A little rant

I have been really tempted to write about this before but was a little worried about offending people. But what I saw today has changed my mind and I'm going to have myself a little rant here.

I absolutely HATE those stupid roller shoes that parents buy for their children these days.

I have several good reasons to back up this discrimination.

#1. You take a perfectly nice, generally well behaved, kid.
You clap him (or her) into a pair of those abominations and what do you get?

I'll tell you what you get.

An instant little Hellion.

Who knew that a pair of shoes could instantly transform a nice enough kid into a little monster.

One who thinks that just because he now has the ability, to cut right in front of people, and even, sometimes, smash right into them, that he has every right to do just that.
This is most likely to happen if you have two of these little brats trying to chase each other.

I have yet to see a kid wearing a pair of these things, NOT trying to show off in them.

#2 Have you ever really considered the construction of those things?
Somewhere in the heel is a hard piece of, I assume, some kind of hard rubber. HARD. I don't know if bearings are involved but I'm pretty sure without them they wouldn't work.

Bearings.

Not my choice for a good supportive sole for a child's shoe.

The makers of these shoes realize that the kid wearing them will once in a while need to walk or (heaven forbid) even run in them. I would like to know how you can do either with a hard little wheel directly under your heel.
I think that is one reason why I've never seen a kid wearing them walk more than a few steps at a time in them.

Would you like walking or (again, heaven forbid) running, if every step you took your heel would come down on what I'm pretty sure must feel like a hard little rock.

And please, please, don't tell me that your children claim how comfortable they are.

Children LIE.

The year I was six I had a pair of shoes that were at least a size and a half too small for me. I refused to give them up. And every day when I got home from school, on they would go. My mean mom wouldn't ever let me wear them to school so, after school time was my only time I could wear them.

And you know what?

Those pretty, white, little, size and a half too small dress shoes, hurt like crazy.

Of course I would have run down my street naked, in front of every boy from miles around, before I would ever have admitted that to my mom.

So please don't believe your children when they claim how these are the most comfortable pair of shoes they have ever worn.

Look at it logically, how on earth could they be comfortable. They aren't made for comfort. They are made to appeal to a child! Children don't know what's good for themselves 90 percent of the time.

Why should it be any different when it comes to foot wear?

Hold on I still have more reasons.

#3 How much exercise does the normal child really get these days?

If a child is gliding, they aren't really walking are they? And of course they won't be running any time soon either. They have the mistaken belief that when wearing a pair of those stupid shoes that they need to glide as much as possible.

I see this as a really devious way to make sure that even when a kid isn't behind a computer or video game, he won't be using his legs in any discernible healthy way.

I'm assuming that most of you have seen the movie Wall E. Remember those electric carts that all the people rode around on.

They were probably plugged into them at birth.

The whole point of that was to show how they didn't use their bodies for much of anything.

I believe that a kid wearing these wheel shoes is taking a, glide, in that same direction.

Think about it.

Here the parents tell little Humphry to turn off the TV. They are going out for a nice healthy walk.

Sounds good doesn't it?

Especially since it's more than likely that for the last four hours the little dear has been on his butt in front of a video game.

After much complaining and no doubt a few theatrics, the kid is dragged outside for his walk. And how does he spend that healthy time with good old mom and dad?

Does he move those little legs?

Does he take step after step after step?

Does he even decide to run ahead of the parents in an amazing burst of raw energy?

Of course not.

That would be too much work. That would require some effort on his part. So little Humphry spends this time outside with mom and dad, by gliding along on his bright, red and white, Wheelies.

Cutting the benefits of "the walk" down to almost non existent.

I have serious reason to believe the North Koreans might be behind the manufacture of these shoes. What a nasty, evil little plot.

Now I just remembered I told you I saw something today that helped me decide to take a chance on some of my friends disowning me.

Here is what happened. I was in Walmart today. Minding my own business I must add, when a group of preteen girls, there were I think four of them, came tearing down the aisle.

I won't even comment on how much that bugged me.
Whoops. I guess I just did.

