Happy Birthday to Callie Ann!

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You didn't think we were going to get out of September without at least one more birthday, did you? This big Happy Birthday wish goes out to Callie Ann of Scrappin' With Life!
Go on by and give some birthday wishes to one of the sweetest brats in the Blogosphere!

Stepping Away From the Blog ...

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After my day spent chained to the vacuum on Saturday, I could really use a nice vacation at someplace like the Rio Las Vegas but alas and alack, I must go to work for sixteen hours instead. Sitting in front of a bank of computer and radio equipment all day is absolutely nothing like sitting by the side of a pool sipping tasty beverages all day but someone's got to do it I guess.

Due to a new IT policy at work, I am no longer going to be taking my laptop to work with me on Sundays so I anticipate it will be a very long day having only very limited Internet access to things that are only work-related. Translated that means absolutely, positively NO blogging on Sundays so I apologize to all of you whose blogs I have not had the chance to visit recently. I know that I am horribly behind and I do apologize sincerely. Between the cleaning of the house and having to work, blogging has had to take a bit of an unaccustomed backseat these past few days. Give me a little longer and I'm sure I'll start to have withdrawal symptoms!

In the meantime, I hope that everyone has a very nice Sunday and I will hopefully be back amongst you when I get home from work Monday afternoon. If not, I will definitely be going through withdrawal at that point! Do they make something for that?!

Lots of Cleaning = No Blogging

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I took a day off from blogging today to do some much needed cleaning here at my humble abode as it was beyond cluttered and messy as far as I was concerned. Amanda could happily live in squalor and think nothing of it but I can only handle it for so long and then something needs to be done. So, while the daughter was off frolicking at The Big E with Jason, Amy, and Cate I was here practically chained to the vacuum cleaner!

Amanda left to go "play" around 9:30 and even though I had started picking up a few odds and ends around the house before she had even left, I didn't start cleaning in earnest until after she had left on her way to clam cakes, baked potatoes, and other Fair-type delicacies. At that point I launched a full-scale attack on the living room followed by a charge upon the dining room before I finished up with a full-scale assault on the kitchen. In between the major battles, I fought minor skirmishes with the laundry and Amanda's bedroom, too. The battle has been won but I definitely feel like I just spent the day in the trenches!

I had hoped to mow the lawn and clean the rims on the wheels of my car, too, but I never got to outside tasks as it seems that the time just flew while I was cleaning the inside. I couldn't believe it was after 2:00 when I glanced at the clock while filling the bucket and grabbing the mop to do the kitchen floor. It seemed like I had just started, how could I have been over four hours into the project already? And I have a small house to boot! I guess this is what happens when you get so absorbed in blogging that you forget that you have a house to keep clean around you!

My friend Paula called around 4:15 or so to firm up our plans for the evening which entailed a dinner out at a local restaurant that I had a gift certificate for. We settled on 6:00 to meet which we figured gave us both plenty of time to finish up what we were doing, hit the shower, and get to the restaurant. Personally, I could have happily stayed in the shower for hours on end but that wasn't part of the plan. Rats!

Meanwhile, fun times at The Big E were wrapping up and Amanda was on her way home to grab clothes and plushie supplies as she had been invited to spend the night at Cate's again. I got to hear about all the great stuff they saw at the fair - a miniature horse, a display of cbu mailboxes (yeah, okay, I had to work that in somewhere!), cheese from New Hampshire, lobsters from Maine, jerky made from ostrich, deer, and buffalo ... the list went on and on. She brought home treasures, too - a piece of papyrus with her name spelled out in hieroglyphics, a pan flute, incense, and a slingshot ... a slingshot?? Why on earth did Amanda buy a slingshot? I don't think I want to know!

She also had a bag of deep-fried Oreos for me and proceeded to eat one herself and get powdered sugar all over the floor I spent a good part of the day cleaning! AUGH!! I told her to go eat the thing over the sink before I beat her with the broom (ah yes, there's goes my nomination for "Mother of the Year" yet again)! Apparently she had an absolutely wonderful time and didn't drive Jason and Amy too crazy as they were willing to keep her overnight again. I've not decided if they are Saints or gluttons for punishment!

Shortly after she left again, I met up with Paula and we had a lovely delayed birthday get-together where I actually tried fried calamari for the very first time and found it to be quite tasty after all. I think I was just afraid of the whole oh-my-gosh-I'm-eating-squid thing but it appears my fears were for naught! I also had a delicious drink called a "Frozen Alligator" which was a Pina Colada blended with Creme de Menthe and Creme de Cocoa. YUMMY!! It was nice to have a chance and get caught-up as I hadn't seen Paula since before Jamie left in July. She's been pretty busy getting settled into her new school year at Grasso Tech as well as working a part-time job and she was definitely up for a break, too!

So, now it's time for me to call it a day and none too soon as I am hideously sore and still can't breath through my nose despite having taken both an allergy pill and a separate Sudafed on top of it. I feel like the vacuum cleaner blew up in my face or something!


Hope everyone else had a wonderful Saturday doing something more fun than cleaning!

Saturday Photo Scavenger Hunt - "Original"

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This week's theme was an easy one as I'm going to assume that "original" means any "original" photo that I have in my collection and this one looked pretty "original" to me! This one was taken last Fall at one of my favorite haunts (sorry, couldn't resist!) the Yantic Cemetery. I rather liked the colors of the sky and I rather like this particular tombstone also, I bet it would make a nice tattoo.

For more great "original" photos pop on by TNChick and see what everyone else scared up on their haunt hunt!

Checking HIM Out in Germany

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Recently Amanda has added another band to her repertoire of ones that she listens to over and over and over again until I have no choice but to know all the words to the songs and then she gets mad at me if I sing along! But as I've said in the past, what's a Mom to do??

Actually, she used to listen to HIM, who used to be known as His Infernal Majesty when they first started out in 1991 but changed it to simply HIM awhile back, prior to becoming a major MCR and MSI fan so I guess it technically isn't so much adding another band as rediscovering an old one! HIM is a Finnish band, the first and only to sell Gold in the United States by the way, and they were one of the many bands that played as part of Projekt Revolution. My Wordless Wednesday picture from this past week was a drawing of the lead singer, Ville Valo, that Amanda had done based on an image she had seen elsewhere.

When we went to Projekt Revolution we more or less paid half-attention to HIM when they performed because obviously they weren't the big draw for Amanda (that would had to have been MCR and MSI obviously!) but she knew quite a bit about them and kept wishing that Ville would take his hat off - which, sadly, he never did. HIM is going to be touring again this Fall and have a concert date in nearby Massachusetts that we might get to if Amanda behaves herself and is lucky. And stops yelling at me for singing along with the songs!

Next Winter HIM will be doing a European tour and will be getting to Sanni's part of the world when they stop off in Germany for six dates. If memory serves, Claire's sister is moving to Germany soon so maybe she might want to catch a HIM concert, too? The scheduled dates and venues when they are in Germany are:

• 2/17/2008 at Rose Garden Mozart Hall, Mannheim
• 2/18/2008 at George Elser Halle/Kleine Elserhalle, Munich
• 2/20/2008 at House Auensee, Leipzig
• 2/23/2008 at Dortmund Westphalia-resounds 2
• 2/24/2008 at Palladium Cologne, Cologne
• 2/26/2008 at Dock Hamburg, Hamburg

No doubt tickets will probably go fast so if either Sanni or Claire's sister, Heather, do decide to take in a concert, they should check out Viagogo.de for their koncert tickets as they are a leading ticket hub in Germany. The company matches buyers and sellers of concert tickets, sports tickets, theater tickets, and other events with a safe and 100% guaranteed system that is simple, uncomplicated, and offers assistance 24/7 should it be needed.

Maybe Claire could even go visit Heather and the nephews and go to the concert, too? I think she'd really like this band and then Amanda could be jealous of Claire for a change!


Ville Valo of HIM, drawing by Amanda

Is That Apple Cider Vinegar You're Drinking??

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Awhile back I got an email from one of my co-workers that I wanted to share with everyone else out there. In it, Jen told me about Earth Clinic which is a website devoted to Folk Medicine and Holistic Cures. Jen found it when she was looking for the health benefits of apple cider vinegar and she thought it was good enough to share.

I remember taking a class way back in Senior year of high school about folklore and we had discussed the benefits of apple cider vinegar then, too. I had kind of forgotten about it but I've decided to give it a go once again as I've been having a horrible time with my allergies this fall (well, if you can call this strange weather we've been having "fall"!) and I really don't want to keep popping pills if at all possible!

According to an article over at Earth Clinic -

"Organic Apple Cider Vinegar is our #1 favorite cure for stopping most allergies like pollen, dander, dust, animals food, etc. We aren't kidding! We wish more people knew about this amazing home remedy for allergies. We have found that when apple cider vinegar is taken either as a daily tonic or at the first sign of an allergy (i.e., sinus headache, stuffy nose, watery eyes), one can completely stop the histamine response or allergic reaction.

There are a couple ways you can drink apple cider vinegar. One way is to put 1/8th cup ACV in 8 oz of water and sip it throughout the day. The other method is to gulp the mixture at once. Sometimes you just have to take this dosage once to stop the allergy and sometimes you need to take it up to three times a day. If taken at the onset of symptoms, allergies will usually disappear between 1 -3 hours after taking the first dose of Apple Cider Vinegar. If you've been experiencing allergies for a day or more, your symptoms will disappear after about 24 hours. If they don't, make sure you continue to take water/vinegar mixture for several days!"

I don't remember exactly what they were but I know that we talked about more benefits of apple cider vinegar in that folklore class all those many years ago so I'm going to have to do some more research. Anyone else know of any good ways to use apple cider vinegar that they want to share?

Oh, and this was NOT a paid post!

Tagged by the Queen of Coffee!

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So there I was, minding my own business just innocently blogging away when - BAM! - without warning I get hit upside the blog with a tag from across the ocean by Sanni of Coffe2Go. D'oh! I never saw that one coming!

The meme that she tagged me with, "My Desktop Free View", was started by iRonnie at I Set No Corner with the idea that

"Most people spend a considerable amount of time in customizing or in finding a desktop wallpaper that suits their taste. Sadly, our computers often remains… personal. Why don’t we brag to the world our good-find wallpapers and let them have a peek to our personality via our desktops?

On the other hand, aren’t you curious on how does your favorite bloggers’ desktop look like? Don’t you want to find out how organized, or disorganized :D, they are?"

Interesting concept for a meme - I like it! Actually, I had seen the same meme over at Asara's Mental Meanderings and thought about picking it up from her (she didn't tag anyone in particular being the gracious blog-hostess that she is!) as it looked like fun but first I had to figure out how to do a print-screen on my trusty Dell laptop. With some instructions from Asara, I was able to figure it out and good thing, too what with that tag from Sanni coming out of the blue like that! I think Sanni really enjoys tagging people, she's so good at it! And how can you say no when she's just so darned cute??

So, without further ado - here you have it - the desktop on my laptop ...

Look familiar? Yep, being the proud mama that I am, l like to keep some of Amanda's artwork on my laptop so I decided that the vinegar-fry-eating-Pegausus-with-rainbow from my Wordless Wednesday a few weeks ago was perfect! Actually, this one looks a bit different as Amanda made some revisions to it. As a matter of fact, if you really like this one - it's available on t-shirts and a few other items at Artistic Intoxication, Amanda's on-line CafePress store! Sorry, couldn't resist the shameless plug!

Meanwhile, back at the meme, there are some desktops that I am most curious about so I'm going to tag a few people with this one myself! The instructions on how to do this follow below and it's really not hard, especially if you get technical guidance from an expert! I tag the following folks:

Ed of The Pisstakers
Morgen of It's a Blog Eat Blog World, etc.
Jamie of Duward Discussion
Sarge Charlie of Sarge Charlie
Mimi of Mimi Writes

Once you've picked up the "tag" gauntlet and posted a picture of your own desktop, don't forget to add your link to the bottom of the list! I added Asara to my list because I saw the meme at her blog first and I'm sure Sanni wouldn't mind in the least! Now, go ... read the directions and let's see what you've got!

My Desktop Free View Instruction:

A. Upon receiving this tag, immediately perform a screen capture of your desktop. It is best that no icons be deleted before the screen capture so as to add to the element of fun.
You can do a screen capture by:
[1] Going to your desktop and pressing the Print Scrn key (located on the right side of the F12 key).
[2] Open a graphics program (like Picture Manager, Paint, or Photoshop) and do a Paste (CTRL + V).
[3] If you wish, you can “edit” the image, before saving it.

B. Post the picture in your blog. You can also give a short explanation on the look of your desktop just below it if you want. You can explain why you preferred such look or why is it full of icons. Things like that.
C. Tag five of your friends and ask them to give you a Free View of their desktop as well.
D. Add your name to this list of Free Viewers with a link pointing directly to your Desktop Free View post to promote it to succeeding participants.

List of those who participated in the tag:

iRonnie
skippyheart
thesserie
domlawrenceosb
sasha-says
maiylah’s snippets
My Memoirs
Asara
Coffee 2 go
Are We There Yet??

Thinking About a "Maine" Attraction

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Ever vigilant when it comes to her bands, Amanda recently found out that My Chemical Romance was going to be playing at the University in Maine towards the end of October. Since then, she has been trying mightily to convince me that it's really not all that far and wouldn't it be great to take a road trip to Maine? Uh? Uh? Can we? Can we?

I checked the map and it's not all that far to Orono, Maine from Connecticut - just a bit over five hours - which to a 15-year old is simply the blink of an eye, especially when they aren't the one doing the driving! It wouldn't be all that much to me either except that the 5-hour drive up also requires a 5-hour drive back and with the concert not starting until 8:00 at night, there is just no way that I would be trying to do this all without spending one night in Maine (something I have always said I never would do because I have this irrational fear of the place based on reading way too many Stephen King novels!).

Out of curiosity, though, I decided to check out the accommodations in the general area and consulted an on-line trip planner to see what might be available and how much it might cost should I decide that maybe a weekend in Maine might not be too bad after all. A short road trip might not be a bad idea just to add a little spice to life and give me something different to blog about!

Anyhow, I did some searching over on RealTravel.com as it was voted one of "twelve essential travel sites" by Forbes Magazine as well as "Best of Web for Trip Planning" by Business Week. I figured those two magazines should know what they were talking about and they were right! What I really liked about the website was that all I had to do was I enter the location and dates I wanted to go and I was then redirected to another page where I could choose from six different travel sites to compare rates. Rather than have to visit Orbitz or Hot Wire or Priceline or any of those places myself, they were all easily located right on one page for my convenience. Sweet!

In addition to being able to search for air flights, cars, hotels, etc. RealTravel.com has a weekly list of travel deals that are hand-picked by their editorial team. There you can find flights, hotels, and even vacation packages all at some pretty amazing prices and, because it's updated weekly, if you don't see what you're looking for one week, you can always check back the next. Pretty cool!

Anyhow, getting back to Amanda and yet another MCR concert ... I'm not saying 'yes' but I'm not saying 'no' either as it looks like there are some pretty reasonably priced hotels in that area but I just don't know yet ... it's that whole "Maine" thing because I can't even think about the place without hearing Pennywise the Clown whispering "We all float down here!" Shudder!

I hate clowns.

Repeat After Me - DUH!!

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I got this "Quiz For People Who Know Everything" in my email today from my good buddy Bulldog and I've got to say, it's a rather humbling experience to find out that not only do I not know everything but I don't know a heck of a lot! I got three of these answers right and that was after putting my brain through some major stress! See if you do any better and don't cheat by scrolling down to read the answers first either!

1. Name the one sport in which neither the spectators nor the participants know the score or the leader until the contest ends.
2. What famous North American landmark is constantly moving backward?
3. Of all vegetables, only two can live to produce on their own for several growing seasons. All other vegetables must be replanted every year.
4. What are the only two perennial vegetables?
5. What fruit has its seeds on the outside?
6. In many liquor stores, you can buy pear brandy, with a real pear inside the bottle. The pear is whole and ripe, and the bottle is genuine; it hasn't been cut in any way. How did the pear get inside the bottle?
7. Only three words in standard English begin with the letters " dw" and they are all common words.
8. Name two of them. There are 14 punctuation marks in English grammar. Can you name at least half of them?
9. Name the only vegetable or fruit that is never sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form except fresh.
10. Name 6 or more things that you can wear on your feet beginning with the letter "S."

