Carsick?

I’m not sure why my son threw up either on the way to my brother-in-law’s house, or just the other day, but I’m thinking it was carsickness. Lovely!

I get carsick sometimes, but never throw up. However, I feel sick for a long time afterwards, and feel like if I could just throw up, things would be better. Anyway, if the road is too curvy, or the car is stuffy, or if I read in the car (unless I’m very cautious), then I’ll get carsick and feel yucky for the rest of the ride in the car, and possibly all day. I’m going to move my son’s car seat to the middle of the backseat, and see if that helps.

Anyway, the other day when we were in the car, Keith said something about his tummy hurting, and (since I was already suspecting a propensity towards carsickness from before) I turned on the air full-blast, and he didn’t complain any more. But he wouldn’t eat lunch. Or supper. Even though it was food he usually likes and gobbles down (chicken and fries), we had to force him to eat anything. He acted fine during the long time at Walmart, and fell asleep almost immediately on the ride back to the cabin. He acted a little different in the afternoon, but I chalked it up to being tired from not getting enough nap, and also possibly hungry from not eating lunch. But he wouldn’t eat supper either. Then I finally put him to bed (early bedtime, because of short naps and cranky kids), and he vomited about 5 minutes later. After that, he acted perky and chipper! And he’s been fine ever since — certainly not a stomach bug.

 

Feeding the fish

Ugh. My older son vomited in his bed when I put him down for the night, so I had to change his clothes and the bedding (including pillow), and then go and swish the dirty stuff in the lake. Ick. At least I didn’t have to hand-wash it on a scrub-board!

Yes, folks, we’re in a cabin. Don’t envy me — I said “cabin” not “lodge.” It’s my husband’s father’s cabin, and he and my brothers-in-law have such fond memories of being here as boys that we’re here for our vacation.

There are two cabins — the larger one and “Grandma’s Cabin” — and together there is a 1500-gallon septic tank. For some reason, we’re not allowed to install a bigger one. There is no washing machine; the bathrooms and kitchens are on the scale of “tiny”; and the mosquitoes are out in force.

Because of the sepic tank (more specifically, because we don’t want to have to pay the $150 to pump it out), we’re trying to put minimal water down the drain, so we’re jumping in the lake for our baths, washing dishes in basins and dumping the water on flowers, and flushing the toilet only when necessary. We live by the saying, “If it’s yellow, let it mellow; if it’s brown, flush it down.”

The sinks were too small to rinse the sheet and pillow anyway.

 

Road Trip

We left at 4 this morning. Seth woke up probably about 3 a.m., and wouldn’t go back to sleep. I hadn’t slept well the whole night — not only did it take me a long time to get to sleep, but I slept restlessly.

At one point, I dreamed that there was a granddaddy long-legs in our bed. I hate those things, so I got up and slept on the floor with the kids. Later, I realized that it had to have been a dream, because I saw the critter, although it actually was too dark to see anything. So, when I realized that, I went back to our bed. Before too long, Seth woke up and wouldn’t go back to sleep. He drifted off when I laid down next to him, and woke up when I got up. Finally, I just got up and packed the food into the coolers, woke up my husband, and we all got going.

We had planned on leaving at 4, and we actually did get out then — which was good, because traffic started to build pretty quickly. Both boys woke up, and didn’t go back to sleep. Keith was like my husband — grumpy in the mornings; Seth, however, was actually quite chipper! As I’m writing this, we’re almost to our destination, and it doesn’t seem like it’s been almost 10 hours since we left. We went easy though — stopped several times, stretched our legs, got food — and that seemed to break up the trip pretty well. Although there was a lot of construction on various parts of the trip, things went pretty well. There was one place we had to detour, because the road was completely closed down. Oh, well. We detoured, and it worked out okay. It delayed us, of course, but not too badly. The boys didn’t sleep as well as they should have — not only waking up too early, but not sleeping in the car as much as I thought they would (or should). But it will all work out in the end.

 

Road Trip

It went off better than I was fearing, with the exception of my son throwing up within the first hour. At first I thought he was coming down with something, but since he acted just fine from then on, I now figure he was just car-sick. The car was quite full, and there was something between the vent and his face, and I always get sick-feeling (though rarely throw up) when I ride in a stuffy car. He never took a nap, either, so it’s even more amazing that he did as well as he did.

 

My new blog

I previously posted about the Christian camp I went to last week. I’ve decided to start a blog for it. The camp has been in existence for nearly 40 years now, and many of the people who started it are getting up in years, and there is no guarantee for them to live even until tomorrow. In fact, several not-so-old people have died recently (most from cancer, the youngest — a 20-year-old — from a car wreck). It’s CampMoriah.wordpress.com, if you’re interested. I hope to flesh it out in the next few weeks. But we’re going to be visiting my husband’s brother and his family for a few days. So busy! Sigh… But it’ll be fun.

