This morning I awoke at 6:45 am to my lil 1 yr old daughter smacking me in the face whispering "hunry, hunry momma". Upon closer inspection I see that she is stark naked except for one sock! Being naked seems to be her new obsession. It doesn't matter what I put on her, she can figure out how to wiggle out of it someway. Everyday is a quest for something more difficult to remove, but to no avail lol.  She then proceeded to get more vocal and woke her brothers, and I could see that there was no way I could go back to sleep  .  I went to make them some cereal, hmm ... no cereal. Ok, maybe frozen waffles? Nope... none of them either! Heehee now I wake DH to tell him he needs to go to the store to get us supplies for the day. I'm evil because now I am not feeling so bad since everyone had to get up early.

Last night we watched Cold Mountain, I knew I wasn't gonna like that movie! I won't spoil it for everyone that hasn't seen it, but I just KNEW it was going to end that way! We also watched The Perfect Score, which is about 6 kids banding together to steal the SAT answers. It was entertaining.

I have to spend most of the day cleaning. We are having guests from out of town for the 4th of July weekend .

Hope everyone has a great day!

This is something I made for a friend ....

Sorry I've let a few days slip by without posting, it's been very hectic here! We had a very busy weekend. I volunteered 18 hours at the Goodwill, we went out to dinner with the kids both nights, so I was pooped out by the time we got home!

Last night was DH's softball playoffs. I wasn't going to go for 2 reasons. The first being that the games were at 8:30 & 9:30 pm, which is well past the kids bedtime. The second being that those three are a real handful and trying to chase them through the ballpark for 2 hours is not my idea of fun!  Well... I decided it was more important for us to come and support DH for the evening so after he left I piled them all in the van drove over. It wasn't too bad I guess lol. He lost, but everyone had fun. The next playoff game isn't for 2 weeks so I am hoping that it will be an earlier game next time!

I am enjoying the PSP group very much! It's great, they have new tutorials and challenges each day. It really is bringing out my creative self! I love to make things, but I've always considered myself uncreative. I am starting to learn that just might be false and it is very exciting!

Hope everyone has a wonderful Tuesday, I probably won't be writing later because it's "movie night". Every Tuesday the new releases come out on video lol.

My goodness! They kids have been such terrors the past 2 days! I love my lil Gabey-Baby to death, but good grief, that kid cries constantly. I truely had hoped he would have grown out of it by now, he's almost 3! Instead of asking for a drink, he cries, he can't see the TV, he cries. He cries about EVERYTHING!!  I'm about ready to pull my hair out if I hear that cry one more time!!! Ragan, she's just so clingy. I love playing with her, but she has to be climbing on me or sitting in my lap every second!  Tommy, well he's just Tommy. He seems to think he's the head of the house, and I am the maid and his personal slave. The way he talks to me is attrocious! The only thing that saves me each day is that they are such affectionate kids. They love to hug & kiss.

On a more positive note, I'm really getting into the PSP group. It's so much fun!

THe kids are waiting patiently by the patio door to go in the pool so I'll write more later!

At 8 am this morning it was 82 degrees .... ugh! I had court this morning for a traffic ticket, all went well.

I have been so busy today letting my creative juices flow, that I almost forgot to write today! I joined a new PSP group and have been making sigs for their "siggiez rush". I just love using PSP, I hadn't realized how long it had been since I had made anything. I am so glad I found this group, all the women seem great! Later I'll put up the link to the group.

Here's a little taste of what I've been making ....

Louisiana Jury Rules Against Big Tobacco~ The defendants are R.J. Reynolds, Lorillard, Philip Morris USA and Brown and Williamson.

~A jury has ruled that the tobacco industry must pay more than $500 million for programs to help Louisiana smokers kick the habit. Lawyers for the plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit wanted a $1 billion to cover a dozen components of a comprehensive statewide program.

The panel rejected calls for medical monitoring for current and former smokers, but said the industry should provide free quit-smoking programs. Legal experts consider the case to be the first in which a jury has found that tobacco companies should pay for programs to help people stop smoking. ~

Ok, so what do you think? Should tobacco companies have to pay to help people stop smoking? And if so, do you think companies like Budweiser and Seagrams or Jack Daniels should have to pay for their consumers to go to alcohol treatment facilities if the need arises?

MHO

Does anyone who smokes in this day and age really claim NOT to know the health effects that it has? I personally am a smoker, and I know how damaging the effects can be, but I would never have the gall to blame the tobacco company for my habit, nor do I feel that they should pay for me to get help to stop. I knew full well what the risks were when I started, but I did it anyway. Blame it on youth, or stupidity, but it was MY choice, and my decision alone.

