Special Parenting Powers

Posted on August 17, 2007 by The Daring One

I will forevermore dazzle my friends at play dates and freshman mixers now that I’ve come up with the best superpowers ever. I want a highly-directional periscopic nose and extendible lips. These are powers I never would have dreamed of until becoming a mother. [read more at Parenting.com]

Posted in all about me, parenting | 6 Comments

Kathryn’s Law

Posted on August 16, 2007 by The Daring One

If you walk past a grape on the floor and think, “I should pick that up later,” you will be the one to step on it. Guaranteed.

Posted in all about me, blick | 24 Comments

Real Men Watch Victorian Romance Movies

Posted on August 15, 2007 by The Daring One

And they LIKE them!

Wives and Daughters finally came up in my Netflix queue last week and the first disc in the BBC miniseries arrived by mail much to my girlish glee and delight.

Dan got home from work when I was about halfway through the first disc and after a brief rundown of the major characters and their likeliness to make advantageous matches with each other, he was hooked. WHAT would happen to Miss Molly? What, indeed!

The disc ended at the most cliffhangerish of cliffhangers and we were left wondering whether a girl of nearly twenty would be doomed to remain a spinster, or more importantly, whether the 10 pounds her father provided for ribbons and gowns would be enough to make her quite suitable for the many balls she would attend in the meantime.

I sent the disc back and waited anxiously for the conclusion to arrive in my mailbox. Yesterday it DID! I asked Dan semi-sarcastically if he’d like me to wait so he could watch it with me. He said he really wanted to see what happened and we cuddled up to view the enchanting finale.

As the movie started, Stephanie’s husband who’s staying with us this week got home from work and asked what we were watching. When we told him he said, “Those shows can really hook you in, where you just have to know what happens next.” He decided to keep his distance.

10 minutes later I heard him sigh from the kitchen where he had been eavesdropping, “Oh FINE!” He headed over to the couch, dinner plate in hand, and plunked himself down next to Dan.

They commentated throughout the movie with me and hazarded guesses about what would happen next. They referred to the characters by their names and asked questions like, “Why does he get called ”˜Mr. Osbourne’ when they just call his brother ”˜Roger’?” and, “Wouldn’t that be hard to do in a corset?” They clapped their hands and laughed out loud at the funny parts and they cringed at the DRAMA OF IT ALL.

Dan held me like a baby during the moments of repressed passion and romance, the parts that left me clasping my hands to my tender bosom, whilst tears welled up in my eyes.

It was the best movie-watching experience of my married life. And when it was over and our house guest was safely out of earshot, I turned to Dan and said, “Oh, Mr. Roger. Would you take me upstairs?”

“Nothing could please me more,” he exclaimed and my heart grew three sizes.

Posted in all about me, domesticality, Love and Marriage | 26 Comments

Lunch Engine Optimization

Posted on August 13, 2007 by The Daring One

Peanut butter and jam sandwiches on bread with pink jelly, sugar sauce that tastes like candy, creamy brown sauce, squishy homemade pastry and proteinI hear a lot of people talking shmack about Search Engine Optimization, the art of getting your website as high in the search results as possible on Google, MSN, Yahoo or Hakia.

There are many ways to do this. One is to creatively add popular keywords all over your site, in your post titles, your categories and tags, anywhere that would be picked up by a search engine. If you say “Purple Manatees” 400 times on the front page of your website, chances are you will rank pretty high on an MSN search for purple manatees. If you say “purple manatees” 400 times AND “large redish-blue sea creatures that are also known as cows of the sea, who live in the ocean in salt water and swim like fishes even though they’re mammals who are larger than PARIS HILTON or BRITNEY SPEARS,” you really broaden the search results people can use to find your site.

I’ve never really done this, but I hear the key is to use terms that a lot of people search for and to use as many different terms as possible.

Today I noticed that although I don’t do this on my website, I totally do it to get my kids to put the lunch I’ve made high on their personal search results page. Laylee wanted peanut butter and Magoo just wanted some BREAD!

Instead of — “peanut butter sandwiches,” I made, “Peanut butter and jam sandwiches on bread with pink jelly, sugar sauce that tastes like candy, creamy brown sauce, squishy homemade pastry and protein.”

That way, if they’re searching for peanuts, butter, jam, sandwiches, bread, pink things, jelly/jello/gelatinous anything, sugar, sauce, brown items, things that squish, homemade things, pastries, or vital protein-type nutrients, my PB&J creation will match their search perfectly.

Tomorrow I may whip up some “Kraft macaroni and cheese, slightly overcooked but almost al dente, pasta noodles with orange cheesish sauce, made with milk (an ingredient also found in ice cream), butter, unknown chemicals, saturated fat, refined carbohydrates, fun, slurpable goodness and joy.”

the reasons: cilantro, blue sky, Dan greeting me in the morning with an invitation to go clothes shopping

Posted in food, technology, world domination | 29 Comments

WE DON’T YELL IN THIS FAMILY!

Posted on August 10, 2007 by The Daring One

Yesterday I caught myself yelling at the top of my lungs for them to just be quiet. I put Laylee in timeout. “Laylee,” I said calmly, “Do we yell in this family?”

She looked up at me with utter confusion, a look that said… [read more]

Posted in parenting, save me from myself | 8 Comments

President James E. Faust

Posted on August 10, 2007 by The Daring One

I know that most of the readers of this site are not LDS but several of you are so I feel like I can express my feelings of love and sympathy to the family of President James E. Faust this morning. He’s a longtime member of the First Presidency of my church and he passed away early this morning. I will personally remember him for his gentle and kind nature and the sincerity of his teaching and testimony of Jesus Christ. I will miss him.

Posted in faith, get serious | 12 Comments