The Median Sib

I added a site meter to The Median Sib two days ago, and it has been interesting to watch the number slowly increase as people look at my blog - 110 people so far. I may be wrong, but 110 visits in two days seems like a nice little trickle of traffic for a new blog. The meter doesn’t count my many visits which is good because I log on and off all the time as I re-read things I’ve written, make changes, read comments, etc. I tend to be compulsive about looking for typos and re-wording things that don’t read the way I intended them to read. The purpose of this blog isn’t to get a lot of traffic, but having the site meter makes me think about who is here and why they’re here.

My niece has a blog, Reasoned Audacity, and she is nearing the 100,000 mark for site visitors. Her blog is less than a year old. So I wondered how long it would take The Median Sib to reach such a number. If my weak math skills are correct, at the rate of the past two days it will take around 5 years! Obviously this isn’t going to be a record-breaking blog - and it wasn’t intended to be. This blog doesn’t have a central theme. It isn’t associated with any particular cause or organization. Most of the comments so far are from my wonderful family, although there are a couple non-family comments interspersed here and there. I have some friends who read my blog, too. And then I guess there are the other bloggers who are just surfing through blogs and see something here that catches their eye and they take the time to read it.

What’s the purpose of The Median Sib? Not to get a lot of traffic. Not to make money from the advertising. Not to debate the important topics of the day. It’s here as an outlet for me - a communication and expression tool. So to everyone who has taken the time to read The Median Sib - THANK YOU!

I was browsing through some blogs and came across one that mentioned this article in The New York Times. It was interesting plugging in my own statistics and seeing how I ranked in terms of their criteria for “class”.

I wrote earlier about having hoppin’ john with Italian sausage when I visited my camping friends over the weekend. Today I decided to tweak the recipe a bit - with good results. Here’s my recipe:

Hoppin’ John with Sausage
3 cans black-eyed peas
2 cans Ro-Tel tomatoes w/jalapenos
1 large can diced tomatoes
1 pound Italian or summer sausage (I bought the lower fat variety made from turkey)
approx. 1-2 cups cooked rice (more or less depending on your preference)

Slice the sausage into bite-sized pieces. Throw everything in a saucepan and simmer. That’s it - an extremely simple meal. You can make smaller amounts, but I deliberately made a big batch so I’d have several packages to freeze for quick meals later. It is mildly spicy but absolutely delicious!

Photos:
1981-3 years old
1985 - 7 years old
2004 - 26 years old

My sweet baby boy will be 27 years old tomorrow. How is that possible? It seems like just yesterday that he was born. I remember the first Mother’s Day after his birth when he said “ma-ma” for the first time, and then kept saying it over and over… All the fistfuls of flowers he has presented to me over the years…The cowboy boots he wore when he was a toddler — even to bed…His determination…His kindness…His resourcefulness and ambition as he created his own lawn-mowing business in high school. He was, and still is, sweetness, ambition, toughness, mischief, strength and kindness mixed together in one multi-faceted and wonderful person.

I think most parents would agree that the driving hope of parents is to see their children grow up to be kind, responsible and happy adults. I have made mistakes in many areas of my life, but my two children are wonderful examples of where I succeeded. Scalawag has his own company that he started less than two years ago that is thriving and keeping him busy. He married Meah on a sunlit beach in Maui three years ago. They’ve created a beautiful home where they live with their two dogs, Hank and Mickey, and where they entertain friends often. Most of all, though, he is a good person. When I asked him to meet with me yesterday to look at that land, he was there. When I needed help with a project a few weeks ago, he stopped what he was doing, and he helped me with it.

We’ll celebrate his birthday on Sunday with a family dinner. HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my sweet baby boy!

My allergies have been trying to flare up for several days — the familiar coughing and sneezing, watery eyes and not-really-sore-but-definitely-a-little-scratchy throat. Nothing major, though, and nothing that my daily dose of Allegra couldn’t make manageable. The walk through the grassy five acres yesterday, however, changed all that. There was a delicate balance between feeling okay and feeling sick - and being outside in all that newly-mown grass tipped the balance towards allergy-attack-ville. I’m staying home from work today. You know how headachey you feel after coughing a lot - the pounding headache feeling? That’s how I feel. Then, because of the nonstop coughing, I couldn’t sleep last night. This is what sick leave days are for. Poor, poor Carol — all headachey and tired and coughy. I believe I’ll go make her some chicken soup and cornbread.