Mission accomplished ;)

I was a lazy girl this week! I realize it is only Wednesday but Travis is home now in effect ending any productive time I would normally have. On Monday I had Barbara and her kiddos over to play while we awaited the news that Chandra had Eli and both were doing well.

Tuesday was the Inauguration! YAY! Which I watched at the hospital while holding the sweetest baby boy ever. Good news is that holding that sweet baby boy I did not want to go home and have one of my own, I do however want to hold that one, ALOT!

Today was the laziest of them all. I hung out on the couch with my computer. Watched cartoons with Kaylee. I did do a few loads of laundry and put them away and did some minor cleaning, by that I mean dishes, picked up some toys. I did do a small craft project today as well.... Here are the photos :) I saw these in an Etsy store for $5 each mine were approx. 50 cents each!!!

Yep. They are black and red bean balls :) I need to make a couple more for my apothecary jar though

Here are our Inauguration Day Photos

Don't mind me in the photo. I look terrible and totally exhausted. I was trying to show the shirt. I suck at taking photos of myself and lets face it I am just not photogenic at all. So I gave up and just took a photo of the shirt! lol

We were all decked out for the Inauguration :) Kaylee has a red,white and blue ribbon in her hair and Mykenzie wore her USA shirt to school as well. What a fabulous day it was :)


My lovely husband brought Mykenzie's camera with him to Ohio and while there snapped some photos of the craft project I forgot to take pictures of before I put them in the mail! Yay! So below are the pictures of the photo blocks I made. You will see my kids on 2 of them and the other 2 are my 2 nephews, Neeko and Jaden and my niece Lily :) Travis told me that my MIL has them all on her mantle :) Yay! I am excited she likes them! Though the flash isn't allowing there true cuteness to shine I think they turned out quite adorable thank you very much ;)

I am done

I am totally spent. I have been busting my tail all week. I did all the decorating, painting and shopping that I mentioned in previous posts and then Saturday I did a complete overhaul of my closet. It looks so good now! It is actually functional and we don't have to step in baskets of dirty clothes in order to get to the back of the closet. I got some shoe things, a laundry organizer, brought a book shelf in from downstairs and used a rubbermaid tote to get some stuff out of there and into the attic where it needs to be. It seriously looks so much better and so freaking organized it is awesome! I would post a photo but I don't have a before so you wont get the full effect. Just know I ended up with a big box for phase 2, a bag of trash and a bag for good will. Beautiful. Because I moved the bookshelf out of my downstairs closet to upstairs I also had to rework some stuff down there and it looks so much BIGGER! Just from removing a bookshelf that honestly did not take up much room at all. Now if I could just figure out a storage solution for our games I would be extremely happy.

I managed to get about 10 badges sewn onto Mykenzie's girl scout vest. I finally found them when I cleaned out my downstairs closet Saturday. I put them in a spot that made absolute perfect sense I just forgot completely where I put them! lol don't you love when you do that!

Now I can think of a million more things to do but I think I am going to hang out and spend the next couple evenings I have alone with a good book rather than with paint and spackel. Maybe just make a list of all the millions of things I want to do around this house, big and small to see what I can do here and there. I informed Travis last night that I wanted to put wainscoting in Kaylee's room and he just rolled his eyes and gave me a whiny "why?" LOL Gotta love it :)

We had snow all day today. It looked like it was going to stick for a minute but it ended up all going. It looked so pretty coming down though. I believe if it is going to be cold I want it to snow so at least the beauty of it distracts you from the cold somewhat. I just hate cold for the sake of being cold.

Tomorrow is the big day. Ol' GW will FINALLY be out of the White House!!! Woohoo! I am thrilled to have Obama being sworn in tomorrow! I can't wait to watch it. Travis got me a coffee cup while in Baltimore last week with Obama on it, it rocks! He got himself a sweatshirt that I will certainly have on tomorrow when I walk Kaylee into her totally Republican filled school. Well I live in TN so everywhere I go will be totally Republican filled! LOL I love it! I will be going to the hospital in the morning to meet Chandra's new baby!!! She had her little miracle boy today and he is such a cutie! Congratulations to her and her family! I am so thrilled for them!

