Why Can't Siri...Record My Thinking and Organize It

In case you didn't know, I am an extremely creative person. Creative to the point that at all points in time I have 5-10 ideas floating around in my head at all times. It is almost crippling. For real! I try to record my thoughts on Voice Memos, so that I will not forget. When my thoughts are finally to a point that I want to share, I need Siri to do certain things. In fact, there are a lot of things I need Siri to do that will make my life so much easier, so I am going to do a series of posts on what I wish Siri could do.

For instance Siri should help me organize all of these creative thoughts flowing around in my head. I should be able to have a conversation like this with Siri:


Me-Hey Siri I want to write a book.
Siri- Okay what would you like to write about?
Me-I'm not sure yet. 
Siri-Okay why don't we make a mind map. What is your topic going to be about?
Me-I want to make a mind map about my thoughts on teaching math through art. 
Siri-Okay, I have your main topic. What are some of the subtopics you would like to have?
Me- Right now I want to add two chapters. 


If Siri could do this, it would be the best app ever. It would mean that for people like me you don't need to forget your Rants or Raves. For those of us...bloggers, writers, artists...that have things to say it could be monumental. You wouldn't forget your thoughts, or they wouldn't get lost in translation, or lost when you walk into another room and can't remember what you were thinking at all. 

Siri should be able to help you keep track of your thoughts by creating mind maps through voice memos and then it should be a simple thing to translate those voice memos into text that you can add it quickly to your blog or article or book or...whatever. 

It is super aggravating! Apple, I do hope this is what your Newest iPhone does, because I really needed to do that so that I can get out all of the ideas I have floating around in my head, and use them to possibly become a millionaire! Well, at least, be able to feel confident that I don't forget all these amazingly creative things floating around in my head. 

Parenting Through Politics

It has been a very long time since I have blogged. The busy life of a full time working mother of three with two different side jobs and a whole heck of a lot of creativity. Plus, my husband was very worried about me posting about politics due to our positions as teachers, and since the past year has been immersed in politics, I have tried to stay quiet because if I did blog I would probably go off. The last week has changed things, however. Let me give you a little background: 

My husband and I have never been on one side of the aisle or the other when has come to politics. We have almost always voted for the Republican. Even up until this monumental election day I was unsure of who I would vote for, even though the majority of our friends and all of our family are starch republicans. I stood there on the presidential screen debating and debating. Who did I vote for? Who cares! It doesn't matter any more. The election is over (thank The Lord above), and it should no longer matter who you voted for or which party you claim to be a part of....all that matters now is that we ALL ARE AMERICANS. 

And as an American and as parents, it is important that we educate our children on what is going on in a nonpartisan way. To do that we allow, our children to watch the news  (a variety of news stations because if you are only watching one news source then you are limiting and allowing someone to control the news and truths you are hearing) with us and we have discussions. We are living in a monumental historic time which will be in history books in the future. Not only that but your kids should be informed and educated on how our government works and why our country was founded (look for future blog post by current 3rd grade teacher and former 4th grade teacher on the basic fundamentals of our government).

One thing I remember growing up was watching the news with my parents. I watched the morning news with my mom and the nightly news with my father. I was educated about what was going on in the world, which is one of the reasons I think I had a good head on my shoulder growing up. I knew the dangers that were out there, and I knew about the things going on in the world. 

In the last 18 years of teaching, I have watched parents shelter their kids from the news, even to goes as far as telling their kids they couldn't do their homework of watching the weather because they were afraid of what their children would see. 

Guess what? They need to see it! They need to know how scary and wonderful the world can be. They need to know what is going on in our communities, our state, and especially our nation.

Now I don't care who you voted for....THE STATE OF OUR GREAT COUNTRY IS AT STAKE. Our amazing country was founded on the principles of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". The only way that works is with our democracy's checks and balances. This is not a dictatorship, but if we all, as AMERICANS, do not start standing up to this insanity, we will all be under a dictator soon! 

To quote the ex-head of the CIA, James Clapper, "I think in many ways our institutions are under assault both externally -- and that's the big news here is the Russian interference in our election system -- and I think as well our institutions are under assault internally."

