I got a great surprise this afternoon.  As I was leaving the office for the holiday weekend, my boss handed me an envelope.  I did not open it until I got to my car; expecting $50 or maybe even $100.  As I opened the envelope, I almost fell over with surprise!!

He had given me a $500 bonus for Christmas!!  I was not even expecting a bonus, since I have only worked for him for a year.  But man, this was a great Christmas gift.  I have been needing a new television set in my living room for about 1 1/2 years now, mine went out, and I could not afford to fix it or buy a new one.  So, this is buying me a new television set!!!  They have some great sales going on right now.  Thank you Mr. Elliott for the wonderful gift.

Well, another Christmas is here.  I am sorry to say, it is going to be a lean one again this year.  The things that people want are getting so expensive!!  Ipod, Ipads, Kindles, anything electronic are hot items.

I am just thankful that I and my family and friends are all safe here at home.  I know several people who have relatives who are serving overseas, fighting the war, and think of them and how they will miss those away from home over the holiday.

My Christmas wish is for the wars to end and for everyone to come home.  I know that world peace is never going to be a possibility.  I don’t understand why people can’t just live and let live.  It is a question that will never be answered.

So, we celebrate the birth of Christ once more.  I hope everyone has a joyous and safe Christmas.

I was quite surprised and disappointed recently to learn that the people who are receiving Medicaid to help pay for their medical expenses cannot get Medicaid to pay for mental health expenses. I don’t understand the logic behind the reasoning of Medicaid not paying for mental health issues when it seems to me that so many people are suffering from poverty because of their mental health issues. When I watch television shows; it could be a news program or it could be an episode of Law & Order or Criminal Minds or some other type of television show related to crime it seems that so many of the people that are committing the crimes are poverty stricken and suffer from mental illness.  I have several close friends and even have family members that are struggling with emotional and mental problems that they can certainly benefit from receiving some kind of mental therapy that they can’t afford to get.  Paying for therapy is just not an option for them.  I am sure that a lot of people would be upset with me if I suggested that Medicaid pay for these kinds of treatments because that would probably mean that income taxes would be raised to pay for those treatments; but I think that in the long run, and society in general, would benefit if these people got the treatments they needed.

I hate watching the news these days.  There seems to be nothing but muggings, murders, shootings, accidents and then there is the economy.  Tonight they tell us that Medicaid will be out of money soon and those people who depend on it will be out of luck and won’t be able to get health care.  So much for Obama Care.  I also hear that in 3 weeks the Federal Government will be out of money (again) and will not be able to pay its debt (so much for the big bail out).

I wonder how much of our hard-earned social security funds they will dip into this time?  It seems strange…if an individual person can’t pay their bills, they are taken to court and a judgment is put against them.  Their wages are garnished.  They have to find a way to deal with it.  Why is our government different?  They just simply dip into reserve funds for the elderly and the disabled whenever they feel like it and we are supposed to sit here and take it?

I don’t know about the rest of the country, but I am tired of paying taxes and then have our government programs taken away from us.  I realize that we have to pay taxes and taxes have to go up in order to keep these programs alive, but this is starting to get out of hand.  What am I supposed to do when I retire (if that ever happens)?  I think that I will be working until the day I die.  What do you think?

Dean has the most adorable little Boston Terrier that I’ve ever seen. So when he told me that he and Amy were going to breed her and asked me if I’d like to adopt a puppy from the litter I wasn’t quite sure what to say. Obviously I’d love to have one, but I have my hands full already! I guess the best thing for me to do is to ask more questions, like “what do you mean by adopt – are you offering one for free, or exactly how much money did you want?”

I really don’t know if they’re just trying to sell an unborn litter, or if they want to give me one for free. And in these economic times, I don’t know if I could afford to buy one!