Psst, little girl.............

WHY ARE YOU STILL IN THERE?!?!?!

I know my uterus is freakin' AWESOME, but you really should be thinking about an exit strategy right about now. There are so many people that are waiting to meet you, and quite honestly, if your father asks me one more time if we are going to get the tax deduction, I may just have to smack him. Would you like a car on your 16th birthday? The equivalent to Miley Cyrus tickets when you are way too young to go to concerts? A pony? If you continue to just hang out in there, I'm going to have to continue to resort to bouncing on the exercise ball and drinking mad amounts of raspberry leaf tea. Yes, yes, there are "other" things I could also be doing, but let's be honest.........I can give it a couple more days until I move on to that. ;-)

This is our legacy..........

I am your whitest of white, 30-year-old, college educated WASP. I grew up in a single family home as the result of an emotionally and financially devastating disease. I am the married mother of 1.75 children and one dog, and live in a beautiful home. My husband has a great job, and I enjoy the opportunity to run my own business while being a SAHM. I am the epitome of the American dream. I am so PROUD today to know that I am bringing my daughter into a world where she will never know what it is like to NOT be the President if you are African American, to NOT run for VP if you are a woman. It's our turn. Our grandparents had WWII, our parents had Vietnam, the civil rights movement, the sexual revolution, and the cold war. It's our turn now to make our mark on history.

Not what I expected on the Christian Science Monitor.

A really great article from an unexpected source.

My wife made me canvas for Obama; here's what I learned

This election is not about major policies. It's about hope.

By Jonathan Curley

from the November 3, 2008 edition

Charlotte, N.C. - There has been a lot of speculation that Barack Obama might win the election due to his better "ground game" and superior campaign organization.

I had the chance to view that organization up close this month when I canvassed for him. I'm not sure I learned much about his chances, but I learned a lot about myself and about this election.

Let me make it clear: I'm pretty conservative. I grew up in the suburbs. I voted for George H.W. Bush twice, and his son once. I was disappointed when Bill Clinton won, and disappointed he couldn't run again.

I encouraged my son to join the military. I was proud of him in Afghanistan, and happy when he came home, and angry when he was recalled because of the invasion of Iraq. I'm white, 55, I live in the South and I'm definitely going to get a bigger tax bill if Obama wins.

I am the dreaded swing voter.

So you can imagine my surprise when my wife suggested we spend a Saturday morning canvassing for Obama. I have never canvassed for any candidate. But I did, of course, what most middle-aged married men do: what I was told.

At the Obama headquarters, we stood in a group to receive our instructions. I wasn't the oldest, but close, and the youngest was maybe in high school. I watched a campaign organizer match up a young black man who looked to be college age with a white guy about my age to canvas together. It should not have been a big thing, but the beauty of the image did not escape me.

Instead of walking the tree-lined streets near our home, my wife and I were instructed to canvass a housing project. A middle-aged white couple with clipboards could not look more out of place in this predominantly black neighborhood.

We knocked on doors and voices from behind carefully locked doors shouted, "Who is it?"

"We're from the Obama campaign," we'd answer. And just like that doors opened and folks with wide smiles came out on the porch to talk.

Grandmothers kept one hand on their grandchildren and made sure they had all the information they needed for their son or daughter to vote for the first time.

Young people came to the door rubbing sleep from their eyes to find out where they could vote early, to make sure their vote got counted.

We knocked on every door we could find and checked off every name on our list. We did our job, but Obama may not have been the one who got the most out of the day's work.

I learned in just those three hours that this election is not about what we think of as the "big things."

It's not about taxes. I'm pretty sure mine are going to go up no matter who is elected.

It's not about foreign policy. I think we'll figure out a way to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan no matter which party controls the White House, mostly because the people who live there don't want us there anymore.

I don't see either of the candidates as having all the answers.

I've learned that this election is about the heart of America. It's about the young people who are losing hope and the old people who have been forgotten. It's about those who have worked all their lives and never fully realized the promise of America, but see that promise for their grandchildren in Barack Obama. The poor see a chance, when they often have few. I saw hope in the eyes and faces in those doorways.

My wife and I went out last weekend to knock on more doors. But this time, not because it was her idea. I don't know what it's going to do for the Obama campaign, but it's doing a lot for me.

