I had the worst cold I have had in at least 10 years, this week. I literally felt like I'd been through 14 rounds with Ali. I lost. Totally down for the count. And while I was down I got to feel how sad I am going to be that Olivia is going to Switzerland for 6 months. I am not going to be able to hug her for 6 months. It's thrown me into a nostalgic state and really easily pushed to tears. Ryon is off to Vancouver in 4 months for a year to attend a film school he has been eyeing for a few years. He got accepted, a big deal for him. Since he has been a little boy he and I would watch the Oscars together and he told me when he was 8 he wanted to make movies. He never told anyone else. He is one of the most amazing people I know where it comes to getting it done for himself. I am really going to miss Ryon and Liv and I miss Mike. I can't believe we won't have a photo op for 18 months. How I took for granted the nights around the table all 7 of us alive well and full of energy. Dinners were always hectic and rich. We filled a room, a home, a life and now there are only 2 children out of 5 at home and I miss my children when they were little. For that matter I miss my Grandma and my Grandpa and my brother, I really miss him. I miss Lisle and Edgar and I really miss Shirley everyday. I miss my friend Stephanie and our walks and I miss Dee. I miss my friends John and Janine. I sometimes miss Sonoma. I really miss Hellgate and lately Yosemite too. I miss my paints, I really miss those and I miss yoga with Dawn Lee. I miss Sex in the City and Deadwood and I miss how good HBO was. I miss being able to really run fast. I miss running a horse at breakneck speed and being on the back of it, going so fast my eyes would water. I miss writing and I totally miss smoking although I don't miss the side effects. I miss my dogs Bruno and Brandi and Amy and Scout. I miss the puppies. I miss seeing Dave Matthews in Concert and I really miss the Ocean and the fog and the Poehlmann’s upon on Greenwood Ridge where we were all young and there was so much magic. I miss that all the time. I miss this country under Bill Clinton’s command and I miss how we all felt before 9/11. I miss the food in Paris, New York And Rome I miss my physical youth, but not the mental or emotional. I'd say I missed my mom, but I get to talk with her often as I do with Ryon. I find myself missing my husband when he works nights which is often.

I am not one to look back much. I move fast. Keep the future just in front of me and I do live in the moment. But at rare times, when I do look back, it hits me how rich my life is, was, has been. How incredibly blessed I am to say I get to miss anything.

Missing for me, just means I liked it.

Maybe it’s because I am in my 40s or it’s because I care more or maybe it’s because we are in America's drowning lower middleclass, or maybe it’s because my ancestors came over on the Mayflower, The Winslow’s, or that my family on both sides has served their country and some got their asses handed to them in wars or my great grandmother's fought for their right and my right to vote. Maybe it’s because I am a patriot who believes in fiscal responsibility and civil freedoms and liberties for ALL men and women. Maybe it’s because I hate liars and unbridled greed. Maybe it’s because I am sick and tired of the SPIN. Maybe it’s because I have given birth to 6 children and almost died doing it. Maybe it’s because I want for them freedom liberty and a frickin chance. Maybe it’s because I am ashamed of George Bush and his vulchers and what they have done to this once great country . My daughter is traveling Europe in a month, I told her to tell anyone she meets she’s from Vancouver, Canada. I am horrified and ashamed and can not remain silent.

I just think the whole country has gone daft if we can not see the obvious. The republican party has turned into Hitler’s propaganda machine. They have spent more money on the taxpayers dime, this year alone, than any dems have put together since the beginning, of the century. This is not the real republican party.

If you grow up in Hawaii , raised by your grandparents, you're "exotic, different."?

Grow up in Alaska eating moose burgers, a quintessential American story?

If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim?

Name your kids Willow , Trig and Track, you're a maverick?

Graduate from Harvard law School and put yourself through it, you are considered unstable?

Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.

If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator
representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.

If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.

If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.

If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian. Nice going John.

If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society. What do you call parents against sex education? Grandparents.

If , while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant , you're very responsible.

If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent Americas '.

If your husband is nicknamed "First Dude", with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA , your family is extremely admirable.

OK, much clearer now.

Below a letter I sent to friends.

If your views differ I apologize and sincerely hope you change them quick.

