TheMommyBlog

Wednesday, March 17, 2010 Family

This week’s trivia question is: Where is the best place in an airport to fill up an empty water bottle?

Find out the answer on SuiteTrip.com in Tuesday, March 16th’s blog post!

Remember, answers are somewhere on the SuiteTrip.com web site. You can enter the “Sweet Suite Giveaway” by sending me the answer in an email at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Don’t leave answers in the comments!!

Oh! Forgot to tell you how we’ll pick the winners. I’ll keep a running list of those who have emailed or tweeted/re-tweeted with a correct response to each question (anyone can answer the question each week and can thus be entered multiple times) and at the end of the four weeks, three winners are selected randomly from those who answered correctly during the contest. Make sense? Lemme know if it doesn’t and I’ll re-read it to you.

Monday, March 15, 2010 Family, Travel

For eight or nine years, my family had a gathering place in Lake Tahoe. For all those years, our family would come together from Sacramento, Los Gatos, San Jose, Chicago, and Tokyo to be together for the holidays and for some great skiing in the winter or hiking and biking in the summer. I found out I was pregnant for the first time in that house, and two of my children took their first steps right in the living room. My folks have since traded that place in for another on the beach—which, don’t get me wrong, is AWESOME—so although we have a very different kind of gathering place for our family now, I miss that place like crazy. It’s so hard to gather a big family when you don’t have room to expand as the family grows. Now we sometimes have to take turns or find additional accommodations.

All of which is to say… I don’t normally do promotions or contests, but this one, sponsored by SuiteTrip.com, was too much fun to pass up. I TOTALLY want to be responsible for someone winning an awesome, free vacation.

1. Each week for four weeks, I will post a trivia question here on The Mommy Blog. The first question will be posted on Wednesday, March 17.
2. Answers will be posted on the SuiteTrip.com web site.You can enter the “Sweet Suite Giveaway” by sending me the answer in an email at sweetsuitegiveaway@themommyblog.net.
3. Three winners will receive a free two-night stay at any Homewood Suites property in the U.S.

Homewood Suites by Hilton developed SuiteTrip.com specifically for leisure and family travelers to help enhance their vacation experience.  The site serves as the go-to site for family travel planning by tapping the expertise of today’s most trusted names in family and leisure travel who provide trip advice directly from their own vacations and adventures.

Launched in 1989, the Homewood Suites by Hilton brand today has nearly 300 hotels in North America and Mexico and approximately 120 properties in the development pipeline. The brand offers complimentary high-speed internet access, daily hot breakfast, and an evening reception featuring a light meal and beverages, Monday through Thursday.  Beyond its spacious suites and home-like amenities, Homewood Suites guests can find at each hotel an on-site Suite Shop convenience store, exercise facility and guest laundry at most locations. Additional guest services offered at most locations include a complimentary grocery shopping service* and a complete business center. 

Dude, I want to go RIGHT NOW. Actually, I’m a little frosted that I can’t enter. Fortunately, I am being paid for this promotion, so it’s all good (disclosure pursuant to my Blog with Integrity pledge).

I’m not the only fab online personality involved (my fab factor is going up by association). Contributors to SuiteTrip.com include:

• Beth Blair of TheVacationGals.com - freelance writer and travel-planning mastermind
• Catherine Boley of Trekaroo.com - education advocate and destination devotee
• Scott Carmichael of Gadling.com - frequent flyer and leisure trip consultant
• Esther Lee of Trekaroo.com - travel hot spot enthusiast
• Grant Martin of Gadling.com - adventure traveler and sightseeing aficionado
• Lisa McElroy of SuiteLiving.com - hotel and lifestyle expert
• Jennifer Miner of TheVacationGals.com - conservationist and travel-tip whiz
• Jamie Pearson of TravelSavvyMom.com - budget travel genius
• Kara Williams of TheVacationGals.com - backpacker and vacation advice guru

Sunday, March 14, 2010 Bad Mood Dude, Family

My son came to me after a long weekend of open house events here. For two days, we’ve wandered from our house to dad’s house to Guy’s house, to Grandma’s and to the baseball field to kill time while people scrutinize our house for imperfections that might leverage a lowball offer. I hate these weekends, because it’s necessary remove any sort of evidence that people live here. Better to look like a Hilton when selling a home, right? *eyeroll*

“Mom, have you seen my DS? I left it on my dresser.”

“Nope, I think I’d remember that.”

“You sure you didn’t put it somewhere? And did you ever find that game I was asking about the other day?”

