Shelby and Durango...Found:(
Current mood: sad

Most of you know that my cats did not move with us because they never came home. Well yesterday the movers called and asked if they could dispose of Aliyah's bureau because they found our cats in her drawer. My heart goes out to my poor kitties of five years. I can't begin to imagine what they went through. I am angry with myself for not thinking to check there! I looked everywhere for them so I thought! The morning we had to move I was begging God to send them out of the woods cause I couldn't bear the thought of leaving them there knowing they were going to come home and no one would be there to open the door for them! But I now know why God couldn't do that for me. I am happy that they were together and that I know what happened but the guilt is still there for not checking the drawers and I am angry at the movers. Didn't they notice when they moved it? I have to stop writing before the tears come again. I will be getting a new kitten soon and her name will be Shango.

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Escape from tobacco addiction, starting now!
Current mood: happy
Category: Goals, Plans, Hopes

* Hang Tough, Don't Puff!

* The urge to smoke goes away whether you light up or not.

* Remember that if you do light up, the next urge to smoke comes much sooner, more often, and more intensely.

* When you give in to the urge to smoke, you are rewarding the urge. This is why the urges return more frequently and more strongly.

* A desire to smoke is not a command that must be followed.

* The NicoBeast's voice can't hurt you. Ignore it. Or analyze it. See it for what it is. Laugh at the tricks it tries to use on you to get you to have "just one".

* You can't brag if you take a drag!

* I'm A Puff Away From A Pack A Day.
   ( Even A Puff Can Blow Me Away )

* Smoking is not an option.

* Smokers Don't Get To Smoke. They have to smoke.

* Don't Despair. Breathe the Air.

* Smoking was our way (or excuse) for taking breaks. So continue taking breaks -- find something you enjoy doing.

* Remember this when I want to have "just one" and think that I can "get away" with it: Either (1) I'm in charge of the habit, in which case I don't have to have this cig -or- (2) Its in charge of me, in which case I must not have this cig.

* Get MAD at the cigarettes for ruining some aspects of your life. (Rather than "missing them" or immersing yourself in nostalgia or "euphoric recall").

* With each light or moderate urge, think, "oh, this isn't such a strong urge", or "this is a really light and trivial urge". "This isn't so bad". See light and moderate urges as "better than strong cravings". (I learned this technique sitting in the dentist chair thinking, ouch, but that wasn't so bad, not as bad as that scrape a couple of minutes ago...)

Thank you God, that I have known
This smoke-free day to call my own.
And tomorrow this I pray,
Grant me one more smoke-free day.

* I'd rather be a non-smoker with an occasional desire to smoke than a smoker with a constant desire to quit

* Just remember, It is easier to stay quit than to have to quit again

http://www.geocities.com/HotSprings/Spa/8122/cardsc.html

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1/509th iraq video
Category: Jobs, Work, Careers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEfOpSSYBXQ

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My Week
Category: Life

Sunday

I started making a cake and Aliyah came in and said oh yeah we still need to make something for my teacher. So I had to make another item and it was suppose to be apple based. I found a recipe for Applesauce Cake from my mom's recipes and went with that. I forgot to put the baking soda in! Fun Fun! But I did realize it before baking it. It also didn't state what size pan to use so I put it in a 9x13. Too big! But perfect mixed up more batter with the baking soda in it this time and put the 2 together!

Monday

Well the paper didn't specify whether to bring in the whole thing or a piece for the teacher so in the morning I called the office and they didn't know and I explained that I had already made a cake earlier Sunday and she said it would be fine to bring in the whole cake! So at 7 30AM I brought the cake in. I had a nice talk with Aliyah's teacher. She said Aliyah is one of the best behaved and will be one of the few who does well next year. But Aliyah is slacking off in school and her grades are showing it! My straight A student this year came home with F's and D's last week! She also missed all her spelling words and parts of her sentences! I told her teacher that I thought maybe her ears were clogged or something cause when I gave her her practice test she only got one wrong! Don't think the teacher agrees! i think she just thinks it's the end of the year kids don't wanna be there anymore and Aliyah is not the only student with falling grades! RELIEF! I think that's it for Monday!

