Vile, Disgusting and Just Obscene (RANT)

Instances that you wouldn't get to experience if you didn't have children.

A nice evening dinner. A quick drive home. A quick stop at a gas station because a child has to pee. A quick drive home hastened by the gross out factor and the sheer ick factor. (not for the squeamish or faint of heart.) OMG is all I can say.

The first thing a parent does when a kid says they need to pee is ask... can you hold it? (well maybe you don't but I do!) Assuming they are old enough to hold it, of course. When the resounding answer of "NO" reverberates around the car from the back seat, the next thing the parent does is hastily stop at the nearest convenience store, gas station or fast food restaurant to avoid the accident. So that is what we did.

We happened upon a gas station. (mistake #1) Went in and asked the idiot man behind the desk the way to the facilities. He points and verbally directs us that way. We get there and there is a sign on the door "Out of Order." Puzzled why he didn't say that before sending us off in that direction I turn to go back and he has followed us....

"It's okay I've taken care of it - you can go in."

Assuming (mistake #2) the usual plumbing problem that could be fixed by plunging, we open the door and are instantly hit by a smell, a quick glance at the floor reveals a 'splattering' of liquid substance on the floor. Not fecal (in case you're wondering.) My brain is in slow-mo today. The toilet is filled with said substance. Okay the toilet exploded, maybe. "She really has to pee" is still running through my head.

"EEEWWWW" is all she can say.

I flush the toilet. I'm disgusted but she has to pee. I don't swear but F*** I can't stay here.

"Mum? I AM NOT peeing here!"
"OUT! OUT! GET OUT! Go.... goooo..... gooo..... you'll have to pee at home... Hold it, I don't care, you aren't going here." I say as I shove her quickly out the door..... OMG.

There was vomit all over the toilet, the floor. His idea of cleaning it up .... shove an entire roll of toilet paper in it and clear a path from the door to the toilet. He didn't even try to clean it up.

All that is running through my head is I've just exposed my child to the stomach bug. She "EEEWWW'ed" all the way home... We Pine Sol'd our shoes... and disinfected our hands...

12 yrs Same Email and Now.....

ggggrrrr... is this a threat to scare me off the internet? Or just something to finally get my booty in gear and make the changes I've wanted to for a while.

IRKED doesn't begin to describe how I feel. In an hour on the net this afternoon I deleted over 100 emails from the inbox that I can't send out of stating undeliverable mail because I was spamming or spoofing. I had a little fit and requested that dh change my address and block the old one but it will be in the spoofing cues for a while I'm sure. I'm sad, have had that address for over 12 years - will eventually go back to it maybe - it seemed like a simple change, but I think I was more frustrated over the spoofing/spamming emails.... :(

So if you don't have one of my 3 addy's post here and I'll reply back! :)

Uncultured

I'm feeling a little uncultured today so I thought I'd post the 100 Greatests! (yes new word!)

100 Greatest books (according to Nicholas Whyte in 2003 - his take on the BBC Big Read)

legend: black=Read, red = not read, green=on my book shelf!

1. The Lord Of The Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride And Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman (read 1 of 3)
   
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie-the-Pooh, AA Milne
8. 1984, George Orwell
9. The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch 22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne Du Maurier
15. The Catcher In The Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind In The Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War And Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone With The Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling (12/09)
    
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
28. Middlemarch, George Eliot
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Auste
39. Dune, Frank Herbert (hated this one... tried 3 times)
    
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman (loved this one!)
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
85. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
86. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
87. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E. Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer (hated this one .... tried 3 times)
    
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie

Woohoo - only 80 books left to read! LOL!

