Eye Spy

I have a fascination with eye wear.
  
Because of this fascination I, of course, had to google eye wear.  I found out that historians believe the first type of glasses were made in the 1200's.  Can you believe?

Many people have been made famous or are recognized by their eye wear. 

My favorite is Dame Edna.  Google Dame Edna and just wait until you see her glasses.  She is just snazzy!

We all know Sara Palin and her trademark glasses and who can forget Sally Jessie Raphael's signature red, google eye glasses.  They were very popular in the 1980's.  Lastly, the most frustrating eye glass wearing character was Mr. Magoo.  Why didn't Mr. Magoo just wear his glasses ALL of the time?

I love the glasses of the 50's and 60's.  Cat eye glasses were the rage.  My grandma had some real nice silver cateye glasses.

During the 60's, cat eye's were still popular but it seemed that people branched out at bit.

My first personal experience with glasses was in the 70s.  I preferred Glacier glasses for my out door activities.  

I also had what we all called "mirrors".  They were aviator glasses that had mirrored lenses.  These were particularly handy when you wanted to see what you looked like.  You could just look into your mirrors to put on your lip gloss.  Also, no one could see your eyes so you could just sit and stare and stare at people and they never knew.  So so cool!

The hot glasses of the 80's were Ray Ban type glasses.  I had lots of kids in the 80's so I'm not sure what I used for sun glasses but I bet I had fake Ray Bans.

I will be honest, I don't remember a lot of the 90's and for sure I don't remember what I wore but I have pictures. I had even more kids during the 90's than the 80's.  I believe that Oakley razerblades were a big item.  I even had a pair for a minute.

My sister Mindy and I are showing off our glasses of the 90's here.  I honestly don't know if these were in style at the time and I don't think she knew either.  We probably bought them at the gas station.

Now that we are in the 2000's I think eye wear has swung to the bug eye, Jackie O type glasses.

The bug eye look is modeled below by my sister Mindy.

Once again, I really don't know if these are in style but she pulls the look off nicely. 

I have passed my love of eye wear on to my children.  My entire family seems to love eye wear. 

Ty's favorite accessory was his windshield wiper glasses.  These were fabulous and the wipers worked!

These are my daughters at the grocery store imitating those of us that need a little extra help with reading glasses.  They are rude girls.

I have no words for this picture except that Mickey Marvin started young with the eye wear and believes with all his heart (pun intended) that he is wearing these the proper way.

Below is my son Whitey wearing some square glasses that make him look smarter than he is!

As much as I love glasses, goggles are an even more amazing invention.  They can be worn in so many different ways. 

Whitey wears goggles to keep the smoke out of his eyes while barbecuing.  He's genius.

My son Ty and sister Molly are showing off their latest goggle wear.  I'm just wondering why, with his gianormous noggin, he is the one wearing the rather small goggles while she wears the large ones.  These two are deep thinkers as you can tell.

The following is a picture of my two daughters wearing their ski goggles.  One question that I've been pondering, why must goggles be so large?  These goggles are half the size of their faces.  Is this necessary?

Once again, why the small goggles on the huge melon?  Actually, now that I look at this picture, I think the goggles are not the attention getter of this picture.  By the way this is my dad and my husband.  I'm a lucky gal aren't I?

It is evident to me that my kids are confused about cowboys AND eye wear. 

This is Ty at preschool cowboy day.  Why the sunglasses?  I did not dress him this day.

I have no words for this picture except like I said, "Whitey is genius".

I'm off now to go read with my reading glasses.  If it's sunny out, I will need my sun glasses too.  Now days I prefer the combo glasses look vs. the single glasses look of my past.

Now that's hot!

Fudge jumblies month anyone?

October is breast cancer awareness month.  My family has a "thing" for breasts, boys and girls alike. 

My favorite thing about breasts is all the names people have for them.  My family mostly refers to them as boosies".  I love that name. However we've been known to call them hooters, jugs, mamba wambas, boobies, chesters, the girls, breastubles, headlights, knockers, breasticles, melons, tatters, jumblies, tatas, and my least favorite name, mammaries.

There are also names for just the nipples.  (PS I still can't say the whole nip word outloud).  High beams, neeners, artesians are all great but my personal favorite is fudge jumblies.  My husband calls them "the end part". 

My families fascination with breasts is somewhat odd but accepted.  The girls in the family will honk, pinch or poke each other at any given time.  The boys just stare.

