Tis the Season...

So, it's not yet December 1st and I am almost completely done with my holiday shopping. This is not a bragging point, simply a notice of amazement and somewhat of disbelief. The knowledge that I have only to go and get XXXX for my brother, and maybe check out some XXXX for my dad (I already have one gift for each), and that everyone else is covered.... Well, that almost takes the excitement out of the season. I don't know what to do. It's almost anti-climactic. I mean, these already purchased items are even wrapped already and I'm kind of at a loss now. What am I supposed to worry about for the next 30 days? I happen to know that this year I kicked butt like Bruce Lee in the choosing of gifts people will like. If something should happen to me before Christmas gets here, no one will be stuck thinking "Why did she get me this?"

Okay, that is beginning to sound an awful lot like bragging. Sorry. My point is, what do all those people who get their shopping done before November DO with the rest of the season? My lights are up, my home is decorated (except for the tree, which we're doing tomorrow). What am I supposed to do? I've never ever been done this early. I think my record for earliest completely done is around December 12, and next closest is the 18th. Usually, I'm out on Christmas Eve, looking for those last-minute bargains and stocking stuffers, desperately trying to find something for one or both of my parents. I am usually wrapping stuff into the wee hours of Christmas morning, getting a whopping 3-4 hours sleep because of my late-night "wrap session." I can't even imagine why I'm done so early. What is pushing me this year? Maybe the world is coming to an end and this is some sort of bizarre nesting behavior? I don't know.

Actually, I do still have to go get XXXX for my father-in-law. And, I'm still waiting on the XXXX XXXX and the XXXX to arrive so I can wrap them for their intended parties. I did a lot of shopping online. But really, all of that's going to take like, 30 minutes.

I could stand to get something more for my oldest. He pretty much has one major gift and a couple of XXXX, which I know he'll like, but it might seem a bit of a letdown, so I might look for something else. Maybe. The major gift is pretty cool.... I don't know. I think I'm just suffering some holiday blah's. In any case, if I died in the next 5 minutes, everybody (except dad-in-law) has got something. Let me tell you, he is hard to buy for. Most of the stuff he'd be thrilled to get, my mom-in-law would kill me for - and rightly so. That singing fish is just too much....

Anyway, I just don't feel spirited. I think I must be one of those people who enjoys the pressures of the holidays. Kinda makes sense. I do my best work under pressure - whatever kind of work it is, I do really well under the threat of a deadline.

Speaking of , I have dishes to do and my hubby will be home in 45 minutes.... Gotta love those deadlines.

Elections - Good and Bad

So, the elections are over and Bush finally saw the middle finger that we've all been waving at him for some time now because the entire country used it to vote with. This was a good thing. So, like any teenager having a kegger, he reailzed Mom and Dad have just pulled into the driveway and he decided to blame / fire Rumsfeld. "It's his fault - he brought the beer!!" Bonus!!!

On the bad side. Locally, our election was no surprise, except for the ballot measures. Oregonians on the whole voted stupidly this last election. Mind you, these are not the candidates at issue here, but the measures. We voted against state term limits, voted for free prescription drug coverage for rich people, and voted to have only judges from the two major metropolitan areas make the decisions about the rural areas of Oregon. We voted against being informed if our child is having an abortion - she can't get a mole removed at the doctors or even take an aspirin at school without our permission, but she can get an abortion and it's not our business (this was not even an anti-abortion measure - it was anti-parents). We voted that insurance companies should continue using our credit rating as a guide for our rates, instead of using our actual loss / claims records. Example, we have moderate credit and pay would $45 a month to insure a 1987 Dodge Caravan. My folks have sparkling credit and are paying $17 a month to insure that same exact car - and with more coverage. We, neither me nor my husband, have not had any claims, losses, accidents, or even so much as a speeding ticket in the last 11 years. My parents have had, together, 3 speeding tickets, and two accidents in the same time period. AND YET... because their credit rating is excellent, they pay nearly $20 a month less than we would to insure the same car against ACCIDENTS! If the insurance company was a LENDER, then they would have a reason to base the rates on credit ratings. But, they are an insurer against accidents / losses and other claims. My credit should be none of their ^%$$%@#!!!! business!!!!! We're low-income and our credit will never shine, no matter how well I manage our money (and I do manage it well). So, I am angry because the voters decided to continue punishing the poor with high costs for insurance, and reward the rich, who wreck their expensive cars, with cheaper rates.

^*%$%^#$%*&*%*!#$*&^#%^$#$$%$!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We also voted against putting a reasonable spending cap on government - we voted against a measure that would have regulated the legislature by stating that you can only increase the budget by the percent of increase in population, and the increase in inflation combined. We even more stupidly voted down a measure which would amend our state constiution to allow laws to be made about campaign spending. The subsequent measure, which is to be a law that limits campaign spending, passed, but is now unconstitutional because the amedment measure did not pass. We have a bunch of arrogant dummies here in this state. I'm sorry, but that's basically it. They saw the words "Amends Constitution" and freaked out and voted "no" automatically. They couldn't be bothered to read the actual text and comprehend that it was vital to the following measure. And, they were too arrogant to let it be known that they didn't understand that - God forbid they ask a question!!! OOPS - can't say GOD forbid - it might infringe on someone's religious freedoms.

While I am happy about the turnovers in the federal house and senate, as well as the democratic dominance in my own state legislature, I am genuinely ANGRY at the blind idiocy that the constituancy tends to display when it comes to ballot measures. I would love for the voter's books to be written in plain English and not a dialect of legal-confusion. Maybe that would help the voters understand the measurs. But, that would require a vote of the people, and, quite frankly, they wouldn't understand the measure because it would still be written in non-plain English. Kind of a dog chasing its own tail kind of thing.

And, it's not going to get better because we are doing a worse-than-poor job of educating our kids now than was done when the current generations of voters were educated. The days of progress are gone.