Courage Campaign

Ken Starr -- and the Prop 8 Legal Defense Fund -- filed legal briefs defending the constitutionality of Prop 8 and attempting to forcibly divorce 18,000 same-sex couples that were married in California last year? The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in this case on March 5, 2009, with a decision expected within the next 90 days.

The Courage Campaign has created a video called "Fidelity," with the permission of musician Regina Spektor, that puts a face to those 18,000 couples and all loving, committed couples seeking full equality under the law.


"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

If you go to Courage Campaign you can sign the petition to stop this shameful attempt to interrupt loving people's happiness.

Just Sharin'

Blogger's Community Photo Challenge Food

Cherry Tomato
We have a few Challenges still going on, but our bi-weekly challenge starts today & ends on Thursday Jan. 29 @ 9 PM EST. Our Poll will begin on Friday, Jan. 30th.
This week's Challenge is FOOD! So you may cook, bake, or just take an interesting shot of anything that we eat. Can be growing on a plant, can be placed on a decorative plate, as a still life image..... Can be just fruit in a dish. Try to be creative, make sure you have plenty of light, & again keep a steady hand when snapping the shutter....

This is Digit and he loves homegrown cherry tomatoes. It was growing on a plant in the backyard until he picked it himself.

America's Song

I like this new song.
From The Oprah Show

Feeling Better Now

Deep sigh... I am having a difficult time pulling myself out this thing called depression. I call it a thing because I want to separate from it. It has hovering for a few weeks and now that I am physically feeling better, I find myself emotionally zapped. During the time my back was injured there were many things that I keep up on that had to go by the wayside, so my house is in need of a little TLC.

My back is feeling 100% better. The only way I know how to explain my back is to say that my lower back is unstable. It slips out and I am in pain and cannot bend over to do some of the other things that I usually take for granted. I injured it about 7 years ago and my life has certainly slowed down since then. If it was not for this computer, I am not sure what I would do to occupy my mind. Only so much TV a person can stand.

I like TV but I am getting sick of it. As I think about it, TV was not really a huge part of my adult life until I hurt my back a few years ago. Anyway…

What have I been doing?

I have played a lot of online poker since that did not require much thinking and I could sit and alternate heat and ice on my lower back. I am sick of poker right now too but that is only because it was mostly what I sat here doing.

I read 100s of blogs. Wow! There sure are a lot of interesting people sharing their lives.

I went to the chiropractor more times than I want to think about. Each time I would have some relief for a little while then my back would slip back out. It took several weeks to get it back place.

There was a flood in Ace’s garage. All of the contents of Max’s house are being stored there and unfortunately, the entire garage had to be emptied in order to reach the broken pipe. I had walked back to Ace’s for dinner, saw water under his truck, and thought his AC might be leaking fluid. I mentioned it to him and he assured me his truck is in A1 condition.

Later he walked over to my house to get something and when he got back to his place, he called me in a huge panic. “MOM, big problem. The whole garage is flooded.” Max came over and for almost 4 hours, we unloaded the garage. It was dark and I held the flashlights. Plumber came the next morning and fixed the pipe. PINTA.

Many boxes from my mother’s estate were also in Aces garage so I asked my sons to walk them to my garage so I could tend to them this year. I have avoided it for a long time and it does not seem to be going away. She was a major crafter and had 100s of books that I need to sort. Keep, eBay, recycle to library.

Ace got a ticket for parking in the alley in the middle of the night. I never knew it was against the law to park in the alley. We are going to fight it because of the flood.

My car has been at the body shop and I am driving a loaner. The loaner got a ticket from street sweepers because the code enforcement man could not see the handicapped placard that is in plain view. I hunted him down and he said he would make it go away. Still upset me for a while.

I was invited to be in the Posse this week. Seems like my alter ego, Sierra Dawn met up with the rest of the posse over at The Starr Ann Chronicles to fight off the bad men bloggers who are trying to shut down the lesbian bloggers.

I sat outside with Tess for a while today. The weather was almost early summer warm. We have been having hellacious winds and now a little heat spell. I told Tess that tomorrow I would work in the yard. Prune my roses and copper tree. I am not going to overdo it, but I know the opposite of depression is expression...so I am going to get busy.

Earlier today, I found this old book in my mother’s things and when I opened it, the picture at the top of this post caught my eye. The book was an old Magee Reader by Anna Magee of NYC. Copyright 1920. Ginn and Company. The illustration is by Ethel T. B. Baines and Eugenie M. Wireman. It predates Dick and Jane readers. I love to look at well-illustrated children’s books. This particular book also has a lot of fairies throughout, which surprised me for a school text book from back in the day. Old school for sure.

That is just a bird’s eye view of my unproductive week.

Why Did You Start Blogging Part 3

Robin is an ex client who was transfered to the midwest several months ago. She emailed me asking about a site that helps you set goals(for profit). Here is my response to her. After I wrote the email I thought it partially answered the question "Why Did You Start Blogging" that I addressed back in October and November. I have a few more reasons and will write about them in the coming months. Maybe.

Hi Robin,

No. I have never seen that site before. I looked at it and it is structured like a MasterMinding group...it could be powerful if you do it. That seems to be the problem with people...they start something and do not finish it or they want something and they stop before they get it.

Are you looking for support? Or accountability? Goal setting and keeping goals requires both for some people.

