Another Reason I Think Facebook Should Be Sainted

I think we all know by now how much I love Facebook. It has reconnected me with old friends and family. But what it has also done is introduce me to family that I haven't met. Like Amy. Mutual family members led me to her and I'm so glad it happened! When I found out she also blogged, I was giddy. You can learn a lot about a person on Facebook, but on a blog there's a lot more. Can I just say, she amazes me. She and her family run an orphanage in Africa. Her daily life is so vastly different from mine that I read in complete awe.

Recently in reading I found out she's coming to the states on a fundraising trip. To Texas!! I typed a comment so fast that I had to re-type it three times because I kept messing up. I get to meet her soon! Shawn completely understands my desire and has told me I can drive anywhere to meet her. I love that man! I'm just waiting for her to get her schedule and let me know when and where.

Until then I'm on the edge of my seat in anticipation.

And yes, I do think Facebook should be sainted!

The Spam, oh the spam

I don't have one of those captcha thingies on my blog. I don't like to enter them because my brain wants to make it a word and I usually don't get it right on the first try. But can I say, with the spam that is overtaking my life, I see the reasoning behind them. I get at least one spam comment on my blog each day. I have been offered discount prescriptions, computer programs, real estate, and today, French cheese! French cheese? Like I would every mail order that.

But it's not just on my blog, it's in my inbox also. I have two e-mail addresses, one for all those times you have to give someone an address, ordering online, checking out at Bath & Body Works. I check it about once a month and delete 500 and forward 10 to my real address. I give my real address to the people I know and love, like you all. If you comment or send me a direct e-mail it comes right to the good address. That's because I love you all more than I love my dog.

But here's a sampling of the stuff I've received lately.

Deactivation Of Your Webmail Account COX.NET Kindly note that We
recently did some upgrade on our database.

During the upgrade there was an unusual responds code from your
email address requesting for deactivation.

Verify to deactivate or keep your email account active.Inorder to verify/
confirm your email identity, You are to provide the following data;

CONFIRM YOUR EMAIL IDENTITY BELOW.

Name:_
___________________________
Last Name:_____________________________

User ID:________________________

Email Pword:________________________

Account Deactivation:___NO______________(specify yes to deactivate. No

tokeep active)

Reason for Deactivation__N/A___________()
your response should be send to the admin manager

Warning!!! in failure to verify your email account within 24hrs on receiving this notification, your account will automatically be deactivated

Thank you for using our Webmail COX.NET ACCOUNT

warning Code: ASP803hd
Kind regards,
The webmail serviceTeam Management.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
To complete your COX.NET webmail account, you must reply to this email
immediately and enter your Password here ()This message is from
COX.NET messaging center to all COX.NET email account owners. We
are currently upgrading our data base and e-mail account centre.We are
deleting all unused COX.NET email accounts to create more space for
new accounts.To prevent your account from being closed, you will have to
update it below so that we will know that it's a present used account.
CONFIRM YOUR EMAIL IDENTITY BELOW

Email Username :
EMAIL Password:

Date of Birth:Country or Territory : Warning!!! Account
owner that refuses to update his or her account within 7 days

------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Friend,
Good Day,
Please kindly accept my apology for sending you this email without your consent. I believe you are a highly respected personality, considering the fact that I sourced your email from
the peoples search database on the web during my discrete search for a foreign partner whom can assist me in taking this business to it success. Though, I do not know to what extent you are familiar with events. I have a proposal for you.This however is not mandatory nor will I in any manner compel you to honor against your will, but I hope you will read on and consider the value I offer.My name is Mr Xiery Kabore, I am Audit Manager in BOA Bank Of Africa. I have a business proposal in the tune of US$10.5m to be transferred to an offshore account with your assistance if willing.After the successful transfer, we shall share in ratio of 40% for you and 60% for me. Should you be interested, please respond to my letter immediately,so we can commence all arrangements and I will give you more information on the project and how we would handle it.You can contact me on my private email:( kaborr@ymail.com) and my private number 00226 7860 9441 ,and send me the following information for documentation purpose:
Full name:
private phone number:
current residential address:
Occupation:
Age and Sex:
I look forward to hearing from you
Best Regards,
And God Bless
Mr Xier yzard
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

See what I mean?? And Mr Xier yzard?? Oh good grief, I think we all know that's not a real person. The first two I thought were interesting because I do have Cox e-mail but I don't think they'd send an e-mail without their logo somewhere on it.

