A variety of thoughts.......

Did you see that blogger Mom on the news the other night...I think she's that infamous "E-bay Mom."

Well let me tell you what...she is making $4000.00 a month off her blog along on ADS! Whew! Plus she's gotten a "book deal"....ugh.

My husband was like...."why can't you make money off your blog, your always writing on it?"

My reply....."it's all about audience appeal."

I'm maybe not as interesting as Mama's with 6 kids who are sneaky and put those nasty little Pokemon cards in the grocery cart and have squirrels in their back yard.

I saw a "squirrel photo" on her blog page that they showed on TV...

I though "Hey, wait a minute I feed the squirrels at my house"... and I'll a cute squirrel photo on my blog site too and we'll see if that generates 30 thousand "hits" a day like hers does.

That is amazing isn't it? 30 THOUSAND hits per day.

Right, well I ALSO have had some of those "sneaky kids" that tried to get stuff past me as well pver the years...
but they ALWAYS get busted.
I've always told them....

"Don't try it. GOD always shows the parents."
And He does.....ha! ha!

Oh well....I write regardless. For no pay.

New thoughts for today.....
a variety actually, a "virtual vegetable soup."

Although who might I ask, would order "vegetable soup" on a day like this? Ewwww! It's so hot and humid out today. I'm surprised I can even move. It's been a good day actually for me. Thankfully.

I just went outside to mail some stickers to my two little nieces in Iowa.....
and my "Children's Cup"
Christmas Card thing...by the way........

EVERYONE please mail in those cards they need them by the 31st Oct. if you want to help send "Christmas" to the kids in Africa.

Anyhow, I went out to the mail box and it felt like I stepped into a STEAM SAUNA.

Welcome to Louisiana in late October. Guess I WON'T be wearing that new "Toile" sweater I bought on a MAJOR clearance anytime soon.
Maybe that is why it was on clearance???

Gabe's girlfriend is flying in next week from the East Coast.

I hope she DOESN'T bring her "warm weather clothes" with her. It's been nice and cool up there where she's living now with her family since moving from Baton Rouge.

PLUS they have had no humidity. I may be going there.
To live forever. Although, I would have to hibernate like a bear come winter. Which could work actually.
It's WAY to cold there for me.

She came in last month. I picked her up one day to go to lunch. She was telling me over lunch how the day before she had on shorts and some boots that were just below the knee.
What I wanted to say was......
"Honey we don't dress that way in America and especially not in the hot South unless your a Spice Girl."
But like a good son's Mother....I held my tongue and only said..."oh were they 'Ugg' boots?"
Thinking to myself...."yeah that's probably what they were."
Because people wear those with shorts, .... but not often in Lousiana.

Although I've seen Britney Spears wearing them on TV with dresses or shorts and she's from here. Never mind....poor thing.

So the girlfriend proceeds to tell me in answer to my UGG boot question
with her very British accent.......

"no they were tall, leather ones, and when I was coming outside out of the building yesterday and this man yelled at me and said

....."GIRL...your going on SAFARI!!!'"
Then I nearly feel off my chair and DIED laughing.
I loved that line SO MUCH that I said it to her several times that day just for fun.

AND I did tell her too that "shorts and boots...it's a bit hot here for that." HA! Funny!!!

We ate lunch at Le Madeline's...we both like it there.
It reminds her of her of England for some odd reason, I haven't figured that one out. Maybe it's the soup?

It reminds me of .......Le Madeline's. HA!

Well I guess it is a bit like "rural" France maybe.
But NOT Paris for sure. Not that I've been there but I know many people including my son that has....and I know plenty believe you me.....about Paris.
It's like I've been. HA!

My FAVORITE thing at Le Madelines is
the bathroom.
Well, besides a few food items. But hang in here with me a minute.

I have that "gluten thing" going on so I can't enjoy all the food they offer that has flour in it which is basically......90% of it. HA!
I stick to the SAME thing every time I go to eat there....
"Tomato Basil soup and a Wild Field Salad." Yummy!
Refreshing, filling and low budget.
My fave.

So back to the the bathrooms.....you have to try them. Not because they are posh or anything....but because there is something unique going on in them......
French linguistic tapes.

Yep.....I thought it a bit odd the first time I entered in and after a few moments thought to myself..."
Good Lord are they teaching me French in the toilet???"
And they sure were.
It sort of felt like some sort of freaky "mind control" thing at first.

But then I realized...
"Hey you can learn a whole line of useful French phrases upon entering until the time you wash your hands and leave".
It's amazing.

What a great way to learn a little French.

It's really a "free added lunch BONUS or dinner bonus or whatever that you never even expected.

I can't tell you though with sadness... that I haven't retained it. Not the French lesson that is.
You know.....it's the "use it or you'll loose it thing."

Now I'm talking sbout the Le Madeline's at the "NEW" Perkins Rowe restaurant.

I don't believe they have that special element in their bathrooms at the Bocage location which is a tad easier to get to.

The Perkin/Bluebonnet Le Madeline's is a NIGHTMARE to travel to. I would rather be ran over by a train than to maneuver through that intersection....but that's where we choose to go.

