Just to name a few....

What am I thankful for?

I'm thankful for parents. Parents who raised me to be a strong, independant woman with a mind of my own. Parents who loved each other and their children enough to stay married for 29 years and are looking forward to at least 29 more. Parents who not only taught me to think for myself but allowed me to act on my own thoughts and decisions and supported those decisions, even when it cost them money or caused them pain. Parents who showed me that it's ok to follow your dreams, even when following them takes you far away from your comfort zone. Most of all, I'm thankful for parents that lived and breathed a real relationship with God and made sure that no matter what, I know where my salvation and safety lie.

I'm thankful for a husband. A husband who I can laugh about the stupid things with. A husband who "gets" my weird sense of humor and actually laughs at my jokes! A husband who moved us halfway around the world because I "thought it would be cool". A husband that doesn't just accept my (terrible) style, but truly likes it!! (or at least lies convincingly enough that I believe him). Most importantly, I'm thankful for a husband that loves me for me.

I'm thankful for a daughter. A daughter that is beautiful, smart and healthy. A daughter that never fails to make me laugh when I need it the most. A daughter that loves me unconditionally because in her eyes (at least for another year or two), I am "Momma" and I am magic and I am amazing! Above all of that, I am thankful for my daughter, because in my darkest hour, on my worst day, she is the light that shines through and reminds me that there is something worth living for.

I'm thankful for a list of things to be thankful for. A list that goes far beyond what I could begin to tell people in a simple blog. A list that, if it were fully inclusive, would probably take more than a month to write. A list that reminds me how blessed I truly am. I am thankful for a list that can be summed up in two simple words...."my life".

SPAM: It's what's for dinner.

I have a list of questions that haunts me. Questions that I randomly think of when I have nothing better to do than sit around and think about meaningless topics and even more meaningless questions that I will probably never be able to answer. One of those questions deals with SPAM. No, not the irritating emails that I get 500 times a day asking me to send $5,000 over to some poor lady in Morocco that was stranded there after her husband ran off with some king's daughter. I'm talking about the meat called SPAM (if you are of the school of thought that actually believes that the contents of that funny shaped can actually are meat). The question about SPAM that haunts my idle thoughts is "what IS that stuff and why would anyone eat it?"

I have invested a good deal of time into wondering what that rectangular/oval shaped food substitute truly is and why on earth anyone would actually eat it, then my father came along and asked me to compare SPAM to modern life. In that instant I felt like the heavens opened up at God Himself smacked me in the head with that huge "idea" light bulb that comic strips like to use when the characters have a mind boggling revelation.

Now I am sure that all of you are just dying to read what my amazing revelation about SPAM and our modern lives is, so I will tell you.

It's very simple. Modern life literally IS SPAM!

I know, it's a head scratching statement so please allow me to explain.

Spam is a concoction made up of chopped pork shoulder with a little bit of extra ham thrown in there. A modified potato starch is used as a binder. A little bit of salt and water is tossed in just because and sodium nitrate is used as a perservative. While I doubt anyone actually cares what the ingredient list of SPAM is, the point is that SPAM is not actually REAL meat. It contains meat but it cannot truly replace a good old fashioned T-bone or porkchop. Basically it is a fake meat.
Nutritionally, it has high calories, low protein, minimal carbs (no matter what Atkins says, you really do need them), nearly half the required daily value of sodium and fat, and next to nothing in the line of vitamins and minerals. For all intents and purposes SPAM adds absolutely nothing good to an individuals diet.
Lastly SPAM is basically designed for speed cooking. The main reason that most people buy and use SPAM (unless they are Hawaiian) is because they do not have time to cook real meat (or don't want to cook real meat).

With these basic facts established several parallels to life as we know it become painfully clear.

Fact one: SPAM is a "fake" meat. The "meat" of our lives are our friends and families. Unfortunately it is getting harder and harder to find "real" people anymore. Even within our families we are surrounded by the mentality that it is a "dog eat dog world" and people will do or say whatever they feel is neccessary to get what they want or what they feel they need. Essentially we are surrounded by fake people that we cannot rely on to give us the sustanance we need to have healthy relationships.

