The Lady of the House Speaking

So down here in the Sunshine State (which should really be called the Frizzy Hair State, though I admit that doesn't work the PR angle as well), we're anticipating Tropical Storm Fay.  Being a native New Englander, I'm excited to see what happens during a real summer storm.  I'm in Central Florida, just south of Gainesville, so Fay isn't threatening us like it is the keys, and my in-laws' house is rated to withstand a Level 2 hurricane, so I'm not worried.  Just intrigued.  If things get interesting, I'll post something about it.

For those of you who have never been to Florida in the summer, you're really not missing anything.  It's not so much the heat, although the thermometer pushes 90-100 just about every day.  It's the humidity.  Ever been to one of those steam rooms at a health club that always smell like feet?  That's Florida in August.  When it rains, it doesn't cool anything, like our rains in Massachusetts.  It makes steam.  So it'll be interesting to see what happens when a tropical storm blows through town.  I'll keep all my fellow New Englanders posted!

Wow, it has been so long since I've read or posted on these pages!  I was hesitant to post an update about what's been going on in my life, since I don't think most people want to read about it, but there is a point to this beyond my own navel-gazing, so here goes.

As most long-time myfoxboston bloggers know, my husband and I bought a home in Athol at the beginning of the year.  Not just a home - our dream home, a 150-year-old Victorian with 9 rooms, chandeliers, hardwood floors, fireplace, built-ins, etc. etc. etc.  Gorgeous house.  Shortly after moving in, we found out I was pregnant with baby #3 (BOY #3).  Wonderful!  We now had the space to expand our family as much as we wanted!

We had to replace the boiler and water heater, which went kablooey in February.  We were aware of the condition of the old boiler, so we were kind of prepared for this (although we'd hoped it would last out the winter).  Fortunately, our electricity provider, National Grid, sponsors a program that gives out low-interest loans and rebates for energy upgrades like new furnaces.  We were able to get a loan covering the entire replacement, including the hazmat removal of the old asbestos-covered boiler.  As a note to all, if you have to make energy upgrades in your home, contact your electricity company.  There are rebates for replacing windows, upgrading to an energy star fridge, boiler and water heater upgrades, and so on.  They were extremely helpful, and they had Conservation Services Group come to our house and perform an energy audit for free.  You'd be crazy not to take advantage of the rebates out there.

So, we got our new heating system just in time to host Easter dinner for our two families, and let me tell you, a hot shower in my own home was a delight unsurpassed.  We'd been trekking to my parents' house in Westminster every other day to bathe, and otherwise had to boil water to fill the tub.  And we weren't using  a full tank of oil every 2 weeks!  Surely, we thought, this was our crisis 2008.

Life was great.  I mean, GREAT!  The house was starting to feel like home, the warm weather brought our beautiful perennial garden to life, and the boys were flourishing.  The pregnancy was going well, and we even got a puppy!  We have wonderful neighbors, we fenced in our yard, and my husband and I even have our own bedroom for the first time since we've been married.  (We didn't have kids right away, but our first couple of apartments were so small we slept in the living room rather than the bedroom.  After we had the boys, we gave them the bedroom in our larger 1-bedroom apartment and we still slept in the living room.)  We even LOVE the town we moved to!

Then, 2 weeks after our oldest son's 3rd birthday (which was marked by a beautiful party on our screened-in porch), we got the news.  Lead poisoning.  As most parents know, MA law requires that all kids have their lead levels tested up to age 6.  Now, I'll answer the inevitable question.  Yes, we were offered the lead test when we bought the house.  Yes, having worked in real estate, I knew we should get it.  I also knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that, given the age of the house and the fact that it had been inhabited by the same couple for 50 years, there was lead paint.  I figured we could save the $500 test fee, cover up the paint ourselves, and deal with it when we could afford to.  We wanted that house so badly.  So it's no one's fault but ours.  We did paint over all the peeling paint when we moved in, but we didn't count on Nathaniel's seemingly inexhaustible taste for picking things off the floor and putting them in his mouth.  So now our 3-year-old had a lead count of 30 (highest safe level is 10).  I never really took the lead law seriously until I got that call about my baby.

