GOODNESS! What is WRONG with this COUNTRY! A bunch of bigot's and assholes worried about Gay people.

"So WAY back in the day-when I decided to get married-it was clearly understood that I was getting married to get married and to Never have Children.

This was discussed before deciding to even get married.
(Heck it was one of the first things we talked about when dating about 19yrs ago)

So when I said "I DO"-there was NOTHING in the Legal paperwork that said I was getting Married for the Purpose to HAVE Children. I just got married.

SO what BURNS ME UP is that I can "sneak by" & get married because I am a woman and Thomas is a man and it is just assumed that we are getting married and having kids???

However if two gay people WANT to get married they are forbidden.

This point about Marriage is a reason to keep us having KIDS is FUCKING OUT OF DATE! You don't NEED paperwork to screw around and get pregnant. Marriage has nothing to do with having kids. It is about LEGAL RIGHTS! Taxes and money. Leave GOD out of it.

SO...Come on! This is the BEST reason they can give?

UGH! I can't believe we are even having to fight this point."

I came across this today and of course-to me this makes sense. Especially when I am watching the amount of dumb news coverage on the new Pope. Seems more like a waste of time really. Then again I have better things to do with my time. I am glad to see more people like me. Funny how everyone in my life is without any strict (going to church, etc) religion. That is kinda huge. I know a lot of diverse people too. More so I love reading how kids go off to college, get educated, and realize they don't really need organized religion. However-with that said-I do find it fascinating how religious people do hold tight to their beliefs. I wonder why they can't accept me not having any? Well...except the Church of paint and pencils!

Survey: One in five Americans has no religion

(CNN) – The fastest growing "religious" group in America is made up of people with no religion at all, according to a Pew survey showing that one in five Americans is not affiliated with any religion.The number of these Americans has grown by 25% just in the past five years, according to a survey released Tuesday by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.The survey found that the ranks of the unaffiliated are growing even faster among younger Americans.Thirty-three million Americans now have no religious affiliation, with 13 million in that group identifying as either atheist or agnostic, according to the new survey.Pew found that those who are religiously unaffiliated are strikingly less religious than the public at large. They attend church infrequently, if at all, are largely not seeking out religion and say that the lack of it in their lives is of little importance.Follow the CNN Belief Blog on TwitterAnd yet Pew found that 68% of the religiously unaffiliated say they believe in God, while 37% describe themselves as “spiritual” but not “religious.” One in five said that they even pray every day.John Green, a senior research adviser at Pew, breaks the religiously unaffiliated into three groups. First, he says, are those who were raised totally outside organized religion.Survey: Protestants no longer majority in U.S.Second are groups of people who were unhappy with their religions and left.The third group, Green says, comprises Americans who were never really engaged with religion in the first place, even though they were raised in religious households.“In the past, we would describe those people as nominally affiliated. They might say, 'I am Catholic; I am a Baptist,' but they never went" to services, Green says of this last group. “Now, they feel a lot more comfortable just saying, ‘You know, I am really nothing.’ ”According to the poll, 88% of religiously unaffiliated people are not looking for religion.“There is much less of a stigma attached" to not being religious, Green said. “Part of what is fueling this growth is that a lot of people who were never very religious now feel comfortable saying that they don't have an affiliation.”Demographically, the growth among the religiously unaffiliated has been most notable among people who are 18 to 29 years old.According to the poll, 34% of “younger millennials” - those born between 1990 and 1994 - are religiously unaffiliated. Among “older millennials,” born between 1981 and 1989, 30% are religiously unaffiliated: 4 percentage points higher than in 2007.Poll respondents 18-29 were also more likely to identify as atheist or agnostic. Nearly 42% religious unaffiliated people from that age group identified as atheist or agnostic, a number far greater than the number who identified as Christian (18%) of Catholic (18%).Green says that these numbers are “part of a broader change in American society.”“The unaffiliated have become a more distinct group,” he said.CNN’s Belief Blog: The faith angles behind the biggest storiesPew's numbers were met with elation among atheist and secular leaders. Jesse Galef, communications director for the Secular Student Alliance, said that the growth of the unaffiliated should translate into greater political representation for secular interests.“We would love to see the political leaders lead on this issue, but we are perfectly content with them following these demographic trends, following the voters,” Galef said.“As more of the voters are unaffiliated and identifying as atheist and agnostics, I think the politicians will follow that for votes.“We won’t be dismissed or ignored anymore,” Galef said.The Pew survey suggested that the Democratic Party would do well to recognize the growth of the unaffiliated, since 63% of them identify with or lean toward that political group. Only 26% of the unaffiliated do the same with the Republican Party."In the near future, if not this year, the unaffiliated voters will be as important as the traditionally religious are to the Republican Party collation,” Green predicted.Green points to the 2008 exit polls as evidence for that prediction. That year, Republican presidential nominee John McCain beat President Barack Obama by 47 points among white evangelical voters, while Obama had a 52-point margin of victory over McCain among the religiously unaffiliated.According to exit polls, the proportion of religiously unaffiliated Americans who supported the Democratic presidential candidate grew 14 points from 2000 to 2008.In announcing the survey’s findings at the Religion Newswriters Association conference in Bethesda, Maryland, Green said the growing political power of the unaffiliated within the Democratic Party could become similar to the power the Religious Right acquired in the GOP in the 1980s.“Given the growing numbers of the unaffiliated, there is the potential that that could be harnessed,” he said. Dan Merica - Dan Merica

