This Makes Me SO MAD!!!

June 29, 2007 at 9:32 am (Everyday Life)

This was on the Yahoo home page today:
“Grey’s Anatomy” star Isaiah Washington said racism was a factor in his firing from the hit ABC series after he twice used an anti-gay slur.
Washington, who initially used the epithet during an onset clash with a co-star, told Newsweek magazine that “someone heard the booming voice of a black man and got really scared and that was the beginning of the end for me.”
He tried to make amends by expressing remorse and volunteering to enter a counseling program to understand how the confrontation got out of hand, he told Newsweek.
“My mistake was believing that I would get the support from my network and all of my cast mates across the board. My mistake was believing I could correct a wrong with honesty and sincerity,” he said in the interview posted online Thursday.
“My mistake was thinking black people get second chances. I was wrong on all fronts,” he said.
His unwillingness to act like a submissive black at work was part of the problem, Washington said.
“Well, it didn’t help me on the set that I was a black man who wasn’t a mush-mouth Negro walking around with his head in his hands all the time. I didn’t speak like I’d just left the plantation and that can be a problem for people sometime,” he said.
“I had a person in human resources tell me after this thing played out that `some people’ were afraid of me around the studio. I asked her why, because I’m a 6-foot-1, black man with dark skin and who doesn’t go around saying `Yessah, massa sir’ and `No sir, massa’ to everyone?
“It’s nuts when your presence alone can just scare people, and that made me a prime candidate to take the heat in a dysfunctional family,” he said.
ABC declined comment Thursday. In its one public statement regarding Washington, issued in January, the network said his actions were “unacceptable.”
Washington, who used the slur against co-star T.R. Knight during a confrontation with Patrick Dempsey, repeated the word backstage at the Golden Globes in January in denying the first incident. A public apology to Knight and others followed.
I COULD NOT DISAGREE MORE!!! Notice how he reported what HE said to the HR person, not what the HR person responded. If he’s willing to call a collegue names and push another collegue – I’d be scared of him too and it has nothing to do with his race!
Who says black people don’t get second chances? Who says people are afraid of black men with booming voices? Who started any of this race shit except for HIM!!!
Here’s the thing that REALLY makes me mad about this whole situation: that cast is very physically diverse; they have super short people, black people, white people, Asian people, tall people, etc. They have a black man in the role as Head Chief – the gand pooba of the hospital. If this show does anything, it shows that race has nothing to do with what you can accomplish. Oh, and by the way, the creater and head writer of Grey’s Anatomy is Shonda Rhimes. Here’s her picture:

I don’t believe for one freakin’ second that his firing had anything to do with anything but his loud ass mouth and his own stupid actions and physical altercation of one cast member and disparaging remarks against another cast member. If someone I worked with treated me how he treated either of these persons I’d demand he was fired too. This has nothing to do with race and I think he should be ashamed of himself for trying to play that lame-ass card instead of taking responsibility for his actions.

What would happen if one of the white women on the show had done that and then accused the show of firing her for race? She would have been laughed at and no news media would have even reported it for it would be too ludicris. But, because this guy is black, it has to do with his race???

Whatever, asshole. I won’t miss you and I love that show.

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I Made Another Purse!!!

June 28, 2007 at 11:48 pm (Everyday Life)

When I bought the stuff to make my first purse, I also bought stuff to make two others. Since the first one took me about twelve hours to make (and I had help from my mom too), I’ve not been too motivated to attempt to make another one. Well, tonight I came home from work and decided I wanted to make another one. It only took me 3 hours!!! I’m so SO PROUD of myself! Here’s the finished product:

I made this one more of a bucket style (with a cat’s eye shaped bottom) so the bag would stay open and sit up. I used fun summer colors. I even used some super retro embellishements – see the little green trim at the top with the little balls on it? Very 1970’s, huh? I thought it looked good with the paisley material. Kind of an updated 70’s look. The handles are just really wide ribbon. I doubled it up and just sewed it down the middle with contrasting blue thread to hold them together and thought this would give the straps a little more strength.

Here’s the inside:

I didn’t do a center divider like last time but I still wanted pockets so I used the bottoms that I cut off a pair of blue jeans that I hemmed. I thought they looked really good with the blue on the material. I have to have a place to keep my chapstick assortment and my cell phone. So, purse #2 and it took me about 1/4 the time the first one did! Hooray!!!

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Enniskillen Castle

June 28, 2007 at 8:29 am (Scrapbooking)

I’m finally going back through to scrapbook some of my older Ireland pictures.

This layout I think is one of my favourites I’ve ever put together.

