Having major internet connection issues today, but have managed to get on for a second to share this with you ... it's the link to our Love Story in the Kansas City Star today! Enjoy, and I'll have the blog back up and running in no time!
they keep changing the link, so if this doesn't work, go to www.kansascity.com, then FYI/Living, then Star Magazine!
By the way, I can't stand the photo of me in the paper, plus my dad says I should change my blog profile photo. I'll post some super-hot preggie pix (oxymoron?) once my camera comes back to me in the mail.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Text Messaging Annoyance
I recently had to get a new cell phone after three years. I didn’t have the text-messaging service turned on with my last phone, and it’s not on this one, either. I’ve heard all the reasons why people from age 5 to 95 love text messaging: it’s nice to pop off a note without bothering the recipient (who may be in labor or at work or school), it’s quicker and easier than e-mail to ask your husband to pick up some milk on his way home from work, you can call your boss an idiot during a meeting without him/her even knowing it!
Here are my crazy reasons for hating text messaging:
1. It’s rude. I hate having a conversation with someone and hearing their phone jingle or sing or vibrate or … bark. The message beckons to them, and they get all jittery and anxious until you give them permission to read it.
2. It’s addictive. I love when the text-message receiver grasps their phone like it’s a life raft, as if they simply have to know who has texted them the super-intelligent item such as, “LOL” or “What are you wearing?” or “I’m so bored.” Watch your teen try to live without texting for one day … it’ll be fun!
3. It makes it too easy to have an affair. Just read messages from your lover under the table and respond when you can. Your spouse never has to know. It’s a stretch, but I contend that texting is contributing to the delinquency of human beings in general.
4. It’s why my hairdresser didn’t give me the !@#$ cut I asked for. Instead of listening to me, she was texting her next client. Later she kept stopping in the middle of my blow-dry to text again. See #1.
5. Wouldn’t you think texting makes it easy to cheat on tests? Teachers have it bad these days … they have so many devices to compete with, as if teaching isn’t hard enough. How do you take away 30 cell phones at the start of each hour, then give them all back as the kids leave? Or do you just get tired of the whole thing and try to ignore it while the kids are setting up sex dates via text message?
6. It’s expensive. Just ask my cousin, who ran up several hundred dollars’ worth of text messages once before getting the unlimited texting option.
7. Driving while texting and “sexting”. Enough said.
The next time you start to text, consider how potentially inane your message really is. It’s just one more technological “breakthrough” that has become a pain in the thumbs.
I’m so curious to see what Paul has to say about this since he’s practicing just “being” … doesn’t texting get annoying to him when he’s trying to meditate or get or give a massage? Or is he polite and just turns off his phone for hours at a time? And if he turns off his phone, what’s the point of even having text-messaging? Isn’t the point of it the urgency? Let's all text him right now. His number is 555-555-5555.
Here are my crazy reasons for hating text messaging:
1. It’s rude. I hate having a conversation with someone and hearing their phone jingle or sing or vibrate or … bark. The message beckons to them, and they get all jittery and anxious until you give them permission to read it.
2. It’s addictive. I love when the text-message receiver grasps their phone like it’s a life raft, as if they simply have to know who has texted them the super-intelligent item such as, “LOL” or “What are you wearing?” or “I’m so bored.” Watch your teen try to live without texting for one day … it’ll be fun!
3. It makes it too easy to have an affair. Just read messages from your lover under the table and respond when you can. Your spouse never has to know. It’s a stretch, but I contend that texting is contributing to the delinquency of human beings in general.
4. It’s why my hairdresser didn’t give me the !@#$ cut I asked for. Instead of listening to me, she was texting her next client. Later she kept stopping in the middle of my blow-dry to text again. See #1.
5. Wouldn’t you think texting makes it easy to cheat on tests? Teachers have it bad these days … they have so many devices to compete with, as if teaching isn’t hard enough. How do you take away 30 cell phones at the start of each hour, then give them all back as the kids leave? Or do you just get tired of the whole thing and try to ignore it while the kids are setting up sex dates via text message?
6. It’s expensive. Just ask my cousin, who ran up several hundred dollars’ worth of text messages once before getting the unlimited texting option.
7. Driving while texting and “sexting”. Enough said.
The next time you start to text, consider how potentially inane your message really is. It’s just one more technological “breakthrough” that has become a pain in the thumbs.
I’m so curious to see what Paul has to say about this since he’s practicing just “being” … doesn’t texting get annoying to him when he’s trying to meditate or get or give a massage? Or is he polite and just turns off his phone for hours at a time? And if he turns off his phone, what’s the point of even having text-messaging? Isn’t the point of it the urgency? Let's all text him right now. His number is 555-555-5555.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Unsafe Touch
For some reason, during Joel’s final religious education class they did a talk on and gave handouts on Safe and Unsafe Touch. Joel even had to draw a picture of his “safe adults” … me and Aron, of course!
When Aron and the boys went fishing, they acquired several ticks. Joel got one on his … ahem … nether-region. It was itchy for a few days, and Joel told me that …
What the tick did was a BAD TOUCH. It had no business being in his nether-region.
When Aron and the boys went fishing, they acquired several ticks. Joel got one on his … ahem … nether-region. It was itchy for a few days, and Joel told me that …
What the tick did was a BAD TOUCH. It had no business being in his nether-region.
Friday, May 22, 2009
What Kind of Mother?
