Self Discovery Sucks, Especially In The Middle Of A Blog Entry

The Hebrew term "Mitzvah" is one that means, or refers to, all of the 600 or so commandments in Jewish law. However, it has also, more commonly, come to be used as a word to describe acts of human kindness. Particularly to describe those acts that are performed for no other reason, or gain, than that they are the right thing, or the kind thing, to do. Usually unheralded, often even unknown who the 'doer' is.
I'm not sure when, where, or from whom, I first heard of 'making a mitzvah'. I know it goes a long, long way back in my personal history. The idea of doing good, of doing the right thing, and not waving a flag to tell anyone about it. Just doing it. Even guilt attached to it if you do call attention to the act, or actions...they lose their meaning, or their inherent 'goodness', if you tell folks you did it, or them....
Perhaps this is one of the places Jewish law, or tradition, crosses over to Christian, or 'Christ-like' behavioral expectations. The whole idea that one's reward for 'doing good' comes in heaven. That the idea of self-sacrifice and giving to others quietly, without fanfare, is the ultimate form of prayer. I like that idea.
Folks who need to tell you that they have given or done something nice always bring up some bizarre need in me to choke them. I guess there lurks in me some serious violent tendencies. I get especially annoyed when others buy into this 'oh what a good person so-'n-so is'. And they only know 'so-'n-so' is a good person because 'so-'n-so' told them he/she is a good person. Gggrrrrrrrrrrr...........
Then there is the selfish side of me. I see this nonsense, and I think to myself, 'well for crying out loud! I did the same nice thing, or I did something even nicer...' and no one is giving me credit!...But that would require me telling about what I did that was good, thereby negating it as an act of goodness. So I lose the long-term credit.....Maybe even looking at it as having 'long term credit' diminishes it, in some way....and I lose either way....
I'm sure there are people for whom 'doing good' is a natural, no thought needed, process. I think I've actually met a couple of these folks....I mean I think...because who really knows what lurks in the heart of man...or woman....but for all intents and purposes, they appear to be really nice and really good people....
It's sort of like Oprah's "random acts of kindness" thing...I really like that...or liked that...until I started encountering folks who had the need to tell me about the 'random' acts they had done....Again, it annoyed the hell out of me because I wanted to counter with one-up-manship stuff..."I did a bigger random act" but then the guilt and fear would kick in....and I would simply tell them what they wanted to hear..."Oh my, what a good person you are!"
Fact is, I'm really starting to dislike 'good people'. Or at least the ones who have to tell everyone, in a furtive, secretive way, what good people they are. Hell, why bother with the 'furtive', they tell anyone who will listen....
As I am writing this, I am realizing how jaded I really have become. I started out wanting to write something about 'grace', or physical manifestations of prayer...and I find myself writing about the dark inner demons of my, and probably others, souls....
And ego....part of me feels some weird sort of pride that I haven't indulged in bragging about having done nice things...I'm guessing that diminishes the long term benefits, too!
Okay, so much for goodness and kindness and making mitzvahs...
I'm thinking I probably should just go out for a walk and find a lost, miserable dog to kick....but I really love dogs...especially lost miserable dogs...they pull on my heart strings...so maybe I should go out and find some very average person and insult the bejesus out of them...I mean really rip them a new one....because I really can't stand dealing with 'average'...I mean the 'Joe the plumbers' drive me nuts...
But then I would feel really bad at having hurt some poor unsuspecting schmuck....because, way down deep, in the most hidden recesses, I do have a conscience.
Methinks I am slowly discovering that I am actually a member, of the human race...I am a mix of all sorts of things....ego, and guilt, and kindness, and jealousies, and grandiosity, and humility....
It's quite a let down to realize how average I am...maybe that's why so many don't make this discovery until we're well into our middle years....to confront this without first having developed a true and real appreciation of chocolate and scotch could be devastating.....

Wonderful Pictures of St. George Courthouse and El Cap

Every now and then, friends send me photos. I want to share some recent ones with everyone. They help create a visual for folks who have not had the priveledge of visiting the Short Creek area.

Here are a few from outside the courthouse in St. George on Friday....

I found the one of the police on the roof particularly disconcerting!

These are some spectacular pictures taken from the climb up and, atop "El Cap", the huge bluff behind the twin cities......

