Please take my poll!

As part of #4 in my To Do List for 2012, I need to collect more information from my current regular readers. This one is easy, it's a Yes/No question on a poll on this blog's Facebook page! If you are on Facebook (I KNOW, some of you actually aren't! WHAT?!), all you have to do is click this link to my poll. I'll even give you a preview of the question:

Have you ever made a purchase or avoided a product based on recommendation/information from Conscientious Confusion blog?

Yes
No

Take the poll now

Thanks, readers!

2011 Question Meme

Everybody's doing it: the year-in-review questionnaire!
Links to other bloggers who have inspired this post: A'Dell, Jennie, and Lauren.

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?
Quit a full-time job without plans to find another full-time job.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I did a post on my To Do List from 2011. I'm planning on organizing a To Do List for 2012 at some point.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
 I did, Sandra, Olga, my friend Rebecca, and half LS's playgroup. Everyone is having second children. But I beat most of them too it with my children who are one day short of 16 months apart. Yay me.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
 We weren't personally close, but Christian's paternal grandmother died the day that Little Lady was born. We were not able to travel to her funeral in Arkansas due to the birth of Little Lady. I am sad about that and I feel like it was my fault even though I was unable to control the fact that I went into labor.

Also our cat died, which is in no way similar to a grandparent dying but it was sad and I am sorry she was in so much pain and we did not know how to help her.

5. What countries did you visit?
 With two children under the age of 2? Are you freaking kidding?

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
 More sleep. Yes, that would be the most awesome thing ever.

7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
 My daughter's birth. Cause you just don't go around forgetting unmedicated childbirth.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Keeping two children alive on my own during the day. I kind of think I should get some kind of prize for how much laundry I do as well.

9. What was your biggest failure?
 Not realizing that our lease was unbreakable before we bought this house.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
 Not really. I am thankful for that!

11. What was the best thing you bought?
 A house.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
 Our Secret Santas. Thank you.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
 The highly-paid, giant children we call our political figures.

14. Where did most of your money go?
 This house, our former landlord, and the new renter to get out of this lease.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Um? I don't get all that excited about things.

16. What song will always remind you of 2011?
Lady Gaga's "The Edge of Glory" because the ladies at BlogHer 2011 did a flash mob to it!

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) Happier or sadder? Probably happier overall, striving to work on contentment.
b) Thinner or fatter? Thinner. But not on purpose. I need to gain muscle mass and lose the pooch.
c) Richer or poorer? Poorer. Oh dear, sooooo much poorer. But still happy, SO THERE!

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Sleep, work out, read. These are unrealistic wishes because my kids don't let me do any of these things. But still, I can wish!

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Freakin' laundry. But since we cloth diaper it's kind of a given, so I realize that is unrealistic.

20. How did you spend Christmas?
With my little family, here in our new house. Then we hosted both sides of our family and some extended family for post-Christmas get-togethers. At one point 10 adults and 3 kids ate here, and we had 3 adults and 1 child overnight. It was so awesome to be able to fit that many people comfortably in our house!

21. Did you fall in love in 2011?
With my new Little Lady!

22. What was your favorite TV program?
We started watching Parks and Recreation on NetFlix and we really love it! I think we like it more than Community now. We are fickle that way.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
I don't really hate people, it's not in my nature. I do get really annoyed at the behavior of certain people, but I don't take it personally. I got really annoyed at the landlord situation. There is one other person I have been annoyed with off and on, but if it goes further I will talk to that person directly.

24. What was the best book you read?
I haven't had the chance to read much but I did get to read Water For Elephants and I really enjoyed it. Also, Tina Fey's book Bossypants. That was the funniest book!

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
That I no longer have the time or ability to listen to music. I only bought one album and I don't even think I listened to the whole thing. I listen to nothing but children's music in the car and I can't listen to music anywhere outside the car.

26. What did you want and get?
A peaceful birth and a place to live that has more room for the kids.

27. What did you want and not get?
I would have loved to have some dates with my husband without the kids this year, but babysitters are so expensive. Oh well. Maybe we will have a few in 2012.

28. What was your favorite film of this year?
I have only seen 2 movies in the theater since my children were born (babysitters being so expensive...) but we saw lots of things on NetFlix. I can't remember if there were any that were particularly great.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 33. I can't remember what we did, I was 9 months pregnant. I had Little Lady one week later.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
If I had been able to take care of myself more - had more than one pedicure, kept up with waxing, etc.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?
1. Pregnant. Again.
2. Post-pregnant
3. Having lost too much weight so that nothing fits but too broke to buy new clothes.

