Shaking my boot-y

After going out for some birthday festivities a few weeks ago and wearing Looseyfur's super comfy go-go boots, I decided I wanted a new pair. I've had a pair for years but they never quite fit right. They were always just smidge small in the foot. Now, post kids, my feet have at least a size and they really really don't fit. Loosey's boots, however were super comfy so I set out on a mission to find myself some new boots. I started looking at Target because I saw a pair there a couple of weeks ago that looked cute. Nothing. So I tried Walmart, Meijer, Payless and Kohl's and found nothing. Everything I found was either too small (I have big feet), too short (ankle height) or had too thin of a heel (I wanted a chunky heel because spiky heels would end with my head broken). Add to that, I have large calves and the one pair I found that was perfect would barely zip past my ankle.

The obvious solution, of course, was to ask Loosey where she got her boots, which I did. Unfortunately, she spent way more on them than I wanted to spend on something I didn't NEED and already had a pair of, even if I don't wear them. But in looking at that site, I found some search terms that I could use to look for other sites. This afternoon, those terms led me to Torrid which has some crazy awesome plus sized stuff. There, they had MY boot. It was a little more than I wanted to spend but still within the limit of my gift card so I ordered up. It should be here in 4-6 business and I can't wait. I hope hope hope they fit right because they are exactly the boot I was looking for. Keep your eyes peeled for my fancy new boots the next time you see me. Because seriously, if I'm spending $60, including shipping, on a pair of shoes, I'm wearing them all the time. Play dates? Check. FCC? Check Preschool pick up? You bet!

Guitar Hero

The video is really dark. The reality of camera phone video :(

They say that a hero will save us

While doing some after Christmas shopping last night, RF bought me Guitar Hero for birthmas (my b-day is in Feb so I often ask for, and get, larger presents because people will combine them and that is fine with me). Plus, I bought Wii Fit and Raving Rabbids TV Party on eBay that I just have to wait to have shipped. So we will have a rock star style party at my house one of these days :)

Additionally, Christmas was good at our house. MT got a Batman shirt and a pink DS from Santa (the only things she asked for). TB got a new computer and a remote control car from Santa. They both got a Chia Pet, which we are waiting to grow now. MT got some wedgits, which I confess I thought had limited play option but she loves them, and TB got new Magnetix. the kids both got some new clothes and we got MT some games for her DS.

I got my curling iron and RF got some new pajama pants to replace his 10 year old pair that finally fell apart.

Today, I'm going to go shopping and see if I can find a new pair of boots and some leggings for MT. It is 2 days after Christmas and they already have bathing suits out in stores. Do they not understand that people still need cold weather apprioriate clothing for kids? Hopefully, I'll get some deal with the after Christmas sales :)

Not the reason

Leaving Christ out of Christmas

I wrote a post about this a few days ago andnever posted it. It wasn't well thought out and didn't come together like I wanted. So I leave it to Slate to say how I feel about religion and holidays.

Hell has frozen over

And if you look at the weather, you will see that Central Illinois has as well. Because of the deep freeze, we are hanging out at home today and I was playing *GASP* Christmas Music! Of course it was Trans-Siberian Orchestra's Carol of the Bells



and I followed it up with Green Day's Minority



but hey, take what you can get LOL

On the road again

Per RF's suggestion, I have created a blog specifically for travel reviews so they can be kept together and easily accessable. If you are interested in that sort of thing, feel free to subscribe :)

Freaky travels. Enjoy.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Or at least regcognizes a few letters. I went to Target today and got a shirt that says "CELEBRATE!" (those of you that know me, plan to see this shirt over the next few weeks because it is nifty and I will be wearing it for the upcoming holidays). I put it on when I got home and MT asked me what is said. I told her and then pointed to each letter (she has an interest in letters and reading so I make a point of encouraging that for her) to tell her what they were. I pointed and said "c" and then I pointed to the e and before I could say anything she said "e" then she pointed and said "l, e, b and I don't know the rest" LOL It will be so nice to have kid that I don't have to hear about how she can't read all the time. Of course she probably won't be able to do math or something like that but damn it, at least she'll be able to read.

After that, we had my extended family Christmas dinner. Usually we have it at my parents house but with Mom's foot being messed up still, she didn't want to clean and cook and whatnot so we had it at Ryan's instead. Everyone got to eat exactly what they wanted and then we got presents.

MT got new underwear (that she asked for specifically) princess dominoes, a princess story book and a whole boat load of new dresses. TB got a small set of Magnetix, a gift card to Walmart, and $50 in cash (which goes towards his wish of a thousand in cash that he asked for from Santa). RF and I got our Xmas money and now I'm trying to figure out how to spend mine.

Do I be responsible and buy some things we need (nothing major, just some clothes and things for me and the kids) or do I be totally friviolous and buy a Wii fit and Raving Rabbids, if I can afford both. The Wii Fit is $100+ by itself but I'm looking on eBay to see if I can get it cheaper, in which case I can get the game too. Otherwise, I have to wait until my birthday to get the game. In reality, I just want the balance board because I don't care much about the Wii Fit (it would be fun for a while but doesn't seem to have staying power) which I why I turned to eBay in the first place. I hoped to find just the board but it doesn't seem that anyone is selling that right now.

Blond Ambition

Yes, it needs spiked. This was taken about 5 minutes after he got out of the shower from rinsing out the bleach. Stayed for new pictures tomorrow, with the finishing touches on it :)

Neat Freak

First of all, I need to point out that I rarely come up with good titles, although I try (when I grow up, I want to write titles like Quigs LOL). Today, I'm giggling like mad at my title and that makes me happy. On to the post.

I'm generally lazy and slovenly. My house is generally a mess and usually that doesn't bother me. Recently, we've started having people over more often (I tried to keep people the heck out of my house as a general rule before) so I had to clean it up. Surface cleaning, the type I do most often, just wasn't going to cut it so I kicked it up a notch and really started CLEANING things. I have managed to finish every room in my house except my bedroom(on the agenda, I just didn't feel like it today), the bathroom (I need to really scrub the hell out of the tub, but otherwise it is done), RF's room (he needs to clean off his desk and I need to vaccum) and TB's nook (we are going to clean the hell out of that place over break. He has had it set up only a few months and it is already a health hazard. He is gonna hate it but that is too bad).

Overall, I'm really enjoying the effect of the cleaner house. We have less stuff because I have been mercilessly tossing things, which means less stuff to keep clean in the future. I've managed to stay on top of the rooms that I've cleaned and I'm making the kids, who are more than old enough, help out, especially with picking up their junk. They hate how dictatorish I've become about cleaning but that is just too bad. They need to know that they can't trash the house and then walk away and let someone else clean it up. I'm done being the maid.

