Expecting another miracle!
Here she is, baby Stevie. Amber says she looks like Voldemort but it's early, yet.
I’m teaching my 15-year-old daughter the rules of the road. She’s not yet legal to get behind the wheel but we spent time recently drawing diagrams of intersections, talking through turning, signaling, all that good stuff. I’ll let you know when she is on the road so you can stay far from the streets of Edmond.
I always wanted another child, but being a poor single mom, obviously the time was never appropriate. Now, at 36, I find myself starting over with a new marriage and a baby on the way. It’s both exciting and a bit scary. And being pregnant when you’re 21 is a far cry from being pregnant at 36!
When I was expecting Amber, it was 1994, a much simpler time. That’s a joke. But for me, at such a young age, it really was a simpler time. Barely anyone had the Internet, so I didn’t have access to all the pregnancy horror stories I do now. I got my information from actual books. “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” was my best friend.
These days, I’m a regular at www.babycenter. com. It’s a great source, but “What to Expect” is still on my bedside table.
The biggest difference I’ve noticed between my first pregnancy and this one is the mood swings. I think it has to do with the fact that I am inching my way toward menopause and my hormones aren’t as stable as they used to be. I’ve been very emotional and moody this time around. It’s not fun.
And being older than 35, I am considered “high risk.” Last week, I paid a visit to a genetic specialist for some fancy 3-D ultrasounds (another technology not available in 1994). The genetic doc said the baby looks great; no signs of any genetic defects.
I know some women love being pregnant. Angelina Jolie for one. She gushed on and on about how she, “like most women,” loves it so much. Well, I can’t say I love being pregnant, but I definitely love the little girl inside me. It’s the nausea, heartburn, weight gain, moodiness, exhaustion, leg cramps and uncertainty I could live without!
Way to start a marriage!
Iris queen’s legacy will live on
A beloved fixture in the Oklahoma gardening community passed away earlier this month. Loretta Aaron, who wrote hundreds of gardening columns for The Oklahoman, died July 12 at the age of 92. Though I never worked with Mrs. Aaron, I did have the pleasure of meeting her and interviewing her for an article I wrote. She was quite a person. Very proud of raising her children as a single mother… proud, also of the beautiful garden she built up in her backyard. She will be missed. Here is the article I wrote which was published May 29, 2008.
Loretta Aaron said nobody except her ever touched her garden.
How does her garden grow? A visit with Oklahoma Garden Maven Loretta Aaron
By Heather Warlick-Moore
A collection of handmade quilts and scrapbooks full of gardening columns tell the story of Loretta Aaron’s horticulture career. The Oklahoma City woman is well known among the gardening set for her green thumb. Having won thousands of first-place ribbons, plaques, trophies and other recognition for the beauty of her blooms, Aaron, who is larger-than-life in the horticultural community of Oklahoma City, stands only about as tall as some of the flowering shrubs she nurtures in her backyard garden.
Aaron was a founding member of the Oklahoma Horticultural Society, graduated from Central State University with a botany degree, wrote a column for The Oklahoman for 20 years and had a gardening award and an iris named for her.
Loretta Aaron won so many ribbons for her Iris blooms, she made several quilts like this one out of them.
Four of the quilts Aaron has created are encrusted from corner to corner with dozens of white, hundreds of red and thousands of blue ribbons from decades of Oklahoma State Fair garden competition wins. Two other quilts are dedicated to the “Best in Show” awards she amassed over the past 50 years for her blooms.
She has been offered thousands of dollars for the quilts but won’t part with them that cheaply. For her, the quilts are a legacy she intends to pass along to her children.
Now in her late 80s, Aaron looks back on her life as a patchwork of memories. She remembers springs and summers spent knee-deep in the soil of her lush flower gardens that started as a tiny patch of grass.
“I ordered 1 square yard of this African Bermuda, and I put it under the clothesline,” Aaron said. While she hung her laundry to dry in the Oklahoma evening breeze, her young daughter would play on the patch of grass that eventually grew to cover her yard.
The flowers came next. Every year, Aaron would plant new bulbs and seeds, adding to her blossoming garden. Now, Aaron’s gardens are a palette of vibrant blooms, deep earthy greens, mature blossom-covered trees that began as tiny saplings and memories of springs and summers spent under the sun tending her precious flora.
“I am the only one that’s ever touched this garden,” she said. Each year, when seed catalogs introduce new varieties, Aaron can’t resist buying one of each. And she loves a gardening challenge. “I try to grow things that people tell me can’t be grown in Oklahoma.”
