Kick in the pants....

Every once in awhile, something happens to remind me that my life isn't that bad, and that I should just shut up and quit complaining. Today was one of those days.

I write feature obits for the Post Gazette's North edition. This morning, I had the pleasure of writing one on a lady from the Karns City area who died at age 49. While it's awful to have a life ended so young, this woman taught me a few lessons, even after her death. She was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. She was told she had less than a year to live. So what did she do? Cry, sulk, get mad or lock herself in her house? Nope. She spent time cherishing the moments she had left, telling all of her friends and family how very much she loved them, taking the time to write each of them a personalized letter about just what they meant to her. The more I learned about this woman, the more terrible I felt about myself. She truly was the type of person to put everyone before herself, a true image of what being Christlike means. Here was someone who really had a reason to be glum, but she chose to spend her last days looking on the sunny side, appreciating what she had, counting her blessings and thinking about everyone but herself. I may not have known her, but she has made an impact on my life today. Hopefully, the lesson I've learned from her will stick in my brain, and I won't need someone to kick me in the pants to remind me.

Fun at the patch....fun in the dirt

Connor decided to help his pap dig a ditch at their house a few weeks ago. Pap said he never had so much "help" in all his life.
I guess it's true that boys like to play in the dirt. :)



Below, we're on our field trip to a local pumpkin patch with Connor's preschool. It was loads of fun.

Reality check Thursday....

I know this is the second post in one day for me, but my friend just sent me this, and I thought it was worth sharing. Feel free to share it with anyone YOU know who may need a reality check today:

WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE POOR

Being poor is knowing exactly how much everything costs.

Being poor is getting angry at your kids for asking for all the crap they see on TV.

Being poor is having to keep buying $800 cars because they’re what you can afford, and then having the cars break down on you, because there’s not an $800 car in America that’s worth a damn.

Being poor is hoping the toothache goes away.

Being poor is knowing your kid goes to friends’ houses but never has friends over to yours.

Being poor is going to the restroom before you get in the school lunch line so your friends will be ahead of you and won’t hear you say “I get free lunch” when you get to the cashier.

Being poor is living next to the freeway.

Being poor is coming back to the car with your children in the back seat, clutching that box of Raisin Bran you just bought and trying to think of a way to make the kids understand that the box has to last.

Being poor is wondering if your well-off sibling is lying when he says he doesn’t mind when you ask for help.

Being poor is off-brand toys.

Being poor is a heater in only one room of the house.

Being poor is knowing you can’t leave $5 on the coffee table when your friends are around.

Being poor is hoping your kids don’t have a growth spurt.

Being poor is stealing meat from the store, frying it up before your mom gets home and then telling her she doesn’t have make dinner tonight because you’re not hungry anyway.

Being poor is Goodwill underwear.

Being poor is not enough space for everyone who lives with you.

Being poor is feeling the glued soles tear off your supermarket shoes when you run around the playground.

Being poor is your kid’s school being the one with the 15-year-old textbooks and no air conditioning.

Being poor is thinking $8 an hour is a really good deal.

Being poor is relying on people who don’t give a damn about you.

Being poor is an overnight shift under florescent lights.

Being poor is finding the letter your mom wrote to your dad, begging him for the child support.

Being poor is a bathtub you have to empty into the toilet.

Being poor is stopping the car to take a lamp from a stranger’s trash.

Being poor is making lunch for your kid when a cockroach skitters over the bread, and you looking over to see if your kid saw.

Being poor is believing a GED actually makes a difference.

Being poor is people angry at you just for walking around in the mall.

Being poor is not taking the job because you can’t find someone you trust to watch your kids.

Being poor is the police busting into the apartment right next to yours.

Being poor is not talking to that girl because she’ll probably just laugh at your clothes.

Being poor is hoping you’ll be invited for dinner.

Being poor is a sidewalk with lots of brown glass on it.

Being poor is people thinking they know something about you by the way you talk.

Being poor is needing that 35-cent raise.

Being poor is your kid’s teacher assuming you don’t have any books in your home.

Being poor is six dollars short on the utility bill and no way to close the gap.

Being poor is crying when you drop the mac and cheese on the floor.

Being poor is knowing you work as hard as anyone, anywhere.

Being poor is people surprised to discover you’re not actually stupid.

Being poor is people surprised to discover you’re not actually lazy.