Fact two: SPAM basically has zero nutritional value. Our world has become cold and self-centered. If something does not directly benefit us then more often than not we have no interest in doing it. It has been proven over and over again that smiling and and laughing contribute to good health and happy lives (probably because people that smile and laugh are slightly less stressed and stress actually leads to health problems). It has also been proven that the majority of the human race feels better about themselves and the world around them when they do something for someone else with no expectation of receiving anything in return. So our self-centered attitudes are depriving us of the "feel-good" moments that provide the emotional nutrition of our lives.

Fact three: SPAM is the meat that gives instant gratification. My generation has been marked as the Now Generation. We know what we want and we want it right now. Gone are the days of setting a goal and working hard to achieve it. No, we want everything handed to us on a silver platter. We don't want to work to attain the degree neccessary to get the white collar job, we feel that we "deserve" it based on our parents, our background, our so called hardships while growing up or any other host of reasons that we can think of to avoid actually having to work for something.

While it is easy to look at these comparisons and shake our heads and wonder how we are ever going to fix the moral decay that has permeated our lives, the answer is really quite simple. It is one three letter word.... G.O.D. God is fully capable and 100% willing to be the meat in our lives. If fact, that's the way He originally planned for it to work. He never intended that we search for emotional nutrition in the world, He has everything we need for our daily values and more. And the problem that my generation has with wanting that instant gratification? He has that worked out too. See I've noticed that when I actually have a relationship with God (prayer, fasting, communication with God and His believers) things in my life become a great deal easier. Yes, I still have to work for what I want (the only thing I don't have to work for is God's love and forgiveness), but I don't have to work nearly as hard when I have God's help as I do when I am trying to achieve my goals and dreams on my own.

So while the world has nothing to offer me but SPAM, (and no, I still have no clue why anyone would actually eat that stuff) I can take some comfort in knowing that my Heavenly Father is ready and willing to serve me a nice juicy porterhouse the moment I ask him for it.

So what are you having for dinner tonight?