Do these people have nothing better to do with their lives?

Anyone else having Spam problems?

And I don't mean the congealed meat. That's a different problem all to itself.

Weekend of McKinley-Part 1

Here we go with Part 1. Don't check back tomorrow looking for Part 2, it's already been written. I know, I know. But when have I ever made sense.

Our middle school has a banquet every year for the school. Everyone can attend for only $10. There's food, entertainment, and fun for all. Of course for girls...it costs more than $10. The dress, the nails, the hair, the shoes. It can certainly add up. Since I take McKinley to the local beauty college it is cheaper, but still, $20 could buy me 20 days of Sonic drinks!

Kidding.

Sort of....

We lucked out with the dress at the first store. It has been worn for an honor choir, Christmas piano recital, Christmas voice recital, and now the banquet. I'm getting the $27 worth of value out of it by golly. I found a hairdo on Babes in Hairland and she vetoed it right away. I tried what she wanted and it just wasn't possible with the multiple layers in her hair. Without okaying it with her I did what I had wanted. She loved it! We added a flower because it had a bit of a bare spot. With the flower no one even knew. We both did her makeup and she slipped into the dress.

We met with some friends at one of the girls' houses and 200 pictures later we headed to the banquet.

Here are a few of my favorites.

She was so glad to have an adjustment at the orthodontist in the week before so she could match her rubber bands to her dress.Isn't it cute?? I was so impressed with myself. I did my own thing on the twists near the front but got the idea from the same website.With six cameras pointed at them there was no way to get a picture with everyone looking. Still beautiful though!I think I took a picture of McKinley with every girl one on one but this has to be my favorite. Maybe since Becca is like my own.We finally made it to the banquet and it was so cute! It's an incredibly dark room and the fun colors and lights everywhere made it perfect.Michael Jackson performs every year without fail. Following his death this year we were all surprised when the music started and out he came. He still has all his moves.My favorite part though had to be the 8th grade slide show. It shows their baby picture and current. The baby picture is shown for a few seconds alone and when the current picture shows the crowd reacts in the funniest ways. Since a teacher and former student did the show this year she made it more interesting. Since our school is 100 she thought it would be fun to showcase the parents who went to our school.

Soooo.....here's me!! That's me of course in the black and white picture in my choir uniform and McKinley in her show choir uniform. Pardon the blurriness. I had on my telephoto lens which makes me shake a bit.We lost a teacher this year to a horrible accident and he was honored. I don't think there was a dry eye in the place. His wife, two of their four children, and his dad were sitting close to me and I was overcome with their emotion.And then, surprise! Me again. The girl on the left is the mom of Evan, Reagan's betrothed. She has changed quite a bit and was not pleased to see this. I've always thought she was beautiful!A few more pictures after the banquet were of course necessary.And because they hadn't had enough fun yet, we headed to Pink Swirls, a local frozen yogurt bar. They don't allow pictures in there because of competitors but they let me snap this one.But then something happened. A good song came on the radio. The group of girls got up and started having a dance party! I was so worried we'd be kicked out but instead the staff turned the music up, joined the dance party, and took pictures for their bulletin board!I'm so glad McKinley wasn't bothered that I wanted to experience all of this with her. She has never minded that I go to the banquet and sit at the back to take it all in. I'm also glad her friends like me and think I'm cool. I would have hated to miss this evening!

