Author: diane101

(Updated May 17,)
I just noticed that Booman referenced this diary in his new thread, so I guess I should bring it back up for all the newbies who and oldsters who are showing up here today.

I see the numbers at Booman Trib. are now well into the 800 range and I guess it is time to bring up the Tell Us About You Diary.  
I estimate only about 300 members have written in these diaries thus far, so there are a lot of you out there who have not yet done so, so please take this time and do it.
Also even if you have told us before about you, update us on what is going on in your life, how you are dealing with the never ending saga of Bush Co., or whatever you feel like sharing.
Newcomers probably won’t wade back into the old diaries to find something about you, so please tell us more about you. Even us oldtimers might have missed your previous entries, so…..tell us….
 
If you want to check out all the members who have contributed so far; here are links to the first 3.

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2005/4/29/92453/6743

http://www.boomantribune.com/?op=displaystory;sid=2005/4/20/9815/68529

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2005/3/24/13448/6342

I invite all the oldtimers on this site to join me in welcoming newbies to the site or add in your own comments. So tell us about you, we love to hear your stories and see your pics. and have you here to share this site. Please tell us if you are male or female and where you live in your comments if you don’t mind sharing that with us. Oldtimers are welcome to contribute to this page, with their own story updates, pics or whatever; just have a good community chat about ourselves.
Post picture of yourself, please…

Today is my birthday I am 62) and I decided to do a diary on Gardening, Survival and Hope to celebrate…Please join me in my diary today…

Why Plant a garden:

1.  Save Money:  This may be one of the prime reasons to plant a garden.  With just a small garden you can expect to save hundreds of dollars a year.  The bigger your garden, the more productive and the more that you preserve from your garden, the more you can save.

2.  Safe Food:  When you grow your own food you know exactly what in it and on it.  You can make your garden entirely organic relying on safe methods for growing,fertilizing and insect control.

3.  Enjoyment:  There is nothing quite as wonderful as spending time working in your own garden.  Adults and children alike can have many wonderful memories about garden life.  My daughter who was present when we had our first big garden remember those days as some of the most peaceful and best memories of her childhood.
4.  Preserve Your own food:  Not only can you eat fresh safe food from your garden, but you can have quality food all year long by preserving food by canning, freezing or drying.
5.  Survival:  With the condition in the world at large, the weather changes, the economic situation, a garden just might be means of survival for many people around the world.  Why not get started now,so that you will be prepared.

   6. As so well stated by Sven downthread I forgot this one most important item,/There is no such thing as an ugly plant. Everything that grows is beautiful./

All in all I think a garden satisfies many needs in people.  It gets you in touch with Mother Earth,  allows you to share with others it’s bountiful harvest and brings many hours of joy working and walking in gardens. It also gives you some respite from the ongoing political firestorm.  
If you don’t have room or the desire for a formal garden, consider container planting.  You can grow many fruits and vegs. in containers and they can fit almost anywhere.
Gardens also fill you with a sense of hope, hope for the future, hope for the world, hope for yourself.  
Please share with us your garden and your stories and most of join with me in my Birthday Celebration on the blogs.  Please share your pictures and stories with us today.

Is there hope for the US and the world, that is a question I have been pondering a lot lately.  Listening to the news, reading comments and diaries on this site and others, one would begin to think there is no hope. Is that true?  Have we lost all hope?

My answer is that we have not, should not, must not and can not, ever lose hope. For ‘hope springs eternal in the human condition’ and ‘as long as there is life there is hope’ to use some old adages.
So if there is still hope, what can we do to build that hope, expand it and turn it into something positive?  
 
Are we focusing too much on the negative and not enough on the positive?
Oh I know the positives are hard to find, but they are still there are they not?
Recent diaries such as http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2005/5/13/4306/00466
are asking the question what is positive about your nation but not too many comments.  Well, what is positive about the US.  Is there anything?

Personally I think that there is something positive going on right now in Congress. It is non partisan I feel and it is an effort to change the direction the megalomaniac group in power is taking this country.  I think we need to focus and direct our positive energies in thoughts as well as deeds towards making sure that change come about.  

We are now actively encouraging our senators and congress people to do the right thing, we are exerting our ‘power’ against the powers that be and that is a good thing..we are signing petitions,writing letters, making phone calls and many more activities of this nature.
We, the ordinary person, outnumber all of the powerful people on earth, many times over; surely we can manifest our will over them.  If we cannot, it will be a sorry state for mankind and signal that we have  been subjugated and bent into submission.  We certainly could not want that.
I think another great sign of hope and change is the world wide participation in political processes in many countries around the world by it’s ‘ordinary’ citizens.  People who never before would have been active are now becoming active by the thousands, or hundreds of thousands.  That to me is a great sign of hope.
If all those people around the world joined together in the cause of world wide peace and freedom, we could not help but win what we the citizens so sorely desire.
So what do you think?  Can we change the energies of the world from negative to positive?  
What more can we do to bring about these changes?
What have you seen or heard lately that is of a positive nature (big or small) and gives you some hope for the future?  
Above all ‘can we just be positive’????????  What do you think?

