I say sort of because here is the story of only SOME of our Thanksgiving vacation:
I was not home almost all day Monday and Tuesday so I missed a lot of good time to be home doing laundry and packing. It was crammed into Tuesday night and I was busting my butt to get it all done. Shortly before what would have been bedtime for Sophia on Tuesday night, she throws up. She continues to throw up off and on for a little over an hour. It was almost impossible to get any more packing done due to getting in a warm bath with her and snuggling and comforting her on the couch. We know nothing is seriously making her sick because we can see it is the mucus she has been swallowing over the last several days due to an oncoming cold. She stops barfing, I finish packing, and we all go to bed! However, we bring a barf bucket in the car with us just in case.

We drive out Wednesday morning, the car drive was not as bad as we thought, albeit long, but not too bad. Thank goodness! We get there in one piece and wait for my other sisters to arrive. We get news they are delayed because my oldest sister starting throwing up in the car. I must also mention at this time that BJ and I started this trip with head colds. I had already been suffering from one for 3 weeks and had already been through an entire round of amoxicillin that did not work. By Wednesday night I was losing my voice and had a sore throat.

Thursday morning…..turkey day! We wake up to find out Jennifer and her daughter Gwennie were up most of the night barfing. I have also totally lost my voice and can barely talk. When I do try and talk I feel strained and it causes a minor headache. Luckily there was no more puking (from anyone) and BJ and I just suffered through the day blowing our noses constantly.

Friday……BJ and I are still miserable with colds and my voice is no better. Saturday…….the same. Sunday……we begin driving home and my voice is slowly getting better which leads me to believe the climate (and maybe elevation) had a lot to do with it. However, the longer we are in the car the girls get crankier and crankier. On the home stretch Granny starts throwing up (thank goodness for the afore mentioned packed barf bucket). We had previously been stuck in horrible traffic which delayed us a whole hour or more, which means more torture of the girls being in the car. We reach a point where it is the last hour/hour and a half and the girls are hungry, wet (diapers), tired and Phoebe can almost not be kept happy. Granny is suffering in the front seat barfing off and on. BJ is, of course, rushing to get home and is speeding. The icing on the cake is we get pulled over. The cop asks “Sir, do you know why I pulled you over?” and I am totally thinking “I am in hell! You sit in this car and tell me YOU wouldn’t speed jerkface!!” BJ and my mom explain the situation and I call out from the center seat that I have 2 toddlers in the back and he lets us go with a warning. Thank heavens for small blessings.

We get home and leave Granny trying to barf again in the front seat. I rush 2 little girls into a bath and step away to try and get a few things out of the car. By now Granny was out of the car barfing on the front lawn. I run back inside to find Sophia naked in the hallway telling me she pooped. I find Phoebe sitting in poopy bath water so I grab her out, scoop out what I can with a cup, give up on the idea of cleaning it right then to refill the tub, and rush the naked, wet girls to our bath. By now my dad and BJ are just dumping what they can from the car (to rush my poor mom home) into my front entryway and living room which created quite the mess. I wisely choose to ignore it, get the girls dressed, fed and in bed! Whew! What a day and what a night! I only have one request out of all this…….please! please! please! Christmas be kinder to our family!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone and the happier parts of our trip are to come!

Tags: barfing,being sick,car travel,thanksgiving
Categories: Heather, Weekly Family Update
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I have said Sophia’s middle name to her and around her several times in the past. I didn’t ever think she was catching on that “Ruth” was also part of her name. I was talking with her one day and I think I said something like “little girl” or similar to that and she tells me “No! I’m Sophia RUUUTH!” That was the first time I heard her say that, but apparently BJ had heard her weeks before say this. Then again today I addressed her by “young lady” and she says “I no young lady! I’m Sophia RUUUTH!” I guess her name will only suffice for now! We have started trying to teach her her last name as well. At first she was repeating back to us “Actually” but now it sounds more like “At-ech-el-ee”. Now BJ is getting all excited about her learning her full name he wants to teach her her phone number and address. I told him he might be getting ahead of himself. I am happy with Sophia Ruth Atchley for now!

