Wordless Wednesday!

Poetry Challenge

This is courtesy of Reya at The Golden Puppy.
Thought it would be interesting and I wanted to share the invite with all my blogging friends.



Fourth Annual!!

What?
A Bloggers (Silent) Poetry Reading

When?
Anytime February 2, 2009

Where?
Your blog

Why?
Some poetry is warming. It cracks the ice in the heart of the Earth to remind her that spring is just around the corner. Or ... if you live south of the equator, choose poetry to cool the heart of the Earth so as to remind her fall is coming.

How?
Select a poem you like - by a favorite poet or one of your own - to post February 2nd.

What else?
Feel free to pass this invitation to any and all bloggers.


Peace!

American Idol and stuff

So is anyone else amazed by the crazy people who audition on American Idol. How do these people actually think they sound good? I thought we were going to see more of the better contestants at the beginning of this season. What about the new judge? Kara... She is pretty tough. It should prove to be an interesting season.

So tonight we are expecting some sort of winter storm that will last thorough the morning commute. The trouble is that as of yesterday we were going to get up to ten inches of snow well in the course of 24 hours the storm track has changed and now they are saying we are only going to get 3-5 and then it will change to rain and to top the entire thing off it will all freeze up by Thursday morning. I wish we would just get a big storm so we could enjoy a regular snow day. My children, especially N are dying for a snow day. This morning N said he was sure that we wouldn't get a snow day. n responded "N you just have to be positive. If the roads are bad we'll have a snow day." Talk about polar opposites!

Anyway if your up for it and you have the energy send some snow energy up to coastal MA.

Peace!

Just One More Jab

I know that I'm supposed to be done with politics, but this was too good not to post.

Warning : If your a Bush fan you might want to skip this post!

This is courtesy of my friend Judy.

Even the babies get it!!!

This is just too funny! Don't you think?

It's Infomercial time

Check out this infomercial that the fam created.....

Service Announcement.....

Dear World:

We, the United States of America , your top-quality supplier of the ideals of liberty and democracy, would like to apologize for our 2001-2008 interruption in service. The technical fault that led to this eight-year service outage has been located, and the software responsible was replaced November 4. Early tests of the newly installed program indicate that we are now operating correctly, and we expect it to be fully functional on January 20. We apologize for any inconvenience caused by the outage. We look forward to resuming full service and hope to improve in years to come. We thank you for your patience and understanding,


Sincerely,
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Compliments of my B.I.L. T :)

Friday Fill Ins

1. Oh, I am so cold, brrrrrr!

2. Positive changes, big and little.

3. During the inauguration, I was filled with hope for our future!

4. Chief Justice Roberts; are you kidding me???

5. Right now I'd like to be on a warm beach collecting beautiful sea glass.

6. My laptop is my favorite gadget.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to watching the Clone Wars with N (I know its odd but I like the show), tomorrow my plans include the 5th Annual Education Summit sponsored by Stand for children and Sunday, I want to relax and do nothing!

Reflecting

So I've been thinking about the inauguration, still, and reflecting on the moments from the that day that touched me as I watched and listened. I loved the moment when Michele Obama presented Mrs. Bush with a gift prior to their early morning coffee. Turns out it was a leather bound journal. How classy and thoughtful. I loved watching Sen. Ted Kennedy as he was shaking hands prior to finding his seat. He looked so proud and excited. I loved watching the Obama girls as they sat watching the festivities. While well behaved they still fidgeted. They looked like a regular family. It was refreshing! How about when Joe Biden turned around to help with the little purple digital camera. Another family moment. And what about the orange mitten thumbs up for our new President. These moments are of coarse in addition to the actual oath of office and inaugural speech. Hope is in the air, I can almost taste it!

I am so proud and thankful to be an American.

Peace!

Hope, History and the Future

Well by an unfortunate circumstance, the illness of my son N, I was able to stay home today and watch President Obama be sworn into office. What a momentous day. It was a joy to watch. To experience history being made is something I will always remember.

I am bursting with hope and anticipation.

