Christmas Stocking

I made this stocking for a friend's baby.

In my Past Life

Your past life diagnosis: I don't know how you feel about it, but you were female in your last earthly incarnation.You were born somewhere in the territory of modern Thailand around the year 1575. Your profession was that of a sailor or shoemaker.

Your brief psychological profile in your past life:
Inquisitive, inventive, you liked to get to the very bottom of things and to rummage in books. Talent for drama, natural born actor.

The lesson that your last past life brought to your present incarnation:
There is an invisible connection between the material and the spiritual world. Your lesson is to search, find and use this magical bridge. Do you remember now?

http://thebigview.com/pastlife/

A Sad Day for Fantasy Fans

For those of you who may not have heard, Robert Jordan died yesterday from a primary amyloidosis, which causes the walls of your heart to thicken. He was 58 years old. He is best known for his epic series, "The Wheel of Time".

I read the first book, "Eye of the World" in high school and loved it. I wasn't aware it was part of a series and spent many years trying to convince my husband to read it. He finally did when his brother, David, had the whole series, at the time, of six books. We have both enjoyed the series very much, up to the twelfth book and the prequel.

I enjoyed his characters, which always felt real and as if all I had to do was turn the corner to run into someone just like them. I found his women characters well rounded and powerful. I also enjoyed the way he blended the world of Dune by Frank Herbert and Lord of the Rings by Tolkien together into a cohesive reality. I am sad to say that very selfishly I wish that he had been able to finish the series that I have read three times now (one of the few books I have reread). I know many literature snobs will say he was unoriginal and a hack, I don't care. I enjoyed his writing, it made me laugh, cry, and angry. Tolkien himself stole (or borrowed) his material from older stories. If you are going to steal ideas, steal them from the best as Steven Spielburg himself said. What better material to draw from than the grandfather's of epic scifi and fantasy?

I found a couple of years ago, in a used bookstore, another book by him under the name of Reagan O'Neal, a historical fiction set in his hometown. I grabbed it up without a thought. Sadly, it was the second in the trilogy and I have yet to find the first, so it sits on my shelf gathering dust. Today I discovered that he wrote some Conan books too, I will have to hunt for them.

My condolences to his wife and friends. We will all miss you.

An incident at work

Yesterday was the first day back at school for teachers, a day of welcomes and workshops. It was great to be back and see everyone. It was the usual stuff that teachers hear every year, and work very hard not to zone out during every year. ;) Went to lunch had a good time, though the restaurant really messed up, and we were all late getting back. The boss was very understanding.

At the end of the day we were all released to work in our rooms, as I worked I heard a co-worker make a comment I found a bit upsetting. If you are from Texas you know, that the legislature just passed a law adding "under God" to the Texas pledge. My co-worker said "I'm happy about the change in the pledge". That I don't have a problem with, though I did find it mildly disturbing. What really bothered me was what she said next, "It serves the jerks right for trying to take God out of everything." I was a bit shocked and a bit offended. I very much wanted to confront her, but bit my tongue, she wasn't addressing me and I knew my temper was too high.

Our government is suppose to be a secular government, no state or federal religion so that all religions and cultures feel welcome and included. I very much want to ask how she would feel if the city, state, or federal government added a line asking people to swear on Buddha, Vishnu, or Allah. Most likely she would be deeply offended. It saddens me that so many can not put themselves in other people's shoes and understand where other people are coming from.

I've heard some people say that the God in the pledge is a general god idea. I can say with a fair amount of certainty that outside of the Christian faith the capital "G" god refers specifically to the Christian/Jewish god. Other religions use the specific name of the god they are referring to. I've tried to explain it this way. If you are talking about your own mom, you say or write "Mom", when you talk about all moms it is a lowercase m.

First Time Camping

Well, summer time is almost over. The family is in need of some adventure. My husband had been wanting to go camping for years, but I had never done it and the prospect of going camping in the Texas heat never held any appeal for me. This year I said, lets go for it. At first we talked about going to a little camp site one town over that he use to go to when he was a kid. Then I remembered stopping to go horseback riding through a canyon in Texas as a break on a road trip to Colorado. We looked online and the scenery was inspiring, so we decided to go 11 hours away to go camping in Palo Duro Canyon.

We left very early in the morning, so we could get there in time for check in and so we could get our new tent set up before dark. We found a site with a good amount of shade. It was hot, but breezy. As long as the breeze was moving it was pretty comfortable. There was supposed to be no rain for the entire time we were there, so of course the second afternoon there was a thunderstorm. We got soaked, the river flooded, the water came within 10 feet of our tent. We had to spend a couple of hours in our tent, but the skies cleared by the evening. It was a good thing we didn't have a camp site deeper in the canyon, because the water crossings flooded. The water was 5 feet over the road. There was a family that had the teenagers at camp and the adults in town, the adults were trapped on the opposite side of the water from the teens for the night. By the next afternoon, you could barely tell that it had rained.

We saw all manner of wildlife, a groundhog, deer and turkey (they walked right into camp many times), cardinals, hawks, spiders, butterflies, etc. And in Don's case, a giant tarantula. I've decided that I can't wait to go camping again. I will post some pictures when I get them uploaded on this computer.