A Year of the Ox Cookie Blessing

The last of the Christmas stuff was put away this last weekend. Even the Christmas cookie book. Why don’t we bake Christmas cookies all year???

This blessing is in the back cover and I feel compelled to repeat it:

May your cookie jar always be half full —
Because you’ve shared some with your family.
May you have good friends
with whom to share the rest.
But in the middle of the night
when you cannot sleep,
May there always be two left
for when you chat with the Almighty.

(credit for quote to Barbour Publishing, Cathy Marie Hake and Deborah Boone)

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Life is Happening

My brother-in-law is in acute rehab. My brother is out of a job. My mother is being slowed down by sciatica. My largest bird feeder was destroyed by a cat leaping on it from the fence top. A cold front has blown in (full of cedar pollen). And this morning there was a Red Shouldered Hawk outside the back door. Life is happening.

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Making Abortion Illegal Does Not Make Abortion Go Away

It makes women seeking abortion, and those providing abortion, criminals. If the amount of money spent on making men able to reproduce (viagra) had been spent instead on preventing unwanted pregnancy, abortion would have been drastically reduced.

The sad facts are that even abortion rights advocates don’t really want women to be forced into a situation where abortion is the option they have to choose. It is a morally difficult, and an emotional tsumai proportioned decision. But — the bottom line is that women need to be in control of their reproductive rights to create empowered families capable of decisions that value our society as a whole.

In societies where families are valued as a whole and women’s reproductive freedom’s are acknowledged as part of familyvalues the health of the entire family is better.

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Jim has survived his second surgery

My brother-in-law has been moved from ICU to an orthopedic rehab room. Noah is visiting his grandmother and grandfather on his way to an Amman, Jordan adventure. The ICU age minimum for visitors is 12 and Noah declared that he “can’t get that old that fast” so we are grateful that the Brody Team is now all able to visit Jim and distract him from the grueling physical therapy seesions that are in his present and future. We are all extremely grateful that he survived surgery and is now working on recovery. He has had 12 pints of blood transfused to date. I wish I could donate on his behalf, but my blood is not acceptable.

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Christmas 2008

The Kahrl, Tao, Wilson band will not be going on the road anytime soon.

It is over and done, but we had a good time amidst worries over Jim’s surgery and health. Thanks to Wendy there are some photos to commemorate the gathering. The Christmas crackers this year had a musical theme. That was hysterically funny — we had too few mouths for a band, but made do with some doubling up. We did get practiced enough to leave two “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”s on my brother and niece’s phone messages. Of course they knew immediately who had done it. We were laughing to much amid the music making.

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Leon Panetta (!)

At the top of my favorite politician list! — and there aren’t many that are even ON the list. I had no idea he had spook background. But there is no doubt in my mind that he is a man of high intelligence, high integrity, and honesty. Something that has been missing in the cabinet for 8 years.

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