Every Vote Counts

The 2008 election has come and gone. Obama’s supporters are celebrating their win. Propositions have been decided. All over I am hearing people say that their vote didn’t count because the person they wanted to win did not win. I can freely admit that I voted for McCain. I was devastated when he lost. I was even more devastated when they pretty much called the election before half of America’s votes were in. But, I do not feel that I voted in vain. My vote counted. The simple act of me going to the polls and drawing my little line in the arrows counted so much. People have died for my right to go into that booth and draw that line.

I must say, and this has never happened before… when I was in my little cardboard booth, I was suddenly overcome with such emotion. I can barely even describe it. I was elated. I had an almost uncontrollable urge to cry. I stood there for a few moments and prayed to God. I asked for his guidance in making the decisions I had to make. I know in my heart I chose the right things. Most of the things I voted for won, some did not. That is ok. I am at peace with what I voted for. I thanked God for living in a country where I had a say in how my life would be lived.

How did you feel on election day? Were you an emotional sap like me?

Halloween Fun

This year I decided to go ahead and lift the ban on Halloween. My girls were ecstatic. Even Will, Mr.-I-Will-Never-Celebrate-Halloween handed out candy while I took the girls trick or treating. We allowed Dani to go to her friend’s house, dress up and go out with her friends for the night. Well, not the whole night. She was home by 8:30. She did say that she had the best night of her life, thanked us profusely for allowing her to go out, and has been a little more tolerable after we let her go out. 

The kids got so much candy. Dani’s bag broke. We have more candy in this house than it would be humanly possible for us to all eat!

Here are a few pictures:

Dani’s on the left of this one.

Things May Be Starting to Look Up Around Here

I received a phone call today that has the potential of making my life a little easier. It seems that a certain man that owes me a grip load of money filed a personal injury lawsuit and is getting ready to settle. My lawyers filed a federal lien against it and if everything goes my way then I should have a check in my hot little hands within 45 days.

Oh

My

God!

Now as my lawyer informed me, there is always a chance that it may not go my way. My lawyer is setting for an amount that is slightly less than the total owed right now but his lawyer is still contesting part of the amount he owes. See, he owes a X amount in principal and X amount in interest. The lawyer is contesting the interest. So, we have to wait to see which way the judge rules. The other thing my lawyer warned me about is that once I get my part, his lawyer gets his and my lawyer gets his, he will be left with just about nothing. My lawyer said that if he wants to be vindictive he could just walk away from the whole thing and not allow me one red cent. I can see that happening, too. If he were smart, he would just allow it to all go through and get me paid off. Of course, he still will owe me for future months, but at least this monkey will be off his back.

I just have to put it to God. If it is meant for me to have it, then I will. If not… well I have gone this long without anything and I guess I can go longer.

Keep your fingers crossed, prayers said, fairy dust sprinkled…whatever type of good vibes you can send my way. This seriously has the potential of doing such good for my family right now. I would be able to become completely debt free and then maybe have enough to put a down payment on a house. Not a huge lavish one. Not something I can’t handle. But still, a house. That is my dream.

Is it ok to vote for a candidate purely based on race?

Ok guys, I’m not going to get all political or push my views on you or anything like that, but I have to tell you about something troubling that I overheard at work.

There is a nurse there that I really like. She’s very caring, sweet, smart and we get along really well. She’s black, but I never really thought of her as having any type of anti-white views.

Another nurse asked her who she was voting for this election. I know, a big no-no in the workplace, right?

My friend: Obama, of course. You should know that.

Other nurse: No, I didn’t know that. Why Obama?

My friend: Are you kidding me? Because he’s black.

(Yes, she actually said that which made my jaw drop.)

Other nurse: Ok, but beside the fact that he’s black, what is it about him? What issues are you agreeing on?

My friend: It doesn’t matter. He’s black.

Other nurse: Do you even know what issues he stands for?

My friend: Nope. He’s black. That’s what matters.

The other nurse just left it at that, and walked away. My friend didn’t talk to her for five days.

Now my question to you is this… why is it ok for someone to say, “I’m voting for Obama because he’s black” and have that be ok, but if I say “I’m not voting for Obama because he’s black or I’m voting for McCain because he’s white” then I would be called a racist? Of course, that’s not the reason I’m not voting for Obama, but you know what I mean, right?