Please educate yourself and educate your children on our government, not the Republican or Democratic side, but the government of the United States of America and why it was founded.  Some say it doesn't matter because the reasons our country was founded are no longer valid...to those people I say...either educate yourself or goodbye...go live in one of the red countries in the picture below:

Also you might want to be educated about our president's views about the leaders of these countries (Side note: these quotes are not alternative facts. They were actually said by our president):

"We shouldn't have destabilized Saddam Hussein, right?" Trump asked his supporters on Tuesday. "He was a bad guy, really bad guy, but you know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good."

After Russian President Vladimir Putin praised Trump as "talented" and the "absolute leader" in the GOP race for the White House back in December, Trump said that "sure" he liked Putin's remarks about him. "When people call you 'brilliant' it's always good, especially when the person heads up Russia," Trump told the hosts of MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

Trump in January 2016 first called North Korea's Kim a "maniac," then riffed with some awe on the young despot's bloody rise to power."You have to give him credit," Trump said. "How many young guys -- he was like 26 or 25 when his father died -- take over these tough generals, and all of a sudden -- you know, it's pretty amazing when you think of it. How does he do that? Even though it is a culture and it's a cultural thing, he goes in, he takes over, and he's the boss. It's incredible. He wiped out the uncle. He wiped out this one, that one. I mean, this guy doesn't play games. And we can't play games with him. Because he really does have missiles. And he really does have nukes."

Trump said during the CNN-Telemundo Republican candidates' debate in February that while Gaddafi was "really bad," his tactics were effective. "We would be so much better off if Gaddafi were in charge right now. If these politicians went to the beach and didn't do a thing and we had Saddam Hussein and if we had Gadhafi in charge, instead of having terrorism all over the place, we'd be — at least they killed terrorists, all right? And I'm not saying they were good, because they were bad, they were really bad, but we don't know what we're getting," he said.

For now...'nuff said, but I'll be back...

The End to a Dream...AKA McDreamy

So after seeing an overloading of spoiler posts all over social media Thursday night and Friday, I was finally able to sit down and watch that which shall for ever be known as "Oh my good lord, Shonda Rhimes!!!! How could you possibly ever do this? I hate you!!! How dare you!!?!?! Worst episode ever!! Even worse than the death of Denny!!" episode of Grey's Anatomy.

While I am still in emotional shock, my sister has gone into crazy, conspiracy, I hate you, Shonda Rhimes mode. She recently went into this mode via text messaging, which I feel the need to share below. Not only because it is hilarious, but also because whereas it is a wee bit insane it is also seriously insightful!

WARNING: Clearly there are spoilers.
WARNING PART 2: I am bleeping out the language.
WARNING PART 3: There is much hate for Shonda Rhimes in these messages, however, we all know we love her even after Denny, George, Lexie, Mark...Jake...Der...its too soon for that.

My sister:

So I've been thinking....

Derek Shepard was loaded, right?  I mean we can rightly assume that the dude was rolling?

Me:

You mean loaded as in drunk or loaded as in leaving Meredith with bazillions

My sister:

I mean like the dude was basically a millionaire. Right?

I think we can safely assume these things, yes?

Me:

Yes

My sister:

Ok. So that being the case and judging from previous instances we know that McDreamy enjoys the finer things in life, yes?  

Exhibit A: pretty sure he got a big fat settlement from a @#%^ing plane crash and now partially owns a hospital along with his wife. 

Exhibit B: This monstrosity 

Exhibit C: He is a dad gum brain surgeon!

Also, I'm fairly certain there was an episode where he, mark and someone else shared a very old, read: very expensive bottle of scotch. 

Ok. So that being the case and judging from previous instances we know that McDreamy enjoys the finer things in life, yes?

Would you agree on all of these points?

Me:

What are you getting at?

My sister:

I'm 99.9% sure that he was driving a brand new Porche SUV. 

Me:

And....

My sister:

And since we know that Dr. OhWaitIAmFingDeadNow never skimps, we should logically conclude that his ride was loaded. All the bells and whistles?

Me:

You mean, like, even though it has all that it is still shocking that the air bag must have been state of the art since it allowed him stay alive for a little while after being slammed into by a semi?

My sister:

Meaning it would have Bluetooth. Which we do, indeed, know was the very case as, at the beginning of the episode he was talking to Amelia and Bailey using this very safety feature

Ergo - no need to dig for his f-ing phone bc it would have come thru the Motha@#$%ing Bluetooth. 

