struggles with semantics

Today, a few English phrases and terms I don't really like and why:

• "Screaming Bloody Murder": As I have been making a lot of new friends with little babies, we of course complain about our babies' crying, and I hear this phrase many many many times during a single get together. I just don't really think I like it. I mean, imagine your exclamation if you were witnessing a manslaughter or being attacked yourself, versus your exclamation if you were very hungry. I just think they are different. Blood-curling versus simply uncomfortable? I've been making a habit not to use this phrase, since I just don't think it applies to a tiny baby. Wesley sure can wail, but not like Hitchcock's Psycho or anything.

• "Binky" or "Plugger": I just don't like these words. They just rub me the wrong way, I don't know why. I refuse to use them to describe a pacifier. I have a friend who calls it a "paci" and that is cool with me. I call it a pacifier or a sucker. Where did "binky" come from anyway??

• "Glass Ceiling": OK, now this term, it makes sense. It's a good analogy. Just don't use it 15 times in your quote in the New York Times. "Blah blah blah glass ceiling, blah blah blah glass ceiling, blach blah blah glass ceiling," OK I GET IT! We will be shattering a glass ceiling! I recommend minimal use. I must say that it's interesting to note that whoever wins this election, history will be made. I think that was part of McCain's plan.

• "Pick Your Brain": The problem with this is that there is no other way to say it, besides "I'd like to ask your opinion on something." "Pick your brain" is so much simpler. Yet I imagine myself with tweezers picking lint off of your sticky brain tissue, and it's just disturbing. So I try not to use this one as well.

That's all for now. Any you guys can't stand?

donate a treadmill to my cause?

Yesterday, I got a letter in the mail from my gym, 24-Hour Fitness. Since I joined the gym in January 2007 -- yes, I was a New Year's resolution joiner -- my quality of life has increased. I feel so much better about myself when I exercise. I attribute my relatively easy pregnancy and delivery to the fact that I exercised regularly during pregnancy. Of course it tapered off toward the end, but I was on the elliptical machine just 4 days before Wesley was born.

When I joined, I got an "all clubs" membership. The membership counselor told me I could go to any gym in the world (important later), and that was pretty exciting. If I did go to Jamaica on vacation, I don't know if I'd want to work out, but I had the option. I used the gym in Everett, Wash. (my "home gym") and the gym in Seattle. Then came Wesley and maternity leave, so I "froze" my membership. I was mapping out my plan to get back to the gym, when this letter came in the mail.

I knew they were planning to open a new fancy gym elsewhere in Everett. I figured out the new gym would be nowhere near where I live, so I ignored the prominently displayed posters and bulletins. The Everett gym is a bit outdated and hokey, but whatever. I take pilates classes and use the elliptical and call it good. My gym is called a "24-Hour Fitness Sport" club. There are wimpier clubs, "Express" clubs, but the Sport is the cool club, with a pool.

Well. The new fancy-pants club is a "Super Sport" club which is even cooler. But, like I said, I don't care because I'm not driving 20 minutes to get there. Except, the letter in the mail tells me, they are closing my gym because the new gym is better, and if I want to upgrade my membership to visit the new gym I can pay $10 more a month.

WHAT? Totally ridiculous.

1. I have an "all clubs" membership, so this doesn't apply to me, right? Wrong. I have an "all clubs SPORT" membership. I think 24-Hour Fitness restructured the classification of their gyms, and back in '07 (so so so long ago), the "all clubs Sport" was all I needed since most gyms were those. But now there are new fancier clubs popping up like weeds. And I have to upgrade to an "all clubs Super Sport" to use them. Baloney!
2. Why close the dinky gym? The way I see it, they are FORCING me to upgrade.

Luckily for me, I can bypass all this madness since I live halfway between the Lynnwood gym (a Sport, thanks to the blessings of heaven) and the now-defunct Everett gym, so I can just use the Lynnwood gym. But what about my pilates class? That enticing kickboxing class? Everyone's favorite stair-stepper in the corner? Things of the past.

I'm just disturbed by all this. GRR! I'll use the Lynnwood gym and be fine with it (or else I'll save my dues money and buy myself an elliptical and some pilates DVDs), but the principle of the matter is just so unnerving. Why close the dinky gym? Let the snobs who need the new equipment (or the folks who live next door to the hot new gym) go be super sporty, and leave the rest of us in peace.

