Category Archives: Politics

7 Quick Takes: Sticks with Spinning Plates Edition

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7 Quick Takes

I told one of my instructors that I feel like I’m en pointe on one foot while holding sticks on which plates are spinning… and I’m trying to keep them from crashing. She laughed. Somehow, I’ve made it through my week.

— 1 —

Lenten devotional update. I’ve got the sucker compiled and edited. My priest suggested helpfully that we make this a “print your own devotional” deal because it would have cost far more to print a copy for everyone than we have in our budget at the moment. (Those who do not have Internet access will get a printed copy, but those are also our shut-ins.)

Now to just get the web version up! (It’s a lot of cut and paste.) If anyone wants the PDF, contact me.

— 2 —

Payroll project. We’re done with book work in my Payroll class so now we have a project for the rest of the quarter where we actually DO payroll. It’s a fictitious manufacturing company and the employees are all named after people from The Office. I’m looking forward to working on it this weekend.

— 3 —

Access is starting. We’re working on our Excel final projects right now so we started working on Access in class. The first chapter is database structure and building databases from scratch so I am pretty jazzed. Now to just power through my final projects for Excel so I can have some database fun.

— 4 —

Valentines for Ash Wednesday. Kelly decided to be helpful and come up with some Valentines for Ash Wednesday. I am TOTALLY printing them out and using them for Daniel’s class!

— 5 —

#TacoTrucksAtEveryMosque It’s totally a thing and I totally love it.

— 6 —

Special intention. If y’all could pray for a special intention, I would greatly appreciate it.

— 7 —

Recipe love. Some people came up with a collection of recipes for food to eat while watching the Olympics in South Korea. It looks AMAZING!

For more Quick Takes, visit Kelly at This Ain’t The Lyceum.

7 Quick Takes: Court Edition

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Travel. All of my flights went well other than my flight from Bellingham to Seattle being late on Monday and my flight to Bellingham on Tuesday involving horrible turbulence because of a weather system over the Whatcom County line. (I’m not a nervous flyer at all and even I was white-knuckling this one.) My hotel room was lovely and my rental car was great. I got to patronize the Qdoba in the Central Terminal off the C concourse both days even though I had a tight connection on Monday. (I was sitting next to the flight attendants for my San Jose flight who were deadheading from Bellingham. They told me I had time to grab food even though it was a tight connection and they’d make sure I got on my plane. They were right.)

— 2 —

Court. The only way I can put it was that it was brutal. The judge who was supposed to hear the case was elevated to the appellate court and we got a judge who had been on the bench for three days. It was really painful to have to sit there and listen to everything that was said about me. Nothing was conclusively decided and the case was continued to March. I had been made to fly down for this hearing, so I’m more than a little irritated at this.

— 3 —

Lenten devotional. I went straight from court to the airport on Tuesday and tried to channel my pain into editing reflections for my parish’s Lenten devotional booklet. I got quite a bit done and reading the reflections was a blessing to me.

— 4 —

My swearing. You know you might swear a little too much when you text your priest about how court went and she tells you to call her while also mentioning that she is looking forward to learning some new swear words. (She has a fouler mouth than I do so I didn’t teach her anything new.)

— 5 —

Daniel. I prepped like mad for this trip with regard to Daniel’s routine and care. My mom got an updated control journal for him and I did things like prep his lunches ahead of time and lay out his clothes so she could get him through the evening, morning, and afternoon I was gone without having to think too much. (I should add that my mom raised twins and backs me up 100% with Daniel’s care, so he was in the most capable hands with her. He also adores her which helps.) I was worried about him not sleeping but she got him to sleep just fine and handled his wake-up at 3 a.m. without a problem. She and my dad took him for “adventures” to Costco, Fred Meyer, and Haggen after school on Tuesday as well, which was fun for him. He was a happy kid while I was gone, but he was definitely relieved to see me.

— 6 —

State of the Uniom. (Yes, the misspelling is intentional. It was a typo on the tickets.) I haven’t watched it yet or read the transcripts. My life is depressing enough without reading about 45’s nonsense.

— 7 —

How I’m doing now. I’m worn out, not sleeping well, still feeling the sting of what Jon’s attorney said about me, and battling depression. Having to attend this hearing rebroke my heart, and the wound from having to file for divorce had the scab ripped off of it. I really want to crawl under the covers and curl up in a fetal position, but I don’t have that option. Instead, I’m dragging myself out of bed for class and doing what I need to do in order to parent Daniel because he needs a functional mama.

