Life simplified! Good Advice and so true...

SPRING IS IN THE AIR!

One step in the right direction! (?)

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/03/19/interactive.health.care.benefits/index.html?hpt=Sbin

I personally think it's a positive thing. Health care has seriously gotten out of control, to the fact that some people go completely with out it because they can't afford it, some people get it completely for free, and others have to pay through the nose to be able to protect and keep their families healthy. And not to mention the OUTRAGIOUS salaries of the CEO’s of these companies and the record breaking profits! I’m talking billions people! I am lucky to work at a company that provides great benefits so I'm really not sure that this will effect me (us) at least not right now. But these few changes here will certainly mean the world to some people...
I know people (republicans) are freaking out about socialism (aahhhhhh - {Scare Tactics} I mean seriously I just read an article recently about how republicans got caught in the act about trying to use scare tactics to get things done) but first of all it's not socialism, and it's not universal health care - which has it's pros and cons but they have universal healthcare in so many other countries and their general happiness and way of living is off the charts compared to the US - just saying.

Anyways check out the link and let me know your thoughts on the matter....... (comments anyone?)

To do list

I've always considered myself to be a very organized person. I make myself crazy if I don't keep myself organized. I feel like thoughts and ideas and things to do are always floating around in my head, unsupervised and reoccurring. They tend to stay that way too unless I get them out in some organized fashion. Enter iPod. This thing is amazing by the way, it can do everything! I can play games, listen to music, surf the web, pay my bills, watch TV, it's endless. But this post isn't about how awesomely amazing this device is (although I should make one, and ode to the iPod type of thing...)
It's more about the to do list. I was walking the dog this past Saturday and thinking to myself about all the things that need to get done, I had just spent most of the morning and early afternoon cleaning the house, doing laundry and just trying to get things put away and organized. Which is really not the thing I look most forward to doing on the weekends, but tis life... I felt like I made most of the difference in the bedroom, I was very proud of myself thinking that it looked like a hotel room, everything put away very neatly and no clutter to be found, and as I was walking with Gabby and thinking about this I realized I still had so much to do! ugh! It seriously never ends but I'm so thankful at the same time for all that we have. I can get all miserable thinking about how the house is never perfectly clean enough, the laundry's never ending, we always have some meaningless bunch of stuff laying around in one corner or another, but at the same time, we have a beautiful home, a lot of really nice things to fill it with, and let's be honest between the clothes that Dave and I both own and Jared's share if I ever did get caught up on the laundry completely I'd have no where to put it all!!!
But I've veered away from the topic at hand once again, I was telling you about my to do list, I was looking at it this morning and I couldn't help but to laugh at myself and how sometimes I can be so anal with little specific things, so here's the list including a little look into my psyche for your own amusement!!

