Moral Dilemma

We all know I love spelling and grammar.

I may be in a minority here, but we're a strong and vocal minority.  You can find snarky grammar blogs all over the internet.

Ever since I discovered The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks, I've been spotting offenses everywhere.  You may even remember my delight awhile back when one I submitted was featured.

Well, when I say everywhere, I mean everywhere.  I volunteer at the girls' school, and way back at the beginning of the year I noticed an offending sign in the art room there.  Because of Project 365, I pretty much always have a camera handy, so I took a picture.  Several months later I submitted it, along with three or four others.

Well, whenever I post on the blog, I link to it on Facebook.  And since the time I submitted those particular photos, I have become Facebook friends with a couple of the staff at the school.  And I know they follow the links and read this blog (hi there!)

So, what I'm about to do is essentially to make fun of my daughters' school.  But not really.  I love the school and the people who work there!  I don't have any idea who wrote the sign, or whether they even work at the school anymore (or if they ever did; it may have been a volunteer like myself, for all I know.)  So I hope no one thinks I'm mocking them if I go ahead and point out that this particular picture was posted on the "Blog" yesterday.

Enjoy.

My apologies to the school.  But don't forget to put it away.  Never, ever "dump it".

Random Thoughts Thursday

Welcome to Random Thoughts Thursday, the bloggy carnival thingy where we post about...whatever pops into our heads.

Joining in is simple. All you have to do is post your own random thoughts on your blog and link back here (see below) so we can make this a great big Random Thoughts Thursday festival! Anyone and everyone is welcome to participate. Even if you think I have no idea that you read my blog, and whether or not you know me personally, I'd love for you to join in. And if you don't have a blog but you're still feeling random, feel free to leave a few thoughts in the comments for everyone else to enjoy.

Ready...set...random!

Today my computer has decided to show everything in a lovely shade of yellow.  It's not the monitor; I checked.  I think it's time for a new computer.

I hate mosquitoes.  Oh, and that Off! fan thing that I was so excited about?  Doesn't really work all that well.  I've worn it while working in the garden on four different occasions, and I'm still being eaten alive.  I'm getting bitten in places I'm fairly certain mosquitoes don't have access to.  It's not comfortable.

Hey, the computer just went back to white again!  Weird.

My new favorite snack is Pirate Booty.  Anyone else tried this?  I'm probably coming really late to the party, but I love the stuff.

I think I should get these posts out earlier in the day.  Maybe next week.

3/4 of my garden is weed-free (or at least considerably less weedy.)  The remaining 1/4 will have to wait until tomorrow.  But I'm determined to not let it get like last year.

Every time I come home from the garden I itch for hours.  Psychosomatically. (Is that even a word?  It is now!) 

Last night I thought of a great random thought for today, but now I can't remember what it was.

Is anyone else troubled by that Verizon commercial, with all the girls talking about how air doesn't care if you're young or old, black or white, etc.?  I don't know why, but it bugs me, and not just in that typical-annoying-commercial way.  It feels too manipulative or something.  Hmm.  Maybe I'm over-analyzing.

Chris confiscated all the Lion King paraphernalia around the house.  Now I only have to deal with it when Vicki practices piano, or when the girls randomly burst into song.  So, yeah, we're still hearing a lot of "I Just Can't Wait to be King".  I just can't wait for it to stop.

Tomorrow I think I actually get to sleep in.  I have no extra kids coming over, there's no swimming lessons, and we have nothing pressing to do.  Hooray for the little things!

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Your turn!

A bit of advice for the linky tool: please link directly to your Random Thoughts Thursday post, and not to your entire blog. To do this, simply click on the title of your post. This will take you to that post's page, and you can then copy and paste that url into the linky. This way people linking from my blog won’t have to scroll through any other posts you might put up to find your randomness. Thanks!

Things I Never Thought I'd Hear Myself Say

"Jesus is NOT going to give you an iPod."

Random Thoughts Thursday

Welcome to Random Thoughts Thursday, the bloggy carnival thingy where we post about...whatever pops into our heads.

Joining in is simple. All you have to do is post your own random thoughts on your blog and link back here (see below) so we can make this a great big Random Thoughts Thursday festival! Anyone and everyone is welcome to participate. Even if you think I have no idea that you read my blog, and whether or not you know me personally, I'd love for you to join in. And if you don't have a blog but you're still feeling random, feel free to leave a few thoughts in the comments for everyone else to enjoy.

Ready...set...random!

Why do I always have to do the word verifications on Blogger twice? And why, when I decide to mention it on my blog, do I suddenly not have the problem anymore?

