Wordless Wednesday: Last in my Halloween Series

(even carved in to a pumpkin he makes me swoon!)

Memory Lane

This is a picture from July 2003. DD2 with her very first ice cream cone. It was actually MY ice cream cone, but - at the urging of my oldest sister and my mom (peer pressure)- I gave DD2 a little taste. That was the end of it... she screeched like a howler monkey until I let her have it, and every time I tried to take it out of her hand she screeched even louder than the time before. (I had to keep taking it from her, as it was chocolate chip ice cream - and while I did give her the ice cream, I was not giving in to the chocolate chips - so I had to keep picking them out.) DD2 was absolutely in love with this new found deliciousness, as a 8 months old she had never, ever tasted anything like it. (She didn't start on baby food until two months earlier, and she was still nursing at this point.)

My oldest daughter? I think her first taste of anything like that was at her first birthday, and then certainly not her own cone for goodness sake!

It pays to be the second child.

The only reason I'll be sad on Election Day

This was on their Thursday Prime Time show... God I'm going to miss these! Cross your fingers there is another one tonight.

Wordless Wednesday

Today was my big day in court...

(If you need the backstory as to why I was in court today, click here)

OK, so did you know that if you are convicted of driving on a suspended licence in Colorado that there is a mandatory 5 day jail sentence? The good news? I wasn't convicted of that charge. Heck, turns out I wasn't even charged with that charge.

The first thing the DA said to me today was, "I really hope you got your license renewed?"

My reply, "Why, Yes! I did just that, and I didn't drive even once after I knew it had been suspended - probably two of the longest weeks of my life. I even brought my learners permit along with my new license, in case you needed to see it." (At this point you should know that the DA was most likely putting up with my chattiness because DD2 was there with me, looking EVER so cute in her outfit with her matching hair bows.)

DA, "Good, because you took care of that immediately I'm going to cut you a really good deal today, because we don't want to take any chances that you would lose your license again over what happens here today."

Me (Thankful we remembered the MATCHING hair bows for DD2's outfit, as I'm positive they are making me look like never-break-the-law-suburban-wonder-bread-mother-of-the-year at this point - not kidding when I tell you that easily 5/6ths of the people there in court today were teen aged thugs with bad attitudes, whose idea of 'dressing for court' was making sure their gang tattoos were covered), "Thank you so very much."

DA, "So, let's make sure you don't have any points today... would you plead guilty to 'Allowing a person with an invalid licence drive a vehicle' as it is a no point violation?"

Me, "I'd be willing to plead guilty to that charge."

DA, "I'm going to ask the judge for the maximum fine on this charge."

Me, "Is that a lot?"

DA, "It is a $100 fine."

Me (KA-CHING! BARGAIN! I was afraid he'd say like $500 or something insane like that.) "I'd be more than willing to pay the maximum find in this case."

DA, "All you need to do after you sign this paperwork is see the judge in her courtroom, finalize the new charge, enter a plea of guilty, pay the court clerk, and you're done with this matter. Any questions?"

Me, "No, sir."

DD2 and I make our way to the other side of the building to the courtroom. I follow a 28 year old guy pleading his DUI, and getting his lecture from her honor, the Judge. After that? Judge is all smiles for me and my cute little girl - who behaved like an angel the entire time this morning. $137 later (including court costs) we were on our way back to suburban bliss.

Did I walk away from this experience having learned anything? Yes! Always remember to take one of your darling children (the younger, the better) to court with you, making sure to dress them on an outfit that says, "This child is very well loved, taken care of, and isn't she/he oh-so-precious?" It seems to make the process go much more smoothly than I would have ever thought possible.

(Oh, right... and I suppose you could pay your tickets in a timely manner- - thereby forgoing this whole mess in the first place.)

THIS was really funny....

I was watching the speeches from the Alfred E. Smith dinner on TV last night, and both our presidential candidates made me laugh really hard... darling husband was like, "Just go to sleep already."

I have to appreciate good comic timing - and John does have a leg up over Obama on that one. You should watch the videos of both candidates. It's nice to see them just being funny guys for a change.

McCain at Alfred E. Smith Dinner (Part 1)
McCain at Alfred E. Smith Dinner (Part 2)

Obama at Alfred E. Smith Dinner

Why is my child NOT going to the University of New Mexico?

You mean other than the fact that it's in New Mexico?

Have you ever heard about the Ig Nobel Prizes given out each year. They are sort of the opposite of the Nobel Prize... awarded for discoveries that cannot or should not be reproduced. Who won in the 2008 Economics category, you might ask? The 2008 Ig Nobel prize in Economics was awarded to Geoffrey Miller, Joshua Tyber, and Brent Jordan, for discovering that exotic dancers earn more when at peak fertility.

Huh?

Who the hell decided that this was a necessary study? Why on earth would that even occur to anyone? I have a hard time understanding why scientists need to find out if there was ever water on Mars - so you can imagine how far my jaw dropped when I saw that this was an ACTUAL study done by the University of New Mexico. There is a blurb stating, "Brent D. Jordan's contribution to this project was supported by a McNair/ROP Scholars Program Fellowship." So money was actually spent on this bullshit study. Someone (I'm assuming at the McNair / ROP Scholars Program Fellowship) had to actually sign off on this study, acknowledging that this was information that could make a difference. Can't you picture Brent Jordan's grandmother asking him, "So, what are you studying this semester?" "Well grandma, I'm studying human estrus in the setting of a gentleman's club atmosphere and whether it is beneficial economically to perform on stage more at certain times than others." Meanwhile, Grandpa is elbowing Brent's dad with a smile on his face that clearly indicates, "THAT'S MY BOY."

