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National Hot Tea Day*
Standard*To be honest, I don’t know if national refers to the US or the UK, but to those of us who love to drink a hot cup of tea, does it really matter?
We have just bought our third electric tea kettle (photo below). We had a lovely one (two really) made by Hamilton Beach that we loved. The first one simply wore out after a few years, so we rebought it. My husband shattered it while he was washing it. I finally relented and got this Aroma brand one very cheaply at Target for $15.99. What you see in the photos is my testing it and my first cuppa.
(c)2024
English Breakfast.
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It worked very well, and takes up very little space on the counter. We’ll have to see how it holds up to my husband’s daily instant coffee habit in addition to my sporadic teas and oatmeals.
While scrolling through Threads, I came across this great video of the unboxing and testing of a KitchenAid Artisan Kettle. It is gorgeous, and the demonstrator is very honest that it is expensive. Honestly, I’d love it. KitchenAid is an excellent brand. We have a stand mixer that we still use from our wedding thirty years ago. However, when I googled it, the price showed as $199.99. Not in my price range, but I’ve included the video to show off some of its highlights and to live vicariously.
Mental Health Monday – Meditation-Lite
StandardBefore I share some of my thoughts and suggestions, I’d like to inform readers that I am not a meditation teacher; I only know things that I’ve practiced in classes and what I’ve been taught as well as what seems to work with me. I have done centering prayer a few times, which I find hard to do for any length of time. Last week, for five days, I joined a Mindful Writing Challenge, which began with a five minute meditation that then proceeded to a writing exercise. I really enjoyed how this made me feel. It calmed me; it set my writing time as definitive; it motivated me to get something on the page. And it was consistent. I’ve used similar breath work from a prayer retreat to settle me in before bed. These are what I’m sharing with you with one or two links.
If you have any reason that you can’t do these breathing techniques or stretching, consult your doctor. You do not want to start ANY exercise program (even if it seems minimal) without checking with your health care professional.
I also want to remind readers that it really is okay to simply sit in silence for five to ten minutes. That’s enough for a recharge.
It’s okay to listen to music.
It’s okay to listen to the rain.
It’s okay to just breathe.
Find your center.
I’ll include the link at the end, but my new Spotify playlist dropped this morning, and it has a few musical selections, some with lyrics, some with only music that may help to calm your mind and let yourself go deeper or simply rest.
Try it out. Keep what works; ignore what doesn’t.
This is a 5 minute video with Elena Cheung. Sometimes it’s not the activity, but the person helping you with it. I played this one, and I really like Elena’s voice and personality. That may seem shallow, but if the person you’re hearing is creating stress for you (through no fault of their own), it’s not going to decrease your stress. Do your own googling to find what you like and what you’re comfortable with.
Another breathing style I learned on retreat is a simple Inhale-Exhale saying the words (prayer), Accept (inhale), Surrender (exhale). My teenage daughter was having a really bad day, and I breathed this with her, and it really did a lot to settle her down so she could get ready for bed.
A new one I learned last week is 4-4-8 technique. Breathe through your nose. Inhale for a count of 4, hold for a count of 4, exhale for a count of 8.
Sit in a chair with your back straight. Breathe deeply. Inhale slowly. Hold the breath. Exhale slowly. Do this for five to ten minutes.
Spotify Playlist for Meditation and Calming
Again, do what works for you, and leave the rest.
Comics with Barbara Brandon-Croft
StandardBarbara Brandon-Croft has a new book out, reflecting on her place as the first African American woman with a syndicated comic strip. Where I’m Coming From: Selected Strips, 1991-2005 hit shelves last month.
In this Washington Post article, author Michael Cavna tells us about Brandon-Croft’s beginnings, her social commentary through comics, and learning from one of the best and first African American comic strip writers, her father, Brumsic Brandon Jr. He told her three steps described the cartoonist’s job, and she repeats those words, almost as a mantra:
Observe, interpret, and record.
Good advice for anyone in the creative fields.
