Some of you may have read the post about the Deadbeat Boyfriend, well we figured out the apple does not fall far from the tree. My daughter’s boyfriend filed his taxes the last week of January, both of them have been eagerly awaiting his $375.00 to help pay their rent. “The Boyfriend” just found a job a few days ago, so he is finally working, but she is not so things are very tight at their place. We have been bringing over what food we can and also trying to help out with gas, with the simple reply of “we will give it back when his taxes come in”. We know that they can’t afford to give it back, and we just hope those taxes get to them fast before we too run out of means to help them.

I advised them to go to the library and check the status of their refund, since they did not know when they would actually receive it. Our daughter called me later in the afternoon just crying her eyes out. After claming her down she tells me that his tax return was rejected the day after he filed. Then she proceeds to tell me that his parents claimed him on their taxes, and that is why he can not file! Oh yeah my blood was starting to boil and I was definitely seeing red. Are you kidding me? He is twenty years old and a full time deadbeat not a full time student! Can we say tax fraud….

After a long rant session and trying to weed through the garbage there is nothing that they can do about it at this point. “The parents” filed their taxes the day before the boyfriend so his was rejected not THIERS! Oh did I mention that “the parents” received a rapid refund so there is no money left to give the “kids”. By the way H&R Block did “the parents” taxes and they were well aware that the boyfriend was not a full time student, but allowed them to claim him anyway. “The parents” did not even have the decency to tell their son that they claimed him, so he will not be getting his refund, they let him just sit and wait.

H&R block has offered to do our daughter’s boyfriend’s taxes for free, image that. They stated that “the parents” will have to amend their return and after that is accepted then he can file. They are saying approximately end of April beginning of May before they get his refund, providing “the parents” have the means to pay back the amount they were overpaid by the IRS.

As I sit here trying to comprehend how a parent can take from their child, I find myself in horror that our daughter is considering marring into that family.

The school district has done it again, they are putting state funding in front of student safety. I am pissed that yet again that the school can make decisions regarding our children’s safety that makes no sense at all. I understand that our district has had four snow days in two weeks and my kids have not been to school in five days. We can not do anything about old man winter, he has a huge hold on us this year. Currently our state has wind chill advisories posted, the news channel is stating to stay inside whenever possible. The wind chill is reading -18 and in a direct quote from meteorologist Mike Cameron he states

“We can’t emphasize enough that you really need to cover every ounce of skin,”

I know we lose state funding if the students miss too many days due to the weather, which is absolutely ridiculous, but we are talking about the safety and welfare of the students. How could a state put a mandate on the number of “emergency” days the district has to keep our children safe?

Did they think about the kids that have to walk to school or the kids that have to wait at the bus stop? THEY SHOULD NOT BE EXPOSED TO THIS WEATHER! Several other neighboring districts called for a two hour delay, even that would have shown some compassion for the students who do not have a warm car or bus to ride in. This may sound futile for some, but if you have children you should know where I am coming from. Two years ago I may have thought it futile too, until we lost our son due to unsafe conditions on his way to school. There should never be a known risk to any student that is trying to get to school and if there is the district should be held accountable. (Which we found out they can not be held accountable, for unsafe conditions.) Not only is the wind chill this morning an extreme risk to any student that does not have transportation, after our sixteen inch snowfall on Thursday many of the sidewalks leading to the school remain hidden under the vast amounts of snow, including in front of The State Police Station. So as the students are braving these negative temperatures they also expect them to drudge through a foot and a half of snow. I am sure that our Superintendent Mr. Daniel was able to easily get to his warm car this morning. I hope he thought of all those freezing students as his made through the middle of Bridgeport and saw the snow covered sidewalks.

Four years ago we bought our first house, it is a large five bedroom house on the same street we had rented on for seven years. We were looking for something that had potential, a house that we could put our personal touch in. Okay so we were naive to the work and money it actually took to do what we wanted, but for two years we did little cosmetic changes and even opened up the living room, we were very happy with the progress.

The upstairs has four rooms and used to be an apartment at one time. The large bedroom has beautiful hardwood floors with a small deck outside, that was our daughter’s room. One of the rooms had an adjoining room that used to be the kitchen/dining area, we used that as our son’s room. Here’s were it all becomes insane. When our son died, I wanted that room gone and our daughter would be graduating the following year, we knew she would be going her own way. So in an instant of temporary insanity we started knocking out walls. I wanted all three rooms to be open into one big beautiful room, something that would comfort my soul on those hard days. Our house is old, so all the walls were plaster WHAT A MESS! We needed to find a way to get rid of all the plaster so we rented a small dumpster. Two days later we get a nasty gram from the township building inspector. OOOPPPS who knew you had to have a permit for anything you touch in your house. I argued it is my house you can’t dictate how I remodel it. Well that didn’t get us far. After the initial inspection to obtain the $200 building permit, we found out that we also needed an electrical permit because when we tore down the plaster we unhooked the electrical line from the ceiling light fixture, AUTOMATIC PERMIT! Who knew, they never show that stuff on DYI. By the way we were also told we needed a mechanical permit because we disassembled the heat ducts so they would fall on our head. So now we are up to three permits, along with the huge list of things we needed to do to bring that part of the house to the “current code”. The inspector also told us that when we obtain the $300 electrical permit that if the rest of the house is under current code we will be required to have the whole house rewired! OH HELL WHAT DID I DO? I tried the temporary insanity plea, it didn’t work either, I guess we chalk it up to life experience.

We continued with the structural modifications, which we worked on all summer long and it was a great time for our family. We all worked together to make this magnificent room. We even bought books to help with the electrical since we now needed x amount of plugs, x amount of lighting, hard wired smoke detectors, ect. We are scared to get the electrical permit, due to the fact that we would never be able to pay someone to rewire our whole house. Now two years later, we have a big beautiful room with gorgeous windows, and a cathedral ceiling that we can not cover with insulation or drywall due to permits. The government always has to have a piece of the pie and a say in your life. You can’t even change a damn household plug, legally without a permit, just stupid!

It is now my room of insanity, some days I just sit in there thinking how wonderful it would be to see it finished, if only the building inspector would drop of the face of the earth.

Rick Burgess of the popular “Rick & Bubba” morning radio show recently lost his son to a backyard drowning incident. Bronner Burgess was 2 1/2. Though they grieve, the Burgess family united with God and used Bronner’s death to inspire non-Christians & Christians alike.  Below you will find the YouTube link. It is in three parts. I encourage all of you to watch all three especially if you are dealing with the loss of a loved one. It is refreshing and just amazing to hear him speak.

Part I – Video 

Part II – Video 

Part III – Video 

A Pennsylvania couple decided to write the F.A.A. a message on their rooftop because they are sick of the airplane noise. The Federal Aviation Administration changed the plane routes around the Philadelphia Airport and now the poor guy has to sleep with earplugs in. All I can say is “Way To Go!” more of us should speak out about things that bother us maybe someone would start paying attention. Read The Full Article.

Actual Photo of their roof