Do You Realize?? (Part II)

Well, one would have thought that Oklahomans had spoken when over half of the votes cast for selecting the new Oklahoma state song chose the Flaming Lips "Do You Realize??". Of course politics had to get in the way of democracy...

I must say I thought it was a done deal and I wasn't aware that there would be a vote with representatives at the state capitol for this. Apparently there were several lawmakers that were offended by the band itself - what they wore, how they conduct themselves, etc. - and they voted to block "Do You Realize??" from becoming the state song.

It really peeves me sometimes when people start to judge one another on the basis of what they wear or how they speak. I have definitely met some of the strangest, toughest looking people (goth-inspired Cure fans, bikers, etc.) that are the kindest most affable people you'll ever meet. I never judge a person based on such superficial things. Dig a little deeper and you'll usually find that you may even have something in common with someone who does not come from your background or has different beliefs. I digress...

So, I guess the to-be new state song was, in fact, voted down... but in stepped the calvary! Oklahoma's governor overstepped the vote and signed it into effect anyway! Swwwwweeet!!

Read all about it here and here.

Winter Wonderland

Well, here it is, the beginning of Spring and we're having another round of Winter weather! Last week it was warm and we were all enjoying being outside. Yesterday, in a matter of 8 hours, we had 8 inches of snow on the ground! What a difference a day can make. It was the strangest weather system I have ever seen (and I've seen a lot of strange weather in Oklahoma). In the state of Oklahoma, simultaneously in one day, the northwest part of the state had blizzard conditions, the south part of the state had flood warnings, the southeast part of the state had a tornado, and here in the northeast part of the state, we were having thunder and lightning WHILE it was snowing!! Very apocalyptic!

We had a heavy, wet snow and for a while Scott and I thought our tree in the front yard wouldn't make it because it was literally bent over and touching the ground. I was so sure it would just snap off and break at any moment. Luckily, it made it through ok.

I was actually hoping that the kids would get to experience a little snow this season (not just ice). The only other "snow" we've had this Winter was an inch of sleet (and nothing you could make a snowman with). We all went out while it was still snowing (it seemed it would never stop!) and played around in the snow.

Parker was the first to go out and he immediately wanted to go back inside. By this time, we had about 6 inches of snow and it came up to his knees. Needless to say, he could barely move and it wasn't much fun for him. Morgan loved the snow and she didn't want to go back inside. She and I stayed out a bit longer and made snowballs and a mini-snowman that was about a foot and a half tall (mommy didn't have all day to make a snowman, so we had to make a miniature version). I would say that everyone had a fun time.

This is the kind of snow that I love. The kind that comes on a weekend (when I don't need to drive anywhere) and doesn't interfere with my plans. I can enjoy it and then in a couple of days, it's gone! That's the best!

A Good Ol' Texas Boy

My uncle sent me this link today. My grandpa has been featured in an article for his local newspaper. He does woodcarving as a hobby and he's loves to share it with others.

I remember staying at my grandparents house for a couple of weeks one summer. During that particular summer, my grandpa decided to teach me how to woodcarve. He gave me a little pocket knife and a block of wood with a bird sketched on it. He worked with me and worked with me to show me all of his tricks of the trade. My carving left a little to be desired, but he praised me on what a great job I did. I never forgot that.

My grandpa has many great carvings to his name (that have many admirers). Among them are a set of ice block holders. I don't know how to describe this to you other than it looks like a huge set of plier-type things with chains connecting the handles. It was a tool they used way back when to carry ice blocks in to people's early refrigerators. The cool thing about it is, he carved the whole pliers and chains out of one continuous piece of wood (and it's huge)!! Another famous piece of his is a 2ft+ tall carving of a bull. He carved it out of a wood that is extremely hard (maybe walnut??) and that's what made it so special. You can see it in the background of this picture (it's the large, black woodcarving in the back).



He also carved the now infamous set of working pipe wrenches in all sizes (mentioned in the article... and yes, you can actually turn the screw on each of the wrenches and they will open and close the mouth of the wrench... incredible!!). This carving I'm sure is willed to either my father or my uncle. That's why he would never sell it to anyone... not even the Smithsonian (see article)!



