Rocker Bottom Shoes

I developed osteoarthritis in both knees at the age of 16 when I started running cross country. Many years ago, I read (in print!) that the leading cause of osteoarthritis in juveniles was dehydration, and I know I didn't increase my fluid intake when I started running (unfortunately; this is your cue to get more to drink so you stay hydrated). Thanks to my physical therapist, I am not (often) bothered by that knee pain. Yes, you can beat osteoarthritis! One of the suggestions from my physical therapist was always to wear athletic shoes for the cushioning and support. This has been the simplest fix so far! After a flare-up, I do need to treat the pain and perform my PT exercises regularly, but after that my "maintenance" state is just to wear good sneakers at all times.

Based on my experience running cross country, I want my shoes to provide motion control as well as lots of cushioning. Motion control shoes ease the stress on my wobbly ankles, and hold my arch in a better position. I tend to pronate when I walk, and supinate when I run, so when my shoes provide proper cues for both conditions, I experience less pain. This is why I choose motion control over stability. However, I also have a very heavy stride, wearing through the soles of my shoes very quickly, so the more cushioning, the less pain I feel.

Until bilateral ankle pain visited me, I was a huge fan of rocker bottom shoes, specifically Skechers Shape Ups. Some Skechers are so cushioned that I call them "marshmallow shoes" for all that squishiness! Shape Ups are very cushioned! The rocker bottom forced me to roll into each step instead of stomping with my heel, thereby reducing heel and knee pain. Instead of needing a new pair of shoes every 3 months, I could generally wear one pair almost a year before I noticed the characteristic ache in my knees of needing new shoes. However, the arch support was negligible. I took a pair of 3/4-length shoe inserts, and cut out just the arch following the shape of some other inserts I had that built up the arch in layers that made it easy to see the shaping. I put that "just the arch" cut-out underneath the liner in my Skechers Shape Ups, and my feet were finally comfortable!

However, the rocker bottom is not stable on your front-back axis (it's fine side-to-side, which is why it didn't originally bother my ankles). You should not wear these hiking, mowing, or on uneven surfaces.

After 5 cushioned years in my Skechers Shape Ups, I hit 2 years of near-continuous ankle pain that is somewhat soothed with normal flat-bottom shoes. sigh However, if you have a heavy stride, you want a cushioning shoe, and you don't mind the lack of arch support or you don't mind adding your own arch support, these shoes were great! I'm looking for my next favorite shoes.

Tasty Potstickers

I ran an informal taste test of potstickers from my grocery store's freezer section. Potstickers are so yummy, but they would be so much more convenient if I could keep some in the freezer.

1. Pagoda Express savory pork potstickers - the best of these choices, with a wide flavor profile and a good texture
2. Tasty Select vegetable and pork potstickers - I thought these were a very close second with a good flavor range, but the other opinion rated them a distant second
3. Tai Pei chicken potstickers - nothing exciting here
4. Ling Ling chicken and vegetable potstickers - bland with a thick wrapper

Now I wonder if pork potstickers are tastier, or just those two brands. I still have too many leftovers from this test to want to start the next test of potstickers right away, but I do have more questions for later.

Lists To Do ...

I've had enough problems with Wunderlist to need to jump ship. The Android app is very large (OK, my phone's space is limited) and it loads slowly if at all. I started with a list of free Wunderlist alternatives (what I want may not be free, but I'll start here). I selected for Android AND (Online OR (Mac AND Linux)) clients AND NOT Freemium. (In some cases, like Google Tasks, I know there are many clients for Android, so I let it slide even though technically it's Online only. I want an Android client so I have offline access to my tasks when my phone doesn't have an uplink, and yes I know synchronization is hard.) So the list started as:

