Okay, I don't know everything about Canada or how their government works, or how their taxes work, or how their healthcare system works, but there are a few things I think I really like about them.
There are people on both sides of the fence when it comes to Canada's healthcare system. I admit I'm not familiar enough with it to feel strongly one way or another ("Obviously Natasha Richardson died because her skiing accident was in Canada!" ... um, sure?) But I think I personally would prefer a universal healthcare system (a single-payer system) to this behemoth Obamacare we've recently passed. It's full of great ideas, but dang, it's messy and complicated and inefficient and looks like it just sells us all out to the insurance companies who have always been able to do whatever they want with us, and will continue to be able to do so. O_o BUT THAT IS A DISCUSSION FOR ANOTHER DAY.
BACK TO THE TOPIC AT HAND: WHAT I LIKE ABOUT CANADA.
Parental leave.
It's not maternity leave, which is a special cool luxury American working moms have that makes me jealous. Granted, not all Americans get paid maternity leave, but dang. Sometimes I wish I had waited a bit longer to have kids so I could have a job, take some paid maternity leave, then quit. (Yes, my selfish inner desires are why employers hate pregnant women and are suspicious of them.) But the idea is that in Canada, you get a year off with 55% pay. Then you get to go back to your job. A year, people. Paid. And either parent could take it off. So if both spouses are working, each could take 6 months off, or Mom could take a full year off, or whatever. But if one spouse is working, then the working spouse could take the whole year off. That seems a lot less discriminatory than saying we want to give working moms all these benefits to make their lives easier. Hey, look over here, I've made sacrifices, too! Whatever happened to "all men are created equal" - why do they get special treatment and protection?
Canada's version of the "Child Tax Credit"
In the United States, we get something like a $1000 tax credit for each child. That's great and all, but Canadians get a $100 check every month for each child they have (something like that.) That adds up to $1200, by the way. ;) Anyway, like I said, I don't know how their tax system works, but that seems more straightforward than our "$1000 tax credit plus a bunch of random deductions like the child care tax credit that ONLY WORKS FOR CHILD CARE AND NOT PRESCHOOL." Again, one of those things that discriminates against stay-at-home parents. Why is it that working parents need all this help? If they need all this help, isn't that a sign that there's something wrong with what they're doing? If *parents* need help, help *all* *parents* and not just a certain subset of them that exhibit certain behaviors the government wants. It seems they want to pressure everybody into working and only having a few children. Isn't Europe kind of having a problem with its aging population...? How are MY kids supposed to support the Social Security needs of all the aging people if you're trying to stop middle-class people from having kids?
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/301108/empty-playground-and-welfare-state-ramesh-ponnuru << a great blog entry
Universal healthcare.
I could never write enough about this in a single entry. I don't think I could get it out in a bunch of entries. But here's the quick version: we already practically have "free" universal health care. Hospitals and doctors are required to treat their patients regardless of their ability to pay. A friend of a friend said, "Health care is totally free, as long as you don't need a good credit score and don't mind dodging a few phone calls!" Seriously, it's awful! My aunt works (worked?) for a hospital's billing department! It sounds like a nightmare job!
We have the ability to treat people and morally we should (something to do with the Hippocratic oath? or something?) and we DO and we bill people for it even if they can't afford it. It makes no sense. I got my hospital bill from having Mace and the bill made no sense. They charged the insurance company some amount, the insurance company paid them some other amount (like, 1/5 of what the hospital billed them), I paid my teensy hospital copay (I love my health insurance ... they cover 100% and I have no deductible!), and somehow we all called it good? Someone explain to me how this has ANYTHING to do with the free market. And when I came in, they asked me if I was insured or if I was paying out of pocket. Do they bill us differently? I bet they do. This makes NO SENSE.
The fact is, we don't understand anything about what healthcare costs. And there are emergencies. That's why we all have insurance, I think. And we all have copays because the insurance companies don't want us going to the doctor for FREE because then we'd go to the doctor for every little thing and A) the doctors would be overwhelmed and B) it would be freaking expensive. But it makes sense for preventative visits to be free (because insurance companies would probably rather catch something earlier than later because it would be cheaper to treat) and blah blah blah I don't think you find this interesting.
I think healthcare should be a common good because education is a common good. We want our society to be educated because that makes them more productive. We ALSO want our society to be HEALTHY because that will ALSO make us more productive. I have a friend who was "disabled" because she has bipolar and epilepsy - and without medication she is unable to function. But if she got a job, Medicaid would no longer be able to help her with her medical costs, but her job wouldn't be good enough to either A) provide medical benefits or B) pay her enough that she can care for her own health issues. THAT IS JUST WRONG.
I could go more in-depth about this, but that would probably best be left to someone who is actually an expert in the field and knows about healthcare and knows about insurance. Me? I just read stuff.
PS. I'm in love with this woman and her blog. Apparently she wrote about most of my issues years ago.
http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/category/women/
And gosh dang I wish I kept links to all of the blog entries that made me think about everything I wrote about in this entry. Oh, well. I will find more later, but the point is I need to get my thoughts out, y'know?
Coming up some day: if I ruled the world, what would it be like?
Saturday, September 8, 2012
Monday, September 3, 2012
Personal family things
Now I'd like to take the opportunity to share a few things that have been going on in my life lately.
Mace is 4 months old. I love him so much!
Carmen Dewey: Dinosaur Hunter
I want to write more in here about family happenings. I've been distracting myself too much for the past year or so to write, but I really need to do it!! (Facebook status updates are enough, right? Right???)
In other news ... we are moving into a house next Saturday (yaaaaayyyyyy!!!!) so this week should be crazy full of packing and whatnot. Being OCD and all, I started packing boxes last week to take downstairs to the garage (I don't want to ask my friends to carry all of our stuff down two flights of stairs) ... then Carmen decided she wanted to help and she put all of her ponies and other favorite toys into her backpack. Ahahaha. I love her.
Mace is 4 months old. I love him so much!
- He's a super-huge flirt who loves to talk. He loves attention, and I love looking into his eyes. He looks back at me, as if searching for some kind of reassurance, and when I smile, he beams at me.
- He loves it when people sing to him - one of the ladies at the gym day care even told me about it. :)
- He loves sucking on his Binky, and when it's not around, he sticks his entire hand into his mouth and sucks on it madly. It's hilarious. And for a kid who loves his Binky so much, he sure stinks at keeping it in his mouth!
