My family. This includes my extended family and my in-law family. Thanks for the memories growing up and the memories we make together now. Thanks for the vacations and holidays together. Thanks for shared meals and game playing. Thanks for lengthy emails and phone conversations, for loaned money, for making small events big events, for visiting us and making it easy to visit you, for borrowed cars and trucks, for pet sitting, for house remodeling, fence building, manure scooping, garden helping, house painting. Thanks for teaching us things both the easy way and the hard way. Thanks for taking us out to eat, and bringing pizza over, thanks for advice and prayers. Thanks for understanding that we are very different, but most of all thank you for all you do. I am very grateful for you.
Today I am thankful for several things, but I'll focus on one. For friends in Davis and friends in Oregon, for friends all over the US from Arizona to Montana to DC to the midwest, for our friends all over the world (specifically Germany). For memories with those friends that make me smile and my heart laugh, for friends that email and message me, for friends that call, for friends that send packages, pictures, and letters. For friends that include us in special events even though we are far away (the baby websites, picture websites ect). For friends we can call any time of the day, for friends we can complain to, cry on the shoulder of, or hope for a better tomorrow with. For friends who take you out to a drink, or bring the drink over to celebrate, for friends that share cake together, take trips together, shop together and read together. Thank you friends, I am very blessed to have you in my life.
For me, this was the first weekend without studying since I started my tests last April. Did I do anything terribly exciting, no. But here is how my weekend went...Friday night I had a great fall dinner with two grad student significant others and another friend popped in briefly. We talked until midnight and it was really nice. Saturday I headed to Woodland to see a youth soccer game and then picked up Bob at the airport. That afternoon we played a great game of soccer and followed by some of the best Chinese food in California. Today has been full of household issues like laundry and carpet cleaning (they were too disgusting and I couldn't handle it!) Tonight I have our first book club meeting of the fall. It wasn't an exciting weekend, but a nice calm one.This week I will only be working two days because on Wednesday we fly home to Oregon! We are hoping that it snows between now though. Later this week I'll be writing on what I am thankful for. Right now I am thankful for no more tests until March, and that it was another beautiful sunny day here today.
I feel I must clarify something. Yes, I am concerned about the number of cases of cancer being on the rise, but that is not my main concern with ingredients in our lotions, gels, and shampoos. Yes, I am concerned about the potential damage to reproductive and other developing systems in children. But that is not my main issue either. The biggest problem I have is that we shouldn't have to worry at all. These ingredients should be regulated. I should be able to put on any kind of lip gloss, use any kind of lotion and wash with any kind of soap, without wondering if their are KNOWN toxins, without wondering if what goes down my shower drain is causing frogs to have 4 eyes and 6 legs, without wondering if what I use a normal every day basis is causing an employee in a manufacturing plant to expose themselves to poisons. If the UK and EU have regulations, why doesn't the US? Why is there lead in lipstick and kid's toys? Why are their petroleum based ingredients in face wash and make up? If you won't rub gas on your skin at the gas station, why would you wash with it or use lotion with it? My point is there are safer ingredients companies can use, so why aren't they using them, and more importantly, why are they allowed to use the harmful ones in the first place?
I had a great time in San Francisco on Saturday at Green Fest. There was tasty food, samples, lectures, coupons, and all sorts of things to learn about. There were also a ton of people. Most of you know that one of the things I am interested in is the ingredients found in cosmetics (Note: Cosmetics are not limited to make-up, but include, deodorant, shampoo, lotions, gel, etc. as well). There is a website you can go to and either look up the products they have in their data base and see how harmful they are, or enter in your product (including all the ingredients) and it will tell you which of those ingredients is harmful. Now, when I say harmful, I mean carcinogenic, neorotoxic, disruptive to endocrine, reproductive and developmental systems, or are occupational hazards. My main issue is that there is currently little to no restrictions for these products. The FDA does not regulate the amount of lead in your lipstick, the government is not protecting us. In the US there are thousands of chemicals used that are banned in Europe, what is being hidden from us? Here is a list of some of the most disturbing products. So I encourage you all to go to Skin Deep and from there you can send a letter to congress about getting the FDA involved to make sure that all ingredients are listed and that the most harmful ones are left out of our products. When you get ready tomorrow morning, count the number of things you use on your body from gel to toothpaste to contact solution and I think you may be surprised. Make sure you dispose of your more harmful products properly, don't just pour them down the drain, because if they shouldn't be on your body, they shouldn't be in our water supply either.
Items to mention:
My sister hit a 'big bug' (aka a deer) on the way to pick up Cait last night. The car is still drivable, but has damage.
I'm ready for Thanksgiving, but sad Lulu won't be coming with us.
I'm looking forward to heading into San Francisco this weekend for Green Fest, and finding hippie Christmas gifts!
I am really tired today, but I hope to play townball with the history students this afternoon.
Today I've been working on a material and color board for the city to review, so look for that on here soon.
