My Bizarre Family

Archive for the ‘Rants’ Category

I could not get into Black Friday this year. At all. For years, I have been going Black Friday shopping, and every year, especially the past few, I find myself wondering why. The past couple years, the good sales were starting at midnight. That was doable for me, but I wasn’t crazy about it. Last year, I found myself standing in the Target line at 11:00pm, trying to nab a camera that went on sale at midnight. I was one of the lucky ones; by the time I got to the display, there were only two left. I quickly nabbed it and headed for the register (which took another hour). I went to a few other stores….Old Navy, Kohl’s, JCPenney, Sears…and finally to Walmart at 6 am…where I found it dead and all the sales pretty much over.

As I’m sure most of you are aware, the sales this year started at 8pm. For us, this means that my husband, who works in retail management, had to be at work at 6pm. Totally interfering with my Turkey Day! We normally get together with my family around 5pm for dinner. I had to schedule it for 2pm, so that my husband would be able to have dinner with us. Several family members were still at my house, having a great time when he had to leave. Up until that point, I was going to head out sometime that night to nab a 50′ TV on sale at Kmart. After seeing my husband reluctantly head off to the madhouse for the next nine hours, knowing he wouldn’t get off until at least 3am, and also knowing he had to be back in to work at 11am (this gave him about 4-5 hours of sleep since it takes him nearly and hour to get to/from work) and work until 8pm….I decided to forget going out to shop. It’s getting beyond ridiculous! This madness is slowly taking over Thanksgiving for my family. Anyone who works in retail, especially management, has no choice but to work…unless they work in one of the few stores that are still closed on Thanksgiving. Gone are the days when going Black Friday shopping starts at 4 or 5am! All the good stuff is gone by then these days! So, I guess you could say I protested by staying home (fat lot of good that does, but it made ME feel good!). If it comes down to it…what’s more important? Spending time with your family in celebration of Thanksgiving? Or Black Friday Madness?

If it were up to me…I’d choose family…Thanksgiving, every time.

That’s my little rant for the week, but I am thankful for so many things. I’m thankful I got to spend time with my family. I’m thankful my husband didn’t have to work all day on Thanksgiving. I’m thankful we got to see my step-kids for about 30 minutes before their mother was on the phone demanding they get back home (even though they had already had dinner with her). I’m thankful my ex and I were able to work out Thanksgiving with my son without having a piece of paper telling us how to do it and that when it comes to visitation, neither one of us is selfish (don’t get me wrong, we do have a piece of paper, we just deviate a lot when it comes to special occasions and Holidays… I make sure he gets equal Holiday time with our son, even when I don’t have to). I’m thankful my husband can make an awesome ham and that I’m a pretty darn good cook myself (I made my first pies ever this year and they turned out fabulous! Thank you, Pinterest!). I’m thankful for my children. I’m thankful that the Lord sent me a wonderful man, whom became my best friend and husband, to spend my life with. I’m thankful for my Church. I’m thankful for my Savior, Jesus Christ. I’m thankful for so much more than I could ever post.

I hope all of my American readers and blogger friends had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

It’s been almost two weeks since I first contacted Comcast to get service installed at my new home. I was informed yesterday that I finally have an account number. Now, I’m just waiting on the powers that be at Comcast to call me back with an appointment date to install the wiring in our home. They said it could take up to 72 before I even get a call back for that….which I think is RIDICULOUS! Anyway, God willing, we should have internet and cable service installed within the next week (I’m hoping by the weekend). If not, I will have some pretty awful things to say about a certain company. In the meantime, I have our handy cellphones (what would we do without those, I don’t know). I hope everyone is having a better week than I am!

This is the last weekend of summer before school starts, and let me tell you, this has been the most stressful summer EVER!! Not only did I worry about my husband’s health problems….but my tween daughter is DEVELOPING! Just kill me now.

She has started wearing bras. Yeah. And I started letting her wear “real” makeup (just a little, but jeez), and just this week…after some (a lot) of harassment, I let her purchase her first razor to shave her legs.

