Twinnovations

I love this word. It's the little things I hear or come up with to make life easier. (That's Twin Innovations, not twInnoations, which I think is some company owned by someone.) Anyway, today's highlighted twinnovation is prozak-- wait, no, snaps.

Snaps on baby clothes use to drive me nuts! Mainly 'cause no matter the age or stage of the baby, when you're trying to snap up the clothes, the baby some how gets away from you before you're done. But I discovered something about snaps that is so wonderful I just might never say anything bad about them ever again. 

I found that dressing my twins alike is a big life/time/sanity saver. But digging through a draw trying to find the matching onezy wasn't so time/sanity saving. So I've started sapping the matching outfits together. When Grandma Cilla saw what I was doing she pointed out I can wash them that way too. Tears of joy come to my eye when I think about snaps. Most baby clothes have them. So two onezies go into the wash together, come out together, go in the drawer together, come out together. Many mini tasks that use to be doubled 'cause I have twins have now morphed into something singular. (Let's all take a moment to admire my wording.)

Anyway, that is my Twinnovation for today. 

I just can't STAND it!!

I have a question for everyone:

What's you're pet peeve? That thing you can't stand! The thing that when it happens there's fingernails going down the blackboard of your soul and your hair stands on end and you want to scream and throw a mattress across the room. (Wow, what great imagery. I should be a writer. ;) ) 

Answer in the comments just below this blog. You don't have to register to comment. (Although, if you want to keep up with my blog by all means sign up as a follower! I'm leaving facebook so if you want to keep in touch with me and see pics and what not, this is the place to do it!)

I'll post one of my pet peeves here to get the ball rolling. 

I'd have to say, philosophically speaking, I'm my biggest pet peeve. When I prevent myself from doing something I have every right to do because I want to avoid the reaction of other people. Instead of taking an example from my own life I'll take one from my dad's. He won't eat in front of people at work because he hates to have people question what he's eating. (Although, seeing as he's been clogging his arteries, maybe they were just trying to save his life. J/K dad!) I talked this over with my husband the other day, this not wanting to be questioned pet peeve. He told me that people just want a reason. Once they have one they're satisfied and back off. 

But you see, I borrow a jack, as my mom says. I think "but what if I give them a reason and they don't like my reason. Then they tell me I should be doing this or that different and I have to back up my reason, even though it's none of their business and it's no skin off their back if I'm eating italian sausages with raman noodles and hot sauce and a side of boiled pickled eggs. Why can't they just accept it and move on?!" When really, people are more laid back that I tend to give them credit for. It's the "what if--" that will kill ya, you know. You can't live on what if's. You just have to live your life. If you're always afraid of a vague what if you won't live, you'll be hiding. Which is what I keep having to tell myself and it's what I keep not listening to and so I become my own pet peeve.

Oh, and I can't stand Celine Dion. Look, hun, if it hurts that bad to sing, do yourself (and us) a favor and stop doing it. 

What's your pet peeve?

Baby Signs!

So when you walk into someone's house and there's a play pen and you trip over a rubber ducky, that's a sure sign there's a baby in the house!

Also if you open and close your fist while you hand is by the side of your face, you've just made the sign for milk. (think of the milking a cow action)

That's what I'm talking about today, milking cows-- i mean baby signing. I'm finally getting serious about it. Oh, I'll sign their names once in a while (After all, we pick the name Bob in part because it's so fun to sign!!) and an I love you sign here and there. I can sign the words to Red, Red, Robin. But it's time to get with it so they can sign back. 

I found this website: http://www.signingbaby.com/main/

as well as this fantastic ASL dictionary: http://www.aslpro.com/cgi-bin/aslpro/aslpro.cgi

The first sight has a great article on getting started, and guess what age they recommend starting? 6 months!! I'm so excited!! I'm sure you can start sooner or later, but hey! I'm right on with something! Yea for me!

Ok, so they said to start with 3 to 12 signs in the categories of Needs and Fun. Every time you say the word, do the sign. Every time. EVERY TIME. Sign and say! (Did I emphasize that enough for ya? ;) )

Here's my lists:

Needs:

Milk

Sleep

Diaper

Fun!:

More/ Finished

Laptop

Dog

I'm also throwing in family names and words I already use all the time with them:

(Twin) Brother

Mommy/Daddy

Grandma Joyce/ Grandpa Doug

Grandma Karen/ Grandpa Sam

Uncle/ Aunt

This is going to be so much fun!! Looking at the ASl dictionary, I got really excited. I forgot how much fun I have with ASL. So if you see me around, don't be surprised if I'm talking my hands off!

=^.,.^= 

Ghost of the Navigator

Ever see a movie title, thought it was about something, then when you watched it, it was about something completely different? 

So if I tell you I want to write a short story called "Ghost of the Navigator" what would you expect it to be about? What images come to mind? Would you expect a sci-fi thriller? Literary fiction? Comedy? Romance? Something else? 

I'm putting up a poll, so you tell me! What is this story about? 

Hmmm...?

I've blogged about this before, and I'll probably get my knickers in a bunch someday and blog about it again. Despite that, I'm going to blog about fwd's now. 

