I'm Back!

So much has happened since I last posted. I think I want to start blogging again so hopefully this is going to get me started. Not sure where it is going but definitely a start.

Life as we knew it has ended..............

Frustrated and depressed

 

This may cause me to lose friends on Facebook or in real life but in all honesty I guess I just don’t care right now. So if you don’t want to read this-don’t . If you don’t like my opinion, unfriend me. If you want to argue, try someplace else. I am done, had it, finished, kaput. I want to express my OPINION. If you don’t like my opinion-too damn bad.  Go someplace else and worry about it. This is MY blog, My Facebook page.  I am so tired of trying to be nice and not cause controversy and respect others opinions so if I don’t agree with them I try not to respond. My momma always said if you can’t say something nice don’t say anything at all. But this won’t be very nice but luckily I know my momma will forgive me because her love never changed so it is all good. We have a government who pushed through an idea which, I will admit, sounds good in theory. We had to “pass it to know what it said”, so some brilliant people did just that. Well, let me just tell you what it said. It said, Tonja, you work your ass off for 30 years, raise your kids to believe  in God, our family and our amazing  Republic of the United States, pay your way, give to others and respect all people and here is what we are going to do for you. We are going  to pass a law that causes your healthcare costs to almost double  in 2 years and try and financially ruin you.  For 2015 our deductible is going up to $10,000 a year. That means we have to pay the first $10,000 before our health insurance pays a dime. Let me say that again-$10,000!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is the price of a very nice used car. A Hawaiian vacation.  A new furnace.  A new roof for our house. It is a one-quarter of my husband’s annual salary (before  taxes). So tell me how this president and his awesome plan is helping me? I would consider us as being middle income. Very soon we are going to be low income-you know why?  Because we have now just been priced out of healthcare. Can we afford the medications that are keeping us alive and in good health and allowing us to work and pay taxes? That $10,000 doesn’t include copays for vision care or dental care. Or any over the counter medication or bandaids or vitamins or cold medicines. None of that. I do not have $834 a month in my budget to pay for this. If Obamacare has helped you, I am happy for you. But for me, right now, I am pretty much looking at the ruination of my hopes and dreams.  Just saying.

Mary Connealy~Real Life Petticoat Ranch: Fifty-Four Years of Math 1957 - 2011 In America

Mary Connealy~Real Life Petticoat Ranch: Fifty-Four Years of Math 1957 - 2011 In America

This was sadly funny but true.
Loved it!

My new baby

We have a new baby at our house. He is a Hereford/Angus cross bull calf, born June 16, 2010. I have to explain over and over again to my girls that he is NOT a cow. A cow is a bovine who has given birth. This is a male baby hence a bull calf. He still has all his parts. I named him Buddy since no one came up with anything better. Tom wanted him to be named Supper but I had to draw the line somewhere. I am continuously amazed at what a poor job I did in teaching them about farm life. I am thankful that I have been able to teach the boys a little bit more about where their food comes from and the circle of life. The little dog is chasing her tail round and round. What a weird dog. When we got Khaos she became the "litttle dog" as Buck is so much bigger. Now we have a quandary, with Peanut here she is no longer the "little dog". Now what can we call her? Medium dog just doesn't have the same ring to it.

Terrible Weather

It is Thursday night and we are all huddled in the living room watching TV and trying to stay warm. Genna is home from college. The weather outside is awful. I went to North Bend this morning to cut toenails. I have my reservations had canceled so that was easy. Then went up to Dodge and took blood pressures. They let me eat lunch with them and it was so good. A breaded pork patty with gravy and saurkraut and dumplings. Yum, yum. The sun was shining and blue sky when I got there. I left at 2 and to the south it was really cloudy and to the north it was still blue sky. I ran errands when I got back to Fremont and then had my pre-op physical appointment. By the time I got out of the dr's at 5 it was starting to rain and get icy. I went 50 from Fremont to Cedar and then 25 from Cedar to home. The guy in front of me was going really slow and still managed to slide past his corner. The kids all want a snow day. I don't plan on sending them to school in Fremont for sure first thing in the morning and the boys only if the bus picks them up. I don't see any way of the roads getting better until the sun hopefully shines tomorrow or there is more traffic on the roads.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Went to church today and sang in the choir. It is so cold out today. 5 degrees with 30 mile an hour winds. It is horrible. Then went to Fremont, took fridge to Lillie and Matt and then went out to eat at Godfathers. After that went to Supercuts and Tom, JT, CJ and Jaci all got haircuts. Finally home this afternoon and put carpet in family room in basement and put TV with xbox down there. Kept boys busy for a while.