Easy, relaxing week. That is the goal. I'll let ya know how that goes as I seem to have a problem doing that when Travis is out of town. Today though, mission accomplished! lol

The day after.... euphoria

I am a 28 year old white woman. I have never been discriminated against because of my race. I was not alive during the civil rights movement. I still feel the enormity of this election. I have wept for joy and screamed out loud. I woke up this morning feeling like we were in a new world. A world where all people are equal. I woke up with a renewed feeling of hope and joy that our country and our world will change for the better. I don't fully know how to describe how I am feeling but I am truly joyful to have been a part of this historical election. Proud. Proud of our country for the long way its people have come. To watch everything unfold on television last night and see people like Jesse Jackson, who were a part of the civil rights movement with tears streaming down their face knowing all they have been through to finally see a dream realized. A dream that seemed so far out of reach but one they had the hope of for all these years. It was amazing for me, I can not begin to imagine the significance that the moment held for them. This is big.

I spoke with Mykenzie, who has been interested in the election this year, this morning, my eyes filled with tears. I was telling her to remember this day, remember this moment. Savor the fact that she was here during such a historical day. To think about Martin Luther King Jr. and about all she has learned about our world just 45 years ago to where this election put it today. Remember this moment. It is big.

Those people who voted for John McCain and may not be happy that Obama won please take a moment to step back from your views and just fully appreciate the magnitude of what has transpired. To loosely quote Elizabeth Hasselbeck (which I NEVER thought I would do)"No one lost today....today is a victory for this country. To have Barack Obama be our next President, the first black President... I haven't felt this good through out this campaign.... I will get in this long line of supporters. I wasn't the first but I will jump in that line and support our President, because that is what,as an American, I believe we should do."

This is BIG. A man had The Audacity of Hope and I believe our country and our world will be a better place because of him. We dared to hope that change was possible and hope won yesterday. Now the work begins....

History has been made!!!!!

Barack Obama will be our 44th President of the United States of AMERICA!!!! Woo Hoo!!!!!
American's have risen above and proved that we no longer see the color of a person's skin but the person themself. Congratulations President Obama and congratulations America for finally getting it right for the first time in 8 years!!!

In case you have been living under a rock....

TODAY IS ELECTION DAY!!!!!!!!!!!! GO VOTE!!!!

I am seriously giddy with excitement! Only an hour and a half till the polls close in Ohio!!!

You don't have to worry about me... what about you?

This was emailed to me from my friend Riki. Thanks for the giggle girl it is pretty funny! You won't have to worry about me giving the election to McCain, how about all of you out there? Make sure you Barack the VOTE tomorrow

November

Can you believe it is November already? Doesn't it seem like it was just last week that I started my Christmas countdown and we had 20 weeks? Guess what it is now... SEVEN! Whew! I am so ready to get my shopping done. I have 2 people checked off my list but that's it.

Halloween was over and apparently Fall left with it. We have temps in the mid 70's! Seriously, last week our high was 45. What the heck? Next up is Thanksgiving and I imagine we will be staying home and I'll be cooking for the 4 of us. Fine by me, I enjoy our quiet family holidays. There are some aspects of having all your family around during the holidays that I wish we had but in those cases you have to take the good along with the bad soooo, yeah.

Our busy times are slowing down for a couple of weeks, well at least during the week. Travis will be traveling a ton this month, joy. He has several trips to Chicago and one to Ohio planned. He and 2 of his brothers bought some property up there so he will be going up to do some work, I wish we could go with him but I am not going to pull the girls out of school. Oh well.

The girls are both doing great. They both seem to have gotten a worse attitude lately though. Not sure what the deal is there. Mykenzie has been fine with us but super mean to Kaylee. Kaylee has just been behaving horribly for a couple weeks now. She is generally ok when it is just her and I but add anyone else in the mix and watch out. We are working on it. On the plus side with the girls though they are both doing great at school! Kaylee has learned alot and has not gotten anything but a green light all year.
I had Mykenzie's parent teacher conference last week and her teacher had alot of wonderful things to say about her. She said she has the potential to be a great leader if she can gain in a little more confidence in her abilities. She also got her test scores back from the TCAP testing at the end of last year. She scored really well on everything. She is barely below average in Vocabulary and Language everything else she scored in the 70's and in Spelling she scored 81 and in Social Studies she scored a 94! If she can vamp up her vocab and language I see a politician in our future. Let's just hope she is a democrat! In her defense her wonderful (she says sarcastically) teacher last year did not work on vocab and writing with them hardly at all last year. I actually thought it was strange that she never had to do any writing but thought maybe the little bit they did do was normal. I don't think so now, I so dislike that woman. I think this year we will see a big change in those scores because she has a much much better teacher.

