Kerry'd Away

I should probably wish every body a Happy Thanksgiving! I hope that you enjoyed good company and good food as you gave thanks for being fortunate to have been born in this great country of ours. Today after Jay and I were done with the festivities at his mother’s house he had to come home and take a nap because he had to work tonight 😦 I laid down with him because a nap sounded nice, and I had a pretty strange dream.

First off, I’ve had this dream before though in a slightly different way. My sister has told me in the past that when I’ve dreamed a series of dreams over again that my brain has run out of new material and is running reruns. lol. This was like a modified rerun. I won’t tell the entire dream for it’s not worth telling, but here’s the interesting part…

Jay was in the dream with me, except the guy didn’t look like Jay. I turned to him and said, “You’re Jay, but how come you don’t look like Jay??” He shrugged his shoulders and said, “I was wondering why you don’t look like Kerry, either.” I looked in the mirror and I was short and petite with a short hair cut, and my hair was straight and almost pitch black. I looked at what we were involved in (it had a political statement that I definitely wouldn’t agree with if I was awake) and I laughed. “This isn’t anything like us!” He agreed. I said, “If it’s my dream why would I dream us like this??”

I was critiquing the dream itself… while I was dreaming! LOL. How many people do you think can say that??

If you don’t want to read any kind of political opinion, then please skip this blog posting. I am tired of the insanity that is running rampant and I need to address some of it here. There will not be any pretty pictures to look at, so this will be a fairly boring-looking post. I apologize and will post later with lots of pictures.

First off, the Occupy Wall Street movement should be understood for what it is: an excuse for communists, socialists, and anarchists to get away with stealing, public debauchery, violence and rape. All of this comes with the blessings of our current administration. Obama himself has even spoken nicely about these radicals by saying that they are giving voice to frustrations. But don’t let me put words into his mouth, I’ll let him tell you himself.

Yet, Obama has had nothing but disdain and disgust for the TEA Party. Here he is again in his own words on the TEA Party:

Shall we compare the two groups? The following graphic comes directly from Chris Stigall’s Facebook page. He did the research on this almost a month ago, but I’ve heard similar figures from other places. After the last few weeks I can tell you that the OWS numbers have gone up in all categories. The only category that has increased for the TEA Party is ‘Days of Protest’.

I believe that OWS is up to 7 reported rapes right now. Oh, and that cost figure is the cost to the taxpayers. In every demonstration the TEA Party has applied for the proper permits and paid the required fees for that space. The OWS crowd merely shows up and takes whatever space they want without asking permission or paying the rent. Gee… right there shows a HUGE difference in the demographics of each group. One group does the responsible thing and protests non-violently (the only violence at TEA Party rallies have been caused by SEIU thugs who were dispatched by higher ups to make trouble at these events). The other group feels that it’s owed to them; that they shouldn’t have to follow the rules or foot the bill for something that they are doing themselves. They are entitled. Ugh. That word makes me feel so sick.

Let’s talk for a moment about the violence, shall we? This is also being condoned by people high up in our government. You know, those whom we elected to speak for us? Representative Maxine Waters (I believe that she’s from California) is almost so far left that she takes one more step and she will fall off the scale. She has an incredible hatred for the TEA Partiers, going so far as to say that they “can go straight to hell.” Yet, when it comes to her beloved Occupy Wall Street groups she makes excuses for them and regarding the deaths and rapes, “That’s life and it happens.” She doesn’t blame it on the protesters themselves, instead she blames the homeless and the criminal element, making a statement that when you have large groups of people that these malcontents (the homeless and the criminals) are drawn in and thus the problems are created. Well, I hate to break it to you Ms. Waters, but I was personally at an event that drew a HUGE crowd (Glenn Beck’s Restoring Honor – August 28, 2010) and there wasn’t a single rape, death or even shouting match. Would you like to see a picture of over 500,000 people and not a single act of violence was involved?

Why don’t we call the Occupy Wall Street movement out for what it is? It’s filled with people who are radicals, lazy asses, and druggies. These people really don’t want to take responsibility for their actions or their decisions. They call themselves the 99%? I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be included in a group made up of such seedy characters and immoral individuals.

