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Thursday, May 26, 2011
There's a new elf!
After a sleepless night for most of the twenty or so people in the house, little Donovan Mitchell Slaughter joined our crew at 6 this morning. He was greeted by a roomful of family and (very) close friends, including his five siblings--Molly, Wes, Henry, Carrie, and Liam who is now displaced as the Baby Prince. We are praising God for a safe delivery here at Granny's House, and especially that Daddy was able to make it here from Fort Worth just 90 minutes before Mommy went into labor. Congratulations to Kristen, who is one SUPERwoman, and thank you to Janet and crew, the midwife angels :-) (And thanks to our girls, who provided fresh-baked, middle-of-the-night cookies for all, and to the big boys who made an emergency Taco Cabana run!)
Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow!
Yes, he's in the net, getting the official weigh-in. At 7 pounds, 8 oz., he's definitely in the Bantamweight class :-)
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
I'm just sayin'....
Labels: Fun
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Atlas Shrugged watch...
No matter what fancy name you put on it, this stinks:
Ed Morrisey at Hot Air notes:
Meet the White House's New Story Squasher
Just so you know, your tax dollars are now paying for a “director of progressive media & online response” within the White House. Translation: a dedicated enforcer and story squasher that loves the liberal media.
“This week, Jesse Lee will move from the new media department into a role in the communications department as Director of Progressive Media & Online Response,” Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer said in an internal memo provided to The Huffington Post. “For the last two years, Jesse has often worn two hats working in new media and serving as the White House’s liaison with the progressive media and online community. Starting this week, Jesse will take on the second role full time working on outreach, strategy and response.And how many euphemisms can we think of for "Minister of Propaganda"?
Ed Morrisey at Hot Air notes:
There’s an old axiom in politics: Don’t punch below your weight. Getting into fights with secondary and tertiary media outlets only benefits those organizations and individuals. One would have thought that Obama learned that lesson in his disastrous wars with Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. The only story here is that this administration doesn’t learn from its mistakes.They don't learn much.
Meet the White House's New Story Squasher
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Sunday snippets...
Well, the Snippets are back after a two-week hiatus. I had a wonderful vacation in Hawaii with Lyric, and two nights at her house in California on either side of the Hawaii week. While in Hawaii we took a short cruise, read books on the sand, shopped for clothes and jewelry, got a little too much sun, and had unbelievably good evening here. I returned on Monday, refreshed and ready to take on summer :-)
During the past couple of weeks, I finished up reading Nurture Shock by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, Words that Work by Frank Luntz, and Poke the Box by Seth Godin. All three were excellent and are on my "Recommended" list. (Links are in the sidebar.)
Watching Herman Cain. Closely. Would still like to be "wowed" by someone I hadn't even thought of yet.
Ever signed the paperwork to enter a clinical trial of a drug? It's worse than buying a house!
This weekend I purchased two new vacuum cleaners. Have I told you about our vacuum curse? Yeah, I thought so. And no, I'm not divulging what brands I bought until I know if I'm going to keep them. After a week of research I'm convinced that there are no good brands. And I'm disgusted with Consumer Reports for highly rating brands that actual real-life users end up hating. What's up with that? If it turns on the first time and doesn't start smoking, it's Recommended?
So Kristen and children are with us as we wait for SlaughterBaby's arrival. Due date is Tuesday, and no sign of anything yet...but we're ready!
And yesterday, Aubrey and Cori gave a lovely baby shower for CJ and her little Ava LongenBaby, wherein we ate way too many delicious carbs and oohed and aahed over the sweetest little baby things ever. We still have a couple of months until we get to meet Ava...she'll be born on July 19th in Oklahoma City.
Are you watching The Voice? I love the concept even if some of the personalities really annoy me.
Tonight I'm going to make a list of the things I want to accomplish this summer. We're going to be doing so much traveling that I need to be very purposeful and organized about the things I want to do. The last two years I haven't done very well on that score and my intentions were, for the most part, never realized. See, I do really well with New Years resolutions...I just don't do well with summer.
Congrats and goodbye to our dear friend Nicole, who graduated yesterday with her BSN and will be leaving, along with her family, to reside in the great northwest. We love you!
Have a great week!
Labels: Babies, Books, Political Observation, Sundays, Vacations
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Wherein she exults that there are still people who care. A lot.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Just when you think you've heard everything...
My beef with this has nothing to do with a disbelief that some people "do" it, but that it can now be a disorder you "have".
Gag through the whole thing here: PAS
hat tip: Dr. P.
The competition to get your favorite disease recognized in the bible of mental health, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, can be as fierce as the talent contest in the Little Miss St. Paul Contest. The American Psychiatric Association is contemplating adding something called "parental alienation syndrome" (PAS) to the new edition of the DSM, scheduled to be published in May 2013, and the question has launched a national lobbying and letter-writing campaign on both sides. That angry letters and editorials might play any part in a debate about mental health and custody disputes probably tells you most of what you need to know about the validity of PAS.
Gag through the whole thing here: PAS
hat tip: Dr. P.
Labels: Theater of the Absurd
Friday, May 13, 2011
We interrupt this Hawaiian vacation...
...to bring you to another liberal western state :-) Oh, come on. You KNOW you know people like this:
hat tip: Jane T.
hat tip: Jane T.
Labels: Fun
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
What does it mean, in America at least, to be "educated"?
The 'Education' Mantra
The 'Education' Mantra
Labels: Education, Social Observation
Sunday, May 01, 2011
UPDATE: If you're interested in seeing the commercial I blogged about last week, it's here, under "piano".
