Oh, the Artsy People

My older sister has an amazing artistic ability. She's into photography, painting, and making collages. I love the collages she makes- they are beautiful! Her big collage (which is the main piece of art in her living room) is my favorite. It consists of a black and white picture she took while in Paris. Around the picture is an array of colorful pictures she cut out of magazines. Framing that is a thin black poster fame. Here is a picture of it:

Nature's Symphony

Recently, my family took a camping trip to the Appalachian Mountains. Our first evening, we took a hike to watch the sun slip behind the mountains. There was a symphony composed of nature's sounds- the chorus of the trees rustling in the wind, the occasional hum of a cricket, and the music of the wind in your ears.

It's evenings like that that make me wish summer would never give in to fall.

Salad Anyone?

My family is all into gourmet salads. We experiment by adding everything from blueberries, apples, and grapes, to feta cheese, olive oil and sunflower seeds.

For some odd reason, I've never been a fan of salad dressing. One reason is because it adds calories to your salad, has MSG and/or partially hydrogenated oils. But another reason it it totally takes away the fresh taste of the lettuce. Instead of salad dressing like Ranch, I use olive oil. Olive oil helps bring out the fresh flavor of the lettuce and is totally natural. You should try it some time! When you shop for olive oil, get the darkest kind you can find. The kind we currently have was given to us by our Greek friend. He buys it from the island of Crete where he's from. He claims it is the best olive oil in the world- and I agree!

Island Life

I'm in love with island life. Waking up at sunrise to a hot cup of coffee. Grabbing my surfboard, strapping it to the roof of the van and driving to the beach with the windows rolled down, Jack Johnson blaring out of the speakers, the wind blowing my hair.

Carrying the board over the dunes and up the beach. Waxing the surfboard, then heading out to the sandbar to catch some waves.

Sunrise on the East Coast

Hot and Humid

Hot, humid, and sunny- that sums up the south in the summer . The past two days I noticed this film in the air that made everything look hazy. It turned out to be the humidity. The humidity is so dense that you can see it in the air. To top that off, it's been around 98 degrees and sunny. Not good weather when you have to sit outside in a lifeguard stand for hours at a time.

A Typical Day

I thought my life would slow down as summer aproched, but I was wrong. I'm a part time student, lifeguard, babysitter, and petsitter.

This is how a typical day goes:

Get up and go for a half hour run

Eat breakfast

Walk one set of dogs

Walk another dog

Grab lunch

Head to the pool to lifeguard for 4 to 6 hours

Go from work to friends house to babysit two kids for an hour

Get home after dark to eat dinner with the family

Go to bed to get 6-8 hours of sleep and do that all over again

another storm on the coast

As my sister and I spent an evening at the beach, this storm rolled in.

I Hate Big Government

A government big enough to supply everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases.
-Thomas Jefferson

The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.
-Thomas Jefferson

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.

Now I'm off to a TEA party at the capitol! Happy Tax Day.

Thai Peanut Stir-Fry

Since my brother-in-law is part Thai, my sister makes an abundance of Asian food. When I visited them last, she made this mouth-watering dish- Thai peanut stir-fry. All it requires is stir-fry with peanut butter mixed in. Put the stir-fry on top of a bowl of rice and add chopped peanuts to garnish it off. We put them in white, square bowls and ate it with chopsticks!
Delicious!

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
-Abraham Lincoln

A Campaign Begins Today

by Mitt Romney

America has just witnessed an unconscionable abuse of power. President Obama has betrayed his oath to the nation-- rather than bringing us together, ushering in a new kind of politics, and rising above raw partisanship, he had succumbed to the lowest denominator of incumbent power: justifying the means by extolling the ends. He promised better; we deserved better.

He calls his accomplishment "historic"-- in this he is correct, although not for the reason he intends. Rather, it is an historic usurpation of the legislative process-- he unleashed the nuclear option, enlisted not a single Republican vote in either chamber, bribed reluctant members of his own party, paid-off his union backers, scapegoated insurers, and justified his act with political landscape is not good for our country; in the words of an ancient maxim, "what starts twisted, ends twisted."

His health-care bill is unhealthy for America. It raises taxes, slashes the more private side of Medicare, installs price controls, and puts a new federal bureaucracy in charge of health care. It will create a new entitlement even as the ones we already have are bankrupt. For these reasons and more, the act should be repealed. That campaign begins today.

America Under Snow

See the snow covered river with the ice floating on it? I had never seen anything like that before!

Much the Same as It Was

This is my comparison-and-contrast essay I turned in for English class.

Although Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama's presidencies are separated by almost three decades and their childhoods couldn't have been more different, both of their administrations have suffered from similar dilemmas.

Jimmy Carter was born in Georgia and grew up in a traditional family on a farm. From the time he was a young man, Carter wanted to attend naval academy. In 1946, he graduated from the United States Naval Academy, serving in the Navy until his resignation in '53. That same year he moved his family back to Georgia, heading up his family's peanut farm. Taking interest in politics, Carter became a state senator, and, in '70, was elected governor of GA for one term. During his governorship, he had a dream to run for president. In '76 he was nominated for president on the democrat ticket, winning the election.

Barack Obama was born in Hawaii to a white American mother and a black father from Kenya. When Obama was two years old, his parents divorced. His mother remarried and Obama moved with his mom and step dad to Indonesia. By the time he was in 5th grade, Obama moved back to Honolulu to live with his mother's parents. Attending college he majored in political science and went on to Harvard Law School, becoming a civil rights lawyer. He later became a community organizer, a state senator in Illinois, and then a U.S. senator. In 2008 he was nominated for president on the democrat ticket. On November 4th 2008, Obama was elected as the first black president of the United States.

Carter's presidency was marred by stagflation which is high inflation coupled with high unemployment. During his presidency, unemployment was at 7.5 percent and inflation was at a whapping 12-13 percent! Like Carter, Obama has been dealing with major unemployment. Obama promised that unemployment would not exceed 10 percent if his stimulus package passed, which it did. Now, unemployment is well over 10 percent. Obama does contrast Carter in that, at the moment, inflation is relatively low.

Carter was a colorless and humorless speaker. Obama on the other hand is a motivational speaker. He learned the method of agitation- making people angry enough to do something about a certain situation. Fortunately, he lacks real humor and tends to elaborate on one subject too long.

Carter claimed to be a born-again Christian whereas nobody is quite sure what faith Obama truly follows. Obama's father was Muslim and while on an ABC interview, Obama said "my Muslim faith". While speaking in Cairo, he also referred to the Koran 4 times as the "Holy Koran". Normally, only Muslims refer to the Koran as "holy". He contradicted himself during an interview on Larry King Live saying he was not Muslim but Christian.

While Obama and Carter's presidencies have great differences but suffer some of the same flaws, we can hope that Obama will follow Carter's precedence in being a one term president.

A Rainy Day at the Coast