my MIL sent me this a while ago and I have been meaning to post it- I think it relates to my posts about needing a day off....
POSITION : Mom, Mommy, Mama, Ma Dad, Daddy, Dada, Pa, Pop
JOB DESCRIPTION : Long term, team players needed, for challenging permanent work in an, often chaotic environment. Candidates must possess excellent communication and organizational skills and be willing to work variable hours, which will include evenings and weekends and frequent 24 hour shifts on call. Some overnight travel required, including trips to primitive camping sites on rainy weekends and endless sportstournaments in far away cities! Travel expenses not reimbursed. Extensive courier duties also required.
RESPONSIBILITIES : The rest of your life. Must be willing to be hated, at least temporarily, until someone needs $5. Must be willing to bite tongue repeatedly. Also, must possess the physical stamina of a pack mule and be able to go from zero to 60 mph in three seconds flat in case, this time, the screams from the backyard are not someone just crying wolf. Must be willing to face stimulating technical challenges, such as small gadget repair, mysteriously sluggish toilets and stuck zippers. Must screen phone calls, maintain calendars and coordinate production of multiple homework projects. Must have ability to plan and organize social gatherings for clients of all ages and mental outlooks. Must be willing to be indispensable one minute, an embarrassment the next. Must handle assembly and product safety testing of a half million cheap, plastic toys, and battery operated devices. Must always hope for the best but be prepared for the worst. Must assume final, complete accountability for the quality of the end product. Responsibilities also include floor maintenance and janitorial work throughout the facility.
POSSIBILITY FOR ADVANCEMENT & PROMOTION : None. Your job is to remain in the same position for years, withoutcomplaining, constantly retraining and updating your skills, so that those in your charge can ultimately surpass you
PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE : None required unfortunately. On-the-job training offered on a continually exhausting basis.
WAGES AND COMPENSATION : Get this! You pay them! Offering frequent raises and bonuses. A balloon payment is due when they turn 18 because of the assumption that college will help them become financially independent. When you die, you give them whatever is left. The oddest thing about this reverse-salary scheme is that you actually enjoy it and wish you could only do more.
BENEFITS : While no health or dental insurance, no pension, no tuition reimbursement, no paid holidays and no stock options are offered; this job supplies limitless opportunities for personal growth,unconditional love, and free hugs and kisses for life if you play your cards right.
** AND A FOOTNOTE "THERE IS NO RETIREMENT --EVER!!! **
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
I get asked this alot- So I thought I would post it here
IF you can only buy certain things Organic what would it be....
This is a post from GRIST....Subscribe....
Hi Umbra!
I just recently became a stay-at-home mom. Life is bliss, except for the one-income household we now have (my husband brings home the tofu-bacon). Now that we have very limited funds I cannot afford to buy all organic food. Sometimes organic food is nearly double the price of conventional food ... yikes! I looked around and could not find a great website for foods you need to buy organic. I know that some conventional foods are not so pesticide-laden as others, but I'm not sure which. Could you please tell me this: if you could buy only some organic food, what should it be?
Tammi Bailey, Colo.
Dearest Tammi,
Apologies for not explicitly providing this basic resource to dearest readers. I've mentioned the Environmental Working Group's produce shopping guide, but that doesn't help you search the Ask Umbra archives for "best organic foods." Sorry.
The EWG guide is designed to answer the "which food" question for fresh fruits and vegetables. EWG looked at USDA food consumption data and USDA and FDA pesticide residue tests, and developed a pesticide residue ranking from worst to best for 44 types of produce. If you have specific concerns, you may wish to read more about EWG's methodologies -- for example, common habits of peeling and washing are incorporated into the tests.
The 12 fruits and vegetables with the highest amount of pesticide residues are peaches, apples, sweet bell peppers, celery, nectarines, strawberries, cherries, lettuce, imported grapes, pears, spinach, and potatoes. These are the ones to spend your money on. The 12 with the lowest residues are onions, avocado, frozen sweet corn, pineapples, mangoes, frozen sweet peas, asparagus, kiwi, bananas, cabbage, broccoli, and eggplant. When short of cash, go ahead on conventionally grown versions of these.
The shopping guide gets us started on produce, but how about the rest of our diet? Consumer Reports has an interesting series of articles about prioritizing among organic products. Their top priorities include the produce chosen by EWG. They also believe meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy should be an organic priority because of risks including mad cow and the antibiotics and hormones used in conventional animal husbandry. Their third top priority is baby food, for reasons of small bodies and potential concentrated residues in processed purees.
I agree with these personal health priorities, in part because they correlate with larger environmental concerns. A link between pesticide residue and pesticide application seems likely, and large-scale meat production benefits only the financial bottom line.
The rest of the Consumer Reports list is intriguing: They say if price is no object, go ahead and buy organic grains and processed foods. However, they argue, these foods lose many nutrients and "health value" during processing, hence do not offer enough added value in their organic form to always justify the price increase. To me, making that argument from a personal-health perspective does not exempt those who can afford to buy all organic from doing so based on environmental stewardship. CR also pooh-poohs organic seafood, because no U.S. certification exists, and organic cosmetic products, based in part on another report from EWG, because they apparently are often fraudulent. Egad.
