Defining your terms is important. The choice of words you use is crucial. Arguments are won & lost depending on the choice of words and terms used. Case in point... this came in my email today and it's something that all pet owners should be aware of. 

TX-RPOA E-News
From RPOA Texas Outreach and Responsible Pet Owners Alliance
"Animal welfare, not animal 'rights' and, yes, there is a difference."
Permission granted to crosspost.

Just received this video via my dog club email loop. Thought I'd share!

Since I was not home much yesterday when I should have posted this... I'm posting it today....

For Today... October 14, 2008

~**~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

FOR TODAY October 6, 2008...

Outside My Window... saw a woodpecker earlier and now it's starting to get dark from an approaching storm... I so love it when we have storms. I am so energized by cloudy skies, rain, and storms. I feel sucked dry when there is only blues skies and sunshine.

I am thinking... about all the things I need to be doing.

I am thankful for... my life and my family.

From the kitchen... not much is going on.

I am wearing...shhh! my nightgown!

I am creating...my Friday Columns for the next few weeks. (I hope!)

I am going...to my obedience dog club monthly meeting tonight.

I am reading...a biography by William Hague called William Wilberforce: the Life of the Great Anti-slave Trade Campaigner. It's very good!

I am hoping... for our finances to increase. We're under a lot of stress lately. But that comes from being self-employed. It can be feast or famine around here.

I am hearing...my son flicking the corners of his current schoolbook and the hum of the wind going thru the ceiling fan. Not much else here.

Around the house...there is lots to be done. I'm restarting FlyLady with baby steps, but I can state that my sink is shining! (Or as much as a plastic utility sink, that resides in the bathroom since I have a make-shift kitchen with no running water in that room, can shine!)

One of my favorite things... oh, I have too many! My dog, Lucia; chocolate chip cookies, hot from the oven; lobster; steak.... :)

A Few Plans For The Rest Of The Week:

Continue to work a routine/schedule of cleaning & decluttering

Continue to get a mile walk in daily (except for Sundays)

Work with the dog some so we're both ready for our class on Thusday

Work on my writing:  my Friday Columns and a new book the Lord's given me

Here is picture thought I am sharing...

I took this photo as I experimented in the car on the way home from church in May. I think it was Mother's Day, but not sure. The church handed out flowers for the ladies. I had never really done much with my Macro setting on my digital camera and decided to experiment with it. You can't tell the car was moving at all, can you?

~**~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~**~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

My family stayed home from church today to take a break.

We took my mom up to Atoka, hooking up with her sister & bil to take her back up to Broken Arrow for the next 3 weeks. We had a lovely drive home, stopping at Cabela's. We decided to have a double feature movie night last night starting about 10pm (watched Captain Ron and Hot Pursuit -- good movies, rotten language).

So this morning, we watched our church's Internet Campus live service. You can too - go to http://lifechurch.tv and click the LIVE in the right hand upper corner of the main screen. As I type this, it says the next Experience will start in 16 min. and 45 seconds (has a count down). Other times you can watch live are Tuesday at 12 noon and 8pm, but you can watch any sermon or sermon series at any time.

Today is the first in a new series called You Don't Have What It Takes! Today's particular topic was You're Not Good Enough: Performance-based Acceptance. Next Week will be about Pleasing Others. Check it out! It's neat to be able to see what we would have seen if we were at church. (We have a live band but all campuses watch our senior pastor preach via satellite live. He's good and Rock solid.)

...and wanted to share. I will be adding her to my list of "Friends with Blogs Elsewhere."

Jill Stanek

She was a registered nurse in the Labor & Delivery Department at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, in 1999 when discovering babies were being aborted alive and shelved to die in the soiled utility room.

She's currently blogging this week from the DNC (Democratic National Convention) in Denver, CO. She had been rejected to attend the Democrat National Convention as a blogger. Rejected bloggers were encouraged to apply to cover the convention from The Big Tent a few blocks from the convention, sponsored by Daily Kos and Progress Now, and so she did and was accepted. She is one of two conservative bloggers there, so she has said.

...as you can tell by the dates here...

Life with my Mom under the same roof has been a blessing. She says she's very happy to be here. It's definitely a tight fit, with her sleeping in 18yo Mike's room, but we're moving ever slowly to making the addition a reality. Her estimation that it could be a year before it happens looks like a good guess. I sure hope we don't have to wait that long, but we'll just have to wait and see.

It took us 2 months to get the approval from the Landmarks Commission (over historic homes, have to get their approval before you even start with permits and talking to contractors). But we have their approval. Dh Glenn is currently demolishing the porch between jobs. (We still have a way in and out the front door at least.) The porch needs to come first.

The addition will be mom's own little home, with a bedroom, bathroom, kitchenette, and living/dining area, probably 400-500 sq. ft. which will share the same wall as my kitchen-to-be, and the common door will be into our utility room, making it easy for her to do her laundry. With her financial input (once she's in the addition), we should get it paid for fairly soon, then her financial input will help us get the rest of the house fixed up.

I've been kept busy getting her set up for cataract surgery and as of Monday, August 11th, she's had both eyes done. She is amazed how well she can see without glasses and at least is ok with the need for reading glasses (using 2.75 OTC Readers). When she gets seen next week, we'll see what they think we need to do for the Glaucoma. She's got about a 90° field of vision (whereas most people have 190°). The eye doc mentioned the possiblity of surgery or eye drops, so we'll see. Found her a primary doctor this week (Monday) and got the results of her blood work on Wednesday (everything looks GOOD). She's going to go visit one of her sisters in Tulsa next month.

So, I've been busy juggling a lot lately and writing on my blog has sadly been one of the "easier" things to drop. (So far,I've been able to keep up with my Friday Column over on HomeschoolBlogger's Company Porch.) So that's what we've been dealing with lately.

I wanted to mention a friend's blog that I added to my list tonight. Sheila lives in TN and is a pastor's wife. She's a TERRIFIC writer and has some this phenomenonal thoughts. She's well worth the time and effort to read and to get to know through her Blog.

Well, it's been an interesting last several weeks!

Our son had his graduation ceremony on May 31st. I'm still working on the slide show to see if I can make it "blog friendly." I made up a Power Point® slide show of the last 18 years or so and the group that he graduated with (there were 7 other seniors) contracted to have another type of slide show done also. The slide show is in a format that I'm not familiar with and not sure how to translate into something that I can put on my blog (or even on GodTube.com). For that matter, the power point doesn't look easy to translate into a video for the wide world web. So when I do get that done, I'll be sure to post it here or link to it.

He's still working away, finishing the classes he has so that we can say, "Yes, you're 'done'!" but it will be into the Fall. He still has Youth Camp to go to, a Student Leadership Retreat, and some breaks with his Gramps (my dad) between class days. It's nice to have the ceremony finished with, but I'm sure it might have been nicer for him to be graduated and to say "he's done" at the same time. Oh well... that's what comes from getting sick this Fall & Winter and getting behind.

The other big news is we have a new resident under our roof--my mom! We've been getting her all set up. Our plan is to build an addition to the back of the house, with her own entrance & exit with a door into the laundry room. We were hoping to build a garage apartment (on one level), but the city and its ordinances & zoning have made it prohibitive. First step, however, is to get our porch replaced and we're in the process of getting estimates. Hopefully, before the end of the month, work will be going on for a new porch.

So if I've been remiss in updating my blog, that's been the reason! It's been busy here. I have been able to get back on top of my Friday Column on HomeschoolBlogger's Company Front Porch, so I have several columns all ready to go (all of June's and the first in July, plus one or two in August). It's been very difficult writing weekly, so working ahead has helped some in taming my schedule.