2008 September « Two Mommies and a Shmoo

the economy

September 30, 2008 at 4:00 pm (money)

Everyone else is talking about the economy. How can you not? I don’t even pretend to know much about all of this.

We are all nervous. I don’t know about the rest of you, but we are definitely feeling the impact of this “economic crisis” **

** I find it very interesting that this wasn’t a “crisis” until a few days ago. Didn’t we all see this coming for about 18 months? Bush seemed surprised that he even had to get on TV and give us a pep talk last week. Funny, I thought we were all just ‘whiners’ a few short months ago.

You can’t avoid conversations anywhere. As much as I am unhappy with my job and my house, I am extremely thankful that I have a job and a home.

But I am also very weary of how quickly that can change.

This morning, I went to zill.ow.com and got my current estimated value for the condo we are trying to sell (that is currently off the market). The estimate is $29,000.00 less than what we paid for it. It’s about $7,000 more than our mortgage balance. If we did sell it for that, with realtor commission and conveyance taxes, we’d be in the hole for around $10,000. I know estimated value doesn’t always mean market value, but it doesn’t even matter at this point. We can’t sell.

Aside from the home values, the job security and income factor is scary. I always thought my job was secure. I’m salaried, so business shouldn’t impact me, right?

Wrong.

Two weeks ago, a large law firm in our state imploded. There one day, gone the next. It had been a year in the making, but not too many lawyers knew what was happening.

One third of those lawyers couldn’t get picked up by other firms. Why? They didn’t have a ‘book of business’ of clients to bring to a new firm.

This terrifies me because (a) this imploded firm was pretty much a mirror image of my firm. Same size, same type of practice, business, income, etc. and (b) because I am one of those lawyers who wouldn’t have a ‘book of business’ if I was suddenly without a job.

I don’t have a Plan B. I have zero savings and a mortgage that we couldn’t afford if I ended up unemployed tomorrow. We used to always have a nice cushion in savings ‘just in case’ of a crisis. But since we bought the condo, had to buy a new car, had Shmoo, money goes out faster than it comes in. We are definitely cutting costs like we never have before.

This whole economic downturn is scary, but now a “CRISIS”?!!?

I do know that when I did work in Wall Street, we always referred to Bear.Stearns, Morgan.Stanley, Lehman.Bros, etc. as the “big guns” – who would have thought that a few short years later they would be GONE!

It sounds like this bailout MUST happen because allowing the market to ‘correct itself’ would be catastrophic. But what do I know, I’m just a laywoman.

I remember coming home and telling Lo about 4 years ago that we were going to have a huge foreclosure boom right about now. (I definitely didn’t predict this) But I would plead with borrowers to understand what they were getting into. I had negative am loans that I was supposed to be representing the bank, but I’d try to talk a home buyer out of it. People were getting mortgages out for $500,000 homes but didn’t have the $5,000 (1% deposit) to put down on it. It was a crazy time and banks are to blame, borrowers are to blame and the government is to blame. Frankly, we can pass blame around to pretty much everyone. And those lawyers who let these people close on homes they couldn’t afford, they are to blame too (I’ll take blame).

It sounds like this bailout MUST happen because allowing the market to ‘correct itself’ would be catastrophic. But what do I know, I’m just a laywoman.

I don’t know what’s going to happen. Friday night, I’ll be drinking beers with my college roomie who works in the credit market. I’m sure she won’t want to talk about it, but it will be interesting to get some perspective from a fiscally conservative Republican who works in the heart of the industry.

As for now, I hope all of my friends are doing okay. I have to believe we will all get through this.

BTW – I totally HEART Barney.Frank. Love that man.

15 Comments

TV watching

September 29, 2008 at 4:18 pm (new discoveries)

Please don’t lecture me on all the research out about how children shouldn’t watch TV until they’re 3 or 12 or 20. Whatever.

