Today is Max’s 9th birthday. To celebrate, I took the boys to the Oatland Wildlife Center to see some alligators and other wildlife. Little did I realize that it was a two mile hike around the center to see everything. And we did the whole thing. I, of course, took pictures which are up on flickr if you want to go see the rest of them.\
And just because it’s maybe my all-time favorite of Brian, here’s a bonus pic!
Linky Dinky Doo: Click here.
1. The broken pipe isn’t actually going into the house in Va, so yay! They won’t have to tear up the house to fix the problem. This means the estimate was a lot higher than the actual bill will be. Phew. “Tonight we eat like the lower middle class to which we aspire.”\
2. Speaking of food, our grocery store finally got in some decent-looking strawberries. I don’t think I have seen any since we’ve moved here. They’re usually bruised and old looking, ewww. Even though these ones were more expensive than usual I bought them, because- yum- strawberries! Double, yay. Max then ate them ALL at breakfast the following day. I guess he was missing out on the strawberries too.\
3. The house we’re renting is for sale (as you long-time readers will know), making our situation here unstable. But! There have already been a couple of offers from people wanting to keep us as tenants, so triple yay. I am guessing at this point that the bank would rather take one of these bids than foreclose, but I don’t actually know the dollar amounts involved, so homelessness is still a possibility.\
4. Every once in a long while, Kevin will be sort of grumpy for a few days, only I won’t really notice it until he is suddenly in a good mood. Well, the same thing happened to me! After being a complete cranky-queen on wheels for the last month, I surprised myself by singing along to a commercial on the tv. (Me being in a bad mood isn’t all that unusual, just that I was surprised to find myself not in one.)\
5. In a PMS-fueled rage, I cleaned the house last night and it was awesome. I couldn’t sit still long enough to fold laundry, but I did scrub and mop and sweep and wipe, etc, etc. I guess PMS is good for something. Then I sacked out on the couch with the brownies I had made earlier in the day and watched some bad tv. What’s up with this lame season? (Oh wait, this is an all good gnews post, so never mind about that.)\
6. I have been a member of the LDS Church my entire adult life and almost half of my total life. It has been great, fulfilling, enlightening, fun, and has helped me grow spiritually, emotionally, and socially. I have had some of the most amazing experiences that are directly linked to the church and the gospel. I am forever grateful for the opportunity I had to meet Kevin, marry him in the LDS Temple, and become part of the Lawver family.\
While I disagree with the church’s support of Prop 8, I don’t have bad feelings for the church, the leaders, or its members. I have not written ill of the church, except to express my disagreement on this one issue, and don’t plan on it.\
So, there is this guy who started a website and wrote a really rational petition to the leaders of the church from members asking for the withdrawal of the church’s support of Prop 8. As for how he went about getting his message out there? I in no way sanction that or anything else about him. All I know is that I agree with the petition, believe that gays should have equal rights to marriage, adoption, government benefits, et al.
A challenge is afoot! Very Good Taste created a list called the Omnivore Hundred and challenged people to post it to their blogs and bold the things they’ve eaten. So, here’s mine, most of them with commentary and I linked to the Wikipedia entries for the ones I’d never heard of:
More from me-\
I get that the LDS church wants to silence dissents, but this guy isn’t speaking out about church doctrine. The petition states: We affirm the LDS Church’s right to define doctrine and policy for its own members. So, let the church proclaim all it wants about whatever. Let the church dictate the actions of its members, bestowing religious privileges only upon whom they see fit. But when it comes to denying civil rights to others? I just can’t support that all. Doctrine and Covenants 134:9 states, “We do not believe it just to mingle religious influence with civil government…” So, yea. There ya go.\
See the petition here: Signing for Something.
I am vehemently against Prop 8 on California’s ballot in November.\
Ok, Church, do to me what you will.\
ETA- Kevin’s post beat mine by 6 minutes! I knew I shouldn’t have wasted time with a potty break!
Here we go again. My Church has come out again and said two different things, and it’s driving me crazy. On the one hand, the church released a statement saying that the church is neutral in political elections but encourages members to participate in the process. On the other, they come out in favor of bigoted legislation that narrowly defines marriage in order to exclude other people from the legal rights we enjoy.
