First of all I have to state for the record that I hate the term “green.” Living green. Going green. Being green. I hate it, it annoys the crap out of me. Now, having said that doesn’t mean that I am against the concepts. I believe that we should reduce, reuse, recycle as much as possible. For years I’ve lived by the saying, “leave only footprints, take only pictures” in not just natural places but all areas of my life. Lord knows I’m not perfect at it but I try. I was looking for trash cans in public long before it became popular. Hubby has been recycling his beer cans for as long as I’ve know him. It may not be a lot, but if everyone does a little….yada…yada… Lately though I’m beginning to think more and more about green shopping, especially for food. I have never been a fan of the way our food animals are treated in this country but there weren’t a lot of alternatives to their meat and I knew I would never go meatless completely. I just like meat too much. But now there are so many more ways to get meat that has been raised properly. We have a Whole Foods here in Hawaii and we are getting another one not far from us. The supermarkets even sell organic and free range meat now. Yes, it’s more expensive but do we really need to eat as much as we do?? I don’t think so. I think that everyone of us could stand to cut back on our serving sizes. If When we move into the new house I plan on having a garden year round and having a worm farm.  The worm farm will eat most of our food scraps thereby cutting back on our trash and produce excellent soil for growing in.  A win-win situation. So yeah, much as I hate to admit it looks like I’m starting to live green…..

I am so fed up with people right now, especially government workers. I seriously believe that once someone starts working for the government – any government – they lose all ability to reason and use common sense.

We are trying to buy a house and in the process discovered that there is a lien against Hubby for some back child support. Now I’m not disputing the child support itself but there is a long involved story that goes with it so I won’t go there. We have been talking with the ex about settling this outside of the system because California child support and Hawaii child support are freaking jokes. Hawaii collects the support money every month and then lets it sit in an account and doesn’t send it to California. California then turns around and charges interest on the amount unpaid when Hubby has paid it and it’s sitting in Hawaii. So, needless to say we’ve had some issues with the support agencies.

So Hubby and ex come to an agreement on settling the back child support. Friday, the ex goes down to child support in California and filed all the necessary paperwork which was faxed over to Hawaii on Friday afternoon. This morning Hubby calls Hawaii because we want to move this along and get it settled so the lien can be removed so we can buy this house. Hawaii tells Hubby that they never received anything from California and that they don’t take settlements and this could take months to straighten out. Huh??? They don’t take settlements??? I think this is between Hubby and the ex and the state of Hawaii has nothing to say about it. But whatever. Hubby then calls California and is told they faxed it over on Friday and they gave him the number they faxed to and the person it was attention to. So Hubby calls back to Hawaii, getting a whole new person and having to go through the story again, and discovers that yes they did recieve the fax on Friday!!! Incompetent idiots!!! Hubby proceeds to ask how can we speed this along and is told that Hawaii does not accept settlements. Okay, he blew it off the first time but now we are serious. They won’t accept the settlement??? Who the hell are they??? Really, they have no freaking say in this matter at all. Nothing. They are nothing but the middle man. Nothing but an agent for California. If California accepts the settlement then Hawaii had better roll over and accept it too. But no, they are telling us that we have to get a court order to allow the settlement. Once they get the paperwork from California they will “review” it and if they find it acceptable they will approve it. WTF?!?!?!?!? Hubby was trying to explain that Hawaii is not involved that they don’t have any right or responsibility to accept or deny the settlement. But the lady wouldn’t not budge. She kept saying the state is afraid of not getting their money. They aren’t getting any money!!!! The money goes to the ex!!!! Talk about having a script and sticking to it……Completely unable to think for themselves. It’s like there’s an air filter where their brains should be. My best guess is that what we are doing doesn’t happen often and she really doesn’t know how it will be handled. But rather then admit that she would rather stick to something she thinks is true. Oh my god, morons all. I have a story about California government workers that I was struggling through while hubby was struggling through this, but this has completely worn me out. I have no patience or tolerance for idiots and it seems most of them work in the government.

