Believing in Myself

March 20 Today's Quotation: I believe that in our constant search for security we can never gain any peace of mind until we secure our own soul. And this I do believe above all, especially in my times of greatest discouragement, that I must believe--that I must believe in my fellow people-- that I must believe in myself--that I must believe in God--if life is to have any meaning. Margaret Chase Smith Today's Meditation: It's a shame that so many people have attached so much dogma and so many conditions to believing in God. We've turned one of the most important aspects of our lives into some sort of competition--you're not a true Christian unless you believe this; you're not a good Muslim unless you adopt this set of beliefs; a good Jew always will believe this. But what of our own relationships with ourselves and with God? What of our own ability to believe in who we are and who God is? Is it any wonder that we find it hard to believe in ourselves when we're told so often that our most basic beliefs are wrong or misguided? How can it help us to adopt other people's beliefs just because other people believe those things? For centuries, Christians believed that it was right to kill a person who committed blasphemy. Some cultures still do believe that. But for the most part, that belief has changed significantly. What once was considered a holy duty before God is now a crime in almost all countries of the world. But how many people adopted that belief in former times simply because other people told them it was true? If we insist on adopting other people's beliefs, we will find that we are unable to get to know ourselves, and that we are unable to believe fully and deeply. Our first duty is to ourselves, for the person who has come to know him or her self can then reach out and help others effectively. Questions to ponder: 1. Do you believe in yourself? How do your actions reflect that belief? 2. Do you believe in God, no matter what you conceive Him (or Her, or It) to be? How do your actions reflect that belief? 3. How many of your beliefs come from other people, and their insistence that you must believe certain things in certain ways? For further thought: Grant us a common faith that we shall know bread and peace--that we shall know justice and righteousness, freedom and security, an equal opportunity and an equal chance to do our best not only in our own lands, but throughout the world. And in that faith let us march toward the clean world our hands can make. Stephen Vincent Benet

This was the amazing meditative article, from the Living Life Fully web site, that gave me great food for thought. Especially after I had spent the larger portion, of my young adult and adult life, joining churches and molding myself into their ideas of who and what is good. It has not been until the last 2 years that I have actually come into my own and really started to enjoy my life. As the "questions to ponder" ask about believing in yourself.... I never used to. I believed that I was only as good as "they" said that I was. As long as I behaved in ways that fit with their teachings, as long as I went to studies and volunteered I was a-okay in their minds.

It was not until I totally took myself out of their influences that I began to discover myself. The fact that I believed in something divine was something that I had to develop on my own and on my own terms. I finally feel like I own my own emotions and beliefs, that they do not belong to some church or organization. Granted, I do not have any ladies to have punch and cake with on Sunday afternoons, but I am secure and strong. I am totally me and do not have to rely on those places to be my social network.

It doesn't even have to always be with a church either. I realized how many of the people that I used to think were my friends, ended up I was just fused to their behaviors and thoughts.

From the time I was 12 I was always looking for the "thing" that would help me to fit in and be part of something. It has taken this long for me to find the way to just be happy with myself and be part of the human race.

Finding God, Troop Deaths and Blackwater Works On.

In what can only be described as a larger scale "Where's Waldo" it seems that physicists are working on finding something that they call the "God particle". Seems that this is something that may or may not prove that there is something divine. A very interesting article at Newsweek. The project is going to begin this summer in Europe. I am actually quite interested to see what happens.

On Easter Sunday the death toll to U.S. soldiers hit 4,000. Now, I have been hearing the talking heads proclaim that the numbers were MUCH higher in all other wars. That can not be denied, but why should we even compare and contrast? Why did there even have to be any deaths? Why did there ever have to be young men and women sent into harms way? This article at AlterNet also points out something even more troubling about the service people that are not being killed, the huge numbers that are coming back with sever brain trauma and the tolls that it is going to take on our medical and mental health systems. A very significant point made in the article, that really made me think, was how it points out the lack of American media coverage. I had started to notice this recently myself. With all the political crap going on we have lost our focus on this unnecessary war. The Pew Research Center has shown that the sharp fall in the media coverage has left the U.S. public less interested in and knowledgeable about the conflict. A scant 3% on the news stories in February were devoted to the conflict while last July the number was closer to 15%. The study reports that the public has not seen the war as a top news story since last October. This, to me, is quite sad.

