Other people do not have the same views

We watch a show called Moving Up on TLC. The show has a couple of familes who move houses, renovate then the old owners come back and check it out and give their opinion. Before they move thy talk about how perfect their house and how they cannot imagine anyone would change anything. (Most notably last weekend one woman said she’d be pissed if the new owners took down the original tile in her old house and then proceeded to do the same in her new house).

It amazes me how people think everyone shares their view of things.

I get into modes where I believe my husband has the same thoughts I do.

I just really get annoyed when people do not understand how someone could have a differing opinion. Especially when they expect others to have theirs. I love debating stuff with other people, but i can’t stand this “you are wrong and I am right” stance I run into. Even though when I debate I know i am right.

Just something I’ve noticed in people lately.

Do you believe other people share your opinions?

Related articles

• If Only TLC Had Programming This Interesting… (socialitelife.com) i love this video.

First version abandonment

Excerpt one

Excerpt two

So in this version, Corey and Mac had a back story together.

Corey lived in a foster home. Mac was best friends with his foster sister. She was a few years older and Corey had a mad crush on her. She was the girl he couldn’t forget and the reason why he never settled down.

His foster brother asks Mac to track Corey down for  him after Mackenzie moves to Calgary. She’s a psychologist or something. I can’t recall. It never made it to the story.

Why I abandoned this version:

I didn’t want to do another flashback story. I’ve had a bit of negative reaction to all the flashbacks in Second Chance Romance. And I just didn’t want to go there again. Corey needed a fresh start.

So I wondered who would challenge Corey the next most? A woman trying to change him. Which brings us to the next version. More on that next week.

Where I am is a good place

My mom and I took the kidlets to the water park yesterday. And we were talking about people and spending money on silly things like Gel Nails. If that’s your thing, I apologize, or well I don’t care, personal appearance means little me.

I confessed I have zero items of make-up. that’s not true, I do have some eyeshadow, eyeliner and lipstick that I never wear and is probably old enough to need to be thrown out. I cannot manage to care about wearing make-up. If you don’t like my face without it then too freaking bad quite frankly.

I don’t want to tell you how long my leg hair is. Except for the small patch where I started waxing … last week.

Anyway, my Mom then asked if I spend money on myself.

Not really, I reply. I got my Kobo eReader this year. Last year, I got the Wii Fit and Balance Board. I do spend a little on myself from time to time but over all no, I don’t spend much on myself. My husband likes to buy movies and he smokes. It’s an unfair balance. But, I like to worry about saving our money so we can move up the financial ladder. That makes me happy. Spending $6 a month on movies makes him happy. And he isn’t ready to quite smoking, I’m ready, but he’s not so I’m not going there. He smokes outside. He doesn’t share a bed with the baby.

My mom then tells me when I was growing up she never spent money on herself because they didn’t have any. Which isn’t really true. It was very unstable, non-secure money. My dad is not a saver. He isn’t deeply in debt but he’s always a little in debt. That’s none of my business so I don’t go there.

But it drove my mother crazy. She hated not having savings, hated scrimping, hated how he’d spent what he felt like.

She resented it and him. She was miserable because neither of them could compromise.

I’m not miserable. I accept that my husband needs to spend a certain amount to feel satisfied. It’s not really that much and we both agree not to go into debt for consumer goods. We make very little money but manage to stretch it A LONG ways. While he was unemployed and I was working 70% we managed to pay off $5000 including a new furnace.

Anyway, I don’t need to buy a lot of stuff for myself. I’m happy getting my books from the library, using scraps for sewing, making all of our meals, using my leftover yarn, and buying used for most of our consumer goods.

Right now I’m waiting for an email from a person selling a front load washer and dryer for dirt cheap. My washing machine isn’t wringing all the water out of it. It’s nearly 8 years old, not the best lifespan and I could probably get it fixed.

Anyway, what more do I need in life? I have a computer, internet access, a vehicle of my own, my eReader and mp3 player, TV, 2 video game systems … the list goes on and on and on. I’m pretty fucking blessed. I have enough money for food and shelter and savings. I went to school part time for like five years and I got to stay home with my daughter for ages and will with my son (we don’t trust other people). If I have anything to complain about it’s First World Problems.

In addition to being an author, my dream job is playschool teacher. When I was in high school I did a work experience day at a playschool and I was pretty sure it was worst job ever. But, now that I’ve pretty much done it, I want to do it again and again. I want to create the lessons and teach them and see the children enjoying learning.

I don’t want to teach elementary school or high school or anything else. Just playschool. It’s awesome.

