I was a bit bothered…
So I go to this site called MckMama Without Pity which is a site that discusses the half truths, lies, and real facts behind the blog MckMama.com. Most of the time it's pretty civil, no real nastiness (ie, no name calling, commenting on things that shouldn't be commented on, etc.) Sometimes it gets nasty but the moderator is able to reign people in because the blog isn't meant to bash MckMama. It's meant to inform people of the things MckMama leaves out of her own blog. I started going after MckMama's Blissdom speech where she made it seem like God blessed her more for being a great Christian and cured her child. I wasn't too surprised by her thought process because having read her blog for so long it wasn't anything new. But it was new to those she was speaking to and I certainly understood the hurt and anger felt like some about what she said.
This site popped up soon after, maybe because once again MckMama had managed to do something that angered many, apparently she angered people with how she handled the April Rose scandal (which is how I found her in the first place through articles.) I was surprised. When you read MckMama's site you'd think life was insanely perfect. I mean she'd talk about some ups and downs in the marriage, but other than that you would think everything was perfect. Come to find out they have insane financial issues (not anymore due to her blog, and don't get me wrong, more power to her making money off her blog), domestic violence issues, repoed car issues, etc.
Now I can certainly understand why someone wouldn't bring this up. The thing that bothered me more so than anything and still to this day is her marriage advice that she gives. Although she's never outright come out and said her hubby was charged with domestic violence twice (he was on a year old probation) but it was implied that there were serious issues where the police came, so you could deduce domestic violence out of it. Now she gives marriage advice, especially about being submissive. And this is so dangerous it's not even funny. It'd be like me giving medical advice on how to treat a child with Hyperinsulinism just because my daughter has it. It's improper and dangerous to even think illness' or marriages are all alike. Recently MckMama posted that all marriages could be saved, no qualifiers. Even went as far at one point to say even those who have molestation involved can be saved if both parties work at it. This belief failed to recognize the emotional impact on a child if you were to some how reform a child molester (which is unlikely anyhow). She back tracked on that opinion of course because even some of her most hard core followers couldn't fathom that sort of belief system.
Anyhow this post was supposed to be about something else. LOL! MckMama went on a trip for Compassion International to bring awareness to CI and their mission in Africa. Basically they're a feed the children like organization. What bothered me about this trip was the almost zoo like aspect to it. The point was to go out and take pictures and tell a story (which MckMama did horribly but whatever). But to me the going out and taking pictures, like these people should be gawked at like that, just bothered the crap out of me. I understand that to bring awareness we need to see pictures, but some of the pictures just looked like rich white folk walking through the slums taking pictures of the animals. It was sad. Especially when they took them on the tour of the worst part of Kenya. So that bothered me. It would be like walking around in LA finding a homeless camp and taking pictures.
Can you imagine what's going through the mind of those poor families, wondering what the hell these rich white Americans are doing? So that was what I was bothered about in regards to that. Oh and the dude who runs the Organization in her area is either an idiot or just trying to defend his actions for taking MckMama. Some don't think it's appropriate to take a man who was convicted of domestic violence in 2008 on a trip that revolves around visiting children. The director dude said there's no criminal record for either of them. It makes no sense, you can look it up on the court records. So either this guy is lying about it or just trying to defend his choice to have her go.
30 Days
So it lasted 30 days. LOL! My break. The main reason I've "opened" the blog back up is because I'll be doing some more work with Associated Content and this is a way to distribute it especially via google. So I wanted this as an option. Also I can't tell you how much I wanted to write about, and just didn't because frankly why would I bitch about local politics in a journal?
I want to blog differently this time around. Not sure I'll actually do it differently. But I want to be able to just post stuff and not worry. With that in mind because I will probably be posting on one issue in general that has been bothering me lately, I do moderate comments. I don't do it for any other reason other than the spam. If you're down right mean, then it won't get posted. But if you're respectful it will be posted. I don't mind people who disagree. I just don't like people who don't understand how to "debate" without getting personal.
