Hanging With Mrs. Cooper

I know, unbelievable right????  Now first let me say, I actually like the show even though this is its final season.  I started watching it as a  gateway into Grey's Anatomy when it came on, on Thursday nights.  It was really on so that the tv would be set on that station.  But of course, watching all of her silly antics just got me deeper into the show.  Sorry it's going off of the air but not overly distraught about if, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, on to what she taught me.  Here of lately, I've been becoming a Googleholic.  This word does not exist in Wikipedia or any other place other than the Cooperpedia.  And there's a lot of sensible made up words in there.  I'll have to share with you one day.  Anyway, I've only ever used Google as a search engine until I started blogging.  Maybe about 5 months ago, I started using Google Reader.  This way, I don't actually have to come into my Blog's Dashboard to read my blog, only to post.  Of course, I then started checking my mail from there.  My Feedburner is all set up through Google, and now Google is my home page.  So here I am watching Ms. Betty the other night and low to my behold the child mentioned "Google Alerts".  Now I'm sure millions of you already know about this and just decided not to share it with me.  She had alerts set up so that anytime someone went onto her blog she got a notice.  Well, that was like finding gold to me.  I always saw the little bell icon with the word Alert next to it, but I have to be honest, I never paid it a bit of mind.

Just last week I learned about Google Documents and all the wonderful ways you can navigate that.  And the forms and spreadsheets.  Now here I've been all over the net looking for  a suitable form for contact info and you mean to tell me Google had on right under my very nose???? How could this be??? With themes and everything.  I'm like in Google Heaven right about now.  So you know I have all kinds of alerts set up on different things and yup, the alerts work.  I need to figure out if I can get it to make sounds.  I'm sure it's there.  Like I need this machine to make one more sound for me.

I'm so inspired and hooked on Google right now that when it's time to upgrade my cell phone in a few months,  I'm definitely going with either the G3 or the Catalyst.  Both of which run on google.  And let us not even talk about the syncing capabilities.

Anyway, better late than never.  If  you have any other Google tips you'd like to share, let me in on them would you?

So while watching the news there was a story about a family who trusted their beloved one to a funeral home.  The funeral home some kind of way lost the body and used another body with the clothes that the family provided.  Then tried to convince the family that the corpse was in fact that of their beloved.

Did you all read that correctly?  Cause that's exactly the way I heard it twice.  Let's back up to that last sentence.........."They Tried to convince the family that the corpse was in fact that of their beloved".  How in the ham fat are you going to convince a family that someone who isn't their loved one, is?  I mean seriously, you've known your beloved one for years, YEARS, and now some idiot who has been in charge for caring for this person's after life needs is going to try to tell you that this substitute is your family member?  Is there anything safe in this world today.

Makes me understand why my Uncle did what he did.  He passed, had a memorial service in the cemetery's little chapel.  It was a nice comfy place.  There he rested in what looked like a cheap coffin and in the background, were burgundy colored drapes hanging there.  I figured they were hanging there to give the place a more comfortable feel.  Well, low to my behold, when the ceremony was over, the drapes opened.  At first I wasn't sure what was going on. Nobody else knew what was going on either.  Then all of a sudden what looked like oven doors opened, and in went Uncle Bob.  I was so shocked that I couldn't move.  Within hours, his son had his remains.

Now as cold as that sounds, doesn't it make sense to do things that way.  I mean, normally we don't think about our after life needs until we get older.  We talk about it in passing but once you see yourself having Grandchildren I think you really start thinking about it more.

I've always said I wanted to be cremated, but now, I'm convinced that's the way to go.  It's bad enough that family has to mourn the loss of their loved one, but to then have to deal with a mistaken corpse??? How do you recover from that.  Not sure how the Funeral Home is handling this, but I would definitely suggest that all of the beloved's needs are met free of charge.

The things you hear in the news.......

Hey ya'll.  I was asked by Elizabeth over at Thoughts of an Evil Overload if I would participate in the New England Blogger's Birthday Carnival.  Are you kidding? Of course I will.  About a year ago, Elizabeth started a blog called New England Bloggers.  Well today is her Bloggy Birthday and I'm living in New England, so here it goes.

I've been living in New England (Massachusetts) for 15 years now. I moved here from Philadelphia when I got married.  New England is definitely, definitely different than Philly.  It's more country up here.  More land.  Very picturesque, if you will.

New England has a lot of quaint little towns just like you see on TV or in the movies.  In these quaint little towns, everybody knows everybody.  Once you get involved in an organization here, whether it be in the school or in sports, you kind of become a little known around the parts.  A few of my favorite places I like to visit are the scenter of the earth.  Yup, you read that right, not the center but the scenter. As in smells. As in Yankee Candle in South Deerfield, MA.  I use candler warmers myself, but you still get the same effect.

Then there's shopping in the Berkshires.  Gotta love that place.  Lots of spas and golf resorts.  And the trees.........THE TREES.....in the fall, this is the place to come to. All the different colors of the leaves looks like God splashed watercolors on them.  There's the BIG E which is our huge state fair.  That's about 7 minutes away from me and goodness gracious, I do everything I can to avoid going into that area in September.

