FABOO MAMA

Food — Comments
24
Feb 09

Granola bars done right

Nature Valley Sweet & Salty Nut Bar

People claim that I am a picky eater. It’s not true, I just happen to like what I like. It’s not my fault some things are just not fit for consumption. Last week, looking for cheap and “healthy” snacks for my kids that can be carried in my pocket, I found Nature Valley granola bars. They looked interesting & the price was right, so I grabbed them. When I got home and looked at the box, I saw that they had yogurt on them, so I chalked it up to something else I won’t be eating because dried yogurt doesn’t appeal to me. It was only in a fit of desperation for something sweet to eat that I decided to go ahead and nibble on one, with one eye on my 3 year old human garbage disposal.

YUM

That’s not quite the word. It doesn’t it do it justice. When you bite into the bar it’s bland, but then it’s like little sugar crystals dancing on your tongue. All of a sudden, the back of your throat gets lightly slapped with a slight salty taste. All of this happens over and over again creating a burst of flavor. It was so good, I had forgotten about the dried yogurt.

Nature Valley's Sweet & Salty Flavors

I freely admit to eating another right after the first. The bar was so good that, I almost coveted them as badly as I do my Girls Scout Thin Mints. Anyone who knows how I do not share my Thin Mints will understand how much I liked these bars. It wasn’t until the bars were gone that I bothered to glance at the nutritional values of it. I still haven’t quite paid attention to it, but I’m posting an image of it so you can make your own decisions.

House — Comments
16
Feb 09

The flooding basement

You may remember my posts from last year about my basement. About waking to find almost 3 feet of water lazing about ruining my shit. Well, a big reason why is that I had put a stack of newspapers over the drain. Duh.

We’ve been vigilant, but lacking funds we could only hope not to reproduce last year’s drama. We know now that the water is coming up through the cracks of the concrete floor, so explain to my why I thought it to be a great idea to put a rug on that same floor during the winter months? After this morning’s rainfall, I peeked downstairs to see that the cracks were wet, but all was well. Not too long ago, Adrian asked if the basement was alright. He took a peek to find that it wasn’t.

There was only about 3 inches of water in the deepest parts and thankfully everything had been put up high. Still, the carpet is wet, as are cords to various small appliances. I ran to the back to grab a bamboo stick and see what was clogging the drain this time. One little slip of paper. That’s all.

So, the water has gone down the drain, the cracks are still swollen and weeping water, but at least we didn’t have to spend 3 days with the sump pump.

Internet — Comments
15
Feb 09

FRIENDFEED MEETUP 02-21-09 @2pm| Five Guys Burgers and Fries

Just heads up for anyone else in Los Angeles, we are going to have a meet up at Five Guys this coming Saturday.

What I posted on FriendFeed:

Our East Coast friends got us curious, but Anna Lynn tipped us to the fact that there’s a couple here in SoCal. So join us *next Saturday (02.21.09) @2pm * to see if Five Guys is indeed better than In-N-Out: Cerritos Promenade ~ 11461 South Street Cerritos, CA 90703 ~

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Internet / meme — Comments
13
Feb 09

My Valentine’s Day Personality

Your Valentine’s Day Personality is Practical

As far as you’re concerned, Valentine’s Day is simply a commercial holiday.
You don’t place any real meaning on it. You don’t think it deserves too much celebration.

For you, Valentine’s Day is just the day you avoid restaurants and candy stores.
If you love someone, you already show it. You don’t need to go all out for a silly holiday to prove your love.

What’s Your Valentine’s Day Personality?

Books — Comments
30
Jan 09

I just read Anathem

Anathem by Neal Stephenson

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars
Well, I finally finished reading this book. Meh. I think Neal Stephenson should stick to Earth. The book just read as a contract filler. We’ve read other books, better written with the hapless main character caught up in events. Not his best.

View all my reviews.

Homewreckage — Comments
26
Jan 09

$24,760.85

Deadline February 19th.

Yep, that’s how much money we need to have to come current on our house.

Sigh.

So, it’s pretty clear, this is our last month in this wonderful place. Obviously, we’ve looked and are looking into our options. Even thought the mortgage company offers on paper various options, talking with them the past few months has shown that they are really less than eager to actually allow these options to happen. So, the next 3 weeks will be full of us packing up our belongings, repotting plants that don’t need to be in the ground, and finding a place to stay. That last one is a doozy and kind of paralyzed us.

