The Tum Chronicles... pondering my navel as it were. Weight or selflove...

Looking at my tummy, I am remembering that it used to create lips and eyebrows, fingers and spinal colums, brains and hearts. I am realizing that it used to house life. That the soft pulse of my veins kept my offspring feeling warm, alive and safe in there. It used to bulge to the size it is now because it had life burgeoning in it, eager to be born, definite in the eventuality that a birth was to occur. It housed and created three human beings.

I am realizing with the changes in my life, that I have moved myself into that warm, alive, safe space and that I am having a 'startover', a rebirth of myself. It is the same size as when I harboured life in there, but now I am the life in that space. I think that by working at CEDRIC and learning that I am not dealing with an eating disorder but a series of unfortunate circumstances, has led me to understanding better about once again having the tummy I used to have, back twenty years ago, when I used to carry my babies, prior to their birth. This tummy today, which has increased in size since the birth of my final baby, Grace, is now at maximum capacity for me. It has been creeping up in size and girth in spite of my lame efforts at eating wisely and trying to keep moving enough to avoid it. I've been dealt blows and benefits that have combined to affect my physiology because eating well and menopause, combined with knee / leg injuries have rendered me a much larger woman than I intended to be, or am comfortable with and that is what I am addressing now.

At 6 feet tall, my water weight has fluctuated 30lbs at any given day. Once I started exhibiting the swelling legs and ankles of edema in my 40's, I knew that I was going to have problems if I didn't get a handle on it. Root compounds from my chinese medicine doctor helped, but I stopped looking at scales as a result, because they could rarely depict an accurate representation of the state of my health. This caused me to subtly put on weight, for the fat to creep on a little at a time while I tried to get my feet under me. Its so disconcerting now that scales don't even go high enough to tell me what I weigh.

I look down at this tummy and think how I can get out of the shell of protection that I have wrapped around myself and realize that it is almost time for my own rebirth, for my own eventual inevitability that I will become chrysalis and butterfly in the imminent future. Enter hesitation and anxiety at losing the safe little nook I've tucked myself away in. I counter with the thoughts of new friends who don't let me withdraw. I remember yesterday when I tried to leave early from a monthly craft luncheon with a group of new girlfriends and got told to sit right down, there's no escaping, you're one of us now... lol

So now, as I sit in my solituded, tv on in the background with an episode of 'Hoarders', of all things, and I realize that like the people on the show, I'm hoarding my self, inside myself.

This brings me to the next question, and I'm wondering if I wait till the birth decides itself when it's ready, or if I take it upon myself to birth me at a time of my own choosing.

And I guess that why I am writing this, in wondering if there are any ideas or insights that my wonderful friends and family who read this note, can share with me.

I have two months in which to initiate changes that both honour me and create the steps I need to let go and let Goddess, to break out of this shell of comforting pudge and confront the things that have been holding me back, while my better half is out of town on a teaching course, clear across the continent. Shall I strike while the iron is hot?

I have had medical tests that reassure me that I am not diabetic, don't have heart issues, no cancers, no debilitating diseases. What I can do anything about, I will. There is a trauma specialist who is going to consider the pros and cons of my harbouring sharp shrapnel against my carotid artery, when I can finally get an appointment, at the end of a great long waiting list. Same with the orthopedic surgeon who will decide what my knees need. I feel caught in a conundrum. I can't get breast reduction surgery or have my knees fixed until I lose about 150 lbs, I can't lose 150 lbs very easily if I can't do any weight bearing exercise that involves my knees.

The bright light in all of this, besides that in spite of being morbidly obese, i am healthy. I was told by the doc's locum that my ACL was not torn completely and has since healed, but are showing stress because of having to carry my weight. Hopefully I will be able to get a handle on my weight now that I'm taking thyroid synthetic meds, She also said that I will likely feel my metabolism speed up and will notice that weight loss comes easier to me now. :)

So, do I take the proverbial bull by the horns and initiate my own rebirth, radically changing my habits and coping strategies, or do I approach it organically and let time take its course, so that I come to end of packing it on and turn it around simply by becoming more involved in the world, in getting more things done, in being more active... just asking...