And finally we will end with Blackwater and their antics. Seems that they are making their services available to other countries and hiring their operatives from other countries and so on. For a good article about their latest hijinks's Mother Jones News had an excellent article. Especially as they too have dropped off the evening news radar.

Burt Update: After a week of steroids and pain meds Burt is walking once again. We are still very careful and are carrying him up and down the stairs from the second floor. We lift him up on the couch, but he will sometimes jump down before we can do anything about it. He has a bad back. It is not anything that will ever heal. A $4,000 dollar surgery was suggested, but with his heart problems the chances of him dying on the table are great. So, eventually he will need to be put down. I am hoping that it is not while John is in Finland, which by the way, he is arriving there today for 2 months, maybe longer! It is -10 degrees there right now. I think he is going to lose his tan. Too bad. So, Burt is able to walk outside on his own although we still are watching him closely. Nice thing is he doesn't wander anymore and we don't have to put him on the runner. He does his thing and comes right back in the house. Now that he is on the "juice" I wonder if we might be brought before a congressional hearing? He is getting quite large biceps. Not sure how much longer I can continue to even pick him up!! We have nicknamed him the "Burtinator".

Hot Topics & Dillemas with Dogs

Have not had much time to blog recently due to a serious medical condition with our oldest dog, Burt , the Beagle. I'll blog more about it later, but for now it is just too demanding and let's just say that it involves his inability to walk and us having to carry him outside to pee, or letting him go on the towels we have on the floor. Needless to say it has been exhausting and required trips to the veterinary emergency hospital and the like.

I did, however, have time to read these two very interesting and hot button topics courtesy of AlterNet's web site. Feel free to check them out, if like me, you are tired of hearing about so and so's pastor or who did what when they were in the White House, not to mention tape of G'Dubs dancing.

Economics 101

I do not know about you, but I have been more interested in the real "meat and potatoes" of the campaign between Obama & Clinton, than the television ads and the debates. The debates are just too short too cover and real material. They just hit the tip of many icebergs. One of the things that I am very concerned about, as I am sure most of us are right now with the prices of things continually going up and the entire health care mess, I wanted to know what their economic stances were. Also, maybe like you, I want all my information in one nice, neat package. I hate to go back and forth between web pages to read and compare and contrast. So, lucky for me that Mother Jones had an excellent tutorial. An economic policy primer with the stances of both candidates spelled out all nice and the like. It was a good way for me to get the key info, that I desired, with each candidate back to back.

If you have questions about the areas of subprime bailouts, health care and social security, to name a few, then you might want to check this out.

That Could Change Things or Better Living Through Chemistry

Seems that Benny Shannon, a professor of cognitive psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, published a study in the Time and Mind Journal. He is suggesting that Moses ,and others during biblical times, were using mind altering substances and that would explain the many scenes of burning bushes, voices from the heavens and the overall feeling of a religious experience. Raw Story and American Foreign Press both had articles about this recent publication. The publication suggests that it was common for the people of the time, especially the religious leaders and followers, to take mind altering substances that would come from the acacia tree which is mentioned often in the Bible.

It makes you wonder if they had music that went on for 17 minutes. How popular would the Grateful Dead or Pink Floyd have been? Maybe the Last Supper was really just a food fest because everyone had the munchies. Hmmmmmmmmm.........

Travelog

Mixter had it right when she said that the "liberal ladies" that contribute to her mix are busy...and sick. I seem to have come up with a nice cold/upper respiratory mess. I am losing my voice and generally feel like crap. So, I have decided to warm us all up with a travelog of John's travels. You will find some shots of his apartment in Broadbeach which is on the famous Gold Coast of of Australia. It is quite famous for its surfing as you will notice by the size of the waves. He said that they were small that day, but that he has seen some really huge ones that just tossed him around like a toothpick in the water.

