Ok, I will say it. I have a guilty pleasure and it is distracting me from my work. I have become very much into reading a blog. It's helping me avoid anything like work. Oh wait, work...that's something I kid myself about. I like to think I do some sort of "work" with posting an occasional news article here and there, but who am I kidding? I don't work. I'm a "lazy bum" in my own eyes but others tell me I'm not.
There's an explanation for that yes. There's there whole "I have NO energy" problem recently. Then there's the stiffness. The pain most days. Although the pain is well controlled, it's not gone. Nor is it realistic to ever think it will be gone. That's just life. Anyway..back to my original reason for this post!
I've been reading this blog for some time now. I Stumbled Upon it. Now it you don't know what Stumble Upon is...click the link and check it out, you'll never have free time again. I should say these blogs rather than this blog as there are currently two. A third, devoted to PhotoShop, seems to be in the works. First up is The Pioneer Woman Cooks. It was the one I originally Stumbled. I love the recipes found there. It's real cooking. Yummy food, full of calories, laden with butter. Check it out if you're not on a diet. Even if you are on a diet, check it out, wishing you weren't on a diet, deciding to splurge just this once and blowing your diet. I am not responsible for weight gained due to PW Cooks! Everything in moderation.
Next is Confessions of a Pioneer Woman. Written by the same woman, it is actually her first blog. I just found the cooking one first. It is about life on the ranch for a late 30s woman who shall we say never dreamed she'd be a rancher's wife. City dwelling, cosmopolitan, food snobby vegetarian maybe.....rancher's wife and mother of four "punks" no. The author, Ree, is about "Keepin it Real". She channels Ethel Merman. She burps and records it for her readers' listening pleasure (or pain). She records her son saying "juice bag" with his slight speech problem that he will one day grow out of. Either that or he will always pronounce "juice bag" the way he currently does as a bit of an inside joke.
Ree is a homeschooling mother. Living as far from a town as their family does, it makes perfect sense. Ree's husband, known affectionately as Marlboro Man, is the stereotypical hunky cowboy. The fact that they have taught their children that there is nothing wrong with hard work is awesome to me. I've long thought kids are being too coddled today. The "punks" as they are affectionately referred to on the blog are not afraid of work. Typical to ranch life, the kids are out doing things most suburbanites wouldn't dream of. 10 and 9 year old girls driving huge farm trucks, 4 and 5 year olds riding horses....the same 9 and 10 year old working cattle just as hard as older boys...all without helmets. Actually, it seems that in reader comments, there was once an uproar over why the kids did NOT wear helmets while horse riding. Ree's answer was simply that it's part of life on a ranch to learn to fall off of a horse and a helmet would teach them not to fall properly. Personally, I think it's sissified to wear a helmet on a horse, unless maybe you're racing or playing polo. (They do wear helmets in polo right?) Then there was the uproar over a lack of seat belts while driving on the ranch. Ummm ok, I'm a city girl but even I know there is pretty much no real need for a seat belt when there's speeds of probably less than 5 MPH and there's no buildings around, no other vehicles, just open ranch. Based on that theory, let's put seat belts of four wheelers and other vehicles that don't have seat belts! But, let's let our kids ride in buses every day without them. Sorry, pet peeve there! We're quickly getting to live in a nanny state where the government decides what's in OUR best interests not us. But, that's another post for another day.