Screw you Shonda!!!  If you're gonna kill him off at least use common sense. 

Oh and speaking of Amelia. Ummmm......you're telling me that Meredith not only neglected to call in his family to say their goodbyes, she denied his sister (who achieves the impossible on a regular basis) the chance at a second opinion?

So either our dear b@#$% of a friend Shonda is pulling a Dallas, or Meredith was performing her own version of a conscious uncoupling. 

Me:

This last point is so very true!!! Why wouldn't she have called Amy?

My sister:

My conclusion is that Meredith, unseen to us, had gone thru Derek's phone and discovered the sexts and nudies sent by his "research assistant" and was just laying in wait for an opportunity to strike. Gets off Scott free. No one suspects a thing. She is an extremely gifted surgeon who's mental facilities clearly exceed that of the average, run of the mill black widow. 

Me:

Well then...She is dark and twisty.

My sister:

Think about it

.....

😕

My sister:

I haven't watch scandal. And probably never will bc that b@#$% has ruined TV for me. 

Me:

I hate her!!!!

My sister:

That and I shot all of the TVs in my house immediately upon the conclusion of Grey's Anatomy 

Me:

Scandal was good though

My sister:

I can't handle another sexy man being killed. 

She's such an asshole.

That is all! Nuff said!!! I think she might be a genius!

Parent of the Year Award...Right Here

So I was just (as in literally 50 minutes ago) reading about the 24 People Who are Really Nailing Parenting on Buzzfeed.com. There were some super, awesome, genius parents like:

And I looked at my husband and said, "We should totally be number 25 for Knowing how to utilize munchkin labor! I mean, we have one cleaning, one cooking Ravioli by the Chef, and one exercising (three year old running back and forth yelling, 'look at me exercising'!" We could even use this picture we have documenting that even nakey munchkins must help clean the pool.

That was when it became apparent that we could also be known as Number 26-Parents Who Completely Understand the Meaning of Karma! For as I was stating what awesome parents we are, a huge crash came from the kitchen where the aforementioned chef had tried to move a huge spigot glass serving picture on a pedestal (which my lazy tired self should have already cleaned from our previous night's sleep over) and accidentally knocked it over while trying to get plates out with which to serve the other two munchkins.

The two gallon pedestal, glass pitcher still half full of pink lemonade shattered exploded into a bazillion pieces in the middle of the kitchen floor, and this mug was niiiiiicccceeeee and made of really thick glass, much like this one....

Alas, I have no picture of ours because it is now in the dust pan, spare random bowl, vacuum cleaner, and  trash can in a bazillion pieces that we have spent the last 45 minutes cleaning up and picking up, and sweeping, and picking up, and vacuuming, and picking up, and mopping, and picking up more.

The moral to this story, before you start patting yourself on the back and readying your picture to send into Buzzfeed.com for People Who are Really Nailing this Whole Parenting thing, you might want to actually do a little parenting and keep in mind...KARMA cause I promise, as much as I preach about Karma to my kids, they are not going to let us forget this one. 

Disney Diva...Not Part 2

disney diva…not

Part 2

Never Again!

Everyone had a certain order you should go in, which needless to say got very confusing. And given the fact that I have ADHD, I began to get overwhelmed. One thing everyone of them had in common was that you should try your very hardest to make the “Rope Drop” at the beginning of the day and that if you are going to see Anna and Elsa you better head there right off the bat to try to avoid waits. In retrospect, I should have paid attention to the fact that none, I repeat NONE of these people had been to the Magic Kingdom since Elsa and Anna moved there from Epcot at the end of March in 2014, a little over a month before our visit.  

So at 8:05, we exited our car after parking closer than ever before. So close that no tram ride was required. We picked up our tickets from Will Call and boarded the Ferry Boat (the monorail system was not open yet). This was when it started to sprinkle. We were standing at the gates of The Magic Kingdom at 8:40, eagerly awaiting the arrival of Minnie and Mickey on the train to countdown to the opening of the park. We were committed. Of course, we had to be if it was pouring down rain (to the point that my contacts were messing up) and we continued to stand there waiting. Needless to say, the truing never arrived and we never saw the beloved characters my children were so excited to see countdown. Guess they didn’t want to get wet.

