So much for being a better blogger. I'm telling you, with teenagers, facebook, iPads, books, (the list goes on and on) it's next to impossible to keep up on blogging.
So much stuff, so little time!!
3 years ago to now....
Both children are in High School and doing fabulously, looking at Colleges, in state and out of state, and not really sure if I'm ready to have a College Student.
I had gastrointestinal surgery and have lost 100+ pounds. Woo-hoo for me. Now, however, without fat cushioning EVERYTHING, I'm finding lots of stuff. Bone spurs in my feet and shoulders, hip issues, knee issues, etc. I guess it could be that I am just getting older, hm, what a sobering thought. Anyway, lots of extra skin and will hopefully have that taken care of soon.
Moved into a bigger house. Yes, we upsized before the kids go to college. More space to spread out. Living in the same house for 20 years caused us to accumulate ALOT of stuff. Slowly going through it all and getting rid of things we haven't seen in years, so in essence downsizing and simplifying our lives. We'll see how that goes.
Unfortunately, that catches us up for 3 years. Not all that exciting and will try to keep things updated on the blogger front!
Saturday, July 15, 2017
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Karma?
So how do you handle walking into a store a seeing someone you haven't seen in almost 10 years? Also, how do you handle it when that person was so rotten to you, they basically threw you out of their house for something you didn't actually do almost 10 years ago? And..what do you do when said person acts as if nothing happened between you and your friendship didn't go completely down the tubes when they called you names? And...
Why with the utmost dignity and respect. My momma taught me to be dignified. (Sometimes more than others.) I really can't be mean to others unless I'm fumming. I've tried and maybe some people think I'm being fake (I have been accused of that before), but I truly can't. I'm not saying I can't be nasty, but most of the time I regret it as soon as I've been that way.
Am I so petty that I remember when people are mean to me? I think most of us remember the bad times. But I also remember if I have been mean to someone, whether their fault or mine. I can't not remember being mean to someone, so how do others?
So handling things with dignity, does that give you good karma? I sure hope so, there were so many things that I could have said, but didn't. I sure thought them, but never said them. Now, if no one had been there, would this person have acted the same way? Not sure and not sure if I care.
Why with the utmost dignity and respect. My momma taught me to be dignified. (Sometimes more than others.) I really can't be mean to others unless I'm fumming. I've tried and maybe some people think I'm being fake (I have been accused of that before), but I truly can't. I'm not saying I can't be nasty, but most of the time I regret it as soon as I've been that way.
Am I so petty that I remember when people are mean to me? I think most of us remember the bad times. But I also remember if I have been mean to someone, whether their fault or mine. I can't not remember being mean to someone, so how do others?
So handling things with dignity, does that give you good karma? I sure hope so, there were so many things that I could have said, but didn't. I sure thought them, but never said them. Now, if no one had been there, would this person have acted the same way? Not sure and not sure if I care.
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Back to school
Well it's that time again. The smell of new notebook, pencils, erasers, and all that other stuff that goes along with a new school year. Everything has gone smoothly so far. I'm sure I will be at one of the schools in the next couple weeks to fix something.
I can't believe that I have a 5th grader and a 7th grader. They are growing so fast, I swear that it was just yesterday I was bringing the girl home from the hospital. But then again....
Wish everyone luck this year!!!
I can't believe that I have a 5th grader and a 7th grader. They are growing so fast, I swear that it was just yesterday I was bringing the girl home from the hospital. But then again....
Wish everyone luck this year!!!
Saturday, August 11, 2012
FEY - For Every Youth
The boy went to a dinner with some kids from church. He is so funny, he will fight, yell, kick, and scream before he will do anything. But he goes and has a great time. Our next challenge, actually going to Boy Socuts. He loves it when he goes, but will fight us to go. I guess that is the life of a 12 1/2 year old. Not sure what he will be like in a couple years.
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Aloha 'Oe
We decided to take a family vacation this year, our first proposed destination was Athens, Greece. With all the unrest, we decided against Greece. Instead, we opted for Hawaii. Several reasons prompted us to come to this conclusion:
So much had changed in the 15 years since the last time we were there before children. But it was still beautiful.
While we were there we visited Pearl Harbor. It was the second time I have been there and it is just as moving as the first time.
We ended up going to the Big Island and left from Kona. We all had a great time.
- Unrest to me means violence and I'm not up for that on vacation
- 7 hours flight time compared to 11 hours
- No passport needed to travel to Hawaii. Problematic when hubby travels!
