But something shifted over the last several months. I finally gave “Bones” more than just a passing glance (admittedly, I wrote off Boreanaz as not being able to pull of anything other than moody vampire named Angel) and quickly found myself absolutely addicted to it. If it weren’t for my addiction and TNT running reruns almost every night I might not have been clued into my latest viewing addiction, Memphis Beat. I have yet to miss an episode.

I just have to say, again, that if you haven’t caught “Memphis Beat” on TNT (Tuesdays!!!) you are seriously missing out. I think it’s probably one of the best new shows out there. I love the dry humor and I think Jason Lee is definitely at his best here.

I have a love-hate relationship going with Lieutenant Tanya Rice played by Alfre Woodard. I find the character hypocritical and a tad annoying. Mike thinks it’s funny that I’m that annoyed by a character. Mike and I both couldn’t figure out what else we had seen Alfre Woodard in… so I checked IMDB.Com (although, for the record I had a sneaking suspicion and I was RIGHT!) and found that she played Grace, Bill Murray’s secretary in “Scrooged” which is a huge family favorite!

But, Memphis Beat seems to be riddled with faces you have seen in other places. Abraham Benrubi is easily recognizable from ER, Twister, and Open Range; one of Mike’s favorite westerns, I have to admit, I love it too. Those of us *cough* *cough* old enough to remember “Hardcastle and McCormick” will instantly recognize Daniel Hugh Kelly playing the questionable boyfriend of Dwight Hendricks’ (Jason Lee) mother.

Mike was with me from the start of this one, but I’ve even managed to rope Katie and Ethan into it as well. Between the great characters and the really awesome soundtrack, Memphis Beat was just a really easy show for me to totally fall for.

Still not sure? Have a peek at my favorite beginning to an episode so far…
It’s here at YouTube from the Episode “Run On” for some idiot reason the person who posted the video has it as “I Thank You” by Bonnie Raitt. It’s not, they use the original version by Sam?? and Dave – I Thank You. Although, ZZ Top did a remake of the song that is pretty kick ass as well.

That being said, I am both baffled and annoyed at the responses to her decision that basically act as if by no longer claiming a religion (let us all remember that RELIGION is a MAN-MADE concept) that she is somehow no longer a spiritual being engaged in a very real relationship with something greater than herself.

I suppose I’m a little offended as well because even though I have never come right out and said it – I walked away from mainstream Christianity a long time ago. By “mainstream” I mean the version of Christianity that feels the need to engage in political endeavors and send out the memos “this is who we judge and dislike this week” and “this is what we are voting for next week.”

Sadly, I’ve been accused (by very small-minded and ignorant people) of “hating God” and being an Atheist to just about everything and anything in between. Neither are true. I take aspects of all sorts of spiritual beliefs and own them as my own personal spiritual truths. I lay no claim to any label and I certainly don’t condemn or judge you if you elect to label yourself in any way or profess yourself to be a member of any religion or other organization. I respect your right to choose what is best for you, it would be nice if everyone felt that way and gave that same respect to others. Your beliefs should decide your actions and behavior they should not decide the actions and behaviors of others.

Believe it or not, I have friends who are Christian, friends who are Catholic, friends who are Mormon, and friends who are Buddhist and I have friends who fall into every other sort of religious category you can think of. They are all still wonderful people and I enjoy their friendship even if we don’t show up at the same place on Sunday, hold hands and sing Kumbaya. I don’t really entertain political discussions with them but I like to believe that my friends, regardless of religious affiliation, do not vote in ways that would bring about laws forcing people to abide by the religious beliefs of someone else.

After all, we all have our own paths and we are all going to meet our maker someday, it’s not up to any one human being to decide what the outcome of that meeting will be. But, by all means, please conduct your own personal behavior based on whatever version of events you believe will happen once you hit the pearly gates – that is certainly your right and I will respect it as long as you don’t attempt to rob others of their own free will by forcing your beliefs on them.