Feel good and dumb now? Alright then, here are the answers to the quiz:

1. The one sport in which neither the spectators nor the participants know the score or the leader until the contest ends . . Boxing
2. North American landmark constantly moving backward . Niagara Falls (The rim is worn down about two and a half feet each year because of the millions of gallons of water that rush over it every minute.)
3. Only two vegetables that can live to produce on their own for several growing seasons. Asparagus and rhubarb.
4. The fruit with its seeds on the outside .. Strawberry.
5. How did the pear get inside the brandy bottle? It grew inside the bottle. (The bottles are placed over pear buds when they are small, and are wired in place on the tree. The bottle is left in place for the entire growing season. When the pears are ripe, they are snipped off at the stems.)
6. Three English words beginning with dw. Dwarf, dwell and dwindle.
7. Fourteen punctuation marks in English grammar . Period, comma, colon, semicolon, dash, hyphen, apostrophe, question mark, exclamation point, quotation marks, brackets, parenthesis, braces, and ellipses.
8. The only vegetable or fruit never sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form but fresh...Lettuce.
9. Six or more things you can wear on your feet beginning with "s". Shoes, socks, sandals, sneakers, slippers, skis, skates, snowshoes, stockings, stilts.

The ones I got right were - #5, which was probably more of a guess than anything!; #6, I use a lot of punctuation marks!; and #8, though I didn't guess 'stilts' as I never thought of those as something you "wear on your feet". Oh well, I shall now go hang my head in shame now, care to join me? Maybe I should have taken some Miracle burn before I took the test, maybe that would have helped?

I've Got a Question, You've Got an Answer

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Last week's "I've Got a Question, You've Got an Answer" begged to ask the question:

Which vacation home would you choose and why?

With 21 comments to the post, 11 people choose a Lake Tahoe vacation home over the other three locations which were Myrtle Beach, Orlando, and Nova Scotia. Not surprisingly no one choose Arizona luxury real estate but that could also be because I didn't list it as a choice!

Those who know me at all know that I'd take a Lake Tahoe vacation home over the other three in a New York minute! I absolutely love Lake Tahoe with its breathtaking scenery, myriad options of things to do, and crisp mountain air. Pictures do not do it justice - it's a breathtaking and majestic land and if you've never been - what are you waiting for?

That's not this week's question but it does lead up to it as it always seems that when asked, people are fairly evenly split when it comes to choosing the answer to this question:

Mountains or Ocean??

P.S. - I apologize for not getting around to anyone's blogs on Wednesday, I had a medical procedure done that waited until the next day to wipe me out and I was barely able to keep my eyes open long enough to knock out a couple of posts. Hopefully I will be back to my regularly scheduled blog-reading later today!

Walk! In the Name of Love - Volume II

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Scroll down for Wordless Wednesday!

In a previous post I mentioned that one of my blogging buddies from here in Connecticut is participating in the 5k walk for Breast Cancer in honor of Empress Bee of the High Sea. She's doing wonderfully well in reaching her goal and is almost there but I wanted to make mention that Mags is not the only blogger I know who is doing something in honor of one of the most wonderful ladies in the Blogosphere.

Asara, another one of the most wonderful ladies in the Blogosphere, from Asara's Mental Meanderings is taking up the same cause on October 20th when she walks for breast cancer in her home state of Michigan. If you haven't donated yet, there's still time and you can either visit Asara's page and click on the pink ribbon on her sidebar or even easier, click here for to visit her personal page for the walk.

If each person donated only $5 think what a difference it could make! By itself these days $5 won't get much but when you add it to lots of other $5 it can do lots and lots and lots! Click the link and donate - you know you want to!

Wordless Wednesday - Art-Munkey Tries Realism

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Amanda decided to try doing something a little more "realistic" with her artwork so she did this drawing of the lead singer of HIM. Yes, that's an oxygen mask he's holding up to his face and no - I don't know why! I think she did pretty good and wish she'd do this sort of thing more often!

Walk! In the Name of Love

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My fellow Nutmegger and blogging buddy extraordinaire, Ms Maggie Moo , has taken up a noble cause and is going to be participating in the American Cancer Society's Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk this October.

She is walking in the name of another blogging buddy extraordinaire and all around great gal, Miss Bee, for whom she has named her team in honor of - "Empress Bee". If you are able and haven't already, please donate to this fund raiser by clicking here. Mags is very near her goal of raising $1,000 and every little bit helps attain this goal, with your help I'm sure she can reach it and beyond!

House vs Boston Legal vs LA Ink

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I have a scheduling conflict of major proportions tonight! Normally there is just about zip, zero, and zilch that I care to watch on TV and if there is something I think I'm going to want to see, I program the DVR to record it so I can watch it later sans commercials. Well, leave it to Fox, ABC, and TLC to go and totally screw things up for me!

"Is this an intervention? You're a little late, since I'm not using drugs anymore.
I am, however, still hooked on phonics."

Tonight is the long-anticipated season opener of "House MD" on Fox. Those of you who watch the irascible Dr. House will remember that he lost his entire staff at the end of the last season - Foreman, Chase, Cameron, all of 'em gone - leaving our favorite physician with no team at all. What's a curmudgeonly curer to do? Well, I could find out at 9:00 tonight except that the show overlaps with one of my other favorite shows ...

... "Boston Legal" which is on ABC with its season opener from 9:30 to 11:00 - damn the luck! I have watched this show since its very first episode and I will be darned if I'm going to miss out on the antics of Denny, Alan, Denise, Paul, Shirley, and the rest of the gang at Crane, Poole, and Schmidt! The big problem, though, is that my DVR isn't the type where I can record one show while watching another so I'm probably going to have to record one while watching the other on the small TV upstairs. The question is, which one?

I rather like to think that Alan Shore and I have much in common as we're both slightly irrational, are masters of deadpan humor, are hilarious, and yet are still kind though people tend to think otherwise! Granted, James Spader, who plays Alan Shore, just won an Emmy and I can't seem to even win Employee of the Month at work as I must be truly awful despite having been the Employee of the Year in 2004 but still ... I think we are very much alike!

Alan Shore: ...I'm bored.
Paul Lewiston: I beg your pardon.
Alan Shore: You people keep assigning me these boring cases. At my old firm, I got murderers.
I had clients who would touch themselves in public restrooms. These were people you could root for,
not to mention relate to.
Paul Lewiston: Is there some other place you'd rather be, Mr. Shore?
Alan Shore: Yes, I want to be on cable. That's where all the best work is being done.

If all of that wasn't bad enough, TLC has managed to throw yet another monkey wrench into the mix by airing the episode of "LA Ink" featuring rhythm guitarist Frank Iero of My Chemical Romance that Amanda has been waiting all summer to see and it runs from 10:00 to 11:00 tonight! The TV gods are surely mocking me this evening, are they not??

Luckily, TLC likes to "chew their cabbage twice" as my Dad used to say and are running the same episode back to back so we'll simply set the DVR to record "LA Ink" from 11:00 to 12:00 and Amanda is just going to have to wait one more day to see it as she's got school tomorrow and is NOT staying up until midnight! I think she'll live, though I'm sure she'd beg to differ!

"If you don't listen, you're never gonna learn."

How about you folks? What are you watching tonight??

Talk Down to Me!

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The things you read about in the news sometimes ...

I came across an article this morning on the internet entitled "Deep-Voiced Men Have More Kids" and it was one of those things that I just had to read what with curiosity oftentimes killing the cat and all that good stuff.

In the article (which you can read here), David Feinberg of McMaster University in Canada reveals that a new study, which was detailed in a recent issue of Biology Letters, showed that "women are more attracted to men with deeper voices, judging them to be older, healthier and more masculine than their higher-pitched rivals." On the other hand, "Men go for women with higher pitched voices because they find them more attractive, subordinate, feminine, healthier and younger-sounding."

If I'm reading this article correctly, what it's trying to tell me is that guys who have voices like Barry White, who was known as "The Man with the Velvet Voice", are going to have more children than guys who have voices like "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince" who is now known as Prince again. Well, after some quick research I found that just may very well be the case as Barry White fathered eight children while Prince has absolutely zero - or at least none that he lays claim to!

Gee, looks like maybe David Feinberg is on to something. Of course, he and his researchers might want to study more than the Hadza tribe of Tanzania before proclaiming this to be the case universally as Elvis only had one child while Michael Jackson has two. Scary, isn't it??

Two Awards + Two Teenagers = One Post!

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The ever-thoughtful and oh-so-nice Akelamalu from Everything and Nothing was nice enough to award me with this cool little "splat" award! She gave it to me for being "basically a fantastic wordsmith", which I think means I write too much! Either way I think it's just the sweetest thing ever from the sweetest lady ever!

Speaking of sweetest things ever, I am hideously behind in mentioning this other award that was given to me a long, long time ago by two of my other favorite bloggers - Jean-Luc himself of Captain Picard's Journal and Morgen of It's A Blog Eat Blog World. Thank you ever so much, gentlemen, you both make me smile, too, and I sincerely apologize for the delay in getting this posted!
Amanda has been pestering me to write about the fun she had this past weekend with new friend Cate so on to that next. Being teenage girls they, of course, wanted to have a sleepover so I brought Amanda over to Jason & Amy's later on Saturday evening armed with three types of pizza and all of Amanda's plushie making materials. After pizza consumption and a bit of "Dodge Ball" on the TV, the girls broke out Guitar Hero II where Cate has already progressed up to the medium level and will no doubt be playing at hard before too much longer.

After a rousing discussion about politics and the horrors awaiting us in the 2008 Presidential Election of all things (by the by, Jason does one of the best Bill Clinton impressions ever!), I took my leave and came home to an empty house devoid of all children - something that hasn't happened in a very long time. I'd like to say that I treated myself like I was spending a great night at a lovely Bed & Breakfast but alas, I had to be at work the next morning so it was merely off to bed for me.

Meanwhile, over at Jason & Amy's, the girls went back to playing Guitar Hero II and overdosing on all things MCR & MSI until somewhere around 2:00 in the morning. I'm going to guess that Jason & Amy donned earplugs and retired to their room for the night, which is generally the smart thing to do when teenage girls engage in a sleepover!

One of the other things the girls did was work on a couple of new plushie dolls. Cate is making a new version of the famous JimJamz (who took to the stage with Mindless Self Indulgence in Chicago and Colorado) whom she has named JimZy and who I'm sure is going to be a work of art in felt once he's completed. Amanda, in the meantime, is still working on Steve, Righ?, the plushie she has had under construction for awhile now. She wasn't sure how she was going to do his orange hair but after looking at a Cabbage Patch doll in Cate's room she hit upon an idea and this is what she's come up with so far:

For now, Steve remains pantless but hopefully Amanda will get motivated enough to get him further clothed soon though it sometimes takes her even longer to do things than it takes me, if that's possible!

The girls apparently had a great time this weekend and Amy has mentioned that they'd like to take Amanda to the Big E this coming weekend with them. The Big E is New England's largest fall fair that is held annually in Springfield, Massachusetts and runs for 17 days. I haven't been in years and years myself and though I've been invited to go along I'm weighing my options between a nice quiet day at home or a chance to go eat some of the finest "fair food" around. Mmmm, fried dough and clamcakes ....

That's going to be a hard choice!

"It was a dark and stormy ..." Meme

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Please scroll down for Manic Monday!

Frank at Foxxfyrre's Honk'n'Holl'r assigned all of us who are members of the Unofficial Gale Martin Novel Writing Cheering Squad a meme project back on September 11th called -

Even though I had close to two weeks to work on this ... I didn't. Ah, procrastination thou art a good friend of mine! Maybe, though, my thinking was that I would work better under pressure (hmm, isn't that a David Bowie song??) and waiting until the day before would require my muse to put in a little extra effort and not be such a slacker. That was the plan at any rate! So, let's see how I did, shall we?

First, I should tell you what this meme is all about and post the rules should anyone else choose to play. From Frank's keyboard to your eyes this is how it goes:

Meme Description:

You have just finished writing the greatest novel ever written. It is getting rave reviews. War and Peace is mere pulp fiction when compared to your novel. Nobel Officials created a new category to award your work for they felt it would far overshadow previous works awarded for fiction if yours was awarded in the same category. Accolades and reviews for your novel pour in along with one unanimous criticism -- your novel has the worst opening sentence in an equally atrocious first paragraph, ever.

Rules:

1. Choose two genres from the ones listed below in #4
2. Come up with a suitable title for a different novel for each of your genre choices.
3. Write a different opening 'atrocious' paragraph of your 'highly praised novel' in context to each genre you chose, paying particular attention to the "Dark and stormy" quality of your first sentence of your paragraph. Don't just rewrite the "Dark and stormy" sentence for your paragraph. Come up with something new and fresh, but 'atrocious' too. The sentence and paragraph should follow good English grammar rules. Don't just write a grammatical mess of a sentence. Remember, you are a Nobel Prize worthy author.
4. Choose two of the following genres for each of your "Prized Novels": Western, Science Fiction, Romance, Historical Fiction, Modern Contemporary Fiction, Mystery, Comedy, Horror.
5. Post the meme description and rules.
6. Post your first genre choice, title and paragraph, followed by your second genre choice, title and paragraph.
7. Prepare yourself for accolades of laughter and ridicule for your "Highly Praised Novels" atrocious openings.
8. Contact the Nobel Prize officials for you may just continue and write that award winning novel.
9. Tag people, lottsa people.

Bad writing shouldn't be all that difficult for me to accomplish as I've had years and years of practice starting when I managed to win a writing contest in 7th-grade with a story that I was sure had to be one the worst ever in the history of the Dr. Helen Baldwin School of Canterbury. I think I only won because I had the nerve to not only write about but submit a story about a boy and his beloved dog while using, as the main character, the guy I had a hideous crush on for two years. I'm sure I only won so that the story could be published in the school newspaper and cause acute embarrassment not only to myself but to the guy I wrote it about because if I remember correctly, the story itself wasn't very good at all!

Anyway, I digress and this post wasn't supposed to be a painful walk down memory lane but an attempt at some good bad writing! As my two genres for this meme I have chosen Western and Romance and I hope that I have done justice to the meme. When I'm done here I shall go work on my acceptance speech for my Nobel prize. I'm thinking I'm going to need a new outfit for the awards ceremony, too ...

Entry Number One

Three Oxen for Father Santiago at Whiplash Pass

"It was a pitch-black night on the desert mesa brightened only by the occasional jagged bolt of lightning which was accompanied by an unrelenting curtain of water and wind that howled louder than the wolves that slunk their fur-soaked bodies back into their rocky caves as the prairie dogs took refuge in their dark underground homes (as prairie dogs are wont to do) while the cacti merely stood stiffly, like large needle-covered silent sentries, weathering the storm in sullen succulent silence as their prickly bodies were rooted firmly to the ground and they were unable to escape the fury of the storm that lashed the desert landscape with its wind-blown anger."

Entry Number Two

Tenderness in Tallahassee

"The sky outside was as black as ink and as unsettled as a creaky wooden vessel upon a storm-tossed sea while Vanessa stood at the window of her opulent and, despite all of its grandeur, empty bedroom; a solitary and forlorn figure who wrapped her arms around her not-ungenerous breasts as she looked out upon a magnificently rain-tossed landscape that no longer held any appeal for her since the love of her life, the dark-haired gallant and dashing Jerome, had ridden off on his magnificent specimen of a stallion leaving her bereft in her heart and aching from unfulfilled needs in other parts of her lush woman's body; unfulfilled needs that threatened to bring her to her knees in their unrelenting desire to be quenched and sated by a man who no longer held her tenderly in his arms due to a misplaced allegiance to the man whose seed had fathered him and then chosen to abandon him when he was just a mere boy."

And there you have it, my attempt at literary greatness! I hope that I have made my favorite soon-to-be-best-selling author and blog buddy Gale of Gem-osphy proud. Let me just say that even though I stink on ice when it comes to this stuff that Gem is writing one heck of a fantastic novel titled Savage Grace, the first chapter of which you can read right here. Go Gale Go!!! Go Gale Go!!!

If you'd like to try your hand at this particular meme go for it and do let me know; it really was a lot of fun doing this despite the procrastination!

Manic Monday - Kit

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This week's Manic Monday word is "kit" and after debating whether I should pack up my troubles in my old kit-pack or explore the West with Kit Carson (which I felt fairly confident that Jamie was going to do!), I finally decided to spell the word just a little differently and take you on a trip to Tucson, Arizona.

Back in the mid-1960's, my Dad was stationed at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson. This was back in the days when people still took Sunday drives and I can remember many times we'd all pile into the car and take off to destinations unknown, at least they were to us kids as we never knew where we were going until we got there! My parents were great at keeping secrets and despite lots of guessing, the four of us in the back seat generally had no idea where we would end up.

One of those impromptu road-trips brought us to the Kitt Peak National Observatory which has the world’s largest collection of optical telescopes. Located 56 miles southwest of Tucson, the observatory sits high above the Arizona-Sonoran Desert on the Tohono O'odham Nation and is home to twenty-four optical and two radio telescopes representing eight astronomical research institutions.

Perched atop a 6,880 ft peak of the Quinlan Mountains, Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) lays underneath some of the finest night skies in the world. Founded in 1958, KPNO operates three major nighttime telescopes. The other 19 optical telescopes and two radio telescopes are operated by a consortium of tenant facilities including the Calypso Observatory, the only private telescope on the mountain.

The McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope, named after astronomers Dr. Robert McMath and Dr. Keith Pierce, is the largest telescope of its kind in the world. Built in 1962 it contains a three-mirror heliostat at the top of its main tower which collects the sun's light and focuses it down a long shaft that continues underground where the telescope's prime focus is located. The McMath-Pierce is used to study the structure of sunspots, as well as sunspot spectra, but unlike other solar telescopes, the McMath-Pierce is sensitive enough to observe bright stars in the night sky, too. As a second-grader, this was pretty darned cool to tour as its 100-foot tower seems even bigger to a 4-foot child.

Other telescopes at KPNO include the 18-story 4-meter Mayall which can be seen from over 50 miles away and the Steward Observatory's 0.9-meter Spacewatch telescope, on the left. If you're interested in seeing more of the Kitt Peak National Observatory, check out the KPNO webcams which are located on the catwalk of the 2.1 meter telescope and the 4-meter telescope. Should you ever find yourself near Tucson, I highly recommend a visit in person!

A Blog for Inspiration

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Sometimes life can get us all down. I know that's a pretty generalized statement but it's true. Life. Can. Get. You. Down. 'Tis the nature of the beast. One of the things that can pick me up is to find some good blogs out there that offer some inspiration and encouragement, that help me to remember that there is more good out there than there is bad, in spite of how it may seem!

Recently I came across a new blog that fits into that category and it's called Karl's blog. The blog is written by Karl Moore who is an entrepreneur and best-selling author of “Karl Moore’s Visual Basic .NET" and “The Ultimate Code Book”.

Karl started his blog in order to reach out daily to others and help them in their spiritual growth by use of inspirational messages. Two of his special features are a "Random Act of Kindness" on Mondays and "Friday Factoids" - each things that will make you smile and brighten your day. Go check Karl out and see if you can be inspired, too!

The Middle Name Meme Redux

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Awhile back Jamie of Duward Discussion fame tagged me with the Middle Name Meme that has made its way around most parts of the Blogosphere. If failing memory serves me correctly, I already did it once using my own pathetic middle name (again with apologies to the 'rents, I've just never liked it but I don't really know why) so I thought that I'd use the middle names of my three darling children instead. After all, I like their middle names and because they're longer than just four letters, it requires me to be a little more creative. Not that I'm exactly running on all cylinders when it comes to creativity lately but I shall give it the old junior college try!

Oldest child Michael shares his middle name with one of his grandparents on his father's side:

• J - Just - across the border from Connecticut in Rhode Island
• O - Of - Irish descent on his father's side
  
• S - Son - my one and only!
• E - Envied - by his sister as he's got an XBox 360 complete with Guitar Hero II
• P - Parental - he's Dad to both Christopher and Michael and he does a darned fine job!
• H - Helpful - when I need my air conditioners taken out, I can count on Mike to come do that for me

Middle child Amanda was born on my mother's birthday and also shares her middle name:

• E - Eccentric - her choice of descriptor, not mine!
  
• L - Lazy - sorry, kiddo, you're a slob!
• I - Imaginative - this one pretty much goes without saying
  
• Z - Zealous - when it comes to art she wants to do
  
• A - Artistic - yeah, that seems about right!
  
• B - Bashful - talk to strangers? I don't think so!
  
• E - Emo - sorry again, Amanda, it just seems to fit!
  
• T - Trying - at 15 ears old this is a given
• H - Humble - with her art because she doesn't believe it's as good as everyone says it is
  

Youngest daughter Jamie's middle came out of nowhere, I just liked the way it sounded with her first name!:

• J - Just - too darned far away
• E - Energetic - she has the most energy of all my children
• S - Sneaky - always has been, always will be
• S - Small - at 6 lbs, 6 ozs and 19-inches long she was my smallest baby
  
• I - Into - boys with long hair and 80's classic rock music
• C - Chatty - that girl can talk and talk and talk and then talk some more!
• A - Animal lover - she wants to be a vet someday

I'm not tagging anyone as, like I said, this one ha been around the block a few times but if you like it and you haven't done it, feel free to snitch it!

Mane-ly Amanda

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Amanda and I went up to visit my good friend and favorite hair stylist Trisha the other evening in order to get something done with our hair. I can't exactly remember when we'd had our hair done last (do you think if I bought a stick of IBM memory and installed it in my brain I might remember things better??) but I know that mine was looking pretty bad and Amanda's ... well, let's just say that Amanda's was in desperate need of a cut.

I don't know where she got it from but that child has got the thickest hair I have ever seen and if she doesn't get it thinned on a regular basis it gets way out of control. Generally by the time Trisha is done thinning Amanda's hair, there's enough on the floor to make a good-sized throw pillow! My hair isn't thin, it's probably average, and her father's is virtually non-existent but Amanda - well, Amanda has hair!

One of the biggest drawbacks to having such thick hair, though, is that a lot of the styles she'd like to have aren't really possible. Not only does she have a thick mane of hair but it's got a natural wave to it also that drives her completely nuts most of the time and again makes some of the styles she'd like out of the question. It's enough to make a 15-year old cry!

Amanda's hair was a constant argument between her father and I, one thing of many, as he insisted that she keep it long "in according with God's wishes". I always told him that God wasn't the one who had to deal with it but that never mattered to him; he wanted it long and so she kept it long and hated it. When she came out to live with me two years ago one of the first things she wanted to do was cut her hair and so I took her to see Trisha. Since then she's had a lot of different cuts and several strange colors but at least now she has some say in what her hair looks like. My mother generally tends to look at it and shake her head in disbelief but I give Amanda a lot of credit for not only wanting to be a little different from everyone else but daring to be so. She's creative and artistic and I don't want to squash that in her like her father always seemed to do. I'm not sure if that makes me a pushover as a mother or not, I hope not.

When we left Trisha's this time I really liked Amanda's new hairstyle and she was quite happy with it also. She's going for a certain look that is going to take some time to achieve because it needs to grow out more in the back but her hair grows very quickly so that shouldn't take too long and in the meantime, I can actually see her eyes and her face! Trisha and I both tell her she's got a very pretty face but just like when I tell her that her artwork is good, she doesn't believe me. Gee, I hope we run into Gerard Way again sometime so he can tell her it looks good and then maybe she'll believe it!

Amanda's Latest Style

Happy Birthday to Kai!!

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Bee-lieve it or not it's yet another September birthday! This one belongs to the wonderful Kai of The Buzz Queen who just recently moved to her new home close to her beloved ocean that came along with her beloved Mountie's promotion. Plus said beloved Mountie will be joining her at the new home just in time to take her out for a birthday celebration! What more could a girl want??

Swing by and tell her "Happy Birthday!" if you get the chance!

Starting My Day Off With a Bang!

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Yay! It's my day off! You'll notice I said "day" off as in singular and not "days" off as in plural. Unfortunately, due to my having to call out sick the other day, I really needed to pick up an extra day this week to make up for the loss in revenue (and points) so I'm fortunate that another dispatcher is on vacation this week and I'm covering for his day shift tomorrow.

I don't mind working on Saturdays all that much as the pace usually isn't as bad as during the week and with less people in the room - heck, in the whole building! - things are a bit more relaxed. The downside is that with fewer people on the road, when it hits the fan, it really really hits the fan! Oh well, such is the nature of the beast!

Old person that I am becoming, one of the best things about a day off, in my opinion, is that I get to sleep in a little and am not a slave to the blasted alarm clock. Every morning when I wake up my first thought other than "groan, is it time to get up already?" is "how many more days until I can sleep in?". Today was a sleep in day.

Or, it should have been if I hadn't had my bedroom window open. My bedroom is in the front of the house which obviously faces the street and directly across from my house two of my neighbors park their boats. The neighbors are both nice enough guys and quite friendly once I got rid of my ex-husband who had a nasty habit of getting on the neighbors' wrong sides - imagine that! - but being avid fishermen that means they like to get up early and go out to catch 'em while they're still biting. Sometimes this means getting their boats ready to go way too early in the morning and sometimes that involves a little bit of noise.

So, as I'm slumbering blissfully away this morning having the strangest dream about being asked by Gerard Way to help him design his new house (what the heck did I have to eat before I went to bed last night??), I am suddenly jarred awake by a loud clanging noise directly outside my bedroom window. God's nightshirt, what in the blue hell was that?? I immediately jump out of bed and look out the window where I see my neighbor has removed some unwieldy object from his van rack and unceremoniously dropped it on the pavement next to his boat. Well, thank God that's all it was as it had almost sounded like the entire Union Army had marched up the road and set up "The Dictator" directly across from my house!

Just as a bit of history for those not familiar with this particular piece of Civil War artillery, this 13-inch seacoast mortar weighed over 17,000 pounds and was intended for siege and fortifications and not field work. This particular monster, forged at the Fort Pitt Foundry in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1862, was made portable during the Siege of Petersburg, Virginia by being mounted on a railroad car which was specially strengthened with extra beams and iron rods to withstand the strain of firing. Since this mortar threw a 218 pound shell about two and one-half miles with a charge of 20 pounds of powder, the strain was obviously considerable.

Needless to say, if it had arrived across the street from my house, it would have involved considerable noise and fanfare! Of course my neighbors aren't that noisy and, yes, I am way exaggerating but at the time, that's almost what it sounded like! And it certainly ended my dream and sleeping-in time.

Oh well, time to quit fooling around and get on with the day. The sad thing is, now I'll never know whether I got to redesign Gerard's house or not! How did your day start out??

Happy Birthday to Lois!!

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Yet another wonderful September birthday has arrived and this time it belongs to Lois Grebowski from Lowdown From Lois!

Swing on by and leave the first lady of Life in the Aluminotti some birthday wishes! You can even tell her I sent you! She's the big 45 today (awww, poor thing!) and she's serving up some cake so stop by, grab a slab, and say "Happy Birthday!"

The Saturday Comeback Challenge Kid

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It is with a great deal of pleasure and delight, as well as extreme humility and not a smidgen of hubris, that I can announce – I WON! I WON! I WON! And for women everywhere let me just say, it’s about dang time!!!

What exactly is it that has me doing the “end zone happy dance”? What could possibly inspire me to set the laptop aside, jump up off the couch, and pump my fist in the air triumphantly? Well … glad you asked! For the first time in a long time, I managed to win first place in Mimi Lenox’s Saturday Comeback Challenge at Dating Profiles of the Day! WOOHOO!!!

Even though the contest is based on poorly written personal ads by men, it seems that every week the contest is won by a man. I have yet to figure this out as it just strikes me as funny – in the odd sort of use of the word – that men have snappier comebacks to other men than women do. The only reason I can think of for this phenomena is that men are so used to hearing women make snide comments when they themselves make a stupid statement that it has become second nature for them to be able to answer their own stupid statement with the exact snarky comeback that a woman would make. Does that make sense to anyone else besides me?

To put it another way – when men get shot down enough, they probably already know most of the comebacks they’re going to get shot down with. It’s sort of like when you’re paper training a puppy; after he has been chastised enough times for peeing on the floor, he catches on that if he pees on the newspaper laid out for him or, better yet, scratches at the door to go outside instead that he gets rewarded rather than scolded. Hmm, in rereading that, maybe that doesn’t make as much sense as I thought it did but I went to all the trouble of typing it so I’m going to leave it there.

This week’s Comeback Challenge also showed a female taking over the third place spot in the form of Katherine of Wading Through My Stream of Consciousness (and she didn't even get bleeped this week either!) while the ever witty and very snide Bud Weiser of WTIT The Tape Radio Blog claimed the second place spot. Even with Mr. Weiser sandwiched between us and putting up a valiant fight, it was the week for girls to rule! Oooo-rah!!

If you’d like to play along, Mimi posts the questions on Saturday and you have until midnight on Monday to email them into her. She judges the entries using a new system, so as not to accidentally play favorites, and announces the winners on Tuesday at Dating Profile of the Day. If you win you get a spiffy badge like the one I have below to post on your sidebar to tell the world that you have what it takes to be the snarkiest on the block. Just make sure you mark on your email really, really well that what you're sending is the entry answers or they might accidentally get deleted, right, Mims?

So what are you waiting for? Come on and play – you know you want to!

My Chemical Romance Comes to Claire

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No doubt that anyone who has ever spent any time at all visiting my blog knows that we here at the House of Mouseski are big My Chemical Romance fans. Amanda started it - it's all her fault - but what can I say? I do love a man in uniform, even if that uniform is merely a marching band jacket like the boys wear for The Black Parade portion of their tour.

We were fortunate enough to get tickets to see MCR in concert not just once but twice this year and my good blogging buddy from across the pond, Claire, has told me on several occasions that she's jealous of that fact. She was especially jealous when we had the opportunity to meet lead singer Gerard Way backstage at the Projekt Revolution Tour.

Well, guess what, Claire? It could be my turn to be jealous of you now. The band is going on a European tour that hits England in November and it's your big chance to get concert tickets to see My Chemical Romance along with Mindless Self Indulgence who is touring with them. As much as I've talked about MSI lately, I'm sure Claire is beyond curious to see them, too! I'm not sure what part of England Claire is in but there's bound to be a concert date somewhere close to her as there are performances at the Metro Radio Arena at Newcastle upon Tyne on November 11th, The Aberdeen Exposition and Conference Center on November 12th, The Hallam FM Arena in Shelby on November 13th, and The O2 Arena in London on November 15th.

No doubt Claire knows all the ins and outs of buying tickets in her home country but if it were me looking to get tickets to any of these shows, the first place I'd look would be viagogo, an official ticketing site for concert tickets, sports tickets, and arts and theatre tickets. Maybe one of these days when I finally get to go on that United Kingdom vacation I keep dreaming about, I'll be able to get tickets to a fantastic event from viagogo myself.

In the meantime, Claire, if you can get to one of these shows could you do Amanda a big favor and see if Jimmy still has JimJamZ with him? Rumor has it that he didn't really throw him into the crowd in Colorado but she'd sure love some validation of that!

I've Got a Question, You've Got an Answer

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As I was sitting here wondering what I wanted to make this week's question about, I got to thinking about all the vacation spots I've mentioned recently. I also remembered that my buddy Bulldog and his Mrs. are off on what I'm sure is a great vacation somewhere this week while I can only dreams of places I'd like to go and things I'd like to see.

I don't know if it's the great American dream or not but I know that a lot of people try to buy vacation homes nowadays. They want their own little someplace special to escape to and, if what I'm seeing on The Travel Channel or HGTV is to be believed, a lot of these vacation homes look better than most people's regular homes! Sigh ... must be nice to have money!

This week's question then is a bit of a multiple choice question about vacation homes; I'm going to list several choices and I'd like you to pick your favorite and tell me why. If none of these choices appeal to me, tell me where you'd want to have your vacation home. The sky is the limit and money is no option! I think that most people who know me will have no trouble knowing which one I'd pick!

Which vacation home would you choose and why?

A Lake Tahoe vacation home
An Orlando vacation home
A Myrtle Beach vacation home
A Nova Scotia vacation home

Let's Get Some Shoes! Or maybe we have enough already ...

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It was back to work today for me after staying home and nursing my cold yesterday so I was able to get my morning fix of The Today Show. I only watch it at work as I just never seem to have the time to sit down in front of the TV at home anymore with my friends Matt, Meredith, and Al as I either never get up in time on my days off or there's this thing called the internet that I appear to be addicted to! We generally have the TV on at work until about 8:30 when it starts to get too busy and because of that sometimes I'm able to catch a little bit of what's going on in the world.

This morning on their "Free to Be Me" segment, Ann Curry did an interesting feature called "Why do we splurge?" What caught my attention was the statement that the average woman owns 19 pairs of shoes but regularly wears only 4. Really? 19 pairs of shoes? I made note of this little fact and vowed to count my shoes when I got home from work just to see if I qualified as being the average woman when it came to the number of pair of shoes I own and wear.

After looking through my closet, under the bed, and anyplace else I keep my shoes, the final tally was 20 pairs - if you count my 2 pairs of slippers and 1 pair of golf cleats. Good Lord, when did I get that many shoes? And how many of them do I wear regularly? Let's see, there are my favorite worn-out white slippers, my work boots, and my blue & white New Balance sneakers. Ha! I only wear 3 pairs regularly so that just goes to show I'm not average!

How about the rest of you, are you average when it come to shoes?? Inquiring feet wanna know!

Wordless Wednesday - In a Pickle

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The Breakout Blogger Award

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Recently my most favorite inkblot in the entire universe celebrated his first blogiversary and, true gentleman that he is, he gave out the gifts rather than receiving them. The one and only Bobbarama came up with not one but two new blogging awards that are sure to be coveted by any and all bloggers throughout the Blogosphere.

The first is the "Best Kept Secret" award which goes to "a blogger with great style and wit and warmth who hasn’t been discovered yet." It's a lovely award and Bob awarded the first of the awards to five very deserving bloggers who I'm sure won't stay a secret for very long ...