American musings on German living

There are many things that I know. There are many more things I don't know. My goal in life is to have the "don't" in the second sentence moved to the same location in the first sentence. In an attempt to achieve this goal my wonderful husband and myself made the decision to move our beautiful little family halfway around the world to set up shop in Germany for a few years.
When the United States Army heard that the Moore family had the desire to live in Europe and travel the world they were kind enough to foot the bill for our move over here as well as paying our rent and utilities for the duration of our stay in exchange for me relinquishing all rights to my husband for the next 20 or 30 years. When presented with a deal like that I could hardly refuse!!
I first became acquainted with this foreign land on the first day of August in the year 2010 and I have spent the past two and a half months exploring the back roads and country sides of my little region in Germany. In the course of my adventures I have already had the good fortune to learn a great many interesting things. While much of my newly acquired knowledge has little value in life, the process of obtaining these tidbits of information has provided a great deal of entertainment for me.
One of my main concerns in moving to a new country was that I did not speak the language before I moved here. I decided that until I was able to actually carry on conversations in German that I would learn a few crucial phrases to get me through the day. Initially I felt that the most important one (aside from "do you speak English?") would be "excuse me". After all, who doesn't appreciate a well mannered individual? Apparently the Germans don't. I quickly realized that the reason that none of the Americans that I encountered knew how to say "excuse me" in German was quite simply because there is no need to know that phrase because the Germans do not use it!! It would seem that the acceptable way to move through a crowd or to get someone to move out of your way is to either stand and stare at them until they get uncomfortable enough to move or to simply shove them out of your way. Being a rude person by nature, this works out well for me!
My next concern was learning how to drive in accordance with the German "rules of the road". Once again, it did not take long to learn that the Germans driving style is pretty similar to their walking style. Whoever is bigger has the right of way and every trip is essentially a huge game of chicken where every driver is a player whether they realize it or not. I recently took a trip with a German woman who married a U.S. soldier. One of his gifts to her was a Hummer. Let me just say, it is NEVER a good idea to give a German driver a car that is larger than EVERY other vehicle on the road!! This woman drove fast enough to compete with Jeff Gordon and when faced with oncoming traffic she would simply laugh and say, "Look at the little speed bumps!!!" I eventually just closed my eyes and began to pray that God would have mercy on my soul because I was sure that I was going to meet him before the day was over.
In addition to the majority of the drivers being absolute maniacs, there are very few stop signs or actual intersections outside of the major cities. Instead the Europeans seem to prefer "traffic circles" or "roundabouts". Basically these are 4-way intersections that merge into a circle and merge back out onto whatever road you would like to take. While these sound relatively simple at first I have a strong dislike for these "traffic circles" because some of them have two or three lanes and the Europeans don't really care for the thought of allowing anyone to merge in order to exit the "traffic circle". In fact the only way to merge in any situation is to have the good fortune of having the larger vehicle. (Remember? whoever is bigger has the right of way.) Luckily, I am an American and we like our vehicles to be oversized, gas guzzling SUV's and the Europeans are really quite fond of the Smart cars!!
Another thing the Europeans are fond of is their leisure time. These people have managed to develop the most amazing aversion to work I have ever seen!! They will go to work in the morning, break for a ridiculously long lunch and (maybe) come back for a couple of hours in the afternoon. There are no German businesses open on Sunday's and they take more "holidays" than I could even make up! They combat the poverty that logic would say comes from a nationwide allergy to work by charging for absolutely everything. From ketchup to dip French fries in to a glass of water (you pay for the refill on the water as well) absolutely nothing is free.
Every day I find myself encountering yet another notable difference between Germany and the United States of America. Some differences make me grateful for being raised as an American, others remind me how happy I am that we made the decision to step outside of our comfort zones, leave our families and friends behind and take that giant leap into unknown territory. Either way this is a huge learning experience and an amazing opportunity that we may never get again. There is one thing that I know for certain though. Despite all of this country's quirks and flaws, I have somehow managed to fall completely and totally in love with this place. The scenery is absolutely breathtaking. The carefree attitude towards life is like a breath of fresh air after 24 years in a country where not working usually results in not eating. These people quite simply love life and they make sure that they live it to the fullest!! I know that my time over here will fly by and I am not looking forward to the day that I will have to tell this beautiful country goodbye, but if I can return to the States with even a hint of the approach to life that the Europeans take then I will consider my time well spent and I will be one step closer to my goal of knowing more things than I don't.

Retail Therapy.....

For years women have been using shopping as an alternative to scheduling sessions with a therapist. One of my close friends and I use it as an escape from our husbands, children, pets, work, annoying friends, annoying strangers or anything else that we feel provides an acceptable level of stress to merit gathering our credit cards and making a mad dash to a shopping center.

Typically when I mention needing or participating in "retail therapy" it is met with knowing nods from any woman in the vicinity and a sigh and a head shake from any man that happens to overhear the comment. Recently however, one brave soul actually managed to work up the courage to ask why women were stupid enough to use the daily stress of life as an excuse to go shopping and to spend their husbands hard earned money. (Ladies, calm down....we all know that most of us work for our money just like our husbands, and those of us who don't actually go to work at a 9 to 5 still earn more than our keep by simply maintaining the house and caring for our children).

While the feminist in me bristled at the chauvinistic nature of the "gentleman's" comment I managed to reign in my tongue long enough to explain to him why shopping is an absolute necessity for wives and mothers.

The reason we require regular trips to the therapists offices that are located in Maurices, Kohls, Sears, Bath & Body Works and whatever nail salon is in the same area as the shopping center is because we spend an entire day catering to our children, when our husbands return home from work we are then expected to cater to them as well. Cooking, cleaning, managing the bills, it seems our work is never done.

