In my first blog post introducing myself, I mentioned that I wished I had taken the Foods class offerings in high school instead of thinking it was cool to procur a fifth of green Mad Dog and ride up and down the Wood River strip in a convertible with my top off. I look back upon my high school days and think, actually, that the only thing that I really use in my work from home job is typing. (And actually, the only thing I used in my corporate jobs was typing as well.)
College algebra? Never used it but someone did use the word "proportions" the other day and I wanted to punch them in the throat.
Honors English Lit?: Other than being damn proud of my A+ paper on the Grapes of Wrath junior year, I haven't really extolled the greatness of Paradise Lost lately. (Although I did go back and read Animal Farm last fall.)
German?: Sprechen Sie Deutsch???? That's about all I remember of that crap.
Computer Science? It was the early 90s. Computer science consisted of using old Apples from the mid-80s to make smiley faces out of code. I haven't really a use for this now.
P.E.?- I haven't been to any hodowns lately, so that square dancing wasn't really that helpful in the dating scene.
So what would be useful to me as a 34 year old wife and mother who freelance writes from home?
Foods 1, Foods 2 and Foods 3: I'm not the best cook in the world, but when you are stuck at home all day with a baby that doesn't need to be out every night at Buffalo Wild Wings or the best Italian place in St. Louis (shameless plug for Ricardo's) you surely don't want to look at another salmon patty or box of pasta salad. I wish I would have learned to cook and the correct way to hold a knife.
Home Improvement: Yes. I think there should be a home improvement course in every high school and you do not get your diploma until you can stand at the front of home depot and tell every lost soul exactly what aisle their item of choice is and write a beautiful paper on caulk. This course would eliminate lost souls in Home Depot in 20 years.
Bodily Functions and Cleaning: For those wishing to reproduce someday there needs to be a guide on putting on the hazmat suit and detailing every bodily fluid and soil that will come your way as a parent.
Poorhouse Economics: Enough with the stockmarket economic classes. I want students to have a class where their arm gets broken and they have to deal with the hospital to pay the bills and still buy the following items for the week: cheese, laundry detergent, diarrhea medicine, and cat food. When they cannot afford these items, students will learn ingenuity involving coupons, sales, generics, and stealing toilet paper from rest stops.
Ballroom dance: It may sound weird, but how many of us were caught at a wedding (either ours or someone else's) and felt mildly embarassed because we still dance like we're back in 8th grade listening to Joey McIntyre and the rest of the New Kids sing "Please Don't Go Girl."?
Lastly, as much as I hate to admit it and as much as my mother is loathe to admit, the most helpful of all some days is the consolation that once upon a time there was that quiet convertible ride and a bottle of green Mad Dog. But I don't think they even make it anymore.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Sunday, May 15, 2011
A Thrifty Woman's Rant on Why Extreme Couponing Needs to Go!
Extreme Couponing is sweeping the nation and Midwestern housewives haven't gone this crazy for something like this since Zumba came out. The TLC hit show is pulling in major viewers in the multi-millions each week, and success can also be measured by the fact that I have at least 4 friends on facebook that post their deals and pictures of loot each week. Hell, I am actually enjoying the coupon process more and sit in wait for the paper boy on coupon day so I too can get deodorant for $.25 and a box of Kotex for half price. Nothing rocks my world more than frugality. Nothing.
However, I've noticed a small glitch in the system, and the fact is that the show is really starting to piss me off.
#1- It may be obvious, but some of these people are greedy arseholes. Sometimes, I'm not sure if I'm watching Extreme Couponing or if the channel is mistakenly running an episode of Hoarders. The other night, a man studying to join the ministry paid $0.00 for a butt load of stuff and then promptly gave his whole stockpile away. That is the true spirit of the show if you ask me. Even norml couponers in the heartland give their stuff away that they score for free. For the love of Christ, the post office runs food drives and I donated a boatload of cheapo scores because I just don't have the room for it. Don't get me wrong. I understand stocking up on your child's favorite baby food when it's on sale and when you have a corresponding coupon. That is a success. But when you have a year's worth of diapers and you don't even have a child, you are just greedy. Donate it and free up the space for free cereal.
#2- Stores are actually starting to change their coupon policies because of this show. I live outside of St. Louis, MO and no store here doubles coupons except for Schuncks and they only double to $.40 now. People are emptying out stores and stores are adapting. For the woman that has consistently used coupons for years before it was "cool" to save money at the register, I am a little peeved that I now have to have the lenient coupon policies bent to accomodate some crazy sow who wants to buy 75 packages of bacon for $.45.
