Mishmash Musings

John Edwards and Rudy Guiliani both announced that they are dropping out of the Presidential nomination race, leaving their respective parties down to two contenders each.

Edwards, a Democrat, said that he is essentially moving out of the way so “history can blaze its path” — though he stopped short of endorsing either Obama or Clinton. He will now turn his attention towards fighting poverty, a cause that has become closely associated with his name.

Here is the full text of Edwards’ statement from New Orleans:

I began my presidential campaign here to remind the country that we, as citizens and as a government, have a moral responsibility to each other, and what we do together matters. We must do better, if we want to live up to the great promise of this country that we all love so much.

It is appropriate that I come here today. It’s time for me to step aside so that history can blaze its path. We do not know who will take the final steps to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but what we do know is that our Democratic Party will make history. We will be strong, we will be unified, and with our convictions and a little backbone we will take back the White House in November and we’ll create hope and opportunity for this country.

The Republican Giuliani had no reservations about casting his lot with one of the other candidates. He endorsed John McCain as the man “most qualified” to lead the United States, calling the Arizona Senator an “American hero.”

Giuliani’s full speech wasn’t available on his website at the time of this posting, otherwise I would have included it here as well.

These latest developments certainly make things more interesting for Super Tuesday. I can’t wait to see what happens next week!

I read an article last week that I just have to share with you. It’s about a stage show called “Mortified”, where participants read their teenage diaries, journals, or other writings in front of an audience — usually to the tune of uproarious laughter.

Why would anyone want to mortify themselves in this way?

According to comedian Matt Harawitz, the answer is simple:

I think it’s a catharsis to be able to laugh at yourself and then laugh at what you used to be. It feels great.

Apparently, people all over the country feel the same way, because “Mortified” has been playing to sold out audiences everywhere. In fact, the success of the stage show has led to the creation of a companion website called getmortified.com, where people can publish their own tales of teenage angst and woe.

I don’t know about you, but this is not something I’d be able to do. I don’t think I have any of my teenage writings left anyway, but even if I did, there’s no way I’d be able to read them in front of a live audience.

Sure, I can see the therapeutic value in being able to laugh at yourself and acknowledge that you’ve come a long way since high school; however, I can’t imagine doing so in front of a huge group of strangers. Yikes!

It’s an interesting concept though, so check out the site for yourself!

Because my husband and I come from diverse ethnic backgrounds, we currently have family members on no less than three different continents. It’s been a priority of ours to visit relatives as often as possible so our son will have a chance to meet everyone, but at this point it’s pretty clear that we’re going to fall well short of that goal.

It saddens us to think that our son will never get to know some of his great-grandparents, aunts, and uncles, so we’re thinking of putting together a family tree to document his ancestry as best we can. Towards that end, I’ve been checking out TribalPages.com, and think it’s one of the top genealogy resources out there.

TribalPages.com makes it easy to research and build a comprehensive family tree dating back several generations. There are several family tree formats to choose from, and I can even include photos if I wish.

This looks like a fun and useful site, so I’m going to go sign up for a free membership at TribalPages.com today!

I’ve been paying more attention to this year’s primaries than I have in the past because there’s no clear-cut frontrunner in either party. So I was particularly interested in how the South Carolina primary would turn out for the Democrats, especially after a week of intense sparring between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Major news outlets are now reporting that Obama is projected to win this crucial state, as he has an estimated 52% of the vote to Clinton’s 28%, with 57% of precincts reporting.

John Edwards is projected to finish a distant third with 20% of the votes — a disappointing result considering the fact that he was born in S.C. and won the state during his first Presidential campaign 4 years ago.

On the Republican side, no winner has been declared yet, as the results are still too close to call. John McCain reportedly has about 33% of the votes, while Mike Huckabee is right behind with 30%.

Mitt Romney is way back with just 15% of the vote.

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been afflicted by some pretty bad PMS symptoms in recent months. I’ve tried just about every over-the-counter remedy I could find at Walgreens, but nothing provides me with long-lasting, substantial relief.

The longer this continues, the more I’m convinced that I have a progesterone or estrogen imbalance that’s causing all of these problems. I’ve been checking into some products that can help with this, and am ready to start buying some.

I just want to end the discomfort, the mood swings, the irritability — and I’m sure my family is ready for some relief as well!

I had my monthly orthodontist appointment this morning. I had a few different adjustments done, the most noticeable of which was putting a special kind of archwire across my top teeth to help promote the kind of movement my dentist wants to see.

I was kind of in a hurry today, so I didn’t pay much attention to the explanation, but from what I gather, the wire is called a T-wire (or T-bar, maybe?). It loops in the shape of a “T” across the bigger gaps I have in my teeth because of previous movement, and is supposed to help close the gaps more quickly than standard archwire.

