I used to come home from school as a "latch key" kid, actually, we had a hide-a-key, which used to be a great game if either Carter or I would get home first, but then Carter never came home first because he went to school on the other side of the county. Then I quit coming home first because of sports and other school activities. Then we all quit coming home to a hide-a-key. We just had our own key. But I would come home and dilly-dally for about 30 minutes. Then Mom would come home and sort out the trouble I had caused between me and my brother. Then Mom would fuss at me to do my homework, practice my piano/violin, and wake her up in 20 minutes (she would promptly crash in the recliner in the florida room). So be it. I would...do whatever. She always woke up in 20 minutes without me having to wake her, which was unnerving if I was doing something I wasn't supposed to be doing. She would turn on the pink radio on the washer/dryer in the kitchen to NPR at which time the All Things Considered theme song would sing. I then would know I had about thirty minutes or less to set the table and feed the dog. I never really listened to the show, but the music was nice and there was something familiar about that chime from the show everyday. It made home, home.

I am in the process of making the farm my home. I haven't really put too much effort into it until lately. My kitchen was first. It is now a place that I want to live in except one thing. I make the dinner, set the table, wash the dishes, but something was missing. I finally figured out that it was the chime. I started trying to figure out how to get the radio in my kitchen without buying anything or moving anything. Another problem is that most radios have a hard time picking up the local GPB station despite it being right over the mountain at the college. Tonight it came to me. The computer. Perfect.

So while I didn't make dinner tonight, I made two pecan pies and apple cake. The cake and one pie are for thanksgiving at Mom's. The other pie is for a dinner with friends tonight that is a gratitude dinner for everyone before we all go home to families. It worked. Da, da, da, da, da, da, da-da, daaaaa...tttttttttttt.....then I baked, I cleaned and I will eat. What a small treasure to make home, home.

Life on the farm...


Every once in a while a calf will not wean from the mama cow. In times of initial stress, there is a simple solution: take the calf away from the mama. It takes three days. Easy enough. So the cow is in the pen. The calf is in the pasture with the heard. Weaning begins. Weaning leads to mooing. Mooing is to call the calf to milk the udders that are FULL. COME MILK MEEEEEE translates to MOoOOOOooOOO.

Recently, we started weaning a cow on Friday. Only nobody told me that we were weaning anything. I started dinner and am beebopping around my beautifully organized, cleaned kitchen. There is a scream like a child who can't decide if they are hurt or laughing rediculously in pain. The edge of terror and gaiety. I look outside expecting the dogs to respond if somethings up. No response. I think to myself...hmm...that's odd. Must have been an coyote. Yes, that's it. A Coyote!

Eric pulls in his big big truck and tells me he is going hunting. Okay, come in for dinner if you like. AAAAAAAAAAhhhhhh!!!! That's no coyote. I look outside. Eric is feeding RedDog leftover breakfast from the depths of the truck. No flinching.

NOW, I am crazy. There is a child or girl or is screaming in my head.

So when John gets home and there is a AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHhhhhh!!!! I say seee...what is that? He said he didn't hear it that he would listen next time.

We go to the movies and come back. AHhHAHHAAHHHHH!!!!! JOHN! What is that?!

Oh that? AAAAHAAHAAAAAAHHHHhhhh!!!!!

Yes, that.

Oh, that's the cow in the barn, she can't moo. That is the sound she makes.

A cow who can't moo? I am crazy.

I can't remember watching a presidential debate. I know that I have, but I can't remember it. I guess now that I have a better understanding of what a presidential race is and what the issues facing the cadidates are, I am more vested in the exchange of ideas through the great debates. I haven't had the opportunity to watch the other democratic candidate debates. I won't watch the republian candidate debates because 1) I don't vote republican and 2) there is no one convincing enough for me to even consider to vote republican.

Just in the first forty-five minutes of the debate, I know why people are political buffs. This is like watching a sports match. There are seven candidates who are overwhelmingly overeducated on the issues affecting the nation who stand forth and go to battle. It is an explosive joust of proposed solutions. Whose solution is the best?

