A word to the wise...

Hi all... I just wanted to give you readers a quick yet vague update regarding a situation you may notice is unfolding (ever so slightly) here at Steph's Other Space. A woman has contacted me regarding the Siran Stacy post and she has commented on several of the posts below. I have since edited her comments only to remove her name and have otherwise left the comments untouched, though they have obviously reposted under my name. Due to the very sensitive nature of this issue, I'm not going to say much here but I wanted to reassure you that this is no ploy or joke in an attempt to pump a little drama into this humble blog. I. Hate. Drama.

Secondly (and might I add in a very motherly tone), please take this lesson to heart in your own blogosphere. I know it's quite humorous how protective I am of my family's true identity but this woman reaching out to me only serves to reaffirm my position on the matter. You never know who is reading your blog and I think most of us would be shocked to see how very easy it is to find personal information on the internet. My father recently emailed me a picture of our house that he found online via Google Earth. Believe me, it's out there for the taking so essentially anyone could very easily (at no charge!) get directions that would lead them directly to your doorstep. It's never too late to retrofit your blog for these dangers... just go in and delete everything with any sort of indentifying information, including the titles you give to uploaded pics. I would also add a somewhat anonymous email address to your blog because usually you have identifying information tagged to an account. Obviously people will still find you if they are really hell-bent on it but please don't make it easy for them!

Anyway, I'm done lecturing for now. But eat your veggies and wear your seatbelt. Oh, and heed the tornado sirens. :)

What's black and blue with horns and an obvious traumatic brain injury affecting her judgment?

Apparently Rihanna. Girl, you're worth way more than this. Don't ever forget it.

She's a lady...

Okay, eventually I'll quit talking about my dogs (both here and on facebook) and maybe I'll even mention my kids a time or two but believe me, for now the dogs in our life are a lot less complicated! Anyway, I couldn't help but take a few pics and video of that crazy Palin Mae Sassafras of Calhoun County (or Miss Sassy if you nasty) enjoying the rain today. When I decided to get a dog and then subsequently strong-armed Plumberboy into agreeing, I really set my heart on what some folks call an old Southern white, which is basically a fancier term for a yard dog. Well, ask and ye shall receive:

Wow, that's a classy broad. And she's currently about two shades browner than that pic. If you look closely enough at the background, you'll see what was once a fairly aesthetically pleasing garden area with flower-filled window boxes, handpainted pots, and a trumpetvine-covered arbor bordered by a nice wooden picket fence is now a wasteland of potholes and poop littered with the various mangled plastic corpses of whatever she decided to make her chewtoy that day. And yes that's her luxurious down-filled (well, thin synthetic cotton batting) comforters on the ground soaking up the rain. Because she drags them out there. Every. Single. Day. Apparently you can take the dog out of the ghetto but not the ghetto out of the dog. Moral of this story: Be careful what you ask for because you just may get it.

Now onto an update on JJ's situation... he's fine. Plumberboy's wallet is still ailing but JJ is just fine. He's convinced our dogs will live for a looonnnng time and we'll have the vet bills to prove it. It should be noted that JJ's pancreatitis ate into Crabman's birthday party budget so maybe we'll just take JJ to the party this year and let the kids take turns petting him. "Thanks for coming today. Nope, that's it. Just pet the dog and go home, kid. No cake. No ice cream. Just a crazy old black dog with a case of the shakes."

Well, I promise to elaborate more on the other happenings in our lives but right now the details are still fuzzy. I will say that Crabman is reading, like legitimately sounding out words and everything. I find this ironic seeing as we dance on top of books in our house and occasionally use them as a bat, too. Anyway, I guess we'll keep letting him read books so long as they don't go putting no silly ideas in his head. I hate it when that happens.

Of course I could always end by sparking a lively debate about the "stimulus plan" or Pelosi's Congressional Calisthenics but, nah... I think we've had enough of talk of dog poop today.