High Road

I am so pleased that my new design is well recieved! Yeah… I be fancy.

Blessed Beltane today! I took Daniel to the forest preseve and we had a little walk (I had brought his bike with us).

I think I post too many photos.

I promise I will eventually have a more wordy entry, I suppose that so much is going on that I can’t focus on one single thing to write about. Stress ugh.

Click the following images to view the full size and to browse through the set.

Wish You Were Here

After work (and a migraine) I came home and cleaned my bedroom and did more dishes and finally dived into The Beatles Anthology Dvd’s that my love Lisa Marie sent me! It’s a true friend that realises my Beatles obession (I used to always say that John Lennon was my personal god)! Then I laid in bed for the next 4 hours with a second migraine. Fantastic.

I’ve slowly decided to try and be vegetarian for the next few months and fell in tasty goodness with Quorn, it really is tastes, looks, and is texture wise, exactly like chicken! I am still so shocked! So I would love some vegetarian recipes that don’t include soy since I have a taste sensitivity to soy products or at the very least tofu, soy burgers, soy meat substitutes and the like.

After watching a few hours of my Beatles, I got the utterly insane idea to make it a self portrait night so the following are what happens with a ‘cedrin Sarah at 4am!

Click on the images to view full size and to navigate through the set.

Everywhere But Here

As soon as I got home from work I crashed until 8pm. Not feeling good today, aside from a budding migraine… yes… again heh. I think I’m just emotionally worn out. I was so pleased to find a package from my Sharon! I almost cried so thank you so much!

It’s been raining since Wednesday night and is supposed to rain through tomorrow ( I also work tomorrow).

Since Nikki wanted me to, I set up a basic services page.

This week has been very hard, my sister’s wallet was stolen and it had ALL of her cards in it so I took a few hours off of work yesterday and we drove the 45 min to the police station up there to file a report, the evil person used her cards at KMART and PERFUME MANIA!! Seriously who DOES that! She is depressed and upset where as I am angry, we are fighting with the DMV and SS office to try and get replacements. It’s a very stressful situation.

Hopefully this upcoming week will be better all around.

While My Guitar Gently Weeps

I hope the mothers out there had a good day. Mine was ok, pretty calm compared to years past. I did laundry and took Daniel to the park.

I’ve been slowly cooking different things lately which you can view at Talking Snack. I still would love some vegetarian/vegan recipes (as long as they are soy free!) so I can try some new things.

I just don’t have much to blog about lately, or at the very least I seem to have lost the ability to focus long enough to blog. I need to perk up.

So I Lie Awake

It’s been a long week, I just don’t feel like I have anything to say anymore!

So today I actually didn’t work so I took Danny with me to the city to the farmer’s market since the one closer to me hasn’t opened yet. I got chives with the flowers still attached, green garlic, oregano, basil, spinach, hydro… something tomatoes, and organic strawberry preserves.

Last night I put up a new layout for Talking Snack.

I’ve been vegetarian for two weeks tomorrow!

Onto non-food related ramblings.

I realised I am so fed up with most parents my age. They don’t have any common sense and spout off at the mouth about crap they know nothing about… because gods forbid they do any research. I suppose I need to seperate what I do and do not talk about with people. I can have friends I can discuss anything and everything with and those that I will keep as superficial as possible so I can try and keep my temper in check. I am a proud lactivist, a proud attachment parent. People in general are so damn misinformed and are unwilling to learn anything. I get fustrated thinking about it.

So for the hell of it here is a list of some mommies (not all or that would take all day!) I respect.

Heather, Nikki, Lisa Marie, Angel, Kristina, Nicole, Crystal, Laura, and Mari.

“I have a deep passionate naughty love for Chris Daughtry”

I have a deep passionate naughty love for Chris Daughtry right now. I managed to find some songs he recorded with his band Absent Element so I have been listening to the songs non-stop. If you’re a Chris fan and would like these songs just let me know!

I still need to clean the bedroom but alas no effort yet. I need cleaning music!

Oh and ugh, I am pretty sure I have pink eye.

Lastly, I was so thrilled yesterday to get a sweet note and glitter filled faery necklace from my friend Crystal! I also got from my mother some celestial stickers! It really made me feel so special!

What a Wonderful World

Yep, new layout.