My mother wrote me and asked me to write a piece on why I don't want Sarah Palin to be our next VP or President. I am supposed to send it to 20 people and ask them to do the same. Write a letter forward it to 20 people and so on. I just read Eve Ensler's piece and although I can write I know I couldn't write a more accurate letter about how I feel about Sarah. I have been doing my own research on Sarah Palin. I really set our wanting to vote for her. We are very similar in many respects and I like many aspects about her. She is my perfect ideal, a simple background, small town, sports mom, I have five children, I run a business, I have a hot husband, I don't put up with any ones shit and I believe in strong woman. But, after days of investigation I can not vote for her. I think the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. Voting for this ticket is Bush and Cheney again. She is not my perfect ideal. I think the republican party is a depending on the stupidity of the American people and have created another pawn like Mr. Bush. She is George Bush incarnate. I find her to be mean, ignorant, vindictive, incredibly self righteous, self-willed and dangerous. She actually believes, like he does, she’s a good guy. The definition of dangerous is someone that thinks they know what’s right and is closed minded and lacks an ability to see all sides.

Truth be told, I am scared shitless about this ticket. I like McCain but he's old and he's going to die sooner than later. I shudder at the thought of 4 more years of this horror. With her a heartbeat away from the presidency and the First Dude a heartbeat away from her. My sons and daughters may not survive it. I am advising my children to live a life of their dreams, get educated, adopt children and don't procreate and yea they know how babies get made.

thank you for your time...... and now on to Ms. Ensler

 Drill Drill Drill

I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.

I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.

But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.

I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.

Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, 'It was a task from God.'

Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not.

She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.

Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.

Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.

Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.

I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.

If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, 'Drill Drill Drill.' I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.

Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?

Eve Ensler

I am voting intelligence.

I love Sundays because I don't have to get up. Although I was up at 8am today downloading from last nights wedding. It was lots of fun, it was at GreenhornGuestRanch just outside of Quincy. It was the shizzle. I really like Lisa the Boss. Green Horn Guest Ranch is a place I want to take my kids. I can't believe it's just down the road and wait til you see the images. It is a stunning location. Nice pool. Very cool saloon. It's the real deal. And O MY GEOD the BBQ. They can cook. I am a self professed fooder and a good cook. These folks can cook!! My assisitant ate LOTS of Ribs. Me too. I really enoyed this couple. Jaime is just radiant. And the eyes. So gorgeous!! Wes and his boys were great fun and super chill. Everyone was really easy to photograph and to be around. We really enjoyed ourselves. A really fun wedding to shoot. I will be posting more images soon on the website under Wes and Jaime. Today I am headed to Chico for shopping and movies and fish. I have to cook and clean and garden today before I can go. AND EDIT....

