Friendship's Many Forms

I wrote this poem for a friend of mine who lost her friend to a blood disorder recently. I thought I would share it:

Friendships Many Forms

Friends come in many different forms
the friend that is lost
the friend that is close
the friend that is now just a distant memory

Every day that goes by

The friend that is close
never lets you down
always lets you cry
never asks for anything in return
always brings a smile to your face when you need it most

The friend that is lost
will always be there in spirit
will never just fade away
will always know how you feel about them
when time escapes the days

The friend that is a distant memory
was never meant to be
has somehow brought you pain
was out for something
and it was probably something for their gain

The love you have for people also comes in many forms
the love of a family member
the love of a spouse
the love of a friend
the love of someone lost

In each of us sits these loves
Sometimes unknown, sometimes untouched

The love of family
growing up and maturing
family gatherings
holidays and vacation spent together
the card you didnt expect to get

The love of a spouse
the love you cherish for better or for worse
the soulmate you never thought you would find
the friend you have for life

The love of a friend is sometimes a mystery
friends that touch our hearts
friends that hurt the caring heart of another
friends that are always happy the way that you are
friends that are taken for granted
friends that you cant go on or live without
friends that you hold closer than anyone else

The love of someone lost
is always in our hearts
in our thoughts
in our spirits
in everyday life - they live inside us

For Molly, the friend I never met
your life on this earth was cut short
your dreams of a life together take away too soon
your friends deep sorrows for the time you didnt get to spend together
know that they are still your friends until we meet again

The Baby is coming!

Just an FYI

the due date is still on for Dec 22nd...and boy is he active! YES, you heard right -- we are having a boy!!! Although my choices of ESPN and JDG version 2.0 were denied, we have chosen a name, but we are keeping it to ourselves :)

Picture was on here, but I have to do some editing to it, and will repost shortly :)

Hope all is well

Soulmates

It has been over 10 months since I have written in my blog - I thought it was time I write again. The subject of soulmates has come up in conversations at work lately, so i thought I would write about it. These are my thoughts:

My wife is my one and only - anybody that knows me knows that. There isn't anybody else I could see myself with. There is no negotiation on this one. She is my one and only. Soulmates, it seems, somehow people think that a soulmate has to be their wife or girlfriend. I have to disagree on this one. Yes, my wife is my soulmate, but I have two other friends that I also would consider a soulmate (just hear me out here). These are people that have come into your life, and you feel very strongly about, but not in a relationship/sexual way - more in a "higher being" way. What I mean by this, is that God broght them into my life for a reason. Its not like I have an alternative agenda or anything. Its almost like they have known me my whole life....we have clicked from the get-go. Like my best buds, Rick and Bill - there isnt anything we cant talk about, and we know that we are there for each other. That is the same feeling I get with these two friends.

The one friend, we originally clicked because of the same issue that we are both dealing with. Since January, I have been dealing with my weight....and as of Tuesday, i was down a totaly of 35 pounds. She has been very instrumental in showing me that I can do it on my own, but also has been a great partner to work out with. For the first time, in nearly a decade, I walked for almost 5 miles consecutively!!!! It was a great walk, and the best thing about it, is that while walking and talking, it totally didnt even feel like I was exercising! IT WAS GREAT!!!!

The second friend, although we have only known each other for a shorter while, there was just something about her that when we talked, it was almost like she had something else to say. So one night,she said that she worked at the same place I used to get my hot chocolates at, so I decided to actually stop by when she was there. Not only was the hot chocolate good, but the talks since then have been even better. She has talked to me like I have known her for years on end. The other day, she even said that she considered me one of her closest friends, and that she trusted me with everything. When she said that, I damn near cried! To hear her say that, it meant so much. I was so touched.

So I guess what I am trying to say is that just because you are married does not mean you can have just one soulmate. There may be other people in your life that will be by your side, through thick and thin, and no matter what, care about you.

