Maybe We Can All Win?

I’m not sure I know how to express what I feel. I truly, truly don’t mean this to be political, even though it involves politics.  I am not political. (or technical- this is my second time writing because my blogger app ate the first one-sigh!) I am so not political that when I took one of those silly online quizzes that tells you what political party your views line up with they came up with a big “?” for me. Just like the boy Joseph who didn’t know what church to join, I have always felt strongly about NOT JOINING any of them. Other than a 1 month stint to vote in the primaries, I have been unaffiliated. I just hate how rigidly people sit on their sides. I don’t see anything in black and white, not even shades of gray.  Most everything seems to me to be an intricate kaleidoscope of many colors. Truthfully I sit in the middle and lean a bit right. I readily admit the minute Trump announced his candidacy, I started speaking out against it because there were just too many alarming things about him to sit around and not warn people of what I saw. I am no great admirer of Hillary Clinton either and it was disheartening to see the Republican Party implode instead of offering up a viable alternative.  So, the whole election was very discouraging for me.  I do believe in upholding the election, so there you have it and in that sense I accept it and want it to work.  Even as awful and scary as Trump is, I believe he wants to be a good president and could be part of our country accomplishing some good things, in fact, if I were to let my overly optimistic nature take over, I could see the possibility of many things changing for the better. Wouldn’t place any bets on it, but I can hold that possibility out there. Mostly it feel like it’s gonna be a mess, but maybe, just maybe we can take a mess and clean house and build something better in the aftermath.

January 20 still seemed like a funeral, like something fundamental and valuable was just ripped away. Sounds silly when we enjoy great freedoms still, still get to vote, still have the peaceful transfer of power, still have a pretty great system. Also, things have never been simple or not messy and politicians in general have left a lot to be desired, and it's been on the decline for a while, but how do I explain this? It’s like something really got left by the wayside this time around.  If we compared the US to a body, we could say it has been a pretty healthy, strong body. It’s now getting kind of old, but it’s held up pretty well, in spite of all the junk food and overeating and lack of exercise and late nights and partying and all.  So, sometimes it feels easily winded, or creaky jointed, and gassy and all but ya know, it’s not that young anymore.  Then one day, it gets in a fight, gets cut open, and there, inside is this big ugly pussy mass that shouldn’t be there. We’re sitting in the operating room now, but instead of just extricating the mass and cleaning up, everyone is just arguing about what it is, if it is malignant, whose fault it is, what to do, should we even care? Why don’t we just get used to it, we were feeling alright, anyways, maybe that mass should be there…

So what do I mourn? That so much decency got left outside the door. Truth, respect, and human decency, transparency, and good old ethics seem gone from the scene. Unity, unity was already pretty much gone. These things are what make a society, what make it possible to preserve the freedoms our country has enjoyed for so long. That is what is so sad.  Trump didn’t do this all by himself, he just saw the opportunity to seize upon the tide and use his ability to bring out the worst in everyone and play it to his advantage. I can’t believe I am writing this but I even miss the old news reporting.  I mean, there were already so many problems in that industry to begin with, but even a year ago, things seemed so much better than today. I am embarrassed to admit that when I see a headline of a natural disaster pop up on my screen, I am actually relieved to see a real news story again, because most every national outlet is pretty much spewing forth gossip column material 24/7, and they can’t seem to see how to extricate themselves from this whirlwind that fuels Trump’s flames.  

The other thing I feel is disenfranchised. I don’t feel like I had any say in who we even got to choose from.  I watched our votes for the lesser of two evils get walked all over in the primaries, and the electoral college decide what they were doing before I even voted early..  You know, I appreciate Trump taking the time and effort to prepare a speech that was composed of complete, coherent sentences. Truly, I am proud of him for raising the bar. I just feel like those words “January 20th, 2017 will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again,” were exactly the opposite of what I felt was happening. His speech kinda had the undertone of Scar’s inaugural address instead.  

I’m not going to fight to get rid of the guy, I’m not going to oppose his every sniff. I’m not secretly hoping he will screw up so bad he will be impeached, nor immolated in his tanning bed.  I’m praying he can open his mind and listen to some of the better voices surrounding him.  I hope he does well in his responsibilities. I hope he can work with others to come up with some real, sustainable, good changes instead of gimmicks. I hope the same thing for everybody who was elected.

