As we head into a new year, I like many out there make new year resolutions. I really hate the word resolution! It is almost like setting yourself up for failure from the beginning. So this year I am setting up goals that are attainable for me.

I have struggled with my weight for many years. I have had times where I have lost, only to gain it right back. I signed up for SparkPeople about two years ago and have had some success, only to fail because I don't stick with it. I start feeling guilty about being on the computer and think that I could be doing something else. The thing is, I enjoy being on the computer!

I had a job at one time that had me around people all the time. Since I have become a stay-at-home mom, I do not have the "people" time that I used to. We only have one car and my old friends still have their jobs and lives and not time to socialize with me much anymore. Our interests have parted ways. I now have as what I like to call, internet friends and I have found it odd that friendships can develop so nicely when you communicate on line. Odd isn't it!

I used to be one who thought that people who spent alot of time online needed to get a life. The old adage not to judge others until you walk a mile in their shoes has proven true to me in this case. I love t be on the computer and love the connections that I have made!!

I guess what I am getting at is that I am going to turn to the computer for help with my new year goals.

I have 100 pounds to lose to be at a weight that is recommended for my body type. My goal is to lose just 50 pounds of that total this year. That is just about one pound a week for the whole year. I think that I can do that! I think that setting a goal that is truly attainable is important. And not to mention that most "experts" say that the slower you lose the weight the more likely that it is to stay off! I am going to use this blog as well as Sparks to assist me with this endeavor. I plan to write on this one at least weekly and my Sparks blog daily. If you want to join me on Sparks I am the user iwanttolose100. Check it out!!

I have not finalized the exact terms for the other goals for the next year. I will update readers as they are figured out. Who says that they all have t start on January 1st!

Been Awhile

It has been awhile since my last post. Not much has been happening that I really had a need to spout out about.

the political issue has gone from bad to worse. Now we could be facing a war that I really don't think that we should even consider. Yes, I am referring to Russia. We are now telling them that they need to get out of Georgia or else. Or else what? I agree that Russia should get out of Georgia, but can this nation afford to get into another heated battle? It will be interesting to see what happens in the next few days.

Off of the subject of politics for now. If I continue on it will just end up into an endless rant and rave about something that not to many people realize is important.

I have continued on the plot of starting my own business. I have made a lot of product. I even made my first sales!!! I was so happy! I was trying to sell on Ebay, but I think the market place for homemade crafts is not big to that site.

I was watching Good Morning America one day and heard about this great site called Etsy.com. It deals only with homemade and vintage goods. It was wonderful!!! I loved it. Not only for posting items for sale, but also for buying. I can not wait to try the buying bit. I love home made items.

The site is easy to sign up for, it is easy to post your adds, they give you a store, and have many other affordable helps to get the word out about you homemade goods. I am really excited about this site. Check it out!!!!!

What now?

I don't know how many people actually read this blog,but I am going to keep writing it.

As those of you who do read know, I have been a stay at home mom for a couple of years now. But that is getting ready to change. I am going to continue to work on starting my own business but I am going to have to find work outside the home. I retired my nursing license and do not want to return to that hectic job, so I am applying to stuff like walmart and the such. I am hoping that I will find work soon.

The financial challenges are great in this day and age. Families cannot be families because of the money it takes to make it. Even with cutting down to the basics, as we have, it is hard to make ends meet. We do not go out to eat, out to the movies, or anything much else. We did manage to get in a small vacation, but even that caused a little financial hardship. Once a month McDonalds has become a big treat.

I know that there are people in the world in worse shape than we are in the United States, but for being one of the most powerful nations, we are poor. Watching the news last night, here in Kentucky they were talking about the cut backs in education funding. They are talking about cutting after school tutoring and special education programs. We are cutting funding for the most important assets that this country has, our children!! We are as a nation going to fall further and further behind other nations if we do not take proper care of our children!!! I am in fear and worry about the nation that my children are going to grow up in. We have a lot of talk and no action!!

The press is also talking about how we, by using less gas, have cut the budget for road repairs. Isn't that what the call has been for? We have been told to cut back on the consumption of gas by environmentalist and economist. Now we are going to pay the price for listening and doing what we have been told we should do if we care about our nation. I am so sick and tired of this rhetoric!!!

