About a year ago Josh brought me to a football game on a whim. It was supposed to be a surprise, but actually he had to find tickets and one day while I was at his place I overheard him talking on the phone to a friend about a ticket seller and that he needed to find some football tickets. I didn’t let on that I had heard anything, but I was curious because I didn’t think that it would be a surprise for me, after all sports were just not my thing. Well, it turns out they were a surprise for me and he I guess because I said that I had never been to a football game, he thought I wanted to go or something. We had just been talking and when I was a kid, my father’s boss used to sometimes give him baseball tickets or basket ball tickets but I had never been to a foot ball game. I guess maybe in his mind I was showing a desire or something anyway he decided to surprise me with sports tickets, so I acted all excited and thrilled. I can tell you this much, I am not sure I will attend another football game, I think I would prefer to watch it on TV from my living room. It was cold and overcast and although everyone got excited for me going to see the Bears I wasn’t really thrilled. The strangest thing about the whole experience is unlike in baseball, in football the game just goes on quietly. When you watch on TV there is always an announcer giving you the play by play, but in person, I didn’t have a clue what was happening. I just knew that each team was trying to get the ball to the other teams end. Josh tried to explain it to me, but I just didn’t get it, it just wasn’t the same as having it announced. Not only that but my toes were numb, and I don’t care what they say about drinking hot chocolate at the game, it didn’t help and neither did that blanket we brought. It felt like the air went straight through the thing.

Anyway, needless to say, I really don’t ever intend to go to another football game, but it might be nice to get some concert tickets or something, after all my birthday will be here before you know it. Either that or some theater tickets, but I am afraid that Josh may hate that as much as I hated the football game, maybe more. But the one good thing is he may be miserable, but he won’t be freezing.

Posted by Kate on Saturday, August 23, 2008 @ 9:09 PM

As part of our move to take care of our debts, Josh and I are trying to find ways to cut back on our expenses. One suggestion my mother made to me was trying to shop around for my car insurance and compare insurance rates. I called a few places, and went online to view my auto insurance policy and see what coverage I had. Then I went online and checked out rates at Nationwide, Allstate, State Farm and all the other insurance companies that I could think of. I printed the rate quotes from each insurance company and then I did an overview of all the insurance plans to see what was the minimum insurance I would need to cover me no matter what happened. Well, what I found was amazing. There were so many different rates for the same insurance it was crazy. I reviewed the information I had received with my parents, and we found an insurance company that was a good name company and that would charge me about half of the premium I was currently paying. My mother said that if I was really interested in saving some money on insurance, then getting Josh’s credit rating on the right track was a good start. She informed me that insurance companies will look at your credit score when they are assessing you for insurance, and with a low credit score you can pay a lot more for insurance. She also suggested helping Josh shop around for a cheaper rate on car insurance as well. She said that his rates are probably higher, not only because of credit but also because he is a male and males tend to pay more for insurance when they are younger.

When Josh came over that evening I had him bring his insurance policy info over with him and we reviewed it together. Then we went online and tried to find the best insurance company for him. Ironically the insurance company that I switched to was more expensive for Josh than his current policy, but we did find a company where he would pay about $400 less every 6 months and that was about the best we could do because of the other factors involved his insurance stayed higher than mine, but in the long run we put about $800 a year back in his pocket, so it was still worth the effort.

Posted by Kate on Saturday, August 23, 2008 @ 9:08 PM

Lately we keep hearing in the news about the Mexican immigration problem, and I am a little bit mixed on the subject. Quite honestly, I totally feel that it is anyone’s right to live here in the US. I think it is a great honor and a privilege to live in this incredible country and I think that anyone who wants to come here should be allowed to. After all, I am half Italian and half German and my ancestors came to this country and were accepted and I would hope that anyone of any race, religion, or nationality would be accepted into this country as my relatives were.

