Live Free Or Die

The official motto of the Granite State (New Hampshire, people) is "Live Free Or Die."

I'm pretty sure this was a phrase originating with the revolution - the American Revolution. It is a pretty passionate motto, don't you think? I mean, there it is on all our license plates: LIVE FREE OR DIE! But if you look at the other state mottos, you have to admit it says something. I'm the other mottos mean something as well, but I tend to raise my eyebrows at mottos like "Friendship" or "Hope" or "Labor omnia vincit." Let's face it, anything in latin is a strange motto.

Anyway, I appreciate the sentiment behind the phrase on a few levels. And it makes me uncomfortable and angry when I end up sifting through political jargon and the legal "fees" that companies are allowed to charge me. It seems so silly that I have to file so many papers for an infant just to settle the medical issues surrounding BEING BORN. I kind of share my husband's conviction that the government is tracking us somehow. I do not, however, think it is being done via immunizations. I tend to lean towards subliminal messaging in advertising and the internet. (how else can you explain Hannah Montana?)

But anyway, I found Andrew's social security card. You will never guess where it was! It was in the folder it was supposed to be in, the very first place I looked. I must have gone through it seven or eight times. But somehow I missed looking between two very specific sheets of paper, and so I missed it. Of course I had to turn the house upside down and sift through the paper recycling barrel TWICE. (other people might have bins, but we throw out a lot of paper, so we get a whole trash barrel.)