Solidarity
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In Memory of Lalitha
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"Don't be dismayed at good-byes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends."
~~Richard Bach
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Best in Tennessee!
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Entries Tagged as 'Junk Drawer'
Some Wedding Pictures
Here are a few photos I got from Toy Soldier of him and the new Mrs. Toy Soldier. It was a sweet ceremony, and we really wish we could have been there. We will get to spend a couple of weeks with them both in December, and then next year we will be going up for a visit too. Enjoy!
Mrs. Toy Soldier in white and her best friend. She grew up with this young lady who is also a soldier’s wife, and he just so happens to be a very dear friend of Toy Soldier (and also the best man). The two cutie pies in the picture are siblings and belong to the best friend (I am not using names out of respect to the couples.) Aren’t the two babies simply adorable? The Matron of Honor is beautiful, and the Bride is… well, gorgeous!
The wedding party.
The Bride’s parents with the new couple (they live fairly close by)
The Ring
This is by far one of my favorite pictures. She looks like she is up to something, and Toy Soldier already has that “What’s my wife up to now?” look down! What a good couple! I think she has what it takes to keep him in line! lol
The Cake! If I recall right, Mrs. Soldier said that Mr. Soldier did, indeed, smooch a little cake in her face. I need to be sure she knows that Mr. Hooah! is more likely to do something like that than I.
The kiss after the cake!
Funny Friday
My mother in law forwarded this to me in an email. It made me laugh and cry.
Michelangelo’s David on his way to the USA . . .
After a two year visit to the United States , Michelangelo’s David is returning to Italy . . .
Quotable
“If you like us, talk about us. And if you don’t, just keep your mouth shut.” - Robert Porterfield
Operation Linus Love
An Iraqi child holds on to the hand of U.S. Army Sgt. Michael Bearden, native of Cartersville, Ga., during a visit to the Al-Gowood Orphanage in Kadhimiya, Iraq on July 30, 2008. The U.S. Soldiers is part of 4th Platoon, Delta Company,1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment,101st Airborne Division.
Operation Linus Love will be officially underway starting in September. I will post all of the deadlines and informtion you will need to participate. This project will allow participatns to make a quilt, crotched blanket or any other variety of blanket from the hard to make to the very simple-sew-free types. I was not sure if I was going to accept store bought blankets, but I think if they are a high quality quilt type blanket that would be fine. I want blankets sent that are sturdy enough to withstand the amount of loving and sleeping with I am hoping it will get from an Iraqi Orphan.
I promise there will be patterns to follow within the next couple of weeks. This way you can plan ahead and get your materials if you are waiting on them. I can’t wait to get this project rolling.
The War on Scientists
From townhall.com, found on Right Nation.
The War on Scientists in America
by Debra J. Saunders(Excerpt)
Imagine if a group of rabid creationists started firebombing the homes of University of California professors to prevent them from teaching evolution. Area politicians would be holding competing press conferences to assure the public that they would take on the violent zealots, who have declared war, not only on good academics and their families, but on science itself.
No need to imagine. Across California, a different group of zealots has done just that. True believers have distributed personal information on scientists and their families. They’ve placed firebombs in medical researchers’ homes and cars. They’ve donned hoods on their heads and marched to the homes of professors, then banged on their doors. They’ve told children that their parents are evil murderers and chalked anonymous charges on sidewalks for the neighbors to see.
The difference is these zealots aren’t fighting for religious fundamentalism. Extremist animal rights groups have organized anonymously to intimidate and terrorize medical researchers until they abandon their studies out of fear for their children’s safety and their own peace of mind.
They perfected the art of intimidation in the United Kingdom. First, extremists vandalized research labs. Then, they targeted companies that did business with researchers. In 2004, activists finally went too far when they dug up the remains of the mother-in-law of a guinea-pig breeder.
