Moms Rock

I found this video on You Tube. It really is funny/true. I remember my mom saying this stuff all the time and Kathi does it now too. Moms are hero's and they rock!!!!

Our Stuff

From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view.

The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns.

The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It'll teach you something, it'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.

Check it out VERY interesting - http://www.storyofstuff.com/

Snow Day

We had a few inches of snow today. Unfortunately, half the yard was grass and the other half snow. The kids had fun anyway. Stephen found a boogie board and tried to snow board down the hill. He got good at it and now when he grows up he wants to be a snow boarder. Chloe still wants to be Little Mermaid....

Check out more pictures by clicking on the photos link to the right or click here for more snow pictures.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Stephen came home from school this week and told me he learned that a long time ago kids with different color skin could not go to school with white kids. He struggle to understand why people would be so mean. He mentioned to me that God would not like it and that someone killed MLK because he spoke out against it.

I talked to him in the past about MLK and prejudice in general, but he is just old enough to start understanding it. He is confused why people accept it still to this day.

I read some comments from Bernice King. She comments about the "I have a Dream" speech being tired. She implied that "I Have a Dream" is favored by those intent only on dreaming. "Year after year I come back to the same audiences, and it seems nothing has changed. I'm very frustrated.

It makes me think as we get older, do we come to accept the ways of the world or our society, because we get use to it? Because the injustice does not directly affect us, we can ignore it and agree it is bad, but stand by and watch the struggles from our TV screens? Or if we live with the injustice, do we feel so overwhelmed to do anything? Maybe waiting for someone else to speak out and lead?

MLK was not only about justice for his minority, but justice for all. Including the poor and non violence of people and governments. Over the years I have read many books about him and feel he was a prophet beating a drum to wake America on social change. I read a speech he did on the Vietnam War and am amazed with how much sounds like it is from today. Check out this comment

"I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin...we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered."

It amazes me how easy it is to get caught up into wanting things or enjoying the accumulated of stuff. Always wanting that one more gadget to make me happy. It dictates choices I make and effects the family, environment, and society. Multiple that by 300,139,947 citizens. Think about how a president tells us to spend money to support the economy while we were starting a war.

I use to be amazed to see how hateful people were towards MLK. But as I look closely at his speeches on civil rights, war, poverty, economics, and the government he really was a prophet sharing what he interpreted as God's dream for us. As most prophets do, he threatened the establishment and scared people with new ideas, thus killed him to try and kill his dream. On his tombstone the text from Gen 37:19-20 are listed from the story of Joseph.

"And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say, Some evil beast hath devoured him: and we shall see what will become of his dreams."

Each year on MLKs birthday, I reflect on how strong he felt to speak out and make change, even though it would disrupt his family, make him almost bankrupt, and kill him. He truly was a prophet killed for a dream. If we believe in his dream, what are we doing to assure the evil beast does not devour his/our dream?