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Archive for January, 2007

US vs. THEM

January 24th, 2007 at 06:22 pm

This is a bit of a rant...just to be up front.

A poster in the forums got my ire up yesterday, who the poster was and the content of his post is not important, however his attitude towards those receiving public benefits is. If you believe everyone receiving public benefits is a free-loading, Cadillac driving welfare Mama this post is not for you. I frequently encounter this perception from individuals who have no contact whatsoever with truly poor people.

I worked as an legal services attorney for 2 years. I saw 16-20 people a day, 5 days a week, and in that entire time I saw one person who may have been cheating the system. Does it happen, sure, should people who do that be prosecuted, definitely...but here is what I really saw

*Elderly couples surviving on $550 in social security benefits a month, waiting on the 99 cent hamburger day so they could buy one and stretch it for lunch for 2-3 days
*Mothers who live in section 8 homes that are so roach infested that they have to cover their children in netting over night so they won't get bitten by the roaches
*American families of Mexican descent who live in substandard housing and when they complain the landlord reports them to INS (of course they are citizens so INS figures that out after like 3 days, by which time they've already lost their jobs)
*16 year olds working double shifts at Burger King to try and hold their family together because mom is a crack addict and someone has to pay their portion of section 8 and buy food for the younger children
*Blind, disabled grandmas on Social Security, who Social Security randomly cuts benefits for and then restores them after 7 months of fighting with them

The point is when people are so blinded by self-pity that they get angry at the poor, it really ticks me off. The poor are us, we are all interconnected. There was a great strip years ago (I think by Horsey) that said us vs. them and then it had a large letter U and a large letter S and inside it said them in very small letters over and over again.

This is just my two cents and I hope I did not offend anyone, but that post from yesterday stayed with me all night and I just got more and more fed up, the longer I thought about it, so there it is!

got $100.00 Staples Rebate

January 23rd, 2007 at 06:23 pm

Well persistance pays off finally got my $100 rebate back from Staples for the desktop and monitor we bought in September. Refund for the printer came right away but I have noticed any refund over $50.00 seems to require multiple submissions and phone calls to the rebate center. Oh well, I stuck with it and now $100.00 richer! Yeah Smile

Thrifty dinner and other thoughts

January 12th, 2007 at 06:29 pm

So last night was a throw it all in the pot kind of dinner that turned out very well (healthy too!)Smile Here's what got used up...

5 tomatoes (liquified in blender)
onion
shrimp
2 slices provolone cheese
leftover rice
1 lime
salt/pepper/hot sauce to taste

very yummy, and I brought leftovers for lunch!

In other exciting news had the first ultrasound yesterday, incredible to see the little heartbeat and little hands waving around, we even have a little picture now Smile

free baby stuff (Yahoo!)

January 9th, 2007 at 07:14 pm

A former coworker stopped by yesterday, she had cleaned her garage out and wanted to see if I wanted any of her old baby stuff--Of Course!!!

So I got the following free:

Baby Floormat Gym with music (barely used)
nice changing pad (never used)
ride on toy (used in good condition)
bouncy toy (used in good condition)
potty chair (never used)
and drum roll my dream baby item:Smile

A brand new Mongoose jogging stroller!!!!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you is all I can say! I figured if I had needed to buy this stuff it would have set me back over $200 (used) or upwards of $300 (new)

Man am I grateful!

2007 Resolutions

January 2nd, 2007 at 05:44 pm

1. Fully fund baby fund before July (due date)
2. Find better job with full healthcare benefits, so I can dump the individual plan, and make more money
3. In addition to normal scheduled payments, pay an additional 8K on student loans to bring the total to around under 73K. Better job will help with #3.
4. Reduce eating out budget by $30 a month (currently spending around $75 per month).
5. borrow and buy used as many baby necessities as possible.
6. Start buying diapers every paycheck starting in May.
7. keep up gym schedule, 4 times per week.
8. put aside money in weight watchers fund so I can lose any post baby pounds quickly
9. continue to enjoy life with DH, darling doggies and soon to be baby Smile