Now, one thing I love about Ree's "keepin it real" attitude is that she pulls no punches when writing about her brother. She's not PC about the fact that, ok to be PC, he has a mental handicap. She grew up before the word retarded was considered insulting. She flat out says "I have a retard". She's just telling the truth. She's not being insulting, she's using the honest to goodness description. It's only an insult if it's used in a hurtful way. And reading her posts, the love she has for her family, including Mike her brother, is awesome. What makes me grin (other than Mike's antics) is the fact that just because he has a problem, Mike wasn't coddled growing up. Ree and her siblings didn't treat him different. Now, that thrills me. Because as a "handicapped person" (person who is "disabled", insert your favorite too PC term here to emphasize person rather than disease) all I want is to be treated as you would anyone else. Personally, my preferred term as long as the tone of voice used isn't rude or condescending is "GIMP"! Do I want to be treated fairly and have the best chance of a level playing field when it comes to access? Yes, what minority doesn't? Women have been fighting for equal rights for a long time as have blacks, Hispanics etc etc. But when it comes to personal interaction, all that PC bull-shit is just that to me. Bull-shit because you're too uncomfortable around someone different to treat them as you would anyone else. So, it is highly refreshing to see someone treat a "retarded" person as they would anyone else.
There's also some awesome photography on COAPW. If you like ranch life, it's there for you. If you like cute pics of kids you don't know...guess what, it's there. And if you like pictures of hot, sweaty, hard workin, good lookin cowboys...well, you're really in luck! Secret confession, I may be VERY happily married, but I can still appreciate a nice specimen of a man. I may be on a diet, but I can still LOOK at the dessert menu. It's the ordering off of it that'll get ya in trouble.
So, that's how I've been avoiding any semblance of work for at least two weeks. I've been basically blog-stalking the archives at COAPW. And I've laughed, I've cried, I've gotten "hiney cringes" and "hiney tingles". I just hope that Ree doesn't think she has some sicko stalker on her hands. I'm harmless really! Just enthralled in how amazing the writing is. So, if you're a reader here...do I actually have any of those...Mom do you still read my blog? BC...you out there? Anyone else who might read my blog that I'm unaware of....please check out COAPW. And if you do and like her and comment...tell her I sent ya! Then I won't seem so lonely stalker type.
There's an explanation for that yes. There's there whole "I have NO energy" problem recently. Then there's the stiffness. The pain most days. Although the pain is well controlled, it's not gone. Nor is it realistic to ever think it will be gone. That's just life. Anyway..back to my original reason for this post!
I've been reading this blog for some time now. I Stumbled Upon it. Now it you don't know what Stumble Upon is...click the link and check it out, you'll never have free time again. I should say these blogs rather than this blog as there are currently two. A third, devoted to PhotoShop, seems to be in the works. First up is The Pioneer Woman Cooks. It was the one I originally Stumbled. I love the recipes found there. It's real cooking. Yummy food, full of calories, laden with butter. Check it out if you're not on a diet. Even if you are on a diet, check it out, wishing you weren't on a diet, deciding to splurge just this once and blowing your diet. I am not responsible for weight gained due to PW Cooks! Everything in moderation.
Next is Confessions of a Pioneer Woman. Written by the same woman, it is actually her first blog. I just found the cooking one first. It is about life on the ranch for a late 30s woman who shall we say never dreamed she'd be a rancher's wife. City dwelling, cosmopolitan, food snobby vegetarian maybe.....rancher's wife and mother of four "punks" no. The author, Ree, is about "Keepin it Real". She channels Ethel Merman. She burps and records it for her readers' listening pleasure (or pain). She records her son saying "juice bag" with his slight speech problem that he will one day grow out of. Either that or he will always pronounce "juice bag" the way he currently does as a bit of an inside joke.
Ree is a homeschooling mother. Living as far from a town as their family does, it makes perfect sense. Ree's husband, known affectionately as Marlboro Man, is the stereotypical hunky cowboy. The fact that they have taught their children that there is nothing wrong with hard work is awesome to me. I've long thought kids are being too coddled today. The "punks" as they are affectionately referred to on the blog are not afraid of work. Typical to ranch life, the kids are out doing things most suburbanites wouldn't dream of. 10 and 9 year old girls driving huge farm trucks, 4 and 5 year olds riding horses....the same 9 and 10 year old working cattle just as hard as older boys...all without helmets. Actually, it seems that in reader comments, there was once an uproar over why the kids did NOT wear helmets while horse riding. Ree's answer was simply that it's part of life on a ranch to learn to fall off of a horse and a helmet would teach them not to fall properly. Personally, I think it's sissified to wear a helmet on a horse, unless maybe you're racing or playing polo. (They do wear helmets in polo right?) Then there was the uproar over a lack of seat belts while driving on the ranch. Ummm ok, I'm a city girl but even I know there is pretty much no real need for a seat belt when there's speeds of probably less than 5 MPH and there's no buildings around, no other vehicles, just open ranch. Based on that theory, let's put seat belts of four wheelers and other vehicles that don't have seat belts! But, let's let our kids ride in buses every day without them. Sorry, pet peeve there! We're quickly getting to live in a nanny state where the government decides what's in OUR best interests not us. But, that's another post for another day.
