Elena 
Join Jen and the other Quicktakers over at the Conversion Diary
1. The American Family Association has a voters guide that you can print out and take with you in to the voting booth. You put in your information and it gives you info on the races in your area! And it includes the libertarians and how they rate on family issues – just in case you were planning to vote all third party! (and I hope you’re not! This election is to important and to close to have the luxury of going third party!)
2. For some odd reason, rape and conception after rape kept coming up in this election cycle.
As the daughter of a negligent father, I strongly feel that no child should ever have to be punished for the sins of the father. That baby is also an innocent victim. On that note, I found this video about children conceived in rape to be very thought provoking and life affirming.
3.
Noah got to attend dinner at the rectory last week with all of the other young men in the parish who are at least considering vocation in the priesthood. Noah and one other young man were the youngest guys there, but he still had a great time and even made it up to the top of the bell tower! You can read Father V’s perspective on it here! Noah is third from the left and you can only see half of his body.
4. Unbelievably, I finally sold the property I inherited up in Michigan. Those 40 acres have been in my family for about 100 years. My great-grandfather bought it, and then sold it to my grandfather, who sold it to my uncle, who died and passed it on to my mother, who then left it to my sister and me. It’s a beautiful piece of land on a dead end dirt road with nice trees, a rolling hill, rock quarry and meadow. Mr. Pete and I always thought we’d like to keep it. And then we got our first property tax bill.
It has cost my sister and me $2000 a year in property taxes to hang on to the property. In essence, it would never be just ours to keep, but a drain on the bank account every year. We couldn’t even hope to build a cabin or any type of building on it, because that would raise the taxes! (It turns out Michigan is one of the top 10 states for the biggest property taxes).
So it was with a heavy heart that I listed the property and then sold it this week (after eight months). Mr. Pete said every time I start to feel bad about it, I should go flush some dollar bills down the toilet and I would feel better. He was right. Sorry state of Michigan, but I’m done being your tax victim. My sister and I will happily take our proceeds and do something with them here in Ohio!
5. Speaking of things coming to an end …
I had thought I was finally done with my monthly visitors, Aunt Flo and Cousin Red. I hadn’t seen them since I asked them to stop coming in August of 2011! As the months passed and I didn’t have any visits, I thought I was finally through. I also knew that after a year with no periods, I would be, for the most part, through menopause. I made it to month 12 and felt pretty good about it. No bad feelings about aging or even a loss over the childbearing years. I was well adjusted and content.
Until… They showed up again in month 13!??
I am the first woman in three generations of my family to go through a natural menopause, so I’m taking note of things for my daughters and my nieces. Gosh ladies- I hope you appreciate this!!!
6. All Saints Day was more low key this year. This is the first year that Izzy and Noah did not dress up. I was okay with that. Instead of trick or treating, they went to two youth group activities- one at a haunted maze with the group from church, and one at a bonfire with the homeschool youth group. Rosie dressed up in Izzy’s old medieval dress (I’m so glad I bought that dress so many years ago! – it was $30 which seemed like a fortune then but Izzy wore it at least twice and now Rosie is wearing it!). We didn’t get to go trick or treating but she did go to an awesome All Saints Day Party put on by our homeschool group and she still had lots of fun!
I even made it out to Raphael’s grave by myself.
7. Cupcakes made by Izzy and Rosie for Halloween!
Oh too bad you had to sell the property. But good grief, that seems like a lot of money for raw land with no structures. We own 40 acres of hunting land and pay less than $20 for property taxes.