The magazine does offer a series of tips on saving money while shopping organic, including comparison shopping, comparison shopping at the farmers' market, buying directly from livestock producers, and joining a Community Supported Agriculture program. OK -- wait -- it looks like I've never written about CSA, either. Could someone please send in a question for me to answer?
Let me just briefly add other cash-saving ideas, including forming a buying club with friends to deal directly with a food distributor, buying large bulk amounts at stores that offer a discount for so doing (my local co-op gives a 10 percent discount on 25-pound bags of rice, for example), and buying fewer animal products.
This is a post from GRIST....Subscribe....
Hi Umbra!
I just recently became a stay-at-home mom. Life is bliss, except for the one-income household we now have (my husband brings home the tofu-bacon). Now that we have very limited funds I cannot afford to buy all organic food. Sometimes organic food is nearly double the price of conventional food ... yikes! I looked around and could not find a great website for foods you need to buy organic. I know that some conventional foods are not so pesticide-laden as others, but I'm not sure which. Could you please tell me this: if you could buy only some organic food, what should it be?
Tammi Bailey, Colo.
Dearest Tammi,
Apologies for not explicitly providing this basic resource to dearest readers. I've mentioned the Environmental Working Group's produce shopping guide, but that doesn't help you search the Ask Umbra archives for "best organic foods." Sorry.
The EWG guide is designed to answer the "which food" question for fresh fruits and vegetables. EWG looked at USDA food consumption data and USDA and FDA pesticide residue tests, and developed a pesticide residue ranking from worst to best for 44 types of produce. If you have specific concerns, you may wish to read more about EWG's methodologies -- for example, common habits of peeling and washing are incorporated into the tests.
The 12 fruits and vegetables with the highest amount of pesticide residues are peaches, apples, sweet bell peppers, celery, nectarines, strawberries, cherries, lettuce, imported grapes, pears, spinach, and potatoes. These are the ones to spend your money on. The 12 with the lowest residues are onions, avocado, frozen sweet corn, pineapples, mangoes, frozen sweet peas, asparagus, kiwi, bananas, cabbage, broccoli, and eggplant. When short of cash, go ahead on conventionally grown versions of these.
The shopping guide gets us started on produce, but how about the rest of our diet? Consumer Reports has an interesting series of articles about prioritizing among organic products. Their top priorities include the produce chosen by EWG. They also believe meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy should be an organic priority because of risks including mad cow and the antibiotics and hormones used in conventional animal husbandry. Their third top priority is baby food, for reasons of small bodies and potential concentrated residues in processed purees.
I agree with these personal health priorities, in part because they correlate with larger environmental concerns. A link between pesticide residue and pesticide application seems likely, and large-scale meat production benefits only the financial bottom line.
The rest of the Consumer Reports list is intriguing: They say if price is no object, go ahead and buy organic grains and processed foods. However, they argue, these foods lose many nutrients and "health value" during processing, hence do not offer enough added value in their organic form to always justify the price increase. To me, making that argument from a personal-health perspective does not exempt those who can afford to buy all organic from doing so based on environmental stewardship. CR also pooh-poohs organic seafood, because no U.S. certification exists, and organic cosmetic products, based in part on another report from EWG, because they apparently are often fraudulent. Egad.
The magazine does offer a series of tips on saving money while shopping organic, including comparison shopping, comparison shopping at the farmers' market, buying directly from livestock producers, and joining a Community Supported Agriculture program. OK -- wait -- it looks like I've never written about CSA, either. Could someone please send in a question for me to answer?
Let me just briefly add other cash-saving ideas, including forming a buying club with friends to deal directly with a food distributor, buying large bulk amounts at stores that offer a discount for so doing (my local co-op gives a 10 percent discount on 25-pound bags of rice, for example), and buying fewer animal products.
Monday, October 01, 2007
fits and spurts
That is how my blog writing goes...
I have thought of some worthy blog items but have then thought too much about who I would offend by posting them...
I need a secret blog that no one reads. Oh that would be a diary and who wants one of those that isn't 6. I like to share probably share too much.
Things are good here. Still fighting with Kidney issues. The kids are great. Chandler and Gavin are still not sure of school. Chandler misses his old school and I think he can sense in a way so do I. Gavin has been very social and his behavior/manners are improving. But he is almost 3. Hard to believe my BABY is growing up. Fiona is well. She just tuned 6 months and has 1 tooth.
Chris is good too- Happy I think to know we aren't expecting anymore children. Still keeping my fingers crossed for a move to MD some time before the kids are too much older....
Blessings-
I have thought of some worthy blog items but have then thought too much about who I would offend by posting them...
I need a secret blog that no one reads. Oh that would be a diary and who wants one of those that isn't 6. I like to share probably share too much.
Things are good here. Still fighting with Kidney issues. The kids are great. Chandler and Gavin are still not sure of school. Chandler misses his old school and I think he can sense in a way so do I. Gavin has been very social and his behavior/manners are improving. But he is almost 3. Hard to believe my BABY is growing up. Fiona is well. She just tuned 6 months and has 1 tooth.
Chris is good too- Happy I think to know we aren't expecting anymore children. Still keeping my fingers crossed for a move to MD some time before the kids are too much older....
Blessings-
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