This and That

(Started this yesterday.)

It’s been awhile since I put down some of the thoughts rolling around in my head. It’s a rainy day here in the lowcountry so I can clean inside the house or use my time to muse…

It’s not a tough decision. 😊

First, I knew when we got our new puppy pug Willie that days would be difficult. Willie is absolutely sweet but he is ALL puppy and he bites, and chases my feet, and even though he goes to do his business outside, he still often does it inside too. He has lots to learn and some growing up to happen. I look forward to the easier days. 🐾

I am probably one of the few that did not love the book “The Calamity Club” by Kathleen Stockard. Sorry. (Not sorry.) She also wrote “The Help” which was a successful book and then a movie. I read “The Help” and thought it was light, cute, funny at times, and okay. I feel the same way about Kathleen’s newest book. “The Calamity Club” was interesting enough to read, predictable at times, but too long and I almost gave up on it about halfway through. I admit I skimmed through the last hundred pages. Too many other good books to read. 📚

Summer is ending and with it starts the first school year for my granddaughter Madelynn. She was born with a self confidence in her, and an outgoing personality, so the transition from daycare to school has started out quite smoothly. Oh – She loves riding the big school bus! She is starting kindergarten at Old Providence Elementary School, not far from her home. It’s a good public school in the area. So many children in the Charlotte area go to private schools, but I am happy to see she is able to attend the local public school. 🚌

My twin grandsons also attend public school. They are now in 3rd grade. They go to Vance Elementary in Garner, NC. Starting soon they will have their mama at school with them! Lauren has been hired to teach 4th grade there, and as soon as all the governmental paperwork, background checks, etc. are done she will jump into a class already started. She is excited, a bit nervous teaching a new age, but also pumped to get going, to meet her students, and to start this transition. It will be wonderful to be on the same calendar schedule as her boys and at the same school! 📝

Some may have heard about a private church school nearby here, the Pawleys Island Community Church Academy. It recently shut down after it was found that a convicted child sex offender had been working there – for years! The pastor knew. His wife knew and was in fact the man’s power of attorney. The head of the school knew. All overlooked the federal crime, thinking they were giving the man a second chance. It took a parent to find the man on the internet’s sex offenders list to blow the whistle – and to blow the case wide open! 5 people have been arrested so far, with their court cases coming up in a couple of months. The school was immediately shut down. There have been all kinds of rumors spreading. Hopefully the court cases will bring out the truth and it will punish the guilty. In the meantime parents have had to scramble to get their children into other local schools. 😞

That brings me to the court case of Lindsey Clancy, accused of killing her 3 young children in a postpartum psychosis. I have watched some of the trial and it is incredibly sad how the mental health system seemed to have failed Lindsey when she reached out numerous times for help. Regardless of the outcome (the jury is deliberating now), I hope this case opens more minds to not just the physical changes of birthing, but the mental and emotional changes that can happen to women. Even strong, healthy women can struggle after a birth and they need to be taken seriously. All women do. It is okay to feel Lindsey Clancy did the crime and that she is still a victim. Both seem to be true. 💔

Which leads me to the recent video ad by Calloway Golf and Good Good. Again, it is a case of not considering the well being of women and how watching a man physically throwing a woman down to the ground is never funny. Never. I am amazed that the ad made it through marketing, through the checks and balances, and how women within the two companies were not either listened to by others, or were okay with it running. Once it aired the backlash happened immediately. Rightly. 🩷

I think I have become hyper-sensitive to the ways women are portrayed these days. My concern is not without reasons. With the removal of Roe v. Wade, women’s personal health decisions have been taken away. It is infuriating to me that women are not given the freedom of choice. I have written about it here before. The current administration is extremely demeaning to women. The words used, and the hiding names in the Epstein case is a slap to women victims. Plus, the Evangelical (political) Christians are stepping in where they don’t belong. Who is the church leadership? All men of course. It truly saddens me to watch what women have worked so hard for to now be taken away. I seriously don’t know how a woman could stay in a church like the Southern Baptists who don’t give them equal status. I’d be out of there in a sec! The God I believe in loves me and all women as equally as men. God loves all who teach his Word, who follow Him, who focus on living to serve and to honor. God does not care about body parts. ✝️

“My” church, the one I still belong to but haven’t attended in years, has fallen into a more conservative style and I don’t feel comfortable with it anymore. I attended a funeral there yesterday morning and I realized how it did not seem like my church anymore, and that thought really still makes me cry. Because – I loved that church, the people who used to be there, and the progressive pastors that used to lead it. There were good times together, beautiful music, laughs, a happy spirit within, and joyful worshipping. ⛪️

On to being joyful: Dolly!!!! It was a sad day on Tuesday to learn of her passing. Dolly has been a hero of mine for years now and she was a woman (yay – woman!!) everyone admired. Everyone!! It’s a rare individual who can live a long life like she did, to leave it with the world celebrating who she was and and what she gave to us all: a career in music (her words, her voice), laughs in movies and in conversation, strength in women power, business sense and success, and then ALL the giving she did!! We will never know it all, but Dolly was an extremely philanthropic person and she gave humbly from her heart. God bless Dolly. ❤️

She deserved every accolade since her passing. Not one person is saying it is too much.

Which brings me to the opposite of Dolly: and you know who I mean. The one who claims he is the best, the smartest, a know it all, and God’s gift to this country. If you believe that, we have parted ways. There are mountains of evidence to prove he is a low life, a predator, a scam man, and the consummate liar. May our country survive the coming years without the whole world turning on us. But if they do I don’t blame them. 😩

Life is certainly full of ups and downs, and seeing the best of people and the absolute worst, and thank god that our family, our pets, our surroundings, all give us some peace in a crazy world. One thing I have learned over my now many years on this earth is that being open, even being ‘progressive,’ is a lot more about accepting, and willing to adapt to change, to see what positive can come, and it is how I live. 🌎