So disappointed in California

It was decided that yesterday that Prop 8 will stand. We as a state have officially taken away the rights of our citizens. Why? I like to believe it's because there were so many people like myself that just did not think for an instant that it would pass. Had I any idea that there was an actual chance of Prop 8 passing, I would've done a little more to show my support in voting NO on 8. I have learned a powerful lesson and only hope to have the strength to speak up next time. I am not a political person in any way. Basically my decisions are based on how something will affect me and my family, but Prop 8 passing will and can have an affect on my family.

I have a friend with an ability to get involved and really try to make a difference. She spoke at the Rally in Fresno last night. With her permission I'm including her speech. Thank you Vickye (So I Married a Republican) for your efforts and inspiration!

One thing stood out to me during the Prop 8 campaign. Prop 8 supporters were not afraid to pull the kid card. They were not afraid to say “Oh, but what about the children?” Well, I am going to pull it right back on them. What about the children?

What about the LGBT kids in this state? All 2-6 hundred thousand of them? What about all of the children being raised by LGBT people? What about their grandchildren, their nieces, nephews, their cousins? What about them? So, when they say “what about the children”, what they really mean is, what about their children.

Okay, what about their children? They are taught that gay is wrong. Ours are taught that love comes in all shapes and sizes. Theirs are taught to exclude. Ours are taught to include. Ours are also taught, from an early age, what it is like to be excluded, thanks to their children and parents.

Their children are taught that there is only one way. They are taught only what their parents want them to know, rather than all there is to know. They are taught what to believe, rather than the facts. They are taught that morality is a narrow road and that only they have the map.

Our children look at this differently. Ours are given the facts and taught that beliefs need to be backed up by them. Ours are shown the whole world and trusted to find their way with the love and knowledge we have given them. Ours are taught that morality must be aligned with justice, or it will be neither. Our children are given the entire rainbow of colors and an entire world to paint them with.

So, to say, “what about the children” is very misleading, because they really don’t care about children. They teach their own children a set of values that will fall apart the moment their child hits the real world, causing pain and confusion. They try to condemn our children, simply for being who they are or who their parents are. And, by passing and upholding Prop 8, they have shown ALL children that justice does not matter anymore, it simply matters who has the louder voice. They are teaching that equality is no longer a foundation of our country, that the majority can vote away the minority’s rights.

We know this to be a temporary aberration and will teach our children as such. We will teach our children to never stop fighting for what is right; for what is just. We will never teach our children to rejoice over someone else’s loss. We will teach our children that justice and love trump tradition, every time.

So, Prop 8 is not really about families, because they set out to invalidate the families of these children. It’s not really about marriage, because they are trying to prevent loving marriages. And it is definitely not for the children, because teaching a child to exclude is only the first step towards teaching them to hate.

So, the next time someone tells you they oppose same-sex marriage, I want you to ask them “But, what about the children?”

It's certainly something to think about!

Monday, sweet Monday-or is it Tueday?

Monday was another great opportunity to sleep in. Ciera and Brian woke around 11. Logan and I slept soundly until 12. We slept away the entire morning. Ciera had softball practice from 2-5 and then we all headed to Brian's parents' to swim. The weekend was beautiful, but it heated up some on Monday. The kids and Brian all swam for a bit and I just got my feet wet.
I knew it was going to be hard to get to sleep on time, but I thought if I tried hard we might be successful. Unfortunately we started brushing our teeth a bit late.

Both kids claim it was after midnight before the finally fell asleep. That of course made it difficult to get up this morning, but we did make it to school on time, although a touch grumpy. It was another minimum day and then Logan's friends came over for an hour or two.

Somebody had a dentist appointment to get a cavity filled. She wanted to remain nameless and faceless.

Can you guess who belongs to these feet? (The coloring is off, she really wasn't that blue).

