We all do it… some people do it watching TV, others snooze, and some people just “hang out”… but I think it’s fair to say a whole lot of us waste time surfing the web. Well, lucky for us there’s a new way to waste time online: Draw My Thing.

This game is like Pictionary - you draw until someone guesses what you’re trying to draw. It’s totally addicting, so watch out. (Come on… just one more game.) It’s even more addicting when you’re actually winning! The best part of this web site is that they actually list the total number of hours that have been wasted playing Draw My Thing since it was created (which was pretty recently). Nothing like seeing how many hours you’ve wasted on a web site to keep you coming back!

I don’t have a ton of time to waste these days… but for those moments when my brain is fried from work and the kids aren’t around… Draw My Thing is perfect. Check it out and maybe I’ll see you there sometime.

I rarely get involved in public discussions about politics - but I do follow politics quite closely, especially in an election year. So when I received the following message in my inbox today, I was intrigued. I decided it was worth posting, even if only to cause a few others to become intrigued

Remember the election in 2006?
At the time of that election:
1) Consumer confidence stood at a 2 1/2 year high
2) Regular gasoline sold for $2.19 a gallon
3) The unemployment rate was 4.5%

Since voting in a Democratic Congress in 2006 we have seen:
1) Consumer confidence plummet
2) The cost of regular gasoline soar to over $3.50 a gallon
3) Unemployment is up to 5% (a 10% increase)
4) American households have seen $2.3 trillion in equity value evaporate (stock and mutual fund losses)
5) Americans have seen their home equity drop by $1.2 trillion dollars
6) 1% of American homes are in foreclosure

America voted for change in 2006, and we got it! Remember it’s Congress that makes law not the President. He has to work with what’s handed to him by Congress.

Quote of the Day…”My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you’ll join with me as we try to change it.” — Barack Obama

Taxes… Whether Democrat or a Republican you will find these statistics enlightening and amazing.
Verify: http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151.html

Under Clinton 1999
Single making 30K - tax $8,400
Single making 50K - tax $14,000
Single making 75K - tax $23,250
Married making 60K - tax $16,800
Married making 75K - tax $21,000
Married making 125K - tax $38,750

Taxes Under Bush 2008
Single making 30K - tax $4,500
Single making 50K - tax $12,500
Single making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 60K- tax $9,000
Married making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 125K - tax $31,250

Both democratic candidates will return to the higher tax rates. It is amazing how many people that fall into the categories above think Bush is screwing them and Bill Clinton was the greatest President ever. If Obama or Hillary are elected, they both say they will repeal the Bush tax cuts and a good portion of the people that fall into the categories above can’t wait for it to happen. This is like the movie The Sting with Paul Newman; you scam somebody out of some money and they don’t even know what happened.

April has been a whirlwind of activity for us, and with all that activity undoubtedly comes a bit of craziness! The start of the month saw us returning from Nicaragua, then just 10 days later we traveled to Maine for a long weekend with my husband’s family. The rest of the month I was busy out straight working on a large project for Let’s Dish!. I think April is notorious for being crazy busy, as people get rush to get outside after the winter.

May starts on Thursday and I just can’t believe summer is almost here already. What is it about getting older that makes the days (and years) seem to fly by so quickly? (OK, just writing that statement made me sound like my mom. *yikes*) This is the one time of year I wish time would slow down. The girls are playing softball, the weather is absolutely beautiful (most of the time), the flowers are in bloom, and it doesn’t get dark until after 8pm.

We built a {insert fancy name for deck cover} to hold our new hammock chairs (direct from Nicaragua) and have since become the new hangout for all the neighborhood kids (who think these chairs are amusement park rides). But they really are wonderfully relaxing places to sit with a book on warm spring afternoons.

But there hasn’t been a ton of relaxing on them yet, what with all that crazy busyness I mentioned. Have you ever wished you could attach some sort of homing signal to various household items? Lots of people lose their keys, but we don’t have that problem too much. Library books are a huge source of frustration in our household. Those should come with homing signals that can be triggered by the library when a book is overdue. Wouldn’t that be great? (Note to any library administrators reading… please invoke the signal only between the hours of 9am and 9pm.) The library has told us we have a book overdue, and my daughter can’t find it (of course). We’ve turned the house upside down but it still eludes us. I know, we should have a better system and stay more organized. Yeah, yeah. Maybe I’ll get around to perfecting that system next April.

After a missed connection in Houston, we were rerouted to a different airport and finally arrived home at 1:30am Tuesday morning. Our bags are still in DC, but should be delivered today. I did have my camera though, and have just uploaded some of our pictures to Picasa. (Send me an email to get the URL for the pics.)

We’re definitely very tired, and were glad to sleep in our own beds (and also to brush our teeth without using bottled water!). For 10 years I’ve been hearing from people who have made the trip to Campo Alegria how the trip is life changing. That’s just another aspect of a trip like this that you can’t really understand until you’ve experienced for yourself. Seeing how much of the world lives (at least those in poor areas of the world) causes you to take stock of your own life.

