5 Things I've Learned or Confirmed From the Election

You'd have to live under a rock to not know the results of the Presidential Election this past week.

It seemed to me that this election season was extremely bitter.  I learned and/or was reminded of a few things during this time...

1. The mainstream media IS in fact biased against conservative candidates...  When you have misspoken words on the conservative side taken out of context and given days upon days of coverage, but you have misspoken words on the liberal side barely being given a day's worth of coverage.... That's called BIAS!  BOTH sides misspeak!  BOTH sides lie!  The only fair thing to do would be for the mainstream media to hold BOTH sides accountable for those words in the same way!
2. Our country is VERY divided... I think I remember President Obama in his first Presidential campaign talking about bringing people together?  I understand that this takes BOTH sides, but I have felt very little from President Obama in this regard.  I pray this changes in his next term as America so desperately NEEDS to work together for the good of this country!  BOTH sides need to compromise to make the changes this country needs!
3. Millions upon millions of people in America STILL don't understand what an incredible right and freedom we have in this country to VOTE!  There are countries in this world where you CAN'T vote!  There are countries in this world where you can "vote", which just means that you can check the box of the ONE person running because you have no choice or say!  I don't know what it will take for Americans to wake up and realize this and exercise their right to VOTE!
4. It still makes me sad that so many in this country care more about their paycheck, vacation, new car, pets than the fact that MILLIONS of innocent human babies have being slaughtered in the name of choice.  What potential world leader, cancer curing researcher, doctor, teacher, parent was not given the chance to LIVE because of "choice"?  It just makes me sad...
5. People can be MEAN!  This happens on BOTH sides of the political spectrum and it makes me sad.  It has gotten so bad this election season that I didn't even want to post about the issues because I didn't want to receive any more rude comments about the opinions I have.  We can NOT make generalities about people we've never met based on their opinion!  And yet I saw name calling from both sides of an issue.  I was called and idiot, ignorant and.... this one is my favorite.... "rich or married to a rich man"!  THAT one made me laugh!  Just because you disagree with me doesn't mean I have the right to call you names.  I have many friends with opposite political opinions from me and yet we show each other respect.  We CAN all get along, but we DO have to be tolerant of people with opinions different from ours!

I am thankful that this election is over and we can move on with our lives.  While the results of the election are not what I would've liked, it is reality and we have to work with what we have.  If we don't like the election results, we need to pray even harder for God to change the hearts of our leaders!

How NOT To Spend Your Week!

We made it through October fairly well, considering the CRAZY schedule we had...  Why did I assume November would be uneventful?

I was happy to spend some time last Monday afternoon with a good friend who was helping me redecorate my dining room.  We had lots of fun shopping and then sewing and decorating and the rest of our families joined us at our house for dinner that night.  The dining room, foyer and living room look GREAT and we have some more plans for a few things that are left in the dining room as well as work on the master bedroom.

Tuesday my husband took off work.  We at first had thought of heading downtown for a little field trip but we were all slow moving that morning so we decided instead to get milkshakes at Chick Fil A (Peppermint Chocolate Chip- YUM!) and run a bunch of errands.

I woke up that morning with a little tickle in my throat but didn't think anything of it.  Sometime in the afternoon I started feeling rundown and by the time we got home near dinner, I had a fever.

I stayed in bed for days feeling absolutely ROTTEN!  My fever got as high as 103.3 and along with that came the aches and chills.  I felt just absolutely terrible.

I had a meeting regarding foster care and adoption in my home Thursday afternoon that could NOT be rescheduled, so I managed to shower and get ready (in some sweats and the entire process took hours) and sat in my chair to get the meeting done. 

We tried to get some medical care Thursday night.  One nearby Urgent Care had a 2 hour wait.  At the second Urgent Care, we learned that apparently where I live, you do NOT need an ID to vote, but you need one to receive medical care!  Who knew!  They wouldn't even let my husband show his id and insurance card and sign something accepting responsibility.  No, instead they rudely told me they couldn't see me and we left.  Apparently the lady we spoke to is often rude, as the security guard told us when we left.  We are following up with a complaint.  I can understand the rule, but I can NOT understand treating someone in such a rude and nasty way!