Tuesday

Today started out good. Just relaxing watching tv with Logan felt really tired didnt know why. Bryan had to go to court for a speeding ticket of $203.00. Like 3 hours went buy and he finally calls. I need to meet him at the probation office so I can get his card to pull the money to pay the fine cause if he didn't pay he would go to jail for 2 days or 6 months probation either way would cause huge problems with his Army career! Would have gotten an article 15 and most likely busted in rank! Can't afford that so give the last of our money to the wonderful state of Louisiana! So i get myself and Logan ready to go and then I realize Bryan took the van cause the jeep isn't registered! And I refuse to take the jeep when it has issues cause I get pulled over everytime! But I had no choice in the matter this needed to be done! So I fight the stupid carseat into the back of the jeep then i go to get my wallet for my ID and I get find my wallet! So I assume its in the van and head out! Bryan calls or I called him dont remember but anyways I let him know I am on my way and I ask if my wallet is in the van he says he didnt see it but I continue anyway cause Bryan can always sponsor me on! I prayed I wouldn't get pulled over for the registration! I didn't have my license on me! When I talk to Bryan again he confirms my wallet is not in the van unless it fell down the side or something which I figured it must have cause Bryan's cake had fallen earlier when I brought him food and that was the last time I saw my wallet! Well I had no idea where I was going and Bryan had the GPS. I did have a general idea. I found the road then drove by Bryan. He called and said that left you just took you went too far. I said you saw me and he said YES! Well then I was confused cause I had taken two lefts and I didn't know which one he saw me at! But Bryan is a complete jerk when he is a rush or doesnt know where he's going so I didn't want to call him back! But then I saw him pulled over he gave me his cards then I went to the nearest ATM. I came to a green light with a cop to the right of me at a stop light so when his light turned green he would be right behind me staring at the unregistered jeep! So I said another prayer and the next turn was a bank! I said  a thank you prayer went and got the stupid money then back to Bryan. Then we went home.My wallet was in the van between the P seat and door! Then for the rst of the day I just felt sick and didnt do anything. My stomach hurt and I felt nauseous (googled that :-)). I don't even think I cooked that night I think it was leftovers! I just laid on the couch feeling like "poo"! Bryan made a comment, he wasn't mean about it but it was still bothersome! What he said was that if we didnt have internet,tv, and the phone he would have the cleanest house in the world! Hello a little sick here! But in his eyes mothers aren't ever suppose to be sick we must persevere and move on! WHATEVER!

Wednesday

Today I had to be up at 6AM because we had dentist appt.'s at 7 30am. Well Sonja woke me up at 6 30 so I am rushing around trying to get myself and Logan ready. Aliyah woke up with a migraine and Logan cranky! But we were out the door by like 7 04! I gave Aliyah motrin before we left because she still had to go to school. Well we have our appt.'s. They wasnt to pull my wisdom teeth, one of Sonja's baby teeth, and I have 4 TINY cavities in between back teeth! (NO MORE PEPSI!) Yeah those cavities alone are $369.00! But I did notice there is no coverage with the insurance so I gotta find out what's up with that! Anyways we go back home so Sonja and Aliyah can put on their school uniforms I give Aliyah one more practice test and she only missed one word but she was being so emotional that I decided to make and appt. for her migraine. Well being only 7 with a migraine they got her in for 2 20. She not only has a migraine that they will do a CT scan to try to find a cause for the migraines but she has a double ear infection (for those who don't know thats one in each ear) and a sinus infection (explains the bloody noses)! So they sent her home with three bottles of motrin, an antbiotic, and cold medicine. But remember Monday when I though she did bad on the test due to her hearing? I definitely think I was right now! And Lastly I had my house spotless by the time we had to go to Aliyah's appt.! That includes folding the stupid laundry! Bryan was quite impressed because he figured it would look worse then the day before cause I was in and out of the house all day today!

Thursday

Bryan rucked(sp) to work today. That means he walked 4 miles with a ruck sack on his back weighing 35-45 lbs. When I talked to him he said he was starving. Well we have no money cause Lousiana now has it so I am going through the cupboards and I told him I could make him some chicken and potatoes and he said that was fine. I decided sisnce that's what I had out to make for supper why not just make it now! So at 7 55 am I made our supper which was Fancy Chicken with scalloped potatoes and corn. But I gave him all the side dishes so I made broccoli and potatoes that night but the chicken was done! I think thats it for today and the house is still spotless! Oh yeah I started Chantix today and asked Bryan to watch for the "new" bad side effects!

Friday

So far so good! I did wake up to the house smelling horrible cause Bryan left the back door open! The one by the doggy poop and pee! With humidity the carpets were damp and the smells from outside were inside! Nasty! Fine whatever dont think too much about it. Then I get a knock on the door its maintenance. They to check the smoke detectors and fire extinguisher! Great my house smells like animal feces and urine! Well he comes in does his thing then I call Bryan to find out why he left the door open couldnt get a hold of him. But I did talk with him later and he told me he would try to not to that again! I hope he doesn't cause it really smells! But thats about it for today besides all the complications with writing this blog! So I don't care about any of my punctuation or spelling!

In the last almost 2 weeks now I have walked 10.6 miles!

