Here we go....

I guess first there should be some sort of introduction post, right? Right.

My name is Natalie and I live in Arizona. It's hot here. Bright side of that is picnics in the park on New Year's Day, which is pretty awesome. I was born in Chicago, moved here with my parents and sibs when I was six. Moved to Idaho in 1999, then to Oregon in 2007, and have just moved back here with my husband and three daughters.

Let's see...I am a history geek extraordinaire and a voracious reader. I love to sing and hang out with my kids.

Whatever. Stuff. Anyway...

I grew up in a kinda conservative family and attended a church-based (Lutheran) grade school. I hit high school and discovered that not everyone thought the same way. Partly due to my friends and partly for the whole "rebellion" thing, I promptly registered as a Democrat when I turned 18. At that point I kinda decided that politics was boring and I was going to ignore it. This was a bad plan.

A couple of years after that, I started doing some religious exploring and found paganism/witchcraft. This has worked for me since and was not a bad plan, contrary to what some people in my life think. No, I am not ragging on anyone in particular and if you feel that comment was directed at you, I don't mean it in a horribly negative way.

The aforementioned bad plan was only really discovered earlier this year - and I have set about to educate myself. The first thing I learned was that most politicians are only in it for the power, no matter how much they talk about taking care of "the people". The second thing I learned was that religion or lack thereof seems to be way more tied into politics than I have wanted to believe.

From those two things my brain has started whirling in circles, trying to find the right place to land. My oldest daughter has been very helpful, by loaning me the workbook her 5th grade class used (5 years ago now, she's a soph) when they did a section on the Constitution. It's written at just the level I needed!

This blog is going to be used to straighten out my fevered thoughts regarding politics and religion and things attached to them. I do have another blog that is my life in general, but it's locked to friends only and I want this one 1) more focussed and 2) available to people who don't read the other one.

So that's my intro. And now, in an effort to NOT make this post one giant wall of text, I leave you with a couple of links. First, The Constitution, and second, The Declaration of Independence. Who knew they were posted right there online? Surprise! Go. Read them. No, really.

I mean it, what are you waiting for?