Panic set in.  We fled the house and stayed with my parents for 4 or 5 days.  With the puppy.  I started getting calls from state inspectors and case workers.  Nathaniel was put on an iron supplement to push the lead out of his body.  The state's chief lead inspector came to our house to test for lead paint.  Surprise...EVERYTHING is lead paint.  High levels, too.  Turns out the biggest danger with lead paint is the dust - every time you open or close a door or window, the paint rubs together and releases dust into the room, which settles everywhere.

Now we know we can't live in the house.  Not only do we have 2 toddlers, but I'm nearly 7 months pregnant at this point.  We ended up staying with a friend in Barre for nearly 4 weeks. My husband, who still has to work every day, would sleep most nights at home, because I had 2 twin beds (one for me, one for Nathaniel) and a crib crammed into my friend's spare bedroom.  During this nearly month-long sojourn, we explored our options.  Contractors came and bid on the lead remediation.  The projected time for the work went from 2 months to 3 months to, finally, December of this year or later. The baby is due in September.  Friends of ours loaned us their camper, which sleeps 4, but not comfortably.  Also, the prospect of living in my backyard with 2 toddlers, a newborn and a puppy well into the cold weather did not sit well with me.  My parents didn't have room for all of us.  Although Nathaniel is fine, and no long-term damage has been done, I started losing sleep and weight with the stress of the whole situation.  My husband was worrying about me constantly, and the boys were all discombobulated from moving so many times and not being able to go home.  We finally made the decision that the best option was for the boys and me to move to Florida to stay with my in-laws until this whole thing is done. So we all moved into the camper for one week to have some time together, and on Tuesday I took my 2 toddlers on a plane to Orlando.  I have no idea when I'll be able to go home.  Hubby is planning on joining us for  a week in September when the baby is born, but it's unlikely that work on the house will be started before then.  We have 34 windows and 23 doors that need to be replaced, and all the interior woodwork and exterior trim needs to be scraped or replaced.  It's a nearly $70,000 project. 

So, I haven't had much time to blog in 2008.  The good news is now that I'm in Florida, I don't have much else to do besides take care of my boys, and once they're asleep, my time is my own.  I miss my husband terribly, and it's tough living in someone else's house.  But God is good, and has opened doors for us during this whole process.  We're all healthy and my Puerto Rican mother-in-law is feeding us VERY well.  Lord willing, I'll be back home before Christmas.

The part of this blog that is more public service announcement than woe-is-me sob story is this: if anyone reading this is considering buying an older home and you have or are planning to have small children, GET THE LEAD TEST.  Make sure you know what you're getting into, and how seriously the state takes these things.  I still love my house, and I'll be thrilled to walk into it when this is all done, but if anyone else can save themselves the headaches our little family has been through, DO IT.

And again, to all here who wished me well while I was gone, thanks from the very bottom of my heart.

I read an article recently on bankrate.com (http://www.bankrate.com/msn/news/realestateguide2008/
median-income-buy-house-a1.asp) in which Craig Gulliot bemoans the fact that the "average Joe" still can't afford to buy a home in America.  The median family income is somewhere around $60K, and the median single-family home price is $199K.  With a 20% down payment and devoting 28% of a family's income to mortgage, insurance and taxes, Joe Six Pack can't do it.  This is supposed to be some great travesty.  I simply can't get beyond the concept of "if you can't afford something, don't buy it". 

I'm not being elitist about this; we just bought our first home after nearly 5 years of marriage, 2 kids in a 3-room apartment, and scrimping and saving on one income.  We take home just about the average income, and we had to buy a house that was considerably below the average selling price.  We did what we had to do to afford our own home, even though we live without many of the luxuries most people take for granted.  No tv, for instance.  Only one car (and a used one at that, paid for in cash).  No new clothes.  One cell phone.  A STRICT grocery budget, Netflix instead of the cinema, and almost no dining out.  If we weren't willing or able to make the sacrifices we've made to have our own home, then we'd be in the same boat as Average Joe, and it would be no one's fault but our own. 

The article seems to want to blame everyone for poor Joe's inability to own but Joe himself; it's the economy, the housing market, the job market, the loan market, etc.  To me, that's just un-American.  Here in the US, we have the ability and freedom to make what we will of ourselves, and the distance we go in life is a result of our own determination and work ethic.  If Joe wants a home and can't afford one, he needs to get a second job or get rid of his plasma tv.  It's no one's responsibility but his.  Go, Joe.

