WHAT A LIFE!

There has been much going on in my life lately. In a life that was basically humdrum, I have turned it upside down and back up again. I have enjoyed the change but I will admit that change is often a bit scary. Sometimes I wonder, what if? But then I think of how I was not doing anything before. I was not happy at my job, I was not happy with my boys' decisions. I had a few joys like my grandchildren and then they moved.

So my own move has been good and it is always good when you realize you still have room to grow. I believe the biggest part has been that I really do have dreams left in my heart. I have hopes for myself that I did not find possible that suddenly have become reachable. Shocking, life is truly a mystery and a joy. So what I would say to most is don't think you are ever at the end or stuck, something will happen to change it, if you only believe that it can happen.

CHANGE, THE AMERICAN WAY

We are nearing the dawn of a new president and change he says, he will bring to this country. The country needs change but in what form? Do we need children in schools having to think about issues like the contents of the Pledge of Allegiance? Do we need to bail out BIG BUSINESS that has managed to pay themselves millions of dollars in salaries but now cannot keep their businesses afloat?

Changes like these are far from what our fore fathers would have ever thought possible for our country to deal with in a government venue. The Pledge of Allegiance was established to encourage our sons and daughters to believe in this great country. To take one word from it would be a disgrace to all who have toiled in and fought for this country.

Bailing out BIG BUSINESS is just a coward's way of getting through a bad situation. That has not been the way of the AMERICAN. We have not ever chosen a coward's path. We came to this country and founded towns and government. We travelled into the wilderness with women and children, young and old to create more opportunities for our families. In saying that, we did not make wise choices in all our endeavors going west. We surely should have taken more pride in the original AMERICAN, the INDIAN.

So change will happen as it always does, but we need not sacrifice our core beliefs to make some happy or fulfilled. Not everything should be an issue to bring up before God and country. Let the little children say their pledge and stay young and let the old bastards that got themselves into trouble work themselves out of it.

Rural Vermont

There is a small town in Vermont that is making headline news across the country. Apparently a grade school is making its children that want to say the PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE leave their classrooms and go to the gym so the children that don't want to say it do not have to hear, ONE NATION UNDER GOD. Parents are upset on both sides of the coin.

Personally I like the idea that this controversy has brought the school as a whole together as an assembly into the gym or even outdoors to say the PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE. In my mind its message rings with such strength seeing those young children lift their heads, hands and voices in unison to the sky. Perhaps this was God's idea, his simple twist of fate, the non-God lovers wish not to hear ONE NATION UNDER GOD, so instead the heavens hear a joyous rendition of the PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE by the those intended to state the words, the young Americans who will one day continue on with the traditions of this great country.

The Beat Goes On.

A few days have gone by since the passing of my father and the family celebration of his life. It has been a time of sadness and joy mixed with not believing it happened at all. I relished the afternoon with my family, we hugged and cried but mostly we laughed. We spent time getting to know each other again and remembering times when my Dad was present. It was a perfect day for my father and I am quite positive he is happy with the outcome.

Death is not something anyone is ready for, we don't really prepare for it yet we know it is looming in the back of us, ready to tap us on the shoulder. When it is time, there will be no easy words or sermon to preach over the grave. I can attest to you that hugs from your family and your loved ones makes the transition a little easier. Within the hugs there seems to be some strength that is transferred to the wounded and a small light of warmth glows and somehow you feel better. Loved.

I can say mourning had its place in time, my Dad had the right idea, a celebration to the life he lived and lived well.

Pick up the Pen.

My grampa told me there is not much he could do, he had been through this twice. He is speaking of living through the death of my Uncle Steve and then the death of my gramma. He said that the pain is unthinkable and one day you wake up and throw your legs over the bed and realize you are still breathing, still here. That is when you realize it is time to start living again.

My father passed away yesterday morning.

It seems like five years ago, it seems like it never happened at all.

I sit here pondering if this is the ending of a life or a chapter or an era and realize that it is much more cyclical. For from this event my father has possibly launched my writing career, a better relationship with my family and shown my two wayward 20 something sons that it is time to grow up. For what he could not articulate in his life he will guide in his death, the very love he has for all of us.

My youngest son was going to school and working part-time. It was not working out for him as he has two young children to raise and finally he came to the realization that he needed to work full-time. He had been looking for a job and looking.

