Amy Winehouse? Not in Mine-House!

Let me just warn you in advance. I’m about to take a step up. Up onto my soapbox! This may offend some of you, or you may simply think that I’m a stodgy old conservative prude, or that I take things way too seriously. If so, post a message and tell me your thoughts, or just shrug your shoulders and laugh at me and move on. With that, here is my opinion:

I gave up watching the grammy’s years ago. I no longer listen to popular music. I don’t like most of it, and find some of it downright offensive. I was content to just ignore it for a long time. If I listen to the radio, I usually have on either oldies or Christian music. But this morning I happened to see the “big news” on The Today Show. They showed this chickie Amy Winehouse singing her famous song “Rehab” for which she won the honors of both song of the year and album of the year. The most memorable line of the song that they chose to play for their soundbite said, “They tried to make me go to rehab, I said no, no, no.” Excuse me? Then the story went on to explain that sadly, she was not able to be present to accept her awards. She even had to give her live performance via satellite from London. (she’s British) Why? Because her “drug problems caused her to loose her Visa.” Oh? And so this is the person we want to reward and proclaim as the best the music industry has to offer?

Now I know that some of my friends who loyally read my blog would say, hey, she’s an adult, she has freedom of speech, she’s not the cause of the drug problem, yadda, yadda, yadda…. (Yes, I just yadda’d you, deal with it!) But the thing is, the majority of the people buying those CD’s, downloading those MP3’s, and listening to the onslaught of crap that the industry churns out for them, are teens and young adults. The most impressionable members of our society! And what kind of a diet is our entertainment industry feeding them? Lets see: Drugs good, Rehab bad. Women worthless, Men Superior. Shooting anyone who disrespects you good, Maturity and conflict resolution…huh? What’s that? Gangsta’s equal cool. Slut equals popular. I could go on and on and on, but you get my point. I see kids even as young as 8, 9, 10 singing along with these tunes, spewing lyrics they don’t even yet understand, and gyrating their little pelvises like they see their musical idols doing in the videos. Our future leaders are swallowing this garbage like candy, and its scary as hell to me!

And every time we buy the music, read the tabloids, and talk about the latest exploits of Brittany and K Fed over lunch, we feed the growing beast. It sickens me that the nightly news is now filled with stories about which starlet was caught stoned, and which leading man got a DUI. We glorify these idiots by making them mainstream. And when they get out of jail after their grueling 12 hour stint, we clean them up, put them in front of another camera and shoot the next video or the next blockbuster movie and glorify them like they are the gods of our culture! There was a time not so long ago, I’m sure my parents can remember it, though I cannot, when a star would be publicly shamed and then shunned for such behavior. Now, they get to add an extra million dollars to their next movie or record deal, because they have so much more “publicity.”

Well, I for one, am finished feeding the beast. I intend to do the best I can not to give any of my time, attention, or money to the selfish, hedonistic, overpaid, drunken, drugged, oversexed “stars” that we have created.

It's a God Thing!

It was one of those mornings that you wonder, “why me?” But I think it was really a God thing. J was up at 2:00 this morning, had some milk and was ready to play. I let him roll around on the floor and make eyes at Daddy for a while, then I put him back to bed and hoped he’d go to sleep, which he did. I remember my alarm clock going off this morning. It is set for 5:30. I guess I must have turned it off in my sleep somehow. I’ve done that before, but usually J wakes up by 6:00 so it’s not a huge deal. I’m not sure just what time J was awake today. I had the monitor receiver in our room turned on, but the button was positioned just so, and even though the light was on, no sound was coming out of it. So by the time J was loud enough that he woke me up through the bedroom doors, it was 7:00! YIKES! I hurried as much as I could to get us both ready, but I need to be on the road out of town by 7:20 at the latest in order to make it in on time. That was certainly not going to happen. I was on the road at 7:45. I called in and explained what happened. The girl at work laughed at me, by the way! I was just past the "B" exit on the highway, when I noticed that both lanes of traffic were really backing up this morning. I thought that was odd, as usually only the right lane exiting onto the interstate backs up. "B" is the last possible exit before the interstate, which is where I need to get off and go south to my office. Moments later the news report on the radio tells me that there is a multiple vehicle accident on southbound interstate, and police are blocking traffic from the highway. GRRRRRREAT! So I sit forever in the backed up traffic, have to drive past my exit and go on to the next exit, which takes me to an area I’ve never driven before. So I am trying to figure out what I think the best route is to get back to my office. As I go over the bridge across the interstate, I look to the south and see that the traffic is flowing very slowly on the right lane, and the left lane is filled with stopped cars about as far as I can see! That must have been some accident! Then it hits me……..if I’d been on time this morning, I very likely WOULD HAVE BEEN ONE OF THOSE CARS! As far as I know there were no major injuries reported in the pile-up, but my SUV is the only decent vehicle R and I have that we can depend on to drive any distance at all. And our credit is totally shot for trying to replace it if it were wrecked! So today I am singing praises to my God for caring even about the smallest details of my life, and for causing all those little factors to line up just right to keep me out of that accident! Isn’t he an AWESOME God?!!! Amen.

Visual Instructions for New Parents

You've Come a Long Way, Baby!

Here is my sweet boy with me at two weeks old, and nine months old. I cannot believe he's this big already!