The word verifications on Facebook sound like band names. Or at least the band names David Letterman used to come up with. Spadeful Month? Rockville Coccyx?  Awesome.

My two favorite band names: Highwater Pants and Quality Chicken.

I am so very, very tired of the Lion King soundtrack.

We watched Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure with the girls last weekend. In case you’re wondering, it’s still hilarious. As an adult, I find the parts with Sigmund Freud funny in a way I did not when I was younger. I’m just saying...

I have put on the same pair of shorts the last three mornings. Then I’ve taken one look at the weather and changed. Below 80 degrees in July??? Seriously? Today is looking more promising, although the prediction is a high of 71. We’ll see, I guess.

Did you know the Post Office has a minimum size requirement for envelopes? I didn’t until Monday. [Edit: sorry, make that Tuesday!]

Apparently Vicki went up a level in swimming lessons, but no one told her.

Watching "So You Think You Can Dance" has become a family activity. Except that we send the kids to bed halfway through on Wednesday nights, and they’re not allowed to watch the results show on Thursdays because it's past their bedtime.  Aren't we mean?

I hate it when I find a grammar or spelling error in something I've written.  Hate it.

Does it make me lazy if I’m allowing the two 9-year-olds to fix lunch for the rest of the children around here (a 7-year-old and two 4-year-olds) so I can blog? Or does it just make me crazy?  I guess if the house starts to smell like burning ramen noodles, then I'll have to do something about it.  But they offered, so who am I to say no to that?

I have an urge to listen to American Pie, but I can’t find our Don McLean CD.

My tomatoes are all looking healthy, the squash are producing in a very squash-like fashion, and so far I haven’t had any allergic reactions to anything in the garden. Every bug bite makes me panic, though.

I think I’ll make Swedish pancakes for dinner tonight. With homemade strawberry jam. Yum.

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Your turn!

A bit of advice for the linky tool: please link directly to your Random Thoughts Thursday post, and not to your entire blog. To do this, simply click on the title of your post. This will take you to that post's page, and you can then copy and paste that url into the linky. This way people linking from my blog won’t have to scroll through any other posts you might put up to find your randomness. Thanks!

Being a Blogger is Starting to Pay Off

Yesterday afternoon the phone rang.  It does this from time to time.

I have a nine-year-old daughter who lives in desperate hope that the ringing phone will signal an hour-long conversation about, as far as I can tell, absolutely nothing.  Despite my shout of "I got it!", she picked it up.

And then handed it to me with a very confused look on her face.*

It was a gentleman, with questionable English skills, wondering if I would be so kind as to participate in a "market research study".  Without so much as taking a breath, he wondered if the male registered voter in the household was available.  Unfortunately, he was not.

Not to be deterred, however, the gentleman asked if I was a registered voter.

And I am.  Lucky me.

Before I could express my disinterest in participating in his study, he went on to ask if anyone in my household or immediate family worked for any sort of media outlet.

After sighing in resignation that I was, in fact, about to participate in the study, I told him no.

Then he asked the question that saved my afternoon: "Are you a blogger, or do you frequently comment on blogs?"

Why, yes.  Yes, I am.

And he thanked me for my time but regretted to inform me that I did not qualify to participate in the study.

Ah, yes, I like this blogging thing.


*Vicki informs me that he asked if she was 18 or older. Why does that suddenly creep me out?

Queen of the Laundry

I have made no secret of my feelings for laundry.

But just in case you’ve forgotten, or you’re new to the blog, I’ll share once again: I hate it.

I mean I absolutely despise it.  It is, without a doubt, my least favorite household chore.

But recently a new superhero has come into my life. Turns out, Lexi likes laundry.

She washed three loads in one day. Granted, they were three loads that could have actually been combined into one, but she did it her way and got it done.

And the best part is: I had to make her stop. It was too hot to run the dryer anymore that day. But she was determined, regardless of the heat and the fact that there really weren’t any more dirty clothes (or at least dirty clothes I was willing to trust to a 7-year-old.) She tried to convince Chris that the socks in my ever-expanding mismatched socks box were stinky and needed to be washed. He told her thanks, but no thanks.

She keeps asking if she can be allowed to do her own laundry from now on. See, several months ago Vicki was handed that responsibility. Difference is, Vicki looks on it as a punishment. Which, to be fair, it was. I told her if she rolled down that muddy hill in her school clothes one more time she’d be doing her own laundry. She thought I just meant those particular clothes, but she thought wrong.

It’s not a punishment for the Laundry Queen, though.

I’ll have to come up with something else, should the need ever arise, but in the meantime, I’m loving the empty hampers.

Lexi to the rescue!