- He loves to grab and pull at his toys.
- He understands when I'm promising him milk. If he's fussing and I say, "Wait just a minute, I'll get you some milk, let me sit down..." he stops and looks at me for a while. And if I get distracted and do something other than start nursing him, he furrows his brow and starts crying at me again. ;)
- He started rolling over about a week ago, and now he can roll from front to back and back to front! But I think he only rolls over in one direction - when he's on his back, he'll roll over his left arm onto his stomach, then he'll roll over again and be farther away from where he started.
- He loves his big sister. She is very good at comforting him, and when she got him to stop crying at the end of her swimming lessons a few weeks ago, one of the other parents was like, "Wow, she is the baby whisperer!!"
- Carmen loves him to death, too. She helps stick his Binky in, she plays with him, she helps him roll over, she brings him toys, she talks to him in the high-pitched loving Mommy voice adults use with babies (apparently it's a natural thing for parents to do - babies are better at picking up the high-pitched sounds and we recognize that they respond to it. We're not just being super-annoying with our baby talk.) I love walking into a room and hearing her singing to him, or going, "Baby Mace, you're a cutie, you're a cutie! Let's keep you forever! I love you! You are the cutest and sweetest baby!" And when he's crying, she caresses his face and goes, "Shh, shh, shh, oh, sweetheart, you're okay, shh~"
- For some reason, I like to call Mace "Stinkerfish." Sometimes Carmen gets upset when I call him that, and she goes, "He's not a stinkerfish! He's a sweetheart!"
Carmen Dewey: Dinosaur Hunter
- For some reason, she is obsessed with death. I've probably been watching too much Burn Notice with her. ;) I hear her playing in her room, and she's like, "Hey, everypony, Pinkie Pie is dead." And a few weeks ago in Nursery, she told her Nursery leaders that one of her friends died, and they were a bit worried about that ... I asked her about it in the hall, and she told me that it was one of her pretend friends that died. "Yeah, she went out into the street without looking and got hit by a car and she DIED." O.o; I don't teach her that she'll die if she gets hit by a car. I say she needs to be careful because the car might not see her, and if it hit her she'd get "big ouchies". Apparently big ouchies = death.
- The best part of my day is when Carmen comes up to me and gives me a big hug and says, "Mommy, I just love you!"
- Sometimes, she says, "Ugh, Mommy, if you [do thing I don't like], I will not love you any more!" (What?! I don't threaten her with taking away love! Where does she get this from?!) and other times, when we get frustrated with each other, she glares at me and goes, "But Mommy, I still love you!!" Hehehe.
- I haven't quite figured out what this means, but sometimes she says, "I am the MADDEST Carmen!" Usually this is when she's going to go out and kill dinosaurs or something. I think she also says it when she's recently been scared by a bug (usually a spider/ant/fly).
- We're kind of working on our fear of bugs. When bugs are inside, it's okay to freak out and get Mommy and Daddy to kill them. When we're outside, I try to tell her, "This is their home; they're not scary and I won't kill them for you."
- Carmen is very thoughtful and obedient. While we were on vacation in Utah, my dad and I were both taking naps downstairs on the couch. I heard Carmen come down the stairs, calling out, "Mommy? Grandpa Brad??" and when she saw both of us asleep, she sighed exasperatedly (it sounded a bit like Napoleon Dynamite) ... then turned around and went back upstairs, instead of waking us up and bothering us. Seriously? Seriously!! I was so happy!!!!
- My favorite made-up word by Carmen? "Yestertime."
- She is super-upbeat and optimistic and sweet. "That sounds super-delicious!" "That is WONDERFUL, mommy!" "Mom, everything in this grocery store is SO PERFECT!" and our favorite descriptor for tasty fruit is, "It's super-juicy!" Super-juicy strawberries, super-juicy apples, super-juicy pears ... Also, whenever we go to a place that will have kids there she can play with, she calls them, "All of my very best friends!" (I think she gets it from the My Little Pony theme song?)
- Everything exciting that she is looking forward to doing is happening TOMORROW. I can't wait to go to my swim lessons TOMORROW. I can't wait to start my dance lessons TOMORROW and wear my tap-tap-tap shoes. I want to move into our new big house RIGHT NOW. (or tomorrow. ;) )
- Carmen reminds me of the little girl from Toy Story 3. She runs around with her toys and everything that happens to them is SO DRAMATIC. I love it!!
I want to write more in here about family happenings. I've been distracting myself too much for the past year or so to write, but I really need to do it!! (Facebook status updates are enough, right? Right???)
In other news ... we are moving into a house next Saturday (yaaaaayyyyyy!!!!) so this week should be crazy full of packing and whatnot. Being OCD and all, I started packing boxes last week to take downstairs to the garage (I don't want to ask my friends to carry all of our stuff down two flights of stairs) ... then Carmen decided she wanted to help and she put all of her ponies and other favorite toys into her backpack. Ahahaha. I love her.
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Spoilers!!
A few days ago, Mark came home from work super-giddy and told me what he weighed when he got on the scale when he got to the gym that morning. I really wish I could remember how much he weighed when we got married ... I think he's close! So far (in just a month) he has lost 20 pounds. That's even more than our cats!! (Our cats are fat.) I want to take a picture of Mark holding Tiber, with the caption of, "This is how much Mark weighed a month ago!"
I, on the other hand, lost 7 pounds in a week (how is it possible? I don't know. Going off carbs is crazy!) and then realized I shouldn't be losing weight that fast because I'm nursing. I was supposed to be eating fruit, too. And if you've got sugar in your body, it has energy it can access before your body starts shedding fat so even eating fruit will slow your weight loss. At least that's what I suspect. So now I'm down just over 10 pounds. So between the two of us, we've almost lost a Carmen. In a month.
I've been pretty bad the past few days, though. I've been craving chocolate so I had several pieces of chocolate cake at a friend's house last night, and today I've been sneaking a bunch of Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies. I promise I'll get back on track tomorrow!
One thing that was really fun about that first week was stepping on the scale in the evening and weighing less than I weighed in the morning, even though I had been eating all day long and never felt hungry. Gee, funny, you eat foods that keep you full and you don't get hungry as often. Hm!!
