First, I’ve started writing for Babble and their Babble Voices project and I’m incredibly shocked I was asked to write for them.  My blog is called Southern by Proxy, a name I’ve mulled over for years and just never had the opportunity to use.  I love the logo, I’m so glad they used the little owl that Napwarden from NW Designs drew for me and this site.

My newest post is up over there and it’s a throwback to my old Smackdown series where I need you all to settle a disagreement between Tate and I.  It’s all about Macaroni and Cheese so obviously you can see how pressing this matter is.

Also!  Also, also!  After the loss of my summer freelance job, I moped and twiddled my thumbs for a few days and then I decided to just start my own site.  Opportunity knocked, I answered the door.  As soon as I can get it all set up, I’m starting a website called Family Friendly Knoxville to highlight all the great family friendly activities, restaurants, events, deals, and more in Knoxville and surrounding areas.  If you happen to live in the area, you can already check out our calendar of activities and events, follow us on Twitter @famfriendlyknox, “Like” the Facebook page, and follow our pins on Pinterest.

I’m really excited.

Also, I’m REALLY busy.

©2012 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

I hope this doesn’t change things between us.

I do not really care for chocolate or sweets.  I KNOW!  Shocking!  It’s like I just told you that I actually have a pen!s.

I can say with 100% certainty that I despise plain milk chocolate, but when forced (like when it’s sitting in front of me and my husband bought it for me as a “gift” and looks at me with wide, expectant eyes), I will eat it.

Chocolate with some sort of nut accompaniment is preferred, though it’s still not as delicious to me as a big plate of nachos with melting cheese and jalapenos.  I do enjoy candies and pies and cakes and ice creams occasionally, but if given a choice, I’d prefer prime rib and a baked potato with butter and sour cream.  I actually have an entire list of Chocolate and Sweets Consumption and the Enjoyment Thereof  Bylaws that can be obtained for a nominal fee of $27 plus $9.95 shipping and handling, in the event you are curious as to my specific preferences and whims.  (Bylaw #314b:  I adore all things gummy, when the tide is out on the third Tuesday of every other month during leap years.)

I’m telling you all of this because I’m a superior wife and blogger that feels as if you need to know the aforementioned information before making a final judgment regarding an argument I’m having with my husband.

Every so often, or rather, too often, Tate comes home with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s for each of us.   He prefers the chocolately ones, I like Cookies & Cream or Raspberry Cobbler.  In the past, I’ve shamefully eaten every last bite of my pint of ice cream.  Since I’ve been trying to be wiser about my eating habits and become a better friend to my thighs, I’ve tried to eat only 1/4 to a 1/3 of the pint, while Tate continues to snarf down all of his.  I put the remainder of my ice cream in the freezer to save for another night.

Imagine my shock and horror when a few days later I discover the scent of MY ICE CREAM on Tate’s breath and find the tell tale ice cream soiled spoon on the counter.  Alright, that may be hard to imagine since I just basically told you that I’m just not that into sweets, BUT!!  It was MY ice cream that I WAS going to eat eventually.  AND!!  Having saved ice cream in the fridge meant that Tate wouldn’t have buy MORE when he inevitably went out to get Ben and Jerry’s.  Also, why can’t Tate figure out how to open the dishwasher and place dirty dishes INSIDE???

Tate rolled his eyes and sighed his exasperated sigh when I yelled at him for eating MY ice cream.  He explained that once the ice cream pint goes back into the freezer uneaten, it becomes fair game and that he has every right to pick up the ice cream off waivers.

“It’s not like you even really like it that much,” he retorted, getting in the last word.  He then stole the remote control from my hands and forced me to watch American Rifleman, while I sat in stunned silence, mourning the loss of my ice cream.  (I just made up the events in the last sentence.)

I feel that once I’ve started a pint of ice cream, particularly when he originally had his very own pint, that the ice cream remains mine for my personal consumption whenever I feel like eating it.  There is no rule stating that I MUST finish the whole pint of ice cream in one sitting.  I also feel that I should not have to live in fear in my own HOME that my saved ice cream will be robbed, never to be seen again…(well, you know what I mean.)

