My goofy one.

Lover of bees, dirt, babies, candy, and dolls.

Named after the princess in _The Princess and the Goblin_, and my grandmother.

Born the same night Princess Diana died. (I watched the footage all night long because there was nothing but footage on. And I don't sleep in

hospitals.)

10 years old now.

Happy birthday!!

My, I've been "away" a bit. I wish I could account for this past week with stories of all I got accomplished, but no. I don't even know what I did. It's all a blur.

Truth to tell I came up feeling a little blue. My 2 big girls are away at the beach staying with friends this week so I don't have my usual company about. The little boys have been fighting all day. Sometimes I am just at a loss as to who is right, wrong, up, down, had it first etc. I'd like to just staple them to their beds. You know I'm kidding, right?

Well, like I said, I was blue. And I felt like I should post something but my mind was empty. Except for griping. Which isn't very edifying, is it? But I guess I already did that.

So I decided to peruse the other blogs. Amy has up sweet pictures of her new little baby. Yeah, I should be more grateful, huh? Lyn has stories of God's providence for her family. Been there many a time. Yeah, I really should be a lot more grateful. Carmon has a post up about salvation stories. Yeah, I got it. I really should be a lot, lot more grateful!!! Marbel has a post about the homeschooling Adams Family. I remember that episode. Gotta chuckle at that! And to cap it off, Mrs. Darling got to watch the ice cream man get arrested before her very eyes. OK, now I'm laughing. That could only happen to Mrs. Darling. I'm much cheerier now!! Thanks! :)

Warning: The following post is not for the faint of heart. Or the queasy of stomach...

Over the weekend we went to a birthday party for a friend. It was a Redneck Pig Roast.

They cooked up Wilbur. Well, I guess he was big enough now..

Hows that for a pig, Mrs. Darling? It's like to jump off the table any minute and walk right up to you!

R & Z

Z. getting all the jello his heart desires.

The overalls and bandannas were as rednecky as I could come up with.

Now how about some redneck games?

Watermelon spitting contest, that's pretty innocent.

But wait! What else do they have in store for us?

How about bobbing for raw pig and chicken feet??

I told my kids "Don't even think about it."

They said "Don't worry, we won't!!"

Yes, indeed, those are real pig and chicken feet.

Yuck.

Now it's the Spam eating contest. Here's E. primly surveying her dish of Spam.

S, R and I had to move downwind to keep from gagging on the smell.

Made me think of that line in Ratatoullie (I'm sure I spelled that wrong.)

"Once you get past the gag reflex.."

Yum yum..

F. won. The poor thing. It took all my willpower not to leap across the table and beg her to stop.

"It's not worth it! I'll buy you a whole case of candy bars if you will stop!!!" Doesn't she look like she's about to cry? That was the first time my children have ever encountered Spam and I think they will be careful to give it a wide berth in the future.

But it was fun and (other than the Spam) the kids had a good time playing with their friends.

But I made sure F. had a bag or something in the car just incase that Spam decided to reappear...

Marbel asked where I get my information. Well, I guess it's time to confess-I am a talk radio junkie. In the morning I usually listen to the last hour or so of Laura Ingraham. Then my favorite host is on at 9:00, Dennis Prager. At noon is Michael Medved. I don't really usually listen to him because I'm usually busy schooling the boys around that time. At 3:00 is Hugh Hewitt and around then I'm making dinner so unless S. comadeers the radio to listen to the country station (She usually helps with dinner) I hear most of that one. So you see, I'm a hopeless case. She says to say she does listen to it if it's interesting.

But actually I don't listen to it all day because a lot of the time they are talking about things that don't interest me. But I really like to hear interviews. That is, I think, the best part. To get to hear them talking to people like Tony Snow, Mary Cheney or Sam Brownback.

Then if a certain topic does interest me (like after hearing Huckabee interviewed) I look up stuff on the townhall blogs. Or I ask the local political authority, Nathan, who is a wealth of information. Usually I just pick up bits and pieces along the way.

So that's what I do. I do not watch TV news at all. And I hardly read the local newspaper. World magazine is good too, though until recently I put off subscribing to it because it was a little expensive for us.

So, there it is.

And speaking of being glad that your daughter is a freak...(and I did ask her permission to share this. I think she's expecting royalties.)

