Category Archives: Observations of Life

The Ultimate Hypocrisy of Hatred

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thankyoujesustrumpsupporters

Photo courtesy of the Washington Post. I’m not celebrating like these folks, but I will admit that I voted for Trump.

The hate that is being spewed by Hillary supporters following the election is worse than any hate that Donald Trump could possibly have or spread, because it’s being aimed not just at Trump, but at anyone who voted for him. I have remained quiet regarding the election, but it is now time to own my position.

I voted for Donald Trump. I could deny that I voted for Trump, or I could even have voted for Hillary, and my red state’s electoral votes would still have gone to Trump, but I choose to do what’s right based on my own personal and religious views.  I am not embarrassed or ashamed to admit it.

First, my disclaimer: Trump was not my preference for the Republication nomination for president – he wasn’t even among my top three choices. In fact, as late as 8 p.m. MST on election night I was ranting about how “we picked the wrong candidate.” I don’t condone his brash and inappropriate behavior, but ultimately, his policies – while not perfect – fit better overall with my views than Hillary’s views do.

I am a white, Christian, heterosexual woman from rural America, but I am not uneducated. I am not against a woman as president, and I am not racist. I don’t have a problem with other religions, but it seems as though some other religions have a problem with mine. Somehow celebrating “Christmas,” for example, has become offensive. We have freedom of religion in this country for all religions – including Christianity.

I choose to fight for the life of the unborn. After birthing three children, I cannot fathom the idea of taking a baby from the womb. I knew within days that I was pregnant; there was life within me. No, I don’t believe a woman has a right to choose what to do with her body – not at the expense of another life. I believe abortion is the first step in a slippery slope of discrediting the importance of life. We are such a self-centered society; it’s all about us. What about “Thy will be done”?

I fight for the life of the unborn with the same passion and tenacity others use to fight for animal welfare. These people claim that animals cannot speak for themselves – neither can unborn babies.

And because of my view on the sanctity of life, I am opposed to the death penalty. I disagree with the Republican party on this issue. The death penalty does not serve as a deterrent for would-be criminals, and it does not save tax dollars. It costs more to defend a death-penalty case from start to execution than it does for lifetime incarceration.

I view same-sex marriage in the same light as pre-marital sex. It is outside of the order that God intended. The history of marriage is long and somewhat twisted, but civil marriages weren’t common place until the 1800s. Prior to that marriage was handled by the church, and perhaps government involvement is the clouding factor with this issue.

Beyond religion, I am a small business owner. Liberal policies in general do not serve small business owners well; employment law, for example, is tedious and difficult. I continually struggle with all of the regulations that I am under, and I periodically consider giving up on my business and going to work for someone else for this very reason. In my opinion, less government and more private enterprise is better in the long run, so I persevere.

I am a supporter of our constitutional right to bear arms. If we infringe upon that right, who gets the power to decide and enforce it? Will these people always be moral and just? Should we let Donald Trump be the keeper of our arms? Sadly, there’s already a national trust issue with our law enforcement officers. It’s just another slippery slope for which history has shown mixed results at best.

With regard to immigration, I don’t agree with either side’s “hard line” response. I am in favor of a path to citizenship for people who are already in this country. I understand that it can be difficult to grant exceptions for some folks while drawing the line for others, but it will be even more difficult to rip families apart. Social justice is more important than consistent, legal justice.

While I am open to revamping our immigration system and perhaps simplifying the process especially for refugees, I am not, however, in favor of opening our borders to all for immigration or trade. If we were to do that, there would be serious financial repercussions, and we could end up in an economic crisis like much of the rest of world. If we want to remain a help to the world as a whole, we must be prudent in our approach.

I am in favor of freedom of the press and free speech – even if that offends someone. I do read and review the opinions of those different than mine. Discussion and dialogue are key to public discourse and ultimately to shifts and changes in public opinion. As much as it pains me, I admit that most Main Stream Media outlets are biased – all we have to do is look at how the media has covered the election to see this – but most certainly and equally so is Fox News biased. One issue I have with Trump is that he attempts to limit the press, which could lead to an interesting battle with the “Fourth Branch of Government.”

I am worried about terrorism in our country and in other parts of the world. Honestly, I’m not sure if Donald Trump will make this better or worse, but Hillary certainly wasn’t going to make it any better.

Hillary Clinton is most certainly part of the establishment, but that wasn’t my only issue with her. Hillary had no real plan for change, and she has her own ethical, moral and legal issues beyond those I mention here. She was not who I would want as our first female president.

