C.Beth. C.Beth Blog. C.Beth Blog for ElleBee.

I've met so many wonderful inter-peeps since I started this bloggy thing. One of my faves and daily reads is C. Beth. A while back, when she was on vacay, I was privileged to do a guest blog for her. She's returning the favor for me! I'm not on vacation, but it's so nice to be able to have a new post up that I didn't have to write! ;)



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Hello, ElleBee's fantastic readers! My name is C. Beth, and I write two blogs: C. Beth Blog (musings of a happy mommy) and The One-Minute Writer (writing prompts with a sixty second writing timer.) I was privileged to host ElleBee as a guest writer on one of my blogs in June. Her fun post is here. I'm happy to return the favor as a guest blogger for ElleBee.

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Our park is nice and close to our home. I can plop my two kids (Chickie, age 3 and Zoodle, age 1) in the double stroller, and in ten minutes they're running pulling at their stroller buckles so the can run towards the slides.

One day several months ago, I decided it would be fun for Chickie to "drive" to the park in her little red car. It's one of those cars with a hole in the bottom, which she powers with her feet, Fred Flintstone-style.



So I got Zoodle into the single stroller, and Chickie excitedly got in her little red car. We made our way down the street.

I should have known we were having a problem when we'd walked a block and Chickie was getting tired. But I'd promised her a trip to the park, so on we went. I leaned down a bit and grabbed Chickie's steering wheel, helping her push herself along.

And that's how we walked much of the rest of the way to the park...and the way home. I was pushing a stroller with one hand and pulling/pushing Chickie's car with the other. Shockingly, this is not the most comfortable--or the most dignified--position in which to walk. For the first time (okay, the millionth time) since becoming a mother, I had reason to question my sanity. My sanity and the strength of my back muscles.

When Chickie asked later in the week if she could drive her red car to the park, the answer was an immediate and unequivocal, "No!"

After that memorable trip, I used my car's odometer to measure the distance between our car and the park. It's half a mile, nice and close. Of course, "nice and close" is definitely a relative term.

The Song That Never Ends...

Two weekends ago, The Manimal and I took a quick little road trip to visit some friends in Northern Indiana at the best summer camp in the world, where I spent six of the best summers of my life as a counselor.

The drive is only about 2.5 hours, so I decided to forgo the usual travel babysitter portable DVD player and just bring a few kid-friendly CD's. I have the Disney "For Our Children" CD's and they were a big hit on the trip.

One of The Manimal's faves was a tune by children's artist Peter Alsop called "I Am a Pizza". Cute little call-and-response song that the kiddos love, even after forty-seven times in a row.

I think it's the song of the devil a really sweet song as well, and while Charlotte Diamond's version is a bit different, I've included it so you can hear it for the rest of your life enjoy a bit of pizza today.

Taking the Plunge

My IRL friend Kath (you may know her as Sandwiched) and I have a new joint blog about faith, weight loss, healthy living and whatever else comes into our insanely jam-packed pretty little heads.

It's a work in progress, but come say hello at ...So Help Me, God!

Lordy, Lordy...

Yes, I'm 40.

Officially, as of four days ago. And I didn't self-destruct. The world didn't end. My hair didn't instantly go completely grey.

Apparently, 40 is the new 30.

And hey, the gifts are WAY better!

Diva Hubby woke me up with a beautiful bouquet of roses, a sweet card and an iTunes gift card (I do love my music!).

The other part of my gift was a fabulous date night out at Hollywood Blvd. Theatre--sans children!

My biggest surprise, though, came from my little brother. He arranged for me to get balloons and flowers at work.

Lots of balloons. Forty large mylar balloons.

And lots of flowers. Forty long-stemmed red roses.

But he wasn't done.

When I got home, there was a box waiting for me. Before I tell you what was in it, though, let me tell you that when we were kids, we fought.

Like "dogs and cats, living together". As in "Mom! He's on MY side of the car! You kids better stop fighting or I'll turn this car around!" fighting.

We haven't fought in more than 20 years.

But still. You can imagine my shock when I opened the shipping box to find a large brown box with white trim, tied with a simple red bow, emblazoned with one word.

Coach.

Oh.My.Goodness.


When I called to thank him, he told me he was pretty sure that I wouldn't already have a bag like it, and he chose this one because if The Manimal got a hold of markers or crayons, they probably wouldn't show up on the bag!

I am so lucky.

