I finally have a minute to sit down and post a blog and actually feel compelled to do so! It's the perfect storm, let me tell you.
So, August was a pretty busy month for us. My family came to visit, we had Garrett's birthday party and my cousin got married, all over the same weekend. Garrett did much better than I expected as a ring bearer. He also now thinks every day is his birthday and all packages that come in the mail are presents for him. It doesn't help that we celebrated a month early and then the 3 of us celebrated again on his actual birthday. We've also been to the Ringling Brothers Circus, Dallas Aquarium, saw 2 more movies in the theater, had a few play dates with friends, and started back to Mother's Day Out/Preschool (depending on the name you want to give that program. I say for 3 year olds it's MDO, but once he's 4/5 then I will call it Preschool.) This was all in the past 4 weeks, so it's been a busy, but productive, month for us.
Today we had the big 3 year doctor check-up. My child is very hot/cold. One minute he's crying and literally sliding down the back of his chair in the office when the doctor walks in and the next minute he's handing him a coloring sheet that he had been working on. He sat on the exam table and was very cooperative throughout the entire check up after his initial meltdown. At one point he even looked at me and said "I good boy, Momma!". Of course that might have had something to do with the icecream that I promised him if he behaved himself.
I'm sorry, did I just say that? I would never condone bribing a small child. It's just not done.
Thank goodness that we didn't have any shots this go around! Of course the doctor warned me that next year at the 4 year check up, it will not be pretty. He actually promoted bribery for that checkup, saying "Maybe you should have something special planned once you leave here." That does NOT sound good at all!
I'm not a political pundit, but I found myself watching the RNC the other night when Sarah Palin spoke. I had never before heard her name, so the speech was a good introduction to who she is and let me just say that I was really impressed. But first, I have to say that I want this teen pregnancy issue to be taken off the table. The choices that her 17 year old daughter makes cannot have any bearing on the type of person or parent that Palin is. I say that because, while I was a pretty good teenager, I would never have wanted anything that I did to reflect badly on my parents (namely my dad who is a pastor) because they did most everything right (of course all parents make mistakes, I know I sure do). I'm sure Bristol Palin does not want her choices to reflect badly on her mom. She's adult enough to know that having sex can sometimes result in pregnancy even if you take all the precautions that are available. She could have gone out and had an abortion without her parents ever knowing, but she didn't. That right there is what speaks volumes of the Palin's parenting.
Ok, so I said I wanted this issue taken off the table and then proceeded to talk about it, sorry. How many of you (ladies especially) squealed with delight and had a huge grin on your face when you saw the littlest Palin daughter lick her hand and slick down baby Palin's hair??! I loved it!! So cute and so real. What a little sweetheart, both of them! I would get a kick out of watching Sarah Palin reviewing that footage! Let me just say that seeing that precious little Down-syndrome baby squeezed my heart and choked me up. Could I love the Palin kids any more than I already do? I think I'm just a softy when it comes to big families. Of course those kids have no bearings on whether or not their mom (or McCain) are the ones to vote for so I hope nobody votes based on them. However they definitely made Palin more "real" to me. And Palin in turn made McCain more appealing. I had no plans to go out and vote for Obama, but now I feel actually compelled to vote for McCain/Palin rather than allow apathy to swallow me and keep me from the polls come November.
I've got to add that if Obama and Biden didn't consider McCain a real threat before, you can bet they do now. And I cannot wait for the VP debates! Yes, I realize that Palin was reading a teleprompter rather than thinking on her feet during the speech, but everyone should be in agreement with me if you watched McCain last night, teleprompter reading is not something that comes natural to most. Palin obviously knows how to atleast read with inflection and (I think) will hold her own just fine against Biden.
Yesterday morning I dropped my son off at MDO and came home to kill some time before my hair appointment. So I flicked on the TV and turned it to the only talk show that was on (no cable here!) at that time. Unfortunately for me it was "The View" and double unfortunately, Elisabeth Hasslebeck (the show's token Republican) wasn't there! You would think that those women would actually have been impressed with Palin. Women's rights and all that jazz, but apparently the Republican label trumps estrogen and those women ripped her to shreds.
