Certain phrases have crept into usage in the last twenty five years or so that annoy the heck out of me. Here's a list.

That said / That being said / Having said all that - whatever happened to However, or So?

Not! / Psych! - these are just plain annoying.

My bad - okay, maybe I'm culturally biased, but the bad grammar here just really p***es me off.

Where it's at / Where are you at - Thou shalt not end a sentence with a preposition. Either leave off the at, or change the word to Located / Standing / sitting?

I'm sure I'm not politically correct in accepting all of today's speech patterns, but I was taught to always strive for perfect grammar, both at home and at school, so when I hear these phrases in a business meeting, sheesh.

NoNags for members regularly hosts user submitted funny pics on its site. I'm using one of these to test the pic capability.

This sentence should be below the pic.

This is will be yet another referrence post and links will be updated as progress allows. Happy Browsing!

My Domains

kaplooey (this one)
codemom
writeaholic
thesapphirestar

I know it's supposed to be calm, but I've got the two five year olds and the two three year olds here, with just me and the dog. What fun. Breakfast is over, and they've finally had enough TV, so they're coloring. I'll start contacting parents at 10. We're having some weather, so I'll let them have a bit of kidless morning, then call them to come get their kidlies.

Bedtime was interesting. 3 yr old cousin was the most difficult. She tossed and turned and turned and tossed, and finally fell asleep between 10:45 and 11 pm. 5 yr olds fell asleep on the family room sleeper sofa after I turned the TV off at 11, but that was to be expected.

Everyone was up by 7. I expect good naps today.

I was able to put dasBlog up today (since you're reading this), so they haven't been too bad. They've now migrated to the other room where they're playing with the kitchen toys.

Ingredients

• 1.5 lbs ground meat
• 1 cup uncooked rice
• 2 cans tomato soup
• 1 tablespoon minced onion
• 1 tablespoon salt
• half can water
• quarter cup bread crumbs

Instructions

Mix 1 can soup, half can water to remainder of ingredients. Shape into balls and place in casserole dish. Pour remaining can of soup over meatballs, cover, and bake at 350 degrees for about an hour. We served with broccoli and carrots.

I'm nuts. Or so I've been told. We're hosting cousins - one three, one 5 and a half, so tonite I'm going to have two three year olds and two five year olds. We're going to make Porcupine Meatballs and Home made Banana Milkshakes. Hubby's working tonite, so he'll miss most of the fun. And Teenager's going out two, so it will be me, the kidlies, and the Five Point Five's mom until she tries to leave. And, oh yes, the dog.

I'm still working on getting pics working, but I'll update with them as soon as I can. And I'll post the recipe once we know it works.

This is a list of movies and TV Shows I either own or want to own when I can afford them. Happy Viewing!!

Star Wars

Star Wars Episode IV - A New Hope (1977 & 2004 Versions, 2-Disc Widescreen Edition)
Star Wars Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980 & 2004 versions, 2-Disc Widescreen Edition)
Star Wars Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983 & 2004 versions, 2-Disc Widescreen Edition)

The Matrix

The Ultimate Matrix Collection (The Matrix/ The Matrix Reloaded/ The Matrix Revolutions/ The Animatrix)

This will be a constantly updated list of books that I recommend. Generally, sci-fi/fantasy, but other genres will be added as I find ones I think are worth buying new. All links point to amazon, with me as associate. Whether you purchase from amazon or not, I hope you will enjoy these books as I have. Happy Reading!

Dune

• Dune (Book 1)
• Dune Messiah (Book 2)
• Children of Dune (Book 3)

Valdemar

• Arrows of the Queen (Book 1)
• Arrow's Flight (Book 2)
• Arrow's Fall (Book 3)

Imagine, if you will, - oh wait. You probably won't get the reference. It's linked if you want to check it out. From my wild youth.

Anyhoo,  I had to entertain my littel gels and cousin holly yesterday, so we made a cake. Chocolate. Now, a five year old and two three year olds make for interesting cook's helpers. But it fended off boredom, and they loved helping, and licking the bowl. There were a few disagreements about who was hogging the remains, but they are girls, after all. Then after lunch and after teenager frosted the cake, they put sprinkles on it. LOTS of sprinkles.

UPDATE: Pics will be included as soon as I get the teenager to send them to me, and then I figure out how all this stuff works.

Test with dasBlog. I like the portal theme, with the left menu. And look ma, no database. Which makes it easy to move around. And, it uses FreeTextBox, not FCKeditor, which always looks profane to me. I will be converting all old entries from both blogger and my half-arsed attempt at writing my own system to dasBlog xml format as time permits. And I'll play with images, too.