It’s been a long time since I got a speeding ticket, but I remember it well.   I was driving along the interstate, it was late and I was listening to loud music to keep myself awake since I was traveling by muself.  I wasn’t thinking about my speed which slowly crept up until I realized I was going almost 90 MPH.  About two seconds after noticing the speedometer, I saw blue lights flashing, and I got a whopper of a speeding ticket.  Typically I’m a very careful driver.  However, it seems that every time I do speed, I do it when there’s a police nearby monitoring traffic.  Uncanny how that happens.  I guess it’s a gift I have - one I wish I could re-gift!

If I had known back then what I know now, maybe I could have saved some serious cash!  I just learned that there is a company that will show you how to fight a speeding ticket. This isn’t about how to prevent getting a speeding ticket (i.e. SLOW down). This is about what to do once you’ve already got a speeding ticket.

The Original Ticket Busters is so confident that will help you get your speeding ticket either reduced or dismissed that they give you a money-back guarantee.  So there’s nothing to lose.

Do you make New Year’s resolutions?  I almost always do, and I’ve been known to actually stick to them although most of the time I don’t.  The New Year is here, and it is nice to think about new beginnings.  There’s something about a new year beginning that gives us hope and an eagerness to start fresh.  That freshness usually has a quick expiration date, but for at least a few days, it’s nice.

What do I want to do differently in 2008?  The old standbys are diet and exercise.  Maybe that’s why I’ve always needed to be concerned about weight loss and exercise.  Everything else in my life is pretty much on target.  I need SOMETHING to obsess about.  That’s not it, but it sounds good and is as good an excuse as I’ve heard from others.

I have one new goal this year.  Since I received a beautiful piano as a Christmas gift from RT, I want to practice the piano.  My goal is to select one song each week and practice it enough that I can play it well.  That way, I will soon be able to sit down at the piano and have a repertoire of music that I can play well.

Two years ago I started the Monthly Marathon - with the goal of walking the equivalent of a marathon (26 miles) each month.  That’s a very do-able goal.   I’m thinking seriously of getting the Monthly Marathon blog going again.  What do you think?  Any takers?

Another goal is to make more money from my blogging.  I was doing really well there for a few weeks, and then Google did a page rank re-assessment and zipped my page rank to zero - and having that low a page rank pretty much dried up all my money-making possibilities.  So I want to work on making a little bit of money from this pasttime of mine.

I feel sorry for the 6-year old girl whose mother helped her lie her way to winning tickets to a Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus concert.   The mother has deliberately taught her daughter to lie and cheat in order to get something she wants.  What a morally corrupt woman!   The mother was on TV this morning defending her actions by claiming that she was simply writing an essay.  She declared that she’d written essays in school.  This was just another essay.  Since when is an essay defined as a lie?

According to this story the girl (or the mother) wrote an essay in which she claimed that her father had died in Iraq this past April in a roadside bomb attack. 

 The girl won a makeover that included a blonde Hannah Montana wig, as well as the grand prize: airfare for four to Albany, N.Y., and four tickets to the sold-out Hannah Montana concert on Jan. 9.

The opening line in the essay was: “My daddy died this year in Iraq.”

The girl’s mother had told Club Libby Lu officials that the girl’s father died April 17 in a roadside bombing in Iraq, company spokeswoman Robyn Caulfield said. But the mother, Priscilla Ceballos, admitted later Friday that the essay and the military information she provided about her daughter’s father were untrue.

Here is part of the mother’s explanation:

“We did the essay and that’s what we did to win. We did whatever we could do to win,” Ceballos said in an interview Friday with KDFW-TV of Dallas. “But when (Caulfield) asked me if this essay is true, I said `No, this essay is not true.’”

This parent has taught her child all the wrong lessons in life.  She failed miserably in her role as a parent.  Hopefully, by seeing the resuls of the deception, the little girl will have learned a valuable lesson about the importance of truth and trust, and she will decide to not follow in her mother’s footsteps.

