First Thanksgiving (w/o family)

We celebrated our first Thanksgiving without extended family this year, and it was really nice. We actually ate after the kids were in bed and celebrated with our friends, who were also home without family this year. We all made a few things which combined made an excellent traditional meal. Here are pictures of our centerpiece, which we made from plants we collected with the kids before bed, and the table, set before eating. I guess we were too into the food to remember to get a picture with loaded plates...

QUEEN for a Day

My birthday was last week, and Peter really played his part well! I woke up to the smell of yummy breakfast which was delivered to my bed a little while after he delivered a tray with reading material and a note ordering me not to get out of bed. He had also written on a piece of paper explaining to me that for my birthday, I was QUEEN for the entire day, and he was my slave. He cooked, cleaned, and watched the kids while I got to do whatever I wanted AND order him around. He even brought the phone cradle up to our bed so I could page him with the paging button whenever I needed something. So, for my birthday, I:

*took a relaxing bath
*got a haircut
*went shopping with a friend
*read
*took 2 short naps
*played the piano
*got bored and ordered my slave to let us all be normal until we put the kids to bed (I missed them!)
*went to dinner at a really yummy restaurant that was more expensive than anywhere we've ever been, and was totally worth it (just this once... what does that phrase mean anyway?? It sounds so weird.)
*went to the movies and then left because our movie was sold out

I guess we'll try to go to a movie some other time. We haven't been to a movie in the theater for about 2 1/2 years. We came home from that movie and watched a Netflix movie, but I fell asleep during that, and the wonderful day was over. Lucky for me, my birthday celebrations carried over to the next day, and I got to go shopping with friends the next morning, and then we had cake later that night. So much fun!

I was actually feeling really guilty for leaving that next morning because Peter had worked so hard the day before, but it turned out that even though Little had gone to bed at 6:30pm on my birthday, she didn't wake up until past noon the next day, AFTER I came home. AND, Littler played by herself for an hour while Daddy slept on the couch, and then took a nap so he slept even more, and it was pretty much entirely a non-issue.

THANKS to my wonderful husband for the A++++++++++ birthday!

FOOD

Over the last couple of years, we've been changing the food our family eats and buys, by tending more toward the naturally occurring and organic foods. I really don't think we're too extreme about it, but we definitely try to have as few ingredients as possible in our food. For example, it's been several months since we've purchased bread or tortillas (aside from loaves of "artisan" breads for fun to eat with cheese--and often we'll make that kind of bread, too--it's just fun to buy it pre-made, so it's like our family's version of eating out). We prefer to make our bread because it's cheaper and yummier and healthier, too. We make our own salad dressing with various vinegars and oils, we pressure cook our own beans, and we've even dabbled in cheese a little bit (and plan to really broaden our cheese knowledge soon).

This article really stresses to me PART of WHY we decided to do this in the first place. Health, safety, money, taste are probably most of the reasons.

Someday, we'd really like to be eating all of our food from the most basic ingredients. The cool thing, you don't have to sacrifice taste! It's great! In fact, when you've been eating more natural foods, a lot of the other foods that are artificially flavored and synthesized really end up tasting pretty gross. (Not all, unfortunately for all of us...)

For Me, To Remember

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/05/us/politics/05campaign.html?scp=5&sq="november%204"&st=cse

http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/06/title/?em

High Fructose Corn Syrup = Bad For You!!

While thumbing through my new FamilyFun magazine today, I was appalled to come across this ad. Basically, the Corn Refiner's Association has decided that they aren't making enough money now that many people are aware of the health risks and detriments of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), and has decided to go on an 18 month long ad campaign letting the American public know the "facts" about HFCS. They say that HFCS is "nutritionally the same as table sugar and honey" and spout off a bunch of other mistruths on their website, conveniently leaving out a lot of important information (such as the fact that fructose [like high fructose corn syrup] is converted into fat after reaching the liver instead of being broken down before like glucose [table sugar is half glucose and half fructose]).

