A great night out!

Mom & Connor





Jack Ingram





Dierks Bentley

Last night Connor & I went to see Dierks Bentley and Jack Ingram. What a fantastic show! And even cooler, my good friend Mae was able to get us a special deal to go backstage and meet Jack Ingram. It was awesome. He signed a CD for Connor and I got to hug on him (yummy!) Too damn bad my stupd camera crapped on batteries just before we took the pics of us with him. Still, they are both excellent performers and if you ever get the chance to see either of them, I highly recommend it!

ACLU - look out, I'm coming for you

Okay, is it just me or have you absolutely had it with the stupid crap the ACLU lobbys for? Is this not America? Land of the free, home of the brave, merry Christmas and God? WTF, people?! Who the freakin' hell appointed them the overseer of all of America? I'm sorry, but they are NOT taking into account my opinions, my wants, my needs. I WANT to yell Merry Christmas at the top of my lungs. I want to drape multi-colored lights across my cubicle and celebrate the birth of Christ. People who work for the government - any type of government - can't do that because it might hurt someone's feelings? BULLSHIT.
Get a freakin' life, get a clue or get the hell onto the next f***ing boat back to where you came from. I do not begrudge you the right to celebrate and acknowledge your beliefs, customs or deities, so why do we allow the aura of political correctness to seep into our most fundamental beliefs? This is AMERICA. We speak English, we worship God, we celebrate Christmas or Hannukah or Ramadan or Kwanzaa and more power to each and every one of us. To each his own. GOD Bless America. But nooooo, the ACLU has different ideas. Someone is paying them good AMERICAN money to force everyone to be bland, pablum and enact a lemmingesque mentality.
I think it's enough. Tell me how my being told Merry Christmas at the post office, city hall or the courthouse is supposed to denigrate AMERICAN society. Tell me that by appeasing everyone ELSE we are not losing our own identity. We are AMERICANS people, we built this country on sweat, hard work and ideals that should not be cast aside simply because someone from another culture, another country gets a wee bit miffed. Know what I say to that? Get the fuck out of MY country. I don't go to yours and expect you to do things my way or no way, so why the flying hell do you get to come here and do it to me?
You don't.
And from this moment on, I will do everything I can to make sure that the AMERICAN way is upheld, that the Christ in Merry Christmas is a greeting oft heard and that my country returns to its roots.
I think we ought to sue the ACLU because by GOD, I don't see anything, not one damn thing that's AMERICAN in their actions. Let's force them to take out the word AMERICAN from their name. They do not deserve to denigrate the moniker.

Mmmm, doughnuts

So, Connor has been after me to make doughnuts for quite some time. Thanks a lot Alton Brown. Industrious little lad that he is (Connor, not Alton) he printed out the recipe and told me what we needed to buy. Several weeks ago.
Okay, okay, I avoided it as long as I possibly could and now I can say "WOW, thanks Alton Brown!"
Homer would have been proud. They were quite yummy, even though with all the waiting for the dough to rise and stuff they took all darn day. Even Christopher, that picky of all pickys came back for seconds. Mom "I am not suposed to be eating sugar" had a couple, too. I gotta admit the chocolate ones were flippin' awesome.
Of course, I'm not so sure exactly what we're supposed to do with the 2 dozen or so left overs we have cause really, how well do doughnuts survive the night?
It was fun, we had a great time and Connor is turning into a superb chef!

The power of, well, power

Some days it's nice to just realize that you are as strong as you think you are. Even better is when you're given the understanding that you have a power even if it's seldom used. A power that has the ability to make your life much more interesting and eventually, maybe, better. More enriched.
Yep, power is good.

Writer's blech

I believe I've mentioned once or twice how much I detest revisions. Well, that goes for writing the first draft, too. Usually I write pretty cleanly, able to get what I want down in a minimum of passes. Most of the time.
Not this time. I read a chapter tonight that I absolutely knew was not right, but couldn't put my finger on it. It wasn't until we talked at length about what went on in that chapter and (more importantly what did NOT go on) that I finally figured it out. Unfortunately, this new elucidation means that I get to cut 25 pages from the ms and start in the middle again.
Well, crap.
But at least I am still moving in the story and that's a darn good thing.

Wait a second, didn't I already pass the 8th grade?!

Why, yes, yes I did. Eons ago!! So, why is it that I'm always doing some sort of homework related type stuff?! This month's monster project is on the holocaust. I applaud the teacher's determination to get his students to really absorb this stuff. He's got them doing 6 different things for this project ranging from writing a song to writing a play to more mundane things like making a timeline.
All in all, very interesting.
Anyway, Connor did a good job on part one (I promise, I only helped a little bit! Mainly spelling and grammar )
No matter what, I absolutely refuse to go through high school again!

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Okay, a day late and a dollar short, but heartfelt nonetheless. We celebrated Mom's bday last night with gads of presents and cards and rejoicing. It was fun! And no one even mentioned the fact that only "real" Paytons are born in the month of October. Yes, you heard it hear first. My brother tormented me relentlessly while growing up with the notion that only real members of our family were born in October (Um, I was born NOT in October). This, he assured me, proved his point that I was adopted or left by gypsies (which I believed until I was 9!) or that my parents felt sorry for me and took me in. I still believe it was all an elaborate payback from when I was like 15 months old and walked on his electronic football game and broke it!
Sheesh.
Anyway, happy birthday Mom, I love you!!! I hope you had a great day :)
Your REAL daughter, Jen