Party of Five

I was speaking with an aquaintance today and somehow (for the life of me, I can't even think now how this topic came up)...somehow the topic came around to the fact that he had just bought a Corvette. A Corvette.  Really? Ummm...why?? (Yes, I asked him this)  His response was that he wanted one.  My response was, "you live in Buffalo.  You'll get to drive it a total of maybe 50 days out of the year."  He didn't care.  His excuse was that his father had seven cars....wait a minute...SEVEN??  Yes.  Seven cars, and my friend felt like he could have a third if he wanted it. From there the conversation turned to how he had gifted a friend a $200 gift certificate to a local restaurant.  No, this was not the local Olive Garden, but a very high-end steak house.  A high-end steak house that my friend frequents at least once every month, and apparently drops that kind of cash for his meal with his wife each time. Hey, I love a good steak ...

Earlier this week I had the opportunity to view a film titled Race To Nowhere. A fascinating film, really, that discusses how our children are overworked within the school system with too high of expectations with too low of results.  To put it simply, the problem with children being in school for 7 or more hours a day followed by 2, 3, sometimes 4 hours of extracurricular activities, and then sitting down to homework in the evening.  Sometimes multiple hours worth of studying. IF you are a high school student...an ACTIVE high school student taking Advance Placement classes, you can easily see where this is a problem.  Thankfully, mine are still young, and my oldest has not found his extracurricular "bug" yet.  But there is the learning disadvantage that we have to struggle with on a daily basis, so yeah, there are extended periods of homework nearly every night in our house.  Or add to that when special projects are due.  Or (as we're experiencing this ...

The month of February is going to be...in a word... AMAZING! On Fridays, beginning on February 3rd, NBC will air the premiere of Season 3 of Who Do You Think You Are .  LOVE the show, hate the celebrity-ism (is that a word?).  Let me clarify...I LOVE that it's a Friday night and genealogy is on Prime-Time television on one of the "big 3" networks.  Quite honestly, it's the perfect night to have the girls over, eat a whole load of junk food and get your genealogy fix. But...it's all of the celebrities.  And the "ease" in which their family history, and stories, and ancestral photos are just handed to them by the Ancestry.com (a subscription they didn't have to pay for), and the archivists (that they simply had to hop their private jet and fly off to meet). Genealogy is NOT that quick and NOT that easy.  It takes patience, diligence, and sometimes you just can't get that record you desperately want at the very moment that you want it because ...

My oldest spawn is 11 years old.  Most days, it takes everything I have in me to not physically try and "knock" some sense into him.  It's a lesson in patience that I'm very slow in learning.  I know it would be helpful if I could just look at life through his eyes, and I try (sometimes) to be more understanding with the way his brain tries to think, rationalize, and make sense of the day-to-day activities. By doing this...looking at things through his beautiful blue-gray eyes, I've come to the realization that he apparently believes that I have this unknown (to me)set of super powers.  I only wish someone would have told me before now that I possess this amazing abilities.  Maybe the crazies wouldn't have been so crazy. For instance - the power to "keep going" once the little monkies have gone to bed.  You know, keep doing all those mom things once those lil' darlins have settled in for a night's slumber. Wrong. Once they are tuck...

Okay, so my Special K challenge had a minor major set-back today.  The weather turned to poo, so there was no 2.5 mile walk.  And for whatever reason, I came home this afternoon, just very very thirsty....and the Mt. Dew just sounded so good, and it had been a really, really long time... yeah, I drank 2 in about 1/2 hour. Dinner was lasagna, which warranted a Pepsi. And I was still starving after dinner...AFTER I had snacked on my Special K bar.  So I made popcorn... with a side of Mt. Dew (or two) Ridiculous.   Believe me.  I know. Tomorrow.  I start again.  Because I can. Now - a friend had inquired about the Special K "Chocolaty Delight" flavor.  Just for the record I have tried it, and I honestly don't think it's real chocolate in that cereal.  It's just...ick. I'm considering using the remains of the 5 lb. Hershey bar I received as a Christmas gift in my bowl of cereal...It's already been cut up into small ...

Months and months of eating too much chocolate, and drinking too much soda...has left me dissatisfied with my current state of...well, my current state.  So it was time to take the plunge and start the Special K challenge - you know, "lose a dress size in 2 weeks" yeah, here's the thing...I really like to eat.  Real food - not just cereal and snack bars.  So I am making modifications. First of all, physical activitiy is a must.  This is challenge #1.  I'm not big on exercise. What I mean to say is that in the time it takes me to go for a walk, or burn calories in a cardio-workout...I could very well have found a long lost ancestor from genealogy research in that amount of time!  And exercise is...exhausting.   And it makes me sweat.  And I hurt when it's all said and done. Yes...I'm whining. Second on the list - eating habits.  Quite honestly, mine suck. I like the yummy, tasty, soooo bad for you, kinds of foods.  Comfort food. ...

Hello.  My name is Candy, and I'm a Bibliophile. I love books.  Actual real books, not the e-book.  An e-book doesn't allow you to flip pages, or (god-forbid) dog-ear them to mark your page.  Yes...I turn that little corner over to mark the page where I've been reading. Don't hate me. An e-book also doesn't allow me the opportunity to highlight the spectacular passages that I come across.  It doesn't matter if it's a novel, a reference book, or a text book...if it's good, I'm going to underline or take a highlighter to it.  My memory sucks quite honestly.  I need to mark it when it's good. I love holding a big fat book in my hands.  I like to be able to find a place for it on my bookshelf.  I want to be able to open it up to that front blank page and emboss it with my "from the library of..." embosser.  (Yes, I have one and it's fabulous!) I don't want a Nook, unless it's a little corner that I curl up and read in. ...

Did you ever just have ...one of THOSE days? The kids went back to school, Mr. D. went back to work, today was supposed to be easy and good and about getting back on target. {sigh} Whatever. It was too cold to be easy.  Anytime I stepped outside it just became harder and harder to ...exist.  Single degree temps only make me want to crawl back into bed. Okay....so yeah, it was good - kids being back in school and all.  It was the first time in the last 10 days my house was.... shhhhh.... listen.... QUIET! It was almost as good as 1st day of school good! That's how good it was. But....Getting back on target?  Eh. I just kept missing my target all day long.  Oh I tried, but I was just...."OFF"  a little bit, all day long.  In the past month I became accustomed....spoiled, really in finding said target and accomplishing what needed to be done...well, most of the time....but still fairly successful. Tomorrow?  Maybe tomorrow I'l...

With the New Year comes....resolutions?  nah.  I've never been able to keep them. (I've read the book of Genesis soooo many times in the hopes of reading through my bible each year.) Diet?  Exercise?  nope.  They've always worked out as well as my resolutions.  (These hopelessly last all of 2 days at best) But with the new year, usually comes a new mindset.  It's almost like, "Okay, this is your chance to try again...let's see what you can do with it!" So I'm quite confident that this year will bring a change...a change for the better.Whether it's a complete change, or just the start of something that will turn out to be better in the end - well that remains to be seen.  I don't own a crystal ball, and I've never been big on the prophesy end of things.  And the "How" and the "When" aren't completely up to me.  So this leaves me to play a bit of a waiting game. Super. Not my favorite thing to do, as my patie...