Thanksgiving and Stuff

Whew! November went by fast! We had a great Thanksgiving Day with Mike's family at Uncle John's with lots of family, food, and feasting! Sam spent Wednesday night with us and went to her dad's for dinner. The rest of us spent the evening stuffed like a turkey, but happy and content.

I did a little shopping on Black Friday, but found there wasn't much that I wanted that I couldn't find online for cheaper with free shipping! I scored a few good deals at Amazon...Next year, check out www.bfads.net. They have great posts on the ads before they come out and also post the online deals that start on Thanksgiving Day. This year we had already shopped by the time we went to Thanksgiving Dinner. How easy is that?!!?

Saturday Mike went to get all our Christmas lights and found that most were broken. We had these really awesome big lights that Walmart only sold for one year. I guess it is because they don't stand up to the test of time. I miss the big lights. They were so pretty. So, we bought all new mini lights. It's just not the same...now we look like everybody else. We also spent some time at the city park so Marly and Chris could Rollerblade. The weather has been great!

Work has been C-R-A-Z-Y with the store being a huge mess. I just can't believe how messy holiday shoppers are. Most people just throw everything on the floor, trample on it, and then leave behind them a wake of rumpled up stuff. I just have to say, if you are one of those people you are causing the prices of what you buy to go up because the store has to pay people like me to go behind you and clean up after you. And, please be nice to your store employees. They are most likely new seasonal hires who don't know ANYTHING because they did not get any training.

Just my loud mouth .02 worth...

Batchelor Family.org Website Changes

Where have I been? Busy, busy, busy....I recently upgraded the design of my family website, of which this blog is a part, to have a new design. Check it out and let me know what you think! I plan on using a similar design for this blog so they both tie together. Maybe I'll even get it done before the Thanksgiving weekend is over. *sigh* My life would be so boring without my hobbies!

There is only one part of the page I don't like and it is the green square. It is supposed to have a family pic, but I have not gotten it to look right yet. Plus, my dear hubby does not like that I put so many family pics on the web. So, I may have to change to something else.

Web Design Details (for those who are interested):

The image for this website was created with a Free program called Web Shot. Very easy to use and installs quick. I'm using Drupal 6 (also a freebie!) as my content manager, which I absolutely LOVE! It takes a bit to get Drupal working, but once it is installed it makes content creation a breeze.

P.S. I am available for Drupal installation and tutoring.

State Fair 2008

We went to the State Fair this year on the homeschool day and it was also Halloween. It was kind of lame. Everything was closed in the morning. Some of our favorite rides were closed and it was an incredibly hot 96 degrees that day! Come on! October 31st needs to be much cooler than that.

Here is a slide show of our pictures at the fair. We did enjoy the animals, as always, and the art exhibits.

Birthday's

This is our BUSY time of year with Birthday's. All our children are another year older!

Sam is 17 and a beauty! Her personality is so fun and outgoing. We love and miss her very much since she is staying mostly with her dad right now. We celebrated her birthday early with a family party and then I took her shopping, her favorite pastime, for a new outfit.

Marly is now 14 and such a sweet girl! We enjoy her calm and pleasant nature. She is so helpful around the house and learning quite a few homemaking skills - cooking, crocheting, cleaning - and she takes care of the garden and the chickens. We celebrated her birthday with a family bowling outing, which is how she wanted to spend her birthday.


Chris is now a 12 year old Deacon! He was recently ordained in the Aaronic Priesthood. He passed the sacrament and talked in church for the first time...on the same day! Boy, they don't waste much time in our ward. He is a creative boy who enjoys making new projects - wood swords, catapults, crossbows - and he makes up his own games. Chris had a few friends spend the night for his birthday party.

Misinterpretations of the Constitution

I took a class from nccs.net earlier this year and it was fantastic. It opened my eyes to many things about our country that I had not known or understood before. This is part of an email I received and I wanted to share it with everyone. I highly recommend taking the time to read The 5000 Year Leap. It helped me to understand just how many of our freedoms we have lost.

