When one is a new parent, each year seems to be one of change. Until the kids are fully ensconced in school, it seems like there's always something different going on from the year before.
This year brings many new things in my life, a bit more than in the last few years. Camille is starting kindergarden, so now we are firmly committed to family vacations only in the Summer. We can no longer do two-week Christmas trips to France (except in certain special circumstances, which must be rare), as the elementary school only gets 1 week winter break (actually ends up being a week and a day or two, depending on how the holidays fall). Camille can't just stay out of school for a day 'whenever' as we could in daycare/pre-school.
Also for the first time, the kids don't spend their days in the same location. Three days a week, Elise goes back to the pre-school Cami went too. So Cami gets dropped off at the sitter's (a neighbor mom) house first, then I take Elise to pre-school. This has been hard on Elise, to go to school without her big sister with her. Cami, at least, has gone to school/daycare by herself before, so its not as big a change. Two days a week, we take Elise to the sitter's as well, to help the transition. That way, they have the morning together before Cami goes to Kindergarden, and then the late afternoon after kindergarden is over.
Its not easy doing two trips now in the morning and afternoon. Only have to do this for 2 years, until Elise is in kindergarden.
This year, I also started the kids in their extra-curricular activities. Cami started with swim classes at the Y over the summer and now that Elise is 3, she participates as well. They're doing gym/swim for early fall and I plan to sign them up for ballet in late fall. Saturday mornings are no longer sleep-in relax time, and probably won't be again for several years to come. Soon I'll probably have to choose one day a week at work to leave extra early for other after-school activities.
Stef's and my job situation appears to have stabilized, which is a good thing, especially in this economy. Stef likes his job and got a raise. After several years of searching and bouncing around, I finally have a place to work that I like (at least 95% of the time, no place is perfect really) and that pays me sufficiently. I think I could stick it out here in the long term. I feel I can relax a bit and not worry about job stability for either of us.
We can see the light at the end of the debt tunnel. Its slow going right now, but things are starting to get paid off, so we can increase payments to others. We're hopeful that in about 3 years we'll be in better financial shape (along with the economy) for a home loan to do some remodeling/expansion of our house.
The girls are starting to get more independent. Elise is finally potty trained, so we no longer have diapers. Yippee!!! They can dress themselves (even Elise) and can turn on the TV. Still need mommy or daddy to turn on lights, get drinks (they can reach most of the food options), help with DVR/DVS (until Cami is better at reading). Of course, now we're starting homework too, another new thing.
Life is good right now, if busy.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Are You Ready For Some Football?
Yay, football season has finally begun. This year, however, isn't likely to be a good year for the Eagles. First they traded away their franchise quarterback to a division rival (WTF?) and now the supposed "new" quarterback is injured (and so far, he certainly isn't showing himself to be the new Peyton Manning either). At least the back-up is a former starter, albiet, not that great a one. Still, Vick almost pulled it out for the Eagles last week, but for yet another questionable play call by Reid. Seriously, WTF? with passing on 4 and 1 when you have a running quarterback? Hello!!!!????
So, I'm not holding out any hopes for the playoffs this year. Even if the quarterback situation works out, the Eagles still have many other problems, both offensively and defensively. Giving up 27 points doesn't make for a good defense.
In other football news, we have another example of why I don't believe that any reporters, not just women, should be granted access to locker rooms for interviews. Really, is the information that critical that you have to ask the guy while he's naked? Can't you wait until he has some pants on???
Of course, the issue currently brewing about Inez Sainz isn't just in the locker room (although that was a big part of it). She's claiming harassment outside the locker room as well, such as when she was on the field wearing jeans that if they were any tighter, she'd look like Mystique with her blue skin. She claims to have been wearing a "button down" blouse, but given the only photo we have is her from the back, we don't know how far "down" those buttons were undone.
A female football reporter for the Inquirer wrote about the situation today. She came right out and said, "look, if you want to be taken as a professional, you have to dress and act professional." Flirting (like sitting on players' shoulders) does not make one seem professional and then people won't treat you as a professional (or at least not as a professional journalist).
