beckas political forum

i often spend time creating programs in my head to further interest in learning life skills for youngsters. the popular television programs do little to encourage our children to find a hobby or a skill. they show why our country is torn appart and education has taken a back seat to reality programs which are based VERY LOOSELY on reality. the discovery channel is still wonderful and their are several others with very positive programing with educational shows. i am interested in creating a program to teach sewing a upholstery skills. i am so disappointed that our educational system has taken out music lessons, carpentry, home economics, auto shop and drafting classes. everything has been taken over by computers and fine arts aren't taught at all anymore. the only hope our children have to learn to cook is by their parents which lessens with every generation. i had to teach jimee and jazmin how to boil water because their mother can't cook. how scary is it to think of the homes our children will be living in if they cannot prepare a healthy meal for themselves or their children. what ramifications will this have on the health of our world? have you ever stopped to think that the daily voilence is caused by boredom? if more people spent their time making a quilt or building a desk or perfecting the song they have written wouldn't they spend less time trying to be angry at a world that has not provided them with oppuritunity. it is my belief that the current recession that we are in is in part created by lack of experience. it is very hard to run a sucessful country if the majority of the citizens in your country lack the ability to maintain it. it has become an epedimic problem to find relaible, honest, skilled, trustworthy employees for nearly every labor -oriented company. mine included. how are we supposed to have sucessful companies without competent employees? i strongly believe that if we do not make steps to correct the downslide we have gotten ourselves into, we will lose the ability to pull ourselves out of it.

overcast and hot

this is the last hurrah for holiday weekends in town. we have mass craziness on memorial day ending on labor day. the boaters come out of the woodwork to party on the lake and show off their boats. it is really slow in the shop today (as every year) as everyone is out on the water. nice for being tired, but not great for business. hopefully the recession will not affect us to the point of having to close. we still have work to do, but many places have shut down in town already and more are feeling threatened to. scary for self-employeed people like ourselves. we are still the busiest shop in town, but people are doing enough to get by right now instead of redoing whole boats or having specialty things made. everyone is waiting for the economy to pick up. it is an interesting cycle. you have to buy things to create demand, you have to work to make money to buy things. it is amazing to me how many people are living off of disability and food stamps, trying not to work so they can still qualify for assistance which we working folks are paying for. i do not understand the welfare system or the disability system. if your foot is broken are you then unable to find a job using your hands or something else? i think we should impose a time limit for assistance for people unwilling to work. why are we paying for women to have more babies if we are paying for welfare for the children she already has? why can't we limit coverage to the kids and her at the time of application and any pregnancies will be uncovered? i bet more people will figure out how to use birthcontrol or get their tubes tied. if a mother has a baby under the influence of drugs, why can't we give her a tubal ligation to insure that the pattern doesn't continue. these babies are often mentally affected and will never be productive members of society and we continue to allow the same mother to have more of them for us to support and have to raise and further add more welfare cases to our country. this cycle has got to stop. i am convinced that we can maintain a more stable society and economy if we manage from the bottom and try to encourage healthy, capable humans to populate. it is very scary to me when i go places to people watch and see the masses of "brain deprived" parents raising children who in most cases will turn out just a little futher brain deprived.

some work

these are jeep seats fran sewed. totally custom and they turned out really nice. they look great in the vehicle. the back seat matches and we also did the carpet.
romo sleeping in his favorite spot. it is really hot and humid here right now. we had a big storm last night.
we just finished this boat. it has been quite a project. we had to rebuild the floor and all other woodwork. it was sooooooooooo rotten. we are very happy to finally have it finished.
back view of same boat. i love our pockets.

some of my favortite things.

here are my short people who are not so short these days. this is my side of the bed. i love the pictures the boys make me. this is the bottom painting done by ian last year jule made this when he was 4. it is me on the right, mike on the left and he is the little one in the middle.

owen did this last year and i am in love with it. i love my boys.

kids rooms

this is ians room. he no longer has a closet since we put in the pantry, but he does have a really cool wardrobe.
this is owen and jules room. it is very busy. they love to put up everything important to them on the walls. i let them. i also let them put up things in the other rooms. this is owens bed.
this is jules side.

my new pantry

i love my new camera. it works! so, here are a few long awaited pics of my pantry. this used to be a wall with cabinets inset and ian had a closet on the other side. bye bye closet, hello useable space. i love it. i have so much stuff in here and have freed up much space in my cabinets.

these are a few of my favorite things by my kitchen sink. i love hanging artwork. love it love it love it.

robin, it is a vagina.

yes, the picture below is what it looks like. that is the whole point. the back is old hippy titties (pierced) and the seat bottom is what it looks like. gotta teach anatomy.