arrrrrgh!!!!

i'm i to be tortured alllllll week? so i reset my clock...and the effiecient clock that it is....it reset itself.....so, i missed my morning workout.....i keep waking up thinking it's one time....and it's another.......i'll be crazy by next sunday.......then, it probably WON'T change...

what time is it??????

what happens when you are sooooooo organized that you even have an automatic clock? i'll tell you...when it "used" to be the day that daylight savings ended......it still changes.....and when you wake up late anyway.....well...you know the rest.....didn't quite make it to church...until the 3rd hour....oh well....next week...same time...same station?

late last night when i was home in bed....

malibu
san diego


remember that song? i used to love it...well, actually it would now be "late last night when i was in slc...." it was then that california decided to burn up! and it burns and burns....i've lived here for almost 30 years and we have fires every year...but, i think that this one takes the cake...right by my house was the malibu fire..it burned down a huge castle that has been there forever....up north is the casitas fire, the magic fire, down south by kelly's is the irvine fire, her neighborhood was actually evacuated on sunday....then, farther south is the whole of san diego, which seems to be on fire...then, there is the lake arrowhead fires...it's crazy....smoky...hard to drive anywhere....it's also really HOT! not because of fire, just the temp...it was 100 degrees today...and very dry...sort of that suck it in because you can't breathe feeling...yesterday, i flew in from utah and it was crazy to see all the smoke from the air...so, say your prayers for all of those in need...and a big thanks to the firefighters out there fighting the fires..hopefully, the "hot time in the old town" will be over really soon.....

it might not be the Matterhorn, but it felt like it!

shawn, kelly and kerry
kerry and dan (he's the leader and russ' best friend)


on saturday i had one of the biggest physical challenges that i've done for many, many years...the plan was to climb mt. boney and scatter my brother in law's ashes on one of his favorite sites...i was not going to go at first, thought i would stay home and tend the babies...but, then i thought, i should go in uncle russ' memory...i've climbed halfway up in early years...way earlier...but, i thought, i can do this..so we ( me, my kids, kelly and jeff, russ and kerry, my sister in law, reilley and her son shawn and our friend danny) started off at 6 am...it had rained the night before, it was muddy, slick, dark...when the light came it was foggy and misty, which turned out great, because it was cool...so, we walked and hiked and climbed on and on...i was at the end of the group...way far away from the rest...wondering if i was on the right trail, thinking what have i done...i will be wandering forever...FINALLY, after hours of hiking we got to the top...then, we walked down the ridge a bit to this ledge, that i guess on a clear day you can see the ocean...that's where we scattered the ashes...it was a special moment to think of him and rembember his life..then we started down on the SHORTCUT, wow, what a way to go...it was down the face of the mountain...sliding down slick mossy rock, crumbly rock (i'm thinking, where is willie? he's the one that likes to rock climb..alas, he and kelly k couldn't come), at one point it was the rock on one side and poison oak on the other...so i was clinging to the rock....and boy did my thighs hurt..and my toes!!!! .then, you get off the face....and you still have to hike out!!! from this outting i learned many things....the main one is...just keep putting one foot in front of the other...just as in life...sometimes it's better to not look up and see the big picture..just keep those feet moving...you can't give up...so, no matter how long it takes (in my case 8 and1/2 hours), you have to do it...you have to endure to the end..you might fall or stumble...but, you have to pick yourself up again and keep walking...life is like this hike, we sometimes can run up the mountain (my kids, not me) and sometimes we trudge (me), but, we all get there...sometimes you need help from others (russ and kelly helped me alot coming down), you sometimes give help along the way ( not me, i just took alot of help)....we all need encouragement and love (everyone kept giving me ALOT of encouragement)..and in the end....it is all worth it!!! when you accomplish something that is so far out of your realm(this was it for me)...it makes you really proud of yourself....and you can think of that when the next hurdle comes along.... so for all of you out there...trudging along the path....just keep moving those feet...one step at a time!!!

we're all different

gav and his turkish friends

kerry's home for a long weekend which is really great...today we went to see the show sydney white...it was a cute, silly little show, the point of it being that she takes on the "popular, mean girl".....but, what i thought was really good was that through the hardships sydney had in not being accepted by the "in" crowd, she made alot of friends with people that were out of her circle...she learned about different people and even though they were different, she realized that they could be friends...she learned the importance of accepting others no matter what they are like...i think that's such a good lesson and i know i've written about friends before, but i do believe it's an important topic to think about...so, as we go through our lives we meet people, become friends...and usually you end up with a group of friends that are "like" you...which is great...it's fun to have friends that think like yourself...but, it's also fun to have friends that are different...we can learn so much from people that are different...it really opens up your life...that's another reason blogging is so much fun....we get to know alot of people....their views, their values, how they live....it helps you grow...it broadens our lives to make us better people.....so hopefully, wherever we are in our lives...we will be open to others...we will smile at others, say hi to those people we pass everyday, whether it's at class, at the store, at the gym...have a party to introduce your old friends with your new..make your circle just a little bit bigger....it will make your life a more interesting adventure....

