JustLisa

I am so tired that I've been sitting here looking at my shoe for 20 minutes and can't complete the motion to tie it. Someone kept calling todd's phone last night which then makes it beep for missed call. LOUD! He's like me and cannot turn his phone off or silence it because of work so I heard the beeps all night. The beeping made Lucy pace the floor. Weimaraners sound like old women shuffling around in house slippers when they pace. Todd slept through all of this. The sound of his snoring lulling him into a deep sleep I suppose. I slept from 6AM to 7AM. Yay me. Tie my shoe. Please. I need to go walk the shuffling dog.

My goddaughter is going to have baby number two in the next two or three weeks and I'm looking at baby shower party supplies. She was over last night, looking all cute with that tummy poking out there. Steph has already painted the nursery with animals so this Ark themed pack would go along with that.

She does such a good job with her painting. Gabbie's room has brown and pink circles scattered perfectly on the walls and I didn't think she could top that. I was wrong. That girl can paint! After the baby is here, I'll go take pics to show you.

I'd show you now but I am not allowed to give away the sex of the new addition. If you are going to throw a shower and don't want the guests to know the sex or if you just don't know yourself, Party Pail has several themes that are appropriate for a boy or girl. This Mod Mom shower set is my favorite. There's a cute baby boy themed set that I wish I'd have had when Christopher was born.

Did I mention how excited we are to have a new baby on the way? This one has given everyone a couple of scares so it will be worth a big celebration when he/she gets here!

Whenever I put golfing in a sport category, I think of my friend Lori telling me that she hoped I knew golf wasn't a real workout. Oh yeah? Tell that to my back! I have been working on my swing by smacking around a bottle cap. Tonight I found practice balls and hit until my hands started to hurt. I wish I could say I'm getting better but... well, I suppose I am a bit. The other night I had 6 on a par 4 hole. They tell me that's pretty good for the first time. Christopher had par his first time though. Gotta beat that soon!

A friend and I were talking the other night about our house payments and how they pay $200 extra a month to knock out the principal. They said they look at their amoritization schedule every month and it's shocking how much goes to interest. I know that is true but I used to prefer to be ignorant about such things. Nowt hat I am not a kid anymore, I've started thinking about retirement and how to best handle my finances between now and then.

I found this really helpful loan calculator that breaks down interest and principal but also provides a year-end recap at the end of each year. Our year one says:

You will spend $8,144.79 on your loan in year 1
$7,372.08 will go towards INTEREST
$772.71 will go towards PRINCIPAL

When you look at it in plain english like that, it gives you a whole new level of insight. Less than a thousand bucks towards actually paying this thing off. YIKES!!! I'm rethinking that new car I want in two years. Go punch some numbers in and be amazed!

This morning I sat to read cnn.com and saw the link on how to reclaim your weeknights. The story recaps how three women manage to get all the evenings activities done, dinner on the table, and still have time for themselves. Problem is that two of them work part-time and one is a full-time mom.

Someone still needs to write the article or book for moms who work full-time (and then some) with less than helpful spouses and sports-minded kids who are involved in lots of activities. This needs to be written for those of us who aren't comfortable flinging their kids out into the world to manage on their own while mom sits back and watches her favorite TV show.

I'd write the article but I haven't figured it out yet. I was doing great to crunch my schedule up more so that I can take golf lessons with the boy. If I did write it, it would have a whole helluva lot to do with taking cattle prods to men who think their day is done when they hit the door in the evening...

Guess who is all done with school shopping? Yup! I am. All school clothes and supplies are ready to go. I also got all the laundry done and put away after a week long boy scout camp. That camp smell is so disgusting. Swamp feet - blech. I'm totally exhausted but in really good shape going into a new week. There is an issue with my cable modem but they will replace it tomorrow. I'm going to try to knock off at noon the next couple of weeks to spend time with the kids before school starts on the 23rd. This summer has gone way too fast. I haven't even been to the pool yet!

Tuesday night is another meeting with Barack Obama's people. I'm pumped! The more negativity I hear about him, the more excited I get. He's got people talking and thinking and that is good.

I really don't have any favorite scary movies since I'm more of a romantic comedy kinda girl but I do have memorable ones. Children of the Corn scared the crap out of me. I think mostly because I live in the heart of corn country and we used to go party in corn fields around the time that came out. It was nearly believable that kids could overthrow the adults and live in a little isolated town like that.

My most memorable scary movie experience was Halloween II. I saw that as a young teenager while vacationing at my cousin's house in Indiana. It was set in a hospital with long, empty, dimly lit hallways that offered many ways for something shocking to happen. After the movie we went to this big pool hall. The bathrooms were down a long, dimly lit hallway and my cousin's girlfriend and I went to the bathroom not realizing the similarity to the halls in that movie. Of course the boys waited to jump out and scare us half to death. That is when I decided I didn't care much for scary movies and I surely didn't want to watch any with stupid boys ever again.

