MY MIND WANDERED — and never came back!

Here’s wishing all of my blog friends a very Happy Mother’s Day this Sunday. Whether you have kids, dogs, cats or some other pet, this still makes you a mom. Loving, nurturing and caring for another living creature is what being a mother is all about. So have a wonderful day. You deserve it.

In other news, here is a video of my favorite song. I love Neko Case. She has the most rockin’ voice ever.

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Labor Day is almost here — the last holiday of the summer. I know I’ve said this before but the days are passing by faster than a Chinese bullet train.

Does it seem to you like we just finished observing Memorial Day? School is back in session, to the relief of 99.9% of all parents, unless of course, that parent teaches school.  Before we know it Thanksgiving will be here along with the cold wind, snow and stuffed turkeys.

While thinking about the holidays something struck me as a little off about the upcoming Labor Day holiday. Is it just my opinion or do we celebrate it in an odd way?

For instance, on Thanksgiving we give thanks; on Christmas we honor the Birth of Christ; on Valentines Day we send out valentines; etc. But on Labor Day, the holiday that was meant to honor the working man and woman, we celebrate it by not working. I’m sorry but that just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Of course I’m not complaining. Nobody enjoys not working more than I do. I’m merely pointing out the oxymoron.

There is some controversy on who actually started the Labor Day holiday. Records show that a man named Peter J. McGuire who was a co-founder of the American Federation of Labor was the first to suggest a day to honor all workers. Other records show that Matthew McGuire who was a machinist and secretary of the Central Labor Union in New York proposed the holiday. However, it could have come about by the first wildcat strike where the workers simply walked off the job and declared it a holiday, and yes I made that last part up.

But whatever the origin of the first Labor Day, it has been celebrated for over 100 years by workers not working on that day.

Congress made Labor Day a federal holiday in 1894. I’m guessing they wanted to stay home and watch the opening college football games on ESPN.

The first Monday in September is set aside as a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country, the most painful contribution being in the form of federal income taxes.

The first proposal of the holiday set the pattern for the celebrations of Labor Day which included street parades, followed by a festival for the recreation and amusement of the workers and their families.

Speeches by prominent men and women were introduced later, as more emphasis was placed upon the economic and civic significance of the holiday, as well as a great emphasis on fashion rules. As most of us know, Labor Day marks the last day of the year that we should wear white. However there are those daring men and women who flout this age old tradition, completely at their own fashion peril. People like Colonel Sanders, scientists in their little white lab coats, and other people like myself who rate the importance of fashion rules on the same level with plastic wrap.

And of course, here in south, it wouldn’t be Labor Day, or any other holiday without fireworks. The Boomsday Festival, one of the biggest fireworks displays in the Southeastern United States, has been held annually on Labor Day since 1986 in Knoxville, Tennessee. The festival attracts over 350,000 spectators. 2010 marks its 23rd annual Boomsday event. What good Southerner worth his salt wouldn’t want to see the “smoke on the water”, the spectacular “waterfall” and other fireworks displays, all choreographed to patriotic and contemporary music.

And what could be more fun on the last holiday weekend of the summer than being in the midst of 350,000 screaming people, listening to loud music and watching gunpowder explode?

No matter how you celebrate the holiday, I would like to wish everyone a safe and happy Labor Day Weekend.

I have decided to take a mini-vacation this week but hopefully I’ll be back with some new stuff soon. In the meantime, I am reposting an older column, which you may or may not have read. Either way, I hope you enjoy it. If you’ve already read it, click on some of the links in my Blogroll on my sidebar and you will find lots of fantastically funny and talented bloggers who will keep you entertained.

Hubby Ain’t A Hound Dog
(he’s not that easily trained)

Today, we’ll talk about how to train your new hubby and make him more obedient.

The key to success in training your spouse is understanding how, and if, his mind works, and then incorporating that with proven training techniques.

