Some days are easier than others...

I woke this morning with a splitting sinus headache. Allergy season has arrived. After I got my son off to school, I bargained with myself a bit. Today is one of those dreary rainy days and my head hurt and..and...My four year old was still asleep and it would have been so easy to crawl back into the covers and go back to slumber land. Instead I made some coffee and began my daily read. This is one of the quiet times in my day. My son has left for school, my little whirlwind is still asleep. The house is quiet. And the minutes before she wakes and we set off to a day full of activity are few and much enjoyed. Within minutes, I felt energized and inspired. And... well... a bit humbled for having groaned at this new day when I first awoke. The reason for the attitude adjustment?
http://www.gmtoday.com/news/local_stories/2004/September_04/09172004_01.asp
Women work toward peace, paradise in IraqIraq's liberation opens doors, provides freedom
By KRISTA LEDBETTER - GM Today Staff
September 17, 2004

Ahood Aabass, a member of the Al-Tahsinniyya council in Basra, Iraq, talks about how things have changed in her country since the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime. Aabass was the first woman to hold an elected position in Basra since the removal of the country's dictator.
WAUKESHA - Ahood Aabass prays that Iraq's future will be peaceful. At 42, Aabass has seen a life many Americans can't imagine - a life under Saddam Hussein's regime.
Her children went to schools that were without windows, doors and toilets, and where teachers made as little as $3 a month to teach. Water in her city of Basra had worms in it, and women had little, if any, right to freedom.
But in the first year since the liberation of Iraq, Aabass said her life has changed for the better.
"I want to forget the past," said Aabass, who has become one of Iraq's first elected officials, and the first female elected official in the new governing counsel of Basra. Three of her brothers have been killed because they were against Saddam during the Gulf War, and she, her husband and young children spent time in jail because her mother-in-law was of Iranian descent.
"I am active. I have energy and I couldn't use it," said Aabass, who was able to receive several university degrees in mass communication despite not being able to use her education under Saddam's rule.
An alliance
Aabass and Tamara Sarafa Quinn, director of Women's Alliance for a Democratic Iraq, are part of the Iraq-America Freedom Alliance. Quinn is an Iraqi-American citizen who fled Baghdad as Saddam gained power and now lives in the U.S.
Aabass is visiting the U.S. to help Quinn show America a bigger picture of Iraq. The women visited with the Freeman to share their stories.
"The idea is not to say that bombs are not happening, or that we wish that security was a better situation, but at the same time it is not right to say that nothing else is happening that is good," Quinn said.
In the year since liberation, Aabass has become an activist for women's rights. As the first female member of the Al-Tahsinniyya council, which is a new district government council in Basra, she, and all women of Iraq, have been able to accomplish more now than during the previous 20 years under Saddam's rule.
She writes a biweekly newsletter called the Iraqi Women's Echo and is active in several organizations that help support Iraqi women.
Quinn helped found the Women's Alliance for a Democratic Iraq, which was formed in early 2003 and is made up of professional Iraqi-born American women.
"We help women learn the political process and help get them back on their feet," Quinn said.
Recently, the group brought Iraqi women to America to shadow members of Congress so they could see what it is like to debate and learn how to run a campaign.
"When Saddam was in power, he stripped women of their rights, and we're trying our best to regain those rights," Quinn said.
Message for America
Both women said great strides have been made in education, human rights, health care and infrastructure improvements. Iraq has seen schools reopened, refurbished and re-painted. Some 159,000 new desks were distributed to the schools, millions of new textbooks have been printed and 20 million Iraqi citizens now have clean water and sanitation amenities they didn't have before.
Teachers are also now making between $300 and $500 a month to teach, which Quinn said is a great deal to the Iraqis.
Aabass and Quinn said none of these advancements could have been made without the help of the U.S.-led military coalition, and Aabass has a message for Americans.
"We have very good things happening in Iraq because of help from America," she said. "I am very thankful and grateful for our liberty and our freedom because with (America's) help, we can get Saddam Hussein out of our country. I feel very sorry for the families who gave their sons and their daughters who were killed in our country. They are putting their lives on the line to help us."
That means the most to Aabass, because now she is hopeful for the future, Quinn said. She didn't have that before.
"We want peace," Quinn said. "I think Iraq could really be the paradise it was supposed to be."

I found myself once again counting my blessings and being grateful for the beauty in my life, the quiet moments and the hustle and bustle. And for the many things that I daily take for granted.
My thanks to these women who are another example to us of finding opportunity in the difficulty. And to Krista Ledbetter for writing such a wonderful story. God bless all of you.

NOTE: Aabass, who has become one of Iraq's first elected officials, and the first female elected official in the new governing counsel of Basra.
For those who say elections cant happen in Iraq...guess again...on the local level ...they already are!