Please Like Me...Please??!

I am trying to be popular. It is something I have been working on since I was about 8. This whole internet thing may actually make it possible.  So if you are reading this, I need you to go ahead and make it official.  There is a "Follow" button over there on the right. Apparently, until you click on it, you are not official. (sigh) I know that being official is important to you. You better go fix that.  All the cool kids are doing it. (Well, not ALL of them yet, but this is your chance to be a trend-setter). 

You see, I REALLY want to be a writer -- full-time (I mean in addition to being a full-time wife/mother/Facebook addict).  But with 4 kids, I am going to have to go get a real job that requires make-up and shoes or else those aforementioned kids will be living at home when they are 30 because I won't be able to send them to college so that they can get real make-up and shoe jobs of their own.  So I have a plan.  IF I can get my blog popular enough that people are reading this random stuff that flows out with very little effort, then every once in awhile I can slip in a meaningful piece that I have written and get honest feedback from people who "know" me.  THEN I can hone my writing skills, and possibly get published.  You see, it lends credence to my legitimate claim to be a writer if I have actual people who at least appear interested in what I am writing.

Also, this is a very good outlet for me.  When I am working on a story, it is usually like trying to eat an entire cheesecake.  At first, I am really excited and thinking "Yay!! Cheesecake!!  Gimme a fork and back away slowly!!"  And after a little while, I start to get stuck or bored and then its like "Oh...cheesecake?  Okay, I guess."  And if I can't get unstuck or find a new direction, it becomes "I DON'T WANT ANY MORE *&^%^$*& CHEESECAKE!!  I AM OFFICIALLY ON A DIET!!"  I have an entire file on my computer of unfinished stories entitled "Cheesecake." 

By being able to come here and type random thoughts or share specific stories about my kids or my husband or my ever-so-exciting life as a stay-at-home mom, I can sometimes clear out the cobwebs in my head allowing me to see that next bite of "cheesecake" so I can pick up the fork again.  That, and I can't afford therapy, so this is kind of a substitute for that too.

So, check out the rest of my posts and when you are convinced that once or twice a year you might want to know what random crap is being said here, click on the "Follow" button.  Then please push this blog on your friends -- tell them that I am hilarious, insightful, poignant -- tell whatever lie you need to in order to get them to click on that "Follow" button.  I will TRY on a regular basis to be all of the above -- hilarious, insightful, and poignant.  I guarantee only this:  there will be times that I succeed, and times that I will fail miserably.

**Oh, and while you are here, if you see a bar at the top from Google that says "This page is in 'Spanish'" and a hyperlink that says "Not in Spanish? Help us improve." PLEASE let them know that this page is in English!!!  My last name is a Spanish word and is in the blog's title, but seriously??  One word?  One Spanish word and they label the WHOLE page as being Spanish??  It is that type of stereotyping that pisses me off.

Rant, Rant, Rant -- Not Sure What Has Gotten Into Me!!

I was listening to the radio today and they were talking about divorce -- what causes it, the statistics for it, how having faith effects it, how money issues are the main cause for it, etc.  And a few things occur to me as I am listening.  We live in a disposable society that wants immediate gratification.  We get married and think that we should have everything that our parents have even though it took them 30 years to acquire it.  Money problems are the number one cause of divorce.  And these are usually problems that we bring on ourselves.  The average American household with at least one credit card has nearly $10,700 in credit-card debt, according to CardWeb.com, and that number increases for those that have more than one card (and most do have more than one). 
Debt is something I COMPLETELY understand because I have been in deeper than most.  But I am lucky enough to have a loving husband who worked WITH me to clean up our mess so that we could start acting like adults about our money.  I would love to be able to say that our debt was purely a result of our circumstance and that it was beyond our control, but that would be a lie.  Granted, most of it was due to the move and the inability to sell the house for more than 2 years after the move, etc. and some was due to unforeseen medical issues, but lets get real here: we could have let the house go 18 months before we did and we could have cut up the credit cards and cut our expenses before we did.  We could complain about the unexpected expenses caused by having 4 kids, but...well...we have 4 kids, so those expenses should not be all that unexpected.  If there is one thing I have learned in the time that we have gotten all of our finances under control and started doing a written budget every month is that there is no such thing as a "Normal Month."  I mean, sure, your house payment, your utilities, your phone, etc. will not change much month to month, but there will ALWAYS be some sort of "emergency" that is not in your normal expenses.  That is why we have an "Oh Crap" line item in our budget.  This month it may be 6 visits to the doctor (which exceeds our "normal" medical budget).  Last month it might have been soccer or dance pictures or recital fees (or all of the above).  Next month it might be a special contribution at church.  My point is, it is always something and the key is to be as prepared for that stuff as possible.  The idea that "Life takes Visa" is bassackwards -- Visa WILL take your life.