Remember, although your spouse likes treats, loves it when you rub his belly, and often chases the mailman down the street, he is not a dog and therefore does not think or react as a dog would. Your spouse does not communicate with you on your level, and you should not think that he does.

He may recognize the word “food” and associate it with walking into the kitchen, but that is only because it is a common action that occurs consistently before his plate appears in front of him.

If you change the verbal word you use to communicate with your spouse along the way, he will no longer understand what you want. Try saying the words “laundry” or “wash the dishes” and you’ll see that he has no idea where the food is kept.

Also, before you can even begin training your spouse, you must establish what it is that you want him to do. Remember that husbands have an inherent trait to watch television and answer “yep” to everything you ask, including the question, “Does my rear end look like a beach ball in these pants?” You must let him know, by your behavior, that what he is doing is unacceptable.  This is known as spousal reinforcement, (pronounced nagging).

Following are a few tips to help you get the most out of your spouse:

• (I) Never compare him to the man down the street. Instead, compare him to your dad or your favorite rich uncle. Point out how he should be more like them.
• (II) Be consistent: For example, if you want him to perform a desired task, don’t just give up and walk away when he does not perform. Instead, use some type of reinforcement to show him that his behavior was not correct, such as withholding the TV remote, his side of the bed, or his dinner.
• (III) You should always be the first to initiate AND the first to terminate a conversation with your spouse, rather than the other way around. Otherwise, he might get the idea that he can talk to you whenever he chooses. He might even start telling those long boring “That time I shot me a ten-point white tail buck” stories that he talks about with his hunting buddies.
• (IV) Avoid giving in to your spouse’s every whim. Only prepare a home cooked meal for him on the days of the week that do not end with the letter “Y”. Allow him the experience of finding two socks that match or a clean shirt. Don’t spoil him with answers whenever he asks where he put something. Allow him to dig up the back yard looking for it. (This will serve as exercise for him)  Reward him only for desired behavior, and never give him something just because he asks for it. In so doing, you will spoil him beyond repair.
• (V) When you are spending time with him, tell him funny stories such as how you just bought new furniture for the den, or about how you forgot to pay the electric bill last month. This will help establish the trust needed to set you forth as the wife.

The two most popular types of obedience training are ball and chain (pronounced wedding band and marriage license) training; and reward training.

Allow me to give you a short overview of these techniques:

The ball and chain type of training is used in the beginning as the tool to teach the correct behavior, then once the behavior is learned, the chain is only used to correct unwanted behavior.

Often a novice bride will yank the chain to tease the husband. This defeats the purpose. The chain should be used only to get the spouse to obey. You must also be able to utilize any tool at hand to solicit the correct behavior from your spouse, (such as hissy fits, screaming, pouting and as a last resort, tears.)

Reward training usually incorporates smiles, hugs, and/or food, or a reward that is associated with buying a bass boat, a set of golf clubs, or a new hunting rifle. The associated award could be the command “you need some new toys.” Many wives now use a wink as an associated reward.

In order to make the reward trained spouse reliable, work him around distractions in his environment and teach him proper socialization (i.e. boss him around in front of his buddies).

If you only train your spouse at home, he will not be used to extra humiliation. The well trained hubby, then exposed to a crowd, may not respond as desired. When reward training, it is important you train him both alone and around other people, to make sure your spouse is exposed to as much humiliation (pronounced hen-pecking) as possible.

Another important tool in communication between you and your hubby is the tone of your voice when delivering a command.

The command “Let’s go look at bass boats” will have a more promising tone. The excitement in your voice will be picked up by the man and he will eventually associate it with the feelings of acceptance for that response to the previous command.

The word “No” will have a more whiny, bossy, or don’t-even-think-about-it tone, usually associated with a negative response, such as a stern stamp of the right foot if ball and chain training.

The husband will eventually establish that tone as an indication that he must never again ask to go on a weekend fishing trip, and he will probably mow the lawn and pressure wash the house instead.

