I’m really enjoying American Idol this year. I really wish that Kristy Lee Cook girl would have gone home for her crime against “8 Days a Week”.

Life keeps going by so fast and I seriously doubt any of you would be interested in what I have to say. Oddly, that’s where I was before I started to blog back in 2006…so maybe you WOULD be interested.

Ashlyn got accepted to the college of her choice. She’ll be staying at home, at least for the first year, since it’s just down the street a few miles. I hope she sticks with it and finishes her degree. Now we just await the end of her Senior year. She goes to her senior trip next month, 4 days at Disneyworld in Orlando. Lucky her, I didn’t choose to be a chaperone. LOL

Insomnia is still a part of my daily life. I am going to have a sleep study done next Friday. Of course, that begs the question…how can they do a sleep study on me, if I don’t really sleep? Hmmmm…

In case you were wondering where Canadians go for vacation…it’s Myrtle Beach. I’ve been trying to think of sneaky ways to get them to say “aboot”…but so far, I’ve not been successful.

First, Ashlyn turned 18 on October 2. She informed me she was going to “ride that ass!” then she giggled as I picked my heart & jaw up off the floor. She was of course, referring to the donkey at the Fiesta del Burro Loco. Ai yi yi.

Then on October 5, she wrecked our Cadillac…

I received a phone call from Ashlyn beginning with “Mom, first let me say, it’s not my fault.” You can imagine my thoughts at that moment. I have to say, I’m quite proud of how she dealt with her first wreck. She was calm as a cucumber through the whole ordeal and not one tear was shed.

As she was leaving school, the girl driving the car behind Ashlyn was fumbling with a radio or something and plowed into the back of Ashlyn, sending her into the car ahead of her. In total, 4 teenager vehicles were involved, and ours was the only one that had major damage. Most importantly, no one was hurt. Cars can be replaced, kiddos can not.

The insurance company totalled our car. ::mourn paid-for Cadillac::

Halloween was fun. We got a new jack-o-lantern kit courtesy of Mr. Potato Head. Ashlyn and her boyfriend (also acquired during my blog vacation) Elliott assembled our “Pirate” with the help of one of our neighbor kids.

And I hung out in the yard again…

Ashlyn bought her first car in mid-November with some help from Grandparents and us!

She wrecked it 6 weeks later…

Amazingly, this one wasn’t her fault either. However, the jackass who backed in to her while on his cell phone and not looking (a 44-year old man, no less) lied to both the police and his insurance company that she had hit him, defying the laws of physics…his insurance company initially denied our claim…

I should have been a detective/lawyer…they say that pictures are worth 1000 words. In this case, it was worth just over $1200. There was a perfect mirror image of her tire and the word “Rotation” on his bumper. We argued how could this image be so clear if her car was in motion? He clearly, hit her. He also was paying so little attention, he didn’t even realize which side of his truck was involved. I also pointed out that inaccuracy. End result: a check to repair her damage and a rental car voucher for the time it’ll be in the shop. Lesson I hope that jackass learns: Don’t F*** with tiggerprr’s daughter and stop being a big, fat liar!. Lesson I hope Ashlyn learns: Honesty and a billion pictures of everything is the best policy.

And she wonders why I hesitate to let her drive my car…

Hubby has a growth coming out of his head…

And Ashlyn and I get to go to the Democratic Presidential Debate held here in Myrtle Beach this coming Monday…woo! I’m more excited for her, since this is almost like being a small part of history.

How have YOU been?

So along with this new equipment (this is something else I don’t fully understand, nor care to), we need a plethora of new wiring to make the magic happen. You”ll have to cock your heads to the side along with me, as I ponder the miles of wiring that’s in jumbled heaps throughout our bedroom and in our garage neatly stored away in various strategic locations throughout our house, just in case a wiring emergency should rear it’s ugly head. I am assured, that this wiring is “different” and needed for the proper care and feeding of our new TV.

This may very well be the longest intro to me getting to the actual point of this post. We’re standing in Target to look at the new wiring that we apparently need to hook the Ninetendo Wii up to the new TV when I cannot help but be held prisoner by overhear the following conversation between a mom and her bratty ass 9 or 10 year old little girl:

They are looking at a Guitar Hero Game w/the Guitar controller. The girl is having an epileptic fit trying to convince her mother that she MUST have this holy grail of rock stardom.

Brat Kid (screeching so that everyone in a 10 mile radius can hear): “Come on, I want it I want it I want it!”

