Blogging Politics -- Wait! DON'T LEAVE!

I know few women bloggers who talk about politics AT ALL. Not even a mention of their favorite presidential candidate. I have to wonder: Is this subject taboo among homemakers? Government is one of the most powerful forces in our lives, and I don’t see my peer group showing interest.

Suddenly I have this vision of a mom sitting happily at her computer, steaming cup of coffee nearby. She is catching a few precious moments of quiet internet time before the kiddoes wake. Farrah's blog comes up, and she begins skimming the latest post. She leans forward as her eyes widen. Wait! What's that word?! It cannot be! But it is!!! POLITICS! Oh no! Horrified, she frantically clicks away, but it is too late. Her entire day has been spoiled.

My blog isn’t popular, but I know for a fact there are friends/family who read it without commenting. So there are more seeing my posts than meets the eye. Hopefully I haven’t lost half of them, yet. Before the rest run away screaming, please know that I am not planning to convert my blog into a political machine, nor have I gone mad. BWA HAHAHAHA! Well, not very mad, anyway. Political blogs are for people whose primary hobby is politics. That’s not me.

And yet . . . while voting season is upon us, I’d like to share a few thoughts.

I grew up in a conservative Christian home where the news was rarely discussed, because it revolves primarily around stories about sinful things being done by sinful people. Or at least that’s the general idea. And Christians are better off ignoring all that. While this description may not be far from the mark, I take issue with the “ignore” part.

After I married and we became established in our own home, I began reading the tiny local paper. Lo and behold! There was a whole world out there I knew nothing of! The owners were nice conservatives who wanted to make our city a better place. It felt as if my eyes were suddenly opened after having been blind all my life. Soon I was visiting CNN on the net and getting depressed.

Yep, I was getting depressed. I found out there is suffering on our planet. LOTS and LOTS of suffering. Way more than I could comprehend.

This realization was a good thing, though. You see, no one is going to do anything about suffering without awareness. Awareness brings motivation. Motivation brings activism. Activism brings relief to suffering.

Ever so slowly, I became interested in politics.

I realized that suffering can be reduced or increased to some degree by government. The government impacts all of us. If we want a better world for our children, or even a world as good as the one we were raised in, we need to be aware of what is going on and get involved. At the very least, we NEED to vote.

There are laws designed to stifle Christian rights. There are destructive laws. And there are really evil laws forced on us by evil people. Abortion, no-abstinence sex education, anti-homeschooling laws, no-fault divorce, higher taxes for married couples, gender neutral bathrooms, homosexual discrimination laws, pro-gambling laws, no prayer in public schools, and on and on and on. These are real issues currently in our nation.

We want and need Christians to run this country. Christians make good laws and get rid of bad ones. Christians uphold the traditional values we hold dear.

BUT…Christians will be elected by Christians. The more Christians that vote, the better.

Coming soon . . . My Current Voting Experience. How exciting!

Nature and Praise

A 3.3 mile hike up and down a mountain with a rise of 660 feet from the parking lot.

A dream come true.

That was what happened last Saturday. Eight months ago I couldn’t walk across a room on my own. One year ago, we were vacationing at the coast. Sweet Hubby and Sonshine disappeared down a gorgeous trail as I waited in the car, sore and sad. I so wanted to be with them and wondered if I would ever walk on a path again.

This is praise to God, who is still working miracles today! I thank my Lord Jesus for His infinite mercy and love! He is wonderful!

Even more amazing is that we did quite a bit of walking earlier that day at a local park called Manito. If you ever visit the Spokane area during warm weather months, you have got to visit this place. It’s beautiful! Here are some highlights from our day. We took about 90 pictures, so this is a very small sampling.

We began with a picnic near the rose gardens.

A shot from the dahlia bed nearby.

The rock walls along the steps were covered with green growing things.

I love formal, finely manicured gardens. This one is quite large. At the opposite end is a water fountain and small gazebo, I believe. You can see Kylen on the stairs.

The Japanese Gardens has a lovely path that winds its way around a large pond with fish. The entire garden is fenced in.

It has a small waterfall and stream flowing into the pond which may be crossed by stepping stones.

The conservatory totally blew me away. I was amazed at the variety of plants and how attractively they were arranged. I could have easily taken a hundred pictures in there, but Sonshine was anxious to move on, and Sweet Hubby didn't quite understand the attraction. Oh well! I told them they can drop me off sometime while they go do something else so I can enjoy the displays more thoroughly.

Oh no! I forgot to bring two leashes! Hee-hee!

I did a quick search and found some good links with information about Manito Park:
http://www.thefriendsofmanito.org/
http://www.manitogardens.com/
http://www.manitopark.org/
Next, we headed for Mineral Ridge, a national recreation trail. I grew up in the backwoods of Idaho, and this is characteristic of the sort of scenery I was accustomed to. Ponderosa pine, douglas-fir, ocean-spray, snowberry, and wild roses.

