How much income is enough?

I came across an interesting article on MSN that discussed household income in major metro areas. It takes a lot more money to be "rich" depending on where you live. Not exactly rocket science, is it? One of the reasons DH and I were fine with moving down to Charlotte was because it is so much cheaper to live here. The primary expense being a house. A 2800 square foot house 5 miles from downtown would go for an absurd amount of money in Boston. Even with the falling house prices.

Overall the top 5% of earners in the country make $311,000. Obviously that is a lot of money but would you consider that to be rich? I think of wealth more than income when defining whether a household is "rich" or not. Americans are notorious for spending up to their income level. So it becomes difficult to build true wealth.

In Boston you would be considered rich if you are a family of 4 and make at least $633K. It takes even more in NYC, San Fransisco and DC. How ya feeling now about your earnings?

The article suggests that by forgoing kids and moving to smaller metro areas we will feel even richer. But if DH and I ever move back to Boston we will feel significantly poorer. I'm not sure I'm ready to face that! Especially with a baby on the way.

Assuming our wireless is working tonight I will upload photos of the nursery for my next blog post.

Chistmas cookie time!

Last year I decided that I was going to help shoulder the burden of making Christmas cookies for the holidays. You need to understand that Christmas cookies are sacred in my family. One time my mom got really sick with the flu a few weeks before Christmas and couldn't make cookies. I thought there was going to be an uprising! Mom always made the dough ahead of time which wasn't really a good idea. We would pick at it until she ended up having to make more. Then once the cookies were done, she would try to hide them so we couldn't sneak them before Christmas Eve. Ha! The best hiding place was the dryer but we always found them anyway...

So last year was kind of a disaster. I had an old cookie press (Mirro brand) that requires you to manually twist the dough out. I credit it for my carpal tunnel syndrome. By the end the handle wasn't even working. I was only able to make the wreaths and ended up using candied hots instead of bows of red icing. Mommy, Esq. complained about that for three days!

This year I bought a new press from Crate and Barrel and went to town. There is one drawback to the automatic cookie press. Who ever designed it thought that two small notches was enough to secure the handle and the top. I blame a man for that one. The problem is that the cookie dough is really dense so the top and handle kept popping off as I went. Extremely frustrating to say the least. I had to make sure that the dough was basically room temperature. But then I couldn't get the Christmas trees and starts to come off the press. But I persevered and managed to make 10-12 dozen cookies.

Here is me in the kitchen. I think it is hour 2 of five. Making the dough was the easiest part. It was pressing the cookies that took forever!

It was a two day process. Trees and stars on the first day and the plain wreaths. For the second day I whipped up some green frosting and DH helped me to decorate the cookies.

I plan on sending some to Mimi, giving some away at work, and of course leaving plenty for the holidays and daily snacking :-) And yes, Mommy, Esq., I managed (or rather DH did) to put bows on all the wreaths.

Isn't labor itself enough to worry about?

Did you all see the latest from Boston.com? A state trooper gave a couple a $100 ticket after they drove in the breakdown lane. Normally I am all about making people obey the sanctity of the breakdown lane. I used to hate to see those f&*%!rs zipping by while stuck in traffic over the Borne Bridge. But this couple had a great excuse: she was in labor. And her contractions were 3 minutes apart! I don't know much about labor yet but that seems close.

Boston's traffic has not noticeably improved with the completion of the Big Dig so I can understand why they felt the need to drive in the breakdown lane.

The best part? The trooper didn't believe she was pregnant and demanded to see her belly. Who the heck allowed this guy to get into uniform?

Um, not only is DH responsible for getting me good drugs during labor, he is also responsible for getting me there as quick as humanly possible. If that means breaking some laws, then so be it. I guess what I question is why the state trooper didn't help the couple with an escort to the hospital, not even to mention the $100 fine! My dad used to get escorts when he rushed to the hospital to perform an emergency surgery. Just because labor is more common than a liver transplant it doesn't mean it doesn't deserve the same level of respect.

The couple claims they won't file a complaint against the trooper. I guess they are filled with love after having the baby. But if that trooper kept me from having pain meds faster, I would file!

It's about damn time!

I consider myself a very laid back person (why is everyone laughing??) and haven't really worried too much through these first two trimesters. But I was definitely starting to stress out about the fact that I'm more than 23 weeks pregnant and I still couldn't feel the baby move. Yes, I had one experience a couple weeks ago but no repeats and I wasn't even sure that it was really movement.

It got so bad I started trolling the WebMD message boards looking for insights from other frantic posters. But the longest anyone I read went without feeling anything was 20 weeks. Sure, I knew I was dealing with an anterior placenta but the baby had clocked in at over a pound in the last appointment so what was the deal?

I woke up Tuesday morning at 4 AM and lay in bed worrying. I had an appointment in couple of weeks. Should I wait that long? And even then my appointment didn't include an ultrasound and just listening to the heart wasn't going to cut it. I went into work and scarfed down a bagel in 2.5 seconds flat. I started working on email and got absorbed in my work. And that's when she struck! Literally. Starting at 9:15 for about half an hour she was dancing all over the place. And it continued off and on all day and into the night. From the last ultrasound she was head down and most of the movement I've felt has been below the belly button so I'm going to assume she's a puncher and not as much of a kicker. But I'm sure that will change...

I still can't feel the movement through my hand so I assume that will take a few more weeks. But I can't wait for DH to be able to feel it. It's almost 9:15 and I'm starting to feel some movement again. Looks like she's just as habitual as her mother...

