PMS

So before you get all up in your feelings, let me explain. PMS stands for something, and that something isn't what many of you are thinking. Look at it this way if I would have put BSM, would you have read on? No! How about SPM? Of course not, but PMS sure reached out and grabbed you didn't it?!
PMS, at least for this one time, stands for Parents Must Show. In other words parents you are the chalkboards that young minds learn from. I'm feeling all educational.

So back to PMS. Parenting is modeling, not the kind where way too skinny women/girl people walk down a runway wearing who knows what and looking as if they would eat a pencil eraser if it was handed to them, not that kind.
I'm refer to you, parents. Know this your kids, all kids are big sponges. Their minds are blank slates just waiting to be filled with what they see and hear. Parents you are the first and foremost one to fill their minds, and shape their personality. Now granted every child is born with a personality, but you are the ones who are going to help shape their personality.

We always want our kids to mimic the good things that we say and do, and we gasp when they reflect just the opposite. I'll never forget what a mother told me happened when her 3 year old son was sitting in a shopping cart. He looked over at a older man and said, "Are you one of those old mean people?". Now we all know this feeling don't we? Of course we do, because everyone of us who have children have been there in some way or another.

Now this isn't something that a three year old mind has come up with on their own. Somewhere along the process of educating the brain of this young offspring, someone must have made a comment to the effect that old people are mean. How else would have that have been written on that blank slate? It might have only been one time, but one time is all it takes.
We do effect our kids both good and bad. We must show our kids the proper ways in life and the right ways. We have to be the ones who not just talk a good game, but we live it out in front of their lives.
I had a teacher who by the way will remain completely anonymous, although I will only describe her as a wonderful educator of young lives who is the most caring, understanding, tolerant, patient and compassionate person you would ever want to meet. (Ok you know who you are, I know you read this blog, remember that you are first and foremost a great baker and that it's been awhile, I'm just saying)

So she relates this story to me which I want to pass on to you. This week school started, she teaches 3rd grade. I guess they all sit in a circle and play a word game so that everyone can say their name and what they like. It has to go along with the first letter of their first name. For example, Hi my name is Ann and I like apples, or Hi my name is Bill and I like beef, or Hi my name is Phil and I like to fish.
So they are all in a circle and things are moving right along until a little girl says her first name and then this comes out of her mouth, "I hate German people". Whaaaaat?
The teacher asked why she would say something like that and the girl, now remember she's a 3rd grader, says this, "My Grandmother was in WWll and she hates German people. Now I can only reason that possibly this grandmother was held in a concentration camp and saw horrible things, BUT in my opinion the same thing that caused a nation to think that they were somehow better than any other and which let them justify the murders of millions, now has been inbred into this young mind.
How sad, how wrong. Parents your the key, your the ones who are loading up the minds and hearts of your kids. Parents must show them the way, the right way.
Hang in there and know that good kids don't come by accident. Remember PMS

abc FAMILY? what?

Many of us have heard the story/parable of the frog and the boiling water, if not here's a brief synopsis:
To boil a frog, not that I condone such behavior, one must put the frog in a pot of water that has yet to get warm. If you place the frog in there and then turn up the heat eventually the frog will be boiled to death. Now on the other side of things, if the water is boiling and you would put a frog in a pot, the frog would immediately jump out.
Point of story- the ways of this world is to slowly boil us to death.
Last night my wife and I watch a show on, now let me highlight this for you, ABC Family.

Now one might think, gee what loosers-they're watching a kids station, my response to that is, "hey shut up your stupid!".

Anyway back to what I was saying; the show was a new one called; Melissa & Joey. Now I am not going to write about the plot, because that really isn't what is important here. I am writing about how the frog is being boiled and it sure seems like not a whole lot of people are noticing, especially parents. If they are then ABC should be flooded with complaints.
On the two episodes that we watched, back to back by the way. I kept saying to my wife, "this is ABC Family, family really?".

