Every Parent Should Have One

I remember when our first son was moved into his own bedroom when he was one year old. I went to the store late at night to get a night light for his room. We still have that light and it is now in his and our youngest son's bedroom. It is a great thing to have in any child's room. They can light up the room just enough to see where you are going, but, yet, they are dim enough to not wake up the baby, either.

There is a neat website out there called night-lights.com. They sell all kinds of
kids nightlights. Their night lights have a swivel base that allows them to fit in almost every light socket. In addition, they all have a durable on/off switch to allow you to continue to use the night life over and over again. They also come in all kinds of styles. They come in nature styles, seasonal styles, and even landmark styles. I never knew night lights could come in so many styles. The one I particular like is the one with the lighthouse. Seems fitting to have a lighthouse also be a night light.

Every parent should have at least one night light in their home. They allow you and your child to still see enough to get around while not making your electric bill go crazy. Go to night-lights.com to pick out the night like that will fit the nature of your home and the nature of your child's room.

Out Of Touch

Politicians seem to be completely out of touch with reality. I think that happens as they stay in office longer and longer. Here in Utah, they are completely out of touch. Whenever there is a budget crisis, they cut funding for education. I guess having educated people is not necessary. We'll just let the politicians and wealthy take care of us for the rest of our lives. That is, of course, unless the parents pay all their extra money to fill in the budget gaps. Ya, because parents aren't paying enough already and aren't really losing their jobs, houses, and spending money.

If politicians really want to help the state as a whole, they need to swallow their pride and get in touch with reality. They've forgotten why they got involved in politics in the first place. Politics is not a career. It is a enduring service for the good of ALL the people they serve.

Nowhere They Can't Go

There are ads for weight loss everywhere. They are on the tv, the radio, the internet, and even on billboards along the freeway. These ads for fat burners seem to pop up wherever you go. They all seem to be the miracle product that burns fat better than the one that came out a week ago. I really can't tell the difference between all of them. To me, they seem to be replacements of just getting off the couch and exercising. I don't use any of them. Then again, I don't get off of the couch much either.

One For Everything

There is a pill for everything these days. There is a pill to fight depression. There is a pill for joint pain. There is even a pill to make certain parts of men bigger. One day, all we will have is pills. We will get paid in pills, make our food from pills, and even get our entertainment from pills. What worries me is that we would become way too reliant on pills and thus lose the skills necessary to survive when the pill companies decide they aren't making enough money. Got keep the shareholders happy, too.

Saturday TV

Isn't tv on Saturday great? Between the cartoons and ever-repeating news, there are infomercials for everything. Things to clean your dishes for you, things to make your carpet new again, and the most effective diet pills on the market. At least, for the week anyway. If someone had a lot of money and nothing to do on Saturday morning, they could spend all of that money just from watching tv. They would also need to have a lot of extra space, too. Because there are endless things to buy with Saturday morning tv.

Not Winter Not Spring

The days are gloomy here lately. Winter is past, but spring is not here yet. The snow is all gone. It has left all the dirt behind, though. Trees and grass are still sleeping and even the clouds overhead aren't in a springlike mood. I'm not a big fan of this time of year. The days are cold still and there isn't anything green to look for. It is also hard to be cheerful when the clouds are gloomy, the grass is dead, and the air is cold. If I had it my way, winter would be over one day and spring would start the next.

Still Young

Last week, my employer had a cookie back off. Everyone could participate if they wanted and then everyone got to have lots of cookies afterwards. One employee didn't have any cookies and started poking at those who did. He stated that his cholesterol was too high and eating more cookies would mean more cholesterol medication. Or something like that. I'm just glad I'm still young enough to not look too much at what I am eating or drinking.

Contest

My employer this year is having a contest. For those who can be the healthiest all year, they get entered into a drawing for a cruise at the end of the year. There are things to do get points accumulated to get into the drawing. These are things like eating fruits and veggies, drinking a lot of water, exercising, and attending health meetings. There is also a weight loss contest. I'm not thinking I will do that particular item. I don't want to do another one of those quick weight loss diets again to just get a handful of points. I like my doritos too much.