I hope folks enjoy these. I know I really did!

And, although I didn't tell the photographers I was posting these, I really hope they don't mind, because they are such great pictures!!!!! And art should be shared.......

This Is MY Blog. I Can Rant and Rave If I Want To!

I am exhausted.
I am depressed.
I am so completely tired of having to deal with cry babies who cannot let go of their childhood demons.
People who explain every crappy thing they do, or comment they make that is hurtful, or misjudgement they make, by saying it must be the influence of the rotten childhood they had.
I want to just shake them and tell them to get over it!
For crying out loud, I had a really crappy childhood, too. Probably crappier than most. So did my sister. And we have both moved on to have full lives, with people we love and who love us. Tomorrow holds all the promise of wonder and joy that it always does. Yesterday can never return.
My gosh! We were beaten, mentally tortured, deprived of love, locked up for long periods, subjected to terrible indignities, molested by an older family member, institutionalized, disowned, raped....you name it, it probably happened to one or both of us. We've both had periods of alcohol and drug abuse, promiscuity, suicidal ideations, abusive relationships, running away.... Our father failed to protect us. He was even an abuser, at times. The nuns failed to protect us. Counselors failed to protect us.
You know what? Life goes on. With or without us, life goes on. And you know what else? Life can be full of really good things! You have to decide that you want your life filled with good things in order for there to be room for them. It has to be a conscious decision.
You can dwell on the past, constantly reliving the horrors and pains, or you can put them aside and make room for good things and great joy to take up the space.

And I am really, really tired of the FLDS being put under a microscope. I'm tired of them being held to a higher standard than we hold ourselves and our own communities to. And I am tired of people asking intrusive, personal questions of Pliggy and others, as though they are entitled to that information.
And I am tired of the nastiness. The abject meanspiritedness of the questioners and those who feel they have the right to sit in judgment. I want them to all just go away and stop being so damn ugly!
I am a tough old bird, yet I find myself in tears at the end of a day on the blogs.
I can be ruthless when I need to get something accomplished. But even in my ruthlessness, I respect certain boundaries. These people don't even have a sense of boundaries!
Laurie and her ilk don't bother me anywhere nearly as much as the pseudo-inquisitive, 'I'm curious and want to learn', bunch. Laurie, et al, are at least up front with their hatred and agenda.
It's the 'rebeckah' types who make me want to slap the bejesus out of them. She's just the most recent of that type....and to think I went out of my way for her. I connected her with a mother from Shortcreek who was very, very kind to her! She says things that are so judgemental and condescending, as though the folks reading her posts are less than human, ergo not deserving of courteous language. And when confronted she uses her very tired crap about 'just wanting to be objective'. Crap! And she seems to believe she is rather intelligent. Makes me laugh when people do that...I'm guessing she's 120, maybe 125....not a lick over! And she is the worst of the using her childhood as an excuse types! Oh my gosh is that getting lame!

And the whole damn bunch get to me with their abject refusal to even acknowledge cultural differences. Never mind understanding the huge impact those differences have on perceptions.
There is a language difference. Both in the use of words and terms and understandings, and in the seeming literalness of the FLDS speech. For the most part their speech is devoid of inuendo or sarcasm. And they don't seem to look for it, or recognize it in others. Some, like "pliggy", "cheese", "rose", and a few others, who are regulars on the blogs seem to be picking it up, and even using it, from time to time...but overall, it is clearly a cultural difference that needs to be acknowledged by anyone who intends to enter into any serious dialogue with the group.

This standard setting is really getting to me...
Yesterday there were comments about what the twin towns look like...nasty comments....It makes me wonder if some of these folks who are posting live in some sort of Ozzie and Harriet, white picket fence bubble, that they never leave. Obviously they have never driven through rural Pennsylvania's small towns....
And I guess they've never seen the devastation to "Main St." in small towns all across the country...the shuttered store fronts and run down buildings, with no people and no businesses...
And they've never seen the sun dried lawns of even the affluent neighborhoods of Southern California...