It makes me think that maybe that, instead of simply writing up how many calories are in a food item, if they wrote it in something like calories per hour. You digest carbs faster than whole grains/proteins/fats, so although fat has more calories per weight, I bet if you ate more fat during the day you'd eat fewer calories overall. Carbs last, like, three hours, then you're hungry again. They also spike your blood sugar and make you even hungrier. I noticed I could be not-very-hungry, then I'll have something with sugar in it, and suddenly my body will start craving more sugar.
Yup, here's a little something describing cravings vs. hunger. This is why you have to do Phase I of the South Beach Diet. It's what kicks the carb cravings. The first 3 days are the hardest.
http://www.southbeachdiet.com/diet/hunger-versus-cravings
I've decided I also need to come up with some sort of official "goal" for my weight loss, instead of, "The doctor told Mark he needs to lose weight, so what the heck I'll do it with him because I'm fat."
Here goes, once it's public and people know they've got something to hold you to ... right?
Starting weight: 179
Current weight: 169
Pre-Mace weight: 165
Pre-Carmen weight: 160
In my wildest, wildest dreams I'd like to be down to 140 lbs (how much I weighed when I was 16) and have a 30-inch waist or smaller. Actually, I'd just like to have a 30-inch waist, period. (I'm already one inch down!) Realistically, I'd like to get down to 150 lbs, which is what I weighed when I graduated from high school. I have clothes I've been holding onto since I got married, hoping I'll be able to fit into them comfortably again. (Problem is, many of them aren't nursing-friendly so I've hardly worn them since 2008. BUT I LOVE THOSE SHIRTS SO MUCH I CAN NOT GET RID OF THEM BECAUSE I SWEAR I WILL WEAR THEM AGAIN SOME DAY! **stubborn**)
It's kind of embarrassing thinking those are my weight goals, because I have friends who are like 140 or 145 and want to get down to 120 and I'm thinking, "How is that even POSSIBLE?! I haven't weighed that I was 13! And I was not fat then!" (Back then, I'm pretty sure was pure muscle, and I could probably beat the crap out of you, and I rode my bike everywhere.)
And there's your way too much personal information about Kamis for the day. Now I will be super-embarrassed if Christmas comes around and I'm still 160something. "You did so great in August, then you gave up?!"
I, on the other hand, lost 7 pounds in a week (how is it possible? I don't know. Going off carbs is crazy!) and then realized I shouldn't be losing weight that fast because I'm nursing. I was supposed to be eating fruit, too. And if you've got sugar in your body, it has energy it can access before your body starts shedding fat so even eating fruit will slow your weight loss. At least that's what I suspect. So now I'm down just over 10 pounds. So between the two of us, we've almost lost a Carmen. In a month.
I've been pretty bad the past few days, though. I've been craving chocolate so I had several pieces of chocolate cake at a friend's house last night, and today I've been sneaking a bunch of Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies. I promise I'll get back on track tomorrow!
One thing that was really fun about that first week was stepping on the scale in the evening and weighing less than I weighed in the morning, even though I had been eating all day long and never felt hungry. Gee, funny, you eat foods that keep you full and you don't get hungry as often. Hm!!
It makes me think that maybe that, instead of simply writing up how many calories are in a food item, if they wrote it in something like calories per hour. You digest carbs faster than whole grains/proteins/fats, so although fat has more calories per weight, I bet if you ate more fat during the day you'd eat fewer calories overall. Carbs last, like, three hours, then you're hungry again. They also spike your blood sugar and make you even hungrier. I noticed I could be not-very-hungry, then I'll have something with sugar in it, and suddenly my body will start craving more sugar.
Yup, here's a little something describing cravings vs. hunger. This is why you have to do Phase I of the South Beach Diet. It's what kicks the carb cravings. The first 3 days are the hardest.
http://www.southbeachdiet.com/diet/hunger-versus-cravings
I've decided I also need to come up with some sort of official "goal" for my weight loss, instead of, "The doctor told Mark he needs to lose weight, so what the heck I'll do it with him because I'm fat."
Here goes, once it's public and people know they've got something to hold you to ... right?
Starting weight: 179
Current weight: 169
Pre-Mace weight: 165
Pre-Carmen weight: 160
In my wildest, wildest dreams I'd like to be down to 140 lbs (how much I weighed when I was 16) and have a 30-inch waist or smaller. Actually, I'd just like to have a 30-inch waist, period. (I'm already one inch down!) Realistically, I'd like to get down to 150 lbs, which is what I weighed when I graduated from high school. I have clothes I've been holding onto since I got married, hoping I'll be able to fit into them comfortably again. (Problem is, many of them aren't nursing-friendly so I've hardly worn them since 2008. BUT I LOVE THOSE SHIRTS SO MUCH I CAN NOT GET RID OF THEM BECAUSE I SWEAR I WILL WEAR THEM AGAIN SOME DAY! **stubborn**)
It's kind of embarrassing thinking those are my weight goals, because I have friends who are like 140 or 145 and want to get down to 120 and I'm thinking, "How is that even POSSIBLE?! I haven't weighed that I was 13! And I was not fat then!" (Back then, I'm pretty sure was pure muscle, and I could probably beat the crap out of you, and I rode my bike everywhere.)
And there's your way too much personal information about Kamis for the day. Now I will be super-embarrassed if Christmas comes around and I'm still 160something. "You did so great in August, then you gave up?!"
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Crazy life and health and stuff ...
So this past month has been crazy (crazy fun?) I went to Utah for a week with the kids to celebrate my grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary. I was able to meet up with a few of my friends and have a lot of fun. It was nice having extra help with the kids ... Mom doesn't get much sleep when she's sleeping in the same room as both of her kids. Anyway. Hopefully some day I'll be able to see the nice family photos we took.
Since Mark got a new job last year, we've been thinking about buying additional life insurance. Someone came by with an interesting investment thing where it's like part of it is life insurance and part of it is an investment with a guaranteed 2% return and a 12% cap, and it's got some kind of tax shelter associated with it because of the kind of investment it is. (Fair Tax, FAIR TAX, why can people make up stuff like this??!!!)
