20 posts from April 2008

I sold two items with my art on them via zazzle.com

This is very good, I may have to post items there more seriously. I never did anything on cafepress, and zazzle lets you set your share of profit %.

I suspect she had McCain to "console" her.

Here is a video for provoking thought: You REALLY need to watch this video!

Gawd, politics just make me want to vomit some days....
It really makes you wonder why we bother to vote at all.

It also makes guys like Alex Jones, (and the things he outlined in the American Dictators Video I mentioned in my last post) look not quite so crazy.

I watched the most fascinating show on the history channel today, on the Mayan Doomsday Prophecies for Dec 21, 2012. More info can be found here.
The actual show I saw can be watched online here if this subject interests you at all. The Mayans were interesting people, they were highly developed in ways no one can explain or justify... especially in regards to math, astronomy and time.

I LOVE ancient knowledge, the symbols, the art, the mythology.... when I was living in New Mexico I became consumed with petroglyph rock art and the meanings behind them. One day I spent the whole day wandering the cliff dwellings near Silver City, as the sun went down the way the desert winds swept the cliffs, they created a moaning sound that sounded like a 1000 voices whispering....it was eerie to listen to it, and yet comforting in somehow. It was almost abstractly spiritual in a way, I found it makes you feel connected to ancient voices and you become acutely aware of the lives that have passed through a place before you.... in a way you can almost see them and you can certainly feel them if you close your eyes and open yourself to the presence of their energy.

Even as a child I felt connected to the energy in the California missions when we visited them. I felt connected to the people who use to live there in weird ways I cannot explain. I think I would have loved living back then.

BTW, the site above that has the Mayan Prophecies Movie up has some other fun videos to watch if you need something to do: http://www.moviesfoundonline.com

For reasons I cannot explain, I enjoyed watching American Dictators, even if you believe Alex Jones is a total lunatic, some of what he puts out there might have at least a small shred of truth in it somewhere.... sorta like Michael Moore's "documentaries".

Yayayayaya... I can walk in the back yard again. A bunch of the neighborhood cats sat on my deck and supervised me. I also found out cats like drinking Arnold Palmers (lemonade and ice tea mixed 50/50)... the little buggers drank 80% of the one I had sitting on the deck.

My next project is going to be a chemical assault on the blackberry bushes. Yes I know, it's bad for the environment...blahblahblah...anyone who condemns me for resorting to the big guns has never been at war with blackberry bushes. They are aggressive and laugh at almost everything you throw at them.

I would love to rototill the back yard and put in fake grass so I never have to mow it again, but that would not be budget friendly, so I am filling the holes, smoothing it out, and as money allows I am putting down chicken wire to keep the moles from the creek from making new craters and laying fresh sod over the top. I plan to half sink about 6-8 home made earth boxes along the edge to garden in. The plans for these are online here: http://www.josho.com/gardening.htm

I reached a settlement with the IRS yesterday, they are sending me paperwork, it could have gone better but they did cut it almost in half. I still don;t feel anyone who supports others on under $35k a year should not be beat up like this but whatever. The payments are affordable and will not kill me.

Afterwards, I went to Viola's for the day and was snubbed for 9 hours by her live-in. Lot's of drama there since we got a mid week visit from a social worker after Vi's cash benefit card was apparently used at a bowling alley last month to withdraw a large amount of money from her cash benefits account. (At least that's what the investigator told me). The live-in put the guy on the phone with Vi's daughter who agreed to take control of the card, the social worker closed the case even though the live-in's explanation made no sense. (He claimed he cash advanced it for a large amount just prior to going grocery shopping on Vi's daughter's say so in order to avoid fees even though you can use it like a debit card at checkout for free). Plus then there is the fact I bought almost all the food I cooked for Vi in March because there were very few groceries (low salt friendly or otherwise) ever brought in. Still... it's done IMHO. If he was taking money, he no longer can. Thankfully I have never had access to her card, & knew nothing about it, yet somehow I am getting blamed for this guy showing up. (The live-in said the investigator told him someone called I guess Vi's worker could have done that, she was out a couple weeks ago and was questioning the food in the house and how we were feeding her). I am sorta in a "what-the-hell-ever" mode at this point. I emailed Vi's daughter and told her this either needs to stop or he (the live-in) needs to be gone when I am there. Life is too short & I am not putting up with this kind of treatment, especially when I did nothing to deserve it, and obviously it needed to happen. If I had known I was going to take the rap for this surprise visit I would have mentioned how often Vi gets left alone when the live-in is in charge of her. (I use to tell her daughter about it, it never changed but I figure telling her makes it her problem not mine). I know Vi gets left alone for hours at a time because she calls me whenever she is alone. It's NOT safe to leave her for long periods of time, and he only has her 3 days a week so there is no excuse for it happening.

