Musing Mama

robotecm: Bored as fuck. I can’t believe this could be...

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 08:30:00 -0700

Bored as fuck.

I can’t believe this could be one of my kids future teachers, doctors and lawyers. No offence robotecm, but I just don’t get it. Maybe it’s the hat.

I don't know what to write about

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 19:27:00 -0700

So I guess I’ll update you on my life.

We have $8 left in our budget jars, to buy milk between today and Friday.
I’m sleepy, the kids didn’t sleep well last night (again).
My house is miraculously clean.
It’s warm outside.
I think I’ll make Deacon take Kylie to the park tomorrow so I can enjoy the quiet without her.

Thats all.

OK maybe it’s not all.

I just bought an $8500 2003 Chevy Avalanche.

I don’t have a driver’s license yet. I’m pretty pleased with the price, it has all leather interior, heated seats, command start and a DVD player.

Come October when I can get my license it will be sweet.

Fanboyism: A Rant About Yakuza 3

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:33:00 -0700

All week it’s been “waaah they’re cutting this in Yakuza” and “waaaah they’re cutting that in Yakuza”, and I’m getting sick of it.

I want to start this article off by saying that I am against developers cutting content in general, especially when the game is already 2 years old. Couple that with a $70 price tag and you have a recipe for disaster.

But then there’s Deacon. He’s following the Sega blog. He’s bitching and moaning about the cut content. “Fuck you Sega” he says. He even wrote a comprehensive article complaining about said missing content.

There’s one problem. Whilst the content is missing, he wont be missing it. Did he have any interest in pursing the hostesses in the first two games? No. Will he play Mah Jong more than once? No. Shogi? Not a chance. (It’s an awful game if you ask me.) How about managing the host clubs? Surely not.

But hold on a second. The hostesses ARE in the game, just not the clubs. Sega has not said how you will be meeting the girls and whether or not you can woo them, so right now we’re complaining about Shogi, Mah Jong and playing a work simulator.

Pre-orders are down 75%. That’s a good way to make a statement, yes. If you’re really this disgruntled about the cut content, don’t buy the game. Go ahead and complain. You’re a die-hard fan, and you absolutely won’t accept Sega butchering your baby, right?

Are you people really that angry that you’ll practically guarantee you’ll never see another western Yakuza release, despite there being two others out in Japan? Would a fan completely reject any prospects of future games to prove a point? For content that really isn’t that good?

Yakuza is like a steak, one you’ve really been craving. You ordered it and waited patiently. The table that ordered before you got one of the same that you ordered, and you watched them eat it. It looked delicious. Finally the waiter shows up, and brings you half a steak. He says “Here’s half a steak at full price. We won’t be able to bring you the other half, but if you wait a while longer we’ll bring you another one, although you’ll have to pay for the second.” Outraged, you could storm off without paying, and eat no steak. Or, you could eat your half a steak and enjoy it, be it a little overpriced, because you REALLY wanted that steak, and when the second steak comes you can enjoy that steak too, because you really do love steak.

If you don’t want Yakuza 4 by all means keep bitching and don’t buy Yakuza 3, but if I loved something enough to care about it’s content I would just be happy and enjoy the content I have. They didn’t have to keep releasing sequels to a game that only sold 40 thousand copies.

Living on a Budget

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 07:52:12 -0700

It’s been a week since I announced we were going to have a budget, be obligated to stick to it, and not spend anymore money on my credit cards. With 39 dollars in the bank, we set out to wait until payday. (Tomorrow) A trip to the grocery store and my mutual funds has left out current bank balance to be $-15. (OK I forgot the mutual funds were coming out.)

Anyway, here is the budget I’ve come up that will be implemented tomorrow.

Food $184.62

Entertainment $69.23

Clothes/Gifts $26.54

Everything else 32.77

Total Jar Money 313.15

So where does the rest of our after mortgage and utilities money go? My buy-now-pay-later laptop is due next month, and I still have almost 500 to pay, there’s also an accountant that needs paying back and 500 dollars in immigration fees for my lovely husband. I’m also going to Disneyland next February, damn it!

Still funny.

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 18:12:44 -0700

Still funny.

Debt Free Forever - Book Review

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:21:14 -0700

I’m not oodles in debt. I don’t have 27 department store credit cards at 28.8% or 30k in student loans. I do have around 2k of debt, and being on mat leave means me making more money really isn’t an option. We can sustain what we’re doing, but we’re never going to fix our broken sink, finish our fence or travel to Disneyland.

I was expecting to get a few tip on how to manage my money, build a budget, and paying off debt, and that was there. I have a fantastic budget that balances and allows me to not only pay off my debt, but save money for the future, and future purchases. I went through my finances, I know that I spend over $300 a month on average on eating out!

