It's hard to create a title...

Baby Bottles

2010-02-10T17:40:00.008-05:00

Does anyone read my blog anymore? I discovered that the last time I had written anything was Aug 2008. Well, just in case there are some people who use google reader and are subscribed to me...

I thought maybe it would be a good time to start trying to write on this blog again since I have a baby. I've been going back and reading over things Julie wrote when Penelope was a newborn. This is helpful since I'm very concerned about doing stuff right and worried that Lincoln will spontaneously combust if I do something wrong. Then I re-read over Julie's blog a description of her day when she had one new baby and three other children, knowing that Penelope has made it to two years old and both she and Julie have survived. It makes it better.

So today I bought a bottle warmer because I wanted to make it easier for Rob to warm up a bottle quickly when it is his turn to feed Lincoln at night. He's been running the bottle under hot water in the sink. So, I figured, waste less water, Lincoln gets food faster and doesn't have to wait as long while crying and getting all hyped up. So I buy one that boasts "Ready in 90 seconds." Of course it has a little star by it that says this is if you are heating 4 oz that was at room temperature to start with. But I figure it's the only one with a time boast, so it's probably the fastest for refrigerated milk, too.

So I read the instructions and discover that what it does is steam the bottle. That's cool, but here are the instructions for how much water to put in the warmer: 4 oz bottle with initial liquid temp of 68 degrees,0.25 oz. 5 oz bottle with initial liquid temp of 39 degrees, 0.7 oz. Then there is measurements for 10 oz bottles at 68 and 39 degrees. That's it. No word on if you want to heat a, say, 6 oz bottle. OK, so I usually have a 4 oz bottle in the fridge, which I suppose I can do the same as a 5 oz bottle at 39 degrees, but 0.7 oz of water in the steamer? What kind of directions are these? Who has any kind of measuring device that gives you tenths and hundreths of ounces? So, I did a search on google and found an ounces to tablespoons chart. A tablespoon is .5 ounces. So, about 1 1/2 tablespoons? Rob said he was going to go ahead and do 2 or 3 tablespoons, and get it really hot so that he has to put the bottle back in the fridge for 15 minutes before he can give it to him.

I think half the baby items in the world get sold because parents are just desperate to do something...

I also decided that in being a parent you have to play mind games with yourself in the same way you do when you are exercising, say running, and you think "I will run for just 2 more minutes, ok, another 2, ok, I can do a little more..." I keep thinking, "If I can just make it to six weeks, I'll be ok...alright 8 weeks...well maybe 3 months." I'm sure it will continue to extend to six months...a year...five years...ok, maybe when they are 18...make that 22...

YOU NEED A BUDGET (at least I do)

2008-08-26T14:58:00.002-04:00

Since dealing with finances has been a big concern with the prayer requests, I thought I’d share about the budgeting program that we have been using since November. It’s called You Need A Budget. I highly recommend it, however, the first thing I am going to say is what’s wrong with it.

The main thing that could be improved about the program is that it should be able to automatically connect to your bank(s) and download your transactions like Money or other financial apps do. If you buy the Pro version, it can import Microsoft Money downloads, but you have to go to your banks’ webpage(s) and download them from there. If you are unable to download your most recent transactions (if you can only download last month’s statement), then that really does you no good…you’ll have to put them into YNAB manually. I get around this by using YNAB in combination with Money, using my own system that I won’t elaborate on here. The reason I’m telling you this first is because if you are unwilling or unable to spend the time doing this, then you obviously won’t actually use the program.

Now, what’s great about it. First, you input how much income you have for the month, which you then distribute into different categories, so far pretty normal. The thing is, if you overspend on any category, it automatically deducts that from your total you will start with for the next month. This is a feature that I have not seen on any other budgeting software, and it makes so much sense, because that money is coming out of somewhere! I could never figure out how it was useful for a budgeting program to tell you “You’re over budget on groceries!!!” but then never make you account for it anywhere. I think how this used to manifest itself with us was on the credit card. We use our credit card to pay for most things (because we get points). While we have always paid off the ending balance on our statement, we would drift from only spending money that we already had in our bank account to getting the money to pay off the bill just before it was due (meaning that we were really one month behind). YNAB has kept that from happening.

