It takes a village...and a policeman and a hair dresser and a mail man...

I know raising kids in the big city can be hard. Especially when you are the kind that thrives best in a more rural setting. Sometimes, you could use a little help when you find yourself in a pinch. It's ok! That's what we are all here for, to help each other!

Take this momma for instance. This morning she was out for a walk with the kids when tragedy struck. Somehow some of her little ones found themselves down in a drain pipe unable to get out! Help! Help!

As you can see, the community was very willing to help out. A policeman, a mail man, a hair dresser and many others, all chipped in to help momma duck rescue her babies and get them on the road to safety. Of course, momma duck doesn't always understand that we are doing our best to help them, not hurt them. Communication is everything in situations like these!

Just calm down, momma duck. We're doing our best here! Here's 2 more....aww...one can't be saved. Sorry momma duck, they did everything they could!

Soon they were on a guided path to safety. So mom's out there, when you find yourself in a pinch, don't hesitate to ask for help. Someone, even a perfect stranger as in this case, is more than willing to help out in any way they can.

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This incident happened around 10 am 4-29-09 in Lemay, Missouri.

Favorite quotes from Southland: Episode 1

#1 "What are you, Canadian?"

#2 "Wanna know how to stop all this gang bangin'? Give em' all free marijuana!"

#3 "What did you think the gun was for? Show and tell??"

#4 "I had the day from hell...I got arrested."

If you missed the start of this great new show on NBC, feel free to watch them over on Hulu.com and get caught up on Southland. It's a great show!! Each week I'm going to post my favorite quotes to tease and/or remind you. I'm a little behind so I have some catching up to do. If you watch the show, feel free to comment with your favorite quotes!

New addiction on Facebook...Farm Town!!

I am prone to addiction. I know this. I must repeat things over and over. If I even visit something like Amazon books, I'm there getting a stack of books! Addicted!!!

Well, as if I wasn't already addicted to Facebook enough, now I've discovered a new app to spend copious amounts of time on. It's called Farm Town!

Love it!!! I'm totally addicted. I don't want to work, I don't want to sleep. I want Farm Town! I only wish there was a way to get the crops to grow quicker LOL It's too fun and by the way, if you have any crops to harvest, I'm your girl! The only thing I don't like is pimping yourself in the marketplace for harvesting jobs to earn money to run your own farm. Other than that, it's awesome! Try it and come be my neighbor. I need a couple more :)

St. Louis City, smoke free? Is it possible?

I heard a piece on the news last night that talked about changing a law in the city of St. Louis to make all public places smoke free. Although I personally love this idea, I know alot of people are miffed about it.

Think about it though, would we allow any other toxic waste to fill the air in public places? I realize some bars and restaurants feel like they will lose business if this gets changed, but how much business are they already losing by allowing smoking now? I personally stay away from smoky places. I simply don't patronize places where my clothes and purse and hair and lungs are going to be drenched in cigarette smoke during and well after my encounter. It's harmful to my health and offensive to my sense of smell and negatively affects the taste of food. No thanks!

Besides, when are we going to consider the negative affects on the kids? Not only is it harmful to their health, it sends a message. A self indulgent message that it's ok to hurt someone else, because you have the right to do it to yourself. My father smoked with us kids in the car and in the house, my entire life at home. I ended up taking up the habit after he left. Perhaps I was 'conditioned' to regular doses of the nicotine and subconsciously craved it? Who knows. The point is, it wasn't good for us to be breathing that in for all those years but that didn't matter as long as he wanted to do it. It's everyone's choice weather or not they want to smoke, unless they are standing next to someone else's choice. Take a moment to read up on the effects of second hand smoke from the American Lung Association.

School nurses have to have like written permission from parents to give kids an aspirin at school but do they have your protection from breathing toxic waste into their lungs by just walking through the clouds just outside the entrances to theaters, malls, schools, restaurants, stores and many many other public places? If you want to smoke, keep it to yourself. Literally. Just like news of the best diet pill might spread fast, smoke gets around! It's your choice to smoke or not, but don't expect other people to enjoy being forced to suffer because of it. For shame.