From Palin's criticism of Obama's community service ("Obama graduated from Harvard and could have done many other things, but chose to 'give back' to his community instead. That's noble and not something to be made fun of." Yes, Sherri Shepard, it's noble, but not something that should go on the resume of a presidential hopeful. Hence Palin's point in bringing it up as something that does little to give Obama the experience he needs to be president.) to the pregnant teenage daughter (I won't go there again, promise!). I could only stomach about 10 minutes of it before I had to turn it off. Then I later heard on the radio someone say "Republicans are against teen pregnancy, but now that there's a candidate with a pregnant teen, they act as if there's nothing wrong with it." Umm, maybe I missed the Republican memo that came out saying we're "against" teen pregnancy. How is one against teen pregnancy exactly? Especially when the Republican party is against abortions. You can't be against abortion AND against pregnancy. Yes, Republicans preach and support abstinance and are usually against sex education in the schools, but I don't see how that equals being against pregnant teens. Yes, I know, we don't *want* girls to get pregnant at a young age. It's not good for them and a lot of the time can result in the babies being raised in a less than ideal environment. But it's very frustrating to hear all these appearingly uninformed people making statements that are certainly not based on facts.
I know that this goes both ways with Republicans making uninformed statements in reference to all-things Democrat. But all this is more reason behind my 'head-in-the-sand' mentality. The backbiting and namecalling grates on you after awhile. I just don't see how politicians can live in that world.
Ok, so in closing, please vote for me. No, that's not right. I promise I will attempt to post more frequently now that Garrett is back in MDO. I'm in the beginning stages of planning to start a blog elsewhere, so once that is a done deal, I will let you know where you can find me.
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Friday, September 5, 2008
Monday, April 28, 2008
Purely Random
~For some reason I've been really into watching "American Idol" this season. I can't remember a previous season where I have watched as closely as I have this one. I really love David Cook's singing and his ability to make every song his own. He's super talented. If you're a child of the 80's/90's like I am and Mariah Carey's song "Always Be My Baby" was one you listened to frequently, you should definitely find the video of David Cook singing his version of this song on YouTube. It was awesome and better than the original! I actually downloaded it on iTunes because I loved it so much.
~Garrett has pooped in the potty atleast 3 times in the past 4 days! All on his own. He just strips off his clothes, climbs onto the toilet, does the deal, flushes and then comes to me and says "I potty on the potty!" I won't tell you how I know what he's actually done since he does flush, but trust me, there's definite proof. He's so proud of himself and frankly, so am I. That's 3 less poopy diapers for me to change. Apparently he's on course to potty train himself!
~Keith and I had another date night on Friday. We didn't really have anything planned, but I knew that I needed some alone time after the week of sickness that we endured. So we dropped Garrett off at the church nursery and went to eat. Our favorite restaurant is Texas Roadhouse. It's been awhile since we've eaten there so that's where we headed. It was packed! They have a pretty big parking lot and every single space was full, not to mention the people who just parked in random places all over. We didn't even attempt to go inside and see how long of a wait they had. We went to Saltgrass Steakhouse after that and found that they had a 30 minute wait so we left there and went to Red Lobster where we got a table right away. We were really wanting a steak, but crab cakes are a good second choice. By the time we finished eating it was already after 8:00 so we went back and picked up Garrett. It wasn't much of a date, but it's always nice to eat out without your kid(s)!
~Garrett has been calling his tricycle a "mycycle" and I couldn't figure out why. Until the other day. Keith mentioned that he has been teaching him to call it a motorcycle while I've been referring to it as a tricycle, so Garrett's name for it is a mycycle.
