Impressions of the Day

• wonder what was in the box Michelle gave Laura
• too bad he picked Rick Warren - bigot :-(
• hilary doesn't look happy
• Barack H Obama - kinda sad he can't use his middle name without people freaking out
• LOOK at all those people - WOW
• The girls look cute
• BYE BYE BUSH!! Please let that be the last of that bloodline.
• That is some Hat Aretha is sporting
• That's the end of the evil cheney!
• Simple Gifts is so beautiful
• This is like the poor girls version of twitter!
• AND THE CROWD DOES WILD!!!!
• Omg I can't believe he is president!
• An articulate president - HOW refreshing
• "we are ready to lead once more"
• "Our power doesn't allow us to do as we please"
• There are people everywhere!
• Wow ~ what a speech :0
• Say "Amen" - that guy should of done the invocation

I hope this good feeling can continue for the next 8 years!

OMG I did it!

I applied to take my nursing home administrator's licensing exam.

I'm going to go throw up now.

A winter scene

I'm supposed to be disinfecting/cleaning our bedroom, but instead I'm watching a pair of cardinals hop around in the snow outside my bedroom window. I'd like to get a picture but am afraid that getting up and going past the window will wake up the dog and scare the birds away.

Chili

I made chili this afternoon. I taste tested a cup this afternoon. It will be fine for dinner. I'm baking peanut butter star cookies right now. I may have broken into the bag over the weekend. Still, there were plenty of stars to stick in the cookies.

Kurt and I both have low grade colds. We didn't do much over the weekend but lay around and watch movies. We rented Casino Royale so we could relate it to Quantum of Solace. Again, I say oh la la to Daniel Craig.

We also watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall. It was decent. It had some funny bits. I like Mila Kunis - Jackie from That 70's Show. We squeezed in White Christmas and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Not much got accomplished around here.

I got the Tales of Beedle the Bard on Friday. It was short at only 107 pages with rather large double spacing. It was cute. I think JK Rowling must have been exhausted from writing the last HP book since this one was so very short. All the $$ is going to a children's charity to I don't feel bad about spending the $ on it.

Quantum of Solace

daniel craig is HOT. and scrumptious! I think he is the best Bond EVER. I like that he is intense. It makes him much more interesting. It's a fun movie!

Things I find funny #2

• In attempting to rescue my strawberry frosted poptart that was sliding off my saucer I spilled milk all over the carpet

Things I find funny #1

• I just used a hotel bottle of lotion on my hands. Turns out it was voluminizing conditioner.

• Nick wants to earn Christmas $. I made a list and put "payment will be determined by quality of work". I get home to find ALL movable furniture in the kitchen and him vacuuming away!

The Skinny

Last Saturday Kurt and I went to the book sale at the library. I bought 2 diet books mainly for new recipes NOT for the diets.
Well, now Kurt is on:

yep....the South Beach Diet. So far he has lost 12# since Sunday. He's being very good about it. I'm being supportive. I'll start it when we get back from the country of carbs and pasta at the beginning of December.

Emotional

8:39 a.m.



I'm watching election coverage. Barack Obama is casting his vote. I find myself tearing up. Please Please please let him win.



They said his grandmother voted absentee ballot before she passed.



I'm hoping her death is a good omen - Imagine the history stories "Barack Obama's grandmother - who raised him - died the day before he was elected President of the United States of America"



Alex called last night. He wanted his dad to take him to the polls. He voted in his first election ever!



I'm off to vote! Make sure you do, too!

Suspected

I'm talking to Rikki about something a while ago and say, "I think I have ADD" in an offhand, joking manner and she replies, "I've thought that for a while." WHAT?? I tell Kurt about it and he says the same thing.

My lack of concentration, how quickly I lose interest in a subject, book, task, conversation. The way my mind races from one topic to another keeping me up at night. I took an online test. I scored very high on the "you should really get that checked out" scale.

Now, I'm trying to decide what to do. I've always said I could be amazing if I ever put my mind to it. Who should I see? A GP? A shrink?

I've already lost interest in it. I got bored reading about it.

So. I have spent the ENTIRE morning scrubbing the kitchen floor Cinderella style on my hands and knees. Gross! I'm shocked the health department n'tcome in here and condemned it. At one point I had to leave and go get more pinesol and another scrubber. I still need to do the bathroom floor, but it's going to have to wait til tomorrow or the next day.

Monday I vacuumed the entire main floor. Why is it that my favorite kind of dog is a hairy one?

