Belly Rings, Betty Crocker and Big Buissness on a Rainy Day.



The rain laps up on my draging overgarment making my ankels moist as I walk across the busy Walmart parking lot. I see her glance at me with a look of fear,confusion, and intrigue melting together like the dripping candle wax I use to watch on the well appointed alter dressed with communion wine and pointsettia plants during christmas time. She doesnt think I'm from here. She does'nt know that my formative years consisted of birthday parties, new years hangovers, and pork chop dinners. She doesnt know that I've been where she is. Dressed how she's dressed. Thought what she's thinking. Until I fell in love with Allah...and this thing called Islam.

The Reading Revolution

My search for a kindle for my daughter, coupled with a late night conversation with my husband about eight tracks has forced me to envision a world without books.  The Nook e-reader by Barnes and Noble has a platform allowing you to borrow library books and Amazon has recently announced that the Kindle will link to the national library system from their very own platform as well.  Libraries  have been experiencing massive budget cuts and closures for years and the reading revolution isn't helping. Turning real pages will become nostalgic and we'll be telling our grandchildren stories about field trips to "the library". The minimalist in me rejoices at the possibility of world without shelves upon shelves of dusty books. The traditionalist in me wonders if I'll miss that new book smell or the resistance under your index finger when you press along the inside binding, breaking in the book. 3,000 books on one little device. Who would have thought!

More "Proof" that I'm an AIR HEAD.

As any SAHM knows the logistics of getting out the door and ready to actually start the ignition to leave is arduous and chaotic. "That shoe is on the wrong foot. You have to do something with your hair. Where are your glasses? Go put that cup in the sink. It doesn't matter who's it is, just put it away. Where are the keys? Help your sister.Get in your car seat. Is everyone buckled? Sometime today people!" So nothing was out of the ordinary today until after I buckled my seat belt and went to start the car. I couldn't turn the key. Flash back to yesterday evening when DH parked the van after a family ice cream outing and asked "How should you park on a hill?" I answer "With your wheels to the right." Now we've lived on hill for just a month shy of a year and never before had he asked me this, nor have I seen either of our vans parked with the wheels towards the curb, but I guess page 32 of the driving manual popped into his head at that very moment and he decided that the normal, put the emergency brake on, just wasn't enough. So today, with baby who hates her car seat crying, toddler who has issues with everything, screaming "These straps are too iiiiight!, and the cell phone I cant quite reach ringing somewhere in my jujube I am unable to go anywhere. I jiggle, I press, I pull, try spare. All to no avail. I call my husband who's busy with a burning car at work. I look in the manual I've never unzipped. I call my friend to tell her I'm not coming because I cant get off the hill, who instructs me that turning the wheels that way on a hill "locks it" and to pull the wheel, while pressing the brake and turning the key. Not working! DH calls back to see if I got it and as I try and explain what I've tried he proceeds to tell me that either I'm not strong enough or I'm doing something wrong.  Now I guarantee that if I had been the one to park the car last night and HE couldn't get it started he would not have blamed it on weakness or not being able to do it right. But since he is the one who parked the car and will probably have no problem starting it up, I get designated to the "Misty the air head cant start the car category".  Baby still crying, toddler asleep, and 4 yr old crying because we cant go, I proceed back inside and log onto TBW in search of my unicorn...