Proper training of your man, and a complete understanding of his behavior is of utmost importance, especially when he finally decides to file for that divorce he’s been wanting since week two of the marriage.

This will enable you, as the wife, during the court room proceedings, to understand exactly what he is willing to give you in the divorce settlement, and whether or not you will be living out of the trunk of your car for the next few years.

A few months ago I discovered a band so unique they simply blew me away. Mumford & Sons. I fell in love with their music the very first time I heard them. I adore their style, their energy, their Britishness (is that even a word) and their sound which is a new mix of folk, rock and a hint of bluegrass. It’s like nothing else I’ve ever heard before.

I love this band so much I could listen to them all day. And I usually do. I have all the songs from their debut album ”Sigh No More” on my iPod and my computer and in my car stereo. I don’t think I could pick a favorite as each song they do is wonderful in its own unique way. But to be honest I like watching their videos even more.  

If I were nineteen again, I would so totally be their groupie. These are four of the sexiest guys I’ve ever seen in one place. (especially Marcus Mumford). I’d love to attend one of their concerts. For now, I suppose I’ll just have to make do with watching the video of their latest concert at Music-Hall-of-Williamsburg online here.  Over and over and over…

AREN’T THEY THE MOST GORGEOUS GUYS YOU’VE EVER SEEN???

I’m really rooting for this band and I hope they become as well known as the Beatles. And I hope success doesn’t change them.

I’ve often wondered why the color blue is associated with being sad, depressed and lonely. Blue should be a happy color, like blue skies or the blue water in a swimming pool on a hot summer day or a beautiful blue moon. Unless of course, when they call it the blues, they’re referring to a very dark, deep blue, in which case it wouldn’t be blue, it would be navy.

Personally, I would consider purple more of a sad color. Purple reminds me of bruises, and stormy skies in the evening, and the veins in my first ex-husband’s neck whenever he got angry.

However, the word purple wouldn’t sound very fitting if you were singing about being low-down and sad. You can’t sing the purples like you can sing the blues. Who ever heard of a Rhythm & Purples band anyway?

For instance, imagine B.B. King or Bessie Smith belting out the following song:

“Mama’s cryin’ in the kit—chen ’cause dad–dy ran a–way
sister’s chop–pin’ cot–ton, brother’s out bail–in’ hay
and I got them low–down heart brea–kin’ purples!”

Now that is just silly. Unless you could change the next-to-the-last line to rhyme with purple, as in: “Brother’s out collec—ting Maple syrupel.”  But that would be silly too, of course, because we all know that almost no one collects their own Maple syrup from trees anymore.

Maybe we could swap it out for the color yellow. No, wait, yellow is already being used to describe someone who is afraid — like a big old chicken or a girl.

Red? No. That color implies someone is wearing a wife-beater shirt, drinking beer, driving a pick-up and shooting up road signs.

Green? No, that’s used to describe someone who is new at something, or ignorant, or someone who recycles.

What about black? Oops, no. The NAACP frowns on that. They call it racist.  White? No, that’s frowned upon too. They call that supremacy.

That doesn’t leave many other choices, except blue or purple, or possibly orange, but orange is already over-used and nothing rhymes with it. And besides, if you said someone had the oranges, that would imply a whole other meaning.

So, I suppose we’ll just have to say that we green, yellow-bellied, red-necks, whether we’re black or white can still get the blues sometimes, even though we have lots of oranges.

We’ll just leave purple out of it.

Unless, of course, someone wants to disagree, start an argument about it and have their neck veins turn purple.

Head over to Theme Thursday and see what other bloggers said about the color “blue”

My Back Porch

The Birdhouse On My Back Porch

A Little Bird Checking Out The Birdhouse On My Back Porch.

A Little Bird Nesting In The Birdhouse On My Back Porch.

Happy Wednesday, everyone.

I’m really excited today! I’ve been given another award, this time from Argentum Vulgaris (AV) over at his blog titled Life Is Just Like That. Thanks so much for giving me this award, AV. You must have known that I didn’t have a clue as to what topic I was going to write about today. So thanks also for solving that little problem.