And don't EVEN get me started on the part where the earth is just one ginormous ash tray! What do you think happens to that butt or empty pack? 'Someone' has to clean them up! They don't just disappear into thin air when you throw them out your car window! I'm done with this conversation.

Robin Thicke is coming to my town!

Tomorrow night, Robin Thicke will be in concert at the Fabulous Fox theater in St. Louis and I can't afford a ticket :( Jennifer Hudson is opening and I wouldn't mind seeing her either! Waaah!!!

You may remember a post I did a while back about Robin Thicke, the man is so smooth, he can make baby lotion sound like the best eye cream ever made! He actually has a song about cocaine and makes it sound sexy! This style of music isn't even my 'normal' diggs, there's just *something* about him! I think he has a more recent album than 'The Evolution of Robin Thicke' but that's the only one I have or have heard. Still, shoot! I wanna go!!! Someone should totally give me a ticket out of the kindness of their heart, I only need the one ticket! :-{)

(click on the above photo to go to a 'Lost without you' video)

Time to party!

Well, this past Saturday got off to a great start! We had a rummage sale to benefit the women's ministry at church and for no more than we had, we did great! Can't complain there.

Next, it was time for my friend's son's 5th birthday party. They make a lot more 1st birthday decorations than they do 5th birthday decorations...but I think that's because by the time they are 5, they have specific things they like and you go for those kinds. His party theme was Transformers....too fun! It was a simple yet fun party and everyone had a great time, especially the kids who played and played!

While I was at that party, I got invited to another party for later on that night. A girls night in type party. It was my first time to be invited and I have had reservations about it in the past and was actually kind of relieved I hadn't been invited yet because if I decided not to go, that would possibly cause offense and I wouldn't want that. But where I am right now, I felt comfortable enough to say yes and it helped my other friend since this was also her first time to be invited back since her reuniting with that friend again and she needed someone to drive her with her sight being what it is right now. So it all worked out. Although I wasn't sure it would for me since I had been up since 4:45 that morning to open the rummage sale, ack!

I ended up going to that party after the first party and had fun at both. We ate food and played games and it was nice to see some faces I haven't seen in a while. I'm talking about both parties :) So, party on!

Susan Boyle's got it going on!

Surely by now you've heard this performance on Britain's Got Talent last week. Susan Boyle sang so beautifully, I'll bet Simon felt under dressed! It was like all of a sudden being at a fine operatic performance and perhaps he should have been wearing a tuxedo instead of a t-shirt.

None the less, Susan gave a wonderful performance and I really hope this isn't the last we've seen/heard from her. I read one blog that talked about her age and love of cats and the fact that she was still single gave women hope that would otherwise be thinking 'it's too late for me'. Maybe there's something to that, but doesn't she wish she would have tried before now to get discovered? She wasted alot of time and maybe she did try and nothing ever worked out. It's great that she continued to put herself out there. Maybe Simon can give her a kiss and that would kill 2 birds with 1 stone! Just joking...she hasn't waited this long to throw it away on someone like Simon Cowell! LOL

Let this be a lesson to everyone about jumping the gun and judging the book by it's cover, shall we? You never know the beauty inside of a person just waiting for an opportunity to burst out!

"Do you have a blog?"

The coolest thing happened to me the other day in Target. I was roaming around the store shopping for what seemed like everything short of appetite suppressants, I really need to start making a list to take with me. Anyway, I had just enjoyed a 15 minute conversation with a little old lady who noticed I had kitty litter in my basket and wanted to discuss our love of cats :)
After I walked away from that furry conversation, I began again to wonder through the store. Suddenly I heard a woman speak to me asking, "Do you have a blog?" I replied 'yes' with a bit of surprise. "And you went to London?" At this point I was stunned because I wrote about that like, 2 years ago! "Yeeeeees....?" She then tells me that her friend has a blog with a similar name and she also had gone to London. She stumbled upon my mine by pure accident looking for her friend's blog and she recognized me from my blog!!! Wow! I was blown away that I could be recognized on the street because of this blog...so cool!

