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Good news for the New Year . . .


Larry Kudlow has an interesting column on www.townhall.com.  With regards to the unemployment rate, Mr. Kudlow reports (for 2004) “Outside of the bubble economy of the late 1990s, this would mark the lowest unemployment rate since 1973.” 


He also predicts “. . . at 5 percent or lower unemployment, the 4 percent growth rate of the economy will spur a flood of new individual tax collections at lower tax rates. Hence, another economic surprise of 2005 will be a pronounced decline in the federal budget deficit. “


Good news indeed for those of us responsible for providing for our families.  Good news for our much-maligned-by-the-left president.  If you’d like to read the complete article, click over to http://www.townhall.com/columnists/larrykudlow/lk20050109.shtml.  For some equally encouraging prose, check this out, too:  http://www.thbookservice.com/BookPage.asp?prod_cd=c6579.   Amazingly, a German reporter documents how much better the American economic model is over the European model.  I’m not usually interested in this type of writing, but I’d really like to read this book!

Posted on by Laura Jinkins · 5 Comments

A spy by any other name . . .


I know you were watching, Miss O’Hara!  My husband and I have you to thank for this addiction . . .


I read about Sydney Bristow on Miss O’Hara’s blog months and months ago.  Started renting the DVD’s since I’d never watched the show.  Watched almost an entire season in one very long night . . . ohmygoodness, it was like eating peanuts, but so much more exciting! 


Tonight’s season premiere was good.  There were a couple of things that got on my nerves — for one, Sydney’s under-her-breath comments to Sloane at the beginning, but considering the full scope of their history, I suppose those comments were justifiable.  It just made her look so childish . . . and she’s anything but!  The other didn’t have a thing to do with the show.  Have you ever seen that many commercials during a two-hour program??????


My husband commented that you’d think it was the Super Bowl and advertising was at a premium.  I replied, “Well, you know all of America’s watching to find out just what it was she read on those documents in Whittenburg!”


And wasn’t that wild????  Jack had Irina executed?!?!  And then to find out why . . . thank goodness we got a little bit of that story (although I’m sure there’s much, much more to it) before evening’s end, or I don’t think I would have been able to stand it!


On the home business front . . . .


We have a potential job ahead of us (and I’m fairly confident it’s in the bag, although it’s never good to count one’s chickens before they hatch) that is a doozy!  A local convenience store chain hired us to provide solar shades for one of their stores.  They liked them well enough that they’d like us to give them a contract quote for the remaining 19 stores in their chain.  Wowsers!  This weekend, my husband and I will be driving about 500 miles round trip to measure the windows in six of the stores.  (The other stores are all local and easily done without an excess of driving.)


We will be hitting Eagle Lake, Giddings, Luling, Gonzales, Port Lavaca, and El Campo in our travels!  Because there’s absolutely no way we can drive all those miles and measure all those windows in a single day, we’re staying over in Gonzales.  There aren’t any hotel/motel type establishments that I could find through Yahoo! Travel, so I went to the ever-so-trusty www.BBOnline.com.


We’ll be stopping over at http://www.stjamesinn.com .  Their regular rates are about $125 per night, but the innkeeper is giving us a business rate of $85 per night, plus tax.  And that includes a full breakfast for two.  The inn has a 3-diamond rating with AAA, so it should be nice.  While this is a business trip, it’s been a long time since my honey and I went on a roadtrip together, so I’m excited.  I think we’ll have a lot of fun, even while we’re working hard.


I have a lot to do between now and Saturday a.m. when we leave, so I’d better get some sleep!  Good night! 

Posted on by Laura Jinkins · 3 Comments

Yesterday was productive, and today seems to indicate a good year ahead . . .


Yesterday we managed to put all the ornaments away, take down the tree, and watch one of my favorite movies.   This morning, miracle of miracles, I woke up early enough to get a shower, get ready for church, and EVEN go for donuts before church and still get there on time!  If you knew just how time-management challenged I truly am, you would understand the phenomenal significance of this.   


The service was really good.  Pastor Jamie (yes, our pastor’s name is Jamie and our daughter’s name is Jami [no “e”]) had a really good message about the race of faith.  He talked about athletes who train with weights on their ankles and how much faster they can move when they remove those weights.  He then encouraged us to drop the “weights” that keep us from running the race God has set before us, the race of faith. 


