Why your Mom always made you put the laundry away

This is what happens when you leave your clean clothes folded on the coffee table and then let your 2 year old out of their cage run around the house unsupervised for 10 minutes.

Where's Waldo

Just in case you thought this kind of hiding was relegated to cartoons and ostriches.

It is not.

How I voted and why

In this post, I plan to piss off about 70% of my readers. Because I know them personally, and I know who they are or will be voting for. I do not generally talk about politics in person or on this blog, because I don't honestly care who you vote for so long as you examine the issues to the best of your ability and are choosing based on real information and not propaganda. CNN? NBC? MSNBC? CBS? The Huffington Post? 99% of newspapers out there? Liberal. Fox News? The Drudge Report? Michael Savage? Rush Limbaugh? Sean Hannity? Conservative. You have to get both sides of the story - or you're falling for the one side you're listening to.

Let's start with this. I am not and have never been a one issue voter. I stand for personal responsibility, I want the government to butt out of my business, whether it's about how many and what kinds of guns a person can have or my healthcare and what procedures my doctor and I decide I need are between my doctor and me. I don't think it's the government's business what sex my partner is, it's a contract between two consenting adults whether they're male and female or both male or both female. I do not think the government should provide healthcare to every citizen, healthcare is not a right, it's a benefit - just ask your HR department - and a government big enough to give you all you desire is big enough to take it all (and more) away. I do not want a government that big.

I do not think that federal government needs to be involved in education - that's a state issue. I do want my roads well maintained, and I want the inspectors making sure that my dog food isn't poisoned and my child's toys are not painted with lead paint. And I think the ATF being able to catch up to those 2 guys who were plotting to kill 88 black people and Obama before they actually carried out their terrible plan is one of the benefits gained when I gave up some of my rights to total privacy.

While I think this Halloween display of Palin is reprehensible, and I know that had it been Obama in the noose, that all hell would have broken loose, I also have to support the right to free speech which allowed this man to put it up. I disagree with the term "hate crime" I'm pretty sure that 99% of the people that are murdered are murdered because they are hated - it seems like an un-prosecutable offense if we start prosecuting for thought processes. Zero tolerance to me, means that people are giving up reason - just ask the little girl who brought a Korean pencil sharpener that her mother bought her to school only to be told it looked like a weapon and she would be suspended.

I am not opposed to immigration, but I think everyone should sign the guest book on the way in. And by guest book, I mean pass a background check. Other countries, you can keep your felons, thankyouverymuch. I am in favor of saving the earth, being environmentally friendly - I do not, however, think it should be legislated. My stances on the issues as a whole place me squarely in the middle. I am positively moderate.

I will not discuss the war in Iraq, I am smart enough to know that I do not have all the information that the heads of our government have, I do not even want to pretend that I know all they know. I certainly prefer not to be at war, no one is pro-war - just as no one is pro-abortion. And therefore I have no clue as to whether we should actually be there or not.

Beyond the social issues the main difference in the two candidates is how they intend to fix the economy. Specifically taxation. The thing is that the economy, if given half a chance will right itself - make no mistake that no matter who is elected, we will live through it and the economy will right itself with time anyway. And the question then becomes, which of these two has a plan that will least negatively impact me, both now and in the future?

Let's go back to the Pilgrims, shall we? I'm leaving out some minor details, but when the pilgrims landed here and William Bradford became the second governor after John Carver died, they set up a system by which everyone was given a piece of land. They were to farm that land and bring everything to a common store. Then each family could take what they needed to survive. Sounds like a great system if everyone worked together. But what they found was that it bred laziness, because some people didn't grow anything, because they figured out that if they just waited for everyone else to grow stuff that they could swoop in and take what they needed. There was no motivation to actually work. Sound familiar?

That didn't last and Bradford reorganized them to say that everything a person grew on his land was his own, which meant if you grew nothing, you had nothing to barter with, so you'd better get crackin'. With this new system they grew much more food. People bartered with each other, and in fact they had so much extra that they held the first Thanksgiving to thank God for all the blessings he had given them. Free enterprise succeeded where socialism had failed.

My choice in this election came down to this: I may not make $250,000 annually. But one day I hope to. I hope to make more than that. I hope to work hard enough to be a millionaire - or alternatively win the lotto and not work hard, but still be a millionaire. And with a government who does not spend what they get now very wisely? I see no reason to give them more, whether it's from my pockets or the pockets of someone else who worked hard for their money.

Do you know that 80% of millionaires are first generation millionaires and are self made - that is, they didn't inherit that money. They earned that money. About 66% of them are self employed. They took chances and worked hard and were rewarded for their efforts. They saved and lived below their means in order to keep that money.

