Dear Spotty Chop you were 61 months old awhile ago

You had been bringing up Heaven A LOT. Where is it? Can I walk when I am there? Can I keep my eyes open? How do I get there? Can I play Bakugon? But I will miss you (which of course sent me over the edge….) Not sure where this came from, but it has made you crazy sad. I have tried to explain how Heaven is really cool, and you get to see all sorts of people and play all the time, which seemed to make you feel better until you asked “I get to come back home to you right?” I don’t have to stay there without you? Luckily I seemed to be able to give you enough info that you have stopped asking about it (THANK GOD.)

We went to the Carter Carnival; daddy went with us for the first time. You had so much fun showing him all the cool things you could do and win.

You bought daddy a new lunchbox (red to match yours) and a new water container (he needs to be re-hydrated you know) and we sent him off to his new job. You are so sweet and considerate.

We went to a Ziti dinner at your school, Terminator was there, and you introduced her to some of your friends. I was so proud of you that is such a hard thing to do and you did it well.

We also had a GREAT time over B-52 and Lennon’s house. We had our annual St. Patty’s day dinner. You played with the cats and their video games. They treat you like the king of their castle.

We also spent time at Moo; Freak Show; Hippy Chick; Cheese Please and, CR’s. We did our Easter egg coloring adventure. You played with the piano. You are not as happy about Hippy Chick having her own room as it cuts into your space. I think eventually you will get over it. There house is so welcoming to kids, I am sure to every kid, but it seems as if it is built special just for you.

Book Review: Turn Coat by Jim Butcher

Book 11 of the Dresden Files

I can’t believe I am at book 11 and I am not sick of Dresden. At all. In the least. Each book I pick up brings me as much if not more pleasure than the first. That seems a bit…weird to me. I will admit I am a series whore. I love a tale that must be told over multiple books. I want to rant at the author to write faster and don’t you dare die before you are done (yes Mr. Jordan I am looking at you sir!) I want to wallow in crazy tangents; I want to know the stories behind the stories. When you bring up a legend, I want to know that in another 20 books or so you might get around to telling me that tale...in full. I may have to start up a new category the UBER AUTORS.

Harry: Look, I’m not asking her to deactivate the tractor beam, rescue the princess, and escape to the fourth moon of Yavin. I just need to know what she’s heard and what she can find out without blowing her cover.

Harry: As far as the Council is concerned, the U.S. Wardens are a bunch of mushrooms…Kept in the dark and fed on bullshit.


Molly: Damn, I’m good
Harry: No argument here…Now we have a name, a lead. One might even call it a clue
Molly: Not only that…I have a date
Harry: Good work, grasshopper…Way to take one for the team.


Murphy: I’d have to get approval from a judge, and I don’t know any of them who would take ‘my friend the wizard’s vampire brother was kidnapped by a demonic Navajo shape shifter’ as a valid justification…


Butters: Oh bite me, wizard boy…you haven’t got a moral leg to stand on. If it’s okay that I’m not a doctor, it’s okay that you aren’t a nurse. So wash your freaking hands and help me before we lose him.


Skinwalker: I will come for you. I will kill you. I will kill your blood, your friends, your beasts. I will kill the flowers in your home and the trees in your tiny fields. I will visit such death upon whatever is yours that your very name will be remembered only in curses and talks of terror.


Chandler: Five of me guarding the door? Are you mad? The sheer power of the concentrated fashion sense would obliterate visitors on sight.


Harry: Because your balls are in a vise and I’m the only one who can pull them out…Okay…That came out a little more homoerotic than I intended.
Merlin: Indeed


Harry: It was like standing in an industrial propane plant with five hundred chain-smoking pyromaniacs double-jonesing for a hit: it would only take one dummy to kill us all, and we had four hundred and ninety-nine to spare.


Madeline: You…are a bad case of herpes, wizard. You’re inconvenient, embarrassing, no real threat, and you simply will not go away.


Nor do we want you to Harry

How did we laugh before there was email?

written by someone wittier than I...

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning.... Uphill... Barefoot... BOTH ways… yadda, yadda, yadda...

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that I'm over the ripe old age of at least thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia! And I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don't know how good you've got it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have the Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter - with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there! Stamps were 10 cents!

Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our ass! Nowhere was safe!

There were no MP3's or Napsters or iTunes! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself!

Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up! There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car.. We'd play our favorite tape and "eject" it when finished, and then the tape would come undone rendering it useless. Cause, hey, that's how we rolled, Baby! Dig?

We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that's it!

There weren't any freakin' cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn't make a damn call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your "friends". OH MY GOD !!! Think of the horror... not being in touch with someone 24/7!!! And then there's TEXTING. Yeah, right. Please! You kids have no idea how annoying you are.