My personal truth, is that I am communing with God and feel closer to Him (or Her, if you will) when I am sitting in the middle of a forest filled with the nature He created. I feel closer to Him when I am listening to music that pleases my soul and touches me on a level that nothing else can. And, I even feel closer to Him weeding my yard and listening to the hum of bees and watching the birds and butterflies than I ever have in a man-made church.

And, regardless of your thoughts or opinions or the thoughts of opinions of any pastor, priest, or rabbi… I can have that relationship with God or the Universe or whatever else anyone wants to call Him/Her regardless of whether or not I am a member of a church or any specific religion. My spirituality is not up for your discernment… and neither is the spirituality of anyone else.

You know what most of this comes down to? If we all just tended to the weeds in our own yard instead of worrying about the weeds in someone else’s yard – at the end of the day – you are really only held responsible for your own yard not your neighbor’s.

After all… “Code Enforcement” (or God, if you will) isn’t going to fine you because your neighbor has a yard full of crabgrass and stinging nettle. The problem is that when we worry so much about other people’s “weeds” we overlook the weed creeping up in the crack of our driveway or in the sidewalk right in front of our house. It’s funny how it works out that way 100% of the time.

So, while I apologize for this lengthy diatribe, I won’t and can’t apologize for having a relationship with God outside any label, church, or man-made organization.

http://brianmclaren.net/archives/blog/my-take-why-i-support-anne-rice.html
http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2010/08/08/im_staying_a_christian/index.html

This weekend was warm, but only in the mid-90′s which is what we call “nice” around here in July. I can’t remember another weekend this summer that has gone by so quickly. The house was relatively quiet (if you don’t count the constant hum and and drone of fans) we didn’t have loads of errands to run and we managed to get in a little fun as well.

Saturday we took Maggie out to Insect Lore in Shafter. It’s a really cute place with lots of great bug displays including lots of live insects. They also have a lot of great educational toys and gifts. Maggie went home with an ant farm and a “bug vacuum” for sucking up bugs so you can study them and hopefully release them before you fall asleep so your mother doesn’t have to. Ahem. ANYway…

I love summer and having the kids home but I am also eagerly awaiting the return of fall and winter. I prefer the cooler temps and the cozy holidays to the sweltering heat of summer, bugs, and the loud, noisy holidays. I prefer the cozy socializing in winter as opposed to the swatting of flies and talking over the fans socializing of summer.

Although, I have to admit I do like that summer is the best time to find all the great Christmas decorations (read: cheap) on Ebay. And, I think this Christmas I might actually try to make a Christmas Pudding so I’m on the lookout for an authentic Christmas Pudding tin and maybe a recipe for a chocolate version of Christmas Pudding. Last Christmas when I got the brilliant idea to try it out I found that the prices jumped up dramatically around November and December. I’m going to start snooping around far earlier than that this year!

Every once in a while we decide to change up our holiday menu. There are just some traditional recipes that we can’t do without, home made cranberry sauce, cornbread dressing, and my Christmas Ham. But, beyond that we like to vary things from time to time. One year it was a leg of lamb, another year it was a prime rib. This year Mike and I are considering duck or a goose for Christmas. So if you have any good goose (or duck) recipes, please pass them along!

Long gone are the days when celebrities had carefully scripted answers and pre-screened interview questions. Not that the pre-screening thing doesn’t go on, I suppose what I am getting at is the Hollywood machine of the “golden age” of Hollywood is long gone. The inclusion of Twitter into the mainstream media means that we are now privy to the every thought, blink, and bikini wax of almost every celebrity out there.

Whether it’s the idiotic confessions of Amanda Bynes or tweets of the not-so brainiac Miley Cyrus, or the back and forth of on and off again Lindsey Lohan and Samantha Ronson – it’s all out there for us to see first hand. No publicist acting as a filter, no major studio carefully micromanaging the image of their stars. It’s plainly obvious that many of these celebrities don’t spell check let alone blink once or twice before clicking the send button on their IPhone.

That’s not a blanket indictment of all celebrities. Granted some of them actually have some intelligent, well thought out, and properly spelled thoughts that they send out occasionally. Ashton Kutcher’s picture of his wife’s bikini covered ass obviously not included.