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Painting – Phase Two

June 27, 2007 at 7:28 am (Everyday Life)

In the second round of my house painting overhaul I decided to paint the split-entry way red. A dark red, but red nonetheless. I’m still a bit up on the air over it. And I haven’t decided what to do with the piece going down the stairs, whether I should continue the red down into there or leave it the way it is. Kinda looks funny right now though I find. Maybe just because I”m not used to it.

And doesn’t it just figure that the painting is all purply and doesn’t really go with the red. LOL>

So this is the before:

And this is all the red in its glory after:

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I made a card

June 26, 2007 at 5:23 pm (Everyday Life)

I don’t make many cards and the few that I have made, I admit, aren’t great. However, I think I have turned a corner. My friend’s birthday is in a couple weeks. I am so wonderfully organized (hehe) that, not only do I already have her gift, but it is wrapped AND I made a card to match:

I LOVE this wrapping paper. It’s really thick actual paper and it has these little blue bees on it – very Martha Stewart-esque. Anyway, I bought a couple rolls of it several year ago and I used the last of it on my friend’s gift. I had one small square left so I decided to use it to make a card. I even embellished an envelope to match:

You can’t tell very well from the above pictures but I put a sheet of white vellum over the wrapping paper that had vines and stuff on it. This pic shows it a little better:

I was pretty pleased. Now, I just need to wait 3 weeks to give it to her.

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More Scrapbook Layouts

June 24, 2007 at 6:50 pm (Scrapbooking)

I had another fairly crafty weekend! I went to a scrapook crop Friday night for about 6 hours and am very pleased with what I got accomplished! Especially when you consider I had several friends there and we spent half the time talking, laughing, and gossiping (not to mention our short trip to McDonalds). Here are some layouts:

I love this picture of my nephew and my new nephew (my sister married his dad about a month ago). They are standing in my den looking out the window to my backyard. See what they’re standing in? Those are my dog’s and cat’s beds!! Boys are so silly.

This is my other nephew. He’s 15 now and this has always been one of my favorite photos of him.

This is a layout I did with my mother-in-law’s engagement announcement. I scanned the original newpaper clipping and reprinted it on archival quality cardstock and photoshopped the yellow color out. I was working on a project a couple years ago about using everyday household objects in scrapbooking. Notice that I’ve used primarily sewing notions on this layout.

This layout used primarily office supplies. The big square in the bottom corner is actually a plastic CD cover. Oh, and yes, I had a mullet but it was 1985 – EVERYONE had a mullet!

Again, I used sewing notions on this page from my high school graduation.

Okay, I TOTALLY “scraplifted” this layout from pg. 35 of the February 2007 issue of Creating Keepsakes. I dont’ care – I still LOVE it! This is my little sister (the same one I’m holding in the 1985 pic) and my Godson.

Another layout with my Godson. Excuse the rediculous haircut – his father had that done.

Layout with one of those cheesy tourist photos. Not too bad considering my daughter is wearing fishnet stockings, a garter, and holding a bottle of whiskey and a pistol!

A quick layout I did of my mom. I wanted to keep this one simple and I like how it turned out. I find I rarely use stickers anymore but I loved these.

A super simple layout of my Godson. I loved the elephant paper – it was too cute!

Several months ago Bridgette and I went to Target to get her a lapdesk for her laptop so she can sit on her bed and use it. It was in the toy department by the Play-dough and my teenager decided she wanted to play with some. Don’t really know why but I figure there are worse things an almost 18 year old could be doing with her time so I indulged her. She sat in the den for over an hour – goofball!

This layout took me about 5 minutes. It’s mostly just a clear overlay with the writing on it and I added a couple of the curly things in the corners.

I also made a card for a friend and wrapped all that but I’ll save thsoe pics for tomorrow.

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June 22, 2007 at 9:42 am (Scrapbooking)

So Jen and I have decided that we’d like to add our scrapbooking layouts up here on our blog. I’ve searched through Blogger’s webpage looking for a photoalbum add-on to no avail. I’ve noticed that alot of other srappers use Typepad as it offers a photoalbum as an added bonus. Acutally I’ve noticed Typepad offers loads of other add-ons as well, or at least I’m assuming it comes directly from typepad when I see them on other scrap blogs.

So for now, as I have to just use Blogger, we are going to post them regular-like and tag them. Hopefully add the Tag to the side border and when its clicked on then you can see the scrapbooking pages.

No idea if it will actually work but will try it out for now. Another option is to use Flickr but I’m not a huge fan of having to use several different websites to get I want.

So here, we’ll try it out with labels. This is my family tree that I’ve been working on for the past year or so.