My boss' gym in downtown Seattle closed down, too. She went in on a Wednesday and saw a sign saying they were closing on Friday. Her gym was also a little outdated, with '80s decor or whatever, but it was still a decent gym. Her theory was they closed so all the people who have had memberships there for years and years, i.e., "grandfather" members with low dues, were now forced out. She speculates a new gym will go in the same spot in a few months, offering her a membership for twice what she paid. Kinda like what's happening to me.

My dad likes to complain about what he calls "back-door" price increases. Case in point:

What you see here is the new container of Edy's (or Dreyer's) ice cream. Breyer's is doing the same thing. Back in 2002, they went from 2 quarts (a half gallon) to 1.75 quarts -- without changing the price -- and as of June, they are rolling down to 1.5 quarts. Again, without changing the price. Does this totally bug anyone else??? If you didn't read the size of the container or read it in the paper, you wouldn't know. It's a deliberate back-door price increase.

And, since I'm in the mood to vent, what is the deal with The Seattle Times? They increase their home delivery prices every 3 to 6 months. I hate it. If they were to increase their price by $2 once a year, I'd say "ok, they have to increase their prices. I get it." But instead, they increase their prices by 50 cents FOUR TIMES A YEAR. Does that strike anyone else as odd?

Ahh money. We could probably complain all day about different things. These three all hit me at once and I felt like I was going to topple over from sheer frustration. I mean, messing with a girl's ice cream? Who does that and gets away with it?

with all the gaining, gain wisdom

I heard once that everyone should hold the following jobs at least once in his/her life:

• Telemarketer (or some kind of job that requires you to call people unsolicited)
• Grocery store clerk
• Waiter/waitress

I feel successful because, ta da! I have done all those things.

I think this all started since the primaries were last week. I had a good friend call last Sunday, and I answered the phone all suspicious-like, since I doubted it was actually a real person. I thought for sure it was someone from the state Democratic committee or someone telling me to approve the levy or someone telling me not to forget to vote (how could I forget? You call me every 6 seconds!) My friend was a bit offended that I was wary of her call, and I reassured her, "oh, because I didn't think you'd be someone I actually wanted to talk to. But you are!"

PLUS, for some reason, some company keeps calling asking Shanester to do a phone survey. He says no every time, and they seriously are still calling every day.

I love phone surveys, I do. The only problem is that when you complete one survey, your name is put on this whitelist of "easy suckers" and sold to every other phone survey company, and they call relentlessly. Shane has a tendency to be a little mean-spirited to the survey people, and he says, "stop calling me at home and get a real job!" I take offense to that, since it's nothing personal when they call you, they are merely doing their jobs, but he says otherwise. When we were in college, Shane had a job at a phone-survey-caller, and he says he is thankful for people who were rude to him on the phone, since it caused him to hate his job, quit, do well in his education, and get a real job. He says if everyone was nice to him, he would still be doing phone surveys. I say he's full of baloney.

I had to do phone surveys for a couple of my classes at BYU, and it was just awful. We had to use this "table of random digits" or something, which meant I had a page full of numbers. Column 1 was the page of the phone book I'd turn to, Column 2 was the number I'd count down from the top, and then I'd call that person. It was a "truly random" survey. And people would ask me over and over, "how did you get this number?" Since I was doing the survey for school, people were mostly nice to me, but I hated it. Although, it encouraged me to be nice to phone survey people, didn't it?

As for the other jobs, I also was a grocery store checker. It was awesome. Even today, I wish I could bag my own stuff at the grocery stores since the guys there seldom do a good job. When I see someone doing a good job, I really compliment them. Tetris people, tetris. If you've played tetris on your Nintendo, you know how to bag groceries. Be smart about it! Doing that job gave me insight into the world of grocery stores, which every single one of us frequents. To this day, I try to pre-sort my groceries on the belt so the cold stuff gets bagged together, the boxes get bagged together, etc., since that is what I'd do as a checker.

I also was a waitress. It was a freaking awesome job. Waiting tables teaches you to multi-task, remember details, put on a happy face when you really don't want to, deal with all kinds of people, and work hard on your feet for long hours. I loved it. I'm totally a social person, so I had a blast. I even had a friend who was a super amazing server (that's the PC term), and he told me once he always had low self esteem and decided to become a server to get out of his shell. He was amazing, and was really good with people. Waiting tables was good for him! I'd probably still be doing it, but the 8-to-5, M-F desk job -- not having to request weekends off -- is so so appealing. (There will always be a special place in my heart for the Olive Garden. As its menu changes and the dishes I knew and loved and memorized are phased out, a part of me is quite sad.)

