Thursday, February 19, 2009

Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired


I have it all.  Cough, highlighter-yellow snot, bronchitis, ear infection complete with hearing loss... Hot tip:  If this keeps up, Kleenex stock will surely be going up due to the sheer volume I am using. That doesn't constitute an insider tip, does it?


Now that I work full time in a preschool, I am sick all the time.  I have had pinkeye and continuous colds since September.  Sucks for me, right? I keep telling those kids to share their toys and not their germs, but I am apparently not communicating in their native tongue.  I swear I spend most of my day saying, "Todd, use the  magic soap!!!  Kenny, we don't pick our nose- magic soap!!"  Yup, buy stock in Purell as well, folks.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to blow my nose again.  Do you think the newest Crayola Crayon will be Snot Yellow?

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Saturday, December 27, 2008

Book Review from the Verge: Cross Country by James Patterson


I am angry. Really angry. Okay, I would be angrier if I had purchased this book rather than winning it from 1340magbooks.com, but I wasted the time reading it. Let me explain.

I have a short list of authors that I really like. Some are very literary, some fast and fun, some just plain old suspense/mystery. I love all kinds of books. I started reading James Patterson many years ago, really enjoying his fast paced psychological suspense. Whatever he published, I read. It was usually a quick, guilty pleasure, but a pleasure nonetheless.

Over the last couple of years, Patterson has become a publishing monster, kicking out one book after the next with a host of inferior "partners" whom I suspected of actually writing the book and using Patterson's fame to sell them. I tried reading a few. It wasn't good. So I decided to just sit back, relax, and keep up with the Alex Cross series, which he continued to write solo. I felt invested in those characters: Cross, Sampson, Nana Mama, Jannie, Damon, and even Ali when he came along.

I was thrilled when Cross Country came out. I looked forward to it. I was jumping up and down when I actually won a copy! I saved it to read over Christmas break. Curling up by the fire, I settled in for good ride... and was I disappointed.

It started out well. A heinous crime, violent multiple murders, had landed on Cross's plate. As a detective, he is always driven, and when it is personal, even moreso. This time? Sheesh.

Alex Cross always put family first. His children have no mother. His family needs him. So for this case he follows an indiscriminately violent psychopath to AFRICA?! Right. He puts himself into harm's way so many times that I was rolling my eyes by mid-book. That, coupled with Patterson's lazy style, completely put me off. A novelist who overuses dashes --- and exclamation points !!!! to get his point across in chapters that are mostly one and one half pages long is not a good writer.

I won't bother you with the convoluted details. Patterson gets his heavy handed point across about the horrors in Africa many times over. I don't think I need to hit you over the head with my viewpoint. This book stinks. I am breaking up with Patterson. I urge you to do the same.








~Lucy

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Sunday, November 16, 2008

A fun place to visit...


As some of you remember, I write a soap column. I have been attempting to keep up-to-date on that while working full time and maintaining my home life. Unfortunately, this is the area that has suffered. I need to get myself back here, posting regularly... and I have to drag Ethel along for the ride.



Anyway, if you are looking for a fun site - somewhere that I have been hanging out when I have a moment - check out: Passive agressive (and just plain aggressive) notes



It is fantastic!I will see if I can get the Verge Chief Political Advisor, Ethel, to post something about the recent election....

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Tuesday, October 14, 2008

RIP Pokey


We held a brief, but poignant funeral service for Pokey the goldfish this evening. He is buried near the burning bush in a velvet lined bowl. RIP Pokey.

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Sunday, October 12, 2008

Bowlside Vigil


Some of you may remember my post about the geriatric goldfish duo in my house. As I write this, Pokey is suffering partial paralysis and apparent internal bleeding. We are holding a bowlside vigil and preparing funeral arrangements. Please say a silent prayer for my 11 year old as he loses his friend of 9 long years, Pokey the Goldfish.

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Friday, August 01, 2008

This is only a test....


Wondering if I can still find my way around here... I found a wonderful web site to share with anyone who is still checking in: http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/

Enjoy.

Lucy

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Thursday, April 24, 2008



Oh dear... I wonder if any of you is still around. Ethel and I have been crazy busy. Family illnesses, personal illnesses, and all manner of crises. I don't know when we will be back... Sorry....


Lucy

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Thursday, September 06, 2007

And We Thought the Insanity Would End...


I saw my kids off to school yesterday after several days of frenetic supply shopping, arguing over summer assignment completion deadlines, and general lousy moods over the end of their freedom.

For some reason I thought this would leave me with time to, oh... I don't know, write in our blog or something. I was delusional. I have done nothing but try to repair the damage done by having three children home for two and a half months. We had no food in the house. Laundry has progressed to the point where climbing gear is required to scale the piles of clothes. I'd tell you about the Dust Bunnies, but they are so big I'm afraid they'll ambush me if they catch wind of my plan to eradicate them.

I hope that by next week I will be able to find my way over to Ethel's and make sure she is properly untied. Somehow I expect she'll have something to say over Fred Thompson announcing his presidential intentions on Jay Leno, don't you?

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Friday, July 20, 2007

Heeeeellllllppppppp!!!


