Category Archives: Politics

7 Quick Takes: A Somewhat Better Week

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Daniel’s IEP. Daniel’s IEP meeting was yesterday and it was the triennial one so there was a pretty significant amount of testing done. I learned that I should have really pushed for more OT and PT when he was in preschool because they’re still working on a lot of foundational skills and he is still pretty delayed. He’s doing some normal kindergarten work but he has the potential to get behind his age group peers so I’ll be working with him on age-appropriate curriculum when he comes home from school so that they can focus on catching him up in other ways.

One thing everyone mentioned: how sweet he is, how happy he is, and how compliant he is. It’s not a guarantee with a lot of autistic kids so I’m pretty thankful I have a sweet one.

— 2 —

Sweetness. I missed Bible study on Wednesday because I woke up with a migraine and when I walked into the midweek Lenten soup supper, some of the members hugged me and told me that they had missed me that morning. It’s so nice to be loved because I’m Jen and not just because I happen to be married to the pastor. It’s also nice to be welcome to do what I want instead of what people thing the perfect pastor’s wife should do.

— 3 —

Gah. Daylight Savings Time starts on Sunday. Does anyone else hate this weekend of the year besides me? Let the sleep deprivation begin (or continue if that’s the case for you)!

— 4 —

PSA on the current challenges to the Affordable Care Act. The challenges to the Affordable Care Act before the Supreme Court are not just an attempt to get rid of the birth control provisions. It would roll back care for people like me who cannot get healthcare except by the public exchanges. While Covered California’s website is a piece of crap, the insurance I have is covering all of my medications which are for things that are hereditary and things that arose as complications from my pregnancy with Daniel. It could also mean that insurance companies would not have to cover maternity care which would screw just about every woman who has a baby because none of their prenatal care would be covered as well as the hospital bill from the birth. Seriously, I cannot understand how politicians who are pro-life and against birth control can support this because what it’s doing is giving women another reason to consider abortion.

As far as the federal subsidies in question, they exist for people in the 34 states that have refused to set up exchanges where people can buy insurance. My insurance is subsidized currently because of my income and without that subsidy, we couldn’t afford insurance. (We qualify for Medi-Cal but the system is so overtaxed and for some incredibly stupid reason, the plan we were assigned has no doctors within an hour’s drive of us.)

I’m seriously not trying to start a fight here or play one political party against another — I’m trying to get people to see that this issue does have a face and said face is me.

— 5 —

Spring is here. It’s in the 80’s here today. While I miss four distinct seasons (and I’m sure people in New England and places in the southeast with the ice storm are wanting to throttle me right now), it is kind of nice to have flip-flop weather.

— 6 —

My baby is growing up. The changing table/dresser we had for Daniel was pretty much irrepairable and he had outgrown his toddler bed so we disassembled both of them on Monday for a dump pick-up on Tuesday. We’re now using one of the dressers in the room that he’s occupying and we’ve got the futon pulled out so he has a full-sized bed. It was sad in a way because he will probably be our only child and this means that his “baby years” are over, even though he’s definitely not functioning at an almost six year old level these days.

One downside for the cats: Freya now doesn’t have a perch where she can snoopervise the neighborhood and watch birds. She has taken over my desk but I can tell that it isn’t the same for her.

— 7 —

Adorableness. One last cool thing from my Confirmation on Sunday: since the bishop was present, we had festival-level worship which meant that we had flags and incense in addition to the normal crucifer and torchbearers. Incense in worship means a thurifer (to swing the thurible with the incense) and a boat boy to carry the boat (bowl with the incense). The thurifer was one of the young fathers and the boat boy was his oldest son who I am guessing is probably 6 or 7 years old. It was seriously adorable to see the two of them together!

For more Quick Takes, visit Kelly at This Ain’t The Lyceum.

7 Quick Takes: Latin Woes, Why You Should Not Watch the Jordanian Pilot Execution Video, and More.

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

I despair at the state of our public education system. An eighth grade girl in Vermont suggested that Vermont adopt a Latin motto and the Senate minority leader of the state decided to take her suggestion up in the state legislature. Things go horribly awry as various Vermont citizens flip out about adopting a state motto in “Latin” because *gasp* it might have something to do with Latin-Americans, also known as “illegal immigrants”. Reading some of the comments made my inner grammar Nazi convulse.

— 2 —

New Year’s resolution update: plank challenge. As I mentioned last week, I didn’t get to finish the plank challenge and I am not able to hold a plank for 5 minutes straight. However, I am still able to consistently plank for more than 60 seconds each and that in itself is pretty amazing. I might repeat the challenge again later this year and see if I can do better then.

