Monday, October 30, 2006

Hot Air in the Fall

Thank God it's not every year! I don't know about you, but I am so sick of all the hot air I hear being blown in my ear. I never was into politics and the older I get the more I understand why it drives me bonkers.

I'm to the point that during commercial I just want to mute the TV. Not that I like commercials, but I hate political commercials. It's all about what the other guy did wrong. No body ever admits that they have made mistakes and how they plan to change that. He said, she said basically comes down to, they are all full of hot air. Nothing like hear the other guy twist someone's words out of context. It's quit a talent I see.

It's funny how every politician promises to reduce taxes, solve medical insurance and social security issues, reduce the deficit. Then we get them in office and what happens, sometimes we do see tax breaks, but more often then not they increase, medical costs are still out of control, social security, well by the time I am of that age there probably won't be any left, deficit it's still there.

Then they wonder why people don't vote. Let's see, we don't know who is telling the truth, who will stand behind the promise they so freely make, or who will be in office with out making a fool of themselves somewhere along the way. Maybe we should require a lie detector test of all politician running for office, on all the issues. Then make that public in the TV commercials.

Then there is the issue of the propositions of the table. Most of them are so confusing that you may vote for something you don't really want. Politics are not for the normal everyday citizen any more. They are for people who know how to talk out of both ends if you know what I mean.

Now I don't mean that applies to everyone in politics. There are always exceptions to the rule, and they are a God sent when you can find them. I still don't know how I'm going to vote this year. Good luck.

Friday, October 27, 2006

Drug Activity in Neighborhood

I could use some advice out there. I have got two neighbors at the end of my street that we suspect are using and distributing drugs. This scares me. The one home has already been involved in a fire due to their questionable activities.

I don't have any definite proof. I've just been observing activity beyond what is normal friends and family visiting. As soon as it's dark in the evening cars start driving to the end of the street where these two homes are situated. They don't shut off their cars, stay just a couple minutes and then leave. One night I set there and watched and with in an hour they had six visits like that. I'm I just being paranoid? So many of my neighbors have labeled that end of the street "where the drugies live," but they don't seem to be motivated to do anything.

I have three children, my neighbors have four girls and there are about two dozen children just with in our little culdesac. Including two under the age of five in the one drug house and I believe another baby in the other house. I believe tonight I will set there with binoculars so that I can read license plates and keep a record of the activity tonight since it is Friday. Then I plan to call the cops and let them take care of this. According to the neighbors though the cops do know about the one house, but they have never done anything.

That is until they met me. I guess I'll have to take my mom's example. When we lived in California, I grew up in a home that my mother had also grown up in. So they weren't interested in selling the home. Instead she wanted the Motel on the other side of the alley from us cleaned up. So she started calling the cops anytime she saw activity in the alley. She also railed the neighbors to do the same. Some night that would result in five or six calls a night to the police. Eventually they stacked it out and did one of the biggest busts in the area. One of the officers involved came over to visit with us. He discovered then that he new may dad, they use to work together. So he was really open with Dad and told him, that if it hadn't been for the way Mom had pestered them to death over this, the bust probably never would have happened. After that the Motel was sold, went under new management and for the rest of the years that I lived there stayed clean! So I guess it's time for me to make the first move to clean up this neighbor hood and get rid of these neighbors.

Friday, October 20, 2006

Lightening Show!

Was last night's lightening show AMAZING or what?!

I had to load up the kids last night to go pick up our dog Sareena. She had another crippling bought
with her back. She's recovering. On the way home the lightening started. I was heading west on Seltice and could see it ahead and to the left. My oldest was in the front seat and was saying "wow's and awesome." Then he started telling me statistics about lightening. Some of them I don't think were quit correct, but I was amazed at what he had learned just from reading a book recently.

So we go home and got everyone in the house. As I was sitting there in my rocking-recliner the show got bigger and the wind picked up! The wind got so strong that it knocked the ladder on the front porch over. So I ran out and made sure it layed the rest of the way flat before it blew up and hit my new picture window.

I came back in and turned off the porch and front room lamp. The boys joined me in front of the window to watch the lightening. Again Christopher amazed me as he asked me to help him with what direction that was coming from. After he got that information he started telling me what mountains he thought it was over and what rivers would be there. I don't know if he was right or not since I didn't grow up here I never studied this area as a kid. But it does tell me that he is listening in school. They are studying Idaho history right now. I just grabbed him and hugged him as we watched more of the show. It was beautiful! The odd thing was I didn't hear any thunder, so it must have been quit a ways away.

Christopher really is starting to improve in school. He was almost failing last year while I was working. This year since I've quit he is now getting A's and B's on most of his papers. I am so proud of the turn around he has made. It also is a big testament to the fact that my children are better off with me at home. Not that other mothers don't do just as good a job working and running the home. I just didn't juggle all of it so well. I'm glad I finally found a way to stay home for them. My business is also starting to take off, but it doesn't take me away from them very often, and that's the best part.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Oops!

