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Showing posts from July, 2013

stop. victim. blaming.

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Victim-blaming. Must. Stop .  Can't we see? Do you tell a girl that was raped that it was her fault?  Do you find ways to tell a dead boy it was his fault he was killed? Short skirts don't lead to rape - rapists do . Dabbling in drugs doesn't mean you deserve to die . Why are we picking apart a dead child's 17 year old behavior? To make us feel better? Do we say, " He was a hoodlum so his death is justified ?" No one deserves to die. No one deserves to be picked apart in death. No girl "asks" to be raped. We can't say the two are not the same kind of blaming.   Victim-blaming. Must. Stop .

Listen and speak well.

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When someone says, "It's hot" do you say, "No it's not".  When someone says, "I feel awful" do you say, "No you don't".  When someone says, "I've had people do/say this to me" do you say, "There aren't many people that are like that."  Deflecting and negating someone's experience doesn't make it not true.  We do this daily when something makes us uncomfortable.  Or we don't like what they are sa ying. Stop: deflecting. negating. dismissing. "Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person." Colossians 4:6

Hate is a virus.

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I'm probably not supposed to write this article. At least that's what I keep telling myself, but something keeps poking me in the side telling me to get it out. Get it out or it will bury itself so far underneath the skin you won't be able to find it anymore. It will make you uncomfortable. These are my kids. They are beautiful in my eyes with their dark eyes and caramel skin. They are dark-haired and lovely because of my husband. This is my husband. He was born in our warm neighboring country to the south. He is my heart and together we have created and raised three fierce and vibrant children. This is me. I was born in northeast Ohio about seventy-five miles south of Cleveland in a small blip on the map of nowhere. I had an idyllic childhood full of good things. But until I met my husband, I never knew the things that were missing. The things that were never said. The things that until now, have never made me pause to think. I never heard my parents say t

Scratching that thrift store itch

Relieving that thrift store itch with a five dollar limit I really start to get cranky if I don’t get even a couple of hours every other week of thrift store shopping. I start trembling, my hands get fidgety, and my husband says my money is just aching to jump out of my purse. “My money, dear one, is safely ensconced in my billfold. If I can’t spend my allotted $5 for thrifting I might leave you.” He throws his head back and laughs and laughs, while I plot times in my head when I can get to our local thrift store.  This sounds a lot like I have a shopping problem, doesn’t it? I beg to differ. I see it as a pastime, a hobby, a release, shall we say? You may be laughing at my $5 limit but it’s amazing how much you can find for $5. Most people spend more than that in a week on designer coffees. You know it’s true. I wrote a blog several years ago on limiting myself to $1 to see what I could find. It was an amazing little experiment and I found lots and lots of things for less than $1. M

Pay attention to what's put in your path.

Read my column from the Bargain Hunter and don't ignore what's put in your path!  I believe you finally have arrived, summer. I feel your gentle breath on my cheek as I tend to my potted plants and sit on my porch. As I’ve written about before, I hold many conversations with myself on the front porch. It’s asking me things like this: “Are you happy with your life? Is there something you need to be doing? You realize you have only one life to try new things, right?” Darn that porch, or maybe it’s just God talking to me as usual. My husband and I dream so many things. We are dreamers. He is also a doer and I’m just late to the game.  I watched a movie on CNN last night and am so glad I did. A friend on Facebook posted something about it and I decided to turn it on. It was called Girl Rising and focused on girls around the world and the things they had overcome: forced marriages, abuse, not being allowed to go to school, being sold into slavery and many more. These girls were