Our tax Refund.
Well, I don't really care to call it that. Sure, it is technically a 'refund' but still...it's just an interest-free loan to the government that they are giving back to me. I really would have preferred keeping the money in our pockets all year long, but hey, that's another post altogether.

Either way, we apparently loaned the government a pretty decent amount over the course of last year, and it's on it's way. Paperwork hoops have all been jumped through, i's dotted and t's crossed in their proper manner.

On the plans for this refund? Well, Dewey has his eye on a backhoe. I'd like to get all my school wish list in place.

However, what's going to happen with it is we are going to stimulate our own economy. We are paying off the bigger of the two loans, and then doubling up on the smaller loan and knocking it out of the way as well.

Yes, seems a bit backwards. Ramsey says snowball it from smallest to largest. That's good advice. I'm not saying anyone should do any different. But for us, that big loan is the thorn in our sides. We at the very least will pay a huge lump down on it, then refinance it so we can double it up anyway. Whatever gets it gone works for us.

These loans are the reason Dewey is working in Arkansas. He's on his last trip home now. They are jumping up to running 2 full-time crews, with him doubling his hours as well. Whatever isn't paid off with that refund, will be within no more than a handful of paychecks with those kind of hours.

See, tax season ain't so bad, if you're going to be doing it anyway. Personally, I think you shouldn't be doing it that way, but that's part of that whole other post I mentioned...
As it stands, if you have to get a refund for all that involuntary lending you did while working, make sure you put it to good use. Dot those i's and cross those t's on paper and commit to that plan without fail. Don't just spend it away on little things. Make it truly make a difference in your lives for the long-term. Don't, not in these days and those to come, make a decision based on short-sighted wants.  Set your plans in stone -- not sand.

Soapbox #1:
Those octuplets.  Yes, quite the hot topic on every blog and board discussion.  I applaud that woman.  She held her convictions despite the known outcome of controversy.  I don't think I'd have done what she did, but still....she didn't kill off the inconvenient ones for her own comfort.
Don't give me any garbage about how will she afford all those kids.  If you want something, you find a way to afford it....why is she any different?  She isn't asking for handouts (yes, she is being paid for her interviews I'm sure...I would expect to be paid for being drug through the crap they are doing, too) and she isn't living off the State. I correct this...she receives a whopping $490 a month in food stamps.  one or two of her oldest have disability issues and a part of a government program to help with their medical needs.  That's just a thoughtless, world-grown point of argument.  It's bunk.
I'm not saying she went about all of it the right or the wrong way.  I don't personally know all of the story, and judging by the bits and pieces already shared of the Dateline interview, we will never know the whole, TRUE story of all of this.  Dateline isn't presenting this in a 'neutral' light at all.  I was very offended by some of Anne Curry's questions...especially those about what possessed her to even think of having another child.  This is only 'controversial' because we are a group of looky-lou accident watchers. 
"She is a single mother and it will take an entire metropolitan area to help raise these children".  Does that sound like a neutral interview to you?
That totally irritates me.  Whose business is any of this anyway?  When did we decided we had any right whatsoever to be police force over the free choices of women to have children?  This isn't China...we don't have a one child per policy here...yet, anyway.  Good grief, whiners...you just gave how much of your tax dollars to bail out those big banking groups and then they go ahead with business as usual, hosting mega parties and business conferences just throwing money out the window?  Go police them.

And the woman's mother and her interviews being 'leaked' here and there.  She has all but come right out and said she hates her own grandchildren.  She complains they are messy.  Her tiny apartment is trashed with them there while their silly mother is off tending babies she never should have had.  She has no room for all those kids...she has had to set things up in 'shifts' so everyone can even eat.
Sorry, Grandma Suleman...get over it already.  Why not help teach those children how to help around the house.  Why not get the older of the bunch to be your helper, make it a game, make it a fun thing.  Yes, most of them are very young and probably not much in the way of help really...they are going to be "messy".  That would be called LIFE WITH TODDLERS.  hello....thousands of mothers deal with that day in and day out...and don't even have 6 children!  It's not something unique to having what she considers a bent-wrong daughter.  In fact, I would have to argue it all speaks volumes of her own parenting skills.

