Our Memorial Day

Hot

Flags flyin'

Amish market goodies

Pretzels and ice cream

Air conditioned bowling alley fun

Splashing, swimming in pool

All-American day

Roasting marshmallows

Sleep

Freedom.......Sacrifices.........Remembering........Safety.........America.........Home.........Thanks

Hollywood Squares - old school laughs

Alright, I know I'm dating myself here, but I used to love the old Hollywood Squares. Comedy relief for a 1/2 hour in the afternoons. Remember Paul Lynde? Charles Nelson Reilly? Oh my gosh....

Got this as a forward from someone years ago and just came across it again the other day. Thought I'd share....


If you remember the Original Hollywood Squares and its comics, this may bring a tear to your eyes. These great questions and answers are from the days when "Hollywood Squares" game show responses were spontaneous and clever not scripted and (often) dull, as they are now. Peter Marshall was the host asking the questions, of course.

Q. Do female frogs croak?
A. Paul Lynde: If you hold their little heads under water long enough.

Q. If you're going to make a parachute jump, at least how high should you be?
A. Charley Weaver: Three days of steady drinking should do it.

Q. You've been having trouble going to sleep. Are you probably a man or a woman?
A. Don Knotts: That's what's been keeping me awake.

Q. According to Cosmopolitan, if you meet a stranger at a party and you
think that he is attractive, is it okay to come out and ask him if he's married?
A. Rose Marie: No; wait until morning.

Q. In Hawaiian, does it take more than three words to say "I Love You"?
A. Vincent Price: No, you can say it with a pineapple and a twenty.

Q. What are "Do It," "I Can Help," and "I Can't Get Enough"?
A. George Gobel: I don't know, but it's coming from the next apartment.

Q. As you grow older, do you tend to gesture more or less with your hands while talking?
A. Rose Marie: You ask me one more growing old question Peter, and I'll give you a gesture you'll never forget.

Q. Paul, why do Hell's Angels wear leather?
A. Paul Lynde: Because chiffon wrinkles too easily.

Q. Charley, you've just decided to grow strawberries. Are you going to get any during the first year?
A. Charley Weaver: Of course not, I'm too busy growing strawberries.

Q. During a tornado, are you safer in the bedroom or in the closet?
A. Rose Marie: Unfortunately Peter, I'm always safe in the bedroom.

Q. According to Ann Landers, is there anything wrong with getting into the habit of kissing a lot of people?
A. Charley Weaver: It got me out of the army.

Q. Back in the old days, when Great Grandpa put horseradish on his head, what was he trying to do?
A. George Gobel: Get it in his mouth.

Q. Jackie Gleason recently revealed that he firmly believes in them and has actually seen them on at least two occasions. What are they?
A. Charley Weaver: His feet.

Q. Who stays pregnant for a longer period of time, your wife or your elephant?
A. Paul Lynde: Who told you about my elephant?

Q. When a couple have a baby, who is responsible for its sex?
A. Charley Weaver: I'll lend him the car, the rest is up to him.





Ha ha ha. Click click click.



HS picture courtesy Google Images
http://www.wiltondriveonline.com/wp-content/uploads/hollywood_squares-show-300x225.jpg

Best Adoption Movie EVER!

Finally finally finally.

I took my girls to the movies the other night. We saw Kung Fu Panda 2. I had never seen the first one and had no clue the sequel had an adoption element to it.

When this element was first revealed, I began to cringe. Oh no. Was I about to be blindsided again by movie producers who do not stop to think about how their cute little movie affects the emotional balance of adopted kids or orphans?

Would I be treated to something like from "Meet the Robinson's" where a little boy is rejected by one family after another because he's not interested in sports? Because he spills stuff? Yeah, I LOVE having my adopted kids receive messages like this. Like if they're not good enough, we don't want them.

Would it be another "Despicable Me"? Would I get to see the kids in the orphanage be placed in the "Box of Shame" for not selling enough cookies? Or to have someone adopt them to meet his own needs and then return them when things weren't working out like he planned?

Certainly could never be as appalling as when that horror movie Orphan came out. With tag lines such as: "It must be hard to love an adopted child as much as your own." and "There's Something Wrong With Esther."


Should I hide the eyes and ears of the two adopted kids I had with me? Should we just walk out before the full story was revealed?

But I am so glad we stayed. It was amazing.

