Dave Ramsey Agrees With Me!

Cool.  Believe it or not, I was just yammering on at Joe about this in the car yesterday and today Dave Ramsey’s article was about the very same subject.  He also uses words like butt, crap, and twit so I appreciate his writing style.  :-D

His article as follows:

A couple of weeks ago, I worked late like I sometimes need to do to run my business. It was a nice Tennessee summer evening, and I was enjoying the drive home. About 7:30, as I pulled to a stop light a few blocks from my office, I noticed a light on in the corner office of a friend’s office building. Through the twilight I could make out my friend’s silhouette as he bent over his desk. Being a fellow entrepreneur, I knew what he was doing.

He was looking over some receivables. Some turkey hadn’t paid him, and he was trying to make his accounts balance so he would have the cash to make it another day. In that instant, I had a flashback to some of the ridiculous statements I’ve been hearing on the talking-head news channels and from some individuals during this political year. And I’ll be honest—I instantly felt the heat of anger flow through my body.

Let me tell you why. You see, my friend who I saw working late—we’ll call him Henry—is a great guy. He’s what you want your son to grow up to be. He loves God, his country, his wife, and his kids. He didn’t have the academic advantage of attending a big-name university. Instead, he started installing heating and air systems as a grunt laborer after he graduated from high school. He was and is a very hard and diligent worker, and before long, the boss taught him the trade. But when he was 24, after 6 years of service, the company he was working for got into financial trouble and laid him off.

Henry still had his tools, so he bought an old pickup to haul around his materials and tools, and suddenly he was in business. He knew about heating and air-conditioning, but not about business, so he made a lot of mistakes.

He persisted. He took accounting and management at the community college to learn about business. He started reading books on business, HVAC, marriage, kids, God, and anything else someone he respected recommended. Today he is one of the best-read men I know. Soon, because of his fabulous service and fair prices, he developed a great reputation, and his little business began to grow.

Henry started 15 years ago, and now he has 17 employees whose families are fed because he does a great job. He is in church on Sunday and seldom misses his kids’ Little League games. Sometimes he has to miss a game because some poor soul has their AC go out in the 96-degree Tennessee summer heat, but Henry makes sure they are served. He is, by all standards, a good man. He is, by all standards, what makes America great.

Henry and I are friends, and so he asked me some financial questions last year. I learned in the process that his personal taxable income last year was $328,000. I smiled with pride for this 70-hour a week guy because he is living the dream.

At the stop light that evening, I also thought of another guy I know—and that is where the anger flash came from. We will call him John. While John does not have the same drive Henry has, I can say that he, too, is a good man.

John also graduated from high school and did not attend a big-name university. He went to work at a local factory 15 years ago. When 5:00pm comes around, John has probably already made it to his car in the parking lot. He comes in 5 minutes late, takes frequent breaks, and leaves 5 minutes early. However, to his credit, he is steady and works hard.

Over the years, due to his steadiness and seniority, he has worked his way up to about $75,000 per year in that same factory. He seldom misses his kid’s ballgames, but most nights you will find him in front of the TV where he has become an expert on “American Idol,” “The Biggest Loser,” and who got thrown off the island. When he is not in front of the TV, he spends a LOT of time and money bass fishing on our local lake. He never works over 40 hours a week and hasn’t read a non-fiction book since high school.

This is America, and there is nothing wrong with either set of choices. Nothing wrong, that is, until the politicians and socialists get involved …

I have seen several elitist people on the talking-head channels make the statement lately that people making over $250,000 per year have a “moral imperative” to pay more in taxes to take care of the country’s problems. This is not only infuriating—it is economically, spiritually, and morally crazy!

