For all one of you who need to update your blogroll, my apologies for the inconvenience.

I saw this eagle on the way to the wrestling tournament last Friday. It was eating roadkill
in a ditch (not very majestic, I must say). When we turned around to get a photo it flew up
into the tree and waited patiently for us to leave.

Its wingspan had to be at least six feet!

Kevin was wrestling at the Great River Conference on Friday night. It was the
last team tournament of the year and he had already won the first match of
the evening. During the second match, he landed on his shoulder during a fall
and felt a “pop”. He knew immediately that something was not
right, even before the pain registered in his brain.

Despite the pain he continued to wrestle and went on to pin the kid in the
final period.

It was not easy to watch.

Thankfully the trainer was able to evaluate him immediately after the match and
convince him he should forfeit the championship match. A million dollars could not
have swayed him from wrestling that match but he knew his shoulder wouldn’t stand
up to the pressure.

We spent yesterday getting two opinions on the diagnosis:
the dreaded separated shoulder.

There’s nothing we can do but rest it, ice it and hope the ligament heals enough
for him to wrestle at sections two weeks from now. If it were up to me Kevin would
not even attempt to wrestle but there is only one individual tournament standing
between having his year end with an injury or wrestling at State.

Wrestling at state is the kid’s biggest dream!

Please join us in praying that Kevin will be healed enough to pursue his dream.
I’ll keep you updated.

 Holy Sunrise

 My Grandpa

 My daycare baby

Eeeeeeeeek!

Did you hear that high pitch squeal?

It is the parenting feedback I receive from my omniscient, nineteen year old daughter who still lives at home and feels compelled to share her child-rearing wisdom with me:

“When I have kids, I’m never going to MAKE them attend church.”

“Just let him wear the holey blue jeans. All the kids wear them like that.”

“That’s has a hole in it. You’re letting her wear THAT?”

“What’s the big deal? Why can’t he go to the party?”

Every. Single. Parenting decision I make is met with an equal and completely opposite objection. If it is not a verbal argument, it is the raised-eyebrow-followed-by-a-frown-followed-by-what-seems-to-be-a-sigh-that-starts-with-the-letter-T. In her eyes, I am the Ralph Malph of Motherhood and it is up to her to sway me to the Fonzie side.

On one hand, I am delighted to have raised an opinionated human being who feels free to interject her passionate point of view whenever possible. On the other, shut the hell up.

Parenting is tricky enough without feeling like Al Sharpton is taking up residence in the basement.

We have become the Universe’s petri dish this winter. It’s as if this family has been sealed in a giant zip-lock bag and set to marinade in coughs, colds, flu, sore throats and ebola. Add two daycare kids who come from a large family and we have what I fondly call Persistus.

Persistus \per-SIS-tus\, noun

A traumatic event involving extended illness which is circulated and transmitted in an unyielding fashion to
anyone who merely looks upon those infected or places a foot upon the land of those involved.

When I joined the Procreate Wrecklessly Foundation, no one warned me of the frustrations involved with having illnesses sweep through a large family. Everything is magnified nine-fold to the sixth power. That’s because the males in my home, all six of them, grab their hearts and proclaim “Oh, this is the biggest one I ever had. You hear that Elizabeth? I’m coming to join you honey.” the moment they contract a sniffle. No amount of shame can bring forth the slightest hint of bravado . Their “I could take on a platoon of Navy Seals with one hand behind my back” machismo is no where to be found in the presence of a congested nasal passage. They just surrender to the couch in complete cowardice and pray for Jesus to return quickly…before the Nyquil wears off.

The Persistus began two weeks before Christmas.

It’s now February.

My house feels toxic.

You win, Persistus. I wave my white flag of Kleenex with Lotion as a sign of peace.

2 8.00% bob nathanael
2 8.00% best family wrestling
2 8.00% if a triangle has an area of 16 square inches and a base of 8 inch
2 8.00% heelprints
1 4.00% heelprintsinthesand.com
1 4.00% apologize how can i make it better
1 4.00% sand develops under my tongue
1 4.00% mr yello
1 4.00% cap’n crunch for breading
1 4.00% sexy reading material
1 4.00% u tube wheels on the bus
1 4.00% airhoses girls photoes
1 4.00% peoples favorite things to do in the winter statistics
1 4.00% ters family
1 4.00% piedmont portobello
1 4.00% your zipper is down pictures
1 4.00% my pastor is sexy
1 4.00% remember when your mother told you never to take candy from a stranger
1 4.00% aveda sinus cleaning minneapolis mn
1 4.00% wheat store carries dynamite glue for wall paper
1 4.00% teen mothers holding babies.jpg

Sand develops under my tongue?? Mother of Pearl! I’ve never heard of such a thing. It takes true grit to search out answers on this one.