But mostly I get hurt, not angry, just hurt when folks like Laurie tell me that the women I have become friends with are not real. That they are men posing as women to rope me in....that is the biggest pile of crap I've heard in a long time....but others read that and wonder...they already are ready to believe the worst about this community...then they read that kind of garbage...
And, I know it isn't true...I know that I have become friends with these wonderful women...and that they aren't stupid, or brainwashed, or trapped...no more so than anyone else is...
Hell, everyone feels trapped by their own lives from time to time...
Everyone feels subservient to others, from time to time....Everyone feels stupid, from time to time...
And we're all brainwashed, to some degree...it's called differential association....It's part of living the human condition....

I wish I could fix things. I wish I had pixie dust. I'd use some of it in my own life, for sure. But mostly I would share it....
I think, in some ways, all that has happened has caused some good things to happen. It has certainly opened up the communication between the community and the rest of the world. And I do think there are some folks who have learned that it is a good community. And I have made new friends...and to me, that is laways good....
But my growing knowledge has made me sad, too....and sometimes I just want to scream that I already have enough sad stories and people I am responsible for understanding and caring for in my life....
When I'm being all sorts of rational and intelligent, I tell myself, and others, I am an agnostic...but when I am feeling so overburdened, I become God-believing very quickly!!!! I start remembering the lessons of my childhood, that God never gives anyone more to bear than they are capable of carrying...that everything has a purpose....
I just can't figure out what my purpose in this saga is...it keeps escaping my understanding...but I seem to get in deeper and deeper...
And right now, I just want to throttle all these people who are so hurtful.....

Stroudsburg, Pa. or Norman Rockwell's Imagination?

It is a gorgeous Fall morning, here in Pa.! The sun is shining, the air is crisp. The colors are magnificent. It is, for this small moment in time, the stuff of great artists, and poets, and memories. As I sit here at my desk, the sun is streaming in through the window, warm on my body. My birds are behind me making all their morning noises. My coffee is still steaming. I can hear small school children walking down the street, shuffling their feet in the crispy, fallen leaves, voices and laughter part of their sounds. And I am thinking about my new friend, far away, that I want to share this moment with. I want to freeze it in time.
We have a beautiful old, brick, elementary school a half block down the street. In good weather the kindergarten and first grade teachers often take their children for walks in the mornings. And it is always a treat to watch them. I love the little ones. At a distance! When someone else is responsible for them! They are always so bright and fresh and full of quick smiles!
Sometimes I get so caught up in the daily horrors and pains of life that I forget how truly blessed I am.
I live in a lovely old Victorian neighborhood. Full of beautiful old homes and wide, tree lined streets. We have almost no crime in this neighborhood. People take pride in their yards, and many are beautifully landscaped. It is a family neighborhood with lots and lots of children. The speed limit on our streets is 15 miles per hour and most folks actually respect that. All of the streets in this neighborhood are named after the children of our town's founder. We have Sarah and Thomas, Scott and Ann, Monroe and Fulmer. It is a constant reminder, at least for some, that this is a family town. A family place. Many of the homes were built a hundred to two hundred years ago. And they were big houses for that day. Houses for big families! My house was built in the late 1800's!
A few blocks away is Main St.. Main St. is alive and vibrant. Not the desolate, declining Main St. of all the news stories from across America. We have local shops, owned and operated by local folks, that thrive. There are always people in and out of the shops. Cars parked and sounds and smells coming from the doors. We have old fashioned side-walk sales all summer long. There are restaurants and small shops, side by side. It really is very, very nice! People recognize one another on the street, nodding, and saying hello, as each makes their way along their routes. The local police walk the sidewalks. The mailman knows everyone. Often someone's dog is tied to a parking meter or light post while their owner shops, or does an errand. It really is like something off the cover of the Saturday Evening Post. It is Norman Rockwell, circa 2008.
Between Main St. and my neighborhood, lies Courthouse Circle. Our courthouse is an huge old, natural sandstone, building, with a big tower and large, stately stairs leading to the front doors. In front, separated by a narrow street, is a circle with a "doughboy" statute and an old, WWI cannon, and flower beds and benches for lunch time sitting, or for strollers to stop for a rest.All around the circle are old brick and clapboard row houses. All in beautifully restored condition. These old buildings house lawyers and small shops like jewelers, and tailors, and land offices. It is very pretty. And in front of the buildings are flowering trees. The spring, when they are in bloom, is gorgeous! In the winter, when the trees are bare, small lights are strung in the trees, giving them a twinkling quality as soon as the sun sets.
Year round, on the first Saturday of each month, we have an "artist's walk" in the evening. All of the shops stay opened, late. Local artists display their works in the different businesses. Often business owners will offer refreshments. In the warm months, musicians are playing on the street. There are often kiosks at the Courthouse circle with vendors of all sorts. And everywhere there are people strolling. The downtown theater often has open doors with some special short performance being offered several times over the evening. the restaurants have outside tables. It is very, very nice!