Well I couldn't help but notice how there was this one girl, slightly smaller than the rest of them, trying her hardest to keep up . It was quickly obvious that a big part of the reason why she was so behind was because she had on wheeled shoes!

She tried running after them.

No good.

She looked like she was running on hot coals it was so difficult for her.

So every few steps she would start gliding. That was no good because she realized that running was the quicker option. Just when I wouldn't have been surprised if she had sat down and taken off those horrible shoes, she decided to try gliding one more time.

And just guess what happened?

She ran right into this cute little toddler boy who was so proud to be walking down the aisle with his mommy. (Walking, not gliding, by the way.)

The girl didn't even apologize. She just got up and tried running after her friends again.

So I decided that I had, HAD IT.

I came home, I came upstairs, I started writing.

I hope if I have offended anyone that you will at least promise to think about some of the points I have made here.

Do we really want to raise up a generation of people who have become so accustomed to gliding that walking becomes a lost art?

A St Pattie's Picture Post! Oh and I guess an explanation is in order too

I realize that I have left quite a few of my friends in the dust the last few days. Here is a brief (hopefully) explanation.

On Monday for some reason the thought came to me of how many abbreviations we use in blogging. There's BTW, there's LOL, there's TBD, that one might not be as popular I guess, if you're wondering it stands for "to be determined" or if you really want to be difficult (or just plain lazy) you can even go with TBDAALT. To be determined at a later time.

Anyway, I started wondering how many letters you could use, instead of just spelling out each word, before you would have people scratching their heads thinking "what on earth are those initials supposed to mean".

For some reason the phrase "fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me" popped into my head. I started wondering what would happen if I wrote it out with only the first letter of each word. Would anyone be able to figure out what phrase I had written just by the first letters of each word.

So I wrote it out, and then to make it a little easier, I also put in spaces for each letter I left out.

It looked really easy to me, but that was mostly because I knew what it was. My son Kelly just happened to be sitting a few feet from me with his lap top, so I asked him to look at it and see if he could figure it out.

At first he was stymied, "Oh good" I thought, "I have come up with a tricky little puzzle".
Because of Kelly's difficulty, I decided (very spur of the moment this was) to make it a little blog challenge.

With prizes no less.

Well I should have realized what I was in for when just a minute after I posted my little puzzle, Kelly said, "oh, I see what it is, that wasn't really hard after all."

I'm still not sure why, but the only people who saw it and responded first were all family members.

If you are interested you can go to the monday post and the ones following it and read my newly created little Soap Opera for yourself.

I hope this is enough of an explanation to make it clear.

Alright, now to the other purpose of this new post.

Yesterday, being St. Patrick's Day, I felt quite festive. I had thought the night before that it would be fun to have Donald, Lisa and the girls come over for a St Patty's dinner.

I decided against it though because I remembered that Lisa had told me about her hectic week she had coming up.

Tuesday is usually not too busy of a day for her, but it was this week because she had agreed to play her violin for our local college CBC. They were putting on a concert last night and they wanted her to play in the symphony with them.

In case you didn't already know Lisa is a very accomplished violin player. She is a professional.

I ended up talking to her yesterday afternoon and told her that I had wanted to have them over for dinner that night, and we were able to work out her schedule so that they could come.

I took pictures.

Mostly of Elisabeth, and Elisabeth along with Alexandra and Lorelai.

Elisabeth was wearing her new green outfit that I recently made her, so I wanted pictures of her in it.

Here are pictures of last night.

Here is E in her new, green, grandma made, outfit. See how well she's sitting up? It's one of her new milestones.

Here we are at dinner. Eating our green food. Tuna noodle casserole, made with green spinach noodles and a side of peas. Believe it or not the girls LOVED it. Lisa and I couldn't have been more surprised. Or HAPPY. Three loving sisters.

Even more sisterly love.

What a happy little daddy's girl.

Sweet girl in her new green outfit. No pinches for Lizzy.

Another eating dinner shot.

I hope you enjoyed my pictures.

Also keep an eye out for a new puzzle contest. I'm hoping to make this one really hard.