I'm also using up stuff that I've been saving. When TB was little, I sold PartyLite for awhile. Basically, it was overprized junk but I have a ton of it. I never could really burn it because TB was facinated with the flame and would try to pull them over or climb to get them. My kids are old enough to leave that kind of thing alone now so I've been burning candles like mad. Anytime we are home for any length of time, I light them. I started digging through the "candle cabinet" looking for a pillar candle and I discovered that I had over 20 dozen tealight candles, several pillars, some tapers, a few jars, etc etc etc. So I dug out a bunch of candle holders and I'm getting rid of all of them. My goal is to have the candle cabinet empty by spring. At least empty of candles. I have a bunch of nice (expensive) holder that I intend to keep and use with cheap candles in the future.

I need speaker of other languages

Specifically Korean and Spanish. We were discussing at PTA last, translating things to other languages commonly spoken at our school. Spanish and Korean are our 2 biggies and we have someone that can translate to Spanish but there is an issue with the ESL teacher translating, off the clock, for us (I don't know precisely what it is but it had to do with contract and teacher unions and things). We were discussing using the Google translator or Bablefish to translate letters for non-English speaking parents. The issue is, we don't know how correct these translators are. So if I post some text, would someone who speaks the language, tell me what they say?

Bablefish Spanish

Estimados padres, Tendremos nuestra celebración de días festivos después del programa del día de fiesta el viernes 19 de diciembre. El comienzo del programa en 9 y el partido correcto después. Firme por favor para arriba abajo para los artículos para nuestro partido. Gracias

Google Spanish

Queridos padres,
Vamos a tener nuestra fiesta después de que el programa feriado el viernes 19 de diciembre. El programa comienza a las 9 am y el partido será justo después.

Por favor, firme a continuación para los temas de nuestro partido.

Gracias



Apparently, I don't have a Korean language pack installed on my computer so I can't really translate to it. All I get are little boxes. :(

Anyway, help would be appreciated :)

quizzes

Your result for The Are you a SEXY geek test...

The Hip Nerd

52% Sexy!

You are one of those rare geeks that has style! You march to the beat of your own drummer, You enjoy the geeky things in life, but you can mingle in any crowd. As the geek. You definitely love your sci-fi and computers, probably a bit TOO much, but you also know when to put it on the shelf. Supermodels may be out of your league, but you have enough style to date. And you can always download the supermodels later when you get home.

Take The Are you a SEXY geek test at HelloQuizzy

Your result for The Pop Culture Archetype Personality Test...

The Fighter

Pirate, Monkey, Zombie, Clown

Fighters enjoy being in charge, and are excellent protectors, being hyper-vigilant and aware of the danger in the world. They see problems and obstacles clearly, and delegate easily to others where necessary, working and playing equally hard. They have a strong sense of seniority and allegiance, and are willing to serve, though they expect the same from others. Though tough-minded, they are easily wounded emotionally, with their strong sense of right and wrong causing them to struggle between swift justice against transgressors, and rescuing the punished from their punishment at the last minute. Though decisive, they will often construct their worldviews from only those facts that support the conclusion drawn by their gut feelings.

Fighters tend towards a Masochistic temperament, with a pattern of avoiding pleasure and seeking out experiences that lead to suffering. They will prevent others from helping them, and will often hinder the attempts of others to help them in their time of need. They respond to positive rewards with depression and guilt, and take little interest in those who treat them well. They often perform self-sacrificing tasks without being asked to.

Famous fighters include William McKinley, Bill Clinton, Terry Bradshaw, Sally Struthers and Danny Glover.

Take The Pop Culture Archetype Personality Test at HelloQuizzy

You know you've made it

when the governor of your state is parodied on SNL

Is this one of those "with age comes wisdom" things?

Will someone please explain to my son that if you have a heated electric blanket that you sleep on, the most effect use of said blanket is not to turn it to high and then uncover.

I'm just saying.

Happy New Year (unless you have kids)

Can someone please explain to me why there is not a single group or organization anywhere in this town (or any closer than frikkin' Springfield) that does any kind of family friendly New Year's Eve night event? We have a playgroup thing in the afternoon and I've seen that other places as well (a Noon Year's Eve celebration) which is great for younger kids and my kids will have a good time at but I want something to do in the evening with the kids. In years past, we've gone to Tuscola to their New Year's Eve dance that ran from 7-12. This was perfect for us because we could go for a couple of hours and still have the kids home at a reasonable hour. Apparently, they have cancelled it (it didn't happen last year and it isn't on the calendar for this year), which sucks! I simply can't believe that we don't have a First Night celebration or that the park districts don't do something. You can't tell me that I'm the only parent in the whole town that wants to celebrate New Years Eve with my kids.

If I had unlimited money, I would rent a space, hire a DJ, bring in food and throw a family friendly New Year's Eve bash. I can only imagine there must be interest and the only reason that Tuscola faded is because it is too small of a town to support that and it is too far from CU to be worth the drive (especially on New Year's when the likely hood of drunks and bad weather goes up).

Clean up your life

Back in April, I took pictures of my "trouble spots" and posted them for Mrs Chicken. Last month, we had some friends over for dinner and despite cleaning all day, I was still vaguely embarrassed to have people over (I know, my friends, not gonna critize too harshly, etc, still it stressed me). Since then (and since I'm hosting dinner again next week), I've been on a cleaning mission. Each day, I take a room or section of room and clean the hell out of it. I started in the laundry room an put all the laundry away, swept, mopped, cleaned off the window sill, etc. Then I moved to the living and sorted my art center, tossing any old markers, drawn on pieces of paper, etc. After that I moved around the living room, cleaning, sorting, dusting, swept, mopping, vacuuming and scrubbing the walls. Then I moved to the kitchen, taking apart the fridge and scrubbing the shelves and walls. Then I moved to the dining room and cleaned off the butcher block, my desk, and bar.

I still have to clean off the fridge top, scrub one side of it (I didn't realize it was that dirty until I was sticking magnets on it today and it is a mess), clean out the pantry, clean the bathroom, and my bedroom (and coerce The Boy into cleaning his room as well, but that is going to happen over break when we have plenty of time to devote to it). I will be mostly done by next week and what I don't get done won't be in public areas of the house so I won't have to worry about it. Now I just have to stay on top of it and keep it clean so I don't have to work like a maniac in the future to get it clean again :)

For contrast, I posted the link to the pictures taken in April for the Dirty Housewives and then the pictures I took today of those 2 areas.

New hair cut

I decided that all my efforts to get my hair looking decent were in vain so I got it cut today. I told her I just wanted it trimmed, that I didn't want to lose any length. She told me she could do that or she could even it up, make it closer to one length. So, it is shorter than I wanted (no ponytail, is sad) but it is cute and looks decent, although the left side still flips the wrong freaking way!

