Monica Kochelee

I was just reading an article on Time.com that France has decided to extend their 35 hour work week. I didn’t know that France had a 35 hour work week! That meant that if they worked more than 35 hours, they got paid overtime! Anyway, France’s government has decided that they will allow businesses to require that their employees work longer hours without paying them. Understandably the businesses are happy about that, the employees not so much.  I know I’d rather have a 35 hour work week!

The economy worries me more than I’d like to admit.  According to the news programs that I watch and the Internet news sites that I read, the ever increasing gasoline prices, the increasing food prices, the floods in Iowa are going to result in HIGHER food prices, the price of milk will be going up to $6.00 gallon soon and the higher unemployment rates all spell bad times ahead.  We’re already in bad times; I hate to think of them getting much worse.  I hope that when the Presidential election is over and done with the economy will recover. 

What do you call an elitist calling someone else an elitist?  I don’t know about you, but I’d call him a schmuck.  I think it is so very funny that David Brooks, the New York Times columnist went on MSNBC Live and said that Barack Obama wouldn’t fit in at an Applebee’s salad bar.  When I heard that he said that I roared with laughter.  Applebee’s happens to be one of my favorite restaurants, and I’ve never seen a salad bar in it!  And to be honest, I would not be surprised to see Barack Obama in an Applebee’s restaurant!  I haven’t read yesterday’s paper yet, but my son told me that he read an article in it that Barack Obama has in fact had meetings in Applebees!  What a riot!  I think David Brooks should take a closer look at just how elitist he himself is before he starts “insulting” people with that term!

I’m sorry to say that there are a lot of bigots in my family. There are also a lot of republicans. I’m the oddball open-minded democrat. Don’t get me wrong, my hubby & kids are also democrats; I’m referring to my siblings and parents being bigots and republicans.

I am already drowning in ugly negative campaign emails from well meaning folks who think that they can convert me to “their party” by telling me “bad stuff” about democrats. I am having a really hard time maintaining a good relationship with these folks!

Oh, how I wish the election was over!

I feel that all politicians wear masks all of the time.  I’m just glad they don’t try to wear sexy halloween costumes too!  That would be gross! 

You can’t trust any of them to fulfill their promises.  They’ll say just about anything they feel they need to say to make their constituents that they happen to be with at the moment happy.  I think that maybe we should force all of them to take lie detector tests before we allow them to run for office and see just how many lies they plan to tell in order to get elected!  And I think we should make them take lie detector tests twice a year after they get elected to ask them important questions about their integrity, and if they lie, they should be kicked out of office!

I think that the perfect Halloween costume this coming autumn would be a devil costume with a George Bush mask.  What could be scarier (or funnier) than that?????   I think that this fall when my hubby & I go to the annual Halloween costume party for the Elks club, I’ll dress up like an angel, he can dress up like the devil and we’ll call ourselves “heaven and hell.”    I like to wear costumes and go to costume parties, I think they are a lot of fun to plan, buy, or make, and then go out and have fun wearing them.  Maybe we’ll even win a “couple’s” prize in the costume contest!  There is a great website called costumecauldron.com that sells a huge variety of Halloween costumes, from scary costumes, to funny costumes, to pretty costumes.  They sell all different sizes, infant through adult, and they even sell pet costumes!

If you are interested in buying a costume from this website, you can get a discount code by going through their “Haunted house back door” by going halfway down the homepage and clicking on the brown comma in the line that reads “Our Store now has over 8,000 masquerade items for you to choose from!”