Simplify?

Not really what I had in mind for Simplifying my life....... Anyone that has known me for awhile knows that I have an appliance curse. Yes, a curse! Our last home my ovens and my dishwasher broke about 5 times each in the 5 years that we lived there. Was this an old house with old appliances? Nope, brand spanking new! The curse really doesn't stop at appliances, it is really anything electronic. If I touch it, it is guaranteed to break! We have been living in this house for 2 1/2 years now. We built it and of course bought brand new appliances. Turns out the microwave had been acting up for a couple of weeks, but my dear husband knew that I would stress about it so he tried to hide it from me. The clock kept asking to be set and the panel would blitz out occasionally so he just kept resetting the clock hoping that it would heal itself and I wouldn't find out about it. Good thought, except it completely died! RIP my 2 1/2 year old piece of crap! I wasn't thinking about the bloggability of this story before I ripped the trim off and pulled the sucker out of the wall so I don't have a before pic. I spent a couple of hours on the phone and at the store trying to figure out if I should fix it or replace it. The only problem with replacement is the stainless trim kit that goes around the microwave is a precise measurement so I had to try and find the exact microwave to replace it with. The repair was going to be 100 less than a new one. But more like 300 less if I had to replace the trim also. Decisions. We decided that with our luck and the amount of repairs we paid for on the previous appliances that broke on us, we were better off cutting our losses now and replacing the darn thing. Luckily there was a very nice man in the appliance section of the big orange hardware store and I got everything all figured out.... at least I am hoping.

The same day I discovered the microwave was dead I found out that the pot filler over my cook top was leaking under the cabinet at the shut off valve. How was this little gem of a discovery made? There was water coming out from underneath the cabinets. Luckily I am pretty handy and knew what to look for when you find water. I pulled out the drawer under the cook top, found the leak and discovered that it was probably leaking for some time for it to find it's way out the front of the cabinets. I put a bunch of towels at the base of the cabinets to soak up all the water and then put fans out in the hopes of drying everything out. I also found some mold, so I've got someone coming over to tell me if I've got to rip out all the cabinets or not. I also have 2 broken toilets. One that wont stop running that I think I can figure out how to fix and one with a handle that wont come back up after you push it. At this point I think I could start my own home repair show. :)

Sometimes I hate the fact that Nate gets to go off to work and I am stuck figuring out things like how to get my microwave out of the wall and who to call and if I should fix it. Oh well, I guess being handy is never a bad thing. Sometimes I just want to pull the girl card though and play dumb so I don't have to deal with stuff like this. The kids have been realizing that they use the microwave more than they thought and it will be interesting to see if they can survive until Friday when the new one comes. I can't help but laugh when I look at that simplify sign over the massive hole in my cabinet. :0)

Ethan's Baptism

This past Saturday Ethan was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints by his Daddy. It was a really nice program. We had Emma and her friend, Tyler sing a duet of "A Child's Prayer" which turned out so lovely. I love to hear the two of them sing. I also managed to talk Emma into giving the talk on the Holy Ghost. I printed off 4 ready made talks for her to choose from and make her own. I told her that I was just trying to help her to be a good public speaker and teacher and she just laughed. She seems to think that I was just trying to get out of doing it myself. Me do that, never. hahaha. The talk had some props that she wasn't comfortable asking the audience what they thought they meant so I got up and did that portion and then she would read off the correct answer. Our props were, a candle, a compass, a pair of eyeglasses, a blanket, a teddy bear and a sea shell. She did such a good job and got lots of compliments. She is a very talented sweet girl. We also got to share the day with a good friend and her daughter that was being baptized then we rushed off to Ethan's final basketball game of the season. Ethan is also a very sweet and talented boy and he kept giving me hugs and telling me that he loved me all day long.

What's That On Your Head?

This week C, R and I went on a overnight field trip with the middle school to a music camp as chaperons. It works out so nicely that the three of us have kids in the choir. We always have way too much fun when we get together so we decided that this was a must adventure. I always get a bit worried that they will stop letting us be chaperons together because they know we act like kids. But they do, and we love it. Because of some snow day problems the orchestra ended up going up with the choir so it was a pretty big group with all the 6th, 7th and 8th graders.

