Women are notoriously unkind to one another and although I don’t want to turn this into a political rant of any sort – at this time, more than any other, women ought to be banding together. We’ve been divided, ladies, let’s catch up to what is going on, political parties aside, and stand up before our daughters and granddaughters pay dearly for our complacency.

We all deserve the right to choose what is best for our lives and our bodies and no one has the right to make such personal calls for us. We should all be striving to preserve the right for all women to choose. You choose not to – great, that’s YOUR choice. For another woman her circumstances may dictate something else altogether – and you should support her right to make a CHOICE without harassment and without cruel and unwanted procedures. Once one type of CHOICE gets taken away – others are sure to follow.

It was brought to my attention the other day that women haven’t even had the right to vote for a hundred years yet and we’re in danger of going backwards. If you don’t make your voice heard today the women of tomorrow aren’t going to be heard at all.

And, with my rant aside – it’s kind of nice to find a place online where women are really trying to help each other out. So many of us rely on our inner circles and facebook friends that it’s awfully nice to see women in a mom forum hanging out and supporting one another with helpful advice and tips. Check it out, it’s pretty cool.

*opens door, peeks in, sighs heavily, shuts door*

This blog, oy, it’s become that room in the house where all the stuff goes that you don’t have the time to organize or find a place for. I know it’s here waiting for me, I just haven’t been very attentive lately. It’s okay because I’m sure I haven’t been missed. I am not absurd enough to think I make even a remote ripple in the blogosphere.

The weather has warmed up and it’s been too nice to sit in front of a computer. It’s actually been too nice to do any of those responsible things one is supposed to be doing, but I manage anyway. Barely.

Guess what you get? One of those lists of all the things I’ve done or been doing since I haven’t been posting here much.

1.) Blake Shelton concert with my awesome daughter, Katie. Worth every second and the beer spilled on us from the obnoxious women in the seats behind us. We (Kate and I) are DIE HARD fans.

2.) I’ve been woefully addicted to The Voice on NBC, mainly because of Blake Shelton and Adam Levine.

3.) I’ve DVR’d every instance of Big Bang Theory re-run and new episode that I can find and have watched them all numerous times. I’m addicted and I’m a HUGE fan of Sheldon Cooper.

4.) I spend a ridiculous amount of time on Facebook.

(it now occurs to me that most of these things have nothing to do with the weather or why I’ve been outside a lot and instead seem to undermine my main excuse.)

5.) I’ve planted 64 marigolds only to find that my ridiculous chicken, B.B., went through them all and ate all the foliage off of each and every plant. Now I’m on death watch. For the flowers, not the bird – don’t get me wrong, the bird is in the “iffy” category.

6.) I did a ridiculous happy dance / snoopy shuffle when I found that my lilac tree has BUDS, as in actual FLOWER BUDS!!!! Mike is still rather smug because he claims to have predicted it blooming this year when all research had us believing it would not. There aren’t any flowers yet so his “I was right dance” is on hold for now.

7.) I celebrated Katie turning 17 for a full week. We like to stretch the birthdays out around here. A good friend also had her birthday a few days after Kate’s so we ended the week at local restaurant celebrating complete with singing waiters/waitresses!

8.) Easter, egg painting, egg hunts, copious amounts of chocolate.

9.) Spring Break!!!!!!

(this entire list is out of order and I have not had enough coffee to give even the remotest of a damn)

10.) We converted Maggie’s sandbox to a raised garden. Maggie and I have been tending to tomatoes, bell peppers, eggplant, squash, and strawberries. We’re currently germinating some watermelon and cucumber seeds.

That’s it. Super boring. But, not so boring that I had the time or inclination to, you know, update around here.

After my ranty post yesterday I thought I needed to clean it up a bit and give you another facet of my personality. I heard this song for the first time when Amy played it at a concert here in Bakersfield in 2008, I got to meet her that night too, words cannot begin to describe the thrill of getting to meet one of your heroes. She wrote this song based on something her older children’s grandmother used to say, beautiful words and lyrics we should all strive to live by… even me.

Kate uses part of the lyrics as her signature file in her email, I’m so proud of my kid she really does embody these lyrics.

“There’s so much good in the worst of us,
so much bad in the best of us,
it never makes sense for any of us,
to criticize the rest of us” -Amy Grant

I’ve been asked a bunch, Kate and I had the BEST time at the Blake Shelton concert. He really exceeded our expectations. Pics and more to come soon-ish.