In a nutshell, Po (Jack Black's lovable Panda character) realizes through some flashbacks that he is not the biological son of his father (a goose). He sets off on a mission to save China, but also on a quest to find out "who he is".

He finally receives the full flashback and learns the details of how he came to be orphaned. I was afraid they would show his biological parents to be brutes, but was pleased to see them portrayed as people (well, Pandas) who loved him very much and sacrificed their very lives to ensure his safety and well-being.

When he returned to his village, his adoptive father looked up at him with uncertain eyes, afraid he would lose his son. But Po looked down at him and said,
"I found out who I am. I am your son."

I was crying.
My daughters were crying.
Everyone around us was crying.

A child. Loved by the parents who brought him into the world.
A child. Separated from those parents.
A child. Taken in by another parent. Loved and accepted as a son.
A child. Grown. Understanding where he came from, but still embracing that he is the son of the man who adopted him.

If you have an adopted child, take him or her to see the movie now. Run, do not walk.

And rejoice that someone out there finally got it right.




I will rejoice if you click the button to vote for me....

2 - 12

2:00
Picked up Daniel from school.
Drove over to our other school to pick up Julie and four of her friends for her belated birthday party.
I now have my 11 yr old son, plus five 11 - 13 yr old girls in my car. The girls all immediately begin whipping out cell phones and texting with blinding speed.
All except two: Julie, who asks me for mine so she can follow suit. She doesn't have her own yet but rushes to tell her peers she'll be getting her very own cell phone when 6th grade is over. They kind of sigh in relief. And her friend L, who sits morosely and stares at her thumbs lying lifeless in her lap. She has to wait till her birthday. In August. Collective gasp of horror and looks of pity come from the other girls, who understand that August is a lifetime away.

3:00
Five 11 - 13 year old girls change into bathing suits and jump into the pool.
Two 13 year old girls sit in the bathroom with me as I play nurse, trying to give a lesson in matters feminine so they can join the others in the pool. There are books involved. There are demonstrations and gestures that would make Vanna White proud.
Two 13 yr old girls change into bathing suits and gingerly make their way to the pool to join their friends.

4:30
Seven 11 - 13 year old girls, still wet from swimming, sing happy birthday to Julie. She blows out her candles before we finish singing, then looks up, sheepishly, to explain that she forgot to wait and make a wish. Everyone laughs and finishes the song anyway.

5:30
Seven 11 - 13 yr old girls belt out songs at the top of their lungs as we drive down the road. Windows are open b/c the spilled milk from two days ago still smells like a possum rotting in the Louisiana sun. But nobody seems to care.
I cringe as they scream out pop music lyrics, including but not limited to:
sex in the air, I don't care I like the smell of it
whips and chains excite me
first I'll disrobe you, then I'm gonna probe you
fill me with your love, inject me with your poison
abduct me, I wanna be your victim
I try in vain to educate the girls to the objectification of women but no one's listening so I give up.

6:00
Seven girls carefully select the best seats in the theatre, hold out their paper bags for me to fill with popcorn, and giggle incessantly while they wait for the show to begin. The lights from the screen flicker across their faces in the darkness of the theatre, creating the illusion that they are little girls whose feet don't quite touch the floor. I would never dare share this with them.

8:30
Sit patiently at our booth at Friendly's.
Help girls make their dinner selections.
Try to keep the noise level down.
Play tic-tac-toe and hangman.
Tell them no more inhaling the helium from the balloons.
Tell them no more than two to the bathroom at a time.
Tell them to let go of the drama over the attitude of one of the girl's boyfriends.
Tell them to stop texting each other when they're sitting right next to each other.
Tell them to finish their dinners.
Tell them to say thank you.
Tell them to finish their ice creams.
Tell them to buckle up.
Tell them to open their windows.
Tell them those lyrics are awful because blah blah blah....

11:30
Give reminders about Dorito crumbs in the bedroom.
Give reminders about noise levels after midnight.
Give orders about no sodas.
Give hugs.
Give smiles as the girls tell me this is the best birthday EVER!

12:00
Fall into bed and let exhaustion do its thing.

Farm Friday

Dear children of mine, sweet husband of mine, you don't want to read this. Yes, it's technically still PG, but you don't want to read about your old hag Mom/beautiful young wife (cough) lusting after her boy toy.


Had a farrier appt for my horses earlier this week.

He only comes (pardon) about every 8 weeks, but I have to say holding the horses for him is the highlight of my barn duties.