Our fixation with this body part sometimes carries over into our recreational activities.  

This is Mickey protecting his end parts from sun exposure. (You wouldn't want to burn those bad boys.)

Jensine, on the other hand, has built herself a hooter sand castle. You will note the detail of the nipages.

When we open presents at Christmas, we never throw away the bows.  We wear them.

Whitey chose to wear a seaweed bikini at the beach one year.  That year he was a total chick magnet. 

Now that Whitey is grown and has his own daughter........

He chooses to adorn her chesters with coconuts.  I think Whitey likes to dress up his loved ones breastubles in organic and all natural materials. 

This is me wearing a nice birthday apron my sister gave to me.  The eggs squeak when you push on them.  Apparently the fascination with tatters extends beyond my immediate family.

 To be honest, I believe I have a subconscious melon fetish too.  For my twins 16th birthday I baked them their own cakes but wanted to make these special fudge filled bundt cakes.  I was not about to whip up two gianormous bundts so I made the smaller ones.  When I finished the cakes I set them on the counter side by side.  Do these resemble jumblies?  They even have an end part thanks to the candle.

I gave the twins their cakes (praying that my son wouldn't make a connection between the cake and knockers).

PS. Check out Mickey Marvin's face.  Is he stoned or just trying to figure out what the cake is reminding him of?

I'm off now to go squeeze, I mean crack some eggs. 

Written in honor of my grandma Barker who died from breast cancer and my mom who is a breast cancer survivor.   Go get your mammograms!

Viewings, morticians, caskets and maybe urns.

This is one of my favorite holiday seasons.  I love Halloween.  I have always loved the morbid things of this planet.  My husband says that I'm sick and twisted but I take that as a compliment.  I think he's just saying that I'm unique.

I am most fascinated by viewings.  There many reasons why each of us attend viewings but lets be honest, all of us go to a viewing to "view" the deceased.....thus the name "VIEWING". 

I've seen people laid out at a viewing that look better dead than alive.  Here's my point.  If a mortician can make a person look that good when they are dead then he's the mortician for me. 

It's an art making a dead person look good. 

We will all die at some point and if you have a bunch of people viewing you, then you want to look your best.   At a viewing you get more attention and more people looking at you than any other time in your life or death (including your birthday), therefore, we should all want to look our best.  Right?

This is why we must all go to viewings with two things in mind.  First, to mourn the desceased, of course, and second to research the viewee.   You should be studying their makeup, hair, clothing, casket and orifices just to see how well they are done.  I have my own personal preference for a mortician.  He does a fabulous job.  I'm hoping he can make me look better dead than alive.  (This might not be that hard to do by the time I die)

We are all going to end up on the slab so why not pick the best mortician out there.  The only way you are going to know the mortician for the job is to study their work. 

As for caskets, your family can pick from quite a selection of different colors, wood, finishes, and even sizes.

My thinking is, we are all buried in the dirt and no one can remember your casket so this is the place to cut costs.  Everyone on the other hand will remember if you don't look your best in the casket so splurge on the mortician.

Now if you can't look good dead and don't be mistaken,  a mortician is not a magician, then its time to consider the alternative......cremation. 

Of course I googled this subject and found out that there are even covers for cremation boxes.  I don't agree with cremation box covers. Those will be burned in the fire.  Save your money and buy a good looking urn for the mantle.

There are great selections for urns.

I want a really good urn.

So family, crack open those moth eaten wallets and spring for a good urn to put me in,  (only if the mortician can't make me look really good when I'm dead).  The next question is....who the lucky person that gets me and my urn for their mantle?

I would also like to have a special limo to transport me and my casket or urn.  I would like it to have a snazzy red interior since red is my favorite color. 

Lastly, just so you are aware, there are even special casket/urn things to put your desceased pets into when they die.  Of course, I have headstones in my back yard for my beloved pets but I have never purchased a special pet casket. 

When my daughter's pet rat, Sally died (Roger, our weiner dog played with Sally and was a little too rough), I didn't know where to put her so I put her on the armour.

This is desceased Sally on the amour.  I just put her there

until my daughter came home from school to attend the viewing, funeral and burial of Sally. 

That day a pet casket like the one shown above, would have come in very handy.

I bet you will now attend viewings with an eye to the orifaces, makeup and hair.  It's in your best interest.

