How neat is this? You plug in words or a link to a blog and it makes a little picture with various words you used. Apparently, the bigger words are ones you use most often. You get to play around with the font, color, and layout. Here is what I came up with for this blog...



Here is what came out using Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven."



And here's one all about me...

This is for you, Buddy!!

My brother has been drawing comics for as long as I can remember and I thought it was time to put some on here. I grew up reading these and I turned out...okay. In other words, WARNING: May contain vulgar and/or offensive content!

Check out some more here..... http://www.webcomicsnation.com/blooptoon/

Only thirteen years in the making...

Today I signed up for the last two classes for my associates degree! I will mail out my graduation application later this week. I swear I never thought this day would come!

I started taking college classes when I was still a senior in high school in 1996. After 8 moves in 6 different states, taking classes at 5 different schools, having credits transfer to some schools (but not others), and testing out (CLEP) of several classes, I am officially almost halfway to my Bachelor's Degree! How long will that take, I wonder? Ha, ha!!

I still haven't decided what I want to be when I grow up...which makes it pretty hard to pick a major. Lately, I've been vacillating between becoming a middle school math/history teacher, a social worker, or a librarian. My unrealistic choices would be a forensic anthropologist, an archaeologist, or an archivist. Of course, I am still looking for that elusive career of getting paid to read books. One can dream, right?

Either way, whichever I eventually choose, I will need a Master's Degree. So, now I have to find a school that offers a Bachelor's Degree that will lead to a Master's Degree in my chosen field. Confused yet? And I need to figure it out soon, so I can apply and register before the fall semester starts.

Right now I am looking at a Bachelor's Degree in either Sociology or Human Services from Columbia College. Yes, it is an online school and no, I am not happy about it...more on that later. My second choice would be the local school, Sonoma State University. It all depends on how my funding turns out. I'll go more into that in my next post also.

Anyway, back to more certain events...I will start my last two classes the beginning of April and should have my diploma mailed to me in June. Yay! I have all my required courses completed, so I'm taking two fluffy electives. Intro to Human Services (thought I'd see what I'm getting into) and Nutrition. I took the nutrition class solely to mess with the instructor. I can't wait to go into veg*nism, raw diets, and fruitarianism!

I'm Back!

Wow! Long time, no write! Sorry about that!

Well, our trip home to Key West has come and gone. It was good to be back and, even better, to be warm. It was in the 80's most of the time we were there.

We got to do most of what we had planned...several trips to Jose's Cantina, 5 Brother's Grocery, Benihana (yay, I only got a little sick this time!), El Caney, Hogfish Bar & Grill, El Mocho, etc. Yes, yes, we did more than eat, but boy did we miss the food! And the Con Leches! We can sort of make them here, but they're definitely not the same.

I was able to go back and visit the school I used to teach at when we lived on Big Pine Key. There are only five kids left from when I was there. They all have grown up too fast!

My sister-in-law came home from school for a couple of weeks and we got to see my elusive brother-in-law several times. Unfortunately, my father-in-law (a Florida State Trooper) had to work a few nights, but my mother-in-law was off the whole time. And, of course, my grandpa-in-law popped in and out.

We ended up camping at Bahia Honda again this year. That was a lot of fun. We don't camp like normal people. While we do sleep in a tent, we do it on mattresses with fans running. We have clean bathrooms and a hot shower every night. And then there is the food. Steaks, ribs, sausages...they go all out. I got some really good pictures of the Bahia Honda bridge.

Coming back was bittersweet. I was happy to get back to my fur-babies and my own house and car (no more borrowing!), but we really do not like living here. Everytime we go home to Florida or North Carolina just makes that even clearer. Hopefully, this will be our last tour on the west coast. We definitely aren't requesting it again!

Boring couple of weeks...

Nothing really interesting has happened since my last post.

J came home. It's been awhile since we've been home without him, so it was nice when he came back. And he brought presents...always a good thing!

Turtle got a new video game.

Frog got the Kung Fu Panda movie.

I got a UM jersey.

Most important...he brought Cuban bread!

I love Cuban bread. I took it for granted when we lived in Key West and now that I have no access to it, I realize how much I love it. I used to be able to run in any grocery and grab a loaf. I'm going to have to learn to make it myself, I guess.

