I don’t believe in god, I think that religion is evil itself. I believe in the first amendment and take great exception with all of those who would abridge my rights on religious grounds, and after all the only arguments that can be used against same sex anything are religious and or bigoted, or both.

I don’t care what the bible says, it has no more relevance than a comic book. First amendment says so.

Nothing in the constitution forbids or restricts who may f*ck whom, nor under what circumstances. Any laws restricting same clearly violate the first amendment.

I have no great desire to announce my sexuality with signs on my car, or tattoos on my forehead. I wish only to conduct my life within the protections legitimately afforded me by the constitution and the singular proposition that we are all created equal. Enough said.

Anybody has the right to be offended by anything I do, as I have the right to be offended by them, but as long as I do not violate their rights, I don’t care if they are offended. If they violate my rights, they have trespassed, and beyond offending me, they have surrendered the moral and legal high ground, and should be appropriately disciplined by the law, although certainly not in any cruel and unusual way.

There is nothing difficult about any of these concepts.  There is only the perverted wanton desire for one group of people to force others to behave in a specific way, which is the complete antithesis of liberty.

Liberty is the reason we are told, so much blood has been shed by and for this country over the centuries. Who will be the first to stand and say that blood was a waste and liberty a sham simply because two people wish to be together?

We called our Dad and let him know not to bring the rototiller over. We could not even afford to buy the vegetable plants we needed nor did we have the time to dedicate to a garden. Well…Dad and Mom being great parents, brought it over anyway with a box of starter plants for us.

So Chad tilled away through our lawn and we planted our wonderful vegetables adding to the collection the weekend before he left. (only ended up costing $20 for way more vegetables than we will need)

The weeds began to grow and grow and grow…oh boy I had to get in the garden or we would lose everything. I decided that I would work in the early morning and late night since Chad was out of state and find time for the garden during the day. (the benefits of working at home)

So for the last week I have spent 2-3 hours a day in the garden trying to weed. I say trying because remember I said we tilled the yard…well it looked like I planted my garden in the middle of a jungle. The grass was growing back faster than I ever expected. This forced me to spend more time on keeping it clear.

That is when I realized that weeding wasn’t so bad…It pulled me away from the stress of work, the stress of life and granted me with a great tan. Everyday I put my MP3 player on, head for the garden and reflect on what matters in life…MY FAMILY!

As I pull the weeds I look at the amazing beauty of nature as my plants grow and produce food that we love. (we have a pumpkin & some peppers starting already!) I think of my life, what it has become and how far we have traveled to get there. I think of the simple things that many miss out on, things that we should all spend a little more time enjoying.

Especially this week as the world lost two wonderful people, Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. Both of which hit very close to home for me. Farrah lost a battle to cancer, my mother in law has terminal cancer. Michael seen an untimely, unexpected death, just like our son, who was taken form us in an instant. Our thoughts and prayers go out to all their friends and family.

If it wasn’t for my garden… I would have lost my salvation, my reflection, and my appreciation for what life has given me.

Now I’m off to pull some weeds, relax and listen to John Rich singing about Shuttin Detroit Down.

Ironworking is a tough trade and when I say they are a breed of their own that’s no lie. They get up early, travel many miles, they’re tough and dedicated. They look death in the eye every single day with beams dangling over their head or releasing their harness to make that impossible connection. It’s a brotherhood like no other, they have each others backs and when jobs are scarce they do what they can to help their fellow brother.

To all the Ironworkers and their family our hearts are with you. I know the feeling of watching your husband leave every morning wondering if the job will be safe. Will he come home in one piece or come home at all? That’s the life of a Ironworkers wife.

Dedicated to Every Hard Working Ironworker out there…

Early dawn starts the day
Miles to go he’s on his way
Callused hands connecting beams
Spudding holes, fulfilling dreams
Welding, bolting, sweating blood
He belongs to a brotherhood
Only the best
Will pass the test
Walking where others will not go
Fear is one thing he will never show
Like an eagle perched high on a tree
He climbs the column and dreams to be free
Free of the worries and stress of his life
Waiting to retire with his wife
He loves his trade
And softly I prayed…

Lord,
Keep him safe on the beam up high
God Bless the Ironworkers in the sky.

I miss you honey…Please be safe!

On Saturday the Cozy Coupe earned it place in America’s history at the Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum which will feature the first Cozy Coupes made in 1979. Selling over 10 million units in 30 years, it is the top 20 best selling models of all time.

So next time your in line for a micro cherry red sports car that gets great gas mileage with a lot of exercise, visit your local Toys R Us.

Kudos to Little Tykes for doing something great for the American childhood!