We have this kid who is NON-STOP action. Pulling on the child gate, breaking child locks, trying to climb on something, pulling mommy or momma into another room to point and scream at something he wants, putting on the freezer door, prying off the socket protectors (yeah, he really likes doing that – I need to find better ones), opening drawers that we didn’t think we needed locks on, etc. It never involves sitting on the floor and playing with toys. Toys are not remotely interesting to this kid. And trust me, he’s got plenty.

We’ve always wished he would stop for maybe, I don’t know, 5 or 10 minutes. Maybe so mommy and momma could take a shower (if I’m lucky, a shower together – to save water, of course) without a kid trying to pull the toilet lock off (and succeeding) or playing with toilet paper, or opening the bathroom closet and trying to get to the plunger.

It’s exhausting.

We always wished he could be entertained for a few minutes but unlike his buddy, K*den, he’s never had the slightest interest in TV.

Until now.

All of a sudden, he will watch TV for several minutes.

The magic pill?

Se.same Stre.et

He will sit and watch it in the morning, giving Lo the opportunity to shower! It’s an amazing thing.

And he recognizes characters. Well, he recognizes one character, El.mo (aka mo-mo).

This weekend, we went shopping for new sippy cups (replacing the ones chewed through or thrown too many times). As we looked, I turned to Lo and said “let’s try the El.mo ones. I know the brand is probably chintzy, but maybe he’ll choose that cup instead of continuously grabbing and screaming over us not giving him our glass.”

She agreed and we almost had a complete success story.

Shmoo still takes a bottle. One in the morning and one at night. We’ve been unable to get him to take milk in sippy cups. And we haven’t fully committed yet to removing the bottle.
Sunday morning, I brought him downstairs to the kitchen with me to grab his morning bottle (after the little angel let us sleep until 8:15 am). As I was in the fridge, he opened the washing machine and spotted the El.mo sippy cup. He shrieked with delight and I held up the El.mo cup and the bottle to see which one he would choose.

He chose the El.mo cup and I was so thrilled to report my success to Lo as I poured milk into it.

Well, the success was short lived. He used the cup for about 5 minutes before he started asking for his bottle. But now I feel like we could start this bottle-free campaign soon. I think we could do it.

4 Comments

time out

September 26, 2008 at 2:14 pm (discipline, economy)

We’ve been crazy preoccupied lately. I keep thinking that “thing will slow down” but that’s not happening.

Tonight, I’m driving to J.F.K. to bring our Norwegian visitors to the airport. It’s going to be hard to see them go. Emil has been such a joy, and Shmoo has just loved every minute with his little pseudo cousin. Shmoo also adores Marlis. He always fights us when we pick him up from Mema and Pop-pop’s house, but always goes with Marlis without a tantrum.

We originally thought we were going to put the house on the market when they left, but we’re probably going to take a little more time. Things are just so dismal and we just don’t want to get our anxiety levels up for no reason. The bad news about the condo sale is that we picked a “low ball” listing price to put it back on the market. It turns out that another condo in our development with 4 stories (ours is 3) and every single ‘upgrade’ just went on the market for exactly what our low ball listing would have been.

On top of that, we now discover that the undeveloped property on the hill next to our condo development is being developed as an unsecured transition home for mental patients, chemical dependent patients and homeless. I’m not trying to be all NIMBY about this, but our condo complex is the only property between this facility and the drug neighborhood.

I’m trying to move past my frustration of not being able to sell our place. I’ve been in this funk where I just hate everything about our house. I hate driving home and watching a drug deal happen in front of me. I hate that cars are being broken into in our complex. I hate that we don’t have a yard to play in and the Shmoo plays in the condo road with all of the other kids, watching for inattentive cars all the time. I hate that I hear my neighbors argue. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. Now, I need to realize that I have to live with it. Probably for a long time. Ugh.

In other news, we have decided that it is time for the time out chair.

