I read a quote in the Wall Street Journal last week that rocked my world. And it wasn’t about the size of the national deficit.

It was concerning a subject much closer to home: laundry. Here’s what the cofounder of Seventh Generation which manufactures environmentally safe household products had to say about laundry detergent, “You don’t even need soap to wash most loads” because the agitation of the washing machine is generally enough to get most clothes clean.

No detergent? That’s a pretty radical statement. Saying that you don’t need detergent to do the wash is like saying you don’t need sugar to make cookies. It brings everything I know about being a mom into question. Isn’t finding a detergent that will get our whites whiter, removes stains better, and keep colors brighter the holy grail for this most basic of household chores?

As I thought more about the idea of doing wash without soap, I had to agree that it probably works. Images from National Geographic specials of women standing knee-deep water slapping their clothes on rocks comes to mind. They seem to get their clothes clean and soft yet there isn’t a bottle of “Tide with a Touch of Downey Liquid Laundry Detergent” anywhere in sight.

But you won’t find me on the bank of the Petaluma River. I believe I speak for most women when I say that I’m not ready to go back-to-nature when it comes to doing the wash. I’m firmly committed to using detergent and a washing machine.

However, the article had some really good advice about doing laundry that I would like to pass on. It turns out that when using today’s concentrated detergents, more isn’t better.

Every time I measure out the detergent, I look at the small amount in the measuring cup and think to myself that that amount can’t possibly be enough to get the load really clean. So I always top it off just to be sure.

However, according to a consumer scientist for Whirlpool, “you have to be much more precise in dosing detergent” because the result of adding too much Tide, Gain or Kirkland is that instead of getting our clothes cleaner, it actually makes them dingier and makes the machine wear out faster.

Then why don’t they make the little lines on the measuring cups easier to read? I’ve read the instructions on the package numerous times and I’m still not sure which line to fill the cup for large loads and which line is for heavily soiled loads. This isn’t supposed to be rocket science.

Help is on the way. Procter & Gamble is changing the cups so they are easier-to-read. The new ones will have more defined measurement lines and bigger numbers that are staggered, not stacked.

 Amazing…a company is actually encouraging us to use less of their product.

As part of our effort to not get stressed out and lighten the mood in our household, our family went to see a comedy heavyweight…Gabriel Iglesias, who by his own admission, tips the scales at 400 pounds. We saw the earlier of his two Friday night shows at the Wells Fargo Center.

We first became aware of Gabriel Iglesias when my daughters were flipping channels one night and landed on Comedy Central. His routine was very funny, if slightly R-rated in terms of language and subject matter. But his ability to tell a funny story, and tell a story funny, won us over.

I saw in the newspaper that he was going to be at the Wells Fargo Center. However, I was concerned about whether his live performance would be family-friendly fare because of what we had seen in his routine on TV and later when Jennifer had looked him up on YouTube. So when I went to buy tickets at the box office, I specifically asked if the show had “Mature Content.” For example, that description was given for Larry, the Cable Guy. I was assured that Gabriel’s show didn’t come with a “warning.”

Good. Our family had also recently seen Brian Regan at the Wells Fargo Center. He is a comedian who is incredibly funny and also very clean in his choice of material and delivery. I really enjoyed his show because I knew he wouldn’t be dropping any F-bombs and his stories would end up in a safe place.

On the day of Gabriel’s show, there was an article about him in the Press Democrat which described him as “squeaky-clean.” That made me wonder if the person writing the article had actually watched any of his routines; Disney Channel material they are not.

However, the article went on to emphasis his “clean comedy.” He said that he used to perform “really, really blue” – meaning adult humor – but that he had made a decision early on in his career to take that out.

Regardless that the person who wrote the article and I have different definitions of “squeaky clean,” I felt reassured that Gabriel would do a show that wouldn’t make me feel uncomfortable while watching it sitting next to my 13-year-old daughter.

There is always an act to warm up the audience before the headliner, and in Gabriel’s case, there were three comedians who performed before him. The first comic was only about a minute into his routine before it was apparent that he hadn’t gotten the memo that this show didn’t include “mature content.” His material and that of the other two comedians who followed him was pretty raunchy.

