Just a couple thoughts...

I just trimmed our goats' hooves. I've known that it needed to be done, but I didn't know how, so I kept putting it off. Today I finally just Googled it and went out and did it.

It was really easy, actually. Nobody really liked having their hooves trimmed* but almost everyone cooperated enough. I had to hold Bucko down to do his, and I cornered Feta. It was all right though. I didn't make anyone bleed, and it was pretty obvious what needed to be trimmed. It only took five minutes. Not bad at all.

I had another similar experience last week, with sprouting. J and I have been wanting to try sprouting for a while. It just seemed like a good, wholesome idea. But we didn't know how to do it. J already had a Sproutmaster tray and we had some sprouting seeds, so I just tried it out. There really wasn't much to it. Not bad at all.

Sometimes there are things that I want to do that seem like they will be hard, and I don't feel like I have a clear understanding of what will be required. I tend to avoid these tasks, even if I actually want to do them. Often, if I just try, it turns out there was really not much to it.

I need to remember that.

The other thing that's been on my mind lately is Facebook.

I was going through my list of Facebook friends, and it kind of made me sad. So many of my "friends" used to be friends, but they just really aren't anymore. I haven't talked to my best friend from elementary school pretty much since middle school (she wanted to be popular). We've been Facebook friends for a couple years now, and we still never interact. So, what is the point of that? In elementary school we had sleepovers, and played at each others' houses, and we told people we were actually sisters, and one time I told her we should jump in a mud puddle during recess and we did and I got us both in trouble. That we were best friends for several years is meaningful to me. But if it isn't to her, is there any point in being "friends" on Facebook? Since we're "friends" I can see the pictures she posts, and once in a while I do. It's kind of fun to know where old friends ended up and what they're doing...but seeing pictures and simultaneously knowing that despite the ease of staying in touch with old friends she chooses not to kind of makes me sad. Is there any value to that?

The other people that confuse me are people that were friends, but briefly. For instance, old classmates. Just because we have one class together (or ten classes together), should we stay friends? Were we even ever really friends? Sometimes I feel like I should keep them on my list for "networking" purposes. But what does that even mean? And is a "friend" that is not really much of a friend even worth having in your network anyway? Because suppose one of my "friends" works for XYZ company and someday I want to (which is unlikely anyway), are they going to help me out? I haven't decided. If one of them wanted my help with something, I would be happy to help them, but I would be happy to help strangers, too, so I don't know where that leaves things.

What about old church friends? Or old neighbors? Mission friends? Missionaries that were in my mission but I only knew them and wasn't actually great friends/companions/whatever with them? People that I knew while I was on my mission?

I think some of my "friends" decided not to be friends with me after I got married. Especially male friends. Well, that's fair enough. Do I de-friend them now? Do we stay "friends" so we can see pictures of each others kids?

What is a friend, anyway, I guess?

I'm thinking about going through and really cleaning out my friends list on Facebook. (What is the standard for deciding who stays and who goes, though?) I think it may be kind of like housekeeping--get rid of the old to make room for new experiences and new friendships?

Maybe the standard is that I should keep people that I actually interact with, who make me feel happy. And then I should focus on improving those friendships instead of thinking about old friendships that just are not really friendships anymore.

Thoughts, anyone?


*Except Feta maybe did because she started licking my hand while I was trimming her front hooves.

Sorting through papers...

I'm sorting through a bunch of my boxes that we brought up from California.

I have journals and letters and all kinds of fun stuff. I'm really enjoying my writing from when I was little.

Here's something I wrote maybe in second grade, because it seems to be with some second grade stuff.

Earth Day

Today is Earth day. People can plant seads. Natchure is a big part of Earth day. People should at least recycle today. People recycle glass so they do not have to boil sand to make glass.
So lets recycle today.


Also, in my journal from when I was twelve years old, it seems all of my journal entries begin by describing how I woke up. Like, "I woke up at about 6:45" or "I arose late because..." or "I woke up relitively early."

I'm great!

Thoughts on Democracy and Voting

From a very young age, I have sometimes been interested in politics.

My first memory of political awareness and interest was from the second house that I remember living in. Almost everyone in my city had gardeners, and we did too. We had a few sculpted bushes in our front yard. "LOOK!" I'd tell someone, probably my parents (but maybe anyone who would listen). "PRESIDENT BUSH IS IN OUR FRONT YARD!" They would pretend to be interested, and I would lead them outside to one of the tall sculpted bushes. "See," I'd say. "President Bush." I would have been in first or second grade, and I remember thinking it was a clever joke, because Bush was the President's name, and we had one in our yard.

I remember some major political events, but the only other time I remember being especially interested was for my senior year of high school. I had an extremely liberal civics teacher, and I would correct him when he stated his opinions as facts. Most of my classmates were also very liberal (or didn't know or care, or care to know), so someone had to do it. [Dr. R agreed that he was doing it, anyway, and started drawing attention to the times when he didn't. "That is a fact, Ms. Mylastname," he would announce.] I was in that class for the 2000 election, and it was no secret that Dr. Ramp. did not want Bush to win. I was also 17, and could not vote. (Oh, the misery!) When Bush did win, I brought Republican BUSH cupcakes for my whole class, in celebration. They had red dots inside, and red sprinkles on top and said BUSH on each cupcake. I think I've blogged about that before, actually. But honestly, I don't think I knew too much about what Bush wanted for our country. Not really.