The sad thing is, that even if the best happens, some of the worst already did.  SO, even though I certainly don’t agree with any of the violence or lashing out, or crazy foaming of the mouth rants on the internet, and I think peaceful protests and scrutiny came much, much too late in the process, I just have to say, that when I see the response to any protesting or any scrutiny of any kind being- “Stop being whiners and sore losers” I just want to say, in many cases, I think it is so much more than that.  I don’t think people are protesting their team losing or not getting their way, I think they are protesting the THING that is going on, the death of the country we used to be-the security we felt in our freedoms. I understand why some people felt they had to vote for Trump in spite of all he said and did. My big concern, however, is really all that was just overlooked. I mean, just a few election cycles ago, Howard Dean’s candidacy in the Democratic primaries died for yelling like an enthusiastic cheerleader at a rally. He apparently didn’t posses the decorum and dignity of a president. Yet here we are, with a man who regularly invents his own truth and feels above all ethics, who insulted basically every category of people on the earth except people whose name is Donald Trump or are his direct descendants, who has lashed out against everyone else’s free speech and threatened some unorthodox, unconstitutional and authoritarian types of things, and we just overlooked it all and elected him.  He got away with so much. Why? Everyone believes his delusion that he is above it all? Does any other politician getting away with anything give him a free pass? Do we really worship and fear money that much? Now that he's here to stay, Can he get away with any of those threats? Hopefully not, but even if not, even if it was all hot air, what kind of precedent has been set?  We are being completely desensitized to really dangerous rhetoric.  Someday, if we continue down this road, we will be living with a dictator. Let me tell you, Pinochet was a great dictator, he got the best economists to straighten out the economy in Chile and mobilized women’s centers-centros de madres- where they met to help each other as communities. He laid down the rule of law and created a more prosperous nation.  He just did that at the cost of too many lives- of rounding up people in the national stadium for the sport of torturing and killing them.  He did i at the cost of free speech, of families divided by the professional and political sides they fell on. He did it by getting rid of or silencing those he found undesirable, that is, disagreed with him.  Eventually, after many years, he stepped down, but he took a LOT with him, and he left a country that had to relearn to govern itself and heal so much trauma, so many wounds. Would that ever be worth it? I’m grateful for what he did to help his country, but I can never condone how he did it. I would never want more prosperity at that cost.   

Even if something like that never happens here, I have witnessed another sad thing.  Trump's hate speech has emboldened the hateful. And the ironic thing is, I don't think he is overtly even KKK material, he just doesn't care for anyone really. We are just pawns. If you don't meet a need for him, he's happy to throw you under the bus. If you do serve his needs, you are his buddy. so whatever gets him more attention and more votes...in any case, I have seen even in my nice respectful neck of the woods some ugliness and overt discrimination I hadn't seen before.  Sadly, those feelings must have been there before, just unexpressed. As a people, we are seeing so much polarization and judgement of anything anyone says or does related to all the junk that has come up around this whole election. On the one hand, I guess it is good we can see how bad things were on the inside, worse than we thought, but now that it’s exposed, it needs to be healed.

SO, here is my plea. I’m doing my level best to generate good feelings towards our new president; compassionate, helpful thoughts. I’m not going to pretend he is someone he isn’t, I’m just going to try to understand him. It takes a lot of work, so much so, that in 4 years I will have prayed so much, and become such an expert at loving kindness meditation, done so much qi gong and yoga, that I will either be sainted, become enlightened or at least have the clearest chakras in the valley. I’m going to watch and learn and try to speak out respectfully when I see concerning things and try to suggest helpful things. I hope we can all try in whatever way we can to reconcile. I just ask that we can all not forget that we do have time to be nice, to encourage respect, to remember that this kind of talk and attitudes we have been exposed to is not normal, and never should become normal. I know, previous presidents haven't been normal either- I know there has already been an erosion of ethics and of upholding the constitution, but that doesn't make brashly flaunting words to further go down that path a good idea. disrespectful, hateful speech and actions are never normal or alright. I have never heard another president talk like this one does (hope he at least curbs it a bit now), so let's not ever get used to this. Let's pledge as a people to BE the opposite- to be more respectful and more kind.  Can we all do one more thing in that regard as a society? Can we stop lashing out at each other? The wound is open right now, and the tumor exposed, what if we just started listening to each other, and here’s the great thing, we don’t even have to agree with each other- we just need to really listen; for understanding, so we get each other. And then ever so gently, maybe we can open our minds to new possibilities. Maybe there is no right or wrong on some of the things people waste so much energy fighting over.  Maybe it is right for one member of a group to quit rather than perform at the inauguration and maybe it is right for the others to go.  Maybe we need both things to happen, you know? Maybe #notmypresident doesn't mean the writer is a sore loser or subversive in most cases. Maybe it means they think he does have time to be nice, that our leaders should be nice. Maybe it's O.K. to either use that hashtag or not use it, depending on what feels right to you. Maybe some of us need to march in protest and others need to stay home and just spread kindness. Maybe it is good for one person to investigate or speak out on the ethics of the president’s plan to separate from his business and maybe someone else needs to defend his position. Maybe both sides have their heart in the right place, even if they are to some extent misguided. Maybe all the issues are more faceted than the simple North and South poles of a magnet. Maybe instead of despising the bigoted, we could listen and respectfully dialog and help them let go of their fears.  Maybe most all of us just love this place we call home, and we should recognize that this is the thing at the root of our angst, anger and fears.  If we recognize we have that love in common, and that fear of losing it is what is fueling our prejudices, divisions, judgement and failings, we can stop ignoring that tumor and work together to gently remove it and heal instead of fueling it's growth.  Maybe we could become indivisible, with liberty and justice for all, for real. Wouldn’t that be great? 