So, sure, I eat HFCS sometimes, like most people, although it's not a regular part of our diet. But I definitely DON'T fall for the idea that HFCS is "natural" as the Corn Refiner's Association asserts in their commercials. That's just a bunch of bull honkey.

Handy Dandy Tax Graphs

[from mandamommy and trogonpete]

Here is a fantastic unbiased [facts are unbiased], nonpartisan evaluation of Obama's and McCain's income tax policies [we won't get into child tax credits and other stuff].

We've noticed that there are a lot of people who don't know that there is complete objective, verifiable information about the two major candidate's tax policies online [and other policies as well]. The figures shown on the link display this information in instructive ways. Here's what we took from it:

[The current tax code is already progressive [the bottom bracket pays ~10% and the top bracket pays ~35%]. What is displayed in the linked page is the change in the amount of income after taxes if the candidate's plan replaced the current code.]

1. From the first graph there's a big philosophical distinction between the two plans. McCain is for cutting taxes; more so if you're rich. Obama's for cutting taxes especially if you're poor, except if you're rich, in which case your taxes will rise [above $600,000 post-tax salary]. If you think the economic stimulation provided by a wealthier upper class is more important than society's obligation to assist the poor, then McCain's plan is the plan for you. You might be tempted to make further generalizations about income redistribution and other issues but the other figures crush a lot of the old cliches.

2. The second graph shows the total number of people [represented by the height of each bar] getting each tax change. McCain's plan gives a tax break of 1% or higher to 39% of the population, and Obama's gives 1% or higher to 90% of the population. Additionally, the area of each box represents the product of the number of people in that bracket times the tax change for that bracket. So a bigger box on the negative side of the scale means more people are getting more money. Since Obama's total area is significantly more "negative" than McCain's, the conclusion would be that Obama's plan provides a greater overall tax relief to the whole population than McCain's.

3. The third graph shows the total amount of money generated for the government for each tax bracket. This time the area of the box shows the total change in revenue for each bracket, positive or negative. So a bigger box on the positive side means the government gets more money. McCain's plan--since it calls for no tax increases--results in a net loss for the government compared to the current tax code. Obama's plan will generate a large amount of extra revenue. The amount of money given back to the poorest brackets in Obama's plan is miniscule compared to the extra revenue generated by taxing the very wealthy [compare the size of the boxes on the positive side to the boxes on the negative side]. So Obama's plan is not income redistribution; it is revenue generation.

In short, Obama's income tax plan calls for very little income redistribution and a large revenue increase by selectively taxing the wealthiest 1% of Americans--people who make significantly more than half a million dollars a year after tax. Obama's plan also calls for significant tax relief for the poorest Americans. McCain calls for reducing taxes for everybody, but especially for the wealthy. We believe that the cumulative benefit to the 99% of Americans who will see no change or an increase in tax relief from Obama's plan outweighs the extra "burden" on the wealthy. Furthermore, McCain's tax plan reduces government revenue which will increase the national debt--a debt our children will bear through higher taxes and decreased government expenditure on programs such as social security and education.

From one of McCain's many ads:

Obama will "raise taxes on the middle class... I'm John McCain and I approve this message."

Many people are believing this, but it's just plain not true.

We haven't been able to find an Obama fib about McCain's tax plan, but if any of you can find one, by all means share it.

Uh-Oh

Remember this game? And this one? I've kind of lost my touch, but it's still in there somewhere, I can feel it!

WARNING: Don't read until after Thanksgiving!

I'm reeeeeally picky about women's voices, and I'm even pickier about what versions of O Holy Night I enjoy listening to because to me it's a song that should be sung with light pure voices and is often sung operatically instead (blecccchhhhhhh!), with heavy vibrato. So, I'm always on the lookout for good versions of the song, and while I was browsing through Christmas music on youtube and Amazon today (I know, I know...), I came across this:

Celtic Woman/Chloe Agnew - O Holy Night

Oh my goodness! I LOVE it! These voices are exactly the kind I love! They sing so beautifully!