~One month from today we leave to drive up to Indiana for a visit with my family and to attend my brother Jesse's high school graduation. I haven't seen my parents since December so I am really looking forward to it. The 14 hour drive may not be wonderful, but we plan to break it up into 2 easy days and find a hotel with a pool where we can enjoy ourselves. We're also going to eat at Lambert's in Sikeston, Missouri. Lambert's is the home of throwed rolls for those of you who aren't familiar with it. (Yes, I said "throwed" because that's their slogan, it's even their website because I double checked myself. throwedrolls.com) The food is awesome and catching your rolls is an experience that everyone should enjoy at some point in their lives. Keith and Garrett have never eaten there, so I look forward to sharing this part of my childhood with them. If any of you are ever in that area you must stop there and eat!
~Does anyone have any tips for 2 year olds who talk back to their parents? Every single time that I get onto Garrett for something, he talks back to me. For example, I tell him to calm down, he tells me to calm down, I tell him no, he tells me no, I tell him to hush, he tells me to hush. It's not like he's just playing a parrot game where he repeats everything I say because he gets a little attitude with it, plus he's thrown in attempting to spank me or swat my hand when I do either of those things to him. It's so frustrating! Some say to ignore it and eventually he'll stop, others say to stay on top of it so it doesn't escalate to worse when he's older. My fear is to raise a hooligan for a child, so I would rather err on the side of extra discipline than no discipline at all, but I also don't want to go overboard. Parenting is tough and it's not getting any easier. (Yeah, that's a big understatement!)
~I rented the movie "And Then There Were None" last week through our Blockbuster queue. It's an old movie that's based on a book with the same name by Agatha Christie. I think the book's original title was "Ten Little Indians", but it was changed at some point. I read that book years ago and loved it but I had never seen the movie. With this Blockbuster online membership it's given us a lot of access to movies that you can't always find in stores. It's a black and white movie and it was very good, but it's so funny to see the difference between movies from the 1940's to present day. There's no gore, but instead the music is used to make you imagine what's going on. It was a good movie, but the book was definitely better. It's funny how you picture something in your mind and then you see it portrayed in a movie, it's completely different than your mental image. I do that all the time when I've read a book and then seen the movie. They never quite do it justice.
~I'm interested to see the outcome of this presidential race come November. While I am typically a Republican, I feel pretty strongly that this election will favor the Democrats. Keith and I debate over who is the lesser of the two evils, Hillary or Barack. (That's not to say that John McCain is wonderful, but I don't think he stands much of a chance at becoming our next president, so I'm not talking about him right now.) I used to feel that Barack would probably be the better of the two, but I'm now swinging the other way the more I see and hear about him. Atleast with Hillary we would know what we're getting, as much as I despise her and her husband, I doubt she will be much different than good ole' Willy was as a president. Whereas Barack is very much an unknown. He doesn't have a record in politics to look back on and get an idea of what to expect from him as Commander in Chief. I guess we'll see what happens once somebody finally is chosen for the Democrats. It should be an interesting race to the White House.
~Garrett has pooped in the potty atleast 3 times in the past 4 days! All on his own. He just strips off his clothes, climbs onto the toilet, does the deal, flushes and then comes to me and says "I potty on the potty!" I won't tell you how I know what he's actually done since he does flush, but trust me, there's definite proof. He's so proud of himself and frankly, so am I. That's 3 less poopy diapers for me to change. Apparently he's on course to potty train himself!
~Keith and I had another date night on Friday. We didn't really have anything planned, but I knew that I needed some alone time after the week of sickness that we endured. So we dropped Garrett off at the church nursery and went to eat. Our favorite restaurant is Texas Roadhouse. It's been awhile since we've eaten there so that's where we headed. It was packed! They have a pretty big parking lot and every single space was full, not to mention the people who just parked in random places all over. We didn't even attempt to go inside and see how long of a wait they had. We went to Saltgrass Steakhouse after that and found that they had a 30 minute wait so we left there and went to Red Lobster where we got a table right away. We were really wanting a steak, but crab cakes are a good second choice. By the time we finished eating it was already after 8:00 so we went back and picked up Garrett. It wasn't much of a date, but it's always nice to eat out without your kid(s)!
~Garrett has been calling his tricycle a "mycycle" and I couldn't figure out why. Until the other day. Keith mentioned that he has been teaching him to call it a motorcycle while I've been referring to it as a tricycle, so Garrett's name for it is a mycycle.
