Wishing everyone a very happy New Year. I hope that 2010 brings with it everything that you dream of and desire.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to decide if I'm getting a Blackberry or not. (There's a GREAT deal on right now. A co-worker picked it up and now I have SmartPhone envy!)

J

Well, I hope you all had a great Christmas. The girls got LOTS of presents between them. (Of course, the oldest had birthday presents sprinkled in too. We figure we've got maybe another year or two before she starts getting shorted and blames us for it.)

I just had my first cup of coffee from my new machine from the in-laws. Took me a while to get brewing. I've had a Tassimo in the house for years, but I found some filters (Cone, when I need cup style, but hey...) and some beans that we brought back from the Domincan Republic. Ground them up in the "bullet" and took the new machine (Hamilton Beach if you're curious) for a spin.

Two things: That's one HOT cup of joe. And it was damned good too. I forgot how nice it is to control how the coffee gets done. The Tassimo is great, but you get what they give you. Now I can control the coffee to water ratio again. Heavenly....

Of course, having said that, I'm sitting here at work with a cup of "Timmie's"! LOL

Tomorrow we have one more Christmas dinner that will include PIE! (There was no pie at the in-laws last night!) Then it will all be officially over. It's been mild up here too. The wife and I were discussing taking down the lights while it's warm now. Instead of waiting for spring. It just feels too early though. Like we'd be killing Christmas. Then again, I didn't get the lights down from last year until summer...

Last topic for today...

Up here in the Great (not so) White North, we have "Boxing Day." On this day (Which is a statutory holiday) we have sales. AWESOME sales. Like TVs for 70% off sales. Still, we couldn't think of one single thing that we wanted/needed so badly that we'd brave the 4+hr line ups for. I'm serious by the way. People line up at 3 or 4 AM for these sales. I guess you could compare it to the "Balck Friday" sales in the States.

TV? Got two. DVD? Got it. Computer? Got it. We couldn't think of anything. So no savings for us today. Maybe in a couple of years when it's time to start replacing things...

Until next time,

Be safe.


J

A Holiday Wish

Well,

Unless you're reading this randomly, I'm sending out Holiday wishes to no one...(I don't have any "followers" yet)

Regardless, I wish anyone reading this a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

May all the best that this season has to offer reach you and yours.

For those that celebrate other observances, may all the blessings of your traditions find you in good health and spirits.

Until next time,

J

Wow! Over a week since I last posted anything. Not a good way to go about this.

Well, I've been looking around and I see that Dr Oz has a whole chunk of his site devoted to pregnancy. So I thought I'd have a poke around.

I had saved a bunch of links when I started poking, but now that I've gone back and looked at them, there's only one that I want to share.

http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/ultimate-pregnancy-smoothie

The only thing that seems to be missing is a direct folic acid ingrediant. Easy to fix. If you've got a juicer, juice some spinach or other leafy greens with your berries. This will add some folic acid but it won't alter the taste or texture. The other option is a good Pre-Natal vitamin with your smoothie. Remember, your regular daily vitamin doesn't count. Go get the pre-natal version of your favorite brand. They'll add extra calcium and folate/folic acid for you.

I can't stress enough how important folic acid is when you're preggers. Guys, tell your girls. Girls, feed your babes.

It's a simple thing to take care of early. As soon as you find out you're expecting, change vitamins. As in, on your way out of the doctor's office, stop at the pharmacy across the hall/street and buy some.

Do not wait. Do not pass go. Etc. Etc.

Well, that's all for now. The ladies are home from ballet lessons. Better go eat and see how the day was.

Happy Happy.

What to do....

I've been slacking in recent days. I keep sitting down to write, but end up playing, reading and generally NOT getting it done.

I had a few topic ideas. I even had a couple of suggestions from my wife. I just haven't felt especially insipired though...

Now I'm sitting at work (on some downtime) typing away and I still don't really have a focus yet. Since the name of my blog is UN-Randomness, I can't just blather on, now can I?