The second fabulous feature is that when you don’t spend all of the money in a specific category, it carries over in that category to the next month. This makes saving money for specific expenses that only come up every few months or once a year (or at unknown intervals, like car repair) easy.

Now, it’s important to note…well, I’ll just say what my personal experience was. I was a little bit more stressed out about money for the first couple of months. This was because I was going way over budget. When we started in November, for example, we both went to the dentist. Did we actually have money to go to the dentist? No. It therefore got taken out of our starting point for December, which is always a great month for keeping finances under control anyway. So, my point is, you’ll probably be overspending your budget and putting less money into certain categories than you know you’re going to spend for a little bit, but it’ll turn around.

Last thing, whether it is the male or female who is in charge of bills and whatnot in your home, it is fairly easy to pull your spouse aside as you’re assigning money to categories and let them see exactly where your money is going. This can be helpful. There are also great categories to start with (you can add or delete categories at will) such as “Fun Money (His)” and “Fun Money (Hers)”. So you can allocate a certain amount there every month and if your spouse has a certain proclivity towards…buying video games, that’s fine, as long as there’s enough money in that category for them to do so. (It’s also great for things like going out for coffee or buying art supplies). It’s also easy to skip forward a couple of months and create a theoretical budget if you’re thinking about having a major change in your financial picture and want to see how that would work out (say you were thinking about…buying a new house?).

All in all, it’s a program worth looking into. So, go check it out. I don’t remember how long you can try it out before you would need to buy the license key, but it’s probably 30 days. Here’s a link to download it if you’re interested www.youneedabudget.com/ynabpro-dl.php

Reading

2008-03-08T11:15:00.004-05:00

So I just finished reading two books.

The first one Rob and I read together. We decided to read it because of the controversy surrounding the release of the movie...I'm referring to The Golden Compass. We first checked it out of the library quite some time ago. It took us a while to read it, mostly because it wasn't the kind of book that I was very eager to get on with very often. Anyway, I thought I'd briefly comment. Putting it very simply, in the book, there's a substance called dust which you find out in the course of things is basically like a particle that is equivalent to sin. It begins to stick to children when they go through puberty. There are adults who are desperate to figure out how to keep the dust from beginning to stick to the children or to wipe out dust all together, but this leads them to basically do terrible things to children. In the end, the main character, a girl named Lyra, concludes that if these adults who do such bad things are trying to get rid of dust, then dust must be good...which is basically like saying if the people who want get rid of sin are so bad (which means they're so full of sin)then sin must be good. Which I have to say, is one of the silliest things I've ever heard.

I don't really care to read the other books in the series, but I am vaguely curious to see if the author has any kind of better points, or if it's all just as lame.

The other book I just finished reading is Brave New World, which I read in the 10th grade, but decided to re-read after it was mentioned once by our pastor and again in the books we are reading for small group. Both times it was mentioned as somewhat prophetic in talking about people as slaves to their own desires/happiness, being enslaved to entertainment, etc. I have to say, it's a very good book. There was a lot I didn't remember. Here's a section that I thought was particularly good:

Mustapha Mond, one of the world controllers, has just finished reading a manuscript...

"Not to be published." He underlined the words. "The author will be kept under supervision. His transference to the Marine Biological Station of St. Helena may become necessary." A pity, he thought, as he signed his name. It was a masterly piece of work. But once you began admitting explanations in terms of purpose-well, you didn't know what the result might be. It was the sort of idea that might easily decondition the more unsettled minds among the higher castes-make them lose their faith in happiness as the Sovereign Good and take to believing, instead, that the goal was somewhere beyond, somewhere outside the present human sphere; that the purpose of life was not the maintenance of well-being, but some intensification and refining of consciousness, some enlargement of knowledge. Which was, the Controller reflected, quite possibly true. But not, in the present circumstance, admissible. He picked up his pen again, and under the words "Not to be published" drew a second line, thicker and blacker than the first; then sighed, "What fun it would be," he thought, "if one didn't have to think about happiness!"

