A Year of Change

Ok, I can’t take it anymore, politics is driving me nuts. I just cannot waste anymore energy worrying about it. I have to stop and instead focus on getting taking care of my family. It’s clear all my ranting won’t change anything at all. Here’s a quick comment from Aunt B,

I guess the stock market didn’t like the the outcome of the election either. Yesterday was the single largest drop by the market this year! Funny how the people that run all the businesses have no confidence in our commander in chief to turn the economy around. Oh well, you get what you ask for. here’s a couple of comments.

1. robi says:

   November 7, 2012 at 4:13 pm

   Well I have something to say – We have a dick for a president – can’t believe there are so many f _ _ _ _ _ g stupid people! Hope I didn’t offend anyone!

   Reply
2. Annette says:

   November 7, 2012 at 4:18 pm

   You reap what you sow. Very sad

   Many people are wondering how he won. Let me see if I can sum it up in simple terms. There are now 47 million people on food stamps or getting free stuff from the government. If you take those and add a few minorities that were promised things (or too ignorant to think for themselves) you easily get over 50% of the voting public. It’s kind of that simple. Throw in some people that are fooled by his lies and slick talk and those that get the free Obama phones and it’s kind of surprising he won by as little as he did. The spread in the popular vote was around 2 million. That means essentially half the country likes him and half doesn’t. Makes for a good scenario going forward.

   In Washington, nothing really changed. The Pres is still the Pres, the senate is still controlled by the dems and the house is still controlled by the republicans. So, is anything really going to change? I don’t think so. So there you have it, a friend of mine sent an email yesterday that I thought I’d share, read this………

   The election is over. Some are pleased, some are very unhappy, some have no idea. As soon as it was clear to me what we as a nation had done I examined my options.

   Hate is always an option. If you truly understand and love the country that was entrusted to us there are plenty of candidates to hate. The media for covering for Obama and misleading the people. Those who fed the media the too numerous and easily debunked lies. The people who were willing to trade their freedom for free stuff – cell phones, small checks, free birth control, etc., etc. Those without a clue as to how the laws of economics work, regardless of how grand the scale and on and on.

    However, after giving thought to these things a profound, yet simple reality came to me. It is for me, and perhaps for those of us who realize what we have been given is probably lost forever to repeat after our Lord Jesus as He spent Himself on the cross. “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”

    Pray for our leaders, our nation, the peace of Jerusalem and the world. And may His peace be upon you.

    One last thought – Prepare.

   Sounds like me but it’s not. This is from a guy I know who is probably in his late 60’s and lives in the midwest. His wife went back to school when she was in her early 40’s to be a doctor and is now practicing in her town. He’s always been a very spiritual guy (since I’ve known him)  who is close to God but been light on the prepare part. More and more he calls me asking for advice on how to prepare and what to buy or do in general. 10 years ago he debunked the theory of needing to prepare but now has had a 180 degree turn and feels time’s swiftly running out. I’ll have to ask him what made him embrace the idea of preparing.

   Now to our family, not much going on, I’m still sick and the misses is still in pain but we are headed up the hill today to see if she can get some relief at the doctors. Hope it helps. I just dropped the oldest at inter-murals and the youngest is getting dressed for school. I need to get some food and get moving. Hopefully we’ll have some good things to talk about tomorrow, take care, God Bless and just imagine if you lived on the east coast. I’ll bet those people wished they had prepared!

Nothing else to say,

I’m done.

Good morning.  This daylight savings time is throwing the kiddos for a loop.  They were both awake by 5:30 and downstairs intruding on the Mr.’s solace. I sent them both back upstairs, so we could have a few minutes of quiet before the morning scramble for school.  The oldest is reading…I think he was reading until 9:30 last night.  He is definitely hooked on the Harry Potter series, as we have said before….yea!

Okay, if you haven’t already voted…Get Out and Vote!  Hopefully we will have a President by the end of the night….no lawyers….no ballot issues….just a clear winner.  I would dive into the information and misinformation, but I don’t think I could sway you either way at this point. Again…go out and VOTE.

