You know how you think back to something you wish you'd never done/said? I have many of those moments and just cringe when I think of things I'm not so proud of.
I often think about those times, as I watch Lauren and Josh go about their daily lives. Being the typical (in most aspects) teenagers that they are I hear them say things to people or do things that I can't believe. Don't get me wrong, my kids are great! For the most part, Rick and I are the ones that get the brunt of things from them. But..............like all youth, and some adults, with an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex, L and J lose their cool and blurt out something rude, crass or uncalled for. Sometimes I say something, which of course is met with a 'lovely' response from them, but most of the time it just needs to pass away as quickly as it came out. Ugh.
That's when I reflect back to my own actions and words when I was younger, and ... not so young. Double ugh! But, that's where my new favorite song comes in.
Have you heard of Brandon Heath? You HAVE GOT to hear his song Wait and See! Click on the link and you'll find 2 places, the song and the video, where you can hear it.
What does it say? I've highlighted my favorite parts of the lyrics:
I was born in Tennessee
Late July humidity
Doctor said I was lucky to be alive
I been trouble since the day that I got here
Trouble to the day that I disappear
That will be the day
That I finally get it right
CHORUS:
There is hope for me yet
Because God won't forget
All the plans He's made for me.
I'll have to wait and see
//He's not finished with me yet//
I never really was that good in school
I talked too much broke the rules
Teachers thought I was a hopeless fool alright.
I don't know how but I made it through
It's one of those things that you got to do
I always had a knack for telling the truth
CHORUS
Still wondering why I'm here
Still wrestling with my fear
But Oh! He's up to something
But the farther out I go
I see enough to know
That I'm not here for nothin'
He's up to somethin'
So now's my time to be a man
Follow my heart as far as I can
No tellin' where I'm endin' up tonight
I never slow down or so it seems
But singing my heart is one of my dreams
All I got to do is hold on tight
There is hope for me yet
Because God won't forget
All the plans He's made for me
I'll have to wait and see
////He's not finished with me yet////
God has plans for me. I have no idea what they are. Most of the time I'm only aware of what God doesn't have planned for me. Sometimes I don't like those plans and therefore, react. The older I get I do realize that God does have something in store for me, more than I'm doing now. But I really do have to wait and see!
God isn't finished with Lauren or Josh or Rick or me! Thank God for that! We're a family holding on tight to our faith that there is some amazing future plan for each one of us. I just know it!
Monday, November 16, 2009
I Gotta Feelin'... Woo hoo, Boo hoo
So, I was just sitting on my couch, drinking coffee, trying to catch up on some shows on the DVR before anything else gets erased for lack of memory space. I flipped through my recordings of Oprah and they had the behind the scenes stuff from her opening show for this season, where she had the Black Eyed Peas singing their song "I Got a Feeling". Over 20,000 people totally surprised Oprah with a 'flash mob dance' (I had to look that up!) for the song.
I sat there watching the dance, after seeing it on the opening show and again on YouTube, with the biggest smile on my face and singing along. Pretty typical Beth, right? I love the whole thing; the song, the band, the synchronized movement of the crowd and watching Oprah realize what was happening and then get totally into it. I started tearing up, which is something that I do when I'm happy or sad. I thought I was happy....
All of a sudden I found myself crying for real. Not happy tears but something coming up out of me. It happened yesterday in church too. Tears came from 'nowhere!' and wouldn't stop. Have you ever really noticed how connected happy and sad emotions are? Of course, I'm wondering what my tears are about, but it's also fascinating to me how my emotions went from joy and happiness (that's how I feel when I experience music I like) to sorrow so quickly.
Maybe music is like alcohol, it accentuates whatever emotion is most present at the moment.
So, being the mental health advocate that I am learning to become, I went to the internet to see what researchers say about the most powerful organ in the human body: the brain! Here's what I found...
From an article published by The Society for Neuroscience - "Brain activity during these tasks showed involvement of brain areas typically associated with the generation of emotions and areas that control motor behavior. Listening to self-selected happy and sad musical selections also produced brain activity associated with emotions and music processing.