Random Thoughts Thursday

Welcome to Random Thoughts Thursday, the bloggy carnival thingy where we post about...whatever pops into our heads.

Joining in is simple. All you have to do is post your own random thoughts on your blog and link back here (see below) so we can make this a great big Random Thoughts Thursday festival! Anyone and everyone is welcome to participate. Even if you think I have no idea that you read my blog, and whether or not you know me personally, I'd love for you to join in. And if you don't have a blog but you're still feeling random, feel free to leave a few thoughts in the comments for everyone else to enjoy.

Ready...set...random!

I redid the logo slightly. Like it? (did you even notice? Probably not, but that’s okay. I’ll still love you.)

I'm also working on a button-type thingy for sidebars.  I'm getting all html technical and everything.  Yes, I am awesome.

I saw Eclipse last night. It was pretty good, better than the first two (although, as Chris pointed out, that bar is pretty low.) I do have to say, though, that the best part was probably seeing the trailer for the last Harry Potter movies. I can’t wait for those to come out!

I miss Vicki. She’ll be home tomorrow – woohoo!

It’s really weird how much the dynamic changes when you subtract one from the equation.

I can’t believe how fast the summer is going! It’s already the middle of July.

Lexi has a friend over. They’re operating a beauty shop out of the upstairs bathroom. The smell of nail polish emanating from there is incredibly overpowering, so I hope I don’t open the door to find them both passed out on the floor. Well, at least their nails would be pretty.

I need to get some photos from our vacation on here, but our computer is so temperamental I’m afraid to make it do too many things at once.  One of these days it will die, and then what will I do? How will I blog? Oh, the humanity!

I need to pay off some library fines.

If you’ve read The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, you will get a kick out of this article. If you haven’t read it, then the article will probably just confuse you.

Otter Pops are awesome.

Your turn!

A bit of advice for the linky tool: please link directly to your Random Thoughts Thursday post, and not to your entire blog. To do this, simply click on the title of your post. This will take you to that post's page, and you can then copy and paste that url into the linky. This way people linking from my blog won’t have to scroll through any other posts you might put up to find your randomness. Thanks!

The Rules of the Game

For some reason, Chris and I never taught our girls how to play Slugbug.

It may have been because, as parents, we’re not inclined to teach our children anything that involves hitting the nearest person. Maybe. We have nothing against the game when played by civilized people; we still play it with each other, just quietly in the front seat, but we've never bothered to fill the girls in on what we were doing.

However, as kids do, they eventually learned the rules from their friends. Or, rather, they learned their friends’ version of the rules.

My family growing up was pretty non-violent, as families go. Our version of Slugbug involved simply shouting “Slugbug!” whenever you saw one, but there was no actual slugging. I don’t remember if this was the result of an ultimatum by my parents, or if this was just how we had always played it.  (As a side note, there was a car in the town where I grew up that was painted to look just like Herbie.  Seeing that car was the highlight of our day.  In fact, before we knew about Slugbug, we called VW Bugs "Herbie cars".)

Chris’s family was considerable less non-violent (he has more brothers than I do, and at least one sister who’s not afraid to join the ruckus), and their version did involve slugging, along with hollering the color of the slugbug.

Vicki’s friend’s rules include the slugging and the color-shouting, with the additional rule that you are allowed to call “No tag-backs!” on the person you slug. This means they’re not allowed to slugbug you again for...an unclear period of time. But at least not during that car journey. You are also allowed, apparently, to slug someone upon sighting a convertible, any convertible – doesn’t have to be a Bug – once per day.

In general, the version we play consists of someone yelling “Slugbug yellow! (or blue or red or whatever)” and soft-slugging someone else, usually me. They always gang up against me, unless Dad is in the car.

I refuse to call “no tag-backs” and ignore my children when they do it, but Vicki insists on it. Lexi picks and chooses her rules according to her mood at the time, and Ellie tags us for both Slugbugs and PT Cruisers. But she always adds “No tags back!”

There are, apparently, a set of official rules for this game (although I’d like to know under what authority this guy claims to be “official”.) But despite that, it’s clear that everyone has their own version.

So, the logical question is: how do *you* play Slugbug?
***Additional question, suggested by Lolee: do you call it "Slugbug", or "Punch Buggy", or something else entirely?

Random Thoughts Thursday

Welcome to the first-ever Random Thoughts Thursday carnival!  At least, I think a carnival is what I'm doing here.  Maybe a meme?  I don't really know, but what the heck - we'll have fun no matter what!

