Picture catch up

Here are all the pictures I would have posted if I was a responsible blog host (they are pretty self-explanatory):

 

Aunt Sue in the red sweater, my mom in the white one.

I am blessed

Earlier I was feeling overwhelmed, but I am reminded that I am blessed.  It is cold and snowy and I realized for a moment how beautiful it is.  My honey is sleeping in my bed and I am watching Buffy and so unbelievably happy and in love.  Who'd a thunk it? :-)

A light dusting on my bushes, the light snowfall, and the steam from the dryer vent.  Pretty.

Waitress

I usually really like my job.  I am well-suited to it and it usually pays my bills.  I am in a slump, though. :-(  As it turns out, people don't always tip as they should and it doesn't help when the kitchen takes, oh, three times as long as they should to get food to the table.  Not my fault, but it still affects my livelihood, my ability to pay my bills and feed my family.  Argh.  Not a happy girl today. If anyone knows of any bartending or high paying serving jobs available, let me know...

Is every Muslim a terrorist?

If you listen to most Americans, the answer is of course, yes.  It makes me so sad.  Can we please try to at least pretend we consider everyone equal?

A short, but spot-on blog post about what we should be thinking instead: Ft. Hood: Will we salute Muslim soldiers? by Leonard Pitts.  Here is an excerpt:

If you study the list of recent American casualties, you find names redolent of every other place on Earth, names that smell of Scottish highlands and Korean marketplaces, Yemeni ports and Nigerian mosques, Russian steppes and Mexican farms.

All of them choosing to make their lives here in the land of burger joints, rap music and amber waves of grain ... a land where, it is boasted, a man is not his past, a man is not his culture, a man is not his tribe. A man is a man.

It is an ideal never fully realized and yet, an ideal soldiers with names from every other place on Earth sign up every day to defend. That ought to tell you something. It ought to make you proud.

The Milk Blog

I found a great blog all about cows milk.  It is quite informative in a not-psycho way which is different than a lot of other anti-milk sites.  My favorite post is about why cows milk is a major factor in osteoporosis - drinking too much, not too little as the dairy industry would like you to believe.  I highly recommend it:

The Milk Blog

Restaurant tips

Alright, a couple of things.

Twenty percent is the minimum acceptable tip for a server who has provided for your needs adequately and with a cheerful demeanor.  Servers are paid about $3.50 per hour which is usually just about enough to pay the taxes on their tips.  They are also usually required to pay between two and six percent of the total of your bill (sometimes higher if there is a lot of alcohol) regardless of the tip amount to the bartender, host, food expediter in the kitchen, and table bussers.  If you feel the service was lacking, talk to the manager and tip appropriately, keeping in mind that if you came to the restaurant hungry and left full, the server should not have to pay part of your bill in the form of the above mentioned tip-outs unless there was some extremely egregious behavior (e.g. sleeping with your husband, calling your kid ugly, throwing a pie in your face). 

Also, here are some unacceptable behaviors:

 * bringing and using silly string in a restaurant (this happened tonight at my place of business!)
 * talking on your cell phone while the server tries to wait on you and then being mad that the he or she didn't take your order quickly enough (happens all the time)
 * ordering water with extra, extra lemon and then using all the sugar on the table to make lemonade in an effort to save the two bucks to pay for lemonade (yup, I've seen it many times)
 * telling the server you are ready to order and then making him or her stand at your table while you read the menu (for pete's sake, are you the only person in the stinkin' restaurant who might need the server's attention?!)
 * talking to your server as if he or she is an incompetent moron because of the line of work he or she has chosen

***** end of rant*****

Halloween

The kids went out with the Schollmeyer family for Halloween.  I left the responsibility of photography to Paige and the following are the only pictures I got.  Yes, that's my disappointed voice.  Levi is an executioner and Paige and Chicago are witches.