I do not want the government to have to much control or say over things like there is in other countries, but we elect our representatives to serve us and our needs as people of the Untied States!! How much in tax dollars were wasted on investigations to drug use in professional sports! Why in congress getting involved in this, it is a judicial issue and that is where it should stay. How many millions of dollars have been wasted in this supposed investigation of the oil companies? How many of these politicians have stakes in these oil companies. Many Americans also have stake in these companies in the the form of retirement accounts, and may not even realize it. Yeah, that's right, make the oil companies pay big time and people may lose the hard earned money they have put away in their retirement accounts. No matter which way you look at it we the people lose!!!

I am tired of all the words that are spoken by the representatives of this country!!! I want action!

The trials of starting a business from scratch.

I think I may have mentioned that I am trying to start my own business. It won't be anything big, but just a little something to bring some money in for now. Maybe when my girls get a little older I will kick it up a notch. Now that is not to say that I would not allow it to get big before that. We will just have to see.

I enjoy crafting! I love to crochet and cross stitch the most. I can do other things, but that is what I enjoy best. I have gotten several products done. I have created a brochure and will start passing those out and hanging them on community bulletin boards and where ever I can get some free advertising.

I am currently doing research, mainly at the library, for tips and hints on how to start a home business. There are many resources on the Internet, but those seem to be geared toward this "data entry" stuff, which I found out was a scam the hard way. I have always thought of myself as a half way intelligent person, but I fell hard to the "data entry" stuff. How silly could I have been!

Now back to the serious stuff. I have, as I said, done up a lot of items. I do doilys, treasure jars (some crotchet and some counted cross stitch), baby afghans, baby outfits, and much more to come. I am really excited about this and hope to be successful!!! The art of crafts is somewhat of a dying art. I feel this is because of the hours that many people have to work. It is hard to find the time to do these projects in today's society. I am here to fill this void!!

I will have many more items to come. Christmas is coming soon and I will be starting on Christmas decorations soon. I am really excited. These are products you will not be able to find at the Walmart and they are all made with love from the heart!!

Here we are again!

So, times are tough in American finance. Banks (or at least one bank) are in trouble, major lending institutions are in trouble, and of course the airlines are in trouble again. The government is talking major bailouts. I have a question, where is the money going to come from?

Of course the answer to this question is the taxpayers. I don't know about anybody else, but my family can not afford to be bailing these institutions out. We are having rough times just putting food on our table and gas in the car, we can't do anymore.

I hear congress is talking about releasing a new stimulus package, but the president feels that it is not necessary at this time. Consumer numbers were up in June (higher than expected). What was the reason you think? Extra money going into our pockets.

I really feel that our elected officials do not understand us average Americans. To be in politics you have to have money and connections. Most of our elected officials have money and lots of it. Now I am not saying that some have not come by the money by hard work, but still.

I have to say that I am an admirer of Barak Obama. Even though I am a republican, I am tending to lean towards Obama. He started from a very modest back ground and had to overcome many obstacles to get where he is today. I am concerned that he does seem to be change in stance since obtaining the presumptive nomination. I will be watching things very closely in the up coming months.

To home school or not to home school?

My last post I really railed on issues not being addressed by our leaders. Today I wanted to talk a little about the education dilemma.

My daughter is soon to be 4, and most children her age are getting ready to start preschool/head start. We have opted not to send our daughter to preschool and to do it at home. There are many resources out there for education at home. My favorite is abcteach.com. They have free printable and for a small membership fee you can get even more. I love the site.

Now here is the first issue that I am facing. Organizing a time to sit down and have her work on it and do it properly. I have a 1-year-old also and it is hard to get the two of them to cooperate to work on this. Also, I do not want to be overbearing and I want to have patients when working with her, but I find myself getting frustrated when she wants to scribble instead of write. I know that you have to be stern and organized to teach and I admire those who can do it! I hope that I will be able to learn this skill as I am unsure about which avenue to take with my girls education.

That brings me to the second issue. Public education is "free" if you don't count book fees, lunch fees, and probably gas fees if things don't improve with gas prices. But what kind of education are our children receiving? We rank pretty low in education when evaluated against other developed countries. Why is this??? We spend so much money and are getting further and further behind. Private schools are expensive, and with current economic issues I do not know if we will be able to afford this.

You see most of the smartest and brightest children are home schooled and private schooled. Is this because children are allowed advanced on their own level? I believe so. Students do not have to wait for a class to catch up if they are ready to advance. There is less limitations to what they can learn and there is more life experience in the learning process. Just going to the supermarket can be a big learning experience for children (especially young ones). There is more opportunity with homeschooling for hands on learning to. Going to see how things work or going to a history museum or the such to see history instead of just listening to a lecture or reading a text book (that may or may not be accurate). There seems to be so much benefit.