Red hibiscus the size of dinner plates burst from under a tulip tree full of sunny yellow and orange ornaments in Aaron’s backyard. Black-eyed Susans peek out over white Shasta daisies and, though Aaron doesn’t play favorites with her varieties, among her most admired garden features is an Erythrina tree whose brilliant crimson blooms stop traffic driving by her house.
In her backyard, emotive yellow Columbine blooms drip from branches under a Japanese yew. A field of pristine purple, pink and lavender larkspur paints an impressionistic landscape where Flanders poppies in blood red whisper in reverence to their namesake cemetery for World War I heroes.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
(Maj. John McCrae, Canadian army, 1915)
Already wilted for the season are dozens of tulips and daffodils, of which Aaron grows more than 50 varieties. But waiting to take their places are eager orange lilies that soon will burst forth in abundance. And majestic irises with their royal hues that would become Aaron’s signature blooms perch atop stately stems, staking their claim as the garden’s crown jewels.
As Aaron’s garden blossomed over the years, the garden awards started rolling in, along with thousands in award money. Her iris entries in the state fair competitions won nearly every award possible. Aaron’s kitchen wall is decorated with just a few of her many plaques and trophies.
In juxtaposition to the sunny months spent tending her garden, Aaron remembers the many winter nights spent sprawled on her living room floor, patching together her blue ribbon quilts while her children did chores and homework. The project often kept Aaron working long past midnight.
Today, Aaron’s children are grown with children of their own. Her neighborhood is built up with homes — no longer a lone prairie. Her neighbors stop by often to visit the gardens that blanket most of her backyard and much of the front yard.
Because of macular degeneration, Aaron no longer writes the gardening column or the horticultural bulletins for which she once was famous. But she still has a little dirt under her fingernails, a sure sign of an avid gardener. She is the only person who tends her gardens, and they still thrive.
The best Craigslist ad ever!
NINJA HAULER: 2005 Nissan Xterra – $10900 (schertz)
Reply to: sale-ut5ph-1257065913@craigslist.org [Errors when replying to ads?]
Date: 2009-07-06, 10:26PM CDT
It was never intended to drive to northstar mall so you can pick up that adorable shirt at Abercrombie & Fitch that you had your eye on. It wasn’t meant to transport you to yoga class or Bath & Body Works. No, that’s what your Prius is for. If that’s the kind of car you’re looking for, then just do us all a favor and stop reading right now. I mean it. Just stop.
This car was engineered by 3rd degree ninja super-warriors in the highest mountains of Japan to serve the needs of the man that cheats death on a daily basis. They didn’t even consider superfluous nancy boy amenities like navigation systems (real men don’t get lost), heated leather seats (a real man doesn’t let anything warm his butt), or On Star (real men don’t even know what the hell On Star is).
No, this brute comes with the things us testosterone-fueled super action junkies need. It has a 265 HP engine to outrun the cops. It’s got special blood/gore resistant upholstery. It even has a first-aid kit in the back. You know what the first aid kit has in it? A pint of whiskey, a stitch-your-own-wound kit and a hunk of leather to bite down on when you’re operating on yourself. The Xterra also has an automatic transmission so if you’re being chased by Libyan terrorists, you’ll still be able to shoot your machine gun out the window and drive at the same time. It’s saved my bacon more than once.
It has room for you and the four hotties you picked up on the way to the gym to blast your pecs and hammer your glutes. There’s a tow hitch to pull your 50 caliber anti-Taliban, self cooling machine gun. I also just put in a new windshield to replace the one that got shot out by The Man.
My price on this bad boy is an incredibly low $10,900, but I’ll entertain reasonable offers. And by reasonable, I mean don’t walk up and tell me you’ll give me $5,000 for it. That’s liable to earn you a Burmese-roundhouse-sphincter-kick with a follow up three fingered eye-jab. Would it hurt? Hell yeah. Let’s just say you won’t be the prettiest guy at the Coldplay concert anymore.
There’s only 69,000 miles on this four-wheeled hellcat from Planet Kickass. Trust me, it will outlive you and the offspring that will carry your name. It will live on as a monument to your machismo.
Now, go look in the mirror and tell me what you see. If it’s a rugged, no holds barred, super brute he-man macho Chuck Norris stunt double, then contact me. I might be out hang-gliding or BASE jumping or just chilling with my ladies, but I’ll get back to you. And when I do, we’ll talk about a price over a nice glass of Schmidt while we listen to Johnny Cash.
To sweeten the deal a little, I’m throwing in this pair of MC Hammer pants for the man with rippling quads that can’t fit into regular pants. Yeah, you heard me. FREE MC Hammer pants.
