Wordless Wednesday:Traveling Light

(In case you can't see the detail...on the back of the motorcycle seat are his essentials: leather gloves and a bottle of Windex. Gotta keep the windshield clean!)

Proud to be an American

Crunchy (almost 6) and Munchy (4) are proud to be Americans. (And Mom is quite proud of them!)

I am proud to be an American
Where at least I know I'm free
And I won't forget the men who died
Who gave that right to me
And I'll gladly stand up
Next to you
And defend her still today
'Cause there ain't no doubt
I love this land
God bless the USA

Night at the Museum

Last night the two little ones took me to see Night at the Museum: Battle for the Smithsonian. It was great! I have seen parts of the first movie, but not the entire movie. I visited the Smithsonian inhigh school and I have always wanted to return. It was fun seeing the kids' reactions to the works of art and historical figures. Crunchy's favorite was "A-million" Earhart. Munchy likes The Thinker. "Boom! Bang! Firepower!"

Thomas birthday cake

I layered 4 round cakes (9; 8; 8; 9 inches each). Then I cut an arc out of the front side.

Covered with a crumb coat.

Red brick building and gray base complete.

Everything is iced.  Blue roof, red building, gray base, and green doors.

All done!  Final touch was a piped track and a set of bath toy trains.

Crunchy's birthday is next week. His party is tomorrow. He is into all things Thomas the Tank Engine. After checking out hundreds of pictures of Thomas themed cakes, I decided to try the round house. Crunchy calls it Tidmuth Shed. I started with 2 8 inch and 2 9 inch pans

Hubby has a new Mac netbook!

After 4 years without a laptop (and a couple of years before that with a bad battery) John has a new Macintosh laptop. Sort of. We bought the Dell 9 inch netbook at Sam's Club for $250. Then he paid about $100 for a memory upgrade and more hard drive space. He was able to load the Mac OS (operating system) and has been able to get it to do everything he wants to do on it. The small MacBook Air starts at $1800. The entry level MacBooks start at $1100. After we get the engine paid off, I'm going to get one for blogging.


Start with a Dell Inspiron Mini 9. Replace the operating system....

Bring out the Apple decal.....

Transformation complete!

The double exposure logo....

Wordless Wednesday: A boy and a box

Waiting for the other shoe to drop

I took this picture last week intending to write a blog post. I didn't get around to it. Until now. Ever since the gas prices fell it sems like every has been holding their breath waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop. Our gas prices got as high as just under $5 a gallon. (And our gas starts at 86 octane instead of 87.) We didn't get as low as other areas, but we got down to about $1.69. But it settled at around $1.90. For more than a month it stayed at this range. Until yesterday. Yesterday it jumped 20¢ to $2.09. And I'm assuming it will only go up from here.

Dress Up at Target

Last night we stopped at Target. Munchie loves Target. When we left the house at 6, Munchie asked if we could go to Target. Daddy promised we would stop if there was time after we ate dinner and shopped at Sam's Club. On the way home, about 9, Munchie realized that we had passed Target. "Daddy!". Who promptly turned around and went back.

Munchie and Crunchy had fun trying on hat while waiting for Daddy. I won't post a picture of the end of trip (in which said 3 1/2 year old cried all the way home, "But I didn't get to buy anything!!!" (Anything means a new train.)

Coraline-No!

Arggghhh! No, it isn't International Talk Like a Pirate Day (that's not until September!). I typed up a rather long post on my smart phone, but it disappeared somewhere in Wal-Mart.. (The review, not the phone.) So I shall begin again. Okay...I got that out of my system. Now it's time for a review.

SPOILER ALERT

Coraline was, I believe, the WORST kids movie we've ever seen. And we've seen a lot of kid's movies. My kids (and hubby and I!) have been enjoying the previews for some time. We expected a little bit of dark plot, but my kids (3 and 5) were quite scared in parts. The 11 year old seemed to enjoy it. We did not see the 3 D version, but I don't think my little ones would have made it through. At one point, I did consider taking the kids out, but I felt that if they didn't see the story resolved, it would leave them open to more nightmares.

My complaints:

Themes
They were too intense for a kid's movie (PG). There were kidnapped children, some of whom were held in captivity until they died and are now ghosts trying to find freedom. The parents didn't just ignore their daughter, they told her to leave them alone while they worked. (At one point I turned to my husband and asked if we needed to call child protective services?) There was an insinuation about cannibalism. The cat mentioned "she might eat you". The ghost kids said she would "eat your life".

Boobs.
The downstairs (elderly) neighbors apparently were burlesque dancers. Their were posters on the wall celebrating movies such as "Julius Sees Her" and "King Leer". One of the women had quite large breasts and several jokes (both spoken and sight gags) were made or implied. Again, I turned to my husband and said, "Those boobs are totally inappropriate for a kid's movie." But it got worse! During one of her trips to the other side, Coraline was treated to a theater presentation. One neighbor was dressed like a mermaid (mostly dressed). The other (the large breasted one) came out in a G-string and pasties. She danced around and fought with the other girl. I was quite disturbed by the dance. It seemed totally inappropriate for a kid's movie. Here's a link to a picture of Miss Forcible. And here she is dancing.

As I was writing this review, I Googled the movie and found nothing but praise for it. Maybe something was lost in the 2D version, but this is one animated movie that we won't be buying.

