Remembering.........

So, whether you live in the United States or not, the world changed 7 years ago today. No matter your political views, this can not be denied. In the early hours of September 11, 2001 a plane hit one of the world trade center 's twin towers. The news was shocking, and everyone wondered what could have gone wrong. Then we heard of the second plane hitting the second tower. And then we learned that a plane had hit the Pentagon also.

The only reason the fourth plane never made it to The White House, its original target, was because of the courageous acts of those aboard who had learned of the other planes fates and decided to act.

With these crashes and the subsequent collapsing of the twin towers took the death toll to over 3000. TRAGIC!

Forget politics for a day. Take the time to remember those who died today. And all those who have died all across this world in the name of freedom.

I will never forget where I was or what I was doing on 9-11-01 when I first heard what had happened. I will also never forget the thoughts that went through my head. Despite my location in relation to this tragedy, I wanted to bring my family in close and hold them tight. How thankful I am that I still have them. How my heart aches for those who died then and all those who have died at the hands of cowards who kill innocents!

Take the time to remember.

Have a great day!

How much is too much!

Someone I truly admire and respect told me I put too much time into blogging. I disagree but realize that with ALL of the other requirements and demands on my time I do not have a lot of time to blog. And so It may seem that that I AM blogging or reading blogs too much. So of course now I am analyzing and over analyzing what is a good balance of time. I do enjoy blogging. I do, for some strange reason, like to read everyone Else's blogs and see life, the good and the bad, from so many different perspectives. I truly feel inspired each time I do and enjoy the community feel of the blogging world. I actually read an article the other day about the strength of the blogging world. There was a plane crash and through blogging friends, auctions and efforts to raise money to help the family affected were started.

These are the sad but feel good stories that I enjoy. I also love to laugh. A funny blog, that either makes me remember my past or just laugh (with) someone else about their day can really be a stress reliever.

So, I guess I have a question. How much is appropriate? Obviously I have to determine that. But does anyone else have thoughts on this? If I only posted every three days for example. Is that enough? What if I did less?, or more? Does it even matter? Does anyone even care? I told myself I could just stop this whole 'experiment'. It is not something that I HAVE to do. But if I like to do it, Is that wrong?

Any thoughts or suggestions will be appreciated.

Have a great day.

Am I smarter today?

I really liked everyones comments on the last post. Feel free to add comments to any topic at any time. So I have been really busy these last few days. Too busy to really do any serious blog stalking. Life can be cruel. But had some good busy days with family. Wouldn't trade those days for all the carefree lonely days in the world.

So I actually have a topic for a post. Of course it is not wholly original. Again, I got my idea from a few other blogs I read over the last week or two. In a few blogs there was a theme of writing your old self a letter. I really liked the bloggers who did this. They were all very interesting reads. They would tell their younger selves things to avoid that they have regretted doing or not doing. Some of the advice just made you smile from ear to ear. Yet some of the advice was quite sad, as it obviously was to avoid hurt that the blogger had experienced.

So, on to the question of the day. What would you tell yourself of yesteryear if you could leave a message for him/her? But it is not going to be quite that easy. I also want to know if you think you would listen to yourself. I find myself giving my kids advice that my parents gave me. I ignored their advice, and my kids seem to discount my advice to them. When you are a teenager and know everything, who listens to 'old' people? What's funny is now I see the wisdom of my parents. They had gone through these years. They had grown up different, for sure. Things are always more technologically advanced in our kids generation. Remember walk-mans? My kids have no idea what an LP is/was. I had a 13inch television that was black and white. It sat in my room and I thought I was soooooooo cool. When I wanted to talk on the phone, I had to wait for a sibling to get off. Or go down to the local store and use a pay-phone. My kids don't know how to use a pay phone. Seriously. Anyway, they had gone through it, just like we have gone through what our kids are going through, albeit a little less hip.

Now we have i-pods and MP3 players that hold tons of music. Our kids can almost always be accounted for. We all have cell phones. When I was a teen, I would tell parental units what time I thought I would be back. If I was late all they could do is worry. Now if my kid is 5 minutes late I can call their cell phone. We can even track their phone with GPS if we choose. We don't even have to have a dark room to develop pictures. Or go to the 1 hour photo unless we want to. We have Digital everything.......But I digress........I tend to do that.
So take some time, put some real thought into it and tell us what you would tell your teenage- high school - self. And then tell us whether or not you think your younger self would take the advice.

Have a great day people!

