I'm Back!

I spent Christmas with my in-laws in California. It was a fabulous time but I am so glad to be home again.

For Christmas Z and M, my BFF's girls,



















got Rock Band for PS3. I was a little disappointed that it was not Dance Dance Revolution (which I will immediately stop and add three shiny quarters to if I come across it in any of my travels) however, after 5 minutes of playing it, I fell in love.

This game comes with a drum set, guitar and mike. You can hook up a second guitar for four-player. Basically you are in a band and you tour the world playing hit songs from the 70's to now, anything from punk to heavy metal. A lot of the music is grunge from the 90's like Nirvana and Weezer, which is what I grew up on. You gain roadies. You get a manager. You get money. You pretty much get everything you would if you were a real rock band.

Now to give you a little background, my Dad owned a video arcade for the first 18 years of my life. So I became very diverse and good in my video game knowledge at a very young age. At the age of 9, I was top ranked player on Street Fighter (alyougon!) and pinball. Nobody could beat me. It was definitely a money maker for my Dad because people would pile tons of money into his games to try to beat the owner's kid. Let me tell you, I had the best boy/girl birthday parties. All the boys wanted to come to my birthday party...until they found out I was better at video games than they were...

I kind of got burned out of video games by the age of 16. You'd think I'd be a video game junkie but I really hardly ever play. I like Tetris and Myst but I'll play maybe once a year....unless it's Dance Dance Revolution :)

I stayed up until midnight, playing Rock Band with Scooterboy for 5 1/2 hours. He had to be up the next morning by 4:30, I had to be up by 6:00 for work. There's just something about a crowd screaming your name and cheering for you. This game is awesome. This game will consume my life. I have achieved every little girls' dream. I. am. a ROCK STAR! Last night we played for 7 hours straight. My voice was gone by the end of the night. I rocked out the drums so hard that this morning when I woke up my arms were sore. I played the guitar until my fingers bled...okay, I'm exaggerating...but seriously...

Of course the kids have had maybe an hour of playing time....we wouldn't want them to fill their brains with nonsense.

Merry Christmas!

I thought I'd extend an early Merry Christmas to you all. I would like to share with you a wonderful article that just truely hit home with me. Blesssings and enjoy!

The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary.

My confession:

I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are: Christmas trees.

It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, "Merry Christmas" to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu. If people want a church, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica and we aren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we knew went to.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking.

Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her "How could God let something like this happen?" (regarding Katrina) Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, "I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives.

And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?"

In light of recent events...terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found recently) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he's talking about. And we said OK.

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.
Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with "WE REAP WHAT WE SOW."

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

My Best Regards. Honestly and respectfully,
Ben Stein

Let me tell you all about my weekend:

I am a crafter. So for our staff Christmas party I made a set of coasters that went over really well. The girls at work loved them so much that I go three orders the next day. I was so excited to go home and start on them, but I had to make a stop at the local Joann's to pick up some more wood blocks and boxes. I needed a total of 12 blocks for the coasters and 3 boxes to house them.

I rushed in to Joann's forgetting that when I got the first set I had taken all but one of the blocks. The one block was still there but there was only one box. So then I ran to Michael's thinking that they'd have some because they usually cary more wood crafts than Joann's. Michael's didn't have any either.


Directly across the streat from Michael's is my least favorite store in the whole-wide world...Walmart. I don't like this store for many reasons, mostly because they treat their employees really bad (statistically they have the most percentage of employees on state assistance, more than any other company in the U.S. because instead of giving their employees full time work, raises, or promotions, they advise them to get on state assistance) but secondly it's because it is the National Where-to-go-to-beat-your-kid Capitol of the World. It never fails me to go into Walmart and see a parent disciplining their child and/or yelling at their spouse.

At this point I was kind of tired of running around to store after store so I decided I'd take a quick trip to the place I have nick-named Devil-Mart, thinking that they might have something along the lines of what I needed. I found several, but not enough coasters.

Still on the hunt to find the coasters which I was once excited about, now cursing about, I knew my Mom would be coming up to visit and that I would have to take her home. Because I had my best luck at Devil-Mart, I knew that on my way to take my mom home there would be two more Devil-Marts, one Michael's and at least one Joann's. Worst case scenerio I would have to go to all stores searching for the coasters/boxes, but I was certain I would complete my list at the first stop.

First stop: Devil-mart. No luck

Second stop: Devil-mart. Some luck

Third stop: Michaels. Mission accomplished but then I realised I forgot to pick up something at Joann's I had been planning on doing for another Christmas present, so the day was not over.

Fourth stop, no food since 7 a.m. (and it was a not-so-filling scone at that), going on 6 hours of sleep, now being 4:30 p.m., very shaky and pissy: Joann's. I find what I need, get to the counter to check out, ask the cashier if there were any extra 50% off coupons left over from the day, when she says, "No but you can go get the Sunday paper if you'd like because there's a coupon in there valid for today."I replied with, "No that's okay." She persisted, "Are you sure? I'm sure we won't run out of the item (yeah right, with my luck?) if you would like to go grab a paper?" Finally after several no thank you's I replied, "I've been to three Walmart's, Joann's three times, and two different Michael's, I'm hungry because I haven't eaten since 7 a.m., I'm tired because I woke up at 5:00 a.m., I have been driving all over through 4 different counties to try to find these silly blocks of wood for these silly coasters that I was once excited about making and saving $6.00 really, truely, isn't worth it to me right now but thank you for asking."

We were just laughing histerically.

I'm So Pretty

I knew going into National Blog Month that I would, out of the three of us, inevitably loose the challenge of posting every single day for a month. I have no excuses except for the fact that I lost all motivation, inspiration and creativity the last week of November. I was in the lead for quite some time however slowly but surely I fell behind and couldn't catch up.

Luckily the day I had to pay up my deeds of frolicking in the street while singing "I'm so pretty, oh so pretty..." it snowed. It was the first snow fall of the year. So I was happy to do whatever anyone asked me to as long as I was outside... in the snow.

Thus, you have me singing and frolicking to the song from West Side Story, "I'm so pretty, oh so pretty, I'm so pretty and witty and gay:"


Oh yeah, AJ made me wear shorts and her cheerleading t-shirt from 1997. Luckily I was allowed to be in my Fargo Hat and Ugs while participating in this solo-event.