Under 100 #3: Diversify Your News Sources

Illustration by Audrie Roeder

Please get your news from a variety of sources. Too many of us count on listening only to a liberal source or only a conservative source for news, and we're probably getting a biased or partial view of the truth. Take any news and its source with a grain of salt-- especially from the government-- and check multiple sources. We're all manipulated more than we realize.

The media could stand to learn that lesson, too. I'm finding more news stories from various news agencies on the same topic that used the same source for their information-- right, wrong, or biased. 

Under 100 #2: Jeff Bezos and the Meaning of Life

I'm currently reading 'The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon' by Brad Stone. I do like the convenience of shopping online and Amazon.com has set the standard for other online stores with their innovative ideas. But the whole time I'm reading the book I'm thinking, 'My goodness, how much is enough for this guy?' And his poor employees can't have healthy marriages and family lives and work for Bezos, too. Somebody needs to tell him that there is so much more to life than his Alexanderic domination of the online retail world.

Okay, I'll tell him.

Under 100 #1: Polls

My new job requires me to write descriptions of educational Websites, and I have to keep it over 75 words and under 100 words. I have a much harder time keeping it under 100 rather than trying to get it over 75. This is a good skill for me to learn, since I tend to get wordy. So I'm going to continue the exercise on my blog-- keeping my thoughts about certain topics under a hundred.

Under a Hundred #1: Polls

I think the media uses polls - not to see what the truth is out there, but to gauge how effectively they're influencing people to believe what they want them to believe. Most people base their opinion on what they hear from the media-- right, wrong or biased, so polls are pretty useless except for propaganda purposes. Until we learn how to check the sources to see information from multiple points of view, and especially in its full context, we're all subject to the manipulation of misinformation.  

New York City II

Soon after we arrived in NYC, we ate at a little corner eatery (note wok light fixtures) about the size of my living room and watched people walking by. 

Everyone seemed to be in such a hurry. Van told me if I needed to stop for something, to move off to the side or I'd get run over by pedestrians. 

We walked around to all the familiar sites. This is a picture of us not skating at Rockefeller Plaza. It didn't seem as big of an area as I thought it would be, but I think the tall buildings in NYC skewed our perspective of size. 

We saw the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Plaza. This year it was decorated with a scaffolding theme. 

 We walked over to Wall Street to see the NY Stock Exchange.

Van said it was a bear market that day.

That was the part of NYC that felt most like what I imagined NYC would be. The streets were dark and narrow where towering buildings took up most every square foot of space and crowded out the sun. 

The buildings framed the beautiful old Gothic style church at the end of the street.

Wish we'd had time to look at the old headstones in the cemetery. Ness told me they saw some very familiar names on the markers. 

Look how thin some of the markers were. It's a wonder they're still standing.

The stories they could tell…

We walked around to see some very recognizable sites: One World Trade Center,

the United Nations where Van has worked most every September except when he was stationed overseas, and the hundreds of flags representing the different countries.

And I'm not sure what this beautiful old building was near the NY Stock Exchange building, but it had a statue of George Washington out front.

I caught this fellow working hard in the garment district.

We packed a lot into the two and a half days we were there. I have no idea how many miles we walked, but it put blisters on the bottoms of my feet, and I wore comfortable shoes the whole time. It'd be nice to go back and take it a little slower… stopping to read the headstones… finding out what George Washington was greeting everyone for… eating a hotdog from a street vendor. 

But what we were able to experience in that short time was great. 

We took a bite...

...out of the big apple!

After Van came to Texas for an Aggie game, I flew back to Washington D.C. with him. He took the next few days off to take me to New York City, a place I'd never been. We rode Amtrak, and I really enjoyed it. And I was surprised to learn that this Amtrak train ran on electricity. We caught the train at the beautiful Union Station in DC, and we carried our luggage onto the train with us. The train is much roomier than the airliner-- the aisle, the seats, the leg room, and they even offered free WiFi so I was able to do some work on the three hour trip. 

Van right after we boarded the train.

Van took this picture at Grand Central Station in NYC

We visited Grand Central Station in NYC, even though our train arrived at Penn Station.

That's me in my most becoming photo of the trip riding the ferry to Liberty and Ellis Islands. An advantage to going in cold November is that the crowds were a lot smaller. I enjoyed listening to all of the different languages of the people visiting Lady Liberty that day. We probably heard English spoken the least. People from around the world visit our symbol of freedom. We may take it for granted, but others don't. 

