Hmmmmmm

[badfish_76]

Sure is quiet around here. Someone die? Or go on vacation???? lol

[slx]

Summertime,
And the livin' is easy
Fish are jumpin'
And the cotton is high

[kel]

tranquil, isn't it?

But just so you know, fish, I tried. Really I did. I was going to answer criminal sniper in the biological fluke thread but I read it over and over and I'm still not sure what he is saying.

[eclectica]

:suicide:

[nicobie]

I'm still around,
god knows why tho...

[Dollar_Girl]

I wonder how eclectica's new baby girl is doing.

And hey nic, how is work? last i remember of you talking about work was when u were doing something with rosewood and u were angry about it because the people changed their minds about it and it was expensive or something? that was a long time ago!!!

badfish, g/f, how is your lill' one doing?

and kel & slx, i dont know much about your lives, except that you are parents to some pooches, and i guess dogs are always happy if u feed them and hug them!

[slx]

we're here and doing great....summer means lot's of work in our world....much grass to mow, things to repair and kel has a huge, beautiful garden this year....it has to be her record best

[badfish_76]

Wow the garden sounds great!!

My baby is doing really well she is spoiled all to hell tho!! LOL She is about to crawl any moment! I am very excited about that.

We are probably going to be moving to a bigger place soon as we are still in the 1 bedroom place in Cash's neighborhood and we have totally out grown that now. So there is alot going on IRL(as they say).

[Dollar_Girl]

hey slx, sounds like life is nice and peaceful for you and kel. What kind of garden does she have? man i would LOOOVEE to have fruit fields and rows of herbs and veg... but i don't think i have the knack for gardening, as everythign seems to dry up and die, even tho i water.

I once planted a giant herb garden, in the shape of a peace sign. The herbs were from different countries... Japan was the first to die, and my italian herbs went soon after. It was just weird.

and badfish, g/f! good news that you guys are looking for a bigger place, and it is amazing the lill' one is ready to start crawling. A friend of mine had a baby recently also, and i have never even heard it cry!?!??! what the? i thought new borns were always crying and making some sort of noise? Another bud of mine says his 6 month old son is just starting to show signs of his personality, and who he is becoming. How about your bub?

[eclectica]

The warm weather has come to New York since Sunday, which is when I put the air conditioners into the windows. I have three air conditioners: 11, 10, 5 KBTU. My two-bedroom apartment has an extra room and is the equivalent in size of a three-bedroom apartment. The square footage is 900. But we are full of things and our next move some day would be into a house we own. It would be nice to have a basement for storage space.

Right now house prices are way too high anyways and we have expenses due to the babysitter, who we are paying $350 a week cash. I take home $840 a week after taxes and my wife takes home $580 a week. I feel like we have less money now that my wife has returned to work and we are paying the babysitter. It must be that she is buying more things because she is out of the house rather than staying home. We are doing a lot of good for the country and the economy by employing three people and raising two children, and good ones at that.

I would rather have Tata work than stay home as I think it is important for her to have a working career, and be independent of me. The advantage of that is also that it creates a safety measure if there are two working parents, in case either one loses the job or gets sick. Some men like the dependence when they are the sole breadwinners in the family but to me a family will be stronger if both parents are working and both have driver licenses. I share my money with my wife and we don't have the concept of separate bank accounts or even separate email accounts. My oldest sister has a separate bank account from her husband, which I find strange. He works while she stays home, and she has a ten-year old daughter. Every Thursday he takes her out to dinner with "his" money to reward her for keeping the house clean during the week.

My four month daughter Leilani is finally starting to get some color in her face, with a bit of a tan coming in. She still would pass as a White baby and sometimes Tata gets asked as to whether it is her baby. She seems to be quieter than Saffronia was and she smiles a lot. But perhaps her quietness is due to her being so young and she will have Saffronia's energy by the time she gets to be that age. Saffronia is three years old and is now out of diapers. She does not have good bladder control and often pees in her pants a bit before making it to the toilet in time. Her latest thing was to take a shit and to pee out on the balcony, which we have living on the second floor. At first I thought it was sort of cute or amusing and thought that was a good skill for living in New York city, where there are no public toilets. Also I was glad that she was not going in her pants. But then she went last night and took a big shit in my wife's closet, which wasn't so cool.

[Dollar_Girl]

do you already own a house? or do you mean a house you will buy in the future? What are the housing prices near your area? and what area would you be moving to? Do you think your family would benefit more if you moved into the suburbs?

Maybe you should have a garage sale to sell some of the stuff that is crowding your home. I find myself to be a hearder... everything is sentimental to me, but sometimes i just snap and sell everything, then spend a couple weeks regreting it, and start collecting again. I"m the type of person that has kept every christmas card since first grade, even from people who i dont even know. I even saved other peoples christmas cards from the bins, even though they were not addressed to me. I just felt bad they were being discarded. I think i'm possibly crazy.

