My Daily Check

Work is going well. I've got a nice team, nice job, nice future. I enjoy the combination of art and tech.

Photography is going well, too. I'm learning, anyway. Hold the camera steady! Don't bother taking pics at dusk -- it's too dark! Hold the camera steady! Go for the unusual angle! Be careful with focus and light metering! And hold the camera steady!

I'm having trouble getting my daily check done, mainly because I have so many things to do on there that I'll be hopping to get them all done. I don't look forward to more work when I get home from work. Whereas reading and photography are fun hobbies, the others seem like work. Plus I've got tons of other stuff to do, too.

Okay, how about if we make it one hour of "work" only? Not counting the exercise part.

- I want to meditate
- I want to read one article
- I want to draw
- I want to journal and do inquiry
- I want to do tarot

At 15 minutes each, that comes to 1 1/4 hours per day, plus various reading and exercise. There, that's not so bad, is it? That's not much journaling time, but I'll write fast.

I'm having nice chats with Kendall these days. She asks me to crack her back, or massage it, so we get some touch time. Meanwhile, Michaela is a Grumpy Gus. She's 15, and apparently can barely stand to talk to me or be in the same room with me.

I know Rhiannon got into drugs and sex. I hope she's not doing that while in AmeriCorps, and I hope she doesn't fall back into them when she returns.

Okay, gotta go. My 15 minutes of journaling time is up.

Lucky Don

Good day at work. Lots of talk about the problems we face, plus a goal-setting session with Malinda and Will and Burton.

Don stayed out till 7:00, working at his friends' auto repair shop and probably getting high after work. He's lucky I'm here to care for the kids.

Let me repeat that:

He's lucky I come home and stay home. He's lucky I work. He's lucky I buy the groceries. He's lucky I take care of the kids. Otherwise there wouldn't be a roof over our heads, food in the fridge, or a parent at home.

I sound bitter, don't I? Today I am bitter. It must be very nice to be a teenager the way he is -- no responsibilities, Mom taking care of everything.

It's hell to be bitter. I don't want to go there again. I've spent too much time in hell already.

No god, no life beyond this one. This sun only, these stars, these flowers, this grass, these birds singing. Then darkness falls and all is lost.

Kerry blames Bush for (fill in blank)

Campaign promises and campaign criticism are in the same vein, aren't they? Both untrue, both extreme, both said in an attempt to get elected. I'm personally sick of Kerry's constant criticism of Bush.

First, there's nothing easier that criticising the job someone else is doing. If he does end up with the job himself, he'll find it's not quite as easy as he makes it sound. But you know what? Kerry should know that already. He's been a senator for twenty years. He should know how hard it is to get the job done. Or has he not been paying attention?

Second, Kerry's criticism is generally untrue. He leaves out half the story or places the blame where it doesn't belong. Take his charge that the military doesn't have the equipment it needs to get the job done. Turns out our soldiers don't have adequate protective gear so their parents are buying it for them. Kerry says that's all Bush's fault. He doesn't remind us that he himself has consistently voted to cut our military. He doesn't remind us that he turned down Bush's request for more military spending in Iraq. He hasn't taken any responsibility for the situation. He's a blamer and god, do I hate blamers.

Here's another example: the vaccine shortage. Kerry lays the blame for that on Bush, of course. He doesn't mention that ten years ago, there were 25 vaccine makers in the U.S. But then the Clinton administration passed a wonderful new law requiring vaccine makers to sell their vaccines at half price to make them more available to the disenfranchised poor. Sounds good, doesn't it? Sounds all beneficial and helpful, eh? Unfortunately twenty vaccine makers couldn't survive the resulting monetary shake-out. They went bankrupt. Now the remaining five vaccine makers struggle to meet demand. Who's fault is it? According to Kerry, it's Bush's fault.

How will I make my mark on the world?

Here I am, life half over, and suddenly I'm thinking of the bigger picture. In the twenty years leading up to this moment, I was happy to do my best to be a good and godly wife and mother. But that's gone now, taken from me by my husband, of all people. He doesn't care if I'm a godly wife and mother. He wants me to work (which I do because he doesn't) and be his mother only.

So the destruction of my dream has also destroyed my faith.What is there for me now, now that hearth and home are taken? I want to replace them with something bigger.

Writers leave their mark, as do counselors. I've already written a book - a children's religious book, which ten years later is still in print and a popular little book in its niche so I'm told. I can't tell you the title because this blog is written under a pseudonym.

I plan to draw a set of tarot cards to help people on their journey. I'd better get cracking on that, as I'm still a beginner at drawing.

My photography and iceskating are fun, but those are personal hobbies, not things that will really effect others.

There will not be a Draft

Kerry and his supporters are lying to you about the draft. There are no plans to re-instate the draft.

A spokeswoman for the Defense Department told CNSNews.com there is no intention to have a draft, nor does the Pentagon want one.

"Secretary Rumsfeld has said all along we do not need a draft. That's our stance and it will continue to be," said Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke, a Pentagon spokeswoman. "We don't need one. We're recruiting the number of people we need and the quality of people we need to perform all of our missions."

