AWTM was impatient for me to upload photos from this weekend. But I had to go to work today and to get ready to start decorating for Valentine's Day. Yeah, I know. I got all the Valentine's decorations and signs in, and they go up the day after Christmas. I died a little inside.

Anyway, here was the view out my hotel window.

And here's AWTM, who is mixing it up, and Guard Wife.

Posted by: Sarah at 02:21 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 Man, I wish I could have been your roommate again! And AWTM is looking like a total June Cleaver, in a slightly um, not so innocent way!

Posted by: Calivalleygirl at November 18, 2008 03:50 AM (irIko)

2 You gals were great. Anytime any of you want to come back out this way, I'm there.

Posted by: Leofwende at November 18, 2008 12:46 PM (jAos7)

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I am not funny.

I sit on the funny panel at SpouseBUZZ Live and hate everything that comes out of my mouth. I am like Chris Farley in those old SNL skits -- "Idiot! I'm so stupid!" -- after everything I say. I don't like being funny. My peeps bring teh funny, not me.

And I don't do impressions. I don't even have a Cartman or a Slingblade. I can't do it.

So who knew that I would crack AWTM up.

With apologies to Rachel Lucas for stealing her line, they need to legalize gay marriage so that Kristen Wiig can be my wife.

This is for you, AWTM.

Every time we go to one of these SBL weekends, someone will ask me what I did. Did you see the Space Needle, Did you see the Alamo? I don't seem to be able to explain that the only thing I care about is being with my friends. In the swank Hotel Murano or the ghetto fabulous Sahara, I just want to be in my gulch.

These people, we grok each other.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:35 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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1 I thought you wanted gay marriage legalized, so you could marry me... I am gonna shank this Kristin !

Posted by: awtm at November 17, 2008 05:39 AM (e4NmX)

2 Ummm, AWTM...it was during the conversation at the lovely bar that you proposed to me. Remember? It was also during the conversation where we talked about relocating to the Ute, though, so maybe you just forgot? The plan was: you, me, clean house & the men at a shared dwelling for heavy lifting and, ahem, other services.

Posted by: Guard Wife at November 17, 2008 10:20 AM (2QRRp)

3 well 3 of us can marry.... it is not like there are not laws and stuff... Sarah knit us sweaters and ponchos I can get rejection letters and wall paper the bath you can be our lawyer...because we will need representation as a 3 married ladies

Posted by: AWTM at November 17, 2008 01:09 PM (e4NmX)

4 Yeah, can I just tell you...when AWTM asked GW to be her wife, I was feeling pretty left out.

Posted by: Sarah at November 17, 2008 01:32 PM (TWet1)

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Tonight I laughed so hard I think I won't have a voice tomorrow.
I love being here.

Posted by: Sarah at 10:50 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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1 I had a blast meeting all of you yesterday. It was great to put faces to names to blogs, etc., and all of you were just as cool as I had hoped. Yay for new friends.

Posted by: Leofwende at November 16, 2008 08:56 AM (cZoqf)

2 I think all that laughing was WAY better than doing crunches. I saw the "new haircut" video...OMG. I re-watched the D*uche Off. :0) So crazy...I do love being in the zone. Can't wait to see you again!!

Posted by: Guard Wife at November 16, 2008 05:50 PM (eb8pN)

3 I'm so happy I got to meet you!!!

Posted by: Deltasierra at November 17, 2008 09:08 PM (VRwBR)

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As I sat down on my cross-country flight, I noticed my seatmate was reading Change We Can Believe In. I rolled my eyes, thinking it would be a long flight. I then took out my Atlas Shrugged, hoping the vibes off of my book would vanquish the vibes off of his.

A while later, he starts chitchatting, asking me where I hail from. I told him I was originally from Illinois, and he pointed at his Obama book and said, "He must be your man then." I smiled noncommittally. Then he said, "I didn't vote for him; I bought this book so I could figure out what the heck he's planning on doing."