While baking a loaf of bread this morning, I started reflecting on all the kitchen gadgets that have vied for countertop space over the years.  The countless "appliances" I saw take a place of honor on my Mom's counter for about 4 weeks, only to be banished to the depths of the garage, where they linger still.  I'm sure most of us have fallen prey to the informercial gadget gurus at one point or another, but a few "must-haves" stick out in my mind...

The Breadmaker

Leaving aside the fact that bread dough is about the easiest thing in the world to make, why was this monstrosity invited into every American home?  Talk about genius marketing, though.  Everyone loves fresh-baked bread, right?  So you buy the machine, which can range in size from Crock Pot to Engine Block, and then pour in the flour, eggs, yeast, water, salt, etc., and you've got bread in 20 minutes, right?  Wrong!  For some reason, breadmakers only accept pre-packaged bread dough mix, which you also have to buy.  So you buy cinnamon-raisin bread dough mix for twice the price of a store-bought loaf of cinnamon-raisin bread, add your wet ingredients, and watch the magic happen (and actually, it is fun to watch the mixer do its thing).  Then, out comes your piping-hot bread, no mess, no fuss.  Wait, no mess, you say?  Hah!  The breadmaker was, of course, designed by the clever imps at the sixth level of Hell, and only they have an easy time cleaning the stuck-on baked-on dough out of the recesses of this contraption.  I think I'll stick to mixing and kneading, and save my counter space for a pot of daisies or something.  (By the way, fresh-baked bread topped with Howard's Picililli is the BEST.)

The Juicer

Thank you, Jack Lalanne!  Not only can you pull a barge with your teeth at age 107, you can market the healthiest addition to the American household since disposable toilet paper!  All you have to do is buy a peck of apples, 5 lbs of carrots, feed them into The Juicer, and voila!   One 8-oz cup of carrot-apple juice!  Does that seem like a lot of fruit for a small amount of juice?  Not to worry!  You can bake the nutrient-rich pulp into muffins, breads, and cakes!  Make sure to keep your 50-gallon drum handy to hold all that pulp, and warm up your oven for the JJ Nissen volume of baked goods you're going to have to produce to use it all up.  Or maybe you could just eat a couple of apples and carrots a day.  Just sayin'.

The Rice Cooker

I actually got one of these for my wedding.  And here I was, cooking rice in a pot all these years!  How naive!  What I really needed was a countertop space-waster that does the exact same thing!  (I re-gifted this to someone who'd actually registered for it.  Hope she likes it.)

The Deep-Fryer

Now really, unless your name is Elvis Presley or you live in South Carolina, how often are you going to be deep-frying something?  And really, it ain't all that healthy.  If you really want deep-fried food, maybe it's wise to save your countertop space and make a twice-yearly trip to the clam bar down the street.  How the heck do you dispose of all that oil, anyway?

The Quesadilla Maker

I can totally understand the George Foreman Grill, especially if you don't have a cooktop.  You can also use it to cook a variety of things.  But a quesadilla maker?  Just to make...quesadillas?  This is right up there with the grilled cheese maker my husband brought home a few months ago.  "But Honey, we all love grilled cheese!"  "Yes, Dear, but I've never had a problem cooking them in the frying pan."  I tried it out, and it did produce a nice, golden grilled cheese.  Then I tried to clean it.  The cheese bonds to the thing like Crazy Glue, and of course you can't immerse it in water because of the electrical components.  It's sat on a shelf ever since.  My sister's boyfriend says he wants it, but he hasn't collected it yet.

I know you've all got useless gadget stories, too.  What are some of your favorites?

Hello all my myfoxboston lovelies:

Tomorrow, as many of you know, is Ash Wednesday.  As per usual, I'll be leaving off blogging (and other media-like distractions) for Lent.  I wish you all a blessed, reflective Lenten season and a very Happy Easter, when we meet again!

 

OK, so there's a bit of hubris in the title.  So sue me.