I am waiting with the rest of the nation to see what will happen next.

I am preparing to "pick myself up, dust myself off and begin re-making America"

I am going to pray to God to keep our new President and his family safe.

I am looking forward to listening to an articulate honest man as he leads our country.

I will sleep soundly tonight, dreaming of a better future for all the people of America.

Peace!

History

"Now I say to you today my friends, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: - 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'"

Martin Luther King Jr., Speech at Civil Rights March on Washington, August 28, 1963

Can you imagine what Martin Luther King Jr would be thinking if he were with us today?

On the eve of one of the most historic days I will live through I am full of optimism for our country.

I am relieved that we will no longer be subject to the policies of an administration led by George W. Bush.

I hope that we will all pull together and rally around President Obama as he begins to dig us out of the 8 years of muck and mire that is being left by the Bush administration.

I hope that we do not put our new historic President up so high on a pedestal that he will certainly fall off and disappoint due to unrealistic expectation.

I hope that we will be realistic and patient as we move forward.

I hope that President Obama will instill a sense of urgency in our youth and eliminate the apathy that seems to plague many Americans.

I hope that we will experience the kind of 'Camelot' feelings that were experienced by my parents during John F. Kennedy's presidency.

I pray that the grace of God will be with President Obama and his family as they embark on the most incredible journey of their lives.

This is such an exciting time for our country. I want to relish every moment.

Peace!

Update, Update-written on Monday posted on Sunday

Well today was a different day at my house. Instead of having the morning to visit Dad and get things done, I spent the morning with children in the dentist's office and then in the doctor's office. N had a filling and a wiggly tooth extracted. Turns out that n is suffering from walking pneumonia! To think I almost sent her to school today! I'll be home with her again tomorrow. Doctors orders until she has been on meds for 24 hours. Oh boy! End of the week update: After 24 hours of antibiotics and 4 inhaler treatments miss n was feeling much better although I wish her cough and sniffles would go away completely. She has another week before we go back to the pediatrician for her follow up appt. I'm hoping that all will be well at that point.



On another note I've been busy with Stand for Children work. (three night time meetings this week kept me from spending much time posting or visiting blogs! I'll be back on the right track this week) Tonight was the MLN meeting for January. In order to attend I have travel to a town that is about an hour and ten minutes away. It makes for a long night as the meetings don't end until 9pm. This meeting gathers together representatives from around the state of MA from various communities from inner city to suburbia. Usually the meetings are quite congenial and move along smoothly. Not so last night. We are working on our three year policy plan. Actually we have dedicated representatives that worked tirelessly with our policy director to devise a three year plan with underlying objectives for the 09 spring budget cycle. One of the priorities that we are looking at is the ever present achievement gap between socio economic groups as well as racial groups. One of the members of our MLN group feels strongly about the part that poverty and race play in this educational achievement gap. In our last meeting this topic was discussed and it was further discussed as we worked to vote on our policy for the next three years. While I understand that both poverty and race play an integral role in how children progress in school and in life I believe that attacking both of those issues is way out of the scope of what Stand for Children is capable of achieving. So to make a long story short the meeting ran long and for me became quite frustrating.

Monday night I had my regular Strategy Team meeting in Plymouth for Stand. It was a good meeting. We have a general idea of what will be expected over the next several months as Massachusetts goes through it's budget cycle. We will have many varied opportunities to lobby our legislators both in at the state house and in district. The idea seems to be to have a constant presence in the state house so that we can prevent cuts to our Chapter 70 and hopefully local aid budgets. It will be a very tight budget cycle with an ever changing landscape as the economy ebbs and flows. Hopefully things will improve but presently we are expecting a huge fight to protect funding for our schools and town. Recently I heard on a local radio station that the Barnstable Public Schools will be closing two elementary schools due to budgetary constraints.
Times are so difficult.