You wanna know the best part of this whole thing, Michelle doesnt have a problem with either of these people being in my life! Then again, there really isnt a reason why she shouldnt. After all, SHE is my #1 and only :)

Love ya baby!

A.D.D. - the new definition

I am writing today about a condition known as A.D.D. (and no, I am not talking about Attention Deficit Disorder). Its known as Affection Deficit Disorder, and it can be cured! All it takes is SOME kind of attention from the parents, and a little time spent with them away from cleaning supplies and television.

This past Sunday, we celebrated McKenna’s birthday (even though her real birthday isnt until tomorrow). We had the party over at the in-laws place, which was REALLY nice since they have more room to spread out for a nice party like that. We had an excellent meal (carved ham, beef barbecue, veggies up the wahzoo, macaroni salad, etc). Then we went into the formal living room to open McKenna’s birthday presents.

In the living room, we set all of McKenna presents up (with a chair) on one side of the living room, and then there were chairs and a nice-sized sofa on the other two sides (windows are on the 4th side). First thing, the two other girls start diving into McKenna’s presents like it was for them too…..this started to piss me off. And the parents are just sitting there like “Oh isnt that cute”. So here we are, 2 video cameras, and at least 4-5 cameras, and we keep telling the two girls BACK UP, MOVE OUT OF THE WAY, GET BACK…….and if I heard it one more time, **I** was gonna say something, and I would have been a helluva lot more stearn about it, and probably not at nice. HOW FREAKING RUDE for them two to take away from HER day! Michelle had a great idea (too bad we didn’t think of it til later that night) – Next year, the only people near the presents are us (the parents) and McKenna….and everybody gets a chair. Yanno, those two have so much shit it is almost inconceiveable. There is just no reason they had to be acting like that, and to have the parents sitting right there acting like nothing is wrong just pissed me right off.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not a perfect parent. But we will NOT allow McKenna to act out in the same manner/fashion those two were this past weekend.

A couple weeks ago, Michelle offered to babysit these two girls so their mom can drive to Milwaukee/Chicago area for a funeral (don’t ask me why the dad couldn’t take off to take care of them – he didn’t go to the funeral either, but we can take vacation to go hunting or help his family out – again, where are the priorities). Well at 6am on Friday morning, the almost 6 year old wakes up and comes into our room saying my tummy hurts (well, the night before, they all had popcorn, juice, yogurt, etc, and they were just fine then!). So Michelle asked what was wrong and got a typical response (I dunno!). She wasn’t running a fever or anything, so Michelle said to go back to bed, and don’t wake up her sister (they were in the spare bedroom together). It wasn’t 2 minutes later, they were BOTH in our bedroom “My tummy hurts”. This just really got our blodd going. Well, the younger one was easy to diagnose – she was saying it because the older one was saying it. Then they woke up McKenna – this just pissed both of us off. 30 mintes later, she went to the bathroom, and everything was fine. It’s just amazing to me that she cant tell the difference between my tummy hurts and I gotta take a dump. (And they wonder why these two are gonna have issues). So we go downstairs (again thanks to those two, the entire house is up!). We tell them to head to the kitchen table for breakfast. McKenna always gets to pick out which cereal she wants (when she wants cereal that is), so I picked her up and asked her with one she wanted. Well, in typical fashion, the other two go into overanxious mode, and are running into the kitchen nearly knocking each other over, carrying their bowls, talking over top of each other, like two heathuns. And of course, you can just barely understand the 4 year old, and I had no clue what the almost 6 year old because every word she says starts with the letter “T” (ti tent to tool totay – which is I went to school today in real English). So I had to tell them to BACK OFF and RELAX – they act like they are going to be left out or something! It is nerve racking. The parents can spend money on this, that and the other thing, Vegas trip, new truck, etc. But they cant spend a damn penny to get their daughter tested for an obvious speech problem. Hell, she doesn’t even know her ABC’s!!! McKenna, who is almost 3 years younger knows her ABC’s and she (for the most part) can tell you what something is that starts with that letter (C is for cookie, S is for Sesame, G is for Grammie, etc). The 4 year old is getting there, but the almost 6 year old still doesn’t even know her ABCs. She mixes up the letters, and she still cant even tell you what starts with the letter C (for God’s sakes, her own sister’s NAME begins with that letter). But this is the product of their environment. Their mother’s idea of spending time with them is having them follow her around the house while she cleans. My mother-in-law has already made it perfectly clear that she IS NOT going to do their homework with them, that wasn’t her responsibility. Then just before school starts, we get a flyer in the mail and it says “Well, since my daughter is going to school I am changing my hours”. Now let me start by saying this went out to her clients, including my mother-in-law who also watches the two girls. She never even talked it over with my mother-in-law before making the changes to make sure it was going to work out and all. And what a huge amount of pressure to put on a kid who right now, cant even tell you if she has to go to the bathroom! (I’m the one who made my mommy change her hours at work)…..just uncalled for in my opinion.