I told my mom about the encounter with Heidi (I think that's your name, please correct me if it's not, sorry!!!) and my mom cried out, "My daughter is a celebrity!!!" She had a big grin on her face. I didn't have the heart to tell her that was highly unlikely. Especially with my page ranking and traffic scores. But it is nice to be recognized for something positive :)

Heidi if you are reading this, thanks for stopping me to say 'Hi', it really made my day. Congrats on the pregnancy and don't give up on your blog. I hope you stop by here again and leave me a comment so I can come find your blog, too!

Pirates gone wild!

When I was a kid, I learned that pirates were 'the bad guys'. They would overtake the control of boats and ships to rob people of jewelry and cash with only one eye yelling 'Arrrrrgghhh!' Sometimes the vessels themselves were the object of the pirates desires. They were known to be very violent and brazen, empowered with a strong sense of lawlessness.

Over the past few years, I've noticed an increase in the number of otherwise 'regular' people who fancy taking on the persona of pirates as their chosen lifestyle. Even going as far as speaking like them and dressing and raising their kids with the same lawless attitudes. Perhaps pirates have been glamorized by Hollywood and Halloween a bit too much. Keep in mind, these are the kind of 'pirates' that never rob anyone nor do they desire to plunder anyone's goods. They live in suburbia for goodness sakes!

Real pirates of today have taken piracy to a whole new level. They aren't interested in a few heart pendant necklaces or bigger boats for their fleets. No, these guys set out in tiny boats with big guns and overtake ginormous cargo liners! What is wrong with these people? Somalian pirates *must* have a screw loose...and a big one at that! I think they've been let go to get away with this for far too long or something. Now, not only are they wreaking havoc among the European shipping circles, they are now barking up the tree of the USA! Well, we came in bigger boats with even bigger guns and all the skills needed to handle the situation! Even still, they just aren't accepting that there will be an end put to all this, if they continue. I just read an article on Charter.com that said they have just hijacked 4 more ships in retaliation of their fallen colleagues in the Gulf of Aden. Oh boy...here we go again. Certainly these are definitely not the kind of people to be modeling your family values from.

I think this would make a great bit called 'Really' on SNL's Weekend Update. It might go a little something like this: "Really pirates? Really? You didn't learn the first time we shot 3 of your colleagues in the head on the first shot from a good distance atop a moving surface through a glass about *this* big simultaneously? Really?? And really, now we have to come back and do it all over again? Really??? Really, do you think we will actually turn our backs on this? Really, Really??"

It's about time now, to get back to blogging!

After the shiny new glow of Facebook has finally started to fade, I'm discovering that I'm missing things I used to do online to keep busy with. Like blogging! I predicted that joining Facebook would divert much of my attention throughout the day and I was right! I find so many things on there to keep busy with, I forget all the other facets of online life that I shoved aside in the meantime. The games, the (Lil) Green Patch, Flair, photos, videos, groups...the list goes on and on!

Facebook has it's fun and it's 'worth', if you will. But when it comes to writing, it doesn't hold a candle to blogging! I feel completely open on my blog to express myself and have my time to really get it all out there. On Facebook, you are sort of limited in characters in some areas and you really only get to express tiny blurbs here and there as different topics arise.

Well, it's time to get back to other things! It's also about time for some Vegas vacations too, but that's a whole other topic!! It's time to get back to my regular game site, Gold Token. It's time to get back to emails, for goodness sakes! I've had this one friend I've intended to email for months now! Good grief already. So Facebook, I love ya, but it's time for me to refocus and you're gonna have to step back in line somewhere else.