And finally, we've got Jimmy Johnson, former NFL two-time Super Bowl winning coach on one of my favorite shows this season, Survivor. Johnson is definitely the most famous contestant on the show, although there has been some quasi-celebrities previously. By "quasi-celebrity" I mean someone who has a shot at being known outside their personal circle of family, friends and co-workers pre Survivor (i.e. Elisabeth Hasselbeck doesn't count, she got famous after Survivor).
Former "quasi celebs" on Survivor include: Gary Hogeboom, a former NFL quarterback (backup only); Crystal, a former gold-medal winning US Olympic athlete (though she only ran the qualifying race and had to give her medal back after revealing drug use); Ashley (?) the female WWF wrestler; and possibly the biggest celeb prior to JJ, Jonathan Penner, an actor/producer (although I'll acknowledge that unless you were a big fan of his or the shows where he guest-acted on, you probably don't know him).
Thus just begs the question, how long until we have a true Celebrity Survivor season? Its been on the air for over 10 years now, we're going to get it soon, I just know it. But in the meantime, I don't think Jimmy J is going to last long. He's the oldest contestant (and they rarely make the merge) and he's not in that good a shape (unlike, say Rudy). So he'll probably stick around a few episodes, I'm guessing he's off by week 5 or 6. Motivational speeches only do so much when you can't otherwise contribute to winning challenges. Jimmy doesn't have Troy Aikmen on his tribe.
So, I'm not holding out any hopes for the playoffs this year. Even if the quarterback situation works out, the Eagles still have many other problems, both offensively and defensively. Giving up 27 points doesn't make for a good defense.
In other football news, we have another example of why I don't believe that any reporters, not just women, should be granted access to locker rooms for interviews. Really, is the information that critical that you have to ask the guy while he's naked? Can't you wait until he has some pants on???
Of course, the issue currently brewing about Inez Sainz isn't just in the locker room (although that was a big part of it). She's claiming harassment outside the locker room as well, such as when she was on the field wearing jeans that if they were any tighter, she'd look like Mystique with her blue skin. She claims to have been wearing a "button down" blouse, but given the only photo we have is her from the back, we don't know how far "down" those buttons were undone.
A female football reporter for the Inquirer wrote about the situation today. She came right out and said, "look, if you want to be taken as a professional, you have to dress and act professional." Flirting (like sitting on players' shoulders) does not make one seem professional and then people won't treat you as a professional (or at least not as a professional journalist).
And finally, we've got Jimmy Johnson, former NFL two-time Super Bowl winning coach on one of my favorite shows this season, Survivor. Johnson is definitely the most famous contestant on the show, although there has been some quasi-celebrities previously. By "quasi-celebrity" I mean someone who has a shot at being known outside their personal circle of family, friends and co-workers pre Survivor (i.e. Elisabeth Hasselbeck doesn't count, she got famous after Survivor).
Former "quasi celebs" on Survivor include: Gary Hogeboom, a former NFL quarterback (backup only); Crystal, a former gold-medal winning US Olympic athlete (though she only ran the qualifying race and had to give her medal back after revealing drug use); Ashley (?) the female WWF wrestler; and possibly the biggest celeb prior to JJ, Jonathan Penner, an actor/producer (although I'll acknowledge that unless you were a big fan of his or the shows where he guest-acted on, you probably don't know him).
Thus just begs the question, how long until we have a true Celebrity Survivor season? Its been on the air for over 10 years now, we're going to get it soon, I just know it. But in the meantime, I don't think Jimmy J is going to last long. He's the oldest contestant (and they rarely make the merge) and he's not in that good a shape (unlike, say Rudy). So he'll probably stick around a few episodes, I'm guessing he's off by week 5 or 6. Motivational speeches only do so much when you can't otherwise contribute to winning challenges. Jimmy doesn't have Troy Aikmen on his tribe.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Obligatory Political Post
Elections are coming soon. I've been watching some of the primary races, primarily the ones on the Republican side.
