Ahhh...we have tricked and we have treated. I should say, we were treated...no tricks tonight.

It went off without a hitch. Well, without much of a hitch anyway. The usual suspects - cape too long, face paint getting smeared - showed up, but I think a good time was had by all.

I'm getting nervous about Tuesday. I think I'm starting to think Bush will win just as a protective measure, so I don't get my hopes up then dashed. That way, if Kerry does win I'll be surprised. You know how that works. I don't want to think it's really, actually possible just to have Rove, er, I mean, Bush steal the election again. Maybe I'll hide under a rock until Tuesday...

My son is entranced by his own excrement. Every time he goes poo, he wants to stand up and examine the fruit of his labors. He must look at it. Then try to smell it. Then try to touch it. He freaks out when I finally have to take it upstairs to dunk it in the toilet. I've gone to sneaking it upstairs later when he's forgotten about it.

I find this oddly fascinating. Why would he be so interested in the brown, smelly stuff? I guess it's that old "it's part of me" thinking, though I never experienced that with my older two.

Mason has been this way from the get go. An adventure in opposites, he's always done things differently than his older brother and sister. This consistently throws me for a loop as I don't expect it. He's just been so different, from when he walked to when he wanted to eat "real food".

We're finishing up preparations for Halloween and then we have elections, then the day after is Mace's second birthday. I feel like everything else has kept me so preoccupied that I've not thought about it enough. Maybe Sunday, when the whole trick or treat thing will be behind us I can start preparing.

Reason #432,234 I might not be normal...

So I watched an episode of the show Manhunt, you know, the male equivalent of America's Next Top Model. And I was thinking these guys were just simply NOT attractive. Not in the least. I would not want to bed any one of them. You know how I'm currently in lurve with? Alton Brown from the show Good Eats on the Food Network. I find him incredibly freaking sexy. I know why too. It's because he's really funny and quirky. I love that.

Exteriors have never held much sway with me. I don't notice butts or pecs or things like that. Being funny and intelligent can always trump a strong jawline or a six pack. I guess this is why plastic surgery seems silly to me. I suppose it wouldn't seem silly at all to someone who put more stock in the outside. Not that either way is necessarily good or bad, it' s just interesting to me how we all find so many different things attractive or sexy.

Mmmm...hope Good Eats is on tonight :-)

You're an agitator! Your kids have grown up on the
front lines of rallies and pickets, and chances
are that you boycott at least one company for
its bad business practices. Your kids are
learning what matters to you and how they can
change what matters to them.

What kind of a freaky mother are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Okay, one more thing that pisses me off then I'm done.

It's been said that Bush was a hawk on the war in Vietnam. Nice. So he thinks it's a right and just war, but he's not willing to risk his precious little ass over there fighting it.

But yet everyone thinks he's this great force against terrorism. No, he's a great mouth against terrorism. He talks a big game as long as he's safe in his white house. I mean really, what did he do so differently right after 9/11? He didn't do anything really....does anyone recall his face sitting in that classroom in Florida when the attack was whispered to him? He sat there like a freaking ventriloquist dummy! For a while! My point is, after the attacks any president would have been angry, any president likely would have went into Afghanistan. But maybe another president would have focused on the real threat, Bin Laden, and not started looking for an easy fight somewhere else. Another president might not have underestimated that fight itself. Bush has made so many mistakes on the terrorism and foreign relations front. He's NOT a strong president in that respect. Someone please explain why so many people seem to be deluded into thinking he is???

I laughed hysterically watching the Daily Show last night. He showed a clip of Bush saying "you can run, but you can't hide" then showed a picture of Bin Laden. Stewart said "you know what happened to the last person he said that to...he ran and hid". Oh my. I was wiping away tears I tell ya!

Okay, here's what pisses me off about these Swift Boat Veterans for "Truth" and all these opportunists who (mis)use John Kerry's words at the 1971 Senate Committe on Foreign Relations meeting.

