The Outage

Greetings everyone, I hope your day's been well.

Our August kicked off with a power outage. As I was cruising the net while the baby took her nap, the power suddenly went out! What was strange about it was that not all the trailer was out of power; the bathroom had power as did about half the kitchen. Naturally, I thought a fuse had blown. My husband was on his way home from a job, and when I sent him a message alerting him to what was going on before the deep-cycle battery on the server died and kicked me offline, he was not far from home. Since I'm quite inexperienced in dealing with electricity, I waited until he got home before opening up the electrical panel and checking the fuses. In the meantime, I plugged the bedroom fan into the bathroom outlet so that we could at least stay cool in there.

Zap! (pic found here)

After my husband finally got home, he checked the fuses and all seemed fine. It was when he checked the phases on the main in our lot that we discovered what was wrong. Our phase was ok, but the one from the power company was dead! After alerting the sleezy park management about the outage and checking with the neighbors (some had no power, some were partially powered like us, but most had power), we contacted the power company who informed us that there were no reported outages in the area. The power went out around 11:30AM, and save for some intermittent phase testing, wasn't fully restored until about 11PM. In the meantime, we had a small 800W alternator to power some fans, the fridge, and some of the computers so we weren't totally offline. But, I was largely offline because my computer's battery was out and my phone was barely charging from the weak power supply in the living room. The alternator also died for a bit because a plug wire had shorted out, but my husband was able to fix it and get it going again. Thank God for the monsoons because they cooled off the weather here, though it was quite humid.

Seriously, one of these days, the park is gonna look like this if the wiring issues aren't addressed. This outage isn't the first time we've experienced problems with the park's wiring, or other utilities for that matter.

What was the cause of this most inconvenient power outage? As it turned out, the wires feeding our part of the park were old aluminum wires (copper is the standard now and has been since the 1970s) which were NOT encased in any sort of protective pipe covering and had essentially broken apart from a massive short when a nearby leaking faucet eroded the insulation. Negligence combined with greed caused this problem. The sleezy park management has no problems taking rent money from tenants, but oh are they loath to spend anything on maintaining the park's infrastructure and prefer to cut corners on both materials and competent labor. 

My husband would periodically go up to where the park's main was (where the short had occurred) to check on the progress of the repairs, and make sure the handyman (he's a good neighbor of ours and has known us from a previous park we lived in) was ok. The handyman had to dig a hole around the broken live wires so the electrician could get to them and the only thing separating him from meeting God Almighty was a shovel with a fiberglass handle. Once the power was restored, we gave him a few beers in gratitude as he passed by our trailer on his way home.

And that was my Monday.

An Update on my Phone

I have good news, everyone!

MY PHONE IS WORKING AGAIN!!!!

IT'S ALIIIIIVE!! (sorry for the blurry pic. For some reason, whenever the flash is off on my camera, the resulting pix are blurry as hell, even when I'm holding the camera still)

As you may recall, the charging port in my Samsung Galaxy SIII phone is broken. I can plug in the micro USB cable, but the phone does not charge (the contacts in the port are either worn out or just plain broken). Unfortunately, I have not been able to procure a new phone with at least 8MP camera (which I need for the purpose of taking pix for blogging and personal use). While I have found cheap phones, their cameras are atrocious or they're severely underpowered (as has been the case with some Chinese phones I looked at online. They have 8 core CPUs, but only 0.5-1GB of RAM to power them. You need at least 2 GB of RAM to power a processor with that many cores). So, as is often the case with life in poverty: when you can't afford something, you go without it.

Since buying a new phone has been out of the question for some time, I consulted the oracle known as Google to see what would be involved in fixing the broken port. I found one video of a repair technician unsoldering the old port and then resoldering a new one in place, but my husband wasn't looking forward to the prospect of unsoldering my old port because he doesn't have the right tools for the job. And then, I came across a video of a guy who also had an SIII with a broken charging port, and he basically rigged an extra USB cord to act as a jumper cable to the wireless charging posts next to the phone's battery. It charged the phone by bypassing the charging port altogether. It was so simple, it blew my mind! Why hadn't I thought of this before? Then again, I hadn't realized my phone was capable of wireless charging in the first place...

The rig job. This video is responsible for resurrecting my phone

This morning, after waking up, my husband dutifully rigged up my USB jumper cable and upon securing it with some solder, he replaced the back of the phone most of the way and taped the excess length around the back. Yes, my phone looks cheap and strange with a wire tail hanging off the side and tape on the back, BUT IT WORKS!! Poverty has made me stop giving a flying fuck about the way something looks so long as it's functional, however crude it might be.

After going though and clearing out months of updates and alerts from Facebook, Instagram, etc, I've finally gotten my phone back to where it should be. No more going though clunky third-party platforms to use Instagram (though Instagram is stupid for making their service app-exclusive precisely BECAUSE there are some cases where people who don't have mobile phones but would like to use the platform and can't because some Silicon Valley asshole doesn't want to put forth the time and effort to make a desktop-friendly version of Instagram that's as good as the app!).

Everything is up to date now

It's good to have a working cellphone again.

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Car Troubles, Part II

Greetings, dear readers.

Yesterday, I posted about how our cholomobile was out of commission. What started off as an ordinary brake job devolved into an ordeal involving a loose oil pump and now a knocking lifter in the engine. My husband feared the damage was immense and would cost a fortune for us to fix.

Our cholomobile still needs some surgery. The tarp keeps the sun and rain off of it while my hubby works

Last night, my husband consulted the advice of many seasoned Mopar owners on a forum he belongs to for Mopar car owners. The users suggested that the knocking lifter was likely stuck and that it got that way when the oil pump got loose and dropped the oil pressure in the engine. They suggested letting the engine run for about an hour on a low and slow idle to re-grease and un-stick the stuck lifter.

This afternoon, my hubby did exactly that. He adjusted the idle setting on the carburetor, turned on the ignition, and let the engine do its thing. At first, the knocking was loud, but then after about ten or fifteen minutes, I began to hear the normal engine sounds coming over the knocking. It was going away! My husband was overjoyed since it meant that it was just a stuck lifter and that more serious damage had not occurred. Eventually, the noise subsided to just a slight tick with each rotation, much like how it was before this whole mess started. My husband monitored the oil pressure and saw that it was holding steady within the low end of normal.