32. What kept you sane?
Probably my husband and God, because it's definitely a fine line sometimes!

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I don't really follow celebrities and I definitely don't get crushes on them.

34. What political issue stirred you the most?
I was glad that Don't Ask Don't Tell was repealed, and also that we are out of Iraq. I really never thought we would end that war.

35. Who did you miss?
I guess I missed our cat somewhat.

36. Who was the best new person you met?
The two new families in our community group and a friend of a friend I met at a playdate.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.
Money or lack of money does not provide security or take it away.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
"Itsy bitsy spider climbed up the water spout.
Down came the rain and washed the spider out!
Out came the sun and dried up all the rain
and the itsy bitsy spider went up the spout again."
(see #25... this is Little Sir's favorite song besides "The Rainbow Connection")

Looking back on 2011 To Do List

Thanks to Jennie at She Likes Purple, you might remember that I made a 2011 To Do List in lieu of resolutions. Frankly, I forgotten about most of it until I saw her post on how hers faired.
Let's see how I did on my list this year:

2011 To Do List

• Complete redesign of this blog (already in the works), including logo and business cards. I am basing the design on the work of an awesome sculptor who has graciously given me his permission to use his work as inspiration for a graphic designer to build on. I can't wait for you all to see it! Not sure yet if I'll have to convert to Wordpress  DONE! Did not convert to WordPress. I love what my husband did!
• Get all the cross-stitch pieces people have given me re-framed into corresponding/compatible frames that also mesh with our modern-ish decor, giving them the ability to be displayed in main rooms of the house rather than stored away somewhere. Um, nope. Still have not done this. 2012?
• Rebuild my wardrobe once I return to my pre-pregnancy size. I've been pregnant or post-pregnant for over 2 years straight now, so I own hardly any non-maternity clothing - and what I have is 2 years behind. Time to start from scratch! No again. We kind of ran out of money, what with going to one income and buying a house.
• Keep growing out my hair. Nobody let me cut it all off again, I don't care what I say!!! What was I thinking?? It's pretty long by now! Not wanting to cut it off - Little Lady loves to play with it!
• Continue blog posting and Twittering regularly, despite whatever life changes we are going through. Long silences are bad for traffic! Plus, having this non-mommy blog forces me to think about non-mommy things when the mommy-ing gets overwhelming. I think I have done pretty well, especially NaBloPoMo!
• Keep myself open to alternative part-time career opportunities that do NOT involve sales. Maybe social media? Maybe an off-shoot of something blogging related? I am open to ideas and suggestions! Well, I did get a part-time social media job this year. Not sure how good of a fit it is for me right now, but it works. Will have a to-do related to blogging in 2012.
• Consider entering into sponsorship partnerships with companies I love, to further the blogging thing. I don't know much about this stuff. I am not promising anything. Um, no. I am still to chicken to do this. My numbers are so low that I am embarrassed to share them with advertisers for fear of being laughed at.
• Figure out how to babyproof our cabinets which have no handles. Did that and then moved.
• Turn all my blog posts on the family blog from 2009 and 2010 into physical books using Blog2Print.com - this is the only way our family will ever own a "scrapbook" and it's so much easier because I've already done the work! Did it! Love my books! Will be doing a 2011 book too!

So, that's where last year stands. Stay tuned for next year's "To Do" list!
What's yours?

Me and plastic

This weekend, Little Lady smashed yet another glass dish by grabbing it suddenly from a distance I didn't think she could reach, and dropping it onto the tile kitchen floor. It's the second one in the last 2 weeks. You might say, "Jenny, you have two children under two - what are you doing with glass ANYTHING?".

I am trying to protect my kids from the evil toxins in every plastic, that's what! Nevermind that glass is becoming increasingly perilous. I am consumed by guilt every time I read about other moms who have gone plastic-free. I can just FEEL the hard-to-pronounce death-chemicals leeching into my kids' food from anything that contains plastic. It's going to make them all stupid in the head or give them some kind of horrible disease or something. I realize that.

But I will be honest with you. I am nowhere near giving up plastic.

You might have noticed that my bento boxes are plastic. There are stainless steel ones available, but they start at $12 apiece for the smallest possible size. Yeah.

Baby bottles. I found out that you can buy stainless steel ones, but neither of my children have taken anything but the Born Free (or Tommee Tippee) bottles, which are BPA-free plastic.