And while I can empathize with the emotions Hillary supporters are currently experiencing – mostly due to the shock of the loss, I’m sure – I cannot understand the post-election personal attacks and judgments.

I know that I am not perfect; no one is perfect. We all struggle in this sinful world. That’s because we are all human. I have approached most differences I have with people I love and respect in an agree-to-disagree-and-move-on sort of way. Yet it seems that many of those who have different views than mine – those who view me as unaccepting – may not feel the same about me. Isn’t that the ultimate hypocrisy?

Oprah’s Ralph Lauren Interview Was … Odd!

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I really do like Oprah, and I appreciate soft, feature news as much as anyone. But I found Oprah’s interview aired today with Ralph Lauren on his RRL Ranch outside of Telluride, CO, to be a bit corny.

The ranch landscape is incredibly gorgeous, but how many ranch owners can afford miles and miles of peeled log teak fence?

Lauren has several large hand-painted teepees on his ranch, which are also amazingly beautiful and create an incredible scene against the sharp mountain backdrop. But inside these teepees are fully furnished and better decorated than my home, so how authentic can they really be? The Indians certainly didn’t live like that when they lived in teepees, and, sadly, even today many on the reservations still don’t live in anything nearly that nice.

I also found it odd that Oprah was so awe struck over a working cattle ranch. Oprah has spoken out against beef consumption on more than one occasion during the past 25 seasons of her television show.

And here’s the most absurd part of the actual interview. Oprah’s hardest hitting question to Ralph Lauren was, “Where did the idea for the polo shirt come from?”

Lauren didn’t really answer it other than to say that the polo shirt is a representation of the brand.

Hilarious! Yet I’ll bet this Oprah episode, being one of her last on network television, had more viewers than any hard news program of the day. That’s both odd and sad.

I can get you a doctor’s note …

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OK. It’s been a very long time since I’ve posted. At first my delay in posting was due to the frenzy in activities brought on by the end of the school year. But as the school year dwindled, I started feeling sick. Really sick.

It started out as aches and pains accompanied by chills and heat spells. Then it moved into my chest. At first the doctors said it was bronchitis and prescribed Augmentin, an Albuterol inhaler and a cough medicine with Codeine. Along with these, I was also taking Mucinex and Sudaphed, and I was sucking continuously on cough drops and was alternating regularly between Tylenol and Motrin. I kept thinking I was getting better – but I wasn’t.

Here I am with my IV and the oxygen tube over my nose. Don't I look great?

Here I am with my IV and the oxygen tube over my nose. Don't I look great?

Now, two weeks later, I am spending my first night in the hospital. I have pnemonia, and my oxygen levels just refused to pick up. So they are pumping me with meds intravenously and giving me oxygen. It must be working a little, because this is the first time I’ve felt up to writing in two weeks.

Strangely, Busy Toddler contracted pneumonia, too, but she is recovering well – at least better than I am. The doctors think it’s strange that we both had pneumonia at the same time since it’s not considered contagious. As a result, they are testing me for other interesting things like Legionnaires’ Disease and the Swine Flu or H1N1, even though I hadn’t been more than 60 miles from home when I first became ill. I doubt these tests will come back positive, but until we know for sure, anyone who visits me must wear a smock and a mask.

It’s getting late and I should get some rest – at least as much as I can until the hospital staff comes in to bother me. I’ll try to write more tomorrow. I don’t think I’m going anywhere …

Ready or Not … 14th Move Was to the Country

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This summer we will have lived in our country home for five years. That’s longer than we’ve lived in any other home in our almost 18 years of marriage.

We had 13 other addresses before we moved here. After some quick math, that’s a total of 14 moves in 13 years.

Our last move was also our first to the country. All of the other places we lived were in town.

Is there some significance between moving to the country and living here the longest? Perhaps.

From the day we were married, I always knew we would one day move to the country, and probably the ranch. It was just a matter of time before Handsome Hubby was drawn back.

And while country life has certainly grown on me, I must admit that I would probably still choose to live in town if it were up to me. But it’s not.

It would just be so much easier to run the girls to their music lessons or sports practices, and then be able to come home until I needed to go back and pick them up. If I tried that now, I would have to turn around and head back to town almost as soon as I got home. So I can’t.

Thankfully, we moved to the country when the girls were young enough to appreciate its advantages. They enjoy being able to have critters larger in size and number than any city kids, and they have fun getting an occasional ride on their grandpa’s four wheeler. They get their exercise climbing the hay bales in the late summer and fall, and they cool off running through the pivot irrigation system – a sprinkler much larger than any city kid could possibly imagine.

