The deadline for submitting a link or a recipe for the Sea Kittens for IEATAPeTA Day Recipe Carnival  is on Ash Wednesday, February 25th, 2009.

The Carnival will be posted on March 1st.

IEATAPeTA Day is March 15th.

Ash Wednesday starts Lent so fish Sea Kitten recipes should come in quite handy! Perhaps it won’t be the same old same old on Fridays.

Send recipes to seakitten *at* this domain *dot* com. You can also send to seakittens *at* this domain *dot* com.

So they’ve passed this massive spending bill without having read it. Who could have read it in the time they gave it? President Obama is set to sign it, unread of course. He’ll depend on his aides to tell him what’s in it. That’s the excuse he’ll give for not having read it either.

The Dems have had their wish list for 40 years and they’ve accomplished a lot of it with this bill. Most of what is in this bill should have been taken care of in the regular appropriations cycle, but maybe they were afraid that even with Dem control of both the legislative and executive branches that they wouldn’t get this stuff though in the regular process.

Then, too, this is supposed to be such a big deal. The President was able to get this huge spending bill passed so quickly, so soon into his administration. Yipee!

But he got no Republican support in the house, in fact he got bipartisan opposition to the bill. In the Senate, he got Specter and the Maine twins to help get it passed. But still, there were more than twice as many Democrats in opposition than there were Republicans in favor…

It’s not such a great accomplishment. The House has enough Democrats to pass anything they want without any Republican support at all. A fact they proved with this spending bill. Nancy Pelosi passed the bill with no Republican support and even with Democrat defection. An accomplishment would have been to garner Republican support. But that’s hard to do when you won’t let them have any input. When you just expect them to roll over and vote your way.

They want to help out people who are upside down in their mortgages, people who are in danger of foreclosure, or who are already in foreclosure.

What about me though? I pay my mortgage on time every month. I didn’t purchase a house that was out of my range. But, being a responsible person, I’m stuck. I have a 1200 square foot ranch house on a 1/10th acre lot. I have a crawlspace (with a full cement floor, not just a splash coat) that has flooded a few times rendering everything I had stored down there unusable. With no garage and no basement for storage, we spend extra each month for a storage locker to hold larger items and now smaller items that we used to store down below. The new Christmas tree since the old one was ruined, othere seasonal decorations, the children’s school work (lost quite a bit of the older childrens’ stuff), etc.

I wake up every morning with a badly aching back. If I had one of those Sleep Number beds with the hospital bed effect (raising the back, raising the knees, etc. I could sleep better and not have as much pain on waking as I do now. But I can’t fit a king size bed (which is what I would need, as Hubby likes to sleep flat…) in my house.

My house also only has one bathroom. Oh, for a second bathroom, even just a half bath, for when the main bath is occupied. Even just an extra toilet somewhere with a curtain around it. The kitchen sink is fine for handwashing after use.

This bill would give first time homebuyers a deal. Or people buying a new car or truck a deal. I am not a first time homebuyer. I may want a second vehicle, but we just don’t have the money for a new car or truck.

I would certainly love to get a bigger house with a basement and a garage. I would certainly love to have another vehicle. When the weather is inclement, Hubby leaves work early so I can take the truck to go get The Little Guy from school. If the weather is clement, I will walk a mile to the school and then a mile back with The Little Guy. I won’t let The Little Guy do this by himself yet. Too many scary people in the world. And eight year old boys are known for wandering and meandering and getting distracted during the walk home.

I’d love to have a bigger house that would allow me to have a dedicated office. One that would allow Hubby to have his own office too. A place where the kids can play, where The Little Guy could set up a train, or a Lego town and be able to leave it up instead of having to put it away all the time. A place where I could store my stuff without having to spend on an external storage area. A place for the Bowflex…

Oh, I hear that Hubby’s paycheck may have an extra $13 a week until next January when it goes down to $8 extra a week… W00t!