More CPSIA info

Seriously. This is to the point that every reader needs to listen and act upon. We have 18 days until this law becomes effective and the number of people it will affect is in the millions. We need all those millions of people to contact their representatives in Washington and make it known that CPSIA is more harmful to the children than it is protecting them.

My friend Holly Jahangiri posted her letter on her site. It's an excellent posting. I encourage you all to read her reply to Vivian's comment and understand that this is way deeper than just toys. It will hit everyone in the pockets in the long run.

Don't be a naysayer and say this doesn't affect you. This affects everyone. Please make those phone calls today. At this point, letters may not get there in time, and it seems the only way we can be heard is to be vocal. I would love to take a trip to Washington right now and sit on the front steps of the White House and in front of my representatives' offices and tell them what I think of CPSIA.

I hope the letter I sent to President Obama with a copy of my book inscribed to his daughters will get the message through. Someone has to have a light bulb go off soon and have one of those V-8 moments. If the libraries close their doors to children and/or even remove all the children's books, the schools will have to follow suit in that they won't be able to have textbooks. If all the toys and children's clothing and everything geared for that age group is removed from the places we shop most (like Wal-Mart, Target, K-Mart and the thrift stores and other places), what are all the families with kids going to do? Shrug and say, it doesn't affect me? If you can't even buy a pair of jeans for your kids, what then? Please don't say it doesn't affect you even if you have no kids in the home. If you are an aunt or uncle or a grandparent, it affects you. If you are a single person with no kid-ties in your family, it affects you because over time, you will find that the piece of jewelry you like so much and waiting for the right time to buy it will no longer be affordable to you. Those nice clothes you wear to work or to go out with your friends will be so costly, it won't be affordable to dress for work.

I know I sound like a broken record, but with only 18 days until doomsday, we need to be acting, not sitting back on our hunches and saying it doesn't affect me at all; I have no children in that age group. Call your representatives, remind them that they work for you and not the other way around. They have to listen to the voice of the people. They have to repeal CPSIA before it is too late.

T-minus 18 days and counting - E :)

Messing with Markers

So yesterday, son and I had to go to the doctor's office (me for a checkup and him for some foot pain and his nosebleeds) and then we had to go to the home health care place to get my CPAP machine. We took the computer to the computer place to get the power supply stuff fixed (Benjamin installed the power supply but it wasn't the correct one for the computer, but he did it himself with some illustrated instructions from a search online). While waiting for the computer to be fixed, we ran to Wal-Mart to pick up a few things. I had to get a medication for my diabetes and got it for $4 at Wal-Mart (if any of you have heard about this plan, I encourage you all to check into it. It's regardless of what insurance you carry; based on which medications are on the plan. Mostly generics and things like that but for $4 for a month's supply of medicines you can't beat that. All my other meds I have to get through the mail-in pharmacy through our insurance for the best deal - if I go to the local pharmacy to have my meds filled, it will cost me mega bucks; if I mail them in and use that service, I can get a 3-month supply for $40 regardless of which med it is, unless it is supplies for diabetic checking and all that - so a way to save on your medical costs is to definitely use your mail-in medication provider if you are offered that through your insurance carrier. (I'd rather pay $40 for 3 months' supply than $56 a month any day)).

So Benjamin and I are walking through Wal-Mart and just kind of ambling waiting on my medication to be filled and I picked up a pack of 17 colors Sharpie permanent markers to use on the butterflies. I did the markers on some cardstock with the names and all but they didn't look good. So I decided to color the butterflies with each color comparing the Bic markers I have and the matching colors from Sharpie (and then adding the extra ones to show you how they look on the butterflies).

I like the Bic markers much better due to the fact that they don't smear. When I was trying to label the colors by holding the butterfly on the paper so it didn't shift much, I got Sharpie ink all over my fingertips. You can see how the colors smudged and smeared on the butterfly -

I also have the metallic colors, which I believe in all the samples on here you have seen all 6 colors there, so I won't do a sample butterfly with the six metallics.

Let me know what you think of the colors (and I'm still searching for somewhere to purchase the other two 12-packs of Bic markers - so maybe one of these days I'll have all 36 Bic colors) - see you in the postings - E :)

These are the Bic Colors and since I only have 11 colors (including the Tuxedo Black which is running out - so I didn't label it) there are white spaces between the sections of each color.

These are the Sharpie colors (there are 17 including the black with which I wrote, so no spaces really between the colors)