Are the wages you and your wife earning, considered to be high in America? I notice in movies they applaud people who earn $28,000 a year, and doctors in hospitals only make $24,000 a year etc. I was earning over $20,000 AUD a year as a waitress. People who earn below AUD 30,000 per year in Australia are considered to have quite a low income, as living expense here is very high. On average, a cup of nice coffee is about $4.50-5.00 for a small or regular cup. A lettuce can cost over $3.00 and i buy cauliflower from the suppermarket at $3.00 per half of the vegetable. A regular chocolate bar is about $2.00, a block of chocolate is about $4.00 , a bottle of water is about $3.00 and 2 chicken breasts will set you back by about $7.00.
A medium income in Australia is about $50,000.00 AUD per year.

It is wonderful that you encourage your wife to be independant, but from what i have read of her, she has that desire and strength in her already. My mother always hounded into me to NEVER rely on a man for survival, because then you are trapped for life and have very little options if you ever want to leave.
My mother and father also have seperate bank accounts, and i remember them always arguing about money. My mother would always ask to take money, and when they fought, my father would always point out how everything was HIS because he paid for it. If there was an issue with something, he would threaten to take it away from the rest of the house, because he paid for it. He didnt' mean any of it, he said it out of the heat of the moment, but he always was sure to point it out. My mother also worked, but only earned about $350 a week which went towards bills.

It's good to hear your daughters are healthy. I am not too familiar with the cycle of development of children, for example, when they start teething or toilet training etc. And as for your daughter pooping in the wardrobe... the craziest place i ever remember pooping as a kid, is in the bath tub.

[badfish_76]

Man E if I could get a babysitting job here for $350 a week I would be so happy! Where we live that is a nice weekly income and I could take my daughter with me! Shit I would keep your house clean for that much as well! I think it is sorta funny that Saffronia pooped in the closet but I am sure that I will find it much less funny when Anastasia shits in mine! I feel that it is important to be with my baby right now so I am staying at home and money is tight but we too share our money and have one bank account. Before I had the baby I was a career woman and my job was my life. But now I want to see all the firsts as this is my first and probably only child that I will ever have. We live in one of the cheapest areas in America as far as cost of living goes so here $350 a week for a sitter is alot. It is funny how much cost of living varies in the States. Like here for a chocolate bar is about a buck and a liter bottle of water is a buck and change. And lettuce is not $3.00 a head thank God!! I don't by it often but I know it is less than that. Regular coffee is $1 or less and if you want a large fancy coffee $4-5 will get you a good one. We unfortunately will be moving to another rental soon but it is out of town with a huge yard 2 bedrooms all new appliances a sun room where we can smoke as we don't do it around the baby and even a storm shelter in case of a tornando. So I am kinda looking forward to it. And at that time I will probably go back to work part time altho it breaks my heart to think of leaving my daughter even just for 4 hours a day. But I am going to try to work it out where Dan or my mom will be the ones to watch her.

[nicobie]

Sounds like u're doing good badfish.

I'm happy for you.

[eclectica]

The expensive part of living in New York is the rent. In New York city many people are paying $1000 a month or more for their apartments. I pay $1100 a month for the rent, and we do not own a house. People who live in places like Manhattan pay $2000 or $3000 a month for rent. I don't pay high prices for food and I buy a lot of things from Costco, or in bulk as t is the nature of my buying habits to stock up so that there is always an abundance of whatever is needed. I spend something like $5000 a year at Costco. People who eat out at restaurants or who do not buy in bulk quantity will be spending a lot more on their food bills than someone like me who prefers to eat at home.

The concept of living in the suburbs is relative. Where I live in Brooklyn it is relatively suburban compared to Manhattan. It is a question of how dense the population is, which can be easily gauged by how easily you can find a parking spot. If you have no problem finding a parking spot in front of your home or you are far from public transportation, you are in the suburbs. Other parts of New York city are even less urban than Brooklyn, such as Queens and Staten Island. I grew up outside of New York city and while the streets were quieter I would prefer to buy a house and raise a family in New York city, because the transportation and property taxes are cheaper, along with there being more jobs. The reason property taxes are cheaper is that New York city also has an income tax, so the government is getting its money from other sources besides the home owners. Home owners in New York city pay like $3000 a year in property taxes, while home owners outside of the city limits in Nassau county pay like $7000 a year. My experience growing up in the suburbs was unpleasant, living in a boring town where there were few jobs and having nowhere to go without a car.

The average American earns about $37,000 a year and the average family income is about $58,000 a year. My wife and I are making together $110,000 a year. Multiply the figures by 1.3 to convert from USD to AUD.

[nicobie]

And you are upset?

I'm upset that govmn't dweebs get so much money for only stickin' it to us worker bees.

It seems that citizens need to join the bureaucratic 'party' in order to survive.

Can U spell communist style of gov?

Because that is what we have.

[Dollar_Girl]

I use the currency convertor on Ebay to convert money (http://pages.ebay.com.au/services/buyandsell/currencyconverter.html)

Badfish, have you thought about taking on some day cleaning jobs? When i was a small child, my mother used to go clean rich peoples houses during the day, and she would always take me with her. You can do the dusting etc, while having your baby not too far away?