So.  If you were able to work past the fact that I’m not a superfan of chocolate and sweets and read this, what do you think?  Does Tate have the right to eat my ice cream off waivers because “It’s not like [I] even really like it that much?”  (Am refraining from capitalizing the word “MY” in the previous sentence and not using the word “steal” in the place of “eat” because I want to be a RESPONSIBLE and FAIR blogger and not sway your decision in any way.)

©2012 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

Here’s my version, verified by Wikipedia.

It’s raining; it’s pouring.
The old man is snoring.
He went to bed and bumped his head,
And couldn’t get up in the morning.

Please note the italicized lyrics.  He went to bed and bumped his head.

Tate claims that the lyrics are; He bumped his head and went to bed.

Tate claims his version makes more sense.  I appreciate his logic behind the lyrics, I do!  It DOES make more sense to bump your head BEFORE going to bed, thus causing one to be unable to get up in the morning.  However, it’s a nursery rhyme/kiddie song.  These silly songs don’t always make sense, they are not always logical.

Case(s) in point.

“Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe”

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe,
Catch a tiger by the toe.
If he hollers make him pay,
$50 everyday…..
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe.

Catch a tiger by the toe????  I don’t think there’s any logic in that.  (Edited to add:  The Wikipedia version states If he hollers, let him go…My version is from circa 1982, Tulsa, OK.)

“Ring around the Rosy”

Ring around the rosy,
A pocket full of posies;
ashes, ashes
we all fall down!

What???  This makes no sense whatsoever.  (Edited to add:  This song is a lovely ode to the Bubonic Plague.  Such a touching subject to sing about.)

I need your help in straightening out Tate since my Wikipedia PROOF did not sway him in his resolve for HIS lyrics.  I’m right about the lyrics, He went to bed and bumped his head, aren’t I?  AREN’T I???

©2012 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

“You HAVE had Cinnamon Life cereal before, right?”  I asked, rhetorically, or so I thought.

“No,” he said, “I never had this cereal before.”

And I thought that he had such a normal family life growing up.  Maybe I don’t really know Tate at all.

First he’d never had Ovaltine (which many of you hadn’t either, to which I say, WEIRDOS), but to have never had Cinnamon Life cereal??   I don’t even think it’s possible, not if you are a child of the early 80′s who grew up watching Life cereal commercials where Mikey liked it.  He really, really liked it!

PLEASE, for the love of Mikey, tell me that you’ve had Cinnamon Life Cereal, or ANY Life cereal.  PLEASE.

©2012 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

This is so dumb, I want to thank you all ahead of time for clearly being on my side for this one.  Because REALLY.  THIS IS SO DUMB.

On Monday, I had to bring the breakfast for my bible study/just moved support group.  Growing up in my house, a quick and easy breakfast for such an event would most likely have been a store bought coffee cake, courtesy of everyone’s personal chef (AND LOYAL FRIEND), Sara Lee.  Sara Lee makes a lovely assortment of coffee cakes which EVERYONE is familiar with and enjoys.  Nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee! Or is it Nobody does like Sara Lee!

Our group this past Monday was small, with only a few of us able to come so I had a lot of coffee cake left over.  I brought it home and that evening when Tate got home, he was curious.

“What is this stuff?” he asked.

OBVIOUSLY he was just asking a rhetorical question because DUH!  If you looked at it, it was CLEARLY a coffee cake.

Tate could see that I was looking at him like he was an idiot, so he repeated the question.  “No seriously.  What is this stuff?”

I explained that it was coffee cake with as much annoyance in my voice as I could muster because having to explain coffee cake to someone is like explaining chocolate or beer!

After my “explanation,”  Tate floored me when he just shrugged like, “huh!  Coffee cake.  Interesting idea.”  Like, he’d never HAD COFFEE CAKE.

(Background information for fairness to Tate:  His mom isn’t a Sara Lee coffee cake breakfast serving kind of woman.  She handmakes the most delicious Stollen in cases that require a breakfast bread sort of dish.)

(But still, I bet even his mother won’t believe that he hasn’t HAD or at least HEARD OF coffee cake.)

Please help me settle this debate, that coffee cake is COMMON and most people have HEARD OF it and they have EATEN it.