We got spoiled of being so close to the city without having to actually deal with city traffic and other headaches, so we’d like to stay over here. Besides, the girl is in the middle of Kindergarten and we’re not sure that we’d be able to find another school with an open space in a Spanish dual-language program. Other options just get more suburban; South Pasadena, Alhambra, Pasadena, etc. To make it even more daunting, it’s near impossible to find a place to live in 3 months, let alone 3 weeks. Which leads us to our Plan G: Kansas City.

We may have a free place to stay, but our business is here in CA. Granted, if we find someone willing to take photos for us, we could move anywhere in the world and still keep the business. And it’s cold there. I don’t know that 3 weeks is enough time to mentally prepare myself to move halfway across the country into the cold. And then there’s the logistics of moving our stuff to consider. I don’t know that we can afford to pay a mover, but I do know that we can’t drive a semi-truck through snow-covered mountains.

Hopefully, we will find a working solution soon. Wish us luck!

African-American / Barack Obama / elections 2008 — Comments
19
Jan 09

Obama’s been Tupac’d

We went to the California African-American museum yesterday for the Martin Luther King Jr. celebrations. I expected vendors, but nothing prepared me for what I am calling the Tupacification of Barack Obama.

This first photo is a rhinestone shirt. The caption of the photo is what it says on the shirt.

All Eyes on Me

This vendor had a ton of photos of the Obamas, but this one caught my eye for obvious reasons.

Obama transformed to FDR

Buttons! My kids were drawn to them and I walked over to check them out. That one in the middle…Wow.

Buttons

Blogs — Comments
07
Jan 09

Why I’ve been silent

I’ve been getting emails the past few months asking me why I rarely blog any more. Some of it was that I got so burnt out on politics that I just shut down. Some of it, is that I won’t want to put just anything on my blog. You can follow me on Friendfeed and see some of the content there. Logic would dictate that I figure out this MediaRSS plugin so that I can import my FF content to here. But the main reason I no longer blog is financial.

Meaning: I have no money.

The stress of constantly being behind in bills, of trying to keep on top of billing has turned me away from writing. Anything I write will be shot through with how broke I am and I do not want to have that be the focus of my blog. But the truth is that due to a dominio effect that started in Spring of 2007, there’s a very good chance of my family being homeless in the coming months.

We spend most of our money on paying late bills and their fees, but we’re also behind on our mortgage now. Having that over our heads has made the effort to get out and enjoy life a little hard. Add in the IRS funds we owe for the past 2 years, it becomes a little suffocating to try to be fun.

We don’t have credit card debt, a car payment or anything like that. We just owe on our house, the IRS taxes and property taxes. When we purchased our home, we got a decent rate, put down 20% on a home that was underpriced for the market. Even now that our home’s value has dropped a bit, we’re still not upside-down on our mortgage. What hurts a bit more, is that even if we were renting, we’d still be in the same boat, but propbably would have been evicted by now. We have no place to go if we lose our house. Nowhere. Many people are lucky enough to have friends and/or family willing or able to help them in dire times. Neither of us can claim that. Nevertheless, the domino that fell in Spring 2007 has created a cacophony of sound we can no longer ignore.

As you know, I work for my husband–our small company of two. While there’s been some industry upheaval, there hasn’t been enough to explain why we went from working 20 – 30 sites a month down to about 10. Even at 10 sites a month, assuming they’re new sites, that’s still barely scraping by. Even if I were lucky enough to find a job outside the home, we’d need childcare for the kids and another car, so my husband can continue his company he started in 1995.

We’re trying. We’re trying so hard to give our kids a good life. We don’t spoil them, but I enjoy taking them to the zoo, botanical gardens and museums. I’ve given up my memberships to the Arboretum and Natural History museum. Instead opting for the museums free days and saving for Arboretum or Descanso Garden trips. Our zoo membership ends soon, so that twice monthly visit will end too as it’s either than or end the hosting on our business website. They’re growing so big, so fast that I can’t afford to get them clothes that fit properly. That makes me so sad.