Disintegrating Humanity -Plastic pthalate dispersal increases as built in obscellescence kicks in

I was posting to a friend's Facebook status this morning. She had put up a video of a home in South America made almost totally from recycled plastic bottles. It brought to mind a huge event facility I saw that had been constructed in China as the outcome of a recycling contest among architects. What both buildings failed to recognize was that the bottles were exposed to daily sunshine, the very thing that causes the built in wear out date to speed up, the very thing that makes the bottles leech particulates that include some very harsh toxins. Pthalates are renowned to have the ability to fool the human physiology to thinking that its being inundated with female hormones. This is causing a lot of problems in sterility around the world, and although I don't have any peer reviewed articles to refer you to to promote my claims, I encourage you to do your own homework on pthalates to learn as much as you possibly can about the world we live in these days.

Pthalates are contributing to women's issues from cervical cancer to menopausal symptoms, they are feminizing fetuses in the womb, causing boys to have a smaller testicular region, and decreasing sperm production. That's just what I remember from off the top of my head from what I've been learning about it via my research.

People are eager to change their lives and many have thought that by recycling plastic items, they are doing the right thing. Keeping waste out of the landfills is a good idea, but not if keeping them around and breathing their decay is detrimental to our overal health. Some strip grocery bags and then crochet this 'plarn' into shopping bags. A nice idea, and one my Auntie Nora used to do for decades, being an early free thinker and practical prairie woman. But what she died of could have had a lot to do with her constant handling of plastic as she sat day after day making her pretty shopping bags out of bread and grocery bags.

Plastic shopping bags can be filled with a lot of weight and then are carried fair distances. Palms are sweating and straining to deal with the weight, pores are wide open as the disintegrating plastic leeches pthalates through its oily particulate residue that is ingested immediately into the bloodstream through the sweat glands.

Same goes for holey soles and other knock off brands of the rubberized plastic sandals. You wear them barefoot, you sweat in them with all your weight on them, straining the plastic, ingesting that same toxin bearing oil that emits from the disintegrating plastic under your feet as your hands do from the shopping bag made from recycled plastic. If reflexology is the technique of helping rebalance the body through related regions of the feet, what is wearing hot holey soles on a steamy summer day doing through those same feet doing to your system?

How about your shower curtain? You are likely thinking a plastic shower curtain cheers up the bathroom and protects it. But what happens in a shower. Heat and steam. How are you protected from particulates that are carried by the heat and steam when you are naked with all pores wide open? Where is your nose in that heat and steam. By the ceiling. Where the the most of the steam carries the particulates.

Like I said, we don't think these things through.

Even in the case of sex toys. The stuff that makes plastic pliable is the toxic stuff that creates pthalate exposure in our bodies. Even porn is no longer any fun to watch as I now only see young women acting like breeders who wouldn't likely be doing it if they had any other self respecting way to get money, having softened plastic in the form of dildos thundered in and out of them, and where? Why, where they plan on having their new life emerge from someday...  which carries me to the use of disposable menstrual gear, all of which is plastic and chemicals...

So... how are you going to focus on your home now that you see plastic in a different light?

Dea said that when they build their plastic greenhouse using bottles that they will be enclosing it in portland cement to keep the narsties away, with ventilation holes in safe places... What will you do?

Road Map to Password Success

Budeweit Successive Passwords

I have been thinking about this since the early days of the internet and have thusly developed a pattern of passwords that follow a consistent series of small changes to the original password. In the case of something happening to me and people needing to access my passwords, this is my system I’ve kept to in order to facilitate others accessing my internet destinations.

Here is an example of the first password for internet access fields.

 ‘heroic’

When something happens that requires us to change our passwords, I follow this pattern. The next change I do is add a number that is significant to my life. So ‘heroic’ becomes ‘heroic11’.

 ‘heroic11’

The next change is to capitalize the first letter ‘Heroic’.

 ‘Heroic’

The fourth change alters the number at the end to using the punctuation that is the alternate setting for the number keys. Thus, ‘Heroic’ becomes ‘Heroic!!’ .

‘Heroic!!

Thinking about the 5^th option that will optimistically be required, I will start using the number 0- 10 series of numbers at the beginning of the current password. ‘Heroic!!’ becomes ‘0Heroic!!’   develop your own series of password alterations.

‘0Heroic!!’

I find that having a lot of random passwords in a lot of random places is as futile as trying to keep all your passwords in a central place. Inevitably, you come to need your password when you are nowhere near the resource that is keeping track of it. If you have a process that you stick to like this, you know that there are 4 options to follow and the access to whatever you’re doing is going to be one of them.