Do they not understand that he was speaking on behalf of a large organization of vets, the Vietnam Veterans Against the War? I mean, he wasn't saying that he personally saw all the war crimes he mentioned, he was sharing things he'd been told by other vets at the Winter Soldier Investigation. It's ridiculous that no one seems to make this distinction...so these guys who were also in swift boats are trying to make us believe just because THEY didn't commit war crimes, no one did. That's insane! If any thinking person would read the transcript of Kerry's testimony they'd get a more balanced opinion of what was actually said at the meeting.

And to be honest, I CAN totally believe what these vets say happened. Vietnam was a horrific war, I don't think anyone has ever disputed that fact. No one, except maybe these swift boat veterans, has forgotten My Lai. It's obvious we did atrocious things over there. I can't believe how some in this country still want to idealize war and make it some glamorous undertaking. It ain't. John Kerry was only bringing home that point in 1971.

And please, read the transcript. I heart John Kerry even more now after reading it.

I'm so stressed I don't even know where to begin.

Between bills piling up, Scott having this unexplained illness, juggling the kids around (yes, I had to take my mom up on her offer as my sister had an appointment this afternoon, so now I'm worried about my mom coping with all the kids) and now a concern about health insurance which was on shaky ground to begin with....aack!

Driving to work this morning, I just realized how focused I've been on our precarious financial situation. It's pretty much been my only focus lately. Homeschooling, enjoying time with my family, spending time with friends...it's all gone by the wayside while I obsess about how little money we have and how we're going to stretch it to pay bills.

I know this situation is of our own making, but certain things have made it even harder. It's little things like our house payment unexpectedly going up due to increases in taxes and insurance, it's the vehicle we had to purchase when our one and only (and paid off!) vehicle decided to have a meltdown and the increase in our car insurance. I mean, all these little stupid things just keep happening and it's just crazymaking!

I dunno. Whining sure doesn't help. I need to focus on the end we're working for, keep my eyes on the prize so to speak. We're hoping to sell the house and move out to the land by my mom and brother and do our sustainable living thing out there. It's this meantime that's so frustrating...

I hate doctors!

Scott has been feeling ill for the last four weeks. Just a lot of seemingly unrelated ailments that are really making him feel awful. When he says he needs to go to the ER, I take that very seriously as this is a man who normally will not even mention when he's sick. There have been several instances where I've not even known he was sick or had a migraine until after the fact. So when he asks to go, I freak. There they do lots of tests and can' t figure it out. They send him to his doctor. Who also can't figure out what it is, but gives him some meds to help with the symptoms. No idea the cause, but let's throw pills at it and see if it goes away. The only thing they all seem to agree on is that it's some kind of virus (apparently, the mother of all viruses since it can seemingly live over 4 weeks!), yet some of the symptoms don't seem virus-like. And I love the fact that they talk to us like we're idiots. I mean, I know that probably many of the ER patients are low on the clued-in scale, but give me a break! I KNOW that antibiotics won't cure a virus, but we don't KNOW it's a virus, do we?!

Anyway...I'm still highly frustrated and unsure what to do from here. I hate being totally not in control and just not knowing what to do. He's still feeling crappy, hardly able to work when these episodes start but he HAS to get to work. ugh.

Are the news outlets just trying to start a panic? It's all "FLU SHOT SHORTAGE!" and "FLU SHOT CRISIS!". And I just read an article that said those who previously never got the flu shot, now want to this year. Uhhh, why???? Just because there's a shortage? Typical American thinking "there's not much of it, but by gum I want mine!".

It's so ridiculous. Don't people remember last year when there were loads of flu shots, but it didn't protect from the big one that was supposed to hit hard. Flu shots are not panaceas. You're not guaranteed no flu just because you got a shot. And do people know what's IN those freaking shots? -shudder-

