Tuesday, November 28, 2006

There's no place like home for the holidays.....

Well Thanksgiving was nice this year. Dennis and I drove up to my dad's cottage in Michigan and had a great meal with my dad, his fiance, and her kids. As good as the food was and as nice as the atmosphere was, I couldn't help but think that the Holidays just aren't the same anymore.
I miss the days when 20-30-40 of us would all get together and have a big meal, play games, and spend the day relaxing together with the whole family. Christmas was always the best. Every Christmas Eve we would all go to my Grandmas house and do a big present swap, have a big meal, sit in the kitchen and talk, play games, and just be together. This Christmas will not be like that.
Of course as we all grow up, we all have other things going on in our lives. I have one cousin who is married and is obligated to spend time with his wife's family on Christmas Eve. And I can understand that because I myself lay down the law and make my husband go with me to my family's on Christmas Eve. My sister constantly makes whatever boy she is dating the biggest priority in her life. Last year she and her fiance stopped by for a bit, but she spent most of her time with his family. This year she has a new boyfriend and will spending Christmas with his family. She spent Thanksgiving with his family too.
Instead of the big Christmas gathering, there will probably be 10 or so of us at my Grandmas this year. Oh well. Things change. It just makes me sad that we can't all get together every once in a while. The last time we were all together was at my wedding, and the next time will probably be whenever someone else gets married. But, I will always remember the Christmases when I was a kid and when we did all get together.
It's pretty incredible to see how much a family can change over time. Things are much different now than they were when I was a kid. You have births, deaths, divorces, marriages, people moving away, people moving in, career changes, and personality changes. Priorities change and peoples lives change. It's pretty interesting to see how much my family has changed over the years and to look at all of the things that caused those changes.
Well enough nostalgia for me. I hope that whoever you spend Christmas with you will still feel like you are "home" for the holidays.

Friday, November 17, 2006

Political Humor

Here's a funny e-mail I received today, that I thought I would share...I thought it could be entertaining no matter what side of the fence you are on...

The Pope took a couple of days off to visit the mountains of Alaska for some sightseeing. He was cruising along the campground in the pope-mobile when there was a frantic commotion just at the edge of the woods.

A helpless Democrat, wearing sandals, shorts, a "Save the Whales" hat, and a "Bush Lied" T-shirt, was screaming while struggling frantically, thrashing around trying to free himself from the grasp of a 10 foot grizzly bear.

As the Pope watched horrified, a group of Republican loggers came racing up. One quickly fired a .44 magnum into the bear's chest... The other two reached up and pulled the bleeding, semiconscious Democrat from the bear's grasp. Then using long clubs, the three loggers finished off the bear and two of them threw it onto the bed of their truck while the other tenderly placed the injured Democrat in the back seat. As they prepared to leave, the Pope summoned them to come over.

"I give you my blessing for your brave actions!" he told them. "I heard there was a bitter hatred between Republican loggers and Democrat environmental activists, but now I've seen with my own eyes that this is not true."

As the Pope drove off one of the loggers asked his buddies, "Who was that guy?" "It was the Pope," another replied. "He's in direct contact with Heaven and supposedly has access to all wisdom." "Well," the logger said, "he may have access to all wisdom, but he sure doesn't know anything about bear hunting! By the way, how is the bait holding up, or do we need to go back to California and get us another one?"

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

I love my doggies!

Well in the past week, I have spent over $500 at the vet. Can you believe that? I myself went to the dr. a while ago, and I got the bill yesterday - it was $6. Since when did animal doctors pass up the human doctors in billing?

We do have 3 dogs, so that can be part of the problem. They basically all just had an annual checkup, but there were a few issues. The vet was worried BamBam could have PUPD or Kushing's disease, but after some tests they ruled that out. Rusty has high blood sugar and is now on a special diet that you can only buy at the vet. The good news is that he doesn't have a thyroid problem. We need to get his blood sugar down ASAP so with the special diet we are now taking more daily walks. And Belfry who is older than the other 2 combined, is healthy as a horse (as healthy as horses can be, I guess) except for an ear infection which we had to get some medicine for.

