The Birds Move In
4 July 2004, 9:09 PM

A Complete Change of Tone
4 July 2004, 5:52 PM

I know, I know. Gripe, gripe, gripe. Well, if the last three posts were a bit of a downer, this one will be a change of pace.

We're currently setting up one of extra bedrooms to accommodate my sister who will be staying with us two nights a week for a while. (She's a doctor, working at various clinics, and commuting between cities for a while.) The room is also going to be my "craft room" when she's not around.

I wanted something cozy, comfy and rather French Country. The closet was the first thing we worked on, since it's the storage space for all the craft items, so that the room can look more like a guest room. The guest bathroom got a mini-makeover when we reinstalled the mirror and I placed the spa-like bath products out. Today everything got tossed out of the bedroom so that we could paint it. It had been a bare white, with one hideous Pepto-Bismol pink wall. That got painted over with primer as soon as we moved in last year, but today it got a coat of a lovely creamy light-yellow. The paint color is called "vanilla wafer". Yum. :-) It looks great too, and with white trim, crown molding and new doors the room should look fantastic. I promise pictures as soon as it's done.

I also did some gardening yesterday - moved a couple of plants around and trimmed a lot of dead stuff off of several. I hadn't been able to tend any of my plants for weeks, since the continual rains (I think we had 19, maybe 20 straight days of rain?) kept everything so soggy.

As a result of the nicer weather we've seen a number of critters re-emerge. I spotted three black swallowtail caterpillars last week, but then only two and now none. I think they became bird lunches. The birds that ate them seem to be picking up the dead leaves I so carefully trimmed away and using them to build a nest in the petunia, just inches outside the window that Mysty is now intently staring through.

I've also completed about a third of the cross-stich project I started last month. I'll post a work-in-progress picture soon.

*sigh*
4 July 2004, 5:28 PM

Access to Birth Control
4 July 2004, 5:11 PM

Thanks to Elke Tanzer who alerted me to this: "Refusing women access to the Pill is a very disturbing trend," says Gloria Feldt, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. "The war on choice is not just about abortion anymore. It's about our right to birth control."

Yup. Now some doctors, GYNs and pharmacies are refusing to prescribe, or fill prescriptions for, birth control pills. Most are doing so on the grounds that The Pill can be used in such a way to cause abortions and recent legislation does allow them leeway in refusing on those grounds. But that's leaves thousands of women - who need birth control for either non-reproductive medical reasons, or simply because they are being responsible about not wanting to get pregnant - out in the cold. Forget about insurance companies not covering birth control pills (while they cover Viagra), now some American women are having to fight to even get them in the first place.

Enough Already!
4 July 2004, 3:26 PM

Okay folks. Former President Reagan has been dead for three weeks now. The funeral and observances are over. It's Independence Day for gosh's sake - let's get those flags back up! Seeing all those stars-and-stripes still flying at half-mast on the 4th of July just seems terribly disrespectful to the importance of this holiday in the U.S.