New York Renovator

HAHA! I found these online: Republican playing cards. LOL! They are playing cards, and have John McCain on them. They are cards that support McCain, so you probably wouldn’t buy them for Obama supporters, unless you like gag gifts (like me, LOL).The cards have McCain pundits (like Rush LImbaugh) on the other side, as wild animals. They are REAL playing cards that you really can play with, if you can stomach the faces of the candidates and their pundits. :-p

The site has a bunch of other cards, including ones for Obama. I thought it would be cool to mention the cards here, since I’ve been posting so often on politics and corrupt government lately. Heh heh.

I saw this video at Sustainable Backyard and just HAD to post it here. What a terrific idea! It’s called Eat The View, and it’s a “grassroots” (literally) campaign to get small vegetable gardens growing everywhere, and especially at the White House.

My friend Chilly over at On the Bricks gave me an award! I am deeply honored. It is one of the best awards out there, I think. Just take a look at this!

Thank you so much, Chilly.

Apparently, I’ve been getting “CPU Quota Exceeded” errors for this blog. It may have something to do with my theme. I’ve tweaked it a little, and had to dump some great but hogging plugins. Would you let me know if something seems quirky or doesn’t work right? Thanks! Now, if I would only keep my house as neat and clean…

The entire summer has been a weird one, for weather. A frost in June, then bone dry, then a very soggy July. It rains so often and without any warning that it is hard to get any outdoor work done. Even right now, the sun is shining on half the property and on the other side, it’s raining.

Yesterday was a weird day for weather, especially. One of the commenters here mentioned something about a tornado watch in Upstate. I never heard one for my area, but we have had several warnings this summer, and a few tornadoes and waterspouts hitting. I am a tornado survivor- I was a baby living in Cayuga County when a tornado hit the town. It brought down a few trees, including a tree on our house that we were in at the time. Totally demolished the kitchen, from what I am told. The event made newspapers.

Threecollie at Northview Diary discussed yesterday’s wacky weather, and got some incredible photos of the cloud formations. At the same time, I was on my way to WalMart with my boys. I was driving up the highway when I noticed large groups of crows flying overhead, to the east. We always see crows flying, but these seemed unusual, and I pointed it out to my boys. I saw three larger groups of crows all flying eastward. Huh. As we continued our drive, we saw the strangest clouds! I snatched Threecollie’s photo– be sure to go to her site for more– to show you:

The clouds I saw were like that, except half of the sky was sunny and clear as a bell. And huge shafts of sulfury-yellow rays were streaming out from the clouds. It was like someone had stirred up a large, gray pot of mashed potatoes and shined a yellow flashlight through it. And then had smeared the horizon with gray-green paint. I didn’t hear any thunder, but the skies were very angry.

The boys and I went in to shop, me hoping that the power didn’t go out in the middle of our checking out. Everything seemed fine inside; and when we were ready to cart our bags out to the van, the skies had cleared again– although it had obviously rained because the parking lot, the cars, and people’s strollers were wet and dripping.

What a wild summer of weird weather!

I wrote about our power outage earlier this week. Power outages are rare for my neighborhood. My block is on the same grid as much of the commercial district, so the power company has extreme measures to keep this grid up and running. However, Monday we had a severe thunderstorm and we lost power for several hours that morning. Power outages give me the willies because we have two sump pumps in our basement that absolutely MUST stay on. If they are off for more than an hour, my basement floods.

Here’s a photo of our predicament Monday, when the water started to rise from the sump well. GULP.

Thank God, the power was restored before the water got too high. We’ve seen water rise up to three feet in that basement. It’s a constant worry, and I’ve seriously considered selling the property because the flooding causes me such anxiety. I just cannot live in a house and on property that floods when we have moderate to heavy rains. We are in the process of (slowly) dealing with the problem, but a large part of the problem has to do with my property is the only greenspace in a large area of asphalt parking lots, and there has been a lot of over-development in the lands up the hill from me. My yard seems to be the depository of all the run-off water, and my lawn can only soak in so much. So we have a high water table and it seeps up through the basement.

