Prediction

In cutie face's lifetime we will see the growth of Islamic extremist and the demise of the Western Culture. They will do it from inside out and outside in. The rich will buy western companies, telling those who have little that the reason they are poor is because of the west and Israel. They will blaming the west on the reason th
KHARTOUM, Sudan - A British teacher in Sudan was convicted Thursday of the less-serious charge of insulting Islam for letting her pupils name a teddy bear "Muhammad," and was sentenced to 15 days in prison and deportation to Britain, one of her lawyers said.

Kohls

Today I went to Kohl's for the first time. It sort of reminded me of the old Alexanders. I can see the appeal. It was pretty crowded for a 10am on a Wednesday. Unfortunately, I didn't like the way the sweaters looked on me. There were made for people who had rounded shoulders and I'm more square. And they didn't have pants in size 4. Most of the clothes seemed to be in size 12. But it was clean and pleasant experience. There were six cashiers and a line of about 10 people. The cashier I had was very nice.

I really should be talking about the high taxes in Rockland County NY or the fact that someone is actually proposing that we spend money on more little league fields. I was supposed to go to a town meeting this week and forgot. Next month.

Our New House

Thanksgiving came early. We have a signed contract on the house we are going to buy and our current house. It was touch and go for a while because it went the sealed bid route. Our house sold for asking price which was more than we paid a little over a year ago. We even had 2 bids at asking price. I guess the decline in housing prices hasn't hit here yet. Or, perhaps it's the unique properties that will always attract attention.

Anyway, I love the way our new house looks. I didn't know houses like this existed. It has almost 4 acres and sits on top of a mountain. It's surrounded by 25 acres of open space with 2 bedrooms/2 baths but can be made into 3 beds/3 baths. The design is modern - think dwell house. At some point we hope to install solar panels. The bad part is that the house needs a lot of work. I guess the work part was a big turnoff for most people. The funny thing is that we will be doing some of the same work that we did on our beach house.

Brin a Turkey

A few days before Thanksgiving my brother through a 40th birthday party for his wife. He asked me what we were doing for Thanksgiving and I said I'm going to try to brin a turkey and bring it to Paulo's family in DC. Not missing a beat he said - "You saw how to do that on the food channel. I wanted to try that".

There's something about siblings that put you on the same wavelength even if you spend little time together. I'm very happy with my family. We love each other so much we don't have to talk to one another four times a day - Once every few months is fine.

Cutie had a great time on Thanksgiving. Her new found joy is legos. Paulo's sister had an old box of legos from 20 years ago. She played to legos before, but not with trees and flower legos. I hope they still make them.

The next time we will get together is on Chanuka. It's only a few weeks away.

Turkey Brine
Big Garbage pail cleaned very well.
Empty fridge that the pail fits into.
2 cups kosher salt
1 cup sugar
juniper berries (T)
pepper corns (T)
whole allspice (T)
Bay Leaves (3)
Place all ingredience together and put in fridge for 12 hours. Remove, clean and cooks as usual.

Sweet Caroline

It's not only me who admires Caroline, but also Neil Diamond. He wrote Sweet Caroline after seeing her photo as a child.

What's With 3yo still Peeing and Pooping in Diapers

This is amazing to me. Cutie Face just turned 3 and is writing letters and beginning to read. It's the age the Talmud tells us to begin teaching these skills to children.

I've been taking her to the toliet since she was about 10 months. Everyone thought I was crazy but would be amazed when at 18mo she would go. At 2yo she was 50% trained at 2-1/2 95%. 2-3/4 100% and could go without help.

But I figured the whole thing out. Parents dress their little ones in clothes that are difficult to take off. The child never has a chance to go it alone. I realized this early and got rid of all the cute hand-me-down clothes like STUPID OVERALLS (EVIL) and bought her Circo yoga pants from Target. It's funny. All early-trained children wear the Circo yoga pants.

