Here is a list of Family Blogs. A Blog is a journal you may enter about your life, thoughts, interesting experiences, or lessons you've learned. Post an opinion, impart words of wisdom, or talk about something interesting in your day. Update your blog on a regular basis, or just whenever you have something to say. Creating a blog is a good way to share something of yourself with others. Reading blogs is a good way to learn more about others. Click here to post a blog.
Tension in the aisles
Doing the weekly shopping isn’t one of my favourite things but, luckily, I can make it more bearable by combining it with my hobby of people watching. One conclusion I have reached through my observations is that couples should probably stop going shopping together some time in their early thirties. Young couples usually seem quite cheerful as they wend their way round the store together, but by the time they get to middle age and beyond, they seem to become progressively more miserable. A lot of the couples I see in my age group seem to make the journey from trolly park to till in a cloud of simmering mutual antipathy; with the odd impatient rebuke managing to break the surface every now and then. Quite often just as I am passing. This leaves me with a mixed feeling of amusement and sympathy, not to mention relief when I remember that that used to be me.
Surprise military homecoming
Eitan and Romit Urman are annual season ticket holders of the Phoenix Coyotes NHL team. Needless to say, they are familiar with the team. They’re familiar with the arena, possibly even several of their fellow fans. Which is why it didn’t seem odd to them that they were to perform the traditional opening puck drop.
It’s an honor that any hockey fan would love to get, and these two certainly felt honored when they were chosen to drop the opening puck. So they go out to center ice. But then they’re told to turn around, and that someone special is on their way. Can you guess who came to see them? Can you!?
No spoilers here — you’ll have to watch the video to find out the surprise. But we guarantee that it’s well worth watching! This could quite possibly be the best opening moments of any hockey game. It certainly was for Eitan and Romit Urman when they turned around and saw who was coming!
Watch the video below to find out!
It’s an honor that any hockey fan would love to get, and these two certainly felt honored when they were chosen to drop the opening puck. So they go out to center ice. But then they’re told to turn around, and that someone special is on their way. Can you guess who came to see them? Can you!?
No spoilers here — you’ll have to watch the video to find out the surprise. But we guarantee that it’s well worth watching! This could quite possibly be the best opening moments of any hockey game. It certainly was for Eitan and Romit Urman when they turned around and saw who was coming!
Watch the video below to find out!
The Very Clean Teapot
Some years ago my wife and I went away for the weekend; my mother stayed at the house and minded the kids while we were away. Not long after we returned we noticed that the inside of our teapot, which was normally tea stained almost black, was now gleaming white. My mother had a tendency to be ‘helpful’ in unwanted ways and we were rather annoyed that she’d cleaned the teapot, as we quite liked it how it was. Some time later, It came out in conversation that there was more to the cleaning of the teapot than we had imagined.
When the subject came up, my mother was all too eager to describe the ingenuity she had demonstrated; her pride in which was apparent in her tone of voice. It was my mother’s practice to soak her false teeth in bleach overnight, and, seeing an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, she cleverly used the teapot as the receptacle in which to do it. By the time we eventually heard this story we had, of course, made numerous cups of tea in that teapot and the implications were very quick to strike us both, but, to our credit, we somehow managed not to let our faces betray our true feelings about her thoughtful deed.
When the subject came up, my mother was all too eager to describe the ingenuity she had demonstrated; her pride in which was apparent in her tone of voice. It was my mother’s practice to soak her false teeth in bleach overnight, and, seeing an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, she cleverly used the teapot as the receptacle in which to do it. By the time we eventually heard this story we had, of course, made numerous cups of tea in that teapot and the implications were very quick to strike us both, but, to our credit, we somehow managed not to let our faces betray our true feelings about her thoughtful deed.
Theybies
Slugs and snails and puppy dog tails - 
Sugar and spice and all things nice -
On one hand, I've never believed girls should be dressed in pretty little dresses, given dolls and housekeeping toys, or that little boys should only wear tuff clothes and play with cars and never ever cry.
On the other hand - theybies can be quite extreme. Kids who are raised so neutrally that friends, family, even the kids themselves, aren't told whether they are boys or girls. Of course it isn't a taboo, "we don't speak of these things", it is just to avoid gender stereotypes bombarding them from the day they were assigned pink or blue booties in the lottery of life. It's a growing trend, with a LOT of critics.
Wish you'd been a theybie? Or raised a theybie? Or good grief this is political correctness gone mad!
First comment is a copy / paste from parents of theybie twins.
Sugar and spice and all things nice -
On one hand, I've never believed girls should be dressed in pretty little dresses, given dolls and housekeeping toys, or that little boys should only wear tuff clothes and play with cars and never ever cry.