UPDATE! I just went to my little brother Mike's blog and he has the coolest You Tube type video up. Go Here to see it, you won't be dissapointed. He loves comments too btw!

Never mind

After further consultation with Lisa, I realize that this is a rather impossible task I have set for myself, and for my readers as well. So I am cancelling this contest. But don't worry, before the end of the month I will do a new puzzle contest, one that I will make sure is so difficult, that hopefully no one will win the same day.

I'm sorry if I have disappointed anyone. This is an excellent example of how impulsive I can be, and how I sometimes jump into things without thinking them through.

I hope you will be patient with me.

Alright, I have to go now. I'm going to find as obscure a quote as I can for next time!

I can't believe this

Three people have already guessed my puzzle correctly! And here I thought I was being so smart!

The quote was: Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.
Sir Winston Churchill

I'm really sorry to everyone else.

There will still be another winner though. The one who leaves a comment giving me comments on as many of my posts as they have read. Whoever reads or has read the most and tells me a little about each one will win, if people tie there will be a drawing.

This may look bad btw, all three winners are family members, my little brother Mike, my daughter-in-law Lisa and my son-in-law Jeff.

You three are NOT eligible for the comments contest, just so you know.

I am not accepting defeat however. I will have another puzzle contest sometime later this month, so keep watching. I promise that this next one will be so obscure that it will take more than one day to have a winner.

Another try

First off,

A happy St Patrick's day to you all!

Alright I'm not sure how many of you read my post yesterday about my contest. I made it too easy and so it was over in a few hours.

Obviously this was not my intention.

Congratulations to Lisa and my Cousin -in-law Emily. I will get your winnings to you in as short a time as I can.

Alright, I am going to do this over. This time I can promise that it will be a lot harder. It won't be a well known saying like the first one was, in case you didn't read the post before this one the saying was. . . . .

"Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me."

Child's Play!

Don't feel bad if that one was too hard for you though, I doubt I would have gotten it in it's updated version either.

All right here are the rules. The puzzle will be a quote. I will put one letter in each word with at least four letters. Words with two or three letters may or may not have any letters. For large words I may fill in as many as three letters. Every two days, if I don't have a winner, I will fill in more letters.

The first letters I will fill in will be the name of who the quote is attributed to. Then I will start to fill in more of the words every two days.

And, so as to avoid too much discouragement, the first three people who e-mail me the correct answer will be the winners.

Aaaand, since I know that some people, no matter how intelligent they may be, just plain get frustrated with puzzles such as this.So I have come up with a way to be winner number four.

This may or may not be an easier task.

Read through as many of my past posts as you can stand and leave me a comment telling me which ones you have read, and what you liked, or even didn't like, about them. Now if you are a long time reader who has already read them, just leave a comment telling me you've already read them and a little comment about each one.

Whoever reads the most and leaves comments on them will be the winner. If there is a tie I will pick a winner's name out of a hat, (well more likely a bowl, but hat sounds so much better).

All right here is my new puzzle. Good luck.



_e_/ _ _ _ _ _i_ _ al _ _ / _t_ _ _ le/ _ _ _r/ t_ _/ _r_ _h/, b_t/

_ o_t/ _f/ t_ _m/ _ ic_/ t_e_ _ _l_ _ s/ _ _/ _ _d/ h_r _ _/ o_ f/

_s/ i_/ _ _ t _ _ ng/ _ _ e r/ h_ _ _ _n_d.


Accredited to _ _ _/ _ _ n _t_ _ / _ _ _ r _ _ _ h _ _

That was quick so try this.

Lisa and Emily were the first two to send me the correct answers. I'm almost positive Lisa will want Killian Korn. And Emily wants (I'm really excited about this) me to make a dress for little Madelyn. Well, I can see that this one was far too easy. I will do a new one tomorrow that I promise will be much harder.

And as for Lisa and Emily, I will get right on it. Emily e-mail me Madelyns approximate size, what color you would like it to be, and if you want a little sun dress or more of a Sunday dress.

Be sure and check back tomorrow for my new (much harder) puzzle!

Oh yeah, I bet some of you would like the answer.

"Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me."

I'll see you all tomorrow.

A real Puzzler

I just had a great idea. I've made up a little puzzle. I have written out a fairly common saying, instead of putting in all the letters though I decided to put only the first letter of each word and blank spots for the rest of the letters.

My dilemma is, that since I know the answer it looks really easy to me. I had my son Kelly see if he could figure it out.

No such luck.

And this is the kind of thing that he is usually better at than me.

Now I know that I just had a give away. But it was fun to do, so I thought, hmm, why don't I turn this into a little challenge for my friends. I think it will work like this, if you are the first to figure it out and e-mail me the answer, you will win a prize.

As for the prize, I think I will offer a variety of different goodies, and let the winner choose. This will depend a little on how far I would need to ship it. But don't worry my friends who live far, far, away. If one of you wins, I'm thinking of something like making a dress for the little girl in your life. Or an apron, or maybe even a bag.

To prove that I'm not all hot air, click here to look at my etsy store and you can see the dresses I have sold or have for sale in my shop TwiddleSticks, be sure and also click on the ones I have sold so far, to get an idea of my work.

I know that there are even a few of you that would like some Killian Korn of their own. Or I could send you some really, really, good homemade cookies. Don't worry if you win I'll make sure you are happy with your prize!

Now, I don't know if there really is a way to go online and cheat somehow. I should be honest here, I am actually not afraid to cheat myself sometimes.

I like to look at it as leveling the playing field.

Trust me if you've ever played board games with my son Donald you will know what I mean. He doesn't necessarily cheat, he mostly just has really good luck, plus he is often inclined to be a bit ruthless.

Now all of this is neither here nor there.

I am simply asking you all to please not cheat. Granted I don't know if you could, but there's a lot of things that are possible on-line that I know very little about.

The contest will end when I have a winner.

If no one has come up with the answer by Wednesday the 18th, I will show the puzzle again with a clue added, to make it easier. And if no one has solved it by Friday the 20th, I will add another clue.

I'm pretty sure that won't be necessary, but if it is I will add more clues every two days until I have a winner.

Okay here's what to do. I have chosen a fairly common saying. The first letter of each word is there followed by a blank line for the rest of the letters in that word. I think it should be pretty easy to understand. Understand Yes. But to solve it, I can't wait to see, how quick you all will be.

Oh one more thing, I would also like you to leave me a comment telling what you think of my little puzzle. It would also be fun to see what you would like for a prize if you are the winner. Who knows if you leave me a good enough comment, I might even consider a secondary prize.


UPDATE: Kelly figured it out so easily that I came back and took out a few letters. I don't want my contest over in the first day after all.


_ _ _ _ / _ _ / o_ _ _ / s _ _ _ _ / _ _ /_ _ _, / f _ _ _ /_ _ /t _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ / _ _ /m _ .

In case you don't see it on my blog, my e-mail address is soozimail@gmail.com Thanks for playing.

Oh Happy Happy Tuesday

Today I am happy to announce is Tuesday! I know that you know this, and I know that you know that I know this.

So why the big deal, you ask.

Well, for one thing, Tuesday has become one of my favorite days of the week.

On most Tuesdays, Shawn goes to the ARC sponsored program VIP.
I'm pretty sure I've mentioned VIP in previous posts.
It's every Tuesday and Thursday.
They go do fun things in the community.

Today they will be going bowling.

Shawn will be picked up by Dial-a-Ride around noon and won't be back home until around five this evening.

Shawn and I both love VIP.

For him it's a chance to get out of the house with a group of friends and have fun.
For me it's like a day off. I love Shawn very much, and you all know how much I enjoy him as well.

But once in a while I need time just for me.

I also know that being my little shadow gets boring for him as well as tedius for me.

So on VIP days, we both get what we want.

He has a grand day out, and I get around five hours of guilt free "me" time, knowing that he is having the time of his life while I get my nails done or my hair cut or just sit in Barnes and Noble and waste time reading any book my heart desires.

So yeah, that's a pretty big reason to love Tuesdays.