• The Kat House ~~ I love her Sunday Samplings links to other bloggers with great posts.
• A Nice Place in the Sun ~~ Be sure to check out her fun Tuesday’s Question feature.
• Idle Minutes ~~ Don draws a stunning illustration for every post. Fantastic.
• Pyreflies over Zanarkand ~~ Great fun … great photos … great blogger.
• The Frog Bog ~~ Stock tips with a humorous spin … and so much more
  

The second award is "The Break Out Blogger Award" which, as Bob puts it, "casts a spotlight on bloggers who are just beginning to draw lotsa attention — the equivalent of a song with a bullet on Billboard’s Top 100 chart. Lotsa good posts. Lotsa good buzz. These bloggers are going places in a hurry." Again, Bob chose five outstanding recipients for this most cool award ...

• Christy’s Coffee Break ~~ Every blogger’s best friend. Reviews, poetry, awards, links.
• Polliwog’s Pond ~~ Warm, witty posts about life on an island and on the ‘Net. Fun stuff.
• Ordinary Folk ~~ A mini-empire in the making. A comic alien, blog reviews, great art.
• The Pisstakers ~~ Amusing, satirical posts on tech and news articles. Lotsa laughs.
• Mimi Writes ~~ The Queen of Memes and the Home of the Peace Globes.

I am familiar with the last four on the list and will have to make the acquaintance of the first as if Bob gave her an award, she's got to be good! I know the others are all excellent bloggers and if they aren't part of your daily read, they should be. By the by, it was Mike of Ordinary Folk who designed the awards for Bob and didn't he just do the best job ever?

One of my favorite bloggers is a recipient of one of those very first "Breakout Blogger Awards" and he, in turn, was more than nice enough to award one to me. Ed, of The Pisstakers, has been a staple in my Google Reader for as long as I've had a feed reader. Ed not only brings you the best in humor and techy news throughout the Blogosphere but he hosts the MyBlogLog Sunday feature that not only gets you a mini-review as a permanent part of his extensive archives but also gets you a lovely link back to a PR5 blog. For those of you who worry about your numbers, that's a major feather in your blogging cap! I have been lucky enough to be captured in a screen-shot of his sidebar while visiting on Sunday mornings more times than I can count.

Ed's choices for the "Breakout Blogger Award" were the following:

• The one and only Lord Likely, a true gentleman and scholar and complete and utter bastard, currently terrorizing 19th century USA with his tongue in cheek and Lord Palmerston in hand.
• The one and only Linda of Are We There yet? a bloggerette major, safe driver and killer singer whose birthdays appear to have all come nearly at once.
• The one and only TechIT Easy, whose leader, Jeremy Fain, has occupied France under the guise of Microsoft. He is stealthily enlisting a stunning international line-up of tech bloggers par excellence and to cap it all, he even has a sense of humor too.
• The one and only I Eat Snowman Poop who never ceases to amaze me with her turns of phrase and whacky humor
• The one and only Wolf Bernz who worked through being scammed and finally produced a video upload site with plenty of potential for great things.

Trust me when I tell you that I am tickled pink and beyond honored to have received this award from a man whose wit and intelligence I truly admire. To have been included in the second round of receiving one of these spiffy new awards is something that I am just completely and totally thrilled about. Bet you never could've guessed that, could you??

Okay, all humble acceptance speeches aside, it's now my turn to give this award to several other bloggers that I feel are deserving. It's a tough call because there are so very many good blogs that I read on a regular basis and they are all breakouts in their own right but the instructions say to "give the award to three to five of my Breakout Bloggers" and, for once, I'm going to follow the rules! Go figure!

Without further ado, I now present to you my choices for the "Breakout Blogger Award":

• Duward Discussion: Jamie has become like the sister I never had; a gal who enjoys history and Broadway shows. Her intelligence shines through in every single post she writes and she is always able to make me laugh at the times I really need it. If you're looking for quality posts and a quality blog, look no further - you have arrived!
  
• Alien in a Foreign Field and Whitterer on Autism: How she does it I don't know but Maddie manages to write two fantastic blogs while keeping up with her two autistic sons and one very patient and understanding daughter all while trying to maintain her sanity while spending way too much time in a dentist's chair! The word "admiration" fails to come even close! Stop by either or both of her two blogs and you'll see what I mean.
  
• Wading Through My Stream of Consciousness: Katherine is one of my newest daily reads and I have come to truly love the depth and feeling with which she writes. On her sidebar under the title "What You Need to Know", Katherine states "I try to always be a good person....I may not always be a nice person....but I always try to be a good person." You can't ask for much better than that!

I hope if you have the time you'll check out these three fantastic ladies and come to enjoy their blogs as much as I do. Jamie, Maddie, and Katherine - it's a pleasure to be on the same awards page as the three of you and now if you'll be so kind as to head over to the Awards Page at Bobbrama's for the instructions and code it would be greatly appreciated!

Once again a big thank you to Ed, I truly am honored!

My throat hurths & my thinuthes are thtuft up ... I think I hab a cold!

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I did something today that I very rarely ever do and that was to call out sick from work. For the past couple of days I had been feeling somewhat lousy and attributed that to my fall allergies as I was experiencing itchy & watery eyes, post-nasal drip back of the throat crud, and frequent sneezing. Seemed like my standard operating procedure for autumn in New England but yesterday afternoon, shortly after I had gotten home from work, I started to feel like I had been run down by a very large truck complete with all the truck accessories any man could ever want!

By the time I went to bed last night I was feeling pretty much like Death eating a cracker ...

... and had my doubts whether work was going to be a viable option in the morning or not. After struggling to breath through first one nostril and then the other I was finally able to fall asleep around 12:30 though it seemed like I woke up every half hour or so gasping for air with a throat drier than the Sahara Desert!

We have what's called a point system where I work that is designed to keep people from calling out needlessly and whenever I entertain the idea of calling out sick (which, trust me, is not very often at all) I have to weigh the options of a) how much is this going to cost me in points and b) how much is this going to cost me in my paycheck? We only get three days a year to be used as sick time or PTO (personal time off) so you have to be very careful about how you choose to use them. If you call out with less than two hours ahead of your shift, you lose more points plus you can't request sick or PTO time so in my case I knew that if I was going to call out, it had to be before 5:00 a.m.

At 4:00 a.m. I woke up yet again and then proceeded to lie there for another 50 minutes debating the pros and cons of calling out before I finally picked up the phone at 4:50 and told the on-duty supervisor that basically I couldn't breath and wasn't coming in for my shift. I didn't request sick time as I've got an extra shift later on this week that should make up for missing today. Still, I feel guilty, guilty, guilty when I call out because it's not like there are that many other dispatchers that can take my place. There are only seven of us with a few part-timers thrown in here or there and sometimes it's not easy to get someone else in. Well, most times it's not easy to get someone in!

Anyone who has ever worked in a dispatch center or somewhere similar, though, knows that when one person is sick eventually the whole room is probably going to be sick. Matter of fact, I think I picked up my cold from a fellow dispatcher who was feeling like Death eating a cracker himself last week. We like to share things in dispatch and that especially includes germs and viruses! I figured that it would behoove everyone else I work with if I kept my germs home today rather than sniff, sneeze, and cough all over the console. No doubt they all appreciate my financial sacrifice to keep them healthy! Yeah, right ...

Anyhow, I stayed in bed until 10:30 having some of the strangest dreams ever before I finally wandered downstairs to pop some cold pills and curl up on the couch with my laptop. That was over two hours ago and I still feel weird, for lack of a better word. If I leave any strange comments on people's blogs today, please forgive me and chalk it up to my cold and the stuff I'm taking to try to combat it! Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go make some tea and see if I can soothe this sore throat of mine a bit! I sure hope everyone else in the Blogosphere is feeling better!

Calling All Used Cell Phones!

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Anyone who visited my Photo Hunt post this past Saturday might have noticed that Amanda was in desperate need of a new cell phone after hers basically snapped in half during a minor, uhm, incident at the Projekt Revolution concert we went to. Her cell phone met a very bad end but most peoples' cell phones don't meet the same fate. As a matter of fact, I would be willing to bet that most cell phones are still in pretty good shape when we decide that it's time for a new one.

So what does one do with that perfectly good, yet no longer wanted, cell phone? In the past I've donated mine to the local police department for use in domestic violence programs but other than that, I had no clue what to do with it until I came across a website that deals specifically with cell phone recycling, Wirefly.

Maybe you've heard of Wirefly as they are the leading online retailer of wireless devices and plans in America; they sell more cell phones than any other merchant in the country and, as such, they have a responsibility when it comes to what to do with the millions of cell phones being retired each year. On a mission to minimize the impact of discarded cell phones on the environment, they are attempting to educate consumers about trade-in and recycle options for phones that are no longer needed or wanted.

Should you choose to recycle your phone for charity, Wirefly has an impressive list of charities that they support including the American Red Cross, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the Sierra Club, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals®, and several others that are sure to appeal to the humanitarian in all of us.

Want to get cash for your phone instead? No problem! You can get cash for your phone by following the easy steps on Wirefly's equally easy to follow website. You can either use the cash for trade-in on another phone, donate it to charity, or have a check sent to your house. Sure beats leaving that phone you no longer use sitting in a drawer buried under a bunch of other stuff!

With the increased emphasis on "going green" Wirefly has got great ways to help you do your part for the environment as well as maybe donate to a good cause. Check it out, I think you'll be glad you did!

The State of the House Address

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I used to be such a neat person. I have used to have such a clean house. I used to never have clutter all over the place. I used to be able to easily find things. I used to live alone!

I seem to have totally lost control of my living space and, the sad thing is, I just don't seem to have the time, ambition, or inclination to do much of anything about it lately. The clutter around here is like some strange fungus that, the more I clean it, the more prolific it becomes. For every square foot that I manage to clean up, there are two more that become covered in cut pieces of felt, drawing pens, books, CDs, discarded clothing, dirty glasses & dishes, shoes, cast-aside works of art that just weren't going 'right', and other assorted teenage paraphernalia. I am most definitely fighting a losing battle and I'm just not so sure I am up to marshaling the troops anymore and continuing the battle!

Case in point, we have two office desks; one that was downstairs in the dining room and one that was upstairs in the third bedroom that I had been using as a computer room before Jamie came back for the summer and it became her bedroom. Amanda decided that she would rather have the small bedroom (the former computer room) after Jamie left because it's painted purple and that's one of her favorite colors.

It being a smaller space I thought it might not be a bad idea as maybe, just maybe, she'd keep it a little neater than she had before. In order to move her into that room, though, I had to move the desk that was in there so I decided to move it downstairs to the dining room and replace the desk that was already there. The desk in the bedroom was an actual computer desk while the one holding the computer in the dining room was more of a student desk, for lack of a better word, and it wasn't doing a very good job holding the computer (though Amanda had managed to pack-rat more crap into it then I ever thought was imaginable!).

On a Saturday over a month ago I brought the computer desk downstairs and swapped out the one in the dining room but I wasn't sure what I was going to do with that one. I ended up putting it in the kitchen (which is a fairly large room) more or less parallel to one of the other counters and before I knew it - like iron filings to a magnet - the surface had become covered with mail, newspapers, books, and Lord knows what else! And there it still sits.

In a past life that desk never would have sat there for several days, never mind several weeks (well, closer to a month at this point!). It would have either found its way to its new place in the house or it would have found its way to a new home somewhere else. But there it sits, a constant reminder of my lackadaisical attitude towards the state of my house every time I walk into the kitchen. I have friends who wouldn't believe this ... heck, I don't believe it and I'm the one living here!

So ... anybody have any ambition they want to sell? I could really use some. Better yet, does anyone need a desk??

ICE'ing Your Cell Phone

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I got an email today from a former co-worker that I hadn't heard from in ages. Every great once in awhile, though, a message will pop up from Dave letting me know that he's still alive and kicking at his new job (well, it's not new per say, he left for it years ago!). Generally the email is something that has been forwarded along and the vast majority of them I'll read and them hit the 'delete' key but ones that I feel are important or particularly funny I'll forward along.

Today's email from Dave was about the "ICE" campaign and I thought it was worth passing along. I actually programmed this into my cell phone quite some time ago and even though it's never been used (thank goodness!) I think it's a good thing for everyone to have. Please take a moment to read the following then grab your cell phone and program in your own "ICE". Someday you may be glad you did!

"We all carry our mobile phones with names and numbers stored in its memory but nobody, other than ourselves, knows which of these numbers belong to our closest family or friends. If we were to be involved in an accident or were taken ill, the people attending us would have our mobile phone but wouldn't know whom to call. Yes, there are hundreds of numbers stored but which one is the contact person in case of an emergency?

Hence the "ICE" (In Case of Emergency) campaign. The concept of "ICE" is catching on quickly. It is a method of contact during emergencies. As cell phones are carried by the majority of the population, all you need to do is store the number of a contact person or persons who should be contacted during emergency under the name "ICE" (In Case Of Emergency).

The idea was thought up by a paramedic who found that when he went to the scenes of accidents, there were always mobile phones with patients, but they didn't know which number to call. He therefore thought that it would be a good idea if there was a nationally recognized name for this purpose. In an emergency situation, Emergency Service personnel and hospital Staff would be able to quickly contact the right person by simply dialing the number you have stored as "ICE". For more than one contact name, simply enter ICE1, ICE2 and ICE3 etc. This is a great idea that will make a difference!

Let's spread the concept of ICE by storing an ICE number in our Mobile phones today!"

Manic Monday - Crisp

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It's Monday again and that means it's time for another Manic Monday Meme hosted by the marvelously magnificent Mo from It's a Blog Eat Blog World. Mo has decreed this week's theme to be "crisp" and I'm sure that's in keeping with the advent of the fall season and that certain crispness in the air that arrives right along with all things autumnal.

As soon as I saw the topic for this week, my mind immediately went to one of my most favorite crisp things ever - apple crisp! Nothing says autumn like a warm bowl of apple crisp with a dollop of whipped cream or vanilla ice cream on the side! Maybe it's a New England thing but no matter where I have lived (and I've lived in a lot of places!) as soon as the weather has turned cooler, the days have become shorter, the nights have become longer, the air holds a certain crispness, and apples hang from their branches just begging to be picked my mouth starts watering for some homemade apple crisp.

For this week's post I thought I would share one of my very favorite recipes for apple crisp that is so easy even a no-talent hack in the kitchen like myself can make it! Give it a try and I'm sure you'll like it, too!

Apple Crisp

• 4 cups peeled and sliced apples (any kind but I prefer Cortlands myself)
• 1/4 cup orange juice
• 1 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup cut-up butter
• Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Butter a 9-inch glass pie plate. Arrange apples in pie plate, mounding in center. Pour orange juice over apples .
• In bowl combine sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. Cut in butter until coarse crumbs form. Sprinkle over apples.
• Bake 45 to 55 minutes until topping is brown and apples are tender.
• Serve warm with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

Now doesn't that just make your mouth water? I would say it's even better than cake! Miss Bee might not say that but I would! Have a fantastic Manic Monday and don't forget to visit the other participants!

Making Music & Friends

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Despite the fact that I hadn't had the chance to pick up a RedOctane guitar-shaped controller and attempt to play a video game that is probably designed for people 30 years younger than myself in quite some time, it was nice to see that I hadn't reverted to being so bad that I got boo'd off the stage by the virtual audiences of Guitar Hero II.

I was fully expecting to hang my head in shame while I missed note after note and feebly tried to explain that at one point I really had beat the game in career mode - at least on the 'easy' level - but thankfully I not only remembered how to play but even managed to play a couple of songs on 'medium' without doing half bad. Not too shabby for an ailing dispatcher who could probably have made good use of some form of osteoarthritis relief for my left hand by the time I finished playing!

Amanda and I had a wonderful time visiting with Jason and Amy last night and in the course of the evening I think Amanda managed to make herself a new friend in the form of their daughter, Katie. The girls had met previously when we all went to the Projeckt Revolution concert together back in August but due to the circumstances they hadn't really had a chance to talk while we were at the concert. Amanda was too busy meeting some of the members of Mindless Self Indulgence and glomping me in her excitement while Katie was having a case of the nerves about going backstage to meet the members of Linkin Park. Under circumstances like that, it's no wonder they didn't have a lot of time to sit down and talk!

As soon as we got to Jason and Amy's home, Amanda couldn't wait to get her hands on the X-plorer Controller for the Xbox 360 and try out her prowess on several My Chemical Romance songs that Jason had downloaded. One of the cool things about the XBox versus the Playstation is that you can download additional songs from the internet that aren't available on the Playstation version so there were songs that Amanda had never had the chance to play. Show-off that she is she managed to fly through Dead!, Teenagers, and Famous Last Words on 'hard' while having to slow down to 'medium' for her first time through How I Disappear. In the meantime, Katie stayed in the corner of the couch and declared that she had never played, had no desire to play, and preferred to just watch and criticize her Dad while he played (truth be told, she sounds like a kid after my own heart!). Eventually though she decided to give it a go and after suffering through the tutorial she jumped right in and did quite well with her first couple of songs.