Rock on.
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Auditions set for 2009-2010 Thunder Girls
The audition process will begin at 10 a.m. Participants will learn a series of dance combinations and finalists will be chosen at the end of the day. These auditions are closed to the public.
The Thunder Girls perform at all 41 home games, make over 100 appearances throughout the region and are ambassadors at community, sponsor, promotional events. Last year’s team of 20 was chosen from a pool of nearly 200 talented applicants.
Visit thunder.nba.com for more information. The 2009-10 Thunder Girls are presented by Firelake Grand Casino.
Baking soda: clean and green!
No matter how you feel about global warming or climate change, there is no good reason to damage the planet or the environment, especially if it is avoidable.
There is no time like the present to implement new methods around the house for cleaning and saving energy. The good news is that by being more Earth friendly, you will most likely be more pocket-book friendly.
So lets clean and green cheap! There are many alternative cleaning solutions you can create at home that are cheaper than the store-bought versions we have used our whole lives and are much easier on the environment. If you, like millions of other Americans, experience “green guilt” when you unleash toxic chemicals into your home’s atmosphere, read on.
First a big disclaimer: do not mix chemicals unless you are sure they are harmless together! I once spent the evening hooked up to an oxygen machine at Edmond Medical Center because nobody ever told me this. In my case, it was an ugly, stained toilet that inspired me to mix up a deadly cleaning cocktail of bleach and toilet bowl cleaner. When my lips turned purple and I started seeing three filthy toilets where once there was one, I knew something was amiss.
That said, let’s talk baking soda. What other natural chemical compound is gentle enough that you can brush your teeth with it but strong enough that you can scrub your toilet bowl with it? I mean, I guess you could scrub your toilet bowl with toothpaste, but forget about brushing your teeth with toilet bowl cleaner.
Baking soda is a great alternative cleaning agent that kills odors, is environmentally friendly and easy on your allergies and chemical sensitivities, and costs about 70 cents a box. In the book, “How Clean Is Your House,” Aggie MacKenzie shares her recipe for a winning baking soda scouring mix. She adds a little bleach to the baking soda, just enough to form a paste.
Bleach is not as environmentally benign as baking soda, so you can substitute vinegar or lemon juice if you want to avoid the bleach.
Baking soda cleans, deodorizes, scours, polishes, removes stains and softens fabrics. It can be used on practically every surface, and it even has qualities that whiten and brighten your teeth. You can mix some baking soda with lemon juice, and it will remove stains from plastic and rubber utensils. A scrub brush dipped in baking soda removes black scuff marks from your floors.
Baking soda even helps prevent clogs in your drains. You can pour a half cup of it down the drain alone or mixed with some white vinegar to clean it and keep the drain smelling fresh. Be sure and rinse it down with hot water.
And, as many of us have known for years, an open box of baking soda in your refrigerator absorbs odors for several months. When it’s no longer working in the fridge, use it for your other household cleaning tasks.
Here are a few more handy uses for baking soda around the house:
Mix a little with water and wash your fruits and veggies with it.
Let it eat through any oily mess, such as the oil in a cruet, by shaking baking soda inside it and rinsing.
Sprinkle it in your trash can to remove trashy odors.
A paste of baking soda and bleach will clean the grout on your bathtub tiles and floor tiles alike.
Put some in the cat’s litter box to remove odors.
Mix it with water to shine your silverware.
Sprinkle baking soda down the garbage disposal to kill odors from last night’s dinner.
Use baking soda to coat a pan that has baked-on grime, and witness a miracle 15 minutes later.
OK, you get it. There might be millions of uses for baking soda. If you can dream it, baking soda can probably do it.
For more ideas for using baking soda as a cleaner, check out these Web sites: www.greenlivingtips.com and www.wackyuses.com.
Charlie bit me!
“Ouch Charlie! That really hurt….and it’s still hurting.”
TOOOOO cute!
Even babies are paying tribute to Michael Jackson
Potter fans start young
“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” opens Wednesday and my daughter, Amber, will be one of the throngs of Muggles rushing theaters at midnight. She is truly a member of Generation Harry who grew up reading Harry Potter.
Amber was only 3 when the first book, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” released. She was an avid reader in first and second grade but she was too busy reading “Junie B. Jones” books to care about Harry Potter. That changed when she hit third grade.
Since then, we’ve celebrated Harry Potter book releases and movie openings with almost as much fervor as some people celebrate Hanukkah or Christmas. Amber got more excited about a new Harry Potter book than she ever did about her birthday.
