Posts
My family and I have discovered the wonderful music of David Rovics. My children love watching the music videos (available on YouTube and Shagrat.net). I like the messages (for the most part) in the songs and the questions they prompt. We've had some good discussions about these songs.
Here's a link to the first one we ever saw, and my personal favorite. Enjoy!
http://www.shagrat.net/David/html/bullies.html
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Who is Playing Us?
We're being played. That much is obvious to many of us. The question is who is playing us? Wall Street, the media, politicians of all stripes, other forces...who? I think they all are to one degree or another and it's sickening. The economic crisis only emphasizes how little control we have over some major areas in our lives. Or does it?
We could all live debt free and keep our money under our mattresses or in insured savings accounts. Obviously living debt free and within our means is the way to go and what we should also expect (or at least I expect) our government to do but realistically this is not the situation for many Americans, my family included, and our government.
How do we change? How do we dig ourselves out?
Getting out of debt is something that has been very much on my mind of late. If the market were in better shape I think we would seriously consider selling our home and paying off all debt and then reassessing before deciding what to do about purchasing a new home and where. But the market sucks here (when we moved in there were two or three houses, including ours, on the market; now there are at least 30 [more if you count the empty units in the new ecovillage]- this is a town of 2500) and I'll be honest, we're very happy with our son's school and he's been settling in really well. We would both be reluctant to disrupt that unless it were truly necessary. It is unlikely we could afford another home in our town for anything less than what we pay for a mortgage now.
We keep doing what we can to pay down debt and avoid new debt but it's difficult. There's no wiggle room in our budget anymore. Okay that's not true. We could cancel the cable and get back a bit there and cancel my cell phone. That would bring a little bit back as well. I've been trimming what we buy at the store and farm pretty extensively but with the rising costs it's only balancing out to what my food budget was (we never increased it to keep pace with price increases and I pull my gas money partially from that budget as well).
We could take out a home equity loan and roll all the debt into one payment. It's very tempting. It would be a much smaller payment than what we pay for each debt seperate every month but it would mean adding a debt burden with higher interest than some of what we're paying currently. The tempting part of this is that we'd be able to save pretty aggressively and build up our savings cushion again (and quickly).
I don't know what the right answer is.
In a way I feel like our struggle mirrors the national struggle (though on a far smaller scale of course!). But no one is offering to bail us out. We're not asking the government to bail us out. I feel really conflicted about all of this. Clearly something needs to be done to save us all. Our retirement funds are tanking and consumers are getting hit from all sides. No doubt we'll continue to bear the brunt of it all. Yes the wealthy will lose money but I doubt many will lose everything. But how many millions of regular folks are there who are losing their nest eggs? How many will lose their jobs and be pushed over the brink to bankrupcy as a result?
What is the responsible solution? What is a fair solution?
We could all live debt free and keep our money under our mattresses or in insured savings accounts. Obviously living debt free and within our means is the way to go and what we should also expect (or at least I expect) our government to do but realistically this is not the situation for many Americans, my family included, and our government.
How do we change? How do we dig ourselves out?
Getting out of debt is something that has been very much on my mind of late. If the market were in better shape I think we would seriously consider selling our home and paying off all debt and then reassessing before deciding what to do about purchasing a new home and where. But the market sucks here (when we moved in there were two or three houses, including ours, on the market; now there are at least 30 [more if you count the empty units in the new ecovillage]- this is a town of 2500) and I'll be honest, we're very happy with our son's school and he's been settling in really well. We would both be reluctant to disrupt that unless it were truly necessary. It is unlikely we could afford another home in our town for anything less than what we pay for a mortgage now.
We keep doing what we can to pay down debt and avoid new debt but it's difficult. There's no wiggle room in our budget anymore. Okay that's not true. We could cancel the cable and get back a bit there and cancel my cell phone. That would bring a little bit back as well. I've been trimming what we buy at the store and farm pretty extensively but with the rising costs it's only balancing out to what my food budget was (we never increased it to keep pace with price increases and I pull my gas money partially from that budget as well).
We could take out a home equity loan and roll all the debt into one payment. It's very tempting. It would be a much smaller payment than what we pay for each debt seperate every month but it would mean adding a debt burden with higher interest than some of what we're paying currently. The tempting part of this is that we'd be able to save pretty aggressively and build up our savings cushion again (and quickly).
I don't know what the right answer is.
In a way I feel like our struggle mirrors the national struggle (though on a far smaller scale of course!). But no one is offering to bail us out. We're not asking the government to bail us out. I feel really conflicted about all of this. Clearly something needs to be done to save us all. Our retirement funds are tanking and consumers are getting hit from all sides. No doubt we'll continue to bear the brunt of it all. Yes the wealthy will lose money but I doubt many will lose everything. But how many millions of regular folks are there who are losing their nest eggs? How many will lose their jobs and be pushed over the brink to bankrupcy as a result?