Also, hearing something in person always has more of an impact than when the same words are said but you’re watching them in a pixilated video in a three-inch window on your computer screen.

So I’m sitting there with my family, thinking this isn’t what I came to see. I felt misled by both the Wells Fargo Center and the newspaper; I had done my research so I would know what we could expect for the evening and this wasn’t it.

So did I get up and leave in a huff? No, the language and material wasn’t any worse than my daughters hear on the front steps of the high school every day. Did we enjoy Gabriel’s performance? Yes, very much so. But I think I’ll skip the live performances and stick with YouTube for a while.

Does anyone make their own clothes anymore? I’m talking about the kind of sewing that involves choosing a pattern, buying fabric and constructing an entire piece of clothing at home. And the women wearing the very homemade-looking shirtwaist dresses in that weird polygamist Mormon cult don’t count. They obviously know how to make a sewing machine work.

My question about whether anyone still sews came to mind when I was in a JoAnn Fabric store last week shopping for buttons for a sweater that I had knit. On my way to the button aisle in the back of the store, I walked past the bolts of fabrics and a mannequin modeling a jacket and dress made from a Butterick pattern.

Did I stop for a moment to see if the outfit had any potential as something I might wear? Nope. The thought that ran through my mind was that I could probably find something more stylish for less than the cost of the fabric next door at Target. And I could wear it right away without investing hours of time to make it.

And over the years as I’ve chatted with other moms, I have never once met one who said they made any of their own clothes or their kids’ clothes. Is sewing an archaic skill that no body does anymore like changing your own oil?

I know how to sew so making something like I saw on the mannequin is fully within my skills. It was my sister who taught me how to sew although if she hadn’t, I would have learned the basics in my “home economics” class in junior high. Instead of a computer lab…because there was no such thing as a personal computer back then…my school had a classroom with 20 sewing machines and all girls were required to take basic sewing.

I actually loved the sewing class because it was a chance to show off my more advanced sewing skills. I clearly remember many of the fabrics I used and the outfits I made. I was very proud of wearing something I had made that fit well and showed no hint of being homemade. It didn’t get much better for me than perfectly straight rows of parallel topstitching on my pocket flaps.

But it’s been decades since I seriously considered making an item of clothing for myself. Who has the time and motivation when there are so many options for places to buy relatively well-made clothing that’s not expensive which I can try on so I know that it’s going to fit?

And young women these days don’t know how to sew. My own daughters are examples of that. Where I work, I’ve become the go-to person when a pair of pants needs to be hemmed. When I sewed on a button in about 30 seconds, everyone reacted as if I had performed magic.

Knowing that I was pondering sewing, Steve kept an eye out on Craig’s List for me. In the course of a week, he forwarded about 10 requests for people looking for sewing help of varying degrees.

So…since women like me who can follow a pattern to sew a skirt or dress choose not to, and girls of my daughters’ generation aren’t learning how to sew, I come back to my original question of who is buying the fabric and patterns?

In the next week, I’m going to do a little research to see if I can get an answer.

The horrific earthquake that devastated Haiti and the – by comparison – the seismic love tap that  Humboldt County recently experienced have renewed my appreciation for my situation. I experienced the 1989 Loma Prieta temblor that at one point closed down both the Bay and Golden Gate bridges and I remember the feeling of shock and disbelief I felt at the time. Yes, these feelings hardly compare with what the Haitian survivors are going through. All the more reason for me to thank God that we are safe and warm, that my children are well and accounted for, and that Steve and I are healthy. I am truly blessed.

A few months ago, Valerie told us about this really funny comedian who she had seen on a DVD at a friend’s house. So we looked him up on YouTube, and after watching a few of his routines, everyone in our house was a big fan of Brian Regan.

At about the same time, Steve and I had been talking about looking for opportunities to lighten the atmosphere…or as Steve calls it, the “tense-o-sphere” in our house. All too often, we focus too heavily on the immediate stresses and forget how to have fun.

So, when our youngest daughter spotted an ad in the newspaper that Brian Regan was coming to the Wells Fargo Center on January 9, we decided to get tickets for a several reasons. We wanted to show our kids that we are optimistic about the new year by doing something that we don’t typically do; I can’t remember the last time we got ourselves off the couch on a Saturday night and went to a live show.

