McCain's Dark Horse

I've already been asked a few times what I think about McCain's VP pick.

My initial response was, "you've got to be kidding me. Does he want to win this election or not?" In our male dominated political world, do you really want to pick such a young, inexperienced woman as your running mate to get the job done? Do you really think those older white men are going to vote for you with her being 1st in line for your job if you bite it early? Sadly, I think most of them would, simply because they won't vote for a black man for the job. Having lived in the south for 12 years and knowing just how deep prejudices run here, I can't see Obama winning unless the blacks get out and vote in record numbers.

My second thought my shock some of you, but I really think she should be home taking care of her babies until they are older, then when they are older she can pursue her career. I find it selfish of women with young kids to leave them in daycares or with nannys so they can work. Sorry women libers out there. The harsh truth is you can be a great mom, or a great fill in the blank here, but it is really hard to juggle the two things and make them work and be great at both. Something or someone gets left out too much and someone or something suffers...job performance, marriages, children, co-workers who have to pick up the slack when you go on maternity leave, etc. You can blast me and tell me that I'm wrong and that your kids are fine. But were you there when they took their first step? Did you hear the first mamma that came out of their mouth? Did you see the look of accomplishment on their face when they figured something out or brought home that first A+ on a spelling test? Were you the first person they turned to when they needed help with a difficult decision? Don't get me wrong. I know there are women out there who are moms and have to work to make ends meet and they do the very best they can in both worlds. I've seen well adjusted kids whose moms have worked their entire live, but I've also seen the flip side of the coin. I'm glad I haven't had to make that choice. So kudos to her for being a historic choice, but really, who is taking care of the little ones?

Back to the political side of this. After looking into who she is a bit more I can see why McCain chose her. She should appeal to soccer moms, conservatives, and disillusioned Hillary supporters. She is an outsider who shouldn't be in the pockets of the lobbyists yet, but her inexperience could hurt. Obama is relatively inexperienced, but has been a senator for what, seven years? I guess the argument for Palin should be, "she may be less experienced in years vs. Obama, but she has 1: ran an entire state, the largest state in the Union where as Obama has just been a senator 2: she has 5 kids and seems to have kept her act together. Anyone with kids knows how hard it is to run a household, juggle a budget, keep all of those schedules straight. (I would just like to see more women diving into careers AFTER their kids are grown) 3: she comes from a blue collar family and has a husband who is a member of a Union. If that doesn't help alleviate some concerns for people from the same background nothing will. 4: her son is a soldier. She knows, as does McCain (his son is in Iraq too), what it is to have someone she loves more than herself in harms way and I think they both would make the right military decisions for our country.

Will I still vote Republican in this election? You can count on it. Nothing could be more disastrous for my family right now than having some bleeding heart liberal who thinks the gov't needs to control health care in this country get elected and make universal healthcare mandatory. Nothing could be worse for the nation's health care industry as a whole, don't even get me started on this. I have lived in a country with gov't controlled healthcare. I have lived in a socialist society that was taxed upwards of 65%. Yeah, everyone had jobs, the streets and sidewalks were clean, BUT the drug addicts (from all over Europe)got free clean needles and basic health care right where they purchased and shot up, the AIDS level was high because of said drug problem, and crime was high although relatively kept under wraps. You didn't get to really pick what occupation you went into, or even get to go to college to see what might interest you. You took an aptitude test at about middle school age and that determined what you would be for the rest of your life. That determined if you would go to high school and university. If you weren't wealthy you still had the same problems our poor face here, it was just kept in the shadows more than it is here.

I love America. I love our freedoms, I love not having the gov't control every aspect of my life. We need to get back to smaller gov't agencies, smaller gov't budgets, and teach people that they are accountable for their actions. Spend your money on alcohol, cigarettes, cable TV, pimped out cars, Bling, drugs, expensive brand named clothing, gambling (you get the idea) you won't have money for rent, food, transportation. Work hard and do the best at what ever it is you can do. If life didn't give you a silver spoon at birth, go out there and find yourself one. Spend your money on the necessities before the wants. Self control equals self preservation. When did we forget that concept?

And the rain rain rain came down down down in rushing rising rivers...

It is raining, again. It is raining, hard. It is raining, too much. The sunshine state of Florida has been in a drought for the past few years. Well, I think the drought has ended. It has rained just about every day since we arrived July 2nd. Fay brought too much rain to many areas that are really flooding, and we have a 40-50% chance of rains daily for the next week. The real kicker is that it usually rains in the afternoon just after the kids get home from school. If it isn't thundering and lightening I will let the kids get in the pool, but typically they aren't going to be able to. It is raining so much right now that our back deck is flooding all of the way up to the house. The drains can't keep up. I'm not sure if this is normal, so I was out back sweeping away about 5" of accumulated water with the broom. Wade thinks it is a normal thing for when it rains this hard this long.