I am talking about the Gay Marriage debate. Everyday you can find some type of headline in the news about legalizing or not to legalizing gay marriage. Search “legalize gay marriage” in Google News for the past week, you will be faced with 23,099 entries.

It seems this country should spend it’s time and money on what is really important “The People”! Whether those people are straight, gay, black, white or alien….WHO CARES we are all PEOPLE!

What gets me is that the religious sector of the population appears to be the biggest supporters of not legalizing gay marriage. Aren’t they the ones that say we are all Gods children and Jesus loves us all regardless? I also thought that the Bible states “Thou Shall Not Judge”.

Yeah, you could throw some other interpretation at me about the Bible and God not allowing homosexuality, but that is just a bunch of BULL!

Did you frown on the gay person you were standing next to in line yesterday, you know the one don’t you? No you probably don’t because they are people just like you & I.

They deserve to be happy with the one they love not the one we as people tell them they should love. They deserve to get health benefits for each other just like straight married couples and they deserve to file Married Filing Jointly on their taxes if they choose. Not to mention retirement and death benefits. There are many things that “married” couples share and it is just plain not right to keep people form those benefits because you don’t agree with who they are marrying.

WHY would it bother you if two people that loved each other committed to spending their lives together?

Acceptance of people as a whole will help bring this peace to this country in more ways than one.

Dr. Adrian Rogers, 1931 to 2005

This brings me to the reason why I am so pissed off.  I believe that everyone has the right to work, and everyone has the right to have a piece of the “American Dream”, I commend people who have struggled to come to this country and work and learn a new language while they continue to better themselves.  I DO NOT however, like that fact that when you call for customer service in the United States you are patched through to some other country and talking to people who do not speak English, but seem to be getting all of the jobs that people actually living in America should get.  So why is our country going to shit?  It’s because everyone but Americans are living the American Dream.  Right now we are all worried about the economy and where we are going to get jobs.  We can all read from a manual that tells us what to do.  Why are we shipping all of our call center jobs out of the country, because it’s cheaper?  This is the problem.  We are not going to be able to afford to live in this country anymore because there are no jobs here to help us live.  We need to keep jobs in America and stop sending them overseas to pay those people 2 dollars a day to do what we should be getting more for.  Funny how it’s cheaper for the companies to send all the jobs overseas and yet our rates continue to rise.  Who’s getting hosed here except us all the way around.

This just reminded me of a commercial that I saw the other day; it was a jimmy john’s sub commercial.  Mind you, I love jimmy johns subs, and that’s why I paid attention to the commercial.  But this commercial may sum it all up in a nutshell for the American people.  In this commercial, which was all in a foreign language, which I think was Japanese, there were Japanese men sitting in a board room discussing a “plan” that one of the workers were proposing.  Not one word in the commercial was in English, but you got the just of the commercial just by the way things were going.  In this commercial the “head” of the board was not a happy camper and not really liking the ideas being proposed.  So the man that was proposing the new plan orders subs for everyone from Jimmy John’s which were the only words in English.  The subs came and all the men were happy.  This part wasn’t the saddest part of the commercial.  In the end the commercial actually said “Jimmy Johns’” and something to the affect of them being America’s best subs, or something along those lines.  So, we have America’s best subs in commercials about another country and two words in the whole commercial were in English, huh, what does that say about our businesses in America?  This is not the way to make sure America survives, and I am sick and tired of it.  There are things that can be done, the question is are any of the companies gonna have the balls to do the right thing??? How about hire American, we could start there.

I know that it is hard to balance work and family, especially in today’s economy where many households need two incomes. Parents need to make it a mission to be there for their kids in any situation. It seems the more lax people are about teaching their kids the true values of life, the more the world goes to shit.

So many young people do not know what it means to respect your elders even if you disagree. They do not know how to take responsibility for their actions or to just do a kind thing for a person in need because it makes you feel good.

Why and when did parents stop teaching these important values? When did the kids become “the protected ones”?

There is so much garbage out there saying that you should not hurt your kids feelings, you should not discipline them, you need to sugar coat the world for them. Maybe if parents started being tougher on their kids we would not have 11 year olds shooting their pregnant stepmothers. Teach them to take responsibility for their action whether it is good or bad.

We have always taught our kids that respect is key and if you give it, you will receive it. We make sure that if there are stories out there about kids doing wrong, we discuss that with them. We tell them why that behavior is not acceptable and how many people it hurts in the process. We teach them to be kind to others and do nice things for people without expecting anything in return. The biggest value we push is responsibility.

Spend time talking with your kids. Make it known that they are our next generation.