Thursday Thankfulness

Thursday Thankfulness: "

The lowly pencil sharpener. Easily forgettable, until you need one. And as homeschool parents, we need them. I like to buy fun pencils for the kids, and now that the MiniNess will be starting soon, she’ll finally get a chance to use the pretty princess pencils I got her a couple of years ago. So, I’ll be sharpening a lot in the near future.

And not just the kids pencils, but my own too. I don’t know what it is about the sensation of a lead pencil gliding across paper, but it’s kind of thrilling. My son loves to keep his pencils to a sharp, pointy tip. I do too. We each have a sharpener and I suspect I’ll have to grab another one next time we head to Walmart. There’s a little girl too excited about the prospect of finally learning to read, and she’s going to want to practice writing her letters, and naturally will need her own pencil sharpener to stay ahead of the point.

Electric ones are cool, when they don’t grind your pencil to a nub. And the old crank-handle schoolhouse ones bring back tons of memories of standing in line while the kid in front of me accidentally breaks the tip of his pencil near the end of his sharpening spree. But I’m actually good with the old manual hand-held one, with a shavings catch of course. Totally portable, and quiet. And now-a-days, you can find them in tons of colors and styles.

Sometimes, sticking with the basics is good. A good pencil, a decent sharpener, some paper – worlds have been created with such.

Anything you’re thankful for this week?

©Darcsfalcon All rights reserved

Filed under: Thankfulness Tagged: Pencils, Thankfulness "

Wednesday Whittles

Wednesday Whittles: "

I had an interesting dream where Brad Thor was hosting his own talk show. Yes, that is sometimes the kind of thing I dream about. I thought it was kind of a cool idea, personally. I mean think about it – political thriller author hosting talk shows. It would probably generate a lot of passionate discourse. Heh. So I went to his website to see what he was up to – in real life not in the dream – and it turns out he’s got a new book out, and is planning on another one later this year and one next year. And now I’m 14th in line to get the latest one at my library.

*****

I felt kind of irritated with Giselle this week. Yeah, that Giselle, Tom Brady’s wife. Being a Patriots fan and trying to follow news of them when I can, sometimes she makes the cut too, for the simple fact of who married her. She blew a great opportunity, I think, in what she could have accomplished. She said that there ought to be a worldwide law forcing women to breastfeed for the first 6 months of their baby’s life. Yep, a law that forces women to do something with their bodies that they may or may not want to do. Worldwide, no less!

Later, after getting a lot of flack about that, she backtracked her comments and said she was just talking.

What’s irritating is that she had such a great chance here and dropped the ball. Honestly, I’m a huge supporter of breastfeeding, and I’ve spent a good portion of my life engaged in that activity, and I would (and do!) encourage any woman considering it to go for it. It’s one of the best things you can do for your baby, and yourself. But not every woman can, and not every woman wants to. What Giselle could have done, and didn’t, was express her own positive feelings about it and encourage other women to consider it. She could have talked about the health benefits to both baby and mother. She could have talked about how it can bond a mother and child and strengthen their relationship. Instead she made it sound like it’s something distasteful that needs to be forced on women. Way to setback, Giselle!

*****

I learned a lesson this week – the little strainer, the one that’s like 2-cup size, does NOT help boost a wireless signal. Repeat – the small strainer does NOT boost the signal! Mayday! Mayd–

Back to the big strainer.

*****

My son thought that Christine was mislabeled when he saw the “horror” tag on the video case. My son, the one who hates horror movies. Now he searches for THEM! and Let the Right One In every week at the library.

Honestly, Christine was better back in ‘83.

And how has your August been so far?

©Darcsfalcon All rights reserved

Filed under: Family Life, In The News, Rant, Thinking out loud Tagged: Breastfeeding, Family Life, Movies, News, Nursing, Parenting, Son "

Tuesday Tootsies

Tuesday Tootsies: "

Oh my gosh, you have to check out the killer shoes over on Seraphic Secret: Friday Footwear: The Hounds of Heels.

For those of you who aren’t aware, it was Seraphic Secret where I got my idea for Tuesday Tootsies. He does a thing – not every Friday, but some – called Friday Footwear. I was so enamored with it, and all the shoes he’d post from old movie starlets and such, that Darc suggested I do my own version. Thus the Tootsies were born, with no labor pains!

I started the shoes thing kind of as a means to dream about what kind of shoes I’d get if money were no object, if I thought of shoes more like art, and if I knew I’d never have to worry about tripping all over myself if I wore them. Pure fantasy stuff and not everyday stuff. For everyday stuff, I can go to Payless, Shoebuy, Zappos, Endless, or Shoes.com. (all of those but Payless and Shoes.com have free shipping and free return shipping) You could probably do a search and find even more, but I can vouch personally for the great service at Shoebuy and Zappos.

Now, here are some I’d buy and wear in real life, if money were no object.

I love these, so feminine with the scarf thingy, and they’d go with lots of stuff, from jeans to skirts.

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I love the fabric ,and the bow, and the yellow.

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Oh my gosh, I want these so bad!

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I love the sparkle and shimmer of these, they’re so sleek.

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Now these are what I call gardening shoes, baby! The whole sole is a garden with flowers and trees. I love Alexander McQueen’s shoes. What a loss to the shoe world when he died.

Hmm, clearly I’m a boot girl. Well, they were made for walkin’, you know.

Be sweet to your feet!

Filed under: Shoes Tagged: Seraphic Secret, Shoes "

Monday Mayhem

Monday Mayhem: "

It is a good day. It’s a blessed day. The whole weekend was blessed. And I am full of joy. No, not the lottery; no, not a job, but a real answer to prayer. So I’m basically floating on sunshine. It’s a beautiful thing.

Other than that, it was a quiet weekend. Went grocery shopping, watched a lot of movies. Turns out I grabbed some at the library that I’ve already seen. Years ago, but my Swiss-cheese movie memory is so bad that I didn’t even remember I’d seen them. I was showing Darc my picks when he said, “We saw that. Maybe ‘01 or ‘02, but we saw it. Oh, and that one too.” *sigh* I watched one of them anyway. Turns out I’d forgotten it all but the end. *eyeroll* You know, I remind me of one of the silliest kid’s jokes ever. Pete and Re-Pete were sitting in a boat, and Pete fell overboard, who was left? Re-Pete! Pete and Re-Pete were sitting in a boat and … you get the idea. That’s what my brain does with movies, I swear. Most annoying movie memory ever, but really, more annoying for Darc than for me, because he doesn’t forget movies he’s seen.

So now it’s August, can you believe how fast the Summer has flown? Hot, sunny, cloudless days to come.

And how was your weekend?

Filed under: LOLz, Personal Tagged: Movies, Summer, Weekend "

i could get it if i wanted

i could get it if i wanted: "

It’s true, you know. I could.

Filed under: Funny, LOLz Tagged: Funny, LOLz "