“Do the next thing”

What I didn’t say at tonights local meeting held by the Democrat Senator of my state district.  The meeting was supposed to inform the masses about the Republican Governor’s state budget proposal, and the dangers it contains.

“I’m happy to tell all of you here today that my husband and I have taken it upon ourselves to carry the burden of educating our own children so that you don’t have to spend your money, time and effort on them. We are almost done privately funding the KI-12 education of four of this state’s future citizens.  We shopped the market and determined that the best bang for our buck was for me to sacrifice potential income and stay home with them.  We have payed for, or borrowed, or bartered for all of our curriculum, extra curricular activities, private lessons, tutors, field trips, etc. with my husband’s paycheck, our own creativity, and God’s grace.  It wasn’t always easy. Sometimes the strain on our early married years of meager income required resourcefulness.  It built character in all of us.

I know what you are thinking.  Never fear, we did indeed pay every dime of the property taxes due from us as property owners in Bath these past 12 years.  Even the 55%, give or take, that went exclusively toward the education of everyone else’s children.

Now, I’ve heard a lot tonight about things in the new Governor’s budget proposal being “so unfair”.  I don’t exactly believe that our household paying twice for education is exactly fair.  We have not expected a refund, however, because we know life is not fair, and we realize that it never will be. Life is hard;  it always has been, and it always will be.

We’ve gotten over it.

I woke up to snow falling today.  It does cover all the dirty snow with a fresh coating.  It also reminds me that winter is long in Maine.

Today Fran is traveling to Fort Jackson to deliver a care package to Adam, and to try to snap a few photos.  I hope he has a successful trip.  It’s only an hour away from where he has been going to school for the last two months.  Adam will be there until May 12th.  Fran will be leaving his school in Georgia on Tuesday and will be home sometime that night.

Micah received an Army Achievement Medal in a ceremony in Iowa yesterday.  Micah returns home tonight from his two week Advanced Training with his Maine Army National Guard unit.

Today Anna and I travel to Winthrop for her SMASH cast party.  It’s a long one, lasting from 3:00 to 8:30. Should be interesting.  Lot’s of teenagers, and lots of food…hmm….

Friday and Saturday Anna and I attended the homeschool convention in our state.  It’s an annual event, and it’s more of a reunion then anything else.  Anna gets to swim in the hotel pool and hang out with friends inbetween attending workshops.  I took a lot of photos of convention goers in between workshops.  The speakers were inspiriational as they usually always are.

When we got home we returned to our first letter from Adam at basic training.  He’s doing fine but has run into some of the same frustrations that his brothers did.  Why do some of the trainees think that “no talking” doesn’t refer to them?  The order to “give me 20″ certainly does.

Tried to do taxes today.  It’s the same software program I’ve been using every year since 2006.  Why does it seem so much more complicated this year?  Didn’t it used to auto-fill some demographic and other information from old returns?  Whatever, I had to stop and save my work;  I’ll tackle it another day.  I’m pretty sure we’re paying, so I’m not in a hurry.

There is this lingering comment waiting for my approval to a post I put up a week ago.  I don’t know the person, and I’m not used to getting comments from strangers.  I’m aware of only a few people who ever even read this.  Usually if they are strangers, they introduce themselves, and say what made them read and comment.

Sipping coffee because I’m tired.

Today I cleaned out Fran’s car.  The thermometer said it was warm, (40F), but the wind chill revealed otherwise. When that task was done, I looked up today’s gas war prices in town on mainegasprices.com and then drove over to Puffin Stop to fill up.  I know, on FB this is gas strike day, but, whatever.  Anyway, I don’t know if the gas cap is broken, or someone siphoned and was alarmed and interrupted, but whichever the case, the gas cap fell off into my hand.  It doesn’t seem to screw back on tightly.

Mountain Dew cupcakes?  Anna’s latest food adventure.  This was a test run for the batch she’s been asked to bake for the SMASH cast party on the 19th.

HOME Convention tomorrow.  Ok, it’s starting with its first workshop right now, but really?  It’s hard enough to rationalize the money for one hotel stay up in Rockland, much less two.  We’ll leave here bright and early tomorrow to attend what always used to be a two-day event.  Of course one of the workshops I most would have liked to attend is happening now, but I’ll get the cd, (has anyone ever listened to the free cd you get with your paid registration?  I haven’t.)

Still no letter from Adam.  He said he wrote one.  I believe him. When the rest of the guys went to BCT they sat them down and made them write a letter home saying they arrived safe and were doing fine.  I expect no less this fourth time around.  Soon enough it will arrive.

Five Hour Energy commercials.  Silly commercials.  They try to sell their product as if the only reason people ever drink coffee is for the energy.  As if!  I like coffee.  I like the taste of it sweetened and creamed.  The reliance on it for the morning wake-up and the afternoon restart was a side effect.

So, I’ve seen it but have never done it; list random thoughts that sum up my day, week, or whatever.  Here goes.

I’m looking for a very skinny pouch to tuck my Kindle into so it will be protected from any mishap like my hand lotion opening in my purse. This has never happened to me, but it would be disappointing if it suddenly decided to happen while my Kindle was tucked “safely” away.  I’m looking for the thinnest plastic sleeve similar to some CD sleeves I used to see when CD’s were more, um, seen.

I won my Kindle in a contest.  I wrote about how YNAB software helped our family get out of debt.  One of the six prizes went to me and it was this cool Kindle; I’ve read one book on it, and listened to one other book on it so far.  FB has robbed me of most of my random reading time.  It’s all my fault, I know.

I received my new Tracfone today.  I was able to transfer my phone number and my minutes, but not my contacts or pictures.  A conversation with Fran tells me not to start reloading it manually yet….one of the boys might have a SIM card reader that would do it for me.  Interesting.  Today’s Tracfone guy was Spanish; he would have chosen “1″ for Spanish when calling for tech support.

I got a new Tracfone because my old one stopped working.  Too bad, cause the tech on the phone who tried to help me for at least a half hour last week spoke clear American English and even understood my humor, frustration and sarcasm.  I don’t try any of that, oh, except the frustration, when I’m the phone with a foreign sounding person.

Anna made some yummy macaroons today.  Another friend suggested they’d be even better with chocolate. She might be right.  Isn’t everything better with chocolate?  She used the cream that separated in a can of coconut milk.  There is still some of it left so I have to figure out what to do with it.  I know, Google.  I’ll get to it.

I like watching Kitchen Nightmares.  I’ve just finished Season 1 and started with Season 2, all on Hulu.

There is still a lot of construction dust around here.  It’s mostly all around the edges of the floors…we’ve walked the rest of it onto our socks and washed it away in our laundry.

Micah just emailed; he has a sim card reader with him…in Iowa. He’ll help me do the task when he gets home…in two weeks.

The recent rain washed about two feet of snow away.  Now there is only about a foot left.

It’s hard to read posts on Facebook by people who miss their husbands because they’ve been gone for a week, (or less.)  I know that’s a looonnggg time to them, so I refrain from commenting, but I do sigh or scowl just a little.  We’re at six weeks down, two to go.  For this round.  Then we start it all over again in July. Incidentally, I know that anyone reading this who has a husband gone for a year-long deployment would wonder what my problem is since Fran’s only been gone for six weeks.  I know.  I get that too.

Now I need to go up and strip the bed.  Anna told me that the cat threw up on it, and while she cleaned up most of it for me, (she is amazing,) she said I’ll still want to wash the linens.  That was this morning, and I forgot about it and here it is 8:19pm.  Guess I’ll be using my back-up quilt……..quiltsssssss.

That was fun. Bye.  Maybe next time I’ll add photos.