Joining in is simple.  All you have to do is post your own random thoughts on your blog and link back here (below) so we can make this a great big Random Thoughts Thursday festival!  Anyone and everyone is welcome to participate.  Even if you think I have no idea that you read my blog, and whether or not you know me personally, I'd love for you to join in.  And if you don't have a blog but you're still feeling random, feel free to leave a few thoughts in the comments for everyone else to enjoy.

Ready?  Set...Random!

I wish I knew why the pictures I post in the center of the blog keep shifting to the left. Or rather, why the background of the pictures keeps shifting. It’s annoying and frustrating.

I love sunny, warm weather. But close to 100 degrees with humidity, not so much.

I spent an hour and a half this morning designing a SWAP for Vicki and her friend, who leave for Girl Scout resident camp in three days. They directed and I did all the technical work. We make a good team. Tomorrow they will color, cut out, and bake Shrinky Dinks, which will heat up my house, but I suppose I’m willing to sacrifice for the sake of a fun camp experience.

Up until about 10 minutes ago, Vicki thought nudism was a religion. I can’t stop laughing.

I need a new computer. This one appears to be on its last legs. It randomly shuts down, and the modem is having issues, too. I need to get my pictures off of here and onto a disc before I lose them all.

Speaking of pictures, I took 594 of them on our 10-day trip last week. That’s the danger of starting a photo blog, I guess. I need to post some over here, because some days it was really hard to choose just one.

What on earth am I going to make for dinner tonight? There’s no way I’m turning on the oven, but I don’t have a lot of non-cook foods around here. The salad stuff is gone. Hmmm...PB&J is sounding better and better.

Blueberry pomegranate juice...mmmmmm...

Lexi lost another tooth yesterday, one of the top front ones, and didn’t put it under her pillow because she was afraid the Tooth Fairy would keep it. But the Tooth Fairy actually remembered to show up (for Vicki as well, who lost a tooth last Friday while we were on vacation – the Tooth Fairy apparently has a really bad memory when kids aren’t in their usual beds) and Lexi doesn’t know it because she had no reason to check under the pillow. We have serious Tooth Fairy issues in this house.

It's too hot to do anything productive.  At least, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

An Educational Film

A bit of parenting advice: if you want to watch a movie with your young children, but discover it's rated PG-13, don't rely on your memory for why it might be rated that.

Our family rule is that the girls can watch PG-13 movies if we've approved them first.  The approval list currently carries such titles as Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean.  We mostly stick to PG and G ratings.  We've both seen MIB, it's just been a while.  A really, really long while.

Probably just the comic-book violence and gross alien guts, maybe a little language, we thought.

We thought wrong.

Try a LOT of language.  My girls learned some very interesting words last night.  We carried on with the movie, but we had a little discussion afterward about how Men in Black is probably not the most quotable movie we've ever watched.  In fact, how about we just don't quote it at all, okie dokie?

But apparently some of us got more out of it than just a new vocabulary.  Right before the end of the movie, Ellie leaned over to me and said, "Mom, he's really cute."

Whoa, what?  "You mean Will Smith?  The one who looks like Uncle Scotty?"

"Yeah.  He's really cute, with the eyebrows...and the mustaches."  She was practically swooning.

And so it begins.

Random Thoughts Thursday

Look, I posted on vacation!

I haven't forgotten to take pictures each day so far.  It's not to hard on vacation when you're doing exciting stuff to take pictures of, but Chris and I have spent the last several days gloriously doing absolutely nothing.  That's where the challenge comes in, though.  Am I up to it?  I think so.

I saw such an awesome movie on Wednesday!  It was the third in a series and sooooo much better than the other two.  I've been wanting to see it for forever now!  I even got Chris & the girls to go with me.  It was a great family bonding experience.

And no, it wasn't Eclipse.  Gotcha.

We saw Toy Story 3 and we loved it.  I mean loved it.  We laughed, we cried (it moved me, Bob).  The only problem is that the girls discovered two old Care Bears among the things my parents are storing for me and now there's absolutely no way I can convince them to leave the bears at Grandma's house.

There are so many billboards advertising plastic surgery in Utah.  Why is that?  I can't recall ever seeing a single one in Oregon.

I get to spend the rest of the week at a not-so-cabiny cabin at Bear Lake.  We'll waterski, play at the beach, watch a movie, play games, and just chill.  It will be awesome.

I hate sand, though.  That's the one drawback to playing at the beach.  I don't mind it so much when I'm by myself, but with my kids...not a good thing.  My in-laws thought I was making a big deal out of nothing until we took the girls to the sand dunes in St. George a few months ago.  Then they saw what happens to Ellie when she's in the sand.  They understand now.

Why can't I find a cute hat that I'm willing to pay for?