• Google Tasks: Free by Google - Online
• Simplenote: Free by Automattic - iPhone, iPad, Online
• Producteev: Free* - Mac, iPhone, Windows, Android, Online, Blackberry
• Todo.txt: Open Source by Gina Trapani - Mac, iPhone, iPad, Windows, Android, Linux
• Any.DO: Free by Any.DO - iPhone, Android
• Org-mode: Open Source by Carsten Dominik - Mac, iPhone, iPad, Windows, Android, Linux
• Cloud Checklist: Free by Skybuffer - Online
• allthings: Free* by welovelists - Online
• Coolendar: Free by Fabiano Franz - iPhone, Android, Online
• Yodiz: Free by Yodiz - Mac, iPhone, iPad, Windows, Android + Tablet, Linux, Online
• Smthngs: Free by Valentin Shergin - Online, Android
• TickTick: Free by Appest Limited - Mac, iPhone, Windows, Android, Linux, Chrome OS
• One Line Todo: Free by eveningsun - Android
• do.com: Free - iPhone, Android, Online
• ToDo Pro: Free by Appigo, Inc. - iPhone, iPad, Android, Online

I want:

• multiple lists (or filtered views aka smart folders),
• tags (bonus if the application can know which are GTD contexts; not a feature in Wunderlist either),
• easy way to re-order tasks,
• optional due dates (or I'll keep the ones with due dates in Google Tasks, assuming Google doesn't kill it off like Reader)

So far:

• Google Tasks: Adding dates far in the future is painful from the web interface, so I need a good client.
• Simplenote: I already use JadeNote on my phone, but it's not to-do-specific. (last)
• Producteev: Wait, I can't re-order tasks? Bah.
• Todo.txt isn't going to be very different from Simplenote that I already use.
• Any.DO: The interface wasn't compelling enough to make up for its Android footprint.
• Org-mode: I'm worried about offline access now that I look at it again.
• Cloud Checklist: No tags or filters, but the rest is there. The web interface doesn't seem to have a mobile view, although it's fairly responsive on my Android phone, but that does mean no offline access.
• allthings: Worried about offline access when my phone doesn't have a data link.
• Coolendar: I'll check it out. (middle)
• Yodiz: It sounds like much more than I need for myself.
• Smthngs: Whoa. Wait. This one merits serious consideration. (#1) UPDATE: It's available online and on Android, it works in offline mode, it has all the ways I like to slice and dice, except for ONE BIG ONE. I always need import and export before I put my data in a bucket, and I don't see that. I'm sad, because it's lovely and responsive, but I'd like to save myself a headache in the long run. *sigh* Strike another one from the list.
• TickTick: The Android app is a bit large, and I'd rather see screenshots or a test mode.
• One Line Todo: This one has Google Tasks support for the Online access I want (I hope). However, the bar is set at the Google Tasks interface, and I'd rather do better than that.
• do.com: I don't really need deals, thanks.
• ToDo Pro: Just for me, thanks.
• Taskos (Task List): Thanks to Rob, I'm adding this to the list as a Google Tasks Android client. (#2)

Comparing Google Squared to DuckDuckGo

I took a peek at Google Squared this morning, and wasn't sure what to ask it. Pondering. So I tried "The Simpsons characters" (and sorted alphabetically) so I could compare it to DuckDuckGo, another structured/semantic search engine that I first saw in use for The Simpsons characters too. Well, DDG has Apu ...

The Best and Worst Food Processors I've Owned

The best food processor I've ever owned, with a combination of features, low price, and usefulness, was an old Black and Decker Quick-n-Easy. The worst food processor I've ever owned, with a penchant for flying messes and overly uniform results (if I wanted uniform mush, I'd use a blender!), is a new Black and Decker Quick-n-Easy. Ironic, hunh? You can guess why I bought the second one. They both have feed spout, S-blade, grater, and slicer.

The good one has two rocker buttons: one button selects Hi or Lo speed, the other is Pulse up (momentary on while you hold it, then return to center for Off) and On down. Using 2-second bursts on Pulse with the S-blade was a great way to chop without blending into oblivion.

The bad one has a single dial: Pulse (still momentary with return to Off), I (Lo), and II (Hi). Notice that I can't pick a speed for Pulse on this model! Both I and II speeds are faster than any setting on the good old one. It also has a terrible idea, an exit chute to the side. The removable door for the exit chute doesn't seal. So let's just say your first use of it is to make a strawberry margarita sorbet from frozen strawberries. Remember that both speeds are too fast, so the slurry rapidly runs up the sides. And don't forget there's a door that doesn't seal ... whee, amazing flying mess across the kitchen! That was an unwelcome introduction to the new model.

