Chickafinty ~ A Life in the Laundry

Thin on the ground

After having posted every day in September except for three, posts have been pretty thin on the ground lately.

The whys are many and varied...busy dealing with the return to school for two kids who are just utterly miserable there...busy planning curriculum etc etc for next year and hitting road blocks...busy dealing with Mt Washmore and Mt IronMany...yada yada yada

Also, I guess if I am being honest I'm in a bad patch again.

Throw global financial uncertainty in a big bowl along with an Amercian election that includes a candidate whose stance on abortion I find to be repugnant and a whole lot of other stuff that only affects Mister Bear and me and the kids, toss it all around and then let it fester for a few weeks.  That about sums it up.

No, there's nothing big going on, just a whole pile of little stuff.  I have a sense that a whole concatenation of errors is brewing just under the surface and we've bought into more trouble than we're going to be able to cope with.

Watch the tv news, read a few news pages online and you read about the most horrific things that people are doing to other people.  More than a small percentage of these things are being done by Generation Y...as in Generation Y Should I?...the first generation raised after we "dispensed" with God and all the left wing bleeding heart liberals-with-a-small-l told us that we could make our own rules and not be bound by some pie in the sky when we die Being.  Well, we've trashed Judeo-Christian morals, behaviour codes, discipline and we've done our own thing and now we get to reap the rewards.

It's onwards and downwards from here folks.

This uplifting message has been brought to you by the letter D.

Learn something every day

Today I learned about sunk costs.

OK, so it's not exactly riveting, but ti explains why I'm hanging onto a lot of things that I neither think are beautiful, nor know to be useful.

Just get it finished, woman!

• folding
• a week's worth of shirts ironed
• lounge room tidied, vacuumed and dusted
• pay pathologist's bill
• make beds, kids get clean linen
• finish programming maths!!
• put away scrapping stuff from Saturday
• finish 4th birthday layout

Announcement

I have lost a kilo in a week.

Not earth shattering news I know.  But it was the way that I lost it that's worthy of mention.

For about 5 days I have concentrated on not being greedy, greed=anything over and above what is actually needed.

So, one sausage instead of 2 ot 3 at dinner.  One biscuit at afternoon tea, not 3 or four or a handful <insert blush>

One piece of pizza at the Girls' Night Out as I had already had a few bits and pieces to eat and I really wanted to get the layout finished.

It's been painless.  No deprivation, no feeling left out, no misery but a kilo loss to show for it.

I think it is definitely worth a mention.

Need and greed

In pointing fingers earlier in the week I was faced with an uncomfortable truth.

Anything over what you need, is greed.

Why do I have an enormous weight problem?

I eat more than my body needs to support life.  That, folks, is greed.

Why do I have more craft stuff than I can actually use?  Greed.

It's fine to be pious about your paucity of shoes or clothes, Anno, but have you checked out your stuffed to the rafters pantry lately?  It's fine to witter on to the kids about how we have enough for what we need blah, blah, blah and then look to the left of the computer screen and find 4 coffee mugs jammed with pens and pencils.  Another coffee mug on the breakfast bar jammed with pens, pencils, markers and highlighters.  Another coffee mug on the bookcase jammed with...  Two pencil tins jammed with...  At least three pencil cases and one pencil box jammed...

Why so many writing implements?  I love stationery.  That's one reason.  I can never find a pen.  That's a second reason.  Maybe because I've got so much stuff and because there's always been the money to buy more, I don't actually value what I have.

Remember Ma in Little House on the Prairie?  At one stage she had the opportunity to write to the folks back East and she got out the family's one and only treasured pen and ink bottle.  The family had one pen.  There was no money to buy another pen so if that one got lost or broken, the family would be in a real bind.  They took care of what they valued.

It's quite possible that the day will come when there won't be any money for things like pens and pencils.  Maybe the day is coming when Bazzill will be unaffordable, even at $0.80.

Maybe, instead of pointing at others and their greed, I could take the California redwood out of my eye and address my own issues with that sin.

Totally freaked out

I got a phone call this morning from "Robert", who found my name and phone number via an email to a yahoogroup and decided to contact me personally to discuss "homeschooling".
I am completely freaked out.
I've been on the net for nearly 10 years, have had a blog for coming up on 6 years and I am very very careful about what I post in the blog, what I say in emails and how much personal information I share online and with whom.
I am so totally freaked now. This guy - who may have been genuine, but he's a stranger so how would I know  - has my street address as well as my phone number. He also has my blog address. I suddenly don't feel very safe and I'm not feeling too comfortable about the kids either.
Just be aware that your surname on an email can be traceable. It's the only way I can think of that this guy was able to find out who I am.
I am taking the following steps and it might be worth doing the same thing yourselves...
1. I am unsubscribing from the relevant yahoogroup
2. I am directing other yahoogroup mail to another email address which contains no identifiable information
3. I am changing the {FROM} tab on emails from our surname to our username
4. I am removing my blog address from my email signature
5. I am feeling very vulnerable.
In 10 years of net usage this has never ever happened before.
I feel icky.