Way too much time on your hands....

2007-12-13T12:23:00.000-05:00

I want to start this post by saying that although comments made by Hannah (my partner in my massage office) were the motivation for this post, I do not believe that she is an uncreative person or wastes large portions of her time with some of the things that I will make reference to later.

The other day I told Hannah that I was making a nativity scene out of sculpey. For anyone who does not know what sculpey is, it is craft clay that you can bake in the oven. You can get it in bright colors or plain clay that you can sand and paint after it is baked. I was explaining that I have had a bunch of sculpey for some time and have not done anything with it and that I used to make little animals and stuff out of it for fun and give them to friends. She found this all very amusing and was laughing at me about it.

Anyway, while her laughing at me about it was not at all mean-spirited, it made me think about a little while ago when she told me about the Harry Potter Puppet Pals on YouTube, which I am sure many of you have watched as I sent out an e-mail with a link. She was the one who told me about them. She obviously found them to be very funny, but one of the comments she made was something along the lines of “How bored do you have to be to do something like that?” My reply to this was, that’s just how some people have fun…

…It is actually how me and my friend Elisabeth often had fun in our high school/early college days. Because they were the days before people had digital video recorders and easy video editing on computers, not to mention that there really wasn’t anywhere to post such video on the internet, these videos remain safely on miniature video cassette, probably somewhere in her parent’s house. These small films featured titles such as “When beanie-babies attack,” and me in characters such as “Captain Anna Boat”

So, one of the final things we did along these lines was a song for the answering machine in my dorm room my sophomore year (I had a single). It went like this – I’m sure you can figure out what tune it is sung to:

Why do you call my up
Buttercup baby
When I’m not at home
And can’t answer the phone?
And then worst of all
I can’t return your call babe,
Cause you don’t leave your name.
Oh what a shame!
I need you
To leave your name and number darling
So that I can call you back.
Or you can try again
Maybe I’ll be in
Eating a snack.

I had this message on my machine all year. Sometimes people would get a wrong number….always a student trying to call another student (as all the on campus numbers are similar). I would get random messages telling me things like, “Dude, you have way too much time on your hands…”

So here is my beef: That doing creative, totally silly, I admit, but creative, things is seen as “having too much time on your hands” or as something that could only be the product of being totally bored, while people waste SO MUCH TIME doing things like getting drunk, or spending hours upon hours watching TV. Anyway, it just occurred to me as really sad that in our society, using your own brain to entertain yourself is a last resort, something you would only do if there is no entertainment to consume or brain altering chemicals to be had. That’s all I have to say.

Rob's Celebrity Morph

2007-12-01T21:39:00.001-05:00

I didn't have time to do Rob the other day, so I just did. I don't think they really had anyone that really looks like him, this is the best they could do....

%1

My Celebrity Morph

2007-11-29T10:45:00.000-05:00

So, I haven't blogged in a long time, but when I saw the celebrity morphs on Jeremy and Darcy's page, I had to spend my precious time doing the same thing. I don't even know who this person is.

Walking in Mission Park

2007-09-29T12:32:00.000-04:00

I went walking in the Mission Park a few times this week, which I hadn't done in a while...Yesterday I took my camera:

The butterflies are out a lot right now.

I practically threw my cell phone in the water in my enthusiasm to take a picture of this snapping turtle.

Dang

2007-08-12T17:48:00.000-04:00

So, I was going to compose a post with pictures and some commentary about Julie's party last weekend, but unfortunately after the storm that came through Thursday evening, our desktop computer will not boot. Of course, ALL of my picture files are on our desktop... I have thought to myself before, I should get one of those large backup drives and put all my pictures on it, but have I done this...no. A good number of my pictures do exist on the servers of shutterfly and imagekind, however, this does my no good when I want to put them in my blog, and there were several that I had not gotten around to uploading yet.

