Thanks.

Last night I was asking Simon what he learned about Veteran's Day at school. Shockingly, not much. As I listed all the soldiers that we know personally, it stopped me for a minute how many there are, just in my life.

My Dad.
My brother.
My brother in law was in for a time.
Sean's Dad served.
Sean's Grandpa.
Helena's brothers.
My cousin's husband.
Simon's teachers husband.
One of my best friends in high school's husband is in Afghanistan right now.
Two other high school friends have little brothers in the service.
Every day there are more. Everybody we meet is a soldier, just about.

The day is coming. My own soldier will be there soon. We still don't know when, but it's coming. We've accepted it. We knew it was coming when we started this gig, but it still sucks. When I talked to my friend the day after her husband left, it brought a whole new reality to it. People who aren't in it, don't seem to understand. Someone told her, "This is what he signed up for," as if she doesn't have a right to be sad that her husband is being shipped off for seven months to an incredibly dangerous place. People like that make me sick. People like that make me wish there was a draft so they could understand. Fortunately, there are those willing so her loved one doesn't have to go. People willing to face the giants and fight the battles to keep us safe.

Today, I am thankful. I am grateful.

And I am praying that it's all over soon.

sharing

I'm sure hanging things on walls isn't a big deal to anyone else in the world, but it's a pretty big deal to me. Each little hole in the wall is like a tiny commitment to staying put.

I'm always envious of those people who find awesome things at Goodwill. There is a great Salvation Army just around the corner from me. I've tried many a time to score some hidden treasure there. I walk in with a positive attitude, hoping the junk gods will smile upon me and I always walk out disappointed. One day, I went in and did the giddy laugh over this giant card catalog, Pottery Barn looking massive piece of furniture. I would have bought a burro to get the thing home. Unfortunately, it had a SOLD sign on it. The blue desk was my consolation prize.

In reality, everything on the wall is neurotically straight. I'm not sure when I became so anal about things being level, but I suspect it's one of those things that Sean brought into our marriage that has since rubbed off on me. Here it is, one less blank wall in our house: Another little thing. Titus is outgrowing this shirt. It still has length on the sleeves, but his little belly is starting to hang out the bottom. :) I took the first picture in September. It's straight out of the camera, no editting. The second picture I took today. It is also uneditted, but I used my speedlight. What a blessed little tool. Same kid, same room, same time of day. He's trimmed down some. Hm.

That's about it. Sean just started nights, so I imagine my blogging will pick up. Sean does so much around here, especially when it comes to dinner and bedtime with the kiddos. I am not looking forward to bath/bedtime X3. :/

Dear Lilian,

Thank you for dinner tonight. Chinese Dumplings may just be my favorite new food{with papaya coming in at a close second}. I hope it is acceptable in your culture to eat lots and lots{like, seriously, platefulls} of the food provided. If not, I apologize for my hoggish parents. I also want to apologize for my brother's rudeness and bad influence, he got lectured the entire way home. Lec-tured.

Thank you for setting up the ping pong table, too. It's always good to be reminded that my Mommy is awesome, even at the silly things. Thank you for holding me and playing dominoes with me. You are one of my very favorite people.

Love, Titus

lots of randomness

The kids are fighting over something silly and I can't form a cohesive thought, so this may end up a post of non-sensical ramblings.

*Did you change his diaper today ever?-just an inside joke I never want to forget. Makes me laugh every time.

*My baby is almost 7 months old.

*We get to spend Christmas with family. Not Christmas Day, but close enough.

*Sean's switching to night shift for the next three months. I hate night shift.

*I have absolutely no desire to scrapbook these days. Maybe that will change with Sean switching to nights.

*I want to go to the flea market. I hope it's not all "AKC registered" puppies and used underwear.

*"And she absolutely has all of her teeth!:-Simon describing the love of his life the other day. Coincidentally, her name is Julie. He was positively going to marry a girl named Julie in Charlotte. This Julie is different. He gets all blushy when he talks about her. This is the type of love that makes him trip over himself in her presence and chase her down the hall just to say hi. :)

*Our first family bike ride. I got a bike and put one of those baby seats on the back that makes me feel a billion times more like a mom than the mini-van. I'm okay with that.

*One of Sean's co-workers had us over for dinner last night. It was more like a party by the end. There were a lot of people there and it was so much fun. It felt so normal.

*I'm buying blackout curtains for the whole house. I don't care what they look like. These children don't understand what it means to sleep in.

*What the heck is wrong with people? The Fort Hood Massacre by a Islamic Extremist. Why can't people just call it what it is? The Army was being too PC and dropped the ball. They ignored complaints and HUGE red flags waving in their face so as not to step on anyone's toes. He was arguing with the soldiers he was supposed to be counseling! I just can't imagine. If my husband had just gotten back from a 15 month deployment only to be shot by some nutcase while debriefing...I'm shaking. Allah Akbar, huh? He made it off the ventilator today, too bad he didn't get to his 70 virgins.

