Month: April 2010

events, friends, fun

Following the vulture

Shanny

The other day we walked out to the car and there was a lady and a toddler in our driveway.  I said hello and she said “Oh, hi, sorry, we’re getting out of the way.  We were just following the vulture” and she picked up her son and walked away.  I didn’t see a vulture anywhere so we just got in the car and left.  We had a full day of errands including a vet appointment for all 3 pugs (more on that later).  We were in and out of the house all day.  At about 7 ish we pulled in to the driveway and my neighbor C, along with a bunch of kids came running over.

I got out of the truck and they were all so excited to tell me what we’d just missed!  Apparently that lady really WAS following a vulture!  A vulture had hurt its wing and was strolling around our neighborhood.  C saw it chilling on our porch, hopping up on our truck (!) and generally just tooling around. She called Carolina Raptor Center to come out and rescue the vulture.  In the meantime C gathered up some neighbors and they cornered the vulture, covered it with a blanket to calm it, and  put it in a box to wait for the raptor people.  C showed me the pictures she took of the whole adventure.  I’ve stolen a couple to show you! Here he is in front of our other neighbor’s house.  And here he is in his rescue box. Who knew we even had vultures in our hood??  I’m so proud of C & her kids for rescuing this guy!

fun, movies

Maxed out

Shanny

CSP & I went to see How to Train Your Dragon in IMAX 3D the other night.  I had already seen this movie in regular 3d for Momo’s birthday and I couldn’t wait to see the difference IMAX would make.  I called the theatre and asked the theatre man what is the difference between regular 3d and IMAX 3d.  Previously my only IMAX experience was at Discovery Place in their dome.  I knew that our local theatre didn’t have a dome so I was really curious how they did this.  The theatre man said that the IMAX screen was 30% larger than the standard cinema screen, that they project with 2 projectors instead of just the one, and that the sound is just amazing.  If you go to our theatre Monday- Thursday it’s only $5.  Then you have to add the 3d charge to it ($5) plus the IMAX charge ($2).  Not cheap, but we don’t do IMAX often. That’s why we planned on going during the week.  If we’d gone on a weekend it would have been like $17 each!

CSP had never seen a 3d movie so this was exciting all around.  I was really curious to see what the difference would be between the 2 movie experiences, but wow, I was blown away! First of all, the sound was amazing!  You could feel the bass all up in your body!  Then the colors!  OMG the colors!  In regular 3d Toothless (who I adore and want as a pet) was black with a little silver.  In IMAX he had green and blue and purple in his scales too.  Gorgeous.  The details were amazing too.  I noticed skin freckles and scars and hairs that I didn’t before.  Fibers in their clothes.  Highlights in their hair. Textures in their clothes and surroundings.  Plus somehow the 3d seemed even more come out and getcha!  The whole thing was just amazing.  Plus CSP loved the movie too.  We had a great time.  For that price seeing an IMAX movie is definitely a special occasion thing.  Unfortunately the 3d gave CSP a headache and he declared himself a 2d man from here on out. Sigh.  Oh well, he does call me a techno geek, and I guess the name fits!

pugs

Eye yi yi!

Shanny

My poor Kiki had an ordeal recently. My girl Kiki is so brave on the way to the vet. I noticed her eye was cloudy, just the one, so I called the vet the next day. They said keep an eye on it and if she started scratching at it or anything changed then bring her in. Otherwise we could wait until her scheduled adoption physical on the 28th. That was Friday. By Sunday morning she was squinting and her eye was runny. I took her to the emergency vet and they said she had been poked in the eye. That it was fairly common for pugs with their sticky outy eyes. Luckily we’d never had a problem with any of our pugs’ eyes. The vet said she could have gotten it poked at any time: jumping up on the sofa or exploring under a bush. Poor thing! Her eye was all swollen. They sent us home with 2 types of eye drops and some pills. I spent the next 24 hours putting drops in her eyes every hour. We were both exhausted by the end of it! I took her to our regular vet on Tuesday and she was on the road to recovery. We go back Wednesday with the rest of the pugs for their adoption physicals so she’ll be declared completely healed then. Whew! I was so worried about her!

shopping

Tick tock

Shanny

I stopped wearing a watch a few years ago.  They never got me anywhere on time!  But they sure are cute.  If I were to start wearing watches again I’d buy one of these women’s watches from Ice. I love all the selection Ice has.  I especially love that you can shop online.   Ice watches were featured at Basel World 2009.  Here’s the video where you can see some of their fabulous timepieces!   Continue reading “Tick tock” →

ugh

Well, that’s real mature

Shanny

It makes me sick that groups like this exist. I don’t care how you feel about Obama, to pray for his death is just wrong. I’m shocked and appalled that any of my Facebook friends would click the “like” button for this group. No matter his policies he is still the president of our country and should be respected, if not for his politics and his office, then at least for being a human being. Grow up people.

shopping

Earth Day Idea for you!

Shanny

Recently I read a post on Jenny’s blog about this cool clip for your reusable shopping bags.  I thought it was a great idea.  We take our bags shopping and they can take up a ton of room in your buggy.  Then when you get to check out you have to dig them out of the buggy to start bagging.  Annoying.  So I loved the clip idea.  You clip your bags on the outside of the buggy while you shop.  We don’t have a Wegman’s here so I needed to come up with a different solution.  I remembered that CSP has a bunch of those carabiner clips, like this: So I took one with me to the grocery store the next time.  I used it to clip my bags to the outside of the buggy.  Yay!  It worked great!  So easy.  And free!  So go get you some reusable shopping bags and a clip!  I love the bags we’ve gotten from Reusit.com and Baggu bags.  You can also find reusable bags for sale at most retailers now.  Happy Earth Day!

techno geek

New favorite thing

Shanny

When I can’t fall asleep easily I doink around on my phone.  Recently I started playing Charadium.  SO fun!  Basically it’s a Pictionary type game.  Draw and guess.  You play with people you know or with people from all over the world. It cracks me up some of the things people say.  There have been a couple times now when a player has drawn waffles when the word was ego.  Ha!  One player was trying to get us to guess China and she wrote “It’s a continent”.  Ha!  I was trying to draw a gorilla once and it was just awful.  I could see a gorilla in my head but just couldn’t translate that to the screen.  The result was a psycho looking teddy bear.

