…from Joannie.

I predict that the Dow will drop another 500 points this week after Pres Obama reverse Federal Funding for embryonic stem cell research.

What does that add up to? Lots of moving! Six “homes” in 4 1/2 years of marriage!  At least we will be here for a long long time.

On a whim, shortly after C was born, I picked up one of those home magazines at the grocery store. While flipping through it, I found a house in a decent neighborhood going for $15,900. Yes, you read that right. With that home, we were introduced to the world of bank owned properties. That house was not to be. It needed so much work, I was willing to offer $1000.00 for it. However it did open our eyes to what was available in this area. We set out looking at houses that were in our price range.

We found one that was pretty cute and totally redone on the inside. It was in our price range, however, the neighborhood wasn’t the best and the view out of the back door wasn’t too pleasant. So we decided to put that on our list but to keep plugging along. At this point, we contacted an agent and she helped us out quite a bit.

We spent part of an afternoon looking at houses with her. The first one we looked at was nice, 4 bedrooms and huge. However, the current owner just rented it out but was trying to sell it as a “move in now” deal. What? So we crossed that one off of the list. The next few were pretty crappy and one had train tracks in the back yard. There was one that was awesome, but the owners didn’t seem to be interested in making the house available for showing, so we crossed that one off the list.

The last one we looked at was this house. It was bank owned and we knew from experience that those homes tended to need a lot of TLC. Joshua decided to just go in with the agent. I sat in the the car with the kids and a few minutes later, the agent came out and said J wanted me to go in and look at it. One walk in and I was “sold”. It is old old and beautiful. Sure it needs some work (and got quite a bit of it as we moved in and discovered plumbing issues!) but the price was right and when we get the little things done, it will be awesome.

I will post some pictures eventually of the house (like when boxes aren’t all over the place). I do have a question though, how is it that I more than doubled my kitchen space and still don’t have room for all the stuff. Oh well, this is the time to clean. 🙂 More later!

This past week we were blessed with near sixty degree weather. It was very nice and then it got cold again. The cold was ushered in by, get this, a cold front. There were servere thunderstorm warnings for all over the area. We had some wind and about three flahes of lightening. Bummer. I LOVE thunderstorms.

A few years ago, a dear friend of mine, Rick, passed away at the young age of 40. Rick worked as a researcher at the Byrd Polar Institute at Ohio State University. For a few weeks each spring, he went storm chasing. Yes, just like you see on television. We were supposed to go storm chasing sometime, but he died before we could get a chance. (And no, he did not die chasing storms.) Now, whenever we have svr wx, I think of him and have a great urge to go storm chasing.

It was nice to take the kids out with just a light jacket on. So much easier to get out of the house. Speaking of getting out of the house, Johsua jumped the Mitsubishi and it runs again. Praise God that a dead battery is all the problem was. So now we don’t have to share a car. It wasn’t that big of a deal, except on Sundays when he would have to stay after mass to teach Confirmation Class and I needed to pick him up just an hour and a half after getting home. For some reason, that was just hard to do. Now today, he will drive himself home! Also, it saves wear and tear on the van. For some reason, because it is new to us, I don’t want to put a bunch of miles on it.

I think this is probably going to be long blog post.

Joshua turns 30 tomorrow. He doesn’t like to have a big deal made about his birthday, so we aren’t going to do much. I will create some yummy meal from food we have in the kitchen and go from there. I might make a cake, but I don’t know. I have bananas that need to be used up, so I just might make banana bread.

We are hoping to buy a house soon, so I am starting to box up things we don’t use much (like dishes and bathroom items). Last night I boxed up our wine glasses, so we need to buy a house soon!

I have discovered NCIS. Last weekend when J was in NYC, I was bored and found NCIS on cbs.com, so I started watching it. I really liked it. So now I watch season six on line then we borrow season one from the library. The library charges $1 per DVD for certain DVDs, and in our desire to save money, that dollar is a lot of money. I guess it is a good thing that they only have season one.

Something else I have been interested in is the economy lately. I have become fascinated with how this all came about. We try our best to live debt free and for the most part do pretty well. We don’t make much money. (We actually make so little that our government pays us, really) However, we try our best to live within our means. We have internet, yes, because of Joshua’s business. We don’t have cable though. We have a newer car, but that was because the little green car needed some major fixing. We shopped for the best deal around and got it. We eat well, but don’t go out to eat often, if ever. For grocery shopping, I go to Aldi for our canned goods and at Kroger, I buy mostly manager special things. (I only buy meat if it is on sale or manager special). With that being said, we get by just fine. Our kids have clothes and are nicely dressed. Our bills are paid on time each month.

I don’t understand how it is that people who make twice as much as we do or even more, have a hard time paying their bills. If you can’t afford something, don’t buy it. New cars aren’t a necessity. Television is not a necessity. Going out to eat, while nice once in a while, is not a necessity. Buying a house? Buy what you can afford! Really.

Off my soapbox now!

Have a great Sunday!

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/02/06/florida.abortion/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

I wouldn’t recommend reading this if you are feeling emotional. It is about an “abortion doctor” in FL who lost his license in a live birth abortion case. After reading it, the second coming can’t come soon enough. I am amazed that God has not shown his wrath to us. If anything, this is showing that He is so full of mercy towards us poor wretched sinners.

Abortion is has not offered a “choice” for women, it has created a prison. If you think about it, a woman who becomes pregnant and the time is not “right” or the conditions are not “ideal” she is “encouraged” to have an abortion. The pressure is intense. The reasons tossed out “You won’t be able to finish school”; “You don’t want your parents to find out”; “I will not support this baby”; “Your child will be a criminal because his father is”. The list could go on.

So then a woman ends up at an abortion clinic to “remove” the “problem”. Then we get cases like the one linked above.
Lord Jesus, have mercy on us.

I have family members who worship the Fox News Channel. When you go to their house, it is always on. One family member even went as far as saying that it was a very Catholic news channel. Sure if you can call the CINO: Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Steve Doocy and so on Catholic. I have found their “fair and balanced” not to be “fair and balanced” at all. It seems to be very sensational and trying to draw peoples ire.

But my real issues is with their website. Why worry about young children accessing p*rn when foxnews.com is full of it. Britney and Madonna kisssing, links to overseas news with nudity, pictures of women mostly naked, talking about their “fat factor”. The stories have been awful lately. Completely sensationalized. Very graphic headlines about the little girl in Florida whose body was found last month. Graphic headlines about how young children die, about abuse cases, about who is gay and who isn’t.

It is a sad day when I think that CNN is more “fair and balanced” then Fox News. It is also a sad day when I would rather use CNN.com as my news source.

foxnews.com, consider yourself unplugged.

Please tell me why it is so important to make sure abortions are kept legal in this country. Legal to the point that no state can set its own laws on the subject.

Please tell me why when the majority of the people of the United States of America do not favor late term abortions, you plan to sign legislation that will allow abortions to be performed during all stages of  pregnancy, even when the baby is viable outside of the womb?

What does Planned Parenthood have on you that you would cater to their wishes and believe their lies? What does Planned Parenthood have on your Vice President that he would go against the Catholic Church (the religion that he claims to be a member of) reason his way in to accepting abortion as a “good” thing.

Mr. President, if you love this country as much as you claim to love it, keep in mind the words of a wise man “…a country cannot kill 50 million of its own and stay on top forever.”