Every year, I get a Halloween costume for Roxie. Yes, she’s a dog. Yes, I know that this is bizarre behavior. Do you know what else is bizarre? I get the costume ONLY for a photo shoot. She doesn’t actually wear it for longer than about a ten-minute period. So maybe I’m bizarre, but not completely weird. (RIGHT?) Anyway, in the past, Roxie has been a devil (that one lasted two years: the puppy years!), a hot dog, and a princess. This year? I had a stroke of genius. I put my dog in a costume that is not only unique, but timely. And way more hip than that stupid…
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Here’s a Trick That’s Also a Treat.
Remember, back in the day, when pulling innocent pranks in school (the ones that weren’t meant to hurt anyone; just cause a bit of a distraction) meant putting a whoopie cushion under an unsuspecting victim, hiding their lunch, or slapping a “kick me” sign on their back? Those days are over. Today, one of the “big” pranks is called “nuggeting”, which is basically just turning a backpack inside out and putting the stuff back in it. I asked my younger son to give a demo, so those of you who have no idea what this entails can now be informed (and possibly downright hip if you bring it up in…
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Everyone Knows I Like Lists…
It’s been a busy day for me, and although I prepared and scheduled posts for tomorrow and Saturday (go me!), I did nothing for today. Sort of. I decided, since I didn’t have time to *actually* write something of substance, I would refer you to others. As in, I just finished my most recent update of my embarrassingly long blogroll. The amount of blogs I follow is staggering, even to me, as if I didn’t know what I was doing when I added each one. The size of the list just tick-tick-ticked up there, like a rollercoaster on the first big climb before plummeting towards the ground at nearly the…
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Indy Flight
Let’s say you’ve got a kid between the ages of 8 and 17. And let’s say that the kid really wants to fly a plane. Scratch that. Let’s say that you have a kid who may not know he wants to fly a plane, but if you were to offer him the chance to fly a plane, he would nearly jump out of his skin (from excitement) at the thought of doing it. Let’s say that you take him to the local airport where there happens to be a Young Eagles program, and let’s go ahead and say that once he meets the volunteer pilot who is nice enough to…
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Say It Again, Stan!
Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting, and autumn a mosaic of them all. ~Stanley Horowitz
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Would That Be By Telegram, or Pony Express?
I love my Redbook magazine subscription. The magazine is informative, fun to read, and extremely interesting. Every now and then, I find something blogworthy, like this, or this. I got the new issue in the mail last week, and just had a chance to read it yesterday when I restricted myself to the couch because of this nasty chest cold I’m dealing with. Once again, the magazine didn’t disappoint. The issue was great from cover to cover, but one particular article stood out. The article, “The secrets behind great marriages” (by Nicole Torio) caught my eye because I do indeed have a great marriage and I’m always interested in reading…
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Feeling It. And Not Feeling It.
In case you hadn’t yet noticed, I can be a little bit quirky. Though I am a card-carrying, Type A Control Freak when I want to be*, I have a few issues that are slightly more off-the-beaten-path, like my weird way of anthropomorphizing** cars. I’m not even talking about naming our cars. I don’t do that. Remember when that was all the rage though, in the 1970s? I think everyone’s station wagon was named Bessie or Stella or Delores. Or something like that. No, I don’t name our vehicles. My weird issue comes into play when we’re car shopping. I will not drive a “mean-looking” or “unhappy-looking” car. I like…
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Do It For the Kids
Large groups of people are always interesting to me; I’m a people-watcher. Observing others and how they react with loved ones can be really fun. It can also be a little sad, and sometimes a little confusing. I had an experience today that was all of those things. Each year, our classroom at religious school has a family program. The kids bring one or both parents (or in some cases, a grandparent) for a special craft project. The idea is to create something together, and to spend quality time together. I’ve been doing this project for years (and years) (and years), and I am not sure I’ve ever really taken…
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She Bop(ped It)
Jim and I took a couple of hours today to clean up the basement and our crawl space area a little bit. Though we had a mighty mess going on, it didn’t take us as long as one would think to get it done, and I’m not saying AT ALL that it’s probably because we didn’t ask the boys to “help” us. At all. Not saying that. At all. We have a small, finished basement and what ends up happening is this: ~The work area, which looks FABULOUS when it’s clean, gradually gets piled up with papers, packing supplies, photographs, CDs, and all kinds of other crap, to the point…
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Luckily, I Didn’t Have To Die Trying.
Last December, I bought my own domain. (That’s such a geeky thing, isn’t it?) I wanted a website that sort of rolled the information about my book, my various blogs, and all of my other “online presences” under one umbrella. I wanted something that looked professional, simple, clean. I wanted to do it myself. That’s right: I wanted to create my own website. From scratch. I’m pretty adept at working with html coding within my Blogger account right here, so why couldn’t I learn more of it? No reason. Jim bought me one of those “HTML for Dummies” books, and I bought one with CSS stuff in it (hang on,…