Snap 2 Twitter FAIL

Snap 2 Twitter is a pretty cool app I downloaded on my blackberry. It allows you to take a pic with your phone and then tweet about it and upload all in one step.

Except.

I just was on twitter seeing what the pic tweet I just sent looked like(Kimberly's little stuffed dog on the pony wall with a creepy note). Followed the little mini url to my pic. It totally worked, pretty cool, but then WHOA!!! There is a pic on there that looks like cleavage or ass cheek or something. No wonder I've had so many new twitter followers this week! They think I'm some porn twitterer or something.

And the picture. Yeah, totally my knee. Took it by accident. So totally not porn. Totally didn't mean to post it.

The problem is the minute you snap a pic it goes to this Snap 2 Twitter app. Gives you the option to "save and tweet" or "save only". You have to hit save only in order to go back and delete the accidental knee pics. Apparently I hit save and tweet by accident.

Don't bother going to look for it now, I deleted it.

How to parent a teenager

If you are looking for an answer you are not going to find it here. Look me up in 10 years and maybe I'll have a clue. Right now what I have is a girl who just turned 13 and not a freaking clue of what to do with her. I'm swimming in self doubt and totally scared that I'm screwing up royally.

She is still screwing up in school. Despite my best efforts, grounding, taking away all her cool stuff, lectures on why she doesn't want to end up a drop out, etc., she still managed to fail two of her classes last quarter.

I really don't get it. She's really smart so it's not a matter of the subject matter being too hard. Plus she's really super responsible about other stuff. She cleans her room, does her chores, helps with her sisters. Why can't she do her homework too? I have a really hard time punishing her because 98% of the time she is an angel. She's just doesn't give a crap about her grades. I don't get it.

I don't know what more to do to motivate her. Last summer I started paying her for babysitting her sisters. She gets paid per hour whatever her GPA is. I explained that if she got straight A's that would be worth a bonus dollar for a total of $5. Right now she's earning a whopping $2.33. I tried explaining to her that this is just like life, the better you do in school, the more money you can make. One quarter this year she had a 3.o, but now we are back down to 2 and change.

I asked her to write an essay on the importance of education citing at least 6 statistics. What I got back was an essay on why she "thinks" the high school she wants to go to is superior to the one she is going to attend. She totally didn't read the explanation of the rankings she was citing and got it completely ass backwards.

I get that this last quarter has been an emotional roller coaster for her. First we have to move, and end up in a different high school boundary than where we started, then we try to keep her in that high school by applying for two different programs that would allow her to stay (she doesn't get accepted to either), followed by not making the cheerleading squad at the one she is going to attend. I totally understand how craptastic that is for a 13 year old.

HOWEVER. We now live in a nicer neighborhood. The high school she is being "forced" to attend turns out more college bound kids than the other one. It's students consistently score higher on the state standardized tests. I'm totally not brokenhearted about her having to go there. She doesn't care at all about any of that though, she just cares that all her friends are going to the other school. And in true 13 year old drama queen form, she is POSITIVE she will NOT be able to make ANY new friends at the new school.

I am left confused with how to proceed. On one hand I want to spoil her with fun stuff this summer to cheer her up since I know in her 13 year old mind she thinks her world is ending, on the other hand I want to ground her for the whole summer for getting two F's, and bottom line, I have no idea if EITHER strategy will improve anything.

I had my chance..

and didn't take it.

What you ask?

My kids are going to a new school next year. This whole moving thing has thrust us into the boundaries of a different school and despite my best efforts the kids will not be able to stay at their old school. Budget crisis' suck, but that's a whole other post.

Leaving our previous school prematurely ended my term as PTA Vice President. I could have gone to the new school and pretended I didn't know what a PTA was. I could have laid low, bought my catalog crap and cookie dough, and left the work to some other sucker. But NOOO.

The day after school ended I went to the new school with the kids withdrawal paperwork from the other school and got them all signed up. She took me and the kids on a tour of the school and I got a little giddy about all the cool things they have at this school as opposed to the old one. It's a technology math/science concept school and beyond awesome. As I was preparing to leave, I heard myself say "so how do I get in touch with your PTA?".

I wasn't planning on asking about the PTA. Where those words came from, I have absolutely no clue. The very nice office lady took this opportunity to tell me that the newly elected PTA was short a few officers, a VP, treasurer, and secretary to be exact. Yeah, they're just short 3/5ths of their board. They NEED my help. And so it starts again.

I don't know why I can't just run away from the PTA. I've spent eleventy billion hours this last year alone doing PTA stuff. I should be a little burnt out on it by now. It's not like I have an excess of time on my hands as is evidenced by my lack of blogging for the last month. I have other things I like to do with my time and PTA cuts into that, but I still can't seem to walk away.

It's like Stockholm Syndrome, even when I have the chance to leave, I don't because I identify with my captors. I feel bad for them. They NEED me. So I have a meeting next week to meet with their two members and compare notes. To tell them all about what I know that works and to find out what they are planning. I'll probably end up involved.

The fact is, I like being on the PTA. I like the Principal knowing me by name. I like not having to show my ID when I pull my kids out for a doctor's appointment because the staff knows exactly who I am. I like it when the teachers take the extra bit of time to listen to my concerns because I'm the one that hooks them up with money for field trips. I like that my kids know that I value them and their education enough to give my time to get involved. I like the fact that they, and all the other kids, get to have cool things like Holiday Shops and Carnivals that I put together.

I'm pretty sure if I don't do it, nobody will. The fact that this board only has two out of five members just goes to show that not many people want to devote their time to a job that only pays in kid's smiles. This has been my experience with every school my kids have ever been to. The same eight people show up to every meeting and the other thousand parents take the attitude that someone else will do it. I want my kids to have the things that the PTA provides, and I'm willing to work to make sure they have it.

Tattoo

A long long time ago, on my first wedding anniversary, my husband and I celebrated by going to get tattoos. He chose a baby blue hammer head shark on his shoulder and I got a gecko on my leg. I teased him mercilessly about his cute little baby blue shark. It really wasn't very manly, and it was small. Like cover it up with a quarter kinda small. I liked my gecko but the artist had messed up one of it's feet so it had this whole "one of these things is not like the others" think going on with it's feet. Lesson #1 of getting a tattoo, check around and find a good artist, just don't walk into the first shop you see in Hollywood that doesn't have a wait. Lesson #2 a good shop will have a wait if you don't have an appointment.

Several years later we were at a party for our friend Mike's 30th birthday. Mike was a little drunk and said "Hey I think I want to get a tattoo". Of course we were all kinda shocked especially since Mike always hassled his wife over her tattoos that she had gotten before they had met. She was sure he'd sober up a little and back out, but figured if he got one he'd have to stop complaining about hers. So off we went in the middle of the night to get Mike a tattoo. He ended up going through with it and my hubby came home with his little baby blue hammer head shark covered up with a big very manly black shark.

Fast forward to my 30th birthday. We were in Vegas, such a perfect place to celebrate, and I wanted a tattoo for my birthday. I wanted to get something on my lower back but didn't know what. We ended up at Ironhorse Tattoo which came highly recommended and of course there was a huge wait since we hadn't made an appointment. We waited and waited and the whole time I was looking at all the pictures I still couldn't figure out what I wanted. Hours later when it was finally my turn I decided that before getting another tattoo I wanted to get my gecko fixed. So I did. Here is the end result.

Notice the matching feet. