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Yep – I’m a Joiner!
Spring Break, Deadlines, and Accounting (groan)
My girls are off school this week.
Make. the hurting. stop.
Because (of course!) spring break coincides with some of the biggest deadlines yet.
We have to edit, insert keywords, finesse, and keep the kids from going insane at the same time. If the weather wasn’t so crappy out we could take the kids to the park for a couple hours later, but with all the freshly-melted snow that would be like taking them to a mud pit. Then we’d have to come home and have a bath and there’s five hours of my life gone for a visit to the park.
Instead, we’ll try to set up a mini-olympics or something later inside the house so they can get their energy out. That or put them on the treadmill. They’d probably prefer the treadmill.
Ok, my tortured sinuses and I are going back to work.
It’s difficult to believe that I’ll have all the April writing work done by the 10th of the month. There will still be the consulting and the building of the new business blog, but no more writing. Unless I request it. Which I might. Because I’m like that. But it might not even be available if I request more by the middle of the month.
The downside to all this work is that larger checks are held by my bank for five business days (thanks for nothing BoA!) so balancing the payments to contractors this month for payments that I may not receive (in some instances) until the May check from the company is an interesting balance. If you try to think of how to do a budget with incoming and outgoing payments it becomes mind-boggling pretty quickly. Because how do I account for the payout I’m making at the beginning of April that I won’t see in my bank account until the middle of May? Is there a way to mark that somewhere?
Because it always comes back to the budget.
Part of me thinks that the Dave Ramsey system is a little fudged for our purposes of running a business. Sure you have the emergency fund, sure you can have the hill and valley fund…but are the payments to contractors coming out of the hill and valley fund or a totally separate payments to contractors fund?
Oh – over on MommyBlog Reviews we just did a review for some adorable wall stickers. The videos of the kids (I think) are hilarious. Just sharing.
Give The Kids An Inch…
It seems the more stuff we do with the kids the more terror they cause when they are home not doing super-fun things.
When we were super-dee-duper-broke and didn’t do crap, the kids played at home – with their toys and each other – quite happily. Sure there was the occasional “mascara and lipstick on the playroom walls” moment as well as other fun excursions into breaking mommy and daddy’s stuff…but overall they kept it together and weren’t acting like they were running on nitrus and sugar all the time.
Now? They’re in preschool three days a week for three hours a day, Sadie has dance class for 45 minutes on Saturdays and we try to get them out of the house for family time once a week or so.
When they’re home? They’re destructo-bots. From getting in the fridge ten minutes after eating to pulling apart the seams of a comforter to play with what’s inside…they don’t stop. Not for a minute.
The worst part is that today was a work day. For both the husband and me. That means we were all smart and alternated who was playing with the kids and who was working. They would still run off to find something to get into trouble with rather than hanging with a parent.
I’m not sure exactly what’s going on, and perhaps it’s more that spring has sprung and less that they’re getting out of the house more. Either way, I’m pretty sure they’re posessed by demons.
I have to admit…I’m a little afraid to see what summer will bring. On the bright side, one of the things they’ve been doing (not today, it snowed all WTF? style) is sneaking out into the backyard. What they don’t know is we have one of the safest yards in the neighborhood…so it’s not really bad they go out…suckers. (They even put shoes on. They may be my shoes now and then, but they’re shoes…I taught them well.)
Who Knew Coupon Was A Verb? (everyone but me is my guess…)
My husband and I have been talking about using coupons for a long time.
"If we save more than $2 in coupons, we’ve paid for the paper!" I said gleefully.
"We will buy extra junk we would never otherwise buy!" He said (not-so-gleefully).
But when the paper offered him some too-good-to-be-true deal on the Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday papers (the ones for couponers, they said) he took them up on it.
So this is our first Sunday and we went through all the papers and we went to CouponMom.com and I know I should have gone to The Household Helper but for goodness sake I was at it for 20 minutes and felt totally overwhelmed. I’ll have to do a round two before we actually shop.
No wonder people have binders for their grocery coupons.
There is a learning curve to this. Reading the Jewel-Osco paper (where we would never, ever go if we weren’t armed with a coupon) it seems that even with sale prices and manufacturer coupons, prices on most items were easily beat by going to Aldi coupon-free.
But there are some good deals, and if we just go for those things and don’t pick up impulse buys (not a problem, we’re not impulse-buyers) we should be fine.
For the totally coupon-savvy they know the cycles of when the cheapest prices occur and then take coupons and buy items at lowest price minus coupon savings. Sometimes areas have double-coupons (I haven’t found one around here yet) and then you end up getting things for free or almost-free.
I just don’t know if I have the time to invest in the learning curve. I want to learn, but it’s exhausting.
Do you coupon? If so are you a casual user or a hardcore couponer? What are your favorite coupon sites? (Preferably ones that teach how to get up and running – because seriously – I’m a total n00b at this!)
World Economic Comparisons Are So Shady
I was watching The World’s Biggest Chinese Restaurant (a 4-part Sundance documentary – please don’t tell anyone I watched the Sundance channel, ok?) and I spent the whole time trying to figure out if the waitstaff was being paid well.
It was hard to ignore. One of the first facts shows was that the annual income of an average person in China was equal to one month of average American income.
Of course, all monetary conversions were to pounds and spellings were British…so trying to figure out why a British documentary chose to reference – or at least strongly imply – the whole “American wealth thing” in the first ten minutes almost broke my brain. (I’m not saying America isn’t wealthy – it is – it was just the choice to use it for this example I question.)
The documentary informed me that a worker at this restaurant makes £70 a month (about $100) – seems drastically low, right? Then they keep asking about who everyone sends their money to and everyone they ask is sending it to a family member. Some send half home, some send all their money home. It was implied that room and board were paid for as part of the deal. They had “dorms” with seven people to a room, but it was never said for sure if they were owned by the restaurant or rented by the staff.