So I'll pose a question to you. First, some background. I read an article in a newpaper that raised some interesting questions. (In my mind, at least.)
http://www.medindia.net/news/Career-Prospects-Adversely-Hit-by-Lengthy-Maternity-Leave-61608-1.htm

The gist of the article is that longer maternity leaves seem to damage a woman's career possibilites. Now, I know that maternity leave is a touchy subject to begin with and this revelation(?) cetainly adds to the discussion.

Is it fair that if a woman chooses to have kids that her career should be tainted? I know that one side will have you believe that it should be an either/or scenario. Either work, or have kids. "You can't have both." Then there's the "Why should I pay for you to go off and have kids?" (They're against the whole Mat Leave thing in general.)

Listen, most women (and couples, for that matter) understand that their lives will get tossed upsidedown when they decide to add kids to the mix. (At least I HOPE most people realize this.) But why should other people (Bosses, co-workers, law-makers...) get to make it even more difficult? Why should someone else get to decide what you can handle and be able to take-on? Everyone, whether at work or in life, should get the opportunity to succeed or fail. I certainly wouldn't be allowed to tell my wife that she can't go back to work. That I expect her to stay home with the kids, clean house, cook meals and look pretty while doing it. That's inappropriate in today's society. (Western culture society, anyways.)

So how do workplaces get afforded the ability to do it? How come a woman's boss gets to say, "Well, I know you're up for promotion/training or that you're interested in...(Fill in you're extra activity here), but you've got kids at home now. I can't let you do it"? What the...?

It happens because people let it happen. But what else can you do? Sue your boss? Yeah, you'll win, but at what cost? Who wants to work for the person/company that they just sued the pants off of? I can see it now..."OK. You win. We can't hold you back anymore. Here's 900hours of work to take home. Here's your "new" desk next to the toilet/janitor's closet. By the way, we're imposing a dress code on the entire office...(So that everyone hates you.)" It's a win/lose scenario. But why can't more companies just do the right thing off the top? Bad corporate policy? Bad management? Bad management "training"? (Have you seen some of these "courses" for managers? Brutal!)

Why can't the West, after 30+ years of trying, find the work/life balance? Is it truly a myth? Or can balance only come in certain careers?

Let me know what you think.

J

Ask Dr. Oz: Ask Dr. Oz | Pregnancy Center

Was watching the Dr with my wife yesterday (But I think the show was from a couple of days ago.) and I thought that a lot of what he had to say was great advice. So I'm sharing it.

The Ask Dr. Oz Pregnancy Center is your destination for answers to your pregnancy-related questions. Explore each trimester and learn about pregnancy.

Round three?

Well, what do you know? It seems "round three" is definitely still on the table. After all the "what were we thinking?" that I wrote about a few days ago, we still don't have a firm decision on number three.
To be honest, I already knew that. After all, that's why certain steps haven't been taken to ensure there is no number three. It's just that it hasn't come up in conversation for many weeks now, so I thought maybe the interest was waning fast.
WRONG!
What can I say? The two girls are just so darned cute and adorable (some days) that you can't help but want to try again. I'm not against the idea. After all, we've got the "heir and a spare" why not go one more for flair?
Well, if the stars align the right way...
Who knows?

More later,

J

Money

If money was no object....What would you do? Travel? Spend? Still save for that "rainy day"?

How much money would it take before you could say, "Money's no object"? $1million? 2? 20?

Where do you even put that kind of money? I can't see my current financial institution being OK with me showing up with a $Million plus lottery "check"

They say that there are three things you should do before announcing yourself to lottery authorities.

1) Cancel your telephone.

2) Talk to a financial planner. (In regards to my question from above, about where to put it all.)

3) Prepare to be bombarded.

There are people out there who are afraid to have money. Can you believe that? They say things like, "Oh! That's too much. I wouldn't know what to do with it. I'd have to hire an accountant. The taxes would be murder."

