Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Political Questions

Please don't yell at me, but I'm not registered to vote. I know. Horrible, right? But honestly, I've never really been into politics and I figured I'd just ask my friends who they are voting for and I'd vote for the same person. I don't exactly think that's the smartest thing to do, so I just stayed out of the picture. But now that I'm getting older, I realize that I really should. I mean, I may give birth to the future president of the United States, and how would that look if his own mother wasn't registered to vote? But my problem is that I was never interested in government or U.S. history when I went to school. So I'm completely lost. Here are my reasons why, and hopefully a friend or someone can help me out!

How do I know if I'm democrat or republican? And I do know that regardless which party I say that I'm in, I can always vote for someone that is from another party in a presidential election. I went online to see if I could take a quiz that would help me out. I thought this would be a bright idea because I distinctly remember taking a quiz just like that in the sixth grade. However, the problems was that the questions were about things that I had no idea what they meant. I raised my hand to ask my teacher, and she said it really didn't matter and to just answer yes or no to the questions because it was really just for fun. (That's the Oklahoma City Public School System for ya!) Well, now when I try to find a test, all the websites say it really doesn't matter since you can vote for either candidate regardless of which party you belong to. Well, it may not matter to them, but it does matter to me. I mean, aren't there seperate elections for democratic and republican candidates before they even decide who the presidential candidates are? Or am I even more confused than I thought I was? So basically if I can just learn some of the fundamental beliefs of each party that would be great. And please, no biased or mean answers, I just want facts!!!

Another question I have is: am I even to late to register to vote in this years presidential election? (I guess that really should have been my first question!)

If not, how do I do it? And do I have to register in the state I "live" in. This one is tricky since my drivers license is OK but I'm currently "living" in CO. I know I can do absentee voting, but it's the registration that confuses me.

Now, let's say that I do get registered and am able to vote in this election. Is there a website so I can read up on what each candidate believes in? I cannot sit through one of those shows they do on TV so please don't say that. I read stuff from different friends on myspace saying this candidate is going to do this and this one is going to do something else. I don't know whether to believe everything my friends write because again I think it's coming from a biased point of view......

I think that about covers my political questions. Like I said, I know, it's horrible that I'm not taking advantage of my right to vote. Let's now dwell on that....and please, just give me some factual answers!!!! Thanks!

Yours Truly,
Confused

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

For a good cause

Hey everyone! One of my dear friends (www.crazypaper.etsy.com) is holding an online auction to raise money for a former teacher of hers that has cancer. Here's the link: http://stores.ebay.com/helpsolveforx All money will be sent towards medical bills so any help would be appreciated. I donated two pairs of earrings, so it's fine if you want to be a little bit biased and bid on those ;) Several other artists from etsy donated items from their shops so there are a lot of homemade items listed on the auction. Thanks and happy bidding!

On another note I am thinking of setting up camp at a craft fair in October. It's a very small town so it will not be very fancy but it will at least get my feet wet. Which of course means that I'm inspired to create all over again, but there is a lack of bead stores here. By lack I mean none. *sigh* So we'll see if I actually go through with this or not. If anyone has ever sold at a craft fair I am open to any and all suggestions!

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

I hate the car wash!

I don't know why, but ever since we've lived in Lamar I seem to go to the car wash more than I ever have in my life. Maybe it's because I left my car in Oklahoma and I drive our white truck everywhere. Everything shows up on white! Since it's such a big truck I don't really like to use the automatic car washes. Knowing me I'll take a mirror off or something when I try to drive through it. So I use the somewhat old fashioned car wash. And let me tell ya, I have issues with the car wash. The hose always seems to get in my way. The water backfires off of the truck and all over me. Then when I go to use the foam brush, they have it hanging up so high that by the time I actually get to it, the pink foam is falling all over me like I'm at a foam party back in college. Even worse, by the time I get the entire truck brushed down, the pink foam has dried into streaks. I'm just not fast enough. Then, by the time I'm actually finished with the whole horrible process, my arm feels like it's about to fall off and I now need a bath more than my truck did because of the strange mixture of foam, sweat, and water. I just can't seem to win. Greg makes it look so easy.

Although I do have to give props to whoever invented credit card machines at the car wash. That was pretty genius!

Monday, August 11, 2008

Home Sweet Home










Guess what! We upgraded to a larger travel trailer!!! Yay! OK, so you don't think we're absolutely crazy, let me first say that when Greg bought our travel trailer, we never in a million years thought we'd be selling our house and that I would join him full time on the road. After living in the trailer for a little over 10 months the walls were just starting to cave in on me. Greg would ideally like to live on the road for maybe five more years. That's a long time to live in an area you feel slightly claustrophobic in!

