On PittGirl and Anonymous Blogging

Last week, there was an item in our daily newspaper about a blogger, PittGirl, who had decided to “out” herself.  I had never even heard of PittGirl, but I guess a lot of other people had.  I love blogging, I love Pittsburgh, but somehow PittGirl’s blog never made it on to my monitor until I read this article.  Not only was it news that PittGirl had revealed her true identity, it made the papers the next day when she was fired from her job because of it.

You see, PittGirl wrote about things that ticked her off in the fair city of Pittsburgh.  I think she may have said a few unflattering things about the young mayor Luke Ravenstahl (who actually seems pretty decent to me as far as politicians go).  She may have mentioned other things that the powers that be in Pittsburgh were not too thrilled about.  And, unfortunately for her, she worked for a nonprofit organization in the city where lots of butt-kissing is required (like any non-profit).  She pretty much knew her job would be gone once she revealed her true identity.

I read a lot of blogs; some are written anonymously while others boldly reveal their innermost thoughts without disguising their identity.  I can understand the need to remain anonymous even though I admire those that are not afraid to publicly reveal their secrets.  We all have different circumstances.  I’m at a point in my life where I don’t particularly have to worry about whether people like what I have to say.  I’m not saying I don’t want people to like me or what I have to say, but I am saying that if I’m being true to myself, it won’t affect me too adversely if certain people don’t agree with my words.

My kids are grown, and I don’t have to worry about their little friends’ parents not letting them play with my kids because they don’t like my opinions.

I don’t have to face being ostracized by any judgemental church group because I don’t go to church.  I think religion is great, and if you really feel inspired by your religion, that is probably your way to salvation.  I just don’t feel like there is any one religion out there that is the one and only true way to salvation and I can’t pretend like I do without feeling like a fraud and a hypocrite.

Most of my family are still in the yabba-dabba-doo stone age and I can gripe about them all I want without them finding out, haha.  In fact, we already say pretty much the same things I gripe about right to my mom’s face when we get together.  We have actually all sat around at family gatherings and laughed about all the times she has embarrassed us in public.  We all have our own stories, and end up with tears of laughter rolling down our cheeks.  So mom’s already heard most of these tales, although she might not be too thrilled about me putting them out there in public.

Freedom of speech is a wonderful concept.  It might be your right in this country, but you may still have to face consequences.

Life In The Fast Lane Again

I’m happily speeding along, and this time I don’t have to worry about getting a citation from a Pennsylvania state trooper.  I am zipping from destination to destination along the interwebs, without any lags or stopovers in between.  Now I know how Middle Son J felt, hitting triple digit speed along the German autobahn in his rented Mercedes.  Mama’s flying, and it feels so good.

Yesterday, we replaced the memory in my turn-of-the century computer.  Oldest Son was glad to see that I actually remembered where the new memory goes.  I still let him do the actual replacement, though.  He took out the old memory, replaced it with the first new memory card, and said, “You now have double the memory you had before.”

Then he slid the second memory card into an additional empty slot.  That gave me 4x the memory.  Still, I could hardly be sure this would actually make a difference.  I don’t know why I had any doubt.  He has built his own computers, repaired and rebuilt others, but I’ve lived in the land of lag for so long, I just could not picture myself sitting behind this computer without having to watch the hourglass of death turn and tumble everytime I tried to venture off a site.  If you knew the torture I went through waiting to arrive at my favorite blogsites to read, or even waiting for it to catch up with my typing when I tried to post something, you would realize how truly hooked I am on this blogging thing.

I can save so much time now that my computer is “up to speed.”  And it happened in the nick of time.  I have discovered I could never be a farmer’s spouse.  It’s like a full-time job just trying to keep up with my little garden.  I only planted one tiny package of green bean seeds.  And every day I go out I end up with this:

The beans are terrific, but you have to wash each and every one of the little suckers and snap the ends off.  Wash.  Snap.  Snap.  Wash.  Snap.  Snap.  It’s mind-numbingly boring.  And even my chow-hounds can’t eat all these veggies, so on top of finding different and tasty ways of cooking them, I have had to freeze some and give some away.  Not a big problem.  But it does take time.

Here is what I had left over from our two zucchini plants after giving two to my mom and also making this casserole yesterday:

Next month I should be elbow-deep in home-made salsa.  If only Oldest Son knew a way to speed up all this food processing!

Facebook Pages and Blogging Friends

A few weeks ago, I was checking out my Facebook home page and noticed a couple of my blogging friends were adding new cool stuff to their Facebook accounts.  These are the same two women who persuaded me to sign up for a Facebook account in the first place.  We use the blog application there to make it easier for Facebook addicts to get updates on their favorite blogs and find them all in one place.  One of the things they were doing that night was adding a new Facebook fan page for their blog.  I had no idea how to do this or why I even should, but I wasn’t about to be left out.  If these smart awesome bloggers were doing it, then it must be worth doing!

