Graceful Parenting in Austin

I’m not a political blogger, but when I saw this video, I thought I would try something new. Take a look…

(For feed readers, here is the link.)
Well, I thought three things.

One is that this is an emotional appeal about general ideas like peace, love and understanding and wasn’t that already an Elvis Costello song? Presidential politics should be about ideas and policies that work, not cool looking music videos featuring good looking celebrities.

Two is that this is an emotional appeal about general ideas like peace, love and understanding and it really got me, deep in my heart, below where logic lives, in the place where fires start. The feeling isn’t just about being entertained, it is real and important and powerful and along with the ideas and policies, our country needs something like THIS.

Three is that, if Barak Obama is for you or not, the message is for everyone. Get involved. Believe you make a difference. Vote.

Barak Obama’s original Yes We Can speech

(For feed readers, here is the link.)
Words to Barak Obama’s Yes We Can speech
ABC talks about Yes We Can video

I’ve accused Baby Girl and Blue Eyes of conspiracy before, back when she was little. Now that she is seven months old, I think they are at it again because Baby Girl got me to finish bagging the leaves today, which happens to be Blue Eyes least favorite thing to do…

I love my time at home with Baby Girl. We do all sorts of things. We do all the basics, the feedings, naps and diaper changes. We spend a huge amount of time cleaning spit-up. (And my Baby Girl is quite a spitter. At all different times and in large amounts, she gets her most recent meal on her clothes and mine, on blankets, toys and furniture and all over the floor. Thank goodness for wood floors.)

After we have the basics down, we spend some of the day together and some of the day doing our own thing. Its a balance, in-between Ezzo’s BabyWise idea that I might spoil my baby if I hold her to much and the Sears’ Attachment Parenting idea that if I don’t hold my baby enough, she will have an empty void in her heart that will never be fulfilled. I have a feel for Baby Girl and I believe she does best with some of both.

When we hang out together, I hold her and kiss her and love on her. We dance together, I sing her songs and we practice rolling over on the floor. (I’m getting pretty good at it.) We read great books, like Guess How Much I Love You and sometimes we visit Helen down the street.

When we are doing our own thing, Baby Girl hangs out in her exersaucer or her high chair or on a blanket on the living room rug, usually with her favorite elephant and I get some housework or family business types of things done. Sometimes I try to do family business online or write on my blog.

And that is when the trouble begins. Now that Baby Girl is seven months old, she has had let me know that she does not like when I sit still. She can play on her own just fine if I am unloading the dishwasher or doing laundry, but if I’m just sitting there at the computer, she starts to get fussy.

So, this morning, the house was in order, well enough anyway, and Baby Girl was having a hard time when I sat down. Then I remembered the last few piles of leaves that needed to be bagged and that is how they got done. Baby Girl hung out in her stroller, watching me the whole time, making sure I was on task and doing a good job.

When the work was done, I looked at her and wondered, just for a moment, if Blue Eyes had put her up to this. He really, really doesn’t like bagging leaves. Hmmmm….

Well, either way, they got done and I don’t mind so much being active around the house. And when she naps, that is my time. That’s when I get online things done and I write some on my blog. And Baby Girl doesn’t mind at all.

What I wanted from Quicken was pretty simple, to upload transactions from my bank, make sure I recognize them all, give them a category and compare my spending to a budget. It shouldn’t be that hard. But using Quicken made me cry. I don’t mean that as an exaggeration. because I exaggerate when I write, I mean it for real, Qiucken made me cry real tears…

I don’t want to go back to that time and relive the awful experiences. I will just give a few examples, so you can feel what I’m talking about. Then I will tell you about new options that offer hope to those of us hurt by painful finance software.

For one thing, when I am in Quicken, I want to see my new transactions, make sure I recognize them and assign a category. In Quicken, there are three things going on, I can acccept, record and clear a transaction, but I don’t know the difference. I’m a relatively able computer user, though, so I head out to the Internet to find out.

