World recession

I can see every day how things are getting harder and harder for the average families to survive.  With the cost of just about everything going higher, the stock markets around the world going lower and lower, and jobs going away, it’s getting tough to simply survive financially.

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Gordon Brown, announced that the world is going into a recession.  It didn’t take someone like him to tell me that but maybe it did others.  “Having taken action on the banking system, we must now take action on the global financial recession,” he said, speaking to Members of Parliament. “There will be a recession in America, France, Italy, Germany, Japan and – because no country can insulate itself from it – Britain too,” he continued.

I just hope that whoever is elected to be our next President has a good plan to help us here in our country.  We are well known for helping others when they are in need, well WE are in need this time and once we get our country back on solid ground, the rest of the world will follow.  Well, that’s my opinion and you can take for what it is, just my opinion.

Angelina Jolie

Bless her heart, she can’t even feed one of her new born babies without causing a stink.  Have you heard about it?  She is on the cover of W’s November magazine and is apparently breastfeeding one of the twins.  It’s not a full frontal picture of her breast or even the baby on her breast.  She’s sitting with the opposite shoulder facing the camera and part of her breast on the opposite side is visible.  SO?

Have celebrities not worn less on the red carpet?  Look at some old pictures of Cher is you don’t think so.  What Angelina is doing in this picture is the most beautiful thing a woman can do for her baby.  She’s breastfeeding and not just hanging her boob out for everyone to see.  It’s crap like this stink that drove women away from breastfeeding.  Sure there are some that for one reason or another can’t breastfeed their baby.  Then they have to give them a bottle and that’s okay but breastfeeding is the way nature intended for us to feed our babies.

I will admit I think there is a time and a place and also a way to breastfeed.  No woman should just whip her breast out and feed her baby where ever she is.  If she’s in public, you can very discretely place a baby blanket over your shoulder and cover the fact that you are breastfeeding and most people won’t know at all.  Or if she’s entertaining at home with both men and women, she should excuse herself and invite the women to join her in the other room if they would like while she feeds the baby but that’s my opinion.

There has been countless into the benefits of breastfeeding.  Breastfed babies usually score higher in math, they have stronger immune systems and therefore, don’t get sick nearly as often and have less severity to when they do get sick.  So what’s the big deal here?  I think Angelina should be commended – not chastised!!

Just messing around on the computer

I’ve been playing on the computer and found some really cute things.  I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, I was just looking.  I don’t spend a lot of time on the computer so there’s a lot about it I need to learn.  One cool site I found  was www.find.com.  I already knew about www.ask.com which most everyone knows about but I like find.com better.  I like the way it shows or points you to what ever it is you are looking for better.  Ask.com always gives me so many options that I end up losing what I was looking for in the first place.  Anyway, I didn’t know if you knew about them and I thought you might like it better too so give it a try and see what you think.  Like they say, seek and ye shall find.

hellow - animated

Religion

Religion to me is a personal thing.  The way I believe is my own personal business and should not be pushed on anyone else is the way I see it.  Nothing bothers me more than for someone to try and ‘convert’ me into thinking their way about a higher power or lack there of.  I do believe in a ‘higher power’ but if I call him God, Jehovah or whatever, that’s my choice and mine alone.

I do wish that everyone had some type of relationship with a ‘higher power’ that gives them a sense of peace and love instead of hate and fear but even then, I can not tell anyone else they are wrong for their beliefs, now can I?  Oh sure I could try but why?  All that would or could accomplish is to make them turn farther away from what I would be trying to pull them towards, now couldn’t it?

How can anyone look at a beautiful sunset, or see a baby being born and not believe in a higher power?  How can anyone see the fury of nature and the wonder of it and not believe in a higher power?  I don’t have the answer to either of those questions but then even with that, people have the right not to believe in anything except for the here and now.

I believe in the here and now and also in the there after.  Who ever and how ever you choose to worship, may it bless you as much as I have been blessed.  This I do pray.

Best friend

I am one of the luckiest people I know.  You see, I have a best friend that has been my very best friend since we were in 4th grade together back in elementary school.  There aren’t many people that can say they have had a friend for 10 years, much less as long as we have been friends.  Unfortunately we don’t get to see each other very often but thank God for cell phones and instant messaging.  With those things, we get to talk or chat quite often.

Well my best friend has been going through a tough time lately and I just wanted to try and find a special way to let her know:

puppy thinking of you

and I think I just found the perfect way to tell her.  What do you think?  Love ya girlfriend!!

