Sorry for not posting lately. D & I have been anxiously waiting for the outcome over the new bailout plan. The news is reporting that more of congress is changing their vote to yes because of some tax breaks that have been added. The question I have is will those tax breaks help me??? The average American that makes under $100,000.00 a year?? I have a fear that this bailout will only help deepen the chasm between the wealthy and the poor, and possible wipe out all middle class.

It’s scary, but we have to keep pushing on!

Tags: Politics

Tags: Politics

I’ll tell you what it means to me. It means we have a congress that’s officially neutered. Imagine, do you think some of these old farts care? They’ll be long dead to care of the ramifications of their actions. Imagine how their children must feel. I’m pissed when I think about what my children will endure when we have them. I’m pissed to know that my little nephews and nieces will be screwed, because we got lazy and didn’t reign in our congress. Hell even our president. They are all SERVANTS TO US!!!!! I have to really applaud the few congress men and women who are sticking to their guns and saying no. I think it’s funny that top economists and certain members in congress (Ron Paul) say this bailout will not help.

To the McCain and Obama supporters: How do you ya’ll feel that they are now supporting the bailout? Symantics aside, they support it to the greatest minutia. There you go folks the “great” two party system that’s really one in disguise.

Friggin’ idiots. And I’m one too for allowing these people do what they do. I really feel for the children of the United States and my other fellow Americans that are as pissed as I am. We really are truly screwed. It might not be evident now, but it will in the future. Goods will get more expensive to buy, the dollar will weaken even more, and most Americans will only worry about the price of fuel while waiting for their government cheese. Idiots.

*UPDATE*

The House struck down the bailout package. 207 voted Yea and 226 voted Nay. We need to now contact those 207 for the package and ouste them.

Tags: Politics

Well folks here she is.  The wicked twin of Electric Sex. I’d like ya’ll to meet Gas-Similation.

It’s a pretty good range. So far! It’s been almost 20 years since I last cooked with gas and today’s experience was good. It’s funny, for our first meal it was Darryl’s (aka, great hot sandwiches). Dinner for tomorrow will be chicken marsala, steamed broccoli, and penne pasta. I’m gonna work on reducing the marsala wine to make it thick and syrupy. Anyway, back to the range. It’s a Whirlpool Gold (GFG471LVS) model that we’re testing for Whirlpool. We have to make sure that we have answers to the questions they have when that time comes. What I like so far is that the broiler does phenomenal and I love the cast iron grates. To me, cast iron cookware has a history of durability and longevity. With cast iron grates I feel the same connection with the cookware. It’s funny how much faster things heat up on the cooktop with gas versus a ceran top/coil top. The onions I was sauteeing released so much stuff in the air that Margaret’s eyes were stinging for awhile.

One thing I do miss from our old Kitchenaid range is the ‘easy convection converter.’  Say you wanted to bake something at 350, you’d input that temperature into the converter and the time and it’d adjust the heat to about 300 or 325 degrees. Very nice, but since I have experience using my own temperature range for convection cooking I feel confident in my abilities.

What else?  Oh yea, Margaret always wants to help, because she’s sweet like that (Plus I think it’s because it keeps her mittens off of her camera, addiction anyone?!?!?).  See below.

See what I mean?  Just kidding. I asked her to put the small gas line adapter thing into the range, but I put 2 layers of sealant tape on the thing and the range kept shedding it off. So I had to fix my mistake. That’s what that picture is. Luckily where Margaret came in handy was when we were getting the range into the kitchen. As ya’ll know, our kitchen is friggin’ huge, so we had plenty of space to maneuver the range into position. With me crawling from behind the range minutes later, we were ready to fire up the range…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………until I realized that it wasn’t level (CRAP!!!). Had to pull the damn thing out and throw some tile behind the range, because when a certain someone decided to tile the kitchen they ran out of backer board for the floor in that corner leaving a nice 1/4″ plus difference from being level. So, with all that done we got the range in place and then fired her up. Oh yea, I checked the lines for gas leakages. I had to throw the monkey grip to them to make sure they weren’t going to leak. It took a bit for the burners to set ablaze, but they did (per the instructions).

