It’s been quite a while since we posted here and I apologize. I really want to start posting more soon and it is on my list of resolutions. In the meantime, if you will indulge me, I am going to post the message I have placed on the various Lotsofkids blogs, since it applies here too. I hope all of you have a wonderful 2010–may it be better for us all!

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It’s New Year’s Eve (at least in this part of the world). 2009 is almost gone and 2010 is standing before us. It was a difficult year for many people. Financial hardships and insecurity made the year a struggle for so many. That said, even though things were hard, the trials led so many back to focusing on what is important, such as family and friends, as well as simple living.

2009 was a difficult time for us over at Lotsofkids, as we had to focus our spare time on projects to help make money to pay the bills, including our server costs. Though things are not particularly better now, we are thankfully at a point where we can re-focus on the site and our blogs like we want to.

A big “thank you” to all of our followers here, as well as our wonderful Bloggers who have kept things going during this down time. We appreciate you all! We are looking forward to 2010 and hopes for better times. We are excited as the prospects and hopeful that in the coming weeks we’ll be getting things back to normal with regular blog posts and new content.

In the meantime (and while there is still a couple days left in the “holiday” season), we leave you with a little visual/musical gift created by me and my husband. We hope you like it…

The saying goes: “The first 90% of the project takes 90% of the allotted time. The last 10 percent takes the other 90% of the time.” I think that one phrase pretty much sums up our life. Though, honestly, that last 10% can take even longer! It seems that every project, be it writing a new bit of code for a website to getting the kids ready for a party, takes 10 times longer than it should. To say we are perpetually late is the grossest understatement of our time. What people don’t realize is that this has nothing to do with laziness or poor planning.

Case in point: A few weeks ago we had a party to go to at my sister’s. Convinced I would be on time for once, I literally started cooking and setting out clothes for the kids 2 DAYS IN ADVANCE. We were right on track to make it out the door with enough time to get there on-time or fashionably late (15-20 minutes). At the last possible moment, a disaster happened. Shoes were lost, liquids spilled, foods not quite ready. Granted, we were earlier than usual (we can run as late as 45-1 hour normally), but we were still late! How can that happen? Ugh. Perpetually we feel like big jerks, sauntering in long after the party has started. I am sure people think this is because we can’t handle 8 kids. Not at all. It’s the fact we both have about 20 different projects, an old house that needs upkeep, along with a myriad of other non-family things, that keeps us on our toes.

Of course, having 8 kids does add to the load…just a bit.

Recently, Jim and I have been doing a lot of web-stuff. Not unusual, but this time it is stuff that is relatively new to us. As usual, it’s taking FAR longer than we planned. Jim is pretty good about this. I think it’s part of his autism, as he gets too absorbed in the project to worry about the other parts. Me, I just stress, to the point of ulcers. In my nature, I hate being late, but I always seem to be late, so I am at constant war with myself. Also, I really have a problem with feeling like I have let people down. I hate that feeling, and I can’t shake it even when I am re-assured that people understand. Perhaps it’s just my other tendency to assume people are just being nice and really chatting badly about me behind their back. Ah, to be an workaholic, under-achieving neurotic!

I keep saying, “we should have time soon” and then that last 10% keeps going…and going…and going.

I do think we’re nearly done, moreso that I did a week ago. Whether that ends up being actually the case is yet to be seen.

New World Currency

Guess it won’t matter, since we’ll probably still be poor.

I have been called a “paranoid superfreak”, among other things. I love a good conspiracy theory, and firmly believe that many of the schemes most people wave off as fairytales are actually very real. I don’t think it was coincidental that during a particularly period a year or so ago I was led to some online tapes that verified much of which I had already made up my mind about.

I know that much of that stuff is either poo-pooed by people, or simply ignored. Honestly, sometimes all you can do is ignore it because it really is too much to bear. However, even if you don’t believe in Illuminatis or chemlines or the 9/11 conspiracy, there is one thing that you have to believe because it’s in the headlines every day.

We are being robbed by modern-day robber-barons who run our financial world. We see it in the payout of huge “bailouts” for companies, while the little guy falls deeper into ruin.