Takes her 4 kids (plus one in utero) to the liquor store for 2 boxes of wine and 2 cases of beer?
The kind of mother who is harried because her son’s First Communion is in a couple of days and she has many other errands to do, none of which are open past 9 p.m. like a lovely liquor store!
Then I tried to have Joel carry out one of the boxes of wine because I had Eva on my hip, but the chick who worked there told me that’s illegal. So we made a joke about him spending his First Communion in jail. I think jail sounds like a vacation with free food and all the books I can read, so why am I so damn straight-laced all the time?
I never used to WANT a drink, but lately I think a glass of champagne would be wonderful. Only, of course, I CAN’T. The liquor store chick and I also joked about Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and how I have enough on my hands and don’t need a kid born with THAT … isn’t that sick?
I have to go read the blog called Mommy Needs a Cocktail now … (it's on my blogroll on the left).
The kind of mother who is harried because her son’s First Communion is in a couple of days and she has many other errands to do, none of which are open past 9 p.m. like a lovely liquor store!
Then I tried to have Joel carry out one of the boxes of wine because I had Eva on my hip, but the chick who worked there told me that’s illegal. So we made a joke about him spending his First Communion in jail. I think jail sounds like a vacation with free food and all the books I can read, so why am I so damn straight-laced all the time?
I never used to WANT a drink, but lately I think a glass of champagne would be wonderful. Only, of course, I CAN’T. The liquor store chick and I also joked about Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and how I have enough on my hands and don’t need a kid born with THAT … isn’t that sick?
I have to go read the blog called Mommy Needs a Cocktail now … (it's on my blogroll on the left).
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
I Feel Like a Bad-Ass When …
… I mow the grass with Eva (almost 1 ½) in the sling while I’m 4 months pregnant.
Stupid-sounding, I know. The neighbors think I’m nuts and tell their kids, “Her HUSBAND should be mowing.” But let me explain!
It was a Tuesday night and the grass was getting long. It was supposed to rain the next few days, and then Saturday was Joel’s First Communion, so we were going to have a lot of people over. But Aron couldn’t mow Tuesday night because he was being an angel by taking Joel to his religious education class. So I decided to strap on the baby and go for it. I did the whole backyard plus some of the front.
This is not foreign to me. When Aron used to be out of town all the time and I only had 3 kids, somebody had to mow the grass. Luckily, Callie was happy in the sling while the boys played and I mowed. To do the front yard, I waited until a friend or my mom came over to watch the boys play out front (to make sure they didn’t run into the busy traffic that runs on both sides of our house) and mowed with Callie on me. If I didn’t strap Callie onto me, she’d cry, and I hate that, so the sling was my solution.
Last summer when Aron was gone all the time, Eva was only between 6 and 9 months old, so sometimes she’d lounge in the bouncy seat while I mowed and sometimes I had to have someone watch her inside. A few times cheapskate me had to suck it up and pay Ellen’s twin boys to mow.
I guess I feel like a bad-ass because people who walk or drive by stare at me like I’m crazy, which strangely I’m getting used to. But to me, I’m just doing what is necessary for my family. Isn’t “field expedience” doing the best you can with the tools you have? Then I do that every day! Who doesn’t?
*FYI … I HATE lawn maintenance in general and think it’s a waste of money to fertilize it and water it, but it’s important to my husband so I try to play along.
Bonus post: to see what I'm up to in WriterMommy-Land, check out yesterday's post at Mother Writer.blogspot.com (or click on the link to the right) ... sorry, but I'm mouse-less today and can't get the "select" thingie to work so I can make a link.
Stupid-sounding, I know. The neighbors think I’m nuts and tell their kids, “Her HUSBAND should be mowing.” But let me explain!
It was a Tuesday night and the grass was getting long. It was supposed to rain the next few days, and then Saturday was Joel’s First Communion, so we were going to have a lot of people over. But Aron couldn’t mow Tuesday night because he was being an angel by taking Joel to his religious education class. So I decided to strap on the baby and go for it. I did the whole backyard plus some of the front.
This is not foreign to me. When Aron used to be out of town all the time and I only had 3 kids, somebody had to mow the grass. Luckily, Callie was happy in the sling while the boys played and I mowed. To do the front yard, I waited until a friend or my mom came over to watch the boys play out front (to make sure they didn’t run into the busy traffic that runs on both sides of our house) and mowed with Callie on me. If I didn’t strap Callie onto me, she’d cry, and I hate that, so the sling was my solution.
Last summer when Aron was gone all the time, Eva was only between 6 and 9 months old, so sometimes she’d lounge in the bouncy seat while I mowed and sometimes I had to have someone watch her inside. A few times cheapskate me had to suck it up and pay Ellen’s twin boys to mow.
I guess I feel like a bad-ass because people who walk or drive by stare at me like I’m crazy, which strangely I’m getting used to. But to me, I’m just doing what is necessary for my family. Isn’t “field expedience” doing the best you can with the tools you have? Then I do that every day! Who doesn’t?
*FYI … I HATE lawn maintenance in general and think it’s a waste of money to fertilize it and water it, but it’s important to my husband so I try to play along.
Bonus post: to see what I'm up to in WriterMommy-Land, check out yesterday's post at Mother Writer.blogspot.com (or click on the link to the right) ... sorry, but I'm mouse-less today and can't get the "select" thingie to work so I can make a link.
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