This award also comes with some rules and a meme that is kind of fun. The rules are as follows:

•Thank the person who gave this to you.   √
•Copy the logo and place it on your blog.   √
•Link to the person who nominated you.    √
•Tell up to six outrageous lies about yourself, and at least one outrageous truth – or – switch it around and tell six outrageous truths and one outrageous lie.√
•Nominate seven “Creative Writers” who might have fun coming up with outrageous lies.   √
•Post links to the seven blogs you nominate.   √
•Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know you nominated them.   √

So, in keeping with the meme, here are 7 things about me. Your job is to guess whether there are six lies and one truth, or six truths and one lie and try and guess which one that is.

1. I was given 14 units of blood over a period of 6 months.
2. I used to sing in a group called Harvest Time.
3. I am a former cheerleader.
4. I was arrested once and taken to jail.
5. I have never been given a moving violation, not even a parking ticket.
6. I’m 5′ 5½” tall and I weigh 147 lbs.
7. I once won $7000.00 playing the lottery.

Now on to the second part of the meme, I am going to pick seven creative writers to pass the award on to. If you don’t want to do the meme I’ll understand, but I do hope some of you will join in the fun. Okay the seven winners are:

1. Reforming Geek  (Reffie), over at her blog Confessions of a Reforming Geek. I hope she does the meme because she is so creative and such a hoot I know her seven things will be hilarious and loads of fun.
2. Marvin (The Old Silly) and his blogThe Old Silly’s Free Spirit Blog. He is very creative and I’d love to see what he does with this award and meme.
3. MikeWJ and his blog Too Many Mornings. Mike is such a great writer and a total creator of  fiction, so his take on this should be great.
4. Nicole and her blog How Much Longer Till Friday. Nicole is a great blogger and her writing cracks me up. I know she’ll be great with this.
5. Debbie the author of the blog  Debbie Does Drivel. She is also a fun and creative writer and I adore her blog. She will rock this meme.
6. No Name Dufus, from his blog by the same name: nonamedufus.  He has been writing for several other blogs and he has had some health problems lately, however I hope he will feel up to the challenge of participating in the meme. He is so creative and funny.
7. And last, but certainly not least, Bee at Bee’s Musings.  Bee is a great blogger and hilarious writer. She is currently working two jobs and she may not have time to participate in the meme, but I know it will be great if she does.

So there you go. I have followed all the rules and now I am passing the baton. Let’s keep it going…I mean if you want to, and you have the time. 

 Have a great Saturday everyone.

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Beware of griping on Facebook; it’s two-faced

Be careful what you write about on social networking sites, otherwise it can come back and bite you in the butt later, the same way it did to a A North Carolina waitress who posted a gripe on her Facebook page.

It seems she received only a $5.00 tip from a couple after they sat at their table for three hours and kept her at work an hour after she was supposed to clock out. She called the customers cheap and mentioned the restaurant by name.

A day later she was fired from her job at the restaurant. Apparently the company had a policy banning its employees from speaking disparagingly about customers and casting the restaurant in a bad light on a social network.

The report states that she apologized to the restaurant owners, but she still needs a job.

I would like to leave the waitress a tip: “If you get another waitress job close by and this cheapo couple comes to where you’re working, spit in their food, then spit in their drink once for me. Oh yeah, and you might want to think about cancelling your Facebook account.”

Boxers, briefs, or commando?

In other news this weekend, a man was arrested for walking the streets of Thibodaux, Louisiana, stark naked. He told police that God had told him to do this to save his soul. According to reports, the man whose name is Shafiq Mohamed claimed that America had raped him and God had told him that in order to save his soul he had to walk naked through the streets.”

Well, Shafiq, keep your shorts on. We all get screwed by Uncle Sam each April. You’ll get used to it eventually.

Personal News

And now, for some personal news, this is my 200th post on this blog. Not that it’s all that exciting to anyone except me. I’m just saying.