So, there it is. It's all in the hardwiring! Fascinating, isn't it. Complicated and confusing, isn't it! It's a wonder that anyone is "typical/normal". What a miracle!
Now, not to be ignored is the job to ponder over what's getting to me.........hmmm, so many choices, so little time!
I sat there watching the dance, after seeing it on the opening show and again on YouTube, with the biggest smile on my face and singing along. Pretty typical Beth, right? I love the whole thing; the song, the band, the synchronized movement of the crowd and watching Oprah realize what was happening and then get totally into it. I started tearing up, which is something that I do when I'm happy or sad. I thought I was happy....
All of a sudden I found myself crying for real. Not happy tears but something coming up out of me. It happened yesterday in church too. Tears came from 'nowhere!' and wouldn't stop. Have you ever really noticed how connected happy and sad emotions are? Of course, I'm wondering what my tears are about, but it's also fascinating to me how my emotions went from joy and happiness (that's how I feel when I experience music I like) to sorrow so quickly.
Maybe music is like alcohol, it accentuates whatever emotion is most present at the moment.
So, being the mental health advocate that I am learning to become, I went to the internet to see what researchers say about the most powerful organ in the human body: the brain! Here's what I found...
From an article published by The Society for Neuroscience - "Brain activity during these tasks showed involvement of brain areas typically associated with the generation of emotions and areas that control motor behavior. Listening to self-selected happy and sad musical selections also produced brain activity associated with emotions and music processing.
So, there it is. It's all in the hardwiring! Fascinating, isn't it. Complicated and confusing, isn't it! It's a wonder that anyone is "typical/normal". What a miracle!
Now, not to be ignored is the job to ponder over what's getting to me.........hmmm, so many choices, so little time!
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
My political views - part 2
So, let me begin today with the knowledge that many of the things Obama is doing now have been done by past presidents, including Presidents Bush, Clinton, Bush (the dad), Reagan, etc. I know they had czars, I know there was controversy, I know there were illegal things that went on. Why do people who argue for Obama say things like "Well, Bush did that!" Actually, that is a favorite phrase among Obama supporters. Let's blame everything on Bush! Well, get over yourselves. Bush is long gone. Be a mature, responsible gov't and take responsibility for your actions. I personally was quite upset with how things went during the last 1-2 years of Bush's administration. Like I said yesterday, I'm an equal opportunity offender kind of gal! It doesn't matter WHO YOU ARE, WRONG IS WRONG!
The problem I have with Obama and Friends is the word twisting, the deceit, the blame game, and most of all, the arrogance. Ultimate arrogance. Does Obama and his administration really believe that we will fall for it? Well, the answer is........... yes, many people do believe in him. Not as many as before, including many democrats that have reversed their thinking. A lot of the problem is the media, TV and newspaper, that refuse to report anything against Obama, unless forced to. People can't be upset about things if they don't know what's happening. I'm not saying that if you believe in Obama you are uninformed. Not at all. Yet, how can people support an administration that has done the things this one has? Do you think that Americans would stand behind and support Bush if he had:
* flubbed his lines if the teleprompter wasn't working (actually, Bush was constantly ridiculed for this); even Joe Bidden teases about Obama needing his teleprompter
* ignored the American people at every rally (with no arrests, not even garbage on the ground!) and instead said he didn't even know that rallies were occurring , there were protests in over 750 cities nationwide on April 15, 2009 with thousands at each of the larger rallies, even thought many news casts under reported the attendance
* actually, when Cindy Sheehan and about 50 others protested President Bush about the war in Iraq, this is what he had to say, ' "Listen: I sympathize with Mrs. Sheehan. She feels strongly about her position. And she has every right in the world to say what she believes. This is America. She has a right to her position," Mr. Bush said.'
* Bush acknowledged Mrs. Sheehan's right to protest. Obama administration called protesters astro-turf (thanks, Nancy Pelosi!), UnAmerican, racist, ignorant, Nazi's & "tea baggers", I actually had to ask Josh what that meant. It's such a gross boy locker room thing!!! And yes, our president, other elected officials and news reporters called the American people these words. Shameful!
