Bad girls

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On Friday evening, Bubby found his favorite place in the world -- the splash park! But then some unwelcome teens invaded the space and ruined his fun.

According to Megan, a group of teen girls arrived to the splash park in loud and nasty fashion. They were smoking cigarettes and swearing up a storm. Bubby let them know he didn't appreciate their bad behavior:

Megan said her reaction wasn't nearly as nice.

It's good to know that Bubby has already figured out that THAT kind of gal is not appealing!

When it became clear the girls wouldn't be leaving soon, Megan, Preston and Bubby headed home.

But since their Friday fun was cut short, Bubby and his parents went back Saturday. I'm pretty sure that if he could formulate sentences, he'd say it was his best day ever!

What kind of mother am I??

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When the girls were young, I did my best to make sure they knew their way around the kitchen and could manage cooking at least a meal or two with no problems. From the time they were able to see over the edge of the counter, they helped me with meal prep and cookie baking. Once they were pre-teens, each girl was assigned a night to cook; they chose the recipe, I bought the ingredients, they put together fabulous (and sometimes not so fabulous) fixin's for the family ... mostly on their own.

But there's one thing I clearly forgot to teach them: how to cut up a chicken.

How did I come to realize this horrible mistake on my part? Yesterday Megan and I were discussing ways she and Preston could save money. Raising Bubby is expensive. Living where they live is expensive. Life itself is pretty darn expensive right now. So she wanted some tips.

One relative no-brainer I offered was to buy whole chickens and cut them up instead of buying the much-more-expensive-per-pound chicken breasts.

You'd think I'd suggested she use cloth diapers or head to the farm to milk the cow for Bubby's bottles.

"I don't even know where you buy whole chickens," Megan said.

Ummm ... at the grocery store, I told her.

"But do I have to cut off its head?" Megan asked in disgust -- and in all seriousness.

Oh! My! Gosh!

"Yeah," I told her. "And you have to pluck all the feathers, too."

I truly was flabbergasted. How in the world did I forget to teach this basic skill? It's not like it's knitting or sewing or making homemade jam -- things that are nice to know but not really all that important.

And how in the world can she not remember that I never once brought home a live chicken and decapitated it at the kitchen sink in preparation for our Sunday dinner?

I've done something terribly wrong as a mother.

To remedy the error of my ways, here's the long past-due lesson, Megan. (Brianna and Andrea: You better watch it, too ... as should any of you other youngsters who don't realize there's a whole lot more chicken to be had than just boneless breasts!)

(VIDEO DISAPPEARED IN SITE REDESIGN)

Sheesh ... I'm a scared to find out what other basic things I've forgotten to teach my daughters.

Kind stranger

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A few days ago, I received a kind e-mail from a stranger. Well, she wasn't a complete stranger, as she had commented on one of my posts. But it surprised me just the same to get an actual e-mail from someone I didn't know rather than just a notification that I had a comment to approve.

This is what her e-mail said:

Dear Lisa,
I recently discovered your blog and have thoroughly enjoyed reading through your recent and not so recent posts. You are funny, witty, charming, and obviously have a huge heart!

I decided to give you this One Lovely Blog award for your delightful blog, Grandma's Briefs. I hope you will accept it.
The rules of this award are as follows:


Rules of the Award:

Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of
the person who has granted the award and his or her blog link.
Pass the award to 15 other blogs that you have newly discovered.
Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been
chosen for this award.

I wish you the best and look forward to reading more from you!

Best,
Jacque

As I've not been a blogger very long, I didn't know that bestowing awards upon fellow bloggers was a common practice. I felt pretty darn special getting the award from Jacque and e-mailed her back to let her know.

I've posted the award to the right, as the "rules" state recipients are supposed to do. I've included the link to Jacque's blog, My BIGlittle World -- which I encourage you to check out. I don't know much about Jacque because she has nothing on her "About" page, but whoever she is, her words make my heart swell.

The second part of the rules is a little more difficult for me to comply with. Recipients are supposed to pass the One Lovely Blog award along to exceptional, newly discovered blogs. I have to admit, I'm not much of a blog reader. I read the blogs of my friends plus a few others (thanks to RSS!), but I've always got a to-do list with too few things crossed off so I spend precious little time in front of the computer reading the daily or close-to-daily words of others.

But now I'm on a mission. I feel obligated to share the warm fuzzy that Jacque shared with me. It'll take me a long time to find 15 blogs that I don't close after reading just the first post or two; there's a lot of really mundane blogging going on out there. Maybe having been an editor, my standards are set too high. Or maybe I just get bored too easily.

I have found three pretty good ones so far, though. I've posted them below and hope you'll give them a visit. I've yet to e-mail each blogger with their award, but I hope it makes them smile as Jacque's did me.

Thanks, Jacque.

Newly discovered blogs I've subscribed to or bookmarked:

No Telling

lining up my words

The Sharon Blog -- Grandma knows best. Really.