Random Musings...

I found it interesting that in Middle Tennessee, “mounted police” is actually a police officer in a pickup truck. I kid you not. I saw it the other day and laughed my ass off. Only in TN!

Why is it when a city decides to prune trees hanging in the road or growing over power lines that they have to decimate the poor tree? On one road I travel EVERY week day, there is a line of trees that have been hacked apart. One doesn’t even look like a tree. It looks like a tall stump with a few leaf-less branches sticking out of it. It’s terrible. There is a whole line of them. Trees that have been hacked off in the middle or carved out in the middle just because of what they are growing into. If you’re going to make the tree look that ugly and no longer resemble a tree, take the damn thing out of the ground. I would rather see trees pulled up and replaced with shrubs of some sort than look at the ugly monstrosity that is left behind. The saddest part of all – to me, anyway – is that people get paid to do this. Take a little pride in what you’re doing, damn it! Take a look at the tree before you start and picture it without the part you’re getting ready to hack off. If you think it will make the tree look less than a tree, DON’T DO IT!

I haven’t been keeping up with the Presidential candidates yet. I’ve read a little on all of them, but I have pretty much decided to wait until after the primaries to see who’s actually in the running before I really delve into it (yeah…I’m not going to vote in the primaries – I never have). Anyway, I do read the news websites each day including CNN and USA Today along with the four local papers/news stations. Anyway, I read on one today that religion is a big topic during this election. In a way, I understand this because people will act they way they feel/think/believe is right, whatever they feel is the best course of action; and a lot of times, it all comes down to a morality call. I’m not really interested in the religion of each of the candidates. I’m more interested in the character of the candidates. Show me how they have reacted to things in the past (it’s the best predictor of how they are going to react under the same pressure/similar situation the next time). Show me someone who lives by the morals they profess instead of just spouting a bunch of words they think we want to hear that they won’t live by once they are elected anyway. I do not vote along partisan lines. I couldn’t even tell you which party I belong to (my voter card says Republican). I am more complex than that. I vote more on who I think will do the best job in the office, the one that will represent America to the world in the best way possible, the person that isn’t afraid to make hard decisions because of how others will think. I also want someone that will not let the power go to his/her head. Honestly, I really don’t think we’re ready for a female President and there’s just something about Hilary that I just don’t trust and feel comfortable with. I don’t know that the world is ready for the most powerful leader in the world to be a woman. Maybe that’s just me, but I would think we’d be in for many more attacks because the world would see a female as a pushover or an easy target – someone who would let emotion control them more than intellect.

Things have been kind of tight financially for me and H lately. Actually, it isn’t lately. It’s been this way for the past six years as we’ve both been in college (and both finished in three years). It seems that we should be able to breathe financially now that we are both out of school, both have degrees, both have full-time jobs, and both are pulling in a paycheck. H considers my paycheck to be half a paycheck since I bring home in a whole month what he brings home in one paycheck (I get paid once a month, he gets paid twice a month). Whatever! Just because my pay is less does not make it less of a paycheck. It’s more money than we would have if I were to stay home. Anyway, we have two credit cards that we are trying to pay off and two student loans we are paying off. We made the mistake when H started school of putting his tuition and books on a credit card instead of taking out a student loan (we didn’t know about student loans when he started). Needless to say, we have been chipping away at them slowly. We have decided to limit what we put on the credit cards each month to give us a little breather because by the end of the month, we are taking money out of savings to get to the end of the month where we both get paid. We have decided to continue putting $400 extra to the credit card with the highest APR and continue to put about $140 to the card with the lowest APR. That way, we’re still putting extra to both cards without draining the finances by the end of the month.

Anyway…that’s all for now. Until later….