When a woman walks into a store it is almost like walking into heaven for an hour! There are no whining children, no sulking husbands. There is nothing to clean, in fact there are people that work at that store who are paid specifically to clean up the messes made by the therapy patients. We will spend 45 minutes browsing through the store picking up every piece of clothing that catches our eye, another 45 minutes trying on all of those articles, primping in front of a mirror, trying to find that perfect shirt or that perfect pair of jeans. When we finally find that outfit that flatters every curve and covers every flaw we feel like an absolute queen, just for a little while.

We know that we have to return home to children that need bathed. We know that there are probably still dishes from dinner needing to be washed. But for an hour, we feel like we are worry free, living the high life.

Women do not need to go lay on a couch and talk to a shrink about their problems, we have girlfriends for that. We don't need someone to tell us what our problems are, we already know, and there is not a single woman that would be willing to sacrifice those "problems" for her sanity. You see, our "problems" our the very things that we hold dearest, our "problems" are our families and friends.

So gentleman, please understand that your wives are not going to "retail therapy" in an attempt to completely empty your wallets, they are actually trying to save you money that would be spent on costly psychiatrists by visiting retailers instead. (Although an exceptionally fat wallet in the rear pocket of a pair of jeans could potentially lead to pinched nerves or back problems.....) That being said, the next time your wife tells you that she needs some retail therapy just smile, give her a kiss and send her on her merry way. Then hit your knees and pray that your bank account survives her brush with insanity.

Amazing Grace

The word 'grace' has a great many definitions and to only write about one of these definitions would do a great injustice to the word, yet attempting to delve into all of them would mean that I would be writing all night and you would stop reading 10 sentences from here. So I will focus my energies on a definition that has become one of my personal favorites.

It is not the one that deals with the Grace and Mercy of God. Although that is truly a mind blowing concept. To think that there is an all knowing, all powerful God that wants to forgive my worst sins because He loves me and desperately wants to be with me is almost too much for me to wrap my mind around. Instead I will zero in on the definition of grace that comes from Classical Mythology.

In early Titan Mythology the word Graces was used as a collective moniker for the daughters of Zeus and Eurynome. These three women, Aglaia, Euphrosyne and Thalia, were known as the goddesses of beauty and charity. Personally I don't really care who the early Greeks and Romans chose to worship for beauty, grace, or charity. The interesting aspect of this to me lies more within the name of the Graces mother.

Eurynome is often pronounced (or mispronounced, depending on how you view it) as 'your enemy'. Whether or not this is the correct pronunciation may never be known, however, if this is correct then I am most definitely in love with the symbolism that comes from Zeus (The main god and for the purposes of this argument, we will just refer to him as god) and Eurynome ("Your Enemy") having three daughters that were the symbols of grace, charity and beauty.

Typically when we think of the results of a god and an enemy coming together we do not think of beauty or grace. We tend to think of the ravages of war, for surely any encounter that a god would have with an enemy would result in a terrible battle with massive levels of damage. In this case though, the result was the creation of three beings that symbolized pure beauty. Two forces that would appear to be at odds with each other managed to produce a form of grace that that was so perfect it enticed people to want to worship it.

If this concept could have a parallel in our current reality I can only imagine what it would look like. I have no way of finding three perfect examples of grace walking amongst us, however, I can take notice of all of the tiny acts of grace and every minute display of beauty that I encounter every single day. When it would seem that humanity has slipped so far into a pit of sin and ugliness that there is no hope left, that is when I am able to see most clearly the beauty that still lives within us.

To put it simply. When God, who lives within us, meets our enemy Satan, through his presence in our world, it is then that we are able to see the purest Grace possible if we allow God to reach through the darkness to reach the lost. It is then that we are truly able to see the best of all of the Graces....Amazing Grace.

What's on your mind?

What's on your mind? That's the question that Facebook asks when prompting its users to set their status updates. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the question by itself....my problem is with the answers that this question elicits.

I understand that the thought of me having a problem with anything anyone does just shocks the socks off of my faithful readers, but if you will bear with me I will be happy to explain why the answers to the question of what is on Facebook users minds annoys the crap out of me.

