Changes afoot
I'd been hesitant to blog about this until Joel and I made some more definitive plans, but for now I'll let you know what's in the works. I'm going to leave full time employment, possibly as early as the fall semester (late August), to be full time Mommy and run our household.

Our quality of life has been poor since we've both been working. While sharing the load of running a household is good thing, Joel really does more than his share to enable me to work. This semester would have been totally nasty stress craziness if Berek weren't here helping out around the house. The only reason last fall wasn't so awful was because Joel and I were both working full time simultaneously for only six weeks.

Going down to half our income is a scary prospect, but I can think of dozens of ways we could economize if we had more time. I've already dusted off my old copies of "The Tightwad Gazette" volumes I and II, which in my single days helped me pay off all my school debt while working a low-paying editorial job. I hope that by gradually tightening our belt now, we can adjust our attitudes and continue building up a good-sized savings cushion.

I'd love to hear some words of wisdom from other one-income families. Please share some tips!

Apologies
I've been trying to remove the link to Jim Hart 3000, but blogger won't let me update my template. So I'll warn you now not to click the link. Apparently, the domain has been taken up by a porn site since Jim quit blogging. *cringes with shame*

Unredeemed
I'm disappointed that Chicago won best picture at the Oscars. Joel and I saw it back in February, shortly after I returned from visiting my parents, and I got too busy to blog about it then. At the time it seemed like a waste of a night out with babysitting.

Yes, the costumes and dancing are very flashy and entertaining; yes, the song lyrics are clever. However, the overall plot and themes aren't even remotely redemptive.

You're set up to see fame as a fleeting friend, but none of the characters seem to learn from their mistakes kow towing at the altar of fame. I honestly hoped the Roxie character would be redeemed by her husband's sacrificial love. But no, in Chicago sacrificial love is for "chumps and losers." Bribe, blackmail, perjure and murder all you like if it gets your name up in lights.

Well, that's Chicago. Personally, I'll take Calvary, thanks.

Beauty tips
A friend e-mailed this to me and it seemed blog-worthy.

For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.
For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.
For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.
For beautiful hair, let a child run his/her fingers through it once a day.
For poise, walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone.

People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone.
Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you will find one at the end of each of your arms.
As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands; one for helping yourself, and the other for helping others.

--Audrey Hepburn

Babblerama
Claire is just so darned cute. She now has quite a babble repetoire. She says da-da, ma-ma, na-na (for Nicky, of course) and Pft. Her latest is bar-bar. That's for Berek, who can get her to roar with laughter just by smiling at her. He seems to have some innate comic gift. I have to do some concerted tickling to get a laugh out of Claire.

B-U-S-Y
Work is really busy right now. In addition to the monthly magazine, we're also trying to prepare for the big convention next month. We usually publish three daily newspapers for the convention, doing most of the work beforehand so only a few stories need to be written and edited each day on site. The advertising department sold so many ads, we have to do three 24-page issues. Last year the issues were only 16 pages. We've had to generate a lot of new editorial material and it's a lot to slog through.

The one bit of good news is that I don't have to travel to California. The team will e-mail stories to me while I work from home--on California time. Long days, but at least I don't have to leave Claire for 5 days.

For now I'm keeping my eye on the goal--saving all we can so I don't have to work full time forever.

Memories
Last night we met with two other couples from church to lay plans for a new neighborhood Bible study that Joel will be leading. The young couple who plan to host it are newlyweds, just two months past the altar. Their apartment reminded me so much of our first apartment--spacious and boxy and very beige. It even had the undersized fridge like we had. I remember being so excited to have my own fridge that I didn't have so share with two roommates who had staked out particular "territory" and became miffed about sharing space.

Unlike J & A's place, which is in the basement, our first apartment was on the third floor, in a highrise on a hill with a view of the Wissahickon Valley. We had two big picture windows that I liked to look out and watch the trees swaying in the valley below. That hill was also at the intersection of two busy streets. Day and night you could hear the Route 27 bus "talking" and souped-up car stereos thumping out gangsta rap.

The neighbors next door were transplants from Africa who tended to cook not-quite-fresh meat. We often held our breath to get from the elevator to our aparment. But everyone in the building was so friendly, from the priest on the 9th floor, to the two mentally retarded men and their helper on the 6th. It was fun to comiserate with fellow tenants at the train station about the heat that never turned off and, of course, the cockroaches.

We were lucky to have so few roaches for being in a city highrise. But just the same, I never went to the kitchen in the middle of the night for a glass of water. Or if I did, I turned on the kitchen light without looking in the room, waited a minute for the bugs to hide, then went in. Denial is sometimes a necessity.

Despite being a bit crammed with Joel's 6,000 books, we were pretty comfortable there. I definitely learned to be creative with using space. For example, we kept a small freezer in the second bedroom closet and set our bed on an angle so we could hide boxes behind the tall headboard.

Those were the days when Saturdays were all about big pancake breakfasts and cooking shows on public television, not gardening and cleaning 11 rooms. While I love my bigger fridge and owning a washer and dryer, some days I miss that low-maintenance apartment.

But not the gangsta rap. Or the rancid meat smell. Definitely not the roaches.

Whenever I need a laugh...
...I just remember last Friday night, when we took bq to a 76ers basketball game for his pretend birthday (he doesn't have a real birthday until next year). We were quite riled up and punchy after the Sixers beat the Utah Jazz. In our long walk to the parking lot, bq and Joel showed off their best silly walks. I was laughing so hard I almost had an asthma attack.

John Cleese, eat your heart out, bq is next in line to take over the Ministry of Silly Walks.

Good things come to those who wait
I generally frown upon procrastination, as it leads to all sorts of evil like expired coupons, dust elephants and dead houseplants. However, a little dithering on my part really paid off this week. After months of telling myself, "We really should refinance the mortgage," I finally locked in our new mortgage yesterday--at 5.5%. Woo hoo! Our original mortgage was at 8.125%.

Okay, I'm ready for the bad economy to be over now, thanks.