And I wore Wonder Woman Underoos!

This may be all-time favorite forward. Every one of these really strikes a chord with me. I wish I had my childhood pics at the house, because you guys would really get a kick out of me with my ribbon and bead barrettes, my Barbie Big Wheel, and in my Bo Duke nightgown! Enjoy!

IF YOU WERE A LITTLE GIRL IN THE 70'S *

You had that Fisher Price doctor's kit with a stethoscope that actually worked. And the shot. And the blood pressure cuff. And yep, I played doctor with a boy named Shaylor once. Sorry, mom.

You owned a bicycle with a banana seat and a plastic basket with flowers on it. No basket, but my red bike did have a horn and a red flag.

You learned to skate with actual skates (not roller blades!) that had metal wheels. And puffy pom poms tied to the laces!

You had either a "bowl cut" or "pixie", not to mention the "Dorothy Hamill". I thought bowl cut and the Dorothy Hamill was the same cut?? Anyway, I had it!

Your Holly Hobbie sleeping bag was your most prized possession. Actually I had the Wonder Woman sleeping bag - it was green outside and had red lining - classic - I think it's still in my parent's garage.

You got kicked out of the room when your parents had their adult friends over for Dallas-viewing parties on Friday nights. Just me? My friend Kimberly's parents would never let us watch with the adults!

You begged Santa for the electronic memory game, Simon.

You had the Donnie and Marie dolls with those pink and purple satiny shredded outfits. I'd forgotten about these! My best friend and I also played Donnie and Marie by singing into opposite ends of my jump rope.

You spent hours in your backyard on your metal swing set with the trapeze. Actually I had a tire swing in my front yard. Every summer my dad re-taped the chains with the color electrical tape of my choosing! Loved that tire swing.

You had homemade ribbon barrettes in every imaginable color. With loads of beads, right?

You had a pair of Doctor Scholl's sandals (the ones with hard sole & the buckle). Also got a new pair of the thick soled brown "school shoes" with the laces every September. I hated those shoes with a passion.

You wanted to be Laura Ingall Wilder really bad. You wore that Little House on the Prairie-inspired plaid, ruffle shirt with the high neck in at least one school picture. I thought the show was just okay, and only got through a couple of the Little House books, but damn! I did wear one of those lame ruffly shirts on picture day!

You wanted your first kiss to be at a roller rink. Ours was called 8-Wheels in San Angelo. I think it's still open. Actually I hated the slow-skate, but give me some Donna Summer - whooooo baby!

Your hairstyle was described as having "wings" or "feathers" and you kept it "pretty" with the comb you kept in your back pocket. This didn't happen until the 80s for me, but the pics are just as horrid!

You know who Strawberry Shortcake is, as well as her friends, Blueberry Muffin and Huckleberry Pie.

You carried a Muppets lunch box to school and it was metal, not plastic. With the thermos inside!

You and your girlfriends would fight over which of the Dukes of Hazzard was your boyfriend. Always Bo for me (until he had the domestic assault issue with his girl - shattered by girlhood dreams forever!)

It was a big event in your household each year when the "Wizard of Oz" would come on TV. Your mom would break out the popcorn and sleeping bags!

You often asked your Magic-8 ball the question: "Who will I marry? Corey Haim, Sean Astin, or Ralph Macchio?"

You completely wore out your Grease, Saturday Night Fever, and Fame soundtrack record album. And Xanadu!

You tried to do lots of arts and crafts, like yarn and Popsicle-stick God's eyes, decoupage, or those weird potholders made on a plastic loom. My mom still has (somewhere) a macrame hanging plant holder. Sooo very 70s.

You made Shrinky-Dinks and those little colored crystal sun catcher ornaments.

You used to tape record songs off the radio by holding your portable tape player up to the speaker. Sometimes I recorded MTV, but aaaalways was there with my little recorder for Solid Gold! I still have a couple of those tapes, and it is funny to listen to them now because you can hear my dog Sugar barking in the background.

You had subscriptions to BOP and Tiger Beat.

You learned everything you needed to know about girl issues from Judy Blume books. Oh, and Where Did I Come From.

You thought Olivia Newton John's song "Physical" was actually about aerobics. I had a very religious friend and she and her mom took me to a record store for my birthday. I picked out ONJ's Physical album, and she said she wouldn't buy that one! That's the first time I ever realized it was about more than exercise. I had to start asking around at school to find out why it was so naughty!

You wore friendship pins on your tennis shoes, or shoelaces with heart or rainbow designs. I had a couple turtlenecks with hearts and rainbows on them too. And I wore cowboy boots with skirts before it was hot to do so. I was so not hot.