Oh, you say Obama's not going to mess with your taxes, so you're okay with that. Obama's going to tax businesses more. Put more taxes on big oil companies. Evil oil companies. Do you know who is going to pay that? You are. Every time you fill up your gas tank. Taxing big businesses never hurts the business, it hurts the consumer.

When you as a person/family get to a point in your checking account where you don't have enough money to do everything you want to do, what do you do? Do you run into your boss's office and demand a raise? No. You stop spending on the crap you don't need. You tighten your belt and you try to make your household budget work more efficiently. That's what we need here - effectively spending what they already have. Not more money.

Neither of these candidates is ideal for that approach. McCain's plan to buy up bad mortgages and renegotiate them makes me queasy just thinking about it. Ron Paul would have been the best candidate. McCain and Palin are closer to it than Obama and Biden are. I voted for McCain. I voted for the lesser of two evils. I voted more against Obama than I did for McCain.

Informed dissenting opinions are welcome, but play nice in the comments or I'm going to turn them off. Tomorrow we go back to silly baby pictures and we can pretend this never happened.

On the way back from buying half the pharmacy

I saw this bumper sticker that said:

Childhood is Preserved at [Leafy Tree Religious] School

And I pictured all the little kids in jars lined up on the shelf.

I also have been noting a few thing I might have twittered over the past few weeks. Since I haven't joined twitter, I saved you from them at random times.

• Listened intently to Gardenline caller about growing potatoes from potatoes bought at the grocery store. As if I even have a garden. Or would grow potatoes.
• Some jackhole put M&Ms in the kitchenette. They are sabotaging me.

My twitter would be empty.

Life Flight

My eyes hurt from pressure behind them and I feel like any minute by brain is going to start leaking out from behind them.

After the pumpkin patch, we headed to the fire station to see if we could cause any trouble there. They were having an open house, so they had a bunch of ambulances, fire trucks and a life flight helicopter out for the kids to look at and climb on.

Hopefully this is the only time Landon ever sets foot on a life flight helicopter.



We arrived with perfect timing. Landon got to sit in the helicopter, and then they got a call. And he got to watch it take off. It was kind of exciting, and special bonus, helicopter is one of the sign language signs he knows, so he got to use it over and over again.

He sat on and in several fire trucks.

He sat in the front seat of an ambulance, when I set him down I told him not to push any buttons. And not a half a second later the EMS guy tells him if he wants to make a loud noise to push this button. And he wouldn't do it. So I did it and it freaked him out.

He did get to climb in the back and check out that stuff.

Last time he was in an ambulance it was kind of traumatic. Maybe not for him, but definitely for me.

Extra tidbits:

File this one under - could only happen to me. Since coming back to work here, I have not been certified in CPR or First Aid, nor have I had the fire warden training, but because I had all those things when I left, they went ahead and put the signs up above my office door to alert people that I have my credentials if they need help. I have been begging them for over a year to take those signs down because I am not certified. I finally broke down and agreed to get re-certified. I took the class yesterday. I told them I already had the signs. When I got back to my office the signs were gone. They finally took them down...while I was in the class getting re-certified.

One good thing Ike had to offer: Because I live in a county impacted by hurricane Ike, I get an extra 4 months to take my inspector exam. Which is good, because I was closing in on my deadline (11/18) having not studied quite enough to even pretend I could go take the test.

Every morning on the way into work I hear a commercial for Accountemps. Nerleman and his boss are always having a conversation in which it becomes apparent that Nerleman is a useless pile of dog dung and the boss has to bring in Bob from Accountemps to fill in for someone else while they're on vacation or after they've been promoted. It seems pretty clear to me that Nerleman needs to be fired. I wonder what kind of blackmail Nerleman has on his boss.

Pumpkin Patchin' it

We woke up Saturday morning and went to vote, thinking that 7 am on a Saturday would be considerably less crowded than noon on Sunday. There were 16,432 people there. I know. I counted. Or maybe it was closer to 150 and I estimated. Whatever. Lots more people than I have ever seen at early voting. But the lines went fairly quickly. So that's good. Landon would like to re-air his PSA from February. He's pretty politically active, so it's very important to him. He doesn't really care who you vote for, as long as you make an informed decision. (He also may or may not have spotted a man dressed like my father and got all excited, but then it wasn't him.)

Landon and I then headed down to LJ to go to the pumpkin patch with Grandma, Aunt Kathleen, and Zoey. Last year we accidentally were in LJ during the pumpkin patch time. This year we went on purpose.