First of all the question is absolutely ridiculous simply because many of the individuals that use Facebook will add or confirm friends based on a one time encounter or a mutual friend out of sheer nosiness or a strange desire to have a vast number of friends so that they look popular (That is a topic for another blog and another day), and they either don't really care what is on someones mind or they have no business knowing what is on someones mind.

Secondly, and far more importantly, far too many Facebookers will post a status update that says something ridiculously encrypted that is obviously directed at a specific person. Assuming that said specific person actually reads this status update, and also assuming that said specific person realizes that this status update is directed at them, my reasoning is such that I seriously doubt that said specific person gives two dingle berries about how they have caused grief to a person that is not even bold enough to name said specific person in their status update.

Facebook has been kind enough to add the 'tag' option to the status update feature. This means that Facebook users can not only type the name of the person that they are upset with in their status update, but they can also 'tag' that person to it so that the post is displayed on that persons wall. Tagging this person ensures that they know beyond a shadow of a doubt how badly they have upset their fellow Facebook user (assuming they care, of course).

The second irritating aspect of the obscure status updates is the totally random undecipherable nature of these updates. For example "I'm just so sick of all the lies and pain" or "Some people should really learn to grow up and face the facts. You know who you are" are not answers to the question of what is on your mind, they are random snip its from some conversation that the rest of the Facebook world is not privileged enough to be party to. Furthermore, I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure that most of the users on Facebook are just as confused as I am by these updates. And they probably care about as much as I do (which is not at all).

I said all that to say this....if you decide to use the status update feature on Facebook to tell all of us what is on your mind, please be so kind as to leave us out of your personal drama, because we care to read about your personal drama about as much as we care about what happens to the fleas that infest the armpits of Osama bin Laden.

Who's Brilliant Idea Was That?

Children are gifts from God. I believe this to be true with every fiber of my being. When it comes to their toys, however, I find myself unable to reconcile myself to this point of view.

Children's toys are always brightly colored and more and more they seem to come with all sorts of moving parts and sound effects. As entertaining as these moving parts and sounds may seem to a child, they are a source of never ending irritation for the parent of that child.

I used to blame the individuals who purchased these toys for the child, however, lately I find myself leaning more towards placing the blame on whatever manufacturer decided that it would be a good idea to make a toy that only has one volume (loud) and one setting (on) and then decided that it would be really cool to make that toy a motion activated one.

I refuse to believe that these manufacturers have children because I cannot fathom how any parent would willingly dispense such a terrible weapon upon a fellow parent. When a child's toy starts playing The Itsy Bitsy Spider at full volume in the middle of prayer service, or Twinkle Twinkle Little Star begins blaring incessantly during Grandmothers funeral service, it is more than enough to make any new mother want to sink through the floor in utter shame.

So while I do not see much chance of any relief from the obnoxiously loud, wiggling, rattling, motion activated toys, I encourage young parents everywhere to take heart and rest easy because there is a special circle of hell reserved for the inventors, manufacturers and distributors of these toys. A circle that is surrounded by brightly colored, cheerfully singing, life size toys.

Through the eyes of a child

Today had been a great day. Not because I received some massive sum of money, or because I received fantastic news. No, it was great because I have been acting like a child for the majority of the day. First my girlfriend and I went for a 2 mile run, the better part of which was spent skipping around or randomly sprinting down the street. Then we went to Smoothie King where we consumed 40 ounces of strawberry banana heaven. From there we went to Wal-mart with the sole purpose of printing 19 pictures and and hour later we left with our sides hurting because we hid in the kitty litter shelves and danced to the theme song from Rocky and meowed at passing customers. After then we had lunch and picked up the kids from school and joined them in jumping rope in the front yard while giggling hysterically.

While I was sitting on the porch panting because I am far to large to be jumping up and down for 15 minutes straight I realized that I have not laughed that hard in longer than I can remember. This brought me to the conclusion that while life is not easy and each day promises to bring its fair share of problems, a healthy portion of child like antics and the laughter they produce will do wonders for the soul.

Therefore my "mid way through new year's" resolution is to wake up each day and put my 24 years of maturity and stress on the shelf and view each day with the awe and wonder of a child.