Can't Get Enough Of You Baby

So Quigs and Make up Girl tagged me for a meme. I'm using RF's shared iTunes folders with only things I'll listen to selected. My MP3 player is in the car and it is too cold to go get it :)

1. Put your iPod or whatever music player you have on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS!
4. Tag 5 friends who might enjoy doing this as well as the person you got this from. Let them know they've been tagged.


IF SOMEONE SAYS "IS THIS OKAY" YOU SAY?
Daylight Fading Counting Crows

WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
Margaritaville Jimmy Buffet

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
I'm a Believer Smash Mouth

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
Cheeseburger in Paradise Jimmy buffet

WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
Starry Eyed Surprise Paul Oakenfield

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
Mary Jane's Last Dance Tom Petty

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
Swing Swing All American Rejects

WHAT IS 2+2?
Conventioneers BareNaked Ladies

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
Bossman Lucky Boys Confusion

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Mambo No. 5 Lou Bega

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
Enid BareNaked Ladies

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
Monster Mash Dr Demento

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Manic Monday The Bangles

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
Aquarius/Let the Sun Shine In The 5th Dimension

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
Sell Out Reel Big Fish

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
Nuttn' for Christmas

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
I Didn't Like you Anyway The Donnas

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
Jumper Third Eye Blind

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
Damn Matchbox 20

WHAT'S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN?
Hey There Delilah Plain White T's

HOW WILL YOU DIE?
Only Wanna Be With You Hootie and the Blowfish

WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU REGRET?
Be my Yoko Ono BareNaked Ladies

WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH?
AM Radio Everclear

WHAT MAKES YOU CRY?
Bohemian Like You Dandy Warhols

WILL YOU EVER GET MARRIED?
For What It's Worth Buffalo Springfield

WHAT SCARES YOU THE MOST?
Life After Lisa Bowling For Soup

DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU?
Love Shack B-52's

IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?
Brick Ben Folds Five

WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW?
Shoebox BareNaked Ladies

WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
Can't Get Enough Of You Baby Smash Mouth

And because I'm late to the party, I end the tagging here. All the locals have been tagged already and I don't want to hunt down other people. So if you want to do it and you haven't been tagged, do it. Otherwise, don't! :)

Straight hair

This is straightened with the curling iron. I know, you totally can't tell I just spent the last hour on it, can you?

I'm borrowing a flat iron to see if that works better, but I may give in to RF's offer of getting my hair done. If I get it done (it needs trimmed a little anyway) Saturday morning, it should still be good for that night.

Hair pictures

Last night's attempt. Curled all the hair and it was way too much

Today's attempt, where I only curled part of it and it looks like I didn't do anything.

You want a date?

The conversation started innocently enough. TB said that his sister was like Megan from Drake and Josh, smart and evil.
Ok so if she is Megan, then are you Drake or Josh?
Drake of course, he is a rockstar.
Yeah? Josh is kind of cool too (he isn't but you know)
No he isn't Drake plays guitar and kisses girls
Would you like to kiss girls?
Yeah, pretty much
Which girls would you like to kiss?
Well, N's sister is in love with me but I don't know which I would rather date.

Then we had this whole long involved discussion about the girls in his class and you who he might like to date.

Times 100

With the book I started reading yesterday, I'm at 100 books for the year! This was my goal this year and I think I got a little stressed about it at times (like this week)because I found myself reading 2 or 3 books at a time to beef up my list. I finished them all so they all counted but it made me feel better to have them listed. So now I've reached my goal and I have a few more weeks to go. I know that I will finish at least one more book before the end of the year so I'm going to wait until the year is said and done to post my list here. I just couldn't wait another 2 weeks to announce hitting my goal :)

Meeting people

About a year ago, a new person joined our playgroup. She went to tons of meetups and I know because I was at most them. After about the 3rd or 4th one, I commented to RF "there is a new girl in the group and she is at all the meetups that I've been at recently and I'm just not sure what I think about her. Sometimes she is really funny and other times I'm just not sure how to take her. She'll say things that sound like things I would say but she sounds serious about them. I can't decide if she just has a super dry sense of humor or is just kind of a bitch" RF suggested that I take her how I would want to be taken which is with a painfully dry sense of humor. So I kept hanging out with her and taking her in the best possible spirit. After awhile, I figured out that I was taking things exactly the right way and not only was she not a bitch, but she was a super fab, awesome person!

Today, I spent the afternoon hanging out with her, Loosey, Harley and Ms. Lemonade, baking holiday cookies. I chose easy drop cookies so I walked in, threw them on a cookie sheet and tossed them in the oven. In 13 minutes, I was done and could sit and drink and talk and drink and talk we did! We had a super fab time discussing everything and snacking on the yummy goodies. I brought a little bit of each item home and now i'm trying to figure out if I should be a good wife and mom and share the bounty with my family or if I should be selfish glutton and hide it all for me. Naturally, I leave towards the selfish but I do try to be better occasionally :)

What goes Ho Ho Ho, thump?

Santa Claus laughing his head off, of course! What goes "Holy Crap it's cold out here"? That would be the playgroup freezing our butts off at the annual parade of lights tonight. Despite the cold, the parade was good. Looseyfur set us up in a darn good spot. We were right in front of Aroma Cafe, where the view of the parade was great and we had access to warmth and bathrooms. Nothing better than that. :)

MT decided to dance to keep warm while we waited


I had no idea that there would be candy thown at the parade so I didn't bring our candy bags. However, my resourceful kids used TB's camera bag to hold all their candy. Smarties :)

We met up with the Quigs family


as well as several of our other favorite people! Poor Pretty Girl wasn't happy about the cold at all. Fortunately, her daddy was willing to let her borrow his coat.


The MTD float got to have one of the star balloons that were in the parade


Their bus was pretty cool too


This was the display on the top of the bus. I'm amazed it stayed put with the way the wind was howling.


I liked the teddy bears sledding



Tigger, Piglet, The Cat in the Hat and a dalmation joined in the parade as well.




Finally, the big guy himself!

Addition to the library

My friend Jen over at Flannel Hippos posted about her favorite things. One of them was the online catalog for the library. I agree with her about using it but I would like to go one step further.

I was thinking today how much I love the online catalog for the library. The only thing that would make it better is if they had a drive up pick up area. Similar to the old fast food places that had multiple food windows with the little elevator that came in and out. They could have a person working the hold room and you drive up, send in your card, they scan it, retrieve your items, send them and the card and the receipt back to you and you go on your merry way.

There have been many many times (less now that the kids are older but it still happens regularly) when I passed ona trip to the library because someone was asleep in the car or is was pouring down rain and I didn't want to drag everyone in or someone was sick and I didn't want to infect the whole library or any of a dozen other reason why I would want to drive through.

