Good Things

~ The Steelers won the Super Bowl! What teamwork and determination, definitely worth letting the kids stay up late for. I love how you can never count them out, no matter how few seconds are left on the clock.

~ Goldie is moving from the highchair to the table. See, everyday when Hank gets home from work, after Goldie gives him his hugs and kisses, she goes to the kid's cupboard, gets out a plate and sets it at the table. Sometimes this is followed by a bowl or cup. Then she pulls out the chair and stares at me.
I brought my yellow seamstress' tape measure to Target and found a booster seat with a belt that would fit under the table without smooshing her chubby thighs. The other 3 booster seats we already own, were too high and she kept sliding off the phone book. Now, time to learn this girl some table manners.

~ Hank's job. This is a big one for us. As the economy is tanking, we are rising from the abyss. My part time job was eliminated when Goldie was born and Hank was laid off when she was 8 weeks old. We applied for both SSI and unemployment. But, here's the sweet part, SSI only counts half of your wages, but ALL of the unemployment. So, they decided we should pay back 3 months worth of Goldie's SSI money. Nothing like kicking somebody when their down. Hank tried to hang on to his job at his old employer for way too long. They were letting us keep our health insurance, which is no small thing, because the state was paying for a portion of it and they were only 3 miles from our house.

Fast forward to this fall, I get tired of Hank drinking beer and playing with tractors strike oil by finding him a new J O B. He is now driving for a stable company that treats him almost as good as I do. A peace comes over me when I look at his pay stub and see money going toward health insurance, retirement, and even an account to help cover medical expenses. Plus, his new company has decided not to keep the money the state gives them to pay for Goldie's portion of our health insurance. They are having the state send the check directly to us. Can you believe that? Their belief is that will pay for our family what they would pay for any employee's family and give us the money to help for our portion. That's integrity. And the best part, Hank likes his new job, he has his pride back and is generally much nicer to be around.

~ I have a legitimate reason for not cleaning my kitchen floor and letting my kids run barefoot. It seems dirt really is good for the immune system. But, I'm going to have to draw the line at becoming infested with WORMS. Maybe Swatcho really does have a tapeworm? She's got a bullet proof immune system and despite how much food she packs away has wrists the size of a two year old. Hmmm.