Week in Review

Another week has flown by. Here are a few of the highlights or stresslights:

• James hasn't felt well this week. The almost-nurse in the house hasn't quite diagnosed himself, but is worried he might have bronchitis, the flu, or a terrible chest cold. The non-nurse in the house thinks that if he is sick one more day, he needs to visit the doctor.
• I am a little stressed about my job future. Remember I took at 1-year position at Murray High? Well, the person who I replaced can't quite figure out whether she is going to return or not. She has until March 1st to decide. In the meantime, I have been preparing applications, letters of recommendation, etc. to apply elsewhere. The good news is that I teach math and there is a huge shortage of math teachers. The bad news is that we are in scary economic times with legislative cuts and 1) if I do get to keep my job at Murray, but the budget and dropping enrollment means we have to let a math teacher go, I'd be it and 2) other districts will likely not be in a hurry to hire this year and I might have to just wait things out and that really stresses me out. I have faith that things will work out, though.
• James talked to some army recruiters this week and had thoughts of joining up active duty after he graduates. There are a lot of benefits to joining up active duty in a medical officer slot, but that also means we would be leaving Utah and headed to the middle of Texas or somewhere for three years. I'm not so sure what I think about that.
• I need to start a Master's Degree program and I think I finally found one through USU that I can do online and actually interests me. Thanks mom, for helping me to feel confident about these decisions. There are still some bugs to work out before I apply, but I have started the process.
• Willie's junior high b-ball team is a little off beat. Willie is improving every game and really starting to show some sweet skills. He was even excited to report that on Thursday's announcements at school, he was the "defensive player of the game." Way to go Willie! I don't have total faith in his coach, they've lost a few, and I worry that my dad will have a massive heart attack at a basketball game before Willie graduates from high school, but otherwise, it's been a fun season.
• I need to go get in the shower. Annie is bringing Elliott over today and I get to tend him all day!!! I love him! I am excited to be an aunt again in May!

"Rules for Living"

Since Grandma Petersen passed away and my dad and his siblings went through her house, I have had a couple of boxes of things sitting on my bedroom floor. They were things I wanted to keep from Grandma's house, but have since just let sit on the floor. Since I had the day off today, I thought I would go through the boxes and try to put some things away. I came across a "Dear Abby" column that my Grandma had saved. It lists the "Rules for Living," by President James A. Garfield. I thought I would share them:

-Never be idle.
-Make few promises.
-Always speak the truth.
-Live within your income.
-Never speak evil of anyone.
-Keep good company or none.
-Live up to your engagements.
-Never play games of chance.
-Drink no intoxicating drinks.
-Good character is above everything else.
-Keep your own secrets if you have any.
-Never borrow if you can possibly help it.
-Do not marry until you are able to support a wife.
-When you speak to a person, look into his eyes.
-Save when you are young and spend when you are old.
-Never run into debt unless you can see a way out again.
-Good company and good conversation are the sinews of virtue.
-Your character cannot be essentially injured except by your own acts.
-If anybody speaks evil of you, let your life be so that no one believes him.
-When you retire at night think over what you have done during the day.
-If your hands cannot be employed usefully, attend to the culture of your mind.
-Read the above carefully and thoughtfully at least once a week.

I was reading this article in Newsweek while eating my toast this morning. I thought the last two paragraphs were extra poignant. I thought I'd share.

The article is refering to the bank stimulus package last fall, not the stimulus that is ready to pass today. The $18 billion that is mentioned is the number supposedly spent in bonuses paid to the higher-ups of all the big bank companies that Presiden Obama called, "shameful," last week.

"The Stimulus That Didn't Stir" by Jonathan Alter

Actually, $18 bilion smacks of, well, $18 billion. That's almost five times as much as we spend each year trying to cure cancer, which kills 500,000 Americans annually. It's twice what's in the stimulus for building mass transit, which creates thousands of jobs and cuts our dependence on foreign oil. The simplest thing would be for the banks to just collet the money back from the six-, seven- and eight-figure-income employees and lend it out to help get the economy moving again.

In the land of trillions, $18 billion might seem like a rounding error. But, let's review what happened to the average person in the last six months. First, these financial geniuses made a series of bad decisions that cost us a least 30 percent of the value of everything we own. Then we gave them $700 billion of our children's money so they could stay afloat. And now they're rewarding them selves for their incompetence with our tax dollars. This is what our casino culture has brought us, and it cannot stand.

Names

Disclaimer 1: Please don't take offense. This is all in good, clean fun!

Disclaimer 2: No. We are not having kids. It would not be a wise thing for a school teacher and an unemployed student to do.

There seems to be a lot of pregnant people around lately (Annie, Melinda, Tara). Because of this, James and I have had a couple of recent conversations about baby names. If we were to stick with only family names when naming our children that we don't have, we would name the boy: Karl LaRon Binggeli. Doesn't that sound great? Or is LaRon Karl better?

Ok, we're kidding. We like both of our dad's a lot and they are both great men, but we're not so sure their names would be the best choice.

How about the girl? Well that's an easy decision. LaRonette Judith Binggeli. Isn't it a beautiful name?

And in other news . . .

Annie and Ross were pretty upset with me for posting the name Vladamir to my blog after they had confided that name with me. I'm really sorry, but I just felt like the blog world needed to know what the name of your future child is. Since the exploitation of little Vladie's name, they have since decided to change it. I promised them I would not reveal it here, but if I did, I would tell you that it reflects Annie and Ross' love of geography and is a state name that starts with an "N" and rhymes with "braska." (Ha. Ha. Ha. They'll never know I told.)

Get your FLU shots

We had a lecture on the flu this last week. I guess it was to scare us, and it worked for me. Do any of you know about the FLU of 1918. If not, I suggest that you look it up. We have a similar thing today, commonly called the bird flu in Asia. It could do the same if it mutates enough human strains. There are 4 known deaths so far. It is called the H5N1 virus. I suggest that you look it up. Thanks for listening blog world. Here is a video that we watch in class from the CDC.