— 3 —

There’s sane and then there’s Kelly. I’m sure many of you have seen the 23 tips for sane eating, right? Kelly of This Ain’t the Lyceum decided to add a few of her own. 🙂

— 4 —

New Year’s resolution update: Bible reading. In the Old Testament, I’m through Genesis and into Exodus now which means lots and lots of information on the various commandments and laws being put into play. (My reading on Wednesday had to do with the priestly garments and how to make them as well as the various specifications of the altars and the sacrifices offered.) In the New Testament, we crucified Jesus. Definitely not the most uplifting reading! On the plus side, we got to resurrect Him today and I’m loving all the Psalms I get to read.

— 5 —

Pick my Lenten discipline for me. I’m raffling off the right to choose my Lenten discipline for me. Click here for more information. The only rules are that it has to be doable (bread and water is not as I’ve got health conditions that preclude that) and I have to be able to do it around my schedule with Daniel. Otherwise, BRING IT!

— 6 —

Got picky eaters? Here are 32 kids who are hilariously picky eaters. Scarily enough, I know some adults who are worse! I’ve had co-workers who will not eat foods that are touching other foods on principle.
*

— 7 —

Simcha nails it again! I really recommend the piece by Simcha Fisher where she talks about the dangers in watching the execution video of the Jordanian pilot and ties in the watching of Fifty Shades of Gray. She mentions this post by Marge Fenelon and I agree wholeheartedly with it. There is no good that can come from watching it.

For more Quick Takes, visit Kelly at This Ain’t The Lyceum.

My Take on the Election

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It has taken me until now to weigh in on the election for several reasons:

1.) I’ve been sick so my personal time while Daniel is at school has been spent sleeping and trying to fight this cold.

2.) I want anything I say to be based in fact and I want to be able to point to a place where people can go to get more information.

So… here are my thoughts on the election:

1.) My life actually hasn’t changed. I live in California which is one of the bluest states in the nation. Our governor won a historic fourth term, beating his GOP opponent by 18 percentage points, and pretty much held every other electable job in the state in between his second and third terms. While we were out doing errands on Tuesday, my mother-in-law asked me if I had heard of his challenger. My answer: “Yes, but only because I saw him on TV before the primary.” The GOP pretty much abandoned him because I didn’t see a commercial or mailing for him from June until Election Day. Our two senators weren’t up for election (and are pretty hard to defeat anyway) and my congressional rep didn’t have much of a fight to be re-elected. In other words, my state is in good hands and my congressional representation is where I want it to be.

2.) It was not surprising that the Republicans had a good night. One party regaining congressional control during a midterm election happened during Clinton’s tenure in the White House as well as during Bush’s time. Given how completely divided our country is and the fact that the Republicans completely outspent the Democrats in a lot of the campaigns, it was a forgone conclusion.

3.) The Republicans have a majority in both houses of Congress but it’s not one that will make a huge difference. The majority in the House is +16 seats and the majority in the Senate is +2 seats. It’s a simple enough majority to pass bits and pieces of legislation but not nearly enough to do damage. On legislation that doesn’t require a 2/3 majority, it will pass even if everyone votes along party lines. However, the Republicans don’t have enough of a majority to override presidential vetoes. To do that they would need 290 seats in the House and 66 seats in the Senate. They also don’t have enough people to invoke cloture in the Senate (they would need 60 seats) which means that filibusters can and likely will happen. Likely, the only thing they’ll be able to do is hold up nominations of judges and just be a thorn in the President’s side.

4.) This means that the system of checks and balances works out well. Does anyone else remember learning about our government having “checks and balances” in school or is that one of those weird things we learned about back in the Dark Ages (also known as 17 years ago in my Government class in high school)? The basic idea is that no one branch of the government has too much power. Given that the executive branch is run by a Democrat, it’s actually not that weird to me that the legislative branch is controlled by the Republicans. The judicial branch has appointees from both Republican and Democratic presidents. This means that the legislative and judicial branches are not going to function as rubber stamps for the executive branch and that’s actually the way it should be.

For the sake of full disclosure, I double-checked all my facts at Project Vote Smart.

The Simple Woman’s Daybook: November 4, 2014

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Simple Woman's Daybook

FOR TODAY November 4, 2014

Outside my window… sunny. It’s allegedly 80F outside but it is freezing in the house. Well… either that or I’m having chills.

I am thinking… about Thanksgiving week and how to keep Daniel entertained on the 2.5 days he’ll be off of school before we leave for my parents’ house.

I am thankful… for my mother-in-law and Jon taking Daniel on errands so I can get some more rest and fight this stupid cold.

In the kitchen… all I’ve had today is Instant Breakfast and yogurt so nothing is cooking on my end. I smelled onions when I went in for water so I think Jon has a raw onion cut up in the fridge.

I am wearing… a wine-colored shirt and jeans.

I am praying for… friends traveling in the Holy Land, a call for Jon, for Katie and her husband as they adopt Felicity

I am going… to try not to go online to see any election returns today. It’s one of the few times I’m thankful I don’t have access to TV.