I wasn’t expecting this book to cover the psychological reasons why we spend money, and different ways to overcome different forms of dispute. It was really time to analyze why you spend money, and what your priorities are. How can you say your children are you priority when you have no education savings for them, no emergency funds if something were to go wrong and can’t afford to buy fresh fruits and vegetables for the table?

Now that I’ve finished reading, I have a much better understanding about retirement and education savings plans, emergency funds, tax free savings account, credit ratings and life insurance. I feel motivated and empowered to make financial decisions that do not provide instant gratification, but ones that will provide a safety net for my family and future.

Another surprising thing was that Gail Vaz-Oxlade is a very good writer. Just coming off reading “Does This Clutter Make My Butt Look Fat” (which was terrible) I welcomed the words of a competent writer.

Every word can be listened to, every story internalized, every tip and tidbit followed. It shows that Gail is confident with what she’s saying as she writes it, and that confidence moved to you as you read. It’s truly a case of ‘if you believe it will work and follow it, then it will work’.

Whether you’re crazy in debt or just trying to get ahead, this book can help you. I would definitely recommend it.

PS if this is Kaitlin readingI will lend it to you when my mom is done.

Photo

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:15:13 -0700

Why I'm NOT playing Majora's Mask

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 21:26:45 -0700

I’ve been trying to (once again) refinish Majora’s Mask, after watching an inspiring speed run the other day. Friday and Saturday, I played for a couple of hours and finally quit playing just outside of Woodfall temple. I resumed my save Saturday night and just started on the dungeon, when Kylie decided to turn off the Wii. To understand why this is a big deal, you need to know how Majora’s Mask’s save system works.

To save, you can either a) Save and return to the first day or b) Save on an owl statue.

When you save and return to the first day, you lose all your money and ammo, plus you always start back in Clock Town, which is not very practical when you’re in a dungeon.

If you save on an owl statue, you save and quit. Once you resume that save once, it’s gone, you have to save again.

When Kylie turned off the system I lost everything from the time I last went to the first day to the start of the Woodfall temple, which is everything leading up to the dungeon, or about 45 minutes of gameplay. That evening I went back and refinished that part in record time, and quit in the same spot outside Woodfall.

Today I went back and finished the temple, collecting all 15 missing fairies inside. I returned the Deku princess to her father and completed the butler’s challenge to get the pig mask. After leaving the place where the butler was I went to pause the game, and it froze.

Seeing as when I started playing I had resumed from an owl statue, I was taken back to when I last saved and returned to the first day, which was exactly where I started after Kylie turned off the system. 3 or so hours, lost.

Needless to say I threw the controller across the room and haven’t touched it since, only I really want to keep playing. We’ll see if I feel like finishing that dungeon again.

I hate my family today

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 10:01:39 -0700

Kylie greets me in bed, asking for ice cream with cookies in it. “Go see dada” I instruct. It’s 8:30am. Marcus wakes up. Kylie tells me she has colouring on her hand. I tell her to go show dada. She leaves, I try and get Marcus back asleep. She cries from the hall for Deacon to open the office door. He’s not in the office, I yell for her to look in the living room. Marcus isn’t going back to sleep. Deacon’s not there, Kylie cries. I suddenly remember that he had planned to go to the gym this morning, the phone ringing at 6am makes sense. I tell her that dada’s gone out. She asks for breakfast. I go to the bathroom, she has a tantrum. We go into her room, I change and dress Marcus. I ask her to come get dressed, she runs away. I get the clothes ready and sit on the floor. She comes back, takes the clothes, and runs away. My frustration builds. I try repeatedly to get her dressed, it doesn’t work. She laughs, runs around and throws her clothes. I sit in silence and try and stay clam. Eventually she gives up and puts on her dress. I have to help her. She tries to put on her panties, wrong. I have to help her. She lets me put on her pants and fix her socks. We go to have breakfast. Why is Deacon’s bowl in the sink intstead of the dishwasher? Kylie refuses to eat her cereal and instead spills the milk all over her table. I’m frustrated and exhausted. It’s only quarter after 9.

At 5am when I was trading off being up with each kid, I was just thinking about how I would make Deacon take the kids in the morning and I could sleep in. This would have been the only day this week I would have been able to do this. Now that Deacon plans on going to the gym Friday, Saturday and Sunday mornings, I will have the kids 7 mornings a week. This morning was especially difficult due to a long night and a very rough day yesterday. Deacon worked all morning and helped my mom’s boyfriend move all afternoon. Not saying it wasn’t a long and difficult day for him either, but not nearly as aggrivating as mine.

I love my children, but they wear my patience thin and I haven’t gotten much of a break from them and the housework lately.

Are You Raising a Douchebag?

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 14:22:37 -0700

Are You Raising a Douchebag?:

Definitely worth checking this one out.

