New blog topics today -- no focus on my challenge :-) I hope!

I almost forget this entry because I was watching the second documentary I rented at Amazon yesterday, along with 8 Kindle books!!!  (You will have to search at Amazon videos for Urban Farmers as I couldn't find a website to link you with.)

I don't think I will be good at saving money... not really. I had enough, and only bought 99-cent books, one was only 49-cents!  :-)  The documentaries were the overspend, but they were only $1.99 each.  :-(



URBAN FARMERS was the first one I wanted to watch.  Rural people have more options than big city people, especially the poor.  This film was about New York City's food issues... food deserts, no land for farming, farmer's markets, CSA's, and whatever else they have there.  One thing I discovered in watching the film is the distance they have to go for farm products.  The CSA speaker said they get food from a 250-mile radius.  I was trying to decide how to apply that information to Oregon, and remembering Los Angeles issues.

Someone was smart enough to save the last piece of farmland relatively close to the main city.  I think that was Queens County Farm.  It's 47 whole acres.  Since it's a county property now, they do school field trips and more.

One other really interesting part for me was the online site Cornell University put together to connect the farmers and the people who want their products.  I still have to find it online and see what it is doing these days, but the idea sounded wonderful.  I am all for LOCAL emphasis.  I have been trying to advocate for emergency planning to know what food sources are around their region so they know where to go for food in a crisis.  That kind of website would be really good for everyone to think about establishing.

I thought they would have some roof gardens because the main movie photo shows green on top of roofs, but they didn't show any.  The CSA's are helping provide a lot of good food for the city people and helping the farmer's survive.  The Farmer's Markets are growing.  One neighborhood farm project was on temporary space, I think.  That is a real problem in developing food sources in places that are just not able to be developed at the time.  They work so hard and then they get destroyed by the owner of the properties.



A SIMPLER WAY was filmed by someone I support (slightly) at PATREON right now... I think.  I haven't found out for sure yet because he hasn't answered my messages.  I suppose he must be busy if he's doing films like the two I have seen, this one and one called LIVING THE CHANGE, also set in Australia.  I have decided he must live there. His name is Jordan Osmond.  I wonder if he will be able to build a Patreon page like a Kickstarter page... this will be interesting to watch, for now.

I checked for the website and found a link to watch it free (as of tonight...).  See what you think of young people trying to make a community from not much.

Here's my Earth Day offering for this post.  I didn't make a new post.  On social media I shared the three graphics I have on Earth Day issues.  I still remember my previous effort to share a Canva creation here... it was way too big.  I will have to do more of the size above... right?!

I spent a lot of time today looking through some of the Kindle books I bought.  Some classics like As A Man Thinketh and The Greatest Secret.  Ones on publishing books, social media marketing, building email lists, selling, etc.  I am trying to decide what kind of books I want to publish, and how to do it... with my current situation.  One comment in a book I was browsing today was that no one has time to read anymore... so the online books seem to be very short.  He has a formula.  :-)  I am still checking it out.  Amazon has a "short reads" section and the limit is 100 pages I think.  That was my first book goal... to do a short read.

I think I am done for tonight.

Until next time,
May GOD help us all to be better people,
and to reach the goals He has put in our hearts to accomplish.
May He protect us from harms we cannot overcome,
and help us to find our way through the valleys we must go through.

In Christ,
Deb Martin

work2gather.us
patreon.com/DebsRetirementPlan
etsy.com/shop/work2gather

Monday, 5 November 2018

It has been a busy day already...

I sent off five of my monthly letters today, without an "insert" for the month... maybe I will just leave it that way for November, or maybe I will think of something that is about Thanksgiving and get it shared.  :-)   December will be my Christmas cards.  Easy.

I checked my emails already, and found a precious video link... from Hobby Lobby!  I was surprised that it wasn't another ad.  It was very special, and only one minute in length.  I hope you decide to watch it.

https://youtu.be/qa9hP2KCjyo


I have started figuring out my Christmas gifting... which is focused on personally created gifts for as many as possible.  I realized I have to mail a lot of them at the beginning of December so I have to get them done this month... and figure out how to ship them economically.  :-)   I always forget that mailing costs are part of the budget for Christmas... so I have to figure out ways to do everything for less money when mailing is a part of the gift.

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In checking my Facebook earlier, to post the video link there, I discovered a reply to a comment I made on the non-GMO group page...   I replied again the best I could.  Our food supplies are in grave danger, and we need our local small farms for our survival, wherever we live.  I hope the person I shared with will watch some of the food documentaries you can find at Netflix, and others that are not there, especially GENETIC ROULETTE.  If you search for Genetic Roulette, some of the other films come up as similar.  Food Inc is a standard, but others exist, like In Defense of Food and Forks Over Knives.  I searched "food documentaries" and a reference page to 30 documentaries came up.

