Greaser Babies

Some people have way too much time on their hands! But it's a lot of fun.

Watch Greaser Babies

Disappointment?

from my inbox:

Whenever I'm disappointed with my spot in life, I stop and think about little Jamie Scott.

Jamie was trying out for a part in the school play. His mother told me that he'd set his heart on being in it, though she feared he would not be chosen.

On the day the parts were awarded, I went with her to collect him after school. Jamie rushed up to her, eyes shining with pride and excitement.

"Guess what, Mom," he shouted, and then said those words that will remain a lesson to me.....

"I've been chosen to clap and cheer."

Feast Friends!

The kids had a great time in Rapid City. There were plenty of other teens - some old friends and some new. They all got along wonderfully and seemed to have so much fun no matter what they were doing. They went swimming as often as possible, played "Apples to Apples" and DDR, went bowling, and just hung out together. Now that we're home from the Feast, they are using the Internet to keep in touch.

Here are a few of the young people in front of Mt. Rushmore. 

Note to AudioBlogger Users

Ok, I haven't really used this service much - mostly just a couple of test posts, but I'm kind of disappointed that it's no longer going to be available. :-(
Here's an email I just received:

Hello,

As of November 1, 2006, Audioblogger will no longer accept phone
calls. MP3s made with the service will continue to be hosted and
served but you will no longer be able to use Audioblogger to post
new audio.

Audioblogger is an independent product, run by Odeo, Inc., a small
startup company in San Francisco, CA. We are not affiliated with
Google or Blogger except that we operate and provide the
Audioblogger service.

Given our limited resources, we have to make tough decisions
about what projects to focus on. And we've come to the difficult
decision that Audioblogger demands too many resources, time, and
money for us to continue its operation.

However, there are several other services that offer similar
functionality. Odeo is not affiliated with any of these services,
we only suggest them only in hopes that one or the other will be
a good alternative for you.

Gabcast.com is a free service for recording by phone
Hipcast.com has a seven day free trial and lots of features
Gcast.com is another free service for phone recording

All of the phone posting services listed above are compatible
with Odeo in that they produce podcast feeds, which can be
imported to Odeo. Any audio file at Odeo can be posted on a blog
by copying and pasting some embed code.

Odeo would like to extend a huge thank you to everyone who has
tried Audioblogger. If you are interested in keeping up with our
other blog-friendly projects, please have a look at Twitter.com
and our customizable audio players.

Thanks,
The Odeo Team

Links:
Gabcast - http://gabcast.com
Hipcast - http://hipcast.com
Gcast - http://gcast.com
Odeo Importing - http://www.odeo.com/create/addfeed
Twitter - http://twitter.com
Players - http://odeo.com/channel/102054/embedded_player

It doesn't hurt to keep all these links. Maybe I'll try some of these other audio services. If not me, then Cory.

Why so Cruel?

ABC News Primetime ran a story on mean teens last night. I wasn't paying complete attention, though I probably should have - since I have two teenagers in high school. So I did go read the story on their web page today. Using the Internet, teens seem to be meaner than ever before. Maybe it's because they aren't actually talking to people face to face so it doesn't seem real - kind of like a computer game. Or maybe that's just me trying to figure out why. Why would anyone be so cruel to someone else? Why do perfectly nice kids suddenly turn mean and cruel? Have kids always been so mean? I honestly don't remember how it was when I was in school. Either that means things have gotten a whole lot worse - or once kids get past high school, it's not going to seem all that important. Probably some of both.

Addictive!

I started playing this game and I couldn't stop!  Try it.

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Where's the Bus Schedule?

School starts Tuesday and I just realized we don't have a bus schedule. I looked through both packets from registration and didn't find it. Either we'll get one in the mail in the next couple of days, or we'll have to assume the bus will come at the same time as in previous years. But then you never know about that. The schedule is never exactly right anyway, because the bus always comes earlier than the schedule says. Beth missed it her first day of 7th grade, poor girl. Luckily she was rescued by the mom of one of her friends, who drove her to the next stop so she could catch the bus there.

The important thing here is - school starts Tuesday!

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Milk for $1.00

Milk for $1.00
Originally uploaded by bcmom.

Beth worked at the Wisconsin State Fair this year, selling milk and t-shirts in the Golden Guernsey booth. She had to work the last day of the fair (Sunday, 8/13/06) - so we all went and spent the entire day at the fair. That girl in the Golden Guernsey booth just wouldn't look at the camera!

She got her check in the mail and wanted to spend it all on new clothes for school. So we went shopping on Sunday. It's amazing how quickly the money goes when you want to shop at the mall! We did go to Goodwill first, and she spent about $20 on some tops and some really nice boots. Mostly she thinks it's not cool to shop at Goodwill anymore. I think it's the greatest store in the world! We all ended up getting a few new things - shirts for Jeffrey, shorts and shirts for Cory, and some tops for me. After Goodwill we headed to the mall. It just hurts me to see how much things cost there! But Beth bought several things. It was her money so she was pretty careful about what she bought and didn't buy anything that she didn't really love. The biggest expense was the bras at Victoria's Secret.

We both got measured to see what bra size we were supposed to be wearing and then tried on lots and lots of bras in that size. She found a couple that she really, really liked so she bought those. I didn't find any that fit me right - even though I was trying on the size I should be wearing according to measurements. Oh well, not like I was willing to spend that much on a bra, anyway. It is kind of irritating that certain sizes can't be found anywhere besides Victoria's Secret! It's like all the regular stores assume that if you have a big cup size you have to be big around. What about if you are a normal size and just need a bigger cup size? I did find some bras in my size at Walmart recently - so I bought some for now and some for later. I should be set for a while now. I guess Beth is too.

Now that she's spent most of her paycheck, she will have to slow down. We started giving her money every month to take care of her own expenses. I averaged costs for her clothes and toiletries for the past 3 years to figure out how much she should get a month. Of course, that average was for shopping at Goodwill and Walmart so she may have some problems if she wants to continue shopping at the mall. This should be good for her. She really needs to have some kind of understanding about what things cost, etc. Maybe then she'll be more likely to wear the stuff she buys - or won't buy stuff just for the sake of getting something. She has done that too many times in the past. When we're at the store, she really likes it and just has to have it - then she never wears it!

I think being responsible for her own expenses ought to help. She's got to learn sometime!

Let's try this rain thing again

Of course, it was raining really hard before I called the audioblogger number, and then it started raining hard all over again when I hung up. What can you do?

Raining!