Out of My Comfort Zone

I am so far out of my comfort zone these days I have trouble remembering what it feels like. I keep reminding myself that it's good to stretch and try things that scare you. It doesn't seem like the reminding changes my reactions though.

I hate calling strangers. Even more I hate calling strangers to ask them for something. It's a struggle to pick up the phone and dial. My stomach gets butterflies everytime I call a new number on my list. They subside a bit when I get an answering machine. They surge when I get someone who is pissed that I'm calling. The go away entirely when I get a friendly person on the other end of the line.

I'm going to be canvassing this weekend and that is soooooooooooooooo not anything I'm comfortable doing. At least on the phone you can't see one another. At least you can hang up if you need to. And it's safer than knocking on a stranger's door.

But this moment is too important for me to sit on the sidelines and not try to do something useful. I don't want to look back and wish that I'd stepped up to the plate and set aside my own fears and discomforts. I don't want to tell my children, "You can't change things. You have no power."

Our son feels involved. He is contributing by putting stickers on postcards or stamping them. Our two-year-old daughter likes to 'help' as well. They are both contributing by playing quietly when I make phone calls or by giving other volunteers a laugh or smile. They contribute when they come along to pick up or drop off voter registration forms. They are contributing because they and the futures I want for them inspire me to try and push through and do just a little bit more.

So I may not be comfortable but I am growing and learning. And, most importantly, I am actively working to create the world I wish to live in and the world I dream of for my children and all the other children in the world. What are a few butterflies compared to that?

The Fierce Urgency of I'm Too Busy

I've never volunteered in an election before so I totally understand when people say they're not comfortable or too busy or whatever other reason or excuse they have for not volunteering. Or at least I did.

This time around the election is just too important. We cannot afford to let this opportunity pass us by. We cannot afford McCain/Palin. I believe that with all my heart. If I didn't I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing.

So when I get response after response of "well I'm really too busy but I'll be voting for him," I get frustrated. Then I chastize myself. After all I know what it's like to be busy and I know that participating in the grunt work of a campaign is very low on most people's to-do lists (hell it usually is on mine as well). I'm really struggling with this. I understand but I don't. So much is at stake.

I know I'm not the only one who feels passionate about this race, far from it. Yet some of the most vocally passionate and fired up people I know are doing nothing. Some are donating money and that's great if they're able to and it's a valid contribution but right now we need people's time, their energy, their help. I hear people talk about how much they like Obama and how great it'll be when he's President but folks he's not President yet. He's still trying to get the votes!

Please, the time for action is now. If you an spare ten minutes and a few bucks buy some snacks for the volunteers and drop them off at a coordinator's house or campaign office. If you can spare two hours phonebank or address postcards. If you can spare four hours go canvass or do more phonebanking. It's not over until it's over. We need you!

Birthing Change...Is It Out Yet?

I've heard this election process (and volunteering in it) compared to labor and delivery before. It's an apt description. I am so tired. I can't imagine what it's like for Barack and Michelle and their families.

I've been doing the best I can as a town coordinator but I also have two young children to care for and a husband who is also devoting a ton of time to the campaign spearheading the NH Student Voter Project. I don't want to feel like there was more I should have done so I keep pressing on and doing little bits as I can throughout the day. I hope it all adds up and combined with what others are doing each day we're able to effect the change we're looking to see in our government and our role in it.

But I am tired and ready to vote. We're all trying to push through and birth this change. There is no choice but to see this through or fail and failure isn't an option. I cannot see how our middle-class family can survive four more years. I can't see how our nation can survive four more years. I cannot fathom how we could not seize this moment in time, in history and elect Barack Obama President. He is the right man for this time. We need to see this through.

And one last random thought. I think I've said it before but I'm tired and it's on my mind so I'll say it again:
Do you know the Maybelle story by Virginia Lee Burton about the San Francisco cable cars? It all reminds me of that story as well - the people who worked harder won over the ones who made more noise.

Musings on Callings

Callings. I've always wondered if I'd ever have a calling. Writing has been an integral part of my life and self-identity since a young age but I don't know if it's a calling or more of a desire. Callings would supercede desire.