It is interesting that the leading candidates separate themselves through this statement, what I would do as president. They convey themselves not just as a possible candidate, but a heavy weight, as the next president. They have concern and respect for the office. They are not just senators, they are chiefs. They are commanders. They are civilians. They are leaders of the nation with or without winning the candidacy or the presidential race. They are the decisions makers for the people of this country.

My Opinions:

Biden is doing a great job in the debate
Edwards does his best, but is still pushing the mud.
Obama is getting killed by Lou Dobbs.
Clinton is the best.
Go Hillary Go!

It ain't over till the fat lady sings.

That is the feeling on campus. Everyone is done skipping classes on Fridays. There are small study groups begining to form in the lobbies. The projects are finalizing. The teams are meeting for a final time before the presentation. The last papers are being written. Students are getting tired. Teachers press on in discipline to teach as many chapters and topics as possible to include on the finals. There is a wonder if it will ever end. There is a knowing that it is almost over.

We are standing on the edge. We can see the relaxing pool of water below. All we have left to do is dive. There are two weeks left of classes--9 days. There is one week of finals. Then there is a WHOLE MONTH of nothing. No tests, no friends to impress, no papers to write, no teachers to question. Nothing. Just relaxation. My brain will get to pause...not think...just play.

People wonder why they don't get along in the "real world" once they get out of college. I know why I don't do well in the real world. I like the college world. Give me challenge on a daily basis for four months and then give me a month to recoup. That's what I'm talking about. I am born to be a college student. I love standing on the edge. I love finding out what I learned this past semester. I want to sing at the top of my lungs because I have been practicing all semester long, but my scene isn't up yet. It won't be up until December 8th. Then I can give a triumphant YALP, loud and as long as I want to and then...relax....then it will be over.

Sometimes there is just no way to follow up a good weekend. It was just good.

My weekend started with notice from my microecon prof that class was cancelled on Monday. Whoohoo! Good day. Then on Friday evening, I had a warming dinner with friends from here and out of town. There was bbq and bananapudding. I made three cheese mac n' cheese. (I left out the milk but it didn't seem to matter.) I was so glad to be able to hang out with Meg & Sebatian and so many people I hadn't seen in a long time.

Saturday I slept in until ten am. I slept twelve hours! Can you imagine. This week I was off on my sleeping. I was only getting about six or seven hours of sleep a night, so John was not surprised I slept so long, but I was!

It was a college football day. Since the games didn't start until twelve, I watched Rudy. It was awesome. Then I chatted on the phone with Meg for about an hour, while watching NC and UNC-whoa is all I have to say about that game. Then came the house cleaning. Most people would have settled into their homes by now. Especially since they have been in it for about a year. I don't really know why I just up and decided to nest, but I did. Now my kitchen looks like a kitchen instead of some place that looks like a compartment of a storage box. The rest of my house still looks like a storage box, but my kitchen looks like home. Next weekend will be another room I am sure. Whew. I could live in that kitchen.

Then John and I were invited to a "couples" baby shower. Apparently it is the hip new thing. So we had plans to go to ATL, but instead we got to actually meet the baby, it was two weeks early! A new baby girl. She was beautiful. She was born in the same hospital as my Dad (yeah, didn't know that until Carter told me). It was a gorgeous hospital. Guess Dad was living it up when he was born. Then we called Carter and asked him to stop eating (munching on the phone) and go out to eat with us. Being the kind, cool brother that he is, he did. He took us to the trendy restaurant around the corner and we had good times.

Sunday was good in that my kids learned about fishers of men. We made a fishing net and fish and hung them from the ceiling. Yep, you try that with 5th and 6th graders. Its not easy. Then we had breakfast with the boys. Then back to the polishing of the kitchen. Did I mention how pretty it is now? It is nice.

There is no way to follow a good weekend...except for by having a Monday that I only have one class to go to. That is a good way to follow a good weekend. I love being back in school.

