carbon accounts??????

WTH? So now you are supposed to have a carbon accont to offset the pollution you cause? Change that WTH to WTF? Because that is what the tree huggers and their comrades are trying-----and succeeding----in doing. No Vaseline either. Sorry to be so crude, but I get really tired of those who keep telling me what a pox I am to this planet just because I am alive. News flash---the earth didn't get this way overnight, and while willing as always to take my share of any blame, I am not willing to give up my lifestyle when those who are trying to mandate the change are not exactly being the most responsible inhabitants of the planet either.
Al Gore.....
Clinton(pick one, they are both the same)....
Pelosi......
the GOP sellouts.......
pick a hollywood star of the week........
I mean, I don't where any of the very vocal global warming crowd are giving up the SUV's and the Gulfstreams or whatever the latest status symbol is, much less carpooling or using the local bus systems, etc. Yet they would like me to give up the van I have ----- a vehicle not bought because I wanted it, but because my family was expanding and we needed a vehicle that had the capacity to carry all of us at once---to buy one of their little hybrids---which would probably cost as much as my house payment each month (and the last time I wrote checks this big for housing was when we rented in Norwalk, CT back in the 90's--at least this time it's an investment and not money down the drain). Nope. Make them affordable and efficient and roomy enough to seat 7, including the booster seat my state demands I keep my youngest in until she is at least 7 or 8, plus all the groceries and assorted paraphenalia that having 5 kids requires--i.e. bookbags, etc, and I might consider it. I have long thought that there needed to be another option besides enriching the oil countries and oil execs, but have yet to see an affordable, viable for the general public option presented.
I try to recycle. We save cans from our pop and turn them back in at the local recycler. I generally reuse the plastic shopping bags for storage, wrapping fragiles in to put away, and for trash bags. If I have a huge overflow, then I take them back to my local wally world and put them in the recycle bin. I only run full washer and dishwasher loads, and unless absolutely necessary, I try to avoid running a lot of anything electric during peak usage times. I now take my ink cartridges to a local place and have them refilled for a fraction of what buying new ones would cost. I am also trying to switch over to rechargeable batteries for the cameras and stuff.
I'm not trying to toot my own horn so much as trying to show a few ways I and my family try to conserve our energy and resources--including our money!! Anyone can do a few simple things. But the carbon account thing? Please. I don't get it. I don't think many do.
Just be responsible with what you are given. Imagine if everyone was.

headline......

"Thousands of Christians protest Iraq war..."

Good for them.

Now my two cents worth....
I am a Christian. I do not like the war. I don't like any war. I much prefer to live in peace. That said, I also believe we need to finish what we have started. Give the troops the greenlight to do what they need to, give them the resources to do so----more personnel, supplies, etc.--- so they can complete the task and get home before something else blows up somewhere else.
I do not believe we need to play policeman for the whole world. And after the pounding we as a country have taken in the last 5 or 6 years over the war, I think it is time to call a halt to it. Let the other countries sort out their own affairs. We as a nation can't seem to get a grip on our own problems, so why take on those of other countries? Let's take care of hunger and poverty and AIDS and the like here first. Then others can come to us and learn from our experience so that they may solve their own problems.

And for goodness sakes, shut these Hollywood types up who keep going overseas and ranting about how screwed up we are and what a jerk Bush is, etc. By the way, The last Dixie chicks cd I bought was "Home", I think, right before the whole flap with them and Toby Keith---and I won;t even listen to it now, much less buy their new one. All of them need to grow up and support our country, and if you don;t like something then VOTE!!!!!!!!Make your voice heard by contacting your elected officials, but quit giving other countries ammo to use against us.

No wonder my blood pressure was up this week and I stayed offline. People are flipping stupid.

will it or won't it?

As in ever be spring? Earlier this week we were all in shorts--at least for a little while--and today I have frozen to death. I wore a hooded, quilted flannel shirt pretty well all day while inside at work. And the heat in the store was working. It probably didn't help that I had to be outside in the elements, 30-odd degrees and a very cold rain, while supervising the unloading of two furniture trucks. I think the only time I have been completely warm was when I took a much needed but wholly unexpected nap this evening on the couch--mostly unexpected because I had 4 of the 5 kids tonight and they all stayed in the living room watching Reba and Still Standing on Lifetime, playing Polly Pockets with the 5 yr old, and my oldest boy actually got most of his English homework done without me telling him he needed to work on it. And the boys remembered to call their dad on time at 7.
And yes, I checked the house out---and they do not appear to have done anything they shouldn't.
I did speak too soon though--I told one of my coworkers today that it would be nice to have a weekend off with the kids and nobody was sick (and yes Iknocked on wood), and now Katiebug is sniffling and coughing. Figures. Oh well.
And my honey just walked in the door and brought me some strawberries which I am eating with some sugar on top and they are wonderful!!!!!
Maybe spring isn;t too far away after all.


On another note, I haven't been online for 10 days, and I haven;t missed it. Neither has my blood pressure or my temper. Even when the teachers threatened a strike, I didn't go online. I vented to friends and family, but that was it.
I guess a vacation was a good thing.........

just a thought....

But if you come up behind me on any road and it is obvious that the car in front of me is going, say, 30 in a 55, do you not think that riding my rear end can get all of us killed.? While the guy in front of me is already irking the crap out of me by going so extremely slow, what do you think you are doing by tailgating me to the point where I am about to tell you to introduce yourself first? I am not going any faster--I can't. Therefore all you are doing is creating an even bigger hazard than the slowpoke in front of me. GET OFF MY ASS!!!

