Big News!!

I've been wanting to share this for a while now (we closed on July 6th!), but we were keeping it a secret until Dan's parents came to visit. 

We are now proud Texas homeowners!!  Check out this little beauty:

It is a lot smaller than our home in Utah, but it really is just perfect for our needs.  3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and packed full of charm!  Lots of details to work out yet, but looks like we will be moving in sometime in August or September.  We're hoping to be in this one for a long, long time.  Yay!

Pleasure. and Pain.

We were on vacation last week, and coming back to the real world has been rough. We had a fantastic time, took lots of photos, and enjoyed some time with the in-laws as well. More on all that later.

So in a round about way, we acquired this little gem last week (thanks Jessica & David!):

It's actually a lot more fun than I had anticipated. While it's not as physically demanding as I had hoped, it at least gets me up off the couch for a few minutes each evening.

Last night I progressed from "medium" to "hard" level, and was doing quite well until right after the "jumping lunges" (really? like lunges aren't hard enough?) and suddenly I was in PAIN. Major cramp in the muscle ... how do I put this delicately?... the muscle that connects the back of your thigh to your butt. I don't think I've ever had a cramp that bad. I could not sit; I could not walk; It hurt to stand. All I could do is lean over and deal with the pain. After about 15 minutes it started to subside. I declined to finish the workout.

So we'll see what tonight brings.

What can we do? Take back our country!

Here are some more things to think about:

1. $11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year by state governments.
Verify at: http://tinyurl.com/zob77

2. $2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens.
Verify at: http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html

3. $2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens.
Verify at: http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html

4. $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English!
Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.0..html

5. $17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies.
Verify at http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

6. $3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens.
Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

7. 30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens.
Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt...01.html

8. $90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare & social services by the American taxpayers..
Verify at: http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSCIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.html

9. $200 Billion dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens.
Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

10. The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that's two and a half times that of LEGAL aliens. In particular, their children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the US.
Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/12/ldt.01.html

11. During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our southern border also, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from terrorist countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroin and marijuana, crossed into the U.S. From the Southern border.
Verify at: Homeland Security Report: http://tinyurl.com/t9sht

12. The National policy Institute, estimated that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion or an average cost of between $41and $46 billion annually over a five year period.'
Verify at: http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/pdf/deportation.pdf

13. In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances to their countries of origin.
Verify at: http://www.rense.com/general75/niht..htm

14. 'The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One million sex crimes Committed by Illegal Immigrants In The United States.'
Verify at: http://www.drdsk.com/articleshtmlThewww.drdsk.com/articleshtml

The total cost is a whopping $ 338.3 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR.

Are we THAT stupid?

Interesting video

Why I Love Independence Day

I realize that this post is a little late.  But I have a good excuse.

AT&T U-verse.  If you haven't already heard me whining about this on Facebook, then read the post below.

But seriously:  I love the 4th of July!  It has long been my favorite holiday.

First, I love the nature of the holiday.  Independence Day.  Our Independence Day.  I love our country, and though there are scads of things to fix, I love the idea of America.  I love who we are and what we stand for.

John Adams said:

"The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more."

He was off by 2 days, but we won't worry about the details.  (If you really are a history nerd, you already know that the separation of the American colonies from Great Britain really did occur on July 2, 1776.)

I love this day because there is no stress or worry or pressure associated with this holiday.  No presents to buy, no parties to dress up for, no cards to send, no awkward office parties to attend, no decorations to put up - or take down, no special clothes or costumes to wear, no protocol.  

Just pure fun.  Hang out with your family. Eat summer foods like hot dogs and hamburgers and corn-on-the-cob and potato salad and watermelon.  Run thru the sprinklers or lounge by the pool.  Wear shorts and a t-shirt and a baseball cap.  Relax!  Enjoy your family and friends!  Listen to big band patriotic music, attend a parade and watch fireworks displays.  

This is why I love the Independence Day.

Time for a Rant, or "You Might Want To Think Twice Before Ordering AT&T Uverse"

**UPDATE #2** As of 7:30 pm on Tuesday, we have been re-connected. I shall say no more.

**UPDATE** OK, so I waited until 8:00 last night and finally the guy showed up. He asked me what the problem was. Um, I don't have TV or Internet! Don't you think he would know that? I escorted him to the room where the modem is, and he "tested" the line, while I explained what we had been told about the neighborhood box problem. He confirmed that we were not receiving data (duh). Then he went to test the cable on the outside of the house. Still nothing. "It must be a problem in the neighborhood box, " he said. No kidding, I thought. So he went to check the box, and wonder of wonders, there was a problem. And he couldn't fix this particular problem. So he told me he "called in a ticket" and someone would be out to fix it first thing in the morning. He said I did not have to be there, but when I got home, I should reset the modem and everything will be fine.