I'm working on a cover letter/job application/salary requirement letter for a job with the Alzheimer's Association. I think I would really enjoy it. Kurt and Rikki have been helping me word it just right. I plan on sending it out tonight.

50 years later

We went to Sioux Falls last weekend to visit my husband's parents. One of our main objectives was to scan in old family pictures. We had a lot of fun doing so. We scanned in over 280 images and learned a lot we didn't know.

Audra Kae and Lyle will be having their 50th wedding anniversary in November. I was commenting on pretty her dress was and she says, "do you want to see it?"


I figured it was packed away, but she had it hanging in her bedroom closet.


She said, "I always hoped I'd have a daughter or grand-daughter who would want to wear it." Well, since Christy is the first girl born into the direct descent in 92 years it's not too likely. We did get her to try it on though.

Does it make me a bad step-mother?

That I look forward to the kids being gone on the weekends?

That I don't want to oldest two living with us because of their crappy attitudes and how much strife they cause in my marriage?

That I think if she isn't going to see her kids on the weekends or take any responsibility toward them that she should have her parental rights terminated?

I certainly don't think it does.

An Important Message

I came across this on the blog Open Trench a blog I read. The "I" below is Don Cummings a writer in L.A. who grew up on the East Coast.

I received this today from my good friend, Marian. No one knows better than her that it is TIME.

Hi My name is Marian Fontana and I lost my husband Dave Fontana, a firefighter on September 11th, 2001. On that day, (which coincidentally was my 8th wedding anniversary) I not only watched my husband die on television, but I watched the world, country and city change forever. After my husband died, I worked with political leaders including Hillary Clinton to slow down the clean-up at Ground Zero and advocate for the firefighters and the victims families. What helped me through that difficult time, was the profound shift that took place in our country and our world. For the first time in history, "everyone was an American," united in our humanity, collective grief and effort to fight terrorism in our world. For me personally, it made something positive come from the ashes of Dave's death and I was buoyed by seeing the very best of who we are. Why am I telling you this? Because, it has deeply saddened me that the current administration squandered that once in a lifetime opportunity to unite and fight terrorism globally. Because this administration has used 9-11 as an excuse to go into a country that had nothing to do with that day and start an infinite war that has lost more lives than 9-11. Because more women are becoming widows every day. Because I am tired of seeing our country go from united, to divided in a unprecedented display of partisan politics. More than anything, because now, it is happening again. McCain/Palin are using 9/11 to prey on people's deep rooted fear and once again, it is working. On this 7th anniversary, my sadness and grief were deeper than ever. I not only grieved for Dave, my best friend for seventeen years, or for my son who will grow up fatherless, but I grieved for this country and how far we have fallen from that profound moment of unity. I grieved because for the first time in my life, I am losing hope. I am writing this campaign because I will do whatever it takes to help Obama win. We need change because to me, it feels like humanity itself is at stake. Thank you Marian Fontana

I'm having nightmares, too

I found this on the Huffington Post:

I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.

I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.

But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.

I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.

Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, "It was a task from God."

Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not.

She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.

Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.

Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.

Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.

I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.

If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, "Drill Drill Drill." I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.

Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?

It was written by Eve Ensler. She of the Vaginia Monologues fame. I feel like I need to do more to help win this election. How do we motivate people to vote? I have friends, intelligent friends, that have NEVER bothered to vote. This has to be the year. The time is now. The need is great!

Blah

Not much is happening here. I've been feeling kind of blah.

Francis is still chewing on his feet. I got him more and different medicine today.

The weather has been sucky. Today is nice though, but I'm sore from my chiro appointment so I don't think gardening is a good idea.

I got a postcard from Estonia today and one from Latvia yesterday.

We liberated a bunch of rubbermaids over the weekend. We are now down to only 80 full ones.

Kurt cleaned out the garage.

Sherry liked her gift.

I've been doing laundry.

Blah. Is bah humbug appropriate this time of year?

Please Please Please....We have to win!

This scares the HELL out of me:

Mr. Morton, a retired crane operator, was worried that his party had been inching to the left – and that even if conservatives would still vote for McCain, they would not volunteer for him. But no more.

“I’m a leader in my township, and we now have boots on the ground we didn’t have before,” says Morton. “All the gals, right-to-life, home-schoolers, were going to vote for McCain, but they weren’t going to work for him. Now they’re going to work for him.”

Now, I don't normally read the Christian Monitor, but it was the link via Google News.

I thought she gave a much better speech than Rudy. Watching the Republican convention ties my stomach in knots.

If the Democrats can't win this election we may never be able to win one.

