California Public Schools Offer Free Breakfast and Lunch to All Students
“In the newly adopted state budget, all public school students in California will receive free breakfast and lunch, no questions asked.” From NBC Los Angeles
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New Zealand Phasing Out Single Use Plastics by 2025
Between 2022 and 2025, New Zealand will be phasing in bans on single use plastics. Here’s more from The Guardian.
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Three Accomplished Black Women: The Spelling Bee Winner, “The Solar Woman,” and The Black Mermaid of South Africa
A lot of Black women have been in the good news lately. Here are three who’ve made extraordinary accomplishments:
Zaila Avant-garde, age 14, is the first African American to win the Annual Scripps National Spelling Bee. She has also set three world records in basketball. Read more about Zaila in this article from Good News Network.
Kristal Hansley is the first Black woman to launch a community solar program for low and moderate income households in Maryland. Read more about this remarkable woman and her company, WeSolar, in this article from Vogue Magazine.
Zandile Ndhlovu organizes ocean exploration programs for Black children across the country of South Africa– many of whom have never seen the ocean. Here’s her story from CNN with a beautiful video.
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Hope for Equality in Chile
Last Sunday in Chile, 155 elected delegates assembled to begin work on “the world’s first constitution to be drafted by an equal number of women and men.” 77 Women and 78 men met with many women wearing purple and green scarves bearing the slogan: “Nunca más sin nosotras,” meaning “Never again without us.” The Constitutional assembly also hopes to give more power to indigenous groups and focus on climate change issues. This article from NBC gives details including historical perspectives and significance.
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Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter Celebrated 75 Years of Marriage
Happy Anniversary to Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter who celebrated 75 Years of Marriage last week. At 96, Jimmy Carter is the longest living person to have served as US President. The Carters have the longest marriage of any US President.
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Got good news?
Please feel free to share your good news or GNT link in the comments!
Marriage can be a very good thing when two people are compatible. Same with any long term relationship. Compatible doesn’t mean the same, it means a good fit. My husband and I have different personalities. He’s got a lot more energy than I do. He’s a morning person, and I’m a night owl. He gets energized by being around people. I get tired after about an hour – five minutes if there’s a lot of talking, bright lights, and extraneous noise.
But we have similar values. We both love dogs. We’re spiritual. And wonderfully, we are both conservative in our lifestyles, but liberal in our beliefs. Used to be not conservative in lifestyle, and I’m glad we lived to tell about it. He says it would not have worked if we had kept dating and gotten married from that high school romance. Maybe he’s right. We needed to grow up and learn stuff. LOTS of stuff. We learned a lot from out previous marriages.
Guess what! Today is our anniversary! Six years since we said, “I do.” It’s been a good six years, and I am very thankful to have had a solid, dependable partner through the death of my dog and then my father. His dogs and father died, too. Now, we are facing a smaller but more drawn out challenge.
As you may know, our house in Wilmington is getting renovated and we’re staying the the house an hour away that I inherited from my parents. We’ve had to nudge the workers to move along with the bathroom and kitchen floor. The mental roof should be in Monday, so they say, but that’s just the materials. We were hoping to be home by Christmas, but it doesn’t look like it. We found out that the electrician condemned our wiring! So they got another electrician for a second opinion. He condemned our wiring, too. It’s an old house. David says he’s in agreement that we need new wiring on most of the house.
When I first found out, I was frustrated and disappointed. Now, I’m wondering, realizing, that this is God’s way of keeping us safe. I’m very thankful we have another house to stay in and that I can work on clearing out the clutter and stuff my parent’s owned. Sorry Mom and Dad, it’s not all clutter. Plus I get to clear out some of my own clutter in the process of moving everything away from the walls in the Wilmington house. Good thing I don’t have a job, because this IS my job. And I’m getting better at it with practice. Kinda like marriage.
December 1, 2012
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Our Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday was “ma.” We were instructed to “use it as a word or find a word with “ma” in it. Bonus points if you start your post with that word. Enjoy!”
Ta da! Bonus points!
To find out more about Linda Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday magic, visit
1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing (typos can be fixed), and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.
2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.
3. I will post the prompt here on my blog every Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The,’” or will simply be a single word to get you started.
4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours. Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.
5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read all of them! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later or go to the previous week by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find below the “Like” button on my post.
6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!
7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.
I never would have imagined that at the age of 56, after twenty years of marriage and the unexpected divorce that brought me to my knees, after the rebound from hell followed by the rebound from purgatory, and after five years of celibacy when I almost gave up on romance, that I would end up marrying the love of my life.
God had a plan all along. We just had to be ready. Not perfect, just ready to work on our stuff together.
“The world’s not falling apart, it’s falling into place.” Casting Crowns
Did I have any inkling of this 15 years ago at the end of a 20 year marriage? If I did, the inkling was overwhelmed by the grief. But now it all makes perfect sense. Sometimes it’s hard to trust the timing, but God is listening, working with us, and has wonderful surprises in store for us.
“You are being held so strongly and so deeply, that you can stop holding on to, or defending, yourself. God forever sees and loves Christ in you; it is only we who doubt our divine identity as children of God.”
I met my first love in the fall of 1971, when I was 16 years old. I felt like my heart would break when he had to move 700 miles back to Connecticut with his family. A lady I babysat for told me that if we were meant to be together, we would be. That helped.
As broken hearted as I was over my first boyfriend moving, after we’d only gone steady for about 7 months, suicide never seriously crossed my mind.
The first time I thought about suicide was in my early twenties. I thought about walking out in front of a truck. It had to do with the break up with another boyfriend, and not knowing what I was going to do with my life. ….But my younger sister had been killed by a drunk driver and that hurt my parents so much, I could not hurt them in that way. They didn’t deserve that much pain….
It’s a darn good thing I didn’t kill myself! Because I would have missed out on many joys and adventures. Countless joys, and countable sorrows that helped me learn and grow. I was happily married for many years, gave birth to two extraordinary children, climbed mountains, swam in the ocean, laughed and danced and learned to play the guitar and sing…..
When my 20 year marriage ended, I was depressed. A counselor asked me if I had thoughts of suicide. I told her I could never consider doing that to my children and my parents. I just wanted the pain to stop. So I got into a sick, addictive relationship. I didn’t know it was sick and addictive at first, but being vulnerable, at a low, low point in my life, it was pretty bad. Thankfully it only lasted a year. Which was a year too long.
The second post divorce relationship I got into was better, but definitely not “the one.” By the third year in that second relationship, I realized that I was never really able to relax with the man.
The third time was a charm. I’d been single and celibate for 5 years, working on me, when my first boyfriend found me again (39 years later) when the time was perfect!
The second, first time I saw him, my heart felt like it was going to jump out of my chest with joy. Our second, first date was magic! When my nose drifted to his neck and inhaled his natural scent, I felt intoxicated. My brain had imprinted the natural smell of my first love all those years ago. I still adore his subtle, almost imperceptible scent.
You never know what plans God had in store for you.
Don’t ever give up. Miracles happen!
Today’s Stream of Consciousness post prompt was to use an ordinal number, like first, second, third, ……
If you’d like to jump into the stream, start here:
1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.
2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.
3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The’,” or simply a single word to get your started.
4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours. Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top.
5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.
6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!
7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.
Anything is Possible! 