Another odd thing happened yesterday, when I got home Karina was going on about how she knows I sacrifice a lot for her and she should appreciate it more, and how I need to start taking care of myself instead of neglecting myself for other people.... and how proud she is on me for caring for people like Vi and my agency clients.
:|

Then I realized she had been out for drinks after work because Keegan is at his dad's... ohhhhh, those vodka induced moments of clarity that I live for! She also said her best friend at work is having trouble at home, on the edge of divorce and if I sell the trailer she might get a place with her, or we could all get one together. Umm, no....you go ahead, I'll be fine. I smell a shot at freedom... dare I hope for this?

I woke this morning bright and early to go have fasting lab work drawn, only to find out the out patient lab does not open till 10am, it made the morning last forever. They took 11 tubes of blood, I feel "drained", quite literally. I celebrated it being over with a hamburger patty, fruit salad and ice tea. Now I need to weedwack the yard.... oh bother.

I am having cravings:
For Knowledge I do not have (mostly mechanical and alt power in nature)
For salads of all kinds
For hot rice smothered in butter, with cheese and green onions sprinkled on top
For more uninterrupted art time
For more order in my life

I want:
To design a human powered pedal  car that holds 2 people and that has eco-friendly back-up power  (prompted by our gas prices jumping from $3.49 to $3.65 over night)
To be done with the down sizing/decluttering
To figure out how to insure a brighter for myself
To stabilize my life
To lose some weight

Thursday was fairly productive, I at least did not sleep through it. I have been battling fatigue lately on a major level.

I did in fact cook:
Crock Pot Roast Beef Ala Oopsie ( I really AM a good cook, but I had lots on my mind and this turned into a comedy of errors, hense the name I gave it. I forgot to brown the roast before dropping it into the crockpot with the 3/4 cup of Safeway Cuban Lime Garlic marinade, but I added the sliced onions anyway and let it cook. When it was almost done and I was siphoning off juice to make gravy with in a separate pan, I accidentally grabbed the cup I had just poured fresh coffee into and did not realize it until it was too late.... not to be beaten I added more flour to some of the actual broth in the other cup and dumped it into the thickened coffee, for pizazz I added 1/4 cup red wine, then I sliced up the roast and put it and the gravy into the crockpot for the last hour of cooking).
I gotta say it was the best roast I ever cooked...honestly, the flavor and tenderness was amazing, and I mean, how could it taste bad.... it had coffee and wine in it. Keegan ate 3 servings so did my duaghter, out of over 5 pounds of roast we only have enough left for a couple of sandwiches.

I also made a marinated salad of pinto beans, diced baby corn, butter beans, peas, olives, bulgar wheat, cauliflower, diced tomato, fresh parsley and onion.....YUM!

I cleaned house. I did laundry and the dishes. I talked the garbage guy into taking the 3 extra bags that resulted from my recent attempts at decluttering. I discussed a new hospice client with the agency that I might be taking on much closer to home. I did some sorting and decluttering, and I played space rangers with Keegan and his pal Mikey since they did not have school today. You will all be happy to know 7 year old boys buy into a pressed paper cup holder from McDonald's being an alien force field generator that makes you un-killable. They didn't like it but they bought it.

I did not get any art done nor did I get the yard mowed, it kept raining... but they are promising a clearing in the wet by the weekend. Hoping to tame the jungle Saturday morning.

I've been reading up on the Orphan Works panic, lot's of useful, rational info can be found here: http://maradydd.livejournal.com/

I am not a great info person when it comes to political panic. Whenever I hear a politician say "But it's for the public good", my eyes immediately roll back into my head and my head spins, then I develop a seizure sized twitch, (ask my kids).... So when this stuff hits I start reading the input of other people and pick the one I think makes the most sense when they dissect it. The take of the blogger above makes sense to me, and I am looking forward to the final tally from her once the text is released.

I could have gotten more done today but being a space ranger took longer than expected... so all in all the day was good and productive.

Show us your daily planner.
Submitted by sarah louise.

CocoLaPeu

This is CocoLaPeu, she plans everything about my day and life. Actually, I think she rules the world but she does so quietly, that way when things go wrong no one knows to blame her for it.

Coco has one big secret, she is a kleptomaniac, and she refuses to go into treatment for it. Yes, I know she looks innocent, but she isn't. She steals things, often. She hides her loot under my printer table and gets very agitated when I reclaim it. Her partner in crime is my other cat...Booger O'Malley... she is also a thief. Coco plans her days for her too.

Coco has a tragic past so I blame her life of crime on that. I think she was early, her mommy dropped her out, sniffed her, decided she wasn't viable so she just walked off and left her. I happen to be a fan of lost causes so I made a special pouch for her to nap in under my shirt to keep her warm and close to me, out of harms way. I hand fed her for several months.... and here she is, almost a year old, a tad odd, ungrateful and bossy. In other words, your typical child. She loves sunflower seeds, dried cranberries, and tuna fish sandwiches.

....if you have no IRS approved dependents anyway....  for those coming into this late, this all started because I support 2 people I cannot claim by IRS standards... ( even though I gave birth to one of them) so add me to the bitter American list, and my thanks to Obama for noticing.

