After Christmas

I hope everyone had a great Christmas. A few thoughts I had, one happy, one sad and one rant.

Happy
Makiah is involved in a group at our neighbors church called Sparks. It's basically a class to learn about God and I call it Rah, Rah. They learn cheers and songs about God, pretty cool stuff. They earn badges for memorizing Bible verses and somehow they earned Spark bucks, little fake Monopoly looking dollars. They saved them up and just before Christmas were able to "shop" with these dollars to buy gifts for whoever they wanted to buy for, they got to choose who and what. Makiah came home with his purchases and it was the cutest thing ever. He had picked out a gift for his mom, some discs that you put in your cup holder in your car to absorb any liquid that spills into the holder. He knows his mom loves coffee, so he bought these for her. There were some other items that were really cute, but this one stuck out. To see his face when he explained who it was for and why he bought them just about brought tears to my eyes. You saw the innocence of a 5 year old that did something for his mom, just because. I get misty just remembering his face and how proud of him I was. Usually, I want to kill him for total defiance, but that day, I couldn't have loved him more.

Sad
They always have the stories on the TV and in the paper around Christmas about people who are struggling to make ends meet and rely on other people to help them out at this time of year. I've seen them, you've seen them, they work. I always feel guilty about what I have, especially around this time of year. I donate, adopt a family, but it is so little compared to what I could do. I usually don't see the newspaper pictures as anything new, so they don't hit me as hard. There are thousands of stories of how people are suffering, and to be honest, you get kind of immune to it, sorry to say. There was a picture in the Des Moines Register about a week before Christmas that hit me, for what reason I don't know. It was taken at a local community center that acts as a distribution point at Christmas. They collect donations of food, clothes and toys for people in need. In this particular picture there were several tables set up in a room with mostly toys spread out on them. There were several people "shopping" with their kids, but the woman and her child in the front of the picture is what I was focused on. The woman was dressed in jeans and a NFL sweatshirt, she had the wrong team on it, but lets not loose sight of the reason for the story. She, for whatever its worth, appeared to be "normal," whatever that is. The child was well kept, nice clothes, clean cut hair, and nothing to appear to me as being poor. (again, whatever that is) This child looked like she could be in my kids class at school. I can say I don't profile, or put people into categories due to their appearance, but I do. When I think of someone getting help at Christmas, I think of welfare abusers, the uneducated (me being one of them), or someone that has made so many bad decisions in their life, that this is where it got them. I know it's wrong, but I can't help it. I know some people just had some bad luck, or a huge medical issue that wiped them out. I know plenty of single moms that have busted their asses to provide for their family, but it just isn't enough when you add the presents at the end of the year. This picture slapped me in the face a good one. In my head, I saw this woman as one of the hundreds or thousands that have lost their jobs this year, unable to find a replacement to keep her at the level she is accustomed to. Maybe her husband died, they had no insurance, and now she is struggling to make ends meet until she can get back on her feet again. Whatever her story is, she made me realize that I need to change my thought process. I kept thinking, that could be me, or someone I love. I need to make changes and teach my kids better lessons.

Rant
I don't have a snow blower. I've always wanted one, but never seem to have the money to buy something that I might use 3 times a year, or might use every 15 minutes for a month. I've tried to convince 2 of my neighbors to go in together to buy one that we all share, but I think they are waiting for me to cave and buy it so they can borrow it without the expense of it all. Well I can hold out as long as they can. Here is the problem, these same said neighbors both went out of town for Christmas. Then, being the ever humorous God that he is, had it snow a few inches of snow and then had the wind blow that snow into huge piles on our driveways. I didn't want it to appear that they were gone, so I set out to shovel all three of our driveways on Saturday. I got mine done and had moved across the street for driveway #2, when another neighbor, who lives right next door to me, came out to use his snow blower. This guy hardly ever clears his driveway, he usually just leaves it so it becomes a solid sheet of ice. Today, he decides to use his blower, which is brand new. For those of you who don't get enough snow to necessitate a blower, let me tell you that there are different kinds, as you can imagine. The smaller ones basically move the snow from where you don't want it, over a foot or two to where you do. The bigger they get, the farther they move the snow from its original position. Now, my neighbor buys the blower that puts the snow from his driveway into my driveway. Didn't know that was an option, but apparently he found the Nolan Ryan model. (baseball reference) I have just finished driveway #1, I'm working on #2 and watching Joe Considerate blow his snow into my drive, causing me to want to beat the #2 out of him. He has to see the snow crossing my whole front yard and landing in my driveway. For God's sake, can't he either re-aim it or turn the blower from jet airliner to just crop duster? He finished up his driveway, put away his blower and returned to the comfort of his house, while I stood in my neighbors driveway and shook my head. I was half way through the third driveway when a different neighbor showed up with a borrowed blower and helped me finish up. She did run their garden border through the blades, so I'll be sure to toss her under the bus with 100% of the blame. Next time they will think twice before leaving during prime snow season.

