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Sometimes I think I was born without the “girlie” gene. Women are supposed to love to shop, right? Especially clothes shopping. Well I hate it.

Here are my complaints:

Service at most stores is both “nil” and “annoying”

Will that be on your X card? No? Do you want a X card? No? Are you SURE? You can save 10%? You don’t want one? But you save 10%!

Lane Bryant was THE WORST. I had three different employees try to get me to sign up for their stupid card and they were really pushy and obnoxious about it. They shut up when I told them I had a strict “cash-only” policy and whipped out the debit card. But they still gave me the “crazy bitch” look.
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Maggie’s class has been doing poetry all year. Here are three more she wrote that she will be performing at Peet’s with the rest of the Third Grade classes:

The Delight Song of Maggie

I am a gold angel flying in Africa
Watching over children

I am a white goddess protecting animals
All over the world

I am a blonde cat catching a mouse
In the night

I am a green sea turtle swimming in the
Blue sea to catch my prey

I am a gray spider in a den
spinning a silky web

I am a pink poncho giving
warmth to a child

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My daughter is learning to write poetry in school and for Mother’s Day this year, she wrote me this great poem that I just have to share with everyone!

Here it is:

I Love You, Mom!

You are the sweet dandyloin in the meadow of our family

You are the bumble bee kissing me, the flower
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I’ve been horsing around on the Internet since 1996. Before that I horsed around on proprietary networks like CompuServe and even had my own Message Board-based BBS way back in the 80s.

For most of that time, I’ve struggled with the issues of privacy and safety vs. sharing and community.

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These are the songs that make up the Train Song Collection that I made for my husband for his birthday.

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My husband loves trains. He loves real ones and he also loves toy ones. (His gauge of choice is “O” for those who care about such things.) He goes to train shows and train conventions and belongs to a train club. He even has his own shed in the back yard just for his layout.

Being such a train nut, and wanting to get him something heartfelt, but cheap, for his birthday this year, I decided to make him a compilation of Train Songs. I thought it would be a simple project. I would search the web for lists of train songs and then supplement with a few I knew about or found on iTunes. I figured I’d end up with about four CDs and one hundred songs (of which we’d already own at least 25%) and he’d be able to boast to his train club that he had every train song known to man.

Ah, my naivety.
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Season 2 of The Amazing Race is about to start and I’m wondering what I’ll think of it. Although I had only read about Season 1, I had very vivid memories of some of the episodes from reading about them and strong impressions of most of the teams, based on reading their comments online, meeting them at TARcons and reading episode recaps online. Not so season 2 where the only team I can remember without being prompted is the famous Chas. While I remember who won and where the season ended, I have few strong impressions of what happened in between.

Therefore, I’m going to approach it just as I will the yet-to-be-aired season 8. The first step is to go the CBS Amazing Race 2 web site and read the team bios and use them to form my pre-race impressions:
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I remember when I was a kid and every year we’d get a flyer telling us how to sign up to be a Girl Scout. First I was a Brownie through a troop at school. Then, when I got older, I was a Junior through a troop at my church. I made it all the way to Cadette before my interest waned. It didn’t seem to be any big deal to be in scouts — there were troops everywhere and you just joined one and that was it.

So why is it so hard for my daughter to get into scouting? It seems like no one wants to be a Girl Scout Leader any more. First she was a Daisy but the troop never really got started and was soon down to her and the girl whose mom was leading it. They moved away before the school year ended and that was that. Then, we got a flyer for an “informational” meeting at a local hobby shop. I figured we’d go to the meeting and they’d tell us what the troops were in her area and we’d sign her up. But when I got there, I found that there are no troops in the area looking for girls. All the troops are full. So if I want my kid to be in scouts, I need to help start a troop.
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What a crazy, crazy year.

It started in March when we did a major remodel of the common areas of the house. Now we have this amazing, fantastic kitchen and hardwood floors everywhere except the bathrooms. That got us through the end of the school year at which point we discovered that Matthew had to go to summer school. At the time I was glad because we had talked about paying for some academic programs over the summer to help him in areas he was weak in and now he was going to get that for free. Plus, we figured it would make an impression on him. What we hadn’t taken into consideration is that summer school is skewed towards the rougher elements in our school district. If I’d been thinking about protecting Matthew from gangs and drugs, I might have had second-thoughts about the entire process. However, in the end, the experience did leave a lasting impression on Matthew and I think it was good for him overall to see what life is like if you don’t take school seriously.
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Several of the racers and interviewers on Cold Pizza were seen wearing my buttons!

Kevin and Drew were happy to wear the “Shave Head” buttons for obvious reasons. I was nervous about it, but Brandon and Nicole also loved the “Shave Head” buttons. I also gave a “Colin Camp” button to Christie and Colin. Both buttons were then seen on TV during a Cold Pizza segment.

In this picture you can see both the “Shave Head” button and a button created by miri of TARflies Times quoting something Drew and Kevin said in the original TAR.

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