SocialSpark

Gavin is sick again and hasn ' t been sleeping... During Sick Day #1, Gavin got into the markers when I wasn ' t looking and decided to color a picture... Here is a view of my kitchen floor: Leaving no canvas untouched, here is a picture of the artist ' s feet:... … View Post »

So not only did our reject of a leader introduce a stimulus package that will have little ability to actually stimulate the economy, but he also neglected to send me my check!... " tool and entered my info... It couldn ' t even locate a check that was on its way... To rub a half ton of salt in my gigantic wound, there is no phone number or email or ANYTHING where you can contact them to let them know that there has been a glitch... But now we ' re talking about money, people - my money... If I ' m not coming after this administration for the $4,700 they ' ve cost me in taxes to fund the War, the least they can do is send me my stimulus check... I fully intend on writing a complaint letter... … View Post »

My friend Dette, over at Dance of Motherhood, asked me to participate in this game of Crazy Eights by sharing eight unusual or little known facts about myself... At the tender age of eight, I came in 3rd in the" Most Beautiful Eyes in Massachusetts" competition... The 3rd place prize for said competition was originally a romantic weekend for two, as they were not anticipating that a child might place... When I was a kid, I dreamed of becoming an author... I wrote profusely and even" published" my own mini books ( made entirely out of construction paper )... My mother still has the very first book I ever wrote, entitled Watch the Flower Grow... I used to walk over a mile each morning in the snowy New England winters for my one true weakness.... I ' m of Eastern European descent... My son ' s name literally translates to" White hawk, defender of men." At his birth, my ex insisted that we ' d destined him to a life of Dungeons and Dragons... Last but certainly not least, I am now the owner of a brand new iPod shuffle, and I have Corrin from corrinrenee.com to thank for it!... Now, the fun part, where I invite others to join and post eight things about themselves... Each player starts with 8 random things about themselves... At the end of your post, tag 8 people and include their names and their links... … View Post »

My ex ' s mother came to visit this week and, in the vein of Santa Claus, brought a sack of gifts in tow... Gavin got his usual assortment of clothes, toys, and candy... Me, my ex, and Gavin also all received matching blue and white polos and the request that we take a family photo wearing our new threads... I thought it was a cute idea, albeit one I would never have decided to do on my own... ( I ' ll post the picture on here after we take it. ) Upon hearing of the matching polos that my ex ' s mother purchased for the three of us, my friend exclaimed," Matching outfits are cute!... You know that we ' re talking about me, my ex, and our two - year old son, yes?... Speaking of Gavin, we had another developmental breakthrough this weekend and I can ' t decide whether I should be proud or disappointed about it... It was yesterday evening and Gavin had just come out of the bath... (" Bath" is a generous term for the activity, as Gavin is in currently in month three of a full - scale bath boycott... He is terrified to remove his diaper or to sit in a tub of water, so he literally stands in an empty tub, wearing his diaper, while I wash him by hand. ) Anyway, my ex and his mother were sitting on my couch while I attempted to comb Gavin ' s wet hair... He furrowed his eyebrows and moved his head away from my grasp... " Does Mommy have another name?... In his book, my first name is still primarily" Mommy." Of course, I can ' t help but continue to be both amazed and weirded out that my barely two - year old knows my proper name... Here ' s hoping he decides not to use it... … View Post »

I would never watch that show and, if I somehow happened to view it by accident, I would certainly never admit it publicly... " I ' m good enough, I ' m smart enough, and dog gone it, people like me!" He has taken on the guffawing buffoon that is Rush Limbaugh with a tenacity like no one else... I briefly considered putting an Al Franken poster on my the wall in my room but couldn ' t for two reasons: 1 ) It turns out, Al Franken posters are not so easy to find and 2 ) My ex is over quite frequently and likes to poke fun of my idol ( I suspect he hates America )... Well, imagine my horror this morning when I was trolling the news sites and came upon this: Blogger Targets Al Franken in Minnesota Senate Race... A fellow blogger trying to take down my idol!... Second, while $70,000 sounds like a lot to this average Joe, it ' s a drop in the bucket for Al... … View Post »