Anyway, in case you don't know, when you sign up for life insurance they come and weigh you and take your blood and test it for stuff to make sure you're not about to die from cancer. When Mark got his blood work back, his levels came back high for stuff that could be related to his liver. The life insurance company wasn't worried about that at all (but they were concerned about his Factor V Leiden, a blood clotting disorder we already know about which is not a big deal but whatever) but they couldn't give us a better deal than we already have on Mark's life insurance (yay, BYU alumni stuff!!) so we decided we'll get healthier and try again later for additional term life insurance.
Looking at the liver stuff, though, we decided to go see a doctor to figure out what's going on and what we can do. After a few doctor's visits and ultrasounds and whatnot, the doctor suggested Mark is developing a fatty liver and told him the best way to treat it would be to lose weight and go on a low-carb diet, "such as Atkins or South Beach."
So I'd heard of Atkins before, but not South Beach, and I was kind of excited that now we HAVE to get healthy because a doctor told Mark to lose weight. We've been half-heartedly "eating healthy" and working out, but we haven't really bothered to lose much weight because, heck, it's not like we've had to buy bigger clothes lately. And being pregnant gave me an excuse to not fit into anything anyway. ;)
I have a hard time figuring out what to cook (we love stir fry with lots of rice) because neither Mark nor I particularly like vegetables (stir-fry is the only way we're eating any) and Mark is allergic to half the fruits under the sun (apples, pears, peaches, cherries, pretty much anything with a pit...) So ... whatever.
Anyway, at the beginning of the month, Mark decided to cut down on carbs. Carmen wanted me to bake a birthday cake for her ponies (why not?) and Mark only ate a piece or two of it. I would make stir fry, and he would skip the rice. Stuff like that. I checked out a bunch of South Beach Diet books from the library and told him to skim through the recipes and find stuff he wanted to try (turns out he doesn't want any of it. All of the recipes are kind of specific and use weird ingredients we wouldn't use otherwise. Plus, they advocate the use of sugar substitutes. Blech, frankenfoods!)
We decided we would "officially" start our diet after I got back from vacation. I mean, there's no way I'm going to NOT eat the tortilla from my Cafe Rio salad, and I AM going to go to JCW's!! Neither of those places exist in Texas! A few days before I left (my vacation started on a Tuesday) Mark decided he was "officially" starting the South Beach Diet.
The way the SBD works is at the beginning, for 2 weeks, you cut all carbs out of your diet. No bread, no potatoes, no pasta, no sugar, NO FRUIT. They have some other guidelines, too, like you're supposed to only have reduced-fat milk and cheese and you're supposed to have a limit on the number of pistachios/cashews/etc you can eat, and I *think* they recommend Canadian bacon over regular bacon (Mark hates Canadian bacon) ... and Mark pretty much ignored that and went with the parts of the diet he agreed with that sounded ... well ... more sound. There is some diet/nutrition stuff we don't necessarily buy into. I'm not about to go below 2% milk because of the stuff they do to milk when you get down to 1% and skim. Mark is not convinced normal bacon is worse for you than frankenfooded bacon.
Supposedly, the goal of Phase 1 of the South Beach diet is to not spike your blood sugar, and hopefully get your blood chemistry back to normal. It will also kick your sugar/carb cravings. Carbs are easy energy and not very filling. Processed carbs are practically predigested for you, so you get lots of energy for little effort and maybe it helps you gain weight in your belly. Come to think of it, the skinny people I knew eat very few refined carbs and have lots of fiber ... so they might be onto something there.
So, now it's the end of August and we've had a little bit of a taste of a change of lifestyle ... Want to know how it went? Stay tuned!
Since Mark got a new job last year, we've been thinking about buying additional life insurance. Someone came by with an interesting investment thing where it's like part of it is life insurance and part of it is an investment with a guaranteed 2% return and a 12% cap, and it's got some kind of tax shelter associated with it because of the kind of investment it is. (Fair Tax, FAIR TAX, why can people make up stuff like this??!!!)
Anyway, in case you don't know, when you sign up for life insurance they come and weigh you and take your blood and test it for stuff to make sure you're not about to die from cancer. When Mark got his blood work back, his levels came back high for stuff that could be related to his liver. The life insurance company wasn't worried about that at all (but they were concerned about his Factor V Leiden, a blood clotting disorder we already know about which is not a big deal but whatever) but they couldn't give us a better deal than we already have on Mark's life insurance (yay, BYU alumni stuff!!) so we decided we'll get healthier and try again later for additional term life insurance.
Looking at the liver stuff, though, we decided to go see a doctor to figure out what's going on and what we can do. After a few doctor's visits and ultrasounds and whatnot, the doctor suggested Mark is developing a fatty liver and told him the best way to treat it would be to lose weight and go on a low-carb diet, "such as Atkins or South Beach."
So I'd heard of Atkins before, but not South Beach, and I was kind of excited that now we HAVE to get healthy because a doctor told Mark to lose weight. We've been half-heartedly "eating healthy" and working out, but we haven't really bothered to lose much weight because, heck, it's not like we've had to buy bigger clothes lately. And being pregnant gave me an excuse to not fit into anything anyway. ;)
I have a hard time figuring out what to cook (we love stir fry with lots of rice) because neither Mark nor I particularly like vegetables (stir-fry is the only way we're eating any) and Mark is allergic to half the fruits under the sun (apples, pears, peaches, cherries, pretty much anything with a pit...) So ... whatever.
Anyway, at the beginning of the month, Mark decided to cut down on carbs. Carmen wanted me to bake a birthday cake for her ponies (why not?) and Mark only ate a piece or two of it. I would make stir fry, and he would skip the rice. Stuff like that. I checked out a bunch of South Beach Diet books from the library and told him to skim through the recipes and find stuff he wanted to try (turns out he doesn't want any of it. All of the recipes are kind of specific and use weird ingredients we wouldn't use otherwise. Plus, they advocate the use of sugar substitutes. Blech, frankenfoods!)
We decided we would "officially" start our diet after I got back from vacation. I mean, there's no way I'm going to NOT eat the tortilla from my Cafe Rio salad, and I AM going to go to JCW's!! Neither of those places exist in Texas! A few days before I left (my vacation started on a Tuesday) Mark decided he was "officially" starting the South Beach Diet.
