I have a new BLOG home

So far so good. I have imported posts, archives and blogrolls and everything seems to be intact. I was able to set up my header again the way I wanted. I miss the background color option and the font option, so far I can not see any email notification of others comments, and im not sure about the counter or the blogroll identification of new posts all of your blogs....... but the rest of this I really like! I will be playing with options for a while, but I think I like my new home.

Please change your bookmarks or what ever gets you to my blog to:

http://artemismoon.wordpress.com

thanks for coming to see me and commenting....hope to see you at the new home soon!

Software frustration

Blogger is beginning to annoy me. I do not like the cludgy interface it offers for entering in posts, so I found a couple of programs that the Mac can use to put posts out there.  This one used to be so slow that i could type 3 lines before anything showed. One worked for a while and I really liked it and then bloger changed something and suddenly it stopped working. This program has speeded up a little, but i can still out type it. I found another program, a journalling program, that i really like, but it does not let you put a title on the post (and its a pain to go back in and add it). 

Then there is the beta blogger interface. I worked long and hard to design or rather redesign my blog. I like the header, I like the colors, I like the font. I would really love to have the catagories option, but it does not seem I can have both.Besides, how soon before the beta starts having failure issues too?

Maybe I should try WordPress.  I have neither the time nor inclination to get more complicated than that. Have looked at other software, and the packages do not have applications in them which confuses me totally. Besides I do not own my own domain, and the only server space I have is through my internest service provider and it has an ugly FTP process and an even uglier path and and therefore name.

Then there is Bloglines-- a great service-when it works. My biggest issue with the damned thing is that I began to count on it, and of course thats when it began to fail.  So now I will go back to my blogroll and hope blogrolling does not start to mess up!

If I can get Word Press to do what I want it to, will you all come visit me there??

The whole job thing.

i know i need to get my A in G and get out and get a real job. I need the insurance. I need the income. I need the sense of being compensated for what I do.
Suzie Homemaker, I am not. I can do all of the parts necessary, but I have no interest in that as a longterm focus.

My creative energy is at a longtime low, so even doing those kinds of things I love to do gives me no thrill.

There is a limit to how much I can read, on-line or paper.

One day a week of "consultant" isnt enough to keep the budget happy and 'specially dealing with the control freak board member, it does not do my self worth much good.

I am great to have around for the "project" stuff. In the last few weeks I have rewritten one organization's by-laws, written a grant for another organization, and pulled off a major donor event.

I have had people suggest I become a caterer, others sent me some high powered jobs (ones i was not elegible because I am not currently working for the state, and one even suggested I become a financial consultant (don't have the degree for that)

I have spent the last 10 years in and out of different jobs, some I loved, some I hated, but still with the sense of trying to figure out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

There were always 2 things I wanted to do with my life....one was to be a parent, the other a teacher. I have done the parenting thing, and now they are on their own....out of the nest. Teaching is something I have always done, and continue to do.....it seems everything i get into, i fall into the teaching, training, support roles....and I enjoy that. But ........

A good event.

It was a major donor event, and mostly it was mine from start to finish, I picked the theme, did the invites, got the space ready, purchased most of the food and drink, laid it out, plated all the food trays, and designed the food tables.
It was a wine and cheese tasting, and an opportunity for major donors and some prospects to meet the new Director and to hear about the new direction of the agency. It was a way to thank the donors and give them some new information.

It went really well. People were impressed with the food, they aske who catered it and when I told them I had done it, they asked me if I was doing that now. I do not think I would start a catering business knowing what I know about the food biz. But it would be fun. I do not think i have the health and stamina anymore, but its fun to be able to do it as a volunteer.

It was a good event. We even took in donations.....more than paid for itself.

Quandries

Christmas has always been and will always be my most favorite holiday. I love the baking, I love the cooking. I love the decorating, I love the music, I love the snow. I love the thought of people putting thought and care into the choosing of gifts to share with the ones they love.

When the kids were little we worked on picking through their toys...for them to give to kids who had none. We worked on making gifts to give to others. We worked on food to share.

To me Christmas is about the kids.
Now the kids have their own priorities, they live far away or they have other families they have to divide themselves between.

So now I sit with options available to me and none of them are satisfactory.

I could make a whole new tradition...but without the kids to me it just is not really a holiday. (I am the ultimate adult..i have been since i was a small girl. i don not know how to be any different, my ability to find joy has always been through my children)

I could do something completely different. Go away. Take a much needed vacation. But then it would be as if there were no Christmas at all.

I could do what I always do and sit and wait for the kids who are near find time to spend a few minutes with me.

Who knows what will happen.

Oh My Heavenly ........

I am going to be a grandma again! of TWINS!

And almost as quickly as they moved to Philly (with a week's notice), they will move to Virginia (at the end of November) and on January 13 they will get married!!! My eldest son has never done anything simply.

I asked d-i-l if there was anything more she would like to try new this month! She giggled and said no, she would wait until next month.

This makes a total of 11 grandchildren....I am way too young for that! [G}]

So for the moment I am scrambling about hunting down the rules for out of state marriage license applications, judges in the area (they are getting married at his dads' house), and printers to do the invites (i am designing). and he only called about 2 hours ago.....

We live in strange times. or The more things change, the more they stay the same.

At the beginning of the week, we were wired for sound. Talking, walking, calling, hoping. Tuesday was a day of anxiety and second guessing, of pontificating and taking guesses as to the outcome. Tuesday night once the polls closed there was hurt, and anger mixed with a great deal of optimism. Wednesday was a day of reflection and sharing, of wondering the outcome of of some really tight races that could change the course of the way things are done. Thursday was life as usual again.

The weather has been as bizzare as the politics. Indian Summer does not usually wait until the first week of November to show its head, but so it did, with the week beginning in the 50's each day a bit warmer unitl today, The temps plummetted into the 30's and we have the thunderstorm that supposedly will lead to 2 or 3 inches of snow.

Most of this just goes to show that you can not predict in close quarters. We can see trends in major movements. The politics of this country have always swung from the left to the right to the left again. the seasons obliously change every year with regularity. Are there anomolies? of course. 68 degrees on November 9, very odd. a smirking chimp as a lame duck is a good thing.

and life goes on.

The grandbug is a trooper.
Her mom called yesterday morning. Could we watch her, they both have to work in the evening.
Of Course! We love to have her. Only glitch, we have a town hall/potluck to put on. I am doing the catering on it. So I will h ave a little helper.

I had a little bit of trepidation, of late she has been a bit clingy/needy and not willing to get involved. So I bought a coloring book and another surprise and figured we would work our way through it.

From the moment she got there, she was "on"! Helped with everything from lining baskets to loading them with bread. Wore her hat and plastic gloves, did everything she was asked to do. Was friendly with people and outgoing, responding to adults appropriately and even generating appropriate conversation on her own. While I served, she carried on conversations with people waiting in line. while I cleaned up, she sat quietly and colored. The TV cameras and the newspaper columnist acknowledged her quiet presence, her knowing that she belonged with her grandmas and her good behavior.

This one is special. I never believed I would single one of my kids/grandkids out to be better than the others, but this one is special. I love them all, with abandon. But maybe, just maybe, if one of my brood is going to achieve greatness, it will be this one.

Once upon a time, when I was young and very busy being a single parent, I considered myself to be apolitical. Who had time for the gameplaying, the ugliness, the maleness of it all. It was arguing about war, it was throwing numbers around, it was the who is better than who game, played out over and over again.

When I came out as a lesbian, I realized that my life was a political statement. Not that it should ever have had to be, but my "differentness" was a "political statement" ....and here I just thought it was a personal statement. No matter. When I came out, being Queer was just becoming talked about. and then came AIDS, which brought the words to the front of the public consiousness.

25 years ago, my state became the first "gay rights" state. The first state to pass anti-gay discrimination laws.
20 years ago, I began to be "policital". Don't get me wrong....I still hate Politics! I find most of it below contempt. People trash each other to gain the power, and once they have the power, most of the promises made go by the wayside, and even the good ones tend to conform to the "system" because it is the only way to accomplish anything.

Last night, my state voted to deny our couples and families equal rights. In an unpresidented move, the binding referendum asks:

Shall section 13 of article XIII of the constitution be created to provide that only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state and that a legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized in this state?"

Last night, amidst the excitement of Democratic wins across the country, amidst the celebrations within our own Dems wins, we, the LGBT people of the State of Wisconsin, were handed defeat of the most personal kind.

I feel battered emotionally.
And now we have to move on.

Tonight, we put on a town meeting/potluck, a time and space for people to talk about their feelings, grieve the losses and start to plan for the future.

The reality is that nothing was taken from us that we already had. The possibilities have been stolen from us. The fight becomes deeper, harder and more important.

But for now, this moment, I will let my heart ache,

VOTE!

You have a voice in this country, it is your responsibility to use it. That voice is your vote.

I have heard/read, too many times of late, people who are disheartened by the way things are going in this country choosing not to vote. They think it does not matter. It does.

If you choose not to vote, you give one vote to the opposition. If your vote only cancels out one of the votes for the opposition, it is still worth the time it takes to vote.

Take it a step further. Vote, and encourage others to vote.

On a more personal note, 28 years ago, for what would have been the first presidential election i was eligible to vote in, I opted out. 'Course I was in full on labor at the time, and the hospital was not about to let me go vote!!
Happy Birth Day Childing.