You know, there are some things you just never think about . . . like Mt. Rushmore, from the Canadian Side . . .

Mmmmmm…..

Once I won a ribbon in the NYS Fair for a cheesecake like this….but hers looks better

We had a fun turkey day trip to see Aunt Jess and Uncle Marc and 30+ other family and friends in sunny PA. 

We had a great trip, the ride there was crazy as usual, lots of bickering between Mike and I.  We usually don’t get along on route to our journey’s, kinda like brothers and sisters… Been together too long… See the reality video with the kiddies at http://TheRealParents.tumblr.com.  You can subscribe to our video blog there if you are amused…

Working on writing a speech for my Toastmasters club we go to once a month.  Tomorrow is my 7th speech, “research your topic” so I am doing the Swine Flu H1N1 as my topic. 

Better listen up, I did the research, you can benefit… DON’T get the vaccine til you listen!  I’ll post the video of the recorded speech on Thursday on the video blog above.  Hasta manana, back to speech writing.  Hope all had a great Turkey Day!

Best,

Sandy (&  Mike ) Hosts www.theRealParents.com

I can’t believe that I forgot this significant oh-crap-I-am-older-than-I-think-I-am moment when I wrote my previous post, Old:

This morning when I was tweezing my eyebrows I found white hairs mixed in with the dark brown. Not gray hairs…WHITE. Not one or two hairs…FOUR. And this is not the first time…it’s been happening for a couple of years. OK, five years.

Incidentally, this was not the original reason I started – but has become the primary reason that I continue – to get Brazilian bikini waxes.

Sorry, Dad. I should have warned you to stop reading a couple of sentences ago.

TASTEFUL TUESDAY….ROCKABILLY MUSIC

Dogs Welcoming Home Soldiers

250 people, place and has the top speakers from Toastmasters clubs in 18 countries in continental Europe. I had a lot of fun making this speech, especially because they gave me a good opportunity for a good-natured fun at Toastmasters, put the excellent organization. For more information about public space, please visit my blog: mannerofspeaking.wordpress.com Thanks! … Toastmasters comedy "humorous speech" Competition Competition Bamberg "public space" speech funny Terminator "Ralph Smedley" …

My Links : DIY http://attraction-network.blogspot.com/ motivational-tutorials.blogspot.com/

My cousin Paul Luther as a young Olympic wrestling hopeful in the age of the afro. Caricature drawn entirely in Adobe Photoshop.

TAT-TUNE AND THE JAIL BIRDS

T-SHIRT DESIGN FOR THE ROCKABILLY FANS AND RAT ROD CREW.

This is a very funny parody of the the music video by Miley Cyrus’s “Party in the USA!”

Transitionary looks always bring an extra spice to our facial expressions.

Do you put up Christmas lights/decorations outside?

To sum up my first month’s work on helium will be exciting because I will get to look through the first things I’ve written on helium.com and see my growth and progress through a critical lens and then share it with you!

Please enjoy!!

Always and forever

Based on three separate poems, I’ve created this poem which is basically what I consider to be an engagement, newlywed or recommitment poem about marriage, being together and loving each other always and forever and the prospects of this new way of life. Helium has rated it 2/37.

How motherhood changes a woman

A friend of mine laughed at the fact that when I started on helium, most of the articles I had written were in their Parenting & Pregnancy channel, even though I am not a mother. I just wrote to titles that stuck out to me when I joined helium and this was one of them. I found that this was a title that was part of a writing contest helium was writing and it placed me at #14 in the list of publishers who wrote for the selected titles of the contest in the topic of Parenting & Pregnancy. I don’t quite recall how I first even found the title but I want to say that through rating, I came across many titles that stuck out to me, which I then would look up in order to write for.

This article has been 1/51 but the ratings went down and I could not understand why but when I was honest with myself, I knew that the couple of typos I’d corrected weren’t the only thing wrong. I realized my article was missing key information when it comes to physical and when it comes to professional, occupational and career changes that motherhood has on a woman. So, I “leapfrogged” the article (revising, adding to and editing an article and submitting it to be rated by the helium community as compared to your original article for the approval to, ultimately, leap over and literally replace the former article), which actually resulted in it going from two pages in length to four but all I knew was that I was making sure I put what I needed to say there in order to reflect my real take on the title. Needless to say, it reclaimed its rightful place in rating!

Should teachers have a right to deny a students need to use the bathroom?

Now, I came across this title and saw that it was a debate title, meaning you can come on the page and vote yes or no and can write an article relaying your argument for your side and your stance. A writer who wrote for the “No” side had a post on her blog/helium zone with a link to vote to “protect” children in public schools. Even though I actually loved her article [even added her to my favorite helium writers list on my profile] as well as her heart, I wrote for the “Yes” side. After writing, I learned that the channel category was for Secondary Education so I leapfrogged this article as well in order to ensure it reflected high school students and high school life at a more in depth capacity than it had previously. The article is rated 1/2 for the No side. In case you’d like to know and would find it to be valuable information, there are currently 4 articles on the yes side as compared to the 2 on the no side.

