OMGosh! I am actually blogging!

Wow, Lila has been busy. I figured it was time to pull at least part of my own weight around here. So today you get a post from Gracie. I have been insanely busy the last couple of weeks and just haven't had the time. Last week I spent the week with my family celebrating my dad's 80th birthday. I had a GREAT time visiting with all of my family but honestly, it felt AMAZING to sleep in my own bed.

I have several posts I plan on writing either today or tomorrow and posting over the next few days. I have garden updates, bee updates (those bugs are nuts!), and just life in general updates. Hopefully I can keep up with Lila so she doesn't have to do the lions share of keeping up with our blog.

Libertarian Reflection.

I'm sitting at my table this morning feeling pretty reflective. We are now 2 days from the "default day" and while research and reading all of my favorite blogs has shown this day to be a mixture of fact and fiction it is the day those in government have been spouting as important to our economic future. My question is this: If is it so important, so critical to the future of this country that we make drastic financial changes by August 2 why then on July 31 are you all in D.C. still arguing like children over your toys? This group fights that proposal, that group fights this proposal. Frankly the lack of any sort of agreement on putting this country above your own ideas makes me feel sick inside. We allowed this. We have built up a government of hundreds of congress and senate members and now they all bicker like toddlers fighting over a treat. I love this country, I love the ideals and tenets it was built upon. It makes me so sad and disappointed to see that personal gain has been put before the wants of the people and that our needs as a country are less important than proving a point. We need to reduce the size of government and it's ability to make stupid laws. Brawny had the right idea in her most recent post. I know they came up with the number of congress and senate members they did for a reason they feel valid but I think it is a number much to high. Stop paying all that money out to people who don't care about our needs anyway. Stop with the elections all the dang time and start making them pay attention to what we want and need. That is their job. They are supposed to be working for the people, representing our desires and wants. They aren't doing that.

Monkey in the dark.

My little Monkey has developed a new quirk. She hates her bed. I never did the Cry It Out thing. I nursed her as long as she wanted. I am one who believes that little ones grow as they are supposed to, especially when they have the benefit of having Mommy home to love and take care of and nurture them. I let Bug decide when she was ready to go to bed on her own and have the same plan with Monkey. She still likes to be cuddled to sleep. Last night she got ready for bed by putting on her nightgown and her pull-up and then we dug out her "Nawa" (She still refuses to say water right even though she knows how, hehe) She was set. As soon as we climbed into her bed the tears started. Even when I could calm her down she would relax for a minute or two and then sob again. She kept saying. "No like my bed Mama, Me no like it." I got her calmed enough that at one point she said she was afraid and together with Nephew and her sister we turned on her lights and looked her whole room over but still she wouldn't be comforted. I am hoping it passes as some of her other anti-sleep fazes have but I hate thinking I am torturing her. I finally put her in my bed after over an hour of sobbing and she went right to sleep. A few hours later when I went to bed I moved her to her room. She managed to make it a little over an hour before she woke up and was hysterical. I don't know how to make her more happy about her room. I am planning to move things around and get her toys more easily accessible in her room. She has been getting up super early and I am hoping having more toys available might give me some relief from the 5 AM wakeup calls. Plus she is getting bigger and I want to take the rocking chair out of her room. Maybe I will do that this weekend and let her pick some new bedding. See if that helps her feel better if it feels like a new room. Any other thoughts or ideas?

Created a blog just for my writing.

I am going forward in a life with positive thinking. Kat's book will be done soon and somehow I am going to publish. I want to blog about that work and all my writing but I don't want it taking over here so i made a blog just for the writing. So if you are interested in it and in supporting it please follow that too. Trust me that it is okay if you don't want to follow it. I do write chick stuff. I am also writing more than that and with North's help am getting a world built that I think you manly men will enjoy as well. No pressure though, lol.



Lila's Books - The Blog!

Another family in need....

I know. I post stories about families in need sometimes. I can't help it. If they have a connection to me in some way, even if it is small I have to at least spread the word. I would hope they would do the same but who knows. I do know if it were us how grateful we would be for anyone who spread the call for help. A relatives twin nieces share a home. Both of their men are U.S. Coast Gurard in Washington. One couple has 2 young sons. Days ago they were hit with a horrible fire. They lost everything except what each couple had in their safe, the clothes on their backs and miraculously the flag of the deceased soldier father of one of the men. They are in major need of any help they can get. The girl's mom has a blog written detailing everything here and she supplies links with info on how to help if you can. If you are in the Vancouver/Portland area she can take in person donations of help. She is fielding everything right now so the girls and their families can focus on other things.

Discussion with Anonymous.

I am a huge believer of free speech but not at the cost of someone else. Anonymous I have removed your comments from my recent post about a grieving Marine wife for a very big reason. That post links to her blog and if she has trackback on her blog will easily be found not only by her but by others grieving the loss of a very amazing man and a hero. I think your comments, especially when her grief is raw could cause her some pain and I don't want that. So I wanted to address you most recent comment here because I think it needs to be said and then I have no intent to respond again.