Do you suppose this all started out as some sort of pledge prank, and just got outta hand? Or, is this the kind of thing state schools are supporting? Has the generation, who's motto seems to be "Be Open", getting out of hand? Am I, at 43 years old, just too old to understand?

All of the sudden I'm not so up in arms over the Mars Rover project. Imagine that.

Wordless Wednesday

How to play cards with a quirky kid...

Last Wednesday...

*****

DD2: "Mom? Play cards with me?"

Me: "OK. What are we playing?"

(See, this is where she trips me up, because she has the Care Bear Uno cards in her hand, and I LOVE Uno.)

DD2: "Go Fish"

Me: ??? "All righty."

DD2: "But I get all the Love a Lot Bear cards."

Me: "...and..."

DD2: "Then if you get cards together you put them back in the box and take a jewel. Whoever has the most jewels is the winner."

Me: "This sounds hard, do you just want to play Uno?"

DD2: "There's no jewels in Uno."

Know what? She's right. There are no jewels in Uno. Sometime it is just that simple.

First Frost

I love autumn. I was outside last night, and the air smelled incredible. It was chilly and crisp, and someone in the neighborhood had a fire burning in their fireplace. I stood in the front yard and inhaled deeply - the leaves are turning... what a wonderful feeling.

When we woke up this morning there was frost on the cars and my good cozy, crisp, "fallish" feeling comes screeching to a halt.

This can only mean one thing:

SNOW is right around the corner.

So? Whats a little snow? Please let me remind you what "a little snow" is here in Denver...

In 2003, it was this:

In 2005, it was this - 3 years later and our trees are just now starting to look almost normal again:

and in the winter of 2006/2007 is was many of these, several weekends in a row:

Get your gloves, hats, snowblowers, and snowman making kits ready - HERE IT COMES!

You know, I HATE to brag...

(In truth? I LOVE to brag)

... but my NEPHEW (a freshman at UNR) wrote a story that got picked up by CBSNews.com. (Obviously, I will be pointing this out to my own daughters many, many times over as they grow up.)

You can see it HERE, or you can go to Jay's blog and click on it from there - because his reaction is so perfect you should see it.

WAY TO GO, JAY!!!!!!!!!
Seriously, how cool it that?

I think it's weird

When I look through where people have been on my blog, I found out that THIS entry is hit once almost every day. Really? What on earth are people googling that is leading them to read about "If Frank Lloyd Wright were a hornet he'd be living on my porch"? And it's not just locals, it's international people - who don't know me from Adam... and most likely have very little interest in my goings-on.

I have to admit, I'm curious. Does stuff like that ever happen to you?

Check out Google today..

Google is having it's 10 year anniversary (Yes, it's true... it's been 10 YEARS already that Google has been around) they have a special place you can click to see their oldest search archives. (They only go back to 2001)

I typed in Ipod, and it took me to THIS SITE HERE. It seems that on November 10th, Ipod will have it's 7th anniversary. The amazing ipod was 5 gb, could store "up to 130" cd's worth of songs... and he screen was type only in b/w. Wow, how things have changed! (Look how big it was!)

I typed in "Cell Phones" and learned that Palm Inc., and Motorola were going to begin working on a project together called a "PDA Cell Phone." (Which is weird, because I thought that the PDA and Cell technology merged before that... I guess 7 years is longer than I thought!) Also, Sega was going to begin developing games for cell phones, and this:
was state of the art cell phone technology.

E-books were going to be the "way of the future", and there was talk of old fashioned books becoming obsolete. (Which still could happen, but e-books didn't take off like they thought it would.)

Go ahead - search. It's kind of a riot how much things have changed.

Project Runway bunts...

See, this is where I'm supposed to publish my recap of Project Runway... but I'm so annoyed that I just don't think I'm going to do that this week.

Because?

This episode never really happened. Nothing was accomplished. Had they auffed Kenley last week like they should have, they could have auffed Suede this week (because you know his dress would have been worse than Korto's) and we would have had the correct 3 designers showing at fashion week. BUT, since they kept Kenley they had to pull something out of their asses quickly - because by all rights Korto should have been auffed this week for that ugly yellow gown. Of course, NOBODY would have watched the finale if Kenley had beat Korto, as we all would have been angry with the judges for letting that BITCH get a free ride in the musical challenge... and since we've all already seen the finished collections all we would have needed to do was log on to Blogging Project Runway to see the final results.

In the olden days, the days of Season One, the judges put themselves in this sort of a bind also, but at least went through with picking a final three when it was time to pick a final three. None of this "the second to last show had no bearing on the final" crap. They made a HUGE mistake not auffing Wendy Pepper when they should have, and then had to auf Austin Scarlet right before the fashion week. OOPS! At least they had the balls to go through with it, even though it should have been Kara Saun, Jay McCarroll, and AUSTIN SCARLET - not Kara Saun, Jay, and WENDY PEPPER. I still harbor resentment for Nancy O'Dell.

So, I may or may not recap for the next two episodes. I generally like the episode where Tim visits the contestants, but I'm very upset how this is all shaking out. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Perhaps this is the real reason why JLo didn't show?

Attention mothers of girl children:

Ever wonder what to do with all those damn darling "My Little Pony" dolls when the kids grew too old to play with them? Don't have a garage sale - take some inspiration from THIS instead! It's kind of genius!

Wordless Wednesday: It's that time of year!