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Revamped the Blog

09 Feb 2010 | By Tinalicious

What can I say, I was bored with the look of Tinalicious and decided it was time for a redo. So I guess now it’s only fair to call the blog, Tinalicious 2.o? Hope you will stop by and take a peek.

I also wanted to share a funny little tidbit from the world of grandparenthood as well. My grandson, Dylan spent the night recently, which he doesn’t do so often anymore so it’s a treat when he does. Anyhoots, he needed a bath so I got him in my tub. This is something he really enjoys, because, well, I have a really big tub.  I also have a TV at the foot of the tub, and I’m sure the ability to bathe while watching Sponge Bob has a little something to do with his sudden affection for bath time at gramma’s house.  And FYI: Sponge Bob can be equally entertaining to bathing adults. Just sayin.

So he was in the tub and I decided to brush my teeth. So I’m brushing away when I hear him giggling repeatedly. I looked myself up and down to make sure that I was not the subject of his prolonged amusement, and I couldn’t find anything amiss (nothing out of the ordinary anyway). And just about the time I finished the rinse and spit routine in the sink, he finally enlightens me.

“Gramma, gramma…guess what? I can make my own bubbles. Watch.”

Can you guess where this is going, folks? Sure enough, Dylan has discovered that age-old practice of farting in the bathtub, which naturally creates bubbles…albeit temporary ones.  I couldn’t help but laugh as he beamed at his new-found discovery.  From the sound of his giggles echoing through the bathroom, I’d say this was the highlight of his day….and mine.

Face it: sometimes, farts are funny. Admit it. Come on.

I hear you laughing.

Category: Brag Book, Have Blog, Will Babble  Tags: , ,  2 Comments

The Germ Factory

29 Jan 2010 | By Tinalicious

Once I get about this far into Winter…you know, when it’s so cold outside that even the inside of the freezer feels like a trip to the Bahamas (OK, so I’m exaggerating)…I start to become obsessively-compulsively aware of what a giant germ factory we live in.

Germs are flying, floating, and crawling everywhere this time of year. If we’re not trying to prevent them, we’re either trying to battle them with every manner of pharmacological warfare at our disposal, or we’re on the ever so prolonged road to recovery.

I admit it: I have issues with germs. But my personal pet peeves about germs and bacteria have less to do with the little bugs themselves, and more to do with people’s ignorance about how to prevent the spread of their nasty germs to the rest of us innocent bystanders. It never ceases to amaze me how people wantonly infect perfectly healthy friends and strangers alike, simply because they are too stupid or too apathetic to prevent it.

Here’s a perfect example. The Hubs and I went to our favorite Chinese Buffet this evening for dinner. I’ll admit, I tend to avoid buffets this time of year for the very reasons noted above. I mean, if you really stop and think about the number of germs that are lingering on the buffet utensils alone, it would be enough to make you stay home. (Or, at least, it should be.)

Just picture if you will the person who was down with a nasty, gut-wrenching two-day stomach virus–who couldn’t even keep down a glass of water up until 8 hours ago–cruising through the buffet tables in front of you, touching every single utensil as he fills his plate. Do you really want to load up your plate using those same utensils? Is the all-you-can-eat fried rice really that important to you?!  And will you still think so when it’s coming back up tomorrow? I think not. (BTW, this is precisely why I travel with anti-bacterial sanitizer, and I use it liberally when I eat at buffet places; it may not be fool-proof, but it’s better than nothing.)

And then there’s the lady I observed at the buffet this evening. She had a full plate in her left hand, and was getting another plate to fill. She looked at the 6 stacks of plates. She took her right hand and rubbed it around the surface of the plate on the first stack. But she doesn’t take that. No, she repeats this plate-rubbing on the top plate of the next stack. She did this three times, until she finally found a plate that was acceptable. WTH?! Not only do I wonder if she was sick yesterday (I guess the people who ended up taking the plates she touched will find out soon enough), but I am willing to bet that this twit is also a habitual  double-dipper at parties. Chips and Dip, anyone? Sheesh.

The simple truth is that probably half of the people who get sick each year, if not more, could avoid the illness all together with just an ounce (hell, even an iota!) of prevention on the part of the folks who go around carelessly infecting the rest of us.  So here are a few tips on how to keep your germs to yourself. And if you already know these things, perhaps you should share this blog post with those who live in the land of infectious ignorance and bacterial bliss.

