Stickers

In the beginning of this year, I came into work after a long weekend to find a calendar on my desk.  There was no note as to who it was from and no one claimed the gift when I asked around.  The calendar features pigs in various costumes and settings, some of which are very amusing. December’s pig is dressed like Scarlett O’Hara complete with a grand staircase behind her and posed on a suitcase featuring stickers from various destinations all over the world.  I looked at the picture today after flipping the page to this month (I know, I was late) and considered the world of stickers.

Children love stickers.  When I was working on the campaign last year we went to an outdoor festival and the children were clamoring for the campaign stickers we had.  I guess they may associate them with rewards and get a good feeling from them.  But adults like stickers too and some even collect them.  I guess I like stickers too but I don’t go crazy over them.  I somewhat collect political stickers and put them on a clipboard that I use for campaigning.  It matches the collection I have of political buttons I suppose.  The buttons are displayed in my guest room and a few are stored in a overflow box decorated with patriotic stars and stripes.

I suppose bumper stickers are stickers for adults. I used to think they were really tacky and had resisted putting any on my car until recently.  I still will not put a bumper sticker on the bumper, but I have a few on the rear window.  I like magnets more for the car.  I have two magnets on the car but I have a lot on my fridge and a few in my office cubicle.  I get a magnet whenever I travel and it sort has become a thing for me to do now.  But stickers to me are too temporary and once one peels them off they are no good to put back on something. Maybe magnets are similar to stickers in a way, but the bottom line is that it is all about a collection, I think. Since the dawn of time humans have been collecting things so maybe that’s where the fascination comes from.  Humans are often funny creatures.

Date Night

I follow several blogs online.  Some are about cooking, some about miniature building, and some are about gardening.  The other day I came across a posting for a blog named Not Without Salt, a cooking blog that has some great recipes on it. This particular post talked about something called Eaton Mess, an English dessert that the author took some liberty with. Many of the recipes I read of hers are great and often look wonderful.  I try to replicate some, but often my attempts don’t look as appetizing as hers.  Perhaps as she is an art major, there is a level of artistic skill that I just don’t possess.

The other day she was talking about a date night she spends with her husband.  They have young children and when the children are in bed, they turn their attention to each other and concentrate on their adult world.  I somewhat envy her not because of her young children or her young marriage, but because she has time to enjoy with her husband.  It seems as if I am always doing something outside the home.  I realize that much of these obligations are things that I have taken on myself and I only have me to blame for my lack of time, but I envy the time she talks about where she can spend quality time with her mate.

My husband and I do try to enjoy each other’s company and have done a pretty good job through the 28 years we have been married.  We don’t set up a specific date night, but often one of us will express the need for one realizing we haven’t done one in a while.  We usually leave weekend nights to watch movies on our DVD player, or have a fire in the fire pit, and enjoy a glass of wine at the same time.  I know those evenings don’t result in “sparkling conversation” as my stepfather was fond of saying, but it’s the togetherness that we share.  Our son is grown and flown so we don’t have to worry about him going to bed or worry about when he is coming home (trust me, there is always worry going on about him – well at least on my end), so it’s just the two of us.  But I think we have made the best of our marriage and our partnership through some pretty rough patches in our lives. I agree that it is important to have a date night with your significant other to rekindle the attraction you first felt for each other no matter the path each of you has taken.  It seems like time together away from the world is a piece of the formula that couples are looking for when aiming for a long marriage.

Dreams

So I didn’t hit the lottery.  Oh well, the dreams were good while they lasted.  I actually very rarely play but after reading an article about the lottery, I just might do it more. 

Of the $2 cost of a Powerball ticket, $1 goes to the prizes and the other dollar is kept by the state lottery organization, said Lingle, who also is executive director of the South Dakota Lottery. After administrative overhead is paid, the remaining amount goes to that state's beneficiary programs.

Some states designate specific expenditures such as education, while others deposit the money in their general fund to help supplement tax revenue

I thought about what I would do if I hit the big one and won $500 million.  While I was thinking about all the groups I would give money to, including my school district, my municipality, and some other organizations I work with, I thought people who hit should share the wealth.  Sure there are taxes taken out and I believe the states who sell the winning tickets probably get a big share of that winner’s taxes, but it occurred to me that people who win lotteries pretty much keep the money for themselves where they should be helping others with it.  I have heard terrible stories of people committing suicide or spending it all on liquor, drugs, prostitutes, and fast cars.  I am sure there are plenty more who spend it wisely and help a lot of people along the way, and that’s the way it should be.

But overall knowing that the $5 or $10 that I spend on lottery tickets can help my state, maybe I might be inclined to play more.  I am certainly not advocating gambling as a way of life or as a way to pull us out of the debt our state is in, but it sure if fun to dream a little, and maybe that’s just the point of it.

Invisible Illness

At this time of the year we often try to think of gifts for Christmas.  Often I see posts on Facebook about “invisible illnesses” where people look perfectly fine but are suffering inside.  These kinds of illnesses such as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), Epstein Barr, Lupus, and other autoimmune illnesses can play havoc on ones lives and the lives of their families.  They often go undiagnosed for a long time because the person is uncertain why they feel so wretched yet look totally normal and don’t think they have something really wrong with them.  Many doctors often overlook them as well. 

