Now is the time folks, call those representatives every day - they will ram this shit down our throats - but let's make sure we are drug kicking and screaming every inch of the way...

Just a sweet sampling of local news here in the bucolic mountains of Western North Caroline - It'll make you jealous, oh yes it will :)

Folks I've recommended before and I'm doing it again - if you are not watching or listening to Glenn Beck at least a couple times a week, you are missing information that is vital.

So many times in the history of man events have led to critical moments and events. Then we, once these events are in fact history, read of all the threads that came together to weave the fabric of world changing moments. Hitler's Germany, 9/11/01, the fall of the Roman Empire, the American Revolution, the Civil War, Moa's China, the Russian Revolution - after the fact we see information laid out and think why couldn't people see it coming? How did the world come to this?

I believe we are in similar world changing times. Glenn gives us many of the threads, information on people working in our government and influencing events right now, that you will not get any where else. At least not yet, I fear that without the knowledge of these people and their driving intentions, the only time we will see all this information is when it is all too late.

Please watch, I know Glenn is a bit nuts - sometimes over the top, a self proclaimed rodeo clown - and certainly emotional - but the information he is giving is very well researched and he has yet to be proven wrong on even one of the people he has exposed. Glenn has resources we don't have ourselves to get the facts. He is laying it before us, trying desperately to expose the evil behind events - take advantage before it is too late and before the powers that be find a way to shut him down.

These are frightening days, seriously. I believe our freedom of speech/expression is our most important right and from it flow all the others. The progressive movement is coming for that right now - and they are doing it with propaganda that will be very effective with the young and ignorant - and you know how many ignorant are out there. Net neutrality folks - watch for it.

Typical government efficiency and one of the reasons we Do Not want government run health care is illustrated in a recent study/article by the Brookings Institute (a left leaning institution folks, not a conservative think tank). Their recent study was on the tax credit for first time home buyers program and what it has actually cost us as tax payers. You think the cost would be the $8,000 per home bought, right? - and that would just be in lost revenue because this is a tax credit right? Of course not, this is the government we are talking about here. The actual cost to the tax paying portion of our population is $43,000 per home. This is more than 5 times the break to the home buyer - in other words, to give home buyers $8,000 costs us $43,000. And one member of our federal legislature, Senator Johnny Isakson (R - GA for goodness sakes) wants not only to extend the program but also expand it to $15,000 per home. Doing the math, assuming a similar 5.37 times higher cost that would have a price tag to us of $80,550 per home.

Other studies have shown that the cash for clunkers program cost us, the tax payers, $24,000 per car - many times over the tax rebate received. Never mind the cost to charities, used car dealers, etc. God knows what the honest total cost was.

Strictly from a budgetary position - I wouldn't want the government running a dog walking service. I'm horrified at the prospect of them running our health care.

Lord deliver us.

"Mommy, I gots peanutbutter stuck to the roofs of ma mouf"

Good

I don't know where this came from, but it is one of the funniest things I've ever read :) Have a giggle on me -

Waxing . . . .

My night began as any other normal weeknight. Come home, fix dinner, play with the kids. I then had the thought that would ring painfully in my mind for the next few hours:

'Maybe I should pull the waxing kit out of the medicine cabinet.'

So I headed to the site of my demise: the bathroom. It was one of those 'cold wax' kits. No melting a clump of hot wax, you just rub the strips together in your hand, they get warm and you peel them apart and press them to your leg (or wherever else) and you pull the hair right off.

No muss, no fuss. How hard can it be? I mean, I'm not a genius, but I am mechanically inclined enough to figu re this out..

(YA THINK!?!)

So I pull one of the thin strips out. Its two strips facing each other stuck together. Instead of rubbing them together, my genius kicks in so I get out the hair dryer and heat it to 1000 degrees.

('Cold wax, yeah...right!') I lay the strip across my thigh. H old the skin around it tight and pull. It works!

OK, so it wasn't the best feeling, but it wasn't too bad. I can do this!

Hair removal no longer eludes me! I am She-rah, fighter of all wayward body hair and maker of smooth skin extraordinaire.

