This puts everything into perspective

If you're feeling depressed today, or worried, or miserable about something, remember that things could always be worse.

Online donations for the Red Cross here.

Google search for news about the hurricane.

Wikipedia entry, which has tons of other links at the bottom of the page.

Thankfully, there was some warning. Check out the Wikipedia entry for the Galveston Hurricane of 1900.

Shopping

Invested in a little retail therapy yesterday with my sister. She didn't bring her kids along so it was a calm outing.

I bought this and this. I could have spent way more on lingerie but I figured I'd spent enough.

43Things

Perhaps you noticed the 43things list I have there in the sidebar. 43things.com is a site that lists goals that you might want to complete in your lifetime. Surf around on that site to learn more about it. Writing down goals is the first step to completing them.

Boring

Man, I bore even myself! Thanks for reading--those few of you who do read this blog. :)

Drained

DD starts kindergarten this afternoon. Where has the time gone? She has been looking forward to it for a week, ever since we started telling her that school was starting back up. She had a horrible time at the dentist last week, though. She was ok until the dentist actually came into the room and then she started screaming her head off--even though he didn't do anything and even after the dental hygienist explained the instruments to her.

Yet another thing to scar her for life.

Last week was pretty busy, for the most part. I had little time to sit and brood. On the weekend, we had to get groceries, and probably overspent. The college kids swarmed Wal-Mart and I got hot and tired and cranky. DH watched the preseason football game, Bears vs. Colts, and I got annoyed at how many commercials kept coming on. On Sunday, we went to a family gathering, and I think all the energy vampires sucked me dry--as if I had much energy to begin with. Sigh.

I've been afraid to pick up the pen or type here in the blog. I am paralyzed by indecision. That paralyzation is turning into depression again.

I'm glad DD loves school and is looking forward to going. I am sure she will have a great year.

Book Vending Machines

coming to a block near youif you live in Paris, France, that is.

Sleepover

Well, I'm now recovering from my daughter's first sleepover.

I mentioned the idea to my sister while we were on vacation together two weeks ago, and she told me she was going out of town again this past weekend. It would be a perfect time to have a sleepover with my niece and nephew.

We picked them up from their grandparents' house at 2pm on Saturday. They were excited to spend the night with us. (My niece is 7 and my nephew is 5, BTW.) DD was super-excited. She was bugging us all week about it, wondering how many more days it was and stuff.

First, we went home and the kids played for awhile. I cleaned out the baby pool and set it up for them to play in, but they weren't out there very long. I think that the girls were not allowing the boy to play with them or something. It was hot and I didn't stay outside very long, either.

We took the kids to Pizza Hut for supper. They pigged out on cheese pizza and breadsticks. I overate and ended up feeling ill the rest of the night. When we got home again, they played for a little while and then we watched the movie "Shark Tales." After that, it was bedtime--at 8:30. They finally settled down around 9:30.

On Sunday, I have no idea when they woke up. I heard shrieking around 7:30, but rolled over and tried to doze off--alas, that didn't work. I got up at 8:30 and fixed them toast with peanut butter. We watched cartoons. I thought my sister was coming to pick them up at 10, but she called to say they hadn't left yet to come home--but they'd be home around 3pm. At 3, she called to say they were still two hours away. I took them out to eat at McDonald's for lunch, and was going to go to the park, but it was raining. We went home and watched "Shrek 2" and more cartoons. They played together, also. My sister finally showed up at 5:45 and took them home. I kind of hurried her out the door. The kids acted well, but I was just anxious to relax. I can't relax when I'm expecting someone to show up at any time.

I was also still feeling ill from overeating. Strangely though, after they left, and DH and I ate supper, I was wide awake. I went to bed around midnight, but read for awhile. I never did fall into a true sleep. I woke up at 2, at 3, at 4, and at 5. Ugh. I'm sure I'll be tired this evening.

DD said it was the best sleepover ever.

DH and I agreed that we wouldn't be doing it for awhile.

I decided I'm glad to have only one child. Two children tend to get each other in trouble. My niece scraped her elbow; my nephew got a splinter in his finger that DH took out; and DD had a huge scratch on her leg. *shrugs* It's not a party unless someone gets hurt, right? :)

Finally updated

Ah, sorry it took me so long to finish the post about my recent quickie vacation.

I also updated the look of this blog, and added the 43things list over there in the sidebar.

In the News Today...

Playing video games is not a usable defense in court--not when you mow down three small-town police officers in their own headquarters.

Due to a loophole in the laws of the time, one of the Arkansas school shooters is going to be freed today. I only hope that he has really realized what he did and that he will pay for it the rest of his life, incarcerated or not.