I do not fault teachers (at least those who are true teachers). They try their hardest with what they are given, but not enough is available. Also, teaching is a lot like the nursing profession. You have to be truly devoted to it in order for it to work for you and the students.

I have this dilemma facing me and hopefully over the next few months I will be able to establish a good schedule, and get us on the right tract!!! Any comments or suggestions are appreciated on this issue!!!

What the heck ????

Boy, where to begin!! This has been a day. News is bad for our country right now. Jobs are down, the economy sucks, you can't afford to drive to work if you are lucky to have a job; and what are our politicians doing and our candidates doing? Going around the world trying to improve our reputation around the world and talk about how much money in aide we are going to give them!! Outrageous!!!

This all started this morning while watch my morning dose of GMA. It is hard to believe the job market crash that is going on. And folks it is a crash, don't let these so called experts fool anyone. I am so tired of hearing how we are not in that bad of shape and that we will bounce back in no time!!! BULL!!!! I am really concerned about things and the way they are going. Now I am a pretty upbeat person and usually always see a silver lining in any storm cloud, but right now all I can see is the storm and a storm that is going to last for a long time.

It is funny though, I "retired" from nursing and of course the medical field is seeing growth. But at what price. I got out of the field because it did not give the flexibility for me and my families needs and because there is such an influx of people getting into the field, the passion is gone. No more are people going into it because they have a deep desire for meeting the needs of people, no longer are nursing schools being selective about who they let into programs just pay and your in. Now I am not saying that all are bad, but many are. People are taking the jobs and getting the education because they have no other options. But this is having a negative effect on the profession. I know this first hand and is one reason that I am out. I was tired of having to clean up after incompetency and working for people that were incompetent and liars. They were in positions that they lied and wiggles and kissed butt to get into and had no true qualifications!! I was tired of being called by lawyers for information on issues that people had with care (I have never been named in a lawsuit) and have decided to sue and asked to give my opines on care and whether or not it was satisfactory. In most cases it was not in my opine and I guess I should leave it at that!!!!

Then this evening I was watching BBC America. I have gotten to where I like to watch this show because you do not have any tiptoeing around to make a political agenda happy like many newscasts here in our wonderful US. I was really surprised how much stuff gets left out of our news casts. I am referring to the news casts on the BIG three networks that just about everybody with a tv can get, if you watch CNN, FOX news or the such you may hear more. I really got upset that the focus of our presidential candidates were to go over seas on tours right now. Both are senators and should be working on helping figure out how the heck to help this great nation out of the bind that it is in. We are selling out companies to over seas investors, sending our jobs over seas and watching our own suffer. Where are these movie stars who are concerned about things in Africa and china at when our own country is in need. Oh, I forgot they are over in France giving birth to babies and buying vacations home in England and where ever else they want to spend there millions!!!

People talk about illegal immigrants taking our jobs away and using up our public aid funds. I think our bigger problem is how much we are sending out of this country. We need to focus on that. Of course if we do not focus on it soon, we will not have to worry about illegal immigration because who would want to come here if things continue on a downward spiral like it is.

I know this has been a pretty negative sounding entry, but dog gone it. I am tired of this. I am worried about my children in this situation. How will there education be paid for, we know the government can't pay enough for our children to get the education they deserve and we can not afford to pay higher taxes to get an increase in education. You can not afford private school and put food on your table, and home schooling is becoming more and more under scrutiny by the government and they want to be able to control that now too. Our food supply can not be guarded against disease because the FDA can not do the job they should be ding, and our drugs (medical) are now killing us!!!

I DO LOVE THIS COUNTRY! I recognize the many good things, but recently it just has been sucky news!!! If I was living in another country I may not be able to freely express my opinions in this format!!!! Thanks to all our service people for that!!!!!

Okay, I am going to do it!

I have been thinking about doing something for years now, and now I am going to do it!! I am going to start my own business.

I am a crafter and have thought about starting my own business is crafting for a number of years. I have finally decided to go ahead and start it. I have been trying to get a job as a medical transcriptionist from home without any luck. I took a course from home and had high hopes. It cost a pretty good chunk of money and put my family out on a little financial limb. You hear that it is a fast growing need, and as a registered nurse, thought it would be a perfect fit for me. After almost two months after completion of my program and submission of a lot of resumes, I still have no job. With gas prices and child care costs, it does not pay for me to work outside the home. So my answer is to start my own business.

I know that there will be a lot of work involved and lots of time to spend, but I am hoping that it will be worth it in the long run. Many people are successful at their little home adventures, and hey, I have nothing to lose, I would spend money on crafting goods anyway!!!