Bush also has dismissed the rumor, telling a questioner during the Oct. 8 presidential debate, "We're not going to have a draft, period. The all-volunteer Army works."

The Star

I took the dog for a walk today along Coal Creek. It was dark out. The path was difficult to see. As I walked I realized how what I was doing was a metaphor for my life -- walking in darkness along a trail whose end I cannot see, able to discern only the bend immediately ahead.

The leaves whispered in the trees above. Dead leaves and gravel crunched beneath my feet. What secret did the leaves tell one another? Perhaps they spoke of their approaching death, or of the oncoming winter. The pine trees had told them about winter, for of course they themselves have never seen it. The pine trees know immortality. They've seen many many winters. The leaves of the deciduous trees will never see even one. They will die before that time comes. What do the leaves think of it? What tales do they pass amongst themselves? Perhaps only jokes and gossip. Maybe leaves don't worry themselves with something they cannot change. Maybe they don't worry about death. Maybe they enjoy their day in the sun then let it go, knowing that life goes in seasons.

Whereas I walk in the sunlight that is not light and long for the darkness in which stars shine. That's what this surrounding darkness does for me -- I can see the light of the Star because of it.

The star. The beacon. The guide. It stands for hope of renewal and renewal of hope, the waters of life poured forth. In the darkness can be seen the light.

I don't walk in total darkness. The Star shines forth, guiding me.

Giving to Beggars

Today I gave a couple bucks to a guy begging at a stop light. He was a healthy-looking, cheerful guy, late twenties or early thirties, the perfect candidate for the question, "Why don't you get a job?" I didn't ask him though. I've decided I'm not going to worry about that kind of thing.

Maybe he was scamming me. Maybe he's going to spend the money on alcohol or drugs. Maybe he's in a tough spot that he'll get out of by next month or next year. Maybe his wife died and he just doesn't care any more. Maybe he's turned his back on the whole rat race and has embraced the Rainbow Family lifestyle.

I don't know the guy's situation. It's not the first time I've given to beggars and it won't be the last. The guy was begging on a street corner, for chrissake, and I gave him a couple bucks.

Dream

It's Friday night and I'm kicking around the house by myself. I decide to go out and find some company. I go up to campus and enter a building where clubs and groups hold their meetings, thinking I can probably find something fun going on in here. The building is a maze inside - narrow halls going this way and that. Here's a group that seems to be of elementary age children. I keep looking. Here's a room full of people doing something with sleeping bags. They all have red shirts on and are each in a gray sleeping bag. They are all lined up neatly, as if in formation. Now they change their formation and wiggle into a freer, looser pattern. Now they huddle up into a mound. They wriggle apart. Two of them have something unusual going on. Their sleeping bags are open. Their legs are spread. They are having a baby. I watch one more closely. The head emerges. It's a fully grown head. It has hair. It can speak. The woman looks very strange with a head sticking out of her. The rest emerges. Its small but fully grown. A bit later the "child" is brought over to me. I speak to it. Her, actually. She answers me, still feeling a bit shy from being so new and freshly born.

What did it all mean? I'm birthing adults, possibly referring to my children. They are teens now, not kids any longer. Notice how I reject the elementary age kids. It's not babies I had, really, it is adults. It's only for a little that they are babies, just long enough to trick us. For the rest of their life, they are adults. Am I explaining myself?

Second Presidential Debate

The second debate just ended. It was great. We can say without doubt that Kerry is the better debater. He expresses himself well and he's got an impressive array of facts immediately available. I read somewhere that his debate coach at Yale said Kerry was the second best debater he's ever taught; the first was William F. Buckley.

Bush did better this time around. He was more animated, nor did he repeat himself as much as he did the first time, though he's simply not as good a speaker as Kerry. For all his shortcomings as a speaker, however, I am convinced that he would be, and is, the better leader.

He said a few things that were telling. For example,in answer to the question about stem-cell research, he was clear that we are somehow trying to find the balance between ethics and science. Kerry didn't make that distinction, though it is a really important one.

Kerry's endless criticism of Bush became wearing. There's nothing easier to do than criticize. Kerry was full of promises about how he'd do better, but rather vague how he'd actually do it. He has to be vague, of course. He's been a senator for twenty years, surely he's observed the difficulties of the presidential job. He knows it is incredibly complex. He knows that the promises will be very difficult to fulfill. It's easy to make them, though.

Bush seems to be the kind of man who has strong convictions, and who, after consultation with advisors, will make a decision or take a stand that may be unpopular; who won't back off from what he feels is right to do. I appreciate that about him.

What if all of life were fun?

I've got a million things to do tomorrow, almost all of them in the fun category.

Non-fun: grocery shop, unclutter Rhiannon's room, do chores, shop with Michaela.

Fun: blog, go shooting for photography project, develop web page for photography project, ice skate, birthday party for Sara.

Q: What if all of life were fun?
A: It can be, if you choose to enjoy everything. Life is a game. Play for fun.