Hopefully the whole computer is not completely fried and we will be able to get the information off of the hard drives...if not, well then that's just not fun at all.

Anyway, it doesn't seem like any good to me to talk about the party without the pictures, the whole thing that was spuring me to do it was that I was viewing the pictures on shutterfly and wanted to make comments on them, which you can actually do a little bit on shutterfly, but I think it works better in blog form.

Oh wait, after seeing Darcy's new post I just realized I can save the pictures when viewing them on shutterfly. I'M ON IT!

Giant Tree Painting

2007-07-29T16:31:00.001-04:00

After about 3 months of work, it is done, my giant tree painting....

OK, so I don't know that it looks all that impressive in the picture, I stood beside it to try to convey the scale, it's 48 x 60, which I'm not sure warrants the title "giant" compared with all things that have ever been painted, but it's the biggest thing I've ever painted. I think I started working on it in May, so it took almost 3 months to complete and it is now proudly displayed on the wall behind our table, so you can come over and marvel at it's glory.

Speaking of art and stuff, I paid for the super platinum status on imagekind.com so that I could put all (well not all, but a good number of) my pictures on there with the idea that maybe random people who peruse the internet for art might want to buy prints... it could happen, although it hasn't yet. Random people have looked at them though, and if you would also care to have a look go to http://annaeisenberg.imagekind.com/

I don't have the big tree on there yet because I tried taking good pictures of it hanging on the wall, but the light isn't good enough to get the details, so I'm going to have to set it up outside somehow, which is going to be more of a problem than I had with my other paintings, seeing how it's so big. I also need a title, I don't think I want to call it "big tree"

Vacation

2007-07-26T22:09:00.000-04:00

We went vacationing last week to Apalachicola and Atlanta...

Day 1: Apalachicola - we arrived, found that google maps gave me bad directions (not super bad, got me to the right street, just too far down...it was pretty easy to figure out) to the place we were staying. We stayed in the luxury loft at the House of Tartts, which I recommend, although you do have to lug your bags up a spiral staircase. Ate lunch, walked around downtown. Found an art gallery with nice paintings where a man said that we should go to dead lake and gave us directions. Turns out dead lake was 1 hour away (I was expecting maybe 1/2 hour) and it took us a while to actually find it once we were in the area. It was pretty cool though. Lots of cypress tree stumps. It makes you wonder what happened to them all. Here's one live cypress:

Day 2: St George Island- We went to the beach, where I was very proud of Rob for getting in the water and trying to enjoy it (he's not very fond of the swimming). Then we went across the street to the other side of the island and walked along a little trail and looked out on the side that was marshy.

Day 3: Return to Tally - not very much intersting

Day 4: Drive to Atlanta - again, not very much interesting

Day 5: Chillaxing at Rob's sitster's - not very intersing either

Day 6: Greek cooking class and Georgia Aquarium. In the cooking class we made: 2 different lamb chops, Greek salad, fried zucchini, Tzaziki sauce, cheese pastries, fried doughballs. All very tasty. Apparently our GA Aquarium time overlapped that of the Mitchells and Bennages. We didn't see them, but ran into a group from Northwoods...here's some pics from there

I don't know what this is, but it was pretty cool

This grouper was staring at us

Crazy Japanese crab that can get as big as a car

The Beluga whale was my friend - he's smiling at me

Pretty Jellyfish

Awww...we love each other!

Trip to Brandon

2007-06-04T13:46:00.000-04:00

So Rob and I went down to Brandon/Tampa for about five days last week. He had a meeting in Tampa on Wednesday and his cousin Sandy was getting married on Saturday, so we just decided to hang out. So we drove down on Wednesday morning and Rob dropped me off at his parents and went to his meeting. He had another meeting (with a different person) on Thursday, so I again got to hang around his parents house all day. This wasnt' too bad, as I brought The Three Musketeers with me, which is a really long book: 738 pages (I am now on page 259), but is still shorter than the 5th Harry Potter book (the one we are reading now) which is 870 pages.

