Zen-Mother

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From another blog of mine…

Kids Won’t Eat Bentos With Spit In Them

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I had a blast from the past today. I was posting to my newly re-vamped (pun intended) fan site for Alex O’Loughlin the vampire P.I from Moonlight. I was posting a video that shows the original cast of Moonlight which at first glance, I thought included Patrick Bauchau….he is Archon Raine from Kindred the Embraced…a vampire TV show I LOVED in the late nineties. Thinking about that show got me thinking about the shows lead, Mark Frankel, who died before a second season could be filmed. I was devastated when he died. I remember crying my eyeballs out over how such a young, talented light was just snuffed out. He left behind two little boys…one of whom he never got to meet.

Anyway after a search for any sites dedicated to the show I ran across a Wikipedia explanation of the show, which brought me to the Mark Frankel fan club that was set up after his death to honor his life. Just for kicks I clicked on Membership and there glaring at me, right smack in the middle of the page is my name  (maiden) on the membership roster. I don’t even remember signing up for it so I guess I have been a terrible member.

So let me take a second to remember Mark…I will never forget….

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 I just love Jane Austen’s books and many of the movies made from them. My favorite is Sense and Sensibility followed by Pride and Prejudice. Which Jane Austen Heroine are you? I am :: E L I N O R ::

You are Elinor Dashwood of Sense & Sensibility! You are practical, circumspect, and discreet. Though you are tremendously sensible and allow your head to rule, you have a deep, emotional side that few people often see.  

Take the Quiz here!

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Yeah…I probably have to much time on my hands…

Alex O’Loughlin Online

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I recently developed a little celebrity crush…I tend to do that…always have. Although this time I am not taking it so well as ALL of my celebrity crushes since I was 5 have been older than me. Imagine how old I felt when I realized the newest actor I am craving is two weeks younger than I. I am getting old and my tastes are not…LOL.

Anyway…recently I am loving Alex O’Loughlin (pronounced O’Locklin) an Australian actor. I first saw him in the new series Moonlight so of course I had to try and get my hands on everything he ever acted in and to start off that was 3 movies I bought off Amazon. Two were wonderful and one sucked.

The first was the sucky one and as I told my husband it was just wrong…on sooo many levels…and I am fairly “open minded” The movie, Feed, was about sexual fetish. Specifically it was about feeders and gainers. This was not a new concept for me as I have heard of it before on a kinky podcast I used to listen to. Basically a feeder is just what they sound like…they feed their mate and the gainer…gains weight. Most couples consist of a fit male and a grossly obese woman and the movie was the same. My fave new actor was a young, fit, married man who had a 600 pound woman on the side. He and his gainer have a web site…where they share their gaining adventure with other feeds and gainers AND unbeknownst to the woman…people were taking bets on when she will die. An Aussie cop travels to Ohio to bring the feeder down and finds something even more horrifying…I won’t even go into all that happened but it was pretty awful. The ONLY interesting thing about the movie was that you got to see Alex’s tattoos. AND they were awesome. I was wondering continually if they were real or just for the movie but the third movie of his that I watched confirmed that they are real. I am such a sucker for tats on a man. My hubby refused to watch the movie but he did watch a bit with Alex’s tattoos and agreed that they were “way cool”.

The second movie was called The Incredible Journey of Mary Bryant and it is the true story of Mary Bryant a Brit who was sentenced to 7 years in an Australian penal colony for stealing a bonnet and some food. On the journey she meets Will Bryant and they align to make conditions more bearable but they are still very bad. There is very little food for them, they almost drown when the ship is under storm as they are locked in the bowel of the ship and Mary has to give birth to her first baby during the trip….the child of one of her jailors in Britain.

When they get to Australia things look to be bit brighter initially, despite a VERY graphic mass rape scene as men and women prisoners, who were separated during the journey, are now allowed to co-mingle. Mary and Will are allowed to marry and have a ramshackle home to raise Mary’s daughter and their son that soon follows. Since Will is a fisherman he makes an arrangement with the colony admin to catch fish for the whole colony and keep 1/12 of the bounty as payment. Everything is going fairly well until this arrangement collapses as food becomes scarce for everyone and hundreds begin to starve and die or get sick and die. Mary vows to never let that happen to her children so she and Will and a handful of other prisoners plan to make a getaway. Their plan centers upon stealing supplies for the trip that are obtained when Mary takes up with an officer and moves into his quarters to steal away his key as needed. Although heart broken, Will understands that Mary will do whatever she has to do to be free and he supports her.