With my next wax strip I move north. After checking on the kids, I sneak back into the bathroom, for the ultimate hair fighting championship. I drop my panties and place one foot on the toilet. Using the same procedure, I a pply the wax strip across the right side of my bikini line, covering the right half of my hoo-ha and stretching down to the inside of my butt cheek (it was a long strip) I inhale deeply and brace myself....RRRRIIIPPP!!!!

I'm blind!!! Blinded from pain!!!!.....OH MY GAWD!!!!!!!!!

Vision returning, I notice that I've only managed to pull off half the strip. CRAP! Another deep breath and RIPP! Everything is spinning and spotted. I think I may pass out...must stay conscious...must stay conscious. Do I hear crashing drums??? Breathe, breathe...OK,back to normal.

I want to see my trophy - a wax covered strip, the one that has caused me so much pain, with my hairy pelt sticking to it. I want to revel in the glory that is my triumph over body hair. I hold up the strip!

There's no hair on it.

Where is the hair??? WHERE IS THE WAX???

Slowly I ease my head down, foot still perched on the toilet. I see the hair. The hair that should be on t he strip...it's not! I touch.

I am touching wax.

I run my fingers over the most sensitive part of my body, which is now covered in cold wax and matted hair. Then I make the next BIG mistake...remember my foot is still propped up on the toilet?

I know I need to do something. So I put my foot down.

SEALED SHUT!!!!

MY BUTT IS SEALED SHUT!

SEALED SHUT!!!!

I penguin walk around the bathroom trying to figure out what to do and think to myself 'Please don't let me get the urge to poop. My head may pop off!'

What can I do to melt the wax?

Hot water!! Hot water melts wax!! I'll run the hottest water I can stand into the bathtub, get in, immerse the wax-covered bits and the wax should melt and I can gently wipe it off, right???

WRONG!!!!!!!******

I get in the tub - the water is slightly hotter than that used to torture prisoners of war or sterilize surgical equipment - I sit.

Now, the only thing worse than having your nether regions glued together, is having them glued together and then glued to the bottom of the tub...in scalding hot water.

Which, by the way, doesn't melt cold wax.

So, now I'm stuck to the bottom of the tub as though I had cemented myself to the porcelain!! God bless the man who had convinced me a few months ago to have a phone put in the bathroom!!!!!

I call my friend, thinking surely she has waxed before and has some secret of how to get me undone. It's a very good conversation starter.......

'So, my butt and hoo-ha are glued together to the bottom of the tub!'

There is a slight pause. She doesn't know any secret tricks for removal but she does try to hide her laughter from me. She wants to know exactly where t he wax is located, 'Are we talking cheeks or hole or hoo-ha?'

She's laughing out loud by now...I can hear her. I give her the rundown and she suggests I call the number on the side of the box.

YEAH!!!!! Right!!

I should be the joke of someone else's night.

While we go through various solutions. I resort to trying to scrape the wax off with a razor

Nothing feels better than to have your girliegoodies covered in hot wax, glued shut, stuck to the tub in super hot water and then dry-shaving the sticky wax off!!

By now the brain is not working, dignity has taken a major hike and I'm pretty sure I'm going to need Post-Traumatic Stress counseling for this event.

My friend is still talking with me when I finally see my saving grace....the lotion they give you to remove the excess wax.

What do I really have to lose at this point? I rub some on and.

OH MY GOD!!!!!!!

The scream probably woke the kids and scared the dickens out of my friend. Its sooo painful, but I really don't care.

'IT WORKS!! It works!!' I get a hearty congratulation from my friend and she hangs up.

I successfully remove the remainder of the wax and then notice to my grief and despair....

THE HAIR IS STILL THERE.......ALL OF IT!

So I recklessly shave it off. Heck, I'm numb by now. Nothing hurts. I could have amputated my own leg at this point.

Next week I'm going to try hair color…

Just poke around and mess with it. It can be a lot of fun, both to create and to see what others have created. My kids and I have enjoyed this for more than a year.

Have a lovely day.

Obama declares swine flu a national emergency

This is like declaring the common cold a national emergency. Everyone I am aware of personally, who has had the pig flu, says it is much like a cold or the mildest case of flu they have ever had. I have personally sat in front of an infectious disease Dr who told me directly that they are not recommending children even be treated if they get it - too mild (unless of course they have asthma, are on chemo, etc - but that applies to anything and only a moron would think otherwise). I know people with other viruses who are, or have recently been, much sicker than anyone I know who has had H1N1.

