Taking Things For Granted

This blog doesn't have much of a title, I know. But its the message that's important.
I've been in Orange Park with my Great Grandmother for the past 5 days while her daughter, my Grandmother, is in New Jersey helping to move her Aunt down here to live with them. The first 3 days were a giant headache. I'm not even gonna lie. I was miserable. Grandma Rose (Great Grandmother) has such a particular way of life and with her being 94 (96?) she hasn't had kids around to worry about for quite a while. Well, I'm here with my 2 year old son who is constantly "making a mess." I'm glad she's never seen my house on a bad day... if a blanket, pillow and hotwheel on the couch constitutes as a mess here then she'd never make it through my front door.
Eh, while I'm on the subject I'll mention a few of her other perks... if my son uses a fork he's going to hurt himself, what she wants for dinner in the morning she never wants in the evening, she's always trying to get you to eat, she has a tendency to wake up my son whenever he's sleeping, I have to repeat everything I say to get her to hear me, she renamed my son "Buster", ribs tender enough to eat with a fork are too tough, "Do you want to make some eggs for the baby" really means "I want some eggs", she insists that CDs are called records and cinnamon rolls are "cake biscuits". Phyllis is now Priscilla (her other daughter) and I am now Venus (my mother). Rain is exciting enough to announce 8 times in 30 seconds and she REALLY likes all the cute little houses on Suzanne Road. She loves to talk really loud, 2.00 for a shirt is too expensive, she watches tv shows to admire their furniture, if you don't eat as soon as you wake you're breaking some sort of rule, one "bad" experience at a restaurant and she will never go back, she knows what animals will show up in the backyard just by looking at the sky and she wont go to bed until we all do. She pretends she can't cook when Grandma is home yet she's cooked 4 times since I've been here. When you mention a state the first thing she does is ask if you've had their fruit. Apparently I'm Phyllis' daughter (that would me my Mom, not me) and all kids should be potty trained by 16 months. On a side note though, she tells really great ghost stories :)

Picking Up The Pace

I haven't blogged consistently since September. I've been slacking majorly. It is the dawn of the new year and a lot has changed. My boy has grown up much more than I could have ever imagined and my relationship with my husband has had it's own changes. And of course, along with the new year comes tax season. With there only being two days until tax season officially begins, we have already planned our spending/saving tax strategy.

The two major non-saving investments is Shane getting himself a RELIABLE vehicle which he insists must be a beat up '96-ish Mustang. 5-speed, v8. I wish he wouldn't chose something so troublesome. At least it can keep him and his dirty mechanics crap out of my Jeep! Getting a little off topic, but hey. It's a blog. That's what it's for. The second non-saving investment is finally taking a leap into the DSLR world and getting myself a spiffy new Canon EOS 60D with a EF-S 18mm-55mm IS lens, EF-S 70mm-300mm IS lens (which is AWESOME!) along with a .45 Wide Angle Macro conversion lens and a 2x telephoto converter with a variety of filters and other accessories. I am dying to pair a couple of those for reasons that deserve it's own paragraph...

The lenses range from 18mm-300mm which calculates out to a standard 16.6x zoom. But here is where it gets awesome. Pair any lens with the 2x telephoto converter and it doubles your focal distance increasing my maximum range to 18mm-600mm, 33.3x zoom. That alone sounds pretty awesome. But if you take into account that the camera itself has a crop factor of 1.6 which gives the illusion of a stock zoom effect, you're looking at a maximum focal distance of 960mm, 53.3x zoom. Pretty kick ass, isn't it? Even if you didn't understand a word of that you can still see how it's awesomeness computes into a magnificent zooming capability.

I'm dying to dive into the world of shutter speed, aperture and the reluctant use of ISO. Lately I've been spending my free time browsing sites like Flickr, DPchallenge.com and a new favorite, 500px.com. If you've never heard of it don't feel left out. I came across it while reading a photography blog. The website is amazing. It's the Flickr equivalent sporting only high end photographs. It is a great place to meet fellow photographers, browse for ideas and get inspired. And in effort to get you seemingly uninterested readers to give it a look-over, there is an uncomfortable amount of nude photography there too. Yeah, yeah... finish off the sentence and replace me with porn. I get it. Go troll.