100 Greatest movies that I haven't seen (stolen from AmyDe in one of her Februarywho stole it from someone else! LOL!)

legend:
black=seen, red = never seen

1. Citizen Kane (1941)
2. The Godfather (1972)
3. Casablanca (1942)
4. Raging Bull (1980)
5. Singin' In The Rain (1952)
6. Gone With The Wind (1939)
7. Lawrence Of Arabia (1962)
8. Schindler's List (1993)
9. Vertigo (1958)
10. The Wizard Of Oz (1939)
11. City Lights (1931)
12. The Searchers (1956)
13. Star Wars (1977)
14. Psycho (1960)
15. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
16. Sunset Blvd. (1950)
17. The Graduate (1967)
18. The General (1927)
19. On The Waterfront (1954)
20. It's A Wonderful Life (1946)
21. Chinatown (1974)
22. Some Like It Hot (1959)
23. The Grapes Of Wrath (1940)
24. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
25. To Kill A Mockingbird (1962)
26. Mr. Smith Goes To Washington (1939)
27. High Noon (1952)
28. All About Eve (1950)
29. Double Indemnity (1944)
30. Apocalypse Now (1979)
31. The Maltese Falcon (1941)
32. The Godfather Part II (1974)
33. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
34. Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs (1937)
35. Annie Hall (1977)
36. The Bridge On The River Kwai (1957)
37. The Best Years Of Our Lives (1946)
38. The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre (1948)
39. Dr. Strangelove (1964)
40. The Sound Of Music (1965)
41. King Kong (1933)
42. Bonnie And Clyde (1967)
43. Midnight Cowboy (1969)
44. The Philadelphia Story (1940)
45. Shane (1953)
46. It Happened One Night (1934)
47. A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
48. Rear Window (1954)
49. Intolerance (1916)
50. The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring (2001)
51. West Side Story (1961)
52. Taxi Driver (1976)
53. The Deer Hunter (1978)
54. M*A*S*H (1970)
55. North By Northwest (1959)
56. Jaws (1975)
57. Rocky (1976)
58. The Gold Rush (1925)
59. Nashville (1975)
60. Duck Soup (1933)
61. Sullivan's Travels (1941)
62. American Graffiti (1973)
63. Cabaret (1972)
64. Network (1976)
65. The African Queen (1951)
66. Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981)
67. Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
68. Unforgiven (1992)
69. Tootsie (1982)
70. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
71. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
72. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
73. Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969)
74. The Silence Of The Lambs (1991)
75. In The Heat Of The Night (1967)
76. Forrest Gump (1994)
77. All The President's Men (1976)
78. Modern Times (1936)
79. The Wild Bunch (1969)
80. The Apartment (1960)
81. Spartacus (1960)
82. Sunrise (1927)
83. Titanic (1997)
84. Easy Rider (1969)
85. A Night At The Opera (1935)
86. Platoon (1986)
87. 12 Angry Men (1957)
88. Bringing Up Baby (1938)
89. The Sixth Sense (1999)
90. Swing Time (1936)
91. Sophie's Choice (1982)
92. Goodfellas (1990)
93. The French Connection (1971)
94. Pulp Fiction (1994)
95. The Last Picture Show (1971)
96. Do The Right Thing (1989)
97. Blade Runner (1982)
98. Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
99. Toy Story (1995)
100. Ben-Hur (1959)

Woohoo - only 87 movies left to see! LOL!

Crafty Friends Have Ideas?

Alrighy my crafty friends.... I beg your assistance.

I have 3 swatches of material fabric, they are all a light weight cotton blend.

1. The first is a single yard of cutesy fabric bright red that needs to turn into something useful... 1 yd.... I can add a lining fabric or additional fabric as necessary but I need a jumping off point, a diving board so to speak for this cute fabric. My limitations.... it needs to be something for an adult, it can be an inside or outside fabric... it can be one item or a couple.... got ideas??

2. The next two are fat quarters (18" x 21") ... one is black, one is white. Again I can add co-ordinating fabric or lining or anything. This one is for a "teacher" (so to speak) - who is leaving us this year but has been working with M for 2 yrs now and become a friend of mine... we will still chat but she won't be working with M in the same capacity. I'd like to make her something nice... I was thinking a tissue holder and something to match... but haven't a clue where to go with this! LOL!