Only Two Ways to Interpret the Constitution One of the friends of the Founders in the present Supreme Court is Justice Clarence Thomas. In a recent speech, he said: "Let me put it this way; there are really only two ways to interpret the Constitution--try to discern as best we can what the framers intended or make it up. No matter how ingenious, imaginative or artfully put, unless interpretive methodologies are tied to the original intent of the framers, they have no more basis in the Constitution than the latest football scores." (Wall Street Journal Opinion, October 20, 2008) A look at several of today's issues clearly reveals most of our government programs today are far from the Founders' original intent and as Justice Thomas says, have about as much basis in the Constitution as the latest football scores--the authority is purely made-up. For example: U. S. foreign policy: Founders' intent : Expressed in the Monroe Doctrine wherein the U. S. promised to stay out of the affairs of other nations, particularly those of the eastern hemisphere. Made-up intent: Involve ourselves in the affairs of nearly every nation on earth and try to buy their friendship with money we don't even have. U. S. monetary policy: Founders' intent : Congress to establish and control our money system based on gold and silver standard to prevent manipulation. Made-up intent : Give control of monetary system to private bankers who issue fiat money which lets them make money out of nothing--money on which we then pay them interest. Federalism or vertical separation of powers : Founders' intent : Only limited and carefully defined powers to the federal government. Government concerned with people's lives and property is only at state level or lower. Made-up intent : Allowing Washington to have direct influence and control of local government, which destroys strong local self-government. Horizontal Separation of Power: Founders' intent : The power to make law was given exclusively to the representatives of the people in Congress. Made-up intent : More laws are being made by the executive and judicial departments than are made by congress, which effect millions of people and their property. National Debt: Founders' intent : Debt is a temporary evil and if used must be paid off before the generation that borrowed it leaves the scene. It is immoral to pass debt on to next generation. It amounts to taxation without representation. Made-up intent : Debt is a blessing to America. We can borrow ourselves wealthy. Passing debt onto the next generation allows those to pay the debt who will benefit from the programs paid for by the borrowed money. Income Tax: Founders' intent : The Founders put a prohibition of income tax into the Constitution because its enforcement violates the privacy rights of U.S. citizens. They said there are much better ways to raise revenue. Made-up intent : Unconstitutional programs pushed in the "Progressive Era" became so expensive that new sources of revenue needed to be developed. A tax on incomes began at two percent and is only limited by what politicians can get away with. It is also a vehicle to implement a graduated tax to redistribute wealth. Welfare Programs: Founders' intent : The Founders' scale of fixed responsibility for one's welfare is: self, family, church, community, county, and state. Never was the federal government to be involved in welfare programs. Made-up intent : The federal government has unconstitutionally become the sugar daddy of the American people. One reason the federal government has done this is because the monetary system lets the money managers create money out of nothing. It buys votes and wins elections. Agriculture: Founders' intent : The Founders specifically excluded agriculture from the purview of federal authority saying it is only a local and state function. Made-up intent : Government programs in agriculture have taken away the freedom to fail, a necessary ingredient in the free-market system. The federal government has increased the cost of food by layer upon layer of regulation. Marriage and Domestic Law: Founders' intent : The core unit which determines the strength of any society is the family, therefore governments have the responsibility to foster and protect its integrity. Made-up intent : State and federal judiciaries have injected themselves into the questions of marriage, redefining marriage and endangering the most fundamental building block of society. Thomas Jefferson constantly warned against letting the federal government gradually usurp power over the people. Such bureaucracies bring heavy spending and debt. He said such debt would put the people under such a burden that all they can do is to work long hours in order to survive. Said he: "And to preserve their independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude . If we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, [and] give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses; and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes; have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account; but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow sufferers.... This is the tendency of all human governments." (The Making of America , page 395) Sadly, with the makeup of our new administration and congress, it looks like we may be far down the road to fulfilling Jefferson's fears. Sincerely, Earl Taylor, Jr. P.S. Our seminars around the country are increasing in number and frequency. Click here to see if one is coming close to you or your friends.

National Center for Constitutional Studies

37777 West Juniper Road
Malta, ID
83342
US

Problems with Blogger

I have been trying to get Blogger to fix the problem with the dates of my post's not showing up. Now "My Blog List" got all messed up again and I lost the list I had on there. So, I'm sorry nobody can see the dates of when I post the messages. It will take me a couple days to get My Blog List up again. I need to find the blogs I had listed....what a pain!

Sorry - this is not a positive post! I'm just frustrated that I can't get any real people to answer my complaint about the dates not showing up.

2001 Toyota Tacoma for Sale!

Unfortunately, we need to sell Mike's prize possession...his Toyota truck! His company has cut our income and we can no longer keep this wonderful truck. We are very blessed to still HAVE a job since Mike has survived several layoffs and is one of the lucky few still left at the company. However, we have still taken many cuts. My job is also cutting back on hours, although I am trying to get more by cross-training for other positions.

Please see our Cragislist post for more info.

Patriotic Posts

I was going to post all these great things about voting and being patriotic, but I found others have better things to say than I do. So check out my friend Jessica's blog.

Home of the Brave

Also - I have been receiving tons of emails to look at You Tube videos of awful commercials and such. I personally feel that to look at them gives them a higher rating and more publicity. So, I do not look at them and encourage you not to give the adversary any more of your time.