On the same topic, I am getting older and my vision is changing somewhat. If you come up behind me with bright lights on, or with all 4 of your lights in my mirror, do not be surprised if I slow down a little and push my driver's side mirror out so far that you are forced to back off or blind yourself.

By the way, the flashing brake lights in front of you mean get off my rear end.........and I mean now....

what the ........

I know it is March. I know we still a a couple or three technical weeks of winter left, by the calendar. But I would REALLY like to know who the moron is who ordered it to be darn near 60 degrees when the son and I hit Wally World just after daybreak this morning (thanks to the tantrum of the 5 yr old in there yesterday, which cut short the previous plan to sleep in and veg all today), and then when I had forgotten the vital ground beef for the lasagna tonight and had to run to the local FasChek around 4pm, it was then about 35 and flurrying. As in snow. As in I had to go to the ballfield and haul my boys back to the house, with them saying "it;s not really that cold out here" all the way back.

Freaking moronic imbecile jerk. Whoever thought of playing around with my day off that way.

Yeah, Shellie had a major tantrum in the fabric dept of Walmart yesterday, because I refused to pay over $7 for what was packaged as a remnant of Care Bear quilt panel. To buy it fresh off the bolt would only have run me a couple of bucks more and I would be sure that I had the whole panel. Why would I pay that for a partial piece?

But she, the diva, did not see it that way. And in her 5 yr old mind, that meant she had every right to scream, cry, hit, punch, kick--and I mean she kicked me so hard that the cart she was in ended up 2 feet away from me just from the sheer retro force of the kick. That was the point at which I grabbed her wrists, informed her in the "I mean business, don;t screw with me" low pitched voice that she was to cease this behavior immediately OR ELSE. She chose to kick me again, at which point I took what items we had in the cart and headed for the checkout.

And the lecture her dad gave her when we got home and he discovered why there would be no food in the house that night......I am glad I was not in her shoes. He wasn;t foul or anything, but I felt sorry for her, just because I wuold not want to be in her shoes. Then the boys asked if they could run next door and play for a bit, so I said ok, and of course she wanted to follow. Her dad told her no, so then the playoff began. Or so she thought. She came to me a couple of minutes later and asked if she could go over. Apparently thinking that I had turned deaf when her dad told her no. She was extremely disappointed when I backed him up. and more so when we spent the evening cleaning her room top to bottom.

Ah well, such is life......

Thoughts at the end of the day....

If you walk into a store and the cart rack is empty, but there is a cart sitting just outside the door you just came in through, why do you not go back out to get it instead of bitching at me about the lack of carts while I am in the middle of ringing up, along with my cashiers, a long line of people, which is probably the reason there were no carts at the front entrance. And no, there wa no one else who could get carts, as our other available people were trying to get a handle one of the depts, where we were shorthanded due the the dept mgr. having had a heart attack that morning before coming in to work. Walk your fat rear the two steps back outside and get the damn cart yourself, or take a number and stand in line. Personally before I bitched, I would get the cart myself.

Supposedly the Pelosi-run Congress is now looking at tuition breaks for illegal immigrants. HELLO???? Does anyone but me see anything wrong with this picture? How about tuition breaks for those who are legally in this country? How about tuition breaks for the crowds of students who busted their butts all through school to be able to go to college, got the grades, but can;t seem to get any financial help to see their goal through? How not enrolling kids who can;t hack high school to begin with, then maybe some of the funding for the ever increasing remedial programs (you know, for those who didn't learn the stuff in high school but yet think they can hack it in college) can be turned back into grants and scholarships for those who deserve a break.

So Britian is pulling out some of their troops? Yippee. Yahoo. Goody for them. Whiny leftists. I really don;t care if they pull out---I think we should too---not like we have the support of our own Congress, etc. to do the job right. Let the Middle East blow itself up. Then our lefty friends can whine about how if we had stayed and gotten the job done then the ME wouldn;t have imploded on itself. Of course it wouldn;'t be the fault of anyone, unless it was Bush--who seems to be the whippping boy of everything fromthe war to head lice.

Yeah sarcasm intended.

What do ya expect this time of night after I have just perused what passes for th opinion columns of our local paper?

I'm going to bed. Hopefully the world will still be there when I wake up. Although sometimes it looks doubtful......

wonders never cease....

So the ex actaully makes it to little old Salt Rock ----a blip on the map---to pick his boys up for the weekend, and he is actually semi-nice. Hmmmm....where did I put that knife--oh yeah, i'll probably find it in my back, again. Then he wonders why i can be so guarded around him.

Only 5 1/2 more years. I'm waiting for the oldest to hit 16, get a job and start dating, and tell his dad to stuff it when that 5 weeks in the summer rolls around. Sigh.....

Anyway, on to the title of this post----so far my sewing machine has held out, even thru the constant workout it has had since the massive quilting project has begun. I started mine, Kate said,"teach me" so now she is doing hers, and now the 16 yr old has confiscated fabric and cut her strips, and is right now begging me to put down the mouse and show her how to use the machine.

Now 2 Christmases ago, my mom bought them a machine to share, and they had no interest in it, except to watch me run them up a couple pair of flannel sleep pants each. Now they have interest and their machine needs fixed---bobbin woes---and mine is available. So I am off to show Kris how to sew, then I get to take her to work and Kate can sew to her heart's content until Kris comes back home.

Hasta la vista........