Here-Take My Brain While You Are At It

You know, I like being free. I like having the freedom to make decisions, to choose, within certain parameters how to raise my children and live my life. One thing I really, REALLY like about Texas is that there is a large amount of personal freedom here. I think the Governor is askeered of the rednecks. And who could blame him?

We need to send a diplomatic committee of good Texas rednecks to Massachusetts. Them boys up there have lost their minds.

Seriously now. I know the Texas Redneck Diplomatic Committee would have to check their rifles at the state line and all but I think, in this case, it is worth it.

The Massachusetts House debated the introduction of a bill that would make spanking a child illegal in Mass. If signed into law, parents would be prohibited from forcefully laying a hand on any child under age 18 unless it was to wrest them from danger, lest they be charged with abuse or neglect.

But you can slap the crap out of your 18 year old.

I don’t care what side of the spanking issue you are on. Parental rights are being removed so fast we can’t keep up, and all in the name of protecting the child. But I want to know why our brilliant government is so interested in protecting children from their parents as opposed to protecting them from others. In Maryland parents were taken to court for choosing not to vaccinate their children (yet another debate..I will be glad to discuss at another time). Some idiot judge in New Jersey called homeschooling akin to child abuse…

And it goes on. So my guess is that, similar to Hitler’s program with children in Nazi Germany, our government would like to come to the place where it is the parent and we are but drone worker bees. Feeding and caring for the young but having no real authority over them.

The argument is that the “spanking boundary is often overstepped. ” Well, yes it is. And we think outlawing spanking is going to change that because?????

Look, you can outlaw anything you want but when you do ONLY THE PEOPLE NOT BREAKING THE LAW are going to abide by it. If you have a law that states a parent can not spank their child then parents who are self disciplined and not freakishly mental are going to abide by that law. But those are all ready the ones that are not beating the crap our of their kids anyway! The people that are abusing their children are going to lose it and beat them regardless of what Big Brother says.

Taking it further. Removing a child from a loving and supportive home because he got a couple of swats for running into the 4 lane highway is more abusive by far than the swats. I don’t know how it is where you are but there seems to be rash of reports about abuse in Foster Homes here. So, I spank my kid, three swats on the backside. The child is forcibly removed from my home and placed in a home where he knows noone..and is then subject to abuse. Brilliant plan, Skippy.

So, in keeping with that child protective idea here are some suggestions I have for bills to be introduced regarding children:

1.Dressing little girls to look like hookers should be illegal, punishable by the mom’s being forced to wear clothes in the style of Huggie Bear ( or whatever his name was) in Starsky and Hutch.. An addendum to that would be that little girls who were dressed in yoga pants with words like “sweet” plastered across the butt would be given a pair of levi’s and a flannel shirt. Please people, where do you think the perverts are going to look?

2. Children must be fed 3 hot meals a day that are nutritionally balanced, low in fat and refined sugars, and organic. Furthermore they mist be given organic, whole grain, low fat snacks at regular intervals.

3. Bedtimes for all children under the age of 10 must be 8 :30, and ages 10-18 9:00. Sleep deprivation you know.

4. Sesame Street, especially the old shows, will be outlawed. Seriously, did you read that the old shows of Sesame Street have been given a teen rating because they “can be too disturbing for small children”? O.k..I do find Elmo disturbing..but not as disturbing as Telletubbies.

5. No tree climbing, bike riding, or contact sports. Children go to ER’s every day from doing these things.

6. No INTERNET. Can you believe that when I googled no spanking in Mass. One of the first things to come up on my screen was one of those shots where you are amazed that the camera can get THAT close when people are doing that? What if I had assigned my 15 year old a research paper on this subject? Hmmm?

7. Public and Private schools should be illegal. Too many shootings and violence. Plus too many teachers sleeping with their students. Those places are obviously dens of inequity.
There, I think those are good places for the Massachusetts Legislature to start. Hopefully that will keep them busy enough that they don’t invite the Gov. of Texas to Starbucks and let him in on the idea. He has enough odd ideas of his own…and Bubba Joe, Bubba Tom, Billy-Joe, and Waylon are busy enough right now.

Written by...Babe Marye -- @ Unhinged | Comment (1)

Outside My Office Window

When my husband and I began looking for a house in the spring of 2002, we were looking for something very special. When we spied the house we now call home, one selling point was the farm across the street. The owners assured us they wouldn’t sell, so urban sprawl won’t be a problem.

The sunrises coming up over the farm were absolutely stunning. And if my son and I were awake, we would always take time to watch the sun come up.

Two years ago we learned the person who owned the farm across the road passed away and his kids sold the farm to some McMansion development company. Now this is what my son and I watch instead of sunrises in the morning:

Since this is directly outside my office window, I’m sure you can imagine the noise while I’m working.