Just wanted to check back in with all of you fantastic people whom I've missed so much.  We're now settled into our new home, and it's every kind of lovely.  The boys are like little blurs of joy careening through the house.  They have about 10x the amount of space to run and play.  The house is beautiful, though not without its "antique" bits of charm.   These include an ancient (previously coal-burning) oil furnace covered with asbestos; a sidearm water heater that leaks from every coupling, is more corroded than the Grand Canyon, and heats enough water for a 5-minute shower; original (yes, 1880 or earlier) windows; and 100 amp breaker electrical service with knob and tube wiring.  We're in for a fun project.  Step one is replacing all the windows, which will be happening in March.  Then the electricity, water heater, and then furnace.  I have to get a job.

On the plus side, the space, privacy, beauty, and comfort of our own home is truly priceless.  We're going to enjoy this place.  We're also planning to remodel it to its original splendor, as the sellers graciously left us photos from the 1920s and '30s showing the house as it once looked.  Most of that is exterior work (getting the colors right, adding shutters and decorative moldings, etc).  We're working on the 10-15 year plan of home improvement.  AND we've just found out that we're expecting baby number three, so there's one more thing to add to the pile.  Life is so good!

Of course, I won't be on these pages as much as I was before (partially because the computer is now in the office - we have an OFFICE! - and partially because we don't have the radiator turned on in the office), but I'll try to check back in as often as possible.  While I do have a lot to keep me busy now, I enjoy trading thoughts and opinions with all of you so much, it's worth making time for.

For now, though, I hope you're all doing supremely well, are having a beautiful New Year, and  are staying warm!   I'll be back soon!

Now, I'm not one to squash freedom of the press; really I'm not.  But I'm just wondering if it's the best idea to be broadcasting across the airwaves that we've had to ground 450 F-15s, and that strategic sites around the country are being covered by single state fleets, a few F-16s, and even fewer F-22s.  Could the press maybe have kept this one under wraps until we get our planes back in the air?  I understand the need to file a story, but does the AP care one whit about national security?  I just get the feeling that our enemies will jump on an opportunity like this one.  Well, if they do, let's hope those new F-22s live up to the hype!  And let's hope our pilots get back in the air ASAP!

We've got a problem with teens having sex.  Teenage sexual activity and teenage pregnancy are at, I believe, epidemic proportions in this country.  Jamie Lynn Spears isn't the only one; I'm sure all of us know someone who has fathered or borne a child before marriage.  We wring our hands, decrying the lack of morality and self-control among our children.  But let's look at it from another angle, shall we?

Is it the fact that "children are having children" (to use the common idiom), or that, in fact,  adults are having children, but we as a society have extended childhood into the adult years?

Biology dictates, whether by evolution or design, that humans are prepared to procreate at around age 13 (give or take).  We hit puberty, and we're not only capable of producing children, we're ready and willing to have sex.  Historically, and in many places around the world even today, this was the appropriate time for people to start getting married and having children.  Seems backward to us, and we can say that this only held or holds true in places where the life expectancy was/is far lower than in modern-day industrialized civilization, but doesn't it actually make sense?

We've created this phenomenon of prolonged adolescence.  We coddle our teens, call our 18-year-old college students "kids", and produce movies like "Knocked Up", which portray 20- and 30-somethings as still being children.  What if we had a cultural revolution, and parents started raising their kids to be responsible adults by the time they're 14 or 15?  It's not unheard-of; as I said, the world has been doing it for millennia.  Adolescence is a recent thing, the product of health and prosperity.

Mind you, it would take some doing.  Let's say a 15-year-old young man decides he wants to marry his 14-year-old sweetheart. They're deeply devoted to one another, desperately want to sleep together, but don't want to be together (and risk pregnancy) outside the safety of marriage.  First off, we've made a marriage at this age illegal.  As far as I know, even parental consent can't get them a marriage license.  Secondly, how will the young man support his family?  We've mandated that he finish high school (which puts him at age 17 or 18), finish college (22 or 23), and most likely get a graudate degree (26) in order to get a decent job.    She must do the same (she might squeak by with only a high school diploma, but she'd be looked down upon).  Then there's the pressure of society along the way.  "How do you know she's the one?"  "Don't you want to have some fun, enjoy your youth?"  "Why do you want all that responsibility?"   If they still want to be pure, we're demanding that they put their love and desire on hold for 9 to11 years.  By that time, if they're human, they've given in to sexual desire, and have probably moved on to several different partners - the ardor of their youth is long gone, jaded with experience.