Christmas Was Silly

 I wish I had a little camera built into my glasses and I could just click pictures at any given moment, and the picture would look just like what I'm seeing or focused on. (Maybe Google glasses will get there someday). As it is, I have these great pictures in my mind that I can't just post here, but they will always be in my head, and my heart.  One of my favorite things that happened was the day before Christmas eve, I got a message from an old mission companion (she's not old, my mission was just a long time ago ( yes younger people, I know that sounds like dissonance, but don't go there- one day you will be my age and you will see how young old people are.)) and anyways, she was in Spanish Fork! She is from Santiago and we tried to meet up when I went back to Chile, but never could arrange it. So I went and got her and had a nice visit till way too late! It is amazing that you can live with someone for like 2 months and even have some difficult times, and still be like sisters some thirty years later. It was so cool, I just love my buddy Cholito, aka Marisol Catalán. She is a really strong, amazing, wonderful, hard working, loving and diligent woman, a super mom and grandma. I will never forget our adventure with waxing- which didn't end well for me, or when we realized it was my hump day and I had been on my mission 9 months so she dressed me like I was 9 months pregnant for a picture to send home to mom. Good times! Then there was the time she needed an antibiotic and gave herself a shot because I was too chicken to learn to give shots on her. (She already knew how to give shots, I still don't) I decided she was wonder woman that day. Anyways, you'd think I would have the prescence of mind to take a picture together when we met up, but no....I did not.
Christmas Eve we just had a nice dinner and time with our kids and I didn't take pictures of the yummy food because we were busy eating it and that is the main sensory experience there if you ask me. I did tape a bit of present opening but it is the dorkiest thing ever so I don't know why I always record it, it is always really bad filming.

Christmas day we got up early to a snow covered wonderland that was nice to look at if not to step in, and I planned to take pictures but never got around to it. Instead, we went to church which was just a combined sacrament meeting with another ward, nice music and talks, a really sweet Christ centered way to spend the morning. Then in the afternoon we went to my parents and watched all the kids open their present from their grandma which were all quilts she made each of them- totally amazing! That was awesome and I wished I could take a picture but I didn't have my phone with me, and the moment would be gone by the time I got something so I just enjoyed it. The kids loved them!
So what is silly about all that you ask? Well, let me tell you. I was listening to the radio recently and a linguist was talking about words and how they evolve, and gave the example of a word that started out meaning blessed, and then over time, that came to mean innocent, and over more time it took on a connotation of weak, which over time led to it being used to mean mentally weak which led to meaning  absurd or foolish, or commonly it is used today to mean doing something funny but ridiculous... the spelling and pronunciation have shifted just a bit too, but the word is SILLY! And I kind of like the idea of silly meaning blessed. I know, I am so silly!

