Reed Prior

Reed Prior was serving a life sentence for possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute. Reed Prior received a commuted sentence from President George W. Bush on December 23, 2008, this month he was released. Sounds ominous doesn't it. For Reed Prior's life I hope not.

I was very moved reading "An Open Letter to Young People".{Please read the full story @ Cityview} I never used hard drugs. Oh sure, I tried Black Beauties in high school. They only made me very ill and my scalp feel like it was trying to crawl off my head. I tried weed, that just made me giggly, paranoid and crave a case of Hostess Ding Dongs. No, my drug of choice was alcohol, but what it did to me sounds much like how it affected Reed Prior. I still exhibit some of the tendencies to remove myself from the world and those around me. I pushed my family away, lost what few friends I had and left perfectly wonderful men who loved me before they had a chance to break my heart by leaving me.

"Living the life of a drug addict is an act of ultimate selfishness and of cowardice. Caring only for yourself and your drugs, you push away family, friends and the love of women, women whom you do really love. From a larger perspective, you alienate yourself from the society of which you are a part, to which you should naturally belong. You deny and evade your obligation and responsibility to others, to your community and to the world.

But, finally, you are alienated from yourself. You betray who and what you are as a person. You throw away the chance you have been given to do good, to help others, to be positive, to make things better in a way unique to you and your talents. Instead you cause sadness and pain. Instead of using your energy and your gifts, you hide them away. Instead of adding to the light, you help the darkness. You have not really mattered, although you could have."

Luckily, seven years ago, the law stepped in. Busted for my second DUI. Sentence, one week in jail or one week in-patient treatment and something like three months of out-patient treatment. I didn't chose jail. I am very glad I didn't, if I had I wouldn't have ever gotten sober and met Mark, a person that understands me more than I understand myself at times, but I am finding myself again one day at a time. I have a lot of years to catch up on since they say that mentally you stay the same age as when you started becoming an addict. I just hope I don't lose the feeling of being young. I feel like at my age there is a fine line between having maturity and being old. I may not have kids around to echo the sentiments I told my parents, but I do have twenty somethings telling me I wouldn't understand since I am not their age anymore. Guess what? Music changes, fashion changes, technology changes, but the feelings and problems, they never change. Just don't try to drive them away in alcohol or drugs. The feelings and problems are there for a reason. They are a part of what shapes you into being you in how you deal with or overcome them.

Another in my family struggled with addiction. In a weird, thankful sort of way I am glad that if it had to be, they did it young, found the help and the strength to over come it and moved on to enjoy the life stretched out in front of them. I have so much I want to say to them, but nothing comes. The words just dry up on my tongue or from my fingers. Unlike my tears. Gah, I am out of tissue from my crying jag last month.

Please read "An Open Letter to Young People" Pass it on to your children, your nieces and nephews. They will either chuck it on the trash or learn a little something from it. At least parts of it will stay with them to echo in their minds if they stray off the path and maybe it will save their lives.

Baby Slippers

Now here is something I would expect to see over on Craftastrophe.



That's just not right.
Poor little baby dolls. But they look so darn happy.

HEMA Stores

"HEMA is a Dutch department store which first opened in 1926 in Amsterdam. It now has 150 stores all over the Netherlands.

Take a look at HEMA’s product page. You can’t order anything, and it’s in Dutch, but just wait a couple moments and watch what happens. Don’t’ click on any of the products pictured, just wait and see what happens….and be sure to have your sound turned up.

This company has a sense of humor and a great computer programmer."

HEMA

via Curbly

Just frikken awesome! It rawks.

Testing! 1....2....3

Since I just pulled pics off of the camera, let's test this to see if it works. Some have been re sized already so what will be will be. Most of these are from the Iowa State Fair 2008. The others are from Kum & Go's TeamWork Acres. Now don't you be laughing at Kum & Go, it is a perfectly legitimate business. It's a large chain of convenience stores for those not familiar.

From a garden display

Same thing, but the whole thing. I couldn't decide which I liked better

More of the garden display

Tractor grill from a display of rebuilts
done by high school students through out Iowa
4-H I think

Tile border around one of the doors from the llama barn

Wrought iron American Gothic
The original painting will be at the Des Moines Art Center for two months
I am going either Sunday or Monday, it's free
Maybe not Monday, they're closed

Gosh it was beautiful out that day.

Little Bit Different

I couldn't take it anymore. As much as I loved the previous layout there was this widget/gadget thing I could not remove and it made it difficult to put pictures on here without having to do some major resizing and finagling. Sooo, from here on out the pictures should be...larger? I hope. We'll see. *shrug...blah...sigh*

A Great Day

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Thank you MSNBC for allowing people to embed this video.

Shh, don't tell Mark, the next four to eight years will be hard enough for him as it is.

I had to watch this via the internet today because he stubbornly refused to let me watch it on TV. He watched Warbirds on DVD. Pffft. Let it go honey, let it go there is nothing more you can do.

Mark lives, eats and breathes politics. He is one of those annoying people who will try to turn any conversation to politics so he can spout the rhetoric of his party. *yawn* He almost had me turned for awhile, but I kept questioning things that did not jibe for me. When I started hearing, verbatim, the same words spoken by the top three politic pundits I knew it was time to investigate on my own. I love you honey, but, here will have to agree to disagree. That's why you love me. Head. Strong.

I am just going to keep watching this with my box of tissue because I just can't seem to stop tearing up. Let's just hope that this man can manage to keep at least some of his promises and is able to keep a strong thumb on that shrieking shrew in the House and her minions. They are the ones I don't trust.

When one door opens..... everything gets sucked out

Ugh! @*$#!!!

I lost my job just before Christmas of last year due to my own stupidity. I had started in August and one of the requirements for the job is they have to have a copy of your social security card. I hadn't had or needed a s.s. card in years. Last time I had a s.s. card was back in the late 80's. Sooo, I went to the s.s. office to get a new one, the company accepted the receipt until my card arrived. Well, I forgot to take it to them to get copied and then a few months later they asked for it and I couldn't find it. Skippy. Buh bye. Until I got my new one. I took some time for myself, got my new s.s card and reapplied for my job. Six weeks later....., they finally call me back today to offer my job back to me. YES!! I haven't even unpacked the box from my cube yet. It's still sitting in the front seat of my car waiting to go back to work.

About an hour later Mark calls me to tell me that on the thirtieth of this month he loses his job. WHAT! Why? Down-sizing. They are opening a hub in Omaha and being that he was one of the last ones hired out he goes. He does get two months severance pay, which is good. We lose our free unlimited membership to Netflix, which is bad, we are movie-aholics. At least I can laugh.

Just when I thought we could actually get back to normal, I was already planning my trip to the thrift stores, JoAnns, Hancocks, the home improvement store, blah, blah, blah, this happens. Seems like we can never catch a break. And now I worry. It took Mark two years to find this job at Netflix. Up to that time there were two jobs bumping around the state of Iowa as an insurance salesman. Be prepared. Gas prices will go up. They do everytime Mark is without a job.

*heavy sigh*

Count our blessings not our problems. But over the last two years our problems have overcome the blessings. We are alive and reasonably healthy and there are jobs out there for him. I hope. We will make it some how. We always do.