So...the pictures here I took about an hour ago....

I want to share my town with you. I want it to be real....

This is the front of my house. Next is looking East from my house, then the house two west from me.


This is the house three west of me and one looking from across the street going west.

If you notice, the old maple tree in front of my house is so much greener than all the others???...well, methinks it has broken into the old, iron sewer line coming out of my house....gggrrrrrrrr..........

Here we have Ramsey Elementary, the school a half block from my house. Next is the side street running along the west side of Ramsey, and then my friend Peter's house, kitty-corner from Ramsey.

Here is the house on the other corner from the school and next is the courthouse, three blocks south from my front porch. If you drew a straight line from my porch, you would hit the back door of the courthouse.

Following are a few more images of the courthouse and the circle in front of it....

All old buildings, housing lawyers and small businesses......

Now some images from Main St. Because I'm taking these pictures on a weekday morning, you won't see all the foot traffic, but by mid-day, it's bustling.....

And now, last, but not least...two pictures of McMichaels Creek, just one block south of Main St. and a picture of the Anne St. Train Station....

I hope you like the pictures. They don't begin to do justice to what a really pretty town Stroudsburg is...

On Acting In A "Christ-like" Way......and the FLDS

Whether one considers oneself Christian or not, there is no disputing the fact that Jesus Christ was a pretty decent person. A caring, thoughtful, giving, compassionate man. So modeling one's behavior after this man, whether you believe in his divinity or not, is something that is apt to serve you well.

If you read various "Christian" dogma and doctrine, it usually sounds 'okay'. The usual stuff about kindness and giving and loving and so on.....sprinkled with all the 'shalls and shall nots' and a healthy sprinkling of fear....
But all in all, the writings of most "Christian" sects would lead one to believe that those that ascribe to these beliefs are a pretty decent lot of folks....

Not......

Too often I find folks that call themselves "Christians" to be terribly hypocritical. They quickly tell you what denomination they follow. Many quickly tell you all the ways you are going to hell or suffer damnation if you don't also begin to follow their denomination. almost across the board they tell you how to live your life. And what to believe.
This is especially true of those that claim to be 'evangelical'....holy jamoly are they fast to tell you that the state has no place in dictating religion, or interfering in religion!!!
On the other hand, these are the same folks who want to "bring God back into the schools..", "bring God into the courtrooms..."
teach our children in public schools...state funded, PUBLIC schools, that specific lifestyles are bad...particularly homosexuality. They want to teach creationism in science class...as a viable alternative to evolution....a set of religious beliefs...undisputably their beliefs about 'creationism' come from their belief in the bible...a religious document, or collection of documents....
They are fighting to maintain the current definition of marriage, in most places, by religious standards...i.e. one man, one woman.
There are those who object to Martin Luther King Day being recognized as a school holiday, but cry bloody murder when Spring break doesn't fall over Easter Week.....
They rail against feminists. Completely ignoring the fact that it is the feminists who are fighting to assure that "choice", including the choice to be a stay-at-home-mom is a valid and viable one for women to make...and that whatever choice a woman makes, it is deserving of the same respect and compensation and validation as those choices men have always had the right to make.....

And, worst of all, these so called "christians" both approve of, and often participate in, behaviors that deliberately hurt other human beings.....because they have judged them......somewhere along the way they missed the phrase "Judge not, lest ye be judged..."

Fact is, I had become pretty anti-christian because of these behaviors, until recently......
Well, actually, I have always been very, very 'pro christian' if you're talking about those folks who truly try to emmulate Jesus Christ's behaviors and demeanor....I had just become anti-assholes...most of whom I met called themselves "Christians".