On the other hand, why is it that we will not allow these people to legally immigrate into this country? Instead of providing them with social security numbers and allowing them to obtain legal work on the books, we are allowing them to work for unaccountable income, giving them all the benefits of social services, health care, food stamps, etc, without any of the responsibilities of true citizenship like paying taxes. The whole system seems a little bit wacky to me. I am not really sure why we are afraid of allowing them to immigrate legally into this country. Are we really afraid that they are going to take over our country?

Well, guess what people…that is what we are doing right now. For instance, we are allowing all of our labeling and our phone machines to need to be switched over to being a completely bilingual country. My real question is why? When America became a melting pot, it welcomed people from all areas of the world, and they all entered the country legally and they all came here and learned our primary language, English. Now all of a sudden we feel the need to switch everything over to meet the needs of the Spanish speaking people. Why? Isn’t it true that whenever people in the past settled in new lands, they accepted the language of that land and learned to speak it. I personally would not expect that me wanting to live in a country would cause them to change all their labeling and phone systems and everything. Does it really make sense that you should not be asked to learn the language and culture of your new homeland? It makes sense to me. I just think that having them come live in this country should not cause us to revamp our whole system.

Now some people will use the argument that in countries like Canada they have 2 predominate languages, French and English, however, this has to do with the way Canada was settled. It was settled by the French on one end and the English on the other. By changing the US system to make Spanish a primary language in this country, it seems to me that we are slapping in the face of all the people who came here prior to this and saying that these people are more important than anyone else who needed to come to this country and actually learn our language. In my mind, this is absurd.

Please let’s stand up and have our country fight to make these people legal immigrants and let’s allow them to join the melting pot in this country and use our primary language of English.

Posted by Kate on Tuesday, June 10, 2008 @ 10:50 PM

How is it that people can claim that having sex with children is a freedom of religion? I mean I am all for people's rights to express themselves, but come on. Can we really justify acts such as rape and murder by disguising them as religion? Don't we as a society need to draw the line somewhere?

I just don't understand how in this country we can allow people who are obviously insane and doing insane and illegal activities and fear that we are impinging upon their rights of freedom. I mean that basically means that you can do anything and blame religion for it, it is not an excuse.

Take Andrea Yates, the woman in TX who drowned her five children in the bath tub one at a time while the other kids watched in horror and hid for their lives. Yates told her jail psychiatrist, "It was the seventh deadly sin. My children weren't righteous. They stumbled because I was evil. The way I was raising them, they could never be saved. They were doomed to perish in the fires of hell." I don't know whether this woman was truly insane, or whether she believed that what she was doing was saving their souls. That to me sounds like it would be religious justification at the very least. Thank goodness the courts did not see it that way.

Or what about David Koresh in Waco TX where his Branch Davidians had a compound? Here is a man who truly believed he was a prophet, but was he really? Koresh advocated polygamy for himself, and asserted that he was married to several female residents of the small community. Some former members of the cult also alleged that Koresh felt he could claim any of the females in the compound as his. Evidently he fathered at least a dozen children by the harem. Allegedly, his harem included girls as young as age 12. The other adults at the compound were told by Koresh not to tell anyone else about this "because they wouldn't understand." Would this not be an example of a person or group of people's religious freedom. Why were these people not protected by freedom of religion? Oh, that was probably because they were obviously insane.

If you look at these examples, you will clearly see that although we do have the right to religious freedom, we don't have the right to use them as an excuse to do whatever we want. If we stop thinking about what is logical and start believing that every insane act on the face of this earth is an act of God, we are not only condoning all the good on the earth but also all of the bad as well.

On that fact, maybe we should just do away with the criminal justice system all together. If we did that then we could just allow God to fix what he sees is wrong, without discrimination and without prejudice. This way, no one would ever be punished without just cause. It would be by far the perfect system of perfect justice.

Posted by Kate on Friday, June 06, 2008 @ 12:57 AM

I just saw that they are coming out with a new television show on human cloning. This is a subject I find a bit troubling. We all have been made aware that they can already clone sheep. Many scientists have been able to clone animals for a while and for all we know the meat we are eating has already been cloned. Genetically altering things seems to me to be a dangerous solution to the problems of today. It is a bit like playing God. In this day and age, where people are so readily giving up their DNA, who would know if the government is cloning them right now? The government may already have stored more people's DNA than we are actually even aware of. Think about it, most people are born in hospitals, and they immediately take some of your blood to perform a few tests with. What if they are storing everyone's DNA while they are doing this? The government has full control over the hospitals and could be doing this without our consent or knowledge.

