Constant

Thank you Lord for the precious prayer time this morning. When so many things are changing around me, you ALWAYS stay the same.

I'm a Honda S2000!

You live on the edge, and you live for the adrenaline rush. You don't need luxuries, snob appeal, or superfluous gadgets. You put your top down, get your motor revving, and take all the curves that life throws at you at full speed. So what if you spin out occasionally?

Take the Which Sports Car Are You? quiz.

Are You KIDDING ME????!!!!

September 23, 2008

Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, Cofounders
Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc.

Dear Mr. Cohen and Mr. Greenfield,

On behalf of PETA and our more than 2 million members and supporters, I'd like to bring your attention to an innovative new idea from Switzerland that would bring a unique twist to Ben and Jerry's. Storchen restaurant is set to unveil a menu that includes soups, stews, and sauces made with at least 75 percent breast milk procured from human donors who are paid in exchange for their milk. If Ben and Jerry's replaced the cow's milk in its ice cream with breast milk, your customers--and cows--would reap the benefits.

Using cow's milk for your ice cream is a hazard to your customer's health. Dairy products have been linked to juvenile diabetes, allergies, constipation, obesity, and prostate and ovarian cancer. The late Dr. Benjamin Spock, America's leading authority on child care, spoke out against feeding cow's milk to children, saying it may play a role in anemia, allergies, and juvenile diabetes and in the long term, will set kids up for obesity and heart disease--America's number one cause of death.

Animals will also benefit from the switch to breast milk. Like all mammals, cows only produce milk during and after pregnancy, so to be able to constantly milk them, cows are forcefully impregnated every nine months. After several years of living in filthy conditions and being forced to produce 10 times more milk than they would naturally, their exhausted bodies are turned into hamburgers or ground up for soup.

And of course, the veal industry could not survive without the dairy industry. Because male calves can't produce milk, dairy farmers take them from their mothers immediately after birth and sell them to veal farms, where they endure 14 to17 weeks of torment chained inside a crate so small that they can't even turn around.

The breast is best! Won't you give cows and their babies a break and our health a boost by switching from cow's milk to breast milk in Ben and Jerry's ice cream? Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,
Tracy Reiman
Executive Vice President

At first I was outraged that PETA values a cow's life above a human life. I mean... animals are at the bottom of the food chain. Actually, they ARE the food chain. Then a discussion broke out in my office. As a result, I'd like to thank PETA for the most hilarious 20 minutes of my life as my coworkers and I hashed out the vast SNL potential of the most bo-tarded idea ever formulated from a human brain. We contemplated Ben & Jerry's new employment screening process, the new factory tours, marketing & packaging ideas, potential names for the new flavors, and a new reality TV show sponsored by Hugh Hefner titled "The Ladies of Ben & Jerry".

Seriously though...what was the official Ben & Jerry response to PETA's letter? "We believe a mother's milk is best used for her baby." Um, I thought that went without saying.

(I think I have a new entry for my "Dead To Me" List.)

Stuff coming up

My mom's birthday is Sept 24th. My sister and I typically spear head any celebration planning, with little input from mom's husband. I'm not sure why he doesn't participate but what I do know is that if Sarah and I didn't organize something then it wouldn't get organized. Then mom would be crushed. I can't have that.

So Sarah found a restaurant in Melbourne that would be perfect for mom's bday dinner. It features international food and my mom loves to try new things. However, mom's husband and Sarah's own boyfriend will likely be disappointed when they don't find "cheeseburger" on the menu. Should we forego this restaurant for the sake of the uber-finicky? Ha! I think not. Mom sacrifices her own preferences all year long in honor of my step-dad's unadventurous palate. The very least he can do is suck it up for 1 day.

Hmmm, let's see...what else is coming up? Fall. I L-O-V-E Fall. For one thing, it is the opening band for the headliner of all holidays - Christmas. I love the warm & cozy colors, the sound of crisp leaves crunching under foot, the scent of cinnamon & other spices, the festivals, the delicious meals & desserts that accompany this season. I wish I had the $$ to wrap the interior of my house in golds, browns & oranges to mimmick what northerners get to enjoy from nature. *sigh* I guess I can settle for making a fall wreath for the door and burning a Pumpkin Spice Yankee Candle.

What else? Oh, I have to start thinking about designs for my Christmas cards this year. I didn't send them last year because I was busy crafting for ebay. Shame on me! I got some really great Christmas paper this weekend that I can't wait to use.

Well, that's it for now.

Cyber Friendships

For the past 20 months I have been a part of a group of 20 women who make and sell crafts on the internet. These women range in ages from 30 to 60 and live in all parts of the country. Over time some girls have left the group and new members have been added. I’ve read about their vacations, new jobs, marital problems, loss of parents, illnesses, anniversaries, record sales, weight loss, weight gain, moving to new houses and a host of other things you experience as you do life together. Through pictures I’ve watched their kids grow up, some graduate from college, some get engaged, etc. We fight, we cry, we laugh. We share product tips, techniques & always let each others know when a store is having a great sale on supplies. Just like a real life group of friends.