Then the debacle in Texas started to unfold. The women and children were taken and Voila'!!!!, the FLDS were in the headlines.....Now I already knew a bit about their faith...but I knew nothing, except what folks like Flora Jessop or Carolyn Jessop said on television, about the people, themselves.....so I was willing to lump them into the pile with the rest of the "christians" I knew...or most of them, anyway....(I do know a few folks who truly do take emmulating Jesus seriously, and are really good folks.)
Be that as it may, I was horrifed at the abject trampling of the constitution...the clear and resounding bias and bigotry being displayed....the magnitude of the state's incursion into their lives...the damage the state was doing to the women and children it had taken into custody...I was simply horrified!!!!! So I knew I had to speak out...I assumed I would be just one voice amongst many that were crying out.....

Wrong....

I ran into a host of my "christian" friends...all telling me what a great thing the State of Texas had done...how "those people" deserved this, and worse...and just watch...they were gonna get what was coming to them...those freaks...those pedophiles...those weirdos in their funny clothes and hairdos....just you watch!!!!
Well, if I had misgivings at all, they dried up in a heartbeat!
So I started reading and blogging...
I found that Brooke Adams, from the Salt Lke Tribune, had about the fairest blog I could find. She seemed to go out of her way to present a balanced view. And she never inserted her own opinioninto her blogs...she just wrote stories...
So I started being a 'regular' on Brooke's blog...and, unbeknownst to me, so were a number of the FLDS community....if not posting, then following.....
And awhile into this mess, a couple of the FLDS started talking to me...and one or two emailed me....
And I started asking questions and learning not just about their doctrine, but about them as a people. And amazingly, I have found them to be amongst the most Christ-like of people I have ever come across.
They have a set of beliefs, yes. I have yet to find any one of them saying anyone else has to believe what they do. They are across the board respectful in how they speak and interact with others. They are accepting of the goodness of others, whether others ascribe to their beliefs, or not. Their doctrine also accepts and expects that people of all faiths and callings will be a part of heaven and the hereafter....
They turn the other cheek, they forgive, even the most egregious of wrongs....
I have made friends in the FLDS community who know full well I do not share their religious beliefs, but they take me at my word and like me for who I am, and ask nothing more than the same from me....
They work hard at following the United Order....they work hard at not falling prey to the vagaries of greed and envy and petty jealousies....
I don't know if they have a word for them, but I know them as 'mitzvahs'...doing good things for others, freely, often unheralded, just because it is the right thing to do...they work hard to make others feel good, to be happy, to have joy...to see the cup half full....FLDS members make 'mitzvahs' all of the time....
I have an FLDS friend who sends me 'smiles'...I know it sounds silly....but who knows, maybe they are divinely inspired, because they seem to come just at the point when I am most fed up with the ugly vagaries of the human condition.....

So this is long....and probably to most, quite boring...but I needed to 'say it'...to put my instincts in order...to give words to intuition....
To help me continue...to remind myself of why I fight....
And to honor a group of people I feel so very priveledged to have met...and to especially honor my new friends, for whom it took real courage to extend that first email, that first smile....

I am so angry and fed up with the ugliness that abounds...I am so grateful I have found some balance.....

Morrie's Iron Pot, Pot-Roast

Best darn pot-roast ever!!!!!!!

Morrie's iron pot, pot-roast;

Ingredients;
Large boneless chuck roast...4-5 lbs.
large green bell pepper, chopped in one inch pieces
one large or two medium onions chopped in big pieces...one inch
3-4 stalks of celery, including leaves, cut into 1 inch pieces
1 fifteen ounce can of diced tomatoes
about 2 ounces worsteshire sauce
3-4 tablespoons of chopped garlic
3-4 cracked bay leaves
salt and pepper
6 medium all purpose potatoes, cut in half
1 lb. of 'baby' carrots
several small, peeled onions, if desired

Dust the roast in flour and brown in oil on all sides
pour off the oil and add the canned tomatoes and all the chopped veggies and spices
add enough water to cover the meat.
bring to a boil and then turn down to a simmer
Cook on simmer for four to five hours...until the meat is very soft...
Remove the meat. cover on a platter
add more water if necessary. add the small onions. cook for about fifteen minutes.
add the carrots
cook about ten minutes
add potatoes and cook until tender
remove large vegetables...
thicken water with a flour roux...
put meat back into simmering gravy for a few minutes to reheat..
place meat and veggies on a platter to serve...cut meat in chunks
place gravy with all the veggie bits in a bowl with ladle and enjoy!

