We're All Going to Die!

Since I have had a little more time at home during the day lately, I have had a chance to scroll through the channel guide to see some of what daytime television has to offer. Mainly what I have learned is that the are at least 12 different things that are probably in my house or part of my lifestyle that are killing me. I have never taken the time to watch Dr. Oz or The Doctors, because the plot summaries alone are depressing. The last promo I saw for Dr. Oz said that everyone in his audience had cancer and everyone watching would have it too (or something to that effect). I took that to mean that watching his show gives you cancer, so I didn't watch. Truthfully I didn't watch because, for reasons I can not explain, he gives me the creeps, but I digress. My point is that there is a lot of health talk going on out there and I wonder if it is making us more health conscious or creating a society of hypochondriacs.
Just this week I have been having an very annoying twitch in the muscle below my eye. It is from eye strain and stress. I probably need to go back to using eye drops. Just for fun I looked it up online and found out that I may have tourettes, epilepsy, or fibromyalgia. It reminded me of that scene in Kindergarten Cop when he says he has a headache and the little kids says, "Maybe its a tumor". Did this kid grow up and start WebMD? It is sadly another illustration of how the internet should be making us all better informed and educated, but instead it is turning us all into crazy people. If you are having a health problem, go to your doctor and not the internet. They can actually treat you. If you have questions, ask them. It is one of the things you pay them for.
Okay, rant over.

And the Winner is...

We have a new trumpet player in the family! Believe it or not Rocky did not try to influence her in this direction. I talked her into trying a sax just to get a feel for a reed instrument and she really didn't like it even though she did really well right from the start. I think the band director was leaning towards french horn for her, but was perfectly fine with her selection of trumpet. The only thing we tweaked a bit was to go with a cornet instead of a full sized trumpet. Rocky and the director both felt that it would fit Nix better at this stage and would be easier to learn in the beginning. Although I do suspect that Rocky's want of a cornet for himself had a little to do with it. It does make it easier that we have a built in private tutor, extra horns, and all the extras just laying around the house. I guess as of today I am a band mom. Wow!

Hey! Wait a Minute

I'm not much of a true conspiracy theorist. Oh sure, I like to come up with outlandish reasons why some things happen now and then, but it is really just to exercise my creative juices. It's not like I sit around debating who shot JFK or if Elvis is dead (totally not by the way;). Today I heard more than one person mention that to spite filling out a census form and mailing it in on time they received a visit from a census taker. My mind digressed from there to wondering if it is a crime to mess with a census worker, then to how many different letters they sent me, to the Post Office, and then on the price of stamps (not my most random train, but still a fun ride). I realized that ever since the big announcement that the USPO was totally broke, I have received three times as many letters from the government as usual, if not more. Take for example my tax return. I got one letter saying I had filed, one saying I was due a refund, one saying they were going to send me a check because they decided not to automatic deposit it, the actual check, and then finally a letter telling me they had mailed the check. I think they spent more in postage than my refund was actually for. This Spring I got a letter saying the census was coming, the form, and 2 letters telling me I already had it and reminding me to send it in. What is bugging me here is that if they can manage to get me a letter saying something is coming then why can't they have also just sent the actual item?
I can think of no area in life where this is normal behavior, nor can I remember it happening before. My only conclusion is that the government is spending a googol worth of money (that is 10 to the 100th power, and JD's new favorite number) to keep the post office running and to create pointless jobs for people with no skills. This also means that my tax refund could have been a lot bigger if it weren't for all of this wasted time, paper, and postage. Wouldn't be a better use of our time to try and figure out why the post office isn't making money even though the price of stamps keeps going up?
I would also like to suggest that if they had put an optional essay question on the census form asking people how they felt about the way the federal government was spending their hard earned money, then they wouldn't have had nearly the problems getting people to mail them back . I might just have to add that to my form on my own next decade.

Long Time No See

I feel like it has been forever since I have sat down to write anything. I can not believe I have abandoned my blog for so long. I guess the lack of dramatic before and afters and my laptop taking a dirt nap stifled my creative juices. I am in the middle of redoing Nix's room and have been in the middle of it for about a month. We got everything out and rearranged, but trying to get everything back in has been a lot like repacking a suitcase after a weeks vacation at the beach. You know it all went in there before, but there is no way to get it all back in. Add to that the age factor. I once heard a person say that a one's attention span is the same in minutes as they are years old. This explains why I can not get Nix to work on her room for more than 11 minutes and also maybe why my father has been able to take up wood carving.
On the topic of cleaning, we are still doing pretty good. It isn't the spotless glory it first was, but it is still a lot better than before. As an added bonus I have learned that I can get it from not bad to spotless in a lot less time. After I had been sick and the house had been allowed to slide for a good week, I timed my clean up. It only took 9 minutes to do the den and that includes vacuuming! In one hour I can have the house completely guest ready. That fact alone makes all of this work worth it.