While celebrating Black authors, artists, and creatives, check out these Black-Owned independent bookstores
Election Connection – Just Say NO to a 30% Sales Tax
StandardI’ve been seeing and hearing quite a bit about a new proposal from House GOP members about abolishing the IRS and implementing a 30% sales tax*. On its face it is an absurd prospect filled with scare tactics talking points and falsehoods, or as we like to call them: LIES.
I’m including three links as well as a great video that explains exactly what’s in the bill at the end. First, I’m glad to give you my opinion on this as someone who pays the bills for my household and is soon-to-be preparing our taxes and who spent the weekend shopping with my family for our household needs.
A 30% tax increase is CRAZY. It’s as simple as that. We’re an average family of five, one of whom lives on his own (but who often comes to dinner). We are still materially supporting two other children (regardless of their ages), feeding, clothing, entertaining. We live paycheck to paycheck, and some months we don’t have anything at all until the next paycheck. It varies.
This weekend we went to several places and took our daughter to breakfast on Sunday. I’m going to round up what we spent:
Breakfast out: $63
Department Store: $68 (this included groceries, medicine, and clothing)
Walmart: $6 (groceries)
McDonald’s: $3 ($1 drinks)
Sally’s Beauty Supply: $24 (school supplies)
Target: $164 (personal care/hygiene, toilet paper, school supplies, groceries, toy on clearance)
All of these purchases include state and county sales tax, which in (our part of) New York is 8%.
New totals based on an additional 30% federal sales tax (on goods and services):
- Breakfast: $81.90
- Dept. Store: $88.40
- Walmart: $7.80
- McDonald’s: $3.90
- Sally’s: $31.20
- Target: $213.20
For a grand total increase of: $98.40 for one day’s shopping. ONE DAY.
Republican House Members claim that this will abolish the IRS and eliminate 87,000 “weaponized” IRS agents who were increased in a recent bill that President Biden signed last year. This is a falsity that they’ve continued to lie about. Those 87,000 IRS agents will not be armed (as they’ve claimed) and they will not be coming to your house, but increasing the assistance the IRS gives to its clients every day. I’ve been on the phone with them previously and have always felt helped. They’re also supposed to help reduce the backlog to avoid situations like we experienced in 2021 when we filed in May and didn’t receive our refund until the end of December.
This National sales tax will be on goods AND services, where the current state formula is on primarily good with only a few services paying sales tax. This tax on services would include babysitters, which is explained in the video. This will also be on top of the state and local taxes paid on goods currently.
One of the things they claim is that 40% of households pay no form of income tax, and for those family’s eligible, there will be a monthly rebate based on a formula in relation to the poverty line and family size, but you would still have to pay it upfront at the time of purchase. If you’re eligible for the rebate, that is.
This creates an enormous burden on the poor and middle-class working families. The rich will always find ways to get around this tax, simply by leaving the country to do their shopping. Plus the fact that they can afford the increased pay out.
If it wasn’t obvious yet, I am definitely against this bill, and will be contacting my Congressman’s office to let him know he has my support to vote NO when this comes to the floor.
*Republicans claim that it isn’t a 30% increase, that it’s a 23% increase. That is because of how they are doing the math: $30 out of $100 is 23%. The video does an excellent job of explaining this.
Don’t Buy the Sales Tax (from the Brookings Institute)
TaxVox: Federal Budget and Economy
SNOPES: Is GOP Freedom Caucus Pushing for a 30% Sales Tax in US? [SPOILER ALERT: YES]
Video from Brian Kim of Clear Value Tax:
Adding Politics Girl’s Take here:
Election Connection – Speaker’s Edition
StandardHouse Clerk, Cheryl Johnson and CSPAN earned their accolades this week. They are both in thankless jobs until something like this happens and they become household names.
Finally, on the fifteenth round of voting, six thousand, five hundred ten names called over three days, Rep. Kevin McCarthy was elected Speaker of the House by Republicans. All Democrats (212), in every round, voted for NY’s Rep. Hakeem Jeffries. In my opinion, he would have made an excellent Speaker, and one day, he will.