And of course, some of my personal favorites are my grandpa's own little creation. I don't even know what you want to call it, but he carves balls inside of a cage of wood. These balls will move around, but never fall out. Every time I ever attempted to carve one of these, I would find myself with an empty cage... but no ball! This is one he carved for me to hang from the rear-view mirror of my car when I turned 16!



I've learned so much from my grandpa over the years. It still amazes me today what a wonderful storyteller he is. He can make anyone feel right at home with his "Good Ol' Texas Boy" charm! I'm so happy that he's MY grandpa!!

What's In A Name?

I was watching a show with my kids the other day and as the credits were rolling, a name caught my eye and it made me laugh. What was it you ask?? Well, it was Debby Derryberry (sorry Debby if you are the one person on earth who happens to actually READ this blog!). I just had to think that this woman probably was harassed on a regular basis simply because of her interesting name.

I too was one of those uniquely named people. I wouldn't say I was harassed per se, but my name was one that caught the attention of people on occasion. My maiden name was Dayna Abell. Of course I would get the "Dayna is dis-Abell-ed"... or the ever-so-popular... "Dayna... what are you ABELL to do??". My dad had a boat that he called "Ready, Willing, And Abell". So, of course, I've heard that one too! People would always have a hard time pronouncing my last name. I always thought it was straightforward, but then again, I was born with that name and it seemed normal enough to me.

As for my first name... people always want to spell it Dana (or oddly enough Danya... I never quite got that one!). I suppose I can understand that. I mean, I've only met 1 other Dayna who spelled their name the same as mine. As a child I used to hate my name. I asked my mom over and over if I could change it. Don't laugh, but I wanted to call myself Candy. I can just see how that would go over today. Talk about ridicule!! Now that I'm all grown up, I love my name and how it's spelled. It's a little different and I believe that sets me apart just a little from the norm (and that's the way I like it!).

Now that I'm married, I have a new name and a new set of mispronunciations. Karas seems to be another hard one for people to say. I always have to say... "It's Karas... like caraff of wine...". About that time people will look at me like I'm on something and say... "Oooohhhh" (like they're pretending to understand it)!

Oh well, the people who know me, know my name... and that's all that matters right? Because after all, what's in a name?

Today Is The Greatest...

Well, to quote the Smashing Pumpkins song, "Today"... "Today is the greatest..."! It's officially still winter in Oklahoma and it's 85 degrees today (30 degrees above normal!)! Warm weather just makes me feel giddy... like I need to be sipping a cocktail by the pool and listening to some Bob Marley! I even hinted to my husband that he should try to take off a little bit early from work (here's hoping!)...

The kids and I decided to take advantage of the warm weather and play outside for a bit. They love to be outside. Morgan immediately will go out and pick a handful of weeds... ok, "flowers" if you must call them that! Ha! Parker likes to take all the balls we own outside. Bouncing balls. Footballs. T-Balls. Everything! Ahhh... but I love it. That's what being a mommy is all about!

We brought out mommy's special "bubble-gun". It automatically shoots out more bubbles than I could possibly ever blow in my lifetime (and all in a matter of seconds). The kids love it. They run all around trying to catch them. Isn't technology wonderful?

I thought I'd share a few pictures from our time outside in the wonderful outdoors! Enjoy... and I hope the weather is as enjoyable in your part of the world!

Do You Realize??

Well, congratulations to Oklahoma's very own, The Flaming Lips! Their alt-rock song, "Do You Realize??" has been chosen as Oklahoma's State Rock Song!



I read the headlines on my Yahoo page this morning and in the entertainment section, I saw this article. I had heard, about 3 months ago, that there were 10 songs that Oklahomans could vote for as their State Rock Song. As much as I was hoping The Flaming Lips would win, I didn't actually think they would. I mean, if you think about it, this state is not really a haven for alternative bands. The article even said that they received 51% of the votes. That's incredible! Congratulations to The Flaming Lips!

On a side note, a few years ago, The Flaming Lips had a street named after them in Oklahoma City (that's where the band is from). I was able to take this picture of the street sign. This one is located right next to the Bricktown Ballpark in Downtown OKC.