Things to do
- Install Dishwasher - CHECK! Wooo hoooo
-Scan in old Photos from Grandma's albums - we actually just bought a new scanner for the Mac so I should be on the go with this one soon
- Make DVD back ups of pics (since our HD crashed - thankfully we didn't have much on it - I've been obsessing over backing up all our old pics
- make photo books/prints - nowadays with the digital cameras I find that I hardly ever get prints of pictures that I take, they all just sit in files in the computer, and if I ever did completely loose those I would be devastated (over 5 years of visual memories)
- clean basement -ugh but yes it must get done
- organize photos into albums - for all of the prints we actually do have they're all just loose in some box, it would be nice to have some rhyme or reason to it
- organize important paperwork
          * desk drawer
          * attic
          * china cabinet - that's right folks we have our "important paperwork" in three different spots into he house! What we need to do is to get a filing cabinet and keep it upstairs with the craft desk, this way all of it is in one spot. But that first includes me going through it all to decide if it's still in fact "important"
- clean out the desk - yea that too
- clean out the china cabinet - yep, yep
- organize closet and clothes - poor Dave, he has his clothes in three different spots, in our bedroom in the dresser(s), the spare room is for his work wardrobe and Jared's closet is for everyday ware (hoodies, jerseys, t-shirts). I would like to get his stuff out of the spare bedroom (soon to be baby's room - not too soon though!) and get it all into my closet, but of course that means first - organizing the closet and getting rid of alot of stuff we don't' need anymore, I swear we could open our own good will
- get dress cleaned, yep it's still sitting in the closet looking out at me! I still put it on sometimes too, lol. I first need to figure out what I'm doing with it though, am I cleaning it to keep it or to sell it? I'm not sure so there it sits.....
- sell two other dresses - yes "two" other dresses. They were both supposed to be for the Trash the Dress photo shoot. I bought the first one really early and then a couple months before the wedding I found the perfect one so I ordered that too, in hopes to sell the other one right away but never got around to it. Craigslist here I come!
- organize wedding stuff and sell - on our third floor we have boxes and boxes of stuff from the wedding, such as the ring pillow, baskets, linens, candles, etc. Alot of really cute stuff that I bought used and could totally resell. Most of the stuff that was put out at the wedding was ours, the only thing we actually rented were the chair covers, (god I LOVED those chair covers!) So yea, we have to do that too.....
- learn Photoshop and take more pictures!!!! - this is hard, working full time and trying to really get into this new hobby, there's so many ideas I have and so much I wanna do but by the time I get home, take the dog out, start dinner, do the dishes (not anymore!! although the dishwasher will still be slightly time-consuming but not nearly as bad) workout (when I feel like I'm not going to fall flat on my face) there's not much time left to plan for a photo shoot. It might sound like an excuse and maybe it is but during the week I'm so darn tired when I get home, maybe I'll be more refreshed once the weather finally breaks but we definitely take full advance of the camera when we can, and I have lots of plans for more shoots to come. The learning the Photoshop part is tricky too, it's a very large program that lets you do just about anything but it's hard to remember it all and figure out what everything means, I'm getting there, watching tutorials online and teaching myself, I'm taking alot of notes too but it gets old quick, I can't do too much at once or it's like system overload, I'm totally the type of person who wants to just jump right into things before actually knowing how to do them, it's great when it works but photoshop is alot more complicated than that. Maybe in the future it will be like the matrix where you can just download the information into your brain and then you know it all, that would be right up my ally!!!
And last but not least....
- create an Amazing Songs playlist! - you know how there are those songs that you just love? and when you hear it come on it's like shhhhhh listen, this song is amazing!! here are a few of mine - Black Velvet, Stairway to Heaven, Breathe Me (lady croissant), I wish you were here (pink Floyd), Beautiful disaster - Acoustic (Kelly Clarkson), Colorblind (counting Crows) Ok I think you have the idea, and with oh I don't know 3,000 songs on the iPod I would really love to be able to single those songs out into an Amazing Songs playlist, so gotta do that one too.....

Ok so there you have it, I hope you don't feel differently about me after this, LOL
I think alot of this is stemming from the fact that we're starting to really talk about having a baby and if it happens fast I would love to have all these things done, because enter newborn I can imagine that this list of things to do will no longer even be on the list of things to do priority wise.

LIFE! Inspired

So lately I've been thinking....