This one is for Eloise: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKrx-4Awe70&feature=related
(Look into Celtic Woman in general... Warning: The video looks a little cheesy sometimes.)

Here are a few other great Christmas songs I came across today, to give you a little head start for the upcoming holiday season:

Michael Buble - The Christmas Song Who am I kidding? Anything Michael Buble! (White Christmas, I'll Be Home for Christmas, Let it Snow...)

The Carpenters - There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays Okay, anything Carpenters too.

Harry Connick Jr. - Christmas Waltz (no recording--can anyone find one?)

And of course, all the classics by Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, etc.

Coventry Carol

Josh Groban - What Child is This?

Are you sick of this yet?

You probably think I'm lame for always posting these, but I don't listen to the radio so it's amazing I ever find them at all...

Here's another song I'm loving right now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nTSU-mFWGs

Actually, I'm liking the singer in general.

What He Said

TrueWilderness.blogspot.com

Palo Alto Moonlight Run

Well, I did it! I ran a 5k race without walking! It was very tiring, but I think it was worse than it normally would have been since it was night time. That's just not nearly as nice a time to run as the morning!

Anyway, I convinced Peter to come with me and he was going to take a picture of me at the finish line but somehow he didn't see me and I didn't see him, so all we got was a couple of post race pictures.

The course was almost entirely flat, but it was dark, aside from the nearly full moon, so lots of people had headlamps and flashlights (I brought a little flashlight). It was also veeeeeeeeery crowded. The 5k run alone had 840 people in it, and since I was pretty slow, I started off pretty close to the back, which means that my time really would have been a few minutes better because it took a really long time to be able to start running, with so many people starting a race at the same time.

In case you have a morbid curiosity of just how slow I really am, I ran it in 33:43 and my mile pace was an average of 10:51, coming in 535 place overall and 46th for my division (out of 83). So, basically, I'm just a normal average slow person--I beat my first goal, but wasn't thinking about the numbers of people slowing me down when I made the goal, and I feel pretty confident that I would have been at about a 10 minute mile pace if it hadn't been so crowded. I feel like once I was running, I was going faster than my normal slow pace. (To further embarrass myself, I'll mention that I paced myself on two different sets of elementary aged girls running with their parents. I managed to pass them both with 1 mile to go when they stopped for water and I never saw them again, but I also started slowing down once I didn't have such good pacers anymore.)

Anyway, I'm definitely no runner, but I'm still proud that I ran a 5K! Maybe someday I'll be able to do a 10K (though if I do, I better run habitually first).

Some of my current song faves

It's all about the dancing baby! What have I been doing all my life? I could have been DANCING!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3xx72NGrUc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PNSg2NTRNc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sei-eEjy4g (Don't listen to this one if you're sensitive to drug and gun references...)

Running

A few weeks ago, I signed up for a 5K race that happens to be this Friday night, despite the fact that I never run and even when I do, I'm really slow. So, once the week of the race rolled around Monday morning, I decided I better figure out if I'm gonna cut it and I went for a run with Littler after dropping Little off at her first day of co-op preschool. It was a hilly run and I ran 2.65 miles without walking any of it! The best part was that it felt GOOD! From the first moment I started running it felt good, and that has NEVER happened to me before! I was really stoked, so the next morning I went to the gym with a friend and ran 5K on the treadmill. Wow! That felt good too, but it also gave me huge blisters on my feet and made my muscles reeeeeeally sore (they're much better today, although not fully recovered), so I decided that I'll take it easy until the race. The race is a moonlight run, so it will be dark aside from the light of the moon, meaning it will be at the end of the day, after dinner, etc. On the treadmill I ran it in about 33:30 (slow, I know...) and my ultimate hope is to finish under 30 minutes, but my first goal is to beat 35 minutes. We'll see how that works out, but wish me luck and hope that running will feel as good Friday night as it did Monday and Tuesday!

They Call This News?

Look at this (really, you need to):

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=591496

I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

Who Am I Anyway?