Fall arrived early, with the chill in the air Kim and Ian bundled up for their nightly tea and talk. As usual the children were in bed, not asleep, just preparing themselves for their nightly bombardment of demands, “I’m thirsty.” “Jane won’t get out of my bed.” ‘ I have to go the bathroom, #2 this time so I’ll need you to wipe me.” Ryon knows Kim and Ian are out of the house so he begins his WWF wrestling torture on Mike. Pay back for Mike’s big mouth insults (he’s learning the hard way how to curb his tongue) to Ryon. The dog begins her demands with a claw to the door. Insisting on joining them for their tea. Once outside she bugs them trying to shove her head in anyone’s crouch just to stay warm. When it occurs to her she’s not getting any warmer and neither of them will lavish her with the attention she needs, scratching at the door, to be let back in, It’s too damn cold. You would think they might get hip to the fact this ritual goes on every night and they might wait 15 more minutes until everyone is asleep for their escape. They don’t because they need their time and they want it to begin now. Self will makes for an upriver swim. So now starts the boundary making, “go back to bed now, if you get up one more time you’re grounded, you’ll be spanked, you’ll be put into the torture chamber.” The children continue, knowing they won’t get it. Knowing each little drama will be taken care of until finally one of those parents gets smart and locks the door into the office, which goes outside to the front porch. After banging on the door for a few minutes with both parents ignoring their pleas, the darlings give up and go back to bed. Sometimes Kim and Ian would like to choke their darlings, they don’t. After five minutes of complete uninterrupted time alone. The world goes away. AHHHHHHHH, there is peace. On this particular night, huddled over a steaming cup of tea, Kim and Ian sit across form one another, as they make ready for their few minutes of connection and peace. Kim looks at Ian and he has a troubled look. Something more than just needing a few minutes of peace. Kim notices and wonders out loud about his mood. “Ian, what’s the matter?” Ian responds, “I’m not sure, I’m worried, about what I don’t know. It could be that everything is going so well. When things go well I get afraid the bottom is going to drop out. Yeh, that’s it. I’m afraid the bottom will drop out.” You see Ian just finished the police academy in June and throughout the Summer he and Kim worked a full Bidwell House schedule with big weddings, big Bidwell gardens, and big James family to care for while he went through four months of field training. It was tough Summer, inconsistent schedules, too much work and not enough play, but he had accomplished a lifetime dream. They were finally going to have a retirement, full medical benefits as well as a real opportunity to save money to buy a house. Maybe it all seemed too good to be true. And it did, because they struggled for a long time. It had been a rough year with Ian gone at academy for Him, Kim and the children. The separation and workload were hard. Finally the light was at the end of the tunnel and he could see it, with great relief and fear. Kim was relieved that’s all it was. She was pooped from a year loaded with challenges and other people’s agendas. She was enjoying her nice resting spot. Although she understood Ian’s feeling of impending doom all too well. She explained, “Ian, I know exactly what you mean. I have been conscious far a long time that my uneasiness is a fear of the future. Not knowing what it will bring. But, I have learned I am grateful for not knowing. If I would have known Lilly would die, about Jane’s birth defect or about Ryon’s car accident or any of the other rough mysteries the future held for me I would have flipped out.” Ian began to understand. Kim went on (as she usually does); intent on listing her gratitude’s “This is how I see it. I’m in good spot. Ryon is a great student and excelling in all sports, playing key positions, he hasn’t had trouble with girls, drugs or alcohol. Michael and Olivia are intelligent and agile, great in sports. They have friends and both work hard in school. Jane is entering the joy of kindergarten and loving it. She’s almost reading. Considering her beginning; none of the negative predictions the doctors had for her have come to fruition. She’s fine. Tristan is about the nicest boy I’ve ever met. All of our kids are healthy, happy, intelligent, great people. I have no worries today, no complaints. I am blessed. God, just look at where we live and how we get to raise these little people. That’s how I look at it.” Ian nodded in agreement. “Instead of enjoying it, I’m worrying about how to keep it.” Kim agreed with a nod and a facetious smile, “You know what Ian? I know the bottom will drop out. It always does. It’s called life. We’ve had our taste of it. The longer we live; we’ll get our fair share of losing people we love, illness, and grief. That’s what I believe to be part of the agreement of getting to live. I have never seen life edit for anyone. I choose not to worry too much about the future. If I’m breathing, it guarantees me joy, love, loss and grief. I choose to take what I get right this minute and right this minute it’s good. I’m am sorry you’re having a hard time, but I’m really enjoying this spot so I wont be paying you a visit over there I’m staying here, in my good spot, until I’m forced out of it.” Ian laughed at his wife, at himself, at life, at the process of it all, ”It is good. Ok I’m choosing to enjoy this good spot too, I’ll worry about the bottom dropping out when it does.” They talked and laughed for a while longer. They left the table both feeling good about what they had accomplished in that year. They were grateful for the day and the health and prosperity of their family. They shut down the house, put more wood on the fire, covered up the children and went up to bed happy. The next morning the phone rang at 6:45am, they were both in a dead sleep. Kim jumped up and grabbed it. It was Auntie Dawn. Kim thought some one they loved had died and in essence they had. “Kim are you watching TV? They are crashing planes into the twin towers.” After a short, groggy conversation, Kim hung up and climbed back in bed. “Who was that?” Ian grumbled. “Your sister, the bottom just dropped out. I am going back to sleep. It’ll will be waiting for us when we get up.” Of course curiosity got the best of them, they were up twenty minutes later and for days worried about the state of their world and the safety of their family. The good spot was over for a while. They’re not Gurus. It was too hard to just let that one roll off their backs. It hurt. Instead of writing a resume of our family and year, we’ve decided to give you a window into our lives through an evening we had together. This conversation really did take place between Ian and I on the evening of Sept.10th. The irony still sticks with us. We are still trying to enjoy the good spots. A good spot didn’t come for a long time after that fated morning We try to enjoy it while we can, because the bottom does drop. If you received this letter from us, know we didn’t send it to a thousand people. We have sent it to those of you we love and miss and can’t seem to get our heads up long enough from our busy lives to tell you that. We hope you’re in a good spot. If you are not, when the good spot comes, we hope you’ll allow yourself to enjoy it. We wish for you a very happy Christmas and a healthy and prosperous New Year to come. Love Kim, Ian, Ryon, Mike, Liv, Jane and Tristan.