OK, enough from my soapbox for today. I am looking forward to tomorrow so McKenna and I can spend most of the day together for her birthday (I have class from 2-6 so not too bad).

I'm ordering Bumper Stickers

I am contemplating placing an order for new bumper stickers that read

DONT CRY TO ME
YOU VOTED FOR "W"

I am really upset with the outcome of the election and here is why:

1. John Kerry has developed a plan to create millions of new jobs by the end of his first four-year term. The plan includes a new jobs tax credit to help create manufacturing jobs and a proposal to end tax breaks that encourage companies to move jobs overseas and invest in the nation’s infrastructure to create good jobs building and repairing the nation’s roads, transit and water systems, schools and other vital projects. Kerry also pledged to restore confidence and boost the American manufacturing sector by cutting the nation’s record budget deficit of more than $400 billion in half while investing in health care and education. Kerry would fight for America’s workers by enforcing U.S. trade agreements. (www.johnkerry.com)
   
   George W. Bush has presided over the worst loss of U.S. jobs since President Herbert Hoover during the Great Depression. He has supported tax breaks for companies that move jobs overseas and refused to enforce U.S. trade agreements to protect American jobs. (Economic Report of the President, 2004)
   
   
2. John Kerry co-sponsored legislation to stop the Bush administration from issuing new regulations under the Fair Labor Standards Act that could take away overtime pay rights for millions of workers. (Sen. Amendment 1580, 2003)
   
   George W. Bush’s Department of Labor published new rules governing workers’ overtime pay eligibility that could take away overtime pay rights for millions of workers. Those changes in the Fair Labor Standards Act affect workers in a wide range of occupations, including accounting, insurance, advertising, safety and health, human resources, public relations, computer work, financial services and “team leaders.” Workers making as little as $23,600 could lose overtime pay. (The Federal Register, 4/23/04; www.epinet.org)
   
   John Kerry opposed legislation that would take away a workers’ right to overtime pay and replace it with unpaid compensatory time off. The legislation would allow employers to schedule more hours for workers without having to pay any extra wages. Without the additional cost of overtime pay, employers would have an incentive to load workers with more and more work hours, keeping workers from their families longer, lowering employment demand nationally and lowering wages. (Senate roll call vote 93 on S. 4, 6/497)
   
   George W. Bush, supports taking away workers’ right to overtime pay and allowing employers to replace overtime pay with nonpaid compensatory time off, which would weaken the 40-hour workweek by allowing employers to schedule more hours for workers without paying extra wages. (Chicago Tribune, 10/6/00; The Federal Register, 4/23/04)
   
   
3. John Kerry would fight to keep good jobs in America. He would stop tax breaks to companies that send U.S. jobs overseas and create tax incentives to keep good U.S. jobs at home. Kerry would ensure companies that move offshore do not receive government contracts. (The Associated Press, 3/25/04; www.johnkerry.com)
   
