Getting Political, Religeous, and Calling out the Hypocrits

Please pardon my current break in the usual broadcast schedule of nice fluffy happy sotries about cycling and how it's changing my life (I promise to put one of those up later after I feel better), but I just got blindsided by a political link on someone elses blog that sucked the spirit out of the room. So, here I am to address my opinion of politics at the moment. I'm not so vocal about it but I have to say that both McCain and Obama chill my blood and make me want to run to the bathroom to vomit. I will most likely end up voting either for Bob Barr (if he ends up having a chance) or McCain because he makes me want to vomit slightly less. The difference in overall vomit output is very slight.

We as a nation are going to an unnamed destination but I will tell you that our chosen vehicle is indeed a hand basket. We have GOT to start voting independent people! Do you want to know why? Because all of the corruption, money, and political backscratching is just going in a circle up there in D.C. We are Rome. We will fall like Rome and what will be left? We're not nearly as cool as Italy so let's not kid ourselves here.... nothing.

What we need is righteous uncorruptible leadership. We don't need promises of change and promises of no longer being depenant on forieghn oil. Raising minimum wage continuously isn't going to do anything when the quality of students our schools are putting out is so hideously lacking because we're standardized testing the life out of them. A raise in minimum wage is merely going to raise the cost of everything else. Continuously adjusting it for inflation is going to force us into a post WWI Germany situation where it takes a wheelbarrow of cash to buy bread. Oh yes and our current administration isn't helping by just putting more bills out there. Yes, lets put more out so that the dollar can be worth less than it was. Also, trickle down economics is going to take at least a generation to do anything and people aren't going to wait that long. That's why it's called "trickle down" not "money flooding down". You idiots! You fools!

We are on the edge of a precipice. If you're planning on the current candidates for office to bail us out you're wrong. Get your food storage together, stock up on the essentials, learn some basic survival skills because if things keep going as they are we're all going down.

Pull out your Book of Moromon and read Alma and Helaman... we're there! The Gadianton Robbers are leading the country and they have control of the media. If you don't believe me start watching the data and interpreting it instead of letting someone tell you what it means, the two haven't matched up for quite some time. It's happening all over again. If you don't have a Book of Mormon I would suggest getting one and reading. Open your minds, listen to the spirit and learn. If you're too closed minded to ponder the Book of Mormon, please ponder the fate of Rome.

Don't blame me, I voted for Romney. He may not be perfect, but I felt really good about him.

On another political note... I have some really great friends who champion environmental issues. I really do love you. However, those of you who are not practicing what you preach at home need to get your act together. If you're doing the things that you need to do to live a lower impact lifestyle, then I'm not talking to you. But if you're not, then I don't want to hear anything out of you regarding the environment until you get your own house in order. You need to recycle, get your butt out of your car and persue alternate transportation, cloth diaper if you have a baby, and quit wasting stuff, or shut up! I, your conservative, evil neighbor am doing these things to the best of my ability. Get up and get to the recycling center and stop being a hypocrit!

Change starts at home.

I once read a bumper sticker at Charis Books in Atlanta it said, "Men who change diapers change the world." In other words it starts here in our own homes. Teach your children to recycle and live with less waste at home. If you have no children teach your friends and roomates by example instead. Better yet, teach them morals and values through your behavior. Move out from there.

At any rate, the state of the country and our people right now really makes me sick. Quit being lemmings! I'm absolutely sick of political rhetoric, empty promises, the corrupt and the crazy leading us, and you people running off the darn cliff. I don't want to come with you but there are too many of you and you're dragging me down. Fix it people because I can't afford to move me and mine to a deserted island until this blows over.

Free Couch with Purchase of Toddler

Okay so I'm not actually putting Alistair up for sale but with his reaction to us putting the old couch on the road yesterday you'd think that I was. Derek and I finally had a free minute together to take the old messed up couch out to the road and Al had a fit. At first he thought that we were getting rid of the new couch and he ran to it crying, "no, not my special couch". Then, he did the same with the old couch, only this time he put together an all out protest. He sat down on it and wouldn't get off. We extracted an Al from the couch after a few moments but he continued to cry and attempt to block our progress out the door. We finally go the thing out and the crying continued until he ultimately decided that he did indeed want to go down to the curb and say goodbye to the thing. This was of course 20 minutes later... I think that my ears are still bleeding!

So, we have a new couch courtesy of the old church building (from our new branch) and our branch president who was kind enough to hang onto it for us. It actually matches my area rug! How cool is that?! This picture is from before I got the photo wall put up behind it. Yes, I've been here less than 3 months and I'm hanging pictures... I know it's a new thing for me!

I never did post pictures from our trip to story time here. A couple of weeks ago I rode the kids down to story time at the library. We had fun, met some other kids... They do crafts here so the kids had a blast. In the picture the kids are holding up some signs, that wasn't the craft. They made mice out of paper plates. I accidentally left my keys (bike lock key included) on the ground and the bike didn't get stolen, so that's nice.









It's also occurred to me that I didn't post pictures from the move. So, here are some of us moving in. In the picture with all the kids they're watching a train go through town at the crossing 2 blocks up the street (they're big blocks though).

So Busy

So, I've been a bad blogger lately.. no blog!

This is mostly because we actually have stuff to do here! Last week we rode to story time at the library and I totally lucked out because I dropped my keys while locking up the bike and forgot to pick them up and no one stole the bike. *phew* We made friends at the library, yea! Actual friends who have kids the same age and live close by! Not that my other friends aren't totally awesome but... sometimes you need to just walk around the block and let the monkeys loose.