I used to be a Republican, its how I was brought up. I was raised that no one should be granted special privileges, everyone should work hard for themselves and not expect anything to be given to them. In essence, I was very much an fiscal conservative and definitely had social conservative leanings. This really came to a head when I was in college and I was annoyed how certain special interests groups got anything they wanted because they were "special interests groups" (i.e. anything non-white). Suddenly, any attempts to enjoy other cultures in a party atmosphere were deemed "racist" and prejudiced. I was insulted. My friends, sorority sisters, fraternity friends, were not being racist or prejudiced, we just wanted to some sombreros on the wall and drink tequila. We couldn't even call our spring Hawaiian themed party "Hawaiian Luau" because any use of a culture that wasn't "white" or "American" was considered "racist" (despite the fact that, you know, Hawaii is kind of part of America) and therefore banned because of the special interest group protest.
I was also annoyed by what I perceived to be special treatment given to certain persons of color to get into classes ahead of me, solely because of their color (and my school was probably 40% or more "of color"). As I look back on it, I really have no idea if other factors were taken into consideration with this preferential treatment, its entirely likely that economics played a part as well. At that time, it just seemed to me that nearly everyone I knew that was "of color" (which honestly wasn't all that many) got that special treatment and it annoyed me even though I didn't see all that many people "of color" in the classes I actually attended.
As I continued to live in CA, I maintained my conservative opinions. I was annoyed at how much taxes I paid (mostly because I was a renter and didn't have kids), particularly because that money funded programs for which I wasn't eligible. I always thought that the Republicans were a bit smarter, they seemed to know about economics more. About the only items I disagreed with the Republican party on were abortion rights
(I've always thought a woman should have the right to decide what
she wants to do with her own body, up to a point at least, and I
generally agreed with Roe v. Wade on that point - yes abstinence is
better, especially for teens, but its not realistic to think it will
never happen - hello Bristol Palin - and besides, I think its better
fiscally for someone who can't take care of a baby and/or who doesn't
want it to abort it in the first 3 months, rather than give birth
and have society, us tax payers, pay for it for 18+ years)
and gay rights
(frankly, I don't care who people marry, finding love is hard enough
to enforce a one-sex only standard).
Then I moved to PA and married a Frenchman, who opened my eyes to a different way of life (yeah, the whole "evilness" of socialism). I continued to be a Republican for many years. Frankly, it was really only with GWB made such a mess of things that I started thinking differently. Part of it was that I finally had kids of my own and that really opened my eyes to the struggles families with children do have. I suddenly realized why there are policies for families, for kids. I experienced some economic troubles of my own, which made me understand why there's welfare, WIC, unemployment, etc.
And I heard more and more intolerance from the (primarily) far right wing side of the party. Intolerance towards anyone who wasn't like them. Hypocrisy over forcing women to have babies they didn't want, but unwillingness to help raise/pay for those babies. Contending that anyone who wanted a job, could get one, and it was just too bad if the only thing available was minimum wage, even if that wasn't enough to pay bills (including child care), you obviously weren't working 'hard enough.' Some even had the nerve to gripe about how much minimum wage cost the employer.
More and more, I saw religion being pushed into politics and I didn't care for it. The whole point of our country was separation of church and state, that the government was not supposed to support, endorse, or proselytize any one religion, but now it was. This country is made up of all sorts of people with differing religions, but our President and his supporters were pushing only one form of it on everyone as "the only right way."
Now I was always very tolerant of different religions. In fact, the religion in which I was brought up, Lutheranism, actively teaches its followers not to blindly accept what the priest/preacher tells you, but do have one's own faith, to do things that you believe are right, to figure things out on your own. Through this teaching, I conducted my own research into a few different religions and began to reject the verdict that just because one believes in God in a different way, doesn't mean that they don't believe in God, or won't go to Heaven. There is no "one way" to believe in, or worship God. All God cares about is that you believe in him and follow his principals. How you go about doing that, what methods you use to worship him, what aspect of him you follow, doesn't matter.