Drama much?

One day, maybe even eventually with this flu, there will actually be a virus that deserves the attention this is getting. But when that day comes - due to the panic over first bird flu, then swine flu, then swine flu part 2 - people will ignore these young men crying wolf, and then we will be screwed.

We don't think for ourselves? (not that I am a Republican, I am not) We don't have closely held personal opinions? We "do as we are told"? -

Well thank you lord obama for reading our minds and telling us what we think and do. I don't know what we'd do without you to lord over us and tell us when to breath and when not, when and what to think, what to or not to say, when to or not to go to the doctor - and what he can or can not prescribe for us, what car to buy, how to heat/cool our homes and to what degree, how to educate our children and for how long, what charities we should give to, how and whom to serve with our volunteer time, what and how much to eat, how much money we can or can not earn, what job we can or can not do, how big our homes should be, how much credit we should or should not get, which stores we should or should not shop at, where we should or should not go on our vacations and how we should or should not get there, what TV channel we should or should not watch, what radio program we can or can not listen to, what sort of Internet we should or should not have access to, which newspapers we should or should not read, which banks we should do business with, which sort or insurance we can or can not provide for our families. Thank you for taking the burden of choice off our shoulders. I don't know how much longer we could have continued to hold up under the pressures of freedom.

Donegal Farmers rule!

A big city Dublin lawyer went duck hunting in rural Donegal. He shot and dropped a bird, but it fell into a farmer's field on the other side of a fence. As the lawyer climbed over the fence, an elderly farmer drove up on his tractor and asked him what he was doing. The lawyer responded, "I shot a duck. It fell in this field and now I'm going to retrieve it." The old farmer replied, "This is my property and you are not coming over here."

The indignant lawyer said, "I am one of the best trial attorneys in Dublin. If you don't let me get that duck, I'll sue you and take everything you own."

The old farmer smiled and said, "Apparently you don't know how we settle disputes in Donegal. We settle small disagreements like this with the Donegal Three Kick Rule." The lawyer asked, "And just what is the Donegal Three Kick Rule?"

The farmer replied, "Well, because the dispute occurs on my land, first I kick you three times then you kick me three times and so on back and forth until one of us gives up." The attorney quickly thought about the proposed contest and decided that he could easily take the old codger. He agreed to abide by the local custom.

The old farmer slowly climbed down from the tractor and walked up to the attorney. His first kick planted the toe of his heavy steel-toed work boot into the lawyer's groin and dropped him to his knees. His second kick to the midriff sent the lawyer's last meal gushing from his mouth. The barrister was on all fours when the farmer's third kick to his rear end sent the barrister face-first into a fresh cow patty.

The lawyer summoned every bit of his will and managed to get to his feet. Wiping his face with the arm of his jacket, he said, "Okay, you old coot. Now it's my turn."


The old farmer smiled and said, "Naw, I give up. You can have the duck."

Baby Gus, 6 Days old - we already had a deposit on him.


Getting bigger, look at those ears! 6 weeks old


Our first hello, picking him up in Tennessee, 8 weeks old


A boy and his first puppy.


HOME!!!!!!!


In his first bed (this is the only bed he ever destroyed, and it took him a long time to do it - a good puppy)


Catching some Zzzzs with D2


Growing


Gus with HIS new puppy (Gus is 9 months old)


Tickling his baby sister.


Gus's first Halloween of torture - buzzz guzzzz


Gus Loves Snow - he is waiting for the boy to throw a snowball so he can catch it.


Pretty babies


Whipped cream nose


Happy Birthday my good boy - Gus is three years old. How'd we get here so fast?

Home school density experiment.



Can you identify the layers & items? hint: there are three liquids and three items - extra points if you can identify the vintage :)

Another collection. Twenty years ago when I was expecting my third child, I received a matryoshka doll from a very special friend. That doll is the yellow one on the front row far right of the picture. I was thrilled and a new collection was born (along with my third daughter).

Of the matryoshka in this photo several were gifts but many were bought on the trip that included St Petersburg, Russsia. Street vendors sold these for amazing prices and the more you bought the lower the price would go, if you acted like you were going to walk away the price would drop again. Not one of the sets I bought was even $10, most were $5 or less. There is one set here we bought another time in the Czech Republic (the brown one in the back left), one was sent to us by a cousin who lives in Germany when D3 was sick, one was given to me by a sister (she got it from someone who had traveled to Romania). I have a few others that fall into the religious icon category, pictures of those at another time.