Of course, the hold roomw would still accessable to people in the library so you can pick up stuff if you are in (we are there a couple of times a week typically) but you don't have to go in if you don't want to. Unfortunately, with our new building, I doubt we would see anything like this any time soon. They won't be remodelling the builidng to include it and there isn't a way to do it without some construction.

Magic House Review

While we were in St Louis last weekend, we went to the Magic House. I had been several times when I was kid but hadn't been in about 20 years. Apparently, according to my mom because I didn't remember, it is COMPLETELY different.

When you walk in the door, there is the admission desk where you pay and get your sticker, letting people know you have paid. To the left are a few benches and the gift shop. Beyond the benches, there is a large expansion area, which is opening next week. To the right is the actual museum area. As you head down the hallway, they have the "Little bit of magic" area for kids under 6 (shh, don't tell but we snuck TB in). In it, they have some slides, a sand table, a water play table, a climbing area. In the back corner, they have a baby area for kids under 2.

Around the corner from the LBOM area, there is the Math Path, which is all numbers. From math puzzles and guess the number of items to giant calculators and build the fastest Lego car, the Math Path is a dream come true for your budding Einstein.

Beyond the Math Path, you will find the Children's Village. It includes magnetic fishing, a mechanic's shop with a car up on a lift, an electric company, a store, a pizza palor and a tree fort. This also were the elevator to the basement is located. MT loved playing in the mechanic's shop, changing the tires and the license plate on the cars (this tells me she will either be a mechanic or a car thief LOL) TB liked the tree house and the pizza palor.

From there, we took the elevator down to the basement because the kids were hungry and there was a vending area marked on the map. We were disappointed to find that their vending area consisted of a couple of drink machines and no food. Both kids ended up getting sugary caffinated drinks so they were really hopped up for the rest of the visit.

After our drink stop, we continued down the hall, past the experiment center. It looked like something TB would have enjoyed but there was really nothing for MT so we bypassed it. The majority of the basement is given over to Lewis and Clark. In one area, they have a Lewis and Clark camp site, with a wooden canoe, a teepee and a fire, as well as some costumes to dress up in. MT proclaimed it "boring" and insisted on going elsewhere. Off of the camp site, they have a Lewis and Clark Trail setup. WARNING, this exhibit is NOT for young children, old people, or anyone with any kind of limited mobility. The age range for it is 5-12 but we took MT in because wouldn't allow us to leave her out. 10 feet into the exhibit, there is a rope you have to use to swing across a gap in the floor (you can walk across if you must, but what is the fun in that), that leads to stumps to step on, ladders to climb and slides to slide down. Over all the whole exhibit was pretty dark, with some pitch black spots. It was also pretty physical and quite fun. The kids wanted to make a repeat trip through but each guest is only allowed through once, for some reason.

Then it was up to the third floor to see the fitness center, the shadow wall and the coolest of all, the electro-static generator. That is the machine that when you touch it, makes your hair stand up all wild. Unfortunately, it didn't work at all for TB. It worked fairly well for MT but because I had to hold her to reach it, I didn't get a picture of it. However, we found that my hair worked GREAT so I went back and TB took a picture of my crazy hair.

By then the kids were hungry and tired and we decided to call it a day. We stopped off in the gift shop which was pretty much to be expected. It had the components of the various exhibits, highly priced for children to beg for. We picked up a couple of things and got some ideas for Christmas as well.

I remember it being mostly a museum for older kids, but MT had a really great time. There were a few things she couldn't do (the Lego racers were for kids 4+ but I think that was because they are considered chocking hazards) but she didn't lack for things to keep her busy.

Over all, I would give it 3.5 stars. I think it will be better when the new expansion opens up and when it is warmer, the outside stuff will be available. As it is right now, the really fun exhibits (LBOM, Math Path, etc) were really crowed and moving around and keeping your kids in sight was fairly difficult. With more space, some of that congestion would be relieved. I was also umimpressed with the lack of snack machines. If we had something to eat and if the crowds had been less, we probably would have stayed longer. As it was, we rushed through some exhibits and bypassed other completely, just to move things along.

Talkin' in your sleep

It was pointed out to me today that most men sleep on the left side of the bed, when you are standing at the foot, looking towards the head. Every person I've polled, except one, has confimed this so I now I want a larger audience to weigh in.

Standing at the foot of your bed, what side do you sleep on?

SAHM I am

I was reading Mommy Track'd which is mostly for working moms but there is plenty of stuff that is just funny and entertaining for me. On it, they have a section about worst mom moments. In it I found the following:

"An evening board meeting was just getting started when my cell phone rang, seeing it was my husband, I silenced it and turned the phone off. I was pissed he called at 6:05, knowing the meeting started at 6. He had to leave a message to tell me my 3 month old first-born son had fallen off the couch onto his head, which I didn't pick up until 2 hours later. (ps. In the end my son was fine.)"

First let me comment that most of the posts where so poorly written, they were barely in English so I didn't find much of anything I could identify with but this one just boggled my mind.

I suppose my reaction to this is part of the reason I'm no longer in the work force. Everyone talks about balance but I never got that. My kids were more important than anything and they came first, period. If my husband was with the kids and he called, I would have either taken the call, thus being able to be there for the trip to the hospital or I would have checked my voicemail as soon as it was left, thus beng there for the hospital trip. Either way, work would have had to wait, the building wouldn't fall down because I left.

I've always felt that way about work/family issues. And I've always pondered whether that stemmed from having a "job" versus having a "career". When I worked full time, I was a receptionist. Not a real long term job that I intended to advance in so I had no real incentive to please people.

The eyes have it, details

So basically TB has an astigmatism that makes him both near sighted and far sighted. So he is squinting trying to see the board and trying to read anything close up and that is giving him headaches. It isn't a very bad one so he only needs glasses for any eye work type things. He doesn't need them for playing or running around or anything, which should help with the "keeping them intact" issues. Of course, them we have the "he doesn't have to wear them all the time so he can't find them" issues but whatever.

Part of my grouchy mood today was dealing with both the monsters at the eye doctor. They were being terrible, wrestling, fighting, arguing etc. I was seriously ready to leave them there by the time we were done. Plus, the exam and waiting took forever. Our appointment was at 9:20 and we didn't get done until after 10:30.

