Thursday, June 30, 2011

A Sad Beginning


I know, there has been a real lack of posts this week. It's been a little crazy around here this week. We found out Friday, my daughter's best friend died from an asthma attack last Thursday. It was such a shock and so sad to hear about. The little girl was only 11 years old. She was like a family member, as other children in the neighborhood, she spent many days here playing and for sleep overs. At first, I didn't believe it. I thought maybe she was in the hospital or something, because she was just over her playing the day before it happened. I called her mother to see if it was true and to give her my condolences if it was true. So, I have allowed the kids to have more sleepovers than usual this week to distract them and I spent yesterday afternoon making five packs of hot dogs on the grill to drop off for the kids at the car wash trying to raise money for her funeral. With the sad news and all the children running in and out of the house I really haven't had too much to write about. It is a reminder of how you can lose someone out of the blue.

It was nice to see the parents and the kids in the neighborhood working together to raise money for her funeral. We live in a suburb where the homes are close together, so a lot of the children play in groups around here and the parents get a chance to know a lot of the other children of the neighborhood.

Friday, June 24, 2011

Friday's Facebook Follow



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Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Food For Thought



The girl in the video makes a good point. Black and white interracial relationships draw the most attention of the interracial relationships controversy. It makes sense to say it could possibly stem from the history between Caucasians and African Americans. Why is it Asians dating African Americans, Asians dating Caucasians, Middle Easterners dating Caucasians, and so on is not part of the discussion nearly as much as Caucasians dating African Americans? What most people fail to recognize interracial dating is not just about Caucasians and African Americans. Interracial relationships by definition means "Marriage or sexual relations between individuals of different races."

 My question is "Why is interracial relationships a controversy in the first place?" Does my life or the life of other interracial couples have a direct effect on the lives of others? Why are white women who date black men stereotyped? When reading the comments under the video, one of the comments says, white women who date black men act like teenagers, I highly doubt that statement is true. That is the same as saying we are less intelligent, because we chose to be with an African American male. I think it is more fair to say, we don't believe in separating the races and we believe we are all the same regardless of skin color. A person can not be judged by the color of skin their mate is.

Racism is ignorance and there shouldn't be a debate about interracial relationships. There is no superior race. We are all the same and God created us in his image. If you are racist, then you are questioning your faith and you are questioning that God created man in his image. There are bigger fish to fry than to waste time debating over interracial relationships or which race is superior.

Monday, June 20, 2011

Monday Madness


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Sunday, June 19, 2011

Happy Father's Day


The greatest gift I ever had
Came from God; I call him Dad!
~Author Unknown


Fatherhood is pretending the present you love most is soap-on-a-rope.  ~Bill Cosby

Blessed indeed is the man who hears many gentle voices call him father!  ~Lydia M. Child, Philothea: A Romance, 1836

It is not flesh and blood but the heart which makes us fathers and sons.  ~Johann Schiller

A father carries pictures where his money used to be.  ~Author Unknown

Dad, you're someone to look up to no matter how tall I've grown.  ~Author Unknown

It kills you to see them grow up.  But I guess it would kill you quicker if they didn't.  ~Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams

Dad, your guiding hand on my shoulder will remain with me forever.  ~Author Unknown

He didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.  ~Clarence Budington Kelland

We'll let you be Obama for the day.

Happy Father's Day sweetheart, we love you!!

Friday, June 17, 2011

80's Flash Back


My youngest was looking up videos on You Tube. The funny thing about it is they are always calling us old. However, they are hijacking our music and our clothes. She knows the words to Girls Just Wanna Have Fun and Hey Mickey. Those are just starters for the 80's song lyrics she has memorized.

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Thursday, June 16, 2011

My Baby Graduated From The 5th Grade Today

My baby graduated from the 5th grade today. It was so hard, especially when Mr. Bateman announced they were the graduating class of 2018. I cried, then the teachers cried and I cried again, then when we went to go get her she was crying, because she was sad to be leaving the elementary school and I cried some more. Shh... even her brother had a few tears in his eyes, which I did not expect at all. That's when it hit me, my baby will be graduating in 7 years and my son will be graduating in 6 years. It's almost over and they will be all grown up and going off to college before you know it. Graduating the 5th grade is such a milestone in their life, next year she will be going on to middle school and everything will begin changing. Before I know it, there will be boys and dances then the prom. I am so not ready it for it.
My little princess insisted on wearing her pageant dress, she is such the little diva. Surprisingly, she wasn't the only child in a formal. There were a few girls in formal and one of our neighbor's boys was wearing a pin striped suit and top hat. It was too cute.












Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Wacky Wednesday's Worst 80's Hair Styles

They have been bringing the 80's back for clothing styles. Let's hope the hair styles that should have never left the drawing board stay in the 80's where they belong.



The poodle look, something that never should have happened.




Okay, did someone take a chunk out of her hair? What was she thinking?

I'm sorry she looks like a poodle with some hat hair.

 
Short bangs?! Did a 2 year old get a hold of her hair while she was sleeping?

Strong Middle School Get's A Big Fat "F" In My Book


(Visit the link to read the review)

Friday, June 10, 2011

Jane Elliot's Blue Eyes/ Brown Eyes Exercise


Photo by Charlotte Button

When I was in college, we learned about the famous Jane Elliot's Blue Eyes/ Brown Eyes Experiment conducted on her 6th grade class in 1968. After the shooting of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Jane Elliot, a school teacher was struggling to explain the concept of "Racism" to her students, when she came up with the idea of the Blue Eyes/ Brown Eyes exercise for her classroom of 8 year old children. Little did she know she was making history and her classroom exercise would be studied in classrooms for years to come and would be the foundation of many future experiments.
This experiment has always intrigued me since hearing about it, because it shows how easily children can be swayed into becoming racist. I decided to share the exercise with my readers, because it is a great example of how easily our children can be influenced. Not only into racism, but across the board with many of the issues our children are faced with today. Such as; racism, bullying, drugs, and etc.  It shows an example of how children will ban together against another child or race, because that is what is acceptable. They will disassociate themselves from another child or children who are considered undesirable.

The Neatorama Blog  quotes Jane Elliot on her experiment.

With King shot just the day before in Memphis, Elliott encouraged her third-graders to discuss how something so horrible could happen.
"I finally said, ‘Do you kids have any idea how it feels to be something other than white in this country?’ "
The children shook their heads and said they wanted to learn, so Elliott set the rules. Blue-eyed children must use a cup to drink from the fountain. Blue-eyed children must leave late to lunch and to recess. Blue-eyed children were not to speak to brown-eyed children. Blue-eyed children were troublemakers and slow learners.
Within 15 minutes, Elliott says, she observed her brown-eyed students morph into youthful supremacists and blue-eyed children become uncertain and intimidated.
Brown-eyed children "became domineering and arrogant and judgmental and cool," she says. "And smart! Smart! All of a sudden, disabled readers were reading. I thought, ‘This is not possible, this is my imagination.’ And I watched bright, blue-eyed kids become stupid and frightened and frustrated and angry and resentful and distrustful. It was absolutely the strangest thing I’d ever experienced."

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Summer


The sun is looking down on us and laughing, because he is burning us all up. 

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Where Are The Birds?



One thing I have noticed this spring is there are a lot fewer birds than usual. I put out my bird feeder every spring and I usually have to fill it every couple of days. It has been out there for almost two weeks and it's not empty yet. I miss seeing the birds and hearing them in the morning. They usually line up on the fence to eat, but this year I am only seeing a bird or two through out the day. We used to get doves, finches,cardinals, and of course the black birds. It's kind of sad, because it makes you wonder what happened to them. It makes me wonder if all the tornadoes in the south this spring has something to do with it. This spring has too many spiders and too few birds.

Friday, June 3, 2011

Dieting Do's & Don'ts



If your anything like me, the specialists on dieting are making you crazy. You never know what really works. The specialists conflict one another on what you should or shouldn't do while dieting. So, how are you supposed to know what to do if they can't get together and come up with a few good solutions to weight loss?

For most women once they hit their 30's or have had children, losing weight and staying in shape becomes a never ending battle. We all want the quick fix to lose weight fast. I really don't think there is one. Unless your willing to have plastic surgery or try one these new weight loss procedures. Believe me, it had crossed my mind, if only I had the money to try one.  Everything they come up with seems to not work for everyone. Our bodies are different, their is no universal weight loss method. What used to work best for me, no longer works the way it used to. I usually try and stick to the traditional method, by watching my fat, sugar and carbs intake with exercise. The weight just seems to be coming off slower since I have hit 40 this past year. It's like a little wand was waved over me when I turned 40, for some reason weight loss is so much harder than it used to be.  I used to be able to watch what I eat and walk or go to the gym and drop the weight off in no time. Now, it takes forever just to get five pounds off and I have to be even more careful about what I eat, because the pounds come on so easily. I feel like I am forever dieting. Dieting has almost become normal for me. I wish I could be one those people who walk in the store and picks up a candy bar once and a while. But then, there is that thought in the back of my mind "I really don't need it, because I will probably gain a pound from eating a candy bar.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011