Tonight we were all working in the kitchen (tons of blueberries to freeze. I have to make this quick.) and the country station was on the radio. There is a new song out about a guy who is rather mediocre in real life but takes on a different persona when he goes on line. So in describing himself in real life he says he is a bit overweight and mildly asthmatic and also says he's never been to 2nd base.

So S. (15yrs.) says "Well, that is pretty bad. Even I've been to 2nd base."

She thought he meant softball.

She couldn't understand why R. and I were laughing.

That's pretty good, aye?

All right you guys.

I see two issues here. No, three. One thing, the idea that Hilary is inevitable. I mentioned before I don't think she can get elected. The Clintons don't ALWAYS get what they want. So now here is one article "Republicans for Hilary" that talks about how other Republicans are hoping she'll get the Dem nomination as well. So I'm not the only one thinking along those lines. Also, here's a quote from John Hawkins at Townhall.

For example, in late June of this year, A Mason-Dixon poll showed that 52% of Americans and 60% of independents wouldn't consider voting for Hillary. Meanwhile, in that same poll, her disapproval rating was 42%, the highest of all the candidates, and her approval rating was only 39%.
These numbers would be bad news for any candidate, but they're particularly devastating for Hillary because the voters know her so well. Americans watched her in the White House for eight years and they've had a chance to look over her work as a high-profile Senator. Their conclusion? Hillary Clinton doesn't have what they want in a President.

And for further evidence...

As far as Hillary goes, I take some comfort in the fact that half the country already won't consider voting for her (see the link below), so her only chance of winning (if things remain as they do now) is a third-party candidate to split the "anti-hillary" voters into two manageable chunks. As charismatic and popular as her husband was, he only managed to get into the White House with 43% of the popular vote: the rest of the country was split between Bush Sr. (37%) & Perot (19%). Thus, Hillary's only prayer for success is if the GOP were to elect a socially liberal candidate (like Giuliani), prompting the true conservatives to vote for a third-party candidate who's more pro-life, anti-gay-marriage, etc. If she can get the Democrats united behind her (which, of course, she will) and keep the GOP split between two or more candidates, she can carry the country. - Nathan Dahlin

Of course that doesn't dispel any fear that we might get a Democrat for a president, but I don't think it will be Hilary. So we can stop feeling so pessimistic about her.

Now, the second thing is whether or not one wants to pay any attention anyway. You know we will have to pay attention. It's either now or later, but it will have to be done. We either pay attention during the election cycle in a positive way, supporting a good candidate (or at the very least one we can live with.)or we are forced to pay attention later when we're having to call the White House every other week because they are proposing legislation we can't live with. Does anyone remember HR6? Not to mention all the other trash that came through during the Clinton administration-I remember feeling like I was on the phone to the White House every other week.

Now the thing is, how do we prevent this from happening? Now if it strategically not good to support Huckabee, then that I can deal with.

But you know, we always complain, us Republicans, that our candidates aren't Republican enough. And I'm not even sure Huckabee is Republican enough for me. But I have heard him interviewed a couple times and he actually answers questions-just think of that! And he is for school choice, pro-life, wants victory in Iraq-not just cut and run...

And he did really well in the Ames Straw poll with out spending a ton of money. Mitt Romney did win it, but he spent a whole lot more money on it as well.

Now, maybe we should just throw our support behind Romney. If it looked like Romney and Guiliani were close and Huckabee was far behind then I would have to vote for Romney in the election. But while there is still time, if Huckabee (or Brownback) did get a presentable following it might communicate to the nomination winner that the Republican base will support them in more conservative leanings.

And how will we ever get good candidates if when they are there willing to run we give them a great big yawn and say they'll never make it? Do the dems treat their candidates this way?

OK, I'll stop scolding now. (S. says I probably don't have any friends left. *snif*)

But please, please, no more talk about Hilary being a shoo in for president. You'all are giving me nightmares.

Nobody is paying attention to the Rebublican presidential nomination race. I get that.

But think about it this way. We have 3 supposed front runners. McCain, who has had a lot of problems internally with his campaign, Guiliani who would lose the socially conservative base, and Romney, who seems the best of those 3. But not real exciting. Then there's Fred Thompson-does he actually plan to run or what? Then there are the real conservatives. The top of these seem to be Sam Brownback who is a very solid social consevative, Mike Huckabee whose statement on life on his site is as follows:

I support and have always supported passage of a constitutional amendment to protect the right to life. My convictions regarding the sanctity of life have always been clear and consistent, without equivocation or wavering. I believe that Roe v. Wade should be over-turned.