He's a blond-haired, blue-eyed, former child model New Zealander who is maybe all of about 30. I always look forward to his "G'day Aan!" while the sunlight pools in his dimples.

I try to make nice chit-chat with him while he's bending over to trim their feet, picking, clipping, filing away.

I updated him on how Finnegan was just weaned and was gelded a few weeks ago. So that got us talking about testicles for a bit. The importance of removing them in most colts. They're even a problem in racehorses, sometimes, he says, as the testicles get in the way when they run.

Oh my.

All this while he's bent over with a horse hoof between his knees, his back to me. And I must say his hindquarters are a sight to behold. I'm given ample time to study them every time he's here. Where else am I supposed to look? I've never seen anything quite like it. It's a very physically demanding job, is farrier work, with all that bending, squatting, lifting, handling fractious young horses. It has sculpted most of his large muscle groups into something quite lovely to behold.

And now that it's getting on summer, and it's heating up a bit, things are definitely heating up a bit. Warm weather means a sleeveless tee over a nicely worn pair of jeans and a set of leather chaps. As he works, his bronzed, sculpted arms develop a glossy sheen. Sorry to use the word sculpted twice but there's nothing else for it. I find myself staring, jaw slightly dropped in awe. Then I shake my head hard and think to myself

I could be his mother. This is so wrong.

But really, is it any more wrong than a guy drooling over a poster of a swimsuit model? No. Most definitely not.

Except that my hand trembles when I write out his check.

Oh. My. God. If he EVER reads this I will die a thousand deaths of mortification.

But that's not likely. He and I run in very different circles. My circles being those that have anything to do with raising my pack of wild baboons. His circles are more the Harley ridin', boating, fishing, horseback riding, farrier circles. If we were a Venn diagram? The middle circle would be empty. No that's not true, it would have my three horses in it. But still, I think I'm safe.

I hope I'm safe.



OK then, to bring this back to an educational post on some level so I can redeem myself, I shall now provide for you a short glossary of terms you may or may not be familiar with regarding this farrier visit.


Glossary
Blond-haired, blue-eyed, former child model New Zealander who is maybe all of about 30: Hot.
Clip: Like cutting your toenails, only big, thick slices of hoof come off when he uses his nippers.
Farrier: You probably know this job as a blacksmith. Person who puts horseshoes on horses, trims their feet, etc.
File: Same thing as filing your nails, only with a big rasp over a foot long.
Hindquarters: Ass (pardon my French).
Leather chaps: Picture a cowboy. You know that leather they wear over the front of their jeans? That's chaps. Extends the life of their jeans. They're buckled on around the waist, with another set of straps wrapping around the upper thighs (flutter) to secure them in place. Aside from keeping their jeans cleaner, they also serve to kind of highlight the buttocks (see hindquarters, above).
Pick: One uses a hoof pick to scoop dirt and manure out of the hoof before getting started with the actual trim work.
Trim their feet: It's really a hoof, but we usually refer to them as feet.
Wrong: So very, very wrong. First Clooney, now my farrier. At my age I can only blame it on a last flash of hormones. I beg forgiveness from my family. From my friends. From my readers. And from God Himself.

But I still can't wait till he comes again in 8 weeks.

Ahem.



Judge me if you will, but please be sure you still vote for me. Heathen that I am.

Missed Opportunity

I almost had the perfect post for today.

Yesterday James was finally getting his first real lesson on his new dirt bike. He and a colleague of Fred's were in the upper field and I was watching him from the kitchen window, and occassionally from the deck, while I was making dinner.

At one point, I glanced over to where the goats were standing and they were so comical. They were all standing in a row, staring with wide eyes and perked up ears through the fence at this new monstrosity.

Then I saw the ponies faces and I knew what they were thinking. They are a couple of boys, after all. They were gonna go check this OUT!

So I thought, perfect. I'll go run grab my camera and get shots of James on his bike, the goats staring anxiously, the ponies trotting curiously.

But no sooner did I get the first frame in focus did I realize my batteries were dead. Alas, no pictures of James trying to patiently listen to his instructor while swatting the ponies away.

That's life, I suppose.

So instead, I have dug out an old post from a couple years ago that I thought was funny. Hope you enjoy!