If you'd like to listen to a little clip of Oklahoma's new State Rock Song, click here. If you would like to learn more about The Flaming Lips, you can visit their website.

I Hate Spammers!!

Well, I've been working really hard to get our Karas Family Blog page up and running. I've been trying to "upgrade" the website with things that I may implement on my other web site A Foolish Arrangement (for the band, The Cure). Some of these things are guestbooks, slide shows, being able to leave comments for pictures, and even voting on pictures. I'm trying to build them where they can be used across both sites (so I program it to be somewhat generic... which takes a little longer to do.).

Anyway, I had a guestbook on my Cure website that was free and through a third-party website. I decided it was time I build my own guestbook because I don't like having to depend on other people's code to run my site, not to mention they pop up stupid advertisements, etc.. So, I built my own guestbook and hand-entered all of the data from the old, third-party guestbook and put it into my new one (which took about 3 days to do!).

Long story short... now I'm getting at least 3 spam messages entered in per day. I HATE SPAMMERS!! Spammers have things called spiders or crawlers that go out and search the internet for guestbooks, message boards, blog comment areas, etc. and they have automated programs that can enter their spam in the fields and submit the forms. The more links to their websites that are out there on the web, the higher they are in the search rankings. Now I have to add some sort of a challenge question or something called CAPTCHA images to my guestbook. I'm sure you've all seen CAPTCHA images at some point when submitting a form. These are the words or numbers that are squiggled or distorted in some way and they ask you to enter what you see in the box. Well, this is done to determine that a human is in fact submitting the form. This way a spammer can't automatically submit the form with a program (and so it decreases the chances for spam being entered).

Doing all of this programming for my websites and doing some things I've never done before (like implementing CAPTCHA) has been kind of invigorating. I forgot how much I actually like to program and it gives me a little challenge which I need from time to time.

I hope I didn't bore you guys too much with the technical jargon... You'll have to check out all of the new things I've been adding to the site! Ta-ta for now...

Big Kid Beds!

Well, yesterday we decided to convert Parker's crib into a day bed...

Since the kids share a room, Morgan wreaks havoc when the lights go out at night. She crawls into Parker's crib (maybe because it's a novelty to her) and pesters him for at least a good hour after we leave the room. I'm not sure what she does, but he always ends up crying and his blankeys are all on the floor (and out of reach to him). Morgan also has been getting bruises on her back from her technique of getting out of the crib. So, it was with all this in mind that we thought the benefits would outweigh the negatives and we should free Parker! :)

We bought a 3-in-1 crib/bed system that would convert from a crib to a day bed/toddler bed to a full size bed headboard. We're going to use it as a day bed for Parker until he's ready for a regular bed. At the same time, we had bed rails for Morgan so she wouldn't fall out of her twin bed. We decided that we would put that on Parker's bed so he would be fairly contained, but could still get out if he needed to. We had the best intentions, but unfortunately, the bed rails didn't fit the toddler-sized bed. So, we had no choice but to cross our fingers and hope for the best that Parker wouldn't fall out.

So, we got the bed situations all worked out and the nano-second after we turned off the light and closed the door... the kids were out of bed and playing (not that we thought they would stay in their beds!). They probably played for an hour or so and then finally settled down. At 4am, we hear crying from Parker... he had fallen out of bed. That wasn't such a big deal though. The bed is not too far off of the floor. The reason he was crying was because he couldn't get back into the bed. The stool we had for him to use to get into bed was across the room from the night before when the kids were playing.

Hopefully the kids will get used to their new sleeping arrangements and we won't have to go back to the way things were. We'll see!

Winter Weather!

Well, as some of you may or may not know, Oklahoma was hit with Winter weather both yesterday and today. Yesterday we mainly had freezing rain (which makes a lovely bottom layer on the roads) and today it was mainly sleet (which then changed over to snow). This year wasn't nearly as bad as last year when we lost power for several days. Luckily everything was pretty much status quo around here unless of course you have to drive somewhere (which I don't!). I took a picture of our poor little tree in our front flowerbed. It does not like the ice!



Scott had to stay up at work to monitor some things there (in case the power were to go off), so he's staying at a hotel nearby for a couple of days. It eases my mind to know that at least he will be safe and not trying to brave the roads with the horrible driving conditions.