I have reached the point of political outrage overload today and I thought this would be a good time to have a spiritual, and poetry diary.
From what I have read  on these diaries here at Booman, I have gathered many of you are very spiritual and/or religious.  Would you like to tell us about your spiritual or religious beliefs, what keeps you going when the going gets tough, what makes it all worth while?
Seems like poetry and spiritual go hand in hand and that poetry is often used to express a spiritual belief, so if you have written any of your own poems or if you have a special poem that you love, please share with us here.
Here is my poetry contribution written by me in 1985:

Now I can’t wait to see your contributions both in the spiritual area and with poetry.
I consider myself a spiritual person, with great leanings towards metaphysics and I identify and have special affinity with Indian culture and spirituality,  especially as it pertains to Mother Earth.  
I would like to know much more about Indian spirituality so I am hoping you who have that knowledge will share with us.

(Updated)(Editors Note)

I am putting up another Tell us About You diary because the last one is getting too big.If you want to check out all the members who have contributed so far; here are links to the first 2.

http://www.boomantribune.com/?op=displaystory;sid=2005/4/20/9815/68529

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2005/3/24/13448/6342

I invite all the oldtimers on this site to join me in welcoming newbies to the site or add in your own comments.So tell us about you, we love to hear your stories and see your pics. and have you here to share this site.

Please tell us if you are male or female in your comment if you don’t mind sharing that with us.

Oldtimers are welcome to contribute to this page, with their own story updates, pics or whatever; have a good community chat about ourselves.

Since Mindmouth seems to be busy these days and she is the one who previously posted a Tell us About you diary, I decided to take up the mantle and put up a diary so that those of you who are new to this site (numbers are rising every day, I see) can tell us a little about yourselves.   Also,tell us how you came to the site.
If you are not so new to the site update us or tell us how you feel or deal with the following or feel free to add your own subject:
How do you make ends meet with rising costs in so many areas, food, gas, health care, etc.
Do you have a garden to supplement your food supply?
Have any suggestions or hints you would like to share?

Why do you like political blogs and what are your favorite sites to find info or just to blog.
How do you cope with stress especially political stress?
How do you like Booman Tribune?  
What features do you like best or worst about Booman Tribune or what type of articles do you like best.

I’ll start by saying that I love Booman Tribune because if feels like a family.  I am constantly impressed by the intelligence of the members of this site, the well rounded educations, the excellent writing skills, and the willingness to share and teach and to poke a little fun or add a note of levity to enrich our days.
I have made some great friends on this site and I salute you all for the fine work you do everyday making these pages a great reading and participating site.

So it’s your turn now, talk.
I added the smoking question as a poll, because we had a good discussion about this yesterday.
And don’t forget to tip Booman for hosting this site.

Spinning off of two diaries Nanettes
http://www.boomantribune.com/?op=displaystory;sid=2005/4/26/7355/96167 and
my diary http://www.boomantribune.com/?op=displaystory;sid=2005/4/26/7355/96167

I have an idea, it came to me today as I was reading another poignant comment on Booman, these beautiful words and stories should not be wasted, to be read by only a few and then pass into oblivion. I think many would be inspired or enlightened by reading the stories of the people who post here.
So that led me to the thought that we should write (or put together)a collective book, members submitting stories on a particular subject, maybe one they have already written or a new one.  Then a certain number are chosen to be included in the book.  Perhaps a series of books.
We could either self publish or seek regular mainstream publication as Shirlstar suggested in her comment on my  diary Recollections of the 60’s in response to my query:

To which Shirlstar Replied:

So that led me to formulate the idea that we should write (or put together)a collective book, members submitting stories on a particular subject, maybe one they have already written or a new one.  Then a certain number are chosen to be included in the book.  Perhaps a series of books.

It could be called Voices from the Blog-O-Sphere, a collection of stories or something like that.
Then there could be maybe 5 sections or more, such as
Recollections of the past
What being a liberal means to me
Tell Us About You
Or it could be random, just a selection of all kinds of varied stories.  But all of a personal nature.

The second thing I want to propose is making this a group project with profits going to support our causes, to promote our ideas, spread our views, whatever, we would have to decide that. With a hefty cut /to Booman Trib.included.  It could be a /you have to be a member of Booman trib. to submit a story, etc.

So, I am throwing the idea out there.  What do you all think of this idea, do you like it or no?  Do you think it could work?  Would you be willing to help?  Will you submit a story?  Do you have knowledge of publishing or publishing connections?  Legal advice will be helpful at some point, so lawyers let us know if you can help.  