*********************************************************************************



Got a call the other night from a rep promoting some package deals at a hotel chain. Always looking for a good deal, I decided to listen to her pitch. So she got all my information and told me they were offering special promotions in Orlando. That's great, I told her, b/c we were thinking we might try to get down to Disney next year. The gist of our conversation follows:

Rep: Disney? So do you have kids?
Me: Yes, we do.

Rep: How many?
Me: 6.

Rep: 6. Oh................
Rep: 6?
Me: Yes, 6.

Rep: Would you be taking all of them?
Me: Uhhhh ....well, yes.

Rep: All 6?
Me: Yes, all 6.

Rep: I'm afraid we don't have any rooms that can accomodate that many people.
Me: Yes, I know, we generally get 2 adjoining rooms when we stay at a hotel.

Rep: Well we do have a beautiful 2 room suite with a kitchenette that sleeps 10
Me: That sounds wonderful, can you tell me more about that?

Rep: Well we can only put 5 people in there.
Me: I thought you said it sleeps 10.

Rep: Well yes, but because of fire codes we can only allow 5.
Me: ...............

Rep: You're sure you would be taking ALL the kids?
Me: Which ones would you suggest I leave behind?

Rep: Tense, polite laughter.
Rep: We also have some lovely rooms available in Las Vegas. Maybe just you and your husband would be interested in hearing about that?
Me: Well, it sounds like a nice idea but I don't think we'd be able to take advantage of an offer like that.

Rep: Why not?
Me: 6 kids (think Abbott and Costello, First Base)

Rep: ........Uh......well I'm sorry we won't be able to help you at this time, but if you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to call us at 1-800-large-families-confuse-us.



Don't be confused. Just one little click equals one vote placed. Go ahead.

Wordless Wednesday

George Clooney's autograph. My most prized possession. I would run back into my burning house for this and this alone.











If you think George Clooney is cute, click the brown button.

Clooney Countdown

I'm sure I've mentioned before that my sister, actress/comedienne/singer Mary Birdsong,















filmed a movie last year with George Clooney.















George MF Clooney.


At long last I have learned that the release date for the movie The Descendants is set for Dec 16th.

And I am planning, whether Mary wishes this or not, to attend the premier as her guest. That's right, I'm butting into the front of the line ahead of any would-be suitors. Screw her love life, this is about me getting to meet George Clooney.

George MF Clooney.

Here is the first of the trailers. Just a teaser really, but it's cool b/c Mary is in it at the end of the clip.

So now I have seven months to get into reasonable shape before I meet him. Because for him to even glance towards my side of the room I can be no more than 95 lbs fully clothed.

So I'm going on my Clooney Diet which shall consist of the following....

Breakfast: stare at an 8oz glass of water.

Lunch: 1 stalk of celery, minced into pieces the size of grains of sand, to be eaten one grain at a time, chewed thoughtfully before swallowing.

Dinner: 1 leaf of iceberg lettuce. Plus the shell of one hard boiled egg.

If I should so much as look at a carb I shall impale myself in the eyeballs with a red hot poker.

I shall outfit a stationary exercise bike with a thoracic harness and foot straps that will allow me to exercise while sleeping.

With fortitude and perseverance, I can reach my goal weight of 83 lbs in time for the premier.

I still need to talk to Fred about whether he'll permit a "pass" for me with George.

Of course, at 83 lbs I may not have the strength to capitalize on a pass.

Lori Lists

I have a friend named Lori. I would like to explain a few things about her. Since I express myself best in lists, I thought I would use lists as the medium to paint this picture.







How We Know Each Other
We met online when we were both entrenched in our pre-adoption paperwork hell.

We met face-to-face while we were both staying at the Shiny River Hotel in Ust Kamenogorsk Kazakhstan while going through the in-country phases of our adoptions.

Why I Like Her
She's snarky.

She has a gigantic heart.

She's approximately my age but looks half that b/c she's beautiful, skinny and put together so elegantly (OK, these are all reasons I hate her).

She's a fellow adoptive Mom.

She's a fellow large-family Mom.

She immerses herself in charitable works that have helped countless children.

She's smart as a whip.

She's funny as hell.


How She Has Helped Me
She brought me peanut butter in Kazakhstan when we had depleted our rations.

She and her family were pack mules for me when they agreed to take many suitcases worth of crayons and coloring books to Julie's orphanage when they went back at Christmas time for the second phase of their adoption.