Who am I?

Who can truly answer that question? Are we truly capable of looking at ourselves honestly and voicing what we really see? The most common responses to this question typically involve descriptive words. Mother, daughter, strong, caring etc.. And while those are probably all accurate descriptions of what I am to the people in my life, they do not really answer the question of WHO I am.

More and more I have begun to feel that there is simply no way to truthfully give an answer, because who I am is ever changing. Who I am today is not the same as who I was yesterday and tomorrow I will be someone different. This is because everything that happens to me today affects who I become tomorrow. The differences will be small, perhaps even unnoticeable, but they will still be there.

Therefore while I still cannot express WHO I am, I can sum up WHAT I am in eight words. I am the continual evolution of a soul. Though I am far from perfect, I view every day as another opportunity for me to finally reach the only being in the universe that can truly answer the question ‘Who am I?’, and that is the Great I Am.

What is love?

On a serious note:

Driving down the road today listening to some music I found myself contemplating the lyrics to the song. I won't bother boring you with all of the details but the gist of the chorus said, "What is love? Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me no more."

Aside from the grammatical issues the song possesses I am deeply disturbed by these lyrics. What has our society come to that we automatically associate love with hurt? Why is it that before we can love someone we have to try and be sure that they will not hurt us?

I understand that the very nature of love requires that we open our hearts up to the possibility of pain and heartache. I also understand that you cannot love someone completely until you take that risk. What confounds me is the fact that love resulting in pain has become so commonplace in the world that we subconsciously perceive the two as going hand in hand.

I refuse to believe that this was what God intended when He gave us the ability to feel emotions and if I am correct then I am led to question how the human race can ever recover from this dysfunctional emotional roller coaster.

Perhaps the more disturbing question is whether or not we even want to recover?

MySpace

I love MySpace. Not the social networking sight that has fallen so far behind Facebook that I can't even remember my log in name or password. I love My Space. That would be whatever physical space happens to be occupied by my body. Would you like to know the part I love about My Space? It belongs to me and only me. No one else is allowed into My Space without my permission.

At least that was how I thought it was supposed to work. I have discovered that I was sorely mistaken with that assumption. More and more people have been approaching me and attempting to hold conversations with our faces 3" apart. I have tried to reassure them that I really can hear them just fine from 2' away but no, they insist on maintaining their tonsil inspection distance.

I usually try to politely back away from people like this or simply avoid being in a situation where we would need to talk, however, working in a restaurant is not conducive to avoiding the invasion of my personal bubble. I am capable of dealing with people brushing against me at work, it is the nature of the business and usually the bumps are not intentional. Unfortunately I have noticed lately that a growing number of my co-workers seem to think that we are close friends and that I have some sort of desire for them to come up and hug me, lay their head on my shoulder or perform some other display of affection that involves them being entirely too close to me.

Having no way to combat this without disrupting the flow of business I have been in a bit of a quandary as I attempted to come up with a solution that would provide a lasting result. You would think that my exceptionally cheerful personality (yes, this is a sarcastic statement, I know you are wondering) would have done the trick but I found that I was forced to resort to other tactics. I tried asking them politely to get away from me. I tried completely ignoring them. I even tried threatening them! (This was fairly effective on a good number of them). After several weeks of trying to politely keep people out of My Space, I inadvertently discovered the best strategy to combat the invasion of my personal bubble. All I have to do it step on them!!!

I am not a particularly small woman and I have a habit of walking rather heavily and at a high rate of speed. When I run into someone it hurts and they will still be feeling it the next morning. Once upon a time I would try to avoid running into other people in an attempt to avoid harming them. However now that I know that running into people makes them avoid walking anywhere near me I will make it a point to collide at full speed with everyone within 18" of me!

I bet that within a week I will have My Space to myself again!

The last place I looked!!!

It is no great secret that I am easily irritated by stupid people and their endless streams of equally uneducated commentaries. However, there are some things that I continue to hear on a regular basis from people that wouldn't normally be classified as idiots that never cease to amaze me.