Others writing on this topic: TMZ,  Snafu-ed….Situation Normal

My lovely daughter, Stinkeroo, is 32 years old - almost 33 - and it’s scary how much we think alike.  Last week I found a purse that I love on eBay, and so I bought it.  I bought it because it is very similar to a purse that she has - just a different style, but the same pattern/fabric.  Everytime I’ve seen her purse the past couple months, I’ve commented on how much I like it.  The purse I ordered arrived on Friday, and I love it as much as I thought I would!  So yesterday I called my daughter to tell her about it - only to find out that she had already bought the exact same purse for me as a Christmas present. 

Another example:  Last week we were talking and she said she’d found the perfect gift for my mother.  It turns out that her gift was exactly the same thing that I had already bought for my mother for Christmas.  I told her I’d get something different. 

Stuff like that happens all the time, and I feel a little guilty about it.  Now don’t ask me WHY I should feel guilty that I went ahead and bought the purse that I wanted - I had no idea she’d already bought it for me - or why I should feel guilty that I had bought my mother the same gift that she had bought her.  Still, though, I feel a little guilty about it.  Like maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to handle things sometimes.

I keep trying to convince myself that this is a GOOD thing - that we are so similar in nature and thoughts.  However, it does get to be a problem at times.

This morning I woke up around four a.m. - feeling very sick.  The first few trips to the bathroom took care of ridding my body of everything I’d eaten that had already left my stomach.  It was during the fourth or fifth trip that the contents of my stomach made their exit.  There really are few things in life that are more gross and exhausting than throwing up.  I do it maybe once - sometimes twice - a year.  My stomach has always been sensitive.  RT thinks there’s something terribly wrong with me.  What he doesn’t understand is that I’ve always been this way.   RT and I ate all three meals together yesterday.  I didn’t eat anything that he didn’t also eat.  And he slept great all night and woke up feeling great.   My stomach just decided it was going to go on strike, and, to my dismay and lack of sleep,  it did.

So I’m staying home from work today.  Around 11:00 this morning I decided that I felt enough better than I could try eating a little food.  And absolutely nothing appealed to me except my standard-first-meal-after-being-sick menu: a poached egg on dry whole wheat toast sprinkled with a little grated cheddar cheese.  I have no idea why that has become my standard, but it never fails to help me recover after being sick.  So I prepared it, and it was delicious - mild, but filling - and with enough protein and carbohydrates to help me sleep off the last of my queasiness.

I’m sitting here listening to the evening news, and there is a report of a local man who shot his infant daughter, and then killed himself.  What kind of circumstances and mental processes would result in a father killing his own child?  There was the Omaha mall killer who wanted to die - who wrote that he didn’t want to be a burden for everyone anymore, but for some reason had to take eight innocent strangers with him.  If someone’s life is so awful that they simply must kill themselves, why do so many feel determined to take others with them?  I don’t understand it.

The question of the day:  Are you a spender or a saver?  I’ve been both.  During my first marriage, I was a spender.  Maybe not entirely, but I don’t remember being particularly worried about money.  I bought what I wanted without thinking much about it.  That changed, though, when I became single.  Being single for ten years taught me to be a saver.  There’s nothing like being solely responsible for mortgages, insurance, loans, bills and other responsibilities to learn quickly to change a spender into a saver.  I started listening to a radio money show and started following its thrifty advice.  Now, I’m married again, and my saving habits from my single years have carried over.  The best advice I could anyone is to make a budget and stick to it which ends up seeming like you got a raise.

RT and I have been moving the past month.  Yes, the past MONTH.  It takes time, and the fact that our old house is just two miles away from the new house, along with the fact the the old house has not sold yet means that we still have lots of stuff at the old house that we haven’t moved yet.  Nothing big - but still lots of little things that we didn’t want to crowd the moving van when we had it last month.