Religion and politics… after this, I’m dropping both subjects for a while.

Anyone left?

Who would have guessed that in the year my husband and I are most aligned politically that I would desperately be in need of a breather? It’s not my husband, he’s awesome. I’ve seen him charging into debates brilliantly and his anger at Rush Limbaugh made me swoon. No, it’s not him. It’s me. Maybe it’s finally reaching a point in our relationship where I see all of my successes (him agreeing with me) and all the compromises I am willing to make (not as much fun as the other) and the sum total is “Whew! Glad that’s over with; let’s move on to something else!”

Nah. That’s not it. The real reason for the needed breather is the amount of sewage I have read over the past few weeks. I read an article recently that said Rick Santorum was popular with uneducated people. That’s probably true especially given some of the absolute disgusting garbage I have seen people spewing in all their misspelled glory. Of course, in the sad world of Santorum logic college students are nothing more than elitist, hypocritical, liberal garbage. This makes perfect sense to me, after all most college students can articulate their arguments well, use proper grammar and spelling whereas the best the people putting them down can do is swear that “the gays” are the reason this country is going into the toilet.

I stopped just short of naming names here (and providing contact information) because my husband asked me not to. Needless to say, when one proclaims to be on a mission to prove that “Christians are intelligent” while misspelling 85% of the comment’s content and then attempting to insult someone by ironically calling them a “genious” (translation: GENIUS) it might be time to give up your cause or at the very least stop typing.

I think Mark Twain got it right when he said, “It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.”

It’s safe to say this unnamed person has removed all doubt in my book. But, then he probably did that several years ago when he sat at a dinner table and loudly announced “YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MANY CHRISTIANS WANT BILL CLINTON IMPEACHED” as if it were some underground, secret movement that people were carefully keeping under wraps at the time.

The afore mentioned person has been known to cite statistics on homosexuality with zero credible sources (or sources AT ALL) to support them. Things like:

- Homosexual sex does irreparable damage to the human body
- Homosexual sex is responsible for 99% of the STDs floating around “out there”
- Homosexual relationships have greater instances of abuse and domestic violence

It’s okay, I can completely see where he might get these ideas. You see, in the same comment thread this person claimed to work in a medical facility and has supposedly seen the damage of homosexual relationships “first hand” – I don’t know where you come from but around here we don’t call PRISONS “medical facilities” and being a PRISON GUARD doesn’t make you “medical personnel” correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m fairly certain I’m not. I can certainly see why someone working in a prison might see instances of physical damage that may or may not have anything to do with homosexuality.

If you are lost here let me refer you to the movie “American Me” or the HBO show “Oz” and that should clear it all up for you.

It goes without saying that those sorts of statistics can’t accurately be based on prison violence. I hate to burst his bubble but all rape does damage regardless of what gender the victim is. I’m more concerned with what this morbid obsession with anal sex says about the person citing these “statistics.” After all, he never seems to discuss the damage of lesbian sex, or lesbian sex at all and even more interesting, the only interest I’ve seen him take in “girly bits” would be when he protests abortion. Quite frankly, I think someone needs to just give it up and come on out of the closet. I guarantee we’d be nicer to him than he has been to anyone else.

But, at the end of this I’m sort of slinging the same kind of sewage I complained about and now you see why I want a breather. This whole thing is exhausting. It’s a nonstop roller coaster of judgment, hate, bigotry, intolerance and it’s all cloaked in the Kirk Cameron-esque guise of “loving all people” or trying to or some such nonsense.

I tell you this, “loving all people” or however that guy from “Growing Pains” put it – (and really? A former teenage heartthrob is your hero? Let’s go back to that whole in the closet thing, shall we?) should not make the rest of us feel so dirty inside. The only thing “underpinning western civilization” is the determination of a particular group of people who seem hell bent on creating a Grand Canyon sized divide and then happily pushing the people who don’t bend to their will into it. After all, homosexuality has been around for thousands of years, prior to the birth of Christianity actually, and God must not have too big of an issue with it or maybe it’s His whole premise of “free will” that He’s sticking to.

At the end of the day, there are bigger issues going on in this country than what two consenting adults are doing with their lives. Marriage equality and women’s health and reproductive choices need to be taken off the table entirely.