I am wondering… about how to work Christmas this year.

I am reading… Gossamer Ghost by Laura Childs. Apparently, I was #1 on the list for it in the LA County library system.

I am hoping… to get back to walking every morning again once this stupid cold goes away.

I am looking forward to… being well again.

I am hearing… Daniel — they just got home.

Around the house… it was relatively quiet until a few minutes ago.

A favorite quote for today… “I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.” — Douglas Adams

One of my favorite things… being able to breathe easily. I miss it.

A few plans for the rest of the week: a trip to the grocery store that isn’t Trader Joe’s, the new dishwasher being installed tomorrow (the other one broke last week so we’ve been having to wash by hand… I know, #firstworldproblems), and whatever else comes up.

Hosted by The Simple Woman.

7 Quick Takes: Baseball, Witchcraft, and Why I Despair At the State of Our Media

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Rules for eating and such rendered in the style of the Old Testament. I first read this 10+ years ago and it still makes me almost die from laughing so hard. Anyone with small children will understand. My favorite line is, “Leave the cat alone. For what has the cat done that you should so afflict it with tape?”

— 2 —

So… I guess you heard that the Giants won the World Series? It was an amazing series and I’m thankful that I got to watch/listen to all or part of 6 of the 7 games. (I watched all of Games 1-3, saw a portion of Game 4 in addition to my mom checking the score on her smartphone during dinner on Saturday, listened to Game 5 on my long drive home on Sunday, and got to watch/listen to over half of Game 7 last night.) I’m impressed that Madison Bumgarner pitched in Game 1, Game 5, and then 5 innings of Game 7 last night. (So is Jason Motte, my favorite closer with the St. Louis Cardinals. Real classy, Jason. It’s why I follow you.)

To the Royals fans who read: you guys have a kick-@$$ team and you made my boys work for that World Series victory. I wouldn’t doubt that y’all give the MLB a run for their money next year because Game 7 could have gone either way. And seriously… your team had the Kansas City Symphony play the national anthem one night and had one of your opera stars sing it the next night — y’all are classy. 🙂

— 3 —

Yet another baseball Quick Take. One interesting trend this season has been “Hunter Pence signs”. It was a weird trolling thing started by some Mets fans this past summer and it went viral. At all of the away games, fans of the home team bring the signs. There s a Twitter collection of them here.

There’s even a rap video based on the signs:

— 4 —

One of the few times I miss having a TV and cable. I’m kind of bummed that I likely won’t be able to watch Election Night stuff from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Apparently, it’s going to be fun.

— 5 —

The difference between the media in the USA and the media in Canada. Can we just say that the Canadian media won on this one?

(And for all the people who are going to tell me that I hate my country and should move to Canada, we did try in 2009.)

— 6 —

This one goes out to all the moronic conspiracy theorists claiming that vaccines cause autism. Actually, there are more than 100 genes that contribute. That many genes are a bit much to be turned on by the body’s response to a vaccine.

And for the morons who are citing a bad reading of a Canadian study linking the MMR vaccine to febrile seizures, you might want to read the part of the study which mentions the seizures occur most often in kids who had been selectively vaccinated or on delayed schedules. There’s also the fact that some kids get these seizures around ages 2.5 to 4 years old and said seizure is the first sign that the kid has a fever. I should know… Daniel is/was one of them and we made 3 trips to the ER for them in the year after his third birthday. (One of those trips was actually the night before his third birthday.) It’s terrifying to watch your kid seize like that, but it sure beats watching your kids on a ventilator because your delusion and paranoia over pseudoscience landed them in the hospital with a completely preventable disease.

— 7 —

Wow… a somewhat balanced look at Common Core. I don’t love everything Simcha Fisher has to say but her piece on Common Core was very balanced. I hear a lot of complaining about the math portion, but the way they’re doing math actually makes a great deal of sense to me. There was a teacher who taught my elementary school class how to do mental math, how math works, and how numbers relate to each other. This means that I have a better than average grasp of the metric system and scientific notation, both of which make infinitely more sense than the English/imperial system used in the United States.

As for literature, Simcha mentioned that they tend to err on the side of non-fiction which is fine with me. I always read things that interested me and my parents didn’t have to introduce me to good literature because I generally found it on my own.

— Bonus —

Here’s something for Halloween. I found this piece on the history of witchcraft to be pretty interesting. (Then again, my college degree dealt with this sort of thing, especially in the history and anthropology classes I took.) She’s not endorsing the practice of Wicca or anything (and she mentions that Wicca is a 20th century invention) and she makes some interesting points about cultures in which witchcraft is still an excuse for stuff going wrong. It’s definitely worth a read.

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at ConversionDiary.Com.