I am still skeptical. But I will do as I am told tonight when I get home from work. Heaven help me if we don't have service..............


We lost our TV and Internet connection on Thursday evening. We had a tech scheduled on Friday from 12 to 4 pm. We waited and nobody showed up. We called to see why they hadn’t and were told that the Tech was re-scheduled because they couldn’t get access. I was there the whole time, so I do not know why they couldn't get access! I think it was just an excuse. Anyway, when we told them that their tune changed and then they said that there was a cable cut in the neighborhood and that is why the tech was cancelled. We were told that we would be called back soon.

Saturday morning comes and we hadn’t received a call so we call in again. The customer service agent informs Dan that the cable had been repaired and sets us up with another tech appointment from 12 to 4 p.m., once again, a no show. We call in after 4:30 p.m. and the customer service agent informs me that the cable in our area is still down and we won’t see a tech until that is fixed, and they will call us to schedule (uhh Huh, where have I heard that before?). I was advised that they were working on the problem currently and it should be fixed soon. I then asked for a manager and was placed on hold for 20 min. Finally a manager came on, went through the same info and told me he would personally call me back Sunday morning after 8:00 a.m. With that information we decided to take a drive to see if we could see any AT&T crews were working in the neighborhood. Of course there weren’t any to be found. After the drive we realized that another home in our neighborhood has had programming since Friday morning, so I called in to inquire about that. After talking to a first line customer service agent I was transferred to the Level 2 service agents who (shockingly) were very informative and spent considerable time troubleshooting everything they could. I also gave him the address of the family we knew that had working service. He came back and said that there were several homes in the area without service and ours just happened to be one of them. He said that we needed to wait until the cable was corrected and that he would stay on top of it and call me back. I then told him that I have been told that before and that I was going to call back Sunday morning if it wasn’t corrected overnight.

Sunday morning comes and no call was received from management (as promised) or from the Level 2 techs. About 11:00 a.m. I decide to call in and see if I could get an update. The Level 2 tech I reached was nice and started off by stating that it looked like everything was OK with the line. I then stopped her and explained what had happened and what the status was the last time I called. As she starts to trouble shoot she sees that 6 homes in our area are without service and she was shocked that it had been so long that the service was down. She started to try to schedule a tech to come out as soon as possible but dispatch wouldn’t let her due to the fact that the cable was still cut and needed repair. (Mind you we haven’t seen any AT&T trucks in our neighborhood since we reported the outage.)

Once again I was told to wait and that dispatch would call. So we went about our day and when we got home from church we saw an AT&T truck pass us on our street and another AT&T van parked by the box that needed repair. Nobody was around the parked van but hope started to grow. Of course that hope was dashed when we got back inside the house and re-booted the modem/cable box, and once again, nothing. I walked outside to see if there was anyone working by or around the van and the van was gone.

Here we are Monday morning and I get a call at 11:12 am from AT&T asking me if I "was experiencing any trouble with my service." I told her yes, and proceeded to tell her the entire story about what had happened over the weekend. She told me she would call the tech office to see if the neighborhood issue had been resolved (wouldn't you think that she would check that before calling me??), and would call me back.

Lo and behold, she called back at 11:17 am to tell me that the neighborhood issue had been resolved and she would like to schedule the tech to come by and fix my modem box. Tomorrow. I asked if there was any way they could come today. She checked the schedule and was able to secure me an appointment from 4 to 9 pm tonight.

I don't know about you, but I'm not holding my breath.

Bad Blogger.

Somewhere in the past couple of weeks blogging has started to feel like a chore.  Something I have to do.  You know, to post my Photo-of-the-Day.  Well, I've decided that just because I'm taking photos every day, doesn't mean I have to post them for all to see every day.  Right?  So I am changing things up around here.  

Here are a few of the things that happened this week.

This past Sunday, my class had to present "Sharing Time" in Primary.  These were a few of our props, symbolizing  emotions we might need to rid ourselves of via forgiveness.

I have an obsession with puppy feet.  I love them. They are so cute.  Plus, they smell like Fritos.  

And there you have it!  A guilt free post!