Therapeutic Mud Bath...NOT!

I took the girls to the hills to spend Spring Break with their grandparents. Things got a little sticky on the way up. I got stuck in mud. My mom and the kids radioed for help and the fire department towed me out (okay, yes my dad is the fire department).

Sign The McCain FEC Complaint Letter

John McCain's campaign spending is breaking the law. He elected for public funding when his campaign was having trouble. But now that he is the presumptive nominee, he is, by his campaign's own admission, around $4 million over his legal spending limit.

I just did my part to stop McCain from breaking the law by signing the official FEC complaint against him.

Please help out by adding your name here:

Sign Petition

Thanks!

This Actually Makes More Sense Than The American Presidential Elections

The Morally Gifted…Never a Short Cut to Raising a Child

Older Child: Mom, are you sure we are going the right way?

Mom: Trust me; I’m just taking a short cut.

Younger Child: This doesn’t look like a short cut.

Mom: What does it look like?

Older Child: The wrong way.

Mom: Have a little faith girls, this is just the back way; I know where I am going.

Older Child: What did that sign say?

Mom: Well, it said that the road is closed unless you live down this road, then you can go this way. Sometimes you just have to take the road less traveled.

Older Child: Yeah, closed roads tend to be less traveled plus we don’t live down this road so the sign doesn't apply to us. (ahhh, what would I do without captain obvious?)

Younger Child: Are we almost there? Is this still the short way?

Mom: Really, it will be fine; I’ll just go around this barricade.

Older Child: Mom, you are going to get us arrested.

Mom: They don’t arrest kids. Don’t be so dramatic. (okay, she might get this from me)

Younger Child: Nobody else is going this way.

Older Child: They are going to put us in hand cuffs when they arrest us.

Mom: It’s just a detour. Relax, we are almost there.

Older Child: Oh, no mom, the road is turning to dirt. You have to turn around.

Mom: Just a little road work here, nothing we haven’t seen before, not exactly time to break out the four wheel drive.

Older Child: Mom no, turn around, please!

Mom: One more barricade to drive around and we are home free girls.

Younger Child: Wahoo…this is fun!

Older Child: Well mom, how does it feel? Do you think it really is a short cut when you take your children through a crime scene?

When Life Lays an Easter Egg...

Make Egg Salad! Sitting in my fridge today were 36 brightly dyed Easter eggs. Not wanting them to go to waste, and not particularly wanting to serve hard boiled eggs for every meal for the next 3 days, I decided to make roast chicken, fruit and walnut, egg salad. How can something be so simple to make and taste so yummy?

Tonight I went to the gym for my first real post-bronchitis workout. Thanks to Fran and Todd for the inspiration today. I had originally planned to hit the pavement with Fran this afternoon but what do you know…it started to snow. For a moment I thought I was saved by the little white flakes but then I got the “just do it” email from Todd and decided I was out of excuses.

There were 7 people at Bally's tonight.

1. Parachute Man – Wearing the parachute pants that sing “Can’t Touch This” that would even embarrass Mc Hammer. I wanted to grab him by the wife beater and say “I haven’t wanted to touch that since 1987 now take off those damn pants for goodness sakes you look like a moron!”

2. Paula Barbella – Taking up valuable he-man space in the free weight room wearing a leotard and lifting those little itsy bitsy 2.5 lb. barbells. She’s going to stand there and do 9,000 reps but you know she couldn’t do one chin up if you were dangling a chicken wing in front of her.

3. Yo Adrian – This is that guy that has his hands all taped up to lift weights just in case he feels the need to break out into shadow boxing. He also likes to grunt when he lifts letting you participate in his microtrauma. He grunts when he grabs the bar, grunts when he picks it up, grunts as he lifts it, grunts as he puts it down. Every time he grunts I think he might be trying to shadow box my ass and so I duck. Only Lou Ferrigno could ignore the grunting. (sorry that was mean). On top of it all, he has no concept of concentric and eccentric lifting and jerks his weight around with every grunt.

4. The Doublmint Twins – This is the team up. You know, where two guys lift together and spot each other. Awe how nice. One guy loads while the other guy lays down on the bench spitting into his palms, preparing for the lift. After the first rep, they equally share the weight, where the guy spotting is actually lifting 200 lbs and the guy on the bench is pressing 200 lbs. Stop telling your friends that you bench 400 lbs. you dorks!