"Obama then mocked the right wing’s tea bagger gatherings for their misplaced anger and, indirectly, Fox News for promoting them: OBAMA: "So, you know, when you see, you know, those of you who are watching certain news channels, on which I’m not very popular, and you see folks waving tea bags around, let me just remind them that I am happy to have a serious conversation about how we are going to cut our health care costs down over the long term how we’re going to stabilize social security. [...] [L]et’s not play games and pretend that the reason is because of the Recovery Act because that’s just a fraction of the overall problem that we’ve got."
* how about the double standards that many Americans are okay with. Not Me!
* made positive statements about Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro & Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; when Chavez and Castro think you are a liberal, then you are WAAAAAY left
* seemingly aligning himself away from Israel
* trying to silence Fox News- Check out this story from the Associated Press. Here's the first paragraph of the story: 'The Obama administration allowed a Fox News Channel reporter to interview Treasury Department "pay czar" Kenneth Feinberg after other network news executives said they wouldn't use a pool arrangement to speak to him unless Fox was included.
* global warming/climate change - We have laws and regulations in place/more to come to help our planet. I love nature, animals, fresh water; hey where I grew up outside WAS my home, was my playmate and my entertainment. But, there are just some things that are being beaten to death. Carbon footprints. I understand the science behind it. However, the people (Gore, a lot of Hollywood and Washington) yelling the loudest about it are the ones with the biggest footprints!
Okay, I think I'm going to pop a gasket! Have you heard about pet carbon footprints? Oh yes! Our PETS are now also responsible for hurting the earth. Check out this website: Get the 'green' poop bags: Eliminate plastic grocery bags and shop for corn-based, biodegradable poop bags. A pack of 100 bags from Poopbags.com costs around $20
It might sound strange but a research carried out by two New Zealanders has unearthed a startling fact – dogs are a danger to the health of our planet. A medium sized dog has carbon footprints that are comparable to that of a Toyota Land Cruiser that does 6000 miles per year! The article even talks about the ecological fin-print of a goldfish is equal to that of 2 cellphones.
So we are supposed to be concerned about the fin-print of a goldfish when China, Pakistan, India and many other countries with a high industrial population have no plans to change their ecological ways?
I am one of those who doesn't believe in global warming. I choose to believe the many, many SCIENTISTS that have disproven it over Al Gore, whose movie "An Inconvenient Truth" has been proven to have over 20 lies in it, makes millions of dollars for his campaign. Even ABC's Diane Sawyer was harsh on him about the money he is profiting from his opinions! What kind of funds are the real scientists making, hmm?
Now, climate change is another thing. There is no doubt that our world's climate is changing. I have no problem recycling my garbage, trying to reduce and reuse, etc. I do take issue with those who tell me I must buy certain lightbulbs (try disposing of them), buy a green car, etc.
Hey, wasn't it back in the 70's when scientists said that the world was heading for an ice age! I grew up in Canada and remember thinking that we would be affected a lot sooner than others because we were so far up North.
So, I've said a lot of things here. Now you know where I stand! Maybe you think differently of me now, maybe you are angry for me stating my opinions and stating many, many facts. Well, if you do then that's your problem. I don't think less of you for yours! But, please don't ignore facts! If you don't think my facts are correct, please, by all means disprove me. Send me a comment on this blog and let me know where I messed up. Seriously, I am mature enough to handle it if I am wrong. I will post a correction and it won't be on the back page, baby!
Tomorrow, I'll post some pics of Rick, myself and the kids at Houston's Tea Party rally this past Monday night. It was a great event for us.
I wonder what will happen when I wear my tea party rally t-shirt out in public?
