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We now have 1520 points!

Only 5730 more to go before we can get the video camera!

If you drink Coke and don't use the points, please enter the codes on the sidebar - you can put in up to five at a time.

Thanks for helping us out, and keep those codes coming!

Fish Swish Part Deux

Another moment of silence...





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.






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"Fish" the fish has passed on to fish-heaven.

A few words, flush, swish.

We are now fishless.

At least they lasted longer than the Stag Beetle!

Big Brother Scanners

Every day, Michael plays James Bond, 007.

He goes in and presses his hand to a scanner that identifies him by a percentage. It records the time he arrives. When he leaves, he does it again, and it records the time he goes home.

He thinks it's a cool toy, a great game.

I think it's creepy. And lots of people agree with me.

Is it excessive?

I understand that it makes payroll much easier. I did payroll by hand for a company once, and it was the biggest pain in my a** and the thing I hated most about the job (aside from my boss!) But can't we just use key-cards or something?

What's next? Why don't we just put barcode tattoos on the backs of our necks, or maybe they'd like us to give a drop of blood every time we go into work?

It might be "fun" now... but it feels like a creepy slippery slope to me.

Thursday Thirteen #24: 13 Aces

13 Aces

1. Ace Hardware

2. Ace of Cakes

3. Ace bandage

4. Ace Ventura: Pet Detective

5. The Flying Ace (Red Baron)

6. Ace Frehley

7. Ace Young

8. Smokin' Aces

9. Ace in the hole

10. Ace of Bass


11. ACES (Adoption Coalition for Education and Support)
12. ACES (Applied Credits for Environmental Sustainability)
13. Mysp ACE

SEE MORE THURSDAY THIRTEENS HERE!

Wordless Wednesday: March 26, 2008

See more Wordless Wednesdays here!

Six Year Old Kisses & Underwear

Stop.

The.

Insanity.

A school suspended a six year old for kissing a second grader on the bus.

Yeah. Okay. This whole "zero tolerance" thing has gone way beyond any sort of common sense.

Just a few weeks ago, Zoe had an accident at school. They didn't call me - instead they just put a note in her backpack, changed her into the school's "spare" size 6X set of pants and underwear, and asked me to wash and return them in the note. Which was fine.

Except Zoe was going through her backpack on the bus and her underwear fell out. The bus driver found them, and she made a big deal of coming out to talk to me about it. When Zoe explained she'd had an accident in school, the bus driver backed down and said, "Oh, she didn't tell me that."

Did she think Zoe was flashing the other kids? What?

It just seems to me that the first reaction nowadays from schools (and anyone involved with schools) is an overreaction. Instead of using their heads, they let their fear lead them. A six year old kisses a second grader, a pair of underwear is found on the bus, and all of a sudden bells and whistles are going off? I understand being a mandatory reporter, and of course, if you discover real abuse, you should do something.

But something like this? Come on...

Life is complicated enough for adults, never mind the kids, without adding this sort of suspicion and stress. And when the adults in their world suddenly become wary of everything... it definitely makes things pretty confusing and bewildering for a six-year-old.

The Traditional Easter ATV

We had all the traditional stuff this year for Easter...

The baskets...



The sidewalk chalk...



The hunting for eggs...



The ATVS...



What, you didn't know ATV's were part of the Easter tradition?



Thanks, Grandma! :)

Health Care

This whole health care thing is absolutely ridiculous. How is your basic health not considered an inalienable right? In spite of his bias, Michael Moore presents an interesting argument in Sicko - free, universal health care for all; insurance companies abolished, and pharmaceutical companies strictly regulated.

That would be a government worth paying taxes to, frankly. The thought that our hard-earned money went to buy $5000 government hammers? Let me just say, I have an idea of what to do with that hammer...

The littles brought home a nice surprise from school for Easter - strep throat! They got low-grade fevers and a cough, but me? I got strep. Thanks, school! So within two days, I was shivering under the covers and begging Michael to kill me. Just kill me now! I'd rather do labor again - four times! - than have strep throat.

And of course, this is two weeks before our insurance kicks in at Michael's new job. Isn't that nice? So I had to call our little local town doc and make an appointment. They got me in right away, thankfully. She decided not to do a throat culture (if it walks like a duck, and quacks like duck... hell, I could have told you that, and I didn't have to spend eight years in medical school!)

That little office visit? $88.00 Granted, back in the suburbs, it probably would have been $120. What a bargain we got, right? They let me pay $20 on it, and now I have a balance I have to pay...

Then, there was the prescription. I asked her to write something cheap, and she did. When I called our little local pharmacy to check the price, they asked, "You mean your price, without insurance?" Right. Because, of course, there's a vast difference between what they charge me and what they charge Blue Cross. Their price to Blue Cross or HAP would have been double - maybe more. But for me, it was $12.95.

So now I'm mending. Antibiotics really are wonderful things. How in the world did people ever live with things like strep throat in the past? Infections that just grew worse and worse... the pain is incredible. The fever is completely debilitating, and makes every bone in your body ache. I can't even imagine not having some sort of treatment for something so awful.

But it happened then, and it still happens now. People literally can't afford to go to the doctor to get a prescription for the medication they need. And this is just basic health care. This doesn't even touch the biggies, like cancer!

What is wrong with this country!?

I Object!

They're going to write a "prequel" to Anne of Green Gables. Come ON, people! This never works, you know. The sequel to Gone with the Wind? Sucked! And the V.C. Andrews books were never the same after the old lady kicked it.

I object! Leave Anne alone!

Another objection today - people whose minds are in the gutter. A woman called a local news outlet because her daughter's bendy straws "looked like something"...

What do you think?