The other part was dealing with the insurance. The kids have AllKids, which is great for most stuff but dental and vision sucks. When I had to try and get TB a dental exam, they told me the only participating dentist was in Peoria! Really? I'm so not driving almost 2 hours to have his teeth looked at when he just had them cleaned but you people say that wasn't good enough. Vision is a bit better but still a PITA. First, I called the referral place and was told Jones Optical. I called them yesterday and they said they didn't book new patients, that I had to call Public Health and get them to make a referral. So I called PH and was told they don't do referrals to Jones but they do to Chittick. Fine, as long as they take my insurance. They did so it was fine. Then after we did the exam today, I was told that my insurance doesn't cover actually getting the glasses!!! WTF? The guy told me I would have to call Public Health again and they would fill the prescription for me. So I called and got a voicemail. She called me back and left a message telling me to keep calling until I talked to a live person. Eventually, I got ahold of her and was told that we have to wait until Dec 22 to get in to get fitted for the glasses. Again I say, really? Hopefully, that will get moved up if she manages to get out of jury duty but still, 20 days of knowing that he needs glasses and not being able to get them. I'm also concerned that the frames will end up being ugly and not something he'll want to wear. My hope is that they have at least a few styles to chose from so he can pick something that looks ok. He was really excited when he saw the green frames they had at Chittick and was pretty ticked when he found out he couldn't have them.

The eyes have it

TB had his eye appointment today. He has an astigmatism and needs glasses. I'm in a craptacular mood so I don't feel like writing more than that right now. Full details to follow

Why?

Seriously, why can my kid read the word ostriches but not at?

Finally the end

I have blogged every day of Nov. Most of it was drivel but it is all out there. Expect a break of a few days now, until I have something to say. Eventually, I will work up the energy to write about a trip and review the Magic House and Way of Lights.

However, I'm thrilled to end the month this way. I get wish my best friend since grade school congratulations on her engagement! She called this morning as we were coming home to tell me about it. I'm so excited and happy for her! She has been dating her fiance for 2.5 years and living with him for at least a year. He surprised her with a ring this morning and told her it was her early Christmas present. They are planning to get married in about a year so plan to hear more about this as time goes by. I will either be her matron of honor or a regular bridesmaid, depending on if she wants her sister to be the MOH or not. I'm kind of excited about that too since I haven't been in a wedding since I was 8 and I was in my Uncle's wedding.

Here Fishie fishie

MT catches a fish at the magic house

TB catches a fish at the Magic House

Shopped til I dropped

I got everything on my list. I started at 3, standing in line at Staples. From there, we went to Target and then to Meijer. We were done by 7:30 and I have finshed Xmas shopping online by 9.

Now we are in St Louis so you will have to wait a few days for a proper update

Things I'm thankful for:

My kids
My husband
My friends
My family
The alternative hours supper club (we need a better name. I'm open to suggestions LOL)
My house
The ability to stay home with my kids

Let's get physical

The Boy had his seven year check up today, only 6 weeks late which is much better than say his 6 year check up that was a year and 6 weeks late LOL

He is 56 pounds and 49 inches tall. That makes him 50% for height and 75% for weight. At least this time, the doctor didn't tell me to put him on a diet (maybe had something to do with the fact that I laughed in his face the last time he mentioned it, especially after all the "feed him more, feed him more" when he was younger).

The doctor said he didn't think his headaches were too big of a deal but to keep an eye on them and if they persisted or got worse (he gave me a whole list of things to keep in mind for tracking the headaches), see him again. Unfortunately, he failed the eye test :( I have to call the optometrist to get him checked for real (the test at the doctor's office is a basic test that doesn't necessarily indicate an eye problem) because they close at noon on Weds and are obviously closed tomorrow. So I will follow up with that early next week (I might try to call on Friday but we will see if I can work it in around shopping and traveling).

After his appointment, we went to Toys R Us to find some gift ideas for Xmas. We came away with a couple of things for TB and very little for MT. :( I'm sure neither of them will be hurting for presents :)

A mom of one of TB's school friends called me this morning to let me know he had broken out in Chicken Pox. Fortunately, both of my kids had it about 2 years ago so we are safe but she said she called the "frienemy"'s mom and let her know and is calling the school so they can let the parents in his class know. That sucks for all of them.

I have gas

and because I do, I can almost guarentee that it was cheaper you when you got it. Ever since gas prices started going down, EVERY SINGLE TIME I've filled up my van, within 24-48 hours gas prices have dropped between 10 and 15 cents per gallon. It is ticking me off to no end and it seriously happens every time. I was a thought my streak had broken last week when I got gas in BN, 5 cents cheaper than it was here and I went 2 full days without seeing a drop in price. Then it dropped and the streak has continued. Seriously, I'm tired of it. Someone else needs to get the more expensive gas for once.

Food Fight

Last week, I posted about Thanksgiving with the ILs. I've been kind of a coward about calling MIL and telling her that we weren't coming because I know how much she hates that the other DIL does that crap all the time. RF assures me that I'm the fave DIL, no matter and I contend that it like the choice between a bologna sandwich and getting punched in the teeth. Neither is a good choice but one is the obvious winner. LOL

Anyway, MIL and my mom were supposed to get the kids a joint gift for Xmas but my mom decided not to do it so she called MIL and during the call, spilled the beans. No biggie, I needed to call her anyway. So she called me today to see about it and I told her that I intend to come out and see everyone at 11 and then leave at noon to come back home for my family's dinner. MIL thought that was FAB idea! She was excited that I would give them some time, even if we didn't stay for food. She told me "I told your dad (she meant FIL but she does that all the time) last night that you had a good head on your shoulders and you would come up with something that would work for everybody. Not like *other DIL* who says that no one owns Thanksgiving and won't bother to grace us with her presence" LOL

So basically problem solved. Now, I just have to come up with acceptable gift ideas for them to get the kids for Xmas since the group gift is a no go. Sort of off topic, anyone know what a good size trampoline would be for 2 kids to use together? (the group gift was a trampoline) We looked at a 12 foot one but I think it looks kind of small for both kids at the same time.

Going to the dogs

Seriously Reelz Channel needs to quit showing "behind the scenes" Twilight stuff because they are being shown inter-mingled with Bolt stuff and I know WAY TOO MUCH about that crazy dog and his friends now.

Happy anniversary

To my husband. It sure doesn't seem like 8 years. Thanks for all you do and putting up with my crap for this long. Don't expect that to change any time soon, of course, but thanks just the same! :)

Good things

I watched Surivor last night and was LMAO at the strategy. Bob and sugar rock! And um, I don't like Crystal but her yelling at the camera cracked me up. LOL

I ordered my new battery on Amazon. Dell sells it for 130. Amazon marketplace sells it for 58. No contest. Even though the Amazon one is an after market, there is no way I would over twice the price for a name brand.

Twilight review

I got to go see Twilight tonight. I liked it. I went into expecting to be disappointed because I liked the books SO MUCH. I have heard from various sources that it was either spot on (it wasn't) or it was completely different(it wasn't). It was sort of a mix. Some parts were line for line out of the book, others, quite different.