We rode to the dollar store again and met some very friendly cyclists. These two older guys were hanging out and commented on the trailer as we rode by so we stopped and talked for a few. Most people around here seem to ride cruisers - old school cruisers. There are a lot of seriously stylish and cool bikes around here. I think that there are only like 2-3 families that actually wear helmets though. I'm a little concerned with the lack of obeying traffic laws as well but... not much that I can do about that at the moment.

I made it all the way down to the board of education and back the other day just before tropical storm Hannah arrived and messed with my joints for a couple of days. We literally got in the house as the rain started on Friday. Al fell asleep in the trailer again... very cute... although poor Rhys ends up with a face full of helmet when lil'bro nods off. I'm looking forward to getting some cycling in later this week but I've also got to make some trips out to Roanoke Rapids and Petersburg by car. I must start on Jedi costumes for the boys soon otherwise they'll be wearing the overpriced crumby ones from a department store that I don't admitt publicly to shopping at...

We're in

So, we're technically moved in. The church as it turns out had a spare couch from when they moved so... we have that (actually it's a couch and 2 wingback chairs) now. Unfortunately I now need to get rid of the old couch. So, what do you do when you don't seem to have a local freecycle or craigslist? I'm considering putting it on the curb and seeing if someone picks it up.

So far the town seems pretty cycle-able. I took the kids way further into town than I intended the other day and didn't have any real problems short of one middle aged white guy in a sports car listening to booty music. I mean seriously, roll up the windows and watch where you're going Mr. Midlife Crisis. Even that wasn't all that bad. There are A LOT of cyclists here! Unfortunately very few of them wear helmets which I find kind of sad. Is your brain worth $20? I think it is.

I would actually be off riding down to the Hardware Store right now, except that someone has to be home so that Verizon can install a phone jack INSIDE the house. Yes, I specified INSIDE. Meaning that the current phone jack is OUTSIDE! Who puts the phone jack outside!?

Pictures to come soon!

My Couch Dilema

So, we're moving to a very pretty, very old house in Virginia (pictured above). It's nearly twice the house we have now and it has these awesome Technicolor walls inside. So, I'm scrounging around for furniture to fill up all of this extra space that we're going to have. A lot of it, okay all of it, is used but really nice stuff. I'll finally be able to have all of my little antique pieces of furniture and set them up someplace nice. We're all finally out of college and now perhaps we can stop looking like we live in a dorm room... except.... We have this couch:

I just don't know what to do with it. The cushions were shredded when it came from my mom's house so she had started to replace them with this big sheet of foam which I cut into cushions and attempted rather unsuccessfully to find something that kind of matched to cover them in. As you can see my quick and dirty recovering job which was never completely finished (I didn't get around to installing the zippers in the covers because I couldn't find any long enough) is kind of a moot point. This couch SO cannot go into my new house looking like this. I've thought about just freecycling it and getting the sleeper sofa out of my mom's basement but then I would have to get that thing to Virginia, and my memory of what the couch looks like and what it actually looks like are most likely not very similar.

So, do I try to recover this thing with mismatched fabric (not enough money to buy new fabric), staples, and glue? Do I keep a watch on Freecycle and see what pops up on there? Do I just take the green 1970's sleeper sofa from my mom's house that may have fleas? *sigh* I know it's a little thing but it's just ugly...

First Ride

So, we're having a yard sale this weekend to get ready for the move and I talked to Rhys about putting his Walmart-special bike in it because he's never ridden it more than a few feet. Today, as i was getting my wheel back on my bike and hooking up the trailer he decided that he was going to ride. Well, he got on and it was tough going at first, we had to go inside and change his shoes and he would just kind of fall over rather than stopping the bike. However, he made it most of the way around the block and didn't whine or cry despite knocking himself over several times. After his first fall I made a big deal about falling being normal and took a picture. He had a little trouble getting up the hill on the other side of the block but I think that he would have been fine had he not been distracted by a couple of vehicles coming down the street, there's no sidewalk on the backside of the block and he was very concerned about getting hit so he stopped - in the middle of the right hand lane, and would not move.

He's decided to keep the bike rather than waiting to get a Trek for his birthday. I think that we may get him a trail-a-bike instead so that he can go longer distances more comfortably. We surprised Daddy when we got home and then MaLew by showing off how well Rhys rides. He seemed to get up the hill just fine when showing MaLew so hopefully he's got it down now. Next, we work on the rules of the road!

A $5 fix

We're finally back in town, the majority of hubby's thesis work is completed, it looks like he's just got a couple of edits to do and then the defense. Yea! We found a house in Emporia to rent, it's big and gorgeous and scary. It's a 1910 Victorian with Technicolor walls. Hubby is going to sell his car and we're planning on living predominantly using the bikes. We will have to use the car to get to church because an LDS chapel is the only thing that we don't have close by. However, there are church members nearby so that's nice.

I'm in the process of making up a couple of bike purses to sell. I'm going to sew some and do a couple on the knitting machine. I've been carrying it even when I'm not on the bike and it gets rave reviews everywhere from cyclists and those who aren't fortunate enough to like cycling yet.

Hubby took my rim in to the Bike Shop yesterday and got it fixed. Happily, Billy was able to just straiten it out. So, that's a $5 fix rather than replacing the rim! Yea! I'm getting out on the bike today, I have really needed the stress relief and it's been quite hard to not fall back on stress eating this month.