#3- It's not realistic. I have a husband, baby, and two cats. I also write freelance and title edit. I don't have time to do more than cut out my coupons, grab a few web coupons, and make a list using the store sale ads. I just don't. All of these people out there get so impressed with a guy buying 400 bottles of Powerade. Great! But you know what? There are deals like that every day of the week all around the world. So what? He spends $.50 for the whole trip. However, I'd be much more impressed if he purchased his whole family's two week grocery list complete with pork chops, beer, and baby formula. (Which brings up another point! I'd be mad impressed with an episode where a mom buys 18 cans of formula and 12 boxes of Huggies for $.88, but you just aren't going to see it because it's so much easier to just get the obligatory 800 bottles of Powerade.) Man cannot live by Powerade alone. I understand that the idea is to build up a stockpile so you eventually have variety. However, if the shit comes down during some type of nuclear event, anthropologists hundreds of years from now will scratch their heads regarding why the family in one house needed 4000 disposable razors that did them no good.
I've cut my family budget in half just by purchasing items on sale combined with coupons. That, to me, is much more impressive than going in and getting 400 packages of dental floss that will sit in my basement at the price of $.20.
#4- My biggest beef is also the fact that the stock isn't there anymore. Go to Walgreens on a Sunday afternoon and you will find empty shelves for any item that had a coupon in the paper. I even saw two ladies fighting over the last bottle of Old Spice body wash. I get that they want their husbands to smell like the hot guy in the commercials, but is it really worth knocking someone's glasses off their face to save $.80? Not only that, but I have serious guilt if I'm the first one on the scene. For example, there was a coupon for free pantyliners in the paper last week. So I went to get my free pantyliners and there was nothing on the shelf at one store. Cleaned out. I went to Target and there were 2 boxes left. I took one. Only one when I could have easily cleaned out the stock and taken both. Why did I leave the other? A- Who needs pantyliners that bad? B- What if somebody was in desperate need of pantyliners (a pregnant woman comes to mind) and she goes to the only store she can get to before some kind of deadline where she has to be at her kid's school parent teacher conference. What happens? There is not a box on the shelf.
There's a certain place in hell for the person that takes the last box of pantyliners, folks. I'm sticking to that!
However, I've noticed a small glitch in the system, and the fact is that the show is really starting to piss me off.
#1- It may be obvious, but some of these people are greedy arseholes. Sometimes, I'm not sure if I'm watching Extreme Couponing or if the channel is mistakenly running an episode of Hoarders. The other night, a man studying to join the ministry paid $0.00 for a butt load of stuff and then promptly gave his whole stockpile away. That is the true spirit of the show if you ask me. Even norml couponers in the heartland give their stuff away that they score for free. For the love of Christ, the post office runs food drives and I donated a boatload of cheapo scores because I just don't have the room for it. Don't get me wrong. I understand stocking up on your child's favorite baby food when it's on sale and when you have a corresponding coupon. That is a success. But when you have a year's worth of diapers and you don't even have a child, you are just greedy. Donate it and free up the space for free cereal.
#2- Stores are actually starting to change their coupon policies because of this show. I live outside of St. Louis, MO and no store here doubles coupons except for Schuncks and they only double to $.40 now. People are emptying out stores and stores are adapting. For the woman that has consistently used coupons for years before it was "cool" to save money at the register, I am a little peeved that I now have to have the lenient coupon policies bent to accomodate some crazy sow who wants to buy 75 packages of bacon for $.45.
#3- It's not realistic. I have a husband, baby, and two cats. I also write freelance and title edit. I don't have time to do more than cut out my coupons, grab a few web coupons, and make a list using the store sale ads. I just don't. All of these people out there get so impressed with a guy buying 400 bottles of Powerade. Great! But you know what? There are deals like that every day of the week all around the world. So what? He spends $.50 for the whole trip. However, I'd be much more impressed if he purchased his whole family's two week grocery list complete with pork chops, beer, and baby formula. (Which brings up another point! I'd be mad impressed with an episode where a mom buys 18 cans of formula and 12 boxes of Huggies for $.88, but you just aren't going to see it because it's so much easier to just get the obligatory 800 bottles of Powerade.) Man cannot live by Powerade alone. I understand that the idea is to build up a stockpile so you eventually have variety. However, if the shit comes down during some type of nuclear event, anthropologists hundreds of years from now will scratch their heads regarding why the family in one house needed 4000 disposable razors that did them no good.