I feel very sorry for Nadya and her children.  This is a difficult time for everyone, yes.  Her mother can harbor all the ill will and ill feelings and lack of love she wishes on her daughter, but to spray it over on those children and babies?!  That puts her worse that pond scum in my book.  Those children are completely innocent.  Not one of them said "hey, I wanna live in that dysfuctional family setting, please send me there God!"  God knit them together into this family for a reason.  HIS REASON.  They are a GIFT.  Doesn't make one iota of difference in how or why they arrived in this family.  They are her grandchildren, plain and simple, and they deserve her love.  She can shove her daughter to the curb for all I care, but to take her hatred out on her grandchildren is just plain wrong and about as unGodly as anyone can get.
And for those seemingly fixated on the fact that these babies are being called A, B, C, D, E, F, G and H.  Move on already.  Watch even parts of any interview and you'll see they have 'real names' not just lettering.  Lettering is the easiest way to track multiples in an NICU setting and keep things straight. 

UGH...give me the next one and get me off this one...
Soapbox #2:
More items added to the growing list of peanut 'stuff' recalled.  They discovered it in some of the MRE foods sent down to ice/storm victims.  Now we just give away the tainted stuff in hopes no one will notice, heh?  Emergency-need folks, poor schools....who's gonna notice?
This list is growing more and more.  And it's not even recent activity -- they are covering the entire 2007 year now.  That's 2 years of products out there...

Soapbox #3:
And the mercury in all those other products?  you knew high fructose corn syrup was a bad thing...didn't think it was this bad, did you?  It's in your Coke, your ketchup, chocolate syrup and even your Nutrigrain bars (would that be NUTRI as in NUTRITION?NUTRITIOUS???  For crying out loud, even SMUCKERS has it.  Smuckers....that company that portrays itself as wholesome family goodness in every jar.
Here's the rest of the listing.

And we need how much more information out there to know that you just aren't safe eating anything you have bought and paid for these days?  I'm not being sarcastic here....I'm being dead serious.  What exactly IS safe anymore?  What are you and I really feeding our children, believing it to be a healthy choice?

No, not everyone is going to drop off society as it stands and go 'hippie' on the homestead, foraging for wild foods in the untouched land around them.  Not everyone is going to change their lifestyle of habits and grow a garden and raise their own food supplies.  It will never happen.

And not all who say Lord Lord will ever see anything but this side of those clouds in the sky. 

If you can't see a really scary trend here in all these recalls of virtually every item you have ever thought of buying....if you can't see that from time to time certain little 'bones' like this seemingly leak out secretively to The Press...maybe I'm not the only one living under a rock here.  Everyone is triumphing the government for 'catching' these items and doing their part to take care of us.  I don't buy it one bit.  It's just propaganda.  Throw the dogs a bone and they stop barking for a while and sit back on their heels feeling content they have done their best.

At least the FDA caught what was happening.  We can't fix what we don't know is happening.  It wasn't the government, you know.  They sub-contracted out the 'long arm of the law' to local and state health watchers.  Hmmm....says alot about their wisdom, and the oversite of the local government, heh?

Yeah.  And when did they really know this was happening?  Ans how long was it allowed to go on?  And who got paid to watch it slip by?  Big Brother is really on the ball when its in his own court.

But, I know.  I'm just weird :o)  I accept that.  I'm different.  I like it that way.

My sister-in-law called this morning to ask us to lift prayers for her son.  He has been in the hospital  since being found passed out yesterday.  They suspect tuberculosis at this point.

I don't know much at all about TB, except that I remember having that skin prick test done, watching for that little bump and such.  What I've read, it can be extremely serious, very contagious, and sometimes fatal if left long-term untreated at all.

Please lift Billy in prayer today, and his doctors and all involved in his treatment and care, for their wisdom and discernment.  Lift his family in prayer of comfort and peace through this trial in their lives as well.

It is all in The Lord's Hands.  If it's His Will, there will be peace and healing for all involved.