Now that we are no longer restricted to careful photo ops and well planned interviews used to carefully sculpt a celebrity image – I’m curious as to how much this impacts your desire to see these actors in movies or on television?

I admit that I continue to watch Bones regardless of David Boreanaz’s marital and fidelity issues. I really couldn’t care less about Tiger Woods. The Jesse James and Sandra Bullock fiasco? Well, come on… who doesn’t love Sandra Bullock and of course feel badly for her. BUT! The big note here? You don’t see her spilling her guts on Twitter or she and Jesse arguing back and forth in tweets aimed at one another, do you? Maybe that’s why there is a bit more sympathy for them? Regardless of porn stars and nazi pictures – the aftermath has shown the two of them as having more class simply because they kept their traps shut for the most part – minus, of course, well crafted public statements.

And, Twitter aside, the recently released abusive rants of Mel Gibson have certainly impacted my desire to see him even in movies that I used to absolutely love. I can’t count the number of times I’ve watched Lethal Weapon (all of them) or What Women Want. Now I can’t imagine sitting through two hours of Mr. Gibson’s charming characters without hearing his demands for sexual favors, threats, or abusive tirades that have been aired on numerous websites and news shows.

There was a time when movie studios protected the image of their stars. Now we all know that they didn’t protect the well-being of their stars (ie. Judy Garland) but Louis B. Mayer certainly knew that an impressive profit margin was practically guaranteed when the public was convinced that the movie star was a devoted family man or cute, perky, happily married, adoring mother.

Perhaps the Hollywood machine has become more of a meat grinder with the smarter, more talented stars capable of seeing that their image is a career asset (Sandra Bullock is a great example) and thus take the extra effort to carefully protect it. While other less talented actors are really a dime a dozen so if they completely screw up the public’s view of them (Lindsay Lohan) there are literally thousands of leggy, pretty, petite victims to willingly take their place.

So tell me, has the “newer version” of the Hollywood machine impacted your opinion of these people enough to affect the amount of money you spend on purchasing DVDs, movie tickets, or just the time you spend watching them?

I can honestly say that in the case of Mel Gibson – it definitely has mine.

More than anything I hate moving. Doesn’t matter if I have a moving checklist or or a well organized plan, I hate moving. It’s always a huge undertaking that requires boxes, newspapers, and eating loads of take out while living on a skeleton version of your former household both at the old place and the new.

I’m not sure that moving to some place I was excited to move to like a new house, city (New York City Movers), etc. would ease that at all. Since my last move into our current home (and I have no intention of moving ANY time soon or even in the foreseeable future) I have discovered FlyLady.Net and have slowly brought my household into a more organized status. Which means that a move wouldn’t be as tough to handle. There would be no fear of losing important documents, misplacing necessary items, etc.

I have all of our important papers carefully filed and organized into one filing box. Everything is kept in there from birth certificates to immunization records. Carefully labeled and filed accordingly. Whereas before some might be in a special folder in this drawer and filing cabinet there. It has all been condensed down to one, easily accessible place.

While I’m not into keeping it super simple and kept to the minimum amount of necessities, I’ve also pared down my stuff tremendously. I’m perpetually cleaning things out, getting rid of excess and dumping unnecessary junk. I love doing that during the summer when the kids aren’t in school so I have extra help. Instead of “spring cleaning” we summer clean because once you get so far into summer it’s too hot do much outside. Besides, as every mother knows by the end of June you start to hear the “I’m bored” chant anyway and a few projects tend to keep my kids from complaining about boredom, mostly out of fear that mom will come up with a new project.

I’m not totally into living a bare minimum, simplistic existence, but I do like having spare storage space and keeping the dust bunnies at bay. I accumulate things, but I usually make it my standard rule of thumb to get rid of the old before I bring something new in, although there are always exceptions to that rule, too.