I've cut my family budget in half just by purchasing items on sale combined with coupons. That, to me, is much more impressive than going in and getting 400 packages of dental floss that will sit in my basement at the price of $.20.
#4- My biggest beef is also the fact that the stock isn't there anymore. Go to Walgreens on a Sunday afternoon and you will find empty shelves for any item that had a coupon in the paper. I even saw two ladies fighting over the last bottle of Old Spice body wash. I get that they want their husbands to smell like the hot guy in the commercials, but is it really worth knocking someone's glasses off their face to save $.80? Not only that, but I have serious guilt if I'm the first one on the scene. For example, there was a coupon for free pantyliners in the paper last week. So I went to get my free pantyliners and there was nothing on the shelf at one store. Cleaned out. I went to Target and there were 2 boxes left. I took one. Only one when I could have easily cleaned out the stock and taken both. Why did I leave the other? A- Who needs pantyliners that bad? B- What if somebody was in desperate need of pantyliners (a pregnant woman comes to mind) and she goes to the only store she can get to before some kind of deadline where she has to be at her kid's school parent teacher conference. What happens? There is not a box on the shelf.
There's a certain place in hell for the person that takes the last box of pantyliners, folks. I'm sticking to that!
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Missing It
I don't mean work. But do any moms out there ever miss the spontaneous adventure of life before marriage and children? I know. I know. I used to complain that I didn't have a husband or children when I didn't have them. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't change anything about my life now. I've had my adventure. I've had the fun. But let me give you an example of what I mean.
After a day of poop up the back syndrome and coupon Thursday at my local Shop N Save, I am getting to go out tonight with two of my favorite girlfriends to the St. Louis premiere of Water for Elephants. This night out calls for the perfect handbag. I have a great Coach bag that my sister gave me as a gift for being in her wedding, but I can't find it. (I remember putting it somewhere and even thinking to myself, "There is a 90% chance I'll never find this again." Oh well, I'll find it in 8 years time.) So I go rummaging through my handbags that I carried as a single woman.
I finally find the perfect purse for tonight, (a 1920's inspired blag bag with a bird and embroidery on the front for retro effect) and begin the task of clearing it of loose change.
I open it and find the following contents:
1 tube of old lipstick that was NOT purchased at Target or Walmart
2 ticket stubs to a rodeo that cowboy Tim and I went to in 1995 on a date
1 old condom that had an expiration date of August 2006
a receipt from Marley's bar for $29.50 which was not a bad tab for a Wednesday night (which is the only night we were ever really at Marley's so it must have been a Wednesday.)
and
3 quarters
For comparison purposes, I went to my purse now and sifted through to see if I could find anything interesting. I didn't. I found 18 coupons, my wallet, hand sanitizer and a diaper.
Life can really change in 5 years and sometimes old purses can really remind you of the person you used to be.
After a day of poop up the back syndrome and coupon Thursday at my local Shop N Save, I am getting to go out tonight with two of my favorite girlfriends to the St. Louis premiere of Water for Elephants. This night out calls for the perfect handbag. I have a great Coach bag that my sister gave me as a gift for being in her wedding, but I can't find it. (I remember putting it somewhere and even thinking to myself, "There is a 90% chance I'll never find this again." Oh well, I'll find it in 8 years time.) So I go rummaging through my handbags that I carried as a single woman.
I finally find the perfect purse for tonight, (a 1920's inspired blag bag with a bird and embroidery on the front for retro effect) and begin the task of clearing it of loose change.
I open it and find the following contents:
1 tube of old lipstick that was NOT purchased at Target or Walmart
2 ticket stubs to a rodeo that cowboy Tim and I went to in 1995 on a date
1 old condom that had an expiration date of August 2006
a receipt from Marley's bar for $29.50 which was not a bad tab for a Wednesday night (which is the only night we were ever really at Marley's so it must have been a Wednesday.)
and
3 quarters
For comparison purposes, I went to my purse now and sifted through to see if I could find anything interesting. I didn't. I found 18 coupons, my wallet, hand sanitizer and a diaper.