Horse Lover has lamented from time to time that none of her friends live close enough for quick and frequent play dates. That is one disadvantage to living in the country. But that frustration generally passes quickly.

Both Horse Lover and Sports Girl sometimes wish out loud, as I have quietly, that I could run them home after their last activity and before their sister’s next one, but there’s rarely time for the 30-minute round trip and it certainly can’t be justified. So we often spend extra time in town. This means frequent trips to the convenience store for snacks, drinks and restroom visits; it also means regular visits to the library, which is always a good place to kill time. A stop at the grocery store is also often on our agenda for these in between times.

I hope making these sacrifices for each other will help teach my girls that life isn’t always centered around them. We must give-and-take for the benefit of others — especially our family. I guess that’s exactly what I’m doing by living in the country. Although it’s not really a sacrifice — just a little bit of give, I guess.

In the end, I think I’m the only one in the family who has really had to make the big adjustment to country life. After all, the kids can move to town when they are out on their own if they want to. I think I’ll be here for the duration. And I’m OK with that.

Barbara Walters Sympathizes With Escaped Cow

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Barbara Walters announced on The View yesterday that she was getting closer to becoming a vegetarian. This after the top news story of Wednesday in New York City was a cow escaping from a slaughterhouse and roaming Queens.

The cow was ultimately captured, and sent to the Brooklyn Animal Care and Control facility. There she was named Molly, and the plan was to send her to a farm. Read more about the escaped cow story here.

“I am more and more becoming a vegetarian,” Barbara Walters said in the opening Hot Topics segment of the May 7th episode of The View. “This broke my heart.”

She goes further in her discussion of cows. “When you really start to think of them, you know, as having feelings and stuff, I find it very hard …”

Then in typical The View fashion, another of the ladies cut her off in mid sentence. It’s just as well in this case. Does Walters really think cows have feelings? It’s scary when people start assigning human characteristics to animals.

Walters falls just short of offering this cow a safe haven at her home. “If I had a big back yard, I would have Molly the cow,” she said.

Does she have any idea how awful it would be to keep a cow in her yard? It could never be big enough to serve as a permanent residence for a cow. There would be no grass left, and there would be cow pies/piles of manure and hoof prints everywhere. I have a small flock of sheep roam around my yard from time to time, and they leave their own, albeit smaller, mark on the landscape.

But a couple of the other ladies from The View were more reasonable about Molly and eating meat or beef in general. Sherri Shepherd said she had bacon and eggs for breakfast even after reading the morning’s front-page news. Whoopi Goldberg went the furthest to polarize Walter’s comments.

“If I had a big back yard, I’d be having a barbecue with Molly,” Goldberg said. And she even clarified that she wasn’t talking about inviting the cow as a guest.

Sounds tasty to me.

How Many Strollers Does One Busy Toddler Need?

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Here are the four strollers I have for Busy Toddler.

Here are the four strollers I have for Busy Toddler.

I have four strollers for Busy Toddler. I actually have five strollers, but I keep one at Grandma’s house.

When I found out I was expecting Busy Toddler, I had two strollers. I needed an infant car seat, however, and I decided to splurge and purchase a travel system – an infant car seat paired with a stroller for easy transitions from car to wherever. I would be doing lots of running, I reasoned, with two older daughters who were in lots of activities. I took one of my older strollers to Grandma’s, and we used the other one around the ranch. I saved the new travel system stroller for trips to town.

My older ranch stroller didn’t move well across gravel, so when my sister-in-law was getting rid of her jogging stroller, I took it. Then I purchased yet another stroller last summer. We were going to be doing some traveling as a family in our Nissan Pathfinder, and I decided we needed an umbrella stroller that would fold small and wouldn’t take up too much of our precious cargo room.

So now I have four strollers here at the house. I can justify having four because each serves a slightly different purpose besides transporting an infant or toddler.

What makes the whole situation really crazy, however, is that Busy Toddler would really much rather walk than ride in any of her strollers. I generally have to force her to ride in one, and I often find myself pushing an empty stroller just to have the storage space available for stuff. This “stuff” can include shopping bags, coats, snacks, drinks, backpacks, cameras and purses.

It may sound funny, but I’m not the only one who pushes an empty stroller. It’s amazing how many people I encounter in the mall or in the park doing the same thing.

I'll have to clean the dust, mud and hay and grain remnants from this stroller so I'm not embarrassed to be seen pushing it.

I'll have to clean the dust, mud and hay and grain remnants from this stroller so I won't be embarrassed to be seen pushing it around town.