The way the SBD works is at the beginning, for 2 weeks, you cut all carbs out of your diet. No bread, no potatoes, no pasta, no sugar, NO FRUIT. They have some other guidelines, too, like you're supposed to only have reduced-fat milk and cheese and you're supposed to have a limit on the number of pistachios/cashews/etc you can eat, and I *think* they recommend Canadian bacon over regular bacon (Mark hates Canadian bacon) ... and Mark pretty much ignored that and went with the parts of the diet he agreed with that sounded ... well ... more sound. There is some diet/nutrition stuff we don't necessarily buy into. I'm not about to go below 2% milk because of the stuff they do to milk when you get down to 1% and skim. Mark is not convinced normal bacon is worse for you than frankenfooded bacon.
Supposedly, the goal of Phase 1 of the South Beach diet is to not spike your blood sugar, and hopefully get your blood chemistry back to normal. It will also kick your sugar/carb cravings. Carbs are easy energy and not very filling. Processed carbs are practically predigested for you, so you get lots of energy for little effort and maybe it helps you gain weight in your belly. Come to think of it, the skinny people I knew eat very few refined carbs and have lots of fiber ... so they might be onto something there.
So, now it's the end of August and we've had a little bit of a taste of a change of lifestyle ... Want to know how it went? Stay tuned!
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Reservations about the Fair Tax
Oh snap! This was supposed to post weeks ago but somehow it never made it out of my drafts!! (August 27, 2012)
Okay, quick revert back to the Fair Tax.
I have a few reservations about it, because of the sorts of things that would be taxed. The whole deal about the Fair Tax is that "everything" is taxed ... except for education. One of the FAQ's asks, "Why not just exempt necessities, like food and medicine?" The problem is, that would open the floodgates for lobbyists and special interests to come in and be like, "Give me special treatment!" ... and isn't that what the whole problem is with our current tax system anyway?
(When I rule the world, all lobbyists will be fired. and if they don't go home, I will line them up and shoot them. I hate lobbyists and special interests. http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/01/06/144737864/forget-stocks-or-bonds-invest-in-a-lobbyist)
I mean, check it out:
It will make you crazy!
Random thought I just had: What qualifies as "education"? Would preschool count, or is it just like public kindergarten through college (or trade school, or whatever post-secondary training you want)?
Anyway. The Fair Tax also taxes RENT and HEALTH CARE. So ... you'd be paying tax on that $30,000 surgery. And then with the way insurance companies currently are, are you paying tax on what the hospital bills you, or what the insurance companies pay, or what? More about that in a second, I promise.
No, just kidding. I just wanted to say this wouldn't work because in my world, the bulk of health care would be a public good, not a private one. So maybe just the privately-run health care businesses would need to tax. I figure the basic government health care wouldn't be the best, so people can pay for fancier health care just like we pay for fancier private schools.
Back to rent.
It seems kind of crazy to tax rent because it would tack on $300 to a $1000 rent. (A 23% inclusive tax comes out to a 30% exclusive tax. I wasn't 100% positive of that when I wrote my previous entry because I couldn't remember the source I got it from so I didn't write the 30% number.) And I am renting our house in American Fork out to our friends, and it's confusing enough filling out the income tax forms on it. No, wait, scratch that, I think it's probably more complicated NOW calculating income and expenses and doing my income tax returns than it would be to figure out how to pay the sales tax to the government. But how would they even keep track of ME renting out MY place to my friends because we can't afford to sell our house ...? Fair Tax talks about how it gets rid of tax evasion problems (and oh yes it does, oh Fair Tax, how I love you and your simplicity) ... but ... like ... I don't know.
I guess I feel more comfortable about them taxing rent because you DO get to take your entire paycheck home. Your. Entire. Paycheck. Can you imagine?!?! And you get the prebate every month, so as your family gets bigger and you need a bigger place, you get a bigger prebate that covers more of your housing costs.
The Fair Tax also charges tax on interest. Currently, so much of our economy is based on borrowing (which, in case you don't remember, is a really bad idea, according to the prophets.) So a lot of people will be irritated that they're paying taxes on interest. But again - at the end of the day, is that such a bad idea? Maybe people will learn how to live within their means again!
Some people also complain that the FairTax isn't progressive enough, because the top 1% derive most of their income from capital gains, and that money is reinvested into the economy and isn't spent on new goods and services. But ... why are we taxing people for making money they're not spending anyway ...? A friend once asked me, "If the money's ultimately going to be spent somewhere anyway, does it really matter when it's taxed?" I think the answer is yes, and the two words I think that best describe it are: compound interest.
Also, this is a problem I have with both the Fair Tax our current income tax system: Cost of living is different from city to city. So for someone in New York City to have the same prebate as someone with the same size family in Mississippi ... the money just wouldn't go as far. So I would think that local governments would have to determine poverty levels or prebate levels for families of different sizes, and NOT have it be a blanket federal number applied to the whole nation.
I believe more local(ized?) governments are more effective than the federal government. If only our government was set up a bit more like our Church leadership, huh?
Anyway, all in all, I think the Fair Tax is a pretty good idea, and a pretty fair idea (even though it "doesn't tax the rich enough"). I don't like lobbyists in Washington and I don't like how the government works so hard to influence people's personal decisions. Both the Democrats and Republicans do it in different facets of our lives ... and that's why I'm a Libertarian.
Have you heard of the great Libertarian conspiracy? They want to take over the government, then leave you alone.
Okay, quick revert back to the Fair Tax.
I have a few reservations about it, because of the sorts of things that would be taxed. The whole deal about the Fair Tax is that "everything" is taxed ... except for education. One of the FAQ's asks, "Why not just exempt necessities, like food and medicine?" The problem is, that would open the floodgates for lobbyists and special interests to come in and be like, "Give me special treatment!" ... and isn't that what the whole problem is with our current tax system anyway?
(When I rule the world, all lobbyists will be fired. and if they don't go home, I will line them up and shoot them. I hate lobbyists and special interests. http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/01/06/144737864/forget-stocks-or-bonds-invest-in-a-lobbyist)
I mean, check it out:
Random thought I just had: What qualifies as "education"? Would preschool count, or is it just like public kindergarten through college (or trade school, or whatever post-secondary training you want)?