I don’t want to link to the page, but if you’re curious google We Are the 99 and you will find a page where people can post their tale of woe and how the system has done them wrong. Most of them are complaining because they work long hours and are so in debt that they can barely make it from paycheck to paycheck. I’m sorry, but I don’t recall it being a rule that you had to go into debt so badly for whatever it was that you are doing. One guy even has the nerve to say that he’s got a masters degree, a job and makes decent money, but his student loans are so horrendous that they are his largest bill every month. Gee, how in the WORLD did you manage to get enough knowledge to get your job where you earn decent money? College! If you kids are so stupid as to not understand that it’s not the “1%” forcing you to take out the student loans, that it’s the colleges and universities upping your tuition costs, then I can’t help you. I’m sure that there are very few business majors among this crowd. Most of them probably have some throw-away degree in an arts field. There lies your problem. Guess what? I have student loan debt, too. I also drive a 2004 model car with 105,000 miles on it. I have lived with my parents since college so that I could help take care of my sister and also to save up money for a down payment on a house. I haven’t overspent myself so that my credit rating would stay very high (in fact, my ex who used to sell cars and saw credit ratings all of the time said that he had never personally seen anybody with a credit score as high as mine). And guess what? I have just signed the papers to buy a house. Did it take longer than I wanted? Yes, but nowhere does it say that I have a right to home ownership. I don’t believe that God decided that would be one of the basic needs that humans would have.

To the OWS protesters I have one statement: Life was never meant to be fair. It was meant to be lived to YOUR fullest ability!

Also, my sincere apologies to Miss Anne Hathaway. I can no longer support you by attending any of your movies or even watching the ones that come out after today. I am ashamed that I thought you were an intelligent woman. Anne participates in OWS

Promise Rings. I love jewelry, but this is a concept that I have a hard time getting my head wrapped around. A promise ring? To me that says, “Here, I am giving you this ring to shut you up for a while about marriage.” I don’t understand it. You aren’t to a place where you want to absolutely commit and give your girlfriend an engagement ring, but you don’t want to lose her so you give her a promise ring? What does that mean? “I promise to think about possibly marrying you, but for now I don’t want to get too serious about things.” Is it just me or is that a silly idea?

Guys, man up! If you aren’t ready for the serious step of getting engaged then sit down and talk about it. Don’t try to appease her by giving her a promise ring. That’s a cheap cop-out. I don’t think that I could take a guy seriously who gave me a promise ring. If you truly want to spend your life with me, but aren’t quite ready to take that step then let me know. We can talk about it and decide what kind of timeline we are each thinking about. I realize that girls often rush ahead of things and start dreaming about the big wedding after the third date, but please don’t patronize us by giving us a piece of jewelry that says, “I love you enough to want to give you a nice piece of jewelry and earn some points in the process, but it can’t be as serious as an actual engagement ring.”

If you really want to impress me, get me something that you know I will love because you know that my favorite color is blue and my favorite stone is the sapphire. Something like this:

No promises of something that you’re not ready for. Nothing to hint at a future that may or may not happen. Just a token of your love for me. That’s it. Leave the promise rings at the store where they belong.

I decided to separate this post from the post about my house. I figured it might make it easier to read and look at. In my previous post you saw the shape that the house is currently in. My dad has been helping me to refinish the wood floors in the house. I wasn’t sure how it was going to look, but I’m very happy with the results.

Here is the living room with the carpeting still on it:

Here is the living room floor after the carpet was removed, but before we had sanded it:

And here it is after being sanded and the first coat of polyurethane applied:

Doesn’t it look gorgeous?? Here’s a different shot of the floor:

I am so happy with how it turned out! It feels very warm and homey when you’re in there.

The hallway was redone as well. Here it is with carpeting:

After the carpeting was removed and before the sanding took place:

And after the sanding and first coat of poly:

According to the directions on the can, it will take two weeks for it to completely cure so I can’t do much in the rooms where the floor has been redone until that point. I still have other things to do in the house, though, so I will post pictures as I work on those projects.

