2007 blogathon
Sunday, July 29, 2007
I bid thee adieu
So here we are. 48 posts and 24 hours later and the 2007 Blogathon is officially over. Well done, my friends. Indeed, well done.
I managed to stay awake throughout and, with the help of some generous sponsors, not only met but exceeded my financial goal for this year.
Now a busy day lay ahead so I must go.
Thank you and I bid thee adieu.
{extended}Almost human again
Everybody is up, I’ve shaved and now feel almost human again.
{extended}I dare not
I was able to get Eliana to lay back down in her own bed but now she’s making me feel guilty.
I peeked in her room just a minute ago. As soon as she saw me, her arm shot out as if reaching for me and she asked, “When can I get up?”
She wants me to lay down with her but I dare not.
{extended}Stumbling through the house
Eliana just came stumbling through the house.
I need to convince her to lay back down in HER bed instead of crawling in bed with Carmi. Otherwise, Carmi will not be getting any more sleep this morning.
{extended}Some airlines offer fares to help adoptions
We’ll take what we can get.
Source article: Billings Gazette
International adoption is unpredictable, and travel plans can change unexpectedly and expensively. But some airlines offer special adoption fares to help reduce the extra costs that come from last-minute changes.
“Adoption is, unfortunately, an expensive venture,” said Keith Wallace, chief executive officer of Families Thru International Adoption, an Evansville, Ind., child placement agency. “Any time there is some kind of benefit, it will be helpful.”
Adoption fares aren’t new, but they are more flexible, carrying the fully refundable and no-charge-for-change benefits that come with unrestricted airfares. Adoption fares - offered by major airlines including United, Northwest and Delta - are available for both the adopter and the adopted child.
These adoption fares, however, aren’t always the cheapest available, said Gayle Bunton, travel counselor with International Adoption Travel in Garland, Texas. If saving money is important for a family, Bunton said she can usually beat adoption fares by going through a ticket consolidator or wholesaler.
For instance, the cheapest round-trip fare for a flight from Dallas to Moscow was $2,200 booked one day ahead - a realistic scenario, since adoption travel is often last-minute, Bunton said. The adoption fare might cost about $1,046.
The same flight through a ticket consolidator would cost around $850, she said.
But the intangible benefits of an adoption fare can justify the extra cost, she said.
She compared choosing adoption fares over regular fares to choosing Nieman Marcus over Wal-Mart.
“Any time an airline sees there’s an adoption fare, they will go above and beyond in service,” she said. “You get what you pay for.”
Flexibility is what adopters are paying for, since travel plans can change during the process, Bunton said. International adoption is unpredictable - last-minute travel is common and court dates may be delayed, she said.
“Long term, adoption fares can save a lot of money,” Bunton said.
Still, adoption fares are almost always cheaper than a full-price coach fare. United’s fully refundable adoption fares tend to be about 65 percent cheaper than a full-price fare, depending on the destination, said United spokesman Jeff Kovick.
Northwest’s adoption fares range from 50 percent to 65 percent off the full-price fare, while Delta offers a 35 percent discount.
Some adoption fares come with extra benefits. Northwest’s adoption fares allow one extra piece of luggage per group and options for seat upgrades to business class, according to the airline’s Web site.
But airfare is just one part of the $12,000 to $30,000 process of adopting a foreign child, according to the Joint Council on International Children’s Services, an Alexandria association for international adoption agencies. Because of that cost, the benefits of adoption airfares are unlikely to encourage more international adoptions, said Tom DiFilipo, president and CEO of the council.
“The savings compared to the overall cost isn’t much,” he said. “You might save $400 on the airfare.”
Also, more airlines are unlikely to start offering the benefits of adoption fares, since international adoptions have decreased as host countries adopt stricter adoption accreditation policies, said DiFilipo.
International adoptions decreased by about 9 percent in 2006 from 2005, according to the State Department, which keeps track of the number of immigrant visas issued to orphans traveling to the United States.
The United States issued 20,679 such visas last year, according to State Department figures. International adoptions peaked in 2004, when 22,884 visas were issued to orphans.
The flexibility of adoption fares remains a useful tool for the estimated 20,000 international adopters each year. But they are not the only option, DiFilipo said.
“Sometimes what we’ve seen is that you can go online and get a cheaper fare than an adoption rate but without the benefits,” DiFilipo said. “You just can’t go in and look at the adoption fare.”
{extended}Speaking of the Cheetahs
Speaking of the Cheetah Girls, don’t anyone tell Eliana that Cheetah Girls 3 is slated for release next year.