I suppose you could cook this in any old big pot, but Morrie always used a cast iron dutch oven so that is what I use.
(I have my grandmother's cast iron pots and they are THE BEST!)

This works well with stew meat, also. Just reduce the time you cook the meat.

My father died a very rich, miserable man. This is the only thing of value I ever got from him.
The man was really pretty awful. But boy oh boy, could he cook!

God, Can't We Slow This Show Down A Bit?

I've intended to blog so many times....

Intended, of course, being the key word here. Life just gets in the way. Just when you think there might be five minutes to breathe, something new comes up, demanding one's attention.

So this is going to be a quick update...

1. The porch is 'almost' completed...still have to do the ceiling...and then plant the front yard over...grass...flowers, etc...

This isn't the best picture....probably because I haven't yet taken 'the best' picture...sorry. But at least there is a new deck, new posts and rails, it's painted...and you can't see, but there is a new roof on it...ah..this is good!

2. The fish...oh what a mess....we have another koi that is probably going to die today or tomorrow. We did, however, finally discover what was/is killing them. We have a case of "hole in side" disease. Honestly! That is the name of it. And it is awful. Apparently it is a direct translation from the Japanese....

Our vet gave us a prescription of strong antibiotics to use, but for this last fish, it was too late. Hopefully, however, it has imunized the others....we also treated the water, again, this time with an antiparasitic. Hole in the side disease apparently often starts with a microbe and invades susceptible fish...

Right now, anyway, all the rest look healthy. And it is time for their systems to slow down for winter...so keep your fingers crossed for us. We have switched them to a wheatgerm based food for winter. That's what we used to introduce the antibiotics with.

Funny story about that...in order to get the antibiotic powder to stick to the food, you have to mix it with grain alcohol. You shake the powder and food till it is mixed and then sprinkle on about an ounce of grain alcohol and shake it all up. You leave it open for the alcohol to evaporate for 24 hours and then use it as you would regular feed. Well, the alcohol mostly dries...*smile*...but not completely...I can smell it when I open the jar it is in...and the fish love it!!!!...Ohmygod! If you could see them come to the top and scarf this 'new' food down...it is hysterical....so we have a pond full of drunks...

On the up side, when I was putting plants back in the pond after the last treatment, I found several small fish in the wading pool we had the plants in. I rescued them and have them in a tank inside. We have no idea what kind of fish they are. Very strange looking. Actually, three are plain silver looking and are probably comets. The others are really odd. Mixed colors and black, black eyes. I read somewhere that Sarasas start out with black eyes so these may be Sarasa/Koi mixes....or Sarasa/Shebunkin mixes...either way, they are strange....

3. Josh....

What can I say...he's still in love...he's been going down to Florida every other weekend, lately....

Although he now tells me he is going down there for Thanksgiving. i may have to kill him. I'll just prop his dead body up at our Thanksgiving table! This better be seious if I am expected to give up one of my children for a family holiday! He'll be home this weekend so I plan to grill him...which is apt to do no good. I grill...they clamp up....You'd think I'd learn, no?....oh well....

4. Me..

I'm still struggling, everyday...

The more I learn about the FLDS, the more sure I am that hey have been seriously persecuted and targeted by law enforcment and others.

The more sure I am that mass media feeds this ugly, wrong picture of them....

And the more sure I am that we each have an obligation to speak out when we see wrongs...no matter the personal cost. No matter how great we may think our personal cost is, it is nothing compared to the cost we all pay when we leave wrongs unchecked.....

I'll try to write more, soon...there are so many topics I would like to explore....

For now...this'll have to do....