I am looking forward to Rob Zombie's version of Halloween the movie though. I love Rob's music and his comics. He's very warped and will hopefully add a whole new level of spookiness to a classic horror film.

Watch this trailer for Halloween the movie and see if that music doesn't send a familiar chill down your spine.

That's my new motto. I attended an organizational meeting on Tuesday night and I tell ya', the more I hear, the more excited I get about the possibility of having a strong leader again. I've said it before, it does not matter if you love him or hate him, he makes you think... if you listen. The problem I continue to see amongst Republicans is that they refuse to listen. I have deliberately sought out a Republican to support and in doing so have listened to parts of their speeches and read their opinions. There's nothing scary about using your head and imagining the possibilities. At each meeting the subject of Obama being a hope monger comes up. There is nothing wrong with hope. If you listen to him, it will not hurt. I promise.

The new ad running in Iowa is about hope and faith. I challenge you to watch it. When I ask my friends to come to the meetings I say "We won't make you drink the Kool-aid." Same applies here. I'm not asking you to buy what I am selling. I just want you to hear the message. We are the United States of America and we've been separated too damn long. We need healing and I happen to think Senator Obama can lead us to that end.

As for his wife, she recently explained that she really doesn't have time to put on a lot of makeup and oh, how I can relate to that! Most working moms don't make that a priority and I admire Michelle for continuing to keep her priorities in the right order. It would be so refreshing to have such down to earth people in the White House.

If you live in Iowa and haven't signed a support card yet and wish to, you can do so here. If you are in Decatur County or any county near me, please sign up so we can show that there is a lot of support for the Senator in southern Iowa. As always, if you have any questions please feel free to ask me. I plan to share a lot more about him and his policies here in the future and I really do welcome all reasonable debate.

Yesterday I read an article that said diet foods may actually make a person GAIN weight since you really can't trick your body into thinking it's getting something it needs when it's not. It will compensate at your next meal.

Things like that are making me consider going back on the Glycemic Index Diet. I was on the doctor prescribed version of this years ago due to being hypoglycemic. Recently, a family member was also diagnosed with hypoglycemia so I went through my spiel about how blood sugar works and how eating right is important. I realize I talk a good game but I've strayed a long ways from the proper diet myself. To see the consequences one need only look on my desk at the bottles of ibuprofen, aspirin and tylenol that keep my headaches at bay.

Any kind of diet has something that makes it not appealing or difficult to stick with. You can use this site to look up the glycemic index of a food and make a better choice for yourself. It is very true that if you can keep your blood glucose level steady, you aren't as hungry and you will not crave sweets once you get on the right track. I plan to do that with my next trip to the grocery store. It's gonna be Hell giving up molasses cookies but I can do it!

Every night we have this conversation about what to eat. No one cares what we eat except for Todd yet he is the one who will say "Whatever you want..." then when we pick something, it's not what he wants. I get annoyed then we go another round or two. If I just fix something without consulting, then no one wants it. I think I get fatter from the stress of deciding what we're eating.

My friends Pete & Justine just bought an old house in town and are renovating it. This includes removing the ceiling fans and replacing them with more modern fixtures. I suggested an outdoor ceiling fan for the porch. The house down on the corner of our house and the highway has ceiling fans on the front porch and says she can spend more time out there in the heat and the air flow also keeps flies away.

I found the perfect fan at Premier Lighting. If I am reading that correctly, both fans also rotate like a traditional ceiling fan. Pete won't be a fan of the school house globe and will undoubtedly come up with something clever to call it. I think it's cool and if I had an outdoor place to put such a thing and the money, I'd get it.

We drove up to the Iowa State Fair tonight just to see The Nadas. They are so awesome. It was 98 degrees when we got there and hardly a breeze with all the people but it was so worth it. Van Halen is the only other band in the world who could get me to stand around in those conditions. This is the second time I've seen The Nadas when it's been pushing 100 degrees. If all goes well, I will see them at least four more times before this year is out. Someday they're going to make it big and I want to see them all I can before their ticket prices are $50!

My favorite Nadas song right now... click the play button and TURN IT UP!

Christopher worked again today and came home with some money. I told him he was taking it straight to make a car payment. That didn't go over so well but we did it anyway. Such is life kiddo; you touch your money for a second and then you gotta pass it on.

He has asked about opening a checking account and I'm reading about the pros of a prepaid teen card. It would put him in charge of his money and he'd learn about bank fees and responsible money handling. Right now if he has cash, he has to get rid of it quick. A card might make him think twice. I know Eva shoves her card in the ATM every time we go somewhere and seeing the numbers on the screen seems to make her think a little more about what else she could do with her money.

Who is/was ZuZu Petals? I was reading this article about a woman who lead the pop trio ZuZu Petals and her new book that chronicles this time in her life. I like to think I know a lot about music but I have never heard of them before. Maybe I'll look them up on youtube or itunes...

