The Aftermath of Christmas

Christmas is messy business. At least for Mom it is. As I surveyed yesterday's damage to my carefully cleaned home I tried to not let the overwhelming feeling of dread fill my soul. I started in one spot and three hours later, the four main rooms we spend most of our living in are clean.

As my husband and three young boys play the new Wii, and my teenage daughter and her aunt scour the stores for bargains, I cleaned. Have you ever watched one of the sitcoms on TV where the family has a cleaning lady. A character forever in the background cleaning and straightening while tossing witty comments into the dialog. That, I have decided is my role of late in this family.

I have cooked more in the past three days than a farmer's wife and cleaned up most of the messes. The old me would have pissed and moaned and made everyone feel generally terrible for not helping. Not the new me, the me who feels guilty for not having a job. Because I am not currently working outside the home as they say, I have put myself to work in this home and it is exhausting. At this point I can't wait to get a job so I can get my hands out of the cleaners long enough to sooth my dry skin.

I just have to say, and I have said it before, my hat goes off to stay at home moms who work from sun up until well after the sun goes down keeping their family fed, clothed and happy. I could keep doing this indefinitely, but I won't. Those kinds of moms also have to make financial sacrifices that I'm ill equipped to handle. Soon I will go back to being a working mom. The kind that spends her days off doing laundry and making up for chores not done during the week. Wait a minute, is that a better deal? Of course it is, because then I don't feel bad making the men in this house chip in.

Look out honey, your vacation from cooking and housework is almost over - are you sure you want to me to go back to work?

Is God Enough?

My prayer and meditation of the past week seem to have a reoccurring theme.

God Is Enough.

As I have much more idle time on my hands these days than I am used to I have much time to reflect on my current situation and that of our country. I have come the realization that many years of my life have been spent searching for the material and social gain in our society and at those times I am the furthest from God. Perhaps that is what is going on with America and the world today. We all hunger for abundance to fill a void that can only be filled with the loving grace of God.

I'm not a member of any church, I am not an evangelical, but I do know that God is all knowing and all love. I have had the power of prayer and mediation work in my life. One of the lessons that is getting through to me right now is that I must re prioritize my goals to make my relationship with God and the fulfillment of God's will my number one priority. I don't know exactly how to do this but, with prayer and study I will try.

God, I'm knocking - I know it will open!

Love and Light to all who read this blog. May we all learn to live within God's love and heal our nation.

Fired, not Fired?

Three weeks ago I went to work and if you read my blog you know, on that morning I was fired, but now the not so great company I worked for is saying that I was not fired. A battle for unemployment insurance is underway leaving me in the broke as a mule bin for at least the next three weeks. I do not know how the company can justify saying I was not fired since, well, they fired me but that isn't the point. The point is tens of thousands of Americans are losing their jobs and this is a very frightening place to be. My heart and soul ache for the families in the country who are struggling at this time. Wondering if they can make their bills, their mortgage payments, their car payments, college tuition, heck I have started packing lunches for my boys to save on lunch money.

I sit and wonder what can be done. The economy is in free fall and those of us who have tasted success and abundance and have lost it are hurting in a way that is hard to describe. It is a pain over material loss, but it is pain and it is real. Daily I remind myself that I have four healthy happy children, a husband who despite my mood swings of late, still loves me and a house that no one is trying to take away (yet).

My mind also races with lessons to be learned. We must learn to stop being such a consumer society, we must go back to saving not spending. The rainy day is here but for many of us, we put that rainy day account in the stock market and it is coming up dry.

Economic indicators show numbers worse than the Great Depression. I'm not sure what that means in today's economy but it is time for us to pull ourselves up by our collective bootstraps, stop looking for a handout and work as hard as we can as a people to be the great nation that we are. The government isn't going to be able to save this, but we can.

The very first step we can take is positive thought and prayer. It is easy and it is free. If everyone starting thinking about an end to this recession and prayed for a release from this lesson the power of that would be incalculable. It was a people who made this country great, not a government and it is a people who can make it great again!

Loans or Bailouts

So, our hardworking men and women of the United States Congress apparently put in a full day of work yesterday trying to hammer out a plan to give the Auto Industry 15 Billion Tax Dollars. Meanwhile, AIG, the insurance giant who was just "too big to fail" is using our money for big fat corporate bonus checks for the "valuable" employees who ran the AIG train into the ditch in the first place. I suppose they are worried that the "valuable" execs. at AIG will get depressed if they don't get to hand out 4 million in bonuses at Christmas, while 1 in 10 American mortgage holders can't make their payments because their income has dropped significantly. All these handouts are ridiculous and I for one, don't believe our money is safe in the hands of any of these big corporate giants. Let AIG serve as the example of why the bailouts, cleverly disguised as "loans" are not going to solve the problem. If a business is failing, it has to be the fault of those at the helm and those people should be replaced by folks who are willing to put the work in to fix the issues.

