Pictures and Presidents

[altarflame]

This isn't the best picture to showcase it, but Elise was looking REALLY cute when we got back from that Mardi Gras thing last week.


At the theater to see Wizard of Oz - Ananda, Karen, Jeffrey, Isaac, Joanne, Aaron.








Yesterday Grant got a work order down in the Keys, so he left VeriFone and we all went down and when he was done, went over to Anne's Beach. While he was working, the kids and I were just hanging out and decided to go get some floats.

We decided to get Extreme Floats.

It was not easy to cram them in the van, even with the sliding side doors.

I LOVE this picture :)



















Then today, Nancy came and hung out with us - which was great. Ananda ran to her with arms thrown wide as soon as the door opened. She came in with big bags of presents, and I made a big lunch of veggies and chicken and things with orzo. She brought an uber-crunchy boxed mix for monkey bread that I baked this afternoon, too, so yummy. It was so awesome to just sit and catch up. There've been phone calls and emails - a dozen of each at least - since I left Boston, but it's different, you know? Especially with both of us being too busy to ever really go in depth through long distance communication. It's good to be "friends" now, too, and not have her keeping me at Professional Midwife Level Conversation, i.e., not saying anything that would be unprofessional about anyone or anything else. My sister came and met her. And I managed to get her to agree to pictures knowing I'd post them on my blog, which she sees as famous or something because within her circle of birth people, apparently everybody reads.


Elise loves her. And she cried when Elise walked to me, and waved to her, and backed down our step to the dining room, and all the other little things Elise does that are not just normal but double-take advanced for a 9 month old. She's holding her, here, and that's the back of Brian's head down in front. Look at this organized crowd :p



Grant got the job I talked about a few days ago, except the day shift, which is an added bonus. It's every Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and every other Wednesday, 12 hour shifts (7:30am-7:30pm). $38k a year plus benefits after some period or other passes, with hours that will allow him to keep VeriFone, and the bank, and have whole uninterrupted days with us.

I don't know much of anything about Mike Huckabee except that he was on the Colbert show tonight, and cracking up with some double entendres as he played air hockey to try to "win Texas". That might be enough for me O_o I suppose I have to look up some more stuff. I've avoided bringing it up here thus far, but I am really anti-socialist policies. I want to keep my homeschooling freedoms, and I want women to have more birth freedoms, and I even prefer my own personal healthcare situation (choosing to pay out of pocket for our ped of choice who rocks, fighting for Medicaid but getting it in the end for Elise, her and I both getting all the emergent care we needed with bills coming later, all of it) than what I've heard of government health care. I really really REALLY like SMALL government more and more, the more I learn, even when it means that things I'm "Against" get to be done/legal/whatever (like abortion or guns). I don't want a draft, I don't want insane property taxes and death taxes on estates you leave to your kids and on and on, I don't want anyone up in my business. I'm a freewheeling libertarian Ron Paul supporter. I think :p Whenever I hear Obama or Hillary talking, they sound so freaking socialist and the end result is inevitably peoples' freedoms being taken away, in ways that scare me. It's like everyone's forgotten what we all learned in high school history - communism only works in theory. Capitalism DOES take care of (almost) everyone in the end because of the trickle-down effect wealth in a nation like ours has, and it gives everyone the opportunity to strive and reach further and achieve that American Dream if that's what they're after...

I think of really liberal, progressive areas of our country where people like Hillary are popular, like New York City, and it's like...people in New York have no birth freedom at all. They imprison midwives, Nancy told me when I was in Massachusetts that if I were to go into labor while she was in Syracuse for the ICAN conference, she'd have to cross back over to do my birth. They have all these seemingly great initiatives in place for new low income mothers, too...where they strongly discourage co-sleeping and widely teach that you must vaccinate and all this. Moms who do things in "unusual" ways that are ignorantly thought to be unsafe are reported to CPS. Homeschooling is extremely rare, it's just...crap, as far as I'm concerned. That's not what I want.

But of course you can't find a likely candidate who is small government AND cares about the environment (which I do). Enter Ron Paul. Who is not likely :/

I have to wash ye olde dishes.

Comments

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

I don't know a WHOLE lot about this, so feel free to correct me, but isn't it true that part of that is because medical costs don't effect your credit in the same way that other debt does? I mean, for instance, if you want to rent a house they are only interested (usually) in past evictions or late paid utilities and things like that, and likewise if you want a car they don't hold medical bills against you the way they would other things like outstanding credit card debt. I know that if you owe a public hospital any amount of money but are paying on it - even in tiny increments - they can't or don't (not sure which) report your bill to the credit bureaus at all. My dad owes like $700,000 but pays $50 a month and it's not effecting his rating, and my mother has had similar arrangements in the past...

[homefly.livejournal.com]

isn't it true that part of that is because medical costs don't effect your credit in the same way that other debt does?

It's still a debt, and it affects your debt to income ratio. If you pay the bills, great, but it still counts as debt. Also, no creditor can report your credit as in default if you pay your bills on time. As far as credit is concerned, your father took out a $700,000 loan. Also, from what I understand, that loan is also not absolved upon his death. Someone will inherit it upon his death which can severely impact is family eventually.

Unless you have a substantial income, a debt like that pretty much ruins anyone's chances of getting good credit especially a mortgage in the future. Sure, you can still buy a car, but debt to income ratio is still important, and you might get a really lousy APR if you don't have a good one.

Medical bills still spell financial ruin for many families, especially as health care costs continue to grow faster than the rate of inflation.

http://bad-credit.interest.com/qanda/credit_score_unpaid_medical_bills_qa_11192007.html

[the-leh.livejournal.com]

No, that's not true. Medical debt is still debt and it's what has my current credit score super low.