I know there are lots of things that I let get between me and God.  And it’s my hope to eliminate a lot of those things, so that I can see Him more clearly this year.  As the scripture says, “. . . let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith . . .”  (Hebrews 12:1-2)  When those things blocking my line of vision are removed, it will be so much easier to focus on Jesus, and become more like Him.


Jami has two more days of vacation, and then it’s back to school for her.  I think she’s ready.  She spent almost the entire day reading today.  She actually started and finished “The Banks of Plum Creek” by Laura Ingalls Wilder today!  She’s a fast reader and her comprehension is very high.  I’m such a proud mommy.


Tomorrow I have to pay bills, do laundry, clean house, make some business calls, and investigate medical transcription training.  I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned that here before, but I am thinking about getting my certification as a medical transcriptionist.  From what I understand, many companies hire “work at home” transcriptionists and the pay is good, along with all the benefits.  I’m a pretty speedy typist (82 wpm with 3 errors, so final 79 wpm), have a fairly strong command of the English language, and am a good speller. 


I love my window blind business most of the time, but being self-employed and in sales to boot, the income is not reliable.  And there are no benefits.  Thus my investigation into other areas of employment.  The main priority for me is being able to work from home, and it seems that won’t be a problem as an MT.


Well, it’s late and I’d best say “adios” until next time.

Posted on by Laura Jinkins · 1 Comment

HAPPY, HAPPY NEW YEAR!


I hope that you all had fabulous New Year’s Eves and that this year promises wonderful things for all of you.


Our New Year’s Eve was a lot of fun.  We went over to our friends’ house down the street where we enjoyed good company, good food, and I “learned” to play Texas Hold ‘Em.  I say that in quotes because I didn’t (and still don’t) have a clue what was going on, but I must say that I had a lot of fun.


Our friends get together every so often to play and the way they play is really cool (if you have issues with cards/gambling, although I suppose there are people who should stay away regardless).  Each player put $10 in the jar and the final three split the pot.  So even if you lose, you only lose $10.  My hubbie and I came to the conclusion that it cost us no more than going out to dinner (because neither one of us won ), but we were with good friends and laughed a lot over some of the silly bluffs that we tried to get away with!


When we both fell out of the game, our friends also have a dart board, and so we threw darts for a while.  I hadn’t thrown darts in several years and so my arm’s a little sore today!  We actually have a dart board that we need to find a place to hang — it really is a lot of fun, too.


Now if my friend just had a pool table, we would be in fine shape!  (I LOVE to shoot pool, but unfortunately don’t care for going to the types of establishments one must go to to shoot pool . . . and we don’t have a table or a place to put a table, if we could afford one.)


In addition to the good company and the fun games, the food was DELISH!  I brought Picante Cream Cheese dip with tortilla chips and Fritos.  Lisa’s mom made Chicken Spaghetti, Texas Trash, and these jalapeno things that were awesome.  She split a jalapeno, scooped out the seeds, filled it with cheddar cheese and a small piece of venison sausage and then wrapped a piece of bacon around the whole thing.  YUM!  She also took a block of cream cheese and poured jalapeno jelly over it and served it with Ritz crackers and Triscuits.  YUM again!  Her aunt made little egg rolls with all the right dipping sauces.  Needless to say, no one went hungry!


It was a family party, so the kids were there, too — they played and ran through the house alerting us to the passing time and managed to stay awake for the Big Event — Happy New Year!


I have to say, this year’s New Year was so much better than last year’s.  We went to a murder mystery dinner with SIL, and it was a total fiasco.  While there was some drinking last night, it was done responsibly.  There was no pressure to drink and I enjoyed the couple of glasses of wine I had with my meal.  At last year’s party, we got there a little late and the host made a big deal of saying, “You guys gotta’ catch up!  Have a shot of schnapps!”  I was 27 days shy of my 40th birthday and I could have sworn we’d stumbled through a time warp into a college party.  I don’t have a problem with responsible drinking, but the party last year was a bust because the focus was all on getting loaded.  When it was all over, they said “We should do this again next year!”  I think not.


So when we received the invite down the street, it was a great relief and a very enjoyable evening. 


