Amanda's Musings

I had planned to blog regularly about being retired, but if I ever began writing & reflecting on the process last January, those notes have been lost, with the exception of my daily journaling—which comprises most of 9 notebooks over the past year, rather more than I want to review at present! There were the practical details, of course, to be worked out to get my health insurance with Medicare established, then applying to begin collecting Social Security at 70, 2 months after retiring. But the biggest difference, and most immediate gift was the freedom of setting my own schedule: doing chores and running errands on any day of the week (and mostly staying out of stores on those busy weekends), taking naps if I wanted, and simply reading or exercising or whatever—whenever! The second biggest blessing was finally having the time and energy to begin decluttering. I had moved from a house with a garage in California to a 2-bedroom apartment in Sedro-Woolley many years ago, and the...

  [Note: I began drafting this on 11/28/25 and finished on 1/1/26] I thought to begin this on Thanksgiving Day when gratitude is a natural theme, and certainly one I celebrated by putting my ‘Give Thanks’ sign in the front window and sending ecards to family and friends. The grieving theme is big for me now as I just put my dear Dora, kitty companion for thirteen years, to sleep on the Monday before Thanksgiving. I’m grateful for the years of comfort and companionship I had with her, as I had for sixteen years with my first furbaby, Kenny. I’m especially grateful that I had a sweet cat to talk to and cuddle with through the long years of applying for job after job, trying to break out of a low paid customer service position with the state. Then less than a year and a half into my higher paid job with the county, we all got sent home to answer phones remotely all through the pandemic and beyond. For those nearly five years until I retired, Dora was my constant companion who ea...

I am absolutely appalled at the anti-abortion laws being written that refuse to make exceptions in the case of rape or incest. The monsters who write and support such legislation make it clear that they care nothing about the trauma these victims have already endured. In fact they intend to heap on extra burdens, no matter how horribly these poor women and girls may suffer physically and mentally, or how dangerously that would impact their ability to raise or nurture a baby conceived in violence and horror. It is callous and cruel to mandate that trauma victims carry a fetus sired by their attacker to term. The physical, emotional, and financial toll of an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy should not be forced on anyone, especially when it is a constant reminder of an excruciatingly painful experience. And I have not heard that these heinous laws include funding for pregnant women to receive the prenatal care that might help them deliver “adoptable” babies. And what of the babies who ar...

First, I refuse to refer to these hypocrites as “Pro-Life.” Contrary to their claims, they care nothing about life—only birth. They don’t care about the quality of life of the pregnant women they want to force to give birth or of the babies they decree must be born. If they did, these same rightwing extremists would be earmarking funds to support prenatal & postnatal care, community mental health services, public education, child protection, free and mandatory DNA testing to identify the fathers of these unwanted infants they want to legislate into being. Heck, they should be supporting gun control, so every child can attend school, go to the store or a place of worship without risking being gunned down by a mad man with an automatic weapon! At a time when parents everywhere are scrambling to find formula for their infants who are already here, these anti-abortionists want to flood the population with many more babies who may go hungry. They don’t care if they are condemning th...

Back when I was a member of Spark People, before they closed down their free fitness and social media site, I would blog periodically and those posts could potentially be seen by hundreds or even thousands of Sparkers, though I typically would get just a small handful of responses. I reposted many of the hundred-plus blogs I posted there over 10 years or so on this site, but those have not been seen by more than a few former Spark Friends. My PTSD has been triggered quite a bit over the past months, and my therapist has encouraged me to use my voice to speak about some of the events that have so deeply affected me. The abortion rights debate and the recent mass shootings have elicited especially strong emotions, so I have committed to speaking out. My first substantive blog in almost 10 months, which I will post next, is " Hypocrisy of the 'Pro Birth' Zealots. " 

(Originally published 16 August 2021)  I had to write one last blog. It's bittersweet to be saying good-bye. This site has been a huge part of my life for 11 years, and the very best part of that has been the community of support and encouragement. Checking in daily with the teams I led, the mutual support and celebrating with Spark Friends, sending and receiving goodies—that's what I knew I would miss the most. So soon after we got the news back in June, my GG co-leader and I decided Discord would be the best place to move A Gathering of Goddesses and my beloved Babysteps Brigade. Our new home doesn't have all the bells and whistles SP did, but we post on different threads, check in, and get to play with a large number of emojis and GIFs! If you want to check it out, set up a free account on  discord.com/  and send me a message: Blessed Being#5304, And I am so thankful that SP gave us more than two months' notice before closing down. It gave us a chance to save wh...