The Gold Girls

The Library

We love the library! We live in a country where we can pretty much get any book we want to read for free at our local library. It is too bad that more people don’t take advantage of the opportunity. If I were a perfect mother, I would take the kids every week to storytime, but I am not, nor will I ever be perfect.

I think I have done alright though….look at how engaged all three girls are by the story. They really do love to learn. That is what counts, I guess. There is nothing better than a child engaged in a children’s story.

Harry Golden, author of Only in America, said, “The library, I believe, is the last of our public institutions
to which you can go without credentials. You don’t even need the sticker on your windshield that you need to get into the public beach. All you need is the willingness to read.”

Mayfield vs. Baskin Robbins



So, here in Tennessee, we have a delicacy called Mayfield ice-cream. The girls and I took a tour of Mayfield this summer. Here are the pictures of their HUGE single scoop cones. I hate to admit it, but even though I’ve lived in the south for the past four years, I still haven’t been able to force myself to convert to Mayfield.

A funny thing about Mayfield Dairy is that they package their milk in yellow gallon plastic containers. It really freaks Westerners out. They always think that the milk is orange juice. Mayfield claims that these darker containers keep their milk fresh longer. My girls drink their milk so fast that freshness is not a worry for me! But, I do thank Mayfield for the countless laughs I have gotten from visiting westerners wondering why I have 4 gallons of OJ and no milk in my fridge.

I am through and through a Baskin Robbins girl. I just can’t give up on that great 6 months of my life when I had all the ice-cream I could eat. Of course the flavors were almost endless.

I was recently reading an old stand up comic routine that I wrote. It was pretty weak, but the one good joke out of the bunch was in reference to the many odd jobs I have had in my life. I talked about what I learned working in the produce department and then UPS, and then I referred to Baskin Robbins. My words, “It was unfortunate, I had to quit; I just got sick of all 31 flavors”.

LG’s Graduation

I have recently been sent two e-mails from friends about thier new blogs. So, how coincidental…here I am….aproximatley a year later, making another entry! he he

Here is a pic, taken at the UT Law School back in May. Yes, LG finally made it. He has the JD and the MBA diplomas in his possession.

Now, we are waiting on the liscence. We should get the bar results on Oct 19th. ThiS could be really good or really bad. I am crossing my fingers for good. I have some faith.

I am not in a funny mood, just wanted to update with a pic.

Kitty Bear


Our newest addition. LG has been bugging me for the past year to get a cat. He just likes to think of ways to give me more work. Between his pestering and the girls’ begging for a “pet”, I finally conceded. I had forgotten how much I love animals. She is a lot of fun.

A woman that works with LG is a huge animal person and rescues a lot. She had two little kittens that she was trying to get find a home for and kept on my husband about it. He kept on me for several weeks, and, there you have it, we are now the proud family of a little kitty.

LG told me that there was an orange cat and a black one. I was still waivering quite strong as to whether or not I wanted to take on another responsibility. Every five minutes I would change my mind. I finally gave it a 50/50 chance and told him that if the black one was a girl, we would take her.

Sure enough, she’s a girl…just like all of our other kids. So, LG told this advocate for animals that we would take her. (Come to find out, she hadn’t rescued these animals, they were from her own litter) What kind of advocate for animals doesn’t have their cat spayed? Doesn’t she watch The Price is Right? Maybe she is an advocate for feminist animals and doesn’t want to take her cat’s right away to procreate. blah blah blah

So, LG calls me and tells me that he was going to go and pick up our new cat. He had been so excited because her name was Bear and he thought that was a cute name for a cat. LG then threw in for good measure: by the way, her name is Bear because she doesn’t have a tail. I thought he was pulling my leg. I really had been suckered. I was now stuck with a tailess cat. You can’t tell the animal advocate that you don’t want her flawed cat.

Well, she doesn’t have a tail, but I found out that this wasn’t a birth defect. Some breeds of cats don’t have long tails. (Who knew) She has a short stubby tail and looks just like a little bear when she gets up on her hind legs. As soon as I investigated and saw that her stump of a tail was covered with fur, I was o.k. We are all in love with this cat. She kills the crickets that used to love to breed in our laundry room. She is riot at night when she goes crazy. And our girls now love to tell everyone that they finally have a pet. They say, “She is a cat; her name is Bear; she doesn’t have a tail!”

See the light

At church today, during the kids’ learning time, one of the leaders pulled out an object lesson. She had drawn a picture of a lightbulb and showed it to the 25 children, ranging in ages from 3-8, as she explained that she meant to bring a real lightbulb but forgot it in her rush out the door.

So, she posts the lightbulb and throws out a question to the kids: “If this were a real lightbulb what would it need to light up?” The first child pulls out the obvious answer from a child….a lightswitch.

