Funny Things Kids Say & Do

This morning as I entered the kitchen, I was greeted by the sight
below . . .

This was the Post-it note that Mark brought into our room last night asking, "Is Mom awake?"

Me: "No, she's not. What do you need?"

Mark: "I need a blank piece of paper to stick this to. It's a note to my teacher telling her that I want to be called, Buddy."

Me: "You want to be called Buddy?"

Mark: "Yeah, I want to change my name to Buddy."

Me: "Okay Buddy, how about we just make Buddy your nickname and leave your name - Mark?"

Mark: "Yeah, that's what I want! I want my nickname to be Buddy!"

Me: "Okay, why don't you stick that on the refrigerator so we don't forget and we'll get the blank paper tomorrow?"

Mark: "Okay Dad. Goodnight."

Me: "Night Buddy."

P.S. The note says, "My" with a line thru it, "Mark's name is Buddy".

Happy Thanksgiving!

So you've returned home from visiting with family and friends and eaten enough for an entire week, or so it seems and now you're sitting watching football, putting up the tree, or whatever it is that you do when you get home.

Well, maybe you haven't thought about it yet or maybe you're thinking, "I'll worry about it tomorrow", but now how are you going to work off the pounds you possibly just put on by gorging yourself all day?

I've mentioned before that I'm a new iPhone owner and am enamoured with it. My latest addiction is the Application from Livestrong.com. Now if you don't own an iPod, don't stop reading here. This same info is available on their website. If you own an iPhone or iPod Touch, the App makes it even better. Plus, the App is free on iTunes.

You can search its database for various foods including most restaurants dishes. When you find the food/drink you're looking for, click "I ate this" to add it to your "Daily Plate". It will track calories, fat, carbs, fiber, etc. and show how much of your daily caloric goal you have met for the day.

I've been tracking EVERYTHING as I eat or drink it. It definitely makes me think about what I'm eating and even what my next meal is going to be. It also tracks any exercise you do and estimates calories burned. Today I made sure to start the day off with exercise after my morning coffee and actually was able to leave the house headed to our Thanksgiving festivities with negative calories since I had exercised.

Below is the chart of my daily weight since I've started using it! I'm anxious to see how the scale looks tomorrow but think I did pretty well today.

Deflation

You may or may not have seen the article today on MSNBC regarding the concerns that are rising about deflation. It's an interesting read and I'll include a link to the article in this post for your convenience.

We've all heard of deflation but it seems like all we ever hear about is its counterpart, inflation. So what is deflation? Deflation is a decline in general price levels sustained for several months often caused by a reduction in the supply of money or credit.

John Schoen writes, "While deflation might sound welcome, in fact it can be devastating to borrowers, banks and businesses. The Great Depression in the 1930s was accompanied by deflation of 10 percent per year, reflecting the widespread lack of demand."

He goes on to explain "As prices fall, consumers and businesses become less willing to spend and invest, worsening the economic downturn, as happened in Japan's "lost decade" of the 1990s.
A sustained drop in prices hurts in two ways. First, because consumers and businesses anticipate prices will continue to fall, they would likely cut back further on spending and investment. Why shell out $1,200 for that flat-panel TV today when you can get it for $800 six months from now?"

The problem with this logic is that as people and businesses stop purchasing the economy starts suffering, businesses suddenly have too much inventory, employees get laid off, spending further reduces because of unemployment, etc., etc.

The second pain that Schoen describes is the debtors pain. "Inflation is good news for anyone who owes money because, as prices rise, spending power is eroded and the real value of money declines. When inflation is rampant, you get to pay back the $1,000 you borrowed last year with dollars that are worth a little less each year. That debtor advantage is turned upside down if deflation takes hold. As prices fall, the spending power of your money goes up. But so does the real value of your debt — because you have to pay it back with money that has increased in real value."


Read the article here on MSNBC.com. I think you'll at least find it interesting and something to continue watching.

Winter Stinks.

I haven't posted in a while and was just checking out the blog and had to laugh at some of the pictures to the right from Derby/Oaks 2008. What a wet Oaks that was this year. Then it reminded me of the pic I took of the boys this weekend at the UofL game versus Cincinnati. What a wet miserable game that was . . .

So, I'm looking at the forecast this week and the HIGH - let that sink in for a minute - THE HIGH temp this week is supposed to be 51 on Sunday. It's currently 29. Ugghhh.

Well, the boys were troopers at the game Friday. It started raining around halftime and then just poured the rest of the game. We were prepared for the rain with our rain gear, etc. The boys are actually sitting on their rain gear in this pic. They later put it on. The demise of Louisville football continues. It looks like its going to be a long turn around at this point.

I did hear something funny yesterday on ESPN Radio's 93.9 The Ticket. They were discussing UK's weekend in which they lost their football game as well as their basketball team suffered another embarrasing loss to VMI after losing to Gardner Webb last season. The radio personality said it was now official - UK has become a volleyball school and started talking about the volleyball team.

For those of you that are not from around here . . . each year the Louisville fans and Kentucky fans go back and forth on whether their respective schools are basketball or football schools bsed on which team seems to be having a better season. For example, Louisville is now "officially" a basketball school since the football program is sucking wind. UK is . . . well, UK, or I guess now a volleyball school.

Decision 2008