I've considered getting the "animal insurance" believe it or not, but with premiums of $40 a month per dog, that is more than we pay for our own insurance. It's hard to say if it's worth $120/month or $1,440.00 per year. I guess you never know when a huge bill might show up for some special treatment. But I guess that is how all insurance works. Or maybe I could just pick my favorite and get insurance on him and not the others? But that would make me feel a bit quilty. In 6 more months we go back for annual vaccinations - I can hardly wait. Maybe I should start saving up now.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Stop the madness!

So today, just like any other day, I went to the post office to pick up my mail. (That's right I actually have to go to the post office every single day to pick it up because apparently even though you spend 300k on a house and 8k in taxes that just isn't enough money to get the builder to stick a damn piece of plastic with numbers on it at the end of your driveway. Nor is it enough money to pay the mailman to actually drop the mail off at your house. With 169 houses in my subdivision x's 8K in taxes for each house, that comes to $1,352,000.00 a year for the teeny tiny town of beecher. i mean really, how much money are these mailmen making where that just isn't enough? sign me up!)

Anyway, as I was saying...I went to the post office to pick up my mail. I was happy to see that today I had a nice big handful of envelopes. (It just makes me feel better about driving over there when I actually get something.) So I get home to sort through them and what do I have?

1. a new victoria's secret catalogue where they spelled my street name Dtonington? I mean come on people - is there ANY word in the english language that starts with a D and the next letter is a T? I don't think so.
2. an invitation to a surprise party - yay!
3. a new issue of Ladies Home Journal - yay!
4. an invitation to a tupperware party - yay!
5. an application for a Capital One Visa
6. an application for a Chase Mastercard
7. an application for a Discover card
8. an application for some other Mastercard I have never heard of
9. an application for a Home Depot card
10. a notice on how some bank has bought out some credit card that I cancelled 3 years ago.
11. a letter asking me to convert my macy's store card to a macy's visa
11. the nicor bill - booooo
12. the water bill - double boooo

Now really, when is this madness going to stop? I had 7 pieces of mail that are nothing but crap applications for credit cards! and why? I don't sit around applying for credit all day. I have one business credit card which is an American Express. Luckily they are still sending all my AmEx mail to my office in Georgia. There are probably more credit applications that are over there. I have a debit card which has a Visa logo on it that I use for everything - but it comes out of my checking account. I don't charge things on it! And I have one other personal credit card with Visa through AirTran since I fly that airline all the time and can earn free miles if I use it to book my tickets. I've used my macy's card once.

Does everyone in the country get this many of these things or am I on some sort of list? I feel like they are all ganging up on me and trying to break me down. It's like they are on some team bombarding me day in and day out - hoping I will give in and sign up for one. And I seriously feel like at least 10 trees have given their lives just so that I can receive these credit card applications day in and day out. (Don't worry - after I rip them up, I recycle them) Not only do they send me the application, but they have to send a fake card too - like seeing this awesome piece of thin plastic with a nifty little design on it and the words "your name here" is going to inspire me to sign up, pay annual fees, and risk paying 15% interest on an impulse buy. On top of that, there are usually 3-4 pages of stuff telling me why this card is so much better than that card, and why this card is the card I must have. Usually theres a little booklet in there too with all the rules, regulations, and fine print to explain how they can screw you whenever they want to. I really just don't think that all of this is necessary.

My husband has the same cards I do (minus the American Express and Macy's - but he does have a BestBuy card) He NEVER EVER EVER gets this kind of mail. It's just crazy if you ask me. I can't believe that the credit card companies are willing to spend so much money on marketing. I know they make billions every year on financing people who can never pay their debt off - but maybe next year they can consider spending a bit less on the advertising and use that money to re-plant a forest...just a thought.