My daughter Abigail raised her hand and eagerly awaited her turn to be called on. She was called on second. Now, remember, she is 6 years old. She says as matter of factly as possible,”Electricity!” Where does this child come from? I called her “little smartie pants” in front of all the other kids. I think I kind of embarassed her a little. But, golly, what am I going to do? The kid almost knows more than me already. I am doing way too good of a job teaching her. (Just kidding) I really do give all credit to her Father’s genes and the time that she spends with her Papa asking question after question….bringing me to my favorite quote.

“All knowledge begins with wonder.” – Noah Webster

So, go find out something new today.

Yoda, this is

Do, or do not. There is no ‘try’.
– Yoda,
The Empire Strikes Back

Thanks to my geek of a husband my daughter Abigail has a thing about StarWars. She just loves it! Her Grammy took her to a bookstore two days ago and she HAD to have the StarWars book.
I don’t really have anything funny to write about StarWars. I really like this quote by Yoda. I hate the delivery that Yoda delivers. (I guess he never had an English class on not ending sentences with prepositions.)
Good story about prepositions:
On the subject of ending sentences with prepositions, people often recount a story involving Winston Churchill. When an editor dared to change a sentence of Churchill’s that appeared to end inappropriately with a preposition, Churchill responded by writing to the editor, “This is the kind of impertinence up with which I shall not put.” His purpose, of course, was to illustrate the awkwardness that can result from rigid adherence to the notion that prepositions at the end of sentences are always incorrect.
When we went to see the final StarWars I laughed out loud at the pivotal Darth Vader moment….you really have to be a StarWars geek to appreciate the cheese. My husband was mortified as to how freely I “ruined” the movie for everyone. Oops.
Anyhow, Yoda may have bad delivery, but just like an old wise Grandma, no matter how hard it is to pay attention at times, you HAVE to listen to what he has to say. He has profound teachings. He is my favorite part of StarWars. I had a spiritual experience at the last movie as Yoda counseled Anikan.

Little Jack Horner

Introducing “The Young Jack Roberts”


Little Jack Horner sat in the corner
Eating his Christmas pie,
He put in his thumb and pulled out a plum
And said “What a good boy am I!”

This ryhme has a great history, that includes Horner, a thief, being rewarded greatly. Horner was obviouslly rewarded unworthily, inspiring the political rhyme and Horner’s own political taunting, “what a good boy am I.”

What do Little Jack Horner and Little Jack Roberts have in common you may ask? Both the theif Horner and the misbehaved Roberts think that they are “good boys” when in actuality they are far from it. And of course they also share the name Little Jack.

The young Jack Roberts lives in another dimension, just like ALL other children. This was demonstrated wonderfully during the President’s press conference, announcing the nomination of his father, John Roberts, as a candidate for the Supreme Court bench. Click here and scroll down the page to the bottom left hand column and click on “Young Jack Roberts steals the show” to see the video clip. SO FUNNY!

Now, I am not about to rip on Jack Robert’s parents or nanny or whoever raises the kid. My kids have done far worse than this to embarass me (O.k., maybe not really…as they have never shared air time with the President of the United States and turned it into a circus), but if you are a parent, you will know what I mean about being embarassed. Kids can be outright humiliating, no matter how good of job you are doing.

I will say this; I would not even attempt to put my four year old in front of cameras in such a stuffy setting that late at night. I can only think that the reason Mrs. Roberts was talked into it was for “political gain”. She had to know that she was setting herself for a disaster. According to critics, Jack’s misbeavior really will make people “sympathize” with Roberts. The “people in the know” have said so much in the positive towards the child’s bantering that you would think that they put Little Jack up to his misconduct.

So, what am I trying to say here? I don’t know. I am just rambling today. I had a rough day yesterday. Remember the linger longer that I attempted yesterday, at the urging of my husband. Yeah, well, I couldn’t do it! I left 15 minutes into it when he never showed up to help me with my three children who live in another dimension! He was in taking care of his church duties and I was left trying to figure out how to fight my way through a Disneyland style line to gather three plates of food without either dragging my three young children with me or leaving them unattended. Well, I never came up with an answer and I left all upset feeling like a loser because I cannot emotionally handle a stupid potluck.

An announcement was made to let people with small children and the elderly get in line first, but I guess the majority of people in our congregation feel they fit into those two categories. (Or, their manners go out the window because after years of conditioning that the only way to get any food is to get at the front of the line, so, they don’t regard other people) I’m not even mentioning how I felt about being forced to leave my jellyroll pan of brownies, two loaves of french bread, and two large fruit salads behind that I had worked on for two hours the day before, ONLY to go home to eat ramen and toast.

Hey, I have an idea. Maybe it isn’t the children who live in another dimension. Maybe it is all the rest of the world that doesn’t understand that children are wild animals in the process of being tamed? Would you leave three starving and wild tigers in a room full of frantic starving people to fend for themselves while you stood around waiting patiently to get them some substance? NO! I guess I spend enough time with the wild tigers to understand them. I guess I also understand, me, their trainer, enough to know that I can’t even attempt to do certain things with them….such as, a late night press conference, or a linger longer full of inconsiderate people. In fact, if I had it my way, I would tap into their dimmension completely…it’s got to be a lot less stressful.