On a brighter note I was able to be a part of an inspirational meeting representing Stand for Children, on Wednesday with the Superintendent of our schools, President of the local United Way, representatives from the No Place for Hate campaign, the Youth Collaborative Group and the director of Pupil Personnel. All of the individuals gathered together to brainstorm how we can work together to accomplish our goals. It was an interesting meeting. Each of the groups seem to target kids at risk and families at risk. We identified some key difficulties that each group has run into including engaging parents. Transportation and infrastructure was also identified as a problem. There are programs available to kids but without transportation how can kids access these programs. It is a problem. So the meeting was a great opportunity to build relationships and begin to work together. I will be interested in seeing where it goes from here.

One last note from Stand for Children. We are having our 5th annual Summit on January 24 at the high school in Reading, MA. It will be inspirational for sure. Our key note speaker is Jonah Edelmen, who is the National director and founder of Stand for Children. I have not heard him speak and he does not often make it out to MA from Seattle. I am really looking forward to hearing him speak. We will also hear from the director of MA 2020 and MA's Secretary of Education . http://www.stand.org/ma/summit If your interested at all in preserving the quality of education in MA and throughout the US please visit Stand's web site.

Peace!

Cash for Books! Cool Idea

I just discovered this site that allows you to enter an ISBN number and determine if the site is willing to purchase the book. They pay for the books and shipping. I think it is an interesting concept especially considering I have a basement shelf full of books that I no longer need yet can not bear to throw away.

I thought you all might like to check this out!

Visit Cash4Books

Longer post to come tomorrow.

Peace!

Soup! MMMMMMMMmmmmmmmm

So over vacation I found the most delicious recipe for cheddar broccoli soup. I made the soup hoping that I could at least convince R to try some. He did but it wasn't his favorite. I thought it would be fund to document the process of creating this delectable delight. I photographed the various stages of prep and cooking and am happy to share some of the photos.

Be careful you might get hungry!

First you steam the broccoli,

Then you chop the onion & the garlic,

Next you find a helper to shred the cheese!

The shredded cheese! MMMMmmmmm

Next you melt the butter for the roux.


Now you have the base for a delicious soup

Add the shreds for cheddar goodness

Now you have the delicious Cheddar Broccoli soup! but wait there is more....

Adding insult to injury I decided to fry up some bacon for a crunchy, salty topping for my soup.

All that is left is the eating!!!

Enjoy

Tricks from Mother Nature!

Today was the children's first day back to school after a two week Holiday vacation. We had a wonderful vacation full of friends, family, fun, snow, gifts and lots of yummy food. We were all resigned to go back to school if not happy about the reality of the situation. When my alarm went off at 6:45 I didn't want to get up but I knew it was a must and that this morning would be the most leisurely of all my mornings this week as the children were riding to school with their cousin due to the fact that my car was in the shop for the day. So I come downstairs and N is on the couch as usual. He tells me that there is a message on the machine from the principal of his school. Well turns out that the message was from our Assistant Superintendent informing all families of our school district that school was to be delayed by two hours today due to severe icy road conditions! We had an ice storm last night that I wasn't aware of and it coated our roads with what the weather folks call glaze. What a surprise! N was so excited. It was nice for the kids to go back and only have half a day. The first thing N did when he got to school was go to lunch! So I say thanks to Mother Nature for a wonderful joke to start us off back to school!

Peace!

Holiday Memories

For as long as I can remember my godmother, F, has been spending the Christmas holiday with my family. She was my mother's best friend starting in either junior high school or perhaps the first year of high school. She is a wonderful woman. She is strong and capable. She never married even though she was not without proposals as a young woman. She had her mother to think of and remained with her mother; caring for her until her death in the early 80's. It has been since that time that F has spent the holidays with my family. I would often go with my father to pick her up in Boston. These trips would sometimes include stops at my Aunt's home on Anawan Ave to deliver goodies, plants or gifts. After picking up F, we sometimes would stop for lunch or Dunkin Donuts on the way home. In the early years D&D's was a standard stop as we didn't have any locally. It was always such a joy to have her come and spend time in our home. She was always generous with her gifts and time.