There is a short video into on the Genetic Roulette page link... I watched it and was reminded of the dangers we are facing, and it makes me cry.  One of can do nothing except grow as much of our own food as possible.  All of us might be able to change parts of the problem.  I'm not sure it will ever go away now because of the money involved in the products that are sold as healthy.

One really miserable fact is shared in the films that show how our health leadership is manipulated in Washington DC to serve the needs of industrial agriculture.

I hope you will explore these things... your lives depend on it.


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I didn't go shopping over the weekend, but plan to go some time this week... so I am using up my frozen foods now.  I have to process all those blackberries I harvested over the summer!  I am now looking for good recipes.  Maybe they will become some of my Christmas gifts !!!    :-)



I guess that is enough for now.  Serious issues take a lot of energy out of me because they are tied to my emotions...

Until next time,
In Christ,

Deborah Martin

http://work2gather.us
Working Together Inc
Building for the End Times

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May GOD help us to survive those who govern us.  Amen.

Monday, 25 June 2018

I just finished watching one of my new DVDs... it arrived today.  "Dirty Energy" - about the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.  It is always hard to discover how little your government really cares about you... and how the big corporations, like BP, seem to control the country.

I don't know how much of that is true, the part about corporations controlling all of America, but it is a big wake-up moment when you discover that ordinary people have little meaning in our country or the world.  It was so hard to see the effects of the oil spill and hear the promises they made (again) and then discover it is just another repeat of previous examples.  There were segments with at least one person who was impacted by the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska so many years ago.  I think she said it was 24 years later and Alaska hadn't yet recovered from their disaster.  The documentary was trying to show the things they had in common for the environment, the people, and the finances... and the government.

My interests are in the effects on our food supplies and water sources.  Seeing the photos, hearing the effects, discovering the details about the aftermath... it is frightening to me.  The oceans bring all that pollution to every other part of the globe, eventually.

In the documentary, they reported on deformities and tumors in the shrimp over two years after the disaster, and I remember hearing that the seafood had "recovered" by then, but the biologist pointed out that when you go to the market to buy shrimp, you would not see the deformed parts or the tumors or the things you would never eat if you did know.

This is our government's concern for us...  the priority is the economy, the taxes that business brings to the government, the money to get elected, the desire to keep your job, the apathy for what is right or wrong, and the fact that the people who are being destroyed can't afford to go to Washington (DC) or their own state governments to fight for twenty years just to lose.

It is a difficult moment to realize that your life depends on a system that is overwhelmed with more problems than it can handle, so yours is meaningless.

How will we make America the great country it use to be?  We are not the same country.  The definition of "great" is probably something we need to talk about first.

The news was filled with tariff issues today... I was able to see a lot of channels of news today.  The media reports more about topics that are against tariffs, and that included the announcement that Harley Davidson was going to blame tariffs for their decisions to move some of their business to the European areas where they sell many of their products.  The media doesn't focus on the economic decline of America caused by what I believe is called "trade imbalances."

In my quest for Working Together's future, I realized that transportation and shipping might not be available in the future for Christians.  To me, the only reasonable solution was to make each member region self-sufficient.  That led me to see the wisdom of having business operations in other regions that serve just that region.  I think it would be wise for Harley Davidson to build a new factory in Europe, and sell it's products to those places that are within that continent.  The US factory can sell to US customers. Other people can decide if they want to ship from the US or from the European factory.

My reason for wanting to go in this direction is also because of the differences in currency values.  I figure pricing in other regions will be based on the costs to produce the products that are created and sold there.  It can make things better for everyone.

I think locals in other places need to benefit from the businesses that exist in their location... just like we want to benefit from their existence.

I often wonder how we can find what is right instead of what is only good for the business... like the BP and Exxon recoveries.

This has been a big day for serious thinking... I will be continuing this conversation in future blogs, I am sure.

Until next time,
In Christ,

Deborah Martin
work2gather.us

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May GOD find us doing more of what is right than what is best for us.
May we see that the damage we do to the world is the same as killing out kids and grandkids.
May we all look for better solutions, help each other in times of trouble, and be thankful for our life.
May GOD be the focus of our decisions.
Amen.

Monday, President's Day, 19 February 2018

My goodness... we had snow where I live... I guess we may have more of it later in the week!

I have been exploring some bloggind advice sites and will be continuing my quest to find the best directions for my time and energy and financial resources.  I'm not fond of WordPress, so there are issues with a lot of the information I find.  I will have to see how I can make it work for my goals.