We don't do shots. At all. Any kind. Well, okay, if we needed a shot of something to live, that's different. And I occasionally do shots, but not the kinds with needles. But we don't do shots like vaccinations or flu shots, etc.. I've done a lot of studying on all of them and their drawbacks and benefits and it just doesn't add up that we fill our kids with all those chemicals for such a little protection. Flu shots are the worst of the worst though, in my opinion. Just a little more handwashing and hygiene and you can avoid most colds and flus. And really, unless your immune system is compromised, you can make it through colds and flus with just a little inconvenience. Last year, I did feel like I was coming down with that awful one. It was pretty bad and came on quickly. But I started downing Vitamin C, Echinacea and garlic and it was gone, totally gone, by the next morning. This was the flu that people had for weeks on end. So no, the flu is not going to kill you unless it's some weird strain or you have little immunity to fight it off. But yet everyone is clamoring to get the flu shot this year, because there's not much of it. How selfish would you have to be to be mid thirties, healthy, standing in line next to an 80 year old just so you get yours. Nice. But okay, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they're all working in the health care field ;-)

I'm stressing a bit. It's sort of a good stress and a bad stress. Scott got offered another day at work for the next five weeks but could be until Christmas. Normally, we both work part time in order to avoid child care. So he works the days I'm off, and I work the days he's off. But he makes A LOT more than I do (I'm underemployed at the moment). So when they offer another day, he pretty much needs to take it. We need him to take it. So he took it, and of course it's on a day that I'm normally working.

My mom already gets conned into, er, I mean babysits my neice and nephew who are 3 years old and 5 months old respectively. I say conned into because she is getting royally taken advantage of as far as how long she's watching them, etc.. So of course I never ask her to watch our kids because I feel like the poor woman needs at least a few free hours a week. So she can't really watch my kids on Wednesdays; she says she can, but 5 kids is a bit much when three of them are under 3 years old! There's no one at work I can switch around with because the schedule is tight, everyone else has commitments and such that they are already scheduling around. My sister is the only real option, but I know Maddie and likely Mason will not react well to that. She's never watched them before so I hesitate because of how they might react. I guess I just have to bite the bullet and have her watch them. It's only for 5 hours, and I work right around the corner from my house so it should be fine, right? Right???

It's got to work because we really need the extra income. It couldn't have happened at a better time!

I just realized that the freaking comments added by blogger are for blogger members only..that sucks!

So I added some from Haloscan. Sure, there's an annoying ad at the bottom, just don't scroll down that far.

I'm out to make dinner...and stop WWIII.

Well, that sufficiently ate up a couple hours of my morning. I'm really not just slacking at work, I'm the computer center chick. I sit in the computer room at the library and sign people in and out of the internet and word processing computers. It's quite boring, so I get to sit here and surf when no one needs on at the moment. And when no one is pulling up porn. Or forgetting the password they just set up an email account with two minutes ago. Or, as the case of the most infamous patron here, pulling up porn while whacking their weasel. Yup.

So really, I'm not just slacking!

The other part of my job that I don't think I'm going to be able to do much longer is delivering the books to the area nursing homes and homebound patrons. That's rough. I mean, when I'm walking down a hallway about ready to burst into tears, I'm thinking that maybe I'm not the right person for the job. I really don't think nursing homes are normal in any sense of the word. I don't think life was meant to end up that way. I mean, many of these people are perfectly coherent, seemingly able to take care of themselves, but for whatever reason get stuck in there like rats in cages. I don't believe in nursing homes, except for the really ill who cannot care for themselves and for whom family members cannot care sufficiently. I feel like too many people are just inconvenienced by their elderly relatives and would rather shut them away in order to "not think about it" and that totally sucks. I know for a fact that I would not, could not put a relative of mine in some of these places. Like I said, unless I totally cannot care for them at all, they don't need a nursing home.

The worst part is how different these places are. If you have the money or the health insurance to pay for it, you can get the finest of care and facilities. Heaven forbid if you don't; you get stuck in places like I go to. Places that smell like feces and people just roam the hallways in their wheelchairs. Where all the doors lock behind you and some won't open the other way again at all (yeah, I got lost yesterday!). Everyone deserves equal care, not just the well heeled. I mean, to reach your later years, to have lived a full life and gained wisdom and experience, only to be stuck in a hole like that? That is not normal! It's not how this is supposed to go down!

