I can remember going to the cemetery on a few occasions where my dad's family was buried, but it was maybe for the occasional Memorial Day or more of history-type visit as it is a large, historic site.

My mother's parents were buried in another city, and the only time I remember going there was for their burials.

My mother died of cancer almost 4 (can you believe that?) years ago and I've only been to her grave a couple of times, including her burial.

She was quite a character, and I'd often tease her that if she made me mad, I'd put one of those lantern decorations on her grave, and she couldn't do anything about it.

(TV TIME OUT: I am not making fun of people who put lanterns on graves, she just found them amusing, and I could "threaten" her with them. Additionally, the cemetery where she is buried has some restrictions on decor, so please don't think I'm depriving her.)

I'm not opposed to visiting the cemetery, I guess it's just not a habit I've learned.

Part of it may be attributed to my religious beliefs that the person you lost isn't there.

But, another part of it may be that I've never lost anyone close under extreme circumstances, so I guess I haven't needed whatever closure that provides?

Not sure.

I know this is sort of a bizarre topic, but it's come up in conversation twice recently, so I thought I'd see what you guys thought.

You know what chaps my hide?

When people comment negatively on food while you're eating it.

It doesn't gross me out or anything, I just think it's very rude.

My kids aren't allowed to say things, ("Eewww!" in particular) as someone is eating, but apparently that's just my hangup.

I was fixing my oatmeal at work and somebody walked up behind me and said, "Eewww, I don't like oatmeal, it just gets all up in my mouth and stuff."

While I am completely unclear where else oatmeal on a spoon goes besides your mouth and I have no idea what "and stuff" referred to, I just thought that was incredibly rude, and not a visual I wanted.

Now, had I said, "Hey there, what do you think about my oatmeal?" then it would have been totally different.

But, I didn't.

It's not the same thing as saying you can't stand some food (I'm looking at you, raisins in food and nutmeg) in conversation, I'm talking about making some negative exclamation at the moment of consumption.

Stop it.

That is all.

As he is an 8th grader and a bit prone to the "Senior Slide" until graduation on some (but not all) days, I expected her to at least mention something like he needs to "put forth more effort" or "needs to be more careful with his work", etc.

I admit, I skew toward the negative (that sound you hear? Is my husband choking on something at that understatement) was sort of getting preemptively defensive, preparing my responses.

Please be assured, it was more of an inner thing, I wouldn't act like that on the phone, I am nothing but nice, I promise.

Though it is a small school. I don't really know this particular teacher very well, I've only spoken with her a couple of times, so I didn't know what she'd say.

Not only did she answer my questions, but she went on to tell me how wonderful he is (though he is a fine student and is not (usually) in trouble, we don't typically get that type of report on him) and that she is so proud of how he is working and that she brags to everyone about him, and he is really special to her.

She also excitedly told me about how good he is with younger kids and she has some pictures for me from an event that required him speaking (not something he likes) and that he was great.

Blew me away.

I had gotten a very different report from another teacher and was kind of down about it because I didn't think it was entirely accurate (simmer down, I didn't say it to the teacher, and I know there are two sides to things. Also? Am married to a teacher. I'm not that parent, I get it.) and was not expecting this at all.

She said she wished she had thought to tell me earlier, and just didn't think about it.

There may have even been tears on my part.

I'm not really going anywhere with this other than to say just remember that even something that seems small can really make someone's day, and that my parentheses keys seem to be in working order.

I'm sure the conclusion was something along the lines of, "Blah, blah, blah...let's go shopping and out to eat."

When we had 2 kids close-ish together, there was the requisite discussion of, "How will we afford them, we''l have two in college at once!"

I'm sure the conclusion was something along the lines of, "Mmph shmrr glurrrb we CAN"T BE OUT OF COFFEE!"

I have no idea, we had 2 little kids.

Forward through the next 15 years (really?) and here we are.

For the most part, we've learned that you never feel like you can afford kids, you just sort of fork the money over for various things, and life just happens.

We must have been millionaires before they came along, we just didn't know it.

