Here in the south, school is sometimes canceled when we get a lot of rain.  There are so many flat back roads that the school district doesn’t want buses to drive through the flooded streets.  But when we get snow – even a quarter inch, school is canceled!

What’s even better?  When snow is in the FORECAST, school is canceled.  We have a winter storm warning in effect where I live… the scariest kind – ICE before the snow.   As a result, all the counties in my area have already called off school for tomorrow.

There’s only so much TV to watch during the day.  I’m sorry if he’s not your baby’s daddy but I really don’t want my child to watch your pain!  Don’t despair Moms and Dads who are staying home with their kiddies …  there are lots of other fun things to do on a snow day!  Frugal Upstate, in fact, gives us a detailed list of 40 things to do on a school snow day including some of my favorites,

• Build a tent with a sheet.
• Have an indoor picnic.
• Let the kids choose the dinner menu and have them help you cook.
• Have a pretend fashion shoot.

Or outside,

• Make snow angels.
• Go sledding. No sled, no worries! Go cardboard sledding.

Thanks for the great ideas, Jenn. I’ll need them!

Our own Ron of Shaktronics deserves to wear the crown of “Finds Really Cool, but Sometimes Disturbing Stuff” for his finds over at PopFi.  This find can thankfully be filed under the “cool” category.  He found an interesting link to what the borders of the U.S. states would look like based on population distribution.

The map’s creator Neil Freeman says,

This Electoral Reform Map redivides the territory of the United States into 50 bodies of equal size. The 2000 Census records a population of 281,421,906 for the United States. The states ranged in population from 493,782 to 33,871,648. In this map, new states have formed, all with equal populations of roughly 5,617,000.

Here’s what a new map would look like if it was drawn based on population.

Here’s where to click to see the BIG map from the original source.

A sweet little message to help from a 7-year old British boy sparked a lot of news coverage and nearly $200,000 in donations from around the world.  Charlie Simpson wanted to ride his bike five miles to raise donations.  His UNICEF page says,

My name is Charlie Simpson, I want to do a Sponsored Bike Ride for Haiti because there was a big earthquake and loads of people have lost their lives.  I want to make some money to buy food, water and tents for everyone in Haiti.

Donations are pouring in from throughout the world… $5 to $30 (and more) at a time.  If you want to give through Charlie’s page, click here.   What a generous heart and huge spirit little Charlie has!

Photo from London’s Daily Mirror.

There’s been funky weather throughout the U.S. this week – lots of rain, snow, warmer temperatures, cooler temperatures.  In my own area we’ve had rain, rain and more rain along with thunder and lightning.  I snapped a photo yesterday as the clouds rolled through.

My little picture of the threatening sky is nothing compared to John’s though.

John was standing outside waiting to get into a building and snapped several dozen pictures of the sky,

I took out my little point-and-shoot camera and my tripod, set the camera on fireworks mode, and pointed it in the general direction of the lightning. I started hitting the shutter button over and over again. By the time I had everything set up, the lightning had slowed down a bit, but I kept at it. John pointed out that the lightning was starting to move east, so I swung the camera a little bit to the right.

Some day I’ll be a good photographer, too.

Marriage proposals can be sweet, romantic, fast, slow, boring, amazing, flattering, and … go ahead and fill in your own words!  They can be as creative as the person asking and Derick Childress has proven creativity has no bounds!

Using a technique called Light Writing, he used stop motion animation to  inquire,

EMILY, WILL YOU MARRY ME?

Derick explains how he did it,

I knew I wanted to find a very special way to propose to a very special woman.  I liked the look of light writing, but I wanted to do something on a much larger scale.  To my knowledge, a light writing of this size had never been done before.  I had the idea of placing a camera at the top of a tall building and mapping out the words “Emily, will you marry me?” over part of the city.

Here’s the video,

I’m still not sure whether or not Emily said yes, but I hope she did.

From Epic Win FTW:

I suppose this must be “let’s talk about celebrities” week with the Conan O’Brien post yesterday.  Today I have to comment on a news article I read about the MTV show Teen Mom.  I started watching it when it was 16 and Pregnant and was fascinated by the decisions these young women made.