Wow. If your toughest choice in life turns into "Should I go with accountant X or accounting firm Y?" that's a good thing. There are people right now who have to choose between food and rent. They have to choose between buying gas to get to work to keep their jobs, or buying food for their kids to eat.

I won't get into politics here. (Today) I'm just trying to tell you to keep your mind open. Be aware of the, sometimes, foolish thoughts we let creep into our heads. My wife and I were discussing money this afternoon and we realized that we keep using the term "insane money" when we dream about being rich. That's not a healthy way to look at money. It means that, somewhere deep inside, we might have issues with wealthy people.

If you want to be a wealthy person, it's probably not a good idea to have issues with them. At least we've caught it now. All that's left is to figure out where the problem is. I'd hate to hate myself in a few years when I've come up with a million dollar idea. You know what I mean.

I'll leave you with this again though...If your toughest choice is what accountant to go with...That's a problem that thousands of people would like to have. I know I would.

J

Driving Needs

My wife and I were talking in the mini-van today. About the mini-van, funny enough. We were trying to figure out, at what point does the mini-van lose it's usefulness?

It's different for everyone, to be sure. I brought up that the extra seats were handy when we wanted to go out with friends, and we could all fit in the one vehicle. Now our "couple" friends are joining us in having kids. Suddenly, we don't have enough seats. Two vehicles are required again.

My mom, though, doesn't drive. Squeezing her between two full car seats might be tough. Perhaps when both kids are older and only in boosters, it'd be OK. So now we need to keep the extra seats.

The extra seats might be handy in a few more years when we have to drive, not only our kids, but maybe their friends. Birthday parties, movies and zoo trips don't fill themselves.

Then, there's the whole haulage thing. It's nice to be able to toss those seats in the garage and go pick up a whole dinning room set. Do those BMW cross-over SUVs have that kind of space? I'll look into it and let you know.

Not like we plan on dropping the mini-van tomorrow...but when it's time is done, what do we replace it with?

What do you think?

Thoughts from a Dad

So...
I'm a dad. I have two daughters. Aged 6mths and almost 4yrs. See how I did that? (Hint: There's two (2) things I "did" there.)

First off, I put the youngest first. This is to avoid the problem missing the second girl. If I had put them in chronological order, you would have had to read; 4yrs and 6mths. See the problem? Those two ages sort of come out as one. 41/2 Then you're asking, "Where's the second girl?" Then you have to go back and re-read to see what you missed. That's not fair.

Another "solve" for that issue is my second "did that". I'm one of those parents who stopped using months to describe my eldest at the point she hit 1year. 28mths? What's up with that. She's 2 and a quarter. Or two years and four months...None of this overloading of months.

Enough of that though, I titled this blog "Un-randomness." While what I've put in this post was done on purpose, I don't want to beat it to death either. On to the rest of my points.

My girls are great. (Most days) The eldest has started school. The youngest has started solid foods. Sometimes, though, my wife and I wonder just what were we thinking? I mean, we had wrapped up with diapers. Sleepless nights had become a thing of the past. Then we deliberately put it all back on the table.

Round two.

Don't get me wrong. We wouldn't trade it for anything. I think, though, that other parents of multiple kids know what I'm talking about. There are moments when you just look at your partner and say "Remind me why we thought this was a good idea..."

Hours, or days, later, you get the answer. On of them gives you that special smile when you come in. Or the hand you a special picture they drew. Or you get a random hug. Then, you look down, smile and give up. Nothing in life tops those moments.

I just wish, like countless others before me, that someone had a manual. Or even a user guide. I don't need full schematic, but....

Oh well. It's not like a guide would include a warranty anyway....


J

The beginning...

This blog will not be random ramblings. I intend to distill information for you, my reader. I'll break it down, where I can, and send it off to you. I may impose my beliefs and biases when I write, but I hope you'll come to appreciate that.

Later,

J