can't believe it'll be a year tomorrow, sweet baby girl.

best friends #?

NAZI GERMANY, OR AMERICA?
It's becoming more and more difficult to figure out.

here's an article i found online.

Imagine visiting your 85-year-old mother in the hospital after she has a debilitating stroke. You find out that, in order to survive, she requires a feeding tube and antibiotics to fight an infection. She once told you that no matter what happened, she wants to live.

But the doctor refuses further life-sustaining treatment. When you ask why, you are told, in effect, "The time has come for your mother to die. All we will provide is comfort care."

Sound far-fetched? It's not. It's already happening.

Just as doctors once hooked people up to machines against their will, now many bioethicists advocate that doctors be permitted to refuse life-sustaining treatment that a patient wants but that they deem "futile" or "inappropriate."

Alarmingly, hospitals in California and throughout the country have begun to implement these "futile-care" policies that state, in effect: "We reserve the right to refuse service."

Medical and bioethics journals for several years kept up a drumbeat advocating the implementation of medical futility policies that hospitals -- for obvious reasons -- don't publicize. The mainstream news media have generally ignored the threat.

As a consequence, members of the public and their elected representatives remain in the dark as "futilitarians" become empowered to hand down unilateral death sentences.

Indeed, futile-care policies are implemented so quietly that no one knows their extent. No one has made a systematic study of how many patients' lives have been lost or whether futile-care decisions were reached according to hospital policies or the law.

The idea behind futile care goes like this: The patient wants life- sustaining treatment; the physician does not believe the quality of the patient's life justifies the costs to the health institution or the physical and emotional burdens of care; therefore, the doctor is entitled to refuse further treatment (other than comfort care) as "futile" or "inappropriate."

Treatments withheld under this policy might include antibiotics to treat infection, medicines for fever reduction, tube feeding and hydration, kidney dialysis or ventilator support.

Of course, physicians have never been -- nor should they be -- required to provide medical interventions that provide no medical benefit.

For example, if a patient demands chemotherapy to treat an ulcer, the physician should refuse. Such a "treatment" would have no medical benefit.

But this kind of "physiological futility," as it is sometimes called, is not what modern futile-care theory is all about. Treatments are not refused because they don't provide any medical benefit, as in the case of chemotherapy to treat an ulcer. Rather, they are refused because they actually sustain life -- such as a feeding tube does for a persistently unconscious patient.

It isn't the treatment that is deemed futile but, in effect, the patient.

Early attempts to impose futile care upon unwilling patients and families were often ad hoc. For example, a few years ago I received an urgent phone call from a distraught woman who told me that her 92-year-old mother's doctor was refusing to give the woman antibiotics for an infection.

When I asked why, she said, "He told me my mother was going to die of an infection sooner or later, so it might as well be this one."

I advised the woman to get an attorney and threaten suit. That apparently did the trick. She later called to tell me her mother was being treated and was well on the way to recovery.

In 1994, the parents of a premature infant sued to prevent the imposition of futile care upon their son, "Baby Ryan" Nguyen, after doctors told them they were ending his kidney dialysis.

Ryan would have died, but the Nguyens' attorney obtained a temporary court order forcing doctors to provide continued life-sustaining care pending a full trial.

The doctors and hospital did not take the Nguyens' defiance lying down. They filed an affidavit requesting the right to refuse to provide treatment, claiming that Ryan's condition was "universally fatal" and that continuing life-sustaining treatment was a violation of their ethics and autonomy.

Astonishingly, a hospital administrator even went so far as to report the Nguyen family to Child Protective Services for "physical abuse and physical neglect" of Ryan based on the parents' success in obtaining the injunction to keep their child from death.

The case could have had a major legal impact on the entire futile care debate. But the trial judge never decided who had the ultimate right to determine Ryan's fate. The case ended when Ryan was transferred to a Portland hospital, where a different physician successfully weaned him off dialysis. Ryan lived four years, a happy if sickly child who gave high-fives and was the delight of his parents' hearts.

Cases like Baby Ryan's led futilitarians to pursue a more sophisticated approach to securing their agenda. Rather than have doctors act on their own accord or file lawsuits seeking permission to refuse wanted care, which had been attempted on several occasions with mixed results, many futilitarians began to argue that hospitals adopt written futile-care policies establishing formal procedures by which wanted life-sustaining treatment could be refused.