Shmoo is a spirited child. He is wonderful and amazing in every way. But he is a stubborn toddler. He doesn’t just throw a temper tantrum when he doesn’t get his way, he screams bloody murder when he doesn’t get his way.

He wants to play outside. You want to go inside to have dinner. You can’t negotiate with this kid. You have to peal a screaming, fighting, hitting (oh yeah, he started hitting) 19 month old off his tricycle to get him into the house while all of the neighbors look out the window wondering if a child is being beaten.

He screams when he doesn’t get the cup, the fork, the blanket, the remote, the anything we wants. He screams when you want him in the car seat or in the shopping cart and won’t let him run free.

We approached the topic with our pediatrician months ago and she wasn’t in favor of the time out chair until he was 2. After some discussion with my mother the other night, she confirmed that he’s ready. Now is the time.

He’s a sharp kid and a quick learner. I think he just thinks he’s totally in charge. We need to out-stubborn him now. I am worried that we are going to have this screaming bratty 4 year old if we don’t start something quick.

I promise to keep everyone informed of how this goes. My mother was a professional consultant giving workshops to teachers and parents on discipline. While he won’t give advice without being asked, I do listen to her on discipline stuff. She prepared me for how it would go the first 10-20 times and how to respond. This will be fun.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

10 Comments

the Cat.skills

September 22, 2008 at 2:36 pm (weekends)

Thank you everyone for their kind words. I know Lo was very sad but I think she is finding a lot of peace in her dream. It’s quite special that she had the dream about her Gram probably around the time she passed. Her Gram would have wanted to be remembered how she was before the awful disease took her spirit and mind away.

The memorial service and dinner were both well attended, considering Gram hadn’t seen anyone for years and it was on such short notice. She passed overnight Thurs/Fri and the memorial service, cemetary and dinner were Saturday. I think Lo was very pleased with how many people were able to come up for it.

We had let Marlis take Shmoo up to the Cat.skills early on Friday, so he was already up there when we received the news. Lo didn’t want Shmoo and I to miss our one family getaway for the year, so she told me to go up and hang out with him on Friday night. I was very torn but I knew I couldn’t leave Marlis up there for too long with her kid and my little monster. And we both knew that we needed this little getaway. I was sorry I wasn’t at the memorial services, but Lo was able to join us Saturday night and Sunday and was happy that Shmoo got to have his weekend of fun.

It was such a nice weekend. Beautiful weather, wonderful accommodations, nice people and TONS to do! And when I say TONS to do, I mean TONS.

I got a little camera happy but here’s a quick pictoral summary of our weekend.

And check out these dance moves… (I love how he totally runs up to this total stranger and dances with her at the end. He’s such a character)

I do feel a little refreshed, but very sluggish this morning. It was a wonderful weekend with my family, despite the circumstances for Lo’s absence on Saturday. We are definitely trying to make progress in getting ourselves back to a normal (what is normal?) level of stress or lack thereof. It’s an uphill battle.

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

13 Comments

gram

September 19, 2008 at 5:26 pm (family)

My poor wife. She called me about 20 minutes ago.

“I have two missed calls from my uncle. That’s odd. And I had a dream last night about my grandmother and how she was before the alzheimers. I think something is up and I’m nervous.”

The dream she had last night secured the news for me.

Ten minutes later, she called me back.

Gram passed away last night.

I know Lo is trying to look at the bright side. Gram’s quality of life has been less than fair after she was diagnosed the Alzheimer’s. She didn’t know anyone anymore and couldn’t even reach into her mind for vocabulary or language anymore. She was always mad and agitated. It was very hard for her.

It’s still very sad. I hope Gram found her peace.

20 Comments

in seven hours…

September 19, 2008 at 3:03 pm (weekends)

I will be getting in the car with my beautiful wife and heading for the Cat.skills. Marlis, Emil, the Shmoo and my parents will all arrive before us. I’ve very excited to get out of dodge for a few days, even if it’s only for 2 nights.