Anyway, all is well today. But I’m off to clean the basement floor again before it starts to smell like a pond!

Holy cow! Or, Holy Shmoley, as a friend likes to say. I just want to express my shock (and trepidation) that WordPress has issued another update to their blogging software. I JUST updated everything, people! Wow, lol. I’m busy enough….

To those who expressed curiosity about out latest “pet,” we’ve discovered it’s just a common garter snake.

My son has named him “Marshall” because we found him in the swampy area of the yard.

It’s only the second snake we’ve ever seen here on our property. I wish the things would eat all the Japanese beetles we’ve been seeing this year. Those durn bugs are everywhere. Must be due to the soggy summer we’ve had. They’ve chewed up part of my little oak tree.

Well, anyway, the snake is not poisonous, and for now, he’s a curiosity to the children. We’ll have to let him go pretty soon.

You can get two free magazines from Family Circle– check out the offer here. The offer is through a samples company, and they require that you sign up with them to get free samples. I did register– they ask for your name, address, and email, and you create a username with password. You can opt in or out to get emails with offers and coupons from stores that offer everything from UGG boots to cell phone service. I opted in, just for kicks, so we’ll see how it goes. If you don’t like giving away your address and/or receiving mailings, then this probably isn’t for you. I’m always looking for ways to save a buck, so I think I will like it.

I found this free offer through the blog The Samples Girl. She tries to post news about free samples every day. It’s a great blog for cheapskates (like me)!

I saw an interesting news article at CNN, Is Your Job Recession-Proof? Here in Upstate New York, most people can (and have) answered that question with a resounding “no.” We’ve seen not only a massive exodus of people leave the state, but a massive exodus of jobs. New York State is perhaps the most hostile for business, or we’re a close second to California. Excessively high taxation, high and stringent regulation, penalties for non-union and non-corporation businesses, and an extremely high cost of living are the main causes. It’s been building to a climax for nearly 30 years now, and the poor frog in the pan is almost cooked through.

However, there are some temporarily recession-proof jobs in the state. But they are all all government jobs. And government jobs are paid for by taxpayers in the private sector. When you have a decreasing population, a remaining population with fewer jobs and lower wages, and a high cost of living, the schism between cushy government jobs and the working people is overwhelming and totally unsustainable.

So it is with this knowledge that I read the CNN article. Their list of recession-proof jobs is as follows:

1. Education –we’ll need more teachers, says CNN; we’ll get only more administrators, says Mrs. Mecomber. Education jobs are 100% funded by taxpayers.

2. Energy sector –oil, gas, and geothermal industry, and more engineers. Taxpayers pay for research and some corporations get government support/bail-outs.

3. Environmental sector –engineers and scientists for research into “green” technology. Again, research is heavily funded by taxpayers.

4. Health Care –nurses, technicians, etc. Health care is already bankrolled by the states; should it go national, expect a collapse of the economy, not a boost. Like P.J. O’Rourke said, “f you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free.”

5. Security –border patrols, police, Homeland “Security” jobs, etc. These are 100% taxpayer-funded jobs.

Now, there are a lot of jobs in the private sector that belong in that list. But by and large, education, environment, health care, and security are mainstays of governmental jobs. I do not see how on earth that jobs can continue to grow in the government, with wages and perks going higher and higher, while the taxpayers are suffering job losses and extremely high cost of living. Taxes are continually going up, and taxpayers are going under. You’d think that there would be a clarion call for government to shrink in size, and build a new policy toward encouraging small business. Nope. Everything is going to China or India, except government jobs. Oh wait– some government jobs are going there, too, because fewer and fewer taxpayers are able to support the great big behemoth that is U.S. government and all its bureaucracies (not to mention all the perks, pork and taxpayer-funded cruises).

I don’t see how this kind of economy can sustain itself in a capitalist economic system. Of course, I don’t think many in government want a capitalist system anymore. Doesn’t this type of economy they are pushing on us look a lot like fascism?

Thanks to Attempts at Sustainable Living for the CNN news story.