Here's a very amusing post about one pagan's battle with ants. He starts off refusing to use chemical solutions. Read about his attempts to stick loyal to his values.
There's a similar news story out about a buddhist monestary having problems with ants. Biting ants. Fire ants. Enough to send someone to the hospital. Of course, the monks clearly can't kill them.
We had our own problem with ants in the motorhome whilst in Vegas. They were after our moisture. Go figure. I've never told it as well as that first link, though...
So a whole crapload of people stand at risk of losing their homes in the near future. The internet is chock full o' artles on why. I've read a few of them.
One on cnn.com/money names and summarizes 6 targets of blame.
Now, having worked sales, I can see that the real estate agents get some blame. I ain't saying they're all bad. They're certainly better than lawyers (Okay, not the most massive compliment ever...). Lenders and crew? Yeah, I think they should have been able to figure this was coming.
But let me boil the problem down to an over-simplified bottom line:
People bought big houses they couldn't afford.
Simple, huh? Yes, too simplified, I know. Yes there are and will be mitigating circumstances. People lose jobs. [Raises h and discretely at the back of the class.] People shouldn't have to be expected to plan for dropping property values, but maybe also shouldn't be surprised by it. It seems like you can't drive to the nearest Starbucks without passing multiple brand new croplands of subdivisions "starting in the high 500s" or worse.
Do we blame the developers? No, not really, much as we might like to. They're building because that's what people have been demanding.
Huge houses on tiny lots. Screw the white picket fence. Car in every garage? Quaint. Now it's one per person, and it better be newer and an upscale brand. Don't buy a Toyota if you can have a Lexus. These are the apparent standards success is now measured by.
Maybe if we (as a culture) had realistic expectations and less screwed up values and priorites we wouldn't see people losing houses they shouldn't have had in the first place.
On the other hand, dropping house prices makes it a buyers' market, which works in my favor right now. Hey, that means I can get a bigger house than I thought I could afford... Ack.
Yesterday we had a potty party for Jareth, based on material presented in Potty Train Your Child in Just One Day: Proven Secrets of the Potty Pro.
The basic idea is to turn potty training into a fun and rewarding event. He started off by getting his first "doll," (Paul) which got to be his own baby. He had been pretending to be a daddy to his stuffed puppy, so the groundwork was already there. The doll is one that wets, and came with his own potty.
We spent the morning with him teaching Paul how to use the potty, and to keep pants clean and dry. Along the way were little treats as reward for each success, or even good try. Lots of encouragement. And when the doll failed, we reminded the doll that we don't do that in our pants.
The book mentioned the widened, suprised eyes the first time the kid finds the doll with wet pants. Yep, right on that count.
Now, this kid is smart. Despite my trying to be discrete about it, he noticed that the doll has to be sqeezed to pee. At one point Paul is sitting on his potty "practicing" after having already had an accident. "Skoosh him so he can tinkle, Daddy," Jareth insists.
The turn around came when I sent Jareth to go get something, and squirted some choclate frosting in Paul's pants. Eventually we found it, after both Jareth and I decided it wasn't our poopy I smelled. His pants were clean. He looked a little stunned that Paul had done that. There was that clear click in Jareth's head. Paul can do that?!? We reminded Paul that big kids don't poopy in their big kid pants.
Some point not long after that Jareth did. Oh, how he tried to deny it. He didn't want to admit to me or let me find out that he had. He wanted to be a big boy and didn't want to have done that in his own pants. I explained it was okay, sometimes accidents were going to happen.
It did not take long at all before he was able to pee in the potty just about every time he sat on it. He had the right proud/excited "I'm tinkling!" reaction when he succeded. He got rewards for staying dry.
So he now can use the potty. What he hasn't grasped, and what I'm kinda at a loss to figure out how to teach him, is how to know before and how to hold it to wait.
Potty, yes.
Bladder control, not yet.
Partial victory. We'll see how today goes. Amy'll do some of it on her own while I'm helping Lindsay and Scott move. After that I'll come over and help out more with Jareth.