Revenge on bullies!

I have read a few blogs lately that really made me think. Oh Oh, there goes the smoke coming from my ears. Great job everyone. No, seriously, I have read more than I've posted. Well, I saw a few that I really liked and will probably steal the general format for a future post. I hope if you recognize that format that you will feel honored and flattered as opposed to enraged and plagiarized.

So what these posts brought to mind was my growing up years. Don't worry I know I have not really grown up yet. (hope I never do actually) Children in general from as young as 6 and 7 can be very cruel. Several people can recall specific instances where they changed from fun kids to kids who worried about too much, such as bullies and what those bullies were going to do to them. Now, I want to define bullies.
I Think for this post a bully would be anyone who would say or do anything to make someone else feel inferior or to put themselves above that individual. Sometimes bullies intimidate and use physical force. Sometimes they use the sectarian form of bullying. I think this would be where the "In" crowd would pick others out of the class or group to harass, pick on, make fun of or just plain make life miserable for.

So I find myself thinking about this dynamic. I believe that there are several personalities involved. There is the real bully. The one who instigates the intimidation/harassment. There are those who go along with it and consider themselves friends of the bully and put their own 2 cents in. Then there are the victims. Usually the ones who bear the scars for a long time. Who usually overcome and succeed far beyond the bully. And then there are the others who are just glad they were not picked as the victim and tend to try and avoid the bully and the victim.

So now I look back at my life and want to figure out where I sat. I definitely was at various times the victim and the one avoiding attention. But then lucky for me I gained some confidence and went to different high school than everyone I grew up with. I was social. I was involved. I will not go into what I was involved with as I try and stay as anonymous as possible. Anyway I found myself in a totally new group I have not previously listed. I was not comfortable just going along with anyone. I sought friendships with everyone and struck the best friendships with those who had intellect and rational thought capability. But I found also that I had a voice. I could speak out against the bully. I could never just sit by if someone was ever being made fun of or picked on. Well, towards the end of my high school experience I actually had a few encounters with previous bullies of mine. I will not go into too many details, but I knew their game and knew I had all the power now. Anyway, it was a great feeling.

SO, (I tend to start a lot of sentences with so. So, I must not be a very good writer) What the Question of the day is....................................... What group were you a part of? Were you a victim? If you were, did you ever get a chance to confront a past bully? (or maybe the satisfaction of seeing them suffer a little) Were you the bully? If you were, did you ever feel bad enough to apologize to a victim? Did a victim ever confront you? Were you the friends of the bully? The ones who maybe didn't feel totally comfortable but did go along because you did not want to be the victim. Or maybe you were the ones who just floated under the radar and really got your wings after high school. Maybe you were something I didn't mention. Did the experience of your school years influence you as an adult. (by adult I mean as legally defined. Many of us probably still have a hard time calling themselves adults.)


So tell us all where you fit in to this dynamic and where you are today. Do you have good memories of school? Or do you try and block those years out?

I for one wish I would have done a lot of things differently. But overall am glad for the experiences I did have.

What would you do.........?

So not that many were brave enough to call the number on my last post. You missed out. It was just a fun number for the psychiatric hot line. It is a fun number to give your friends, so if you waited till now to call because I creeped you out, too bad. Ha, I thought you guys were coming around but apparently all the bloggers who think I am creepy just don't take the poll.

So any who, I have been watching Gustav with a lot of anticipation and concern. It has been good to get the updates from Dawn and other bloggers who are riding it out or near the areas of concern. So far it seems that it will not be as bad as Katrina at least, so very good. But still a chance for major damage and danger.

So with that it mind, my mind starts to wander. I know, its always wandering. Fairly evident by the wandering in my posts, sometimes barely making sense. Constantly transitioning between subjects. Like now.......sorry. Anyway......I did start to think about what would I do and what would I be thinking if I was going through that. And then I thought about the idea for this post.

So this is the question of the day. If a natural disaster was happening, was due to occur or had already happened, and your family and pets were not in any danger, what would be the item(s) that would mean the most to you that you would try and take with you or save from the disaster?

That was a long question blogstalker, can't you come up with shorter, easier questions?

Well, I would, but that would not be any fun. But if easy is what you want, then here you go. What is your favorite color, and why?

Hey, that was a great question till you stuck that why in there.

Okay, okay

Please people, let me know what you would do in answer to the first question. And if that is too hard just answer the second one.

Have a great day and those in the path of Gustav, GOOD LUCK!