Now animal rights extremists are targeting University of California researchers. First, they placed bombs that did not go off. When that didn’t shut down labs, they ratcheted up the violence. Wanted posters warned UC Santa Cruz researchers: “Animal abusers everywhere beware; we know where you live; we know where you work; we will never back down until you end your abuse.”
Early Saturday morning, a firebomb destroyed a car belonging to a UCSC scientist. Shortly afterward, a firebomb erupted in the nearby townhouse of assistant biology professor David Feldheim. As smoke and flames filled the first floor, Feldheim, his wife, their 7-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter were forced to use a drop ladder to escape from a second-floor bedroom.
Jerry Vlasak, who, as a spokesman for the Animal Liberation Press Office, serves as an apologist for animal rights zealots, issued this statement: “This is historically what happens whenever revolutionaries begin to take the oppression and suffering of their fellow beings seriously, whether human or nonhuman. It’s regrettable that certain scientists are willing to put their families at risk by choosing to do wasteful animal experiments in this day and age.”
To think that these lunatics call themselves “progressive.” When I worked as an Administrator raising funds for pediatric brain tumor patients, their families and researchers trying to cure the disease I saw this lunatic action up close and personal. We funded research using, you all will love this, fruit flies.
Fruit flies have such a short life that researchers are able to follow the progression of the disease from onset to death fully and it helps them to understand some of the neurological components of brain tumors. We got death threats, personal information on some of our personnel and researchers was published publicly on the internet, we were labeled barbaric killers, and we were told by one whacko who called the brain tumors a natural selection process and we shouldn’t interfere with nature. I am sure the same whacko would be begging for help or mercy if it were him or someone he loved whose body was ravaged by this horrible disease.
These people are a huge threat to our freedom. They are violent, guerrilla warfare waging, anti-American, and scary. I am interested to see if they are dealt with like the terrorists they are.
There are mums, and there are Mums
There will be a new button on my sidebar later today, and I wanted you to know what it’s all about. Between now and October I will collecting donations and training to run in the Komen Race for the Cure. If you have not noticed yet, there is a new tab below my banner indicating a new page has been created. That page is dedicated in memory of a lady who was deeply loved and whose life was taken by breast cancer. Lalitha was a loving mother. My regular readers know Lalitha’s daughter; our friend Piper.
I am posting the contents of that page below.
In Memory of Lalitha
click to donate
In October of this year, I will be participating in the 3rd Annual Susan G. Komen Tri-Cities Race for the Cure® in East Tennessee.
The Race itself is 5K (3.1 miles) - but it is much more than a race for runners or fitness walkers. It is an opportunity for people of all ages and abilities to show support of those who are winning the battle with breast cancer, honor loved ones who have lost the battle, and to help raise funds to fight the disease.
“Lalitha fought Breast Cancer with the heart of a lion and every inch of her 4 11 ¾ inch frame. If she were alive, she’d be running here today…”
This year I will be running in memory of my fellow “blogger sister’s” Mum, Lalitha. Many of you know Piper through her beautiful picture blog “what in the world…?” Some of you may also know that Piper’s mother left this earth after a fierce battle with breast cancer. I can’t tell Lalitha’s story, and I have never met Piper outside of the Internet. What inspired me to run for Lalitha was reading Piper’s memories of her Mum, and the tender love that is communicated when she writes about her. I want to run and raise funds to advance breast cancer research. I am praying for a day when young women and men no longer have to watch a beloved mother, daughter, sister, or brother die from this disease.
Here is a memory that Piper has shared about Lalitha:
My Mum grew ‘mums among the roses, pansies, poppies, sweetpeas, foxgloves and phlox in our little garden at Kanpur. There was always a riot of color and fragrance just outside our french doors. Mum learned Ikebana somewhere along the way and many of our garden flowers would then show up competing for honors at the local flower show. They’d also show up in still life: Mum painted some of her Ikebana creations; the canvases hung in various locations around our house. I loved to watch the intense concentration on her face as she created works of art - her skill at once both comforting and intimidating.