I'm off now to decorate my family room like a funeral parlor.  I just love viewings!

My last Speedo straw!

One summer my dad decided we all needed an experience going to a foreign country.  He took us to Europe for a good part of that summer. This was back in the 1970's.  For one of our learning experiences we went to a public swimming pool.  That day was my first sighting of a speedo and it changed my life forever.  The local public pool also had co-ed dressing rooms. My mother spent the day running frantically from daughter to daughter shielding our eyes from the horrors of men parts and I spent the day seeing things I never knew existed.

I grew up in a family of all girls so boys and men were a mystery to me (and still are).

Aahh speedo's......who thought of these things?  I mean they have never been a snappy fashion statement for men. 

I watched the last summer Olympics in fascination of Michael Phelps.  The sad thing is that my fascination had nothing to do with his winning all those medals but I was focused on his speedo.  I admit it.  I just can't, for the life of me, figure out how he kept that speedo on!

Every time he dove in for a race I was just waiting to see a little butt crack pop up through the water because I was sure his speedo was down around his knees from the dive in.  I just had the strongest urge, as a mom, to go and just hitch that speedo up a bit for him (like moms do when their kids pants are sagging off) but then the speedo would have turned into a thong in the back.  It's a dilema.

Even scarier than that was when he walked towards the camera, while on tv.  Everyone in the world could see the full frontal view. I just was sa nervous that something, somewhere might peek out.  I am bettting I'm not the only one with this concern either.

Let's be honest now there are but a few men who could even think about wearing a speedo.  They are those body building, buff, six pack sporting, no fat on their bodies, kind of guys. Even then  I still don't think they can pull off the speedo look.  Now picture a guy like that in a pair of board shorts................ ...........................................................................................................

...........................................................................................................

...............................................................Sorry I was picturing........ he would be hot and the chicks would dig him but not if he's wearing a speedo.

Most men they look more like this next guy when wearing a speedo.....

I am trying not to picture this guy at all.  Don't you love how he's accessorized his speedo. I bet he's religious. You also know that black is very slimming.

I have actually seen guys that are wearing speedos but you can't see the speedo until they turn around backward.  (don't visualize that cause it will mess you up).

If you want to really mess with your mind, listen to this...  When my kids were younger they loved to watch Mr. Rogers.  You heard me.  I am secretly a Mr. Rogers fan too.  One day while having Mr. Rogers lull us into a stuper, he did a segment on swimming.  Mr. Rogers actually did the swimming in this segment whilst pointing out all of the wonderful things about water and swimming pools.  I didn't hear a word of it.  Mr. Rogers came schwinging out onto the deck of the pool wearing a speedo.  His speedo was brown and it was the boy shorts style of speedo.

But despite the style of speedo, it just wasn't a good look for Mr. Rogers.

Mr. Rogers should have stuck with his cardigan and boat shoes.

They even showed pictures of Mr. Rogers swimming under water in his speedo.  I'm talking "UNDERWATER PHOTOGRAPHY OF A SPEEDO".  This was aired on tv more than 25 years ago and I can still remember the color of his speedo?

I am going to confess that we have speedo issues in my family and I'm not one bit happy about it.

My oldest son, Whitey, likes to do a yearly triathlon and he does the entire thing in a speedo.  I have proof. Just look at the next pictures.

What a stud muffin.  All I can say is that he is self actualized.  No confidence lacking here.

Whitey also danced with my other son Rocky on Christmas eve.  Just like every other American family, we do talent shows on Christmas eve and this particular year we were entertained by a special striptease type of dance.

Whitey passed on his fashion sense to my youngest son Mickey........

He now does the triathlon in a speedo too. 

I have yet another son who went on a cruise and they all opted for speedos as their cruise attire.

My son Tyler is the "dude" in the middle.  You will note that he is sporting the "Mr. Rogers boy cut speedo".  Good choice Ty!

My husband has a speedo he calls his jammers.  I thought jammers were PJ's but no!  They are like knee length spandex things.  I wish with all my heart I had a picture of him in his "jammers" but I don't so I will describe him in his jammers.  My husband has a very large chest with wide shoulders that would be appropriate on a 200 pound man.  His legs, on the other hand, are rather thin and would go well on a 130 pound tall and lanky guy.  When he used to teach school, (PE of course)  he had a student come up to him and say, "Mr. Taylor, are those your legs or are you riding a chicken".  Nuff said.  Now picture jammers on those legs and body.  He is also a stud muffin.

