Boring with a Capital B.

I have just decided that my blog is boring. My life isn’t boring but my writing about it isn’t all that exciting. Things should be picking up here on my blog if all goes well. That’s a big if though. The girls and I are planning an entire month of travel. We are hoping to go from our home in the southeast all the way to Denver and maybe even Utah. The big if has to do with if I can find hot spots to connect my laptop to and if I have the energy to blog after driving all day. In the very least I’ll plunk something out and save it to post later.

We will leave for our first adventure next Tuesday, August 28 for Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We will visit the Franklin Institute where we will see King Tut. We will also have one free day during which I am hoping to take them to see where I went to college, Temple University.
To keep our costs manageable we will stay with a friend just over the border in Wilmington, Delaware and take the train in. I just can’t wait to get on the road. But wait, that’s not all……. We will return home and then finally take advantage of the fact that we DO NOT have to start back to school in September and start our road trip for real.

At the moment I’m planning to start in Detroit, Michigan but I’m not sure how long it will take me to get there as none of my children are old enough to drive and I’ve never been that way before. The Dadster, as he is fondly called here, can not come with us as he can not take the time off work. Here in the US one or two weeks is a customary amount of vacation, one month is sort of unheard of.

My good friend who also homeschools and writes for the local newspaper told me I absolutely must write an article when we return. I guess I’ll try and keep track and hopefully will be able to blog for posterity, I don’t know about an article. We are trying our best to keep the trip very affordable as finances are always tight in this house of one moderate income and six people living off of it.

What we are doing is basing our trip on friends and family we have scattered about the US and then stopping in between at points of interest. So if any of you alert readers have any suggestions please forward them on. We will be camping in a few sites because $15 a night for a campsite verses $150 or more is a no-brainer plus we will get to see some awesome nature as a bonus. I’m also hoping to hop on in to Canada but my passport is expired and that would take months to accomplish, which reminds me I must call the State Department to see if we can go to Canada with a birth certificate.

So stay tuned and I’ll try and keep you all posted.

Mimi

What’s your favorite blog?

This is a simple post but an effort for me to find a few more wonderful blogs to visit. I would love to know your number one favorite blog site. Mine are listed, not in order either. Some of them are not really active and one has moved so I need to do some housekeeping and get them in order. I’d love to have a few more to add.

My favorite blogs are ones that are just normal folks’ musings on life with nice graphics and photos to go along. I also appreciate ones where people aren’t afraid to deal with controversial or more thoughtful ideas because, well.. that is human nature.  I like to laugh and cry when I read a blog and believe me I’ve done both and sometimes on the same blog. I don’t care about spelling and punctuation unless you are my child and I feel responsible to correct, especially since my offspring don’t even go to school and I *am* their teacher.

I enjoy the occasional esoteric blog like Eyes for Lies or the Aggravated DocSurg

What do you like about a blog? How could I make my own more readable? Suggestions would be appreciated, gentle please or I’ll take it completely personal and possibly have a nervous breakdown. Actually no matter how many readers come to my blog I totally enjoy writing in this way, it is such  therapeutic activity. I’m trying to help my sister start her blog, we’ll see how that goes.

Thanks for your suggestions in advance.

Mimi

The Lead Balloon

Interesting, my last post went over like a lead balloon. I have had this happen before. I already know I tend to have eclectic interests and beliefs, oh well. Be true to oneself is usually a good motto.

Right now I wish I had a magic wand to stop the temper tantrums of my 7 year old. She has taken to screeching when she gets mad. It is exhausting, especially since I’ve been through this three times before with her older sisters. Sometimes I fool myself into thinking I’m a good mother and other times I know I’m pretty crappy at it. I do know I’m just looking forward to getting over this screaming phase she is going through.

Ta Da Duckies

Mimi

New Name for a New Year.

I have christened my blog with a new name in honor of the upcoming new year. Also it has been almost a year since I started my online journal.  The Dempseys was originally a sort of homepage for our family but has morphed into info on our family and my thoughts as well. As a forty something mom of four girls, more often than I would like I forget the name of something so “whatchamacallit” seemed appropriate.

I get discouraged because I can’t seem to keep up with my teenage daughter who is always a step ahead with her blogging and computer knowledge.  It’s not that I’m jealous but I feel so slow and ancient sometimes. I’m still calling things, “you know the whatchamacallit”. Oh well, I’m still here blogging away after a year and I’m ready to go on for another year. I’ve decided after a couple weeks of thinking about it I’m going to stay with my present site and not go for a free blog with adds. I think it’s worth the five bucks a month.  My kids have all moved over to  vox and I have a free account there which I may or may not keep. I hardly have time for one blog never mind two or more.

I would like to share a bit of praise for my favorite blogs out there. But a giant disclaimer, if I forget you (again, it’s the memory thing) do not in anyway think you aren’t spectacular. First prize for cute content and superb design is my cyber friend Island Jen. I am seriously jealous of her artistic style! First prize for the absolute best tribute to another beautiful human and for incredibly fantastic writing is Lori’s blog. What is amazing to me is that I can go on the computer and sit down and cry over the life of Lori’s daughter Alli cut short by cancer, never having met either of them. Go to this site, it is well worth your trip. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Lori’s mom Judy gets first prize for awesome old photos and stories to go with them. I absolutely love old photos and Judy has an amazing knack for having saved them and gotten them all up on her blog is great fashion and then telling all the wonderful stories behind them.

There is the category of medical blogs I have fallen prey to. It’s peek into a world I find fascinating. First prize for great thoughts on the silly, profound and even mundane goes to Jellyhead , though I must admit that her blog isn’t a medical blog in itself. She has some cool photos, my favorite being the kangaroos in the field where she was camping with her family. She lives down under which is pretty neat in itself.  Have you ever wondered what goes on in the ER? You might try visiting Aggrivated Doc Surgeon. He has posts on everything from the ridiculous to the rather serious. He is witty too and instead of comment he has number of people aggravated. I can’t imagine cutting people open for a living but I’m sure glad there are folks out there like him who take their jobs seriously but live with a sense of humor.

There are several others but in the interest of time, I have to go cook dinner, I’ll leave it at that. One last little tid bit that is free and I use almost every time I get on the computer is Pandora.It is a sort of radio. You type in a song you like or a group and then the system will play music for you that they think you’ll like. If you like it you can click on a thumbs up and that song will at some point play again for you. If you don’t like it they won’t play it again. It is a great way to listen to free music while on the computer and find music you might not know about.

Hope you all have a wonderful New Year and I’m looking forward to reading many more great blogs this upcoming year. Ta Da Duckies!

Mimi