You Are a Conservative Chick |
 Like Elizabeth Hasselbeck and Ann Coulter, you're conservative and proud of it. You speak your mind, even if everyone else around you disagrees. As you see it, you have to stand up for traditional values and what's right. |
Notice: I've put a new widget on my sidebar to the right. Down near the bottom you'll find Dilbert! There's a new strip daily.
In response to Suzanne's Blog Challenge #8: Complete this paragraph. "Ten years from now, I..."
Ten years from now, I will be playing with grandkids on weekends, taking them to Sunday School and church on Sundays, and hoping their parents are mature enough to be parents. I will be close to early retirement, and unless my husband strikes it rich, will be working for another few years because the cost of living will have skyrocketed, no matter how much I save right now. And if I'm retired, I'll be traveling, hopefully by sailboat, and coming home to my scraproom to make albums of our travels and my grandkids. I will insist that since my husband took a retirement job while waiting for me to retire, that I should get a retirement job for a few years, too. I'll work at an LSS (local scrapbook store) or Hobby Lobby to be able to feed my addiction. And in 10 years, we'll be celebrating our 37th anniversary in high style!
I'm playing catch-up here. The first challenge I'm writing about was Blog Challenge #5: Post an entry about a positive customer service experience you've had. Who was it with? Did you praise them on the spot? Did you go home and write a letter to the company management?
My best ever customer service experience was with AT&T, believe it or not. DS#1 has had more trouble with his cell phone and I even went last year and bought another one at our band's silent auction (a $250 phone for $50, what a deal!). So when this phone cratered on him and our contract was finally up for renewal, he, DS#2 and I went to the store to get new phones. The person who helped us was extremely friendly and helpful and he kept giving us all kinds of discounts. We ended up getting four phones that retail for $250 each for a total of $80. I was so impressed with his service while he systematically activated four phones, printed out rebate forms and receipts that I thanked him and then asked for his manager. I spoke directly to the manager about the wonderful service her employee had provided and that I wanted her to know personally right then. I've never gone out of my way to praise someone, but this guy restored my faith in service-oriented people, that they really do still exist.
The second challenge is from Blog Challenge #6: Share a recipe that you're "famous" for and a photo if you can. Write about how it became yours and any other story about the recipe that you'd like to share.
I'm not famous for any kind of recipe, but one of my favorites that I've had to double up in the last few years because it's such a hit is "Hamburger Corn Casserole." I got the recipe online somewhere many years ago and haven't been able to find it again, so I've been making it from memory for the last couple of years.
Hamburger Corn Casserole
3 TBSP flour
1 TBSP chili powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper (suit to taste)
1 cup instant rice
1 lb. ground beef, browned
1 small onioned, chopped, sauteed with beef (optional)
1 14.5 oz. can diced tomatoes
1 10 oz. pkg frozen corn
3 TBSP butter or margarine
Mix flour, chili powder, salt and pepper. Set aside. Spray a casserole dish with non-stick spray and layer the instant rice in the bottom. Sprinkle one-third of the flour and spice mixture over rice, dot with 1 TBSP butter. Layer ground beef over rice and sprinkle with one-third of the flour and spice mixture. Layer canned tomatoes over beef and sprinkle with remaining flour and spice mixture and dot with 1 TBSP butter. Layer frozen corn over top and dot with remaining butter. Bake in a 350-degree oven for 45 minutes. Serves 4-6 regular people or two of my guys.
I don't have a picture of it because I haven't made it recently, but it is on the rotation for next week!
The next is Blog Challenge #7: What store best represents what type of person you are right now? Are you a Macy's or Wal-Mart type of person? Do you wish you were a different store? Take any direction you'd like; either where you shop in real life or comparing your personality to a particular store. Have fun with it!
The store that best represents me right now would have to be Wal-Mart. I don't like Wal-Mart because of their business practices, but they have everything I need. There's a little bit of everything there, much like my life right now. I wish I were more like Target in that it's always neat and clean and uncluttered, unlike Wal-Mart, which can be pretty disgusting at times. IRL, I only go to Wal-Mart for emergencies and shop at a local grocery chain and Target for everything else. Primarily though, either store represents how cheap I am. I don't like to pay much for anything!
A friend of mine sent me this e-mail and I felt I needed to share it with anyone who will read it. I consider myself conservative and will support whichever Republican candidate gets nominated (unlike some who will sit out the election rather than vote for McCain, allowing the Democrat to be elected). Whether you're rich or not, the following data should prove that Democrats want the government to take care of everyone with your money instead of everyone living the ideals of America of being self-sufficient and helping others on our own.
This is interesting. Just compare the taxes.
www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151.html
Taxes under Clinton 1999 Taxes under Bush 2008
Single making 30K - tax $8,400 - tax $4,500
Single making 50K - tax $14,000 - tax $12,500
Single making 75K - tax $23,250 - tax $18,750
Married making 60K - tax $16,800 - tax $9,000
Married making 75K - tax $21,000 - tax $18,750
Married making 125K - tax $38,750 - tax $31,250
If you want to know just how effective the mainstream media is, it is amazing how many people that fall into the categories above think Bush is screwing them and Bill Clinton was the greatest President ever. If any Democrat is elected, ALL of them say they will repeal the Bush tax cuts and a good portion of the people that fall into the categories above can't wait for it to happen. The Democrats with the help of the media have convinced a large percent of the American people, that the Bush tax cuts benefited only the wealthy. How many times have you heard it?
1 Corinthians 13
Love
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
I took off a day from work last week and, while I was off, had lunch with DH. I picked him up at his office and as we walked into the restaurant he pointed out that I was missing another hubcap. This is the third one gone! I think they disappear from the parking lot a work. I work downtown and you never know who's walking around where I park, even though we have "security" there. Many is the time I've had to shoo them out of my parking space only to have them park in the next one a few minutes later. I've come out too many times to count to find the security guard parked in the same space he was in when I left that morning, messing with the cell phone, facing away from the parking lot. I wrote a letter of complaint to our parking coordinator and ever since, whenever I drive in, that security car pulls out of whatever space it's parked in.
Anyway, I figure the hub caps disappeared there because I believe I'd know if they fell off while driving, especially since both front ones are gone. I'm not so concerned about that, though. Last night when I got off the bus, I walked to the passenger side as I usually do to put my computer in the passenger seat (it's a two-seat Sonoma extended-cab truck). Then I drove over to the grocery store to pick up a few things before heading home. Mind you, this truck was parked in the Wal-Mart parking lot all day for many days this month. (I guess the hub caps could have disappeared there, too, but I think it's more likely from the downtown parking space.) As I came out of the grocery store, I walked up to the passenger side of my truck, just like I did at Wal-Mart (another story about why I don't shop wally-world could go here) and discovered that someone in the H.E.B. parking lot had whacked the side of the truck and dented it!
Fury doesn't begin to describe the fact that they didn't leave a note, even one of apology. This is the second vehicle I've had damaged at an H.E.B. parking lot. The fury was due to my helplessness in the situation. It's a private parking lot so calling the police won't do any good and the store claims no responsibility for damage to cars, so it's totally on me to get it repaired. This little truck has less than 23,000 miles on it and until last night had not a single scratch! Just some missing hubcaps. Grrrr!