We have problems

Stock markets around the world, particularly here, have fallen dramatically yet again today. This is because of what’s going on in the financial world.  Do I have to remind you about the bailout of  AIG by the Federal Reserve?

The British index, FTSE 100, dropped in value by 2.36%.  That’s 118.40 points, to below the 5000 mark at 4907.20. The Dow, well it  was down 2.62% and currently has a value of 10769.00 points. The Nasdaq index has fallen by 3.16% to 2138.14, while the Dax was 1.75% lower than the start of the day.  But the Japanese index, the Nikkei was one of the few to rise in value over the day. It ended up 1.2%, although this follows a large fall in the value of the index when it hit an all time low yesterday.

All of this spells “We have problems” and unfortunately, it’s not just in our country as you can see.  People all over the world are suffering right now.  I wish I understood more about the stock market than I do but I can understand ‘down’ and that means your money is going down instead of up which is what most people are shooting for in the stock market so it’s not good, not good at all.  That I understand.

Hurricane Ike

I can’t explain to you what has gone through my mind these past few days.  The sheer emotional roller coaster and memories of Hurricane Katrina have come flooding back (bad choice of words) since Hurricane Ike decided to hit Texas on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

Oh how my heart goes out to all those people that have lost everything.  Oh how my blood boils when I think of all of our people left stranded for days on end with little or no relief from our own government but they are trying really hard to make sure the mistakes they made back then, aren’t made again.  I must commend them for seeing the error of their ways and honestly, I don’t think there really is a good way to prepare for the enormous amount of help people need after these types of storms.

How can anyone know where to be so that everyone can get to the fresh water, ice and food they are going to need.  They can’t exactly just drive in.  I guess they could ‘drop’ supplies in like they do for people stranded in mountainous territories but how do you know where you drop it is safe for the people to come to?  How do you know that most of the people will be able to make it to the supplies?

I’m so glad I’m not the one that has to figure that all out.  I’m just glad I left town and wish others would heed the warnings when a storm of this magnitude is headed their way.  You would think seeing what New Orleans went through would be enough to make them aware of the dangers of staying to protect your home.  You can’t protect it from winds and water like that but you can protect yourself and your family by leaving.  A life saved is worth far more than any worldly possession.  That’s just my opinion.

Half Full

People are always asking if you sees a glass as half full or half empty.  Okay, here’s the way I look at it.  If you’re putting something in it, then it’s half full.  If you’re taking something out of it, then it’s half empty.  If you don’t know which it is and you just found a glass with something in it, then it’s half full.  Besides, what difference does it make anyway.

I guess it all goes back to wondering if you are a pessimist or an optomist.  I, my friends, are an optomist.  I know life is what you make it and I prefer to make the best of it as long as I can so my glass is half full.  That’s just me, half full of it!  😉

See ya later old friend

I hate good-by’s so I prefer to say “See ya later” to everyone but especially to old friends.  Unfortunately I have to say just that to an old friend.

He was called Poet by those who knew him and I remember very well the first time I saw him.  Honestly, my first thought was “What the heck is this walking in my door?”  He was with a very dear friend of mine and I wasn’t sure I liked her choice in men.  Well it didn’t matter if I liked him or not because she loved him and that meant I had to accept him or lose my friend.  That was never going to happen so I accepted him, tattoos and all.

Acceptance didn’t come easy at first but once I finally got to know him, I hated him as much as I liked him.  He was just that kind of guy.  A scooter tramp all the way with a rat bike, top hat and cane.  That was Poet.  And what poems he could write!!!  They were the type that made you go “Did that come out of him?”  Well yes they did.

Unfortunately we lost him yesterday after many years of pain for him.  He’s riding the wind now with his hair blowing and his old rat bike screaming like an eagle flying high.  See ya later Poet.  Catch ya on the other side.  Don’t worry about your ol’ lady.  I’ll take care of her which you knew I would do, didn’t you?  Shiny up Poet!!! 

65 year old Triathlete dies

Did you hear about the 65 year old Triathlete that died from an injury sustained in a race?  She was a twin and her sister also is a Triathlete.  She had a wreck on her bicycle during a race and the result was she break her neck.

I think it’s wonderful that these ladies remained so active but what a loss to her twin.  It was not only a terrible loss to her twin, this is a great loss to our country and our generation.  God bless her family.