Throwing stones...

AOL this a.m. had a story about Victoria Jackson and a comment that she made about homosexuality.  Do you remember her?  That cute little blond that used to be on Saturday Night Live?  Well, she's not so cute anymore, having become a vocal shill for the Tea Party.  She was making a comment that you hear from the far right all the time, about homosexuality being a sin. 

I did a little research on Miss Victoria, and then went to her Facebook page and posted a comment along the lines of this:  You say the Bible says that homosexuality is a sin.  The Bible ALSO says that divorce is a sin, yet you are divorced.  Can you explain the difference?

Instead of having the guts to defend her position (not surprising, because it's pretty indefensible!) she deleted the post within about a minute and a half.

Seems to me that there's another quote...something about not throwing stones unless you are spotless of sin yourself.  Now, where does that come from?  It'll come to me in a minute....

Summer's end...at least by the calendar!

My new Farberware pan - $2 at Salvation Army!



Peaches and sweet corn

 

 

 

Summer.  When I was growing up in Ohio, summer seemed to last forever.  I don't ever remember being hot, except once in a while at night, and then I would take a wet washcloth to bed with me and wave it in front of the fan to get it colder.  We would play outside all afternoon and come, running, at dinner, bright red, and gulp down as many glasses of ice cold milk as we could get away with.  (Usually it was two, then Mom would tell me I had to make the third one last as it was all I would get.)  Then, out we went again, until the fireflies began to light up the darkness, and my dad's whistle would sound.  My dad could whistle so loud we could hear it across all three streets that made up our little development that had been carved out of someone's farmland.  He would whistle, and we knew we had better get up to the house, or we were in big trouble.  We'd finish up in the bathtub, and then, if we were lucky, we could watch t.v. in our pajamas until bedtime. 

 

Here in Arizona, summer really DOES last forever.  It hit 100 degrees on April 12 this year, and it's likely to keep hitting - and breaking - the 100 mark until at least October.  Yet in my mind, it's the end of summer.  We're eating the last of the sweet corn and peaches, and soon the apples will appear, courtesy of cooler places. 

 

For dinner tonight, we had hamburgers cooked in my new (old) Farberware pan.  I found it at a Salvation Army in Massachusetts this summer for $2.   I am slowly replacing all of my "modern" pans with good old cast aluminum pans.  They are hard to find in good condition, though, and cost a fortune, usually.  I've gotten lucky three times, though.  I have a wonderful old Dutch oven I got from a woman in Mansfield, Ohio, of all places (we used to live there!) for $5 plus shipping on eBay.  She got it from her mother-in-law when she got married in 1953 and her MIL got it for HER wedding in the 30's.  It cooks like a dream, with consistent heat, and can hold even the biggest pot roast.  I could even do a turkey in it! 

 

My other find was a big sauce pan.  It was $1.99 at one of my favorite thrift shops in Petoskey, Michigan, which is near our cottage on Walloon Lake.  Now I need to find some lids!

 

I love cooking with and serving on my vintage stuff.  I feel a wonderful connection  to the women of the past. 

 

Have you read Standing in the Rainbow by Fannie Flagg?  It's set just after WWII, and follows a family in a town in Missouri through the present.  It's wonderful, but sad, because you see how the town changes - and not for the better.  If I were a millionaire, I would buy up property and give out loans and help people build back the downtowns of yesteryear.  Small businesses, family businesses, those are the building blocks of a wonderful community. 

 

I'm rambling...anyway...enjoy the fruits and veg of summer because they'll be gone before you know it.  Pull out your grama's old dishes and set a lovely table.  You'll be surprised how great it feels!

Find the Truth

I find it appalling that a candidate for vice president would go on national t.v. and use half-truths, misdirections, and outright lies to denounce the current president and then claim that his team will not lie to the American people! In his speech at the Republican convention - that auto plant he seems to be accusing the president of closing? It closed BEFORE Obama even took office. The money he claims the president is pulling from Medicare? His plan pulls the exact same amount - and both plans pull it from providers NOT customers, i.e., US. That commission that he said Obama ignored? Ryan voted against their recommendations! The list goes on and on. Don't believe me? Go to www.factcheck.org, which is a nonpartisan fact checking website and see.

Barney Frank says,"Paul Ryan is a rigid far-right ideologue and a clever politician.  That’s a dangerous combination -- especially in an election where ultraconservative billionaires like the Koch Brothers are spending millions to ensure that their extreme right-wing agenda becomes a reality. We have to do everything we can to expose Romney and Ryan’s plans to slash the social safety net for seniors, children, and pretty much everyone else to pay for more tax breaks for millionaires. Unlike some of these Tea Party Republicans, Ryan understands that much of what he wants to do is very unpopular with the American people. He’ll do everything he can to avoid the specifics of his plans to end Medicare, privatize Social Security, and give Mitt Romney a 1% tax rate."