This should have been a clue! Stick to what you know. Alas, I plodded on with the plan. We walked down Main Street, not nearly as fast as others due to our party of 5, 3 of them being of short legs, and one of them having knee surgery on Thursday. We went through the castle to enter Fantasyland and ran into a wall of 100-200 people. The entrance to Fantasy Land was blocked by a rope. When it opened there were cast members herding the crowd around the carousel (in a complete circle and into a rope line for meeting Anna and Elsa. (I guess they knew that was what all of these people were going to do.) Apparently, everyone read the blogs. Again this should have been a clue. 

When we got to the front line entrance after being jostled, shoved, heels ran over by strollers, and almost trampled. We saw there were two lines. One for meeting Rapunzel and Cinderella and one for meeting Elsa, Anna, and Aurora. The wait times were side by side: 30 minutes for Rapunzel and Cinderella and 300 minutes for Anna, Elsa, and Aurora. Yeah I know! 300 minutes must be a typo. That’s what we thought too. Someone just messed up. So we continued on. We heard a cast member say, “This is the  longest you will wait every day.” and stupidly we thought he meant that this was the longest we would wait for any attraction. In retrospect (I was in retrospect a lot yesterday, which is a strange place a lot like the room of regret), I now know he meant that in the morning is the longest wait time for seeing Elsa and Anna. Sadly, I did not realize this until we had waited for over an hour and a half and had just gotten to the door to enter the castle and we heard the cast member at the door say that there was another 90 minute wait from there. 

  

Needless to say, this was not going to happen. We got out of line and hopped into the next door line for Rapunzel and Cinderella, waited 5 minutes, and entered the throne room where the girls got to meet and talk to Cinderella and Rapunzel. 

Notice that we are minus one child. The birthday girl was having nothing to do with this meeting and greeting. This would have been the last straw if we had waited another 90 minutes to see Elsa and Anna, but lucky for her, we did not. 

By the time we left the castle, it was 10:45. By this time we normally would have been almost finished with Fantasyland. My plan had been shaken and I spun around in a stupor of what to do and where to  go. So we just started walking and riding in the order that we came to things. We also tried to use Fast Passes, but that was a completed, befuddled disaster. The new Fast Pass + system is  utterly confusing and even as a cast member stands their at the little Fast Pass+ Kiosk and tries to explain it to you, you just stand there dumbfounded and just nod. We ended up using only 2 Fast Passes for Buzz Lightyear and Space Mountain and that was it. 

With all this, I would still say it was our best trip ever to The Magic Kingdom. The girls had a great time and were in awe of everything especially new Fantasyland. They rarely complained and were constantly talking about how cool  everything was. We saw 5-6 more characters and never waited more than 20 minutes. 

We ate at the Crystal Palace around 3:00 and were rewarded with an all you can eat buffet where we enjoyed delicious food, dessert, and coffee, as well as the ability to charge our very dead phones! Plus the girls got to spend time with Piglet, Pooh, Tigger and Eeyore!


There were absolutely no fits until around 8 that night, when the birthday girl decided that 13 hours in the Magic Kingdom was just too much and proceeded to cry herself to sleep. 

By far the coolest and most magical time was Enchanted Tales with Belle. It was amazing! More to come on this soon, but trust me you do not want to miss it!!!  

Disney Diva...Not

Okay, Disney Diva I am not. I do not claim to be, nor do am I really even a Disney fan. I would choose Universal or Sea World hands down, every time, and twice on Sunday over the Disney parks. However, it is required by the parenting gods that be that we visit the Magic Kingdom. I mean, how can you not if you have little ones, especially little princess ones who love nothing more than to dance around and sing at the top of their lungs “Let It Go”, “Part of Your World”, “Be Our Guest”, and countless other Disney movie tunes. 

So this weekend we embarked on our 3rd Disney adventure with children. I have personally been to Disney over 20 times in my life. (I am lucky enough to have a dear aunt and uncle that have lived in Orlando my entire life.) But being the cheap, thrifty people that we are, we always try to visit The Magic Kingdom right before they turn 3. This way they are old enough to appreciate it but can still get in of FREE! So this year we went on May 3rd, the day before my youngest daughter’s 3rd birthday. 

