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.