“Mom, I look like a hairy wolf!”, “Mom, I feel like a hairy monkey!”, “Mom, all my friends are shaving and they will make fun of me for having hairy legs!”. Yeah, I got all that (and I remember bugging my mom in much the same way when I was her age). I decided to really look at her earlier this week and….I’ll be darned if she wasn’t right…her legs were looking a little hairy “like a wolf”. After she shaved for the first time (after 5 exhausting minutes of me showing her how it’s done), she then told me that she was happy…and that she felt smooth, like a “hairless cat” (seems to me a hairless cat would be kind of stubbly, but I digress).

If that wasn’t stressful enough, I then took her shopping for school clothes and discovered that she is now in WOMEN sized shoes and Junior clothes!!! WHAT?!?! When did this happen? And when she was trying on clothes, I noticed she was getting CURVES. I want the slobbery toothless years back!!!

And lest I forget…BOYS are calling the house! I mean…several of them. “Mom, when can I date?” Um…NEVER! When you’re 30! Well, that’s what I wanted to say anyway. I guess we will be having that talk soon.

Hair being shaved, boobs popping out, make up being worn, boys calling the house, and  oh…there is dad on the couch talking about well placed buckshot….welcome to Middle School and the teen years! I’m not sure I’m ready for this….

“Mom, can I have a smartphone when I go to high school?”, my son recently asked me. Um…NO!

Seriously? WHY would a parent get their pre-teen or teenager a smartphone or their own laptop or anything else that they can freely access the internet on? Do they not know the dangers? Not only are there perverts trolling for kids on the internet, but I’m also talking about the other sites your child will more than likely check out (and possibly frequent frequently?). “Bad kids” are not the only ones that will go to the adult sites…even good, church going kids go to those sites…either because of peer pressure or just curiosity or whatever…and it can easily get out of hand.

I asked a few parents whom I knew allowed their kids smartphones and/or their own personal laptops if they had internet and parental control software installed on those devices. ALL of them answered no. WHAT?!?! Are you kidding me?!

Those that know me, know that I tightly control my kids cellphone, computer and internet use. They are not allowed to have smartphones and the internet is not accessible on the cell phones they do have (I also can control WHO they call/text and the time of days they have service…and it’s cut off every night at 9pm), they are not allowed to have their own laptops or computers in their room…if they want to get online, they can use the family computer located in the family room that has tight parental controls and blocks on it. We have a PS3…I have disabled the internet browser on it. I frequently check my 14 and 11 year olds Facebook, games and email accounts (no, they are NOT entitled to privacy if they are under age and living in my home…I will have all passwords to any and all internet accounts that they have at all times). I see some of their friends on Facebook…and the things they say and do would make you blush! Trash talking each other, bullying, foul mouths, questionable pictures, etc. These are middle and high school kids (and some of them younger)! Where are these kids parents?!?! Do they not care what their child is saying or doing or SHOWING on the internet?! I worry for those kids.

I think that alot of parents are putting too much trust in their kids. I think they put temptation in their kids life (unintentionally in most cases) by letting them have unrestricted access to the internet.  I wonder how many parents would be shocked if they went, right this moment, and looked at their child’s cellphone internet history or computer history…and found that they have been on adult sites (that is…unless your child has figured out how to delete the internet history). If they read their texts, I wonder how many would find out that their child has been sexting? I’ve read a few stories about kids as young as 13 getting arrested because they had been sexting. I watched a news report recently about kids becoming addicted to pornography as young as 12 and 13 years old, which you can view HERE . Is it because the parents have been too trusting? They didn’t bother putting parental blocks on their computer, they didn’t bother to check up on their internet activity….maybe they just don’t think about stuff like that, maybe they are uneducated about the dangers of the internet? I don’t think they are bad parents (unless they just don’t care)…but kids are getting alot smarter than the parents when it comes to technology these days.

If you have a child and you are going to get a computer or smartphone in your home…anything with internet access…you need to educate yourself. For your child’s protection. And remember that just because your kid is a “good” kid…an honor roll kid….a Christian kid….doesn’t mean they will never do wrong….and that they will never lie.  We, as parents, need to monitor them more closely.

Just my 2 cents.

One program I just LOVE is K9 Web Protection from Blue Coat, which is a free internet filter and parental control software. I’ve been using this computer software for several years. I have it on both my laptop and the family computers. I think all parents should have this program installed (no, this is not a paid review…I just love this program and want to share it with as many parents I can). They also now offer this same software as an app for “some” smartphones. I would love to hear other parents thoughts on this.