Affordable Boat Act - A Re-post

The government has just passed a new law called: "The Affordable Boat Act" declaring that every citizen MUST purchase a new boat, by April 2014. These "affordable" boats will cost an average of $24,000-$124,000 each. This does not include taxes, trailers, towing fees, insurance, fuel, docking and storage fees, maintenance or repair costs.

This law has been passed, because until now, typically only financially responsible and working people have been able to purchase boats. This new laws ensures that every American can now have a "affordable" boat of their own, because everyone is "entitled" to a boat. 

In order to make sure everyone purchases an affordable boat, the costs of owning a boat will increase on average of 250-400% per year. This way, working taxpayers will pay more for something that other people don't want or can't afford to maintain. But to be fair, people who can't afford to maintain their boat will be regularly fined and children (under the age of 26) can use their parents boats to party on until they turn 27; then must purchase their own boat.

If you already have a boat, you can keep yours (just kidding; no you can't). If you don't want or don't need a boat, you are required to buy one anyhow. If you refuse to buy one, you will be fined until you purchase one or face imprisonment. For those that cannot afford one, they will get a free boat with a monthly check for all ownership costs listed above at taxpayer expense.

Failure to use the boat will also result in fines. People living in the desert, inner cities or areas with no access to lakes are not exempt. Age, motion sickness, experience, knowledge nor lack of desire are acceptable excuses for not using your boat. 

A government review board will decide everything, including; when, where, how often and for what purposes you can use your boat along with how many people can ride your boat and determine if one is too old or healthy enough to be able to use their boat. They will also decide if your boat has out lived its usefulness or if you must purchase specific accessories, or a newer and more expensive boat. (Cash for Clunkers guidelines will be used).

Government officials are exempt from this new law. If they want a boat, they and their families can obtain boats free, at the expense of tax payers. Unions, special interest and major donors are also exempt.

I just had to re-post this - too much for a Facebook post, but too funny not to share!

A Career Change

I need to make a career change. The problem is, what is my career now, and where do I want to take it?  The answers to both questions, unfortunately, are complex.

While I would like to say that I am a writer/publicist as it is noted on my email signature, when it is considered a career, it's not exactly correct. I do some writing and promotion for various clients on an inconsistent basis, yet I also work in several other industries including accounting for an interior designer, computer consulting for a realtor and weekly scanning of UPCs for a market research company.

The household duties of being a mother and wife also put me into an experience level of time management, chauffeur, chef, laundress,  volunteer director, teacher, housekeeping, accounting again with home bills, shopping expert (getting the best deals), dietitian and medical advisor.

Where I want to take it is going to depend on my goal for a career, and that too is unclear. Do I want to enjoy what I do with all my soul or do I want to make money? Can I do my career part time so that I can fulfill my first and ultimate goal first - to be an awesome wife and mother?

I DO want to be a full time writer/publicist but the work has to meet the needs of family income, and sometimes it is just not enough to earn a few hundred dollars a month doing it. The other problem is writing on a project that I enjoy, but that makes money. I have at least three book ideas but making the time to sit down and write while not earning anything seems to get crowded out in the other tasks I am trying to accomplish in my current job status and the family obligations.

I have come to the realization that to make a career change - to become a full time writer of newsworthy articles and eventually, and/or a book, I will need to apply myself to writing 200 words a day to develop my writing skills. After my children have graduated from high school with scholarships and left the home, with some of the above responsibilities removed, then I will be able to throw myself into the work of writing more than a half hour each day.

Time will make it happen for me, if only I wasn't so impatient for that career change.

200 Words a Day

It is recommended by journalists, novelists and other wordy people that to become and progress as a writer, it’s a good idea to write 200 words each day. It may not seem like much, but  1000-1400 words a week (whether you write five or seven days) is a nice length of an article or could be two or three blog posts. If you are writing a book, this is a nice progression to a 52,000 word book, or about 175 pages. Here are my reminder tips for myself and for you to get into writing practice and to build that blogsite or book.

1. Prepare yourself

If writing a blog with a theme, seek out ideas throughout the day and keep your list of ideas on a notepad for easy reference when you sit down to write. When compiling a book, map out the characters and plot in an outline format so that you can easily pick up and write about whatever you are in the mood to pursue.If you have been occupied prior to your write time, shake off the day with a 10-15 minute walk to clear your mind and gain new ideas.

2. Limit distraction

Clear your desk, don’t turn on any laundry, water or cooking timers. Put the phone away from view and dive in to your keyboard.

3. Plan to write

Children, spouses, friends, work, volunteerism and general life duties can certainly take priority over your writing. The best thing to do is to put at least 30 minutes a day on your calendar to write. Have a tentative writing time each day – some say 10 am is the best, but not likely for those who work and have an active family life. When that time is interrupted or cancelled because of daily events, be flexible about rescheduling. This can be a problem for those of us that intend to write before bed, but the exhaustion of the day steps in and the writing is put off.