Last night's lecture was pretty good. Eric is one smart guy. He went through why 'liberal' has come to mean something negative for so many people. Personally I'm proud to be one (along with 20% of Americans). He spoke of some major items in history that either liberals did or had done to them that have left a negative feelings towards liberalism from Truman trying to continue what FDR had been doing, to Kennedy and Johnson. This was very interesting to me, but lightly touched on (understandingly so most of the room was filled with historians that may have been bored with this part, yet I hadn't had it phrased to me that way before.) So the country leaned more and more to the right. There is an opinion of those truly on the left that things must get worse before they can get better and the 2006 elections were enough for some people to see that and begin leaning left again. Although he mentioned there were still many more democrats elected in 1994, (maybe he was hinting that Reagan/Bush era was worse than this Bush era?) He spoke of the upcoming election with hope. To me, hope that middle class, middle state America would realize that the things they most value, have not been paid attention to and the left is ready to listen.
My goal of blogging every day has almost been realized, except that I think the only one reading is my faithful commenter, Katie. Today I am not particularly inspired to blog about something controversial, I have no rage towards a news event or article that I need to share. I am looking forward to a few things however, one is a lecture tonight and the other is Green Fest this weekend in San Francisco. And in the upcoming weekends I want to go to Apple Hill and a huge craft store in Sacramento.First things first, the lecture is by Eric Alterman, a professor from Brooklyn College, City University of New York. He has written several books including, 'What Happens when Presidents Lie', 'Why We are Liberals', 'What Liberal Media: The Truth About Bias and the News', 'How George W Bush (mis)Leads America' and 'Who Speaks for America?: Why Democracy Matters in Foreign Policy'.At the end of November I'll also be going to listen to an author Luis Alberto Urrea speak about immigration and the US/Mexico border. Sometimes I love living in a college town, which does bring me to this point. The election here in Davis only had three issues, a school bond, a library bond, and a school board member. Both bonds passed with over 70% support. Someone commented on how it is nice to live in a town where you are the majority and the majority is doing the right thing.
First let me say, I passed another test. That makes one retake, one left to take, and one I am still waiting to hear on, but 6 known passes.Today I was going to comment on the price of the oil barrel and mention an article in the NYT magazine from Sunday about Oil and Venezuela, but instead, health insurance.I have health insurance through my employer, but no dental, so I picked up an individual plan. Well I finally made a dentist appointment, by looking online at who was a member and then calling them. I found two disconnected numbers and one listing that was recently accused of assaulting his patients. So I picked the only one listed, went, and then got the bill. Turns out she isn't a member any longer! I spent 15 minutes on the phone with someone and have decided to cancel it. They only covered 1/3 of the cost! Since I have not had problems in the past, it just isn't worth me paying for both bad insurance and then dentist. Why is this such an issue? Why does it cost $300 to go to a dentist and not have problems? Anyone know how to fix the problem? Everyone knows there are big problems, what I really want to know is why socializing medicine has such a negative meaning to some people?
The topic today is voting! Happy Voting Day everyone, or for Oregonians, happy drop off your ballot day if you did not mail it earlier. I know there aren't many issues in this election (in California), mostly library and school board issues, but go exercise your American right and participate. (I do look froward to seeing the results for measure 49 in Oregon.)http://www.designobserver.com/archives/029268.html I must be on the edge of two generations. I feel myself agreeing with her, yet I don't feel I need to be pushed to vote. Interesting at the very least.One year from today we'll be voting for a new President. With so much hype for the primaries and so many candidates, if you haven't done so already, check out this website. It provides an interesting look into which candidate matches with your views. If anyone wants to list their top or bottom three, just for kicks, go ahead. I took this a couple weeks ago, I'll do it again and post my results.http://www.dehp.net/candidate/Possible topics later this week - Oil, Education, Water, Laws.
In an attempt to encourage more comments, I posted a 'list five things' survey, but instead, if you find yourself on my page please take a look at this http://www.sojo.net/ Faith, politics, and culture. Check out the magazine, the prayers for peace, and other articles. It is so easy for me to get worked up lately, but maybe this is a better outlet. I will try to post things instead of flying off. I do not understand how two people can read or listen to the same thing and hear completely different things.
So that is today's page. I hope to have a page a day this week.
Sometimes I love the life of a grad student's wife. I have a pretty good network set up of other significant others, topics of conversation are usually interesting, people have pretty similar interests and concerns, we do fun things together (from movies to camping to soccer) and it is a unique group from all over the world really. And yet other times I think I am ready to be the professor's wife. Have students over, have tea for the other professors wives, slow down a little. What does this say about me? Am I on the edge of becoming old? Am I tired of the adventure? Nah, but maybe I am ready for winter with hot chocolate, reading, and knitting. Maybe I don't need a 'summer of George', but a winter of.
What a weekend to need three posts! Saturday evening we spent with Bob's family playing games and eating more tasty food. Sunday, we visited our house and cleaned the frozen blocks of leaves out of the gutters. That evening before we had to fly back, we had dinner with some close friends. Thanks everyone for another great trip home! To those of you we missed, I hope to see you at Christmas.
For the second year in a row, Spencer and Amy have also been in Sunriver and we met up for a winter hike, some Wii playing and a soak in the hot tub, but I won't bore you with pictures of the latter.
Thanksgiving weekend this year involved flying into Redmond and spending the first half of the weekend with my parents, sister, niece and grandparents. We had a fairly traditional dinner, but we also had wonderful breakfasts of beignettes and cinnamon rolls. We also celebrated Cait's 4th birthday (which is why we are all wearing princess shoes). From left to right - Bob, me, Sheila, Mom, Grandma and Cait in the middle.