Although given little attention in the news media, these policies have been extensively described in medical and bioethical publications, such as the Journal of the American Medical Association, the New England Journal of Medicine and Health Progress.

Most policies set up internal hospital procedures that work like this:

-- If a patient wants life-sustaining treatment that the physician wishes to refuse, social workers, chaplains and hospital staff attempt to mediate the dispute.

-- If the patient and physician cannot resolve their differences informally,

the matter is referred to the hospital ethics committee for adjudication.

-- If the ethics committee determines that the treatment is inappropriate, a decision based on the institution's own futile-care standards, life- sustaining treatments may be terminated even if the patient or family find another doctor willing to provide the desired care at that hospital.

-- At that point, the patient or family have three options. Acquiesce, which means the patient probably dies. Find another hospital -- not likely in our managed-care environment, since life-sustaining treatment treatment to continue, as did Baby Ryan's parents.

Futile-care protocols are designed to thwart legal action by patients or their families. The strategy is to stack the deck by convincing judges that they, mere lawyers, are ill-equipped to gainsay what doctors and bioethicists have decided is best.

In the Cambridge Quarterly of Health Care Ethics, authors urging implementation of futility policies wrote last year: "Hospitals are likely to find the legal system willing (and even eager) to defer to well-defined and procedurally scrupulous processes for internal resolution of futility disputes. "

Considering that California legislators recently enacted a statute that appears to authorize futile-care impositions upon the sickest patients, that may be a winning strategy. Section 4735 of the California Probate Code states that a doctor or hospital "may decline to comply with an individual health care instruction" that runs contrary to "generally accepted health care standards." This means that once futile care becomes mainstream, the law will permit doctors to refuse wanted treatment that runs contrary to their values --

even if such care is necessary to keep the patient alive.

This little-noticed law raises an urgent question: How many California hospitals have already promulgated futile-care policies? Unfortunately, no one knows. But there is little doubt that the number is growing fast.

Authors of the Cambridge Quarterly article surveyed 26 California hospitals,

including UCSF, Kaiser Permanente, Stanford, UCLA and Cedars-Sinai. Without identifying the hospitals, they reported 24 had protocols in place that "defined nonobligatory treatment" in terms that were not "physiology based" -- in other words, a treatment that has no medical benefit.

Of these, "nine policies assigned the final decision-making authority to the responsible physician."

Other policies gave the power to hospital committees, the chief of staff or the hospital administration. Tellingly, only seven protocols permitted the patient or patient representative to have the final say.

As if this weren't enough cause for alarm, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., has introduced federal legislation to let doctors deny life-sustaining treatment against the will of the patient or the patient's family.

The Health Care Assurance Act (S24) is a 171-page bill with noble ambitions to expand health coverage for children and disabled people. Buried in the bill's bowels is a provision that permits hospitals to withhold care that is determined to be "either futile or otherwise not medically indicated."

The bill would be a disaster for the most vulnerable, disabled and defenseless among us -- patients who are too often dehumanized and callously viewed as parasites on limited health care resources.

Then there is the very real potential that bigoted doctors would apply futile-care policiesin a discriminatory fashion. Indeed, a 1996 study published by the Mayo Clinic found that "CPR was more likely to be considered futile if the patient was not white."

Implementing futile care to control health care costs doesn't add up. Since only about 10 percent of the nation's entire health care budget goes to end-of- life care, little would actually be saved.

But cost control isn't the ultimate point for futilitarians.

As many of them see it, if the nation were to swallow futile care theory, it would establish the principle that health care can be explicitly "rationed" -- a euphemism for discrimination against people who are elderly, disabled, chronically ill, dying or otherwise "expensive to care for."

Seen in this light, medical futility is the foot in the door that would begin the step-by-step descent from a health care system based on Hippocratic principles -- "First, do no harm" -- to a system in which access to medical care is restricted to some but open to others.

Futile care is not the finishing line of this important ethical and legal struggle, but merely the starting gate of a far longer race.

Wesley J. Smith is the author of "Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America."

This article appeared on page D - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

How very Hallmark of you.

Excerpts from a book by Max Lucado

Our hearts are not large enough to contain the blessings that God wants to give

So try this
The next time a sunrise steals your breath.....
or a meadow of flowers leaves you speechless
remain that way

Say nothing and listen as heaven whispers "do you like it? I did it just for you."

Flooded by emotion, overcome with pride, the Starmaker turns to us, one by one, and says
"you are my child, and I love you dearly"


Find your answer on a splintered cross, on a craggy hill.