Anyhow we'll see how it goes. The post I want to write is going to take a while to put together.
The Right Choice: Carl Edwards
The Right Choice: Carl Edwards
An article that details Carl Edwards recent decision to teach Brad Keselowski a lesson by causing him to crash. A crash that could have ended in serious injury to not only Brad or other drivers, but fans watching the race.
Read More
My Valentines
Today I went out with Brian. We saw Book of Eli (don't see it). That's all I'm going to say about that movie. But it was nice to go out.
What was funny is we left for the movie shortly after the Daytona 500 started. I returned home nearly 4 hours later and the race was still on. And it ended great as well.
Do I think Dale Jr. has a chance at the championship this year? No. But I think he'll do better. Bonus would be him winning it though. I just don't get my hopes up.
The baby is beating me up from the inside. She's especially active at night which to me means she'll have to be trained at birth to sleep at night, not be awake.
Tomorrow we're doing a Toddler Chef cooking thing. Hopefully the kids enjoy it. Then I'm babysitting for a friend, much to the pleasure of my mother. LOL! But it shouldn't be long.
I was going to write an interesting post, but nope I have nothing interesting to write at the moment.
X Months…
Oddly enough with this pregnancy I haven't been able to figure out how many months I am. I think I'm five months. The one thing I know for sure, I'm 21 weeks tomorrow.
Saw the doctor today! Heartbeat sounded good. Doctor seemed please.
Lost 4lbs as well. I'm hoping to continue to lose as well. I know some people are thinking, WHAT?! But I'm obese I could stand to lose the weight. The baby is measuring fine, actually big, so the baby isn't suffering since I'm losing. Actually I think the baby is benefiting.
I asked her what my glucose number was when I did my glucose test at 10 weeks. She said 107. 130 is when you hit the high and above normal range. I'm happy, 107 is better than when I was pregnant with Kaylee. So that's great. Hopefully at 26 weeks I will pass that one hour as well.
My blood pressure, which always worries me, was 120/74. Back down to where I was pre-Kaylee. My blood pressure has never been high, but since Kaylee it went up a bit to 130s/80s. So I'm glad to see it back down to where I'm used to seeing it. This might be because of the weight loss. Or maybe because I'm not eating as many things with salt in them and I'm drinking more water? Eh, who knows. But it's low. Blood Pressure issues scare the shit out of me. Mainly the fact that you can have a stroke and die. I'd prefer to live.
I talked to the doctor about my heartbeat issues and I feel better now. I think part of it is anxiety, you can have attacks even without feeling the emotions, and also just hormones. I do notice it only happens for a few days a month and she says you have rushes of hormones each month, almost like PMSing. That's when this happens. She said as long as I don't faint, it should be a problem. So I feel better.
I asked about my birth plan as well. With Kaylee I never got to go over it. It's nothing huge, I just told her I'd rather not be barking orders out at the hospital. She said to bring it in next time and we'd go over it. She said no problem with wanting to go over it early, she totally understands.
I'm sure I had other questions but I didn't write them down. I didn't ask about alternatives to Epidurals and Spinal Blocks, mainly because she said we'd go over the birth plan next time. So when we go over that I'll talk to her about alternatives.
I'm feeling the baby daily, especially at night. She says that's how it goes. LOL! I said yeah I'll have to retrain this baby when she's born. LOL!
Baby Registry
I should just create one here on this site, lol! Because not everything I want comes on the same site but most are on my Babies R Us register.
For instance this Packin' Smart 5 Tier system is so very cool. You could pack a whole days worth of formula in it. So very cool.
Then there is this Baby Leg Warmers. So cute!
There are a few other things that I can't remember right now, one I know is far too much money anyhow.
Tomorrow I see the doctor by the way. We'll see how things are going.
Zee Craft
So Kaylee saw this craft on NickJr yesterday morning so I told her we could do it, luckily I had all the material needed to do it. Zee is typically a blue bird but I let her pick out the colors. She went with pink of course. It's made of felt. The directions say felt is best but you can also do it with a fabric I suddenly can't remember the name of.