Saturday

This has been a busy day and I am so tired now. Woke up at 5 am and couldn't go back to sleep. Had to have JT in to the Y for BB pictures at 7:15 am. Even made it on time. Yeah! Then to the town house to work on laundry and get a few things. Then back to the farm to help Tom clean out the garage so we could get my van and his car in it before the weather gets bad tomorrow. I am exhausted. We got our first egg yesterday from the chickens-1 egg!. We got another today. They are brown eggs and definately medium size not large. JT made snickerdoodles this afternoon. My new oven cooks so good. They turned out great I thought. Brie is out with AJ for their 5 month aniversary. Oh, to be young again. Jaci is spending the night with Amber, Hallie at work and I am not sure what Genna is up to. Think I am going to go to bed early.

Open House Day

Well we survived the open house. Yeah! I wanted to update this a little bit. I don't think anyone reads it but me but that is okay. We had about 30 people at the open house. It went well. In the move i can't find the batteries to my camera so of course didn't take any pictures. Oh well, I am not going to worry about it at this point. Cameron is bouncing off the walls. I better get him into bed.

March

I keep forgettting to take the camera out to the farm so I can update pictures. That is the goal for this weekend. So far we have got the following done:
New roof with skylights on 3 sides
2nd floor bathroom is done with a beatiful white hexagon tile with hunter green pattern in it and white subway tile halfway up the wall and then hunter green to match the green in the floor. The refinished claw foot tub is in with the new faucets that look old. The toilet, wall sink and medicine cupboard (original to the house) are also in. The toilet even works> yeahaw! On the mainfloor, Tom has finished the tiling in the main floor bathroom and the enclosed back porch. I helped seal the tile so Tom can't say I haven't been doing anything. Tom installed the cove heater on the back porch tonight. The mainfloor bathroom is painted a dull green. The back porch is painted a dark tan. I really like it. It is slowly coming along. Genna is helping Michelle paint some of the rentals while on spring break this week and will be home tomorrow. She is taking Michelle and Lyndsay to Lincoln for Tylers soccer game and then coming on home. Hallie worked tonight and is planning on going to Lincoln tomorrow with Natasha K. to visit friends. Brie is sleeping on the couch after a hard soccer practice. She starts as goalie on junior varsity and then suits up as back up goalie for the varsity team. We are very proud of her as she has never played soccer before this year. Jaci has a friend over and they are making fudge. The boys are watching tv as usual. All the kids are off school Thursday and Friday. I am looking into going to Mexico to have a lap band placed for weight loss surgery. I am praying for God's guidance if that is what I need to do. Our insurance won't cover surgery so this seems to be the best option. Gotta to to Lincoln tomorrow for work for a conference on critical infrastructure. Gotta go to bed.

Monday

It's monday-need I say more! Hallie's opinion is if it isn't going to snow enough to call off school then it shouldn't snow at all and I have to admit I am agreeing with her at this point. We have had snow flurries off and on for the last 24 hours and it is really getting old. I have to drive to Wahoo tomorrow to work in the Three Rivers Public Health Department's Saunder County clinic and I sure hope the roads are okay. Time for bed.