Today though is special. I have been waiting for today for almost two weeks now. That is because. . . . . . . . .

Because today is the day that Walt Disney's Masterpiece Pinnochio comes out on DVD! ! ! ! !

Oh how I love that movie!

Pinnochio was my absolute favorite movie when I was a child Back in the sixties, when I was young, Disney would bring out, to the theaters, one of their animated movies. I don't know how often Disney would go through their animated films, but it seems like at least three times a year my parents would take my sisters and me to go to whichever Disney movie was currently being shown.

I seem to remember hearing that each movie was released on a seven year cycle.

This has always seemed incorrect to me.

I have such strong memories of watching all of Disney's movies that it's hard to believe I only saw them once every seven years. I was born in 57. I don't think I was taken to the movies until I was at least three or so. So if the seven year cycle really is true then I couldn't have seen any one movie more than three or possibly four times before I was grown.

I think that shows just what a powerful experience it was for me to watch those films. That I would remember them as well, or maybe even better, than kids today that can watch a movie anytime they want.

So yes, over my years of seeing each of those films, only a few times, as a child, I would have to say that the impact they had on me was incredible.

It's that way for all of them, but the one I remember the very best would have to be Pinnochio.

That movie was pure kid-nip to me.

I loved the bright colors. I loved how cute all the puppets were. I don't think I can even come close to expressing even a fraction of how much I loved. . .

The Blue Fairy.

She was so beautiful, and kind, and sparkly (sparkly is very important to young girls) I loved how she was practically translucent. There was something about her that was just so comforting to me.



To this day, I still picture the tooth fairy as being played by her.

I loved Gippetto.
I adored Jimminy Cricket.
I was scared of Monstro but loved him at the same time.

Oh how I wanted to go to Pleasure Island.

I wasn't stupid though, I wouldn't have done the bad things.

I would have only gone on the rides and eaten cotton candy until I got sick.

One year I saw a plastic figurine of Pinnochio in some store.

It was pretty large. Around a foot tall or so. I stood there and looked at that doll the whole time we were in that store. My imagination took over and for the time it took my mother to buy whatever she was there for, I did nothing but stand there with that plastic Pinnochio thinking up all kinds of adventures the two of us would have.

Santa brought me that doll by the way.

I can't believe I didn't save it.

So these are my reasons for being excited about this particular Tuesday.

Some of you might plan on ironing today.

There are probably friends having lunch at Olive Garden somewhere.

I'm sure that somewhere someone will be having their braces,
either
tightened up,
or,
Oh Happy Day,
removed.

Children will be attending school.

Men and Women will be putting in their time at wherever it is they call work.

But me?

I will be headed to Walmart to snag myself a copy of Pinocchio.

I can't wait!

Update:I would like to announce that my daughter Heidi is having her first give away. Haven't visited her yet? No problem. Go here to enter.

Courtney in black

I'm running low on ideas at the moment, I could use a good tag about now.
Oh well,
I just went through my archives because splattered throughout them are a few rough drafts where I started writing a post and for some reason didn't finish it.

Long story short.

I found these pictures of Courtney that I took last September. She had just bought herself this new coat at Macy's. She looked so darn cute in it that we just had to take pictures.

For my newer readers, Courtney is my lovely baby girl. She is 21. She works at Target, and is trying to get back to school.

She is one of the big reasons that Shawn is as advanced as he is.

Their young life together was one of Courtney doing fun kid things and Shawn following right along and copying her. So even though she is my youngest, and even though Shawn knows that (Shawn can "know" things but still not really "know" them)

She will always be his big sister.

Other than me, she can get Shawn to cooperate better than anyone else in our family.

I love my little Courtney. And here she is modeling her black coat. She kind of reminds me of Audrey Hepburn in these.

Disclaimer: these pictures were taken upstairs in our family room. I wanted to go outside to take them but the weather was pretty bad that day.

Grateful

Lisa (my daughter-in-law) and I were talking today when I went to the Hospital to pick up Lorelai so she could have a grandma day. She was being so good while she was there keeping watch over her baby sister Elisabeth, so it was decided she needed some special, all to herself with grandma time.

