Michelle Smiles

Teaching my children to question authority, except mine.

Memo #32181

March9

To the jackass in the black Jeep Cherokee:

I have seen a lot of immature, testosterone driven behavior on the road but you get your own category of ignorant.  First, you almost sideswipe our car on the side carrying the pregnant woman and 18 month old child because you wanted to race ahead in the lane that was ending and swoop in at the last minute.  Then when my husband blows the horn at you because he had to slam on the brakes hard enough to make our seatbelts lock up and swerve slightly into the lane of oncoming traffic to avoid you hitting us, you decide to retaliate by repeatedly slamming on your brakes so we will come close to rear ending you.   Apparently, the horn hurt your little feelings.  So sorry.  Then in a show of great jack-assery maturity you decide to pull over to the side of the road and open your car door 6 miles later and invite us to pull over and “settle it”.

You are lucky my husband didn’t stop (not that either of us was inclined to play your game) because you put my daughter and baby in danger and that makes this momma 10 feet tall and bullet proof.  I would have told my husband to stay in the car while I kicked your ass.

Signed,

Outraged Momma

posted under humor | 21 Comments »

Adjustment of expectations

March8

I’ve spent a bit of time complaining and being grumpy about the cold we’ve experience in our first Southern winter.  We really didn’t expect to see snow multiple times and have sustained cold temperatures.  I’m hoping next winter I have a more realistic expectation because I’m tired of being grumpy over the cold.  I know our friends and family in the north are dealing with words like blizzard right now.  But I was still surprised to wake up to 5 inches of snow.  There are steps under there – apparently our apartment complex doesn’t consider snow removal part of their job.

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And a little Sabrina cuteness to balance out the cold.  (No that box behind her doesn’t mean I’ve gotten organized and already started packing for our move.  It means that box of books we’ve been meaning to donate to the library since we moved here still hasn’t left the house.)

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posted under nashville | 10 Comments »

Mortgages and cravings

March6

First, kudos to my hubby.  He finally fell victim to having to run around to satisfy one of my cravings.  I really wanted a meatball sub and the first place he went didn’t have them so he drove way out of his way to go to another place that had them.  Of course, the second place didn’t have them either and I had to settle for something else but I feel bad for making him run around.  Thank you honey.

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Second, I’m curious what others think of this.   The government has set up what has turned out to be an inadequate program to assist all of these people who are defaulting as their adjustable rate mortgages keep adjusting upwards.  There is now a call out for more help.

Should our tax money be spent to assist people to keep homes?  Will it help the economy to keep some of these loans from going into default?  Is it their fault for getting an adjustable rate mortgage if they couldn’t afford it when the interest rate rose even though no one would have predicted they would be rising at this crazy pace?  Should the government provide a safety net to protect the borrowers and the lenders?

I’m of two minds about this.  I can see both sides.  The social worker in me wants to see these people keep their homes.  I don’t want to see families lives ruined because they didn’t understand the ramifications of taking on too much house at an adjustable rate mortgage.  And there are also people, like us, who bought our house relatively recently and are forced to sell it for less than it was worth a few short years ago.  Many people can’t make up the difference between sale price and debt.  But as a tax payer who is sickened by the trillions of dollars in national debt, part of me doesn’t want to pour money into a program to bail people out of a situation they got themselves into.

Which side of the fence are you on?  I am obviously straddling it.

posted under political | 18 Comments »

Good news in adoption land

March6

Many of you are following Cheri’s story and have already read the good news.  But for those of you who only check in periodically or those who have helped financially when blogland did a fund raiser, I want to direct everyone to Cheri’s blog for the news she has been waiting to announce for over 17 months.  She is going home!

posted under adoption | 4 Comments »

Back away from the pregnant lady

March5

Had yet another doctor appointment today.  My doctor has now successfully driven away her nurse – the only sane person who worked there.  So now I am stuck with just crazy doc and her nervous intern until she hires a new nurse.  I spent my entire appointment being belligerent – questioning her about decisions she has made without my input, refusing to blindly follow her requests, flat out refusing to come in for another appointment next week, calling her a control freak, and generally making a pain in the ass of myself.  She was probably glad to see me go today.  Her intern spent the time snickering out of sight while I being difficult.

All looked good with the baby. The baby was also being difficult and again refused to give us a between the legs shot so no gender news.

posted under Pregnancy | 15 Comments »

Do mommies get vacation days?

March4

My friend Amy sent this to me and it made me laugh.  Mostly because we could have a lawn the size of a bathroom stall and Steve would try to convince me he needs a lawn tractor to mow it.  That and the fact that he does a lot around the house but I’ve only seen him vacuum once.

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Yesterday’s post made me realize that my child could barely see around her bangs so I gave her a quick trim (shut up – it’s close enough to even…you try putting scissors that close to a squirming toddler’s eye and see if you go back to even it up).

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And lastly, not sure if she was showing off her pack rat tendencies or trying to run away from home but she no longer is content to walk around with either her shopping cart or her lego wagon – she now tries to commandeer both around the house.

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posted under family | 5 Comments »

Finally some bragging weather

March3

Yesterday and today we have had weather worthy of moving 500 miles south. It has been sunny and in the 70s for the past 2 days. Unfortunately it is supposed to be in the 50s and raining for the rest of the week. We took advantage of the weather and headed to the park this morning. (Daddy was jealous as he was stuck at work so we took some photos.)

We tried a variety of swings and Sabrina gave them all 2 thumbs up:

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This driving thing seems like a piece of cake! I don’t know why mommy is always cussing when she does it.

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I’m not so sure about this slide thing. Mom is aklutz…she SAYS she will catch me but what guarantee do I have?

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I discovered today that somehow we are managing to raise a girly-girl. Sabrina would cry every time she fell. Not because she fell but because getting up required her putting her hands in the dirt to get back up. She apparently doesn’t like getting her hands dirty (unless she is playing in mommy’s potted plants). Daddy and I are going to have to work on that.

On another note:

A big HAPPY 14th BIRTHDAY to my nephew Ricky. Crap that means I am getting old. (Yes, I can make everything about me these days.)

posted under family | 10 Comments »
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