Remember those who are really suffering from the floods in your prayers, and pray that we don't suffer the same fate soon. Our swimming pool is filled to the brim and the pond behind us went from looking like a dried up African water hole in May, to an extremely well filled, large pond bordering on small lake. Well, not really, but it is VERY full.

Did I mention for my BIL that we have a putting green in our backyard? You need to bring your family to visit us so you can throw the kids in the pool and relax by polishing up your putting skills. But really, all family and friends have an open invitation to come visit us. Just give us a call. I do have a new home phone number that I will email to the masses.

We are Here, We are Here, We are Here

We are still here. Fay has returned, the wicked wild beast. Fortunatly she brought only a whole lot of rain to our area and didn't delay the closing of our home. We are in, the movers moved our things out of storage, and I am busy cleaning, unpacking, and yelling at the boys to stop breaking things. Jacob managed to put a hole in the door the first 5 minutes he was in the home. On Thurs the tile in the family room started to buckle up. The thin set underneath is just crumbling and it looks like we will have to have a large part of the floor retiled. Tile man is coming Mon. We will have phone/internet/and GASP! cable hooked up on Mon but phone won't work until Wed. I will take pics of the home and post them for those who are interested as soon as I can. The movers out of Cali who unloaded our furniture into the storage unit damaged a lot of my wooden furniture, so I will be busy making a claim about that. Sorry this is short, just wanted to updated everyone. I feel so lost without my daily internet and drudge report. Was Obama really dumb enough to pick Biden for his VP candidate? I despise him as much as I do Pelosi and I can't imagine how anyone thinks that will help his chances of winning. Go McCain!!!

Breaking Dawn--Spoilers--Don't Read If You Don't Want To Know!!

I am on my second time through of Breaking Dawn and I'm still not sure what I think of it. I love how Jacob's character has developed and Leah also, I love the relationship between Bella and Edward (except that after she is changed he calls her "love" ALL OF THE TIME), but I'm a bit disappointed. No one died, there was no huge fight for survival like the last books, and it was just too happy of an ending. Not that I mind a happy ending, but after JK offed 1/2 of my favorite characters I think I was expecting at least someone to bite it in this book. The first time through I hated that Jacob imprinted on Nessie (and I hate her given name). But now, it seems right. I do love that they were able to have a child before she became immortal. I cried when she was willing to send her baby off with Jacob to protect her and then was greatly disappointed when they didn't have to fight the Volturi. I mean, come on, I would've loved to have seen Jane suffer and die. The introduction of the new vamps was also cool. Kyrie thinks she wants to be a tribal woman vamp now. hahaha

I took Kyrie to the local WalMart here at 12:00 am to get the book. We had to buy 2 since neither of us wanted to let the other read all night. There were only about 5 people there waiting for the book that the store didn't set out like they told me they would. We had to wait about 20 minutes for the to get it. The guy was shocked. He said he had never had anyone waiting at midnight to buy a book. Obviously he didn't work there when HP came out and obviously he hasn't read the Twilight Series. I stayed up until 7:00am reading. I didn't even feel tired until around 6:00. A few hours later when I got up I ended up passing out in the bathroom and laying there on the floor for about 20 minutes wondering if I had the energy to get up. The passing out wasn't related to lack of sleep and I'm fine, just have a sore backside from falling. Too bad I'm not immortal and unbreakable. sigh

The Home Inspection

On Sun when Wade and I looked at the home we want to buy we noticed a water stain on the ceiling in one of the bedrooms. We couldn't tell if it was an active problem, but assumed it was old, possibly from the hurricanes in '04. Well, when the agents and inspectors got to the home yesterday they walked into a minor disaster. For some reason the majority of water heaters are installed in the attics here, since most homes don't have basements. The spot we noticed was from the water heater leaking. It had leaked so much since Sun. that it had collapsed a big hole in the ceiling. The floor was soaked as were the two mattresses on the bunk bed directly under the problem. Everyone went into crisis mode and had things taken care of quickly. A plumber showed up to turn off the water and is replacing the water heater today. Service Master pulled up the carpet and pad and sprayed a mold/mildew/germ inhibitor and will place new pad down and clean and restretch the carpet. They cut out the damaged drywall on the ceiling. The home inspectors also found a few leaks in the flashing around a couple of pipes in the ceiling so the roofers are coming today to check it all out. We have had so much rain here lately that I think the drought is over. It was pouring yesterday which is good since it made it possible to see the leaks. The poor current owners of the home have been OOT for at least a month. They are Korean, so they were visiting Korea and Japan so the man could climb Mt. Fuji.
I'm not stressing about anything, as their home owners should take care of it all. I would like it all to be fixed before we close and I would really like to be able to move in in 2 weeks. I guess this may slow us down some. Sigh. Does buying a home ever go smoothly?