Janet's Smiles

Well we’ve come to the end of the month of May and also the end of the journey for Bill’s mom. She passed yesterday morning. I was there with her until the end and even though she didn’t quite make it to her 100th birthday (July) she definitely gave it quite a ride.

This is her shortly after we brought her down to live next door to us on December 31, 2022. Fortunately she made her wishes known to us and we are not left wondering what to do. Arrangements have already been made for cremation and she will be buried next to her husband. There is not a lot of personal stuff to go through and her finances were all in order. 

When I see this picture, though, I realize how far she had declined in the past year. At the time this was taken we were going on weekly trips to the library and the grocery store. For the last year she has had no interest in reading at all and she rarely left the house. Our last outing was in March to get biscuits and gravy for breakfast. She loved her biscuits and gravy. 

Anyway, just wanted to put this out there as the last few of my posts have been updates on her. She will be missed.  

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Hi all, just wanted to give an update and thank you all for your support. My MIL is in a skilled nursing and rehab facility so she is getting great care and is slowly improving. She fell and fractured at least one rib, was having trouble breathing and had a slight infection. Our hope is that with the physical and occupational therapy she will be able to come home soon. I am going to see her at least once a day, usually around a meal time so I can help her get situated and make sure that she has everything she needs. That takes a good few hours, but I don’t mind. You may or may not remember that she used to live in Oregon and when she needed us we’d have to get on a plane and fly up there. This is much easier than that! The nursing home is near the ocean so I get to see this when I visit:

In addition I got in a lot of transcription work which is my “real” job when I’m not blogging or working in the studio. I am so grateful that I am able to do this work from home so that even if I have to spend some extra time with MIL, I can still do the typing. Sometimes I’m up until 10 PM but I’m in my jammies so it’s all good. 

Anyway, I just wanted to thank everyone again for the well wishes and who knows, we still have half a month left, maybe I’ll be able to do a couple of catch up posts or even extend it past April. It’s my blog and I can do what I want, right?  

Have a great week everyone! 

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 Hi all – I am afraid I may not be able to keep up with the A to Z this year. I had to take my mother-in-law to the ER twice since Friday and she has been admitted so I need to be with her. If I can I’ll try to do two posts in a day to catch up but family first, right?  It will also mean that I probably can’t comment as much on others. So sorry about that! She’s going to be 100 in July and I’m going to do all I can to make sure she gets there! 

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My theme for this year’s A to Z challenge is the A to Z of Democracy. This is your trigger warning. If you are going to be bothered by my descriptions of what I believe America should look and feel like, please stop reading and come back next year when my topic may go back to music or scrapbooking or interesting tidbits. Please respect my space and DO NOT leave disinformation or inflammatory statements in the comments. It’s my blog and I will delete them. Thanks for your cooperation. 

D is for Democracy Over Demogogue

One of the ways that man gained power again was by telling everyone lies, lies and more lies. He manipulated the truth so many times and was never called on it. He also railed and railed about things like immigration, which admittedly needs to be reformed and adjusted but by no means is it as bad as he made it out to be. People were not eating dogs. He made big promises about deporting people who were in this country illegally and that appealed to the prejudices of a lot of folks. However, as we can see now, he is not doing the deportations in a democratic way. There has been no due process and a few US citizens have been taken from their homes and families unlawfully. 

He (I refuse to write his name, you all know who I’m talking about) had said several times on the campaign trail that he didn’t need votes or only “vote this one last time and you won’t need to vote again.” Now he is talking about running for a third term, which is against the constitution. He believes the rules do not apply to him.

I want to live in a country where I can vote and have a say in who our leaders are and I want there to be secure guidelines about what those leaders can and cannot do. I am lucky, for now, that I am a white woman and there is less of a chance that immigration officers will come knocking at my door. Who knows if those rules will change at the drop of a golf club? Maybe someone will see these posts and think I need to be silenced. (LOL I wish I had that readership). 

As always, credit goes to Speaker Hakeem Jeffries who gave an impassioned speech on the floor of the House of Representatives at the beginning of the 218th congress. 

One more post this week and then we have Sunday off. I am trying to get to visit other folks who are participating as best I can. It is beginning of baseball season and my Giants are doing well plus I have had a fair amount of transcription lately which is my “real” job so time is precious. Thanks for stopping by!

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Welcome to my A to Z this year where I am covering the theme of democracy.This is your trigger warning. If you are going to be bothered by my descriptions of what I believe America should look and feel like, please stop reading and come back next year when my topic may go back to music or scrapbooking or interesting tidbits. Please respect my space and DO NOT leave disinformation or inflammatory statements in the comments. It’s my blog and I will delete them. Thanks for your cooperation. 

C is for Constitution over Cult

It is true that our constitution was written many years ago and has had to have a few revisions over time but the basic principles of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness have always been at the core. We the People is a powerful phrase. It signifies that we work together as a collective and not just blindly following one person or ideal. We have a say in what those changes need to be and we vote to make them happen. 