Jonathan Curley is a banker. He voted for George H.W. Bush twice and George W. Bush once.

Happy Halloween!

I've come a long way baby...........

"Ode to Cracker Barrel" Oh how I miss your sheer and utter delish-ishness. It's been almost 2 days since last I enjoyed your tasty breakfast selections. Your awesomeness astounds me. As I lay in bed, getting sick on microliter sips of water, I dream of the day when I can once again enjoy your hashbrown casserole, turkey sausage, and 3 pieces of sourdough toast; your blueberry pancakes the size of my son's head; your biscuits drizzeled in honey; and dare I say, even your decaf coffee on cute little orange pods so not to be confused with caffeinated. I strategically plan my day around your convenient locations. Forget trips to the pool in 98 degree weather. Forget carriers that should be sewn and shipped around the world. There is a developing fetus that screams for you at all hours of the day and its desires MUST be fullfilled for fear of mass chaos and outrage by pregnant woman everywhere. I thank you so much for the foresight that your designers and decorators had to cover your ceilings in fans and walls with mounted deer heads and toys that my son has never seen before. It brings me much joy and relaxation when I can pillage your midget-sized bottles of maple syrup from under the nose of my inquisitive and mischievous 3-year-old, while he stares in awe at your redneck decor. As I cut pancakes into small bite-sized portions with my right "mom" hand and stuff crisp, yet moist strips of cheesy potatoes into my mouth with my left, I am once again at peace with the world. You even entertain my thrill for prize games that no one ever wins, by giving me sticker game pieces claiming I can win an RV or GPS system, meaning I would never be without you again. Oh Cracker Barrel, you are my savior. I shall never forget how good you have been to me. When I enter my second trimester and more foods come back into my life, please don't be sad. For it will be YOU that I read about in my pregnancy journal long after this child is staring at your ceiling fans with their older brother. So until we meet again- most likely tomorrow- I leave you with my sincere thanks for providing me some joy in this lovely and familiar world of "morning" sickness.

Last week of my twenties!

It's officially the last week of my twenties! I turn 30 next Wednesday.

Dear Senator McCain, this is Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

He lives here:



Not here:



You idiot.

Please take your vote seriously.

Drill, Drill, Drill
by Eve Ensler
Posted September 8, 2008 01:18 PM (EST)

I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.

I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.

But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.

I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.

Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, "It was a task from God."

Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not.

She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.

Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.

Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.

Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.

I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.

If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, "Drill Drill Drill." I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.

Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?

Undeniable Truths

There are two truths: we are born, we die. So simple, yet highly disturbing. We finished watching Six Feet Under and all I can say is, WOW. The last episode really did a number on my emotions. Maybe it's being pregnant, or maybe it's the fact that funeral directing is in my blood, but those last scenes really had my brain going into philosophical overload.

Are you registered to vote?

In Pennsylvania, the deadline to register to vote is 30 days prior to each election. Applications received after that date will be processed for the next primary, special, municipal or general election. To participate in the 2008 Presidential General Election, register by October 6, 2008.


WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE

This is the story of our Grandmothers and Great-grandmothers; they lived only 90 years ago.



Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.



The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote.

And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing
went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of 'obstructing sidewalk traffic.'



(Lucy Burns)
They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging f or the night, bleeding and gasping for air.



(Dora Lewis)
They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the 'Night of Terror' on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote. For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their
food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms.



(Alice Paul)
When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.

So, refresh my memory. Some women won't vote this year because - -why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn't matter? It's raining?

We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women.
Whether you vote democratic, republican or independent party - remember to vote.

History is being made!

Another day..........

Since Brandon pointed out that I haven't updated my blog in a couple days, I will post a short note. I think he just wants to keep up with what I do. ;-) Now I will continue to print my labels so I can finally go to bed, although the little one seems to have different plans.

Still More.......

My Original Creations

These were feeling left out..............

Newest Creations

23 Weeks

23 Weeks and tipping the scales at a beefy 104 lbs!

Welcome to my blog!

I can't believe that I have started a blog. As if my life is so exciting that someone else would actually want to read this? Every time I think of blogs, I think about a scene in How I Met Your Mother where Barney suggests to someone that they can "read about it in my blog". LOL!! Let me start my adventures in blogging by sharing new photos of our little girl's room.