They pull off their escape and travel 4000 miles on a one heck of a journey to land in Dutch occupied territory.  All is well for awhile and they live very comfortably among some great new people until the officer that Mary wronged comes after her AND the man she really loves. Everything goes down hill from there and it is a very tragic story but still very touching. After all she goes through and everything and everyone she loses she is pardoned by the British government. Oh…I am getting teary thinking of it.

 Okay I am on to the third movie…which was light hearted and fun. Called The Oyster Farmer, Alex plays a man that robs a fish market and sends the stolen money to a remote osyter farming community where he is working for the summer. He starts to panic when his package gets dumped in the river when the mailman has a stroke. He then tries to figure out which of these community members has found his money and he makes great some friends along the way…until money or no…he can’t resist making a life for himself there. This movie was REALLY cute and it confirmed that those awesome tats are REAL. I  would love to show you a pic I found of them but it is a naked pic from Feed so I won’t post it. But you are missing out.

Here is a YouTube video of the Mary Bryant love story:

Technorati Tags: alex O’loughlin, Moonlight, Mary Bryant, Will Bryant, Feed, The Oyster farmer

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Here is a video for my favorite TV show right now set to the theme song for it. I LOVE this show and I will go into a spiral of depression if it gets cancelled after this first season.

Okay…I am joking…but only a little. I have this weird habit of loving shows where the leading character is a dead ringer for my hubby…and they have some mannerisms that are the same as well…this cute eyebrow thing and a love for uh…um…showering (see video). It is is just too awesome that I can buy all the episodes from iTunes….muwhaww.

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For Tackle It Tuesday I am cleaning the shelves in my office area. Along one wall I have two built in desks (one holds my computer and one holds a TV) with shelves above each. They were getting pretty out of control so my tackle for this week was to clean them up so I can actually see what I have there and work more efficiently.

Here are the before pictures:

As you can see it is a mess. There are tons of books with many being ones I need to get rid of. There are baskets of products I need to review for the NatureMoms blog, photo albums, ankle weights, papers and bills my hubby needs to look at, stuffed toys, and loose electronics like my iPod, my shuffle, my cell phone, and a back-up hard drive.

Here are the after pictures:

I got rid of a ton of books (going to Freecycle) and organized the rest with the bigger books, the Arizona and Italy travel books and maps, and Harry Potters going on the top shelf. On the second shelf there are marriage and parenting books, environmental books, food books, and others. The bottom shelf is reserved for my Bose iPod sound dock and all the books I still have to review for my other blog. I have waaaay to much on my plate. There are also about a dozen magazines…Kiwi, Mother Earth News, Alternative Medicine, Yoga Journal, etc. that I have yet to read. I also put my cell phone, digital camera, and TV remote on that shelf.

On the top shelf I have put photo albums and empty baskets (nothing in them now) The middle shelf has several eco board games my kids and I have been reviewing as well as some stuffed toys and two money jars that I put loose change in. The bottom shelf has a basket with smaller products I still need to review…soaps, lotions, teas, toothpaste, etc. and a basket of paperwork my husband needs to look at next time he comes home. I am glad I got that done today!

Oh…and if you were wondering, the shelf on the very top was not part of the tackle. That just has snow globes and shot glasses from around the world that I have collected.

Technorati Tags: tackle it tuesday, cleaning

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Just a favor I did…a video for the book Galaxy Gone Wild by Brit Blaise. I think it turned out pretty good as it was my first time using real video clips to make a video.

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I am a BIG movie buff and I also like the original programming on cable and some TV shows too. Recently I ugraded my basic cable to inlcude HBO (can’t miss Big Love), Showtime (can’t do without Californication), Cinemax, Stars, and Encore. You don’t even want to know what my cable bill looks like, LOL. Those Verizon sales people are really good…they almost talked me into a 30 channel sports package and I don’t even watch sports.

For the past week or so though I have been catching up on my favorite TV shows by watching the season on DVD. The first that I watched was Heroes. I tried watching this show when it first started but I was bored and didn’t keep watching. The I overhear some people talking about the plot and I felt I had to give it another try and again…I found the beginning boring. But then after the first disc..it got good…REALLY good. In nature it has been shown that when a species get into trouble some of them learn to adapt and evolve so that the species does not die out. The basic premis of Heroes is that the human race is in trouble and certain individuals contain the genetic markers needed to adapt and evolve and they develop super human abilities. There is a politician that can fly, a cheerleader that can regenerate, a police officer than can read thoughts, a thief that can walk through walls, an invisible man, and many others inlcuding my personal favorite…the hot, male nurse….Peter Petrelli that can absorb the abilities of any other heroe he comes into contact with. The new season started 2 days ago and I am recording it via TiVo.