Today he and I went all over town and just happened to stop at a new construction site. The guy at trailer told him to read the sign at the door, they were no longer hiring. He came out not dejected but still determined. Out the door comes a guy yelling and asking if my son needed a job. The next thing I know my son is at a job site talking with this same man and the foreman. I watch from a distance. I see a posture I know. It is not that I see my Dad there but I see the workings of the man there, as I have seen a million times before in my life. My son got the job.

Turn the Page.

A new president has been selected and this evening I sit and wait for the telephone to ring. I knew this evening would arrive one day but did not expect it now. My Mother and Uncle are speeding over a mountain in Vermont to reason with a man who has spent his life being in control and using common sense. They will try to convince him that the breathing tube is necessary if he wants to see his girls one last time. It is not what he wants but he may falter at the mention of the girls.

As you, yourself, get older you really don't think about the people in your life dying. Somewhere in the back of your mind, it is obvious it will happen, but it is not prevalent in day to day life. Your parents seem so infallible so when they age and then become weakened by disease it is shocking. My mom called only days ago to say he was in the ICU. He needed assistance with his breathing and today she tells me that he would need life support to sustain his life but he will not accept that. That much I had figured out already. I know this man well.

This is a man who I have seen fell trees and build a building by himself. I have watched him throughout my life take care of his family and his home by getting up early every day and working hard. I have seen him at his toughest and at his weakest. I have watched him help people who could not help themselves and make people laugh when they were sad. I have gotten advice and ass-kickings. I have gotten his support when I needed it. He taught me how to rely on my head and my abilities to get a job done. When I called him today, I could not bare to hear his voice through the breathing machine. It was not him.

Forty nine years. That is what I have had with him. I pray my Mother and Uncle do not ask him to do something he doesn't feel is right just to see the girls one last time.

I asked him today, "Do you remember what you got us one Christmas that you had to hide in the shed?" and he said, "Yes, and so do you." I replied, "Yes, I do."

This is the time I want him to remember. This is the time I want him to return to in those final moments. I wish for him to go back in time and embrace the girls again when they were young, hold tight and then calmly go home to God.

VOTE!

Fellow Americans, VOTE. We have will have no one to blame but ourselves if we do not like who is in the White House. It is your civic duty and should be your honor. It is your heritage arising from the landing at Plymouth Rock and extending to this day where our sons and daughters fight on foreign soil to keep this, our country, FREE.

Tricks or Treats!

To all of you who look forward to this night, be safe out there.

Goblins and ghouls
teacherous fools
lurk in the shadows
where there are
no rules.

witches, their cats
around the cauldron
potions they mix
one frog's eye
an essence of bat.

I fear you going
out into this night
stay close, my dear
just under the
porch light.

I cannot save you
if you wander far
once from the stoop
you are subject to
the perils
of the night.

I have been away.

As if someone has missed me, I have been away. Not really anywhere, but surgery has caused me to not sit at my computer for more than two minutes at a time. Finally feeling more like myself, I am up and about and the fingers are moving once again.

The one thing about surgery is it: makes you rely on someone else and it makes you relax. Neither I like to do. I am totally independent person and do not want anyone to take care of me. Well surgury dictates life for you awhile. Then because they fill you full of all sorts of incantations you are by default relaxing for maybe the first time in YEARS. That part doesn't feel all that bad.

Honestly, now that I have the down time, I am rethinking my whole career path and what I am doing with my life. I want to write. All the time. The only way I am going to do that is quit my current job. QUIT. People do it. They take that leap of faith in themselves and JUMP. I have some time to think about it and it has been on my mind.

Ol Gramp

That's my grampa off to the left there with the long blond hair holding a bag of feed surrounded by sheep. The family tells me that there wasn't money for hair cuts, but I am sure my great gramma, who we called Big Gramma, had some scissors. But then times were hard then, unlike anything we know now.

Ol Gramp, that is what he calls himself now, is 90 years old. He asked me when I am going to stop working. I say about the time he does. At 90 he is making furniture. He has worked since he was a young boy. He didn't finish grade school because he had to work the farm to keep it going. I really don't know if he ever got a high school diploma, but he is the most astute business man I have ever met.

These days he makes observations about life and asks me why somebody isn't doing it. I tell him because it doesn't make money.

He thinks that restaurants that throw away food should be donating it to the hungry and the hungry or liberals should not be grumbling about it. This country has seen times where people have stood in lines for food. This world still sees people in lines waiting for food today. It is a simple move that could work and make a difference.

He dislikes the health care system, though he has benefited from science and the doctors in the medical field. It is the insurance and Medicare/Medicaid system that is corrupt. And probably a few doctors that should get their asses kicked.