Labels: Devotional, Health
Sunday snippets...
Okay, just let me get this out there. I watched the Royal Wedding. From the pre-game shows until the Royal Kiss. Well, all right, just before the Royal Kiss. I did miss that part after falling asleep right before dawn. But I watched. I watched because I enjoy the Royals way more than I enjoy reality shows and Entertainment Tonight and the red carpet before the Oscars. But I have a beef. If you didn't care to watch it live, then I think you should be happy to watch short clips of the really interesting bits the next day. I get really annoyed when the news shows and other bona fide programming get pre-empted to show the ENTIRE. WEDDING. OVER. AND. OVER. But I suppose that if you've paid big bucks to send the likes of Shepard Smith over there to eat the overpriced food and stay in a fancy hotel at jacked-up rates, you want to get the most for your money, so you replay all his gaffes OVER. AND. OVER. AND. OVER. And I'm not picking just on FOX, though their choice of correspondents was particularly offensive. CNN seemed to be colluding with FOX to make sure they both replayed THE. ENTIRE. WEDDING. OVER. AND. OVER AT THE SAME TIMES. ENOUGH!
And while I'm on the wedding topic, wasn't The Dress exquisite? Do you think maybe, just maybe, sleeves and gorgeous necklines will now be back in style instead of every single bride in the country looking like a clone and worried to death (or hoping, in some cases) that her strapless bra is going to fail during the meet-and-greet at the reception? Probably too much to ask, but I can dream. Lace really is lovely.
Please. Don't even get me started on the hats. I'm so embarrassed for the Brits I can hardly speak about it.
Some of you may have caught my note on Facebook that I gave up on the book Fall of Giants. I would never watch a TV show or a movie with THAT level of graphic, lurid activity, so why should I have John Lee read it to me? It was shaping up to be a great story, but I have my boundaries and Ken Follett went way beyond them. Pillars of the Earth I could handle and truly enjoy...but World Without End (another one I couldn't finish) got worse and this one was promising to be off-the-charts pornographic. Some folks grew up reading this stuff in teen "romance" novels, but I didn't and I'm thankful that the needle on my meter can still be exploded.
So what did I do? Picked up an audio book about the history of Hawaii (Unfamiliar Fishes, by Sarah Vowell) that I couldn't wait to be done with. I did finish, but I'll recommend that you not bother with it. After living in Hawaii twice and visiting there quite often, I love the state and its history, and I grieve over how the US treated Hawaii. But I had little interest in hearing a pseudo-historian with a hatred of all things American read her caustic, one-sided rant. To make it even worse, she read her own work, and her voice is the most grating I think I've ever heard. No wonder she does silly voices in animated movies...but does she have to do the same voice while reading books to grownups? Fortunately she reads at a snail's pace, so I dialed up the audio to 3x normal and just gritted my teeth and got through it. Not sure I'm any the better for my trouble.
On a happier note, this past week we had our upstairs re-carpeted (with vinyl in the bathrooms and one bedroom), and that gave my kids the impetus to a lot of cleaning, de-cluttering, rearranging, and decorating on the second floor. Every single one of them got involved, signaling that it really is a different era around Granny's House :-)
Tomorrow Kristen and the elves arrive for an extended stay...they'll arrive with five children and leave with 20% more than that, and in the meantime we'll enjoy their presence with us, not to mention that we'll enjoy having another one of them born in our home. If you've got an extra slot on your prayer list, please use it to ask God to get Dave down here in time to see the little one born! (And no, we still don't know if it's a boy or a girl. Some of us are positively medieval that way!)
Summer around here is going to be much more math-heavy than it usually is. Due to some hiccups that I won't go into (or for my daughters: "into which I will not go"), my remaining two students need to put a couple more months into finishing this year's math, so none of us will get a complete summer break. I think I'll schedule summer math for 6 am on weekdays, and maybe that will encourage them to speed through the rest :-)
So I see that Mitch Daniels, GOP governor of Indiana, signed into law a bill that will make his state the first to ban federal Medicaid funds from being used to slaughter babies (or to fund organizations that say they give mammograms but make their profits from the slaughter of babies). Looks like he's trying, as I heard someone say this morning, to "get right with the right"--as he should. I think his statements about not fighting cultural wars hurt him even though many misunderstood him, and this will go a long way toward regaining the trust of those who acknowledge the sanctity of every life, no matter which end of the birth canal a baby occupies.
Will Daniels run? Perhaps...it's a strange field so far. My opinion is that we've got a lot of people that are right on many of the issues but they're either annoying for some reason or another, or they have a habit of shooting off their mouths, thinking they need to have expertise or opinion on everything all at once. Gingrich? Please, no. Trump? Uh, can we talk? Bachmann? Smart lady, but something about her just doesn't say "President" to me. Romney? I may have to eat this, but right now I say NEV.ER. Huckabee? I think he's already decided not to run and I don't think he has the fire to raise the obscene amounts of money necessary. Pawlenty? Still has the "Pa-Who?" factor going against him. Paul? I might have softened a LITTLE on this guy, but I'd rather wait for his son, who seemed to inherit the brains and respect for the Consititution without the wacky factor. Palin? She peaked during the last campaign and she's definitely climbed higher on the annoying scale. Stay tuned...maybe The Papa will run.
Note to self: next time you get a survey in the mail on how you feel about your military medical care, don't be specific. Every time you do, that particular aspect of care gets worse. (And David C., that was NOT about you!)
Labels: Books, Family, News, Political Observation, Social Observation, Summer, Sundays