November 4th is tomorrow!!! It is FINALLY election day! I am so over the election, I know you would never know it from talking to me or reading this blog! lol I really want my guy to win,for once but I am tired of listening to the back and forth and at this point they are both just saying the same things over and over. So if you haven't voted already (I love early voting and cast my vote for Obama last week) make sure you get out and vote tomorrow!! ESPECIALLY if you live in a battleground state and you are voting for Obama!! Hopefully we will know without a doubt who our new president is by tomorrow at 9!

Carving Pumpkins :)

We spent a couple of hours hard at work making our pumpkins look pretty for Halloween on Friday :) Kaylee colored hers with a marker. I think they look awesome!

Taxes, use the calculator, who's plan is better for you?

Click here to see how much you will save

Thank You!

I have several thank you's to throw out tonight. The first one in to my mom and a woman named Rebecca that I have never met before. Thank you both so much for sponsoring me in the Light the Night walk. I had raised $0 until your contributions and now I have met my goal. I love you both for helping me bring money to such a wonderful cause.


My next thank you is to Senator Barack Obama, thank you for clearing up in a national forum for the whole world to hear the fact that pro choice is NOT pro abortion! It was so wonderful to hear you say tonight during the debate that "no one is pro abortion" Thank you Thank you! If I would have been undecided before tonight you would have gotten my vote from that line. Luckily I already loved you though cause I don't like to vote on a single issue, as I have stated before ;)

This is too funny

Don't get your panties in a bunch I do believe we need bipartisanship but this made me laugh out loud.

Which one actually knows what they are talking about?

I got to do it today!

I put the first check mark beside a name on my Christmas list today! My niece is DONE! WOO HOO! Now I have one down a zillion more to go! lol I did pick up part of my other niece's gift today too, so technically I have one and a half checks ;)

Hey the Great Debate of '08 is on tonight, watch, learn, vote :) Oh and don't fall for McCain's lies ;) (I love all of my Republican friends just not their candidate,lol)

I feel the need to clarify

Lately I have felt attacked for my views (by several people not just one) on abortion. So I feel today the need to clarify something, I AM NOT PRO ABORTION!!!! I am not an advocate, I don't think we should all rush out and have one. I don't encourage others to do it. I do believe in CHOICE! I can Totally understand the other side of this argument, believe it or not I was on the other side for a good portion of my life. I used to get into arguments with people about how wrong abortion was and that there was no way anyone should ever have one. Then I learned a few more things and heard people's stories and situations and began to realize, well yes, if a woman's life is on the line she should choose her life over that of an unborn baby. Or if you are raped you should have that option. Then I realized, wow, well I guess if I am for the choice in those circumstances then I really am pro choice not "pro life" (I hate that term, because as I just said Pro Choice does not equal Pro Death)

If you don't believe that you should be able to have an abortion, do you then believe that you should not be allowed to use birth control pills? Guess what it is the same thing just at an earlier stage. What about other forms. I mean maybe we should just all have unwanted babies, put them in an over crowded foster care system with people who are only doing it to collect the paycheck and give these kids a really wonderful life.
Then you run into the issues of being allowed to permanently alter your body to prevent pregnancy (ie. tubal or vasectomy)
What about In Vitro? Maybe that shouldn't be allowed either. And then if there are extra embryo's should they be forced to have those babies as well?

I realize that people have religious beliefs that make you feel like this is murder and that is fine. I am in fact a believer in Christ Jesus myself (though most of you will condemn me to Hell for believing this way, God and I chat and we know where I will be). You can not however presume to know what 1. every one's religious beliefs are 2. to be able to understand the situation unless you are in it yourself 3. pass judgement of people (I think it talks about that in the good book as well)

So to wrap it up.... I am not pro abortion, I think they should be limited by educating all people (including middle and high school students) on how to effectively prevent unwanted pregnancy should they chose not to abstain. I believe that a woman should be able to chose based on her own personal situation as to whether or not she can continue a pregnancy. I hope and pray that the woman would choose life for her baby even if that means giving it up for adoption but it should be her choice not our governments. Regardless at the end of the day she has to live with it and find peace and should be judged by God and only God since he is our Savior not the President or anyone who claims to be Pro life.