The Mr. is fighting a cold…thus I am writing the post today.  I don’t think he could stay away from last minute politics.  Already we are having voter fraud allegations here in Colorado.  Illegal immigrants are being registered to vote….really…can’t we all just play nice?  I’m sure the Mr. will write the post tomorrow and whomever is the winner… or loser, the Mr. will write a fair and balanced report.

We had one of the youngest’s guys friends come home with us yesterday.  His sister had her tonsils taken out because they were twice the size of an adult’s. Yikes!  The kids did homework and then went out to acquire another bag of leaves from the neighbor to dump on the pile in our front yard. There are four bags of leaves piled nicely out front, I think the boys called it a “Bunker”.  Fun times.

The youngest has a Student Council meeting today and the oldest has a clarinet lesson after school.  The youngest is quite excited because our school is a polling site for our area.  I am not as excited, because that means there are a lot of strangers around.  I think the school keeps the students in the one of the classrooms for the meeting.

It was my good friend’s 39th birthday yesterday…she’s been celebrating her 39th since I met her 6 years ago and she still looks the same as when we met.  The family and I stopped by with a card and a gift, of course they invited us to stay, but neither the Mr. nor I  were feeling well enough to stay. I hope she had a great day!  It’s another friend’s birthday today…tis the season for birthdays and holidays….Game Hens for Thanksgiving and hopefully Surf and Turf for Christmas Eve. (I’ll have to check with Uncle T.)

I am off to make breakfast…have a great day and God Bless.

Good morning, I’m taking over and am not as polite as the misses. So get out there and vote, and vote for Romney, period. He’s not overturning Roe V Wade, not killing medicare or social security and certainly not going to expand government. If you believe this, your believing his lies. There is no way anyone should vote for the incumbent. He didn’t do what he said he’d do, in fact in many areas, he did just the opposite. Sorry to be so direct but apparently you have no idea what will happen to our country if you know who wins another term, otherwise you wouldn’t even consider voting for him! God help us!

If you’ve already voted and voted for the wrong guy (the big O), pray for forgiveness. We don’t blame you, rather we blame the system which allows for all kinds of lies to be perpetuated without consequence that people end up believing. I’ll bet you’re glad today’s the last day but fear not, the 2016 campaign will start tomorrow, whether you realize it or not.

In closing I have to laugh as for the past few days, the big O is out there saying Mitt is a fantastic salesman who is fooling you! Are you freakin kidding me, this guy has been selling us a pack of lies for years and now tries to tell us Mitt is the salesman? Give me a break. I hope Mitt wins in a landslide as nothing would please me more than to see this loser give a concession speech tonight. So there you have it, the truth and nothing but the truth, like it or not.

God Bless

Tomorrow is election day which means the average 800 ads a day in Colorado will finally stop. Thank God.

I woke up around 4:30 this morning with a stuffed up nose and lingering cold. I’ve had this pseudo cold for 3 or 4 days that can’t decide if it’s going to go full blown or just go away. Maybe I’m keeping it in limbo with 6000 milligrams of vitamin C each day. In any case, I wish it’d just go away already.

Yesterday about the best thing to happen was the Denver Broncos beating the Cincinnati Bengals. It was a hard fought game but we won which is the most important.

They now say 40,000 people need shelter in New York for months. This is going to be very difficult in the city that’s always so strapped for rental space. Trying to rent a place to live or even a hotel stay when there wasn’t a storm is hard enough. My partner Lorenzo, in his 800 foot apartment has 5 people sleeping there and 7 people showering and eating there! I’m telling you for the last time, you’d better look around your house and see if you can make it for a few weeks, at a minimum, without help from anyone. If you can’t, get freakin busy!

The boys dragged two giant bags of leaves from the neighbors house over to our front yard and spread them all around. It’s a kid thing. They’re both up now eating some food before getting ready for school. Mom managed to get all the halloween decorations put away yesterday so that means the Christmas decorations will soon be coming down from the attic. I guess we’re having my Mom over for Thanksgiving and Uncle T and Aunt B are having her relatives. The misses says we’re cooking game hens as she hates turkey with a passion. Her doctor called yesterday and said to call this morning to come up hopefully tomorrow to see what else he can do to help her with her pain. He’s a good doctor, especially to go out of his way on a Sunday to call and check on her.

