A little talk about manners

I am at my boiling point with rude people. In America we are so obsessed with individuality, and the personal experience that we seem to forget about the rest of society. We push and shove our way through life trying to know ourselves while treating everyone around us like crap. there are so many issues with how rude we are, that there would not be enough time to cover it in one blog. You would get sick of reading this, trust me. So instead I'm going to talk about specific issues that I find to be rude.

Today's issue: Your children!

Everyone is proud of their children, it's a given. You love them, think they are so smart, and are amazed at every new step they make in their development. It's normal to want to encourage your child in everything they do, from learning to eat solid food, walking, and learning to eat. Your toddler is the most important thing in your world. It's not, in the other hand the most important thing in my world. That means it's your job to provide your child with entertainment while at the doctors office, restaurants, super markets ect ect ect not mine, or the place you are going to (unless of course it's a children focused place.) Your focus should be your children, not the rest of the world. Pack a toy, or book for your child to play with to keep them entertained, and don't expect everywhere to have a play area.

I also understand that you are really excited with your little child's new found ability to strut their stuff. Wobbly little feet taking one step at a time, grasping at your fingers for support. I understand your want to encourage that motor skill, and teach them. The middle of the olive garden where servers are running from kitchen to tables with steaming hot soup on giant trays supported by one hand only, is not the right place to teach your child how to walk! Not only that, but the other people in the area do not want tiny little germ filled hands running up to their table and asking questions or grabbing bread sticks. If you want a play ground you can eat at, go to Chuck-E-Cheese, not an adult centered restaurant. It's okay to have your kid at a casual dining restaurant, but for the sake of being decent responsible parents who don't want to skin graft their child's face back on, pick them up when on the restaurant floor!

Okay, I' done with my rant for today. Enjoy!

The fruit of my garden, and in my life

I planted a garden a while back, and now I’m watching it grow. Patiently watching it grow. Daily I go out and look at them, and it seemed as noting was happening. Nothing sprouted, and some of the plants looked like they were shriveling instead. Leaves towards the bottom starting to brown and die off slowly, and plants shriveled back towards the earth. Patiently I tended the garden, pulling out the weeds that tried to choke them, and clipping dead leaves, while waiting some more. We are of course of the generation of intent gratification, “generation now” so to speak. The type of people who sign up for services and expect same day activation, schedule a payment on line and have their mortgage paid by tomorrow, and in an instant can send a correspondence to a friend halfway around the world, and have it in sitting in their lap(top). Our culture is that of instant gratification, and expects results quickly. From ordering our food through speaker boxes and never leaving our car, to the ads on the internet that promise we will drop a dress size in a week, we are always looking to get results and revel in instant fruit of our not so laborious labor. Gardening though, is not so expedient.

When the garden is first planted, especially if you sew your own seeds, it seems like nothing happens, or worse the leaves that are on the surface are dying! But under the soil, the plant is adjusting to the changes in their new environment; the roots are weaving their way down into the earth, and establishing a foundation to grow on. Week after week a person can look for superficial changes, signs that the plant is really different, really changing, but they will find nothing. Finally about a month of watching and tending, the plant, they will start to grow. First signs of new green leaves with sprout, new buds will emerge from the ground and everything will start stretching towards the light of the sun. The plant at this point is still not producing any flower, or fruit. It is just simply growing, gaining height and surface area, still weaving its roots through the soil below. Fruit, even in an established plant comes later in life, after a season of growing.

We are often times like my garden, planting new things in our lives, and expecting them to instantly start producing fruit, some times looking as soon as the next day to enjoy the benefits of our labor. Whether it be establishing a new exercise program, and jumping on the scale the next day seeking weight loss results, or planting new habits in our lives and expecting instantly to stick with them, life just doesn’t work that fast. Anything that is worth bearing fruit takes time to establish itself in our lives. As long as we tend to it though, some times pulling out things that are choking it, or clipping off the things that are sucking life out of it, it will grow. We just have to be patient. I only hope that I can extend the same grace I give my garden, to myself, and the people around me.

Credit Scores- There is just no pleasing them.

Things that are affecting my score-

Lenght of my Credit History- What the heck do you expect? I can't get a good card until I have decent credit, I can't get decent credit until I have decent credit history. By the time I figured out this cat and mouse game I was going on twenty, meaning I don't have a soild seven years of credit history.

Not using my cards- Seriously? It's like if you use them it's a problem because you are using them, if you don't use them it's a problem because you arn't using them. I am pretty sure these guys must be ran by the credit card companies like everything else because this sounds like a load of junk!

Missed payment- One late payment 5 years ago because a bill got lost in the mail. After this happened, and the card company was impossible to deal with, they went out of business (Chances are because they are impossible to deal with?) I never missed the payment, it was just late. Not the new company who owns them will not look into the matter because lets face it, they have a lot of other junk to sort out.

So these are the things that are standing between me, and the credit score of my dreams, and I am highly frustrated at that. Seriously, I've worked hard for the credit score I have! I MEAN REALLY HARD! I had no idea that not using my credit cards was going to be a problem? Can't they just go on me paying my bill for the past 6 years with out any problems, and that people thought I was stable enough for a mortgage???