The last memory she has of my Mum is waving to her as Mum watched Dad and F drive away for the trip back to Boston.. When Mum passed F was in Florida. I'm glad she was in Florida. It would have been too hard for her to go through saying goodbye. Funny how things happen for a reason. Anyway after Mum's death 8 years ago I wondered what would happen to our tradition.

Well she decided to continue spending time with us in my home each Christmas. I am so blessed to have her in my life. My children enjoy her company and are thrilled when she visits, especially, 'n'. I was privileged to listen to several conversations between 'n' and F over the holidays this year. Their conversations were so special; almost magical in nature. To watch an 8 year old and a 77 year old sit and talk about anything and everything was quite touching. Simply writing about it brings tears to my eyes. It made me appreciate F, but in the same moment these experiences made me miss my Mum and Mother in law so very much. They would have so enjoyed my children. I know that they are watching over us and that their spirits are often close, but even with this knowing I still yearn for them to be here in our physical world.

Blog Award!!! WOW!!

Waaaay back on December 16th, my friend Judy, nominated me as a Kreative blogger.


I'm honored and have spent a lot of time thinking about how I would create this post. I decided to wait until after the holidays and now I am ready to sit down and get to it! So, here goes:

The rules are:

1. The winner may put the logo on her blog.
2. Put a link to the person you got the award from in your blog.
3. Nominate 5 blogs.
4. Put links to the blogs.
5. Leave a message for your nominees.

Before I share my nominees I want to say that I enjoy all the journals/blogs that I read and find them all to be interesting and worthy of awards and accolades! I think I may take a more out of the box view on creativity as I choose my nominees.

Kyra at This Mom is my first nominee. She is an amazing woman who is a mom, wife and homeschooler. Her writing inspires me through it's creativity and thoughtfulness. She often writes about her adventures with her son and homeschooling on her blog and she astounds me with how she is so tuned in to what is best for him. I have gleaned many interesting ideas from her blog, including my felted soap project.

Fran over at Sacred Ordinary is my second nominee. I have been reading Fran's blog for a long time. Her posts are thought provoking and her artistic endeavors are beautiful. Her Soul Collage work is beautiful. Her blog is a peaceful place to visit after a busy day.

My third nominee is Loretta who is the author of pomegranates and paper. Her writing makes me smile and has also brought me to tears. The composition of her posts includes lovely photos arranged in a unique manner. She writes about life in such a way that you want to go back time and time again to check in with the 'Poms'. To top it all off she has the most beautiful headers on her blog that she changes up from time to time.

This is getting trickier the further I get into this process....

Fourth in my list is a blog that I have recently found; bread & honey : a food blog. Recipes, stories and vivid pictures capture my culinary imagination. I recently made the cheddar broccoli soup and was delighted with my results. Working creatively in my kitchen is one of my favorite things to do and I'm sure that is why I am drawn to bread & honey: a food blog.

My final nominee is Liz at be present, be here. Liz is an artisan and a wonderful writer. She is also a photographer. Her writing touches me and makes me think in a different way. She is open and kind and willing to share vulnerability. I am drawn to the messages she shares with her jewelry and to the peaceful way in which she writes.

Some of my other favorite creative blogs are Thinking About... , Judith HeartSong ,Knitting Sunshine , Crafty Synergy , A Mindful Life , The Gold Puppy , Walk With Me... I know it is cheating but if any of you on this list who would like to play can consider themselves nominated.

Needless to say at the top of both of these lists would be my friend Judy. What an amazing artist and human being! Please go and check out her blog. You will not be disappointed! Judy in the Dyes

Peace!

Friday Fill Ins

1. The world is full of challenges, joy, pain and love.

2. I love you was the last thing I said.

3. I wonder what 2009 will bring.

4. Spirit is at the end of all things.

5. There's something to be said for faith.

6. Anywhere with my family is where I want to be.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to relaxing, tomorrow my plans include visiting with the cousins and Sunday, I want to enjoy the last day of vacation with my children and husband!

2009!

Happy New Year Dear Friends!

I hope this post finds you all well and looking forward

to positive changes as we enter

2009!

Peace, Love and Hope for All!