Worship the potato? The idea seemed silly to me. But then I thought, what else is more deserving of worship? It's simple, it comes from the Earth, and it can kill you if you disobey it.

Jack Handy

I heard just about the best sales pitch in my life last night-simple me, I didn't know it was a sales pitch until I told Nathan about it, but anyways, here is what happened.

I was sitting in the car waiting for Nathan to get off work, and a street kids walked up. He made the usual icebreaking comment by complimenting my dreads, then leaned over and said "hey, I got a question for you"
I said "yes?" He said "What would you do if someone gave you an eighth of a bag of weed and 3 ounces of hash? I just don't know what to do with it"
I thought for a second and said "I'd throw it away. Drugs are evil. Just go throw it away, man.
As if he hadn't heard me he said again "I just don't know what I'm going to do with it.

I thought that this encounter was rather strange. Did he want me to buy it? Tell him to smoke it?
If it really was a sales pitch, he should become a businessman.

Sometimes I think you have to march right in and demand your rights, even if you don't know what your rights are, or who the person is you're talking to. Then, on the way out, slam the door.

jack handy

More deep thoughts be Jack Handy

It's funny that pirates were always going around searching for treasure, and they never realized that the real treasure was the fond memories they were creating.

I hope that someday we will be able to put away our fears and prejudices and just laugh at people.

by the way, this is a sarcastic article-i don't believe abortion is EVER ok-never ever.
I just think it so funny in an awful terrible way that they try to deny the wrongness of it, but affirm the guilt and grief in so many ways. why would you need consolation if it's a right?

Greeting cards for abortion and other rights
By Jon Sanders

We Americans can certainly learn a lot from a nonprofit organization's idea for "abortion greeting cards." No, really.

The Associated Press reported this week that an Oakland, Calif., nonprofit called "Exhale" is offering "a series of electronic greeting cards that concerned friends and relatives can send to a woman after she chooses to have an abortion." For example, one card tells the woman she "did the right thing." Another "expresses sympathy, offering the gentle reminder that, 'As you grieve, remember you are loved.'" (For some reason — probably just an oversight — there's no sympathy card for the father.)


The Supreme Court and all our self-appointed elite agree: abortion is a woman's right. So you might ask how on earth could someone just exercising her right be cause for grief. But that's the wrong way to look at it, or else next thing you know, you might start wondering if there's not some other reason for women having an abortion to grieve. You might start to suspect there's a different cause for the guilt.

One of the cards even offers a chipper "God will never leave you or forsake you." You don't want to be caught thinking why just exercising a God-given right would make someone need that card.

Because if you start thinking along those lines, then pretty soon you'll start noticing that there are more crisis pregnancy centers than abortion clinics. And then you might see that those centers work to help pregnant women find prenatal care, housing, clothing, charity, an uplifting vision of themselves as a mother and giver of life, friendship, hope, and maybe even God. And then you might be tempted (Earth-Mother forbid!) to compare that vision with the cynical vision of a pregnancy being likened to a tumor … a tumor that, hm, kicks and responds to ambient noise and grows and … well, the analogy tends to break down over a period of nine months.

So you don't want to pursue those lines of thought. If you were Al Gore, of course, you could wow feminists and eco-looneys by having your bogus company award every women having an abortion a free, "life"-time supply of "carbon credits" – for all the "carbon footprints" not left by her children.

But given the inconvenient probability that you're not Gore, try this idea instead. Obviously this California nonprofit has stumbled upon a new, potentially lucrative field of greeting cards for people acting within their inalienable rights. Because people doing what society and our Constitution agree is A-OK must be grieving and in dire need of encouragement.

People are hurting – for nothing. It must be an untapped market, and some greeting-card entrepreneurs could really rack up. As a classic liberal, lover of freedom, and humanitarian, I don't mind sharing these suggestions for the greater good:

For people who take the First Amendment step of bravely talking, there could be a range of cards. Feel guilty for speaking up? You could be told, "As you speak, remember that you are loved." Need encouragement? How about a silly rhyme: "Roses are red; you say they're blue. We have free speech; I'm proud of you." There could be a "Thanks for Talking!" line if you just want to send a "friendship" card to a vocal friend. Oh, and for the religious yap, a John 1:1 "Inspirations" card would remind him that "In the beginning was the Word."