I like reading the news in pretty much every shape and size I can get it... They made fun of recent, real news stories and had little regard for political correctness... Finally, I had found a group of writers as cynical as myself!... However, since graduating nearly four years ago, I decided I needed to refine my tastes a bit more and replaced my daily dose of that pungent vegetable with an equally bitter, yet slightly more sophisticated, sampling of Maureen Dowd... This morning, I stumbled upon The Onion again and remembered what I had been missing!... I also remembered a particularly funny tale from college that I thought I would share here ( as I have been laughing about it all morning ): During our junior year, my college roommate found herself the romantic interest of a markedly unappealing boy... My girlfriends and I teased her endlessly about this ( since we were clearly very kind individuals ) until my roommate felt quite uncomfortable being in this boy ' s presence... One day, the ex and I were perusing The Onion and came across a story entitled," Would You Care to Join Me for an Unbelievably Awkward Dinner Sometime?... " The story is basically a mock - dinner date invitation from a very unappealing man depicting an even more unappealing date... Well, my industrious ex and I figured out a way to mask an email address so that it appeared to be coming from a different one... Then we pasted the text of this glorious Onion invite into the email body and - whoosh!... Like a bat out of hell, I flew out of the ex ' s room and raced back to my place... I threw the open the door to find my roommate hunched over her computer, looking miserable, with the email open... " Don ' t respond to it!" I cried... It turns out, she had been just seconds from clicking the send button on the response she had written - a response which would have gone directly to Mr. Unappealing, original email and all... Eventually, she came to see the humor in it, but swore she would get back at us... … View Post »

In a speech from the Rose Garden this morning, the continual embarrassment that is our President chastised Congress for not doing enough to assuage Americans ' financial worries... Time after time, Congress chose to block them," Sir Incompetence said... You mean kinda like the proposals to keep funding the war in Iraq?... It is currently estimated that the war in Iraq has cost American taxpayers over $515 billion... $515 billion could go a long way to alleviating the problems Americans face regarding the housing market and student loan availability... To make this number even more real, $515 billion equates to approximately $4,700 per household... Doesn ' t it make you angry?... Instead of acknowledging the billions of dollars we have been shredding since 2003, he attacks Congress for not doing enough to fix the economic mess our country is in... What I am saying, though, is that Congress would have a lot more room to fix it with that $515 billion in the bank... If Bush wants to point fingers, he ought to start by pointing at himself... … View Post »

I ' m talking about it because, after my initial post on the topic, this uptight, misophobic prepster went!... I did some research on the topic and learned about the people who get by via dumpster diving ( and similar pursuits )... What I found remarkably interesting is that most of these people, who are called" freegans," do not need to dumpster dive but actually do it as part of a greater lifestyle choice... According to that venerable reference site, Wikipedia, freeganism is" an anti - consumerism lifestyle whereby people employ alternative living strategies based on limited participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources... Freegans embrace community, generosity, social concern, freedom, cooperation, and sharing in opposition to a society based on materialism, moral apathy, competition, conformity, and greed... The lifestyle involves salvaging discarded, unspoiled food from supermarket dumpsters that have passed, or in some cases haven ' t even passed, their sell by date, but are still edible and nutritious... They salvage the food not because they are poor or homeless, but as a political statement." Freeganism was something I could support wholeheartedly ( even if I did not become a freegan myself ) and I wanted to see it in action... I coaxed my friend into going dumpster diving again... " Hop in!" I took a deep breath and hoisted myself over the side and into the dumpster... When all was said and done, I wound up with 10 gourmet loaves of bread and 5 bags of rolls in the trunk of my car... The excitement was still pulsing through my veins as I headed home... By the time I reached my apartment, however, my adrenaline died down and my rational neuroticism had returned... " he asked, eyeing the bags on my counter... " They were on sale," I said... … View Post »

I was reading a new post on another great blog, Globally Rational, about the notion of" supporting our troops." The basic premise was that if we really supported our troops, we would care enough about their well - being to understand the effect this war is having on them and, consequently, bring them home... A popular criticism of the Left and of those who seek to end the war is that they are not patriotic and that, by questioning and evaluating the actions of our country, they are somehow less" American" than those who don ' t... This is absurd and every time I hear such stupidity uttered, my blood boils just a little and I start to think that selective suffrage might not be such a bad idea... ( Really, if you think thoughtful, fact - based analysis is equatable to treason, you ought to be disenfranchised. ) Supporting your country blindly, without any deep understanding of the facts, is one of the most dangerous things a person could do, and, in my opinion, is about as un - American as it gets... A country needs its citizens to be educated, to engage in intelligent debate, and to keep its leadership in line so that they steer the country down the best track possible... When citizens neglect to be informed and critical, they become nothing more than pawns and they give their government power to make unilateral decisions that may be rooted in less - than - admirable motivations... Another thing I can ' t stand is people who insist upon taking fashion cues from our flag... If you are under the age of ten, red, white, and blue apparel is perfectly fine. ) Our country is not a sports team... You need not show your support by wearing our" team colors" and talking about how much" better" our country is than all the rest... If your" team" has problems, talk about those problems and propose solutions until the leadership has no choice but to listen... … View Post »