Future PETA Lawyer

Caitlin is taking her role as kitten-caregiver VERY seriously. Take these "contracts" that she asked Hayley and her friend Brittany to sign.

Contract #1:

"Do not hold the kittens unless you ask me!

If I say yes, you'll get to keep the kittens.

Then you will give them back when I want them.

If they are asleep, do not even bother to ask!

And if you're holding them and they fall asleep, put them up or give them to me.

Please sign here."

There are blank lines for their signatures which they signed "No" and "No, m'am."

Not one to be daunted, Caitlin tries again:

Contract #2:

"Don't keep the kittens over 5 minutes.
If you do, I'll tell dad that you're hogging the cats and they are MINE.
So if you agree, sign here

"If you disagree, tell me and we'll work it out."

No dice on that one either.

Contract #3:

"Do not even hold kittens.

Sign here."

Short, sweet and to the point. I like that.

Freedom Friday 08.28.09

Show me who your friends are and I’ll show you who you are.

"Let me tell you who I associate with. On economic policy, I associate with Warren Buffett and former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker. If I'm interested in figuring out my foreign policy, I associate myself with my running mate, Joe Biden or with Dick Lugar, the Republican ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, or General Jim Jones, the former supreme allied commander of NATO.

Those are the people, Democrats and Republicans, who have shaped my ideas and who will be surrounding me in the White House. "-Barak Obama, Third Presidential Debate, Oct 15, 2008

In his own words, Obama himself recognized that he surrounds himself with the people who have "shaped his ideas." Have you been paying attention to who President Obama is appointing as his special advisors and czars? Just who exactly is he surrounding himself with?


There are nearly three dozen of these special advisors or czars that have been appointed. They don't go through a confirmation process. They answer to no one but the President. They are advising our President. So isn't it fair to ask:

• Who are they?


• What do they believe?


• What are they advising the President to do?

This week we'll look at Czar #1: Van Jones, Special Advisor to the President for Green Jobs.

• Attended Yale Law School and has been quoted as saying "If I'd been in another county, I probably would have joined some underground guerilla sect. But as it was, I went on to an Ivy League law school." Although he wanted to drop out, he stayed because he felt that the degree would give him some legitimacy to speak out on civil rights issues.
• Was arrested in 1993 as part of the Rodney King riots. In jail he, "met all these young, radical people of color. I mean really radical--communists and anarchists. And it was like, This is what I need to be a part of." The verdict in the King case came down in April of that year and Jones said, "By August, I was a communist."
• He spent the next 10 years as a full-fledged radical and even founded a group, STORM, 'Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement', which held study groups in the Marxist and Lenin teachings. In the group's historical pamphlet, "Reclaiming Revolution", they said, "All of STORM's members developed a basic understanding of and committment to revolutionary Marxist policies with a particular emphasis on the historical experiences of third world communist movements." The group revered Mao Tse-Tung, the revolutionary theorist and political leader that history tells us killed 77 million of his own people. STORM specialized in "mobilizing young people of color into militant direct action and combining it with more deeply-rooted organizing in our communities."

So how is it that such a committed revolutionist has made it so high up in the Obama Administration? Isn't it fair to ask how Obama's "ideas are shaped" by this chief advisor?

Yesterday while driving home from school my daughter noticed that the truck in front of us had several "Obama" stickers on the bumper. She remarked, "There goes a stupid person." Trying to give the benefit of the doubt, I replied, "I wonder if perhaps they have changed their mind about him now?"

And she said, "I sure hope so because Obama sure does hang out with some weird people!"

Even my 13 year-old gets it. That right there made my heart sing!

Yo, wizzup?!

Tonight I made plans with my besties, Amber and Jen to go to the Zumba class at the Health Club. I walked in and Amber had this deer-in-the-headlights look on her face.

"This is NOT Zumba...it's...HIP HOP DANCE!!!!"

Oops.

This should be entertaining.

And it was.

We shook our groove thangs and proceeded to boogeydown.

I think I threw my back out, fo shizzle.

Word to your mother.

Peace out.

This, That and the Other

Wow! Who would have thought that yesterday's post would generate so much traffic and more comments than you can shake a stick at. Or 13. Whatev.