Speaking of religious yaps, no doubt there'd be a huge demand for "Holiday Encouragement" cards, perfect for the loved one on your list who wigged out the local ACLU snitch with a hearty "Merry Christmas!" You could even have special "Beat Hell Soon" cards for Bible-believing invalids. Remember, people taking advantage of their mundane, God-given rights need all the encouragement they can get, the poor souls.

There could be a special line of "Not Missing You" cards for people practicing free assembly. Heartfelt "Good Luck (You'll Need It)!" cards for someone petitioning the government for redress of grievances. Friend buy a new gun? Why not a "Give It Your Best Shot" card? (Enemy buy a gun? It's not too late for "I'm Sorry.")

And who hasn't secretly wished just once to receive an "Atta Boy" for not housing a soldier? Are you seeking due process after your local government threatened to seize your land under eminent domain? If so, what could make you feel better than a musical greeting card serenading you to the strains of Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land"?

Those are just a few of the cards possible in this new, promising line of "I Exercised My Rights and Now I Feel Bad" greeting cards. Look for them soon in the card aisle in your favorite grocery store. You're sure to find them right next to the new "Unbirthday" section.

To me, it's always a good idea to always carry two sacks of something when you walk around. That way, if anybody says, 'Hey, can you give me a hand?,' you can say, 'Sorry, got these sacks.'
by Jack Handey

Super Granmie fix

excerpt from Chuck Smith's book, "a family together"

"In creating woman God created her different from man in physical structure - the man being the stronger and larger, the woman being the smaller and more frail."

this does seem to be the case generally, but i know some strong women!

"Along with the physical differences, certain emotional differences were created. In the emotional realm He created the woman with a higher sensitivity than the man. Emotionally, man is usually very coarse. His emotions move in a narrower spectrum. A woman's emotional spectrum is quite wide. She's capable of great highs; she's capable of great lows. Yes, a man can get excited and a man can get depressed. But, as a general rule, he cannot appreciate as much as a woman or enjoy as much as a woman. Men don't have the extreme highs that women can attain."

This is why i posted this. What planet do i live on? This one paragraph has shocked me more than anything has shocked me in years. Men are coarse?????!!!!!!!


"As far as intelligence is concerned, I don't believe that there's any difference at all between male or female. I believe that women are capable of as great understanding and thinking process as men, they may even have a slight advantage over man in the area we call intuition. Spiritually, of course, men and women are one in the eyes of God (Galatians 3:28)."
But having created us with different physical characteristics and a different emotional spectrum, God then set forth the rules of the relationship between husband and wife. By obeying these rules, man and woman can find the fulfillment, joy, and happiness from life, that God desires them to have."

ok, now is it just me, or is there traits that are common to manKIND, and people have them in differing amounts? Some of the most dreamy, sensitive people I know are men.
Kyle, if you're reading this, yes, i'm talking about you! I was reading this thing today that said women aren't logical at all-they have to learn from men how to be logical. Sheesh. They probably never met Cate or Amy Mooney. Or my mother in law!
This whole weird notion that men are unemotional cold hard beings and women are melting emotionally driven i don't know what has been messing with my head for so long now. Where did it come from? Not my reality or experience, thats for sure.
Please give me feedback on this

Fat Tuesday

oh sweet Paczki.

Bella's new favorite movie
bella's favorite movie

Add to My Profile | More Videos

things i've learned

Bitterness and resentment are not good friends.
People that hurt you, break your heart and give you a headache are much better.
Especailly if in the end all they really want is to see you smile.

I just watched a friendship i thought was bled dry resurrect and it is so precious and sweeter to me now, that it had strength i thought it lacked, to live and keep fighting,

God can melt the stoniest heart. I thought i was numb,and He has such a knack of unfreezing the frozen.

Pain is good, in that it is an indication of something that needs fixing.


if you want a fun Birthday party, buy 100 ballons and hang them all from the ceiling at different lengths.
And leave a few on the floor for the babies to chase after.

Walking 40 minutes a night through the most beautiful city in the world is awesome.

I am blessed beyond belief. I have everything I ever dreamed of.
And i am starting to walk out the being thankful part more and more each day.


Praise God from Whom all blessings flow

Bella and Hannah sat us down today and told us it was time for them to be moving on.
"mom" Bella said "We just need our own space. We're outta here,man"


we reluctantly agreed (they are a little young, after all) and we told them goodbye, and to not be strangers.


it's not often you find real estate like this on the market. They were right to snatch it up when they had the opportunity

they neighborhood is great, and they ended up REAL close

their happily settled in,and are planning on having us for dinner soon

At what age should I start feeding coffee to my children?