You wanted to be a Solid Gold dancer. Seriously. The one with the knee-length hair in fact. Is it too late?

* I deleted the statesments I thought were stupid (like having a crush on Gopher from Love Boat?!), and added a couple of my own. So if it's here, I did it, wore it, or loved it!

Risky situations

I taught the 7th lesson of my 22-session cognitive skills class tonight. So far, the group has done very well - for the most part they pay attention and participate in discussions and do their assignments. It appears that things have been clicking up to this point.

But tonight, they just didn't get it. Last week we talked about identifying thoughts and feelings (mind you this is a group of youthful criminal offenders, not PhD candidates). Anyway, tonight's lesson was to follow up by identifying the RISK in those thoughts and feelings that have the potential to lead them into trouble.

The group had the hardest time grasping the idea of risk. They could pick out the most prominent thought or emotion, but they couldn't comprehend that some of those ideas, if followed through, would create additional problems in their already complicated lives!

I was really bothered by that. Have been worrying about it for the past couple hours -- what did I say wrong? what didn't I explain adequately? were my examples not clear? were they just not listening? ((how do you teachers do it?!!)) -- but I finally got it. If they were able to identify risk as well as the rest of us in the free world, they wouldn't have gone to jail in the first place! Okay. So we'll talk some more about risk next week, then start working on new thinking to replace the risky thinking. I have faith, I think they'll get it soon enough.

Book game, revisited

Weird, weird, weird.

I had yesterday off for President's Day. I slept late, had pancakes and coffee for breakfast, and was glued to the tube watching re-runs of Project Runway all morning. For some reason, I felt like googling memes, but I couldn't find anything I liked. I remembered a book meme that I'd done back in the day. For some reason I couldn't find it on my blog search, but found plenty of links to it (it seemed to take on a life of it's own!!), and finally traced it back to last February, and would you guess, I'd posted it on President's Day exactly one year ago! Crazy!

Anyway, here it is again. No tagging. But it is yours to comment on or re-post on your blog as you please.

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
5. Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.

Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki:
The price of the 30-unit apartment building in Phoenix was $875,000 with $225,000 down. The cash flow from the 30 units was a little over $5,000 a month. The Arizona market began moving up and, in 1996, a Colorado investor offered us $1.2 million for the property.

The braid makes you ... blegh!

I'll spare you a picture on this post... for now*

I saw a commercial this weekend that both cracked me up and made me throw up in my mouth a little bit, all within the same 30 second clip.

Honestly I was so shocked, that I don't even recall the brand name of the product (so much for marketing!), but here's the slogan: THE BRAID MAKES YOUR BRAVE. Think on it a second. The Braid. Makes you Brave.

You may need a little assistance on this one, because honestly, it is a little vague without the visuals. But, the "braid" refers to, well, a tampon string. Yeah, seriously. This is a tampon commercial.

So evidently when a young lady wears this tampon with a pretty braid (vs the one with just a regular old non-braided cord) she magically transforms into a more confident, courageous, and adventurous woman. Fascinating.

* P.S. I did find some interesting pics I could post here, but I know not all of you, guys especially, have a strong stomach for this kind of thing... But if you are up for it... Click here, then 3rd from the bottom click on "The Thank God I Started Tampon". Man, oh man.

My cloud

I found this fun little project on Darth's blog. You can experience the fun too!

Picture pages, picture pages

This was my attempt at Valentine's Day on a budget. A good bottle of merlot from our favorite wine bar, La Diosa, and hand dipped chocolate covered oreos (with icing - baking clearly isn't my calling!)




And here is the gorgeous Valentine's bouquet that TBF had delivered to my office yesterday - stargazer lilies, some little purple lilies, mini white rose buds, snap dragons, carnations - all in pinks and purples, my favorite.


So while I was had the camera at my office today, I thought I'd snap a few more pics and share my 8-5 world with you guys...






The top poster reads:

SERENITY
Of all the gifts of creation,
Perhaps the greatest is the gift of Serenity.

On a lighter note, the bottom one (stolen from a 2005 calendar) reads:

PROCRASTINATION
Hard work often pays off over time,
But procrastination pays off now.

If you've somehow missed demotivators, you must check out this website asap. They are absolutely hilarious and so so true!



This is a handpainted angel that a co-worker made for a silent auction we had last Christmas. I know it's so cheesy, but she makes me smile! She faces my desk (my offenders don't have to look at her), and whenever things aren't going so well, I just take a few minutes, take a deep breath, and enjoy her simplicity... and that sexy heart tattoo on her leg! :)

I wonder what it says that I was the only bidder? And I got her for $5? Oh, shut it. I said she makes me smile!