As a way of saying thank you for taking us to Projekt Revolution, I had picked up a second guitar controller to give to Jason and Amy as I knew from previous experience playing on Dan's PS2 that playing with a second person could be a lot of fun. After the girls had done a couple of songs, the adults took over the game taking turns playing in 'cooperative' mode. Amanda and Katie recessed to her room where they apparently talked about all things MSI and other things that they found they had in common including anime. The evening flew by quite quickly and before we left the girls were talking about getting together again. Amanda is hoping that Katie can come over at some point and she'll show her how to make a plushie doll amongst other things.

I've got to say that I am thrilled that Amanda has met someone her age who seems to share a lot of the same interests that she has as, frankly, I've been a bit worried that most of her friendships these days seem to be in the form of one electronic media or another. Since becoming a "couple" Dan and Nicole have virtually disappeared and Amanda very rarely even talks to either of them on the phone or via instant-message anymore. I had the rotten feeling that was going to happen when Dan and Nicole decided they liked each other as "more than friends" but I wish I had been wrong on that one. Sadly, I wasn't.

Katie lives with her mother out of town during the week but spends every weekend here so maybe the girls will be able to develop a good friendship. I can only think that it would be really good for Amanda and Amy thinks it would be good for Katie to have a friend in the area, too, as not going to school around here she doesn't know anyone else her own age. I'm definitely going to keep my fingers crossed on that one and hope that before we know it, both girls are blowing through every song on Guitar Hero II at the 'expert' level and showing us adults how it's really done!

The Return of "Mom"

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It's been awhile since I've had the chance to put down any tunes or work on my awesome guitar prowess with Guitar Hero II being that Dan took his PS2 home sometime in August (the nerve of the kid!) but tonight I'm going to get the chance to rock on again when Amanda and I go over to a friend's house to play the XBox 360 version.

I have a sneaky feeling I am going to be totally out of practice and will have reverted to my "oh wow, I really suck at this!" stage that will no doubt have the 'audience' booing me off the stage in no time flat but I'm really looking forward to it. Even if I play worse than William Hung sings, it's a night out with friends so what's not to look forward to?

Amanda is, of course, excited about the chance to try to play some My Chemical Romance tunes that aren't available on the PS2 version of the game. The only time she ever got to try an MCR tune on the XBox 360 version was over at her brother Mike's house this past summer. It was a short-lived moment of glory but she really loved trying to keep up with "Dead!" and made a valiant effort at the "hard" level. I'm sure she'll pick it right back up again, kids always do. As for me, well, it might not be as hot as the new Hannah Montana tour that everyone is talking about but tonight my band "Mom" will rock again!

Come on back later and I'll let you know how it goes! There might even be pictures if you're lucky!

Saturday Photo Scavenger Hunt - "Plastic"

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This week's Photo Hunt (hosted by TNChick) theme is plastic and initially I was pretty flummoxed on what to use for a picture. I was pretty sure there weren't any pictures of plastic in my files and I couldn't think of much around the house that was worth taking a picture of.

Then it dawned on me that perhaps I could use the picture of Amanda's broken cell phone that she had taken a couple of weeks ago because they part that was broken was made of plastic. Perfect!

How - you might ask - did her phone end up in this sorry state of disrepair? Well, let's put it this way ... when you glomp your mother at a concert and land on your phone in addition to your mother in a pile on the hard ground, this is what happens!

Happy Photo Hunting and have a fantastic weekend!

Note: For those NOT familiar with the term, Glomping is a form of greeting used mainly among Anime fans. A typical "glomp" involves bear hugging someone, tackling them, and latching on tightly, though not enough to intentionally hurt the recipient. Perhaps I should add that it's not a good idea to have your cell phone in your pocket when you land on top of the person you have glomped! This phone eventually broke in half completely, despite the best efforts of duct tape, and Amanda now has a new phone that she likes much, much better. I, on the other hand, am still stuck with my old LG phone as we used my upgrade to get her a new one!

Rainy Day Reflections

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As a 911 emergency medical dispatcher, my job is pretty varied and different most of the time as far as emergencies go - everything from difficulty breathing to chest pain to falls to not being able to get out of bed at all. Anytime 911 rings I have no idea what I'm going to hear when I answer it. I guess it makes my job interesting for the most part.

However, my job isn't just 911 emergency calls, as a commercial ambulance dispatcher a lot of my job involves what we call "routine transfers" also. These are the calls that are scheduled ahead of time and they can be trips from a skilled nursing facility to a doctor's office or hospital for an appointment, transfers from one hospital to another for a higher level of care, transfers to psych facilities and drug rehabs, transfers from a private home to a skilled nursing facility, trips to dialysis from either private homes or nursing homes, etc., etc. Prior to working at my current job I had no clue that there were so many people going to so many appointments that required either an ambulance or wheelchair van for transportation. It really was an eye-opener as to the state of people's health in this country.

It's actually rather sad that we have regular patients that we transport just about every single day to one appointment or another and most days as I look at the spreadsheet in front of me and see the same names that I saw the day before and the day before that and even the day before that, I can't help but hope that my life doesn't turn out the same way. Everyone always talks about how wonderful it is to reach retirement age and finally be able to enjoy life but there are a lot more people out there who aren't enjoying their retirement age than one might believe.

I'm sure that the people we transport regularly never thought their lives were going to end up that way either but it just goes to show that with life you just never know what turn it's going to take. Just some sobering thoughts for a rainy Saturday ...

Just a Random Thought

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Even though I've had Dish satellite TV for years now, I still have trouble getting used to watching commercials from other parts of the country. It's kind of frustrating to be sitting in Connecticut and watching commercials for places that you would really like to go to if they weren't so far away - places like a Sonic restaurant, a Charlotte cosmetic dentist that had some really good prices for teeth whitening, and furniture stores that offer prices so much better than what we have here in the Northeast. It's just not fair to tempt people with these sorts of things - no wonder I don't watch TV very often!

Bearing the Shorter Days of Winter

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One of the biggest drawbacks to summer finally coming to an end and fall waiting in the wings to let loose with its glorious colors, smells, and tastes is that we are losing precious minutes of daylight on a regular basis. Not being one to be outside all that much, especially in the fall when my major allergy nemesis {{cue ominous music}} the dreaded ragweed is in full bloom, I don't mind it being dark earlier in the evenings too much but if there is one thing I hate, it's having to go to work in the mornings when it's still dark outside!

I'm not a morning person anyway as many previous posts will attest and, no matter what I do, I just can't get my mind to wrap around the fact that I need to get out of bed in the mornings regardless of whether it's light or dark outside. Nope - if it's dark out then I am wholly convinced that bed is the place to be. If the sun isn't up, why on earth should I be up? Doesn't seem quite fair, now does it? I swear, I would have made the world's worst farmer - ever!

Maybe it's because we're mammals that, as winter approaches with its shorter days and longer nights, I have an increased desire to take up hibernation and simply sleep it out until that pesky little Punxsutawney Phil pokes his head out of his celebrated ground hog's hole and declares spring to be close by.

Now that I think about it, hibernating away the winter might not be a bad idea! Imagine the money that could be saved on heating costs, electric bills for both indoor and outdoor lighting, grocery bills, money spent on entertainment in order to not go stir crazy for the entire winter, doctor's bills for when I throw my back out shoveling, and the cost of celebrating the holidays. Why, if I slept right through it, I wouldn't have to worry about writing out and mailing Christmas cards, eating way too many Christmas cookies, or trying to find the perfect gift! Rather than get caught-up in the Christmas crush I could simply have visions of sugarplums dancing through my head throughout my winter hibernation.

After a long winter's nap I could wake up relaxed, refreshed, and ready to start the year with a whole new attitude and probably a sizable weight loss as I certainly wouldn't be doing any of that "I can't leave the house because the weather is awful and I'm bored so therefore I'm going to graze" eating! Granted, I might miss an episode of two of Boston Legal but that's what re-runs are for!

The biggest drawback, though, would be that unless everybody else hibernated, too I shudder to think how many unread posts I'd have in my Google Reader! Just having to get caught up might be more than I could bear!

“Birthdays are nature's way of telling us to eat more cake.”

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We have had three birthdays in the Dispatch/Scheduling Department at work in the past week - which just goes to prove that September babies rule! - including my dispatch partner Jen, myself, and Renee who is the Employee Scheduling Coordinator. Hopefully that's it for a little while as my diet has totally flown out the window from all of the cake we've had on hand!

Speaking of cakes, I actually made that lovely beauty pictured above for Renee's birthday yesterday and I was quite proud of myself as it's been awhile since I've made a cake and I think it came out quite well if I do say so myself! Especially considering I made it in between reading and writing blog posts!

Renee likes anything chocolate - strawberries dipped in chocolate, chocolate-covered nuts, chocolate ice cream, hot chocolate, etc. - and even though I knew that one of the ladies in the Finance Department where Renee used to work before she came downstairs was making her a cheesecake, I wanted to make her a chocolate cake because when it's your birthday you should have whatever your favorites are, right?

With that in mind I decided to bake a chocolate fudge cake with a chocolate cream cheese filling and chocolate Dream Whip frosting. I had never done a chocolate cream cheese filling but it turned out to be quite easy (8 ounces softened cream cheese blended with 1-1/4 cups milk and then one 4-ounce package of instant chocolate pudding mix whipped in; refrigerate for 10 minutes; spread between layers). I even managed to expertly split my layers with sewing thread so that I had filling between three of them - I think Mags might have been proud of me! The frosting I made was a variation on one of my Dad's favorites which simply required a package of Dream Whip, milk, and sugar-free chocolate fudge pudding mix. Of course you have to keep the cake refrigerated because of the nature of the frosting but I suspect the cream cheese filling needs to be also.

Turns out the cake was quite delicious, not overly sweet but definitely chocolaty, and Renee was thrilled with it. It's nice to know that I still have some domestic abilities even though I don't use them too often these days! Now I'm thinking what might be real tasty is a lemon cake, lemon cream cheese filling, and a lemon Dream Whip frosting ... what do you think Miss Bee, how does that sound??

A Date to Look Forward To

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Behold two tickets to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra Winter Tour 2007 that I managed to get yesterday - yay!

Last year Amanda and I attended a TSO concert at The DCU Center in Worcester, Massachusetts on December 27th (you can read about it here if you'd like) and it was absolutely fantastic so we definitely wanted to attend another somewhere in the area this year. I signed up for email updates with the band and two weeks ago I received notification that ticket sales were starting on the 6th of September for their winter concert dates. Knowing how fast tickets to these shows go, especially when they're at the Mohegan Sun Casino which is just down the road from me, I wasn't sure whether I was going to be able to get them or not as September 6th was nowhere close to payday and finances were, as per usual, tight.

As I had gotten my recent annual evaluation at work and received a small raise retro-active to June, I knew there was going to be a little extra money in this paycheck so hoped to use it to get tickets as long as there were still some left for one of the two performances at The Sun. After checking Ticketmaster and seeing that they still had them available on-line, I talked Amanda into going down to the casino with me with the lure of dinner as an incentive. Luckily the box office had even better tickets than what were offered on-line and by buying them there I saved myself the exorbitant handling charge that Ticketmaster has. Matter of fact, I used that exorbitant charge to buy Amanda and I dinner at Johnny Rocket's!

An original Rocket burger for me, cheese fries to split, and chicken tenders for Amanda - yummy! And no, none of those are diet foods but every great once in awhile you need to treat yourself - am I right??

A Week of Lunacy Minus the Moon!

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Thank God it's my Friday and I have wrapped up another work week! This one has been a bit of a bear and I am more than thankful that it's over. To say that it was busy would be a major understatement but I can't for the life of me figure out why as we're not even close to a full moon (the next one isn't until the 26th).

Lest you think I'm just being superstitious about the the whole full moon thing please trust me - I'm not. Talk to the people who work in police departments, hospital emergency rooms, drug rehabs, psychiatric facilities, or any dispatcher anywhere and they will all tell you the same thing - it gets crazy during a full moon!

I've read several articles lately that try to debunk this particular "myth", as they like to refer to it, and chalk the erroneous belief up to five factors - media effects, folklore & tradition, misconceptions, cognitive biases, and communal reinforcement. Well, I don't care how scientific they want to be about it or what they attribute the lunacy to, I'm here to tell you it's true and no amount of scientific studies is going to convince me otherwise! People just get crazy during a full moon!

Well, no matter how you look at it and whether you believe it or not (do you??), all I can say is that as busy as this week was with one emergency after another (and off-the-wall ones at that), I can only imagine what it's going to be like in two more weeks when the moon is honest and truly full. I'm thinking hiding under a rock then might be a good idea!

Hmm, now that I think about it, I wonder if I could talk the Upper Management at work into giving us a little extra "Lunar Pay" for the times when the moon is full and it gets even more hectic than usual? What are the chances they'd tell me to "go bark at the moon" if I suggested it??

I've Got a Question, You've Got an Answer

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This week's question is going to require a little bit of heavy thinking on the part of you, dear reader, because it's a little deeper than my normal question. One of the ladies that I work with had suggested it quite some time ago and I hadn't forgotten, I just wasn't sure if I was going to put it into this type of post or something more substantial.

It has been pointed out to me by a cheeky little Brit that I tend to write long posts on a regular basis and couldn't write a short one if my life depended on it so, for Claire, I am going to try to keep this one short! Let's switch places and I shall write a short post while you all leave long comments! Sound like a deal? Good! Okay then, this week's question is:

What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail?

Let me know what you'd do and I'll get back to you on what I'd do along with some of your best answers in a future post. I hope that works for Claire! Wink, wink!

I Knew I Felt Younger!

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Having just had my birthday - and way too much cake! - I know exactly how old I am but when I got an email the other day from my friend Trisha with a link to a "Real Age Calculator", I decided to give it a try. I answered all the questions truthfully to the best of my ability and the results were as follows:

• Biological Age: 49
• Real Age: 46.4
• Average Life Expectancy: 76
• Your Life Expectancy: 78.6

According to this, I can expect to live approximately another 10,800 more days. I guess that doesn't give me a whole lot of time to waste so I'd best quit with the procrastinating! Well, maybe later ...

How about you? What's your "real age"??

Exploring the United Kingdom

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Yesterday I was talking about visiting Australia and the wondeful things to do "Down Under". I'm sure it would be a heck of a trip but it is awfully far so maybe I should consider someplace a little closer to home ... like the United Kingdom, maybe? I've always wanted to visit England, especially London, as the history of the country fascinates me to no end. Perhaps I read too much Dickens as a child or watched "Pride and Prejudice" too many times but I have always wanted to visit London and the surrounding countryside. Of course, having a couple of blogging buddies across the pond makes me want to go even more!

I'm sure that finding a place to stay would be no problem as there are plenty of London hotels that are reasonably priced and I bet that most of them have internet access, too, so that I wouldn't miss a day of blogging! Chances are good I could find a nice one right in the middle of all the action and not too far from The Tower of London where I could meet the very first-ever woman Beefeater as well as check out the Crown Jewels! Maybe there would even be a ghost or two!

While I'm on holiday I'd also like to take in the sites in Glasgow, Scotland and maybe find a nice tartan plaid for myself! I'm pretty sure there would several very nice Glasgow hotels located near the Royal Concert Hall, the Hunterian Gallery, and the Kelvingrove Art Gallery - all places I would love to see. I'd have to be sure to send my buddy Boukie a postcard, though, as he's mad about all things Scottish!

Last stop in the United Kingdom would have to be Edinburgh, another city I've read a lot about and have always wanted to see. I'm sure I could find quite nice Edinburgh hotels for reasonable rates located near The Edinburgh Castle and the Holyrood Palace. Why, I might even be able to find some lovely accomodations close enough to the harbour to catch a nice sea breeze. Sounds grand, doesn't it?
Oh dear, this list of places I want to go is getting very long, isn't it? I think I'm going to have to win the lottery so I can take one heck of a long and exciting vacation! I'll also need a little extra cash to hire Claire on as my tour guide!

Warm the Globe Thru Friendship

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One of my blogging buddies from Pennsylvania, Jeni of Down River Drivel, recently posted about a new concept started by fellow blogger Vic Grace, from British Columbia called:

To quote Jeni's post:

"As we are all aware, blogging does give us the opportunity to reach out and yes, "touch someone" by our words, pictures, links in our blogs, and by our comments to fellow bloggers as well.

Think about this - in a world today that is too often filled with news of wars all over the world, fears about terrorism, following newspaper and TV news reports about crime, gangs, and you name it of all the bad things we hear about everyday, wouldn't it be a wonderful thing if we, each of us blogging in our own little space, could actually spread the word through friendship and help, through that little bit of effort, to bring people together, united in a common goal of international friendship?

If you like this concept - and who wouldn't, really - then add this badge to your sidebar, along with the link Vic has provided there. Then copy the text below and put this into a post on your blog. Follow that by tagging other bloggers to start sending this message around the world- hopefully, in less than 80 days too!"