What is the responsible solution? What is a fair solution?
Monday, September 29, 2008
Applesauce
Despite all the turmoil in my life I am still managing to do some of my favorite seasonal activities and am trying out some new ones.
Apple and raspberry picking are annual traditions in our household. They've taken on a larger role since we decided to try eating as locally as possible. Now instead of filling one bag of apples the kids and I fill three or four. Instead of enough raspberries to eat fresh for a few days and make a pie we're picking enough to freeze several bags for over the winter.
Last year I tried freezing peeled and cut apples in pie plate shapes. It was a waste. I only made one pie and one crisp out of the frozen apples. As I was trolling the asiles at the store this past winter and shelling out $15 a month for the individual applesauce cups I realized it was something I could probably make. A quick web search proved that not only is making applesauce easy but it also freezes really well. Perfect! I've made three batches now, each different from the other. Some were frozen into muffin tins and then stored in ziploc bags as individual servings and others were poured directly into freezer bags.
One batch was made with blueberries picked at a local farm. The second was with local honey as a sweetner because the apples in that batch were pretty tart and I add a bit of lemon juice. Our favorite batch so far, however, is the third that combines four different apples (Ginger Gold, Jonagold, Cortland, and Gala) blueberries and freshly picked raspberries. It'll be a great taste of late summer when the snow is flying and its frigid outside.
*Note: There is no special equipment needed to make your own applesauce. My version is a little chunky because I used a potato masher rather than puree it.
Apple and raspberry picking are annual traditions in our household. They've taken on a larger role since we decided to try eating as locally as possible. Now instead of filling one bag of apples the kids and I fill three or four. Instead of enough raspberries to eat fresh for a few days and make a pie we're picking enough to freeze several bags for over the winter.
Last year I tried freezing peeled and cut apples in pie plate shapes. It was a waste. I only made one pie and one crisp out of the frozen apples. As I was trolling the asiles at the store this past winter and shelling out $15 a month for the individual applesauce cups I realized it was something I could probably make. A quick web search proved that not only is making applesauce easy but it also freezes really well. Perfect! I've made three batches now, each different from the other. Some were frozen into muffin tins and then stored in ziploc bags as individual servings and others were poured directly into freezer bags.
One batch was made with blueberries picked at a local farm. The second was with local honey as a sweetner because the apples in that batch were pretty tart and I add a bit of lemon juice. Our favorite batch so far, however, is the third that combines four different apples (Ginger Gold, Jonagold, Cortland, and Gala) blueberries and freshly picked raspberries. It'll be a great taste of late summer when the snow is flying and its frigid outside.
*Note: There is no special equipment needed to make your own applesauce. My version is a little chunky because I used a potato masher rather than puree it.
Surrender
I have been knotted up with stress the last few months and my body is telling me it can't take anymore. There's nothing left for me to do but surrender and accept that life will take its course.
My husband's job has been rocky for months. He and his direct bosses don't see eye to eye and they've come out and told him he should look for a new job. He's done some preliminary looking but is caught up with volunteer work that sucks up much of his free time at the moment and until Nov. 5. His income is our only income. We do not have enough left in our savings at this point to get by for more than six or seven months without completely running out of money to pay the bills. And that's if nothing goes wrong with the house.
Obviously I need to find paying work but it's not that simple. I am home taking care of the kids. If I return to work outside the home I need childcare for two children. If I take a job at opposite hours from my husband I need him to commit to being home at very specific hours - not easy right now. I have been looking for work at home but I'm having trouble finding much. Granted I haven't been applying to things every day and my field is a crowded one. I did hear about a position today that I might be able to do but I think I could also easily be in way over my head if it came to fruition. I don't know yet.
But it's not just the money that's winding me up. My daughter has been getting sick and/or screaming nightly for six weeks now. We've got our third doctor's appointment to address this tomorrow. I feel like a failure not knowing what is causing her such discomfort and I feel terrible that my temper is as frayed as it is from all the interrupted sleep and constant stress around the house. (Did I mention she's also in the midst of the terrible twos?)
So what do I do? I figure all I can do at this point is take concrete steps to minimize any money flowing out of our house, something I've been trying to do (with mixed success) for months, be patient with the kids, and keep trying to find paying work that I can do from home. Beyond that I have to surrender.
But how? How do I surrender?
I need to keep doing what I can to make this situation better but the stress is paralyzing and makes me sick. I do make sure I take at least a small step each day to either send off a resume or work on my writing but most days these steps are so small it's hard to believe I'm making any progress forward.
It feels like laziness to surrender. It feels like I'm giving up and saying we have no responsibility. Am I misinterpreting the word?
