My dream job

I went to Eastern State Penitentiary today with our interns from work. Had a great time on the tour and plan to go back on my own to get more detailed information. The tour guides were very knowledgeable.

If I ever won a huge lottery jackpot (guess I should play it once in a while), I would love to do this for a living -- not necessarily at Eastern State, but as a historical guide in the Parks system. I think many of them are volunteers and those who are paid don't get much. I'd love to be a tour guide at Gettysburg or Antietem, or some of the other Civil War battlefields -- Petersburg, Franklin, Chancelorsville, The Wilderness (if stinkin' Wal-Mart doesn't take over The Wilderness batttlefield). Hosting walking tours of Philly or leading tours at Valley Forge could be fun, too. I'd probably enjoy doing the same thing at Fort Ticonderoga. The possibilities are endless.

Of course, I still need to make a living and need to live in this general vicinity due to family connections here and in NY. Heck, I already bore my friends and family with stupid little things that I know about history, or rant about people who think Winston Churchill was a fictional character, so if I had one of these jobs maybe I'd be less irritating to those around me. Then again, it could make me worse. :)

Got thinking about an old post

I've been a bad blogger lately, and here I am reposting something from a year ago. I guess this is a clip show. However, it's been on my mind again lately due some things I've seen and heard. A friend's niece (she was 16) recently killed herself because she could no longer deal with her anorexia. Today I've seen some very painful posts on a board I frequent -- people who have been very hurt by the way they have been treated simply because they are overweight.

I'm fat. I can say that without making it a judgment on my value as a person, just the way it is. I didn't always feel this way, though. I look back on my high school years when I was in fantastic shape and I thought I was fat because I wasn't girly. I was muscular from swimming and playing sports but I didn't have that nice, thin figure so many of the other girls had. Of course, now I look back and see how I really looked and it bothers me that so many high school kids are pressured to fit into a very specific form.

I've been putting off rejoining a fantastic health club with a beautiful pool that is near my home. I wonder if I'm putting it off because I'm afraid of becoming obsessed with working out and counting calories again. Well, I'm going to start slow by using my sister's pool while I'm visiting and then seeing how I'm doing. I hope to rejoing my pool when I get back.

Anyway, enough blathering. Here's the pertinent part of that long post, inpsired by last year's Summer Olympics:

Olympics and body image

...I wanted to post something about the Olympics and body image. I'm sure men go through this just like women do, but since I'm not a man I'm only going to go by my perspective.

As much as I absolutely love the Olympics and the athletic ability of the Olympians, I think it's important for us to realize what they go through to have those bodies -- mainly talking about the swimmers, as that was my sport. There seems to be a train of thought out there that all women who are 41 can be in the same shape as Dara Torres, or that younger women can look like some of the other swimmers. Don't get me wrong, Dara is AMAZING and this is NOT a knock on her in any way. However, most 41-year-olds have jobs. Dara's full-time job is swimming, and most women can't swim full-time.

I bring this up because of something that happened a few years ago, something I'd mostly forgotten about until I was watching the swimming again. A few years back, when I was on yet another diet trying to practically starve myself and swim my pounds away, I had a conversation with my older (and wiser) sister. I said I'd taped a picture of Olympic swimmer Amy VanDyken to my fridge because that's the body I wanted and thought I could achieve if I ate right and worked hard enough in the pool. Maureen is silent (on the phone) for a minute, then says, "So, your goal is to look like an Olympic gold-medal winner, and you think this is realistic?" Up until then, I hadn't looked at it that way and that really helped me realize how I was completely unrealistic with that goal. I was in my 30s, worked two jobs at the time, and didn't look like that at my peak performance when I was 18. But somehow I felt I could have Amy's body.

At that point, I could almost hear an audible "click" in my head when I realized how unrealistic I was being. Since then, I've slowly become more comfortable with my body and feel pretty good. I'm fat, yes, but I haven't eaten so well in years. I eat well, don't count calories or any of that stuff that leads me to become incredibly obsessed with food. I currently have different foods to choose from in the fridge -- yesterday I made some rice with edamame and chili made with lean ground turkey and white kidney beans. I have some fruit in there, veggies, chicken to cook, stuff like that. And yes, I had some Pillsbury crescent rolls and I have a little pint of ice cream in the fridge. So sue me, lol.

