WOO-HOO, We Did It!!

VIRGINIA WENT FOR OBAMA!! VIRGINIA HASN'T GONE FOR DEMS IN 44 YEARS!!!

Oh, And Another Thing.

I CANNOT WAIT FOR THE ELECTION TO BE OVER.

The News!

So in case you haven't been paying close enough attention lately, I've got some news updates for you.

1) Today is "No Pants Wednesday". That's right, take 'em off. This is the best news you're going to get on my list today.

2) "It's about time we got a HOT V.P." - that is a quote from a fox news reporter. I heard it on the radio yesterday morning on the way to work, and I've decided that I'm officially bored with this election. Does anybody know where Ralph Nader went?

3) "It is a myth that lack of exercise makes you fat." I stumbled upon this new diet while checking my email. Evidently the most important thing you can do to lose weight is time your meals properly. It doesn't matter what you eat, or if you even move at all.

4) Mickey Rourke is finally making his leading man comeback as Randy "the ram" Robinson in "The Wrestler"

Well, that's all I have for you today. Stay tuned for more urgent updates as they come in, and take your pants off!

-Ward

Just Another Reason to Love Brad Pitt

"Brad Pitt has donated $100,000 to fight California's November ballot initiative that would overturn the state Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage."

I don't expect anyone to agree with me on this issue (and what a heated issue it can become at times) but I wish more people would see it the way that Brad Pitt does:

"Because no one has the right to deny another their life, even though they disagree with it, because everyone has the right to live the life they so desire if it doesn't harm another and because discrimination has no place in America, my vote will be for equality and against Proposition 8," Pitt said Wednesday.

Right on, Mr. Pitt

For My Ward

You can also read about it here and here.

A Tear The Size of A Baseball

I've done it folks, finally! I have finished Breaking Dawn and I just knew that those related to me that finished it weeks ago would want to know what I thought (as if they didn't already know what I thought).



First let me begin by telling you that I don't usually read young adult or teen fiction but the Twilight series came highly recommended by my niece who is an avid reader with fairly decent taste. I do like to read and I like to have things to discuss with my far away family so I bought the first and second book (and got a deal on amazon).



I have never read any vampire stories and other than the New Orleans Vampire Tour we went on in 2005, I have never been all that into Vampire lore. But Twilight was OK, it wasn't the best book that I had ever read but I liked the love story entangled with this new concept of Vampires-vegetarian Vampires that is. So I began New Moon and I was less than impressed with the on and on ramblings of how sad Bella was at Edward's absence. While reading New Moon, Breaking Dawn, the fourth and final book in the Twilight series was released. Both my sister and my sister-in-law were reading the series and at a much faster pace than I was. Only, and I really mean ONLY because they were reading the series and I have a desperate desire to talk about the books I read, did I continue through Half Moon to Eclipse. Eclipse was rather good, maybe my favorite book in the series. I was involved enough with the characters that I was beginning to almost care what happened to them and my eye rolling has dwindled down to about only once every chapter or so. I was well aware of the fourth book when I finished Eclipse but I just couldn't help but think-what else is there really to say or do?



So I started Breaking Dawn and it almost immediately made me want to stop. I could care less about the wedding details, this book really is written for teenage girls huh? I was about to get bored with the honeymoon when Meyers takes us to absurdity in her plot twist. I couldn't help but wonder if Meyers thought the plot was so twisted and unlike her main character that she decided to switch to another characters first person for 'Book 2'. I mean I like Jacob, I mean I really do, but I would have much preferred the books all be told from Bella's perspective. The pregnant Bella was too far a stretch for Meyer's to write I presume? That's fine, but lets edit some of these pages, does the pregnancy which doesn't last all that long, really have to take up so much of the book?



Then the baby, Renesmee? Let's look past her ridiculous name for a moment-oh wait, that is just too hard to do. Let me gasp, sigh, and roll my eyes. OK, back to my review. Jacob imprinting on Nessie (better name choice?). I saw it coming but how I wished Meyer's wasn't going to let me down in this fashion after the first two sections of Breaking Dawn had been such a letdown, but no, she goes through with it even though Leah was a better match in my opinion. I was hoping someone in the story could form a relationship the old fashioned way but I guess not.