Life can really change in 5 years and sometimes old purses can really remind you of the person you used to be.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Jiggle in My Wiggle
Housewives of the 50s weighed less and ate more. Women got up and made biscuits, eggs and bacon for breakfast instead of having a cup of yogurt and weighed an average of 10-20 lbs. less than we do now. (Depending on what source you look at. Several sources have placed average weight difference in that range.)
Why is that?
Experts have talked about housewives are more active than the career women of the world. I guess I didn't think it was true. I mean, I went to the gym consistently as a career woman. But can a housewife really destroy more calories in a day than a 1 hour spinning class by a career woman?
I've effortlessly lost 10 lbs. of baby weight off since I quit my cubicle job. Why?
Reasons:
1. I don't have to contend with work food days anymore or the nice lady with candy on her desk.
2. I make dinner at night and save enough for leftovers the next day. I don't eat lunch out anymore. Even more helpful, if I do have a hankering for a cheeseburger from a fast food joint, I know I have to bundle my 4-month-old and pack her into the car and get her out, etc. It's not worth it. I'll stick with my leftovers.
3. Laundry day. My husband and I used to do our own laundry. Now I do his and my daughter's laundry which we didn't have before. The result is that I now haul anywhere from 9-11 loads of laundry up and down the steps to the machines every Monday.
4. To be honest, I would let cleaning slide when I worked. It may be once a week or every other week. There is no excuse now. I clean at least once a week and it's much more thorough. Cleaning does actually count as a workout right?
5. Taking care of a little one requires one to bend, stretch, crawl to reach a toy that rolled out of reach. I didn't bend, stretch, or reach much in the cubicle.
6. The opportunites for working out are better. If I know my daughter is going to take a quick nap, I fire up the Wii fit and do some super hula hoop. (Advanced level 10 minutes. That's right suckers!)
7. On nice days, I go for walks and take my daughter. Besides the fact that I feel like I'm playing hooky or something by walking around at 1:00 on sunny weekdays, pushing a stroller with a 14 lb. child in it up hills in the neighborhood is much harder than just a simple carefree walk. I love this time and can't wait for full on spring to come. I love coming in on a weekday after a walk and smelling fresh air on my clothes.
Housewives don't need no stinkin' gym.
Why is that?
Experts have talked about housewives are more active than the career women of the world. I guess I didn't think it was true. I mean, I went to the gym consistently as a career woman. But can a housewife really destroy more calories in a day than a 1 hour spinning class by a career woman?
I've effortlessly lost 10 lbs. of baby weight off since I quit my cubicle job. Why?
Reasons:
1. I don't have to contend with work food days anymore or the nice lady with candy on her desk.
2. I make dinner at night and save enough for leftovers the next day. I don't eat lunch out anymore. Even more helpful, if I do have a hankering for a cheeseburger from a fast food joint, I know I have to bundle my 4-month-old and pack her into the car and get her out, etc. It's not worth it. I'll stick with my leftovers.
3. Laundry day. My husband and I used to do our own laundry. Now I do his and my daughter's laundry which we didn't have before. The result is that I now haul anywhere from 9-11 loads of laundry up and down the steps to the machines every Monday.
4. To be honest, I would let cleaning slide when I worked. It may be once a week or every other week. There is no excuse now. I clean at least once a week and it's much more thorough. Cleaning does actually count as a workout right?
5. Taking care of a little one requires one to bend, stretch, crawl to reach a toy that rolled out of reach. I didn't bend, stretch, or reach much in the cubicle.
6. The opportunites for working out are better. If I know my daughter is going to take a quick nap, I fire up the Wii fit and do some super hula hoop. (Advanced level 10 minutes. That's right suckers!)
7. On nice days, I go for walks and take my daughter. Besides the fact that I feel like I'm playing hooky or something by walking around at 1:00 on sunny weekdays, pushing a stroller with a 14 lb. child in it up hills in the neighborhood is much harder than just a simple carefree walk. I love this time and can't wait for full on spring to come. I love coming in on a weekday after a walk and smelling fresh air on my clothes.
Housewives don't need no stinkin' gym.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Here's Your Birthday Gift
"Here's your birthday gift. I hope you like it because you paid for it."
Those words came out of my mouth the other day when I showed my husband the mini fridge with freezer that I got him for his mancave downstairs. I purchased it online through Upromise to help save for my kid's college but still felt guilty because I technically didn't purchase it did I? I know that I'm a work from home mom now and probably could have purchased it with my editing/writing money, but I paid for it with the money from his paycheck.
