Winston Duffy

I've realized that I've hardly even mentioned one of my most...outgoing, shall we say, family members on this blog!  So I'm going to give a mini introduction now.

Right now, we share our house with three furry family members: two cats and a dog.  The dog is who I'm going to be talking about.

His name is Winston (his nicknames are many and varied, including Windy, Winduffy, Winduffers, Winston Duffy, Boo Boo, Dumbass and Butt Head) and he's an 80 pound Airedale Terrier, the largest member of the terrier family.  He became a member of our family when he was 18 months old, since his first family felt that they couldn't give him the love and attention he deserved, what with busy work schedules and grown children who no longer spent much time at home.  They were very sad to see him go, but I'm so happy that they gave him to us!  He's now 7 years old, I believe, and has gotten a bit more mellow with the years, but he's still not exactly a quiet dog!  He's goofy, too smart for his own good, sweet natured, and energetic.  He loves to play, greets me every morning with great joy when I wake up, and though he's sometimes ridiculously frustrating and has a habit of bashing into everyones knees with his very hard head, he can also always make me laugh with his antics, and will apologize with soulful eyes and kisses when he accidentally hurts someone.  How can you not love a dog like that?

I pulled out the camera today when Winston was "helping" my dad to bring in wood (Winston loves to help with a variety of household chores...  His "helping" usually involves placing himself in the middle of whatever happens to be going on, sticking his nose into anything that looks interesting, and looming over your shoulder with a look of bright eyed curiousity if whatever you're doing happens to be on floor level), and though some of them are a bit blurry, I figured I'd share a couple here!

A happy dog. :-)

Peace,
Idzie

100th post, pro-choice, and travel

First off, WOO HOO! This post marks my 100th post for this blog. It seems just yesterday that I reached the 50 post mark!

Secondly, I just read a blog post that states that today is Blog For Choice day. Now, I don't want to blog on the official topic (What is your top pro-choice hope for President Obama and/or the new Congress?), but I figured I would blog about my opinions on the issue. I am pro-choice. Most definitely. If a woman is raped, or even if birth control fails, and she gets pregnant, she has every right to choose whether or not she actually has the baby. Not just for the mother's sake, but also for the baby. I don't think this world needs any more unwanted children. That said, I don't think abortion should be used as a method of birth control either. Birth control was invented for a reason, and should be used! Oh, and I also have a problem with the term "pro-life". I saw a video I really liked on pro-choice stuff, and I really like that he commented that to be truly "pro-life", you also need to be anti-war and vegetarian. I'd add to that, and say to be truly "pro life", you can't own a computer (who's manufacture causes women in Thailand to die of cancer), or use paper products (which kill forests and all those who dwell in them, including non-humans and indigenous peoples), or do any one of the nearly endless list of things we do in this culture that causes death. Say you're anti-abortion, but saying "pro-life" really doesn't work, in my opinion.

In other news, I looked up tons of stuff on travel today. I still have the tourist sites up for Ireland, Scotland, England, Italy, Greece, and France. I also ordered travel guides for British Columbia, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Yukon, and New Mexico. Now I have to wait excitedly until they arrive in the mail! :-D

I haven't really posted pictures on this blog in a while, although I have been updating my photo blog pretty regularly, so I'll post a few that I took today.

Our lovely old Flora, aka Foo Foo, aka Flora Bean

Beautiful Minni, aka Minnikins, aka Minni Minou

Sweet Henry, aka Hempers, aka Hempsicord, aka Henny

The wood stove, burning brightly

Lovable Winston, aka Boo Boo, aka Winduffy, aka Winduffers, aka Windy

Yes, I take too many pictures of my minnikins ♥, but I can't help myself!

And by the way, I'm keeping track (sort of) of the things I'm doing this week, so on Monday I should have a Week in the Life of an Unschooler post up!

Peace,
Idzie