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Please read this Reader’s Digest Article Military Related
Current mood: annoyed

Outraged? Write to Michael Crowley at Outrageous@rd.com

A Swamped System

When he returned to Georgia from Iraq in 2004, Army Specialist James Webb was in rough shape. He’d barely survived a bomb blast in Fallujah and was left with devastating injuries: brain trauma, spinal cord damage and posttraumatic stress disorder so severe, he contemplated suicide. Needless to say, Webb was in no condition to hold down a job. But although he was entitled to generous veterans’ disability payments, he found it almost impossible to get the money. His claim took ten months to process -- more time than his savings would allow.

"I pretty much was homeless and staying wherever I could," says Webb, who finally moved in with his parents in Tennessee.

Meanwhile, according to an investigation by Scripps Howard News Service, even as Webb was going broke, monthly checks totaling at least $14 million were going out to 120,000 veterans with a somewhat less serious health problem: hemorrhoids. I am not kidding.

What do hemorrhoids have to do with military service? Good question. The answer is that something’s way out of whack with our veterans’ disability system. Right now, due largely to the Iraq war, some 600,000 disability claims are backlogged, and the average waiting period for processing a veteran’s claim is six months. Appealing a denied claim takes an average of nearly two years.

One reason, say experts, is that the disability system is swamped by vets with health problems that are unrelated to their military service. Thanks to lawmakers who have made coverage too broad and, yes, some veterans who push marginal claims, hundreds of thousands of people with problems that doctors consider hereditary or part of the aging process are drawing monthly checks while we struggle to take care of severely disabled people like James Webb.

And the problem is only going to get worse: Soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are expected to make 400,000 new disability claims by the end of 2009. It’s time to set some priorities.

"The system should focus on veterans who have left parts of their bodies in foreign lands, veterans with very specific disabilities from their service," says Darryl Kehrer, former staff director for the House Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Benefits. That was the original intention of the federal government -- to cover soldiers injured in the line of duty who lost earning power when they got home.

Since then, however, members of Congress have courted the vet vote by defining the law much more generously. Now a veteran doesn’t have to prove that military service caused his disability, only that it appeared or got worse during his service. So if you develop diabetes while stationed in Germany, you’re covered for it, for life. Veterans don’t even have to show that the condition has affected their ability to earn a living.

Thousands of vets are collecting cash for common ailments like arthritis and hypertension, as well as minor scars, hysterectomies and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) such as herpes and gonorrhea -- conditions that have nothing to do with combat or the places the vets were stationed. In some cases, they ask for benefits years, even decades, after their service. According to a 2003 Congressional Budget Office report, almost 300,000 veterans get disability payments for conditions that are "generally neither caused nor aggravated by military service." The annual price tag for these cases is $970 million.

When the Government Accountability Office asked independent doctors to examine individual veterans, it became clear that the bar for getting benefits can be set ridiculously low. For instance, one Air Force veteran qualified for lucrative benefits when he developed lung disease seven years after leaving the service. No one seemed to care that he had smoked up to 30 cigarettes a day before and during his tour.

Another vet was treated for mild arthritis during his one year in the Army. More than 20 years after his discharge, he was severely injured in a car accident, which obviously exacerbated his joint pain. The military subsequently granted him its highest disability rating -- currently worth almost $30,000 per year.

Then there was the man who joined the Army with a preexisting heart murmur. Forty years later, he won thousands of dollars in additional benefits when his heart conditioned worsened. He blamed his three years of service, but doctors reviewing his case said his years of smoking and drinking were the real problem.

Advocates for the 2.7 million veterans who are currently drawing disability benefits insist this is no place to go looking for budget savings. "Nobody wants the system to be paying people that don’t have a right to [the benefits]," says David Autry of the Disabled American Veterans organization. But he adds that this rarely happens. Hemorrhoids, for instance, "can be very painful," he says, and may be caused by long hours sitting in a tank. Nor should a huge system be judged by a few examples.

It’s not a small amount of money we’re talking about, though, and hemorrhoid sufferers aren’t even the most preposterous beneficiaries. The prize should probably go to vets who get covered for their STDs. One Arizona veteran, for example, contracted genital herpes in 1994 and complained that it made sexual activity "difficult on a repetitive basis." After four years of appeals, the government finally awarded him $300 per month in disability benefits for the rest of his life. And a Wisconsin vet was recently awarded $100 per month for the lingering effects of the gonorrhea he contracted from a prostitute during his basic training, way back in 1972, according to Scripps Howard. "It’s pretty hard to explain why that’s service related," says Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste.

