ChiCricket

What? This is my only safe place to vent and complain...do I have to stop?😁 Ps....to stop myself from typing out a long angry post about one of my daughters, I decided to add a mask to my avatar instead. (Very badly done)😂 Anyone else want to try? Here's the site I used: https://www.kapwing.com/explore/maskon-your-profile-picture-for-covid19-safety

Aaaand..it didn't even sprinkle here😂 (it just started pouring..I jinxed it)

My area is under a tornado warning right now 😱

Here's an update.

So sorry to hear of this 😢

This week , I have virtually attended one high school graduation, two 8th grade graduations, and a kindergarten and preschool graduation (give me a break on the preschool one🙄 😄) They all were very different from normal ones..that's for sure! They were all prerecorded, and all of our family had a watch party for each one, so we felt like we were there together..since we watched at the same time. I am so tired just from the virtual ones..imagine if we actually had to get dressed up and really go to them all! One upside is that normally everyone is admonished not to clap or cheer for your graduate, until all the names were called..well, we all whooped and cheered LOUDLY for our high school granddaughter Elizabeth..and nobody but my own family knew.💖 Ps we had a graduation birthday parade for her..but it was pouring rain...of course.🙃 (2nd pic is of my German granddaughter Jasmine, who was attending a virtual honor roll assembly and was surprised to find out she made the principal's honor roll.)🤗

We have a bird's nest in our upstairs bathroom's exhaust vent. It has babies in it chirping away at all hours. I can't wait until they vacate and we can clean it out and fix it so the parents can't build a new one after they leave the nest. I'm not even sure if that happens more than just once in the spring? But I want my bathroom fan back! I need to be able to use it with the husband I have! (He needs more fiber.)😝 We had to put tape over the switch to the fan so we wouldn't forget and use it, and hurt the babies. But I'm ready to evict..they have to be teenagers by now.😂

My mom went to a strict German-Lutheran school..and got her hands beat with a ruler to make her change.(1930's) She said it was considered evil to be left handed. Wtf. She always said "but actually, it was good in the long run, beause it made me ambidextrous!" (but our whole family knew it f'ed her up mentally, big time.) Dark times. And people like Jeremy want to drag us back...little by little..step by step...

Free for 48 hours only! The award winning play..not the bad movie..although I haven't seen either one (yet) to judge how good or bad they are.😊 Ps..I was today years old when I learned you can watch YouTube AD-FREE if you open it up in the free Ad blocker browser! How did I not know this before?? 🤔

They went by our town the other day here in Illinois. I sat outside at the time they said they'd go by, but didn't see or hear them myself. We must have been too far away. This picture is from someone else who caught them going by the Sam's Club.

That was SO good!!!! So well made. And yes, I had to get past the fact that she does look so much like Jill. Can't mix up my Hamilton love with my Duggar snark..my mind might explode.😂

I had never heard of a Leeroy Jenkins moment, so I googled it. Looked like all the players died at the end...that doesn't sound good... Also, how old were the guys playing this weird fantasy game in this video? They sounded like grown men.😱 (btw, if cursing offends you, this is not for you) PS..I learn something new every day in these forums... 😂

I really am..and feeling much better today, finally. Thanks for all the well wishes 💗 Ps just opened my gifts..now I need to figure out what an echo dot is used for, and how to use it..😁 Ps...and a...smart plug? Huh?

I may have mentioned my (huge) old lady crush on Lin-Manuel Miranda, and my obsession with Hamilton?? I am soo happy to see this coming. I'm getting Disney+ just for it! 😁 I better have SOMEONE irl I can watch it with! I don't care if we have to still sit outside six feet apart while watching on separate computers😂

I've been sick with a stomach bug for two days, and was still in bed around 2 this afternoon, when my husband came in and said "you have to come downstairs!" I groaned "leave me aloooone!" Then I heard honking, so I got dressed. My 3 Illinois kids and my 6 Illinois grands did a drive by mothers day parade for me. I mean..as much as a drive by as you can do on a little dead end street. 😊 So cute, so nice of them, so cold and rainy outside! They made me stand way back and opened the door and threw all the posters and gifts and balloons in (they didn't want to leave them on the porch to get soaked.) They called and included my other two kids and 7 grands (the ones who live on a boat, and the ones who live in Germany) on a video call while everyone was parked in front, so I got to see everybody at once ! :::::sniff:::::😁 now I'm going to crawl back into bed and open cards and gifts when I feel better.

😊

Just to prove my point (and to brag) this is MY niece Samantha on this Huggies package. Can't get much whiter (and cuter, if I do say so myself) than this! She just graduated high school this year, btw. ❤

Don't go. 😦 I'm (used to be) blonde and (still am) blue eyed, and I took it more as a dig at the fundie obsession with building huge WHITE armies for Jesus. We white peeps just a lot of the time happen to be blond and blue eyed. We just don't usually look like brothers and sisters when we find our mates, like the fundies do. (Not me..I went with a Puerto Rican)😁 I too have lots and lots of very, very pale blondes in my family...and I happen to not think any of my family look creepy or inbred either....it's just...THESE fundie family trees don't seem to fork...kwim? Don't go!

Oooh..I wouldn't like that at all. I'd complain.

Now you made me curious...where was this list with the fried pickle as the state food? (now I have to try it) This was all I found: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_foods I went looking to see what Illinois' was..state snack: popcorn, state grain: corn Illinois sure is corny 🙄 😂

I read the most fascinating YA book about the Manhattan project called The Green Glass Sea by Ellen Klages. I couldn't put it down. I had never even heard of it before that. I mean, I had heard of the atomic bomb, just not of stories of the men and women's work that went into making it. (And the aftermath on their lives afterward) I'd love to go to Russia, but I'd be too afraid to go, even on a tour, tbh. China either. Too totalitarian.

Had to go way back to find out who to thank for this suggestion. Thanks @EVS !🙂 I just finished the 7th book of the series. Now I think I need something a little more unpredictable. 😁 I'm going to go back and see what other books you all recommended. 😊

I'm getting used to it (with my family) but I don't like it at all. It was already bad enough that I had to communicate that way with my son and his family in Germany..now it's all five of my kids and all 14 grandkids I can only "see" that way. I think it's harder (for me) to keep up and hear everything everyone is saying, much less try to get a word in edgewise myself..kwim? It's like I'm always stepping on someone else starting to talk, which I don't think I do in real life. And even private one on one conversations...someone else in the family always seems to be in earshot. I'm sometimes like "shoot! Can't their FATHER take care of them for two minutes while we talk uninterrupted?!" But I just think it..because they already feel that way themselves.😂 It's exhausting. And I miss good old HUGS.

Has anyone else noticed a change in their TV viewing habits since all this started? I don't feel like watching anything I used to like watching. Usually I watched snarkable things like the Duggars, 90 day Finance, Married At First Sight, etc. The trashier/weirder people and families, the better. I also liked watching The View, Late Night programs and anything to do with news or politics. Now? No way..can't stand any of them. (I do watch local virus updates.) I have no interest in any other TV anymore. Just me?

And just like that, my granddaughter Elizabeth is done with high school forever (her last day was today.) At least she got her Senior pictures done before the pandemic. Also, their Prom was officially cancelled, even though they took a vote and asked if the kids would guarantee payment if they did it later. Everyone agreed to pre-pay and they still cancelled it. On top of all of this, she broke up with her longtime boyfriend. He was a nice kid, but tbh, the rest of the family are glad they broke up. But still, poor kid. (she's way too good for him, in our eyes, natch😁)