So now that we know that there is a lifter that's a little sticky in the engine, it's something that we're gonna have to keep an eye on. Chrysler made some damn tough cars, but they're not invincible. Until we can get the money to get an engine to rebuild this one, we're just gonna have to baby the car. My husband hasn't taken the car out for a spin yet to see how it handles, but he will soon enough. He still had a few things to take care of on the brakes before this while shitshow went down.

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Picture of the Day

Happy Thursday, dear readers!

On Saturday, my husband came home from Walmart with a small inflatable kiddie pool. Since the weather had become so beastly hot (like over 100 degrees Fahrenheit!), my husband decided that a small kiddie pool was a good investment for keeping the baby cool. He'd planned to buy a small plastic round pool, but since he didn't have the means of transporting it home (no room in the car and it wouldn't tie well on the roof), he decided that the inflatable one was better in terms of price and storage. On Tuesday, he blew up the pool on the patio and filled it with some water. He and the baby then went for a little swim, from which I got today's picture of the day.

Swimming with Daddy

I joined in shortly, but we didn't stay out long because a storm rumbled in and we had to go inside. But, it was nice to have a pool for a bit. Nothing like low-budget ways to have fun and stay cool in this desert.

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The Brake

Good evening, dear readers.

Today, my husband finally got a chance to look at that troublesome back brake on the car. It's been making a loud banging noise for the past week which we suspected was caused by a loose shoe banging around inside the drum from an improper installation. Now that we acquired a sufficient jack, it was time for my hubby to lift up the rear of the car and have a look at the damage.

What he discovered was astounding.

This drum brake took a real beating. The only two bolts that remained were one intact bolt and one that was half-sawed through by the tire.

As it turns out, the brake was just fine. Everything from shoes to springs was intact and in its proper place. It was the tire itself that was causing the racket, but only because there wasn't much holding it to the hub. The bolts securing the tire to the hub were absolutely destroyed! The previous owner had put these ridiculous 20" spoked rim tires on the car which was totally the wrong thing to do because these tires provide no cushioning from the bumps and craters that make up modern roads. The combination of the weight of the car plus the heavy weight of the tires plus the constant vibrations caused by road wear tore up most of the bolts that attached the wheel to the car.

It is a bonafide miracle that tire was even still attached to the hub with most of the bolts looking like that

Translation: with only one and a half bolts holding it in place, the tire was loosely wobbling with every rotation and that bothersome banging noise was caused by the tire hitting the springs each time the wheel turned. I was not wrong in my initial thought that the tire might somehow be involved in this mess, but because I do not know much about mechanics, I couldn't pinpoint exactly what was going on there.

In addition to shredding the bolts, the wobbling tire also bored larger holes in the drum's hub

This is the first time I've ever seen a real drum brake up close and personal. This one is pretty worn out

While the brake will have to be replaced eventually because of wear, it is a huge relief to know the damage is not worse. My husband had to make a run to the auto parts store on the city bus to get some replacement bolts and some welding putty in order to make the car safe for driving. In the process, he discovered the previous owner used undersized bolts on the hub, so he had to buy bigger bolts to properly fit in the hub's holes. As he was installing the replacement bolts, I remarked that I was half-temped to bring a lawsuit on the guy for endangering us with his incompetent mechanic job. My hubby then proceeded to remind me that it would have been useless since he admitted he wasn't much of a mechanic and we had every opportunity to back out of the deal and did not do so.

Cruiser being a car cat and roosting on the roof of his domain

Tomorrow, once its daylight, my hubby will have a look at the other brakes to see how they are. They sound worn, but otherwise ok. Despite some initial work that is required to make it safely drive-able, I don't believe we bought the car from hell. One thing to be said about old cars is that what you see is what you get. Unlike modern vehicles which have computers in them which in turn can complicate exponentially what goes wrong in them, old cars are meant to be easy to fix and maintain. Even in its current state, I feel much more secure in this car than in a modern one. I'm just relieved that this will be a simple and cheap fix. Replacing bolts is much more favorable than replacing the entire brake.

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The Oil Change

Good evening, dear readers. I hope your Monday has gone well.

Today was a much needed day spent working on the car. Since we purchased it last week and have been driving the car around town on errands and appointments, the scope of repairs needed has widened significantly. Right now, the high priority repairs involve replacing a back brake, as one of the shoes has broken off inside and makes a loud banging "GA-DUNK" sound every time the wheel turns (these are old-school drum brakes, not modern disc brakes. I actually thought it was the tire going flat the first time I heard the banging coming from the rear, only to find the tire was intact and holding air), and replacing the seatbelts since they're rotten and falling apart. As bad as limited functionality seatbelts are, the brake bothers me more than anything else because brakes are what actually stop a car from moving! Fortunately, the other brakes work, but they're not in great shape. I suspect the seller we bought the car from had the vehicle in parts and then haphazardly put it back together again when he wanted to sell it. It's drive-able, but the seller admitted he wasn't much of a mechanic.

As we are able to, repairs need to be made to the wiring in the instrument panel (it only has partial power) and the gas tank since we discovered yesterday that it leaks at the seal. There is also a tune-up in order. But thanks to a paperwork screwup from the insurance company, our payout check to make these repairs is being delayed. This pissed my husband off mightily since we need the money to make our car really safe for the road. But until the paperwork gets sorted out and fixed to the point where our payout can be sent, we'll do whatever rigging we can get away with to create some semblance of safety because we really need our car. This is what happens when you live in poverty in America. Your car may not be considered "safe" for the road by conventional standards, but you don't have much of a choice about whether or not to drive it because the alternatives are either nonexistant or too costly.

Time to go to work

Since there's not much we can do without funds right now, we did our first oil change to kick start the tune-up (the seller, either through neglect or out of charity, provided us with parts like sparkplugs, hoses, clamps, etc to do a tune-up). My hubby bought a five gallon jug of blended heavy 10W-40 motor oil for the summer, and a new fuel filter. We also got a six-ton jack since our cholomobile is higher up off the ground and heavier than our Oldsmobile. Thanks to all the owners manuals and diagrams my husband has been downloading and meticulously studying in his characteristic Asperger's zeal, he knew right where the oil pan was and where to set the safety jacks in the front and sides of the car. I told him I'd do the work, but he was to point out what was what and where it was. He agreed to this instruction since learning how to repair and maintain my own automobile is a long-term goal of mine which he wholeheartedly supports.