Since I have a very low level of concentration at the moment I feel it's appropriate to stop here before I continue to rant about Ray William Johnson and all his youtube adorned fans. So I will leave you with a picture taken on my now 7 year old non-DSLR Fujifilm Finepix S5500 while on the Dam Neck Naval Base in Virginia Beach, VA. Enjoy, and let me know what you think of my picture :)

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Shane's letter from "God"...

I'm sure I'm going to Hell for this but here it goes... Anyone of you guys married to someone who asks for something before they even bother to look for it and when they DO look for it they don't bother to move anything? Yeah, me too. So today when my husband was looking for the lid to the tea pitcher (and of course didn't find it) I decided to write him a little note :)

It says...
"Shane, You'll never believe what happened! I was looking for the tea lid and as I was cleaning your mess on the counter, I lifted a paper bag and the entire kitchen started to glow. There was a faint mist and then I heard a booming voice. It said, "Here is your tea lid!" I looked around and everything was made of Gold! I was light as a feather and every pain in my body was gone! Before I knew it the glow subsided and everything was back to normal. I looked on the counter where the bag once laid and there was the tea lid with a note on it. I'm sure I ruined it's value by writing on it though..."

Note: In the bottom right hand corner there was an arrow telling you to turn the page over but I cropped it out of the picture :(

When you turned it over...

"It was here the whole time dipshit.  -God"

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Tomato Face Mask

Just got a [unwilling] partial sliced tomato face mask "treatment" thanks to my adorably thoughtful husband. Luckily I was able to forcefully hug him and smear the pleasant experience all over the right side of his face.

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Young Girls Gone Wild

While on the hunt for a new blog topic a friend sent me a link to an article titled Little Girls Gone Wild. In the article the author mentions celebrity role models, marketing and children's clothing and how they effect the innocence of our real-life girls. Celebrities like Britney Spears, Mylie Cyrus and Lindsay Lohan are named and referred to as Disney Princesses. She promotes a recently published book whose partial title is "Cinderella Ate My Daughter." Is the media really endangering our children? Is the media overstepping their bounds?

Yes and No. Does the media effect the minds of our kids? Of course. Is the media crossing the line when targeting young teens? It really all depends on who you ask. Take a look at a your parents high school yearbook. Now take a look at your own. In just 20 years a LOT has changed. Now-a-days you can use the term "modesty" and "short shorts" in the same sentence. A couple years back shorts like that were only seen in a Playboy magazine or a strip club. We, as a community, label it as acceptable. The media is just going with the flow. While I consider it a danger for the future of the next generation, many see it as normal.

Just today I went to visit my Dad. We were watching classic comedians like Bob Hope, Rodney Dangerfield, Red Skeleton, Richard Pryor and Joan Rivers. Back then the humor was clean. Their definition of dirty humor was cracking jokes about their current husband in reference to their first husband who is in the grave. Times have changed. And 40 years isn't really all that long in comparison to the changes that have taken place since then. Society is changing rapidly and if you want to protect the innocence of the youth today it begins with us.

Yes, television plays a part in the mind of our kids. Yes, many celebrities are poor role models. Yes, marketing teams intentionally target the younger demographic is ways that are completely inappropriate. But the blame shouldn't be all on them. As parents we should know when to turn the television off. We need to take steps to allow our children to see the role model in US. When we play a larger part in the lives of our kids, they will look to us as a friend and not always as a parent. We should be doing everything we can to keep that line of communication open from child to parent.

Kids should participate in more wholesome, family friendly activities. So many parents are so busy buzzing around that their kids find alternate forms of entertainment. They have more time to kick back in front of the tv and think what they could do to become more like that celebrity and impress boys instead of gathering around the kitchen table with the family and playing a game of Uno. The key to raising a modest innocent child is to keep your role in her life open and active.

To raise a good kid, you have to be a good parent. Now, no parent is perfect. We all make mistakes, as do our children. But a good rule of thumb is this... remember WWJD? Our kids think WWMD, What Would Mommy (or Daddy) Do? Everything you do in the eyes of a child is mimicked. Even if your child is in bed, be mindful of what you are doing. Think before you act, would you want your child to do this? Is it appropriate for her to be exposed to this at her age? Will she understand when you explain that it's only for adults? Those little ears are never far behind. Their eyes can pop around a corner at any time and it would be wise to be prepared.

While raising a child of any age, but especially when they are young and impressionable, it is imperative that we do what we want them to do. Be who we want them to be, and act how we want them to act. You can't tell them not to drink and smoke while you're holding a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. You have to show them. Be their teacher. Be their role model. Be their friend.