The impact of father-mother relationship on children’s well-being

This is something I’ve felt extremely strongly about and am glad to have gotten off of my chest exactly what and how I feel about it. Now, others can see and learn from it and they obviously appreciate since it is rated 3/14.

Is there too much sex on television?

I definitely had no choice but to write to this title. Everyone who I know who has read the article I wrote has thoroughy enjoyed it and thought it to be accurate and insightful as well as humorous and very debate-worthy. It is fact-driven and shares personal accounts as well as it challenges and raises questions. Enough of that, though, because what I want to say to you is that it shouldn’t be a question and I think that whoever wrote for or even just believes in the No side should “go spank themselves,” as someone I know says from time to time. Needless to say, I wrote for the Yes side and all I can say now is to just, please, read it yourself. Formulate an opinion if you have not yet done so. Lastly, fight for what you believe in because change does start with one man…every one man makes things how they are and every individual man is needed for things to change, so why not just go ahead and start with you?!

This article was numer 1/54 and was leapfrogged after a while because new information arose. It still sits at the top!

So, there we have it — a poem, two debates and two parenting articles and that sums up the best of  eDITORcHRIS/Christina Bernice’s helium.com writings from October 2009.

New Left Media is at it again, this time interviewing the people who would brave hours in line to get their copy of Going Rogue signed by the former governor of Alaska and potential future presidential candidate, Sarah Palin. As usual, the questions are broad and the interviewer, Chase Whiteside, passively lets the interviewees self-destruct by displaying their lack of knowledge on just about everything. Sure, going to a liberal rally and you’ll find just as many buffoons who couldn’t tell you a single thing about Barack Obama, but it’s so much funnier to watch Republicans make fools of themselves.

CHEESERS…THEFT RING

BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR THIS WELL KNOWN THEFT RING. THEY STEAL YOUR CARS, TRUCKS AND MOTORCYCLES TO SUPPORT THERE CHEESE HABIT.

THIS THEFT RING IS KNOWN AS THE CHEESERS AND HERE IS A SKETCH OF THERE LEADER CHUNKO CHEESER.

ORDER YOUR T-SHIRT TODAY AND GIVE YOUR SUPPORT TO THE CHEESERS.

BAD KITTY…..WELD COUNTY…..COLORADO

COMBINATION OF NEW LOGO DESIGN AND A T-SHIRT DESIGN, I CAN DO THEM BOTH.

I recently watched the movie “He’s Just Not That Into You.” I’m not a chick flick kind of girl, but I liked this movie. I could relate to the main character’s overwhelming sense of neediness. She was constantly being rejected by guys, and she was clueless as to why she couldn’t snag one.

I used to be boy crazy. I don’t know when this actually started, but I was pretty little. I recently came across a note I had written in the first grade telling Tim Crane I loved him and asking him to marry me. When I hit puberty, I would try to get boys’ attention by being loud and doing stupid things. During this time, I acquired a camera and started taking pictures of guys that I liked when they weren’t looking. Sometimes they would give me dirty looks because I wasn’t quite as subtle as I thought I was, and they got tired of me stalking them with my camera. I recently read part of my old diary where I wrote this, “I broke up with *Kyle today. I feel bad about that. But now I think I like *Bobby, and I wouldn’t mind getting with *Ryan.” I was so needy that one boy didn’t seem to satisfy. After tenth grade, when one of my boyfriends broke up with me, I stalked him and would just happen to appear different places where I knew he would be. I can tell you, my neediness didn’t draw his heart back to mine…

In college though, I found a guy who enjoyed talking with me for hours on end, and I married him. Jeff and I still talk for hours, and he enjoys it because he loves me and we’ve always been great friends, but there is a limit. We have to eat; we have to sleep; we have to take care of our kids; we can’t talk all the time. It’s just not possible. Jeff’s good at helping me process through the stuff in my head…but sometimes he’s simply not available to do this. And then I feel rejected, but it isn’t because he has rejected me. It’s because I have such neediness, and he can’t meet all my needs. He’s not supposed to.

A while back, as I was wallowing in a sad and lonely time after I had been to a friend’s house, and I had stayed a little too long, it hit me that I can NEVER wear out my welcome with my Abba. He loves me when I’m sad and lonely and needy and ugly and unloveable. I was so excited to realize that He never gets tired of me…no matter what sin or issue I’m struggling with at the time. He actually wants me to come to Him…be with Him…need Him…struggle through my stuff with Him. This gave me great hope because I don’t have to be so needy with people. Abba can handle my neediness…my loneliness…my sadness…my need to be wanted. In fact, He’s in a love affair with me. I John says, “We love Him (only) because He first loved us.”

