interesting things about me

1. i have NO patience (inherited from my dad).
2. i hate to snuggle - if anyone (even my kids) are touching me i cannot sleep!
3. i love rap music and country music - not really a "normal" mix.
4. i watch way too much tv - thank God for tivo! i don't know how people who had kids ever watched television before tivo was invented. my husband is so annoyed by how much stuff I have recorded and never get a chance to watch (kids are always around)!
5. i used to read books but have given that up since having kids (it takes me at least a week to get through a magazine).
6. the only reason that i like to do cardio is so i can read a magazine (see #5) but i love to lift weights.
7. i don't drink soft drinks at all (don't like the carbonation).
8. my whole life i've wanted to be a mom and housewife. i love it, but it is the most challenging job that i have ever had!
9. my hubby and i have been together for more than 17 years. that's over half of my life!
10. i'm a germ-a-phobe!
11. i love food! i actually will think about what my next meal will be before i finish the meal i'm already eating!
12. feet gross me out yet i wear flip-flops (almost) year-round!
13. i've never had short hair. the shortest its ever been was just past my shoulders and the longest was past my waist.
14. i'm a right-wing, conservative republican yet i watch the view every day. (i guess i like to torture myself!)
15. i'm a casual girl (my "uniform" is jeans and a tank top or hoodie). i'd rather be underdressed than overdressed anyday!
16. i sucked my thumb until i was over 10 years old. i didn't do it at school or in front of my friends but as soon as i got home i would have to get my "fix" (like a drug addict)
17. i'm an awesome bargain hunter! i often get food and household items for free (or the store pays me) and i've bought clothes from target and old navy for less than a dollar!
18. i hate to be cold - give me 100 degrees in the shade anyday!
19. i can't stand the sound of apples being chewed - it's like fingernails on a chalkboard to me!!
20. i love the 80's! i wanted to dress like madonna and cyndi lauper (circa 1983) but i was only 8 and my mother would not let me. now the 80's style is coming back and i'm too old to dress like that. can you imagine the looks that i would get dropping my kids off at school dressed like madonna in her like a virgin video!? i am having an 80's theme for my 35th birthday party in a few weeks though!

i think this pretty much sums it up. it all makes perfect sense now doesn’t it?!

weirdos need love too.

if you watch only one show...

...make it the soup on e! the great thing about the soup is that they show (and make fun of) all of the crazy things that have happened on reality tv for the week - which is the whole reason i watch reality tv!

i am the queen of reality television (just ask my husband). if i could, i would spend all day watching reality tv but "my reality" does not allow that! i tivo and then eventually watch celebrity fit club, celebrity rehab, toddlers & tiaras, little miss perfect, keeping up with the kardashians (even though i don't like any of them), the hills, the city, kendra, girls next door, my life on the "d" list, 16 and pregnant, teen mom, real world (which was of course the original reality show), brooke knows best, all of the real housewives, and the list goes on! i know that it sounds like a lot but each of those shows have a short season (maybe 2 months) and they are staggered throughout the year. and like i said, it takes me forever to get around to watching them - usually while i'm folding clothes or cleaning.

and when i do miss a show i can see the highlights on the soup!

welcome sadie

well, we finally got a new dog. i wanted a cute little puppy - we got a gigantic german shepherd that's full grown (i hope)! her name is sadie and she is a great dog...when I am home with her! she's sweet, rarely barks, is housebroken and walks well on a leash. she loves the girls and they love her! when the girls go to bed, sadie lays at the foot of my little one's bed. she follows me EVERYWHERE (like i really need someone else to follow me around all day)!

those are her good qualities - now for the bad stuff! she suffers from major separation anxiety! when i leave the house (even for just a short time), she howls, scratches the door, tears stuff up (fence, trampoline, etc) and gets out of the backyard! the first two days we had her, she tore the bottom of the pickets off of the fence to get under it and get out. saturday night we went out to dinner and a movie and put her in the backyard. we put her on a 25 foot leash (so she couldn't get out of the yard) and we left her on the back porch with food, water and rawhides. when we came home she had pulled the table and chairs off of the porch, ripped off and tore the window screen and chewed up the door frame! everytime she comes back in the house (even if she's just been outside for a few minutes) she gets way too excited and jumps up, paws at you and rolls around like crazy (this is also another sign of separation anxiety)! i don't know if she was abused by a man when she was younger but she is terrified of all men that come to our house! it doesn't help her case any that she won't go near my husband! he was the one that wanted her the most and i think he would have more patience and be more willing to work through all of these problems if sadie would at least have something to do with him!

the biggest problem is i know that she is probably this way because she has had so much instability in her short life and i don't want to contribute to that but i also don't know if we can handle it. i have been reading all about separation anxiety and trying to do everything that is recommended but unfortunately there is no "magic switch" to flip and it just takes time to make her feel secure - and i don't know how much more time we can give her!

bacon etiquette

a friend of mine posted this on facebook a while back and it is oh so true!