Well, almost all to herself.

Shawn was with us but Shawn's nieces all love him and he loves them so Lori was cool with it being her grandma and uncle Shawn time.

Anyway, as I said earlier Lisa and I were talking. She and Donald (my son) were both at the hospital watching over and generally being there for sick baby girl.

We were having a rather lighthearted conversation. Nothing unusual there, Lisa and I click with each other so well that we always enjoy a bit of downtime to just talk and laugh and enjoy ourselves.

In the middle of this Lisa said something to the tune of, "do you think that people would think it was terrible that here we are with our baby girl very sick in the hospital, and instead of feeling horrified and sad we are instead having a fun time?"

I told her that I was sure people would understand and be happy to hear that we were able to find joy in this unhappiest of times.

She agreed with me. For the most part we are just plain happy people.
As long as we have each other, and that includes those dear family members that don't live here in the Tri-Cities with us. Jeff, Heidi, and my grandaughters Abbey and Lindsay.

We love you all so very much.

And we are so lucky in that we DO have each other.

Another thing that I have just recently thought of, is that there are so many people right now praying for Elisabeth and for Donald and Lisa. So many people who have shown so much love and concern for our family as a whole.

Those prayers must be working because we don't feel too scared or worried.

Notice I said "too".

Because at a time like this when Elisabeth, is doing poorly and there are so many issues that still seem to be up in the air, of course we are worried, of course we have that small fear in the back of our minds, that things could go terribly wrong for our little Lizzy.

Another thing that Lisa and I talked about was that she couldn't believe how many people have been to her blog in the last few days. She has a very popular site and she is used to the normal heavy traffic she gets but since Saturday, she has gotten double to triple the interest. We know that there is only one reason for this.

There are so many people who care about Elisabeth.

Local friends and family who have helped out, and friends that none of us have ever met in person, who let her know in so many ways how much they care.

It's good to know that if Lisa gets a little silly, by showing a picture of Lizzy's big glowing toe and likening it to ET, that no one will think that she isn't being as sober as she should be.

I reminded her of what it is that we are really doing.

We are COPING.

In our family we cope by having fun. By talking about silly things. By talking about the latest crazy post from Lisa's brother David, on his month old blog.

We laugh together, and when it is appropriate we also cry together.
The one thing we never do, and that we will never do, is to stop relying on each other. What happens to one of us happens to us all.

The thing about this that stands out to me, is that we are not unique. We don't live in a vacuum. I know that throughout this great land, and in every other nick and crannie of the world. That you will find families. Big or small, spread out, or living within minutes of each other.

I love my family. I appreciate each one of them.

And I hope that there isn't a single person reading this that can't relate to what I'm saying here.
I include the people who may not have any actual blood related family, but have formed families of dear friends who consider themselves family just the same.

Well, I don't want to be too melodramatic.

We like to leave that little duty to Alexandra.

So please just know that we are so happy for the love that has been shown to us at this time and we will do the same for you, if it's ever needed.

And The Winner Is...... . .

It looks like Diana is our winner. I don't know you Diana, but Lisa has told me really good stuff about you. It sounds like you don't even live that far away from me. Leave me a comment or an e-mail to let me know that you know. I will make sure that I get your Killion Korn to you sometime this week!

BTW, aren't my two little sweethearts just so cute?

The Winner of my giveaway IS. . . To be announced after this commercial break!

I am so sorry to be neglecting my giveaway. I've just been caught up in the worry and fear that our family is feeling right now about my son and daughter-in-law's youngest daughter, Elisabeth. I wrote two posts for Lisa yesterday, you can read them here and here and then you will also see Lisa's updates above the ones I wrote for her.

I'm planning to do the drawing later this evening when Donald and Lisa are here for Dinner. And don't worry, I won't let Lisa cheat. Love to everyone who entered my giveaway, and to the "new to my blog" people I really hope you will pull up a chair and visit a while.


Okay David, how's this for a short post?

Sorry for some reason I can't get that first link to work. Not to worry though it's the post right before the one with the working link.