~One month from today we leave to drive up to Indiana for a visit with my family and to attend my brother Jesse's high school graduation. I haven't seen my parents since December so I am really looking forward to it. The 14 hour drive may not be wonderful, but we plan to break it up into 2 easy days and find a hotel with a pool where we can enjoy ourselves. We're also going to eat at Lambert's in Sikeston, Missouri. Lambert's is the home of throwed rolls for those of you who aren't familiar with it. (Yes, I said "throwed" because that's their slogan, it's even their website because I double checked myself. throwedrolls.com) The food is awesome and catching your rolls is an experience that everyone should enjoy at some point in their lives. Keith and Garrett have never eaten there, so I look forward to sharing this part of my childhood with them. If any of you are ever in that area you must stop there and eat!
~Does anyone have any tips for 2 year olds who talk back to their parents? Every single time that I get onto Garrett for something, he talks back to me. For example, I tell him to calm down, he tells me to calm down, I tell him no, he tells me no, I tell him to hush, he tells me to hush. It's not like he's just playing a parrot game where he repeats everything I say because he gets a little attitude with it, plus he's thrown in attempting to spank me or swat my hand when I do either of those things to him. It's so frustrating! Some say to ignore it and eventually he'll stop, others say to stay on top of it so it doesn't escalate to worse when he's older. My fear is to raise a hooligan for a child, so I would rather err on the side of extra discipline than no discipline at all, but I also don't want to go overboard. Parenting is tough and it's not getting any easier. (Yeah, that's a big understatement!)
~I rented the movie "And Then There Were None" last week through our Blockbuster queue. It's an old movie that's based on a book with the same name by Agatha Christie. I think the book's original title was "Ten Little Indians", but it was changed at some point. I read that book years ago and loved it but I had never seen the movie. With this Blockbuster online membership it's given us a lot of access to movies that you can't always find in stores. It's a black and white movie and it was very good, but it's so funny to see the difference between movies from the 1940's to present day. There's no gore, but instead the music is used to make you imagine what's going on. It was a good movie, but the book was definitely better. It's funny how you picture something in your mind and then you see it portrayed in a movie, it's completely different than your mental image. I do that all the time when I've read a book and then seen the movie. They never quite do it justice.
~I'm interested to see the outcome of this presidential race come November. While I am typically a Republican, I feel pretty strongly that this election will favor the Democrats. Keith and I debate over who is the lesser of the two evils, Hillary or Barack. (That's not to say that John McCain is wonderful, but I don't think he stands much of a chance at becoming our next president, so I'm not talking about him right now.) I used to feel that Barack would probably be the better of the two, but I'm now swinging the other way the more I see and hear about him. Atleast with Hillary we would know what we're getting, as much as I despise her and her husband, I doubt she will be much different than good ole' Willy was as a president. Whereas Barack is very much an unknown. He doesn't have a record in politics to look back on and get an idea of what to expect from him as Commander in Chief. I guess we'll see what happens once somebody finally is chosen for the Democrats. It should be an interesting race to the White House.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Politics
Today I went to this site~http://www.wqad.com/Global/link.asp?L=259460~and took their quiz for the candidate who comes the closest to agreeing with me on the "important" issues.
First off, I took the quiz twice because I accidentally closed it down before I had the chance to really study my results. The second time I took it, my results were different, so either I changed my answers on some of these questions or something screwed up, but the first time I took it, I matched the closest with John McCain, the second time I took it, I matched with Mitt Romney. Not too much of a difference, but they are different people so if I'm going to use the results of a website quiz in order to determine who I need to vote for, then I need some consistency!
Of course I'm not really going to base my vote on what a website says, but I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who do. The one thing that did stay the same in my results was that I'm more compatible with Clinton than Obama, which I found interesting because I think if I was forced at gunpoint to choose one of them, I would probably pick Obama (or maybe death because I'm so radically different from either one of them).
