Kids Online... Yeah, I know... here we go.

When a Facebook status gets too long... move it to the blog, Deb.

I sometimes feel like I'm the only parent on the planet who doesn't let their kid have Facebook, or a cell phone. Am I so weird?  Am I too up tight??? Feel free to comment below, I want to hear what you think.

 I will say this; I don't think anyone is wrong, everyone parents differently. This is how I feel personally.

To be honest so far it hasn't been an issue, my kids are pretty awesome about it and they don't complain.  I told them both several years ago; the rules on the website say 13 so I'm just following the rules, and they accept that.
I can see a few advantages - friends they used to go to school with, friends who live further away that they don't see, family that they don't see... but I think there's way too much on there that I can't control! As much as I trust my kids, and they've so far been really responsible online and know what's appropriate and what's not... Seriously - do you trust every single one of your family members to make their posts PC so your kid can safely read them? Or to refrain from posting inappropriate GIFs on their walls with things your 8 or 10 year-old shouldn't see? I know I don't! I don't even trust ME to do that. I have my dad on a filter in case I get angsty, but I've forgotten a few times and get the "I wish you wouldn't talk like that" speech from him when I post a rant. True story. And we all have our moments, right?

Now... Bri's only mentioned a cell phone twice so far, but I'm like - what does a 10 year old need a cell phone for anyway? If she's not with me or some other parent/step-parent, she's at school - so what exactly is the need?  Besides - I can still barely convince her to answer the house phone, say "Hello?" and give it to whomever they ask for.

Thank goodness my kids are good with rules (for the most part). But... am I too up tight or something?
I feel a little BAD, like I'm being the mom that won't let their kid have a Super Nintendo, and I'm SOOO MEANNNN...!  (ya, I'm old. shh.)

Yours truly...

So, I went over to my inlaws' place yesterday after work. They've been together foreverrrr.  I sat there silently realizing and appreciating that their ridiculous bickering (at that moment: him smooching at her like a big kid, her telling him off but clearly still amused) looked incredibly familiar. 

I think the feeling that came over me was just pure contentment. You can say you KNOW, and you've gotten it right... And be telling the truth (or even just hoping desperately that you are)... But there's nothing quite like the moments of indirect confirmation.

Yeah, I'm mushy. Deal.

I'm sorry, your rights are only upheld if it's convenient to the local highway...

This makes me sick, really.

"The ministry has said previously it has made repeated buyout offers, based on three independent property appraisals, for the land needed to reconstruct an interchange at Lake Ridge Rd. and Highway 401."

I didn't hear anyone involved say anything about a dollar value, there, Ministry.  I didn't even hear them complaining about how much they were offered, really.  It's the fact that you offered anything.  Why can't you understand that you will never offer them enough to replace THE VALUE OF THEIR FAMILY HOME that was built by his own hands?  It's not about your stupid road, or about how important it is that all the pissed off people in the world get to work 5 minutes faster --- because clearly another highway is going to cut down on traffic; It'll only last about 2 years... or until 10 more subdivisions pop up on the fancy prime property with highway access, and subsequently clusterfuck the new on-ramp. Whichever comes first.

But seriously, it's not about how much the world needs another highway.  It's about being human, and human rights.  I really don't think "The Ministry" should have the right to kick ANYONE out of their property unless they agree to sell it.  That's total BS and it makes me kindof ashamed to be Canadian, if this is how we treat senior citizens.  I don't care how much you offered them.  I agree, it wouldn't be enough for me either.  Let me get this straight... you can offer them $600k for their land, but you can't find a way to use that money and go around it?  Hell, they can't even have enough human kindness to say "Since we're plowing through your house to build our highway, why don't we CREATE some road access to the remaining land that you won't sell?"...  Just a thought.

Ugh.  It's like nothing is sacred.  We work all our lives looking forward to the point where we'll own our own things and our own property and build our own home (figuratively or literally) and raise our family... but don't hold your breath, because your Government cares so much about you that they'll kick you out on your ass when you're older than dirt because the younger generation can't get off their ass and take a GO train - we clearly just need more highways, more apartment buildings... less pesky green farm fields and wooded areas.

*** EDIT *** I should add... no, I didn't read any other articles about the 407 or anything.  I really quite honestly don't care - what I care about is the atrocious way this situation is/was being handled.  Whether it's a route or an extension or a new highway or an old highway ---- the point is I don't think what they did to this family is right.

Let me just hack up a lung first...

I have a love-hate relationship with the awesomeness of a gritty, dirty vocals.  When I say that, I don't mean curse words and screaming, or one genre in particular.  I'm talking just that smooth but gritty, gravelly, little-bit-dirty, raspy, bluesy SOUND.  I love it.  A few names; Janis Joplin has it, Christina Perri has it, Macy Gray, Amanda Marshall... A lot of my favourite singers have it.  A lot of the new "Indie" style singers have it.

I think it's because it just sounds like it's coming from deep in  your soul... like you're pulling the song from the depths... it just puts that much more feeling into the sound of the music.  I wish I could sing like that.

Small confession... I play karaoke songs on YouTube and make shitty recordings of myself just to see how I sound.  I'm pretty convinced that I sound like a 12 year old, actually.  Every once in a while I find something which I think I sound half decent singing... usually something low and bluesy.  I'm also afraid of the neighbours hearing me, so I suppose my "tiny voice" probably doesn't do me justice combined with Windows default 30-second Sound Recorder.  Hmm.

I do kinda miss singing.  Must pull out Daphne at some point. (She's my guitar.)  She's been very neglected lately.  What I really ought to do is go take lessons so I have someone holding me accountable to pick the damn thing up and actually learn more than the 6 chords I have had under my belt for 6 years.

