I miss

the days

when

I checked

my email

and it

was messages

from

friends!

Freedoms II

Budget deficit - "Excess of spending over income, for a government, corporation, or individual" (Barron's Finance and Investment Handbook).

Zelda and I are transitioning from deficit spending, (spending without thinking) to living with in our means.

It's been a challenge. I find that as much as the idea appeals to me, implementing it in my life demands new daily discipline.

It also requires a lot of communication.
With both Zelda and myself.
It also requires one of us to be the "grown up", the "bad guy" and to say, "NO!"
Neither of us has wanted to take up that mantle with the other...

We sat in the tv room yesterday talking about our finances.

The easy thing is to dip into the savings we have.

We dipped into savings a few years back to pay on some old credit card debt.

It has never been reimbursed.

I do not want to do that again.

We also need to seriously promise to each other that we will not buy on credit for our selves.

Maybe a Pinky double dare to die kind of promise.

There are many things we want to be able to do with our home.

To raise chickens for eggs (as mean as I've heard they can be). (City restrictions and HOA)

To be able to install a wind generator or solar on our house. (City restrictions and HOA.)

To be able to collect and use rain water for our potable water. (City restrictions and HOA)

To plant a vegetable garden.

To build a house, or buy an older vernacular home. ("Vernacular" is a term Archy-tects use to describe buildings designed to work with their locale to heat and cool naturally, before the advent of mechanical heating and cooling.)

Zelda has a good friend from her first marriage who has a piece of property south of Austin.
He and his new wife do not make a lot of money and have lived a bohemian life. They do not have a lot of debt.
She had an old house on 1/2 an acre in an unincorporated area.
When we visited the first time, E was adding an extra room to the house.
The last time we visited, he had just built a garden plot for veggies.
We visited his my space page to see his baby girl and saw that he is adding a rain harvesting system to the house.

His home is small, natural light spills thru from front to back.

Music is a major part of their lives.

Their tv is a 15" black and white.


I think this last item is the most important reason he has what he has, and we have what we have...

Zelda brought up the idea of selling our place and moving out.
We might take a hit on it's value.

But that begs the question.


"How much do we really value Freedom?"

Freedoms

What to do now that we can legally be listened to by the government with out legal controls put in place to protect us...

It fits right in with electronic strip searching at the air port.

All they have to do is convince us it's for "our Protection"...

and we swallow it all...


Who's watching the watchers?

I'm considering moving over seas.

Hmmm....

Hi, I'm BIG OIL...

Making record profits!!!

If I was smart... I'd raise prices...

It would cause the average American to change his or her focus from the Pollution and what our energy policies are doing to our Nest, to, "Politicians!!! Get us More Oil!!! Now!!! I'm actually have to pay for my life style! Gak!".

No one seems to see this energy "shortage" as a good thing.
Politicians are playing, "What do they want to hear!?", instead of "Leading the way to a new way of life".

What they aren't saying is the oil we are using is going to release prehistoric, sequestered carbon BACK into the atmosphere.


So if I'm Big Oil,

I raise the price,

(it helps that the politicians are reducing the value of the dollar, which increases prices)

(my profits go up)

people panic and appeal to the politicians to drill for more,

ensuring that I continue being

the power behind the world...

Pardon the pun...

Back Flow Valves

Crazy...

The Great State of Texas passed a law requiring all homes with back flow valves, used to prevent contaminated water from flowing back into the city main, must be inspected each year.

Anyone who has an irrigation system, required by our Home Owners Association, will have three of these. One on the irrigation line, and one on each hose bib.

Our fair city has decided to enforce this new law.

It's a lot like the anti scald valves required by the state. Loss of user control.
The anti scald valve can be found in new construction, ie. hotels. It's all on or all off.
And we wonder why we have water shortages...

Zelda called our plumber to check on what this will cost us.

The number comes in at $225.00.

Per year...

Multiply that by the number of homes built in our fair city, 8,000.00 new homes since 2003, and that number becomes...

wait for it...

wait for it...

I had to run the calculator three times before I accepted that I had done it right...

wait for it...

8,000 x 225 =

1.8 MILLION DOLLARS

per year...

I'm going to invest in plumbing companies...

that or change my line of work...
how long does it take to become a certified back flow valve inspector...?

Ah big government...

gotta love it...

water's free?

right?!

(till they cut your service off)

Ant Lion

Sort of...Zelda's aunt was rumored to be difficult and unfriendly...

Which caused some surprise when we received an invitation from her to all her nieces and nephews to come spend a weekend with her and see an Astros game.

Z and I decided to take up her offer and I would like to report that she is a wonderful person, very accomplished (as are all of Z's dad's siblings, as well as her dad.) , very generous of heart, and she really loves her baseball.

Z has been caught up in the family drama and rivalry/favorites that plague adult children...

Uncle M owns his own business and was instrumental in bringing cell phones to the Texas hill country.

Ant L was a principal with a big 8 accounting company in Houston.

And Zelda Daddy has a PhD and worked for years for the state of Kansas.

Aunt Lion has a condo on a tree lined street just off the highway. She showed us the older parts of town and treated us to some healthy, yummy food in her efficient little kitchen.

I really enjoyed getting to know her better and being introduced to Houston. (I have been there maybe 15-20 times, but never with a local).

It took about a day and a half to begin to warm up to each other. We really didn't know her.

Prodroming

That's the term used to define the period of time when the Herpes Virus is active in your nerve cell and may, MAY, cause and "outbreak".

I have had Herpes II for about... let's see,

(it's sooooo central to my life.... *not*)

08,

07,

06,

05,

04...

I'd have to go back and look at my first entries on blog spot to see when...

blog says 2004.

Zelda and I are both prodroming at the moment. Not sure why.
When she first moved to Texas, Z prodromed quite regularly.
The stress, pollution, and long commute aggravated her health, and it wasn't just the virus that was acting up.

Doesn't keep us from getting busy....
Excuse me... my wife calls...


Cracks me up when the "cure Herpes" adds claim, "I haven't had an out break in over two weeks!". We regularly go months, even 6 or 7 with out any symptoms. So to go TWO WEEKS because of Cure X... It ain't the Cure that's doing it.

As our chiropractor says, "I don't do anything, your body does it all. I help your body cure it's self."

(Side note: My outbreaks are very light, I just feel a twinge in my groin while Z has the 'classic' much photographed blisters which are painful and can scar if rubbed by clothing. I sympathise with those who have major outbreaks.)

fyi: Z has discovered that Biofreeze does a good job of killing any pain she may have. It's an over the counter ointment for sore muscles we got from our massage therapist.