BTW, I have a few summer links you might want to check out:

Most kids lose 20% of what they learned in a regular school year over summer vacation. I don’t like the idea of summer school, but I’ve found some killer alternatives online that have kept Maggie semi-fooled into thinking she’s just playing games online while keeping all of her skills up. IXL Math and FunBrain.

If you are looking for ways to save money and great deals online there’s Billy Savings Club. Which is worth the click to the site for the animated Billy which I think is pretty cute/funny.

One of the best things that people with pools can do is to have a Pool Fence installed around the perimeter of the pool with an alarmed gate attached. A home security alarm by adt on the gate will prevent small children from entering the pool area without sounding off an alarm that notifies the police and the home owner. This alarm will send the police to the home right away so there is a very short time period for the child to be able to get to into the water and have any possible dangerous water accidents.

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The above content was a guest post written by Karol Taylor.

I would like to add that recently my kids were at my dad’s house. My dad has built pools my entire life. He’s also committed to being up-to-date, constantly, on all current safety codes, requirements, and products. Almost all swimming pool accidents are totally avoidable. Not only does my dad take all necessary precautions outside but he also has his entire house set up with alarms on every door. When he hears a ding – he immediately looks around to make sure that none of the little kids are outside unsupervised. It gives me tremendous peace of mind knowing I don’t have to worry about my kids (mostly Maggie) and the pool when they are spending time with their grandparents.

In short, just another day in the crap mill known as the media. What bothered me most is that somewhere deep down in all the nasty, superficial, inconsequential headlines I found the briefest, tiniest article of all…

Taliban Executes 7-Year-Old Boy

No one, apparently, is immune from the Taliban’s extremism: CNN reports that persons believed to be Taliban militants executed on Tuesday a 7-year-old boy in Afghanistan who was accused of spying. The execution took place in Helmand province, and Afghan President Hamid Karzai addressed the report on Thursday: “I don’t think there’s a crime bigger than that that even the most inhuman forces on earth can commit,” he said. “A 7-year-old boy cannot be a spy. A 7-year-old boy cannot be anything but a 7-year-old boy, and therefore hanging or shooting to kill a 7-year-old boy … is a crime against humanity.”

Pages and pages written on Fiorina insulting Barbara Boxer’s hair and only one small paragraph about the murder of a 7 year old boy.

And that? Bothered me. A lot. For all the reasons that probably a million other bloggers have already written about probably far better than I.

Okay, his photo caption wasn’t that bad. But, the text messages were.

Obviously, they had a really good time. And, of course, they brought back souvenirs for everyone which are always welcome. Tie dye shirts for the kids, some spices for Mike, and for me?

That’s right. “It’s 5 O’Clock Somewhere…” it’s sort of our thing, dad and I. At least it’s the excuse we use when the tequila comes out before 5pm.

We didn’t get them anything. They went on a CRUISE! When you buy yourself a cruise for your anniversary it’s safe to say you aren’t getting any other gifts because no one is going to be able to top a freakin’ cruise!

Maybe my family is strange, but we have never really been into giving gifts for anniversaries. I’ve heard about the “paper anniversary” or the “golden anniversary” but unless it was some big deal “50th Anniversary” party, our family has never really given gifts for anniversaries. Although, my stepmom is awesome at remembering our (Mike and I) anniversary and we get a card from them every year, which is very sweet and very much appreciated!

Considering that 1 in every 2 marriages end in divorce, I’m guessing that there aren’t very many of us who ponder the question, “what would make good anniversary gifts for mom and dad? A new blender? Family portrait? Something made out of aluminum? Stock gifts?”

Of course, in the midst of “two houses – two Christmases, two birthdays, two Easters…” that kids list as benefits to divorced parents, you don’t exactly hear the kids saying, “Wow, we are going to save a bundle on anniversary gifts! I’m not going to have to buy one share of stock and then figure out how to wrap it!”

Long story short, we’ve just never given gifts for anniversaries and certainly don’t expect to receive gifts on our anniversary. Hell, around our house we don’t even expect peace and quiet on our anniversary unless we pay for peace and quiet somewhere hundreds of miles away.