I did find a site called LivingWellSpendingLess.com that offers free workbooks and mini-courses.  The main products are goal oriented and organizational ... which help.  I do like the workbook but it was 23 pages, and most PDFs don't print well in black-and-white.  I will be doing the free mini-course (Best Year Ever) to see if it's any good.  She has a thing called CRUSH IT that she made into a formula for goals or something.  Love the association.  :-)  She is Ruth Soukup... founder, designer, entrepreneur.  I guess marital issues led to the search for better options, which led to the blog, which led to the books and planner, which led to the income that saved their marriage (I think). 

I also watched an hour-long video by kajabi.com on their sales and marketing platform.  After finally going through the webpage I had been saving for a week... trying to get it read.  It was 31 ways to ??? in your blogging.  I'm in the process of deciding what I think of them.  The platform sounds good, and the offers are always nice (and inflated), but the deal is in the $2000 range, and the yearly cost was stated as over $3000, maybe over $3500, a year... in the valuations for the bargain deal.  I would have to know a lot more before committing to that kind of money.  No one knows if their product/s will sell...so you have to have back-up money until you figure it out.

One great piece of the process I did like to be reminded of is that you need to create a digital product to sell before you can do the rest of the process, anywhere.  So, that is my first step... with or without Kajabi.com.

I can't begin to tell you the viewing I did this weekend while my son was gone... very important documentaries... and I struggled through a few other movies and things.  I cried over Deepwater Horizon and Fanny's Journey and Hoovey. I had problems viewing the HBO free movie called Tuskeegee Airmen, which was something I wanted to see for a long time... and was worth watching.  I finally watched Moana, too.  And, I was able to see the one on Churchill called Into the Storm.

Documentaries.... well, I have heart issues so I watch what I can on those topics.  I decided to see what The Widowmaker was all about.  Has some very important information... for me, for anyone with heart issues in their family.  I started some of this TV time with documentaries about the US economy and other financial issues.  We're Not Broke was good, so was The Divide... you have to be very critical as a viewer to figure out the truth behind every documentary because they present the info that holds with their particular view.  If you watch presentations for both sides (or all sides) you will be able to make better decisions for yourself. 

We're Not Broke was about tax havens for corporations.  The problem with these viewpoints is they assume people and businesses that make a profit are responsible for all the problems our government creates and must pay for those mistakes because everyone else doesn't want to.  What we need is a FAIR tax program that is equally shared by all citizens...  You must know that I have decided what I support as that answer... it's too involved to present here.

The Divide was about ... I think it was about rich vs. poor.... I just did a search to remember and it came up as www.thedividedocumentary.com ... with the explanation :: The Divide tells the story of 7 individuals striving for a better life in modern day US and UK - where the top 0.1% owns as much wealth as the bottom 90%. Again, it is the theme of the rich being responsible for the problems of the poor... because of tax issues.

I do agree we need some changes in the way things are done, but the government is not the change we need... and taxes need to be fair for all.  It is a hard issue.  Morality affects everything we want... what we think should exist... and no one wants to have GOD in their lives because it shows how bad things are inside us.  Good people do what is right in the eyes of GOD.  Unfortunately, we blame GOD instead of individual people when they choose what GOD does not condone.  Free Will is the issue... GOD has given us the right to make bad choices, and we all suffer for those.

In my exploring how to improve my blogging I decided I might devote Mondays to reviewing a documentary I watch over the weekends... or a movie... or something like these things.  I love to watch them, think about them, comment on them... It will make me take better notes and create a real evaluation of the details that I discover.  I would like to do that for many of the documentaries I have already noted in my blogs.

I'm thinking about it.

Somehow I need to increase my income.  So, I have to figure out something that will sell online... Something I can do within my limitations.  I'm working on that main goal.  All these other options come into my life as I search for the way to make more income for my retirement years.

Well, I will have to continue this some other time.
Until I return,
In Christ,

Deborah Martin

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May GOD find His way back into our lives, bless those who love Him, provide resources to those who need them, and lead as many souls to Himself as He can.  Amen.

Sunday, 11 February 2018

My goodness... it has been a longer time than usual...

I can't begin to catch you up on everything that has been happening.  I tend to see the world through my heart, but the things I am feeling and thinking about.  I get weird in the middle of figuring something out... and it sometimes depends on what I am trying to figure out.

I haven't seen much news for awhile...  I hope the world is still out there, somewhere.  :-)

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I am praying very heavily these days, for some very difficult issues in my life and dreams.  I never know how GOD is going to answer my prayers... sometimes it scares me.  When we stray from where we should be, GOD sometimes has to get our attention in such hard ways.  It is never easy, never fun, never simple... 