Where in the world do these twits get off saying that Henry should be punished for his diligence? If you are John, where do you get off trying to take Henry’s hard-earned money away from him in the name of your misguided “fairness”? If you want to sit on the lake, drink beer, scratch your butt, and bass fish, that is perfectly fine with me. I am not against any of those activities and have engaged in some of them myself at one time or another. But you HAVE NO RIGHT to talk about “moral imperatives” about what other people have earned due to their diligence. That money is not yours! You want some money? Go earn some! Get up, leave the cave, kill something, and drag it home.

We are in a dangerous place in our country today. A segment of our population has decided that it is the government’s job to provide all of their protection, provision, and prosperity. This segment has figured out that government doesn’t have the money to give them everything they want, so somebody else has to pay for it. That is how the “politics of envy” was born. “Tax the rich” has become the mantra of the left, and this political season it has been falsely dubbed a “moral imperative.”

Ninety percent of America’s millionaires are first-generation rich. They are Henry. To tax them because you think it is a “moral imperative” is legalizing governmental theft from our brightest, most charitable, and most productive citizens.

If I can get a law passed that says you must surrender all your cars to the government because it is the “moral imperative” of anyone who owns cars to support the latest governmental program, that would be a violation of private property rights and simply morally wrong. This new “moral imperative” to redistribute wealth is no different from that. It’s the SAME THING!

Please, America, re-think the politics of envy! You are sowing the seeds of our destruction when you punish the Henrys of our culture. 

If you think taxing the populace to support government programs is the best way—and I don’t—then at least tax every single person the same! There are very few Henrys out here who would squawk much about paying a set percentage of their income—if everyone else did, too. But this idea of somebutt-scratching bass fisherman saying government should tax his neighbor and not him—just because his neighbor has succeeded—must stop.

So the next time an elitist media talking-head starts telling you it is the moral imperative of our culture to tax my friend Henry, change the channel.

The next time you see someone wealthy who feels guilty and is preaching the politics of envy, change the channel.

The next time you see some celebrity who feels guilt over their income preaching socialism, change the channel.

And the next time you run into a misguided, butt-scratching bass fisherman who says the evil rich people in our culture should have their private property confiscated because that is fair… well just shake your head walk away—and make sure to vote against his candidate. If he and his type win, God help America!

Life is never dull.

All I feel like I did all day was run around like a headless chicken.  There were donor letters to go out, labels jamming in printers that then spewed springs that then got lost inside of said printer…..  Comments to moderate constantly.  An email with a broken link that within 10 minutes got a corrected email sent out but I still got 81 complaints about the link being broken….  And another 3 that said “the 2nd one works.”  Yeah.  Thanks for letting me know…  :-|  The phone rang off the hook.  Solicitors trying to solicit business for the ICRS.  The skids of Creation Answers came in.  Speaking of which I forgot to let CMI know.  Meeting between 4 very diverse men and myself on the ICRS booth layout.  That was … fun.  In a weird sort of way.

The four men are very hard to describe accurately enough to portray the picture of us trying to agree on what will work, look good, appeal to a crowd and be easy enough to set up quickly.  Luis is all about what works, Joseph’s all about what will look good, Brandon’s all about appealing to the crowd, and Eric is completely in favor of anything that does not require acrobatics, gymnasts, a bale of haying wire and a large crane (which is the like of what Brandon’s schemes for booths can involve).

Needless to say, we were in that meeting awhile.

Linsay thinks we’re under spiritual attack at AV – I must say I wonder if she’s right.  We’ve had the weirdest stuff happen lately with printers and phones and people are crabby and then there’s the atheist who thinks I, as a homeschooler, couldn’t (and I quote with incorrect spellings and all) poor water out of a boot with writen instructions on the bottom.

Yeah.  I’m really really really getting sick of this guy and reading his crap every day.  I am about to write him myself and say look here!  Perhaps an atheist such as yourself and a public educated person like you wrote the instructions on said boot, and because of the gross misspellings, said homeschooled person was unable to make out the illegible instructions!  And stop blaming Gary for not posting your comments because it is ME that moderates them!  And stop thinking we have time to make up 164 people’s lives!  Good gracious!

www.americanvision.org (daily article from today and from 2 days ago)

Ugh.  I’m rather grumpy tonight….