Not in a good space

that's all.

Just putting it put there to think about...

1 Corinthians 5:11  But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.

 

Hmm. 

What if he ticks multiple boxes?  What if he does not acknowledge that he ticks those boxes and sees no need to change?

It seems clear.  We ought not associate with him.

What do you think?

At the pointy end of history

History is riveting in the classroom. 

I can still remember sitting in Economics when we were looking at Germany in the 1930s.  We had a prac teacher at that time and he'd dug up some photographs of worried looking Germans with wheelbarrows full o marks lining up to buy bread.  They were semi-interesting photos of a time long gone and they didn't have any particular relevance.

It's not quite so much fun being at a point where history looks like repeating itself.  Every day we're waking up to the chaos and turmoil on the world finacial markets.  At 10am our own market opens and today it looked like this:

 

The top 50 companies in Australia have a listing on the Australian Stock Exchange page and normally, there'd be a mix of green up arrows, red down arrows and little dashes to show no change.

Today?  All red down arrows.  Even our blue chip companies like BHP Billiton, the Commonwealth Bank and Woodside Petroleum.  All down, some by enormous amounts.

For us it is not a huge worry.  Our only involvement with stocks and shares is in terms of superannuation.  With retirement not until 2040 or so we can ride out this whatever it is.  My worries are for those who are on the cusp of retirement and who have next to nothing and no time to recover.

The future is probably going to be very different from the past.

Chris, Cassandra, Wall St and the tin box under the bed

I'd like to introduce you to Chris Martenson.  He's so up-to-the-minute that he doesn't even warrant a wikipedia page yet.  He has, however, managed to do in 2.5 hours what Mr Warnes failed to do over two years and that is to get me to understand economics.  His crash course is excellent and I strongly recommend that you take it.  You'll never look at the "boring bits" on the news in the same way again i.e. Dow Jones, FTSE100, price of gold/oil and the dollar/pound/euro against the greenback etc.

Today Chris is foreshadowing a Bank Holiday.  Sounds nice, doesn't it.  It's not.  The last Bank Holiday was for five days in 1933 when Franklin D Roosevelt closed the banks.  Closed.  As in, no money in.  And no. money. out.

How would you do with no access to money for five days?  No credit cards, no debit cards, no EFTPOS, no ATM, no cash, no payments, no direct debit.  Nothing, nada, zip.

Some might consider that Chris is a Chicken Little wildly shouting that the sky is falling.  Others, after taking the crash course and using their brains a bit, might conclude that the sky IS falling.  Furthermore, some may realise that bits of the sky are lying scattered in the street, but everyone's too busy checking their Facebook profile, Thinking They Can Dance or pondering Sarah Palin's shoes, to notice.

I think the time has come to get the tin box under the bed.  It's a euphemism people...there really isn't a tin box under the bed!  It means that I think it's time to consider that nothing is safe, not even the banks.  It's time to pay attention, take responsibility and be prepared.  Lay in some food stocks on staples: flour, rice, butter, milk (powdered!  I mean it!!  It won't kill you), noodles, stock cubes.  Plant a few vegetables, even if it's just a single tomato plant in a pot.  Store up some tinned goods and cereals.  Pay cash.  Pare off everything you don't *need* from the budget.  If the world economy goes under - and it may well do so - your disposable income is going to go kaput.  We're planning ahead.  If necessary we could provide housing for a whole 'nother family in our home and we'd be prepared to do so.  A second family could be accomodated in the garage.  I'm not joking.  The toy room is being attacked today and the toys culled.  We've got double cupboards which are about to become a food store.  I'm teaching myself to sew again and have plans for the vegetable plot.  They've been sort of tentative plans for years, but now it's essential. 

This is the way it could go. 

I *know* our government is saying we'll be OK, our economy is strong, our banks are regulated, our commodities are still popular rah, rah, rah.  That may well be so.  But the days of economic isolation are over.  We are members of the global economy and what affects the US is going to affect us too.

I'd love to think that I've actually flipped my lid, but it ain't so.

Please.  Take the crash course.  Think about the issues for yourself.  Then start making some plans.  The day will come when you'll be very glad you did.