Sometimes time is a clue too.  Ask yourself how long you’ve been using that particular site, as sites you are accessing that have a longer history with you are likely to be requiring one of the subsequent options.

I am going to tuck a hard copy of this somewhere to keep with my will so that in the case of my death, there will be a way for those who come to help finish my loose ends to access necessary sites.

Tina's System Pattern for Passwords

1) heroic
2) Heroic
3) Heroic11
4) Heroic!!
5) 0Heroic!!

Use the Budeweit Successive Password system as a way to develop your own series of password alterations. Keep a hard copy with your will/insurance/important paperwork for next of kin and business partners. Call it 'Tina's Password System' if that's easier for you. Or just forget what it's called and let the system keep your life simple. It's in keeping with the KIS principle. 

(Keep It Simple)

Tina Budeweit Copyrightfree 2011

How to handle the current inundation of disaster information

You open your facebook, newspaper, webpage and are met with new cataclysms at every turn. Between the ongoing threats of nuclear winter, financial ruin, planetary destruction and dishonest fearmongering political schemes and scandals, its hard to keep our sunny sides up these days. A lot of us opt out by assuming the ostrich method of coping, which is to turn off their tvs and computers but what if you are like me and wish to stay in the loop without letting it get to you?

A few friends on my fb have lately been inundating the news feed with posts that reflect hideous atrocities that are occuring all over the world. I know that I have been guilty of sharing vicious injustice information as well, and I'm beginning to realize that this is counter to my own core beliefs. As a result, today I have decided that if I am not a part of the problem, then let me be a part of the solution. Instead of promoting fear and adding to the huge amount of fearmongering that is happening out in the world of commercial media and news by just posting tragic information, I have made a deal with myself that every bit of negative information I share from now on, must be framed differently.

As a follower of 'Non violent communication' (start HERE if  you would like to know more about NVC)  I am going to start talking my walk in my Facebook news feed. If there is some information of a negative nature that I want to share, I am going to look at it in a way that is in keeping with my personal philosophy. All through university, I wrote paper after paper from a solution based perspective. I left the problem oriented focus to others and ran with the ball to present information that not only would address what I perceived a problem to be, but also accompanied this information with some positive options for how to manage the information or how to make a change in our lives or world that helped to counter the problem in some way. This walking my talk is also positive role modelling for those who may not have had the same good fortune to have learned about affirmative processes like 'Non violent communication'.

Why aren't I talking that walk in my FB? Well, frankly, I tend to be unedited in my FB and I'm half asleep before my morning wake up coffee when I post and share, and these tend to be kneejerk reactions that simply put alerts and bulletins out there for my friends to see.

Today, all that starts to change. I intend to accompany whatever I post with as much of the facts as I can summon from trusted sources to counter the right wing rhetoric, and then I also promise to bring up whatever positive solutions that I can offer regarding helping us cope with the magnitude of the problem, or how to deal with being constantly exposed to these fear based news flashes that drain our psychic energy without our knowledge and certainly without our permission.

I was inspired by a posting from a friend about the radioactive rain in Japan these days and it was like a straw on the camel's back that turned on a light bulb in my mind. Why am I just sharing this disastrous information without taking the time to offer some coping skills if I have them?

My spirituality is 360. I worship life in it's universal entirety. The bad/dark is as sacred as the light/good and we have no way of wrapping our little temporary mortal brains around the motives of something that has an enormous, eternal intellect and agenda. Let me be a cog in the wheel that helps that agenda in as loving, nurturing and least invasive way as I can. I can't just love the light and banish the dark as without the dark as contrast, then light would not exist either.

That's not to say that I don't mourn the losses of Japan and indirectly, our sustainably strained planet, because I do, but on my terms and in my own time. I mourn the loss of our soldiers, I mourn the tragedies in the fuel racket that kill and displace millions in our greedy search for more and cheaper fuel. But I choose to do it when I know my own strengths are emotionally able to withstand and counter  the information, not at dinner time with a plate in front of me between a tv screen and my heart, so that I'm eating disaster with my supper.

In so saying, this article is setting out to provide you with insights and perhaps, a new skill that will help you find some sort of peace or balance in the midst of all the chaos around us.