I am planning to get my driver's license again... somehow... without buying a car at first.  This is going to be a fun goal.  :-|  When I was homeless (in 2003), I drove my van without insurance... and I may have had expired tags, too, I can't remember.  This means I have to deal with more financial issues than just getting the license.  It's always been a financial problem.  I decided I have to be able to drive to do the things I need to do.  So, that is my goal.  Eventually, I will go for the car, some kind of decent car that will make lots of freeway trips (for now).  To drive a U-haul when I move, I need a license.  These are details that matter in my current life.

I guess this is a big event in my life.  It has taken about five years to reach this point of commitment.  I like public transit, like taking trains, but my wallet and my body can't function that way right now.

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I really have to confess that I watched more documentaries.  I was impacted by the information about tar sand oil in the environmental documentary with Leonardo Di Caprio  (spelling?) called BEFORE THE FLOOD (I am pretty sure that is the title.) ... it really irritates me that they are going all the way across the nation when they just have to stay right there, across the border from Canada.  If it is the most expensive method of getting oil, why do we even need to be involved in it?  And, why must it be piped to Texas!!!!  I hate politics at moments like this.

I would like to share one called CAPITAL C, which was on crowdfunding.  Loved it.  Didn't know anything like it existed.  Or the one called SOMETHING VENTURED, about venture capital funding.  Another one, similar to theses, was GENERATION STARTUP... about, you guessed it, young people in the middle of the start-up learning curve... some with mentorships, some as new businesses trying to grow.  I believe they were all in Detroit (Michigan).

I have topics I look for.  Food issues, Poverty, Business, Education, Faith, Housing, and more.  I like animals, so they get my attention at times.  I watched one about the ASPCA rehab facility for animals (dogs) that would be killed if they weren't able to change... so damaged by their lives they couldn't deal with life anymore...not in a good, adoptable way.  It was called Second Chance... pets or dogs or animals... I can't remember.

There was a post on Facebook tonight about a place with 900 dogs on a property that were saved from the struggles in their country.  When I watch the shelter stories, I wish I could adopt a lot of them.  I don't know if I agree with the 900-dog free-roaming option,  but they seem to be making it work. 

If GOD is kind, and I finally get my personal property to finish my life on, I would like to get one or two small dogs and some cats, and............. maybe a big fish tank, or a bird, or a ferret (which are like cats), or something else.  Of course, I will need to win the lottery, the BIG prize, to afford them all.  :-)   So, maybe a cat or two, and a small dog.

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My crafting is getting closer to becoming a reality.  My workspaces are beginning to get organized.  Spring and summer are near, for opening the windows.  I keep saying I have to figure out my shipping process before I can sell anything... that is still being figured out.

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Well... it's late, I am tired, and who knows what tomorrow will bring.  I watched two new VHS exercise tapes I got at the thrift store and I may try a few of the routines I watched...  maybe it will kill me... God forbid!   Exercising is a slow process for me these days.  I don't want to kill myself trying to get healthy.  :-)   It is my goal this year to find an exercise plan I can do, regularly... so this is part of that process.  I didn't really think of doing exercise routines, other than an occasional jumping jack!  This is new to me.  Interesting.  I am trying to find a way to make it work for me.

This is a good week for my goals... I hope to figure these problem areas out.

Until next time...
In Christ,
Deborah Martin

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May we all find the blessings of GOD, salvation, faith, and hope.
May our world be filled with good people.
May time bring us the solutions we need to protect our nation from those who want to overcome it.
May goals be achieved.
May finances be provided.
May our lives be filled with all the good things we search for.
May America find its foundations again, the faith that brought GOD's blessings.
May our enemies be overcome, defeated, destroyed... and our friends be found.
Amen.

Tuesday, 9 January 2018

I think this blog has just changed into a non-scheduled effort...  :-)

I went shopping yesterday, and depleted my energy... totally forgot about writing and went to bed!  I was going to get up later, after I rested just a little (haha), but at 11pm - when I was awakened by "something" - I couldn't keep my eyes open so I let it go.  This is how it goes.  I may as well just let it go.  I think it will help all of us to just let this blog discover its own schedule.  :-)

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Over the weekend, I think it was, I watched some more documentaries.  I decided to watch FOOD INC again... it really made me so ill about our food supplies and how little we can do to change it.  I cried again for the mother that lost her 2-year-old son to a fast-food burger...and found a new passion for life that she would rather not have.  I had to turn my head and close my eyes at the scenes of suffering and abused animals that are part of our food supply process.  I left the room at a part I remembered as too much to deal with emotionally.