torture time

tom and marty plotting even then
didn't think those sweet faces had it in them
waiting for me to show up to tease
wishing for a new sister to tease
you'd never know by looking at them, they look so sweet!


i was reading my niece gabi's blog and she mentioned my sister and brother and how they used to tease me...brought back aloooooot of memories...being the youngest in a family of 4 kids made me the obvious target....and they sure did....i think i cried and cried and cried as a kid...to this day when kids are teasing others it sort of "sends" me....but, on the other hand...it made me tough after about 20 years...and then i got a new teaser.....tom! some of the more memorable times were....being told that i had an orange head...it was the back of my head and of course if i looked in a mirror...it would not be there...my brother tom, pointing his finger at me and laughing silently...even when he did it under the table...i knew he what he was doing....and i would cry...then, when we did the dishes, he would whip me with the wet towels...polly had "torture time"....that was when i got to smell her feet for a 100 years....or be tickled for another 100 years..another fun time was when they all wrapped me in alot of different blankets and i had to find my way out...the thing of it is.....i went along with it..i was pretty naive..i know i cried...but, i also let them do it....i think i knew that even though they were teasing, that they loved me...it wasn't malicious....it was what kids seem to do to other kids....we often show our love in a not so loving way...and it seems to be a built in trait....just the other day...gavin was doing something to owen and kelly said, that owen has learned to cry even before gavin does anything to bug him....i know the kids are home when i hear kerry yell "RUSSELLLLL" in a not so happy way....but it is that tortureous love that makes a close in a way that we all seem to love...i used to tell the kids that when they were teased by other kids especially ones of the opposite sex that it was probably because that person liked them.....so hopefully we can all deal with our "torture times" and realize that they are just showing their love for us...(and i know that you guys (m,t, and p) loved me enough to tease)......so, who did you used to tease and torture?

fun music

i was reading kelly's blog and she was talking about some music she liked, then read some comments and one mentioned the ipod commercials...i think those are always fun, so i went to watch them...thought you might enjoy them also...they are just fun and crazy...make me wish i could dance like that...enjoy!!

iPod Ad - Walkie Talkie Man

New Apple iPod + iTunes Ad: Flathead by The Fratellis

Jet iPod commercial

not cupcakes!!!

i just read an article that people are trying to ban cupcakes from school! what is wrong with people? i don't usually get on my high horse...but, come on!!! CUPCAKES??? it's because everyone is so worried that kids are getting overweight, not excercising...what bothers me is that people want to regulate it....why do we have to have a law for everything? why don't we just be in control of ourselves and if we think that the cupcake has too much sugar...then, don't eat it! no one is forcing you...it just drives me crazy!!!! why do we have to have laws for so many dumb things? and i realize that people do stupid things...so, they ban cupcakes, but, how many of those parents are out drinking? or smoking?i think it's funny, that in the article, bakers from "across the atlantic" as they put it, are "perplexed" that we are having this problem...i totally agree...i'm very perplexed... i understand that we want our children healthy..but, one cupcake will not hurt you...it's better than eating a whole cake!

Here are the 2 articles:

Should cupcakes be banned?

I love cupcakes. LOVE them! I never really cared about them until I became pregnant, at which point, during my third trimester, I developed a craving for them. This turned into an obsession, which, once the baby was born, put cupcakes squarely into my life where they belonged.

My son is 6 months old, so I wouldn't be aware of the alarming -- and growing -- trend of banning cupcakes in schools. I get where the banners are coming from. Cupcakes are bad for you. They're made of sugar and butter and all those delicious things that I think it would ultimately sad to deprive our kids of.

But, I get where the banners are coming from. Start kids with sweets now and they could end up as obese kids soon enough, and obese adults later.

Still, I agree with the sentiment of a recent New York Times article. In it cupcakes are likened to apple pie. Some consider them to be the new definition of Americana.

Reading this article I thought about all the opportunities I had to eat cupcakes when I was growing up. Most of the time I declined them -- after all, even at a young age I knew they were bad for me, full of sugar and butter. They became the enemy. Well, frenemy -- special occasions merited a bite or two.

My grandmother never made cupcakes. She made pies, the old edible ideal of Americana. Reading about cupcakes made me wish she had.

What's interesting to me is that in the article the banning of cupcakes from classrooms is discussed, but so is the backlash. I think it's a pretty sweet fight.



Ideas & Trends
Don’t Even Think of Touching That Cupcake

By SARAH KERSHAW
Published: September 23, 2007
THE cupcake is at something of a crossroads. Edible icon of Americana, frosted symbol of comfort and innocence, it may not have faced such an identity crisis since first appearing in cookbooks sometime in the 18th century.