What you do it go over to NickJr and print out the patterns and then just glue everything together. What's kind of cool too is if you want you can make it a hand puppet by not glueing the bottom shut. I stuffed this one with stuffing so it's a little plush animal instead.
Later today we're going to make Moose. Sadly for a 3 year old, this craft kind of is boring to do. Mainly because they can't do the cutting, only the gluing and the cutting part takes forever. So my advice is to cut the patterns out before you even tell your child you are going to be doing it so that when you do start it's simply gluing everything in place.
You can make other animals as well, I'm thinking of doing a cat and a dog as well. I'll put up pictures of our creations.
The Reach of the Internet…
So off and on I do website google searches on some of the blogs I read just to see what's going on. Recently on of the Mommy Bloggers gave a speech that I guess came off as condescending and offensive to some at the conference she was giving the speech at. I read the speed and maybe because I already know she's insanely religious, I'd put her up there on the fundi level, it wasn't much of a surprise to me. Perhaps though these people at the speech didn't know of her, or were just not avid readers of hers. What she said is nothing she hasn't said before. I can see though why her statements would anger someone especially those with children suffering with disorders or life threatening illness'. The common statement was, "Why won't/didn't God heal my child?" I'd actually like to see her answer that question. See what her thoughts are on the subject. But I'd hazard to guess based on her previous posts that she'd just say simply that it's God's will. That doesn't answer the question of Why though but she's not God nor should she even try to speak for God, and I would hope she never would.
Anyhow back to the reason for this post. During this I stumbled upon a website dedicated to pointing out the lies and what they deem bad parenting of this blogger. Some of it is amazing, it's public record if you wanted to dig that deep. It also makes you wonder about how happy her life really is and why organizations such as Focus on the Family would even hold her family up to be a representative of the organization. Her husband was arrested twice on domestic violence last year. Hardly the model of a perfect family. But they have become very religious, I think even more religious than before, so perhaps it's a story of redemption that Focus likes? Who knows, and frankly don't care cause I'm not a fan of Focus at all.
It's just interesting to know the true person behind the blog. The real struggles they've had, which I think she should openly address, and speak to. I mean many people in this nation/world go through these same things, losing homes, debt, domestic violence, sick children, skewed priorities, etc... so why not go ahead and actually speak to those things and how her faith and strength helped guide her through. Instead she deletes, bans and basically ignores anyone who questions her on those issues. There is nothing wrong with what's happened in her life, so why she feels the need to hide them is beyond me. But sometimes people just like to keep the crappy stuff private. I think it just shows who you are when you tell everything.
Anyhow that was my thoughts on the whole thing. I'll continue to follow both sites just because I find it fascinating. Plus the length some people will go to get information is amazing as well.
The art of being ripped off…
So back in Sept. we broke our lease on the house. Now we knew this would most likely mean the losing of our deposit and we were okay with that. But of course that wasn't enough for the property management company. They sent us a bill for $902 dollars.
Well we didn't have the money to pay that so we kind have been sitting on it. Today I sat down, because I have the money now, to write out a letter because they were charging a fee, which has no explanation. It's just some amount they put on the bill, no reasoning behind it. Frankly I'll pay for things that need to be paid for, but I won't pay for anything that I'm not legally liable to pay for.
So I sat down to write out my letter and do some research, cause I like to word these things correctly, I don't want to sound like a moron. In my research I found though that the charges for cleaning the house, inside and out, couldn't be charged. I mean they're no real law on it, but since they refused to do a walk thru with us, they gave us no ability to clean the house to their specifications. So according to the website, which I used to break the lease before, if this case was to go to court, they'd probably not get that cost because as a landlord you have to give that opportunity to the tenant to clean the house to your liking, which we weren't given at all.
