Mattel has finally listened to the pleas of the people on the Bald Barbie Facebook page and decided to manufacture a bald doll. The doll will be a FRIEND of Barbie…….NOT BARBIE. Does anyone other than me see a problem with this? I wasn’t for the making of a bald Barbie to begin with. Not because I don’t support cancer causes or kids with cancer it’s because I believe the money should go towards research and not into a toy. I also felt that Mattel would suffer either way: they would make the doll and have to eat the profits because they would look ridiculous if they didn’t or they would not make the doll and look like they didn’t support kids with cancer. It looks like they are going
middle of the road and making the dolls but donating them on their own. These dolls will not be sold in stores.
Now back to my issue. Throughout the history of Barbie she has been many things; teachers, public service workers, military personal, a McDonald’s cashier a news anchor, cat burglar, cowgirl and even a NASCAR driver but Barbie will never be a CANCER patient because she is invincible and Mattel wants to protect that. So what message is that sending to little girls with cancer? You can have a bald doll manufactured by Mattel honey but it isn’t “Barbie” it’s her “friend”. Why Mommy? I guess Barbie is too beautiful to be stricken by such an ugly disease sweetie but she can come to visit your sick doll.
As I sit here shaking my head I can’t believe Mattel dropped the ball on this one. All they had to do was call it a Barbie and not a “friend”of Barbie and the fight would have been over. Little girls WILL notice that she isn’t Barbie and they will wonder why. So all the people that pushed and petitioned for the Bald Barbie may be feeling victorious today but in reality
they have created a worse problem.
http://www.change.org/petitions/mattel-inc-please-make-a-beautiful-and-bald-barbie http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2012/03/29/mattel-to-produce-bald-friend-of-barbie/ And while we are on the topic of bald dolls, let’s talk about Bratz Dolls. Manufactured by MGA Entertainment, these dolls are considered Barbie’s rivals. They are dolls for kids that are dressed trashy and slutty in most situations and are disliked by many parents for this reason. MGA beat Mattel to the punch when they saw the want for the bald Barbie. In June they will release a line of dolls, both male and female, that are tastefully dressed and they are bald. These dolls will be sold to the public and can be purchased at stores like Toys R Us. ONE dollar from each sale will go to City of Hope Cancer Research. There is no price listed for these dolls yet but the current dolls on the market average at around $20. If only ONE dollar is going to research, the MGA Company will get the best of both worlds; they will get notoriety for manufacturing the dolls and offering them to the public, they will be recognized for donating money to a charitable organization AND they will make a nice little profit too.
Way to go MGA Company, your Bratz will make the Mattel Company look like a bunch of fools. I guess this means a big black eye for Barbie because Mattel won’t allow her to FIGHT LIKE A GIRL!
http://blogs.babble.com/family-style/2012/02/14/introducing-bald-bratz-and-moxie-dolls/Its soapbox Saturday…..let me climb down. Have a FaNtAsTic day!
Yates
We all remember Andrea Yates don’t we? She was
the woman who systematically drowned all five of her children in a bathtub on June 20th, 2001. It was a
horrific story, one that many people will never forget. Eventually Yates was found to be not guilty by reason of insanity and was sent to a mental health facility in Texas. She claimed she was a bad mother and murdered her children to spare them from hell. She also claimed that Satan was sending her messages.
Her attorney recently announced that she will be asking for permission from a judge to leave the metal facility for two hours each Sunday so she can attend church services. Her doctors are recommending this and think it will be good mental therapy for her. I beg to differ for a couple different reasons.
First and foremost I believe Yates will have her safety
compromised by leaving the facility as many people would love to do harm to her and the press will be in full force during the services disrupting the lives of
others. Even in a church setting she will be a target. Imagine saying “peace be with you” and shaking her hand or imagine holding her hand while you said the
Our Father. Could you pull it off and fake your way though it or would you be thinking that the hand you were shaking or holding held five little children
under water until they died? What if she sat down next to you or your child, would you move? If you did move wouldn’t that be frowned upon in church?
Secondly I don’t think that Church should be an option. Her views on heaven and hell were what set her off in the first place. Her doctors believe she is ready for “outpatient care” and that she is ready to be moved out of the facility and into her own home. She may be “cured” when she is on her medication but she will always be damaged and a threat in my book. Everyone should pray for Angela Yates but allowing her to attend church now would be a mistake on many levels. I’m sure all hell will break loose when she is released for good. Maybe she could live with Casey Anthony?
http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/article/Andrea-Yates-wants-weekly-freedom-to-worship-3440973.phpCherubs
The below picture is of a cool planter I bought at a consignment store yesterday for only $5. It was green so I spray painted it black because I spray paint everything black. It’s raining here so they are wet from being outside. Check out how the little cherubs are sitting on the gargoyle heads. Now that makes a statement doesn’t it? When an angel sits his ass down on your head you know your toast! I still haven’t decided what to plant in it yet, maybe
bleeding hearts or something to keep up with the theme.