I’m left feeling sad about this. How many people are going to the voting polls and voting this year purely based on color or sex? There will be those that vote Obama because he’s black, McCain because he’s white, McCain because he’s got a female running mate, Obama because he’s got a male running mate… so many people aren’t looking at the issues. I thought we were trying to change all of that?

Guess who finally lost her 3rd tooth?

She lost it two nights ago. Her first two lost teeth, the bottom front, fell out last December, so it’s been almost a year now.

The Tooth Fairy almost dropped the ball, because a certain Mommy had to go to work that night and forgot to, um, remind the Tooth Fairy to take the tooth. So the Tooth Fairy had to sneak in the next morning to make the exchange while Alexis was brushing her teeth. Whew!

“I Want….” Wednesday #1

I want 20 lbs to be magically sucked out of my body. In the right places, of course. Nothing would be worse than to have it be sucked from my boobs only.

I want a bigger house. Three bedrooms for my husband and myself, one 6 year old princess, one 13 year old rebelling teen and one 11 year old in-between forgotten about but good child is just not big enough.

I want more money. I have to have enough money to make sure that I can have Danielle and Alexis’ birthday party the weekend before Christmas and still be able to give the girls a good Christmas. What was I thinking of when I opened my legs in March when I got pregnant with both of them? What was God thinking of when he gave them to me on the same day (although 7 years apart?)

I want a big fat piece of New York Cheesecake.I know that is counterproductive when I want 20 lbs of fat sucked out, but hey… it’s my want, ok?

Not going to bitch today

I logged into WordPress today and was going to write a rant about coming home from work and none of the kids being ready for school yet.

Then I received a disturbing, heartbreaking email from a dear friend and realized that my problems are so petty. What do I have to complain about when others are hurting in such worse ways? I have so much to be thankful for.

So that’s it. I will not write one word of complaint here today. Instead I will sit back and count my blessings.

Thank you God.

Why is it?

Does your husband do this to you? My husband will rant and rave at me over the smallest of things which I normally don’t even have any control over and usually results in him hanging up on me or storming out of a room and yet I am expected to just get over it. But this morning I called him at 7:40am as I was getting off work to make sure that the kids were awake and dressed for school. They were all still in bed. I asked him why they weren’t awake. Why weren’t they dressed? He said he thought I did all of that. They catch the bus at 8:10. How are they going to be ready? Now, not once did I raise my voice. I was talking to him as I was carrying two armful loads of stuff to my car while also trying to wrestle my keys out of my pocket. I hung up with him quickly, but not before saying, “Ok, please get them up and I’ll be home in 5 minutes.” Then I hung up.

When I got in the door I made sure the girls were indeed getting ready for school. They were. I walked into my bedroom and my hubby was laying in bed. I ever so sweetly said, “Good morning baby. How are you? Did you sleep well?” I got no response. Again I asked him how he was. I then got a guilt trip about how I screamed at him over the phone and ruined his morning because I gave him a screaming wake up call.

Ok where was I during this exchange?

I explained to him that I did not yell at him, I was not mad at him, I did not scream at him. I was just concerned because the kids were not awake yet. That wasn’t good enough. Holy hell.

You know, this has happened more and more lately. He thinks I am yelling at him, when I absolutely am not. Is it me? He is still walking around and sulking. Do any of your husbands have a bad case of PMS? Shoot, I don’t even get it as bad as him.

Six years of marriage? Holy cow!

 

Will and I just celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary this past weekend. I can’t believe it’s been that long already. Now, if you ask Will he’d tell you, “What? Only six years? It feels like forever!”

For our anniversary we went up to Sedona. We wanted to go to California to see where he grew up in East South Central L.A., but ended up running short on money. Then we decided to go to Vegas. But, we bought our van and used some of our savings to do that. So we settled on just going up north. We had no itinerary, no reservations, nothing. We just went. I’ve never done anything like that. I can’t tell you how free we felt. The girls spent the weekend with my sister so we were all by ourselves. That’s another thing that does not happen often.

Unfortunately, Will worked the Friday night/Saturday morning before we left so he was going up there on no sleep. This meant that I had to drive. Now, let me tell you a little something about me if you don’t know already. I have these insane fears. Fears of heights, fears large things, fears of open spaces, fears of enclosed spaces, fears of driving, fears of the unknown… hell, fears of about everything. Me having to drive the entire way up there was a major thing. I have never done it before. After this trip I don’t think I will ever have to worry about that again. I loved driving. It was so beautiful. The weather was perfect.

