Loading images...

Helpful Info for WMDA:

This blog is written by a handful of great ladies. To see a complete list (or to read one author's posts) visit our Authors Page and select the author you are interested in. You will then be given a list of their posts. Enjoy!

Our DAMN Tweets!

jodycakes@alisoncook Try Colt & Gray, great brunch. Wynkoop Brewery is my old standby in LoDo - try Chili Beer, & defo TAG. All 3 w/in a few miles
11 minutes ago
jodycakesLOVE LOVE LOVE TAG. Had French Onion Soup Dumplings last time. Great cocktail program too. “@alisoncook: @ruthiejsf tell me about Tag.”
14 minutes ago
jodycakesmy sweet ol Denver!!! Will be sunny and 65 tomorrow. “@alisoncook: It's snowing big fat flakes in Denver. Yesterday it was like spring.”
16 minutes ago

Monthly Archives: December 2011

Occupy Movement From a Mothers Perspective

I have very mixed emotions about the whole occupy movement.  A lot I totally agree with and some I do not – But whatever your political affiliation or feeling on the movement this article and perspective was and is like no other one that I had heard.  My friend sent this too me and it really stuck with me and I wanted to pass it along and get your opinion not only on the article but on the whole movement???

WOW~~~~~~  Hitting The Nail On The Head

Article written by  Marybeth Hicks.

Call it an occupational hazard, but I can’t look at the Occupy Wall Street protesters without thinking, “Who parented these people?”

As a culture columnist, I’ve commented on the social and political ramifications of the “movement” – now known as “OWS” – whose fairyland agenda can be summarized by one of their placards: “Everything for everybody.”

Thanks to their  pipe-dream platform, it’s clear there are people with serious designs on “transformational” change in America who are using the protesters like bedsprings in a brothel.

Yet it’s not my role as a commentator that prompts my parenting question, but rather the fact that I’m the mother of four teens and young adults. There are some crucial life lessons that the protesters’ moms clearly have not passed  along.

Here, then, are five things the OWS protesters’ mothers should have taught their children but obviously didn’t, so I will:

* Life isn’t  fair.The concept of justice – that everyone should be treated fairly – is a worthy and worthwhile moral imperative on which our nation was founded. But  justice and economic equality are not the same. Or, as Mick Jagger said,  “You can’t always get what you want.”

No matter how you  try to “level the playing field,” some people have better luck, skills, talents or connections that land them in better places. Some seem to have  all the advantages in life but squander them, others play the modest hand  they’re dealt and make up the difference in hard work and perseverance, and  some find jobs on Wall Street and eventually buy houses in the  Hamptons. Is it fair? Stupid question.

* Nothing is  “free.” Protesting with signs that seek “free” college degrees and “free” health care make you look like idiots, because colleges and hospitals don’t  operate on rainbows and sunshine. There is no magic money machine to tap for  your meandering educational careers and “slow paths” to adulthood, and the  53 percent of taxpaying Americans owe you neither a degree nor an annual physical.

While I’m  pointing out this obvious fact, here are a few other things that are not  free: overtime for police officers and municipal workers, trash hauling,  repairs to fixtures and property, condoms, Band-Aids and the food that inexplicably appears on the tables in your makeshift protest kitchens. Real  people with real dollars are underwriting your civic temper tantrum.

* Your word is your bond. When you demonstrate to eliminate student loan debt, you are  advocating precisely the lack of integrity you decry in others. Loans are  made based on solemn promises to repay them. No one forces you to borrow  money; you are free to choose educational pursuits that don’t require loans,  or to seek technical or vocational training that allows you to support  yourself and your ongoing educational goals. Also, for the record, being a  college student is not a state of victimization. It’s a privilege that billions of young people around the globe would die for -  literally.

* A protest is  not a party. On Saturday in New York, while making  a mad dash from my cab to the door of my hotel to avoid you, I saw what  isn’t evident in the newsreel footage of your demonstrations: Most of you  are doing this only for attention and fun. Serious people in a sober pursuit of social and political change don’t dance jigs down Sixth  Avenue like attendees of a Renaissance festival. You look  foolish, you smell gross, you are clearly high and you don’t seem to realize  that all around you are people who deem you irrelevant.