It generated even more comments than my thought-provoking retail management suggestions . More more than my expert domestic engineering advice and WAY more than my insight into world events.

I'm not sure if this reflects on the quality of my posts or the low-brow humor of my readers. Probably both.

I also owe a lot of my traffic to the shout-out from my bloggy buddy, Carpoolqueen. Thanks, Sus! And all you visitors from CPQ's place, y'all come back now, y'hear?!

Alas, nothing funny happened today. Unless you think my 'having to lap the parking lots on campus for 20 minutes to find a parking place only to have to hike into my office from Timbuktu' is funny. I didn't find it amusing AT ALL.

I also did not find it amusing that I got up at 5:30 AM, that's in the morning!, to go to the gym.

I also did not think it was funny that I spent over an hour at my daughter's physical therapy appointment with a second daughter who was hungry and cranky. Like me.

But a funny strange, not funny ha-ha, thing DID happen on the way to take Hayley to youth tonight. My Tahoe mysteriously steered itself into the parking lot of Pizza Shack. Weird, huh? So of course, since we were already there, we took advantage of the Wednesday night buffet. It was the only reasonable thing to do.

And we topped it off with ice cream.

It was only right.

Great Balls of Fire

This past Thursday night I was eagerly awaiting the arrival of the Hubster who had been out of town all week on business.

(phone rings)

Me: Hello?

Hubster: I'm not coming home tonight. My $#%* car broke down! @$%&! $%#%!!!

(I should clarify here that he did not ACTUALLY utter any foul language. It was simply unintelligible sounds of frustration. But we all know what he was thinking, right?)

Me: Huh? Where are you?

Hubster: Hampton Inn in Russellville. %$^&!!! &*#%!!! This is going to be expensive. The right front wheel is smoking.

Me: Well, did you put it out?!

(At this point I'm envisioning that scene from Planes, Trains and Automobiles with John Candy and Steve Martin. Oh, John Candy, how I miss your wacky humor! )

The rest of the conversation basically involved discussions of Cash for Clunkers and other similar fates that Hubster wished upon his poor vehicle.

Fast-forward to Friday morning.

(phone rings)

Me: Hello?

Hubster: Well, come and get me. It's gonna cost %@# $750 to fix.

Me: So what's the deal?

Hubster: The mechanic said my balls melted.

(awkward silence)

Me: BWAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!

Hubster: Bearings, ball BEARINGS!

Me: (continued hysterical laughter) Are you sure you don't need some ointment for that?!

The plan was for me to drop the kiddos off at school and drive to Russellville and pick up the Hubster and rent a tow-dolly and bring that sucker home because we have a smart friend, Mr. RascalRaiser, who excels at all things engineerical.

I made a small detour in LR for Krispy Kremes to drown our sorrow in and eventually made my way to Russellville, still snickering and guffawing.

Upon my arrival at the Goodyear place, Hubster walks out to greet me and we realize we are both wearing the SAME t-shirt. Could we look any more ridiculous? (The cashier at Burger Boy assured us we were very cute. Oh, good.)

So we scurried down to the local U-Haul rental office and rented a tow dolly from a rather shifty character who informed us that our Tahoe wasn't rated to pull that much weight but he thought Hubster could handle it. His confidence in Hubster's ability and Chevrolet's craftsmanship was inspiring.

We proceed to load the $%^# Expedition onto said tow dolly and found that the front tire was perched on top of the dolly's wheel well. We figured this was probably not acceptable for transporting so we returned said dolly to the shifty character who most helpfully located a larger trailer at another U-Haul location. I say 'helpfully' because our Tahoe still wasn't rated to pull an Expedition so he put in the system that we were driving a Silverado 3500. Well, it IS a Chevy. At this point, I asked the question "So what happens when we show up with a Tahoe instead of a Silverado?" I was shushed.

We drove over to pick up the larger trailer and guess what?

Yep, THIS dude was doing his job and wouldn't let us rent it because my Tahoe isn't rated for it. But I'm not one to say "I told you so."

But I did.

So we finally accepted that there wasn't a way to get the %$^& Expedition home and sucked it up and told Goodyear to go ahead and fix it. And then we told the kids that they wouldn't be able to go to college.

Actually, by this point we were not going to make it in time to pick up the kids from school. Hubster managed to find various and sundry friends to take care of our children for us as we drove home in silence. Occasionally, the silence was broken by uncontrolled giggling on my part.