Are we playing straw Rorshach? Bells, perhaps? A ten gallon hat?

Why hasn't anyone complained about the Arby's commercials, then, huh?

Fish Swish

We now observe a moment of silence...



.





.





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Stefanie (the fish) is dead.



We said a few words.



We cried a few tears.



We flushed.


The great circle of life goes on...

Wordless Wednesday: March 18, 2008

More Wordless Wednesdays HERE!

Lifestyle Choices

Sometimes I think women are going to "choice" themselves to death.

Literally.

Look, I'm all for equal pay for equal work, no more glass ceilings, a woman's right to choose, a woman in the white house, etc.

But when it comes to feminists trying to flip the patriarchy on its head, denouncing everything that is feminINE about being a woman (did they forget the "femi" part of the equation here?) I just have to draw some sort of line.

Men and women are different. Women have different biological functions and cutting those off entirely it a bad idea - biologically alone, let alone what it does psychologically to women and to the culture.

The feminist idea of demanding things be more "equal" can often get twisted into something truly bad for womenkind.

Women actually campaigned for the right to have pain-free childbirths (based on the Biblical idea that pain during birth was Eve's "punishment" for taking that apple) and what did they get? Scopalomine - "twilight sleep" - where women (and subsequently babies) were drugged up so much that laboring women had to be strapped down and blindfolded so they wouldn't hurt themselves or someone else, and babies had to be delivered by forceps and nurses exerting incredible force via a woman's abdomen.

Better for women? I just don't think so.

Women demanded birth control - and it showed up in the 60's in the form of "the pill." The dangers of tampering with your hormones over time have been proven in cancer studies again and again. Yet we still offer this little convenience (and have yet to develop one for men, you'll note) along with all the hormone replacement therapy we give women to "control" their menopause symptoms (also now being proven to cause cancer in studies). And an added bonus... those hormones are now showing up in our water systems...

Better for women? I don't know...

Women also wanted to be able to "forget" about that monthly inconvenience of having a period. Pads were improved. Tampons were introduced. (Nevermind that the toxic substances in them are harmful and they are filling our oceans with plastic applicators...) Now women want to be able to only have one period every quarter - like that annoying quarterly report you have to compile for work. Just business, right? Except, as the dangers of the pill and hormone replacement therapy above have shown... altering your body's natural cycles doesn't come without a price.

Good for women? Ya think?

I don't see being female or everything that comes with it - menstruation, giving birth, menopause - as an "inconvenience." It's part of who I am, and in fact, the differences between men and women should be stressed more and women should be given consideration for being women. Instead, we have a culture that keeps trying to make women into men - denying their basic biological functions instead of celebrating and honoring them.

Instead of women demanding elective cesareans because they've been so brainwashed into believing childbirth is too painful to be borne by a culture obsessed with painless existence (can you say Prozac?) women should be demanding the right to the higher standard of care (proven in evidence-based studies) given by midwives in whatever setting they choose.

And what about giving extended paid maternity leave, more sick time for women with children, offering mainstream natural alternatives to the pill, hormone replacement therapy, tampons, etc. There are too many women out there who do what their mothers did, or their sisters or friends do, because they don't know there are alternatives that would be better for them, their environment, and their children.

Feminists say we've come a long way, baby... well, maybe. But for my money, I'll acknowledge that distance when, instead of denying their basic femininity and demanding "relief" from their monthly menstrual cycles, women start demanding three days off every month during their period.

Nobody Promised You...

We had to buy propane. Again. For the third time this winter. Buying this stuff in bulk is killing our budget. *sigh*

Whose idea was it again, to build our houses out of sticks and heat them with non-renewable energy sources? Because if I had the guy in front of me right now, I'd hit him so hard his grandchildren would feel it.

I keep telling myself, spring is almost here... almost here! The snow is finally melting, and I've got lots and lots of seeds ready for the garden. I'm starting some of them indoors this week so I can transplant them later (Michael is hanging up a full spectrum light in the laundry room over a table so I can start planting inside) and we're looking into square foot gardening. A friend sent me the book, which I think is a brilliant idea.

So M's got to build a chicken coop, bee hives, and raised beds for the garden... as soon as the ground unfreezes. While working 40+ hours a week. Eek!

A few weeks ago, he actually had a 60 hour work week... and got paid for 40. Nice, huh? He started out real slow, they gave him a few intakes, a few cases... then one of their employees went on medical leave and they dropped 70 clients in his lap at once. Which would have been bad enough. But then they had an audit (meaning, all the charts had to be updated before then, or they wouldn't get paid) coming up the following Monday!

And since this person who left on medical leave was already not feeling well before they left, the charts were all an absolute mess. So M was left to clean it all up, on a system he was just learning to begin with, and spent sixty hours of his time doing that (plus all his own work) and even went in on a SUNDAY. Just typing that sets my teeth on edge. GRR.

Another lesson in "Who said life was fair?" I suppose. Nobody promised me a rose garden, I know... but hey... a few roses now and again? That would be nice!

Something Fishy

I started organic gardening lessons, I purchased more seeds and gardening supplies, we're ordering our bees and chickens this week... spring is on the way!

We took the littles to the school winter carnival (we still have six inches of snow on the ground... but I'm thinking spring anyway!) and they won two goldfish.

Stefanie (that's Zoe's - that's the big one) and Fish (that's Dmitri's, the little one). We had to improvise a fish bowl, since we didn't have one - and who knew Walgreen's sold fish food!? Boo-yah!

p.s. We're still saving up our Coke Rewards points for a video camera. Thanks to the eight of you who donated codes! Keep them coming, please! Our total Coke points total is now 1163! Only 6,087 to go!