If you'd like to participate in Vic Grace's effort to "warm the globe through friendship" all you have to do is copy this post with the list of links below and add your link at the end. Hopefully when someone sees it on your blog, they will do the same and in that way it will reach more and more people. If you'd like to "tag" some folks then you can certainly do that, too - which is exactly what Jeni did in order to get the word out.

Now then, as Ben says on the Discovery Channel's game show Cash Cab that takes place in a New York City cab - "are you in?"

• Cariboo Ponderer
• Me, my life, my garden
• Author blog
• A little piece of me
• The BiPolar Diaries
• Turning the Pages of Life
• A Blue State of Mind
• A Day in the Life of Sasha Stinerova
• Whitterer on Autism
• Pastorette Ponderings
• It's About Time
• Creatif
• Meloncutter's Musings
• Bleeding Espresso
• 10 Years Running Blind
• Rather Than Working
• Overthehill Boomer Chick
• Whee! All The Way Home
• Mother's Home
• A Place I Call Home
• Time With Shelby
• Any Apples
• BoggyWoggy's Cache
• Erika Jean
• My Dogs Keep Me Sane
• Rambling Shan
• Random Autumness
• The Turtle Parade
• Dottie's Place
• The Wonderful World of Nothing Worthwhile
• OzLady’s Ramblings
• Tinkerbell
• Chicken's Life
• Echos of Grace
• Tales From a Former Michigander
• KSHIPPYCHIC
• Meeyauw
• A Purple Shade of Black
• Dare to Get Organized
• And Miles to go Before We Sleep
• Beth & Cory's Mom
• The Middling Monettes
• Twist & Skewer
• A Day In The Life of Elle
• Tea Time Ramblings
• Bubba’s Sis
• Down River Drivel
• Are We There Yet??

Preparing for the Worst

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I was born in the late 1950s (closer to the 60s actually!) so didn't live through all of the emergency disaster drills and preparedness that a lot of American households went through back then due to the nerve-wracking arms race between our country and the Russians. American school children practiced terrifying bomb drills where they were taught to "duck and cover" in case of a nuclear attack; people designed and built bomb shelters in their backyards; and some children even wore dog tags to school. People wanted to be prepared for a disaster - just in case.

Even though the Cold War has long been over, it's still important to be prepared for a disaster as the world is still a very uncertain place at times. If something unexpected were to happen to you and your family do you know where your medical and financial records are? Do you have a plan in place for your family? Are you prepared? Many of us aren't but now there's an easy, state of the art on-line tool that can guide you through your own emergency planning and help you be prepared should the worst ever happen.

AxcessPoints helps you easily manage your financial, legal, medical, and personal information while also helping you to set up your own personal disaster plan. Using their free tools you can set up a plan in case of a fire, earthquake, hurricane, tornado, or other disasters. AxcessPoints can even help you be prepared for identity theft, something that is sadly becoming much more common.

Check out their website and you can get 30 days of AxcessPoints membership for free which gives you unlimited access to hundreds of articles on disaster planning, access to unique products and services, and use of their disaster planning tool. In these days of increased uncertainty, being prepared is the smart thing to do. AxcessPoints is a good place to start.

Wordless Wednesday

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Thank you to the resident Art-Munkey for this week's drawing -
An 80's fantasy Pegasus eating vinegar fries with a rainbow ... don't ask, it's a Mindless Self Indulgence thing!!

It's a Boy!!

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A big - and I do mean big! - congratulations to Jillian, the newest scheduler to join us in the Dispatch/Scheduling Department at American Ambulance, on the birth of her son Aiden on my birthday - September 9th! Actually, I'm very surprised she didn't have the baby sooner as even though she wasn't officially due until today, for the past month poor Jillie looked like she had swallowed a watermelon sideways! I don't think I've seen anyone look that pregnant in a very, very long time!

I sincerely hope that if Jillian got any baby slings as gifts that they were big ones because they're going to need to be as her bouncing baby boy weighed in at a whopping 10 lbs, 14 ozs and 22 inches long! No wonder the poor woman looked like she could barely walk last week! Makes me cringe every time I think about having a baby that size ...

Mom, Dad, and baby are all doing fine and I wish the best to the entire family as Aiden starts out on this wonderful journey called "life"! And in my own humble opinion, I don't think he could have chosen a better birth date!

For women how are experiencing pregnancy signs and believe they might be having a baby, you may want to look for information on childbirth. There are all kinds of information on baby birth online to prepare yourself for giving birth.

The Land Down Under Beckons

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Blogging buddy Claire from across the pond and I were chatting via Instant Messenger last night and she was telling me how much she'd really like to go to Australia one of these days. She recently took a trip to Italy and got to see all sorts of great sights that I totally envy her for, so if she gets to go "down under" then I'm sure to be a bit on the jealous side there, too!

I'd love to go to Australia myself but it's a bit far so it would have to be a carefully planned trip as one doesn't just pick up and head halfway across the world on a whim! Where would I want to go, what would I want to do, and where would I stay should this sort of dream trip ever become a reality?

First off, I'd love to visit Sydney and attend a performance by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at their famed Opera House. I've read that coffee has recently taken off big time in Sydney and that there are any number of coffee houses serving everything from a straight espresso to macchiato to caffè latte. Along with that there is a large number of great new restaurants where the chefs are working diligently on perfecting their desserts. Mmmm, coffee and dessert ... could you want for anything more? There are plenty of really nice hotels in Sydney so I'm sure I'd have no problem finding someplace fantastic to stay close by all the places I'd like to see.

From Sydney I think I'd like to travel to Melbourne, Australia's second largest city. Again there are plenty of hotels in Melbourne so it shouldn't be a problem at all finding just the right accommodations close to some of the fashionable stores and the large variety of nightclubs and cafes. I hear tell that there are botanical gardens and riverside walks aplenty in Melbourne as well as art galleries, festivals, and riverside walks. Sounds like there's plenty to do there but I wouldn't want to wear myself out completely as there is just so much more in Australia I'd like to see.

Perhaps I could wrap up my visit to "Oz", as Claire calls it, by checking into one of the nice hotels in Brisbane, the third largest of Australia's cities as well as the capital of Queensland. Brisbane is one of the country's fastest growing cities as it offers a warmer climate for those who live in the cooler southern States to get away to. Now that just seems backwards to me considering our southern States here are generally the warmer ones! I bet there is a lot in Australia that would seem 'backwards' to me but it sure would be fun finding out firsthand by visiting myself. I'll definitely add "go to Australia" to the "Someday I'd Like To ..." list!

Dahling, I Feel Fabulous!

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The incomparable Sandee from Comedy + gave me an award today and I am just tickled pink! The award originated with Ann from A Nice Place In The Sun and Christy from Totally Fabulous and it's called the Totally Fabulous Award for bloggers!

Isn't it just fabulous?? I love it! Thank you so much, Sandee, and thank you even more for grouping me in with such a fabulous list of other bloggers:

• Claire @ A Little Piece Of Me
• Asara @ Asara's Mental Meanderings
• Tisha @ CrAzY Working Mom
• Gracie @ Echos of Grace
• Empress Bee @ Muffin53
• Mo @ It's A Blog Eat Blog World
• Kai @ The Buzz Queen
• Mags @ Ms Maggie Moo Talks 2 U
• Callie Ann @ Scrappin...with life in this New Year of 2007

If you'd like to pass this award along to some more fabulous people then go right ahead, simply give out as many awards as you'd like and link them back to Ann and Christy so that they can see who you think is totally fabulous!

I was going to give this award to others but then I got to thinking about the fact that every single blogger who appears on my blogroll is totally fabulous or they wouldn't be there in the fist place and it just didn't seem right to single out just a few. I hope that Ann and Christy understand that as much as I'd love to pass this award along, I don't want to slight anyone or hurt anyone's feelings. I hope that makes sense and doesn't seem like I'm just being lazy and don't want to do the links as, trust me, I had an entire paragraph of links already written out when I decided to delete the whole paragraph and write this one instead.

Thank you again, Sandee, for being the fabulous blogger/friend that you are and I have no doubt that I will be seeing this award making its way through the Blogosphere like wildfire.

Building a Better "Steve", Righ?

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Amanda and I just got back from a quick trip to the local hobby shop where she needed to pick up more supplies to make a couple more of her rock-star plushie dolls. Even though she recently found out that JimJamZ was tossed into the crowd following the last Projekt Revoultion concert in Colorado (she likes to think that some devoted Mindless Self Indulgence fan has him enshrined next to all of his or her other Jimmy memorabilia) she still wants to make plushie dolls for the rest of the band. I'm not sure when she would plan on delivering said plushie dolls as MSI doesn't have any concerts in the area anytime soon but still ... it gives her another project and actually gets her off the computer for a little while!

She needed to get all orange for Steve's hair and clothing so this should be interesting, to say the least! I will be sure to post pictures once little Steev is completed so stay tuned for that!

Oh, and just a quick update on the poll results from last week - only two people voted for me to leave my blog the way it is while 14 others voted for Amanda to do some artwork for a redesign. She's working on it diligently and hopes to have it done by the end of the week at which time I can forward it on to my super-cool blog designer Se7en and see what sort of magic he can produce. I'm sure it will look great once it all gets done!

Taking the Time to Remember

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Six years ago today one of the most horrific acts of terrorism in the history of mankind occurred less than 2-1/2 hours away from where I live. There is still no way to adequately describe the shock, dismay, and overwhelming sadness that I, like millions around the world, felt that day. I still don't understand that kind of hatred and I probably never will. To be honest, I don't ever want to as I am sure I would have lost a lot of my own humanity if I ever could understand or, heaven forbid, feel such hatred for my fellow human beings.

In honor of those who lost and gave their lives in the 9/11 terror attacks in New York City, Washington DC, and a small town in Pennsylvania, I would like to refer you back to three posts that I wrote last year; two from August and one from September.

I wish I was able to write something more profound this year but it still dismays me to no end that there ever was a 9/11 for anyone anywhere to write about to begin with. I hope you'll take the time to read and comment on these posts as your opinions and thoughts all matter to me.

May God bless and protect you - wherever you may be - and may no one anywhere in the world ever have to live through this sort of unspeakable horror and tragedy again.

Re-Opening Pandora's Box - Again - originally posted 8/16/06

Yesterday's 9/11 Post Revisited - originally posted 8/17/06

"It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us ... - originally posted 9/10/06

Still Vacation Dreaming

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It must be the time of the year or something but I've been thinking about vacations a lot lately. A relaxing cruise, a drive to Michigan, flying out to California to visit a friend I miss dearly as well as get some good Mexican food, a trip to Florida to visit Jamie, maybe a long weekend taken to meet a bunch of blogging buddies in some sort of central location like Las Vegas, a weekend in Branson ... well, okay, maybe not that last but doesn't just packing up and going somewhere sound nice?

I must be wired wrong, everyone else thinks about vacations in the summer and I think about them in September! Ah, but really, is there a bad time to think about a vacation? Seriously!

A Birthday Surprise

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Aren't those the prettiest flowers you ever did see? I got them for my birthday yesterday along with a home-baked red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. I'd have a picture of that posted, too, but my stupid cell phone won't give it up! The stupid thing also won't give up the picture of the lovely woman who drove an hour to come deliver those wonderful birthday gifts to me at work - Miss Maggie Moo!

It was so very nice to see her again and I was just so honored that she would not only bake a cake for me - which in and of itself is fantastic because she just graduated culinary school and let me tell you the girl can bake! - but that she took the time to drive all the way to Norwich to deliver it to me! Granted, Connecticut is not a huge State but it's still almost a 2-hour round-trip drive for her to have come down (except somehow she got home in 30 minutes so she must have made the jump to light-speed!). What a birthday present!

I'm sure she was beyond impressed with my place of employment and dispatching prowess - not! I wasn't really dispatching yesterday anyway, I was the back-up while Jen was doing the primary dispatching duties. I got to model my lovely uniform, too! Still, at least now when I say that I'm at work, Mags has a visual to go along with it which includes a lovely view of downtown Norwich - such as it is!

Thank you so much, Mags, for taking the time out of your day to make my birthday so special not just with the gift of the cake and the flowers but, more importantly, the gift of your company! The hug was the best part!

Oh, and Miss Bee, the cake was good - it was really, really good!! I still have some left if you'd like to stop by!

Thinking About a Road Trip - Maybe!

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A fellow blogger from Connecticut, whom I recently had the pleasure of meeting but whom shall remain nameless, and I are giving some serious thought to a road-trip to go visit another blogger who lives in Michigan who shall also remain nameless but is probably pretty easy to figure out. I'm not saying he owns his own store or has a cool blog talk radio show or anything like that but you still might be able to figure out who it is!

When the first unnamed blogger and myself met for dinner a couple weekends ago, I made mention of the fact that we needed to take a road trip and go meet the other unnamed blogger and while we were at it we could check out the foliage in Michigan to see how it compared to Connecticut. After all, what's a 26-hour round-trip drive if it means meeting one of the nicest guys in the Blogosphere and getting to look at some gorgeous fall colors at the same time? Besides, I think we'd have plenty to talk about on the way being that we had no problems passing 4-1/2 hours in the flash of an eye the first time we met!

I'm not sure about all of the logistics as we're still kicking it around but I'm thinking if we do decide to make this journey maybe we ought to invest in the best radar detector available as we don't want to end up like another unnamed blogger who got pulled over not once but twice earlier this year for a slightly heavy foot on the gas. You might have read about it in the blog of his unnamed wife!

I'll keep you posted as details become more readily available - and I might even name some names then!

My Sincerest Apologies to My Readers

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I appear to be a blogging fool today therefore I apologize to anyone who is used to me doing just one post and letting it go at that! I have a sneaky feeling I cursed myself when I told Jen that sometimes it drove me nuts when I logged into Google Reader and found that people had done more than five posts in one day. It's kind of like saying "I'm never going back there again" or "I'm never going to buy the soundtrack to anything" (that one might sound familiar to my cousin Amy!) because as soon as you say it, you have cursed yourself.

One of these days I'm going to learn! HA!!!

A Driving Tip That Could Save Your Life

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Sometimes I get really good emails that I just need to pass on. Thanks again, Bulldog, for this one because I never knew this before and I have cruise control in my car ... do you?

A 36-year old female had an accident and totaled her car. It was raining, though not excessively, when her car suddenly began to hydro-plane and literally flew through the air. She was not seriously injured but very stunned at the sudden occurrence!

When she explained to the highway patrolman what had happened he told her something that every driver should know - NEVER DRIVE IN THE RAIN WITH YOUR CRUISE CONTROL ON. She thought she was being cautious by setting the cruise control and maintaining a safe consistent speed in the rain.

The highway patrolman told her that if the cruise control is on when your car begins to hydro-plane and your tires lose contact with the pavement, your car will accelerate to a higher rate of speed making you take off like an airplane. She told the patrolman that was exactly what had occurred. The patrolman said this warning should be listed on the driver's seat sun-visor - NEVER USE THE CRUISE CONTROL WHEN THE PAVEMENT IS WET OR ICY - along with the airbag warning.

We tell our teenagers to set the cruise control and drive a safe speed - but we don't tell them to use the cruise control only when the pavement is dry. The only person the accident victim found, who knew this (besides the patrolman), was a man who had had a similar accident, totaled his car and sustained severe injuries.

NOTE: Some vehicles (like the Toyota Sienna Limited XLE) will not allow you to set the cruise control when the windshield wipers are on.

For My Guests ...

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Where ever are my manners? If such wonderful people as Claire and Tisha and Mo and Sandee are sending people over on the 20th anniversary of my 29th birthday then I figure I should at least offer my visitors some cake! I mean, what if Miss Bee comes by and I don't have any cake to offer her? She would probably chalk it up to my being a Yankee and not knowing the sociabilities of Southern hospitality but I would really hate to disappoint her and let her think that we here in the Northeast are totally uncivilized.

So while I'm trying to decide whether to just stand there or jump you guys have some cake and talk amongst yourselves. If you want some, the milk is in the fridge and feel free to put the kettle on for tea, I've got some lovely flavored ones in that nice wooden tea box on the counter. Thanks for stopping by!

A Sure-Fire Stress-Release Technique!

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Got this in my email from my favorite Intermediate EMT, Bulldog, and thought that others might be able to use this stress management technique recommended in all the latest psychological journals.

Just follow the 7 steps below. The funny thing is that it really does work.

1. Picture yourself lying on your belly on a warm rock that hangs out over a crystal clear stream.
2. Picture yourself with both your hands dangling in the cool running water.
3. Birds are sweetly singing in the cool mountain air.
4. No one knows your secret place.
5. You are in total seclusion from that hectic place called the world.
6. The soothing sound of a gentle waterfall fills the air with a cascade of serenity.
7. The water is so crystal clear that you can easily make out the face of the person you are holding underwater.

See? It really does work. You're smiling!

