Baby Sign and The Three Rs, Conceal and Carry

Good GRIEF, what is this world coming to?

As I sat sipping coffee this morning, staring into space, the voice on the TV news filtered in when he/she began discussion about teaching babies as young as 6 months old, sign language so that they might end their frustrations about communicating their needs to their puzzled parents.

I was stunned! When will they stop pushing this crap on these unwary new moms and daddies who are so caught up in their whirlwind lives and careers that they believe every Tom, Dick, and Harry's pitch for products to relieve them of their guilt for not spending more quality time (which I feel is another product endorsement made up guilt factor) with their babies. You've got to wonder how we ever survived to see adulthood without all the things you're pushed to believe you must purchase in order to raise a healthy and well mannered child these days. It could be that I suffer from brain damage due to the fact that my Momma sat me on quilt on a cotton turn-row, with the family collie as a babysitter, while she picked cotton, but I believe children would be better off with fewer activities, wayyy fewer toys, and less stress put on them about learning all this stuff.

Save yourself the cost of the Baby Sign DVD, book, flash cards, etc,,, by spending a little time watching your toddler and you'll notice that they already know sign language. For example, soon before Jillian learned to walk, she'd crawl to the diaper bag and bring you a diaper. What do you think that meant? After she learned to toddle, she'd take her cup to the fridge and stand there until you noticed. What do you think she wanted? When she climbs into a chair at the dining table, would you think that it was because she did NOT want something to eat? (in all honesty, in her case, she's liable to climb right up onto the table and start dancing to commercial music from the tv, Ha!). When they whack you on the head with their dolly, that definitely means "let's play".

All I'm saying is stop feeling guilty and save yourself some big bucks. If you want always well-behaved little adults who obey all commands then perhaps you should not have had children. Animals, by nature, will behave better.


Conceal-Carry For Teachers

In Madison, WI, in the wake of school shootings in Colorado, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin earlier this fall, a Wisconsin legislator is planning to introduce legislation that would allow teachers, principals, administrators, and other school personnel to carry concealed firearms. The Republican Rep., Frank Lasee, says his legislation would hinge on school staff members receiving srict training on the use of firearms and he also acknowledged the need to work around the federal law that bans guns on school grounds.

Do you reckon it should also include the possibility that in arming your teachers and faculty, you're giving children even easier access to loaded guns? Why bother to sneak them in, lift them from a teacher. You know, Correction Officers are not even armed with guns inside a prison where they'll come in contact with the prisoners, and there's a reason for that.

This man should be presented with the Dumb Ass of the decade award.



Ok, I'm done ranting now.

The Differences Between Men And Women

NICKNAMES:
If Gloria, Suzanne, Debra and Michelle go out for lunch, they will call each other Gloria, Suzanne, Debra and Michelle. But if Mike, Phil, Rob and Jack go out for a brewsky, they will affectionately refer to each other as Fat Boy, Godzilla, Peanut-Head and Useless.

DINING OUT:
And when the check comes, Mike, Phil, Rob and Jack will each throw in $20 bills, even though it's only for $22.50. None of them will have anything smaller, and none will actually admit they want change back. When the girls get their check, out come the pocket calculators.

BATHROOMS:
A man has six items in his bathroom -- a toothbrush, shaving cream, razor, a bar of Dial soap, and a towel from the Holiday Inn. The average number of items in the typical woman's bathroom is 437. A man would not be able to identify most of these items.

GROCERIES:
A woman makes a list of things she needs and then goes out to the store and buys these things. A man waits till the only items left in his fridge are half a lime and a soda. Then he goes grocery shopping. He buys everything that looks good. By the time a man reaches the checkout counter, his cart is packed tighter than the Clampett's car on Beverly Hillbillies. Of course, this will not stop him from going to the 10-items-or-less lane.

SHOES:
When preparing for work, a woman will put on a Mondi wool suit, then slip on Reebok sneakers. She will carry her dress shoes in a plastic bag from Saks. When a woman gets to work, she will put on her dress shoes. Five minutes later, she will kick them off because her feet are under the desk. A man will wear the same pair of shoes all day.

