Writing that last post made me want to do another poll.
If you had to choose one of the Muppets to be President, who would it be?
1. Sam the Eagle
2. Kermit the Frog
3. Miss Piggy
4. Gonzo
5. Rolf
6. write-in muppet
Kewpie
2 days ago
Sunday, October 12, 2008
poll
Hubba Hubba and I were talking about Skyping--talking for free online through a webcam and phone line--and he didn't think many people had webcam's. I told him I'd do a poll. So here's the question.
Do you have a webcam?
Also, have you heard of skyping?
Do you have a webcam?
Also, have you heard of skyping?
Vices
Today was Fast Sunday in my branch. I was nearly to the podium on my way up to bear my testimony when I noticed two other women had stood up on either side of me near the front, but that I was first up because I was closest. Without even thinking, I raised both my hands in the air to celebrate my "victory". Does that mean I've overly competitive? People either thought it was funny or that I'm a jerk.
Last week, I was at a lunch with some very lovely ladies and we started talking about some interesting stuff...abortion, politics, etc. I automatically talked first nearly every time an issue came up. It's like I'm incapable of shutting up. Have you ever had that experience? I can't tell you how many times I've had fun at some social gathering and then come home and thought of all the dumb things I said or did. Then I want to become a hermit and never speak to people again. In this instance, I didn't say anything I thought was stupid or would've taken back if given the opportunity--I just talked too much and didn't listen enough. I think often of a line from Anne of Green Gables. I'll paraphrase: Anne is discussing the issue of her verbosity when she says that if people knew how much she wanted to say, but didn't, they'd give her a little more credit. I feel that way a lot. (This is why I love people who are big talkers; then I don't seem to bad by comparison and there's an even give and take in a conversation. =) )
I wonder what it would be like to be one of those people whose vices are hidden to the world... Mine are so painfully obvious.
Last week, I was at a lunch with some very lovely ladies and we started talking about some interesting stuff...abortion, politics, etc. I automatically talked first nearly every time an issue came up. It's like I'm incapable of shutting up. Have you ever had that experience? I can't tell you how many times I've had fun at some social gathering and then come home and thought of all the dumb things I said or did. Then I want to become a hermit and never speak to people again. In this instance, I didn't say anything I thought was stupid or would've taken back if given the opportunity--I just talked too much and didn't listen enough. I think often of a line from Anne of Green Gables. I'll paraphrase: Anne is discussing the issue of her verbosity when she says that if people knew how much she wanted to say, but didn't, they'd give her a little more credit. I feel that way a lot. (This is why I love people who are big talkers; then I don't seem to bad by comparison and there's an even give and take in a conversation. =) )
I wonder what it would be like to be one of those people whose vices are hidden to the world... Mine are so painfully obvious.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
In other news...
I think all of you have met Junior Mint. He's a delicious little boy and I love him. And he talks all the time. I have no idea where that quality came from. Out of so much talking, there are bound to be funny sayings.
Two things he said yesterday are as follows:
We were at the grocery store in the cereal aisle. Always hoping to be the one who chooses the cereal, Junior Mint said, "I want to buy Whities."
"What?!" we said.
He pointed at a box on a shelf and then I corrected him, "No, honey, those are Wheaties."
It did seem pretty funny to us, though, especially with a large African American pro basketball player across the front of the box. (Go Celtics!)
As we sat and ate dinner last night, Junior Mint said suddenly, "I'm isolated."
I looked at my husband. He looked at me. "No, you're not," he said.
Thoughts raced through my mind.... Did someone at soccer practice say something about his homeschooling? Does he spend too much time alone? He goes to church and plays soccer and plays with different friends in the afternoons. Does time spent with me count as isolation? Should we be doing more to cultivate outside friendships?
It was just a few seconds before I turned to Junior Mint and said, "What do you mean?"
His response?
"I'm freezing!!"
Two things he said yesterday are as follows:
We were at the grocery store in the cereal aisle. Always hoping to be the one who chooses the cereal, Junior Mint said, "I want to buy Whities."
"What?!" we said.
He pointed at a box on a shelf and then I corrected him, "No, honey, those are Wheaties."
It did seem pretty funny to us, though, especially with a large African American pro basketball player across the front of the box. (Go Celtics!)
As we sat and ate dinner last night, Junior Mint said suddenly, "I'm isolated."
I looked at my husband. He looked at me. "No, you're not," he said.
Thoughts raced through my mind.... Did someone at soccer practice say something about his homeschooling? Does he spend too much time alone? He goes to church and plays soccer and plays with different friends in the afternoons. Does time spent with me count as isolation? Should we be doing more to cultivate outside friendships?
It was just a few seconds before I turned to Junior Mint and said, "What do you mean?"
His response?
"I'm freezing!!"