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New Kitchen Paint

June 18, 2007 at 7:54 am (Everyday Life)

I’ve been meaning to put up this photo for two weeks now. I painted my kitchen. And I hate painting. Ugh. I even had to do all the trim because it was in quite bad shape once I got looking at it.

But I can say I did this all by myself and only got a minimal amount of paint on the ceiling. And really you can only see it if you look straight up. LOL

Finally found the before picture, although this one is several years old.

And here’s my new gold kitchen. Much cheerier than it was before. I need a new floor now.

I didn’t realize till now that my counters look incredibly bare so I’m going to have to start looking for little bits to add to them. With the other blah colour on the wall it didn’t seem to matter but now that space inbetween the counter and cupboard seems to really stand out.

And then a fourth wall in sage green:

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I’m Back and in Pain!

June 14, 2007 at 5:24 pm (Everyday Life)

We had a great mini-vacation to the mountains. Oh, and I brought back some souvenirs – 59 mosquito bites. And no – this isn’t an exageration – I literally counted all of them because I was going crazy. Mosquitoes LOVE me. I’ve read that they are attracted to people with a certain pH level and I, apparently, have it. They never touch my Hubby and rarely bother my daughter but they LUVRE me.

For the last day or so I was using Cortaid’s spray which was nice because you don’t have to touch them at all which makes them itch worse. About noon today I thought I would go out of my mind for wanting to scratch. Hubby reminded me I should take some Benadryl (and I could have KICKED myself for not thinking of it sooner!) and that gave me a little more relief. I used this stick called “After Bite” which has amonia in it which feels good because it’s so cold but that relief didn’t last long. After that I slathered myself in calamine lotion. Yes – I have almost 60 pink spots on my arms and legs BUT I finally have some relief!!!

I’ll post tomorrow about the trip and hopefully include some pics.

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Something Else I Can’t Stand

June 7, 2007 at 12:54 pm (Everyday Life)

In recent years groups have taken to begging in the streets where I live. Let me clarify:

I think it all started with the Shriners who would stand at major intersections selling their newspaper and collecting donations. Anyone who has ever heard of the Shriner’s Hospitals who help thousands of injured children with things like burns and skeletal injuries can understand why they are collecting money. They are a not for profit group and do LOADS to give back to the community – you see them in every parade, helping at children’s homes, etc. I don’t mind them standing with their buckets collecting money and they give you a newspaper and sometimes a piece of fruit. They have my respect and we always donate whenever we see them. However, that’s where it ends.

Near where I live LOADS of other groups have started the practice of begging for money with large buckers at intersections. I’ve seen soccer teams, baseball teams and various other sports teams standing out there in their uniforms to collect money for stuff. I’ve seen cheerleaders and church organizations too. The parents are usually there, standing off to the side, watching their children. Today, I saw two groups of black men, all in slacks and ties, standing at two major intersections with buckets collecting money for what I assume to be a church group because one of them had on a hat that said “I (heart) Jesus.”

Here is why I have a problem with these people. What happened to all the old ways of making money like cheerleader car washes, church bake sales, and other things ball teams and the likes can do to earn money? If you’re a bunch of junior high boys – go around to neighborhoods offering to do yard work or wash people’s windows to EARN what ever money you need to raise. Almost EVERY single time I pass a youth car wash, whether it be for a church, ball team, girl scouts, whatever, I will give them $5 to $10 bucks to wash my car ($5 when I had a little Honda and now $10 or more now that I have an SUV). When I was a cheerleader we sold Krisy Kreme doughnuts on the weekend mornings to our neighbors and we sold LOTS!.

Why are the parents and coaches of these children teaching them that if they want something they should just stand in the street and beg strangers to just give them money? Aren’t there other life lessons that this situation could be used to teach children – like if you want something and you’re willing to go out there and WORK for it – you can have it?

That is why, with the exception of the Shriners, I do not give to the beggars standing at the street corners with buckets asking for my money. This is not a lesson I think people should be teaching our young people. I also think that these groups should be required to have a permit to do this so the city can confirm that they are a legitimate group because I’m not so sure that some of the groups haven’t just been trying to get some dough from me.

So – does this sound like I’m just being witchy? If so – sorry – I’m just being honest.

Also, we’re leaving to go on vacation this afternoon. We’re just going to the mountains for a long weekend so I should be back next Tuesday or Wednesday. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Oh, and by the way, what do you guys think of the new layout? Like it? Hate it? What about the duck holding the flowers? Got to be honest, I’m not a fan of the duck but I love the new layout and the colors.

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