The app is free and my name is heyshanny if you wanna play!

family, kids

Lil Killers

Shanny

First let me just say that Facebook is the ultimate blog killer.  I blame FB for my lack of posts here.  It just feels redundant sometimes when all y’all know what’s been going on because of FB.  Sigh.

Anyway, Friday night CSP & I went over to Sara & BIL’s house for the evening to visit.   Jake & Joey say the cutest things and they had a ton of fun comments for me that night.  Before we arrived Sara told the boys to move their scooters out of the driveway.

Sara: Aunt Shanny’s coming soon, you better get your scooters out of the driveway.

Jake: I will later, she’ll be late.

(that kid knows me too well!)

Later, Sara & I were  watching America’s Next Top Model.  Joey was curled up on the sofa with Sara while Jake was playing on his computer in his room.  He came out asking Sara to sign him up for some kid’s game website.

Jake:  Pleeeease Mom can you come put in your email?

Sara:  Jacob why don’t you just come snuggle up on the sofa with us?

Me:  Yeah, Jakey don’t you want to be in here where you can enjoy me?

Jake:  Well, I’d rather be in there enjoying that.

Ha!

Later we were outside hanging out.  The boys had already cut off my arms and legs and head.  I was playing dead when I heard Jake yell “Let’s burn her eyes out!”  OMG!  He’s only 7!

adoption

How Dare You

Shanny

I know a couple who decided to grow their family through adoption.  They went to China and adopted one of the most beautiful, witty, smart, funny, adorable little girls you’d ever have the pleasure of knowing.  This couple is one fine set of parents.  The little girl knows her manners, more importantly, uses her manners, and is just full of amazing qualities that were taught by her parents.  Her parents who love her to the moon and back and would gladly give their right arm and more for her.  She is their daughter through and through and it makes not one bit of difference to any of them or the people who know and love them, that she was not a product of their egg and sperm.

Because let me tell you something, biology does not a family make.  You aren’t related to your spouse.  But you are family. You know what makes family?  Love.  Plain and simple.

Let me tell you what happened to that family recently.  Some ass hat (yeah, I’m not holding back on this one) told their child, who we’ll call Bubba, or maybe Bubba just overheard, whatever, doesn’t matter, it was said.  Then Bubba went to school with my friend’s child, who we’ll call Jill, and told her that Jill’s mommy bought her from another mommy.  HOW DARE YOU.  And by you I mean the parent here.  Cause that kid is just a little kid and he/she doesn’t know any better.  Because you see, parents are supposed to teach their children the right thing to do.  So Bubba didn’t know (I’m assuming) that what he was saying was hurtful.  That what he said basically compared sweet Jill to a commodity, an item to be purchased, merchandise, a pair of socks.  And you know what you can do with a pair of socks?  You can return a pair of socks.  You can throw away a pair of socks.  A pair of socks is pretty cheap.

And this can make a little adopted girl feel pretty dang bad about herself.  And her place in her family.  And her self worth.

How dare you.  Let me tell you something, I am SO fired up about this.  Learning about this brought me to tears. Not just because I love Jill with a fierceness, but also because we too are on the adoption path.  We started down this path long before I had my hysterectomy.  Long before we were out of biological options.  We CHOSE adoption.  We are choosing to build our family through adoption because we want children and guess what?  There are children who want parents.  We aren’t trying to be heroes.  We aren’t looking for medals or stained glass windows erected in our honor.  And you know what else?  The children we are adopting aren’t merchandise.  They aren’t throwaway kids.  They are loved beyond measure.

Listen up you judging jackholes. Don’t you dare dismiss what I’m about to say with “Well, you’re just bitter because you can’t have your own children.”  What I have to say is valid and you know it.  How dare you judge how someone chooses to build their family. How dare you let those words come out of your mouth.  How dare you follow up with “Well, you know what I mean” or “I just don’t think before I speak”. How dare you.  No, we don’t know what you mean.  What do you mean?  Do you mean that we don’t love our kids as much as you love yours?  Are our kids subpar somehow?  How dare you imply with your reckless comments that our family is not as valid as yours.  That just because our kids don’t look like us they are any less our children.  You know what?  Anyone can get knocked up on a Saturday night.  But I would never think to say to my children “I wonder if Bubba’s parents’ condom broke or if he was planned”.  So how dare you even think it’s ok to ponder aloud Jill’s origins in such a way.  Why do people think it’s ok to discuss these things?

Jill’s mother had a great deal of tact.  She would never follow up a rude question about Jill’s origins with a rude one of her own.  She would never say “Hey, so did Bob get you from behind when you conceived Bubba?”  Or “Guess that birth control patch really isn’t 100%” or “Do you just call Bubba your little mistake?”

How dare you not think before you speak about our families.  How dare you teach your children that it’s ok to say such things. How dare you think it’s ok to ask such personal questions of us at the grocery store or park.  I am not naive enough to think that this won’t happen to my family.  When it does I hope I have as much tact as Jill’s mom.  And not punch you judging jackholes right in the throat.