When you are inundated with the horrors of the world, have a prayer handy so that you can address the problem, give yourself a precious set amount of time to think /pray about it, or to help disseminate truthful information in the face of lies, and then agree with yourself to switch 'off'' the focus from the vague 'out there' to the 'immediate NOW' there where you are. Take back the focus and place it deliberately where you want it. You've done what you can, you have sent positive energy where it is needed and now you can return to your regularily scheduled programming, your own precious life.

Light a candle, set aside some quiet time when you feel strong enough and warrant the shedding of tears for the injustice/unfairness that you are witnessing, but set time so that you will have a parameter in which to operate so that when that time is up, you can refocus to your own concerns of a more immediate nature.

What is a prayer that you use to give yourself strength during the hard times? Here's a little video of my power song, a little ditty I wrote during my shamanic initiation that is one example of what one can use to restore personal energy when one has noticed its being leached off by circumstances beyond our control. Please share in our comments what provides you with a quick shot of strength, backbone, grounding or any other techniques that you might have to facilitate our staying clear in the midst of the muddle.

Remember, this isn't professional video, this is me on my couch, done in one take, no editing. So don't expect polished. Expect raw. Credit goes to Deanna Knight for the words, which I may have taken some liberty with, considering my memory being more of a swiss cheese consistency these years.

I'm not sharing my melodious (not)singing voice to garner acceptance or kudos, lord knows, if that was the case there would have been production values and I would have taken the time to comb my hair and get out of my housedress... LOL... but its an example of a grounding exercise that can help when we are inundated with negativity that serves to psychically drain us of the energy we need to keep on keepin on.

CLICK HERE for example A of how not to go viral on Youtube. :P

Does anyone do endings well? Snaky brain bits digging up stuff in the SuperMoon, you too?

This is an odd time for me. Very retrospective and no rose coloured glasses allowed. Instead of my usual sunny, make lemonade, make it work self, I've spent the better part of some very solitary days doing some very serious soul searching. Is everyone humbling and responding to the events across the Pacific in other profound ways or am I just the only one noticing that I have a lot of work to do when it comes to my personal evolution as a person.

For some reason, I have dwelled for the past few days on the true worth I represent to myself and others, my core beliefs, and my favourite, 'why I end things badly'.

That leads me to ponder the various things that ended and how I was responsible for it somehow, and what I need to do to rectify the situation. Soul searching, I tell you. Even though the air is clean, the trees have pink blossoms bursting forth and there is enough to eat, I can't seem to be satisfied with what I usually believe is truly important, and some niggling little part of my snaky little brain keeps pulling up this dust bunny of my existence, picking off the crusties and waving it in front of me until I give in and follow the bait by allowing myself to rehash what happened that led to things ended.

I know, upon articling upon the ponder here, that I don't always end things badly by accident but sometimes I end things badly on purpose, and sometimes, things just peter out and I don't pick up the gauntlet to stay in touch, but it doesn't mean that I am not an inherently good person who 100% means well. Is anyone ever out to end things badly? Isn't it difficult to not say harsh things in times of frustration and fear when grace evades us? Do we cast each other out of our lives for single, minor things out of some sense of dignity or finality? Isn't all or nothing thinking a sign that we are out of sync?

Soul searching. The endings with my two closest friends broke a trust that I have not been able to recover from and lead me to more than a little doubt about anything I used to hold sacred as being with me forever. It was a huge lesson. I am fragiler because of it. Why they both chose to do it, and then the coincidence of them choosing the same week, separate from and unbeknownst to the other, to cut all ties with me, the week of my birthday at that, made it even deeper an incision that keeps opening whenever I feel threatened. And lately, I've felt threatened a lot with the things my partner and I have been going through in our relationship. I feel like I have to leave just to prove my worth since I'm not able to fulfill the agenda of the right wing parties involved in the relationship. In feeling like I must leave, I feel at sea, like those orphan feelings I had at 15 when I was on the streets looking up at the bedroom lights of cozy homes flicking off and me out in the cold, rainy night without a single soul.

Soul searching as the moon's piercing gaze penetrates me to my core with its reflective glimmers that leave moonbeams trickling along my spine from the intensity of the consequences of what rehashing, refearing, re-experiencing all those trying times has done to unseat me, unground me.