I greatly admire Catelynn and Tyler for how mature they were when they made the decision together to give up baby Carly for adoption.  They stood united in their decision to try to give the infant a better life than they had while everyone in their families pressured them to keep the baby.

Like Catelynn, Maci has shown extraordinary maturity as she has blossomed as a young mother.  Her priority is her son Bentley.

I don’t even want to judge because I can’t imagine the enormous stress these young mothers must be carrying, yet after seeing Amber hit her boyfriend and now reading about Farrah fighting with her own mother (who was subsequently arrested for suspicion of domestic abuse) I am deeply bothered by the example they are to young people who watch the shows.

I posted earlier about the Signs that Your Teen is in a Bad Relationship.  It’s sad when the mother is allegedly the person with whom violence occurs.  It concerns me that there’s the potential for the violence to pass down to the next generation.  This Child Abuse site offers links and information about how to recognize child abuse and how to prevent it.

As I continue to watch Teen mom (and I will), I recognize that it gives viewers the opportunity to talk to our own children about premarital sex, the consequences of getting pregnant, the impact an infant has on the path of life you thought you were following, and now… domestic violence.  I am sorry these young mothers have to experience the hardships that lay before them, but I will take the opportunity to talk to my own 14-year-old.

Photo from MTV’s Teen Mom site.

“Don’t burn bridges,” my TV production professor wrote on one of my papers where at the end he asked what we thought of the class.  At the time, I thought he was a pretty bad instructor but in hindsight I really learned a lot.  He was able to quickly see whose skills worked best for the different studio equipment – I was often assigned to run the character generator (to produce words under telecasts like the news scroll) because my spelling was gud good.

“Don’t burn bridges.”  Three words I never forgot.

I have tried to apply those three words to life every single day.  If I get irritated at someone, I try to remain calm and see their side of any given situation.  If I still don’t agree, I know it’s not me and walk away.  There’s no sense in letting the little stuff drag you down.

However when it’s your JOB that’s affected, my view changes somewhat.  I was once unjustly attacked about my job.  I didn’t burn bridges, but given the chance (and if the right words came to me) I would still love me a good ol’ put-them-in-their-place moment.  Like Conan did in his resignation letter made public.

“… It was my mistaken belief that, like my predecessor, I would have the benefit of some time and, just as important, some degree of ratings support from the prime-time schedule,” he wrote.

“But sadly,” he added, “we were never given that chance.”

Then again, maybe Conan’s move wasn’t so smart when he burned some bridges.  One professional management recruiter suggested people NOT do what Conan did,

“That’s a dangerous game,” he said. “If I were NBC, I would call Conan’s bluff.”

Even if O’Brien gets what he wants, it may not bode well for his future relationship with his employer.

Sometimes it’s good to be one of the little people and not have that kind of problem! At least when I have to take it on the chin, it’s not blasted out for the whole world to see.

From this week’s American Idol, I give you “Pants on the Ground” – the best song ever.

Brittney at Sparkwood & 21 says cupcakes are not a trend.  For this I am thankful, though honestly I haven’t even walked into a cupcake boutique to sample a little piece of frosting and sugar heaven.  So I’m not sure about this whole “this is not a trend” headline, especially when she confirmed,

People walk by this store in droves, but it is always the women whose gait slows, whose heads tilt back to take it all in, to see that, yes, there are hundreds of tiny cakes, each decorated and topped and put on display. Almost none go inside.

I did buy myself a Christmas gift which still sits unopened in the box it came in.  A mini-cake decorating kit.  When will that “someday” come I keep asking myself?  I fear the kit may be headed for a yard sale 10 years from now … the poor dust-covered box will go for 50 cents to someone else with aspirations of culinary art and deliciousness combined into one.

Meanwhile, if you want to keep up-to-date on cupcake recipes, Utah Loves Cupcakes!

Photo of Emma and Cade as we celebrated a great two weeks of school with a cupcake party at my house!