Long story short, Hubster managed to find a friend with a GINORMOUS trailer and another friend with a GINORMOUS pickup and the %$&* Expedition finally made it's way home on Saturday. Smart friend says he can get us the parts for about $200 and he and Hubster can fix it themselves. We love our smart friend.

(Smart friend had already agreed to replace the radiator. And all of this is AFTER my dog tried to eat him. He's a true friend, is all I can say.)

Fast-forward to Monday afternoon.

I backed my Tahoe into a car in the parking lot at the Health Club.

See? I KNEW I hated gyms.

Fast forward to Tuesday.

(Note: Hubster is driving our 'back-up' vehicle, an old Mitsubishi Montero.)

(phone vibrates indicating I have received a text message.)

Hubster: AC and alternator belts broken. At Firestone this time.

Me: Makes sense.


It is US after all. What else did you expect?

I still think it might be an evil, progressive plot trying unsuccessfully to lure us into Cash for Clunkers.

The No Good Very Bad Dog and Other Tales

I left the room for ten minutes...TEN MINUTES!




Is it just me or does it look like she's laughing at me?

Speaking of cars, Wes is stranded out of town tonight. (Do you like how I made that completely random segue?) His SUV started smoking and clunking. Pretty sure that's not good. I think it's an evil, progressive plot to lure us into participating in the Cash For Clunkers program. We're standing firm!

And much poorer.

I'm up to my eyeballs in quadrangles. Caitlin had 4 pages of math homework tonight. The first problem said to draw a line segment AB. Caitlin exclaimed happily, " I LOVE line segments!" I'm afraid this enthusiam is going to wear off rather quickly.

I'm also up to my eyeballs in simplifying algebraic expressions. What I used to call order of operations they now have a nifty acronym for...PEMDAS. Huh. Why didn't we think of that? Of course, it took fifteen minutes and a really confusing conversation with Hayley for us to figure out we were talking about the same thing.

I have been to the gym at 5:30 AM two days in a row!

I'll wait while you pick up your jaw from the floor.

But I'm suffering major sleep deprivation which doesn't really help my rusty math skills.

Or my patience with no good very bad dogs.

Night-night, interpeeps.

School House Rocked!

Happy first day of school!






Hayley is in 8th grade and Caitlin is in 4th grade. I think a good day was had by all. There was an unfortunate incident involving the wrong car rider line and Hayley's afraid of her Algebra teacher but we'll work through it.

Don't you love my attractive umbrella in the background of my keepsake photo that we'll pass down for generations? Someday Hayley's and Caitlin's grandchildren will be admiring their first day of school photos and will laugh at what will be the quaint, antique umbrella behind them. By then they may not even use umbrellas anymore. I'm sure global warming scientists will have figured out how to control the weather.

Also, it is crucial that you know that they did NOT color-coordinate their wardrobe. It was just a happy coincidence for my scrapbook.

At this point, you can consider the school house rocked.

Amen.

And good night.

You're Fired!

You know how I was bragging last night about not having to buy a new backpack for Hayley because she still liked the one from last year?

Pride goeth before a fall.

Would you look at what that mangy mutt who has the audacity to call herself Man's Best Friend did to said backpack?!

I am firing her as the family pet.

Fast & Furious

Today we are celebrating 18 years of marriage.

Dude, that's a long time!

We have been so blessed in our life together. Here's to many, many more years!

We interrupt this regularly scheduled anniversary to bring you School Open House.

Yes, this is how we spent our anniversary.

We started at 5:00 pm and finished at 7:30 pm. We did manage to run home and scarf down a quick meal too.

Hayley is studying her schedule while we look for her classrooms.

We found her Literacy teacher, Mrs. W., who also happens to be a dear friend!



Mr. O., who teaches the dreaded, infamous Algebra I, was not there. I have a feeling we'll probably see plenty of him anyway.

Oh, I kid! Hayley always makes great grades and scored Advanced on all three sections of the Benchmark Exam.

But still, she's stressed about Algebra. She's heard horror stories.

I don't know how they do it where you live, but here the middle school kids don't get their supplies lists until the night of open house. Therefore, the entire town is trying to buy the same items at the same time. It's super.

