January 31, 2003 07:15:02 PM

I actually just heard about this on the TV news. Apparently, 100 poets in one weeks' time got together and wrote a collection of poems against the war, and they have donated these poems to the world. Download a copy of the free eBook collection here and read the poems. Maybe they will inspire you to use your voice to speak up for whatever side you believe in. Use your hard-won freedom of speech to say something and then maybe do something.

January 30, 2003 09:25:47 PM

My friend, Sharon, emailed this to me today so I'm sharing it.

Somebody Said

Somebody said it takes about six weeks to get back to normal
after you've had a baby . . .
somebody doesn't know that once you're a mother, normal is history.

Somebody said you learn how to be a mother by instinct . . .
somebody never took a three-year-old shopping.

Somebody said being a mother is boring . . .
somebody never rode in a car driven by a teenager with a driver's permit.

Somebody said if you're a "good" mother, your child will "turn
out good"...
somebody thinks a child comes with directions and a guarantee.

Somebody said "good" mothers never raise their voices . . .
somebody never came out the back door just in time to see her
child hit a golf ball through the neighbor's kitchen window.

Somebody said you don't need an education to be a mother . . .
somebody never helped a fourth grader with his math.

Somebody said you can't love the fifth child as much as you love
the first . . .
somebody doesn't have five children.

Somebody said a mother can find all the answers to her child-rearing questions in the books . . .
somebody never had a child stuff beans up his nose.

Somebody said the hardest part of being a mother is labor and
delivery . . .
somebody never watched her "baby" get on the bus for the first day of kindergarten.

Somebody said a mother can do her job with her eyes closed and
one hand tied behind her back . . .
somebody never organized seven giggling Brownies to sell cookies.

Somebody said a mother can stop worrying after her child gets married...
somebody doesn't know that marriage adds a new son or daughter-in-law to a mother's heartstrings.

Somebody said a mother's job is done when her last child leaves home...
somebody never had grandchildren.

Somebody said your mother knows you love her, so you don't need to tell her . . .
somebody isn't a mother.


January 28, 2003 10:51:03 PM

I just finished watching the President's state of the union address and I am still convinced that he has an itchy trigger finger. I know that not invading Iraq does not insure peace by any stretch of the imagination. My feeling is, that if he could show more evidence--that infamous smoking gun--which would give our allies more confidence in joining us in this fight, then I guess I wouldn't be so much against it. I just don't feel like it is our fight alone to preemtively march into Iraq and lay waste to the place all on our own.

I am thankful to God for the fact that my nephew will not be going overseas, but rather he will be stationed stateside. This was an answer ot fervent prayer by our whole family for him. It's still going to be hard on his wife, who is Daryll's niece, but at least he won't be in a combat role. God is so good.

Do you know who is linking to your site? I was pleasantly surprised to see who is linking to me.

More fruits of my search for stuff for my new writing web page that I am working on. It's a cool poetry site that helps you find your muse.

January 27, 2003 10:14:22 PM

Participation Positives.

Happy Monday!

Some things I am grateful for:

  • My nephew will not be sent overseas, but to a stateside military base
  • My husband is still home with me
  • Jordan is beginning to get over her cold/ear infection
  • Two days in a row above freezing!
  • Healthy (mostly) happy family

January 25, 2003 06:40:58 PM

Jordan is so miserable. She is stuffy and sniffly and cranky with this cold. I think that the anti-biotics have kicked in for her ear infection, but the poor baby just isn't happy. Today it got above freezing for the first time in a week and I'm stuck in the house. It just breaks my heart to see her like this.

January 24, 2003 02:47:03 AM

Daryll told me last night that his nephew, who is in the US Marines, has received his orders. He will be shipping out on Sunday to an undiclosed location. This was so upsetting to me. Hopeton is a young father with two sons under the age of three. Now I'm feeling that it will only be a matter of time before Daryll gets his orders. I'm angry because this is not a war that we really need to be involved with. Look at the situation in Afghanistan? What's going on there now? That story has faded from the headlines, while men and women lost their lives in a futile conflict. My feeling is that Iraq is about revenge and big oil. We do not need to spend so much money and allocate so much of our military resources towars and end that won't really impact our daily lives.

