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Hi there. With Thanksgiving coming up, this is a meme that's been making the rounds on Facebook. I like it, and have decided to move my "attitudes of gratitude" over here as well...I've been doing this for a week, so this is the "catch-up" post. Meme as follows: How many people can do this? Every day until Thanksgiving, think of one thing that you are thankful for and post it. "Today I am thankful for..." The longer you do it, the harder it gets! Now if you think you can do it then repost this message as your status to invite others to take the challenge, then post what YOU are thankful for today.11/19/09 Today, I am grateful to have been born in the "West". As a female, I've never been in danger of having my girl parts chopped off in infancy. I can go outside without having to cloak myself from head to toe. I have rights and protections for myself as an individual and am not just my husband's "property". (Oh hush, D, I can hear that smart-ass comment coming before it even happens...) I am in no danger of being whipped or stoned for my behavior. I can pursue a career. I am in charge of my own body and what I choose to do with it and with whom. There are some seriously scary parts of the world out there...count your blessings. 11/18/09
Today I am thankful for the ability to stay "at home" with my son Ian for his early years of life. While it is a financial sacrifice, it is an investment in Ian's future that is worth everything. It is a pity that in today's world there are few families that have the resources to be able to make this choice.11/17/09
Today, I am grateful for (and this may sound silly) FACEBOOK, which has enabled me to re-connect with a large number of old friends and acquaintences that I had otherwise lost touch with. :D11/16/09
Today I am grateful for my back pain disappearing as mysteriously as it started...hopefully it will stay disappeared!11/15/09
Today I am grateful for AWESOME HEATING PADS, which make my nasty little back injury all the more tolerable.11/14/09 Today is the one year anniversary of the passing of my husband's father, Terry. Things like this put your own life into perspective, and make me grateful for both of my parents, that they are both alive and relatively healthy for their age, and that they are both a part of my life. I am also grateful for being blessed with a wonderful husband and wish that I could have spared him this loss somehow. Cancer sucks.11/13/09
Today I am thankful for my friend Shawn, who despite the horrible car accident is still alive and with us and continues to make recovery. I am grateful to still have my friend in my life!!!!11/12/09
Today, I am grateful that my two extra-flaky MB kids came back today with a reasonably positive attitude towards making up merits to march in the Xmas parade.11/11/09
I am thankful for my beautiful little boy Ian, born three years ago this day.Tags: meme, thanksgiving
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While my posting here has been sporadic, things are going VERY well for me overall. I LOVE working with Jaime's marching band...I have been having such a blast with the kids. It feels really good to remember that yes I AM a professional and that yes I'm still good at it. I've become the "Ms. Fix It" in a sense because I've been fixing a lot of woodwinds on the spot for the kids...those years of teaching middle school band with very little $$$ come to play. I've always been good at the "duct tape and chewing gum" school of instrument repair...not that I'd recommend it for permanent fixes, but I can usually get something to work for the immediate future, with the promise of a trip to the shop afterwords. It's just been so good for my brain cells to remember how to work!!!! And since I'm the "Assistant", the political carp doesn't float to me, so the STRESS associated with being the director has been absent. Top it off with no full-time job on TOP of MB, and I don't have the exhaustion factor kicking in either. It's good. I'm actually going to be "in charge" for these last few weeks of the season as Jaime has started her maternity leave. I'm actually looking forward to it...it is scary how much I've been loving chasing the MB around. I was really burned out aft er my last job and swore never again. Well, maybe it's really good for me to be reminded that it was THAT job and not just me losing my touch... We had an awesome Halloween. LAST year Ian was obsessed with the Teletubbies, so we found a LaLa costume online and got it for him. Well...by his reaction, you would have thought we had skinned, gutted and beheaded a Teletubby...he FREAKED! So it hung in the closet for a year. THIS year, I brought it out again. He looked at it funny at first, but I left it hanging in the living room so he could "get used to it". One night, he decided he wanted to try it on...and he LOVED it! He wore it every day for a week! My MIL came in to help, and Ian was able to march in the Halloween Parade. (With Mommy with the marching band up front!) Afterwards we went Trick-or-Treating, and he really got into that! it was so much fun!!! I still need to peel pictures off the camera, but I'll get to it eventually. Well, while I was typing this, Ian managed to dump my coffee all over the dest...it's been cleaned, but I'll end for now. Happy November folks! Tags: gsmb, halloween, ian, marching band