One last tip, if you are a foodie like me, is don’t write hungry or thirsty. That gnawing at your stomach is a huge distraction, so prevent it with a snack or a big glass of water before you begin. Back to work on the blog and 200 words of a book for me – I hope this is helpful to you!

Best Days

I had a best day yesterday. A best day is a time when you get to do all the things you like to do, in an easy-going manner without having to rush. I did have to rush a little bit at the evening part of the day because I had spent so much time relaxing.

These days, sleep is very valuable, so it was awesome to have gone to bed at 1 am to get up at 8 am to make a breakfast for my daughter, then to go back to bed about and hour later and stay there another couple of hours, checking email and Facebook on my phone, reading the excellent free book I received from dearreader.com - Movement of Stars by Amy Brill, and getting more sleep. I then got up to send my youngest off with her father to run errands, leaving me with an empty, silent house. After getting some laundry going and the kitchen clean, I went outside to enjoy the beautiful, sunny yet cool early afternoon to pull weeds in the front yard. I came inside to prepare the remainder of a batch of cookies that I had baked half of the day before, filling the house with the warm smell of freshly baked cookies.

All that activity had me tired again, so I proceeded back to my bedroom to spend a little more time with Movement of Stars, set in 1845 and covering a young Quaker woman's pursuit of astronomy, with a twist. Great book, more than halfway through now. After this restful day, it was time for me to get ready to go out to a rodeo party at the beautiful Reserve on Lake Travis. My dilemma was choosing what to wear. An original plan to wear a fun dress with boots was scrapped to wear jeans or pants instead because of the unusually cold April weather. The black leather pants and red boots won, along with the blingy top and jewelry. We enjoyed awesome food, Tito's vodka and fellowship with friends and new friends, and afterward shut down the band with our Spicewood friends. I love to dance too! We arrived home and got to visit with our darling teenage daughters to round out the night. Reading, resting, baking and dancing, plus a whole lot of extras made April 20, 2013, a best day.

By the way, today is also a best day because it is my father, Carroll Wayne Merlick's birthday. I loved his mother very much and feel very fortunate that she and my grandfather had him. He was an only child, raised with a strict hand but fed awesome food that I learned to love as well, and given the tools to become a successful adult. He is a loving, dear man that has high expectations for me and everyone else in my family. Happy Birthday Daddy - I love you!

Grocery Stories

We are greeted as we enter a grocery store with a friendly voice behind the quick check out stand by the door. A stocker loads huge crates of bananas, potatoes and grapefruit to the produce display table tables with a stoic posture. A grumpy-faced woman bemoans the inventory in the health and beauty section, while her manager cheers her on, taking up the slack on the work that she avoids. A shy-looking girl is suddenly chatty when asked where to find dental floss.

Then, there are the customers in the grocery. An older woman frets about how items have moved from where they used to be, while another grumbles about the sheer volume of choices in picking out a shampoo. A young mother admonishes her noisy child as a stooped over man brags to a vendor about the benefits of honey and cinnamon.

When we enter the grocery store, most likely we do not know 95% of the people in there, unless it is a small store in a small town. Regardless of whether we know the checker, the deli server or the fish market employee, how well do we really know them? Did the cute produce guy dye his hair red and have his ears and nose pierced to irritate his parents, or is he just wanting to stand out? Is the very thin, unusual-looking housekeeping woman really in pain physically or is she benefiting from the grocery's health plan to obtain strong medication and time off?

The questions about the screaming child and his household life to the wildly-dressed young adults to the perfectly coiffed older shoppers could overwhelm me as I do my 10 hours of weekly work in four such stores in small town Texas. But I've decided to pursue these stories and tell stories of my own, some from the mouths of those employees and customers, and some fictionalized from the small amount of data I've collected in talking to them.

For me, it's a larger story worth pursuing, to give some insight to the people that arrange, prepare and sell us the food and other consumable items that we need to keep us fed, clean and happy. Stay tuned for more posts.

Special Birthday

Dear Mom -

After many attempts today, this special day, to write you a note of love on your birthday, I am finally getting to it. It's a tough proposition to write down something that I feel so strongly in my heart. Do I make a list? Do I write a poem or a haiku? Do I describe all the incredible things you do for me and for others? Do I draw a pretty picture - but of what would it be? So I just decided to write you a love letter of sorts, and also a thank you note.