I also watched one about how we value the truth and discard our values for rewards of various kinds.  It had a catch title --  (DIS)HONESTY : THE TRUTH ABOUT LIES.  It will make you think about your life and future in new ways.  I shared with my son that the biggest point they made was about our changing economy and the effects of a cash-less society on our moral values.  The basis of the film is the testing they did on college students, but the real-life effects of our moral choices are very displayed in the real people that become examples of the effects of our rationalizations about honesty... and what happens when we get caught.  :-(  

The third one I remember watching was about prisons... another topic of interest to me.  It was called BREAKING THE CYCLE, I think.  It shared the new efforts of Norway on maximum-security prison populations and how they are inspiring change in America.  The main comparisons were about a difficult prison in New York (Attica) and then they shared the efforts of inspired changes being made in a North Dakota prison. 

If you have read my other posts or writings, you will know I have my own ideas about reforming prisons.  Some of these things are shown in Norway, but the biggest financial change would be to link prisons to the opportunity of internet sales, via the administration of one website for all of America.  It would provide income for both inmates and prisons... and change the future of so many.  I don't want to get into the details right now... but maybe later today I will add a post about that.  My "Pathway to Freedom" concept and the income / job options of internet sales would revolutionize the prison industry and reform options.

I didn't win the big prizes in the lottery this past week, so I guess I will just keep sharing them and hope SOMEONE will think about doing them.

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That's about all I can share right now.  Another day is starting.  :-)

God willing, I will be back later.

In Christ,
Deborah Martin

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May GOD watch over us as we grow into the future.
May He have mercy on us as we discover the damage life without Him brings.
May we find a way to help each other.
May we love the good, hate the bad, and let our humanity find its way through discovering our future.
May our world focus on fixing the problems we have.
May we recover from the harm greed does to our decisions.
May we care about those who have less than they need for their life, their families, their dreams.
Amen.

Tuesday, 5 December 2017

Today was a kind of catch-up day... getting letters written and into the mailbox... to my sons in prison/jail, my mother, paying a bill and adding a letter to it, sending out two prayer requests... that was enough for one day. 

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I watched FORKS OVER KNIVES again... trying to really cement the info into my brain. (The animal protein that was tested and produced a link with cancer was in dairy form.)  I really want to buy copies of these documentaries, but I just can't afford to.

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Then a trailer for a documentary called SAVING CAPITALISM came on and I ended up watching it, too... I recognized the main character, but it must have been a long time ago that I watched it. The really sad part about documentaries like this is the constant political theme about the rich needing to support the poor by giving their wealth to the government...that people don't have a right to be extraordinarily wealthy because they use it to do harm to everyone else.  There are so many small concepts that get repeatedly stated until they seem to be a truth.  Money has a lot of problems in our societies, but the greater issue is the morality of our people... if someone is moral, they won't misuse their wealth or abuse people.  I tried to think of the reasons I didn't like this one, but the real problem is that its theme is more rhetoric to support the agenda of one political party.

We are a country in trouble, and there is no magic answer.  Human nature wants to "blame" someone - someone else! - so each side of a problem creates lists of things the other one should be doing differently.  The ordinary people have to deal with the results of this never-ending conflict of wills in government and business.

One example was a fast-food worker who said she brought home about $1200/month and then had to pay 900 dollars of that for her rent.  The real percentage of income for shelter (rent/mortgage and utilities) is 30%... so her rent should be no more than $360 a month... but the blame gets put on the corporation she works for because it is part of a big corporation... no mention is made that it is a franchise business, owned by a small person, and that even franchise operations from huge international corporations often struggle to get by. 

The worker was a cashier and assumed that the business made a lot of money because the cash drawer was full when she worked.  Her wages were stated to be 12.50 an hour, and at FT 40 hours a week with apx 4 weeks to a month her gross wages would be $2000.  So she pays taxes on her wages and her employer pays taxes on her wages.  Owners pay a lot of other expenses too...  all the cash in the sales drawer is not profit.  If you want to build a business, that also takes money.

At $12.50 an hour her wages were a lot higher than minimum wage.  In the film there was a segment showing a battle to get a higher minimum wage, up to $15/hour.  They won that battle in the film, but I don't remember if it was the same worker.

We have a lot of different problems in this economic issue... everyone is trying to survive, but sometimes it doesn't seem that way.  Another issue that was brought up was the overpayment of executive salaries.  This is a serious issue, but the responsible activists to change it are the shareholders of the companies... that is their job, their problem... that is why there are shareholder meetings, boards with members voted into the position of watching over the finances of the company, etc.  It isn't the government's job to regulate the wages of the businesses in America.

