Giving to the Goodwill should warm your heart ...

Giving Clothes To The Goodwill
 
 
 It should make you feel all warm inside knowing that the clothes you previously wore are now gracing another grateful body!
 
 Remember that cleaning out your closets at least once a year and giving former treasures to Goodwill (or the charity of your choice) is a great way to give back to your community and help those who are less fortunate .
 
 So look through your closets and see if you don't have something that doesn't fit, or might be a little out of fashion .
 
 Those things will probably fit someone else and could be the height of fashion for them.
 
 With that in mind, take a look at this heart warming photo to inspire you, and remind you that your efforts won't go unnoticed .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now that just aint right!

 

and I am smiling ...

love me later~tj

Writer's Block Challenge #30 - Through Jaundiced Eyes

Writer's Block Challenge #30

 

 

Through Jaundiced Eyes

The protestors stood in the dark. The only illumination was from what was left of the burning rubble of literacy they refused to allow the children to read. I watched the smoke curl up from the ashes of accomplishment. It started this afternoon at 4:30. It began to unfold as they stormed the front of school house. Arms full of books and cans full of fuel. I was dumbfounded, frozen in place as I watched.

I simply cannot understand such an alien, utterly bizarre mindset. Just about everything on earth rouses the holy ire and outrage of fundamentalists book burners. Everything they don't understand, everything outside their narrow little circle, which means just about anything you can think of, is evil and Satanic in their jaundiced eyes.

These protesters, who are not parents of children in this school are denouncing this community as a den of iniquity, why they don't even live in this school district, or even in this state. In fact, I found out later, the two rabble rousers who instigated this war of the words are a Texas couple who run a well-organized and bottomless-pocketed book-banning organization that has a devoted following among fundamentalists.

Our school district has policies in place if ever a book is challenged. They’ve never had to memorize the policy. A book has never been challenged. A parent must fill out a complaint form. No one else has a right to complain - and the book must stay on the curriculum or the library shelves until it has been reviewed by a committee.

Time after time, I have since read, bigger school districts are yielding in the most cowardly and craven manner to fundamentalist bullying, withdrawing the books immediately, and sometimes summarily dismissing the teachers who used the offending books in their classes. When parents complain, the school will offer them the option of letting their children read an alternate book, but the fundamentalists rarely accept any compromise. They don't just want their children reading "Satanic" books, they don't want anyone to read them!

In fact, in Warsaw County, Indiana, the school board simply handed the disputed books over to the protesters, who then publicly burned them, which brings me to where I am today watching, in perplexed fascination. One minute, doing the business this town brought me here to do, the next minute frozen to this place in time.

I am pondering over the question in my head whether parents really have an absolute right to instill their children with such frighteningly hateful, bigoted and backward attitudes?

As adults we have a right to believe as we choose, however outlandish and flat-out wrong our beliefs may be. But when adults seek to trap their (and everyone else's) children in a bizarre world of darkness, hatred, blind fear and anti-intellectualism, it seems to me to be a very perverted use of parental rights, let alone Constitutional Rights.

To quote Annie Kinsella from the movie Field of Dreams, "They're talking about banning books again! Really subversive books, like "The Wizard of Oz" and "The Diary of Anne Frank".... This is the kind of censorship they had under Stalin!.... Who wants to spit on the Constitution? Who thinks the Bill of Rights is a pretty darn good thing?... All right America - I love ya!"

tjs© February 4, 2008

Click here to see the list of

The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000

I think you might be as surprised as I was!

iTit

News Wire....  

Apple announced today that it has developed a breast implant that can store and play music. The iTit will cost $499 or $599 depending on cup size. This has been hailed as a major breakthrough because women are always complaining about men staring at their breasts and not listening to them.

Like Father Like Son

Cloey & YaYa

My grandchildren came to visit this weekend. I had bought my grandson a new hat on an end of the season sale for next year. After I took this photo of my grandson, it looked eeriely familair to me.

In October I took one of his daddy after work, the day he got a new hat.

 

and I am smiling...

love me later~tj

“Okay girl... what’s going on with you?”

A friend asked me, "Okay girl... what’s going on with you?" I thought I’d answer her. I haven’t blogged about me or my life in quite some time. It’s buggin’ me, life is buggin’ me. I can’t quite put my finger on happy, but it’s not sad. I guess it is what it is.

The houseguest who won’t leave....

My daughter had a baby on October 11, 2007. When she was three days old my ex-husband came to visit her. Having nowhere to stay he knocked at my door. Knowing also that I’m a sucker for my grandbabies, (He pulled out that trump card) and a nice lady, I let him stay for a few days. He was on his way toward Arizona and a job he told me. He was gonna see the newest grandchild and be on his way. Well, it’s today January 23, 2008, and he is still here. I know he doesn’t want to move away from his family, the kids and the grandkids all live here, but without a job, without prospects, he is sapping my resources. I just want him to go away and leave me alone. Would someone please pull the plug on the neon "SUCKER" light on my forehead? It’s giving me a headache.