Wordless Wednesday

Instead of saying no when Crunchy asked me to put on the Easter bunny ears, I said Yes. And I took a picture. Crunchy immediately said, "Send it!"

santa Fe

Wow! What a day! I have learned so much in Santa Fe. I learned, for example, that New Mexico is the only remaining citizen legislature. Our senators and representatives are not salaried. They get a $145 per diem during the 60 days of the session (as well as any special sessions.) They are paid for one trip to Santa Fe and one trip home. And, if they don't show receipts for the entire amount, they have to pay taxes on it!

We met with several of the senators and representatives from south east New Mexico. Even though we are a heavily democratric ruled state (more than 2 to 1 majority in both houses) almost all of our legislators are conservative replublican Christians. But Albuequerque and Santa Fe have more people. There is currently a bill that will be up to pave the way for gay marriages. Right now they are calling for "domestic partnerships". It has been tabled for now but it could come back any time.

More later. I am about to crash.

Are you a blog addict?

I took a little quiz. Some of the questions were hard to answer. Like, how many blogs I read in a day. Some times I don't read any for several days, but then other days I may visit more than 20! And sometimes I post 1-2 times a week (or less) and other times I post 3 times in one day. So I went for the middle. But I have blogged "live" during a parade---from my phone. So...drumrolll please....

78%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

What is your score?

Concert

I am sitting in the bleachers of a middle school gymnasium waiting for Chewie's first orchestra recital. There are about 40 5th graders and about 25 middle schoolers. Students had to arrive at 6 15. By 6 30 the bleachers were almost full. Now, at 6 45, it is standing room only. The bleachers were obviously made for tweenagers and not overweight middle aged moms! The crowds are still coming. Would I be a bad mom if I said I hope it is a short concert?

Bolt

(Blogging from my phone)
We just left the movie Bolt. I think it was the best movie--animated or live action--that I've seen in a long time. The basic story line is a TV dog who has been raised on the set. He never leaves the set. He thinks he has super powers. At the end if each episode, Bolt saves Penny, his peerson. Until they do a cliff hanger episode. Believing Penny is in danger, he takes off to find her. The movie chronicles his cross country journey back to Penny. Along the journey he makes some new friends and discovered he does not really have super powers. But he also learns that he doesn't need super powers to be a hero.

The 3D effects were incredible. There were a few scenes where it looked like things were flying into or out of the audience. But most of the effects just made the picture pop.

Chewie brought along his friend and at 11 they still laughed and ducked. Munchie (3) and Crunchy (5) sat still for most of the movie (That is a rarity for them.) Munchie did take off the glasses about 20 minutes into the movie.

This was definitely a great family friendly movie.

Gas Prices

Finally! Gas prices in Roswell have fallen below $2 a gallon. I know the national average has been about $1.75, but we finally did it! Sam's is $1.96. Everybody else is within 3 cents. I know it won't last, but I hope it lasts until payday.

I love a parade

I do enjoy parades. But my city goes a bit overboard. When we first moved here they had a corn parade (I never figured that one out.); a VW bug parade; a UFO parade (did I mention I live in Roswell?); a Christmas light parade; and the favorite--the Fair parade. Today is the fair parade. Everybody shows up for this one. Half the town is in the parade. It is 11 o'clock. The parade started an hour ago. I'm at the end of the route. We can hear the sirens, but they are still a few blocks away.

Integrity

ETA...well...I was able to send an e-mail to Blogger, but so far I haven't been able to figure out how to get it out of Word (Documents to Go) into the e-mail. So for now, I'll leave you with the title: Integrity.

I finally got it to go to my computer! I had to copy and paste from Word, but here it is.

Note: this is my first blog post typed on my new "smart " phone.

Integrity , they say, is what you do when nobody is looking. What do you do when nobody is looking? Yesterday one of my co-workers came in and announced that a gas station 3 blocks away had a glitch in their computers. they were selling gas for 37 cents a gallon. I immediately grabbed my wallet and keys and headed for the car. But then I stopped. Was it true? Was it right? Did it show integrity?

Yes, it would have felt good to stick it to the gas company. It would have been great to fill up my car for less than $5! (And fill up the Suburban for less than $20!) But I thought of the gas station owner who paid a lot more than 37 cents a gallon for the gas. And I thought of the employee who made the mistake with the pukp. What would happen to him now? Would he be fired? Would he have to make restitution?

About 15 minutes after the call came in, we heard an update. The line srtetched on for blocks. I haven't been able to find any news stories, but apparently a lot of people stopped by for a great deal.

So, was I showing integrity? or was I too lazy oer cynical (it will be too late when I get there)? Did I do the right thing? What you have done?

Silence

Have you enjoyed the silence for the past two weeks? Oh...you didn't notice that I hadn't posted in a while? Thanks! :) Just reminds me that I'm talking to myself. :) My computer is officially dead. It has been dark for several months. But John was not able to revive it. (Before it died, it had to be resuscitated several times. (I would be in the middle of a project, and, without notice, the computer would restart.)

John started to set up his old laptop (with a dead battery, so it has to be plugged in) for me to use, but in the end decided that maybe we could just share a computer until next tax season. But, he needed some more storage space. So this past week he's been transfering files from drive to drive. So I've had very little time to use the computer.

But now the computer is up. And, I have a "smart" phone. I'm not sure if I like having a phone with that much ego, but we'll see. Earlier, I typed up a blog entry. I don't know how to get it from the "smart" phone to the blog, but when I figure it out, my blog may just take off! I might blog several times a day. (Can you feel the excitement building?!?!?)