Aspens by the Animas, August 2007

This is my current favorite photo. I took this from the train coming back from Silverton. I was trying different shutter speeds, but this one shot with a flash. I love the color of the aspen trunks with the water and the rocks in the background.

Just an Airman's Mom

One of the reasons I started blogging was because my online friends who scrapped started blogging to share photos and pages. These two pages are the first that I have ever posted here. I am doing my son's photos from his deployment in Iraq last winter. I try to keep my journaling neutral and non-son-embarrassing as possible. Both of these pages do reveal my views on what is happening in Iraq today. I didn't state them on the page, but this is what I felt when I did them. Comparisons is my son at eight with a toy rifle and him at 23 with the real thing. He chose the military without his parents urging. We are a military family so we are proud and honored he is serving. He serves his country and does his duty. He and every other military person serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are doing this country proud. It is time for the Administration and Congress to do us proud and find a way to help to get these countries back on their feet politically and economically without agenda and ideological biases. I am tired of other women's children dying. I am tired of Iraqi and Afghan Fathers, Mothers, Sons and Daughter dying.

Outside the Wire are photos of about twenty Marines getting ready to move out to a Forward Operating Base at dusk last February. Those young men, you want a reference? Look at the picture of my son again. Those young men were going out to some remote location in Anbar province to put their lives on the line. Count those marines. There is a strong probability that at least two of them are now dead and several more are wounded. I am crying now, I am angry and I don't know how any of this is going to change, but it has to change. This war is killing our national soul as well as our children. Who is going to make a difference?

READ THIS BLOG

Yes, I am yelling....

Click on this link and to go Clicked to read the posts about what is going on in Burma. The courage of the Burmese and their struggle to tell the world what is happening needs to be made widely known to everyone.


http://clicked.msnbc.msn.com/

Shopping in the Mountains

One of the things we have always loved to do on vacation is shop the vendors on the streets or in this case the panoramic outlook at Wolf Creek Pass. In this day and age when almost everything affordable is made in China, we still live with the hope that this jewelry sold by a young Indian woman was actually made by her or her relations. Ray bought a necklace for our daughter and another one for a gift. Nothing really appealed to me here. I ended up buying a silver astorite ring at a jewelry store in Silverton this time. It was more elegant and expensive, but definitely lacked the sense of a bargain found on a blanket in a parking lot.

Sympathy

Most of us who blog know that there are people here that we feel we know through their writings. We will never meet in real life but we know so much about each other that when something happens it hits you like a ton of bricks.
One of the officers who writes for the AWAC blog just posted that one of their newborn twins just died in a crib death. I was crying for this family. I can't imagine their loss, but I am grieving for them. Don't ever doubt that this world is real and think that people don't care. People do. Send a prayer or a comforting thought to Odie and his family.

Fun at the Fair

Ray, Nicole and Wyatt went to the Kansas State Fair in Hutchinson last Friday. I didn't go, but that is fine. State Fairs are once every ten year things for me and I haven't hit that yet. However, everything was new and exciting for Wyatt. He got to pet lots of animals and ride a pony. When Nicole first put him on the pony, he rocked back and forth like on his rocking horse at home. But when it started moving he really got into riding. Maybe we have a cowboy in our future.

The distance from the time spent raising your own children and watching the same learning experiences with your grandchildren vanishes in an instant. Wyatt does something and I think of something his mother or uncle did just like that. I may not have thought of it for over twenty years but it comes back immediately.

Durango Colorado, August 2007

Holy Cow!!!

I just realized that I haven't posted since the end of August. What have I been doing? Well, for one thing I have been fighting a nasty cold that delights in moving from my chest to my head and back again. I prefer a cold in my chest. My husband has some prescription cough syrup with codeine. I tried that and no cold stands a chance. My poor head on the other hand just suffers, I ache, get the chills and feel miserable. Anyway, that is part of my excuse for not writing.

Fall was here in Kansas for a couple of days. I hauled out a sweater and wore long pants. I think I am ready for summer to move on. It went so fast though. The speed that my life moves at always amazes me. I turn around and a season has passed. I am reminded of an event that just took place and realize it was two years ago. I always tried to avoid wishing my life away, wishing for the weekend, or something to happen. As much as I tried my life is going on anyway. It seems that getting old should have the time slow down instead of having that happen when you are young.