Anyway. The Fair Tax also taxes RENT and HEALTH CARE. So ... you'd be paying tax on that $30,000 surgery. And then with the way insurance companies currently are, are you paying tax on what the hospital bills you, or what the insurance companies pay, or what? More about that in a second, I promise.
No, just kidding. I just wanted to say this wouldn't work because in my world, the bulk of health care would be a public good, not a private one. So maybe just the privately-run health care businesses would need to tax. I figure the basic government health care wouldn't be the best, so people can pay for fancier health care just like we pay for fancier private schools.
Back to rent.
It seems kind of crazy to tax rent because it would tack on $300 to a $1000 rent. (A 23% inclusive tax comes out to a 30% exclusive tax. I wasn't 100% positive of that when I wrote my previous entry because I couldn't remember the source I got it from so I didn't write the 30% number.) And I am renting our house in American Fork out to our friends, and it's confusing enough filling out the income tax forms on it. No, wait, scratch that, I think it's probably more complicated NOW calculating income and expenses and doing my income tax returns than it would be to figure out how to pay the sales tax to the government. But how would they even keep track of ME renting out MY place to my friends because we can't afford to sell our house ...? Fair Tax talks about how it gets rid of tax evasion problems (and oh yes it does, oh Fair Tax, how I love you and your simplicity) ... but ... like ... I don't know.
I guess I feel more comfortable about them taxing rent because you DO get to take your entire paycheck home. Your. Entire. Paycheck. Can you imagine?!?! And you get the prebate every month, so as your family gets bigger and you need a bigger place, you get a bigger prebate that covers more of your housing costs.
The Fair Tax also charges tax on interest. Currently, so much of our economy is based on borrowing (which, in case you don't remember, is a really bad idea, according to the prophets.) So a lot of people will be irritated that they're paying taxes on interest. But again - at the end of the day, is that such a bad idea? Maybe people will learn how to live within their means again!
Some people also complain that the FairTax isn't progressive enough, because the top 1% derive most of their income from capital gains, and that money is reinvested into the economy and isn't spent on new goods and services. But ... why are we taxing people for making money they're not spending anyway ...? A friend once asked me, "If the money's ultimately going to be spent somewhere anyway, does it really matter when it's taxed?" I think the answer is yes, and the two words I think that best describe it are: compound interest.
Also, this is a problem I have with both the Fair Tax our current income tax system: Cost of living is different from city to city. So for someone in New York City to have the same prebate as someone with the same size family in Mississippi ... the money just wouldn't go as far. So I would think that local governments would have to determine poverty levels or prebate levels for families of different sizes, and NOT have it be a blanket federal number applied to the whole nation.
I believe more local(ized?) governments are more effective than the federal government. If only our government was set up a bit more like our Church leadership, huh?
Anyway, all in all, I think the Fair Tax is a pretty good idea, and a pretty fair idea (even though it "doesn't tax the rich enough"). I don't like lobbyists in Washington and I don't like how the government works so hard to influence people's personal decisions. Both the Democrats and Republicans do it in different facets of our lives ... and that's why I'm a Libertarian.
Saturday, August 4, 2012
I love the Fair Tax!
Okay, so there's this thing I love. It's called the FairTax. Basically, imagine this:
There's no income tax. There's no corporate income tax. There's no IRS. There's no April 15.
What there IS, is a 23% federal sales tax on consumption of new goods. That means, you go to the store and buy something, you pay 23% tax. You get a haircut, you pay 23% tax. You buy a new car (or a new house!), you pay 23% tax. You buy something from a consignment shop. No tax. You buy a used car. No tax. (Well, no federal sales tax.) But guess what? You get to take your WHOLE PAYCHECK HOME.
But our current tax system is "progressive," you say! I put "progressive" in quotes, because now that I think about it, the 15% investment income tax rate makes it so that people who make most of their money from investments (ie. those super-rich investors the 99% are complaining about) end up paying at a lower income tax rate than those who make their money doing physical work. And most people who have so much money to invest hire someone else to do the investing so it's not like they're doing much work to earn those dividends, right? Investing IS valuable and important to the economy (when people want to start up a business they need capital) but is it really worth giving these people special income tax treatment?
Oh boy, sorry, I really don't actually want to get into that conversation right now. Ahem.
Progressive taxes ... the idea that those who have less pay less in taxes because they need more of their income, and those who have more can afford to give more in taxes because they can provide for their own basic needs and then some. So supposedly there are people below the poverty level who pay no tax (or negative tax), and then there are people in varying tax brackets who pay the same percent in tax up to a certain level of income, then a higher percent of tax for the next level of income, then when you make a ton of money you're supposed to give up even MORE of that in taxes ... So the marginal returns you get as you make more money get smaller because more of it gets eaten up in taxes. Something like that. In theory. And if you are married and have to provide for your family (spouse, kids, etc) then you get to claim these exemptions and stuff so you get to keep more of your money. Because, let's face it, if you earn the same amount of money as another guy but you have 2 more kids, if you both pay the same amount in taxes, you're going to have less disposable income because you have to feed, clothe, and house your kids.
http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer?pagename=HowFairTaxWorks
The FairTax works out being "progressive" because it looks at a whole household and estimates the amount of money they'll need to provide for the basics (ie. what's the poverty level for a given household size?) Then every household gets a "prebate" check from the government to cover their basic expenses. So if you spend money at the poverty level, your prebate check equals your sales tax. If you spend more than that, it's like you pay a little bit of "income tax" (spending/consumption tax) ... up to a limit of 23%. So if you're a millionaire and you spend a million bucks on new goods, the amount of sales tax you pay is gonna be WAAAAY over that little prebate you got and your effective tax rate will be 22.9999999%.
Your household is determined by the number of people who live in your house with valid social security numbers. THAT'S IT.
The nice thing about this is that it taxes everybody so it makes it hard for people to evade taxes. You know, illegals getting paid cash under the table don't pay income taxes. But here, if they don't have a valid social security number, not only do they NOT get a prebate, they also have to pay federal sales tax on the new stuff they buy! Booya! That would encourage people to gain citizenship, wouldn't it? This also solves one of the same-sex marriage problems. It doesn't discriminate according to marital status. It gets the government out of married, so homosexual couples can have the same tax benefits as heterosexual couples ... and, hey, polygamists too and people who just want to live together. Why not? It's just taxes.
