CSI:Miami Viewing Made Easier

Because I’m a public service kinda gal, and I have personally had issues watching this show as of late; (how many scenes can David Caruso chew up? Shouldn’t there be a limit? A moratorium on this?)

It’s pretty bad, when you see one of your favorite actors, Gary Sinise, start affecting the mannerisms of one Horatio Caine on his own spin-off show, CSI:NY. So, since this has become a full-blown epidemic with no signs of slowing, I give you this handy technique to help the viewing of this show go down that much easier.

Besides, if you have to suppress the gag reflex, shouldn’t it be for a better cause?

I found this thanks to weaker-vessel, whom I hope to meet one day. Thank you!

Also, thanks to LAist for the “research”.

Ground Control to Major Tom

Click on the link to listen to Scamp leaving a message for his daddy.

Because we heard Leta say her ABC’s over on Dooce…

We love you daddy and we can’t wait to see you tomorrow!!!

Aren’t They Adorable?

Spaceman Spiff using valuable study energy to defeat evil.

Scamp deciding that just sitting properly in the desk chair isn’t enough.

Hmmmm, a New Item on the Breakfast Menu!

I found this recipe on this site, but the site where it lives (hopefully in perpetuity) is here. It’s 8:45 am, I haven’t eaten breakfast, and I find these.

Read the ingredients. Feel as your mouth begins to water. Realize it’s been a long time since you’ve seen anything SKOR bar related in a recipe or anywhere for that matter. Have quick high school flashback. (I sold SKOR bars to buy my high school yearbook when I was a freshman. It was clandestine, and the band classes was none too thrilled I took sales from their candy drives. Oops! But hey, marvel at my entrepreneurial spirit!) Decide to go buy ingredients to make cookies for hubby when he comes home from business trip. Hope your local store has SKOR bars, because it seems like that is an important part of the recipe.

Then wonder if you are the first person to consider having cookies for breakfast. Decide that you aren’t. Realize that you want cookies NOW and go find the Oreos your son refused to leave the store without. Eat several in a sitting, looking around surreptitiously to see if the neighbors can see your poor breakfast choice. Follow it up with a breakfast shake to balance out your healthy eating habits. Pray you don’t toss said cookies. (pun intended, thankyouverymuch)

Go make those cookies. You know you wanna…

I Just Can’t Make this Stuff Up, People…

So, I’m trying to send Spiff to a different middle school than where we are zoned for. Where I live, parents can apply for a zone waiver and opt-out of the zoned school they are assigned to, provided you (the parent) supply the transportation. Easy peasy, right?

Not so easy peasy is the hoops you have to jump through to get this accomplished. And have I been doing some jumpin’!

I drove all the way out to the school that we are zoned for yesterday to talk to the principal, get this thing signed and get on with my day. I was told she wasn’t in, to leave the waiver there, and come back tomorrow (today) to pick it up and answer any questions she may have as to why my son won’t be attending her fair school. (a clue to that reason might be coming up. I’m jus’ sayin’.) Ok, I said, I’ll be back tomorrow.

Tomorrow (today) arrives, and off I go again. As I pull up to the school, I quickly notice that there are three police cars parked directly in front of the school, in a zone that’s clearly marked “NO PARKING AT ANY TIME”. I also notice the gates are locked, and what appears to be a maintenance guy parked at the gate where visitors can park. My eyes then scan to a truck near the police cars, that has emblazoned on the back gate “This Car was seized in a raid of a drug dealer.” The gentleman at the gate informs me that the school is in a lockdown, and any appointments scheduled will be postponed until further notice. Please move along.

Hmmmmmm… I can’t imagine what would give me pause and not want my child to attend your school. Can you?

You Like Me, You Really Like Me!

Sorry, I was having a Sally Field moment….

I entered this post into a Blogging 4 Books contest. I found out that I was one of the final seven to be considered for first, second or third place. How cool is THAT? I may not win, but just the fact I was even considered is making me do a happy-me dance right here in my home office.