And if anyone has a good podcast catcher, let me know. Ziepod won’t work, I don’t know why. I’ve uninstalled, reinstalled. I don’t like iTunes, but I’ve resorted to it because EVERY OTHER thing I’ve tried gpodder, juice and something else, won’t let me add feeds.

Related articles by Zemanta

• The Rewards of Frugality and Thrift (or, Why We Scrimp and Save) (getrichslowly.org)

Needs vs Wants

In my 5 or so years running a Freecycle(TM) group, i have learned a lot.

My most valuable lesson is need from want.

A lot of people post that they NEED things. Like furniture and electronics. Y’know what, you have a computer and the internet, save some money and buy them.

There are lots of people who write their child is moving out and is looking for stuff. When I moved out on my own I had no furniture outside my bed and a dresser and a computer desk. I had no TV. My dad bought me some dishes and pots and pans, which I’m still using 10 years later. I saved my ass off to buy a microwave. I never did buy anything for my living area.

What happened to those days? You do without until you can buy something.

There is a person on my group who keeps asking for stuff for her kids and saying she is low income and can’t afford stuff for them.

Y’know what? Me too. I would like some different Wii games, but I don’t have the extra spending money. So, we play what we have.  My daughter wants a DS. She might get one for her birthday. Maybe. If we decide to we will sacrifice other things.

We have an allowance to buy things. If we want something more than our allowance then we save until we can get it.

I’m very lucky in many ways. My SIL gives me clothes for my daughter. She’s saved me thousands. It’s been a harsh reality now that my son has come along. Kids clothes are expensive!!

There are a lot of people who are asking for cans and bottles to pay for this and that. It’s slowed down in the past few months, it was getting painful for a while. I commend them for trying. Have you thought about cancelling your internet and cable to pay for things?

Drives me crazy that some people think of Freecycle as their personal shopping list. They repeatedly ask for the same things. I once had a person who posted like 50 different wanteds in a month. I think she’s had a wake up call about how Freecycle(TM) works.

Anyway, the point is, most things are WANTS which is why on Freecycle you post a WANTED message. What you need are food, shelter and safety. If you don’t have those things, there are charities all around who will help out. Freecycle(TM) has a mission of keeping useable items out of the landfill.

Related articles by Zemanta

• What’s the most expensive thing you’ve asked for on Freecycle? (timesunion.com)

What do you prefer

Once upon a time, my daughter was going to be an only child. And I found the only child bias to be large, so I set up a google alert for ‘Only child” and ‘only children’.

Most of the stuff is blogs about why only children are okay or not okay. And then at the bottom there comes the crap questions from YahooAnswers. And I can’t help but click on them.

Today’s question was “would you prefer to be a twin, an only child or having siblings?” the asker had a twin and loved it. And I love having a brother. And my daughter loved having no siblings (y’know until we had our second unplanned pregnancy and now have a beautiful boy).

You can’t have preference for something you’ve never experienced. If you have siblings you’ll never know what it’s like to be an only child. (Well that’s not entirely true. My daughter enjoyed her 7.5 years of only child status). If you don’t have siblings you’ll never know what it’s truely like to live with them.

This is the problem with things like going to college. At 17 or 18 or 16, you think you’d like psychology or computer science or accounting. And then you spend $10,000 for a few years to find out that you really don’t like that field. So do you keep going? Transfer to something else and spend a few more years beyond the 4? Do you drop out and have a huge student loan and nothing to show?

I dropped out. I had a friend who transferred to another major and enjoys his new job. I have another friend who kept going but hated the field after she graduated and is now working in a totally different aspect trying to go to school for something else entirely.

I once saw a book in the library, I wish I had taken out and read. It was about how most of kids who to college right after high school don’t finish college right away. A good proportion drop out, work for a while, figure out life and then go back to school.

On the other hand, after my husband’s 6 month job search, there are VERY few jobs that are high school only now. Even restaurant management needs some sort of training. It’s CRAZY out there.

Any different life experiences?

Dropping labels

I stopped reading feminist blogs sometime ago. I didn’t read many, but I always felt preached too and that they took themselves too seriously. Laughing at anything “anti-woman” was seen as something to hide.

I once stumbled upon The Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy, which was a total YAY. It then lead me to Basante Already. Who then lead me to stupid moron thoughts like this

I support pregnancy avoidance whole heartedly, rad fem that I am. I think people who choose breeding should pay for the schools and social costs; not get tax breaks, not shove the costs of their choices on those who do not breed. Especially those who willingly breed defective children to suffer for the parents choice their whole life.

And then I ran around and found this post about how mothers and blorts (women who are childless) should unite and fight patriarchy. And this Twisty came up with the word Blort becuase there is no antonym for “mother”.