Hallelujah!!!
Guess what we got in the mail today??!!! (Imagine a very sing-songy voice because that's what you'd hear right now).
Curly Fry's Amended Birth Certificate!!!
For those of you unfamiliar with the bureaucratic beast that is adoption legal procedure, this means his adoption is now completely done. WOOHOOO!!! It has been legally finalized since January, but we couldn't do any taxes including him without an amended birth certificate. Typically, when an adoption is finalized, it takes just a few months to get an amended birth certificate (with our names on it). Curly Fry, however, was born in California and their Vital Records Office is open for calls all of 15 hours per week. They take 4 times longer than almost every other state to process any information, which is why it took so long.
An amended birth certificate gives us the legal right to apply for a social security number in his name. It's hard to imagine how important those 9 little digits are unless you don't have them. Now we can finally get the numbers the government both supplies us and then requires of us. Then we can amend our taxes so we can actually claim our adoption expenses and claim Curly Fry as a dependent!! Hurray for us!!!
We have always been so thrilled to have him, but it has been a bummer to not get the government kickback that a child brings or claim any of the thousands of dollars it took in legal and other fees to bring him to our family. Children are priceless; but they are also pricey.
Curly Fry's Amended Birth Certificate!!!
For those of you unfamiliar with the bureaucratic beast that is adoption legal procedure, this means his adoption is now completely done. WOOHOOO!!! It has been legally finalized since January, but we couldn't do any taxes including him without an amended birth certificate. Typically, when an adoption is finalized, it takes just a few months to get an amended birth certificate (with our names on it). Curly Fry, however, was born in California and their Vital Records Office is open for calls all of 15 hours per week. They take 4 times longer than almost every other state to process any information, which is why it took so long.
An amended birth certificate gives us the legal right to apply for a social security number in his name. It's hard to imagine how important those 9 little digits are unless you don't have them. Now we can finally get the numbers the government both supplies us and then requires of us. Then we can amend our taxes so we can actually claim our adoption expenses and claim Curly Fry as a dependent!! Hurray for us!!!
We have always been so thrilled to have him, but it has been a bummer to not get the government kickback that a child brings or claim any of the thousands of dollars it took in legal and other fees to bring him to our family. Children are priceless; but they are also pricey.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Onion Education
The following article is from The Onion. It was linked on a homeschooler yahoo group and it cracked me up. Even if you're all pro-school, I think it's still funny. I loved school as a kid and didn't get burnt out until the very end of college, but I love the idea of homeschooling now...even if it's not all warm fuzzies with my 7 year old every day. What do you guys think?
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/6_year_old_stares_down_bottomless
CARPENTERSVILLE, IL—Local first-grader Connor Bolduc, 6, experienced the first inkling of a coming lifetime of existential dread Monday upon recognizing his cruel destiny to participate in compulsory education for the better part of the next two decades, sources reported.
"I don't want to go to school," Bolduc told his parents, the crushing reality of his situation having yet to fully dawn on his naïve consciousness. "I want to play outside with my friends."
While Bolduc stood waiting for the bus to pick him up on his first day of elementary school, his parents reportedly were able to "see the wheels turning in his little brain" as the child, for the first time in his life, began to understand how dire and hopeless his situation had actually become.
Basic math—which the child has blissfully yet to learn—clearly demonstrates that the number of years before he will be released from the horrifying prison of formal schooling, is more than twice the length of time he has yet existed. According to a conservative estimate of six hours of school five days a week for nine months of the year, Bolduc faces an estimated 14,400 hours trapped in an endless succession of nearly identical, suffocating classrooms.
This nightmarish but undeniably real scenario does not take into account additional time spent on homework, extracurricular responsibilities, or college, sources said.
"I can't wait until school is over," said the 3-foot-tall tragic figure, who would not have been able, if asked, to contemplate the amount of time between now and summer, let alone the years and years of tedium to follow.
The concept of wasting a majority of daylight hours sitting still in a classroom when he could be riding his bicycle, playing in his tree fort, or lying in the grass looking at bugs—especially considering that he had already wasted two years of his life attending preschool and kindergarten—seemed impossibly unfair to Bolduc. Moreover, sources said, he had no idea how much worse the inescapable truth will turn out to be.
Shortly after his mommy, homemaker Ellen Bolduc, 31, assured him that he would be able to resume playtime "when school lets out," Connor's innocent brain only then began to work out the implication of that sentence to its inevitable, soul-crushing conclusion.
When pressed for more detail on the exact timing of that event, Mrs. Bolduc would only reply "soon." At that point, the normally energetic child grew quiet before asking a follow-up question, "After [younger sister] Maddy's birthday?" thereby setting the stage for the first of thousands of rushing realizations he will be forced to come to grips with over the course of his subsequent existence.
