Renovations and Changes

Been gone for a while - sorry to anyone waiting with baited breath. :) (oh, no one? okay then!)

We've been busy around here though, for sure. I've been very productive the last couple days (some might say rather manic) - so much so that my boss told me that I was "high-strung" and should "take a nap." This was at 9:30 in the morning. Needless to say I didn't take a nap right then and there but pretty much collapsed when I got home....

We're discovering how to take what's old and make it new. Also I've been revisiting my past and am very excited to say, have rediscovered the joys of this:

That my friends is a speedo swim suit and swim cap. Yep, I've decided to take up swimming again (it's been so long that lil' sis doesn't believe I actually ever WAS a swimmer. But I was, I swear I was. And the people at the swimwear shop can prove it - when I gave them my name, they found me in the system and asked if I was still on swim team. Uh, do I look 17? Nope, haven't been on the swimteam for 10 years, but they gave me the "swimteam discount" anyway..).

I redecorated the wall at the bottom of the stair case and put up some family pictures. I think it's glorious.

Petesie took down the old blinds in our bedroom and put up some pretty new ones. When we use the term "eighty-six" in our house, it has more than one meaning. Yes, to remove/take away the old stuff, but even more so, because everything that's old is all from 1986...

And we decided to pain our living room. And by we, I mean me, and my "decided to paint" I mean I tested out a patch, decided I wasn't crazy about the color, looked up at the high ceilings and decided I wasn't crazy about the work involved, but then was told by my darling husband that it was too late and I had committed myself with the one color patch. Fantastic.

What else? My mom, in her quest for grandkids has decided to practice patience and instead, dote on her "grand-dog".. what is the world coming to? She picked up Monty when we were at work last Wednesday and took him to the groomer, got him shampooed and groomed and got him some "pressies" as we like to say - a shiny new blue collar and a sweet bandana. Petesie is having some difficulty with the new "adjustment" and has taken to calling poor Monty "Fancy Boy." I, on the other hand think he looks darling and am happy to have less dog hair to vaccuum up. :)

See Pretty-Boy in action:

On a side note, I hope today we are seeing the beginning of something big, which makes me very, very happy. I squealed out loud when I clicked open CNN and saw this today at work: Judge strikes down California ban on same-sex marriage.

Please refer back to my post on the Declaration of Independance wheere I highlighted that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Well said, Thomas Jefferson, and well argued Theodore Olson (who, although argued for Bush in Bush v. Gore is now the darling of liberals everywhere...).

Here's the thing: I've spent a LOT of time thinking about this and wondering why it is we want to get married, what marriage means to me, what a family means to me, etc... I believe my very core that marriage should be available to EVERYONE - whether those couples be interracial, homosexal... May/December Couples.... My choice to marry Peter was never contested by anyone and has never been considered illegal, but in our own right, we are also a couple outside the norm. And nobody, anywhere (legally speaking at least) at any stage in United States history has blinked an eye at our choice. So why did we have the right to get married when other dear friends of mine would either have been thrown in jail for their marriages at certain points in time or are still banned from marrying? It's so deeply unfair. And please, when I read that "children do best in homes raised by their own mother and father" I want to vomit. Like 50% of marriages today don't end in divorce already. Like half of children today are raised in homes where they do not have one mother and one father who are married to each other. When I read that and hear that, I want to show them MY family: Mother, Father, Step Mother, Step Father, Big Sister, Little Sister and Brother (who I would never dream of qualifying as anything less than my full sister and full brother)..... Need I go on? Okay, I will: Second Step Mother, Second Step Father (sorta!), Step Brothers, Aunt, Faux-Uncle, etc...

Needless to say, I have a non-traditional, blended, family and I was raised in many homes by more than one mother and one father. It takes a village and children most certainly do equally well, if not better, when they are surrounded by many, many people who love on them and love each other, regardless of gender and sexual orientation.

There. I said my piece. I am hopeful that when my children grow and choose to get married, they can choose whoever they want, regardless of the shape (or quantity!) of their chromosomes.

Getting off my soapbox. And going swimming!