The VA is trying to respond to its growing backlog by hiring hundreds of new claims agents. That’s just attacking the result, not the cause. For its part, Congress has created a blue-ribbon commission to study veterans’ benefits from top to bottom. Politicians rarely take benefits away from people who already get them, of course. But maybe public outrage can get Washington to do the right thing. After all, it’s a no-brainer: Disability checks should go to the disabled -- people like James Webb, whose lives have been shattered by war. For folks suffering from hemorrhoids, there’s always Preparation H.

Outraged? Write to Michael Crowley at outrageous@rd.com.. --> googleoff: index -->

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Cross stitch
Category: Jobs, Work, Careers

Logan’s is done also but haven’t taken a pic yet but will get one tomorrow after I finish Aliyah’s!

Name Origins and Meanings

http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m199/durango2124/100_3233.jpg

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For Men

Maxxim to movies to music videos to beer commercials, entertainment media still largely alienates if not openly antagonizes women and then men sit around scratching their beer-bellies and watching air-pumped cheerleaders jiggle at halftime, wondering why their wives and girlfriends don’t want more sex and are all into Oprah and soap operas and horrible advice columns with titles like 101 Secret Tips to Make Him Want to Perform Oral Sex and Buy You a BMW. It’s all they’ve got.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2002/05/29/notes052902.DTL&type=printable

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Friends
Current mood: relieved
Category: Friends

I am terrible at judging good friends from the bad! The bad end up being the good and the good the bad! I am always afraid that they are all talking about me and don’t really like me! One friend I have I was very leery of because of rumors and stuff like that but I got the opportunity to get to know her well and we both let our walls down and we are good friends now and I like that! Some people do things because that is what they know and all we can do is pray for them. I am going to do my best to not judge my friends and give them the benefit of the doubt! I like everybody. Even if you seriously hurt me I would still be your friend. Lame you might say but isn’t that what we are suppose to do? Forgive!!! I am sorry that my friends aren’t friends and that my friends don’t like some of my friends but kinda like myspace They are MY friends! I will choose them! So please if you don’t like my friends don’t judge them I have my reasons for continuing the friendship!

And if you are my friend I hope you are genuinely my friend and that you are not using me.

Sometimes people are leery of me because  my opinions change of people but that is because I am quick to judge and my first opinions aren’t always right!

But I decided over 6 months ago that I didn’t want to be so judgemental and I don’t want to talk negatively about people unless I know all the facts to be true. I am trying to be a better person for God. I want to live my life to a biblical standard and that would mean that I love everybody!  If you hurt someone or me or you talk about someone or me I won’t hate or dislike you I will pray for you and ask God to show you what he wants!

Thank You for taking the time to read this and I hope you all understad where I am coming from!

John 13:34 (King James Version)

John 13:35 (King James Version)

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Earth Hour 3/29/2008 8-9 PM
Category: Goals, Plans, Hopes

http://www9.earthhourus.org/

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Last Night
Category: Life

Last night Logan was on a sugar high or something. He was full of so much energy! I had put him to bed a little after 8 but he kept getting up the last time he got up was probably around 10:30 and I gave up and let him stay up. I went to bed around 11pm. Well he was still all hyped up and going on and on about "Wilbur and the Chipmunks" which had Sonja and I laughing! It didn’t matter how many times we told him it was Alvin he says Wilbur! He kept singing "chicka wow wow" finally I had Sonja put a movie in in her room for Logan to watch and I laid down. At 12:46AM I was half asleep and I heard the screen door slam. I thought I was dreaming and Sonja woke me up to tell me someone tried to come in the house just as Logan came running out of her room yelling "Is daddy home is daddy home" So now I am freaked! I went in Logan’s room to see if I could see anyone outside. No one. So then Sonja and I are standing at the top of the stairs peering down to see if we could hear or see anything. Nothing! I was gonna go back to bed but then Sonja noticed the door was open. I was like great now I have to go down there! So we creep down the stairs and I lock the patio doors which don’t actually lock I use a bar in one and  screw in the other but it locks them! I locked the garage door as (believe it or not) Sonja was checking all the places downstairs someone could be hiding. If I had known she was doing it I would not have allowed it! But it did make me proud that she had that much courage! Anyways what I think happened is...

Earlier I had gone to the store and I think when I came back I didn’t shut the door all the way and everyone who has been to my house here and in Maryland knows I keep magnets on my door. I think someone wa trying to steal them and when they tried to take one the door opened scared them and they took off and thats when we heard the screen door slam! Pretty freaky!

When we went back to bed I looked at Sonja and said are you gonna ask me why I lock the doors again and she said "No!"

This morning when I got up I went out checked my van locked it and brought my magnets in! I love having them on my door but I am not risking harm to my family!

Thank you Lord for keeping us safe!

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