8/9/10 isn't today's date so cool.

Okay...enough about that. Here's the weekend update.

We traveled west for the ALS walk. It was a beautiful day. We raised some money in honor of my Aunt who passed away from this terrible disease and we got to visit with each other for a little while.

I think my Aunt Lee would have been happy about that.

I was disappointed that my mother couldn't come but she had to work. Hey mom, if you are reading this, it's always the first Saturday in August and has been for the last five years. Request off for it next year.

This is a picture of me (in the middle) my grandma and my aunt. Of course, two of my kiddos who just can't resist the camera are also in the picture. Don't we look cool in our tye dye?

Here we are at the start of the walk. All of the people in tye dye walked with our team. I think we had about 50.

I went to the ALS walk with my kids this weekend. It is an annual event for our family. My aunt passed away for the insidious disease in 2005 and we all raise funds and walk together in her honor.

It is usually an amazing time.

Visiting my home town gives me a chance to catch up with my oldest of friends. I've been friends for more than 20 years with the two women in this photo. We have laughed together, cried together, raised children together and been there for each other. I would do anything for them.


My friend, Bobbie (in the blue stripes) just had a little girl in May (she's in the middle); her husband and son are on the far right and her sister is in the middle.

No matter how long it's been since we've seen each other we always pick up right where we left off. There is never any awkwardness.

Gotta love that.




Here is a photo of my MIL and my son at the ALS walk. He was tickled because the clown made him a balloon sword. When you are five there are few things better than balloon swords.

The Prompts this week at Mama Kat's were all so creative it was hard to pick so I decided to do them all.


1.) Grab your current read. Let the book fall open to a random page and share two “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12. (inspired by Heather) Currently I'm reading "Sloppy Firsts" by Megan Mccafferty. It is Mccafferty's first novel and it is in the young adult section of the library. The book is about a young girls struggle with adolescence and how she is coping with the move of her best friend. I can't believe this is the random page and "teaser" that actually came up....LOL

"Manda thinks that reading feminist manifestos makes up for her borderline ho-bag behavior. I'm pretty sure that's why she wears Poindexter glasses instead of contacts, so she seems less sexual and more intellectual. She's not fooling anyone, though. Hope and I called her The Kissing Slut because she'd made out with thirty-one different guys by her fifteenth birthday. That's when she decided it was time to move on to manual stimulation, so we christened her Lend-A-Hand-A-Manda. And when she turned sixteen, well, let's just say she earned the title The Headmaster."


2.) What do you aspire to be? (Inspired by The White House) When I was little I used to write story after story after story. I don't think any of them were ever about school board budgets and graduations. However, that being said, I still get paid to write and that is what I always wanted to do. Will I ever complete that allusive young adult novel?...that remains to be seen.

3.)Share a piece of unsolicited parenting advice...only I'm soliciting it. I have come up with a way to make tattle-telling much more fun for the adult than it is for the child. Thereby, eliminating most tattling because the child becomes more annoyed with the parent than the person they were tattling on to begin with. Make them sing. You pick the genre and they have to sing their tattle. Let me tell you, this is a fun game....especially in a large group of kids. My favorite genres...opera, rap and the country ballad. Try it....you are gonna love it. See the video below!

4.)Tell us about your blogline...how long have you been blogging, when did you start, what were/are your goals for your blog, etc. (inspired by Corn) I started blogging in February 2007 for about two days and promptly forgot about it until the following February. Originally, I was going to show off a lot of my crafts, but lately I find myself just rambling about nonsense. Who knew you were suppose to have a goal?

5.)If you had 5000 dollars to give away or donate to a charity...explain what you would do with it and why. (inspired by Hallie's letter) I would probably split it up between the ALS Association, JDRF, and PANCAN. My mom's sister died from ALS and it is a terrible disease. It strips you of all motor function, but leaves you mind intact. As for JDRF, regular readers know that my nephew is diabetic. PANCAN does research solely in the fight against pancreatic cancer. Most people diagnosed with this disease are given a 1 percent survival rate. My mother-in-law is part of that 1 percent.