Seeing the Statue of Liberty had never been on my bucket list because I'd seen it so many times on television and in pictures, but it's so awe-inspiring in person. She's much taller than I realized. Do you see the tiny line of dots at the top of the pedestal just below the statue's hem? Those are people's heads on the observation deck. Van and I walked up 192 steps to that viewing area, and I survived! 

This is Ellis Island; I snapped a quick photo, and didn't notice the two photo bombers in the middle of the picture until I loaded it up on the computer. : ) Love it!

The museum on Ellis Island

Can you imagine leaving everything you ever knew to come to a new country with all your hopes and dreams for a new future? I'm glad my ancestors had the courage to come in order to build a better life for their children and grandchildren and on down the line. My family has so much to be thankful for, and I'm so grateful my ancestors chose the United States of America to immigrate to. 

The view of the New York City skyline from Ellis Island; One World Trade Center towers over it.

I'm so glad we went. 

Keep Calm and Carry On

Really missing Mom today... and yesterday... and last week... and last month... It's still hard to believe she's not here with us anymore. I couldn't imagine life without her, and I still can't. The reality hits me like a punch in the gut several times a day and a quiet wail starts in my stomach and forces itself out of my mouth. Then I get busy again until the next time the truth pinches me awake.

I tell myself, "This is life. Everyone loses their mother at some point." But that doesn't lessen the pain. It does give me hope when I see other people surviving the death of someone close to them, and living normal lives eventually. And yes, I know I'll see her again, and I'm sooooo grateful for that, but until then, I miss her presence and her friendship and her sense of humor and her smile and the way her hands felt when I held them as I painted her nails. They were smaller, and her fingers tapered to a feminine point, unlike mine. I have my father's fingers that are the same width on the tips as they are where they're attached to the palm. I sniff her manicure kit every so often-- it smells like her.

She was always such a safe place for me and my siblings. Not over-protective. Not intrusive. Not demanding at all. But we knew she loved us unconditionally. We knew she was in our corner even if everybody else was not. And if she disagreed with us, that never changed how she treated us or felt about us.

When Mom's hairdresser hugged me at the memorial service, she said, "I know... Mom's aren't supposed to die." She had lost her mother earlier this year.

Mom's aren't supposed to die. The thought of Mom being gone is still inconceivable. And yet life plows on like a harrower, breaking up clods, removing weeds, and smoothing the soil, getting it ready for the next seeds of life lessons and experiences.

Yesterday I looked at photo after photo of white rooms. Usually vintage-looking white rooms. They calm my soul. They give me a sense of peace and joy. I'm not sure why. Someday I hope to paint the inside of my house white. And much of the furniture. But if I don't get around to it in this life, I kinda think heaven may look a lot like a white room.


As I walked around the football field track this morning, the students in the homecoming court arrived to practice for this evening. It's been forty years since I did that same thing. How did that happen? I see them; I know what they're doing. But they don't see me. My time has past.


Today I decided to pause in trying to make a living from home and just read a book. I even walked over to the library without makeup or my hair brushed! Poor desk clerk. She probably thought Halloween was starting early.

But even if I take a rain check on reality for a day, life still moves on. My body still ages. The hair on my legs and upper lip keep growing, darn it, along with the grass outside. Life is maintenance, and it demands my attention. Keep calm and carry on, a popular catch-phrase today comes to mind. I discovered that Winston Churchill didn't actually come up with that slogan, although he is usually given credit for it. Some bookstore owners discovered an un-used war poster in a box of old books 50 years after the war. After they framed it, the slogan took on a life of its own. Reading about how hard life was throughout history is enough to make me straighten up and get on with life.  

And for everyone else's sake, Donna, "Keep your makeup on while you carry on."

Re-Purposed Rocking Chair

My daughter painted this little rocking chair years ago and was planning on getting rid of it. I couldn't stand the thought, so it's been in my garage for a while. The legs kept falling off, but I found a way to use it without the legs.

My custom bed is four feet off the floor, so I don't have a convenient place for journals, alarm clock, remote, etc. But now I do! All I need is a small reading lamp, and it'll be perfect.

The following is another picture a little further away where you can see what's under my bed. My dad built the bed and also mounted the rocking chair securely on the wall. And he's always helped with all  of my crazy projects requiring some kind of engineering skill and power tools. Best. Dad. Ever.

I haven't fallen off the bed yet! I love it, and it's really added storage space to my small bedroom/ working space.