 Would I like to quit? Depends on what day you ask me lol ... sometimes yes, because it is a nasty, smelly habit .... sometimes no, mostly on the days my kids are driving me outta my skin and the soothing drag on that fag just calms my nerves right down. Anywho, tell me what you think

I looked at the registered sex offender's list for my state today, and am so angry!! I live within 1 block of an elementary school ..... and there were over 10 registered child molesters within a 8 block radius of this school! Is there not some type of law that prohibits them from living within a certain distance from schools? If not there should be! I'm going to have to look into that.... Now I don't feel guilty for not letting my children play out in the neighborhood anymore!  To me there is nothing more heinous or disgusting in this world than people who prey on innocents and children.

More again later.... gotta go watch my hot topics lol

First off let me say that I understand that many are not ready to receive information such as this and will vehemently disagree, and that is fine. I am a straight, married woman with a family of my own and I have very strong feelings about human rights, and belong to the HRC. That being said let me begin with a brief history of homosexuality....

What Catholicism and most other modern Christian churches vigorously deny is just how much homosexuality was not only tolerated, but practiced by many of its founding fathers, and the degree of toleration, if not veneration, it received. Afrocentrics often deny that homosexuality was a feature of African cultures in ancient times. And more than a few anglicized Native Americans would be shocked to learn that homosexuals were not only common among their tribal ancestors, but were even venerated as being spiritually gifted.

In modern cultures, a myth has been spread, mostly by homophobic religious groups, that homosexuality is primarily a modern phenomenon, that it is a chosen orientation, and it is a symptom of moral decline.

Such a notion runs counter to what we know of homosexuality, and what we know of its history and its biological origins. We now know, for example, that most men in ancient Greece and Rome engaged in at least occasional homosexual contact, and a not insignificant number of the marriages consummated in both civilizations were homosexual. We know that homosexuality, though not known by that name, was not only tolerated, but even celebrated in the arts, theater and in cultural activities. The ancients did not view gender as a determining factor of who should love or be married to who; the qualifications related solely to matters of age and biological relationship (incest).

A myth commonly held in conservative Christian religious groups is that Greece and Rome fell when their acceptance of homosexuality arose, and that the resulting "immorality" was a primary cause of their fall. The reality is quite different. Neither Greek nor Roman cultures began their decline with an increased tolerance of homosexuality; rather it was quite the opposite.

Among the Greeks and Romans the notion that a person was "male" or "female" in gender as well as sex is one that had not currency among these ancients. They recongnized, as we often do not, that a person may well not see themselves as "macho" or "feminine," but rather a combination of the traits.

As a result, it did not seem at all unusual among the ancients for two men or two women to get together and form a family unit. Marriage between members of the same sex was common, accepted, and not considered different or unusual at all, because gender was not identified strictly with sex as it is among modern Europeans and Americans.

While some authors have attempted to show that homosexuality was prosecuted in ancient Rome, the fact is that no surviving account of prosecution for a homosexual relationship, prior to the Christian era, survives. Those examples that purport to show such prosecutions, on close examination show that the victim was a minor - and the prosecution is for pedophilia, not for homosexuality. Indeed, there are plenty of examples of prosecution for adultery, and many for pedophilia, but not a single case for homosexuality.

The reality is that there is no evidence whatever that during the republican era, up through the beginning of the empire, for any recognition in Roman law for any difference between homosexual or heterosexual sex, or for that matter, even marriage.

That all began to change, however, with the "conversion" of the Emperor Constantine to Christianity.

The early church fathers, particularly those who founded the monastic orders, often looked to "nature" for examples of morality and immorality. This rather risky business was fraught with difficulties, not the least of which was the fact that nature itself was very poorly understood during this period of history. Nature was considered inherently beautiful and moral, even though almost any activity of man considered to be immoral can be shown to be engaged in by animals. This inconvenient fact was simply ignored by the ancients, or they were not aware of it. The exceptions were animals that the ancients considered to be revolting or disgusting for whatever reason, or were believed to engage in bizarre behaviors.

For example, it was believed during this time that hyenas were fond of digging up graves and eating the corpses. It was also believed that hares grew a new anal opening every year, and that weasels mated through the mouth and bore their young through the ear.