So it annoyed me to no end to see the Republican party began to focus more and more on religion and less and less on the economic principals I believed in. Now, it wasn't that poor people just needed to be taught better how to succeed, it was their fault because they didn't believe right. Other social issues also began to take more control over the party, the jihad against gays made absolutely no sense to me. I know the Bible has the whole Sodom and Ghemorrah story, but I also know the book was written by men, words and stories chosen by men to enforce certain "expected" behavior of their choosing, and designed to control/appeal to the masses. Like with other religions, I really don't believe that God is going to damn someone because the person they fell in love with happened to be of their same sex.
My disappointment with the hijacking of the Republican party by the religious right got to be so much, I finally had to leave the party. I just could not support anyone that stayed in political party so encompassed by standards and morals that were nothing but platitudes. I saw people who claimed to be "good Christian folk" spew hatred and vitriol and others, just because they had different beliefs. That's not how Jesus taught people.
I also began to see the greed that was running the party. How its all well and good to tell people to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, but then they hit that glass ceiling. People can only get by on 'hard work' for so long before it becomes a 'good ole boy' network, where one only gets ahead because of 'who you know.' Sure its still possible to be successful by oneself, but its much rarer than it used to be. And ordinary workers have a lot of difficulties getting by, struggling to pay the ever increasing costs of health care, child care, funding their own retirement, funding their kids college accounts, paying a mortgage.
Employers/businesses were becoming more greedy with limiting vacation time, sick time, maternity time, etc. Management and executive salaries were far and away outpacing those of workers, and more and more benefits were being cut. When people have to pay $12,000 a year in rent, $12,000 a year in child care and $6,000 a year in health care premiums (that is what I paid when when Cami was born), that's already $30,000 a year of my salary. Yet some places I applied for jobs wanted to only pay me $50,000 a year (and my others not much more). That meant after taxes, I had very little left for transportation, food, clothing, utilities, let alone something for savings.
I was annoyed that someone with a good education, with an advanced degree, was only being paid mid-five figures and working for people earning well into the six-figures. The bosses somehow expected me to be able to afford full time child care, plus a designer wardrobe with my measly wages. Considering my lower student loan payment, I had to wonder how any newer attorney, with significantly higher student loan payments, could get by without a high earning spouse or live-in relatives.
So I left the Republican party and joined the Democratic party. I began to see that it wasn't enough to just be a fiscal conservative, one has to realize the effect on society and how sometimes it really is necessary to cover some society costs because most people/businesses don't do it on their own. We need government to tell businesses they have to do certain things for their employees, because otherwise, they won't. They'll just make the employees work harder, and if they complain, fire them (good old at will employment) and hire someone who will be quiet and be "happy to have the job." We've already seen what happens when government isn't telling businesses how to treat employees. We get child labor earning pennies helping their parents pay the rent.
Republicans say they want less government, but really they only want less government taxes and business regulations. They want more government to regulate or stop abortions, (gay) marriage, immigration, welfare, etc. I love how people complain that our education system is deteriorating. That's because it has less and less government funding. Repubs don't want education funding, but they want the government to stick its nose into the schools and force prayer, Christian prayer only. This is why I can no longer vote Republican.
I can see why the Republican voters have been coming out in droves in the primaries. Its a battle between the right wing religious/tax fanatics and what's left of the moderates (those that didn't defect to the Dems, like myself). Apparently the results have been 50-50 for each side. I know everyone predicts the Dems will suffer greatly in November and there will be a big Republican resurgence. I'm not so sure. I think the Dems will come out to keep the tea partiers at bay (at least I hope they do, because God help us all otherwise) and maintain a majority in Congress.
I know that Obama hasn't been perfect, but he's far far better than the alternative and if he has any chance of trying to turn this country around after the last 20 years of damage, he needs a Democratic Congress. I have no "fear" that its going to turn in to a socialists paradise (although really, some of the policies are really pretty good), there are enough far-right Dems to join the Repubs to keep that from happening. But if the Party of No gets some control, I can't see much of anything happening over the next two years. I'm sure that will please everyone.