A Little Fashion Truth

A while ago, I was in the store and saw a thin, softy, cheapo, shawl like blanket thing and thought it would be perfect to drape over my frozen body in the many air conditioned places I have to spend too much time in, so I bought it.  Later, I noticed the tag said it is a blanket scarf.  Hmmmm...amidst the dizzying number of thoughts and activities going on over the course of the next few days, that label bubbled to the surface of my consciousness and I thought- wait a sec..this must be some new fashion thing! So I looked up how to wear a blanket scarf, and It IS a thing.  See here. Except, no matter how much origami you want to subject it to, it is definitely still a blanket in my mind. A shawl-like blanket maybe, but a blanket.  The only way I can conceive of this object being a scarf is if I were Madame Maxime.  Literally, I can hold the corners and spread it out nearly the length of my arm span, and if the bottom touches the floor, it comes up to my chin. The tips I got from the link show a supposed 20 ways to wear your scarf, but somehow, they seem to be 5 ways repeated with different pictures and wording. Tip number 2 says if you want to make it look less huge, fold it in a triangle and wrap the top ends around your neck and back front, which makes it look for all I can see like a tablecloth posing as a bib. Tip 3 says Own your huge scarf and wear it looped around your neck. Add glam accessories like a fur vest, heels and big sunglasses to look more dressed up. Yes, I would recommend that, because if you chose pajama pants, a t-shirt, and flats, everyone would assume you woke up late and rushed out the door as is, blanket still tangled around your neck in your haste to get to work on time.... OR you can "Wear your blanket scarf as a cape, then drape it over one shoulder to look (like you are wearing a) super chic (picnic blanket)". Tip 8, my favorite-Tie your scarf over one shoulder to give off an easygoing vibe...of a Scottish Hindu American with no fashion sense when it comes to saris.

Tip 13-If you have too much fabric left over after looping it around your neck like you would a normal sized scarf, just tie the ends like so- or, you could take a tip from my book and cut the sucker down to size to scale with your body. Let me just say that if you want to wear the blanket as a scarf,  be my guest, but personally I will think you are trying to keep your childhood blankie close at hand, should you need it's comfort at any given moment. Now, put that on pint- sized me, and I will look like I am about to be swallowed by a blanket. You can drape the blanket over your shoulders and belt it, thus trying to pass it off as a vest, as tips 5,6,7,11,and 20 all depict, but in my mind, you wrapped a blanket over your shoulders and belted it to keep it from slipping off.   OR whoop de doo! you can skip the belt and just let it hang loose in front, and if you wear a cool hat, no one will suspect you are wearing a blanket! If I'm going to be completely transparent , I must reveal my hypocrisy in this disdain for wearing blankets as scarves. For years I have been wearing blankets under the pseudonym of poncho, but somehow it was easier to believe as a coat substitute than as a fashion statement. I mean, I just assumed we all understood that ponchos were blankets with a slit or a hole added to accommodate our heads. Don't get me wrong, I am ALL. FOR. making it socially acceptable and chic to run around with a blanket as an accessory, I just think we should be honest about what we are doing and not call it a scarf.

This Is Not the Blog design I Wanted

This remake is getting off to a sad start because I have bad techno karma.  Plus, for some reason, every program, every app, every operating system must be "updated" so often that everything is always changing and what you want to do, what was once a simple thing to do- be it yesterday or ten years ago, is now no longer possible or is much much more difficult to do. Why, oh why oh why isn't it getting better, easier, simpler? So, my header makes me sad because The lettering doesn't have the contrast I want if I do it in blogger, or if I insert my own, the way I want it, I still have to have a typed in thing all over it too.  My background picture also cannot be inserted because I can no longer change it's size. Anywhere. And this is a whiny stupid post I will only publish to say- this isn't what I wanted yet.

Little But Loud

This blog has just sat here for years. My kids got older. Sadly, my floor doesn't look all that different sometimes in some rooms.  My life is different. Raising teenage boys is different, so if I start writing again, I feel like this blog will be different. I feel like writing a lot, but I don't know if it will happen, because life is crazy busy. If I do ever start writing though, I would like to change my background and subject matter and everything, but keep it here, where I have all my other memories. All this is just to explain why I am posting a screen shot of my header and background here, where I can remember it, and separate the old from the new. I kinda hope I find the time to create the new soon. I don't know about you, but the suspense is killing me. Will I write next week, next year, or next decade? I love surprises! How nice that I can surprise myself.  Or, maybe just look back and enjoy the record I have of the little kid years. It was fun, the past; how quickly it all disappeared....

Big Y

Years ago when the Things were little we were riding in the car and Thing 2 kept saying, w, w, w, big W.... I finally asked him why and he said " Y, Big Y! "  we found out about the big Y this month. Up on the mountain above us is a big letter Y, for BYU.  People hike up there all the time, whole families go. Some people hike it every day for exercise.  People, but not me. I've never been there.