Last night at work I did some calculations after someone left me a link to a how-to article on how to live on $12k a year saying she immediately thought of me when she found it. I think in light of how I have felt health wise the last few months ( after several years of doing 87+ hour work weeks), I am going to try to seriously restructure my life in order to work smarter and a whole lot less, because frankly, what I have been doing is killing me.

I know my friends think I am crazy for saying hard work does not pay, but I have proof, sorta.
Using the H and R Block tax calculator found here. I determined federal taxes on several income levels, maybe it will help explain my frustration:

Using federal taxes only because Oregon taxes and SSI payment deductions are a pain to figure, but I added in all available Oregon state benefits based on the web info on qualifiers that are based solely on what you earn with no allowances for your actual cost of living, taxes or other mandatory deductions ( not that I would apply for these benefits, but they are there if I need them):

Why hard work doesn't pay when you have no dependents:

45 hour week (based on my current hourly pay of $11/hr)
I know all the totals on this one because this has been my ugly reality up to now:
$24,750- single- $1896 owed on federal tax alone
( in 2007 I worked extra and this amount rose to $28,987 and my fed tax rose to $3124) I will NOT do that again!
(spendable income after SSI, state and federal taxes = less than $17k and I qualify for nothing)

32hr work week (approx)
$17,500- $921 owed (but I would qualify for $139/month or $1668/year in food stamps) = yearly spendable income rises to $19,168 and I qualify for single person energy assist of up to $928).

28 hr work week (approx)
$15,000- $625 owed (but I would qualify for $159/month or $1908/yr in food stamps+ single person energy assist of up to $1078/yr) = yearly spendable income rises to $17,986).

23 hour work week (approx)
$12,000- $282 owed (but I would qualify for $159/month in food stamps, low cost housing worth $425/month/ $5100/yr plus energy assist of at least $1278/yr= $20,286 spendable income)

19 hr work week ( approx) *Working less than 1/2 time- this one is the mind bender*
$11,000- $105 owed (but I would qualify for $159/month in food stamps, low cost housing worth $425/month or $5100/yr, $1278 in energy assistance plus I qualify for free health care coverage/treatment) = yearly spendable income rises to $19,008 plus free health care)....meaning I would have more spendable money each year if I were making $11k a year and a burden to society than I do working 45 hours a week and making 24k a year. How can that be right????

I cannot explain why anyone who qualifies for food stamps or anything else funded by the state or federal government for the poor would ever owe taxes but it seems to be how it works, so they take from you and then give it back plus some. (This system of shuffling money around must employ a lot of someone's friends and relatives).

I have no idea why anyone with no dependents would feel like they benefit in any way from working full time... because you don't. You can buy more stuff, but you get beat up for it financially by the government, and it usually means you live life constantly in debt and without health care coverage so you almost have to ask yourself if being able to buy that flashy Iphone is worth it, ya know?
Personally, I'm gonna bare bones my work schedule, downsize my financial needs by moving into a travel trailer full time , since our gas is now at $3.59/gal I am gonna build myself one of these, and spend a big chunk of my summer close to home doing some sewing, or at the beach, or camping by the river.... I think I might feel better, I know my body is telling me it could use a time out. Then I'll decide if I am up to increasing my income again.... but you know, somehow I think I am gonna find it easy to get use to having a ton more time to do what I want to do.

What would you like to do more of?

Traveling, sewing, quilting, learning art techniques..... and more sitting on a beach doing nothing at all, of course.

He is gonna go out the way he came in... blindly entertaining us. My daughter is a tad upset that he said "Awesome speech" to the POPE. Heh, well now, maybe it WAS an awesome speech. You must be able to say that to the Pope, after all... he didn't act upset by it being said to him, and God didn't hit George with the big smackdown either... so it's all good. I actually find President Bush's silliness refreshing, he seems comfy with being simple in his thinking, it's who he is, I get the feeling if he could say so out loud he would tell us all that anyone who doesn't like the way he talks can kiss his pa-tootie.... being beat up in the press has not made him change so one must assume he is much more comfy being himself than Hillary is at being who she is. Of course if she was true to who she really is, no one would vote for her, so I suppose being a lying, sneaky conniving beotch suits her purpose for now. We gotta keep all these things in perspective ya know.

So while Ramie might need a sedative to calm her down over the awesome speech comment.... I find it comforting to know the new Pope has some awesome speeches in him, he DID have a hard act to follow.... and I think it's nice they are being appreciated.... I hope GW keeps his speeches light and fruity to the bitter end, it is exactly the comedy relief we need to offset the democratic primary bickering.... and the blithering of McCain.

I got my new voter registration card in the mail today, it's official...I'm registered as a democrat. So yay, I get to vote in the primary, of course being a registered member of a political party may cause me throw up if I think about it hard enough, (this is my first transgression since the 1980's), but at least I get to vote against Hillary in the primary. Pass me an air sickness bag please?