The big problem this week is finding someone to watch Winston while we are in Key West this xmas. We had a couple watch him for us last year, but I don't know if they can do it again. I've looked at kennels around here, but they are outrageous! $24 a night is the cheapest I've found. That's almost $600 for the three weeks we'll be gone! Oh, man...I don't know what we're going to do, but I have ten days to figure it out!

The Joys of Boys!

It's official. Turtle, my sweet, affectionate, sensitive boy, is on his way to juvenile crime. He received not one, but two detentions in one week. As a first-grader! Where did I go wrong?!?!

It all started with a phone call from the school principal. It went something like this:

Principal - "I've got Turtle here in my office. I am very worried about his behavior today."
Me - "What did he do?"
Principal - "He told another boy to open his mouth so he could pee in it."
Me - "Okay."

Now I'm waiting for the shoe to drop. What did my son do that would cause his principal to be so very worried? Did he whip his peanut out? Did he actually pee on the other kid?

Principal - "He's going to need to stay after school for ten minutes for detention today."

Wait a second! What did he do to get detention? At this point, I'm still waiting to hear what horrible thing my son did. It turns out that was it. He told another boy he was going to pee on him.

After laughing a good ten minutes, I call everyone to let them know (and to make sure I wasn't making too light of a serious issue.) Thankfully, I wasn't crazy and everyone agreed the school over-reacted.

J picked him up after detention, told the teacher that he thought they went a little overboard, and then took Turtle to the store to get a videogame. Now before anyone gets up-in-arms about J rewarding him for getting in trouble at school...Turtle had to wait until the next day to play it because he got detention.

So, then a couple of days later I pick Turtle up and he tells me he got detention again. What did he do this time?

Turtle - "X farted on me, so I farted on him back."

Because the detention slip said "very disrespectful behavior" and because Turtle doesn't always remember all the details (not to mention I was pissed if that really was the reason he got detention), I decided to go get the details from his teacher.

So that conversation went a little like this:

Me - "I'd like to know why Turtle has detention again."
Teacher - "Well, X farted on Turtle and he farted back."
Me - "So he got detention for farting?"

I must have given her an incredulous look. Here's where the story changes:

Teacher - "Oh, they were being rude to a teacher outside at recess."
Me - "I thought he farted on X?"
Teacher - "Well, I wasn't really there. This is just what I was told. He was being rude to a teacher and the farting was the last straw. I can find out for sure and let you know."

So, I get a note the next day saying he got detention because X farted on him and Turtle chased him down the hall trying to fart back.

Hmmm, so which was it?

A. He farted on a boy in the classroom.
B. He was rude to a teacher outside.
C. He chased a boy down the hall trying to fart on him.

I am inclined to believe it was A. They had to make it sound more serious when they saw that J and I thought they were being ridiculous.

So, my seven year old boy got in trouble for threatening to pee on someone and for farting on someone. What the hell?

Have children changed so much? I'm a girl, but I clearly remember bodily-function humor from last week, err I mean when I was a kid. Puke, snot, poop, pee, farts, boogers...it was all discussed at one time or another. Is it really such a cause for concern? I turned out fairly okay.

So, now I have to make sure Turtle only farts on his brother. I just hope he didn't tell anyone about how they pee on each other in the shower!

Pity Party

This is what I am looking at...

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This is what my husband is looking at...

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I'm freezing in 50-some degree weather. He is baking in 90-some degree weather. I stayed home with two leeches (um, boys attached to my butt.) He went to a Miami Dolphins football game.

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Am I jealous? You better believe it!!

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This past summer J was teaching both classes, so he couldn't get any time off. The boys and I took off for a month to visit the family in Key West and North Carolina. So we decided that J could take a couple of weeks to go home and visit everyone in November. He left Saturday and I am already about to go insane!

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I don't begrudge him this trip. Really, I don't. He has gone almost a year without leaving this hell-hole. Plus, he works crazy-hard and more than deserves this break.

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Does that keep the green-eyed monster at bay? Nope.

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Edited to add: Ignore the dots. For some reason, everytime I try to publish this post, it runs all the words together into one, big paragraph.