After Heros I jumped into another series. If you are wondering when I watch all these, it is after my kids are in bed from about 10:00 to 1:00ish. I usually watch one disc every night. Right now I am watching season six of Smalleville. I have seen 75% of them already but I missed a few key episodes…especially the ones where the Justice League is formed. I tell ya…that Green Arrow is almost as cute as Superman.

So what are you watching?

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When I first heard of this book I was determined NOT to like it. In fact I was angry that such a book was written. I mean imagine it…a book that tells stay at home moms that they are doing a disservice to themselves and to their children by staying home with them! The nerve! The book in question is The Feminine Mistake by Leslie Bennetts.

Well, I read the book and guess what I like the book….sort of. Sure it has its moments of preaching and arrogance but it is an important read nonetheless. I think all women would benefit from at least reading this perspective even if not inclined to incorporate any of its ideas or concepts because at least you will know that there are some risks involved in deciding to defer your economic independence and be a stay-at-home mom, dependent on your husband for all financial support.

The book begins with a story that is supposed to be all powerful in proving that a woman’s choice to stay at home can wreck not only her life but that of her children. It is the story of the Bennetts’s grandmother. In all her 80 years her grandmother never worked outside the home. Okay that sounds nice …what is wrong with that? Well, apparently when her grandmother was around 40ish her husband left her for another woman and cut off ALL financial support to her and their children. When faced with this dire situation the grandmother still chose not to get a job outside the home. Instead she became dependent upon family members and her own children to support her while she spent the rest of her days depressed and “waiting” for her husband to return. Bennetts tries to imply that social norms at the time motivated this behavior…women belonged at home…not in the workforce. Well, this story did not sit right with me. Social norms or not I take care of my kids! I was frankly kind of appalled at this woman…not because she made a bad choice in being a stay at home mom and letting her husband support the family but because she refused to even try and help herself after the marriage had dissolved.

This whole sad story resulted in her daughter having to work outside the home even after marriage and family…to support the mother. But having been raised that family concerns come before secular jobs she often quit her own jobs to stay at home for her daughter’s first year of highschool, her daughter’s wedding preparations, taking care of her much older and ailing husband, etc. She also shot herself in the foot so to speak with large gaps in employment, no wage increases because of turn-over, and no substantial pension accumulated. She faced her own golden years alone with only $6000 a year to live on.

This is where we start to see some of Bennetts story…scarred by the experiences of her mother and grandmother, coming of age during the feminist movement, and successful and dedicated to her career and NOT willing to relinquish that financial independence to anyone.

She goes on to explain why she wrote the book and how she sees what she claims is a disturbing trend. Young moms are deciding to stay at home and raise their kids and forgo a career or they leave an established career to do the same. It is in fact becoming a status symbol to have the mom stay home. It is a symbol that shows that the husband is successful.

This sounds all well and good until you meet some of the women interviewed in the book whose husbands left them or died after they devoted years to raising kids while ignoring the cultivation of any job skills that may have proven invaluable in their time of crisis. These moms are hocking precious possessions, working like dogs in low paying jobs, and even finding themselves homeless because they were thrown into a raging river without a life raft. They gave their life raft to their husband and he walked away with it. Here is a quote:

In an era when parents scrupulously outfit their windows with child guards and their cars with baby seats, when they babyproof every square inch of their homes and scour Consumer Reports to research the safest strollers, it is hard to understand why so many women are willing to turn over their ability to feed their children to another person who - if history is any guide - may not always live up to that responsibility. No matter how lovely their homes are, economic dependency is the proverbial elephant in the room - the enormous issue that is almost universally ignored despite its power to destroy everything in it path.

Now then the book did veer off into a place I did not like so much whereby the author talked about how the stay at home moms were overall very ashamed of their place in the world and they didn’t want to use their real names when they were interviewed for this book. The working moms, however, almost always let their real names be used and they spoke openly about their situation and they were proud of their work and life accomplishments.I also did not like the assumption that Bennetts made that most women who choose to stay at home were motivated to do so because they had unsatisfying careers and staying home was an easy out for them. Bennetts admitted to having a lot of anger towards the “Full Time Mom” title that stay at home moms often get and use. It is Bennetts belief that stay at home moms are no more “full time” than working moms…even if they are delegating some of the mom tasks to hired nannies or babysitters. She also claims that working moms do just about everything that stay at home moms do…the cooking, the cleaning, the PTA meetings, the carpooling, etc. They just seem to miraculously fit it all in.