Clarance Kelland said it best. "My father didn't tell me how to live, he lived, and let me watch him do it."

The ABC's of Good Ole 90's Music

A friend of mine recently posted some lyrics as her status on Facebook from Des-ree's song, You Gotta Be. That was totally the inspiration behind this blog. And for the record I'm dodging Country music in this list, not because I don't like it but because it deserves it's own blog =) So here it goes...

Words can't explain how much I love music of the 90's. The music now is hit or miss. 90's rocked it the entire way. I've decided to compile a list of a few favorites. Keep in mind, My list of favorite 90's music contains a couple hundred songs. So I've decided to limit myself by using the Alphabet :) Enjoy.

Alanis Morissette. Where do I start? She is wonderful. Her casual, tomboy-ish attitude makes her music so much more addicting. Hand in my Pocket, Ironic, Head Over Feet, All That I Want... all of it. I will say that I was extremely disappointed in her recent album, Flavors of Entanglement. Her classics are much better in my opinion.

Blink-182. To me, it goes without saying. These guys completely rocked the 90's scene. Amazing. Every album. Their recent stuff, not so much. I'm not listing their songs because if you don't know them, then you suck. Besides, that would be quite a list. :)

Collective Soul. Pretty much anything from these guys has my vote. December, Gel, The World I Know... I'd have to say those are the most listened to songs in their collection.

Duncan Sheik. Barely Breathing. This song goes hand-in-hand with Shawn Mullin's Lullabye (Rockaby), which I can't add to this list because the spot is taken. So he get's his notice here :) Duncan rocked this song in my opinion. Love him, love him, love him. Can't say it enough. LOVE HIM!

Everclear. Wonderful. While this was released in 2000, I am including it in this list. I fit them in the same category as Duncan Sheik and Shawn Mullins. This is the best kind of music. And the lyrics in Wonderful are amazing. Back when music meant something and told a story rather than talking about asses and big rims.

Fastball. The Way. That's the first thing that comes to mind for the letter F. I remember hearing this on the radio heading to the beach with the wind blowing my hair every-which-way while going over the Dames Point watching all the commercial vehicles and cops alike completely ignore the speed limit. Somethings never change.

Gin Blossoms. I will say that Goo Goo Dolls almost had this but I'm a sucker for songs that gives me a sense of a peaceful environment. It has a clean sound, audible lyrics, smooth melody... Love it! Follow You Down and Until I Hear It From You are a few good references.

Hootie & the Blowfish. First off, I love that guys voice! Something about it lures me into every song. Time, Old Man And Me, and Hold My Hand are probably the hits you would remember the most.

Inner Circle. Sweat is an awesome song of the early 90's. If you don't recognize this song, look it up! You're missing out. Has a nice cultural feel to it. If you don't recognize Sweat, I'm sure you will know their other famous hit, Bad Boys! Yes, the COPS song :)

Jewel. I'm a little biased here. I've always loved her and no matter what you say Jewel is better than any other "J" artist you can think of for the 90's. Who Will Save Your Soul may have been over played but I loved it then and I love it now. Down So Long is another great song by her.

Kid Rock. Bawitdaba. The Devil Without A Cause album hit huge. It had trailer trash all over the world feeling a little more comfortable with their heritage. Haha. I was a fan myself. Bawitdaba was definitely a favorite of mine.

Limp Bizkit. While his biggest album was probably in 2000 with Chocolate Starfish and Hotdog Flavored Water, I'm still giving this one to Fred. His 1999 hit of Nookie was nominated several times for awards and he only won once. But I still feel that his music represented the 90's decade regardless of when it was released.

Matchbox 20. While the M's who occupied the air time in the 90's go to Madonna and Mariah Carey, I'm handing this down to Matchbox 20. I love the Alternative Rock music of the 90's and they had 6 hits on a single album in 96. Real World, Super Man, 3am, Push, Busted and Shame. That's good enough for me!

Nine Days. Absolutely (Story of a Girl) is one of the most welcoming 90's songs for me. I can't tell you the amount of times it has been included on road trip sing-a-longs and middle school flashbacks. If you've never heard it you need to join the club and set your iPod on repeat until you can't get it out of your head. It will happen. Try it.