I do know that frittering away my energy on anxiety is a waste at this point. It only drains me and leaves me unable to enjoy the time with my children the way I should. It leaves me grumpy and tired. It leaves me eating poorly despite the bounty of healthy fruits and vegetables available from our harvests.
Is letting go of all of this possible? Can I surrender to my life and the future? How do people do it?
My husband's job has been rocky for months. He and his direct bosses don't see eye to eye and they've come out and told him he should look for a new job. He's done some preliminary looking but is caught up with volunteer work that sucks up much of his free time at the moment and until Nov. 5. His income is our only income. We do not have enough left in our savings at this point to get by for more than six or seven months without completely running out of money to pay the bills. And that's if nothing goes wrong with the house.
Obviously I need to find paying work but it's not that simple. I am home taking care of the kids. If I return to work outside the home I need childcare for two children. If I take a job at opposite hours from my husband I need him to commit to being home at very specific hours - not easy right now. I have been looking for work at home but I'm having trouble finding much. Granted I haven't been applying to things every day and my field is a crowded one. I did hear about a position today that I might be able to do but I think I could also easily be in way over my head if it came to fruition. I don't know yet.
But it's not just the money that's winding me up. My daughter has been getting sick and/or screaming nightly for six weeks now. We've got our third doctor's appointment to address this tomorrow. I feel like a failure not knowing what is causing her such discomfort and I feel terrible that my temper is as frayed as it is from all the interrupted sleep and constant stress around the house. (Did I mention she's also in the midst of the terrible twos?)
So what do I do? I figure all I can do at this point is take concrete steps to minimize any money flowing out of our house, something I've been trying to do (with mixed success) for months, be patient with the kids, and keep trying to find paying work that I can do from home. Beyond that I have to surrender.
But how? How do I surrender?
I need to keep doing what I can to make this situation better but the stress is paralyzing and makes me sick. I do make sure I take at least a small step each day to either send off a resume or work on my writing but most days these steps are so small it's hard to believe I'm making any progress forward.
It feels like laziness to surrender. It feels like I'm giving up and saying we have no responsibility. Am I misinterpreting the word?
I do know that frittering away my energy on anxiety is a waste at this point. It only drains me and leaves me unable to enjoy the time with my children the way I should. It leaves me grumpy and tired. It leaves me eating poorly despite the bounty of healthy fruits and vegetables available from our harvests.
Is letting go of all of this possible? Can I surrender to my life and the future? How do people do it?
Country First?
Country First? Really? I'm sorry but Senator McCain cannot be serious that he puts his country first when he named Governor Sarah Palin as his runningmate. If he'd wanted to make history by being the first GOP candidate to name a woman VP he could have picked from any number of qualified women in his party (whether they'd have said yes or not I have no idea); Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins....
Did he do that? No. He picked a woman whose religious views are not mainstream (fine except everything I've read says they believe the Rapture will come in their lifetime and I'm not exactly comfortable handing over the keys to our nuclear arsenal to someone who is expecting the end of the world as we know it in her lifetime). He picked a woman whose understanding of the larger world and the issues facing our nation itself seems quite shakey. He picked a partner who has had to be shielded from the press. He picked a partner whose own police chief (a man she appointed to the job) charged rape victims for their rape kits until the state stepped in and made it illegal to do so. He picked a woman who was willing to thrust her pregnant teenage daughter into the international spotlight (and don't get me started on the freaking hypocrasy of our press and nation - if Chelsea Clinton had shown up pregnant at 17 there would have been howls of outrage and condemnation).
Senator McCain's choice shows a disrespect for women and for all the citizens of this nation. We deserve competent leaders regardless of which political party they belong. We need leaders who genuinely will put their country first, even if that means they lose an election.
Did he do that? No. He picked a woman whose religious views are not mainstream (fine except everything I've read says they believe the Rapture will come in their lifetime and I'm not exactly comfortable handing over the keys to our nuclear arsenal to someone who is expecting the end of the world as we know it in her lifetime). He picked a woman whose understanding of the larger world and the issues facing our nation itself seems quite shakey. He picked a partner who has had to be shielded from the press. He picked a partner whose own police chief (a man she appointed to the job) charged rape victims for their rape kits until the state stepped in and made it illegal to do so. He picked a woman who was willing to thrust her pregnant teenage daughter into the international spotlight (and don't get me started on the freaking hypocrasy of our press and nation - if Chelsea Clinton had shown up pregnant at 17 there would have been howls of outrage and condemnation).
Senator McCain's choice shows a disrespect for women and for all the citizens of this nation. We deserve competent leaders regardless of which political party they belong. We need leaders who genuinely will put their country first, even if that means they lose an election.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)