there are no words

for what you are about to read. i'm not kidding. i cannot believe the ridiculousness of the entire thing...the man, what he was accused of doing, the fact that it was in court.

taxpayer dollars hard at work

(almost) wordless wednesday

these pictures are from a few weeks ago. sammysosa is very into scavenging and digging and cupboards. he cracks me up.

we've (and when i say we i mean me) gotten into a very bad habit of letting him wander around during breakfast. (i'm tired of listening to him screech about sitting in his highchair. he likes to toddle around and play while he eats his breakfast. whatever.) anyway, he was carrying his yogurt around eating it without a spoon. as you can imagine, he was making a huge mess. i grabbed a spoon and helped him finish eating the yogurt. when he was done, he kept making the sign for more while saying it. i spent the next few minutes explaining and showing him that the container was empty. he gave me one of his looks, walked over to these cupboards, reached all the way to the back, pulled out a piece of toast and started eating it. i could almost hear him saying "naner naner naner". don't fret...the toast was from just before the yogurt...it hadn't been there for days or anything. although, captain adventure did bring me some toast a few afternoons ago, "mahm! here's sammysosa's toast. it was in little mother hen's shoe". so i guess we need to keep track of each morsel from now on. that or i could actually start putting him back in his highchair.

dear hateful lady

at my cell phone company, (i don't want to name names here, but their initials are v.e.r.i.z.o.n.)

i understand what you're saying when you tell me that my account is password protected for my "safety". and that if i don't have my password, you cannot talk to me about my account for my "safety". however, do you understand what i am saying when i tell you that i don't know my password that you put on my account for my "safety"? or that my husband, the all powerful "account holder" doesn't know it either? if neither of us knows our account password that was put on our account for our "safety", and you won't talk to us about our account without our "safety" password, then i believe that we are at an impasse. i don't know how you expect us to pay our bill or discuss our account if we don't know that password (for our safety). if you have any suggestions, please comment through this blog. you'll have to know the password before i can talk to you about this topic though. it's for your safety.

your completely exhausted and disgusted customer,
me

wanted: a job

my requirements:

• $300 million per year
• 10 weeks of vacation per year
  
• 4 day work weeks
• no accountability whatsoever

my qualifications:

• i like chocolate
• i know how to balance my checkbook
• blue is my favorite color
• i look both ways before i cross the street

what i can offer you:

• promises, promises, promises
• zero accountability
  
• taking complete advantage of those who are less fortunate than me so that i can make more money than anyone on the planet. (awesome!)
• did i mention that i refuse to be held accountable for any wrong-doings or alleged wrong-doings?
  

seriously. i am absolutely disgusted with the idiots in our country. the greedy bastards on wall street. the CEOs and CFOs of companies who do nothing but bend rules and make great deals for themselves. and our super-awesome elected officials who stand idly by (while their pockets are being lined) and do nothing to keep the people of america from being taken advantage of. it disgusts me.

WAKE UP PEOPLE!

me

where were you?

seven years ago today i was in bed sleeping when the phone rang. it was my sister. i could hear the panic in her voice. she told me to put the news on and started telling me the story of how a plane had just flown into one of the twin towers. i can remember watching the news unfold and seeing the building on fire...thinking what a horrible accident it was...praying for the people involved.

our two month old daughter woke up around the same time and i took her to the kitchen with me as i started a pot of coffee. we went to the living room and i turned the news on and sat down to nurse her. as i sat there watching the news wondering how a plane could hit a huge building, across the screen i watched the unimaginable become reality...another plane running into the other tower.

my throat tightened. my eyes welled up with tears. i felt nauseated. as i watched, it became very clear that these events were no accident. as the day progressed we would all learn that these events were part of a master and devious plan set in motion by people who we would never know, who never knew us. that was (and still is) a very difficult idea for me to wrap my head around.

as i sat on the couch sobbing and holding our newborn baby, i thought "my God. what have we done? what kind of a world have we brought our daughter into?" i called my friend molly and we cried together. we were both still on maternity leave with our baby girls and decided that we wanted to spend the day together. our husbands both had to work that day and we didn't want to be alone with our girls.

they only lived an hour away, so she packed a few things and drove to our house. we spent the day together praying, crying, and holding our girls, wondering how anyone could commit this horrific act of hatred.

every time i think about that day...how i felt...what it was like to watch the events unfold on television, i think about the people who were directly affected...the people who died...the people who had loved ones die...the people who watched it happen...and i say a prayer.

where were you?

getting there is half the fun

i have very fond memories of childhood family vacations. someday i want to be able to take trips with our kids...when mr. husband has a job that doesn't require him to work seven days a week & when we actually have money to spend on taking a vacation. until then, i'll just pine away and day dream about the times we spent getting to our vacation destinations when i was a child.

i can remember planning and packing for days...wanting to have just the right clothes, toys, and snacks in the car with us. usually the day before our trip started, we would make a special trip to the grocery and my sisters and i would each be able to pick out our favorite snack to take with us. i could probably guess right and say that i picked chicken in a biscuit crackers (i loved those!). but i would bet money on the fact that my baby sister chose funyuns. she LOVED those things. picture it -- driving in a van with 5 people. windows up. shoes off. open mouth breathing. baby sister opens a bag of funyuns. the stinch was practically unbearable. after their first appearance, dad declared them contraband for any and all future car trips...along with corn nuts, anything that was cool ranch flavored, and blue suckers*.

my dad has family in florida and when we were younger we visited them a few times. one year my mom's family traveled with us caravan-style. my parents had borrowed a friend's van (which by the way had carpeted walls and a refrigerator) for the trip. my sisters and i, my parents, my grandma, aunt, uncle, and cousin all rode in the van. my mom's sister and her husband followed us. we had CBs. we were so rad. (i know...you're jealous.)

anyway, my dad worked an overnight shift and when he came home in the morning, we left. he drove first. he drove for hours without incident. we stopped for gas, got out and stretched then when we were ready to leave, my mom's brother took over driving. we hadn't gone five miles when our dad started yelling at our uncle. he had fallen asleep. while he was driving. on an interstate. going 80 miles per hour. with our entire family in the van.

i have no memory of my uncle driving on anymore family vacations...until a few years ago when my family went to new york for a wedding. again, my dad started the drive and when my uncle took over, my sister looked up from her magazine just in time to see his eyes drooping and his head bobbing. he is no longer aloud to drive anyone in our family to any destination whatsoever.

most of the vacation memories i have follow this same pattern...preparation, fiasco after fiasco during the trip, and vague-ish memories of the actual vacation. you know what, though? i wouldn't change it for anything. i loved our trips together. even with crazy half-awake drivers, stinky food, us (kids) against them (adults) warfare. it was fun. it was the only thing we knew. i can't wait to have the same kind of vacations with our kids.

me

*as we were driving (over a bridge if memory serves), my dad happened to look in the rear view mirror and almost wrecked the van. "oh my God, she's cyanotic!" we were all like, "what?! who's cyanotic?!" well, it turns out that baby sister's blue raspberry sucker had turned her entire mouth (including her lips) BLUE. he thought she was choking. and, thus, the "no blue sucker rule" was born.

in case you haven't figured it out...

i'm taking a break from here. i'm still reading and lurking, but i'm not posting right now. life is too hectic right now. i have lots to say, but no time to say it. i'll be back.

until then, be nice to somebody. get an A.

me

trivia tuesday

hi there. i know. i know. it's tuesday. but i'm tired. i need a break. so i'm taking one. maybe i'll try to get it together for next tuesday. we'll see.

have a good week.

me