* There are  reasons you haven’t found jobs. The truth? Your tattooed necks, gauged ears,  facial piercings and dirty dreadlocks are off-putting. Nonconformity for the  sake of nonconformity isn’t a virtue. Occupy reality: Only 4 percent of  college graduates are out of work. If you are among that 4 percent, find a  mirror and face the problem. It’s not them. It’s you.

Christmas Poem by a US MARINE ~

My friends Daughter has just deployed to Afghanistan and she sent this too my self and many others in hopes that we would spread the word and share this wonderful Marines words.  As the Wife of a Marine things like this just strike me to my core!

 

Christmas Poem

~   TWAS THE  NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS

    HE LIVED ALL ALONE,

    IN A ONE BEDROOM HOUSE MADE OF

    PLASTER AND STONE.

    I HAD COME DOWN THE CHIMNEY

    WITH PRESENTS TO GIVE,

    AND TO SEE JUST WHO

    IN THIS HOME DID LIVE.

    I LOOKED ALL ABOUT,

    A STRANGE SIGHT I DID SEE,

    NO TINSEL, NO PRESENTS,

    NOT EVEN A TREE.

    NO STOCKING BY MANTLE,

    JUST BOOTS FILLED WITH SAND,

    ON THE WALL HUNG PICTURES

    OF FAR DISTANT LANDS.

    WITH MEDALS AND  BADGES,

    AWARDS OF ALL KINDS,

    A SOBER THOUGHT

    CAME THROUGH MY MIND.

    FOR THIS HOUSE WAS DIFFERENT,

    IT WAS DARK AND DREARY,

    I FOUND THE HOME OF A SOLDIER,

    ONCE I COULD SEE CLEARLY.

    THE SOLDIER LAY SLEEPING,

    SILENT, ALONE,

    CURLED UP ON THE FLOOR

    IN THIS ONE BEDROOM HOME.

    THE FACE WAS SO GENTLE,

    THE ROOM IN SUCH DISORDER,

    NOT HOW I PICTURED

    A UNITED STATES SOLDIER.

    WAS THIS THE HERO

    OF WHOM I’D JUST READ?

    CURLED UP ON A PONCHO,

    THE FLOOR FOR A BED?

    I REALIZED THE FAMILIES

    THAT I SAW THIS NIGHT,

    OWED THEIR LIVES TO THESE SOLDIERS

    WHO WERE WILLING TO  FIGHT.

    SOON ROUND THE WORLD,

    THE CHILDREN WOULD PLAY,

    AND GROWNUPS WOULD CELEBRATE

    A BRIGHT CHRISTMAS DAY.

    THEY ALL ENJOYED FREEDOM

    EACH MONTH OF THE YEAR,

    BECAUSE OF THE SOLDIERS,

    LIKE THE ONE LYING HERE.

    I COULDN’T HELP WONDER

    HOW MANY LAY ALONE,

    ON A COLD CHRISTMAS EVE

    IN A LAND FAR FROM HOME.

    THE VERY THOUGHT

    BROUGHT A TEAR TO MY EYE,

    I DROPPED TO MY KNEES

    AND STARTED TO CRY.

    THE SOLDIER AWAKENED

    AND I HEARD A ROUGH VOICE,

    ‘SANTA DON’T CRY,

    THIS LIFE IS MY CHOICE;

    I FIGHT FOR FREEDOM,

    I DON’T ASK FOR MORE,

    MY LIFE IS MY GOD,

    MY COUNTRY, MY CORPS.’

    THE SOLDIER ROLLED OVER

    AND DRIFTED TO SLEEP,

    I COULDN’T CONTROL IT,

    I CONTINUED TO WEEP.

    I KEPT WATCH FOR HOURS,

    SO SILENT AND STILL

    AND WE BOTH SHIVERED

    FROM THE COLD NIGHT’S CHILL.