Hubby setting up the jacks and getting ready to pump up the car

The first step in any oil change is to raise the car. People who DIY and can afford it, use a ramp. Others, like me, use jacks. Jacks aren't as safe as ramps, but they'll suffice. I did have a bit of a scare when I was pumping up the six-ton jack and the car slipped off of it. I was not under the car because it was not at an adequate height for me to squeeze under yet, but as soon as I noticed the wheels turn towards me I rolled out of the way as fast as I could as the jack fell and the car settled on all the safety jacks we'd set up. After my hubby lowered the jack, he reset it up again and resumed lifting the car, sending me around the raise the safety jacks as the car's level increased. With the amount of strength needed to lift and pump jacks, I can understand now why auto repairs are more typically considered a man's work, given that men are physically stronger than women. But, it doesn't excuse me from not knowing how its done since I don't trust that any man I may get involved with after my hubby dies will know anything about fixing cars in the first place! It took my own brother getting several flat tires before he learned how to change them instead of waiting for a tow truck to arrive.

Channeling my inner Freddie Mercury. I've only unscrewed an oil pan twice in my life, neither time have I lost the bolt plug. Booyah!

It actually took a second for me to find where the oil pan and the bolt holding it closed were. For whatever reason, Chrysler designed the bolt to be on the ass-end of the pan, facing the rear of the vehicle. Even our Oldsmobile's oil pan had a bolt that was easier to access than this one (it was also in the back, but the pan was closer to the front bumper)! My hubby used his socket wrench to start turning the bolt and let me finish twisting it off with my hand. I'm getting better about it, but once again, I had to brave my anxiety about going under a car and having 4200 lbs of steel death looming inches above the upper half of my body. But, I victoriously emerged holding the greasy bolt and let the nasty dirty oil pour into the drain pan underneath. It was clear the car's oil hadn't been changed in a while, given how little oil there was (about a gallon's worth) and how black it was.

It's so empowering to be able to do something and say with pride "I did that!", even if it's something small like successfully draining a car's oil pan

Unfortunately, I had to take a break from working on the car because the baby began fussing and would not stop until I came and picked her up. She then refused to let me put her back down and resume working, so I just took the new oil filter out of its box and got it ready for my husband to oil up and install. The oil filter in the cholomobile is actually much easier to access than the one in the Oldsmobile. This one is in the front and installed straight up. The oil filter in the Oldsmobile was installed at an odd angle, which made accessing and removing it somewhat difficult.

Finally, it was time to put the new oil in. My hubby got his funnel and with one hand holding the baby and the other holding the jug, I poured in the new oil. Eventually, I had him take over holding the baby when my arm started to hurt from the weight of the oil. I poured the entire contents of the jug into the oil reservoir. You could tell the car needed that.

Despite her cherubic smile, the baby did NOT appreciate me putting her in the walker. I didn't mind letting her play in the grass, I just didn't want her to crawl under the car while we were working on it.

Eventually, I had to stop working for good and take the baby inside because the setting sun meant it was getting cooler outside and she began to fuss again. My husband finished by topping up the fluids and putting a bit of leak stop fluid into the radiator to at least temporarily stop a worn freezer plug from leaking water.

We're done for now, but sooner or later, the spark plugs need to be examined. Hubby heard a knocking in the engine which indicated that a spark plug was misfiring. We'll look at it tomorrow when it's daylight. I also want to have a look at the starter because whenever my hubby starts the car up in the morning, it splutters and coughs. He sometimes has to turn the ignition a few times and goose the gas pedal before the engine starts to sound normal. He says its a normal Chrysler engine's response to cold (something about the choke?), but I want him to have a look and be extra sure.

But to end on a pleasant note, a few of our neighbors passing by stopped to look at our car. Our neighbor across the street actually came over and chatted with us for a bit. He works at a local gas station, but his father was a race car driver in Mexico so he grew up learning all about cars and how to work on them. He complemented us on the car and how it sounded as well as how much he hated new cars because of how complicated they were to work on. He also told my husband about how his gas station was in desperate need of new employees because even though he wasn't supposed to, he had to work nights six days a week because there was no one else to work those hours. My husband asked our neighbor to bring an application so that he could fill it out. After all these years, he may finally get a stable, paying job to help pay our bills and keep a roof over our heads.

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Adventures in Baby Food

Hello again, dear readers.

In all the excitement surrounding our new car, which we finally made legal and got new copper plates to show its status as an antique, I forgot to mention this little venture down the wormhole that is commercially-produced baby food.

A few days ago, while my husband was at work, I was home with the baby when it came time for us to eat dinner. I wasn't sure what to have, but the baby was getting hungry. So, I pulled out one of those mushy Plum Organics pouches that my mom sent to us in a recent care package. I wanted to get the gross ones out of the way first and with the apple broccoli one gone, the next to go was this blueberry, pear and purple carrot mush. I didn't know purple carrots even existed. Apparently, carrots come in more colors than the bright orange we're accustomed to seeing.

Deception at its most blatant

I sampled a bit before I let the baby try some and it was vile. It was purple alright, and it tasted like carrots. I hate carrots, unless they've been incorporated into a dish and have lost their orange carrot taste. Then they're ok. This, on the other hand, is a monstrosity; an obvious attempt to get kids to eat vegetables by hiding them with fruit purees. I tasted the blueberry, I could not taste the pear, and I definitely tasted carrots. The purple mush looked like blood.

As for the baby, she ate about half the pouch before deciding she had enough and proceeded to dump some of it onto her clothes because she found the pouch to be a fascinating toy! I finished off the pouch before she made a bigger mess. I was not gonna subject her to eating this nastiness when she gets perfectly good, home-cooked nutritious meals that actually taste like real food. No deception required.

Once again, I am reminded why I generally avoid the baby food aisle at the store like the plague. This really is a fucked up way to get your kids to eat vegetables.

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An Update On The Car

Good evening, dear readers.

I have some updates for you regarding our car situation. A few weeks ago, I posted about how a home in the neighborhood had a 1966 Mercury Comet for sale for $1500. Unfortunately, when we went back that weekend to see if we could try starting the car, the owner had changed her mind about selling it. The car belonged to her late husband, and she wasn't ready to part with it yet. Since that deal fell through, my husband has been diligently scrolling through Craigslist in his mission to find a suitable pre-1967 family car. The mission took on a renewed sense of urgency after the steering in our wrecked Oldsmobile gave out, again, this past weekend while we were driving home from church and really served to reinforce how unsafe this car had become. The steering had always been touchy because the front end was in dire need of repairs, but now combined with the doors not being able to open or close properly and the axle, it was all just too much. My hubby literally threw up his hands and said "I'm done with this car" when we got home.