I've been thinking about all this in the context of the Obama campaign. It's been a calling for many people. I don't know if it's my calling. I don't think it is though it has reawakened in me a desire to change the world for the better. I've wanted to be involved, and have been since he announced, but I don't live and breathe it every day and work endlessly and tirelessly. I do plenty but I would think with a calling you couldn't ignore it and spend time doing other things at its climax. Also, it's really become a movement. Can a movement be a calling?

I do know that the desire to become a mother was powerful in me. It was so powerful I was willing to go through four pregnancies, three miscarriages and IVF to have children. But as powerful and driving as that was, was it a calling? Biological urges probably played a role.

Events can transform a person's life and create a calling. I hesitate to say I wish for a calling because I don't want anything terrible to befall me or my family. That feels too much like tempting fate.

But I do wonder at how some of us clearly have callings that direct and define us while the rest of us muddle through our lives trying to figure out why we're here and what we should do. The best I've ever come up with is that I want to have a positive impact on the world, be the best mother I can be for my children and I still really want to make it as a professional writer. That goal is central to my sense of self and a strong desire.

But a calling, that seems like something profound, something different and rare.

Our minister talks about being called to ministry. It sounds like it's a life altering thing. It sounds like it's something so compelling you can't ignore it.

Do we all have a calling? If we do, do many of us miss it or ignore it? Do circumstances prevent us from answering our calls? Are our dreams/desires the same as a calling?

Ah well, it's late and I'm tired. I don't have any profound wisdom on the topic, just curiousity.

Harvest

I just harvested our parsnips and collected what I think are going to be the last of the raspberries. There are lots more on the canes but I don't think they'll have an opportunity to really ripen. Maybe we'll get a couple more handfuls - it'd be nice!

I experimented with growing the parsnips in a big, big round bucket this year and was hoping to be able to keep them in the dirt and harvest as needed until the ground really froze up. It didn't work out that way. When I tried pulling a couple out today I could only yank off the leafy top part and the roots all stayed firmly embedded in the dirt. Eventually I realized the only way I was going to get more than ten of them out was if I emptied out the entire bucket. Sigh.

At least I had a spot in the garden where I had wanted to put down a bunch of dirt. I dug and dumped and dug and dumped...for a half hour and finally was able to get the dirt loose enough to empty it. The root system was huge! It was easy to see why the parsnips weren't budging. Their roots made a tight net through the dirt and especially at the bottom. It was worth the work. There was a bounty of veggies and some of them are enormous with really long curved roots. It'll be a bit of a challenge to peel those but cutting them up and peeling the cuttings will probably do the trick.

I still have a patch of parsnips and carrots in the garden but I think they're just not going to get big enough before it's too cold for them to do any more growing.

I love being able to experiment in the garden. The only problem is that I risk losing an entire harvest - like when I cut the raspberries back last year and it turned out they're a variety that likes second year canes the best. The ones I didn't cut back had a bounty of berries this year and the others, well they had pretty leaves at least.

I'm thinking that next year I'm going to try and find a long, narrow, and deep container for carrots. It worked well with the parsnips but I think round was the wrong shape.

Mmmm lots of dreaming and planning to do this winter :-)!

It's Like Totally 80s

I was thinking about the election this morning. It's a ritual. Okay, it's an obsession. I think about it at least several times an hour all day long. It even invades my dreams. I can't wait for November 5.

This morning it struck me that I've seen this story before. I thought about it for a moment and started laughing. It was like an 80's movie. The cool, all-American kids are jerks and they always seem to win. They become the Prom Kings and Queens. They rule the roost. But then some upstart weirdo or misfit upsets the natural order of things. They are the real hero of the movie and we root for them to succeed. Then in the end they triumph and stay true to themselves.

I imagine the Obamas and Bidens will stay true to themselves and their core values; they have so far and it's been a brutal two years. Will they triumph? I hope so. I can't even envision McCain's nasty, smug persona in charge of the nation especially with his love of deregulation and bombing things! I'm sick over the possibility of the extremist Palin being a heartbeat away from the nuclear codes and my children's future.

I'm going to keep plugging away with postcards, phonebanks and my other volunteer activities. But I am also going to cross my fingers that like all good 80s movies the unlikely hero wins the girl/nation in the end.

And Speaking of Politicians...