 

 

Extreme Moose Tracks Ice Cream

The very word Extreme makes you think I ate the whole carton, but I didn’t.  It simply refers to it being chocolate ice cream with chocolate fudge, peanut butter swirls and peanut butter cups scattered in its blissful and satisfying flavors.

Yum.  It was on sale.  :-D

I am on a rampage to save stamps.  I’ve even started paying our water and electric bill online (something I never did til now) and so basically, we never need to use stamps.  I think it’s utterly ridiculous how rapidly expensive the mail system has gotten while equally rapidly going downhill in service.  The post office guy at work huffed when asked could he deliver 3150B’s mail to 3150B instead of 3150A and said it would mean he had to make another stop.  ?  Um yeah – that’s kind of why you’re paid $18 an hour isn’t it???

I would enjoy delivering mail.  I tried a few times but they never called me.  Like that 4 story bank that wanted a facilities manager.  I would have been good at that.  Oh well.  I always dreamed of working somewhere I had to ride an elevator to get to my office….but I’ve gotten over that because it would get old after about a month, I imagine.

My hubby is wanting to hog the computer from me so off I go to jiblet around the house…..again.

Weekends

Weekends are amazing.  Imagine having no break between work weeks and how burnt out one would get.

Clark and Bekah came up from Griffin to see us, always fun.  

I’ve always felt one thing is unreal about all the masked superheroes.  One day, surely, one of them would leave home and forget to put on the mask, thus revealing their identity.  They would, of course, be blissfully unaware for several minutes (possibly hours) such as one who exits the bathroom with toilet paper stuck to their shoe or worse, the bottom of their skirt stuck up in their underwear as they walk around the department store.  (Don’t ask.  And in answer to the question you’ve already asked: yes, it has happened to me.)

I cannot believe we are a week away from the end of June already.  I thoroughly intend to bust the savings out at CVS next month.  :-)  There wasn’t anything major this month that we needed or wanted, so I’m waiting to see what EB brings out next month before I spend what I got this first time this month.  I have some manufacturer’s coupons saved up too, for useful but not dire urgent needs, such as a Venus razor and bandaids.  I could go much crazier but then I would have stores of stuff we use very slowly, so I am holding myself back.

I am plagued by a constant desire to straighten up my house.  But inevitably, the house gets straightened up and there’s nothing left to do.  :-D

I found this to give a kick…

Insulting with class has unfortunately gone out of style….

“He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.”
Winston Churchill

“I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.”
Clarence Darrow

“He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.”
William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)

“I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.”
Groucho Marx

“I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.”
Mark Twain

“He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.”
Oscar Wilde

“I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend… If you have one.”
George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill… followed by Churchill’s response:

“Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second, if there is one.”
Winston Churchill

“I feel so miserable without you; it’s almost like having you here.”
Stephen Bishop

“He is a self-made man and worships his creator.”
John Bright

“I’ve just learned about his illness. Let’s hope it’s nothing trivial.”
Irvin S. Cobb

“He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others.”
Samuel Johnson

“He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.”
Paul Keating

“He had delusions of adequacy.”
Walter Kerr

“Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?”
Mark Twain

“His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.”
Mae West

“Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.”
Oscar Wilde

Toilets

At work, I am responsible (among a few other things…) for moderating the comments on our daily article blog.  There is one particular person (I cannot call him a gentleman in lieu of his insulting, condescending and irrational behavior which includes calling Gary a liar on a daily basis in between illogical arguments on atheism based on copy and pasted false information found on the web, which of course we all know is SO terribly reliable in all matters pertaining to actual sense….)…..  Anyway, I think I went down two or three rabbit trails there.  Sorry. Back on track.