Make your link look like spam

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 14:17:25 -0700

Make your link look like spam:

Here’s what I turned a link to friendly www.musingmama.ca into:

http://5z8.info/protocols-of-the-elders-of-zion.doc_j7b6z_warez

and they also shorten it

http://5z8.info/ip-stealer_loh

… Well I think it’s funny.

Google lulz - definition of skiido

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 14:13:50 -0700

I was going over the Musing Mama analytics today and found out that if you Google “definition of skiido” I’m the first result.

So a skiido is what you get when you spell ski-doo wrong. Which is a snowmobile.

Thanks for Googling!

Sleep training a 6 month old baby

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 14:05:01 -0700

Last night Marcus woke up at around 11pm, came into our bed, was up again at 2:15AM, 3:30AM, 5:30AM, 7:20AM and finally 8:30AM. He slept in the crook of my arm most of the night. Every time he woke up, I nursed him back to sleep. He actually used to sleep better when he was a newborn.

Ideally, he should go to bed at the same time as Kylie (8:30PM) and sleep until 2AM. I’ll nurse him, then he can sleep again until 8:00AM (like Kylie). There are plenty of babies who sleep through the night at 6months but with breastfeeding I’m trying to be realistic.

Here’s what I’m going to need to accomplish:

Convince him to fall asleep without being nursed.
Get him to go back to sleep without waking up Kylie. (excessive crying)
Get him sleeping in the crib instead of my bed.

Here is the strategy:

Start with the “spend 30 minutes trying to get the baby back to sleep before nursing” technique, except at around 2am when I want him to nurse, eventually getting him to stop nursing as much at night.
If he wakes up anytime other than the desired times, wait a minute to see if crying escalates. If it does, go in and check on him, and shush and pat without picking him up. Proceed with Ferberizing.
End every day with a good and consistent bedtime routine for both kids.

Sleep training will be starting tonight. I am already exhausted, and it’s going to be a difficult stretch for the next few days, but the payoff will be amazing.

The 24 hour challenge - Pt2

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 22:06:47 -0700

As the day draws to a close I am happy to say that I completed everything on my to do list. With a screaming baby and a 6:30am alarm tomorrow I wont bother to update with photos now, but expect them later tis weekend.

I will, however, be documenting by big city adventure in issue 1 of: A day in pictures

The 24 hour challenge I’m heading off to the big city...

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 22:19:39 -0700

The 24 hour challenge

I’m heading off to the big city Saturday morning and want to get the house clean before then. Above you can see the photos of the messy rooms I need to clean.

Here’s the complete list of what needs to be done:

Clean all rooms photographed above
Tonnes of laundry to fold and put away
Pack the diaper bag for Marcus
Make sure I have everything before I go
Do dishes
Sweep floors

All of this with a 2 year old and a 6 month old.

I have about 24 hours to get everything done. Can I do it? We’ll have to see.

Perhaps I can issue some type of personal reward for myself… Maybe to the tune of extra spending money?

Family Drama

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 21:13:44 -0700

My little brother is tearing my family to pieces, specifically my mother. He’s a compulsive liar who manipulates his way into getting anything and everything he wants. For years I’ve been making my mother realize this and finally she gets it - but it’s almost too late. Now, faced with the realization that her son needs help, she needs to seek action now - before he turns 18 in 6 months.

But what options are out there for a sociopath? She’s leaning towards a boarding school for troubled teens, which I think is a great idea.

So where’s the battle? When mommy and daddy got divorced, there was a lot of bitterness, resentment and unresolved issues. Neither party chose to accept any responsibility and blamed the other for their relationship’s demise. To this day they are unable to be civil with each other.

For that reason my mom refuses to talk to my dad, and I have become the go-between for all information regarding my brother’s condition. I am then having to explain to both parties why the other is doing this, feeling that, etc., and neither seem to listen to anything I (each other) have to say.

Today I decided that I was sick of being the mediator and called it quits. Hopefully some good will come out of this and they’ll decide that it’s stupid and petty to harbor negative feelings of a marriage that ended 8 years ago.

All I hope now is that baby bro gets the treatment he needs and doesn’t hurt himself or anyone else in the process.

Updates to my 101 in 1001 and my recent movie watchings

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 20:42:00 -0700

I declare 2010 year of watching movies you always heard were good but have never seen.

This month, I have started to watch some of those movies that I just never got around to seeing. The three I’ve watched so far have been American Phsycho, American History X, and Fight Club.

It happened that I watched those movies in ascending order. American Phsycho was a really good psychological thriller, with a fantastic (be it open) ending. American History X followed the lives of some skinheads in the 90s, another wonderful movie with a twist ending. Finally tonight I watched Fight Club - and I would like to ask the world: Why didn’t anyone tell me this movie was so good? I loved the narration and the humour - Plus I’m pleased that I worked the twist out about half way through.