And lastly, as the cherry on the cake of my speedo experiences, my dad wore a speedo under his swim suit to the beach one day just in case he was training for a triathlon in the ocean.  Is that necessary?

Seeing my dad in a speedo was my last speedo straw.   I am not sure where I go from here.  I can pray that my family will never sport speedos again but you never know and I know that if I should ever go to a public pool again that there will be "speedo guy" there. 

I guess I will have to wear dark, dark sunglasses to the pool from now on and when I stare at the speedos, no one will know but me.  I will schedule a therapy session following all my pool days and I should be good. 

One last piece of information for the men out there.  We know men love to see women in skimpy bikinis but women just don't like to see men in that same attire.  Just saying............

Again? Are you kidding me?

Now after looking at this picture wouldn't you say, "Now there is an athletic family!" 

Aahh, but no!  Not true!  This picture is a lie.  I would say we are an active family but to say we are athletic would be a deception.  I do have some athletes in the family but overall we are just "active".

To give you an idea of our "activeness" not "athleticness" I will tell you that in the past two months we have had a broken wrist, separated shoulder and some broken ribs within our "active" family. 

I have come to the conclusion that if you have enough kids you will see it all and one thing is for certain, you will visit the emergency room often!

On Saturday, my husband received a phone call from my son who said with a very whispery voice and in clipped sentences, "Dad, crashed on my bike, ....handlebar in chest .....come get me..........hurry........"

Now I hate these phone calls.  They never give you all the information you need and they cause stress!

So Mickey and I jumped into the car and drove on over to my sons house  (which is two minutes away) to find him rolling around on the back porch.  I think that after several cars drove by him while he was laying in the road and trying to breathe, someone finally stopped and drove him home and dumped him on the back porch.  When we arrived his face was pure white and his lips were blue and he said, "I can't breathe!"  I'm thinking "are you sure" (in my most sarcastic inner voice).

My son's wife is a nurse and she's was at work so Mickey and I played ambulance.  My kids are all too cheap to actually call one!

So we heft my son Whitey into the car as he tells us that he was riding his bike and jumping off a curb while holding his wallet and cell phone with one hand and steering with the other.  Apparently he was going a couple blocks away for a hair cut.  I guess he missed the landing and fell, jamming the handlebar right into the center of his chest. 

At the emergency room the doctor (who by the way knew us from our visit two months ago) checked my son all over and asked him how the accident occurred.  My son started to say "Well you know you have your sternum here and your ribs here".  The doctor said, "Yes I'm aware." Then my son said, "Well I jammed my handle bars right here and points to the middle of his chest."  My son told him he was on his way to get a hair cut.  

Now to understand Whitey, he bikes almost everyday.  He mountain bikes and road bikes.  He has no fear and has ended up in the hospital before with a broken collarbone and concussion as well as countless road rashes from biking.  I wish he would stop biking!

At this point the Dr. told him he had to do a bunch of tests to make sure he hadn't hurt his heart or lungs.  He said that one side of his chest by his sternum felt a little depressed so he might have some broken ribs and cartilage.  As he walked out of the room he said, "By the way, you hair looks good."

Love that doctor!

                               This is Whitey trying to breathe.   

So at this point the nurses put in an IV to give him morphine and Whitey said, "Wait, how much does this cost?"  Well, we are tight with money, aren't we?  Everything they did he asked how much it was going to cost!

After he got his morphine and it kicked in about an hour later, Whitey sat up and told us to take the back board out and said he was going home.  He said this is too expensive and I could buy a desk for my office for what this is costing!  He's not kidding?

This is Whitey's handlebar mark in his chest.  No, that is not a third nipple!

Amy, Whitey's wife popped in to see him while she was at work.  She works at the same hospital that Whitey was visiting.  She realized Whitey wasn't dying and went back to work.  I love Amy!  She's my kind of girl!  My husband realized he wasn't going to die and left to go fishing. 

So to make a long story short, after calling someone to find a ride home, Whitey and I left several hours after first arriving, with pain meds, a couple broken ribs and some ruptured cartilage by his sternum. 

The reason this is a concern is because two months ago, my daughter was riding her bike to work and was hit by a car which sent her flying up onto the hood, into the windshield shattering it, back out onto the hood where she spun around and went off one side breaking the mirror. 