Remodeling = Over Budget

We started remodeling our home last week. We are going to place tile in the upstairs bathrooms and the entry-ways. We are also going to replace the carpet throughout the house. The existing carpet is the original carpet from 15 years ago. It has gone through multiple kids, pets, cleaning, and stains. It is a dark green color that was really in 15 years ago.

We figured we had about 3600 dollars to accomplish the remodeling we wanted. Well, the carpet we picked out took all of the budget. In fact, it almost took 150 percent of the budget. Then, to do the tile work, it will take about 700 dollars more. Then, we started tearing up the existing carpet in our family room and discovered that a section of floor by the stairs had sunk about 2 inches. To install carpet correctly, that needs to be fixed. To get it fixed, it will take another 850 dollars. In addition, to install the carpet may take more than what we have already paid for because some tackstrips in our family room need to be replaced due to the fact that they have been through cleanings and pets.

In addition to all the cost, the time is taking twice as long as we had hoped. To get the cement floor fixed, it's about 1 to 2 weeks out. Once that is fixed, the tile will then go in. Depending on our neighbor's schedule, that may be another week. Then, we can schedule the carpet installation. To slow things down even more, we need to get these projects done on weekends because that's when there aren't any extra kids in here and there are less trips in and out of the house.

The motto of remodeling: Always double your finance and time budgets when doing remodeling.

Rerun

I haven't really had a chance to watch much new TV shows lately. We watched the Super Bowl and I try to catch The Office and some reruns I enjoy, but I also like watching my DVDs or watching shows online. It's kind of nice to sit and watch something without having to listen to the commercials for diets, nodular acne treatment, and the latest (non)reality shows. I do end up falling asleep to reruns a lot though. I like to watch Cops and shows like that, and the occasional History Channel show, but mostly I stick to stuff like The Office and Friends.

Motivated to be healthy

The company I work for is doing a healthy living contest, where at the end of the year people who earn enough points are entered a contest to win a cruise. My wife and I would really love to win so we are starting to work on being healthier. One of the ways to get points is to drink 64oz of water a day, which is really hard if you aren't used to drinking that much. My wife says she's been able to get it all in, but she has to make a lot more trips to the bathroom. Another way to get points is to eat more fruits/veggies, which is where we have a problem. Honestly we don't eat as much of those as we should. We're lucky if we get one serving a day. It would be much easier if we just had to take a vitamin to get those nutrients, but that doesn't work I guess. Another way to get points is by exercising. Well, I know I rarely get any exercise and my wife is taking care of kids all day but that doesn't get to count as exercise either. My wife has some exercise DVDs she plans to get out and start using, but I'm not sure what I will do to get that in. There are a few other things to do to earn points too, and hopefully by the end of the year we will have enough to enter the contest.

Sleepless beauty

My wife is frequently annoyed at the fact that I can sleep anywhere at anytime. When we were dating she would joke that I was narcoleptic. I'm not sure what it is but my whole family are all just really good sleepers. My oldest son is also like that, he's always been a good sleeper and can sleep through anything. My middle son is more like my wife though and is a light sleeper. The baby is somewhere in the middle so far. My wife was telling me that she has hardly gotten any sleep this week for some reason. She doesn't look like she needs the best eye cream for dark circles yet, but she has had a headache and less energy because of it. The baby is even starting to sleep better lately, but she tells me she just has a hard time falling asleep and wakes up a ton. Hopefully she will start sleeping better so she will feel better.

Not a teenager anymore

Ever since I was a teen I've had acne problems. I don't usually get a lot at once but when I do it's always a huge one near my mouth or nose. I haven't tried any exposed acne solutions or anything, they usually clear up just from keeping my face clean, but it is kind of annoying that I'm almost 30 and I still have teenage acne problems.