Goodbye, Bessie. You served us well.

In the meantime, there were two tempting offers that appeared on our radar: one 1962 Ford Falcon for $1200 located up in Phoenix, and the other was a 1966 Dodge Dart for $1500 located out in Pearce, which is a small town way out in the boonies of Cochise County. The owner of the Ford Falcon had been in contact with my husband and he described the car as shaky because the floorboards were rusted through. He said it was drive-able, but would likely need to be trailer towed since we were not local and would be taking the car back south. The owner of the Dodge Dart also had been in contact with my hubby and described her car as being drive-able, but in need of a battery. It too would likely need a trailer tow to get here.

Though it was not ideal, we figured we'd be making a drive up to Phoenix to get the Falcon. My heart was set on it because it was manual transmission, something I've always wanted to learn how to drive. I could learn to deal with seeing the street under my feet for a little bit. I didn't regard it as being any worse than the Oldsmobile we were now driving. As we researched car rental rates as well as the rate for a U-haul auto trailer, another offer on Craigslist caught my husband's attention. This new car was a 1966 Chrysler Newport, and the owner was local. He was asking $1500 for it and the pictures showed it appeared to be in good condition. My husband contacted the seller for some more information and today we went to see the car.

Vintage Chryslers make great lowriders! Pic found here

As we pulled up on the owner's home, there sat the car as though God was shining a spotlight down on it while a chorus of angels sang. The owner came out to greet us and we looked over the car. It was not restore-grade, but it was in remarkably good condition. It even had the copper license plates that the State of Arizona reserves for antique vehicles! The body was straight with no rust, the interior had been reupholstered within the last decade, and best of all, it was all original parts. The engine was a block V8 with a dual carburetor and not a single computer part to be found anywhere. The only problem was that there was a water leak somewhere and that prior to going anywhere, one had to fill the water tank up. My husband took the car around the block for a test drive while I stayed behind with the baby. The owner told me the Chrysler had been his father's car and he'd helped to take care of it, but it was time for him to let it go because his job needs had changed and the car no longer suited them. We made a deal on the car for $1400 and for the extra hundred, the owner would give us the original tires on the car. He preferred the old balloon tires, but for some reason was talked into buying 20" spoke tires. Tomorrow, we get the car, but we come back for the tires on Friday since we will hopefully have our check from the insurance company by then.

This is close to what we'll be getting, except ours is green with a white hard top and the back is more raised. Pic found here

Unfortunately, we left the owner's home at a bad time. The setting sun was shining directly into my husband's face and made it hard for him to drive. Fortunately, there was a renowned truck stop in the area with a world-famous restaurant that we could stop in and chill for a bit until the sun set and we could all drive home safely. This truck stop held some significance for my husband because in 1988, he hitchhiked to Arizona and was dropped off there by a truck driver. From the truck stop, he caught a ride from a random junkie who took him to the base of Mt. Lemmon and it was there that my husband stayed his first night here. We relaxed in the truck stop restaurant, where my husband had some cheesecake and coffee while I had a brownie sundae that was way bigger than I expected. Too bad this truck stop is so out of our way. Their restaurant is quite good and not expensive either. It was a nice treat to celebrate getting our new car.

To say I'm excited about getting our new car is an understatement. We will finally be getting a car that is safe, spacious, durable, and easy to maintain. Since it's an old car, I hope the insurance rates will be cheaper. It may yet be possible to insure me for driving. Since the wrecker is coming tomorrow to tow the Oldsmobile away, my hubby and I spent the remainder of the evening cleaning it out so that it will be a swift and painless departure. Thanks to a miscommunication between insurance agents, we will be getting a substantial payout for our Oldsmobile in exchange for us handing it over. We sent the title to the company yesterday and as soon as both the car and the title are received, the check will be in the mail.

I will definitely be posting pictures of our new car. Right now, I'm trying to get my printer drivers updated so that we can print out a temporary registration until the formal ones come in.

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I Need a New Phone

Good evening, dear readers.

Whoever coined the phrase "when it rains, it pours wasn't totally lying. It seems like everything is breaking at once and eating up whatever money we have tried to save!

Case in point-my cellphone. My handy Samsung Galaxy SIII smartphone which I've owned for a little over 2 years, has reached the end of its useful life. The apps and major features still work, but the charging port is broken. It sucks that it had to end this way, especially since the first smartphone I ever owned died a death by broken charging port too, but two years of heavy use takes a toll on any device. In the last few weeks, I noticed that the battery was draining faster and charging itself was becoming a pain in the ass because even though I would plug the cable into the phone, the phone wasn't picking up the connection. I had to wobble the charger a bit before the connection was made, if it stayed at all. At first I thought it was just a shitty cable, but when the same problem started happening with a brand new cable, I knew something was up. My hubby then borrowed my phone for a call since I have unlimited minutes, and it wasn't registering the cable connection either when he plugged in the phone! It was now certain that my phone is living on short time.

Selfie while doing my hair. This is the end of my SIII

So now, I must look for a new phone. I checked to see how much the deductible for my phone insurance was, and it was $100. That's more than this SIII is worth! At that point, I knew it was time to explore my options.

I have just a few basic requirements when looking for a phone: a good camera (at least 8MP), support for an SD card, and a removable battery. Some nice features, though not mandatory, are a quad core processor and at least 1.5GB RAM. I really want to get the Samsung Galaxy S5 but since I refuse to pay the $400 Virgin Mobile is offering the phone for, I'm considering getting the HTC Desire 626s. My first smartphone was an HTC (it was a Thunderbolt) and it served me well despite being a colossal battery hog. I'm willing to give them a second go since HTC has had time to get their stuff together and improve their battery performance.

Next time we go to El Super to buy vegetables, I think I'll pop into the MetroPCS/Virgin Mobile store that's right next door and see what kind of deals they have on phones. I hope there are at least some working models so that I can check out the cameras and user interface. I'll even consider the iPhones, though I have objections to Apple for its proprietary software and high price. However, I do appreciate their big FU to the FBI when the agency tried to get them to put a backdoor into the San Bernadino shooter's phone because I do value my privacy.