The T-wire will move help move my teeth in two directions, back and to the right. The backward movement closes the gap, while the rightward movement will get my “midline” where it’s supposed to be.

Yes, I’m in a lot of pain right now and the T-wire is ugly and noticeable, but I’m looking forward to making significant progress here!

Many mainstream news outlets are still giving significant coverage to the Heath Ledger story. Since no new details have surfaced regarding the cause of death, most of the reports are now focusing on Ledger’s family members and friends.

For example, last night’s news featured video footage of Michelle Williams, Ledger’s ex-fiancée, returning to the Brooklyn home they once shared. Williams had 2-year-old daughter Matilda in tow, and had to be quickly ushered into her house to avoid the paparazzi and news crews.

I bet they wish they had a row of collapsible bollards or other security barriers set up around the entrance to keep the cameramen at bay!

After that scene last night, I wouldn’t be surprised if Williams ordered her bodyguards to go to TrafficGuard.net and buy some products to control all the foot traffic around her house. That way, she and Matilda will be able to come and go without worrying about their every move being recorded by paparazzi and replayed on the evening news.

Well, if you haven’t heard this news by now, then you’ve been in a remote cave or something. Australian actor Heath Ledger was found dead in a Manhattan apartment at about 3:30pm yesterday. He was just 28 years old.

There has been massive coverage of this story, but there’s still not much solid information forthcoming. Preliminary statements from the police indicate that Ledger might have accidentally overdosed on prescription drugs; however, no one will know for sure until after the autopsy — which is scheduled for later today.

I’ve never counted Ledger as one of my favorite actors, and have only seen a few of his movies. Even so, I was still pretty shocked after hearing this news. I guess the reason is that he just didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would meet his end at the age of 28, surrounded by prescription pills.

The tabloids are filled with pictures of other celebs drinking, doing drugs, and living a much harder lifestyle. If any one of those people suddenly died, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear about it.

But Ledger just seemed so different that it’s all a bit hard to take in right now.

My thoughts and prayers go out to Ledger’s family in Australia, as well as to his 2-year-old daughter Matilda, and Michelle Williams, the mother of his child.

I had a bad day today from beginning to end. I woke up about 45 minutes late, which threw off my entire morning schedule. I was late getting my husband off to work, and didn’t even bother to take my son to preschool. So then he was home with me all morning, and was whining about not having anything to do, meaning I had to try entertaining him at the expense of not getting any work done.

Things deteriorated from there, as I just lost all motivation to complete the tasks on my daily list. To top things off, I didn’t do any housework, nor did I cook dinner.

I essentially had a day off without getting to enjoy it as such because I felt guilty about being a slacker the whole time.

This is one of those evenings where I want to run a hot bath, play soft music, light some candles, turn off the bathroom lights, and just sit there for an hour, not thinking or worrying about anything.

Isn’t it crazy how 45 minutes can end up throwing an entire day out of whack?

Last week I successfully completed my first Tuesday Project of the year, which was to organize my office desk drawers. It took me several hours to go through everything, toss out the junk, and put the remaining papers, supplies, and other stuff in order.

This time around, my project will be to create a weekly dinner menu for my family. This project is a bit different because it will be ongoing (I want to do it for each and every week, not only this one), but hopefully I can manage.

There are a couple of good reasons I want to create a weekly menu. First, it will help me buy the right ingredients when I go grocery shopping on Sundays. As things stand now, I usually end up going to the store several times a week to pick up a couple of items that I need for dinner. That’s obviously a big waste of time and gasoline, so I want to cut that out.

Second, by having dinner planned and the ingredients on hand, we’re less likely to go out to a restaurant. Sometimes when it gets to 5 or 6pm and I haven’t started dinner yet, I just give up on it completely and ask Jerry to grab some takeout before he comes home from work or tell him that we’re going out to dinner. We spend a lot of money that way, so hopefully this will help our monthly budget.

Anyway, I’m just going to plan six simple meals, and then a nicer one for Sunday dinner.

Let’s see if this works!

I nearly had a heart attack a bit earlier. My husband came home from work and said he’s going to go shopping later tonight. He then asked me if I needed any body shop supplies since he has to pick up a few things for himself.

Now here I am wondering why my husband is suddenly interested in shower gel and loofahs, but he set me straight pretty quickly.

He’s not going to that Body Shop; he’s going to pick up some tools so he can work on his motocross bike!

Do you remember how I posted earlier this month that an old high school classmate of mine is currently an Associated Press journalist?

Well, I decided to reach out to him, so I emailed him a quick note to say hello and to tell him that I was proud of him. He wrote me back and thanked me for looking him up, and we’ve been catching up ever since.

I really liked this person in high school, so I’m genuinely happy that we’ve reconnected a bit. I hope our correspondence continues well into the future because I could really use a few old friends right about now!