So we had a nice chat the entire trip, laughing and pointing out the inconsistancies in Obama's plan.

Moral of the story: Don't judge a bookholder by its cover.

Posted by: Sarah at 05:35 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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1 Comrades! Moral of the story: Don't judge a bookholder by its cover. Even a conservative clock is right twice a day! We must not fool ourselves into believing that everyone who has Barack's blessed bOOk is one of us. The enemy is everywhere. Be vigilant! The eye of the prOletarian dictatorship must never blink!

Posted by: kevin at November 15, 2008 09:55 AM (a1nQd)

2 Okay, now THAT is an awesome story!

Posted by: airforcewife at November 15, 2008 10:07 AM (Fb2PC)

3 I'm so glad you had such a fun flight! I had a spastic sleeper sitting near me. It did keep things interesting, but it made me a little nervous. I thought I might lose an eye or something. I'm sooooooo glad you're here and I'm here. Here I am on your blog & you don't even know & you're sitting right across the room!

Posted by: Guard Wife at November 15, 2008 10:31 AM (zYnMa)

4 http://paklokjiukppprtf.com paklokjiukppprtf paklokjiukppprtf paklokjiukppprtf

Posted by: Ecoriartera at November 27, 2008 12:24 PM (ZSOjv)

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I am heading out of town to make my way towards SpouseBUZZ Live Tacoma! I will get to see one friend from my real life -- remember LT A, our friend who was severely wounded in that battle that Colby Buzzell immortalized? His wife, whom I haven't seen in over five years -- and several friends from my imaginary life: R1, DeltaSierra, Sig, Leofwende, and Barb. Plus my fellow authors. The hotel will be our gulch this weekend.

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I was just sitting here thinking about this upcoming weekend and how I will be hanging out with imaginary friends. I remembered a funny story that I have always meant to blog but never did.

In September at the BlogWorldExpo, I was sitting on a sofa at the expo next to Guard Wife. We both had our laptops out and were messing with our blogs. I saw she was posting something, and I peeked over her shoulder and then joked, "I'll wait and read it when you publish it." Once she published, I pulled it up and saw that she had blogged that she had a headache and wished she had some pain meds. I turned to her and said, "I have some Tylenol right here in my bag." And then we cracked up that we had been sitting side by side for a long time and I only knew what she was thinking because she blogged it.

Now THAT is the blogging lifestyle to the extreme.

Of course, I already told you that I love surfing the web side by side with my friends. My husband bought a laptop in Iraq, and I giddily exclaimed that we could sit in the same room on our computers.

It's the little things that tickle me.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:33 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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We SpouseBUZZ authors have often mused about how fantastic it would be to all live on the same street. We laugh about it, but under that laugh is the sorrow of knowing it will never be.

Amritas and I were talking about this tonight, after I read AirForceWife's comment over at CaliValleyGirl's site and sighed and said, "I love my imaginary friends."

I think often about Mrs du Toit's post Fight or Flee:

Imagine the country with everyone having all their belongings in a moving truck. Then folks start looking around for a place that has people who are more like them (however folks want to define that), and they talk and share opinions to determine what it is they do want, and then everyone hits the road in their pre-packed moving vans, to move to where they can find camaraderie and fellowship with people of like minds. THAT is America. That is what the Founders gave us, but some folks didnÂ’t get the memo, or havenÂ’t fully grasped what the Founders meant.

Amritas and I got a little giddy, planning our gulch. We want Steven den Beste and the du Toits as neighbors. I want Varifrank on my street. And Baldilocks, and Lileks, and Whittle. I want my virtual neighborhood to become my real one.

Imagine the 4th of July BBQ conversations we'd have!

And, to paraphrase AirForceWife's comment, a community where you share common ground with your neighbors wouldn't be a FAIL.

But it honestly hurts my heart to even write this post.

It hurts to think about how wonderful it would be in our gulch.

Posted by: Sarah at 06:06 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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CaliValleyGirl's newest post lays a lot of foundation on her position and then asks a meaty question of Democrats at the end. I think I only have like three Democrat readers, but I would be interested in hearing your take on her question.