Airhoses girls photoes?? Is that x-rated pneumography? You’ll find none of that stuff here, Mister.

Wheat store carries dynamite glue for wallpaper??  They must be looking for Malto-Seal.

Anyway, I’m just thankful my site is back up and running. My server experienced a hardware failure, whatever that means, and it took almost 72 hours to be repaired. My apologies to the dude searching for photoes.

Whereas one week Hawthorne Yellow is my absolute FAVORITE color, the next it feels like I’m living in a tub of “I Cant Believe It’s Not Butter”. I’ve done many different painting techniques on my walls: sponge painting, feather painting, stenciling, faux marbling, antiquing… you name it, I’ve done it. At least three times. All in an attempt to soothe the inflammation in my color-sensitive mind.

I feel it’s a good time to mention that I am not someone who spends a lot of money on clothing, shoes, make-up, jewelry, etc. I tolerate old shoes quite well and I hardly notice that I’m wearing the same winter wardrobe I have had since before anyone knew who Brittney Spears was.

There’s alot that doesn’t bother me. Being banned from the paint section of Home Depot, does.

I realized that I have a paint compulsion when my friend, Stacy, visited a few years back and said “My God, woman! It looks like a clown vomited on your walls.” And she was right. My living room appeared to be suffering from one massive, three-day-old bruise.

So I mustered up some self control and painted the living room a very neutral eggshell color.

Three years ago.

It’s driving me absolutely bonkers but I’ve been forbidden to repaint by the man who actually measured the rainbowed layers bubbling beneath the surface of nuthouse white and discovered that I have managed to shrink our square footage by 1/4 inch. Therefore, I have no choice but to rearrange my blog just to take the edge off.

A quarter inch is nothing compared to the great vastness of the world wide web. My clown’s gotta vomit somewhere.

One twin cities news station stumbled upon a website that I own and maintain for one of our sports teams and, without my permission, used my images in their news story. I was completely shocked as I watched their story unfold on television and saw how they used my photos without so much as a “May we?”. The last thing I wanted was for my community to believe that I had anything to do with the coverage, as if I contacted the station and provided them with information.

I called the news station and was redirected a half dozen times until I was speaking with the executive producer of the newsroom. This woman said “Anything you put on the web is public domain and we can use it however we want.” I argued that this was a privately owned domain and that the images were my intellectual property. I used the word “stolen” and “copyrighted”.

She agreed to remove a photo from their website but made no promises about the video feed and future broadcasts. She encouraged me to leave a voicemail for the vice-president of the station, which I did.

This morning I watched their coverage of the news story and there again were my images. I rechecked their website and discovered that they had put my photo back onto their site.

I called again after doing some research on Internet and copyright laws. This time the woman was not so friendly to me.

“How exactly have you copyrighted this material?” she asked.

“First of all, anything I write, any photographs I take belong to me. The copyright is automatically implied. I went a step further and posted that it is copyrighted by law. This isn’t ‘MySpace’ or ‘Facebook’. This is a domain I own with images I own. I suggest you read the legal disclaimer provided by Creative Commons. In the mean time, I will be delivering a Cease and Desist letter to your station first thing in the morning!”

She got really huffy with me and said “I’m going to contact our station’s attorney and get back to you!”

Meanwhile, I could tell by my stat counter that there was alot of activity on this site from a few different ISP addresses. They were definitely debating the legalities of their actions. A half hour later I received the call:

“We have decided to honor your request and remove the photos.”

“From your website?”

“Yes.”

“From your broadcasts?”

“Yes.”

“From any future broadcasts or stories?”

“Yes.”

“Perfect.”

Bloggers have rights.

Just because we put thoughts and images out their for the world to see doesn’t mean that we give up ownership in doing so. I highly recommend that every blogger reading this takes some steps to protect the content of your site. Here are a few links to get you started:

 Remedies for Infringement

Creative Commons 

What To Do If  Someone Steals Your Work 

Never in a million years did I think I would have to deal with this. I’m hoping you never have to
but it doesn’t hurt to be prepared.

Oh. And I’ll never watch KSTP news again. Shame on them.

It’s her dream come true, only because she’s too young to audition for American Idol.

And not once did any of her brothers interrupt her.

What’s next? Rosie O’Donnell announces that she’s actually a heterosexual and pro-war?

“That’s fine but where are you going to get the money to buy minnows?”

“Man, I really need to get a job. I’m tired of living birthday to birthday!”

For those of you who do know her…she’s as happy as a jackass eating thistles to have her very. own. website. And she misses Bill the most because he actually sent her $5 to answer a question correctly.

I invite you to visit Ask Miss Elly and if you’re in a really generous mood…ask her a question. She will undoubtedly have a hilarious answer.

Thankfully we were able to provide an alternative for Mr. Bingley. Now if only we could find a miniature fire hydrant…