I'm Having Some Trouble Seeing the Light

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Maybe it's this whole "getting older" thing that I'm going through right now but I have been having a really hard time with my vision lately. I know I need to get myself to an eye doctor but I'm beginning to wonder if another part of the problem might be the lamps I have in my house. Maybe there just isn't enough light from the current hodgepodge of lamps and lamp shades I currently lay claim to.

Granted, I spend most of my time when I'm on the computer sitting in a reclined position on the couch so can't very well balance a desk lamp on my knees but I bet having a nice floor lamp strategically placed behind the couch would cut back on some of those typos I make because I can't see the keys and I managed to position my fingers wrong on the keyboard. I'm usually pretty good at "touch typing" but there's that whole laptop keyboard being flatter than a regular keyboard thing to take into consideration. Trust me, there's not much worse than linking to another blogger only to find out you put in a comma instead of a period! How embarrassing!

Perhaps when people are looking for Christmas suggestions this year I could suggest a nice torchiere? Now there's an illuminating idea!

Don't Just Stand There - Jump!!

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Tomorrow is my birthday - my 49th birthday. I stand poised at the edge of the pool and wonder about diving into the last year I can claim to be in my 40's. Am I going to do this gracefully or am I going to belly-flop?

Up until recently I hadn't really given my age a whole lot of thought as I've always felt that age is more a state of mind and my mind sure doesn't grasp the concept of being 49 at all! My Mom said something the other day about how my father never acted his age in respect to realizing that he was older and there were certain things he just flat out couldn't or shouldn't be doing anymore but still he did them. Therefore I have come to the conclusion that my state of mind is genetic as Dad appeared to never give his age much thought either; apparently I inherited this from him right along with my Yankee stubbornness!

Not that I am not fully and oftentimes painfully aware that there are things I can't and shouldn't be doing anymore, however that awareness came several years ago in the form of a couple of herniated discs that continue to wreak havoc on my left leg when the weather turns. I don't believe it really had anything to do with my age as I had been flirting with back issues from the time Michael was barely two years old. Apparently it's another one of those genetic things as out of my three brothers, two have back issues also. Not sure whether to thank Mom or Dad for that one, though.

The only thing that bothers me about 49 is that I sometimes feel like I am facing the final frontier ... I have one year left before I turn a half a century old and I get the sneaky feeling that one last year is going to pass in the blink of an eye as they all have done since I turned 17. I've always thought of 50 as the age of maturity (even though Senior Discounts don't start until your 60's - damn the luck!) and I guess I'm just not so sure that I'm ready to enter the age of maturity yet. I'm not sure what my life expectancy is (not that any of us are ever sure of that) but I'm pretty confident that I have lived more than half of my life already and what on earth do I have to show for it? How can I possibly enter maturity when my life is still such a mess?

I cannot keep my financial ducks in a row at all, my potential for retirement at a decent age is slim to none, my pancreas is entertaining the idea of diabetes, my blood iron levels fluctuate much like the stock market, and I obviously suck in the personal relationship department. I lie awake at night sometimes and wonder/worry about these things along with a myriad of other smaller things such as did I remember to put the recycling out this week, how much milk do we have left, and is Grey's Anatomy really going to bite this year or will Shonda Rhimes manage to save it after last year's horrendous season finale?

What have I accomplished during my time on this earth and what else do I want to accomplish before I leave it? I guess there comes an age when we all sit back and ask ourselves those questions and it appears I have chosen this age to ask them. Why? I don't know, maybe it's that whole maturity thing again! Besides, it's probably better to ask yourself what else you want to accomplish while you still have the possibility of actually doing it. Better to ask myself when turning 49 rather than when I'm turning 79 - provided I am around that long! Of course, the way my memory is going here lately even if I'm still alive and kicking in another 30 years I'll sure as shootin' have forgotten what the question was!

So, during the next 365 days I will be giving thought to what I want to do with the rest of my life. What opportunities do I want to make for myself? What trips do I want to take? What places do I want to see? What skills do I want to learn? Where do I want to be in another ten years? I figure I've got a year to sort these things out before I really have to get serious about them and that seems reasonable to me.

In the meantime, I do know one thing I want to do in the next year and even though it sounds pretty impossible right at the moment it's one of those things I've always wanted to do and never got the chance ... I want to learn to play the drums ...

This should really drive Amanda crazy!!

The State of Things in Florida

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Just in case anyone has forgotten that I have a second daughter who hasn't had the opportunity to spend time hobnobbing with rock stars lately, I thought I would write a post today about how Jamie is doing down in her new home in Florida.

It's hard to believe that it's been over a month since her time with me for the summer came to an end and I had to take her to the airport for that painful parting at the plane. We've talked every week since she left and after some initial trepidation about her new high school - she was sure it was going to be full of nothing but preps* - she seems to have settled in quite well and apparently there are enough non-preps for her to have made some new friends!

She tells me that she really likes her art teacher who sounds more like an aging rocker, which would make him more than a'ight in her book! Jamie has always been as different as day is to night from Amanda when it comes to her 'type' of music. Whereas Amanda is a big MSI and MCR fan, Jamie's favorite group is AC/DC along with Queen and Led Zeppelin. The longer the hair on a guy, the more Jamie likes him. It's too bad she wasn't born in the 70's so that she could have enjoyed the 80's firsthand but I was too busy being a teenager myself at that point in time.

As of right now I'm not at all sure when I'm going to get to see her again but I'm hoping that maybe at some point in time perhaps Amanda and I could afford to take a vacation and go down to see her in Florida. I'm not a huge fan of Florida (I lived in Tampa as a kid when my Dad was stationed at MacDill Air Force Base) but there are a lot of places we could go see while we were down there. I was thinking maybe we could book a Kissimmee vacation as it's less than an hour and a half from where Jamie currently lives and we could all go have a good time - minus the sisterly fighting for a change!

Not that I have any great desire to go to Disney again - sorry, Mags! - but there are a lot of other fun things we could do and Lord knows I could use a vacation one of these days. It's a thought anyway and in the meantime I'm just glad that Jamie seems to be adjusting okay to her new surroundings though that doesn't surprise me; I swear she was a cat in a previous life as she always seems to land on her feet!

*prep - a label for those who conform to typical teenage behavior, in areas like clothing, school behavior, and sports participation; because preps usually are more ambitious and/or image-conscious than others the popular belief is that preps hate nerds/goths/punks/etc.

So What Do You Guys Think? Does This Lion Make Me Look Fierce?

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Found this over at Mommy 911 and it looked like fun so I figured I'd give it a go. What do you think, is it me?? Mo, I'm sure you're going to like this so I can't wait to see your Daemon, too!

This movie looks like it's going to be good and considering it's got Sam Elliot in it, I'm thinking it's one I'll definitely be going to when it comes out. I loves me some Sam Elliot!!



Note: I was a lion when I posted this but I guess depending on how people answer the questions, it changs the Dameon .. darn, could someone change me back to a lion? I really liked the lion!

Saturday Photo Scavenger Hunt - "Music"

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Now here's a topic I haven't written about this week at all! Yeah, right! Because it has been so "rock star" heavy around here lately I wanted to do something different. In looking through my pictures, I was hoping to post one of Amanda's concert band pictures from last year for this week's Photo Hunt theme of music but apparently they are all downloaded onto the other computer that is at home - where I am not! Oops!

To that end it's back to rock & roll and I figured that nothing screams MUSIC! like a rock concert complete with pyrotechnics and a barrage of security personnel protecting the front of the stage. This picture was taken at the My Chemical Romance concert that I took Amanda to back in May at The DCU Center in Worcester, Massachusetts. Up until recently it was the best night of Amanda's life but as earlier posts from this week indicate, that has since changed some!

Everyone have a melodious Saturday and happy photo hunting! Don't forget to vote in my poll here and to go by and say "Happy Birthday" to our favorite comedy provider - Sandee!

Happy Birthday to Sandee!!

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Happy Birthday to another fantastic September girl!

Please go by and wish Sandee at Comedy+ a very happy birthday!

I'm sure there's got to be cake somewhere cuz what's a birthday without cake?

Happy Birthday to Jimmy & a Poll For My Readers

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Well, well, well ... come to find out that along with such blogging greats as Sandee from Comedy+, Callie Ann from Scrappin' with Life, Jen from Mommy 911, and Kai from The Buzz Queen there is another September birthday to celebrate that belongs to the one and only Little Jimmy Urine of Mindless Self Indulgence fame. I'm pretty sure I don't need to remind you who he is if you've been to my blog at all this week!

I wasn't aware of this great event until I received a text message from Amanda earlier in the day just prior to stepping into the dentist's office so it was too late to send the guy a card even if I had an address, which I don't! Of course it was unthinkable that Amanda let the 37th birthday of this alternative music icon, who really needs to eat a sandwich or two and buy some suspenders!, go by without rendering some sort of artwork to post on the Mindless Self Indulgence My Space page ...

Happy Birthday to Jimmy!

Actually, that's a pretty good rendering of the man complete with fairy wings ... and, uhm, if you aren't familiar with MSI, which I'm going to guess a good majority of you aren't, please don't ask about the wings because I'm not quite sure myself just yet. Give me some time, though, and I'm sure I'll know more about the band then I ever wanted or needed to! Living with a teenager you sort of end up getting these things through osmosis!

Speaking of getting things (nice segue, eh?) ... I have been asking my somewhat talented daughter to do some artwork for me now for months as I have wanted to update my blog's appearance a bit and change the design. I asked my fantastic blog designer, Se7en of Blogs Gone Wild!, if he would be able to use Amanda's artwork to make the changes for me and he assured me that it would be quite doable. Problem is, I can't seem to motivate Amanda to produce said artwork.

Now, you would think that after my having taken her to the Projekt Revolution concert where she glomped me, after having gone out in the middle of night to procure the last Harry Potter book for her, after having opened up her Cafe Press shop for her that the kid would have come across with some artwork for her dear old Mom but apparently she "hasn't been inspired" to do it.

Obviously I am doing something wrong so I am now appealing to you, my readers, in the form of a poll which you will find below. Feel fee to vote as many times as you like, I haven't placed any restrictions on it, and let Amanda know what you would like to see done here. I've even give you a spot to write in your own answer if you don't like the two I've provided.

I had thought maybe it might be a nice birthday present but ... I doubt that's inspiring enough either so let's see how she responds to some blog pressure!

Polling closes Saturday at midnight!

Requiescat In Pace, Maestro

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I will admit that I have never been much of an opera fan. Come to think of it, the only one in my family who ever admitted to liking opera was my Uncle Bill - he who lived for years in San Diego, had long hair past his shoulders, and introduced me to Elton John for the very first time. Just goes to show you really can't judge a book by its cover.

Still, even though I am admittedly not an opera fan, I know good music when I hear it and Luciano Pavarotti was the master of good music. When he opened his mouth and sang, I almost wished I was an opera fan the music was so good. Sadly, the man who could sing anything he put his mind to up to and including Ordinary World with Simon LeBon, Stormy Monday with Eric Clapton, or even Come Back to Sorrento with Meat Loaf (yes, Meat Loaf!) left this earthly plane yesterday to take his place among the angels.

For an excellent tribute to the magic that was Pavarotti, please read Jamie's post at Duward Discussion as she can do it so much better than I ever could. As the world says good-bye to another of it's great talents, what I really wanted to leave you with was the best version of Ave Maria I have ever heard. It gives me goosebumps every time.

Arrivederci, Luciano, ed è con gli angeli.

It's a Viral Thing

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Dixie hit me up with the Mother's Home Story... as did someone else earlier this week but darned if I can remember who it was! This is what happens when one's brain turns into swiss cheese with the advancing years. Anyhow, it seemed like fun so here goes ...

Rules:

• 1. Copy and paste the story below, and the rules, on your blog.
• 2. Find out who you're going to tag. (2-3 people, or more, if you wish)
• 3. Write one or two sentences to continue the story, and use the titles of the blogs you're tagging or any word(s) associated with them as keywords in the links you include in your part of the story.
• 4. Remember to tell your taggees that you've tagged them!
• 5. Feel free to use this and start your own viral link story. I'd very much appreciate a link back to Mother's Home! if you do. (Or a tag, if you prefer!)

Mother's Home! the cave troll yelled. I have been out all day strangling chickens like CRAZY! for the evil Empress. All i want now is a MOment to myself, but i keep getting Linda talking Drivel, but that is better than a certain someone Mooing.Then suddenly what should appear but the NOT evil Empress and all her strangled chickens and Mags cooked them all up and made us a lovely cake to eat. Gracie wanted all the cake for herself but the NOT evil Empress was able to hack off a good sized slab for herself!!! ha ha ha

Gracie belched loudly after eating all the scrumptious cake that Mags had baked and watched Callie scrappin' with Sarge about who was gonna win Big Brother 8. Sarge started humming "Dixie," and almost choked on the bite of cake in his mouth! So he got some coffee to go to wash down the cake. The coffee helped a bit but he had to vocalize before he started singing again so he began, "Mi mi mi mi mi mi mi mi mi mi mi mi..."

On the other side of the blogsphere, Dixie and TURNBABY were busy making plans to attend the annual Taylor Hicks concert in Birmingham. So many shoes.... which ones to take... After they had finally decided on what shoes to take and the packing, they just had to take a few minutes and relax ... BOND invited them to have a seat on The Big Leather Couch so they could call ANNDI and let her know what they were taking, where to meet and what time.

All of a sudden there was a loud burst of laughter outside the couch area ... Dixie, Turnbaby, Bond, and Anndi jumped from the couch and ran to the door to see what in the world could be going on. Why it was Sandee from COMEDY PLUS. She was laughing so hard ... she had just seen the movie with Linda, ARE WE THERE YET?

"Well, I think if they were going to name a movie after my blog they could have at least given me some credit for it," Linda said to Mighty Mom who had also accompanied them to the movies. "I don't know, maybe I'm confused but I thought the movie came out after I started my blog! Then again, I could just be having an "airhead" moment and don't remember it right."

It was at that point that Jamie joined the discussion and said that purrchance Linda was right but as one got older it was possible to remember everything and nothing correctly some times. Jen who had just meandered up interjected. "Well does anyone remember whether Miss Bee left any cake for anyone else or not?"

I've Got a Question, You've Got an Answer

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The days are getting shorter and the nights are getting longer; the leaves on the trees are beginning to turn; and mums are popping up all over the place. No doubt about it - summer is coming to and end while autumn waits patiently in the wings ready to burst forth with all of its glorious colors, scents, and traditions.

And that brings me to this week's question -

Are you glad to see summer end?

I don't normally answer my own question but with this one I've got to say a hearty heck yeah!!! bring on the pumpkins, the apples, and the crisp air!! Now it's your turn!

Happy Birthday to Jen!!

********************

Today is my dispatch partner and friend Jen's birthday and you know what that means, right?

CAKE!!!

Pop on by Mommy 911 and wish Jen a happy birthday
because even though she's stuck in dispatch for 16 long hours
without the pleasure of my company for any of it
she deserves a happy day!
Oh, and no smart aleck remarks about how my not being there
already makes it a happy day thank you!!

My Romantic Self Indulgence

********************

Amanda's chant for yesterday was "this is a good day! this is a good day!" and anyone who read yesterday's post about her plushie doll JimJamZ making his stage debut can figure out one reason why (and what kid wouldn't be thrilled that the doll she made was "performing" on stage with one of her favorite bands?) There was another reason, though, to which I was sworn to secrecy but since it has hit the Internet full-force, I think I can write about it now.

In addition to the excited phone call I got from Amanda at work yesterday, I also received a call from Amy, the person who was responsible for Amanda and I having such a fantastic time at Projekt Revolution. For those who might not remember, Amy is the sister of LynZ who is the extremely flexible bassist for Mindless Self Indulgence, the band that the aforementioned JimJamZ was sharing the stage with. In this picture JimJamZ hangs back while LynZ performs. For more photos, check out my post JimJamZ Goes on Tour With Mindless Self Indulgence.

JimJamZ watches LynZ play

Anyhow ... to try to make a long story short, it had been rumored on most of the My Chemical Romance message boards and elsewhere on the internet that LynZ was dating Gerard Way, lead singer of MCR. Someone had posted a single picture and speculation was running rampant amongst MCR fans as to just what was going on. Due to having an inside track, Amanda and I knew the truth of the matter but we were keeping it quiet out of respect for both Gerard and LynZ, who we met backstage at Projekt Revolution. In my post about the concert I wanted to write about what a happy couple they were but I didn't think it was my place to go public with their relationship. I figured when they were ready to announce it to the world, they would.

Which brings me back to Amy's phone call yesterday ... she told me that LynZ had called her earlier that morning to tell her that she and Gerard had gotten married but she swore me to secrecy, with the exception of Amanda, as she wasn't sure if LynZ had gotten the chance to talk to their mother yet and she sure didn't want her mom hearing it on Entertainment Tonight or some such thing. Not that I was likely to call my good friend Matt Lauer at The Today Show and fill him in as Matt usually has his cell phone off in the afternoons but still ... it was exciting news that I couldn't wait to get home and share with Amanda.