Because hyenas were considered a rather disgusting animal, and the fact that they were believed to engage in homosexual sex predominantly, homosexuality itself began to be considered to be disgusting by them through their association with the animals the ancients considered disgusting. There founds the arguement that homosexuality is an "act against nature"

Thus began a campaign against homosexuality by certain church fathers, among them Augustine (a rather nasty piece of work himself, the first known zealous advocate of forced conversions), and Clement, a man who mistakenly associated homosexuality with a form of child slavery in which male children were often sold into slavery as prostitutes. These two men and others like them began to associate homosexuality not just with unsavory animal practices, but with other practices they didn't happen to like, such as paganism, or pederastry, etc.

The man who took this ball and ran with it was "Saint" John Chrysostom, who was the first church father who can clearly be shown to object to homosexuality based on the gender of its participants, not based just on procreative intent, or based on the ages of those involved, or whether the participants were pagans. Yet his theology was so thoroughly inconsistent that he did not have much direct influence on subsequent theology.

While the theology of homosexuality of these men was insistent, it wasn't to become influential for a long time. The reason is simple - homosexuality was so common in this period, and practiced so openly, that the public at large regarded these doctrines as a bit extreme, just like the call to celibacy outside of strictly procreative sex as was advocated by many of these same church fathers.

Homosexuality continued to be practiced openly and without much restraint up through the 11th century. Throughout the middle ages, not only did the open practice of homosexuality continue, but it flourished in the monasteries of the time. Many of the priests and abbots not only left us literature celebrating their gay lovers, but some of the poetry they left us was baldy erotic.

As in most times, most of the records we have of this period are from either the clerics, the most commonly literate or from the upper classes, for whom they labored. We therefore have a good picture of homosexuality from this period among the clerics and upper classes, but less so from the poor and working classes. We know, however, that it was as tolerated among them as among the upper classes, because of references like that of Hilderbert of Lavardin, who said of homosexuality, that "no walk of life escapes it."

With this level of acceptance and practice, how was it then that homosexuality became so reviled, so persecuted?

The revolt was the Enlightenment. It was the realization that the emphasis on conformity and the repression of alternative ideas represented a great loss - a loss of the civility that made classical Greece and the Roman republic what they had been. The result was that the intellectual community began a quiet rebellion, begun first by Martin Luther with his rebellion against Catholic corruption, and followed by the great thinkers of the Enlightenment, who pointed out the fallacies of the confluence of church and state. The first great result was the American Revolution, followed in short order by revolutions in France and the rest of Europe, throwing off the old order and establishing democracy for the first time since the end of the Roman republic. The thinkers took for a description of themselves, the latin word, "Libre, meaning "Free." This implied freedom from the intellectual repression of the church and the state which which the church cooperated. The word of course eventually became the English word, "liberal."

Yet the church clung on - maintaining that it alone was the keeper of ethics and morals, and claiming that it was the moral authority even if it had been forced to yield political sovereignty. By teaching in church the moral standards it alone expected, it built a lobby for legislation of morality through the government of the day. And among the moral standards it insisted upon was a maintenance of the ban on homosexual sex.

Because the repression of homosexuality had been so complete, and because it was so emotional, with the propaganda so hoary, the church managed to maintain its repression of sexual minorities. And in the centuries since the Enlightenment, not much has changed in this regard.

And so we find ourselves today in a world where the nature of homosexual sex has encouraged homophobia that had its origins in in a complete misunderstanding of nature itself (the "bestiaries" of the early Middle Ages). Encouraged by political trends, intractable illiteracy and widespread ignorance, it has become so established that only the forced education imposed by the AIDS epidemic has begun to break it down.

Ummm ... ok I said brief, maybe I was wrong lol.

At this moment I am utterly appalled with our president and government for even considering an amendment to our constitution that would for the first time in history ban instead of grant full rights from a particular group of people.  I have children, and I cannot guarantee that any of them will not be homosexual.  I want to know that if this the is the case, that they will be granted the same rights to love, marriage and the pursuit of happiness as their straight counterparts. Ok I guess I have given quite a lot more than my 2 cents today, so I'll end this rant with a letter to the President written by Bette Middler ....

Dear President Bush,

Today you called upon Congress to move quickly to amend the US Constitution, and set in Federal stone a legal definition of marriage. I would like to know why.

