I can be a very opinioinated person.  

Sometimes, I think , the  older I get the less I care that much about.  I think that I don’t get all panty wadded nearly as often.  I am not sure my spouse agrees.

He loves to call those irritations my “stars”.

I know he got it from the show “Design Star”-because that is where it all started with him, where he noticed my opinions…and it has branched out-wildly.

There is….

The Design Star. 
The Furniture Star.  (which is close to the design star, but this one is more about furniture construction and style than general design)
The Food Star.  
The Beverage Star.  (I have a PREFERENCE about the tea I drink…unsweet, no lemon, extra ice and it DOES matter if it is to strong!-McDonald’s is my current favorite) 
and there are 100’s more, I know I am being all Prima-Donna Uppity when he refers to whatever I am being neurotic about as  my “star”.

Today, while reading Southern Living-I discovered a new one!
I am not sure if I should name this one Southern Star, or Kentucky Star, or Derby Star or just plain ole looney! 

They mentioned a Julip in an article called Triple Crown Coctails and they pictured this Julip on page 16 of the May issue.   And the did say that they know it is a SIN (got that right sisters!) to serve a Julip in a glass.  They SHOULD be served in Julip Cup which is a silver thing…

However, anyone who has poured themselves into a cab after spending all day at the track on the First Saturday in May knows that the Julips they serve there are in glasses, because most of us walk out carrying at least 4 of them (to make a set).  And it could be argued that those really aren’t REAL Julips either because they make them with Early Times (gag and not Maker’s or Woodford).

Speaking of Woodford Reserve, I will give them some credit for having a really good local Bourbon in the picture of the sinful Julip.

All of those things might just be a slight itch to the upcoming rash…because the thought of using BASIL in Julip just totally defeats the entire deal.

It is a Mint Julip and no amount of fanageling or herb swapping is going to make a (singular) Julip taste good…Honestly, they don’t start tasting good until after you have your full set of glasses and by then I think most of your taste buds have moved out of state or died off.  

For those of you who have never been blessed, a Julip is a glass of bourbon poured over compacted crushed ice, muddled mint and sugar.  They are nasty BUT, they are a tradition.

So don’t go messin’ with tradition and tryin’ to make it taste all better by using Basil instead of plain ole wild mint!

So,  My Kentucky, Southern, Derby Star is heading to the track today for some good ole Kentucky Racing and I am sure I will have pictures and stories when I return!

What an appropriate prompt for this time of year.

Because of the things I follow, I have not had time to follow my own blog.

I follow soccer!
Following my son and his various soccer teams all around Kentucky, Ohio and Southern Indiana has taken all of my free time. I don’t mind it is part of parenting.

When he was learning to walk, I followed him around the house to be sure that he didn’t knock his noodle off on the corner of a table or fall into the potty and drown.
Now, he walks -alone.

When he was learning to ride his bike, I would follow him down the street to be sure he could stay upright and not get hit by a car.
Now, he rides-alone.

Soon, he will be driving and I won’t be following him to every game anymore.
He will be able to drive-alone.

I pray that my gentle leading, and following gave him enough information for him to go his own way.
That he will not follow the wrong crowd-and he will one day follow a son of his own.
Walking.
Riding.
Driving.

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Check out more writing and poetry on this topic @ Sunday Scribblings

No.
Heck, it isn’t even MAY yet and I am already wishing the spring season right on away.

Buh-bye!

I have totally over committed myself, when in all honesty, someone should just commit me and toss the key away for a few days.

I need to catch up to myself!

When there is a layer of dust on the bath tub in the guest room, you are over committed.
When you don’t have time to go to the grocery store before 10pm on a weekday, over committed.
When you don’t remember the last time you went to bed (and fell asleep) near the same time as your spouse…

You get the drift.

It is soccer season and the 14 yr old is playing for three teams.  He does love it and most of the time it works with my other obligations…most of the time.

Except in the past 2 months my job has changed again, just a little bit and OH I love it…driving around to all of our offices and telling people about social media and other internet tools that can help them succeed.  

It is great fun, very blessed to have a job that is so cool! 

Then there is the “team mom” for the middle school team.  I have totally dug myself a hole on that one.  Being a control freak isn’t ways the best way to play “team parent”, but it is the way to insure everything gets done.