Recent studies have suggested that by the time a child reaches the age of 18 months, the parents should have him or her on a healthy routine of about 1/2 cup of coffee per day. Of course, the child will not have adapted a taste for black coffee at this point in life, so Dr. Lugar Rolfstein of Germany suggests watering the coffee down with hot water and lots of sugar. You might ask, "but isn't coffee addictive?" Nonsense says Ralph Morgan, a finely dressed man on a very important street. "I can quit anytime I want." Well, what about the sugar? Sugar is good for children. It gets their heart rate up, especially when mixed with coffee, and they tend to get plenty of exercise when they are hyper. "But my child is hyper a lot and I don't know what to do." Well, TV or video games will tend to mellow them out quite a bit and they won't be such a bother. In fact, many parents find that they can leave home for hours at a time with the safe assurance that their child won't even notice they are gone.

But what about espresso? "I've been feeding my child espresso shots since she was five," says Susan Logan. "Is that OK?" According to science, you should have started earlier. By the time your child is three years old they should be drinking lattes and mochas and we highly recommend using your own breast milk. It is a lot easier to train them over to espresso by giving them a French Press for a couple of months. This would make a great gift for their birthday or Christmas. Then start giving them Americanos, gradually reducing the amount of hot water used. By the time your child reaches First grade, they should have adapted a taste for straight espresso shots and should be drinking four to six shots a day to help them stay awake and alert with their busy schedules and work loads.

by Dave Mullis

A Simple Blood Test

I was reading through some pregnancy/labor books the other day (I'm on call again to be a doula) and I came across a very disturbing (to me) passage in one of the books.
It was talking about medical procedure when newborns have fevers, and said that a simple blood test is all that is required now, in place of a full workup of blood test, spinal tap and urinalysis. I'm floored and I feel violated, once again. Bella had a fever when she was born and was given the full workup when she was 3 days old. With no anesthetic. The spinal tap alone took an hour. Now, barely 5 years later, they consider that unnecessary and outdated. It's weird how violated I feel when I feel that my child has been hurt. I felt bad enough when I thought it was necessary. Any trust I ever had in the medical community is pretty much fractured by now. What else are they going to look back on and realize was totally unnecessary? I know of so many already.

purple hair time

Abigail received 6 pairs of these socks at her baby shower.


They cost $50-so roughly $8 a pair. I was confused, irritated and surprised that baby socks could cost that much, and that anyone would pay that much for baby socks.
They were a fertile source of mockery.

I have had to revise that opinion this past week. These socks DON"T FALL OFF. Yeah, so they cost $50 dollars, but the money you save by not having to replace lost socks makes up for it. There wonder socks. And cute as can be, as well. I highly recommend them.

a new Crompton baby (aka my christmas present)



Nathan labored for this one though-for four months!
long live work trade

this is a 15 minute walk from my house. It looks like italy, doesn't it?
I love this area

Bored

I'm so bored. OK, Elena and Devon and Lisa and Renae E and Renae R, right now would be the perfect time for you to drop in-if you lived in Santa Cruz. By the way, why aren't you living in Santa Cruz? C'mon now. More expensive, yes, but oh so worth it. But it would be so much sweeter if you guys lived here.
Hey, i'll make you espresso! And cook you dinner!

I went out yesterday to buy a Christmas tree. We have never bought a cut Christmas tree. I fully intended to buy a 3-4 foot one. I came home with a 6-7 footer. Hee hee. It's nice. It's funny what makes me feel like a grown-up. Or at least like I'm playing the grown-up game. This is definitely one of those things. It's right next to the computer desk, and it smells wonderful.
I've never been interested in decorating, or any holiday traditions. But having kids that are makes all the difference. They love it. And i am having so much fun with it because they get such a kick out of it. Now, if I can just keep Abigail from eating the pine needles.............

It's 2:50 in the morning. My little Abigail is following in her sister's footsteps.
She is wide awake, happy and trying to bounce off my lap.
i am nearing exhaustian. Belle and Hannah are also awake, even though they've been in bed for HOURS. Abigail keeps laughing at them, trying to make them play with her.
My sweet, sweet, funny little girls. Sure am glad i had that double espresso at 9:00.
And hopeful that they'll actually sleep in and let me rest.
If not, well, i have lots of experience functioning in zombie mode.