So I moderate the comments.  Today’s article was in reference to homeschooling.  And the comment this belligerent and ignorant person left on said article was along the lines of “Christians need to homeschool their kids because the rest of us need people to mow their lawns and clean their toilets.”

Well, I’m rather offended.  I don’t like to compare myself on a regular basis to other people, but I know of one person in particular who I will look at comparatively.  

She was a year older than me and had just graduated from college with a degree in IT.  She started working for my company as her first job and seemed smart and as intelligent as any 23 year old can be.  Within four months, she had been informally then formally reprimanded for unexcused absences from work, was paying off a $40,000 college loan, had totaled her nearly new SUV in an accident which was her fault, and living at home with her parents because she could not afford, due to her low paying salary, to move out.  Why was her salary so low?  Because she was in a field saturated by Generation Y-ers – and had none of the certifications that were required (and were also costly) to advance in her career.  She quit her job within a few months….  Last I heard she was working at the mall in a department store.  

What was I doing while she was in public high school and at her public state college getting a $40,000 debt on an “education” in a field that thousands of others were getting an education in only to learn that they couldn’t get a decent salary without spending still more to get further certifications?

I was socially acclimating myself to the world around me in theatre and orchestras, debate and sports, art and history, traveling around the country and reading over 6,000 “adult level” books (including college textbooks on marketing and management).  I have spent time (not just traveled through) in every state east of the Mississippi and some of the ones on the other side.  I have seen just about every lighthouse on the Eastern coast, thrown fish carcasses at sea lions, shaken hands with a billionaire (Truett Cathy) and made maple syrup the long, hard, boring way in the dead of a Northeastern winter.  

• At my first job, I received the most compliment cards of any employee (Chick-fil-A).  
• At my second job, my work was displayed in store and I received several awards for top sales during the month (Lifetouch Photography Studio).  
• At my third job, my descendants were offered jobs anywhere my manager and general manager were involved – my manager even let me study his top secret restaurant business plan before he left to be the Director at the country’s oldest hotel (Van Gogh’s, a Fine Dining Establishment).  
• At my fourth job, I was next in line for a managerial position and was one of three on the team that broke the drive thru record during lunch (Chick-fil-A; 112 cars in 1 hour! ).  
• At my fifth job, I was a receptionist that handled everything and anything for the 20 person staff.  If they needed it, I did it or knew how to get it done (Method IQ).  
• At my sixth job, my partner and I gained a full docket of continual requests for us to be the only team that cleaned their house within a month (it was almost full in 2 weeks) and we were checking up on teams that had been there longer than we had for accuracy and detailed thoroughness (Maid My Day).  
• At my seventh job, I was offered a position as Executive Assistant to the President, based on their experience with me as a receptionist, where I handled all manner of important tasks and confidential matters (Method IQ).  Look up the requirements for an Executive Assistant anywhere and you’ll find a degree and usually a decade of like experience required for even being considered for the position.  
• At my eighth job, I have been heavily involved with orders, customer service, donations, promotional events and emails, project quotes, wholesale accounts, shipping, setting up radio interviews, design input, event coordination, and marketing projects.  

Yes, I have cleaned toilets.  And I darn well know when they’re clean and when they’re not.  And I know how to clean one within an inch of it’s shiny white life.  I’ve had a lot of practice, because I was at home so much and had to do it often.  :-)  

But my point is this.  You can’t compare homeschoolers and public schoolers and come out with a definitive “good” and “bad” or “smart” and “not smart” or “worker bee” and “queen bee.”  Every one must be tested on his or her own merits.  I happen to believe that how you are educated or where has very little to do with how you actually turn out.  I know homeschoolers I would rather endure great suffering and pain than be anywhere near.  But don’t look at me and say that because I was 

homeschooled I am good for nothing more than cleaning a public schoolers toilet!  I didn’t need to endure the halls of public education to come out on top of the world I live in.  I’ve proved a homeschooler can do whatever they want in the real world – even if it might take a little longer or might not turn out the way they originally thought.  