Along those same lines of getting on track and staying on it..., I started a blog and I like that process. I write about whatever happens to come out when I sit down to type. I have found that if I plan something too much I tend to avoid it for a various reasons. So for me, it is just more openness to the process of blogging. When I first went into the field of psychology, I remember this type of communicating being referred to as a, "stream of consciousness.” I just start typing and have no idea where it will lead me. I can’t edit too much or I would never write anything either. I have learned a lot about myself through blogging.

I am surprised that anyone reads my blog but there are people that do. I feel supported from people out there and I give support right back, not always the same people involved in the exchanges but neither is it that way in real life. I doubt I will ever meet anyone who's blog I follow or anyone who follows mine, although, as we know, anything is possible. One thing is for sure, they all seem like incredible people who write much better than I do.

I am honest with my feelings and I think that is what makes blogging so rewarding. At first, it was hard to share anything that made me feel vulnerable but I have now written from the centermost part of my being and felt relieved to have a place to share those deep feelings. Clicking ‘publish’ can be powerful in many ways too. I have never felt judged by anyone out there. It is a place to sort through feelings. Actually, it is like free therapy- you know all the answers are inside don’t you?

Blogging takes effort and I find it to be an interesting exchange of energy. It is what works in my life right now. I write about whatever suits me for the day...affirmations, care giving, being in a relationship, my mother, being a lesbian, being me, being honest. I try not to put any pressure on myself about blogging either. I have my own built in filters and am well aware of the risks. I choose to risk rather than not help myself with what the Universe has provided. I hope you don't think me condescending to mention quietly that we are all living our own soap opera, comedy, drama, all the time anyway, so why not be real with it? Blogging has become part of the life adventure for me.

I have to admit, I am more of a reader than a writer but there is definitely a connecting the dots thing that happens in cyberspace. You know that I believe all of us are both teachers and students to each other in all of our relationships. People are so interesting and have such varied viewpoints on any given subject. I have some fabulous teachers. Anything at all in the whole world you are interested in, I guarantee you that, there is blog about it and it not there will be one soon. Like attacks like you know. We all have something to contribute.

Hope I didn’t overload you.

Rose

What do you think is the best part of blogging?

Happy New Year

Here it is New Year's Eve and I am sitting here alone, Tess has already gone to bed, but she requested if I am up when the ball drops,that I wake her. I told her I would record it and she could pretend it was happening whenever she watched it. Then she became insistent that I wake her if I am up. I was not planing on watching the ball drop. Enough balls drop daily in my life.

Tess had some x-rays done this week. They were hard on her but her primary doctor wanted them so we did that.

Back in October, I was in a minor fender bender. Well, not exactly my fender, his... yes. He hit me as I was driving by the post office. He was exiting it. My car ran and I was in no hurry to get it repaired, so I waited a couple of months to take it to the body shop. Last week it was raining like hell and the window(on the side that was hit) would not stay up, I was more or less forced to take it in.

The body shop gave me a loaner car #1. Nice of them. Really, it was. I have ins. that would have covered the rental of a nice new car but the loaner car #1 was convenient. I am into convenient. They did put in a new battery.

First time I go to use the car, it has a dead battery. NO problem. I called them, they came out immediately and jumped it. Started right up. Good to go.

A few days later I wanted to go to the store. You guessed it. DEAD. I used Ace's truck to run my errands and life went on without a glitch.

Monday morning, the day Tess had the x-rays scheduled, I called the body shop to let them know the battery died again. They bring me Loaner #2. A low rider type car with shiny rims and those small tires, smells like a Las Vegas circa 1990- when they allowed smoking in the casinos. Every time I get into that car I wonder how I smoked for as long as I did. I am sure my car smelled like Loaner # 2. The guy who brought it out to me said it was his personal car. Personal ashtray. The top speed you should drive in the ashtray is about 20MPH. Ace told me 35MPH was too fast.

After nearly two weeks away from the gym I was finally able to go back. I really missed the workouts and was happy to be able to go again. I love this gym and the people who work there are so much fun.

In the past I have joined gyms and then never wanted to go. I think it was usually around this time of year too. The busy years when gyms just seemed to never fit my schedule or I never had the desire to go workout or both. A lot of my friends are members of various gyms and my BFF, Tia, is a health nut so I am surrounded label readers. That is what I call them, the ones who watch every carb they ingest. They block the store isles reading the backs of potato chip bags.

I went to Costco today. Trust me, I would never go there on a day before a holiday if it wasn't 100% necessary. Tess needed me to pick up a medication she could not wait until Friday for. Sheesh. The lines were insane. The guy in front of me bought a new HP computer and a lot of other office supplies. His bill was about $1100. and he pulls out this brown paper lunch bag and proceeds to pull out a wad of money. All small bills. OMG. I busted up laughing. My chicken tenders just about thawed. That whole deal took about 20 minutes to complete. The checker and he kept passing this one poor $5 dollar bill back and forth. He refused to take his change too. Weird.

Back to my week. I have been reading Spiritual Liberation by Michael Bernard Beckwith which has inspired me to jot down a few things that I would like to affirm for myself in 2009. I made a short list of feelings I would like to experience more and just a general way of life I would like to embrace.

I live my life feeling.....
MORE...
Love,
Harmony,
Patience,
Order,
Humility,
Generosity,
Beauty,
Creativity,
Compassion,
Gusto,
Passion,
Joy,
&
Wisdom

Happy New Year