His apartment is the brightly colored building and the view behind it is the awesome one of the beachline. Yeah, I want that job!! I have also included a few of the cool native birds. Since we are both avid birdwatchers he likes to check out all the local ones and send me info on them. I have included two of the more colorful for your viewing pleasure.

The really cool looking wavy building is an office that has, of course, a Starbucks on the bottom level. He tries to hit them up in all the countries he visits and pick up a city mug for me and my boss.

He has basically been gone for the entire, coldest parts of our winter. This week makes 7 weeks that he has been abroad. No return date yet.

When Harry Met Sally & Bill O'Reilly Continues to Piss People Off

As I am still recovering from my fall, and subsequent back injury, I have been watching much more TV as of late. That meant that along with the muscle relaxers, and no wine, I spent last night watching one of my favorite movies of all time, "When Harry Met Sally". Even when I don't catch this little gem right at the opening speeches, by the married couples, I still get drawn into it. Then, just my luck, TBS played it again and I got to see all the parts that I missed! Since I was in my drug induced stupor it was all just fine with me. Who can not love how cute and adorable Meg Ryan was in those days, or how funny & smart the dialog was. Now Bruno Kirby has passed away, at too young an age, and Carrie Fisher is almost unrecognizable!! Time does march on.....

Seems that Bill O'Reilly is up to his usual bag of tricks. Pissing folks off and getting away with it. You know, these radio & TV people are not stupid. They read teleprompters, but they also know what is going to sell and get them their beloved ratings. DUH! How else will they be able to hold their place in the competition if they do not generate some controversy? So, we have Mr. O'Reilly making an obnoxious remark about Michelle Obama and talking about a "lynching" in the same sentence. What a tacky asshole. It gets him noticed and talked about, which is exactly what he & his network people want us to do. He really is a nasty jerk, just like Rush et al, and we all play right into their hands. I personally can not stand the guy and I hate that I am even talking about it, but now he has issued some lame apology yadda, yadda, yadda.....It will not ever end. As long as you have the talking heads and "stir-it-up" radio people there are going to be remarks made that are insensitive and obnoxious. I wish that we could just ignore them, but this article, as well as my rambling, just proves that we can not.

I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up!

After sleeping like I had the day off, I was awakened by another employee calling to tell me that it was 5:15 and I should have been there. I thought that I had the day off!! What a way to start the day. So, I brush my teeth & put on deoderant, I thought the general public might appreciate it, and flew in to work. As I was walking hit I hit a patch of black ice and down I went. Both of my hands were full, so there was no way to stop. I went flat out on my back.

After spending 2 hours waiting and getting serviced at an emergency care facility I came home stiff as a board and armed with several medications for a back and neck injury that has me very stiff and uncomfortable right now. They gave me Vicodin, an anti-inflamitory and a muscle relaxer. Needless to say that I better spell check this. So, here I am all wacked out on misc. drugs, I ordered pizza and plan to veg out on a Cops marathon.

It's Ohio Time, Dumping Cops & a Mini-Marathon

It's back to Ohio time for the candidates! The very day that they began to talk about Ohio the political ads began to run also. At 3:30 AM, as I was getting ready to go make coffee for the masses, I saw the first one. OMG!! Is it that time. God how I hate TV when they begin to run the "I am so and so and I endorse this message". It makes me run right out and buy new batteries for my remote so I am able to change the channel fast! Thank the lord for DVR so we can fast forward through commercials. I would like to be able to see their debate, in Columbus, but realize that it is out of the question, so I will either watch it or read about it later. Even though I am quite tired of the whole dog & pony show I know that I owe it to them and myself to watch and listen some more, so I can make an intelligent and well thought out decision.

How about these great cops that dumped the quadriplegic out of his wheelchair because they did not believe him when he told them he was paralyzed!! I watched the video and it just pissed me off. Especially when you could see the older cop walking past the camera and he was obviously laughing about the whole incident. Sick assholes indeed!! Very degrading for that poor guy. To be dumped on the floor like a piece of trash or tossed around like a rag doll. The indignity of it all. There need to be some people out of a job. I realize that hardened criminals, or those that put up a struggle, need to be handled, but what the hell was this guy doing but sitting in his chair!! Have you seen the video? Sick. I hope that he gets some justice from this. No human being needs to be treated in such a manner. I thought that we had laws to protect people with disabilities. I guess this particular police dept. has not yet received this training.