Finally, A Break

It seems like only yesterday it was time to take a vacation from work. I took about a week of vacation for Christmas. I haven't had a day off since, outside of New Years Day. Now, we get President's Day off. It will be nice to have a 3 day weekend. We are planning on using the extra day to go shopping for tile and new carpet. It's very exciting. We are in dire need of new carpet and we want to replace the flooring in our upstairs bathrooms. The trick is now, to find carpet that we feel will last a while and is inside our budget.

Date night

Tonight I took my wife out for dinner for Valentine's Day. We decided to do it a few days early to avoid the holiday rush at the restaurants. We almost always go to Olive Garden, but we wanted to try out some place new. My sister-in-law came over to watch the boys and she suggested a place called Iggy's. It's a sports grill but she said it was really great and yummy. So we went there and it was a really good choice. The food was yummy (except for a soup my wife tried that she didn't like, but they took it back no charge), the booths were comfy, and our waitress was really great. We both were stuffed before even getting our main dish. I feel like I need diets for quick weight loss after eating there. So we have plenty of leftovers and it didn't cost too much either. It was really nice to have a date night with my wife and just talk and have fun.

Beauty

My wife is beautiful. She always complains about how she looks but I think she looks just fine. She says she has some fat on her stomach, her thighs are too big, she needs acne skin products, she's too flat, and so on. But to me she is perfect and I think she is gorgeous. I think a lot of woman are too self-conscious about how they look. Besides, how they look isn't all that matters, what is important is how beautiful they are on the inside.

Maintenance

I'm so glad we haven't had any more problems with out furnace. A few months ago it suddenly stopped working and we couldn't figure out why. My wife even tried taking out the furnace filter and washing it, which it really needed, but that didn't help. We finally had to pay to have someone look at it, and luckily it was an easy fix. Then a few weeks later it stopped working again. One night we had a really bad burning metal smell in the house, so bad it woke me up, and made us sick to our stomachs. We checked the whole house and couldn't find a problem and slept restlessly the rest of the night. The next day we had the guy come check it again because my wife noticed the smell was coming from the upstairs vents. Turned out that the circuit board was fried. Not quite as cheap to fix, but at least it got it going again. Since then we haven't had any problems, and considering the furnace is 17 years old, it still runs pretty dang well.

Not Like They Used To

They seriously don't make things like they used to. Our laptop is having overheating issues. We can't even watch a video on the thing without it just completely turning off. It would be nice if we could get one of those netbooks to replace the ailing laptop. It just angers me that they pull every dollar out of consumers that they can. To me, 600 dollars for a computer is a lot of money and that computer should last longer than 2 years. I mean, for crying out loud, I have tires that last longer than that.

Not Quite Done

When we moved into our house here in Utah, we moved in when the previous owners were trying to update some things of the house. They had bought tile and door handles to put in the house. I have since taken the door handles and installed them, but there wasn't enough of them. Now we have some doors with the old handles, some with the new handles, and others with some in between handles. One of these days, I need to break down and go to a Baldwin hardware store and finish buying the door handles. One day, all of the handles will match.

Go Away, But Don't Take The Money

The legislative session just started in Utah and they must be running on a theme this year. The theme is: we don't want to be associated with the federal government of the United States. First, they are trying to pass a bill to make Utah exempt from any federal health care reform. Second, a bill is making it's way through the legislature that would make any gun manufactured and sold in Utah exempt from any gun regulations. And today, a bill made it through committee that would make Utah exempt from any federal global warming regulations. From the looks of these bills, Utah is truly on it's way to being a country in another country. Well, it actually already is, but now they are just trying to make it official.

Since their theme, as it seems, this year is to tell the federal government to go away, I guess that means they won't be taking any federal funds anymore. Ya, right. On the same news page that reported the aforementioned bills, there was a story stating that Utah will be receiving 4.7 million dollars from the federal government's bureau of workforce services.

So I guess that means that Utah doesn't want to be told what to do, but they don't want their allowance taken away either. That makes it sound like Utah is now in it's teenage years. Wonder how long it will take them to mature and grow up.