In this “trequel” to The Cheetah Girls, Chanel, Dorinda, and Aqua, are off to India to star in a Bollywood movie. But when there they discover that they will have to compete against each other to get the role in the movie. Will the Cheetah’s break up again? Enquiring minds want to know.
{extended}Eliana’s 5 favorite movies
For the last 21 hours, this blog has only been about me, me, me. How inconsiderate.
If I may, let me share with you Eliana’s five favorite movies of the moment:
- The Princess Diaries
- The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement
- The Cheetah Girls
- The Cheetah Girls 2
- Night at the Museum
I feel like a new man
As Popeye would say, “I’ve standsed all I can standsed and I can’t standsed no more!”
The grunge was having a doping effect on me so I broke down and took a shower. I closed the bathroom door, turned the water on just as hot as I could stand it and steamed for a while.
I feel like a new man!
{extended}A self portrait
This one is appropriately entitled, “Fading Fast”.
A few more pet peeves
What? More pet peeves? Yeah, I believe I can come up with a few additional ones:
- Wrong numbers who just hang up without saying anything.
- Sitting forever before a server comes to our table.
- People in public using obscenities within earshot of our daughter.
- Forgetting what it was I got up to do.
- People who walk in front of the camera when I’m trying to take a picture.
Awww, it makes me so mad…
{extended}I didn’t feel like mopping anyway
Crap. That’s all I got to say.
I was going to be a good homo-domesticus and mop the foyer, kitchen and bathroom floors while the ladies of the house were soundly sleeping. We do, after all, have a minimum of 12 family and friends coming for lunch in just over 9 hours.
I pulled out the handy dandy Swiffer Wetjet, replaced the empty cleaner bottle with a new one and was ready to get down to business. Unfortunately the Swiffer was not. I pushed the buttom to squirt the cleaner and…nothing. Several unsuccessful attempts later, I placed the Wetjet back in the washer/dryer room and affirmed that I really didn’t feel like mopping anyway.
{extended}5 great fears
Here’s my list of 5 things that really frighten me:
- Spiders. Just shoot me now if one crawls on me.
- Snakes. The only good one is a dead one.
- Sharks. I blame it all on Jaws.
- Drowning. Is there a worse way to go?
- Diet Coke. That stuff will turn you inside out.
Afternoon naps could harm children
These people have obviously never met Eliana. She can have a 2-3 hour nap in the afternoon and still sleep through the night. She does, though, continue to find it difficult to wake up in the mornings. But then who doesn’t?
Source article: Telegraph
Afternoon naps taken by young children may give parents a welcome rest but could be harmful, say researchers.
Studies suggest that daytime napping may prevent children sleeping properly at night and impair mental performance.
Scientists in the US measured how well 27 pre-school children could solve puzzles requiring planning and organisational skills.
Children who took longer naps completed fewer puzzles successfully, and the later they went to bed the worse they performed, New Scientist magazine reported.
The team led by Dr Joe McNamara, from the University of Florida, was one of several groups that presented similar findings at a meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies in Minneapolis.
Dr John Harsh and colleagues from the University of Southern Mississippi asked the parents of 738 children aged two to 12 about their children’s sleeping habits. Children who took long daytime naps fell asleep at night an average of 39 minutes later, and slept later at the weekend.
The napping children found it more difficult to go to bed, slept badly and struggled to get up in the morning.
Dr Harsh said the findings posed a “chicken and egg” problem. “It could be that children are getting less sleep at night because they are napping, or they could be napping because they’re getting less sleep at night,” he said.
{extended}Baby hands as soap
Source article: Gizmodo
I’m not sure if someone thought this would be cute or what, but seeing a bunch of severed babies’ hands in a little gift-wrapped bag is more than a little disturbing.
I know they’re not real, but I still don’t even like looking at them, and I can’t imagine actually touching the things. Plus, if you wanted to wash your hands with the little body parts, you’d not only have to touch the “soap,” you’d have to rub it—all the while pretending that you weren’t scrubbing up with cute little baby digits.
The whole time I’d be nervous the hands were going to come alive and start grabbing at me.
Would you ever give these as a gift? What situation could they possibly be appropriate for?
Sponsor me? It’s not too late.
{extended}It’s gonna be quiet
Everyone is finally in bed. Well, Eliana went to bed around 10:45. Carmi finally gave up and hit the hay about 15 minutes ago.
It’s gonna be quiet around here when that dishwasher finishes it’s cycle.
Sponsor me? It’s not too late.
{extended}