My husband is behind me 100% and my two daughters want to help. Of course they are just 3 and 1. It will be interesting.

I feel fortunate that I am able to make this try of it. We do not need much more additional income right now, but things are going down hill so fast that it won't be long before we do need more to just to maintain food on our table and a roof over our heads. My prayers are there for those who are already in that situation.

Wish me luck!!! More to come!

Newport Aquiarium and Creation Museum

My family has just returned from a short vacation. We vacationed close to home because of the gas prices being so high. One tank of gas got us through. We brought our own food with us, but did eat one meal out. The most money we spent was in the gift shops getting things for the girls, of course.

We went to the Newport Aquarium just outside the Cincinnati area. I was very disappointed in this attraction. It did not live up to the advertised expectations. Of course we went during family hours because of having a 3 year-old and a 19-month-old. It was rough and crowded. The attractions are nothing like what is advertised. I was expecting huge over-the-head displays and all there was was dark tunnels with water around and some small fish and small sharks. Big thumbs down to a family friendly atmosphere too!

Now the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky was wonderful!! Even my girls enjoyed this trip. The displays are beautiful and very educational. The staff is very kind and helpful. There were plenty of activities to keep the whole family entertained. They had a petting Zoo that was my girls favorite place, the camel and goats were the big winners. My husband and I would like to go back again when just the two of us can go. As this was a pretty family friendly place, if you wanted to take time to read about every display and see all the theatricals, small children are not easy to cart along. Overall it gets a big thumbs up.

We stayed at the Econo-Lodge in Richwood, KY and for a "non-expensive" hotel it was not bad. The mattresses and pillows were a little on the flat and lumpy side, but the rooms were clean and in good repair. I would stay there again.

One thing that was frustrating is that people are so rude. What ever happened to people saying "excuse me" when they ram you in the back because they are running down the halls or saying I am sorry when they knock you over. Politeness seems to be a dying art. It really hurts to see how common courtesy has gone down the toilet.

Overall the vacation was a thumbs up.

Health Care

Okay, here we go. This is another topic that is near and dear to my heart. Health care!! We hear all the time that there are many people in the United States that are uninsured or under insured. This is a sad situation. We live in one of the riches nations in the world and we can not take care of our own.

I was a geriatric nurse for 10 years before leaving the field, and let me tell you, if anyone is hit hard it is the elderly!!! Care for the elderly has become sad in our nation!!! Our parents and grandparents (in most cases) gave us everything and we forget them as they age.

We are a throw away society! This includes people. When people become of no use to us we dispose of them. I cannot tell you how many people I have taken care of over the years whose family have just dumped them in nursing homes and expected the government to take care of them. The saddest time I would see is over the holidays. We would have gift drives that involve the staff and we would buy new clothes or other necessities for residents. The list of residents in need grew all the time. Many would not have visitors.

Of course some of this is changing with the growing advertisement by lawyers for lawsuits. The minute someone would get sick, lawyers were contacted. Nothing strikes fear in the hearts of healthcare professionals as the word "lawsuit". Now there have been justified cases, but a majority are because of the drive to sue if anything goes wrong. Medicine is not a perfect science, and sometimes people get sick and die. It is part of life. We are not meant to live forever.

Now I do not think there is any easy answer to solving the health care crisis (and that is what it is in my opinion). It will be interesting to see what the presidential candidates will truly propose as election time comes nearer. This will be something I monitor closely.

We need to remember our elderly and our children in this issue!!! More thoughts on this later!

To tax or not to tax, how much do we want to suffer!

For my first post I figured I would rant on about the much debated "gas tax holiday". My question is who is this holiday for!!!!! Get real!!

Gas companies want to make a profit. If you pose a company to pay the tax for consumers, who is going to pay for any lose of profit? Answer: the consumer. Gases prices are going up and will not stop, gas tax holiday or not. The extra cost will be passed down to the consumer and the amount of the tax the company is charged will be passed down. We are in a no win situation here.

My suggestion on how to resolve this, stop driving!! (HAHAHA) You hear about how we should drive alternate fuel hybrids, use public transportation, and the such. I live in an area that does not have mass transit and buying a new car that will not pay for itself for years is out of the question!

What would happen if for just 2 days Americans left their cars at home and went nowhere? Talk about an economic crisis. No trips to Walmart or McDonalds!!! Don't you think that would send a message?! Not that this is going to happen, but what if?

As I say, this blog will cover many issues. Stay tuned.