I can stomach Bella's overcoming of most of the drawbacks to the newborn stage but Charlie coming over. Are you serious? If I wasn't so interested in just how bizarre this book could get, I would have stopped reading pages ago.



So I try to overlook most of the bad silly things that happen and look at the positives for this tale as I am investing a lot of spare time into this 754 page book that read a lot slower than The Deathly Hallows. Meyer's fits the pieces together pretty well. I like the supernatural powers and even the wolf twist, I was even managing to accept the imprinting scenario as were Edward and Bella when the book was winding down-slowly-slowly-slowly through the Volturi visit when what do I come across but Jacob crying a tear the size of a baseball, a BASEBALL. This was it. I must have read this sentence 14 times. A baseball. Really. Well, that really tells me how sad he was at the prospect of losing Bella. Baseball (come back eyes, don't stay back there).

Baseballs aren't really huge, unless you have tears the size of them. Then they are just ridiculous. I would have cried from laughing if I didn't feel so inferior to these large, perfectly rounded tears of Jacobs. I am being insensitive, aren't I? Oh well, I can't seem to help myself.

Anyways, I had to get that off my shoulder. The book ended OK, I would have liked to have seen an actual physical confrontation between the Voturi and the rest of the vampires but I will take the ending she gave us. Hoping that it is the end.

This morning my sister told me that Midnight Sun, the inteded fifth book told from Edward's perspective was leaked, or at least the first twelve chapters, on the Internet and so Meyers has decided to indefinitely end working on it. I can only think that you should stop while you are ahead and though this will mean less revenue for you Mrs. Meyers, it is probably the right thing. Stopping at Eclipse was probably best, but ending now, you know with your "THE END" page and all it's finality at the end of Breaking Dawn is respectable.

First Impressions

So Ward and I just finished watching Barack Obama's nomination acceptance speech and I just thought that I would take a few minutes and respond because I know all of my republican readers can't wait until tomorrow for my response.

I will keep it short and to the point, it's late.

I like Obama. I mean I really do. He delivers a good speech (having taken one speech course in high school and two in college I have no idea how all of these people pull their speeches off so effortlessly). He says the things I want to hear and I think I like him even more tonight than last night.

So of course he said what I and other supporters want to hear, isn't that politics as usual, if you vote for me this is what I will do for you... But I think that it is more than just saying what I want to hear, I think he has a plan for us and I would like to see him have a term in office to prove himself, I mean what do we have to lose.

I like his stance on the War, on education, on the energy crisis. I like that he says that the election isn't about him, that it's about the rest of us. As corny and ridiculous as this will sound, when he was talking about Martin Luther King, Jr and the change we need now I caught myself holding my breath. I like what this man is saying. I feel silly and giddy, but I really want to see him in office. I am ready for the change he spoke of.

Here is this man standing before his country asking them to vote for him and I say-

OK, Obama, OK.

I am going to try and watch as many of the speeches next week as I can, I want to give McCain a fair chance but I hate to admit that my heart has already been won over. I will have to remind myself to keep an open mind next week. Either way I am already looking forward to that first debate on Sept. 26th.

When I think about my family and what would be best for just us I sometimes think that I could be/would be a republican but when I think about what is best for others, for the world, for our planet, I have to lean more towards the liberal side of things. I don't register with either party. I don't usually get this involved in elections (even though I think I should). I have NEVER donated money to a candidate before, yet alone on multiple occasions. But something has stirred in me as well and I want to be involved. I get excited when the polls call and they have now, several times. I get excited when the Obama camp calls and I can tell them what I am thinking. We want to feel that our vote makes a difference and for some reason with him, I feel like my vote, my support, really does matter.

He speaks of change. He says we can.

I like him.

And that ole Al Gore too.

-Of course, june

It's My Birthday and I'll Cry If I Want To

This morning my neighbor stopped in to see if I wanted to go to the auction being held two doors up, the children were napping and Ward agreed to stay home so I went with her and her daughter to be nosy and see who are new neighbors perhaps might be and to see how much the house, built the same times as ours, would go for.

How much did the house go for? $150K!

Reasons to be depressed:

1.) Our neighborhood seems to be going to pot.

2.) We own not one but TWO houses in our neighborhood.

3.) We may never sell either of the two houses, I can sit on that second house for 10 years before I take a $225K loss.

4.) The US economy may really be in a depression, not just a recession.