For many years I suffered from CFS.  It was shortly after my son was born that I developed a high fever that lasted about three days.  After the fever went down, it stayed at 99 degrees for about 2 years and was accompanied by an incredible feeling of fatigue and a mild sore throat and swollen glands.  In addition, I had spells when my memory was so bad I couldn’t remember how to get to work.  Through it all I still went to work and cared for my young son with enormous help from my husband.  It is not an experience I would like to go through again.

I was lucky in that I found a doctor who was sympathetic with my condition and tried various things to determine what I had and how he could help me.  I ultimately went to a doctor who prescribed massive doses of certain vitamins which took me into a remission.  I also think that my symptoms were not as severe as others who may have the disease otherwise I don’t think I would have been able to continue working through it.

One needs to be understanding if a family member is going through such a time in their lives.  Outwardly they don’t appear sick, but inwardly they are fighting everyday to maintain some semblance of a life. It a time like this that they would certainly appreciate a small amount of help in doing daily chores that we often take for granted.  If there is someone in your life who is experiencing anyone of these conditions, doing a small job for them could be the greatest Christmas gift of all.

ADHD

The company I work for has a rather well established Green policy and one part of this is a swap table in the break room where people can put books and other media on instead of throwing them away.  I recently saw a book on the table about ADHD which was written a few years back. Since my son and I have ADHD I am always curious to read any book on that subject to see the latest theory on the “disorder”.  I put the word disorder in quotes as I am not thoroughly convinced that it is truly a disorder.

I read a book a while ago called Attention Deficit Disorder: A Different Perception where the author suggests that rather than thinking of ADHD as being a disorder, that it be thought of as a different personality type.  This theory made all kinds of sense to me.  The author theorizes that there were hunters and farmers in early man times and those personalities have carried over to today.  The reason there are less hunters in the population (ADHD is less of the population) is that hunters are a high risk group and most likely to be killed so that gene was less likely to be passed on through the generations. 

I believe that telling a child they have a “disorder” even if you put it as “special” sets them up for failure.  I don’t think that you should tell your child anything other about why they have difficulties other than helping them cope with things that don’t really go their way during their development.  If you can send them to a school where they are surrounded by other children like them, then they will have less of a problem with self esteem and understand when they get older that everyone is different in their own right.  This is also true by helping your child become aware of diversity at an early age.  By not even thinking that ADHD is a problem and steering them toward thinking of it as a different personality type, then I believe that integration of teaching methods could be done to satisfy all personality types.  Since ADHD is being realized more and more due to population effects, it will eventually become less of a rarity and more of the norm

Sour Grapes

In what can be called a big sour grapes situation, Mitt Romney is now claiming that there were too many minorities how voted for him. A recent article points out that Romney’s campaign was probably one of the least diverse campaign offices around and that seeing a person of a color other than white was a rare sight during his campaign stops.  I noted this myself and was not shocked when I heard his “47% speech”. 

I am sorry to say I just cannot grasp why any minorities would registered as a Republican when that party has become one associated with elitism and privilege.  Being a woman and half Mexican, I don’t believe I could ever register in the GOP.  But being a different color wasn’t all he was complaining about when lamenting about his loss.  He pointed to “gifts” given by the Obama administration.  These so called presents are things like student loans, Social Security and Medicare. I hardly call them “gifts”, but I suppose anyone in the entitled class would consider any help outside of their trust funds and daddy’s wallets is just that.  I just look at all of this as a case of sour grapes and more of a reason why it was a good thing Mr. Romney was not elected.

Entitlements

My husband said to me the other day that he was having a hard time being a Democrat.  It’s not like he was going to register as a Republican or anything, but he was tired of being in a party that was associated with giving handouts.  He and a neighbor were talking about it the other day and both of them were fed up with working hard and getting nothing and seeing others doing nothing and getting so much.  To some extent I agree, but I agree to the point that something needs to be done with the abuses going on.  I believe that if these abuses were taken care of, that a measure of the budget would be taken care of too.

The Wall Street Journal wrote an article about this issue and made some very interesting points.  Their main premise was that entitlements are corrupting this country and have grown significantly over the last twenty five years.  In addition, even though Democrats have been the party associated with entitlements in actuality, according to the WSJ article, it is Republicans who have really jacked up the amount distributed.

What is monumentally new about the American state today is the vast empire of entitlement payments that it protects, manages and finances. Within living memory, the federal government has become an entitlements machine. As a day-to-day operation, it devotes more attention and resources to the public transfer of money, goods and services to individual citizens than to any other objective, spending more than for all other ends combined.

The argument can be made that with today’s economy more and more are deserving of things like food stamps.  It is true that there are more people on food stamps primarily because they have been unable to find a job.  However, entitlements are not just programs for the poor.  Medicare and Social Security are also part of that pot of money, and to me seniors are deserving of it because they have put into the system all those years and should be permitted to take from it.  My issues, like my husband’s issue is the one where generations have lived on handouts and are a leach on society rather than a contributor. 

I personally don’t have issue with paying taxes to help invest in our schools, provide needed infrastructure, and help those who are less fortunate.  But I do have issues with handing over my hard earned dollars to give to someone who is abusing the system and who are making a living off me. In my opinion the abuses to the program is what is in serious need of work rather than the actual amount of money going out.