Well, that's pretty clear-aye?

The more I learn about Huckabee really, the more I like him. Now what if we actually did get involved on the primary level and got a real conservative voted for the nomination? Wouldn't that be grand?

We can't take Hilary lying down. Come on. One of these two. Lets pick one and go with it.

I love to sleep with my little babies. I love to hear their sighs in the night and to watch them sleep. They are so serious about it, as though this sleep was the most important thing in all the world.

Then they slowly wake up...

And it's time for mischief!

Well, Romney won the straw poll. No suprise there, I guess.

And Huckabee is 2nd, spending a whole lot less money, and Brownback 3rd..

And Ron Paul didn't do too bad either.

But Tommy Thompson's out.

And now we can argue about what it all means, or if it means anything. And wish for a crystal ball. At least I do. Though a friend has reassured me that I don't have to worry about Guiliani. So that's good news.

So, are you paying attention?

"Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you!" —Pericles (430 B.C.)

I stole that quote from a fine, upstanding, talented political star/nut. Yes, (for those of you who know) that would be Nathan. :)

Have you heard about the boys who were charged with s*x abuse because of slapping girls' behinds in the hall at school? Yesterday the charges were dismissed and now they have to face misdemeanor harassment charges.

What rot.

It makes me think of when I was a girl in 8th grade. There were a couple boys who had lockers near mine that made my life miserable. The pinched me every time they got a chance. I started taking as many books as I could to my classes in order not to go to my locker. It was humiliating and frustrating.

Fortunately for me (well, at least for this case.) I had a boyfriend who was older and bigger and I appealed to him. So he took the day of school (he was in a different school.) and had a heart to heart with these young men. All they needed was a little enlightenment and direction. They never touched me again and actually by the end of the year we were all reasonably friendly. Amazing what a little understanding can do.

But, as frustrated and embarrassed as I was, were they perverts? Not anymore than any other junior high boy. Should they have their lives ruined by it? Absolutely not. I wouldn't have wanted that then and I wouldn't now looking back. They just needed a little instruction and discipline so they could better manage their male type impulses.

So, here are a couple of young boys, growing into manhood. They are still very young. They live in this oversexed culture where the girls can wear whatever they want to school with no responsibility at all, grocery stores have the most shameful things sitting at the grocery counters, everywhere a person looks! But when a boy responds the way the larger culture is teaching him to look at girls he is stripped down and shamed before the whole community, thrown into jail, threatened with lifetime registry as a s*x offender, his parents get to accumulate legal bills that run up like a thermometer on a hot August afternoon. I feel so bad for these poor boys. Having your fanny slapped in the hall is nothing compared to the humiliation they have suffered.

What I really worry about these types of out of control cases is how these boys will see themselves. If you start to have this notion of "There's something wrong with me, there's something different about me" it seems to me that it can become a self full filling prophecy for them, that it could influence their thinking so that they do have trouble developing normally.

What rot. I hope this DA gets thrown out. You have to wonder how this would have turned out if it hadn't reached the media.

I get so angry at how this culture treats boys.

If you were voting in the Ames Straw Poll tomorrow, who would you vote for?

Well, not to try your patience, but I wanted to try one more time to try to figure out what I did wrong.

So, tell me if that works, okay? It will be the last time.

A couple of weeks ago I had all these blog posts in my head and now they are gone. All gone...I wish I had written them down. Some people seem to be really good at picking up a story here and there amidst the mundane. I'm just good at picking up Legos.

But last night at dinner I noticed all the kids on one side of the table were wearing blue shirts, and the other side was all red. I commented "Hey look, the Republican states and Democratic states!" S and F pointed across the table and said "I get that one for my blog!" We call that 'blogging fodder'. When ever there's a funny story or a news story that makes us mad we call out 'blogging fodder!'

So, that's my fodder for the day.

I changed the setting on the video from private to public on youtube. Could someone see if it works now for me? Thanks.

Roberta-If you can see, might that be your friends daughter in the frilly purple dress? S. thought maybe that was her.

Ahh..There we go. It's fuzzy, but, well..

Well, S. came home from her dance with the glow of a dance well enjoyed. She gets quite the snap in her eye after these affairs. I was right though, that she wouldn't get any pictures of herself. Why get pictures of yourself? She'd rather look at her friends. But some friends caught her with "Illegal Contraband". And snapped a picture to be used against her in a court of law.

