World Hunger - World Peace

This photo is from "thehungersite.com".... I visit this sight each day and click on the bar to add my cup of food to the daily total, (Behavioral reward system of training definitely in place here) then I head to the breast cancer tab and click there for a 'free mammogram' for some low-income woman, then to the literacy tab, click and I've sent a book to a child.... I haven't yet succumbed to the rainforest and animal rescue tabs....but I started with just the hunger tab and look where I am today!!! I click on hunger because I can not imagine what it must be like to be hungry, truly-unbelievably-rack-o-bones-dying from lack of food in a world of plenty. I now click on breast cancer because my family has experienced that and it is treatable if one can be screened and in this man's world --- where males are, by simply being males - entitled to many health insurance covered screenings/tests/exams that women are still unable to obtain unless they have extremely good insurance --- and if they suffer from breast cancer, lose a breast or die from it BECAUSE they couldn't afford the screening, then SHAME on US (as in the United States of America)....so I click the bar. I've just recently started clicking on the literarcy tab because I believe education is the key to self-empowerment....for EVERYONE....not just white european males, but white/black/brown/red, males/females, rich/poor or in-between. I can not imagine my life without books...knowledge is power, but books can take you anywhere you want to go, regardless of where you are when you read them. When I was a child, books were my escape from a childhood filled with horrors, in the middle of the night - I was Nancy Drew and Clara Barton (civil war nurse). As I got older I saw the horrors of racial tension and divide in our nation through the eyes of Southern blacks (oh, to rember the title of that book- I'll remember)

Sorry, I digress. The point of the photo at the time is the saying - "It is not enough to win a war; it is more important to organize the peace" - Aristolte....a brilliant man....organize peace - if that were the simple thing to do in today's world...currently the government is lead by a man who can not string a coherent sentence together on his own....the man is an imbecile...today the news reported more soldiers killed in Iraq. When will it end?

We have absolutely no business fighting a war in Iraq or any place else. Why are there not more people speaking out about the war and the need to bring these boys home....? Why is the news playing it down?

I say, lets organize peace here at home and keep our sticky fingers out of the country pie somewhere else....do we not already have enough problems to resolve right here at home?

Peace......

My kids - the cats.....

Februaray 27, 2007

This is Lola Morgan...one of a pair. Born on Flag Day - June 14, 1998 in Seal Beach California. While they look like Russian Blues, their mother was Siamese, their inherited some of the undesirable traits....aloofness and self obsession....perfect cats for me, some would say....

She has always been the "don't touch me cat" - if she daned to situate herself near you or god-forbid seat on your lap. one DID NOT TOUCH her! Even when the urge was more than I thought I could bear and I knew without a doubt that she would flee as if struck by lightning, I would reach out and pet her....only to be rebuffed. She also resisted with claws flying, clothes be damned, the idea of actually picking up and holding her.....age has mellowed her - somewhat - she will actually avail herself of my lap as I sit and needlepoint or read, she suffers through the petting and Loves to have her ears roughly scratched....she has even allowed me, if I am nimble enough to catch her, to hold her in my arms where she will eventually purr. I am not allowed to walk with her, I must stand still and let her be, but I have tamed her or more likely she has tamed me.

Cats are an interesting species to watch. Certainly my cats Lola and Lucy exhibit behavior that is different than Spencer Tracy and his sister Katharine Hepburn, although Lucy and Kate were identical in that they were both the LAP cats in my life. If I am sitting or lying down, Lucy is ON me like it is her only method of breathing....she will follow me from room to room - because she knows that at some point I will sit down. She has even followed me to the toilet and attempted to mount me....honestly, sometimes it is just annoying. She sleeps on me, and if I turn on my side she climbs right on up to the available hip and attempts to make a bed. ..... you would think she'd get the hint..."I don't want you on me, hence I turned over!" - she persists....

Lola and Lucy will chase each other through the house, one eventually ends up on the floor on their back, claws extended in a defensive move, teeth bared and equal amounts of hissing from both sides...occassionally I will find them curled up together, but it is rare.