"could we establish a standard for bacon..... I am not a crawfish, I am not attracted to raw bacon. I feel that anyone in the food industry who takes on the serious responsibility of pig preparation, should be fully aware that bacon is intended to be crispy...... It's how God intended......that is all."

whenever i order any other meat, it is either cooked completely or they ask me how i want it cooked (example: "how would you like your steak"). no one has ever served me a "flame-kissed" pork chop so why would you serve me barely cooked bacon?!

leave me a comment on how you like your bacon.

first amendment rights at large

we live in the the land of the free, right? unless you want to say something that comes across as crass and insensitive (even if it does happen to be true)!

the first instance of this that i saw this week was from south carolina's lieutenant governor, andre bauer. he said: "My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed! You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that." bauer said monday that he regrets his choice of words but that government should expect welfare recipients to try to better themselves. he wants to require them to take drug tests and attend parent-teacher conferences if they have children in school. heaven forbid, right?!

the next instance that i heard about today was by paul shirley (former nba player). he wrote this article:

I do not know if what I’m about to write makes me a monster. I do know that it makes me a part of a minuscule minority, if Internet trends and news stories of the past weeks are any guide.

“It”, is this:

I haven’t donated a cent to the Haitian relief effort. And I probably will not.

I haven’t donated to the Haitian relief effort for the same reason that I don’t give money to homeless men on the street. Based on past experiences, I don’t think the guy with the sign that reads “Need You’re Help” is going to do anything constructive with the dollar I might give him. If I use history as my guide, I don’t think the people of Haiti will do much with my money either.

In this belief I am, evidently, alone. It seems that everyone has jumped on the “Save Haiti” bandwagon. To question the impulse to donate, then, will probably be viewed as analogous with rooting for Charles Manson, John Wayne Gacy, or the Spice Girls.

My wariness has much to do with the fact that the sympathy deployed to Haiti has been done so unconditionally. Very few have said, written, or even intimated the slightest admonishment of Haiti, the country, for putting itself into a position where so many would be killed by an earthquake.

I can’t help but wonder why questions have not been raised in the face of this outpouring of support. Questions like this one:

Shouldn’t much of the responsibility for the disaster lie with the victims of that disaster?

Before the reader reaches for his or her blood pressure medication, he should allow me to explain. I don’t mean in any way that the Haitians deserved their collective fate. And I understand that it is difficult to plan for the aftermath of an earthquake. However, it is not outside the realm of imagination to think that the citizens of a country might be able to: A) avoid putting themselves into a situation that might result in such catastrophic loss of life. And B) provide for their own aid, in the event of such a catastrophe.

Imagine that I’m a caveman. Imagine that I’ve chosen to build my house out of balsa wood, and that I’m building it next to a roaring river because I’ve decided it will make harvesting fish that much easier. Then, imagine that my hut is destroyed by a flood.

Imagining what would happen next is easier than imagining me carrying a caveman’s club. If I were lucky enough to survive the roaring waters that took my hut, my tribesmen would say, “Building next to the river was pretty dumb, wasn’t it?.” Or, if I weren’t so lucky, they’d say, “At least we don’t have to worry about that moron anymore.”

Sure, you think, but those are cavemen. We’re more civilized now – we help each other, even when we make mistakes.

True enough. But what about when people repeat their mistakes? And what about when they do things that obviously act against their own self-interests?

In the case of mistakes and warnings as applied to Haiti, I don’t mean to indict those who ignored actual warnings against earthquakes, of which there were many before the recent one. Although it would have been prudent to pay heed to those, I suppose.

Instead, I’m referring to the circumstances in which people lived. While the earthquake was, obviously, unavoidable, the way in which many of the people of Haiti lived was not. Regrettably, some Haitians would have died regardless of the conditions in that country. But the fact that so many people lived in such abject poverty exacerbated the extent of the crisis.