    I DIDN’T WANT TO LEAVE

    ON THAT COLD, DARK, NIGHT,

    THIS GUARDIAN OF HONOR

    SO WILLING TO FIGHT.

    THEN THE SOLDIER ROLLED OVER,

    WITH A VOICE SOFT AND PURE,

    WHISPERED, ‘CARRY ON SANTA,

    IT’S CHRISTMAS DAY, ALL IS SECURE.’

    ONE LOOK AT MY WATCH,

    AND I KNEW HE WAS RIGHT.

    ‘MERRY CHRISTMAS MY FRIEND,!

    AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT.’

    This poem was written by a Marine. The following  is his request. I think it is reasonable…..

PLEASE. Would you do me the kind favor of sending  this to as many people as you can? Christmas will be coming soon and some credit is due to our U.S. service men,women, and Canadian Forces for our being able to celebrate these festivities.

    Let’s try in this small way to pay a tiny bit of what we owe. Make people stop and think of our heroes, living and dead, who sacrificed themselves for us.  Please, do your small part to plant this small seed

What’s the backstory, dude?

Gosh, how time  flies, right?  ToughGuy has officially been home six months and sometimes it feels like he’s always been here, always been a part of our family.  Other times I wonder how this alien being took a wrong turn and wandered into my house.

But tonight, I find myself physically aching over the loss of his first five years.  The years that make him feel alien. Because I don’t know my ToughGuy’s story.  The story of all his other days.  His other steps, his other falls, his other excitements and his other tears.  Kids need to hear their story, they crave it and ask for the stories over and over.

Because I’ve been so focused on the all consuming task of assimilating a new little dude into our home, I haven’t had time to even think about the years that we’ve missed.  It’s a part of adopting an older child that I knew about with my head, but hadn’t felt with my heart.

I’ve been able to dismiss it with hardly a thought up to this point because we’ve been working on, ya know, important stuff like chewing with your mouth closed and that all the glue should really stay in the bottle.  Oh, and learning a new language and starting school and not wiping my kisses off his mouth with the back of his hand.

Then, tonight while snuggling in bed with Monkey and ToughGuy on either side of me, we read a story about a little girl who hurt her leg and had to go to the hospital.  I know, but I like a little light reading before I send my kids off to sleep and perchance have a nightmare or two.  Monkey said ‘I don’t ever want to go to the hospital.’   Which brought up the story about how he’s already had to go to the hospital to get stitches in his chin when he was two years old and how the doctor had to strap him down to a papoose board, which made him look at Hubunit and I and scream at the top of his lungs (a considerable amount of lung power, that kid) ‘I’M STUCK DADDY, I’M STUCKI’MSTUCKSTUCKSTUCKSTUCKSTUCKSTUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!‘  At which point the doctor frowned at the noise I was making so I had to leave the room because I was crying so hard.  But telling him that story tonight was cute and funny and he loved hearing it.

Then ToughGuy quietly said ‘I’ve been in the hospital Mom.‘  And I stopped laughing and remembered reading in his medical history that he had been in the hospital for bronchitis at some point in his four years without me and I didn’t have any of the details, I couldn’t share that story with him and even though I asked him about it, he wasn’t really able to tell me much because he’s already forgotten so much of his history and I felt like someone had gut punched me.  My little dude was in the hospital alone, without me.  It hit Monkey pretty hard too.  As it slowly sank in that ToughGuy had been in the hospital without us, he immediately got tears in his eyes and crawled over me to give his brother a hug and tell him that he has us and he’ll never be alone again.

Yeah.

About a month ago, while brushing his teeth before going to bed, ToughGuy and I had this conversation:

ToughGuy:  I don’t want to go live back over there, Mommy. (waving his finger and pointing in a direction to indicate that other continent which includes the country of Hungary)

Me:  Does that mean you like living here with us, ToughGuy?

ToughGuy:  Oh yes Mom.  I very much like being part of your family.  If someone came and took me back there, I would be sad.  But if you came and found me and brought me back here, I would be happy.