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Our friends Lee and Sharyl, who committed the heinous crime** of moving "back home" to the opposite coast, have been in town for another friends' wedding. Prior to moving, Sharyl was the person that I hung out with outside of my immediate family, and Lee GM'ed the longest running campaign I've been involved with ever. Their leaving made a big hole in my life, and seeing them was wonderful. Weirdly enough, I felt almost stressed about seeing them because I was afraid that I was going to miss them even more after they left again...yeah, I took it hard. Sorry. BUT...I did a little messing around of Travelocity and it turns out that (assuming I did this right) I could get a round-trip ticket for both me AND Ian (we are a package deal) for under $300!!!!!!!! So, I may well be visiting the Portland, Oregon area sometime after the holidays. (They actually live in Washington state, just over the river.) Apparently this isn't too terribly far from the Seattle area, either. This could be very interesting. More details as I make them. **Yeah, yeah, yeah...I did the same thing to my SF friends. Look at it this way...I get snowed on every year now as penance. Tags: lee, sharyl, visit
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There's been a story about an ant and a grasshopper going around, with the gist of it being a snipe at the Democrats and Liberalism in general. You might have seen it. I'll admit, it has humor value. My hubby, however, had a spark of creative genius and crafted this bug story in response to the implied political criticism. I think it is hilarious, and dead on! :D ************************************** Story: There was a stinkbug that was not very intelligent of competent. But his father was important and had powerful friends. So despite a complete lack of talent and character the stinkbug got elected president of the bug world. A spider attacked the bug world and killed many hardworking ants. The stinkbug got revenge by attacking a kingdom of termites instead of the spider because the termites had annoyed his daddy. 8 years later more hardworking ants have been killed in the unnecessary war of the stinkbug than the spider ever killed. The spider, still free and doing well is laughing at the bug kingdom. Tens of thousands of termites are dead for no good reason. The economy of the bug nation is in tatters. Now a grasshopper is in charge of the bug kingdom and has to clean up the mess. The stinkbugs blame EVERYTHING on the grasshopper. The moral: We made a much better choice in the last election and should never elect a stinkbug again! Tags: dion, humor, politics
The Swishing Tail Means:  amused
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This started out as a status update on my Facebook, but spontaneously blossomed into a full-blown political commentary. Here is what poured out of me this morning; 8 years ago today I was in my first few weeks of teaching at Ligonier. I remember during my prep going into the office and one of the secretaries saying something about a plane going down...bad news, but something I'd hear about more after I got home. Nothing to disrupt my routine. Then my concert band kids came in, and they were babbling some of the most outrageous things! "I heard the World Trade Center COLLAPSED!" "I heard one hit the PENTAGON!!!!" "I heard one went down RIGHT OVER THE HILL!!!" Wild exaggerations, right? I negotiated half a rehearsal and then turned on the TV...and was in shock. Sometimes, when I think about it, I'm still in shock. It tore away my innocent naivete...that unfortunate feeling of separateness from the evil one sees on TV, that feeling of "well that could never happen to ME!" I'd visited the WTC less than a year before. A friend's husband was in the lobby of the WTC when it got hit, but escaped safely without realizing just what had happened until he could watch it from the relative safety of his own businesses building across the street. Another friend in Arlington, VA was outside and happened to be looking in the right direction and saw the fireball from the Pentagon hit. And flight 93 went down in rural PA east of Pittsburgh...about 30 miles from my school. If I'd been outside at the right time, I probably have heard the plane go over my school. I am lucky in that I lost no loved ones, although I know someone who lost a neighbor. Over the last eight years I've learned a lot about the tangled nasty web of politics and war and fanaticism that led up to that attack. Two of my points of outrage with the previous administration are how this tragedy was used as an excuse to waste war in Iraq, AND that Bin Ladin still lives, which I ALSO blame on being distracted by Iraq. I feel that the memories of those who died that day should have been held in greater respect than to be used to make an excuse for an extra war we didn't need. The politicizing of our national tragedy is one of the reasons I left the Republican party in disgust. No, I will Never Forget. And I know that freedom isn't free. Earn your freedom! Educate yourself. Read...not just current events but world history. Listen to the political arguments from both sides of the spectrum and use your own brain. Do research before voting. Sheep aren't free and not everything you see and hear on TV is real...do the research do find out for yourself rather than blindly parroting some loony from the Right or Left. "Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it" OK...wow, I didn't know that was in me. I should have written this as a note instead of as a status update. I'll get off my soapbox now. Tags: 9/11, politics