But what if parents educated and helped their kids to establish an adult life early on?  What if they gave permission to marry, helped the young couple find a place to live (or let them live at home for a while), and helped them find good jobs?  What if, heaven forbid, Jamie Lynn Spears and her boyfriend got married and raised a family, just like grown-ups?  What happens to our teenage pregnancy problem then?

TIME Magazine!  They've chosen a Person of the Year (and how I hate gender neutralization, but that's a topic for another post...), and it's Vladmir Putin.  Dobby, you say?  Gollum?  No, Vladmir, the Russian president with an increasingly tight stranglehold on his country's government.  Once a promising force in Russia's democratization, Putin has of late cracked down on free elections and refused to let the Kremlin out of his sight.  I realize that the editors of TIME say that being chosen "Person of the Year" is not necessarily an honor, but really, what else can you be saying with such a prominent display?  A great newsmaker, sure, but if that's your criterion, how about Britney Spears?

Also in the running were Al Gore, JK Rowling and General David Petraeus.  How about making your "Person of the Year", TIME Magazine, a HERO of the year?  How about General Petraeus, who has turned the morass in Iraq around?  Or are we too global in scope to honor a great American?

At least they didn't choose Al Gore.

Sometimes it just feels good to abdicate responsibility, you know?  Hubby's not home yet (stuck in the snow in Boston), and the kids are safely ensconced in their beds, so I had a bag of SmartBalance microwave popcorn and half a bottle of Riesling for dinner.  Ahhh, reminds me of when I had my own apartment in college...hubby (then beau) would come visit, and all I'd have in the fridge was asparagus, red delicious apples (one every day since I was a little girl), a bar of dark chocolate (at least 70% cacao), a wedge of very good French cheese, and a bottle of very good French wine, and the only thing to be found in the cupboard was oatmeal (my daily breakfast, even now).  He'd bluster away, take me to IGA and load me up with groceries, only to find I'd dwindled down to my staple diet  by the next month.  Kind of wish I could still live that way; left to my own devices, I don't think I'd ever make a meatloaf or bake a chicken.  Cheese, bread, chocolate, fruit, wine and coffee...someday I'll get back to that.

Many malpractice lawsuits that make it into the news are pure, greedy bunk (see JuneinMA's post below). But I read an AP article this morning that pretty much defines malpractice. The woman in this case deserved every cent of the award that was given to her.

For 9 years now, a Fitchburg woman has been receiving antiviral drug treatments for HIV. Now, I'm not completely familiar with the HIV treatment regimen, but I understand that it's pretty complicated and comes with some rather nasty side effects, including, according to the plaintiff, nausea, loss of appetite, depression, and inflammation of the intestine. Worth it, though, to save your life, right? But here's the thing: she's never been HIV positive. Apparently her doctor at UMASS Memorial in Worcester assumed that she was HIV positive after she told him about her lifestyle, which included prostitution (a claim she denies) and an HIV-positive partner. But doctors aren't supposed to assume anything. The doctor repeatedly refused to order confirmatory tests even after blood monitoring during treatment showed no evidence of HIV in her system. So now 9 years of her life have been wasted on powerful drugs and, I'm certain, the constant depressed state of mind that accompanies an HIV diagnosis. The jury awarded her $2.7 million. I hope she uses it to get on with her life, and maybe educate others about the importance of a second opinion.

It just blows my mind that in this day and age, a doctor can be dumb enough to treat for something as serous as HIV based solely on the patient's behvioral history. Time for someone to find a new career!

This may be a bit of a peevish complaint, but I've noticed a trend recently that, frankly, I find disheartening.  When I was growing up, an evening at the theater, symphony, ballet, etc. was an "event".  We didn't go into Boston for performances all that often, but when we did, we DRESSED for it.  As a young girl, it was velvet dresses, as a young woman, the formal and conservative equivalent.  The last time my husband and I went to the Opera House, we decked ouselves out in what we considered appropriate theater wear. He wore a suit and tie, and I wore a long gown, heels, and fur coat.  When we arrived, we found all of our fellow patrons dressed to the nines in - jeans and sneakers?!  Sweatshirts?  There was the occassional sweater, which made a very formal impression in that crowd.

