Call Me Old Fashioned

I have to:
do laundry for five people
cook dinner for eleven people
nurse a TODDLER
raise three children
change an average of 12 diapers a day
pay bills
check my email
wash my car
call people
garden
and blog.

With that To Do list, why would I choose to check myself out from the grocery store? No thank you. I enjoy that someone else is doing something for me. I'm already loading all the stuff onto the conveyer belt and lifting the bags into my cart and juggling my wallet while I work the debit machine while Jack pulls on my arms. I DON'T NEED ANYTHING ELSE TO DO! The surprising thing is that they now have one "courtesy clerk" observing four check stands which means they are saving money. I haven't noticed the prices going down. Where is the money going? Not to me.
You will not find me in a self check out line. I have never worked a cash register before, but if I did I can guarantee you that I would be the idiot at McDonalds that can't find the keys and has no idea what they are doing. Do you want to be behind me in a line? I don't think so.

How Old Do You Have to Be...?

I hate it when I run in to adults who attended a daycare I worked at when they were children. I was their teacher and now they are grownups. I am taking a class on Wednesday nights. Tonight was the first night. There was a girl there who is a teacher. Yeah, she used to go to the daycare where I worked. I was her teacher, now she is a teacher. How old do you have to be to be a teacher nowadays?

I'm NOT Very Political ...... BUT

I was upset this morning because I heard on the radio that this inauguration is the most costly to date. That's real nice. There's a war. Our national debt is ridiculous and lobbyists and "other supporters" are spending millions of dollars on parties and parades at whatever else. It's sickening.
At first I was like, "it's sickening, but at least it's not our tax dollars." But after I thought about for a while I decided it was worse that , in a time of war, with a recent tsumani, millions of Americans without health care and/or food, large sums of money are being spent to honor a man who can be considered responsible for the national debt and the war. Whether you support President Bush or not you would have to agree that millions of dollars spent on parties is frivolous considering what is currently going on in our country. Maybe if they were throwing parties and parades for soldiers in Iraq I wouldn't be so huffy, but as it is we are at war with "the army we have, not the army we want." Those soldiers are missing necessary equipment and whatever and we are having parades and balls and parties for million dollar price tags. It's disgusting to me.
I think the government (or an independent company that can be sure the money will go to what it is supposed to ) should set up a "non profit" organization that people (and organizations/companies) can donate money to for a tax write off. It's not a new tax, it's a non-profit organization- like Goodwill or Red Cross. That organization will donate all collections to immediately pay off the national debt. When the debt is paid off the money collected could be used to create a universal health care system or pay more for disaster relief or pay into social security or PICK YOUR CAUSE! Why are we so rich as a country and so stupid with our resources? They could be put to better use- in my opinion.

Sicky Sugars

The men in my family are sick. I hate having sick kids-it sucks! To make matters worse, Doug is also sick. That leaves me to care for Jack-who's sick-and the girls who are currently well. That's not really the unfortunate part. The unfortunate part is that, because of a complex relationship with my dad who fakes being sick to get out of participating in events he doesn't like, I don't have patience or compassion for people who are actually sick. I need to grow in this area. It is one of the only areas where people are in a bad circumstance, not because of anything they did, that I don't have compassion for. I'm sorry Doug. I'll try harder.

Jack is easy to please. Lift up the shirt and let him nurse. That is the only thing that has helped him rest and comforted him today. Needless to say, it is hard to get very much accomplished. I gave him Gatorade, he didn't like it. I keep trying to give it to him. Now when he sees it coming, he just pushes the bottle away. He really just doesn't like it.

So, the only thing worse than having sick kids is being sick while trying to take care of well kids. Hopefully that scenario is not in my future.

Sing the Friends Theme Song here..............


Did you sing it? I was going to type the words but they elude me at the moment.

I've been pondering friendship for about a month now. Not a particular friendship, but friends in general. Doug and I had recently been talking about moving to another state where we know no one. We have several groups of friends and it is very difficult to keep up. We are constantly making plans to spend time with people that we rarely see. Wishing we could spend more time with people. For example: we had at least 4 different invitations for Christmas Eve with different groups of people- some of them family and we had 3 possible places to spend New Year's Eve. These left us with difficult choices. We love all these people, but there is only so much time and energy to go around. (Not to mention the fact that we are both incredibly lazy home bodies who desperately need time to be left alone to chill.)

We spent both Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve with the same beloved group of people: our oldest friends. The friends that knew us before we were married, while we were in Amway, visited all three of our kids in the hospital. They worked with us and played with us for over 15 years now- we were 16 years old 15 years ago. Needless to say, they are special people to us. We rarely see them, usually once or twice a year. We always have a blast. We always say that we should get together more often. They always accept us no matter what crazy life choices we make. Their kids accept our kids into play like they are old, comfortable friends even though they rarely play together. I was sitting in the living room this morning taking all the love in the room in. I ( my husband and kids too) are unconditionally loved by these people- that is a rare thing, very rare. How can it be? We don't see them. We don't spend time with them. I don't get "it."

Like I said, I had already been thinking about friendship during the holiday season. I don't understand how friendships are really formed. I don't really understand how friendships are broken or how people drift apart. I don't understand how friends can be as close or closer than family. I don't understand why it is easy with some and difficult with others. I don't understand why some of the things I have in common with people are more or less important then other things I have in common with people. I don't understand how I'm supposed to divide my time to maintain the friendships that are all so important to me.

I know that I have lots of friends- good friends, good people. I know that I am loved. I know that I am accepted for who I am right now, who I used to be and whoever I might become.

I know that right now, on January 1, 2005............. I don't ever want to move away from Las Vegas because that's where my friends are.