My first find is the Official Quicken Personal Finance Software Blog. This should have some answers. I’ll search for accept, record and clear. But there is no search feature on the blog. So, I start browsing the posts. Mostly the official Quicken folks post about new releases, then customers post comments about all the bugs and system crashes like “I had a hang up or something and when I went in to update last night and figure out what I had in my account I found all of my check numbers gone POOF nowhere to be found.” Oh, no. Then I got to the end of the list of posts. Only seven posts all together for all time. Then I looked at the date. Nothing updated since 2005. Wow. So, I’m upset because Quicken is taking so much time to do simple things, so now I spent time on an official, live blog that is also a waste of time. (When writing this post, I saw that there are three new posts on the Quicken blog from 2008, with no new information, mostly pointing to resources on other sites, which qualifies this as a spam blog, pretty much.)

But I’m persistent, so I find the Quicken Community with forums. Experts hang out here and answer questions from novices like me, so I submit a question asking about the difference between record, accept and clear. A senior contributor writes me back and explains that I can click accept to record the transaction, then all accepted items are marked with a ‘C’ for cleared. Well, that clears things up. Then I realize why this is more complicated than it needs to be. Quicken is trying to reconcile my checkbook.

Remember that? Remember paper checkbook registers? Remember getting a statement in the mail and verifying that your balance and the bank balance are the same? Uh, well, I haven’t done this since the eighties. (Now I exaggerate.) But in today’s world of on-line banking and debit cards, reconciling a check book with a bank statement doesn’t make sense. I might as well make popcorn on the stove.

I’m checking out this forum and find a lot of interesting information, like all the things that can happen (loosing data, uncaught exceptions, incorrect balance, etc.) that require rebuilding the data file. Then there are the internal rates of return reports that don’t include DEPOSITs and WITHDs and cause a bug when selecting Performance (IRR) and customizing the layout for Subtotal by: either “None” or “Account.”

No, this can’t be right. I feel like I’m using software the operates the Space Shuttle to ride my skateboard and I just want to stay right here on earth and cruise down the block.

So, I head to the trusty Internet again and find this quote from Aaron Patzer, CEO of Mint:

“One day in November 2005, while using Quicken to catch up on his personal bookkeeping, Aaron realized that he was in for an afternoon of tedious accounting-type work: poring over his statements; filling in gaps in entries; and categorizing dozens of purchases. While all he wanted to get to was a simple pie chart breaking down his monthly spending into its major categories.

And when, even after spending a couple of hours trying, Aaron couldn’t get that chart (and he holds masters in computer science and engineering) – he started to wonder why there wasn’t a better way do all of this automatically. So instead of finishing his Quicken update that day, he began thinking about building the capabilities that would become Mint.”

Well, Mint didn’t work out for me. Mint stores the usernames and passwords for your bank accounts so it can automate the data transfer and that made me a little nervous, since Mint, the software, is a beta program and Mint, the company, is a start-up. Also, the program doesn’t allow you to edit the categories, so I ended up with odd rules like the “Hair” category includes haircuts, makeup, cologne, messages and dry cleaning and don’t use the “coffee shops,” “fast food,” or “restaurants” category, because that should come from our “allowance” category which is really named “Cash & ATM.”

I didn’t give up, though. Ends up Patzer wasn’t the only one to get fed up with Quicken when trying to do a simple pie chart. There are other, similar options like Geezeo, Wasabe and (oh, no) Quicken On-line. I chose Wesabe and I love it. It is quick and easy and we get insight into our spending and we can make changes and meet goals.

So, if these were the eighties, here is where I would do a lengthy comparison and analysis of this generation of on-line personal finance software. But the information is out there already, so if this is interesting, here are some links to get you started.

General info about these kinds of programs
Yodlee’s white paper on next generation on-line banking and bill-pay
The Simple Dollar cautions about the next generation of on-line banking and bill-pay

Mint
Lifehacker talks about Mint
Get Rich Slowly talks about Mint

Geezeo
Don’t Trust This Guy talks about Geezeo
(not much available about Geezeo)

Wesabe
Lifehacker talks about Wasabe
BeingFrugal talks about Wasabe
Wasabe introductory screen cast on YouTube

Quicken On-line
Lifehacker talks about Quicken Online
Get Rich Slowly talks about Quicken Online
About.com talks about Quicken Online

I’m happy with my new finance software and I don’t cry anymore about it. Just in time, too, because now I need to get started on our taxes.