So overall the Gas-Similation and Electric Sex are tied for superiority of the kitchen, but E.S. (as we like to call her) has height in her favor. To finish off this post here are some more pictures. Check out the cool blue display from the range. NICE!!!!!!!!!!

I’m out!

Tags: appliances, cooking, house stuff

All of our beautiful b/w photo are on the floor in our living room. We refuse to hang them up until we get furniture in the room… and that might be awhile. So for the time being I have a wonderful art gallery on the floor of my living room.

Tags: new home, photography

I’m assuming that no one knows how to read the picture below, so tomorrow what will the great unveiling show?  A head popping out like a Jack in the box?  A large snake?  or maybe a million dollars?  What will it be?  The world may never know, till tomorrow.

Tags: appliances, house stuff, new home

As you can see I busted my arse today. Margaret wanted to help, but I shooed her back into the house so she could get to feeling better. It was hard making sure I checked in on her to take her medicine every hour. She did manage to take some pics though.

What happened was about 2 weeks ago we received an ungodly amount of rain. The kind of rain that makes perfect water puddles (ponds) to splash your friends and loved ones. Anyway, our basement had a very good leak coming from an old well housing. Luckily for us we have great neighbors near us. Their names are Dave and Jan. Dave is a contractor and he’s such a wealth of knowledge. Jan is like my dad in the way she supervises the work, but still doesn’t mind getting her hands dirty. Dave recommended that I lay plastic out in a tub type fashion, so when it rains the water will drain one way. It’s definitely not a permanent fix, but something that will get us through fall and spring. Next summer we’ll probably do things correctly. We are lucky though that our basement didn’t flood and just had a trickle of water coming in. You never know, we might have fixed the problem, but redundancy never hurt anyone. Has it? lol.

Well kids I’m out. I also need to apologize to Liz and Nikki, because we were supposed to go out to eat this evening to celebrate Nikki’s birthday and we had to cancel. With me in the yard and Margaret sick as a monkey’s uncle, there was no way we could do it and have it be enjoyable to all party’s. So we’re going to try tomorrow.

Later taters!!!

Tags: house stuff

really really … I caught a cold and I’m so not feeling good!!! I’ve been feeling bad since Monday, but thought I had a real bad sinus infection. I was popping sinus meds like candy with no relief in sight. I finally looked my symptoms up on WebMD and it said I had a cold. YUCK!!!! I figured it up and only have about four to five more days of this crap… I hate being sick… I’m not a good sick person… I swear!

ps if this post is slightly incoherent then it’s because I’m currently nursing a hot toddy that Darryl made me *he put extra whiskey in it without asking me first*, but honestly it’s one of the only things I found mentioned online consistently that would help me sleep, and I really need help sleeping right now.

Tags: illness, sick

Margaret and I broke down and purchased a dehumidifier yesterday. We went to Home Depot first and they were sold out, so our only resort was Lowe’s (sorry Dave!). Luckily we got there right when the truck pulled up. Since we received a ton of rain last weekend and lots of people had very very wet basements, dehumidifiers were in high demand. It holds 50 ounces and will automatically shut off when it’s full. This morning I had a full bucket and the basement felt normal again. Meaning dry. That last rain we received was so drenching that our basement actually had a wet feeling to it the following days. I figured it would subside, but nope.

We ended up purchasing a Frigidaire dehumidifier that also has an air filter in it. It has some other functions, but I won’t bore ya’ll with specs. Overall it was a good $200 bucks spent. We’re thinking about plunking down another $200 bucks for another one, because the dehumidifier that came with the house is old (very old). The old dehumidifier isn’t energy star rated and whenever it turns on it dims all the lights in the house for a split second. That’s not a good thing to happen.

Well kids other than that, I’m out!

Tags: house stuff