On the other hand - theybies can be quite extreme. Kids who are raised so neutrally that friends, family, even the kids themselves, aren't told whether they are boys or girls. Of course it isn't a taboo, "we don't speak of these things", it is just to avoid gender stereotypes bombarding them from the day they were assigned pink or blue booties in the lottery of life. It's a growing trend, with a LOT of critics.
Wish you'd been a theybie? Or raised a theybie? Or good grief this is political correctness gone mad!
First comment is a copy / paste from parents of theybie twins.
All in a day’s work
I turned up at the address with the boiler I was delivering and a man who looked like he was in his late 60s answered the door. He had bright orange lips that glistened and his mouth was hurrying to get rid of the last remnants of whatever he’d been eating. I asked him where he would like me to leave his boiler; whereon he pointed to a door along the hallway and said, “in there, but are you squeamish?”
I’m not particularly squeamish but I was reluctant to commit myself before knowing exactly what I would be encountering behind that door. Before the look of uncertainty had left my face he went on to explain that his wife had recently died and was in the room where he wanted me to put the boiler. Quite a few possible scenarios darted through my mind in the short interval before he revealed that it was merely his wife’s ashes that were residing in the room.
Now if he hadn’t said anything about his late wife being in that room I would have been in and back out again without noticing a thing, other than how untidy the room was. But, knowing she was in there, obviously the first thing I did on entering was to scour the room for her. Even then it took longer than I would have expected to find her. It turned out that she was on a coffee table in a little wooden box, blending in with all the other clutter. I don’t even think I would have realised that it was her had there not been some sort of bereavement card propped against her box.
I put the boiler down in one of the few spaces in the room where it would fit and then went into the kitchen, where I put the delivery note down on the worktop next to the plate covered in baked bean residue, which explained the orange lips, and asked the man to sign it. I couldn’t help noticing how cheerful the man’s demeanour was for someone who had very recently lost his wife. I speculated to myself that perhaps the man’s wife disapproved of baked beans while he rather liked them and his new found freedom to indulge himself more than compensated for his loss.
Just as an incidental observation regarding my squeamishness; I found the remains of the man’s lunch on that sauce smeared plate a lot more off putting than those of his wife.
I’m not particularly squeamish but I was reluctant to commit myself before knowing exactly what I would be encountering behind that door. Before the look of uncertainty had left my face he went on to explain that his wife had recently died and was in the room where he wanted me to put the boiler. Quite a few possible scenarios darted through my mind in the short interval before he revealed that it was merely his wife’s ashes that were residing in the room.
Now if he hadn’t said anything about his late wife being in that room I would have been in and back out again without noticing a thing, other than how untidy the room was. But, knowing she was in there, obviously the first thing I did on entering was to scour the room for her. Even then it took longer than I would have expected to find her. It turned out that she was on a coffee table in a little wooden box, blending in with all the other clutter. I don’t even think I would have realised that it was her had there not been some sort of bereavement card propped against her box.
I put the boiler down in one of the few spaces in the room where it would fit and then went into the kitchen, where I put the delivery note down on the worktop next to the plate covered in baked bean residue, which explained the orange lips, and asked the man to sign it. I couldn’t help noticing how cheerful the man’s demeanour was for someone who had very recently lost his wife. I speculated to myself that perhaps the man’s wife disapproved of baked beans while he rather liked them and his new found freedom to indulge himself more than compensated for his loss.
Just as an incidental observation regarding my squeamishness; I found the remains of the man’s lunch on that sauce smeared plate a lot more off putting than those of his wife.
online today!
Memories
I normally don't say much about anyone in my rl here or anywhere online but this is a funny memory I got of my father that I think is fine to share.
Every Friday after supper, me and 3 other buddies would always end up at the house having a smoke figuring out our plans for the night. When we knew what we were doing, we leave my room and on the way out, one of them nudge me and say "ask him, ask him". We would find dad sitting at the table with his cup of tea and I would say "dad, armwrestle". I sit to the table, we lock our hands. One of the b'ys would then stand to my side and put both his hands behind mine, the 2nd and 3'd buddy would follow (we were fairly big boys for our age).
I would say "3, 2, 1, go", and on go, me and the b'ys would put 120% of whatever strength we had in our bodies and push like bastards against dad and dad would just sit there holding us at bay, no change in his face, no effort in his face what so ever. We would be huffing puffing, red in the face screaming working like slaves and it would start to go in our favor a bit, we thought "omg, maybe he is tired or something, we may win this evening". We would grunt and roar and get a little more on him. We were feeling pretty fking good and we slave and slave on him then next thing we know, dad would push back and the four of us was slung across the kitchen into the walls against the fridge and stove and we seeing stars.