The real estate agent assured me that the house will not go for that little, that the bank will refuse to sell it at that, but I am not convinced. And so what if the house doesn't go for $150K if it goes for uner $300K that is a hit as the house is on par if not a little under the house we are trying to sell.

You would cry to if it happened to you.

-Leslie Gore

X-Man, Take 2

The local news here just can't seem to get enough of my nephew, knowing him he was probably the cutest thing at the ball game.

-june

If I Could Be So Lucky

I know most of you have better things to do than read my blog, with Super Chimps at the theatre and Monkey King Rebellions taking place, I completely understand so I will make this short.

Last week Jerry O'Connell told People that he and wife Rebecca, were trying to get pregnant.

This week, they are pregnant with twin girls without the help of In vitro or clomid?

Now that's what I call Fertile.

-june

I've Got Something Unimportant To Say

I...gulp...don't have anything to say. Nope, all day I have tried to think up something blogworthy to tell you Internets about and I have come up with nothing.

I feel silly telling you that Jake got cut so short that when we picked him up I thought they had given him a new collar because I forgot what his looked like, what with all the hair.

I feel childish telling you that when we got home that evening I made 'Jake Just Got a New Haircut Cookies' just to use my sweet Kitchenaid Mixer. I don't however, mind adding that they were delicous.

I feel absurd telling you how p.o.ed I was with my mother-in-law for calling the house and our cell phones 11 times in 3 minutes on Sunday trying to reach us to tell us that she was coming over immediately thus waking the babies and wrecking havoc on my afternoon.

I feel moronic telling you that Coop has started crawling and that Bailey can more backwards in such a way that I wonder if she has been secretly watching the video for 'Thriller'.


I feel frivolous telling you that I had the twins picture taken again this morning, this time at Wal-mart just to compare them with Olan Mills and Sear's. I will choose Sear's in the future.

I feel simple telling you that we finally recieved our stimulus check in the mail. You know that one that was supposed to be here mid-May. But then I guess that is Ward's fault and his 99 ending social security number.

I feel wacky telling you that Obama Supporters called this evening trying to get more money out of me. Not until you choose a running mate Senator.

I feel fatuous telling you that I took some 700 photos this weekend. Of which only about 30 were any good.

I feel childlike pointing out that my mother is now a week late for her visit. But maybe she meant July 21, 2009.

If only I had something important to say.

I Thought He Was Kidding

So recently someone told Ward that Liberty University was going to open a year round ski-slope. Yes, you heard me right, a year round ski-slope in a region that gets coined often as having Goldilocks Weather. I thought it must be a joke, it sounded pretty funny. But nope, turns out this is really going to happen. As if those big stone monogram letters weren't enough reminder that LU controls this city, here is more proof.

I am really not that upset. I think Liberty does a lot of good things for the city. I don't personally miss having a Hooters beside O'Charley's and the fact that there is a tunnel under the expressway just for students to get to their dormitories is pretty impressive. And besides, I like skiing.

I mean I really like skiing. Ward and I used to do a lot of skiing before I got pregnant. I had actually gotten pretty good and we both bought skis three months before I finally got pregnant. We have half-heartedly joked that we are going to teach the kids to ski by age 3. Now we can teach them ANY time of the year.

Yep, this will really put us on the map. And to think the money for the project was 'anonymously donated'.

So when you guys come into town in mid-July to ski at the sinthetic ski slopes, look us up. We'll have you over for salad or something.

-june

Friday the 13th Nightmare

You don't realize how many hours the doctor's office is closed until you are less than six weeks pregnant with twins and you start bleeding the Sunday before Memorial Day and you know the office is closed and you can't talk with anyone until Tuesday or you are 38 weeks pregnant with twins and you start bleeding on New Year's Eve and you know it will be a day before you can see anyone or you fall on the stairs with one of your five month old twins and they start bleeding and it is Friday the 13th at 7 p.m.

Then you realize that M-F 9-5, isn't really all that wide a time frame. Though it may appear so when you are working those hours.

Today the unthinkable happened.

Our child got hurt, and it was all my fault.

I don't know why I ever use stairs, I am the most clumsy person I know. Since we have lived here I have fallen on the stairs at least three times. Maybe it's the high gloss on the wood, I don't know. I just know that I was very careful the whole time I was pregnant even though I still managed to fall once then too. And I always cry when it happens, because I hurt myself and it it scary.