   George W. Bush supports giving $60 billion in tax breaks to companies that lay off workers and move overseas. Since taking office, each of Bush’s federal budget proposals included tax breaks for companies that export jobs overseas. Says exporting jobs is good for America. According to the Economic Report of the President, 2004, “When a good or service is produced more cheaply abroad, it makes more sense to import it than to provide it domestically.” (H.R. 2896, 2004; The Washington Post, 10/23/03; Bush fiscal years (FYs) 2002–2005 budget proposals; Economic Report of the President, 2004)
   
   
4. John Kerry supports a comprehensive revamping of the flawed Medicare prescription drug law President Bush signed last year. Kerry supports allowing Medicare to use its vast buying power to negotiate lower prescription drug prices for seniors and to allow Americans to re-import prescription drugs from Canada, where prices are between 33 percent and 80 percent lower than in the United States. He also supports strengthening the law to discourage employers from dropping retiree health coverage and allowing states to negotiate discounts on prescription drugs. (www.johnkerry.com)
   
   George W. Bush supported and signed a Medicare prescription drug bill that created a huge gap in coverage that could cost seniors thousands of dollars a year, forbids Medicare from negotiating lower drug prices and encourages employers to drop health care coverage for retirees. Bush also backs the pharmaceutical industry by supporting the ban on re-importing prescription drugs from Canada and restricting state efforts to negotiate lower drug prices. (H.R. 1, 12/8/03)
   
   
5. John Kerry supports strengthening Social Security by rolling back President Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans—which have created record national budget deficits—and investing some of the funds in Social Security. He also consistently opposed efforts to privatize Social Security. (www.johnkerry.com; Senate roll call votes 56 and 77 on S. Con. Res. 86, 4/1/ & 4/298)
   
   George W. Bush supports a privatization plan to hand over Social Security funds to Wall Street investment firms. He also supports making his tax cuts for the wealthy permanent, which Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan said would require cuts in Social Security benefits. (Presidential debate, 10/3/00; House Budget Committee hearing, 2/25/04)
   
   John Kerry supports protecting the retirement pensions of America’s workers by strengthening and enforcing rules to guard pension funds from raids by unscrupulous employers, creating new protections for pension funds invested in the mutual fund market and issuing new rules to protect older workers whose employers try to convert traditional defined-benefit plans to cash-balance plans. He also backs new efforts to prevent pension abuses such as those at Enron Corp., where employees’ lost their retirement savings when company stock plummeted. As president, Kerry would appoint a director of personal economic security to protect workers’ pensions and retirement benefits. (www.johnkerry.com; The Union Leader, 1/7/04)
   
   George W. Bush supports the repeal of current protections for workers’ retirement security and would allow mutual funds and other investment managers to give workers investment advice on their 401(k) accounts even though such advice could represent a conflict of interest. (H.R. 2269, 6/21/01)
   
   
6. John Kerry would provide funds to hire up to 100,000 firefighters and provide them the equipment needed as key first responders. He would restore full funding for the federal COPS program, which provides funding for state and local law enforcement agencies to hire officers, acquire new technology and develop new policing strategies. He supports helping workers on the nation’s railway, Amtrak and transit systems meet rail security threats and would provide full funding for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to meet coastal security needs. (www.johnkerry.com; S. 1530, 10/11/01; AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department questionnaire, 5/26/04)
   
   George W. Bush fails to protect emergency responders—his FY 2005 budget makes major cuts in first-responder grant funding at the Homeland Security Department, reducing funding for firefighters by 33 percent from the FY 2004 level. He cut funding for the COPS program by 90 percent of its congressionally authorized level, putting far fewer police officers into communities. He has failed to respond to rail and transit system security threats and refused to fund the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Container Security Initiative to inspect cargo containers arriving at the nation’s ports. (Bush administration FY 2005 budget; The Boston Globe, 5/6/04; Bush administration FY 2003 budget)
   
   
7. John Kerry would increase the Child Care Tax Credit and make it available to stay-at-home parents and parents with lower incomes. He would expand after-school opportunities to cover 3.5 million children and keep after-school programs open until 6 p.m. with good transportation options. (www.johnkerry.com Eugene[Ore.] Register-Guardian, 8/15/04)
   
   George W. Bush's 2005 budget will cut nearly 500,000 children from federally-funded child care programs in the next five years and freeze funding for after-school programs. It also provides no adjustment for inflation or for increased applications for assistance from local school districts. As a result, some 50,000 children will be eliminated from participation in after-school programs.
   