Well, my family is waiting for me — we’re going to watch one of the DVD’s that they gave me for Christmas . . . one of my favorite movies and one I recommend highly!  See ya’ later!

Posted on by Laura Jinkins · 2 Comments

We’re NOT stingy, and here’s the numbers to prove it . . . I’ve emphasized some important points (IMHO) in bold, italics. 


Stingy?
Bruce Bartlett (archive)

December 31, 2004 | printer friendly version Print | email to a friend Send


The other day, a United Nations official accused the United States of being “stingy” in terms of aid to tsunami victims in South Asia.  After criticism from the State Department, the official clarified his position.  Americans are not being stingy in helping tsunami victims, only stingy in terms of overall foreign aid as compared to other countries.
 
This is a familiar attack, which comes up annually when the foreign aid appropriations bill is before Congress.  But let’s look at the facts.  According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris, in 2003, the world’s major countries gave $108.5 billion in combined foreign aid.  Of this, the U.S. contributed $37.8 billion or 35 percent of the total.  The next largest foreign aid contributor was The Netherlands, which gave $12.2 billion, following two years in which it was actually a net recipient of foreign aid.


 The claim of stinginess, however, comes from a different calculation—foreign aid as a share of national income.  In 2003, U.S. foreign aid came to just 0.34 percent, well below the world leading Dutch at 2.44 percent.  Other big contributors are Ireland (1.83 percent), Norway (1.49 percent), and Switzerland (1.09 percent).  The U.S. would have to triple foreign aid just to reach the lowest of these contributors.


 The first thing one notices when looking at the big foreign aid contributors is that they all spend very little on national defense.  According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, in 2002, The Netherlands spent just 1.6 percent of its gross domestic product on defense.  Norway spent 2.1 percent, Switzerland spent 1.1 percent, and Ireland spent a piddling 0.7 percent.  By contrast, the U.S. spent 3.4 percent—and this was before the Iraq war.  It’s easy to be generous with foreign aid when another country is essentially providing your defense for free.


 Another thing one notices is that the foreign aid data are only for “official” (i.e., government) aid.  The data are sketchy, but by all accounts Americans are far more generous in terms of charitable contributions than the citizens of any other country.  A 1991 study found the United Kingdom to have the second largest percentage of private charitable giving.  But in 2003, charitable giving amounted to 8.6 billion pounds or 0.8 percent of GDP in the U.K., according to the Charities Aid Foundation, compared to $241 billion or 2.2 percent of GDP in the U.S., according to the American Association of Fundraising Counsel.


 But even this estimate of charitable giving by Americans is low because it counts only cash contributions and omits volunteer work.  According to Independent Sector, in 2003, they contributed an additional $266 billion worth of their time to charitable enterprises.  This is based on a value of $17.12 per hour of time.  But even if one assigns a value equal to the minimum wage, this noncash contribution still comes to about $100 billion.


 In the area of international aid, the official data also exclude private transfers such as remittances by foreign workers in the U.S.  According to the Inter-American Development Bank, remittances to Latin America alone amounted to $38 billion in 2003—more than all official assistance combined.  And $31 billion of that came from the U.S.  In some countries, foreign remittances came to more than 10 percent of GDP, thus having a significant impact on economic growth and poverty alleviation.


 Former U.S. Agency for International Development official Carol Adelman attempted to calculate a total of all private foreign aid in 2000 in a 2003 Foreign Affairs magazine article.  She found that private foreign aid greatly exceeded that provided by the U.S. government.  Official aid came to $22.6 billion that year, but private aid came to $35.1 billion, including $18 billion in remittances, $6.6 billion from private voluntary organizations, $3.4 billion in aid from churches, $3 billion from foundations, $2.8 billion from corporations, and $1.3 billion from universities.


 But even this understates the extent to which Americans help developing countries, because it excludes private investment and trade.  According to the Institute of International Finance, in 2003, Americans invested $124 billion in emerging market economies, three-fourths in direct investment such as plant and equipment and the rest in stocks and bonds.


 Americans also buy a considerable amount of goods from developing countries.  This year, about a third of all our imports will come from developing countries, providing jobs and incomes for millions of poor people.  This is probably less than most protectionists think.  The bulk of our imports still come from industrialized countries such as Canada, Japan and Germany.


