What is your earliest memory?

Kim of Kimmotion asked this question on her blog. Here is mine:

My earliest memory was of my step-grandma. I remember she had some paper grocery sacks and she was letting me cut them up ... with big sewing shears (not your run- of-the-mill safe blunt scissors.) I must have been 3? I just remember that I felt so grown up using big scissors.

one last post before I crash.

Gotta love my kids. I was discussing with Ex. A about how I called the insurance company today to see about what we need to do for him (he's about to start learning to drive.)

me: so they said that as long as you don't have a license, just a permit, you are covered on my insurance for up to a year.
XA: Cool! Then what when I get my license?
me: I'll add you on mine until you turn 18.
XA: Is it expensive?
me: about $100 more a month. The older you get, as long as you keep a clean record, your insurance goes down... and if you get married, it drops again cause most married guys don't drive like silly 16 year olds.
XA: What if I am 16 and married?

.. silence ...

Another terror network

Forgot to add that I received this e-mail about another ruthless group out to strike terror in the hearts of many..

---

Al-Gebra

At New York's Kennedy airport today, an individual, later discovered to be a public school teacher, was arrested trying to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a set square, and a calculator.

Attorney General John Ashcroft believes the man is a member of the notorious al-gebra movement. He is being charged with carrying weapons of math instruction. Al-gebra is a very fearsome cult, indeed. They desire average solutions by means and extremes,and sometimes go off on a tangent in a search of absolute value. They consist of quite shadowy figures, with names like "x" and "y", and, although they are frequently referred to as "unknowns", we know they really belong to a common denominator and are part of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country.

As the great Greek philanderer isosceles used to say, there are 3 sides to every triangle, and if God had wanted us to have better weapons of math instruction, He would have given us more fingers and toes. Therefore, I'm extremely grateful that our government has given us a sine that it is intent on protracting us from these math-dogs who are so willing to disintegrate us with calculus disregard. These statistic bastards love to inflict plane on every sphere of influence. Under the circumferences, it's time we differentiated their root, made our point, and drew the line.

These weapons of math instruction have the potential to decimal everything in their math on a scalene never before seen unless we become exponents of a Higher Power and begin to factor-in random facts of vertex.

As our Great Leader would say, Read my ellipse. Here is one principle he is uncertainty of---though they continue to multiply, their days are numbered and the hypotenuse will tighten around their necks.

What a day.

For those who remember when our computer crashed (ok so it crashed twice), when we got everything set back up I redid my mail. I forgot to add one of my accounts, so while I've been getting mail under one name, the other name was also getting mail, but I never saw it. Needless to say, that was the account that Ex. A's teacher uses to keep up with us (Gee, I was wondering why she never wrote anymore, but I thought with Christmas and all....) I'll just leave it at that, but you can imagine the mini-coronary I had when I realized we had missed a couple of important emails from her. We got it all cleared up and all is well now.

Not only that, but three people have been trying to reach me to about the following matters (names deleted-I mean really...I don't wanna blow my chances by having you beat me to this):

"...I therefore made further investigation and discovered that Mr. (deleted) did not declare any next of kin or relations in all his official documents, including his Bank Deposit paperwork in my Bank. This sum of US$11,500,000.00 is still in my Bank and the interest is being rolled over with the principal sum at the end of each year. No one will ever come forward to claim it. In accordance with the Nigerian Federal Law, at the expiration of 4 (four) years, the money will revert to the ownership of the Nigerian Government if nobody applies to claim the fund. Consequently, I shall present you as a foreign partner to stand in as the next of kin to Mr. (deleted) so that you and i can benefit from the fruits of this old man's labour to enhance Humanitarian Organisation World wide..."


"..Before my father finally gave up he was able to tell me that he kept some money in a security company abroad which he wanted to use to bring in ammunations totalling $10.5m and that the certificate that was issued to him when he lodged the money with them is in his closet in his room that I should ,but before he could finish his statement ,he died .So I quickly rushed to his closet and saw the certificate and the contact telephone number of the security company,I contacted them and they confirmed my father has a consignment in thier custody. Personally I would like to continue and finish my education and become a medical doctor which has been my dream from childhood but this camp we are now nothing is happening ,the Nigerian government is doing nothing to improve our lives so I would want you to help me take custody of this money($10.5m) from the security company and arrange for my coming over to complete my education in your country.It is in this direction I seek your assistance.While am schooling you can invest part of the money into any viable business until I will complete my medical course and join you up in the investment...."