Blah, this system really should be over hauled.

The things we eat-

Every time I see a lable on my produce that says "Grown in the USA" I get a warm fuzzy feeling, thinking that America might still grow food somewhere.

Then I realize the reality is, this only means that a Mexican citizen is picking my strawberries here and spending the money in Mexico instead of picking my starwberries in Mexico and spending the money in Mexico.

Blue skys and pink shirts.

Today we did a breast cancer walk encouraged by Josh's work. It was a beautiful day to walk for reason. Sunny, and bright with perfect blue skys to contrast all of the pink shirts.

The first thing they did was ask people who are either being treated for cancer, or a survivor of breast cancer to walk around the Rose Quarter. It was really moving, and a little sobering to how many people have struggled with cancer. It's not every day that you think about how many people fight, and how many people lose the fight with cancer.


The walk was great, everyone was really high energy and it was great to see so many people gather for a cause. It was also the first time I've walked across one of our fair bridges. I've lived here so long, but never thought to cross a bridge on foot. For me though, the best part of the walk was seeing my husband walking around in a pink shirt. I know everyone else was wearing pink too...but my husband never wears pink.

Tales from my weekend.

I finally got my new chord today. I hope Vlad the sharp tooth will not distroy this one.

And finally the things I did with my weekend- On Saturday I drove up to a special starbucks because I was missing a friend who works there. I couldn't stay long, but it was so great to see her! Then I took my middle eastern brother-in-law to Costco. It was funny watching him go from table to table trying the samples and talking to all of the people sampling. I enjoyed this. It was funny.

Then on Sunday after Josh and I had brunch, were were pleasently suprised by a nice amount of sunshine and decided it was prime time to check out a trail Josh found in Salmon creek. It was along the creek and we saw ducks, and swallows, and cranes, but it didn't give me that out in nature feeling that I crave. This chances are, was because Salmon creek is lined with huge houses to one side of the trail.

Whenever I look at places like that, I imagin what the land used to look like, before we built houses and paved it. What did the northwest look like as virgin land? And as my brain erases the houses and pavement like photo shop in my mind, the image of this place unspoiled is breath taking.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind progress of paved paths, I just like to think about what people who came before me saw, and thought, the same way I think of what what people in the future will see and think. What I will see and think in the future as I grow and change and start taking a family to these spots.

I hope my children will be able to see the beautiful things I've seen. Breath taking views, and landscapes shaped by years of weather and time. I think this is more then anything why I am a conservationist. It's not about global warming to me, or about the ozone. It's about clean water for my children, and places for them to hike and swim. And having beautiful places to dream about taking their kids on nature walks and bike rides as I did on this little walking path.

See this, it started out about the random junk I did on the weekend and turns into a talk about taking care of the earth.

A honest mistake

I locked up the new dog, zipped my jacket and went out the front door, careful to lock the front door before heading to the store with husband.

After wandering through the supermarket, stopping in the organic food section for soup we decided to go. After a long ordeal with the self checkout, and a attendent who we kept buzzing but was distracted with flirting with some greasy looking kid, we headed towards the door.

We pulled through the open gate, parked the car and headed inside to our very excited dogs. After setting the bags down on the counter, we realized that the back door was left open the whole time we were gone! At first I thought "No big deal, the dogs wouldn't let anyone get in!" But then I realized the front gate was open and the dogs could have gotten out!

My babies could have gotten out, and headed to the busy street where the large trucks, the large trucks that can't stop if a small dog ran in front of them. It was an honest mistake, but an honest mistake that could have cost us our little furry family.

What a great way to finish out the work week!

After working a very hard week, I was looking forward to coming home, throwing on some shorts, and relaxing for the rest of the evening. When I got home though, it was a totally different story.

First let me explain something; when you have multiple dogs it’s like a chain reaction. One dog decides to do something, and the other dogs join in because their instincts are to follow the leader. This is why when one dog starts to bark in the pound, or vets office, all of the dogs start to bark.

Now back to my dreaded Friday evening. I opened to door while flipping through the evening mail, and was greeted by a horrible smell. At first I thought Vlad, our new dog must have had an accident in his kennel, as he is still crate trained during the day. No problem, I thought to myself, I’ll just take it out and hose it off. As I ventured to the back of the house though, I found that it was not the kennel, but instead the entire back room was covered in vomit and poop. It seemed the older “trained” dogs had a reaction to the new food and took it out on our house! Keep in min that our house is about 80% hardwood and linoleum, but they decided to do all of their messes in the small area of our house that is carpeted. Needless to say I was not happy, and spent the past hour on my hands and knees with the little green clean machine, while I repeated over and over again. “I love my dogs, they just had a little trouble with adjusting to their new food, and it’s not their fault. I love my dogs, it’s the food, and it’s not their fault. I love my dogs, it’s the food, and it’s not their fault.”
And because I am trying to look on the bight side, I have to say I am impressed with the cleaning power of my little Bissell machine. Also I have been asking myself for the past month if my carpet in that room was dirty, or if it was just the bad lighting. I did confirm that my carpet is not only dirty, but filthy and now added to my every growing list of tasks to do instead of enjoy a beautiful sunny weekend is to clean the carpet on my hands and knees, or find a decent carpet cleaning company in Vancouver

Costco, an American Consumption story

After the new addition to our dog family, we were buying dog food for 42.99, and the monsters were eating it in 10 days. That is a lot of money to shell out on dogs, even if we do love them. It was either we change our dog food, or start eating nothing but rice to afford the dogs. It was time for a change! And so we signed up for Costco where we could get a decent quality food for a fair price in massive quantities!