And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your parents, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, the collection agent... you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

We didn't have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'Asteroids'. Your screen guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination!!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen... Forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel!!! NO REMOTES!!! Oh, no, what's the world coming to?!?!

There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-finks!

And we didn't have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove! Imagine that!

And our parents told us to stay outside and play... all day long. Oh, no, no electronics to soothe and comfort. And if you came back inside... you were doing chores!

And car seats - oh, please! Mom threw you in the back seat and you hung on. If you were lucky, you got the "safety arm" across the chest at the last moment if she had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling "shot gun" in the first place! See! That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled rotten! You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980 or any time before! Regards,

The over 30 crowd

Book Review: Cry Wolf by Patricia Briggs

Alpha and Omega, Book 1

Anna is not what comes to mind when I think about werewolves, then again Anna isn’t an ordinarily werewolf. (Does anyone else find it funny that I apparently have thoughts on ordinary werewolves?)

This is a cross over from Mercy Thompson’s world. I really love authors that do that. Take a minor or new character and place it in “their” world, but slightly different. The book did take me a wee bit to get into; I kept thinking I had missed the first book in the series and was reading book two. It took me a bit to realize that this was a cross over. I think my brain needs to be exercised. I am getting too used to people starting at the beginning….or reading series where I’ve been to the beginning.

Let’s get started shall we? We meet Anna after she has been rescued from her Alpha. Her new mate Charles killed him and his second. Anna is an Omega, a wolf who has no desire to rule. An Omega has the ability to calm the most bestial of werewolves, which comes in handy as werewolves tend to be a bit…crazy. Charles is Brand’s son, the same Brand who brought up Mercy and the brother of…Samuel the wolf trying to get into Mercy’s pants. Charles is HOT and spooky everyone is afraid of him except for Anna who is afraid of everyone except him. We meet a 1300 year old wolf who has been trying to get Brand to kill him for years. Asil is afraid that he is going crazy. He keeps dreaming about his mate who was tortured hundreds of years ago. Anna and Charles aren’t having an easy time of it; Anna was raped and tortured to force her to change into an Omega. Charles is far too used to being alone. But there is a rouge wolf out there killing folks and someone has to fix things. Brand thinks it’s a great idea to send Charles and Anna out; they will have time to just be together, get to know each other. Unfortunately they meet up with a 1000 year old witch, and a werewolf that seems to be a dead ringer for Asil’s wife.

I like seeing Brand and company from a different angle. We also aren’t introduced to every mythical create out there as we are in Mercy’s world. Maybe they will be keeping this wolfier? I wonder if Mercy and Anna will meet up in the future. Not sure how I feel about that. Right now I think I like Mercy more, but I have had several books to get acquainted with her. I’m willing to give Anna some time.

Words to live by

1. Aspire to be Barbie - the bitch has everything.

2. If the shoe fits - buy them in every color.

3. Take life with a pinch of salt... A wedge of lime, and a shot of tequila.

4. In need of a support group? - Cocktail hour with the girls!

5. Go on the 30 day diet. (I'm on it and so far I've lost 15 days).

6. When life gets you down - just put on your big girl panties and deal with it.

7. Let your greatest fear be that there is no PMS and this is just your personality.

8. I know I'm in my own little world, but it's ok. They know me here.

9. Lead me not into temptation, I can find it myself.

10. Don't get your knickers in a knot; it solves nothing and makes you walk funny.

11. When life gives you lemons in turn it into lemonade then mix it with vodka.

12. Remember where ever there is a good looking; sweet, single or married man there is some woman (or man) tired of his bullshit!

13. Keep your chin up, only the first 40 years of parenthood are the hardest.

14. If it has Tires or Testicles it's gonna give you trouble.

15. By the time a women realizes her mother was right, she has a daughter who thinks she's wrong.

Book Review: Urban Shaman by C.E. Murphy

Book One: The Walker Papers

So we have the Wild Hunt, Coyote, a cabbie who used to be linebacker…40 years ago and a Shaman who’s day job is a cop, because that’s the only way she could find a job as a mechanic. Believe it or not, this actually works.

Joanne Walker was flying home from England after burying her mom when she looked out the window and “saw” a young woman being chased by a pack of dogs and a man with a knife. She meets up with Gary her cab driver. Gary thinks Joanne is crazy, but as the meter is running is happy to drive her around as she tries to “rescue” the woman from the plane. When they finally catch up with Marie who happens to be a banshee, she tells Joanne that she is running away from a God and that Joanne is going to die soon.

Joanne meets up with the Horned God and manages to get his sword stuck in her lungs. It is here where we meet up Coyote. I have to say I like the mixing of the Celtic and North American beliefs. I find I like all the old tales…well with the exception of the Norse Gods, I tried to like them, but there was too much baby killing and incest.