Now I am an extremely organized person. I mean, I have planning notebooks for birthday parties (man do I do up some birthday parties. Check it out here). So needless to say I spent the last couple of weeks, exploring what time to be where, where to eat, how to avoid the crowds, and basically visited every “Pin” ever “pinned” about visiting Disney World. Check out my board! 

Anywho! (Yes I meant any who and not any how.) On previous trips (keep in mind this is prior to new Fantasyland and the transfer to Fastpass +), I followed the tips from Birnbaum’s Walt Disney World. 

1. Get to the park when it opens. 

2. Go straight to Fantasyland. 

3. Do everything in Fantasyland first, making sure to use a Fast Pass for Peter Pan            because the line is usually 30-60 minutes long for a 2 minute ride. 

We usually go in this order:

Meet Ariel

Carousel

Winnie the Pooh

Dumbo

Get Fast Pass for Peter Pan

Its a Small World

Mickey’s Philarmagic

Go back to Peter Pan

4. Then we head to Liberty Square, Frontier Land, Adventure Land, take the train to Toon Town (now new Fantasy Land), Toon Town (now circus), then Tomorrow Land and then we go back for a night time ride on The Jungle Cruise. Someone goes ahead in different lands to  grab Fast Passes while we are at other attractions.  

Using this method, we never waited for more than 20-30 minutes for any ride. That being said, the only characters that we waited a long time to see were Ariel (45 minutes) and Mickey and Minnie (60 minutes). We also always make reservations at The Crystal Palace for lunch in the late afternoon. That we we can sit back and relax, including coffee, while we enjoy an all you can eat buffet and the girls get to meet Winnie the Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore, and Tigger, too!

This time we did not follow this plan…don’t ask me why. I was confused by the new Fastpass + system and overwhelmed with the new Fantasyland and the significant increase of character Meet and Greets. Plus, I discovered all of these blogs and websites by these self proclaimed Disney lovers, divas, experts, and I figured that since they spent 10 days at a time (how in the hell do you afford that with a family of 4, let alone 5, 6, 7…) at the Disney parks every year that they new what they were talking about. 

Rookie mistake! Stick with what you know!!! Here’s what happened:

Calling All the Minions!

This household has become minion obsessed lately. We love Despicable Me and Despicable Me 2, but our favorite part of the movies is the minions. First of all how could you not love those adorable, scene stealing comedians. And secondly, I've been calling my munchkins minions for years!

So of course there was no question what kind of birthday party my soon to be 7 year old wanted. It was minions all the way!

(I had to create several options for my little diva, and I decided to sell them all in my Etsy store, so if you are interested be sure to go check them out here!)

We invited around 20 kids, and I got to planning. Now if you don't know me well, I must admit to you that I am a wee bit birthday obsessed. In fact while some might say that I am an amazing birthday party planner, others (my husband) would say that I am obsessed and that our house turns into pure h... in the week preceding a party.  Whatever, I just believe that birthdays are special and they should be treated as such!

First I start with the decorations. I used foam board from Wal-Mart to create life sized minions. Don't scoff! It wasn't that hard. You could do it two ways: first, Youtube How to Draw a Minion and follow the steps, or you could find the minion you like and print it onto a transparency and then broadcast it onto the board using an overhead projector or a regular movie projector from your computer and just trace it.

I also created a larger minion for the front door using a piece of yellow foam board and a piece of blue foam board. Nothing says "Welcome little Minions!" like a huge minion on the front door. In fact, one of the kids told her mom that she knew that was definitely our house because there was a minion on the front door:)

Of course, a Despicable Me themed party would not be complete without Gru! So I glued together three pieces of foam board lengthwise and drew a Gru that was even taller than me.

Other decorations included chevron pennants which I created out of napkins from Wal-Mart by just cutting them into triangles, a printable birthday pennant banner that you can also purchase at my Etsy store, hanging streamers and swirls, tons of plastic table cloths which you can do lots of things with, and a huge birthday banner that I painted myself.

We also had speech bubbles everywhere with minion words, so that our little minions could learn how to speak like minions. In retrospect, I am not sure what a good idea this was seeing as for the last two weeks they all bust into fits of "Bee do, bee do, bee do, bee do!"

 Next in the planning came the activities. When having birthday parties at home, unless you are having a swimming party, you need to have activities planned or the little minions will take over (a.k.a. destroy) your house that you spent hours cleaning to prepare for the party. So here are the activities that we had fun with:

1. We created our own minions using construction paper. I had the pieces cut out (body, overalls, eyes, arms, legs, feet...) and they put them together and decorated their minion however they wanted. We did this at the beginning while the children were arriving.

2. Next we had fun dancing to all of the Minion short videos and songs and doing the Just Dance songs from Despicable Me. I just created a Youtube playlist of all the minion shorts and songs and played it on our T.V. If you don't have a Smart T.V., you could do this lots of ways. You could download them to your computer using the program YouTube Downloader and then burn them to a DVD. Or you could also just connect your computer to your T.V. using an HDMI cable and play the videos right from your computer. Here is a link to my Minion Playlist. 

3. The most popular activity of the day was the "Minion Hunt". Luckily for me  Wal-Mart already had out their Easter stuff (not sure what I would have done otherwise). I bought 4 bags of eggs. Unfortunately, I had to buy the bags with all of the colors to get just blue, yellow, and purple. Then I put my minions to work making blue and yellow eggs. Next I painted on eyes and goggles using acrylic paint. In retrospect, I could have just gotten those round white stickers and some black electrical tape to create the goggles, but I really didn't mind. 

Then we hid the 50 something minion eggs outside (same way you would do an Easter Egg hunt), and we released the minions with some super cool and creative plastic Wal-Mart bags.

4. No Despicable Me party would be complete without The Box of Shame which was featured in the first movie. It was where the orphans were sent to be punished when they did not sell enough cookies. The kids had fun getting in the Box of Shame and even stuck some of their minions in it.

5. Minions are not hard to draw. Especially if you focus on the basic shapes. The body is made out of an egg shaped oval with the top part colored yellow and the bottom blue. Then you draw in the eyes and goggles. Add some legs and arms and you have a minion. They had the best time drawing their minions on our front sidewalk using sidewalk chalk. There were minions leading up to our door for days. Guess we could call it a Minion Walk.

6. A last minute activity that just happened because I was cruising past the toy section and these rocket shooters were on an end cap was "Shoot the Moon like Gru". These rocket shooters were $2.50 each. I bought 3 of them, but had I realized how super cool they were. I would have bought a lot more. These things shot up 20-30 feet in the air, and they could have done this all day long!!

7. Finally, after the singing of Happy Birthday and the serving of plates, we turned on one of the movies and enjoyed "dinner and a movie". This captivated some for the rest of the time. The others enjoyed going outside and repeating many of the activities we had already finished or just playing. 

For the food, I had to stick with the theme. We had bananas because that is a minion's most favorite food. We had apples and grapes, because you can't have a minion in a fruit hat without them. There were minions in a blanket (pigs in a blanket) and minion grahams (which were conveniently sold at the store). Agnes's caterpillars were a big hit as (Cheetos puffs always are).

Of course I used minion words to name all of the food. This was not hard. You can Google minion language and there are tons of sites that have English words translated into minion words. 

And let's not forget the birthday cake. Yes, I did make it myself but before you make a sarcastic comment about all the time in the world. let me be clear...I teach first grade full time, have 3 kids, sell products on TeachersPayTeachers, and have a husband that is a football coach and is frequently gone. I am not a super hero or Wonder Woman...I just can't afford to spend $100 on a cake and to get the kind of cake I wanted that is what it would have costed.

Finally it was time to go. For party favors, I bought yellow, plastic cups (2 for $1) and filled them with party favors that I got in a set in the party section a Wal-Mart. There were 8 sets to a bag that cost $6.50. Total cost of these super cute favors was less that $1.50 each!!!  I painted the goggles on the cups to make them look like minions. Again, I realize now that I could have done the same things with white circular stickers or labels and black electrical tape. Really wish I had thought of that then. But I think they turned out pretty cute. To finish them off, I stuffed black tulle in the top to make it look like minion hair. The kids loved them, and they looked so cute displayed on our bookcase near the door. 

Of course I spent hours on Pinterest gathering ideas and inspiration! You can check out my Party Perfection board here to add to your ideas on your Minion birthday party, as well as countless more party themes. We had a great time! And people are still talking about the party 3 weeks later. I hope this helps you in planning your little Minions birthday party! From our minions to yours....