It seems to me, that Costco is really a symbol of what is a matter with America. Right in the door you are looking at all of the new flat screen TVs, walk past the jewelry, into the gadgets, clothing, books, and other worthless junk America has been known to covet. After that is a brief fruit section, where baked goods waft from the corner, reminding us all that our fat cells love the taste of fresh baked refined sugar. After that, and it’s to the meat! And what good blue blooded American doesn’t love massive amounts of meat? After that it’s the cold case, where massive amounts of processed foods sit just waiting for the American microwave. Open up one of the twelve cans of overly salted green beans, and there you have, a typical American dinner. Finally before you check out, you can purchase enough soap for a year, and then it’s onto the drugs. Everything you would needs for heartburn, headaches, weight loss, joint pain, and lack of nutrition so that you can supplement your processed diet.

In other news totally unrelated to Costco and the American consumer, we found a really great park in Vancouver last night. It had beautiful sandy beaches that overlooked the Columbia River where ships passed by. The dogs went swimming, and I laughed harder then I have in a long time. Next time maybe it will be warm enough that I can wade into the water a little bit too.

Who was that guy?

Today I was driving home from work, and all of a sudden this guy lined his car right up with mine and just kept looking at me. I have no idea who he is, and had never seen him before in my life. The whole thing freaked me out so bad, that I missed my exit, and that made it even worse due to the strange man still driving next to me starring at me.

I sped up and got off at the next exit a little more uncomfortable then I think I should have been made to feel.

Environmentally Critical

Over all the green movement is a good one. It has caused enough buzz to really make people more mindful of the amount of waste they produce in their daily lives. We have seen an onslaught of new green products on the markets, and major retail stores are carrying them. Green has not only become easy, it’s has become convenient for American consumers. In the meantime, this new movement is producing very ugly byproducts. Not unlike the toxic sludge that is created when refining petroleum.

The first real problem is that people are going green over night. People are replacing their less green products with green products before using them up. Keep in mind companies are using the green idea to get you to do the same thing you’ve always done. Consume, consume, consume! It’s okay to buy the green products slowly. It’s okay to use non green items until they are gone, and then find a better alternative. And in some cases, it’s okay to buy the less green product if you are going to use less of it or reuse it more. The damage has already been done with the items we buy. They have been made, and they will go to a landfill. So there is no sense in throwing it out now and buying something green that has already been made, and will also go into a landfill until you are done with the first product.

The other major problem of the green movement is the green elite. For them the green movement is like a religion and they profess their greenness with evangelical vigor, while trying to show everyone else around them the way to green enlightenment. They are the type of people who are happier judging you for what you are doing wrong, and then looking for the things you are doing right. Being green isn’t about shoving it down other people’s throats; it isn’t about showing the world how smart you can be. If you are making green choices, make it because they are better choices for you, not because they are trendy and make you look cool. It’s also okay to realize not everyone is going to be a conservationist, some times because they don’t value it, and some times because they haven’t been exposed to it. Growing up in Oregon, being a conservationist wasn’t so much an option as it was just the way things were. Everyone has a bottle and can bag, because bottles have a deposit. It’s the kind of place where it is rude to throw a soda can in the garbage. It is must more polite to leave the empty can on the kitchen counter so your host can place it in the bottle deposit bag. I guess when I moved to Washington, I didn’t realize that law has started to define a culture (and am sorry if I ever left an empty bottle on your countertop.) Slowly the culture is changing, and people are starting to be better conservationists, but rest assured people being giant douches about their green choices around them isn’t going to help.
With anything, there are very good things and bad things about it. Getting to use my $5 off coupon at bed bath and beyond for green cleaners, instead of having to find hippie markets across state lines is a good thing. Having to explain my non-green choices to people who can’t help but make other non-green choices is a bad thing. I hope as this movement goes forward, people cool off a little bit, and we end up with some really positive environmental impact from it. If not, I guess its back to the hippie market for me

The first blog is the hardest

Although within a short period of time the first blog will be a forgotten memory, shoved at the very last page among many pages of my thoughts and ramblings, today the first blog is the hardest. Staring at the white blog page with nothing really important to say, thinking I should talk about the economy, or something a little more light hearted, like my hate for bumper stickers. But I’ve got nothing! At least I learned I can have my blog translated to sandscript automaticly.

Okay- well first blog down! On to bigger and better things!