Eating healthy and working out is no fun. I have hit my 15 pound mark. No doubt I am happy about it, but it is not that much fun. The other night I came home from my meeting and wanting to celebrate by eating something! How twisted is that. See, food has always been my life. Good times and bad. Granted, I feel fantastic eating all these servings of fruit and vegetables and the like, but I do miss....cookies, candy..... I do buy some of the WW goodies. They are the only thing that help me keep on track. Wine is always a downfall. So, to allow myself more treats I have to workout more. Another activity that I have never been too fond of, especially running. I have been walking/jogging twice a week for 3 miles. Yuck! A girl that I work with wants me to run in a min-marathon with her in March. I don't run for fun or anything that resembles fun. I do it because it is easy and does not require a gym membership or fancy equipment. This week I also got my dusty stability ball out of the basement and 5 pound hand weights. If I can keep it up I will hit my 10% of my body weight loss. That is a milestone. Then you move on to another or into a new era or something like that. Sigh, I guess it is a life long thing.

Well, we do what we have to do, don't we.

Catchy, Fun & Different

What's playing in the car these days? Hey, Esteban, if you are still reading you might also want to check out these three bands, if you do not already know them. I know that you like some alternative. These three bands are all total fun. I have them all on one fun filled cd. Common Rider, Streetlight Manifesto and Catch 22. Very fast paced with some awesome horns. The lyrics are often smart and hilarious. They make you want to be out on an open highway going somewhere for a very long drive. Download, burn, insert....enjoy!

Lucky Zen

Today's Quotation: I think luck is the sense to recognize an opportunity and the ability to take advantage of it. Everyone has bad breaks, but everyone also has opportunities. People who can smile at their breaks and grab their chances get on. Samuel Goldwyn

Today's Meditation: I don't believe in luck. Those people who have succeeded in life usually have done so as the result of hard work, of being able to see opportunities when they've come up, or a combination of the two. Those people who win tons of money in lotteries or inherit vast fortunes aren't necessarily lucky--many people who have come into money that way have become quite miserable, very unhappy with their "new" lives. My biggest problems in life have come when I haven't recognized opportunities. Because I haven't seen them until too late so often, I haven't been able to take advantage of them. I suppose many people would say that I've had bad luck, but I don't see it that way at all. I see it as having missed opportunities, and I don't get down on myself for having missed them. After all, there was no one around when I was growing up to teach me to recognize and take advantage of opportunities. Most of us are in that same boat--we haven't been taught how to recognize the opportunities that come our way as opportunities, so we squander chance after chance to make more of ourselves or improve our lives or lifestyles. That's okay, because that's how life is--what's not okay is to recognize the problem and not do anything about it. Now that I know how many opportunities I've let go by, it's up to me to teach myself how to recognize them and take advantage of them. And the burden isn't completely on me--there are plenty of books and tape programs out there that can help us to learn to do these things. This is material that should be taught in schools, but it isn't, so we have to find other teachers outside of the classroom who have focused on this sort of thing as their own area of expertise. Bad luck? Sorry, but there's no such thing. The universe functions too well for that to be true. Sometimes it's true that things are completely out of our control, but even if something negative happens to us, there will be something important for us to learn in it. If we can smile at our bad breaks and move on with our lives, learning in the process, life becomes much brighter. Bad luck tends to be an excuse for not wanting to look deeper.

Under the Weather

I don't think that there is anything less fun than having to work when you have a cold. With the possible exception of a colonoscopy. So, I have a cold. I had hoped to avoid it. Everyone that I work with went through a variety of forms of this bug and I seem to be about the last to get it. I had thought it was just allergies, but yesterday it really began to kick my butt. I had the day off, but spent it taking drugs, buying Puffs with lotion, eating chicken soup and napping, with the dogs, on the couch .