So, we tried again on Friday morning.  The CVS Minute Clinic had a 1 hour wait so we went back to the first Urgent Care we tried the night before (NOT the rude place, we will NEVER go back there!).  We walked in, filled out paperwork and were in a room very quickly.  After an examination and chest xray, we had a diagnosis of Pneumonia!

You wouldn't think someone would be happy about having Pneumonia, but with how badly I had felt the previous 3 days, I was "happy" to learn that there was in fact something wrong and a way to fix it!

I had some side effects from the antibiotic the first day- a horrible pounding headache for hours and trouble sleeping.  Thankfully, I also had a cough medicine with codeine for the nighttime so I was able to sleep.  I spent the weekend on the couch and in the bed, resting up for the coming week.  I surely need to get caught up on some things and prepare for a Fun Family Weekend coming up!

My older kids took very good care of me on Wednesday while my husband had to work.  They kept the house in order and gave me some peace and quiet.  My daughter helped the youngest before and after school, which was a HUGE help.  My neighbor, who usually does the afternoon carpool was able to take the boys to school in the morning so I didn't have to get out of bed.  My parents watched the kids during our failed attempt at medical care on Thursday night, took the kids out on Saturday while my husband worked so that I could rest AND brought us dinner that night.  My husband was also a BIG help in cooking, cleaning and running errands.  I know he did NOT enjoy doing all of that, but it was all worth it when I ventured out of my room Saturday morning to a CLEAN kitchen!  :)

I was not able to exercise at all this past week but I did lose a few pounds from not eating.  I'm sure those will come back along with my appetite as I start to feel better.

I am so looking forward to feeling 100% and getting things done and spending time with my family.  I'm trying hard to NOT feel like I am behind on things.  Even though all I did from Tuesday night until Saturday was write the grocery list, attend the meeting in my house, go to the doctor and watch tv, I am confident that I can catch up next week and I'm thankful I don't have to put the house back together because my family took such great care of it while I was sick!

Early Voting

Where I live, we are allowed to vote early... So, my husband and I made a date out of it... Lunch out and then we voted!

The line was fairly long, but it only took 20 minutes start to finish. 

I am so thankful to live in a country that, with all it's faults, allows us to choose who will represent us at the local, state and national levels.  This is not true for so many people in this world.  And yet somewhere around 50% of registered voters vote in each election.  I find this mind boggling!

We live in a time when we have access to information about the candidates, their views and their actions.  There is no way we can honestly say that we don't know enough to vote.  And even though we are "busier" than ever, I really think we all have an hour or 2 on Election Day to exercise our rights and vote.

If you live in a state that has Early Voting, then you have even LESS of an excuse to not vote!  Instead of one day, you have several days in which to cast your vote for the candidates of your choice!

In some countries, citizens face possible imprisionment or even death if they even dare to vote... 

In some countries, if you don't vote for the "right" candidate, your vote doesn't count.

In some countries, only one person is on the ballot in each race.... Some voting "right" you have there!

But in America, we can vote, sometimes without even having to show ID (I do NOT agree with that, but that is for another post!) for whomever you want!

I don't know if you're going to be one of the almost 50% of registered voters who isn't going to vote for whatever reason you have.... If you are, then I BEG you to reconsider and to exercise your RIGHT to vote!  I don't care WHO you vote for, that is a personal decision... I care that you VOTE!

You've all heard the saying that if you don't vote, you have no right to complain about who won.... If you don't even bother to participate in the process, you really have no basis to make a complaint.  Your vote, and countless others, could've created a different result!

 So, as Election Day approaches, make plans to VOTE!  
 

It's Been Awhile.....

I was doing so well at blogging once a week...

But then came the fall....

I've had several stretches of 2 weeks in between blog posts....

Not that it's a bad thing or anything, we have just had so much going on that I haven't had time to sit and blog and/or my brain hasn't had enough energy to even THINK about what to write!

I started a "book review" of one I just finished, but seriously my brain said STOP!  So, I'll finish that when things calm down just a little bit.

We are right in the middle of the "beginning of the end" week.  We had our youngest's birthday, my husband is 50 hours into a 135 hour stretch of work, we have our last soccer practices and tournament of the season, and the kids are trying to stay current in their homeschool work.  We have seen my husband very little, but are still sane.  He is absolutely exhausted, but he'll make it through.  