Now, we're going to see the Boston Ballet's Nutcracker next weekend.  I plan to dress up for it, not only beacuse I think it's appropriate, but because it's just plain fun!  Where else do you get to wear your best duds?  I'm wondering what we'll see on the crowd, and I'm really wondering if anyone else has noticed this (seemingly recent) phenomenon.  Don't people dress up for anything anymore?

I must disclose here that I tend to be more formal than most people anyway (I'm the only woman in my congregation that wears a hat to Church every Sunday), so maybe I'm behind the times.  What concerns me a bit is that people are losing the sense of "specialness" inherent in a night out soaking up the fine arts.  Isn't there something about a live perfomance of "Nabucco" that sets it apart from a Thursday night at the local cineplex watching "Transformers" while desperately trying to unstick your feet from the floor?  I think this trend to casualize everything serves only to devlaue the things that are really special in this world.  Am I the only one?

In honor of Advent and Christmas, I now share with you my Pastor’s (the blindingly brilliant R.M. Hintze) annual Christmas Reminder to the congregation.  Read it, enjoy it, and have a truly Merry Christmas!

 

How to Have a Merry Christmas

 

 

Cards!

 

·         If they’re not fun, don’t send them!

·         If they are fun to send, send as many as are fun.  Then stop!

·         If you want to stay in touch, send a card during February.  You’ll have time to enjoy it, they’ll have time to read it, and they’ll know they weren’t just another name on your Christmas card list.

Presents!

 

·         Less with love actually is more.  I am so serious you wouldn’t believe it

·         DO NOT BURY KIDS.  DO NOT bury kids under piles of loot.  Do we want to turn excited, happy little children into sweaty, bored little zombies?

·         DONOT BORROW MONEY TO SPEND ON CHRISTMAS!  Christ is in charge of our economics.  If He wants us to celebrate His birthday on the cheap this year, that had better be fine with us.

·         Last minute shopping?  Be cool.  Not all crowds are lynch mobs!  Some crowds are merry throngs!  Think of the shops in Charles Dickens!  Pretend you’re in A Christmas Carol!  Pretend you’re Bob Cratchit buying Yuletide stuff on Christmas Eve!!  Now you’re having fun, you bet.

Decorations!

 

·         Whatever looks like Christmas to you, do it.  Then stop!  Too much more is creepy, like you’re a window dresser?  Only you’re not?  Just compulsive?  And exhausted?  And Jesus wasn’t born to put us on a treadmill?  Okay?

·         Interior decoration (in our souls) is what Christ likes best.  And you don’t have to take it down after.

Food and Drink!

 

·         Make what tastes like Christmas.  Then stop.

·         Feasting: good!  Gorging: bad!  Not to mention the time, money and strength blown on stuff nobody notices in the General Gobble.

·         Enjoy!  Be merry!  Let Christ see us eating and drinking and enjoying being glad He came.

Stuff to Ignore!

 

·         Ignore holiday suggestions in magazines that look like work.  They only put them in there because they had to fill the December issue.

·         Ignore other people’s expectations.  (It’s not their birthday.)

·         Ignore nagging guilt about making Christmas perfect.  Christmas is perfect, and our families will think so, too, when we celebrate it with gratitude and love.  All the rest is BALONEY.

·         Ignore doom and gloom whining about how Commercialized and Secularized Christmas Is Getting.  Instead…

…think how satisfying it is that the entire Retail Industry depends for its life on the Celebration on your Lord’s Birth.  Think how nice it is that people who don’t even know why still put up decorations for His party.  Think how amazing it is that for a month, anyway, people are going to use pictures of Happy Families to sell stuff – doesn’t that beat the pictures they use the rest of the year?   (And isn’t it nice that there’s still a market for Happy Families?)  Think how many hordes of people are going to be packed into stores to hear our hymns over the loudspeakers!  And think: they may not know Jesus, but they can’t help making some kind of connection between “Happy Holiday”, which they really need, and “Christ is born”, which really happened.  So, use the opportunity, thank Heaven for the incredible PR, and enjoy.