Mario Zucca
As we know, cupcakes have had a whopping resurgence: they are retro-food chic, the thing to eat for people in the know.

But cupcakes have also recently been marched to the front lines of the fat wars, banned from a growing number of classroom birthday parties because of their sugar, fat and “empty calories,” a poster food of the child obesity crisis. This was clear when children returned to school this month to a tightening of regulations, federal and state, on what can be served up between the bells.

And it has led some to wonder whether emotional value, on occasion, might legitimately outweigh nutritional value.

Schools trying to bring parents to the table in efforts to root out fat and sugar have faced what Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition at New York University who strongly supports limiting sweets in schools, calls “the cupcake problem.”

When included on lists of treats that parents are discouraged or forbidden to send to school — and when those policies are, say, put to a vote at the P.T.A. — “cupcakes are deal breakers,” Professor Nestle said. “It sounds like a joke, but it’s a very serious problem on a number of levels. You have to control it.”

While the merits of banning goodie bags filled with Reese’s and Skittles seem obvious — especially at a time when the risk of childhood diabetes is high for American children — many parents draw the line at cupcakes.

This could have something to do with the fact that in the modern age, the cupcake may be more American than apple pie — “because nobody is baking apple pies,” Professor Nestle explained.

The confection is so powerfully embedded in the national consciousness — and palate — that its future is quite possibly the only cause to unite Texas Republicans and at least some left-wing foodies behind a singular mission: keep the cupcake safe from harm.

“I think the wholesale banning of parents’ bringing cupcakes as a legal issue is over the top,” said Rachel Kramer Bussel, a former sex columnist for The Village Voice who founded the Web site “Cupcakes Take the Cake” three years ago.

The Texas Legislature agreed, in spirit, when it passed the “Safe Cupcake Amendment,” in 2005, in response to new federal child nutrition guidelines and lobbying from parents outraged by the schoolroom siege on cupcakes.

After the amendment passed, a blogger on Homesick Texan wrote: “i don’t think it necessarily warrants all the hubbub, or the intervention of legislature to intervene on behalf of the cupcake. ... but then, another part of me is screaming ‘CUPCAKES!!!’ because they just make people happy.”

Hillary Clinton perhaps was aware of this when on David Letterman’s show recently she listed as No. 9 of her Top 10 campaign promises, “Each year on my birthday everyone gets a cupcake.”

As Ms. Kramer Bussel, who organizes monthly cupcake meet-ups in New York City, said, “If you bring cupcakes to a party, you are so popular.”

Until the late 1990s, the cupcake often shared the mental dessert pantry with canned peaches and ambrosia; it was nostalgia food, mom-in-an-apron food, happy food.

But then cupcakes took a very chic turn. Trend-setting bakeries like Magnolia, the Greenwich Village cupcake empire, arrived on the scene; by 2005, a parody music video on “Saturday Night Live,” which was later viewed more than five million times on YouTube, included the lyrics, “Let’s hit up Magnolia and mack on some cupcakes.”

And now the new cupcake, having drifted so far from Betty Crocker, is facing fierce competition from the retro cupcake, which is the new, new cupcake that is really the old cupcake.

Americans still find time to whip up some batter and slide a tray in the oven. It’s easy, and the appeal is multifaceted. Cupcakes are portable, cute and relatively inexpensive. They are also “feminine and girlie,” Ms. Kramer Bussel said, so the majority of cupcake bakers and fans are women.

Cupcake is a term of endearment, but it can also be a rather mean-spirited word. “Cupcake teams” in sports are said to be soft and easily crushed. As food, though, cupcakes are democratic; everyone gets one. And they are libertarian; individual and independent compared with communal cakes, which may not have enough slices for everyone.

Across the Atlantic, where cupcakes have become increasingly popular in the last few years, some bakers said they were perplexed by word of an American cupcake crackdown.

“Over here people think it’s a bit like this innocent cake,” said Jemma Wilson, owner of Crumbs and Doilies, a new cupcake bakery in London. “And it seems more dignified and civilized to eat one portion, unless you kind of eat 10, which obviously happens a lot.”

A sub-debate within the cupcake debate has revolved around whether the meaning of cupcakes has been lost — and it’s not pretty.

Can the cupcake loyalist support the sale of a chocolate Guinness cupcake with green-tea cream-cheese frosting? Has the cupcake been stolen from the people by the baking aristocracy?

For a sense of how charged the subject is, consider what happened in July, when Magnolia Bakery, having vaulted to fad status by an appearance on “Sex and the City,” was briefly shut down by the city health department for not having enough sinks at its Greenwich Village establishment.

“At last!” said a blogger posting on Eater.com. “We neighbors get relief from cupcakistas who don’t realize Duncan Hines makes better-tasting cupcakes.”

After a long debate thread, another blogger wrote, “You people need to go back to the suburbs ... Seriously, bunch of grown up New York City residents obsessing over a cupcake shop. I miss the gunfire and crackheads.”