She was a lifeline to my kids for me in Almaty Kazakhstan as she and her family waited with my kids and their escort for the return trip to America. She provided this poor Mama with pictures and verbal updates on how they were doing at a time when time was crawling for me till I could see my kids again.

She has boosted my blog readership by posting some of my posts on her blog, catapulting my ranking by leaps and bounds.

She has provided me with support and encouragement when I have struggled with parenting a child with RAD.

Why You Should Check Her Out
She's snarky.

She has a gigantic heart.

She immerses herself in charitable works that have helped countless children.

She's smart as a whip.

She's funny as hell.

Through her blog she has connected several waiting children with forever families. SHE HAS CONNECTED SEVERAL WAITING CHILDREN WITH THEIR FOREVER FAMILIES.
That's right, there are fewer children in this world without families because of Lori.

Why I'm Blogging About Her
OK so you know how I'm always begging for votes for that Top Mommy Blog? Well, she's on it too. She's actually on top of the whole pile of 1200+ blogs on that list. Only recently she has slipped from the #1 position to the #2 position. I have nooooooo idea why. But I want her back in that #1 spot. Because SHE HAS CONNECTED SEVERAL WAITING CHILDREN WITH THEIR FOREVER FAMILIES. So the more hits Lori's blog gets, the more children find families. Simple as that.

Plus she's funny as hell.



Check her out. Now.
http://fiveofmyown.blogspot.com/
Click on the brown button on her blog to get her back up to #1.
Then come back here to vote for me, too. Peon that I am.

Mystery Trip

Friday I took the kids on a little "Mystery Trip".

Trying to think if I should smash that into something....
mystripy?
mystertrip?
tripstery?

Nahh. Nothing seems to work.

Anyway, Friday morning they plodded into the car for me to drive them in to school and they all sat slumped against the windows looking forlorn and depressed. But when I got to the school's driveway, instead of turning left into it, I drove straight on past it. They were all like,
"Mom! You missed the school!"

And I'm all like,
"Oh, did I?"

But then they saw my I'm-up-to-no-good grin in the rear-view mirror and knew I had something up my sleeve.

I told them they could play 20 questions to guess where I was taking them, thinking they would never get it, but Patrick guessed before we had gotten five minutes down the road. Spoil-sport.

Anyway, the big surprise was I was taking them to Luray Caverns in northern VA.

And we had a blast.

They were ANGELS the whole drive down.
We played license plate games. We played alphabet games. We played memory games. We picked a movie that everyone agreed on. It was like a 3D Norman Rockwell painting. I was kind of freaked out, truth be told.

We stopped for lunch at Golden Corral (a place I had been to before but they hadn't) and you'd think they died and went to heaven. Neither the kids nor I have very sophisticated palates and we were like pigs in mud for the pancakes and eggs and cinnamon rolls and bacon and all the other delectable brunch items and desserts. We ate till we were sick.

About an hour later my GPS was telling me,
"Arriving at your destination".

We got right in on a tour that was just starting and spent the next hour or so oohing and ahhhing over all the formations and pillars and drop-offs and of course the oh-so-famous Luray Caverns organ.



Very cool.

Then a little gift-shopping, then I sprung for a run through the hedge maze and then it was time to head home.

That's where the fun ended.

A dispute over a water bottle stopped just short of a full-on brawl in the parking lot. Voices were raised and heads were turned and it was UGLY.

Finally got into the car and got everyone settled enough to drive away but at least half of our caravan was in tears (myself included).

But we put a movie in.
Children began to breathe.
Tears began to dry.
People were both focused and dazed and things seemed OK.

For awhile.

Then we got stuck in traffic.

Lots of traffic.

Around Washington.
Around Baltimore.

What should have been a three hour return trip turned into a five hour torture tour.

Mellow dazed children turned into irritable antsy beasts. They had to pee. They picked on each other, sang loudly when others were begging them to stop, and fought over which game we should play, which movie we should watch, which direction eyes should be pointed, which direction air should be exhaled.

If I had access to a fork I would have stabbed myself in the eardrums.

All my tricks were depleted. Nice Mommy made an appearance till Mean Mommy threw her out an open window.

But even Mean Mommy couldn't quite get the beasts under control.

I have never been happier than when I backed my car into my garage at about 9:30 that night and within minutes crawled into my bed and passed out into a dark coma.

On the trip down to VA I began fantasizing about summer road trips, camping trips, maybe we should think about getting an RV.