With so many cable channels who knew there was so much nothing on during the day? I put my earplugs in and turned on the Weather Channel. Got a good 8 hours last night and hope, through the grace of chemistry that I will be able to make it through till my shift ends at 4:30 today. Speaking of chemistry, I want to thank all the idiots out there that make drugs who have made it so difficult and time consuming to purchase cold medications!! Just when I felt the worst I had to stand in line at the pharmacy counter just so I could show my ID ,get looked up , and sign to say that I am purchasing these pills under legit circumstances!! Did they get a good look at how crappy I looked? They were fortunate that I brushed my teeth before I went it, it was the least I could do.

Now, armed with tissues and drugs in hand, I am off to serve hot java to the masses!

Promoting Those That Like to Promote.......

Seems that the Bush administration likes to keep promoting those that like to promote torture. Can we say that at least they are consistent? Like you I am tired of the antics that these guys continue to pull day in and day out. They have no regard for anyone or anything. They just keep on truckin'. Doing whatever they believe to be in the best interests of those around them and those that they continue to be involved with. It is insane.

Seems that they have re-nominated one of their favorite pro-torture lawyers to a top DOJ post. Steven G. Bradbury . He is the author of classified memos that went out to allow,"...harsh interrogation techniques, including head slapping, exposure to cold, and simulated drowning, even when used in combination". My god, how can people go home at night at not think about this stuff? Simulated drowning!! How does he get through the weekend barbecue and not think about the other human lives that he is forcing this behavior upon?

If and when things change, in the White House, where will these people go? Will any of their old Washington buddies find jobs for them? Will they pen their life stories? Go out on the speaking tour? How cavalierly will they sweep aside and dismiss their actions and feel like they were completely justified. Maybe I just have more of a conscious they they because I know that if it were me I would not sleep very well. Maybe they have nightstands full of sleep aids. It is also quite sad that they have been given the power and authority, from the powers that be, to commit and allow all of these atrocities.

Not a Problem

You Are 63% Non Conformist

You are a pretty serious non conformist. You live a life hardly anyone understands. And while some may call you a freak, you're happy with who you are.

Are You a Nonconformist?

Self Evaluation

Your Intrapersonal Intelligence Score: 100%

Your Intrapersonal Intelligence is Very High You've spent a lot of time introspecting, and it's really paid off. You are comfortable with who you are, and you have a life philosophy that you are happy to live by. And you're always re-evaluating what you believe. Because you learn something new about yourself each day!

How Does Your Intrapersonal Intelligence Rate?

Vocabulary & Rice

"Learn, fight hunger, and kill time all at once". Doesn't that sound interesting? Do you spend any time playing solitaire or other games mindlessly on your computer? Well, now you can actually play a game, a cool word game, and donate rice. John Breen, a computer programmer, and anti-hunger activist created the game to prepare his son for his SAT test and to promote awareness of world hunger. Thus we have FreeRice.com.

I read about this fella and the web site at USA Today. I love to play word games. I love to to vocabulary, so this site was made for me. Every time you get the definition correct they go to harder and harder words. If you miss one they go back to an easier word. For every word you get correct they donate a certain portion of rice.

Within 3 months of the sites creation there were 500,000 visitors a day. Breen said that it took him four months to load 10,500 words and hes has now had to hire professionals to add about 1,000 more words and even harder words. The site was launched in October and by mid-January had been able to donate enough to feed 700,000 people for a day.

If you are a lover of words I highly recommend that you check it out and play. I thoroughly enjoyed it and will probably go back often. I love vocabulary. At the web site you can also read in depth about where the food goes etc.

Go, play, have fun and find out if you are a entomophagous kind of person!!

My Choice - Pro Choice

Yesterday was the 30th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. I was busy working and did not have time to blog, but I did read many articles and editorials about the subject, as well as many blogs. There are often many facts presented as reasons NOT to be for our choice, but no matter what they might be, and as a woman you may consider them all, but the ultimate CHOICE comes down to US!! If we are not capable of doing our own research or looking into it ourselves then maybe someone should help you, but for those of us that are well informed and able to do so, the CHOICE SHOULD be ours to make and ours alone!!!!