I know that you guys have been waiting for this and it’s finally here! I have finally been able to get into the house that I’m buying and start working on it. The closing papers get signed on Wednesday (and I’m already in a bit of a panic about the amount of money that will be coming out of my savings account for a down payment!). I will take you on a tour of the house and then I’ll show you the work that has been done. I haven’t taken any pictures of the outside, so you’ll have to wait for those. Please keep in mind as you are looking at the pictures that I haven’t had a chance to clean or do much in there. I promise that I will make the house look way better than what you see here. 🙂

The main point of entry will be in the kitchen. First you walk into the kitchen:

This used to be my grandma’s house and they moved the washer and dryer into the kitchen so that she wouldn’t have to go up and down the basement stairs (which is actually on your right when you are standing right here). I plan on moving the refrigerator over to the left where the washer and dryer now sit, and I’m trying to get my dad to make me something to go along the wall that I can use for more counter space. If you walked further into the kitchen and turned around to look at the area where you had just been standing this would be your view:

Just enough room for a small table. There is a deck that I helped my dad build outside of those windows, so the cats will enjoy sitting there to watch the birds. And here’s the business end of the kitchen:

As you can see there is very little counter or cupboard space. Thus the reason that I want my dad to build me something to put along the wall where the refrigerator currently stands.

Then you would walk into the living room:

This picture was taken by the front door. You can see the kitchen doorway and then the hallway that goes down towards the bedrooms. My grandma had this carpeting laid in 1986. As you can see it has really taken a beating. Thus the reason why we have pulled it up. Due to my allergies I’ve decided that I want to refinish the hardwood floors instead of laying down more carpeting. I will show you those pictures later. The wall that the lamp is standing in front of will need some work, too.

That brown block is a group of cork blocks that my grandmother had up there. She had pictures of her kids along the top, and then under them she placed pictures of their families. It was very nice, but needed to come down. It really left a mess so I will have to sand it down, possibly smooth it with joint compound, and get that smoothed out before I can paint.

Let’s take a walk down the hallway:

This isn’t a big house. It’s a ranch house that has a little over 900 square feet. Just enough for me and my two cats. The first doorway on the left is the bathroom, followed by the three bedrooms. So we’ll stop and look into the bathroom:

Not very big and currently needs to be scrubbed down. There has been a bachelor living here for the last five years, so keep that in mind as well. I’m not impressed with the window in the shower. Who puts a window there??? It has a wooden frame and regular glass, not the privacy kind. I hate the way that shower curtain looks over it, so I’m going to do something different. I’m not sure what because I can’t afford to take it out and replace it right now. I think that I will look into some marine paint (like what they use on boats) and then some frosting for the glass. Also, I would like to get a bigger vanity and sink. There’s room for it so I’ll have to see what I can find.

As we travel down the hallway the first bedroom on the left is the biggest. When you walk into it this is what you see:

I know. It doesn’t look like much. And it doesn’t look very big, but it has a nice hardwood floor. When you turn around to face the door you can see the closet on the left:

All of the closets are of a decent size so I should have room for all of my clothes. Hopefully. lol. Walking out of the bedroom the next one is on the left (or straight down the hallway if you’re walking from the living room):

This is the second largest bedroom and is on the front corner of the house. That dresser was left behind so I’m going to repaint it white because this will be the spare bedroom where the day bed will be located. The daybed has a fancy white frame, so this will match nicely. Here is the view from this bedroom out into the hallway:

When you head out of this bedroom, straight ahead is a linen closet:

In this picture you can see that the carpet has already been removed. The bedrooms never had carpeting. And finally, the third bedroom. This is the smallest one and the one which will be my library:

Not a very big room at all. Here’s the view from inside, and out into the hallway:

And that’s it! That’s my house in its entirety. I would show you the basement, but it’s just an unfinished basement. Nothing special. Plus, there’s still a LOT of junk down there that has to be thrown. *sigh*