 In short, the charge of stinginess is unfounded.  The U.S. carries much of the world on its back, providing other nations with security, aid and much of their investment and income.  It also pays for a fourth of all the salaries of U.N. bureaucrats.



Bruce Bartlett is a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, a Townhall.com member group.


©2004 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

Posted on by Laura Jinkins · 1 Comment

Feeling a wee bit better . . .


I’ve got a to-do list as long as I am tall, but that’s okay!  I’m feeling better about things (even with the yucky weather) and adjusting my attitude to embrace the thought of how nice things will be when I’ve finished all the things that need to be done.  I’ve a few business items to complete before year-end, laundry to do, Christmas decorations to be packed away, grocery shopping to do . . . if I just tackle it in little bits, it will all get done.  To paraphrase Dory in Finding Nemo,


“Just keep working, just keep working . . . “

Posted on by Laura Jinkins · 2 Comments

Blue Christmas . . .


I’m feeling blue right now.  Finally the rounds are complete, we’ve made all the appearances, and now it’s time to take down the tree, clean the house, and return to normal life.


I just wish normal life didn’t include humid, almost muggy weather with a high temp in the mid 70’s just four days after my White Christmas.

Posted on by Laura Jinkins · 2 Comments

 The most AMAZING thing happened last night . . .


IT SNOWED.  Yes, here along the Gulf Coast where a heavy frost is something to get excited about . . . it actually snowed.


There’s probably a good 3 inches of beautiful white stuff on the ground.  This is an awesome Christmas gift from God, because Jami’s never seen snow before and she’s thrilled!  We were driving home from our friends’ Christmas Eve dinner at 10:30 p.m. — a drive that normally takes one hour took THREE!  The roads were a mess, but fortunately we made it home safely by about 1:45 a.m.  Well, everything was so beautiful and Jami was so excited, we bundled up and played in the snow at 2:00 a.m. on Christmas Morning!  She loved it and you should have seen the puppies — they were absolutely hysterical! 


This kind of thing doesn’t happen here very often, and the couple of times it has happened in my 40 years, it happened in February or early March.  So a White Christmas on the Gulf Coast is truly a miracle.


God is so good!


Wishing all of you a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Posted on by Laura Jinkins · 2 Comments

I read an interesting paragraph from Andy Koom regarding wars the way they used to be fought, and wars the way they are fought today.  Some of you may already be readers of http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=andykoom, but for those who aren’t, please read on:


I heard something interesting today.  Lincoln gave the go to Sherman to literally scorch the earth from Atlanta to the ocean during the Civil War.  During WWII, Dresden was firebombed and Hiroshima and Nagasake were slightly tinged, yet FDR and Truman are remembered to be great war time Presidents.  Gulf War I was masterminded exquisitely by the military, not the politicians.  Then of course we had the forgotten war, the Korean War and Vietnam.  What happened in these two wars?  The liberal dove politicians simply got in the way of their military commanders.  MacArthur clearly wanted to drive the Chicoms back to the Yalu River, and now we have the Kim Jong Mentally Il menace to deal with.  The field commanders during Vietnam desperately wanted more air support, but collateral damage considerations ultimately led to 58,000 dead Americans and a lost war.  A small example.  We Were Soldiers was a movie that was ridiculed last year.  I had no idea why it was, but I didn’t give any thought about it.  Then I saw it.  I figured out why the liberals hated it: it depicted American soldiers in Vietnam acting professionally and bravely, and winning resoundingly in a battle with the help of massive air support.  Also there is some religious subplots, which automatically makes it anti-science.  God is mentioned, but not in the “god damn” variety.  We obviously can’t let that happen, so the lefty movie critics resorted to their animal instincts and gave it poor reviews.  The reasonably “professional” movie critics such as Roger Ebert and AO Scott, howeve, gave it very good reviews.  Liberals love to squabble about “learning from history.”  It’s not farfetched to say that many of them know what they’re pulling off purposefully to give an edge to the enemy in some sick attempt to write their own version of history.

Posted on by Laura Jinkins · 2 Comments

Changing the subject . . .