Welcome to the 21st Century - where Internet Service Providers SUCK! :(

The saga of the sucky internet returns!

A mere month after ditching the old ISP due to several outages in a one month span, the new ISP went down from Fri to late Tuesday afternoon with no word, no assistance nothing ... just went DARK. A trip to the local office (walking distance) yielded an answer but NO HELP - all circuits were busy during the entire outage (both locally and in their head office) - at least even the old ISP was reachable by phone even if they weren't helpful! Maybe I expect too much - but at the very least I'd like to be able to reach a customer "No Service Rep" because at least I'd feel like someone had a clue and the place didn't just tank overnight.

So no computer school stuff got done, no internet, no nothing.... (M says not even a piece of Webkinz World - but she did get a few hours of Sims2 time.) So we ditched ISP #2 in favour of #3... making 3 ISPs is less than 2 months. I expect some repercussions due to the shortened length of our service contract but such is life... I'm ticked... what can I say! :( If it happens again in less than a month I'm boycotting residential service forever! :(

It sucks, it really sucks. Thank goodness for "no computer hobbies!" I got some knitting and crocheting done! :) I even got some cleaning done and feel a computer and hobby move is in the future - though not until some much needed household repairs occur, but its at least on the horizon and the 10 yrs of accumulated kiddy junk is being shifted at long last.

Earth Hour.... Revenge of Earth Hour.... Projects

March 29th we celebrated Earth Hour 2008 by turning out the lights. Nice candle light dinner if I do say so myself! :) The girls were thrilled. M turned the lights out just before 8 as we sat down to eat... she was terribly afraid of missing it. I was sad that none of the neighbours turned their lights out though. Oh well, life is like that. After about 40 minutes the girls and dh sadly had had enough so on went the lights and the "Scary Mummy Monster" came out. I was all agrump because it was supposed to be fun and something I really wanted to do. So I've threatened them with doing it once a week for the next year! Hee hee! So here is a photo!
So I could only laugh as last night took care of our Earth Hours for a month! LOL! Just after we fired up dinner last night.... the oven heated, the fish in for about a minute or so, the noodles on, the broccoli and cauli totally unthought of .... out went the lights, but not in the usual way.... with a really loud fizzling sound. So I dug up the chicken timer and we left the fish in the oven as it was HOT enough... the gas stove came in handy for the noodles... and we just ate the veggies raw! I dug out the candles... lit them when it got dark... and we had yet another candle light dinner. Just as we were sitting down the big electric company truck came down the road.... "Now that can't be good." The neighbors congregated by the green box... and the electric company truck drove away - still no lights. We finished up dinner and by that time the lights had been out for over an hour. Took the girls out for a walk with a flashlight, and it turns out only our street and the neighbouring one were affected. The rest of the subdivision had lights. 2 more visits from the big electric company truck.... and the neighbours gradually faded into the darkened abyss that was their home. At the 2 hour mark I went to hunt down my hubby and the children as they went up to follow the electric company truck and instead I ran into the truck, the guy popped out of the truck and told me it would be quite a few hours before the lights came back on as 2 wires had "gone bad" the first caused the main outage... and the 2nd when they tried to tie 2 wires together to get us more juice! The lights were out for almost 4.5 hours, and the poor electric crew were soooo grumpy! Dh the girls and I enjoyed a nice non-electric evening staring at the stars and wandering in the dark. My Earth hour(s) was given to me after all! :) I think we'll still do it monthly!

I finished a cute little preemie sweater which I finished up and gave to my friend the other day... stupid me I was in such a rush I forgot to take a photo of it. :( But I have another identical sweater on the needles and will hopefully get a pic of it after the weekend. Its supposed to be rainy tomorrow and Saturday so maybe I can make some rapid progress on it, the 2nd and 3rd will go to charity.

So that's been our fun here!