In the meantime, the kids and I have been out in the snow... eeer... sleet... whatever it is! Morgan has been talking about making a snow angel for the entire winter (I think she saw someone making one on TV or something). I bundled the kids up so we could go outside. Parker looked like the kid from "A Christmas Story" where he was so bundled up, he could barely move! Nonetheless, we braved the cold and went outside. It was the first real time I think that the kids have actually played in snow. Morgan ran out and immediately dropped to the ground and began making her snow angel. Parker just stood there for a while because he couldn't really move in his big jacket (just kidding!). Morgan then started eating the snow and she would take some to Parker and have him try it. There are probably so many toxins in that snow... but... oh well... they had a great time.

While the kids were playing, I attempted to shovel the driveway. The forecasters had said it would stop sleeting by 5 and it was about 4:30, so I thought it was pretty safe, even though it was still coming down as I was shoveling. I shoveled off half of the driveway, but there was still that under-layer of ice that I couldn't get. I was going to wait until morning and put some de-icer on. Well, as I write this now at 9pm, it is still snowing (damn forecasters!!) and all of my work was for not. I guess I'll have to try again tomorrow... ugh!

So, here are a few pictures we took from our Winter-time adventure outdoors!

      

Historic Moment

Well, I feel proud to say that I witnessed a historic moment... Barack Obama is now the 44th U.S. President and our first African American President.



This gives me hope that maybe America is ready to move beyond the color barrier and acknowledge people for who they are and what they can accomplish. I also hope that Obama will help restore America's reputation (especially overseas) that has been badly tarnished over the last several years.

I must say I don't envy Obama's position a single bit. He has a very tough road ahead of him stabilizing our economy. If he can put America back on track, he may very well be perceived as being one of the great presidents of our nation. I mean, if you think about it... can it get any worse?? It will be very interesting to see how his first 90 days in office will shape up. I plan on following it very closely.

For those of you who missed it...



If you would like to read more about our new President, Barack Obama, you can check out these books (written by Obama himself):

The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream

Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance

Change We Can Believe In: Barack Obama's Plan to Renew America's Promise

I have reserved a copy of "The Audacity of Hope" myself and I plan on reading it as soon as it becomes available at my local library.

Potty Training (Do not read if you're bored with mommy content...)

Well, today was a big day for us! Parker went potty on the potty chair for the first time today (and he even went TWICE today... rapture!!)!

Scott was getting ready to give the kids a bath and I asked him to put Morgan on the potty before getting into the tub. She didn't go, but since the kids were already naked, Scott decided he would put Parker on there just to get him used to the idea. Well... to our surprise, he actually went!! Of course, I thought that maybe it was just a freak thing... until he did it AGAIN a little bit later (when big sister was getting ready to go potty)!

I think Parker knows the routine however. For those of you who don't know, we're in the throws of potty training with Morgan. We tried a little bit to potty train her when she was 18 months old. We had a couple of successes, but she just wasn't ready. We started back up when Morgan was about 2 1/2 and she was very stubborn at the start, but then she seemed to get it. Well, after about 3 weeks of success (she would actually come and tell us when she needed to go), she reverted back to having accidents (and no successes). There wasn't anything we could think of to indicate why this might have happened, but needless to say, we've started over again with her.

So, to get to the point, all this time, Parker has been watching us potty train Morgan. Every time she would sit on the potty chair... if she didn't go, Parker would look inside and say "No...". When he saw potty in there, he would say "Yay!!" and then we would go get M&M's or a treat. I think he knows the routine, but I'm very surprised he knows the sensation to make himself pee. It was a great moment to say the least. I just hope we can keep it going! It would make my whole year if we had both of our kids potty trained in 3 months! You have noooooooo idea! :)

PoGo? Ask yourselves why??

So the other day I stumbled across an article that I just had to read... "Polaroid Goes Digital" or something to that effect.



Polaroid has come out with a new digital camera that is supposed to replace their throwback Polaroid camera that would print out pictures on the spot. There was a time and a place when the old camera was cool... say... the 80's (when the alternative was to send your film away to be developed). Today, however, anyone can just print out their own photos when and how they want them. It's just so easy.