You, Judy Wickham, are an incredible woman. Coming from a solid, Christian home life to be married and have five children at a young age, then to raise all of us to be energetic, happy adults, producing 12 successful, happy grandchildren (ages 2-25), is an accomplishment in itself. That family love has been so valuable in both my life and that my brothers and sisters and our children, of your sisters and brother, your cousins, your in-laws, and those family members who have passed. The  meals, the attendance in times of sickness, the caring for our children, the lovely birthday and holiday parties you throw, and let's not forget all the dear and thoughtful gifts. And of course there are just the considerate things that you share and do, including sending sweet thank you notes, calling to check in, giving us vegetables from your garden and taking us to lunch. I can hear it in your voice and feel it in your warm hugs that you love me.

But your arms reach further, to the people in need in your church, your community, and the world. Your Bible study leadership to steer women to better understand the word of God, your monthly trips downtown to feed the homeless, the annual events for which you serve joyfully for your small Texas town, and the mission trips into the world all speak of yours and God's love for others beyond your family. People in your circle of influence through your profession as a Realtor, as a neighbor, a Republican woman, a Christian member of a church and a friend, know you and speak well of you. Thank you for your extensive consideration me and of others, for teaching me how to love and for just being you.

I could write for hours, but alas, the weekend laundry - with school uniforms and PE outfits, jeans and t-shirts are calling, as are the daily lunches and the prep of the morning coffee. Besides that, I need my sleep if I am to ever be the wonderful mother and friend that you are to me. I love you mom - Happy Birthday!

All Night Long

Last night, after I tucked in my two teenagers at 11 pm, I thought it would be an interesting experiment to stay up all night long and watch one or the other as they slept, not thinking that it would ever come to pass. As it so happened, I  got my inclination, although my desire to see one of them sleeping was not to be so.

After I went to bed, tossed and turned for a half hour or so, and then fell asleep, I was awoken at 12:55 am by my oldest. "Mom, the hives are not going away, and I'm really itchy," she said. We experienced this in the fall when for no apparent reason, Rachel started with hives on her back, then to her chest, arms and legs, with her feeling very ill. We went to the ER after presuming correctly that it was an allergic reaction to an antibiotic she was taking. She received the adrenaline, hive-stopping benadryl-type drug (she's allergic to antihistamines), 60 mg of Prednisone, and we were on our way. Departure time to the ER was 1 am, and we got home at about 4 am.

This time though, there was no apparent reason for the hives. She began to see them soon after dinner, around 8 pm, uncomfortable but not unbearable, on her back. By the time she woke me, they had spread to her chest and stomach. I gave her a 10mg dose of Prednisone that was remaining from the past time, put cool compresses on her back and stomach. By 2 am, they were on her neck, so I kept up with the compresses, braided her hair and recited scripture. By 3 am, they had spread to her arms and legs, and her lip was beginning to swell. This is when I could no longer tolerate my baby in such discomfort, and I looked online to see what my next step might be with her lip swelling. Emergency medical attention is what webmd, mayo clinic and other online sites told me to do, as it may progress to anaphalactic shock, in which the remainder of the mouth and the throat also swells and can stop breathing. The steroids would take at least 2 hours to have an effect and had not made a difference, especially she had been given such a small dosage.

We woke Kevin and told him our plan, and that he would need to take the youngest to middle school that morning whether we were home or not. Departure time was 3:11 am. We arrived seconds before a car pulled up and went inside the entrance of St. David's ER in Bee Cave (we parked in the nearest spot) and while waiting behind the man in the lobby, were shuffled into a room. I noted that we were not with him, with the nurse showing some confusion, but she led Rachel into a room and asked me to wait at the desk to receive sign-in paperwork. I soon joined my daughter in the room where I entered just as the nurse was asking her, "do you smoke? drink alcohol? do drugs?" with her back to me. Rachel rather smugly said "no" to all of the questions as she was facing me. She was given a shot of adrenaline in the arm (ow - we both almost cried but started laughing to take away the fear and pain), some benadryl-replacement and 40 mg of Prednisone. We were able to leave just before 5 am.

The rest of the story is that because Rachel had not eaten anything unusual or different that day and had taken no drugs either, the very kind, former army doctor felt that it could possibly be a reaction to something that blew in with the cold front that came in that afternoon. He said that the lip swelling is a new reaction and that she might be better off if she were to be prepared next time and have an epi-pin on hand to administer if she started reacting in this way again. The possibility of anaphalactic shock exists if it progresses one step more each time. The tough part is that it costs over $300, and only lasts a year. We will pray that she doesn't have another reaction such as what occurred last night, but what if? An ER visit is much more expensive.

Rachel was so sweet and calm throughout the entire ordeal, except for the shot, which helped calm me. I count my blessings that my children are so undemanding for attention and care (maybe because they get plenty), and that they do appreciate it when we provide for them.

Tonight, I hope to go to bed by 10 pm, since I'm running on a little over 4 hours of sleep now. And, the next time I even THINK about staying up all night, I'll immediately dismiss it as being frivolous!