Most notably, the thing I felt was lacking was the complusion I felt over the Edward Bella love story in the book. In the book, I really felt for them and cheered for them. In the movie, I found myself rolling at eyes a bit at the whole thing. It just didn't translate well to the big screen, in that respect. I also hated the entire Port Angles scene because it was totally wrong. She never made it to the book store, she never fought with the guys, etc. Other than the fact that Edward saved her and drove her home (and that she ate something mushroom based, which I thought was an odd detail to include when other important things were left out), the scene was completely different. The scene I hated was the "look at me, I'm a bad ass sparkly vampire" scene. That wasn't how it went and the sparkly sucked. The first time they showed him in the sun, he looked damp not sparkly. The second time was much better, much truer to the book and had better makeup. The only other I didn't like was the actors tended to buy into the "go big or go home" school of acting. There were a few times when they completely overacted, sometimes to the detrement of the movie. For example, Bella's "intense" face, usually just made her look pissed. And I know the fight scene at the end is supposed to be all dramatic and tense but Edward's "I'm so mad, my left eye is all squinty" face made me want to roll around on the floor laughing like crazy. It was truly bad! Sometimes, the over acting was good, like when he first got the scent of her is class. He went big and paid off by making it a funny scene. The special effects were a bit cheesy (the running and tree climbing looked totally hacked together) but it was a fairly low budget movie and not a special effects movie. It was a love story after all. They left out a few scenes that I would have liked to have seen as well. I really wanted to see Bella try to flirt the information out of Jacob on the beach

Things I liked:
They kept a lot of the laugh out loud moments from the book and added some others. There were several times that I found myself laughing, although I didn't really expect to. The bio teacher cracked me up as did the antics of the other boys in school and the line "man, let a playa play". The other thing I liked was watching Ms Lemonade jump every time a vampire suddenly appeared on screen! She added quite a bit of humor to the movie for me so if you can get her to go with you, I highly recommend it :)

Although I could have done with another actor for Edward, I really liked the choices for Emmett and Alice. In looking at still pictures, I thought I wouldn't like the casting of Jacob but he pulled it off in the movie. So I revise my early position and say "good choice" Basically, I liked the parts that stayed true to the book.

Overall, I would say 3 and 3/4 stars because it was better than just average and I was entertained the whole. With a little polish and a slightly larger budget, I think the second film has the potential to be great. Unfortunately, we all know that the longer a book, the more chance they have of screwing it up. Also, the second book, with the break up and the internal struggle has the potential to not translate very well. Only time will tell.

Family and home advice

Reposted entirely without permission:

I’m not even certain where to start… but last night, the child had a tantrum around the time we were trying to sit down for dinner. Which is not unusual – he’s on the fringes of the behavior described in the Explosive Child, so I try to keep that in mind and work with him before things get out of control. Lately, I’ve been farily successful in that area. What started the blow-up was this: the child decided he wanted some ranch dressing in a bowl so he could dip his pasta wheels. I immediately pulled out a very small bowl and put some in for him and set it on the table with his plate. Meanwhile, he’s pulling a larger cereal bowl out of the cabinet; he had wanted that size bowl. DH comes in all bull-headed and won’t let him switch out bowls, which I was totally willing to do. They start butting heads and off it goes. Unfortunately scenarios like that are not too unusual either… DH and the child really set each other off. Sigh.

This was followed by several posts offering support but no real advice and lots of people saying they could have written that post. I offered some water down advice and general information but what I really wanted to say was "are you freaking kidding me? You let your husband rile your 2 year old into a tantrum about a bowl?" WTF!

Too many people expect people to do what they want without having to say it. If you want something you have to tell people that you want it. People in general but especially men are not mind readers! They can not know what you from them unless you tell them. Women who complain that someone missed their birthday, anniversary, special occasion but never reminded anyone get what they deserve. DH never forgets our anniversary or my birthday. I wouldn't allow him to forget. Never mind the emails saying "I want this thing" a few weeks before, I make a point of saying "don't forget, this coming up" I read constantly about people who suffer their ILs in silence instead of saying anything. When we got married my MIL said "what do you need me to do" and I gave her a list of things. She came back and said "how about I do this this and this instead?" After a few times of that, I finally told her "If you can't do the things I need, I don't need your help, see you at the ceremony" From then on, she was on board with what I needed her to do, not what she wanted to do.

People need to quit being all nicey nice or passive aggressive. They need to say what they mean and mean what they say and if other people can't handle that, they aren't people you need in your life anyway!

Found

Just FYI, in case I forget to mention it later, Gloria has been found so no need to keep up the search. Thanks all

You need advice

I have nothing to write about. But I'm doing NaMoBoPo so I need to make posts every for the whole month. I'm over halfway there so I can't just quit now. So somewhat lamely, I'm going to look on the internet and find advice columns and offer my own input on the questions. Should any of my readers care to help in my quest, I'm willing to answer your questions and need for advice as well. Or if you see anything on the net that needs my brand of input, email me and let me know. But be forwarned, you won't get nicey nice from me. You'll get the truth, whether you want it or not. :)

From Dear Abby:

How do I make my husband understand that how I cut my hair has nothing to do with him? I am 30 years old, and I have a full-time job and three kids who are involved in everything. Because I am always on the go, I need a hairdo that is easy to manage and cute, so I ended up getting my hair cut short. I love it. It makes me feel younger, cuter and trendy.

When my husband and I started dating, I used to have long, thick hair -- but I was not aware that keeping my hair long was "part of the deal." He feels I cut my hair purposely to go against what he wants. That sounds selfish to me. Isn't it MY hair? -- SHORT AND TRENDY IN WEST TEXAS

Freak says:
Tell your husband if he wants someone in your relationship to have long hair, he needs to grow his long. It IS your hair and you can cut it how you want, when you want. If he doesn't like it, that is too bad for him.

Not so thankful

So Thanksgiving is coming up. Not a huge stressful holiday for us like it is for many people. We don't hate our families, we don't have to travel far, etc. However, we are having a little issue this year. Typically, RF's grandma hosts lunch at noon. She has done this every year for the past 30 and every one is expected to be there. My family doesn't always do something for Thanksgiving. Usually every other year or so. In the past, we have vacationed on the holiday (we went to Grand Bear a couple of years ago to the indoor water park and had a blast) or just done a dinner either at the house or at a resturant, when we aren't feeling like cooking. Well this year is the year for my family to have something and my mom has decided to have it at 12:30.