I do not want politicians, legislators, clergy, pharmacists or any of the like to tell me what I can do with my physical being. I have been given the ability to reason and decipher things in a logical manner, so let me.

The section of articles, over at AlterNet, are fantastic and if you have some time you should take the time to read them. It IS now and should ALWAYS be my choice.

Speaking of Readings.....

Some have suggested that a good wedding reading is something from the Bible, but not being extremely tied down to the typical traditions and whoopla that go along with any particular church, I think that you can find very meaningful text in many places. Some quite unexpected.

We did not get married in a church or for that matter by anyone that would be considered tied to a mainstream, traditional type church. The person that married us was in fact a woman from some progressive denomination who was introduced to us by a very dear friend and she has spoken at another good friends funeral. So, we knew that since neither of us was tied to anything in particular "God wise" that she would be the one to marry us.

We got hitched in a park next to a waterfall. All those in attendance stood around the balcony of the park walkway. It did not last very .long. The reading that I found came from a book that I really hated, but think that I was meant to find this passage because it was so us, "It's clear to me now that I have been moving towards you and you toward me for a long time. Though neither of us was aware of the other before we met, there was a kind of mindless certainty humming blithely along beneath our ignorance that ensured we would come together. Like two solitary birds flying the great prairies by celestial reckoning, all of these years and lifetimes we have been moving toward one another". I had it put onto parchment paper and it is framed and hangs with a few wedding photos now.

Sometimes when reading the most mundane material, because I just hated the book and the movie, you can find a passage most profound and meaningful.

Religion and Democracy

"We've got to find a way to take the conservative symbolic message of faith talk out of American politics". Yes, yes and more yes!! This is the opening quote from an excellent article over at AlterNet.

"The candidates have been falling all over each other in their rush to declare the depth and sincerity of their religious faith". I for one am sick and tired of hearing it. How have they brought, what should be a private and personal matter, in to the arena of the election. I know that God et al has always been something that politicians like to talk about and how strongly they believe, but I for one would rather hear about more important things such as ; rising costs, lack of health care, job security and the problems with our educational system.

The article does point out that both sides have made use of the whole God tactic, but that the conservatives are much more adept and playing the "God machine". Besides we all know that the Evangelicals have a hearty lobbying group in Washington and a hold on many parts of the country. They have had their fingers in religious pies for some time.

The article makes many excellent point and you should take the time to read it. I simply can not do it the justice that it deserves.

Peace, Music , Birthdays & Cool Shoes

Well, another birthday has come and gone. Good times, good times. Hey, YT I want you to get a look at the cool peace sign necklace that the hubby gave me for my birthday! He knows how much I love them. It sparkles!! Thought you might appreciate it.

Along with said peace sign I also got those uber-cool black and zebra print Dr. Martens. They are my fave new shoe. Since black is a very important part of my wardrobe they will get plenty of wear. I bought myself a new CD that we are currently selling at the coffee mega giant. It is called,"Across the Pond" and it is a 14 song collection of the best and brightest new musicians from over yonder. England, Ireland, y'know... across the BIG pond! It is one of the few cd's that I have purchased, not burned, where every single track is fantastic. It covers everything from blues to rock. The sultry tones of Amy Winehouse to the rock of The Fratellis. The sassy lyrics of Lily Allen and the sultry voice of Alice Russell. If you don't want to pay our prices I just saw it on eBay for .99 cents!! It is an awesome mix and I have not stopped listening to it yet!

Went out to dinner with friends one night and the fam the next. All in all a very nice time. Oh yeah, I also had my hair color touched up and a trim. I think the fresh color looks awesome! I love my hairdresser!!

John has left today for Oman and will go directly to Australia following that. Looks like he will be gone about 2 months, so I am glad that we are able to have some quality birthday/family time.

I like to have a few cocktails, as much as the next person, but the crazy nights out are not all that they once were. It's mostly the hangover that I try to avoid these days.