In addition, a bypass is being put up to divert traffic from clogging up the main routes through town. You guessed it, my road is going to have lots of traffic. 40 new homes and bypass traffic. We can’t wait.

Written by...Babe Deborah -- @ Household | Comments (15)

Rasslin’ Season Begins

I’ve always encouraged my kids to try just about everything they want as far as extra curricular activities at school. The twins were active in little league baseball and youth league football until they started in middle school. Suddenly it didn’t seem so fun when it wasn’t required that each team member play at least one inning or one quarter.

It was at that time, I began encouraging them to look into sports that were not team sports. This year they’ve decided to try wrestling. At first I was a little apprehensive because of the horror stories I’ve heard associated with the sport, but two days in to practice, I’m ready to petition for year-round wrestling.

The kids come home from practice, they do their homework, take care of their animals, take a shower, eat supper and call it a night.

They are sleeping better, they don’t fight - heck, they don’t even have the energy to pick up the remote, let alone fight over who gets to watch what!

It’s yet to be seen how mama’s going to handle watching the actual matches, but for now, I’m so likin’ rasslin’.

Written by...Babe Gayla -- @ Family & Friends, Parenting | Comments (2)

One Creepy Guy

Okay, so my daughter comes home from school yesterday and said that one of her classmate’s dad said she was the prettiest girl in school. What was my first reaction? To go knock on his door and tell him how inappropriate his comment was. My daughter is 10 for crying out loud and he is in his 30’s! That’s just creepy if you ask me.

You know what else is creepy? This guy lives in our old house. Yeah, weird. Also, every time I go up to school to have lunch with my kids, volunteer, or whatever….this guy is there! I’m seeing red flags everywhere wouldn’t you agree? It’s one thing for a dad to be involved in his kids’ lives, but it’s another thing to be making comments like that and to be up at school 24/7, it seems.

So I am trying to figure out how to handle this situation. Do I:

A) Go have my husband pummel this guy.

B) Go to his house myself and tell him to leave my daughter alone.

C) Tell the principle he’s got a creep on his hands. (My kids principal is an ex-college basketball player and he is HUGE!)

D) Go have my husband pummel this guy. (Wait, did I mention that one already?)

Anyway, I’m going to do something about it because he shouldn’t be making comments like that about a little girl, in my opinion anyway and I just get weird vibes from him. I asked my daughter what she thought about this guy and she said “He’s creepy”. Well, there you go.

So, what would you do in a situation like this?

Written by...Babe Julie -- @ Parenting, Seriously Now | Comments (30)

Because I Might As Well….

Well, I do like to cook…. And I am pretty good at it according to some people…So I decided that posting a cookie recipe was a great idea. I hope you like it.

You can, of course, substitute chocolate chips, dark chocolate chips, bittersweet chips, white chocolate chips, espresso chips…or what ever else you like with this.

Raspberry Chocolate Chip Cookies 

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups raspberry swirl chocolate chips**
• 1 cup unsalted almonds, chopped and toasted

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease cookie sheets, or use parchment or silpat sheets. Cream together butter and shortening, sugars, and vanilla until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time mixing well after each.
Stir dry ingredients together and stir into butter mixture. Stir in chips and almonds.
Drop from teaspoon onto baking sheets and bake for 8-10 minutes, until just done. Take them out slightly underdone and allow to sit for 5 minutes before removing them from the baking sheet. It takes a little experience to know just when to take them out of the oven for the perfect texture.
Makes about 4 dozen.

** these are no longer available from Hershey but you can get raspberry chips, as wella s other flavored chips at most baking supply shops, and on the internet.

Written by...Babe Marye -- @ In The Kitchen | Comments (5)

By Request: Mississippi Mud Pie

This is so good.

INGREDIENTS

• 2 packages chocolate instant pudding (3.9 ounces each)
• 2 cups cold milk
• 1 package cream cheese, softened (8 ounces)
• 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
• 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1 chocolate or graham cracker pie crust

DIRECTIONS

1. Place pudding mix in a medium bowl and whisk in milk. Mix until smooth. Allow to set up for 5 minutes then spread on pie crust.
2. In a large bowl whip cream cheese until fluffy. Beat in confectioner’s sugar until mixture is smooth. In a separate bowl, whip cream until soft peaks form, then fold into cream cheese mixture. Spread over pudding layer. Chill before serving.

Written by...Babe Deborah -- @ Recipes | Comments (11)

Honey, Get The Shotgun The Sheriff Is Here

 

When did our government decide it could just do what it wanted and we would be too busy Paying taxes to notice?

image courtesy of: knowtations.com

So, Marc and I are both veterans. We were in the intelligence field. We have decent minds, and we read alot. We consider ourselves to be pretty politically aware. So how did the changes to eminent domain slip by us so easily?

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Written by...Babe Marye -- @ Seriously Now | Comments (4)