I thought the wages seemed dramatically low too, but later in the documentary they talk to a woman going to work so her elder sister can attend medical school. I’m trying to figure out how you can send anyone to medical school on a hundred dollars a month when they inform me that a year of Chinese medical school costs £1300 (about $1800) – I don’t know about you but I’d be a doctor in a minute and a half if I could get the tuition that cheap.
Assuming a normal first year of in-state American medial school costs about $20,000 (I know it’s low, but better to guess low than high with something like this, I think.) That means American medical school costs about 11 times as much as Chinese medical school.
So, even though the Chinese woman is making less in actual wages, her education expenses are also a LOT lowers. That $100 of Chinese paycheck is about equivalent to $1100 American dollars. Not a great wage, but also not as pathetic and horrible as the documentary tries to make it seem up front. Of course they work grueling long hours and the women have blisters on their hands in winter when they clean vegetables crouched on the ground in an open area…so it’s not a great job by any means.
I just don’t understand why the documentary seemed to be so focused on the money and how destitute everyone was. Really, in my opinion, they used pounds instead of dollars or even the mostly accepted euros because the number would be lowest and seem the smallest if they used pounds.
I used to be an avid documentary fan. I loved learning about lives in other places. How people live and work and exist in places that are far away. I want to be an informed person who can have a little bit of understanding for people I’ve never met.
But with documentaries having such obvious bias and trying to make these people seem tenacious and determined and strong and honorable and bitter and sad and desperate all at once just leaves me feeling like I watched The World’s Biggest Attempt At A Lifetime Movie Masked As A Documentary.
One thing though, I was totally stoked The World’s Biggest Chinese Restaurant is owned by a woman. So awesome.
The Work Life Balance Lie
Why does everyone always hearken back to the boom times of the 1950’s where women stayed home and tended the children while the man was able to support the family with his paycheck?
Why don’t they go back to the beginning of the industrial revolution where the whole family had to work (including the 4 and 5 year olds!) to scrape by? It’s like making statistics match what you want to say rather than look at history as a whole and say, “We’re still doing ok, stop freaking out!” You don’t have to sell your kids, or make them work factory jobs…so why do you feel guilty they are in daycare if you’re at work?
From this BlogHer post:
Women have reported high levels of work life conflict (about 40% of women, according to the National study of the changing work force) for years now, because it’s so hard to find time for work and family.
Of course, there is no measurement for what work life balance is. Who’s to say those 40% of women don’t have really high expectations and really the only thing that would solve the dilemma is being independently wealthy?
Maybe the key here is to lower our expectations rather than try to cram more time in with the kids or spend less time at work. My kids do arts and crafts in preschool so I don’t have to.
Why do we think we have to be perfect mothers and perfect workers all the time?
The true definition of work/life balance is if you feel like you’re doing the best you can. Not the best you think you should be doing. Just the best you can. Really, it’s good enough.
Shouldn’t the kids feel lucky knowing they aren’t losing fingers or limbs at a factory from the time they are 6?
Me? I think I have my balance totally under control if the kids are clean and fed. Happy is nice, but with two girls that fight like cats and dogs, happy is entirely optional.
Tracking My Diet – Day Four of Four
Thank goodness. This is the last day I have to do this.
My complete diet for Wednesday
9:10am – 8oz coffee
2:53pm – Protein Shake (23g protein)
4:45pm – 1c Kraft Macaroni and cheese (11g protein?)
7:52pm – 3oz. chicken breast (25g protein) and steamed broccoli (1c)
9:30pm – Protein shake (23g protein)
Total Protein – 82g
Total Water – 72oz.
Tracking My Diet – Day Three of Four
Thank goodness this is almost over. It has to be a boring read.
Complete Diet for Tuesday
8:45am – 8oz. coffee + Fiber One Bar
12:40pm – 3oz. chicken (25g protein) – whole steamed carrot (.6g) – 1/2c sushi rice
2:19pm – Protein Shake (23g)
8:45pm – Protein Shake (23g)
Protein for the day – 71.6
Water for the day – 70 oz.
Tracking My Diet – Day Two of Four
A little clarification. When I reference diet in the title of these posts, I mean the stuff I eat. I have never been and never will be on a “diet” (like Atkins or South Beach). My goal is – and has always been – to eat things that are healthy and make me feel good. So…if you saw a candy bar on the list – which you won’t because I don’t like chocolate – but if you did, know I’m not messing anything up or “ruining” my diet. This is just a log.
My Complete Diet for Monday
8:20am – Fiber One bar and a cup of coffee (I drink my coffee black all the time.) (3g protein)
11:30am – half a Ruben sandwich – no sauce – about 6oz. of beef (40g protein) 1 slice of swiss cheese on there (7gm protein)
1:14pm – Treadmill … 30min.
3:20pm – Pickle
5:15pm – 3oz grilled chicken and a crapload of broccoli (maybe 2 cups?) (25g protein + 8g protein)
9:10pm – 2tsp Cottage Cheese (approx 5g protein)
9:27pm – 1 cup of Salad with a teaspoon of Italian dressing (1g protein)
Total protein for the day – 89g
Total water for the day – 60oz.
Notes on today’s food intake: Yesterday was bad. I ended up eating too much in order to get the protein I needed. I felt bloated and the eggs kept me up with pain. I figured for today I was going to eat how I normally do and if I don’t get enough protein, so be it and I’d have a shake at the end of the day. The Ruben sandwich was unplanned and picked up in between getting my blood glucose test and getting the girls from preschool.
I managed to get enough protein in without having to stuff myself and that was a good thing.