Making phone calls, you learn how it feels to be on the other end of the survey. Bagging groceries, you learn how it feels to be the person sweating up a storm scanning 55 items per minute while the customer in line stares at you. Waiting tables, you learn how it feels to get a 10% tip when you worked really really hard and brought them extra napkins and cleaned up their kid's spaghetti embedded in the carpet.

I hope you can look at your life and say your jobs provided you valuable insight. I'm glad I had the experience doing the tough jobs as a teenager and working my way through college. I think I'm a better person because of it, really.

Although that doesn't necessary mean I'll keep my cool when November comes around and I get more of those election calls... urgh. But I do tip 20%, if the server keeps my drink filled.

hits too close to home

I'm upset today. I won't be posting any links in this entry, but I want you to understand why I'm so upset. There's been quite a bit of coverage in the press lately about the man who kidnapped Sasha and Dylan Groene and abused them (then killed Dylan), there's been coverage lately about a huge child pornography sting and how even law enforcement officers were caught collecting and distributing, there's been coverage lately about a baby born at home, in need of care, yet left for dead by her parent.

I'm a mother now. These things literally bring me to tears. I cannot fathom anyone hurting a child like that. It's so wrong. They are children. They need us. They trust us. For someone to betray that trust and hurt them is almost unforgivable. I don't know if I could forgive if anything happened to my baby.

Your perspective really changes when you have a little one of your own. He is just so precious. All I can say is that these stories, these people, make me sick.

don't know the answer to this one

An interesting article in the Seattle Times yesterday talked about savers being losers in today's tough market. It was interesting to read, since I could relate to it. I personally haven't been all that "scared" about the collapse of the housing industry or the rise in gas prices or the current state of inflation, and this article kind of made me think about why and how I should feel about it.

It says:

Two giant mortgage companies get into hot water over risky investments. The government steps in to throw them a lifeline should they need it.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans buy homes more expensive than they can afford. Congress approves a rescue package.

Troubles erupt at a Wall Street investment firm that made bad bets on mortgage investments. The Federal Reserve steps in and provides financial backing for the company's takeover.

Meanwhile, tens of millions of people pay their mortgages on time, don't max out their credit cards and put money into retirement funds. They may even save a little extra on the side.

In return, they get rates on their savings that don't even keep up with inflation. They also are witnessing their nest eggs shrinking as the value of their homes plummets and the stock market tumbles.

Policymakers in Washington, D.C., seem more focused on rescuing those who behave badly by putting at risk taxpayers who've played by the rules and shunned the get-rich-quick schemes of Wall Street croupiers.

Hmmm, so since I'm not an idiot, I get rewarded with the short end of the stick? Seriously folks, that is what's happening. These companies/people have made risky investments because they thought the market could sustain it, then they got in trouble because the market couldn't, and now the federal government -- MY tax dollars -- are bailing them out.

We bought a condo (not a house) because we figured we could afford it on one income in case something were to happen, oh like, we had a baby or broke a leg. We got a 30-year fixed mortgage, not a 5-year fixed that rolled into an ARM or an interest-only mortgage, like some people recommended we get, because we wanted to be safe. I had a "friend" who thought I was so stupid for not getting an interest-only mortgage. He reamed me when I told him we finally bought a place and what mortgage we got, since "we'd be sorry" and "real estate has never depreciated" and on and on. Who's laughing now?

Well, maybe he is. If his investments were too risky, maybe he's getting bailed out by the government, which is helping all kinds of overextended people.

Additionally, we save money every month, I shop with coupons, I go to second-hand stores, I never buy groceries unless they are on sale, and on and on. Some friends (no mean to offend!) were talking about baby shoes the other day and how they pay between $17 and $30 for a pair of baby shoes! Oh my gosh! I rarely pay that much for shoes for ME, and I don't grow out of them in six months. They must be some great shoes. (What is the going rate for baby shoes anyway? Any thoughts? I am still new at this.)

Plus, we have a decently fuel-efficient car, I took the bus to work, I just all-around try to be smart about my money, my investments, my savings, my future.

But, since life isn't fair, the companies/people who don't try to be smart, and instead try to make a quick buck, get a government bail-out. Boo.