Until I find a better replacement, I've been stuffing a washcloth in the exit chute behind the door. The flying mess loses momentum through the washcloth, so I can aim the dribble into the sink.

What not to buy again. I was surprised ol' B&D did so well and lasted so long (10 years, at least) the first time, but I'm disappointed this time that they had the design right and blew it.

Stencil Cutting: Fiskars Ultra ShapeXpress vs. Xacto

Cale lost his beloved "cheep cheep" (a yellow bird he made at the art museum's craft activity) last month, so I needed two circles of yellow construction paper right away to make a replacement! I found cheep cheep between the couch cushions before we actually had to make another, but I was on the circle-cutting goal right away. And of course once I found cheep-cheep, Cale was over it. Kids!

For my first round of circle-cutting, I started with my old Fiskars Ultra ShapeXpress that hasn't seen much action. I didn't have a circle stencil, so I had to improvise right away. I cut the large 4-inch (body) circle by moving the Ultra ShapeXpress around a toothpick. The circle was very nicely circular, but pretty large for my needs.

However, for the 1.5-inch bird head, I either needed a stencil that I didn't have, or another idea. (Using a positive template instead of a negative stencil would be A Bad Idea at that size, since I wouldn't be able to hold on to the template and move the shape cutter too -- its buffer zone is too big for that!) So for my next act, I used a medicine cup for my template and cut around it with a craft scalpel with a retractable blade (I need at least token safety to use it around my small kids who want to watch everything we do!).

I found the directness of the Xacto-style scalpel to be much more natural than the ShapeXpress. If you're really worried about your fingers, or your children's fingers, you might prefer the ShapeXpress. But I think mine is going back to gather dust.

Cherry Jam and Fruit Pectin

At some point while I was cooking for (around) Cale's food allergies, I crossed a threshold to another level of kitchen skills. Call it kitchinvincible. I had never before considered making my own crackers, but now that I've made some a couple of times, I know crackers are both easy to make and mindless munchingly good! The latest notch is jam and preserves.

I have a pin cherry tree in my back yard, leaning over the deck. I tend to avoid highly specialized tools, like a cherry pitter, except when those tools could get a lot of use. Having a cherry tree has been a good reason to have a cherry pitter. The first or second summer we lived here, I made two cherry pies from the output. The cherry pies tasted great, but I have to admit that my homemade cherry pie filling tasted just like commercial cans of cherry pie filling, at least as best as I can remember. The other six years, the squirrels or the birds have eaten the cherries before they were ripe enough for us to pick them. This year, I said squirrels in the tree should be shot on sight with the BB gun (which just hurts). It worked! I've already picked as many cherries this year as all previous years combined, and the tree needs more picking even just on the branches I can reach without a ladder. However, pin cherries aren't sweet ... or tart ... they're sour! So I needed a recipe with enough added sugar to make pin cherries palatable. Like jam.

I started with Ball Freezer Fruit Pectin. This pectin was, by far, the easiest to use. 4 cups of cherry purée, 1 1/2 cups sugar, and 1 package of Ball Freezer Fruit Pectin. Mix the purée with the sugar, let stand 5 minutes. Mix the pectin in that for 3 minutes. Pour into freezer containers, leaving 1/2-inch headroom, then pop in the freezer. So easy! The taste is fantastic! I wouldn't mess with such a good thing, except I had other pectin on the shelf already, and a lot more cherries.

The next one I tried was Sure-Jell Fruit Pectin. It did have a freezer recipe, but I didn't want to follow it because it called for 3/4 cup added boiling water (likely to crystallize in the freezer) and significantly more sugar. In fact, it called for 2 cups of sour cherries to 4 cups of sugar! Ouch! I could have a sugar crash just thinking about that. Since I knew what proportions tasted good, I ignored the recipe, even knowing that sugar is necessary for pectin to gel. Since I didn't want to dissolve the pectin in boiling water (didn't want to add water), I had to wing it. Let's be honest: I didn't follow the recipe at all, since I ignored the ingredients and the major ratios. I added the pectin to really hot sugared cherry purée. There was no reason for this recipe to work; although it was very slow to gel, it did set overnight in the refrigerator, and it tastes just as good! So I was able to ignore the recipe that came with this pectin, and just squeak by.