I will continue to watch my tax dollars be poured into the huge money hole and wonder how I'm going to pay the bills while AIG gives out spa trips and big year end bonuses. Why isn't anyone else mad about this?

Trophy wife will never work

Yep, the idea of becoming a Trophy Wife seemed like fun for a couple of days, I mean just a new title to make myself feel better. If I am going to give myself a title, it can't be that one - too used. One of my dear friends calls me Queen Bradley and I like that one too, but that gives off the air of too much to live up to. Nope, Mom is the title I am most proud of so I'm gonna have to stick with it for now. When folks ask me what I do, for now I am going to have to say, "I'm a mom of four healthy wonderful kids." Overall, regardless of what happens in my career, I may just have to stick with that one.

...Later today...I am going to put some thoughts down about the auto industry proposed bail out....

On becoming a Trophy Wife

Trophy Wife:
She's educated, dedicates her days to bettering her community through charity work and philanthropy, she has impeccable manners and etiquette, and uses her status to better those around her and manages to look amazing while doing so. Trophy wives do three things: lunch, tennis, and their rich sexy husbands.

Well, as I read this definition I can try to fit the mold. I would rather be a trophy wife than unemployed. The problem is, I don't play tennis. I wonder if that excludes me from this group? My husband is accomplished and definately sexy but we aren't rich, but he is successful. I am going to have to work on this one for a while. I like the idea of being a Trophy Wife, because it sounds so much better than unemployed, or stay at home mom or unpaid writer. Stay tuned, I will again address the idea of being a trophy wife...

No More Bailouts

No More Bailouts
Shore up the broken foundation
By: Laura Bradley
American Mom

United States Representative from the Great State of Texas, Louie Gohmert is apparently one of the few members of Congress who has an intelligent cell left in his brain. He has proposed a two month tax holiday for the American People - bravo Rep. Gohmert, you just might get it.
The foundation of this credit based, entitlement society we have created is broken. The foundation of the economy is not the banking industry as Wall Street would have you believe, it is not corporate giants, and it isn’t even the small business. The foundation of this economy is the American Worker, Taxpayer if you will. As one brick in the broken economy I am going to tell you exactly what is going on since the Congress of our great Country and the big corporate executives really don’t understand why we are not buying cars, or homes or even luxury grocery items.
My husband and I are a very typical American family. We have four children, we both, up until this week, worked outside of the home. The last six years have been fantastic for us. We have enjoyed great success in our jobs grossing an average income of $100,000 a year. With that income we have been able to buy a home, a car, a van, a third car for our teenager. We enjoyed vacations with our family, bought what we wanted at Wal-Mart, never worried about new shoes for the kids and paid all our bills on time.
Fast forward to 2008. As the economy began to slow we saw our small investments shrink, and shrink some more until they were gone - safety net gone. Because we are in the sales industry and sell a luxury item we began to hear objections about finances from our customers and our income began to fall. No fear, we cut back a little. No more housekeeper, no more manicures or pedicures for me, I found a less expensive salon, we were more careful at the grocery store It was all good, we felt we would weather the storm.
It was about August of this year when we began to really feel the pinch. We realized our income had not just dropped, it had diminished by more than 25-percent. Our industry nation wide began layoffs and shutdowns, as I said we, sell a luxury item and those are the first to go. September came our savings were depleted from making up for lost income. October things went from bad to worse, November - wow, can we really afford a Turkey this year and now we face Christmas.
We are a block in this economy, our block no longer supports many local business because we had to cut out luxury items, and some high end essentials. No more drycleaner, so that business loses our money, no more impulse buys so the local retailers lose our money, no more high end items at the grocery store so the grocery loses that money. By not spending our dollars on anything other than necessities we will cost other people jobs.
This week I was laid off and we are now a one income family. For the first time in my life I have applied for unemployment benefits. I am but one brick in this economic foundation. Unless the little bricks are bailed out all the money being poured on the top of this jumbled heap of derailed economy will be like, as my Mother used to say “pouring money down a rat hole.”
I am no highly educated economist, however, it is common sense that if you put the money of the American people in the hands of the American people they will spend it. If the money is spent, the economy is stimulated, jobs are created and recovery will begin. Listen to Rep. Gohmert and build upon his idea. The little American understands more than you give us credit for and I for one am getting mad. No more bait and switch from the government. Stop bailing out failing industries. Give the money to the people and the people will weed out the weak.
The basics of the problem are simple. If consumers in my industry cannot purchase my product, I cannot purchase my neighbors product, thus making it impossible for my neighbor to purchase a car. If my neighbor cannot buy a car, the car salesman cannot buy new furniture, if the furniture salesman cannot sell his product, he cannot buy groceries for his family or pay his loans and the cycle continues until, as in the paraphrased words of president George W. Bush, “This thing is gonna run off the tracks.”
Guess what boys….we have derailed. Start building from the ground up and let us keep and spend our money. We, the American people will handle the rest.