©2012 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

Let’s talk about eggnog.

My opinion about eggnog is this:  I like…well LIKE is not entirely accurate…I’ll obligingly HAVE one very small glass during the holiday season, served ICE cold, and I do mean ICE cold with a splash of whiskey.   After that I do not want another glass until the following year, when Christmas tradition dictates that I drink it.  In fact, I don’t really want to be in the same room with eggnog after my token glass.  Just watching others drink it and seeing the thick remnants on the glass makes me feel a little sick on the inside.

My husband on the other hand would swim laps in eggnog if I allowed it.  He guzzles glass after glass, practically tonguing the glass to get every.last.drop.  (That last sentence isn’t entirely true.  He actually stands at the refrigerator and tongues it straight from the carton.  *shudder*)

I just cannot imagine!  The thickness!  The richness!  The word “nog.”  It’s too much, I say!  It’s too much!  Blech.

Where do you stand on this most important of holiday issues?

******

I’d like to congratulate Amy from Pretty Babies, the “lucky” winner of my copy of Twilight by Stephanie Meyer.    Amy, I really hope you like it more than I did.

©2012 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

Despite the lowlights, though, there were also many highlights.  One of these highlights was the acquisition of some homemade apple butter.

I LOVE apple butter!  LOVE!

Imagine my disappointment when we got home and discovered that the lid of the jar of my beloved apple butter had “popped.”  (You know those home canning jars with the ring and the lid…well, it wasn’t sucked down, it was popped.)

Trying to head off certain botulism poisoning, I sadly decided the apple butter would have to be tossed in the trash.

Tate WHOLEHEARTEDLY disagreed.  “NO, no, no, no, no.  We are NOT throwing it away.  Let’s smell it,”  he said, trying to convince me that this not-properly-sealed apple butter was fine for human consumption.

I have NO IDEA if botulism or any other death-inducing food disease even has an odor, so smelling it wasn’t going to change my mind.  I stood firmly behind my decision to throw out the apple butter.

Tate STILL disagreed.  “See?  It tastes fine!”  he said after dipping his finger in the diseased apple butter.  “I bet it was made just a few days ago, we’re keeping it!”

“Fine, Tate.  Keep it.  I don’t care if it was made this morning, I won’t eat it!  And!  I don’t want the kids to eat it either, because it will make them SICK.”

Very often, Tate and I disagree about food safety issues.  He has no problem (barely) reheating food that has been in the fridge for DAYS.  I won’t touch leftovers after about two or three days.  If food has been sitting out for too long, I won’t eat it, but Tate would probably eat potato salad that had been sunbathing for three hours.  He regularly gets annoyed by my “overzealous” and “ridiculous” attempts to keep my family free of food-borne diseases.

What do you think?   Should we keep the apple butter or throw it away?

(PS, I’m merely curious as to what you think.  Unless you have a Ph.D in Food Safety, you probably aren’t going to change my mind.)

©2012 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

This past weekend, Kate and I got into a–I hate to call it heated, so let’s say *LIVELY*–discussion about two of my most detested movies in the universe.

There’s Something About Mary (Blech!  GAG!  Ugh!  Barf-o-rama!)  and The Wedding Date (AWFUL!).

The fact that I spent money, hard-earned money, going to a theatre to watch two turds is one of my life’s greatest regrets.  That’s $14 I’ll never get back.  When I think about the bottle and a half of wine I could have purchased with that money instead, I feel sick.  Just plain sick.

Kate completely disagrees and find these two movies delightful and hilarious.  (YUCK!  I’m gonna hurl.)

I realize that most likely, I’m in the minority on this one as I remember that when TSAM came out, it was a huge hit.  People kept telling me, “Oh you MUST go see that movie!  It’s the FUNNIEST movie EVER made.”  (Like, gag me with a spoon, ya know!)

So what do you think, are you a fan of these movies and agree with Kate?  Or do you agree with me and think they are terrible, horrible, awful, putrid movies?

(Kate would like to tell you all how lovely you look today.)

(I would like to tell you how pretty and smart you all are and how much I look forward to your visits each day.)

Looky here!  You can vote in the handy-dandy poll!

On your mark.  Get set!  GO!