The filling went well and then it was time for a pitching lesson. Brian took her tonight and I headed out to the baseball field to watch a brave little boy play AA Farm baseball. Isaiah (from Strong and Courageous) has been fighting and winning his Leukemia battle for 2 years now. His strength and courage continue to amaze me. He has such a wonderfully supportive family too (and they're a ton of fun to visit with). I went to school with Isaiah's dad and Isaiah's sister, Sienna, went to school with my kids for 2 years. Plus, his mom is expecting a new little baby in September and she has the cutest little pregnant belly. I'm so glad that I got to see them. I had almost forgotten how much fun it is to watch a Farm game. The kids are all so excited to be there, but they have such short attention spans. They all hit great and made some great outs. I somehow managed to miss all of Isaiah's hits, but I saw him run the bases like a pro! Thanks again for the invite Oates'.

When Ciera gets home, we will head out to Target to see about a gift for her friends. She has decided that she needs to get her friends an end of the year gift, "something totally useless." We are all very excited that tomorrow is the last day we have to get up early for school. We have 81 days to prepare for the next school year!

I made it out to walk this morning and am hoping to head out again this evening once it cools off. I'm really loving the new sneakers.

Tomorrow we have our end of the school year picnic at the park. Hopefully it will be comfortable in the shade. We have no real plans for the rest of the week. Ciera and I head to Stockton again this weekend. Logan only has 2 more basketball games left in the season. I'm very bummed about missing so many of his games, but at least Brian gets to be there. I'll get to see his last game though and I'm looking forward to it.

Camera uploads

Also on my Weekend List was for Brian to teach me how to upload pictures from our new camera to Picasa. My mother in law had talked me through it Sunday night, so I decided to give it a shot on my own yesterday (or Friday night, the days are blurring together already). It was just as easy as she had said it'd be.

I'm going to try to take some random shots of our days to post along with the boring text. Perhaps it will be easier to stay on top of things that way.

Also on the Weekend List is for Brian to show me how to save and import the pictures from other people's albums and from our e-mail. I know this isn't super difficult, but it does require him teaching me.

The list is growing shorter and longer all at the same time. There are so many things that need to be done and as we finish one project, I come across another that needs to be added.

Our master bedroom ceiling fan started squeaking horribly this week. So after exhausting all efforts to 'fix' it, we broke down and bought a new fan yesterday. Brian spent the better part of this morning installing the new fan. He did a great job and I'm looking forward to using the 'remote' that came with it.

Introducing,

My new sneaker!

I put new sneakers on my Weekend List and I finally got over to Famous Footwear 1 hour before closing. I hate trying on shoes even more than I hate trying on clothes, so this was NOT a fun trip. I arrived armed with socks and I immediately got busy. I knew I needed to not even pay attention to the color or how hideous they looked. I simply needed a sneaker to walk in and go to the gym in that would be comfortable. I am VERY big on comfort and I haven't had a comfortable sneaker in years. I tried on several different pairs and brands. I finally settled on two and had to decide between them, without letting color or cost be the deciding factor. I tried them with socks and with just the 'footie' nylon, since I really prefer to go sockless. After 45 minutes of intense scrutiny, I finally decided on this pair. I'm actually quite excited for it to cool off so I can go test them out tonight. They are really squishy, comfy and they aren't too tight around my foot, nor does my toe rub.

I then headed over to Home Depot to pick up paint for Ciera's room. I'm thrilled that she finally decided on a color and am debating whether to get started right away or wait a week until they are out of school. Just a few years ago I could go crazy and paint all night, but my body just doesn't quite care for that type of abuse anymore. It takes me much longer to recover when I mistreat it.

Totally off topic, but has anyone seen the new Jonas Brothers show on Disney? It's playing in the background and I happened to catch parts of it last weekend as well. I'm not sure whether it's really neat that they are doing such a 'down to earth kid' show or totally creeped out by it. I Fell In Love With the Pizza Girl is not one of their better songs.

Got Milk?

I typically don't post the same thing on both blogs, but I have difficulty deciding which things belong where. This seems to belong in both. I get a little 'crazy' excited when I see all the milk I've been able to freeze. It keeps me very optimistic that there will be enough to get the babies through their first year.
I forgot to take the before picture. This is my empty freezer that had 22 days worth of milk in it this morning. Each shelf holds about 40lbs of milk. I believe there are about 112, 16 oz bottles. I'm filling 4.5-5 bottles per day.
The bottom two pictures are the chest freezer my mom brought over this afternoon so I can store the milk easier. I'm a little surprised that it's almost full already. I can probably fit 4-5 more days worth of milk in it. I should have enough room to store the milk until mid to late June. Hopefully by then STE has more room in her freezers.