The questions that this quiz deems important were pretty interesting. The way they were worded confused me somewhat, so, while I may have answered one way, my real answer may have been different if the question was more clear. I've also never really sat down and contemplated some of these questions, so it showed me that I really need to think about these issues more. I don't know what my opinion is on immigration. I should have one since I live in Texas where the English language is becoming extinct, but I worked for 4 years with ESL students, many of which had parents who were here illegally. Having faces and names makes the situation a little different. I don't think our country should be a free for all where anyone and everyone can come, take part in free education, free healthcare, sometimes even earning Social Security, and yet never learn English or take the time to try. If you're going to live here, speak the language, don't expect everyone to be able to accomodate you.
I also have no idea what to think about universal health care. I'm of the mindset that it's probably not going to be for the best. And that's hard for me to admit because I'm about to lose my current insurance and pay double what I was paying for sub-par coverage, so in that respect it would be nice to have something available from the government. But I think it would result in the medical community becoming very lax as well as yards and yards of redtape in order to get the treatments necessary for what ails you (ie a hangnail).
Of course there's also the standard questions about abortion (against), death penalty (for), gun control (against), but then there's a question about line-item vetoes and whether or not the President should be able to veto one thing out of a bill without vetoing the whole bill. Is this really a big issue? And if so, why? Why does it matter if a president wants to veto one thing but allow the rest of the bill to pass? I guess I'm living in my own little world since I'm not seeing the need for including this in a quiz about politics.
The last question I found to be very interesting. It states "Should teachers receive pay based on the performance of their students". Why would someone think this should be how teachers are paid? Don't we realize that there are many, many students who are not going to be successful in the classroom regardless of who their teacher is? They could have Mrs. Polly Perfect who does absolutely everything the way she should, including spending hours of her own time tutoring, and yet the child would fail at the end of the year. That's just how people are. Paying teachers based on their students' performance is just wrong and backwards. That would be like paying my husband, the auditor, based on how successful his clients are. All businesses need an accountant, whether they're a multi-billion dollar business, or barely breaking even, he's still going to help them with their books and his pay should not be based on their success or lack thereof. The same goes for students, all of them need teachers, some are going to be successful if a cat was teaching them and others won't be successful no matter what happens. On that issue is where I guess I would vote for Obama or Ron Paul, they're apparently the only ones that agree with me, which is sad.
I honestly don't know who I will vote for. I'm 99.9% sure that I will be voting Republican (atleast for the Presidential election). Not because I'm someone who will only vote for a candidate based on their party affiliation, but because Republicans most often believe what I do on many issues. I wish there was a candidate out there who I agreed with 100% on everything, but that isn't the case. I just have to decide what things are the "most important" to me and what will impact my family the hardest, along with who do I feel would do the best from God's perspective. Yes, I know that many believe in the separation of church and state, but I'm not ok with electing someone who will systematically take away our freedom of religion. That's typically not an issue deemed worthy for these quizzes, but it is important to me. I find it laughable that we have court cases going all the way to the Supreme Court in regards to whether or not we should take "under God" out of our pledge, or if it's ok for a student to pray in school or at school functions. I'll tell you this, if my child(ren) decides to pray in school or before a school function and someone tries to sue us, I will be livid! Because they are infringing on his freedom of religion, if you don't want to hear it, then cover your ears. He isn't a paid school official doing it with the blessing of the school district, he's a student, doing something he feels lead to do. I wouldn't sue someone for saying a "Hail Mary" in front of me. I'm not Catholic, but if they feel the need to recite that, then they can go right ahead, they won't be offending me one bit. (Off soapbox)
I would love it if we were somehow able to get to know these politicians on a more personal level before we had to elect them to run our country for 4-8 years. But unless they're willing to come over for supper, I don't see that happening.
First off, I took the quiz twice because I accidentally closed it down before I had the chance to really study my results. The second time I took it, my results were different, so either I changed my answers on some of these questions or something screwed up, but the first time I took it, I matched the closest with John McCain, the second time I took it, I matched with Mitt Romney. Not too much of a difference, but they are different people so if I'm going to use the results of a website quiz in order to determine who I need to vote for, then I need some consistency!