As you might guess, this is coming round to my support of Kerry and his broadened health insurance plans. I do think it's a good thing for the Medicaid eligibility to go up to 300% of the poverty level. My husband and I make too much to qualify for health coverage as it stands now, but neither of our employers offer it either. So we're both in that middle ground where we'd have to buy our own coverage. But at over $200.00 per month, we can't afford it. We're living paycheck to paycheck and though that $200.00 seems small, we just can't do it. So, sure, I'd love to see more health coverage for those who need it in this country. It's sad that so many people do without it, in one of the most advanced countries in the world. Yet another reason I'm pulling for Kerry.

Okay, so I wanted a purdy new template and I lost my comments.

I know, I know...they weren't used that frequently :-) but I liked them. Since I get hours of online time here at work I'll keep chipping away at it...

So I've been thinking a lot about this, and yes, it was brought on by more VH1.

I was watching Dr. Dre talk about how the police in LA were and are so discriminatory and he mentioned how the song F___ tha Police came about. He said he had been driving around South Central LA with Eazy E who was shooting a paintball gun at people waiting at bus stops. It had red paintballs so the people thought they were really getting shot. And then, gasp, they were chased by police! The horrors! the police had them out of their car on the ground! Oh my!

Are you kidding me? I couldn't do that in small town Ohio, let alone a high crime area like South Central LA. What would you expect the police to do in a situation like that? I mean, come on!

I do believe the police in general do a lot of racial profiling and that there are in all liklihood a lot of racist police officers. But in this particular instance, I can't really see that they were being racist or doing the wrong thing. It just seems that he was being totally unrealistic in thinking he could go down the street shooting red paintballs at people and it would all be okay. That's stupid! They didn't stop you because you were black, they stopped you because you were shooting red paintballs at people dumbass!

I dunno, it just bugged me. Then last night hearing the Notorious BIG saying he sold crack because he had to support his family, while they show a street mural saying "drugs are the new slavery". So why the hell would he want to sell crack to his fellow African Americans who were struggling just like he was? Talk about dancing on the backs of the bruised.

I can't believe how quickly my babies are growing up. I know all moms say this, but it's so true that time seems to steal babies away. My middle child, Maddie, just turned 6 this past week. I'm not sure how that happened. And in a few short weeks, my baby will be 2. He's just the most scrumpdillyicious thing in the world right now. Even his bellowed "no" is cute.

I'm really looking forward to this new phase, of parenting kids over 2. It's been a while since there was no "baby" in the house so this should be interesting.

Oh my but this was funny:

``What they're trying to do is basically gag that audience,'' said Alan Schroeder, a professor at Northeastern University in Boston and author of ``Televised Presidential Debates: 40 Years of High-Risk TV.'' The Bush team didn't want the town hall and agreed to it only after concessions on the other debates, he said. ``Their next thought was to try to get the rules that they thought might favor Bush.''

(from Bloomberg.com)

So Bush was afraid of the audience asking unscripted questions, eh? I wonder why...or maybe it was his writers and staff who were really afraid of the questions...

So of course I watched the debate last night. I was happy with Kerry's performance though I wished Bush would have been as laughable as he was last week. I'm sure he solidified his base with his performance.

The thing that kills me is how Bush was constantly spinning Kerry's answers. Yeah, yeah, they were both doing it to an extent but I noticed it much moreso on Bush's side. When Bush acted like he didn't understand Kerry's answer regarding abortion, as if it didn't make sense, I was so freaking annoyed!

I really think that in lieu of debates we should just have both of them sit at a bar and do shots. I mean, come on, you know you're much more honest when you have a few drinks in you. You know, in vino veritas and all that. THEN, I'd know for sure I was hearing the truth out of both of them. I know I like Kerry so much more than Bush already, but they both are just spinning like crazy and I'm tired of it. My big worry is that there are many people out there who hear the spin and totally buy it. Like Scully and Mulder used to tell us, the truth is out there. You can log onto many sites that will shed light on the true records of these two, there are plenty of sites combing through the he said/he said of the debates and fact checking. But I worry that so many people don't bother to do that but rather buy the soundbites and rhetoric.

