Letter to Congressman about Deficit Reduction

I just sent a letter to my congressman, and I thought I would share it here.  If this is a subject you feel strongly about, you can send an e-mail using a very simple form to your house representative too - https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

Dear Congressman Labrador,
As someone who consistently votes for Republican candidates, and believes that government should do less and individuals should take more accountability, I am thrilled that there is serious talk about reducing our national deficit.  The interest payments on our national debt are already staggering.
I have recently learned about the proposal from the gang of six in the senate to make steep cuts in entitlement programs (although I haven't heard what the proposed distribution of cuts is between social security, medicare, medicaid).  As I understand it, this proposal would also involve some tax increases, mainly by cutting existing deductions in our tax code, including charitable donations and mortgage interest.  Unfortunately, these tax code changes would probably mean the largest tax percentage increase for someone in my shoes, a middle class individual who donates 10% of their income yearly to charitable causes and who has a mortgage on a home.  If more of the reductions could be achieved through spending cuts alone, that would be great.  However, as everyone knows, no plan is going to pass that doesn't include big compromises from both sides.  I believe action must be taken to raise the debt ceiling (and that serious deficit reductions - 4 trillion + - should be included) before this looming August 2nd deadline.
As long as the large majority of deficit reduction is acheived through cuts and not through tax increases, I am a supporter of it, even it it means I will pay more in taxes next year by losing deductions.
Sincerly,
Frank Mark Salisbury
Resident of Boise and Republican

Our Beautiful Claire

A couple of weeks ago we took Claire out and took some pictures.  Here are some of my favorites.

        
(Dad finally gave me the weed I was trying to get!)    

We love our growing girl and watching her do new things.  She now has two teeth, is excellent at sitting and getting into crawling stance, but not at the actual crawling yet, she is still just thinking about it.

Wicked

On Wednesday Mark and I got to go to Wicked here in Boise.  It was most excellent!  I remember my roommates in college listening to the music, and now I have actually seen it. 

Before the show we went and got Café Rio.  Yay for having it in Boise finally!  Now maybe it won’t be quite so novel when we go to Utah.

Here we are outside the theater before the show (the Boise River is behind us, it is super full and going super fast).

Easter, etc.

Here are our pictures from the last month or so in chronological order…

Attacking Dad.

Look at me I am so adorable!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Weird sleeping positions:

Helping Mom sew curtains:

 

Is there something on my face? (Eating carrots, she has gotten better, but of course still gets a messy face.  What fun would it be otherwise?)

Consignment sale shopping!  Clothes for the next six months (maybe I bought too much, oops!)

Claire has become a pretty good sitter.  She will often complain to you that she wants to sit up.  Once you help her up she is much happier.

Kirk and Jessica (Mark’s brother and his wife) came up for Easter weekend.  We went downtown and played frisbee golf.  Jessica was excited about the goslings until she wasn’t sure what the mom and dad were going to do.

We went out to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. Yummy!

 

Here are our Easter baskets.

Claire got some very styling sunglasses.

Easter Dinner.  Kirk and Jessica are either ready to eat the ham or are scared of it, not sure which.

More random sleeping positions.  Claire is a pretty good sleeper, usually 8pm to 7 or 8am with a 4-6am feeding.

Playtime before naptime.

Fun with the mirror in her crib.

We love our sweet Claire and watching her grow.  She is currently in the process of getting her first tooth, no pictures yet but we can feel and see it. 

Mark and I are still contemplating landscaping…we’ll see what happens.

Catching up

I was going to be good with blogging and then I wasn’t.  So here is what has happened in the last almost two months.

Frolfing-

Claire got to go Frisbee Golfing for her first time.  She did an excellent job of hanging out in her stroller and not loosing any discs.

Valentine’s Day-

We had a fancy prime rib dinner (which Mark had been craving since Christmas when his sister made it, but we didn’t get to join them for it).  Mark bought me some very pretty red roses.

 

Uncle Blake-

Mark’s Uncle Blake, that lives in Indiana, and his girls came to Utah for a visit, so we went down for a few days too.  We stayed with Mark’s sister Mary.  Here is Claire and her cousin Trevor hanging out on the couch.

While we were there, Mark went skiing at Beaver a few times, the boys played computer games, we all played some games together, and we went snowmobiling for part of a day (the longest time we have left Claire with someone else!).  It was Mark’s first time snowmobiling, it was lots of fun, and we didn’t even get stuck. 

Food Storage-

Since the beginning of the year I have been thinking that we needed to get our food storage planned and bought, so I spent a couple of weeks (maybe I thought about things too much) planning, pricing, shopping, organizing, etc.  We now have a meal plan and lots of food nicely organized in the under-the-stairs closet (on new shelves). Yay!

Claire-

Our sweet Claire keeps growing and learning, it is so fun to watch her and hear her (most of the time).

  

She has learned to roll over, be squirmy (she ends up in some crazy positions in her crib),

she laughs and smiles (though the camera distracts her when you try to take pictures),

   

eats rice cereal (not very well or very often),

and her new favorite thing….eating her toes!

 

 

 

 

 

 

She also learned to drive and watch TV (ha, ha)!

 

Hair Bows-

This week me and some friends got together for “craft day”.  Here are the bows and headbands (made out of knee-high nylons) that I mad for Claire.