How very sad

I came across this from another blogger last night and I'll be honest, I was outraged,  shocked, so angry.  An Etsy artist who goes by the name of "You Stupid B%#@&" is causing quite a stir.  The following text is from the petition for Etsy that I signed, along with adding it to both of my facebook accounts and twitter.  Please scroll down to the link, click on it, and add your name to the petition.  It takes less than a minute.  There have already been over 1,000 people sign it since I did last night.

"Congratulations. You Got Bad Touched."

That's the message printed on cards currently for sale on your website by the user "youstupidbitch." That card is offensive, demeaning, and potentially traumatizing to survivors of sexual assault. The same user also sells cards that mock breast cancer patients and mothers of special needs children. All must be removed from your website immediately.

The first card in question feautres a drawing of a naked sexual assault victim curled up on the floor of a shower stall, "printed on heavy duty white cardstock" complete with "red accents and matching envelope." Can you imagine if someone sent that to an actual rape victim? The cards for breast cancer and Down Syndrome are no better. 

Your official Terms of Use state that you "has no control over the quality, safety, morality or legality of any aspect of the items listed." However, in the list of prohibited items, Etsy says that it does not allow items that harass others or that are deemed obscene. I think a strong case can be made that this card fits both categories.

Etsy may not have a legal obligation to remove the cards in question from its site, but it does have, in my opinion, a moral imperative. Does your company really want to be known as the go-to website for cards that harass, offend, and traumatize survivors of sexual assault, breast cancer patients, and parents of children with Down Syndrome? Do you want to open the doors for sellers like youstupidbitch to peddle the wares unimpeded? I hope not. 

Please remove this card from their website and send a message that this type of product is unwelcome on your website.

http://www.change.org/petitions/view/tell_etsy_to_remove_rape_congratulations_cards_from_website

It even made it to CNN.  Here is the link to the video:

http://cnn.com/video/?/video/bestoftv/2011/01/07/jvm.greeting.cards.hln

Yes, I was outraged, so angry but now that I've had time to settle down, think about this, and pray... I have decided to leave you with the information and let you do as you please.

2 Corinthians 10:3-5  For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.  The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world.  On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.

Cookie Christmas Tree

Since the kids were out of school for the week before Christmas, I knew this project would be a fun one for all of us instead of a headache just for me.

Robbie rolling out the dough

We have a cookie tree kit that came with ten different sizes of stars.  You cut out 2 of each size.  Let me tell you , those big stars are hard to come up in one piece.  Well actually, they didn't haha!  We had to piece them back together on the baking sheet.  But they healed beautifully in the oven .

I normally use buttercream icing on this but I really love the powdered sugar icing for sugar cookies so we went with that instead and I'm so glad, it was delicious!  Start with the biggest cookie, ice it, set it on the platter with a dollop of icing under it to keep it from sliding.  I use a cake board covered in Christmas tissue paper.  

Next is the other star the same size.  Ice it and set it where it lays with its points between the points of the other star.  Follow this pattern all the way to the smallest star.  Save one of the smallest stars for the tree-top star.  This icing hardens faster than the buttercream icing so we had to put sprinkles on it as we went up.  Rich said the guys from work loved it and was even taking pictures of it.  One of them even texted me to thank me and said it was beautiful and tasted great.

Amariah self appointed herself as the photographer.  She had to see how many neat angles of the cookie tree she could get.  

I really like this angle a lot.  It makes the cookies look so thick but airy and oh so delicious!

We had a most wonderful Christmas surrounded by lots of love, family, and laughter.  I'll leave you with this picture of Rich's grandma Soudry and little Robbie.  Frances is a 97 year old full blooded Italian that came to the US from Italy many years ago.  She is definitely a feisty one, but also a real sweetheart.

I'm grateful that my family was able to celebrate the birth of Jesus together.  I'm so glad that God brought us all together and allows us to have great relationships... where we look forward to spending time together... where we can laugh at ourselves yet still feel good about ourselves... where we feel like we belong... because we do.