Eclectica, do you put Saffronia in Child Care? Or are your baby sitting bills so high, because you have a full time baby sitter at home looking after your 2 girls, while you and your wife are at work?

You are paying 1,445.35 AUD in rent, which is incredibly high! Here if you want to live just close to the city (for example an area called South Bank on Little Stanley Street) you end up paying about $2600 AUD for rent per month. I dont even want to know how much it costs to live directly in the city! With appartments though, it is usually the body corporate fees that put people off. They accumulate to many thousands of dollars.

You and your wife together are earning 144,534.50 AUD per year, which is a good income in Australian Standards. My B/f tends to make about 136,991.51 USD a year at his factory job, give or take depending on more or less over-time. He does alot of over-time to pay his debts, meaning he will do many 16 hour shifts per week. After he pays for his bills, he is left with about 100 dollars spare per week, which usually goes towards petrol or odd expenses. He didn't even finish grade school, and i am proud of him that he has taught himself so many skills. He can do anything from fixing plane engines, army trucks, technical machines and computers, cars, makign furniture etc etc etc.

I used to pay quite a big amount of tax weekly, considering i was a waitresess. It used to trouble me to see a good $100+ shaved off my paycheck a week. I usually got over it within a couple of days though lol.

Do you have any worries about raising your children in New York City? It's interesting, because i think i would be too scared to raise my family in a big city, but that is probably because i have spent my life amongst palm trees in the suburbs. When i see film of New York City, i stare with amazement, because i have never seen such a massive city.

When i went to Sanfransisco, the city didn't seem as big as i thought it would be? and i actually felt very very safe walkign down the streets at night. I was surprised at how clean and nice people were? but then again, maybe as a tourist you get blinded by the exciement?

I really dont understand why there is such a problem with public toilets in american cities? In Australian cities, there are public toilets around ever corner lol. In Sanfransisco you have to pay to use a toilet. I had never even heard of that until i went there.

[eclectica]

My child care expenses are high because I am employing a full time babysitter, which will be the case until Leilani can go to preschool in September 2009. Once the children go to preschool the government will be paying for my child care, which is what school really is. There are cheaper options for the child care of children now, but we like having a babysitter come to the house.

I think Badfish would be better off getting a job working at a different time than Dan so that one of them is always home, but for now I think she will tell you that it is too early for her to leave her baby anyways. To have her be a cleaning lady at the homes of rich people and have her child tied to her back sounds like a desparate type of job that only someone who had no working papers would take, and the pay would be low. Often such people get exploited and have several jobs in one: they are nannies watching over the children, they clean the houses as maids, and then the man of the house who pays them expects them to have sex. With all that going on it is hard to bring one's baby along.

I wonder if in Australia women can find good jobs easily. Here in the United States the good steady jobs are either unionized, industrial, or government type of jobs, and women are doing them as well.

Living in New York city does not seem frightening. I make sure my daughter walks down the sidewalk and not on the street. Maybe when she gets older I will worry about her getting hit by a car on her bicycle. As far as gangs and violence are concerned, I would worry more about that if I had sons. The bigness of the city also makes it safer. I think children are more likely to be kidnapped and molested in suburban or rural places. I remember growing up in Maryland at the age of six in the suburbs and two men came out of the woods bordering the school playground and picked me up to carry me off to the woods, but I got away. I later told the school principal and I was told not to play so close to the woods next time, and that was the end of her concern. In New York city the children are accounted for carefully and are kept in supervised fenced areas. If a child were kidnapped then streets would be closed, the subways would be stopped, and helicopters would hover overhead, because the city does value its children, for liability reasons as well.

A lot of people think of cities as jungles, but actually they have been historically places where people are expect to behave in a civilized fashion and where there is less anarchy and disorder. When cities are places of anarchy, it is due to the failure and lack of will of the government. In my mind it is not the city that is a jungle, but the rural outskirts where there are no people. I am drawn to the lights of the city as people are drawn to a fire and to a community. I would not want to live alone or far away from people.

[slx]

In my mind it is not the city that is a jungle, but the rural outskirts where there are no people. I am drawn to the lights of the city as people are drawn to a fire and to a community. I would not want to live alone or far away from people.i'm just the opposite.....having grown up in la & phoenix, i find the rural area we live in now very relaxing.....there are no sounds other than nature...no traffic, sirens, bells...just crickets, birds and frogs....it's even quieter in winter when the critters hibernate...

occasionally, like most places, we lose our power for minutes...at night when the power goes off, you can place your hand 2 inches from your face and it's so dark, you can't see it....i never saw it that dark until we moved to the country..

we actually live in the best of both worlds, a 5 minute drive and we're in the city...heavy traffic, buses, idiots....wal-mart and shopping malls

[nicobie]

quoted from lurkie,
When cities are places of anarchy, it is due to the failure and lack of will of the government."

As in more power to the cops?

U seems to rely on govmnt.

Could you live without it?

[napho]

I've seen a few movies lately that paint a picture of a great divide between the city of NY and the towns in nearby NJ. Seems to me people who pay $1000 rent should just buy a place in Jersey. With low interest rates it's a good move, despite commuter costs and whatever else.