Kansas is a stupider state than I thought. I cannot honestly believe that all people who live in Kansas elect these people to sit on school boards.

The author of the book "Looking for Mr. Goodbar" died this week.

Upcoming books deal with the Iraq experience.

Where ARE all the women bloggers? CNN doesn't know

Mena Trott is interviewed by CNN about the Internet. (She's one of the founders of Six Apart, the parent company of Typepad, Movable Type and now Livejournal.)

Look at this stupid ignorant comment from CNN:

CNN: Where are the women bloggers?

TROTT: I think the women are there. I think what we see is a focus on topics that tend to be more male-dominated, so we don't get as much coverage. Men blog more about politics. Politics are more likely to get picked up by the media. Technology has always been male-dominated. So there's this sort of echo chamber.

But there's knitting, this family, these topics that have been relegated to being sub-par blogging, which I disagree with completely.

Seventy-five percent of our users on LiveJournal are female. And on Typepad and Movabletype it's almost a 50/50 split. There are women blogging, they just don't need to be so loud.

"Where are the women bloggers?" You've got to be kidding me. Almost all the blogs I read are written by women. I cannot believe the reporter asked this asinine question!!!!!!! Hello! I've been here since 2001, on and off. In fact, I think the majority of people who read blogs are women. The bias in the mainstream media is toward the political blogs written by already-known male writers/opinionists, or blogs that have become popular, which are also written by men. I see that blogs that became famous because of sex weren't necessarily on this reporter's radar, like the washingtonienne's blog or the blog of belledujour (although belledujour's blog may have been fiction). Both of those bloggers got book deals. There are others, too. (Of course, if the reporter had mentioned these people, I would then rant about how the media assumes that women can only write sex blogs. Hehe.)

I think that someone didn't do their research. The mere title of the CNN article is condescending.

Stop smoking now

Miss Ellie died of lung cancer this week, as did Peter Jennings. And Dana Reeve admitted she is suffering from it as well, even though she is a non-smoker.

I wonder why people like my sister-in-law continue to say that smoking doesn't cause cancer; that cancer has more genetic causes?

People are stupid, that's why.

So I was on a quickie vacation...

Hello! I was on vacation last Thursday and Friday, so I didn't have a chance to blog. Not to mention that I was in a terrible, terrible mood.

I started out at the beginning of the week absolutely dreading the two-day trip to St. Louis, even though it had been my idea. My two sisters, my niece and nephew, and my DD were the original group. Then my brother-in-law decided to come along, bringing his 15yro nephew who was visiting from Montana. We therefore were forced to bring three cars. (My BIL met up with us later.)

The trip down on Wednesday night was uneventful. We got to our hotel around 9:15pm, and went straight to bed.

The next day, we got up around 7:30 and got ready to go to Six Flags. We arrived right as the park opened and didn't have to wait very long in traffic or in line to get in. My sister had some discount coupons, but it still cost us $163 to get in--for seven people (three of them little kids). If you don't have a discount, tickets cost $41.99 at the gate. That is for admission to Six Flags and to Hurricane Harbor, the waterpark. DD and I spent most of our day at the waterpark. My sisters went on a couple of rides, but they said the lines were so long that it wasn't hardly worth it to stand in line. They also took my niece and nephew on a few rides, like the carousel and the go-carts.

Even though we got rained on early in the day, I enjoyed myself, DD had fun playing in the pool and sliding down a couple of waterslides. We ended up leaving the park around 4pm and went back to our rooms to change our clothes and then go out to eat.

I think we were all in bed early that night. DD was asleep as soon as she settled in under the blankets. I, however, had a headache from squinting all day and didn't get to sleep very fast. I also watched a movie starring Angelina Jolie and Ethan Hawke called "Taking Lives." It was an interesting mystery thriller.

On Friday, we went to Purina Farms, where we watched a dog agility performance, saw the famous "cat house," and my niece got to milk a cow. This farm is for city folk who have never been on a farm before. The kids enjoyed it, but having grown up on a farm, it was kind of old hat for my sisters and I. And the best part is that it's free! :) (My BIL and his nephew did not go with us; they had to return home on Friday.)

Later, in the afternoon, we went to a mall. I spent too much money and the kids enjoyed the two-story carousel. The mall has three levels and I was quite exhausted when we left to go home.

Although we left St. Louis around rush hour, traffic moved at a good pace. We got home around 7:30pm on Friday night. I immediately threw in some laundry and finally sat down to relax around 8pm.

The next day we had to go to a family reunion, and I was almost too tired to go. :)

It definitely helped to get away for a couple of days. Although I spent more money than I wanted to spend, I needed some time away from the workaday world. I almost wish I could do that every week. Heh.