Stupid Mom: Now you know I had told you you’d get $10 a week to keep your room clean. If I give you this, that’s 2 weeks you’d have to go without any allowance.

Brat Kid: Well, if you gave me that $10 for the last 2 weeks, I’d have it.

Stupid Mom: But you didn’t keep your room clean, so you didn’t get it.

Brat Kid: “Cut out the chatter already and just get it for me”

Stupid Mom: ….

OK….I couldn’t bear to look at them…because I am certain that child would have been struck dead by one glance from me. I am after all, the Mom who yes, cancelled Christmas for my daughter when she was 6 or 7 for lying that one more time after I told her I would cancel Christmas if she did. We both learned a valuable lesson that year…but that’s another story for another time. But the mother…she needs her ass spanked. My child, at 17, much less at 9 or 10, would be begging for some sort of mercy from God himself if she ever spoke to me like that, and she damn sure wouldn’t be seeing her PS2 again for a few months, much less playing any sort of Guitar Hero on it without some form of Divine Intervention.

Hubby was so busy looking at the wires, he didn’t notice any of this transpiring so I explained the story to him. He asked me what the Mom said to the kid. I told him, she said nothing, and as far I could tell, there weren’t any consequences. I also pointed out that if a kid has the balls to say crap like that in public to their parent, it’s because the parent allows it to happen.

And people wonder why my answer to the “Dessert” portion of this week’s Friday’s Feast was what it was.

::sigh:: I just hope that Ashlyn will take care of me when I’m old.

Garth Algar: It’s sucking my will to live!

I had pleasantly gotten selective amnesia about how lazy people have gotten and how far the general work ethic has fallen. I’ve been reminded all too well these past few weeks. I’m not discouraged, but a bit disheartened for our future.

I am pretty tired lately, which is good because my insomnia seems to be cured. Maybe I just needed something to do. LOL I am however, faced with a giant pile of laundry that I need to do, but I’ve simply been too tired to tackle it. That’s my goal for this weekend. Along with catching up on everyone’s blogs.

I’ve been missing the daily interaction with all of my blog friends and I feel out of the loop but I do look forward to Saturday mornings when I can make my rounds and see what you’ve all been up to. I appreciate all of you who stick around to read the little crumbs I leave during the week. I promise that as I adjust to carving out 10 hours of my day between the actual work day and travel time, I will be more prolific in my writing. I guess what I’m trying to say is, “Thanks for hanging in there with me.”

My Project 365 page has pretty much gone to hell in a handbasket, but I’m going to try and resume taking a photo a day. In fact, there’s one that I intend to take on my way to work that I think you will all find breathtaking. Let’s hope I remember my camera on Monday.

Ashlyn is hobbling around without the aid of crutches and was able to resume driving this week. That’s a plus, since we don’t have to get up almost an hour earlier when we have to carpool to work and school.

Life always moves on as does time, no matter what you’re doing…I hope to be able to write more about the things we’re doing and seeing soon.

I’m no environmental saint, I wish I could say I was. I remember as a first grader all those many years ago, hearing about the need for conservation and saving the planet. Being an idealistic 7 year old, I fired off a letter to then-President Ford to express my concerns that the powers that be do what they need to in order to secure our planet for my generation and those that followed. I don’t think my parents mailed it, because I never got a reply. The words and emotions I felt that day, echo in my heart today. I fear not for my generation, but that of my daughter’s and of my future grandchildren and so on. If we don’t take steps to ensure that Mother Earth is cared for, we will face a man-made extinction someday. Denying something exists, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.

Every day, animal species are obliterated from the circle of life and too few mourn their loss. It is a running disagreement between my father and I about the value and/or appropriateness of hunting. Hunting to eat, is understandable to me, but to kill a beaver for damming up a creek on your property is punishing that creature for being what nature intended him to be and I feel a short-sighted view of our fellow living creatures. We as humans, the enlightened ones, continue to build and grow our own numbers while animals are pushed out of their homes and then we scratch our heads in wonder why that bear is wandering a suburb. The bear probably wonders what the suburb is doing in his woods.

I think that what Sir Richard is doing is commendable and it heartens me. I have enormous respect and admiration for him for doing this. Imagine if everyone contributed what they could to finding solutions to these problems facing our Mother Earth and our human race, where could we go? Sir Richard, and others like him renew my faith in mankind that maybe, just maybe, we’re not doomed after all.