Have a great weekend everyone and TGIF.

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Do you talk to your pet? Does your pet understand what you’re saying? More importantly, does your pet talk back?! These dogs and cats in the video do. I hope you enjoy the video as much as I did. Some of these little fur people amazed me. And they all speak in English. How about that for being cool.

Here’s wishing everyone a Happy Saturday.

All married couples argue. Anyone who tells me that they never have a disagreement with their spouse is either lying or not telling the truth.

Wayne and I argue, although we do it in a bizarre sort of way.  Sometimes I don’t even know we’ve had an argument until he apologizes for raising his voice at me. The fact is that Wayne is so sweet and funny, everything he says sounds about right. He is such a klutz he could make a cadaver laugh out loud.

To understand our relationship, you would either have to know him personally or allow me to explain.  If you took one Bob Vila, half a Tim The Tool Man Taylor and a dash of Ray Barone and put them in a blender and blend on slow speed for one minute you could then pour my husband out into a bowl. (actually it would be a bloody mess and kind of Jeffrey Dahmer-isque, but this is just an example).

Wayne is a talented carpenter who can build anything his clients request, however he is so accident prone and clumsy he can fall off his own shoes. In fact he did that once, landing flat on his back in the grass. My mama (who totally adored the ground he fell on) jumped down my throat and told me to buy him some good supportive shoes before the “old things he was wearing caused him to get hurt”.

And no one else but Wayne could manage to wreck both of his pickup trucks at the same time.  Once, he was under the hood of one truck working on the engine, when it began to roll backward and slammed into his other truck, smashing in the door and the front fender.  I laughed so hard I could barely help him push the two wrecked trucks apart.  He’s always losing his tools and personal items, and he could tear up an anvil without even trying.  But this is all part of his charm. He is always smiling, sweet to a fault and completely lovable.  Anyone who could snap at him is either an alligator or someone suffering from an emotional disorder.

That’s why I knew for certain that something was not quite right when I began growling at him like a hateful old troll the other day.  Earlier in the week I had awakened feeling as though I’d snorted the entire Nolichucky River up my nose.  My voice echoed in my ears like I was talking from inside an oil drum and my eyes were watery and my nose runny.  After a couple of days and several boxes of  tissues, I decided to go see a doctor.  The doctor checked my breathing, took one look at the yellow pollen coating the front of my car and told me I was suffering from hay fever.  I couldn’t understand how I could get hay fever since I didn’t live anywhere near a farm, but he explained to  me that hay fever is caused by dust and pollen and by watching too many old episodes of Green Acres.

He prescribed a nasal spray for me to try…the one with the honey bee that runs around talking like Eva Gabore…and it was amazing how quickly it cleared up my sinuses. It even improved my sense of smell. I could smell things I hadn’t smelled in years. (note to myself, clean out the car!).

Then something completely foreign to me began to happen. I became agitated. I began snapping at everyone in sight. I was like a beaver with a tooth ache.  I snapped at poor Wayne and he just looked at me like “what have you done with my wife?”  When I screamed at the dogs, that was the last straw. I knew there was something going on. I sat down and thought about why I was feeling so ill tempered and cranky.  It came to me in a blinding flash — well not exactly a blinding flash, it was more like a little night light bulb — that I had felt this way since I began using the nasal spray.  I marched into the bathroom, then I went out to the kitchen and got the nasal spray and threw it in the trash. Within two days I was back to my old smiling self again and my snapping days were over.

I would rather suffer from nasal allergies, runny nose, painful ears, sore throat, scoliosis, athletes foot fungus and the heartbreak of psoriasis than to be so grouchy I can’t even stand to talk to myself. I am sure that Wayne would rather hear my raspy voice and sniffing than to have me bark at him like a seal for no apparent reason other than him throwing away my new shoes and breaking the mirror on my car.

I will continue to talk softly and carry a big tissue until the allergy season has passed.