Don’t get me wrong, I support their right to free speech, say what you believe, stand by it, but don’t whine and complain when someone disagrees with you. Don’t get up on your high horse and try to claim YOUR rights are being trampled on. After all, the people disagreeing with you aren’t trying to restrict YOUR rights, we are just trying to ensure the same rights for everyone that you already take advantage of and take for granted.

Your beliefs, your theology, your religion should dictate your own personal behavior, it should/can give you the basis for how you want to raise your children and guide your family, but it has no place in government or politics. After all, let’s not forget that we refer to the last time religion ruled the world as “the Dark Ages.”

But as for that “Tea Party” I think you better read up on your Founding Fathers because the two of you are light years apart in your intention for this country.

And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors.”

Source: Letter of Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, April 11, 1823.

“Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him (i.e. Jesus) by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence; and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being.”

Source: Letter of Thomas Jefferson to William Short, April 13, 1820

“Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.” Source: Letter of Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814.

I toyed around with a few ideas on how I might pull some old, dusty gems out of the archives here and perhaps give them a new life and some new blood to appreciate them.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but time and memory certainly do the same. I look back and think, wow, my posts were far better a few years ago than they are now. I’m going to work on that one, for sure.

Back to dusting off the oldies. I decided to take some of my favorite snippets from old posts and plop them down here along with a link to the original post. It’s like a blog buffet, click on what looks good.

“The boat was tipping and bobbing through the waves and were it not for the rest of the guests aboard I would have been more certain of meeting my maker that very day. Then I took a good look around me and realized that there isn’t a God in existence who would let me die with people this stupid.” – from “A Three Hour Tour”

“Imagine my surprise to find out that my bagless Bissell vacuum is a little bit more powerful than I had original estimated it to be. One instant I was cleaning out his “condo” the next instant there was a “shloooop” sound and he was gone.” – from “How I Almost Killed Sinatra”

“There should be a super-hero named the informer… her job would be to fly around and just make people aware of situations they wish they’d never heard of.” – “Exploding Soy Sauce”

“I think it is great for him to get together, occasionally, with friends / colleagues as it keeps everyone on the same page. Plus it means I don’t have to look over my shoulder and try not to beat him to death with my stapler as he hunts and pecks his way through the morning.” – “About To Kuh-Splode”

“Typically, when you go to make funeral arrangements, you make them with the funeral home where the body already is. By 9am the body had been removed and no one knew where it might be.” – “Laugh and Death”

“For hours we sat in the sun looking up and down the shoreline at our fellow fishermen, disappointment had settled over the lake not unlike the stench of “stanky bait” and possibly even more putrid.” – “The Legend of Stanky Bait”

I wouldn’t recommend planning a big weekend family party the same weekend that the time changes.

Or as Mike’s cousin, Jessica, puts it:

“Yeah especially when you party hard that night lol 1:59am-3:00am sucks lol”

Exactly.

Mike hasn’t really seen his aunt or cousins in more than 10 years. They live in San Pedro, CA (where Mike was born) and we live almost 3 hours away. You never want it to, but life gets in the way. People have kids and get married and start lives.

It took several weeks to plan it all out but this weekend worked and the weather was certainly on our side. Saturday afternoon family arrived. Mike’s aunt, Michelle (his dad’s only sibling) and her three kids (Genee, Melissa, and Tommy) and their kids. I can’t say enough good things about everyone. They are all so wonderful, smart and genuinely funny. Jessica is Genee’s daughter, she is a sweetheart and she has the most amazing fiancé, George, who is so warm and wonderful, interesting to talk to and absolutely hilarious. Genee’s son, Stephen, is Katie’s age and is very funny and ridiculously sweet. Melissa and her husband Jason (who bears a striking resemblance to Zac Brown of the Zac Brown Band, in the best way possible) have two adorable (UNDERSTATEMENT) little girls, Maya and Zuri. Tommy (looks like Vince Vaughn, I swear) has a wonderful girlfriend, Mallory, and a cute daughter, Layla, who has these ginormous, gorgeous blue eyes.

Maggie was beside herself. Three little girls all in a similar age bracket. They were fast friends and had so much fun that no one wanted to leave on Sunday.