However, we DID completely empty the two storage rooms where I had stored most of my belongings.  One of the highlights of the past few weeks is that I keep getting gifts - gifts of particularly treasured items that had been packed away for the past eighteen months.  Each time I’d open a box, it seemed that I found something else that I was thrilled about seeing again.

(1) My dining room suit - it’s cherry with white upholstered seats - so pretty and elegant.  It wasn’t in a box, but it was stacked in the back of one of the storage rooms.

(2) My paraffin spa - LOVE it for my hands!

(3) The baby doll that the grandgirls insisted on buying for my birthday a few years ago.  My daughter tried to steer them towards a more practical gift, but they insisted that Grandma Carol WANTED that baby doll. . . and they were right - I did!

(4) My Hummel collection - each of them were given to me for special occasions, and it’s so nice to see them again.

(5) My pictures - I have a lot of framed prints that we just stored since RT’s cabin didn’t have a lot of wall space for them.  I enjoy so much the Frace’ prints and the beautiful “Resurrection Morn” print that I received as a gift a few years ago.

(6) My books.  LOVE my favorite books.

(7) My dishes - especially the pretty ones

(8) My antique hall tree - I’ve had it for about 30 years, and I think it’s beautiful

(9) The little figurine that my then 3-year old daughter gave me when my son was born.  It’s a little girl with arms spread wide and the words “I love you THIS much!”

(10) My crocheted afgans - so nice to wrap around me when I’m watching TV or reading a book

(11) My video and CD collections - I’m ready to watch some of my favorites again

(12) My photo albums - from RT’s and my first marriage in 1969 to our grandchildren.  I love looking at all the photographs again.

(13) My little antique sewing kit.  It’s interesting how often I need a needle and thread to do a quick repair on something.  I’ve missed my well-stocked sewing kit.  Now that it’s available, it’ll probably be months before I need it.

Previously I wrote about Sunshine and her concerns about God and death.  Apparently the entire problem was solved today - and we have Sweet Stuff to thank.  My daughter called a few minutes ago to relate the following conversation between Sunshine (4-years old) and Sweet Stuff (6-years old):

Sunshine: (In an uncertain, questioning voice) When I die, I’m going to heaven.

Sweet Stuff:  Sunshine, this is how you get to heaven.  There’s nothing to be scared of.  First you’re a baby, then you’re a big baby.  Then you’re a big, big baby.  Then you’re a big, big big baby.  Then you’re a little kid.  Then you’re a big kid.  Then you’re a big, big kid.  Then you’re a big, big, big kid.  Then you’re a grown-up.  then you’re a big grown-up.  Then you’re a big, big grown-up.  Then you’re a big, big, big grown-up.  Then you’re a mommy.  then you’re a big mommy.  Then you’re a big, big mommy.  Then you’re a grandma.  Then you’re a big grandma.  Then you’re a big, big grandma.  Then you’re a grandma grandma.  Then you’re a big grandma grandma, and THEN you go to heaven.

Sunshine:  Oh.  (big smile and satisfied look on her face)  Okay!

Questions answered and problem solved.  Heaven is just the step after being a big grandma grandma.

This song was sung at the funeral of our friend, Horace, this past Sunday.  I love this song - despite the fact that everytime I see anything about a “cocoon”  becoming a butterfly, I have to note that a cocoon becomes a moth - it’s a chrysalis that becomes a butterfly .  Just read the words - so packed with power and meaning:

Hymn of Promise

In the bulb there is a flower; in the seed, an apple tree
In cocoons, a hidden promise: butterflies will soon be free
In the cold and snow of winter there’s a spring that waits to be,
unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.

There’s a song in every silence, seeking word and melody;
there’s a dawn in every darkness, bringing hope to you and me.
From the past will come the future; what it holds, a mystery,
unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.

In our end is our beginning; in our time, infinity;
in our doubt there is believing; in our life, eternity.
In our death, a resurrection; at the last, a victory,
unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.