The last one I tried was Ball No Sugar Needed Fruit Pectin. The included freezer recipe called for dissolving the pectin in 1 3/4 cups hot apple juice before combining with 3 cups of cherry purée. Yeah, I followed the first recipe instead. (Now I'm out of sugar. I don't use it often, but then I go on a run like this cherry spree.) Again I mixed the pectin with hot, sugared purée. I could tell right away that it would set, probably because pectin does like sugar. Same good taste! (Sugar also maintains the bright color of fresh fruit.)

The final analysis on the different varieties of fruit pectin is that I had more flexibility in recipe selection than any of the included directions led me to believe (thankfully!). I prefer the taste of the lowest-sugar (but not sugar-free) recipe, so I made it with all three pectins. The Freezer Pectin was the easiest to use since I didn't have to heat the jam, so it also didn't froth up like the other two. The No Sugar pectin was the next easiest. The regular Fruit Pectin did work just fine, although I did worry about having to reprocess the jam to get it to set, and it did froth up the most. I could tell during the preparation that all three responded differently, but in the end, they all worked too. As expected, I can't taste a difference in pectin brands when pectin is the smallest ingredient. I'll have to make sure all of these are fully set before I decide if I can tell a difference in the final cherry jam textures.

Highlights High Five Magazine

The Highlights High Five magazine is a funny thing ... we gave it Karston as a Christmas present when he was three and a half. At first, he just liked getting something colorful in the mail, but he didn't care about the content. About three months later, it clicked. All of sudden, when his magazine arrived, he was very excited to get to read it and play with it. (Each issue includes an activity to cut out, and Karston is an expert with his safety scissors!) For about six months, it was the best! Then the phone calls to renew started (ugh) at the same time that Karston started plowing through an issue in about five minutes. He can do the puzzles, like find the hidden picture, quickly. He cuts out the activity, but that's also the most fun he has with it. It was worth it for the three months on either side of his fourth birthday, but since the renewal solicitations take more time than he spends with the magazine, we're not going to renew. It was fun while it lasted!

Taste Test: crispy chocolate bars

Well, I just did the taste test (a convenient by-product of Halloween bringing more candy bars into my house than is normal, and with a greater variety) between Hershey's crisp wafer bars and Kit Kat. Before I tasted them side-by-side, I was sure that I would like the Kit Kat better. It's the classic of the chocolate-coated crisp bar genre, right? Well, crunch-for-crunch, the 100-calorie crisp wafers tasted much better to me.

Stevia In The Raw: I should've known better

I decided to try stevia as a sugar substitue, just to see. I bought a small box of Stevia In The Raw to see how it tasted. The problem with most artificial sweeteners, all except Splenda so far as I know, taste like rotten lemons to me. Not just not sweet, but sour gone bad! Yuck! Well, Stevia in the Raw, and presumably all stevia, hits another one of my taste bud quirks: I strongly dislike the taste of anise, the flavoring of black licorise. We had anise plants when I was growing up (it looks like dill, and like dill, grows like a weed), and even the plant and seeds smelled fake to me. Anise just strikes my tongue as wrong, fake, weird, icky sweet. So if I had read the box that says they've removed the licorise aftertaste, I would have known that it's not possible to remove enough of that aftertaste for me.

Luckily, since I dislike throwing away food, the taste is masked in my granola. I use two packets of Stevia in the Raw instead of six Tablespoons of brown sugar. With the other yummy flavors and three cups of oats, I don't taste licorice. So I can use it up, and not do that again.

Book Review: My Life as a Quant

Another book finished, and I liked My Life as a Quant: Reflections on Physics and Finance by Emanuel Derman too! Derman's description of why he went into physics was dead-on! I felt much the same way when I went into physics, and I suffered the same disappointment about jobs when I left. I thought the book was lucid (quick reading), self-aware (I had similar feelings about physics, yet it was good prep for the future career change), and way more fun to read (for the human aspect) than you'd expect from any description of it.