The ex-boyfriend who loves me....

I had a torrid affair with a man I loved. It was a whirlwind with him. It was only when he moved in that I realized that he was an addict. We (I) spent the next many, many months convincing myself he would stop, ya know, because he loved me so much. Nope, and to leave out all the sordid details, I was whipped, I was beat down and taken out with the trash, I was done. He left to go to Montana to dry out and get a life. He lost everything. He lived in a homeless shelter, then a rehab, back to the men’s shelter and now at a "Christian Outreach Center". He writes me, he calls me, he e-mails me, he sens me things in the mail, he’s tattooed me on him. His message is the same ... "I will NEVER stop loving you, I will NEVER give up on us." I just want him to go away and leave me alone. I got a headache, the neon light is still on ain’t it?

The new beau who loves me...

I wanted a date. I was looking for companionship. A non-complex dating situation. I somehow got a very complex relationship. A long distance relationship. I have a damn headache. Here is a fella who is kind, considerate, all the nice things you can say, and he loves me, really loves me. The issues I have are many. I hold a very fond place for him, love him even, but.... and that’s where that is. He’s yelled at me because the ex-husband is living at my house. I don’t take to kindly to being yelled at for being kind. I’m at a loss that he loves me with everything he is and I love him like ... I love like ... well like I do. He gets really upset when I tell him I won’t be his ‘girlfriend’. "What are we then?", he asks me. Hunnies, friends, I don’t care. I finally just said, "We are what we are, isn’t that enough?" Heinous aint I? I enjoy the time we spend together. Then he’ll call me, profess his love - a love like he’s never felt before... I do not see happily ever after with him. That’s what I can’t seem to say to him, but he has hinted, I’ll use his words, "I want to spend the rest of my life with you." I got a headache, the neon light is brighter than ever ain’t it?

Why is it that ‘it is what it is’ never enough, it is for me.

I feel like I’ve been holding my breath, just praying to exhale.

A totally delightful waste of time.

I found this site and I think It's the most interesting waste of time I have found in awhile. I wanted to share it with y'all. Have fun. My favorites are The Scribbler and String Spin.

http://www.zefrank.com/

A response to Ze's site:

“We live in an age of "stuff". Stuff on our computers, stuff on our cell phones, stuff on our ipods, stuff in our homes. I'm of the generation ahead of you, Ze, so my stuff is mostly a plague in my home. Just plainly: TOO MUCH STUFF.

I'm not sure an operating system is what will cure it. I think it is deeper in our psyche, in our very souls. How to discern, how to let go, how to approach it, consider it, and leave it where it is rather than even 'putting it into one's cart' if it is not highly relevant and able to do good in our lives.

Ultimately, the discernment process is good work whichever 'cart' we are considering. Now I gotta go git rid of something!”

love me later~tj

Your Bank Account

YOUR BANK ACCOUNT

A 92-year-old, petite, well-poised and proud man, who is fully dressed each
morning by eight o'clock, with his hair fashionably combed and shaved
perfectly, even though he is legally blind, moved to a nursing home today.
His wife of 70 years recently passed away, making the move necessary. After
many hours of waiting patiently in the lobby of the nursing home, he smiled
sweetly when told his room was ready.

As he maneuvered his walker to the elevator,  he was provided a visual description
of his tiny room, including the eyelet sheets that had been hung on his
window.

'I love it,' he stated with the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old having just
been presented with a new puppy.

'Mr. Jones, you haven't seen the room; just wait.'

'That doesn't' have anything to do with it,' he replied..

'Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time. Whether I like my room
or not doesn't depend on how the furniture is arranged .. it's how I arrange
my mind. I already decided to love it. 'It's a decision I make every morning
when I wake up. I have a choice; I can spend the day in bed recounting the
difficulty I have with the parts of my body that no longer work, or get out
of bed and be thankful for the ones that do.

Each day is a gift, and as long as my eyes open, I'll focus on the new day
and all the happy memories I've stored away. Just for this time in my life.

Old age is like a bank account. You withdraw from what you've put in.

So, my advice to you would be to deposit a lot of happiness in the bank
account of memories!

Thank you for your part in filling my Memory bank. I am still depositing.

Remember the five simple rules to be happy:
1. Free your heart from hatred.
2. Free your mind from worries.
3. Live simply.
4. Give more.
5. Expect less.

Have you opened your bank account for life?
 

Have a nice day, unless you already have other plans.