I did love it when Kerry said the EXACT same thing I had just said while Bush was talking about the "safety" of drugs from Canada. Gage just looked at me like "Wow Mom!". I'm also loving the current polls that are giving me much more hope about the outcome of this election. Only a month ago I was lamenting that it was likely a pipe dream we'd get rid of Bush, but now it feels like a possibility. I am a bit afraid of the unethical gymnastics that Bushco is likely to use to "win" this election like they did the last time.

So to go to the other extreme, I've been watching "And You Don't Stop - 30 years of Hip Hop" on VH1. Scott finds it amusing that I've watched pretty much the whole thing. He halfway woke up the other night when I was watching the one about freestyling and just laughed. I'm a white girl from Ohio, 'nuff said. It's really interesting, though! It's like a whole subculture and I especially like the shows about the early DJ's and how the MC's came about, and how the Sugarhill Gang were a bunch of posers lol. I also like watching the ones with Public Enemy and the Beastie Boys. I did intentionally miss last night's episode with Eminem on; I can't stand him. But apparently that was also the episode with The Roots, and I wanted to see them. So I say, catch it if you can. Very interesting stuff!

Oh, and if anyone can tell me if Bush really DOES own a timber company?? Can't find anything on Google. I thought Kerry was just talking hypothetically...

Yeah, I'm really late in doing so, but this week I finally went to my county's Democratic Party office and got my yard signs.

There were already two Bush/Cheney signs on my street, and at least two other families are pretty conservative so I figured I needed to out myself. So I got my Kerry/Edwards sign and some other signs for our local dems running for various offices and proudly stuck 'em right in my front yard.

So I come home from work yesterday, and I notice our neighbors across the street, an older couple I had pegged as conservative, also had Kerry/Edwards signs in their yard! Yay! So there are three total K/E signs and two B/C signs on our street...we're winning so far lol.

I'm looking forward to Friday night's debate. I'm a bit nervous because Bush knows he's got to put in a stellar performance, but Kerry is the better debater so I've got high hopes he can pull another "win" out. Again, I'm a bit nervous but still looking forward to it.

Less than a month to go until this is all over with. I'm not sure if I'm going to glue myself to the TV election night, because much like watching baseball playoffs, so much can happen that I'd rather save my indigestion and just watch the highlights later. Still don't know if the Yankees pulled it out last night...go Twins! Edited to add, yeah the Yanks took it in the 12th. Damn! I don't really care all THAT much about baseball when the Indians tanked early on, but I agree with dh that the Yankees are just too rich and need to be taken down a notch.

In an unrelated turn of events, I've lost 10 lbs! I'm not doing anything nutty, no crazy diets or anything, but it's starting to come off again. Granted I have about 60 lbs to go, but doesn't the journey of 1,000 miles begin with one step? So coming from my all time high on January 1 of 2003, I'm down a grand total of 28 lbs. Sure, it's been almost two years and there have been some yo-yo'ing in there, but I like a net loss in lieu of a net gain so it's all good.

I found this funny...it's been making the email rounds but I like it enough to post it here. It's from Buzzflash.

George W. Bush Resume
Past work experience:
Ran for congress and lost.

Produced a Hollywood slasher B movie.

Bought an oil company, but couldn't find any oil in Texas, company went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock.

Bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took land using tax-payer money. Biggest move: Traded Sammy Sosa to the Chicago White Sox.

With fathers help (and his name) was elected Governor of Texas.

Accomplishments:
Changed pollution laws for power and oil companies and made Texas the most polluted state in the Union. Replaced Los Angeles with Houston as the most smog ridden city in America.

Cut taxes and bankrupted the Texas government to the tune of billions in borrowed money.

Set record for most executions by any Governor in American history.

Became president after losing the popular vote by over 500,000 votes, with the help of my fathers appointments to the Supreme Court.

Accomplishments as president:

Attacked and took over two countries.

Spent the surplus and bankrupted the treasury.

Shattered record for biggest annual deficit in history.

Set economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 12 month period.

Set all-time record for biggest drop in the history of the stock market.

First president in decades to execute a federal prisoner.

First president in US history to enter office with a criminal record.