Book Review: Kitchen Confidential

After a long spell cuddling a baby while not reading books, I finally finished Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain! It's a quick read, despite how long it took me to finish it, and very fun if you enjoy the gonzo writing style. Since Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream by Hunter S. Thompson is one of my very favorites, I enjoyed reading this book, as well as finishing a book, any book!

My favorite quote is

for the first time, I saw how three or four ingredients, as long as they are of the highest and freshest quality, can be combined in a straightforward way to make a truly excellent and occasionally wondrous product.

I'm sure he doesn't mean Alt-Martha but her less-than-five (ingredients) recipes sure are a great start for dorm-room cooking!

Book Done!

Hey, I finished a book! That's the good part (and what idle time in airports and airplanes can do)! I read Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, and overall was not impressed with the conceit of telling the story out of order on about three parallel timelines. It's fine for a "beach book," the unthinking entertainment you might read on the beach. Or on the way to the beach, in my case.

Monitoring Web Page Changes

One thing I need to do periodically at work is to monitor for web page changes. By periodically, I mean once or twice a year, just long enough for me to forget completely. For some reason, it seems wrong to depend on my work laptop to do this; I wanted a web service.

The one that should never have been on my list was PageHammer. The site takes forever to load, and it would never let me register. I liked the teaser feature of customizable intervals, but it's got to work ya know. Bah humbug.

I tried FollowThatPage; it works, but I wish I could change the interval. Weekly is often enough for many things I check online. I like the keyword matching (or excluding) feature so I can pinpoint the interesting changes. The batch upload and Firefox extension are useful bonus features. The Firefox extension swayed me, as it looks like the developers are active, and interested in ease of use.

The other promising one was ChangeDetect. This service also supports bulk import, also filters for regexp and negative regexp, and could even throttle back to monthly checks. However, I'm leery of services that have a paid tier when I have exactly one web page in this "must check once or twice a year" category. (It's not worth much money to me when I can put a reminder on my calendar for the low-tech route.)

I think ChangeDetection.com would also work, but it doesn't lure me in promising some of the features that caught my eye from the other services.

Book Review: Backpacking With Babies and Small Children

I read the book Backpacking with Babies and Small ChildrenBackpacking With Babies and Small Children recently. I can't say I learned anything that wasn't common sense, but this would be a gentle place to start if I wanted to hike with my kids and were worried about getting started. The same things that matter for adults also matter for children:

• wear appropriate layers of comfortable clothing
• be prepared for potty needs (and please don't leave dirty diapers out there!)
• be prepared to eat and drink
• have reasonable expectations for distance and time
• be prepared to change your plans with the circumstances

In addition, you do need to think about entertaining children on the trail, and how to carry them (or otherwise take a break) when they say they're tired of walking (that could just mean boredom).

There's historical perspective on what you had to do before REI had several product lines for these needs that should appeal to DIY-ers.

This morning, I had a conversation with the manager in the office next to mine, and he said it is important to go outside with your children. His children have grown up before he blinked, and he realizes that he has raised two indoor children although that was never his intention and not his upbringing. I can see how I would fall into that trap myself (I just want to squeeze in a little more work, since we're swamped), so I thanked him for the reminder to work for a better Big Picture. No excuses! Get outside with the kids!

Diaper Wipes

I thought we were going through a lot of diaper changes and diaper wipes. In fact, we went through an entire tub of wipes in a fraction over eight days. Wow!

We're using Member's Mark (Sam's Club) wipes at home right now, but the previous case of wipes and the travel wipes are Huggies. What Member's Mark and Pampers wipes have over homemade wipes from paper towels and Huggies is durability and one-handed use. I've put my finger through a Huggies wipe (twice yesterday in fact) and same for wet paper towels. I have scrubbed a carpet spot with a Pampers wipe, and similar with Member's Mark. Both of those also dispense one at a time readily for easy use with one free hand, while the former two often require two hands. So I'd choose the two better brands of wipes, or homemade wipes made from soft diaper flannel not from paper towels.

