techy teens a new level of rudeness!

I just wanted to show you this pic I took yesterday in my yard. If you click on the pic it will give you a bigger pic and you can see all the amazing details even better--unless you hate bugs, then it might just gross you out.



I almost stepped on this guy when I was walking the puppy. He sat so still that I thought he was dead at first but he was so beautiful that I ran and grabbed my camera. The way the sun was hitting his wings I could see all these different colors and designs. I guess I've never looked at one that close. So I got real close and snapped some pics and then he flew into my face and I screamed and ran around because he scared the bajeezies out of me. I swear, most of the times I look really stupid in public, is when I have my camera in my face!


Anyhoo, I couldn't believe that the pics turned out so nice with my crappy little camera. I boosted the colors a little on my photoshop thingie (you can tell I soooo know what I'm doing). The original pic was nice but it didn't show the colors that I was seeing in real life. Here's the original...


I was all proud of my bug picture, so I showed Tony. He said "You didn't take that mom! You stole that off the internet." Of course, I erased my photocard in my camera after I downloaded the pictures so I have no evidence that I really took it. There's nothing like talking to one of your teens when you're looking for a compliment. They will deliver a blow to your ego every time!

What I really meant to blog about this morning was my techy teens. I'm not bragging here. It's actually really annoying!

Last night I wanted to get on my computer to get caught up on some of my blog reading and to answer some emails (I'm sooo far behind because of the puppy poo duty). I find Tony, on my computer, facebook chatting with a bunch of people all at once and also on his phone texting.
If two people attempt to chat at me at once, it's like stimulus overload! I try keeping up but it feels like my head might explode.
Mac was "one up-ing" her brother. She was on facebook chatting to multiple people, talking on her phone, and texting all at the same time (when she gets a text she pulls the phone away from her face but continues to talk and reads her text).


After I kicked Tony off my computer, he got onto Bud's. Then, adding to all the ways he was communicating before, he started skyping.


I had a teen parenting "first" the other day.

Mac asked if I could give one of her friends a ride home. So I'm driving along, Mac is in the passenger seat and "the friend" is in the backseat and it is unusually quiet. I'm thinking to myself "this is strange", then I realize that they are texting back and forth!
It's the "new whispering behind the hand" as far as rudeness goes! I was actually really mad. They would throw out a comment here and there or giggle about the text they just sent, only to be even more annoying cryptic.

I started imaging pulling over and tossing both their butts out of my car!

Our parents had to teach us proper communicating etiquette. Such as, look someone in the eye when you talk to them, don't interrupt others when they are talking, don't mumble, ect. ect.
But now in this techy new world, I feel responsible to teach a whole new set of techy communicating etiquette rules that I don't even understand myself!

These are some that I came up with on my limited techy knowledge:
1. Don't text on your phone when you are having a "real" (face to face) conversation with someone else.
2. Don't text people who are with in talking distance from you! Talk like a normal human being! God gave you a voice! Use it! (sorry for all the "!" this really annoys me!!!!)
3. Don't use that "skyping" thingie unless absolutely necessary. It makes your voice sound like a robot and it's creepy.
4. Return texts promptly. If you can't then begin by apologizing why it took so long to get back to someone. No one likes to be ignored.

That's all I can come up with this morning on my two cups of coffee brain. I'd love to hear if anyone has any others to add. Especially my geeky friends out there (you know who you are) or my teen readers (they probably have the most insight) or my geeky teen readers (you know who you are too!) :)
Have a great day!

New readers! Yeah!

I love new readers!

I really love new readers who are young (like my kids age**Hi Sarah I.! Hi Katherine G.! Hi Laura Y.!**there are some others but, I don't want to embarrass them...)

I really, really love new readers who are young and know how to do fun computer stuff (dare I say, geeks? It's a big compliment in my book!) Welcome Caleb!

Caleb is a friend of my son Bud. He is the yahoo that I spoke of in this blog post

He is also pretty amazing with a camera and photoshop. I drool over his camera.

Caleb is just one of those all around great guys. The kind of guy who sees a problem and will help you fix it.


I was so thrilled when he read my post and saw the problem I have with my kids not smiling in pictures.


He came up with a great solution....photoshop!











I can just picture these framed above the mantle (so much better than a flat screen TV!)



Thanks Caleb! We all had a good laugh at these!

Have a great school year!

blogging love...

This blogging thing has definitely got me intrigued.
I feel like I'm such a newbie.
I've been spending time (a lot of time...shhh, don't tell my hubbie) looking around the blogosphere....can you say addicting?


There is clearly some kind of blogger etiquette....
I just haven't figured it out yet.


