[poll id=”9″]

I cried yesterday more and harder than I’ve cried in quite a while. When the sobs subsided, all I had to show for it were a headache, puffy eyes, and a stuffy nose.

When’s the last time you cried, and why do we do this to ourselves?

P.S. I love you. Thank you for your concern, I’m okay now. 🙂

Your participation in this poll will help me to elevate and highlight the topics that you favor. If there are additional topics not listed, please let me know in comments. I appreciate your feedback!!

[poll id=”8″]

See how easy that was? Aaaah. Much better.

In an effort to return the pretty to my blog, here. Here’s a pretty parrot. This is a Blue Fronted Amazon, and wow what a pose. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. (Since she’s so pretty, she’s a girl. Only in bird world, it’s probably a boy.) I met her at the zoo last weekend along with a few other beautiful feathered critters that I’ll share this week, as I finalize some projects and move into a very special, very big project. Yes, there will be polls involved. I love polls. More than two of you better show up, too. There may be prizes. Or not. I could just be saying that. Unless you like pickles.

heh.

Like every normal family, getting everyone together in one family pose is like pulling teeth. Moaning and groaning and heavy sighs ensue while I beg and plead since we haven’t had a family portrait in a few years. Well, several burst mode 10 second delay shots later, and we have our family portrait for the year.

I paid a totally different kind of sitting fee.

Thank you, self timer and faux suede curtain panel. Thank you Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ50 and thank you Corel Paint Shop Pro. Thank you Photoscape and Adobe Photoshop, and last but not least, Dell for letting me merge, crop, save and re-save without delay – or malfunction.

I recently launched a design for Solaris Studios, run by Aric Hoek, an incredible and unique photographer in the Houston area. His site is fully run on one single installation of WordPress, of course, and I provided him a lot of custom code to make the various pages and categories of his site function in specific ways. He utilizes pages for primary content, posts for his blog content and specific categories combined with the YAPB plugin to run the photoblog section.

He’s really maximized the various uses all in one installation – which I’ll be doing here on my own site over the next couple/few weeks.

Though I very rarely, write about politics on my blog – I woke up to two unsubscription notifications in my mailbox, and a drop in feed subscribers. I find that incredibly sad, particularly since I make it a point to accept everyone’s differing opinions, and I could never see myself ditching someone purely based on their political views. As an artist, I am pretty liberal. I’m not just an artist, though, I am a Christian, a Mother, a business owner, and the wife of a Staff Sergeant in the Illinois Army National Guard. I have the luxury of being able to see things from various perspectives, and the disadvantage of being lumped into a category of stupid people that don’t get it.

Over the course of 4 years I’ve only talked politics on one or two other occasions when it didn’t relate to my husband’s service in Iraq. If your choice to part ways with me is a political one, I am very sorry that you feel that it’s a topic divisive enough not to disregard as a differing view.

< -- end politics -->

If you missed Sarah Palin lastnight, you might want to watch this. Typical political jabs aside (she’s a darn fine jabber, though, she matched the jabs dished out in the DNC just fine), what I love most about her is that she serves the people. She has a history of serving the people. She believes the Country belongs to the people, and wants to give it back to the people. She wants to create jobs for Americans to pursue energy independence. She doesn’t plan on taxing America to death to get us out of the hole, she wants to eliminate wasteful spending to do that. She’s got an 80% approval rating in Alaska because the people of Alaska love her. She wants small business to thrive, she wants farmers to have a voice, she loves this Country in good times and in bad.See, I believe this Country should be a free Country. “The Land of the Free, and the Home of the Brave” should continue to echo throughout the world. The more government gets their hands around my life and my family, the less freedom I have. Do I want a politician to force me to help my neighbor? No. I want to do it because I am free to do so. Do I want government to force me to go to some universal health care clinic by eliminating the right to free enterprise in the Health Care industry? No. I want to choose the best doctor, for myself, because I have the right to it and that Doctor has the right to treat his patients either better or worse than the next guy – which determines his own success or failure.

I love that McCain/Palin believe in personal responsibility. I wish more people did. I wish more people would see that by creating more policies, we lose more freedoms. By forcing people to “change”, we become a socialistic country bound by a mantra dictated by someone who only loves power for himself, not for The People. I wish people realized that by “starting from the ground up” (Obama’s claim to fame) that requires all of us common folk to behave in a certain way in order for “his plan” to work. And that in order for anything in this Country to work, it needs to start at the TOP. You cannot force people to change, you can only change the environment and hope that the ripple has the effect you’ve set out for.

I wish that the Republican party would stand on a platform of Personal Responsibility. People need to learn to rely less on Government policy to tell them how to live, and live by an ethical and moral standard set by personal successes and failures. What should be common sense to every American has gotten lost and skewed over time thanks to Government intervention – and we need to get back to the basics.

It’s a free Country (almost). You are free to live, to love, to laugh, to work hard to raise your family, and to succeed if you work hard enough. You are also free to fail if you don’t. You are free to help your neighbor if you see them failing. You are free to ask for help if you need it. It is not the Government’s job to create your lifestyle for you, it is every American’s right to pursue and obtain their dreams through hard work and, most importantly, freedom from policies that restrict your rights and freedoms.

Personal Responsibility. That’s what it’s all about.

This sweet White-breasted Nuthatch is one of my favorite backyard birds. Whenever I watch them, I feel an immediate sense of calm and peace. They’re very serene, deliberate and curious creatures. Their little squawk is easy to identify, too.Do you have a favorite critter in your backyard? I’m curious – and would love to have a peek at the different kinds of animals found in different areas of the world.