I just wanted to thank Senator Collins for rejecting the robocalls the McCain/Palin campaign has been making. I was a reporter in Maine years ago and had the opportunity to meet Senator Collins when she was preparing for her sucessful Senate run. She struck me as professional, helpful and intelligent. I'm glad to hear and see that being in the Senate has not changed those qualities.

Americans want to hear about what our politicians will do to solve our nation's problems and how we can all work together to better our nation and citizens. We don't want to hear smears.

Thanks for standing up and doing the right thing Senator.

Hey Representative Bachmann We Can Love Our Country and Not Our Politicians

I don't watch much tv news anymore but commentors on the blog "The Field" - the place I go to to get much of my political news - were talking about last night's Hardball with Chris Matthews. Representative Bachmann (R-MN) was on spewing smears and sowing the seeds of distrust and hatred. She went as far as saying that liberals are anti-American and that all liberal members of Congress (she included at least one very moderate member in her list) should be investigated for anti-Americanism. This congresswoman had 7 minutes or more on national television to discuss the problems facing all citizens of this nation and not once did she address a single actual issue.

Enough is enough. We need our politicians to help solve our problems and not fan the flames of discord and distrust between Americans. One can disagree with a policy and still love their nation. One can work for changes they believe in and very much love their country. Representative Bachmann was incredibly incindeary and actively smearing the character of her colleages and millions of Americans. Enough! We all love our country. Our Constitution provides room enough for all of us to work together even when we disagree.

Watch the video for yourself and if you're upset by it take action: http://www.censurebachmann.com/

Drip, Drip, Drip

I'm sitting with a pile of stamped postcards. They're written and ready to go to campaign HQ to be addressed and sent to undecided voters in swing states. There are lots of them and they represent hours of work by a number of people but when I sit and think of how few voters they'll actually reach it is discouraging. Still every vote matters. We have to fight to get every vote. Each little drip of water adds up and eventually makes a puddle, which can form a stream, which can fill a pond. It all adds up to something greater.

If a postcard I've written helps bring an undecided voter onboard then I've just doubled the impact of my vote. Thinking about it that way this pile suddenly seems larger.

This is how we change the world. This is how individuals can do it; with small steps towards small goals that can turn into larger steps towards larger goals and eventually others will help support us and we can go further and faster than we ever thought possible. This is the beauty of community organizing.

This is the wonder of community.

Hooray! A Published Quote

Victoria DePaul, a wonderful and multitalented woman, I've met a couple of times via our volunteer work with the Obama campaign has written and published an ebook about Senator Obama and leadership. I plan on reading it and will write more about it later (as in after the election) but I am very excited to say that a quote I gave her appears at the start of Chapter 3 "Commitment."

http://www.scribd.com/doc/6501163/Obama-Leadership-for-the-21st-Century

It's not much but I am very, very excited!

I Love Donna Brazile

She's great! I find I cannot listen to most of the commentators or "journalists" on the television anymore. Actually I rarely listen to them these days - a few minutes before and after the debates (mostly to Keith Olbermann because he's funny) and on election nights. I'll take Jon Stewart over the actual "newsmen" any day. But Donna Brazile is different. She hasn't sold her ethics out for fame, at least not that I've seen (but see the disclaimer above - I don't watch much news anymore).

Today she had a wonderful Op-Ed up on CNN.com: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/16/brazile.obama/index.html

Rob Fourier, the AP's Washington Chief (and prior to that a McCain staffer-wannabe) has been writing about the "Bradley Effect" - the notion that white people will tell pollsters that they'll vote for a colored candidate and then go and do the opposite thing in the privacy of the voting booth. He's been injecting race into the campaign unnecessarily.

Today Donna addressed race and this election head on. I encourage you to read her entire piece but in part she wrote, "But what if the Bradley Effect were mere folklore? What if it proved to be less like the immutable laws of physics and more like an electoral version of the Loch Ness monster or, even more fantastical, Gov. Sarah Palin's foreign policy expertise as a result of her proximity to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's flight path?

Lance Tarrance, who was Bradley opponent George Deukmejian's lead pollster in 1982, wrote an article recently stating that the disparity between polling and electoral results in that campaign was as the result of bad polling, not racism. He posits that Bradley was always within the statistical margin of error and that his loss reflected nothing more than the inherent weaknesses of polling data in a close election.