In Matthew 11, Jesus offers this invitation, “Come to me.” And He’s not asking those who have it all together. He’s actually talking to those who are weary and burdened…the needy ones…the ones who might talk a lot, and He offers us rest. And yet so many times, I still look to other people to meet those needs. No wonder the Rolling Stones wrote the song “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction.” They were right. We can’t get the satisfaction we long for in other people. It’s not possible. People just cannot satisfy the deep longings we all have…to be affirmed…to be loved unconditionally. And it’s when we realize that and walk in that, it’s at that moment that we can finally hold people loosely.

So, back to the sappy chick flick…I was happy to see the girl get the guy at the end of the movie. But it was only when she released and let go and didn’t expect another person to fill the void was when the right guy came along and got all worked up over her. It made me happy for all of us needy human beings.

Henri Nouwen says in his book Spiritual Direction “If we do not know we are the beloved sons and daughters of God, we’re going to expect someone…to make us feel special and worthy. Ultimately, they cannot.” Nouwen goes on to say that we need to forgive each other for not being God. I’m coming to realize that when we put our hope in other people to provide what they cannot, when we expect them to meet our needs, then we miss seeing Jesus right there willing to meet our deepest longings…our deepest desires.

*names changed to protect the innocent and to not embarrass myself more than I already have

The other day my boyfriend introduced me to a website called “shit my girlfriend says“. Being a guy I figured this was just another not so humorous website where men vent about their girlfriends. I was mistaken. What I found instead was a range of hilarious comments from women that made me embarrassed to be a member of the species. 100 years after the fight for women’s liberation and rights and it seems some have regressed rather than progressed in intellect, proving to men that we are all just dumb broads. Emily Pankhurst would be turning in her grave to discover that these female of the species are not only harmless but also stupid. They seemed to have infiltrated the ranks and corrupted the gene pool of smart women. Sadly, these are the girls who get picked to go to the Prom!

You will be horrified by some of the comments but in the spirit of comedy I ask you to laugh. Some of these are just interesting anecdotes and definitely great ice breakers.

Here are some classic examples:

‘We met at the supermarket where we both worked in college. One day, in front of a line of customers, she turned to me and asked, “Are owls birds?” I still can’t figure out where it came from or how she graduated.’

‘Looking up at the nights sky, I say, “look, there’s Orion’s belt”. She responds “Ugh, I have never been able to see any of those continents”…constellations babe.’

“My girlfriend and I were watching a college basketball game a few weeks ago. The announcer says “there are 2 minutes left in the first half.” My girlfriend turns to me and asks “How many halves are there in a college basketball game?” She is no longer my girlfriend.”

I know what you are thinking but this is all true. Sigh. How far the women movement has come….

Joe Dante

Joseph James “Joe” Dante (born November 28, 1946) is an American film director and producer of films generally with humorous and scifi content.

His films include Piranha (1978) and The Howling (1981), both from scripts by John Sayles; Segment 3 of Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983); Gremlins (1984), his first major hit, and its sequel Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990); Explorers (1985), Innerspace (1987), Amazon Women on the Moon (1987); The ‘Burbs (1989), Matinee (1993), Runaway Daughters (1994), The Second Civil War (1997), The Warlord: Battle for the Galaxy (1998), Small Soldiers (1998), Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003), and Homecoming (2005). In 1995-1996, Dante worked on The Phantom, and when he was removed from the film, he chose screen credit (as executive producer) rather than pay.  He was creative consultant on Eerie, Indiana (1991-1992) and directed five episodes. He played himself in the series finale.

Always casts Dick Miller in a cameo or supporting role.

Frequently has films/TV shows with themes similar to the movie in various scenes.

Always includes a reference to the Warner Bros. cartoons somewhere in each of his works.

Frequently casts Robert Picardo in supporting roles or cameos.

Frequently casts William Schallert in supporting roles or cameos.

Frequently hired composer Jerry Goldsmith.

Frequently casts Kevin McCarthy.

Frequently casts Ron Perlman in supporting roles or cameos.

Trivia

Former Roger Corman protégé. Also helped by Steven Spielberg.

Directors he has cited as his principal influences include Chuck Jones, Frank Tashlin, James Whale, Roger Corman, and Jean Cocteau.

Was interested in directing Batman (1989).

Was scheduled to direct a Jaws (1975) parody (under the National Lampoon banner) in the early 1980s called “Jaws 3 People 0″. Universal Pictures dropped this concept in favor of a “straight” film (which became the critical and financial flop Jaws 3-D (1983)).