Here's the rub:
How do stay at home moms/housewives rationalize buying their spouse gifts for Christmas, birthdays, and anniversaries when the person bringing home the bacon is paying for their own gift? Should I just give some money right back to him and tell him to go pick it out himself?
What the hell do I do if he doesn't like it?
Think about it. If you get an ugly sweater from someone, somewhere in the back of your mind you think, "well at least I didn't pay for it."
Well, if I get my husband something that sucks, he's technically paid for it unless I pull the writing/editing money to pay for it and that's usually designated for something else.
I think I'm also having a hard time with still relying on him for the most part for financial survival. If I had all day to write and edit, that would be one thing. But since I'm wiping a butt (two if you count my own I guess) and doing tummy time 3 times a day, I don't have the luxury of writing ALL day.
In a nutshell, I purchased items for other people for 15 years of my life with my own money. It's very hard being generous with someone else's money especially to that particular person.
This is all so confusing.
Those words came out of my mouth the other day when I showed my husband the mini fridge with freezer that I got him for his mancave downstairs. I purchased it online through Upromise to help save for my kid's college but still felt guilty because I technically didn't purchase it did I? I know that I'm a work from home mom now and probably could have purchased it with my editing/writing money, but I paid for it with the money from his paycheck.
Here's the rub:
How do stay at home moms/housewives rationalize buying their spouse gifts for Christmas, birthdays, and anniversaries when the person bringing home the bacon is paying for their own gift? Should I just give some money right back to him and tell him to go pick it out himself?
What the hell do I do if he doesn't like it?
Think about it. If you get an ugly sweater from someone, somewhere in the back of your mind you think, "well at least I didn't pay for it."
Well, if I get my husband something that sucks, he's technically paid for it unless I pull the writing/editing money to pay for it and that's usually designated for something else.
I think I'm also having a hard time with still relying on him for the most part for financial survival. If I had all day to write and edit, that would be one thing. But since I'm wiping a butt (two if you count my own I guess) and doing tummy time 3 times a day, I don't have the luxury of writing ALL day.
In a nutshell, I purchased items for other people for 15 years of my life with my own money. It's very hard being generous with someone else's money especially to that particular person.
This is all so confusing.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Making it Work One Month Later
I always thought housewives just took care of the kids and did housework while watching "The Young and the Restless." I think that's what a lot of people grow up thinking when they see daytime commercials advertising Spic and Span, diapers and vacuum cleaner bags. I think some of it also stems from the fact that my mom did exactly that. She stayed at home with me when I was little and I don't remember her really taking me many places or doing much except for the random prayer group where I played with the other kids and maybe baking or going to grandma's. I know she made my pants when I was really little, but that's all I really know about her daytime activities. In fact, it's really bad when I can still remember the CBS daytime lineup for Central Standard Time from when I was 3. The Young and the Restless at 11. News at 12. Bold and the Beautiful at 12:30. As the World Turns followed shortly after and then Guiding Light. Maybe she did more. I don't know. I guess I'll have to ask her.
I now know differently about housewives and I know that I handle things a bit differently than my own mother did.
It was initially a big hit to our pockets for me to stay at home with our daughter. My husband and I are both used to just using our own earnings to pay our own personal bills and buy anything we need for personal use. So when I lost my income, we had to reshuffle how we view our monetary world. I now work from home for a couple of hours during the day editing titles for a freelance site while my daughter naps and write a couple of articles during the weekend, but I still need a little ingenuity to make this work sometimes. (I think back to the movie Reality Bites when Winona Ryder's father tells her to show him a little ingenuity when she asks him for money and she uses the gas card he funds to charge other people's gas while they pay her cash.)
I realize now that housewives need to have two master's degrees. The first is in Health and Human Services. This is obvious because we take care of the children, find random objects around the house to disinfect, and get at least one of the following on us each day: Poop, urine, or boogers. I digress.
The second advanced degree is in Economics.
I now need to apologize to those housewives that I assumed did nothing during the day but mop. Let me tell you the first thing I realized in the last month. HOUSEWIVES HAVE TO BE SHARP AS A STEEL BLADE to survive. In addition to working during the day, cleaning, and caring for my child, I now have to do all household monetary procedures. This includes paying ALL bills (not just my personal bills now) and taking care of back insurance claims from my illness a couple of weeks ago when I didn't have my insurance card yet. I have all of the receipts organized along with all of the tax forms, outstanding bills, and statements of bills to pay. I am now responsible for college prep for my daughter in the form of a 529 plan and keeping track of savings. I know every nickel that goes out the door.