After that the "girlfriend and I" went to do a bit of shopping.

While at TJ Maxx we were checking out and there was a ton of Halloween items there.
She told me totally out of the blue
"her family doesn't celebrate Halloween."

Hummmmm.....I'm thinking to myself "Halloween is THE biggest holiday of ALL in the U.K. and Ireland. What's is up with that?"

I am VERY curious at that point.

So I said....."Halloween is the most celebrated holiday in all the U.K....in Ireland the kids get an entire WEEK out of school for it and they shoot off fireworks and act like it's New Year's. How come you all didn't celebrate it?"
She then told me how "her Mum had studied it and had learned about it so they never celebrated it when they were raised up as children and to this day her family doesn't even living here in America because it goes back to bad beginings."

I was blown away to hear what she was telling me. That was heavy coming from a British girl.

But glad to know they felt that way.

Because her family has that knowledge and has held to what they feel about it and still do to this day.
That is especially impressive to me because of there is such a hard environment over there and it truly is such a respected aned anticpated holiday.

I myself since going to Ireland and after learning how important Halloween is to them and after becoming so surprised that it is way BIGGER than it is here.
I decided to check it out further and see what the deal was.

I mean most of us have heard some of the background regarding it. But I found out so much more than I was ever told regarding the roots of this event.
I've studied it and it's pretty bizarre.

In fact I sometimes send out a highly informative e-mail article that comes from an Irish Website with all the information usually to my close friends about this time of year.

Not to scare them or to condemn those that celebrate Halloween....many people have various "takes" on the day. I only EVER want to inform. That's it.
No condemnation.

Everybody has to work out their "holidays" because many have some crummy backgrounds afixed to them and how they started.

The other night a good friend of mine and I were talking on the phone.......
we haven't talked on the phone in probably a year???

We e-mail occasionally. She was a missionary to Africa for several years and has friends in England and has been there on her way back and forth to Africa and she too likes the U.K. having been there before.

I had to call her on another matter so we briefly got onto the "U.K./ very celebrated Halloween subject" and she asked me
"if I was sending the article out that article again this year?"

I told her "possibly I might, this year I could just use the blog. Much easier in some ways." In other ways it's a bit more complicated because I could choose who the article went to.

The article is very lengthy though. There is a lot of history.

I was very surprised when I found it on this website that I pay to be a member of, because it IS so detailed. They do not cover up anything regarding what is and has gone on.
Highly interesting reading.

I have to figure out how to break it down and condense it and I don't know if I can really.

But for those of you that want to get a "head start" or in case I get distracted or something and don't get it all on here. Here is the link.
DO Read both pages if you read it at all.
Irish Abroad/Mythology


In Ireland, I was befriended by a lady at the church we worked with.
We became close and she was such a help to our campaign.

While I was there.... a terribly, tragic thing happened in her family.

She was devastated and rightly so. I couldn't believe it when told me what had just happened.
It was incomprehensible and I was sworn to confidentially in the matter so no on in the American group knew about it...she her Leadership there at the church.
It wasn't anything you would want people to know about your loved ones anyway, but she needed GRACE to get though the situation. It was very, very, sad.

I appreciated that she shared it with me....but it made me also understand the SERIOUSNESS of such things. It didn't scare me at the time...nor does it today.
I just know you don't involve yourself in certain aspects of a lot of things, and all for good reason too.

I won't tell you what had happened that was so horrific. I will tell you this....her family had been participants in Druidism. I'm not going to go into it all.
Just trust me on this.

Earlier in the week we had an American boy who was talking about some kids TV show that was popular in the States.

It was some kind of "Mysticism/Witchcraft meets Power Rangers" kind of thing and it was based of off Irish Mythology. It was called....."The Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog."

This lady I mentioned earlier was there during the conversation and at some point....she addressed him about it and he went on to just make light of it and joke around say things like..."it's all just made up and it's just for fun, it isn't real.... etc, etc."

At that point, she totally REBUKED him and told him how it wasn't made up and provided some various informative things about that subject.

No one moved. We all listened. She knew her stuff.
I don't think that boy EVER dared to watch that show anymore.
I think he learned a lesson.
I think we ALL did.

I took this lady shopping with me one day so she could point out to me which Gaelic and Celtic things were possibly things that had certain symbalism or writing on them in Gaelic that I might have bought otherwise, unknowlingly, and porbably woudn't have wanted in my house if I had known what it was all about.

She had a deep love for God and she also knew the dark part of the other side.

The "girlfriend" ...."Miss Safari girl," is flying back into Baton Rouge next week and I think we will make a
"Le Madeline's" lunch appointment together again.

That way we can "kill many birds with one stone"......we can eat that lovely "French" food....we can brave the traffic, we can catch up on how we are both getting along and we can......"learn French phrases in the toilet."

I wonder if they have the traditional bathroom greeting that says....
"Hey, I'm out of toilet paper over here can you pass me some?"
on that CD that's playing.
Just in case.

Au Revoir