Even though I took some beautiful pictures of all the pretty girls this is still my absolute favorite from the whole evening! And since I'm not smart enough to own my new Droid phone I took this video sideways. I know, good grief. It also took me 20 minutes and Shawn's help to get it from my phone to my computer. But I learn from my mistakes!

Sometimes...

Can You Hear The Angels Singing??

I submitted the yearbook today!!

I have my life back.

56 full color pages.

350 books for sale.

700 students.

28 teachers.

25 support staff.

2 tired but very happy editors.

I am in love with black circles.

Cue the angels.

And good night.

The Weekend of McKinley-Day 2

You can stop looking for Day 1. It hasn't been written yet. I honestly thought I could get two days worth of pictures on one post. I must have been crazy. But since I'd started with Sunday's events I just thought I should finish. And yes, I know most of you wouldn't know which day what happened...but I would and it would forever bother me.

So here we go, Day 2.

Since McKinley didn't want to audition for Junior High All-State this year, but had to, I came up with a reward system. There were three auditions she had to go through. She started working on the music in July. Three songs had to be memorized, one in English, one French, and one Latin. For each of the auditions two songs were chosen and 16 bars from each one. After two visits to the listening room to hear the cuts, she had to go into a room by herself and sing for the judges. Knowing how nerve racking that is, and knowing she didn't want to do it, I felt like rewards were in order. I told her for each audition she made it through she would get a $25 gift card to a clothing store of her choice. After she made it through the second one she told me she didn't want the money. I was shocked and thought I was going to be saving myself some money! Then she told me her idea.

She wanted to take some friends to Yamato Japanese Steakhouse. So for each successful audition, one friend got to come. When she successfully made the All State Choir she was thrilled that three friends would be coming. But then we found out that after you move into your hotel room, after you've travelled to the town where the choir met, you had to audition once more. Didn't know your music, didn't get to stay. +1 more friend!

Shawn got called in to the hospital at the last minute so it was me with the girls. What a lovely group, don't you think?

When one ordered a mocktail, they all decided to have them.This by far was the best part of the whole experience. They startled other diners with their screaming. And the chef did this three times.The chef was wonderful with them. He let one get up and try to throw the utensils around. It was hilarious! Then he let them throw the eggs for the Fried Rice around.

Surprisingly we only lost one.

Doesn't our lunch look delicious?After we were stuffed I was told I would be taking them somewhere for group pictures. Considering the 200 I'd taken the day before (which you haven't seen yet) I thought my shooting finger would be getting a little break. But no. We picked our favorite place and set off.

They had so much fun setting up the poses and took a model one first followed by one where I forced them to smile.

Here's a few of my personal favorites.
Look at Emily on the left. Hello model! I told her that since I'd discovered her I would need 10% of her future earnings. I think that's fair, don't you?I just love McKinley's friends. And they all think I'm very cool:o)

Paige came to our school two years ago and since she's also a singer she and McKinley hit it off. Three years of out of town trips for Children's All State Choir sealed the deal. I think we have finally talked Paige into trying out next year so McKinley doesn't have to do it all alone. Her little brother is Kennedy's age and adorable. Both families would be fine with something happening between them in the future.Emily came to our school in third grade and she and McKinley have been friends ever since. She also attends our church so they are together all the time. I have never met a more genuinely beautiful girl. Not just on the outside. She is sweet, kind, and loving. I love the example she sets for others. She also has an adorable 5th grade brother that I would also approve of.Becca, oh Becca. McKinley met Becca at age 1 1/2 when we moved here and they met in the church nursery. They are so comfortable with each other it's like they're sisters. They both can join the opposite family for a weekend and nothing changes, they just fit right in. In the last two years their activities at school have been completely opposite and they haven't spent as much time together but they can pick up right where they left off. I consider her one of my own. The fact that her family lives two doors south of us just makes life better.Kaylynn and McKinley have had a rough three years but are becoming friends now. I can't wait to see where this friendship goes from here.They can learn from this picture though. All you need is love. Love is all you need.I'm so proud of you Sweet Pea!