Like followers....I'd like some more of those.....please....
I know people are reading but how do you get them to "follow" you?


And to comment or not? That is the question....I don't want to seem like a stalker on some of the blogs I like to read everyday (cuz I don't know these people)....but I know I appreciate comments....and everyday (thank you Kim and Pam!!!!)


And I'm wondering if I put too much information out there. Is it safe? It would be pretty easy to figure out exactly where I live.....and what about my kids? While blog bouncing (someone give me the correct term...please!) I've noticed that lots of people refer to their kids by initials or by number or by nickname (it has to be nicknames or I'm really scared what people are naming their kids now a days). Should I go back and remove my kids real names?


I signed up for this service that I noticed a lot of the other blogs I've stumbled upon have. It's called Sitemeter. While I love that fact (and am encouraged to keep going) that I can see people are visiting my site, it is also a little disturbing. There is an area where I can see just how people found my blog....even the phrases they typed into google. Yikes! Lets just say my post on Cavalia part 3 has some interesting hits....and I thought that I was very vague in how I worded that post as to not attract any creepers....boy was I wrong! All it takes is a series of words to appear somewhat close together and bam you got freaks (mine was girl, innocent, and beautiful---oh great now they will get this post---go away creepers nothing for you on this lame little site!!!)



But there is definitely a tight blogging community. Lots of blog love passed around (I'm talking about encouragement and friendship). Because blogging can be a little scary. Writing something and putting it out there for everyone to see (my friend Pam likens it somewhat to giving birth). And I've never tried to write something for other people to read except some letters back in the olden days....before email, texting, and cell phones. But I've always wanted to try....and here there is a whole community of people who are willing to say 'hey I took a minute and read your post'....and that's pretty cool.

Anyways, I feel like I need some blog guru to guide me. I have so many questions....I'd be a good little minion....I swear.

Don't you forget about me....

I've been doing a lot of reminiscing lately about high school...

Maybe it's facebook and catching up with all these people that I haven't been in contact with in over 20 years.

Maybe it's because of my 40th birthday is looming right around the corner....can you say midlife crisis?

Maybe it's because my kids are at an age that I remember so well....and that is frightening in it's self.

Then I heard that John Hughes died this week. Talk about getting all nostalgic.
For better or worse John Hughes' movies shaped my teenage years.

He wrote and directed movies like Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Pretty in Pink, and many others. In the 80's these movies that were written from a teenagers point of view were pretty right on (well, maybe not Ferris Bueller's Day Off--that one was a little out there). Each movie a little bit of something that we could all relate to.

In Sixteen Candles I could relate to the character Samantha. Feeling awkward (didn't we all when we were teens?). Feeling misunderstood by my family and sometimes completely ignored (how I longed for a Brady Bunch moment when I would go to my room upset and my parents would come in and we could talk it out and have a happy ending in 30 minutes).Or the unrequited crush on the guy who didn't even know you existed. I even had an eerily similar incident as Sam when my grandmother "assessed" my "development" and discuss it loudly in front of all the extended family at Thanksgiving....oh! the horror! Of course Hughes movies had things that were over the top....like the exchange student Long Duk Dong....or the geek, Ted, being trapped in the coffee table all night. But that's part of what made them so fun to watch.

I didn't really care for the movie Pretty in Pink. I was crazy in love with Andrew McCarthy and hated his character in the movie. I actually rooted through out the movie for the main character Andie to end up with the geek Dukie Dale. He was head over heels in love with her the whole movie and so sweet, then gives her up at the end. Yuck. But the movie did a pretty good job showing how our friends and peers influence the choices we make.

The Breakfast Club, with a group of kids from different cliques in Saturday detention, taught us that we all have our insecurities and not so perfect home lives and how we all just want to fit in. That there is always more going on than what people see on the outside. It was all taught with humor, outrageous scenes and good music (or at least I thought so at the time).

Of course a lot of Hughes' movies were just plain silly, like Vacation, Home Alone, Weird Science, and Uncle Buck. I didn't realize all the movies he had either written or produced until I googled him after he died.

Too bad he's not around to make some coming-of-age movies for my up coming midlife crisis.

How about a movie about a 40ish mom who can't sleep because of her hormones going crazy? Or the trials and tribulations of dealing with multiple teenagers...there could be a lot of humor behind that. The struggles with wrinkles and gravity. Fading eyesight and memory. There could be a scene with some cool music going on when she has one of her hot flashes?

I'm sure more funny movies would have come from him if he hadn't died so young. Thanks Mr. Hughes for all the 80's memories and laughs.