5. Gluteus Maximillian – “Hello, I am Max and I have laaarrrge round buttocks.” I’ve never actually seen the equipment that produces this ass but I am staying clear away from this man and any equipment he uses. No enhancements needed in this area thank you very much.

6. Schweaty Balls – No not Alec Baldwin…I should be so lucky. No, this is the guy that is using the nautilus machine next to me and has racked up the same weight as me, yet, to my shock and horror, he is dripping with sweat. Come on dude, have you seen my pectoralis major? Not exactly Schwarzenegger. You should not be sweating like that and you really shouldn’t be looking at me either you scrawny little pervert.

7. Boy Toy and His Girlfriend – “Hmmm, honey, should we go to a party tonight or workout at the gym?” “Both you say?” Let’s workout in our jeans so we’ll be all ready for the party as soon as we’ve completed our togetherness workout. Oh, and please tell me when my crack is showing so that I can hike my jeans back up to the lower part of my ass to meet my boxer shorts. This boy is just begging me to give him a wedgie.

Okay, what else do I have to tell you before my Easter break…oh, oh, yes, I know. I get adult time with my husband next week. Yes, it’s actually spring break for the girls and I'm taking them to the hills to spend time with grandma and papa at the cabin. I get to spend 4 whole days with my man, alone! Wahoo! What will we ever do with our time?

You Know the V-8 Commercials?

Imagine me smacking this guy on the side of the head! (and then on the other side, and then right between his eyes)



And then imagine yourself voting Obama 08 so that we never have to deal with an administration that is worried about their own course more than the people's course!

On The Money!!!

This is sooooo me! Click Read My VisualDNA to find out why!

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Searching

Shuffling the streets
Peeking into the eyes of everyone we meet
Hoping a soul mate this path does beat
Yet only the sound of our own two feet

As they echo the empty sound
Of sad souls dying to be found
Heavy hearts too broken to resound
Too weak to feel the chest beat pound

And pound that thought if only one
Of how my life might come undone
At the rising of the sun
That bet the moon the sky and won

So sits alone and hangs her head
No rays of happiness does she spread
The moon he wanders up ahead
Lost his destiny sun to tread

With cries of mourning day and night
Never stopping in their flight
Neither one does sky invite
To betroth with love and solemn plight

And so it goes we search the land
For hearts and souls to understand
Our longing for bended knee and outstretched hand
To ring the finger in golden band

©2008-Michelle Hix

We The People

When I hear the words, "We The People", when I see the words "We The People", I always start to sing "We The People"...Remember the School House Rock song??? I'm a HUGE HUGE FAN! It's the only reason I can recite the preamble to our constitution and to be honest, 25 years ago was the foundation for my beginning to understand how and who formed America and how we declared our independence from England. Throughout the years, School House Rock was there to teach me about diversity, government, and sufferage, along with grammar, math and science and today I can sing all the songs word for word! I kid you not!

The beauty of "We The People" is that it is followed by "In Order To Form a More Perfect Union." A more perfect union. That was the goal of our founding fathers when they sat down to write the United States Constitution. I think our founding fathers understood that forming a more perfect union is a never-ending, always changing, process.

Barack Obama is the only candidate that can bridge gaps in this nation and begin to bridge gaps internationally. He's the only candidate that understands that forming a more perfect union is a road that probably never ends. While the other candidates are practicing their long DIVISION, he's practicing long VISION. (yes, I made that one up).

In the following speech he just delivered this morning, he explains his relationship with his pastor. And really, to me, it doesn't matter that it is his pastor. It matters to everyone against him, but to me he could be speaking about anyone who has a different experience, a different pain, or a different struggle than myself. Obama is the only candidate that can take a person's divisive statements (such as Wright's), condemn the words without condemning the man, and bridge the gap and call for unity between parties involved. Don't we want this man leading our county in the same manner? I do.

And if you'd rather read his words instead of watching, here's the speech.

A More Perfect Union Speech

Ummm....I'm Confused...

Are We Missing a Society? Where Do They Go When They Don't Last?

Why My Husband Gets To Look at Porn for a Year

Tonight's conversation went like this...

Me: Standing at his desk with hands on hips, right eyebrow raised and head tilted

Hubby: Whut? (with the "I've done nothing wrong" look on his face)

Me: (picking up his new calendar to inspect it) Ahem! Real nice hon...classy...a Sports Illustrated daily calendar? How is this a necessary office item?