Dad was a scary insanely strong man who I watched do things that humans should not be able to do strength wise. He never showed off, didn't believe in it, but he would always let us try to arm wrestle with him, it amused him and no matter how many times we did it, there was just no way to prepare for it when he pushed back on us and we go flying. It gave him some amusement for the evening and amazed the hell out of us. We go to the party then telling everyone about the umteen armwrestle we had with him and how it was the same result again lol.
Every Friday after supper, me and 3 other buddies would always end up at the house having a smoke figuring out our plans for the night. When we knew what we were doing, we leave my room and on the way out, one of them nudge me and say "ask him, ask him". We would find dad sitting at the table with his cup of tea and I would say "dad, armwrestle". I sit to the table, we lock our hands. One of the b'ys would then stand to my side and put both his hands behind mine, the 2nd and 3'd buddy would follow (we were fairly big boys for our age).
I would say "3, 2, 1, go", and on go, me and the b'ys would put 120% of whatever strength we had in our bodies and push like bastards against dad and dad would just sit there holding us at bay, no change in his face, no effort in his face what so ever. We would be huffing puffing, red in the face screaming working like slaves and it would start to go in our favor a bit, we thought "omg, maybe he is tired or something, we may win this evening". We would grunt and roar and get a little more on him. We were feeling pretty fking good and we slave and slave on him then next thing we know, dad would push back and the four of us was slung across the kitchen into the walls against the fridge and stove and we seeing stars.
Dad was a scary insanely strong man who I watched do things that humans should not be able to do strength wise. He never showed off, didn't believe in it, but he would always let us try to arm wrestle with him, it amused him and no matter how many times we did it, there was just no way to prepare for it when he pushed back on us and we go flying. It gave him some amusement for the evening and amazed the hell out of us. We go to the party then telling everyone about the umteen armwrestle we had with him and how it was the same result again lol.
Cute article in the NY Times this week on Walking your pet cat.
In response to:
Yes, You Should Walk Your Cat
Today’s indoor cat is a tiger robbed of his dominion, a Lamborghini left idling in the garage.
By David Grimm
Mr. Grimm is the author of “Citizen Canine: Our Evolving Relationship With Cats and Dogs.”
Dec. 5, 2018
About 13 years ago, my fiancée and I started to go for walks in our neighborhood. When we’d step out of the house, cars often lingered at the intersection out front a bit longer than they should have. People would stop us to ask questions. And the patrons of a restaurant across the street framed by large, plate-glass windows would occasionally run outside and shout, “It’s you — we’ve heard about you!”
Perhaps this wasn’t so surprising. We were walking our cats, after all. On leashes.
We weren’t trying to start a movement. And we weren’t the only people in the country who had the crazy idea to buy a small dog harness, strap it onto a nonplused feline, and pray that the tens of millions of years of evolution that separate dogs and cats would suddenly evaporate. We just wanted our two kittens — Jasper and Jezebel — to experience more of the world than our cramped 800-square-foot apartment in the heart of Baltimore. We also wanted to keep them from running out into traffic.
In the past two decades, there has been a growing movement to confine our feline friends indoors. Veterinarians argue that this significantly extends their life spans, protecting them from disease, cars and predators. Wildlife advocates contend that outdoor cats are a blight on ecosystems, killing countless birds and small mammals every year. Increasingly, it seems, no one wants to cross paths with an outdoor cat.
Yet cats belong to a proud race of savanna kings and nomadic carnivores. Their ancestors slunk out of the deserts of the Near East 10,000 years ago to hunt mice in our early villages, and they have been free to roam our backyard jungles since. They have not evolved to slumber in our living rooms.
People began to keep dogs as indoor pets in large numbers in the late 1800s, thanks to the invention of flea and tick shampoos. And yet, cats remained outside. Even the advent of Kitty Litter in 1947 could not contain them completely; tomcats still prowled alleys at night, in search of a mate — or a fight. Today’s indoor cat is a tiger robbed of his dominion, a Lamborghini left idling in the garage.
So how do we honor cats, while protecting them from the world — and the world from them?
The solution lies in what we’ve already done with dogs for decades: We need to start walking our cats. I’m not saying that you should put your cat on a leash like we did. They don’t like you telling them where to go. But we should let our cats outside for 30 to 60 minutes a day to rove yards, stroll sidewalks and disappear into shrubbery.
And we should be there to watch them. We should pick them up when they head for the street. We should whistle or clap our hands when they begin stalking a bird. And we should have a bag of treats ready when it’s time to call them back indoors.
We don’t let our dogs wander unsupervised or destroy whatever they want. We should exercise the same responsibility with our cats.
Yes, You Should Walk Your Cat
Today’s indoor cat is a tiger robbed of his dominion, a Lamborghini left idling in the garage.
By David Grimm
Mr. Grimm is the author of “Citizen Canine: Our Evolving Relationship With Cats and Dogs.”