Of Jobs and Celebration

Once again, I'm full of all sorts of lofty thoughts, and no idea how, or where, to begin to commit them to words.
Today is "Labor Day". We celebrate the great American workforce. But to me it is more than just a celebration of the workforce, it is a celebration of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that Lyndon Baines Johnson, the last great president from the Great State of Texas signed into law.
And for me, Title VII, as it is more commonly known, was once my chosen life's work. To assure that no person , regardless of race, creed, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or different abilities, would be discriminated against in the workplace. I knew I couldn't save the world, but I thought I might make a difference in one small corner of it....
I guess I really didn't stick around long enough. Almost forty years after I put my toe in the door, we're still fighting for equal pay for equal work.
Both Hillary and Barak give me hope that women may finally see a measured equality in employment. Both in their opportunities, and their compensation. It has been a long time coming.
On the other hand, I can celebrate that right now, at this point in time, all of my boys are gainfully employed, self-supporting (well, almost), and in good health! There were many days, and nights, when that seemed a fantasy. A mother's dream never to be realized....
Oh the dinner table stories this topic engenders!
Big Mike's whistle-blowing days with the gold coin scam business...
David's days as a landscaper...along with spider bites and allergies and a general lack of work ethic made that short lived...
Josh the carpenter....Josh the artist...Josh the plumber...Josh the jet-ski instructor/guide....Josh the bartender...Josh the tower climber....but always...JOSH THE MAGNIFICENT!!!
Rob the movie mogul...Rob the used car salesman...Rob the Realtor.....oh my...Rob can sell a bridge in Brooklyn, to someone in the Bronx...
Ollie the Hawiian beach bum aka Verizon's vunder-kind
And Little Mike's days in the Air Force....where for eight years we all held our breath and prayed....
and all the rest of them and their stories.....

But they all have jobs.....

I celebrate!

Please cast a vote for this project

Well, I'm going to try to put a link in here...but as you know, I'm seriously techno challenged...
This is a good project. I know the people at the Juvenile Law center, well.
So I ask any and all of you who see this to go to American Express and vote for this. YOu don't have to be a memeber. You can sign up as a guest and cast your vote. Please, please do so.
It will be a great start at giving some of our country's most disenfranchised youth a voice.....
here goes...
http://www.membersproject.com/project/view/EZCTS4

Hate is the Ugliest Emotion.....

I've never understood abject hatred.
I see it all the time. One person hating another, or a group. Usually for something really stupid. Like how they dress, or what color they are. Or their religion.

I learned about how awful hate is along time ago....

My step-mother was extremely abusive to my sister and I. My father failed to protect us. It really was pretty awful . And I was so full of hate.....but after awhile I realized that there wasn't anything but the hate. It took up so much room. So I consciously worked at remembering some of the good things that came out of my childhood. and then I looked at 'why' my parents behaved the way they did...and as wrong as it was, I started to understand how they came to be who they were. Their make-up was inevitable....and I stopped hating them and just felt sorry for how limited their lives were....
And what a release it was for me. I had so much room for good stuff in myself....I'd never realized how holding on to so much hatred affected everything I was.....until it was gone!!!!

I see this kind of senseless, irrational hatred on the blogs. There are people who simply want to hate the FLDS. Doesn't matter How often you present them with corrections to popular beliefs, they have just decided to hate.
It makes no sense to me. It just always seems to me easier to like people than dislike them. People aren't perfect. Everyone I know makes mistakes from time to time. But mistakes aren't the end of the world...and most people, if they find that something they are doing hurts someone else, they find ways to change what they're doing.
It just makes good sense. And most people have pretty good sense.

But these haters....boy, I just don't get it...
They say the ugliest, cruelest things. Without care for the readers. They ignore the fact that real live human beings are behind these posts. I've watched them write the most hateful things....things they would never say in "real life", to anyone....so why is it okay to type this crap in a blog?
Because they choose to be anonymous? Does that make them any less responsible when they hurt another person? How miserable these people must be in their own souls....how empty....

I can't imagine going through life without empathy and sympathy....and the joys of having friends....and the good feeling that comes with knowing I am trustworthy....
And the friends I have made in life because I tried very hard to not judge....and it does take lots of effort, sometimes...but the effort is so worth it....my life is so much richer for it....
I can only hope I have passed this on to my boys......

The Front Porch Begins!

Saturday our Great Front Porch Saga officially began.

Our house once had a beautiful old wrap-around porch. Sometime in the past, probably in the 'forties', it was modernized. The porch was cut off so only across the front of the house remained. The awnings were removed. Alot of the decorative 'victoriana' is gone.

I don't have the money to replace the whole porch. At least not right now. But I do want to rebuild the front so that it fits the 'period' of the neighborhood, better. And the old posts were getting terribly rotten....not tomention that several floor boards had broken off, or were about to. One took one's life in one's hands just crossing the porch to the door. It was a lawsuit waiting

to happen!