Even if there were a Bradley Effect in effect in 1982, there is no evidence that it still exists today. Think of it: The 1980s were a time of recession, high gas prices and questionable fashion sense. Oh wait, perhaps those are bad examples of how much the country has changed in the ensuing quarter-century.

There are, however, a multitude of examples to prove just how far we've come in the past 26 years. The first and most visible: Barack Obama. iReport.com: Cornell students agree that Obama won final debate

There was no way either major party would have nominated a black man for president of the United States in the 1980s. The Rev. Jesse Jackson's historic campaign was as close as we came, and it was symbolic at best.
The greater symbolism was in the choice of Geraldine Ferraro as the first female vice presidential pick in a time when no one would have ever seriously considered a woman leading the ticket. On second thought, maybe citing a newsmaking female veep candidate is a bad choice to highlight the differences between then and now.

Yet no one can argue that huge strides haven't been made since the 1980s. If Obama or Sen. Hillary Clinton had run for president the same year Tom Bradley ran for governor, neither would have advanced beyond the Iowa caucuses. The country simply wasn't ready. It is now.

Yes, racism still exists in America. Its disgusting and insidious presence is evidenced every time some rabid partisan screams "Kill him!" or "Terrorist!" when Obama's name is mentioned at McCain-Palin rallies.
There is a contingent of folks in this country who will never, under any circumstances, vote a black man, or for that matter a woman, into office. Thankfully, those hateful, intolerant few are not the ones who will decide this election.

Food and Fear

Okay this is unscientific and to be honest I'm not looking to prove or disprove it but I'm going share my thoughts with you anyway. When we first switched to eating meat from a local farm (butchered locally by a butcher with a reputation as being caring and good to the animals sent to him) I began thinking more about how animals are treated in the industrial farm system and how horrible their end is.

I'm not going to get into the crap they're fed (and us by extension) or descriptions of the horrendous conditions many of them are forced to live and die in. Other people have done it well and in far more depth than I.

We know that cattle and sheep are given sex hormones to boost their weight before slaughter. We know that at least some of those hormones remain in the meat that we consume. But it's other hormones that are on my mind tonight.

When we feel fear our bodies get flooded with hormones (such as adrenalin). Animals go through a similar process. So where does this leave the meat we eat?

I did read a study that states that the stress on herbivores slaughtered in the US for human consumption is minimal enough that we shouldn't be concerned (but forget eating dog meat unless you want to suffer from impotence - http://www.scn.org/~bk269/fear.html). I'm not sure I buy that. I'm grappling with the entire issue.

I'm not prepared to become a vegetarian and to be honest my husband and daughter and to a lesser degree our son all really would not do well on a meat-free diet. So our diet causes pain and suffering in other creatures. I'm not happy about that but I accept that it is a choice my husband and I are making.

The thing I've been wondering is if the fear and stress hormones that flood the animal can alter our own bodies when we consume them. Does eating meat from animals who are treated more ethically and humanely both through their lives and through their deaths make for healthier meat? I don't know. I do know it makes me feel a bit better about what we eat.

On Hate and the Election

We cannot go back to who we were. We've been changed by this campaign and moment in time. This has been a precious gift offered to all of us. I hope we can drag the others who are still wrapped in fear and prejudice along with us, kicking and screaming if they must, into a new and more equitable world. If not then they'll have to step aside because this is our country too and it's clear that many of us are done with just accepting things for what they are when we know that change is within our grasp.

McCain and Palin's tactics and those of some of their supporters are those of bullies. Haven't we had enough of being bullied around? Haven't we had enough of being told we must fear and told who we should fear without regard for our own experiences? Haven't we had enough of the rape of our national treasures for the profit and greed of the few at the expense of the many? Haven't we had enough?

If we don't speak out now for our values, our truths, and for those whose voices are so frequently drowned out well then when? If not now, when? The moment is here. We need to decide what we each stand for and then take a stand.

When candidates encourage their supporters to spew vitrol and espouse violence we have crossed a dangerous line. We each have a responsibility to stand up and say "enough!"

Starting Young

Today I manned the voter registration table at a Community Fun Day event in a nearby city. We were in a park in a poor section and the event wasn't attended by as many people as any of us would have liked but it was a success on several levels (registering 11 new voters is something that I am proud of).