Dec. 5, 2018
About 13 years ago, my fiancée and I started to go for walks in our neighborhood. When we’d step out of the house, cars often lingered at the intersection out front a bit longer than they should have. People would stop us to ask questions. And the patrons of a restaurant across the street framed by large, plate-glass windows would occasionally run outside and shout, “It’s you — we’ve heard about you!”
Perhaps this wasn’t so surprising. We were walking our cats, after all. On leashes.
We weren’t trying to start a movement. And we weren’t the only people in the country who had the crazy idea to buy a small dog harness, strap it onto a nonplused feline, and pray that the tens of millions of years of evolution that separate dogs and cats would suddenly evaporate. We just wanted our two kittens — Jasper and Jezebel — to experience more of the world than our cramped 800-square-foot apartment in the heart of Baltimore. We also wanted to keep them from running out into traffic.
In the past two decades, there has been a growing movement to confine our feline friends indoors. Veterinarians argue that this significantly extends their life spans, protecting them from disease, cars and predators. Wildlife advocates contend that outdoor cats are a blight on ecosystems, killing countless birds and small mammals every year. Increasingly, it seems, no one wants to cross paths with an outdoor cat.
Yet cats belong to a proud race of savanna kings and nomadic carnivores. Their ancestors slunk out of the deserts of the Near East 10,000 years ago to hunt mice in our early villages, and they have been free to roam our backyard jungles since. They have not evolved to slumber in our living rooms.
People began to keep dogs as indoor pets in large numbers in the late 1800s, thanks to the invention of flea and tick shampoos. And yet, cats remained outside. Even the advent of Kitty Litter in 1947 could not contain them completely; tomcats still prowled alleys at night, in search of a mate — or a fight. Today’s indoor cat is a tiger robbed of his dominion, a Lamborghini left idling in the garage.
So how do we honor cats, while protecting them from the world — and the world from them?
The solution lies in what we’ve already done with dogs for decades: We need to start walking our cats. I’m not saying that you should put your cat on a leash like we did. They don’t like you telling them where to go. But we should let our cats outside for 30 to 60 minutes a day to rove yards, stroll sidewalks and disappear into shrubbery.
And we should be there to watch them. We should pick them up when they head for the street. We should whistle or clap our hands when they begin stalking a bird. And we should have a bag of treats ready when it’s time to call them back indoors.
We don’t let our dogs wander unsupervised or destroy whatever they want. We should exercise the same responsibility with our cats.
(Continued in my first comment below)
online today!
Welcome Wagon...
I'm winding down on the 'shopping list' of final documents needed before the closing date. One important paper gets me a reduced rate on the mandatory insurance for the structure (and contents) is called a Wind Mitigation Report.
The home inspector I hired 3 weeks ago is licensed to make the report and he sent over a copy last night that I forwarded to some insurance companies who are preparing quotes. That report along with photos shows the structure and condition of the roof from the inside. It's all done to building code and shows no signs of leaks.
Chasing around to a few people will be in my life now, I asked the company who handles the Home Owners Association (HOA) if they have a welcome wagon and will walk me through some important things... like mailbox, location of trash bins, ID badges for entry and most importantly, if there is a preferred list of licensed companies like plumber, electrician and air conditioning technicians.
The first thing on my list is to replace one of the toilets and I cannot risk an unlicensed handyman to do the work, especially since I'm on the 2nd floor!
They haven't replied about the welcome wagon request. Perhaps one doesn't exist. logically speaking with 300-400 residents in this community, they've got to have some orientation - start package I can review BEFORE I arrive. I know 40' long furniture moving trailers are banned entry and the small amount of things I'm moving can be done in a standard van.
Yeah... moving furniture, I'm not looking forward to that part!
The home inspector I hired 3 weeks ago is licensed to make the report and he sent over a copy last night that I forwarded to some insurance companies who are preparing quotes. That report along with photos shows the structure and condition of the roof from the inside. It's all done to building code and shows no signs of leaks.
Chasing around to a few people will be in my life now, I asked the company who handles the Home Owners Association (HOA) if they have a welcome wagon and will walk me through some important things... like mailbox, location of trash bins, ID badges for entry and most importantly, if there is a preferred list of licensed companies like plumber, electrician and air conditioning technicians.
The first thing on my list is to replace one of the toilets and I cannot risk an unlicensed handyman to do the work, especially since I'm on the 2nd floor!
They haven't replied about the welcome wagon request. Perhaps one doesn't exist. logically speaking with 300-400 residents in this community, they've got to have some orientation - start package I can review BEFORE I arrive. I know 40' long furniture moving trailers are banned entry and the small amount of things I'm moving can be done in a standard van.
Yeah... moving furniture, I'm not looking forward to that part!
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