Lordy, Lordy, so glad I'm forty.

Dogs and Cats--Living Together!

I'm not one of those kind of people who can pull the "perfect" movie quote out of thin air. Don't get me wrong, I love movies. It's just that by the time I see them, they're usually on AMC or TBS or some other TV channel, so they're a bit dated.

Yeah, I have kids. I don't see many movies that aren't animated or have some sort of Nickelodeon or Disney connection.

Recently though, Sweet Son #1 has been introduced (by Diva Husband) to some old classic cinema. (I still haven't resigned myself to the fact that since 40 is only slightly more than a week away, it's highly likely that all my favorite movies and music from childhood are considered "classic".)

But I digress.

Thanks to the Diva Husband's lesson, SS#1 now knows "who he's gonna call", to paraphrase the song. Yes, he loves "Ghostbusters". And we watched it last weekend.

For the forty-seventh time.

Well, maybe not 47 times, but he's already seen it more than a few.

And while I was cleaning up the kitchen, I heard Bill Murray say one of my favorite movie lines ever. "...dogs and cats--living together!"

It loses a bit in transcription, and if you aren't familiar enough with the movie to be able to visualize the scene, I'm sorry for you, but Murray's delivery is hysterically funny.

Maybe it's enjoying movies from my childhood with my own child. Maybe it's my rapidly approaching fortieth birthday. Maybe it's the huge number of high school and college friends I've reconnected with since Facebook took over came into my life. I'm not sure what's causing it, but I'm feeling incredibly nostalgic lately.

And at the same time, incredibly lucky that my son is at an age that movies like "Ghostbusters" is still cool, even though Mom and Dad watched it a freakin' long time ago!

Dear Nancy Pelosi,

I hope this letter finds you well. The Diva family is having a busy summer, with interstate travels to visit family, swimming lessons and birthday celebrations on the docket. Even with the Diva Husband out of work for the past six months, we're doing our best to keep the economy moving!

The summer weather in the Windy City has been interesting, with Mother Nature playing odd tricks and alternating between summer storms that made me wonder if I'd wake up in Oz and temperatures cool enough to make me wonder if I'd slept through summer and woke up smack in the middle of October.

Sounds like Mother Nature has been creating some strange winds in California as well, particularly one that brought a lovely SIXTEEN MILLION DOLLAR economic stimulus windfall.

For a mouse.

While your SoCal constituents may be used to a certain mouse bringing in money to stimulate their local economy, I'm pretty sure that this SIXTEEN MILLION DOLLARS won't really do the same for the Bay Area. Those little critters can get pretty greedy, as witnessed in the epic tale "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie".

Perhaps you've not read the whole story, but it begins innocently enough, with a sweet, innocent little boy giving a cute little denim-clad mouse a cookie, but spirals quickly out of control when the mouse needs milk, a broom (to clean the crumbs), paper to draw on, tape to put his picture on the refrigerator, a pillow for a nap, etc., etc.

While I'm sure that in your infinite wisdom, you felt that giving a mouse SIXTEEN MILLION DOLLARS was a sweet gesture, please elaborate exactly HOW protecting this mouse will "stimulate" the economy.

Oh, wait! I know! It must be a simple case of mistaken identity.

You confused this mouse.



With this mouse.

Sanity Giveaway Winner!

Sorry about being a couple of days late on this, but the Diva Family was on vacay in the Buckeye State for a few days! We had a great time visiting with the Diva Grandparents and Diva Godparents, and are down one child for the month of July. SS#1 is spending a chunk of his summer with family and friends-like-family.

So, anyway, I'm finally getting around to posting the winner of my giveaway. Drum roll, please!

#1--Carolyn!

Drop me a note at theworkingdiva(at)yahoo(dot)com with your mailing addy (of course if I'd planned this right, I could've just dropped it off at your house!) and I'll send the book right out!

Don't Forget!

Only a couple of days left in the Summer Reading Giveaway!

And now, dear graduates...

I figure over the course of my own academic and professional careers, I've heard no fewer than 30 different Commencement speakers. Some were really good and some, well, were not. I suppose it just goes to show you that professional success does not mean that you could wow the room at the local Toastmasters!

Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.
Regardless of whether you consider yourself "Mac or PC", he sure hits the nail on the head with this!

Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!
Rule 2 : The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
Rule 3 : You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.
Rule 4 : If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
Rule 5 : Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.
Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time..
Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.