Of course I'm not really going to base my vote on what a website says, but I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who do. The one thing that did stay the same in my results was that I'm more compatible with Clinton than Obama, which I found interesting because I think if I was forced at gunpoint to choose one of them, I would probably pick Obama (or maybe death because I'm so radically different from either one of them).
The questions that this quiz deems important were pretty interesting. The way they were worded confused me somewhat, so, while I may have answered one way, my real answer may have been different if the question was more clear. I've also never really sat down and contemplated some of these questions, so it showed me that I really need to think about these issues more. I don't know what my opinion is on immigration. I should have one since I live in Texas where the English language is becoming extinct, but I worked for 4 years with ESL students, many of which had parents who were here illegally. Having faces and names makes the situation a little different. I don't think our country should be a free for all where anyone and everyone can come, take part in free education, free healthcare, sometimes even earning Social Security, and yet never learn English or take the time to try. If you're going to live here, speak the language, don't expect everyone to be able to accomodate you.
I also have no idea what to think about universal health care. I'm of the mindset that it's probably not going to be for the best. And that's hard for me to admit because I'm about to lose my current insurance and pay double what I was paying for sub-par coverage, so in that respect it would be nice to have something available from the government. But I think it would result in the medical community becoming very lax as well as yards and yards of redtape in order to get the treatments necessary for what ails you (ie a hangnail).
Of course there's also the standard questions about abortion (against), death penalty (for), gun control (against), but then there's a question about line-item vetoes and whether or not the President should be able to veto one thing out of a bill without vetoing the whole bill. Is this really a big issue? And if so, why? Why does it matter if a president wants to veto one thing but allow the rest of the bill to pass? I guess I'm living in my own little world since I'm not seeing the need for including this in a quiz about politics.
The last question I found to be very interesting. It states "Should teachers receive pay based on the performance of their students". Why would someone think this should be how teachers are paid? Don't we realize that there are many, many students who are not going to be successful in the classroom regardless of who their teacher is? They could have Mrs. Polly Perfect who does absolutely everything the way she should, including spending hours of her own time tutoring, and yet the child would fail at the end of the year. That's just how people are. Paying teachers based on their students' performance is just wrong and backwards. That would be like paying my husband, the auditor, based on how successful his clients are. All businesses need an accountant, whether they're a multi-billion dollar business, or barely breaking even, he's still going to help them with their books and his pay should not be based on their success or lack thereof. The same goes for students, all of them need teachers, some are going to be successful if a cat was teaching them and others won't be successful no matter what happens. On that issue is where I guess I would vote for Obama or Ron Paul, they're apparently the only ones that agree with me, which is sad.
I honestly don't know who I will vote for. I'm 99.9% sure that I will be voting Republican (atleast for the Presidential election). Not because I'm someone who will only vote for a candidate based on their party affiliation, but because Republicans most often believe what I do on many issues. I wish there was a candidate out there who I agreed with 100% on everything, but that isn't the case. I just have to decide what things are the "most important" to me and what will impact my family the hardest, along with who do I feel would do the best from God's perspective. Yes, I know that many believe in the separation of church and state, but I'm not ok with electing someone who will systematically take away our freedom of religion. That's typically not an issue deemed worthy for these quizzes, but it is important to me. I find it laughable that we have court cases going all the way to the Supreme Court in regards to whether or not we should take "under God" out of our pledge, or if it's ok for a student to pray in school or at school functions. I'll tell you this, if my child(ren) decides to pray in school or before a school function and someone tries to sue us, I will be livid! Because they are infringing on his freedom of religion, if you don't want to hear it, then cover your ears. He isn't a paid school official doing it with the blessing of the school district, he's a student, doing something he feels lead to do. I wouldn't sue someone for saying a "Hail Mary" in front of me. I'm not Catholic, but if they feel the need to recite that, then they can go right ahead, they won't be offending me one bit. (Off soapbox)
I would love it if we were somehow able to get to know these politicians on a more personal level before we had to elect them to run our country for 4-8 years. But unless they're willing to come over for supper, I don't see that happening.
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