Kilts could be misconstrued as cross dressing?

I saw this article it was in the AP.

Utah school forces student to change out of kilt

Sun May 17, 3:52 pm ET
WEST HAVEN, Utah – The principal of a Utah middle school has been asked to apologize for forcing a kilt-wearing student to change his clothes.
Weber School District spokesman Nate Taggart says Craig Jessop has been asked to extend an apology to 14-year-old student Gavin McFarland of Hooper after the school official's comments Wednesday.
Gavin says he wore the kilt twice in the past two weeks to Rocky Mountain Junior High as a prop for an art project. Jessop told the boy that the outfit could be misconstrued as cross-dressing.
Taggart says the district recognizes the kilt as an expression of the boy's Scottish heritage and that the kilt was not inappropriate.
Kilts are traditional Scottish apparel generally worn by men for formal or special occasions.

I was outraged! Craig Jessop you need to do some research on Scotland and Kilts you need apologize no only to Gavin McFarland, but to all the Scots and to cross dressers. I am a firm believer of people wearing what they feel comfortable in and not being dictated to by fashion.

Silence

Xena the Warrior Corgi

It may seem odd to us what normal sounds are around us especially when one of those sounds is taken away. My home now in silence... so silent it's almost deafening. Gone is the sound of little paws hitting the floor. Gone is the "Ellllooooh" that greeted us when we came home, now 6:00 comes and there is no one to tell us it's here and gone. Gone is the barking at the thunder gods and the cold wet nose that followed because she needed protecting from their noise. I will have to fend off the evil vacuum cleaner when it comes out of it's closet, I will no longer have my protector that will attack it.

Gone the is my sweet baby girl.

She was 12 1/2 yrs old when the faeiries called her back to their land.

It all happened so quickly. We left to go work on Thursday, she was fine, she assumed her position in the living room as we left. When we got home from work she looked and acted like she had a tummy ache. We kept checking on her all evening, and agreed that if she is not any better in the morning we would take her to the vet and pick her up when we were coming home. Friday morning she had not eaten nor had she had any water to drink.

Vet time.

Good ole Doc Cooper and Doc Parker ... they were her docs since the first check up.

Doc Parker was headed into surgery but when he saw Xena he examined her immediately. Words that I remember from that conversation

perinea hernia

intestines in chest cavity

Surgery

Specialist in Dallas

No guarantee

Age

We thanked him because he knew we needed time to absorb and process, into the surgery he had scheduled. We began to look at pros vs cons,

she may not survive the surgery

possible complications after surgery

may need additional surgeries

So a difficult decision was made, a responsible adult decision was made, we talked to her held her while she went to sleep. She enriched our lives so much, she gave us so much we owed it to her to give her dignity at the end. We will meet her one day across the rainbow bridge, she'll be smiling and give us a "elllooh" once again.

Victorian Diamond Lace Socks by Susan Lawrence

I tried to do this last year but well failed because I lost the first finished sock. So this year I attempted it again.At the end of the year, I knit a pair of socks that I will wear on new years eve and into new years day. While knitting it I think about what I have done the past year, ask forgiveness for those I may have hurt or harmed through thought or action, I focus on new goals for the coming year, not only knitting but personal and/or professional. It reminds me somewhat of grandmother making prayer ties.
The pattern was originally available through knit picks. It’s my attempt at lace yes there are mistakes in it, but they are going on my feet, no one is going to see them under my pants and the only person that close to my feet is my husband when he’s massaging them.The only change to the pattern I made was to carry the yarn over down the foot until the toes. The yarn is Louet Gems . The color is called cloud, it’s mainly gray but in certain lights it has a slight purple tint to it.

Dye Day

I have been toying with the idea of growing a pomegranate tree one because I am one of the strange people that love eating the fruit and second, I thought it could be potentially a great source of natural dye. I read several places that only the skin is used for dye and not the seeds. I could not find a reason why the seeds were not being used since the juice on the seeds dyes everything it touches. Not finding a reason I have decided to try to dye with both the skin and the seeds. I am boiling the skin for about an hour. I have taken the fruit/seeds and put them in a pot on the stove on simmer. My thinking hopefully the juice will come out of the fruit and I can try to dye with it. There may not be enough from 2 pomegranates but it's worth a try. I'll update later.

10 Rules for Thanksgiving dinner at my house

I may have a warped sense of humor but I found these entertaining.