So while we were in Colorado Springs last weekend we decided to go to an RV dealership just to look at floor plans. We honestly didn't plan on purchasing one that day. We were so afraid that we were going to be way upside down on our "first" travel trailer and we had planned on paying it off before we upgraded. But, we found a trailer that really fit our needs and they actually gave us a little more than what we had left to pay off on our "first" trailer! We were stoked!

Last week was an absolute whirlwind! What was funny was we arrived at the dealership at 4:00 PM on Saturday afternoon, and no one even talked to us until thirty minutes before they closed. (The first rule in sales is never to judge someone! Everyone else there was in their retirement years. I guess they thought we were out of our league!) So of course we weren't able to actually do anything that day except negotiate a price. Well, on Monday sure enough they pre approved us. Which meant I had to get insurance lined up and a million other things. Then I had to make a "fly by the seat of my pants" trip back to Oklahoma to get stuff out of our storage unit that went with our trailer that we had taken out of it. I left on Tuesday and got back to CO on Thursday. Then Friday I was busy packing up and we left with our trailer when Greg got off work to an RV park that was down the road from the dealership. Saturday was spent doing paperwork, moving everything from one trailer to the next, then driving back to Lamar and setting everything up. We finally got everything situated yesterday! So far I am LOVING my new home! I did get a little frustrated on Saturday night because there are slight differences, but I think I was really just super exhausted. Not to mention I don't really deal well with change!

Here are some cool features about this trailer we didn't have in our other one:
1. It's a fifth wheel, rather than a bumper pull. Greg says he feels cooler towing it behind the truck! ;)
*2. Central vacuum cleaner!
*3. King size bed!
4. Oil rubbed bronze fixtures, hardware, and faucets!
5. A comfy rocking chair!
6. A larger hot water tank! I could actually wash my hair and body and I still had hot water left over!
7. WAAAAAYYYYY more storage!
8. Countertop space in the kitchen!
9. Solid surface countertops!
10. A fireplace!
11. A larger refrigerator!
12. A ceiling fan!
13. An "attic" fan!
14. An AC in our bedroom!
15. Plumbing for a washer and dryer!
*16. A convection/microwave combo!
* I've never had these in my life!

This trailer also has three slide outs rather than the one slide out we had in our other trailer! (Slide outs mean you have more space!) And this one is six feet longer than our other one!

So as you can tell I'm pretty pumped!

Friday, August 1, 2008

Blackberry Blues

My husband and I are both rockin' out some pretty old phones. I never used to care. I promise. But Greg's is pretty rough. Some of his buttons fall off, occassionally he can't view his screen, etc., etc. So we decided it was time for his free upgrade. Off to the AT&T store we go! Well, go figure, I decide I need to upgrade my phone as well. And of course, Greg decides he'll keep his. *sigh* After being in there about an hour with an impatient sales associate explaining the benefits and features of a BlackBerry vs. an iPhone I finally settled on a BlackBerry. I immediately had visions in my head of me chatting and texting away on my new trendy phone! Yay!

Then, the sales associate gets this "look" on his face while he's ringing us up. It appeared that he could still sell us the phone, but not for any discount because our cell phones have been "flagged". Great. Basically that meant that since we've been in lovely Lamar, we have been roaming. And granted we get free roaming, but apparently we are costing AT&T too much money. He said that his records showed that 60% of the time we are roaming and therefore would eventually be getting a letter stating that they are discontinuing our service. This REALLY sucks because most of our family and all the friends that I talk to the most are AT&T. We asked when we would be getting this letter and the sales associate said it could be anywhere from 2 weeks to 3 months. And then once we get the letter it's because they are sending it to let us know we have a month or so until they cut us off.

We left the store utterly discouraged. I mean, we'll be moving in a few months, and probably to a town that has AT&T. The sales associate suggested calling AT&T and explaining our situation. But I think that will just speed up the letter sending process. So our bright idea is to cheat the system. I am trying not to talk on my cell phone. After 2 weeks I think Greg has decided to heck with it and he's talking away again. But I'm sticking to my guns. Despite the fact that I've told both my sister and best friend that I'm not going to answer my phone and they keep calling me (love you both!) only to hear my lovely voicemail. The other way we plan on cheating the system involves going to Colorado Springs every other weekend and talking on our phones as much as possible. OK, so we were planning on going to Springs anyway because we love it, so this just helps our plan! And if we happen to plug both of our phones into our chargers and then accidentally call each other and leave the lines open all night long...well, that should only help our ratios, right???

On a brighter note, I noticed my friend Randy gave a shout out to me in his blog! So right back at ya Randy man!!!!