In your speech, you stated that this Amendment would serve to protect marriage in America, which I must confess confuses me. Like you, I believe in the importance of marriage and I feel that we as a society take the institution far too lightly. In my circle of family, friends and acquaintances, the vast majority have married and divorced - some more than once. Still, I believe in marriage. I believe that there is something fundamental about finding another person on this planet with whom you want to build a life and family, and make a positive contribution to society. I believe that we need more positive role models for successful marriage in this country - something to counteract the images we get bombarded with in popular culture. When we are assaulted with images of celebrities of varying genres, be it actors, sports figures, socialites, or even politicians who shrug marriage on and off like the latest fashion, it is vitally important to the face of our nation, for our children and our future, that we have a balance of commitment and fidelity with which to stave off the negativity. I search for these examples to show my own daughter, so that she can see that marriage is more than a disposable whim, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

As a father, I'm sure you have faced these same concerns and difficulties in raising your own daughters. Therefore I can also imagine that you must understand how thrilled I have been over the past few weeks to come home and turn on the news with my family. To finally have concrete examples of true commitment, honest love, and steadfast fidelity was such a relief and a joy. Instead of speaking in the hypothetical, I was finally able to point to these men and women, standing together for hours in the pouring rain, and tell my child that this is what its all about. Forget Britney. Forget Kobe. Forget Strom. Forget about all the people that we know who have taken so frivolously the pure and simple beauty of love and tarnished it so consistently. Look instead at the joy in the beautiful faces of Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon - 51 years together!

I mean, honestly Mr. President - how many couples do you know who are together for 51 years? I'm sure you agree that this love story provides a wonderful opportunity to teach our children about the true meaning and value of marriage. On the steps of San Francisco City Hall, rose petals and champagne, suits and veils, horns honking and elation in the streets; a celebration of love the likes of which this society has never seen.

This morning, however, my joy turned to sadness, my relief transformed into outrage, and my peace became anger. This morning, I watched you stand before this nation and belittle these women, the thousands who stood with them, and the countless millions who wish to follow them. How could you do that, Mr. President? How could you take something so beautiful - a clear and defining example of the true nature of commitment - and declare it to be anything less? What is it that validates your marriage which somehow doesn't apply to Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon? By what power, what authority are you so divinely imbued that you can stand before me and this nation and hold their love to a higher standard?

Don't speak to me about homosexuality, Mr. President. Don't tell me that the difference lies in the bedroom. I would never presume to ask you or your wife how it is you choose to physically express your love for one another, and I defy you to stand before Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon and ask them to do the same. It is none of my business, as it is none of yours, and it has nothing to do with the "sanctity of marriage". I'm sure you would agree that marriage is far more than sexual expression, and its high time we all started focusing on all the other aspects of a relationship which hold it together over the course of a lifetime. Therefore, with the mechanics of sex set aside, I ask you again - what makes a marriage? I firmly believe that whatever definition you derive, there are thousands upon thousands of shining examples for you to embrace.

You want to protect marriage. I admire and support that, Mr. President. Together, as a nation, let us find and celebrate examples of what a marriage should be. Together, let us take couples who embody the principles of commitment, fidelity, sacrifice and love, and hold them up before our children as role models for their own futures. Together, let us reinforce the concept that love is about far more than sex, despite what popular culture would like them to believe.

Please, for the sake of our children, for the sake of our society, for the sake of our future, do not take us down this road. Under the guise of protection, do not support divisiveness. Under the guise of unity, do not endorse discrimination. Under the guise of sanctity, do not devalue commitment. Under the guise of democracy, do not encourage this amendment.

Bette Midler

We returned home from dinner Sunday night to see cars in the driveway next door. The house has been empty about 6 mo. now. The kids had ice cream cones, and I being the neurotic clean freak that I am insisted that they finish them in the backyard. I went out with them and noticed people BBQing next door! Joy! we have new neighbors! The boys were instantly as excited as I ... there was a little boy hootin & hollerin running around the yard

Now to understand what a wonderful thing this is, you must first understand that they have never gone to daycare or preschool, and that I do not drive. Therefore, we are always alone in the house together never having any contact with any other kids. They desperately need a friend.

So of course my curious outgoing lil Tommy went straight over to that fence and yelled "hey lil boy, what's your name? Wanna play with me?" That's my boy lol. After playing through the fence for a few minutes the father asked if it was ok for Ryan to come over to our side and play. Of course I said yes! They played very well together for over an hour and I am so happy at the prospect of many more play dates. I have been feeling so guilty about their lack of interaction with other kids, this is a blessing for us.

The only drawback is, Tommy & Gabe have always only had each other to play with, and are now bickering with one another as to who gets Ryan's attention. This boy is exactly the same age as Gabe, but Tommy is so social compared to Gabe's introverted personality that it is natural that Ryan would be drawn to Tommy. Gabe is feeling very left out. Although, Ryan did make the effort to play with Gabe as well, Gabe is just not used to having to share his brother. I imagine that it will all work itself out. I hope so at least.

All in all it was a wonderful way to end the day!