The first night we got asked to go with the orchestra. Well, we kinda came to hang out with our kids, but sure why not. The orchestra was divided up into beginning and advanced workshops with one professional clinician for the two to share. Their school teacher was supposed to be working with the beginners but she only got them tuned up and wanted them to practice amongst themselves for the remaining 45 minutes of the workshop so she could go observe the teaching style of the clinician. Really, you are just leaving us in here for 45 minutes with no direction to the kids other than practice? This played out for about 5 minutes until the three of us started getting a headache. Ok, time to organize things!

The three of us took turns living out our dreams of conducting an orchestra and being just silly. We even had the kids get into a conga line and we walked around the room while they played. C introduced to the kids the karate style of conducting and they knew when to stop playing because she held the crane pose. When the older group came in we did the same thing except they could actually play some cool songs so R and I did some river dancing and some hoe downing to their awesome fiddle music. We wanted them to be able to focus on their music while we tried to distract them. Good lesson, huh? We thought so. One of the kids found it so amusing that he shot video of us from his phone that I am praying doesn't make it online. To help combat the rowdiness problem we taught them a song. We would say; "what's that on your head?" and they replied "a wig" in a high pitched sing song voice. It worked great at getting their attention and they loved it.

Chaperons that are mean and want to keep kids in line all the time we are not, although R gave it a good shot at looking mean. You just have to get creative and make things fun and the next thing you know 45 minutes has flown by like 5. It was fun to hear the talk around camp about the 3 moms that were in with the orchestra. We were pegged "the fun moms." That's one label I am happy to take. :)

Adventures in Service

When I woke up Friday morning I had no idea what I was in for that day. It started out pretty normal with me and Marie making some visits to sisters in our ward that we like to check up on. We stopped in on one of them unannounced and found that she was in some need of moving some things around her home because it was in the process of being winterized. It feels really good to be an answer to someones prayer. After about an hour of moving things around I headed home and decided that the dogs could really use a walk. Yeah, pretty much not a good idea. The problem is that the 2 of them together weigh over 200 lbs. That is a ton of weight for me to try and control. Wouldn't you know that someone else thought that walking their dogs was also a good idea at 2 in the afternoon. I lost some skin on my hand from the leash and went stomping down the road trying to put the brakes on the dogs. I was successful in keeping them away from the other dogs but my toes were not very forgiving of my situation. There was some pretty severe pain involved and I wasn't sure how I was going to walk back home. I persevered and made it home where I promptly threw myself on my bed in a dramatic fit of tears and depression.

I was just recovering from my pity party when I got a phone call. Why, oh why did I answer the phone? By this time it was just about 5 and I was trying to figure out dinner plans. On the other end of the phone was a missionary from the southern part of town. When I say southern it means gang central. This missionary needs a favor from me. Oh goodie, can't wait to hear what this is gonna be! Could I really perform 2 good deeds in one day? I'm not sure. That would definitely ruin my heartless image that I try desperately to keep up. :) He was putting a lady on the train and wanted me to pick her up and take her to this place which has the word "house" on the end of it. So he wanted me to take her to some sort of shelter and I wasn't sure what kind but he assured me that she knew how to get there. I was pretty annoyed that he was asking this of me, but after clarifying that all I had to do was pick her up at the train station at 6 and deliver her to this "house" which she knew how to get to I agreed. Ok, fine. I will do it. So, I called up hubs and told him that he was going with me so he better high tail it on home. :)

This dear sweet elder had given this cellphoneless woman my last name and my cell phone number in case there were problems with the pick up. What could possibly go wrong????? She arrived 10 minutes early and had someone with a cell phone call me and I told her to hold tight I was 3 minutes from there. Did she hold tight? I guess she doesn't know the hiking rule of getting lost. Stay put!!!! We got there and she wasn't on the lower level. So, I climbed the 3 story flight of stairs with my injured feet to the platform to look for her. At this same time Nate got another call from a stranger saying that she was now at another location in the hopes of getting her closer to us. Closer than 3 minutes? I am now pretty upset with the missionaries for getting me into this mess. OK, we will be right there. We arrive at the new location and she has managed to bum a cigarette off someone and she is also drunk. Do you think she knows how to get to this place? Nope!!!! Luckily I had with me my trusty ipad and did some surfing, called the place and....... you have to have and interview to get in and they don't disclose the location of the place because it is a shelter for abused women so no one can know where it is AND there is no avail beds so she can't go there. Holy Crap! Now what?