For comparison's sake, here's last year's picture.

And this year's on the same tractor (with Woody from Toy Story...who he will be for Halloween.)

He was considerably less cooperative this year than last, something about realizing he has a mind of his own and terrible twos. The shot where I had him next to the measuring stick last year, you know, the ONE that would give a really good comparison between years...last year he had no idea what was going on, so he just stood there.

This year? Nope, there are much better things to do than stand here. In fact, I'm even going to block the year. I'm sooooo out of here.

We coaxed and coaxed and coaxed and finally got someone to look through the hole.

To which Landon's response was to also look through a hole.

Uh, we had dried off the tractor seat for the next kid. With his butt. That was our good deed for the day. Whether we did it on purpose or not. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

And when we finally got him on the correct side to look out the hole. This is what i got.

Next year maybe he'll look up.

Fun Friday

You've probably seen these already but...dude - so worth the four minutes of your life, especially if you grew up in the 80's watching MTV.

Environmentalism starts early

While at the playground last weekend, with no prompting from us (because who would tell a 2 year old to pick up trash when he just overcame a cold.) Landon took it upon himself to clean up the area.



Extra tidbits:

We had Chinese food last night. Landon asked what each thing was as I pulled it out of the bag, he danced when I said beef with broccoli, not for the beef, but because he loves the broccoli. He ate 7 spears of it - so I'm going to publicly apologize for whatever farting he may do today and to which ever teacher happens to have to deal with that diaper. And I won't even mention that his dessert of grapes may also cause some issues.

Anyway, the fortune cookies. One says:

People who are late are often happier than those who have to wait for them.

And the other says:

Procrastination is the fear of success.

Does this mean I have to choose between happiness and success?

*******************************

I heard this guy on the radio this morning talking about how the world series doesn't get the same kind of attention from the viewing public as the Super Bowl because the series is so drawn out and people don't generally host 7 day parties and it's mostly only of interest to those people who root for the teams playing, whereas the Superbowl is one day and has all those great ads. Turns out he is a Professor of Pop Culture in Syracuse. Professor of Pop Culture. Seriously. It was almost as disheartening as learning that I could have majored in playing with play-doh a la Chef Duff on Ace of Cakes.

2 years late, still not really done

So, one of the things Clinton and I did on our staycation (that was for you modernish father) was to fix up Landon's room to what it should have been before he was born. We finally put up the letters to spell his name on the wall and added a bookshelf for toy storage. And of course the little table and chairs.

His most favorite present from all of his birthday presents is that little workbench. Seriously, for the first few days to get him out of anywhere we just asked him if he wanted to play with his workbench and he'd be all "YESSSH!"

We have endured many hours of tink tink tink tink tink "Ooaah" tink tink tink tink tink "Ooaah" tink tink tink tink tink "Ooaah." And I'd complain, but I don't want to return to the former ritual which involved hours and hours of fishies.

Minutiae

I may have blown my wad on that first post vacation post.

One of the things we did over the weekend was take Landon to the local park.




I'm tired of the election already. I don't need the conspiracy theories from either side. I've heard them all.

Although, here's a math lesson from an Obama commercial. If McCain's tax plan gives no relief to the middle class, but Obama's offers 3 times the relief to the middle class that McCain's plan does? It still offers no relief. 3 x 0 is still ZERO! (Also FYI - "Spread the wealth" spells communism at best.)

Here's where I should counter with an ad from the McCain campaign which makes me crazy. Except - I haven't seen one at all - I guess he figures he has Texas wrapped up and doesn't have to run ads here. (Also, FYI - buying up the "bad" mortgages and renegotiating them at lower amounts AND lower interest rates is a slap in the face to those of us who knew what we could afford and have been paying our mortgages like we're supposed to.)

They both suck. I am still looking for an island to conquer so i can get away from it all.

Speaking of ads, and things that make me crazy. High fructose corn syrup is made with terrible corn. Corn not fit for consumption as corn. Also, your body doesn't know what to do with it and it ends up being stored as fat. And if someone objects to HFCS when you offer them something, and then you ask them why? If they felt strongly enough that they objected, they know why. Also, it's hard to eat HFCS "in moderation" if it's in EVERYTHING.

Vacation

Well...as per usual I was sick for our vacation. (I blame stress for weakening my immune system.) On Thursday after 12 days of coughing I finally broke down and went to see my doctor who said I had an ear infection, bronchitis and sinusitis. Woohoo antibiotics! I am on them now. I will be on them for another 4 or 5 days. Also, I can finally breathe.