First I left a message for Paula asking how the heck did she set up her page.  Then I noticed Cyndi was online and I asked her for some assistance.  Although they were both busy setting up their own pages, they took the time to assist this technologically challenged blogger.  I took their advice, played around a little, and came up with a cute little fan page of my own.  I still wasn’t sure what all I could do with it, but it now exists in all its glory.

Middle Son J has sent us some pictures of his months spent in Europe.  I decided to post them on my Facebook fan page.  It’s so much easier to post pictures here than on my blog.  Oldest Son has some awesome pics from his months in Iraq that I would like to post at some point.  The possibilities are endless.  I could even post naked pics.  Good God!  Not of me!  I wouldn’t do that to you.  You’d vomit!  Maybe of my dog–without her collar on.  She’s so cute!

If you want to see J’s pics, visit my MamaNeeds2Rant Facebook page.  While you’re there, do what the cool kids are doing and become a fan.  You’ll get updates on new posts, pictures, and anything else I can think up.  Visit Cyndi’s and Paula’s FB pages too.  They have links to them from their blogs.

Questions

Consuella Banana Hammock at expurgated no more! posed this challenge, and since I’m always up for a challenge, I’m answering the questions posed on her blog:

1. What is your favorite word?  love
2. What is your least favorite word?  cunt–it’s the only word my boys dare not utter around me
3. What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally? really awesome music with intelligent lyrics
4. What turns you off creatively, spiritually or emotionally? hypocrisy
5. What sound or noise do you love?  the ocean waves hitting the shore
6. What sound or noise do you hate?  any alarm clock when I have to get up early
7. What is your favorite curse word? shitfuck–I don’t use it a lot, but it still cracks me up when I think about the girl in eighth grade who first uttered it
8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? food critic, spa resort critic or something where I’d get to test the wares for free
9. What profession would you not like to do?  anything involving bugs--yikes
10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? You rock!

I’m Writing In My Head

Because, damn it, I can’t really find the time to sit and write here about all the things I want to write about.  Like how I slept through a loud commotion the other night while my family thought they were standing near a corpse.  Like how someone I know tried filing for their kid’s college financial aid at fafsa.com instead of fafsa.ed.gov and then stressed me out so bad because when I instinctively gave her the “look” like maybe you shouldn’t have gone there she went into such a panic attack I thought she might have a nervous breakdown.  Then there are the ridiculously funny comments some douchebags made on the sports talk radio station about how the Penguins should trade the young hockey god Sid Crosby because he could play better than Sid.  When the announcer asked what level hockey this guy played, he said he doesn’t play hockey but  Sid always gets injured when he plays him on his NHL video game.  OMG.  Like is this guy for real?  And there were many other stupid comments by other callers.  I just want to convince my readers that Pittsburgh and the surrounding areas really does have some very brilliant people.  Seriously.  There are organ transplant geniuses.  There are the techie brains at Carnegie Mellon.  And of course, moi.  Who was on Jeopardy.  Even though I didn’t win.

I really would not just like to tell you about this stuff.  I’d like to expound on it, and entertain you with it, and make you feel the thoughts I feel about it.  Especially about the almost corpse.  But I’m exhausted.  And I haven’t even started working 6 days a week yet, or 10 hour days.  I’m getting too old for this, folks.  Mama needs 2 rest, then she can rant.  But I gotta go now because sis needs her tax return done.  I got bills to pay.  I don’t know what I’m wearing tomorrow and I’m not even thinking about packing a lunch.  Screw it.  I’ll pry open my wallet and buy something.  Okay.  More later.

This Is A PG Rated Site

One thing that’s kind of cool about WordPress:  it allows you to see which Search Engine searches may have led readers to your blog.  Since I’m not trying to sell anything, this is of no commercial value to me, but since I happen to be very curious about life and the creatures in it, it’s fun to see what interests folks.

I’m kind of baffled right now about the sudden surge in “Scrabble” seekers.  I wrote a post some time ago about a certain Scrabble match between my “turncoat” youngest son, his friend Shayna, and me.  At the time, it got a few hits from my few regular readers.  Lately though, it’s getting dozens of hits, all through people searching the word “Scrabble.”  Is there some important Scrabble tournament going on that I don’t know about?  Is there a new meaning for the word?  Inquiring minds (like mine) want to know.

I’m also rather disturbed about some of the other searches going on.  I know it’s a big wide world out there with many diverse characters, but I really hope none of these people live anywhere near me.  I have had more than a few people trying to find “boys in boxers”, “boy in boxers,” and “little boys in boxers.”  Hopefully this is just a grandma trying to decide what kind of undies to buy the grandkids, but sadly, I don’t think so.  Scarier still are the searches I’m seeing about “mom screws son” and “son screws mom.”  I can tell you pervs right now, this mama doesn’t do much screwing.  Even with screws.  And definitely never with blood relatives.