Piss on Apple, free software forever! Pic found here

We'll see what comes of this. I don't mind going off my smartphone for a bit. I've done it once, and I can do it again

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Culinary Deceit

Greetings dear readers!

Today a most unexpected package arrived for us in the mail. My mom recently messaged that she was sending us a package with some baby stuff. However, there was an epic screwup from UPS and the package arrived at her doorstep in Illinois instead of our home here in Arizona. She then resent the package, but yesterday when UPS arrived for the delivery, we received some kind of industrial machine parts which totally confused the hell out of my husband and I because the package had a shipping label from my mom with her writing and address. He called my mom and she confirmed that the parts were not something my dad ordered for his office, thus ruling out what our initial guess of the items were. We assumed that a factory somewhere in America was receiving a shipment of baby clothes instead of these parts and were prepared to call it a loss and file a claim. However, when we got back this afternoon from a trip to my husband's clinic to get his methadone, there was a package sitting on the other side of the fence for us. Sure enough, it was the baby clothes and some extra goodies like coupons for baby food and diapers, a sippy cup, and some mushy food pouches.

I'd seen ads on Facebook for the mushy food pouches which were made by this company called Plum Organics, but I never bothered buying them because the baby eats what we eat and genuinely likes our food. I have an aversion to buying baby food because they are expensive and I feel they are limited in flavor range and condition the palate to consume only sugary, processed, fake crap that is mass produced and of no nutritional value. There were four pouches in the box: one broccoli apple, one with purple carrots and pear, one strawberry banana apricot flavor, and one apple carrot flavor. I was bewildered by the fruit and vegetable combinations, and my husband was positively appalled. With the exception of the all fruit one, he considers combining fruit and vegetables to be a culinary crime.

Spoiler alert: it tastes as gross as it sounds

Since lunchtime was approaching, I decided to test out one of the pouches with the baby. I decided to get the most disgusting one out of the way first, and that was the apple broccoli pouch. Before I let the baby have some, I took a taste. It was applesauce cut with some broccoli puree which gave it a radioactive green mush color. There was no mistaking the bitter green taste of broccoli once the apple taste quickly wore away and I thought it was positively gross. Against my better judgement, I let the baby have some. She ate about half the pouch and surprisingly didn't spit it out from disgust, but she let me know she had enough by shoving the pouch away from her. Not wanting to save this monstrosity, I finished it off and let her have some titty milk to chase the flavor away.

This little encounter with the baby industrial complex served to reinforce two important beliefs I hold about food and feeding children. The first being if I won't eat it, my kid won't either. The other is that food should not be hidden. This apple broccoli monstrosity was an attempt at hiding a vegetable that kids are known to despise (broccoli) by mixing it in with something they did like (applesauce). If you go hiding vegetables in food in an attempt to get your kid to eat them, you're deceiving your kid. This can lead to an unhealthy relationship with food and cause problems with personal relationships because kids are smart and can tell when someone's BSing them.

Whenever we feed the baby, we always make it a point to include vegetables that are as minimally altered as possible so that we can all tell what we're eating! For example, in my recent beef and broccoli stir fry, I cut up some broccoli florets and asparagus to add to the stir fry. Sure enough, the baby ate the broccoli because it contributed to the overall taste of the stir fry in a beneficial way and the floret was small enough for her to pick up and put in her mouth by herself. There's a big difference between eating vegetables as part of a dish and mixing them in with something as a means of sneaking it past their lips.

Do you have any particular beliefs when it comes to feeding children?

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The Car

Greetings, dear readers!

I have an update regarding our car situation. As you might recall, we were rear-ended by a careless driver a few weeks ago. The impact bent the frame and cracked the rear axle, but in a testament to true old-school engineering and the laws of physics (we were slowing down for the light and were still in motion at the time of collision), the car was still driveable after the impact.

An unintentional lowrider

Well, last week, the other driver's insurance company sent out an assessor to have a look at our car and the assessor declared the car totaled. We would get several hundred dollars for the car and we could keep it. Since we can't afford a new car, we agreed to the deal. After all, in spite of the inconvenience, I can get used to prying open the back door with a crowbar when I need to get the stroller out.

Case in point: how to open a car door when the frame is bent.

Well, in what may have been a sign from God, a home in the neighborhood has a restored 1960s Mercury Comet that the owner is willing to sell to us for $1500. My husband, upon hearing the offer, nearly shit himself with joy because he's been wanting to get rid of our 1988 Oldsmobile and get an old car from before 1972 when cars started getting too "modern" for his taste. My husband made it known to me for a long time that it was his dream to own an older vehicle because they were not full of computer parts and were far easier to maintain than modern vehicles.

As for how and why we were driving a car from the hated 1980s, it was because we bought it off of a neighbor who was selling it for cheap (she wanted $1K for it) and we needed a car because of my work schedule. In other words, we got it because we needed it and it was there. My husband only grudgingly accepted the Oldsmobile because it was built using a highly successful and well-documented X-frame and a tight 2.5L motor. The car never gave us any trouble (the only time it didn't start was because my hubby left the dome light inside running one night and it drained the battery), required minimal maintenance, and in spite of a leaky gas tank and front-end wear, got us from point A to point B without a problem.

The car we're looking to buy looks something like this. This pic is of a 1964 Mercury Comet. Pic found here

I was not with my husband when the offer was made, but he'll be taking me to see the car tomorrow. The money we get for our totaled Oldsmobile can go towards the purchase of this other car. As for the difference, well, we'll see. I hope my family would be able to help out with the purchase of the car because it would be a much safer vehicle for our family. In addition to a rebuilt motor and steel body, the Comet has a manual transmission, something I've been wanting to learn how to drive for a while.

This is a developing story, but I'll keep you updated as things progress. I do hope this deal works out. It would be nice to have a car that's not bent, leaky, and has manual transmission.

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Why You Should Keep Plastic Bottles

Good evening, dear readers! I hope your day is well and that you're looking forward to enjoying the upcoming Valentine's Day holiday with your loved ones.

I am thankfully almost done with this 21 day blog challenge! This is the second to last prompt at day 20. Like a number of prompts over the course of this challenge, it was a bit tough to think of something from my impoverished lifestyle that would fit with what the prompt was asking. As someone who is poor, there are lots of things I can think of which qualify as "should keep" such as clothes, shoes, tools and hardware, electronics, whatever money you can keep in the bank account so as to maintain a roof over one's head, etc. With so many items classified as "should keep", it's easy to become a hoarder if you're poor. It was challenging to narrow these various possessions down to one specific item. After some deliberation, I've come to the conclusion that plastic bottles are probably the most useful item you can keep and here's why.