Me:   No one is EVER going to take you away ToughGuy.  This is home forever and ever and ever.  Until you go to college. Then your little ass is out of here.

Installing Husband 1.0

I typically do not do the whole forward email funnies thing – BUT when I got this one was it was too good not to share, not only did I send out a mass email but thought it was worth sharing with our WMDA peeps!

***The best part of this funny is that MY HUSBAND was the one who sent it to me!

INSTALLING HUSBAND 1.0

Dear Tech Support,

Last year I upgraded from  Boyfriend 5.0  to  Husband 1.0  and noticed a distinct slowdown
in overall system performance, particularly in the flower and jewelry applications,
which operated flawlessly under  Boyfriend 5.0 .

In addition,  Husband 1.0  uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as:
·          Romance 9.5  and
·          Personal Attention 6.5,

and then installed undesirable programs such as :

·          FISHING 5.0,
·          RUGBY 3.0   and
·          Golf Clubs 4.1 .

Also   Conversation 8.0  no longer runs, and  Housecleaning 2.6  simply crashes the system.

·          Please note that I have tried running  Nagging 5.3  to fix these problems, but to no avail.

What can I do?

Signed,
Desperate.

DEAR DESPERATE ,

First, keep in mind,
·          Boyfriend 5.0   is an Entertainment Package, while
·          Husband 1.0   is an  Operating system.

Please enter command:  ithoughtyoulovedme.HTML  and try to download  Tears 6.2
and do not forget to install the   Guilt 3.0 update. ·           If that application works as designed ,
Husband 1.0  should then automatically run the applications  Jewelry 2.0  and   Flowers 3.5.

However, remember, overuse of the above application can cause  Husband 1.0  to default to
Grumpy Silence 2.5,  Happy Hour 7.0  or  Beer 6.1.

·  Please note that  Beer 6.1  is a very bad program that will download  Farting and Snoring Loudly Beta.

Whatever you do,  DO NOT   under any circumstances install   Mother-In-Law 1.0
(it runs a virus in the background that will eventually seize control of all your system resources.)

In addition, please do not attempt to reinstall the  Boyfriend 5.0 -program.
These are unsupported applications and will crash Husband 1.0 .

In summary,  Husband 1.0  is a great program, but it does have limited memory and
cannot learn new applications quickly. You might consider buying additional software to improve
memory and performance. We recommend
·          Cooking 3.0  and
·     HOT LINGERIE 7.7.

Good Luck!
Tech Support

Coo Coo Clocks … where’s the DAMN snooze button on this thing?

So last Spring out of the blue, we got this little yellow bird that started visiting us.  Each morning before the sun came up, he’d start hitting the window and then he’d fly up the window beating his lil wings against the window all the way up.  He’d do this for about 5 – 10 minutes .. and then go into the tree for a bit and start over.

He seemed pissed … really pissed.  We couldn’t figure out what the heck he was mad about.  We have our very own ANGRY BIRD!!

So we decided to really piss him off and give all the trees a HUGE cut back.  Not just a trim either … there was trunks exposed in the back yard and we could actually see all the neighbors.

Mr. Yellow Bird left shortly thereafter.  That was 8 months ago.

… and now that the trees have grown back in … he’s back and even more pissed off.  Now he chirps as he beats the windows.  Not sure what we did … but he’s definitely NOT happy.

Check out the video we took from our bedroom window.

… so today my DAMN question is this …

Why is this Mr. Yellow Bird targeting us with his hate crimes? … and why so DAMN early and often?

Any ideas?

… help Mr. Yellow Bird find his DAMN answer already so he’ll leave us alone.

Friends & Supporters

jodycakes.com

Simply the BEST treats in Houston, TX - She even specializes in Vegan and Glutten Free!

RKN Studio | Helping you get your message across

Get a Website Already!
RKN Studio specializes in websites that you control!! Check out samples of their work too.

Volatus Wine ... and a nice backside to boot

Volatus Wine Rocks!


Subscribe for Updates