Knitting again

Here it is!

Over the holidays, I was on a knitting frenzy as I have told you before. I finally got some pictures of the throw I made for my friend's grandmother. Her grandmother reminds me so much of my beloved grandmother, so I made her this throw. I wanted to give her something that will keep her warm in the cold DC winter. My friend's mother thought I bought it. Maybe I need to make her mom one too!

I hope you enjoy it N and that you think of me when you use it! LOVE YOU LOTS!!!

Dominican Hairdressers

Everyone knows that Dominicans do the best hair in the world! I had heard this for many years. Several of my friends get their hair done by Dominican stylists and I always admired their hair. The way they can get the kinkiest hair straight with a blow dryer and a round brush, is nothing short of a miracle. And it LASTS forever.

So after hearing and seeing the results of the "rolos" o "flip", I decided I had to find a Dominican stylist. So with the help of the wonderful internet, I found a website that has Dominican stylists or stylist that are trained in the Dominican method. Well, being in North Texas, means there are very few Dominicans. However, I was lucky enough to find a stylist really close to me that was trained in the Dominician method.

I treated myself, for Valentine's Day, to a hair day. This was the second time I have been to this stylist. She trained under a Dominican stylist in Washington, DC. DC and NYC have THE BEST Dominican stylists outside of DR. So I went today to get my hair done. It was the greatest experience ever. My hair feels sooo good. It makes me feel so great to have a beautiful head of hair!!

YAY DR and the rolos y flips!!!

Work!

I do not want to go to work tomorrow! Isn't that sad to say? I know there are millions of people out there who want to work and here I am, ungrateful me, saying I don't want to go.

I really dislike this job but I have to go. I have to work. Just a few short months ago, I was looking for a job, begging for a job. So I took this job just cuz no one else was offering. I needed money. I feel like I settled and it wasn't a good settle either. I just feel overwhelmed and out of my element. I don't feel as though I was trained properly...Just 7 weeks of BS! I don't know. I just don't like it.

I am still looking for something else and praying I can hold on until I can find something else.

No child left behind...Are they sure about that?!

This whole no child left behind had really pissed me off. I think it is a ridiculous law that doesn't help any student. If anything it encourages more kids to drop out because they get discouraged about not passing the test. Teachers are teaching according to the test and not actual abstact thinking or logical thinking. You have to pass these "benchmark" tests or they won't pass their classes, nor will they graduate high school. How is this encouraging to continue your education? I know if I had been under the pressure that kids are under today to pass, I probably would have said forget it and just dropped out. I am a horrible test taker and unfortunately, my daughter had developed the same gene.

My 17 y.o. daughter suffers from ulcers and stress because she is constantly worried about the dreaded TAKS test (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills). She has almost given up all hope of going to college because she feels like she won't be able to pass the test to graduate. She had practically given up in school because her confidence has been shot to hell each time she flunks a portion of that test. I keep trying to be encouraging and tell her to try her best but she comes back with why because my class work means nothing. A kid could have straight A's in classes but if she flunks the TAKS test, they still flunk the class. What kind of encouragement is that?

I think about how G.H.W. Bush has messed up the education system for the whole country, that started when he was gov of Texas. I just don't understand. I just want my kid to graduate and move on with her life...out of my house.

Friendship Knitting

Over the years I have met some truly wonderful people. I moved to DC in 2006 to work a temp job for a conservation organization. I had lived in DC previously with disasterous results. But that is a different post. While I was there in DC I met a wonderful lady who took me under her wing.

She is originally from China and told me the hard time she had when she came to the United States. She lived in California at first and was basically a slave for a wealthy family. She was in the US to attend university, but they made it very difficult for her to do that. But she continued anyway. They decided to move to DC and "asked" her to move with them. She moved with them and went to university in DC, in between "working" for them. One day, she got fed up with them and quit. She found herself jobless and homeless for a little while. But she still continued on with her education.

Fast forward some years. She meets a nice man and gets married. She has a baby girl and then has a baby boy a few years later. Her baby boy died when he was 11 months and she was devestated. It was all due to careless mistakes of medical personnel. Once again that is another post. She thought nothing in her life was as horrible as that. I agree with her...but her faith never waivered. After baby boy's death she decided she did not want any more children, although her husband wanted to try one more time. So she got pregnant and delivered a healthy bouncing baby boy December 4, 2007.

So out come the knitting needles again and this is what I came up with.





This is for her new baby boy. This is for her to wrap her new baby up in and help him feel safe like she made me feel while I was there.

Thanks Z!!!

Politics

Okay as I have watched debate after debate, primaries (is that a word?) and caucuses all over the country, I have realized, I HATE POLITICS!! I absolutely hate it. I have been trying to figure out who I want to vote for president. We have/had some great candidates. I was really leaning towards John Edwards because he is the only one talk about "fixing" things here in the U.S. and not half a world away. I know it is selfish of me to want to focus on just the U.S., but I am tired of all my tax dollars going to a war that is bogus. G.H.W.B played us all. He was waiting for the opportunity to "avenge" his father, but it has been at the expense of the U.S. What about the unemployment rate (of which I was a part of until recently), what about the housing foreclosures, and what about New Orleans? I am tired of struggling. Things were really good with Bill and it has gone to hell in a hand basket over the last 8 years. Can I survive the next 11 months? Can Americans wake up and realize that we are in trouble? The world hates us. I am embarrassed to show my passport in other countries because they all hate us. "They" look at me with such distain and mistrust, like I am the one that started the war. Really what I want to say is, " I agree with you! We suck!", but I have to show some loyalty to my country so I just keep my mouth shut and move on in the line.

Now as for the upcoming presidental election, now that John has backed out of the election, I am leaning towards Barack for president. I was going back and forth between Barack and Hillary, but lately Hillary has turned me off. She is definitely NO Bill! I have not liked her comments of late on lots of issues and the way her campaign is going. She has become bitchy. I don't like to use that word randomly because most people think women who have confidence and power are bitchy. But I think she is trying to hard to prove she is tough and it has come across wrong. I also don't like what she has to say about pulling out of Iraq and about the U.S. economy. Barack seems to have a real agenda and plan and I like that.

I just want us out of Iraq, our economy back on track, and our physical environment(ecologically) corrected. I want to feel safe financially, physically and emotionally again. I don't feel that way now. I feel like I am on a constant seesaw all the time. So I want the politicking (is that a word too??) to end and the action to begin. We need to get out and vote in record numbers. Typically Texas has been a republican state and I am sure it will continue to be so, but we democrats have GOT to get out and vote. It can be for Hillary or Barack (preferably Barack) but we cannot withstand another republican president. I want more a more positive national and global agenda. We need to fix our world reputation and we can't do that with a republican in office.

VOTE PEOPLE!!