Hubby: Babe, it's March. It was either that one or a Rush Limbaugh one.

Me: Good point. Where should we hang it?

Mid-Life Restructuring

How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrid, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June. . . . If it was only the other way! If it was I who were to be always young, and the picture that were to grow old! For this–for this–I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give!
Oscar Wilde

Welcome one and all to my mid-life crisis. You’ve been living it with me now since last November…bet you didn’t even know it did you?

I’m 37. Whew! Let me say that again…I’m 37. Slap. Slap. I’m 37? Why yes...yes I am.


Wake up before you die
Live before you sleep again
Rise and shine to yourself
Cease to being a guest in your own skin

©2008-Michelle Hix

“Old”, “horrid”, and “dreadful”. Those feelings and fear of aging have been disguised and gift wrapped all these years and tied with a pretty bow. It was such a nice package. But during the last couple of years, I have started to open the package and those feeling crept out. Wow, I was soooo not expecting this to happen at 37, 47 or even 97.. I would never be the type to have a mid-life crisis. Seriously! It has my friends baffled. They think I’m kidding. Since when did I ever second guess myself? My life? My worth? Never! Until I untied that pretty bow and peeked into the box.

Carl Jung identified 5 main phases of midlife:
• Accommodation (meeting others' expectations - actually, this takes place in the first part of life, but is the context in which midlife processes take place)
• Separation (rejecting the accommodated self)
• Liminality (a period of uncertainty, where life seems directionless and meanders)
• Reintegration (working out 'who I am' and becoming comfortable with that identity)
• Individuation (facing up to and accepting the undesirable aspects of our own character)

I feel like I am somewhere in between Reintegration and Individuation. But for me, Individuation seems to have come first. Some years ago, I started becoming acutely aware of the things about myself that I did not like. I started to think about the types of people and situations that bring out the personality traits in me that I would describe as ugly, monstrous and unworthy. I quickly realized that I was not going to get rid of these personality traits. Sorry, no can do. They are in me. They are a part of me. But in getting to know myself better, I was able to recognize and label my feelings and behaviors as such and embrace them for what they are…a part of me. Knowing these things about myself has helped me nurture the sides of myself that I do want to share with others more; creativity, humor, kindness, honesty. Hopefully, the ugly parts don’t rear their heads too often any more.

So what about “old”, “horrid”, and “dreadful”? Why is it that in the western world we are so fixated on youthfulness? I would really like to embrace this next epoch with vigor. I don’t want to see aging as a horrid event that must be put off or ignored. I don’t want to dread it. I suppose that is where the Reintegration comes in. Finding out truly who I am. Not what I do for a living or who my friends are but finding out who I really am at the very core of my existence and letting that person drive the next age.

I have a feeling I will be growing through this for years to come. Chances are, I’m not going to find me a young hottie on the side, buy a new sports car, or quit my job, but I am going to go through moments of questioning the validity of choices I’ve made and feelings of discontent with who I am. I think I’m okay with this.

This would all be a lot easier if I could just look extremely hot during the process!

I wanted to take a moment to thank my blog friends for seeing me through some tough times:

Poetikat – Thank you for being one step ahead of me and for schooling me on menopause and the lifecycle of diapers for young and old.

Elise – Thank you for reminding me that it’s okay to give your past a second chance.

Cocaine Princess – Thanks for showing me that although I might have been worthy of a tiny bathing suit at one time in my life, I no longer look like you in a bikini and the sooner I embrace the one-piece the better.

Shemley – Thanks for being you…a young and brilliant man who inhales life in it’s wholeness and realness RIGHT NOW.

Graham – Learning the story of your own mid-life adventures and awakening is inspiring.

Jeff – You are like a visitor from my past. With every post you remind me of what being youthful is all about.

Chris – Knowing you reminds me that there was a time in my life when my greatest problem involved “finding a new place to party.” Thanks for reminding me to not take life too seriously.

Organized Doodles (Rick) – Visiting you gives me the inspiration to keep doing the things I love, just because I love them.

Jen – What can I say…you are my posse of one in crime. We have a lot in common…sorry, not sure that’s a good thing for you.

Damama – You are that person, you know the one who makes lemonade out of lemons? That’s you. You’ve taken life by the horns, thrown out the bs, and rode off into the sunset! I have no idea what any of that means. But you do it well.

Mental Poo – Well, I’m sure I don’t know why I visit your blog other than to laugh until my guts hurt. It’s my therapy. Oh, and of course to offer a silent prayer for your lovely wife Mrs. Saint Mental Poo.