New Car

So I have my new car. I'm not as excited as you would think, since I have a car payment for the first time in 5 years. It has the SYNC system, which is a voice activated system to run your phone, MP3 player and pretty much all of your music options. I'm still learning how to run it all, by using the manual. I'm not one that is afraid to use the manual, I know I loose some of my man points, but I do read them. Here is an example why. I was in the car showing my friend how the phone works. You can see your phone memory on a little screen on the dash, it shows numbers, names, call history and I've read text messages, though I haven't tried that yet. I was working my way around, like I knew what I was doing, and got to the call history. Somehow, I accidentally dialed a number, which I didn't recognize. He looked at it and reminded me that it was his work number. Now the problem came, I don't know how to hang up. Every time I've used the phone in the past, the other person hung up, ending the call. My current phone call is now going to voicemail. I start pushing buttons and yelling at the car, as if it knows the commands I'm yelling. Now I have Joe yelling at my car and I'm sure, to passer byes, it looked like we were having one hell of an argument, but unable to look at each other so we stared at the dash. I kept hitting buttons as I spewed profanities at my car, and something worked. I'm pretty sure it wasn't the phrase "Hang up the damn phone," but you never know. I looked it up in the manual and found you have to HOLD the phone button down, not just push it. I guess that is what I did, but the flurry of activity from the front seat made it impossible to be certain. I think I should ask Joe if he had an obscene phone call on his voicemail when he got to work on Monday. The worst part of that is, it was him yelling at himself. That's got to be a first. I also found two new buttons that I had to read up on, both are something I won't use often, but it's good to know what they are. So far I like it, gas mileage is good and it handles well. Now that I know how to work some of the voice activation stuff, it's even a little better. I'll post a picture soon, but I might wash it first since it is covered in dirt from our recent ice/snow.

Ice Storm part 2

Here are a few more shots of the ice. You can't really see the beauty of it, but you can at least see the thickness.

I took this one to show how thick it was on the branches and the one below is our table on our deck.

Our bird feeder is now a jail.

And finally, a Christmas light on our bush out front.

That's it for the pictures, but there were two other things I wanted to mention.

1. What is it with kids wanting to eat the nasty dirty icicles that are hanging from my dirty car? I tried everything to get them to quit eating them, but no luck. I remember doing it as a kid, but I didn't have anyone telling me not to. I finally gave up and hope there isn't anything to bad on them, like arsenic. (If you read my blog regularly, you got that. If you don't, I didn't poison my kids)

2. If you know anything about Iowa, you know that the top two accidents involving amputations are: Farm accidents (mainly augers on grain equipment) and idiots sticking their hands in snow blowers. Seeing as how there is a half inch of ice on the ground, there aren't too many augers working right now, so the snow blower is the leader at this time. I would think that any half way intelligent person would know not to stick their hand/fingers into a spinning object, but I have observed over the years that I must be extremely intelligent, unless it involves a washing machine and a hose. (That is some complicated stuff) I watched as my next door neighbor, who we affectionately call Clark Griswald, stuck his hand in his snow blower, while the motor was running. Now I don't have a snow blower, but I think they actually can run without the blades spinning, but would you risk it? I mean, if the blades quit moving because they were being stopped by snow, would you then release that snow with your bare hand thus allowing the blades to spin, regardless if the motor is engaged or not. I'm both happy and sad to say that the blades did not turn into the wood chipper in Fargo (movie reference, hope you've seen it). That would have been gross and I'm guessing when I grabbed my digital camera to take a few snapshots of it, I might not be invited to the next block party. The sad thing was, he was clearing his neighbors side walk, who has a blower of his own, and left me scooping and chipping like an ass. He could have at least waited until I went inside to clear the neighborhood, except mine. I'll keep that in mind next time the cops show up at his house, which they do several times a year. I'm guessing it's a domestic situation, but oddly they don't discuss it with the neighbors. Next time, I'll be the first one down there when the cops show up and will tell them that I saw him stealing the neighbors mail. Snow blower has a whole different meaning in federal prison.

Ice Storm

For those of you that don't live in Iowa, you are missing out on all of the fun. Today we are in the middle of a nasty ice storm. I'm not sure how thick it is, but everything is coated. Here is a picture of our flag, covered in ice. Not sure if you can see it or not.

I'll be out with the boys later and will try to get some other shots. Right now, the ice has slowed down and the snow is falling. The boys are excited to sled on our huge 5 foot hill.

If you have a 2 year old, or have had one, this isn't news to you, but we now have zero ornaments on the lower 1/2 of our Christmas tree. I know some of them have been relocated to the upper 1/2 of the tree, which now is very top heavy and I'm sure illegal in several states, but I fear that most are just plain missing. I'm guessing we will find the stash sometime in June and I will have to get the Christmas boxes back down from the attic so we can put them away.