I, Lisa Michelle, would like to take this time to welcome Laken Michelle to the world. She came into the world about 5:40PM weighing in at 6lbs, 12 oz. I would show you a picture but I haven't anything to show. I guess I do have a big preggo belly picture I took yesterday but I'd rather wait and show you what she looks like on the outside. The little poop needed to get here by 5PM so I could see her, take her birthday picture and then get back home to get C. to band practice. She had other plans so maybe I'll see her tomorrow.

Today I participated in a phone conference with Senator Obama and wanted to share some of the things from the notes I took. The more I learn about him, the more I learn about the state of nation in general. These are the things that stood out for me:

To heal race and class divisions, he believes we need to work at the root of where these problems manifest by providing equal education, health care and job opportunities to all.

For health care, he'd like regulations in the insurance industry so that all insurance covers essential services and management for chronic diseases such as diabetes. There was a woman in the call who has been on an insulin pump for 20 years with her work insurance paying the bill. In a year she will be 65 and retire. Medicare will not pay for the pump so she'll have to go back on multiple injections of insulin after 20 years of having the luxury of a pump.

On the topic of ethanol, the Senator would like to see more money go into research for improving extraction of the ethanol to get more out of the corn. He'd also like to use the celluose from corn stalks and switch grass to make fuel so that we make good use of all our agricultural products and by-products, not just corn.

There was also a woman on the call who is on the ADAP waiting list for AIDS drugs. Her husband died of AIDS two months before their child was born. She said she was #208 on the list meaning that 207 people have to die before she can get her meds. That is just wrong. He would like for us to put quality controls in place so that we can import more medicine from other countries to alleviate our high costs and shortages.

I know some people will say that it's just more political rhetoric by yet another candidate wanting a vote but I am sticking by what I have said before. I've met him and he's genuine. I could feel it and if I'm good at anything, it's reading people.

Some additional reading on where he stands on other issues. You can look up other politicians on that site as well.

I never thought I'd say that but it's true. Both the boy and myself have succumbed to the game where you chase a little white ball around in an attempt to get it in the hole. I always thought it was such a stupid game but once you start hitting decent shots, you can't wait to try and do it even better.

I have been working on proper golf swing and remembering not to watch the ball. For some reason if you raise your head to watch where the ball goes, it will mess up the follow through I guess and the ball won't travel where it should.

This "swing up" approach is different than what we do for sure. One only need to look at the divots in our yard to tell we hit down on the ball. I'm going to show this to the kid since he forgets the rule about replacing divots, especially in our own yard. I love sites like this that show in graphics and video so you can actually see someone else doing it a few times.

The baby still has to sleep on her biliblanket so we can't really hold her yet but I am quite satisfied to just look at her. When Christopher was born he was so colicky that he was uncomfortable in any position and threw up all the time. It was easier and cleaner to keep his handling to a minimum. He also had adversion to sleep... still does... so there were never times of watching the sweet, sleeping baby. Laken sleeps so much that today is the first day I've actually seen her awake. She just laid there on her glowing blanket, looking around. So, so sweet. I am totally in love and have only known her a week.

This summer we took the whole family and had a blast in Tennessee but it was a lot of driving and a whole lot of money for no more time than we spent actually out of the truck. Next year we will probably do something much closer to home.

Missouri has a lot of great spots to vacation with Branson being the destination of many midwesterners year-round. Maybe I could talk Todd into aBranson golf vacation. We could have the scenic cabin environment we all love but be close to all of the shows and entertainment... and the golf course. The Thousand Hills Golf Resort sounds like an awesome place to play 18 holes of golf but I guess I don't understand the point of the advertised "GPS on every cart". I definitely have to go there now just to find out how GPS relates to golf. I'll report back when I know more! heh.

C. started Scouts in kindergarten as a Tiger Cub and tonight he passed his test to be a Life Scout. All we have left to do is Eagle. Yay!! When he first started I told his dad we were in this until the very end and he would complete all the ranks. Seems like I just said that a couple of years ago and now we are ready to begin work on that final rank. Time flies!!

I've been known to get accused of spending too much money on name brand clothes but like it or not, there is a lot of pressure for kids to keep up with the latest trends and hot new styles. I don't generally have enough money to buy designer kids clothing but some things are not that outrageously priced. I would get Gabrielle this Curious George shirt if she didn't have so many clothes already.

I think I have written about this before but I can't remember. I have this thing about numbers. I have no superstitions per se but numbers freak me out. Some days I will look at the clock and every time it will be some pattern like 1:23, 2:34, 5:55 or whatever. I just logged into my site and noticed I had 555 entries and 432 comments. AAAAAAAA! This is 556. Whew. Now someone comment to break that oddity.

Have any of you seen the movie 23? Eva said it would really freak me out.