Julie Pippert: Using My Words

It starts right after Thanksgiving and sometimes even before: the gift wish list. I start getting them from others and others begin requesting them from us. What do you want? What do the girls want? It's an impossible question for me to answer. I want world peace. I want my kitchen cabinets refinished. I want my half bath downstairs finished. I want a new bathtub. A new patio. A major purge of the girls' closets. My kids to grow up happy and healthy. Someone to install my new outlets for me so I don't have to do it (and yes thankyouverymuch I know how). I want a personal chef who is completely organic and will make us go vegan three times a week. I want my new flooring in. I want to make sure every child has a place to live that is safe and access to health care. I think you get the gist. I don't think you can find these things at a mall or put them easily in a box. So I struggle for things to tell people and I struggle against my intense dislike of wish lists. I realiz...

I discovered a love of classical---or Spanish---guitar when I was fairly young. The daughter of a pianist, I had, of course, studied classical music and multiple instruments (piano and viola). But what I really wanted to play was the guitar. In my opinion, the top classical guitarists in my lifetime are: 1. Andrés Segovia (the master) 2. John Williams ( click to his site to hear samples of his latest album, which is awesome) 3. Julian Bream (very interesting range) I wanted to share some of their music here today, but really struggled with which artist and what song. Up tempo? Slower? Classical? Or with a Spanish theme? I didn't figure you'd be willing to spend an hour sampling songs at my blog. So, in honor of my girls' and their birthdays, I chose Debussy's Clair de Lune performed by John Williams and Julian Bream. John Williams studied under Andrés Segovia, and is brilliant in almost any style. He is a true musician. Watching his fingers move over the strings, th...

I had a different post entirely queued up for today but then yesterday two news articles crossed my desk and I wanted to make sure that you were informed, on the off-chance you hadn't heard about this. The first I read at one of my "read every day and write for when I get the time" blogs (I will be posting there today about the second item, H.R. 847): The Political Voices of Women . BlueBloggin (out of Texas) shared this AP news article: Bush Vetoes Kids Health Insurance Bill By JENNIFER LOVEN Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush vetoed legislation Wednesday that would have expanded government-provided health insurance for children, his second slap-down of a bipartisan effort in Congress to dramatically increase funding for the popular program. It was Bush's seventh veto in seven years - all but one coming since Democrats took control of Congress in January. Wednesday was the deadline for Bush to act or let the bill become law. The president also...

Patience is the last of her friends to lose the training wheels on her bike. She doesn't mind though, and amazingly, neither do they. As daredevil crazy as both of my kids can be in many respects, when it comes to certain things---such as riding a bike---they are cautious. Patience even more so than Persistence. I think this reveals their inner control freak: on a bike, you are not completely in control. Things can happen to knock you over. You have to trust the bike, road, and balance. This trust and team work can come hard to our type of person. But with the right space and encouragement, it will come and when it does, it's a beautiful thing. Patience has built this trust and her confidence, so this month she asked us to take off the training wheels. This month, the month she leaves 5 behind---5, the last preschool year, the final little kid year, the completion of the baby stage---she is ready to remove more than just her bike's training wheels. I never had to reach for ...

NOTE to ALL : You don't have to write a new post for the Hmm. Old or new, short or long, funny or serious, any post on topic is welcome. So...get busy adding in your links below. Don't give me another reason to Dread December. ;) Today's topic for the Hump Day Hmm is pet peeves, the unique to me ones...and why. The mind boggles at where to begin. Oh I have so many peeves. Let's think of a few off the top of my head. * People who talk on those ear bud phones. In public. While making eye contact with you. Okay...just cell phones and rampant abuse thereof in general. Such as in restaurants, at a table for two, with one person shoveling bread in his/her mouth while the other gabs with someone not even there . * People who cut me off in traffic (deliberately, because they are clearly more important). * Boys with pants hanging off their rear ends (especially if they wear stripey boxer shorts). * Meat with bones. * Mispronouncing words (on purpose, such as gahy-raj for garage...

A long time ago in blogging time (a year and a half ago) Jozet at Halushki shared with me an email she'd gotten about "everybody DRESS ALIKE on Friday to show support for the troops." I'm enough of a Cynic and a Realist to think the troops don't give a rat's rear about how we dress here. Not while checking the ground for bombs and so forth. I figured they care about (in no specific order) (a) care packages, (b) getting home alive, in one piece, and (c) doing their job to the best of their ability. So, while they might get a brief second of joy out of seeing a sea of red shirts in a photo or something, I felt pretty sure a better way to support the troops was to (a) send a care package, (b) pressure politicians to get our troops home, alive, in one piece and (c) find ways to enable them to succeed (so they could do their jobs to the best of their ability). I got so caught up in doing that I forgot to remember to definitely not wear red that Friday. I did, howe...

My Monday Mission is to be creative with Photoshop. I imagine creative in this case is rightly interpreted to mean funny and clever, but I'm sticking with the traditional and open interpretation. I've been working on a black and white series for our master bedroom. Below are two prints from it. Originally they were full color, but when I began looking at the image, I saw the sharp contrasts, shadows and light. I adjusted it to black and white, worked a bit on the brightness and contrast, and ended up with an image I really liked. I'll mat and frame it, probably ending up at a final size of about 16x20. A while back Stephanie asked me about my art and photography. Sadly, it's fallen to the wayside. Factors: time, both my digital cameras needed repair, and then I was robbed in Boston. As of last week, I have a digital camera again. Thankfully. The photos are from our recent trip back up to Boston. It seems like another life, the days that we lived there. Before kids, th...