We are looking forward to having some time together next week when soccer is over and my husband's bizarrely crazy work schedule is a memory.  We won't have nearly as much time as we think, as the schedule is already filling up, but at least we will be able to have dinners together with the FIVE of us!  That is something that we enjoy doing but hasn't happened much at all in the month of October.

And the "funny" thing is that once Thanksgiving comes, our busy time is just about over!  I actually don't mind the "busyness" of Thanksgiving, Christmas and what follows for us: 2 kids' birthdays and then my husband's.  Once we get through the fall, we are good to go!  



 

 

Same Old, Same Old....

It's been 2 weeks since I last posted...

I've been finding it hard to blog because it feels like we do the same thing every day and every week since September started...

Public school, homeschool, soccer, regular shift for my husband, off duty work for him too, soccer, homework, church, meetings, appointments....

Repeat... And again...

You get the idea...

How exciting can that be to read about?

With all of those things going on each week, things can get a little crazy around here.  There have been periods of time due to my husband's schedule where we haven't seen him for more than 30 minutes in over 48 hours.  And we all survived!  It was a good preview of what October could be once he starts working off duty at our State Fair.

To ADD to the craziness of the above list of things going on in our family in the fall, we add several more things in October: 2 soccer tournaments, our anniversary, and our youngest's birthday (and first with our family...and during the Fair).

But this schedule is really not that much different from many other families.  We are ALL busy...

EVERY fall our family experiences this same craziness...

EVERY winter we have Thanksgiving, Christmas, 2 kids' birthdays and then my husband's birthday...

EVERY spring we get a little break from the busy and look forward to finishing out the school year...

EVERY summer we get a little time to rest and plan for the upcoming school year...

And then there we go again...

I'm not complaining, REALLY I'm not!  

I LOVE soccer season, even though we rarely get to sit down to eat dinner together as a family.

I'm used to the off duty work that piles on in the fall for my husband.  He is at the point in his career where he has little opportunity to work off duty during the year, so we don't turn down the chance to work it in the fall, even if it does mean adding in an extra week's worth of work every month.

So, that is the routine, boring, same as last month update from our family!  And to be honest, I kind of like it this way!  ;)

 

 

One Year and Counting!

I posted my first blog post just about 1 year ago, on September 6, 2011!

SO much has happened since then!

Every year I write a newsletter that I send out with my Christmas cards and family picture where I recount all the important things that have happened in our family over the past year.  So, I thought maybe it would be fun to do the same for my blog.  

Here are the TOP TEN things that I blogged about this past year!

1. Family: No big surprise there... My family is pretty wonderful, both the ones who live with me and my extended family.  We try to spend a lot of time together and with my husband's schedule, my teens' increasingly busy schedule and our youngest schedule, it's getting harder and harder to do.  But we still do our best!
2. Life:  That's a pretty generic category, I am realizing now.  It includes posts about our vacations, how we celebrate the holidays and various miscellaneous things.  Sometimes I have a little pity party and think things are tough, but when I REALLY stop and think, my life is pretty easy and very blessed.
3. Home:  This goes along with life, and since you can tag a post with multiple category, I'm thinking these have overlapped.  But I can see from this that HOME is very important to me.... I am a stay at HOME mom and I HOMEschool our kids.... and yet I find that some weeks it seems like I am never HOME!  My home is a haven for my husband, so that he can unwind after his long, stressful days at work.  There's no other place we'd rather be than HOME!  Ok, we love the beach and mountains too!  ;)
4. Adoption:  I thought this one would be first.  It has seemed to consume our last year.  I've enjoyed updating everyone on the process and all of our visits and now with how we're adjusting... And who knows, maybe there will be more updates in our future?  We'll see what God has planned for our family...
5. Marriage:  I have a pretty darn good marriage... Sure, we have our problems, mostly because I talk a lot!  ;)  But we haven't gotten to the point of a good marriage without some HARD WORK!  We've both learned that it's not about us being "happy", it's about the commitment we made before God to stay together no matter what and to work at this as harder than we work on anything else.  We love our Dates and we love to spend time together!
6. Homeschool: I didn't want to blog too much about this because it can sometimes be a sensitive subject.  I don't want anyone to think that our decision is what everyone should be doing or that my kids are any better than any others.  This is simply a lifestyle decision that our family has made that we have never regretted....
7. Missions/Ukraine:  This was a BIG year for us with my husband and our oldest son going on a 10 day mission trip to Ukraine.  I have been on a 3 week mission trip in college.  Our daughter hopes to also go to Ukraine in the next year or 2.  Now, I don't think you should go on only 1 mission trip in your life, but at this point, my job is to keep things going at home while other members of my family go on these trips.  We've have changed our spending so that we can save for mission trips.  We were going to start saving for a Disney trip, but realized that for us, sending our teens on mission trips was more important.  Now hear me on this- I'm not saying that a trip to Disney or any other vacation or fun spending is wrong!  For our family, we can't afford to do everything, so the choice we made was for missions.  We'll go on vacations, but that Disney trip is on hold for awhile.
8. Exercise:  This has been hit or miss in my life this year.  I HATE running so that didn't last too long.  We joined a local gym for 2 months and that was nice, but we just didn't have the time to continue it long term.  A friend of mine gave me an exercise bike for free and I was doing well with that, but school, soccer and sickness set me back a little.  I'm hoping SOON to get back into it and make it a regular part of my rountine.
9. Books: I had a lofty goal of reading a bunch of books over the summer and into the fall, but life got in the way.  I still plan on making it through my stack, but it's definitely going to take me into 2013 to get it done!
10. LEO Life:  Oh, wow... How embarrassing!  It's been such a terrible year for law enforcement but I didn't want to talk about it too much and annoy people.  I don't think that law enforcement is any better than any other person, but I realize the stressful job they have and the disrespect they encounter from both criminals and law abiding citizens.  I also know that my friends and family are VERY supportive of our crazy life.  Not every LEO family has that and so I am thankful that we do!

