Helping Haiti Locally

If you are like me, your heart is going out to the people of Haiti and all of the earthquake victims. And you want to help, but it seems like nothing is getting to where it will help...yet.

This disaster reminds me of Katrina and New Orleans in so many tragic ways, and it brings home the sad and sobering fact that sometimes nothing can help the way it needs to. due to circumstances beyond anyone's control. And when that is combined with the usual graff and corruption inherent in so many of our modern charitable vessels, there is no room for success.

I was approached by a local group of people I know from a church I've been visiting, asking for donations to send them down there. They are allegianced with a good group of groups who do social work in the Third World. They can get down there and start helping out, so they needed people to finance that.

We donated. I remembered back during Katrina, so many times that a local solution would have done more good, and so maybe this will now. I know the people I am sponsoring, and I know there is absolutely no chance of my money being stolen or me getting scammed. I'm just grateful to know folks who want to put their own lives on hold at the drop of a hat and go help out. Helping hands -- physical hands -- are what they need most, that and some cases of rubbing alcohol, penicillin, basic cleansers and supplies, which my folks are going to take with them.

So, what I want to propose to you is to look within your community for people wanting to volunteer and help them do it. Call your local churches and ask their secretaries. Ask around. Word of mouth. Read the local paper. Call the local paper. Ask around. There is no organization that will handle this for you. It requires us to do it ourselves, but it will mean that those few volunteers who are now down there groping around without power or food or supplies will have some more helpers once the supply lines finally begin to flow.

Maybe nobody around you is doing this and that's fine. But try to find out. I'm glad I did.

Mid-month mind dump

I know, it's been awhile, right? I'll be honest. I am Obama-weary. Everything and anything I can do to escape it in my mind, I do gladly and eagerly. It seems if I don't, I develop a cringe-tick. I hear there's another stimulus bill in the works, I cringe. I hear how much we paid for the trip to Copenhagen, I cringe. I see the calls for C-SPAN transparency being simply ignored, I cringe. I hear the latest jobs reports, I cringe. See how that works? Pretty soon, it's a tick, were I to go there. Hence, my escape.

But, escape to where? Well, some days are easier than others. I've even taken to listening to the radio again. I can even identify Kelly Clarkson's and Taylor Swift's recent songs, both of which I like.

I'm beginning to get irritated at Fox for the way they are treating Sarah Palin, putting her on as a guest on O'Reilly, Hannity and Beck. Treating her like she is child novice in broadcast journalism. Um, she has a degree in it and even work experience at a small TV station, people. And, I think we all know she's a quick study. If I were her, I would have made the deal coming out of the gate with my own show. Like Huckabee did.

I have to mention here, at right this point, Tucker Carlson's new online rag, The Daily Caller. Near and dear to my heart, the title is. As you know, I delight in saying I Call Bullshit! whenever I can. So, a daily caller would be a great name for moi. Anyway, the beautimucho brainatica otherwise known as SE Cupp has a regular column in it and she writes it freestyle like a dear diary thing.

This week she was just mind-wandering as she typed and she read where Glen Beck was giving the keynote at the next CPAC dinner, so to SE this meant Beck is seriously considering running for President or at least some office. And, she went on to imagine him dressed as a forefather at his blackboard explaining some governmental axiom and tearing up, and she said that might be pretty awesome.

Yeah, okay. On one hand, hell, it would be an improvement over what we've got. So, I'd have to agree if it came down to those two. However, I don't care much for Beck. He's hiding something...a lot. It's probably just the showmanship crapola part of his schtick that I'm sensing, that's how my Piscean gifts work, but there is something there like an ulterior motive. This is one of several times in my adult life I would vote while holding my nose, contrary to what he says to do (and if he would have just held his nose too, we'd be better off...but he wouldn't have such momentum to run for office and become a bazillionaire and be so famous).