To keep this from being too long I will just give the highlights from here. I needed some time to think so we took her to get some food while I got some referrals from the place that rejected us. We spent a lot of time in the truck together and she said a lot of crazy things and I wasn't sure if it was the alcohol or something else. Probably both. I kept calling places while we drove around and listened to this woman's story. I finally found a place that sure enough also needed an interview so while the woman was telling the lady her story of abuse I looked up the location of this place. It was in a small town an hour and a half from where we picked her up at the train station. The woman ended up getting too upset and I had to finish out the interview and we just kept driving hoping that she would be accepted. Thank goodness she was and we met at an agreed upon location for her to be picked up. I have never been so glad to see a complete stranger in my life. I gave the woman from the shelter a hug and expressed my gratitude for having room for this woman that I had just met. I gave our new friend a hug, wished her luck and said good-bye.

We were starving by this point. I was still too traumatized by this experience to stop in that town for food. Talk about ill equipped to handle a situation like that. When we got closer to home we were finally ready to stop and get a sandwich but couldn't eat in the restaurant. It was freezing in there because the air was on and so were all the fans, so we took our food out to the truck to eat. We just sat there looking at each other with a "what the heck just happened" look on our faces trying to figure out the point of that 3 hour tour. Here is what I came up with. I should never indulge in self pity again! Look where it got me. lol Another point could be this; she met this abusive meth dealing gang member when she was 12 years old and she is now in her 30's. Her cousins are this guys best friends and her family is done with all the trouble. There really is no foreseeable future or hope for this woman or her children. She has nowhere to go and no support. Which means that when she is done with her stay at the shelter she will go back to the abuse. Decisions you make when you are 12 can deeply affect the rest of your life. Choices that you make matter and they set the course!!! I heard this once many years ago and it has stuck with me ever since "when we die our lives add up to the sum total of all the decisions we ever made"

Queen For a Day

Wow, I think that is the biggest cheesiest smile ever! It was the annual blue and gold banquet for the cub scouts and the theme was Knights of the Round Table. Everyone was encouraged to dress up if they wanted to which usually means that no one does. Including myself. 10 minutes before we were supposed to be in the car I remembered the queen costume I had hanging in my closet from a couple Halloweens ago. I really had no excuse to not dress up with this dress staring me in the face. Alright, I guess I can put it on and be a good sport and hey, maybe they would let me have some queenly duties if I looked the part. Well, a couple of Halloweens ago I was 15 pounds lighter than I am today. So, though it appears that I have a hunch back in this picture, the fact is that I couldn't get the dress zipped up! Emma tried and tried and then ended up safety pinning it so it looked like it was originally an open back dress. Yes, I am pretty secure with myself for showing up looking like I am exploding out of my dress. lol Not really, just a aah who cares moment.

I figured that since I was the only Mom that showed up in costume I should get to Knight the boys. I tracked down the King and plead my case. Turns out his wife showed up in costume as well so I had to duel her for the responsibility. I basically just threatened to behead her and won the fight. lol So, I got to knight each of the boys and feel like a real life pretend queen for a night. It was a fun and elaborate evening and best of all, Ethan received his bobcat, a sword and a shield. Can life get any better for an 8 year old?

The next day when it was time to face the inevitable and clean up the kitchen and do some vacuuming, the tiara was just sitting there on the counter. Why not, I thought to myself. So, I put it on and went about my chores. Doing chores while wearing a tiara, it's a good thing. :0)

Tears in the juice aisle

Going on vacation always has a certain amount of stress attached to it. This time before we left the kids missed a week of school due to the flu and then missed the next week of school because of the freezing temperatures. So, starting out a vacation with having seen too much of each other beforehand can make you wonder if you will survive the trip. To top it off, on the day before we were getting ready to leave, we were giving my friend instructions for the dogs and noticed a nice little ice sculpture covering our pool equipment. Holy crap! This pool is nothing but trouble and expense! I had taken a gamble that it wouldn't get too cold this winter and thought we were done with snow....we went from 60 degree weather to below freezing temps and a pool not winterized in those temperatures does stuff like you see in the picture. One more thing to add to my list of worries. I called up the pool guy and set up an appointment for when my friend could be there.......Too bad I gave her the wrong key and locked her out of the house! Luckily she could still get into the garage and just paid him for me and he will come back when he can access the PDA that was also in the house. Who doesn't check a key before they give it to someone? Me that's who! Aarrgg!