Lola likes to sit on my desk as I work, tail gracefully wrapped around her legs. She watches me, and when she determines that I have been given ample time to pay attention to her and haven't she gives me the head butt....yep, a head butt. She'll continue this playful poking until I have stopped doing whatever it is that she wants to interrupt - this is my signal to scratch her ears, and I'm not done until she leaves. If I should make the mistake of stopping before my time is up, she resumes the head-butt....she's persistent, I'll give her that. She also likes to have her water from the bathroom sink. Not the tub, her water dish or the toilet...ever the finnicky cat, she will sit on the corner of the counter, meow continuously until someone shows up to run the tap...and don't put too much into the sink...it has to be just the right amount so that she can climb into it and lap up water without gettin gher dainty paws wet....I like her, she's independent , clean, self-sufficient and a loner. Like her mom...

Lucy Madeleine, born on the same day as her sister, she is the pudgy one who is needy, self absorbed and demanding. She likes button, string and plastic bags, shiny objects - things to chew on or put. She's a love, but at 10 pounds it is a lot of love in one's lap. But at least she'll trade a nail clipping with sitting in my lap....she's also my climber. We have to keep the linen closet doors closed with a strip of wood so she won't paw them open and jump up to the closest shelf - she wants to sleep on the towels, up high and in the dark...strange cat, very strange. Like her mom...

I have to go, the head-butting has started....ok, ok stop poking me. For all my grumbling, I can't imagine home-life without my cats.....

Lucy- sunny herself, of course.

Truths

February 24, 2007

since I work I tape a couple of daytime shows that I can cruise through at night...The View, and Oprah every day ( that is until summer when every day is a repeat of something I have already seen), and today I watched Oprah's Thursday show on "Best Life" weight loss style. She had her trainer Bob Greene on, and they had selected 6 people who wanted to lose weight. I mention this only because, not only was I once overweight (and according to the experts that were talking I was most likely obsese) but each time I watch a show about losing weight I learn something new about myself. Today it was: "lies we tell ourselves" - for some reason that resonated with me. Now I have been on the lean side of my lifestyle makeover for close to 35 years. That is with one exception 15 years ago or so when I was suffering from CF and had gained about 35 lbs....which I was able to take off over a period of time once my symptoms eased. And I gain and lose the same 5 lbs every year...because I get lazy and I 'lie' to myself about the food I put in my mouth.

So, the point is - today I realized that while my basic lifestyle is healthy and I eat reasonably well most days, I LIE to myself at least every day. I purchased Dr. Oz's book "You on a Diet" because I have about 10-15 pounds that I would really like to shed. It's the 10-15 pounds of muscle weight that has turned to soft tissue (my term for flab) and I don't really have the motivation to make it muscle, so I just want it gone. Now, I am not overweight, but then I am a chronic malcontent, and have NEVER liked my body..... but I am now just not interested in spending the 60 minutes/5 days a week lifting weights to get it back. Oh, I exercise, but it is not even close to what I once did....which really was just hiding out at the gym. Now I have a life that is interesting and fun..... Back to the book...basically they ask you to give up 'white' - white flour, white rice, white sugar(well there is a lot more, but you get the idea, if not, go buy the book)....the first two are easy....but that small chocolate kiss that I stuff into my face follows the LIE - "ONE WON'T HURT" ----- and that's the lie....because it is never one and it does hurt. Because I end up not trusting my behavior.

So it's the little lies that establishes on-going behavioral struggles...it isn't the 'i can't lose weight' or 'i'm big boned' or blah, blah, blah....I tell myself that this one little bite won't hurt - and the next one and the next one and the next one-----soon those little bites add up to the 10 lbs I want to shed....dang! So now I have to decide to either stop lying and tell the truth or accept the weight that I carry and stop all the b.s. ..... it was such a light bulb moment!

And that was true about the cigs I use to smoke, the alcohol I use to drink, the marijuana I once inhaled and the list of other recreational drugs that I would injest....since I stopped telling myself lies around those, life has gotten oh so much better. I am a different person, and my life is really fabulous....for the most part extremely fabulous. But I had to stop telling the lies, at least about the chocolate kisses.

I have started two, no three new needlepoint projects in the past 2-3 weeks. Sometime over the next couple of days I'll post photos of the projects. Today I got the newest one sewn onto the dowels for it's frame....I love starting new projects....and no, they are not all the same. One is a rug, another will be a pillow that I will give away, the other is a rather large picture of a clown juggling some balls that I just adore and will frame once it's done and the last one is a small ornament (one of the 12 days of Christmas designs) that I am planning on appliquing into small red stockings to decorate the hallway with...I'm halfway through the series...

Blessings to you....imagine peace - especially where there is conflict....