The Happy Couple

Of course when I got home Amanda was all excited about seeing JimJamZ on stage with Jimmy so I was thinking that the news of Gerard and LynZ might not sink in right away through the excitement of "I made that doll!" When she finished telling me all about the messages and pictures I said, "I talked to Amy today" and Amanda immediately stopped and said "It's bad news, right?" "No, but it's about Gerard and LynZ - they got married." Dead silence ... "Uhm, Amanda? Amanda? You going to breath anytime soon?" I was beginning to think I was going to have to call 911 for one of my own ambulances when she finally broke out into a big delighted smile and happy squee. "This is a good day!"

For those of you who might have popped by via a Google search let me just say that yes, Gerard and LynZ are honestly and truly married. They had a short ceremony after the very last show on the Projekt Revolution tour at the Coors Amphitheater in Englewood, Colorado on Monday. It was performed backstage by an ordained minister who is also a staff member of Live Nation, the concert promoter, and was attended by members of all the other bands. The bride wore a black and white baseball jersey while the groom wore a jean jacket over a t-shirt sporting a colorful unicorn and the name "Lyn-Z" (see picture above of LynZ wearing the same shirt).

Now tell me Ray (in the Pink Floyd shirt) doesn't look happy??

In my overly romantic and true-love-conquers-all opinion, I think it is just the sweetest thing ever and I wish them many, many years of happiness together. As a matter of fact, I'd like to see them be as happy as Amy and Jason (Gerard's new in-laws) whom I believe to be one of the most fantastic couples I know! Of course, Gerard has a long, long ways to go to be even close to the son-in-law that I'm sure Jason is - rock star or not! Having such fantastic daughters as she does, I'm sure LynZ's mom is not impressed easily!

As for those who keep wanting to post stupid comments on the message boards about how Gerard has changed, this was too soon, and this is the end for the band as well as all the other crap that I've seen, all I can say is STOP IT! When two people find love it's a good thing and there have been lots of band members who married members of other bands that have proved it's not the end for either band. If you're a true My Chem fan then you're going to stop crying over someone that chances are real good you never could have had anyway, you're going to wish Gerard and LynZ much happiness, and then you're going to find something else to talk about. I mean come on, just because Gerard and Mikey got married doesn't mean it's the end of My Chemical Romance or their music. Besides, look on the bright side - Bob Bryar might still be single!

Gerard and LynZ - if you ever read this (which I doubt) many congratulations; Jason and Amy (and I know you do you read this!) when are we getting together for Guitar Hero???

Wordless Wednesday

********************

Why is this grown man holding a doll? See the post below this one to find out!

JimJamZ Goes on Tour with Mindless Self Indulgence

********************

Last week I posted about Amanda and I going to the Projekt Revolution concert at the Dodge Music Center in Hartford where she had the opportunity to meet Jimmy, Steve, and LynZ of Mindless Self Indulgence. I'm sure that anyone who has stopped by in the past week remembers this picture of Amanda with Jimmy, lead singer, and the plushie doll she made for him. I mean, come on, how could you forget that blue hair??

This week the saga continues just a bit ... I was sitting at work earlier, training the new guy, while watching the minutes on the clock tick by at what had to be the world's slowest rate when I got a call on my cell phone. "Home" it said so I knew it had to be Amanda - well, either that or a burglar had decided to give me a quick call to tell me that he had found absolutely nothing of value in my house and was leaving me $40 on the kitchen counter to buy some groceries for God's sake!

• "Hello?"
• "Mom?"
• "Yeah ..."
• "Oh my God I just got home and checked my Deviant Art account and I had two messages that Jimmy had the plushie I gave him on the stage with him!"
• "Uhm, I just went deaf in my left ear, hold on while I switch the phone over to the other ear."

What followed then was a barrage of squee's and excited babbling that was barely decipherable yet could be heard clear across the room by my coworkers. Obviously she was excited. I am the Mistress of Understatement, am I not??

By the time I got home from work, photo evidence of little JimJamZ, as Amanda calls him, appearing on stage was available in the form of the following pictures posted from Mindless Self Indulgence performances at two Projekt Revolution concerts (Colorado and either Chicago or Indiana, unsure which).




Needless to say Amanda is totally excited and I guess I can't say that I blame her at all. I guess you could say that Jimmy really liked JimJamZ!

Amanda is now hard at work creating plushies for the rest of the band members. Now I'll never get that artwork she promised me!! Guess I need to be some sort of rock star to get some attention around here ... time to break out Guitar Hero and start practicing again! Right?

Thus Spaketh the Cookie

*******************

I've been seeing fortune cookies all over everyone else's blogs so thought I would head on over to Miss Fortune's Cookies and see what she had in store for me:

My First Fortune Cookie told me: Entropy is always increasing, much like your waistline.

Hmmm ... that didn't seem very nice now did it? Thinking that maybe I'd have better luck with another cookie I grabbed a second one ...

My Second Fortune Cookie told me: It is time to bring the bacon in from the cold.

Bacon? From the cold? What kind of nonsense was this? Okay, maybe the third time would be charm ...

My Third Fortune Cookie told me: Communicate! It can't make things any worse.

That's it - I give up! Confucius say "walk away from the virtual cookies"! Want to try it yourself? Get a cookie from Miss Fortune

Some thoughts on car insurance

*******************

I belive it was Ben Franklin who once said that there are two things in life you can't avoid - death and paying taxes. However, I think that if old Ben were still around he might want to add one more thing next to those two ... automobile insurance policies! Well, for those of us who own a car, that is. If you live in a big city and have access to public transportation you get to miss out on this fun little part of life!

I know that insurance coverage for cars is a necessary evil as they're called "accidents" for a reason and if you're ever in one you are going to bet your bottom dollar you're glad you have it but sometimes I just feel like I'm tossing my money away on something I'll never use. With health insurance you use it on a fairly regular basis for things like check-ups and dental appointments and eye exams and all that good stuff but unless you're a bad driver (or have the misfortune of being on the same road at the same time as someone who is!) how often do you use your car insurance? Actually, I suppose if you say "never" that's a good thing, isn't it? So we search for better car insurance rates on a regular basis, get the best policy we can, keep our fingers crossed, and then hope we never have to use it!

Still, every month when I see that automatic draft come out of my checking account heading off to the good folks who insure my ride I shudder a bit to know that in another year Amanda will be old enough to drive and my rates are going to be a lot higher than they are now. I'm definitely going to need a good teen driver auto policy then ... provided I let her anywhere near my car!

Thus Spaketh* the Queen

********************

Has anyone besides myself noticed that there seem to be more and more and more awards and badges making their way around the Blogosphere these days? They seem to be taking off faster - and are even more prolific than - memes!

In looking back through my archives, I found that the very first badge I ever got on my blog was on December 31st, 2006 from The Blog of the Day Awards:

I was thrilled and happy to get it even though I had no idea how I got it! After all, who doesn't like to be recognized even if it's anonymously?

Shortly after that, I was awarded the following badge for winning The Saturday Comeback Challenge on January 4th:

I've tried a few more times to replicate that lone win but The Saturday Comeback Challenge, which can be found at Mimi Lenox's Dating Profile of the Day, is a tough competition to win as apparently men are much better at making snarky comebacks to other men's stupid comments then a lot of women are! Maybe it's because they've said stupid things like that themselves so often that they've memorized the responses such stupidity inspires? Hmmm ... Either way it's a fun competition but not for the meek and most weeks I just can't even think of what to say to such blatant ridiculousness! Yet Mimi still wonders why I don't want to give on-line dating a go ... !!

Since receiving those first two badges and awards, I have received so many different types from so many different people that it's been hard to keep up with them. Each one has been special to me and I have been honored to accept every single one of them as I know that there was time and thought put into each and every one that has made its way to my sidebar. It's so nice to be recognized by others in the Blogosphere and to know that you made an impact on someone enough that they felt you were worthy of a badge.

All of that leads me up to the most recent award that was given to me this past weekend by the very gracious Mimi Queen of Memes. When I first began blogging I didn't know anyone other than a couple of folks I had met at the initial meeting that was held at The Norwich Bulletin to launch their on-line blog profiles. Other than that, I was a total newb to the world of blogs and blogging and had virtually (no pun intended!) clue that there were so many very wonderful people out there just waiting to become friends.

Mimi was one of those people who became more than just the hostess at The Saturday Comeback Challenge, the creator of the Peace Globe Movement, and the delightful pencil skirt who tells such funny and sometimes touching stories at Mimi Writes where she rules from the beautiful Bloggingham Palace over all things meme. Mimi became a friend and a woman whom I greatly admired. My only regret in knowing her has been that we didn't have the chance to meet during her short stay here in Connecticut but I'm hoping maybe she'll sneak back up this way to experience one of our fantastic Falls sometime. Hint, hint!

I honestly don't think that there is a more gracious or warm person to ever rule over a castle (despite the dungeon for those who don't complete memes properly!) and when she wrote the following things about me this past Thursday I was very touched.

If I could give Linda an award for Outstanding Mom of the Year, I would. She encourages her daughters' talents and lovingly writes about the trials and tribulations of being a single mom of two teenagers. Two very lucky young ladies. They have Superwoman as a mom! Linda recently attended the Projekt Revolution tour in Hartford with her oldest daughter Amanda. One of my favorite posts involved a late midnight trip to Walmart to fetch the last Harry Potter book for her daughter as a surprise. Very touching. Linda, you are a Queen in my book. This award should keep you out of the dungeon for a while......I know how your sciatica acts up in "dark and dank" places.

Who wouldn't have been flattered reading things like that about him or herself? Certainly not I! Just the fact that the Queen remembers my sciatica is an honor in and of itself!

Mimi, I just want to say thank you so much for this award but more than the award itself are the words that you wrote in presenting it to me. I am so flattered that you think of me as you do because I think you are just a wonderfully fantastic woman and you obviously are a great judge of character. I'm sure that Dan, Bob, Bond, and Patti would totally agree with me!

P.S. - A big thank you to Sandee at Comedy+ who also gave me this award! You, my dear, are one of my favorite stars!

*"For those who don't know, a "spaketh" is when you hear a "voice" or message, which is either God speaking to you, a loud neighbor, or some really good Hawaiian grass." - John Gibson

We Meet At Last!

********************

Aside from Boukie who occasionally (and that would be very occasionally) writes something in his blog, The Fire Insider, and my dispatch partner Jen who launched Mommy 911 last Fall, I haven’t had the opportunity to meet any fellow bloggers – at least not until yesterday.

Despite the fact that we both live in a State that’s only 5,018 square miles total, it took months of planning before Ms. Maggie Moo and I were able to organize our lives enough to plan an evening out but it was well worth the wait as Mags is one of the nicest people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting in a very long time.

We met at the Cuckoo’s Nest in Old Saybrook which is about 35 miles south of me and a bit more of a drive than that for Mags. Apparently that part of Connecticut was her old stomping grounds and she was familiar with the area so it seemed a good place to meet. Besides, I hadn’t had Mexican food in a long time and I’d heard that the Cuckoo’s Nest was supposed to be pretty good. I was under no delusions that it was going to be anywhere near as good as what I was used to in California (there are times I think I would give my left arm for a #12 from the Cancun Mexican Restaurant in Stockton!) but until I can win the lottery and open my own authentic Mexican restaurant, the Cuckoo’s Nest was just going to have to do!

After a big ‘hello’ hug at the door the very first thing Mags asked me was “is Amanda really tall?” I told her that she was about 5-9 and she said “Oh, that explains it then because I thought you were really short but it’s just that Amanda is tall.” Oh … it never in a million years occurred to me that I appeared short in the pictures with the girls but apparently I do! Just the for the record in case anyone else is wondering, I am actually 5-7 though for some stupid reason I always wanted to be shorter. I guess the trick is just to stand next to Amanda and I will at least appear shorter!

We were shown to our table and Mags graciously took the bench seat (which looked suspiciously like a church pew in another life) as she thought a regular chair would be better for my back. What a considerate person in addition to having the most wonderful smile and laugh (guys, I don’t know what you’re waiting for here – this girl is a catch and then some!). Being that we were in a Mexican restaurant, we each ordered a margarita and were a little surprised when it showed up in what was most definitely NOT a margarita glass …

Uhm … I could’ve sworn the sign outside said Mexican but apparently it wasn’t traditional Mexican – at least not when it came to their margarita glasses! Mini-margarita in hand we perused the menu and both ended up ordering the same thing which was the combination plate. I had decided beforehand that lo-carb be damned and I was really looking forward to a couple of tacos. I should point out here that one of the standards I have for a Mexican restaurant to be considered authentic in my mind is that the beef tacos need to be made from shredded beef and not ground beef. I never ate at a single Mexican restaurant in California or Mexico that served up a beef taco with ground beef, that sort of thing is reserved for Taco Bell or wannabe Mexican restaurants. Looking at the ala carte part of the menu I saw that a single taco cost $5 so that seemed to bode well that they were going to contain shredded beef because who would have the nerve to charge $5 for a taco made with ground beef? Uhm, yeah, the Cuckoo’s Nest apparently does because that’s exactly what arrived on my plate nestled next to my chicken taco and cheese enchilada. Sigh … oh well, I sure wasn’t going to let a ground beef taco and a mini-Margarita spoil my evening as it wasn’t about the food but about the company I shared the table with.

Mags and I had no trouble talking and before we knew it, close to four hours had passed and I’m sure our waitress had long ago decided that we had become a permanent part of the restaurant! But it’s really true that time flies when you’re having fun and in no way did it feel like we had been sitting there laughing and joking for so long. Well, I take that back, it apparently felt like it had been that long to poor Mag’s backend as that pseudo-church pew she had been sitting on was not the most comfortable of seats! Still, even though talking to me was a pain in the ass, not once did she complain! I am so honored!

Hopefully we’ll have the chance to get together again before she makes the move to Boston where she wants to ply her culinary talents and skills. Next time maybe we can make it somewhere closer to Mags’ part of the State and definitely a place that has more comfortable seating! Oh, and it won’t be Mexican as I have given up hoping that I am ever going to find a good Mexican Restaurant this side of the Mississippi. Come to think about it, though, Mags is Italian so maybe we could find a nice little Italian place in Hartford – now that sounds like fun!

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Royally Curious

********************

No Photo Hunt again for me today as there is just too much stuff piled up around the house for me to do before I head out to meet Mags of Miss Maggie Moo Talks 2 You later this evening (woohoo!) for dinner, drinks, and what I'm sure is going to be a lot of laughter and yes - pictures - I'm sure there will be pictures despite my major aversion to all things photographic when it comes to myself!
Anyhow, I'm not sure if any of you have noticed that once you say "I'm just going to check out a few posts before I start my chores" that you end up getting sucked into the vortex of the Blogosphere and before you know it, hours have zipped by and the laundry still ends up unwashed, the dusting you meant to do has evolved into a full-blown dust bunny ranch, and there's still no food in the kitchen because who has time to go to the grocery store?? Uh-huh, I see you nodding your heads in agreement with me out there - you know exactly what I'm talking about! Hence, no "just looking" at a few Photo Hunt posts for me, instead I'm going to write what I hope is a quick post and then step away from the computer and try to find the vacuum cleaner! Now on to the meat of the matter ...

While watching The Today Show yesterday morning at work during that brief lull before the phones start ringing and the TV becomes a major distraction ("911, can you hold on just one minute with your emergency, Al Roker is just wrapping up the weather ...") and we turn it off for the day, they were broadcasting the memorial service for the 10th anniversary of Princess Diana's death. Naturally it was a somber occasion as people who loved Diana remembered her life and the tragic death that came much, much too soon.

As I was only watching bits and pieces of it in between giving my wheelchair van drivers instructions to start out their day, the one thing that really caught my eye as I looked up at one point was the arrival of Queen Elizabeth II to the service. As she emerged from her staid black motor vehicle wearing a lovely purple ensemble complete with matching hat ...

... what grabbed my attention was the black purse she had on her arm. Come to think of it, in a lot of pictures that you see of the Queen, she is toting a purse of some sort ...

... this made me ask the question "What do you think the Queen carries in her purse??" I mean, she's the Queen for crying out loud so certainly she's not toting around a wallet with her ID or credit cards, a key to the castle, pocket change, a cell phone, pictures of her children, grocery lists scribbled on bits and pieces of paper, frequent shopper cards, pepper spray, match books from the fast food Chinese place around the corner, etc.

My partner Jen ventured to say that perhaps it was a retractable scepter that she could pull out and knight people with should the occasion warrant and perhaps a handkerchief or two as we rather doubt the Queen carries plain old Kleenex! What do you folks think? If you had to take a guess what do you think the Queen carries in her purse??

I'm thinking my readers from across the pond can really weigh in on this one! Have fun with it and I'll see you when I get done with my self-imposed time-out for housecleaning!