My Subaru Forester has a dashboard key. Most cars have remote, but mine instead has a remote-like device that does, indeed, open the doors, but only if you point it backwards, towards the dashboard of the car, from within ten inches or so. So, it can’t really be called a remote. I call it a dashboard key.

I bought the car used, when it was one year old and it was still under warranty, so I took it to the dealer and explained that the remote wasn’t working. He tested the remote using a special device and said that, in fact, the remote WAS working. I said it is great that my remote can make your device beep, but it can’t open my car doors. Then he said, well, little lady, that is because you don’t know how to use your remote…

He brought me outside and taught me the skills I needed, the pointing backwards, the walk all the way to the car and the location of the sensor in the dashboard so I could direct the signal properly. I was obviously ignorant of such advanced technology and he was condescending, having to help the little lady with such a simple task. His explanation seemed practiced, like he has had to help many little ladies with this same problem.

Which is why the Subaru remote doesn’t deserve to be called a remote and if the condescending man has to help many little ladies learn how to use their dashboard keys, then I don’t think the problem is with the ladies.

So, my Subaru Drive magazine came in the mail. I think it is funny that there is a whole magazine about the car you own, but I had a few minutes so I was flipping through it and found a customer feedback number. Well, sure, I have some feedback. I called and explained about my dashboard key and how I think Subarus should consider a remote instead. He said I was right about the dashboard sensor and the pointing backwards thing and he would send my suggestion to engineering. Technology is so funny, that I can find the exit number for the next Starbucks from my husband’s iPhone on a road trip in the middle of now where, but I have trouble opening my car doors. Hmmmm….

That was a long introduction to the real story, which is that I found an interesting article in Subaru’s Drive magazine about the book “Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder” (Richard Louv). Louv’s idea is that in a very short time, our relationship with nature has changed radically. Remember reading Tom Sawyer? How he used to explore all of the outdoors and travel down rivers on rafts he just built? A parent could get called in by Child Protective Services for letting a child do all of that today. And it isn’t even the wild adventures we are missing out on, it is just every day outdoor play. It has been replaced by TV, video games and the computer. And while we understand more about eco systems and global warming, our kids know less about the wonder and joy of direct experiences with nature.

The article talked about a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation that found that the average American child gets 44 hours per week of screen time (TV, video games and the computer). And my own personal study conducted in my house found not so much screen time, but a definite lack of green time (outdoors). We think we go camping twice a year, but we have actually only gone once. We landscaped our front yard, so our house would look nice for neighbors and passers by, but we never got to the back, because a month will pass without us even stepping outside into our own yard.

Every article in Subaru’s Drive magazine has to have an insert about a real person involved with the issue that owns a Subaru. The Subaru is crucial to his success, usually because of the all-wheel-drive. The inset for this article is about Robert Kesten, who has started a non-profit called The Center for Screen Time Awareness to encourage people to take control of their screen media and make choices for a healthier life. The web site has ideas for non-electronic activities and sponsors a week in April each year when families turn off all their screens.

The article also referenced the National Wildlife Federation’s GreenHour.org, which provides tools and information for helping get the kids outside. This site included a link to NatureFind, which has a tool that lets you enter your zip code and told you all the cool outdoor places near you.

I had second thoughts about this post. I don’t want to be that kind of parenting blog. The one that lists a whole bunch of SHOULDS that are hard to practice all at one time. And there is pressure on my family too, to spend too much time in self-improvement and loose the ability to just have fun watching a movie.

Well, I’ll post and put it out there and if it is helpful, then that is cool. My family will still be inside this weekend watching tevod American Idol.

Photo courtesy of Fox

But, I also reminded Blue Eyes about making a camping reservation for the fall and we did walk around Lady Bird Lake last weekend,

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

so maybe a little bit of No Child Left Inside will stay with me.