Thank you Mary!

I won an award from my dear friend Mary @ Work of the Poet! Thank you Mary! Click here to see my award and click here to visit Mary ♥

Amazing

I just got done watching yesterday's premier of The Amazing Race. Not having cable at this time I had to wait until today to watch it online. That's ok though. It certainly lived up to it's name for me! Amazing!

One of the reasons I love this show so much is all the places I get to see. I figure I'll never get to Argentina or China or ANY place outside of the United States but I feel like I get to visit them anyway. The views that Amazing Race provide me allow me to do that.

The preview was very exciting and filled with lots of action including a walk across a 120-foot cable the length of a football field suspended over a valley in Valparaiso, Chile. One couple, high school sweethearts Dana & Adrian, couldn't complete the challenge and were eliminated from the race.

There were also plenty of dumb moves which is another enjoyment I get out of the show. I figure if people do things that dumb on TV then I'm ok with the dumb things I do that no one ever sees. My top pick of dumb moves from this episode was when the father & daughter team, Steve & Allie, painted the inside of someone's home that wasn't part of the race.

But my favorite part was watching MY team, Jeff & Jordan from last season's Big Brother, win the first leg of the race! Woohoo guys! Keep up the great work! I can't wait to see what you do next Sunday!

Now, on a totally unrelated note but still amazing...

I received a prize from one of my Blogland friends, William. I think he is so sweet! Thank you so much William! Be sure to visit my Blog Love blog tomorrow where I will post my award and my thank you :) I would have posted it today but I have already written my post there and didn't see that I won an award until I got here (sorry honey). William writes beautiful poetry and short stories. If you'd like to visit him, click here.

That's it for today guys....I'll see you tomorrow!

Promises, promises

Hey y'all! I hope everyone had a great Christmas! I know I promised the other day that I was going to get caught up with everyone here in blogland and I'm sorry that I haven't been able to do that yet. Now that Christmas is over, I should be able to get back to normal tomorrow...I won't promise anything but I'm going to keep my fingers crossed!

While I've been away from Blogger, I've been playing around with Wordpress. It's pretty neat. So neat in fact, that I decided to move my cookbook over there. I like it much better. Check it out if you get the chance.

So....

If all goes well....

And everyone cooperates....

And no disasters occur....

I'll see you tomorrow!

OH YEAH! And yay! Yesterday was my Blogaversary for this blog! Woohoo! A year!! :) Thank you to Teena in Toronto who left me a congratulations message! That was very sweet and made me smile!

Dear soldier, thank you for my freedom

I often complain about silly things that happen. I have even been known to write long articles on the injustices that take place around me. I’ve also made big to-do’s over things I think are just ridiculous. American things.

Well, I take them back. The things I’ve said against America anyway. Not all of them, but a few. Like saying our government is too involved in our personal lives. I discovered this morning that it could be so much worse.

Gambia is a small country in Western Africa. As a matter of fact, it is the smallest country on the African mainland. A man named Yahya Jemmeh is the ruling president having siezed his power in a 1994 coup.

In 2002 he implemented a democratic civilian government and was then elected to the position he had seized. It is my opinion that he’s nothing more than a schoolyard bully and the people were afraid to not vote for him. He was quoted by a state journalist as saying “I will develop the areas that vote for me, but if you don’t vote for me, don’t expect anything.”

In 2006 a plot to overthrow him was discovered and many army officials were arrested while other prominent army officials, including the army chief of staff, were said to have fled the country.

Today Gambia is back in the news. A British couple that were running a missionary there have been arrested for talking badly about the government. Specifically they were arrested for sedition (covert conduct that is deemed by the legal authority as tending toward a rebellion against the established order). They were sentenced to one year in prison with hard labor and a fine. For writing emails. That’s all they did. Criticized the government in emails that they sent out to their followers. I couldn’t believe it.

The Fultons (he is 60, she is 46) were running an educational center there through their church Westhoughton Pentecostal Church in northwest England. They also provided medical care to prison inmates and terminally ill people that could only be reached by boat.

They officially apologized to the President and promised in a letter to never speak or write of Gambia or their government again. They also promised never to return to Gambia without his permission. They are asking for clemency and to be able to return to the United Kingdom with their young daughter.

As I sit here writing this, thoughts of my freedom are running through my head. I couldn’t imagine living somewhere that the government was so far into my life that I had to worry about what I said or wrote. Or wasn’t able to have my own opinions and express them freely.

If you ever had any doubt as to why our children, siblings, spouses and friends are fighting in wars, this should be an answer. They are fighting for our freedom. They are fighting for our rights. For our opinions and ideas. For our voice.

It IS a crazy adventure

I’ve been doing a lot of soul searching lately… I mean A LOT. I don’t know why this sudden need to discover who I am or what exactly it is I’m trying to discover. But I do know it has consumed my mind for the last month or so. My mind has been wandering through the years. Remembering moments. Remembering people.

Maybe it’s my age. I heard somewhere that when you turn 40 your whole idea of what life is changes. Things you used to like you now hate. Things you used to hate you now like. Your ideas change. It’s a very confusing time for me.

I also heard that by the time you are 45 things kind of settle. If that’s true I only have 3 years to go! I hope it’s true. I’d like to feel settled. I used to think I knew EXACTLY who I was, what I believed in and how things were supposed to be. Now I just don’t know. But I’m having a good time trying to figure it out even with the confusion. It IS an adventure and as long as I keep that knowledge deep in my heart, I know it will turn out for the best.

I’d like to say thank you to the people who have played a part in making me up to this point. You may not think you have made any difference in my life. I’m here to tell you that you’re wrong about that. Every statement, every action, every single thing whether positive or negative has influenced my life and formed who I am. Every single one. So Thank You. You are all important to me.