So that meant 402 off the 902 because that's how much they were charging for cleaning. Then they were charging a 425 termination fee, no explanation of what it was for. Landlords have to prove damages in order to charge tenants. And since the lease itself didn't list a money amount I don't believe they have the right to just pull an amount out of their ass. I mean what prevents them from saying the fee is $1000? So I just am really wondering what the 425 covers, you know damages and loss wise.
So subtract that amount and it drops it down to like 75 bucks. So I'm finishing up the letter and putting together a table to explain better what I did and why and realize they're charging us for a month of rent, when it was vacant. No problem, I fully expected that. But wait, the rent is 1808.33 instead of what we were paying 1750. I'm not sure where they got their rent number. I looked at the paper, it says that it's unpaid rent for just 1 month. The paper says we were out on the 30th of Sept. So there are no days that are over so why 1808.33 and not 1750. I don't know why they did this, whether it was a mistake or just another attempt at getting more money. So I adjusted the price to the correct one.
So once all is said and done, if they take my arguments, even if they hate it, and realize they really have no standing on these things, I'll owe them 17.25. I'm sending a check that says paid in full. We'll see if they cash it, I'm hoping they do so.
I don't ask much, and I certainly don't want to take advantage of anyone, but just because I'm a tenant doesn't mean I get to be taken advantage of myself. And often property management companies do that to their tenants and it's not right. I know the law, and I know how it applies, so the best they could do is at least follow the laws with me.
So we'll see how this turns out. Should be interesting.
Counting Cow Farts…
Apparently they kill and need to be regulated. LOL! Seriously this state is spending 350K on counting cow farts. Insane.
And to add more to the hilarity is the Air Resources Board who are trying to basically get us all to stop driving our cars because they think we're destroying the environment. Now don't get me wrong, I think emission standards are good things, but these people are going overboard. And in particular ruining business' for many people, causing people to lose their business due to enacting standards based on false science. And that's just downright wrong. I mean people are struggling as it is, and here is a group trying to put people out of business with false information, and lying to the public about this science.
Then there is a moron down in Orange County introducing a bill to the State Senate to make free parking, meaning parking in front of your house on the street, at business, etc... illegal unless you pay for a permit or pay a fee at the parking site. What?! His belief is that people won't drive to the stores and so forth and will take public transportation instead.
He's obviously not thought this through at all. First I will not be walking to the store to do my grocery shopping. Second not everyone has a great public transit system. I mean seriously imagine how many business' will lose sales because people are just unwilling to part with their money? I mean people are struggling, we have the highest unemployment in the states, from what I understand, and they're trying to take more or our money away.
If charging for parking wasn't enough, they have more ideas, like charging us to drive on the roads. I'm not sure how they intend to do this, perhaps putting some sort of emissions monitor on the car. But they want to charge people who drive the streets and freeways for doing so. Another option is to just make it so that you can't drive the freeways without paying to do so. Or if you want to drive in the prime lanes on the freeway (the Carpool and number 3 lane) they'd charge for that. Or just charging to drive in the Car Pool lane in general, as if car pooling isn't saving the environment enough.
It's all insane if you ask me. This state is darn near bankrupt and instead of cutting pay salaries, cutting the waste, they're trying to make it harder for us to live in this state. I mean a whole bunch of companies have left this state because the taxes are insane. Now they're working on driving a whole lot more out of the state.
I'm sure that California isn't the only state going through this stuff right now. By the way people if you live in California and ever come across a petition to make our legislature a part-time one, please sign it. It will save us money. It's not like the fools work full-time anyhow. We're one of like 3 states who have a full-time legislature. We don't need a full-time one.
On a side note, if you vote for Meg Whitman, frankly that's just a bad idea. The woman couldn't even take the time to care to vote on our elections for the last 10 or so years, and now she suddenly has interest? Hell no. She's just looking to put another rung on her ladder, say she got to the governors office. Poizner is who we should be voting for. The man knows how to run a government agency, and in my opinion has run it damn good. So vote for the guy who actually knows how to deal with politicians and doesn't take crap from them. I know can you believe it, I'm endorsing a Republican.