Taste Test: Peanut Butter Wafer Candy Bar

Last week, I presented the next candy bar taste test to my usual three judges. This time we compared a Butterfinger candy bar to a Slimfast Peanut Butter Crunch snack bar.

Aside #1: You would think that a Slimfast "snack bar" would be better nutritionally than a regular candy bar, but they're remarkably close. The skeptic in me had to check, and I was slightly surprised. The Slimfast has slightly less fat and sugar, but the major difference is that it comes in a smaller serving size; it's one-third the size of a King Size Butterfinger.

specs	Slimfast	(2 Slimfast bars)	Butterfinger	(1/2 Butterfinger bar)
serving size	28g	(56g)	60g	(30g)
calories	120	(240)	270	(135)
fat	4g	(8g)	11g	(5.5g)
- saturated fat	2g	(4g)	6g	(3g)
carbohydrates	21g	(42g)	43g	(21.5g)
- sugar	12g	(24g)	29g	(14.5g)
protein	1g	(2g)	4g	(2g)

The Butterfinger had a slightly more desirable texture and didn't stick to my teeth as much, but the only way to tell the difference was to sample both at the same time. If we had tried these at different times, we're not sure we would notice.

Aside #2: I refuse to buy Nestle products, at least once I know they're made by Nestle. So I have to admit that the Butterfinger sample was part of the Toddler's Halloween haul (I didn't buy it), and its age may have contributed to its drier texture.

So although the Butterfinger won the taste test, it only won by a very slim margin. In favor of the Slimfast Peanut Butter Crunch, it does not have visible orange dye in the crunchy wafers (who needs more dye in their diet?), it comes in portion-controlled sizes, and oh it's not made by Nestle.

What I'll actually buy was determined before the taste test, but it's nice to know that I'm not missing out on taste. In addition, (one-half to) one Slimfast bar is enough to cure my craving, so I don't need or want the larger Butterfinger bar.

Taste Test: Mint Chocolate Candy Bar

Several months ago, I noticed a new flavor of 3 Musketeers at the store: mint! I had to try it. This taste test had the usual three of us for dinner (me, Daddy, and Mimi).

We compared 3 Musketeers Mint to York Peppermint Pattie. Both have a mint filling covered with dark chocolate, although one is a bar and the other is a pattie. The verdict is that we preferred the 3 Musketeers for general noshing because the mint flavor of the York Peppermint Patty was overpowering (then again, that is their brand identity). The 3 Musketeers bar was also fluffier, but that's part of their identity.

The Un-Quicken Checklist

I was annoyed that I still used Quicken. (Intuit has a poor track record for Mac support, a bad reputation for customer support in general that just bit my husband using QuickBooks for his small business, and charges a lot for annual program updates that don't add a lot.) So I made a list of all the financial programs I could find that didn't look like abandonware that would run on my Mac that cost less than $50. Because, let's get real, Quicken was working for me so there's no point to spending more than a Quicken upgrade.

I keep checking for an update from Musings from Mars on Alternative Personal Finance Apps for Mac OS X but none so far. I also don't care about some of his requirements, so we might go different directions. In fact, other than data entry, mainly what I do with Quicken is reconcile what I've entered against my monthly statements.

As it turns out, there are at least four approaches to reconciliation (not counting "don't do it" as an approach since I'm not willing to use that approach). You can have the Quicken-style two-level (cleared and reconciled) reconcile process, a single-level (reconciled only) process with a running total, cleared and reconciled checkboxes but no reconcile screens or process, or just a reconciled checkbox (hopefully with a running total!).