As far as college goes, I've just kind of pretended I can't hear you lalalalalalalala. My oldest is 15, so we have yet to do that. I always imagined we'd figure something out, because people a lot worse off than we are have sent kids to college.

But, y'all?

You never told me about this car insurance for teenagers thing.

Oh, sure I've heard people with older kids bemoan it over the years, but I've never really paid attention since my kids were going to be 8 forever.

Now? I have about 6 months left to deal.

Busy Girl will be driving in September, so I casually called the auto insurance people to get an idea of what the discount would be if she took driver's ed.

My stress agenda related to this matter had always centered around, "How in the world are we going to be able to get another car?"

Now, I've totally had to alter my stress plan.

The nice lady on the other end of the phone cheerfully told me about the whole $30 I'd save if Busy Girl took a $400 class.

That would be $30 off the additional FOUR MORE DIGITS dollars a year when she gets a license.

Oh? And, double that if we get another car. A beater car.

"You better be glad she's not a boy." I can hear all of you who've been here before me sagely saying.

You're forgetting: WE HAVE A BOY. And? He's right behind her.

He''ll get his license when she's a senior and on her way to college.

How do people do this?

Yes, I know, kids work and pay their own insurance.

That's not really an option for her anytime soon because of volleyball, though.

Anyway, it's the principle of the matter, that is just a lot of money to be piled on an already expensive time.

We need to stop giving little babies savings bonds when they're born, and start giving them car insurance.

Car insurance for teens needs to come with a health insurance policy for parents. Limit it to cardiac coverage if you must.

After the nice lady on the phone gave me the quotes and I had confirmed that she was, indeed, talking about American dollars, she asked me if I wanted to hear about their teen banking program.

I resisted making a joke about banking my teens until they turn 21 and she went on to tell me about the minimum deposit I'd need to open an account.

I maybe not-so-cheerfully reminded her that we didn't need an account since there wouldn't be any money to put in there after I paid the insurance.

As an adult, I just pay my insurance, I usually don't actively think about it.

But, now I think I just turned into one of those people who discusses car insurance rates at a cocktail party, mostly because I will need the free drinks.

The big snow last week and my blog being down for a bit, plus Blissdom and a volleyball tournament this weekend have thrown me off a little.

And, by "thrown me off a little" I mean I haven't been to my house in ages, and when I am there, I can hardly hold my head up.

In fact, I'm not sure when I last did laundry or washed dishes, even with my fancy new dishwasher.

I'm vaguely sure the kids have been bathed and we've fed them something besides Toaster Strudel at some point, throw in Busy Boy's MAJOR research paper that was due (let's just say Emergency Research Paper Plans were activated, and leave it at that), and I've just been a bit "off schedule".

Blah, blah, blah...broken record.

I know.

I also seem to have lost the ability to use a quick moment here and there to write something, I used to be able to do that, now am very much a princess who needs quiet and solitude to hone my craft.

Or, something like that.

So, yet again, I shall attempt to get back on the Nike inspired "Just Do It" blogging program.

Here we go:

**********************

I attended most of Blissdom last week, where I learned a few things, saw some friends, got to know people better and met some new friends.

It was held at the fabulous Gaylord Opryland Hotel here in town.

The only thing about going to a conference where you live is that you feel compelled to do that and take care of stuff at home (see also: burning the candle at all 3 ends), so I did a lot of running back and forth.

There are lots of posts about Blissdom out there, and I'll probably write more about it later.

But, for now congratulations for a job well done to Alli Worthington of Blissfully Domestic, Babara Jones and Paula Bruno of One2One Network.

Even though interaction between brands and bloggers is a hot topic, I just want to make sure you check out the fabulous Blissdom sponsors.

[heavy sigh] I get nothing for that, that statement was not endorsed in any way.

I merely went to a great conference that was made possible by the support of these sponsors, and that's a great thing. [/heavy sigh]

As yo may have heard, Harry Connick Jr. made a special guest appearance at Blissdom.

While I'm not much of a "Squee!" -er, he and his band were fabulous.

He was on his way to the Super Bowl and he could have popped into town, phoned it in at the piano and popped back out since it was a smallish conference full of bloggers.