Oh and 1 more thing. I think that it is completely irresponsible and stupid for this 1 issue be what determines how you vote. This is not the major issue facing our country right now. Not even close. I love how to have an abortion is horrible but fighting a war that is killing our soldiers and innocent civilians (including children, btw) is ok. Or not closing loopholes to prevent people from obtaining assault weapons, that is ok too because after all it is our right to own a gun. Yeah ok. Lets talk about REAL issues like how our housing market is out of control and people are losing their homes, or how the stock market is falling and our country is now 900 billion dollars more in debt because of our financial situation. Or maybe about how we are paying record high gas prices because our reliance on foreign oil and the fact that no one will try and find an alternative fuel source even though they knew this would happen for years. Yep, I think there are more important things out there. Even though I feel strongly on the issues of abortion and gay rights these are not the real issues that are important in the grand scheme of things for this election.

Who is telling the truth?

Interesting

Got this from a friend today. I love it and wanted to share :)

White Privilege, White Entitlement and the 2008 Election
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Sat, 09/13/2008 - 3:44pm. Guest Contribution
A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTIONby Tim Wise


For those who still can’t grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.
White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because "every family has challenges," even as black and Latino families with similar "challenges" are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.


White privilege is when you can call yourself a "fuckin’ redneck," like Bristol Palin’s boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you'll "kick their fuckin' ass," and talk about how you like to "shoot shit" for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.


White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action.


White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don’t all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you’re "untested."


White privilege is being able to say that you support the words "under God" in the pledge of allegiance because "if it was good enough for the founding fathers, it’s good enough for me," and not be immediately disqualified from holding office--since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the "under God" part wasn’t added until the 1950s--while believing that reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.


White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you.

White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was "Alaska first," and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she’s being disrespectful.


White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the work they do--like, among other things, fight for the right of women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child labor--and people think you’re being pithy and tough, but if you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college--you’re somehow being mean, or even sexist.


White privilege is being able to convince white women who don’t even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a "second look."


White privilege is being able to fire people who didn’t support your political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being a typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and merely knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in Chicago means you must be corrupt.


White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God’s punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you’re just a good church-going Christian, but if you’re black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people, you’re an extremist who probably hates America.


White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a "trick question," while being black and merely refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill O’Reilly means you’re dodging the question, or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.


White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it, a "light" burden.

And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because white voters aren’t sure about that whole "change" thing. Ya know, it’s just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very concrete and certain.

White privilege is, in short, the problem.

Give me a fu@*ing break

McCain. Grow Up. Seriously? This is all you have to talk about? The fact that Obama used a saying referring to your horrible non-plans for our country. You spin this and say he is talking about your running mate? I have heard the speech. No where in it does he call Sen. Palin a PIG. PLEASE! OMG. Did you not, Mr McCain, say the same saying while referring to something about Hillary Clinton's plans? Hmm. Did the Democrats jump all over you and say you were being sexist and calling her a pig? Nope. Not at all. This is ridiculous! Even Republicans have to admit that this is a ridiculous notion.

THIS is why people hate politics. Because politicians behave like 6 year olds on a school playground.

He also has ad's out saying that Obama wants to teach sex ed to 4 year olds. For God's sake. What kind of shit are you people trying to feed the American people? The bill was to teach kids how to protect themselves from sexual predators. You know, like teaching kids that they have parts of their body that are private that we don't show people and allow people to touch. If someone does or tries to they have to tell someone. That's right, Republican's don't talk about sex because really it only happens when people are married. No one else does it and there apparently aren't bad people out there wanting to hurt children. So, don't vote for Obama because that is just shameful to teach children at 4 years old not to let someone touch their penis or vagina! Wow! This election is just a shame. And you would hope that the American people would be smart enough not to eat it up, but nope they aren't. It is all so absurd.