Wordless Wednesday: Breast Fed Baby

"Ba Ba." Someone is hungry.

Silly Sunday: Five Seconds of Fun

My niece's goofy husband brought a fun, free app to our Thanksgiving week-end and here are the results. No one was safe around Josh and everyone else who went for the download.

Taking a nap had it's consequences.

Sitting at a Thanksgiving dinner table can also be dangerous.

I wasn't even safe visiting with my family.

In case you're wondering, the app is called "Action Movie" and is available for free at the Apple App store.

Theme Thursday: Togetherness with Glasses

 

Here it is another year of Thanksgiving family togetherness and stories of do you remember when? Being the youngest in my family, it’s quite possible that there are more stories about me than anyone else. It’s not that I caused the most mischief, but rather, there were more sibs around to catch me at it. Not to mention that someone was always ready to set up the gullible little sister to carry out evil plans.

I grew up in a small St. Louis neighborhood with Leonard Slatkin, the famous symphony conductor, right next door. When his face appeared on the cover of our new phone book, he-who-must-not-be-named sent me on a mission to get Mr. Slatkin’s autograph. How was I  to know the great conductor would open his door with only a towel around his waist? Furthermore, I was too young to realize how gauche it was to ask him for his autograph in that situation. Being a good sport, Mr. Slatkin autographed my phone book and off I went only to be reminded of my faux pas at Thanksgiving get togethers forty years later.

I didn’t need eyeglasses to see the obvious during my childhood. Each member of my family wore a pair of specs while I enjoyed perfect vision. Not anymore. I blame it on childbirth because that’s when my vision went south. This Thanksgiving when my sister brings her new boyfriend to the family meal, I need either glasses or contacts to inspect him clearly. It's even better to find cheap eyeglasses that can be ordered here.

If you’re one of those people, like me, who needs a pair of glasses to see your family for the holidays, you’re in luck. GlassesUSA.com offers high quality optical products at affordable prices and in the fastest time span possible – all across the world. Their lenses not only exceed FDA requirements but they pass their “5-stripe” process prior to shipment. GlassesUSA offer a variety of shipping methods that best suits your needs. Please visit the premier place to buy prescription eyeglasses online.

 Besides their high quality frames and lenses, they offer a 110% lowest price guarantee and a 100% satisfaction guarantee along with a generous refer-a-friend program. Additionally, you can stay up-to-date on all GlassesUSA happenings through their Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/glassesusa) and their Twitter feed (@GlassesUSA).  

Good looking stranger in glasses. :)

Now for the best news of all. Readers of this blog may receive a discount for the purchase of eyeglasses. STOREWIDE OFFER - Take 15% off your entire order amount + FREE shipping (orders over $50). Code: FS15

Take 10% off any order of prescription glasses. Code: Blog10
And feel free to check out their Sales & Coupons page for any additional up-to-date deals!

Here is a fun way to try on glasses before buying. 
Virtual Mirror Feature

Wordless Wednesday: It's Electric

 

We've traveled over 1,080 miles

 and have paid NOTHING for gas.  

Silly Sunday: Remembering Uncle Bernard

Elvis with Uncle Bernard

This week brought the passing of my husband's uncle, who not only was the clothier of the king, but also funny enough to be memorialized on a silly Sunday. Uncle Bernard marched to the beat of his own band as he put on his relaxed accent. He could speak to the homeless man on the street or Katie Couric with equal comfort.

Bernard Lansky, a master sales person, once called his son and told him to come to the store because he'd just sold the son's car. In a New York restaurant, Bernard didn't see anything he liked on the menu, so he asked the waiter for a peanut butter sandwich. The waiter said, "We don't have any peanut butter."

In which Bernard replied, "Run down to the 7-Eleven and get some."

With mouth dropping the waiter said, "I could get fired.

Bernard pulled out a huge wad of cash, gave it to the waiter, and said, "You now work for me."

"Smooth or crunchy?" the waiter said.

Bernard Lansky will be missed!

Book Launch: Small Portions

 

Today marks the book launch of Small Portions by Dieter Moitzi. “Small Portions” is a story that comes in… small portions. In precisely 111 little parts – AND a recipe. To explore the many facets of modern life, the author has chosen the literary form of vignettes, those short impressionistic scenes that focus on one moment or give a trenchant impression about a character, idea, setting, object.

Dieter Moitzi tells his own story in poignant scenes that vary from a snapshot of his christening in the early 70s to his father’s death in a skiing accident at the beginning of the 2000s. It’s small things he talks about, those many small things that compose a life – his life. He recalls the painful process of coming out of the closet, relates in funny detail the first encounters and love stories of his happy-go-lucky twenties, delves with analytical distance into aspects and turning points of two long-time relationships. He takes you by the hand and guides you through the streets of Paris, the city he lives in. He writes about food and the internet and his travel experiences in Greece, Morocco, Vienna, Tunisia, London…

In just so many carefully chosen words, sometimes poetic, sometimes blunt, but always with a good deal of wry and self-deprecating humour, the author succeeds in creating little universes with each story. Each one stands alone, yet when you link them together, another story takes shape. The story of a life, the sketch of a person, the mirror of a time. Our time.