Why? What’s the point? Just like in 2006 when the constitutional amendment was in front of the US Senate, this is an election year ploy meant to drive evangelicals to the polls to hate on some gay people. That’s all. There’s nothing moral or ethical about it. It’s hateful election year tricks meant to build up people by tearing others down.
I can’t stand it. We didn’t go to church for almost two years after the last time a letter like that was read from the pulpit, and now people are being threatened with excommunication for being against Prop 8. Why does this have to come back up now just when we’re going back to Church and although I adamantly don’t agree with the Church’s position, we’re attending again.
So, if this gets me excommunicated for thinking for myself, fine. I’m all for gay marriage. It has not effect on my marriage. I don’t think homosexuality is a choice. I don’t think we, as Christians, should be persecuting anyone for things they can not change about themselves or judge them. I know enough gay and lesbian couples to know that they love each other in the truest sense of the word and denying that love, pretending it doesn’t exist because it doesn’t fit into our small definition of it is wrong and un-Christlike.
It was only a hundred years ago that Mormons were persecuted for our unpopular ideas about marriage. For us, even after all these years, to persecute others (and make no mistake, that’s exactly what’s going on) is hypocrisy plain and simple. It’s hate, bigotry and the worst part of ourselves, and I’ll have no part of it.\
bq. Thus did Alma teach his people, that every man should love his neighbor as himself, that there should be no contention among them. — Mosiah 23:15\
Marginalizing people is not love. It’s contention for political ends, a cheap trick to rile people up and get them to the polls – nothing more.
Update: I’ve been thinking about this pretty much all last night and this morning, and a single phrase keeps coming back to me from The Declaration of Independence (emphasis mine):
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Throughout our history, we’ve not done a very good job of living up to the ideals laid down in our founding document (the one that kicked off our struggle for independence). Whether it was slavery, segregation, women’s rights, internment or meddling in other countries’ affairs, we’ve obviously still got some work to do to fulfill those ideals. I can’t stomach the idea that we’d take a step backwards by denying our fellow citizens’ “pursuit of happiness” and liberty just because we don’t agree with it. The divorce rate is over 50% and has been for years. It seems we have some work to do on our own marriages (one might say we have a “beam in our eye”) before we go meddling with others’. I don’t know why people think this will “save” marriage. If we spent as much time worrying about our own marriages as we did about denying the rights of others to marry, we’d probably all be a lot happier.
And that’s what this is about for me – happiness. I can’t judge someone else and deny them their pursuit of happiness. Gay couples being allowed to marry doesn’t infringe on my rights or anyone else’s. It doesn’t somehow degrade my marriage – only I can do that. It doesn’t make me any less married or any less in love with my wife. It brings happiness to the world and to the people who are finally able to enter into that covenant with the person they love, and I’m all for it. Mazel tov.
Kevin and I are getting over the worst, longest-lasting stomach flu ever. At one point, Kevin looked like a zombie. We hung out on the couch and let the kids eat pop tarts and pretzels for breakfast. It’s the most together time we’ve had in years.\
I found \$15 on my dresser today. YAY, I am rich. Which is awesome because I need to pay a \$6,000 bill for a broken pipe at the Virginia house. So, yea, not so rich. We’re bleeding money and have nothing awesome or fun to show for it.\
Max was kicked out of the gifted program at school. Apparently the state requires kids be tested in Ga before they can be part of the program. Why the teachers or the administrators didn’t know this before he started is beyond me. The testing will happen next month but then it will take another three months to have the results analyzed. He can go back into the program, assuming he “passes,” after that.\
That has been our month, which isn’t even the worst of it. So, I am going to go back into my hole and only come out for laundry, dinner, and new episodes of How I Met Your Mother. Be good, internets.
We finally have a renter for our Virginia townhouse. YAY. The year-long lease is a sucky thing though, because if they move next year, we’ll be stuck trying to rent or sell it in the sucky fall market. But for now, YAY!
Life in Georgia is getting harder. What’s up with that? Ugh.