Would You Give Someone a New Lease on Life?

I have always loved animals, and I love being surrounded by them. I felt I had to write a blog post on this because I see more and more news articles about people who hoard animals, animal cruelty, and just plain stupidity on the part of people. I myself am more of a dog person than a cat person, but I do have two cats.

What bothered me most this week was an article about a woman who adopted a Great Dane and kept it in a cage that for most of its life. The dog outgrew the cage and had its bones deformed to the point where it could barely walk. Why torture an animal because of your ignorance to research the needs of the breed and their needs? I love dogs, but would not own a Great Dane because I cannot provide it with the type of environment it needs.

With that being said, please also consider adopting your pets from an animal shelter. There are breeders out there that are scrupulous and honest, and genuinely have the welfare of their animals as their primary concern, but there are also breeders that only care about their profit margin. Many shelters are kill shelters; meaning that animals that cannot be placed in a certain time frame must be euthanized. There is no compassion in killing a perfectly healthy animal simply because it has not been adopted, so do your part, and look to a shelter first. It just may be one of the best choices you will ever make.

P.S. Marty the dog and Danny the cat thank you.

Looks, or the lack thereof...

It has recently been brought to my attention that I am not a "looker"any more. What exactly constitutes a looker? Does the fact that someone is not supermodel material make them any less valuable an addition to the human race? In my defense, I submit that I have gained weight, and I that I dress for practicality and affordability more than I do for any sort of va-va-voom factor.

I admit that in the years following the births of my children and the moving all over the country that being an army wife entails, my jeans and I developed an unhealthy attachment that turned mutually exclusive. It really is easier to chase after kids and chauffeur everyone around while not being in stilettos.

I have no problem with women that manage to look fabulous at all times, but I thought we were leaving the fifties era sitcom mothers and wives in the past where they belong. Instead, I find myself asking exactly what was it that the feminist movement actually accomplished?

Here we are in 2009, and women still get paid less than men in the same jobs, we still have no paid maternity leave, there are still numerous career fields where women are thought to be handicapped by their gender if they are even seen at all, and women are still at the mercy of designers who have no concept of equating the runway to real life.

I cannot make other people accept me, or even value me, but what I can do is to make sure that their negativity does not damage my self-worth. I cannot say what size I will be at this time next year; but I can say that I will love myself even if the figure looking back at me in the mirror is not svelte, because I will have tried my best to improve myself, for myself, and myself alone.

Texan Wildlife

Since I have been here in Texas, I have been amazed by the amount of wildlife I have seen. i have found that the saying, "Everything is bigger in Texas," is true. This rule applies to nasty things too, such as spiders. A regular wolf spider can be the siize of a golf ball here, and when I first moved into my house, we had black widows and brown recluses galore. To prove my point, I have taken pictures of a praying mantis I found on my back porch. I wish I knew what kind of praying mantis it is... Enjoy!

Glamour Honors Plus-Size Models in Its November Issue - ABC News

Glamour Honors Plus-Size Models in Its November Issue - ABC News
As a plus size woman, myself, I found this article to be a source of inspiration. It is unbelievably difficult to go shopping for affordable, quality plus-size clothing in the United States. While I am trying to shed my plus size, (which I am doing because of my health and not because of vanity), it would be nice if there were clothes I could wear that would not make me look like a dowdy idiot, or a club-obsessed elephant. More on this later.

Haircuts and Bastions of Testosterone

Today marked the first haircut my oldest son needed since his dad left. We went to the usual place we get his hair cut.

The place is called SportClips and it's kind of Foot Locker meets the salon for the macho set. Only the barbers all have naturally occurring estrogen.

My son loves it; and getting his hair cut here is comforting to him. Now if only I could remember what size clippers his dad recommends...

Above are some pictures. Does your town have a SportClips or something like it?

Just Sixteen More...

Just sixteen more credits and I will get my degree. It has been a long work in progress and tomorrow I will complete another class. The class I will be completing is Western Civilizations I. I will be taking Macroeconomics for the term starting on 19 October. Until then, I will enjoy my time between classes.

One thing I think would make education more financially feasible for most people is the use of ebooks. I am not sure why academic publishers have not jumped on the technology bandwagon and published textbooks in traditional and digitized form, but I am hoping some of them get the message. For example, my next textbook will cost two hundred dollars. That does not include shipping.

Assuming that my next six classes require books that cost two hundred dollars apiece, I would be spending twelve-hundred dollars on books alone! And of course, that would take a huge amount of money out of a person's financial aid. Given the fact that financial aid is mostly comprised of packages a person has to pay back, why not give students something that would work a little better for their budget?

The benefits would ripple out to so many areas, more students graduating with less debt, the environment would not have to lose so many trees, less people would have any kind of lumbar issues, and publishers could really exploit this business model for profit. Everybody wins!

Oh, and professors would no longer have to dread people not having their books on the first day of class...

What do you think?

Credit

I thought it would be awesome to find a site where I could get an idea of the minimum score necessary to get a Walmart credit card. I discovered a site called whogavemecredit.com. This site allows you to put in the name of any creditor and find out what the average score for acceptance, and it also tells you which credit bureau they utilize to determine your creditworthiness. Nifty little tool. Check it out today!