You can purchase the book on amazon.com –http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009ZTSJOQ  – and on your local amazon-online-store (e.g. amazon.co.uk, amazon.fr, amazon.de…) The Book Launch Promotional price is only for only $0.99 (price exluding tax) until the end of the year. The book is also available in a French version (“Petites portions” – http://www.amazon.fr/Petites-portions-ebook/dp/B00A08G48O/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1351933352&sr=8-6) and a German version (“Kleine Portionen” –http://www.amazon.de/Kleine-Portionen-ebook/dp/B009ZTSLJY/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1351933449&sr=8-2)  for €0.99 (price excluding tax).

 

I met Dieter Moitzi in the Blogesphere, where he has been a frequent visitor to my blog.  Born in 1972 in Austria, Dieter Moitzi moved to Paris, France, in the early 1990s. He is working as a graphic designer and writing in his spare time, mainly in English. He loves to share his passion for words, which is the reason why he has launched a literature blog in 2010. Ever since, he has published a collection of poems (“and somewhere under”) as well as a collection of short stories (“Miss Otis regrets”), both available on amazon. Moreover, his poetry has been published in the “Vine Leaves Literary Journal” in 2012. He is currently working on two novels that he hopes to publish in 2013. Congrats to Dieter on his new book! You may visit him at http://dietermoitzi.blogspot.com/

Wordless Wednesday: Objective Met

It was hard to think of these frames as being 

 complete when we bought them back in 1993.

#GBE2: Numbers

 

There was a time in grade school when I considered myself to be good at math. To further my beliefs, we'd take achievement tests where I consistently scored higher in Math than Reading or Language Arts. In fact, I did so well, my dad got the idea that I was ready for Algebra in seventh grade, even though some smart teachers thought otherwise. Thus began my numbers demise. I am living proof that there are few things worse than pushing a kid into a class in which he or she is not ready.

Math fits perfectly into Piaget's psychological theories. Have you ever tried to convince a toddler that a fat wide glass has more juice in it than the tall skinny one? If you succeeded, you're probably the first because there is no way most toddlers can grasp that concept, as there was no way twelve year old me was going to 'get' Algebra. It has nothing to do with intelligence, and everything to do with emotional maturity. I just wasn't there yet.

As a result of being pushed beyond my math readiness, I struggled with math throughout high school. Come college, I enrolled in a required Freshman math class. I took one look at my text and horrible memories of struggling through this stuff terrorize me. As a result, I made the mistake of signing up pass/fail for the easiest class of my college career. The difference? Come college, I was ready for this stuff!

As an adult, teaching math is probably my greatest strength because now, not only do I understand numbers, but I think I have good insight as to why some kids don't. Also, I've seen how my number talented son had no trouble securing a job post college. He used to joke with a friend about how he could add but couldn't read and his friend could read but couldn't add. In hindsight, I'm glad Daniel could add.

Although my youngest did not consider herself to be a mathematician, with her friends, they created a great T-shirt idea. Well the adults in charge didn't think so because it never became a shirt. It read something like this: Holy shift! Look at that assymptote on that mother function. IB. We have class.

Here's a great Abbot & Costello math clip.

Silly Sunday: Lincoln

I'm thrilled to hear another Abe Lincoln movie, directed by Stephen Spielberg and starring Daniel Day Louis and Sally Field, is coming to theaters this week. Lincoln has always been one of my favorite presidents not just because of the Emancipation Proclamation but also his great wit that most people don't even know about. Last January, I posted funny anecdotes about him. History: Abe Lincoln was Funny

Here are some jokes coined by Lincoln himself.

* It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.

* When I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees.

* If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?

* Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.

* Whatever you are, be a good one.

* He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas better than any man I ever met.

* When you have got an elephant by the hind leg, and he is trying to run away, its best to let him run.

* You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.

* The man who murdered his parents, then pleaded for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan. 

* Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.

Theme Thursday: Soup

I love soup. It's the comfort food I like to snuggle up to on a cold winter night. Although summer gazpacho also flames my jets! Love of soup might even be genetic since my daughters love soup too. When Judy was in third grade, she had an assignment to make a map of her own city. Soup City contained fabulous places such
as Chicken Noodle Lane and Beef Noodle Boulevard.

What movie is this photo from?

While we're still on the soup topic, check out my soup scene from my third manuscript Being Bompsy Carleffa. 
 

Gil placed tomato-base soup in front of each of us. When I blew and sipped it off my spoon, I was shocked. Cold soup? All this money, and these people couldn’t heat the soup.

            “Do you like the gazpacho?” Fiso asked.

            I dropped my spoon on the table. Why would he mention the Gestapo? What was he, a modern day Nazi? Sure, doesn’t everyone like murderers? Sick. This guy’s really sick!