I've been a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn, and a king; I've been up and down and over and out, and I know one thing; each time I find myself flat on my face, I pick myself up and get back in the race.

Saturday, August 25, 2012

I Went to this 5 Hour Seminar on Home Buying...

I went to this 5 hour home buying seminar. No, I did not do it on purpose or because I wanted to. I had to because of the government program I am using to be able to buy a home. A special teacher program where they loan you some money for a down payment. No free rides here peeps.

You would think in this 5 hours, they would show you step by step what buying a home looks like. The process, the things you have to pay (what some might call the hidden costs), etc. Oh no.

So here I am floundering with no money. Right before the school year starts trying to find escrow money, inspection money, and on the horizon it looks like appraisal money, credit check money, and anything else. On closing, I have to come up with 2 months of Condo dues money.

My complaint comes in the form that I was told by my first loan officer that the only money I had to worry about was the inspection money. I can't be too mad at him because I would have never been buying something if I had not run into him at the bank. He was the one who new about the government program. No other banks (BECU, USAA, etc) had a clue about the government program.

More on this later. I am tired.

THIC

Sunday, August 19, 2012

When in Rome.... Should I Act Like Parents Do On FB?

There are very few knowns in the Animal Kingdom. One of them is that animals breed. Humans are animals. Humans breed. I am always amazed at how many Americans have fallen into this weird trap of Child Worship. Like birthing a child is some kind a unique thing that only certain human females can do. It drives me nuts.

I a firm believer in too much of anything is bad for you. So when applied to this situation, even keel parenting is the best. If you are going to pop out a child,  you better be financially and emotionally prepared to take care of it. Your life will not be about you anymore. But that does not mean that the world should stop for this thing you have (or your lady friend/surrogate has) pushed from her vagina.

The slippery slope to child worship is Facebook. Not all of these pet peeves leads to child worship, but some of these things could be classic signs. And they drive me nuts. So I have contemplated living my life on facebook like some of the parents. I sometimes like to label them on twitter with the hashtag #ParentsBehavingBadly. Here is a list of what I am thinking of doing:

1). Excessive Birthday Parties/Showers with outrageous gift registries. Have you seen this yet? A child is turning two. This snot nosed rug rat will not even remember this birthday and the parents are throwing not only lavish, thousands of dollars parties, but then they have a gift registry!!?? They seem annoyed if you decline and very upset if you don't bring a gift from the registry. The cheapest gifts are like $100!!! I don't have that kinda dough. It reminds me of the Sex in the City episode with the psycho mom friend where Carrie ends up having to marry herself to recoup her stolen shoes:

A Woman's Right to Shoes

I would of course only throw this kind of party once. And even though my registry would be hugely expensive, I never had any presents for my birthday growing up, so I must make up for lost time!Be prepared to open up your pocket books!

2). Belly Shots. Women who know me. Do you want to see photos of my large belly on facebook? Does the mention of this repulse you? That is how I feel when you show off your pregnant belly. It is the same thing. The world does not want to see your belly. Or your hand over your cooch and breats. I am at the end of my rope with belly shots. The next lady who is preggers who posts a belly shot, I am so tempted to take one of myself and post it on her wall. It won't be as fun when my Metabolic Syndrome is treated, but right now it will be epically awful.

3). The Stay at Home Mom "Boo Hoo It's Monday" ~ Stay at home mom's..don't get your panties in a bunch because my anger for your comments on facebook complaining it is Monday is out of this world; I almost can not handle it. I want to break the neck of every stay at home mom who whines about it being Monday. You have No Mondays. Since I have finally brought up the furry I feel about this subject, I will blog about it later, but everyday is a Wednesday for you. Everyday is a Friday for you. You have no boss you have to report to. And no, your child/children are not the boss. If you say they are, you are doing it all wrong and need to give your children up for adoption. I am not sure I have an equivalent facebook post to this. The only thing I can come up with is posting that I hate that it is Friday. Or maybe that I love Mondays because I get to be with children. hmmmm. I think I will do that as a comment under this ridiculous post.  

4). Sick/mangled friends. Why has there been a rash of parents posting photos and stories of their friends' kids who have been in horrific car accidents and look all mangled and beat up and bloody and then ask for money? I know I am guilty of asking for money for not-for-profits, but this is over the top. I am going to start posting graphic/gruesome pics and ask for money.

5). The 'age sign' in photo. First. Parents. Follow this simple rule. When a child is 1-11 months, you can say months. Once a child hits 12 months, you say 1 year. Got it? Every time a parent says, "Oh he is 14 months!" I want to punch him/her in the face. 1 year. 1 year. Get it right. The newest trend on Facebook is to post a picture of a child with a sign that says how many weeks/months/years the kid is. I can start doing this too. In fact, I am three days away from being 404 months old. How cool is that!! :-)

Join in with me and fight the absurdity of these parents. Because even if they are not child worshiping, they are jumping on a silly band wagon that needs to be stopped. Like Lynnwood hair or Ballard drivers.

THIC

Friday, August 3, 2012

Churched Think They have it So Hard

I have been wanting to write so much lately, but work calls. I have a great one about the Olympics and the IOC mob swishing in my head. We shall see if I can put it together.

But today, I want to talk about those fun organized religious folks. This stems, of course, from people posting about Chik-fil-a and their 'Christian' Anti-Gay stances. Most folks I know are outraged, but of course, there have been a few people who have taken the "its my religion so I am not hating" drum.

Hmmmm. Would they be so quick to agree if their religious leaders were saying black people really are not human? If the Pope came out and said that women should not vote or own property, would they follow suit? If Orthox Jews** who don't eat pork, started Anti-Pork eating initiatives, would folks call that freedom of religion?

Well of course, we actually have examples of this. Because of some the examples above have actually happened in history. And rarely to religious leaders look back to this. Today I responded to someone who said being hateful was his religious freedom with this:

Here is something else.... Churched people always act like they have never had to deal and change their beliefs. Never had to struggle with maybe they had to look at their religious texts differently. Lets see... slavery. Bible used time and time again to support. Women owning property, mixed race marriage. Christians all had pastors and people used passages from the bible to be against these things. And luckily there were brave people who could look past the black and white of a fallible text and could change their ways.

Any time you see a religious leader saying gay is bad, if you replace the word 'Gay' and put slave you have the arguments of the 1850-1860s. Women were considered property forever and Christians believed it was in the bible. Ordained by God. The same is true here. Nothing is going to be against the fabric of religion. What we need are the brave people who are churched to stand up to these bigots and tell them that you cannot, on one hand, promote direct translations of a text, but then, on the other hand, promote only using it as a guide and a metaphor. Because let's face it, if churched folks did that, men could still have multiple wives and women could not own property.

And while the arguments for this need to be laid out in another post, I will leave you churched folks to think about this. Next time your religious leader starts to get into politics: Which people to vote for, initiatives to vote yes or no, funding-raising for candidates, calling congress peoples, etc. Remember you are tax exempt because there is supposed to be separations of church and state. Remind your 'church' that if they insist on getting involved in matters of the state, then your religious group needs to start paying taxes and threaten to report them to the IRS!

THIC

**To get some of your panties in a bunch, I consider people who call themselves Christians part of the Jewish faith. Yup. Jesus was a Jew. The Jews who followed him added to Torah. They are a sect of Judea. Trippy huh! :-)