One interesting fact about matryoshka is that each town has a style of decoration particular to that town. If you know enough about the art, you can identify where a doll was painted - just by looking at it.

This is the blue and gold teapot from earlier post. In the previous picture you really couldn't see anything beyond the shape. This too is Russian Lomonosov porcelain.



Now, I said I would show you something I did using this bowl as inspiration


So here it is


You see, when we moved into this house I didn't like any of the wall coverings. I hate - HATE, I tell you - wall paper, and it was everywhere. So I have stripped off every bit of it and painted every wall. By now, some of those walls more than once. Anyway, I'd love to someday have quartz counter tops and a beautiful tile back splash - but with two currently in college and one still to go, that just isn't going to happen for a while yet. Can't do anything about the laminate counter tops (though I often threaten to paint them to look like granite) and there is no point in putting in a nice back splash until the counters are replaced so I hand painted a fake tile back splash all the way around my counters. The border "tiles" are painted to look like the bowl. I did the design and every stroke myself.
Here are a few closer photos





If people aren't really paying attention all that closely they are always surprised when I point out that there is no tile on my kitchen walls.

Yes, once upon a time I was all crafty and creative - then I got old and crotchety...

You know what happens when a 40 something woman goes tearing around the house so the corgis can chase her with gleeful abandon? The woman wipes out on the hardwood while running around a turn, landing on her ass, well hip - ouch. Game over


Innocent looking aren't they?

Nope, but in a sort of tangential way we have a few things in common (besides corgis).

I too love beautiful glassware and dishes. Mine tend to be a more relaxed sort of collecting - and my dishes have a somewhat international flare, because - as I have stated elsewhere - we travel and I like color and traditional art. So here are a few shots of my personal collection.



This shot shows a serving dish carefully carried home to me by my hub from a spring break school trip he chaperoned with D2. There are several pieces I will share that they brought me. This particular dish came from the bazaar in Morocco. Also shown here is a deep blue teapot from Russia (eBay purchase)I'll need to get a better picture of somehow, against the back a copper ware plate from Turkey, and a little engraved silver mug with a little silver fork that were mine as a baby. I suppose this means I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth - not sure who gave this gift, but my friends we were poor. The crystal bud vase was brought to me by my husband and son just this summer - they picked it up in Prague.



These two tiny plates are deep blue with gold - the one shows Don Don Quixote and his sidekick, the other a Muslim style geometric design. These also brought to me by the hub from the trip taken several years ago (they went to Spain, Portugal, and Morocco)



This serving bowl we picked up on a visit to Bratislava, Slovakia in 1999 not very many years after the break up of the Czech Republic and Slovakia. I love this bowl - its color and folk art type design. I will show you in a future post something sort of special I have done with this bowl as inspiration.



This teapot is one of my very favorite yard sale finds. For $1 I got this pretty Limoges (Charles Ahrenfeldt - France) teapot (probably from the late 50s-60s), for another 25 cents I got a matching candy plate.



The larger teapot is another from Russia, the smaller teapot is a single serve cup and pot combo and is Tara from Ireland, there is a tassel in the back that D2 brought back from China and a pair of Leprechaun musicians I brought back from Ireland (on one of the four trips I've made there). The plate in back with tiny roses around the edge was a gift from my SIL, her parents had an antique shop in Miami and when they sold off I got a few goodies as gifts.



More of my collection of Russian Lomonosov Porcelain teapots and tea cups. I Love royal blue, and nobody does it better than Lomonosov. I could eat this stuff! A pair of sheep salt and pepper shakers from Ireland, not sure where the larger plate in back is from - another SIL treat - but I do know it is over 100 years old and has a very interesting makers mark engraved into the back, the smaller plate came from Rhodes, Greece. The deer on that plate is the symbol of Rhodes and it is everywhere, even on the man hole covers. The small teacup in the lower corner is from Greece.