Then you have those people who renew their vows. I think that is a great concept but I’ve known people who have taken it a bit far. Mike and I once knew a couple who not only renewed their vows but actually registered for gifts. See, I think that’s tacky. Wedding gifts traditionally are for two people coming together and forming their own household and duh, to celebrate the union, etc. But if you are renewing your vows, it’s safe to say you already have a household all set up and if you want to throw a party to celebrate your union… I guess that’s what a renewal is… but to register for gifts? Hmmm, seems a tad tacky to me. That’s like Michelle Duggar having a baby shower every time she gets pregnant!

Can you say “overkill”?

Happy Easter!

Re-Post of Sheila’s original post below:

An old friend of mine emailed me for help. I’m trying to get the word out. I apoligize if you’ve been accidentally attacked by me with this message, but I feel its worth the effort. Please pass along this information as you choose:

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A month ago, I took a new job with Marine Parents, a non-profit, organization that supports families before, during, and after their Marine’s time of service. If you can imagine, I was pretty relieved to not have to roll burritos anymore, and be doing something more geared towards my writing background; however, as soon as I walked in the door, I became responsible for a $250,000 Pepsi Refresh Grant. Eek!

Pepsi is currently using the money it would have used to pay for commercials during the Super Bowl to fund ideas that help our neighbors, communities, and environment through grants. Only one thousand applicants for the grants are allowed in each month, and once they are accepted byPepsi they are widdled down even further by the votes of the public. In total, 32 ideas of the orginal 1,000 receive funding per month. Of those 32, only 2 receive the $250,000 grant.

Marine Parents has entered its Purple Heart Family Support outreach program which supportsPurple Heart servicemembers and their families into the Pepsi Grant competition with hope to expand the program. Purple Heart Family Support, a volunteer-based initiative, serves meals to Wounded Warriors and their families during the weekends when hospital cafeterias are closed leaving them with limited meal options. Due to current funding, we have only been able to serve two monthly meals at Bethesda Naval Hospital and at the Wounded Warrior Barracks in Balboa, California. With the Pepsi Grant we will be able to turn our 200 meals a year served in 2 hospitals into 20,000 meals served a year in 4 hospitals.

We have been accepted by Pepsi, but now we need your help! Voting begins tonight, March 31st, 11:59 EST/ 10:59 CT/ 8:59 PST, at http://www.refresheverything.com/marineparents and will continue through April 30th. So if you are going to be awake, vote for us then! In the past, ideas that started in the top, ended in the top. So we want to make sure that we are there from the get go so that we can help more Purple Heart service men and women and their families. If you would like more information about Purple Heart Family Support visit www.purpleheartfamilies.com. If you would like more information about how to vote and what we will be doing with the grant visit www.purpleheartfamilies.com/pepsi.

Please forward this on to anyone you know who would be interested in supporting Purple Heart service members and their families! And remember to vote tonight at 11:00 PM central time! A vote a day refreshes Purple Hearts the Pepsi Way!

A lovely box was delivered:

My birthday present from Chickie!

Chickie and I have one of those co-dependent relationships. I support and enable her love of tequila and folk art and she has me completely addicted to all things of a bathtub nature!

See that shot glass there? I’m thinking of bringing it to Vegas in March when we meet Kari, Chickie, and Chickie’s Sweety. I’m so beyond stoked!

So let’s see… birthday check list:

Bells and whistles for the perfect birthday bath – check
Wine – check

What’s missing?

Oh, that’s right. Have you signed the reverse HVCC petition yet?

If you love me at all and want me to have a happy birthday – PLEASE sign this petition. When you realize that HVCC was started by an AG with a vested interest in an AMC (Appraisal Management Company – these are the companies who are holding down real estate value by providing less than ethical and accurate real estate appraisals) AND that it has taken LESS time to ENACT HVCC than it has to actually bring any of the jackasses who committed mortgage fraud to trial – then you will see that HVCC benefits few, screws over homeowners and potential homebuyers AND is putting MANY small, ethical businesses OUT of business.

Please do your part… sign the petition today.