Ziploc bags. I use them. I have some great Snack Taxi cloth nylon bags that I love but again... $5-$8 apiece. Unfortunately, you can't use them to freeze things because they aren't airtight. How do people freeze things without ziplock bags? And don't tell me glass tupperware, because that is way too expensive for me to fill my entire freezer.

I am working on slowly transitioning from plastic tupperware to glass, I wrote about it in one of my Friday posts. Again, not cheap, so it will take time.

You know what I would LOVE? These Kidishes by zoé b organic.
Check out this video!



Not really in the budget right now for me, but if they are in your budget, please let me know how you like them!

So...yes, plastic is probably bad.

But, every time I have to lock the kids in the living room while I painstakingly sweep, swiffer, and then mop the floor to get rid of any possible glass shards in the kitchen... I rethink the "evils" of plastic.

How about you?

Vlog Talk: If I Didn't Blog

We had a great, relaxing Labor Day with amazingly beautiful cool temps here in Dallas! As a result, I did not get really any writing done this weekend and I'm behind in posts even though I have some great things to share with you all.

Somehow, I suspected this might happen and I pre-recorded an answer to the weekly Vlog Talk prompt.

I am answering the question:
What would you do with your days if you didn’t blog anymore?

How to Compost with or without Worms

Today's post is a guest post that I have really been looking forward to! Years ago B.K. (Before Kids), I tried vermicomposting and failed. Because we have always rented, I have never tried "real" composting because I never knew when we'd move, and most landlords look poorly upon storing decaying matter on their property. As we continue pondering whether to buy a house, I dream about one day composting for real (unless someone gives me a NatureMill Composter - anyone?). Meanwhile, Merritt is here to tell you all about how to compost!
~~

Merritt Onsa is a fellow blogger and friend who recently moved from Dallas, Texas to Colorado where
she and her new husband are soaking up the cooler temps, mountain views and big blue skies. She
recently launched a blog about the realities of life as a newlywed – at www.livesimplylove.com. Stop on by for a visit and tell her Jenny sent you!


Why I Love to Compost

I love to compost! Maybe it’s because I grew up with a dad who recycled anything he could and was
composting in our backyard long before it was cool or “green.” I’m definitely my father’s daughter, so
when I moved into a real house with a real backyard, the first thing I wanted to do was compost. Dad
bought me an upright container, and I went to town putting in fall leaves, summer grass clippings and
every fruit and veggie scrap from the kitchen. It wasn’t long before I had abundant lovely, lush compost to share with all of my outdoor plants! And boy did they love it!

Then, a few years ago I learned about worm composting from my friend Heather at the Texas Worm
Ranch. I met Heather at Dallas’ White Rock Local Market. She was demonstrating her worm bins and
showing every child that walked by what Red Wiggler Worms looked like (and letting parents smell
the bin to prove there was no odor). I was hooked. But I was also newly married and needed to make sure the new husband was game for keeping a worm bin in our laundry room. He came one weekend to the WRLM and Needless to say, the answer was yes, but they would be my deal. Hey, that was fine with me. 

A few things I love about composting:

1. Compost becomes nutrient-rich soil for my plants. In fact, it’s better to use compost than it is to put chemical fertilizers on your garden, lawn or other plants. Plus it’s free!!
2. Worm castings (yes, that’s a nice way to say worm poop) have tons of beneficial microbes. If I have a plant that’s suffering or just needs a little extra love, a handful of worm castings on top of the soil really does the trick. It’s nature’s fertilizer.
3. Less waste in the landfill. Because they breakdown without oxygen, food scraps in our landfills contribute to greenhouse gas emissions (yes, they become methane). It’s good for the environment.
4. Teaches me about nature’s processes. I enjoy figuring out the ratios, stirring the bin and watching the critters that are naturally drawn to my garbage. My yard was free of chemicals for more than five years and boy, did the geckos came out to play! They ate their fill of bugs in the compost, and I witnessed their cuteness on my visits to the bin.
5. Composting inspired me to start gardening. And having my hands in the soil was good for my soul. Plus having a few home-grown veggies isn’t anything to laugh at either!