We had a great time and then left Maui on Friday night at 10 pm, which I will never do again. It was pouring down rain in the afternoon and we were running out of ways to kill time. Finally it was time to board and we had troubles with one of our seats. It was double booked so there was a bit of a scandal to which Nate's solution was that the airline could take one of our kids since we only wanted 3 anyway. This solved the problem pretty quickly. :) Our flight arrived 30 minutes late and there was a guy that tackled us trying to get off the plane before it was his turn. He literally pushed us and climbed over seats. Wouldn't you know, we missed our connection in LA. The plane was right there, they just wouldn't let all 33 of us that were supposed to make that connection get on it. It's always nice when someone else is more pissed off than you and makes a huge scene. It did no good and we got redirected to another flight that had already boarded. This is when I kissed my luggage goodbye and knew it probably wouldn't be waiting for us. We then flew to Dallas and wished they would just let us parachute out of the plane to get home. From Dallas we went to Abq and arrived at 1:40pm on Saturday to........no luggage. Big surprise. They knew exactly where they were and offered to deliver them to our house when they arrived. O.K.

We get home completely exhausted from lack of sleep. I tried, but those darn seats are so uncomfortable and leaning against the window was out of the question because it felt like it was frozen. Good times. We gave the shuttle guy his tip and then went to pay for our parking where Nate realized that he gave the driver the wrong wad of cash in his pocket. The shuttle driver got the 40 bucks we needed to pay for the parking. Fantastic. I hope his day was made! We got home and let the dogs out and didn't realize that the pool guy that fixed everything for a nice chunk of change left a bunch of parts and equipment out that the dogs thought were meant for chew toys. Are you kidding me. We get to pay for this all over again? Obviously going to the grocery store having been up all night and not having brushed my teeth or showered since the day before was not a good idea. We needed food though, so off Nate and I went. We ran into a family that we know that is trying to sell their house and of course everything keeps breaking. So we commiserated together in the juice isle while tears rolled down my face. That's not embarrassing now is it? lol

Good news, we finally got a call at 9:30 pm on Saturday telling me that they were in possession of our luggage and wondered if they could still deliver it that evening. Sure, why not. When? "Well, Ma'am it will be between 4-6 hours." I just started laughing and said, "well now, that isn't exactly tonight anymore now is it?" The guy really didn't share my humor and for the sake of not having my luggage lost any further I accepted. At 2:30 AM my cell phone rang and woke me from such a deep sleep that I jumped spastically out of bed unsure of where I was or what was going on. "Ma'am I am at your front door with your luggage." Fanflippintastic.

Jared's Birthday Adventure

Jared's birthday was very close to the time we were in Hawaii, so he got to pick out one of the things we did. What he wanted to do most of all was to go on a submarine. Being on a boat in the ocean is not on my list of things I enjoy doing. I usually end up wishing for death and debating throwing myself overboard to let the sharks eat me to end my misery. But, it's my boys birthday so on a boat in the ocean is exactly where I was going.

We started off at the dock waiting for our transport boat out to the submarine. This ride wasn't bad because we were speeding across the water. It got a bit dicey when we were just sitting in one spot waiting for the sub to make it's way to the surface to pick us up. This process took a bit of time because the last tour had to get off the sub and we had to load onto it. We finally made our way down into this tiny little space with our portal for viewing right in front of us. The crew was pretty funny and told lots of jokes and played funny theme music on our tour. We also learned some fun facts and got to experience what happens to colors when the light refraction is taken away. The deeper you go the less you can distinguish color. Our final depth was 130 ft. Pretty fun. They also sunk a ship a few years earlier to make the tour more exciting. It was quite the process of permits and expense to get the boat they paid a dollar for sunk to the bottom of the ocean floor. This reminds me of our experience we had when we first arrived on the island and had to get some groceries. You have to take them home bag less unless you have your own bag or wish to purchase an enviro friendly one from them. Apparently the entire island went green back in January. I guess in this Utopian enviro friendly world we are to carry bags with us everywhere we go? Anywho....back to the sub....

After seeing some fish and learning some fun facts we made our way back to the surface. We got to repeat the same process we had when loading to unload, only this time the water was much more choppy. I was impressed that none of the kids were feeling sea sick. Just their lame Mom who was glad to be out in fresh air again. Even though the water was significantly more choppy it wasn't too bad and I surprisingly didn't feel too sick. Just a headache and my appetite wasn't diminished like it usually is after experiences on the ocean. We were all extremely hungry when we got back to shore so we went to a really awesome bbq place and ate a ton of yummy food. Food always makes me happy especially when brisket and bbq sauce is involved. So all was happy and exciting for Jared's submarine excursion to celebrate his 12th year.