DRESSING UP:
A woman will dress up to: Go shopping, water the plants, empty the garbage, answer the phone, read a book, get the mail. A man will dress up for: weddings, funerals.

LAUNDRY:
Women do laundry every couple of days. A man will wear every article of clothing he owns, including his surgical pants that were hip about eight years ago, before he will do his laundry. When he is finally out of clothes, he will wear a dirty sweatshirt inside out, rent a U-Haul and take his mountain of clothes to the Laundromat. Men always expect to meet beautiful women at the Laundromat. This is a myth perpetuated by re-runs of old episodes of "Love, American Style."

OFFSPRING:
Ah, children. A woman knows all about her children. She knows about dentist appointments and soccer games and romances and best friends and favorite foods and secret fears and hopes and dreams. A man is vaguely aware of some short people living in the house.

We're all lit up!

Zach's still facinated by Christmas lights and insists that we string them up around the porch and the eave of the house every year. When he was little we'd take him for a drive to show him all the Christmas lights and he'd say, "LOOK PopPop, LOOK, They're all lit up!" We still do the drive thing around the Christmas holidays to look at all the lights and he still enjoys it just as much.

Jillian will be old enough this year to really enjoy Christmas. She's already philfering the ornaments off of their tree! Jerri's Christmas theme this year is Santas and she's so talented in doing these things. My theme is sentimental, whatever someone's given me, or I've come across that I liked, finds it's way on the mantal, or tree, or is sitting around decorating some spot in my house. My absolute favorites are things the kids have made.

I really had fun visiting with Trish and the girls on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. I came home on Saturday because I'd promised Zach we'd put the tree up. They'll be back at Christmas but not until the weekend after because of Trish's work. Hopefully, that weekend, I'll be able to get a photo of all the kids together.

My son got a deer on their Thanksgiving hunting trip. He shot it right before dark on the very last day. How lucky is that? I won't eat venison but will cook some of the tenderloin for Zach and James for supper tomorrow.

I hope everyone had a grand holiday!

Oh Well

My Christmas template didn't turn out exactly the way I'd planned but I reckon it'll do for now. Sure was a pain in the pass just to get it to look like this.

I'm hoping to have some time to myself over the next few days to get around to read some blogs. I've been having rigors here from withdrawal.

Quickie

Just home for a few to feed the bird and check on the house then we're going back to Jerri's to spend another night while the big hunters are out stalking the deer. Here's the last page of my webshots album with some Thanksgiving photos of the babies. I won't be able to get my group shot of them this time because Jami let Krysten go away to visit a friend of her's for the holiday, dang IT!

James called a bit ago and his SD hunting trip is delayed until the original date of the first part of December. I swear, these men are more fickle and irritating about travel plans than women could ever be!

We Made It!

Well, I almost made it through an overnighter with Jilly Beans without doing any major damage. I did almost everything right, I gave her the meds on time, was able to change her diapers without her raising too much fuss because I was taking too long, and we made it to bed at a decent time and slept the night through. The only little problem we encountered was when she went into Zach's room to play and closed the door. The same door that, unknown to me, Zach had mostly disassembled the door knob on, by working on it with a screw driver. I knew the doorknob was shakey and rattled a bit, but I did NOT know that if you closed it, it COULD NOT be opened from the hallway.

THAT caused a major moment of panic, I swear. (And swear I did).

I finally was able to take a screw driver and slide it between the door frame and the lock thingy and pop the door open but I had a back-up plan to try to climb through the window if that had failed.
Jillian was patiently sitting in the floor playing with Zach's Yugio cards when I got in. My heart beat returned to normal after about a half hour or so.

I hope Jerri will trust me with her babies again.



Since only Zach, James, and I will have a quick lunch here tomorrow before he goes hunting and Zach and I go to Jerri's, our menu is not as large as it's been in past years. Jerri, Trish, and Jami have been cooking up a storm over at Jerri's so I'll let you know what they had after I've sampled some of it.