It’s so frustrating to see all the work you’ve done so much to create topple. I’ve been here before and weathered it, but then I was single and childless. I didn’t have any responsibilities except to myself. I do not find solace in knowing that I’m not alone in this experience, that other families in this country are feeling the same effects. We can all hope for the best and hope that it comes sooner rather than later. That some solution presents itself as soon as possible. Otherwise, this could be the end of my blog as it stands.

Thank you.

Shopping / Technology — Comments
31
Dec 08

So long Instinct. So long Sprint

Samsung Instinct

I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s time for me to end my 8 year relationship with Sprint. This is actually kind of painful to think about. Everyone knows that for the Los Angeles area, Sprint has the best coverage. I’ve only lost coverage high up in the mountains or in far-flung reaches of the desert. I’ve never hit pockets of deadspace driving around the inhabited areas of Southern California, unlike those poor AT&T or Verizon users who can’t even use their phones on Sunset Blvd. or driving up Normandie. Price-wise, there’s really no other carrier who can touch Sprint. I’m paying $69/mo with unlimited texting and 1500 minutes vs. my husband who’s paying the same amount at T-Mobile (he ended his 13 year relationship with Sprint back in October to get a G1), but gets way less minutes than I do and is limited to only 400 text a month. I could complain about the small storage size (only expandable up to 8GB), but then not only do I have a phone that can be used for almost 5 hours on one battery charge, but I also can access my battery and have an extra one. I don’t know how iPhone users live with a phone where they can not access the short-lived battery. I could complain about the strangely useless shopping application, but then I remember that not only does my phone have voice turn-by-turn GPS, it’s incredibly accurate unlike the G1 and the iPhone, neither of which even have voice turn-by-turn.

With all this in mind, you’re probably wondering why I would want to drop Sprint. The reason is that I am unhappy with what was Sprint’s bait-and-switch regarding the Samsung Instinct. Keep in mind that my previous phone was a PPC-6700. I could email work files, shoot videos that uploaded to several sites, and view most of the websites I needed on my phone. Admittedly, my husband modified my phone with the HTC OS, which made it infinitely more usable for our work situation. Syncing our Google calendar, emails and tasks were no problem. I could modify items in Windows Office, view PDFs and still had games. The only problem I had with the phone was its heft. I needed something lighter, so I bought the Instinct. The only reason I purchased the Instinct was that it shot video (something the iPhone and G1 don’t do), it was light as air, and Sprint had made promises about what it was going to do.

I have no problem purchasing first-gen tech and I’m willing to put up with some glitches here and there. What I can not abide is lying and lying is exactly what Sprint has done. When I purchased my phone in July, I, along with other Instinct users, many of whom have broken their contracts and moved on, were told that applications that would increase usability would be available “soon”. The only problem was that in June while we were told what kind of apps would be available, Sprint was also sending out press releases for an App Developers contest. This contest was to find the person/group who would get the job of making these promised apps. By the end of July, after some waffling and unfounded rumors, we were given a late date in September. This was to coincide with the strangely secret developers contest. How they planned to release apps before the winning developers actually worked on them became a great source of amusement among Instinct users on forum boards and blogs. This was the pebble that started the avalanche of disenchantment among Instinct users.

As the date of the contest winners announcement drew closer, the G1 was getting ready for release. People were getting antsy and there was a wait-and-see attitude spreading. Some users had already decided to cut their loses and go get a G1 as soon as it was available for non-T-Mobile customers. Others had talked their spouses or friends into getting a G1 so they can make side-by-side comparisons. The date of Sprint’s announcement of the winner of the App Developer’s contest came and went. It wasn’t until the day AFTER the announcement was supposed to have been made that Sprint put out a release. The release didn’t announce a winner. Instead it stated that the announcement was being pushed back to late October. That’s it. A slide started where Instinct users fed up with Sprints lies, decided that breaking their contract would be in their best interest and most of them went get T-Mobile’s G1, which has a lot more functionality than the Samsung Instinct. Incidentally, it’s now Dec. 31st and Sprint has never released the names of the winners of their supposed contest. This could be because they quietly opened a page for Java Mobile developers, but even more interesting is that most Instinct users no longer care because they’re all leaving Sprint.

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FABOO MAMAInside the mind of an opinionated mama…