But before I surrendered to my coma, I thought,
tomorrow I should Google where I can find dynamite or grenades so I can blow my car up.....















If you vote for me, my spirits will be lifted.




car image courtesy Google images clip art
http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRxDNptllVc_i67O7kcmG7tmPMUeF0u_idpf73KTMQ10xEXkgLegj7hUUOi6w

Allow me to introduce.....

My family. Our REAL pictures.

OK, so I may have changed their names somewhat, but a girl's gotta draw the line somewhere, right? And I had fun picking them.

And any of you who know my real kids and their real names, well, I know you'll be confused, but do the best you can to keep up.

I'll write s-l-o-w-l-y for you.

















James



















Rosie



























Daniel



















Patrick



















Bella

























Julie





















Fred
I decided to go ahead and use real first names for my husband and myself since we're out there on the net anyway. I'm throwing caution to the wind here!




















Me! With my adorable little nephew.
I'm Anne. With an 'e'.
Just like Anne of Green Gables, whom I was named after.







Wow. Now that I've posted pictures I feel so... so FREE!

I feel like I'm skinny-dippin.
Or in my case, chunky-dunkin



In the words of a recent spammer,

Capital blog! I genuinely enjoyment from how it' s agreeable on my eyes and also the details are warmly written. I am wondering how I could be notified whenever a renewed despatch has been made. I accept subscribed to your rss food which should do the pull the wool over someone's eyes! Have a charming light of day!

Farm Friday

Time for a monthly update on the chicks. They are two months old.

Not really much to report about them, actually.

They're bigger.
They're smellier.
They're louder.
They're hungrier.
They're still not laying any eggs and won't for a good 2 - 3 more months yet.

They're still taking up residence in The Chick Shack.

I still haven't worked anymore on The Hen House. Because it's spring now and I am too busy fighting with weeds and planting things that will likely not survive very long and fighting with kids to clean the pool and mow the grass.

So since there's not a whole lot to report, how about a little parade of photos showing the progression of their growth?









One day old.












One week old.














Two weeks old.















Three weeks old.













One month old. Transitioned from tub to Chick Shack.












Two months old. Treadin' water till we can start collecting eggs.













Had to throw in a close-up of Tizzy. Ain't she gorgeous? Sorry to use "ain't" but with chicken talk it only seemed appropriate.








Click the brown button to vote for me. In exchange, in a few more months, I'll give you some free eggs if you're passing by ....

Cyber Safety

Help me decide people.

I keep going back and forth. Vascillating I believe is the word I'm looking for.

When blogging, do I post full frontal photos of my kids' beautiful faces? Or do I just do shadowy profiles and back of the head shots?

Do I refer to them by their given names or made up names like Dan-O or Wilma or do I use first initials or first initials of made up names?

Do I spin yarns about what my dh does for a living? Do I discuss in detail my homey little town? List everyone's shoe sizes?

I cannot decide.

Other bloggers that I follow are not helping b/c it seems they are all over the board on this one.

Take, for example, The Pioneer Woman. Ree Drummond, which I assume is her real name, posts freely about her kids and scatters lovely photos of them all about her blog like I toss scratch for my chickens.

So liberating! I shall follow suit.

But then other bloggers I follow refer to their children by numbers or initials. They use no photos.

Oh the safety in cyber invisibility! I shall follow suit.

Some experts say that if a stalker/serial killer wants to find you, they will. They don't need the help of anything you put on the internet. That's for amateurs.

Others give frightening examples of their child's image being used out of context in some horrific way. Do I want my child's face on a package of Bubba's Butt Paste? I think not.

Usually when I read comments left by my faithful devotees I feel all warm and fuzzy. They love me! They support me! They get me! Reading the comments is like getting a big bear hug and I feel all warm and safe.

But once in a while I get stuff.... not spam per se.... comments that leave me feeling....
icky.

Like when I posted about my colt's castration. Some saw the humor in the situation. Some saw the educational value. Some threw up. Just about all would agree that spaying and neutering our animals is the way to go for safety, health, and reduction in numbers of unwanted animals. But I got a comment that said I was a sick and twisted individual. Not for posting pictures or making light of things, but for having the vet come out to neuter my horse.

I guess it's folks like that that leave me feeling worried about going whole hog with names and photos and other identifiers. I mean, do I really want some freaky PETA advocate tracking me or any of my brood down to reprimand us for not fetching our dogs Margheritas when they're laying poolside with their shades on?