You can follow these 10 RULES FOR THANKSGIVING DINNER AT MY HOUSE
1. Don't get in line asking questions about the food. "Who made the potato salad? Is there egg in it? Are the greens fresh? Is the meat in the greens turkey or pork? Who made the macaroni and cheese? What kind of pie is that? Who made it? Ask one more question and I will punch you in your mouth, knocking out all your front teeth so you will not be able to eat anything.
2. If you can't walk or are missing any limbs, sit your ass down until someone makes your plate for you. Dinner time is not the time for you to be independent. Nibble on them damn pecans and walnuts to hold you over until someone makes you a plate.
3. If you have kids under the age of twelve, I will escort their little asses to the basement and bring their food down to them. They are not going to tear my damn house up this year. Tell them that they are not allowed upstairs until it's time for Uncle Butchie to start telling family stories about their mommas and papas.
4. There is going to be one prayer for Thanksgiving dinner! JUST ONE! We do not care that you are thankful that your 13 year old daughter gave birth to a healthy baby or your nephew just got out of jail. Save that talk for somebody who gives a damn. The time limit for the prayer is one minute. If you are still talking after that one minute is up, you will feel something hard come across your lips and they will be swollen for approximately 20 minutes.
5. Finish everything on your plate before you go up for seconds! If you don't, you will be cursed out and asked to stay your greedy ass home next year!
6. BRING YOUR OWN TUPPERWARE!! Don't let me catch you fixing yourself a plate in my good Tupperware knowing damn well that I will never see it again! Furthermore, if you didn't bring anything over, don't let me catch you making a plate period or it will be a misunderstanding.
7. What you came with is what you should leave with!! Do not leave my house with anything that doesn't belong to you. EVERYBODY WILL BE SUBJECTED TO A BODY SEARCH COMING AND GOING OUT OF MY DOMAIN!!!
8. Do not leave your kids so you can go hopping from house to house. This is not a DAY-CARE CENTER ! There will be a kid-parent roll call every ten minutes. Any parent that is not present at the time of roll call, your child will be put outside until you come and get him or her. After 24 hours, I will call DHS on your ignorant ass!!
9. BOOK YOUR HOTEL ROOM BEFORE YOU COME INTO TOWN!! There will be no sleeping over at my house! You are to come and eat dinner and take your ass home or to your hotel room. EVERYBODY GETS KICK THE HELL OUT AT 11:00 pm. You will get a 15 minute warning bell ring.
10. Last but not least! ONE PLATE PER PERSON!! This is not a soup kitchen. I am not trying to feed your family until Christmas dinner! You will be supervised when you fix your plate. Anything over the appropriate amount will be charged to you before you leave. There will be a cash register at the door. Thanks to Cousin Alfred and his greedy ass family, we now have a credit card machine! So VISA and MasterCard are now being accepted. NO FOOD STAMPS OR ACCESS CARDS YET!

Texas in October

Pictures taken in early October 2008 coming back from Del Rio Texas. This is the South Llano River. Despite it being 85 degrees the water was ice cold. No I couldn't resist stepping into it. It does my heart good knowing that there are places left in the world that the water is crystal clear.

What has been on my mind?

When I first started this blog, I just wanted to write about positive things happy memories and not vent my personal feelings out on the infinite vastness of the Internet. But after some soul searching, where else but in a diary can we write about some of our deepest feelings? So without further adieu here is what's been going on.


Since the middle of the summer I have had several things to think about. Several things have been on my mind. Not to my surprise I had something come up that triggered memories of the past. My 33 yr old niece Heidi called to talk to me, she had some news that may or may not change my life. Heidi is the oldest child of my middle sister Lulu. I knew that Heidi has been going through genetic testing for quite some time. She is a very beautiful intelligent woman that I have had the pleasure of knowing since the day she was born. I have watched her grow from being the tiny baby dependant on her mother for everything to the woman she is today. Heidi told me that this last time her test results came back abnormal. Her doctor gave her a few choices put her on a drug for the next five years so that her body could go into an early menopause and then after the five years are up take her off the drug and maybe her body might come out of the temporary menopause or to have a mastectomy and reconstructive surgery. My heart sank into the pit of my stomach. I closed my eyes and didn't hear anything instinctively I realized I had stopped breathing, I took a deep breath and focused on breathing. Several thoughts invaded my mind, not Heidi, I could not bear the thought of loosing another to the murderer cancer. I had lost both older sisters. This cycle could not be happening again! I tried to focus in on Heidi's voice 90% of all women who test positive for having the gene that creates breast cancer die, only 10% survive. Scientists don't know why the 10% never get breast cancer. Heidi has opted to have the mastectomy. I almost had a panic attack, all I could hear was pounding in my ears, I took a deep breath and continued to listen to Heidi. OMG to feel that self mutilation of her body would be the only option. I was having a hard time with accepting this but, I could not let my personal feelings in, I could not influence her decision. For me personally it would be no. I would go the route of other treatments perhaps look into oriental herbs etc. But this was Heidi's decision, it was her body, it was her mind that had to accept the choice. All I could do is tell her how I felt but that I would support her in her decision. If she had a chance she had to know that she did the right thing and that there was someone other than her husband that supported her decision. I told Heidi, that for me personally I could not do it, however, the choice was not mine to make it was Heidi's. I told her I supported her decision. I may not agree with it but I would not be an obstacle.

During the next few weeks I was reliving the last year of Lulu's life, memories, sounds, etc came flooding back in. I thought I had dealt with all of this in the past, I thought it was all folded up neatly and tucked away safe in the dresser drawers labeled, breast cancer. I could not help but focus on this, this was weighing heavy on my mind. My loving DH gave me enough space to dwell on it for a weekend and then told me that I couldn't dwell on it . It was his way of trying to protect me and to keep me from hurting. I couldn't turn it off like that there were issues that kept popping back up that needed to be taken care of before I could move on to functioning again.

In the mean time mom's doctor told her to go the hospital because they could not regulate her blood pressure and she was badly dehydrated. For those that don't know Mom has a mechanical heart valve that is failing, in addition she has a regular heart valve that does not work at all. Her legs swell there is fluid in her abdomen and fluid in her lungs. They can draw off the fluid for a bit but it comes back, and it's coming back faster. She was in the hospital for about 10 days. she has been sent home with oxygen to be used as she needs. One doesn't have to be a an MD to know that her condition is getting worse. She has one valve that not working at all, her blood is not getting enough oxygen, diuretics are not working as well as they did, she's getting weaker, she's walking with a quad cane, and now add the oxygen to it, It's another thing to show her condition is getting worse. She says that maybe she will get better again. I a not sure how much longer she will be around. She's not sleeping allot, but she's still eating which means that she isn't ready to leave yet.

So this has been what has been occupying my mind. There are times when I can't pick up my needles, and there are times when I can't put them down.