I’m working my dream job at my dream company.  If you had told me at 12 that I would one day work at AV, with Gary…Carol… I never would have dreamed it possible.  But here I am – moderating comments from people who think I’m good for nothing but toilet duty.  All I can say is, darn right; and it’ll be clean.  :-)

Life is fun.

Sometimes I kind of look around my house and feel all silly about it.  I mean, you grow up living in a house and you can’t do what you want with it.  You can’t paint the whole room a diversely different color without someone raising Cain about it.  You can’t throw a towel on the floor of the bathroom without someone telling you to pick it up.  You don’t rearrange all the kitchen cabinets and where you keep stuff without someone squawking.  

And then you grow up and buy a house and you can pretty much do whatever you pretty darn well please to and with it.  :-)  It’s quite fun.  Like I said, I feel very silly.  :-)  

 

Currently I am contemplating the concept of all the stuff that will soon be making its way from my parents house to ours.  They are in the process of getting a mortgage to buy the house that they’ve been leasing to own for the past 5 years.  Their plan is to get rid of 95% of nearly 30 years of collected CRAP (some of it more crap than other bits of it) and put the remaining 5% into storage while they sell the house and gallivant around the country trucking for a few years.  

Needless to say, the 6,000 or so books I own are making their way to our house that is equipped for about maybe 400 books.  Also the 4 giant plastic containers of Legos (my only other childhood pastime besides books) and various and sundry other things: the dinner bell from my grandparents’ farm which was there when they bought their house in 1941….  The wooden cradle hand carved and put together by a distant cousin of some sort of inevitably removed several times….  The stories about Tina Dunn, cop warrior, that I wrote at about 15….  Gads.  (Her Badge of Justice…really inspires you to pick it up eh?)  Gads.

I will say though that looking at the huge project in front of my mom mostly, and in sympathy for my dad having to haul a ton of this stuff…that I will never allow clutter and stuff to overtake my home and life quite the way many people do.  Bless my mom’s heart but she still has every birthday card I ever got, every drawing I ever made, and the program and/or ticket to every event we have ever attended.  

Sigh.  All in all, I’m … about to have to rescue Joseph’s pack of vitamins from Aberdeen once again!  Gads!

Wild Hogs, Baby Pains and Deal Catcher

So I got to feeling so poorly today I gave in to my weakness and came home from work 2 hours early.  I can’t believe how bad I felt – after a few hours of rest, food, vitamins and trips to the lou’ I feel much better.  (Sorry for that last descriptive.)

Joseph discovered for himself today that wild hogs have fur-like hides.  I said yes dear.  Can I have one?  I want an alpaca and a wild pig.  He says I may as soon as we have a large farm for said menagerie.

I found a new website – www.dealcatcher.com.  It lists coupons, Sunday ads, and useful information like today is the last day to buy a Windows XP computer.  Starting tomorrow, all they can do is sell you the Vista and offer a downgrade to XP.  Sigh.  The end of an era is at hand.  

 

Crib Sheets & Trash Service

I got the said crib sheets for $2 instead of $8.43 at Walmart.  Go figure!  

Our trash service forgot to pick us up last week – and of course that was the week we had extra trash for some random reason.  :-p  They promised to pick it up this week and not charge us for last week though.

Aberdeen is driving me crazy with her BARKING!  She barks at everything.  She NEVER barked at all and then we got back from our conference trip to OH and she was barking at everything.  Animals, noises, cars, unsuspecting Jehovah’s witnesses, children a mile down the street! Ugh.  The other day, a 5 year old attempted to chase her down to pet her.  She stood her ground barking at him until he began to say “treat! treat!” while heaving small pears from our tree at her.  She took off running for the front door yelping like he was throwing grenades at her.  Small children do not understand the concept of small dogs.  In any case, she packs a ferocious bark but the minute anyone looks at her she flies off in the opposite direction like bullets are flying.  Silly thing.