The most popular one of these would be the phrase, "It was the last place I looked!" Understanding that this is usually said at the end of a story about how they have been looking for an ungodly length of time for something that should never have been lost in the first place (car keys, wallets, drivers license, etc..), I still don't grasp the reasoning behind that phrase.

No matter what you are looking for, no matter how long you have been looking for it, it will always, without fail be found in the last place you look. Unless for some reason that no sane person could ever comprehend you decided to continue "looking" for something after you had already found it.

So why must we continue to state that we found what we were looking for in the last place we looked? Your guess is a good as mine.

Modesty? What's that?

Today marked a huge milestone in Jadyn's life. First of all let me say that my child is the most amazingly beautiful child on the face of the planet. (I assure you that this is a totally unbiased opinion) And she is accustomed to random people approaching her for no reason other than to tell her how beautiful she is.

Typically her reaction is to reward them with an adorably knowing smile and say "I know". This never fails to utterly delight the complimentary stranger and totally embarrass the woman (that would be me, her mother) responsible for instilling modesty and manners in the precocious child. For all the giggles that a conceited child induces in others, I know that I really need to break her of this habit because it is not quite as cute when a 16 year old responds to a compliment with "I know".

As a result of this responsibility to teach the child modesty and graciousness, it brought an unusual amount of pleasure to hear my child respond to a declaration of her beauty with a demure smile and "thank you".

I feel like the successful mother of a beauty queen!!


(Photo was taken by Hessie's Photography)

Low how the mighty has fallen

I was born into a family of thinkers. People that would generally prefer to stay awake well beyond midnight reading a book than get up in the morning to go to the beach or meet friends to play ball. That doesn't mean that we don't enjoy the competition of sports, merely that it isn't usually our first choice. As a child my sister was not known for being the most graceful person, she was, in fact, a total klutz. This malady resulted in her being dubbed with the sarcastic nickname Grace for a period of time.

As a direct result of this I grew up with a bit of a superiority complex concerning my ability to get from Point A to Point B without falling down or running in to something.

Over the course of the past year I have come the the humbling conclusion that I was not spared the curse of the klutz, merely afflicted a bit later in life.

I realized this after I noticed a pattern emerging in my daily life. If there is a set of stairs that I attempt to walk up or down, I am certain to trip going up or fall going down. If there is anything laying on the floor, no matter how far away from it my intended route is, I will trip over it or step on it. Walls? I can walk into them without even having the excuse of aiming for a doorway because there is rarely a doorway anywhere in the vicinity of the section of wall that I walk into. I can fall, with nothing around to trip me. If I try to hold more than one thing in each hand, I will drop one or all of them.

As embarrassing as this affliction is, I have finally come to terms with the fact that the harder I try to stay on my feet, the more likely it is that I will fail miserably. And as long as I am unable to stop myself from meeting the floor on a regular basis then I might as well laugh as myself.

After all, everyone around me is laughing like a pack of hyenas at how low the mighty has fallen.

Go forth and multiply.....

So lately I have noticed an abundance of people with large numbers of children. This in and of itself does not bother me. What bothers me is that when I have conversations with these people, (because I live in TN and thats what we do while we are waiting in line for various things), I discover that a vast majority of them have never finished high school and seem to possess intelligence levels that are well below average. (Let it be known that I have nothing against low intelligence life forms in general, merely the actions that display this lack of intelligence to the world.)
That being said I started thinking about this today and I recalled a conversation I had with my sister about this very subject. We both believe that individuals who are blessed enough to have a decent amount of working brain matter are under a serious obligation to reproduce in large quantities.
I take this philosophy very seriously because I believe that the human race is in serious danger of extinction if we continue to reproduce in such a way that puts intelligence at such a disadvantage.
For years people have said that quality matters more than quantity. I respectfully disagree. If we are to have any hope of our species surviving we must produce children of exceptional quality in massive quantities.
Therefore I am calling all of the Einstiens and Savants of the world, reproduce and repopulate to rebalance the odds of a bright future for Homo sapiens.
Thank you