Thanksgiving Menu:

Turkey Breast (she's all done and cooling so she can spend the night in the fridge, I'll warm her before lunch tomorrow).

Ham (large, bone in, paper wrapped, cured ham, the only kind I really, really, like)

Cornbread dressing

Mashed taters and gravy

Broccoli casserole

Tossed Salad

bread rolls

Pumpkin and coconut cream pies

Happy Turkey Day!!

Tuesday Doings

I was up bright and early this morning in order to get Zach to his doctor appointment on time. Mind you, I wasn't bright until around 9ish but all you folks who don't do mornings will know what I mean.

After we did the doctor thing, I went to drop off Zach's prescription on my way to the main bank in Helena. James needed funds for his hunting trips (the SD one has been moved up to Sunday) so I thought I'd just do it at that bank. I wrote out the a check to be cashed and handed it to the lady at the drive-through and she took one look at it and pushed it right back out to me, "You'll have to do the whole check again, you made it out to the bank instead of cash, and then I'll have to see 2 pieces of ID to cash it and that's only IF you have an account here with enough funds in it.",,, HUH? The last time I cashed a check on our account they'd told me I had to make it out to the bank and I've only banked at the damned place for, oh, about, 35 years, and I only HAD one form of ID with me,,,AND I was also wrestling with Zach about manhandling my cell phone,,, I was in no mood for a change in their danged policies at that moment. I told the lady to give me the check back, I was going to the branch, that I normally used, to cash it, and HAVE A NICE DAY, Ya HEAR? So off I go, back to the pharmacy, then on back to West Helena, to the branch bank, to cash the danged check. Without any ID, (although I understood the need for ID ,,just not about having to have 2 when I'd banked there forever and a day) and without having to change one danged thing on the check.

Whatever happened to customer courtesy? I felt like a bank robber for a time there.

After doing all THAT, I was finally able to go to Jerri and Bubbie's to see Trish and the girls. Jordan and Jaylen are growing like crazy! They'll be teenagers before we know it! I played Trivia with Trish and Jami and laughed so hard I got a nose bleed.

Jerri had to take her girls to the doctor today with respirtory infections and Jami had to also take Abby with the same. They sure were wishing for a holiday without any kind of illness this year, last year everyone had a stomach virus!

When I got ready to leave, Miz Jillian decided that she didn't want me to go, so I just brought her home with me and we've been doing some major playing at my house this evening.

Well, I'd best be getting the little ones to bed so I'll say good night for now.
Hope everyone's having a fine and dandy week!

Can't think of a title

How's everyone's weekend going?

I was sitting here trying to figure out why everything is so nice and clear on my monitor and I suddenly realized that the fonts and icons and stuff are larger. I've checked all the properties and everything is set at either default or normal so I stopped fussing at Zach for his possible meddling, and his persistent denial of the act, and figure it must be the new update I did to the IE browser. (It's either that or I'm miraculously not so blind anymore.)

I've also been having a tussle with the Mr. Snowman puppet who claimed to have taken on a life of his own, and has been irritating the hell outta me while I was trying to figure out all the monitor view stuff. He has now been banished to his room along with his buddy, Zach. (They'd best be blazing a trail through that area during their banishment too, although it's not likely.)

My Uncle Tommy, the Cajun of the family, who has just moved here, temporarily, from Lafayette, Louisiana to help my Aunt Freda care for her ill husband, came by today for a visit. He's 78 years old, and looks to be a young 65, and is so full of tales that you can't help but like him even though you know that you can only take about half of what he tells you as the straight, honest, truth. We're all caught up on the family news and gossip as well as that of everyone else in the 2 neighboring counties.

Trish, Jordan, and Jaylen will be arriving at Bubbie and Jerri's tomorrow evening so I'll be spending as much time as I can with them this week. I'm sure we'll be playing cards, a trivia game or two, and drinking gallons of coffee (iced tea for Trish) while keeping an eye on the "chillins". Jami is supposed to be there off and on too, with her girls, so I'm really looking forward to seeing all my children, and their children, together.