Now, I can’t say I’m an expert, but I have learned a few things along the way. Here are some tips if you want to get started on either version of composting:

Outdoor Compost:

1. Microorganisms do most of the work in your compost pile; your job is to fill the pile with the things they need for proper decomposition.
2. The carbon to nitrogen ratio in your pile determines how quickly it breaks down. It should be somewhere around 25 parts carbon to 1 part nitrogen.
3. High carbon items are known as “Browns,” like leaves, newspaper, peanut shells, etc. High nitrogen items are known as “Greens,” like coffee grounds, vegetable scraps, grass clippings, garden waste, manures, etc. Add these items as they become available and stir or turn to combine. 
4. Composting doesn’t require a bin; you can easily make a pile in your yard wherever you feel comfortable keeping it. Determine your preferred method based on how you wish to manage the process.
5. Your compost needs to be turned at least weekly. If you’re really serious you can buy a compost thermometer to find out how “hot” your pile gets. The hotter the pile the faster the breakdown.
6. Do NOT put animal products (no dairy, meat, bones, grease) in your compost. It will smell bad AND attract rodents.
7. And, no, you cannot put cat, dog or human feces in your compost. Or used kitty litter. Sorry!

Worm Composting, otherwise known as Vermicomposting:

1. Red Wigglers are the best choice for vermicomposting.
2. This is a great alternative if you don’t have a place for an outdoor compost pile. Store your worm bin in the garage, laundry room, basement or even under the sink. Just be careful of extreme temps in any of those locations (between 40-80 degrees F is best).
3. Worms need the right amount of air, moisture, oxygen, food and bedding. Otherwise, vermicomposting is very low maintenance. Your bin can be left alone even for a few weeks at a time.
4. Keep your worms on a vegetarian diet along with moist bedding of paper, cardboard, paper towels, newspaper, paper from your shredder (it’s the safest way to dispose of documents containing personal information – let your worms eat them!)
5. Harvest the castings from the bin every 6-8 weeks, and you’ll end up with nutrient-rich compost your plants will LOVE!
6. Contact Texas Worm Ranch for more information and helpful resources. 

If you’re in Dallas and looking to learn more, there’s a free composting event on 8/31 and you might even go home with a composting bin.

Wed., Aug. 31st 6:30- 7:30 in the sanctuary

Come learn about composting and get a FREE composting bin ($90 value)! Master Composter A.L. Nickerson will educate you on how to use a composting bin to reduce your trash and to generate your own free, rich compost.

The first 150 pre-registered Dallas residents will receive a free composting bin from the City of Dallas Waste Diversion Team by registering below by Sunday, Aug. 28th.

Click here to register and for more details.

7 Quick Takes Friday #20 - BlogHer 2011 Edition

BlogHer 2011 Edition

--- 1 ---

I still haven't blogged comprehensively about BlogHer because it is too overwhelming, so I am just going to go over some of the details in this 7 Quick Takes and then do one more post about the logistics of bringing a baby to BlogHer for anyone who might be Googling it next year. I looked for posts about it before I left but they only addressed whether or not to bring the baby to parties, not the actual logistics of being in the sessions with a baby.

--- 2 ---

Despite the fact that our plane was on the tarmac for 2 hours on the way to San Diego, Little Lady did very well on the plane. It was tiring for me to keep her busy in my lap for 6 hours straight, but she never really cried much. She also didn't nap at all, on either flight. Which is completely normal for my children, who do not sleep or nap when traveling. In case you don't follow my family blog, here is a picture of the Southwest flight attendant who was using Little Lady to help greet passengers coming on for the second leg of our flight home!

--- 3---

Here's a pic of me and Galit Breen from These Little Waves! I was so excited to finally meet her in person, I have stalked read her blogs starting back when she blogged as Minnesota Mammaleh and watched her writing develop as she is moving into writing some beautiful fiction lately!

--- 4 ---

I ran into the Jimmy Dean sun while waiting for the elevator on Saturday. Yes, this is the guy who does the commercials.

--- 5 ---

Sunday morning before we caught our flight back, and after all my green blogger friends had left, Little Lady and I hung out by the firepit near the beautiful tropical pool at the Marriott and I ate a huge breakfast burrito. It was so cool in the morning that we had to stay by the firepit for warmth and Little Lady was wearing a sweater!

--- 6 ---

San Diego is a lovely city, which I hardly got to see because I was in the conference the whole time. I'd love to go back some time for a visit.

I just love California so much.
I have never been to LA or to Sonoma/Napa, but I am sure I would love it too. The weather is so beautiful, no wonder so many people live there and raise the cost of living, even though it is totally going to fall into the sea one day.

