Music and Media

Free speech is a right everyone has in the United States, but when is it going to far.  The music and T.V. shows that are available to children these days are ridiculous.  I was driving in the car the other day with my 14 year old daughter.  A song came on the radio; this was a song that no child should be listening to.  I was flabbergasted.  I could not believe that this song was being played on the radio.  The lyrics were something about not caring about getting drunk and not caring about sleeping. To make it worse this was the version that was remade for radio.  The real version talks about not caring about smoking weed; because, they are young wild and free.  My daughter then tells me this is one of her favorite new songs and got angry with me when I turned it off.  What made this ten times worse is my three year old son was in the car.  He has been singing since the first time he heard it.   

There has got to be something that can stops this.  Kids these days are growing-up way to early and their behavior is becoming worse.  Young teens are becoming harder and harder to handle.  I personally think that the T.V. shows they watch and the music listen to has a lot to do with it.  I never remember hearing swear words on the television when I was young.  These days it is normal to hear the words bitch and ass on almost every show.  It's out of hand.  Something needs to be done about this.  What are parents supposed to do?  I cannot even let my kids listen to the radio anymore and the television is even worse.

The Facebook Era.

When it comes to all the new technology I'm pretty clueless.  Being 31 years old, you would think I would know a little more about computers and other types of technology, but I don't.  Having children who know more about these things is kind of embarrassing, however I know I'm not the only parent in the world that has this problem.

To tell you the truth, I'm not very impressed by this whole new Facebook era.  The same goes for cell phones.  I think kids these days have know idea how to make REAL friends, not Facebook friends.  It's allowing kids to not have to learn any real forms of communication and it is making kids lazy.  In my case, I have a daughter who is 14.  She thinks talking, is looking at a screen and typing.  She won't walk a block away to see what her friend is doing, instead she just texts her.  My kids are always talking about how many "friends" they have, meanwhile they don't even know half of them.  It is all pretty comical. 

I have had a Facebook account, which was all pretty addicting.  The games and the updating, constantly seeing what all your friends are doing, all got old fast.  When I realized that I was spending more time on the computer then doing anything else in my life, I deactivated the account.  I will say though, the man who invented Facebook is a genius (and also ridiculously rich).  I just think it would be good if we could rewind a little bit and let kids be kids.  Give these kids back an imagination and teach them how to enjoy the outdoors again.  Now, I'm not saying that I think technology is a bad thing, I just think it's a bit out-of-hand and we need to take a few steps back.

Spring, It's upon us

Even though the winter hasn't been to bad; spring sure sounds nice.  In my opinion it's the nicest time of year. Its like a fresh start every spring.  The yucky snow is gone, the sun comes out and everything turns green again.  It's a refreshing feeling, it feels wonderful.  There is nothing like the fresh, clean, smell of spring.  The best part of spring has got to be the kids getting outside again.  I don't know about anybody else, but my kids get terrible cabin fever.  They stop taking naps because the don't get any enough exercise to tire them out. As soon as I can get them outdoors I do it.

Gardening is one of my favorite hobbies. I love flowers and seeing them bloom and grow is a really cool thing. Everyday I am out looking to see what flower or plant grew. I even get my kids into it. I let them plant seeds and then the water them and watch them grow. It makes for a good science lesson.

The Grandpa

As a little girl I always knew that the man in the reclining chair was my grandpa.  He was Grandpa Daryl, someone I didn't know well but, would visit occasionally.  My Grandma and Grandpa were divorced  when my mom was pretty. I think that had something to do with why we didn't see him much. 

There was special occasions we would see him.  Usually on holiday's we would go over to his tiny little trailer house and sit on the couch across from his reclining chair.  I really don't remember seeing him  getting out of that chair or seeing him walk.  He was always sitting in the same spot, watching wrestling and smoking cigarette after cigarette.  It is funny the things that stick with you when you are little and the things you choose to remember. 

I still remember; vividly, what he looked like-him and his wife.  He always had his hair slicked like Elvis and was very dark black; I don't remember any grey.  He always had a cigarette.  I'm told now that he smoked 2-3 packs of cigarettes a day and drank a lot of coffee. He also liked to indulge in the  booze quite a bit.  He wasn't a very healthy person and didn't take very good care of himself, which is probably why he died at the age of 48.  All in all there isn't much I remember about him.  When I do think about him it is almost more of a comical memory that I have ( if that makes any sense.)