Odds and Ends

I had the BEST day Friday. My bosses were in town... that always makes things fun, especially since I only get to see them about once a year. We went out for dinner/meeting, which was excellent. Then went out for expresso and dessert. Again, wonderful! Then, I got to go see my son in the high school performance of "Here come the Brides" - hilarious!

Just,, a great day.

And now today... we're getting a major blizzard - in the middle of April... and I think it's dumping more snow on us than any of our other blizzards this year. Yay? I think Mother Nature is a little messed in the head. She been drinking too much or something.

Oh! I was checking out the stats on my blogs... I started this one in July of 2010... so, almost 3 years ago. I started my psycho sermons blog at the end of August last year... so not even 8 months old yet... and that one is 15 views shy of beating this one in terms of views. Who'd'a thunk?

I have discovered my turtles absolutely LOVE freeze dried crickets and meal worms. Well, the worms aren't that surprising.. I already know they love fresh earth worms. But, I didn't think they'd love the crickets so much. I dump a few different kinds of food in their pond, and they seek out the crickets first.

I'm really tired today... not sure if it's because of the weather, or if I'm coming down with something, or if it's just been all the stress and craziness this past week or so.

I made doughnuts yesterday! And a funky cool tie-dye cake today. :)  4 of my 6 kids were gone all day yesterday for an archery tournament. I'm glad the school offers archery... I wish they did when I was in school. Granted, we did get a few weeks of archery during phy-ed, but it would have been cool to be on a team.


Anyway, that's enough odds and ends for now. :)

Check Your Kids' Phones!

Luckily I haven't found anything on my kids' phones... yet... but I guarantee, I will start checking. If you're under 18 and living in my home, you can damn well bet you won't get any shot at privacy... especially if I think for one second you're using any apps for what most teens are using them for.

What am I going on about?

Snapchat... Instagram... apps such as. Parents - do you know that many kids use these apps to exchange naked or semi-naked pics of themselves? Yeah... sending a snapchat to the wrong person would definitely be a bit awkward there, huh? I can't wait until one of you accidentally send it to your parents. And trust me kids... I don't care if you aren't my kid... if I think you're doing this, I will tattle to your mommy/daddy. Why? Because I'm a parent. Because I know what happens with these pics. Because I happen to care.

Seriously guys and girls...do you have any clue what you're doing? You really think that pic is private?!? There IS some person who has access to these pictures. They ARE stored on the internet somewhere, and it only takes some guy with good hacking skills to access all of them. In fact, Snapchat has hacks out there.

Anyway, parents - educate yourself on the tools out there and how kids are using them. And don't be afraid to search that phone. The last thing any parent wants is to find out that some hacker has posted naked pics of your child on a porn site - pics that your child willingly took and sent to someone else. And frighteningly, it happens more often that we want to admit. 

http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/health/mdmama/2013/02/why_snapchat_is_dangerous_its_not_just_because_of_sexting.html 

http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/whats-so-special-and-so-dangerous-about-snapchat/

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=22990051