Isn't this cake awesome---too pretty to cut? Patience was extremely approving as it looked, "just like my picture!" Nevertheless, I managed to cut and serve it and wow, it was delicious. Carrot cake with real cream cheese frosting (as per Patience's instructions). Of course. What other kind of cake would you have for a Peter Rabbit? (For those of you who do not live in the subtropics, you are probably thinking this is a fake-out. Nope. This was really yesterday, it was really 80 degrees, we were all really wearing tanks, tees and shorts, and sweating. The humidity did break halfway through the party, thank goodness, and a cool, refreshing breeze started. Locals...back me up please.) We had a ginormous bouncy castle (literally, with spires and everything). This is a brilliant invention, and I wish I had one in my backyard every day. It was delivered at shortly past 7 a.m. As you can imagine, Jon and I were model examples of Up With Parenting! at that hour. The girls we...

My husband's day on Friday began at 2:15 a.m. when the alarm went off. This means my day also began at 2:15 a.m. when he hit snooze and rolled over. The alarm went off at 2:16 a.m. and started its oh-so-pleasant escalation in volume, necessitating domestic violence on my part. It was less painful for my husband to turn off the alarm and get up, so he did. Then he drove out to his construction site for a 4 a.m. concrete pour (and don't call it cement, trust me on that one). This is what it looks like at a construction site at 4 a.m. You are thinking, "Wow, that is hands-down the most exciting photo I've ever seen on a blog!" I know. I'm all about the excitement. That's why I am going to ratchet it up a few notches with this: Oooh aaaah. UPC pipe. Have I dispelled the myth of the rich, glamorous life of an architect yet? 4 a.m. concrete pours and UPC pipe. Allegedly this concrete pour was scheduled to accommodate the girls' birthday. (I doubt that's ...

Part 1: How I resemble the Grinch Every One in the world liked Christmas a lot... But Julie Pippert, who lived south of Houston, Did NOT! Julie hated Christmas! The whole Christmas season! Now, please don't ask why. No one quite knows the reason. But I think that the most likely reason of all, May have been that the month was simply too small. For, you see, when the month of December rolled round, She had birthdays and parties and demands abound. Buy plates, hats, gifts, and balloons. The guests are all coming, the party's too soon! Her head spun in circles, she looked quite a fright, Mopping and sweeping, polishing her home perfectly right. Juggling Christmas and Birthdays should be a joy, But all Julie could say, with a sigh, was, 'Oh boy!' She struggled to execute every single detail, Endlessly rechecking her phone and email. It seems RSVPs are in short supply this time of year, She had no clue at all who meant to come here. Not to mention the holiday open house and ...

Both are on the rise. On December 5, 2007, Mike Stobbe, AP Medical Writer, wrote an article that reported a 3% increase in the teen birth rate---the first increase in 14 years. For some reason, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were surprised. I'm not. I fully expect that the teen birth rate, and rate of STDs, will be on the rise. I attribute this to the absolute failure of the only sexual education program taught in schools: abstinence-only. As I stated in my post, " Abstinence only sex education is risky and ineffective ," the abstinence only program---which received $168 billion in funding in 2005, and has only received more funding since---uses an approach to education and discipline that any parent knows is likely to have a high failure rate: Don't Do It Because I Said So. In fact, I cited three reasons why I believe the abstinence-only programs are a failure: 1. Mixed messages about group think 2. One size does not fit all 3. The irony in the...

On December 4, NPR and Iowa Public Radio hosted a debate among the Democratic presidential candidates. (Read the transcript of the debate here .) The debate was relatively civil, especially considering the amount of disagreement among candidates. I think the radio format worked well; without a live audience, candidates were more in discussion mode than performance mode and therefore I believe we got better information from them. The focus of the debate was on Iran, Iraq, China, and immigration---all foreign policy issues. This means they missed debating most of American voters' top issues, which center around issues that affect us on a daily basis. A Pew Research Center poll in November ranked the top voter issues as (read full article at Kiplinger ): 1. Economy (79%) 2. Health care (76%) 3. Iraq (76%) 4. Education (75%) 5. Jobs (71%). "Energy is rising rapidly, from 54% in 2004 to 65% in 2007." The candidates seemed familiar with this list, and proved that they are in to...

I began this post here , but hadn't completed all my thoughts or gathered up my full courage to post something this honest and revealing. I decided to create a new post instead of edit and add. But there are a couple of comments in the post below this one, the first post , and I don't want that to get lost. So read here, then scroll down, and check that out. Sorry for any confusion or chaos. In the mid-1990s, my husband and I had been married a couple of years. We both had good jobs that we liked, our house was just the right size, and all in all, we had a rich and wonderful life. The only thing we lacked were our old friends. When my husband and I began dating, a lot of people were Not Happy About It. Without dwelling too deeply on it, we took a lot of flack. I only need one finger to count the number of friends who were genuinely happy for us. I only need one hand to count the number of friends who sucked up their own agendas and were nice, good friends, anyway. I clung fier...