Landon, because he's not blowing his nose, and therefore not blowing snot up into his ears, is actually recovering sans the antibiotics.

Landon had a fever Friday morning, so I didn't get to take him to school and lay around on the couch like I planned (or packing and grocery shopping). We were supposed to leave on Saturday but delayed due to the illness, at the time I was still hopeful to recover on my own, all the while sabotaging myself with the constant nose blowing. So instead we did our grocery shopping on Saturday and left Sunday.

We spent 2 days at Lake Limestone. The water was pretty chilly, but we waded and splashed around. We learned a few lessons - 1) you should probably plan a few activities if you're going to be out in the middle of nowhere. It gets boring pretty quickly. 2) You should take the truck since you have to take the trash with you when you leave, and it's pretty stinky sometimes.

We came home Tuesday morning, emptied the trailer that we needed to return to my parents, and took it back to Lake Jackson.

Wednesday, we returned about $75 worth of stuff to Home Depot and Lowe's that we had leftover from fence building. I called to see if my doctor could squeeze me in, and she couldn't. So I made the appointment for 8:15 on Thusday. Surely we did something else on this day, but I cannot for the life of me remember what it was.

On Thursday morning, I went to the doctor and Clint went to work. What? You thought he could actually go a week without going into work? HAHAHAHAHA. He spoke to people at work every day. Thursday afternoon we went to IKEA and bought Landon a small table and chairs and a bookshelf. We put them together and put his name on the wall. We're one decorated wall away from finishing our 2 year-old's nursery.

On Friday we met with the window guy to see about replacing our cheese grater style windows with some that will actually keep the cool air inside the house. Clint cleaned the garage, I cleaned gutters, we finally got around to fixing the shutter that blew off in Ike, and we bought thermostats that we can program.

On Saturday we went to the Brazoria county fair. We saw all the animals, he did not care for the petting zoo, we ate corndogs and funnel cake and deep fried oreos and we had a heart attack on the way back out to the car. Alright, maybe not that last part. I missed out on a blog post opportunitiy about the judging of the art, since apparently a decently drawn panda gets 2nd place while someone who cut 6 hearts out of scrapbook paper and glued them to black construction paper got 1st. I didn't take the pictures I would have needed for that post.

On Sunday we bought a truck load of mulch and mulched about 1/3rd of what needs mulch in the back yard. Landon played with his croquet/golf set, and when told to put the ball throught the arch, he pulled the arch up and arranged each one over a ball.

Boat racing

Battery insertion.
Let her go.

Coffee Table

The best reason to have a birthday party.

Being allowed to stand on the coffee table while you get lots and lots of stuff.

Mooooom

Or, Hurry up and take the picture, those guys aren't going to supervise themselves.

Or, hey - you think you could maybe cut my bangs so I don't have this weird wing thing going on?

Big Helper

You know what you need when you have 4 grown men trying to build a fence?

A 2 year old to tell them how it should be done.

Snotwatch 2008

Singing the blues.

I am sick.

Of course I am. We're supposed to take a vacation next week. And who in their right mind goes off for vacation feeling, like, good and stuff. GRRRR. I have been taking more drugs this week than Anna Nicole ever took. And also, drinking more orange juice and grapefruit juice than the law allows and taking zinc and eating raw freaking garlic all in the name of clearing my damn nasal cavities. God help the person who has to stand next to me in line anywhere, but at least the vampires will leave us alone.

Anyway, I only mention it because I'm setting up autoposting. Lots of pictures, not a lot of words. I should return to my normal boring dribble on October 20th.

P.S. if you try the garlic thing, cutting it into pill sized pieces and swallowing seems to be an easier way to get it down than chewing, except the chewing might release some of the good stuff faster, so it's a trade off I think. Also chewing adds to the garlic aroma I am now putting off. Nevermind, maybe this was TMI.

Question

To those with kids in day care:

Are your kids so thirsty when you pick them up from school that you think they may be dehydrated? Is that normal? Because he's been playing harder than he used to or something?

He drinks roughly 4 cups of liquid from the time I pick him up (about 5:30) until he goes to sleep (about 8:30). Which I think is kind of a lot for someone who only weighs a little over 30 lbs.

My solution thus far has been that I've been trying to bring a sippy cup of water for him with me when I pick him up, and if he sees it in the car he will practically crawl over me to get at it. If I don't have it when I pick him up, he's hell to deal with until he gets something to drink at home. Except he doesn't want something to drink once we get home, he's distracted by other more important things like...fissies or dogs or I don't know - telling me he's going night night as he lays on the third step. And as such becomes more and more thirsty and more and more irritable.

