TODAY IS THE DAY! VOTE!

On Instagram, I’ve spent every day posting a political pin, and today is the final one. Scroll through and see what I chose to share in the last days towards this Election Day. When you’re finished looking and thinking about and commenting, head over to your polling place and VOTE. This is the most consequential and important election of our lifetimes. I just heard Dan Pfeiffer say on The Axe Files that young people felt secure and comfortable under President Obama, they thought they were safe and things were going to be okay – the President has this. Well, I’m 51, and I felt the same way. I was comfortable not paying attention to the minutiae of politics and political discourse for the first time in my life, and now I’m terrified. For my children, yes, but for myself as well. What have we allowed to happen in the last two years?!

VOTE

Looking back on someone who was thought to be a not so good president, but he really wasn’t that bad. He got a bad wrap. The current president won’t have that benefit – he’s the worst. But…Ulysses S. Grant won the Civil War, and wasn’t a bad president, and was actually a good person. Read Ron Chernow’s biography. (c)2018

August – Vacation/Staycation – Photo/Art

My Pin Collection – 3

Post 3

L-R: Kids playing, the initial K (this was the first gift I received from my students as a teacher), Teacher’s desk, Child, Wooden heart, 2 figures dancing, NY’s Odyssey of the Mind, inside the Odyssey pin, Fall cornucopia, US Navy MWR name tag. (c)2017

Flowers, Clockwise: Starburst in purple and green, Daisy, Daffodil, Rainbow stones in a butterfly. This one was my mother’s. She collected butterfly pins and other accessories. I think this one is my favorite. (c)2017

My Pin Collection – 2

Post 2. I’m not sure how I missed that I have two sets of doubles. Oh well, they’re pretty.

L-R: From my Fantasy Collection: Shield with chains. (This was my first pin that I remember getting for myself. I wore it all the time. I was a medieval history buff and a medieval re-enactor, so it was apropos.) Fancy feather with silver locket, Crescent Man in the Moon, Unicorn, Lion on a Shield, Carousel Lion (I collected many lions when I was in a medieval group. Our town was called Lions End), Castle on a mountain with a crystal ball. (c)2017

L-R, top to bottom: Silver twist with pink “pearl”, Gold braid with clear crystal, Kilt pin, Art deco with purple crystal (again), French horn with “pearls”, Gold leaf with Oval Rose picture, Oval gold flowers, Art deco – silver with white stone, Silver bow (again). (c)2017

My Pin Collection – 1

This is post 1, but it is only a small selection of the pins that I’ve collected over the years.

L-R, Top to bottom: Supernatural’s Devil’s Trap, prison food, The Walking Dead’s Michonne, Supernatural’s Anti-Possession Symbol, Just one more episode, Star Labs from The Flash, piss me off, not nailed down, Harry Potter’s Hufflepuff House. (c)2017

L-R, Top to bottom: Green Lantern symbol, Free Comic Book Day Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Doctor Who’s The Tardis, Guardians of the Galaxy’s Groot, Batman, GOTG’s Groot, Green Lantern symbol, The Flash symbol, Doctor Who’s Starry Night Tardis. (c)2017

A Few of My Favorite Things – Pins

After reading Madeleine Albright’s book about her pin collection, and spending the rest of the day on Thursday photographing a few of my pins to post here in the next few weeks, I thought I would share a couple of my favorites. Favorites come and go, and they’re not all here, but these…these are special.

Some of my favorite things: Clockwise: Gold Butterfly with Rainbow Stones. This was my mother’s. I think I probably gave it to her, and then got her entire butterfly pin collection when she died. This one is just bright and beautiful like she was. Blue stone Celtic pin. This was a birthday present from my college roommate when I joined her in England for three weeks of traveling. I think she gave it to me when I first arrived. I believe we were on the shuttle train going from the airport to wherever she was taking me. I remember it came in a bright red envelope. Star Trek 50th Anniversary Pin. One of my Gishwhes friends procured this for me at a convention and sent it after I begged for it to commemorate not only Star Trek, but my 50th birthday as well. Hard Rock Cafe pin from Manilla Philippines. My husband got this when he was in the Philippines for a work trip. It has two butterflies, which I love, and it’s green – my favorite color. It is one of the most thoughtful gifts I’ve ever received. Safety pin in pink and purple with a Mom charm made for me for Mother’s Day by my daughter. I think this was in kindergarten. The initial “K” that I received from my class as a student teacher. (c)2017

These are my two most recent pins. On the left is a Christmas tree which I found at Cracker Barrel, and really thought it would look great on my jacket for Christmas. On the right is a family piece that belonged to my mother-in-law’s sister. My daughter was given some of her jewelry to look through and keep, and she thought that I would like this one because green is my favorite color. (c)2017

42/52 – Read My Pins by Madeleine Albright

Madeleine Albright was born in 1937 in Prague, Czechoslovakia and after living in the United Kingdom and Yugoslavia, her family applied for asylum and emigrated to the United States in 1948, becoming a US citizen in 1957.

She received a Bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College and a PhD from Columbia University. In 1993, she was the UN Ambassador to the United Nations, and in 1997 became the first woman to serve as Secretary of State, continuing until 2001.