Ungrounded times are not good times for endings, even though, there is a saying that there is never a good time. This could be the metamorphosis of something new, shinier, more resilient and with greater gifts emerging. 

So... this little niggling snaky bit of brain scurries down into its depths again to return with another bleeding and squirming, hairy little repulsive chunk of memory that wants to help convince me I'm worthless.

Thank heavens that I haven't lost my mind and know that that people change, I'm not responsible for the changes of others, and what's more, I'm not responsible for the conclusions of others.

So, sometimes I end things badly. So what.

But this Super Moon tomorrow night... is it having its way with me? Perigee means closest to the earth. It doesn't happen often and full moons are pretty influential without being so close that your internal liquids experience high tides in the form of this snaky little brain thingy... I hope that leaves with the SuperMoon tomorrow night. I want my sunshiny creativity back and I haven't seen hide nor hair of it since the arrival of 'Skuttlekins'

Bolster Your Immune with Nettles

The larger plant is stinging nettle, the medium size flower is dead nettle and the tiny flowers are chickweed.

Nettles for your healthy balance

A woman's herb but beneficial for everyone.

With this latest development in the far East, we become ever vigilant to kick up our immune systems in as many ways as possible and as much as possible. One way of doing this is wildcrafting nettles, those prickly lush, green little plants that pop up in streamsides and wet lowlands at this time of year.

DELICIOUS POTHERB: This plant is able to bolster your immune in a multitude of ways. Eat the first crop fresh, steamed, baked or hit with a good soak of scalding water.Replace spinach, asparagus, brocolli in your dishes. Dried, crushed in the palms of your hands, they can be sprinkled into sauces, batters and scrambles, smoothies and frozen treats. Loaded with minerals, iron and vitamins, they are only ingestible if picked before flower buds appear, afterwards, they contain a caustic chemical that acts like fibreglass in the kidneys/liver. A powerful healer. A delicioius potherb in the spring.

TONIC TEA: Make a tea of 5 or so leaves per pot, or suit to taste. I prefer it weak and like it in my water. I keep a cold water bottle of nettle tea in my pack as I travel. Unsweetened, its refreshing and the water bottle doesn't get sour as it does with sugared drinks.

PAIN RELIEF: Another use for nettles is pain relief. It is Goddess's gift to joint, ligament pain. Brush affected area (or in the region avoiding open wounds) with fresh leaves (this can be done ANY time of year) and let the little bites do their mojo. GUARANTEED to eradicate pain.

INTENTIONAL HARVESTING: Remember that nettles are a green goddess sacrament and are very aware of intention. If you pick them with a sense of greed and are not paying attention in a sacred way, she will let you know and create the reaction she is famous for. If you pick them with reverence and wisdom, you may get an initial 'inoculation' when she playfully nips you on a uncovered wrist or ankle, but you will remain remarkably sting free. I have found nettle patches and not had gloves and used a plastic bag to pick as well as one of my socks to protect me from the spines.

WHERE TO FIND NETTLES: Find nettles in lowlying, wet open areas. They like damaged soil and are good at restoring the nitrogen balance. I have posted in Craigslist to discover nettle patches in the past with relative success.

HOW TO PICK: To pick, pinch stem below the third set of leaves and break free. Don't tug on the plant as the root mass is very delicate and you will pick up the whole plant. It will reroot quickly if you do it, however, just break free the part you want to keep and carry on. This doesn't domesticate in spite of my attempts. When the plants are just 6-10 inches is the optimum time to pick them. The purpler the bud is, the better. Susun Weed says that there is a two moon window for picking nettles, which extends March/April in most areas.  A caustic chemical is present in the plant once it has fruited and it is strongly recommended that you do not ingest nettles picked after you start seeing the flowers. People with kidney ailments are susceptible to massive back aches when this is disregarded and ingestion could be harmful.

HOW MUCH IS A YEAR'S WORTH FOR A FAMILY OF FOUR? This is a time when you need nettles and they are free. There is about a 6 week window that they are available in any given area, for food or ingestion. To add to liniments, the active ingredients must come from plants picked before blooming. For external application, use fresh. Dry them easily in paper bags, tossing the tops every day until they are completely dry, which takes about a week. (Ovenmitts work in a pinch) When faced with challenges like the recent reports of radiation coming our way, we need a strong thyroid but also a strong immune system. Nettles will do that for us. Two grocery bags of nettles is enough for a family of 4 for an entire year with enough for the odd gift to friends.