I've been thinking over the past little while about doing a little project here on my blog and I'd like to ask ya'll what you think about it.

Photography has become a great love of mine and I am always so happy to learn new things when fooling around with it, anyway, I thought that 2 or 3 times a month I might host links from other bloggers, or anyone else who may be interested, in Photo Challenges. I'll try to come up with the challenges and the participants will interpret it with their photos, send me the links to the photo hosting site where they're located, and I'll post the links, here on my blog, after the ending date of the challenge. Even those without cameras can join in by finding photos online that they feel would be their interpretation of the challenge.

What do you think?

If anyone is interested, I would like to suggest for the first challenge, "The Meaning of Christmas", and have December 15th as the ending date for the challenge.

There are some really great, free, photo hosting sites online, Web Shots, Photobucket, and Flickr are 3 that I use and they're all great and easy to use.

I'll be waiting to hear from everyone in my comments or my email (dian1954 at gmail dot com).

Sunny in the Delta

It was so nice today that Jami and I took the kids to the square in Marianna and took a few photos today. If you'd like to see, you can go here and here to look at the two that I've uploaded to webshots so far.

I'm off to put my feet up now to watch a little tv and finish reading my book.

Plotting and Planning

It's the last weekend before next week's Thanksgiving Holiday and I've been sitting here wondering where this month went. Next weekend Zach and I will spend one evening putting the Christmas tree up and getting it decorated and then I won't be able to find many excuses for not wrapping a few gifts. Have to do some more shopping too and that's a frustrating job for me. I can never find what I'm looking for and that's if I even know what I'm looking for.

James is going to deer hunt next Friday and Saturday near here, and then is going on to the big woods, or at least closer to the big woods, up in South Dakota, to bird hunt some time around December 4th or 5th. Guess who has to do the shopping for most of the stuff he'll be needing for his trip? Even doing it online is a pain in my pass due to the nature of the items I have to seek out to order. It's not as much fun to shop for insulated underwear and hunting vests as it is for say,,,toys, or books, or gadgets,,that good stuff, ya know?

Makes note to self to show him how to use the point-n-shoot 35mm camera so he can take pictures for us to look at after his stories have been told 450 million times.

Anyway, Zach and I will have a good ole time while he's gone because we can fill up on salads, the occasional pizza, and maybe some chinese food one evening. This Nanaw will get a break from cooking meat and taters for every meal! I will, however, have to set the alarm clock in order to get the little rascal up and ready for school because nary an alarm has been set around here for years because of "He who wakes up the birds", and he will be gone hunting.

I've also been working on a new, Christmasy, template this past week. I can't be letting Miz Joanie outdo me too often. (grin)

Well, that's about all I can think of for now. Hope everyone has a super weekend!

Women as explained by engineers

My cousin sent these to me, he's gone beyond the occasional blonde joke now. Ya'll help me find something for him that's equally amusing. There were more but these two were sufficient for me to begin plotting my revenge. :-)

A Little This and That

I need to get organized around here but I lack the energy to actually get moving on it.
I could make a list,

1. Things I won't do now.
2. Things I won't do later.
3. Things I will never do.
4. Things I can try to get others to do.

but I'd lose it, that's one skill I'm very good at.



James has been wanting some pups from his hunting dog, Sweet T, so last week she came in heat and he's made a couple of trips over to a nearby town to take her to visit a prospective boyfriend. They've run into a snag though, T. doesn't seem to be interested in the poor fella so the question over the next little while will be, Is she, or isn't she, with pups?

Normally this dog is quite the slut. She's been known to torment the little, short, fuzzy, dog from next door through the fence to the point where the little, whimpering, fella lost weight from not eating. Anyway, I warned them that she was a tease so now they'll have to just wait and wonder.

Reflecting

Are they working on blogspot this weekend or something? This posting screen sure looks mighty strange today.