Most importantly, I have become a coupon junky. I clip coupons, find them online, save my store coupons that print at the register, hardly ever go somewhere without a coupon, and hoard formula checks from the company like Golum from Lord of the Rings.
This is where that smart thing comes in handy. I've learned to shop so smart, my bill is now about 30% to 40% lower than what it was. I look at sale bills and actually plan a menu around sale items and hope I learn to cook it later, then apply coupons to it. I shope at big bulk warehouses, but actually compare to other stores before just assuming they have the same price. For example, Sams Club diapers. I can buy a 200 diaper pack for about $34. Sounds fantastic right? Not when Luvs goes for $16.99 at Target for a box of 108. I can get 16 extra diapers for the same price and they're name brand. Plus, Luvs sent me a coupon. See what I mean? I'm a woman obsessed.
We eat more at home. I usually read about 100 books a year and that has not happened since my daughter has come home. However, I read the hell out of cookbooks and online recipes trying to find something a little more interesting than the typical chicken, rice, veggie combo. This is especially important since we don't go out to each much anymore for various reasons. #1- I need to lose baby weight. #2- It's flu season and I don't like having my daughter out at a restaurant. and #3- It saves money.
So Tori had to learn to cook.
I think I'm doing pretty well given that this is complete foreign territory. Sometimes I view it as some type of quirky anthropological experiment. It's like I'm testing myself to see if I can do this just as well as I could implement a company's Learning Management System, write their standard operating procedures, and deliver a training on a corporate project. It's all about balance I guess.For example, I'm typing this one handed and holding my kid in the other.
As my friend Summer would say, "I'm biting my lip ang giving it hell."
I now know differently about housewives and I know that I handle things a bit differently than my own mother did.
It was initially a big hit to our pockets for me to stay at home with our daughter. My husband and I are both used to just using our own earnings to pay our own personal bills and buy anything we need for personal use. So when I lost my income, we had to reshuffle how we view our monetary world. I now work from home for a couple of hours during the day editing titles for a freelance site while my daughter naps and write a couple of articles during the weekend, but I still need a little ingenuity to make this work sometimes. (I think back to the movie Reality Bites when Winona Ryder's father tells her to show him a little ingenuity when she asks him for money and she uses the gas card he funds to charge other people's gas while they pay her cash.)
I realize now that housewives need to have two master's degrees. The first is in Health and Human Services. This is obvious because we take care of the children, find random objects around the house to disinfect, and get at least one of the following on us each day: Poop, urine, or boogers. I digress.
The second advanced degree is in Economics.
I now need to apologize to those housewives that I assumed did nothing during the day but mop. Let me tell you the first thing I realized in the last month. HOUSEWIVES HAVE TO BE SHARP AS A STEEL BLADE to survive. In addition to working during the day, cleaning, and caring for my child, I now have to do all household monetary procedures. This includes paying ALL bills (not just my personal bills now) and taking care of back insurance claims from my illness a couple of weeks ago when I didn't have my insurance card yet. I have all of the receipts organized along with all of the tax forms, outstanding bills, and statements of bills to pay. I am now responsible for college prep for my daughter in the form of a 529 plan and keeping track of savings. I know every nickel that goes out the door.
Most importantly, I have become a coupon junky. I clip coupons, find them online, save my store coupons that print at the register, hardly ever go somewhere without a coupon, and hoard formula checks from the company like Golum from Lord of the Rings.
This is where that smart thing comes in handy. I've learned to shop so smart, my bill is now about 30% to 40% lower than what it was. I look at sale bills and actually plan a menu around sale items and hope I learn to cook it later, then apply coupons to it. I shope at big bulk warehouses, but actually compare to other stores before just assuming they have the same price. For example, Sams Club diapers. I can buy a 200 diaper pack for about $34. Sounds fantastic right? Not when Luvs goes for $16.99 at Target for a box of 108. I can get 16 extra diapers for the same price and they're name brand. Plus, Luvs sent me a coupon. See what I mean? I'm a woman obsessed.
We eat more at home. I usually read about 100 books a year and that has not happened since my daughter has come home. However, I read the hell out of cookbooks and online recipes trying to find something a little more interesting than the typical chicken, rice, veggie combo. This is especially important since we don't go out to each much anymore for various reasons. #1- I need to lose baby weight. #2- It's flu season and I don't like having my daughter out at a restaurant. and #3- It saves money.