In their very nature they are thoughtless. But the one I just received was even more so IMHO. The thing is, this is one of those rare cases where the story is true, to a point. There was a letter to the editor complaining about a fly-by of F-16's one morning. There followed two responses on the matter explaining that the fly-by was part of a memorial service. What the fwd fails to do, is also tell the end of the story. The apology that followed. I'd cut and paste it, but to avoid any copyright that may be in place I'll post the link to the site and hope my readers will go read it.  http://www.snopes.com/politics/military/wakeup.asp 

I don't take issue with the story, it's a good story, and I think Tom McRae showed a lot of class in apologizing. Personally, I think he ought to be forgiven and not have this story circulate as it does for everyone to ridicule him, even if his name doesn't appear on the email.  It's a pretty crumby thing to rub someone's nose in something after they offered a heart felt apology. 

It's also pretty crumby to miss quote someone, or, as in this case, put words in someone's mouth. The tag line "Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you....Jesus Christ and the American Soldier. One died for your soul, the other for your freedom." was no where in the original letters to the editor. No one said it. Well, I suppose some well meaning person thought it sounded good and would raise emotion in the readers, so they slipped it in, but what right had they to do so? 

The real thing that bothered me was that the fwd I received also had tagged on to the end some pictures and it said the way phones should be answered in the USA is press one for english, or hung up until you learn to speak english. I know it's a sentiment shared by many people in the US. But it was followed by a picture of Christ. Now you tell me, would that be Christ's attitude? Sorry, I won't talk to you, because you don't speak english in America. (I wonder if the Brits find it truly ironic that we harp on people to speak a language that was theirs before it was ours.) I don't think we should jump to the conclusion that just because we may be offended by someone's presence in our country that God would be also. 

As a writer I know that there are tricks writers use to invoke the response they want from their readers. One of them is the old propaganda ploy of God and Country. It does cause a big stir in people. But a writer who is using this, also has a reason to do so. So what was the reason behind this particular quote in this particular fwd?

To keep is going. Keep fwding it. "Wow, everyone should see this!" That's what they want. Did you ever stop and think what these fwd's are really for? They're actually quite malicious. They are a form of virus. Not the kind that infests your computer, but the kind that clog up servers. As they get passed along they get bigger and bigger and take up more and more space. Some started just to see how long they would circulate. Now I'm not saying some malicious person start THIS email, but any that followed in the same pattern achieves the same malicious goal.

Also there has been some speculation that spamers will harvest the lists of email addresses from fwds. This would mean if you get a fwd from someone, your email addy is on it, you're at risk for spam. I haven't been able to confirm this, but I will soon and let you know what I find out. Still the idea that my email address is floating out there makes me uneasy. I really am trying to avoid a past that was pretty scary for me. 

So here's a few tips when fwding. 

1) Delete all lists of previous receivers. This will make the message smaller.

2) Instead of putting the email address of those you want to fwd the message to in the "To:" field, put them in the BCC field. This is blind carbon copy, which means I'll know you sent it to other people when I receive it, but I won't know who. This respects the privacy of your friends. 

=^.,.^=

Pooped

I mean that in the "boy am I pooped!" since and not the "boy you should have seen the size of that thing I just pooped!" The day seem to start later than it should, and even though there is next to no traffic in Page, when I went out with my dad to run some errands, I managed to get stuck in traffic. So it was about 5 pm when we finally got back, having only complete a fistful of our tasks. Now I am, once again, stuck under babies and my cell phone is dead. Who knew all this technology around us that was designed to give us more time (to do heaven only knows what!) would suck away half our day. 

It's like that book "Momo" by Michael Ende (same man that wrote The Neverending Story). It's not like all this time we save can be stored in some time bank somewhere and withdrawn later. He compares each hour to a flower that is different than any other hour and will only exists once, therefore must be cherished. Good stuff. "More speed, less haste." Splendid work!

I mean, save time for what? Seems like people use had time to darn socks. I never have time to find socks, let alone darn them! I guess if I don't know what I'm going to use the extra time for, I may as well spend it now on visiting with a friend, or doing one of those "I always wanted to do that!" things. 

Since I'm stuck, I'm going to write a short story that's been rattling in my skull.

Luv ya!

=^.,.^=

A sad day for us all...

I know it's going to be hard, but on this day we must all pull together for support. As we eat the last of the pies for breakfast, and put away our calculators, and set aside the debates of wether or not the thousandths place digit is 1 or 5 so you can get the banner just right for when the guests arrive, we let another Pi day come to a close. 

It's the hardest time of the year, after all the waiting and preparation and anticipation, then *bam! It's the next day and it's all over and it feels as though we have nothing to show for it but some left over pie. And all you have to look forward to is dieting. 

I can't help but ask, Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we let all the commercialism crowd in on Pi day? Have we forgotten the true meaning of March 14th? A celebration of Pi, the coolest constant of them all? Next year as we decided wither or not to bake the pie from scratch or just go to the bakery 'cause who has time to bake pies, let us take a moment and reflect on 3.14159265358979323846….