Plastic, as we all know, is very common. Almost everything we use has plastic in it in one form or another, from clothes to cups and cars. But the kind of plastic I had in mind which should be kept is the ordinary 2L plastic pop (or soda, depending on your dialect preference) bottle. Smaller or other sizes are acceptable, but I specifically had 2L bottles in mind because they are so commonplace and cheap (depending on where you go, a 2L bottle of pop can sell for as little as $0.79 USD).

Isn't this a cute way to upcycle! Pic found here

2L plastic bottles can be put to use in a number of ways. They can be refilled with water or another desired beverage for drinking. They can also be filled with water and frozen to make ice packs to put in a cooler. Premixed plant food can be conveniently stored in 2L pop bottles for easy deployment when plants need a nutritional boost. Bottles can also be cut and utilized as planters, funnels, storage containers for kids crafts, and art projects. There are lots of things you can do with a 2L pop bottle!

When the bottle is no longer of use, you can recycle it. Plastic pop bottles are recyclable and if your trash removal company doesn't offer recycling as part of their services, have a look on Google and see if there are recycling centers in your area that accept plastic. The price per pound of plastics vary but it generally isn't very high, so reach out and see who is offering the most money for your plastic bottles. You might be lucky to get a few dollars worth out of your bags of plastic pop bottles and break even on gas money.

What do you do with plastic bottles? Let me know in the comments below.

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The Ghetto Guide to Cloth Diapers

Good evening, dear readers!

Day 19's prompt of the 21 day blog challenge actually fell right in line with a subject I had already written about back when I first resumed blogging. Some months back, I wrote a guide with the low income individual in mind regarding the use, acquisition, and care of cloth diapers in a cost effective manner. It was based on my own experience as a low income mother who needed an affordable and responsible way to diaper her child.

I got these Fuzzibunz diapers secondhand from a family at church. They've proved to be a huge blessing for me

Since I had something like this already written, I figured I would repost the original entries to answer the prompt from the challenge. I haven't quite been able to figure out how to do a proper repost of a previously written blog entry, but I don't have the time right now to sit down and edit the cloth diaper posts so as to condense it down to one entry.

As I mentioned above, I wrote the guide over the course of three posts. To save you the agony, I won't text-bomb your eyes by copy/pasting the entire contents into this one entry. Instead, I will link to them below for your convenience.

The Ghetto Guide to Cloth Diapers, Part I
The Ghetto Guide to Cloth Diapers, Part II
The Ghetto Guide to Cloth Diapers, Part III

I'm considering turning this particular series of cloth diaper posts into a free e-book to download and share. I'll need to do a bit of editing to pare down the length and maybe change around a few things, but it is something I've considered doing for a while. What do you think?

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Be A Better Grocery Shopper With This Surprising Tip

Hello dear readers!

Before I resume with the 21 day blog challenge, I would like to share an update with you. On Friday, we were rear-ended by a careless driver and I sustained a mild whiplash from the impact. Today, I am pleased to report that the pain in my neck is about 90% gone. I have slight discomfort when I move my head quickly, but since my neck was recovering so nicely on its own, I decided to forgo any physical therapy on it for the foreseeable future. Plenty of rest and relaxation with Ghost Adventures streaming on my computer to keep me entertained has done much to heal my neck. However, being sore and having a VERY active baby climbing all over you are not terribly conducive to writing a blog, though we recently were given a baby jail and a walker by a friend who was cleaning out her home. Those have helped somewhat with giving me a break from parenthood for a short stretch of time.

It is also Ash Wednesday, so I hope y'all remembered to go to church today!

Anyway, back to day 18 of the challenge. This prompt was a bit of a challenge because I really couldn't think of what to write which fit! The subject will be skewed a bit towards my Arizona perspective, but I do think there is something worth considering regardless of where you live here in the US.

Since we receive food stamps, and I am extremely blessed to have a husband who cooks, we do lots of grocery shopping during the month. Sure we shop at Walmart and the local versions of the national chains like Kroger (Fry's in Arizona), Safeway, Albertsons, but we also shop at several local grocery stores that have limited markets outside of Arizona (Basha's/Food City and El Super). With our alotted amount, we actually can make it to the end of the month and still have food to eat!

What is the secret to our success?

Mexican grocery stores.

Here in Arizona, we have a high Mexican population. Others may be uncomfortable with this reality, but I honestly don't mind it because there are benefits that come from living among others who are very different from you. Food stores are one of them. It never fails-here in town the cheapest vegetables and fruits can be found in Mexican grocery stores like El Super and Food City. The national stores try to compete and sometimes have decent deals, but it's almost always consistently the Mexican stores with cheap, quality produce.

One of my regular haunts, El Super. This is from one of their stores in California. Pic found here

In addition to produce, the Mexican stores usually have good deals on pop and meat, though they aren't always consistent about effecting them. Many times, we have gone to Food City to buy vegetables and found the 2L bottles of pop to be selling for more than $1/bottle and beef flap meat selling for more than $3.99/lb. It's annoying sometimes, but that's life.

Of course, like anywhere else, there are things you avoid buying at Mexican grocery stores. They tend to be bad about selling cereal and baby foods (both horribly overpriced), frozen foods, dairy products (unless they're Mexican cheeses, then they're ok), alcohols, and most juices. Canned foods can be hit or miss, depending on what is being sold. I've bought cans of vegetables for $0.50/can when there's a sale, but would stay away from soups or canned spaghetti like Chef Boyardee because they were vending for FAR over the $1/can max price I'd be willing to pay for the product.

You may wonder if people look at my husband and I with strange looks when we go shopping in these stores since we are clearly not Mexican and speak Spanish poorly. The answer is no because NOBODY CARES! We're all too busy maneuvering around carts left in aisles as we try to get to the tomatoes and celery at El Super and inching our way past the meat counter traffic jam at Food City, just like everyone else and nobody looks twice at us. Unlike the adherents of the Republican Party, I'm just as comfortable in a Mexican grocery store as I am in an American one.

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The Defining Characteristics of A Good Prepaid Cell Phone Carrier

Greetings, dear readers!

