Carol's random babble

In response to this article , I left the following comment: We are getting to the point where we might as well wrap our children in cotton wool and put them on a shelf. The latest thing in the U.S. is choking danger from foods. Hot dogs, grapes and popcorn are listed as some of the more dangerous foods. There is talk of labeling foods or even redesigning them to lessen the danger. Guess what? Adults choke on food, too. I can see this going two ways: either we (society) teach people to cut foods up for small children and teach children to properly chew their foods, or we all get food processors and chop our foods into itty-bitty pieces so there will be no choking danger. As far as letting your child walk to school, when do these people think the children will be old enough? Are they going to accompany their adult children to job interviews (I've actually heard of this), escort them on dates (in case the other party is a serial killer) and generally hold their hands for the res...

That's how many days our school system has lost because of bad weather. It's ridiculous. They are going to make the school days 30 minutes longer for a few weeks to make up three days (I think it's 11 longer days to make up one missed day.) They are also going to take a couple of scheduled teacher development days and turn them into school days. And the school year will end (a week?) later than originally scheduled. My question is: Will Iowa Central Community College have to make any changes because of snow days? I've got three Flexnet classes (and I'm behind), and a couple of extra days would be handy. ;-) I also have a regular class, and I'm sure we're behind where we would be if not for missed days.

I received my advance review copy of "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls" today. I'll be reading it and reviewing it. The review will be posted on March 3. There is also a giveaway held by Quirk Books. Yay for giveaways!

I didn't sleep well at Mom's last night. Sleeping in a recliner is more uncomfortable than I remembered. I tried sleeping on the floor when I woke up around 6:30 a.m., but that didn't help. After Mom got up, I stayed up for awhile, then tried sleeping on her bed on top of the covers. I probably would have slept better there, but I had a weird dream that wasn't very restful. Anyway, I've got to get ready for work and clean off my car. It's the car at the left in this picture:   Looks like fun. :-(

Again. Sigh. I'm not sure I can summon up the enthusiasm to take and post photos ... we'll see. I guess I'll be staying at Mom's house tonight and either come home Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. Kent will stay with the girls while I'm gone. Plus, he has my old car, so he can get around in town. UPDATE: I don't know how the road are tonight, but I was told that the road crews would stop plowing at 6 p.m. So I'm at Mom's tonight. I'm doing this so I can work tomorrow. I can't afford to use my vacation days up this early in the year. I saw this road grader off the side of the road on P59 as I was coming to work. You know if the road grader/plow runs off the road, road conditions aren't good.

It's a 1999 Toyota Camry LE with nearly 225,000 miles (should reach that today or tomorrow). It needs a new windshield and new struts, but it was cheap and runs good. It looks like it has plenty of room in the trunk for Mom's Rollater. It's got a stereo with CD, with removable faceplate; a sun roof; and remote start (yay!). It should get lots better gas mileage than my old car.

is the story of my life. I should be on my way to work, but need to get ready. I wanted to quickly change my blog theme to something more fitting for February. I did manage to update the NaBloPoMo badge, but when I tried to go to The Cutest Blog on the Block , I keep getting an error message. Just tried it again, it seems to work. UPDATE: Changed the theme, it looks okay. Now I've got to scramble to get to work.