--- 7 ---

I feel like the 7 Quick Takes has gone so fast this week! Usually it's a beating to come up with 7 things, but with BlogHer, it's easy. I want to cram in so much more! But I know you are all tired of hearing about it.

One final thing I'm thinking of doing as a result of all the free cloth diapers I received as swag this year is starting a "Cloth Diaper Thursday" where I review a different brand of diaper each week. This will only last about 6-7 weeks, but still might be worth it. If you don't have kids or don't cloth diaper, just skip Thursdays. See you next week!

~~~

Well that's all for this week, be sure to visit Conversion Diary for links to more 7 Quick Takes Fridays.

My {unrealistic} green wish list 2010

So many other bloggers are doing "wish lists" that I wanted to jump in. I thought I'd compose an unrealistic wish list - things that I know we can't afford (at least for now) and I know I won't get, but I drool over constantly anyway. If you know anyone at any of these companies... hey, I am not going to turn down a free product! I will even host a giveaway!

Here we go....

Grey Wedges by Tom's - the company who gives a pair of shoes to a needy child for each pair you purchase. Just came out with wedges!!! I have tried them on and I wear a size 7. I just haven't yet forced myself to pay $70 for them. Also, they are kinda summery and here we are in December.

Blue Oil Balancing Concentrate by Aveda - I get my hair cut at The Aveda Institute and they massage your scalp with this oil before washing your hair. It's AMAZING. I love it!

Willow Tree 19 Piece Nativity Set - Sure, I may not actually have anywhere to put this up right now, but I have loved this particular set for years and one day I hope to have one. This year Amazon is packaging them with 2 bamboo towels (what? I have no idea why).

Picnik Premium Membership 1 year - I really love this online photo editing software, but I only have access to the free version right now. To me, it's a lot easier than Photoshop and I can access it from whatever computer I am using at the time. This is key for me, since I often blog from any of 3 machines.

NatureMill Plus XE Automatic Composter - I think I have ranted about this before. I would just LOVE to have one of these things. SO MUCH. It goes under your sink and it does all the mixing and composting FOR you so you can't possibly mess it up (as I tend to do with compost). Also it is completely airtight, so no stinkiness!

A Kindle - who doesn't want a Kindle?? Although I think the only thing that would make the Kindle better, for me, is if it had a screenreader function that would turn any book into an audio book so I could listen while I am working? Or does it already have that?

But honestly, if I am going to be THAT unrealistic, how about an iPad? Yes, I sure would love one of those!! I bet that thing has a screenreader function. It's probably faster than my old school MacBook.

Obviously, this is just getting out of hand so I'll sign off. Have I missed anything?

And it still bugs me...

When I was in my teens I read a great series of books by Bodie Thoene called The Zion Chronicles. I also read the sister series, The Zion Covenant. I enjoyed these series because they were fictionalized stories about people living in pre- and post-World War II. I do enjoy reading about that era, I am not sure why.

I had borrowed these books from the church library at the church where I grew up to read them, so I didn't own them. When I was in my early 20's, living here in Dallas, one year my parents gave me the entire Zion Chronicles set for my birthday! I was so excited. I really wanted to re-read them all, now that I owned them!! It was a big deal to me that my parents had bought these for me, because they remembered how much I liked them and knew I couldn't afford to buy them (the whole set is usually around $100).

I had a friend who was going through a hard time after a serious breakup and needed someone round about then, so she and I would hang out and email for support. We weren't good friends before this but we had a good time, and I enjoyed her company while she was needing the company. We were talking about good books, and she lent me her copy of Redeeming Love (which I would also recommend). In turn, I loaned her all of my new copies of The Zion Chronicles. I thought, no big deal, I will get them right back. Next time I saw her, she was starting on a new relationship and all excited about it - I gave her back her copy of Redeeming Love but she didn't have my books with her. She said they were at her parents' house or something.

I started seeing less and less of her as she moved forward with the new relationship and up to North Dallas (big geographical and social difference than being in central Dallas, you know if you are from around here). After a while she changed phone numbers, I lost the new one, and we didn't really talk on the phone. Sometimes we would email. I was moving toward getting married to Christian and it was harder and harder for me to locate or keep up with friends where were non-responsive, so we quit hanging out or really talking. But every few months, I would email her about these books. There was always some excuse. "I left them in another house", "I keep forgetting to mail them". Finally, some time after I got married (almost 4 years ago now), I actually mailed a package to her house with an empty box and the shipping pre-paid and pre-addressed to me. All she had to do was put the books in the box and drop it off at a post office, it was all paid for and addressed and everything. I never heard anything back from her, and she did not answer follow-up emails anymore.

