Month: July 2009

Open Up Your Eyes

I just got the new Daughtry disc. I love it. LOVE IT! LOVE IT! As a wife a miscarriage sufferer and after a long journey now a mom, this song seemed to hit me particularly hard and wanted to share the powerful lyrics:

“Open Up Your Eyes”
A single rose to remember
As a single tear falls from her eye
Another cold day in December
A year from the day she said “goodbye”

Seems it’s only been a moment
Since the angels took him from her arms
And she was left there
Holding on to their tomorrow
But as they laid him in the ground
Her heart would sing without a sound

For the first time you can open your eyes
And see the world without your sorrow
Where no one knows the pain you left behind
And all the peace you could never find
Is waiting there to hold and keep you
Welcome to the first day of your life
Just open your eyes

As a single lifetime lays behind her
As she draws her final breath
Just beyond the door he’ll find her
Taking her hand she softly says

For the first time you can open your eyes
And see the world without your sorrow
Where no one knows the pain you left behind
And all the peace you could never find
Is waiting there to hold and keep you
Welcome to the first day of your life

Just open your eyes as I lay you down tonight
Safe on the other side
No more tears to cry

For the first time you can open your eyes
And see the world without your sorrow
Where no one knows the pain you left behind
And all the peace you could never find
Is waiting there to hold and keep you
Welcome to the first day of your life

Change

My hubby makes these silly pictures of Jack on his iPhone. Hilarious. This was the perfect facial expression for this poster!!! 

I know I haven’t been a great blogger lately. Work is busy. Jack is busy. It is hard for me to find the 5 minutes it requires to throw down a decent blog post.

Now, when I talk about change, I’m not talking about Obama’s idea of change here. Just change in general. I’m one of those people who prefers to keep things status quo. While I embrace new ideas and try to come up with a few of my own, I find that big changes are hard for me to deal with. We have new leadership at my office and I have found it very hard to jump on board with the ideas that are being proposed. It is a complete 360 degree switch from how we’ve conducted our Marketing affairs in the past as well as I’ll admit there is a little fear that the way things are going, my job might simply not be necessary anymore. I guess it isn’t scary to me in the sense that if I lose my job, we’ll foreclose on our home or fall into massive debt but scary in that I have been REALLY happy at my job and I would hate to lose it and have to start from square one again. I have toyed with the idea of becoming a SAHM (stay at home mom), but the hard-working career woman side of me always prevails. That and the idea that I’m not remotely as smart as Jack’s teachers at his school and he won’t turn out half as brilliant if he’s at home with me. Despite the ridiculous politics that seem to be plaguing my company at this time, I actually do enjoy working and especially what I do. I have always felt very empowered in my job and lately have seen much of that slip away. I’m doing my best to remain positive and just let the new guy do his thing and just let whatever will be, be.

Another area that is giving me a lot of change- JACK!! He’s insane. He’s all over the place. He’s vocal. He’s funny. He’s… amazing. The older he gets, the more my heart aches with love. The way he looks at me like he actually KNOWS me now, how he cries when I have to say goodbye in the morning and rocking him to sleep at night I just stare in wonder. I am very protective of my little guy. I just don’t know what I would do if anything ever happened to him and I do not take a single second for granted. Nothing else matters in this world little angel except for you!

Intellectual Honesty

I know Matt removed this post from his blog, but I am happy that it still showed up in my RSS Feed. He couldn’t have said it better and I couldn’t agree more and thought this was worthy of being re-posted!!! 

Intellectual Honesty

from The Credit Union Warrior by Matt, the Credit Union Warrior

I unfollowed several people on Twitter over the past week in response to Tweets about Sarah Palin. Without diving too deeply into politics here, let me explain. I totally understand the desire to criticize public figures. We should. I know I certainly do. But what I will never understand, or tolerate, is intellectual dishonesty in doing so.

Over the last few weeks, Republicans have had a Governor lie about his whereabouts and cheat on his wife, while another Governor abruptly resigned from her post with an almost incomprehensible speech. Each deserves, at a minimum, some scrutiny. Both were considered to be possible GOP candidates for the 2012 Presidential Election. In one case, that possibility is long gone. In the other, who knows? Either way, their decisions were at best questionable, and were at worst criminal.

So, do I expect criticism? You betcha (couldn’t help it). They deserve it.

What’s my beef, then? The same people that criticize Mark Sanford for infidelity, worship Bill Clinton. The same people who mock Palin for being inexperienced or “Mavericky”, say nothing about Joe Biden’s countless gaffes. The same people who decry Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity as extremist wackos have nothing to say at all about Chris Matthews’, Katie Couric’s, or Keith Olbermann’s obvious partisanship.

If you’re going to make a point, on either side of a debate, at least have the intellectual honesty to use the same standards to critique the other side of the issue. Occasionally, even. Otherwise, you really aren’t adding anything to the conversation – at least on anything more than a sophomoric level. It’s much easier to claim side A wears the white hat and side B wears the black hat, I know. But that’s not civilized debate. That’s Saturday morning cartoons. Bugs Bunny isn’t always right, and Elmer Fudd isn’t always wrong. Be intellectually honest, or shut up.

I have always enjoyed following David Gerbino (@dmgerbino), a community banker from New York, on Twitter. But I think now I know how he must feel over the several years he’s followed credit union people. Banks are always evil, and credit unions are always good. That must be the message he sees. Truth is, there are many community banks that do a better job of “credit unioning” than some credit unions. I believe the core principles of the credit union movement, when correctly implemented, yield amazing consumer-centric benefits for members. But who am I, or you, to say that our way is good and some other financial institution’s way is evil? That’s simply not true, and things aren’t that simple.

If you truly believe in “Change,” refocus your criticism at the entire universe of ideas – not just the subset of thought that you have predetermined to be faulty. You will find yourself on the same overall side of issues, I have no doubt, but you at least won’t come across as a boring hack toeing a party line.

PS. After writing this, I realized that by unfollowing the people I did, I was countering intolerance with intolerance. That’s no solution.