Anyway. You might want to check it out.
http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer?pagename=FAQs
Chew on it for a while. It sounds totally weird at first, but it might just grow on you.
Gary Johnson 2012!
I can no longer deny that I am a libertarian.
(There will be a future post about some of my reservations about the fair tax ... but that would be too overwhelming in one post. This post is too long already.)
There's no income tax. There's no corporate income tax. There's no IRS. There's no April 15.
What there IS, is a 23% federal sales tax on consumption of new goods. That means, you go to the store and buy something, you pay 23% tax. You get a haircut, you pay 23% tax. You buy a new car (or a new house!), you pay 23% tax. You buy something from a consignment shop. No tax. You buy a used car. No tax. (Well, no federal sales tax.) But guess what? You get to take your WHOLE PAYCHECK HOME.
But our current tax system is "progressive," you say! I put "progressive" in quotes, because now that I think about it, the 15% investment income tax rate makes it so that people who make most of their money from investments (ie. those super-rich investors the 99% are complaining about) end up paying at a lower income tax rate than those who make their money doing physical work. And most people who have so much money to invest hire someone else to do the investing so it's not like they're doing much work to earn those dividends, right? Investing IS valuable and important to the economy (when people want to start up a business they need capital) but is it really worth giving these people special income tax treatment?
Oh boy, sorry, I really don't actually want to get into that conversation right now. Ahem.
Progressive taxes ... the idea that those who have less pay less in taxes because they need more of their income, and those who have more can afford to give more in taxes because they can provide for their own basic needs and then some. So supposedly there are people below the poverty level who pay no tax (or negative tax), and then there are people in varying tax brackets who pay the same percent in tax up to a certain level of income, then a higher percent of tax for the next level of income, then when you make a ton of money you're supposed to give up even MORE of that in taxes ... So the marginal returns you get as you make more money get smaller because more of it gets eaten up in taxes. Something like that. In theory. And if you are married and have to provide for your family (spouse, kids, etc) then you get to claim these exemptions and stuff so you get to keep more of your money. Because, let's face it, if you earn the same amount of money as another guy but you have 2 more kids, if you both pay the same amount in taxes, you're going to have less disposable income because you have to feed, clothe, and house your kids.
http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer?pagename=HowFairTaxWorks
The FairTax works out being "progressive" because it looks at a whole household and estimates the amount of money they'll need to provide for the basics (ie. what's the poverty level for a given household size?) Then every household gets a "prebate" check from the government to cover their basic expenses. So if you spend money at the poverty level, your prebate check equals your sales tax. If you spend more than that, it's like you pay a little bit of "income tax" (spending/consumption tax) ... up to a limit of 23%. So if you're a millionaire and you spend a million bucks on new goods, the amount of sales tax you pay is gonna be WAAAAY over that little prebate you got and your effective tax rate will be 22.9999999%.
Your household is determined by the number of people who live in your house with valid social security numbers. THAT'S IT.
The nice thing about this is that it taxes everybody so it makes it hard for people to evade taxes. You know, illegals getting paid cash under the table don't pay income taxes. But here, if they don't have a valid social security number, not only do they NOT get a prebate, they also have to pay federal sales tax on the new stuff they buy! Booya! That would encourage people to gain citizenship, wouldn't it? This also solves one of the same-sex marriage problems. It doesn't discriminate according to marital status. It gets the government out of married, so homosexual couples can have the same tax benefits as heterosexual couples ... and, hey, polygamists too and people who just want to live together. Why not? It's just taxes.
Anyway. You might want to check it out.
http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer?pagename=FAQs
Chew on it for a while. It sounds totally weird at first, but it might just grow on you.
Gary Johnson 2012!
I can no longer deny that I am a libertarian.
(There will be a future post about some of my reservations about the fair tax ... but that would be too overwhelming in one post. This post is too long already.)
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Feeling hormonal >:( (probably from breastfeeding)
I want to complain for a few minutes.
I haven't been blogging lately because I'm too tired and don't have the brainpower to write something coherent. I haven't even written in my own personal journal. I'm exhausted. The baby keeps me up a lot at night, and I keep getting sick with colds. Blech! All I want to do is catch a nap.
Nursing hormones are not so much fun. Especially not in the summer. Did you know you can get hot flashes from nursing? I don't remember getting hot flashes when nursing Carmen! That's it; I'm having my next kid in October. I don't care if I spend the summer being pregnant. Maybe I'll change my mind if I spend a summer being pregnant. ;) But, dang it, Texas, why do you have to be so hot?! Heat rash is not fun.
I also discovered where the huge bruises on my thighs came from ... while I was lugging Mace's car seat up the two flights of stairs to get to our apartment. The car seat goes bonk, bonk, bonk on my leg on each step as I lug a car seat, diaper bag, and multiple bags of groceries up to our apartment. Ugh, and I wonder why I don't try to get out more?
Our lease is up September 30, so in a few weeks I can start looking for a house to rent! Mark wants to stay within the ward boundaries. I can't start looking yet because they won't let you turn in an application until 30 days before your desired move-in date. I don't want to pay double rent ... but rent and a half would be okay with me. It kind of gives me heartburn to think about the fact that we have to turn in a 60-day move-out notice, but can't give a 60-day move-IN notice! Augh, moving is such a pain!
BUT THIS APARTMENT IS SO SMALL AND CLAUSTROPHOBIC AND ON THE THIRD FLOOR AUGH I WANT OUT. How have I survived here for the past year?! Some day (soon!) I will be able to live in a house ... with a yard ... and possibly trees ... and Carmen can play outside while I am inside with the baby ... you can't exactly send your kid outside to play when you live in an apartment complex. The porch is not the same. Waaah. *melts into puddle of not-wanting-to-do-anythingness*
I bet it's just the hormones driving me crazy now. ;)
Mace, I love you, but I am so looking forward to when you stop eating every 3 hours. I hate how guilty the breastfeeding advocates make me feel when they talk about exclusive breastfeeding. I am so jealous of the other people in my Bradley class who DO do the whole feed-your-kid-formula-and-even-put-rice-cereal-in-their-bottle-so-they'll-sleep-longer thing. Oh my heck I wish I could get more than 4 hours of sleep at a time. But I can't get over that mental block of, "It's so selfish to feed your kid formula just so you can get some sleep."