I keep meaning to write and I just can't seem to get to it. A few things I really hate about blogging. It takes me forever to correct a piece. My spelling sucks. My english even worse. I want to create links like all the other great bloggers out there do and it takes so long. I also can't figure out a watermark to mark my works easily. I know I sound lazy, but there are only so many moments in a day and I am tired of spending all of them on my computer on my butt. For instance, my garden is a place of joy. It has the most humungus sun flowers, but by the time I got one downloaded and put on this page it makes it hardly worth the effort. I think I am going to re-think the blog thing. I may go Becker's way and do vidio more. In the long run it could be faster although it would take a month to learn. I have a wedding this weekend. I need to walk the dogS, clean my house, weed my garden, cook for my husband, and clean out the fridge. In a perfect world I would have a fulltime houskeeper and studio manager. All I feel like doing is painting and what I need is exersize. So now off to the meadow with beautiful liv and back to cook and clean today and prepare for a wedding and anniversary, mine. It's Sunday. We've been married a LONG time. To all the nay sayers, you know who you are, eat your heart out. AK AK AK. What does it feel like being so wrong? We were married young with a lot of kids and challenges. LOTS, but together we are synergy. I still like him alot!! Still think he is the most beautiful man inside and out and I'd rather be with him than most anyone. Ok I blogged.... A few things. I love besides Ian WWW.PANDORA.COM MUSIC LOST, CALIFORNICATION SHOWTIME, OBAMA THE NEXT PRES, ENTOURAGE HBO, MIA AND THEIR NEW SONG PAPER PLANES, THE TWILIGHT BOOK SERIES, CAROL CARTER WATERCOLOR ARTIST, CIRGIT OCAONNER WATERCOLOR ARTIST, NANCY COLLINS WATERCOLOR ARTIST, GAMBONIS PENNINSULA GRILL SUSHI NIGHT ON WEDNESDAYS, SHOOTING WEDDINGS AND MY KIDS, DAVE MATHEWS, AND NO I DON'T SMOKE POT. PUSHING DAISIES TV, WATCHING MOVIE TRAILERS, THE SUPER HEDRON COLLIDER, PHYSICS, CAKE, & MY BED AND MY VEIW AND OBVIOUSLY MY FAMILY AND DOGS AND STUDIO AND LIFE. I HOPE THE SAME FOR YOU.

We all went swimming at our favorite beach we have been frequenting for 15 years. A perfect afternoon and now dinner from the garden.

When I turned myself over to God, I took my life out of the hands of an idiot. EGO: Easing God Out When I don't have expectations of others, anything positive they do is a pleasant surprise. Ten out of ten people die, so don't take life too seriously. For many, negative thinking is a habit, which over time, becomes an addiction... A lot of people suffer from this disease because negative thinking is addictive to each of the Big Three -- the mind, the body, and the emotions. If one doesn't get you, the others are waiting in the wings." --Peter McWilliams What comes out of you when you are squeezed is what is inside you. - Wayne Dyer The tragedy in life doesn't lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach.     - Benjamin Mays The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will.    -Vince Lambardi What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.   -Albert Pike Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.   -Winston Churchill Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.      - General George Patton You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do.      ~ Henry Ford The art of resting the mind and the power of dismissing from it all care and worry is probably one of the secrets of our great men.      ~ Captain J.A. Hatfield Attach yourself to your passion, but not to your pain. Adversity is your best friend on the path to success.      ~ unknown A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him.      ~ Sidney Greenberg A man is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.      ~ Richard Nixon Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet.   Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened; vision cleared; ambition inspired, and success achieved.~ Helen Keller I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who overcomes his enemies, for the hardest victory is victory over self.      ~ Aristotle     Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.- Thomas Edison Outstanding leaders appeal to the hearts of their followers -not their minds. ~ Unknown Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.     ~ Thomas Edison If you aren't making any mistakes, it's a sure sign you're playing it too safe. - John Maxwell    A competitive world has two possibilities for you: you can lose or, if you want to win, you can change. ~  Lester C. Thurow  I  cannot give you a formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure - which is: try to please everybody.      ~ Mr. Herbert Bayard Swope Sometimes our best is simply not enough.... We have to do what is required.      ~ Sir Winston Churchill