Cousins (l-r) Stephen, Maggie, Layla, Maya, Katie, Zuri

(Thank God, Melissa had the genius thought to take this pic.)

Then there were the adults. Mike’s family is notorious for loving life, which is Doran code for large, loud parties well lubricated with alcohol. I made a big pitcher of margaritas (approved by the family’s two professional bartenders!) and that was the first of roughly 4 pitchers that night. Everyone seemed determined to make up for lost time and no matter where you went kitchen, patio, or family room people were laughing and talking like no time had passed and even the people we had just met were like old friends.

Mike grilled 3 huge tri-tips, 4 chickens, and hot dogs. It was a full blown barbecue feast that everyone seemed to really enjoy. Then the guys had cigars out on the patio and the time flew by. I have a couple of semi-dark blurry pictures but we were all having so much fun that my camera was left in the other room completely forgotten. I can’t tell you how much I regret that now.

We laughed so much and there were so many conversations that never actually finished, we jumped from topic to topic like schizophrenic monkeys. The last time we had seen any of them, Katie was 3 and she and Melissa had a mutual adoration society going then. It wasn’t any different this time. All the girls crowded around the patio laughing and teasing the guys as they popped in and out of conversations.

Around 3am I found myself in the kitchen with Tommy, Jessica, George and Mike. The guys had moved on to Maker’s Mark with their cigars. Everyone else had filtered upstairs and all the little girls were sound asleep in the family room floor.

We woke up Sunday morning to all the little girls giggling and screaming while Stephen chased them around. Watching all these people interact was a little bittersweet, I’m not going to lie. I thought of all the years between visits and what a tight-knit, wonderful family they have. Everyone was always in sync even amid the utter chaos, herding the little ones and everyone watching out for everyone else. It made me sad that we live so far away and don’t share quite the same bond that they do. The sweet side is that we also felt so immediately accepted and very much a part of the clan.

We piled into cars and drove to a local restaurant, Hodel’s, for breakfast with Melissa proclaiming loudly, “Embrace your funk!” when people started discussing showers or anything that might delay the food and coffee that we required. Nothing is better than taking people from out of town to a local joint and having it be a raving success. Hodel’s is “old school” around here and my family has eaten there from time-to-time since long before I was born. It was awesome getting to share that with everyone and having them enjoy it so much!

Most of us were bleary eyed and sporting mild headaches but the laughter and fun continued right up until everyone had to say goodbye. All the little girls were sad and not ready to leave, isn’t that great? You know you’ve done something special when no one wants to go home. I’ve never had so many house guests at once and it was the most fun I’ve had in a very long time. I can’t wait to do it again, hopefully soon.

There’s a lot of history when it comes to Nissans. From the early days in 1970’s with the datson 240z that eventually became the Nissan 240sx. To the continual evolution of the z line. 240z, to 260z, to 280z, to 280zx, to 300zx,to 240sx, to 350z, and finally to now the newest addition to the family, the 370z. As a huge fan of this family of cars, it has been amazing watching each model be appreciated still by so many in the streets. In southern California, you will still see many fully restored 1990 Nissan 240sx with some mesh drifting wheels on them. There has been a huge growth in fans in the world of drifting and Nissans are notorious to dominate this sport. You can normally find a whole parking lot looking like a car gallery of Nissans lined up. Every so often you will see a few other car makes, but majority would be Nissan cars.

You don’t need to be a race car driver to be in a Nissan. There are dealerships like fontana nissan that offer amazing deals on cars for everyone. They have vans, cars, trucks, and supercars like the Nissan GTR.

There is also another wonderful dealership in Southern California. If you are ever in the area, make sure you check out riverside nissan. They have a wonderful staff that will help you every step of the way.
They also have a beautiful showroom and a huge selection of cars to choose from. They always give you a great deal even if your credit is not the greatest. Nissans are known to make some amazing cars. You can continue the heritage of being part of the Nissan family. There’s always a car for everyone at Nissan dealerships in southern California. Nissan has been around for a long time and they are not going anywhere anytime soon.

Guest post brought to you by Riverside Nissan & Fontana Nissan

Admittedly, I am NOT a “stepford” homeschooling mom. We try to get the most out of every lesson, but I do not have one of those geeky “stepford” students. It’s a common misconception that children who have school at home are always happy to jump into lessons simply because they are at home and can do the lesson in their pajamas if they want. Truth is, even homeschooled kids get sick of school. They get complacent, whiny and bitchy. I don’t care how much fun you make a lesson or how much one-on-one attention they get, at some point a kid is just going to want you to leave them alone and let them play some video games or watch television without it becoming a freaking learning experience.