I’d like you to watch a portion of his first speech as Minority Leader. He thanked Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi for her service and her job as the first woman Speaker of the House. She really is remarkable. She has stepped down from leadership for the next generation, but she remains in the House of Representatives as the Congresswoman from her California district.
This video of Rep. Jeffries is just superb, and I look forward to hearing from him more and more. This is only a small part (A-Z), but it’s also worth finding the full 15 minutes of his speech.
Inspire. September.
StandardToday is the twenty-first anniversary since the attack on and the destruction of the World Trade Center. The further away we get from that day, the closer it still remains. The raw, visceral pain is somewhat dulled, but never gone. There are few days that continue to make me feel that way, that bring a tear to my eye and a catch in my throat, and this is one of them. I never know if I should meditate on it privately or write a reflection in commemoration.
On September 10th of that year, we drove home from visiting our family on Long Island, pointing out the World Trade Center to our young son from the bridge, went to sleep that night unbothered, and woke up the next morning to the unthinkable.
Today is a bittersweet day.
Last week, The Foo Fighters performed a tribute concert at Wembly Stadium for their bandmate, drummer, Taylor Hawkins who died suddenly in March at the age of fifty. Many music greats, both inspiration for and inspired by Taylor joined The Foo Fighters onstage including the likes of Paul McCartney, Stewart Copeland, The Pretenders, Mark Ronson, Geddy Lee (Rush), Brian May, Roger Taylor (Queen), Lars Ulrich (AC/DC), and Liam Gallagher (Oasis). Also featured were children of the greats: Violet Grohl (Dave Grohl of The Foo Fighters), Rufus Taylor (Roger Taylor of Queen), Wolfgang Van Halen (Eddie Van Halen of Van Halen), and in the video below Shane Hawkins, son of Taylor Hawkins.
I have been watching this set on repeat since I saw it for the first time. It exemplifies how much Shane was loved by his father and is loved by his family and his extended Foo Fighters family. He plays like a pro with the raw emotion that fits and fills the moment. His solo is time-stopping. I love the drums, and I love this so much – this kid, the same age as my youngest, playing spectacularly on his father’s drum kit for us out in the world, for Dave Grohl, looking like a proud uncle, and for his father. It is so much, and it is so profound.
I thought about when to share this video, and as I began to write about today’s memories, I thought that I would include Shane, because just like with 9/11 for New York, for our country, and our families, there was tragedy here for the Hawkins’ and Foo Fighters’ families, but as we move further away from 2001, seeing Shane Hawkins play his father’s music on his father’s drums, there is also hope for the future.
The struggles will subside, the memories will remain, the pain will dull, and the hope will live on.
Inspire. July.
I’m not feeling particularly inspired this month after last month’s partisan, rogue display by the Supreme Court, so I will leave you with two quotations that I listened to today on Jon Meacham’s podcast, Reflections of History, both by Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall:
We must never forget that the only real source of power that we as judges can tap is the respect of the people. We will command that respect only as long as we strive for neutrality. If we are perceived as campaigning for particular policies, as joining with other branches of government in resolving questions not committed to us by the Constitution, we may gain some public acclaim in the short run. In the long run, however, we will cease to be perceived as neutral arbiters, and we will lose that public respect so vital to our function.
Thurgood Marshall, 1981
I do not believe that the meaning of the Constitution was forever ‘fixed’ at the Philadelphia Convention. Nor do I find the wisdom, foresight and sense of justice exhibited by the Framers particularly profound. To the contrary, the government they devised was defective from the start, requiring several amendments, a civil war and momentous social transformation to attain the system of constitutional government, and its respect for the individual freedoms and human rights, we hold as fundamental today. They could not have imagined, nor would they have accepted, that the document they were drafting would one day be construed by a Supreme Court to which had been appointed a woman and the descendant of an African slave. ‘We the people’ no longer enslave, but the credit does not belong to the Framers. It belongs to those who refused to acquiesce in outdated notions of ‘liberty,’ ‘justice’ and ‘equality,’ and who strived to better them.
