My Balancing Act

This blog is my selfish labor of love. 

It steals from the other areas of my life. I have a serious college career I need to go all in on. Most importantly, I have a 1 year old that needs all of the time I can give him until the crucial developmental age of three years old. I want to give him as much attention as I can since I am so blessed to be able to stay home with him until I finish my schooling.

With my daughter, I went to part-time work at nine months. By thirteen months, I took on a full time position at the company and became a single mother. I spent as much time as I could with my daughter, but I still felt like someone else was raising her and seeing her firsts. 

She was a late potty trainer and late talker. To be honest, I was very concerned. It wasn't until I quit my job when she was 3.5 years old that she made a turn around. She quit diapers and started talking within a week. It was miraculous. I wasn't even a perfect mother, and yet, it was ME that she needed.

So now, I have a new chance to relish my son's firsts. I don't have to miss a thing. I learned that child development and brain development thrives off of strong and loving attachments (relationships) with the parents. I am a healthier person than I was 10 years ago. I'm wiser. I want to capitalize on my life experiences, budding wisdom and the books I internalized.

I'm struggling to do everything (blogging, schooling, parenting, wife-dom) well (as if I ever did). But, I have to confront it and recognize that since I'm not making money off this endeavor, that I will have to ease off on the time and effort I pour into it. 

I'm going to catch up on my comments because that is one of my pet peeves about leaving comments on other posts that are never responded to. (How else are people going to reciprocate for the shares?) I want to back off with my blog register "balanced." 

I will continue writing one post a week if I have the time. I appreciate the support thus far. Everything I've done with this blog has been worthwhile. But I am one of millions. Whereas, at home, I am the only mother, the only wife to "show up." I might have more time to write more posts while my husband deploys next year. But even then, I will be the only parent to make things happen.

If you are still mouse hungry, check out my links in the right sidebar. I had another blog http://frugaldoesabodygood.blogspot.com. You can see my archives in the interim. 

Take care of yourself and your loved ones. Do the invaluable. Make ripples. Stand for something. Stand out. Sing. Write. Don't just vent, connect. =) 

Best wishes to you.

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Reaction to "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" Movie

First of all, AWESOME MOVIE!

[Elle] You can't blame the apes. 

[Carver] Who the hell else am I going to blame?

Looking at Monkeys to Find Humanity:

in movies and in labs

Disclaimer: If you haven't seen this movie, don't read my post. Skip to the video at the end.

First Impressions:

• I identified with Caesar; I was taken from my mother and raised by a family of a different culture. 
• The portrayal of monkey politics shocked me. 
• I was touched that Caesar wouldn't turn his back on humans. 
• Caesar's trust was based on actions, rather than species.

How would Social Workers Handle Koba?

I'm trying to think and act as if I'm already a social worker based on what I learned up until now. I imagine Koba as one of my diverse clientele. We are taught to put our biases on a shelf and see the good in everyone. We would have to ignore the fact that he shot someone and staged a war. We would have to take the holistic view of what lead up to that decision, considering the decisions as meeting a goal or need.

I see Caesar as Koba's "social worker." He freed him from the institution (experimental lab) and gave him community that he never had before. Koba would go through cognitive behavioral counseling and anger management classes if he were a human instead of being thrown off the tower (monkey management). Human services strives to rehabilitate through their involvement.

Planet Ape Culture 

Social Construct

"Ape not kill ape" was their construct of "social contract theory." It is a collectivist culture where they all care for each other and the interests of the group supersede that of the individual monkey. 

Great Philosophers: Thomas Hobbes: social contract

Home and Family 

They were the only things worth fighting or not fighting for. Caesar forgave the shooting of his son Ash to spare a war that would kill even more of the monkey troop (still staged by Koba). Their home was the Redwood Forest, largely undisturbed by humans. The forest was a pocket of their native habitat surrounded by "civilization." Their home was built in a primal style, the way I would expect an apes with human mental facilities would. 

Tools

Spears were used to hunt for food and to defend against humans. Sign language was used as a shared language to make them unique from other monkey communities. They tamed horses for their use to symbolize they are not just "animals" but that they can subdue other animals like humans did to them.

A Scenario of Monkeys Revenge for Captivity

The screenwriters were careful to show a range of human behavior toward the lab monkeys, as well as to the freed monkeys. They purposefully showed that some monkeys saw the best of humans and some only saw the bad side of humans. 

Koba saw the bad side of the humans and manipulated the situation to incite a war of revenge. The human survivors were caged just like he and his fellow monkeys had been. The monkeys who didn't support his crusade were imprisoned. It was hard to tell if Koba was more monkey or human at that point. His overall platform was to seek justice and revenge for monkeys but it also seemed like a coup to take Caesar's position in the troop whilst shackling the dissenters. 

How I stopped living paycheck to paycheck

Money as a Brick and not as a Shovel...

Behaviorally, we had to discipline ourselves to our reality: income level and wealth. Psychologically, we needed to stop indulging our every last "want." Spiritually, we needed to value things that have no price-tag.

Disclaimer: I am not a licensed financial advisor. I hold no degrees in finance or economics. My husband is completing his masters degree in Business Management with a concentration in Economics. He has a bachelors degree in Finance. I am speaking from what worked for us. We started with a small inheritance and used it to pay off our cars and credit cards. We are committed to staving off remission of bad money habits.

Aside from those core things, I...