500 times

500 Times I've donated plasma as of today!!!! Can you believe that? I never thought I'd keep going long enough to even reach 100 and now I'm at 500. Guess I'll keep going till I hit 1000.

They gave me a $50 dollar bonus on top of the regular amount they pay. Great day!!! Hopefully someone is benefiting from all this plasma.

Bailout? No thanks.

I am not much of an investor - I really don't have the extra to invest but I do have a whole life insurance policy and a retirement account. Both are losing money. I am disgusted. I was going to cash in my insurance policy three years ago but a financial planner encouraged me not to, reminding me that I hadn't recouped my investment yet. Now it looks like I never will. I am disgusted. What is it about banking that breeds this kind of financial atmosphere? This is the second bailout in 20 years. How can these well respected companies have to much disregard for their client's money? Now they expect to not have to deal with the consequences. CEO compensation make me sick. I have realized that the quickest way to get wealthy is to become a CEO, run a company into the ground, then collect an overly generous severance package on your way out. Why do boards and share holders allow that?

Every day I turn on NPR and hear nothing except how the housing market is continuing to slump. More and more forclosures. The kicker is that now it just isn't people who bought outside their means that are losing their homes. If I can support a wife and six children on my salary (which is miniscule compared to that of a CEO), why can't everyone else? Really, how much money does one need? LIVE WITHIN YOUR MEANS. If you bought more house than your salary can justify, you deserve to lose your house. You have no right whining that that is not fair, that my tax dollars should be spent to fix your lack of judgement.

I am not a fan of John McCain but after hearing the whole Democratic party cry for more money to fix this problem, I am surely not going to vote for a Democrat this time around. Maybe I'll write myself in.

Just another week

I haven't had much to say lately. I suppose I have just been too busy. It has been a very long week and I am ready for a weekend. I did, however, get to sleep in until 6:45 this morning. That was quite nice. Although Michelle has also been getting up early all week long too, she let me sleep in this morning.

I guess I still don't have too much to say. My entire week has revolved around work. I have done so many animal surgeries this week that I think I would be happy to not see another rodent for a month. However, I have three more animals to work on this afternoon. I am really hoping that these surgeries work out. They are complicated and the animals are expensive. Marlan and I did three last week and only one mouse lived. Not good odds.

The Hawks play the Cyclones tomorrow here in Kinnick stadium. We are out to prove once again why Iowa is called the Hawkeye state. The Cyclowns are going down.

My trip to Idaho

Here is a picture of Rodona and her family. I went to visit them in July. While in Idaho I was able to do many things I had never done before and a lot more like





Ride a Skid steer or as I call it a small digger thing

I made cotton candy

Rode a horse named Brigham.

Went to Lagoon and rode lots of rides and just had a grand time there.

This picture is of Rodona, McKenna, Garett and Me at Lagoon in Utah.

We went to a place called Outer Limits for our activity for Family Home Evening. It was fun there and we got lots of great pictures with the murals on the walls.

Went to visit where my house used to be in Idaho. We lived in a house that was really run down and very old and very gross and it was the only house left in the middle of a trailor court. The city tore it down and here is where it used to be.

I watched a farm cat kill a mouse. EWE. I thought he was just playing with it.

I saw life size murals on the walls of relative of Rodona's

And the mountains of Idaho!!! So beautiful.

Finally I bought so much at garage sales while in Idaho that I had to ship 3 boxes home. I shipped a piano bench, guitar and a trumpet. Great buys and well worth it!

What a fabulous trip.

And it starts...

Although it is nice having the kids back in school, I don't like the stress that comes with all the activities. There is Activity Day for Alyssa, 11-year-old scouts for Brenden, Boy Scouts for Jared, Dan, and sometimes Caleb, Caleb's job, Drumline, and the list goes on. At least there are no sports at the moment. For whatever reason Dan decided not to do 8th grade football this year. Actually, I think I know the reason. Dan is a natural athlete but doesn't like to work. On the first day of practice, their coach made them run and run and run. Dan was not impressed. I refuse to be one of those parents who push their children to do things that they (the children) don't want to do but I also don't want to raise children that think it is okay to cut and run when things get difficult. Dan did the same thing with the Saxophone. The only reason we let him quit was that we just couldn't afford the instrument. Dan has since found the guitar and is taking lessons. We require our children to have some sort of musical education up into high school but again, don't want to push them into playing an instrument that they do not like. I am still perplexed at Brenden's choice of the Baritone - it is as big as he is. I am glad that Dan has found an instrument that suits his personality. I told him that he was going to have to take choir this year if he didn't want to play an instrument. Jared has been playing trumpet for 2 years now and this year (7th grade) tried out for jazz band. He unfortunately didn't make it but I am hoping that this experience will make him want to work harder so that he will make it next year. I am glad that I wouldn't let Caleb quit in 7th grade like he wanted to. He now really likes band and is getting to be a fairly decent percussionist. He is very talented musically and is also in the West High Men's choir. So anyway, back to the original premise of this post, as important as all these activities are, I get so tired of running around town trying to attend all the pack meetings, concerts, and 10,000 other activities that sometimes I just want to lock myself in my room and sleep for a couple of days. Maybe I just need to go buy a good book. I haven't done that in a while. Any suggestions?

weight contest

check out our weight loss blog at

www.managingthewaist.blogspot.com

to find out all the details.

We will update weekly.