LAST DAY TO VOTE! help Sheila win $1000-petMeds Look-Alike Photo Contest-$ to help with medical expenses

LAST DAY TO VOTE! If you have already voted, Thanks!
petMeds Look-Alike Photo Contest: Help Sheila & Cisco win $1000 to help me purchase things to help living with my disability easier.

Click on the link to vote for Cisco and me as most Look Alikes!! Ok-hope I don't have a dog face, but I think we have the expression happening!

I will be using the prize money (feeling really confident) to help me buy some things to help make living with my disability (I like to think of it as modified living!) easier. Yes, I am shopping for a walker. Don't worry; I'll buy something cool looking. * Someone donated a walker so now I can get some other items.

Please forward to all your friends; adding a link to your facebook, myspace, blog, or web page is okay. Help me WIN!! WIN!! WIN!!

In addition, I will donate $100 of the prize money to a charity. Please select a charity below and email your selection to me at sheilaandcisco@comcast.net or post it on my fb page.
The charity with the most votes wins!
1. Oxfam works on the scene, helping people gain the hope, skills, and direction to create a new future. http://www.oxfamamerica.org/
2. Habitat for Humanity seeks to eliminate poverty housing and homelessness from the world and to make decent shelter a matter of conscience and action. http://www.habitat.org/
3. National Fibromyalgia Association (NFA) is the largest nonprofit organization working to support people with fibromyalgia and other chronic pain illnesses. http://www.fmaware.org
4. The Nature Conservancy is the leading conservation organization working around the world to protect ecologically important lands and waters for nature and people. http://www.nature.org/
5. Bead for Life eradicates extreme poverty by creating bridges of understanding between impoverished Africans and concerned world citizens. Ugandan women turn colorful recycled paper into beautiful beads. The beads thus become income, food, medicine, school fees and hope. http://www.nature.org/

If the above link does not work, copy and paste the following into your browser. http://contest.1800petmeds.com/index.htm?id=3531

Thanks for everyone's votes!
Sheila
maeflowerbee@comcast.net (my permanent email)
sheilaandcisco@comcast.net (a special email for this contest)

garden landscapes

lavender & duck

gibber

maya & gibber

sunflowers

august garden

a hot summer day

the fabric pile

7 am and the air conditioner has been blowing for 3 days! i turned it off and opened the window-nature, birds singing, cars driving by-there is a world out there.
i was beginning to feel like i lived in a meat locker, closed off from the world and only experiencing 1 climate!

i have been digging through bags of fabric given to me by friends who know i like fibers! sadly jean's grandmother died and she had tons and tons of fabric. this lady must have been the Knowledge of Sewing. myself, i am finally getting past stitch witch, the incredible way to sew everything with your iron! i have been dragging around a sewing machine that santa brought me on my 9th christmas. numerous times i threatened it with being smashed under the wheel of my car, being thrown on the lawn to slowly sink into the dirt, plenty of curses, and quite possible a couple of swift kicks. but for some reason i never followed through on any of my threats. last fall my mother finally FINALLY showed me how to adjust the tension. i had no idea that you had to adjust the bobbin tension. wow i could sew. santa had brought a slightly used machine with no book to tell me how to use it and my mother was a sewer and assumed everyone could just do it!

(can you imagine kids getting something used from santa and not bitching about it today?)

i was excited with my new found freedom to make what we could not afford to buy. unfortunately, this ended in an endless array of sewing projects that barbie could not even fit in-i was trying to make this for myself!

now that i have conquered the mysteries of the machine i have been doing some art quilting and look forward to much more with the fabric donation. i already saw a piece that i think would make a nice skirt-dare i? not ready for zippers but maybe some velco! covered up with fake buttons!

thanks jean and jim!

the girls & more

the girls and more slide show:



have not been a good blogger lately. a bad back injury has left me boohooed--lots of pain and probably some permanent numbness on the right arm/hand and leg/foot. but slowly getting back to things. busy as a bee keeps the pain away. i purchased 3 chickens in april to make a small flock of 4. henniepennie has been alone since hennieroe tragically died in the claws of the red-tailed hawk. the new arrivals were:
cornflake (Buff Orpington)
shamhat (Australorp)
cleopatra (Ameraucana-she will lay green or blue eggs)
they are amusing to watch as they strut across the yard, chasing bugs, eating seeds, and just checking everything out.
a new chicken yard was built-complete with hawk and owl proof netting for times when they are in. they currently roost in ella the rabbit's old house while construction of the coop takes place. (dhamma & pada were not left out. they also have a new improved duck yard with 2 pools and netting.)
happy to say they all roost together and henniepennie keeps up with the youngsters.

Postal Rate Hikes Action

I have not posted for awhile. I hurt my back and have not been feeling up to it.
BUT, when I saw Bill Moyers Journal I had to pass on the information.

