Life With Frenchie

As Colleen pointed out, I experienced a blonde moment this evening. Am I really getting that old? Is it early onset???? Seriously, it didn’t ever dawn on me that I had my holidays backwards. Maybe all the studies are right — all those beers in college really did kill brain cells!

I feel like these moments are coming more and more these days. I think I just might have to start keeping track of them. I may run out of space though…

Stumble it!

Okay, so it’s not that holiday yet, but it’s coming!! In the meantime, it is a holiday weekend, and a very important one at that. Monday is Memorial Day. One of my favorite poems always comes to mind around this time of year:

A Soldier Reports to God

The soldier stood and faced his God
Which must always come to pass
He hoped his shoes were shining
Just as brightly as his brass.

“Step forward now, you soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?”

The soldier squared his shoulders and
said,”No, Lord, I guess I ain’t
Because those of us who carry guns
Can’t always be a saint.

I’ve had to work most Sundays
And at times my talk was tough,
And sometimes I’ve been violent,
Because the streets are awfully tough

But, I never took a penny
That wasn’t mine to keep…
Though I worked a lot of overtime
When the bills got just too steep,

And I never passed a cry for help,
Though at times I shook with fear,
And sometimes, God forgive me,
I’ve wept unmanly tears.

I know I don’t deserve a place
Among the people here
They never wanted me around
Except to calm their fears.

If you’ve a place for me here, Lord,
It needn’t be so grand,
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don’t, I’ll understand.”

There was a silence all around the throne
Where the saints had often trod
As the soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God,

“Step forward now you soldier
You’ve borne your burdens well,
Walk peacefully on Heaven’s streets,
You’ve done your time in Hell.”

Enjoy a safe one everyone and remember our soldiers.

Stumble it!

One of the joys of having a young child in your household is that you, at some point or another, have the chance to experience many of the new “fads”. There’s one that’s been sweeping the nation lately that doesn’t inspire the usual cringe when MM walks in the room and starts a conversation with “Hey Mom! I want to try something new…” Today’s generation of youngin’s are being taught to be much more environmentally concious than I was. It’s not that it wasn’t that it was not talked about when I was in school (hey, I was president of Student Activists for a Viable Earth at my school!!!), but it didn’t have it’s own cool moniker then.

So MM wants to “go green” in our house.

Easier said than done! It’s apparently going to take baby steps. She chastizes me for leaving the television on when we go in the kitchen to eat (yes, our family eats dinner together, in the kitchen, almost every night!), yet she leaves her iPod playing all night long and often leaves her CD player on while she’s at school. *shakes head* One place that we’ve started has been with our dishes.

For some reason, our small family goes through enough dishes to make you think we ran a boarding house. It seems like we are forever doing dishes. When it was just MM and I, I always washed dishes by hand. But, once we moved in with EP, I realized I would soon have prunes for fingers if I tried to keep that up. Even with using the dishwasher, there are still times when I do a lot of dishes by hand. Okay, so baby steps…let’s start by using products around the house that are more environmentally friendly. I found out that Clorox has a new line of products called Green Works. It’s natural cleansers with plant-based ingredients. One of those products is a dish soap, so I decided to give it a go….

At first, I was skeptical about even trying it. I just knew there had to be some flaw that would cause me to say “See! This is why we aren’t going green!” but I actually really like it. It doesn’t have any funky scent to it. Actually, it’s a fairly pleasant scent compared to the stuff we normally buy. Also, an added bonus is that it doesnt’ dry out my skin! LOL I’m sure that’s probably not what Clorox was going for with the dish soap, but it’s a plus for me since my hands get so horribly dry and cracked whenever I do dishes. Normally, I have to run from the sink to my bedroom for lotion as soon as I’m done. But, with the Green Works, I don’t feel like my hands are getting anywhere near as dried out.

I’ve since found out that Clorox has developed a whole line of Green Works products, all of which I regularly use around the house. Maybe this going green thing isn’t going to be too hard. Just don’t ask me to turn off my computer!

Stumble it!

I haven’t forgotten about you kiddies. I am carefully composing my essay on how I spent my summer vacation. But, I stumbled across this and just couldn’t believe it! The guy (well, that’s questionable now) that I just knew I was going to marry turns 50 tomorrow:

That’s right! Michael Jackson is 50 years old! Man!!! I feel ancient! It’s scary to look at him these days, so that is why I am not going to post a picture of him as he looks now. The man in the yellow shirt and bow tie is the one I was so in love with! I remember kissing his poster every night before I went to bed! Yes, I am a ginormous dork, but I’m sure I wasn’t the only one…..

Stumble it!

Just a quickie for now. I’ll be back soon to catch y’all up on my M.I.A.-ness. But, as usual, another Florida teacher has been caught messing with the kiddies.

Joel Matthew Cupp, a teacher at Trinity Oaks Elementary School, was chatting with two different undercover investigators with the Citrus County Sheriff’s Office and one with the Attorney General’s CyberCrime Unit, believing he was talking to three young teenage girls.

Cupp also exposed himself multiple times over a web cam to the “children.”

He’s a teacher at an elementary school near my home!! As a matter of fact, we were considering trying to get MM into this school! YIKES!!! I don’t know how long it will be up, but if you’re interested, he’s got a blog. Another sick f*ck in our already pathetic excuse for schools in the grand ole state of Florida.

Stumble it!