eduardo is trying to be mean/rotten/thoughtless or whatever attribute I am thinking.  He is simply a different person and different things are important to him.  Rarely has my treatment of him resulted in anything other than me feeling like a bad person because the fact that I didn't do X is simply not a big deal to him.  Of course... there are exceptions.... but maybe I shouldn't be doing tit-for-tat except in exceptional circumstances where talking doesn't seem to work. 


My husband, after about 10 years of marriage, gradually stopped saying hello when I came home, kissing me goodbye, etc. For a while I felt like, "If he won't do this, then I won't either, that'll show him." Then I realized I wanted to live in the kind of home where people showed others these small courtesies. Can't do much about what he chooses to do; can do a lot about my own actions. When you make a conscious effort to do things you want -- because they are important to you rather than because you want to manipulate the actions of somebody else -- most of the resentment just evaporates. It's the realization that you have choices, and you are acting freely.

You wonder what is becoming of your world when you take a second look at the sign at the gas station that is advertising 3.49$ for regular and your first thought is... WOW! I didn't think I would see it go down below 3.50$ again.