I love you all, you democrats, republicans, liberals, conservatives, independents & socialists! :)
The problem I have with Obama and Friends is the word twisting, the deceit, the blame game, and most of all, the arrogance. Ultimate arrogance. Does Obama and his administration really believe that we will fall for it? Well, the answer is........... yes, many people do believe in him. Not as many as before, including many democrats that have reversed their thinking. A lot of the problem is the media, TV and newspaper, that refuse to report anything against Obama, unless forced to. People can't be upset about things if they don't know what's happening. I'm not saying that if you believe in Obama you are uninformed. Not at all. Yet, how can people support an administration that has done the things this one has? Do you think that Americans would stand behind and support Bush if he had:
* flubbed his lines if the teleprompter wasn't working (actually, Bush was constantly ridiculed for this); even Joe Bidden teases about Obama needing his teleprompter
* ignored the American people at every rally (with no arrests, not even garbage on the ground!) and instead said he didn't even know that rallies were occurring , there were protests in over 750 cities nationwide on April 15, 2009 with thousands at each of the larger rallies, even thought many news casts under reported the attendance
* actually, when Cindy Sheehan and about 50 others protested President Bush about the war in Iraq, this is what he had to say, ' "Listen: I sympathize with Mrs. Sheehan. She feels strongly about her position. And she has every right in the world to say what she believes. This is America. She has a right to her position," Mr. Bush said.'
* Bush acknowledged Mrs. Sheehan's right to protest. Obama administration called protesters astro-turf (thanks, Nancy Pelosi!), UnAmerican, racist, ignorant, Nazi's & "tea baggers", I actually had to ask Josh what that meant. It's such a gross boy locker room thing!!! And yes, our president, other elected officials and news reporters called the American people these words. Shameful!
"Obama then mocked the right wing’s tea bagger gatherings for their misplaced anger and, indirectly, Fox News for promoting them: OBAMA: "So, you know, when you see, you know, those of you who are watching certain news channels, on which I’m not very popular, and you see folks waving tea bags around, let me just remind them that I am happy to have a serious conversation about how we are going to cut our health care costs down over the long term how we’re going to stabilize social security. [...] [L]et’s not play games and pretend that the reason is because of the Recovery Act because that’s just a fraction of the overall problem that we’ve got."
* how about the double standards that many Americans are okay with. Not Me!
* made positive statements about Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro & Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; when Chavez and Castro think you are a liberal, then you are WAAAAAY left
* seemingly aligning himself away from Israel
* trying to silence Fox News- Check out this story from the Associated Press. Here's the first paragraph of the story: 'The Obama administration allowed a Fox News Channel reporter to interview Treasury Department "pay czar" Kenneth Feinberg after other network news executives said they wouldn't use a pool arrangement to speak to him unless Fox was included.
* global warming/climate change - We have laws and regulations in place/more to come to help our planet. I love nature, animals, fresh water; hey where I grew up outside WAS my home, was my playmate and my entertainment. But, there are just some things that are being beaten to death. Carbon footprints. I understand the science behind it. However, the people (Gore, a lot of Hollywood and Washington) yelling the loudest about it are the ones with the biggest footprints!
Okay, I think I'm going to pop a gasket! Have you heard about pet carbon footprints? Oh yes! Our PETS are now also responsible for hurting the earth. Check out this website: Get the 'green' poop bags: Eliminate plastic grocery bags and shop for corn-based, biodegradable poop bags. A pack of 100 bags from Poopbags.com costs around $20
It might sound strange but a research carried out by two New Zealanders has unearthed a startling fact – dogs are a danger to the health of our planet. A medium sized dog has carbon footprints that are comparable to that of a Toyota Land Cruiser that does 6000 miles per year! The article even talks about the ecological fin-print of a goldfish is equal to that of 2 cellphones.
So we are supposed to be concerned about the fin-print of a goldfish when China, Pakistan, India and many other countries with a high industrial population have no plans to change their ecological ways?
I am one of those who doesn't believe in global warming. I choose to believe the many, many SCIENTISTS that have disproven it over Al Gore, whose movie "An Inconvenient Truth" has been proven to have over 20 lies in it, makes millions of dollars for his campaign. Even ABC's Diane Sawyer was harsh on him about the money he is profiting from his opinions! What kind of funds are the real scientists making, hmm?