I find it a difficult concept that they could be cloning each of us and putting another of us out into the universe, but would we even know? Probably not. People lately seem to me to already seem to be slightly genetically altered; some seem to function at a lesser capacity than others. With the decline of the human race as it is with a lack of morals and knowledge, do we really want to start putting 2 of these people out into the world? I would think that one less than normal person would be enough.

I know that we need advancements in science and medicine, but it seems to me that all scientists really want to do is explain the unexplainable and play God. In my life, I have accepted that I don't understand the bigger plans for the universe, and I don't always know God's plan, but I do not try to second guess it or figure it out. As a human being, I accept the fact that not every question has an obvious answer and I am okay with this. Maybe because I am not the type of person who needs to know how things work, just that they work or don't. It sounds like a really simple view, but I don't think that science has the answer for everything, and even in medicine, I don't think that they always make the right choice. I think that they feed off of our own personal fear of dying and use that as an excuse to find ways to save people. For instance, is it really in God's plan to have babies that were created in test tubes, or babies that are born 6 months prematurely to be saved in a box for a year, before they can even breathe on their own? What has happened to the natural selection and survival of the fittest? Not only is science keeping little babies alive, but what about the elderly? How long should we keep an older person alive and for what purpose? I am just not sure on these questions. I think medicine, science, and technology have a place, but I am not sure that they are not taking things too far.

Posted by Kate on Friday, June 06, 2008 @ 12:51 AM

I consider myself to be fairly thrifty when it comes to all things financial, and actually, as my time at the bank progresses, I consider myself handy with advice too. It's amazing what aspects of the trade you pick up just from working.

I have always been sceptical of taking out money from the bank and borrowing - only because I hate the idea of being at the hands of somebody, or anybody else. It makes me a little uncomfortable to feel that I constantly need to 'pay back'. But my time on other side of the counter - so to speak - has given me a chance to see how it works. Basically, a loan or loans aren't a terrifying prospect when you look at it. Sure, it's a debt, but with the right planning and system in place, it's certainly a debt you can pay off. Josh and I are looking at an instalment loan, which is a pretty common type of loan and would provisionally go towards a mortgage.

At the moment we are comfortable living at home, but as time goes on, we are going to start thinking about how to realistically invest in a place of our own. I know I have said that I don't want to completely settle down just yet; but I am now not adverse to the prospect of borrowing because I know Josh and I have the means to pay it back. I have checked it out with the guys at work, and even gone further-a-field to the internet and compared deals on websites like Alliance and Lester loans and mortgage brokers, for mortgages and other grown-up stuff that I didn't think I'd be doing at 19. But then, I didn't think I'd be doing a lot at 19 and my world has changed a significant amount in a pretty short-time. It feels good to be planning, and better to have something to plan for.

Posted by Kate on Tuesday, May 27, 2008 @ 6:16 AM

I had to go to the department of motor vehicle today to get my drivers license renewed. I always hate a trip to this government office, but today's trip was much worse than usual. I got there and got through all the nonsense relatively smoothly. It seems that some days are much worse than others in this place and it really seems to have no rhyme or reason. Some days there is a little wait and sometimes it is endless, but I have yet to figure all that out. In any case, I got through there in about an hour, which where we are is a relatively short amount of time. When I came out, I immediately noticed that my rear passenger's side tire was completely flat. I mean not just slightly but completely. Now I love to learn new things, but I grew up in a household where there was men's work and woman's work. It seemed like every time I would try to get my father to show me something he was doing, that he just really didn't think that I needed to know how to do it. It sounds a bit sheltered, but in my father's world building things, repairing things, car things, etc were all a man's job.