As soon as you let them out of your sight they are into mischief. And there is no sense in denying it because the proof is in the can! Not exactly period either. Ah well..

I tried to figure out how to post a short video she made of the "Post Jig" but I can't get it over from Photobucket and YouTube seems to be having problems. Hopefully I'll figure it out later.

So here are some other pictures..
Just to get an idea of the costumes.

They had a pie baking contest. (S. got 2nd in the apple pie category.) Danced until 12:30, slept in tents, tried to cook breakfast over a campfire, and argued about the Union and the Confederates. Most of them are Confederates. But S. stood for the Union and was summarily executed. Rather brutal, wouldn't you say? She had no other Unionist to come to her rescue. Brave girl.

So, are you following the race for the Republican nomination? If Giuliani wins I will cry my eyes out.

Thanks for the sympathy friends. Today was a whole new day. Even though we woke up to cloudiness in our area, I felt a whole lot sunnier! Dh was back to normal and the thing that I tried to talk to him about cleared itself up in a way that I never expected. In a way I think the Lord showed His hand in it so I could know that it was Him and not me trying to fix things. And I can feel a little ashamed of myself for not trusting Him in it, but I am still so thankful!

I just hate it when I make mistakes. I always want to feel like I have done things the 'right' way. I have been so fearful of making mistakes in my life I end up doing nothing. I am trying to correct that, even if it only by trying a sewing pattern with a technique I haven't tried or venturing into a conversation with someone I haven't met (You really old friends, from my old blog, will know that is something.) It took me years to venture into doing a buttonhole! Isn't that funny?

I don't want my children to be afraid of making mistakes like I have been. I hope they don't inherit those perfectionistic tendencies. I hope they know I don't expect perfection, only that they receive correction and try their best. And be able to laugh at themselves.

Today I sent S. of to her Civil War dance. I didn't take pictures of her before she left because the camera was almost out of batteries and she wanted to take it with her. But I forgot to tell her to make sure someone takes a picture of her. Rats. She probably won't think of it. I hope she has as much fun as she's expecting.

I think the rest of us will have a LOTR night since we haven't watched it in a while.

And maybe I'll get to knit for a bit. I am trying to make a sweater for Babykins. Maybe if I work really hard I'll get it done for fall? But I'm making it a bit big, so it will fit him next year if not. I'm not very good at knitting, but it is soothing to clink, clink the needles together. Until a little boy climbs on my lap and makes me drop a stich.

What projects do you have going?

I admit I came to the computer today feeling really blue. A conversation I tried to have with DH last night did not go well, and I felt like I was to blame perhaps for even approaching it. Sometimes it's hard to know when you are giving wifely counsel or just plain second guessing. It seems like lately everything I do comes out skewed. I try to get these mini lap books printed off and I can't seem to get them lined up right. I have been cleaning house all week, determined to get it up to snuff and I tell ya, you can barely tell! And I have a doozy of a cold to boot. Mope, mope.

Sometimes It's hard to pull myself out of the heaviness that I feel over my failure. It's hard to get over being such an idiot. I must continue on because meals still have to be made, the boys have to learn to read, I can't just let things fall into chaos, and whether I agree with His choice or not, I can't deny that God has put me here. There are all these children about to remind me, ya know.

I tried reading my Bible, reading Oswald Chambers, kicking myself in the pants, yaddiyaddiyadda. S. seeing I wasn't feeling well (Sneezing and slobbering all over the place kind of clued her in.) Told me to go upstairs and blog while she makes pancakes. Gotta love the girl. But what to blog about.

What do you do when you're depressed?

Anyway, flitting about the internet trying to find something to help, I starting looking at some videos on YouTube. Sometimes music can find it's way to your heart when words just don't seem to help. And thanks to Amy, I think I can figure out how to put videos on this blog now! (Remember, explaining about html posting.)



Well, this is my theme for the day. I love Rich Mullins.

Off to have a good cry. Or clean the kitchen. One or the other...

I guess it has been a few days...Where have I been? Laundry, dishes, floors, bills, phonics, grocery shopping, doctor's appointment, diapers..You get the idea.

And besides! Everytime I get a spare moment (or at least pretend that I do) one of my kids is checking out facebook or something. How does a mom get a minute on the computer around here!

Oh dear. Now Hubby is home and dinner must be forth coming. I'll try to get back later.