Offspring. Don't fight me on this. Offspring is the perfect representation of the 90's. Who else could pull off a song titled Pretty Fly For A White Guy? That's what I thought :)

Pearl Jam. I have to admit that I had forgotten about these guys until Guitar Hero came out. While Even Flow has grown increasingly popular since the game release, Yellow Ledbetter is still my favorite. I like the tone of the song much better.

Q... nothing. Although Queen did release a Greatest Hits album in 92.

Red Hot Chili Peppers. Scar Tissue, Californication, All Around The World. Another one of those bands who I could listen to all day. So smooth and relaxed. It gives me the sense of propping my feet up in a hammock with sunglasses and a straw hat covering my face while I relax outside a private hut right in the shadows of a palm tree on the shore of some secluded tropical paradise.

Savage Garden. This was a tough one but I'm a sucker for this group so they have my vote with Truly, Madly, Deeply as my song choice. I'm a chick. It was bound to happen. But "S" was so rich with talent in the 90's so I've got to mention the others. Santana, Shaggy, Smash Mouth, Sixpence None the Richer, Sugar Ray and just for kicks... Spice Girls! Haha. Sorry, had to toss that in there. They all do a really great job of representing my favorite decade.

Third Eye Blind. Hands down, no questions asked. These guys freakin rock! My Dad bought the CD and I stole it from him and kept it from myself. I don't mean that I adopted it, I mean I literally took it and hid it. I loved it! Semi-Charmed Life, Jumper and How's it gonna be are my song references. The 90's wouldn't be the same without them. I will say Train was second runner up. They are amazing too!

Usher. He is remarkable and he made his debut in the 90's. One of Ellen DeGeneres' favorite's, he is mine too. Great voice, amazing performer. He's all around a great artist. You Make Me Wanna and My Way are the hits that made him.

Vertical Horizon. Everything You Want. I don't know what you say about these guys other than the natural tones and alternative rock sound hit me in all the right places. They are awesome. Period.

Wallflowers. One Headlight. If I had to pick any single song to represent myself in the 90's it would be this one. It brings back so many memories. I hear this song and think of Middle School and standing my room in front of the radio just singing along and waiting for it to end so I could restart it. Lol. They rocked my world back then. I never could remember who they were or the name of the song until I heard it at work years later. I was so glad to have it back in my collection!!

X and Y are duds unless you want to hear about Youngstown and their theme song used in the television show The Famous Jet Jackson... didn't think so.

ZZ Top. Who else did you expect to take the place? These guys were biggest in the 80's but their influence carried well into the 90's. They released 4 new albums and one Greatest Hits release. The intro of  Breakaway should be enough to tell you about the Rock God's. The cool and inviting rythmic guitar and relaxed vocals that never fail to please are what these guys are famous for... aside from the curiosity of what they look like without the hat, stash and beard.

Well, I'm out of letters and covered most of the favorites. Be sure to leave me some feedback on this topic. I love me some music!!!

Reliving the Past

All to often I find myself sitting alone in a room while Stryker is down for a nap, just thinking. The television is off, the light is coming in from the blinds and everything is peaceful and serene. Then all of a sudden I squeeze my eyes shut or cover my face with my hands and grimace because I've somehow brought up a memory, one which I'd rather have forgotten. Something embarrassing.

It wouldn't be so bad if it was something out of my control. You know, like being pants'd in front of your crush or brushing your teeth with squeeze butter because your brother thought it'd be funny to refill your tube of toothpaste. Im talking about one of those moments you just want to smack yourself for.

One of my moments of regret took place about three years ago in Winn-Dixie. Im in the check out line at the end by the baggers. My Grandmother-in-law was buying us groceries because we were so tight financially. Already in an awkward position by having a woman I barely know buying us 200 dollars worth of groceries, I look down the isle at all the open lanes and catch someones glare. My Ex-boyfriends Father. That relationship didn't end the best way and it was the first time I've seen him since then. It didn't take me long to realize the position I was in. I immediately turned from him and assisted the clerk in bagging the groceries. I wanted to get out of there, and fast.

It wasn't just awkward seeing him again. There's a little more to it than that. I was married and Really pregnant at the time. I was about 100 pounds heavier than last time he saw me and to make matters even worse... due to my lack of maternity clothes, I had to dig up some old "favorites." One of which was his sons work shirt... which I just so happened to be wearing.

Even now I hang my head in shame as I relive that moment. How embarrassing! Yeah I know, there are moments way worse than that but something about that day continuously haunts me.

So, what's your story?