Coyote is Joanne’s spirit guide. He helps her heal herself; it almost doesn’t happen as Joanne doesn’t believe in this crap. Once you start believing in the unbelievable it’s all downhill from there. Marie gets murdered, the fifth similar murder in a matter of weeks. Is it the work of a serial killer or something more? While pondering the police files of the recent murders Joanne falls asleep and has an out of body experience. Joanne says it best. “Yesterday the world made sense and today I’m standing in a star pit talking to ghosts.”

Between trying to juggle her boss, who wants to fire her ass…a God’s crazy son who wants to kill her ass and new shamanic powers she needs to learn to control and do all this within 23 hours or the world as we know it will cease to exist. It’s no wonder she needs a hamburger.

I am interested in seeing where this series goes. I really like Gary, and while it may seem farfetched that a cab driver would stick around after his fare, I don’t know. If my dad were 70, with a wife dead and no kids, I can totally see him sticking around someone that needs help. Everyone needs to feel needed. Even a God.

Dear Spotty Chop you are 60 months old 97 days ago.

I told you I would get around to adding these...

The other morning your daddy opened his eyes and you were in our bed. You climbed over and lay on top of him whispering (rather loudly) “this is just a dream dada, it’s all just a dream. I slept in my bed all night long.”

While eating fruit chews with your daddy.
Dada: Look at you opening up that bad boy (as you tore open the package of fruit chews)
Spotty: Why is it a bad boy?
Dada: It doesn’t have to be a bad boy. Look at you opening up that really yummy and good thing
Spotty: Why can’t it be a bad girl?

While you were watching movies with Nannie and Papa there was a scene where storks were delivering babies to their parents. You said “that’s how I got to my mama and dada.” Nannie said “really? Do you remember that?” and you replies “well…no, maybe…I think so”.

I have no idea where the time went. I have a 5 year old boy in my life and I would not change a thing. Sometimes I have trouble catching my breath at the beauty and wonder that is you.

Dear Spotty Chop you are 63 months old today.

You asked your daddy “would it be ok if on Saturday you mama and me danced to the music on the TV?” HELL YA baby!

You don’t fuss nearly as much when I put sunscreen on you.

I am getting glimmers of what you will be like as a teen…god help the both of us.

We made monster spray. Take 1 spray bottle, wrap it in white paper. Draw things that make you happy (you chose a football, soccer ball and books) add lemon juice (monsters hate the smell of lemons and things that make us happy) and water. Spray at bedtime. So far so good, we spray the room, the floor and Spotty. No monster sightings yet!

Conversation you had with Nannie recently
Spotty: When I get married I will wear colorful clothes.
Nannie: What do you mean colorful?
Spotty: You know Oranges and Yellows
Nannie: well who are you going to marry?
Spotty: My mom silly!
Nannie: What about your dad? What will he do?
Spotty: Oh yea, he’s already married her, but that’s ok we can both be married to her. And Favorite Brother and Froggy will be my ring bearers.
Nannie: And what will they wear?
Spotty: Something colorful. Uncle Favorite Bother can wear a Dragon dress and Auntie Froggy will just be pretty.

When you fall asleep you fold your hands as if in prayer and then lay your head on top. OH MY GOD YOU ARE SO FRELLING CUTE.

We have a routine for bed. Before I leave your room I say “good night, sleep tight and dream of bed bugs tonight! And I will see you…in the…(and I make up something ridicules”) you always say “morning and night”. Then I tell you I will NOT come in to give you kisses and you tell me I must come in and give you 1 million thousand kisses. Pretty much any time I pass your room I have to wander in and give you a kiss. I like knowing you are still breathing.

You sometimes read to me when we are in the car.

You have started drinking regular milk (non-chocolate)

I can't wait for the summer to start so we can go swimming!

Before we headed up to Fransted you stubbed your toe...

Spotty: FUCK
Us: What did you just say?
Spotty: FUCK
Us: Honey that's not a word we really want to be using
Spotty: I'm not using the bad word FUCK I am using the FUCK word you use when you hurt yourself

What can we say to that?

While we were camping I forgot my glasses. You were so sweet. You held my hand and walked me to the bathroom every morning to make sure I was safe. You told me when to duck my head, and when to jump over rocks and logs. You opened up the bathroom stall and lead me into it and then walked me to the sink so I could put my contacts in. Then you took my hand and walked me back to the site.

Love you kiddo!!!

Happy Memorial Day Weekend From FransTed Family Campground!

We spent a glorious weekend up in the White Mountains of New Hampshire this weekend.



Spotty was happy to see that the river and the rocks were still there






As was the playground…







There were night time activities










Daytime activities







And a hike up Artist’s Bluff






He can’t wait till the 4th of July…and neither can we!!!