TGIFF (Thank God it’s finally Friday!) Have a wonderful day.
Dove’s
Yesterday I discovered pair of Dove’s constructed a nice cozy nest in the gutter above our porch. The sad part is, they can’t live there and providing the eviction notice will be difficult as I really enjoy having birds
in our yard and would love for them to stay. Maybe I’ll just let them stay until the first good rain and then they will leave on their own. Letting nature run its course is sometimes the best option.
Mega Millions
My motto has always been “you can’t win if you don’t play”so I play. I play at casinos; I play scratch off tickets, and occasionally Mega Millions drawings. Before the Tuesday night drawing I purchased 2 tickets and was delighted to see that I had won $6. That’s what separate’s me from the greedy people of world, I’m happy to “win a little” and it’s okay if I don’t win the big jacket but it’s also okay if I do. I will take my $6 winnings and throw them at the Friday night jackpot. $500 million is an insane amount of money but don’t whine if you don’t win because the odds are stacked against you and especially don’t whine if you didn’t buy a ticket, because you can’t win if you don’t play.
Damned If You Do
Yesterday we were running a bit late in the morning so I loaded the kid’s backpacks for them. Typically my daughter packs her own backpack as the teacher is trying to teach the kids a lesson in responsibility. If they forget an assignment they have to spend recess inside redoing it, they don’t get a sticker at the end, they can’t participate in sharing and at the end of the day a message directed to parents is sent home so the they are aware of what is going on. I’m all for lessons in responsibility but I’m also all for helping someone out too. But yesterday I failed miserably. I forget to put Mac’s math homework in her backpack. When I discovered it on the kitchen counter it was too late, even if parents bring the assignments to school the kids are still penalized as it is ultimately their responsibility to make sure they have everything. Needless to say my daughter was not impressed. If you can't trust your mom who can you trust? Thankfully she has forgiven me but I still feel awful about it.
Black Spray Paint
Yesterday I was sanding and stripping the stain off of two wood rocking chairs that sit on our front porch. My goal was to re-stain the chairs. It was not an easy task and I quickly grew frustrated and let my temper get the best of me. (My temper and lack of patience I inherited from my father.) By the end of the day I had spray painted the chairs black.
We had a big red star hanging on the exterior of our house but weather had faded the color and it looked awful. I couldn’t find the red spray paint so I painted that black too. Today I have other projects on my list and I fear that by the time I’m done everything will be spray painted black!
Have a great day passengers!
My gift from the Beta Club.
Markers
Yesterday when I arrived to pick up my son from
school he was the only child not outside waiting to be picked up. I asked his classmates where he was and they were happy to tell me that he was still inside
with the teacher, cleaning up his mess. He took a blue marker and scribbled on his forehead, cheeks, chin, nose, tongue, desk and chair. The kids told me that the teacher was so mad, she told him he could never, ever use markers again. I stood there dreading what I would see when he emerged and sure enough he looked like a Smurf.
After he was loaded in the car the teacher had a few words with me. I have a lot of respect for teachers in general but Kindergarten teachers especially. She said he would be banned from using markers for a week and she also told me it was reported to her by other students that he had been climbing up the stall walls in the bathroom. She said it was difficult to be mad at him because he’s so cute. I think everyone needs to get over the “cute” because his looks are not going to keep him out of prison or get him into a good college.
When we got in the car I asked why he colored all over everything with a marker and then the lies began. He told me they had fruit gushers at snack time and he smashed them up and rubbed them all over everything, that it wasn’t marker. After nearly an hour in the time out chair he finally told the
truth. He said he did it to make the other kids laugh and they told him they wouldn’t tell the teacher if he did it but they did tell and he was upset about that. He felt as though his friends sold him out. He said the teacher wouldn’t have noticed otherwise.
I will keep the pictures in a safe place so I can blow them up for graduation day.
Beta Club
Last night was my speaking engagement with the Beta Club here in Monticello. I had an amazing time, met some wonderful ladies, had the opportunity to talk about myself and my book, sold 8 books and they gave me the tulip arrangement in the above picture (isn’t it adorable?!) and a thank you card with money in it! I had the greatest time. Thank you Beta Club!
