Nerf Wars

Bought a set of the Nerf Dart Tag guns this weekend to play with the GB's. Alden took them home with him, so probably need to purchase some more sets so we can have some scheduled full scale family wars. Something like this video, but with fewer people and no office, and some non-grown ups...I do wish that office life was this funny...a little fun would be so much more interesting.

Susan Boyle

I am ashamed of myself. I've been hearing people say that there was a 40 year old woman who had gone onto the British equivalent of American Idol and had blown everyone away. I thought well good for her. I had some free time and I thought I'd go to You Tube and check her out.....and Wow. She walked on stage and you could tell she was nervous, she had this little saucy grin on her face and shot some smart mouth back at the judges. Even though I knew that she had amazed them, I still saw her walk on and it didn't register. Then she started to sing and I had goose bumps running up my arms....I started to cry....Oh my God....it was so beautiful and not just her voice....she was completely transformed...her face softened and you could actually see her joy as she sang. I was so ashamed of myself because I immediately formed an opinion based upon her age and her looks and her attitude (she seemed very nervous when she came out)...and again, le me remind you that I had already heard that she did a great job. Shame, shame, shame on me......I hope she goes far. I will buy her first album, that's for sure.


I've read that she cared for her mother until a year of so ago, so if that is true it sounds like she has not had a lot of time to focus on herself. Forty seven unemployed and never been kissed she said, and she seems like the sweetest person. Thanks Susan and thank you God for these surprises that ground us and makes us better human beings.



The videos have all had the embedding disabled, probably due to the fact that combined they have had over 15mil hits. Wow. I've attached the link. If clicking does not work, just copy it into your browser.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luRmM1J1sfg

Anita

Learned in Tennessee

We can still be learned and sophisticated, even here in Whitwell, Tn, thanks in part, (smile) to the Internet.
I've been really trying to focus on my writing in the past few weeks, picking it back up after being away from it for some many years. I've been expending my energies on just trying to survive in the dog eat dog competetive working world. High pressure job means low pressure creative thought. Trust me on this one.
I made the decision recently that I was going to get back to doing some of the things that I want to do....writing being one of the big ones. Anyway, as part of this journey, I found a great site that has been helpful to me in understanding the pronounciation of some words - name, places etc.
The site is http://forvo.com .
I wish I known about this site when I first read the Harry Potter series and it wouldn't have been necessary to have the audiobook to know how to pronounce Hermione. The site has pronounciations in 213 languages, so you can see why it would be helpful to a writer, but fun also if you are reading or just curious - If you just want to expand your cranial capacity, there is a language featured everyday with a listing of certain words. How clever is that!

Quick Yummies

Some quick foodie ideas....what is quicker or more delicious than chopping up some fresh strawberries? Unless.....



You also make a quick and simple yellow cake and stuff it with said Strawberries, along with some whipped cream...or even quicker, purchase a Sara Lee Poundcake from the freezer section and use if for your cake foundation.

For Breakfast, whip up some waffles and sprinkle with fresh blueberries...if you don't want to take the time to make the waffles from scratch, you can just pop some Eggo's into the toaster.

And last, but not least.....anyone have the recipe for this tasty treat??

A little Hugh, sprinkled with a dash of long hair and a scattering of scruffy beard.....and topped off with a pinch of furrowed brow. Sigh......

Smoky Mountain Beauty

On a whim, last Saturday, Mike and I drove up to the Smoky Mountains and rode around in several directions, looking for some landscapes that I wanted to photo. I had some particular ideas in mind, and definetly wanted to get some shots of the haze on the mountain peaks. One of the reasons for the trip decision the night before, was because of the weather conditions, drizzling rain and overcast, so I knew I was ensured some hazy peaks. We started across the Cherohala Skyway and had the best time….once we got to the 3000 feet elevation level, the visibility was down to about 20 feet, so we could not see anything….literally. Once on the Skyway, you cannot get off…so we had a fun time just talking and laughing as we drove along. We spent all day riding around through different routes within the mountains and I got some great pictures.

At about 7pm, we were riding through Wear’s Valley and into Pigeon Forge and we stopped at TGIF for dinner. While eating dinner, we decided that we did not want to drive back home that night…we had promised the girls that we would take them to breakfast the next morning, Easter Sunday…so we calculated that if we left the hotel at 5am the next morning, we would be able to meet them at Cracker Barrel at 7:30am. Next, we had to solve for the ‘no luggage’ situation…what could we live with and what could we live without…we knew we could count on soap and shampoo from the hotel….we drove to Walgreens and picked up toothbrushes, toothpaste and a hair brush. We stayed in Sevierville at the Clarion Inn Willow River and carried in our luggage, which consisted of one white plastic shopping bag. Gives new meaning to traveling light.
The next morning, we were up and out at 5:10am and made the drive home and to the restaurant, well before our meeting time with the family.

There is nothing more fun that doing something on the spur of the moment and we don’t do a lot of things where it is just the two of us….we had a great time and just enjoyed the day and each other.

Pocket Edward

I happened across the funniest site last night as I was killing time....http://pocketedward.tumblr.com/. Very creative, whether you are a Twilight fan or not. Check it out and let me know if you found it funny or if I'm just way to easily entertained.


Anita

I Want

• To win the lottery grand prize and share it with my family so that we can all relax for the rest of our days...to see my Mom's face when she realized that she could finally just blow some money and go shopping every week if that is what she wanted to do
• To build a new home...huge, like it could have it's own zip code huge....with a Movie cave, a killer playroom, a mammoth master suite and huge kitchen
• To wile away the rest of my time on this earth, doing what I want to do and not what I have to do
• To have strong will power and self control...I'm one of the if I want to do it, I do it kind of people....if I want to eat it, I eat it...if I want to buy it, I buy it....I really need more self control
• To spend as much time as I can, enjoying my family
• To have my alone time, cause mesa gets a little ansy when I don't have my alone time
• To spend the month of October at the Disney and Orlando theme parks...and without a doubt at least one night at Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party
• To write a book....whether it stinks or not...to actually do it
• To collect more dishes, utensils, etc for table settings and entertaining
• To have a place to display my movie collectibles, posters, etc
• To have an indecently ordered room for Scrapbooking
• To get back to sewing
• To drive around in my Burber (Suburban) because it is so cool that I get frostbite everytime I look at it
• To have time to just cook like a freaking fool...trying new recipes all the time
• To have friends who just want to visit and hang out sometimes....I need some girl BFFs
• To be able to anomymously help some people who are really stuggling...to pay some random people's hospital bills so they don't have to spend the rest of their life worrying about it
• To feel like I'm just not complete unless I have exercised at least an hour every day
• To love my family and be loved forever and ever