What is the What?– Dave Eggers

** Heartbreakingly real, and vivid. My tongue was parched and my stomach distened just thru the stunning visual images that Eggers brought across. The lost boys of Sudan are very real, and very much in need of our help. Please find out a way to support them, in your local community or elsewhere.**)

Not sure what type of flower this is...but I think it's cool looking.

Yoga!

I finally get the chance to attend a yoga class, again. I attended in Iceland, and here at Offutt before we moved to Iceland, and I really enjoyed it. I will be going on Saturday with my girl, Kallie to check out this center and see if it's the right fit for me. I can't wait!

Been keeping busy...

Other than Jason getting his job, not much has really been happening, yet I find that I have been pretty busy these last few days nonetheless.

1. I took the kids to the pool this weekend (both days..I'm such a cool mom) and managed to burn my self. I am not sure how, as I was wearing SPF 50 (just like the kids--they didnt' burn) and I re-applied it every 2 hours like it says. Go figure.


2. Had my temp crown taken off and the permanent one put on. It wasn't fun..I don't recommend it. But it feels better now... although my jaw is still sore.


3. Had a follow up appoint with the eye doc to make sure that what ever the hell was going on there is fixed. It's not. My corneas are still f-ed up..so again with the drops for a week (uggh) and then I get to go back and have them looked at again. Part of me thinks that the doc just is keeping me going back for my co-pay, as my eyes look and feel 100% better than they did a week or two ago.


4. Been to the gym every night this week so far. (yay me!). Did a water aerobics class, which was actually pretty tough ( no really!), played some racquetball, did some elliptical...nearly died of heat exhaustion (the gym doesn't have A/C)


5. Started back up on the story that I have been working on for the last year or so--on and off. I'm still not quite sure where I am going with it, but it's fun to watch the word count go up!

So there, that's my week so far in a nutshell.

--B

So tired...

Haven't been sleeping well the past few days! Jason (the husband) accepted a new job with ConAgra (UNIX and SAP Database administrator) and it's a great job, but he will be working nights. So, in order to prepare he has been staying up thru the night and then going to bed in the mornings. Which sucks for me, because I don't sleep well with out him in the bed. I guess I will just have to buy one of those pillows with the arms...or one of these

Pretty, white and female

If you heard the name :Elizabeth Smart, Natalie Holloway, Laci Peterson, Chandra Levy or Kelsey Smith , you’d know exactly who they were and could more than likely spout off a few quick facts regarding them, correct?
Do you know who Stepha Henry , Latoyia Figueroa, Amber Harris, Sintia Mesa, Chris Pineda ,Brendan Gonzalez or Tamika Huston are? Do you know anything about them? Who they are, where they are from? No? That is rather disheartening.

The people named all have one thing in common, they were/are missing. There are a few differences though; the people in the second list aren’t white, a few aren't female, and none are in the upper echelons of the socio-economic structure, and there’s one other important factor, they didn’t get the media coverage that those in the first list got. In fact, the Stepha Henry case got bumped for coverage of Paris Hilton’s front gate, on the day she went back to court. That’s what I consider important news, don’t you? Cable news executives say they don’t pick stories based on the race of the victims. "The stories that ‘go national’ all have a twist or an emotional aspect to them that make them interesting," said Bill Shine, senior vice president of programming at Fox News." Link to story

Isn’t a missing woman, man or child of any race, nationality or creed; emotional in and of itself? I’m sure it seems so to the friends and family of the missing. All disappearances have twists, they are all interesting. They all deserve the same amount of coverage. Why is it that no one seems to want to hear or report on the missing who aren’t young, white, pretty , wealthy or female.(More often than not, it's usually all of the above)Roy Peter Clark thinks he knows why. "It’s all about sex," said Clark, vice president of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg,Fla.Young white women give editors and television producers what they want. "There are several common threads," Clark said. "The victims that get the most coverage are female rather than male. They are white, in general, rather than young people of color. They are at least middle class, if not upper middle class." (Link to his story)

I think it’s time that all missing person cases were covered the same way. Either they all get hours of media attention, or no one does. For more information on this "Missing White Woman Syndrome" read This Wiki article.

Writers note--I realize that not all white missing white women have received media coverage. There are tens of thousands of people that are missing that haven’t received the same coverage that those that I listed have received, and I am not demeaning those that have received vast amounts of media coverage in any way, shape or form. However, I stand by my statement that all missing people deserve the same sort of coverage, regardless of age, race, nationality, socio-economic class, creed, or sexuality.

Uh-oh

I am just sitting here at work, listening to Got Radio? and I started singing out loud to D12 Featuring Eminem "My Band", which in and of itself doesn't bother me, but when the guy in the cube next to me started clapping, it got a tad embarrassing.

I guess "My Band" is better than My Humps By: Black Eyed Peas, if one is going to sing out loud at work.

Baby Showers...

They make me sad, because I *sometimes* think that I want another baby. I think it is because I miss the little things. The first time you see and hold your baby, the first time they smile, the first little laugh. I miss the small weight in my arms, the smell of baby lotion, the little grunts when they eat. I miss them needing me for everything and sometimes I wish all my kids were babies again.

I look at my children now though, and can't wait to continue on this journey with them. My youngest will be starting kindergarten in the fall, my oldest will be in third grade, and my middle one will be in first. I can't believe how quickly the time has flown...I just had them, I just changed that first diaper...and now it's "MOM!! I need my privacy--I can wash my hair myself..or "Mom--Where do babies come from?"