"Too big to fail" is a different issue... bailouts are another issue... and tax incentives are also another separate issue.  I was impressed by one comment shown about tax incentives for corporations, made by Bill Clinton... saying that companies have to make their decisions about salaries, but the government doesn't need to provide tax breaks to corporations just because they make bad decisions and overpay their executives.  I think the film was talking about the billions of dollars in tax incentives that corporations are given and also comparing some of the lower-waged worker salaries with the executive incentives that were allowed because of biased government legislation in their favor.

My solution to these issues, many of them, is to change the tax structure away from income.  I have shared about this before.  My idea is to get rid of all the taxes that exist, except ONE TAX that everyone pays :: a permanently limited sales tax that is shared by all three levels of the US government at 30% each, with the final 10% being allocated to international expenses.  What a change that would make in all of these controversies!  I think it would take a national action, like they did with the ERA, to make the government comply.  We all know that legislators won't reduce their money, their benefits, or their power unless they have to.  :-(

Pray I win the lottery!  :-)
I will get it started !!!

I have other ideas for government change, too...  but not here, not now...  check some of my other writings for them, or wait for the topics to come up again.  We know I will repeat them then.  :-)

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I was able to see a news program today... and was shocked to hear there is another huge fire in California, with lots of housing areas in jeopardy or already destroyed.  It is going to be a long week as the winds are still going to be fierce, spreading the flames for many more acres.  Nature doesn't play favorites... good people suffer in disasters.

The bigger issue is the added costs these disasters put on any budget... local, state, national.  There is no way to stop the costs, but if the money runs out, what will happen?

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I watch a business show as often as I can... it's called NBR (Nightly Business Report) on PBS.  They often share the value of money all over the world and it is based on the US Dollar ( I am pretty sure).  Our dollar doesn't have the value of a dollar anymore... it is steadily going down... it was about 92-94 cents the last times I watched.  I'm not sure how anyone figures these things out, but I know printing your own money whenever you think you need more, and operating on a debt basis, isn't fiscally sound.  When I discovered my Social Security payments are actually made like credit card charges, it changed my entire view of the soundness of the economy. 

I can see why the various governments are slowly changing their actions on many fronts because their finances are very strained.  I suspect that is why marijuana is becoming legal, and who knows what other detrimental decisions will be made because of the financial stresses within governments.  The long-term effects will one day become a greater burden than the immediate desire for increased tax incomes.

It is my hope and prayer that GOD will provide for Working Together and myself so I can create other options for the poor, and those who will soon become poor.  Social services depend on donations.  If there is no one to donate, what will we find when we are in desperate need.

Even big corporations depend on customers, people with enough money to purchase their products.  Stock wealth is just a current paper amount... it can change in one day... become worthless if there is an economic collapse.

I'm not sure how anyone can prepare for these things, but the housing bubble is just one recent example of how traditional responses are going to happen.  I kept saying that none of that had to happen -- the banks could have worked with the home owners, they didn't have to foreclose.  We need to find better ways to respond to things like that.  My issue is that I don't know how many of these decisions were forced by government regulations.

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See what happens when you watch documentaries!
Your world changes.
You become aware of things you don't normally think about.
They can force change in your life.

I stopped putting milk in my coffee today.
That is the first change I am making because of FORKS OVER KNIVES.

Watching SAVING CAPITALISM has renewed my financial quest to protect myself as best I can within my economic limite ations... building my 3-month food supply, saving an emergency fund, trying to be debt free, finding other ways to create income, and anything else I can accomplish.  It also makes me want to write more letters about changing the status quo.  I may go buy a lottery ticket, too -- hoping to win enough millions to start creating my own safety nets for the poor.

I better go for now.
I still have to make my post about WT's December Membership Drive.

In Christ,
Deborah Martin

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May the GOD we know as Christians and Jews help us to be wise, to prepare for the future even as we trust Him for the details of the day, the possibilities of the future, and the souls of those we love.

May we all see the importance of morality on our world, how deeply it affects every area of our lives, and how different life is when evil reigns.  We can't force morality within others, we can only decide to honor it in ourselves.

May our lives be blessed by GOD so that we can provide for others.  Amen.

Monday, 23 October 2017

What a weekend!
My son and his wife were gone so I ended up parking myself in front of the TV, watching documentaries, and a few free movies... I guess you would call it binge watching.  I watched them on Saturday, then again on Sunday, and today (when I was trying to make a list of the ones I watched) I discovered some more and watched them!

I like documentaries.
I have a hard time with movies.