Maquech Broach
In Mexico they sell living jewelry. They take Maquech beetles and glue tiny colored stones onto their backs. They also glue on a chain that is a couple inches long with a pin on the end so you can attach it to your shirt and wear this bug as jewelry. These bugs live for 3-4 years. If we were allowed to have these beetles in the U.S., I would definitely have a couple of these
bedazzled beauties. It would be fun to have jewelry that you could interact with and name. I wonder if you could do the same thing with a Stag Beetle. I’ll have to look on Pinterest.
Have an exceptional day passengers!
The Savanna
My daughter has a project she is working on at school and told me she needed some supplies. They are taking shoeboxes and turning them into habitats for different animals, she chose to do the habitat of a leopard. We looked at pictures online and then walked around the house and tried to gather items that would look “natural.” I sent her outside to find a large rock that the leopard could lay on. She came back in the house with a brick, a standard size red, common, everyday brick. I explained that there are no bricks in the Savanna and she argued that we just needed to paint it white. I then tried to explain that the shape of the brick was too perfect, that it wouldn’t look natural even if it were white but there is no reasoning with a nine-year-old, they know EVERYTHING. Hopefully she will see the light and decide not to take the brick to school.
Placenta – It’s what’s for Dinner
Over the past several months we’ve discussed some unusual food and beverage choices including spotted dick and urine. But I read an article today that I just have to tell you about. There’s a new trend, people are eating placenta. Some people believe that it increases milk production in new mothers and is a mood enhancer, others believe that a healthy human body already has the nutrients it needs and that it provides no benefit. Regardless, people are eating placenta. You can buy it in a pill form OR you can cook and prepare your own. There are tons of placenta recipes online and I will warn you that most contain the most disgusting pictures you will ever see.
Have any of you ever eaten placenta? Would you? People in the articles say it tastes like liver and some say it tastes like beef jerky. Wouldn’t that make you a cannibal of sorts if you ate it? Eeeewwww, I just can’t
imagine whipping up a batch of placenta, it would be the meal from hell.
I’ve heard of rubbing a placenta cream on your face to reduce wrinkles and I could do that, in fact I’ve actually used (purchased) hair conditioning products containing animal placentas but I could never throw a
human placenta in the crock pot and eat it. Not even with barbeque sauce or covered in chocolate, no way, no how.
Placenta Smoothie Recipe http://carolinaplacentalady.com/2011/05/placenta-smoothie-recipe/Placenta Raw with morel mushrooms http://yunaii.wordpress.com/2010/12/01/placenta-recipes/ Placenta Lasagna http://www.twilightheadquarters.com/placenta.html http://shine.yahoo.com/parenting/january-jones-eats-own-placenta-healthy-ick-165800669.htmlNow that will give you something to chew on today. Have a terrific Tuesday passengers!
http://shine.yahoo.com/parenting/january-jones-eats-own-placenta-healthy-ick-165800669.html
Name Calling
My son has a difficult time saying and remembering names. We have a neighbor boy named Baxter who he calls Bastard. We practice and practice but it always comes out wrong. Hearing him yell, “Bastard” and then waving madly as Baxter waves back makes me giggle. There is another boy in our neighborhood
named Brennon who Will calls Nelson. Now Brennon sounds nothing like Nelson so I’m not sure where this is coming from. Again we practice and practice but it
always comes out the same.
Bad Dreams
My daughter was having frequent bad dreams a couple months ago so I decided to make her bedtime thirty minutes later. I thought that if she was more tired, she would go to sleep faster and then wouldn’t lay there in bed with too much time to think. This seemed to work as she wasn’t having bad dreams but
I ran into a different problem. She was too tired in the morning and I was worried that she wasn’t getting enough sleep. So I backed her bedtime up by thirty minutes last night and guess what? She had a bad dream. She woke me up at 3:00am and told me all about it.
She was shopping at a store for a crystal ball as she wanted to put it in her bedroom window to create a rainbow on the wall. She stepped on some glass and it stuck in her foot. As she pulled the pieces of
glass out of her foot, blood began to pour out and eventually filled the room. Sharks then appeared and ate her. So now I’m torn, early to bed = bad dreams,
late to bed = too tired. What’s a mom to do?
Long Island Medium
I started watching Long Island Medium last night and I really don’t know what to think about it yet. Some of it seems so real to me but other things like her quirky personality and the drum beating just throw me. The personalities of her family members are also odd. The teenage daughter talks like she has a mouth full of crap, she just doesn’t annunciate well and her
husband is weird too. And if she really has such an incredible gift should she be charging people money for readings? I’m not sure. Online searches show that
she has a two year waiting list but I couldn’t find a price. Some people say it’s a hoax, others say it’s real. What say you?