".... I am Mr. (deleted), the Deputy Managing Director Of Commercial Bank Of Africa. I am writing in respect of a late foreign customer,Mr. (deleted), of my bank with account number (deleted) to the tune of Twenty-Nine million, Nine hundred thousand United states dollars[$29.9m], who perished with his entire family (His wife and only son) in a motor accident along Sagbama express road on the 21st of April 2001. All the occupants of the vehicle unfortunately lost their lives. Since the demise of this customer,l have made valuable efforts,as his accounting officer,to get in touch with any of the late customer's Next-of-Kin or relative anywhere in the world but unfortunately,all my efforts did not yield any positive results as no one has come-up to claim his total funds which has been with my bank for a very long time. Recently,the top management of my Bank has given me an ultimatum to provide the next of kin or have the total fund in the deceased's account confiscated within the next thirty official working days. Because the banking ethics here does not allow foreign funds of any deceased customers to stay more than three years that means that this money will be recalled to the treasury as unclaimed after this period. On this note,l have reasoned that if l fail to present the next-of-Kin to claim this money the bank top management will confisticate it and someone else will end up looting it in the treasury. Therefore,I decided to locate any foreigner who can front that he/she is related to the deceased customer. Hence, l decided to contact you as a foreigner to stand as the Next-of-Kin to the deceased customer's account to claim his total fund with the bank so that the proceeds of his account can be paid to you..."

hmm. wonder if it is too late to contact these people? :)

Phototime

I've been admiring all the entries on "Phototime" for a while and finally decided to enter for this week's topic of "Black and White."

In the last few weeks, I have really given thought to starting a photo business on the side (always a dream of mine.) My eventual goal? Doing it full time. We'll see.

An outrage.

I heard about this yesterday, but didn't know the full details of the vandalism at the San Fernando Cathedral in San Antonio, Texas.

My Bishop! :)

Read more about this in the sidebar (Bush-Cheney News - 01/09/2004)

current song swirling in my head

"Mine All Mine" by SheDaisy (thanks to iTunes)

(A.K.A. by my boys as the "chick song.")

Surfing

Yes, it's past my bedtime, but I can't sleep even though I am tired and my eyes are all gritty (isn't it "dangerous" to blog in this state of mind?). I should knit or something, but I have been surfing. I came across some Iraqi blogs and followed a chain of links. Interesting reads. It was good to hear the Iraqi perspective (ok, at least the positive ones.) I wonder if that is what the majority of them feel. Reading and seeing the pictures remind me yet again (like I need to be reminded, right?) how blessed we are to live in this country.

On another note, what is *UP* with the comments? At least I have my tagboard and I added a little message board to the bottom yesterday or the day before....feel free to say "hi"

:: off to drink some warm milk and see if I can get to sleep, as I have to be up at 5 AM ::

Ah, our youth..

Last night, my son's youth group had their meeting. They are setting their goals for the year and the issue of service projects came up. With me being there and with ... well, me being me.. I had a suggestion. When the topic came up, I glanced over at my son and he gave me a look of sheer horror. I suggested visiting the nursing homes, to which my son dropped his head and mumbled, "I knew that was coming." A few of the kids seemed receptive to the idea. Of course, a few boys including the one who REALLY needed to be wearing a belt made a few wise cracks about how old people scare them. Sigh. (oh, wait, I'm not old *wink,wink*.. nevermind) I hope this works out.

.. sigh ..

I've been feeling so "sappy" lately, which isn't helped by the fact that my parents were doing some dejunking and came across some old forgotten tapes of the boys among their videotapes. I haven't watched them yet, but mom said they were of Exhibit B crawling.. I can't believe they are growing up so fast...and of course, I still keep thinking of what might have been. I really need to quit. We got on our paths years ago; I need to stay on my path and quit peeking over at his. It's hard though. I can't imagine why he took this overseas job (another thing which is still bothering me.) He missed out on almost 2 years of the kids' lives when he wasn't around completely, not to mention only seeing them on alternate weekends when he *IS/WAS* around. He has missed out on more than he'll ever know. On a similar note, I know of a lady who is having marital problems. I just want to shake her senseless and say, "DON'T GO THERE." (OK, maybe that's a bit strong, but ...) I've been praying for her. She doesn't want to end up in our situation, no matter how much she thinks she does right now and I've told her as much.

I'm rambling still rambling at 4:30 5:14 a.m. and need coffee hasn't helped.