7 Quick Takes: Momcation Recap

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

You know you’re loved when you walk into church on Sunday and the acting music director hugs you and tells you that you should have shown up earlier so you could have sung with the choir. Before June, I hadn’t been back to the church for 11.5 years and in the two times I’ve been home since, I’ve gotten recruited for music the next Sunday. (I’m not THAT good — the music director has known me since high school and knows that I can sightread vocal music passably on my first try.) This Sunday, the anthem is “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” with organ and violin. I haven’t sung soprano in 16 years… but I’ll be trying to help the section on Sunday and practice went really well tonight. Thankfully, it’s a piece I know backwards and forwards.

— 2 —

Coffee dates. I got coffee with my friend Rebecca twice while I was home. It’s hard to do, given that I usually come up here with Daniel, so it was good to see her. She also came to church with me on Sunday which was lovely.

— 3 —

World Series. I’m kind of bummed that the Series is tied at 1 game apiece because I was hoping the Giants would sweep and I’d get to see all the games. (I don’t have access to TV in southern California and I’ll also be driving home during the game on Sunday.) Still, Game 1 was glorious and I’m glad that Blanco got a lead-off homer in Game 2.

— 4 —

I’m (almost) caught up on all the TV I usually watch. My parents have “On Demand” so I’ve been able to catch up with all the CBS stuff I usually watch but haven’t this fall because I don’t have much online time and that makes watching my shows online hard. I haven’t watched the new NCIS spin-off yet and I may not just because it’s another couple hours of stuff to watch.

— 5 —

I’ve gotten some fabulous walks in. I’ve taken some walks on the trail by Los Alamitos Creek and they’ve been really nice. It’s a good setting for getting in some prayer time because while there are people around, it’s also pretty quiet.

— 6 —

I’ve unfortunately had to watch political ads. “On Demand” usually protects me from them but I’ve had to put up with them if I’ve wanted to watch baseball. It’s kind of scary how normal people don’t actually look to see who has paid for the ads… because it is really quite telling. I also wish there was something that killed all the ads, mailings, etc. if you have already voted. (I’m a permanent absentee ballot voter so I voted about a week and a half ago.)

Thankfully, the only really contentious races this year for us in California are the House ones and some of the ballot measures. Neither of our Senators is up for re-election and our Democratic governor is about 20 percentage points ahead of the Republican challenger. (He’s so far ahead that I think the GOP in California has given up on the challenger because I haven’t seen *ANYTHING* about that particular race since the primaries in June.)

— 7 —

I’ve gotten to see rain for the first time in months. We got some rain on Monday. It was glorious.

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at ConversionDiary.Com.

7 Quick Takes: Back in Northern California

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

THE GIANTS ARE GOING TO THE WORLD SERIES!!!!!!!!!!! That was an insane game tonight. I’m glad the Giants won but I am also glad that I got to watch it tonight and that St. Louis played pretty well. One of Jon’s higher ups used to live in Kansas City for a number of years and I’m hoping for a fun series for both our sakes.

— 2 —

NCIS binge. I’m taking care of my parents’ cats while they’re up with my grandmother and this means that I have access to TV. I only watched one episode of NCIS tonight but I’m planning a binge of it in the next week and a half. I’ve missed it and while I could theoretically watch on my computer, I don’t normally have a huge amount of computer time so watching it and my other shows isn’t happening right now… except being up here on my “Momcation”.

— 3 —

What is a “Momcation”? Essentially, I’m on vacation from being a mom for the next 10 days. It’s a long story as to why but I’m cat/house-sitting for my parents and Daniel remained down south with Jon and my in-laws. Don’t worry — my marriage isn’t in jeopardy. I’m doing my parents a favor and my in-laws and parents are happy that it’s giving me a break that I haven’t had in 5 1/2 years.

— 4 —

So what am I doing? I drove up yesterday and today, I did errands and went food shopping for myself. I’m planning to spend some time praying and journalling about how to move from the crossroads where I’m at in my life and I also have plans to have coffee with Rebecca. Oh yes… also catch up on all the TV I’ve missed, hence the NCIS binge.

— 5 —

Completely shocked. I weighed myself yesterday for the first time in months (the last time was at a doctor’s appointment) and I’m 3-5 lbs below my pre-pregnancy weight. I guess all the core work, the walking, and other changes I’ve made are helping? I’m wondering if I can’t increase that loss so that I’m down to my pre-Montana weight when I leave my parents’ house.

— 6 —

Just a thought. Is there any chance that a device could be created that stops all political ads on TV and in the mail once one has voted or submitted an absentee ballot? I voted this past week (permanent absentee ballot FTW!) and I really don’t need to hear about who wants my vote anymore.

— 7 —

Possible rain. Weather.Com claims we’re not going to have rain in the next 24 hours. My head disagrees! (I freaking love weather change migraines.)

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at ConversionDiary.Com.