OMG Beyonce!

If cursing is offensive to you, I recommend you read the disclaimer at the end first.  Just for the record, it's not my cursing... it's on another blog I link to.  I'd hate for you to be offended.

My children are just unflappable!  I love that my loudness and fondness for making a spectacle of myself doesn't often bother them too much and that occassionally they even enjoy it!

Last week, I went shopping with my daughter for some things my daughter needed and we found ourselves at Ross.  We didn't find what we needed, but we did find THESE!!!

We rounded a corner and I saw them, standing on the shelf at eye level!  I exclaimed!

It's Beyonce!

I was completely entranced in my own little world of chickens and failed to notice that I started several people (causing one to jump) and created a small stir as people frantically looked around to see where Beyonce*was!  (I can only assume they were thinking of the singer).  

I ran up to her and pulled her off the shelf then hugged her for the preciousness she is.

Then I spotted a second chicken!

There are TWO!  I can have one too! 

(you will note that I spelled both two/too's correctly)

I debated the wisdom in spending $40 on metal chickens and tried to restrain myself by taking just one from the shelf.  I walked around blissfully happy for I've been looking for an apartment sized Beyonce for about a year.  

I made my way to the checkout and just as it was my turn, I pushed my daughter out of line to go get the other Beyonce QUICK!

I was next.  I told the young woman (oh man, did I just say that?) at the checkout that she needed to charge me for two of these as my daughter went back to get the other one.  

Checkout girl:  You really like chickens, eh?

Me:  Actually, I don't, but I love this one.  It's a long story, but a good one.  You need to go check it out on line.  (I then proceeded to tell her about The Bloggess and she was interested enough to take extra receipt paper from the till and write it down!  My chicken love must have been contagious!)

I cannot wait to give the other chicken away!  

The best part of this story is listening to my daughter tell it to others!  Thanks for being you Hannah and appreciating me!

Disclaimer:  I do not curse in this post (or really in this blog).  However, I am a fan of certain blogs and they do curse.  The nature of myself and the internet leads to many links and I would hate for you to not realize what you're getting yourself into.  Specifically here, The Bloggess curses a fair bit.  It's not the backbone of her humor (as some comedians use it) but it is liberally sprinkled throughout her site.  She is still hilarious and one of a few must read blogs on my list.  But I appreciate it isn't everyone's cup of tea.  

binder clips

There is a story behind why this is SO great to me!
The admin who had my position before I did was a hoarder.  She hoarded office supplies in a big way.  Our division went through a huge spring cleaning and we managed to divest ourselves of 40 filing cabinets!!  As we went through them, we kept finding stashes of office supplies; often locked.  There was a filing cabinet with one drawer full of pens -- all of them so old, they didn't work anymore and they had never been used!  They just dried out.

I think in all we found like 7 filing cabinets of office supplies.  The best one was a lateral file drawer FULL of  binder clips!  All the same size, most of them grouped and put into sandwich bags with 5 little boxes in each bag.  I stood there for minutes.  I took a picture (which I sadly cannot find because I would truly love to share this with you).  I just couldn't for the life of me imagine an instance when one would need to purchase so many binderclips!  What possible eventuality would one plan for to have so many hundreds of binder clips?  It's not like they are going to be useful in a Zombie Apocolopyse or something important like that!

A coworker, whom I shared this story, just sent me this and I so enjoyed looking through it.

I hope you do too!


http://www.buzzfeed.com/kevindanger/54-uses-for-binder-clips-that-will-change-your-lif-555z

The cleverness of humanity always delights me!

hysteria

Um.... really?
This was an uncontroversial treatment?

An article about the Top 10 Controversial Psychiatric Disorders
One being:  Hysteria

In the Victorian era, hysteria was a catch-all diagnosis for women in distress. The symptoms were vague (discontentment, weakness, outbursts of emotion, nerves) and the history sexist (Plato blamed the wanderings of an "unfruitful" uterus).

The treatment for hysteria? "Hysterical paroxysm," also known as orgasm. Physicians would massage their patients' genitals either manually or with a vibrator, a task they found tedious but surprisingly uncontroversial. More contentious was the practice of putting "hysterical" women on bed rest or demanding that they not work or socialize, a treatment that often worsened anxiety or depression.

According to a 2002 editorial in the journal Spinal Cord, the diagnosis of hysteria gradually petered out throughout the 20th century. By 1980, hysteria disappeared from the DSM in favor of newer diagnoses like conversion and dissociative disorders.

Thank you once again Internet for giving me a laugh.

why I love the internet

There is a website for just about everything out there!
Case in point...

I am fat and I want to cut my hair shorter.  EVERYONE loves long hair.  So getting opinions on this is difficult because the standard response is "don't cut your hair."

So.... I decided to do what I do for most things.  I asked Google.

http://www.fatgirlsguidetoliving.com/2010/05/20/the-fat-girls-guide-to-flattering-hair-cuts-for-round-faces/

strange day

today, in here it was nuts.  So many people are having problems and so far it's not me personally (well not entirely, I'll get back to that later.)  But I care about the people around me.  I listen, I try to help and try to avoid "solving" because you know that just leads to a bad place.


So I'm laughing at some things on YouTube and came acrross this.  Thought I'd share.


http://youtu.be/r5R8gSgedh4

The comments had me just dyingl

 

Bridgette

count it all joy...

teaching history

Interesting article/show...

http://www.npr.org/2012/07/30/157604072/ever-growing-past-confounds-history-teachersI especially love the idea of tossing out the books to teach history in a way that really draws the student in and helps them understand WHY IT MATTERS instead of memorizing a bunch of facts; which in my book isn't learning.



I feel strongly about my kids (and myself) learning not just the facts, but the reasons why those facts are important.  Honestly, I went to school in one of the  best districts in the state and remember so little of what was taught to me.  The things I really remember are those that the teacher helped me UNDERSTAND!  I still remember the short story The Bet and my teacher telling me "it wretches me" as she described the issues in the story and what they really meant.  This ability to read and understand is highly under-developed in our world today.  I sincerely doubt we can point to any one reason why, thought I'm sure the technological revolution has something to do with it.  The short attention spans and the idea that within a few clicks on a keyboard, I  can know anything.  (I admit, I'm guilty here.)  However, I had a mom who felt it was important I understand how to have a discussion, how to reason. I ran with it and turned into what I now realize was a really obnoxious teen.  I was so sure I was right about everything because I read and thought I understood.  Add that knowledge to being a teen who already thinks we are unstoppable and you can imagine how I behaved.  (I'll give you a hint, there were a number of lunch tables that served as my soap box).  Fun times!


Do you know how to reason?  To think an idea through and know if it is logical and sound?  If not, this is something you should seriously consider adding to your "to do" list.  




And if you missed it in the link above:  http://histsociety.blogspot.com/2012/05/when-is-it-time-to-stop-teaching.html

stuff that should exist

I have been an admin for a long time.  Most of my adult life in fact.  I actually like doing this kind of work so I'm not complaining.  There are some things about this kind of work that can be frustrating.  There aren't any jobs without this I know.  One of the things that can cause difficulties is keeping my boss on schedule.  


Many years ago, at the cusp of the electronic revolution -- we're talking when alpha-numeric pagers were the thing to have; I came up with what I thought then, and still think today would have a really great market.


I introduce to you...
The Executive Pager/Cattle Prod

The idea is that only the admin has the code to make the cattle prod part work. You put the code in and zap!!  Time to go to that next meeting boss man!

I'm working on specs now.  I'm pretty sure I could write an app for this and secretly load it on smart phones. :)