I watched one movie (CRASH) that was on race issues in Los Angeles, where I come from, and it was rated R...  I really regret seeing any of the parts that made it an R movie.  Some of the race issues were new to me. I hate to think of anything like that really happening.  It's hard to judge a movie when the situations seem so hard to believe.  I may be in denial, but I hope not.  Our police authorities are powerful over us as a people, we can hardly wage battles against them if they go bad.  It's a huge historical reality.  The Bible talks about what happens when evil is present in the leadership of our lives... it's not good.

Some other movies I decided to watch, for the first time ever, were ::  Earth to Echo, La La Land (another one about Los Angeles), and Remember the Titans (another film about race issues, but from the difficult days when the government first tried to change the southern school systems).

I guess the bussing issues of that time are a bit familiar to me.  One of my sons had to be bussed from a downtown Hollywood neighborhood to a better neighborhood in the Valley.  It was a difficult burden, not just a matter of getting on a bus and getting off a bus.  California (Los Angeles, again) isn't quite the same as the deep south, but Los Angeles is where the Watts riots happened... a big race conflict.

In the years of my struggles, I have come to see that surviving takes up all your time and energy... it's hard to keep up with all the events that happen... the history that is happening in our lifetimes.  In poverty there aren't too many options to change the status quo.  Every month was a struggle to survive.  Not much else mattered.

One of the documentaries I watched (all of them were on Netflix) was about happiness... it was even called HAPPY.  Other documentaries were on food issues (something on Kid's Menus and another on finding Israeli Cuisine), drugs (Heroin(e), Resistance), the environment (A Plastic Ocean), free speech according to the media (Nobody Speak), and one about photographers (Refugee).  That's all I can remember.  I may have watched more.

You really need to watch "A Plastic Ocean" and start thinking about the ecosystem we call Earth, your food supplies (I think they said the oceans provide 70% of our food supplies, more for some cultures), and how we can save what all of us depend on for life.  I think it was too long, but I was binging so that may not be a good review.  I remember thinking that 30-minutes would be enough to show to kids in their classrooms, maybe on TV, and would get a better audience for the topic.  Maybe a series of the many important topics they touched on... like chapters on a single disk.  I cried, more than once.

The film on kids was great for me to see.  It had a project for the kids to plan their food for the day based on the Food Plate they were learning... 10 foods they would eat in a day, with 6 being from the fruit and veggie group I think.  I thought that would be a great idea for me.  I have been seeing that the number of foods we need to eat are not that many, and the true portions are not as much as we are used to eating.  I thought this would be a great challenge for my own eating efforts.  I plan to try it ASAP... this week at some point.  This documentary had some other ideas I liked, but I can't think of them right now.  It's late, and I binged on so many documentaries.  (sorry....)

Another very important documentary to watch is the one called RESISTANCE.  It is about how our favorite medicines are rapidly evolving into new strains that are resistant to the diseases we depend on them killing.  It takes death to make us aware of this problem, and it isn't going away.  GMO foods are another perspective of this same issue... how are they affecting our bodies.  The chemicals in plastic (from the ocean film) are also another part of this same issue.  We are killing ourselves without realizing it.

The humanity of refugees are seen in the film on that topic.  It is hard to see why we fault people who are doing what we would... just wanting to be safe, wanting to protect their children, wanting to be with their families and loved ones.  The horrible poverty they are forced to live in, the death that is forced on them by neglect, the ability of people to rise above the horrors and keep going...these are the facts of their survival.

So... that is what I did this past weekend.
What about you?  What did you learn that you didn't know before?

In Christ,
Deborah Martin

18 September 2017

So, what a weekend...  I kind of vegetated, watching TV and Netflix (documentaries) and free movies (Hidden Figures from HBO I think).  Is learning the same as vegetating?  I'm not sure.  I am still working on my Sabbath rest boundaries... everything I do seems to somehow apply to my various​ work involvements.  It's a challenge.

I have already posted some comments on my Facebook page for Fixing America about the documentaries I watched yesterday (Sugar Coated) and today (GMO OMG), but here is some of the list from my Sabbath effort to rest by watching the tv... I actually can't remember all of them.

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Feel Rich (food/health documentary on hip-hop/rap culture.  I am not involved in either genre, so all the people were new to me, except I recognized a photo of Eminem  :-)  but the end of the movie showed a lot of their people who died young.  I guess I recognized Quincy Jones, too.  :-)   It was hard for me to watch some of it... I'm not into the profanity that is normal for some people.  I did like the healthy focus, and how we change.  I think this was the one talking about Meatless Mondays not being enough.  To me the challenge of Meatless Mondays is a starting point, a first step on the way to better health.  You have to glean what matters.)