But then, our pictures are everywhere! Thanks to the social networking blitz, it seems like cyber safety is really nothing more than wishful thinking. Because even if you decide not to join FB, or to join with very rigid restrictions on who you're friends with, it matters not. There's always going to be someone wandering around with a trigger-happy finger on the button of their camera or cell phone, snapping away and posting to their heart's content. Just because I don't want my kid's image on the internet doesn't mean it's not going to end up there after Johnny's Dad videotaped the school play and tagged the photo with everyone's full names and sent it out to his 2500 friends.

Do I even try to keep images and identities off the world wide web? Or is it futile and I should just embrace it and do what I will?







I could post this photo, but where's the fun in that?







I do the best I can posting pics like this cuz it kinda sorta looks cute, but how often can I get away with it before my readers are not even bothering to stifle their yawns? Besides, I could still have someone complaining, "Hey, that's my car in the photo and I did NOT sign a waiver granting you permission to use a picture of my car!"










Are these my kids?















Or these?









Just kidding. These are my REAL kids.
You can tell, right?





So I often think I should scrap the whole safety thing and just post any pictures I want. Well, maybe not pics of them in the bathtub. But since they're in their teens now I haven't really done the bubble bath Santa beard photos in quite some time. That would just be creepy.

What do I wish for most:
Freedom to post whatever I want?
Safety?

Chime in. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this because I can't make up my mind.

Plus I can't think straight right now b/c S and J and B the Older and B the Younger and Y and N are all asking me when I'm starting dinner. I would describe the ravenous pleading looks on their faces but that might be TMI. Should I have said I was about to make dinner? Someone out there might figure out what time zone I live in and commence stalking....






I'm ranked # 13 on Top Mommy Blogs. Will that allow you to triangulate my position and leave me a ransom note in newspaper letters telling me you've kidnapped my hermit crabs? Gosh I hope not. The kids are kinda attached to the creepy little things. Whatever. Just go ahead and click the button.






Clip art from Google images clip art.

Wordless Wednesday

As we seem to be mired in a stretch of sunless monsoon weather for the better part of a week, I thought Wordless Wednesday could be used to inject a little sunshine into our lives.

This is a picture Rosie drew, but her Bad Mother never wrote the date on it so I have no idea whether she drew it five years ago or last Tuesday.





The cost for all that sunshine? Just a click of the button. A bargain at any price!

The Sparrow Fund

I was recently made aware of an organization that helps potential adoptive families by providing grants for medical reviews of their referred child.

Since costs are probably one of the biggest obstacles in the way of parents deciding to add a child to their family through adoption, my hat is off to any organization that strives to break down those barriers.

Anyone thinking of adoption has likely been made aware of the potential medical and emotional needs of the institutionalized child. While that doesn't mean intentions for adoption should be rejected, it does mean that it would be wise to proceed with eyes wide open by learning all there is to know about any diagnoses a referred child may have. A prepared parent is a better parent.

In their website, the good folks at Sparrow Fund wrote:

We believe that the family is responsible to be as well prepared as possible for the major life change that adoption brings. One of the most significant ways you can prepare yourselves is to bring in medical professionals to work with you to understand what it means to bring a child out of an institution or foster home and transition him or her into a permanent home.


Check them out!
http://www.sparrow-fund.org/index.html



Check them out, then click the brown button. Please.

Life Labels

Just found a new-to-me feature of my blog.

Labels.

Apparently I have the ability (have had it all along, actually) to slap a label onto the bottom of each post, and then put a list of all labels in a gadget on my sidebar. This gives me, in essence, an index.

So if you were interested in reading all things chicken, you could just click on chickens in my sidebar and up would pop all posts I've written about chickens.

So neat and tidy. I love it.

So now I'm trying to go back through all my old posts to add labels to things.

Of course, true to life, many things can't be so neatly categorized as "chickens", "dogs", "adoption".

I mean, how am I supposed to label the post about when the Raisinet dropped out of my shirt? Clearly, I can't (or shouldn't) create a category called "candy dropping out of clothing". And this post about labels. Should I have a category for "labels"? That just seems redundant and stupid.

So I have actually started a label called "random/funny". In it you will find some things random. Some things funny. Some things, if you're lucky, will be both random AND funny.




Click this button. Not randomly. But very methodically, every single day. If you like me even one single bit.