So Tori had to learn to cook.
I think I'm doing pretty well given that this is complete foreign territory. Sometimes I view it as some type of quirky anthropological experiment. It's like I'm testing myself to see if I can do this just as well as I could implement a company's Learning Management System, write their standard operating procedures, and deliver a training on a corporate project. It's all about balance I guess.For example, I'm typing this one handed and holding my kid in the other.
As my friend Summer would say, "I'm biting my lip ang giving it hell."
Friday, January 28, 2011
What About Boob?
Now that I'm a reluctant housewife/stay-at-home mom/work from home mom, I have a bit of guilt about something.
My daughter and I were at our first playgroup on Tuesday and my daughter got hungry towards the end. So I do what any mom would do. I open up the little cooler bag I tote in the diaper bag and mix up a batch of formula. And then I watch in horror as just about every other woman in the playgroup whips out a boob to feed their kid.
I don't mean I was horrified to see nursing in public. Quite the contrary. I was horrified that I wasn't whipping out my boob as if this was some type of twisted grown-up, non-collegiate version of a wet t-shirt contest and the woman with the ripest boob wins.
Let me back up.
I started out breast feeding my daughter. I had great intentions with it. I was going to breast feed for AT LEAST 6 months and everything would be fantastic and I would know she was getting the best nutrition. But coming home from the hospital was a different story. I came home and my daughter wouldn't latch. I tried those Medela nipple shields to no happy result. I contacted LaLeche League for help. I consulted breast feeding specialists all who told me to use the shields. They didn't work and I knew I couldn't have a breast specialist on staff all day every day to hold my boob in one hand and my daughter's head at a certain angle in the other. I was frustrated. My daughter was frustrated and my husband was frustrated. I am a woman who is going to make her own baby food in a couple of weeks using all organic materials for Christ's sake so the thought of formula feeding didn't sit well with me.
I still gave it a college try though. I pumped for 3 hours a day for 8 weeks to give to my daughter and we supplemented with formula. However, 3 hours a day is a lot to be hooked to a dairy machine and then you still have to feed the kid and do other jobs. It's pretty limited to be hooked up to the breast pump. It's not like I can put my pump in a sling and do the dishes. I came home from the hospital and didn't have a drop of formula in the house. So my husband had to go get formula and be worried that he bought the right type. (The best advice I will give any new mom is to always have at least one can or ready to feed bottle of formula in the house just in case because I know of so many moms who had good intentions but had to go do the formula run when they got home.)
To make matters infinitely worse, at week 2, my daughter developed severe reflux and a milk allergy. Enter the soy formula and the great formula throw out of 2010. We went through 6 different formulas trying to find one that didn't end up projectiled across the room on the cat. We finally found one only to have my daycare ( I was still working then) provide a different kind for free. So we switched again. After daycare ended, we tried switching again to a gentle formula. Projectile to the cat.
So back to playgroup and guilt. I felt like the lowest mother in the world. But thankfully I wasn't alone. Another woman must have been feeling the same thing. She tentatively said, "I tried to breastfeed but I couldn't make enough and my baby was losing weight." I think she must have been relieved to see my Tommee Tippee bottle in hand and I think we instantly bonded. I told her I had the opposite problem and I think we realized that between the two of us, we would have had a great wet nurse thing going. The main problem that we have though, is that we are both at home during the day. Shouldn't we devote hours and infinite amounts of time to make breastfeeding work? I can understand a working mom that doesn't have 3 hours a day to pump or have someone help her, but a stay at home mom should be boob feeding exclusively right?
But why am I feeling guilty in the first place? When I sit down and think about it, my child is getting all of the vitamins and minerals she needs and is perfectly healthy and gaining weight ahead of her growth curve. Why is this such a guilt-wrenching topic for so many women? Why is the whole world concerned with our boobs? For God's sake, one week after giving birth, I was trimming the hedge and a neighbor rolls by in her car and rolls down the window and yells "Are you breastfeeding? How is it going? I would love to talk to you about breastfeeding if you get a chance." I just smiled and said I had everything under control, but since when did boobs of a new mom get so much attention? What business is it of hers and why is she talking to me about breastfeeding like she's selling me Amway? "I'd love to talk to you about the benefits of Amway."