  1. Wash your hands. Seriously. Germs can’t swim, so drown the little suckers. It’s the one form of murder that is totally acceptable, and even encouraged. Use soap, warm water, and do it for 20, count ‘em, 20 seconds! You should be washing for the amount of time it would take you to sing the entire “Happy Birthday” song. Go ahead and sing. Get your groove on. No one’s listening.
  2. Cough and sneeze into your elbow. Yes, I said your ELBOW. If you use your hand, you’re gonna touch something, and probably before you wash your hands. And I don’t want it to be my hand that you’re touching, or my coffee mug, or my door handle! But if you do use your hand, see #1.
  3. If you are sick, STAY HOME. Clearly you did not wash your hands enough and you got somebody else’s bug, so stay home and keep your germs to yourself.  And I prescribe some chicken soup, and one complete viewing of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. That ought to make you feel better in no time.
  4. If your kids are sick, then keep them home too.  Do you want the next epidemic in your child’s school on your shoulders?! Of course not. And while they’re home, this would be a good time to practice hand-washing and the proper form of  coughing and sneezing.
  5. Don’t touch your face. This is an important one, and all too often overlooked. Germs get into your system in one of three ways: your eyes, or your nose, or your mouth. If you touch a germ-ridden surface, and then, say, rub your eyes, or scratch your nose, or (ew) lick your finger…what’s going to happen? Anyone, anyone, Bueller?  Yeah, I think you get the idea.

While I do accept the fact that I cannot prevent all illnesses, it sure as hell won’t be for lack of trying.  That doesn’t make me a germ-o-phobe, as much as some people might like to think. Frankly, if that were true, I wouldn’t even leave my house. I’m simply cautious, for one very simple reason: I DON’T LIKE BEING SICK! Do you? I didn’t think so. So I arm myself with my arsenal of preventive wisdom, and a little hand sanitizer, and I greet the world each day saying…

Welcome to the Germ Factory.

Category: Have Blog, Will Babble, Rantics, Things I Don't Understand  Tags: , ,  2 Comments

Christmas Past

18 Dec 2009 | By Tinalicious

I’m just sitting here thinking about Christmas, and how different it is now from when I was a kid. I mean, the things kids get today is a far cry from what it was in my increasingly distant youth. Today’s gift lists include things like iPods, Xboxes, cellphones, and flat screen TV’s.  Hmmm…back in the day…you know, the dinosaur age, we were asking for things like record players, Ataris, walkie talkies, and um, there was only one TV in the whole house and cable did not exist, so there’d be no point in asking for a TV!

At any rate, I thought I’d share with you some of my memories of favorite Christmas gifts from Christmas Past.

Barbie’s  Country Camper

BarbieCamperOpen

Now really, isn’t this the only way for Barbie to travel…in her own RV?  It had a popout on the side, and a fold-out table; not to mention sleeping bags, a  tilt-up windshield, and a rooftop luggage rack (no sense in letting all their luggage get in the way of their indoor RV fun!)  There was enough room for friends to come along too. Sometimes Malibu Barbie would come, and sometimes even GI Joe.  You just had to be careful with him though; Joe was a little on the stiff side and did not get along with Ken. And if the two of them had a few beers too many, well, all hell would break loose in that camper!

The Six Million Dollar Man Doll

Bionic

Based on the popular TV show, who wouldn’t want Steve Austin,  The Six Million Dollar Man doll? Not only did he have a hole in the back of his head so you could see through is bionic eye, but he had roll up skin on his bionic arm and legs, so you could see (and remove) his bionic parts! How creepy cool is that?! Besides, he came in handy when Ken and GI Joe were not getting along, because he could totally kick their ass! And even though he did have his very own bionic girlfriend, we all know he was secretly in love with Barbie, so he enjoyed tagging along with her. No wonder she needed an RV.

Electronic Detective

Detective

Now this was a game I got in the early 80′s. You got to be a detective to solve murder mysteries.  Who Done It? It was your job to find out. There were over 130,000 mysteries to solve, and it included all sorts of sound effects too: gun shots, sirens, even the funeral dirge, and more. My best friend and I both wanted to be private detectives when we grew up…so this game was good training, to be sure.  Talk about your hi-tech toys! This was the height of advanced computer logic…OK well, based on computer logic of 1979, when the game was created anyway.

Mork from Ork Egg Ship

Mork

Mork from Ork made his first TV appearance on the hit TV show Happy Days in the late 70′s. Played by the legendary comic, Robin Williams (who was an unknown at the time), his character became such a hit that he got his own TV show: Mork & Mindy. I loved Mork! I couldn’t wait to watch that show each week. It was truly one of my all time faves. One year for Christmas, my grandma and grandpa got all of us these Mork from Ork Egg Ships–because, well, Mork’s mode of travel was indeed an egg ship, what else?! The plastic ship came in two parts, with a 4″ Mork figure inside.  And Shazbot! I loved that thing!