Political Rant (Try Not to Be Offended)

This is the 4th blog I have started about the presidential address last week and current state of our great nation, and if it weren't for the delete and backspace buttons, I would probably be on some sort of extremist watch list.  I got so aggrevated watching Obama's press conference last week, and I get increasingly annoyed by the liberal views in Washington.  I am feeling a little better after 4 personal rants to myself, but it has brought me to another, related subject:  Why is it that because I am a Southern, white, Christian, I am automatically a racist bigot?  Have you noticed that the liberals in this country are all for free speech unless what you say is "As a Christian, I oppose abortion, and same-sex marriage, and here are the passages from the Bible to support my views?"  They do not recognize the authority of the Bible, so they say that none of what it says is relevant.  Well, I disagree.  I say that MY opinion is just as important as theirs (isn't THAT what they are arguing for?) and doesn't MY voice deserve to be heard?  That is the problem with equal rights -- they are EQUAL.  If I have to listen to you drone on and on about how it is a woman's choice, not a life, or how government should step in and get everyone a job, a car, and a house, or how gays should be allowed this that and the other, then you cannot complain when I quote scriptures and disagree with you.

And let me say this:  As long as the choice does not have an impact upon me or any other human life, I don't oppose it.  I believe homosexulity is a sin -- it is one of those black and white issues from the Bible, it is not open to interpretation.  If you are gay, and believe in the Bible, then I do not know how you reconcile that, but that is between you and God.  Am I politiacally or socially against gay marriage?  Not really.  I know it is going to happen.  I fear the long term consequences on our schools when the family ideas are challenged to accomodate same sex couples and how I will have to explain that to my kids, but beyond that, it does not effect me -- I am not God, so I pass no judgement.  As for my stance on abortion, I am vehemently opposed to it.  I consider it a life at the moment of conception, so to me it is murder.  Would you expect me to not protest murder?  Now, I do NOT understand the people that bomb abortion clinics or shoot abortion doctors, since that is also murder.  I guess that I am anti-abortion, but I am also anti-Extreme-Anti-Abortionists....
I have a serious issue with this concept that the Government is supposed to take care of all my problems.  Since Uncle Sam doesn't have any money that We The People do not give him in the form of taxes, I am slightly offended by these programs that pay for mortgages, cars, and even cell phones for people who do not work.  Now, don't go get on your soap boxes about those that cannot help their situations, I am not talking about them.  But I do not understand why the lady at the grocery store used food stamps to pay for groceries with her obviously manicured and blinged out hand and then put said groceries into an Escalade while chatting the whole time on her i-Phone (meanwhile I am digging in my purse for my Kroger card, my coupons, and my CASH to pay for my groceries).  When we couldn't sell our house in Georgia after we moved here to Texas, I made it work for as long as I could then we let the house go.  We looked into government programs, but there were none.  So we cut our expenses down to next to nothing, we sold stuff on Craigslist, we cut coupons, and we did WITHOUT.  It wasn't enough.  We lost the house.  And the world kept on spinning.  We had a very high opinion of ourselves and our "stuff" and God shook our lives up and taught us a lesson about humility, necessity, and ingenuity.    If you give people everything that they need, they will not only not appreciate all that they have, they will cease trying to get anything for themselves.  Very few people will refuse the things that the government provides in order to get to work and get better things for themselves.  And it is contagious -- the children and the neighbors see that the government is providing people with everything that others are working for, and they wonder why they should work.  If you think I am wrong, look at the statistics of welfare and other government aid programs 50 years ago and today.  Look at how many people started out on welfare and got off of it 50 years ago and those today.  Look at just how many MORE programs there are now -- it is ridiculous.  Here is the bottom line -- we are a selfish, snobby, country who thinks that the world owes us something when we used to be a God fearing nation who helped ourselves. 
I have a whole other post in my head now, so I better stop there before I get going again.  Please pray for our country and its leaders.

