He’s already breaking hearts November 10, 2007

Mike is the president of a dart league here in town. Since he is the president, he can do whatever he wants, like post pictures of his kid on their website CADA Darts 

Go to the site and scroll down to see Luke with his future girlfriend (who happens to be the daughter of the previous CADA president, and she’s a redhead!). When they met the first thing Luke did was lift her shirt. We’ve got to teach that boy some manners.

(I’ll put the picture here too in case he takes it down)

Luke Richmond and Abrielle Fountain

Carrots! November 9, 2007

This was our recent “New Food Tuesday” when Luke was introduced to carrots. As you can see, he enjoyed them thoroughly.

Oh, and the funny thing about eating is that he tries to suck his thumb in between each bite. It’s hilarious and super cute.

Knowing how we really feel, really November 9, 2007

I’m reading a book called “Blink – The Power of Thinking Without Thinking” Very interesting. It pointed me to www.implicit.harvard.edu, where you can complete a short exercise to see how you really feel about things. I took the ”Young – Old” IAT and discovered this about myself:

You have completed the Young – Old IAT.

Your Result

Your data suggest little to no automatic preference between Old and Young.

Thank you for your participation. Just below is a breakdown of the scores generated by others. Most respondents, even the elderly, find it easier to associate Old people with Bad and Young people with Good compared to the reverse.

Many of the questions that you answered on the previous page have been addressed in research over the last 10 years. For example, the order that you performed the response pairing is influential, but procedural corrections largely eliminate that influence (see FAQ #1). Each visitor to the site completes the task in a randomized order. If you would like to learn more about the IAT, please visit the FAQs and background information section.

You are welcome to try additional demonstration tasks, and we encourage you to register (easy) for the research site where you will gain access to studies about more than 100 topics about social groups, personality, pop culture, and more.

Dave Ramsey in Grand Rapids November 8, 2007

Dave Ramsey Live Event in Grand Rapids January 24th, 2008!

I have been trying to go to this for the last three years and this is the first year I don’t have a schedule conflict or the event hasn’t sold out before I got around to buying tickets. I’ve gotta make it this time!

Who’s coming with me???!!!???

MRSA November 8, 2007

Have you heard of this? I heard about it from one of my coworkers because her husband has it. He thought he was getting spider bites but it turns out it was this nasty, potentially fatal bacterial infection. He’s okay now but from reading this website it seems it could have been much more serious.

MRSA Infection

And here’s the interesting part:

Although the survival tactics of bacteria contribute to antibiotic resistance, humans bear most of the responsibility for the problem. Leading causes of antibiotic resistance include:

Unnecessary antibiotic use in humans. Like other superbugs, MRSA is the result of decades of excessive and unnecessary antibiotic use. For years, antibiotics have been prescribed for colds, flu and other viral infections that don’t respond to these drugs, as well as for simple bacterial infections that normally clear on their own.

I have said for years that I think many of my past health problems were in part due to doctors handing out antibiotics like candy when I was a kid. Heck, it even looked and tasted like candy. Antibiotics are useful in some cases, but a lot of times our bodies need to be left alone to build up our immunities. I have always been leary of antibiotics, which is why it pained me to give Luke antibiotics in his first week of life for his infected circumcision. (I know, I just posted an article about circumcision. I’m for it, yet because of it I had to give my son meds that I hate. Really though, it was so minor and we only gave him the meds for a couple days until the infection cleared up. They always tell you to finish the antibiotics even though your symptoms are clear. Why is that?)

Anyhoo, it sounds like a really nasty infection, this MRSA thing. And now my coworker thinks she has it. I’ll be steering clear. Yikes.

My Spartans November 7, 2007

My two handsome Spartans on Saturday before MSU lost the big game :( This was also before Mike played airplane with Luke. I know this because Mike had to change his shirt afterwards. Yes, Luke puked. Big time. Mike’s face was covered. I would have brought a towel a lot sooner had I not been laughing so hard. And Mike would have been laughing too had his face not been covered in regurgitated formula. They say it happens to every dad, and if dad learns his lesson it only happens once. Mike is generally good about learning his lesson but I’ve seen him playing airplane a few times since Saturday. I guess he figures it’s worth it. Luke loves the airplane game.

Ashley’s Baby Shower November 7, 2007

Kari and I had such a blast putting together a baby shower for our “little” sister, Ashley, and had even more of a blast at the party. I think everyone had a good time.

Can you believe Ashley is 9 months pregnant? She sure doesn’t look it.

It wouldn’t be a shower without games. We didn’t tell Ashley ahead of time that we were going to make her eat baby food, but she was a good sport as always. She thought all the flavors were disgusting except for the bananas. She wouldn’t even swallow the mac and cheese. I don’t think she’ll be feeding any of this stuff to little Gavin. Do like Kari and I have done and get yourself a $12 food grinder and feed him the real thing!

 

Kari is adding pastry chef to her repertoire and baked this beautiful cake. The frosting was amazing. I think I ate three pieces before the night was over!

To Cut or Not To Cut November 5, 2007

Making The Cut, a short article about the circumcision debate (a debate I was not aware of). I was actually discussing this with someone a few days ago. It’s an interesting topic I guess, but what struck me about the article (and many others like this) is that it seems to lack any real purpose. Skim through again. It’s purely useless information. They’re telling us how other people feel and giving us statistics on the decisions they have made. Why do we care about that? I finished reading the article thinking, “Hm, that’s interesting. Now what was the point?”

This is the way I feel about most “news.” It serves no purpose other than to entertain and it’s not the kind of entertaining that leaves you feeling warm and fuzzy. It’s a huge waste of time and usually leaves us feeling stressed or worried about things that we have no control over and won’t affect our lives in any significant way.  I am still puzzled at the need for channels like CNN. Do we really need all that information 24/7? It’s clutter of the mind, and you know the only real way to battle clutter is to not let it in in the first place.

My Favorite Spiderman Of All November 3, 2007

After all that talk of Halloween I still decided to be a good sport and put Luke in his costume. He was so adorable!! I took him up to the place where Mike was playing darts (he’s in a league, yeah). He was a big hit with the guys but he was mighty tuckered out by the end of the night.

Bring. It. On. November 2, 2007

My boss has been sick and it’s month end billing, so I’ve been doing triple duty at work. We have company coming tonight to stay for the weekend, I have dishes to wash and floors to vacuum. My sister’s baby shower is Sunday and I have cookies to bake and games to prepare. I have a lot going on in the next couple days but miraculously I have not been feeling stressed about it. It will all get done in due time and I have resolved to have fun in the process.

Just when I thought I had enough on my plate and the day couldn’t get any better, I got a surprise visit from you-know-who. Well, at least you ladies know. This is the second time she’s visited since I had the baby and I have to say I’m a bit out of practice. I feel like I’m in middle school again. The nice thing about my surgery last year is that now I have no more pain, but the down side is that the pain was my warning sign. Now I have no warning. No phone call, no e-mail, nothing. She just shows up! No worries though because I am woman, I am strong. Hear me roar!