But let's see ... do I want to be a breastfeeding HOMICIDAL MANIAC because I don't get enough sleep, or a major disappointment to the World Health Organization and the American Academy of Pediatrics because I'm one of the 80-someodd-percent of non-exclusively breastfeeding moms?
It's a bit like saying, "Oh, man, we are SO DISAPPOINTED because so few people are on 100% whole-foods diets." Like, dang, I had a bowl of cereal and blew it.
I mean, like ... this New York breastfeeding thing really ticks me off. The whole Baby Friendly initiative thing ticks me off. Locking away formula and pacifiers? Seriously? Lecturing moms about bottle feeding and pacifier use? (Men, if you don't know what breastfeeding feels like, have someone pinch and twist your nipples then rub them with sandpaper then attach a vacuum to them. And do that for about 20 minutes at a time. When your nipples are bleeding, keep doing it for a while. Then imagine what it would feel like having someone lecture you about how if you don't let someone continue to sandpaper and vacuum-suck your twisted nipples, you will have all of these problems.)
And did you know that pacifier use can actually enhance breastfeeding? When your nipples are sore in those early days of breastfeeding, you really wish your baby would only use your boobs for food and not for comfort.
You know an easier way to get women to successfully breastfeed? DON'T SEND THEM HOME WITH FORMULA AND COUPONS FOR FORMULA. Problem solved. Send them home with 20 bucks. Then they can use that money to either buy formula or lactation tea. Freedom of choice, ain't it great?! Or if you're going to send them home with presents and not cash, give 'em a fruit basket (oh, wait, you're telling me hospitals don't send women home with free formula just 'cause they're nice???)
Also, next time I have a baby, I'm sneaking in my own pacifiers. When the nurse came in to lecture me on pacifier use and breastfeeding, I wanted to tell her to can it and just give me the d*mn pacifier. My boobs hurt and I'm not suddenly going to give my baby formula. And if I did, IT'S MY CHOICE.
I haven't been blogging lately because I'm too tired and don't have the brainpower to write something coherent. I haven't even written in my own personal journal. I'm exhausted. The baby keeps me up a lot at night, and I keep getting sick with colds. Blech! All I want to do is catch a nap.
Nursing hormones are not so much fun. Especially not in the summer. Did you know you can get hot flashes from nursing? I don't remember getting hot flashes when nursing Carmen! That's it; I'm having my next kid in October. I don't care if I spend the summer being pregnant. Maybe I'll change my mind if I spend a summer being pregnant. ;) But, dang it, Texas, why do you have to be so hot?! Heat rash is not fun.
I also discovered where the huge bruises on my thighs came from ... while I was lugging Mace's car seat up the two flights of stairs to get to our apartment. The car seat goes bonk, bonk, bonk on my leg on each step as I lug a car seat, diaper bag, and multiple bags of groceries up to our apartment. Ugh, and I wonder why I don't try to get out more?
Our lease is up September 30, so in a few weeks I can start looking for a house to rent! Mark wants to stay within the ward boundaries. I can't start looking yet because they won't let you turn in an application until 30 days before your desired move-in date. I don't want to pay double rent ... but rent and a half would be okay with me. It kind of gives me heartburn to think about the fact that we have to turn in a 60-day move-out notice, but can't give a 60-day move-IN notice! Augh, moving is such a pain!
BUT THIS APARTMENT IS SO SMALL AND CLAUSTROPHOBIC AND ON THE THIRD FLOOR AUGH I WANT OUT. How have I survived here for the past year?! Some day (soon!) I will be able to live in a house ... with a yard ... and possibly trees ... and Carmen can play outside while I am inside with the baby ... you can't exactly send your kid outside to play when you live in an apartment complex. The porch is not the same. Waaah. *melts into puddle of not-wanting-to-do-anythingness*
I bet it's just the hormones driving me crazy now. ;)
Mace, I love you, but I am so looking forward to when you stop eating every 3 hours. I hate how guilty the breastfeeding advocates make me feel when they talk about exclusive breastfeeding. I am so jealous of the other people in my Bradley class who DO do the whole feed-your-kid-formula-and-even-put-rice-cereal-in-their-bottle-so-they'll-sleep-longer thing. Oh my heck I wish I could get more than 4 hours of sleep at a time. But I can't get over that mental block of, "It's so selfish to feed your kid formula just so you can get some sleep."
But let's see ... do I want to be a breastfeeding HOMICIDAL MANIAC because I don't get enough sleep, or a major disappointment to the World Health Organization and the American Academy of Pediatrics because I'm one of the 80-someodd-percent of non-exclusively breastfeeding moms?
It's a bit like saying, "Oh, man, we are SO DISAPPOINTED because so few people are on 100% whole-foods diets." Like, dang, I had a bowl of cereal and blew it.
I mean, like ... this New York breastfeeding thing really ticks me off. The whole Baby Friendly initiative thing ticks me off. Locking away formula and pacifiers? Seriously? Lecturing moms about bottle feeding and pacifier use? (Men, if you don't know what breastfeeding feels like, have someone pinch and twist your nipples then rub them with sandpaper then attach a vacuum to them. And do that for about 20 minutes at a time. When your nipples are bleeding, keep doing it for a while. Then imagine what it would feel like having someone lecture you about how if you don't let someone continue to sandpaper and vacuum-suck your twisted nipples, you will have all of these problems.)
And did you know that pacifier use can actually enhance breastfeeding? When your nipples are sore in those early days of breastfeeding, you really wish your baby would only use your boobs for food and not for comfort.
You know an easier way to get women to successfully breastfeed? DON'T SEND THEM HOME WITH FORMULA AND COUPONS FOR FORMULA. Problem solved. Send them home with 20 bucks. Then they can use that money to either buy formula or lactation tea. Freedom of choice, ain't it great?! Or if you're going to send them home with presents and not cash, give 'em a fruit basket (oh, wait, you're telling me hospitals don't send women home with free formula just 'cause they're nice???)
Also, next time I have a baby, I'm sneaking in my own pacifiers. When the nurse came in to lecture me on pacifier use and breastfeeding, I wanted to tell her to can it and just give me the d*mn pacifier. My boobs hurt and I'm not suddenly going to give my baby formula. And if I did, IT'S MY CHOICE.
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