Every time I read posts I've written from a while back, I don't even recognize myself! Who was that lady writing things about my life (quite precisely, as my memory would tell you). It's so odd...

But, I just had a lot of fun reading posts from when Littler was born and right before and looking at pictures of when she was a baby (because I couldn't remember how long she was when she was born, or even *gasp* what she looked like back then!). This is why we need to get our video camera fixed so we can watch the video of the birth...

Can You Hear the Wolf's Cry?

One night last summer when we were in Alaska, we were lying in bed asleep or falling asleep (depending on who we're talking about) and we heard some wolves howling some completely indeterminate (by me) distance away. As we were lying there, both Peter and I were entranced by the sound of it--it was such a poignant, deep, enthralling feeling to lie in bed and listen to a sound we'd never heard before and may never hear again, knowing that such a magnificent animal was close enough for us to hear but not see. To this day, when I think back on those moments, my heart still quickens and I still feel tingles in my body at the memory of it. It even brings tears to my eyes. I don't know why it has this effect. All I know is that now I yearn to hear it again. Something tells me that if I ever do, I will only be disappointed because the magic of that experience is not likely to be duplicated. This is a poem I wrote a few days ago after talking to Peter about this experience again. (I am not a poet by any stretch of the imagination, but this poem just kind of jumped into my head and I feel like it captures the way I feel about that night, so I thought I'd better put it in "my jernul". It's actually really embarrassing to me to have this here, but I'm putting it here anyway because this is where it belongs.) Here it is:

Can you hear the wolf’s cry?
Stretch. Turn. Listen.
There!
Do you hear it?
Feel the chilling music in your bones.
Let it take you back.
A time you don’t remember.
But somehow it’s familiar.
Feel the music of the pack.
In your chest. In your arms. In your fingertips.
Can you hear the wolf’s cry?

Taking the Plunge

Well, after living in our apartment for two years now with no washer and dryer, not to mention the year and half before that in our apartment in Tucson with no washer and dryer, we have decided to get a washer and dryer. The funny thing is that the main reason is not for the convenience of washing my clothes at home instead of carting 4 or 5 very heavy laundry bags to another building every 10 days or so in our bike trailer/stroller (although I have to admit that not having to do this does excite me possibly more than you can imagine). What got me started in this direction was thinking about the ways we save money (next post, possibly tonight). I realized that there was one major area in our lives where we have not only chosen the more expensive route, but also the less environmentally friendly route as well: disposable diapers! Now, if you believe the diaper companies' spin doctors [read: Proctor & Gamble], then you probably think that disposable vs. cloth diapers is an equally balanced bad for the environment situation. Not so! I think this page puts it pretty well: Diaper Dilemma (Part 2): The Environment

But, as I was saying, it was the cost of disposable diapers that got me on this track. I realized in one grand epiphany that we have already spent more money on diapers for our two kids than it would cost us to buy a washer and dryer and use cloth diapers. Mentioning this to Peter, along with the fact that this trend would continue without buying those things, was all I needed to have the go ahead on his part to spring for the duo. We, of course, looked at Craigslist first and managed to find a cheap Energy Star (required by Stanford Housing) washer and a normal dryer right here in our very own neighborhood! So, I bought them, just now. Being the nice person that I am, I'm letting her keep it until they move, so we'll pick it up when we get back from our trip to Utah (which we leave for in a little over a week, so, no skin off my back...).

The washer and dryer aren't so much what the plunge is all about though. It's the switch to cloth diapers. When I first came up with the idea this morning, I was a little intimidated. But with a little memory and internet searching, I found that there are really some easy, no hassle, non finger staining ways to do the whole cloth diaper thing, and now I'm actually pretty excited about it! Cloth diapers are so much cuter, for one thing! I mean, who wouldn't think this is cuter? It's probably not the one we'll be doing, but doesn't it look nice and easy?

And really, I am SUPER excited about having a washer and dryer in our apartment! Really really. Really.

Yep, that's me

You Are Snow White!