Thanks, Mir, for showing me the way there. Thanks to everyone who read my submission, and thanks to everyone who entered. There are some amazing entries this month. Make sure you have Kleenex handy. And don’t read while drinking anything. Beverages and computer monitors don’t like each other. I found that one out the hard way. (having the Kleenex nearby came in handy though.)

I’m truly chuffed. Wow.

edited to add: The final results were posted, and I did not place in the final 3. It’s okay though, the top three were truly tops. Congrats to them, and great job to all who entered. I had a really great time, thanks for everything!!!

I’m adding the site to my links so keep checking there for the next Blogging 4 Books challenge.

Pot to Kettle, Come in Kettle…

My use of the word crazed in the title of my blog in no way refers to or singles out people who have lost their mind and are seeking medical attention or trying to go it alone. I refer to a common feeling and action that many parents (mostly mommies) endure because of the rigorous activities it takes to be a parent running in several different directions, ie:

• Driving the kids to school wearing “lounging jammies” that look like a regular outfit because you spent the morning getting the kids ready for school instead of you; and all you are planning to do is just drop off the kids, not get out of the car.

• Or, fighting with the school just to get services for your child that were promised in the beginning of the school year, and have yet to arrive.
• Or, feeling the love bubble up inside you when your kids do something amazing; or even something simple that just makes you feel warm and fuzzy all over.
• Or, when they do something that just drives you absolutely batty, like leave popcorn kernels all over the floor for you to step on after you have just vacuumed the carpet.
• Finding that you can, in fact, not only get back into your pre-pregnancy bathing suit, but purchase a new one that allows you to heed what the doctor asked of you post surgery.
• …and many other reasons that make parenting a blessing and a curse.

Yep, it’s true and I make no apologies for it, I’m crazed about my job, being a mother. I’m blessed and lucky and honored not just because I’m a mother, but because I have been entrusted to care for and defend a child that requires more patience, love and understanding than most people are willing to provide. It’s an insane job with a lot of responsibility. But it’s a job I wouldn’t trade for anything; even on the days when my kids test my patience (and boy, do they!).

You need to read my tagline. It says “because my love for my children is so fierce, it cannot be contained”.

That about sums it up.

But thank you for making me take a step back and remind me why I named my blog what I did.

I am crazed. I own it, and most importantly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I’m sure the people who know me and read this feel the same.

For My Friends, My Family, For Everyone

The Beatitudes for Friends of Exceptional Children

Blessed are you who take time to listen to difficult speech:
For you help us to know that if we persevere,
We can be understood.

Blessed are you who walk with us in public places,
And ignore the stares of strangers,
For in your companionship,
We find havens of peace.

Blessed are you who never bid us to “hurry up”,
And more blessed are you
Who do not snatch tasks from our hands to do them for us,
For often we need time rather than help.

Blessed are you who stand beside us
As we enter new and untried ventures,
For our failures will be outweighed
By the times we surprise ourselves and you.

Blessed are you who ask for our help,
For our greatest need is to be needed.

Blessed are you when you assure us,
That the one thing that makes us individuals
Is not in our peculiar muscles,
Nor in our wounded nervous systems,
Nor in our difficulties in learning,
Nor any exterior difference.

But is in our inner, personal, individual self
Which no affirmity can diminish or erase.

Author Unknown

A big THANK YOU goes out to Laura who blogs at Adventures in Juggling for sharing this and finding it on MommyLife. I’m really glad I found you out in the blogosphere!

Super Size Your Brain, Mr. Spurlock

This really makes me mad. I saw this and immediately my blood began to boil. While as a parent, I’m not thrilled that profanity was used during his speech to a group of high-schoolers; as a post-teenager, I’m sure it didn’t offend the listeners’ ears. What sends me into apoplexy is this:

“The greatest lesson those kids learned today was the importance of free speech,” Spurlock said.