Work has been a little crazy the past few days – I’m in the midst of crazy plans and events.  Fun, but harrowing.  :-)

Another day, another dollar…saved. :-D

My first trip to CVS as an Extra Bucks hound.  I was apparently beaten to the store by a similarly minded local resident, because the toothbrushes and mouthwash (in Strawberry) that I intended to get for FREE for Joe were not in stock.  Very sad.  Especially the strawberry mouthwash – he would have loved that!  

BUT…

I made out with

A pack of razor blades that also got me a 

Free Shaving Gel

2 Packages of Twizzlers

1 Package of M&Ms 

1 Package of Peanut M&Ms

(the above candy got me $5 in EB)

a Revlon mascara and Revlon three-in-one eye shadow (buy 1 get 1)

A Cherry Coke and a Sprite (buy 1 get 1)

3 St. Ives facial scrubs which got me $5 in EB. But she only rang up 2 which I realized at the car so I went in and they said forget it so I got a 4th (to get me up to the point I needed to get the $5 EB).  Go figure.  So I got 4 for $10 which isn’t bad at all – plus $5 EB back!

And because Joe needed it, I got 2 different kinds of bug/poison ivy relief things that were offering $1 EB each.

A pack of Bandaids ($2 EB)

And a pack of 2 Toothbrushes (1 EB)

I didn’t make out as good as I hoped….

Mostly because of those 2 things I had to get Joe that were like $8 total.  The razor blades were $12 but that’s just about as expensive as Walmart is without a free shaving gel.  And the candy was obviously not a necessity but who can resist getting candy AND EB???  :-)

So I spent $55 and got $14 back in EB.

Next time it will be much better because I won’t be needing expensive razor blades or Cortizone cream.  Haha.  Oh which, by the way, came with a 2nd smaller tube free. 

 

Miscellaneous Ramblings

I forgot to post that I had a .75 off coupon for any Hebrew National Hot Dogs (the best…no, the BAYST…) and when I went to use it at Kroger the other day, they had a pack of extra large sausage style hot dogs for .99 instead of $2.99 because the expiration date was approaching.  So I got the hot dogs for 24 cents.  :-)  They were really good too….

Gift cards are fun.  You can go shopping and spend money and feel absolutely no guilt or twinge or worrisome naggy feeling that you shouldn’t be.  :-D  

Aberdeen is a little worriwart when Jo is gone.  He is at man night and she is stalking around the house looking worried and grunting her little grunty whine noise she does and generally being a slight nuisance as I am trying to organize and clean up small messes around the house.  

Another event I forgot to mention was that at Jenny’s Pampered Host party the other day, I got the winning ticket for all the hostess benefits!  So I got $60 worth of free stuff and 2 1/2 price items….  Dang that was really awesome!  I got the new slicing mandolin, a set of outdoor utensils, bamboo cheese and cracker tray, and the new cute little mini-prep bowls which I just needed an excuse to buy.  Haha.  To get them free, one cannot resist.  

Gripe of my own (to copy Joan’s format): I’m not only getting used to a Mac computer…….it isn’t as bad as I thought.  I can’t believe I’m saying this.  Thank goodness my husband never reads my blog or I’ll never hear the end of it.  :-}

I have also uploaded all our vacation photos and probably some others to Kodak Gallery – you can view by going HERE.

     

 

Baby Showers, June Flowers, and Hotmail is Down

Today was a baby shower for my small kicking child at work – the ladies put on quite a shindig.  There was all kind of yummy salads and desserts and talking and sweet and thoughtful gifts.  Carol arranged the most beautiful flowers in a very attractive manner as everything Carol does turns out.  She let me put them on my desk after.  They smell SO good. 