Smart baby, Bad weather, Dumb doctor's office!

The night before last after J had finished his supper, he was acting a little “snacky” hungry, so I decided to try giving him some cheerios again. Previously, he had a hard time understanding that they were intended to be food, and when I put one in his mouth he gagged on it a little bit. So Monday night, I set a handful of cheerios on the table in front of him. He mostly played with them till I put one just inside his mouth right between his teeth and he bit it in half. Then it was like voila! He figured out what they were for. He was trying so hard to pick them up, but he would either accidentally bat them off the edge of the table, or finally manage to pick one up only to drop it before getting it to his mouth. But my boy is SMART! You bet your bottom! He finally got one positioned just right in front of him, planted both hands flat on the table, leaned forward, and ate the cheerio right off the table! It was the funniest thing I ever saw! I clamped my hand over my mouth trying so hard not to distract him with laughter. My shoulders were heaving in silent gales of laughter. He repeated this two or three times before he got tired of sitting at the table. It was so great! Last night we tried again. He has figured out how to move the cereal around in his mouth so that he can bite it with his front teeth. Too cute to watch! I managed to get a few shots of the “doggie style” eating, and then he finally started to get the hang of picking them up. He would pick up a cheerio with his right hand, then grab his wrist with his left hand and pull the right hand up to his mouth to eat it! I’m telling you, my child is a genius! He’s a problem solver! What a joy to watch his mind work! He is such a blessing everyday.

We got slammed with about five inches of snow last night. It was just getting started good when I was on my way home. So I decided it would be a good idea to flip the windshield wipers up so that they wouldn’t be iced to the windshield in the morning. I lifted up the driver’s side wiper and went to wipe the blade clean of ice build-up and it FELL OFF! I struggled and struggled, but couldn’t figure out how to get it back on. I finally just took J inside and figured I’d go work on it some more when he went to bed. Well, it turned out the thing was broken. It had been broken for a while, but R had it rigged up to stay on and work right. He told me he would put it on when he got home in the middle of the night. Well, I woke up at 5:15 this morning, and R wasn’t home. The first thing I did was call him and make sure he hadn’t slid into a ditch in the storm or something. He was still waiting to get his trailer unloaded! Oh great! I went out and cleared off the car and tried again to get the wiper back on, but it was just not going to happen. I was going to have to wait for R to come home. So I made my phone calls to tell people I would be late today and why. R had his own fiasco to deal with at work last night, and didn’t get home till after 8:30. He stopped and bought a new wiper and put it on for me and finished cleaning off my car for me. I love my husband!

At this point it was clear that I would not be able to make my 9:30 Dr. appointment. I called in to reschedule and they gave me a 10:30 appointment. So I called in to work to tell them what I was doing. Not five minutes later the doctor’s office called again to say that my account was noted that I’d have to pay my entire balance when I came in. I told them that the account was on a debt payment plan and they are receiving monthly payments. She said oh, ok. Later they called back and said that in fact, because the account had at one point been turned over to collections it was their policy not to provide any more care until the bill is paid in full. I would have to bring in $700+ in order to be seen today. WTH?!!! Talk about a bunch of MORONS! So, long story short, I am not going to that doctor, and will be looking for a different practice at some point in the future.

RITHER

One of my personal pet peeves is the latest trend in Hollywood of referring to famous couples with a singular moniker composed of a melding of each of their names. Examples include Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, “Tomcat” and Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, “Brangalina.” Aside from the fact that it bothers me that the practice strips these people of their individuality, it is just silly and stupid sounding! So I decided that it might be fun to make a few “melds” of my own, to see if it sounds as ridiculous when applied to regular people as it does with our favorite (or not so favorite) stars. Here goes:

Rick + Heather = RITHER
Beryl + Becky = BERKEY
Duane + Jo = DUJO
Leeland + AnnaLee = LEELALEE
Bill + Jean = BEAN
Phil + Cheryl = PHERYL
Charles + Liz = CHIZ
Jim + Jodi = JIDI
Jack + Jackie = JACKACKIE
Charlie + Lynna = CHINNA

Do you have any more to share? Add them to the comments on this page!

Hey.......my husband is NOT gay!!!

Ok, I don't know how many people pay any attention to it, but over there on the right side of my page, there is a "google ad." I placed this there because when I read about how it works, I learned that the program will "crawl" my page and see what kind of subject matter I write about, and post an ad that relates to it. So I thought it would be interesting to see what kinds of things it comes up with. Also, it said that I would get paid for each time someone "clicks" on the add. But the balance woudl have to be at least $100 before they'd send me a check. Now, I didn't read all the fine print, but I'm betting that it pays like a penny for every 37 million clicks, so that is NOT the reason I chose to put an ad on my page. I like to go to my page every few days and see what is being advertised there.......till today.

Imagine my shock when I pulled up my little page of yammering about my baby and my silly little life, and seeing this title on the google ad: "How I Made My Husband Gay."

WTH?!!!!!

I have no idea what on earth I ever wrote here that could be constued as having anything remotely to do with gayness or anyone being made that way. Of course, now that I have written this post, it will probably come up with all sorts of new off the wall things to advertise. I just wanted to go on the record that my husband is NOT gay, and I have never "made" anyone either gay or straight, thank you very much! Get a clue, Google!