Inadequate Materials

A while back, a commenter pointed out that I had word verification enabled on my comments. Actually, she threatened to punch me if I didn't disable it. I totally see where she was coming from. At the time, I'd been blogging for a good year and had no idea word verification was enabled. I didn't realize until someone pointed it out that I was forcing people to spend twice as long as they should have been trying to get their comment posted. I'm thinking it must be a setting that Blogger automatically enables and if you don't want it, you have to change it yourself. Word verification is pointless. If you're concerned about spam, enable comment moderation and reject those pesky Viagra links as they come in. It takes ONE second! Okay Blogger bloggers, here's your homework: 1. Go to your main page and click on "Settings" 2. Click on "Comments" 3. Scroll down until you see the question "Show word verification for comments?" and if ...

So, I've spent the last week ignoring the housework and getting outside with Rosemary's Baby to enjoy the intoxicating spring weather. While he raced around, digging up the lawn and swinging from trees (further confirming my theory that he is more in touch than the average person with his inner monkey), I sat on a lawn chair tittering at a copy of Bridget Jones' Diary that I came across at Value Village a couple of weeks ago. This business of unapologetically reading whatever strikes my fancy is just downright healthy ! And on that topic, I have to say that I love Fridays for so many reasons, but the biggest one is that it's Firstborn's school library day. The stuff he comes home with makes me nostalgic for the days when what other people thought of my choices in life made no difference to me whatsoever. This week we have a book about modern basketball superstars and a picture book about the origins of the sun, with Spanish subtitles. Most weeks he'll come home ...

Well that didn't take long! It turns out that when you recognize that you need to take a breather, life doesn't conveniently stop in its tracks to help you out. Already, I have something to talk about. This evening, Firstborn came running into the kitchen, yelling "Mommy, look! Mommy, look!" He was so frantic, I expected to turn around and discover that his arm had fallen off. Luckily, it wasn't anything so serious. But there WAS some blood, and he was holding out in front of him the teeniest little speck of enamel. He's lost his first tooth! It's been so many years since I lost teeth, I wasn't sure how long the wiggly tooth was going to take to finally drop out, and I was kind of hoping it'd stay put for a few weeks until the Captain was home to experience this little milestone. But I guess it'll happen another 19 times or so. And now I have to figure out how much the tooth fairy puts under pillows these days. A while back, someone in Firstbo...

I've gotten really behind in posting, visiting and leaving comments out here in Blogland. I'm still alive here, people. Don't give up on me. Things are busy as ever, and there are changes happening. Rosemary's Baby is in the "intake" process for a very intensive home-based program and that should be getting underway here pretty soon. That alone is doing me in. There are people here all the time, which is kind of exhausting, but will eventually free me up to find a little more balance (AKA blog time) in my life. So, it's all good. The getting there is just kicking my butt a little. And the Captain's return is on the (still distant) horizon. When your husband is gone for long periods, you get good at pretending you aren't exhausted. But everyone knows what happens when you deny and repress things. In the end, it all comes bursting out and you have no choice but to acknowledge it and deal. Or explode. Which is messy. So, the bottom line is I'm TI...

Oh boy. Did yesterday's post sound like the insane ramblings of a crazy person? WHAT?! I'm reading a book that's bad enough to completely trash via my blog, but somehow not bad enough to just PUT DOWN for more worthy pursuits? Sorry. The kids kindly brought home this dreadful head cold. My sinuses feel like they've been hit by a bus, along with the rest of me. And it's making me a little delirious. It's like my body knows what's going on outside of itself. For the duration of the Captain's tour, I've been disturbingly, disgustingly healthy. But now that there's a far-off light at the end of the tunnel (and it's still pretty distant), my immune system is all like "Lay down, guys! It's safe to let EVERYTHING in now!" So, when I get sick and there's no one around to dote on me and listen to me whine and make me chicken soup (which is usually the situation when I'm sick. Awfully convenient for the Captain, no?!), I have to g...

Back when I was tripping youthfully through my university campus with my whole life ahead of me, I was pretty snooty about what I was willing to read. Had anyone handed me a mass market paperback or some popular thing that had recently been turned into a movie, I'd have gasped, stuck my nose in the air and claimed that I didn't read trash. The one time I broke my own rule, it was to read the horrendous Bridges of Madison County ( Oprah TOLD me to!), which successfully put me off of reading popular fiction for years afterwards. Now that I'm hurtling towards 40, I read whatever I like. The best part about growing older is how much it frees you up. Creating the illusion that you're an intellectual isn't nearly as important as it used to be. My inner snob just doesn't have the energy for it anymore. When the Captain and I discovered bookcloseouts.com a few years ago, we were in book-lover's heaven. And while we can still get some of the award-winners and classi...

As you wake up to your hot cross buns and dream of the chocolate the Easter Bunny will be dropping off this weekend, I just want to point out that it is also World Autism Awareness Day . I'm sure most of you already have some awareness of this issue. I mean really, who doesn't have a kid on the spectrum these days?! But just in case you don't know anyone with the disorder, I thought I'd put something out there in hopes of raising awareness just a little. I can't speak for all parents of kids with autism, but this is what I would personally like people to know. We all have our causes, so I'm not going to try to convince you to drop your paycheque on a donation. But there is something you can do to help that doesn't require a ridiculous level of commitment or time. For a parent dealing with this problem, your empathy can actually go a really long way. Here's what we know. When certain parts of the brain are not working the way they should be, you get a s...