Um…no. That’s not what they learned from your speech. That’s what you want to cloak yourself in so you can feel better about what you said, Mr. Spurlock. What they took from that speech was that it’s still okay to pick on the “different” kids, and by you saying what you did in front of an audience; and the fact that you are a quasi-celebrity, gave the act credibility and a “coolness factor”. In their minds, they still have society’s approval to continue the ridicule, confirmed by you. It should never be considered free speech or acceptable to pick on or demean people who may not be in a position to defend themselves, as was the case here.

Taking McDonald’s to task for the quantity in which they serve their food is one thing; McDonald’s has the ability to stop serving “super size” meals. Many special kids don’t have the luxury of changing their ways. It is who they are. They don’t deserve ridicule for just being themselves. While it appears you are not happy with McDonald’s for the size of their meals, please tell me what beef you have with the learning disabled community that you feel they need to change. I’d really like to know what your thought processes were on combining these two topics in your speech. What were you trying to accomplish?

I know, Mr. Spurlock. You were trying to be cool. Hip, even. What better way to look cool and fit in than to pick on those you feel is beneath you. That’s very high-school. I’m sure it made you feel better to do that. I suspect it made your stage fright or whatever excuse you come up with to disappear. Your actions and lack of forethought disappoint me.

More importantly, your speech and your response to the backlash of it give me the impression that you really don’t care about showing people what’s wrong with our society as you have claimed in the past drove you to make Super Size Me; but that you just want to be in the spotlight, and you don’t care what you do, say, or who you hurt to get there. You say that you didn’t mean to demean anyone, but your speech did exactly that. Had you looked over your speech prior to delivering it, and had you cared a little less about trying to fit in with your audience, you might have realized the error before it occurred.

Put your conscience where your mouth is. Pass up the photo-op, and go quietly volunteer your time (about a month) as a teacher’s assistant in a high school classroom of special needs children. You will quickly see that the ridiculing continues. You will also see that these kids fight tooth and nail to function in a society that takes great pleasure in knocking them down and telling them that menial jobs are all they are cut out for. You will see some of these kids overcome those odds in spite of your (and society’s!) assessment of them, and be successful. They deserve better than what you gave them in your speech, and in your apology. Walk in their shoes, and see what it’s like to be on the receiving end of your type of comments; and what it’s like to be them. It should be rather enlightening for you, I suspect. More so than eating McDonald’s for a month, I’m certain.

Do it for yourself, Mr. Spurlock. Volunteer your time. Learn how hard it is for these kids; and how even harder it is for them when they are ridiculed. Then, consider re-writing your apology, because only then will it have any possibility of credibility; unlike the one you have up now.

It’s the least you can do to try and make this right.

Besides, all the cool kids should be doing this; right, Mr. Spurlock?

It’s A Two Post-er!!!

I have two posts rattling around in my head, but only enough time to get one of them out right now. We’re hosting a get-together this afternoon, which if we play our cards right, will flow long into the evening; complete with food, fun, merriment, and laughter.

This is the best way to spend a Saturday, the weather is cooperating, and I’m with my family.

Last night was a blast, and of course I have lived up to the blonde highlights I have installed and forgot to bring the camera. Cuteness abounded, though. Scamp said to many people, “Slowly, hit the ball slowly“. We cheered, we jumped, we danced. Scamp got his first hole-in-one, ever. I’m sure with practice he will be ready for the PGA Tour by next year. It was so exciting, the entire night. Dinner out was even a success, TGIFridays even had a gal who made balloon animals and hats. My boys went with the hats, that they quickly dismantled in short order.

A successful family night if ever there was one.

The next post has to do with my feelings on this post and my thoughts on it.

For the record, I have many.

EDIT: Didn’t get back to this over the weekend, and my head has exploded in a migraine headache, so my thoughts, and the second post will have to wait. Thanks for understanding, and I’m off to a dark room to vanquish Captain Migraine.