I will be purchasing my own present on Tuesday, but I'm not that thrilled about it. The car I drive back and forth to work, is done. We are buying a new Ford Focus. Why new you might ask? I'm not convinced that buying new is the best plan, maybe it would be smarter to buy a used car, but I'm so tired of dealing with repair shops, not trusting what they are telling me, and as soon as I get it home something else breaks. That is recent history with, what we affectionately call, the red car. We don't have a fancy name, like ocho, but red car has worked well for us. Once the boys learned their colors, we could tell them which car to get in using just the color and they would get it correct 50% of the time. I can say it all I want, they only listen when they want. We had a really bad experience with a local dealership regarding some warranty work on both of our cars. Now, I don't want to name names (Stew Hansen's Dodge of 12103 Hickman, Des Moines Iowa 50323), but lets just say the initials are SH. We had an issue with our blue car, from the day we bought it, that they tried to fix on several occasions. It only happened when it was cold, so I only complained in the winter, which helped make the issue with SH worse later. It was the power slider door on our mini van. It wouldn't work when it was cold, so when I was in for something, I'd have them look at it. They would "fix" it and it worked thru the summer and then it wouldn't work again. I'd take it in the next winter, some thing, they would "fix" it and then it would quit working the next winter. I took it in to have an oil change awhile back and told them it wasn't working again. Of course, the warranty is over, so now they tell me the motor needs to be replaced, $800. I explained to the guy the history I just spelled out above, but he wasn't impressed. He told me to call the service manager, which Marcy did while I was in Houston. Then, I called them about the red car, which we just had in but was making a new noise. They looked at it and of course it now had a new repair it needed that would put the total amount fixed higher than the value of the car, so we opted not to fix the new sound. Marcy called the service manager and they must have had quite the conversation, because he called me next and said they would fix the van door for free. He new he had lost a customer, but he tried. I did take the van in for them to "fix" the van door, so I'll let you know next winter if it took. Too bad for them. Since we had to buy a new car, we probably would have bought a new Caravan, but I don't trust them at all. I had the same thing happen with the red car, drivers side windshield washer fluid, and my boss said he had the same thing happen to him at this place. I'm glad to be done with them, now we'll see if this new place has a clue in regards to service. The car is pretty cool, as cool as a small box on wheels can be, but the features it has should be fun. I'll take a picture on Tuesday and post it. So as to not confuse the kids, we are getting another red car. I'm not sure we can fit all three kids and their car seats in this thing, but it has a decent sized truck, so it will do.

Well I'm glad to see that I have zero votes for the more than 4 watches. I don't have any crazies reading my blog. Congrats!

We went back to the Iowa Energy game again last night, and it was another good one. I took a little better picture of Surge, but I think he's growing on me. I wasn't nearly as amused/terrified of him this time.

I did notice something that I hadn't on my previous trips and that relates to the water faucets in the men's room. I went to wash my hands and instead of the now common "wave your hand under the faucet until it decides to come on" kind, these were the "push up the handle and watch it drop back down before you can even get your hands wet" kind. I thought I would be smart and hold up the handle with one hand and then wave my free hand under the water. Smart huh? Now add soap on those hands and tell me how and the hell you are going to get soap off of your hand without rubbing it against the other hand? I'm not saying it can't be done, but just how much time are you willing to stand there? This ain't a 5 second move, this takes dedication. So you think, "I'll just use a towel to wipe off the soap I didn't get off with the water." Think again, hand dryers. You think one of those dryers are going to dry soap? Luckily, I figured out after I lifted the faucet handle 4 or 5 times and it was dropping faster than my eyelids while watching a chick flick, that speed wasn't the issue. I watched some poor sap a few sinks down make the classic mistake of putting soap on his hands before he tested the water, thus eliminating the warning signs that this is going to be difficult. I watched him lift the lever and quickly drop his soapy hands under the faucet only to be teased with 2 drops, since the main flow had stopped .00000005 seconds after he released the lever. I thought an option might be to use another body part to hold the faucet up while you rubbed your hands under, but your options, in public, are limited. I narrowed it down to head, foot, knee or tongue. Lets identify the problem with each:

Head: Very difficult to get your head, especially if you have a melon head, down there to hold up the tiny faucet lever. Don't get me wrong, I think I could have done it, but I'm not sure I want that picture on someones phone. I know if I saw it, so would you on this blog. Plus, the risk of drowning jumps significantly once you put all breathing ports that close to running water and drowning in a public bathroom looks like crap in the obituary.

Foot: Probably the most reasonable choice, but I was thinking about balance. I don't drink at the games, so I was solid there, but still. I figured I would rather have my pee on my hands than every one's pee on my entire body. Personal choice. Let me also be clear that I hadn't pee'd on my hands, so I'm not sure why I was washing my hands in the first place. Peer pressure I guess.

Knee: I don't think I bend that way anymore. Plus, still have the balance issue, so, ruled out. Plus, odds of getting a wet spot in a place that would be difficult to explain, jumps 100%.

Tongue: I don't think we need to go there.

So you can see that I quickly rationalized my quick splash on each hand. I thought, just briefly, about helping this poor guy by holding his lever up, but even as I write this it sounds really gay, so I dismissed that as well. Plus, I was all ready laughing at the situation and if I went down to help him, he most certainly would have known that I was laughing at him, there by making him uncomfortable and me feel a little guilty. I left, giggling .