I quite possibly may be part of a meeting with a state legislator at the end of the month when a coalition I’m involved with attempts to find a sponsor for an bill that would reinstate adult adoptee rights to their OBCs.
I am crossing my fingers and holding my breath.
I’m sick and don’t have the energy to comment, except to say WTF.
I always try to stay relatively silent on my beliefs during this time of year but various happenings in my state and online have lead me to ask the question: Is your faith so fragile?
Is your faith so fragile that my differing faith is threatening? Is your faith so fragile that me verbalizing my differing faith could shake yours?
I ask these questions because of the uproar in Olympia Washington. A Holiday tree is on display in the capitol. Last year when a menorah was added a local man decided he wanted a nativity scene added and so a lawsuit was filed and the nativity scene was added. Then another local man contacted the Freedom from Religion Foundation and they submitted a sign.
The sign reads, “At this season of the Winter Solstice, may reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.”
Do I agree with the sign? Nope. At least not 100%. Do I believe it should be taken down? Nope.
So if I don’t really care that this sign exists why am I devoting a blog post to discussing it? Because this controversy is just plain STUPID.
See I probably would have never even noticed the sign except someone got offended and it somehow made its way onto FauxNews. Then someone stole the sign. And dropped it off at a local country radio station. (really not surprising to me at all that this particular morning show got involved with this). What doesn’t make sense in all of this is why bring MORE attention to something you disagree with?
So the sign was returned and reposted with an addition “Thou shalt not steal”. I believe a minister or someone put up an opposing religious sign. That should have been the result all along. We have free speech in this country. Don’t like what one sign says? Sponsor one you do like. Don’t steal the sign. Don’t whine that people you don’t agree with also have free speech.
Again I ask, Is your faith so fragile?
And congratulations to our country we will now have a president we can be proud of.
I will write that letter for my son but today I need to recap my yesterday now that I’m not afraid my cheer will jinx the results.
I began my day with optimism. This may not sound like much but I am NOT an optimistic person. I approach everything with caution but yesterday, that was not cautious optimism it was HOPE and EXCITEMENT. I was smiling non-stop. I wore my I VOTED sticker on my forehead (what thats not where ya’ll wear yours?).
I went through my daily activities in a blur and then on my way home from my internship I stopped at the liquor store. I arrived home just as the results began rolling in and I began taking shots as they announced the blue states. As it neared time to go to class I added some “flavor” to my sprites and headed out (with my roommate/classmate driving of course)
In class everyone had their laptops on then the teacher told us it woudl be rude to our presenters and later our guest speaker. So I was prepared to be all stealth about it. But then my computer decided to not work. Luckily SisterFriend texted me updates throughout class! Obama’s count got BIG then he-who -shall-not-be-named started getting more electoral votes and I got scared. Then Obama got more! And I wanted to dance in the ailes but thought that might be a give away to the prof that I’ve been not paying attention.
Instead I sat patiently as soon as class was over we hugged and ran to the bar across the street to watch the acceptance speach. I cried. Tears flowed from my eyes and I did not wipe them away. I called my parents. They didn’t really care (dad’s a republican 
) So my roommmate passed me her phone and I called HER mom. She shared in my excitement.
Unfortunately the gubernatorial results were not as promising when I went to bed it was too close to count and even though they are now calling it in favor of my guy (well girl) four years ago my state’s race was decided by less than 200 votes between these same candidates and with only 55% of the votes in I will temper my optimism…because after all I dont want to tempt fate.
oh yeah and even after all that drinking last night I woke at 6am because I have to be to my intership in a few minutes…But its ok because i’m walking on air!!!!!!!!!
Today is election day. Its the second election I have been allowed to vote in and I am SUPER EXCITED!
I wanted to steal an idea from TG who got the idea from City Mama but as I began to type I realized I’m too superstitious and afraid of tempting fate that I can’t write that letter. Not yet.
Since I keep deleting everything I type I will just say GO VOTE!
and I’ll update this later.
Today I learned that when I suddenly have extra free time (thanks to being laid off) but am sick and don’t feel up to leaving the house I can channel my bordom into creating a pretty awesome pumpkin.
This morning I heard about this fantastic website and since I had nothing else to do (since I had applied for the only job I could find that is even remotely in my field that I might be qualified for if the person reading my resume squints really hard) I decided to carve a pumpkin.
Of course my problem was I couldn’t decide on a stencil. I ruled out a few that I really wanted to do because lets face it no matter how much time I have I am not patient enough to carve Obama’s face on a pumpkin. Others I ruled out because they immediately brought racial slurs to mind even thought I KNOW that was not intended I just couldn’t choose those stencils.
However that still left me with way too many to choose from. I finally narrowed it down to 3 and decided “what the heck, its a big pumpkin”
The end result is
and
not the best pumpkin carving ever but definately my best work.
Just thought I’d share.
Yes, this is another post about safe haven laws. No, its not about Nebraska.
A woman near where I live was charged with abandoning her child. She gave birth and then took the baby to a church. She admits to having done this. The key is she thought the church was a legal safe haven site.
Now I’m not going to pretend this woman did everything right. I believe whole heartedly that if you are going to utilize safehaven, or any other law for that matter, you should do some research and make sure you know without a doubt your actions fall into those perameters.
But shouldn’t there be some way to make the details of the law known? I’m a bit of a policy nerd so I know the url to our state legislature website by heart. (ok I’m a HUGE policy nerd) This morning after reading the article I went to the website to find out what our state considers to be legal safe haven spots. Because as active I am in policy and adoption and even taking into consideration I wrote a paper on safe haven less than 1 year ago, I had no idea where one could legally take an infant to utilize the safe haven law.
Well the search by key word feature is down on the website and silly me I dont know the citation so can’t look it up by number. I googled and found a brief outline of our policy and link to the actual law. Unfortunately, the link didn’t work.