I used to be a Republican, its how I was brought up. I was raised that no one should be granted special privileges, everyone should work hard for themselves and not expect anything to be given to them. In essence, I was very much an fiscal conservative and definitely had social conservative leanings. This really came to a head when I was in college and I was annoyed how certain special interests groups got anything they wanted because they were "special interests groups" (i.e. anything non-white). Suddenly, any attempts to enjoy other cultures in a party atmosphere were deemed "racist" and prejudiced. I was insulted. My friends, sorority sisters, fraternity friends, were not being racist or prejudiced, we just wanted to some sombreros on the wall and drink tequila. We couldn't even call our spring Hawaiian themed party "Hawaiian Luau" because any use of a culture that wasn't "white" or "American" was considered "racist" (despite the fact that, you know, Hawaii is kind of part of America) and therefore banned because of the special interest group protest.
I was also annoyed by what I perceived to be special treatment given to certain persons of color to get into classes ahead of me, solely because of their color (and my school was probably 40% or more "of color"). As I look back on it, I really have no idea if other factors were taken into consideration with this preferential treatment, its entirely likely that economics played a part as well. At that time, it just seemed to me that nearly everyone I knew that was "of color" (which honestly wasn't all that many) got that special treatment and it annoyed me even though I didn't see all that many people "of color" in the classes I actually attended.
As I continued to live in CA, I maintained my conservative opinions. I was annoyed at how much taxes I paid (mostly because I was a renter and didn't have kids), particularly because that money funded programs for which I wasn't eligible. I always thought that the Republicans were a bit smarter, they seemed to know about economics more. About the only items I disagreed with the Republican party on were abortion rights
(I've always thought a woman should have the right to decide what
she wants to do with her own body, up to a point at least, and I
generally agreed with Roe v. Wade on that point - yes abstinence is
better, especially for teens, but its not realistic to think it will
never happen - hello Bristol Palin - and besides, I think its better
fiscally for someone who can't take care of a baby and/or who doesn't
want it to abort it in the first 3 months, rather than give birth
and have society, us tax payers, pay for it for 18+ years)
and gay rights
(frankly, I don't care who people marry, finding love is hard enough
to enforce a one-sex only standard).
Then I moved to PA and married a Frenchman, who opened my eyes to a different way of life (yeah, the whole "evilness" of socialism). I continued to be a Republican for many years. Frankly, it was really only with GWB made such a mess of things that I started thinking differently. Part of it was that I finally had kids of my own and that really opened my eyes to the struggles families with children do have. I suddenly realized why there are policies for families, for kids. I experienced some economic troubles of my own, which made me understand why there's welfare, WIC, unemployment, etc.
And I heard more and more intolerance from the (primarily) far right wing side of the party. Intolerance towards anyone who wasn't like them. Hypocrisy over forcing women to have babies they didn't want, but unwillingness to help raise/pay for those babies. Contending that anyone who wanted a job, could get one, and it was just too bad if the only thing available was minimum wage, even if that wasn't enough to pay bills (including child care), you obviously weren't working 'hard enough.' Some even had the nerve to gripe about how much minimum wage cost the employer.
More and more, I saw religion being pushed into politics and I didn't care for it. The whole point of our country was separation of church and state, that the government was not supposed to support, endorse, or proselytize any one religion, but now it was. This country is made up of all sorts of people with differing religions, but our President and his supporters were pushing only one form of it on everyone as "the only right way."
Now I was always very tolerant of different religions. In fact, the religion in which I was brought up, Lutheranism, actively teaches its followers not to blindly accept what the priest/preacher tells you, but do have one's own faith, to do things that you believe are right, to figure things out on your own. Through this teaching, I conducted my own research into a few different religions and began to reject the verdict that just because one believes in God in a different way, doesn't mean that they don't believe in God, or won't go to Heaven. There is no "one way" to believe in, or worship God. All God cares about is that you believe in him and follow his principals. How you go about doing that, what methods you use to worship him, what aspect of him you follow, doesn't matter.