We went into Sedona first, drove through Oak Creek Canyon and went to Slide Rock. Have you been to Slide Rock before? I haven’t been there since I was a kid. In my childhood we camped a couple times every year in Oak Creek Canyon and we would go to Slide Rock. I remember the Slide Rock of my childhood as being FULL of water. Not anymore. The water levels have really dropped. After Slide Rock we drove to the trout pond. My husband thought he remembered doing catch and release fishing there before. That also isn’t the same. It turns out you have to buy whatever you catch, and since we didn’t know if we were going to drive home that day or spend the night up there we didn’t want to chance stinking up our new van with rotten fish so we just left. Bummer.

We spent the majority of the day messing around in Sedona, then decided to drive to Jerome. My grandfather (my Dad’s dad) was born there. Will slept during the drive up there. Let me tell you, the roads to the mountain that Jerome is set into are very twisty and the drops off of it are very steep. It was fun! We got up into Jerome and toured Douglas mansion. We took tons of pictures. Finally it was time to go home. We opted to do that since by this point Will has been awake for over 24 hours.

It was a fun day, with no timelines, no demands, nothing to tie us down. I can’t wait to do it again!

Guess who’s back?

Wow, quite some time has elapsed since I last let my fingers do the talking here. I apologize. I have been a little uninspired, I guess. So many times I have sat here with wordpress opened, my fingers over the home row of my keyboard, and nothing came. It sucked. Fortunately some friends lit a small fire under my overly large booty and got me going again.

So, let’s see. What’s happened in the past month? Well, the girls have received their report cards. Dani actually brought her grades up from the last report card of last year. Of course, they are nowhere near what I would like them to be, but they have gone up, which tells me she is at least trying some this year. The new development with her that I am most proud of is that she is starting to get into a bible study group with a group of her peers at church. They meet at a Starbucks on Saturday nights and she really enjoys it. She went last weekend and will go again this weekend. I am hoping that she finds new friends there, and hopefully this goth period in her life will be phased out.

Desiree is doing extremely well in school. All of her grades were A’s or B’s except for her math which was a C. She struggles in math. Her teacher gushed over her. She said that Desiree is such a character, is always asking if there are things she can do to help in class and makes the class feel like a little family. I explained that is how both her 4th and 5th grade teachers ran their classrooms, so it was nice to see that Desiree is bringing it through to her new school. She never has attitude problems (at school), doesn’t talk out of turn, is respectful toward other kids and is just one of those good kids that teachers love to have. Oh! Desiree took a page out of my book and joined Drama. The meet every Wednesday after school and Desiree absolutely loves it. I never took her for a Drama type of girl. Dani or Alexis? Definitely. Desiree? Completely took my by surprise.

Alexis is also blowing her teacher away. She is at the top of her class and her teacher loves her. She said Alexis reminds her of her when she was young. She is an amazing reader and she just astonishes her teacher. The only place where she needs improvement is in writing. You know, sentence structures, remembering which punctuation goes where, stuff like that. She said Alexis is very quiet and a little sensitive. Sometimes Lexi will come in from recess and quietly cry at her desk over something that has happened on the playground. I know exactly what that is all about. It seems that there is a little girl named “A” who is Alexis’ best friend. They were doing just fine until another little girl named “E” entered the picture. As you all know three’s a crowd and their friendships are on again/off again. Every day Alexis would come home with a different story. One day A was her friend and the next day she wasn’t. Poor little Alexis is not able to handle friends who are like this. She is a very loyal type of person so the fact that one day A wants to be her friend and the next she wants to be only E’s friend really hurt Alexis. I told her teacher about this and she laughed and said there are 16 girls and 9 boys in her classroom. Everyday there is a huge dramatic blowout with the girls. Yikes!

All in all life is doing pretty good for me. I’m still working at the hospital, just got another raise (woo hoo!) and am adjusting to the night schedule just fine. Will got shifted to yet another position at work, but they gave him a raise again and he was able to quit his 2nd job. Thank the Lord! I now have my husband back. He works four days per week just as I do and we have two days off together. I’m loving it!