This leads to the view that mothers are viewed as MOTHERS first and only. Forget womanhood, forget being a HUMAN BEING, I am a MOTHER. And if you have no children, I could not possibly have anything in common with you.

I’m no longer labelling myself a feminist. I no longer want to justify my having a child. I no longer want to justify having a primary relationship with a male partner, with whom I share a house. We may or may not live our lives wholly equal. I don’t believe total equality is possible.

I believe in equality for BOTH sexes, all genders, all people.

We need them to confirm the notion that the thankless, unpaid drudgery of nuclear motherhood is a product of the astonishing degree to which everyone hates women. We need them to affirm that the nuclear family system doesn’t work. We need them to cop to the fact that nuclear mothers are in an untenable position, often stuck between poverty and either some crap marriage or some crap job or, holy shit, both. We need them to affirm that, as an oppressed class, nothing they do is without political significance. And we especially need them — this one, ho boy, is the biggie — to quit defending nuclear motherhood, because when they defend nuclear motherhood, they are defending the primary method by which patriarchy replicates itself.

There is nothing wrong with my nuclear family. Two parents, one child. I don’t feel like cleaning my house is drudgery. I do most of it. I work outside the home, not quite full time. My house is pretty freaking messy most of the time, not dirty just messy. But cleaning it isn’t fucking drudgery. I clean it because I LIKE to live in a clean house. The same reason I fucking cook, because I like to eat decent food and I will not pay someone else to make it. I get home before my partner, so naturally I cook during the week. (We’ve come up with a new plan so he’ll cook on the weekends).

I will agree that some (many I don’t know this is like the porn debate) women are forced by a man to do something they don’t want to do. I know some woman are dependent on the father of their children for everything, and that’s why I believe in equality (see comment below) for woman. Some sort of society where mothers are compensated for their work at home, of course “childless women” don’t want that because they’d be paying for someone else’s kid.

That’s what I think feminism should fight for. But, I’m no longer a feminist.

The only thing I’ve come out of it is this comment from Octaglore

I responded over there as well, that I believe the use of motherhood and marriage are red herrings. The underlying problem, I believe, at least wrt gender (and of course there are many other problems) is discrepancy in economic power between men and women. Were that to exist, parenthood and marriage would not exacerbate female dependency.

I want all people to have the choice to make whatever choice works for them. So long as they know the alternatives that they could choose.

I am staying away from feminist blogs that make me feel like I need to justify any of my choices regarding my life.

I think childless feminists miss the point that having a child means you have to sacrifice something. Give up working, work seperate shifts from your partner and share childcare, pay someone else (usually too little money) to watch the little sweethearts.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Julie Bindel and the Trans vs. Feminism Tug-of War
• How can we go about establishing minimum standards for parenting?
• Feminists Don’t Hate Men (or Want to Be One)

The split

I keep hoping my mother will be the mother I want her to be.

It’s kinda of like banging my head against a wall.

In the past she has expressed her desire that I be everything. A stay at home mom, work full time, and go to school. Mind you it was on different occasions that she said each statement, but it’s like MAKE UP YOUR MIND.

She also wishes I were perfect. I mean the perfect housekeeper. I am not. She is Born Organized (read up on flylady.net if you want to know more), I am a Side-Tracked Home Excutive (SHE). I hate housework. I start things and never finish them. Sometimes we still have last night’s dishes on the table the next morning. My house isn’t a hazard like you might see on How Clean Is Your House? I rarely leave dishes more than 16 hours. I clean the bathrooms sporadically and I keep us in clean clothing.

We have a lot of clutter. Last weekend when a high school friend of my husband’s showed up, I had to take 15 minutes to find the spare bed. Thank goodness he was only sleeping one night in there and had no suitcases (it was also good because he had no vehicle nor a job). Anyway, my desk is piled with papers, toys litter various areas and the floor could use a sweep. (but you aren’t sticking to the floor and as of two days ago the funky fridge smell is gone).

Anyway you get the picture.

My mother is obessively clean. Her house is perfect. I could excuse myself by saying that she doesn’t have a kid and I do. That’s an excuse. I’m lazy. I just don’t really care. My partner cares more than me, but he doesn’t do anything to remedy it, so …

I invite her over last night. Stupid stupid stupid. I’m still beating myself up for it.

She starts in on the things that are wrong. I get defensive and hurt. Wondering why she can’t be the mother I want her to be? The mother you see on TV. Which is a stupid thing to want.

I have to stop running into the same wall. It’s counterproductive and it hurts.

Then again is being accepted unconditionally too much to ask for? (this is rhetorical and needs no answer).

Related articles by Zemanta

• Brushing up on your housework
• Kim & Aggie take a year off
• The end of the stay-at-home mother?