Do it your own darn self.
THIS is the real root of the problem.

There are games two days a week (but only for a month and a week) and they boys need to be fed before every game.  To save money and time, it was just easier for me to DO IT than to try to find 8-12 parents who can be AT the school AT 3:30 with food for 30 boys.

I have a system and it works…

•  the parents pay me 15 bucks at the start of the season
• I go to costco or sam’s once a week and load up on food
• sometimes I even get food the kids like
• i store most of it in the back of my car during the entire season (the meat and cheese DO go in the fridge at home)
• I can feed 30 boys twice for about 45 bucks…give or take 10 water bottles

I love doing it.  
I know the kids, they know me-it is a great way to spy  engage with the kids!

I also have to schedule parents to work during the games, not a big deal, many of them love to help out, they also understand that they can spy on their kids see how their kids are doing.  But this year, they threw in a little wrench-the school went and built a new complex for the baseball teams with a new concession stand, so the woman that usually helps set up, now has TWO stands to work at the same time!

The school and the booster club didn’t let me know of this change until I had already harrased my parents into working all their shifts.  NOW they tell me I need someone there before every home game at 4pm to TOTALLY set up concessions- and they prefer it be the same person each time so they don’t have to show 10 people how to do it.

Well, I guess that just leaves ME, again. 
I told myself it was fine because I don’t want to bug people and be a pain in the rear…I want to keep everyone happy (while I gain back the 8 lbs I lost earlier in the year) 
I told myself that I am already at the school feeding the boys, why not just run over to the field and start setting up.
I told myself I can do this, I worked in a restaurant for 4 years…

And now, I have worn myself flat out.

3 more home games before the tournament and that will be 5 more days and then school soccer is over.
I might be able to post on my own blog again!

I hope I can get a blog post are two in before summer….

Honestly, before the internet we had to rely on newspaper clippings and xerox’d copies of funny stories and the TV or the VCR for visual entertainment.

Viral video or Viral marketing did not exist.

My life has been enriched in so many ways by different things that have been shared with me online by twitter, facebook or blogs I read.

This morning was no exception!  In my reader, Red Velvet posted this gem. 

How inspirational is it to see a 47 yr old woman living her dream?
Tear worthy.

According to her fan site, I am not the only one who thinks so! 

Now, I am inspired to go off and live mine!
What is your biggest dream?

during Lent.

…when I gave up twitter for 40 days!

First of all, it didn’t kill me, and I seriously thought it might.
Have you ever seen that Lisa Nova Video?  I fell like that some days.

So, you can see why it was a good thing for me to remove from my life for a specified period of time.  It effected me much more than giving up chocolate would because I discovered two things.

1. I like being (or feeling) connected.
   I still had Facebook, but it just isn’t the same for the instant conversation.  I like to talk/type…A LOT.  (my poor spouselet) .  
2. I need to type/talk/write.  
   Not only to keep myself connected to the outside world but inside my own head.  I realized that I got so much more done when I had tweetdeck open and could read other peoples tweets on work and faith issues that sparked a creative notion in my own head and life.  I seriously need Ritalin growing up.

My aunt asked me on Easter Sunday, but did it cause you to THINK about and reflect on God any at all?  OH yes!
I will not admit how often I reached for my phone to just tweet something and stop myself because I gave it up for 40 days.  

Constant.
Reminder.

It was good.  It was eye opening-mostly about the productivity aspect, I had never considered, my tweets keep me focused!

Next year…wow, it is going to be hard to pick something bigger than THIS,  for me.

Did you give up anything for Lent?  What and how did it work for you?

Yesterday at my grandmother’s house we went through some of my popaw’s stuff that was in his office. At work we are cleaning out the room that was his and making a “Popaw Conference room” for small meetings. It is going to be really cool.

Check this bad boy out!

That thing is older than I am and it still works!
All except for the cutting blade, but that’s OK,  I have scissors.

When you drive…

This happens where I live at least twice a month.  I am always amazed that this happens because there are those “Low Ground Clearance” signs all over the place.

Last year a stretch limo got stuck, and no one knew who to call and it got destroyed.

