austrya

I rely on you guys for my Detroit news. I haven't watched a local station in ages.

Not really history, more like a memoir. She talks about what daily life was like on a farm and what kinds of things they did for fun and stuff like that. She includes some recipes and some home remedy type things. I thought it was interesting, but then again, I'm a huge nerd.

Just finished:

No, you have the Blizzard thing all wrong. The Thin Mint Cookie Blizzard is where it's at. Oh, and I've never even been to Starbucks, but then again, I don't like coffee.

I was just thinking the same thing.

I'm waiting...

A Prayer for Owen Meany at #73? For real? I would have thought that would be much higher, but we are talking about EW...

Sounds like some type of baby house spiders. I'm sure they're harmless, but I'm not sure how to get rid of them short of spraying some sort of pesticide. Maybe suck them up in your vaccum or something? We had baby spiders hatch in our backyard last summer, but ours were black. This is what our backyard looked like:

I would so totally play wiffle ball if I had enough people to play. We used to play in high school and I was over 12. Some of my friends organized a kickball game at a local park a couple weeks ago. That lady probably would have flipped her lid to see a bunch of 30+ year old people playing kickball.

Grown ups are such a pain in the ass sometimes.

Jay and I have our 15 year reunion next month. We went to the same high school and hung out with the same friends. We still hang out with most of them as we still live in the same town. It will be neat to see what some of the people are up to these days.

This thread can't be over until abortion and gay marriage get brought up. Carry on...

I haven't been creative in ages. I really need a project to work on. Maybe I'll walk up to the yarn shop tomorrow for some yarn.

I wouldn't hold your breath either. Last time the price of oil was down, gas prices still went up. I don't understand how it all works...

One thing that I don't like about some public schools, besides the No Child Left Behind, is that they seem to teach one way and that's it. At least that's been the experience we've had with my 10 year old. He was having problems with math and since Jay is the mathamagician, he showed him a different way to do the problems and Austin got it right away. Jay sent a note to the teacher asking if Austin could bring his book home the next day so they could work on it more and she sent a note back that said "Thanks, but no thanks. He needs to learn it the way we teach it, not your way." In 3

Montessori works well for certain kids and not for others. My oldest went to a montessori preschool for a while and did really great there. He has a certain learning style that really comes out in a montessori environment. My now 6 year old would never have made it in montessori, he needs the structure and direction of a traditional system.

When my kids were in day care, we had their aunt watching them and even that was expensive. With 4 kids, all in day care, it's more cost effective for me to stay home...

I hate that they don't give out trophies to the first place teams around here anymore. Every kid just gets the same generic medal that says "Clinton Soccer" or whatever. Everyone is so afraid of making someone be better than the rest because they're afraid it will hurt someone's feelings. Sometimes those feelings need to get hurt so kids know how to deal with it. Plus, it kind of sucks that the kids don't have trophies to decorate their rooms with. They could care less about the medals. Everyone else has one too. What's cool about that?

You know, I think a lot of parents should have to read that speech too. It drives me crazy when a kid doesn't make the team and mom and dad have to bitch and complain to the coaches until the coaches just get sick of listening to it and put the kid on the team to shut the parents up. Kids need to know what it's like to fail. They need to know that if they want to make it, they need to work hard and not just depend on mom and dad to get them in.

We try not to cuss in front of the kids, but sometimes we do it on purpose because their reaction is just too funny. My kids love Ferris Bueller too. I figure that I watched those movies when I was around 10 or 11 and I turned out ok. I still won't cuss in front of my mom.

My kids thought that part was funny. They also liked how the junkyard dog was told to "sick balls" I don't think hearing the word balls gets old with boys. Ever.

Jay and I still have to buy ours to mail out to our matches. We are a little slow, but we'll do it this week.

We just got done watching Stand By Me. I love that movie. I even let my 6 and 10 year old watch it. They loved it, but if I hear one of them call someone a cock knocker, they're in for it.

and

Just for the record, I'm a practicing Catholic, and I say to each his (or her) own. I have friends who are Athiest, Buddhist, Muslim, Protestant, Agnostic, etc and what matters to me is if they are good people and treat my beliefs with respect. I don't expect them to believe in the same thing. I guess if they are truly my friends, they will see how important my religion is to me and treat me the way they would want to be treated. That's all.