The Three Musketeers and Harry Potter compared.

The Three Musketeers does look bigger, but it's because it's a paperback and has now been stretched out a little. My point: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is really dang long, and I somehow feel like it has less of a right to be so than The Three Musketeers. (Side note added later: Reading the introduction to either Three Musketeers or The Count of Monte Cristo, I found out that the reason books of this era were so long was because they were originally published by chapter in newspapers, which paid the authors by the word or by the line...so authors tried to stretch the stories out a bit. Even so, I still found The Three Musketeers more engrossing than Order of the Phoenix. And, by the way, I also liked it more than The Count of Monte Cristo, even though people seem to think that one is Dumas' best. Maybe it was because I read it after watching the anime version, but I don't know...I read all the Lord of the Rings books after seeing the movies...)

Friday Rob and I went to the Lowry Park Zoo, which is a very good zoo. I don't know if it had to do with the fact that there was a tropical storm approaching the area, but the animals were more active than I have ever seen zoo animals.

The Siamangs were "singing" and swinging.

The chimps were hooting back from accross the street.

The tiger was pacing and looking in the window (which you can't see but is right beside it.) Apparently wondering how it could possibly get the to children inside staring at it.

The only animal that was chilled out was the sloth bear.

Then Saturday we went to the wedding. I didn't take pictures there because apparently I only take pictures of jungle beasts.

Such as Rob - He's like a cheetah!

The wedding was nice, but involved too much sitting around while we waited for the bridal party to arrive so we could eat. Man, I let everyone eat right away at my wedding! Then it took to long to get to the dancing. Come on people - marriage, food, dance, one right after the other. Does it seem to anyone else like too many things happen at weddings just so that they can have pictures of said things. Like the whole cake cutting thing, who cares, just eat the cake. Cake is for eating. Maybe it's just me. Maybe it was just that the DJ had to annouce and count down (3, 2, 1...) for both times they made the slice down the cake and for the moment of them feeding it to each other and for the kiss afterward.

Saturday

2007-04-21T17:37:00.000-04:00

This morning I was considering what to eat for breakfast and I remembered Julie talking about sweet potato pancakes and I decided that was what I needed to make. So, long story short, because this in not really the point of this post, Rob and I finally ate them at around 1:00. True I was not considering breakfast until around 10:00, but still, that's a good three hours later. They were very good though.

After this and sweeping off the back porch I decided that I had accomplished enough for today and decided that I needed something to do that wouldn't take too much strain (physical or mental). Then the brilliant idea hit me: I'll read peoples blogs for the past however long it's been since I looked at them. Sometimes when you guys start talking about something that's already known because it's been written on blogs I feel a bit left out, but having hours worth of reading on back blogs can be quite useful.

So, what was my point? I don't know, I think writing this post may be causing too much mental strain. It's just one of those days.

Restricted Access

2007-04-16T21:11:00.000-04:00

So, I put my blog on restricted access because when I wrote my first really short little post and then didn't look at my blog for a while, some random person commented on it. And I was all "Who are you?! Don't comment on my blog! I don't know you!" So anyway, I got all securityified. Obviously, it's been a while and I have only just now invited some people besides Rob, just because I didn't get around to it. Anyway, if there's anyone in the Monday night group or whatnot who says, "I can't read Anna's blog, she didn't send me an invitation," tell them it's not personal, I've just been haphazard about it, so they just need to send me an e-mail.

Barren Words

2007-04-16T13:03:00.000-04:00

So, people I know write in their blogs a lot. They might not consider it a lot, but I do. I have had a lot of trouble with wanting to write things down in the past... maybe 4 years. I used to journal all the time, especially in high school and the beginning of college. But now, I try to say express something in words and they just seem inadequate and barren. It can be different when you are talking to someone, although I generally don't speak as much as other people either. But when I do, expression, voice and the recognition and response of the other person let me know at least that perhaps what I'm saying is understood, if not expressed well. With a blog, it's like I'm writing into the void and it's strange.