So here I am, around 5 years later, ridiculously missing those books. I don't know if it's because I am in some weird hormonal stage of pregnancy, but I would really love to read those books again. I know I could possibly get them from the library, but I want that set my parents got me! Because they got it for me, and I never got to read the copies they got me. Also, with all the baby expenses, I find it really hard to justify spending $100 on another set right now. Even at that price, the entire set is very difficult to find. You can buy the books individually, but no longer the entire set very easily.

There is really no point to this post other than that I am sadly thinking of these books and how I never got to enjoy my birthday present. I have now lost touch with this person entirely, and I am assuming the books, too, are gone for good.

Drool: NatureMill Composter

Let me first confess: I have killed yet another plant. We bought one at the White Rock Local Market and I was very faithfully watering it every single day, just as instructed. It looked worse and worse and now it is completely dead. This is a big problem I have with doing the "green" thing and growing my own veggies or, honestly, growing anything edible. I kill them all. I can grow chrysanthemums and roses, that is it. Anything more than that dies.

I have managed to kill: ivy, cactus, and bamboo. All of which are supposed to be impossible NOT to grow, and impossible to kill. I beg to differ. I apologize to their little spirits.

How does this bring me to composting? Well, things grow in compost. Maybe compost would keep me from killing things. Who knows? Either way, we eat a lot of plant matter, being vegetarian, and I feel bad that I have to throw it all away. A friend of mine just got a lovely spinner composter thingy for the backyard. It reminded me that I really wish I could compost.

For a while I was doing vermi-composting, which was a good idea in theory. However, it seems that the extreme heat of summer kills the worms, and even the mild cold of winter here also kills them. That leaves only a few months they will live here in Texas. And forget about bringing them inside. I know they say you can do it, but "they" apparently haven't 1) smelled the odor, 2) dealt with the worm juice that comes out the bottom, or 3) lived in space as small as ours that makes #1 and #2 big deals. Not to even mention what the cats would do with the box, which would probably be indistinguishable from their litter box if the lid came open, and therefore be used for the same purpose.

This is my dream composter:

It is the NatureMill Plus under-the-sink, does-everything-for-you composter. * drool *
You just scrape your stuff in there and it turns it and makes the most lovely compost that just comes right out the other end perfectly.
It is also like $300. Which is why it has been on the "wish list" for years.
Check out how happy these people are with it:
They look totally thrilled!!
I am just saying, if anyone at NatureMill wants me to review their product for free...I will do it! I will review the heck out of that thing!!

Looking forward to 2009

Things I am looking forward to in 2009:

• The new Whole Foods on Park Lane!
• The Aveda Institute that will be in that same new building. This means cheap facials from training estheticians!
• More traveling. For certain: Arkansas and California again. We are hoping for one of the following: Canada, Chile, or possibly Mexico. Waiting anxiously for the updated reduced mileage fares from CitiCard for 2009 to be posted on the site!!
• The arrival of spring so we can ride the scooter again!
• The births of 4-5 new babies to our friends and family.
• More working-from-home for me! Hooray!
• Blogging about more ways to simplify and "green" the way we live
  

And I guess the rest of the year will just be an adventure that we cannot foresee! What are you looking forward to?

Midriff issues

I think we can all agree that for a 30 year old married woman, showing any part of my midriff, even accidentally, is just not great. However, I am also a very small and apparently oddly shaped woman. I actually have no shape (think about a board...that is my shape), so I have to buy jeans and pants that sit low because there are no known pants that actually fit me in both the hips and the waist. This causes an obvious gap problem at times. I try to buy long shirts and layer them, but sometimes I still experience issues.

One advantage of having so many pregnant friends is that I have been made aware of the Bella Band. This is a band that sits over your jeans and covers your midriff when you are pregnant so that you can unbutton the jeans, etc, and still be covered in that time between regular clothing and full-on maternity clothing. I think these are super neat. However, obviously I am not pregnant and not planning on being. I found out this week that there is a non-pregnant version of the same thing, they are called JAKS.

But here is the issue: JAKS are around twice as expensive ($38 for one) as the maternity bands that I've found. And JAKS come in only 3 colors. Some of the bands come in tons of colors and you can get them in multi-packs ($56 for 3 different colors).

So my dilemna is...is it right/fair for me to buy something that is specifically for pregnancy when I am definitely not? Is that cheating or would it look like I'm trying to be something I'm not? Would I be benefitting from the cool accessories while avoiding the actual pain of the whole pregnancy thing? And is that tacky? At the same time, who has $38 per band? That is a huge chunk of our monthly clothing budget. Comments are welcome!