So we made a mad dash to Wal-Mart to score all the needed supplies before the locusts descended on the school supplies aisle.





Can you tell how thrilled Hayley is to have me carefully documenting this event?

Wes is vexed by the self-check line.



Twenty minutes (I KNOW! We're pros. Don't try this at home.) later and this is the damage. And this is JUST Hayley's total. And it doesn't include a new backpack. She said she's willing to use last year's pack. Whew! We bought Caitlin's supplies at a leisurely pace weeks ago when they put out the lists at the front of the store. Hmmm...that worked really nicely.



Here we are at Caitlin's school meeting her two teachers, Mr. H. and Mrs. B.




We also got Caitlin's Benchmark scores tonight and she also scored Advanced on both sections. Woo Hoo!

And now back to our regularly scheduled anniversary.

Except we're too pooped to celebrate.

Good thing we planned ahead and celebrated this past weekend instead. We went to Hot Springs and ate dinner at Doe's (yum) and checked out the NEW Sam's store.

I'm pretty sure it's a sign of a healthy marriage when you're content to spend your anniversary at Sam's just because you're glad to be together.

Without the kids.

Happy Anniversary, Wes!

It's been real.

And it's been fun.

And it's been REAL FUN!

Wrapupapalooza 08.16.09

I would like to apologize in advance for this post. It will be cluttered with a chance of scattered randomness.

We just recently attended Wes' 20-year high school reunion.

We. are. so. old.



Here's Wes and a few friends at a pre-reunion get-together.



This is Wes with one of best friends, Justin.



These are my girls with Justin's mom, Betty Linda, who was gracious enough to allow us to stay at her beautiful home and who entertained my kids while we were at the reunion. There was some cruisin' at the Sonic involved, need I say more?


This is Ben, the BEST dog in the world. I had to include this picture because it amuses me. To paraphrase Doug from "Up", "I lick because I love you!"



One more pic. I don't know what to say about the why I look so goofy in this one.

In other news...

Farmer Caitlin is very pleased with her tomato harvest this year.



First fruits.



Apparently she is making a wish on this one.

School starts this week. Ugh.

This is the "School Drawer" where I try to corral all the paperwork. This is the cumulative effect from last year.



Purge.



Ahhh! Let school begin!

We also attended a town hall meeting on health care...

but that needs a post all it's own!

In the meantime, may all your drawers be purged and your tomatoes be fruitful!

Freedom Friday 08.14.09

Welcome to Freedom Friday! If you're new here, check out the Freedom Friday links over there on the right to find out what it's all about.

So unless you're living under a rock you are aware that the hot topic these days is health care. It's a huge subject and we could talk for days about the details of the proposed plans. Let's not.

Here's the really important thing you need to know whether we're discussing health care, cap and trade, auto bailouts, or bank bailouts:

It's time to make a choice.

The time for sitting on the fence is past. It is your right and your responsibility to educate yourself, pay attention to what is going on in our Republic and make a choice. Which side are you on? And I don't mean Democrat v. Republican or conservative v. progressive. I mean, do you believe in the unalienable rights given to us by our Creator and the liberty to exercise those rights as preserved by our Constitution or do you believe in a big government, nanny-state that controls every aspect of your life? Do you believe that the future is best left in the hands of men and women who are free to exercise their God-given talents and ingenuity or do you believe that government is the solution?

You need to know what you believe. Do not take anyone's opinion as gospel, even mine. Educate yourself, question boldy and then stand firm and speak without fear. Exercise your First Amendment rights. Be polite and respectful, but do not be timid. The future of our Republic depends upon YOU. Will your children and grandchildren ask you someday what you were doing while the Constitution was being shredded? Will they ask you what you were paying attention to while America as we know it was on fire? Will they ask you what was more important to you than liberty?

One last thing that you need to do (and it's really the most important):

Get on your knees and pray for our Republic.

May you be encouraged, inspired, educated and bold.

And may God bless America.

Would You Like a Kitten?

Caitlin has been begging, BEGGING for a kitten ever since the unfortunate incident involving Oliver and a bobcat, may he rest in peace. Every day she asks to go to the Humane Society and JUST LOOK. Right. Do I look that stupid? This has gone on for more than a year.