After work I picked up my son and his bike, then got my sister’s boyfriend and we all went to the forest preserve so everyone could frolick about. It had rained earlier, looks like it’s going to rain again soon, so everything had that shiny green look. I really want to explore all of the state preserves and state parks this summer if possible. Sometimes I wonder if I bore my son dragging him to all of these places.

I screamed so loud that my son got mad at me because I was thrilled that Taylor Hicks won American Idol!

Right Here

It’s so grey and humid today. I have to do laundry and I really don’t want to. Tonight I’m going to see X-Men 3: The Last Stand, I am really excited because I loved the first two movies, I know this third one is by a different director but the plot and trailer look good.

I’ve been so stressed out lately, for example this morning, I kept freaking out looking at the time on my alarm clock, I literally stared at the clock CONVINCED the time was NOT moving forward so I actually got OUT of bed to go to my computer to verify that indeed, time was continuing. I will never be a morning person.

Work is very stressful today, no one is doing what they were supposed to do… actually they aren’t doing anything at all.

I added two new tutorials, one for a three column CSS design and another for expression engine private entries.

One Word Blog Day

Fulfillment

LiveJournal Breastfeeding Ban

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
Carrie Patterson
Executive Director, ProMoM.Org
http://www.promom.org
carrie@promom.org
678 – 513-6329

Popular Blogging Site Restricts Some Breasts
LiveJournal cites breastfeeding images as ‘inappropriate’ and sends mothers to the virtual restroom

Women on the popular blog site LiveJournal are calling foul at the company’s decision to brand images of breastfeeding as ‘inappropriate.’ Many users of the site have joined together to urge LiveJournal’s parent company SixApart to address their concerns and reevaluate the policy.

Small “userpics” of no more than 100 by 100 pixels represent LiveJournal members throughout the site. Users can define one of these icons as “default icon” which plugs it into the user’s public profile. These default icons were originally not permitted to be ‘sexually explicit or graphically violent.’ Recently, icons which depicted breastfeeding were cited as being ‘inappropriate’ by the LiveJournal abuse team, a group of volunteers who monitor complaints on the site.  After clarification was requested, LiveJournal changed their FAQ to reflect a no nudity rule and is claiming that icons with visible areola or nipple are not permitted. Whether or not areola is visible in a photograph is dependent on a number of factors, including skin tone of the mother and physical changes during pregnancy.

Claimed Live Journal Abuse Staffer ‘Erin’ in a post on the site, “That’s really a matter for the FCC to decide. LiveJournal’s policies on this mirror what would be allowed on primetime TV or in a PG-13 movie.” However, this is not true. The FCC does not consider the act of breastfeeding on television to fall under the definitions of indecency or obscenity.

Breastfeeding is exempt from nudity laws throughout the United States as well as countries such as Canada. Advocates are urging LiveJournal to adopt the same criteria. “It is regrettable that LiveJournal has chosen to target breastfeeding mothers instead of standing up for the protection provided them by law,” says Carrie Patterson, executive director of ProMom.org, a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing public awareness and public acceptance of breastfeeding.

“It is regrettable that LiveJournal has chosen to target breastfeeding mothers”

Advocates state that the feeling that breastfeeding should be hidden only fosters the idea that the natural act of nourishing a child is scandalous.

Breastfeeding bloggers who have refused to change their default icon have been suspended from the site. These users, as well as others questioning the
policy, have been treated poorly by the site’s volunteer abuse team, something that is not unusual according to other site users. More than 1,000 LiveJournal users complained, and SixApart issued an apology to the group. However, the company refuses to consider modifying their policy and continues to suspend users whose default icons are deemed inappropriate. Although LiveJournal stated a clarified rule, mothers are still reporting major inconsistencies in its application.

The breastfeeding debacle is only the most recent in a long line of incidents that have people wondering if the abuse procedures as a whole should be reviewed for fairness and propriety. Complaints have been raised about users’ privacy, inconsistent enforcement of the Terms of Service, conflicting information and responses from abuse team members, and discourteous replies to users seeking clarification on the rules.

Activists are now working together to get this policy changed and to clarify the policies and procedures of the LiveJournal abuse team. While some are
refusing to continue paying for the service, others have moved to different journaling websites to protest what they feel is a violation of their rights. For more information, contact Carrie Patterson at 678 – 513-6329 or carrie@promom.org or visit http://www.promom.org/bf_info/mp.html.