This is my filing cabinet, the mirror where I do my eyeliner and mascara on most mornings (because I refuse to do mascara in the car, and lord knows I can't get up any earlier in the morning!), and my favorite plant.

I was given this ivy by a secret pal 4 years ago. And yes, it is not only still alive, but flourishing! But... my plant doesn't have a name. Does he/she need one?

Oh, and see the business card holder? It was made by a coworker's retired father - black iron star with a silver State of Texas medallion. Very cool.




And this is where things tend to get a little messy. Dell computer, phone, paperwork to be filed, coffee pot, kleenex, another calendar, a million lists, a zillion sticky notes, picture frames of loved ones, clock radio, oh, and another one of my favorite sayings:

DO
all the good you can ~
by all the ways you can,
in all the places you can
at all the times you can,
to all the people you can
as long as ever you can.
- John Wesley

Ahhh, the life of a probation officer. Now you know.

Angel crossing

I freakin' LOVE Grey's Anatomy. I cried like three times tonight. I thought George sweet talking Dr Bailey into having the baby was the best. Love it.

---

I volunteered with our local crisis team last night, as I do one weekend night per month. It's a fun experience, riding around with another counselor in an unmarked cop car (no lights though) with the police computer and dispatch radios. Our purpose it to attend to crisis calls after the police take care of arrests etc - providing initial crisis counseling primarily for victims of domestic abuse, but also to family members after auto accidents, homicides or suicides, etc. Fortunately we don't have a ton of these kind of calls, so we spend a good deal of the night driving around town, and dropping in on any other calls that sound interesting or entertaining.

So last night about 12:30am we got a call about what sounded like a "woman in an angel costume" walking down the street. Really? A costume? This ain't October! We were only about 6 blocks away, so we headed that direction. And sure enough...

A pretty young woman stumbling toward an extremely busy intersection wearing flowy white pants, a white tank top, no shoes, and yes, white feathery angel wings. We drove behind her as she walked to try to avoid her getting splattered by the Saturday night traffic. The police cruisers showed up about 3 minutes later to question her.

Clearly, the girl was drunk, and she said she just needed a ride home (never got a chance to clarify from whence she came or exactly why she was barefoot and wearing an angel costume in the middle of February). I'm kinda sad that the rookie decided she had to go to jail last night for a PI.

Poor angel. I don't think it's very good karma to put an angel behind bars!

Blanket party

It's a cold and windy Saturday morning, so we are having a blanket contest.

Can you guess who's winning?




I've added two new friends today. Check them out when you have a few minutes:

Musical Ramblings. He's a DJ from Tennessee who's current on the music biz, and is a master of all things American Idol (great episode synopses, he even does interviews with the contestants!). My hero.

The Doggy Did It. A fellow Texas gal (although not originally, we like her anyway!) with a hubby, a kiddo, and a great sense of humor.

Snappy day

I woke up with this song in my head:

And I'll be back when the day is new,
and I'll have more ideas for you,
and you'll have things you want to talk about,
I will too.

Ah, good ol' Mister Rogers. I haven't seen him putting on his shoes and cardigan in ages, so I have no clue why this song popped into my head in the shower this morning, but there is was.

Wanna get another even peppier song stuck in your nogen today?
TRY THIS ONE.
Come on, sing it.
You know you want to.
You'll be snapping your fingers all day long!

Foot-blah

Had enough football already? Me too. It's only 3:30, the Superbowl is still hours away, and I'm already growing weary of the big announcer voices, roaring crowds and 1980s pigskin flashbacks.

So for me, something a little more girly today, thank you very much.

A Wedding.

TBF and I have finished up our counseling, and we're happy and eager to be back on the wedding wagon. We thought we'd be living in Austin by now, but even though we finally finished up school, our jobs have kept us in Lubbock a little longer than planned. It is almost as hard to plan a long distance wedding in Austin as in any other town, and I don't have any interest in getting married in Lubbock, so we've been brainstorming other possible wedding destinations.

Currently under consideration is Ruidoso, New Mexico. We go there at least twice a year to get away, and have always enjoyed the town. There are mountains, but it isn't terribly cold or too far away from most of our friends (unlike Colorado). It is inexpensive (unlike Austin). Ruidoso has plenty of affordable lodging and restaurants, but still has a small town homey feel (unlike Vegas). Plus it's a town already familiar to us, not someplace we'd have to struggle with as far as finding the florist and the bakery.

So, a Ruidoso wedding, perhaps??