Considering American History X and Fight Club were both on my IMDB top 250 list, I decided to updated my 101 in 1001 list.

Here are the updates:

- Watched American History X and Fight Club

- Saw two movies in the theatre; The Princess and the Frog and It’s Complicated

My husband is NOT a pedophile - and why people need to think before they speak

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 08:28:43 -0700

This morning my husband came home extremely distraught. It was 7:45 am and he had just come home from his morning walk. For the past 5 months, he’s been going out every single morning for an hour to get himself in shape – partially for my benefit and partially so he can be around for our two young children. When the weather started to dip he began heading over to my mother’s house to walk on her treadmill.

The quickest way from our house to her’s is through the field of Grand Centre Middle School. As far as we were concerned, walking trough there at 6:30am and returning at 7:30am was perfectly acceptible – the first school bell doesn’t ring until after 8.

I’m sure he looked pretty silly wearing a trench coat and shorts out in -20, but the coat would cover most of his legs and being cold does burn more calories. Everytime he passed someone he assumed they were thinking “What a nut! He must be so cold!”.

Neither of us were prepared for what one of the janatorial staff said to my beloved husband this morning. “People think you’re crazy you know… I mean they actually think you’re crazy, like there’s a pedophile or something coming through the school because you have shorts and that long coat on.” He explained.

Nobody should have to explain to someone that they`re not a pedophile because of how they look.

This is a fantanstic example of what our society is coming to. People use such harsh words in totally inapporopriate situations. `He wears shorts and walk through a schoolyard before children are there, so he must be a pedophile` is the same as saying `She wears a hood and walks past a closed bank every day, she must be a bank robber`. Neither have any merit, but they do hurt peoples feelings.

What would happen if this person told someone else, and when he takes our daughter to school they all of a sudden think her father’s a pedophile? What happens if a child at this school goes missing? Is my husband to blame?

Please think about what you’re saying and the romours you’re spreading. They’re likely untrue and surely are hurtful. My husband is a loving father to our 2 year old daughter and 4 month old son – not a pedophile.

This week's gaming plans

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 21:23:00 -0700

Since Deacon has been doing this, I thought I’d copy his idea and do one of my own.

The idea is this: Pick a few games that you’ve been meaning to try out or play more of, set a playtime goal for each one, and try and accomplish it before the deadline - a week. As someone with very limited time to play video games (cleaning, cooking, working, childcare and nursing consume most of my day) and someone who loves to make and check off list, this seemed like a fantastic idea to me.

Unlike my husband, however, I’m not going to set unrealistic for me hour long goals. Instead we’re aiming for 20 minute playtimes here, something to pick up and play between loads of laundry or while dinner’s cooking.

That new Harvest Moon game on the Wii (0/20 minutes)
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 on 360 (0/20 minutes)
EVO Search for Eden on Wii Virtual Console (0/20 minutes)
Mischeif Makers on Wii Virtual Console (0/20 minutes)
Wii Fit Plus on the Wii - For working out purposes (0/60 minutes)

For a total of 140 minutes or 2.3 hours or two hours and 20 minutes.

Other goals for this week include trying to finish reading “Does this clutter make my butt look fat” even though it’s a terrible book. I’m almost done and therefore invested. Expect a review soon.

Life of the organized?

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 11:20:00 -0700

My house is a mess. Despite an entire day of cleaning yesterday, I feel like I accomplished very little. Sure, I made a few discoveries, like my hall floors can safely be walked on without tripping on something nor getting food stuck to your feet, or when all the laundry is done we sure have a lot of clothes. Unfortunately cleaning the hall, kitchen and dining room floors means all that crap was thrown in the general direction of where it lives - like Kylie’s room, the living room or, most cluttered of all, the kitchen table.

Despite the mess and the clutter in my house, I am really an organzied person at heart. I’m slowly going about my house, getting rid of all the junk that has been piling since we moved in. It’s a long process - there is a lot of junk - but I find that each shelf that looks cleaner makes me more relaxed.

With two small children, organization when we leave the house is critical. This is made more difficult by the fact that we don’t drive. We have getting two children ready, the diaper bag packed and the stroller out the door almost down to a science. Our small, everyday adventures are becoming routine.

So let’s mix it up! Going away for Christmas involves driving down with relatives, cramming all of our gear, Christmas presents, carseats and children and keeping them entertained for 6 hours. Then it’s 5 days away from home, followed by another 6 hour drive.

We leave in less than 3 weeks. I don’t want to forget anything, so I’ve already started a packing list broken into categories. As I think of something we need to get, I jot it down on the list. This trip will go well.

Other then the fear of 6 hours in a car with my children, I am ready for Christmas. Most of my shopping is done and the presents are wrapped. Christmas photos should be here any day and we can get the cards in the mail.

It’s a shame that despite my preparations, Christmas always sneaks up. This weekend we’re putting up the tree.