The other day, when Jerri and I, with the Chicklets, went to Forrest City, we spotted a sight that we see quite a lot of down here in the south. It was one of those Hooptie cars, or what I call a Hooptie anyway, This one was a late 60's, early 70's, convertible that the guy had painted a spring grass green and he'd installed some of those flashy spinning hubs as well as some hydraulic hop kits. There's no doubt that the parts he used to fancy up his ride were worth about 5 times, or more, than the cost of the car. The Chick really took a shine to it and had fun watching the dude hop his car around at the redlight. Does everyone have these Hoopties in their area?

Jerri was telling me about a conversation she had with the Chick the other day and I had to laugh. The girls had been so clingy that Jerri even had to sweep with Jillian hanging on her leg and she told them, "Please act like normal kids and go to your room to play and watch TV for awhile." Alexis looked up at her and said, "But we're not normal Momma, elderly people call us young!" I reckon that child will be getting her drivers license in the next year or so. Ha!

Jami was here yesterday with her girls. MeriKate brought her certificate to show me that she'd been chosen as Student of the Month. She's doubly proud of this since last year she didn't take to school too kindly. All three of the girls made the honor roll the first 9 weeks so everything is good there.

I'm going to go take a nap now. See ya'll later!

Just a lazy old broad this week

But I'm finally getting around to posting something.

Jerri sent these to me today.





The pup in the photo with Jillian is our St. Bernard neighbor and she's directly responsible for this aching back I been sporting. She slipped up behind me while I was bent over in the garden one day and I ended up lying on my back cursing a blue streak. The second photo is how the Chick and Jilly Beans looked when they arrived yesterday to go to Forrest City with me. A dinner of chinese food and a little candy on the way home changed the look somewhat.

I can't WAIT till Thanksgiving when all our babies will be together in one place again. I love those group photos of em!

I better adios for now, it's a'thunderin out there and sounds like it's coming closer. We've had two days of near 80 temps.

Civic Duty

I did it.
It's done.
I voted.

Zach's doctor's appointment went well, the doctor is going to try him on medication for the ADHD but not of the stimulating sort. He's to take Strattera (one of the newer meds) for 2 weeks and then we'll return for evaluation to see if this stuff might work. I'm as nervous as 'ho' in church on Sunday but I promise, I'll be watching for any and all signs of trouble. Doc Bell said he'd be around, except for a few days at deer camp, over the next two weeks if I should need to grill him any more. He's lucky I didn't ask him where he'd be hunting. Ha!

And while I was at the doctor's office anyway, I threw caution to the wind and took a flu shot for the first time in around 36 years. When we lived in England all those years ago, we had to be inoculated for everydangedthing, every year, and every year I'd be sick enough, for two weeks, that I thought I was dying. After coming back to the states I avoided those flu shots like the plague and only had the flu 2 or 3 times in all those years. This thing I have with my heart has made me reconsider though and after finding out they no longer inoculate with a live virus, I let them stick me. If I get sick and die from the inoculation, ya'll sue em for me and have a blogger party, ok?

Hope ya'll are having a nice evening!

Hope I'm not boring ya'll.

If ya'll get tired of these posts with the photo links, please let me know, ok? Not much has been going on around here other than the usual. I see the babies when I can and enjoy watching them play, help with that neverending homework, and PUT up with a big lump that is spending way too much time at home in his recliner lately.

The other day, Jazzi, posted a piece about a Ginkgo tree at her work and it gave me the urge to go out and hunt one up for a couple of photos before I missed the show here. I found both trees in West Helena and was able to get a little closer to the second one so the shape of the leaves shows up better. They're such a riot of bright yellow in the Autumn and I love to see their show during this time of the year.

I thought I'd also put a link to the first shot I took at the old railroad track so you could see what I thought was so odd about it. The more I look at the photos, the more I think that it wasn't my focusing that caused the blur, but just what the cause is, is beyond me.

I took this shot of an old barn that day we rambled also.

On Sunday some of the babies visited and enjoyed playing outdoors for a bit after dinner.

Tomorrow, Zach has another doctor's appointment and I need to get the tags for James's truck so it'll be a pretty busy day.

I hope everyone's enjoying their week!