It’s just another Manic Monday passengers, make it a good one!
Wedding Names
Yesterday while reading the engagement section of the newspaper I saw an interesting name that a woman will receive should she choose to take her
husband’s last name: Mess. I can just imagine funny grocery store conversations that would go something like this: “Hello, you look familiar to me; you are a
Mess aren’t you?” Addressing the cards would be a hoot; Mr. & Mrs. Mess, how funny is that! And I can guarantee that the new bride will transform into a
Mess.
You would have to have a great sense of humor to take on such a funny name. Then would come the Mess babies and no matter what first names you
gave them, they would still have funny names. They would be known at school as the Mess kids. If you went for a jog you would be a “hot” Mess and if you didn’t jog and got fat you would be a “big” Mess. And then when the bride and groom grow old they can look forward to being called Old Man Mess or Old Lady Mess. What a Mess!
Having the last time of Maas is trying also. Many people pronounce it and misspell it as Mass. To help people out I usually tell people Maas, pronounced like the green stuff. We joked about naming our kids Mickey Maas, Haas Maas, Pete Maas or even Christopher Cross Maas but didn’t want to put our kids through a lifetime of name jokes. So now we call them: Mac and Wonka, maybe Mickey and Pete wouldn’t have been so bad after all!
Date Night
Last night my wonderful husband took me to the casino where we lost only nine dollars and then out for a wonderful supper at Timmerman’s Supper
Club in East Dubuque. My husband hates gambling so it took a lot for him to take me to a casino. I love the sounds, the flashing lights and the excitement in the
air. My motto has always been; you can’t win if you don’t play. But I rarely win so walking out minus only nine dollars was a treat.
I sipped these fruity drinks of raspberry schnapps and lemonade at the Supper Club; they were the perfect springtime drink. To eat I had a seafood platter consisting of lobster, crab legs, shrimp, fish, scallops and other delightful underwater things. He ate his favorite; rare, rib eye steak. With a window seat overlooking the Mississippi river we had a fantastic view. We had a wonderful evening and
decided that we need to have date night more often. The world just seems to move too fast anymore and it’s important to take time out from the craziness to just enjoy each other’s company.
Conversations
When you have kids you sometimes have conversations that you never imagined you would have. Yesterday while getting dressed I heard this;
Yeah, well if you don’t I’m going to fart on your string cheese! Say what?! “There will be NO farting on anyone’s string cheese! You guys need to have some
respect for each other and the food products in this house!” Enough said.
Have a wonderful Sunday Passengers!
Bad Reporting
I’m sure by now most of you have read of the horrific story where the 22 year old women was shot and killed by her 44 year old ex-boyfriend in Jesup, Iowa. There was one thing that stuck out in my mind when I was reading the newspaper stories and watching the reports on the television. Nearly every story said she was a former cheerleader. Why? She was 22 years old why does it matter that she was a cheer leader in high school? Does that somehow make her a better person or make him a worse person? If she was on the chess team in high school would the stories have reported that she was a former chess team member
in high school? I don’t think so. I don’t understand this type of reporting. I could see if she had just graduated or was still in high school but being a cheerleader does not determine what kind of a person she was. I think they could have found a better way to say what a wonderful person she was or what a horrible person he was.
http://crimeblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2012/03/44-year-old-doctor-from-rockwa.htmlBAM
I went to the website that BAM suggested I use for getting my book in the store and basically it lists three distributers that they use, and if a book is not offered by one of the three distributers, then to bad so sad. These distributers also do not have websites where the average Joe can contact them. I’m not giving up though, I’ll keep trying.
Sticky Situations
I stumbled upon an interesting website that I would like to share with you. It’s called Solutions That Stick and they basically carry adhesive products to solve a variety of problems such as: camel toe, not having enough “junk” in your trunk, fake pubic hair, deodorant stains, bra straps that fall down, smelly
shoes, nipple blockers and Subtle Butt Disposable Gas Neutralizers to make farts not smell. This is a REAL website, not a joke and they really carry these
products. You have to see it to believe it. At $11.95 for a five-pack of fart filters, it must be a really good buy, or not. You can see it here; http://solutionsthatstick.com/subtle-butt-disposable-gas-neutralizers-8Have a great day passengers, do something constructive today!