Kathy Potter is one of the girls in my group. She lives in Maryland and has a husband and 10 year old daughter. She is one of the sweetest girls in the group…always positive, encouraging and a wonderful artist. She loves gardening and making crafts with her daughter Marina. We found out in June that Kathy was just diagnosed with cancer. She decided to put selling on hold in order to go through treatments and spend time with her family. Every couple of weeks one of us would call to let her know we missed her and were thinking of her. We knew her participation in the group would be less frequent if at all, but she was still very much a part of us. One day another girl, Jeri, came up with this great idea to help Kathy with getting caught up on her own personal scrapbook pages. We all made some layouts and sent them to Jeri. Jeri packaged them up and sent them to Kathy’s house.

Kathy never got that package. We found out last night that she passed away a few weeks ago at the tender age of 40. Her husband got the box the other day in the mail and went through each and every layout with Marina. Then he decided to send an email to the group to let us know the bad news. Though I was really shocked that cancer consumed Kathy’s life so quickly, I was surprisingly composed while reading the email from her husband. Well...until I got to the bottom of the message where precious Marina added a PS to the letter. In her sweet messy 10 year old typing, she told us she loved the pages and that she was doing better in school and how she was going to continue on in crafting just like her Mommy. And that is all I can write at this moment. Kathy Potter, you are deeply missed. Derek and Marina, you are always in my prayers.

Vacation baby...vacation!

See...my new blog has only been around for 2 weeks now and I went 1 solid week without posting jack crap. I so suck at this blogging thing.

Anyway, I contemplated something the other day: Sting is the greatest musician ever and why do I not even have 1 of his albums?????? Must work on remedying this.

So John and I are leaving for Boston later today. Here is my vacation prayer: Lord, I humbly ask that you see fit to keep it from raining in Boston MA this weekend. Grant us safe travels, let the security screening be surprisingly gentle, the children and babies on the plane be blissfully quiet, the other passengers be free of hatred toward America, and grant that we would enjoy a baseball game complete with many a stadium hotdog and snackage and much victory over the visiting team...in your mercy. Amen.

Reflections on the RNC

So last night we watched the Republican National Convention. Am I the only one who shed tears when McCain told his story of captivity? I have to be honest...I was starting to get really bored with the "I'm a POW hero" claims. Yes, we know. We've all heard it 1,000 times...can we please move on to something new already?? But this time he shared how his fellow soldier/prisoner, by way of tapping on a wall, communicated encouragement to him after he suffered brutal and spirit-breaking torture. My heart broke along side him as he recounted the shame he felt for not being strong enough. I rejoiced as his buddy built him back up at such a critically low time.

Does the country share my support for the republican ticket? We shall see. All I do know is that I've never been THIS excited about an election. I'm so proud to be a part of such a monumental decision making time for our country.

BTW, demonstrators who disrupt McCain's speech are dead to me!!!!!!!!!!

My Fave Layout (right now)

How Cute Are These???

I'd like to say I'll try to make these some day but I most likely won't. Looking at them makes me happy though. Photo courtesy of Bakerella.

Welcome to Wussville - Population ME!

I ordered flowers on Tuesday. They are being sent from my work group to Tiffany, my only female coworker, who has been in the hospital since Saturday. The flowers I found online were fabulous...a huge pile of pink, which is great because Tiffany is a spaz for pink. I completed the order and paid. When Tiffany got the flowers Wednesday, she loved them so much that she snapped a picture with her camera phone and emailed them to us here at work. Problem? What I ordered is not what I got. If I had seen the finished product in advance, I wouldn't have paid $85 for this arrangement. I call the owner of the flower shop. She insists that the flowers she made are BETTER than the ones I ordered. What?! I'm speechless. I'm not good at handling conflict so I stutter and stammer, trying to defend my opinion. Why do I feel like "I" did something wrong? She insists that the flowers are fine and I say okay and we hang up. I guess I shouldn't let it bother me because the recipient is happy, right? Whatever. God I'm such a wuss.

Oh, here are the pictures of what I ordered vs what I got. You be the judge.





Update: Upon emailing these pictures to the florist, I get the following email response.

Rebecca since there still seems to be dissatisfaction with the arrangement that was sent yesterday I am going to refund your money for the flowers. As you can well see from the photo you got your money's worth and more. I shall retain the price of the balloons and delivery. Thanks Nxxxx

Lesson learned: Some business owners (who I won't name but who have shops in Celebration FL near the hospital) are incapable of admitting they got busted doing the bait & switch.