I have some concerns about the the State Speaker of the House's proposed tax reform. The more I learn in my two economic classes the more concerns I have about his policy shift for the state. I recognize that a new tax policy is imminently needed as it seems that cuts continue for the state which tells me they either are going broke or might become broke because of all the tax cuts.


So how do you politically recoup the losses (tax cuts) that have made you popular as a politician, but not raise taxes (lose your job aka political suicide for the GOP of GA)? You call it something different: you call it TAX REFORM.


It is interesting watching the bashing back and forth between the speaker and the governor. I don't know that I have seen such blatant intra-party squabbling since Mark Taylor ate Cathy Cox in the democratic gubernatorial candidacy. The speaker is stealing some thunder from the Governor who is trying to get into national politics, while laying some ground work for his own progression as a politician. This makes Sonny very unhappy. He likes his thunder.

What the speaker is proposing is a sales tax as the main source of revenue for the state. He wants to eliminate the property tax because it is "too high." In listening to a snip it of him on 11 alive, he wants to almost eliminate property tax (thus, who would still have to pay? My guess is the middle class.). Here are my concerns:

• I have learned that sales tax is a regressive tax. A regressive tax is one that increases the less income you make. So the more money you make, the less tax you pay. The less money you make, the more tax you pay. This means that the lower echelon gets lower and the higher echelon gets higher and the middle gets stuck with the bill.

• I understand that there is a misperception that taking the property tax money and giving it back to those who own property would give them money to spend thus being collected in sales tax. This takes into two assumptions. One, that the items the wealthy buy with the money is not more land. Two that they will buy things that are sales taxed in Georgia. What happens if they take the two grand from the non-prop tax and reinvest it in more land? What happens if they buy stuff in N.C.? Then the money that is redistributed will not come back to Georgia as revenue, but create a gaping whole in the revenue collection process. Also, what happens if they save it? This is something I have not heard the Speaker address yet: who makes up the difference in revenue if it is not collected by the state?

• Now, dealing with the flip side of the problem. What if they are a home owner and every year claim property taxes as a write off for their federal income taxes...now that there is no property tax, there is no tax write off. So much for not paying the property tax. Now instead of the state getting that money, the Feds get the money. That doesn't seem quite right. How will we know that money gets redistributed to Georgia? We don't. Instead, we just pay more taxes. Doesn't it seem like if property owners were going to pay taxes that the State should be the one getting the cash? I mean come on. There is no way for the property owners to reinvest when they just change the name on the check.

• Finally, there is a notion that the sales tax would broaden the base of income by taxing the passer "throughs". The tourists will make up for the difference. I recognize that we are definitely becoming a nation of leisure. We are wealthier than most nations and more of our citizens have the ability to travel. As an added bonus we have states instead of little countries so there is no reason to have extra papers to travel and eliminating a hassle for the common vacationer. Well, cool. Where would you like to travel to? Not Georgia, they tax you for going there. It is too expensive to be considered a stopping point. Let's go to New Hampshire where there is no sales tax at all. Then we can consume all we'd like. Get my drift?

Why do we want to run off a major industry in Georgia? Why tax that industry? Why not tax manufacturing or utilities? Why tax tourism? Why tax the poor? Why tax those who have property? What is the point in taxing everyone for everything and not getting a whole lot in return?

Although, it does shine the spotlight on the speaker. It does boost the political squabbling in the state congress. It does make those of us who watch, watch with more fervor. These are good things for someone who wants to be looked at as the next GOP gubernatorial candidate. It is also a great way to hide the fact that you want to raise taxes as a solution to state going broke.

I guess the main thing taking micro and macro economics has taught me this semester is that the Speaker needs to enroll in the courses before he goes off creating economic policies. If he hasn't had the courses, then he will become educated. If he has had the courses, it will be a good brush up and maybe knock some sense into him. All in all, my economics courses have taught me, not many people understand economics.

I meet you for coffee,
We get together periodically,
I got a bad case I can't shake off of me,
People wonderin how, wonderin how it oughta be...