Being poor is a six-hour wait in an emergency room with a sick child asleep on your lap.

Being poor is never buying anything someone else hasn’t bought first.

Being poor is picking the 10 cent ramen instead of the 12 cent ramen because that’s two extra packages for every dollar.

Being poor is having to live with choices you didn’t know you made when you were 14 years old.

Being poor is getting tired of people wanting you to be grateful.

Being poor is knowing you’re being judged.

Being poor is a box of crayons and a $1 coloring book from a community center Santa.

Being poor is checking the coin return slot of every soda machine you go by.

Being poor is deciding that it’s all right to base a relationship on shelter.

Being poor is knowing you really shouldn’t spend that buck on a Lotto ticket.

Being poor is hoping the register lady will spot you the dime.

Being poor is feeling helpless when your child makes the same mistakes you did, and won’t listen to you beg them against doing so.

Being poor is a cough that doesn’t go away.

Being poor is making sure you don’t spill on the couch, just in case you have to give it back before the lease is up.

Being poor is a $200 paycheck advance from a company that takes $250 when the paycheck comes in.

Being poor is four years of night classes for an Associates of Art degree.

Being poor is a lumpy futon bed.

Being poor is knowing where the shelter is.

Being poor is people who have never been poor wondering why you choose to be so.

Being poor is knowing how hard it is to stop being poor.

Being poor is seeing how few options you have.

Being poor is running in place.

Being poor is people wondering why you didn’t leave.

On the road again.....

On the road again
Just can't wait to get on the road again
The life I love is makin' music with my friends
And I can't wait to get on the road again
On the road again
Goin' places that I've never been
Seein' things that I may never see again,
And I can't wait to get on the road again.

I've been singing that old Willie Nelson tune for the last 4 days as I drive my dad to Pittsburgh for his radiation treatments. I don't think he's amused. But darn it, I think we need a theme song if we're going to be driving to Pittsburgh every day for 8 weeks, don't you?

I've thought about writing my own song, but that usually just ends up getting me in trouble. :)

So, if you have any suggestions for a new theme song for our trips to Pittsburgh, I'd be happy to hear it.

Palin endorses Democrats.....

OK, I saw this photo a few minutes ago and I just could not resist sharing it with everyone.

Look closely: Sarah Palin is wearing a red, white and blue scarf that says VOTE on it. But it also has donkeys all over it. Erm, the last time I checked, the donkey was the symbol for the Democratic party. And the last time I checked, Ms. Palin was the VP candidate for the Republicans. Way to endorse your opponents there, Sarah.

I think she gets the dumb dumb politician award of the day.......

Is it Nov. 4 yet?

I'm Shari Berg, and I approve this message..................... :)

I'm not sure which of these two chuckle heads needs help more: Obama, for holding the phone the wrong way, or McCain, for holding a microphone at a recent rally upside down. Someone told me Obama at least has an excuse, because it is common practice to turn a phone upside down if the person you're talking to is speaking way too loud. So he may have an excuse here. But McCain......dude....I've never heard any such thing about turning a microphone the wrong way. Let me offer you a little advice here. Generally, if you want to be heard, you have to speak into it.

That being said, has anyone else gotten tired yet of all the robo-election calls? Just today, I received five from Mr. Obama's camp. Four of those were automated, so I couldn't really yell at them to leave me alone. Well, I could have, but it wouldn't have really helped. But the fifth one was a real person, so I told him that the quickest way to not get my vote is to call me every hour, asking me to vote for him. The guy got really quiet, then promised he wouldn't call again. Oh, if only he meant it.

I haven't gotten any calls yet from the McCain camp, and I must say, I feel a little left out. I guess he doesn't think my vote is important.

All I know is at this point, Nov. 4 can't come soon enough for me. And then, God help us all, because no matter which of these two get in office, we're going to need it.

Adding to the family

My husband has been itching for another baby since Connor was 2 days old. Of course, he wasn't the one who was up every 45 minutes breastfeeding for the first 2 months straight, so to him, parenting was a breeze. :)

I wasn't opposed to adding to our family, but a series of events sure seems to have stopped us dead in our tracks. The biggest (and obviously most important) is the fact that we don't have health insurance that covers maternity. We have to pay for our own insurance, and when you're buying as an individual, your options are pretty much limited. The only insurance company that offers maternity to individuals is Highmark. Well, Highmark won't insure me because they claim my allergies----for which I take no prescription medications and receive no treatment that is charged to them----is too expensive to cover. But that's a rant for another time. So we have one of those bare minimum plans that really covers nothing. That includes having a baby.