*The healthcare bill passed the House last night. Hope and Change, right? We shall see. I got a little taste of gov't run health care. I called to make an appt for Simon and Titus to go see the audiologist. The next day I realized Simon's appt overlapped a field trip and wanted to see if I could take Titus to his appt and let Simon go to Titus'. I found out they were scheduled with the wrong doctor. I didn't need to see a regular doctor to get a referral as I already have one from the school and T's ped back in CLT. She says she'll put in a call to the correct place. A few days later, I get a call saying a referral has been placed for Simon. The same person calls again to tell me a referral has been placed for Titus. The audiologists secretary calls me while I'm on the phone with the first lady for the second time and leaves a message about Simon. She calls a second time to tell me the referral has been received for Titus. She calls me a third time to tell me someone will be calling to explain the process to me.

What process? I have yet to receive that call. Four people. A total of eight phone calls, so far. That's government efficiency right there. I can't wait til it's nationwide so you can all partake.

Also, why is no one talking about the fact that the bureaucrats that want to take over health care completely flopped on the handling of the H1N1 vaccines? *sigh* Whatever. Just one more way the government can get their hooks in. Complaining won't do any good, I suppose. Voting will.

Scorpion King

This little guy seems a lot less thrilling after speaking with several Texans today, but lemme tell ya sump'n, last night, it was on. I asked Sean to make me a sundae after the kids were in bed last night. He refused because he's a loser-okay, that's just for some literary flavoring, he's actually wonderful. So our I wander, tossing something into the trash can as I go. Something caught my eye in the trash can and I was just standing there. My gaze ever so slowly goes to the floor. It took my brain a second to contemplate what I was seeing. I bolted. I did a back jump over the back of the couch and huddled in the corner whisper-screaming, "There's a scorpion! In the kitchen!"

I only wish I'd had the video camera. Sean donned his combat boots. Out he saunters, scared out of his mind with the laces all undone, stepping from foot to foot nervously as he sizes up the little two inch beast. Just as he raised his foot to stomp, the thing scurried towards the corner. Sean just went to dancing on the thing. It was hilarious. Even more so when the scorpion lept to his pant leg. Luckily, Sean came out the victor and we both felt nauseous with fear the rest of the night.

I've never seen a real life scorpion. Not at the Zoo, not at a pet store, only on tv. For that matter, only on that completely lame, but somewhat addictive Brendan Frasier flop, The Mummy. Scorpions are no joke in that movie. I don't know if they travel in herds, like deer. If you see one, are three more gonna pop out into your direct line of traffic? We couldn't figure out how the thing got in and I was beginning to put together a scenario of scorpion love happening in my cupboards. I just know I'll be going for a bag of flour one day and have a family of scorpion babies crawl down my arm. BLECH.

The very many people I've told about this horrible tragedy have all kinda looked at me blankly. Apparently, they are common here. One of my neighbors was cracking up at me. I'm sorry, we just aren't down with scorpions. Eee.

I called several pest control places this morning. Sean's only request: that they put enough poison outside of our house to kill a moose should it wander in. I'm thinking moose aren't quite as common 'round these parts.

Moving on.

If you'll note the disgustingness that is our floor. That is not bloodshed from the battle, that's just pure gross. I have swept, I have mopped, I have scrubbed. We asked the owner of the house if he would go half-sies on some tile and we got a no. Actually, via our property manager/friend, we got, "He a cheap ass." There is nothing funnier in this entire world than hearing a person cuss in the English language when English is not their native tongue.

The reason we were even interested in investing our own money into a rental is b/c Sean was told to settle in. We'll be here for at least five years. Say who? If we had known that{and not still had the motorhome}we probably would've bought a house. That said, if the economy is going to get even worse in the next few years, I think we made the right decision.

What else?

On the kid front, Titus has become quite vocal lately. Not in a mamamamama way, but in a, "We're going to have to escort you off this plane, you're screaming kid is disturbing the other passengers," kinda way. Well, he does the mamamama thing, too, but the screaming is definitely more fun.

I guess that's about it. Time to go ruin my kids lives by making them brush their teeth!

I think it's obvious which kid is which chipmunk. :) Happy Halloween!

he said, she said

Um, okay, not sure why this picture is ginormous, but at least it's not all pixelated. Thank you, Photobucket{& Nicole for the advice}, and Blogger for being such garbage we have to jump through another hoop just to put pictures up. Speaking of which, I will be switching over to Typepad soon. Security reasons. I tend to be one of those "TMI!" people.

Anyways, this guy got another 105 on his spelling test. He has on every single one of 'em. Today, he says to me, "You know why nobody else in my class gets a 105 on all their tests?" "Why's that, Bud?" "Because they're not as good as me." and rode off down the street on his bike, completely nonchalant.