Today, she worked really hard building a "Cat House." It was a complex structure of cardboard boxes, all the tape that we had in the house, my good towel and a decorative pillow.


She also wrote a long speech in which she campaigned on the promise of taking care of her much-wished-for kitten all by herself. I think maybe she even mentioned getting a job to buy cat food. Not really. But she was pretty serious.

I had to go pick up Hayley from Youth tonight and on the way home look what we found dumped on the side of the road by our house:



Divine Providence?

Caitlin thinks so.

I have assured her, and Wes, that we are most certainly NOT keeping them. I might be persuaded to keep ONE. Maybe.

Three of them have eye infections. Fortunately, I have some antibiotic eye ointment left from the Great Rabbit Debacle. They are so tiny I'm not even sure they are weaned. I suppose I'll wind up bottle feeding them just like I had to do with Oliver.

Is there a sign on the front of my house that says I am a sucker?

Speaking of suckers...

Hey, Mom! You know how I've been telling you that you need to get another cat? I'll make you a really sweet deal on one.

These little guys are really cute and friendly. Very playful. They already have names, which doesn't bode well for my plan of getting rid of them. There will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

They are: Lexie, Chloe, Abby and Sidney.

Any takers?

Common Sense Tracker

Glenn Beck's book, "Common Sense: The Case Against An Out-of-Control Government" is leaving AR today for the first stop on it's tour around the country, Kendra's house in MO.

Kendra promises to read the book and then pass it on to someone. I'm going to put the link to this post inside the front cover of the book and I ask each person who reads it to come here and leave a comment so we can track the book's journey and then pass it on.

Wrapupapalooza

I just borrowed my post title from my friend Tiffani because:

A) I'm not feeling particularly creative tonight;

B) It aptly describes what is sure to be a very random and miscellaneous post; and

C) I love the way it just rollllssss off the tongue!

So when we last met here, I was bemoaning the fact that I had 222 visitors to my site but only 4 comments. I think I'm going to start doing shout-outs to the locations I find in my Sitemeter stats.

Hello, Tyler, TX and Pittsburgh, IL! Y'all leave me a comment and tell me about yourselves.

The husband has gone bow-fishing with Mr. Raising Rascals and I have control of the remote. And I have chosen to watch "Pawn Stars" on the History Channel. Weird.

I have a close relative that has had some major health problems this week. (He's on the mend...no worries.) There was some question about whether or not his insurance is valid and let me tell you...I have glimpsed the future of Obamacare and it. is. ugly.

We are all going to die.

My older child has back problems. She had an X-ray this past week and it looked normal and the pain meds they put her on are not helping. We're on Month 3 of this and no progress. Probably gonna have an MRI. Sigh.

I'm just glad we don't have Obamacare...yet. I suppose we'd be waiting about 6 more months for an MRI. And then another 12 months to see a specialist.

Younger child's love of gardening is paying off big-time. She just harvested a yellow squash. Yes, I said "a". That's it. But a delicious squash it was.

Her tomato harvest should yield more. As of today, she had seven tomatoes. We'll have a lovely salad and maybe a BLT.

We have a millipede invasion going on. There are THOUSANDS of them and they are coming inside!! They are immune to all sprays, powders and granules. Mr. Slice of Life called the neighbors and they have the same problem. He says that Mrs. Neighbor called the government about it. I'm guessing he means the county extension agent? I don't know, Obama's appointed so many czars maybe there is one in charge of millipedes. We'll probably find out they're endangered and we can't spray them but then maybe we'd be eligible for stimulus money. We'd probably be required to build a Millipede Museum with it.

Younger daughter just bought school supplies tonight. I love, LOVE new school supplies! I just realized that I don't have to buy crayons this year. Sigh.

In other news...I joined the gym.

Gasp!

I'll wait while you recover from your shock.

Actually, I joined involuntarily when I wasn't looking. Mr. Slice of Life has finished with his personal trainer and joined the local health club. They had a SWEET (according to him) deal for families. So now I'm a proud member too. Yea.

On Friday I finally gave in to Amber's constant pressure and hounding to workout with her, Steph, and Jen. I went to Pilates.

And lived to tell about it.

Although on Saturday living seemed doubtful.

Ok, I guess that pretty much wraps up what's been going on around here.