Cheryl Beckham

Today is December 1st, the beginning of the the last month of the year 2008. The first of the month always brings the task of paying the majority of the house hold monthly bills for me and what a bummer it is this last month of the year to see what little is left to use for buying the Christmas gifts that we find are so necessary to give each and every year.

I didn’t brave the Black Friday shopping frenzy, that isn’t something that I’m into at all. Just thinking about the whole horrible process involved in that event makes my stomach uneasy and gives me a head ache.

This year, now that I know how much I have to play with, most of my shopping will be done online. This is something that a good amount of people are doing and I intend to be one of the statistics for this year. No crowds, no parking issues, no rude sale associates, no lines, no freezing my buns off outside and sweating to death inside all the stores and no holiday music being drummed into my head that is being played in every store in the country.

I hate to hear and see on the news about today’s pirates, they really have taken pirating to an embarrassing new height with technology and all that it and other new tactics, have to offer these guys.

Today a story was release about a group of Somali pirates demanding $25 million from the Saudi owners of three small ships anchored some where off the Haradhere, Somalia coast. One of the ships is holding crude oil that is being know being the “big prize”, and the pirates have all ready collected $4 million so far!

I wouldn’t want to be on the “high seas” in this day and age, a whole totally different kind of game is being played here, with all of the new technology that anyone can get their hands on and use to their advantage, and we are living in the age of nuclear access, wish scares the *%&$@# out of me!

Tomorrow is the beginning of another school year for my 12 year old daughter, I am finding it hard to believe that she is now a 7th grader and is in middle school, and what ever happened to calling it Junior High School anyway.

Seeing that she lives with her Dad and he leaves for work earlier than her bus arrives, I volunteered to pick her up and drive her to school for the first few days, until she feels a bit more sure of herself, being a new school and all. She is such a shy one and she is very nervous about the whole thing, I wish I could go with her and make sure everyone is nice to her, I’m sure their are millions of mothers (and fathers) who feel the same way. Kids can be so incredibly cruel and I just hate thinking of anyone being mean and/or nasty towards her in any way. This is one wonderful little girl and is full of such goodness and humanity, she has the soul of an old Native American woman and deserves nothing but the best!

It’s late, I just got off of the phone with her, making sure she has everything that she needs and has it all ready to go for in the morning. Seems that they had to make a run to the store today to get her a new alarm clock and now she is all set to go. Hope she sleeps well.

I actually got up on water skis and managed to hang on for a good 5 minutes or so, this has been a long time a coming. I went for a week end visit at my brother’s summer beach house, where he has all of his water toys at hand and we had ourselves a blast this time around, and the weather was perfect the whole time for a change.

I have always enjoyed water sports, swimming, boating, rafting, fishing, tubing, but have never been able to get myself up and out of the water each time that I have attempted to water ski, so this came as a big surprise and helped end the summer on a high note! And one of my nieces got the whole thing on video to be shown, I’m sure, during one of the family holiday season get togethers that will be here soon, ugh…

A couple of friends and I stepped out last night for a bite to eat and afterwards we went to see the recently released movie WALL-E  at the mall. Since we went to the last showing of the evening, we all were pretty much still full from our late dinner, so no one went crazy with the popcorn and candies, or their $5 sodas, which helped keep the cost to a minimum. These days none of us can afford to splurge much on extras like that anyway.

The film turned out to be animated and mainly geared towards children. This film possessed a not so subtle theoretical prophecy of the future in hysterically exaggerated terms, with an underlying sub-plot of a sort of the “lone survivor”, “wrong side of the tracks working stiff”, falls for the “top-of-the-line” classy, highly advanced, come to save mankind and got no time for silliness, fembot! A kind of love affair between robots. That in itself is a hoot! None the less it was quite unlike any animated film I had ever seen before. You just have to chill out and laugh. So, in my book, ’twas well worth the time and money to be seen on the big screen. Pay attention to minor details all through the movie, and you’ll not only laugh your ass off, but may find yourself giving some thought to things you’d previously paid little attention to.