Anyone from the Texas panhandle likely knows the name Brian Deneke. What happened to him, back in December of 1997, made an unforgettable impression on me. Last night while surfing our TimeWarner Cable iControl fare, my husband and I discovered an A&E report titled "Amarillo." If you have TimeWarner Cable or A&E, I highly recommend looking for this program. The Texas panhandle is a unique place with a very distinctive culture. Agriculture, religion, extreme conservatism, and high sch...

At my boys' school the week leading up to Halloween is always dress up week. It's so fun, and since my youngest is in school now, I have two little boys to dress up! Monday was Sports Day where the kids wore sports jerseys. Tuesday was Pajama Day, and the little one loved wearing his flannel Spiderman pajama bottoms to school. He even asked if he could wear them to school again sometime. Wednesday was Wacky Day, and I let the boys handle it themselves. They both went to school wearing...

I just saved a bunch of money...and NOT by switching to Geico! I'm so excited! And it's really sad that this is all it takes to excite me. I got an email from gap.com with a promo code for free shipping. This alone is very cool. That's a savings of at least $6 on my order. So, I went to the site and looked at clearance kids clothes (NEVER buy full price GAP kids clothes, ever), but they mostly had winter clothes and the summer clothes they did have are still overpriced. Bummer....

Yesterday Adrian installed an air conditioner in the living room. Today we put up the Halloween decorations. The strange thing about this place is how your body adapts to the climate. I suppose it's the same in other places, too, but I haven't been other places, so I don't really know. It doesn't get too hot here. Temperatures rarely exceed 90 degrees (highest recorded temp for Honolulu was 95). It doesn't get very cold, either. Lows are usually in the 60 degree range (53 was the...

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh! How do I always manage to do stuff like this? I was getting a jump start on bill paying today...I like to go ahead and set up the payments before payday so I don't forget and end up paying something late. So, I entered my amounts, set the date for payday, and clicked submit. Or so I thought. I forgot to set the date for my phone/internet bill...so it went with the default option. Today. The bill is being paid right now. At this very minute. And this...

Each year I become more and more disappointed by the quality of books offered to children. Movie and cartoon and toy character merchandising has become a virus that has infected every part of our children's lives, including their literature and learning tools. Sure, reading SOMETHING is better than reading NOTHING. And sure, these merchandised versions of books make reading fun or more interesting to children. However, these types of things are like the sugars and fats on the food g...

I wanna play poker. I've never actually played poker before, and I'm pretty unfamiliar with the rules. I watched a little 'net cartoon on Texas Hold 'Em, and what I got from it is that each person gets two card that no one sees. They bet on those cards, then another card is put face up in a "community" deck. Bet again. Then another card, bet again, etc. until there are four "community" cards face up on the table. Players then use their cards and the "community" cards to make t...

I think most of you know my name. Brandie. B-r-a-n-d-i-e Brandie. Not Brandi. Or Brandy. Or Brenda (yeah, I've gotten some of THAT too). I don't know if my name suits me. It's a weird thing to think about, but I do think about it from time to time. To me, 'Brandie' is a slut name. It's popular, but not incredibly popular, and my spelling is just rare enough that no one in the universe can spell it right. I was supposed to be 'Brandy', but my great-grandmother told my mo...

Listen up, mainlanders... Just 'cause you put pineapple in it, doesn't mean you've created a Hawaiian dish! You put pineapple on your pizza. So what? Now it's Pineapple Pizza. It AIN'T Hawaiian Pizza, and I don't care what Papa Johns says. Your chicken dish has green bell peppers and terriyaki sauce and pineapple chunks. It's not Waikiki Chicken! It's Terriyaki Chicken with Pineapples and Green Bell Peppers! Yeah, yeah, the pineapple symbolizes hospitality and aloha...but it ...

Xavier is a very industrious child and very interested in justice, in our household and elsewhere. Therefore, it only made sense that he would come up with a very detailed discipline chart and request that Adrian and I implement these new rules that he'd worked so hard to reason out. The top of the chart has drawings on him and of his brother, each with five stars (with boxes for check marks above them) that lead to a drawing of a piece of candy labeled "treat." Five instances of go...

So I've been called a flirt. I don't mean to do it. I don't even really consider it flirting. It's just being friendly and chipper. Hell, I do it with women, too. What is flirting? Is flirting wrong when you're in a committed relationship? Is THIS flirting? My husband and I are in Blockbuster, looking for the movie Holes. I am in an aisle alone, and I look up to see a friendly looking Blockbuster employee. He smiles and asks, "Is there anything I can help you with?" I smi...

Men, have you spent many a sleepless night wondering exactly what numerically quantified value you are to the opposite sex? Women, do you wish you could give your man a report card? The solution is finally here! It's the Male Scale, a scientifically proven method to rate a man's attractiveness, sensitivity, and usefulness, and for a limited time, it's yours free! To use the Male Scale, simply answer the questions (men answer for themselves, women answer for their husbands or partners) a...

Wouldn't you like to sleep in this bad mofo? It's a couple of years old and has lived through some rough "missions," but I still think my boys' bunk bed is just about the coolest thing ever.

This might have been one of my favorite fourth of Julys ever, and that's something, coming from a Texan. We had a spectacular view of the firework display from the boys' playroom upstairs. We opened up their window and gathered around and watched the fireworks. It was incredible. It was so nice to be together as a family, with the boys chattering excitedly and Adrian running his hand over my back as we took in the view. The fireworks were just...wow. Red, white, and blue. Purpl...

It's been said that my house is boring. Tortuously boring, even. With that in mind, I have come up with a humane alternative to Gitmo. Our terrorist's day will start at 7:30 am, when he crawls out of his bed (which ironically, is a bunk bed that looks just like a military vehicle, you'd just have to see it), and searches through his drawers for clean clothes. He'll find clean underwear plus a t-shirt or shorts. He'll never find both. Mr. Terrorist will have to come down the stai...