What's Going On

Alot has been going on around here. To start off a couple weeks ago my mom had to start walking with a cain and had to take 10 days off from work due to severe pain in her knee from arthritis. I had to take her up to St. Joseph's Hospital twice, once we got up there and the MRI machine was down, then we had to go back a few days later after it was fixed. But we are waiting to her the results of the test. She will either have to have surgery if there is something torn, or she will have to start getting shots into her knee to give extra fluid in the joint so the bone isn't rubbing together causing the pain. So either way, it's not good. I've been really busy trying to take care of her and dad the past couple weeks.

Yesterday we got some more bad news. The owner of King Kutter, the company Travis makes tillers for, has cut the pay on various pieces. Travis' tillers happens to be one of the pay cuts. So he's expected to do the same amount of work for less money. He's currently looking for another job. But we've been there. There are no good jobs here. Also, we'll be losing our medical insurance in any new job transition for at least a month if not more.

Over the weekend we got some home improvement supplies. We got new railing for our porch at Lowes and some of it at Home Depot. I also bought a new patio set.

The patio set was a great deal! We got four padded chairs and a table, and two matching fold up chairs and a small table for around $200. I really like it.

We decided that before we put up the new railing we should power wash the paint off the house in the front and off the porch itself. I actually did some too.

Here is a "before" picture of the house.

Here is what we've gotten done so far.

My Views

Be warned, this is probably going to end up being a rant post.

Ok. The whole Don Imus thing? Come on people. He apologized a zillion times, the players accepted his apology, he got fired, move on! I am so tired of seeing it on the news every single night. Dateline NBC had a special about it last night where they interviewed a group who had taken a psychological test of what race they preferred. One of the panelists was a black man who was a civil rights activist. His test revealed that he preferred white people. He couldn't have that at all! In his comment he said that his results was because when he was growing up, white people was all that was on tv, etc. That is the dumbest excuse I've ever heard! I don't consider myself racist. I am just anti-stupidity! Another black male panelist said in the interview, "European-American" when referring to white people. That offends me. Why isn't a big deal being made about that, or old Snoop Dog saying "Ho", "Nigga", or "Cracker"? Why is it ok for black people to refer to each other with those kind of terms, but when a white person says it the whole country goes berserk? Why aren't white people standing up and making a big deal out of them calling us crackers or honkies? The whole thing just ticks me off. Slavery ended about 150 years ago. If anyone is to blame for that it is our great-great-great grandfathers, not us. People are making this into a black/white issue, and I think the point is getting missed all together. It's a stupid person/stupid person issue. I say forget Don Imus. I'm sure that Snoop and 50 cent have said worse and treated black people in more of a degrading manner than white people do. Check your back yard before you blame everyone else. Oprah is having a 2 day "Town Hall" show about the issue. It's all black people on her show. How is that an "open" converstation? I find that funny because they obviously do care about what white people have to say or there wouldn't be an issue to begin with! Just my opinion.

On another topic, since when did we need to hear how Barrack Obama, President Bush, or Angelina Jolie weigh in about every single issue that faces Americans? I frankly don't care what they think.

Blog Update

As you all now know, my blog is only viewable to people that I have invited to see it. So congratulations, I must like you! Travis and I have also deleted our Myspace accounts due to the problems it has created in our family. I am hoping that by doing this it will put an end to some issues.

And just a reminder....PLEASE DON'T VOTE FOR SANJAYA TONIGHT!!!!

News

I have some great news to share with everyone. Go here.

My New Blog Header

Yeah Travis! He made me an awesome blog header....THANK YOU!!! You are awesome!

All Finished!

I got the pattern from Rachel's Knitting Corner (her blog link is under my favorite blogs). It was actually pretty easy to do.

Update on the Scrapbooking March Scripture Challenge

The contest ended on Saturday at 11:59pm. I worked my butt off and was able to post a total of 37 scrapbook pages, which is more that alot of people do in 6 months. As of midnight, I had the most layouts posted, so therefore I am the winner. Ok, here's the thing. And yes, I am VERY mad. According to the forum time, at 2:44 am or something like that, the person doing the digital layouts posts 3 more layouts giving a total of 39. They shouldn't have been counted, but they were. That gave her 2 more than me but only in a cheating way. The person that hosted the challenge said that she was counting them because the woman lived in a different time zone and she did not specify what time zone the contest was (even though the forum was central time and the host lives in eastern time). She says that we both win. But I don't care about a stupid prize. It was about winning. And it was about me overcoming a cheater who did DIGITAL layouts which isn't even the same thing! I am really disappointed that a SCRIPTURE challenge would cheat. But what can I do? Just move on. I guess on the positive side I have a great scrapbook album out of it. The principle of it just ticks me off.