So, after reading about the "low-lights" of this camera, I just find myself asking... "Why would ANYONE want to buy this camera??"

You can print about 20 pictures before your battery is dead

It costs $0.50/picture once you purchase the paper (You can have pictures professionally printed out at Walgreens for $0.20/print.)

Prints 2 x 3 photo (But, they can be turned into cool stickers! Insert sarcasm here...)

Grainy photos

Turns flesh-tones green

No auto-focus

Costs $200 (Would you want to pay $200 for a camera that doesn't even auto-focus?)

And the big one... Polaroid declared bankruptcy in December (Will you even be able to buy paper to make the prints??)

Read more about the Polaroid PoGo Instant Digital Camera.

The Oklahoma State Flag

Well, in my last blog post, I talked about the new Oklahoma tags and how the old one featured the symbol that's on our state flag. I started thinking about when I was younger and we were learning about Oklahoma state history. We came to the part where we learn about our state flag and one of our first tasks was to DRAW the state flag. I told Scott that he had it easy with the Texas state flag (it has a red, white, and blue bar and a star... that's IT!). The Oklahoma state flag is just slightly more complex (insert sarcasm here...). Try drawing this when you're 8 years old!



Anyway, I digress... Here's some explanation I found on the meaning behind the Oklahoma state flag.

The Oklahoma state flag honors more than 60 groups of Native Americans and their ancestors. The blue field comes from a flag carried by Choctaw soldiers during the civil war. The center shield is the battle shield of an Osage warrior. It is made of buffalo hide and decorated with eagle feathers. Two symbols of peace lie across the shield. One is the calumet, or peace pipe. The other is an olive branch. Crosses on the shield are Native American signs for stars, representing high ideals.

To read more about the Oklahoma state flag, Click here.

New Oklahoma Tags

A couple of days ago I was driving home and I saw the new Oklahoma car tag. Apparently the new tags went into effect on January 2, 2009 (for anyone replacing a tag or purchasing a new one). I didn't think the old ones were too bad. It was short and sweet and to the point (it just had the symbol that's on the Oklahoma flag in the middle of the tag).



The new tag features a photo of a sculpture called Sacred Rain Arrow by a Native American Oklahoma artist named Allan Houser (1914 - 1994).



Here is a photo of the original sculpture, Sacred Rain Arrow.



I haven't decided whether I like the new tag or not. I do like Allan Houser's work, but I'm not sure that I would necessarily use it to represent all of Oklahoma. I mean, a large part of our history is Native American in origin, but I would not use that alone to define what Oklahoma is all about. We're much more than that.

Anyway, that being said, Allan Houser really is a fantastic artist. I'm a University Of Oklahoma graduate and I remember taking a Native American Art class where we studied his work. In fact, OU has several pieces of work by Houser all over campus. Here are just a couple that really stood out to me.







To learn more about Allan Houser, you can visit the following links:

www.allanhouser.com

Wikipedia - Allan Houser

Bummer...

Well, Oklahoma lost the big National Championship game last night. It was an evenly matched game after the first half. The rushing and passing were about the same. The number of turnovers for each side was the same. And the score was the same (7-7). At this point, I thought we were doing pretty good and I thought it could be anyone's game to win. We came very close on two other occasions to scoring some points. We were within 5 yards of the goal both times. Once we tried to run it in from the 1 yard line on 4th down. It was stopped. The other time we passed from the 5 yard line. It was almost caught at the 1 yard line... then it was bobbled and intercepted. So, had we been able to score on both of those drives, I might be talking about how we won the National Championship game! Ha!

Anyway, it was a good game. Kudos to Florida. Maybe we'll get it next year!

BCS National Championship Game - #1 OU vs #2 Florida

Well, the big day has arrived! The BCS National Championship game will feature my alma-mater, Oklahoma University vs. Florida. It should be a great match-up! There are two fantastic quarterbacks, Sam Bradford (Heisman winner this year) and Tim Tebow (Heisman winner last year). Also, both teams have high scoring offenses. OU's offense scored over 50 points on average and Florida's offense scored 42 points on average. The only place I have some concern is our defense. They really have been kind of lax this year. We're going to have to step up if we want to match up to Florida's high scoring offense. I'm really excited to watch the game. Hopefully it will be a good one...