***Rikki and Amy were in the Twin Cities last night at the Rage Against the Machine concert. They band has a big sign saying "F**** U RNC". The said the feeling in the Cities was one of tension.

What a Day!

Seems like I spent the entire day running around. I hate that!

I had to drop off prescriptions at the pharmacy. (Oh crap! I forgot to go back and get them. oops!) Then I had to transfer $ from one bank to another. My car is in the shop so we have to figure out how to pay for that. I visited our insurance agent to see if our policy covers towing and car rental (it does). Our oldest child, Fred, has recently "allowed" us back in his life. (He needed a place to live). So we are setting him up in an apartment. We made that decision before the car conked out.

I had to go to Waterloo for dentist and chiro appointments. Now I'm waiting to see how much our share of my crown is going to be.

The poor puppy is still suffering. He has seasonal allergies which is causing him to chew his paws raw. I need to monitor that to see if he's going to need a steroid shot. Ugh.

On the bright side when I was in Waterloo there was a farmer's market near the chiro. I got red raspberries, leeks, and green beans. Yum!

Tomorrow Dad and I are supposed to go fishing. Rain is forecast, however. I REALLY want to go fishing!

Boracay: Part Deux

I woke up early (like 5:30) Saturday morning. Kurt was still sleeping so I decided to take a walk on the beach. I was feeling creative. I love being near the sea. It's where I am most relaxed. It still looked stormy from the night before. The beach was littered with driftwood, seaweed, and trash. The resorts already had guys out cleaning it up.


The waves were a lot rougher than they had been the day before. I hoped it would clear up later in the day, but it really didn't get a lot better.

Kurt didn't expect that I would be gone long so he was up and dressed when I got back. I was gone for over an hour though!

After we had breakfast I splashed around in the pool for a while. It was kind of chilly! The part that I thought was a hot tub was just another part of the pool. Since Kurt was still feeling under the weather he had a nap while I went shopping. I bought some pearls, a box covered with shells, postcards and some t-shirts.

We did spend some time at the beach in the afternoon. Kurt tried to nap while I waded and "body surfed" in the water. The body surfing mainly consisted of me getting knocked over by the waves. Man, it was fun!

Our hotel had a spa. So we made a couple's massage appointment for 9 pm that evening. It ended up being quite the experience. The robes were too small, the flip flops were too small for Kurt's size 14's, the couple's bath was freezing! And outside! And it the rain!

The massages ended up being great. Very relaxing and sort of romantic. We were there fro 2 1/2 hours! We both slept well, but had very vivid dreams all night.

Sunday we woke up late and headed for breakfast. As we left the room we heard a clap of thunder so Kurt went back after the umbrellas. It was a good thing he did. The sky opened up half way to the cafe. It was a monsoon! We noticed that the resort has the exact same ceiling fans from Lowe's that we just put up in all our bedrooms.

We had to be checked out to get on the shuttle to begin the journey back to Manila by noon. I had seen on Tripadvisor that checking out of the Regency is a bit of an ordeal. They send someone up to your room to check for damage and if you've had anything out of the minibar before they'll clear you. We made sure to get down there in plenty of time.

The trip back to the boat launch was harrowing. We were stuffed in the back of what looked like a paddy wagon. We didn't get very close to the launch at all before we had to get out. Trying not to slip in the mud and keep track of the porter that took off with our luggage was quite the challenge.

Then we got to the boats. They weren't anywhere close to shore. We had to wade out to it. I'm trying to hold up my pant legs, hold onto my shoes and my purse while walking up a very skinny, very slippery, very steep gangplank. It was fantastic. I had seen on the website that rubber shoes were recommended for getting to the island, but we hadn't had any problems on the way TO Boracay.

Here's a picture of one of the luxury launches we rode. There are men in the water acting as tug boats and trying to keep the boat from smashing into each other.

It took a much longer time to get back to Aklan than the trip over had been. Once we "docked" much like McArthur we had to wade to shore!

I managed to sleep on the bus back to Kalibo. Our flight was fine. Once we arrived in Manila the wait for taxi was awful. We had to stand in this long line right next to the road while all these cars were belching pollution. I really thought I was going to be sick.

When we finally did get a taxi it was the worst one ever. He was like the Mario Andretti of the Philippines. It was race, slam to a halt, repeat. I knew we were in trouble when I saw the guy stroking the rosary hanging from the rear view mirror.

We were very glad to get back to the Regalia. We ordered up some dinner. Kurt started working and I finished packing. I had to leave for home in the morning.