It’s supposed to snow this coming Saturday and the oldest and I are planning on heading back up to the hills. We’ll need to dress much warmer. Here’s a comment from Grandma Annette,

Last night we set the clock back an hour but that didn’t stop the youngest and his friend (who spent the night) from waking up. It’s now 5:30 am , not 6:30, and the 3 of us are downstairs.

As the misses said, the oldest and I went hunting yeterday. We arrived a bit before 7 after the almost 3 hour drive to the Wyoming border. We quickly donned our gear and headed out for the long climb. It wasn’t long before the oldest, moving like an elk himself, was swiftly onto a game trail and some fresh sign. We worked this and lots of other trails for the next few hours, up and down the mountain, but in the end only caught a glimpse of some animals running from us across the draw into the trees. Now I’m a pretty good shot (if I do say so myself) but there was no shot to be had. We had to have hiked 4 miles or more and easily went up 1500 vertical feet. Oh well, at least we know they are there and we have through the 11th before the season is over. So, we will be heading back up! After making our way back to the truck and changing out of our gear, unloading the weapons, etc. I let the oldest drive the truck out of the woods and over the sage to the road. He then turned it around and drove us up to the old homestead cabin where we messed around for a bit. Next up I drove us down the highway a couple of miles to the entrance to the other side of the ranch known as the”rocks”. He jumped out, unlocked the gate and swung her open while I drove through. We headed up a draw to where the spring is as I wanted to see how much water was running this late in the year. Happily we had a pretty good little creek that was frozen over but still had water underneath the ice. Upon seeing the ice, the oldest was compelled to break darn near every bit of it, the whole length of the creek, it’s a boy thing. I was in charge of finding him stout sticks of sage brush t0 use as his ice breakers. This took a good half hour before he was ready to go. I was determined to let him break all the ice he wanted to as he was having such a good time.

We drove into town for breakfast with a restaurant full of hunters, all also unsuccessful. You see if you were successful, you wouldn’t be there as you’d be out gutting your animal. That’s why it’s called hunting. After some hash browns and eggs for me and some vanilla dipped french toast coated in frosted flakes for the oldest (he also ate all my sausage!) we headed down the road. It wasn’t five minutes before something ahead in the road caught my eye. It was a herd of 50 elk jumping the fence and crossing the highway right in front of us! Another hunter coming the opposite way on the highway stopped right next to me headed in the other direction. We rolled down our windows (as if we knew each other for years as there’s a common bond between all hunters) and he looked at me and said, “it just isn’t fair”. I asked whose property they were on not knowing if I could pull off and take a shot and he said he thought it was the Anderson Ranch. Turns out when we arrived home and checked the regulations, I could have shot one on the left side of the road before they jumped the fence. When we came upon them, we did split the herd in two so some were still on BLM land. Oh well, at least we know they are down from the high country. Also in our favor was the direction they were heading. Once they hit the Never Summer Range , ( a range of mountains over 14000 feet high that they won’t cross) they’ll turn north which will put them straight on a path for Grandma’s place. Who knows if they end up there but at least they’re not headed south!

We continued towards Granby but stopped in another half hour or so to throw some more rocks at the thin sheet of ice in the river. This too went on for 30 minutes or so but the oldest was having the time of his life which to me meant time really didn’t matter. Finally we made it home around 2 in the afternoon with him finally falling asleep 10 minutes from home. When we pulled in he told me “dad, I wasn’t really sleeping, just resting my eyes”.

He was all set to go back up this morning but I decided to give the elk a few days to move north and to stick around today and help the misses take down the halloween decorations. I did promise him I’d take him back up this weekend. I made sure, despite repeated efforts by him, not to commit to going back up this morning, as kids never forget! When we arrived home he said he wanted to move to the ranch. His mom said, “but there’s no video games or time to watch tv up there as there would be lots of chores to always do” and he said he didn’t care about that stuff, he just liked being out there. He did have a great time which of course meant I had a great time. It was actually good we didn’t shoot anything yesterday as it would have taken me 8 hours or more to gut and process an elk alone. Next weekend we’ll take a buddy along to help.