First comment:

Anonymous said...

Why do they do it? I don't know about you Lila but I read stuff like that and get so damned mad. All that hurt and pain...for what?

I sometimes think the best thing to do with those effing moslems is just drop a great big friggin bomb on them and walk away...

That poor woman doesn't deserve it.

This was my response:

Lila said...

No one deserves that kind of pain. To lose the love of your life in the first blush of marriage is a huge travesty. BUT my thinking is that no one small thought defines an entire group. I have met quite a few muslims who are as disgusted by the few using their religion to kill and maime. Catholics have done it. Even my church I love has had its few who used the faith as a war banner. The faith is not the one we fight against. It is those who make their mission in life the persecution and opression of others. We may not agree with the war or its reasons for starting but every soldier I know would say they have no regrets on serving and would do it again. Most are proud of their service because it is not about the mission it is about honoring a country that at the majority is hard working hard loving and free. Decemating a region goes against what they fight for.

This is the reply I found this morning when I got up.

Anonymous said...

I agree we have good moslems and bad moslems Lila...but we can't fight the bad ones and save the good ones. All we are doing is getting America's best men killed by the worst 3rd world human trash - and nobody pays the price more so than mom and the kids at home.

This warm fuzzy approach to war failed in Viet Nam, it darn near cost the war in Iraq - and it is failing miserably in Afghanistan.Can you imagine how WW2 would have turned out if we only targetted the 'bad' nazis? And argued endlessly among ourselves about exactly who those bad nazis were? If we gave them full benefit of the doubt, the luxury of human shields, and the benefit of endless 'due diligence' as we tried to gather enough evidence to justify a kill? They would have eaten us alive!

Hell, we aren't even trying to distinguish good moslems from bad ones anymore. They are radicalizing their youth against us right here in north America right now.Rabid imams and mullahs are actively preaching race hate. They've done the same in Europe and now they are doing it here. Yes, I know full well there are good moslems - but wherever their faith goes, bloodshed follows. And these supposedly 'good moslems' do nothing about it!They go quiet as church mice! If Americans pulled crap like this we would literally have a civil war over it.

That is what enrages me most about this. We can't deal with these people with kid gloves. Until we understand that, the man's death, the woman's grief, the children's loss - all of that hurt and pain and blood is for nothing.

Sorry for the rant Lila...but that woman's plight got me right in the heart. She doesn't even have the comfort of knowing that her husband's death was for a good cause. We deserve better than that.

Okay, Once again I appreciate free speech and different opinions. It is a right I employ regularly with this blog, with life, and with writing. That being said I do think there is a time and a place for rants. I think your rant is cowardly. I am pretty sure I speak for all 3 of us. You come to our blog and read and we love readers but you post on a blog connected to a grieving widow belittling the mission her husband died serving and you don't even have the guts to use your name or even take the time to consider what she would feel reading your comments.

Now to your rant itself. It is not our job to choose who lives or dies. What chooses that and I am willing to bet the men who served and are serving agree is weather or not they are the one pointing the gun, carrying the bomb, or shouting their rhetoric. There are proven reports of good Nazi's. Men who put on the uniform to save their own lives and that of their families and then used that uniform to run info to our allies, help Jewish families escape, or even hid Jewish families themselves. No people is defined by a label in my opinion and it is thinking and judging a complete group based on the misdeeds of some that is bringing the world down. Maggy had a very close friend who honestly was like family during her marriage to a soldier. This soldier fought hard for the US. He wore his fatigues with courage and pride and he never wavered from his commitment to this country and to the mission even during his deployment. He was Muslim. To belittle an entire group of people belittles his sacrifice for your right to bash him and it disgusts me. Before you spew hate take a moment to think. Think about who it could impact and who could be reading it. Remember when you do that the woman you feel bad for stands up with courage and pride in her husband. My nephew is serving overseas right now and while he is not in a combat zone I still worry and have pride in him and his service. I am proud of every member serving. They are not doing it to fight against any one but to fight for those who need them and for the country they love. Once again the mission isn't the issue. They see the big picture. White, black, Catholic, Muslim, Straight, or Gay. It doesn't matter to them. They serve to protect the ones they love and the country they love and the values they love.

So before you come onto our blog and anonymously rant about anyone or anything remember: While I am a firm believer of free speech on this blog my free speech trumps yours. If you can not show respect to our troops and their sacrifices then don't speak.

Mind all over the place.....