For awhile, my husband was of the thinking that we'd just pay for it out of pocket. When I showed him statistics that the average pregnancy, including prenatal care and delivery, costs over $20,000, he almost had a stroke. And that $20,000 is for an unmedicated, uncomplicated pregnancy. If I needed any intervention, such as a C-section, it would cost a whole lot more. So he gave up that idea pretty quickly.

Me, I see all of this as God leading me toward an option I've been thinking about for a long time, and that's adoption. A close friend of mine adopted her daughter, and they have a great relationship. She gave a child a home, and she has the love of that child in return. The thought that this isn't her biological child has never once stopped her from treating her daughter like her own. I watch those "adoption of the week" segments on KDKA news every week and my heart aches for those kids, some of them as old as 16, who have never had a family of their own and have been shuffled from one foster home to another. I know that I want to provide a home for a child like that, because I have room in both my heart and my home for it. I realize not everyone can love an adopted child the way they would a biological child, but I am not one of those people. I have talked to my husband about all of this, and I think he's starting to realize just how serious I am. Maybe, God willing, he will be led in the same direction.

Vote....or I'm telling everyone you didn't!

I saw this story today and I was dumbfounded. As a member of the media myself, I am not quite sure how this newspaper got away with publishing the names and addresses of people who didn't vote. Voter rolls are public information, but publishing them, along with a person's voting preference and their home addresses, is not. I can't understand why this paper hasn't been sued yet. But just in case they inspire any local newspapers to follow suit, I guess we'd better all get out there and vote, or it'll be our names we see published next!

Here's the story:

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - A Nashville newspaper published the names and addresses of thousands of registered voters who did not go to the polls in the 2004 presidential election.

The paper said it is a way to encourage voter turnout in Nashville.

Some people listed such as Terrence Alexander said the list violates their privacy.

"The tactic is dirty," he said. "I think they should have had the decency to at least call me."

He said he did not vote in the last election because of a medical condition. He intended to vote, but he can't drive.

"I had a ride supposed to come to get me through the election services. No one ever showed up," he said.

"We have people over here who won't go out and vote," said Rosetta Miller-Perry, president and publisher of the Tennessee Tribune. "It's ridiculous. It really hurts."

The African-American newspaper based in North Nashville reaches more than 150,000 people each week, according to the paper's Web site.

The paper plans to publish the names of voters in four to five districts with predominately African-American voters in them.

"Sometimes when you embarrass people they do the right thing," Miller-Perry said.

The paper published a list during the 2006 Senate race. She said in one district voter turnout went from 37 percent to 65 percent after the list was published.

"We need to live up to the civil rights that have been given to us," she said.

Some people listed cited work, lack of transportation or illness among the reasons of why they didn't vote in 2004.

One woman said she had every intention of voting but went to prison right before Election Day.

Miller-Perry said these may all be valid excuses but there are hundreds out there who don't have a good excuse and they need to know their vote is important.

"I intend to vote. Will they come and pick me up," Alexander said.

Since the list cost thousands of dollars to print the paper plans to publish the names online instead of in print for the next election.

It early voting started Wednesday in Tennessee. For details regarding times and early voting locations, contact the local county election commission office or the Tennessee Department of State Division of Elections.

No, the cat isn't a horse......

After three years of hiding under the bed in hopes that Connor would go away, our cat, Gabe, has finally accepted the fact that yes, Connor is a permanent part of the family and he won't be going anywhere anytime soon.

So Gabe has been making nice with Connor, letting him pet him and even cuddling with him on the floor at times. One night, I even found him in Connor's room, trying to figure out how to get up on his bed with him. I thought we were making progress. That was until this morning......

One of Connor's favorite things to have his daddy do is give him a giraffe ride on his shoulders. Well, he got it in his head that Gabe could do the same. All I saw was the cat come tearing into the room and under my desk, with Connor following him saying "Come on, Gabe, you give me a giraffe ride!" Poor cat. Just when he thought it was safe to come out from under the bed.......

I need a vacation.......

I think it's been two years since I've had anything that could even remotely be called a vacation. I'm starting to think I need to do something about that, as lately, I've been very frazzled.