There's not much I can do about this really but it's something that bugs me, more some time than others, and this happens to be one of those times.
Last night while having a conversation with my brother, we happened to get into talking about the world (well our world really which would be the US, or more specifically New York State). We were complaining and commiserating about the way things are, how much health insurance costs here as opposed to other countries, and how some people get it all for free (some deservedly to help them back on their feet and some are a just lazy bums)!
I will fully admit that I voted for Obama (because c'mon people something had to change!!) I will also admit that since that day I voted for him I haven't really been following up on what he's been doing, or what he's been working on. I don't know if any of the promises he made have been put in place or if he just forgot about it all once he was elected. I'm sure, however he's still more for the middle class than McCain was. So moving on I think it really sucks the way things are run around here, the rising costs of health insurance and expenses is getting outrageous, and hearing my brothers point of view, being a physician and being on that end of it he's also getting screwed with getting less $$ from the insurance companies. So basically they raised our rates, lowered the rate the Doctors get paid and are pocketing all the money????!!! I mean what the F*ck!! Sorry but this is getting ridiculous! And meanwhile people that have lower income, or those that chose not to or can not work are getting excellent benefits and they're all for free! grrr some things just aren't fair. It's wonderful to be able to help those in need but help us too, I mean we're paying for it. There is no reason the HMO need to make the money they do i mean isn't this called price gouging????? It seems like the original ideas were there, they were solid, when insurance first came out and everyone paid into it, probably way back in the day, 1920's or so, but some a$$hole along the way figured out how to make a sh*tload of $$$ that he doesn't need and walla! prices are up. It's like that with everything too, health insurance, car insurance, taxes it's crazy. and it's exhausting.....
Dave puts it into perspective for me each time I get on this tangent. He mentions that it builds character to work for things, to know they're yours, and to some extent we need some to be on welfare and to get everything for free, it keeps some up and some down and it's the way we function as a society; however it still ticks me off because while I don't' mind "paying my own way" and I enjoy being able to make my own money and actually be able to buy nice things and to go to nice places on vacations, etc. it still sucks that WE have to work so hard and WE don't see the same benefits that THEY do. The insurance that the "uninsured" now have for FREE is way better than my plan and I'm paying for it, when they're not. And the thing that sucks is for small business owners trying to pay for insurance for their families the rates are OUTRAGEOUS, believe me when I tell you. It's just a bit twisted I think, and it definitely makes me angry.
I remember being in school and applying for financial aid. I got about $300 a semester for free and had to take out loans (with interest!) to pay of the rest, when my girlfriend and was a minority with two kids got everything paid for and then some. It's like oh sure, here's enough to cover all of your tuition for two years, here's a crap load of money for your books and here while you're at it why not take another $2000 dollars! (which by the way this girl decided to use as spending money for a new TV, play station and whatever other frivolous things she decided to buy, she didn't need the money to pay for living expenses etc, she had the money she needed to live and to take care of her babies, but they still gave her the money. For me they said oh well your parents make too much money, and I'm like ok well they're not paying for my tuition, oh well it doesn't matter because you still live at home, ugh whatever!!!

I hear in other countries these things are free, education, child care, heath insurance, etc. Wouldn't that be nice? (And the wonderful US of A is like # 75 on the list of "best places to live") I know there are down sides to that too, and I get that but geez.....if only I ran the world....things would be a lot different people!!!

And so with that being said maybe I'll run for president!





Cartoon by David Horsey / Seattle P.I.

The Turning Point ....

The turning point, into adulthood.
I wonder when the moment officially happens, I feel it now.... sometimes, but not completely. I guess that's why they say age is a relative thing. I'm married now, a wife. I still get goosebumps when I hear him say it. It's exciting, it's happiness, but it means I'm not a kid anymore. But do I want to be? I don't think so, I like my freedom, my independence, but it means getting older, having responsibility, a house, all the bills that come with it. It's happiness, it's life. I wouldn't change it. I think about restless nights in my childhood, wondering about what and who I would become, who I would marry, where we would live, how many kids we'd have. It's what I always dreamed about... longed for. And I have it now, I have him, my love and my world, our beautiful house (I often picture children running out the door to catch the bus, a dinner table full of little faces, doing homework, reading bedtime stories, a nursery painted blue or pink, hearing the echos of a family, it's warm and it's comforting) I'm scared but I'm not, I'm excited and so thankful and so lucky to have my love, my life, all the things that come with it. It's happiness, its life, and I'm so thankful , so lucky to be here in this moment, in these moments and in these days, so much to look forward to and to hope for and........the best is yet to come!

“Growing up is never easy. You hold on to things that were. You wonder what's to come. But that night, I think we knew it was time to let go of what had been, and look ahead to what would be. Other days. New days. Days to come. The thing is, we didn't have to hate each other for getting older. We just had to forgive ourselves... for growing up.” - The wonder years

"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened. " -Dr. Seuss