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...