The Miley syndrome...

Parents these days. They should just call them "Those Older Friends I Live With." It seems that so many people in this world are way too worried about their kids liking them and thinking they are "cool" that they forget their duties to protect their children by saying no to things that are harmful to them, even at the risk of their children being "mad" at them. Then they can't understand why their kids don't respect them. Your kids don't respect their other friends, so why should they respect you?

Miley Cyrus is an example of the consequences of being your child's buddy. She has gotten into a lot of trouble lately. First she was posing semi-nude before the age of 18. Now she's been photographed getting high. People want to blame Disney or "the man" or whoever, but I blame the parents.

Guess what! For once, so do the parents. Miley's father, Billy Ray Cyrus, said this in a recent GQ Magazine interview:

"How many interviews did I give and say, 'You know what's important between me and Miley is I try to be a friend to my kids'? I said it a lot. And sometimes I would even read other parents might say, 'You don't need to be a friend, you need to be a parent.' Well, I'm the first guy to say to them right now: You were right. I should have been a better parent. I should have said, 'Enough is enough--it's getting dangerous and somebody's going to get hurt.' I should have, but I didn't. Honestly, I didn't know the ball was out of bounds until it was way up in the stands somewhere."

I'm glad Billy Ray was able to open up his eyes to the truth that at the end of the day, HE is responsible for the way his kids turn out. It's unfortunate that it's too little too late for his daughter and for his marriage... for his family.

But then again, it's NOT too late. With God, it's never too late. He can redeem and restore anything. I pray that Billy Ray will open his heart to the Lord and get on his knees and cry out to the Great Healer right now. Nothing is irreparable with God. NOTHING.

Memories of Magic Mountain...

I don't write about it much, but during the end of my teens and for the first third of my twenties I worked at Six Flags Magic Mountain (and for one season in between at Hurricane Harbor). Many of my still-good friends and my adopted sister, Sandy, worked with me there. That place definitely was the backdrop of much of my "fun times," and what I mean by that was that I got into a lot of trouble and made a lot of dumb, young-person mistakes during that time. =)


Oh the stories I could tell. Oh the memories: Meeting Xander from Buffy the Vampire Slayer at the Main Gate toll booth. Hooking the singer, Brandy, up with a free ticket for a special event. Almost getting fired for not calling the ambulance for a little girl with a seizure at the Harbor (I didn't know I was supposed to!). Being in my first (and only) love triangle with Stage Tech and a Float Driver. Decorating the park for Halloween and helping build a maze ("I told you guys I'm not THAT girly!"). And so many more...


Anyway, Vintage Disneyland Tickets obviously mostly displays old stuff from Disneyland, but it also has a few things on Magic Mountain that I thought I would share. Pretty interesting. This is awesome because it gives some history of the Santa Clarita Valley, which was then known as the Valencia Valley:

And here's a brochure from 1981, the year I was born:

Enjoy more here...

Reason to celebrate on the worst holiday ever...

I hate V.D. No I'm not talking about THAT V.D., although that's pretty bad too. I'm talking about Valentine's Day. I hate it for the obvious reasons, which I have no problem admitting. =)

Well, I'm not going to worry about it today. I have good things to share:

1. I've been offered a promotion at work. It is only one level above what I'm at now and not much of a pay increase, but the exposure I will have is priceless. It will look very nice on my resume if and when I head out to Texas.

2. I just completed week 3 of Weight Watchers yesterday and I'm down 8 lbs. Not bad. I look like I've lost 15 though... I'm getting compliments left and right. It's probably because I've been adding some daily walking into the routine. I feel really good right now and everything is fitting me loosely.

I put on a dress this morning that I've never had the nerve to wear (which I am wearing at work right now BTW). I took the below picture of it and posted it on Facebook with the caption, "Take that Valentine's Day!" The response I got was amazing.




I love you, Weight Watchers. =)

Yeah, really not the worst Valentine's I've ever had....

And this guy is on the President's side?