Tags: full name,Ruth
Categories: Sophia, Weekly Family Update
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So I know I mentioned in my previous post we are holding off on the potty training thing for a bit. We were starting to get nowhere and little frustrated. However, over the last couple weeks Sophia has asked to sit on the potty a few times and has been asking about her training pants. I have put her on and sometimes she goes and sometimes she doesn’t–no big deal. Then there was yesterday. She went tinkle in the potty twice and she pooped in it for the first time ever! It was right before bed and I thought, “what the heck I will just offer for her to go.” She was willing and then she pooped! She seemed just as surprised as me and a little unsure about what had just happened. But as soon as I smiled and started clapping and jumping up and down she thought it was totally cool. It was so nice not changing a poopy diaper and just flushing the toilet! I think I will continue on this current path of putting her on when she asks, offering occasionally, and supporting her 100% no matter what she ends up doing (or not doing) on the potty. Hello princess panties in 2009! Here we come!!!

(p.s. I think Sophia looks like a little model in this picture. Like some women pose in magazines—all twisted and awkward with their bodies, but she sure looks sweet and cute!)

Tags: potty training
Categories: Sophia, Weekly Family Update
2 Comments »

I have often stressed and wondered over the last several months if my disciplining and talks to Sophia have been getting through. She gets time outs when she hurts Phoebe or does something she really shouldn’t, then we sit and talk about what she did, and then she has to apologize to whomever she insulted (usually Phoebe). Over the last few weeks we have begun a couple new things in our efforts to make Sophia nicer and calmer toward Phoebe and other kids. One, we have started asking her (after she hit or whatever) what she could have done differently or what she should have done instead. She has responded very well and quickly to this with replies like “not hit Phoebe, not Push Phoebe, say sorry” and etc. And two, when Phoebe does bother her but grabbing a toy or her blanket or cup, instead of screaming and crying at her she needs to tell Phoebe in a nice voice to “please not take my blankie, give it back. I want my blankie.” and so on. I have been able to catch her a few times at the beginning of a scream and remind her what she is to do. She calms down and then proceeds to ask Phoebe for her item back.

We had a little girlfriend over recently that she has never played with before and she actually used some of her ‘new skills’! The girl was getting frustrated and a little aggressive and started swiping at Sophia, so Sophia shook her finger at the girl repeatedly and told her to not hit her. This happened twice too! There was another time I had to send Sophia to her room for a time out and within seconds of being in her room she was begging to say sorry to Phoebe (but I sense that was more because she always says sorry when she gets to come out), but nonetheless I was proud that she was offering on her own. There was even another time I yelled at Phoebe for doing something inappropriate and Sophia very firmly told me to not yell at Phoebe.

This is all a glimmer of hope for me to not give up what I am doing, it IS working, and maybe things will be okay between these 2 girls!

Tags: being nice,discipline,teaching,time outs
Categories: Phoebe, Sophia, Weekly Family Update
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Here’s something I didn’t know. Each month the Cato Institute posts an essay to Cato Unbound and invites other political commentators to reply to that essay.

They also invite anyone to dive into the debate via their own blogs.

The essay this month is Corporations Versus the Market; or, Whip Conflation Now.

I’ve have a reply up within the next week or so. To be completely fair I generally agree with the essayist but have a few comments primarily revolving around international trade. I’ll also have notes on the commentary by other essayists.

I’ll be back soon.

Tags: cato unbound,classical liberal,libertarian
Categories: BJ, Philosophy etc
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It seems a sad fact that most of my work stories involve some sort of medication, but honestly work isn’t normally that exciting.

My first day back in the actual office after recovering from pneumonia over the past few weeks, was spent in a large informal meeting with the head of our group in corporate. The members of management who were the stars of this meeting probably oversee thousands.

Since it was an informal meeting, we were discussing basically anything. In this case the meeting started out discussing the economy. I won’t go into too much detail but suffice it to say I had to say something. After being on an antibiotic strong enough to make me dizzy for the past 10-12 days, I probably shouldn’t have started a rant, much less in front of people who are 4 or more degrees separated from me in management.

I started out by explaining the nature of regulation and the constant abiilty of investment bankers to find new ways to make money. Primarily the CDS and CDO in this case. Then I started talking about improving the situation by changing the nature of the Fed by trying to control inflation rather than spurring economic booms. Mind you It took me about 3 minutes or more to do all of this. I lost most people after about 30 seconds. I wanted to just trail off at that point when I realized I had just started talking about policy in a big informal gathering and get to know you style sit down. Rather than trail off I had to finish, the problem was finishing my statement would be anything but coherent because I had already lost all of my audience.

Umm, so now I’m famous for my filibuster on economic policy. My friends at work now call me Cliff (You know, from cheers). Remind me to keep my mouth shut next time, or if I can’t make a point within 15 seconds to not say anything.

Tags: drugs,rants,work
Categories: BJ, BJ's Life
2 Comments »

This is a piece written for the Weekly Standard by PJ O’Rourke. You can read the original here.