For a number of reasons I’ve been trying to get my netbook to hook up to my TV. I did some research on the interweb and it seemed like my computer didn’t have the proper connections on my netbook. So yesterday I took it with me down to Radio Shack and told them what I wanted to do. The girl there told me I would need a VGA cable, like the cable for your monitor. They were out but I said I had extras and I could just use that. She assured me I could and made it sound like it was done all the time. It was either that or buying a $125 converter. Okay, I’ll try the cable. I go home and find out that my TV doesn’t have a VGA connection. Hmmmm….. now what?? I decide to call Best Buy since they are supposed to be so knowledgeable. I talk to this girl on the phone who tells me it’s easy, they do it all the time, just bring in the netbook so they can make sure they get the right setup. She said that the TV connection was pretty standard it was the computer connection that they had to be sure of. Okay. Today we headed over the hill to Best Buy. They first wanted to sell me a HDMI cable until I showed them the netbook I was holding didn’t have a HDMI connection. So then we headed over the TV department the TV guy says that we need a VGA cable with an RCA connection on the other end. Okay….back to the computer department to find out they don’t carry them…..okay. So it was off to Radio Shack again….I told the guy I want a VGA to RCA cable and he told me there is no such thing. I expressed my frustration with the different information I was getting from the different places and the different people. This guy told me that Best Buy doesn’t know what they are talking about and that my only real option was the $125 converter. Ugh!!! I was a little angry and just wanted to get the hell out of there…… After I get home I hop on the computer and find all kinds of VGA to RCA cables on Amazon……so they don’t exist!!! I have the distinct feeling that an awful lot of those people don’t know what they are talking about. If you work in an electronics store I think you should have some electronic knowledge. That would be like going to a dermatologist and he not knowing what how to treat eczema….jeez it’s not brain surgery….it’s computer cables…..

I came across something the other day and it’s been really bugging me. The back story seems to be that a non-custodial parent didn’t pay child support and owed about $35,000. The child is now grown and custodial parent and non-custodial parent came to a settlement agreement. The non-custodial parent is going to pay $10,000 and the balance will be dropped. Now mind you both parties have agreed to this, it’s not like anyone is doing this under duress. The custodial parent said that it’s sad that the non-custodial parent is only willing to pay 1/3 of what the child is worth. Huh?!?!?!?!? The amount of child support is what the child is worth?? Wow!! That statement just really bugs me. Using that thinking, the children of wealthy people are clearly worth more then the children of regular people since rich people pay more child support. That would mean that children in states that have higher child support rates are worth more then children in other states. The amount of child support has nothing to do with the worth of a child. Many times child support is determined by a preestablished formula and is for the support and needs of the child. It has nothing to do with how much the child is worth. I guess it’s one thing if the child is young, but this child is almost 30 and the indication is that there is a price tag on his head. Ugh!!!

Somethings just really bother me. Words are important. Words carry weight and meaning. Words can be incredibly demeaning. People don’t realize that. People use words as if they are meaningless. They are most definitely not. If something says joint pain relief you would not expect it to relieve your headache, would you?? Yet people throw words around and then have to explain themselves or apologize. Words are important. And no child, or person, is worth only $35,000.

I’m trying to post I’m really trying….. In spite of the fact that I’m home all day and not working it seems like I just don’t have enough time to post.  Oh well, I’ll do the best I can.

This morning I had some errands to run and went out to my car to find it dead. Completely.  Nothing.  Hmmm…. I’ve only had the car for 2 months, the battery can not possibly be dead yet.  At least it shouldn’t be.  So I called road service to come jump it and it took a lot to get that puppy started.  We worked on it for about 20 minutes before it finally turned over.   Once it was running again I took it straight to the dealership to have it looked at.  It appears that the battery was just bad.  They checked the charging system and all is working fine so it appears that the battery is at fault.  The good news is that while I was waiting for them to check out my car I had time to get my hair cut.  So it all turned out well.

Now I’m off to drop Entrecards and Adgitize.

That’s what’s happened here. Serious neglect. If this blog was a child it would be taken away from me. If this blog was an animal I’d be charged with abuse. It’s terrible. I have just been so busy lately that I can not seem to find time, or the energy, to write things here. So I’m making a commitment. I post on Cake almost everyday. That seems to be my main blog. The others, Teacher, Pet, Photo, and this one, I tend to let slide and that is wrong. So, starting today, I’m going to alternate the blogs I post on. I’ll probably do Cake about every day, but the other four I’ll rotate so that each one gets posted on every week. That will take the pressure off me to try to keep them up constantly but still have them posted on regularly.