We stopped frequently on the journey up so I could rest. On many of those breaks Greg read to us from the trail guide available at the entrance. There were twenty-two stations marked with corresponding narrative descriptions in the booklet.


This is the view from the top of the mountain. You can see the highway and Lake Coeur d'Alene.


I noticed that many people had stopped to scratch their initials on Caribou Cabin and rushed to add mine. Greg was appalled until I convinced him it isn't the same as graffiti. I fondly recalled myself and siblings carving our names on an old wooden bridge during a camping trip. We hope to visit there someday, and I am anxious to find those letters scrawled by childish hands so many years ago. Can you find GB, FB, and KB?


We began around four and finished around eight, so the sun was sinking as we made our descent. It lit the hill up with gold.


Here I am at the end of the hike. Our shoes were covered with dust, it was nearly dark, and we were anxious to give our aching legs a rest, but we were happy.


For more information on this trail click here.

Hubby Tag

Pam tagged me for this hubby questionnaire! You might hop over and take a peek at her answers, which I'd call first rate classic literature. :-)

1. WHO IS YOUR MAN ? Greg (Hubby)
2. HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN TOGETHER? This December will mark our tenth!
3. HOW LONG DID YOU DATE? About 1 year
4. HOW OLD IS YOUR MAN? 33
5. WHO EATS MORE? He’s always eaten more.
6. WHO SAID I LOVE YOU FIRST? I can’t remember!
7. WHO IS TALLER? He’s 6’2” and I’m 5’6”.
8. WHO SINGS BETTER? I do. He didn’t grow up singing in church like I did.
9.WHO IS SMARTER? I think we both have our genius and brain-damaged areas.
10. WHOSE TEMPER IS WORSE? His is. Mine might have been worse before my illness. Even so, he would never hurt someone and rarely yells.
11. WHO DOES THE LAUNDRY? Both of us.
12.WHO TAKES OUT THE GARBAGE? Him, because I'm physically disabled. Otherwise, I’d do it more. It drives me crazy when it’s full or stinky, and I have to wait until he gets home to take it out. I've actually had him come home from work to take it it a few times.
13. WHO SLEEPS ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE BED? Both of us. Hee-hee! We sleep in separate beds, because my illness causes me to have sleep problems.
14.WHO PAYS THE BILLS? He always does. I don’t even know what his salary is, and I really don’t care to know so long as all is well.
15. WHO IS BETTER WITH THE COMPUTER? He is for sure! He works on computers all day long at work, and they have always been his hobby. In fact, he’s the go-to computer person for my parents and siblings’ families as well.
16.WHO MOWS THE LAWN? He reluctantly does it.
17.WHO COOKS DINNER? Both of us, because I need help. But I run the show, plan the meals, and make the grocery list. We do the shopping together, since I can't drive.
18. WHO DRIVES WHEN YOU'RE TOGETHER? Thank the Lord, he does. Driving is the only thing I have ever really feared. Not being able to drive due to illness is a blessing in disguise.
19. WHO PAYS WHEN YOU GO OUT? He does.
20. WHO IS MOST STUBBORN? We are both stubborn in our own ways. I can usually win a dispute if I keep talking or give in (He feels sorry for me.). But if I can’t win, we go with his decision.
21. WHO IS THE FIRST TO ADMIT WHEN THEY ARE WRONG? Let’s see…I’m not sure! We are both willing to admit being wrong.
22. WHOSE PARENTS DO YOU SEE THE MOST? It changed over time. Mine for several years, his more recently. Both live about 50 minutes away, though in different directions.
23. WHO KISSED WHOM FIRST? Ummm…He pretty much did.
24. WHO ASKED WHO OUT? Friendship slowly bloomed into love. There was no formal first date.
25. WHO PROPOSED? He did.
26. WHO IS MORE SENSITIVE? Me definitely!
27. WHO HAS MORE FRIENDS? I do. Actually, he doesn’t really have any friends. He is a total family man whose time is at a premium.
28. WHO HAS MORE SIBLINGS? I have three, and he’s an only.
29. WHO WEARS THE PANTS IN THE FAMILY? Others would probably say I do. I basically run the household and make all the plans.
30. HOW DID YOU MEET? In college but didn’t get to know each other well until after he graduated.