Pure and trusting. You are a gentle soul who can get along with just about anyone. Everyone you meet instantly falls in love with you. How can they resist? You have a pure, lovable nature that's irresistable. Just don't trust everyone who comes across your path.

Which Disney Princess Are You?

MEME

Okay, I know you're just dying to know all of this info. (It beats coming back to the same post over and over right?)

45 Things About Me

Do you like blue cheese? Eh...kinda. Not by itself.

Do you own a gun? I'll let you find out when you try to break into my house...

What flavor do you add to your drink at Sonic? Don't go to Sonic. We rarely eat out and it's not on the top of my list of places to visit when there are so many great ethnic and other non-chain places to visit!

Do you get nervous before doctor appointments? Yes.

What do you think of hot dogs? I tried no to like them. It didn't work. I like them despite myself (but only heated and in a warm bun with onions and mustard)

Favorite Christmas movie? It’s a Wonderful Life

What do you prefer to drink in the morning? Juice. I can't drink water in the morning unless I've exercised.

Can you do push ups? Not the "real" kind. I've always had poor upper body strength.

What’s your favorite piece of jewelry? my engagement ring

Favorite hobby? reading, sewing, music playing, dancing and wishing I were a dancer

Do you have A.D.D.? nope

What’s one trait you hate about yourself? too critical

Middle name? Kaye

Name 3 thoughts at this exact moment: I have a headache, I want to dance, Wow Peter sure likes the mandolin I got him for Father's Day!

Name 3 things you bought yesterday? Nothing. We only ride our bikes to the store, so I shop much less frequently now.

Name 3 drinks you regularly drink? Water, apple juice, grape juice

Current worry? That this headache is really a migraine creeping up on me.

Current hate right now? Um...don't have one? Nothing comes to mind...

Favorite place to be? anywhere where my favorite friends and family are

How did you bring in the New Year? Fondue with parents-in-law, and YUMMY apple cider (the real thing!)

Where would you like to go? Europe

Do you own slippers? Yes, but it's hard to walk up and down stairs in them so I don't wear them very often--only if I'm reeeeeeally chilled.

What song makes you happy? Michael Buble Feeling Good

What year would you go back in time to? I have no desire to go back in time. That's too freaky.

Can you whistle? Yes.

Favorite color? straight green (I recently realized this to be true)

Would you be a pirate? No. That's too edgy for me.

What songs do you sing in the shower? Whatever is in my head, IF I'm in the right mood (the kind where I also want to dance)

Favorite girl’s name. Elise

Favorite boy’s name? Elias

What’s in your pocket right now? A piece of paper

Last thing that made you laugh? The enrichment play/musical I went to tonight. Good stuff.

Last thing that made you cry? I don't know. I don't cry very often these days. My life is too blissful.

Worst injury you’ve ever had? Getting hit in the head with a soccer ball during a game and getting stitches (right by my eye) I know, that's not even very bad.

Do you love where you live? YES! It's the best! Everyone should move here!

How many TVs do you have in your house? One.

How many dogs do you have? None.

What is your favorite book(s)? It depends on my mood. Passage; Animal, Vegetable Miracle; To Kill a Mockingbird; lots of others

What is your favorite candy? Um... Snickers?

Favorite Sports Team(s)? You know, I recently discovered that I don't really care for watching sports anymore. I'd much rather PLAY them.

Your favorite meal? Pizza (sad but true), or, a really yummy carne asada burrito, or a chicken shawerma wrap

What were you doing 12 AM last night? Sleeping for the last few minutes before having to wake up and feed the baby

What was the first thing you thought of when you woke up? I wonder how long I can keep sleeping before I reeeeally need to get out of bed?

Do you have any odd habits? Sure. Every once in a while I snort like a pig.

How many siblings do you have? 276...er...um... 13 I think

THE END

Another Good Song

Okay, I discovered another great song that I love, despite myself.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=bd2B6SjMh_w

What do you think? (honestly--even if you hate it) This song came out in 2006. That surprised me.