So here I sit only knowing what it is that my father taught me about changing a tire, which was buy a can of fix a flat and put it in the tire, but only one problem, I don't have a can of fix a flat, so I think to myself…Now What?! So the nicest man comes up to me and says to me, "do you need me to break the lug nuts for you?" Now I do know what he means, but I am too embarrassed to tell him that I have no idea whether or not I even have a jack in the car, so I just say, no thanks I've got it, when what I really want to say is "can't you just change it for me?" Well, I use my cell phone to call my father, but he is not answering, then I use my phone to call Josh, but I can't get in touch with him either. Well, finally I just give up and walk up to the nearest gas station and there I find it, a can of fix a flat. I walk back to my car and use the fix a flat to inflate the tire. The whole time I am feeling like an incompetent boob. That night at dinner, I really let my dad have it but very innocently he said, "I taught you what to do and you did it, you weren't stranded at least", his whole lassie fare attitude really annoyed me. Even now after this experience, he did not see that I needed to know how to change a tire. Well, after dinner I had Josh come over and show me what to do. It was so easy and everything I needed was right there in the trunk, I just didn't know what the jack looked like, so of course I couldn't find it. Next time I will be prepared, and from now on I will be sure to have Josh show me what I think I need to know and not just the "womanly things

Posted by Kate on Friday, May 23, 2008 @ 12:52 AM

I told Josh that we are definitely watching American Idol tonight. I absolutely love that show, but this season of it with school and everything I have missed a lot of it. I have seen the coming attractions and know who the top two are, but I actually predicted that David Archuletta would win way back in the beginning. When I said that, my parents who also enjoy the show, said that they didn't really see it that way. They were all hung up on that Carly girl, but she didn't really impress me. I really think that David A was the most naturally talented one. Sure some of the others could do cool things with their music and instruments, and several did have just amazing stage presence, however, now that it is coming down to the end, I do think that it is only fair to give it to the person with the best voice. I don't think that anyone would disagree that just based on singing David A would win hands down. David C on the other hand has an awesome presence and some incredible musical ability, and don't get me wrong he can sing well, but I think just singing alone David C would pale in comparison the David A.

In some ways, I think that American Idol has lost some of its excitement. I don't find it near as exciting this time, and I also felt that the few weeks I did watch that the song picks and artist's picks were bad. I don't think that the genres they chose this time around showcased the amazing talents that they were presented with. This whole season is just feeling a little flat to me. I guess it could be because I haven't seen every show, every week, or maybe that I have watched too many seasons of it, and it is getting old. I can't be sure, but I will watch tonight and see how these guys performs as chances are whoever does the better performance tonight will be the big winner. I don't think, though that that is the way to choose who is the best. Perhaps a better method of rating AI in the future would be to compile points based on votes and whoever gets the most points at the end of the competition wins, this was one bad performance would not get someone thrown off right away. It seems to me a more balanced method of choosing, but I guess these producers know best. It seems to me that each time I watch they are saying that "last night's voting results were the highest ever", I am not sure if this is a ploy to get people to vote or the actual truth.

I will watch the performances tonight and vote accordingly, I still enjoy the show a lot, but I hope that they find a little something to spice it up with next season, to give it a little bit of flavor.

Posted by Kate on Tuesday, May 20, 2008 @ 12:51 AM

Josh and I are in desperate need of a new car. Apparently, before we met, Josh's father had to sell Josh's car for some extra cash that he needed. Josh was devastated as it was the car of his dreams. Let me give you a little background information. Josh's parents got divorced when he was about 13. Josh's father, Ralph is a very nice man, with a lot of problems. He has a major gambling problem and that has caused him to loose everything. He owes the IRS a lot of money, I really have no idea how much, but I do know that it is a lot. He holds a really good job, and makes a lot of money, but manages to loose it all. Anyway, when Josh was 17 his dad bought him one of these guy muscle cars. I don't know what kind it was, but he loved it. I have seen pictures of it, but I still couldn't tell you what kind of car it is. When his dad got into financial trouble about 1 ½ years ago, he needed to sell the car, and in turn bought Josh a lesser car, promising all along to replace the car when he got the money. Well, I think Josh got tired of waiting for him to voluntarily do this, so he backed him into a corner and told him he needed a new car. Josh told him he wanted a brand new car, and that if his father would put the money he owed him as the down payment, Josh would make the payments, and so it went.