Based on what I found on various websites, which I cannot verify because I cant access the law. In my state the only legal safehaven locations are hospital ers and manned firestations. Ok those locations make sense but shoudln’t there be a way to make that information known?
I dont have an answer. I know we dont have the revenue to advertise the details of every law on the books. It just seems sad that this woman is being charged for something she thought was legal and in the best interest of her child.
those are my options. And tonight I chose drink.
Today was our quarterly all staff meeting. I went to work expecting to sit through a boring training, complain a bit then come home. Since it was my first day at work after a week and a half vacation I thought it’d be a good way to ease myself back into work. I arrived at the location and said hello to my coworkers I hadn’t seen in awhile (one who’d been on vaction before I left). We chatted and joked…little did we know.
Instead of the training we were told our agency is broke. We are shutting down. I’m only employed until the end of the month. Shock only begins to describe it.
So at 10am I was learning I was soon to be unemployed beginning at noon I was beginning to tell my clients they would soon be homeless. These are mostly pregnant or parenting young women. One is on bedrest. One just gave birth. One who only got housing last week. I could go on and list the trials of my clients but I wont. The point is I spent the day telling my clients that in 30 days they would once again be homeless.
Have you ever had to do that? Can you even imagine finding out you’re unemployed…or soon to be unemployed and then having to tell others they will soon be homeless. Its heart wrenching. Additionally even some of my most entitled clients become caring and put two and two together and start getting concerned with me and my coworkers and figure out that their pending homelessness equates to us being unemployed and asks if we will be ok. Heartwrenching. So for 7 hours I travel from site to site breaking the news.
I finally finish ( well almost because i stil have one client who wont be available until tomorrow) and i call a dear friend of mine. Cowboy. I’ve mentioned him before I’ve known him since jr high. He also got laid off today. Unfortunately his is effective immediately. So i listen to him on my way to my parents house where i beg for a loan to buy a few months worth of migraine pills. Then i head to his house where we compare stories of being fired.
Now I’m home. One roommate is on vacation the other is getting drunk with me. Both work for the same agency. yep thats a household of three all of which are unemployed at the end of the month. I will be applying for unemployment. I will be applying for foodstamps. I applogize to all you right wingers but I like to eat so I will be applying to all those social programs you hate..ya know like the one that was eliminated thus making me unemployed. I actually had a really good blog pending about social programs. about the things my clients were struggling with. but then this happened. I’m unemployed. And drunk. By the way. Do you know how long it takes to type in a legible manner when you’re drunk. Tonights blog took about 5x the time it usually takes to type thanks to my friend vodka….
eta its not a typo i’m out of a job at the end of the month but due to legalities our clients have 30 days. of course they’ll get no services or assistance after the end of the month since we’ll all be gone but at least they ahve a place to stay beyond that..
I started my new job this week. I LOVE IT! Okay I know it has only been 4 days so it could just be the honeymoon phase, but I LOVE IT. School also re-started this week. The same day as my new job actually. My week was just a little crazy.
Monday- Last day at old job, put in 10 hours training replacement. Dinner at my parents house to hear my sister talk about the vacation she’d just returned from with her in-laws (so many wonderful hilarious stories). Return home and promptly fall asleep.
Tuesday- First day at new job. First day of class. Return home and promptly fall asleep
Wednesday- Work, Out with Sister, Weekly outing with friends, Finally return to my apartment after leaving weekly plans early due to exhaustion and promptly fall asleep.
Thursday- Work, Leave the office at 540 when class starts at 6 can’t find parking arrive to class late (although mere moments after the prof who was also late), after class meeting with group, return to my apartment and promptly fall asleep (noticing a pattern yet?)
Friday-Work, meet up with my best friend whom I haven’t seen in person in probably 3 weeks go to dinner and a movie (which despite the building exhaustion I managed to stay awake for) returned to apartment and promptly fell asleep.
Saturday- 8am pre-legislative district caucus breakfast with IT-Guy, Caucus which lasted MUCH longer than anticipated, day with friend turns into date with post-caucus drinks and dinner followed by bowling.
Sunday- Woke at 630, Why? I’m not sure. My alarm is set for 1030 my family has baseball tickets for this afternoon but I could have slept in. But no my body won’t let me. The good news is that I have some time in my apartment before I have to leave. I miss my apartment.
Ok so back to Saturday. The Caucus was held in the gym of the high school both IT-Guy and I graduated from. Since we’re both delegates we decided to meet before hand and have breakfast as a local place. We both felt the HS flashbacks as the day progressed even attempting to elect delegates to the next level of caucuses was eerily like high school government elections. At some point a day of politics and sarcastic comments about the hell that was HS turned into a date (although very unhigh school as we were legally in a bar consuming alcohol). We even decided to continue the HS theme and went bowling which turned into cosmic bowling about half way through our game. You don’t get much more high school than that. We thought about go back and hanging out in the fast food parking lot after (jk) but we had to draw the line somewhere and that was too high school even for us. But really? Just as I was getting used to NOT dating IT-Guy, just as I was getting comfortable with our friendship again we had to go and do this? If it turns out well yea me if not then I have to adjust all over again. booo.
Today, or technically yesterday, I went to my first caucus. I went not knowing what I was doing or what to expect. I left as a delegate for the next level.
It was quite a day.
Kidlet - My Son
M- My son's chosen mother
J- My son's chosen father
SisterFriend- My older sister
BabySister- My younger sister
Babykins- My niece (daughter of BabySister)
Poppel- My niece (daughter of BabySister)
IT Guy- long time friend, short time more than friend, trying to be friends again
The Ex - Kidlet's first father
You can contact me, KatjaMichelle, at therapyisexpensive@hotmail.com