I have no doubt that Maggie gets sick of the sound of my voice. More than once at the dinner table I have been asked, “Mom can we NOT do school right now?!?!?!?” It’s very hard to turn the “teacher” button off and very close to impossible to separate the mom hat from the teacher hat.

Maggie loves history, science and Spanish. But, even those get old. She’d rather watch TV, play video games or go outside and harass her pets. Believe me, there are days when it would be easier to catch gnats with baseball netting than it is to get Maggie to settle in and get to work. Instead of fighting, begging, bribing and cajoling I created passports.

She currently has 2 passports. One is for video games and the other for the television. Each day she has to earn her passports in order to play or watch tv. In addition, she can’t use her passports until her lessons are finished or she is on a break. I printed out the title of the passport and how it is earned. I used clear packing tape to “laminate” it on to a smaller manila envelope and I decorated it with fun stickers that coordinate with the purpose of the passport.

Everyone in the household understands what the purpose is and Maggie is often asked, “Do you have your passport for that?” and she proudly presents it upon request to prove that she earned her fun time. It has worked brilliantly for months now.

Home schooling is really a constant learning curve for both the student and “teacher” – I don’t have a set system that I have to force 30+ kids into, instead I have to be creative and mold the system around one student. When it’s molded correctly the results are obvious and almost immediate. Fortunately, I have the advantage of really knowing my student so I know what is going to provide strong incentive and what isn’t.

To this day my husband brags about the load he took home from an equipment auction. Air compressor, Craftsman roll away tool chest, etc. All for a great price. My husband is an absolute freak about getting the best deal on pretty much anything and everything. Craigslist, pawn shop, auction, you name it… he’s shopped there. It’s never junk and it’s always a great deal.

Unfortunately, that includes my engagement ring. Seriously. Really pretty, solitaire cut diamond ring… pawn shop.

He managed to get the best deal on all of our motorcycle riding gear in a similar fashion… Craigs List. It wouldn’t be so bad, I guess, if he would keep quiet about it. But, the better the deal the more he has to brag about it.

Even when he doesn’t have anything to be shopping for he’ll peruse Craigs List with a lonely look on his face, like he wishes he had something he needed to buy. Sometimes, I think it’s more about the thrill of the chase than the acquisition.

Maggie is a multi-tasking mad genius when she wants to be. I noticed this one night when I was in the front yard and saw the glow coming from her bedroom window. Upon further investigation I found her with earbuds firmly in place and connected to an ipod, a lap top on her lap as she searched for help on a video game she attempted to master, the soft glow of said game beaming from the television and all of this bathed in the neon light of a lava lamp perched on her dresser. Her room looked like it was utilizing all the juice a Mongolia power plant could muster and then some.

My husband swears she is the youngest teenager on the planet. 8 going on 16, I guess. She wants a motorcycle and a helmet “with flames on it.” Her favorite songs are “Some Beach” by Blake Shelton followed shortly by “Red Solo Cup” by Toby Keith.

She’s technologically savvy as long as it benefits her. She is also capable of playing ridiculously dumb when it suits her. She can get this really befuddled look on her face followed by a widening and blinking of those big, blue eyes and for a brief moment almost convince me that she is borderline “special.” Then I recall the look of her sprawled on her bed multi-tasking like the world’s smallest hacker and she realizes she hasn’t fooled me as much as she thinks she has.

She’s been known to pretend she doesn’t know where the silverware drawer is and later I’ll find her unloading the dishwasher in hopes of scoring a favor from Katie. The television remote is completely lost but it’s clear she had it at some point because the tv keeps automatically tuning to every single one of her favorite shows.

She can manage 3 browser windows with multiple tabs at one time but seems to be completely lost when it’s time to switch over to the software she uses to study her spelling words.

I have given up arguing and explaining. I now issue orders and stand there until she sees resistance is futile. Most of the time it works.

Now, if I could just get her to grasp that she doesn’t need to DVR every episode of Dogs 101, SpongeBob SquarePants, and 9 or 10 other shows on the Disney Channel.