January 21, 2003 03:07:32 AM

To celebrate the observance of Dr. King's birthday yesterday, my sister-in-law, Anita and I took all of the nieces and nephews up to Baltimore to visit the Great Blacks in Wax museum. It was bitterly cold outside, and the weather reporter said that Monday would be the warmest day of the week! We had a great time, and the trip to the museum was educational for the kids.

Daryll is still sick with a terrible cold, so he stayed home from work again today. This morning I drove Brianna to school and then went to the grocery store--all alone! It was my only child-free two hours since I can't remember when. I cranked up the car radio on the 'old school' R&B station and sang along as the snow flakes fell. The commissary didn't open until 9:30, so I had to sit in the parking lot and wait 15 minutes. I sat in the car and listened to the music enjoying my precious moments alone.

I have started following the infamous cabbage soup diet today. I'm going to experiment with it and see how it works with breastfeeding. I found this diet in First Magazine last week, but apparently, its a popular diet for those times when you need to lose 10lbs pretty quickly. There are lots of recipes floating around out there and people tweak it to suit their tastes. We'll see how it goes. I bough some Beano (diesgtive enzymes) because cabbage always makes me very gassy. OK, maybe I'm over-sharing here, but that's realtiy.

January 15, 2003 01:05:19 AM

Happy Birthday, Dr. King!

This freezing cold weather is making me feel right at home. I haven't been out walking since last week because its just too cold for me.

Despite being busy with all of the housewife/mom things that I have to do, I am feeling bored and restless. I never get out of the house except for the trips to the bank/post office/grocery store. OK, I know I'm whining here, but that's how I'm feeling.

We've been trying to plan a weekend visit back home to Boston, but with Daryll's Reserve weekends and activities, we haven't settled on a date yet. I am also feeling terribly nervous about the fact that Daryll could be called up again to active duty in the Navy. This time he would probably be sent overseas. I do not know what I would do if he had to go away. I almost broke down in tears when I saw Katie Couric's segment from Saudi Arabia on the Today Show yesterday. All of those soldiers from all branches of the military who are over there giving their lives to protect us. They have left their families and friends to do this work, and I am so grateful for their sacrifice. Selfishly, I do not want to make that same sacrifice. I want my husband to be there when I wake up in the morning. I want him here at home with me. I've got knots in my stomach just thinking about it and I am praying that God will be with us. If he gets called, he will go, and I will just pray that God will go with him and all of the other men in his unit and in all of our armed forces. Pray for all of us.

January 13, 2003 09:53:32 AM

participation positives Happy Monday!

Today I'm feeling especially grateful for. . .

  • being inside my warm, safe home on this coooold morning
  • a great talk with my husband last night
  • another inch lost on my waist
  • a victorious 'cheat-free' week on my diet
  • a productive web-team meeting at church

January 10, 2003 11:03:47 AM

Yesterday we had a fleeting taste of spring and a welcome respite from the cold as temps rose to 62 degrees. Jordan, Leila and I took a walk to Lincoln Park and had a geat time playing in the warm sunshine. For some reason every time we come to this park, the other kids there are much younger than Leila, but she doesn't seem to mind. She is so outgoing and friendly that she'll play with any child who will play with her. Leila is so charming and there's not a shy bone in her little body. She walked up to the mother of one of the toddlers and just struck up a conversation. We played at he park for two hours and we almost had a meltdown when it was time to go home.

Last night Daryll went to a revival service led by Rev. Juanita Bynum last night. He came in the door still filled with a spirit of praise. He raved about how good her sermon was, and how he wanted to go again to hear part two on tonight. Her topic was the power of prayer. He quoted some of the things that she had said, and I wished that I could have been there. I know that my prayer times have been diminshed since the baby was born, but I need to find a way to fit more prayer time into my daily activities. I feel so blessed to have a man who not only believes in God, but one who is not ashamed to give Him praise.

We are doing well with our dietary changes these days. Daryll came home last night and raved about how good he was feeling. He said that he had so much more energy, and he wasn't craving candybars in the afternoons any more. I have already begun to lose inches and I'm feeling more energetic as well. I made some more granola this morning and the smell is filling the house. Granola is good because it is all whole grains which are a good source of fiber, and it fills me up so that I don't feel snacky between breakfast and lunch. Last night I fell asleep while breastfeeding the baby around 8:30 and I napped for about an hour and woke up with a stiff neck. I put her in her bed and then I was wide awake. I sat up and watched TV and then I began to feel snacky. We have committed to not eating even one bite of food after 7:30 pm. I was jonesing pretty bad, so I grabbed a piece of sugarless gum and chewed that for awhile. Soon these cravings will be gone, but I caught a glimpse of the pain of breaking a harmful habit. I am praying for the strength to make this the last stop on the weight loss/weight gain rollercoaster.