My issue with Thanksgiving at RF's grandma's is first up, I don't get along with either of his uncle (and only barely with the aunts). One uncle and I got into about the pending smoking ban a few years ago and he hasn't spoken to me since. Basically, he thought that he could get me to back off by being a smart ass but any one that knows me, knows that isn't going to fly. So he and his wife don't speak to me. Super fun family gatherings, that. The other uncle is religious fanatic who will pin people down and preach at them if he can catch them. He also likes to talk, loudly, about many things he has no idea about and then he busts out the scripture when someone dares disagree with him. So I don't do well when I have to interact with him. I do my best to ignore him but every so often, he will get right in my face. The other issue, which is much more important to me than the personality problems of his family (MIL FIL and GMIL are great, it is just the extendeds that bother me) is that they have weird food. Besides turkey, there is very little that either I or the kids will eat. Last year, MT had pie and chocolate candy for Thanksgiving dinner because there was NOTHING else there she would even look twice at. TB does slightly better because he will eat meat, so he will eat turkey with his pie and candy. :(

On the other hand, my family makes stuff that we will all eat. We have noodles and mashed potatoes and dressing (not stuffing, sage dressing) as well as turkey and roast beef, some other side dishes and dessert. Plenty of stuff for the kids (ane me, who eats like a kid LOL) and if that isn't enough, if they simply refuse to eat the dinner, there is kid friendly food handy and I could just nuke them some easy mac.

So now RF is irritated that I don't want to go to his family dinner. I suggested that we go out at 11, see his family for a bit, leave at noon and be back here for our dinner by 12:30. He didn't seem to think that was a feasible idea but the other option is that the kids and I will pass completely. So we will see how things shake out on Thanksgiving :)

Yuck

So yesterday was officially a "not good" day. It wasn't terrible, just a few things happened to rank it as not good.

First, over the weekend, I developed a hole in the only pair of comfortable jeans I had. Not a patchable hole either :( When I got to looking at them, even if I could have patched the hole, it wouldn't have mattered because there were holes developing at the corners of the back pockets and on the middle seam. So they had to do in the trash. I decided that I would make due with my uncomfortable jeans, thinking that if I wore and washed them more often, they would soften up and be ok. Well, I wore them for about an hour this morning before I decided I couldn't take it anymore. I decided I had to suck it up and go buy jeans. I hate buying clothes because nothing ever fits right and it costs too much money. I went to Steve and Barry's (BTW, everything is 2.98 or less there right now and they still have a bunch of stuff, especially smaller sizes for the next 4 days) to see if they had anything before they went out of business. I found one pair of jeans in the right size, but they were 4 inches too long. I don't like hemmed pants so I passed (even though I could have probably dealt with it for 2.98 for a pair of jeans) and went to Old Navy. I grabbed my normal size and went and tried them on. I'm very sad to admit that they didn't fit (strange since the pair that ripped was the same size, but whatever) and I had to get the next size up. So not only did I have to buy pants, they just confirmed that I'm a giant fat ass! Did that change my eating habits at all? Of course not! I still had a greasy double cheeseburger, fries and ice cream for lunch and cheese covered enchiladas and beans for dinner. Hopefully, today will be the last day for the cast and I can start going to the gym again. Of course, if I lose much weight, my pants will be too big (they fit fine when they are unstretched but I know they will stretch and be too big, which I would rather have than too small) and then I'll be pissed that I spent the money for pants that don't fit.

RF said I need to become a vampire so that I never change size. I said that I need some kind of wasting illness and lose 100lbs and then become a vampire and never change sizes. :( I bought 2 pairs of pants, spent 3x more per pair than I wanted to spend and had to get a bigger size. It was not a pleasant morning.

Before we left to look at pants, I was playing on facebook and downloading some things. All of a sudden, my laptop shut down. Not too suprising since the battery is toast (I'm getting a new on for Xmas, I just have to suck it up til then) and won't hold a charge. Anytime it is unplugged (and the plug seems to fall out fairly often) it dies. I restarted it and got a blue screen of death. It said to restart and I did and got another blue screen. I had RF look at and he found a file called delself.bat on my desktop, which turned out to be a virus. He ran the anti-virus program and it came up with nothing. He got online and found that other people had had that virus and that it destroys the system registry and the only cure for it seemed to be reformatting and reinstalling :( Fortunately, most of my stuff was backed up and the few things that weren't (recent pictures that I haven't moved over to the big drive), I was able to access and transfer in safe mode. I found my disk and it is reformatting. Hopefully, it will be up and running soon because my desktop is a POS. It is getting replaced for Xmas as well, but again, I have to suck it up for a few more weeks.

So, all in all, a crummy day. Hopefully today will be better.

Less hockey, more fighting

We went to the U of I hockey game Friday night. It was TB's first hockey game and he thought it was pretty awesome. I used to go to the games when I was in high school and always enjoyed them.

Hockey is not the place to learn sportsmanship though. Whenever the U of I scores, the students yell at the goalie "It's all your fault" repeatedly. Then they play a song and the students interject lyrics like "Hey! You suck!". When the other team scores, they yell "you still suck!" I've also heard the chant of "less hockey, more fighting", which pretty much sums up why I go to hockey games. Friday night, they would boo the other team whenever they came on or off the ice and then they were even booing the poor Zamboni driver when she missed a little spot. Strangely enough, the thing they didn't boo was the syncronized skating girls that fell. The first one that went down got up and looked like she was crying. The second one laughed. I told Looseyfur that the first one felt like an ass because she fell, the second didn't feel as bad because she was just part of trend LOL

The rest of our group trickled out over the course of the game. We stuck it out to the bitter end. TB had been wanting to go down and stand by the glass so we did that at the last 3 minutes. We were standing there and they slammed the puck towards the goal and missed. It smashed into the glass about 8 feet to my right and I thought TB was going to pee in his pants. He ducked down and threw his arms up over his head. I was LMAO at the poor thing :)

Now, I've planned a mom's night out for the weekend before my birthday to go to a hockey game. I fully intend to sit with the students and taunt at full volume. Who is coming with me :)

Yes, we did

"we went to McDonald's"

Are you kidding/

WTF is up with all the Christmas music on the radio today? I HATE Christmas music* at Christmas but it is enough to make me sick. It isn't even freaking Thanksgiving. Play the crappy pop music I tune in to hear, not Christmas music.

*The notable exception to this rule is Trans Siberian Orchestra which is awesome, no matter what they play!

Glad it was memorable for him

"We went to Wizard Quest"

And apparently, he rode a dragon

Cavemen

"Me and my dad start a fire"

This is from when they went camping the week after MT was born 3 years ago. No idea what prompted him to write about it now.

Hm

Feeling too crummy to come up with an interesting title.

We had people over for dinner last night. This is seriously something we NEVER do but I did it. I spent ALL DAY cleaning the house. RF scrubbed the kitchen for me while the kids helped with the living room and dining room and I cleaned the bathroom. Seriously, every time I thought I was actually done, I found one more thing that had to be cleaned. At one point, I scrubbed the lid of the trash can because I thought it looked bad. I know the people that we had over are my friends and they wouldn't have ridiculed me too badly but I suffer from house jealousy. They have nice, newer construction homes. I live in a crummy basement of a house that was built in the 50s and remodelled to include a the basement by someone who knew nothing about house planning. It was some kind whose MIL got sick so he threw up some walls in the basement so she could have a place to stay in their house. So I over-compensated for the age of my house by cleaning like a mad woman. Then I cook all afternoon.