He's making a pretty good case for those who think Obama's a muslim, which is hilarious because he started out trying to make the point that it's ridiculous that anyone might think that our President might not really be a Christian.....

Only in MY head...

Have you ever seen Inception? If you have, then I can say that it’s pretty darn close to what my dreams are like: very vivid and extremely detailed and, much of the time, utterly bizarre.

Last night I had a very strange and morbid dream. I’ve never dreamt of anyone committing suicide… until last night.

In the dream I was going to meet up with a friend I used to work with at Magic Mountain who I haven’t seen in years. I’m in a grocery store and I look out a window across the street to see 5 or 6 dogs running down the sidewalk. Only these dogs are standing upright and are dressed in sweatsuits. Weird and kinda funny actually. Everyone in the dream stopped to see these dogs. I was so intrigued that I decided to go outside to get a better look.

As I’m walking to the curb to look across the street I approach a beat up old truck. Inside in the passenger seat is the friend I’m waiting for. We say hi and then out of no where this thuggish looking girl walks out from the store with a gun in her hand. She starts shooting at the dogs and killing them one by one. I turn away because I don’t want to see this and when I look back at her she’s crying.

I realize that those are her dogs that she is killing. Then another girl approaches her crying and screaming to try and tell her to stop killing the dogs. I instinctually know this is the girl’s girlfriend (random, I know; I’ve never had dreams involving lesbians either). The girl turns and shoots her girlfriend.

At this point, I’m thinking this girl is on a rampage and is going to shoot me and my friend since we are witnesses and the closest to her. I can hear my friend scream from the car to please not shoot her, while in that very moment I’m trying to run behind the truck so this girl doesn’t shoot me (courageous, right? Lol). I look back at her and, instead of shooting anyone else, she puts the gun to her own forehead. I immediately look away because I don’t want to see what’s going to happen next.

That’s when I wake up.

Ick. What was that about? I tell you. I don’t understand what goes on in my subconscious brain sometimes… I’m not even going to try to interpret that one. Maybe I just watch too much TV...

*eye roll*

Yesterday's post was for nothing. The special event has now been called off.... well, postponed. More on that later....

Special days and secret preparations...

Wow. This week has been nuts. We are about to have an extremely special event take place for our family this Saturday and the plans are crazy because it's very last minute. I can't get into details right now because it's hush-hush and I don't want to risk anyone I know finding out what it is (not that anyone I know really reads this thing), but I can say that I had to go buy a dress today for it and I'm going to be running around like crazy on Friday preparing for it.


I was just complaining last night on Facebook about how I always have the worst time finding cute dresses (yeah, I admit it... I complain... like you couldn't tell from reading this blog! lol). SHOCK OF ALL SHOCKS, MIRACLE FROM HEAVEN, I was actually able to find a really cute and super flattering dress for a decent price (thank you, Macy's 1-Day Sale!):




So now I'm relieved to have that out of the way and I'm kinda excited to wear my pretty new dress. Hmmm.... Wait a minute. I think I need some earings for this dress. One more thing to add to the list. =)


As soon as the coast is clear, I will be sharing what this "special event" will entail. Stay tuned...

Shnazzing things up...

So, since we've taken over my Mom's house and made it our very own bachelorette pad, we've really spruced the place up. We got all new (matching!) furniture. There was just one problem: the kitchen. It was the only thing that needed major help.

What was wrong with it? It was pink. Yeah, PINK! I'm talking pink walls and pink linoleum. *shudder* Who has a pink kitchen? Well, that's not retro at least. Apparently, my crazy parents did.

Well, not anymore. This weekend we painted the kitchen with much more "modern" colors:

You don't even want to know what kind of heinously ugly curtains used to hang here... lol


I really like it. I did most of it (my sister "helped," but I mostly had to come behind her and fix a lot of mistakes. God love her, but painting is definitely not her expertise. lol). It came out--as my mother would say--very sharp looking.

Now all that's left is for my friend Mike to finish the tiling job he's already started: