re: 2-- i highly doubt that your celebratory end zone dance would've made your spontaneously funny comment less funny.  i mean.  that would've made me laugh harder.  :)

re: 4--i've been pondering a move to wordpress... or even blogspot for some time now.  of course i never even blog here anymore... so who would care?  i'm still torn between trying to move stuff over, or just starting from scratch, but actually tend to lean toward starting over... since i'm not a huge fan of wo i've become on xanga.  i want to write again.  it's been years since i've even attempted to do that well in blog form.  so we'll see. 

I started a Xanga blog and Blogger blog at the same time, to see which one I liked better. I very quickly switched to Blogger. Xanga has some benefits, but I like Wordpress (what I use now) tons better.

When my little sister was born, I was *VERY* upset that my parents didn't name her Jenny. I couldn't understand why they went with Amy. (My parents did all A's on purpose.) My mom tried to point out that I had a cousin named Jenny, but I wouldn't hear of it. I promptly make up an invisible friend named Jenny. Ha! Showed THEM.

"Google is awesome, and that is why we are all okay with selling it our souls." *That* is an awesome (and very true) statement.

And take #3 resonates with me. I just spent a week and a half of mostly sleepless nights up with Hans because some obviously-sick kid refused to let my child alone for an afternoon we were at his house, and his mom made very half-hearted admonitions to "stay away from Hans so he won't get sick." A 5 year old has to be capable of *SOME* self-control, right??? Ah! And yeah, I keep saying that my child won't be "that kid." Hehe. Boy, I'll probably be taking back some of those statements in a few years. But not infecting others is very important to me!

*~*~*end long rant*~*~*

I've been bugging Micah to set me up with a Wordpress blog on my own domain as well. Are you going to use the domain I bought you for your birthday a couple of years ago?

Your "end zone dance disqualification" line was funny!

RE: #1 And now you have Hannah, so you got that sister after all!

What I like about Xanga though is I click on Subscriptions and I get to read all my friends writings. If you have a random blogspot, I might not remember to go to it to read....

I with you on your rant. My kids had coughs and sore throats on Thurs so we stayed home from MOPS...even though their "guidelines" only state green noses and diarrhea or vomiting as being just cause to stay home *eyeroll*. Honestly, since we've started up explorers and MOPS again, they've been more and more sick! I find it to be extremely rude.

I LOVE JoAnn's!!! I honestly don't remember the last time I got to scrapbook. I intended a little nook in our basement to be my scrapbooking corner when I bought the house. Unfortunately, the cats really enjoy my scrapbook stuff which precludes me from leaving unfinished projects out which is much less motivating to scrapbook when I have to get it ALL out. However, since receiving an awesome sewing machine for my birthday/anniversary from my amazing husband, I've purchased TONS of patterns and fabrics for various sewing projects. I made Adon's Pumpkin Day costume right away...then I made aprons for my sisters and my mom for Christmas in fabrics to match their personalities (and they had a pocket with Adon's picture on it...and a blank pocket for the new baby). My current project is matching baby shoes and hats. JoAnn's had such a good sale on baby fabrics, I went crazy stock-piling for shoes and hats and blankets for shower presents. I probably have enough fabric for 50 pairs of shoes! Okay...enough rambling. I love JoAnn's.

Rant all you want. I agree that it is irresponsible for parents to knowingly bring a sick child anywhere. I don't even have little ones around and have managed to come down with two serious viruses this winter.

You are right. Miriam Allen Castle just wouldn't have worked. We never really could come up with a girl's name that we liked and decided on Daniel not long before he was born.

I may have to read that book on humor. I do not have the same wit as my husband or my sons. Sorry, Beck. Maybe it's genetic. I praise your willingness to learn!!

We have one family at our church who seem to get sick with *everything*. At least, they frequently stay home from church because of sickness.

I've never been able to decide if they're actually incapacitated or just uber courteous.

I'm one of those moms who nearly never gets sick (I remember my mom this way), and I asked a nurse the last time I thought of it why she isn't constantly sick if she's all day around sick people. She said, quite seriously, it's all about hand washing. And considering I'm the one who washes hands most-frequently (maybe this is my reward for being the one in charge of all the bottom-wiping and food prep, so I can... continue being in charge of bottom-wiping and food prep...)

I use the bleach wipes at the grocery store whenever they're available (sometimes I even use the "instant hand sanitizer" if they're not) and we have a policy that everyone must wash hands as soon as we get home from any outing.

I make a big deal about the kids keeping their hands away from their faces/mouths when we're away from home.

Anyway, I'm not nearly as "Nazi" about this as it may sound, as each thing developed fairly independently, but now it's *law* and seems to have been fairly effective-- we've only had a couple colds in our house this winter, and if I remember correctly none hit us all.

We also train our children to sneeze/cough into their arm, because there's no way we would keep up with hand washing that way. I think kids can cough "cleanly" into their arm younger than into their hands anyway. I'm convinced any 2-year-old can learn, since my kids caught on earlier than that. ;o)

Anyway, I guess I say that to emphasize that prevention really is the best cure in this case...

p.s.

I've really liked wordpress. As soon as Jay noticed how frequently I was blogging he insisted I move to my own site-- he wanted to be sure all these words stayed available and stayed mine.

Isn't that sweet?

Anyway, it was a couple months before I could convince him I really needed two domains to do the kind of work I wanted to blog for, but he finally agreed, and Untangling Tales has been a delightful playground.

I can barely imagine having the clarity on certain ideas I have now if I hadn't been writing to be read (KWIM?).

Have you thought of the domain you want? I was so struck by the name I wanted actually being available that it was *agony* until Jay agreed. It was so perfect I was certain someone else would claim it before I could!

Everyone who is funny had to learn to be funny. Us comics like think that is was a gift from on high, but frankly I learned how to funny in order to not get punched in the face by a bully 3 times bigger then me who had no need for humor. He got his kicks out of kicking me. My only hope for survival was to make him laugh without it involving my eminent demise.

Now I learn to be funnier because nothing sucks worse then standing on stage and telling jokes that are funny to an audience who doesn't laugh. Urg.

@simply_nikki - 

Yep, FINALLY getting around to using it! Matthew has WordPress on there for me, now I need to customize a template and move over all my crap from Xanga...

@Atira - 

I'll have an RSS feed. You'll be able to subscribe using a reader like Google reader. I am also considering cross posting to xanga so I don't lose my xanga friends...I might crosspost here but disable comments to keep all the comments together on the new blog.

Also, I realized after my rant that I ought to eat it, at least partly...I went to that baby shower I mentioned KNOWING I was sick...I justified by telling myself "But I am doing the decorations and games! I HAVE to be there!" But...I probably passed it on to some people. That was not nice of me.

i will stay on xanga if only so that i can still effectively keep people out. i think you might be able to do that with wordpress, but...if i had a REAL BLOG, i would be sad if ppl didn't read it.