Once in a blue we travel to Boston.  Lots of history there. Heck it's where the Brits came and called it New England in the first place.  Every now and then you hear the beautiful Boston accent.  Anything that ends with the letter "A" is pronounced with and "R" and vice versa.  True New Englanders have "Iders" and not "Ideas".  That used to drive me crazy, but hey, when in New England, do what the New Englanders do.  "Have a bowl of Chowda".  The best Chowda is here in New England along with the Red Sox (some folks are Yankee's fans) but I won't say who.

Come on up to New England.  It's a beautiful place.  When I go to visit in Philly, I can't wait to get back to the place I call Home.

So while watching The View, an announcement was made that Elizabeth Edwards has left her husband.  I posted it on Twitter and now I just have to post about it cause 140 characters just isn't enough sometimes.

My thing is...Why did it take so long? Then I thought about it and wondered, "Why is She Leaving".  She didn't do anything wrong.  She had breast cancer and fought for her life.  Then a few years later she was diagnosed with bone cancer.  She has to deal with herself and her kids trying to grip the fact that mom won't be here.  Why does she then have to deal with her cheating, baby making husband and his mistress?  Cause you know she has to deal with his mistress and that child.

First of all, I have no respect for a Man who can make a baby and then deny it.  I don't care what kind of career you have.  You made your bed, you lay in it.  Then to top it off, not only did you step out of your marriage, you didn't even use protection.  How much more disrespectable can you be to your wife?

Sure there are some women who deal with it for whatever reason.  I'm not sure why.  I've heard some say there's too much invested between the two of them.  Whether that investment is money or the kids, whatever.  But for me, and this is my opinion, because everybody has one.  "When he and I said I do, that meant me and Mr. C, and not Mr.C and me and she, or me and Mr. C and he".  Does that make sense?  Did John Edwards hear the part "Forsaking All Others" or was that not in the vows?

Maybe we could say for Elizabeth that Love Is Crazy. Love will make you do some things you thought you'd never do.  She stayed for whatever reasons that only she will understand and we have to respect her for that.  But I'm glad she decided that the more and more this stays in the news the more this is going to affect her health.

My message to John, "Why couldn't you be the big boy and go".  Man it up!!!  You did your dirt, have the gonads to walk away.  Don't let her be the one to do it.

I've posted a review of  Apple Bottom fragrance over here.  If you've tried it, please leave me a comment over there.  I'm curious to know what you thought.  Ok onto the main course.

By now most of you have heard about the little girl who took her life because of being bullied.  This is not the first case we've heard of this sort of incident and unfortunately it won't be the last.  But what can we do? I'll tell you what I did.  I had a discussion with my children about it.  I asked them if they have witnessed bullying at school.  They told me "No, but then again, I don't know".  I asked them if they know what a bully is and they did give me a sort of proper response.  The usual, "A bully is a kid who picks on someone else".  Well, yah, that's part of it.  But some kids are sooooo good at not letting it be known.

Well, now, bullying has taken on a much wider form in that of social networking.  Once upon a time when I was a kid, bullies would tossspit balls in your direction.  Gave you a mean look at school with words to accompany the look.  To end it, you just called them out and had a good old fashioned fist fight. But now, times have changed. The kid who is being bullied does one of three things.  #1, they keep their mouth shut and just take the bullying because of being scared, #2, they come to school with a weapon and use it upon those who bully them, #3, they take their lives.

As parents, it's our responsibility to take on these tough subjects with our kids, but how do we know what's going on, online?  Sure we can request their passwords to their MySpace and Facebook and Twitter accounts.  Sure we can look at their text messages.  But kids are savvy.  For every account they have, that we are monitoring, there's another one that we don't know about.

We have to let our kids know that they can come to us NO MATTER WHAT!!.  We have to let them know this.  It's awful what happened to this little girl.  Now her parents are left behind without her, and no one is being held accountable.  And I think they should be.  I think the kids who are causing the bullying need to face some kind of punishment.  This girl took her life because of the threats of others.  Yes, the Principal of the school stepped in but obviously that wasn't enough.  Should those bullies have been expelled? But then what would have happened when nobody was looking? I think it's a topic that should be discussed at all PTA meetings.  Some kind of plan needs to be put in place from kindergarten to 12th grade.  Yes, I said kindergarten because bullying can start there.   And it's not necessarily coming from those children that we label as "troubled child", or "from kids of broken homes".  Some of these bullies look like and act like the sweetest people in the world and that's why parents don't know how cruel some of their kids really are.

So again, I ask, what do we do?  For now, we continue to help our children look out for the signs of bullies and being bullied.  Also, we need to look for signs in our own children. What is their personality like? Do they laugh at cruel things that they see on tv?  Or if they hear a story about someone's misfortune do they think it's the greatest thing they've ever heard?  I'm not an expert by any means on this subject.  But I am a parent of 3 children and I don't want to see any more stories of children, CHILDREN, taking their own lives, because of some other child's misery.