I was supposed to go to BN with S and J and their kids but I'm super glad I passed. I was under the mistaken impression that I could get everything done I needed done in a couple of hours. What a joke that was :)I'm sad we didn't get to go to the museum, but I'm glad dinner worked out.

I got a call today from the PTA president about bringing the PTA into the 21st century. I'm always pushing for more techy stuff and always getting rebuffed. If something isn't easy, people aren't going to do it. She decided that I was right and we are meeting today to discuss how to modernize our communication. Good stuff.

I have a cold. My head is all stopped up and I feel like crud. Blah.

I watched about an hour of Sweeny Todd last night and I was bored to tears. I like musicals, but I don't like where nearly every line is sung. I prefer normal movies that randomly break out in song. I saw Les Mis a few years ago and hated it. Sweeny Todd is pretty similar. :( I had hoped it would be good but I was disappointed.

It is Pacman

"we went to the monster truck show"

Does God make you nice

Very interesting article

Shopping buddy

Who wants to go "Black Friday" shopping with me? I know someone out there has to be as crazy as we are and would be willing to come stand in the cold at 3 am (or earlier, depending on how early Staples opens this year) with us. I'll even spring for tasty gas station coffee!

The answer to global warning

I have it all figured out. Someone really needs to get on this and fix it to save the planet for our future.

The Research

How do we sleep when our beds are burning?

Scenes from today's downtown fire

It's on the internet

I am awesome.

And since it is on the internet, we all know that it must be true :)

Sprinkle liberally

I'm not a really political person. 8 years ago, I left several sites I frequented on the internet because I was SO SICK of all the political discussion. 4 years ago was much the same. This time around I wasn't as disenfranchised, but I was still tired of it by the time it was over. The campaigns run for so long that by the end of it, it feels like they have already had a term in office and they haven't even started. I'm glad Barack won, I'm sad the school tax didn't get approved.

I'm mostly liberal, although I've been told that I could be considered Libertarian as well. Most of my friends are liberal as well. In looking around, I realized that I can only name 2 McCain supports, of people that I know personally. Those 2 are my aunt and my uncle and neither of them live in my state (One lives in MN and the other in AK) so I rarely talk to them. I did see a McCain sticker on a car at school at least one of the parents at school is and I probably know them. But really, everyone I associate with on a regular basis is liberal.

Now, my question. Is that because there are simply so many liberal people in our town? Or is it because we share many of the same ideals so I seek those people out to befriend? Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Sick of wimpy heroines

I read. A lot. A read a lot of different stuff, although I generally shun non-fiction (my life is plenty non-fiction for me). Recently, I've been reading a lot of books from a female point of view and I'm sick to death of all of them. All the women in the books are so FREAKING whiny. I just finished the "Sookie Stackhouse" series and every other page it was "Oh Bill, oh Eric, oh Quinn, oh Sam, save me because I weak pathic woman who is incapable of solving my own problems" Blah, no thank you (the series was good and I liked the books, I just got so tired of her helplessness). Rachel, the heroine of the Rachel Morgan books is very similar, although she doesn't often count on a man to save her. Usually she requires saving by her vampire roommate, who happens to be female. But her attitude is "Oh how could I do that? Again." because she keeps making the same bad choices and expecting things to come out differently. If you keep hanging out with and trying to outsmart demons, they are going to keep coming after you and trying to kill you. Duh! Bella in Twilight is another case of someone who can't take care of her self (I will say again, how much I enjoyed the series and how compelled I was by the Bella/Edward relationship). Had she been a vamp from day one, it might have been better since besides having the desire to take care of herself (which I will admit that she did, unlike many of the other's mentioned) she would have had the ability as well.

But seriously, I want my heroines like Kinsey Millhone or Anita Blake. They might get scared (when the bad guy has you cornered in a hallway and is shooting at you or trying to tear your throat out, you earn the right to get scared), they might get hurt, they might get discouraged but they rarely need rescuing and they never need it from any man that happens to be handy and most importantly, no matter what else, they aren't afraid to shoot the bad guy in the face.

Why can't there be more heroines like that? Really, do authors, especially female authors feel that women are really that dependant? That they really need rescued all that often? That they are incapable of taking care of themselves? Makes me very sad :(

I wasn't impressed either

"I saw a snake"

Notice how all the people are clumped together and the snake is clear on the other side of page? That is pretty much exactly how the snake sighting went.

Really?

Apparently TB hates vampires, at least according to his writing sheet that came home. :)

Really Irrelevant Ramblings

Depending on the mythology you subscribe to, vampires either burst into flames or sparkle in the sunlight. How does that apply to tanning beds? The books all talk about how white vamps are because they can't go in the sun without risking death (I'm going to discount Stephanie Meyers because although I REALLY liked the Twilight series, it is totally different from all the other vamp mythology out there). But, in theory, couldn't they use a tanning bed? What is it specifically about the sun that is toxic to vamps? Is that same thing found in tanning beds?

See? Irrelevant but I bet you are wondering about it now too

Happy Halloween

Only 2 days late.

MT was a pirate and TB was Darth Maul. MT trick or treated until it got a little dark and then decided that she was done. TB did down one street, down the short end of the block, down one side of the next block up the short side of the block and 2 houses on the corner and was done. All in all, MT hit about 4 houses and TB did about 10.

Chuck you

We went pumpkin chucking tonight. You all get to see whole pictures.

The first thing bubba found was a TRACTOR


Lightening McColin and Ms Thang wanted to be in the picture too


The Boy felt compelled to have his picture taken by the tractor too :)


Nonni holding Thunder McGavin


Quigs, surveying the scene


Mr Libbygirl and TB mock fighting


LMC perched on a VERY BIG PUMPKIN!


TB doing his gargoyle impression


Bubba on the pumpkin


Pretty Girl in her pumpkin patch advertisement pose


Bubba, PG, and LMC. LMC wasn't impressed with Bubba's leaning


Bubba and PG together


Chucking a REALLY BIG PUMPKIN


MT picks a pumpkin to chuck


MT loads her pumpkin in the basket


MT pulls the cord to launch her pumpkin


LMC picks a pumpkin


LMC loads the basket with help from Dave


LMC pulls the cord


Bubba tells Dave what pumpkin he wants


Bubba pulls the switch


Bubba wanted to keep pulling the switch


TB picks his pumpkin and takes it to the basket


PG and Quigs


All the kids on the hayrack. Bubba was so stoked




Nonni holding PG while Quigs and Mr Quigs eat their dinner


Thunder McGavin enjoys his first hayrack ride


PG chilling on the hayrack ride.



And finally, I leave you with a video of the chucking of the REALLY BIG PUMPKIN!