Kindergarten
Yesterday my son was excited to share a Kindergarten project he had worked on at school. The paper was divided into three sections and below the
words the students were to draw pictures to answer the questions. I asked Will to explain his drawings to me. Section 1 read: When I was a baby I…….Will’s
picture was of a baby and he explained that when he was a baby he didn’t know any bad words. Section 2 read: Now I can….will drew himself in stickman form
and explained that now that he is older he knows bad words but doesn’t say them. Section 3 read: When I am older I will…..He drew himself as a bigger
stickman and explained that when he is an adult he will be able to say bad words! #2%&* teachers, what are they teaching these kids?! : )
The Prom Date
A special needs boy in Minnesota asked a few girls from school to prom and they all turned him down so he did what any red-blooded American kid would do: he got on his Twitter account and asked 600 different porn stars to go to prom with him! A 19 year old girl accepted his offer and said she didn’t get to go to her own prom.
The school is now banning the porn star and saying she cannot attend prom. It reminds me of a song by Confederate Railroad, called Trashy Women; You should have seen the looks on the faces of my dad and ma, when I showed up at the door with my date for the senior prom. They said pardon us son but she ain’t no kid, she’s a cocktail waitress with a Dolly Pardon wig. I said I know it Dad, ain’t she cool, that’s the kind I dig! I like my women just a little on the trashy side, when they wear their clothes too tight and their hair is dyed. Too much lipstick and too much rouge, gets me excited leaves me feeling confused, yeah I like my women just a little on the trashy side.
I think they should let this girl attend prom. The schools concern is that her attendance would cause a disturbance. If Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga or another “acceptable” singer or movie star was invited I bet they would be okay with it even though it still would cause a “disturbance.” But the school’s decision isn’t keeping this boy down, he’s going to have his own party and invite all of his classmates. I hope he and his date have a fantastic time and I hope someone pees in the punch and the “Harper Valley PTA” drinks it.
http://www.startribune.com/local/east/143689796.htmlLindor Truffles
Yesterday while driving I reached into my purse and pulled out my cell phone, it was covered with chocolate. As I was driving down the road licking my phone, I wondered if there was any solution to this problem. Most of the year, I keep at least two Lindor Truffles, in my purse in case of an emergency. That’s just the way I roll. But when it gets warm outside they melt and leave a nice puddle in the bottom of my purse. Someone needs to invite tiny little coolers that fit in a purse so people like me don’t have this serious
problem.
Have an exceptional day passengers!
Update; Obama with No Mama
Well I guess I can legitimately be pissed off now that Obama’s 13 year old daughter is OFFICIALLY vacationing in Mexico with 25 secret service agents. The white house provided a statement on her safety after the Mexico earth quake struck. The White House also again requested that the Obama children not be photographed or reported on when their parents are not present.
Obama’s kids are untouchable; they want them to remain pristine and unharmed by publicity or the paparazzi. I say to hell with that. When you are president of the United States it’s a package deal. If you don’t want your parenting skills put under the microscope and don’t want your children to get
messed up during your term then don’t run for president. And don’t make stupid rules for the press like “you can only take pictures of my kids when I am with them” and then you are never with them! How the hell can you make the right decisions for your country when you can’t even make the right decision for your kids?!
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-la-pn-first-daughter-malia-obama-safe-mexico-earthquake-20120320,0,1352196.storyChocolate Peep’s
Today I did all of you a favor. I bought a package of chocolate mousse flavored, marshmallow Peep bunnies. I’m not a huge fan of Peeps to begin
with but with a chocolaty flavor I thought maybe they would be good. I thought wrong. They were so-so at best, nothing to jump up and down about. I was also
amazed at the variety of colors now available for regular Peeps but there is something I find disturbing; why do they call the bunnies Peep’s too? Bunnies
don’t peep so it doesn’t make much sense to me. They should be called Hopper’s or something. And they also have bears! If you have never been to the Peeps
website, you should visit, they have amazing recipes and ideas.
www.marshmallowpeeps.comBut I did find the most extravagant of treats the other day; Godiva Chocolatier, Pearls, Dark Chocolate with Mint. A 1.5oz tin container of these beauties was $4.65 but man they were worth it because my Mom bought them and not me. This is the to-die-for type of chocolate that isn’t for kids as they wouldn’t appreciate it, and besides that there isn’t enough to share with them anyway.
BAM
Today I stopped in the Books-A-Million store in Dubuque to see if they would carry my book. I’ve called there a few times and was told someone
would get back to me but that never happened. I thought making a personal appearance would make all the difference. Today I was told the manager was in a meeting (yeah right) and then I was told that I would need to apply online at the BAM website. I wanted to hit the clerk with a book and say “BAM”just to make myself feel better. But I didn’t. Someday these bastards will be BEGGING for my
forgiveness – I guarantee it.
Have a fantastic day!
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