Wednesday January 2, 2008

Happy New Year! Don't know if anyone reads this or not but I am going to type anyway. Maybe it will be cathartic and help me resolve all my internalized anger etc, etc. Sounded pretty smart didn't I? Kids are fine as far as I know. I am in Wahoo today. Brie paid for a movie off the cable so it sounded like things were set. I left a roast in the crock pot so hopefully someone will make roast beef sandwiches with the leftover hoagie buns that I didn't need when I made Apple Bread Pudding last week that no one would eat but me but I thought it was really good. Just not as good when you have to eat the whole 9 X 13 pan. Yehaw. It is supposed to get up to 45 degrees this weekend and I am really looking forward too it. It seems like I only get thawed out once a day when I go slide under my heating blanket. We attended the Evangelical Free Church on Sunday. Told the kids it is our church adventure-hopping around to see if one fits. We shall see. No negatives so probably will try it again. This week sure feels messed up. I feel like it is Monday and then have to remember it is Wednesday and a whole new year. I will be writing 2007 for a couple of months I am sure. I am hoping to get some pictures from Hallie from Christmas to upload. We will see-I wouldn't hold my breath unless oxygen is handy.

New pictures I am trying to upload. It worked. Here are the kids!

Saturday October 27, 2007

I am sitting inmy Development of Christian Thought class. Trying to listen and take notes at the same time. I am extremely deficit in writing in this blog. The latest on the house is that we have a new green steel roof with 3 sky lights in. I started cleaning the attic up and got about half done. I was so tired. It is a really big room now that the chimney is down. Grandma came and saw the 1st and 2nd floors. I was so glad she got to be there. I think she should be at Aunt Carol's this weekend. Not sure. Not sure when she is coming back either. Well gotta go.

Work

I am on hold with an insurance company-5 minutes and counting, so decided I would just blog. Then they hung up on me. Onnnnnnnnnnnnnnn! Okay I am done swearing and will now type again. I just hope I get to talk to a live person sometime. Okay back to work.

Boy, I haven't blogged for a long time so this may be long. I wonder if I am talking to myself but maybe I will look back on this and remember things I did that I had forgot. Yesterday I worked on laundry on vending, went to an auction, worked on the house, did standby on the ambulance and then went back to the auction and went to Doc's 50th birthday party. I am so sick of vending I want to scream. I hate it, Tom hates it, the kids refuse to do it and I don't know how to stop doing it. We will lose lots of money but I don't care anymore. I am so tired of it. They had an auction down at Martindale's on Saturday. Tom got a blade to go behind his tractor, Jayton got a set of golf clubs for 2 bucks. One guy bid $1 and then I told Jayton to bid 2, the guy looked at him and said awe let the kid have em"! Jayton was so happy he was jumping up and down. It has a glove with it and everything. He is set now! Tom bought a car for Brie. A 1992 Oldsmobile 88 with 136,000 miles on it. It is red and seems in pretty good shape. He only paid $700 so think it was a good deal so far. I wanted a corrall (sp?) but didn't get it. I didn't think it was fair as everyone else got something but oh well. I got a headache last night that turned into a migraine today. I have taken axert twice and its down to about a 2-3 on the pain scale. It is right behind my left eye. I hate when I get these. Needless to say I have done nothing all day. I have so much to do it is unbelievable. Grandma comes on Wednesday and I am so not ready. My house is a pit and I have schoolwork up the gazoo, I supposed to be helping with a Kid's club or Awana program get started at our new church. The list never ends. I woke up yesterday morning at 4:30 am stewing about all I had to do. I think I am a little stressed and overwhelmed. We had Hannah and David here this weekend too, also Genna was home from college and Jocelyn came out from Omaha. It seemed like there were people everywhere. Hallie worked all weekend so at least that was one less person home for awhile. We got the roof on the house mostly done. We added 3 skylights in the attic room. One doesn't open but the other two do. We need to take down the chimney now. Tom said to day he thinks we probably should just gut the kitchen and start over. Oh, yeah. I am at the point were he does the work so whatever he thinks we should do is fine. He said that we don't have room to put a double sink vanity in the mainfloor bathroom. I think a single sink with a bigger countertop is fine. If anyone read this and has suggestions please comment. I am going to try and get pictures of the roof on this week if I can remember to take Hallie's camera to the farm. Oh, we got 4 cats for the farm too. Tiger, Rascal and two black ones I don't know the names of yet.