 

“Love food hate waste”

Somebody sent me this link, which seems pretty cool. It’s from the UK, so I’m going to have to translate centimeters and grams, but that’s okay. It’s a website devoted to using up food and leftovers, so that it’s not wasted. Always a great idea! Sure, we have plenty of food, but it doesn’t make sense to waste it.

 

Busy, busy, busy

It’s Camp Moriah this week, which means I have no time for the computer!

It’s also my husband’s summer vacation, so we’ll be doing other things for the next several weeks which will also take me away from the computer. I’m looking forward to spending more time with my husband and kids together. We’ll take walks, maybe go to the park. I’d like to take them to the zoo, but my husband says he doesn’t like it, and he thinks the kids may be bored and/or scared. (I think they’ll love it, but if I can’t get him on board, we won’t go.) We’ll see how it goes.

 

Racism and Sexism in Presidential Politics

Ok, so this post is just a tad out-dated, since Hilary Clinton has officially conceded defeat, but I should have written this some time ago, and am just now getting around to it.

Throughout the campaign, there has been talk about the sexism factor with Hilary’s Presidential bid, and the racism factor with Obama’s Presidential bid. I’m not discounting that there has been sexism or racism by some people in how they decided who to vote for in the primaries, nor how they may vote in the general election. But what gets me, is that it seems that these two candidates want(ed) it both ways. Or, at least, that Hilary was glad enough to get the women’s vote simply because she was a woman (which is as sexist as not voting for her simply because she was a woman), and that Obama didn’t decline any votes made by blacks simply because he is also black (which is equally racist as voting for John McCain simply because he is white).

Several months ago, I read a blog in which a feminist was beginning to whine and cry about how that Hilary was not further ahead, or wasn’t getting the female vote, or that Obama had just taken the lead — or whatever the thing was. She made some comment along the lines of, “Women should support Hilary, just because she’s a woman.” Blatant sexism!

And then there’s this article, which I just skimmed, that says that a lot of black conservatives want to vote for Obama simply because he’s black too…. but they don’t know if they can ignore his political views in order to do so. I can understand that. I disagree with it — profoundly — but I understand it.

Might John McCain need to pick a black running mate, so that black conservatives don’t jump ship? I mean, McCain needs all the votes he can get! There are so many conservatives (including myself) who are not at all thrilled with the possibility of voting for him, and may just sit out the election or vote for a third-party candidate. If McCain picks a conservative enough running mate, I might be able to vote for the ticket; but I’m pretty sick of voting for the lesser of two evils, because it seems that all we’ve gotten is more evil. I hope Obama loses (and when Hilary was still in it, I hoped she wouldn’t win the Presidency, either), but I can’t vote for McCain.

So, does racism come into play in this Presidential race? Yep. But it also works both ways! And I have yet to hear Barack Obama tell his fellow African-Americans not to vote for him because of his skin color, but to make their decision based solely on the politics and his political viewpoint. And while McCain may get some votes out of racism, I think that Obama will get just as many votes if not more, out of racism.

Some people may call it “reverse racism” or “reverse discrimination” or “reverse sexism,” but those are false terms. If it’s racism, discrimination, or sexism, then it is that thing regardless of who is doing the discrimination and who is being discriminated against. Here’s the way I look at things — if you reverse the races (for instance, white people voting for John McCain just because he’s white), and it sounds racist… then it’s just as racist for you to be voting for Obama simply because he’s black; and it’s just as sexist for you women to have voted for Hilary Clinton just because she’s female. If white people vote for McCain simply because he’s white, that’s as racist as black people voting for Obama simply because he’s black. Period. End of story.

And if you’re a black person (or African-American, if you prefer — I don’t want to offend either way) reading this blog, and you’re going to vote for Barack Obama simply because he’s black (even if you don’t agree with his politics), then you are perpetrating the very racism that you claim to hate and want to do away with.

I remember watching the Cosby Show, and A Different World when I was a kid and a teenager, and of course Oprah! (Actually, most of the shows that I liked then were black shows — Fresh Prince, Family Matters, Living Single…) And I remember a lot of talk about being “color-blind” and a series of shows Oprah did on racism. It had to be 15 years ago. But you know what? It still applies.

So, to you black conservatives who may be seriously considering voting for Barack Obama simply because he is black, even if you don’t like all of the liberal stuff he has voted for in his career, and all of the liberal stuff he’s advocating now as the Democratic candidate for President — I say you’re racist. Understandably so; but racist nonetheless.