I guess what I'm trying to say is that for all the moms out there that can't breastfeed, don't let the boob pushers of the world get to you. Are they out there and are they called breast Nazis by those mothers that are brow beaten for offering Similac instead of teet? You bet. But as long as a child is growing and smiles in the morning when she looks at mommy and has her "I love Mommy" bib on, what is the big deal?
For all the formula feeders, I think we should be proud we gave it a good try and just go on with our lives. Easier said then done, but I'm going to try.
My daughter and I were at our first playgroup on Tuesday and my daughter got hungry towards the end. So I do what any mom would do. I open up the little cooler bag I tote in the diaper bag and mix up a batch of formula. And then I watch in horror as just about every other woman in the playgroup whips out a boob to feed their kid.
I don't mean I was horrified to see nursing in public. Quite the contrary. I was horrified that I wasn't whipping out my boob as if this was some type of twisted grown-up, non-collegiate version of a wet t-shirt contest and the woman with the ripest boob wins.
Let me back up.
I started out breast feeding my daughter. I had great intentions with it. I was going to breast feed for AT LEAST 6 months and everything would be fantastic and I would know she was getting the best nutrition. But coming home from the hospital was a different story. I came home and my daughter wouldn't latch. I tried those Medela nipple shields to no happy result. I contacted LaLeche League for help. I consulted breast feeding specialists all who told me to use the shields. They didn't work and I knew I couldn't have a breast specialist on staff all day every day to hold my boob in one hand and my daughter's head at a certain angle in the other. I was frustrated. My daughter was frustrated and my husband was frustrated. I am a woman who is going to make her own baby food in a couple of weeks using all organic materials for Christ's sake so the thought of formula feeding didn't sit well with me.
I still gave it a college try though. I pumped for 3 hours a day for 8 weeks to give to my daughter and we supplemented with formula. However, 3 hours a day is a lot to be hooked to a dairy machine and then you still have to feed the kid and do other jobs. It's pretty limited to be hooked up to the breast pump. It's not like I can put my pump in a sling and do the dishes. I came home from the hospital and didn't have a drop of formula in the house. So my husband had to go get formula and be worried that he bought the right type. (The best advice I will give any new mom is to always have at least one can or ready to feed bottle of formula in the house just in case because I know of so many moms who had good intentions but had to go do the formula run when they got home.)
To make matters infinitely worse, at week 2, my daughter developed severe reflux and a milk allergy. Enter the soy formula and the great formula throw out of 2010. We went through 6 different formulas trying to find one that didn't end up projectiled across the room on the cat. We finally found one only to have my daycare ( I was still working then) provide a different kind for free. So we switched again. After daycare ended, we tried switching again to a gentle formula. Projectile to the cat.
So back to playgroup and guilt. I felt like the lowest mother in the world. But thankfully I wasn't alone. Another woman must have been feeling the same thing. She tentatively said, "I tried to breastfeed but I couldn't make enough and my baby was losing weight." I think she must have been relieved to see my Tommee Tippee bottle in hand and I think we instantly bonded. I told her I had the opposite problem and I think we realized that between the two of us, we would have had a great wet nurse thing going. The main problem that we have though, is that we are both at home during the day. Shouldn't we devote hours and infinite amounts of time to make breastfeeding work? I can understand a working mom that doesn't have 3 hours a day to pump or have someone help her, but a stay at home mom should be boob feeding exclusively right?
But why am I feeling guilty in the first place? When I sit down and think about it, my child is getting all of the vitamins and minerals she needs and is perfectly healthy and gaining weight ahead of her growth curve. Why is this such a guilt-wrenching topic for so many women? Why is the whole world concerned with our boobs? For God's sake, one week after giving birth, I was trimming the hedge and a neighbor rolls by in her car and rolls down the window and yells "Are you breastfeeding? How is it going? I would love to talk to you about breastfeeding if you get a chance." I just smiled and said I had everything under control, but since when did boobs of a new mom get so much attention? What business is it of hers and why is she talking to me about breastfeeding like she's selling me Amway? "I'd love to talk to you about the benefits of Amway."
I guess what I'm trying to say is that for all the moms out there that can't breastfeed, don't let the boob pushers of the world get to you. Are they out there and are they called breast Nazis by those mothers that are brow beaten for offering Similac instead of teet? You bet. But as long as a child is growing and smiles in the morning when she looks at mommy and has her "I love Mommy" bib on, what is the big deal?
For all the formula feeders, I think we should be proud we gave it a good try and just go on with our lives. Easier said then done, but I'm going to try.
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