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Facing Darkness (so good, Christian film by Samaritan's Purse about ebola outbreak in Africa... I couldn't afford to see it in the theatres or buy the DVD, so when I saw it was on Netflix, I watched it right away.  EVERY Christian needs to see this... it shows how wonderful we are as people, missionaries, and organizations...  I was so glad I watched it.)

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Banking on Bitcoin (documentary about the start of Bitcoin and some of it's problems... one of two I noticed.  I will have to watch the other one at a different time.  I am wondering about Bitcoin, especially if there is a global financial crisis.)

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Cowspiracy  (documentary about animal agriculture's effect on global warming, but the host lost me - and the people he interviewed - when he took it into a vegan/meat eaters issue.  There was a lot of good detail, and the presentation was OK, but the bias changed the focus of the issue.  How our food supplies are raised and processed is a real issue, and needs some solutions.  I wish I could recall the parts that meant a lot to me, but watching too many documentaries at one time mixes all the details up.  I already plan to take notes the next time I binge watch!  :-)

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Rancher Farmer Fisherman (a movie I found while looking through the free movie section.  Nice.  It looks into the livelihoods of three areas, with an emphasis on major players.  It helps you to see the desperate need we have to protect our existence from the greed of government... and shows how dependent we are on these food supplies.)

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Hidden Figures (was another movie I couldn't see when it came out.  Loved it.  It was funny and sad to see our country behaving like it did, but it was also nice to see some "normal" black families... as opposed to criminals and drug involved or violent....  I hope more of the details were from real history than created for the dramatic effect movies need to have... it was based on real events.)

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These all gave me a lot to think about, especially food issues.

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Rain has begun in the Northwest.  I call it a warning from God that winter is coming, so get ready!  :-)   I had to get out my thermals and wore my warm coat for the first time in months.  I think I am fighting off a cold from the change in drafty spaces and cold air.  I have to decide how I can do my shopping in the rain again.

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I saw some of the news today... about two more hurricanes coming to the US, and video of a terrible accident.  With all the cameras being put up for surveillance issues, we are able to see things we may not want to see... it brings the horrors of the world too close.  The need to be first, have the most alarming details, shock the world, be seen, get noticed, and more... it has changed our lives.  It will change the future even more.  I always think of Matrix when I think of this issue... how facial recognition and computer surveillance guarded every human being...and it's the same theme in lots of movies.  Computers, cameras, and time... they don't cost as much as human surveillance use to... and aren't always noticed.  I liked the film loop in the movie SPEED, too... showing that they can be manipulated, too.  It's a legal problem that hasn't been solved yet... how much to rely on computer-generated evidence.

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In the battle between good and evil, GOD and Satan, love and hate, it is hard to endure the hardships the Bible tells us are part of being human, and are going to come into our lives, and we must find a way to overcome.  No one likes to hurt.  When we hurt, we try to make sure someone else hurts, too.  I have had to work through this myself.  I don't know if I will ever reach the status of being Christ-like, as we are suppose to become. 

The Bible says this world has been released into the hands of Satan, for a time.  That means we will suffer, even when we are good people, do good things, and don't deserve it.  There is no easy answer to what is wrong with our world and how to make it better.  Salvation creates better people, over time, but it doesn't solve every problem in humanity.

I have been praying about situations in my own life for a long time.  It is hard to see evil win small battles and think it has won the war.  It is hard not to be able to change the status quo.  It is hard to see your loved ones make wrong choices.  It is hard to endure the consequences of our mistakes, but it is even harder to endure when we haven't done anything to deserve our suffering. 

In this conflict between the forces of evil and our lives, we have to find a way through, regain our balance, and continue on. When I pray, I may not get the answer I want, but I know God is still busy with the details of our existence.  He is making prophecy come true, He is trying to save as many souls as possible, He is doing what is best for the bigger picture of existence.  I may suffer, the people I care about may suffer, and the cause is not always GOD.

I guess documentaries remind me that problems we face as humanity are consequences of the ongoing battles between good and evil, and our choices about which side we are on. 

In Christ,
Deborah Martin

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May GOD help us to see the impact of our choices.
May we find the courage to do what is right.
May our lives focus on God rather than money.
May our hopes be in having enough, not in having more than we need.
May our government not become our enemy.
May GOD provide for those who love Him and trust Him and sacrifice for Him.
May time help us to change.
May we find ways to rectify our wrong choices and the effects they have on others.
May freedom continue to exist in America, and the world.
May we face our global challenges with honesty and courage.
May life last long enough to reach our best goals.
Amen.