Hope everyone had a pleasant holiday weekend!  We had good friends come for dinner Saturday evening and the kids dyed eggs.  Then Sunday morning we attended church at Victory Fellowship in Brazoria (http://www.victorybrazoria.com  ).  It was wonderful.  Headed up to the cousins’ to have Easter dinner and visit with family and friends.  Ate way too much.  It’s a shame  there are so many good cooks in the family . . .

Saw John Kerry on the news this morning while I was waiting for Jami to finish getting ready for school.  He was speaking to a classroom full of college kids and he said, “If I were president TODAY, TODAY (emphasis added by me!) . . . this is what I would do . . . “

I laughed and told my husband in my best John Kerry . . . “BUT if I were president TOMORROW . . . . “

All his supporters should get little lapel pins shaped like flip-flops.  To quote Jimmy Buffett, hopefully the man will “blow out his flip-flop” before November.  Then he can “cruise on back home” — of course, it may take him a while to decide WHICH home to cruise to . . .

This tickled my funny bone — unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get the Odin-nesque, all-powerful image to display . . . but the results are, nevertheless:

You are a GRAMMAR GOD!

If your mission in life is not already to
preserve the English tongue, it should be.
Congratulations and thank you!

How grammatically sound are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

I’m trying to add a little to my journal and my grey tabby cat is intent on preventing me from doing this.  He’s lying between me and the computer monitor, occasionally jacking with the mouse and then letting his head roll over onto the keyboard.  It makes typing somewhat difficult.

I had a pretty stressful day today and it’s my own fault.  I got caught up in a debate over on another blog and got my Irish up (nevermindthefact that I’m not Irish — my husband’s grandmother is.  Does that count?)  Anyway, the majority of people posting to the comments section are extremely liberal and I actually wasted time trying to debate the issues with them.  I thought I presented my arguments in a logical, well-thought out manner — in return I was called a “nit-wit,” “ignorant,” “full of patriotic crap,” well . . . you get the picture.  When I made the mistake of pointing out that resorting to name-calling indicates someone is intellectually challenged and not able to debate the issues on their merits, another poster told me I couldn’t complain about name-calling if I was going to resort to same.

Personally, I don’t feel I was name-calling.  I think I was pointing out the obvious! 

In addition to the politically-charged conversations of the day, I went to do a blind installation this afternoon only to discover that the blind manufacturer sent the wrong installation brackets.  I called them asap only to discover that the brackets must come from the plant in Mexico, and it is very unlikely that they will get them sent out before the Easter holiday.  My poor client has been waiting weeks for these blinds . . . and now another delay.  Sometimes being my own business owner is not all it’s cracked up to be . . .

And then when I’m able to schedule things around my daughter’s school activities, or take a day to do something I want to or need to do . . . it’s good to be “Boss.”

Yum . . . made the following recipe for dinner:

1 lb. ground venison; 1/2 cup chopped onions; 4 carrots (diced); 3 ribs celery (diced); 1 garlic clove (minced); 1 qt. tomato juice; 1 Tbsp. salt; 2 cups dry lentils (washed with stones removed); 1 qt. water; 1/2 tsp. dried marjoram; 1 Tbsp. brown sugar

Brown ground meat and onion in skillet and drain.  Combine all ingredients in slow cooker.  Cover.  Cook on Low 8 – 10 hours or High 4 – 6 hours.  Eight servings.

I just read the following on “Blind Pig”‘s weblog and thought he pointed out quite succinctly what I’ve been thinking about the Democrats’ insistence on utilizing “negotiations” to iron out this mess overseas:

«Friday, April 02, 2004

An interesting excerpt from Jonah Goldberg’s column today:

«Which brings me to the case for Bush’s re-election. When you strip out the biliousness from Clarke’s charges, one thing comes through loud and clear: The Bush team didn’t adjust to the dangers of al-Qaida quickly enough. They were clearly putting the right policies in place, but they had to learn on the job. They eventually accepted almost all of Clarke’s recommendations, including an all-out assault on Afghanistan after 9/11. In fact, it was Condoleezza Rice who insisted on keeping Clarke on board in the White House in order to maintain “continuity” between the administrations. Clarke repaid her by saying she’d “ignored” the threat of terrorism.

Well, if this administration, brimming with all of these alleged hawks and cowboys – Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Wolfowitz – still needed to get up to speed on the terrorist threat, do we really believe that John Kerry won’t need even more on-the-job-training? Even if Kerry were as hawkish on terror as Bush – or even Clarke – he would still need to bone up. Unfortunately, Kerry’s not only not up to speed, but he’s actually committed to the notion that this isn’t even a war on terrorism so much as a job for law enforcement. Do we really want him to learn the error of his ways on the job?»

I agree with this whole-heartedly.  Bet you’re surprised! 

I decided to try a new weblog community.  I’ve been using LiveJournal, but got bored with it, so we’ll see what happens with this!

I’m intrigued by the whole weblog phenomenon.  What motivates someone to spend time posting to a website that may or may not be read by others?  Do they do it for themselves or for potential readers, and do they write truth or mostly b.s.?

I’ve been reading a number of other weblogs for several months now.  I am somewhat addicted to The North Carolina Experiment ( http://www.thestudyofdesign.com/NC/index.php ), although we are polar opposites philosophically.  Beth Cherry is an excellent writer, even when she’s writing opinions that make me want to run screaming into the distance!   Her opinions are thought-provoking and make for excellent debate in the comments section of her blog.  I hope to have a similar effect on people someday.