Also, we would have an event in January to look forward to following the post-holiday letdown. And from what people had to say about Brian Regan on YouTube, I knew we would get a couple of hours of good clean humor that would certainly leave us laughing and lift our spirits.

Last night’s show delivered on all counts. Brian Regan is an incredibly polished performer – the program said he started doing standup in the late 1980’s and we found a video of him on YouTube with a mullet and parachute pants – yet because it’s a live performance there is an element of unpredictability. And when those moments happen, such as when an audience member shouts out something unexpected, his finesse and wit are amazing.

I was concerned that because we had watched a lot of his routines on YouTube that we had seen all his material. That was absolutely not the case; the entire show was fresh for me and the only bit I recognized was his encore routine about his visit to the emergency room which he did because it was a shout out from the audience.

And the funny thing was…and it was funny…that even though I had watched him perform this same routine on a video on YouTube, I enjoyed it even more this time. I guess that’s what makes a really great performer, there’s really nothing spontaneous about the story he’s telling…who knows how many hundreds of times he’s done this routine, yet Brian Regan delivered it as if he was telling it for the first time.

One side note about the evening, just as the show was about to begin, a group of about 10 people was escorted into the theater and sat down in the only vacant seats in the house…which also happened to be the best seats in the house. I didn’t pay much attention until Steve pointed out that John Lasseter was there. For our daughter who dreams of working at Pixar someday, she was more excited about seeing him in person than if Daniel Radcliffe had shown up. I wonder if Brian and John met up after the show and if we’ll hear Brian Regan’s voice in a Disney movie two years from now.

Milton Berle is so right when he said “Laughter is an instant vacation.” We’re  looking forward to our next one on January 29 when we see Gabriel Iglesias at Wells Fargo Center.

When our garbage disposal stopped working on New Year’s Eve, I figured I would just wait to get it taken care of until after January 4^th when everyone is back in work mode. But when I made a phone call to the plumber and found out that he could install a new one that afternoon, Steve encouraged me to go ahead and get it done that day which I did.

Practically, that was a good idea since a home composting unit wasn’t on my Christmas list. So collecting carrot peelings and coffee grounds isn’t something I have much interest in doing.

But I’m also glad that we had a new disposal put in on the last day of 2009 because it’s a symbolic of how I want to approach the New Year: grind up the garbage…the anxiety and stress…that is leftover from a tough year and run it down the drain but store the good events that were also a part of 2009.

So, what are the highlights from last year that I can be grateful for?

Our son made the transition from junior college to San Francisco State. Last year at this time, we didn’t know where he would be going to school or if he could get the loans he needed to pay for it. He is so happy living the living the life of a student filmmaker in the City; Steve and I constantly comment to one another that SFSU turned out to be an ideal fit for him.

Our middle daughter got her driver’s license, and with some help from us, bought a great used car and completed her college applications. Our experience with our son gives us encouragement that when it actually comes to going to college, that she too will end up at the right school for her.

Our youngest daughter is starting to come into her own as an artist and personality. She also has developed a strong interest in caring for others. And I’m grateful that as she enters high school next year she has friends that I can count on to influence her in positive ways.

Steve continues to have excellent health and energy…which shouldn’t be taken for granted now that he is close to the age of Medicare.

And I’m grateful that in an economy of double-digit unemployment, I was able to get a job. Not only am I appreciative of the additional income, but I feel valued for the work I do and love the people I work with.

So in 2010 as I find leftovers in my refrigerator…and attitude…that have gone bad, they are all getting tossed into my new disposal.

This Christmas I really enjoyed seeing what our children bought for their siblings and Steve and me now that they can do their own shopping. Each gift showed that they thought about what the person likes and then combined it with their own interests.

Some highlights: Ethan, our 21-year-old son who is a film production major at San Francisco State, went next door to State to shop at Stonestown Galleria. Ethan and his dad share a love of movies, so it’s no surprise that Steve unwrapped a DVD from Ethan. We don’t take it personally that he chose “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,” after all, it’s the classic spaghetti western that according to Ethan, should be in the collection of any serious film aficionado.