“Hon, have you ever looked at your bedroom today and compared it to your bedroom of the last eleven years? There were PILES OF CRAP EVERYWHERE that had to be sorted and moved so that we could make it look nice. When we move and unpack boxes, you’ll get to look for it, but I’m not opening boxes in the POD to search for something that MIGHT be in a box out there. When did you last see it, anyway?”

“Two years ago.”

Good Christ Jemimy on a syrup bottle.

“Two years?”

“Yeah, maybe we should think about buying a new one.”

“Maybe not.”

“Why?’

“Look, we have to clean up this place for two days a week. We need to put the important things—”

“But do you think the Realtors moved it?”

My voice went up a notch. “Babe, you’re going to have to learn how to let me finish a sentence if you want to hear an answer.”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

“I was just trying to say that there is no way the Realtors moved it, and that I wouldn’t have just put it somewhere else, I would have handed it to you and asked you to put it in your backpack or something. And if you’d waited for me to finish, you’d have heard that sooner.”

He looked ready to cry.

“Hon, look at me. Why are you so upset?”

“Because I’m afraid of what might happen.”

“What? Are you afraid of me?”

He didn’t answer.

“Have I ever hurt you or given you a reason to be afraid of me?”

“No.”

“Then I don’t understand. What have I done to you?”

“It’s not what you’ve done to me, it’s what you’ve done to yourself.”

My heart stopped.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you’re just so stressed out lately I’m afraid of what might happen if things don’t get better soon. I’m afraid you’ll explode or something.”

Oh. My. God.

“Baby, I’m not going to explode. I lose my temper sometimes, and I’m sorry about that. I’m not going to fall apart, I promise. We’re all safe. We are going to be just fine, okay, baby?”

“Okay.”

“Oh, hon, I’m so sorry you’re thinking things like that. It’s too much for a child, you’re not supposed to worry about taking care of your parents. I’m sorry. We’re fine. Okay?”

“Okay.”

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Man. I’m sorry.

Friday, March 05, 2010 Family

I’ve been toying with resurrecting PearSoup.com ever since it was turned into a phishing site and I had to kill it. Lemme know what you think—if it’s worth doing again, I’ll keep it up. New features include a “Vote It Up” function!

Friday, March 05, 2010 Business, Bad Mood Dude, Family, Internet, News, Politics, Technology

This is just a portion of an article by Paul Craig Roberts, former university professor, Wall Street Journal editor, and assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury. His latest book, How the Economy Was Lost: The War of the Worlds, has just been published by CounterPunch/AK Press.

My heart sank with every paragraph, as each point was identified, explained, and sank in. It’s like having a game of charades replaced by a set of progressively more informative bullet points with snapshots from your families’ lives appended.

I would love to poke holes in it and identify it as political propaganda, but I have seen, first-hand, too much of what’s described unfold. This is so much worse than accepting the previous, prevalent belief that we would never be able attain our parents’ generation’s standard of living.

Doomed by the Myths of Free Trade
How the Economy was Lost

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

The American economy has gone away. It is not coming back until free trade myths are buried six feet under.

...The demise of America’s productive economy left the US economy dependent on finance, in which the US remained dominant because the dollar is the reserve currency. With the departure of factories, finance went in new directions. Mortgages, which were once held in the portfolios of the issuer, were securitized. Individual mortgage debts were combined into a “security.” The next step was to strip out the interest payments to the mortgages and sell them as derivatives, thus creating a third debt instrument based on the original mortgages.

In pursuit of ever more profits, financial institutions began betting on the success and failure of various debt instruments and by implication on firms. They bought and sold collateral debt swaps. A buyer pays a premium to a seller for a swap to guarantee an asset’s value. If an asset “insured” by a swap falls in value, the seller of the swap is supposed to make the owner of the swap whole. The purchaser of a swap is not required to own the asset in order to contract for a guarantee of its value. Therefore, as many people could purchase as many swaps as they wished on the same asset. Thus, the total value of the swaps greatly exceeds the value of the assets.*

The next step is for holders of the swaps to short the asset in order to drive down its value and collect the guarantee. As the issuers of swaps were not required to reserve against them, and as there is no limit to the number of swaps, the payouts could easily exceed the net worth of the issuer.

This was the most shameful and most mindless form of speculation. Gamblers were betting hands that they could not cover. The US regulators fled their posts. The American financial institutions abandoned all integrity. As a consequence, American financial institutions and rating agencies are trusted nowhere on earth.

The US government should never have used billions of taxpayers’ dollars to pay off swap bets as it did when it bailed out the insurance company AIG. This was a stunning waste of a vast sum of money. The federal government should declare all swap agreements to be fraudulent contracts, except for a single swap held by the owner of the asset. Simply wiping out these fraudulent contracts would remove the bulk of the vast overhang of “troubled” assets that threaten financial markets.