Moyers, in an essay written for his show, says:

It’s time to send an SOS for the least among us—I mean small independent magazines. They are always struggling to survive while making a unique contribution to the conversation of democracy. Magazines like National Review, The American Prospect, Sojourners, The American Conservative, The Nation, Washington Monthly, Mother Jones, In These Times, World Magazine, The Christian Century, Christianity Today, Columbia Journalism Review, Reason and many others.

The Internet may be the way of the future, but for today much of what you read on the Web is generated by newspapers and small magazines. They may be devoted to a cause, a party, a worldview, an issue, an idea, or to one eccentric person’s vision of what could be, but they nourish the public debate. America wouldn't be the same without them.

Our founding fathers knew this; knew that a low-cost postal incentive was crucial to giving voice to ideas from outside the main tent. So they made sure such publications would get a break in the cost of reaching their readers. That's now in jeopardy. An impending rate hike, worked out by postal regulators, with almost no public input but plenty of corporate lobbying, would reward big publishers like Time Warner, while forcing these smaller periodicals into higher subscription fees, big cutbacks and even bankruptcy.

It's not too late. The postal service is a monopoly, but if its governors, and especially members of Congress, hear from enough citizens, they could have a change of heart. So, liberal or conservative, left or right, libertarian, vegetarian, communitarian or Unitarian, or simply good Samaritan, let’s make ourselves heard.

Click link to sign a letter to alert Congress and put the Postal Board of Governors on notice. Save Small and Independent Publishers

This affects liberals, independents, and conservatives! Contact your Congressperson!

More information:
The Seattle Times Letters to the Editor
"We can no longer stay in business with these rates."

People’s Weekly World
Postal rate hike threatens free speech

National Review Online
NR Needs You

The Huffington Post
Going Postal on Rate Hikes for Independent Periodicals

Cape May Zoo

A journey to the Cape May Zoo today with Mom and Kaitlyn. 55 degrees, spectacular sunshine, and a light breeze set the stage for the day. The kind of day that is delightful to the mind.

The Mute Swans were particularly fun to watch; he chased 2 ducks around while the female sat on her nest gently picking up pieces of hay to add to her nest.






















Some photos:

visitors

Today all the house guests were picked up. Thank you for staying; come again soon!

Mr. Checkers and I roamed the fields and woods, him leading the way.

Here he is enjoying the snow in the exercise yard.












2 feline guests: 1 pee in the wrong place and a poop to scare Mike as he stepped into his morning shower, 2 sleepless nights as Maya, Moonie, and Mama Cat danced around each other hissing, Moonie's need to poke her nose in your eye while you are sleeping, Ella (female rabbit) humping Moonie (female cat), Mama Cat curling up on the couch next to me and Mr. Checkers, Moonie poking into everything with her 2 faces, endless filling up of the food bowls, Maya's 1st adventure with a dog and 2 other cats, making cat toys, soft fur, purring...

Mama Cat





Moonie



In addition to the 3 at home, daily 2:00 trips to Patti and Chief's farm to feed Sammie Jo and Callie. Mike came along for the exercise walk to the lake.
Callie-working dog

Me and Mr. Checkers following Sammie Jo's nose

Typical dogs!

guiding principles of life

The Four Agreements

Be Impeccable With Your Word
Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak
against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in
the direction of truth and love.

Don't Take Anything Personally
Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection
of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions
and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering.

Don't Make Assumptions
Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want.
Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings,
sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely
transform your life.

Always Do Your Best
Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different
when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do
your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.

Copyright (c) Don Miguel Ruiz

Hennie Pennie

Hennie Pennie is a Silkie Bantam chicken.

Silkies have characteristics that set them apart from the other breeds of chickens; the texture of their feathers is almost fur or silk-like in appearance. Feathers have several parts to them. The quill grows from beneath the skin then tapers off up the center of the feather to become the shaft. From each side of the shaft comes the web: tiny strands held together by small hooks or barbicels. The barbicels are small hook-like structures on barbules that link adjoining barbules to form the rigid, interlocked structure of the feather vane, giving the feather its typical appearance. Silkie chickens lack the hooks on the ends of the tiny strands of the web, causing their feathers to fluff. They have topknots or crests on their heads and abundant feathers growing down their legs and middle toe.

Silkies are among a few breeds of chickens that have five toes instead of the usual four. They are the only chicken to have black or dark slate-blue skins. They come in many colors. Hennie Pennie is a beautiful white color with blue patches on her cheeks.

She loves strutting around the yard, always under my watchful eye in case the hawk is flying overhead. She lays 1 small egg a day, a soft brown color. Clucking and cooing, she constantly chats to herself. When frightened, she zigzags around looking for cover--usually found under my feet.

She is great fun to have around and brings many smiles to our faces. We are planning on getting a new friend for her in the spring. But in the meantime, she enjoys sitting on mine or Mike's knee, clucking, and thinking she is larger than she actually is.