Best Friends #4
If there was ever a doubt they were sisters...............

Random Cuteness

Abigail Sunshine
funny times, funny times

IS BUTTER A CARB?

i'm giving up fighting, defending, analyzing.
i'm gonna rest in the arms of Jesus and give up everything else.
i'm not really giving up. i'm surrendering.

Melancholy Chorus
by Tree by Leaf

Everything that starts
someday comes to screeching halts.
sleight of hand
screen door slammed
holograph in the promised land

you left me no choice but this
Extended wrist Judas kiss
All things bright and glorious
join the Melancholy chorus

it's Sad it's Sad
we're awfully sad
thought we had what we did not have

it's sad it's sad
i'm awfully sad
thought I had what I did not have

Twas a violent death they said
to fall from there and hit your head
Each of us in crowded square
Smell of death hung in the air

We never know the things we do
To plan a life Feed the truth
place most dark in that which is true
This is the song of the black and the Blue

Low it's low
we're very Low
Just forgot what we did not know
Low it's low
i'm very low
Just forgot what I did not know

It's sad it's sad
We're awfully sad
thought we had what we did not have

It's sad it's sad
I'm awfully sad
thought I had what i did not have

a wise little paper on Unity, by Matt Barker

Jesus not only sees how a person is,but who he is going to be in response to the love poured and recieved into his/ her life. This is the mind of Christ, to love despite Judgement of shortcomings. To be wise in the pouring of Love with awareness to surrounding situations and circumstances of individuals. To be an offering with no agenda but to meet a child of God where He/she truly needs to be met. This, I urge you to adhere to, takes much prayer and a true desire to know what troubles a child of God. So often we want to look for the immediate solution and I do believe that the Lord gives "words of knowledge" but I also strongly believe the Lord desires to call us into relationship. This means that many of the struggles "we" minister to people in are not going to just be resolved, they must be walked through in relationship. WE must truly learn how to be ministers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We must search beyond our comfort zone, we must truly love a person. In this many times the saying may be true, "out of sight, out of mind." Living Life in Unity
If combined a word of knowledge and true fellowship will be tools in freeing a person from bondage and bringing them closer to Christ in a way that is written in their heart. A seed planted, watered and Grown. at times we must do all three. Rarely only one consistantly.

PLanting seeds- single serving conversations about the Lord. Powerful words of knowledge and prayer.

Watering- If you don't give a plant water consistantly it will wither. Pouring out love through wisdom on a consistant basis.

Growing- The Lord ultimately works all three, through ways I belive at times only He can truly understand. I believe the growth process is the stage of Decipleship. When we begin to grow in the LOrd. In ways we begin to recieve the first two stages over again, replanting and watering.

My point is that we must be willing to operate in all three stages of the Harvest.

Please everyone pray for me.

I feel sick

There is something freeing about being released from a friendship long gone sour. But painful and disgusting, too-like peeling a scab off a wound that has not yet healed. I guess the loss of the "dear friend" I mentioned wasn't such a loss after all- or a dear friend. I heard tonight the estimation of my character that she held in her heart. I'm not really surprised by the venom that came out tonight, just by the amount of it. The pain is light right now but I know it will come crashing down soon enough.

Division. I've never seen the enemy play such a clear hand. So much misunderstanding, lying, self-justification, downright hatred. It was sickening to watch. I have crossed the line into someone that is afraid of Christians.

We all have our shortcomings. None of us are perfect.

I'm so sad today. Last week was pretty devastating. I am being harshly judged and criticized for something I did last week, something i felt was absolutely right at the time. And the more I think about it, the more right and correct my action looks to me. And the worse the actions the main person involved took looks to me. When I think of all the ramifications involved in her action, I'm appalled that anyone could think I am in the wrong. But there it is. It makes me wonder just how much love the two people involved really had for me. I'm all for freedom to disagree, but to cut someone out of your life because they won't repent for something they don't even feel convicted for, that's horrifying. I always wondered how church splits could happen, over the most trivial seeming issues. Well, now I know. Lack of repentance, stubbornness, and prejudice, to name just a few that have been arrayed against me. I'm supposed to go to coffeehouse tonight, to do ministry, and I have no idea whether it's right for me to go or not. There should be unity, right? How can you witness about the love and peace of Jesus when two of the christians there don't want anything to do with you anymore? Avoid them? Pretend their not there? What a joke.

a quick correction- no one died, i just lost a dear friendship.