Whales of Fun

I am now sitting poolside after an adventurous day. We decided to head to a black beach, the only other one in Maui that isn't on the road to Hana. We loaded up with a plan for lunch. The way of the sub was our desired destination and after some trouble with Tomacita, our navigation, we finally found it. It was literally a hole in the wall. There wasn't really room to stand in there to order and the soda machine was out of ice. No!!!! Even without ice the place was packed like a can of sardines. I've never seen such a busy sub shop. We had some kids that were in need of a restroom and for some reason no businesses on the island have restrooms. Weird. I guess they expect everyone to just step into the ocean to relieve themselves. I was having none of this place and we decided to take a gamble and head to the next town.

We had a nice drive along the beach and saw at least 10 whales jumping out of the water, proudly displaying their tails and shooting water up into the sky. Amazing. In all the times I have been to Hawaii I have never once seen a whale. This trip, which happens to be mating season, we see them every day. Who needs to pay money to get sick on a boat to watch whales when I can see them from the beach in front of our resort? Don't get me wrong, it would be pretty incredible to see one jump out of the water right next to a boat, but it might be terrifying as well. Especially if there is vomiting from sea sickness happening around me.

We stopped in the next town and found a nice brand new looking way of the sub shop and........the line was to the door and it took forever. Is this place something special here. Are islanders passionate about their choice of subs? There was ice though so we figured we may as well wait it out. This was an exercise in patience to say the least especially with 2 of my children, who don't eat sandwiches, were dying of hunger and there was no sign of chicken nuggets in sight. We are referring to the experience as the sub fiasco of 2011.

We finally arrived at our desired location to see for ourselves a black beach. It looks brown not black were the first word out of the kids'
mouths. Great, we just endured sub fiasco of 2011 to arrive at a black beach that looks brown. The kids quickly decided not to car and had fun running from the waves and looking for treasures along the shore. Having grown up in western Washington, it looked like the sand I grew up with. The water is also filled with rocks and the surf is pretty dangerous there so snorkeling was not recommended. So we hung out for a bit and then headed back because the " big beach" access that was just down the street had no parking avail so we headed back to the nice white smooth sand at our resort. All in all the trip was worth it because of the whales. Truly amazing to be driving along the coast surrounded by beautiful greenery and lush mountains watching whales.

Movies

So I am sitting here on the balcony of our hotel room in Maui staring at the ocean lost in thought. There are so many stressful thing occurring in our lives right now that I don't want to think about anymore. The kids are still asleep which I am grateful for. We are on day 3 here and the kids are sunburned and wiped out. The only problem is that leaves me alone with my thoughts. So, instead I am going to ponder the relevance of movies. Sounds fun, don't it?

I am the kid of girl that loves black and white movies. In the 30's -50's directors cared about character development and developing a story line that moved you through a movie much like a novel does. The language is also great and it makes me sad that we don't talk so purposefully anymore. They are also witty and funny and don't rely on sex to let you know that a couple is in love. I have also discovered that a good portion of movies we watch today were once a b&w movie and in every case that I have found, the b&w is always better than the current version. This theory doesn't hold for movie from the 60's and 70's that get remade. Sometimes the remake has been better than the original.

What got me thinking about this? We had a 7 hour and 42 min flight on the way here so I decided to read a novel from an author that I always swear I will never read anything by him again and then always give in. He is notorious for his sappy love stories and the girl is always irrational and stupid and the guy always chases her. The kind of story line that makes every girl wish there was a guy out there like that for her but knowing if she actually met that guy she would be annoyed by his lack of a spine. So, I found myself reading this novel knowing that I would Netflix the movie that was made when I was done. I finished up the uber sappy yet, oh so delicious novel and then
turned on the movie. Big mistake. I know that it never turns out well to see a movie so soon after reading a book, but I had nothing better to
do in my room last night while the kids were watching kid stuff. First of all, the actors that were chosen speaks to the age of girls
they were expecting to see for this film, not for my age group. I see the lead too much on the Disney channel and don't care to see her in
any movies! Anyway, talk about a complete lack of character development and hardly any mention of the purpose of the entire movie which
also was the title. 30 minutes could have easily been added to slow down and take some time to tell the story instead of changing the entire
thing to try and tell the story faster. So annoying and a complete waste of time. Not to mention a major thread in the novel was a religious
one and the movie completely left that out. Do directors expect you to have read the book so they don't have to even bother with trying to
tell a cohesive story? Is the world so fast paced that we refuse to see movies over 90 minutes long? It certainly seems like it to me
especially after this last experience.

