And Yet Another Duh Moment...Brought To You By Blondie

Yeah baby!

That was brilliant!

Brilliant I tell you!

It's not like I don't know that cayenne pepper spices are hot and spicy. Because I do.

I suppose I just needed to be reminded, in a not-so-awesome way, that you shouldn't touch your eyes when you are cooking with cayenne peppers.

Well, that was fun. Not.

And stupid. Sometimes I wonder why my hair isn't blonde.

Because it should be.

And if you haven't figured it out by now, please don't touch your eyes if you're cooking with hot peppers.

Yeah. You're more than welcome for the "duh...Kim" advice.

Ouch.

A Friendly PSA - Buckle Up, America!

Just a friendly little Public Service Announcement brought to you today by the unfortunate decision of a friend's brother to not wear his seat belt.

Yes. I know that it's wrong that the government tells you what to do and infringes on your rights as an American to make a decision about what is best for you. I get that. I really do.

But come on people. Be smart about your choices and don't cut off your nose to spite your face.

It's no longer "cool" to ride around without your seat belt on in the car. There's a reason that the crash test dummies "survive" car wreaks if they have their seat belt on versus the ones who don't.

I'm not making up the test results.

And neither is the government.

So instead of griping and complaining bitterly the next time you get into a car about the government infringing on your rights by making you wear a seat belt, just freaking buckle up, okay?

It's the smart thing to do.

It's the cool thing to do.

Your friends and family will appreciate it.

Much more so than having to visit you in a hospital, fighting for your life, all broken up in more pieces than a body should break into.

Come on. Be one of the cool kids.

Buckle Up!

It does your body good!

Happy Hump Day!

This submission brought to you by Ginny...

Fact of Life:

After Monday and Tuesday...
even the calendar says

W T F

Stumped and Confused

Dear Parents,

If you are going to allow your 9 year old daughter to have a facebook page, please have the good common sense to use the privacy settings that facebook gave to you and lock her page down. I'm tech stoopid and even *I* know how to use the privacy controls.

And while you're at it, please tell her to take down the personal information on her wall that would allow a pedophile to drive right to her house/church/school and snatch her. We don't need to know her school name, what grade she is in, her church name, parents and siblings names and what city/state she lives in.

That information would be useful to a sicko who happened upon her page though. As would all of the photos of her that she has downloaded.

Sheesh.

But really. Aside from the privacy issue (or lack thereof), why does a 9 year old need a facebook page anyway and why is she playing on it at 10:30 at night?

Signed...

Stumped and Confused

Pick Your Battles

Kids and their hair.

Parents and their kids have been fighting over their hair since the dawn of time. Kids in the 1950's loved the slicked back "bad boy" hair style of James Dean and Elvis. The fact that their parents hated it made it even more enticing.

Hippies and their hair in the 60's....the ultimate rebellion against "the man."

I'm not even sure what to say about the 70's. That hair was just horrible. Except for Farrah Faucett's. It rocked!

The 80's brought about the "guidette" look...with girls teasing and piling on so much Rave that our generation single-handedly killed the ozone layer! We loved it. Parents hated it.

The 90's came along and, much like the 70's before them, was just trying to go into hair recovery from the previous decade of rebellion.

And now here we are in the 00's (is that what it's called anyway?) and, in a moment of pure parental payback that leaves a grandparent giggling like a mad scientist, I am fighting the hair thing with my kids.

Okay. I'm not really fighting it. Because I don't care what they do with their hair. It's just hair and it will grow back. It's not permanent or anything like that.

Besides, I've got bigger battles to fight. And bigger ones coming up in the not so distant future. (I know that because my mom will NOT lift the curse and I'm due some pay back. And she told me so...with an evil laugh.)

So Shane is emulating the hippies of the 1960's. I have some older generation that ask me about his hair and want to know when he's going to get it cut. I just respond...when he wants to.

And he doesn't. He likes it just the way it is.



The fact that the waitress referred to Shane as a "she" the other day didn't even phase him. And I suppose if he doesn't even care that he's being referred to as a "she," there's really nothing that I can say or do that will make him want to cut his hair.

And I don't care. It's his hair. I don't like it but it's the one way that he can express himself without doing anything permanent. It's just hair.

Besides, if I'm going to fight a kid over his hair, I suppose it will be Owen. He wants a mohawk with his flag football teams color on the "hawk" part of the hair. He already had the junior version of the mohawk...the mohog. :p

Yeah. I know. I know. He's the one that I'm going to have the bigger battles with anyway. I'm going to save up the energy for those battles. Not his hair.