Dream entry

I'd love to be more interesting and share the entire dream with you - I'm sure it was a good one.  However, unfortunately I can only recall one small part.  But, since it's somewhat amusing and I actually recall it 3 hours later, that's got to be a sign or something I guess.

So... at some point in the part of the dream I can't remember, I yelled at a shark.  Stay with me.  It gets better.  I don't remember why I yelled at it, but I'm pretty sure it was something like "I HATE YOU!!!" that I screamed in its face for whatever vile thing it had apparently done.

Fast Forward to the karma at the end of the dream (what's that in dream time? seconds?).  I told you I don't remember the whole dream, what were you expecting?

So now I'm at the end of the dock (what dock? who knows.) and I'm getting ready to go inside. I step out onto the raft (which is apparently a plain ordinary warehouse pallet) to pick up the couple of things I had left sitting on it...
...and all of a sudden, the pallet lurches under my feet, I'm knocked on my ass and am holding on for dear life, as this "pallet" goes flying across the ?lake? like a really back-woods style inner tube, where I am dumped unceremoniously into the water, and...

... the shark pops out of the water, looks at me, and somewhere between weird chittering and English, screams "I HATE YOU!!!" back in my face... and proceeds to swim off and leave me stranded with my pallet at the far end of a lake.  In the dream I remember putting my head under to watch the shark swim off into the depths and wondering whether screaming "I'M SORRY!!!" loudly enough, would cause the shark to forgive me and motor-boat me back to shore...???

Chicken loaf and rice, anyone...???

So, I decide to play the dutiful wife last night --- I'm off for the week, hubby's working every day.  I decide "I'm gonna make my man a meatloaf tonight!  I remember him saying he likes meatloaf, it's pretty easy... I can doooo eeeeet!!!"  and off I go to thaw the roll of lean ground beef we had in the freezer.

Lo and behold, I unwrap this roll of ground beef, and it looks... well, the best way I can describe it is that it looked like someone took a sub-size roll of bologna, wrapped it up and froze it.  It looked nothing like the ground beef I was expecting.  It looked like meat paste in tube form.  *blink*  That sounds a bit wrong.   Anyhow, I have enough sense to check the freezer bag I took it from, which proudly announces on the front that it is, in fact, "LEAN GROUND CHICKEN".  Really?  They make that in frozen tube form?  Awesome, good to know.  (Yep.  Totally aware of how disturbing frozen tubes of meat for dinner can ultimately sound.  If you'd like to read the "How to eat nothing but 100% fresh and organic food 24/7" blog, you're in the wrong place, missy.  All the power to you, but this is how my kitchen rolls!)

Long story short, my meatloaf became a chicken meatloaf.  I don't have breadcrumbs, so I found out (Google-Knows-All)... that I can use a cup and a half of All-Bran instead of a cup of breadcrumbs.  Score.  And inadvertently made it more healthy - and added a nice sweet flavour under the chicken.  Woot.  It was actually pretty damn good, if I do say so myself --- 1lb of lean ground chicken, an egg, 1.3c All Bran, sage, dried parsley, garlic powder, chopped onions, celery salt, black pepper, little bit of brown sugar... I think that's about it.  I believe it baked for about 30 min, then 40 min, and an extra 5 min to make the last basting nice and sticky.  I basted the top with Garlic BBQ sauce about 3 times while it baked in about a cup of vegetable broth (read: vegetable bouillon cube thingy, dissolved in 2 cups of water, used about 1/4c. in the meat mixture, and poured about 1/4c. over the top the 3x I basted it)

P.S. Super-easy way to make white rice a little less white: Dissolve 1 bouillon cube in 2c. boiling water (that's the default instruction on the box I have)... melt about 1.5tbsp of margarine/butter in a pan, and add the boiling water, and 1c. minute rice.   Add dried parsley, garlic powder, a little bit of salt, and a handful of peas and/or corn and/or diced carrots (and/or whatever veggie you want, really).  Leave on the heat, stirring occasionally until the rice is snowball-making consistency... and you're done.  If made with a Chicken Bouillion cube and chopped up chicken breast, you essentially just made chicken fried rice.  Nomnomnom.

I'm not about the elegance.  I'm about the easy-to-make.  Don't ask me about calories.  Couldn't tell ya.

Greetings, Earthlings...

So, here's the deal.  I've had a few of these "blog" things over the years... And years... And years.

In fact, I still have my old LiveJournal, where I'm an "Early Adopter" {applaud here} because I'm getting so old that I had a LiveJournal back when they were 100% FREE (you heard me), along with so many really cool things on the web that are equally as useless now, but have ballooned in price since then.

I've written a few "Hey look, I'm back!" posts, where I briefly update my life status and latest accomplishments to my clearly vast and painfully attentive audience, and then swear up and down proclaiming: "I SHALL RETURN!" before posting vague snippets and paragraphs of forced words for a few days, memes and quizzes to pretend I wrote for a few days, and then a week spent trying to write another real post while constantly getting distracted or interrupted... post it... and proceed to forget that the blog exists for another 6-12 months.  That's my pattern.  Is admission a step?  Do I need steps for this?  Never mind.

Anyway, I have a new plan.  I know that I sometimes come up with some cool ideas, or deep thoughts - but my memory is, was, and ever shall be.... CRAP!  I can't help it.  I really should carry a video camera or a notepad everywhere I go.  Instead, my poor husband, boss, daughter (whatever poor soul happens to be in the area) winds up listening to me prattle on about whatever I've gotten into my head and get all excited with ideas... which I promptly forget the second we get where we're going, or the commercial break ends, etc.  I'm going to try and take some notes and actually write down some of my babbling here.  Who knows, maybe I will amuse you - in which case, kick your feet up with a coffee.  Maybe I won't - in which case, feel free to go away. :)

Let's see if I actually remember to write in this.
Wish me luck!

Deb