Holiday Blues…

 

Even apart from the busy-ness or tiredness or false guilt we could get into, almost everybody has something about Christmastime that makes them melancholy.  Hearing “White Christmas” or remembering people and times gone by – whatever.  That’s okay.  Nostalgia and even sorrow don’t have to turn into the blues.  Whatever our melancholy thing is, look it straight in the face and think: There’s a reason why Jesus came.  Realize what he has fixed and what He’s going to fix.  We’ve got a Savior, now, and so we’ve got a Happy Ending.  It’s gonna be all right.

Serious Concerns About All of the Above!

 

·         If I only do what’s fun, I’ll be ready for Christmas in a week or two.  What’ll I do with all my extra time?

·         If there’s no treadmill, no guilt, no exhaustion, no indigestion, no debt, how will I know it’s Christmas?

·         See below.

How to Be Merry!

 

·         Do ONLY the fun stuff and enjoy it to pieces.

·         Take advantage of “no work” merriment:

1.       Hear “The Messiah”.

2.       See “The Nutcracker”.

3.       Go look at the decorations in Boston, without shopping.  When you’re not shopping, the crowds are all part of the set decorations, like you’re in a Christmas movie.  The trick is just, no shopping.  FREE.

4.       Rent woozily sentimental Yuletide movies: A Christmas Carol, It’s a Wonderful Life (“No, kids; angels aren’t like that at all”), Scrooge, A Christmas Story (funny), Miracle on 34th Street (When the guy says, “Faith is believing when common sense tells you not to” – that’s the only time in their lives when kids are allowed to roll their eyes.  Roll your eyes together – as a family.)

5.       Invite somebody to Christmas.  FREE.

6.       Have Advent decorations with the kids.  FREE.

7.       Serve Christmas dinner at the VFW (and lots of other places!)  FREE.

8.       Go to Christmas worship and sing your joyful heart out!  FREE!

 

Make it simple, take it easy, have it all.

I have to admit I find it very odd that I haven't seen any posts on here about the current crisis in Pakistan.  I'm interested in what you all think.  I find this situation fascinating, as much of my personal focus in my college studies was on democracy around the world.  I don't happen to believe that democracy is the perfect system of government.  We've seen it fail horribly in several countries; Haiti, Palestine, and, arguably, Iraq, so far.  For those who haven't been following world news that closely, here's a quick rundown...

President General Pervez Musharraf, who seized the Pakistani government in a 1999 military coup, has suspended the Pakistani constitution amid growing unrest among Islamic militants.  He argues that in order to maintain peace and safety for the majority of Pakistanis, he cannot allow free democratic elections, since extremists will undoubtedly be elected to office, and the government of Pakistan will be in the hands of Islamic radicals.  This happened recently in Palestine.  The population was finally allowed free elections, and elected Hamas into power.  The country has since then become a hotbed of terrorism and a haven for terrorists.  Musharraf is, of course, deeply concerned about this possibility given that Pakistan has nuclear weapons.  Benazhir Bhutto, the exiled Prime Minister, has returned to the country and is demanding that Musharraf step down and allow democracy to take its course, whatever the outcome.  The US is in agreement with her.  She remains under intermittent house arrest.  Musharraf has recently vowed to step down from the military, but maintains that his control over the government must continue until parliamentary elections are held in the spring.

Given the circumstances, I tend to be sympathetic to General Musharraf in this case.  The possibility of a terrorist government with nuclear weapons in place is, frankly, horrifying.  I think the United States, in our drive to encourage democracy in every country and every culture, has been blinded to many of its faults.  In the course of human events, it is sometimes better for a people and for the world at large that that people not be allowed to choose its own leaders.

What do you think?  Can a temporary dictatorship be abided, or should it be democracy at all costs?

I've been doing some preliminary research into using solar energy as the auxilary/primary energy source in our new home.  I'm really interested in the overall initial costs, what the installation involves, and what tax incentives exist for going solar.  I've been in contact with a few manufacturers and installers, but I always value the advice of people who've been there and done that.  Anyone out there have any experience with solar technology recently, and can you offer any information or advice?

Muchas gracias!