We're taking the kitties and heading home for a few days, so I'll leave you with this poem in celebration of Thanksgiving. I received it for the first time years ago and it really altered the way I view the world. I hope it does the same for you.
I am thankful:
For the taxes I pay because it means I am not unemployed
For the mess to clean after a party because it means I have been surrounded by friends
For the clothes that fit a little too snug because it means I have enough to eat
For my shadow that watches me work because it means I am out in the sunshine
For the lawn that needs mowing, windows that need cleaning, gutters that need fixing because it means I have a home
For all the complaining I hear about the government because it means we have freedom of speech
For the parking spot I find at the far end of the parking lot because it means I am capable of walking
For my huge heating bill because it means I am warm
For the lady behind me in church who sings off key because it means I can hear
For the pile of laundry and ironing because it means I have clothes to wear
For weariness and aching muscles at the end of the day because it means I have been working hard
For the alarm that goes off in the early morning because it means I am alive!
Remember when I mentioned that we had an addiction to flavored (but unsweetened) seltzer water but felt bad about all the plastic bottles? Toddler Tamer found us a very cool alternative! It's a little pricey to buy right now, but it's a great thought for the future. Click the picture for a link to the company website.
I'm taking the easy way out this morning in my post. We spent the weekend with our friends D & Z in Rochester, so now there's some house catch-up to do. Here's an article on the bailout from September that I've been saving. Since the details of the bailout are still being worked-out, it's still a relevant read.
Consumers deserve greed bailout
Posted: Friday, September 19 at 01:05 pm CT by Bob Sullivan
When a college student who has just run out of money and maxed out her credit card gets that bailout from dad, what's the first thing she does? Throw a party, of course.
And so it is on Wall Street. The federal government just slapped its plastic on the table and said, "Put it on my credit card."
Banks, you see, recently cried "Uncle," and our money has been volunteered to save them. To no one's surprise, that means you and I are now going to pay hundreds of billions of dollars in small increments over several decades to backstop the excesses of the banking industry. My questions are: Will we at least get frequent flier miles and will they be worth anything?
Remember, this is the same industry that would show no mercy to a depositor who dipped 78 cents into the red when buying a hamburger with a debit card. The same banks that routinely charge $35 in fees to lend the shopper that 78 cents. I assure you, we will not get the same kind of return on our largesse.
And I don't want it. What I want is something much more valuable: In exchange for our money, I want the banking industry to behave. I want a sense of fairness and honor to return to the marketplace, and I want the industry to freely accept new rules, regulations and to learn a little restraint. A little humility would help, too.
Here’s what will happen as part of the Treasury Department bailout plan. No one is going to knock on your door and say, "OK, drop $5,000 in this hat please." We're just swiping that national credit card now and we'll pay later. As with credit card purchases, we won't really feel this immediately. We're not going to trade in a national park or a few fighter jets. Instead, we'll just print more money. That's because the federal government can quite literally print all the money it wants. The consequences of that are not immediate, but they are real. Higher debt means a higher "minimum balance payment," so there's less to spend maintaining that park, dilution of the value of the dollar, perhaps ultimately inflation and less value to your savings and bonds.
But that's probably a fair price to pay to stop the crazed unwinding of Wall Street and its entangling alliances—a trend that has been accelerating over the past 10 days. It's time to take all the bad mortgages and all the bad bankers and give them all one big national enema so we can start over.
What about all those bonuses? There are some issues where silence is disturbing, however. Recall that many, many charlatans made sickening amounts of money by pushing the financial crack of bad loans around America over the past decade. For brokers, the commission checks were huge. On Wall Street, the annual bonuses were big enough to pay for new homes in the Hamptons . But no one, so far, has asked for the return of that money. These folks knew how to game the system, and they knew as long as they grabbed the money and ran, they'd get away with it. They have.
As many have suggested, we've nationalized risk but privatized profit. We've taken the two worst elements of socialism and capitalism and blended them. We encourage outrageous business practices -- the equivalent of playing the lottery repeatedly -- that encourage boom and bust cycles of soaring profits followed by ruinous results. As CNBC’s Jim Cramer says "We're all communists now." This must be the last time.
It is not hard to pick through the ruins and find irony. Investigators are still sniffing around trading patterns, but it appears a feeding frenzy of short sellers played at least some role in the takedown of Wall Street's biggest names. In other words, Wall Street almost ate itself, or rather was nearly eaten alive by shorts -- speculators who borrow someone else's shares in a company and sell them, betting that a company's stock will go down so they can buy them back at a cheaper price. When enough short sellers pile on, there's a feeding frenzy that can ultimately lead to a self-fulfilling prophesy, with all those outstanding shares of stock being sold by profiteers.
