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Greetings. I do hope that you who are reading this are doing well, staying healthy and managing your stress well in this chaotic world spinning around us all. These are trying times; my own stress level has been pretty high, so this week I had to cut way back on my consumption of televised news coverage – especially of the USA’s current political debacle. It just makes me insane and an insane MainelyButch is not a good thing! heh heh. It’s been about 3 days now, and I’m feeling much less craziness in my head.

Spring has arrived. On Wednesday, the first day of Spring and the Vernal Equinox, I got up really early, before dawn, and drove down to the town beach to watch the sun rise. The velvet black sky was clear and the stars twinkled as they faded and the sky grew lighter. It was a gorgeous morning, clear and quiet – just what I needed, some peaceful beauty. I took advantage of the time and shot a whole sequence of photos, from before dawn to sunrise. The pictures came out nice. I’m adding some to the post for your enjoyment. Let me know what you think!

My first shot…I had been at the beach about 20 minutes and it was growing lighter gradually.

The ocean was so very calm; sweet day for the first day of Spring 2019

…it’s coming up, geting brighter!

First light…this is a spectacular moment in the sunrise!

And there’s the sun…rising over the northern Atlantic Ocean as seen from the southern coast of Maine. 3-20-2019

I tried to make those photos fit better here, but I am having issues this morning with WP’s new layout…not sure I am a fan of this “block” system. I will keep working on getting better with the platform.

I took my dogs, Nola and Lulu, with me to the beach, which they enjoyed immensely! It was quite cold, about 20 F so they didn’t stay on the beach long before they ran back for the warmth of the heated car. Funny girls.

After the beach and some chores at home I had to take my friend to the doctor’s for a pre-surgery check in. We took the dogs with us. On the first day of Spring the local Dairy Queen ice-cream shops have “free cone” day, so we went there after her appointment – dogs in tow, of course! They absolutely LOVE ice cream and Dairy Queen’s soft-serve is their favorite. Lulu has bad reactions to milk based foods (milk, real ice cream, cheese) so DQ’s soft-serve is best for her when they’re allowed the ice cream treat. It doesn’t make her sick like other milk-based products.

her comes the ice-cream!

SCORE!!!

After our adventurous morning I came home and worked on a bit of organization in my shed but it needs quite a lot more. I need to just dump everything out and reorganize it completely on a warmer day in the near future. I tend to collect things and I am always seeing items and thinking about ways I can repurpose them. My buddy teases me about it incessantly because I am a thrift and antique store addict. I love those places and the messier they are the better; sifting through to find the treasures no one else envisions. I see an item and I start the mental reconstruction that turns it into something else; maybe something useful or decorative. You just never know. The “one man’s junk is another man’s treasure” is totally true for me. I have some great collecting stories of exciting and unique finds.

I have been working on an outline for a podcast. I am going to be podcasting on Stitcher. I will be posting a link once I get the pilot episode finished and up for listening. Any ideas are super welcome! I am also going to be contacting some of my followers to be guest hosts. The podcast will be focused on LGBT+ topics, interviews, guests, Q&As, and movie/book/music reviews. Of course it will be leaning toward the Butch-femme dynamic and community interests because that’s how my brain is wired. I am kind of excited about it and hope I can do a decent job. If you have any ideas, requests, possible topics, etc please drop me an email or leave it in the comments. I am looking for your input!!!

Ok, it’s early on Friday morning, I have to work in about an hour, so I am going to end this here and wish you all a Fantastic Freaky Friday!

Peace ~ MB

Reaction to the Methodist Church’s Anti-LGBT+ Declaration

I’ve been contemplating writing this blog post for days now…since the conference and decision by the United Methodist church to treat LGBT people differently; to deny them marriage ceremonies and the opportunity to serve in the church by ordination.

Let me first tell you that I am not very heavily involved in my church, which is the United Methodist Church, but I was raised in the church, attending Sunday school and later participating in teen Youth Group and Sunday services. I was baptized in the UMC at age 12 and today I go occasionally to remind myself of my upbringing and to see the people at church who I didn’t get to see otherwise very often.

The church I attended, since I was a toddler, was St. Mark’s United Methodist Church in Kittery, Maine. It was very old, built in the 19th century and if walls could talk I am sure it had many memories and secrets it could tell. I once kissed my boyfriend while we were up in the belfry to ring the bell calling people to church one Sunday when I was just a kid. I learned the “trust fall” in our Youth Group meeting one evening in my teens. I attended weddings, funerals, services and special events at this church. I sang hymns from the old wooden pews, prayed with my congregation, and put my money in the offering plate as it was passed from person to person toward the end of every service. After church services on Sundays, I would gather with the rest of the people in the community room downstairs and drink coffee, have sweet snacks, and chat about life with the others. I shared in love, laughter, anger, sadness, and tears with those people. They were my church family. And somehow I always thought they would continue to be that family when I needed them.

Then, during a huge convention held by the UMC, comes this completely hateful judgement against the LGBT+ community of the Methodist Church; against a community that has dutifully supported that church and who were formerly proud to be treated fairly equally by the UMC – at least here in the USA. A formed statement denying the LGBT+ members church marriages, the opportunity to serve the church in formal capacity, and any equality with non-LGBT+ members.

My own church always seemed so welcoming and I once even spoke before the congregation about being a lesbian living with HIV even. Now I discover that what I formerly believed about the UMC is all based upon lies. My church is control and owned by a governing body that openly declares and professes that it will provide NO support, inclusion, protection or tolerance for the LGBT+ members.

The whole thing makes me sick. It makes me angry and sad at the same time. All of those years I had been supportive of my church and had been proud to be a member now mean absolutely nothing. My existence is an abomination to God in their governing body’s eyes and minds.

I am sure that not all of the private members of the UMC church share these feelings, LGBT+ or not, I know I have supporters but it’s the whole damned idea of being shunned in this fashion on the world stage. I have read that many of the congregations around the country have bucked this decision and are telling us they love and support us despite this ruling and I appreciate that but it doesn’t negate the fact of the matter.

It is high time to END federal tax exemption for ALL religious organizations. Time to stop treating churches like they are “neutral” spaces – because they are NOT. Churches preach political views, are homophobic, bigoted and racist organizations and it’s high time we stop supporting this behavior being perpetrated in the name of “God” and “religious freedom” – BULLSHIT is what it truly is.

Atheism is looking mighty good these days.