1. 2-stage process: MoneyWell, Moneydance, iBank, Jumsoft Money
2. 1-stage process: Cashbox, Economix, CheckBook, Accounts
3. C/R: SpendThrift, Buddi, Registry
4. R: iCompta, mini$, iFinance, Personal Finance, Fortora Fresh Finance, Budget, iCash, Cha-Ching

Balancing application price (extra points for free) with how well I liked it in testing, I came up with this short list that support enough reconcile for me:

1. Cashbox
2. SpendThrift
3. Buddi
4. Economix
5. Moneydance
6. iBank

Then I made a list of the features I use in Quicken:

• runs on my OS X 10.4 Mac, prefer Aqua and Cocoa to Java, prefer to avoid X11
• prefer document-based (I like knowing which file to backup)
• different accounts in one file
• most important: a "reconcile" process that makes it easy to check against my statement (like Quicken)
• important: proper double entry to transfer between accounts (doesn't require *me* entering the transaction twice)
• QIF import (to get me out of Quicken-land; tested with a QIF file downloaded from my credit union) would help
• export (no Intuit-style data format lock-in!)
• prefer bill scheduling, but I could use iCal instead
• applications that over $50 or that haven't been updated since 2005 (3 years) not considered; last update in 2006 only considered if it's popular or free

Putting those short-listed applications through their paces:

1. Cashbox 0.50 ($0) reconcile process just shows final balance, not starting balance (maybe I really want a two-level reconcile like Quicken?), weak I/O
2. Spendthrift 3.0 1031c ($0) the bad news: reconcile is just a checkbox, and you don't get a reconciled total. Other than that, it's a nice Aqua, Spotlight integration (mentioned not tested), QIF import works very well, multiple accounts, and bill schedule.
3. Buddi 3.0.0.5 ($0) good news: check boxes for cleared and for reconcile; bad news: utterly no reconcile process (although you can look at cleared and reconciled totals, so if you're never off, it's ok), Java not Aqua
4. Economix 2.6.1 ($0) reconcile is a checkbox (but it will total just the checked items so you can check with bank ... but no process with start and end balance to catch errors per-month)
5. Moneydance 2007R5 ($30) (4 stars in 31 reviews) Hey this works!!! It didn't let me set the starting balance in testing, but it did have it as a box to fill in, so I'm hopeful ... also has two-stage (cleared and reconciled) that I prefer; also Java not Aqua but reasonable fake
6. iBank 2.3.11 ($50) (4 stars in 62 reviews) has the right sort of reconcile and bill scheduling, and I like having Automator actions, but it's the top end of my price range (although to a local company that has gotten good support reviews).

The not-entering-twice for transfer between accounts turned out to be a real kicker; it kicked out SpendThrift, MoneyDance (ideal reconcile, QIF import works), and iBank. The QIF import was the next challenge; Economix couldn't do it, and Cashbox required "massaging" the QIF before import (changing the line endings and I can't remember if I had to change the date format). Cashbox also lacked export, although its plist format wasn't opaque.

So the really short list to take on Quicken is Buddi (but it's Java) and Cashbox (no export, no scheduling).

I really wanted to pick an Aqua application; I was trying to avoid Java. But I couldn't miss that Buddi met my actual needs with double entry, import, and export. That's the heartless thing about a feature checklist, especially when I make the checklist before I start evaluating: it doesn't always pick the prettiest one. So here's to Buddi! Let's see how I like now that I'm going to start using it ...

Diaper Review, size 3

We started using size 3 diapers last year on April 27th, and we've gone through thousands. (Really! At least 3,000. Mind boggling!) I thought Karston might wear size 3 until he potty trained! After all, size 3 diapers run from 16 to 28 pounds; he gains weight so slowly that I could imagine him being 3 years old and under 28 pounds. But he won't be wearing size 3 next year after all.

Of the several kinds we tried, we were happiest with Pampers Cruisers. Although we had two bags of Pampers that didn't have enough filling in the front (we had some night-time diaper leaks until we started checking how high the front filling went for night changes), overall the Pampers were the ones that didn't have overnight problems.

Speaking of diaper leaks, that's how I knew it was time to look at size 4 diapers! I read online that an increase in diaper leaks means that it's time to consider the next size. We had two weeks of frequent nighttime diaper leaks, so I bought a pack of size 4 because if it worked, it was an easy solution ... and it turns out that size 4 diapers start at 22 pounds! Karston finally crossed that mark, so it really is time to move up to the next size. In fact, we started some diaper sizes two pounds early. However, we're still going to finish that case of size 3 over the next many days while wearing size 4 at night.

So it's the end of a 20-month era, winding down for size 3 diapers and the calendar year.