During this so called kids program on a so called family channel the number of swear words was appalling . They weren't just using what one might called, "minor", ones, but ones that when I was a kid everyone one around would have gasped for air! Along with that there was numerous sexual innuendos and continual comments from the two female characters about getting, "taken advantage of and liking it". I could go on and on, but I wouldn't.

The kids of today are being programed more than any other generation by the media. Parents of times gone by had it a whole lot "easier" than those today, in the sense of knowing who and what is shaping their kids lives. Things were clearer back in the day. Today, ABC Family, to me that sounds like a station I could depend upon to air good FAMILY safe programing. NO!
Parents you are the main line of defence for your kids. It's no one's job but yours. In parenting you can never take things as they seem. You must investigate everything that your kid sees, hears and is exposed to. You must. The pot is boiling and the frog is getting weaker. Nothing is happening because so many are in the same pot.

I believe that there is a plan, just so you know I'm not writing this with tin foil on my head so the aliens can't read my thoughts, (I only have it over my ears). The plan is for kids today to be so lax and numb to such things that when they parent the standards are going to be even lower than they are today. So here's a question, whats that going to look like? What are the generations to come going to see are moral and right. Yea maybe I am an old prude and as I have said before I am a dinosaur, but at least I can feel the water getting hotter and know enough to let others know-"hey get your frog out of the pot".

You're shocked, really?

Please don't tell me you’re shocked? It never fails to amaze me how people ignore warnings/signs of harm and danger and then after something happens they are shocked by it. Here are some examples:

Back in the spring a trainer for a KILLER whale was killed by the animal. We all saw it on the news. If you were like me my heart broke for this trainer’s family. The reports came flooding in about how this trainer ever since she was a young child, all she wanted to do was to work with animals like this. We found out that she was doing what she loved, awesome. Not too soon after this the public cries began. We find out that this KILLER whale had KILLED 2 other people prior to this tragedy. Next we start to hear how this KILLER whale is a KILLER and maybe the KILLER whale should be put down. Question what part of KILLER whale didn't anybody understand?

I was watching a program I believed it is called, "When vacations go bad". Now if you have never seen this show I am sure there are all kinds of thoughts running through your memories of such vacations.
Such as when you booked a hotel room for your honeymoon mainly for 3 reasons. One- it had an ocean view, two- right on the boardwalk, three and not necessarily the most important reason, but it sure would seem like that at the time- $60 cheaper per night than any other hotel room in the area (sign). Only to discover after driving 7 hours you pull up to the address given and see the "hotel". It was above a hot dog/hamburger joint right on the boardwalk, no air conditioning, blinds hanging lopsided flapping in the breeze, but then the "paste De resistance" (that's French by the way) the look on the patrol officers face after you asked him if that was the Sunview Motel and you had booked a room in this "hotel"-priceless.

On this particular episode there were divers feeding a moray eel, (Strophidon sathete), mini hot dogs. The moray eel is soooo cute that the locals have even named her, Molly. Well since this video is on this particular show one can only sit with great anticipation for the "go bad" part to go bad. As this one diver is pulling mini hot dogs out of a Ziploc bag, Molly the moral eel, the eel that is solid muscle and has the brain capacity of a walnut, who by the way also has one very interesting trait:
Moray eels' heads are too narrow to create the negative pressure that most fish use to swallow prey. Quite possibly because of this, they have a second set of jaws in their throat called pharyngeal jaws, which also possess teeth. When feeding, morays launch these jaws into the mouth, where they grasp prey and transport it into the throat and digestive system. Moray eels are the only animal that uses pharyngeal jaws to actively capture and restrain prey. Larger morays are capable of seriously wounding humans.hmmmmm