EEEEWWWWWWWW!!!!

Before I go off on today's rant, I would like to make it perfectly clear that my house is not "nasty" -- cluttered, sure, but not grimy, nasty, gross.  Yes, there is often spilt apple juice or grape jelly that needs to be wiped off of the table or counter top, but it is not like that for days on end or anything.  And yes, I have found the occasional half eaten Pop Tart in the kids room or the playroom, but there are 4 of them and I only have 2 eyes.  I DO miss some things.  And in fact, last week while picking up laundry, I found half of a grilled cheese sandwich from that days lunch and I totally freaked and started vacuuming and wiping down things.  The reason is I. Hate. Bugs.

SO, having made all of that abundantly clear, it will make more sense to you all why I did not sleep AT ALL last night. 

I got all of the kids bathed, teeth brushed, and tucked into bed at a relatively decent hour.  I then cleared 2 whole shows off of the DVR, brushed my own teeth, washed my face, and prepared for bed.  I was drifting off...in that blissful twilight where you are thinking that you should have turned on the dishwasher and then you are suddenly in Willy Wonka's factory, when my eyes fluttered open.  Just for a second.  Just long enough to see a huge, nasty, winged, cock-roach crest the edge of my bed.  Right in my face.  Twitching his horrendous little antennae inches from my face.  I think that in order to have seen me move, you would have had to slow down the film.  I was LITERALLY out of the bed, lights on, SHOES on, within 3 seconds.  This was not a normal household cock-roach -- it is the kind that lives outside around woodpiles and flies around the street lights.  It took me 15 minutes to track the offensive creature under my bed, another 5 to chase it out with the use of bug spray (by this I mean "OFF" not Raid, because I could not find any bug spray since we never have roaches), and 0.06 seconds to squash it to oblivion.  My heart was pounding as if I had just fought off an attacker twice my size, there was sweat on my upper lip, I was breathing heavy, and my adrenaline was through the roof.  I went and unrolled no fewer than 6 feet of toilet paper to dispose of his remains before flushing him down the toilet.  I managed to find a 1/2 empty container of "Home Defense MAX" bug spray that Gary uses to treat the garage and outside of the house, and I sprayed all around the door to my bedroom.  The bathroom.  The hallway.  The doors and windows to the outside.  Basically everything I could until the damned thing was empty. 

I was so freaked out that as I lay there trying to calm down so that I could get a little sleep, I thought every little noise was another bug.  The AC kicking on was the flutter of wings, the tick-tick of the clock on the bathroom wall was hairy little roach legs walking, and then of course, there were all of the bugs that I "felt" that weren't there.  One of the problems with having long hair is that you have strays; little hairs that tickle the back of your arm or your face.  This, is NOT a good thing when you have just been molested in your bed by a roach.  So I stayed awake, rather unintentionally, just unable to settle down and relax.

Even now, more than 12 hours later, the slightest brush of hair against my arm sends me reeling.  The slightest shadow in the corner of my eye makes me think I am about to be attacked.  I had an exterminator in Georgia once tell me "Oh, those are wood roaches.  They cannot survive more than 3 or 4 days in a house."  As if this somehow made it okay that they got in in the first place.  We did have one in the house last year.  I was in the kitchen, barefoot, making lunches for the next day and the damned thing attempted to crawl up my leg on the INSIDE of my yoga pants.  I screamed like a mountain lion and danced around like a whirling dervish and the kids had to help me kill it because I was so shaken.  I do not care if they are only able to live inside for a few days, I do NOT want them in my house.  Ever.  Period.

Man, I HATE bugs.