Josh asked me for my input and I told him that it should be a small car that gets good gas mileage and nothing too expensive as he would be the one making the payments on it, hopefully this would also mean we'd get a relatively cheap care insurance quote. We both had agreed that we had heard a lot of good things about Saturn, and thought this would be an inexpensive enough car that making the payments wouldn't be too big a headache. Well, he brought home his new silver 2 door Saturn Astra 2008, and it was a beautiful car. He was excited as it was his first brand new car. I told him congratulations on it, and he said "what do you mean?" this is our new car. He handed me the keys and let me take it for a ride. In comparison to the old hunk of junk I was driving, it was like floating on air. You could hardly even hear the engine it was so quiet. I took the ride around the block and thought to myself, this is odd, what does he mean this is our new car? When I got back to his dad's house I asked him about this, and he just replied "well, we are not going to be just boyfriend and girlfriend forever, are we?" I shook my head no, and thought to myself would this be the person I was going to spend the rest of my life with? I don't know, but I think Josh is really starting to believe that this is it and as for me, I think I am starting to come around to the idea.

Posted by Kate on Monday, May 19, 2008 @ 12:49 AM

Sara is my niece and the light of my life. This weekend Josh and I took care of Sarah so my sister and her husband could have a special night out. It was their anniversary, and my brother in law thought it would be a wonderful way to surprise my sister. He planned the whole thing out, a night of dinner and dancing and a stay in one of the most beautiful hotels in town. He just needed a sitter for Sara, and knowing how crazy I am about her, he asked me. I invited Josh along, and it was kind of a fun experiment. We arrived at my sisters about 3 and we also had some fun plans of our own in place. We were going to take Sara to Chuck E Cheese and play for the evening. We figured this would tire her out and give us the rest of the evening alone. Well we saw my sister and brother in law off and got Sara ready for her big trip to Chuck E Cheese. I told her where we were going and got her ready and changed and combed her hair. Sara was born bald, but now has a beautiful head of shoulder length brown hair. I am really glad that she is not one of those kids who stayed bald until they were two, that looks a bit silly and I am afraid a wig at that age would just look down right silly.

Anyway, we got her into her car seat, and took off for our adventure. I felt a little like an old married couple, but it was kind of nice. Sara kept throwing her sippy cup on the floor of the car and then whining to me so I kept giving it back to her which was a bit annoying, until finally I told her if she throws it again, I am not picking it up. So of course she had to test this, and I didn't pick it up, so of course she pitched a fit. The whole time Josh is telling me I should just pick it up, and I am telling him, no I warned her, and I am not picking up the sippy cup again. I tried to explain to him that you can't tell a child something and not follow through, they do understand what they are doing and they need to be accountable for their actions.

Well, I had never been to Chuck E Cheese before, but we had a blast. Sara played in the balls and climbed through the tunnels. Josh followed her through. She rode on those little ride-on animals and cars and she smiled the whole time. When we brought her up to see the Chuck E show, she was in awe, just staring at them. Then when we brought her up to see Chuck E after the show, I was careful thinking that she might be afraid, but not Sara; she jumped into his arms and hugged him. Of course, I got a really nice picture of them and I am going to have it framed for her mom. On the way home Sara fell asleep in the car and when we got back to my sisters house, I ran in and pulled down the bed as Josh carried her into the house. In that moment I knew that he would make an awesome husband and father. I felt kind of strange that I really had not seen it before. It left me speechless. We locked up the house and sat and watched TV for a while, just sitting snuggled together. We did not really discuss the evening at all although I think we both felt the same way, this just felt right. In the morning, we fed Sara breakfast, and her parents returned home, and we all got back to our normal lives, but not untouched by the experience.

Posted by Kate on Friday, May 16, 2008 @ 12:46 AM