When she was 10, she saved birthday money and paid $60 on Ebay for a “real” hand-carved mahogany magic wand. She also bought a velvet cape, framed Harry Potter art for her room and collected all kinds of Harry Potter loot.
When the final book released, Amber was forlorn. It was the end of an era for her. Luckily, the Twilight series came along.
Truthfully, I never got into the Harry Potter craze too much. I love to read but I’m more of a historical romance and comedy memoir kind of gal. But I do find the phenomenon intriguing.
For my upcoming story in Thursday’s you! section about Generation Harry, I interviewed a child psychologist and Harry Potter expert, Lisa Damour. She had fascinating insight about how the trials and tribulations Harry and the gang experience relate to the real-life psychological development of teens.
Something I found especially interesting is that even though the books are great for getting kids on track to become lifelong readers, she often hears parents bragging about how their child read all the Harry Potter books when they were only 7 or 8.
She doesn’t think parents should let their kids start the series until they’re about 8 and that they should pace their progress through the series. Even the first book has some scary parts that are not appropriate for a young child. As the series progresses, the content becomes darker and less appropriate for young children.
Read Thursday’s you! section for more insights from Damour and visit blog.newsok.com/ofinterest to let me know what you thought of the new movie.
Death is the great equalizer for Michael Jackson
MIAMI (AP) — Michael Jackson taught us to moonwalk, wanted us to take a hard look at the man in the mirror and hoped to unite the world through music. We love him for it — now. But where was the outpouring when he faced child molestation allegations?
Death, it seems, has been the ultimate absolution for Jackson.
“There is a tradition that people are acculturated to speak no ill of the dead,” said Michael Schwartz, associate professor of psychiatry at Stony Brook University in New York. “This has really brought people together. They feel good about being able to share their grief.”
Some fans have been unwavering in their support of Jackson through the years, claiming they never believed allegations that he sexually molested two boys on two separate occasions.
“It never crossed my mind that something like that would be true,” said Georgia Pasvadi, 28, who lives in Athens, Greece, and is studying to be a film director. A nightclub disc jockey, she has been a Jackson fan since she was a kid.
But many others didn’t stick by Jackson, abandoning the King of Pop after his behavior — and his appearance — seemed increasingly bizarre.
In 2002, he dangled his infant son over a hotel balcony in Berlin while a throng of fans watched from below. During his 2005 molestation trial, he appeared gaunt and had recurring back problems that he attributed to stress. The trial was interrupted several times by hospital visits. Jackson once appeared late to court dressed in his pajamas after an emergency room visit.
But all this weirdness seems mostly forgotten now.
For some who were turned off by Jackson a few years ago, it’s like the things he was accused of never happened, said Paul Levinson, professor of communication and media studies at Fordham University in New York.
“It’s because death is the great equalizer,” he said, cleanly separating Jackson from people regarded as so terrible — like Adolf Hitler — that their legacy never changes.
Instead, fans all over the world are choosing to focus on his music, with songs played endlessly on the radio and tributes on television reminding them of their love for such hits as “Thriller” and “Beat It.”
Tim Newsome, 35, of Miami, a fan since the “Thriller” album came out in 1982, said it was hard not to associate Jackson with the allegations. But he recently found himself downloading songs for him and his 11-year-old daughter to enjoy together. Newsome isn’t alone: five of Jackson’s songs are currently top downloads at iTunes.
“Michael is going to be remembered as a great entertainer and performer just as much as he will be remembered for his strange life,” Newsome said.
The outpouring of love for Jackson’s legacy has been epic. According to a telephone survey June 26-29 by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, 31 percent of 1,000 polled said Jackson’s death was the story they followed more closely than any other. And sites like Facebook and Twitter created a stage for large-scale mourning by bringing the world together online.
But Rabbi Shmuley Boteach — who claims he was Jackson’s friend and rabbi from 1999 to 2001 — said the display of grief has little to do with Jackson’s life offstage.
“No one has focused on the death of a man. … This is the death of a cartoon character, a caricature,” Boteach said by telephone from Iceland.
Matt Blank, spokesman for the fan club Michael Jackson World Network based in Britain, said the public may have taken Jackson for granted.
“I think it’s the age old tale of you don’t know what you’ve got until its gone. I think its easier to remember the career of Michael Jackson than the personal life,” he said. “People realize the astonishing talent that he had.”
Blank said there is no escaping Jackson’s music once you hear it.
“Once you like a Michael Jackson song, once you like a Michael Jackson video, there is no going back,” he said.
