My Own Thoughts

Today I learned that a girl who has babysat for us in the recent past is losing her mother, any day now, from brain cancer metastasized. Her father is in a home because he has Alzheimer's. She is 18. A friend of mine, a new friend, lost her father last night. He was 80+ and [...]

I'm proctoring for standardized tests this week. It is not that much work, but neither is it fairly interesting. My son wants to know why the proctors (I am not his) must read the directions. “You have to be able to read to take the test.” I explain it is the rules. He thinks they [...]

Someone asked “Who was Murphy of Murphy's law?” The answer is available at a Murphy's law site. Though it says Murphy didn't originally say it. (Maybe he wrote it?) Interesting stuff. If you don't want to leave the blog, here's what the site says. Born in 1917, Edward A. Murphy, Jr. was one of? the [...]

Played a game Friday night with two other couples. Called the Battle of the Sexes. Guys have to answer girl questions such as Who makes Barbie? Who makes the perfume Vanilla Fields? What kind of store carries notions? Girls have to answer guy questions such as What heavy weight champion did Buster Douglas beat? How [...]

This sucks. (Well, that's a pun.) A couple were arrested, and their children taken away from them, for taking pictures of the babies taking a bath, lying in bed with their mother, and breast feeding. (Think I'll burn those baby albums at my house.) The parents were eventually released, but are having to undergo mandatory [...]

I got a ticket. I have to take defensive driving. So I am taking it at idrivesafely.com. It is incredibly annoying because I cannot move onto the next page when I have finished reading, but must wait the prescribed time. Since I read fast, this is a pain. Also, if I get out of it [...]

The music industry is screaming because they aren't making as much money as they used to. Guess what? No one is. We're in a recession. The music industry, however, says it is because people are stealing songs off the net. You know, we do get songs off the net. But both my husband's most recent [...]

I watched Extreme Makeover last night. Then I was thinking today what have I done to make myself look better? So I made a list: 13 months of eating well upped my protein till I am well vitamins daily 47 pounds of fat lost 12 pounds of muscle gained over 25 inches lost I've gone [...]

ABC has a new show called Extreme Makeover. They do plastic surgery, caps for your teeth, gourmet organic meals in your hotel room, etc. Last night's show had two women. One woman is my age and, while she didn't look wonderful, with a hair cut and some decent makeup she could have looked a lot [...]

My husband found a blog where the author was trying to decide whether or not to dye her hair. She was considering red. He told her to go for it. Before we married, he was a blonde fan. But we've been married 14 years and most of that time my hair has been red. He [...]

Got a short, lambasting email from someone on a group I am in. Well, she used to be on the group. She said we didn't forgive her, couldn't forget her mistakes, and didn't critique her writing. The group was for critiquing writing. I didn't know she'd done anything to be forgiven for. I didn't know [...]

To be polite, to be fair, I didn't freak out on my blog about the first two times I was logged out of my blog and blog-city, apparently randomly, while working and reading. I was enjoying the blogs I was getting to. However, I have now been logged out three times in less than an [...]

I have found some great quotes on books and reading. This one “Never let a fool kiss you or a kiss fool you” came from a great site Chiasmus in which they discuss the quotes which are those which with a reversal of word order become a parallel. The maker says it is a website [...]

I've done Myers-Briggs, which says I am ENFP. (I want to talk. I go with my gut feelings. And I'm not a detail person.) I've done Gary Smalley's which says I am a golden retriever. (I live to make your life easier.) And I've now done Florence Littauer's, which says I am a melancholy/choleric. But [...]

I had it all lined up in my head what I was going to do for class. Then it turns out that there are a lot more parameters than they told me. Eighth and ninth has to be American Literature. So half the books on my list won't work. My 12th grade class is going [...]

My husband was interested in getting responses to this question. He and I are both on BFL, so we are keeping careful records of what we eat. And we have to eat a reasonable amount of “not junk” food. Our boys are vegetarian. As he says, that means they ought to be eating well. But [...]

Twenty Questions -?Old/New/First/Last 1.? Who is your oldest friend? Larea, known her 24 years 2.? Who is your newest acquaintance? Sheila W 3.? What is your oldest memory? falling down at Jeanette's house, I was about 2 4.? What is your newest gadget? husband's IPod. I don't do gadgets. 5.? What is your oldest item [...]

If you are wanting to read some classics and just don't have a bunch of money to put out for the books, go to Dover Pub. If you hit their Literature and then you go for their Thrift Editions, you can get classics like Gulliver's Travels and Huckleberry Finn for $3 or less. Beowulf is [...]

In an earlier blog I wrote down the list of books I thought I would be using for eighth and ninth grade lit. I got a response from a fellow blogger who said to PLEASE not read Of Mice and Men. The book seriously creeped them out. Me, too. So I decided I won't read [...]

Not being of a background to have an ecclesiastical high church calendar handy and having missed Sunday service for the last two weeks, we were a bit surprised to find the parking lot of our church full this morning. It was, of course, Palm Sunday. And for service, to celebrate, they had a play covering [...]