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My MIL is still visiting so I'm hoping that allows me the the time/free hands/mental bandwidth to compose a REAL post. Saturday's SCA event was AWESOME and deserves to be recorded. As many of you know, I am active in my local SCA group as their A&S officer. That means I'm in charge of all the artsy stuff. I've been trying to get more participation going in our group for several years, particularly at our annual event, Spring Thing. This year was a "Pirate" themed event, and a great time was held by all. We had the brewing competition and the bardic competition as usual. Instead of an art competition, instead we had an Artisan Exhibition which went really well! We had 9-10 people bring stuff, which compared to the 2-3 that usually enter the art COMPETITION was FANTASTIC! We have so many people who have made beautiful things, but who seem to be shy about entering competitions. I wanted to showcase our talents and it worked really well! My last brainchild was the introduction of the Iron Scribe competition. Four of us met at (about) Noon and were given the theme of "Angels and Demons", and in 4 1/2 hours four beautiful scrolls had been created. Kat won top hours, but all four turned out really well! I usually take forever with my scrolls so I was very happy with how mine turned out, despite starting an hour and a half late due to running around getting the other arts stuff set up. (Yes, I know I need to post pictures...one thing at a time...) The bardic competition jumped from two competitors from last year, to SIX this year. All were fantastic, and created a lovely atmosphere during feast! Vivats to Baab the Pirate and the Scurrrrvey Beavers for the winning performance of "Whiskey", as well as to Marilyn, Catlain, Viv and Corwyn for their participation. The Cattail Choraliers had their second performance, which went really well. Having Marilyn in the group really makes a difference, and since we were missing Katya, she saved our butts. Heh...I lost the brewing competition to Deryk, which was completely OK. His Grog was really good, and I've been kinda half-assed about brewing this year. It was cool that he won the scroll that I did, since I won the scroll that he did 2 years ago. :D I am really happy that Marilyn had such a good time. I've been pestering her about singing with the choir for a long time, and am thrilled that she decided to join us. This was her first event, and she threw herself in whole-heartedly! It was an awesome event! Not exactly relaxing, but very satisfying! To top everything off, Quinn and Viv inducted me into the Order of St. Swithin's for Arts and Sciences. That felt really good. :D Tags: a&s, marilyn, sca, spring thing
The Swishing Tail Means:  accomplished
Current Catnip Hallucination: "What Do you Do With A Drunken Sailor"...
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I'm still here. Still alive. I'm reading as fast as I can, but y'all are prolific. We got our "Peep And The Big Wide World" videos yesterday, which is keeping Ian sufficiently entertained that I may actually be able to type a post. It's amazing how much faster I type with two hands as opposed to one. Spoke (typed?) too soon.... Had a good Memorial Day Weekend. My dear friend Abner drove up for a visit, and we all had a great time at Jay's annual party. Ian and Adrianna are adorable together!!!!! A is a bit over a year older, but Ian keeps up very well. :D I've been officially hired by Greensburg Salem as Jaime's assistant band director. Yay. In a fit of pique I chopped 5+ inches off my hair yesterday, and it's still way past my shoulders. Looks a lot less ratty, too. D got me to read Alan Campbell's "Scar Night" and "Iron Angel". The third book is out, and we'll have one as soon as we can lay our hands on one. Bizarre, creepy, fascinating, addictive read. Poor Dill. Last year Ian planted some tomato seeds as an activity in one of his toddler classes. I planted the resulting plant in my little garden and it produced a HUGE number of little tomatoes. I didn't harvest them all, and a number of tomatoes ended up drying out and spending the winter buried. Well, add Spring rain to all those little seeds left behind and I now have tomato plants growing wild all over my garden and surrounding area. Yikes! It's like the Attack of the Killer Tomato....plants. Someone is getting impatient with my typing so until later... Tags: books, garden, gsmb, ian, memorial day
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friscokitty's journal
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