Madison Ellen Bolduc was born on Sept. 28.
After learning that the first grade will continue for eight excruciating months beyond that date, it was only a matter of time before Bolduc inquired into what grade comes after first grade, and, when told, would probe further into how many grades he will have to complete before allowed to play with his friends.
The answer to that fatal question—12, a number too large for Bolduc to count on the fingers of both hands—will be enough to nearly shatter the boy's still-forming psyche, said child psychology expert Eli Wasserbaum.
"When you consider that it doesn't include another four years of secondary education, plus five more years of medical school, if he wants to follow his previously stated goal to grow up to be a doctor like his daddy, this will come as an interminably deep chasm of drudgery and imprisonment to [Connor]," said Wasserbaum. "It's difficult to know the effect on his psychological well-being when he grasps the full truth: that his education will be followed by approximately four decades of work, bills, and taxes, during which he will also rear his own children to face the same fate, all of which will, of course, be followed by a brief, almost inconsequential retirement, and his inevitable death."
"Even a 50-year-old adult would have trouble processing such a monstrous notion," Wasserbaum added. "Oh my God, I'm 50 years old."
The first of Bolduc's remaining 2,299 days of school will resume at 8 a.m. tomorrow. On the next 624 Sundays, he will also be forced to attend church.
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/6_year_old_stares_down_bottomless
CARPENTERSVILLE, IL—Local first-grader Connor Bolduc, 6, experienced the first inkling of a coming lifetime of existential dread Monday upon recognizing his cruel destiny to participate in compulsory education for the better part of the next two decades, sources reported.
"I don't want to go to school," Bolduc told his parents, the crushing reality of his situation having yet to fully dawn on his naïve consciousness. "I want to play outside with my friends."
While Bolduc stood waiting for the bus to pick him up on his first day of elementary school, his parents reportedly were able to "see the wheels turning in his little brain" as the child, for the first time in his life, began to understand how dire and hopeless his situation had actually become.
Basic math—which the child has blissfully yet to learn—clearly demonstrates that the number of years before he will be released from the horrifying prison of formal schooling, is more than twice the length of time he has yet existed. According to a conservative estimate of six hours of school five days a week for nine months of the year, Bolduc faces an estimated 14,400 hours trapped in an endless succession of nearly identical, suffocating classrooms.
This nightmarish but undeniably real scenario does not take into account additional time spent on homework, extracurricular responsibilities, or college, sources said.
"I can't wait until school is over," said the 3-foot-tall tragic figure, who would not have been able, if asked, to contemplate the amount of time between now and summer, let alone the years and years of tedium to follow.
The concept of wasting a majority of daylight hours sitting still in a classroom when he could be riding his bicycle, playing in his tree fort, or lying in the grass looking at bugs—especially considering that he had already wasted two years of his life attending preschool and kindergarten—seemed impossibly unfair to Bolduc. Moreover, sources said, he had no idea how much worse the inescapable truth will turn out to be.
Shortly after his mommy, homemaker Ellen Bolduc, 31, assured him that he would be able to resume playtime "when school lets out," Connor's innocent brain only then began to work out the implication of that sentence to its inevitable, soul-crushing conclusion.
When pressed for more detail on the exact timing of that event, Mrs. Bolduc would only reply "soon." At that point, the normally energetic child grew quiet before asking a follow-up question, "After [younger sister] Maddy's birthday?" thereby setting the stage for the first of thousands of rushing realizations he will be forced to come to grips with over the course of his subsequent existence.
Madison Ellen Bolduc was born on Sept. 28.
After learning that the first grade will continue for eight excruciating months beyond that date, it was only a matter of time before Bolduc inquired into what grade comes after first grade, and, when told, would probe further into how many grades he will have to complete before allowed to play with his friends.
The answer to that fatal question—12, a number too large for Bolduc to count on the fingers of both hands—will be enough to nearly shatter the boy's still-forming psyche, said child psychology expert Eli Wasserbaum.
"When you consider that it doesn't include another four years of secondary education, plus five more years of medical school, if he wants to follow his previously stated goal to grow up to be a doctor like his daddy, this will come as an interminably deep chasm of drudgery and imprisonment to [Connor]," said Wasserbaum. "It's difficult to know the effect on his psychological well-being when he grasps the full truth: that his education will be followed by approximately four decades of work, bills, and taxes, during which he will also rear his own children to face the same fate, all of which will, of course, be followed by a brief, almost inconsequential retirement, and his inevitable death."
"Even a 50-year-old adult would have trouble processing such a monstrous notion," Wasserbaum added. "Oh my God, I'm 50 years old."
The first of Bolduc's remaining 2,299 days of school will resume at 8 a.m. tomorrow. On the next 624 Sundays, he will also be forced to attend church.
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