For me, Ethan bought a book called Inventory by people who write the A.V. Club for The Onion. It’s a book of lists such as “7 terrible movies on the top 100 all-time box-office hits list” and “15 really good bands with really bad names.” He’s hoping it will give me a crash course in the pop culture world that he inhabits.

Valerie, 17, avoids malls (unless it’s the gleaming, upscale San Francisco Centre) but loves antique stores. Fortunately, Petaluma has plenty of them so that’s where she headed for her Christmas shopping. She bought Steve a 1950’s 35 mm Argus range-finder camera. Although still functional, she brought it because she knows it would make her dad happy to look up from his computer and see this well-crafted old piece of technology.

Jennifer is the only one of the three who isn’t old enough to drive so she put her creativity to use in making hand-crafted gifts. I got an embroidered felt key chain and Steve got a polar bear and penguin vignette (think Hallmark Card store) that she had crafted out of Scupley – a brand of bake-able clay.

Barbies and Legos are great but Christmas is a lot more fun when personalities shine through.

It was our yearly Christmas letter that got me started writing a blog. One year when I was late getting the cards out, several friends wrote back to me saying that they missed getting our Christmas letter and they hoped they were still on our list. Their reaction, with added encouragement from Steve, prompted me to start writing a Christmas letter every week…or in other words, to start writing a weekly blog.

I was hoping that writing a blog for three years would have gotten my writing muscles into such good shape that when it comes time to write the yearly Christmas letter that it would just roll off my fingertips. However, that is not the case, and I find myself procrastinating starting it.

One reason I struggle with the Christmas letter is because I want to represent the year with the right tone. I want to balance the reality of what we have struggled with in business this year…”it sucked”…with the greater truth that we are still very blessed to be in excellent health, have great kids who are growing into vibrant adults, and the hope that each day holds something wonderful. After all, that’s why we celebrate Christmas.

And while I think our kids are pretty special…what parent doesn’t…I don’t want to go overboard when it comes to listing their accomplishments. I always smile when I think of the Christmas letter we got from some friends. The news of their six-year-old son winning second place in his class’s coloring contest was worthy of three exclamation points. Shouldn’t they allow a little room for growth? In 12 years from now, when their Christmas letter tells us he has been accepted to Stanford, I suppose it will be followed by a page of exclamation points.

Sometimes I think I’ll just go with a half page of bullet points about the year. “Ethan is at college in San Francisco, Valerie wants to go away to college, and Jennifer just wants to have us quit talking about college.” There, I’m done.

Nah, I can’t take the easy way out. So with that said, I had better get back to the letter so I can get them in the mail tomorrow if there is any hope of them arriving before Christmas.

Thanks for reading my blog. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Our family really enjoys outings into San Francisco to take a break from our intense…with the emphasis on “tense” when the stress starts getting to us…focus on work and school. So when I saw that Costco was selling tickets for the King Tut exhibit at the de Young, I thought that would give us the opportunity to plan another day-cation into the City. Plus, I had fond memories of the Tut exhibit because it was one of the first events Steve and I went to as a couple more than 25 years ago.

After buying the tickets at Costco, I went online and chose Sunday at 10am for the day and time; I remember how popular the exhibit had been last time around so I was hoping that a Sunday morning wouldn’t be peak hours. That strategy worked; when we arrived at the de Young we there were only about 20 other people in line. The group of us was ushered quickly into a small room and the doors closed behind us.

Then the room went dark and the video screen lit up; it felt exactly like we were getting on the “Tower of Terror” ride at Disneyland. I was expecting lightening flashes and Rod Serling on the video screen welcoming us to a continuum of time and space. Instead, we heard Omar Sharif’s voice as he narrated a brief history of the boy king. Just like a thrill ride, they wanted to add some drama and build up our sense of anticipation before we entered the mysterious world of mummies and golden sun gods.

Inside the exhibit, we thought that the craftsmanship and sculptural shapes of the pieces were amazing. Valerie particularly liked Tut’s bling; a huge necklace that had a beautiful yellow-green stone scarab as the centerpiece. Jennifer liked that Tut’s tomb contained the 1322 BC version of a Nintendo DS in the form of a two-sided carved game board. Steve’s favorite part of the exhibit was some large photos documenting Howard Carter’s discovery of the tomb.