January 06, 2003 11:38:09 PM

Participation Positives Happy Monday!

-it snowed last night and I awakened to see evrything covered in a blanket of snow.

-got six consecutive, uninterrupted hours of sleep last night--worth more to me than pure gold!

-had a lovely date with my husband even if we did have to bring the baby. She charmed everyone.

-had my first communion of 2003.

-heard a wonderful sermon and had the opportunity to give the Lord htnaks and praise for all that he has done and all that he is going to do in the new year.

Sleep deprivation is an insidious plague. Getting only four or five hours of sleep at night was beginning to catch up with me, and I hit the wall yesterday. Jordan was up and down all night, so I woke up exhausted. After breakfast I came upstairs to get dressed for church and Jordan wanted to nurse so I stopped and fed her and fell fast asleep. I woke up at 9:30 in a panic because we needed to leave the house by 10:15. I rushed around getting myself and the baby ready and I snapped at Leila while I was trying to braid her hair while Jordan lay screaming on the bed. We made it to church and mid-way through the service I had to take Jordan out to feed her. I was in the Pastor's lounge sitting in an oversized arm chair feeding the baby when I fell asleep. When we got home from church I had lunch and put the baby down for a nap. I climbed into the bed and fell asleep only to be awakened ten minutes later by Jordan's cries. I picked her up and began to rock her and she went right back to sleep, but just as I was ready to put her back in her bed, the telephone rang. She startled awake and I wanted to scream. I never did get a nap.

Saturday night we went to a party for my Aunt Helen's birthday at Legal's Seafood in downtown Washington. The decor reminded me of the Legal's back home and the food was good but not the same. We had a lovely night out without the big girls. Jordan slept most of the time, but she was awake a little bit and Aunt Helen got to hold her. I hadn't seen my cousins since my Aunt Evelyn's 80'th birthday in 1996. We had a good time catching up, and we plan to get together now that we live so close.

January 02, 2003 04:08:22 PM

Our new year's celebration was fun. Daryll went to church and worked security for the 7pm service, but he surprised me and came home rather than also working the 10pm service. We rang in the new year with a fussy baby in our arms, but I was thankful that we were together.

We went to his parent's house for dinner and once again, his mother put pork in the black-eye peas and the greens. Darryl made catfish, which I could eat, so I sent Brianna home to get some broccoli. His mom just doesn't get that I will not eat meat. She said that if I pray before I eat it, then God will allow me to eat it without getting sick. How many ways can I say that I have chosen not to eat meat and I will not be eating any meat? Even when I was a meat eater I didn't eat pork. Oh well. I've just resigned myself to the fact that I will have to bring my own food to her house.

I love the start of a new year when everything seems fresh and new and its a time to start everything all over again. I feel so blessed to be alive right here and now. Five months from now I will be 36, and this is the middle of my life and I have had a great life so far. The future looks exciting, but I have this creeping apprehension about the prospect of war. I do not give in to fear because I trust that God's will will be done, and that He will protect me and guide me. What I don't like is that war means death and destruction and the painful separation of families and on and on. In this particular sitaution, I don't see how going to war is going to solve the problem--I mean if they can unequivocally prove that Iraq has nuclear weapons pointed at us--then we must defend ourselves. But to go in and invade because of a suspicion and put so many lives at stake seems foolish. Because Darryl is in the Navy Reserves, when they start talking about the situation in Iraq on the news, we just turn the channel. He was called up to serve after Sept. 11th, and at 36 now that he has a wife and children to think about, he is not so gung-ho about the prospect of shipping off again.

I am working on getting rid of these baby pounds and get back into shape. I am also putting an end to my bondage with sugar. When I was pregnant with Jordan, Darryl packed on the pounds right along with me. I kept reminding him that one day I was going to get rid of my belly all at once, and that his wouldn't disappear so quickly. We are both changing our diets so that he can lose his weight as well and get into better shape. I have to come up with a food plan and menus so that we can stick to it. On new year's eve I made homemade pizza and these wonderful chocolate peppermint cookies for dessert. Everything was so delicious, but I told him that this was the last of this kind of food that I would be cooking for awhile.

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