How could humans do this to themselves? And what’s being done to stop it from happening again?

After the tsunami of 2004, the citizens of the world wailed and donated and volunteered for cleanup, rarely asking the important – and, I think, obvious – question: What were all those people doing there in the first place? Just as important: If they move back to a place near the ocean that had just been destroyed by a giant wave, shouldn’t our instinct be to say, “Go ahead if you want, but you’re on your own now.”?

We did the same after Hurricane Katrina. We were quick to vilify humans who were too slow to respond to the needs of victims, forgetting that the victims had built and maintained a major city below sea level in a known target zone for hurricanes. Our response: Make the same mistake again. Rebuild a doomed city, putting aside logic as we did.

And now, faced with a similar situation, it seems likely that we will do the same.

Shouldn’t there be some discourse on how the millions of dollars that are being poured into Haiti will be spent? And at least a slight reprimand for the conditions prior to the earthquake? Some kind of inquisition? Something like this?:

Dear Haitians –

First of all, kudos on developing the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Your commitment to human rights, infrastructure, and birth control should be applauded.

As we prepare to assist you in this difficult time, a polite request: If it’s possible, could you not re-build your island home in the image of its predecessor? Could you not resort to the creation of flimsy shanty- and shack-towns? And could some of you maybe use a condom once in a while?

Sincerely,

The Rest of the World

It shouldn’t be outlandish to hope that we might stop short of the reactionary word that is so often flung about after natural (and unnatural) disasters. That word: Rebuild. Thus, the tired, knee-jerk cycle of aid/assist/rebuild would be replaced by a new one: Aid/assist/let’s-stop-and-think-before-we-screw-this-up-again.

If forced to do so through logic-colored glasses, no one would look at Haiti and think, “You know what? It was a great idea to put 10 million people on half of an island. The place is routinely battered by hurricanes (in 2008, $900 million was lost/spent on recovery from them), it holds the aforementioned title of poorest nation in the Western hemisphere, and it happens to sit on a tectonic fault line.”

If it were apparent that Haiti would likely rebuild in an earthquake-resistant way, and if a cure could be found for hurricane abuse of island nations, then maybe one could imagine putting a sustained effort into rebuilding the place. But that would only be feasible if the country had shown any ability to manage its affairs in the past, which it has not done.

I can tell, based on my own reaction to that last sentence, that it might strike a nerve. The reader might be tempted to think, “We can’t blame the people of Haiti for their problems. Surely it’s someone else’s fault.” A similar sentiment can be found in this quote, from article on the geology behind the quake:

“Unfortunately, [Haiti]’s government was not in a position to really do much to prepare for the inevitable large earthquake, leaving tens of thousands to suffer the consequences.”

The sentiment expressed is one of outrage at the government. But, ultimately, the people in a country have control over their government. One could argue that in totalitarian regimes, they do not have much control, but in the end, it is their government. And therefore, their responsibility. If the government is not doing enough for the people, it is the people’s responsibility to change the government. Not the other way around.

Additionally, some responsibility for the individual lies with that individual.

A Haitian woman, days after the earthquake:

“We need so much. Food, clothes, we need everything. I don’t know whose responsibility it is, but they need to give us something soon,” said Sophia Eltime, a mother of two who has been living under a bed sheet with seven members of her extended family. (From an AP report.)

Obviously, a set of circumstances such as the one in which Ms. Eltime was living is a heart-wrenching one. And for that, anyone would be sympathetic. Until she says, “I don’t know whose responsibility it is.” I don’t know whose responsibility it is, either. What I do know is that it is not the responsibility of the outside world to provide help. It’s nice if we do, but it is not a requirement, especially when people choose to influence their own existences negatively, whether by having too many children when they can’t afford them or by failing to recognize that living in a concrete bunker might not be the best way to protect one’s family, whether an earthquake happens or not.

Ms. Eltime’s reaction helps define what is the crux of my problem with the reaction to this and to other humanitarian crises. I recoil at the notion that I’m SUPPOSED to do something. I would like to help, but only if I feel that my assistance is deserved and justified. If I perceive that I am being told to feel a certain way, and if I can point to a pattern of mistakes made in similar situations, I lose interest.