This "trickle down" nonsense has been tried, and failed.  Reagan insisted that cutting taxes would spur private industry and ended up with the biggest deficit to date.  Only when Clinton came to office and raised taxes did the deficit go away.  We've been down this road before and we know what will happen if we do this again.   This time, though, we have such a huge deficit that we just can't risk failure, messing around with fiscal policies that have already been proven to be failures!

This campaign is crucial to our future.  It doesn't matter to me if you're a Republican or a Democrat.  Just don't rely on ANYONE to tell the truth.  Check for yourself the accusations people are making.  Only then can you make a truly informed decision. 

Reality Check

Be grateful for all you have.

Give some of what you have to others. 

Must...not...buy...more....!

I have been slowly moving away from being a Stampin' Up! demonstrator.  First, because of health reasons - I was always tired and hurting and had lost all desire to spend the hours necessary for prepping for classes.  And second, because of eBay.  I just don't have what it takes to do both, and, frankly, eBay makes more money.

The problem is that I couldn't get my heart to agree to pull out of it completely.  I have loved stamping for a long, long time.  I love the company, I love the products, I love the people.  SU! has allowed me to continue as a teacher, long after my elementary classroom days were over.

Then - the miracle happened.  I got better.  I had the two Radio Frequency Ablations, which have removed a huge amount of pain along with six tiny little twigs of nerve on both sides of three vertebra.  The new medication I started, called Symponi, has brought back my energy and banished much of the tiredness...and all of a sudden the new catalog started exerting its siren song.  So much beautiful stuff!

So, this fall, I decided to just host a simple Open House, and then teach a couple of classes.  I thought that was a nice compromise.  I purchased one batch of supplies - picked only the stuff I personally love - and decreed to myself that That Was All.

The problem?  Temptation, like this card by Justin Krieger.  I love fall.  I miss fall.  I love cards that allow me to FEEL fall despite temps that are still routinely over 100 degrees.  I was NOT going to get the wonderful new Sizzix leaf die cut with matching stamp set (gingham and plaid, no less!)  And I already bought one package of the new Coredinations cardstock that can be sanded to show the contrasting color inside...and I did NOT get brown.  To make this card would cost me over $50.  I Must Resist.

I'll let you know how that goes....

Buddies

Socks (in front) and Callie have learned over the past couple of years to tolerate one another pretty nicely.  Callie especially likes to snuggle up to Socks when it's cold because Socks radiates heat like a good old fashioned stove (due to her weight and thick, fluffy fur, I suppose). Every once in awhile, Socks will get irritated with Callie, whose way of saying "hello" is to jump onto her back and bite her neck...doesn't go over well, understandably...  Callie has learned that in these situations, discretion is the better part of valor, and she prudently takes refuge under the Hepplewhite dresser because Socks is too fat to go under there and get 'er.

The point being that, despite differences and irritations, these two get along and live together.  I find it curious that, in situations of violence such as today's shooting in NYC, the inevitable comparison occurs and someone refers to someone else behaving like an "animal".  I think the far better description is to describe that person as behaving like a human.  Animals rarely kill each other for fun, or in anger.

And now the eternal argument will rage - gun control or gun freedom?  I say, who cares?  The real point is, "How do we stop people from getting to this point?"  And that leads me right back to the cats.  Tolerance.  We are all so ANGRY these days.  I was in JoAnn the other day and there was one cashier and one manager who had stepped over from Returns to open another register.  It was a Sunday evening near closing and there were two of us in line, waiting while a third woman checked out.  An expensively dressed, impeccably coiffed Ahwatukee Lady Who Lunches came in and approached the Returns desk, surveyed the situation, and immediately started tapping her foot and showing signs of irritation.  Mind you, by this point, the manager was getting ready to call one of us over and the third lady was done, so if the two of us had checked out uninterrupted it would have been the work of maybe three minutes.  However, the Expensive Person was by this point about to boil, so the manager left the register and went to wait on her.  Of course, I eavesdropped, figuring it must be a Very Important Matter...and was shocked to find that she had some mundane questions about products.  No return, no disappointing purchase.  She was just That Much More Important than the rest of us.

Bad behavior begets more bad behavior.  People who are pushed get to the point where they start pushing back.  All the laws in the world won't help change human behavior.  That has to come from within.  So, the next time you start getting irritated because something isn't going your way, STOP.  Think.  Change.

I will, too.

Don't Blink

 

The moral?  Don't blink.  It goes by SO fast....