Ready for the iPhone!

After talking about it for some time, and many trips to the Apple store to play with it, we are going to move forward with getting me an iPhone for my Christmas present. And boy, am I ready!

For quite some time now, I've been relying on iGoogle's sticky note and To Do list widgets to keep track of things I need to do, but these are only accessible when I am online. Granted, I am online around 11 hours a day, but when I have my errands listed on iGoogle, I have to copy it down onto a slip of paper to carry in my purse when I run errands at lunch or after work (offline).

Same thing for directions. Dallas is huge, and I often have to Google Map things, but I can only do that from a computer. Since we don't have a printer hooked up at home, I end up writing down the directions on a slip of paper and bringing it with me in the car. Hoping I wrote it down correctly. And that I don't lose that slip of paper.

With address/phone/email info, it's the same way. I keep all those things on the Mac at home. If I need someone's mailing address I have to boot up the machine if I am at home or wait until I do get home. And if someone gives me new contact info, I have to write it on...guess what... a slip of paper! Which I carry in my purse until I remember to take it out and update the Mac Address Book.

You can imagine the number of slips of paper I have in my life right now. Too many! So I am excited about giving up the paper slips and having everything consolidated using the iPhone's always-online functionality, built-in Google Maps, and the way it syncs with Mac Address Book.

Christian and I also currently use Google Calendar to coordinate our activities, so that when someone asks "can you do something on X date?", we can check our Google Calendar and see if we are free, or which one of us is free. Lately, this has been difficult when people ask us about our plans and we are not near a computer. We can't access Google calendar unless we are online. A few times we have said we could do something and later found out we had something else scheduled.

So, very excited! Don't know when the purchase will happen, but maybe not until Christmas, since it is a Christmas present. Even better, I should be able to do blog posting and even send photos to this blog from the iPhone!! Good times!

changes, coming soon

I hope to be able to blog about some good news on Friday. I just had to post because the anticipation is killing me.

And no, this has nothing to do with children.
(4 couples we know are pregnant. it is NOT contagious)

Maybe?

We have looked at 2 rental houses in the last 24 hours that we really, really liked and were affordable. The drive to Christian's office would increase, but we are willing to accept that. If you're reading this on Friday, feel free to pray for us as we decide which one to move forward on. We will probably need to call on one of them no later than Saturday morning.

Cigarette Count: Number of cigarettes my upstairs neighbors threw into my back yard today, which I had to pick up and throw away: 1

I feel attacked

Since we've gotten back, it hasn't been a great re-entry, to say the least.

• The first day back at work, I was so unhappy and dreading it so much that I was nauseous all night the night before, and then had a splitting headache all day.
• There was some drama, which I'd rather not blog about, but suffice it to say, the result is several thousand dollars gone.
• Our air conditioner leaked all over the hallway yesterday.
• I am so behind at work that I am going to be working at home tonight for 2-3 hours.
• I have been massively angry about the drama for about 24 hours now. So angry that I start shaking. This is a negative thing to feel and it is unpleasant.
• At work today, we found a serious error that has one of my customers very, very upset. It was not my fault, but unfortunately, it is my problem.
  

I had this epiphany while on vacation that I really want to work somewhere that I can serve the end customer directly. Right now what I do is try to serve people well, who turn around and use the services I provide them to treat other people badly and disrespect them. My dream job would be something like a coffee shop were I could do the books or work out front. But the aforementioned unforeseen thousands of dollars we've now lost will definitely keep me from being able to take a lower-paying job, especially if we ever want to move out of this apartment.

Which reminds me:

Cigarette Count: Number of cigarettes my upstairs neighbors threw into my back yard today, which I had to pick up and throw away: 2

I won!

Today was our annual CEO Team Awards at work and since I do not work in teams (I am an individual contributor), this is always a really boring event for me, spending 3 hours watching other people accept awards. They do try to make it fun, and one of the things they do is give away prizes. I was so surprised when they called my name and I won a digital camera!

Apparently it is a very, very basic model. The reviews it gets aren't that great. But, I am excited because all I wanted was to be able to figure out how to take pictures. Christian's fancy SLR camera is so complex that I can't use it and it shoots in RAW format which means I have to convert each photo to .jpg to post it on the web or send it to someone. So I am hoping this one will be great to use for simple things.