A series of Unfourtanate events

This past week has rerouted my life into a new direction, a new channel that winds away from all my old haunts, what i've built my life around the whole time we've been here. Through a progression of different events, the culmination has resulted in the loss of two people in my life that a lot of our ministry here depended on, or at least was supported by. I lost a dear sister, and it happened so quick i'm still breathless. I feel as if this whole week has been a river that has carried me strongly to one conclusion. And here I am, wondering where i go from here, as I am at the beginning again. At the beginning, with so many of my supports and old ties cut away.

Is everything fresh, or stale? Should I be greatful for the new slate, or on my bed sobbing my heart out?

my baby

Finally a Doula

I met a couple last spring at Farmers Market. They were selling tie-dyes trying to make money and I was massively pregnant with Abigail. The girl got really excited when she saw my belly and told me she had just found out she was pregnant. I love pregnant women. Nothing kills my shyness quicker. They introduced themselves as Mama Love and Cosmo, and i saw them at coffeehouse a few more times, and they made it up to our place in Ben Lomond once, before they took off for the rainbow gathering. Love showed a really strong attraction to being around Christians, so I told her how to get a hold of friends of ours that were going to be there, in the hopes that she'd really connect with them. She didn't, and as they were going to Wyoming to live and get ready for their baby, I thought i'd never see them again.
I was walking down the street after coffeehouse one night and who happened down the street, but Mama Love and Cosmo. And this time, they had her son with them, a two year old boy, and she was weeks away from her due date. They came back to try to find a place here. We got to help them out a little bit here and there, and she called me last sunday to tell me her water broke. Monday night when I talked to them their hadn't been much progress, so I went up to see what I could do. I ended up leaving 2 hours later, but they called me back before I even left the parking lot.
I stayed, with Abigail, til 6:00 in the morning. I went back around 11:30, again with Abigail, and she had her baby at 2:10.

It was awesome. I thought I would be clueless and afraid, but it was the most natural thing ever. She really didn't need much help, so it was a perfect first time. And Abigail was perfect! I didn't know I could do it with a baby along.

Please pray for this little family, they are in a hotel right now, still looking for a place. They can come stay here if they need to, but they really want an apartment of their own.

What Bella"s been up too lately

my pretty lil Hannah
emanating cuteness

6 MONTHS

Wow. my baby is 6 months old. Last friday on october 20. I wanted to do something special so i took the girls to the butterfly grove. Every year Monarch Butterflies migrate and every year they come to this one eucalyptus grove at a state park called Natural Bridges. There's thousands of butterflies. Very cool. I thought Isabella and Hannah would be thrilled. I was so wrong. They couldn't have cared less. I took them to the little museum/gift shop after, and they had a ball. The highlight for me was when they walked up to a display case containing ONE dead butterfly, and went bonkers with excitement. LOOK MOM! A BUTTERFLY! Already catalouged in my "funny, inexplicable things my kids have done" mental file cabinet.
Isabella is getting so big and she surprises me every day with how intricate and deep her mind is. I am the mom of a almost kindergardner, someone i can hold conversations with and explain things too. She's getting so independant.
Hannah is my anxious little helper. I want to pick some verses out and print them out and hang them up, just for reminders, and so as I was reading my bible this morning she was sitting on the table, holding my pen, ready to hand it to me.
She is quite the little comedian too.
Abigail is my chill little momma's girl. Everythings all good as long as i'm holding her. I keep waiting for Nathan to be able to watch her for longer than 10 minutes without her freaking out, but she just wants me. She's staying little so much longer than my other two, i can hardly believe she's 6 months old. She is just now fitting 3-6 months well.

Motherhood is so wonderful when i am living for my kids.

if we had a boy, he'd probably look like
this

Costco

Ok, OK , if you know me at all, you know I LOVE COSTCO. But it's getting rather silly to me lately. I was looking at phones, cause ours keep acting weird, and there wasn't one pack with less than 3 phones-some had 5. We need one phone. That's it. One phone.
And their jars of mayonaise! Jeez. They just built a new safeway right up the street from us too. It's can fit 2 and a half of the old size safeway inside. It has a starbucks, a jamba juice, and a huge food deli. Costco was all good when we lived at the Land, but i find myself cutting back on stuff we buy there cuz it's just too dang much. I'm sick of American size portions.

Get this video and more at MySpace.com