I am going to tag . . .
Karla
Laura
Shawnee
Susan
Laura

Flowers From My Son

Baby Bird's Balloon

We conceived a brilliant idea for reducing waste: a scratch paper bin. I took great care to remember our bin each and every time we had any reusable paper, and things were going great. We were saving the planet, maybe even bringing about world peace, and life was good . . . That is, until it threatened to overtake the closet. Our black, wire containers were nowhere to be seen as they were buried under a wild mess. I decided it was time to tackle the rapidly expanding giant and tidy up a bit. The process went something like: Grab handful of paper, tap several times, place “neatly” back into bin. Repeat all of the above. Suddenly, quite by accident, I caught a brief glimpse of an ink pen drawing. A long forgotten memory came rushing back, and I hastily removed the last pile to retrieve a small piece of the past.

Several years ago we borrowed a story from the library called The Berenstain's B Book. It is basically a long alliteration about the chaos surrounding a balloon. It dramatically ends with:

Big brown bear, blue bull, beautiful baboon blowing bubbles biking backward, bump black bug's banana boxes and Billy Bunny's breadbasket and Brother Bob's baseball bus and Buster Beagle's banjo-bagpipe-bugle band...and that's what...broke Baby Bird's balloon.

I can add:

Which broke my baby’s tender little heart.

Kylen was extremely distraught by this embattled balloon’s unfortunate demise. My mother instinct quickly took over searching for a way to ease his sorrow. I retrieved a piece of paper from the printer and drew that bird with a great big smile on his face holding a great big balloon even larger than the popped one. Then I told Kylen that afterwards the bird got a new balloon and was very happy. My solution was a success, and the paper got put away in his drawer for possible future service. It was eventually lost in the rubble that tends to build up in little boys’ drawers, and finally got tossed in the bin during a dresser cleaning session.

Somehow I don’t think that paper is going back in the bin.

As my son grows, I find myself following in the footsteps of countless moms, saving a scrap of paper here and there: a crude crayon stickman, my first Mother’s Day card, rounds of tic-tac-toe and hangman. Maybe there’s a part of me that thinks saving all these bits and pieces will somehow preserve his childhood. Of course I know that isn’t true, but I can preserve my memories to enjoy when he’s grown. And by that time, I’ll be ready to read The Berenstain's B Book to our grandchild. I may even resurrect a simple ink drawing of a little bird with a big balloon.

Happy 4th!

This is a time of year when I praise the Lord for blessing our country. I love our nation's early history, because it is so rich with divine intervention. It makes me sad to think of where we are heading today. Here is a song I always listen to around the 4th. It's outdated but still very powerful. We need God in America!!

The Solar System, Balloons, and Global Warming

What do the solar system, balloons, and global warming have in common? Not sure? Well, let me tell ya!

This week we are finishing science. It felt like too much to do reading, note-booking and projects each day so we decided to save all the experiments/projects for the end. Today is the beginning of our experiment week! Incidentally, I really enjoyed learning about our universe along with Kylen. We used Exploring Creation with Astronomy by Fulbright. The author has a Christian worldview that shines out beautifully!

Near the end of the book is a chapter on types of stars. It was interesting to learn that many stars are variable. That is, the heat and energy emanating from them rises and falls over time. Our sun is not a variable star, because the energy coming out doesn’t change much. If it did vary drastically, our planet couldn’t sustain life. We’d have droughts and ice ages coming and going so fast, life couldn’t adapt quickly enough to survive. This got me to thinking about the big global warming debate. If many stars are variable, wouldn’t it make sense that our sun could be changing its energy output on a much smaller scale? In fact, our sun DOES emit more heat at times when it has more sun spots. I believe the global warming issue is a scare tactic politicians are using to get votes. Don’t let ‘em fool you! Here is an excellent video I just watched about climate changes.

Meanwhile, Kylen reached a huge milestone today! His first project was to make the solar system out of balloons. Since tying a balloon is impossible without bending your fingers (Believe me, I tried!), I needed Kylen to do the tying. I showed him how several times, tried to guide his fingers, and . . .he got frustrated. Several failed attempts. Threw the balloon across the room. Said he couldn’t. BUT! I DIDN’T LET HIM GIVE UP. I told him he was going to learn. It just takes practice like riding a bike. After many, many failed attempts with the balloon deflating several times in the process, he finally got it! And he was SO happy! Ah, these are the moments that make homeschooling feel more worthwhile. In fact, today will be remembered for blowing up a balloon rather than making a model of the solar system. Life is just full of surprises like that!

Speaking of which, Saturn flat out refused to exist. The first one began deflating immediately after Kylen tied it. A hole was the culprit. My tape band-aid proved ineffective when we later noticed it had drastically shrunk, looking more like a red white dwarf than a planet. Kylen found an old balloon already inflated in the basement. It was the perfect replacement. Soon after we set it down, we noticed it shrinking as well. Well, that sort of weirded me out. What are the chances! Could this be some sort of sign from God that Saturn won’t be here much longer? Lol! Remember, if it disappears in the next few days, you read it hear first!