    We now go to the day before Independence day. Huck had been bugging Papi to find out if they were going to have a Young Men's activity or not.  Someone called Papi about 6:15 to tell him they were going to hike the Y.  He didn't plan on telling the boys because he doesn't like sending them on riskier activities without their own personal escort.   But right before 6:30, Huck walked in the room as Papi was about to go to the church and he had compassion on him and asked him if he wanted to go.  He said he did, and left with him.  Well, Papi wasn't going to be with the YM this time, and about an hour later I got a call from our Bishop.  He couldn't reach Papi, and his connection with me wasn't that great. All I heard was something fell. Then he came through more clearly. Huck fell. On the mountain. They wanted to have the paramedics check him as he hit his head and scraped his back.  In my mind's eye, this was maybe oh he slipped, hit his head slid a few yards on his back, not fun, probably ought to be checked.  Lovely, would I ever manage to get this kid grown before getting himself killed?- I wondered aloud.  I talked to Huck, tried to calm him down so he wouldn't worry.  He was sobbing that he was sorry, that he was scared.  I assured him he'd be all right and not to worry, everyone would take good care of him.  

  Then Papi walked in and I told him what happened . He said he wished he had  followed his instincts and left him home.  Then he said he was going up there and for me to wait at home.  The next time I talked to him, they were on their way to the hospital and he told me Huck had cuts and bruises all over his body. It must  have been quite a tumble! I had to keep waiting as the hospital might want to ask about meds and all. I told the other boys their brother had fallen off the mountain.  Tom asked, "Did he survive?" I assured him he did but would be pretty sore.  They called to get his info while they were stitching him up just so I could hear him cry.  Papi told us to bring up two mattresses to make him a bed in the living room as he wasn't going to be able to go up and down stairs.  Tom was very helpful.  

When they finally got home, with two scout leaders helping to carry him in, I got their eyewitness version of what happened. I am here to tell you if I were an eyewitness, I would have had a heart attack so you wouldn't be able to hear my version. He didn't realize hopping from one rock to another on that steep angle would speed him up so he couldn't stop and would finally lost control and go flying.   He fell roughly 200 feet, all the way from the fork in the Y just about. He bounced on and over huge rocks like a rubber ball flying through the air, and stuck it at the bottom, about a meter from another big drop below there.  His leaders thought he'd be dead or paralyzed when they reached him.  But, although his head and knee had big gashes and he was bleeding, scraped and bruised all over, he was mostly just scared his dad would be mad at him.  So much so, people kind of looked askance at Papi when he got there.  Like maybe he was going to yell or something? What did they think? He'd hit him? After the fact I discovered he was afraid Papi would be mad because the ambulance would cost lots of money. Hopefully he sees the difference now between parents yelling at him to please not waste things that cost money and having money to care for you when you need it.  Ahem! So, Papi was a model parent and took good care of him, imagine that! 

Anyhow, the leaders also gave him a blessing, before I even got the call, and they told me when the paramedics first saw this face, they were worried about his missing ear.  Too bad no one was in the mood to joke around. ..." What?! My ear's gone?! Find it, quick!"   I'm so terrible....Huck now thinks it's so cool they took him down the mountain on an ATV to the ambulance.  He got 13 stitches in his knee and about 8 in his head, I could never see that too good through his black hair.  He literally couldn't walk he was so sore, or lie down flat or roll over.  I couldn't even hug him because everywhere hurt! He had huge scrapes and raw skin on his back and hip and his forehead which was all swollen.  he was a mess.  I figured it would take a few weeks for him to be able to move like normal again. We ended up propping him on pillows on the couch instead and Tom used the mattress to be by him and take care of him all night if he needed it.  Not that I could sleep after his traumatized leaders told me the tale of his near death experience.  Plus, I had to check on him every few hours. Huck told me the whole way down he thought he was going to die.  All night when he dozed off he dreamed he was falling and couldn't stop.  I wondered if it would affect his diving once he was able again: would he be afraid he was falling when he dove now? 

Ok, I didn't take pictures that day or the fourth which was spent taking care of him.  That Saturday I decided to take pictures before there was nothing left to take pictures of.  Every day he was remarkably improved over the previous day.  These pictures really look oodles better than he did the first day.  

No raw skin now, just scrapes.  How did he not break a rib? Or his hip?

 No swelling left, no raw skin, and half the scabs are already gone!