We had to put a canopy over the deck because it was raining and all of the floor boards had to be primed before they could go down....what a production that was! Try getting oil based paint to dry in the rain! We had fans blowing all day.....

Here are Josh And David taking a short break after demo was done....the entire porch was then laying in a huge heap in the yard....what a mess....all old, rotting wood, full of nails and ants....just waiting for Mama....me...to clean up!

You can see part of the pile at the end of the porch, peeking out from the forsythia bush.....

On Sunday the floor was laid...and the posts went up....

So this is where we are now...it's getting there...slowly, but surely...

Frogs and Front Porches and All Good Things Mundane....

Well dear world....here I sit, befuddled by life, again..... nothing earth shaking or of great moment...just my usual 'off in la la land' state....trying to work....

On the bright side, we have all sorts of baby frogs around the pond....little green frogs...most of them are brown, with just a bright green line by their lips....do frogs have lips?...anyway, a bright green line runs across their faces, near their mouths...

A couple of them are only a little more than an inch long...and a couple of them are 'croakers'...does that mean they're males? Who knows?

I just like sitting and watching them watch me....

I finally went and bought all the stuff to rebuild the front porch....hopefully that means it will actually happen...but who knows, it could all just sit piled on the deck for a year or two...wouldn't be the first time.....

I went to a local lumber yard. I could probably have saved a few dollars going to Lowe's or Home Depot, but I'd rather give my money to a local business when I can.

I'm excited. We're going to replace the big round columns with more victorian looking posts and fancier railings....it's been a long time coming...just never enough money....always some other urgent something....oh well....David's friend Eric and his brother have a pretty reputable home improvement business and they are going to do the work....with David and Josh and I as laborers...that should be a hoot!!!!!!

Next paycheck has to go for the mortgage and other bills, but then the next one can pay to repair the porch roof and then the front of the house will be in good shape. Next year I have to replace the whole roof on the house...that will be a monster. Going to start saving to do that right after Christmas. Hopefully I'll be able to save enough to have the chimney rebuilt, too...it's in pretty rough shape. I can see bricks starting to crumble...and it is listing pretty visibly...good thing no one here is expecting Santa....

I love my yard. In the front everything is pretty "normal". We just took out several dwarf pines along the front...and some sort of prickly ever green bush type stuff near the driveway. So it''s looking barren. But as soon as the porch is complete than I'll replant in those areas...and by next year the rhodes that I cut way back in front of the porch will have started to fill-in , again..

But then you get to the back yard....that's my wonderland!!!...It's almost jungle like....I have plants and flowers everywhere...no part of the season, from early April until mid-October is without color and blooms!!! Here's a picture I took last week from an upstairs bedroom window...You can sorta get a bit of the jungle flavor!...I LOVE IT!!!!!

You can't really tell from the picture, but it is a good sized yard...for in town, anyway...it's about 120 feet deep from the back door to the property line, and it's about fifty feet across....

The pond, which is way, way at the back looks like nothing in this picture, but it is 15X12...

This might give you a better sense of how large it is...





Anyway, my backyard is my sanctuary...it's where I can escape the world.....the waterfall makes a wonderful, light noise...there are always birds chirping and singing...often other critters visit...

I go through ten lbs. of roasted peanuts a week feeding the squirels...and another fifty lbs. of bird seed....

I think some of the fish may be getting sick, again...I'm seeing signs of tail rot, and the little black comet died very unexpectedly, on Monday. When I was able to look at him up close, he had some of the hemorragic stuff going on....so I'm going to start the anti-bacterial, anti-fungal treatment again....

The koi have decimated all of the floating plants...I've put them into a wading pool to try and get some life going in them...I don't know why...if I put them back in the pond, they'll just have all their roots eaten...












These are pics I took a few minutes ago...These guys are all at least six inches long and some are up to ten inches...they only look small because I was standing directly over them.....

Anyway, they're fun...alot more expensive than I would ever have thought...but fun...and most of them will eat out of my hand, now....so I've become 'Mama' to a bunch of carp...whodda thunk?????


So...life goes on.....I've been testy lately, with lots of folks...so I've gotta work on making amends....not a task I'm particularly good at....


oops...almost forgot...I took a picture of David a couple of weeks ago when he decided to climb the tree in front of the house and hang out over the street....literally....and I wanted to share that pic.....

And on this note...I'm off to get some work done......