In 2012, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

As many women in government and the political fields, she is often judged or at the very least has had her fashion sense scrutinized by the public and the media. Does anyone remember conversations about Hillary Clinton’s pantsuits?

For Secretary Albright, she was often seen wearing pins. So many pins of all shapes and sizes, colors and styles. I can relate. I have my own collection of pins, ranging from plastic holiday pins to show off as a teacher to fandom as well as pewter pieces and place name souvenirs from trips I’ve made.

Unlike mine, her pin collection was put on display and she wrote an accompanying book to go along with the collection’s display. I’ve recently read it, and was fortunate to see many of Secretary Albright’s pins, at least in picture form. I enjoy sharing this with her.

Below the cut, I have included many of photos of my own pins in a variety of groupings.The photos are in no particular order of importance. It’s just how they were imported onto the site.

Every time I went to post this since Tuesday, I came across more pins that I wanted to share, so instead of editing this again, I think I will post pictures of more pins next week in its own post.

Glimpses through Instagram, Part 2

I found a few more photos that I shared through Instagram and Facebook while I was in Ireland and Wales. They’re really quite eclectic, and show the variety of things that I enjoyed doing as well as some of the local tastes. Continue reading

It’s Been a Long Time…

It’s been a long time,

Since I’ve seen your smiling face.

It’s been a long time,…

Long Time by Cake

Nearly every day for the last two weeks, I’ve come here, opened a post, and stared into the oblivion of a blank page. It isn’t that I have nothing to write about; I have plenty, and I have written a few things, but nothing ready for prime time, so to speak.

I have been trying to work on other things, but I feel your absence deeply.

Of course, every time I go back to see what I “owe” like my last few prompts and my New 52 Reflections, I seize up and I think that I will never get out from under.

I have also been spending most of my time planning my family’s trip to Ireland and meditating on a prayer for my confirmaton saint for whom I am making a prayer card. (Where nothing exists, create it.)

We’ve also been to the movies quite a bit in the last few weeks as well as renting from Redbox: Wonder Woman, of course in June, but more recently, Moana, Spiderman: Homecoming, War for the Planet of the Apes, The Lego Batman Movie, Logan.

I thought I would share some of the more visual things I’ve done since last we were together. I’m working on another one that was inspired by the (second) homily at yesterday’s mass.

50-40 – Collections

I have always been a collector. I’m not quite at the hoarding stage yet, but it’s not that far off, so I need to be ever vigilant and aware so I don’t end up on the nighttime news when they come with a shovel.

Our whole family collects something or other. My oldest son collects fire department memorabilia and history, books and pictures. My husband and middle son collect comic books and action figures. My middle son also collects Lego. He loves to build them and display them. He also continues to play with them. My daughter collects clothes. She wants to be a fashion designer and she loves putting new outfits together and seeing how she can make something old new again.

In my basement, I have videotapes and newspaper articles, magazines that I wanted to keep forever. I have the newspaper when NY Yankee Thurman Munson died. I have magazines when Princess Diana was married and I saved the newspapers somewhere for President Obama’s inauguration.

I have a collection of pewter pieces, primarily on the medieval theme, but also groupings of griffins, my favorite animal. Yes, of course, it’s a real animal.

I collect some stamp sets and sheets, usually the ones that my kids would want to have when they’re older. I’ve showcased some of them on here recently.

I collect coins. Not anything really worth much, but just a remembrance of where I’ve been or gifts that I’ve been given. I’m not sure where they all are, but I have German marks and French francs. A shekel and a Scottish paper pound. My friend sent me New Zealand money from his home and my husband brought me coins from the Philippines when he was there for his work. I almost always have Canadian money on me somewhere. We just went over the border this past summer for a couple of days vacation.

I also collect Hufflepuffs. They are a rare find, so I’m pretty sure I’ve got everything sold in our local stores, including Hot Topic.

My biggest collection is my pins. I love pins. I buy them wherever I am, and I am sent them by frineds, although I usually have to ask. I have San Francisco and Las Vegas from a friend. I have a Hello Kitty from Japan and my son brought me an Eiffel Tower pin from Paris. He recently went to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum and he brought me my newest pin from there commemorating the fire department. Another new pin is my 50th anniversary Star Trek pin that a friend got for me at a convention. I have loved Star Trek since I was a little girl, and I thought that since I was also turning 50 this year, I’d really like the pin. The picture below is what my jacket looks like currently, but I display my pins on corkboard and need to get a few more squares of it to get the rest of them on.

My collections remind me of things, whether they’re what’s depicted on the pins or they remind me of the person who gave it to me, or the adventure I had when I got the pin. That’s especially true of my Gettysburg Bike Week pin.

All of my collections remind me of who I am and the important things I’ve done and want to remember.

The pins currently on my jacket: from the top, clockwise: my RCIA cross, trio of crosses from the Shrine of the North American Martyrs, rainbow Pride, Gishwhes, safety pin, Niagara Falls, 9/11 Memorial, 50th anniversary Star Trek, Hufflepuff, Supernatural anti-possession symbol, Star Labs, Michonne and Daryl from The Walking Dead, Wales, Niagara Falls/Hard Rock Cafe, 9/11 Memorial larger version. (c)2016

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Griffins and Ginger Snaps

-I write, and I have a blog because of course I do-

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