The message here is that if your child is still peeing in their pants at 3 - Yes - it's your fault. Screw what the doctors say - They just want to make you feel better. There are many parents out there who just don't get it.

I Just Don't Get It

Several years ago was my first encounter with Facebook. I didn't get it then. Why would I want people to know what I'm doing? OK I blog. But it's not really to let other people know, it's to remind me of my thoughts. Maybe it's the Age Factor. Blogging is like making lists. You do that as you get more busy in life.

I will go and try Facebook again. I need to know if it's worth investing in when it goes public. I loved email when I first used it on Prodigy. When we got the internet in the office, I was hooked. But my personality is not a social one. I have no need for virtual friends. I love dabbling in many computer programs - Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash, etc. I can do yahoo shopping and miva merchant. I can learn pretty much any new program.

I just don't understand why someone wants Facebooks. I will try it and report back.

Nannies And Moms

Wow. At the library last week I saw a young boy wanting to sit at a computer and his mother saying how much she hated computers to every one around her. Computer games require listening skills. The computer tells you what you need to do next. Many parents have no patience to listen to gaming instructions. I think this usually hits moms around 35. Personally, I don't like kid computer games either, however, Cutie does and I feign interest.

About a Nanny. There's a nanny in town who really doesn't like her care. Her English verbal communication skills are limited. It's OK for an infant. But for a 2yo who asks questions and talking - it's painful to watch. There's another nanny who watches a little girl and is great. She obviously respects the little girl and vversa

School Taxes

I'm obsessed with the cost of school taxes. They seem outragously high. There are approx. 3000 students in the Nyack school district. It costs $22K with 18K coming from property taxes, to educate each student. The average cost to educate a student in New York State is 18K with 9K coming from property taxes. Something seems unfair. if you don't believe me - see for yourself.
What's wrong with this picture and why is it so expensive to educate a child. You could pay 1 person $100,000 to educate 5 students. Hell, I'll do it for $100,000 for 6 hours a day. It supposed to be cheaper when working with quantities. Our school system must be flawed.

Rockland Bakery

Since I moved to the burbs, I'm not getting the kind of exercise I used to just by walking around the city. The car is amazing. Just zip here and there and do all your errands in a jiffy. Leave house at 9:15, Drop Cutie at school (9:30), meet friend for coffee (10), go to dentist (10:45) leave dentist (12n), Go to Rockland Bakery for bread right out of the oven (12:10), returns at Target (12:30), Bathroom (12:32), Shoprite (12:37), Leave Shoprite with 6 bags of groceries (1:15) pick cutie up from school (1:30).

In the city, you can't schedule all this stuff in that amount of time even in a 1 mile radius.

Someone told me about the Rockland Bakery when we moved here. I couldn't find it on the GPS. The GPS was asking too many questions. On my way to meet my friend I passed it. The Rockland Bakery is pretty amazing. You just go in the back and pick out your bread. It's HOT right out of the oven. It's pretty amazing. Now i know how people get fat. I always thought it was because they weren't busy enough (who has time to eat) - Now I know it's cars and ease of life.

Grandmothers, the Library, and Caroline Kennedy

I keep meeting grandmothers watching their grandchildren at the Library. I'm so jealous. They are great with the grandchildren.

Anyway, I dropped Cutie Face at library storytime. It's a great storytime with a fabulous librarian and a crafts project that reinforces the weekly book theme. It's While Cutie was in the special children's storytime room, I was browsing and came across Caroline Kennedy's "Family Book of Poems". It's perfect for holiday gift giving. When I got home I purchased several copies on Ebay. I also picked up her "Profiles in Courage".

I always had a thing for Caroline Kennedy. When I was around ten my parents brought home a lithograph by Margeret Kane (I think.) I never liked the litho even though I was told that Caroline had the original in her room. As I got older I admired the way she appears so balanced. Low key, perfect family life with a career that produces things. There's just something about her. She's the perfect famous.