I read this article today. Even if you don’t buy into all of the “elitest” stuff, the fact that markets are manipulated to rise and fall to the benefit of the rich is not that hard of a concept to grasp. I am pretty hardened. I’m quite the cynic. Trust me, it’s good that I believe in God because I would have truly lost hope long ago otherwise. So it’s pretty hard to shock me, but this article did. It wasn’t the conspiracy to throw our country into socialism, it was simple statement as to a number (emphasis added by me):

And here’s the real punch line. After playing an intimate role in four historic bubble catastrophes, after helping $5 trillion in wealth disappear from the NASDAQ, after pawning off thousands of toxic mortgages on pensioners and cities, after helping to drive the price of gas up to $4 a gallon and to push 100 million people around the world into hunger, after securing tens of billions of taxpayer dollars through a series of bailouts overseen by its former CEO, what did Goldman Sachs give back to the people of the United States in 2008?

That is what the firm paid in taxes in 2008, an effective tax rate of exactly one, read it, one percent. The bank paid out $10 billion in compensation and benefits that same year and made a profit of more than $2 billion - yet it paid the Treasury less than a third of what it forked over to CEO Lloyd Blankfein, who made $42.9 million last year.

It gets better as the article goes on:

How is this possible? According to Goldman’s annual report, the low taxes are due in large part to changes in the bank’s “geographic earnings mix.” In other words, the bank moved its money around so that most of its earnings took place in foreign countries with low tax rates. Thanks to our completely hosed corporate tax system, companies like Goldman can ship their revenues offshore and defer taxes on those revenues indefinitely, even while they claim deductions upfront on that same untaxed income. This is why any corporation with an at least occasionally sober accountant can usually find a way to zero out its taxes. A GAO report, in fact, found that between 1998 and 2005, roughly two-thirds of all corporations operating in the U.S. paid no taxes at all.

There’s not more you can say. The article pretty much puts the writing on the wall. Things are not going to change. The promises to stop corporate greed have already been backpedalled on. You don’t need a conspiracy theory to see that.

It’s probably a good thing that I need to get on my knees to get my jaw off the ground.

Well, we’ve been busy. Lots of things going on. For this recent project, we are hopeful that it will help get Jim’s name out there and possible lead to a job. Or, at the very least some paying freelance projects.

Click on the picture above to take a peek. Give a particular gander at the templates, since most are my design. Though, I will give a big nod to Jim. His magic coding made everything possible.

Jim and I have this little thing we do. Like many people, we sometimes find money in the pockets of winter jackets or clothes in the laundry. When we count the money (which is usually nominal), we then say, “we’re rich!” Today while doing laundry, Jim found $4 in my coat. As usual, he said, “we’re rich.” Emma asked how much money we had and Jim told her, to which she said, without missing a beat, “yep, that as rich as poor people get.”

Yesterday our kids found a baby bird. It looked like it fell out of its nest. The kids immediately began nursing it and called it Twitter. I have to admit, of all the birds we’ve nursed in the past (there’s been a few), this one was the sweetest. It was so tame, and it took to Tess like its mother. It seemed tired, but after eating was so much better and even tried to fly a little. The plan was to nurse it for a week or so and then let it go–or bring it to a local shelter.

Tonight the bird died.

My kids are devastated. I know it is just an animal, but my little ones are having to deal with the concept of death and losing someone. It’s so hard as a mother to see the tears and feel the pain and to be totally helpless.

It’s wasn’t a particularly good day for me to start with. Struggling with so many things that I have struggled with forever, but were just really weighing harder than normal on me the past week. It’s been such a long couple of years. The hardest part has been forging forward, trying to keep doing and serving even though getting through some days is pure hell. There comes a time when you wonder if it’s worth it, if it’s worth the hard work, the thankless hours. Then you wonder if perhaps the good that you thought it was is just a facade and that success is really failure. Is is a failure to stop, to give up, if you realize it’s all wrong anyway?

Perhaps there comes a time when death is more about losing someone but letting go. Sometimes there comes a point where you have to let go of other things…let them die. I don’t know. Tonight as my kids sob and mourn their little bird, I find myself mourning too, just in a different way. The future has been hazy this past 23 months. There were some things I thought I could count on, but now realize that I can’t. Wondering which way I should go. All alone, no guidance. The silence is deafening. Not sure what tomorrow holds.

I’m crying with my kids, but it’s not because I miss the bird.

Just a quick note to plug a few things around the other Lehmann “properties.”

I have been trying update my pixel blog lately. If you’re interested in pixeling, art, writing, and general talk about that kind of stuff, you may want to check out Pixel Pushing.

Over at Bitmap World we announced the winners of our build-your-own-comic contest. I have to admit, I get the biggest kick seeing the strips people make. It’s a fun read, even if you don’t follow the strip. Head over and check it out HERE.