Sometimes I run smack into myself. When this happens there is a great emotional distress. Who am I? How did I get here? What am I doing with my life? What am I contributing to life? They are all very disturbing questions that typically reveal some self awareness that ready or not here I come. It takes days to process and even the simple tasks take effort to focus, perform and follow through. Emotionally I turn into one of those train wrecks that you hear about on the news where some poor soul got stuck on the tracks because the car died. Just aweful. We secretly say to ourselves that we are glad that we don't know the poor soul. I have been that poor soul over the weekend. Train wreck victim. A casuality of my own mind. I live on a foundation of rigorous honesty. I have principals in my life like integrity, willingness, perseverance and an awareness of God. When honesty fails, when I become dishonest, oddly, my foundation cracks. All the other principals are contingent upon honesty and without that, I go a little bonkers. I look and act like a train wreck. That train whistle is pulled along with the brakes by the engineer as hard as they can be pulled, with no hope. There is nothing to do but run over that gal trying desperately in fear to get the car to start. It effects every relationship. It effects every commitment. It exhausts me. It makes my muscles sore. I start to daydream, but not really dream, just not see what's right in front of me. I become not present in my own life. Train wreck.

When I find that place of honesty, all is made right. In one single instant, I feel, I see, I hear, I return and am snapped back into the here and now. I am present. It is weird. It is a process. I have to get honest with one person, then another person and finally with myself. POW, I am back. Standing on my own two feet. I know where I am, who I am, where I am going and what I am contributing to life. I can pray again. I can take on the big, bad college grade. I can be where I say I am going to be and be who I tell you I am. My foundation is solid like a rock.

Thank goodness it only lasted from Friday to Monday. I am sure that it would have been aweful through out the week when I am supposed to be paying attention in class.

I didn't used to know how to be honest. I didn't know what was going on with me. I was in a state of disillusionment for years. I was drowned in liquor. It perpetuated the state of numbness. Like a 24 hours that repeated its self over and over. The same train wreck everyday. I couldn't get honest. I was constitutionally incapable of a manner of living that demanded rigorous honesty. Thank goodness, I don't have to live that way anymore. Thank goodness I have the support, the love, the steps to take to keep me on track. Thank goodness for Grace.

I have had four tests in seven days, Halloween & b'day with Iris, anniversary with the hubby and faced a cheating scandal that threatened my academic standing. Right now I feel like my brain is oozing out my ears and all I want to do is sleep. I finally caught up on my blog reading today and realized I was two weeks behind in my own blogging. I still have a paper due today and then my thinking can cease completely. If you want to know anything about organizational development and behavior, LIFO & FIFO inventory, the Coase theorum or how the increase/decrease of the dollar effect aggregate demand, get it now, because by tomorrow it will be gone out of my head.

John and I ate year old wedding cake for our anniversary. It was great fun. Then we hiked Brasstown Bald, which if you have any type of heart condition or breathing condition I highly recommend you take the shuttle instead of hiking it. The trail is only six tenths of a mile, but it is on an eight percent grade. If you are a stair master queen/king then this would be no problem, but if you are like me-twenty pounds overweight and out of shape, it nearly killed me. But I was going at a pretty serious pace according to my husband. The way down is cake. It makes you appreciate the trek up.

Iris won best costume in Clarkesville for 3-5 year olds. She was a witch. She won a $50 savings bond. I thought that was cool. There was a whole troop of us who escorted her around the square and taught her how to say trick or treat. She would get so excited to say it because she had about five or more people who would applaud her saying it. To boot she got a piece of candy. Meg was a witch too. I was over tested to dress, although next year the troop that went around the square with Iris decided to dress as a group: ie The munsters, or the Adams Family. Something like that.

My holiday season will start next weekend. Every weekend after that I will be booked for something. There is a wedding, a baby shower, a turkey day, and two Christmas parties already on the docket. Somewhere in there I have to go see my mother-in-law. Plus, I am supposed to shop for family gifts, have a bonfire at the farm and have finals.

I think this weekend is going to be about sleeping, maybe some movie going too, but mostly about sleeping. Hopefully, my brain will be restored and capable of making it to the end of the year.