- Less expensive???
So much had changed in the 15 years since the last time we were there before children. But it was still beautiful.
We ended up going to the Big Island and left from Kona. We all had a great time.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Fall
I can't believe it's fall already and there is a brisk feel in the air. We have been lots of places this year. The Grand Canyon, Phoenix (twice), Boston (twice), and we will be going to Ohio next month.
Our most recent trip was to Boston, was for a Bar Mitzvah.
According to the Webster Dictionary, a Bar Mitzvah is an initiation ceremony marking the 13th birthday of a Jewish boy and signifying the beginning of religious responsibility. And Wikipedia states that a Bar Mitzvah is a Jewish coming of age rituals for boys (Bat Mitzvah for girls). According to Jewish law, when Jewish children reach 13 years of age, they become responsible for their actions.
This seems very simple definitions for what I have seen at the two Bar Mitzvahs I have attended. The boys go through 8 - 10 years of instruction, learn a different language in a character based alphabet instead of a letter based alphabet, expected to give a lesson on the part of Torah they have read and studied, and to top it all off, they then have to deal with their families for several days surrounding the Bar Mitzvah. I have learned a lot from the preparations. From the Kiddish (food after the service) to the dinner and party the night of the service, it was twice as much as I did for my wedding. Although my wedding was 100 years ago and gas was $0.01 a gallon, I still didn't go through near what is needed for what boils down to a party for a 13 year old.
I am extremely proud of both boys. Pierce did a beautiful job this weekend and I couldn't be prouder if he were my own.
Lindsey was comic relief as normal. After the service, she stated that now it is time for Andrew to be Bar Mitzvahed. I tried to explain that it would be a little difficult for that to happen since Andrew hasn't been studying and we aren't Jewish. Also that I don't think the Temple would let a Mormon be Bar Mitzvahed. She was just a little confused and is still convinced that Andrew will be Bar Mitzvahed.
Our most recent trip was to Boston, was for a Bar Mitzvah.
According to the Webster Dictionary, a Bar Mitzvah is an initiation ceremony marking the 13th birthday of a Jewish boy and signifying the beginning of religious responsibility. And Wikipedia states that a Bar Mitzvah is a Jewish coming of age rituals for boys (Bat Mitzvah for girls). According to Jewish law, when Jewish children reach 13 years of age, they become responsible for their actions.
This seems very simple definitions for what I have seen at the two Bar Mitzvahs I have attended. The boys go through 8 - 10 years of instruction, learn a different language in a character based alphabet instead of a letter based alphabet, expected to give a lesson on the part of Torah they have read and studied, and to top it all off, they then have to deal with their families for several days surrounding the Bar Mitzvah. I have learned a lot from the preparations. From the Kiddish (food after the service) to the dinner and party the night of the service, it was twice as much as I did for my wedding. Although my wedding was 100 years ago and gas was $0.01 a gallon, I still didn't go through near what is needed for what boils down to a party for a 13 year old.
I am extremely proud of both boys. Pierce did a beautiful job this weekend and I couldn't be prouder if he were my own.
Lindsey was comic relief as normal. After the service, she stated that now it is time for Andrew to be Bar Mitzvahed. I tried to explain that it would be a little difficult for that to happen since Andrew hasn't been studying and we aren't Jewish. Also that I don't think the Temple would let a Mormon be Bar Mitzvahed. She was just a little confused and is still convinced that Andrew will be Bar Mitzvahed.
Pierce
Bob and his bevy of beauties.
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Happy Independence Day!!
Remember today what our soldiers fight for, what we celebrate, and what we all should be proud of.
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of theirpublic records , for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for theirexercise ; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.
He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:
For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing taxes on us without our consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:
For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:
For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:
For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.
We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.
New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
Source: The Pennsylvania Packet, July 8, 1776
Declaration of Independence
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.
He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:
For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing taxes on us without our consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:
For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:
For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:
For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.
We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.
New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
Source: The Pennsylvania Packet, July 8, 1776
"The winds that blow through the wide sky in these mounts, the winds that sweep from Canada to Mexico, from the Pacific to the Atlantic - have always blown on free men." - Franklin D. Roosevelt
"We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it." - William Faulkner
"Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves." - Abraham Lincoln
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it." - Thomas Paine
"The American Revolution was a beginning, not a consummation." - Woodrow Wilson
"Those who won our independence believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty." -Louis D. Brandeis
Where liberty dwells, there is my country. - Benjamin Franklin
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