One of my son's teachers is pissing me off. Friday, Davey came home with a homework assignment that involved getting on the internet.  I don't agree with that.  Not every child has access to a computer and the internet at home.  my friend is having problems with her computer and her boy (he's in the same class as Davey) expressed concern about not being able to complete his assignment because of the computer problems.  Her response?  "Have you mother take you to the l...

Link I never even knew these exosted until this morning. I was reading through my husband's copy of 'The Backwoodsman' and i came across an article about 'heritage' gardens, where people pass on seeds from their plants and thereby keep a certain stock of plant alive. In the article, the author mentioned that he had heard that seeds with a 'terminator' gene in them had been shipped to iraq by the US government.  These seeds have been genetically modified with a so-called 'termina...

Jake has a hamster named Stuart.  Stuart lives in a cage in Jake's room. We have a dog and a cat in our house.  At night, the dog sleeps in Davey's room, and the cat has free roam of the house.  She's quite the assasin, is our cat.  She's got to Bert the mouse and Punkin the hamster already, not to mention the moles that she killed when she got left out one night. This morning, as I'm cleaning the living room, I notice the dog scratching and digging at the corner of the...

I found a website about the little village I grew up in. Link   I haven't seen pictures of that place for years...I didn't realize how old some of the buildings in it are until I moved away and looked at them as a outsider. The pub's called 'The Turner's Arms' and I recall spending a few afternoons in there with my dad (kids can go into pubs accompanies by their parents in the UK...or they could back when I was a kid).  The building next to the pub used to be a butc...

I got a new mountain bike today. My doctor said that I'm allowed to ride again...and seeing as we're down to one vehicle I figured that riding would not only be good for me but would provide us with an alternative means of transportation too.  Driving hurts me....bike riding doesn't. So, Dave and I chose a 24" (yes, I'm short) 15 speed.  I got a helmet, a lock, and a basket for the front so that I can make runs to the store and have somewhere to stash my purchases, and also so th...

(I'm trying to break up the monotony of 'pledge' articles to prevent and perhaps relieve some blogstipation) Fatso, our resident squirrel, has been pretty active recently.  It's getting to be that time of year.....fall is coming, the time when squirrels start storing up food in preparation for the winter. Here are some interesting squirrel facts: Squirrels, whilst they may look like rats with fluffy tails, are actually genetically closer to groundhogs, chipmunks, and prarie do...

Forever serenity wrote an article earlier today asking why athiests do the things they do Link .  I wrote this article a while back and thought that this was a decent answer to her question. I'm different. I'm not like you.  I don't share your faith, your beliefs, your religion. And I am perfectly okay with that.  I'm not against your praying for me.  I'm not against your quoting the bible  to me.  I'm not even against your talking to...

I'm going back to work at legal tomorrow.  Because it's an attorney's office there's a dress code.  I can't just show up in jeans; I usually wear a suit or dress pants and a co-ordinating shirt.  Even on 'dress down friday' I wear pressed khakis and a collared shirt. There's not much room for rebellion with this dress code, but I think I may have found a way to express my individuality. With these: I can't wear hign heels anymore.  They throw my spine into ...

I was shopping for clothes for my daughter last week, and I was flabbergasted at some of the fashions aimed at little girls - and by that I mean 6 - 12 year olds. One of the mannaquins was wearing a skirt so short it barely covered it's butt and a T-shirt that 'tease' on the front of it. In the shoe department there were 3 different styles of knee high boots for little girls, two of which had heels on them.  That wasn't the worst of it though. I saw something else that I thought...

Today's mental health condition of the day is narcissism. NARCISSISM (n. sing.) A pattern of traits and behaviours which signify infatuation and obsession with one's self to the exclusion of all others and the egotistic and ruthless pursuit of one's gratification, dominance and ambition. Narcissism is named after the ancient Greek myth of Narcissus who was a handsome Greek youth who rejected the desperate advances of the nymph Echo. In punishment of his cruelty, he was doomed to fa...

I'm officially pre-menopausal, maybe even in full-on menopause. I have an ovarian cyst that I had to see my doc for this morning.  He and I had a conversation about menopause and hormones, and at the end of it he said "well, it's not unheard of for a woman your age to be pre-menopausal, and I think that's what's going on with you" Excuse me?  Whaddya mean, 'a woman my age'?  I'm only 36!  Oh wait.....yeah, you're right.  I'm prime time for a a lot of stuff, aren't ...

Dave's leaving again. He's off to the NCO Academy for 6 weeks at the start of November. He SHOULD be home a couple of days before Christmas....but I'm not holding my breath.  He'll also re-deploy next spring to the desert for at least another 6 months. I knew this life was going to be hard, but this.....this is getting ridiculous.  The way things are going he's going to be gone more than he's home (home for 5 months, deployed the rest of the time, according to my sources - w...

Link R.David Paulison is the man tipped to replace Mike Brown as the head of FEMA. Paulison is probably best remembered as telling Americans (along with Homeland Security Tom Ridge) that their "survival" kt should include plastic sheeting and duct tape. He's a career firefighter - definitely a step-up from a horse judge, and he's head of FEMA's emergency preparedness division, so he knows the in's and out's of the agency. Hopefully he'll do a beter job than "Brownie".&nb...