Lucy and I are currently tied up ... our kids wanted to play cops and robbers... guess who got to be the robbers??? As soon as we get the knots worked loose we'll be back.

In the meantime a few tidbits ( sorry but typing with my big toe is quite laborious):

I heard that the Prez challenged Congress to "support the troops" and give them what they need. I just hope that Ms. Pelosi heard and she'll start the impeachment proceedings toot sweet.

And filed under "Isn't It Ironic?", I found it highly interesting that the President and the MSM are telling us that the troops want to stay and that they don't want to "cut and run" and yet Ron Paul, a man who has been steadfastly against this President's hawkish insanity from the beginning, has received 52% of his campaign donations for his presidential run from active duty military. Seems like those soldiers must've misplaced Dub's memo.

Concerning the former Surgeon General's testimony that he was not only blocked from discussing health issues that were in conflict with Georgie's policies, told not to attend the Special Olympics because *sniff* that odious Kennedy family was affiliated with that organization, but that he was also ordered to mention the President's name three times on every page of each speech he gave. I've got to say that this wasn't much of a surprise. I mean is it much of a reach to imagine that a man who even has his socks and skivvies monogrammed with the presidential seal would be megalomaniacal enough to make such a demand?? Shoot, I'll even lay odds that he's got a big ol' magnifying glass hanging above the presidential urinal.

I could keep going but my foot is turning blue... and we think we hear them coming back...gulp.

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Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Declaration of Independence II


I thought it might be a lovely idea to present this to our esteemed leader on this 4th of July and declare our own independence... from him.

"When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the
political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these [States]; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present [President of The United States] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation.

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury.


For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences.

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments.

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

A [President], whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people."

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Monday, July 02, 2007

Justice Dubya Style


President Bush continues to strive to reach new lows as he commutes "Scooter" Libby's sentence preventing him from serving any jail time for committing treason by exposing the identity of a covert CIA operative... in war time... and then lying about it in court. Is it possible that we were all dreaming when we saw him say that anyone in his administration who was involved in Ms. Plame's "outing" would be fired and face appropriate legal action??? Apparently our president feels that the sentence was too harsh. Obviously the 30 months "Scooter" had been sentenced to serve would have been an excessive hardship for him and his family.

I just have to wonder though...where was this sense of compassion when he served as governor of Texas and refused to pardon any of those serving on death row? And where , by the way, is this new found sense of compassion for those troops serving their sentences in that prison called Iraq? Or could it be that only those who have dirt on our beloved leader benefit from his generosity???

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Friday, June 29, 2007

Happy To Be Back!!!


I'm checking in to let everyone know that I'm still alive and kicking ( no black uniformed Blackwater contractors have come to carry me off in the middle of the night... yet). As Lucy let you all know I've been buried beneath seemingly endless renovation projects filled with glitches (the full gallon of $50 fume free lavender paint that caused about $700 in replaced carpet and pad... we still haven't had the antique dresser refinished... sigh). Unfortunately we've had to try to finish as much as possible before my husband leaves for a three month long class in Alabama in a few weeks.

I was also recruited by the Learning Disability Association near the end of April to do some public speaking to help with fundraising and spent much of my first several weeks away writing and re-writing my speech. I spent an equal amount of time in those weeks pacing frantically and trying to control my nausea as I obsessed about how much I dislike speaking in front of large groups of people.

In the middle of all that our youngest daughter's school went through a change in administration. The new folks in charge felt it was time to shift from focusing on teaching gifted children ( after all there aren't that many statistically speaking and they're more expensive to educate) to "saving" them. Are the hairs standing up on the back of your neck yet??? Yep, her wonderful school will be a fundie christian school next year. Needless to say we declined to stick around for the brainwashing. Unfortunately, this meant we had to find a new school and fast. Thankfully we were able to find one that should work well for her. They don't participate in the standardized testing craze and.. hold onto your hats... they actually encourage critical thinking. I'll keep you updated on the efficacy of this revolutionary approach.

Since then it's been a typical whirlwind of end of the school year chaos and the fact that if I try to sit at the computer for longer than 30 seconds it seems to trigger various catastrophes accompanied by the plaintive cry of "Mooooooommmmmmm" that require my immediate attention. I'm hoping that in between taxiing my kids to their various classes, life guarding at the pool, supervising crafting activities and my general refereeing duties that I should be able to begin writing on a fairly regular basis again and taking some much needed strolls through the blogosphere. I look forward to visiting you all soon!!!

Ethel

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Tuesday, June 26, 2007

A Poem by Lucy's 13 year old Son


My son was inspired to write the following poem. I found it pretty amusing because he is honest to a fault....

Cheaters never win they say,
I've come to hear that much,
But everything I've cheated for,
Has come into my clutch.
From books and games and magazines,
and all the toys galore,
Getting all these things just makes
me want to cheat some more.
So "Cheaters never win" those words,
they put me in such pain,
When the truth of the matter is,
That cheaters always gain.

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Monday, June 25, 2007

MIA



We are sorry to be absent for so much of June, but we are literally on the go all the time. Please bear with us and we will return as soon as we can!

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