I don’t talk a lot about my divorce on here because it isn’t fair to Jon to have our dirty laundry aired, but know that it was not a decision I made lightly. Making it felt like I was being ripped in half.

For more Quick Takes, visit Kelly at This Ain’t The Lyceum.

The 20-Week Abortion Ban

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I was asked by a couple friends to weigh in on this because I’m one of those people who would qualify for a late-term abortion because of the pregnancy endangering my life.

My take is this: If faced with the decision, I will always decide to save myself first, but I will also argue for them to save the baby if at all possible.

The quote that most accurately reflects my experience is this one from former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop:

Protection of the life of the mother as an excuse for an abortion is a smoke screen. In my 36 years of pediatric surgery, I have never known of one instance where the child had to be aborted to save the mother’s life. If toward the end of the pregnancy complications arise that threaten the mother’s health, the doctor will induce labor or perform a Caesarean section. His intention is to save the life of both the mother and the baby. The baby’s life is never willfully destroyed because the mother’s life is in danger.

The argument for perinatal hospice has also come up on my Facebook wall and if faced with this decision, I would probably choose to carry my baby for as long as I could before it threatened my life. At that point, I would have them deliver the baby and do whatever I had to do in order to have as much time with my kid as possible.

Tommy Tighe of The Catholic Hipster went through this with his son Luke and he blogged about it.

This quote by C. Everett Koop describes my feeling on the whole issue:

The American ideal is not that we all agree with each other, or even like each other, every minute of the day. It is rather that we will respect each other’s rights, especially the right to be different, and that, at the end of the day, we will understand that we are one people, one country, and one community, and that our well-being is inextricably bound up with the well-being of each and every one of our fellow citizens.

The current pro-life view I see (which really irritates me) is that the mother must carry the child to term and then she’s on her own to raise it because doing otherwise would mean she is a leech on society. If we expect every mother to carry her child, we had better be putting things in place like WIC and early intervention and SSI to allow her to take care of her child once they are born. We need to do things to support the parents of kiddos who are premature and of kiddos who die at birth. To do otherwise is hypocritical.

I also wish people would realize that we’re not talking about an abstract issue. I am a human being as is every woman who faces this decision, so I wish people would stop the Monday morning quarterbacking and stop pretending they know exactly how things should play out. It is horrendously painful to listen to people discuss this who have never faced it and who never will.

The Simple Woman’s Daybook: January 16, 2018

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For Today…

Simple Woman's Daybook

Looking out my window… dark. I’ve been hearing some rain hit the window and the wind blowing.

I am thinking… how miserable I feel. I’ve got bronchitis and the ER doc screwed up on Sunday night in not giving me antibiotics (or doing much of anything really) while I was there. (His bedside manner was similarly abysmal. I’m disappointed because we usually have had such good luck in the ER here.)

I am thankful… I can skip classes tomorrow and I’ve built up enough of a network of notetakers that I have people who can take care of getting them to me this week.

One of my favorite things… being able to breathe. Not happening right now!

I am wearing… jammies.

I am creating… this entry.

I am reading… Searching for Sunday by Rachel Held Evans for the second time. I highly recommend it.

I am hoping… I can get in with my doctor tomorrow for a second opinion on this.

I am learning… how to calculate gross pay in some of the weirdest situations imaginable.

In my kitchen… I made lasagna for comfort food before my ability to breathe disappeared.

Shared Quote…

Build a mirror instead of a wall.

Closing Notes: Please pray for me that they can get me in to see my doctor tomorrow and we can get to the bottom of what this really is.

Thanks!

Hosted by The Simple Woman.

7 Quick Takes: I Can’t Even Edition

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Culture of death. All of you morons who voted for Trump because he was “pro-life”:

Try to defend this. I effing dare you.

(Just for the record, THAT IS NOT PRO-LIFE BEHAVIOR, YOU WEAPONS-GRADE PLUMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

— 2 —

An annotated version. The Southern Poverty Law Center annotated the White House’s statement on 45’s remarks. You can find it here.

— 3 —

Antiquated office machine update. We had a touch addition practice test on Wednesday and I think I averaged 120 kpm with one error. I was really hoping to be over 150 and closer to 200 but that will come with practice. My instructor gave us a bunch of practice sheets and I’ve been working through those.