Fearing the virus-like band of speculators might continue to target other banks, Wall Street took the extraordinary step of banning short sales on Friday. That's odd, because those who talked about placing limitations on oil market speculators were often laughed at by investors as unsophisticated. Stock in double standards has exploded in recent days.
End the 'Great Divorce' Still, we are better off making a deal and moving forward, as long as that deal bails out both homeowners and banks together. But a simple bailout is not enough. Now, things must change. The cult-like worship of unregulated markets must end. Never again do I want to hear someone preach to me about the market's infinite powers to heal itself. Stop arguing that all government intervention and regulation is bad, or that people who lose their home should just suck it up and deal with the Darwin effect. The high priests of unbridled laissez faire need to go take a long vacation now while reasonable people find a sensible middle course. Because you, Wall Street, and you, absolute capitalists, you could dish it out but you couldn't take it.
Today, I believe, we are offered a fresh start. We have an opportunity to set our economic system on a wise course for decades. And we have a chance to end what I call "the Great Divorce" between American companies and consumers. Remember when a Comcast technician renamed a customer's account "Bitch Dog." Ever read 1,000 comments in a blog about bank overdraft fees? Consumers and companies hate each other right now, and for decades have been engaged in a war that benefits neither.
It's time for a new social compact between government, industry and consumers that recognizes we're all in this together. Because now, we are all stockholders in many of these companies. It's time for an end to the mean side of America, the side that cheered while companies cheated people out of nickels dimes, quarters -- and eventually their homes. An end to get rich quick schemes and late-night infomercial hawkers who are enabled by mortgage backed securities. It's time for a "free market" that is not a free-for-all market. It's time for a transparent market where consumers have exactly as much information as the companies they're dealing with, so they can make solid decisions and the engine of the free market can do its work honestly.
In short, it's time for a return to honor, to a world where no company would ever base its business model on duping consumers, and a world where shoppers don't lie about defective products or emotional suffering. Tying new standards of fairness and transparency -- along with regulations and regulators with real teeth -- to any bank bailout is a way to get the whole country behind the plan. And, I believe, it's the only way forward. Because what happened to America this time is simple: We let the cheaters win for too long, and now we all have to pay.
It's Friday and I remember from my life as a cubicle dweller what that means - you're over it. You may start the day completely over it, or your "over it" factor might not kick in until after lunch when your food coma really takes hold. There's no coming back from a Friday post-lunch food coma because you just can't bring yourself to care anymore. I mean, I guess if you're one of those crazy people who really likes their cubicle job, then this doesn't apply to you. But honestly, if you liked it that much, I doubt you'd be reading this. So, to fight The Man and help your ability to be distracted, I'll give you some things to do.
Ben from Year Round Jack O' Lanterns wrote an incredibly interesting post on the MPAA rating system used for movies. It is very educational and makes you ask yourself the question: Are sex and violence equal enemies or is one worse than the other? As you'll see in the comments section, I think one is worse than the other and it's not what the MPAA thinks.
Little Birdie Secrets is a great website I ran across a few weeks ago with lots of crafts, tips, and tutorials. If you're a craft junkie, click on the Tutorial label (on the left side) and get some ideas for homemade Christmas presents. Tip Junkie is another fun website which is, you guessed it, a collection of tips and links to other blogs. Right now they're in the middle of a holiday promotion, so you might have to click back a few pages or click on the labels to get to the more usual posts.
On a more serious note, read the NY Times article on the crucial role the Mormon Church played in helping to defeat Prop 8 in California. (You'll need to sign up for a free account with the NY Times to read the article)
If you’re looking to dip your toe ever so slightly into the tofu pool but are generally scared and suspicious about the whole thing, I think this is the recipe you should start with. My cousin is a vegan and gave me this idea when I asked for easy dinners that use tofu. It’s really simple and fast and even got a stamp of approval from B.
In regards to B, the culinary stamp of approval for trying new dishes is not whether or not he’ll eat it. He’s just worked 9 hours, he’s tired and hungry, as long as he’s not making it, he’ll pretty much eat anything I put in front of him. There was only one exception to this, but I can’t remember what the dish was. The REAL test is whether he concludes the meal by saying “I’ll take the leftovers for lunch tomorrow.” And since he said that last night, I feel a responsibility to pass on the dish.