Church update

Well, after my last post about how much I liked that Unitarian church, I haven't been back. The next weekend I was dogsitting and she was having some issues and I really couldn't leave her alone for too long and it was about 45 minutes from the church. Last weekend my license plate was stolen off my car on Saturday as it sat at the local train station while I was at my needlepoint place all day in the city. So, I didn't think it was wise to drive around without a legal plate the next day.

Now, everything is back in order and I intend to be back this weekend.

I may have found a church I like

I think I may have found a church that I can actually attend and feel like I'm staying true to my personal beliefs. I've not been to a church (other than when I visit my parents) in over ten years because I felt that I had to sometimes go against my own conscience in order to feel like I belonged there. I've been a Presbyterian most of my life -- not exactly a restrictive Christian denomination, lol -- but I still felt like there was a lot of emphasis on having children and not necessarily accepting all people into the fold. I loved my Presbyterian church in Florida, where it was emphasized that our Communion was not just for members of Presbyterians but for anyone who believed in it. When I moved here in 1995 I tried a few churces, but they were full of either people much, much older than me or families -- nobody my age who was single or not married -- and I felt like an outsider.

So, I've been investigating Unitarianism lately and decided to check out the local church. I'm fortunate that it's only about 10-15 minutes away. The are a Welcoming Congregation, which means they openly accept people of various sexual orientations and other religions. This is important to me. I'm so sick of people claiming to be "good Christians" who seem to hate everyone who aren't exactly like them. I'm tired of feeling like I need to go against my own beliefs and what's in my heart in order to be part of something bigger. I like that the Unitarians are very involved in many social issues that are close to my heart and that we don't all have to have the exact same beliefs in order to be part of the mix.

I suppose that to many people this means I'm no longer a "true" Christian. Well, maybe I'm not. I've been questioning my spiritual beliefs quite a bit lately, to be honest. In the end, I will do what I think is best. I can't imagine that God wants me to hate everyone who thinks differently than I do.

And just to be clear...
I do know plenty of Christians who are good and very decent people, and don't mean to say all are hateful. I think I've come into contact with too many who are, but also many who are wonderful people. I just don't feel like any of the churches I've tried in the past are as inclusive as I tend to be in my own life, and that's what I need. This post turned into a bit more of a rant against hateful people than I intended.

Yeah yeah, I know.

I've been so bad about the blogging lately, there's probably nobody out there and I'm talking to myself. Oh well, that's OK -- it's not like there was a huge amount of trafic here. :)

So, I found the cutest cat picture. It's in the Foster & Smith catalog and snagged it for my blog. Does this not look like the happiest and most content cat you've ever seen? This kitty makes me smile every time I see the picture.




On a totally unrelated note, I've been watching the Eureka marathon today and am now going to have to rent the DVDs from Netflix and start watching this show when it starts up again in July. There aren't many current TV shows I actually watch, but I like this one.

Yeesh! Why is everything such a big deal to some people?

Saw this article posted on a message board I visit. It's about a woman getting a negative reaction from some parents because she was born with one hand instead of two and is on a children's program.


How do you explain a missing hand to a child?

Once again, I should clarify that I have no children and to some that means I'm not allowed an opinion. Too bad. :) I remember meeting people who dealt with various disabilities as a kid and I'm hardly scarred by it. We knew people with missing fingers, a missing arm, etc. One of my father's cousins has Down's Syndrome and his niece and nephews grew up with him in the house like he was an older brother. My parents explained these things to us in simple terms -- He lost his finger in a factory accident. He lost his arm in a car accident. That was enough for us and we moved on. It REALLY isn't a big deal and will help kids to understand that people can look different but still be able to do what everyone else does.

Funny Simpsons

OK, anyone who is still reading my blog knows that I'm a fan of "The Simpsons." I was watching one last night and about went into hysterics. Good ol' Grandpa Simpson was telling one of his WWII stories. Apparently, he was the guy who went ahead of the troops to find mines. He ends up directing tanks off cliffs, trucks onto mines instead of around them — you get the picture. Then he says, "And that's how I earned the Iron Cross."

Think about it.

:)