I got Booed at work

Which is just one more thing I don't have time for. (They give you a little Halloween gift, you're supposed to give 2 other people one (within 24 hours, WTH?), and hang a sign on your office so you don't get booed again.) It's like a chain letter, only more work. I'll do it, but only because I don't want to be that girl.

If things continue in their current pattern, by tomorrow I will be a puddle of coughing mucus and nothing else. I went to the work health clinic and asked that they test me for strep, because I was hoping that I could have some antibiotics to cure my ailment and they were all, yeah we'll test you. And then they were all - it's negative, too bad so sad, here have these drugs which don't work very well.

Monthly Newsletter #24

Dear Landon,

So much has happened this month, it’s hard to know where to start.

You spent this month becoming 2. It is painfully obvious. Your objections to things not going your way have become extreme and punishing. I can no longer distract you with something shiny, or something with wheels. You pick up on the fact that I am not caring so much about how important it is to you to be able to run amok in the grocery store. Or that after switching carts 7 times to find the perfect cart, that I finally just haul you off in the green one, when clearly, your research has shown the blue one over there is so much better. It’s hard to reason with someone so unreasonable. I have been the recipient of many knowing head nods from veteran moms. I know I am not alone.

Linda got a job. You started this month in day care again. But it’s like starting for the first time, because I know you don’t remember that one month when you were 2 months old that we sent you. You are doing great. I know the transition will take some time, and I know it didn’t help that you went a week, and then were off for a week and then got sick and missed another half week. You seem to be happy there, except when I leave you, and when Linda doesn’t take you home with her.

As it turns out, Noah isn't doing so well there, and Linda doesn't seem to think it will be getting any better, not that she gave it much of a chance. She pulled Noah out of the class, unfortunately that means he won't be there with you, but on the bright side, I know you will make some new friends.

I think it’s a coincidence, so I’m not giving full credit to day care, but since you started day care you have exploded in terms of words you know. Not everyone knows what you’re saying, because of that whole enunciation thing, but I do. Words I didn’t know you knew. Words I truly did not expect from a 2 year old. Words like “bright,” “swimsuit,” and “tacos.” You call the dogs by name, or at least by nickname. You have a preference for “Feenie.” And I can’t say I blame you. Both of them love you, but Fiona is by far the gentler of two.

You survived your very first hurricane this month. Historically we shouldn’t have another awful one for 20 years, but if weather was that easy to predict the weather man wouldn’t be wrong 50% of the time and still have his job. It was scary, the noise from the wind and things falling, the lack of power, everything about the event was scary to you. Driving around the next day you said “uh oh, fall” about nearly every tree. You did get an impromptu visit with both sets of grandparents in the following week, so there was one bonus. But the stress of not having power, not knowing when we’d have power, not being prepared for the trip, all took its toll on us.

We are still dealing with the fallout from the hurricane, trying to get things fixed and back to normal as best we can. So…it has been a rough month, but a good one.

Love,
Mama

Stresstember

• Landon started day care.
• Ike came.
• Loss of power for 5 days.
• Impromptu road trip around Texas.
• Fence down, requires dealing with an ornery neighbor.
• Fence propped up, but not necessarily stable.
• People are told to return to work.
• They moved my computer, but not my phone.
• Day care has no power.
• No one has supplies for fence building.
• Day care still has no power.
• Work related stuff has a deadline which cannot be met after a week off.
• Fence guy thinks he can become billionaire on my dime.
• Fence down completely.
• Fence still down completely.
• Landon is sent home from school with a fever, not to return until 24 hours post non-medicated non-fever.
• Fencing supplies everywhere you look.
• Get notice that Landon's main teacher is leaving the school.
• Attend work related meeting/interview where I am officially responsible for bringing a massive project ending (if it weren't already being built) sized problem to light and they'd like to know what the hell happened to get us to that point.
• Birthday party coming up on Saturday - have bought 4 plastic tablecloths and candles in preparation and nothing else.
• Work related stuff gets put off to late next week.
• Fence still down completely.
• Discover neighbors are trying to take over ornery neighbor's yard 6 inches at a time.
• Work related stuff gets pushed up to early next week.
• Fence supplies dwindling.
• Landon comes home from Day Care covered in bright orange paint, and I have no orange painting to show for it - nor do they fill out the section of his sheet that is supposed to tell me what he did all day.
• Friend building fence gets called back to work.
• Again with the not telling me what he did all day on his sheet.
• Brother in law coming to help finish fence.
• Work experiences loss of water...I cannot even flush a damn toilet here.

Wordless Wednesday