NETTLES ARE BEAUTIFUL, FREE AND AVAILABLE NOW IN MOST AREAS TILL EARLY APRIL. GET THEM WHILE THEY'RE YOUNG.

Relationship resolution. Restored recognition.

Just as I was about to put pen to paper here, I got a call from the protaganist of my story. He needed me. Ready in 5 minutes please. And ready I was. This time he's on an exercise with his army cohorts and I can be whisked away to pick up the vehicle this morning.So much for writing.

Now its a few hours later and I've managed to run errands, get groceries and bring all my laundry up to the apartment and I can have a while to write again. Its given more time to ponder as I drove, thinking about all the subtle ways that I have changed in the past 10 days, thinking about how its going to reverb through the changed relationship we are in now. I am no longer going to pretend I'm a wife. I'm the other woman he's living with in a creative way. I don't need the pigeon holing labels to give me status. I am who I am now.

I spoke to him about getting my own place and it didn't even merit a sentence worth of response. I don't know if that's because he doesn't believe me or because he is so innured by the situation currently that all he wants, really, is to keep the status quo, keep from rocking the boat, just let the storm blow by.

I'm not so sure. I still revel in the thoughts of my own space, my own income, my own momentum with his help in an even more creative way of partnering. I'm still with him, but I'm with me too now, and I am not putting my agenda on the back burner for anyone in that never ending waiting game. My stuff is still all packed away and he doesn't notice that there are no little momentos like there were before. For all I know, Mr. Military Starkness is releived that my creative chaos and clutter has been hidden.

On Monday, I will start anew. More appointments with the Spectrum people, some counselling advice, some medical testing. Some changes in the apartment. I will be creating a work centre for projects as over this past week I've amassed all manner of practical, realistic, upcycling creative things I could be making and distributing via online venues and also, begin building up an inventory so that when summer rolls around, I can consider the possibility of actually doing my heart's desire, which is to have booths at festivals so I can get paid to party in the sun. Make hay while the moon shines.

Manifesting a small van that I can trick out as a bit of a camper, a bit of a work space, a bit of a virtual office, a bit of a kitchen is all I need. And good mechanics under the hood as well as working on it to keep it in top shape.

For all the panic I felt a week ago when I opened that msg and felt my heart thud against my shoes, there has been little in the way of resolution. We had a talk, he talked, I listened. I cried at being spoken to gently by someone who means so much to me and then he had a peptic fit from not eating right and went to bed after my attempts at making dinner succeeded only to poison him. I shouldn't cook when I'm emotionally exhausted.

I learned a lot about friendship this week as I REALLY did feel like I was being tossed to the curb. I wouldn't have been panicking so much if I thought that this was just one of his outbursts and he would blow over it in a few days. I wasn't able to be near him, I had no way of knowing where his head was at, I knew that his friend has an inordinate amount of influence over him and her opinion of me is questionable.

Thanks to everyone for stepping up, I had offers of fiscal gifts, loans, places to stay and meals and hugs. I had so much support that I really feel like I have a network, I HAVE a foundation and I'm not completely at a loss if the shit hits the fan and everything goes screwy. Thank you to all of you who rose to the task of helping me rebalance after this crazy and wonky week.

I was thinking that my going through this whole 'WE'RE SPLITTING UP!!!' thing and then NOT splitting up would be like crying wolf the next time I am faced with adversity in the relationship, but then, who knows? His PTSD slaps me not physically but cerebrally every few weeks on a regular basis as he struggles with a spate of compounding challenges and I know that if I stay, I am likely going to feel the brunt of that negativity again. I guess what I'm trying to say is that now that I have the EFT training, thanks to Holly, fiscal outs, thanks to those who you know who you are, and emotional support from the rest of you who were so wonderful, perhaps I won't have to descend to Persephone's depths clutching my precious remaining pomegranate seeds, worried that I was losing myself. You won't let that happen. I DO have a net. The love of good people.

So I return to the relationship and its resultant duties, applying myself to the requested task of making shepherd's pie for his dinner. Holding him in bed last night was heaven. I am so confused but I am so loved, and frankly, compared to the grief in other places on the planet, I have nothing to kvetch about at all.

Many hychqas to my friends and allies.

Tina