He thinks it is crazy that the houses around him are being sold for one million dollars. He bought his first house for $1500. It was a Kit Home from Sears. I imagine the land was given to them from one of the families maybe my gramma's. He doesn't know how his great great grandchildren are going to be able to buy a house when they grow up.

He worries about leaving us in this mixed up world.

I don't worry about it, I know he will be with me. I have a little grandson, who I was telling one day about how I walked to school when I was a little girl. I didn't take the bus. I walked a long way and sometimes in the snow. My grandson said to me, "Yeah, I know, Gramma, I was with you".

It's the Great Pumpkin...No I mean the Great Debate, Charlie Brown.

In watching the debate last night my observations were minimal. I tend to nod off with some subjects. Economics, taxes, health care and aligning with terrorists is of concern to me. I thought the strongest moment in the debate was when McCain stated "I am not President Bush". Round of applause.

I was waiting for the Ayers connection to arise and McCain brought it up but did not hit below the belt with it. He is not that type of man. The subject was brought up and we all know the story. We watched Obama squirm in his seat. I have listened to reporters this am speak of Obama's great composure. Yeah, Obama has great composure in not coming across the table and throttling McCain. That is what I saw. A man grinding his teeth and smirking at comments. He showed comtempt for McCain when looking at him. If you think any of us couldn't see that, then you are dumber than you think we are!

This is what turns me off on Obama. He does not show a true face. While McCain brought up the Ayers issue he did not grind it to the ground. The man is capable of that much, he was a POW in Vietnam, REMEMBER. He knows composure and restrain much more than any of us could possibly understand. He also has years upon years of experience working in the government. He knows the military and foreign affairs. He can fix the economic crisis. One thing we can be sure of he will not run a government that is corrupt. Can we say that about Obama. Is that the change we want? Corruption? Vega, over and out, Ground Floor.

Gas Prices Plummet so Does my Retirement

We are seeing gas prices are $2.99. Wow, that is fantastic. Do you think it could be possible to see the price reach $2.50 a gallon. That would be unbelievable. But at the same time I hesitate to look at my retirement fund. At least half of it is probably gone. EEK. I can't think about it.

I can't not think about it. I was going to do something with that money one day! I was going on vacations or buy a beautiful RV. Drive around the country and visit friends and grandchildren. Is this what they mean by you can't take it with you when you go? Now I am wondering if I should invest so heavily at all. What is the point? To go through something like this again. I might not recover any of this money. Though they are saying if you can stay in for five years, just hold on.

Yet this is the chance that investors take, isn't it? We are risking for the bigger dollar. Sometimes we do not come out ahead. That is the nature of the game. We cannot take all of our toys and stomp away mad. We have to stay in the game and keep on playing. Come on people, don't give up. Gas prices are going down, the sun keeps coming up and you still keep breathing. It is a glorious day. Vega over and out, on the Ground Floor.

JUNK.

Why do we collect JUNK? I guess I should preface this by saying why do I collect JUNK? I am moving furniture around and redecorating two rooms for reasons I just can't go into now. In the course of this redecoration I come across a pile of items that I think, why did I keep this? Why is this still around? Why is this in my home collecting dust?

It took me more time sorting through things than it did to move the furniture and pictures and other little knick knacky items. I am a collector though. I would like to believe I collect things of some worth though not pieces of paper with idle thoughts or numbers I long since forgot what they were to or for.

Why don't I filter this stuff out as I am taking it out my purse? I don't know, it comes out of the purse to another place on the desk to another place in a drawer to another place in a chest until I need the chest for something. Then I realize I am collecting little bits of myself that I have quite forgotten and will never remember again.

I believe this is why I remain on the ground floor. Vega, over and out.

As a Blogger I am SUNK.

Okay I stink as a blogger. I can't figure out all these pings, pongs and pac-mans. No wait, that was in my time, not now. Anyway I am going to write away as if you out there in internet land are reading this.

Gas prices are dropping in this part of the world, Deep South. We watch them fall, but everyone is also saying November, December is right around the corner. People will start travellling and what will happen then? The gas prices will go up again! What a big surprize that will be. Airline tickets will go through the roof. I am sure they make all their money in these up-coming months.

I don't pay a lot of attention to the stock market, though I should. My 401k is heavily invested in the stock market and I live on the edge with only half invested in government securities. Still it is money I never see and seems unreal to me. Some day I do hope to have it in one big chunk, but it may become like Social Security and something I have invested in for naught.