My shin splints are getting better, the med-induced-fog might be lifting and I actually put toothpaste on my toothrbrush this morning, instead of aqua.phor, like I did yesterday (totally a bitch to get off your toothbrush – but a very effective WAKE UP tool).

I’ve been in my own me-me-me world lately and I’m hoping to catch up with all of my friends soon. Life is always in progress, right? Thanks again to all of my friends for being such good friends.

Have a great weekend everyone. Enjoy every little moment.

7 Comments

lacking focus

September 17, 2008 at 6:13 pm (randomness)

I can’t thank my blog buddies enough. I’ve definitely been helped by a lot of words of wisdom and encouragement from my friends. I am having some focus problems so my post today is more of a lesson in randomness than anything else.

Enough about me and my issues. My poor wife is stressed too. She’s working full time now and even though she works less hours than me, she’s overburdened with all of the home and kid stuff. She never has time to play with Shmoo and he just pushes her buttons when she’s trying to get him ready or make dinner, etc. I am trying to get more accomplished at work and get home at a decent hour. I really need to pick up some of the home slack. It’s hard when your worth revolves around how much you bill, not what you accomplish. I need to give my wife some major appreciation. But if I spend money, she’ll be mad. I just keep thinking about how we could take some pressure off her if we could just sell the condo…
If I hear the term “Palin Mania” one more time, I’m throwing something breakable at my tv/radio.
My newest attempts to do something about my fatness have been thwarted. I started the Couch.to.5k podcast and was very proud of myself this past week for following through. I’ve been getting up on my running days at 5:30 am and running around my condo complex. After Week One, I’ve been blessed with shin splints. They hurt like absolute hell. Apparently, my legs don’t appreciate the extra weight. And I need better shoes. There’s another expense, adding to everything else. Jeez…
This new medication is totally making whatever focus I had completely dissipate. This was supposed to help me sleep too and I’ve been up the past 3 mornings at 4 am unable to sleep again. My brain is rather slow lately. Now, I’m not able to think clearly, but instead of panicking, I am totally cool with it. I should definitely be working on something law related right now.
I’m totally under my annual hours at work and I’m stuck between busting my ass for the remaining months or accepting the fact I’m not going to make it and just keep up what would be normal hours. It would really help if I could focus.

6 Comments

starting over

September 15, 2008 at 11:07 am (weekends)

This past few days have put a lot in perspective. I’m still not sure where my head is at, but I’m trying to work on some things.

Yesterday, I went into a cleaning frenzy and worked on the garage. Not that it’s really neat or anything, but you can now pull a car (the grand.cherokee, no lesS) into it and actually get to the other side of the garage without having to climb through the car.

There have been some developments (I’ll explain in a later post) in our neighborhood, so we are anxious to clean up the house and get it back on the market. I am holding my breath for a few weeks. What we are going to list it for will be a pretty substantial loss, but I have this sinking feeling that it’s not even going to sell at that price. I think I’ve become so negative on getting rid of our condo that every day, I’m reminded of how much I hate living here. I definitely need to find a new perspective if we are going to be forced to stay here for a very long time.

I received some great private emails and comments from my last few posts and I want to respond to everyone. I’m incommunicado for the next day or so for a golf outing work obligation and some other various things.

We’ve decided to take a quick jaunt for the weekend and go here for 2 days. I am really looking forward to it.

I get 20 vacation days per year and I haven’t taken one yet. My Feb. trip was on the prior year’s vacation days. It’s a big joke in our firm that you can never take these days due to the billable time requirements. Since I have zero shot of making my billable time minimum, maybe I’ll force myself to take a day or two off before the end of the year. Even if Lois can’t join me, I’ll take the boy and do something fun.

Not sure how I’ve been feeling the last few days. I don’t feel myself. I feel like I’m under water. Tired. Moving slow. Not thinking too sharp. The jury is still out on this stuff.

8 Comments