Once again my husband got the call, "Dad, I got hit by a car on my bike.........hurt........windshield.........can you come get me........ some inaudible sounds and then click."

My husband got to the scene of the accident to find four cop cars, a fire engine, a smashed car with smashed windshield sitting by the side of the road. My daughter Sid had already been taken by ambulance to the hospital.

This is the car Sid damaged.

This is Sid after being hit and me aging.

While waiting in the emergency room, I called my son Tyler and told him Sid was in an accident and that I would let him know as soon as I knew, how she was.  He hung up the phone saying, "I'm on my way!"  Tyler lives in New Hampshire. 

Just so this blog doesn't drag on too long I will just say that Sid came away from that accident with a broken wrist, deep bruise in her hip from it hitting the windshield, a concussion that is now just going away, some neck and back issues, glass all over her that we were picking out for days and a cut on her arm.  She will be fine but is very lucky to be alive.

When my daughter came home the following night from the hospital it was late. As I was helping her into my bed, Tyler burst through the door and clomped down the stairs to see me helping Sid into bed.  He took one look at her and said, "You're walking!  You're walking!  I could be in Paris for what that plane ticket cost!"  

You gotta love Tyler!

I am just worn out and have aged years from these types of accidents and the phone calls that accompany them. 

I got a phone call once from Tyler that aged me ten years!  Just a few years ago I got a phone call in the afternoon and it was Tyler. In his most panicky voice he said, "Mom, Sid got hit by another wave runner.  It smashed her leg and she's bleeding everywhere and it won't stop!  What do I do?  Wait I have to go.......she's bleeding everywhere.....needs help....click"  Really?  I sat there hyperventilating saying to myself "call an ambulance!" 

Does anyone in my family know the number for 911!  No!  They only know my number!  If you are blue and bleeding out of your eyeballs 911 is for you!

This is Sid after the wave runner accident.  That time she ended up with a hole on both sides of her leg, stitches and drains.  Once again, she was lucky.  My daughter Jensine is also in the picture.  She is the support team for injuries.  She is our family cryer and sympathizer.

However Jensine has been among the injured too.

This is Jensine after daddy forgot to catch her while she was crossing the monkey bars.  She ended up with a rock (and I mean a boulder) in her lip.  When I removed that rock, it became obvious she would need stitches to fill that hole.

Tyler is the guy you can count on to come in town when there is an accident even if it does cost as much as going to Paris.  Ty has been a road rash type of accident victim. Not so worrisome.  Usually he crashes on his bike.

Whitey tends to break bones.

This is Whitey's broken arm.  He's on about his third cast and this one was real stinky.  He broke his arm into a "V" while rollerblading into a garbage can.  He thought the can would stop him because he was going too fast and it did!  It was also cemented into the ground.

Sid on the other hand does various injuries.  Broken bones, stitches, and this is from basketball. 

Madisyn broke her arm on the tramp while jumping with her friend Lauren.  I had just gotten rid of our tramp because the orthopedic Dr told me about all the many injuries from tramps.  Madisyn broke it at a neighbors house.  I thought she had just hurt her arm so I told her to walk home.  When she got home I took one look at the arm just a hanging there and decided it was emergency room time again.

My son Mickey is the one who separated his shoulder playing football for the high school.  This was about a month ago.  Now look at this picture and what do you think happens next??

Oh I could go on and on.  This is just the tip of our family injury iceburg! 

I guess I would be a hypocrit not to mention that I personally know the emergency room, however, you should be aware that I AM one of the family athletes!

This is me after surgery to put 9 screws and a plate into my leg.  I shattered my fibula and broke my tibia off in two places while running?

Me after surgery to remove the nine screws and plate. (I believe I went wave running in this cast.  I covered it with a garbage bag and tied it tight and it worked like a dream!)

Once again I have injured myself playing basketball with the kids.  I tore my achilles right in half.  That wasn't sa good.

I had this cast so long my family made me ride a jazzy just so I could keep up.  PS. Why am I always holding kids?

I believe this is another achilles cast.  I wore a cast for months! 

Lastly this is me passed out after I jumped for joy off the stairs at the elementary school and missed the landing.  This incident is mentioned in another blog.  No cast for me this time but surgery!

 I'm off now to go flatten everyones bike tires and sell whats left of the athletic equipment! 

Or maybe I'll just go read my book and not answer the phone!

PS.   Family, here's the number for 911.......

911