Posted by: Sarah at 11:50 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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1 Democrat reader 2 of 3 here Actually, I don't label myself a Dem, but I did vote hopechangeyeswecan so I'l chime in. I'm a business owner, and I don't give a rip how much they tax me. I believe pretty strongly that taxes don't have a whole lot to do with business savvy. The intial blog post talked a bit about home builders and the impact of the economy. One of my best clients is the highest of high-end home builders in our area. His company is doing incredibly well at the moment, because he doesn't carry nearly the debt that other builders carry. Amongst other things, he has run his business very responsibly while others leaned on the bubble and got burned. We were talking business the other day and I asked him bout taxes. He voted McCain, but he also didn't think the taxation issue was going to affect him at all. few percentage here or there wasn't going to make or break him. My wife's uncle is a wealthy cat, as are all his friends. They voted M, but they still aren't crying about the tazes as they'll never notice the difference. The Obama argument (whether you buy it or not - I don't think I do) is that the extra few percent from the folks at the top doesn't impact them like the monet does out of the pockets of the folks at the bottom. Not necessarily my opinion, but I think that's the general argument. Having said that, sometimes perception matters more than reality. I don't believe that the little tax credit to the folks at the bottom or the middle will make that big of an actual difference to there lives. But if they believe it makes a difference, then money spent goes up and consumer confidence (whatever that is) goes up and the perception of the health of the economy goes up. So I might agree in broad strokes that if the low-to-middle of the income spectrum believe that the tax cuts make things better for them then that will translate into a stronger economy. I'm not sure how that actually shakes out - whether the bottom-to-middle have the economic stroke to make an influence. In a smaller society, I don't have a problem explaining to the guy making more that his percentage has gone up. The more confilcts we fight and companies we bail out the more we have to pay for it. I don't necessarly like it but the money has to come from somewhere. The better question from where I'm sitting is whether or not this government, which I agree is supposed to be serving the people, is spending money to serve the will of the people or not.

Posted by: Sarah's pinko commie friend at November 11, 2008 02:13 PM (xAF2d)

2 Yeah, but whattaya gonna do? Aren't we all the same people after all?\ I don;t disagree with the sentiment at all.

Posted by: Sarah's pinko commie friend at November 11, 2008 06:14 PM (xAF2d)

3 "rural Arkansas is no more real than Manhattan." Then I doubt she's ever been to Manhattan.

Posted by: tim at November 12, 2008 05:18 AM (nno0f)

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All those policy plans that Obama put up on his change.gov website have all disappeared, replaced by mealy-mouthed hopenchange.

But there's a reason why he put up the policy goals that he did, and I assume that he still wants to enact that change, even if he's not brave/foolish enough to leave it on his website.

So the gun one, eh? It said this:

[Obama and Biden] also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent, as such weapons belong on foreign battlefields and not on our streets.

I don't have an assault weapon. I don't plan on buying one. But I still don't like this.

My husband and I were talking about this via IM today. I copied and pasted this part from change.gov, and he took my breath away with this:

Husband says:
and then they came for the assault rifles but I said nothing because I only owned a pistol....

And roger.

I read this entire Daily Kos thread on the matter, and it was interesting to see the Democrat gun enthusiasts get belittled. Stuff like this:

because you're a democrat that owns/collects guns, no one should fear you?
that makes no sense to me.
guns have only one use, and that is to kill. but that's nothing to be afraid of, by any means, right?

Luckily there were a few people who batted down all the arguments. This line by GTMule was genius:

Liberals (a club of which I am a (usually) proud member) want to have teachers help make education policy, engineers make energy policy, and people who are completely ignorant about guns make ALL gun policy.

Not once did I see anyone explain the 2nd Amendment the way I understand it, though. And strangely enough, several people referred to it as the 4th Amendment.

Interesting peek into the Democrat world though.

