It has been an amazing year. Last year this time I was in New Mexico living on some property that we were considering buying. We were nearly committed when we had some issues with our property in NC that led us back here. We ended up coming back to NC where we have been for 2019.
Photo Credit - Elijah Trent Olson
We took this year to see if we really wanted to be back in NM or if NC was where we could make our home. We had ups and downs and took the time to really appreciate what NC has to offer. We reconnected with family members and learned that sometimes you just can't mend fences and you have to be ok with letting some people go.
Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson
Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson
We spent a year dedicated to learning about foods from Asia. We learned to use chopsticks and how to make sushi. We learned as much as we could about different spices from that area of the world and traveled across the continent vicariously via our food adventures. This next year we're going to explore Latin cuisine and we're learning Spanish!
We'll continue to share our recipes on Real Rations and as you can tell I renamed this blog and will continue to share my witchy book reviews, recipes and exploration in to all things wellness on To Live Whole.
In October I went to HexFest and had a wonderful time with Sorita d'Este. I explored some new foods and ended up adding mushrooms, peppers and onions to our dietary guidelines!
Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson
Eli and I found Buddhism and began meditating. We are really feeling good now. Eli is down to almost no pain at all and all my manias have passed. I have completely migrated into menopause and feel healthier than I have in my entire life.
Photo Credit - US
So we're ready now. Come on 2020 - Let's get this party started.
Over the last 24 hours the onslaught of fake news that I have been presented with is just astounding. Gone are the days of the obvious separation between what is real and what is satirical. Tabloid journalism has crossed over into this grey slush that is now the internet news. I really believe in free press. I believe that everyone should have equal access to educational materials and have the ability to read and learn as much as the can. I also believe that we should be presented with factual information in news and world events. Satire is fine. But it must be clearly marked as satire. It must be labeled fake news or something in order to stop the rampant ignorance that is our society today.
We used to have news casters that we turned on every night. Being an anchor was a respected position and held an assumption of dignity and honesty. Below we see compassion and obvious distress in an emotional situation in delivering the news.
What we have now is not journalism.What we offer now is news that is slanted in one direction or another. We have FOX News that reports with a conservative slant and MSNBC that leans left. We have sites that try to expose this bias that are labeled as trouble makers. Below is a clip from Young Turks.
We have so many flat out lying news sites that we have pages dedicated to listing them! The news is no longer about informing the people. It is now about selling ad space and pandering a biased message to those who site and stare blankly at the screen. I really don't want to see the government get involved in the internet. I think the internet should be a free source of information. I also, however don't think that we should allow snake oil salesmen to run a muck on the world wide web.
I don't have a solution. This is just me venting about how we are allowing stupid news sources, fake news and slanted media to turn our culture into the dumbest ever. It just makes me want to scream!!!
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