Buy a package of extra firm tofu (I cut ours in half laterally and use half and freeze half. Beware: once tofu is frozen it turns a strange yellow, but it looks normal again once you defrost it)
Drain the tofu by putting it on cloth napkins or paper towels on a plate, put a second plate on top of it and put a weight on that top plate.Let sit for about 15-30 minutes
Once drained, crumble all the tofu with your hands and add to pan
Add your favorite BBQ Sauce (we like Dinosaur BBQ sauce), mix together and heat through.If there is a little too much water in the pan at this point, just let it steam off for a while.
Put on a bun, add your favorite side (we had French fries tonight) and you’re done!
We have the results from last Friday’s survey! My goal was 40 participants and there were 35, so that’s pretty good. The blog gets 60 - 70 unique visitors a day, so about half participated. Let’s see what you had to say…
Gender: Men = 20% Women = 80%
Age: 20s & 30s = 89% 40s = 0% 50s+ = 11%
How did you find the blog? You know me = 25 ppl You know someone who knows me = 8 ppl Stumbled Upon = 2 ppl
What type of websites do you visit? Responses were quite varied on this one, as you would imagine, with several write-in responses Entertainment & Blogs = ~44% each Cooking & Politics = ~30% each Others = sports, social networking, news, etc.
What would you rather do? Be in Nature = 33% Museum & Music = 21% each Restaurant & Dancing = 12% each Write Ins = TV, cooking, vacation, etc.
The Pulp Fiction Question: Do you… Really listen = 28 ppl Wait to Talk = 5 ppl (honest people!)
B’s Question about the ranking system for college football was very divisive with 60% of you answering yes to the fact that there should be a playoff system and 40% of you not having a clue as to what he was asking. Good to know there’s consensus among those who understand the question though!
Daily Element This question was the most even across all categories with the dirty birds out there representing 27% and winning the race by asking for daily porn. The other categories got pretty even representation – recipe, craft, photo, etc.
Politics Democratic = 19 ppl Republican = 1 person (how lonely my blog must be for you! :) ) Independent = 4 ppl No affiliation – decisions based on each election = 9 ppl
Open Comments Section – What do you want to see more or less of? More recipes – Less recipes – More pictures – More cute stories – More stories about B! – More info about dinosaurs – More information about the media I absorb – etc.
So there ya have it. If I were to generalize, I’d have to say that you’re a bunch of young, nature-loving, good-listening democrats with a propensity for dirty photos and a desire to change the collegiate football system.
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Feather Nester was the first to respond to yesterday’s post with her own post on products she loves. As you’ll see when you read it, she took it in a slightly different direction. Basically she’s succumbed to our mutual annoyance with hygiene and just given in completely. It’s better for the planet that way.
For all the gals out there, I thought I’d give a little shout out to some of the products that I can’t live without.
Tend Skin – I first ran across this when I lived in Boston and used to get bikini waxes at a fancy salon near my work.It works so great that I continue to order it over the internet.Although it lasts for so long I think I’ve ordered it twice in six years.It’s for men or women and is used to prevent razor burn and ingrown hairs.Just put a little on a cotton ball, apply, and you’re all set!
Smashbox Foundation Primer – This one I really can’t live without.It’s one of two makeup products that I panic about when it gets low.My good friend Z introduced me to this years ago and I’ve never looked back.I get it in green because my fair skin tends to get red, but they sell it in clear or other colors for different skin types.It feels strange the first time you use it because it’s kind of slippery, but you’ll love the results.It gives your skin a base so that the foundation and concealer float above it, rather than sinking into it.And maybe it’s something about living in a cold climate, but I always have parts of my skin that are dry and therefore act as little foundation pooling spots.I also use a lot less product with this as a base because it glides on top of it.It’s Smashbox, so it’s pricey, but totally worth it.
Foundation Brush (Sephora Professional) – B’s sister turned me on the magic of a foundation brush a few months ago and now I’m hooked.I never really understood them because I was envisioning a brush made out of the same material as a blush brush and figured that it would just absorb all of the foundation.In reality, the bristles are meant to be non-absorbent and so it works better than a sponge or your finger.I just pump out some foundation on the back of my hand and paint away!It gives a much more smooth and polished look.
Laura Mercier Eyebrow Powder – Now this one probably won’t be useful to anyone since I have met very few people lucky enough to have completely clear eyebrows, but if you’re in need of a little eyebrow darkening, I love this stuff.It’s not as crumbly as other powders and goes on easier than the gel based products.
So those are my favs, but since I’d like to know what yours are, let’s turn this into a little blog meme (rhymes with “theme”), shall we?That’s where you invite others to write about the same topic and when they do, announce it here and provide a link.So how about it Feather Nester, Ouiser, Billy, Die Frau, Marissa, Yum Mantra, Ithaca Chick, Toddler Tamer… anyone feeling up to it?Anyone have some really great beauty products that they love?