If you do like the idea I suggest forming  four groups:

1.  coordinating and compiling the book into its final form,  
2.  publishing and coordination of publishing
3.  advertising and dissemination.  
4.  financial  

So if you do make a comment add which group you would fit in best.

This idea  is along the lines of what Nanette has suggested in her diary today and I am thinking maybe we could coordinate these two idea, yours Nanette and mine and work together on this project and your project, since many of the work would be duplicated.  
This is all in the beginning stages of tossing the idea around so I welcome all your ideas, suggestions and thoughts.

I am of the mind that there are many parallels between the 60’s/70’s time period and now.  I am hoping that ‘Elders’ on this site will write their rememberences of those years with an eye to comparing then to the present time.
What about those years led you to the political and world view you have now?  How did those years profoundly change you?  What effect did Vietnam have on your life?
I was 18 in 1961 when I graduated from high school, married my first husband and was pregnant with my first child.
I guess the first big tragedy to befall this country during the 60’s was the assassination of  President Kennedy.  All of us younger folks at the time were very excited about this president and this man who would now lead the country.  We liked that he was young, we could relate to him, we could be excited about this country as we entered into our adulthood, we had hope for our future..
But alas that hope and excitement was short lived, this nation went into deep morning over his death and it seemed like our darkest hour was at hand.
Vietnam was on to make it even darker, and shortly there would be a draft,then the draft lottery, which was like spin the wheel and see who will be sent to die in Vietnam.  My husband and I worried about his being drafted, but then they added if you were married and had one child, exempt, then later on I think it was changed to 2 children.  Still we worried, things were getting worse over there, hopeless, and no one was trying to stop it.  Later on they did, but it took awhile for people to get disgusted and fed up enough to get active and take to the streets.
At the same time there were dire warning about the economy, the end times, the Late GreatPlanet Earth, by Hal Linsey, was a big seller.  We worried about gas prices and then later on in the 70’s we worried about getting gas at all as we sat in the long lines at service stations across this country.
We worried about global warming, dependence on fossil fuel, advancing work on solar power, wind power, etc..  We worried most of all that the powers that be in Washington were never going to get it together and do something to stop the abomination that was Vietnam.
In 1972 I married my second husband who was a Vietnam Vet, just out and back to US after 1 year over there.

It’s looking a lot like the same issue are present today as then.
Well enough about my story (I’ll add some more later), tell us yours, tell us what you remember, what you felt, how those years changed you.  If you are too young to remember those years, what impact did it have on you through your parents and the stories you have read or any other way?

I wanted to do a food and gardening diary and Chocolate Ink suggested I link it to Earth Day and here is the rest of her thoughts which were so well said I thought I would just include here:

So do you have any favorite recipes to share or links to good recipe or food sites.
How about organic gardens, do you have one, or do you have any kind of garden.  What are you favorite things to grow.  Tips, tricks, hints, anything you want to share.  If you love your garden, tell us why?
Even if you have no vegetable garden, do you grow any plants.  Tell us what your favorite trees, plants and flowers are. How much time do you spend gardening.

Food:  What are your favorites types of food, traditional foods that you have in your family, recipes or links to sites you love.  How does your traditional family food link you to your ancestors.

How does food and gardens and nature itself connect you to the great Mother Earth, and does it make you want to do more to protect her?  Do you have any special projects you care about or work on?  

Picture welcome too, of your gardens and even of food you have prepared.  Digital cameras come to the rescue.

And Chocolate, I’m waiting for a good chocolate comment from you, thanks for your help.

I thought it might be good idea to have a computer discussion diary.  Someone had one on DK months ago and it seems a lot of people had questions or problems with some phase of computers and blogging.

So ask your questions, offer your advice or tips, tell us what system you are running,why you like it, etc. People on this site are awfully helpful so now is your chance.

I have a 4 year old Compaq Pentium 3, windows Me., 255 rams, and a high speed cable internet connection.  I wish I had XP and double the rams, but everything runs pretty good with what I have.
I have had to do a full restore at least 5 times, but it sure does fix a lot of built up problems.
I use 3 browsers, Explorer (hardly ever use), Mozilla I use for some functions, but my favorite browser is Opera and I recommend it highly.  Many excellent features not found on other browsers, so I urge you to check it out.
http://www.opera.com/

I also rec.  Picasa2  which is a great Photo program.
http://www.picasa.com/index.php?tid=Y2NpZD0zNzY3

Picture Trail is a good, and also free photo hosting site, which you can use to upload pics to which can then be posted here and other places on the web.
http://www.picturetrail.com/

So lets hear your tips, questions, systems, hints, advice, etc.
What you like, what has worked, etc.