I ran to the store with the oldest and picked up some groceries while mom tried to keep her head calm. Finally we all headed to bed around 9 for some much needed rest. The oldest, thankfully, is still sleeping as is the misses.

Cheer for the Bronco’s today, hope this isn’t a trap game! Have a great day and God Bless. Now, I encourage you to read on, no politics, I promise!

Below are a few pictures of what’s going on in New York,

Good Morning.  The sky is pitch black and two of my three guys are already on the road.  The Mr. got up a bit after 4a.m. to shower, make breakfast, hot chocolate, and sandwiches for the hunting expedition. He and the oldest were out the door a bit before 5:00a.m. for the 3 hour drive to Grandma’s ranch on the Colorado, Wyoming border.  The ranch is private property, so there will not be any other hunters up there….Whew!   The plan is to hike up one side of the Mountain and then down the other looking for elk.  Hopefully, they won’t run into a bear.  I just spoke to the Mr. and the temperature is climbing to a balmy 11 degrees…brrrr.  The oldest just finished another Harry Potter book and started on another.  He must be reading the fifth or sixth book now.  I think he is enjoying the books more than he did the movies…hurray, maybe I’ll start on them.  The last three books in book club have been great big zeros.  The current book is Night Circus and it does have great reviews, so we’ll see.  Anyway, back to the expedition….both men, the 10 year old and the 55 year old have on layers and layers of clothing… including… but not limited to, neon orange vests and hats… The orange is required and appreciated…just in case there is someone trespassing.  Also,so the elk can see the hunters coming…it is only fair.  Personally, I think the men should have to chase the elk down and tackle them..that would level the playing field a bit. We will, of course have to eat the elk if they kill one today…don’t worry we will share and since we have a Fed Ex account we would be happy to ship to CA and AZ.  The youngest was also going hunting, but he was invited to movie night and a  sleepover at his buddy’s house and that offer won out.

Yesterday, before school I was cleaning the youngest’s ears and on the second ear he turned his head as I was beginning to twist and the Q-tip went in way to far.  He screamed so loudly that I was sure there would be blood gushing out.  I finally got him calmed down after about 5 minutes which was incredibly frightening since he has a very high pain tolerance…just like his brother.  His ear was still hurting after school and when he left for his play date/sleepover.  I told him to call if his ear was still hurting and I would come and get him.  Of course when he called I was in bed, as was the Mr. but the Mr. had the pleasure of getting dressed and picking our guy up at 9:00p.m. (Thank you sweetheart)  I gave our guy Children’s Tylenol and a little snack… two pieces of turkey, a mini Pay Day candy bar, popcorn and a glass of milk.  Then we were off to bed.  Hopefully, he won’t complain of any pain today, or we will be off to the Dr….Ugg.

Both boys had Cross Country races at school.  They both ran well and had smiles on their faces for the entire mile.  Uphill….downhill… and on the straight aways.  I love the fact that they have so much fun when they are running.  The P.E. teacher commented again, on the youngest always having a smile on his face and what good boys we have.  We think so, but the Mr. and I are just a little bit biased.

Here are three more photos from Halloween.  The Headless Butler walking away is one of my favorite pictures.  Grandma and the boys is also a favorite of mine …I didn’t ask for Photo Approval…hope I don’t get in trouble.  As you all can see, Grandma is as lovely as always…hope you all have a fantastic day!

God Bless.

Now I was upstairs the whole time but from what I understand, this was the best book club ever. One lady told her friend who is joining, not to expect it to be this nice all the time. The misses had 17 ladies here for dinner, drinks and conversation. The big hit was Mrs. Rossi coming over and sharing all her stories of people in the book that she personally knew all of her life. Meanwhile the boys and I were upstairs. Somehow the misses managed to clean everything up before coming to bed, even with her headache. I’m glad for her it turned out so well.

The east coast storm is dominating the news, even more so than politics. All that talk by me of preparation doesn’t seem so out of line now does it? The same thing can happen here, not necessarily a hurricane but a massive snow storm or natural disaster. What about a huge earthquake in California? Back east you have gas lines hours long and then no gas. People are pulling guns in line! People are dumpster diving looking for food, the power is out to over 4 million people meaning no heat, no water, no refrigeration and more. On top of this a new storm with rain and snow will arrive next Tuesday. If I was still there, I’d get out, someway, somehow, no matter what material things I left behind.

