The Invisible Hand

As someone who really does not understand economics, I can't elucidate the murky dealings that led us to our current state, but with each fresh collapse and merger of another major bank, the same image keeps popping into my head. I see a mansion built on shifting sand whose foundation has been eaten away and is now collapsing dramatically into the ocean. Unstoppable tides tear it down; the only thing that could have saved it was to have built the thing with caution and foresight in the beginning.

I feel as though all of this could have been foreseen. And it is all connected: housing loans, sub-prime mortgages, bank failures and now the collapsing stock market. Each built on the other, and when pieces of the foundation of our economy were washed away by the inevitable tides, the entire house began to disintegrate.

The question is: now what?

Joy and Sadness

Joy: I have found a wealth of incredible new blogs that fill my heart and mind with wonderful inspiration for adorable and practical projects.

Sadness: I do not have the time to complete such adorable projects, no matter how practical (or adorable) they might be.

I will share the love in case you might have the time. In the meantime, I will download some of the patterns, bookmark sites and add feeds to my Google Reader and put them away for a rainy day (or after graduation).

How About Orange with adorable and FREE patterns, ideas, downloads, links, etc. etc. etc.! Already, I am desperate to find some sweet fabric to make my own bag like this:


I mean, how awesome???

Other sweet sites (mostly found through the above blog):
Free easy sewing ideas and patterns (The Sewing Republic)
More Teh Awesome sewing lovelies (handmade kate)
FREE lovely gorgeous print ornaments (Briar Press)
Fun things that I don't know what to do with yet, but I like looking at (and FREE!) (A Print a Day)

And if you do nothing else, look at the tutorials on How About Orange. I can haz some free taime?

Beautiful, true video

Don't be scared of the ASL. It's gorgeous and eloquent (and mostly voiced by another poet). Great message. Incredible poem.

Update on life

Sorry the posts have not been very regular, or very good when they do appear (for those of you still reading). I'm hoping we will soon get over the initial bumps that are inevitable at the beginning of every semester (where am I supposed to be now? What should I be doing?).

I am taking five classes, plus I have four clinic assignments and an off-site clinic assignment (where I do therapy stuff with a non-school organization). AND working my three very part time jobs. Phew! But it's my last semester of classes (yay!) and I think I've had enough experience that I can handle it.

The husband is busy teaching at school, writing lesson plans, grading tests, preparing classes, and doing all that work that never gets counted in the estimation of how many hours teachers work. Granted, the first year of teaching is always the hardest (so I hear) because everything has to be made from scratch and there are no lessons to fall back on. HOWEVER. When people talk about how "overpaid" teachers are, I would like them to see my husband waking up at 5 AM to finish prepping for the day to get to school by 7 AM, where the kids come at 7:30, then teaching 5 sections (I think, maybe four?) back to back, to coach cross country after school (when he doesn't desperately need that time to make copies, set up labs, etc. He gets home about 8 PM, depending on what meetings, prep work and other obligations he has, eats dinner, then goes upstairs to work again until collapsing at 11 PM. Then he wakes up and does it all over again. Yeah, he's totally overpaid.

So that's the skinniest of the skinnies here. School, school, play, school, sleep. Eat, rinse, repeat.

Worth a watch

People I don't understand

Woman who were for Hillary, now are so anti-Obama/pro-female that they are going to vote for McCain-Palin. I guess they have their reasons, I just don't understand them. Voting for a party that has been beyond outspoken about taking away a woman's right to choose? If they agreed with that stance, they wouldn't have been Hillary supporters in the first place. I just don't get it.

I would hope women aren't sexist enough to vote based solely on gender (isn't that what they are afraid some men might do?). And yes, it's still sexism when you will vote for a woman over a man for that reason alone.

Funny, I just realized something. The Palin nomination suddenly made this campaign a thousand times more divisive than it was before. All of a sudden, everyone is up in arms about their various candidates. I'm all about public dialogue and debate, but more division is not what this country needs.

Reasons to be thankful

After this story about the RNC and the St. Paul police's reaction to protesters, I think the protesters at the DNC in Denver need to be very grateful to the Denver police force for acting the way they did. Granted, the demonstrators in St. Paul might have been a lot rowdier than the Denver ones, but for all the complaining people did about their civil liberties being "violated" in various ways in Denver, they should see that it could have been a LOT worse.

Major kudos to all the police officers from all the surrounding areas who came in to help at the DNC. You guys rocked.