For my first year of college, I did student government, and was one of the senators. It was fun enough. I helped people register to vote, and I was moderately interested in politics for a little while.

And then, I completely lost interest in politics, and the news. On my mission, we were not supposed to discuss politics with people or follow the news, so that made it easier to be disinterested. But when I got back, I really wasn't interested either.

I think the main reasons were:
1. It takes a long time to follow the news and really have a good idea of what is going on. Reading up on issues and candidates is just very time consuming.
2. I got tired of hearing about the same things over and over again. I knew that September 11th had been something important for our country. I knew that people were dying in Iraq, and I knew that we were looking for Bin Laden, and I didn't want to hear the same things every day for months and years on end.
3. So much of the news and politics is negative. I have enough problems in my life without having to feel bad for even more people. It wasn't that I meant to be insensitive, just that watching the news made me sad, and I didn't want to feel sad about stuff that I couldn't really do anything about.
4. It seems like a lot of news and politics are subjective, and it's hard to predict what America really needs, or what will really work. Or how important integrity is among politicians, or how big of a role government ought to have. Everyone has such different feelings about it, and they all feel strongly about it, and I can kind of see where everyone is coming from. Since I can relate to most of the sides, it's hard to make a decision (especially without having taken the time to really understand the issues.)

There were probably other reasons, too. But I became really moderate, and stopped voting in local elections, and didn't read newspapers or watch the news on TV. I became really, really uninformed.

And then, for some reason, I became really interested in this presidential election. And politics in general. And when I visited DC, and took a tour of the Capitol, I became fascinated. It made me want to serve in the House of Representatives. It made me want to know what is going on, and do something. I've been following the news all day, every day since my trip. And I find it really dynamic and interesting.

Plus, I've been reading things that really talk a lot about how inactive my generation is, politically, and I can completely understand that, but I can also understand why we need to participate.

It is not our responsibility to put flag bumper stickers on our minivans, or to buy lots of fireworks for the Fourth of July, or to attend our American History classes just because we have to. But we do need to vote. We do need to learn about issues, and vote based on what we really feel or know to be right. And not for who or what our friends or families vote for, or for who we think would be cool for no reason. And if it's time consuming, or boring, or sad, that doesn't mean that we don't need to be responsible citizens anymore.

Democracy depends on people being informed and voting.

Save the Whales! And the Earth!

(Two blog posts from me in one day? Wow-ee. Can you handle the excitement?)

Last week for movie night, we watched An Inconvenient Truth.

Despite my status as a registered, ballot-wielding Republican, I happen to be sensitive to some environmental issues. And I realize that it all needs to be taken with a grain of salt, but the whole thing causes me some dissonance. I seem to have a continual voting dilemma-- do I vote for the party which supports the environmental issues that I am genuinely concerned about, or do I vote for the party which supports the other 99% of the things that I'm interested in? I tend to vote for the latter, and then I feel bad for not doing my part environmentally. I recycle when I can, and whatnot, but I wonder if my interests would better match with one of those parties that never wins any elections (not the Neowhig party.)

It's been in me for a long time.

I've remembered a couple stories from my childhood that I thought I would post.

Sometime in elementary school, I used our Mac to make a poster. It was a nice poster that I made in QuarkExpress. It had a little border around the edge and a big clip-art picture of a whale, and it said in really big letters "SAVE THE WHALES." I printed it on our dot matrix printer, and photocopied a bunch of them on Dad's copy machine in his home office. I went around the neighborhood and taped them to every lamp-post on my block.

I don't know what I expected to happen. Maybe people would start saying to themselves:
"Oh! We should save the whales. At first I was thinking that we shouldn't, but now that I've seen this smart poster, I think I'll change my mind and start to save whales!"

Despite my protests, my parents made me remove all of them. Probably the same evening that I'd posted them.

And then another time, I talked Lavish into making a Save the World commercial with me. It didn't go very far, really. We had a big video camera that I thought we could use. Lavish wondered how we would get it on tv. I was sure that we could just call up and get a tv station to agree to help us out with it. I called the TV station that was listed in the phone book and left a message.

They called me back while I was mopping. We were in trouble! for nothing! and so my sisters and I were having to clean the kitchen. (Chores like mopping always take much, much longer to do as a little kid than they do as an adult, because little kids don't have the same coordination that adults do.)

My dad told me that the TV station was on the phone. He didn't know why they were calling me. A nice man explained to me how expensive it was to produce commercials, and to air them. He asked me what my favorite TV show was (Woody Woodpecker) and told me how much it would cost to do a short commercial during that show. He liked to talk, and so even after I realized that we wouldn't be able to do our commercial, I kept asking good questions. He talked at length. I think it ended up being 40 minutes or an hour. By the time he was done talking, my dad had cooled down, and I didn't have to mop anymore. It was fantastic.

I was also a card-carrying member of the RecyCOOL club, but I don't have much to say about that.