Mother’s Day is always a mixed bag of emotions for me. I love that it’s a celebration of all that’s nurturing about mothers; the commercial aspects, however, sail right over my head. Frenetic advertisements all over the place want me to spend money to show a special lady I love her. A Waterford vase! Flowers from 1-800-___, A card….gotta have a card…
I fought back tears at a store on Mother’s Day 1997 when the store clerk asked me if I was looking for a gift for my mother. I don’t have a mother anymore, whispered a fierce voice inside me as hot tears welled up in my eyes. I walked past the alarmed clerk and out the door. It was a little over a year after Mum passed on, so I could perhaps be forgiven my emotion. These days, I tend to treat the ads around Mother’s Day with a fair bit of cynicism and a chance to pick up some great gifts. :-) That’s dreadful, but there you go…
Every day is a sort of Mother’s Day for me, instead. More often than not, I have a candle burning in front of her picture - a simple, fragrant way of remembering a warm, nurturing, presence.
Celebrate Mums - the real kind! :-)
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The funds raised will support Susan G. Komen’s promise: to save lives and end breast cancer forever by empowering people, ensuring quality care for all and energizing science to find the cures.
It’s easy to donate, just follow this link to my personal web page and click donate to place it on your credit card. Donating online helps the local affiliate keep their expenses lower because processing is automatic, but if you would rather send in a check you can make it out to:
Susan G. Komen Tri-Cities Affiliate
P.O. Box 5835
Kingsport, TN 37663
Be sure to put a note in the memo section that it is to sponsor me, Supporter ID: 3010, in the Race so I can receive credit! Thank you so much for considering a donation!
Well wishes coming your way, Brat!
I know that most of you are familiar with our beloved Aunty Brat of the famous Tanker Brothers, Assoluta Tranquillita, and News Blaze. She does post in a few other spots as well. She’s a woman on the blog, a woman on the roll, and a woman who has had an accident that has left her out of commission for a little while.
Brat will be fine, but I wanted to post a “get well” post to her. So, below are some virtual flowers for her, there are very real prayers being said, and this “get well” is very heartfelt! Get well Brat! The blogosphere is not the same without you! I will give you a call in the next couple of days to check on you.
Please leave a note to Brat wishing her a speedy recovery. If you feel so inclined to post a get well message and flowers on your blog, please leave a note with your link in it so we can keep track.
He Ventured Forth to Bring Light…
Hat tip and gracious curtsy to my dear friend Piper at What in the World…? for sending me a link to the following satire. I read this and was laughing until I almost cried. It really satisfied my need for sarcasm, irony and snark. Now all I need is a strong cup of coffee!
July 25, 2008He ventured forth to bring light to the world
The anointed one’s pilgrimage to the Holy Land is a miracle in action - and a blessing to all his faithful followers
(Excerpt)
And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.
The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow.
For Al and Bulldog
I saw this on a message board and just had to share it here… and Al and Bulldog came to mind right away so I thought I would dedicate this post to them.
We, in Ireland, can’t figure out why people are even bothering to hold an election in the United States this year.
On one side, you have a pants wearing woman lawyer, married to a lawyer who can’t keep his pants on, who just lost a long and heated primary that they still haven’t paid for yet, against a lawyer who states he is “black” when it is documented that he is only 12% “black”, who goes to the wrong church, who has stated that he wants his countrymen to learn to speak Spanish rather than English, who refuses to put his hand over his heart and say the pledge of allegiance or wear the flag of the country he wants to run, who can’t remember if there are 50 or 57 states in his own country, who is married to yet another lawyer who doesn’t even like the country her husband wants to run.
Now…On the other side, you have a nice old war hero whose name starts with the appropriate ‘Mc’ terminology married to a good looking younger woman who owns a beer distributorship.
What in Lord’s name are ye lads thinking over there in the colonies??