Although I don't care what they do to their hair, I'm not so sure that I'm going to allow Owen to color his mohawk green. Although I'm cool, I may not be that cool.

Or maybe I will. Stay tuned. :)

Taking A Snow Break

Okay. I'm sick of snow.

You're sick of seeing pictures of snow.

And you're most definitely tired of hearing me whine about snow.

So, let's change it up. Ken's aunt asked me to post some more videos of the boys tennis so here they are.

Liz, the ones of Shane are only his backhand. It must have been backhand day during the lesson that day. I'll try and get some of his forehand soon for you. These were taken Dec. 17th.

Enjoy!

Introducing Bob

I'd like to introduce you to Bob.

"Bob the Pitiful Snowman."

Appropriately named so by Owen.



Laugh if you want, but we love our pitiful snowman. He was made with love and good intentions.

So what that he's only a foot and a half tall. What do you have against short snowmen?



So what that we only could find one stick to make an arm. A celery stick works just as well. Come on people! Use your imaginations. :up:



Owen worked so hard to make Bob the perfect snowman for our family. How many snow families are so concerned about the safety of their snowmen that they give them a bike safety hat to wear? None. Well. One. Us.



But, as you know, Owen likes to eat. Sorry, Bob. I guess you're a one armed snowman now. Obviously Owen's not that concerned about your safety.



Our snowman rocks! Just ask Owen.



But really. I know that he's pitiful but it's not my fault really. I grew up in the south, which is ruled by the Heat Miser. Obviously I need more practice.

Obviously. :p

Snowmageddon 2010 ....Take 2

The DC area got hit with more than a foot of snow in December. While it was fun and all, evidently, the real reason for that snow was to prepare us for Snowmageddon 2010!

The last few days, the Washington, DC area was hit by the mother of all snow storms. We knew it was coming. The weather forecasters have been predicting a "significant snow storm" for the last week and yet people still didn't prepare and went into full-out panic mode.

Going into full freak out mode, people in the area wiped out the grocery store shelves of all milk, bread, meat and any other essentials that you can think of.

I *thought* I was prepared. I had gone to the grocery store earlier in the week and then chuckled to myself when I saw the cars at the grocery stores and heard the reports of people waiting in line for an hour or more to check out.

As always happens, mother nature showed me who was boss and I quickly realized that I wasn't as prepared as I thought I was.

Oh. I had beer. And I had milk and bread.

I soon figured out what I didn't potentially have enough of. Little stuff like batteries, candles and food that doesn't need to be cooked. And I figured it out when our power went out several times, the first outage occurring within the first few hours of the snowstorm...which was expected to last for another 24-48 hours.

Oops.

But it turned out okay and I learned my lesson.

The kids have had a great time playing in the snow and they have enjoyed their time off from school. I'm quite certain that they are never going back to school. But...that's a different post.

I give you...snowmageddon 2010!

Our poor trampoline. I hope it recovers from the weight of the snow.



Is there anything better than a snowball fight? Well. To me there is. But not to the boys.



Sledding is the BEST!





The kids have enjoyed all of the snow that we've gotten this winter. I wonder if they'll remember that joy when they're still in school in July.

Oh yeah...did I mention that they're predicting another snow storm either Tuesday or Wednesday -- just about the time we should be dug out of this one and ready to go back to school. But this time, it's *just* a little 5 to 8 inches. That's all. :-|

Yellow Snow

Who doesn't like to make snow cream?

It's just "ice cream" made out of fresh white snow.

The answer is everyone, of course! But mom always told us to stay away from the yellow snow.

Which is not a problem since we don't have a dog. But of course, I didn't take Owen into account.

We got home yesterday afternoon and Owen decided that he wanted to color the snow yellow.

So he dropped his pants and peed in the snow.

In the front yard.

I'm starting to worry that I have a exhibitionist on my hands. And here. And here.

On the last link, just follow all the links on the blog post for more evidence. There are too many to add here. :-|

Ugh. Super Groan. And All That Good Stuff!

Did you hear it?

I'm certain that you did! Heck. The moms two counties over probably heard it.

Or maybe they didn't. Because they were too busy doing the same thing.

What is it? It's a groan so loud it shook the house. A groan that was induced by yet another email from the "School's Out" website notifying me (and hundreds of other moms in the area) that school has been canceled yet again for snow and ice.

Ugh. Super Groan. And all that good stuff!

I jinxed it last week when I made plans with my friend Emily to go to lunch this week. It's totally *my* fault! TOTALLY!

And we're expecting up to two feet of snow this weekend.

Ugh. Super Groan. And all that good stuff!

I hope I survive it. :)