Now, one thing I love about Ree's "keepin it real" attitude is that she pulls no punches when writing about her brother. She's not PC about the fact that, ok to be PC, he has a mental handicap. She grew up before the word retarded was considered insulting. She flat out says "I have a retard". She's just telling the truth. She's not being insulting, she's using the honest to goodness description. It's only an insult if it's used in a hurtful way. And reading her posts, the love she has for her family, including Mike her brother, is awesome. What makes me grin (other than Mike's antics) is the fact that just because he has a problem, Mike wasn't coddled growing up. Ree and her siblings didn't treat him different. Now, that thrills me. Because as a "handicapped person" (person who is "disabled", insert your favorite too PC term here to emphasize person rather than disease) all I want is to be treated as you would anyone else. Personally, my preferred term as long as the tone of voice used isn't rude or condescending is "GIMP"! Do I want to be treated fairly and have the best chance of a level playing field when it comes to access? Yes, what minority doesn't? Women have been fighting for equal rights for a long time as have blacks, Hispanics etc etc. But when it comes to personal interaction, all that PC bull-shit is just that to me. Bull-shit because you're too uncomfortable around someone different to treat them as you would anyone else. So, it is highly refreshing to see someone treat a "retarded" person as they would anyone else.
There's also some awesome photography on COAPW. If you like ranch life, it's there for you. If you like cute pics of kids you don't know...guess what, it's there. And if you like pictures of hot, sweaty, hard workin, good lookin cowboys...well, you're really in luck! Secret confession, I may be VERY happily married, but I can still appreciate a nice specimen of a man. I may be on a diet, but I can still LOOK at the dessert menu. It's the ordering off of it that'll get ya in trouble.
So, that's how I've been avoiding any semblance of work for at least two weeks. I've been basically blog-stalking the archives at COAPW. And I've laughed, I've cried, I've gotten "hiney cringes" and "hiney tingles". I just hope that Ree doesn't think she has some sicko stalker on her hands. I'm harmless really! Just enthralled in how amazing the writing is. So, if you're a reader here...do I actually have any of those...Mom do you still read my blog? BC...you out there? Anyone else who might read my blog that I'm unaware of....please check out COAPW. And if you do and like her and comment...tell her I sent ya! Then I won't seem so lonely stalker type.
Actually, that snuggling is one of his tricks as well. And I'm a sucker for it. Then I asked how I could help him except for him sleeping with me til daddy comes up. He just kinda was pouty and said "I hit my head in the bathroom". Now, I'm trying to figure out how an almost 6 year old hits his head in our bathroom without there being water and the tub and a fall involved. So he proceeds to explain. "I bent over to pull my pants up and that white round thing with the hole in it hit me in the head." Ok, so now I'm thinking...the meds are frying his brain. Because I really can't think of what is white in our bathroom that he'd hit his head on. He finally explains it well enough that I got it. I asked "do you mean the toilet seat?" And he's laying his head on my chest this whole time....so he immediately feels me trying to hold in my laughter and he sits up and says "It wasn't funny mommy!" He was indignant about it too. I apologized as best as I could while LMAO! Then I explained...."would you laugh if it happened to mommy?" And of course he said yes and he even laughed a little himself, still telling me it wasn't funny.