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Sunday, 29 March 2009

  • He was warned.

    just earlier my darling was making fun of me. some silly business about a candle and me being all girly. The very next sentence out of his mouth was...."I'm going up stairs with my tea and my book to take a bath" I really love the big priss.

Monday, 23 March 2009

  • moving on.

    It's time. Sophie and I are both ready but I still feel a little sad about it. This week will be the end of our breast feeding. We made it Seven months and that is way longer than I thought it would last six months ago. Before I was even pregnant I knew I would try to nurse so the decision was the easy part. I tried to tell myself "no pressure" Just try it and see if it works out. I wanted to try for the 6 week mark to make sure the baby got all the good colostrum and then it wouldn't matter so much anyway. Heh! that pretty much went out the window.

    The first week was exhausting and frustrating. She would not stay awake to eat. I had to poke and prod and make her horribly angry just to get food in her. the second week was a little easier but not much. She was not eating enough to increase my supply and it was a struggle later to produce enough to feed her. the third week....I won't get gory but my nipples were in really bad shape. Every feeding was painful. I dreaded it horribly and after a round of mastitis with a nice high fever...I started using a pump instead of directly feeding her. the pumping took forever and it is no where near as efficient  so I was still having trouble keeping up with her demand for food. week four....I was healing up and went back to direct feeding but no luck...I turned into a bloody mess again in about 2 days. about this same time we had the first visit with the pediatrician who was not at all encouraging ( words were exchanged believe me). Now rapidly approaching the 6 week mark I really considered calling it quits but I was angry that I had not had a good experience...there was nothing I could look back on and enjoy and it pissed me off.

    Not just no but Hell No. I was not going to have put up with all the pain and loss of sleep and now TWO rounds of mastitis and streach marks  ( didn't get a single one on my stomach  or hips from the pregnancy but going from a B to a D in a week did me in) and have no happy memories to show for it. I stopped thinking in terms of Time and just focused on "getting it right". I'm not sure exactly when we turned the corner but by the time I went back to work things were getting better. Now I have all kinds of sweet memories of our time together.

    A couple of weeks ago she started wanting more milk again. It has been a struggle for me from the beginning to increase my supply and I Just don't want to struggle anymore so we started letting it go. Instead of more milk she would get a bottle of formula. Now we have added baby food as well and she loves eating from a spoon. We are down to just two nursing sessions a day and this weekend we are going to try and stop those as well. I will drink coffee again and red wine. I will go back to normal bras and clothing that doesn't have to open discretely in public. on those nights Sophie still wakes up wanting a nibble, Michael will get to take turns with me. I'll get twice as much sleep. All good things to look forward to still I am a little sad. on weekend mornings I can't snuggle her into bed with me, feed her and fall back to sleep. Sure I can make a bottle and she will probably go back to sleep just as easily...but if you have done it, you know. It isn't at all the same.

Friday, 06 March 2009

  • How long do you think it'll take for the U.S. economy to improve?

    So all this recession business has me kind of depressed. By depressed I mean feeling down or pessimistic not the clinical definition of depression. Times are tuff and I started to wonder just how bad things really are. God Bless The Internet. I did some research to try and put things in perspective. I thought I would share my findings and some opinions to boot.

    First off the quick and dirty definition of a recession is 2 or more quarters of negative GDP (gross domestic product). there are more involved measures economists use involving inflation, unemployment and such but most of us don't care about pinpointing the exact week a downturn began so 2 quarters negative GDP is close enough. In case you couldn't guess, yes we hit it the last two quarters of 2008. And no we didn't.

    Depending on how you measure GDP (yes there are different ways to count that...lots of them in fact but we will stick with just 2) in current dollars or adjusted dollars, how far negative is a little different. first current dollars. that is what a buck is worth today and that measure has us with one negative quarter so far to the tune of -5.8%  On the other hand adjusted dollars (adjusted to year 2000. it's useful for comparing years that are far apart) show us with 2 quarters negative  -.5% and -6.2%. That turns out to be  5.2% positive or -3.0% negative for the whole of 2008. Fun huh?

    Now for the perspective part. During the great depression of the 1930's, current dollar stats were -12%  -16% and -23% for 1930, 31 and 32.  Adjusted dollars were -8.6% -6.4% and -13%  that is a far way off still from what we are posting today. I will also point out IT LASTED THREE YEARS. That is far longer than the six months we have had so far.

    Finally for the opinion portion. It will all turn around come Christmas time. People have short attention spans and will be sick of sitting home saving their money. Christmas will give them the perfect excuse to get back to spending and they will. I could do a bunch of math and throw fancy numbers around to "back up" my opinion but numbers can "prove" just about anything so I won't bother. I will just continue to assert my belief that the U S economy is based almost totally on consumer confidence and things will get better just as soon as we start believing they will.

    thats my story and I'm sticking to it.



       

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Friday, 06 February 2009

  • obligitory V-Day post

    I am a poo pooer of artificial holidays which compel one to spend money. Valentines day being a prime offender

    Firstly, I am cheap. I want to horde up piles of money and roll around in them. Or failing that I want quality not flashy displays of plastic sentimentality. Prime example, frilly hearts with a few sad chocolates inside. When I want chocolate I'll pick up a box of Godiva. or make some brownies. You might argue it's the guy spending the money so why worry. Well I'm married to him so it all comes out of the same pot in the end. Don't give me some bull story about how you and your spouse keep money sperate...that's not a marriage it's room mates who sleep together, but I digress. 

    Secondly, plenty of perfectly good artificial holidays exist which Do Not require one to spend money to celebrate. ST. Patrick's day is a lovely substitute. Put on some bit of green clothing you already own and celebrate a snake-free day.  April Fools day. All the best pranks are free. Ask a coworker if they are OK after the accident. what accident? they ask you. Why the car accident they had that caused so much damage to the back of their car you happened to notice in the parking lot this morning. Watch the hilarity ensue. How about System Administrator day. Wander down to the basement and say hi to the poor lonely fellows down there. What you don't believe me? follow the link. http://www.sysadminday.com/

    Lastly, If you have to have a day to remind you to give flowers, jewelry or some lame stuffed animal to your partner shame on you. I personally don't want stuff that day. I want stuff some other-random-just because I love you for no reason at all day. Giving a gift because you are expected to is meaningless. Thanks but no thanks. I want the real thing.

Wednesday, 04 February 2009