Posted by: Sarah at 11:44 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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We are soldiers.
We are soldiers in the United States Army.
We are trained to be all we can be.

We fight for the freedom of many citizens of the United States.
We are all ready to meet our fates.

We all volunteer to defend the red, white and blue.
Not only the flag, but for the citizens of our great country too.

Since our country's birth for all these years,
we have been trained to be the best on Earth.

Many times we have went to war.
We will be involved in many more.

Generation by generation soldiers continue to enlist.
Some of us will got to war and definitely be missed.

Some soldiers will return and some won't.
Those who do not, we won't forget and we hope you don't.

Many of us are going to Iraq.
Some of us won't be coming back.

We have loved ones we are leaving behind.
They will always be in our prayers, hearts and mind.

If we don't make it home safely at the end of the war,
just remember we died defending the beliefs of those of many more.

---PFC Gunnar Becker, 22 Jan 1985--15 Jan 2005

Posted by: Sarah at 04:34 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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I bought a Christmas card making kit, filled with scrapbook-type papers and stickers and stuff to make your own cards. There are also little scraps that say "Merry Christmas" and "Happy Holidays" and stuff. Plus these three doozies:

Spellcheck didn't catch that one, did it?

Posted by: Sarah at 01:24 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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I was in a clothing store today and happened by the ladies' undergarments section. There were lots of teenybopper-type underpants on display. I caught sight of one that had cartoon speech bubbles all over it, with phrases like "pizza," "BFF," and "me likey." But there was also a bubble with "2+2=5."

I find it so horrifying that our culture encourages girls to be airheads.

Posted by: Sarah at 09:56 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Since I'm a bonafide gun nut now: "Yes We Can . . . Ban Guns"

Posted by: Sarah at 09:48 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Via my husband: Show Me The Money

So to everyone overseas I say: thanks for your applause for our new president. I’m glad you all feel that America “is back.” If you want Obama to succeed, though, don’t just show us the love, show us the money. Show us the troops. Show us the diplomatic effort. Show us the economic partnership. Show us something more than a fresh smile. Because freedom is not free and your excuse for doing less than you could is leaving town in January.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:50 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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It's Whittle, baby.

On Tuesday, the Left – armed with the most attractive, eloquent, young, hip and charismatic candidate I have seen with my adult eyes, a candidate shielded by a media so overtly that it can never be such a shield again, who appeared after eight years of a historically unpopular President, in the midst of two undefended wars and at the time of the worst financial crisis since the Depression and whose praises were sung by every movie, television and musical icon without pause or challenge for 20 months… who ran against the oldest nominee in the country’s history, against a campaign rent with internal disarray and determined not to attack in the one area where attack could have succeeded and who was out-spent no less than seven-to-one in a cycle where not a single debate question was unfavorable to his opponent – that historic victory, that perfect storm of opportunity…

Yielded a result of 53%

Posted by: Sarah at 12:55 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Kannie found a good article: The Treatment of Bush Has Been a Disgrace
Written by a Kerry intern, no less.

Posted by: Sarah at 12:23 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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In sock knitting news, I just want to be this girl. She makes beautiful footwear.

Posted by: Sarah at 05:25 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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An interesting election result, via Powerline:

Obama and the Democrats have assembled a "top and bottom coalition." They carried voters with incomes above $200,000, narrowly, and won decisively among those with incomes under $50,000. Middle-income voters split evenly. I find this interesting in the context of Obama's and Biden's constant invocation of the "middle class" in their campaign speeches. Maybe they knew this was the one group they were in danger of not carrying, or maybe they think it helps to talk about the "middle class" even if you're really appealing to upper or lower income voters.

I wish I had read this yesterday; I might've piped up at the Chinese take-out. Heh.

Posted by: Sarah at 05:04 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Last night on TV, Stephen Moore said that Obama is the Democrat's Ronald Reagan. I think that's absolutely right, though it's the first time I've heard anyone say it.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:21 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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AWTM's keen mind caught a double standard concerning Emanuel and McCain.

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