Rocks In My Dryer

Famous In Our Own Lunchtimes

If you were to put your ear up next to my ear, I swear you would hear crickets chirping.  My head is empty.  Empty.  A wasteland of unbloggable nothing-ness.  So I was mightily relieved when Catez came to the rescue with a meme--and one she wrote herself, to boot.  So here we go.

What do you like most about where you live?

The people.  I have never lived in a place where the people are as friendly as Oklahoma, USA.  Strangers are kind, and the friends are even better. 

Is there anything strange about where you live?

The wind. Oh, the wind.  (Sing it with me)...

O-o-o-o-o-oklahoma
Where the wind comes sweepin' down the plains
And makes it impossible to have neat hair and painful to wear contacts
And can turn your lawn chair into a missile
And pull your baby's stroller right out of your hands...

Another unusual thing is that my city is considered a international hub of the charismatic movement, and it really permeates the culture around here.  As in, it wouldn't be all that unusual for someone in the produce section to give you "a word from the Lord". 

What's one of your all-time favourite music albums and why?  (I'm keeping Catez's sophisticated New Zealand spelling of "favourite" to inject a little culture around here).

If I had to nail down just one, I guess I'd say Billy Joel's Greatest Hits.  And the why is because...well, because he's Billy Joel. 

Some other good albums I have enjoyed in my lifetime are

• True Blue by Madonna (y'all give me a break--it was 1986)
• Beauty and Beast (remember this TV show?)  This is a gorgeous album.
• John Mellencamp's Greatest Hits
• Ultimate Manilow (of course)
• Showstoppers by Manilow (another really great Manilow album)
• No Fences by Garth Brooks  (I'm not a huge country music fan, but really, this is a great album)

Did you have a passion for something as a kid that you still have now? (If not - what is one of your passions now?)

I've always had a passion for a really good story, whether it's reading it, watching it in a movie, or hearing someone tell it to me. 

What do you like most about having a blog?

Honestly?  I'm feeling a little burnt-out on the blog front these days, so this is a good question for me to answer.  I suppose what I like the most is just the daily writing.  I can tell a difference in how my brain is working, now that I have a reason to sit down and write every single day. 

Also, of course, I really enjoy the friends I've made in Bloggityville. 

I don't think I'll tag anyone, but if you want to do it, just leave a note in the comments section.

Drama

Does anyone else think it's a little dramatic for MSNBC.com to have a real-time countdown TO THE SECOND letting us all know how long it is until Meredith Vieira debuts on Today?  Isn't there, you know, a war going on?

Works For Me: The Notebook

 

If my house catches fire, I'm getting the kids first, and this little tool second:

There's no offical name for this--around here, we just call it The Notebook.  And we say it in a reverent whisper.  Basically, it's where I keep all the catch-all papers it takes to manage this family of six.

On the cover you see a photo of my little darlings (in real life I promise they DO have faces).

Inside the front cover I have taped an assortment of important information, like social security numbers, combination to the padlock gate in the backyard, and the right way to set a table (it's my dirty little secret:  no matter how many tables I set, I cannot, CANNOT remember where the napkin and spoon go without a cheat sheet.)

I keep a three-ring hole punch in my kitchen, and any important piece of paper that darkens our door gets punched right away.  Any papers that will be referred to regularly find their way into the The Notebook.  It is NOT for filing papers that I might use once or twice a year (like birth certificates).  And I don't use it for keeping track of documents to be filed, like paid bills or health insurance statements.  Those documents have a much less glamourous fate awaiting them in the garage filing cabinet. 

My notebook is divided into the following tabs:

• Pending (for papers that I'll be working on in the next week or two)
• Contacts (my phone list)
• Groceries (where I keep blank forms for this little system)
• Church
• Adam--school (these next three tabs hold classroom information I refer to often, like snack schedules, phone lists, etc.  Keepsake-type school papers head out to the filing cabinet)
• Stephen--school
• Joseph--school
• Computer (where I keep all my passwords and ideas for blog posts--a very short list at the moment, by the way)
• Soccer (I have two boys who play;  this is where we store rosters, schedules, etc.)
• Scouts (I have two boys in Scouts, too; this is where we keep up with the bazillions of little papers and projects it takes to participate)
• Ideas (Just a random catch-all place to write down my great ideas that never come to fruition.  This is a LONG list.)
• Notes (Because you have to keep blank paper somewhere, right?)

This has really helped me keep track of all the paper a busy family can accumulate! 

If you want to share your great idea, please include your Works-For-Me Wednesday Link below.  Guidelines, should you need them, can be found here.

Oh, and one last thing...Jeana and GreenGenes won my little grammar contest yesterday, with the prize being (oh-can-you-stand-the-excitement) an honorary featured position in today's WFMW post.  SO, you must go and visit them first, because it is a fine, fine thing when a woman knows how to hyphenate. 

You Try It!

GranMarty, a reader who unfortunately does not have a blog for me to link back to (really, I've been getting to know her privately via e-mail and you would LOVE hearing what this woman has to say; don't worry, I'm working on her)...anyhoo, GranMarty sent me a fun quiz in light of my earlier grammar post, and I thought you might like to try it.  With my tail dejectedly between my legs I must confess that I missed one question and scored a 92%.  I am not happy about this.  Go ahead, take the quiz yourself, and if you have the nerve, come back and post your score.  Unless you score a 100.  Because the jealousy would kill me.