First year in office set the all-time record for most days on vacation by any president in US history.

After taking the entire month of August off for vacation, presided over the worst security failure in US history.

Set the record for most campaign fund-raising trips than any other president in US history.

In my first two years in office over 2 million Americans lost their job.

Cut unemployment benefits for more out of work Americans than any president in US history.

Set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a 12 month period.

Appointed more convicted criminals to administration positions than any president in US history.

Set the record for the least amount of press conferences than any president since the advent of television.

Signed more laws and executive orders circumventing the Constitution than any president in US history.

Presided over the biggest energy crises in US history and refused to intervene when corruption was revealed.

Presided over the highest gasoline prices in US history and refused to use the national reserves as past presidents have.

Cut healthcare benefits for war veterans.

Set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously take to the streets to protest me (15 million people), shattering the record for protest against any person in the history of mankind. (http://www.hyperreal.org/~dana/marches/)

Dissolved more international treaties than any president in US history.

My presidency is the most secretive and un-accountable of any in US history.

Members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in US history. (the 'poorest' multi-millionaire, Condoleezza Rice has an Chevron oil tanker named after her).

Had more states to simultaneously go bankrupt than any president in the history of the United States.

Presided over the biggest corporate stock market fraud of any market in any country in the history of the world.

Created the largest government department bureaucracy in the history of the United States.

Set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending increases, more than any president in US history.

First president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the human rights commission.

First president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the elections monitoring board.

Removed more checks and balances, and have the least amount of congressional oversight than any presidential administration in US history.

Rendered the entire United Nations irrelevant.

Withdrew from the World Court of Law.

Refused to allow inspectors access to US prisoners of war and by default no longer abide by the Geneva Conventions.

First president in US history to refuse United Nations election inspectors (during the 2002 US elections).

All-time US (and world) record holder for most corporate campaign donations.

My biggest life-time campaign contributor presided over one of the largest corporate bankruptcy frauds in world history (Kenneth Lay, former CEO of Enron Corporation).

Spent more money on polls and focus groups than any president in US history.

First president in US history to unilaterally attack a sovereign nation against the will of the United Nations and the world community.

First president to run and hide when the US came under attack (and then lied saying the enemy had the code to Air Force 1)

First US president to establish a secret shadow government.

Took the biggest world sympathy for the US after 911, and in less than a year made the US the most resented country in the world (possibly the biggest diplomatic failure in US and world history).

With a policy of 'dis-engagement' created the most hostile Israeli-Palestine relations in at least 30 years.

Fist US president in history to have a majority of the people of Europe (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and stability.

First US president in history to have the people of South Korea more threatened by the US than their immediate neighbor, North Korea.

Changed US policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.

Set all-time record for number of administration appointees who violated US law by not selling huge investments in corporations bidding for government contracts.

Failed to fulfill my pledge to get Osama Bin Laden 'dead or alive'.

Failed to capture the anthrax killer who tried to murder the leaders of our country at the United States Capitol building. After 18 months I have no leads and zero suspects.

In the 18 months following the 911 attacks I have successfully prevented any public investigation into the biggest security failure in the history of the United States.

Removed more freedoms and civil liberties for Americans than any other president in US history.

In a little over two years created the most divided country in decades, possibly the most divided the US has ever been since the civil war.

Entered office with the strongest economy in US history and in less than two years turned every single economic category heading straight down.

Records and References:

At least one conviction for drunk driving in Maine (Texas driving record has been erased and is not available).

AWOL from National Guard and Deserted the military during a time of war.

Refuse to take drug test or even answer any questions about drug use.

All records of my tenure as governor of Texas have been spirited away to my fathers library, sealed in secrecy and un-available for public view.

All records of any SEC investigations into my insider trading or bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and un-available for public view.

All minutes of meetings for any public corporation I served on the board are sealed in secrecy and un-available for public view.

Any records or minutes from meetings I (or my VP) attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and un-available for public review.

For personal references please speak to my daddy or uncle James Baker (They can be reached at their offices of the Carlyle Group for war-profiteering.)

Anyone *still* want to vote for him?????