The biggest success was, I think, was the interest the kids had in participating. The park is surrounded by low-income housing and quite a few of the local kids came in and out of the park to see what was going on. A group of them stayed at the table I was working and several took it upon themselves, one girl in particular, to take over the raffle sales. They were enthusiastic and stayed for the entire event. Everytime someone bought a ticket they immediately handed me the money and then took it upon themselves to make sure the person filled things out right. They took pleasure in handing out bumper stickers and campaign buttons. I didn't understand what they were saying half the time as they easily switched between English and Spanish. The one thing that did come through clearly was their enthusiam.

One young boy proudly told me he didn't need to register because he had already voted for Obama. I smiled (probably in that irritating as hell way adults can) and said something to the effect of that's great but we don't vote until November and that you need to be a bit older but it's great that you're involved. He shook his head at me and pulled his Obama/Biden button and stretched his shirt out towards me (guessing, perhaps, that I just don't see well) and said, "No, I voted!"

I nodded and agreed with him and was distracted by a couple of adults who came over. The exchange stuck in my head though and in a quiet moment I watched the group of them (fluctuated between eight to fifteen). Every single child was sporting a button. When we found a bag of buttons with images of Senators Obama and Biden on them many of them they wanted to swap the ones they had for the newly discovered ones (of course I let them). Most of the kids also sported the campaign logo on their cheeks courtesy of a face-painting volunteer.

Maybe they decided to hang out with all of us for the snacks and music or perhaps because we were new and different in their park but no one asked them to help man the tables and no one asked them to help clean up afterwards and yet that is what several of them did.

They're too young to vote. They won't even be able to vote in 2012 but I think their participation today made an impression on a handful of them. Some were listening carefully to what I was telling the newly registered voters. They were listening carefully to people when they came up to the table and proudly announced that they'd registered first thing when they turned 18 or that they too have been involved in this campaign. They listened and observed everything.

It is my hope that when they went home tonight they asked their parents if they are registered to vote. It is my hope that they saw a group of strangers working together for a common cause and realized that they were a part of it, a part of something larger than themselves. I hope they carry this experience with them and that it helps them reach out to work with others throughout their lives.

Massachusetts - Vote No on Question 1!

This binding referendum may sound good, eliminate personal income tax for everyone in the state, but it's a nightmare waiting to happen for all residents of this state especially homeowners. Our towns and schools will lose huge chunks of their budgets. Huge. Who will make up this shortfall? Property taxes will have to be increased. Schools and our childrens' education will suffer tremendously. Our public safety budgets will get slashed. Our roads and bridges will suffer.

Please vote no if you live in Massachusetts.

For more information and to check out the impact on your town go to:
http://votenoquestion1.com/

Every Voice Matters

I have never felt as passionate about a Presidential election as I do about this upcoming one. I have also never felt like the US was at such a crossroads in my lifetime. The choices we make over the next weeks matter a great deal. We can decide if we like the way things have been going or we can decide to try to rebuild our government into one that works better for more of us.

It's a terrible thing to feel totally at the mercy of others. The last eight years I've felt like I had no voice in my government beyond the state level. Sick of feeling that way and inspired by Senator Obama back in 2004 my husband and I signed up to voluteer with his Presidential quest when he announced he was running.

Win or lose, hopefully it's win, Obama has done something that is unique. He has offered an education free of charge to any who seek it in community organizing and grassroots politics. From the start we volunteers have had tremendous flexibility and freedom to be the voice of the campaign as well as the workhorses. The trust Obama and his team have shown to us volunteers is refreshing. We're treated like intelligent adults. We're offered opportunities to get educated and then take that education back into our communities.

Having never volunteered with a political campaign of any sort before I wasn't sure what to expect. I am grateful for the experience. I have been in contact with people all over the world, gotten to participate in the publication of a book, met some amazing people, and have discovered that I do have a voice in our government. My voice alone is very small but joined with all these others, we can make a difference. We can demand to be heard. We're organized now in a way many of us never have been.

There is a month left. Make sure you're registered to vote. When I went to a meeting at our local HQ last night, I was shocked to find out how many folks are not registered. Help your unregistered friends and family vote. It's easy and for many states this is the last week people can register. You forfeit your rights if you don't claim them. Registering to vote and then actually doing it is the most basic thing a citizen can do. Do it!