So it annoyed me to no end to see the Republican party began to focus more and more on religion and less and less on the economic principals I believed in. Now, it wasn't that poor people just needed to be taught better how to succeed, it was their fault because they didn't believe right. Other social issues also began to take more control over the party, the jihad against gays made absolutely no sense to me. I know the Bible has the whole Sodom and Ghemorrah story, but I also know the book was written by men, words and stories chosen by men to enforce certain "expected" behavior of their choosing, and designed to control/appeal to the masses. Like with other religions, I really don't believe that God is going to damn someone because the person they fell in love with happened to be of their same sex.
My disappointment with the hijacking of the Republican party by the religious right got to be so much, I finally had to leave the party. I just could not support anyone that stayed in political party so encompassed by standards and morals that were nothing but platitudes. I saw people who claimed to be "good Christian folk" spew hatred and vitriol and others, just because they had different beliefs. That's not how Jesus taught people.
I also began to see the greed that was running the party. How its all well and good to tell people to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, but then they hit that glass ceiling. People can only get by on 'hard work' for so long before it becomes a 'good ole boy' network, where one only gets ahead because of 'who you know.' Sure its still possible to be successful by oneself, but its much rarer than it used to be. And ordinary workers have a lot of difficulties getting by, struggling to pay the ever increasing costs of health care, child care, funding their own retirement, funding their kids college accounts, paying a mortgage.
Employers/businesses were becoming more greedy with limiting vacation time, sick time, maternity time, etc. Management and executive salaries were far and away outpacing those of workers, and more and more benefits were being cut. When people have to pay $12,000 a year in rent, $12,000 a year in child care and $6,000 a year in health care premiums (that is what I paid when when Cami was born), that's already $30,000 a year of my salary. Yet some places I applied for jobs wanted to only pay me $50,000 a year (and my others not much more). That meant after taxes, I had very little left for transportation, food, clothing, utilities, let alone something for savings.
I was annoyed that someone with a good education, with an advanced degree, was only being paid mid-five figures and working for people earning well into the six-figures. The bosses somehow expected me to be able to afford full time child care, plus a designer wardrobe with my measly wages. Considering my lower student loan payment, I had to wonder how any newer attorney, with significantly higher student loan payments, could get by without a high earning spouse or live-in relatives.
So I left the Republican party and joined the Democratic party. I began to see that it wasn't enough to just be a fiscal conservative, one has to realize the effect on society and how sometimes it really is necessary to cover some society costs because most people/businesses don't do it on their own. We need government to tell businesses they have to do certain things for their employees, because otherwise, they won't. They'll just make the employees work harder, and if they complain, fire them (good old at will employment) and hire someone who will be quiet and be "happy to have the job." We've already seen what happens when government isn't telling businesses how to treat employees. We get child labor earning pennies helping their parents pay the rent.
Republicans say they want less government, but really they only want less government taxes and business regulations. They want more government to regulate or stop abortions, (gay) marriage, immigration, welfare, etc. I love how people complain that our education system is deteriorating. That's because it has less and less government funding. Repubs don't want education funding, but they want the government to stick its nose into the schools and force prayer, Christian prayer only. This is why I can no longer vote Republican.
I can see why the Republican voters have been coming out in droves in the primaries. Its a battle between the right wing religious/tax fanatics and what's left of the moderates (those that didn't defect to the Dems, like myself). Apparently the results have been 50-50 for each side. I know everyone predicts the Dems will suffer greatly in November and there will be a big Republican resurgence. I'm not so sure. I think the Dems will come out to keep the tea partiers at bay (at least I hope they do, because God help us all otherwise) and maintain a majority in Congress.
I know that Obama hasn't been perfect, but he's far far better than the alternative and if he has any chance of trying to turn this country around after the last 20 years of damage, he needs a Democratic Congress. I have no "fear" that its going to turn in to a socialists paradise (although really, some of the policies are really pretty good), there are enough far-right Dems to join the Repubs to keep that from happening. But if the Party of No gets some control, I can't see much of anything happening over the next two years. I'm sure that will please everyone.
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