What other cheery news do I have? I have a new job that I was offered in the nick of time as my office now is on the verge of imploding. While it would be fun to watch, it would not be fun to experience. Holiday weekend coming up, everyone should enjoy, we in the south always enjoy our weekends but the northerners better appreciate these last days without snow.

This is Vega, over and out. Please still respond if you know how to ping.

Blogger SINKING, cries for help.

Ok, I don't get it. How do you get all these pings and Technorati going? How do you get anyone even the least bit interested in your blog to look at it and then make a comment. I thought for sure I had at least one blog of some interest to this vast internet community but nary a soul has left a remark.

I can't understand the ping thing. I can't get Technorati to accept my blog so there is something amiss here within my settings. MAYBE. I would add more to my blog like pics and content but I am like why bother. NO ONE IS OUT THERE. I think this whole internet thing is a sham. There isn't a large group of world wide people out there on the web searching and surfing. There is, however, stupid me, thinking someone might actually read this crap and respond.

Seriously if there is anyone brave or bored enough to get this far please leave a response on what in heck do I do to get this thing up and going. This is Vega on the sub ground floor digging a hole for herself.

Bail Out America Not Big Business

The bail out failed to pass. I am actually happy about it. 700 billion to help out businesses that ran their business into the ground. That makes perfect sense. They will only do it again. Or do so under another business' name. Come on already, if we have that kind of money available to us, spread the wealth around Washington, we have people out here struggling to make ends meet just to buy gas to go to work.

This is what bothers me the most. Washington, DC, is out of touch with the REAL world. They have no concept of what middle class and lower, America is doing or how we are getting by. Why do they think homes are being foreclosed on right and left, because the companies were poorly run??? HELLO, MC FLY......people are not and cannot pay their bills. In part because the stupid mortgage companies let them have loans in excess of their income ratio but also because the home owner probably started living large when they got the larger home.

So instead of fretting over the people who have lost their homes, we have decided to bail out the companies that screwed these people. The companies that probably knew at the onset that they were playing with fire but figured they could turn the foreclosed house around and around and make lots of money off one house. Similiar to the Buy Here, Pay Here, Auto Lots. They sell the same auto to different people a number of times. Repossessing it when the loan goes into default. But I think with the car business there are more avenues to get rid of a car, like auctions and the junk yard. There is only one way to make money on a house, sell the house or it sits empty.

So I will say it again, pass all those billions out to those of us that NEED the money. Those of us that could use a home, a car, a retirement fund, a college fund. groceries in the pantry or a bed to sleep on. I am sorry their business failed. A lot of us have had to start over, now it's their turn.

It's just my idea with what to do with the money, coming from the Ground Floor, it's Vega, hoping someone will save me if it starts to flood in here.

McCain Stomps Obama

Last night in the presidential debate McCain spoke of foreign policy and foreign leaders rattling off numbers, countries and names as if the events had just happened the day before. He made it clearly obvious that he was not only aware of what is going on outside of the United States, he was aware of what has been going on for years. He quoted meetings and summits and years of those times and who was in attendance. He related the current state of the countries we are most concerned of in the Middle East and what we should be working toward for our military troops in the war. He related a touching story of wearing a fallen soldier's bracelet for the soldier's mother.

Obama says he has a bracelet too. That was his counter. In fact that is all Obama could do is counter because he does not know half of what McCain knows. It was obvious that Obama was getting angry and was controlling his temper while standing at his podium getting verbally tossed from side to side of the room. Because McCain beat the heck out of him with his vast knowledge of the world, life and the military. When it came Obama's turn to make a statement, his were well rehearsed and memorized. Through the television you could feel him hitting the key points and making emphasis on the right notes, raising his voice at just the right time.

Quietly McCain would rebut, with something profound like, "Senator Obama", showing all due respect to the man, is mistaken about .......strategies, or a number of other things that Obama seemed to not quite understand but was talking about. Personally I felt bad for Obama. He was mad at not getting his point across and getting his cheers. He did not have his supporters filling him full of himself when they should tell him the truth. The American people have just seen who of the two people running for president actually knows what they are talking about.

Palin is a Racist Moose Hunter, Watch Out Jews

Somehow Congressman Hastings from the great state of Florida has gotten the idea that women from Alaska who carry guns and shoot at moose are also apt to do something to Jews and Blacks in this country. At least that is what he recently told a group in Florida. He was speaking about Governor Palin giving his opinion of her ability to be vice presidential material.