But, he didn't.

He and those young men in the band, Brought. It.

More importantly, though, they taught us about Musician's Village.

New Orleans lost so much during Hurricane Katrina, and among those losses were musicians and there music, a foundation of that town.

Musician's Village is a Habitat For Humanity project in New Orleans conceived by Harry Connick, Jr. and Branford Marsalis to provide homes and a community for musicians who lost everything during the storm and flood.

Take a minute and find out more about Musician's Village (has sound), you'll be glad you did.

These young men with him are residents:

They can also dance as video evidence will eventually prove if the videographer wasn't too traumatized.

Hilarious evening after the concert.

If you give a blogger a dance floor...

Why no, I don't care that this isn't "real snow" compared to where you live, grew up, fought in the war, went to school or did time, but thanks for asking!

Anyway, what kind of blogger would I be if I didn't post pictures of my kids and my pets in the snow?

Not a very good one, I'd say. In fact, I think union rules state that I have to do this.

So, yeah.

American Gothic plus one:

You'd better duck:

Callie dog remains unimpressed:

Abercrombie ad:

Lean into it!

Edward laments the fact that his black fur shows everything:

Busy D. was 8 months old, and also had a 6 and 8 year old. That's kind of wild.

I think I write about why I started a blog every year on this day, so I'll spare you (Reader's Digest version: because I could.)

By the way, if you look at the archives over there ===> it says April, but I had 2 other urls before this one. You'll just have to take my word for it.

I guess my blog is ready for chapter books and sleepovers.

I always feel like I should say something profound on this day, but why start now?

I trust all of you had plenty of room in my suitcase on the ride down here.

We got in about 2:30 am, and I didn't get to sleep until after 4am.

That wouldn't have been so bad, except the house next door (and right under my window) is perpetually being worked on, and the stucco guys set off some car alarm around 7:30am.

One year we were here, however, they started the day blaring the Grease soundtrack, so it could have been worse.

We got up this morning, went to eat lunch and shopped for a bit. Came back to the house to see the sunset, fixed dinner and watched TV.

HGTV is just the kind of wild and crazy time you expect from women out of town and carefree, huh? All the guys on House Hunters tonight were rather douchey-looking, so we mocked them and felt downright raucous.

I'm trying to figure out how to use Whrrl, so here's what we've been up to so far:

Get some sleep, we have more shopping in store tomorrow, and there's so many of you, you're going to have to apply to go with me in my purse.

Those of you who aren't accepted to the shopping outing may convene on the deck and look at the ocean until I return.

They are so hard to get hold of, ya know?

Let's see, where did we leave off?

Busy Girl's face didn't rot off, she is healing nicely, though a certain plastic surgeon is suspicious she was playing volleyball sorta kinda against orders.

That suspicion may or may not be actually be a bit founded, I'll never tell.

Volleyball is getting geared up again, which for the uninitiated, means I have time on my hands 3 times a week to regale you with tales of the gym and of the road.

I know! Isn't it grand?

Savor this, my little digital pumpkins, for she will have a driver's license by the time the next season rolls around, and I will not have to drive the 60 miles 3 times a week.

Speaking of driver's licenses, she's doing well with her permit, though I have my doubts (she will disagree,and may even do so on here because I'm pretty sure she and her friends are reading. Hi, guys!) that she understands all the physics of a motorized vehicle.

Guess what tomorrow is?

My annual girl's trip to the beach.

Get a travel buddy and be in my suitcase by 9am tomorrow if you want to go. We have to go to work first, but we'll leave in the late afternoon.

Those of you who are old hands at this, tell the new guys what they're supposed to do.

I have a boatload of stuff I need to do before then that is obviously not gonna get done, mainly because I can't feel my fingers.

She's at a new volleyball club this season, and, holy honkers, this place is cold!

Dang, I shoulda brought my little TV, I want to see how Ellen does on American Idol.

Starving, I'm also starving.

More later, but like I said somewhere else, secure your breakables, I'm gonna start exercising. More on that later, but I'm in an exercise challenge, so I gotta, you know exercise and eat right and stuff.

Only 2 months and 30 days to go.