Sorry if this post grosses anyone out.  It’s the world we live in.  This mama has sons, and a boxer dog.  Sometimes she screws up.  But if you’re looking for some X-rated titillation, you’re looking in the wrong place!

A Year and A Day ~ Hooray Hooray!

Between dealing with night sweats and dry sockets (yes, Youngest Son was one of the lucky ones), I plum forgot about my bloggy anniversary yesterday!

I started this blog a full year ago, 1/5/08.  It wasn’t much of a post.  I basically just set up the site and promised to write something good later.  It was late and I was tired.

It was fate.  I was restless.  I’ve always been a better writer than speaker, and I needed an outlet.  Idiots were pissing me off!  Corrupt politicians who steal from honest hard-working taxpayers, airhead celebrities that think it’s cool to badmouth America yet shamelessly reap the rewards this land of opportunity provides, and other garden variety creeps were all maxing out my stress levels.  On top of it all, my oldest son was soon to be deployed to Iraq.  Double stress.  My two younger sons would soon be heading back to college, and tax season (my busiest season of the year) was on the horizon.  I wanted to vent.  And I wanted a place where my sons could check in and see that mama’s still the same old crazy broad she always was.  I wanted to give them a warm and fuzzy sense of home.

Then I saw an article by Kim Komando about how to set up a blog.  She recommended Blogger or WordPress.  I checked them out and made my choice.  Then I ignored it for over a week.  Once I started writing, however, I was hooked.

Blogging is my kind of writing.  There are no manuscript formats to follow.  I can say what I want without fear of censorship.  I can even be politically incorrect.  If I’m feeling lazy, there are no deadlines to deal with.  Best of all, I’ve enjoyed sharing my thoughts with other interesting people throughout the blogosphere.  I have been entertained immensely and learned quite a bit from reading other people’s blogs.  An enterprising young man, Cheru Jackson, has made it even easier for us bloggers to find like-minded individuals.  I have found a few super cool sites and gained a few readers from his recent creation, Alpha Inventions.

Hope to still see you all next year at this time.  As always, thanks for stopping by.

They Like Me! They Really Like Me!

Well, at least someone does!   Nathan’s Mom at It’s All About Potential just awarded me this very cool macho looking award–it really goes well with my macho world — you know — my super manly hubby and three awesome sons.

I’m really honored she even has time to read my blog with her super busy life raising two sons,  one of them dealing with the challenges of autism.  She also works full-time OUTSIDE the home AND lives on a farm which is a lot of work right there.  So, thank you Nathan’s Mom!  I feel like such an undeserving SLUG!

Of course, there is work to go with my pretty new award:

This award is for any blog that truly ‘measures up’.

Rules:

1. Say one nice thing to a man in your life.

Ok.  I just did.  See above.  He will like being called “super manly hubby” and he will see it soon since he usually reads my blog to make sure I’m not making fun of him.

2. List at least six ways that you measure success in your life (or for your blog).

I measure success for my blog by:

1. Giving my guys a sense of home even when they’re far away.  I originally started writing this blog when my Oldest Son was deployed to Iraq so he wouldn’t feel so far away from the home front.  He’s home now, but my Middle Son is reading and responding to my blog from far away in Germany now.

2. Letting far-away relatives know we’re still alive and kicking.  I know at least a couple of the in-laws drop by — and this is so much easier than those awkward phone calls.

3. Giving someone a laugh.  It made me feel so good the day my Middle Son said he laughed so hard over something I said about Big Daddy.  (Oops, sorry Big Daddy.  I wasn’t really making fun.  I was just reporting.)

4. Giving someone something to think about.  I like to throw my 2 cents in there sometimes.  I’ve been around for a while and learned a few things.  I’m happy to share my viewpoint — maybe strangers will listen.  God knows, my kids like to find things out the hard way.

5. Making someone’s life easier in these tough times.  I’m happy to share my successful recipes, child-raising or money-saving tips when the spirit moves me.

6. Keeping my family sane.  If I didn’t vent here, they’d have to listen to me rant and rave out loud.

3. Assign this award to six other blogs and leave them a comment telling the blogger that you’ve assigned them this award.

Like Nathan’s Mom, I’m going to choose one lucky awardee today and reserve the right to send out the rest later on when I’ve had time to mull over this important decision.  My first choice goes out to a relatively new blogger who makes me laugh and makes me think–plus finds the most awesome quotes for each and every post.  My choice for the Measures Up award goes to <drumroll> :

SoMuchMoreThanAMom

Check out her site and see if you don’t agree!