Thurgood Marshall, on the Bicentennial of The Constitution, 1987
Inspire. October.
StandardStart by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.
St. Francis of Assisi
I was happy to find the above quotation in my collection for today since today is the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi. He is well known for his love of animals; in fact, many churches do blessings of animals during this weekend of his feast including my own parish. He is the patron of animals, merchants, and ecology and is known to have set up the first live nativity scene around the year 1220.
I would recommend reading the English translation of Canticle of the Sun, which Francis composed and by the same token I’d highly recommend reading Pope Francis’ encyclical letter, Laudato Si as well as the book based on that encyclical, Our Common Home by my friend, Brother Mickey McGrath.
In devotion to our common home and its care as well as his concern for the poor, Pope Francis took that name as his Papal name in 2013. It is the first time a Pope has been called Francis, and truly speaks to the heart of our current pope and brings on much inspiration to do for others in many ways.
(c)2021
The above photo is of my most recent labyrinth walk. Located behind the library in Niagara-on-the-Lake in Ontario, Canada, it is placed in serene, pastoral setting, surrounded by grass, trees, and a farm in the distance. There was the opportunity to walk it, pray the walk, and then to sit just taking in the space around me. There was a vegetable garden, a gazebo, and a court for lawn bowling. If my family wasn’t waiting for me in the car, I could have stayed there at least an additonal hour. I may plan on them dropping me off for a bit longer the next time we’re in the area.
It was a very hot day, but once I settled onto the marble bench after my walk, I was able to feel the breeze, letting it cool me off while I contemplated the bucolic area. Despite sitting relatively still, I felt energized and inspired, and all I wanted to do was to sit and write for a bit. That is one of the reasons that I always carry pen and paper, although in this case, I left it in the car bringing only my mask and my phone camera.
When I first saw the shape of this labyrinth online about two years ago it seemed an unusual shape. Upon seeing it in person, I realized that the shape itself wasn’t unusual or the design, but the way the turns were so sharp with acute angles. For me, it created the feeling of looking inside a keyhole or walking through the inside of a keyhole like a miniature person, Elves and the Shoemaker style.
As I said in yesterday’s reflection, I like falling headfirst into the photos and letting myself be inspired as if I had returned to the original place of the photo.
What inspires you?
(c)2021
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Mental Health Monday – Bhangra
StandardOn this last day of Mental Health Awareness Month, I wanted to reiterate that we can use everyday to be aware of our mental health and changes that happen in our lives.
Think about and use the tools that help you on those bad or not-great days. We each have so much to offer to ourselves and to each other. I went back over the /mentalhealthmonday tag and rediscovered tools I hadn’t thought about in months.
One positive thing that I’ve been doing for several weeks is watching the one minute videos of Gurdeep Pandher on Twitter dancing the Bhangra.
Bhangra is an energetic folk dance originating in the Punjab region of the subcontinent of India and Pakistan. Its beginnings are with farmers during the harvest. There is kicking, leaping, and hand movements that all combine to create something that I can’t look away from.
Although I don’t watch everyday I find that when I scroll past his posts, I always stop to watch the dance and listen to the music. I can always find the time to pause for one minute and these videos cause a deep welling of joy from inside. They are truly uplifting. When I do watch them, which is often, they make my day better; they inspire me, they bring my thoughts to contemplation rather than the dispiriting noise that usually finds me online.
In addition to the joy the videos bring, I have watched the seasons of the Yukon, where Gurdeep lives, change from deep frozen winter to spring and grass and blue skies. In the video below, the Takhini River and mountains behind him took my breath away, and was one of the reasons that I decided to share this one with you today.
The following may be triggering to some people so please continue through to the link below with caution.
To read more about the tragedy he mentions in his prayer of the children discovered in Kamloops this week, follow the link.
Griffins and Ginger Snaps 