Earth Hour at Five Husbands

We just finished observing Earth Hour here at Five Husbands – the house, without the incessant electric hum, was much quieter.

Candlelight for Earth Hour 2008.

Blog by candlelight – Join Earth Hour March 29th;

Earth Hour goes global in 2008 – last year Sydney Australia joined with the World Wildlife Federation to raise awareness about climate change by turning out the lights for one hour. This year Earth Hour goes global.

Small gestures make a difference. Please turn out your lights tonight, March 29th, from 8:00 to 9:00 P.M.

Sydney has already gone dark.

Stuff White People Like Thanks Five Husbands

One of the stars in the wordpress constellation, Stuff White People Like, thanked Five Husbands for her contribution to his success:

white people like having their dreams come true when they least expected it. Thank you to every single person who has read the blog, written in, or shared it with their friends via email, IM, or personal blog.
– Christian

You are welcome Christian, but now the pressure really ramps up – you know how white people get when their heroes disappoint them.

The New York Times is already talking disappointing sales.

Hillary’s 3 A.M. Call – Reject the Politics of Fear

The little girl in the stock footage used by Hillary Clinton in her 3 A.M. phone call ad is all grown up and she supports Obama.

Politics as ususal – Shame on Bill Clinton and His Little Wife Too

Bill and Hillary Clinton are no strangers to the power of innuendo. Last week when she was asked whether she thought Obama was Muslim she said no, “I take him on the basis of what he says. And, you know, there isn’t any reason to doubt that.”

Hmm, she didn’t firmly reject or denounce the issue. Her failure to do so, the “you know” left the door open for doubt to creep in.

Hillary knows her supporters, she knows that fear works, even if there is no basis for that fear. She knows that fear of Muslims plays in middle America. Hillary knows and she has no scruples about using that fear. Hillary is not a statesman or a diplomat – she is a survivor and when down she will kick back without regard to what it does to her country.

And she is lucky – if she needs to play nice she has a mouth piece named Bill -also a survivor. Someone we know had no compunction about playing with words to make people jump through hoops so he could survive. He knows how to say something just so – say it in a way to look sincere even though he is lying.

Now Bill Clinton suggests a Hillary/McCain ticket would be a contest between “two people who love this country” without “all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics.”

A little phrase, open to so much speculation. He plays with us, as she plays with us, and by us I mean U.S. And just to make it clear where I stand – when Bill Clinton says “our politics” he sure as hell is not referring to mine.

I agree with retired Air Force General Tony McPeak, “current co-chair of Obama’s presidential campaign who, compared former President Bill Clinton to Joseph McCarthy Friday in response to comments Clinton made earlier in the day that appeared to question Obama’s patriotism. ‘It sounds more like McCarthy,’ McPeak said. ‘I grew up, I was going to college when Joe McCarthy was accusing good Americans of being traitors, so I’ve had enough of it.’”

Me too. I’ve had enough.

Here is Bill’s full quote: “I think it would be a great thing if we had an election between two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interests of the country and people could actually ask themselves who is right on the issues, instead of all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics.” Read the Huffington Post article here.

Virtual Travel

I have never been to Europe, but visiting Paris is my dream. Tonight, unwinding after a long day of doing resumes, I bumbled about the blogosphere, a virtual trip, looking for pictures of things in green and purple. It is snowing here; I needed inspiration. I found Paris Parfait, the creation of Tara Bradford

… an American living la vie Parisienne since 2000. Currently she is writing a book. A former newspaper and television reporter and Middle East correspondent, Bradford is a freelance writer, poet, photographer and author of the Paris Parfait weblog. Her photographs appear in the 2008 edition of the Blue Guides book “Art/ shop/ eat Paris.”

Do visit – the site takes awhile to load but the images are well worth the wait.

Photos used by permission of Tara Bradford: Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.

What Ohio School Boards Should Be Watching

Tip of the hat to EAC for passing this on:

An(Almost)Instanteous Rejection – What a Rush!

I spend my mornings following up on my RSS feeds from various job sites, trolling links to find mention of any jobs not listed on the big guys, tweaking my cover letters and resume to “fit” the need.  If I am so lucky to find one, after the time intensive process of joining yet another corporate site, I send my application off into the ether.

When I finished graduate school, prepared to enter the job market as a professional for the first time, Kinkos had just become the place to get your resumes done. You drafted it, they made it pretty. I diligently pecked out a resume, dropped it off and a few days later picked up the elegant looking copies on fine stationary neatly stacked in a cardboard box. I bought matching stationary and envelopes then marched home to type my cover letter on an IBM Selectric, mailed out a bunch and in return got some very nice rejection letters.

By the time I graduated law school it was slightly different, there were PC’s, but the routine was similar. Print them up, mail them out and wait for the call or the rejection letter. Only the rejection letters didn’t come, nor did requests for interviews. There was a recession; jobs were scarce and the HR folks were so inundated with resumes that they stopped sending out the rejection letters.

Today nothing gets mailed out. It is email or forms uploaded on web sites. The process takes hours and dealing with forms when you are attempting to change careers is enough to make a nun swear. Today I was lucky enough to find a position I was well suited for – I filled out the form, uploaded my resume and pressed submit. Within an HOUR I received an email rejection.

I miss the old days, at least there was the illusion of hope.

Have You Ever Been So Sad That …

Your body hurt from the work of holding the sad in? My shoulders ache and tears sting behind my eyelids as I struggle to sort out life choices and make rational decisions about the future. A long time ago when Five Husbands was just Two Husbands and life was less complicated I was better able to compartmentalize life’s problems. You break it down and then work on one block at a time. As I look back, I see how that enabled me to cope and rebuild my life after Husband No. 2 drank away our home and security.

Now, it is not so easy to break it down. It is impossible to ignore the big picture. Each fact and its extrapolations impact my personal quest to find a new job and struggle for attention amid millions of bits of information. News, stories, problems and personal observations clamor to be factored into every decision I make. How will this decision affect my mom? What about its impact on Son No. 1 and his new family? Most pressing, what about Son No. 2? How I approach problem solving during my, and the country’s, economic struggles will shape his view of the world.

I want to teach him to deal with stress, to find opportunity in every challenge. I want to teach him to believe, that no matter what, he can accomplish anything. I believe he can. But what is my sadness and frustration, as I spend hours looking for a new job, juggling this bill and that bill and trying to keep food on the table and gasoline in the tank. What am I showing him?

I worry about these things.

When I was 17 years old, after a lifetime of chubbiness and body image problems, I stood in front of a mirror in a dressing room looking at my lovely, slim reflection in the mirror. I was trying on a beautiful lace blouse; it was $17.00. My mother sat behind me. I twirled in front of the miorror.

“What do you think Mommy?”

She looked at me and said “I don’t know Judy, there is going to be a terrible recession.”

That moment burned into my mind a belief that happiness was dangerous. A belief I have spent half a lifetime trying to release. It isn’t helpful to feel sick to your stomach when you are happy because you are waiting for the other shoe to fall. So as I sit here, taking a break from job searching, I worry that my sadness as I go through this “economic downturn” is harming my son’s naturally optimistic nature.

Being a mom is tough.

Bang the Drum for Earth Hour and Shape + Colour

Regular visitors know I am a fan of the blog known as Shape + Colour created by Jeremy, an advertising copywriter from the cold north. Jeremy never disappoints – never ever.

My daily peruse this Sunday morning yielded green gold. Turns out that Jeremy wrote the copy for Sir Richard Branson’s spot promoting the March 29th event Earth Hour.

Jeremy also wrote the now famous Eliot Spitzer Virgin Phone ad.

Go, go check out his site and report back to me.