Farm House Pictures

This is mostly pictures of the house but I did get one of Jayton's field trip in their accidently. Oops! This front pictures is taken from the front yard. The house faces the north and is on a east west road. We have since torn off the ugly green carpetting and the decaying front porch floor so it is basically not a usable front porch at this point. This is what we have gotten done so far:
Attic cleaned out and few boards put in to add a 1/2 bath. The whole house has been replumbed, a new furnace and heat pump, a new water heater with space to add another one if necessary, new water softner, new bathroom/laundry room on the main floor, new back porch with new windows, lathe and plaster removed from ceiling in living room and dining room. Gutted and new sheetrock and wiring in 2nd floor bathroom. We are waiting for a new roof. We have ordered a hunter green shake looking roof made from steel. It is supposed to be a lifetime roof, capable of withstanding 2 inch hail and we are to get a discount on our house insurance. It is supposed to be put on in the next couple of weeks. Tom is out their working today on the basement cleaning it up as they are to come and finish the furnace tomorrow. I am home working on blogging and bookwork for Frank Rentals. We actually now have a temporary working toilet in the main floor bathroom. Go Team!

This is the attic windows.

Sunday August 26,2007

I really don't feel well today so am not going to blog much. I still haven't figured out where the pictures of the house are or how to get them on the blog but I am still working on it. I talked to Nana and she is sad without Grandpa but doing okay. We went to Hastings for Genna's new parents days. It was okay. We met a few more parents and got to visit with Genna's roommates parents which was fun. They are so nice. I am hoping to get an email or comments from Casey. He is supposed to be somewhere for computer training this week. I am starting back to college September 14 for my bachelors in nursing degree. Hopefully this will work out okay. Brie plays softball with 3 games this week. Most are away which means I can't go. Shucks.

Is this weird or what?

I had to add this-it is so weird. Genna's new roommate is Jayne. The similarities from the two are mind boggling. Each of these 2 girls have this in common-family of 4 girls,2 boys. Dad is mechanic, Mom is nurse. Both play the flute and both were drum majors in high school. It is almost spooky.

Thursday

Okay, so it has been a few days. I am trying! Genna is officially at college. We took her down Monday, unloaded her stuff, spent gobs at Walmart, set her up, took her, her roommate and a friend out for supper and left as fast as I could. I did not cry at all, I really don't think I love her any less than other mother's love their kids just because I was in party mood for this event. It was TIME. (Can't you hear James Earl Jones voice saying that). So we have talked alot since she left and then I read this article. Oh, man I need to chill.

Cell phones on campus make cutting the umbilical cord more difficult

By EDWARD M. EVELD
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
(Original publication: August 23, 2007)All those cell phones on college campuses aren't just talking to each other.They're speed-dialing home. A lot.Got a problem with university bureaucracy? Mom and dad will know what to do. Time to kill between classes? Chat up mom or dad. Think you just blew a chemistry exam? Unload on the folks.

Not to mention the calls going the other direction.

"One mom mentioned that she calls her son to wake him up in the morning," said Sandy Waddell, assistant dean of students at Rockhurst University. "She said if she didn't, he might not make it to class. I told her I thought that was a bit over the top."

Cell phones are a godsend for parents of high schoolers. The "electronic leash," as some teens call it, assures that the kids have little excuse for not informing parents of their whereabouts. And mom and dad are quickly reachable if something goes awry.

But young adults in college are supposed to practice and prove their independence. All that contact, used the wrong way, can impede those goals, student affairs experts say.

Waddell said about half the students on campus had cell phones a few years ago. Now, nearly every student does. At orientation sessions, Waddell tells parents the college years are a time for emancipation, when young adults learn to handle matters on their own.

"The parents have to give their child the permission to do that," she said. "It has become increasingly difficult because the students are so used to using their phones and talking to their parents. I just think it delays that maturity."

The cell phone no doubt can be a conduit in a close parent-child relationship. One thing is certain: Everyday contact between young adults and their parents is the new normal.