One of the joys of being me is that I am always thinking. Thinking of ways to fix a problem, thinking of tasks that need to be done, thinking of stories to write and plot twists in the current stories I have on my plate. That also happens to be one of the curses to being me. My brain has a hard time shutting down. I am always wanting to figure it out, solve it, change it, read it, write it. It is probably a part of the insomnia problem. I run dual screens on my desktop pc. On one I have my writing and the other has the web with a game or facebook or something and music running in the background. For some reason the distractions help me write faster. I can easily write a few thousand words in the space of a couple hours and still look at facebook or play solitare every so often. If Monkey were big enough that I could have the gates down and trust her around the house and she only needed food help and the like, or our house were smaller I could easily write several books a year. The stories float in my brain constantly. That is part of why I like having multiple genres. The problem is going to be finding an agent who likes all of my genres and works with them. I am not sure how to do that. I am also concerned about my submitting. I am on chapter 5 edits and am easily going to be done with the edits of this book by my birthday next month. I want to then submitt it out to a few agents/publishers. I did that before though and it was rough to know who to submitt to and that was before i expanded to other genres.

LOL see how my mind runs. This started as a reflection on my brain being all over the place and ended up being a worrying session. I drive myself batty. A few think I should self-pub but I honestly doubt I would make any real sales. I also think my series concept has some major potential (Thanks North for being a sounding board!) as it crosses genres and is fairly rare in the way I am thinking of it. I know that it has been sort of done but not exactly what I want to do. I want it to be about the crimes and the survival and the supernatural all in one tight package. I think I can do that. I think I can do that well. BUT if the first books I have ready are contemporary romantic suspense then do i look for an agent who does that or who does more and hope my voice comes through well enough in the 2 books that they are confident I can do the other as well.


Hmmm.......... I think I will take my over-active brain back to the editing and stop obsessing about problems I haven't hit yet.

What true strength and love looks like.

I have several military wives as friends. Some prepping for new deployments, some just got their men home, others just moved to new bases. They have always been a vision of strength for me. One friend is a Marine Wife. Those of you who were or were married to that branch know they each have their own unique worries. My friend like most keeps up with other wives and blogs of same. One wife's blog has spread like wildfire recently. Her husband was KIA just a few weeks ago and she blogged about learning of that and his funeral and just posted again because his homecoming would have been today. Her strength is what true strength is. That she is sharing how raw and tender she is feeling right now is awing and humbling. I cried. A lot. Her husband was a hero and in my eyes so is she.

Hershey the nesting bir...... I mean dog.

So after the Inconsiderate Neighbor decided our black lab was her mortal enemy and that whole debacle (Monkey still cries when she sees a big black dog) we got a tiny 8 lb. inside lap dog. This way Mrs. words I can't even type because I try to not say mean things has no reason to have us visited by the animal police regularly. For those who are new we named our new addition Hershey. She is a Chihuahua Dachshund mix and pretty sweet. She seems to be paper trained which I hate so we are trying to get her to go outside rather than a spot she chose in the entryway. She is good on the leash and very tolerant with kids. On the family camp out she was manhandled a ton and only barked at the kids once when her ear was bit by an over excited toddler. She chews. I give her dog toys and bones but if Monkey leaves something out it becomes fair game. She wants people food and figures Monkey is a good target since she is so small. The habits of being a stray I think. We are working on all these bad habits. We discovered an interesting doozy today. At night she likes to cuddle and so she sleeps in Bug's room. Bug puts a potty mat down hence knowing she was paper trained. She uses the mat well. Anyway so we leave our door open for the girls. Tonight Hershey was under our bed and I heard her chewing something while I am on my laptop editing my book. Hubby asks me to shoo her out to Bug so I try to call her out but she won't come. Bug calls her and she won't come. So we get a flash light. Seems she has stolen toilet paper rolls from my bathroom and shredded them, stolen laundry from the basket and has built a nest under my bed. Seriously. A huge freakish nest. What dog does that? She is part bird I think. I swear every pet we get needs therapy for some weird issue.

Jasper is back with Gracie's rescue group and we discovered it wasn't men he feared but people in hats. Seriously? AND my thinking he needed a playmate to calm the other issues turned out to be true. So we probably could have kept him if Hubby would have stopped wearing hats, the neighbor wasn't an evil Bleeping bleeper bleep, we had another dog, and I had the health of a normal 28 year old. Uggg......

AMY WINEHOUSE IS DEAD....... Oh and Norway had an attack that killed dozens...

News in general makes me mad. Norway is facing a devastating loss. Last CNN count had the toll from both the bomb and shooting at 92 with more to come. Maggy spent time there as an exchange student so this hits especially hard for her and she spent time worrying about people she loves very much yesterday. The world should be focusing on this and on sending love and support to the people impacted by this.

Now word comes from England that Amy Winehouse has died. It is running across CNN's front page. Yes they still have a lot of coverage up of the attacks in Norway but my news feeds on facebook are already being bombarded with info from England. This drives me nuts. Yes this is a very sad loss to the music community. She had a beautiful voice. BUT far to often real world events get drowned out by celebrity news. People are becoming so wrapped up in Brangilina and the newest celebrity baby and are ignoring the real news that it is no wonder the bureaucrats in DC get away with such crap. Love the craft and the art of music and film but stop obsessing over their personal lives and start taking an interest in the actual happenings in the real world. You might just improve your country.