So you can imagine the scene when I fall on the stairs holding my five month old son.

I don't know who it was more traumatic for, him or me. I do know however who will remember it until their old, cussing themselves each and every time the memory is refreshed. If you have ever fallen down, or up, stairs you will know the feeling of utter helplessness as you crash down, that experience with a child is awful.

I immediately scooped him up and started telling him how sorry I was and the lack of immediate bloodshed was only slightly comforting. Ward was by my side almost instantly taking the red-faced screaming child from my hands and asking if I was OK. Emotionally, not at all. Physically, only a few scratches on me. Within a few seconds the blood started to appear and it was on and around his eye. I was frantic. Ward was the only calm one.

The decision to take him somewhere was made immediately. I was a nervous wreck and we are first time parents. We loaded the twins into the car and headed into the city. I called my sister for our pediatricians phone number and left a message with the answering service. They didn't call until we were in the Emergency Room at Virginia Baptist. That doesn't make me very happy but that's doctor's offices for you I suppose.

The Emergency Room was like a dysfunctional social gathering. I won't even begin to comment on the freak show that is the waiting room of the emergency room as some of you may have more experience in these places than myself so what is the point. They took our information and left us in the lobby for an hour. At this point Coop had forgiven me and was laughing and talking and other than some unsightly scratches and a gash on his eyelid, he didn't look that damaged (thank goodness for eyelids, turns out they aren't just for sleeping).

At 9 pm we were taken back to answer financial questions (they want to know how you will be paying before they put you in a room) and then shown a room. No curtains, we got an actual room.

And then we were left alone. For hours.

Finally, it became apparent that Coop's eye wasn't the emergency we thought it was. He fell asleep, then Bailey, then Ward. We asked about leaving. Ward hunted down some nurses who told us there had beem a level one Trauma brought in and we were now third on the list to be seen but we could leave, they said it was up to us. I decided we had invested quite some time into the visit already, we would hold out a little longer.

As I sat in the emergency room with my whole family wiped out from this near catastrophe where three hours earlier I was wondering if I had blinded my son for life, I remembered my last emergency room visit.

My father had gone into this same hospital at 3 pm complaining of stomach pains. They put him in one of those curtained off rooms and left him. I got a call from the hospital at 5 pm, I was 16 and the only one still living with my dad. The nurse told me he was fine but that he wanted her to call and inform me of his whereabouts (we had made plans for dinner at La Carreta). This was before everyone had cell phones. I called my sister and we decided to head to the hospital. He seemed pretty bad off to us when we arrived but they still hadn't sent a doctor to see him. At 3 am a doctor came in and they finally ran some tests which led to more waiting. At 5 am my sister and I went to stay the night (what was left of it anyways) at my mother's. At 7 am they discovered he had Diverticulitis and operated almost immediately. At 11pm tonight as I was sitting in the emergency room this memory came back to me. That was a real emergency and they didn't get to him until 7 am the next day. I woke Ward up and told him I wanted to leave.

He got a nurse and told her we were leaving, she said Coop didn't need stitches, just Neosporin.

All that waiting for a regimen of Neosporin? Oh well, I think it is better we played it safe and I hate that he is going to have the nastiest shiner for Ricky and Lucy's graduation party tomorrow (oh, the things the Grandmother's will say) but I think he will make it through this first emergency better off than I.

I am sure this is the first in a long stream of accidents over the course of their lives, but it was really scary. I was sitting there thinking he is going to have to get stitches at 5 months old, I never even got stitches until 5 months ago. But we escaped without stitches and hopefully no scars but I am rather worried the cut on his eyelid will remain in the form of a scar.

Ward says if it does we tell him Bailey ninja kicked him. I feel bad blaming it on her, but then again telling him I tripped and he cut his eyelid on baseboard is just so....sad.

I am feeling like the worse mother EVER.

-june

Her Name Is BAILEY

NOT:

Bayley

Baily

Bayly

Bailie

Baileah

Bailly

Baylie

Baileigh

Baeli


And her results were Normal!

-june

Update!

My friend's son has come home as of Tuesday evening! She says she isn't getting much sleep and she couldn't be more happy about that.

-june

Oh, and Happy 5th Anniversary ST &HT!!!!