Pausing

Today is Labor Day. The day our country has decided to dedicate to the hard working people of our nation. I pondered this as I stood in line at my local convenience store making a purchase. I am off today. Matter of fact, I have been on vacation for the last week. I did very little vacationing actually. I spent all week in my garage. No, I do not have the epitomy of a working man's garage. I have a 30 x 20 storage facility attached to my house. One day it may actually be a garage, but I do not know if I will be alive to see it. Perhaps the grandchildren will enjoy it. Likely, before I pass onto the ether, it will become a game room, with the door sealed closed and then insulated, carpeted and sound proofed. the grandchildren may enjoy that even more than it's use as intended...to park my car inside of.

A gameroom would be much more suited anyway. Then we would have the 'excersise pole' my wife has coveted for years. The money is on the idea of a excersise pole being long washed away with having that extra space as a guest room when our children visit with their babes. For now it is storage. But one day, one day... Hey a man can dream right?

Tomorrow the kids go back to school. It's going to be a a cluster**ck. I return to work as well. Huge scheduling error on my part. I have lived in our commonwealth for 6 years. Every year the children have returned to school on the week before Labor Day. I, having finally caught onto the schedule, arranged my own vacation to occur the week before Labor Day. This year they start school the day after the holiday, so I was blessed with the company of our daughters for the week. It wasn't that bad really, and I really do love spending time with them. But they sleep all day and are up all night, sometimes not appearing before 5pm. That's okay too, really. However, now that I have gotten used to sleeping in until 8-9 am, I realise I am faced with the same problem they will no doubt have all this week. Tomorrow I am to go in at 7am. I have no idea how the three of us will wrestle hot water, breakfast and arrival times. I think I will ask my body to awake around 4:30 - 5:00 am. I really have no idea if this will work or not. Wish me luck.

Tomorrow, our president will address the children, and encourage them to stay in school, live the dream, and believe that one day, they too may become president of the good old U S of A. Locally, our county will not be taking pause to listen to the address. In their judgement, it being the first day, the interuption will cause too many wrinkles in their proven success of opening day activities. I do not have a problem with this decision. I applaud it. I was discussing this speach with my good friend Bubba, and pointed out the hypocrisy in the speach content, and intent.

I have a difficult time placing my belief in an education program that resulted with the dismissal of over 60 teachers in my commonwealth this passed summer. This was after the $180 million stimulus that was recieved by the same. I still have yet to see any jobs created by this input of cash to spend. Bubba pointed out that the federal government could not dictate on how the money was spent to the states. I asked if GM, Ford, and Chrysler read their fine print when they accepted their stimulus monies. We changed the subject to mention that if American car companies lowered their price by $4500 then people would buy new cars.

I wondered aloud if in a Socialist Regime, was there a ligitmate democratic process to determine a president. I am impressed that one day someone says, " I am taking ova, you shall call me 'El Presindente'! " And that is that.

Then we continued our search for plastic chairs.

You folks know plastic chairs right? They stack on top of each other, usually are white, and when it rains they get this little puddle right in the middle of the seat. Backyard plastic chairs. A month ago I saw a ton of them on sale for a great price while I was at Lowe's. We had some guests over the weekend and decided that we needed to make a purchase of these little plastic chairs. Off Bubba and I go to Lowe's. Sold out. No problem, WalMart is next door.. off we go. Sold out. The city I live in is not small. According to census results for last year, more people live in my city than in the entire state of Idaho. We searched 6 different locations for these chairs.. none to be found. I am slowly realising that I am in the wrong business. I should be selling plastic chairs. Bubba and I decided to just grab some beers and head back to the porch.. the stairs are really not that uncomfortable... especially after a few beers.

I do have a part time job, however, it pays really good and I don't have to pay any taxes on the income.. I don't think I do anyway. Likely after I post this a new line will appear on your 1040EZ..... Income from Yard Sale $ ____.__. Now I know mathematically I am losing money over the long run. The items I am selling in a yard sale do not even closley recoup the outpay at purchase. It is however, cash in hand, so I feel good about the results. It may be ultimately that if we did not buy these items that are of no use to us, then we would not need to recoup any costs because we would have the money. We all know that is not going to happen, so a yard sale 'feels' like new money, and I am happy living the facade that we, 'made some money', from our yard sale. Looking back across my storage room after the yard sale I realised we need to do about ten more of these if we ever plan to have a game room. My plan is to keep having them until it gets too cold to go outside or we run out of stuff, or people get tired of seeing my sign and stop coming altogether.

Or me and Bubba can just sit on the porch steps and drink beer. No money in that, I know. But it will give me plenty of time to dream.