Oh, and by the way, remember that Works-For-Me Wednesday is tomorrow.  I'll give a spotlighted position to the first person who can tell me why "Works-For-Me" is hyphenated. 

Grammatically Speaking

Let me insert a big ol' giant disclaimer here--I love good grammar, but I don't get all squirrely about grammar mistakes, either. So I'd better not see ONE comment from y'all saying how you're so worried to leave a comment now because I'm going to go grammar-nazi on you, okay?  I just got some of you lurkers to come out of the closet, for Pete's sake!

I had such an interesting response to this post about proper grammar that I thought I should explain to you why good grammar runs so deeply in my blood. 

My mom is an English teacher.  "Ahhhhh," you're saying, "NOW I get it."

I grew up in a rural Arkansas town where poor grammar is as much a part of life as Friday night football.  Combine the two, and you had the weekly chant from the stands, as the refs carefully measured a play, "MOVE THEM CHAINS!  MOVE THEM CHAINS!"  Not my mother.  She instructed my brother and me that our family chants, "MOVE THOSE CHAINS!  MOVE THOSE CHAINS!"  We stood out a little, but around our house, it was appropriate to fall on your sword for good grammar. 

And it rubbed off on me, definitely.  The most romantic thing that happened to me in adolescence was a secret admirer who, for a period of a couple of weeks, covered my '78 powder blue Pontiac Grand Prix with flowers overnight, every night, as it sat in our driveway.  The first morning, when my mother and I dashed out to investigate, we snagged the note that was tucked under the windshield.  It read,

Shannon,

These are for you; I hope you enjoy them. 

E.B.T.

My mother and I, equally giddy, looked at each other and squealed, "HE USED A SEMI-COLON!"

So it should come as no surprise that my sweet Joseph crawled into my lap sniffling last week.  "Mom," he whimpered, "I hurt my toe badly." 

"Oh, sweet boy," I said, rubbing his foot.  "I'm so proud of you for using an adverb."

A Very Good Reason NOT To Take Your One-Year-Old Daughter To a PTA Meeting...

...Because when all eyes in the room are on you because you're giving your presentation, your little daughter (sitting next to you), might choose that time to unzip your purse and pull out a maxi pad and unwrap it and WAVE IT OVER HER HEAD, and just in case anyone missed it, your friend sitting next to you will laugh loudly enough to make sure they all saw it.  And you would be embarrassed.  If that happened to you.  Which I'm not saying it did to me.  Ahem.

For Oklahomans Only

People sometimes ask me which webrings generate the most traffic for me.  Surprisingly, it's been this one:  Blog Oklahoma.  So, fellow Oklahomans, I'd highly recommend joining up with them--and support your great (and hot and windy and flat) state in the process.  Also, a reader just told me about the 2006 Okie Blog Awards (click here for info), and I'm eager to check it out.

By the way, if you're an Oklahoma blogger (whether you're a member of the webring or not), leave me a comment below. 

Thank You!

Alright, so when I begged for comments, I thought, hey, wouldn't it be fun to top, say, 50 comments on my birthday?  But when y'all come out of the woodwork, you come out of the woodwork!  Thank you for the birthday wishes and the fun info about yourselves.  I've been trying to respond to each of them, and I'll get to them all, really I will. 

(I had a fantastic birthday, by the way.  Hubs and I had lunch at my favorite restaurant, I bought a red purse and a CD I'd been wanting, Hubs gave me some new graphics and photo-editing software, Joseph told me he loved me "most-er than motorcycles", Chilihead brought me chocolate cheesecake and sweet tea and a gift card to the mother ship Hobby Lobby, and my parents, brother, sis-in-law and nieces came over for a fun and noisy dinner.  Best birthday I remember in a long time, actually.)

And by the way, was it really all that painful leaving a comment?  Really?  Because I thought you did a good job, you over there eating Doritos at the computer.  And yes, you over there in Alabama.  And yes, you over there nursing the baby while you type.  Yes, YOU.  So don't be a stranger! 

Last thing....as if I needed any more proof that I have the best readers in the world, Cheri at Kudzu and Koolaid (love that name!) sent me this information, alerting me that Barry Manilow is having a hip surgery.  You know how I feel about my Barry.  May we bow our heads to wish him well, and to hum a little Mandy?

And Many More...

Yep, it's my birthday today.  I'm 34.  In exactly 366 days I'll be on the downill slope toward 40.  And you know what?  I love it.  This skin I'm living in gets a little more comfortable every year (probably because it's sagging a little more each year, but anyhoo...). 

I am of the firm belief that a girl shouldn't have to think too hard on her birthday, so today I'm putting the burden on YOU, dear readers.  It just tickles (and surprises) me beyond words that any of you stop by to read this silly blog, and I love receiving your comments and private e-mails, even if I don't always get the chance to respond to each one.  But today, just this once, because-I'm-the-birthday-girl-and-I-said-so, it's The Day of De-Lurking here at Rocks In My Dryer.  Please, step up and leave a comment.  For the heck of it, tell how long you've been reading here and where in the world, generally, you're from. 

Additionally, I thought about asking you to share something interesting about yourself, but I thought might freak out some of you super-private lurkers.  So instead, I want you to share something really dull about yourself.

Really.  That's it.  You can do this.  Here, I'll start:

"Hi, Shannon, my name is Shannon, and I live in the Midwest.  I've been reading this blog from the--duh--beginning.  And I'm almost out of dogfood."

See?  Painless.  And dull.

And if I haven't said it before...thanks for stopping by.