So here's the bad going bad part. I love this show! Man/knucklehead- was petting Molly as he was hand feeding her the mini hot dogs. Trouble is Molly was a tad hungry this particular day and was rather short on patience. Man/knucklehead couldn't get the mini hot dog out of the bag fast enough. You could see the juice from the mini hot dogs being release into the water and Molly swimming through it. The more she swam through it the more she anticipated another mini hot dog. Man/knucklehead couldn't get it out of the bag fast enough so Molly decided to take charge, and oh boy did she ever. Now understand there is sound on this video. You see Molly turn on man/knucklehead and there is this really loud crunching sound, followed by screaming rapid pulling of the mans/knuckleheads hand, then a red cloud replacing the hot dog juice. Oh the moment! Later they interview the man/knucklehead who had to have his big toe removed so they could attach it for his new thumb which Molly had mistaken for a mini hot dog because said man/knucklehead couldn't get them out of the bag fast enough. He said he was shocked that this happened-what?! You were shocked, really. You really didn't see anything going wrong here? Helen Keller could have seen this one coming!

I could go on and on, but most of you who read this have the same attention span as I, "oh look shiny", so I'll wrap it up. Why are we shocked, why do we ignore the warning signs? Reason we never think that they pertain to us. Is it that we always think that we are beyond such things? So when the warnings we ignore happen we are shocked. Throughout life we are given many warnings and yet we still ignore the signs. We still try to beat the train even though the gates are coming down and the lights are flashing. We speed up when the light turns yellow instead of applying the brakes. We ignore the warning labels on various products that read-causes cancer. We just think that the tightness in our chest and the pain in our left arm is just a pinched nerve. Life has never guaranteed us a second chance; often times you only get one. Signs aren't just there so Mel and his family can hide in the closet with tin foil on their heads.

Pay attention, don't get caught off guard, think before you act and most of all -don't be shocked when something happens if you choose to ignore them.That's all I have to say on this.

28,000

28,000 since 2006. This is the number of people who have died in Mexico from drug violence according to the Chicago tribune, 8-5-2010.

28,000 and this doesn't even count those here in the US that have died because of violence or the result of using drugs.

28,000, that is twenty eight thousand people have died. Does that bother anyone??? Now I realize that in that number there are many who are a part of the drug cartels, but there is also a large number who are innocent bystanders.

To think that this many people in such a short time have lost their lives blows me away. Now many might say well that's sad but what does this have to do with me? Simple, if you use drugs, yes even smoke pot, because pot is a drug you moron, you are directly contributing to the death toll in Mexico.

I see it like this, the reason there are drug cartels is because there is a demand for such products. These cartels fill the demand with the product needed. If the demand stopped the product would stop, which in turn would stop the killing. Yet the demand isn't slowing because many here in the US think nothing of it. What's the big deal, I'm only smoking a little weed. I want you to think about this, because it's the hard truth, next time you go to light up I want you to picture putting a gun to another human beings head and you personally pulling the trigger. Yep that's right, you pulled the trigger. You took part in the senseless murder of another.

There is no such thing as a harmless drug nor; and this gets the vein in my neck to bulge out, are you only affecting your own life. Lie, lie lie lie!!!

That's our trouble we always want to only think of ourselves and our actions aren't affecting anyone else. Maybe that's why people get into cars and drive drunk, maybe that's why people have no problem denying their family necessities of life so that they can simply "relax".

I see the outcomes of these types of decisions. I sit with kids whose parents really only care about themselves why else would they continue with their addiction. I go to rehab centers and psych wards and see the faces of people who have had their lives stripped away by drugs. The reasoning is the same, what's the big deal. What's the big deal? What?

Come on people take the responsibility you should. If your going to use drugs then fess up to the fact that you have taken part in murdering 28,000 people. Come on get some guts and be honest-you have. Here in the States we think nothing of this. It's not our problem, we are not part of it-wrong on all sides.

It is your problem, you are a part of it. Quit hiding, quit sticking you head in the sand and pretending that this is another countries problem. It's not. It's about time for the people of the home of the brave and the land of the free to take responsibility for their actions.

Man I am steamed right now, you might pick this up from my writing, in fact I wouldn't be surprised if as you read this you can hear the pounding that my computer is taking.