   
8. John Kerry would strengthen enforcement of equal pay laws, improve data collection about pay disparities and provide meaningful remedies for violations of the law. (www.johnkerry.com)
   
   George W. Bush's chief labor economist Diana Furchtgott-Roth, has denied the existence of the wage gap and denounced efforts to address the gap . (Diana Furchtgott-Roth and Christine Stolba, Women’s Figures: An Illustrated Guide to the Economic Progress of Women in America) in after-school programs.
   
   
9. John Kerry has been a champion of women’s issues throughout his career. He is committed to helping women balance work and family and expanding opportunities for women. (www.johnkerry.com)
   
   George W. Bush's administration has removed information on a range of women’s issues from government websites, including key publications on subjects ranging from pay equity to child care to issues relating to African American and Latina women and women business owners. Key government offices dedicated to addressing the needs of women have been disbanded, such as the Office of Women’s Initiatives and Outreach in the White House and the President’s Interagency Council on Women. (The New York Times, April 28, 2004)
   
   
10. John Kerry voted for the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) when it was enacted in 1993. He calls it “ one of the most significant advances for women and families in our nation’s history” and as president, would strengthen the law. He also supported the Family and Medical Leave Expansion Act, introduced in 2003, which would expand the program to cover more employees of small businesses and increase the eligible reasons for taking leave. And because many workers cannot afford to take unpaid leave, the act would fund a pilot program for states to provide paid leave for employees to respond to care giving needs. (www.johnkerry.com; www.kerry.senate.gov)
    
    George W. Bush has made it harder for working parents to utilize their rights under the FMLA by denying states the right to use surplus unemployment funds to provide income for parental leave. Instead of strengthening FMLA for workers to have more time with families, Bush supports legislation calling for employers to be able to use compensatory time in lieu of overtime pay, which would deprive working parents of needed extra income. (www.whitehouse.gov)

And that's just for starters.....

OK I am off my soapbox for now

J

4 More Years of Hell

I am in utter disbelief this morning. I just cannot believe what transpired last night. After the Packer victory, the electoral predictor showing Kerry was predicted to win 292-237, after I went out and voted for Kerry and had a great feeling the country was fixing to change, I found out this morning that alot of the presidency will ride on the states of Ohio (still officially undeclared) and Wisconsin (apprears heading to Kerry). If Bush takes Ohio, the election will be his......

I am not ready for 4 more years of hell......

I am in awe.....almost to the point of not being able to write......

Notice how I said "ALMOST!"........I am officially applying for graduation!!!YAY!! I have 3 classes left - Converging Voice Technologies, Business Math, and Supporting PC Technologies.....3 MORE CLASSES! 3 MORE CLASSES! 3 MORE CLASSES!

I was asked if I wanted to join Phi Theta Kappa...it is an Honor Society for 2-year colleges. I didnt get my paperwork in order before the fall deadline, but as it goes now, I should still qualify for PTK in Spring semester. I know I never thought I would qualify for an honor society. I have busted my ass and pushed myself, and now am carrying a 3.67 GPA (OK for those that really know me, you can pick yourself up off the floor).

I will try to write more later - for now, off to Economics homework, which has to get done today, otherwise I am toast!

J

Addendum to Our Next President

Since the Packers won 28-14 yesterday, the planned crashing of the Republican Victory Party (should there have been one) has been cancelled. You may resume your regularly scheduled activities.