When they told me I might not have my luggage until Friday, I started thinking about how much I needed my makeup and hair stuff (which for the most part went unused in Nica anyway). Ummm… hello?! Didn’t I just leave a third-world country where most people don’t even have electricity to use that flat iron! I think it’s that constant juxtaposition of the haves and have-nots that is most prevalent in the minds of those who make trips like this.

I suppose my biggest fear challenge is to keep these thoughts in the forefront of my mind as the days and weeks go by, and not to forgot them as quickly as my suntan fades.

Thanks for your prayers - we received many blessings because of them along the way. If you’re interested, here’s how you can continue to pray for the projects we visited:

• For Adam and Rachel at Campo Alegria, that another American couple would join them as they minister to the town of Rivas and everyone who visits Campo Alegria. (Also for the impending birth of their second child.)
• For the girls of Casa Havilla, that they would grow up to be strong women of faith, who are able to help change the community around them for the better.
• For continued safety of the Buzzbee family, as they minister and support the people of Managua. (Learn more about the Buzzbee family here.)
• For the funds and volunteers to grow Campo Alegria, so it can bring hope to many many more children in Nicaragua.

We intended to stay at Campo until today, but ended up leaving Friday morning because Corinna´s hives were so bad (even with tons of Benedryl, Claritan & Zyrtec), and she ran a fever all Thursday night. (We were so grateful for the very well-stocked medical kit at Campo!) So we headed north after breakfast, stopping in Granada and Massaya along the way for a wee bit of shopping. We made it to the Buzzbee´s around 3pm - just in time for the girls to really enjoy their swimming pool. Before dinner, we visited an art show Melissa set up to raise funds for the Buzzbee´s programs. All the art work was created by kids at the school in the dump. They really do a great job with these programs.

Today (Saturday) we visited Casa Havilla, the home Melissa runs. The 9 girls who live there all came from families who live in the dump. The parents allowed their girls to move to Casa Havilla, to give them a better life. We gave each girl a backpack filled with wonderful treats. When we first arrived, they definitely looked at us as if behind glass walls - very shy and reserved. After they received their backpacks, their faces lit up and there were smiles all around. Mike said it was amazing to see them sharing the items and passing them around, because only a year ago when they came to the home, they would have been fighting over everything (not maliciously, but rather because they had to fight for everything in the dump). They sorted throught their bags 10 times while we were there, smelling all the soaps, reading the books, and playing with the toys. Thank you to everyone who contributed - it was pure joy to see these girls receive such treasures.

So the reason for the title of this post is that when we woke up this morning, Corinna´s hives and fever were gone, and they haven´t returned! It´s wonderful because those three days were really tough, but a little sad because now Peter thinks his granddaughter is allergic to his campo! Who knows - it could have been anything. We´re just glad it has passed!

Now we are at the beautiful Barcelo hotel in Montelimar. Such a contrast to where we´ve been and what we´ve seen over the past few days… I must admit I feel a bit guilty! But it was also glorious to take a hot shower! (And will be glorious to sleep in air conditioning!) The girls are loving the pool - I think they swam for 5 hours already today.

I guess that about sums it up for the past two days. It´s been somewhat of an emotional roller coaster, but the final outcome is all good. It prompts me to pose the following question (to myself as much as anyone else): what pushes you to do the things you do? Is it a desire to succeed? If so, how is your success measured? Or maybe simply a desire to survive? Or perhaps a desire to please someone… yourself, others, or the One who created you?

Sorry if that sounds a bit more philosophical than usual for me, but a trip like this certainly makes one ponder such questions. Time to let Wyeth use the computer for a bit… my next post probably won´t be until we return. Adios!

Well, we arrived in Managua around 7:30pm local time on Tuesday night, but then didn’t make it to the Buzzbee’s home until almost midnight (it takes a while to get through customs with 10 bags, oh and then it took about an hour to rent a car). Anyway, we arrived in darkness, but woke up Wednesday morning bright and early (5am - it was 7am back home the girls reminded us). When we walked up to the “prayer tower” on top our bunkhouse, we had a chance to see the sun rising over the jungle - it was amazing! I have some pictures, which we will upload when we get home.

After a great breakfast with the Buzzbee family, we were off to visit La Churecha (the dump). I can’t really say a whole lot about that right now because of how overwhelming it was. None of the pictures I had seen really prepared me for the scale of it all. We visited the school inside the dump that the Buzzbee family runs. The children ran to us and were so welcoming. It was a stark contrast to the homes (shacks) surrounding the school. It was like a little oasis inside of a large desert. We left that with equal feelings of helplessness and inspiration to move here and start working right away!

Oh - one funny thing that happened in the dump… I tried out my Spanish. I was able to explain that Corinna and Caeli were my hijas (daughters) but then I told these kids that Wyeth was my hermana. I felt very confident but then saw them chuckling as I walked away. It was a few minutes later that I realized I should have said he was my “espousa” (spouse) instead. Hermana means sister! Oops!

After leaving the dump, we stopped by a grocery store before heading south toward Campo Alegria. Along the way, we stopped to visit a large volcano. We arrived at Campo sometime in the afternoon. Again, the photos don’t do it justice. It feels like you’re never going to arrive but then when you do it’s just so beautiful. I must admit I found myself wondering how Peter ever convinced anyone to build this place! It’s amazing - only God could have gotten people to believe in Peter’s vision! (But we’re so glad they did!)