Fighting Culture

I am far from perfect at being green. I'd say I'm only fair at it. We recycle. I use reusable bags at the grocery store (but when we're running out of plastic bags for poopy diapers I will forgo them). I freecycle or otherwise give away our old or unused stuff like baby equipment or our pool pump/supplies for our now nonexistant pool (my husband was not happy to hear I gave it to the oil guy without asking for any cash). I grow a chunk of our produce and virtually all our meat comes from a farm in town. But like I said I am wayyyyyyyyyyyy far from perfect at all of this.

Cleaning the kitchen today I came across one of my son's lunchbags. Yes I said "one of." I realized with a flash of shame in that moment that he has three lunchboxes/bags and he doesn't even need one on a daily basis yet. To be fair one was bought as a supply box but more than one really is excessive for a five-year-old.

Every year we get bombarded with Back To School marketing. Every year our kids grow and to one degree or another their interests change. When you're not thinking or are just tired of saying 'no' all day long it can be very easy to write off the five to ten dollars one of these costs in your mind and just buy it. Now if you also are in a household whose family members are reluctant (to outright adamently against it) to getting rid of old stuff, it can all pile up pretty quickly.

I have to fight against my own impulses. I get tired of seeing the same clutter day in and day out. I've been guilty of replacing it with new clutter. For the last couple of years I've been trying hard to get rid of the clutter. I've been trying hard change my own behaviors, patterns and impulses. I've been trying to model it for our children. Some days I succeed and others don't go as well. I've noticed fatigue plays a big part of it. The amount of time the tv's been on also plays a role. We don't generally allow the kids to watch tv with commercials but even the commercial free stuff is still marketed to them and us in the stores.

So, when our tv died yesterday I had mixed feelings. The first, I freely admit, was panic. Oh God what would we do without being able to watch The Polar Express, Diego or High Five? The next was depression. A new tv is not in our budget. After that was calm. We do have two very old tvs. One has the dials you rotate (and does not get the two stations the kids love best of all) and the other changes volume on it's own and puts a greenish tinge over the picture. But they work, both get PBS and the computer can play dvds.

I'm not sure what we'll do. My husband and I are going to talk about it over the weekend but I'm feeling less pressure to run out and buy a replacement tv than I was 24 hours ago.

That's progress isn't it?

Some Musings (a repost from my other blog)

A post from springtime on my Obama blog that I would like to repost here.

Who are we all or who are we becoming?

I see a hopeful future when I hear my daughter and son smiling and playing together. I hear the sheer abandonment and joy in their laughter and I smile. My heart overflows in those moments and I feel at peace with everyone and everything, at least briefly ;-).

When I first wrote this I was leaving the doctor's office with a potential diagnosis hanging over my head that troubled me. Still I noticed the
buds suddenly swelling on all the trees and getting ready to let the leaves burst out. It reminded me to be in the moment I was in, where I was, and to appreciate my life, my health, and all of the possibilities each moment holds.

It is hard to hold onto that inner peace, at least it is for me, despite trying. It is easy to let worry worm its way back into your heart. It's easy to become distracted.

Tonight after doing some research for myself I did what I find myself doing every night these days; trolling through blogs, news stories and the like. It's struck me before and will again I imagine but I cannot reconcile the hatred, the spewing, the venom, the anger, and the fear that I read in the comments. What are we becoming as a society? Has it always been this way but the immediacy and relative anononimity of the Internet just allows it broader voice? When did it become okay to bash one another so viciously?

What is the matter with us????????

Our time here is too brief and too precious to waste it hurting one another, lashing out in anger and violence. We could do so much good with our energy and our resources yet collectively we choose not to. And yet right now in this very moment thousands upon thousands of us are working together for all our personal reasons and agendas for a common goal, a shared vision of what our future could be. It's heartening.

Thank you all for all you do to bring about positive change!

White House Veggie Garden?

For more than a year now my family has been focused on the issue of local eating. It was really pushed into the front of mine and my husband's minds by a book someone on the Social Action committee at our church was enthusiastic about; The Omnivore's Dilemma.Our desires to eat more healthfully and keep as much of our money in the local economy as possible and do what we could to help local farmers stay in the community as farmers and not sell off their land to developers all factored into our decision to begin buying as much of our food locally as possible.