The billions of taxpayers’ dollars spent buying up subprime derivatives were also wasted. The government did not need to spend one dime. All government needed to do was to suspend the mark-to-market rule. This simple act would have removed the solvency threat to financial institutions by allowing them to keep the derivatives at book value until financial institutions could ascertain their true values and write them down over time.

Taxpayers, equity owners, and the credit standing of the US government are being ruined by financial shysters who are manipulating to their own advantage the government’s commitment to mark-to-market and to the “sanctity of contracts.” Multi-trillion dollar “bailouts” and bank nationalization are the result of the government’s inability to respond intelligently.

Two more simple acts would have completed the rescue without costing the taxpayers one dollar: an announcement from the Federal Reserve that it will be lender of last resort to all depository institutions including money market funds, and an announcement reinstating the uptick rule.

The uptick rule was suspended or repealed a couple of years ago in order to permit hedge funds and shyster speculators to rip-off American equity owners. The rule prevented short-selling any stock that did not move up in price during the previous day. In other words, speculators could not make money at others’ expense by ganging up on a stock and short-selling it day after day.

As a former Treasury official, I am amazed that the US government, in the midst of the worst financial crises ever, is content for short-selling to drive down the asset prices that the government is trying to support. No bailout or stimulus plan has any hope until the uptick rule is reinstated…

Tuesday, March 02, 2010 Family

The kids are insulting each other’s mother and then apologizing to me.

Saturday, February 27, 2010 Bad Mood Dude, Family

I wasn’t going to write about this because it’s just gross, but it’s starting to sound a little funny, and we’re kicked out of the house for three hours while the open house is going on. We’re at my ex’s house. Hannah Montana is on in one room, and Mario in the other. I’m hunkered in a corner waiting it all out.

So, police tape. I SO WANTED to block off half my house today to keep anyone from wandering back there because I thought there was no way I could make it livable again.

You see, at around two a.m. I heard a child get up and use my bathroom. Yes the other one is still not functional. Shut up. About ten minutes later, I heard sounds in the other bathroom and got worried. There shouldn’t be anything going on in there except baths, and that was NOT water running.

I know I exaggerate for humor but I swear to all that is good and crunchy I am not stretching one syllable. There was no way to get down the hall or into the bathroom without stepping in it. It was UNBELIEVABLE. Just like those cartoons where someone leans in to coo at a baby and the baby fire-hoses him with spit-up. There was a lot of effort going into controlling the fire hose, but it looked like a child actually holding a fire hose and being whipped around by the force.

By the time I skated in there, there was no place to focus other than the little two-gallon metal trash container, and it wasn’t going to hold much more. I just didn’t know what to do or how I was going to get out of there and across the valuable Gabbeh runner between the kitchen and me. No matter. First order of business: wait it out and then deposit child into hot, sudsy bath. When I was sure it was in remission, I stuck my feet one by one into the tub and tiptoed along the tops of the baseboards until I was out of the swamp.

Ok. paper towels, new roll. Tilex. Swiffer mop. Bucket. Oil soap. HazMat suit.

Good gravy, I’ve cleaned up some messes but this was—I know I’ve said this—UNBELIEVABLE. And I couldn’t mutter or swear or I’d further offend my already mortified child.

One hour later—ONE HOUR—I’d cleaned that bathroom like I’ve never cleaned anything before. Walls, baseboards, tiles, grout, you name it. I finally fished my baby out of the tub and into bed. Then I went back for one more sweep.

This morning, It looked and smelled great! Yipee! I win! But wait… something… crap there was still something somewhere. I just couldn’t figure out where.

And then I decided to re-enact it. I went into the bedroom and closed the door. Bingo. The first obstacle. It was ALL OVER the inside of the door. I’m guessing that was the first barrier. Then there was the turn into the bathroom, slipping in the mess, then the closed toilet, then the spin around to hit the 2-gallon decorative waste can. That’s when I walked (slid) in. Mystery solved.

And just enough time to set it right before we left and let the realtors do their thing.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010 Family, Momversation

Dating is a precarious enterprise.  You might meet a man, date him for three blissed-filled months, and then the bloom falls off the rose… and the man is out of your life.  It’s difficult enough for an adult to handle the ups and downs of relationships, but for kids, meeting the boyfriend too soon can create huge problems.  Suddenly, their new best friend (and potential father figure) Bill is never seen again.  Or maybe John seemed wonderful until he was a jerk to your teenage son… and what child needs a jerk in his life?  So how do you know when it’s the right time for your boyfriend and your children to meet?  Mindy Roberts of The Mommy Blog asks our panelists and guest Maria Young of Immoral Matriarch, “When do you let your kids meet your new man?