My computer is almost back to normal! My hard drive was not on the fritz after all and it is now safely back in my computer again. Unfortunately, it's not all fixed because now my UEFI boot loader won't work without a stick (in non-Linux speak, this is the startup program that engages the operating system when I turn on the computer). If it's not one thing that's fucked up, it's something else. Is this the price I pay for leaving Windows and opting for a version of Linux where I control every damn aspect of the software? Maybe. But, like ads on websites, it's just another cost of doing business. Maybe I should have made my husband give me a more user friendly distro of Linux that's a bit more automated... But on the other hand, my function keys and number pad on the keyboard all work! It's been over a year since they could because an update severely screwed up some configurations in my keyboard.

Soon, this bullshit will be done with and I can resume blogging regularly again!

Anyway, on to Day 16 of the 21 day blog challenge. This prompt called for a description of some good product or service that could be of use to you. In light of my technological woes of late, I figured this would be a good time to discuss a service that has been of use to me as a low income individual: prepaid cellphone service.

Having worked in a call center that handled customer service for Verizon Wireless, I learned a few things about what makes a cell phone service good as opposed to expensive. I will share what I learned below. I hated working in the call center, but it wasn't a total waste of time.

The big thing for me was a carrier which offered a phone with good camera resolution (at least 8MP) so that I could take pictures, especially of my cat, Pest, in his bathtub domain...

• No long term commitments!
• When I was looking to get a smartphone, I knew right off I was not going to go with a company that made me sign a contract to get a phone. Being a low income individual, my financial situation can change on a dime and suddenly that monthly cell phone bill can become overwhelming. Termination fees are quite hefty, but so are device payment agreements and just about every major carrier has fees that it uses to gouge customers for making changes on their accounts. Basically, I was looking for a service where I could get a decent phone for a decent price, but if I couldn't afford my bill for a month or so, I could finish out the billing cycle and the charges wouldn't roll over into the next month. I didn't mind going out of service for a while, I just didn't want to owe a cell phone company alot of money. A good phone service will let you go offline if your situation requires, and come back on again when needed without fees or penalties.
• Decent variety of phones with desirable features
• The big hangup that alot of people, myself included, have with prepaid phone service is that while the phones don't cost much, they lack many desirable features like high-pixel cameras or durability and are hard to shop for accessories. In my case, I wanted a phone with a good camera as I take lots of pictures, and a well known model so that accessories like cases and screen protectors wouldn't be hard to find (I wound up settling on a Samsung Galaxy SIII). A good phone service will have phones with models you recognize and with features you want.
• Flexible plans and features
• Since I rarely talk on the phone, but text and surf the net alot, I was looking for plans where I didn't have many minutes, but had unlimited messaging and data. This actually proved to be the most challenging part of my search for a decent prepaid phone service because just about all the carriers I looked at included unlimited minutes, which in turn, jacked the price of the plan up! I eventually found one that gave me a set amount of minutes each month with unlimited texting and data, just like I asked. There were other plans which included unlimited minutes, but also some which restricted data usage to just WiFi. My carrier also listed some extra features, like device insurance or hotspot, which carried monthly charges, but there were plenty of free features too, like caller ID, unlimited streaming music and international messaging. A good prepaid cellphone service gives you plenty of useful free features, and for features you must pay for, the monthly charge isn't outrageous.
• Coverage where you need it
• This goes without saying, but a good prepaid cellphone carrier has service coverage in your area.
• Unlimited data is included
• It may seem like a rather frivolous characteristic, but since most of our daily activities are moving online and given the proliferation of apps for just about everything under the sun, cellular data is becoming a more crucial aspect of our phone's functionality. Many carriers offer a set amount of data, and then charge overages when the user uses more than their allotted amount. Others do away with limits, but throttle the cellular speed after a certain amount of data is used. Do examine your usage habits, as well as the availability of WiFi spots you can connect to, to determine how much data you will use. Generally speaking, a good prepaid carrier has unlimited data, but throttles the speed after a high level of use. It's better to be slow after 4GB than to be hit with monster overage charges.
• Offer good customer perks
• See if the carrier offers perks to customers, like special plans or discounts off of devices. My carrier upgraded me to unlimited minutes for the same price as my old set minute plan, but kept my data level and messaging the same. They did that as a courtesy because I've been a customer for so long. It was notable because of the plans they had available, my data level was not offered anymore. I occasionally get a free month of service from time to time too. A good prepaid cellphone company will have plenty of perks to reward customers who've been with them for a while.

Can you think of anything else I should add to this list? Write them in the comments below.

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Why You Need To Be Religious

Hello readers!

I'm back after yet another computer freakout. I seriously think my hard drive is on the fritz. My husband has the drive now and is currently working on it to backup the data on it and try fixing it. For now, he has my computer running off of a USB boot stick he made using a custom build of the Slackware 4.4 kernel, which seems to be working fairly well. I was also pleasantly surprised to discover that my laptop fan actually works again and I don't have to bungle with the large computer fan I'd been using for the past year or so to keep my computer cool. I don't know how my fan started working again, but I have my behemoth on standby just in case it conks out for a prolonged period of time again.

It's Day 15 of the 21 day blogging challenge. Today's prompt also dealt with a need. While I'm by no means a religious blogger, I thought this would be a good time to address the need of religion in the life of an impoverished individual.

Rockwell-style painting of a man teaching his son to pray. Pic found here

As a low income parent and wife, religion plays a large role in my life. My husband and I try and live out our Catholic faith as authentically as possible. Are we perfect? No, but the Church has means of dealing with humanity's various glitches so that we can become closer to God. It may sound weird to the average American who has been educated in our secular public schools and immersed in our secular media culture, but being religious and going to church regularly actually has made me less stressed about my socioeconomic status than I otherwise would be. Call it faith, call it a placebo effect, call it adaptation or whatever you want, but in my experience, the more I go to church and participate in the Sacraments, the more I feel like I can listen better to God and what His Will is for me. It's like He is telling me "don't worry, I got your back" when it comes to stressful situations in my life. It's a strangely liberating feeling, but what is even more profound is that I don't think I could have learned this lesson in religiosity without plunging off the socioeconomic ladder in the first place.

Religion has a way of serving as a psychological cushion. In one form or another, people have turned to religion as a means of solace from life's difficulties and for understanding their world. Some might deride this as a superstitious way of living, but one of humanity's most defining characteristics is the belief that there is something greater than us out there which plays a significant role in our lives. Even if one formally rejects the idea of an omnipresent deity, that vacancy is replaced by something else (money, political ideology, etc). Pascal's Wager says that it's better to believe in God than not because even if God turns out not to exist, you're not gonna wind up someplace worse than where you already are.