I thought it was almost uncomfortable the way he silly-fawned all over Palin when he had her on. I'm laughing at him telling O'Reilly she is the most guarded person he knows. Hell, if you read your fawning diary entry to me, I'd be looking at you suspiciously too. It's like it never occurs to him that he could be the reason. LOL

Still, as irritated as they make me sometimes, I continue to prefer to watch Fox. The others just leave me in a worse mood. I have even begun to watch The damn Weather Channel more in an attempt to switch off Fox when it gets annoying. So far, I've seen the Ike Special 4 times, and lemme tellya, if it wasn't for the Bolivar Peninsula (which the Weather Channel focusses on), my town would have been swept off the face of the earth.

As it was, Bolivar got wiped off as the storm hit them first due to the peninsula being the east land barrier that separates Galveston Bay from the Gulf of Mexico. (Galveston Island is the west land barrier, and they did not fare too well under Ike, either.)

So, every time I've watched it, I've gotten hit by guilt and memories and all that crap getting churned up again, but it's like seeing an accident on the road side, I have to look.

Well, so to escape in other ways, I have been really creating art and paper crafts. Even more than normal. I'm eaten up with it all. I think that inking up a stamp and setting it down just right is pure heaven. Or adhering one piece of something to another perfectly, that is another miracle to behold. I know, sounds like I need psychiatric intervention, but it makes me happy and so far the only person getting an occasional paper cut is myself, no nobody else gets hurt. Leave me alone with my paper, lol.

I will be curious to see who wins the race in Massachusetts. Of course, I want the Democrat to lose, just for the shock-wave potential. No, seriously, the reaction would be huge. I'm so thinking the Dems have to win in the end, though, that I would bet money -- Mass. is a liberal state, after all. I'd still like to know if there is a town there named Cancerous. Someone told me there was once. I haven't looked, but surely not...

The weather here just plain sucks. I call Bullshit on it. Day after day of cold and rain. Actually, we are gonna have a break in that a few days this next week we are supposed to get over 60 for the high. Woohoo! See, 60 degrees F is a marker for us at our house. When it gets over 60, we unplug the dog's space heater in his doghouse. For over a month, the dang thing has not been unplugged. Look out, dog. This may be the week!

New Year Diet Update

(atc I made *just for me* (a rarity), scanned in and digitally framed)

Welcome to 2010, everybody!

I'm feeling good about my new year and I hope you are, too. I'm really glad I began my new WOE (way of eating, aka diet) back on Nov. 19. I weighed yesterday and am now 18.5 pounds down despite 3 cheat episodes. This encourages me that this weight loss is real and if nothing else can be maintained. That translates into one cheat every 2 weeks, and that also mirrors my feel of it. I can go about that long before starting to eat, breathe and sleep fantasy carb encounters. My numbers also translate into 3 lbs. lost per week on average. Not miraculous, but I'm on perfect track according to my nutritionist (Remember? I have blogged about her before, her mantra that it'll take atleast as long to take it off as it took to put it on and hold it...).


Anyway, it's a great feeling being able to greet January 1 with such dietary accomplishments. I haven't even cracked open exercising. I've only been stretching, not even doing my yoga. It's time to resume and  kick the notch up a bit, now that my migratory hip pain finally saw all my sights it wanted to and hit the road. So, there is no way I can not be successful. All I'll have to do is to accept the slower rate of weight loss and hold the cheating to current levels, and so far so good on that. No problemo. ;-))

I should add, when I say a cheat episode, I mean a one-hour cheat, not a day of it. I read somewhere awhile back that if you keep your pig-out to within an hour, then go right back to low-carbing, the effects of the carb intake will be minimized. I've done that each time, and did stall for a bit, but finally *swooshed* (lost). Let's see, my first cheat was pancakes and syrup and I could only eat 2. My second cheat was spaghetti and bean pasta, and my most recent cheat were biscuits and brownies. One of these days, I'll get around to cheating with a Mexican food dinner out. ;-)) Something to look forward to!

Well, enough about food. Today's not a cheat episode. ;-)