How do you introduce your kids to your new significant other?  When is the right time?  And do you have any horror stories?  Join the Momversation by commenting on the episode.

Thursday, February 18, 2010 Family

Just heard from a friend: Please tune into Ewan McGregor’s live broadcast on Regis and Kelly this Friday Feb/19th. Ewan is a spokesman and fundraiser for UNICEF, The United Nations Children’s Fund, and has been spearheading relief efforts within the U.S. and abroad to help the organization. Please assist if you’re able. You can learn more at UNICEF.ORG!

Thursday, February 18, 2010 Family

Here it is! If you know of someone looking in the Los Gatos/Bay Area, CA for a GREAT house to raise a family in, or entertain, this is perfect. One of those great kitchens to which everyone seems to gravitate at parties. Fab paint throughout. Bitchin’ wisteria that covers the whole back pergola over a dining area.

See for yourself—the virtual tour.

As you know, I’m motivated and might be extra flexible if you say you saw it on The Mommy Blog! Bonus: the master bath has to be gutted and remodeled… wouldn’t you love to get to pick what goes in it? Here’s a chance to decorate it yourself!

Monday, February 15, 2010 Bad Mood Dude, Family

I’m up again at the crack of six to start the day, hauled ten bins to the POD, swept up an orchid I kicked across the room last night in sheer frustration and exhaustion, and started making coffee.

I’m doing that thousand-yard stare out the window over the sink when this… clown…car? Pulls up in front of the house. Huh, could be lost. No, they are looking right at me, with the water running over the top of the coffee pot in my disbelief. I opened to door because, really, I needed to hear this.

“We’re here to take measurements for the termite company.” He was actually carrying a measuring wheel, so I shrugged and said have at it, and then went back to have another look at the car. It was a mini-compact-wee-car with brightly appliqued side advertising for—I kid you not—Animal petting for parties, a logo for Kiddieworld, and another I didn’t catch before they drove off, but I sure hope it had something to do with termites because that would be the all-time champion side-of-the-car business sticker. I did notice the slogan: “Three businesses to serve your needs!” Well, I now need a drink. Does that thing have a tap of Jaeger in the dash?

Now that I’ve delivered that last up-to-the-ceiling carload of stuff to my cousin, including a life-sized black Spidey-doll and a 40 of Malt Liquor, there are only a few things left that I’ve been storing for people. Mr. X needs to pick up his bike, battery jumper, some art, and a suede jacket I was sorely tempted to “forget” was his. It’s very nice. Trouble is, he’s thrown his back out and my bloody, battered hands can barely close to carry things (and you should see how much correcting I’m doing as I type along) so we have a Mexican standoff. Either he’s got to come get everything or I’m going to have to load up my car again and take it to him.

And I got an email from the Realtor this morning asking if I was ready for our exciting! Week! Ahead! Depending on the definition of “ready” I have sterilized the children’s rooms and most of mine, the other rooms just need a final bulldoze—I was literally using my forearm to sweep things off surfaces into huge rubber bins last night—so we can stage the furniture. I’m beginning to wonder how we’re going to live here. I mean, we still live here, am I right? Only, now it doesn’t feel like it and I’m tempted to go rent another place before this one sells so we can relax. And yes, I’m aware of the added expense, but as long as I have to tent the house and tear out the entire Master Bath, there’s not much point in staying, is there?

So. Checklist. Today: housing inspector and staging. Tuesday: In-house Realtor tour. Wednesday: virtual tour photographer from Sacramento. Thursday and Friday I contemplate my navel. Saturday and Sunday: open house. The following Wednesday: All-out Realtor tour. Must remember to move smelly shoe bin to garage. And sweep up in there.

There had better be a good lump of cash at the end of all this, because I will need it for meds and recovery. And massages. And you know, maybe I should just take everyone away for the summer and rent a vacation house for a couple months until we can come back fresh. And then someone will just give us a new house out of the kindness of their hearts and maybe the rest of my family might even want to know where we’ll be living. Haven’t heard from anyone outside my mom and stepdad about the move, I dunno, maybe it’s not as big a deal as it seems. Or maybe I’m feeling petulant. Probably the latter.

Coffee!

Sunday, February 14, 2010 Family

Andrew is good to go, but looks like he’s getting a little impatient waiting for Lola to finish putting her face on.

Me? Just got back from Target where I dropped another hundred dollars on bins. I’m rockin’ the living room and kitchen tonight. No one should live anywhere longer than three years. Too much STUFF.