I generally do the same things all the time. I massage people, I walk, I read, I paint, I swim, and it's all very lovely and nice, but I it doesn't leave me with much to particularly tell. Maybe I just don't try very hard.

I like swimming. When I first plunge into the water I am suddenly surrounded by the stillness that it provides and I am struck by the vast difference of it compared to the noise of the air. On a sunny day the light sparkles through the water and it's one of my favorite things. Then I surface and pull myself through 30 laps. Sometimes it's easier and I can still enjoy the water, and sometimes it's hard and all it's all I can do to will myself to keep going. The initial enjoyment always keeps me coming back for more.

So, that wasn't so hard. Maybe next time I'll muse about walking and trees and wind and things.

The Year 2006

2007-01-07T09:40:00.000-05:00

Inspired by those who send years in review in Christmas cards, I will now do a year in review. I started out 2006 by declaring shortly after midnight that I wanted to have my own independant massage therapy business by 2007. So I saved money in the first part of the year and then opened up in May. I am in a building near downtown Tallahassee and right next to the Department of Education, where I now go every Wednesday to do chair massages. I am sharing the office with Hannah, who is very nice and keeps a very nice-looking fishtank in the office. I also stated at the beginning of the year that I wanted to paint more, and I've painted something just about every month...I took two on one of the bigger ones. Reading was also on my list and I read the Isaac Asimov Foundation triology as well as Caves of Steel, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and I think Ivanhoe was this year too. Rob and I also read The Princess and the Goblin together as well as Pride and Prejudice and other things I can't remember. So...I get gold stars for my last year's resolutions. I don't know what my resolutions are this year....ummm.....write on the blog - I'm doing that, Yay! I get ANOTHER gold star.

So, that's all I can remember from the beginning of the year, which is why I should probably do 1/2 years in review, or just generally write more often. In August we went to visit Scott and Anne-Marie in Salt Lake City, which was fun. It's a very nice city with lots of pretty mountains around. We went hiking, to the zoo and rode up to the top of a mountain on a cable car. The picture on the left I took while we were riding up on the cable car. It was hot, but very dry, which is nicer than Florida.

In the middle to later in the year Rob and Christopher entered Microsoft's Code Master Challenge and were one of 20 finalists in the world. They also started their own business together, Blue Sprie Consulting. I think that was around Sept/Oct that they officially did that. A link from this blog to their website will be coming soon!

Rob and I also learned how much fun it is to have squirrels chew holes through the siding of your house and get into your attic, spend a lot of money to replace the windows and siding of your house, paint the outside of your house yourself, and try fill in the places where the dirt washed away from under the foundation because all your grass died and your house is on a hill.

Let's see, I also took more fun pictures when I went to Savannah/Tybee Island with Jesse. I'm enjoying my new digital camera which I bought just before we went to Salt Lake City. In fact, I think it's one of my best purchases ever.

Other things probably happened last year, but I don't remember right now. Oh yeah, almost everyone I know had a baby. I have a lot of pictures of babies covering my fridge right now and they're all very cute and I love them. No, I don't know when I will have a baby.

Bye!

Maybe I'll actually write something

2007-01-06T22:44:00.000-05:00

OK, so I've just been messing around with my settings and I have an idea that I might actually write something at some point, but it's not really this point because I just restricted my blog and I only invited one person to view it....so you know who you are. Hi Robby. So, I don't know to whom I would like to send an invitation to my blog, because I don't know what I'm writing yet. So, maybe at some point when I really feel like it, I'll write about something for real and decide who to invite. Right now I just wanted to give you something to read.

Look I made a blog

2006-10-16T14:29:00.000-04:00

I have joined the world of bloggers. Isn't it exciting?