I have often wondered what happens to the drivers that get their rigs in these tough spots…

BTW, if you ever see someone stuck on the tracks, there is an 800 number on the electrical box that controls the crossing gates-according to a friend who’s spouse is a train engineer.

What never ceases to amaze you in your neighborhood?

about fellow members of the female population.  

Not all of us, just a few.  

Particularily those of us who have become overly attracted to Edward Cullen.  

Now, if you are 15 yrs old or younger, this doesn’t necessarily apply to you.  I am very happy for you to have unrealistic expectations surrounding men and hope that you continue to look for someone as perfect as Edward for the next 8-10 years, only if you promise to not sample every toad you meet between now and then.  Besides, the longer you obsess about Edward the less time you will spend calling my 14 yr old.  (Yes, ulterior motives!)  But, one day you will need to realize that NO man can measure up to that, if they did, we wouldn’t need books like the Twilight Series.

Before I start, I do have to admit that I throughly enjoyed the first book in the Series and I made myself finish the second.  I wasn’t sure I wanted to read more, but everyone I knew raved about how good they were so much,  I almost drank the Cullen CoolAid.  I assumed that the paperback version of the third book would follow the same schedule as the first two.  Ms. Meyer’s (or her publishers greed) saved me-well that and the fact that all the 14 yr old girls who owned copies kept forgetting to bring them for me to borrow.  

I have not and will not read the last two books.

While I was reading the first book, I was mildly disturbed by the level want/need that was written into Twilight.  The sensual nature of Vampires has been written about and portrayed in film for decades but, they usually do not “target” teens.  Anne Rice may have been READ by high school kids very where, but those books were not marketed to them, they were (and are) adult fiction.  Hearing 13 year old girls talk about Edward like they knew him and how awesome he was, started creeping me out.  

THEN when I saw their mothers reading the same book and not being the least bit concerned about the sensual nature of the books…well, I kinda freaked.  This is probably just another one of the many reasons God blessed me with a son who hates to read.

When the movie was coming out women of all ages, some of them in their 50’s were circling the date of the movie release on their calendars, vowing to camp out as to be one of the very first to see “Edward”.   I have never seen such an obsession with a fictional character from grown women before.  I know in my teens and early 20’s there were friends of mine who LOVED reading The Vampire Chronicles, but didn’t have such reactions to Louis and Lestat.

This is new to me and it is kind of scary.

I have had more than one women my age ask me if I have finished the series yet-and when I respond with a NO, they offer to let me borrow their copy.  When I decline, you would have thought I called them fat or ugly, the reaction has been almost that severe.  I have had women try to talk me into reading it-telling me about them getting married and having sex.  When my eyes bugged out of my head they said OH, it wasn’t graphic, but we totally KNEW what was going on.  

Sometimes my dear women friends, it doesn’t have to be graphic to be damaging.  
Our minds are creative and wonderful things.  
So are our daughters minds.

And here we are praising them for reading a sensual novel with very mature themes and being OH SO HAPPY about it because “at least they are reading!”  To me, that sounds like catching your kids smoking pot and saying “at least it wasn’t crack!” with a smile plastered on your face.  

Setting our children up to fail so handedly in relationships.  Holding up a fictional relationship that CAN NOT ever happen (because one of them is walking dead) as the ideal.  As grown women showing our younger counterparts that WE are not fulfilled in OUR relationships so we have to dream right along with them.  

How incredibly depressing-for all of us.

I do think that girls should be able to read books and dream (to a degree) about what love and life could look like when they are grown, but AS adults, we are here to guide them, discern reality from fiction and hold up good, real and strong examples of love and life.  

That real men don’t sparkle in the sunlight and sometimes, they don’t smell very good either. 
And we love them for it-or inspite of it.

We as women don’t always wake up with perfect faces and bodies either.
And they love us for it-or inspite of it.

That is true, real and mature love.
Why don’t we celebrate and obsess over that?

I would love to hear your thoughts on this subject-fire away!

He says he was only wearing these to the car to find his “real” shoes.   I think he does it to make my hair fall out! What does your spouselet do that makes you cringe?

I have never laughed so hard!
Enjoy. 

For more great fun and hilarity, check out Girl in the Glasses.