Sweets – You give such an insight to what it’s like for us mothers to be able to love our children more than ourselves.

Angel – Being able to identify with your relationship struggles with your son has helped me to know that writing about it is surviving it.

Hayley – My sweet darling Hayley. Just starting out. You are such a good wife. I love that about you.

It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.

There are people who put their dreams in a little box and say, "Yes, I've got dreams, of course I've got dreams." Then they put the box away and bring it out once in awhile to look in it, and yep, they're still there.
Erma Bombeck

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one
John Lennon

Judge For Yourself - Okey Doke?

This is great.




2002 - That's when Barack Obama made this speech...he called it...here it is retold through the voices of his supporters.

What's With The Babies?

Seems like everytime someone takes a picture of me, I'm holding a baby. A friend took this pic of Mark and I at Christmas.

Yes!

I finally did it today... broke 70!
71 words

Speedtest

Some Grass, Some Roots, a Barn and a Tie

Today was the Adams County Democratic Convention and Assembly. Quite an interesting process. They say that the whole thing is very "grass roots" but when you meet with 1,000 other people in a barn, well, it can't get more grass roots than that. We met in the exhibit hall which is basically like a really really big barn. With over 1,000 delegates elected at the caucus that attended today, we had a great turn out.

The most exciting part of the day was the announcement of our preference poll for the presidential nomination. Obama received 497 votes. Hillary received 497 votes. I kid you not! What are the chances?

I expected the day to be pretty uneventful but luckily for my people watching enjoyment, Adams County has some delegates that were possibly just reintroduced back into society from under the rock they've been living and so I was quite entertained.

They Say You Get Better With Practice...

...but I took this typing test about 12 times...this was the best I could do! Damama got 71!!!



69 words

Speed test

68 words

Speed test

67 words

Speedtest

No More Mr. Tough Guy (I mean gal)

I'm officially sick! Felt it coming on Monday at work...the achy joints, goosebumps on top of goosebumps at the slightest hint of a breeze, and loss of appetite (which is rare...maybe I'm dieing.) Tuesday, I almost stayed in bed all day except for the fact that I got up early, got the kids showered and ready for school, and then drove them to school while still in my pajamas and my hair looking like Don King's (you know you want my life) because the carpool canceled (fine day for a cancellation huh?) By the time I got back home, the last thing I really wanted to do was just lay in bed staring at the ceiling but I could feel my body begging me NOT to clean house so off to bed I went...at least until the kids needed to get picked up early from school for their dentist appointment, after which we barely made it to swimming by the skin of our teeth and then rushed home to fix leftovers for dinner so that I could run back out for a meeting at school. I got home at 9:30 pm. For the life of me, I can't understand why I don't feel rested?!?!?!?! Today was pretty much more of the same, however, my fever is gone so I am feeling a little better, just a little worn out. I had another meeting at the school scheduled for tonight but just found out it is cancelled (dancing on top of my desk as I type).

If Killing a Puppy Is That Easy...

Can you imagine what this man/soldier will do/has done to the Iraqi people during a time when he is supposed to be helping the Iraqis achieve stability and security? Is this what we are calling our renewed effort to reduce the violence? Is this how we help the Iraqis defend and govern themselves?

Apparently this soldier was recently married in 2008...to his wife I say, "run for the hills." Honey if you don't think you are next, think again. He would throw your ass over that cliff as soon as you gained an extra five pounds. You've married a winner. His mother must be so proud.

How much of this man's insanity and torturous ways are a result of how he grew up and how much is the result of what he has seen in war? Who knows? But he needs to come home right now to minimize the damage he is personally going to cause. Unfortunately, he is serving next to courageous, intelligent, compassionate soldiers who won't kick his ass.

I've listed some links to the video in case it doesn't work...althoug I think they all link to youtube so maybe it doesn't help. I imagine they've been put up and taken down several times so I will list a few just in case.

You can be a puppy killer in the military (just as long as you are not gay right?)


http://view.break.com/463231 - Watch more free videos

http://www.dumpert.nl/mediabase/43462/9fb16ab3/us_soldaat_gooit_puppy.html

http://aspcacommunity.ning.com/video/video/show?id=658300:Video:200190

http://my.break.com/content/view.aspx?ContentID=463231

http://www.belowtopsecret.com/forum/thread338873/pg1