If there is any question about whether a cult has now invaded the country, these words from Representative Troy Nehls shortly after Trump won reelection are pretty cult-like. He said, “If Donald Trump says jump 3-feet high and scratch your head, we should all jump 3-feet high and scratch our head.”

I don’t think there will be too many pictures in this A to Z but I did come across something last night that I think perfectly fits here. I was on my way to visit my daughter who lives in the area around the Facebook/Meta buildings. This is one of the street signs:

I know which direction I’m going.  

If you want to see Speaker Hakeem Jeffries’ speech which is where I got the idea for this year’s challenge, you can see it here. Also make sure to visit some of the other participants in this alphabetical endeavor. See you tomorrow!

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This is your trigger warning. If you are going to be bothered by my descriptions of what I believe America should look and feel like, please stop reading and come back next year when my topic may go back to music or scrapbooking or interesting tidbits. Please respect my space and DO NOT leave disinformation or inflammatory statements in the comments. It’s my blog and I will delete them. Thanks for your cooperation. 

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First of all let me get this out of the way…I am a Democrat but MORE IMPORTANTLY, I am a firm believer in democracy and the rule of law. If there was a Republican who was doing something good for our country, stood for something closer to my beliefs than a Democrat running for the same office, I might vote for the Republican. So far I am not seeing any of that. With the exception of Liz Chaney and Adam Kinzinger who both chose country over party, I can’t think of another Republican who was willing to turn his back on the dysfunctional group we have in control right now. 

That being said, this is your trigger warning. If you are going to be bothered by my descriptions of what I believe America should look and feel like, please stop reading and come back next year when my topic may go back to music or scrapbooking or interesting tidbits. Please respect my space and DO NOT leave disinformation or inflammatory statements in the comments. It’s my blog and I will delete them. Thanks for your cooperation. 

Here we go then. 

It seems like common sense to me that a person would want to be able to make their own choices and live their life without having someone tell them what to do every step of the way or restricting access to things. Other than when raising a child, and even then most of the time it is a shared experience, I can’t think of any reason for one person to have total control over someone else. Even with parenting there comes a point where the child should be able to make some of their own choices, as long as it will not hurt them or others. I can remember letting my daughter choose her own outfits for school even though a) they were not things that I felt would go together or b) she was without a jacket when I thought it was a little chilly. If it made her feel good to dress this way then she would be more apt to able to focus on learning.   

We should be able to question the people governing us and to express our opinions without fear of being retaliated against. We should have the ability to choose our leaders and hold them accountable when their decisions are detrimental to our country and safety. We should be able to read whatever books we want, practice religion or not and love who we want. 

Live and let live is my core value. It is not my business to tell you how to live your life and no one’s business to tell me how to live mine. I believe we can be stronger as a community if we share our ideas and cooperate together. We may have different beliefs or ideas but mine are not necessarily better than yours and vice versa. Our uniqueness is what gives us strength when we work together.   

As I said in my theme reveal, these contrasts have been taken from the speech given by House Representative Hakeem Jeffries when opening the 218th congress in 2023. 

One down, 25 to go.  Happy April Fool’s Day!

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Hey folks, it’s Sunday March 23 and we will be starting the A to Z Challenge in a little over a week. As you know, my theme this year is going to be the A to Z of Democracy as voiced by Hakeem Jeffries, Minority Speaker of the House of Representatives. I have had quite a few positive comments regarding my choice of topics which has been encouraging. However, I did receive a comment from a blogger that I no longer follow since I realized when #47 was #45 that they had a different perspective than mine about the state of affairs in our country. Even though we had some other things in common, I just could not read a blog defending what was going on at that time.

This morning, while starting to prep for the upcoming challenge I took a look at my “comments” section here and on WP to see if there had been any recent ones that inadvertently ended up in the spam or pending file as will sometimes happen. I did find some, including a few of my own replies, which I rescued. However, I did also see one that was in my trash from the blogger mentioned above. 

Turns out they still hold the same devotion to the person currently in the WH and voiced their disapproval of my chosen topic. They proceeded to tell me that they are tired of people bashing their favorite fellow and dividing our country. They informed me that I should probably do better research because my facts were incorrect and “he really cares about” us. 

And herein lies my dilemma. This comment was already in the trash so I automatically emptied it, deleting the comment. And then I thought about it. If my intention is to showcase the differences between democracy and authoritarianism, oligarchy or whatever it is that we are in the middle of, shouldn’t I be open to listening to other opinions? I could have responded to this comment by saying something like, “I’m sorry you don’t like my topic so maybe you shouldn’t follow me this year,” or “I disagree with your assessment of what is happening now and maybe you should read my reasons for this during the challenge.” Instead, I had a visceral reaction to just get rid of that person’s words so I wouldn’t have to look at them. It has been my experience with those folks who are devotees of that man that no amount of “facts” will change their opinions. I mean, I haven’t even talked to my sister or her family in months because she defended her “beloved Donald.” 

So moving forward, I am torn between continuing to just delete those comments that are from people who drank the kool-aid because I know there is no way to bring them out of their delusional state or to leave them there and use one of the phrases above in response. What would you do? 

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