I think I'll get to pick it up some time this week - I just got the little "you won!" slip of paper at the time. So I'll post pictures as soon as I can! We will be seeing family in San Antonio this weekend so surely I'll have something to take pictures of!

Cigarette Count: Number of cigarettes my upstairs neighbors threw into my back yard today, which I had to pick up and throw away: 0 so far (maybe they quit?)

Obsessed with tiny plastic bottles & bags

Lately I've been fixated on how I can get all our toiletry items for a whole week into 3 oz bottles and 2 of those quart sized bags that the airline allows for carry-on luggage. I have a strange fear of checking baggage and I love packing as efficiently as possible for long periods of travel in very small bags. But it doesn't help that I'm a beauty product fiend and I'm brokenhearted at the thought of going without Arbonne for a week.

Also been searching for comfortable walking shoes that also look nice. Right now I am looking at Merrells, Danskos, and Earth shoes. I'm starting to think I need to give up on nice-looking and just go for comfort, then bring 1 pair of nice shoes for "just in case".

Psychologically, I am sure that all my vacation planning has to do with the fact that I'm not excited about some things going on at work right now. But the weather in San Francisco sure is a good enough reason to wish I wasn't here!

Nothing much here

Sorry, not much has been going on here. Several friends and family hurting from sickness or tragedy right now, so I've been praying for them a lot. I want to go on a rant about how the Dallas Farmer's Market does not sell local produce (it all comes from Mexico), but I'm too tired to do that.

Maybe if I would start working out again, that would help! I just don't feel like being at work. But then again, when do I feel like being at work?

"Not Your Miss America's Finalist Questions"

Here are some questions from InterstellarLass, I think this is called a meme but let me know if I am wrong about that...

1) What is the funniest thing that happened at your wedding and/or receptions?
It's not really funny, but it turns out that half the invitations to the Dallas reception were never delivered by the US Postal Service. Some were returned to me months later with the entirely correct addresses and postage intact, no explanation, and others simply never arrived at their destination. We have felt bad about it ever since, because our wedding announcements to the people we invited to the receptions specifically mentioned the reception date but the invitation to the reception itself were supposed to follow. However, when those people never got a reception invite, we were afraid they might have felt shunned. It's really more annoying than funny...

2) If you only had one vacation to take during your entire life, where is the one place you would go?
First of all, Christian would come with me. I just want to clarify that. :-) I would definitely go somewhere with a beach and then I would refuse to come home, ever.

3) Do you have a family heirloom (besides your ring-stone) that is special to you? What is the history of the item?
I don't think I've got any heirlooms, or if I do, they must not have come to me yet. Which is probably a good idea since I break things a lot. I have hidden a few things from myself in a cedar chest at my house for this reason. Most of my family is descended from Mennonites, who believed that material possessions were vanity. My great-grandmother did not even have a wedding ring when she got married, just a watch (or so I'm told). The ring-stone is probably the closest I get - the stone in my engagement ring is the stone from my mother's engagement ring in 1974 which she and my father gave to Christian and I so that we could be engaged and married. I would pretty much die if anything happened to it. Sometimes I actually pray to God to protect me from losing it. I hope that isn't materialistic, but seriously, if I do something retarded like lose it, I am going to have a really big problem forgiving myself.

4) Do you collect anything? What is it and how did you start collecting them?
In the past I have collected Mary Engelbreit items, although right now our apartment is so small and decorated so modern that I haven't yet found a place to display it so it is boxed up in the closet. When I was sad about my first boyfriend breaking up with me, my mom got me a Mary Engelbreit book "Don't Look Back" about there always being another day, and wrote scriptures in it. I think she got me a few more over the years, and other people got me little ME-themed stuff. I like how she puts quotes in cartoons and I think the colors are very cheery!

5) If you could have any job and not have to worry about how much money you made, what would you do?
I think that I would like to be a personal assistant or clean houses. This sounds menial but I really like to clean and organize things. I do have a problem with setting boundaries, though, and I have heard that those jobs can be difficult to set boundaries in. I would also not mind working at a coffee shop again like I did in college. But just part time. It hurts to stand that long!

Here are the directions…

1. Leave me a comment saying, “Interview me.”
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions. (my comment: I will most likely be stealing the questions from somewhere else because I am not that original)
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Happy Interview-ee-ing!!