I am having a hard time with digging in and working on this-because I am not sure at times-where to dig in. I know it needs lots of work but sometimes I just don't know where to begin...

I have to go strong and dark in places before I can tone it down and do details. So showing photos of this progress when things look weird and not right-is kinda hard. I want to tell you that it will turn out great but right now it looks weird.

Perhaps it is just my mantra to myself... "Everything will be okay...."

OKAY TEXAS-who are you and why are you spending SO much time on my Xanga?
Message me and let me know.

UGH! This is not easy and taking forever.
But I am learning...

The more I look...the more I see.

I made this to help me to see where I am going with the evolution or rather decay.
I need to maintine a bit of reality...

Anyway...it is not easy to hold tight when working in oil. REALLY I feel like I am barely holding on. I kinda love the challenge...(okay I am lying-it is hard and I hate it)

UPDATE:
Most recent photo. (The slowest progress in the world)

In 2007 on this very day, My mother died while I was holding her hand. She had come home from the hospital earlier that cold January day and was there to help her settle in. I did not expect her to leave so soon later that night. Since that time, I have found myself missing her a lot and although my sadness has lessened by time, my anger about the circumstances of her passing still rage inside of me. I never told her how angry her smoking made me. I just didn't fight her on it. She was stubborn and fully addicted. It sucked to grow up around second hand smoke. There are just some people who you cannot reason with about certain things. My mother was one of those people. Now I wonder what if I had only said something?

One day a few weeks earlier, when she was in the hospital, she sat on the bed and proceeded to apologize to me for all the years of smoking. She said she knew it was wrong and that she was foolish for never stopping. She said that it really sucked and if she ONLY knew how awful the end was going to be like she would have tried harder. She asked me to tell anyone who would listen to STOP. That is NOT worth it. That even stopping now will make a difference. To get help. The next few weeks were the worse. She stopped being able to make sense to me. She said she saw a skeleton in a window outside her hospital and would have me check to see what it was and why it was looking at her. THAT stays with you. I had to try and help her with her oxygen mask, tried to brush out the knots in her hair, tried to help her eat. She was about 88lbs. She never knew it was cancer. As I joke-it would have killed her to know this. But she knew it. What else robs you of everything...

I wouldn't change a thing about being there with her on that night in January when she passed away in the living room as my Dad, her brother and his wife, and Thomas looked on. I was lucky to be with her, to be so close, to get to say goodbye and she her go. However I would NEVER wish this on ANYONE. No one these days should have to go through this KNOWING how TOXIC smoking is. She started when smoking was considered mainstream-1949-1950's. She did it for over 50yrs. That was a lame excuse but it was her excuse.

That anger stays with me, but I am finding it hard to keep it inside, and now when I see people smoking, I find it hard to hold my tongue. There are times I just want to scream and say-YOU IGNORANT FUCK-DO YOU KNOW HOW HORRIBLE THE END IS GOING TO BE FOR YOU? I DO! DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT IS LIKE TO GIVE A LOVED-ONE MORPHINE THROUGH AN EYE-DROPER "AS NEEDED"-JUST TO KEEP THEM COMFORTABLE? I DO! TO WATCH THEM WASTE AWAY AND KNOW THIS COULD HAVE BEEN PREVENTED? I DO

So please if you do smoke, Stop. STOP IT. STOP IT NOW! I don't care for your excuses. Shame on you. There is No reason in this day and age to keep it up. Get help, Do it now. No more excuses. Because the END is GOING TO SUCK!

If you think that living a few more years really doesn't matter in the end-I will tell you that they do. I WISH SHE WAS STILL AROUND. I WISH I HAD another year with her, or 5, or 10! I wish those final years of her declining health, her coughing, her breathing issues, all of it-were not so terrible for her.

So Stop.
Because you know you should.
AND Because I told her I would share this with anyone who cares to listen...

xox
(Miss you Mom...)