Lent is coming soon. If you've been away from church for a long time, the upcoming penitential season is presenting a good opportunity for you to come back and get back in touch with God. You don't have to become a fanatic, but it's good to have a relationship with God and Jesus. They can help you out in lots of ways, which is a huge stress reliever on your mind.

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My Top Picks for Summer 2016: 4 Cheap Beauty Must-Haves

Happy Sunday, dear readers! I hope your favorite football teams have won their respective games (don't ask about my local Arizona Cardinals...)

For Day 14 of the 21 day blogging challenge, I'm prompted to bring out my forecasting skills. With my other vice being beauty, I figured I'd share some low budget must haves for beauties this upcoming summer!

Hot stuff for the summer. Pic found here

1. Coconut oil

I have previously written about this highly useful cosmetic (and culinary) item a number of times. Expect it to become more mainstream this summer, especially as a conditioner and moisturizer.

2. Toilet paper

This may come as a surprise, but toilet paper is actually a great makeup remover sheet. It's cheap, it's easily disposed of, and it's multipurpose (it's a great blotting paper and tissue, in addition to wiping your bottom). I use toilet paper and coconut oil to take my makeup off, and then just flush the used sheets down the toilet. Why bother spending money on expensive wipes or cotton pads when you have something just as good already in your bathroom!

3. DIY brushes

This was actually inspired by a video tutorial I stumbled across online somewhere (I can't remember if it was on Facebook or Buzzfeed). The products aren't expensive, and I think the results look better than the expensive MAC brushes.

4. Natural makeup

On a recent trip to Sephora, I came across bronzers from Too Faced being made with cocoa powder. As people, and millenials like myself, are becoming more and more aware of what products go in and on our bodies, expect more and more companies to start producing cosmetics with fewer chemical components and more natural ingredients.


What do you forsee becoming hot stuff this coming summer?

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4 Reasons to Use Coconut Oil

Happy Tuesday, dear readers!

While the main focus of this blog is about life as an impoverished parent, there are other avenues I like to write about on here as well such as food and drink, religion, and beauty. Call it escapism, call it educating, call it whatever you want. My blog, my rules.

Day 8 of the 21 day blogging challenge asks to list reasons to do something. Since I need a break from writing about poverty and I'm sure you do too, here is an opportunity for me to do just that. Today, I will write about a cheap and effective beauty treatment that anyone can use, not just upper-middle class crunchy granola yuppies. This wonderful elixir is simply coconut oil, and lest you think I'm a wannabe crunchy granola yuppie, let me explain in four points my experience with using coconut oil and why you should try it too.

1. You can buy it with EBT

Unless your state puts some serious-to-the-point-of-mockery restrictions on purchasing certain food items with food stamps, coconut oil can be bought using your EBT allotment. Aside from its cosmetic uses, coconut oil is, after all, an oil used in cooking food. The best part is, the cheap stuff works just as well as the high-dollar NON GMO, ORGANIC, ULTRA VIRGIN, NATURALLY REFINED AND SERVED IN A BIODEGRADABLE JAR coconut oil. Skip the coconut oil moisturizer in the health and beauty section and head straight for the cooking oils aisle at the store. Even if you don't bother using it for cosmetic purposes, it is a cooking oil too.

Here we see the ghetto blogger in her natural environment, going on a beauty adventure

2. It's a fantastic hair conditioner.

This is my primary use of coconut oil and my big reason for even wanting to try it out in the first place. I had seen a number of homemade conditioner recipes calling for coconut oil, but I could not bring myself to try it because of the bourgeois stigma surrounding it. As a longtime lover of India and all things Indian, I was intrigued by an article I found detailing some common Indian beauty treatments and it was after reading that article that I figured I'd give the coconut oil conditioning treatment a try for a month and see if I saw any results. I am pleased to say that I have. Now, about two months later, I can definitely say there is a noticeable improvement in the quality and texture of my hair. It's definitely smoother, shinier, easier to comb, and there is much less breakage after I run my brush through it. My ends are less dry and frazzled too, though the conditioning won't save them from the yearly trim. All I do is on the morning of wash day, I section and grease up my hair with coconut oil from root to tip, making sure my ends are extra coated. Once I'm done, I gather the hair on top of my head and place my du-rag (conditioning cap) on. If my du-rag is in the wash, I will cut up some plastic grocery bags and use that instead. A knit cap goes over this whole ensemble, and off I go to do my normal day's activities. Later that night, after at least 8 hours post application, I wash it out as I normally would do. I do this twice a week, though if I were working, I would have to put the oil in before I go to bed and leave it in overnight, washing it out in the morning.

3. It's a great skin moisturizer.

This was a secondary byproduct from my use of coconut oil as a conditioner. I've always had oily skin, which was why I was reluctant to use any sort of moisturizer because with my face being acne prone as it were, I did not want to be afflicted with the dreaded "pizza face". But with a resurgent interest in beauty, cheap but effective skin care entered my radar. It also helped that winter came and made dry Arizona even drier. After about two months of using coconut oil as a bedtime facial moisturizer, my face is definitely more hydrated and it actually helped cut back production on the oil fields in my face! I had a bit of breakout at first, which I expected because I was starting a new beauty regimen, but it went away and my skin remains remarkably clear. The trick is to go lightly on the application of the oil

I went hiking right after church this past Sunday and while I'm still wearing my church makeup, you can see that my skin is clear

4. There are many uses for coconut oil

I alluded to its culinary uses when buying it, but the reality is that coconut oil can be put towards a wide range of uses. Cosmetic use aside, my daughter's pediatrician recommended using coconut oil to soothe sore nipples if the baby chomped on them while nursing, and my neighbor's daughter used some coconut oil on her baby's bottom when she ran out out of vaseline one time with no ill effect. I use my coconut oil as a makeup remover. A friend of mine also recommended using coconut oil as a personal lube, but I have yet to try that one out. Wikipedia lists some more uses for coconut oil as well.

Despite its many practical uses, do be aware that coconut oil is high in fat and should be limited in culinary use. This is why I primarily stick to using it cosmetically. Also of note, the plants which process coconut oil may also process other allergen-inducing products like tree nuts, so shop carefully.

You can use coconut oil too. Don't let bourgeois buttholes stigmatize something as practical as coconut oil.

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