I have enjoyed this last year of blogging and am looking forward to this coming year and seeing all God has in store for us!

 
 

First Week of School, Part 2!

Last week was the week that our youngest started public school.

I knew it was going to be a CRAZY week, but I didn't realize just how crazy.

My husband was finishing up night shift, I was recovering from a virus and then my daughter got sick overnight Monday into Tuesday.

My son had a soccer game Tuesday.

I got very sick (the virus must have come back, but this time it was WORSE!!) on Wednesday so the guys went to church that night and the girls stayed home to recover.

Thursday I was once again trying to recover, my daughter had science lab in the afternoon and my son had an away game that evening.  I think we ate dinner at 8:30pm.

On Friday, I was STILL trying to catch up from the week and got a little bit done.  My son had another soccer game.  The guys were playing VERY well and were winning 2-0 in the 2nd half.... Then a player on the other team collided with his goalie.  It was a LOUD hit that we heard on the sidelines.  The player was down on the ground for a long time and the goalie was obviously in pain as well.  Thankfully, the mom of one of our players was a nurse and the dad of another of our players teaches first aid and CPR so they were both out on the field to give assistance.  After a bit, the coach decided to call for an ambulance as the player was having neck pain.  It seemed to take forever, although I'm sure it was the right timeframe for a 911 call and dispatch to a volunteer department, but the ambulance arrived and took the player to the hospital.  The game was called at that point.  We later heard the goalie had some torn rib muscles and the other player was released from the hospital with a concussion.  We're glad they weren't hurt worse!

My husband took the youngest, our daughter and her friend to a minor league baseball game with some free tickets so my oldest and I were hanging out at home.  At some point I started to think about a young friend of mine that I met at church a year ago and how I hadn't seen her on Facebook much in the last month or two.  So I decided to go on her wall and see what was up..... That's where I had my BIG shock of the week...

My friend was dead!

She died in early July, just a month after turning 25.  She leaves a 1 year old daughter and 3 year old son.

I'm so sad....

She and I had been trying to find some time in December and January to get together.... Between Christmas, birthdays, her schedule and mine, we couldn't find a day that worked.  Then all of our adoption stuff started and I kept forgetting to get back in touch with her.  When I'd remember, I was usually too tired, so I'd tell myself that I'd message her or see her "soon".... "Soon" turned into months.... And then it was too late.

I enjoyed getting to know my friend this past year.  I met her just about a year ago to be exact.  I held her baby most Wednesday nights and talked with her and got to know her a little.  I enjoyed her hugs on Sunday mornings.  I will miss her...

I really never want to go through all of those things again in one week's time.  It was a tough week: busy, stressful, shocking...