When I was young, the great humanitarian crisis facing our world – as portrayed by the media, anyway – was the starving masses in Africa. The solution found, of course, was to send bag after bag of food to those people, forgetting the long-understood maxim that giving more food to poor people allows them to create more poor people. (Admittedly, it’s a harsh truth.) At the time, my classmates and I, young and naïve as we were, thought we had come up with a better solution. “They should just go somewhere else,” we said. Our teacher grimaced, saying, “It’s not that simple.”

It still isn’t. And I’m not as naïve as I once was – I don’t think the people of Haiti have the option of moving. But I do think that our assistance should be restricted, like it should be in cases of starvation. It simply does not work to give, unconditionally. What might work is to teach. In the case of famine-stricken segments of Africa, teaching meant making people understand that a population of people needs a certain amount of food, and that the creation of that food has to be self-sustaining for the system to work. In the case of earthquake-stricken Haiti, teaching might mean limited help, but help that is accompanied by criticism of the circumstances that made that help necessary.

In the case of the Haitian earthquake, it’s heartening to see people caring about the fates of their fellow men. What is alarming, I think, is the sometimes illogical frenzy toward casting those affected by the earthquake as helpless, innocent souls who were placed on the island of Hispaniola by an invisible force. In the case of some, this analogy might well be accurate; children cannot very well control their destinies. And as far as sympathy goes, much of it should go to those children.

But children are brought into the world by their parents. Those parents have a responsibility – to themselves and to their kids – to provide. They have a responsibility to look around – before an earthquake happens – and say, “I need to improve this situation, because if a catastrophe were to happen, we’d be in bad shape.”

The people of whom I write are adults. Functional, human adults with functional, human adult brains. It is not too much to ask that they behave as such. That they stand up and say, “Yes, we screwed this up the first time. We are forever indebted to you. Now show us how we can do it right. So that, next time, we won’t need your help.”

mr. shirley was subsequently fired from espn for this article. i have already given money to the haiti relief (because i wanted to) and some of his opinions seem a little harsh to me but i think this is a well-written, thought-provoking article and he shouldn't lose his job for this.

after all, what both of these men are saying is "if you aren't going to help yourself, why should i help you?!" and i totally agree with that!

i've been a bad little blogger

well, i don't know that i would actually call myself a "blogger" - more like "someone who happens to have a blog"! either way, i haven't written in quite a while so i thought i would write about a few of the things that my girls have been up to lately!

my oldest was recently reading the bible to her little sister "in the beginning, God created the earth. and that was even before mommy and daddy were born - so it's a long time ago!" (gee, thanks kid!)

a while back, all four of us laid snuggling in our bed and the first grader said "all of us are together and the tv is all alone"! (wow, maybe we watch too much tv if she considers it a part of our family.)

she lost her third tooth last week but it was the first one on the top so now she has a cute little "jack o'latern" grin!

my little one is 3 1/2 now and she keeps me laughing all of the time. i'm so happy that i get to spend everyday with her right now! here are some of the funny things that she has said lately:

"how come we don't ever see any elephants?" (she asked this while we were driving around doing errands and couldn't understand why we see dogs, cows, horses, goats, etc. but never any elephants!)

"what do you call a pig with no pink on it? a muddy pig!" (that's her attempt at telling a joke)

"this little piggy went to target, this little piggy stayed home..." (maybe we do go shopping at target too often)

"i'm gonna get you bug. and you'll be dead and you'll not be with your family!" stomp, stomp, stomp!

she only wants to wear skirts and play dolls and dress up all the time just like my older one did at this age. i can't believe how much she is growing up already. sometimes i miss the baby stage and think we need to have another baby - and then i put down the wine glass and go to bed!

happy new year, happy new hair

in december of 2007, my oldest daughter (who was then 4 years old) cut off 10 inches of her hair and donated it to locks of love. they make wigs for kids with cancer. she had seen someone on tv who did it and asked me why the lady was cutting her hair. i explained it all to her and she decided that she wanted to do that with her hair too. at the time, i didn't really want her to cut her hair but how could i stop her for doing something so admirable. i did postpone it for a few weeks so we could get Christmas pictures taken first and for her to be totally sure that she really wanted to do it. she cut it off right around Christmas of 2007 and it looked really cute.

in these past 2 years, she and my mom have both been growing their hair out and yesterday they both cut off 10 inches of hair to donate.