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Even after completing so many of my list items, there was still time for some trampoline fun.
The net is in the way, so it makes the pictures look really 'dotty', but you get the idea.
Brian stands on the patio and throws the football into the trampoline. Typically the kids have to 'fight' against each other to get the ball.
Fun times!

Catching up, again

I'd been doing a great job of walking my 30 minutes- 1 1/2 miles per day up until this last weekend. With the heat and softball there was no way I was going to get out and walk, although I did bring my beat up sneakers just in case (I still haven't gotten to Famous Footwear to try and find a new pair).

So on Monday I had some making up to do. I walked Monday morning and Monday night. The dog is so happy to take these walks with me, although I still haven't been able to get anyone else to walk with me. I made a trip to Costco for more bottled water and some other necessities, like milk. The kids have started drinking milk like crazy. Ciera had a lesson that night and I finished up the unpacking and laundry from our trip.

Tuesday it all finally hit me. I dropped the kids off at school and went back to bed. I woke up feeling SO much better. I got in a double walk that day as well.

Ciera's class went on a field trip to John's Incredible Pizza on Wednesday. It wasn't entirely educational, but it was an end of the year trip for the 6-8 graders. The kids had a great time. Brian now gets to pick his furlough day, so he spent the day at his mother's, helping her get the yard ready for open pool season. Then he and Logan headed to basketball practice. Once again, I got in 2 walks and am getting faster every day (maybe every week is more accurate).

Thursday I got my morning walk in the morning while it was still cool. I spent most of Thursday in Ciera's classroom finishing up some typing for her teacher. Ciera had practice that evening. I had hoped to walk the track while she was at practice, but it was just too warm still. So I walked around 8:45 at home once it cooled down.

Friday I was up at 5am to pump and decided to stay up. I got in my walk at 6:30 when it was nice and cool. I was a bit surprised to see so many people out walking or running at that hour. There's hardly anyone at 9am. I was feeling very ambitious since I was up and moving so early. I grossly underestimated how long it would take to do everything and ended up rushed by 10. I got laundry done, dishes done, cupcakes baked for Logan's class, pumped again, showered and was out the door at 10:45 to pick up pizza for Logan's class party. We are definitely celebrating the end of this school year!

Logan had a few friends over after the minimum day. They seemed to have quite a bit of fun on the trampoline, playing with the hose and water guns. By 4:30 they had all gone home and Ciera and I headed out to get a jump start on my Memorial Day Weekend List. I have so many things that I've been meaning to get done and just no time to do them. So I decided to list them all out so that we don't forget to do them while we're busy sleeping in. Brian is a little less enthusiastic about my list. Ciera and I got my Target returns done (some items I'd had since March), headed to Home Depot to get paint samples for her room and look at ceiling fans. Logan has been asking for a ceiling fan for 2-3 years and we never get around to doing it. Everyone else has a fan, I think we need to make it a priority this summer. We also stopped by the AT&T store to look at phones. The kids would both really like a phone to text, but we just can't seem to figure out how to go about doing it without spending an extra $60 a month. They both get about $20 for allowance and that's really as high as I'm willing to go for it. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of options for $20 a month. I have a very bare bones plan that meets my needs and offers a ton of minutes. I can't modify it at all and keep my minutes, so we're a bit stuck as to what to do. Someday we'll figure it out I'm sure. Ciera also thinks it's a tad unfair that she has to pay for it. So we may never do it.

Ciera has softball practice Monday afternoon and she still has to go out each day with her day, but we have no other obligations this long weekend. My nephew, Jackson, slept over Friday night, so Logan has been busy jumping on the trampoline and playing Wii with him.

It's still quite warm, although weather.com claims it will only be in the mid 80's this weekend. I'm optimistic that we can get a lot accomplished this weekend and still relax quite a bit as well.