The choice for President should be based on what the candidates stand for. When Alan Keyes or some other conservative black ran for office, I don’t recall hearing Republicans saying, “Black people just need to vote for him because he’s black.” I understand that Obama has a great amount of appeal, with his personality and presentation; plus, he is the Democratic candidate for President, so he has at least a 50-50 chance of winning, which is more than Alan Keyes or any other black person has been able to say. I understand it’s tempting to vote for him. But if you do, make sure it’s because you agree with him, and not just because of the color of his skin. Remember Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I have a Dream” speech? It included this famous line, “a dream of a land where men will not argue that the color of a man’s skin determines the content of his character.” I’m afraid that some people are saying that the color of Barack Obama’s skin determines the content of his character, because some conservatives are courting the idea of voting for him despite his thoroughly consistent liberal views and voting record.

You don’t want to vote for John McCain? That’s fine — I don’t either. Depending on who he picks as his running mate, I may vote for him, but probably not (the names of potential running mates that I’ve heard have been kicked around are too liberal for me, as well). But I ain’t voting for Obama, either! I’m planning on trying to find who all the third-party candidates may be, and I’ll try to pick the best one of them — regardless of race or gender.

Vote your conscience, not your skin color.

 

I did it and I’m glad!

My husband is a pack-rat! When we first got married, and I moved into his condo, he had a big box that had a lot of cards and letters and what-not in it. I never looked in it — afraid of what I’d see. Of course, I was terribly curious (as a Kat!), but was afraid I’d come across some old letters or cards from past girlfriends, and I didn’t want to see. So, as we moved from one place to another, that box came with us (and broke, so everything was moved into another box. I asked my husband what all was in there, and he said it was mostly letters from his mom, birthday cards, get-well cards, etc. One time, I mentioned specifically letters from old girlfriends, and he said he’d gotten rid of everything like that.

So, I’m trying to clean and de-junk the house (hopefully going to sell it and move closer to his work, so getting rid of excess stuff will make the house more sale-able; and if/when we move, then that’s less stuff we have to take). I’m trying to talk my husband into getting rid of movies he watched and didn’t like, as well as his old college notebooks and papers (yes, from over 10 years ago — some of them may be almost 20 years old!), so we’ll see how it goes. Anyway, there’s this box half-full of old cards and letters, and I decided to at least organize it, if I couldn’t get rid of anything. So I started going through it.

There were a lot of letters from his mom, dad, brothers and friends… and of course a few old girlfriends. I actually was expecting this — not because my husband is a liar — far from it! Just that I was almost 100% sure that in order to make sure his box of letters and cards was actually purged of all unwanted ones, he’d have to do what I did today, which is to go through them one by one and actually look at them. And he’s just not like that. Not only is he a pack-rat, but he’s just not meticulous in that way (although he is in other ways). I figured (correctly) that as he broke up with a girlfriend, he’d toss most or all mementos of their relationship (perhaps in his pre-Christian days, he may have saved some to remember the past conquests), but also that he wouldn’t go through specifically to make sure every scrap of paper was gone, or that he would have tossed in a birthday card in his “keepsake” box along with all the other birthday cards he got from his friends and family, and just not taken it out.

So, as I went through the box today, I basically looked to see who it was from, and had one manila envelope for letters from his mom or dad, one for his brothers and friends, one just for birthday cards, etc. Most of the names were familiar to me, and most of the rest were from his male friends, or cards from “all of us.” But not all of them. Some of them were pretty innocuous, like a birthday card with just the girl’s name on it; there were a few mildly flirty ones; and there were others that were more… suggestive. As I came across cards that weren’t from my husband’s parents, grandparents, etc., I’d ask him, “Who’s _______?” and he’d say, “Toss it.” (To his credit, he seemed surprised that he had any cards in there at all, and reiterated that he thought he had gotten rid of everything. Because I know him, I knew he just couldn’t possibly have done that, which is why I hadn’t done this before, and why I wanted him to organize it himself. But, as I said, he’s just not that way.)

I didn’t read more than I could help, most of the time, because quite honestly I knew that once I’d read it, I couldn’t “un-read” it, and it would be in my brain forever. And now it’s done. I don’t have that half-filled box taking up space on my shelf any more. I might even get him to toss his old college papers! And I’ve got all of his wanted letters and cards neatly organized in 5 manila folders, which takes up much less space than they used to.

Ah…. it makes me actually want to clean! Heck, I might even tackle trying to get him to let go of all of our Windows 98-compatible CDs! Hey, I can dream, can’t I?

 

June 14th is Flag Day

Here’s a website for more flag information.

It’s more than just pieces of red, white, and blue fabric sewn together. It’s a symbol of our nation.

God bless America.