Hi all.  Don't know if you noticed but I have been pretty scarce around here lately.  We finished school, have been crazy busy with Summer parties, baseball and just got back from a week long vacation.  Time is flying and I can't believe it is July! We are having a 4th of July get together, my son's birthday is coming up, my birthday is coming up and we have something booked for every single weekend until school starts on Aug 30!  Whatever happened to those Summers that se...

Happy Father's Day to all of the Dads out there.  I especially want to wish a wonderful day to my Dad and my husband (who has become an incredible dad).  Like the saying goes "Any dick can be a father but it takes a real man to be a Dad". My Dad is a classic father.  He worked a physically and mentally difficult job the entire time I was growing up.  He would come home at the same time every night, shower, have dinner and read or watch television.  Weekends were for h...

My sons and I were having breakfast this morning and something in the fruit bowl caught my eye.  Our bunch of bananas had more than the usual name brand stickers on them.  There was a sticker that said "Go See Garfield The Movie" with a picture of Garfield on it. That is disturbing in so many ways!  But what struck me first was the thought of the ads everywhere in the movie "Minority Report".  I think we are well on our way.  Every food item you can imagine has Shrek ...

I recently read a very powerful story in Parents magazine about a woman who was forced to deal with the loss of her baby who was born at 23 weeks.  The part that really stuck with me was when she talked about not being able to put herself in other's shoes prior to this experience.  That ability is called Empathy and it seems as though a lot of people just don't have it. I was impressed that she recognized the fact that she always had good intentions toward other people in their time...

My sons went with there grandmother to a carnival last weekend and they won goldfish while they were there.  I explained in the car that I really didn't expect the fish would live long because carnivals don't treat them very well and they were in bags all day. They survived the trip home so we stopped by the store and got them a fish starter set up that had a big enough bowl for two small goldfish, food, droplets to dechlorinate the tap water and a care manual.  We also got some col...

I don't know if many people struggle with this, but it is an ongoing thing for me.  I know who I want to be, inside and out.  I recognize both my strengths and weaknesses.  One of my greatest weakenesses however is self discipline. I know that to be the person I want to be on the outside, I need to exercise.  Why do I have so much trouble just doing it?!  On mornings that I get up before everyone else and use the treadmill and eliptical machines or go for a walk, I fe...

If you have been following my blog you will know that my 7yr old was ill yesterday.  Well, I got him in to the doctor today and he has Scarlet Fever.  I told the doctor about our babysitter's symptoms and she said the symptoms and timing make perfect sense for the sitter to have had strep throat on Fri and now it has come out as Scarlet Fever with my son. I never even knew that the strep virus caused Scarlet Fever.  Poor kid is roasting and covered in a rash.  So we are qu...

Here it is 2:00 in the afternoon and the boys and I are still in our night clothes.  It was a rough night and morning.  My 7yr old started the day with a 100.3 temp and vomitting.  Fun! Today was supposed to be the school's field day.  The good news (sort of) is that it rained so I don't think my son missed out after all.  The poor guy was laying on a blanket in the middle of the living room, shaking like crazy saying, "I'm fine.  It's field day".  When I ki...

If you read my blog about what happened last week with my sitter, you might be interested to know that I got her to come over and had a talk.  I had written her a stern email since I couldn't reach her on the phone.  I told her we really needed to discuss what happened but the fact that she and her boyfriend (she is 19 and he is 21) together thought it was okay to send my 7 and 3yr old boys out in the dark stormy night by themselves, prevents me from having them sit again. Well, she...

I think most people dial a phone number with very little effort or attention.  I want to bring it to everyone's attention that it is always an obscene hour somewhere on the planet and you could really apply undo stress by dialing a wrong number.  Please be sure what you are dialing. What inspired this cautionary note?  I was in a very deep sleep when awoken at 4AM by the ringing of my bed side phone.  My brain instantly thinks "Oh dear God!  Who died?!" when the phone...

I admit to being an over protective parent.  I thought I had found a reliable babysitter that my kids really enjoy.  I was wrong. This weekend we had a family event.  During the festivities, we got a message to call home immediately.  Apparently the babysitter felt ill and either she or her boyfriend who was there at the time decided it was neccessary to call 911.  In the meantime, while waiting for the EMS to arrive, these 19 or older adults decided to send my 7 and ...

Maybe some of you out there will relate to my problem.  It is a mystery to me how self motivation comes and goes.  Some mornings I will wake up ready to tackle the day.  Others, like today, the day seems to be tackling me. I am a procrastinator.  Usually I get a whole lot of energy at the 11th hour and get stuff done that needs to be done.  I am hoping this will continue to be true.  I really need to get a whole lot of house work done before the weekend.  Al...

I am a person who sees horrible things like what happened on 9/11 or what happened to Nick Berg (I made the mistake of watching the video) and feel that those people responsible deserve to be eliminated from the population.  I do not feel like they need to be tortured or made to endure a painful death.  Quick and painless is fine as long as they are no longer around to take out innocent lives. I just don't understand how these people derive satisfaction out of causing pain and suffe...

Sir Pete's blog about Monty Python got me thinking about my youth and watching The Flying Circus.  I loved the clever way they would end a bit that they really didn't know how to end.  Someone would just say something like "Stop that!  That's too silly!" and then the old "And now for something completely different." I haven't watched SNL much lately because they seem to have the habit of including skits that just go on and on with no good way of ending.  They seem to have ...

A while back I shared my experience with vericose vein surgery.  Now I am battling the vericose vein on the other leg along with all of the beautiful spider veins I have.  These veins are getting the injection treatment. I went in yesterday and the treatment was a little bit like torture.  If you have a problem with blood or needles, I highly recommend you not try this method.  They take a bunch of needles filled with a solution that shuts down the vein by irritating the i...