Now, climate change is another thing. There is no doubt that our world's climate is changing. I have no problem recycling my garbage, trying to reduce and reuse, etc. I do take issue with those who tell me I must buy certain lightbulbs (try disposing of them), buy a green car, etc.
Hey, wasn't it back in the 70's when scientists said that the world was heading for an ice age! I grew up in Canada and remember thinking that we would be affected a lot sooner than others because we were so far up North.
So, I've said a lot of things here. Now you know where I stand! Maybe you think differently of me now, maybe you are angry for me stating my opinions and stating many, many facts. Well, if you do then that's your problem. I don't think less of you for yours! But, please don't ignore facts! If you don't think my facts are correct, please, by all means disprove me. Send me a comment on this blog and let me know where I messed up. Seriously, I am mature enough to handle it if I am wrong. I will post a correction and it won't be on the back page, baby!
Tomorrow, I'll post some pics of Rick, myself and the kids at Houston's Tea Party rally this past Monday night. It was a great event for us.
I wonder what will happen when I wear my tea party rally t-shirt out in public?
I love you all, you democrats, republicans, liberals, conservatives, independents & socialists! :)
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
It's Election Day - I elect to voice my political opinion!
Politics is a scary topic. I have close friends and some family that are liberal, vote democratic & support President Obama. Their reasons vary but none the less, we do not share many of the same views. By no means do I want to alienate them or be divisive. You see, I continue to fight being a people-pleaser. Just check out some of those "personality tests" I've done on Facebook! :)
A year ago today (well, actually Nov. 4th 2008; but last Election Day) I believe that something terrible happened to our country. I knew that Obama would be elected! Rick still held out hope for John McCain but I knew that people were too angry about the war, too angry about our economy and hated President George W. Bush. I knew that Americans were sick and tired of older white men leading our country and that's mostly what the Republican Party gave us to choose from. I was prepared for the results, or so I thought!
I was so wrong! And here I thought Hillary Clinton would divide our country!
Little did I know that our White House administration (Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Tim Geithner, Janet Napolitano, etc., would become so, so, so........ what's the right word. I'm not entirely sure. Here are issues that have frightened me and stuck with me about what "hope and change" have done to our country. This goes for the House and Senate as well, including their illustrious figure heads.
I'll premise this with the fact that some of Obama politics are not new. They've been around for decades and that republicans and conservatives are also just as guilty of such reckless behavior. I take an equal opportunity offender position. If you mess up, regardless of who you are, you should be gone!
Remember, WE VOTE THEM IN! THEY ARE NOT OUR BOSSES! THEY WORK FOR US! Almost all of them, Republican and democrat alike, have forgotten it. And its days like today where we get to VOTE THEM OUT, too.
So, back to the issues that have really struck a nerve with me over the last 9-10 months:
* the way they are going about closing Gitmo; ummm, hello? If other countries don't want these political terrorists (oh sorry, I don't think we're allowed to use that word "terrorist" now) and refuse to take them off of our hands, doesn't that send a message? Who wants Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (remember the killing of Daniel Pearl, remember 9/11), now that his trial being delayed was one of the 1st things Obama did
* lies, lies, lies - how about no pork barrel spending, or no earmarks on bills (then we got over 900 of them), how about trying to reach across "the aisle", how about not being SO left, etc., click here to see Obama's campaign promises
* the czars - hmmm, let's see!
Van Jones
Kevin Jennings, what about him - "Kevin Jennings, President Obama’s Assistant Deputy Secretary of the Office of Safe and Drug FreeSchools at the U.S. Department of Education, is in hot water this week for having failed to report that a 15-year-old sophomore student in his school had told him of having sex with an older man. But failure to report what appeared to be a case of statutory rape of a child may be the least of Jennings’ worries. Lori Roman of Regular Folks United points to statements by Jennings a decade or more ago when he praised Harry Hay of the North American Association for Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), which promotes the legalization of sexual abuse of young boys by older men."