I Love My Car

I love my car. It's a Subaru. This is surprising because I used to hate cars. To me, cars killed people and I never wanted to drive one. But now that I live in the burbs and I love my Subaru. I still don't like other cars - mainly luxury models. You can't see or feel the road. They make you feel indestructible

I love Target. It's opened late and has stuff you don't need but sort of think you may need in the next few months. So you buy it and store it because you have so much storage space in your less than 1500 square foot house.

I saw this commercial on TV for an Oil of Olay product that diminishes dark spots on your face. I'm all over it. Just bought some OOO products and will report back in the next few weeks. I think the ad ran on Mad Men. If it did it's a perfect media buy. Most "Mad Men" watchers are old ad women in need of looking younger.

Mad Men and Advertising

Just saw "Mad Men" on AMC for the first time. So true to life. It's one of the reasons I went into advertising. The main difference was that I entered in the 80's and there were just as many women in the middle management roles. Men at the top had perceived wisdom.

The other reason advertising appealed to me was because my dad's cosmetic company did some TV commercials. Every time I saw an ad on TV I was proud. Also that year, his annual report design won an award. It was all very exciting. I was ten years old when this all happened. I thought that one day I would run his advertising department.

The cosmetics company didn't survive the early 70's oil crisis. At 16, I knew my dad's cosmetic company, which BTW was named after me, was not going to be around. That was also the time when the senior year assessment counselor told me that I should be an architect or orthodontist and stay out of the field of communications. (I only went to high school for 3 years and graduated at 16.) I remember thinking how dare they tell me I can't do something.

When I graduated college the advertising bug was still with me. Since I didn't go to a top school and didn't know anyone who knew anyone in the business, I found a job as a receptionis. was soon fired because I couldn't pronounce the Japanese client's names. Found another job as a copy typist even thought I could only type 30 words a minute with mistakes. (I went to the same college as one interviewer and majored in Poli Sci as did the other interviewer. I convinced them that I knew how to operate computers and they just got a WANG.) That's a story in itself. Within 2 years I was at another agency as an Account Executive.

Life as I lived in Advertising is very similar to Mad Men. The girls got together to bitch, moan and bond. Both sexes did drinks after work. I remember my famous line "the first martini is hard to get down. The second martini goes down like water. The third martini you go down with anyone."

I don't remember how I managed to get home to Queens. But one late night I was a potential victim of a crime. I managed to escape the perp and left for the Upper West Side of Manhattan shortly thereafter.

Still Waiting

We gave them our highest offer two days ago. It was much higher than asking. We still haven't heard if we will get our new house. My mother always said no news is good news. Of course she was always thinking of her children.

I'm already trying to see the silver lining. But we won't really know what that will be until time has past.

Too Fast and Easy

I thought the whole selling and buying thing was a little easy.

The house situation is starting to get a little tense. We have two offers on our house with no conditions. Since we already said yes to one we are not doing the "highest offer" thing. I find that annoying even though you can get about 1% more for your house. If the first people have any problem after their inspection, we will do the highest offer thing.

The problem is the house we want to buy. They gave us the highest offer thing. So we had to go back and figure out exactly how much this house was worth to us.

Something similar happened to us when we bought one of our beach house a few years ago. Someone come in and offered 20% more than we did on the house. They gave us the option to match. We declined and bought another house.

If we don't get the new house we will stay in this house. The only reason we are looking to buy another house is because we can't agree on what we should do to renovate to this house.

Also since the real estate broker company has both houses they loose if we don't sell and buy the other one.

Change is Good

I love my husband. I never changed the clocks before we were married. I lived with the wrong time 6 months each year. I was either early or late - who cared. Now i have the correct time all year. He changes the clocks without even being asked.

We have an excepted offer on our current house (did we price it too low??) and one on the house we want to buy (are we paying too much??).
THAT WAS EASY!