Lessons Learned

There are so many things in life that we learn as youngsters and use later in life that have absolutely no connection. For me, one is playing jump rope, especially double dutches. It reminds me of how to merge onto the freeway. Just the right timing to jump in, speed to go and maintain traffic conditions, which is so much like jumping rope. Two people hold the ends, turn the rope and you have to decide when to jump in, when to jump again and how to time it just right....

On the other hand. There are things I was taught that didn't benefit me well. You know, when I look back at all the crap I learned in high school. Yes, it is a song! Spanish class for me should have been taught differently.  Some people may have done well with the monologues we had to memorize. To this day if I need a word, I have to refer back to a monologues to find the word. Same holds true for learning numbers in Spanish, where I still have to say the numbers in order to remember that siete means seven. Same goes for the alphabet. I have to sing the song until I reach the letter I am looking for when alphabetizing!

Growing up playing cards, Pinochle and Spades mostly and of course playing dominoes and Yahtzee have made me an addition whiz. I am quick to add numbers in my head and I remember numbers better than most people I know. This is one reason I don't use speed or memory dial. Use it or lose it I say when it comes to remembering phone numbers!

Bullying and Team Mom

A funny thing happened on the way to "It's not the school's problem."

Last summer after being bullied for several months, my daughter said she hadn't told me earlier because I would get angry with the bully, but also that she wanted to handle it herself.

The bully in question had dated the boy who was my then daughter's boyfriend. My daughter had never met or spoken to this girl. Bully girl did some hateful things to others, such as ordering a lot of pizzas to be delivered to a certain boy, papered his home with tampons and put his personal information on more than one adult web sites. She used Facebook as her means of attack on my daughter. She called her names like caterpillar, because my daughter has to die for eyebrows! She doesn't look like a caterpillar at all, but bully girl was trying to wound my daughter who just happened to be self conscious about her eyebrows. Bully girl said lots of nasty things about my daughter and her boyfriend for all to read. I do have to admit that bully girl did get the nickname skankwhore out of this. However, we at Team Mommy told my daughter and her friends not to use that any longer and try to ignore her.

Eventually the bully girl started picking on another girl who had an eating disorder and wore heavy makeup. This girl was a year younger than my daughter and by this time, my daughter and another friend had taken all they could. They went to see a counselor about what bully girl was doing to eating disorder girl. At this time, my daughter also mentioned the bullying she had endured in silence, at least to any adults. The counselor requested copies of the facebook taunts and comments and was very upset after she read them. She told the girls to talk to the ASB teacher in charge because bully girl was a class president. This teacher took it very personally and said it would not be tolerated. Gone from Facebook were the bully girl and her so called friends. That did not stop bully girl from being mean to eating disorder girl at school though.

Finally, it was told to the vice principal who said, "This is not a school issue." The eating disorder girl asked if it was a school issue when she went to take the SAT and bully girl and followers were there taunting her before the test. Nothing was done from that point, that I know of, until tonight, prompting me to blog for the first time in many months.

Now the funny part. Via robocall the VP called to say there will be two guest speakers tomorrow and one has to do with cyber bullying and how to handle it...Hmm. Guess with all the headlines lately, knowledge is power.

This leads me to Team Mommy. It is a name I coined one day while talking with another mom. My daughter is a senior and still a girl scout. The same troop and girls are still together since first grade. These are not wallflower type girls, but gorgeous, smart, talented, loving young women who have tons of friends even outside their troop of eight. We moms know each other and our girls quite well. Most of the girls call all of us moms mommy. While talking to this mom one day, she told me something that will never be repeated, but we moms need to know. I said Team Mommy vs Angry Teenager, Team Mommy ALWAYS wins!

So, most of these lovely women don't know what I call them, which I will get around to at some point, but do yourselves a favor and take care of other kids and make your own club of Team Mommy. It costs nothing and is invaluable, especially for other opinions or advice. And who has a teenager who doesn't need this from time to time?

American Idol and Sap for Success Stories

First of all, let me say the only reason I am blogging right now is that a friend is starting a new one and wondered how to do it. Keeping the page open, just in case she needs help, I am watching last night's American Idol....

First, I love Casey. He is quiet in a Jason Castro way. I think he probably got voted off last night, but it has all I could do to now watch, read or hear anything about last night's show.

As I am watching the show, he went back to his home town and I am just crying like a baby at the crowd of well wishers, fans. He is astounded which makes it all the better. Then he goes to the hospital where he was after a bad accident and signs autographs and says thank you. He is a class act.

I want Crystal to win because she just plain rocks! But, it's up to the voters, ultimately. I can't belive Seacrest is talking to Perez Hilton. I really can't believe that he said Lee's Hallelujah is better than JT's! Wrong...Justin Timberlate's performance with Matt Morris was the most moving rendention I have EVER heard! So, WRONG Perez!!!!!

That's my rant for today...

Gotta check out this very popular owl!

I am blogging for the first time in a couple months. I know, I should be ashamed of myself. Lightfeather, are you on Facebook? Lightfeather sent me a note to post something. So, for now, I will post this.

This is an owl who is nesting. One of the owlets hatched today. It is a box in San Marcos, San Diego County, CA and it's on a couple's property. There is a 24 hour camera and it has become quite popular. Awesome to see wildlife so up close and personal. The mommy owl is name Molly. Her humans just finished talking about their trials with the video feeds, etc. They are a very sweet couple who have already named the owlet, Max. Max won't open it's eyes for two weeks. I don't know how they know it's a boy, or if they do. Max has 17 bones in it's neck, which is why it hangs there. The human said, "Don't be alarmed, Molly is cleaning, not eating her young. The baby daddy should be coming back soon. He comes home at night.

Do yourself a favor and check out this very cool video which just surpassed one million views today. ://www.sportsmansparadiseonline.com/LiLive Owl Nest Box Cam

A True Progressive Dinner

When I was a kid, my parents both worked and I learned how to cook. By the time I was eight, I was making full course family dinners. My mother worked for a bank, an hours drive from home and she was home less, so it kind of fell to my dad to teach me.

One of the first things he taught me to make was biscuits. Self rising flour and canned milk. Delicious, but I haven't made them in eons.

I was taught to make food go longer with leftovers, if there were any! Hence, a true progressive dinner...

We would get a ham. Cooked in the oven and sliced for dinner. Usually with fried potatoes and corn was the veggie of choice. After about two days of ham sandwiches and leftovers for dinner, we would move on to Pinto Beans. The ham bone would be used as stock for the beans. I learned how to use a Pressure Cooker, which was much faster and simply better than slow cooking beans for hours. The beans were out of this world. We always had fried potatoes with beans. We also used white bread to put under the beans to sop up the juice. If we were lucky, the white bread would be substituted with corn bread. Once I got married and learned how to cook steamed rice (the easiest thing in the world) we very rarely had fried potatoes again. After about two days of beans, next came chili. Everything in the fridge kind of chili with newly added browned burger. Leftover Beans, Shelby's chili kit, in the little paper bag, a can of beer, salsa, steak sauce, velveeta (yes, velveeta, don't do that anymore either) other random ingredients and pickle juice. To this day I buy dill pickles for the juice to go in chili made a couple times a year. Never eat the pickles.

So, from ham, to beans and ham, to chili, it could last a good week and nothing would go to unused. We sometimes had veggies, but they were limited, corn, okra, tomatoes, cucumber and green beans. I don't know if it had to do with little knowledge about vegetables on my parents part, or money that kept us from having yummy broccoli, artichokes and asparagus. I never tried any of these until after I moved out.

David told me last night he liked the progression of the ham to chili dinner. The beans and rice were delicious, if I do say so myself!