 

  

I ate enough said yummy salads and desserts for 3 or 4 and enjoyed them all immensley.  I work with the coolest people – they’re so much fun and the most enjoyable company any workplace could produce.  They’re more than “coworkers” – they’re friends.  Ok enough mush, here comes the rest of the photos (some not so very flattering to me…).

   

Hotmail would not let me sign in to check my hotmail for the 2nd day.  ??  (It is working now.)

I have been extraordinarily busy this week and have not done a thing to save us money other than shopping at Kroger – we needed milk and beer and other necessities.  Haha.  Mostly fruit – I am always and only craving fruit!  I spent $100 but it was worth $160, plus I got our 3rd of the allowed 4 gift cards so I really could say I technically spent $70.  :-)

This weekend my goal is to: find some used cheap cloth diapers, find and venture out on my first CVS shopping saving experience and pay off a chunk of the credit card.  Sigh.  Money does flow in so slowly when one is trying to pay off debt.  Growl.  

I grew up with parents who had debt but I never was as aware of the detriments thereof as I should have been and will do my best to make my own children aware of them.  UGH.  

On a better note, there is a roast and mashed potatoes to be et as soon as my husband comes home.  :-)

Pampered Host Party

So I went to a Pampered Chef Host Party – as in I hosted a party in the past year so I get to go to Jenny’s big party and get a ticket and get called at some point (this time it was actually not in the final 2 like last time) to go pick out a free thing.  I chose the set of cranberry, plum, sage and evergreen place mats, napkins and table runner that are of an astronomical price for those type of things but quite pleasant to receive for nothing.  :)

Saw people I know from our old church and (one of) my best friend’s sister(s) Sharon.  My mother has been staying with us last night and tonight.  The doula forgot our meeting was at 3 today and thus we had to reschedule.  

The Dr’s appointment ended up being pretty short, other than the annoying hour of sugar high from the glucose test.  Orange is SO much worse than red.  I won my Rhogam battle – they won’t force me to go against textbook and get the shot while I’m still pregnant – I will get it after the birth.  Rhogam manufacturers lobbied the FDA to get it “strongly recommended” that all women with negative blood get the shot at 28 weeks.  Never mind the fact that if the husband is also negative there is no reason to get it and never mind the fact that if the baby is born with negative there is no reason to get it.  And that there is a small risk to the baby if you DO get it during pregnancy.  No, it would make Rhogam manufacturers a lot more money if 100% had to get it once and then 30% twice instead of 30% getting it once……eh?

Smell a scam, people?  

My dog is a dear.  My husband is even dear-ier.

My baby is very active.

I am very tired.

Good night…

 

Pregnancy Update

Seven and a half months into being split into a small person and a very small person.  I currently feel lovely.  The insane tiredness is nearly gone and only reappears if I happen to go to bed an hour too late (which has moved from being at first and second trimester’s 8pm to about 11pm……).  The headaches are gone – thank God.  I’ve been pretty good at taking my vitamins this month.  Don’t ask about last month.  OR the month prior.  Or….  I’ve been attempting to eat more regularly though that is extremely hard for me – I have a hard time STOPPING my work to go fix a half meal.  

Currently the only slight sufferings I am enduring are heartburn (nearly all the time), continuation of the red splotchy bumpy disgusting face, and severe poking, jabbing, ramming, kicking and otherwise physical abuse from a 5 pound blackbelt sitting somewhere above my bladder, next to my stomach and behind my ribs.  Oh yes, and in close proximity with my lungs.  I have grown more and more grateful for organs as I am afraid one day there will be holes in them put there by excessive force coming from my future tomboy (I can already tell).

All in all, I have no reason or desire to complain and if I do, I simply can go to www.cafemom.com and learn of some other women’s pregnancy trials and after wide-eyed terror that one day one of MY pregnancies will be plagued with such famine, disease and disaster…..I become quite grateful for a very normal and relatively harmless pregnancy.  Now if labor goes this well, I should be QUITE grateful!