He came across sounding like an idiot. How could anyone correlate the scenario he has proposed. I would think it is safe to say and correct me if I am wrong, NRA, but most hunters do not shoot at people. They shoot for the sport of killing game and that is not human life. They also are not racists to boot because they are hunters, carrying a gun and going after moose. This stereotype that the Congressman has conjured up is insulting to the vast majority of the American public and her ancestry. Has he forgotten how we came to to this land, how we fed ourselves and protected ourselves. This is the foundation of America to be gun-toting and killing moose.

Additionally, we started this country, if you can remember Congressman Hasting, as a melting pot, with all different types of people from the world. People of European descent to include Jewish lineage and the African people who were taken into slavery and later freed to become African Americans. I hardly thought I would give a history lesson over a silly old moose, but Congressman you are far removed from the American people and deeply afraid Obama is going to lose.

There's Women against Palin?

There is a blog dedicated to women who are against Palin being the vice president. They are requesting women to sign a petition to, what? overthrow her if she and Senator McCain are elected? I am not sure what their plan is.

What amazes me is the blog is littered with the history of women and how we have struggled through to time to earn the right to vote, to earn equal pay, equality in the workplace, this list goes on and on. They do not want a woman vice president. Why? I am not completely sure. She is not pro-life, is a major issue but other than that I did not come across anything but that she is VAPID.
Well most of Washington, DC is vapid, so that is a given.

But to not embrace the very thing women have been fighting for, for years, the breaking of the glass ceiling, I do not understand. Granted she does not support all of your issues, but she is a sister, mother, daughter who has finally been put in the hot seat and may actually make the move into the forbidden area.

Sure there may be other women qualified to do the job, but she has been selected, and women should rally to support her, not a party, not a position, but her as a woman because we all damn well know she is going to need it. We should be working to get her in office if we ever want to see a woman President in our lifetime.

I am NOT a millionaire.

Once again I managed to lose out on, this time, $43 million dollars. I don't understand how I can't pick the correct numbers to hit this jackpot. People do it everyday. Some people win it more than once. I had 5 entries totaling 30 numbers and only selected 2 correct numbers.

Sometimes I feel destined to remain in the place I am in. I am comfortable, but there is always something inside saying there is more. I am more, I should be doing something else, there is something greater. So daily I am in a constant battle within myself to achieve some greatness. Then I have to ask myself is greatness achieving some type of fame?

My passion has been writing. I have written since a young girl. It has been my friend, therapist and sounding board. I have run to my journals for solace and in joy. My life has been chronicled. I have pages and pages of words that flow like music to me. It is in there I feel is my greatness and I feel each of us have a greatness to give this world. I continue to strive to achieve it.

So why can't I win a jackpot of $43 million dollars? Wouldn't that make my life so much more simple. The complications of daily life would fall away with the right amount of money to solve the issues that arise. Unfortunately no amount of money will put the right words together to form a book or a collection of poetry. It's back to the keyboard and long nights.

You Gotta Start Somewhere

As I am just branching out into the blogger world, I have to begin somewhere so it might as well be the ground floor. The beginning. Work from the ground up so to speak, as they say, all those cliques. I am willing to put some effort into this, to learn the ways of the blog world, spend time writing, researching and conversing with fellow writers. I am willing to give it a try.

What amazes me is the lack of that effort in SOME of today's young adults. Please note I did not say all young adults. I know there are high achievers or just plain achievers out there, but I see more of the, I just want to get by on the least effort, than I have ever seen in my life. I wonder if it is the parents' fault. Hold on, parents, don't go to over the top yet. The reason I say this is because I am a parent of one of these adults who just does not care to do anything beyond a job here or there. He falls into my classification of young adults who feel that the world owes them something and they are going to sit back and wait for it.

He has no real dream for the future, no hope or desire for anything. He would probably tell you an entire list of material items he would love to own but not how he plans on getting them. I ask him and others like him, don't you have a dream to be a certain type of person? Live in a certain place in the world? Buy a house, car, get married, play with your children, or spend weekends on the beach? I don't get much for an answer. They want all that but don't want to work to get any of it. Work, you know like maybe getting your hands dirty and calloused. Working two jobs to make ends meet or not shopping at the mall until you save enough money to buy a reliable car.

I wonder if I gave him and his brother too much, because when as I grew up we went without and I did not want my kids to go through that life. Did my parents by default do the best thing for me and my sister? All I could tell you is that I graduated high school, started my life and have never looked back.

So I have spent a few times on the ground floor, learning the ropes and working my way up. Here I am again.