Portable Cassette Tape Player

TapePlayer

Not as old as an 8-track player, but long before CD players (and iPods), there was the cassette player. And if you were really lucky, you also had a portable cassette player, like this red one that I got one year. I was able to not only take this with me to friends’ houses, but I could also record stuff. Talk about old school! Remember those days? If you liked a song on the radio you’d just push your tape recorder up to the radio speaker…really close…and push record, and then you had to remember not to talk or make any other noise while recording or it would be on the tape too and you’d ruin the whole thing! You also had to be sure you had enough space on the tape for all the songs you were recording; but inevitably, at some point, you’d run out of tape…usually just as your favorite song was recording. Ah, the good ole days.

Before I leave, I wanted to share with you the one Christmas present I really, really wanted as a child, but never got.  It’s one of those things you can’t really explain, but you just really want it. So what was it?

StarTrekCommunicators

That’s right: Star Trek Communicators. Yes folks, as a child I was indeed a Trekkie. Space travel. Exploring new worlds. Pointy-eared Vulcans. Hot space ship captains. Yeah, I hear you snickering, but that’s because you thought James T. Kirk (aka William Shatner) was hot too.  Don’t pretend like you didn’t. The Communicators were actually walkie-talkies, and I thought they were the coolest things. The top flipped open and you could talk into it.  I never got them as a child. But oh yeah, the Hubs and I have some now. We call them…cellphones.

Beam me up, Scotty. And Happy Holidays.

Category: Flashback Friday, Have Blog, Will Babble, Remembering  Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  Leave a Comment

5 Lessons From an Insomniac

24 Nov 2009 | By Tinalicious

Having struggled with insomnia off and on since I was a teenager (and no, I won’t tell you how long ago I was a teenager), I have found that there are all sorts of lessons to be learned in the wee small hours of the night, or morning, depending upon your point of view. So I thought I’d share of some my arguably insightful pearls of insomniac wisdom.

1. If a startlingly loud and unidentifiable noise can occur in another room, it will happen at precisely the moment when you happen to be watching some spooky bit of paranormal programming on TV and are already in a heightened state of extreme paranoia…and if you’re sipping a beverage at this precise moment, you will end up wearing it too.

2. Paid Programming caters to 3 types of people at 4am: Overweight over-eaters who are in the market for expensive exercise equipment that they cannot afford; older folks who are in search of the one and only beauty cream that will take years off their faces; and those kinky folks who are on the hunt for sex toys, and are surely going to be up at 4am to get the best bargains on lubes and lotions, vibrators and blow-me-up-suck-me-Suzie dolls.

3. Your kitchen floor will only creak when you are tip-toeing into the room to get a snack at 12:30am that you do not need, and don’t necessarily want your husband to know you are getting while he is sleeping in the next room. (Bonus lesson: the creaky floor is actually a great diet aid!)

4. Reading only helps to make you tired if the book sucks. If it’s a good book, you’ll just want to keep reading, and before you know it you’ll be hearing the coffee pot come on and kicking yourself for ever thinking you could just read “one more chapter.”

5. The best sleep aids are reruns of 80′s TV shows that you cannot stand. I personally use The Nanny, Married with Children, and Full House.  You can find at least one of those shows on at almost any time of night. And when all else fails, I just put one of those on and I’m usually asleep in relatively short order.

I’m still not tired. So, I think a bit of channel-surfing is in order. The 80′s are  definitely calling. Night, all.

Category: Have Blog, Will Babble  Tags: , , , , ,  Leave a Comment

What a Girl Wants

27 Aug 2009 | By Tinalicious

Sometimes I truly have to question the workings of my almost-43-year-old brain. Seriously. What is going on up there? Not to sound bragalicous (yes, it’s a word…if I want it to be), but I’m fairly intelligent. I have college degrees. I was a teacher for heaven’s sake!I know stuff. Ahem. LOTS of stuff! Some of it’s even interesting.

I’ve enjoyed the works of Shakespeare, Austen, and Hemmingway. I love listening to classical music when I paint. I mean, really, who doesn’t like a little Mozart or Rachmaninov during the creative process? And I absolutely love poetry. Longfellow, anyone?

So, considering how mature and evolved I surely must be, given the above facts, why is that when I was on Amazon the other day looking for a book,  I ordered this DVD.

What a Girl Wants

I have seen What a Girl Wants at least 3 times. It’s the story of a teenage girl who travels to London to find her long-lost aristocratic father, whom she’s longed to meet her entire life. It’s a combination coming of age story, a love story, a fish out of water story, and just a feel good father-daughter-relationship movie. That being said, it’s also cutesy, a bit contrived, and too sticky-sweet in some parts. But OMGosh, people, I love this movie!

The movie’s two main stars, Amanda Bynes and Colin Firth, have such great chemistry; they really are the big reason this movie works. And the movie does have a Cinderella-story quality to it that appeals to the sap hopeful romantic in me. So when I saw it on Amazon, what can I say? I had to buy it.

It really is fun to watch. It’s sweet. It’s touching.

It’s What a Girl Wants!

Category: Have Blog, Will Babble  Tags: ,  Leave a Comment
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