*Kate is a pseudonym.  So is Tate.  My mother-in-law would like to make it known that she would never name her children rhyming names.

©2012 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

This thrills me, as it means I get to shower completely and blissfully alone!  However the thrill was recently completely obliterated when I learned what those two hooligans had been doing with my washcloth during their shower.

Before I tell you the horror, let me explain my washcloth “procedure.”  I have a washcloth that I use for my face.  ONLY my face.  I do not use this washcloth on my nether regions or my feet or ANYWHERE else.  ONLY my face!  *ahem*  As you can tell, I feel very strongly that this –dare I say sacred– washcloth be used for nothing other than cleaning my face.

So when Tate casually mentioned that he and Carson had used my sacred washcloth on the shower drain so that they could make a puddle for splashing, I was horrified….Especially horrified since I had just finished showering and washing my face with a washcloth, that unbeknownst to me, was contaminated.

“What’s the big deal?” Tate asked, while looking at me as if I had an alien doing the cha-cha on my forehead.

“What’s? The? Big? DEAL!” I roared.  “The big deal is that MY washcloth was on the shower floor, gathering the filth that was dripping from your body.  Hello!  Formunda cheese and ass matter!  And to make it even worse, it was touching the drain!  ARGH!  The gross, hairy draaaaiiiiin.”  (Okay, so I’m over-dramatizing, slightly, but believe me when I say I was extremely irritated and disgusted.)

In all seriousness, though, I really don’t want my washcloth touching the shower floor or shower drain or being innundated by matter that might possibly be dripping from our bodies.  Also, athlete’s face is a real concern.  I think that the only logical solution, and the only solution that would set my mind at ease, is to get a fresh washcloth before every shower.  Also, I will hide all the clean washcloths in my super-secret hiding spot to assure their sanitari-ness (I just made up that word).  And maybe consider seeking help from a professional about my obvious issues.

All right Tate and Carson, let’s get ready to rummmmbbbbbllllle!  Do you think that what they did with my FACE ONLY washcloth was gross? 

(By the way, you all look extra lovely today, my Internet friends!  So thin! And my!  How perky your boobs look!) 

©2012 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

And we’re back from that brief tangent. 

One of the women asked me if I’d ever been to French Lick.  I shrugged and coyly said that I’d never heard of it.  “Oh?  You’ve never heard of it,” she questioned.  “Well it’s a blah, blah, blah, blah, blah place…”  I wasn’t really listening to the last part because I was thinking to myself, “Is it weird that I don’t know about French Lick, Indiana?  And I hope they don’t find out that I steal my Internet connection.”

The thing is, though, is that maybe I have heard of it.  I mean, I’ve HEARD of Hartford, Connecticut and El Paso, Texas and Istanbul, but they don’t have any special meaning for me.  The next day at lunch I asked Tate if he’d ever heard of French Lick, Indiana.  I whispered it quietly across the table of the semi-crowded restaurant because I sensed that NOT knowing about this place was like standing up and shouting “I HATE NOTRE DAME, PURDUE, AND the HOOSIERS.”  (I don’t, by the way.)

Tate gave me a most exasperated sigh and shook his head.  “It’s where Larry Bird was born.”  [imagine that he was looking at me like, YOU NUMBNUT] “French Lick, Indiana?,” he said as if repeating the words French Lick, Indiana would now somehow magically make it all click in my brain.

“Why would I care about where Larry Bird was born?”  I asked truly wondering why in fact I WOULD care about a 1980′s Boston Celtics, short-shorts wearing basketball player.

“It matters.  We live in Indiana now, Jennifer.  Basketball MATTERS,”  Tate explained.  And that was the end of the discussion.  At least for he and I anyway.  Now I’d like to include all of you in on the talks.

I have since googled French Lick, Indiana and learned that it is a resort area, but it’s also “known” (I use the term verrrrry loosely) for being Larry Bird’s birthplace .  However, I’m still befuddled.  Is it weird that I don’t know much, okay ANYTHING, about French Lick, Indiana?  Did everyone except me take a class titled, “The Low Down On French Lick…Everything You Must Know to Have a Fulfilled Life?” 

©2012 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.