This is my MIL's china. I caught her after she had boxed it all up and was going to sell it to Replacements, Inc. Just in time I saved it, convinced her it was worth keeping in the family - so sometime, many years from now :) I will pass pieces to my daughters. It is labeled American Limoge, Bramble with 22-K gold trim (tell me anything about it Suzette?) It is a nearly complete set and in moderately good condition and as they have been married about 55 years - about that old. Another tassel from China.



One more Russian teapot with teacup, saucer, and desert plate, as well as a cream pitcher of a different pattern, a random thrift shop find rose teacup, a pair of Limoge teacups I picked up in Paris, an Old Country Roses Royal Albert teacup and saucer given me by a very very dear friend, and the hand painted rooster plate from Portugal and hand painted folk art platter from Puente, Spain more prizes bought to me by D2 and the hub.

So there you have a sampling of some of my own clutter.

I'm in the midst of a project I've needed to do for years. It is recommended that we all keep photos of pretty much all our "stuff" for insurance purposes. I'm finally doing it - going through the house room by room trying to document at least to some extent. This is giving me tons of pics that give me ideas for short blog posts - well, short on words, long on pictures. Today I want to share the view into my front yard from the door. Maybe in a few months it will snow and I can post a snowy version. But I'm in no hurry for that one!



You can't even tell that I am behind mowing by about two weeks.

Guardians of the outside of the door.


And the guardians of the inside of the door.

Number two on my endorsement list - Jim DeMint (R) Senator, South Carolina.

There was a day, some years ago now, when I was excited about congressman Lindsay Graham. I find myself ashamed of that support now. What a twid. Now that he is a Senator, you know as well as I, that Lindsay has become a butt kisser. Jim DeMint not so much. Mr DeMint was openly saying he is a conservative first and a Republican second before it became the issue it is today - before it was cool. He was something of a thorn in Bush's side toward the end of Bush's term when TARP was being debated and passed. DeMint did his darndest to cry foul.

Conservative first - that gets him a spot on my endorsement list - and with Graham and Sandford, SC needs a Republican with a spine. I think he is worth keeping, his first term ends 2010 lets hope he gets a second but with those other two SC Republican stones around his neck - I don't know.

List now:
1) Michele Bachman
2) Jim DeMint

Update : here is a website that lists DeMint's voting record by issue - looks pretty good to me, maybe not 100% - but only I would vote the way I want 100% of the time.

Some parents who home school set up a designated school room. We do not. Home schooling is part of our life style and it is pretty much on going. Not the same hours five days a week, pretty much round the clock - across the calendar. Therefore home school takes place all over the house, but mostly in the "breakfast room"/family room area. Not a totally open space, but almost so. The two areas have a wall between but that wall is for the most part two super large doorway type openings.

Here are a few pictures of "home school central", the nerve center of the operation.
The open notebook you can see on the table is "THE BOOK", this is where I record the schedule for life in general - not just school - without this book we'd be sunk. Now, since both D2 and D3 are away in school, there is not nearly as much recorded here as in years past. But it is still central planning. The two stacks of books are some of what we use - only a small representation of what he uses on a daily basis and not a drop in the bucket of the over all library we draw from here in the home. When I took this picture he had his vocab, history, and literature books over with him at the fireplace (reading, not burning - heehee)



Just through the door way into the family room is the computer desk. This is where I spend a great deal of my day, often with a Fiona curled under my chair. Notice the 2 liter Diet Dr Pepper to the left of the computer - my drug of choice.



And a needle felted possum hanging from the cork board - everyone needs a possum hanging nearby...



This shot is taken standing in front of the fireplace. It shows how close everything is. We as a family pretty much live in this area. It is cozy, comfy, home.



Here are a few more shelves of our home school library. If you are interested in what books we are using, you can probably see from embiggening. These are some of the books on the shelves on the wall directly opposite the computer. Of course you can find many many more books throughout the house - but these are the ones we use often enough to need on hand and close by. You might notice both here, and on the computer desk, that many of our books are two rows deep. We love books. Can you tell?





Hope I'm not boring the snot out of you, but a few have expressed interest.

The boy is messing with color tiles, he likes playing with patterns and color. Fiona is making suggestions.

I have mentioned in my "about me" that I like to make things. Used to make stuff much more, before the boy was born. Something about having four kids takes all the time and focus needed to be productively creative - or maybe it's age. Anyway, last winter I taught myself to needle felt. This is a collection of some of the critters I made.