I don't mean to be a party pooper or overly stingy. I just think people need to act responsibly and not expect the government to take care of them with they make dumb decisions. Some people genuinely do need help, and I'm all for taking care of them. Perhaps it's a family who could barely afford a home and because of the interest rates were finally able to get into their first place. Good for them; we should help if they need it. But don't be alarmed if I find out they chose a 3,000-square-foot McMansion with a master bath bigger than my condo and I'm not nearly as sympathetic.

So, what is the answer to this one? Elect leaders who don't support helping people? That doesn't sound right. Not pay my taxes? Not likely. Just get mad, vent about it in the blog, and move on with my life? Probably.

happy happy joy joy

The coolest thing happened today. We woke up and I fed Wesley, then I took a shower while Shane watched him. Whenever I get out of the shower, part of me expects to hear wailing in the background, springing my "mom to the rescue" instincts into action. But, no wailing today. I got all ready and went to the living room, where Shane and Wesley were playing. I asked Shane how things were, and he said "great!" I asked if Wesley was happy, and Shane said, "he's the happiest I've ever seen him!"

It's so sweet that he's smiling and starting to laugh. I love his little personality. We're so lucky to be his parents. I'm glad I get to play with him every day, and Shane gets to experience it too on nights and weekends. (Would that be a "cell phone father"? Although I really appreciate him bringing home the bacon so I'm not complaining).

Also, in unrelated news, another fish committed suicide last night, on the cusp of another one dying of natural causes this past week. For those of you keeping score at home, two fish remain. Sadness.

we're all a little loony....

I'm FINALLY done. Baby is 12 weeks old on Monday, and his nursery is finally decorated. Yay. It all started with the Looney Tunes clock (in the upcoming pictures), which we got from Shane's sister when she moved once and decided she didn't want it anymore. I bet she didn't realize it would be the first element in our baby's themed nursery. Thanks, Bonnie!

I feel a bit like Wandering Nana in this post; she puts up pictures of her decorations at Christmastime. They're always so fabulous! And since I'm so proud of myself and my themed nursery, here it is:

Exhibit A, sweet Wesley on his baby Looney Tunes sheets. I found them on eBay, I got two of them, so we always have one in reserve.

This diaper stacker rocks! It was a gift from someone at Church who knew I was going with a Looney Tunes theme. I love the fabric. I totally wanted "grown-up" Looney Tunes, you know, with the deep blues and reds and yellows, instead of the pastel "baby" Looney Tunes. So this diaper stacker is great. I actually found a stacker on eBay to match the crib sheets above, but I didn't really know what a diaper stacker was when I was pregnant and I forgot about the auction and didn't get it. It's probably a good thing, since I got this one as a gift and the fabric is even better.


The mobile was a Craigslist find. It is like baby magic. No matter how fussy Wesley is, every time we turn it on and he sees the little guys moving 'round and 'round, he is just mesmerized. It's unreal. We love this thing.


Another eBay find. I have a switchplate cover and two plug covers. The cool thing about them is that when I'm sitting on the futon in Wesley's room, I can see the switchplate in the same line of vision as the diaper stacker. The blue is so harmonious. I love it!

The wall was my big project. We had the clock first, but I knew I wanted something more.

On the shelf are eight Looney Tunes finger puppets from eBay. Evidently they were sold at Starbucks on big stick candy canes or something. I bid on a bunch of auctions before I won them. Evidently they are collectors' items. Who woulda knew? I'm actually tempted to cut off the tags. I mean, they are for a baby. I don't think they'll be kept in mint condition.

Also on the shelf is a Looney Tunes photo album, which I have had for years and years. Currently it only has three pictures in it, pictures of us in the hospital with Wesley. I think I'll fill it with pictures of our family, so when he is learning about family we can flip through it and say "who's that?" "Grandma!" or whatever.

Now the shelf...

The shelf and picture frame I made! Well, kind of, I bought a wooden shelf and wooden picture frame. I painted them white, put on Looney Tunes stickers (also bought from eBay!), and decopaged the shelf. Decopage just keeps the stickers on and gives it a nice shiny finish. There are 15 different Looney Tunes characters on the shelf. It turned out so awesome. I'm totally proud of myself. I was hoping to get it done before he was born, but since he was eager to get into the world, taking us by surprise, it didn't get finished until recently.

OK, one more shot...

The bear is from Nicole and the blocks from Keri. I love them! They look great together and go so well with the room and the colors. Keri makes blocks for everyone at Church who has a baby. What a great gift!

Anyway, yay for decorating. Maybe one day, much to everyone's chagrin, I'll do a post detailing my palm tree bathroom?