7 Quick Takes: Things I Wish I Had Crossed Off My Bucket List Before the Mayan Apocalypse

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7 Quick Takes

We pretty much know already that the world isn’t ending tomorrow as New Zealand and Australia are OK. However, I’m doing these tongue-in-cheek Quick Takes anyway as a way of getting my mind off of Daniel who ended up in the pediatric ER at UCD Medical Center last night with a febrile seizure. From what we can tell, it’s the flu. I’m vaccinated against it but he isn’t. (I’m not anti-vax by any stretch of the imagination — I just completely dropped the ball this year.)

— 1 —

Finding Kaia a mommy. See this cute little girl? She needs a mama.

Miss Kaia

Click on her picture to be taken over to her profile on Reece’s Rainbow. If you’re in the mood to do some charitable giving this Christmas, her adoption grant would be a lovely cause.

— 2 —

Getting certified to scuba-dive. My evil twin and his fiancée are PADI-certified and it’s been on “my list” forever. My college’s chapter of Intervarsity used to have our Chapter Retreats on Catalina Island and one of the things I loved doing was snorkeling. I’d like to actually be able to dive under the water someday.

— 3 —

See Loreena McKennitt live in concert again. I saw her in concert in 1994 and again in 2007. At the concert in 2007, I actually *met* her, got a hug from her, and got her autograph. She’s toured in Europe and eastern Canada so I’m hoping 2013 is going to be a U.S. tour year as she put out a new album two years ago.

— 4 —

Have Daniel develop speech. I fully believe this will happen someday — it just hasn’t happened yet. He’s great with his PECS book and we’ve got some sign language worked out. Still, it would be wonderful if he could learn to speak. It would definitely make my life easier.

— 5 —

Go on all the cool rides at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. I actually went to college in Santa Cruz and only went to the Boardwalk once during that time, something I’ve regretted for a long time because I love amusement park rides. Daniel is too young for most of the rides (and too short) so I may have a while to wait for this one.

— 6 —

Sing Bach’s Mass in B minor with a choir. I’m a huge fan of Bach and this is an amazing work of art. It’s complex enough to challenge me and it’s the reason why it’s my bucket list piece. (I started singing Handel’s Messiah when I was 15 though performing the work in its entirety is also on the list.)

— 7 —

Publish a novel started during NaNoWriMo. Granted, the years I’ve “won” by getting 50,000 words written during that month were years when I needed to kill people off to vent some anger but it would be kind of cool to actually “win” again and turn what I write into a novel that I can sell to a publisher.

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at ConversionDiary.Com. In the meantime, enjoy the tsunamis, earthquakes, and fire falling from the sky!

What I Wore on Sunday: December 16, 2012

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What I Wore Sunday

I missed worship on the 2nd because I was sick and the world was ending outside. I missed worship last week because I had a sick little bear. Despite me having bronchitis and not having slept well, I managed to drag myself out of bed and prep both myself and the bear child.

Props to parishioners Tawnya and Tara for being my paparazzi.

Head to toe pic

OK… A lovely blurry pic of me. You can see the claret-colored shirt, black slacks, and black clogs.

The bear child and I.

A clearer view of the top part of me as well as a view of the bear child.

OK… the details on my clothes:

Top: Lands’ End from Sears
Pants: Kohl’s
Socks: (not shown) Christmas kitty ones that my mom gave me.
Clogs: L.L. Bean

I like this to be a family affair so I got one of Jon in his alb:

Jon in his alb

Alb: Augsburg Fortress.
Stole: it belongs to the church so I’m not sure.
Clerical shirt (visible under alb): Autoun, Almy, or Augsburg Fortress — it’s one that he inherited.

And it wouldn’t be complete without a decent bear child pic!

Daniel being oh so compliant!

Such a compliant child!

Jacket: Sears, I think.
Shirt: Carter’s
Pants: Osh Kosh
Socks: Target
Shoes: Cars ones from Sears

December 15: Something Pink

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Flamingoes!

I think the topic for today (something pink) has to do with tomorrow being Gaudete Sunday (or “pink candle Sunday” for those less liturgically-inclined). Not wanting to drag myself to the bedroom to get some yarn, I decided to go through my pictures and find something pink. Lo and behold… I had flamingo pics on my laptop!

The Connecticut Shooting

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The second I saw the words “elementary school shooting” and “2 dead” on the screen, I turned the TV off yesterday. There are some things that just should not be broadcast on an endless loop and our media has the idiotic idea that it’s proper to interview kids in those situations.

I had already been sick for two weeks, seriously ill for three of them, not sleeping for three nights, and when I happened to see something about 26 people dead on Facebook, I completely lost it. Even better, I had to deal with Medi-Cal who completely… screwed up. (I’m trying not to drop gratuitous amounts of f-bombs like I did on Twitter yesterday while having to fix everything with Medi-Cal.) Yesterday was not a good day. (By the way, Daniel is fine in case you heard via Facebook or Twitter that we were having to get him in to urgent care to make sure he doesn’t have what I have.)

Do I have to even say how broken am I over the shooting? Someone posted the names of everyone killed and I started sobbing. I’ve had to hide status updates with the names of all the kids because the thought of kids just a few years older than Daniel dying is more than I can handle. I don’t think it’s a “mother” thing as much as I don’t think it would be so hard on me personally if I wasn’t a mother and if I hadn’t been through almost losing Daniel twice.

To the pro-life morons who decided to comment on how “20 kids died today but 2000 babies are aborted daily”: Did you ever consider that messages like that are why people ignore you and mock you? I’m totally pro-life here (unless the mom’s life is in danger or in cases of rape/incest) and seeing comments like that makes me want to vomit. Yes, it is tragic that 2000 babies are aborted daily (or whatever the statistic is) but 20 KIDS WERE MOWED DOWN BY A GUNMAN, ALL OF THEM SHOT MULTIPLE TIMES. These are actual human beings, not an excuse to advance your political cause. SHUT YOUR MOUTHS!

To Mike Huckabee: I’m almost ashamed to call myself a Christian after seeing your remarks about how this happened because we took God out of school. Actually, this happened because our country lacks adequate access to mental health, sufficient gun control, and our world is broken due to sin. I hope Fox News takes you off the air due to your insensitive remarks.

To everyone who has sent me a gun control petition in the last 24 hours: I agree 100% that we need better gun control and that the NRA are a bunch of right-wing nut jobs. However, THIS IS NOT AN APPROPRIATE TIME. Let the families bury their kids, let me stop sobbing every time I see the story mentioned, and then I’ll be more than happy to sign petitions, protest at the Capitol building in Sacramento, or do whatever I can for the cause.

To Westboro Baptist Church: I can honestly say that if you try to protest at *ANY* of the funerals/vigils/memorial services, there will be much pain on your part because folks do not take kindly to your crap when it comes to kids.

And because I honestly can’t string coherent thoughts together, I’ll just leave you with the song that’s been in my head since I first saw the news story yesterday: