The Rainforest Is More Important Than Children's Healthcare?

I'm sure most of you know about clicking on the Breast Cancer Awareness site every day to help fund mammograms to women who can't afford them. They also have buttons to click for feeding the hungry, saving the rainforest, helping abused animals, children's literacy, and children's healthcare. Each day it shows how many people/animals/etc. you helped the previous day. The past two times I've looked, there was a 0 for both children's healthcare and literacy. The rainforest is making out better than these kids. That disturbs me. I'm all for saving the rainforest and helping abused animals but I think it's equally important to take care of our future in our kids.

Please click on these sites. I know that clicking on a website every day doesn't seem like it does big things but Mother Teresa said it best when she said "We can do no great things. Only small things with great love." It doesn't take a lot of time (maybe 30 seconds out of your day) and there are links to the other sites on each page to make it easy. It's one small way to help make the world better for everyone. We are the ones we have been waiting for.

We are born helpless. As soon as we are fully conscious, we discover loneliness. We need others physically, emotionally, intellectually; we need them if we are to know anything, even ourselves. - C. S. Lewis

Twue Love - an INtake prompt

I am not a big fan of Valentine's Day. And no, it's not because I'm a bitter single, though I'm sure that's what I will be written off as. I do have to say that I appreciate the history behind it. Whatever version you choose to believe, it's a cute story. However, I have a problem with the holiday itself.

I'm not much of a girly girl. Chick flicks tend to annoy me, romance books even more so. They present a very unrealistic view of love and marriage and "happily ever afters". The guy doesn't always get the girl. The prince almost never rides in at just the right moment. Huge fights that lead to breakups are more likely to stay that way. Valentine's Day just adds to the madness and the unrealistic expectations.

I believe that you should show the people you love that you care about them all throughout the year. If you are dating or married, don't save up all the romance for that one day. Spread it out. Bring her flowers just because. Go away for a weekend in October. Have a candle light dinner in the middle of the week. Don't save all the fun stuff for one day that falls in a sucky month anyway. The commercials that say that this is the one day to show that special someone that you care are lying.

Another problem I have is Valentine's Day is geared right toward women. Men do all the work and get almost no payback. A tie maybe. Or a gift certificate. Meanwhile, all of the commercials and displays have her expecting flowers and a card and chocolates and a teddy bear and dinner and jewelry and.........you get the idea.

I'm all about loving other people and showing them that you love them. But not in a hyped up, Hallmark card selling way that begins to feel inauthentic. By dying to yourself and your own desires. By being willing to lay down your life. By showing them in the little things and by being willing to stick it out in the good and the bad. That's the way to show someone that you love them. I'll give Valentine's Day more credit when I start to see Hallmark commercials about that.

Five Things You May Not Know About Me

I got tagged. So now I have to come up with 5 things most of you don't know about me. (I say most because a couple of you know everything I'm willing to share with another person.)

1. I hate men.

Nope, all of you know that.

1. I can't cook.

Nope, most of you know that too.

1. I'm terrified of spiders and heights.

Nope, 0 for 3. ;-)

Okay, let me actually try now.

1. I keep a book of my favorite quotes, songs, Bible verses, etc. All those quotes in that last post I did were from my little book.

2. I'm allergic to corn. Yup, that's right. Corn. Popcorn, corn chips, corn on the cob. All of it.

3. In almost 7 years of being a Christian, I have yet to read the entire Bible. I have a tendancy to just go back and reread the New Testament. But I'm going to make it through the Old Testament. Someday. :-)

4. I have recently decided that I have an addiction to books. Books are my cocaine. It seems to be physically impossible for me to go into a bookstore and walk out without buying any books.

5. My parents put me in therapy when I was young because some of my OCD tendancies worried them. Actually, they still worry. They just can't put me in therapy without my consent. :-D

I tag Rich, Karin, and Carrie.

Five Years

Usually, terrible things that are done with the excuse that progress requires them are not really progress at all, but just terrible things. - Russell Baker

What do we live for if not to make life less difficult for each other? - George Eliot

Through violence you may murder a murderer, but you can't murder murder. Through violence you may murder a liar, but you can't establish truth. Through violence you may murder a hater, but you can't murder hate. Darkness cannot put out darkness. Only light can do that. - Martin Luther King, Jr.

I have found the paradox that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love. - Mother Teresa

The thought manifests as the word. The word manifests as the deed. The deed developes into habit. And the habit hardens into character. So watch the thought and it's ways with care. And let it spring from love, born out of concern for all things. - Buddha

Protest is not enough; it is necessary to show a better way. - Jim Wallis

***********************************

Is it possible to think that the war is wrong but to still support the people who are there?

Because I do.

Better Watch Out

Here is a record of the conversation my mom had with my little sister the other day.

Mikayla: Mommy, I don't want you to die.

Mom: Well, I'll do my best but you never know. I suggest you start behaving better for Lauren because if Daddy and I die, she's going to be in charge of you.

Mikayla: You mean like Lilo and Nani?

Mom: Exactly.

Mikayla: I'm in big trouble.

*****************************

At least she isn't in denial. ;-) Mom told me that last night and then she looked at Buck and said, "And you'll be in even bigger trouble."

Anybody want a nice friendly Sheltie? Good with kids and very pretty. :-D

WE WON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THE COLTS JUST WON THE SUPERBOWL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Accept Who They Are - A Maurice Broaddus Blog

Accept Who They Are

Or, my title, "You aren't going to change the jerk."