Razorbacks Get No Respect!

I had to watch that Razorback football team on television last night and root them on even though they couldn't hear my armchair coaching strategies through the TV screen. They sure played a great game to get no more respect than they do in the rankings. The win against SC last night brings their overall stats to 8-1 and their Southeastern Conference play to 5-0.

Take a look at this and tell me why they're only ranked 12th here.

EAST CONF OVERALL
Florida 6-1 8-1
Tennessee 3-2 7-2
Kentucky 3-3 5-4
Georgia 3-4 6-4
South Carolina 3-4 5-4
Vanderbilt 1-5 4-6
WEST CONF OVERALL
Arkansas 5-0 8-1
Auburn 5-1 9-1
LSU 3-2 7-2
Alabama 2-4 6-4
Mississippi State 1-5 3-7
Mississippi 1-5 3-7

I reckon everyone's waiting around to see if the Hogs can keep up the pace against the next three, tough, teams they have to meet up with this month. They still have to tangle with Tennessee, Mississippi State, and LSU. Maybe if they can continue their winning streak through these teams SOMEBODY will sit up and take notice. Ya think?

Lazy Afternoon

Jami dropped Krysten off around 7 this morning to spend the day with us and James didn't work all day, so when he and Zach decided to take the bird dogs out for a little hunting, Krysten and I took a little drive to take photos of the fall foliage.

I took this opportunity to inquire as to her career inclination and she told me, "Yes, she knows what a serial killer is,,they kill people", but she's changed her mind and has now decided to be a witch,,, but not one of those who has a green face!

A hop and a skip from home we stopped to snap a shot of these horses who seemed to be enjoying the sunny, cool day. We turned off our road after a bit and crossed over the highway to mosey down another gravel road to see how much color we could find. I stopped atop an old railroad track to take a couple of shots looking north. Look closely at this shot, do you see the blurry spot way down the tracks there? I didn't notice that until I was downloading the photos and was wondering what was up with my focusing, but when I checked out the second photo I took, it had that same hazy blur in the same spot. None of the shots I took before and after those showed a problem with the lens or anything so now I'm wondering what was up there. Odd.

We turned down another road that ran along part of Crowley's Ridge and poked along till we came to Lost Road. I have no idea why it's named that other than it can be a pretty spooky looking road at night or on a dark and cloudy day. Parts of it seem to be carved through part of the ridge because as you drive along you look to either side and the tree roots are sitting atop banks which are higher than the truck, and their roots are exposed there. You can sort of see this in the photo.

Everywhere we looked there were obvious signs that Autumn had arrived in our little spot in the Mississippi River delta and was giving us a flash of it's colors before leading us into winter.

I survived!

I'm pretty pooped but my day of being surrounded, and out-numbered 6 to 1, by the kiddies went pretty durned well. They all behaved themselves, except for Zach, and he just can't seem to comprehend why little girls don't care so much for wrestling and being body slammed.

I'm thinking that my bed is going to feel mighty fine tonight.

Just some more stuff

I've been having these big ol pangs of guilt for most of the afternoon cause Jethro went all floatey and joined that big aquarium in the sky. It wouldn't be bothering me so much except that I've been slightly ungracious about having to clean his nasty little home a few times already, even after saying to the other humans in this house, that Jethros were NOT my responsibility.

I wonder if I put too much of that water purifier in there the last time I cleaned that thing?

**

Didn't the month of October pass in a flash? Just when I get the hang of writing the 10th month on everything, it's another month and I have to start all over again!

**

The other day while sitting in that doctor's office waiting, the girls and Zach were being almost angelic by sitting quietly while watching The Grinch That Stole Christmas movie. Then Krysten turned her little head and looked at her mom and I and said, "I want to be a serial killer when I grow up."

I gotta tell you, for the first time in my life, I was totally speechless! 6 of the kiddy crew will be in my care tomorrow because school's out and the parents have doctor's appointments, so I'm going to try to get Krysten alone so I can ask her if she knows what a serial killer is. I think they've been watching too many of those scarey movies!