A friend of mine e-mailed me a couple of weeks ago to rub it in that he was going to the big game. He sent me pictures of his tickets. At least if we all can't go, maybe we can live it vicariously through someone else... Ha!



Enjoy the game everyone! Boomer Sooner!

I've Started Painting Again...

I decided to dust off the old oil paints again. I'm not sure why I stopped in the first place... maybe life got in the way (the holidays, etc.). I asked Scott if he would mind watching the kids for one evening during the week so I could have some time to paint. I decided to make Tuesday nights my painting night (mainly because that's the day when I don't have any shows on TV that I watch... I know, pathetic huh?).

I had two previous paintings that I was working on from a long time ago. Both of them are abstract paintings. The first one was just a good way for me to get started mixing colors. It's a painting that is basically just a grid of colored squares on canvas. It looks pretty cool after I got the first layer of paint on there, although it's a little disjointed right now and I need to figure out how I'm going to pull it all together and make it cohesive. I'll try and take a picture of it and put it up here.

The second painting is also disjointed. This is a prime example of why you need to plan out your paintings before you get started! On this one I was anxious just to jump in and I ended up having a good idea at the start and then I just kept adding more to it until I didn't really like the results. I'm going to keep working on it and see if I can salvage it, but I would say this is definitely a "learning" type of painting. It definitely is not looking like it did in my head when I started the painting! Click here to see the painting (it is the 4th oil painting I've started).

Finally, I started worked on a new painting. I was inspired by this picture of a cobblestone street taken in Paris.



As you may or may not know, I love Paris. I fell in love with it when Scott and I went there on our honeymoon. I wanted to try and do a non-abstract piece and this photo just spoke to me. So, we'll see how it goes. I started the painting last night, but I'm sure I'll be working on it for quite a while.

After I painted for about 4 hours last night, I was tired, but I was incredibly refreshed. There's something theraputic for me about painting. I forget about the daily grind and I'm able to immerse myself in something creative. I may not be that great at painting, but I sure love to do it!

A Trip Down Amnesia Lane...

Well about a million years ago (ok, maybe like almost 25 years ago) there was an entertainment mecca where every child wished to go. It was called Showbiz Pizza place. I was lucky enough to live down the street from a Showbiz in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Because it was kind of on the expensive side at that time, we only were able to go there on special occasions like birthdays, etc.

During my entire lifetime, I can remember having only 1 birthday party and it happened to be hosted at Showbiz. I remember that it was my 11th birthday only because I got a rockin' cassette tape of Starship - Knee Deep In The Hoopla (1985)(Insert sarcasm here.). I also remember that someone bought my brother and I a glass collectors mug. My brother got the Billy Bob mug and I got the Mitzi Mozzarella mug. After about 10 years, my brother broke his mug and was very upset about it. I on the other hand, still have mine which I proudly flaunt to him. I use mine to have a cold brew from time to time (that's probably wrong on so many levels!)



Anyway, for some reason that place held a certain magic for us kids. On the main stage there was an animatronic band called the Rock-A-Fire Explosion that consisted of Mitzi Mozzarela (Vocals/Cheer Squad??), Duke LaRue(Drums), Fatz Geronimo (Keyboard), and Beach Bear (Guitar). There were also two side stages that showcased Billy Bob Brockali and his little sidekick Looney Bird (Billy Bob was supposed to be the star of the show) and Rolfe DeWolfe and Earl Schmerle (who were like the comedy act I guess). We would always try and look under the curtains to see what was really going on back there...



Looking back, the animatronics are pretty choppy and horrible, but back then it was state of the art. I recently read in a copy of Rolling Stone magazine of all places that since Showbiz went out of business (it was bought out and replaced by Chuck E. Cheese), individual collectors have been aquiring the Rock-A-Fire Explosion band sets and re-programming them to play whatever music they want them to play. The person the article spoke about actually programmed the band to play a song by Usher which is just sacrilege to me! I prefer to remember them back in their prime...



To read more about the magic that was Showbiz Pizza Place, check out this hard core fan's website.