Requiring Reformation

Gotcha! 😉 Bet you thought this was going to be a politics or possibly religion article. Instead thought I’d offer a humorous piece (though still interwoven with my thoughts in general as you will find…).

Things to be reformed or possibly eradicated:

1. The way you are supposed to open refrigerated canned biscuits and cinnamon rolls. 🥐Do you know what I’m taking about? Maybe you are all home bakers and do not lower yourselves to this quick breakfast fix to feeding hungry kiddos. My mom was a master baker and always bringing over freshly baked breads, cookies, rolls, cakes, whatever you can imagine. But she left us for heaven in 2017 and 💔😢though I bake👩‍🍳, having learned from her, managing my five kid household and businesses👩‍💼👩‍💻 does not leave much time on a day to day basis. So, getting back to those canned thingies that are probably making Mom roll (sorry, Mom!), in this age of technology and innovation, why are we still struggling to pop it open by shoving a spoon in which works about 2% of the time, leaving plus otherwise to start hacking it with a knife like I did this morning which (fair warning!) created a bit of a mess.,❌

2. The School Book Fair. 📚📚📚✏️Hello. 🤔🤷‍♀️Amazon? Can someone explain the reason to invest all the time, energy & effort to set up a huge display to provide a synthetic shopping experience for children where no matter how poor you are parents are swindled into sending in hard earned dollars to be spent on smelly erasers? Thank you PTO.❌

3. School Pictures. 📸🤳Hello. Digital camera? iPhone? Snapchat? Instagram? A million selfies on your child’s phone? 🙅‍♀️Just no. I am not going to pay some third rate government contracted photographer to take pictures of my non-smiling, messy haired child with a brown background. I am definitely not going to spend money to hang it on my wall. (Okay, the first year I got swindled and they still hang but no more!) It hearkens back to my childhood when they used to use the same comb to flatten all our hair while we stood obediently in line (eww!). I’m sorry, but when, despite all the changes in the way we do life (cell phones, computers, grocery delivery…) why are we still having the government take pictures of our children and guilting parents into buying them? Seriously? Please think of some other way to demand money from school age children required to send their children to you every day for 7 hours.❌

Fall Green Smoothie 🥤🥗

My usual green smoothie recipe is baby spinach, some baby kale, cucumber, celery & ginger root, all organic, with filtered water. But it’s the time of year to add a bit of fall color to my usual green drink (still comes out green, no worries!) with the addition of fresh cranberries and orange. Yum!

Kindness

When did kindness come to be considered as the overarching value for society to achieve? We see it everywhere now, on bumper stickers and t-shirts, billboards, inspirational plaques and posters.

Has anyone considered what elevating this value, taken to its logical extreme, would look like?

I am not advocating any value replace it because I do not believe there is one most important value. They are all, responsibility, respect, hard work, right thinking, reason, loyalty, honesty, diligence, self motivation and control, important and work together.

If everyone is just kind what will be accomplished?

And what does it mean, this command to Be Kind? In whose estimation? When we stick up for the bullied we are certainly not going to be regarded by the bully as kind. When in business a company gives its all to push out a superior product it’s competitor(s) will certainly not regard this as kind.

So I think we should carefully consider exalting any one value over others lest we become lopsided in our regard and actions.

Community and Grace

I love this resource as well as Attorney Rebecca Zung’s YouTube videos on the same subject.

Here Renee talks about a narcissist’s constant state of unhappiness and the victim’s attempts to arrange their life to please him or her. I myself agreed to sell my dream house and move to another state where I could not work in my chosen profession (as a lawyer, regulated and licensed state by state in the US) where I would later pay over $3500 and spend 6 months studying to obtain a new business license, just to try to make mine happy. And guess what? He still wasn’t! Surprised? If you’re loving it you shouldn’t be. Bet it sounds familiar. I later left him and now I am happier in that new state! Give it a listen. Educate yourself. If it resonates, think about changes you might want to work towards. If not, great – you don’t have this issue! Pass it on to someone who might.

End of an Era

My former spouse gave me this Thomas Kincade when we got engaged. I was living in my little dorm at law school and it showed up. It is called Hyde Park and depicts a historic San Francisco, including Alcatraz in the background. We had visited San Francisco together on a big impromptu road trip shortly after he finished his one year graduate program and I had finished my first year of law school. It has accompanied me since to MI, NY, Denver and Naples. But we have been divorced three years now and it was time to make room for something new. Not sure what yet. That part of my wall is currently blank. But I sold it for what I could to a nice couple who I hope will enjoy it for years and took my kids on a vacation with the proceeds.

The Problem With Democracy

I have been thinking a lot lately about the inefficiencies that can result from change of administration when we elect a new president in the U.S. Let me say that I love our form of government and think the Founding Fathers were the smartest guys around. The genius of what they created in our founding documents is unsurpassed in human history. But I find it troubling how much can change every 4-8 years around here. I’ve been struggling with this because I appreciate our democratic republic so very much. Recent events have highlighted the difference one man can make in one of the branches of our tripartite government. Could the founding fathers have been ok with this? It just seems so very inefficient. One minute we are building a border wall. The next we are allowing a steady flow of outsiders in. One minute we are holding back the enemy with a small force. The next we are abandoning our own people behind enemy lines. All without any input from the American people other than a vote to eject one person.