However, I have good reason to be frazzled. Things have been hectic. My dad is about to start radiation for his prostate cancer, we're in the middle of desperately trying to finish the renovations on two bedrooms, and this past weekend, I had to wear 3 hats at church because we were short handed. Follow that up with preparing and serving dinner for 7 people, and I am ready to fall down in a pile.

Yep, I think a vacation is in order. Somewhere warm, exotic and where I won't find cell phone or internet service
so that I can truly be left alone.

I'll be shouting from the rooftops.....

.....if there still is a rooftop to shout from when my husband is all done with renovations, that is.

For what seems like an eternity (really, about 8 months), my husband has been renovating two of our downstairs bedrooms in the house. While I'm glad he has the knowledge to do the work (he used to work construction in college), his time to work on it is severely limited, so it is taking a long time to complete it. He's saving us a lot of money by doing it himself, so I try to look on the bright side when I find myself ready to scream bloody murder because it's taking so darn long.

But I think we're finally entering the final stretch. He's doing wiring today, plus adding an attic access door. Currently, if we want to access the lower attic, we have to climb through a ridiculous hole in our master bathroom on the second floor. Whoever designed that lovely hole was, I'm sorry to be so blunt in saying, an idiot. It has made accessing the attic very difficult.

Once he finishes up the attic door and the wiring, we can put the drywall back up and get at least one room done. We're hoping to have it done before Christmas. It'll be a nice present if it is done by then!

Brings new meaning to multitasking.....

Since cell phones became all the rage a few years ago, it seems you can find people talking on those darn things all the time---while driving in a car, waiting in line at the store and now even while on the toilet. Yes, you read that right---ON THE TOILET.

I have seen this happen more than once in the last two days, and I have to admit, I find it incredibly disturbing. Just this morning, in Panera Bread, a lady was chatting away while doing her business in the stall next to me. And last night, the same thing at the local gas station. And two weeks ago, the same thing happened in the bathroom at the Burger King in Shaler. It was like second nature to these folks. If I were talking to someone and I realized they were on the toilet, I think I might be a little grossed out. That's just TOO MUCH INFORMATION for me to hear and know while you're on the phone with me. These people aren't exactly quiet about their activity, either, so I'm sure the folks on the other end of the phone realize they are in the bathroom. But the conversation goes on like it's perfectly normal and acceptable. Maybe I'm weird, but it just seems wrong to me. And gross. And unsanitary. And I find myself wishing those people would accidentally drop their phones in the toilet. Although, from what I've witnessed lately, that probably wouldn't stop them from continuing to talk on them.

Has our society become so obsessed with staying in touch via cell phone that we can't even keep the darn things in the closed position while we take a pee, or worse yet, a poop? I'm not sure what this says about the people who make calls while on the potty, but it doesn't say much for the people who receive them and just tolerate it. Personally, if I knew someone was calling me from a toilet, I'd hang up on them. There are just some things that are meant to be done in private, not with me on the other end of the phone.

If you read just one book this year, read this one.....

I have been reading a lot lately, mostly because it gets boring watching my 3 year old play for 12-13 hours every day (he doesn't nap anymore, but that's a lament for another time).

Anyway, I saw this book, called The Shack, in the Family Christian Store in Cranberry a few weeks ago. I almost bought it, but wasn't sure I wanted to spend $19 on a book I'd read once then never look at again. So imagine my surprise when last Thursday, I found it in our own public library! I knew then I had to get it and read it. It was like God was telling me to read this book that I was too cheap to buy just a few days ago by making it readily available and free.

I am so glad I read it. This book made me cry, laugh, and then laugh so hard I was crying. In it, Jesus is a black woman who sings soul and wears funky clothes: the Holy Spirit likes to garden a lot; and Jesus is just an average Jewish guy who, as the author puts it, isn't all that strikingly handsome. There are serious undertones to the book, as it is the journey of a man who has had a rough life and has pretty much given up on God. If you haven't read the book, I don't want to ruin it for you. But even the least religious person on the face of the earth would find this book a great read. It's on the New York Times Best Seller list at #1 for a reason, people! Here's a link to the website for the book if you want to learn more or order your own copy: http://www.theshackbook.com/

So if you read only one book for the rest of the year, make it this one. You won't be sorry you did!