"It's the way families are," said Marjorie Savage, parent program director at the University of Minnesota. "One thing we really have to keep in mind is that life is not like it was when we went to college, even if you went to college five years ago."

Emylie Leonard and her parents, Mary and Michael, confronted the cell-phone issue last year when Leonard first left Kansas City for the University of Missouri-Columbia. Now 19, Leonard had a rough go at first, with roommate troubles and a bad case of homesickness. She called home often, sometimes more than once a day.

"It made me feel better to call them so much," Leonard said.

"She'd call and say, 'I have my long walk now between this building and this building, and we would have this 10-minute chat," Mary Leonard said.

It's not that Leonard lacked self-assurance, Mary Leonard said. But "she was very, very used to always having us here to talk to." Leonard and her father often talked late into the night over bowls of ice cream

Still, Mary Leonard found the frequent contact curious, especially thinking back to her college years when calls home were fairly rare.

"You want them to be independent, to be on their own two feet," Mary Leonard said.

The Leonards' experience isn't unusual. In a study released earlier this year by the Pew Research Center, 82 percent of all 18- to 25-year-olds said they had talked to their parents in the past day.

"I've heard, 'Hi, mom. The test was OK. See you later,' " Savage said. "That's the entire conversation. Or, 'Yeah, dad, I got the tires checked. Everything's fine."'

Parents should analyze the content of calls rather than worry too much about the frequency, said Karen Levin Coburn of Washington University in St. Louis. It's a problem, said Coburn, co-author of "Letting Go: A Parents' Guide to Understanding the College Years," if students want their parents to swoop in at any sign of trouble.

If asked to help solve a manageable problem, parents should not provide step-by-step instructions. They shouldn't brush off the problem, either. Realize that students can feel overwhelmed at first, Coburn said.

Instead, parents should coach their children to take advantage of campus services, which are numerous, she said. Using parent handbooks and college Web sites, parents can get to know what's available.

Registration and professor problems, writing assignment troubles, roommate disagreements, all can and should be handled by the student with resources on campus.

"They learn that's what you do, that there's another way to solve problems," Coburn said.

Several parents said they're aware from orientation sessions that colleges want their help in nurturing student independence.

Barbara O'Neill, whose son, Joe, is headed to Missouri State University in Springfield this week, said they don't have a specific phone-calling plan, at least yet.

"I know I don't need an everyday account," said O'Neill, a single mother of two sons whose husband died eight years ago. "But I was thinking a couple times a week."

She's comforted that her son is "pretty self-sufficient" and just a three-hour drive away. While she wants to hear if he has problems on campus, she said, she also wants to hear he's working to find the solution.

Rita Berry, whose son, Alex, will attend St. Louis University, admits being a worry wart, but she's committed to keeping her distance.

"I want him to develop his world," she said.

As for Leonard, she's adjusted well to campus life and this year is a residence hall "community leader," which means she'll help freshmen get acquainted.

Her calls diminished last year along with her homesickness. She still likes that the cell phone is available, she said, and that she can instant-message her dad during the day.

Ironically, Leonard looks forward to old-fashioned mail. From the start, Mary Leonard regularly sent cards by snail mail, plus occasional goodie boxes. Despite technology, students love to check their mailboxes, Leonard said.

"It's just fun to get things in the mail," she said. "And my friends love my mom's cookies."

Today I took Jaci and her friend out to the middle school and I got a call from work. Jeff says, "What ya doing", and I said going to let the dog out and then come into work. Jeff's reply "Why don't you swing by and pick up Cameron from Linden on your way". Now why in heaven's name would I want to do that? I only got rid of him less than an hour ago and at this point I don't want him back. Jeff's words then let me know that my plans are worthless. " He threw up in the gym and they don't want him there." Lovely! So went and picked up Cam, he's fine now. He told them his stomach hurt, they told him to eat and he'd feel better and they are regretting that to say the least. I am sure everyone knows he threw up and will remember it for along time. The best quote was " Kevin and Corbin almost walked thru my puke" Just what I wanted to hear. So now I can stay home and do laundry today. Oh, joy.