— 4 —

Anderson Cooper. Anderson Cooper just verbally pwned the White House for calling Haiti a “sh*thole country”. The video is here.

— 5 —

And now a word from our host… Kelly of This Ain’t The Lyceum made a list of magical resolutions and picked her word and beast for this year. I think the coolest part is her beast: a laser unicorn!

— 6 —

Lenten devotional update. The survey I created with my priest was emailed to everyone on Friday and we also had paper copies on Sunday for those who were not techies. I’m honestly pretty excited for what we’ll have, given the breadth of devotional writers. We even have a couple from Resurrección who have offered, which makes my heart sing.

— 7 —

Prayer request. If y’all could pray that my migraine goes away, I’d really appreciate it. Please and thank you!

For more Quick Takes, visit Kelly at This Ain’t The Lyceum.

7 Quick Takes: Resolutions for 2018

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7 Quick Takes

Kelly is back from her Advent blog break so the Quick Takes resume! Here are my resolutions for 2018.

— 1 —

Make healthier choices. I stunk at this one in 2017 despite having TWO PE classes for school. I’ve had two consults with a nutritionist this fall and have the tools, so it’s just a matter of using them.

— 2 —

Sort out my medical stuff. Right now, I’m looking at two possible surgeries over Spring Break and once I’m done with school for the year. My BTL got postponed because my OB/GYN was on vacation for the month of December and honestly, I’d rather see someone else in her office because I really didn’t click with her. (Yes, I’m “getting my tubes tied”. We’ve seen that pregnancy is deadly for me and my OB/GYN doesn’t want to do a hysterectomy because I’m young. It’s quite hard to be “open to life” when doing so could kill you.)

When I saw the ENT and he did the nasal telescope, we discovered that my septoplasty in 2008 was just the lower parts and not the upper parts… which is problematic because the upper parts need to be done. Sooo… I’ll probably be doing that over Spring Break because I know from experience that it will mean a week without sleep because of the stuffiness.

Then there’s my back…

— 3 —

Not eat any blue paint. This is in honor of my friend Rick who passed away almost 5 years ago. He’d make a resolution like this every year so I do now as well in my attempt to live like Rick.

— 4 —

Finish crocheting projects. I finally got my mom’s socks done. I have other projects on my hooks.

— 5 —

Take Daniel to church with me at least monthly. I took him on Sunday morning for Advent IV and he chattered through the service and needed to walk the aisles and to the fellowship hall a few times. He did NOT want his tablet and finally settled when I handed him a bag of Cheerios. This all triggered a panic attack… but I survived and didn’t get any nasty looks. My church rallied around and supported me. While one of the Mary’s Guild was holding me and letting me cry, another person took Daniel for a walk. People thanked me for bringing him, which is a MASSIVE change from Jon’s church in Galt where people claimed to want him in church but gave me nasty looks if he made a sound, or relegated me to the nursery where I could listen (in theory — it didn’t work in practice) but was cut off from everyone.

In short, I have a tribe and I need to start taking Daniel to be with them.

— 6 —

Pray more. My prayer life sucks right now. Must fix it.

— 7 —

Make 45’s life more difficult. Why yes, I do have plans to be a social justice warrior in the new year. How did you guess? 😀 Got my pussy hat, my special shirts, and my marching shoes!

For more Quick Takes, visit Kelly the unicorn at This Ain’t The Lyceum!

The Simple Woman’s Daybook: December 17, 2017

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For Today… December 17, 2017

Simple Woman's Daybook

Looking out my window… dark. It was a beautiful rainy day.

I am thinking… about politics. I still need to write about Doug Jones’s victory on Tuesday but I’ve had things to do this weekend.

I am thankful… that my homeboys are having a better season than last year. The Browns still suck but they are known for that. (Their record this year is currently 0-14.)

One of my favorite things… gloating about my Niners winning to Seahawks fans (whose team was outscored 6-1).

I am wearing… jammies. Church clothes were a long-sleeved black shirt, black paisley skirt, black tights, and black flats. I switched out the skirt and tights for jeans.

I am creating… socks.

I am listening to… various things.

I am hoping… to start the decreases on sock #1 for Mom tomorrow.

I am learning… to just trust the crochet pattern.

In my kitchen… deciding on the menu for Christmas.

In the school room… Daniel has school for two days and then is off until the 2nd.

Post Script… this sounds like something from The Bloggess but without the taxidermy. (This is the Bloggess piece being compared.)

Hosted by The Simple Woman.