It also pushed me to put in a vegetable garden -something I'd planned on doing when we moved into our home but never got around to actually doing.It's been an incredibly rewarding experience. We've made new connections in our community that we would otherwise never have made and we are learning, or rather relearning how to become more self-sufficient again (a truly empowering feeling - and there is so, so much more to learn!).

I want to share something with you all that came to my attention tonight. http://www.eattheview.org/ is a web site that encourages folks to establish gardens in visible spaces in their communities; town halls, schools, and so on as well as in their own homes. That's a great initiative on it's own but the thing that I thought was really cool is that they're asking the next President to put a vegetable garden back in at the White House.

A petition on the site reads, "We, the undersigned, are petitioning the next President of the United States to plant a food garden on the White House lawn, with part of produce going to the White House kitchen and the rest to a local food pantry. The White House is "America's House" and should set a positive example for the country and the world. The new President would not be breaking with tradition, but returning to it (the White House has had vegetable gardens before) and showing how we can meet global challenges such as climate change, food security, and fossil fuel dependence."

I for one think this is a fantastic idea! I'm asking you to consider both the idea of putting in your own garden (or helping establish a community garden) and signing the petition.

Thanks!

News Source I Like (and Trust to be Truthful)

Months ago I discovered a fantastic blog called, "The Field." The journalist who writes the content, Al Giordano has a readable, engaging style and seems to have some great sources. His entries have been reliably on target, thought provoking and an oasis of calm in the drama the mainstream media seems determined to foist on all of us.The blog moved locations recently to http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/

Fair warning the articles right now are all political and the folks at The Field are virtually all Obama supporters (as am I). That said it is still a truthful and trustworthy news source unlike many others out there.

I'll Take My Victories Where I Can Find Them

My two-year-old daughter has a big personality. She also is a person of strong opinions. Her doctor calls her a 'hot ticket' and has since she was born. Yes the personality shined through pretty early ;-).

Two wasn't so bad with my son. We had a tantrum here and there and some sleep issues but overall nothing major. Darling daughter (DD) is another story.

She flips out over the weirdest/silliest things sometimes as well as the predictible ones. She is at her worst when she's tired but she can throw a mean tantrum even when she is well rested. She can also turn on a dime with them. She's been known to howl, kick on the floor, throw herself at you, try to force herself to throw up (the whole nine yards) and then when she see's it's not working (fourty minutes later) she can turn it off, snap.

There have been issues in our house the last six weeks in part because of a flood and the rest for reasons unknown that have left her waking most nights and puking at the waking with regularity. We think her reflux has returned and the doctor is working with us to find something to help. If only DD would work with us. Oh the fights we're having! I've had medicine thrown on me. I've had it spit on me. I've had it gagged out on me (and that's all only today!).

With that backstory in mind, here's my victory. DD threw no less than three tantrums today. Lately I've been so strained and on edge that my temper is triggered pretty quickly and I end up yelling. I'm not proud. It's not pretty and it's certainly not the way I want to parent. Darling son (DS) has been home sick all week and everyone is feeling the confinement so when the tantrums started this morning I was dreading the day. My husband wasn't going to be home until late so it was just me and the kids...in the house...all...day...long.

But! :-)

I managed not to yell much at all though sorely provoked (including when she tried to pull a hunk of my hair out when she was put in time out - time out was earned after DD deliberately and slowly poured a cup of water all over the kitchen floor because she didn't like the cup I gave her). We even had the puking tonight after DS woke her up. But I managed to get her cleaned up quickly and quietly and settled back into bed and asleep without the fuss that usually accompanies these episodes and I didn't yell at DS despite my complete and utter exasperation.

Hard as it was I'll count today a victory.

Potential for Massive Election Fraud

Okay, I've done some research on this guy and he seems legit. I could be wrong but I've heard a lot of what he says elsewhere and like I said the research I've done does point to him being legitimate.

This impacts all of us. Watch and then get in touch with your local elections officials. We should all care about this.

http://markcrispinmiller.blogspot.com/2008/09/spoonamore-reveals-plan-to-steal-next.html

His recommendation if you live where they use electronic voting machines - get an absentee ballot and insist on using that and turning it in however your town demands (mailing, in person...whatever).