Looking at one of the display cases that contained an embellished dog collar, I couldn’t help but think how prosperous the Egyptians must have been. If you’re living at subsistence level, you’re probably not spending a lot of time thinking about dressing up your dog.

Although there are more than 130 pieces in the exhibit, it didn’t have some of the really large items that I remember seeing when the Tut exhibit came through San Francisco in the late 1970’s. For example, the iconic blue and gold Tut coffin is there, but it’s not the full size piece, it’s a canopic coffinette which is only about 18 inches high. And just when you think that they have led you through all the chambers for a big reveal, the exhibit ends. “Please place your audio tours on the rack by the exit.” Darn, over so soon.

It probably took us about an hour to move through the exhibit and then we spent another hour perusing the de Young museum store. We extended our time in the City with a trip to Haight Street to find a clothing store that Jennifer had found online and we had a great time window shopping in several funky stores along the street. Should I ever need vintage glass taxidermy eyes, I now know where I can get them.

Was the Tut exhibit worth the $26.99 that I paid for each ticket? Probably not, if we went there solely to be blown away by the art and history. For me, going to the exhibit was really about setting aside time to do something together as a family and take a break from college applications and work demands. And that was worth the price of admission.

I am quite sure that there are 609,000 teenagers who are in a better mood this week. That’s the number of high school seniors who submitted their applications to the California State University system by the November 30 deadline, and if they are like my daughter, Valerie, they are relieved that at least one of their applications is done.

Valerie is especially happy because she submitted her applications to the other schools by the Early Action deadline so she is completely and totally done. We celebrated this achievement with a trip to Nordstrom Rack last weekend.

So besides starting early which I wrote about last week, what did we learn from the college application process?

One thing we learned is that applying to college is a family effort. The amount of work required to apply to the recommended six to 10 schools can be overwhelming. Although I had heard the process was more streamlined now that it is done online, that is really not the case. Each of the private schools required different essays and supplemental applications. Valerie needed support in sorting through the details, and at times, a little prodding from us to keep focused.

There were times it took all three of us, Steve, Valerie and me, to decipher the application requirements from a particular school’s website. And it certainly took Steve’s skills with PhotoShop to put Valerie’s portfolio on a CD that met the school’s criteria for dpi, size, files, etc.

I realize that some of what we encountered is specific to applying as an art major and might not be necessary for students going into engineering or business. But they are still going to need your encouragement when they need some additional information in order to complete the application, and like many teenagers, they are reluctant to pick up the phone and call the admission department for help.

If nothing else, your kid is going to want you close by when it’s time to take out a credit card and pay the $60 application fee per school.

But most importantly, get organized as soon as you can. When you’re applying to several types of schools, such as state schools, UCs, and private schools, keeping track of the various requirements and deadlines is challenging. Valerie made a grid in Excel and it proved to be very helpful because as she began researching the school’s websites, she had a place to record the information Down the left hand side of her grid, she listed the schools she was applying to, and then across the top, a column for application due date, if they required a supplemental app, essay requirements, portfolio requirements, etc. And as she completed each application, it gave her a lot of satisfaction to draw a big, fat line through that school on her chart.

The one column that she didn’t have and that I would recommend adding, is for your major. We had to look at the academic programs offered at each school in order to determine if at a particular school, she should apply as a Graphic Design major, or an Art Major in the Design / Media Arts Department. Perhaps if you’re planning to major in biology, the choice of majors among schools might be more consistent. However, I would certainly recommend researching the websites in advance. It really speeds up the process when you sit down to actually do the application, if you don’t have to stop and go back to the website.

Valerie also made a Pendaflex folder for each school so that she had a place to file any mail she received from a school she was applying to. And once she had paid the application fee and printed out a receipt, it gave her a place to file it. This was a good thing because by the end of the process it was all such a blur that without going back to the file, I had totally forgotten that we had submitted and paid for applications for two schools.

College will start her on the road to independence but her, and probably most high school students, need some help to get started.