All the news you can use

It's amazing that the amount of news that happens in the world every day just exactly fits in the newspaper. - Jerry Seinfield

I wouldn't necessarily consider myself to be a news junky, but I probably spend more time reading, listening or watching the news than the average American. DH and I subscribe to many, many magazines. We were suckered by the airlines asking us to use our miles. Why the heck not? If it's not USAir then we ain't flying it any more.

We subscribe to the Charlotte Observer (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) and I like that I now know what goes on in the area. Not that we do any of the events...

On top of The Week, I am also reading The Economist. Talk about a heavy magazine! After 3 issues I've moved into skimming mode. If a magazine has more than 100 pages it should be labelled as a book. But I do read Us Weekly and Entertainment Weekly religiously. Hey, entertainment news is still news! I do recommend The Week for people who want to get a quick overview of headlines from the week (duh) for both US and the world. It's a very fast read. And they have cartoons and "properties of the week." What more could you ask for?

Aside from the pile of magazines I go through on a weekly basis (usually when DH is watching Sunday football from 1 PM to 10 PM) I also surf the web. CNN, TMZ, Boston.com, NY Times. I would read the Wall Street Journal online but they are trying to make a profit and charge. Hmmm. Isn't the Internet about free content?

The only radio station I listen to is NPR. In the shower, in the car and sometimes when I'm cleaning the house. While I like the news (except I'm getting a little sick of Iraq and Afghanistan) my favorite shows are "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me..." and "Car Talk." I try to schedule my cleaning or running errands around those shows so I can listen to most of them. I'm still kicking myself for not going to see WWDTM when they were in Charlotte in 2006.

For TV I absolutely hate watching regular news. It's always so freaking depressing. And don't get me started on the 24 hour news stations. Talking heads can be very annoying. So the solution? DH and I have started watching The Daily Show with John Stewart. Perfect! Granted, the show doesn't cover that much news but it does make me laugh. They even had me chuckling with the commentary on the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. How many shows can do that? We do check in on The Colbert Report but that is a little more over the top and can be hit or miss depending on the guest.

All in all I probably spend 15+ hours a week on news. Yes, that does include entertainment/gossip! How about the rest of you? Any preferred shows or magazines to recommend?

Why pregnant women waddle

I was walking through the halls of my office the other day thinking to myself, "Nice! You are walking totally normally. No waddle yet!" The scientific reason that pregnant women start waddling is because our hips start to separate to facilitate labor. Kind of gross when you think about it. But I disagree. I started waddling yesterday for one very specific reason: back pain. Yes, I have experienced my first back ache in conjunction with the pregnancy.

I have always poo-pooed people who complain about back pain. Suck it up! It can't be that bad! Well, yes, in fact it can. And to think, for me, it has only been my lower back. I ended up going to bed at 8 PM last night because I couldn't find a comfortable position watching TV. Pathetic. And of course I don't want to take any pain medication. Oh no. I'm tougher than that! Or I will be until labor sets in and DH will be responsible for getting me the good drugs.

The waddle comes about because I can't really straighten up fully (although my mom would argue that I never really walk with a straight back). I know that the pain was caused by sitting at my computer all day, leaning forward. So I'm on a mission to do better while at work. First up, sitting up straight. I've moved my keyboard towards me so I don't have to reach as far. I have also promised myself that every hour I will get up and do a lap around the floor. Lame but it serves the dual purpose of stretching and an excuse to stop and talk to people. It should get the circulation going and keep me from agony after 9 hours in front of the computer.

I'm better this morning and very glad that my sleep was not interrupted by back pain. I was woken up by dreams of bugs attacking my husband, but that's another story.

Any other suggestions?

A long lazy weekend

While I worked on Friday I only received about 10 emails so to say it wasn't busy is an understatement. That means I felt as though I had a 4 day weekend. The last time I had one of those was in October but we traveled to Hilton Head so it doesn't count. I think that a weekend that involves travel cannot be, by definition, a long lazy weekend. I am trying to store up now since I won't have any of these once the baby arrives.

DH did more work than I - he started painting the nursery. I picked out two colors, a base color (Touch of Violet) and a stripe color (Elevator). DH removed the baseboard (to make painting easier, thank goodness for a nail gun to put it back on!) and put up two coats of the base color. It looks great and I can't wait until the stripes go on. But first I have to help with a chalk line that will represent the chair rail. That won't happen until tonight. The contrasting colored stripes will run below the chair rail. I promise to put up some before and after painting pictures once it's done.

I did manage to rouse myself enough to go shopping. I picked a few presents for the nieces and nephews. I was really tempted to buy some stuff for our baby but I resisted. Well, I did buy one thing but I couldn't help myself! It was just too perfect. Despite all radio reports to the contrary, I didn't really find any spectacular deals. It could be that they only happened on Friday and I was not about to fight the crowds during that day. I also wrapped most of the presents. What can I say, it was a tough weekend :-) I just have the stocking stuffers left to wrap which are always the most annoying because they tend to be oddly shaped.

Next weekend I hope to put up Christmas lights and take out the few Christmas decorations we have for the house (yes, DH, even the ceramic Christmas tree you hate so much!). I might start Christmas cookies but it depends on how strong my wrists are feeling. I have an old fashioned cookie press that requires twisting to make the dough come out. I usually have to get DH to help me once my carpal tunnel kicks in.

Is it just me or does it feel as though Christmas is just around the corner? Thanksgiving was "late" this year. Plus DH and I leave in three weeks for our long journey up to Massachusetts. I'm almost wondering if it's worth it to do Christmas decorations if we'll only enjoy them for a couple of weeks...