No matter how I consider this apparent flaw I come back to the way our founders considered Everything when they hammered out our Constitution that sweaty summer.

I keep coming back to the fact that it all has to do with the grossly unconstitutional massive expansion of our federal government over the past century. Part of that is the creation of a fourth branch of government never devised by the Constitution, the administrative branch (extending from the executive branch like Medusa’s snakey hair). This has allowed overreach into the lives of private citizens into areas of private property (one of the three basic tenets of our Declaration!), health, and livelihood (read pursuit of happiness, again from the Declaration). Without the massive growth of the federal branch the states would be governing themselves. The small involvement the federal side was intended to have would be balanced with state rights. It would be impossible for the federal government to roll out its military indiscriminately without a sufficient amount of states’ support. Consider that. It is unlikely we would have such a military presence in the world. Our Founders tended toward isolation, cautioning against foreign engagement.

Abiding by the wisdom of our Founders, striving to return to that true form of democratic republic is the only hope to halt the slide into a country where the government has ultimate control over the citizenry. It is also the remedy to the schizophrenic inefficiency of the roller coaster that ensues when a different man takes the reins every 4-8 years.

Public Service Announcement: Did You Know You Cannot Sue Amazon?

In January I burned my hands severely (second and third degree) using oven mitts manufactured in China and distributed by Amazon. They failed catastrophically in normal use. As a result I learned how impossible it is to sue the Chinese manufactures who send so many cheaply made (and hardly ever quality checked) products to the U.S., or Amazon from where we obtain so many such goods in present day society. Very eye opening that we have No Legal Recourse.

Third degree burn

Grace

I am telling you this because I once wondered if I really was, because I lived with someone who made me feel I was, and told me I was. My friends and a professional all confirmed I was not but instead was suffering the effects of living with a person who was acting, if not crazy himself, certainly unconventionally and unreasonably.

Communication with a person with narcissistic tendencies can make you feel crazy. You will bring up a promise they made only to hear them say they do not recall it or deny having said it. All the time. Even if you go as gray as you can while for parenting they will still try to pull you in, telling you they cannot take the children to a counseling appointment during their parenting time so that you cancel it, then asking the following day what time the appointment is.

I say this so you know that you are not alone. I don’t know you but would hazard to guess that if you are reading this, it is not you but them. stay strong and don’t let them make you actually crazy.

*This post is in no way meant to belittle anyone suffering from mental illness. The term “crazy” here is used in the broad and generic sense. We all need to take care of our mental health just as we do our physical.

I listened to a podcast on Spotify by Renée Swanson about living on breadcrumbs and it really resonated with me. I lived on so little emotionally during my twenty year marriage. Just ask was positively elated growing up in Michigan if the weather was nice for a whole weekend, during my marriage I was happy if we had a peaceful time when things didn’t blow up chaotically. I always thought it was me and worked so hard to fix myself snd the relationship but now I understand there was nothing I could have done. I learned this when I sacrificed my home, friends, house, and career to uproot my family and move to a state where my husband did not have a job just so he might be happy. News flash: he wasn’t. People like him will never be happy.

Also check out Rebecca Zung on YouTube. Education will bring light to your situation. Praying for you tonight.🙏🏻💕

Thought and Comment on Afghanistan

This is not about whether or not America should have had troops in Afghanistan now if ever. It is not about whether it is right for the US to consistently include democracy building in its engagement goals. The fact is if your “friend” did to you what Biden has done to our allies you would not consider them stupid or incompetent. You would see them as they asshole they are.

In the wake of the absolute debacle of a withdrawal from (or if you are cynical, deliberate abandonment of) Afghanistan a lot of people have claimed that the Afghan military was weak and didn’t even care to fight. In actuality, some 50,000 Afghans have died over some no American combat casualties in over a year In contrast, 66,000 Afghan military have lost their lives. This proves they Have been fighting for themselves.

Lack of strategy has resulted in a void that has backtracked our foreign policy to the pre 9/11 environment that allowed the Taliban and terrorist organization Al-Qaeda to rise to power, terrorizing people in the region and elsewhere and oppressing women to abominable extent.

US presence in Afghanistan contributed to leaps and bounds advancement of women there. It opened the doors for private philanthropy to address human rights needs. All of that has been reversed. We have surrendered our equipment and know-how; abandoned almost 100,000 people who assisted the US over the past 20 years; and given up the ground of supporting females of all ages.

I have a friend who was a very big whig diplomat, now retired. He lived and worked in Afghanistan, China and many other foreign locations during his illustrious career. He and I do not typically see eye to eye politically but this situation has aligned us in thought and opinion. I asked if he thinks this equates with Saigon as many have pronounced (which he would have lived through while I did not…though I was an adult by the time 9/11 occurred). He said with passion this is worse. He was absolutely aghast and confirmed that this has been completely bungled under typical foreign policy procedures.

“The women and children raised their happy voices with all the rest.” The Bible, Nehemiah 12:43. God cares about women and children and suffering. The US made a way for equality and education and life in a dark war torn place. It is a dark day and international setback that now the people return to weeping and fear in oppression.