Snow Day

We are on our 2 day of no school because of the snow. Nate wanted to make sure we took full advantage of the fun we could have by getting all the gear out we would need to play in the snow before he headed off to work this morning. The thought of going out in the 10 degree weather left me a bit cold, but with everything all ready to go I had to give myself a pep talk and head outside. Honestly I was left with no excuse with everything out and ready to go. So we bundled up as best we could and had ourselves some good ole fun!
Our first attempt at some sledding fun we tied an inflatable tube to the back of the 4 wheeler. This didn't even last for one ride. We knew better, but thought maybe it would work. So out with the ole standby plastic 2 man sled and the fun resumed. I just made lots of trips up and down the street with the kids and they had a blast. We stopped for a nice little lunch break at our favorite pizza place with our friends and then they joined in on the redneck sledding fun.
After we were all sufficiently frozen to the core we headed inside for some hot chocolate. I would say we had a pretty successful snow day!

My Little Piggies

Here they are. My little piggies in all their nasty glory. They still don't look much like real toes, but I guess I have toes and that is something to be celebrated. I was able to put a pair of tennis shoes on for the first time yesterday and it felt awesome! I was feeling extra brave so I decided to take a walk around the block. I live on a hill and the blocks are pretty long so it was a pretty big commitment to head off on this adventure. I still don't walk normally which causes problems in other areas like my knees and today in my calves. I am starting to wonder if I will ever be able to walk like a normal person. Anyway, I made it around the block, just barely, and it was pretty slow going at that. My toes still don't want me to walk around too much so life is still pretty frustrating, but I am getting around better every day. If having surgery wasn't enough down time, I am just now recovering from the flu. Last wed I knew I was getting sick and on thursday the fever, a major cough and some pretty intense congestion confirmed it. I was out of commission until sunday. I never get sick like that. I usually succumb to the illness for a couple of hours and then have too much to do so I declare myself well. Not this time. I was knocked on my butt! I still feel pretty run down, but at least I don't feel like my body will turn to ashes if someone touches me anymore. Ethan and Jordyn were both sick for a week so we have been spending lots of time together. This thing just drags on and on! Poor little Ethan was just in tears because his body ached so bad and he kept telling me it felt like he was going to die. Poor little guy. I feel ya little buddy! Thank goodness that is over. The 2 little ones got to go back to school for one day, Mon, and then today school was cancelled due to snow and they already canceled for tomorrow. Good times!

Where am I?

Sometimes I just have to take a look around me and wonder if I am still living on Earth. I watch the news and how the events of the day are being reported and I think that surely I must be on Mars. Because there is no other explanation. My latest example is this....and there are so many, but this is the one that has me thinking that we just might be too dumb to save ourselves. How is it that the president of the united states of america can address the people in a SOTU address and with a straight face hold up China as something we should strive to be like. For real? Come on! Why was there not outrage? People were actually thinking, oh yea, that sounds like a freaking fantastic idea! Where is our bullet train? Cause I would totally ride one of those....not! Ummmm really? Do you not know? Do you have to ask why we can't have one! Would you like to work in a labor camp? Does that sound like a good idea? Do we really want to look towards a national socialist country for answers? Do we want to say that a dictator that doesn't treat any of his people with an ounce of humanity can teach us a thing or two? Yea, let's educate our kids like they do. That would be fun. While Mom and Dad are in the work camp the kiddos can be in the education camp. While we are at it, lets institute a rice ration and the 1 kid per family rule. Heck, why wait? We can start killing off kids right now. That will save some money and some jobs! I don't know about you, but I can't wait to be just like china. Thank you for the brilliant inspiration Mr Pres. The only thing China is doing that we don't seem to be interested in is buying up all the oil in the world. But hey, when they come to collect their rent and we can't pay maybe we can use our windmills to gently blow them back to where they came from.

ok, I feel a little better now. I have been trying really hard to lay off politics lately, but the world is falling apart. Now I will find something fun to blog about to take my mind off the end of the world. :)