We had a talk. While my inner self totally agrees/thinks all the other kids must be somewhat mentally impaired not to score a 105 with words like "she" and "our," I was the PC parent. I explained that he was no better than any of the other kids because of a test score. While ensuring him that he is in fact brilliant, I wanted him to understand that he can't talk like that and still have friends in the end. Blah blah blah.

At the dinner table, it comes up again. He said the exact same thing to his father. Sean had just taken a big bite when Simon explained and instead of frowning over his little peacocks attitude, he starts nodding enthusiastically and raises his hand up for a high five.

What the heck? We all had a talk. The fact that he used the exact same wording that he did with me made me wonder if someone else had given him that impression. Maybe his teacher said something and he took it the wrong way? "Simon?" I asked, "Did someone else say that?"

"No, it's just what I think."

Well then!

I have a little clip of video I've been fighting with since the kids went to bed. I am seriously aggravated with the thing. Windows Movie Maker is such a joke. Nothing fancy, just a minute and a half of Titus love, with a short segment in which I cut Felix off from sharing bathroom details on video. The last two seconds of the video is what I was going for. Titus copies our coughs now. Feel free to MUTE it until then. I am an idiot, that's just all there is to it. Luckily, the children don't judge. They encourage the wierd voices and lunie talk.

Untitled from Chrissy Amport on Vimeo.

more than mildly irate

Sean and I just caught the last half of Schindler's List. I haven't watched that movie in years. It's so powerful. I wonder if Schindler won the Nobel prize...? Oh wait, no probably not.

Anyways, I'm all in a tither now. I know it's old news, but I just have to rant. I can't fathom how anyone, let alone a person of power in my country could say something so stupid as this:



I just can't even grasp this. Where is the outrage? Would people care if she had said a more recognizable name like Hitler? What if she had said what a great political leader he was? After all, he did have a massive following. To put it in perspective, Mao Tse Tung killed tens of millions more than Hitler. Seriously! I put her in the same category as those nut job Holocaust deniers.

To add to the irony, she is the Communications Director. Does anyone else find that hilarious? Aside from the fact that she's a complete idiot, watch what she does with her mouth. I have no idea if this is her problem, but...tardive dyskinesia is a side effect of antipsychotics. I'm just sayin'. Seems to fit.

I have more to rant about, but if I keep thinking about what is happening to our country, my head's gonna pop off.

One little stat that scares the crap out of me real quick before I go. My parents have talked about how high interest rates got back in the 70's & 80's so this caught my attention.

"We don't really have an inflation problem right now, but back in the '70s under Jimmy Carter, for two years we printed too much money. We added 13 percent more money to our money supply for two years. Remember how bad the inflation was? And we started down a socialist utopia with Jimmy Carter.

To stop it, what did we have to do? Fed Chairman Paul Volcker came in and, in an effort to suck all the money back to the Fed and out of the system, he had to raise interest rates.

Remember, the banks have all of this money on the sidelines right now. As soon as they release it into the system, from that time, it usually takes about two years for the money glut to cause inflation.

After printing 13 percent more money for two years, we had runaway inflation of 12 percent. So Volcker raised the interest rate to 20 percent, because whenever you borrow, let's say, $100, you'll then owe $20 — the Fed then takes that $20 and destroys it to get it out of the system and bring inflation back down.

So we had to have a 20 percent interest rate for a 13 percent increase in the money supply for two years. In the last year or so since Lehman Brothers failed, we have increased our money supply by 120 percent. "

You can read the whole article here.

One hundred and twenty percent. Are you kidding me? I'm a bit of a news junky, so sorry if this is boring to you. I just tend to be interested in things that will directly affect me. And my children. I'm always fascinated when Sean's Grandpa tells us what he paid for things when he was our age. $4000 for a house on the Jersey shore. Is $180,000 for a house going to be nothing to our kids? What the heck? What are my boys gonna have to pay for a gallon of milk? Or gas, ha?

Sometimes I watch the news and just can't imagine the things I'm hearing. All this crap with the failing economy, healthcare reform and tax increases and energy and climate change, nuclear misiles and Commie allies and yada yada yada. Interestingly, there are American's dying every single day and our Commander in Chief can't take a break from his radical agenda long enough to send them a lifeline. They are being blown up by lunatics, and he's playing rounds of golf. The request for help was submitted on Aug 30, still no answer. Two months, how many dead? He gives nothing. Not even a, "Give me a few weeks to decide." If he doesn't have a plan, get them out.

Forgive the ranting, but that could be my husband one day very soon. So yeah, I'm passionate about it. It directly affects me and mine. Is that what it's gonna take for Americans to get involved? When it directly affects them? What if it's too late by then? What if they sit with their head in the sand too long and before they know it, they can't get their kids in to see the doctor, their paying $5 for a soda and something in their city is being blown up by Muslim Extremists?

I have to go get a happy meal or something to cheer me up. While I can still afford it.