The bad knee is still bandaged here.

Even at the worst, it was hard to see the stitches and bloody head scars, but they look way better here.  At this point, he was walking around with a chair as a crutch.  His team sent him a card, just what I had been thinking....

This whole thing has been so incredible- he still has a slight scar from a scraped up eye from last summer, but there is hardly a bruise or scab on him anywhere at this point, just less than 2 weeks later. Everyone is just amazed.  The only thing that still hurts some is his hip.  He got his stitches out Saturday, 10 days in, and that afternoon we went to the rec center.  He was able to do everything he normally would.  Then he goes to dive.  I in my insanity assumed he will do a simple forward dive. Oh no, he takes off and does a triple somersault. He almost completely made that last rotation... But he smacked his lower back on the water, which didn't feel too hot.  So we decided he can dive, but he's not ready to smack just yet, which happens in diving, so he's giving it another week.  I had hoped he'd learn a bit of healthy fear or at least carefulness from all this, but I wasn't so sure he really had.  Then Sunday, he calls me all excited to watch a video. ....He wants to go skydiving this summer! Right... Over my dead body, not his!  Just one question... Did any of these people survive?  You notice they never show them actually landing.....I am amazed and confused at this personality type.  And scared spitless to be the mom of one of them. (Give me strength!) So, I've decided to look on the bright side.  We are enjoying a miraculous recovery from a miraculous near miss.  I'm so glad today I'm not grieving a tragedy.  

My Beauty Campaign Rocks!

My friend Dinorah who got me to do Dressing Your Truth, said I should be a poster child for them. Then Shazam! The next thing I knew, I found out I was going to be one! Her wish was the Universe's command. All I did was answer a survey, and suddenly, I got an invitation to be a part of this campaign. They have partnered up with My Beauty Campaign, which is a mission that a group of photographers have set up to help every woman be able to say she is beautiful, and mean it.

 The founder, Mandi Nuttal was my photographer. She is really sweet and professional.  I told her I always felt like a stick figure in photographs so she agreed to help me learn to pose.  It turns out that it's simple. If you stand there trying to look natural, you don't.  If you stand like a contortionist, in the most unnatural stance possible, with your shoulder bend one way, your leg thata way, your hip at yet another angle, and your head just so, which doesn't align with any of your other body parts,  you will look natural!  I know: it's paradoxical, but it's true. Plus, you feel so silly it makes you smile quite naturally! Whoda thunk! Mandi is also really good at putting you at ease. That could help too, as well as all that camera magic stuff she does.  

  So, I finally went and visited the DYT people for this photo shoot and they aren't little people on my computer screen, they are real life people who are bigger than me! (Sure that one shocks you all). And nicely enough, they are kind, gracious, helpful and overall fun to hang out with in real life too. Emily helped style my hair which my lovely daughter Erika cut so well, and also did my makeup really sweet. Sara helped pick outfits for me and found awesome jewelry for me to wear. I don't think I ever got to play dress up with friends as a kid, (mostly because I was playing with boys,) but now I got my chance to do that. Fun! Their store is fun to shop in too guys, even the cashier is a real buddy.  I controlled myself and didn't waste all my money. So now I want to go back and waste all my money.   Ha! 

So the other half of this is once I got selected, I had to go through a series of exercises to help me see my inner and outer beauty. It was kind of a journey of where I've come from to where I'm at now, and where I'm going. It is such a sweet program, I would love to give this experience to so many amazing and beautiful women I know, especially the ones that don't realize how beautiful they are- not to mention all the girls out there just starting their journey as women. It is a bit silly that at the age when I'm supposed to start falling apart, all these things are happening to stick me back together again and look better than I ever have. I keep thinking that at this rate I'm going to be the most awesome looking cadaver ever to grace a coffin ;)-Ha, ha! The Dressing Your Truth course has helped me appreciate everyone's beauty so much more, even though I already did think everyone was beautiful in their own way already. It would be so fun to send everyone to have themselves fixed up and photo shot like a model...So, when I become a millionaire, I will be sending you all to go through this course.  (:. (If you're really interested, you might not want to wait around for that- Just sayin'!) 

so, ya wanna see my pictures?! I will try to post them now. Wish me luck, this is the techy part which is the part of my life that has simultaneously fallen into an abyss along the same timeline of this beautiful energy type saga. I'll spare you those details (today anyway).

 There's more but this was so painful to try to postl, I may regress to snail mail and telephone calls...