So I’ll leave it alone for now but this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what will happen sometime in the next few years due to something, most likely economically. You still have time to prepare, whether you live in California where an earthquake can hit or Colorado where we could get a 3 foot snow storm. You see, the government and the Pres look good on tv saying all the right things like we’re sending extra food, we’re approving every request, blah blah blah, but look at the people on the street standing in front of their homes with nothing, no heat, food, water, shelter, nothing. The worst is yet to come for some of these folks.

Today, sometime, I’m supposed to leave for hunting but we had some unforeseen truck troubles yesterday and the truck we’re supposed to take is back in the shop. So I might be delayed a day but will probably head out at 4am in the morning worst case, even if I have to go alone.

The kiddos are a wreck this morning. That’s what you get when you combine no sleep (them staying up late while Mom had book club) and 20 pounds of candy. (that’s their combined total they collected) We’re letting them each pick 20 pieces and donating the rest to the troops. We found out we can drop it off at the VFW and they’ll send it overseas. What a great idea.

Time to run, we tried to post the pics but couldn’t size them. Grandma Annette suggested the misses post them on Facebook which I’m totally against but guess we can do it just this once and leave it up for just a few days. Too many predators and bad people on Facebook to put your kids up there. Just me.

Take care and God Bless and if you were ever going to think about preparing even a little, turn on the news. If that won’t do it for you, you’ll never do it!

Ok, you should have been here. The kids had the time of their life. Their costumes were the best of any you’ve ever seen. We’ll try to get pictures up down the page. The day started with the big parade around the school with all the kids in their costumes and then parties in each classroom. After that the misses and I headed home to work. I was off to a couple accounts in Boulder while the misses worked around the house. I made it home around noon and we picked the kids up at 2:45. Time flew doing homework and carving up the last two pumpkins and then it was time to get the costumes on and head to Grandma’s.

Then it was off to the Rossi’s and the O’Connells who are close neighbors since I was a kid. Then we worked the neighborhood and finished up at Uncle T and Aunt B’s where the boys had handfuls of candy dumped in their pillow cases to carry home. A quick pit stop to dump their loot and we loaded up the car and headed off to the oldest guys friend where the boys worked that neighborhood with their friends and his dad. The misses and I visited with the oldest friends Mom and drank some wine, big mistake, and finally headed home around 8:30.

Today we have a meeting downtown at 9:30 and then have to make a couple of stops before hopefully getting home before noon. Tonight the misses is hosting book club. The book this month is about the Smaldone’s, a local italian crime family we grew up with. Mrs. Rossi, who grew up in the middle of it, is coming over to share, what she calls, the real stories! It should be a great evening but there are 20 ladies coming. I don’t even know how they will fit in the house. I guess the boys and I will be upstairs or downstairs. There is football on but the only tv that gets the game is in the living room. Maybe we get it downstairs, I’ll check.

Time to run, we’re going to try to get a picture up now so hang on. If we don’t, have a great day and God Bless.

It’s here, the big day, candy, pumpkins, goblins and witches, not to mention the all day party at school. The day will begin with the school wide parade around the whole school with all the kids in their costumes. Then they have party’s in their individual classrooms. Both the misses and I will be helping out. Today after school we need to carve up our pumpkins before the kids head out for candy at dusk. We’ll be watching them close and screening all the candy before anyone eats a bite. Pictures tomorrow if we can figure out how to post them.

Yesterday I was in Beuna Vista which is about 2 hours from Denver. It’s really really beautiful there and the people, even though this is a generalization, just seem to be nicer than in the city. Everyone says hi even if you don’t know them. Life in a small town just seems different than life in the city, kind of a step back to how life was 20 or 30 years ago.

I made it home a bit after 3 just after the kids. Mom was working all afternoon and night getting ready for the kids parties today. Of course some parents that agreed to volunteer and make some food or help out, have now bagged out at the last minute, losers.

Here’s a post from Grandma Annette from yesterday, thanks for sharing,