I’ve also been a real slacker on Entrecard and Adgitize. I’m thinking of pulling some ads on Adgitize, a different blog every month, and working on dropping again every night. I enjoy visiting and dropping on all the other blogs and it really only takes about 30 minutes or so. I spend 30 minutes on Farmville I can certainly find 30 minutes for blogs. Plus it helps me relax and unwind. So I think I’ll get back on that wagon again.

If only life wasn’t so busy and I didn’t feel like I was riding ellipticals all the time. Seriously!! Sometimes, okay lots of times, I feel like I’m on a treadmill that’s going way too fast.  I feel like I’m barely able to hold on.  Well, I guess that’s better then being bored, right??

Okay, I’m off.  Things to do and this is not getting them done.

So we put in the official loan application today. The loan officer really thinks this will work with just a little finagling. I’m scared to death but I just have to keep moving forward and trust that it will all work out. Yikes!!!

I took the day off school today and it was really nice. I got a lot of errands done and I feel much better about things. The hardest part about this whole house thing is that I can’t buy anything. I hear all the ads for Christmas and the sales and I can’t buy one thing. It’s crazy. Hubby can’t even buy any truck accessories and they are pretty cheap.

Okay, I have to go eat some dinner….

This is my car. I got it about 6 weeks ago and I absolutely love it. Never in my life have I purchased a car just because I liked the way it looked. While looks have always played a part in my car buying decisions, they have never been the sole factor. This time it was. My car was falling apart and I would be needing a new car soon. This one was in the showroom and I fell in love. End of story. Or so I thought.

Having a pretty car comes with great responsibility. Being pretty automatically makes you high maintenance. There is no food or drink allowed in my car because I don’t want to get anything on the light colored upholstery. Every weekend it has to be washed, but not with soap that would dull the paint, dried with a shammy and wiped with a soft towel. The wheels have to cleaned with a special cleaner and brush. The tires have to sprayed so they shine, and the windows have to be cleaned. This all takes about an hour to an hour and a half. Yikes. If it’s raining alot during the week I have to wipe it down at night or else it gets filthy. The white shows up dirt as black and it really looks bad.

I love my car but I’m not sure I love the work that goes with being pretty.

So it’s that time again. Time to start thinking about Christmas and all that entails. Hubby and I sometimes buy each other gifts and other times just buy something we both want. I don’t know what we are going to do this year yet.

I did just get myself a Christmas present though. About 2 weeks ago I saw an infomercial for the Yudu. Since then I’ve been going to the website and looking it over and debating on buying it and going back and forth about it. Finally today I decided to just go for it. It has a 30 day money back guarantee so I can always return it if I need to. But I’ve searched the Interwebs and most of the reviews I read about it are good. It clearly has some faults but nothing major. Also, a huge selling point, you can use other products on it not just those made by the manufacturer. That’s great because I found a forum for support and they list all kinds of inexpensive options for emulsion and paint, etc. I’m very excited.

So I placed the order and a few hours later get an email that my credit card didn’t go through. Ugh!!! Now I have to call them and see if I wrote the number wrong or something. I much prefer those sites that instantly verify your credit card. Plus now I have to call them, I just hope they are in the US and they don’t use call center outsourcing to some place like India or Bangladesh. I had to call HP one time and their call center was in India. It was the most frustrating call. The person the other end had a script and she was not going to stray from it no matter what. On the other hand, lots of places are using at home workers. I was considering doing that for a while but it didn’t work out with the time difference here in Hawaii.. Okay, why am I talking about this????

here in Hawaii.  It’s been rainy and windy and cold, well – cold for here   I’ve been running and walking at night and last night it was rainy and cold, tonight it was sunny but really windy.  Winter in Hawaii – good stuff.

I’ve got to take my camera some night and take some pictures along the way.  One house has a gargoyle on the roof.  It’s just a regular tract house but then it is a small gargoyle.  Another house has the most amazing shaped cactus.  It’s like a giant ball but not really, I can’t explain it.  One house has a little free store in front of it.  It’s like a small cart and people put stuff on it and take stuff they need.  Every time I walk past it there’s new stuff there.  Today there were a bunch of promotional bags like for an event or something. If they were a little larger I would have taken one, but they were small. So yeah, it’s an interesting neighborhood that I really need to take pictures of one day.