Now I get more grownup "first-s". The first crush, the first date, the first ball game, the first prom, the first graduation...It's all going so fast.

Just Pictures

All these are from Iceland. The top two I didn't take, and I dont' know who did. It was the most beautiful place I have ever been, and I would love to go back.

Round two...fight!

Went to the dentist, and much fun was had by all. The stupid dentist was just going to fill the part that broke, but when he attempted to , he broke another part.So they had to put a temp crown on it. At that point I was seriously contemplating telling them to just pull the darn thing out. So, I have to go back in a week and a half and have them put the permanent crown on it.

This is just not my week...

First the eyes, and just now I broke a part of my tooth! I was eating popcorn that the kids made, and tossed a handful in my mouth, with out looking, and apparently it didn't all pop because I bit down on a kernel! Part of my molar with the filling came off!!!! From looking at it, it seems relatively easy to fix, maybe with a small filling replacement or just sanding down the rough parts, but with my luck I will need a crown or some crap like that.

GRR!

Blech

Apparently I have this thing called "Corneal Oxygen Deficiency" which is "condition of the cornea where blood vessels start to grow into the cornea. A common cause is lack of oxygen from wearing contact lenses that do not breathe" according to my doctor who just called me a little while ago. So....I have to change my contact lens brand. Yay for my eye doctor, the new ones cost twice as much as the old ones.

And i have to wear my glasses for a week, so that my eyes can heal. I hate glasses in the summer.

Freaking Hilarious

Parody of Pearl Jam's Yellow Ledbetter

We are all fine here

Amazing! Very simply written, but it grips you right away. It feels like a conversation while reading! I loved the style of it, basic first person, but it really came alive and made you feel like you were right there waiting for the “little blue lines” and for the phone to ring. I can’t believe this is her first novel. I am anxiously awaiting more of her work.

Break No Bone: Kathy Reichs

I have tried and tried to get in to Kathy Reichs’ novels, but I just can’t. She gets such high praise for them, that each time I see a new one, I grab it, hoping against hope that this one will be different; that this one won’t putter along slowly, seemingly endless…and every time I am disappointed. She tries so hard but I don’t/can’t identify with the characters, I feel there is something left out. After several novels, you would think that I would have a feel for the main character,Tempe, but I don’t. I don’t know what makes her tick, what she wants….and that bothers me. In my opinion, if you want a book about a coroner and some mystery, check out Patricia Cornwell.

It’s all Too much: Peter Walsh

If you want a simple “How to organize your home” book, this isn’t it. This is more of an “emotional” organizational book, which guides you in how to let things go, so that you get more out of your life. With the background that Walsh has (Clean Sweep on TLC), is no wonder that there are some really good, proven techniques, and some really great arguments for getting rid of those musty, holey tablecloths that you’ve been holding on to, just because Great-Aunt Tilda used them in 1923. All in all, it’s a good read that might help you let go of a thing or two

Eat Pray Love: Elizabeth Gilbert

The frankness in which the author writes is refreshing, I learned so much about her physical and mental state that I had to remind myself that I wasn’t her doctor, or her psychiatrist. She shared quite a bit of overly personal information, but that just made it easier to relate to her, in my opinion. The little bits of “historical” information that she handed out were really interesting and enjoyable (ie: Italian language was decided by a council to be based on Dante’s language, Sanskrit language lessons—antevasin which means “one who lives at the border”, is the word for spiritual seekers) The book itself was well-written, in a self-deprecating style that reminded me a tad of Erma Bombeck. It was interspersed with humor, and occasionally you can see the real Elizabeth Gilbert–the one that is afraid of being alone, afraid of not fitting in. The way that she describes the people that she meets is great and very flattering, but leaves you to wonder if there were any faults to these people at all. Richard the Texan seems to be the most fleshed out character, but still not entirely believable. The way that she treats Wayan after meeting Filipe is disheartening, and makes me wonder if it wasn’t all a “publicity stunt” engineered for the book, and the altruistic gesture is was made out to be.All in all, it’s a book I would recommend - not as a self-help manual- but as an entertaining memoir that draws attention to several universal truths; spirituality can be found in simple things like food, wine, youth, health, joy, and also in pain and suffering, fasting and sacrifice. It shows that living and loving, and doing it well is a universal challenge. Is it going to help you answer your own life questions? Probably not, but it might remind you that you aren’t alone; others are searching for truth as well.

You’re Wearing That? Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation: Deborah Tannen

(**Interesting, in a clinical, classroom textbook kind of way. It point out common mistakes women make while talking, but really didn’t give any solutions or ways to fix them. I don’t recommend this for the casual reader.**)

Happiness

Is sitting here, in my comfy orange trash chair, drinking Miso soup and reading "Eat Pray Love".

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The Memoirs of Cleopatra: Margaret George

(**Ok…Finally finished. George is very accurate in her historical background and overall, for me, that detracts from the fact this this is supposed to be a “Memoir”, and should contain more feeling, more passion, more of what Cleopatra was feeling, but it glossed over those sorts of things. For instance, when Antony married Octavia rather then Cleopatra, she was very blase` about it, and was just “Oh gee, Antony married her instead of me…la-de-da. For me, the most interesting character was that of Olympus, the physician. He was well-rounded, and just stood out. It made the book that much better for him to have the last word/scroll. Overall, read it if you want a nice historical background on Cleopatra and Antony, but don’t expect too much, you’ll come away disappointed.**

Graduation Day!

It's been a long rough road, with no time to stop, no time to relax, but it's finally done. (Unless he decides to get a Doctorate....)