I’m posting the entire article here as well. It’s absolutely hilarious, and contains more wordplay than a rap battle.

We Blew It
A look back in remorse on the conservative opportunity that was squandered.
by P.J. O’Rourke
11/17/2008, Volume 014, Issue 09

Let us bend over and kiss our ass goodbye. Our 28-year conservative opportunity to fix the moral and practical boundaries of government is gone–gone with the bear market and the Bear Stearns and the bear that’s headed off to do you-know-what in the woods on our philosophy.

An entire generation has been born, grown up, and had families of its own since Ronald Reagan was elected. And where is the world we promised these children of the Conservative Age? Where is this land of freedom and responsibility, knowledge, opportunity, accomplishment, honor, truth, trust, and one boring hour each week spent in itchy clothes at church, synagogue, or mosque? It lies in ruins at our feet, as well it might, since we ourselves kicked the shining city upon a hill into dust and rubble. The progeny of the Reagan Revolution will live instead in the universe that revolves around Hyde Park.

Mind you, they won’t live in Hyde Park. Those leafy precincts will be reserved for the micromanagers and macro-apparatchiks of liberalism–for Secretary of the Department of Peace Bill Ayers and Secretary of the Department of Fairness Bernardine Dohrn. The formerly independent citizens of our previously self-governed nation will live, as I said, around Hyde Park. They will make what homes they can in the physical, ethical, and intellectual slums of the South Side of Chicago.

The South Side of Chicago is what everyplace in America will be once the Democratic administration and filibuster-resistant Democratic Congress have tackled global warming, sustainability, green alternatives to coal and oil, subprime mortgage foreclosures, consumer protection, business oversight, financial regulation, health care reform, taxes on the “rich,” and urban sprawl. The Democrats will have plenty of time to do all this because conservatism, if it is ever reborn, will not come again in the lifetime of anyone old enough to be rounded up by ACORN and shipped to the polling booths.

None of this is the fault of the left. After the events of the 20th century–national socialism, international socialism, inter-species socialism from Earth First–anyone who is still on the left is obviously insane and not responsible for his or her actions. No, we on the right did it. The financial crisis that is hoisting us on our own petard is only the latest (if the last) of the petard hoistings that have issued from the hindquarters of our movement. We’ve had nearly three decades to educate the electorate about freedom, responsibility, and the evils of collectivism, and we responded by creating a big-city-public-school-system of a learning environment.

Liberalism had been running wild in the nation since the Great Depression. At the end of the Carter administration we had it cornered in one of its dreadful low-income housing projects or smelly public parks or some such place, and we held the Taser gun in our hand, pointed it at the beast’s swollen gut, and didn’t pull the trigger. Liberalism wasn’t zapped and rolled away on a gurney and confined somewhere until it expired from natural causes such as natural law or natural rights.

Show me more… »

Tags: funny,funny liberty
Categories: BJ, Entertainment, Philosophy etc
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BJ had to work at the Allen office today so I seized an opportunity to have Sue, BJ’s mom, take Sophia for the day. It worked nicely for BJ to be able to drop her off and pick her up, and I knew she would have a blast with her Nana. I can’t believe what I day it has been! I got to visit with a friend and her kids this morning without being worried where Sophia was, what she was doing, was she getting into trouble, etc. Phoebe seemed to enjoy being around other kids that weren’t going to hit her or cause her grief. It was very relaxing. I got to go grocery shopping with Phoebe this time (I usually take Sophia or don’t take any) and she seemed to enjoy it. I got to nap when she napped (very nice) and we have played a lot. I have been able to show her ways to play with certain toys and do all sorts of fun stuff I haven’t really been able to show her because Sophia is around to take over, take the toy, or just intrude in every way possible. Phoebe has been such a happy little girl today and has talked more today than I have ever heard. She babbled all sorts of stuff to me! She is such a sweetheart and I feel as if I have been able to see another side of her simply because there were no other distractions. The house was so peaceful. It made me feel just like it did when it was just Sophia and I. I actually liked it when it had been the 2 of us because we truly relied on each other for entertainment and company. All we had was each other and we knew it. Don’t get me wrong, I am so thankful Phoebe came into our lives and that we are now a family of 4 and not 3, but I sure didn’t miss all the fighting and drama today! I am so thankful for this day that I have been able to spend with Phoebe and have real quality mama/daughter time. We both needed it! So thank you, thank you, thank you to BJ and Nana for making this possible. We need to do it again sometime!

Categories: Heather
2 Comments »