The list of the 30 plus czars - could go on for days! You look it up for yourself! Many of them are very controversial. What does that say about our president? Besides, Republicans & Democrats are upset over the fact that these czars are not investigated by anyone other than Obama's admin., have no confirmation to go through and answer to NO ONE except Obama. Now, even Pelosi, Dodd, Reid and their collegues don't get that favor.
* some of Obama's friends/heroes/idols - Rev. Jeremiah Wright-even Obama distanced himself from Wright, even though before he was elected he sat in Rev. Wright's church for 20 years,
this is an interesting article, by CBS none the less!
William Ayers - "Bill Ayers who, of course, is notorious as one of the founders of the Weather Underground and himself a Weather Underground terrorist in the Sixties who helped to bomb the Pentagon and he and his comrades planned the bombing of the Capitol and other bombings again that were used to intimidate the families of federal prosecutors who were moving against groups like the Black Panthers and such."
Saul Alinsky - "Obama really became a student of Alinsky's work, an expert on it, learning his notions of power, his notions of organizing, and it was Alinsky who originated this idea of what he calls direct action, which was this use of intimidation tactics intentionally militant and scary, both to intimidate politicians and business leaders into doing what these radical groups wanted and also frankly as a kind of organizing tactic because going out and confronting and intimidating people is very exciting and gets a lot of members into your organization.
* ACORN - Obama hailed them until, like Rev. Wright, they started to tarnish him; click on the video from this site, now they are dealing with an investigation favored by Obama, even though he said, "Frankly, it's not really something I've followed closely," Obama said. "I didn't even know that ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money." REEEAAAALLLLY! $53 million tax dollars is not "a whole lot of federal money. Even CBS had something to say. Yes, I said CBS. You can stop rubbing your eyes! Even CBS can't deny the Obama schemes any longer. How about NBC or ABC? Yep, them too! They were all a little a lot slow on the pick up (I wonder why) they have to report the facts, right?
* the firing of Gerald Walpin - first of all, this is one of Obama's campaign promises "Increase protections for whistleblowers"; "Barack Obama will strengthen whistleblower laws to protect federal workers who expose waste, fraud, and abuse of authority in government."—Obama's The Change We Need In Washington" - oh really!!!! Then, explain this!
* add to the Obama debacle- gov't healthcare bill that the majority American people overwhelmingly don't want to endorse (trillions of dollars for worse healthcare than we have right now, less coverage, less freedom to choose). My family suffers a lot financially because of poor healthcare coverage for our kids' biological disorders but I sure don't want what Canada or Great Britain has! Have you heard ONE SINGLE Canadian or British administrative or regular "Joe" person come out to strongly endorse a gov't run healthcare system? I'm waiting...... Saying that it is better than what we have right now is not good enough (in my opinion and many millions of peoples' too - it will be much worse). I do want healthcare for all citizens that want it. This just isn't the way to go, in my opinion. We ended up in the US because my dad, a former surgeon, did not want to participate in socialized medicine. Have you asked your doctor if they support this healthcare reform?
* how about when people started to say no to Obama/Pelosi/Reid healthcare reform citizens were called racist; "Are you one of the tens of thousands of people who don't want government-run health care and showed up at a town hall or a rally to let it be known? If that's you (then you are part of the right-wing, extremist, angry mob and your anger is fake. It's not organic. It's not grassroots." Have you seen the numerous ways that average Americans have been treated, talked about, vilified by our own elected gov't officials? Disgusting!
So, these are "just the facts, ma'am!" Truly, they are. Look them up if you're not sure. Send me a comment if you think I have my facts wrong.
Whew! I've been working on this posting off and on today and I'm worn out! Never before have I been so charged up about politics! Why now? Because I've been given a message in my life to stand up, stand up to what is wrong (not by my standards, everyone's!), deceitful, and perhaps evil, if I dare say that word. Remember this post or this one! I just gotta do it!
Part 2 tomorrow!It's time for me to do my mom mobile run of the day! Family first!
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