The girls swam before dinner. Beatrice and Oscar (the Nicaraguan caretakers) prepared dinner for us. Adam and Rachel (the missionaries from Chop Point) also ate with us. We turned in early (the sun goes down around 6:30pm and rises around 5:30am). The wind was FIERCE all night, but for that we were thankful as it kept away the bugs!

Today we went to the school where we intended to give out the backpacks we brought. The principal was fearful of starting a mini riot, since there were more students than we had backpacks for, so we decided to leave most of the packs with Adam. The principal will call Adam whenever new students want to come, but don’t have the adequate supplies. We will take 8 of the packs with us to Melissa Buzzbee’s home for girls, when we visit on Saturday.

We took a quite detour to stop by Adam’s house (where I’m typing this) and are getting ready to go to San Juan del Sur for lunch (it’s on the Pacific Ocean). We will spend one more night at Campo before heading back to the Buzzbee’s in Managua on Friday.

Thanks so much for your prayers - our trip here was uneventful (which was good) and both girls were great on the long plan ride! We appreciate your continued prayers for health issues. Corinna has been dealing with a bad case of hives since yesterday. I haven’t seen her this covered in over five years! Hopefully her skin will clear and she will feel much better soon.

We probably won’t write again until Friday night or Saturday when we return to the Buzzbee’s home. Until then… Adios!

It’s been a little while since I last posted. In the past month, I’ve lost my grandmom and almost lost a dear friend (who was hit by a drunk-driver). It was a bit of an emotional roller coaster for a while. But now spring is definitely coming! My tulips are about a bloom (just in time for Easter), and the weather seems to be inching warmer each day.

Next week, we’ll be really warm… because we’ll be in Nicaragua over spring break! Although my husband has been to Nicaragua before, this will be the first trip for me and our girls. We plan to visit with missionary friends, do a little site seeing, and also spend time at my father-in-law’s summer camp for poor children: Campo Alegria. As internet access is available, I will provide brief updates here.

In preparation for our trip, we started collecting school supplies in January. Over the weekend, we packed up over 60 backpacks full of school supplies, educational toys, and hygiene items! I can’t wait to take these to one of the schools Campo Alegria has adopted, to hand out all these wonderful packs! The kindergarten and first grade classes at Roland Park County School contributed a ton to this project, and even made special tags to attach to each backpack (shown here attached to the bags before they were put in the backpacks):

So check back over the next two weeks to see more of our trip. In the meantime, we appreciate your prayers for safe travel. Thanks!

Last week someone leaked the AI Top 24 list on the web. Although I twittered about it, I tried not to talk too much about it elsewhere for fear of spoiling the fun of watching. Correction - I didn’t talk too much about it on the web, but my family says I talked too much about it to them! **giggle**

I suppose I have a bit of a problem when it comes to keeping certain pieces of information to myself. Now, I can keep a secret when I want to, but this is clearly a secret I had little interest in keeping! I actually had a lot of fun when my sister commented about a particular contestant, because I was then able to slip in, “oh, too bad he doesn’t make it to the top 24.” WHAT?! Let’s just say she wasn’t too happy I let that one slip.

But now I can talk about it all I want because the wait is over and last night we found out whether the leak was true (it was) as Fox announced this season’s Top 24. Wonder what other aspects of this season might be leaked on the web? Only time will tell.

I remember the first time I voted. It wasn’t the first time I was eligible, it was just the first time I was registered and able to get to a polling place. My husband and I drove three hours to vote in his home town of Dresden, Maine, where we were both registered. We turned in our ballots, then drove back to Boston. We felt exhilarated at the prospect of making our voices heard. It was 1996, and we were among those hoping to send Bill Clinton packing.

We lost.

Now, 12 years later, I admit to having very strong feelings about this election as well. Today, Marylanders will officially cast ballots in the primary elections. For some, it’s an important vote to determine which candidate will be on the ballot in November. For others, it’s more about making a statement as to which candidate most clearly emulates the values and beliefs we feel necessary to lead this great nation.

Once again, I’m exhilarated about the entire campaign and election process. I closely follow the news each time a state holds a primary. I research potential candidates, both locally and nationally. I’m honored to participate in something that sets us apart from much of the rest of the world.

It’s election day people! Get out and vote!

Enough is enough… when will these writers come to an agreement and put an end to this strike? I don’t think it makes them more endearing to keep us from our favorite TV shows. The networks have responded by adding more reality shows (because they have different writers, if any), but for the most part they are lack-luster at best.

The most notable exceptions are: American Idol (always good), Project Runway, and Top Chef (which returns in February!). But the other new reality shows have done nothing to inspire me to set my tivo…

So, I’m spending a lot of time reading. I love to read anyway, but lately I’ve found a few Ted Dekker novels that read like an episode of my favorite (and most missed) show: 24! (My favorites so far are Blink and Saint.)

And, my local public library seems to busier than ever. Could it be that the strike is actually sending Americans back to good ol’ fashioned fiction for entertainment? Uh… yeah.