Things were getting a little weird there, so we’re going to move on to a new topic.  In keeping with the Christmas season, I’m curious to know how you all spend your holiday.  Do you like the way you spend your day(s), or are there things you’d like to change?  I’ll get us started . . .


The Spiritual Side of Christmas . . .


I love Christmas — well, I love certain things about Christmas.  I love the things we’re supposed to love about Christmas, for sure!  God gave us the most awesome Christmas gift in the birth of his precious Son.  And something that recently occurred to me is that Jesus’ earthly family carried that forward, in being obedient to God’s plan and letting Jesus carry out that plan.  I suppose their flesh could have interfered, could have made it more difficult for Him to minister to the lost. 


Of course, I have no scripture to back this up, but think about how parents try to influence their children’s choices, to either live vicariously through their children, or keep their children close to home.  Don’t you think Joseph wanted Jesus to “carry on the family business” or Mary might have thought, “wouldn’t it be nice for my son to marry, have children, and grow old in the house down the road?”  Don’t you think that those thoughts may have crossed their minds once or twice?  They were human, after all.


But the amazing thing is, God knew who on this earth would be obedient to His plan.  He chose Mary and Joseph to be the earthly parents of Jesus because He knew they would raise Jesus in a Godly home and respect the divine plan He’d written for our salvation.  So in a way, their obedience is a gift to us, too.


It’s an example to all of us who have children — to raise our children to follow the Lord and then get out of the way, so that they can recognize His will for their lives, not ours.  Frightening, and yet liberating, because as long as our children follow the Lord, we really have nothing to fear.  His perfect will results in perfect peace.  My Christmas wish for you is that you find His perfect will for your life, and thus His perfect peace . . .


The Ho-Ho-Ho Side of Christmas . . .


I love the decorations!  I have my “kitchen sink tree” that has everything but hanging from its branches.  I look at my tree like a scrapbook of memories that we pull out each year.  Just about every ornament on it has a special memory, a special significance for one or more of us.  There are the little Madame Alexander ornaments that my mom started buying for Jami her first Christmas.  And my “Scarlet O’Hara” ornaments (GWTW is my favorite book).  The seashell ornament my sister made from tiny, tiny shells she collected on the shores of the Sea of Galilea when she visited Israel.  Many goofy ornaments that remind me of AJ (Santa on a surfboard, a mouse with cheese [he loves cheese], the crawfish wishing us all a “Merry Christmas”) . . .


The most special ornaments of all are the ones that AJ makes from wood he saves from the trunk of our tree each year.  He’s done this every year since we’ve been married, and he always does something that symbolizes the three of us . . . three hearts, three stars, a little wooden book with our three names engraved in it . . . a most awesome tradition . . .


The Hum-Hum-Humbug Side of Christmas . . .


While AJ and I’ve been married almost 13 years (and it’s our first and only marriage), we have several folks in the family who’ve been down the aisle more than once.  Needless to say, we have an EXTENDED family!  And each family requests our presence at their home at some point during Christmas.  Here’s our schedule beginning tomorrow:


December 23:  Christmas with AJ’s mom, step-dad, sister, etc.  (100 miles round-trip)


December 24:  Christmas Eve with AJ’s “adopted” family, Leo and Diann  (120 miles round-trip)


December 25:  Christmas Morning at home; Christmas Evening with AJ’s dad, step-mom, sister, etc. (120 miles round-trip)


December 26:  Christmas with Laura’s mom, sister, etc. (80 miles round-trip)


December 27:  Christmas with Laura’s aunt, uncle, etc. (100 miles round-trip)


If I’ve added that all together right, it’s over 500 miles driving in five days.  Sheesh! 


Now, I love all these people.  I really do.  But I’m really tired of doing this every year.  Some of you might say, “Why don’t you stay over at one of their houses and go on to the next stop the next day?”  It seems simple enough, but the fact is — who wants to live out of a suitcase for four or five days, stopping at different houses along the way?


It’s tiring and because we are at so many places over the holiday, NO ONE ever comes to our house, because we’re never home.  The only reason I put up a Christmas tree is because AJ and Jami would miss it and because it would depress me even more not to have one.  But it is a lot of work considering how much we’re gone the main days of the month.


Does anyone have any suggestions?    I’m listening!!!