We recently lent our infant seat to some friends who had a new baby, and I’m getting ready to part with the matching stroller, as well. It only makes sense – they go together as part of a travel system.

And even though I’ll still have three strollers at my disposal and Busy Toddler is already 2, I’m hesitant to give it up. Perhaps it’s more of a sentimental issue for me than a practical one. After all, who really needs four strollers for one child?

Oh, and did I mention I also have a child backpack for Busy Toddler to ride in, a Radio Flyer Wagon, and a trailer that pulls behind a bike. How many ways can one toddler be transported? OK, maybe my problem is really the nasty grips of consumerism …

Mousetraps – My First Product Endorsement

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These traps really work!

These traps really work!

We have caught two mice in our house in the last month. No doubt they were seeking shelter from the winter weather, but that’s too bad. They picked the wrong house.

You see, over the nearly five years we’ve lived here, Handsome Hubby has waged war on more than a dozen mice. And he’s perfected his system of mouse hunting.

We do have a cat that comes into the house, but to our knowledge, she has only caught one mouse in our house. So her role in the mouse hunt is almost nonexistent.

Handsome Hubby uses and strongly recommends the JT Eaton brand of sticky mousetraps pictured here. He’s even purchased some for friends. We purchased this pack of four at a local farm/ranch supply store for $3.99. Upon the first sign of a potential mouse in the house, he places these pre-baited traps strategically along walls or alongside furniture since mice tend to snug themselves up against things as they move from place to place.

He’s tried the spring-loaded traps, and he’s tried other brands of sticky traps. None work as well as these. Few things are as frustrating as when a mouse is able to steal your bait without getting caught or stuck!

The downside to this method of catching mice, is that there really is no “release” option. You really must kill the mouse after it is stuck to the trap.

While I have not been able to kill any of the mice we have caught myself, I understand that it must be done. Handsome Hubby takes care of this task, because killing the mouse truly is a more humane option than letting it slowly die on its own.

Not only that, but if we were to release the mouse back outside, it would probably just find it’s way back into the house. And it might bring friends along the next time. There just aren’t that many other places for it to go around here.

The other downside to these traps is that they really are sticky – and not just for mice. Lots of other things get stuck to them including Busy Toddler and even the cat! These other items are easily removed, although some sticky residue generally remains for a short time. It’s a small price to pay for successful rodent removal!

I did find a source to buy these traps online at The WEBstaurant Store. It’s a bit disturbing that you can buy these at an online store that specializes in restaurant and food service stuff, but I guess I’d rather they get rid of any mice than ignore them. If you have a mouse in your house (or restaurant), you should get some of these, too!

Duh … Let There Be Light!

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When I told my sister on our recent visit that I loved the light inside of her new dryer, she looked at me kind of funny. “My old dryer had a light in it, too,” she said. “I’ll bet yours does, too. You probably just need to change the bulb.”

I have had my Maytag dryer for almost 15 years – since the year before Sports Girl was born. It’s served me well, but I don’t ever remember there being a light inside of it. But when I was doing my next load of laundry back at home, I checked it out.

Sure enough – I noticed a night-light sized bulb just inside the door at the top. I had to stoop over and look up to see it, but it was there. And by chance, I happened to have a replacement bulb just the right size – I had them on hand for use in the night light in Busy Toddler’s room.

So I replaced the bulb, and voila! I now have a light that comes on whenever I open my dryer door! It’s not quite as bright, but it works on the same principle as the light in my refrigerator, except I’m not embarrassed by how dirty it is inside of my dryer – which is a definite bonus.

On a similar note, a friend recently told me about her latest “Duh” moment.

“Do you know how to tell what side the gas tank is on from inside the vehicle?” she asked. I didn’t.

“There’s a rather large arrow by the gas gauge that points to it,” she explained. “Someone just pointed that out to me today. I never noticed it before.”

I checked the next time I got into my vehicle – the one I’ve owned for more than two years and have driven for 50,000 miles. And there it was – an arrow pointing towards the driver’s side, which is where the gas tank is filled.

There’s probably been a similar arrow on the gas gauge of every vehicle I’ve driven for the whole 23 years I’ve had my license. Had I known, I wouldn’t have ever had to open my driver’s side door and hang out to peer at the rear of my vehicle. I know I have done this more than once over the years to confirm the presence of the gas tank or lack thereof before pulling up to the pump.

I wish there could have been some solace for me in our mutual lack of awareness on this gas tank arrow, but I wonder … does she know there’s a light inside of her dryer? I’m afraid to ask.