I messed up and posted the progress on our remodel on my family history blog. Visit my other blog for my latest post. I never was good at juggling!

Friday, October 06, 2006

Life Changes Over Time

It's amazing how in what seems like a short two years to me so many things have changed. I have been on the phone to so many of my old contacts hoping to drum up a little business from some of the people I knew that might like the Heritage Makers idea. Only to find out that probably at least half of the people I have called have moved one from the places they once worked.

Life changes so fast these days. It's not like back in the old days where if I could find where an ancestor once worked I would discover that he was there for 20 or 30 years until he retired. Now we are always on the move looking for something bigger and better. But when we get that bigger and better are we really happy? It's like our crazy lives. No one slows down to smell the roses anymore. No one leaves their work behind because they take their cell phones home with them so they can stay connected to work even when they aren't at work. Now how does that benefit their children. "Sorry dear, it sounds like you had a very fun field trip, but Daddy has to take this very important phone call."

I started to fall into that trap, but I can say that thanks to my husband I can set back and look now that it wouldn't have ever been good for our family for me to be on the fast track to business woman that I was headed down. However, I do miss the contact with other adults. So now with my new business I have set aside one day a week for parties (with and occasional extra day when needed) and I have set aside my daughters nap time for phone calls. Otherwise I am all mom and wife for my family. They are more important then the fast track. I discovered that I still needed to be a little of who I was to feel complete.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Children Are Smart!

My daughter about gave me white hairs yesterday. Children know when they have the perfect opportunity to get by with getting in trouble for a short time.

I was on the phone yesterday afternoon. My daughter had been in a good mood so I decided to let her stay up a bit longer and play with her brother, but I had a lot of work to do. So I went down stairs to make a quick phone call to book a party. I was on the phone no more than ten minutes. I got the party booked and then said good bye.

When I turned around I saw my daughter standing behind my chair. She had with her one of my big white towels that was wet. It puzzled me at first because I thought all of my white towels were in the washer with the white load. I pulled her closer to discover that she had chocolate on her hands and face and was using this white towel to clean up her mess. So I picked her up and headed up the stairs.

I knew the only chocolate in the house was a half used bag of chocolate chips. Sure enough I went to the drawer and discovered she had gotten into this bag and had chocolate all over the edge of the counter where she had stood to eat it. I also saw her brothers little stool he uses to reach the sink near by. Okay so mystery number one wasn't such a mystery, but what about the towel?

So I went into the bathroom with her still in my arms to wet a wash rag and clean her up. That's when I saw her first attempt to clean up. On the edge of the bathtub were little chocolate hand prints where I believe she was try to reach the wash rag hanging on the hook, but since it was too high she gave up. So how was it she had this wet towel?

I get her cleaned up, put her down for her afternoon nap and pick up the towel we had carried up stairs to go put it in the wash room. AH HA! That's where it came from, exactly where I thought all of my white towels were! When she had given up on the bathroom wash rag, she then went into the wash room, turned my mop bucket upside down to stand on, and some how lifted the lid of the washer, reached in and got a towel! That about gave me a heart attach. Thank God the load had finished washing and she didn't fall in!

But I've got to admit that took a lot of thought and was very smart on her part. She is only 21 months, but she does little things like this all of the time. If her brothers leave their dirty clothes in their room, she will go in there, pick up the clothes and go put them in the hamper in the wash room with out being told.

She is starting to say lots of words and jabber things now. I love this stage with babies, but it also gets a little nerve racking too.

Heritage Lost

Come; look with me inside this drawer
In this box I've often seen,
At the pictures, black and white,
Faces proud, still, serene.
I wish I knew these people,
These strangers in the box...

Their names and all their memories
Are lost among my socks.
I wonder what their lives were like,
How did they spend their days?
What about their special times,
I'll never know their ways.

If only someone had taken time,
To tell who, what, where and when,
These faces of my heritage,
Would come to life again.

Could this become the fate?
Of the pictures we take today?
The faces and the memories
Someday will pass away.

Make time to save your stories,
Seize opportunity when it knocks,
Or someday you and yours could be,
the strangers in this box!

-Author unkown

This poem touched me when I first read it. If we don't preserve the stories of our lives and photos then will our grandchildren and their children know who we were and what we were about?

I have a few pictures like the one described in the poem. I don't know who is in them really. I don't know what memory that picture was meant to preserve. Memories like pictures fade in time. It is up to us to preserve the memories that still remain and the ones to come so that future generations can see, feel, and enjoy our memories as we did. Help our future generations not to forget about the things that touched our lives, shaped who we were and added to who they are. Give them the chance to laugh, cry, be proud, think, enjoy, and all the other emotions we fill in our lives with us even after we are gone.

Preserve your Heritage at www.untanglefamilyroots.com

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