I was a mom working outside the home and I can tell you personally that stay at home moms generally get more quality time with their kids…that is just the simple truth of it. Of course I am not one of those stay at home moms that spends hours at the gym, salon, tanning booth, etc. and very little time at home. This was another mom type that Bennett really dislikes. I think she has some anger issues she needs to work out. One of the working moms she interviewed had the audacity to say that he had a brain and she wanted to use it, implying that stay at moms are functioning without brain power. I also found it shocking that Bennetts herself claimed that her work was so personally satisfying that she would never give it up…not even for her “precious children”. Myself…I don’t think there is much of anything I wouldn’t do for my kids. That Bennetts can elevate her career to a place higher than her children is sad to me.

For the most part though, Bennetts seems to feel that women are living under some kind of delusion. They will not admit that they are sacrificing their independence and financial security by becoming dependent on their husband. They do not think their husbands will ever leave them and they are not prepared to accept that he might die either. They are living in fantasy land until cold, hard reality slaps them in the face and they find themselves at square one again….alone with no income and no skills set that would enable them to get an income.If, ten years from now, you knew your husband was going to leave you and you would end up living in a one bedroom apartment with your kids, and be working for minimum wage at the Gap, wouldn’t you prepare ahead of time and avoid that fate? Well, basically this book asks…why not prepare for that anyway?Another quote from Bennetts:

I have always been puzzled by such attitudes; no matter what one’s circumstances, that kind of blind optimism strikes me as highly unrealistic. Although I have been married for nearly two decades, I have never felt it was safe to depend on any man for financial support, for a host of reasons that have nothing to do with my husband as an individual. To me, it is only sensible to think about financial contingency plans, just as it is sensible to protect yourself and your family with medical insurance or home insurance.

Think about some of the points made in this book. When a marriage dissolves, in the best cases, a woman might walk away with a few years of alimony (which isn’t guaranteed against death, disability, or lay-off), child support until the kids are grown (but remember 69.7% of child support case in 2005 had money owed in arrears), and perhaps half of the assets. Your husband walks away with half of the assets, his career you helped him pursue, future earning potential, and his pensions and retirement plans. Who is better off in this scenario? The woman’s retirement plan isn’t looking so good if you ask me.So what is a woman to do? Well, obviously Bennetts feels that having a career is your insurance:

Finding an institutional structure that can accommodate family needs - or becoming an entrepreneur and building your own - is crucial to many women’s success at combining careers and children.

I actually really like this statement because as an entrepreneur this is exactly what I have done. Did I do it for the reasons she feels I should have? No, but I have built a stable at home business nonetheless. I take more comfort in that now than I ever have before.I am also not one to think my marriage in invincible. I love my husband and I am 100% positive that he loves me but things can change. My husband’s parents are proof of that. They were together for all my husband’s younger years until he was married and his youngest sibling was almost out of high school. That is when my husband’s dad announced he wasn’t in love anymore and he was taking a job out of state to start over…with a new woman. My mother in law was devastated and I won’t get into the details but the events that took place afterwards were heart breaking. Reality tells me that no marriage is secure enough to warrant blind faith.

And beyond divorce there is death, disability, and terminal illness….all these events could catapult Susie Homemaker into the role of sole breadwinner at a moments notice.

One of the last parts of the book goes off course IMO and discusses how men should be our domestic partners as well…doing 50% of the housework and menial family management tasks. I didn’t really agree with her logic because I really do feel as though there are tasks that I am better suited to than my husband and it just makes more sense for me to do them. I may change more poopy diapers then he does but he always changes the oil on the car. We might share the cooking responsibilities but I always do the clean-up. Why? Because I do it better. When the sink is plugged up or the disposal is acting funny, my husband is the man. It doesn’t need to be text book fair…it just needs to work for us.

So what does Bennetts suggest we do? Well, I found her book to be a bit long on the preach and a little short on the practical side when it comes to actual steps women can take. I would have liked a list with bullet points but here are some of the indirect tips

* Learn a valuable skill

* Get a job and stick with it…moving up in pay and position

*  Keep bank accounts separate from your husband

* Always look for opportunities to educate or improve yourself

* Make sure bills and household tasks are divided fairly

* Have a plan for worst case scenarios and be able to manage them if they do occur…divorce, death, injury, lay-off* If you are already married and not working, get a post-nuptial agreement, whereby you get a set amount for every year you out of the job market, in the event of a divorce 

So..now it is your turn? What do YOU think?

WIN this book! I am giving away my copy of The Feminine Mistake to a reader. Just leave me a comment below and tell me what you think…linking to me is not required but it will get you an extra entry!

I will award a winner on September 26th! Thanks for reading!

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