Technology Divides

I remember when my eldest child was 2 yrs old and I had to chase her away from the vhs tapes on our shelves.

By the time my youngest came about, now ten yrs old, I had to chase her away from our growing collection of dvds.

I did a double take as I chased my 2 yr old niece around the house yesterday though.  In her hands was the portable dvd PLAYER!

Wow, technology sure is changing fast but those little ones still know what they want.

Birthday Fun

Yesterday, my husband and kids woke me up by serving me breakfast in bed and singing me Happy Birthday.  A couple minutes later I asked my husband what the date was.  :)

I had a wonderful birthday and got lots of presents.  The kids got me a new four slice toaster as the old one was not toasting correctly.  I love useful gifts.  My neighbor asked me what I wanted for my birthday and I replied,"Well, I could really use some new kitchen towels."  She very sternly replied that she was not going to buy me dish rags as a present.  Instead she got me Bon Jovi's new CD, something that hubby would never buy me.  My friends and I went to Chili's and pigged out.  Even I'm shocked at how much food I ate. 

Hubby got me a new laptop, again.  I originally recieved it as a Christmas gift but when we started it up, all it said was "Windows:  Error".  The new one came the day before my birthday.  :)  Now I just need a ton of stuff for it! 

Pencils

These are my son's pencils. The boy mentioned in passing tonight that he needed new pencils, that the only one he had had gotten kinda short and hard to write with. He also mentioned that he'd found a second short one on the ground today. Of course, I had no idea what he really meant. I'm sure the other boy is really missing his pencil right now, if you can still call it that.

As punishment, I gave him a Disney Princess pencil to do his homework with.

Breakfast Muffins

This is what I made my kids for breakfast this morning. I don't know what posessed me to buy this product, much less actually make it. I've seen the more expensive brands offer chocolate chip muffins for a while now but have resisted the temptation with no sweat. Suddenly my favorite thrify brand offers a muffin with even more chocolately goodness, and I fall all over myself to stock up.

I'm sure Bill Cosby's wife is serving them to her grandkids.

Ten Years Ago

My Dad-in-law posted this up on facebook:

As the day draws to a close, I read my journal entry from 10 years ago. I worked all night as part of a Y2K support team on call for ExxonMobil's retail systems that may have a problem with the date conversion. Make a journal entry for tonight that records your transition to the 2nd decade of the 21st century.

Oh, I laughed when I read it! I remember going to the grocery store New Year's Eve '99 and watching people check out with huge cart-loads of groceries. One lady must have had ten dozen eggs under the cart. Another had TWO cart loads of groceries. As insane as the fear was, it was even worse to see these people buying cart loads of perishable items (milk, meat, etc.,) with the belief that there won't be any more electricity to refrigerate them.

If your interested though, you can get some great deals from amazon on Y2K books including:

The Y2K Personal Survival Guide by Michael S. Hyatt, or

The Y2K Survival Guide and Cook Book by Dorothy and Albert Bates,

or my personal favorite Y2K - It's Already Too Late by Jason Kelly.

But now there's a new reason that the present world system is going to be destroyed! So get your survival books now before it's too late. Your life can be safe for the mere cost of 33 cents (plus S&H).


Global Warming: Can Civilization Survive? by Paul Brown

Thanksgiving dinner

Howdy Everybody!

I was hoping to have pics of my feast by now but no such luck. My mom takes most of the pictures in the family and I forgot to download them all before she left. Then I forgot again to download them when she was here on Saturday, and when we met on Sunday...

Our Menu

Turkey - Hubby makes the turkey! It was absolutely wonderful, juicy and tender.
Stuffing - I made three boxes for the turkey and then had to make two more to feed everybody.
Sweet Potato Casserole - Sister was going to try a new of doing the sweet potatoes as individual patties but we didn't. Instead we relied on Mom's years of experience and tossed her in the kitchen when she arrived. It was wonderful even though she didn't have a recipe. (I actually liked it a little better!)
Green Bean Casserole - A double recipe of this left us with no leftovers. Sad.
Mashed Potatoes - I used plenty of real butter and half and half instead of milk. Then I whipped them instead of beating for a different texture.
Apple Tart - Cut up apples in a pastry covered with marmalade jam. Sister forgot to add the butter and sugar to the recipe but it turned out wonderful anyway. The sweetness and flavor of the apples stood out instead.
Corn Bread - Again, made from scratch. Two people asked me for my recipe!
Desserts - There was so much food that I ran out of room for the desserts and had to set up my ironing board to contain the overflow. Three pumpkin pies, a pumpkin cake, banana bread, chocolate cake, pecan pie, apple pie w/ ice cream, pineapple upside down cake, and two giant pans of fudge. I also make my own cool whip.

I had 11 adults and four children for Thanksgiving. There were almost no leftovers! I'll make more food next time.

My son is undecided still in this election

I never thought politics would seep down so low, even to the elementary school level. My son came home last week talking about the election. One of his classmates told him that he was voting for Obama because "McCain was going to start a war with Russia and then all the world would be at war and there would be nuclear bombs everywhere." With saving the world from destruction on his mind, the boy announced that he was definitely voting for Obama.

Where's a parent to begin when faced with a statement like that from an impressionable ten year old? Well, I assured him that if Russia wanted to start a war that they probably didn't care who was President and that nobody was going to be dropping nuclear weapons on anybody else. Then I tried to explain taxes on small businesses, how it would effect his dad, and why I was voting for McCain.

Today my boy got to play McCain on the school announcements! He read a little statement and wore a face mask. Tomorrow the students get to hold an election and vote for their favorite candidate. I didn't see the speech that he gave before this afternoon. It wasn't BAD but it was elementary-ish. I would have re-written it slightly if I had seen it beforehand.

Hi everyone. My name is John McCain and I am the 2008 Republican Presidential nominee. I am 72 years old. My running mate is Sarah Palin who is the Governor of Alaska. I was born in Panama, and attended the United States Naval Academy. I am a senator from Arizona. I was a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War and was captured by the North Vietnamese. I have a wonderful wife named Cindy and 4 beautiful children named Meghan, John, James, and Bridget. In High School I was a Varsity wrestler which I think helped me through the 5 and a half years that I was a prisoner of war. I have great ideas to change our society and make it a better place for everyone. I'd like to be your next President.
Please vote for me!

Tomorrow is the day the students vote. J-Boy was telling me how he was still confused frustrated about who to vote for! He thinks what I said about McCain was very good but apparently he still finds his friend's statement about the Russian war very persuasive too!

Well, as an loving parent, I tried to reveal unto the small lad the second great mystery of the world- politics. I began by explaining the purpose of government, to provide a safe and stable infrastructure so businesses and people can thrive, but I had to backtrack and define infrastructure for him. I told him that making a decision on an election meant research, reading, and educating yourself, none of which him or any of his friends had ever done. I didn't expect him to know who to vote for! His friends were just listening to their parents and, though that's definitely a good thing, when he gets old enough to vote, I expect him to do his own research and not just vote because of what I was voting. This was suddenly a very deep discussion.

I hope that I've given him some ammo with which to make playground politics discussions non-stressful. He also said that the teachers really, really want everybody to participate in the vote tomorrow. I hope my assurances that he doesn't have to "make a choice" and I surely wasn't going to find fault in his indecision help him not to worry. His problems will probably end tomorrow. Us adults get to stress for another week.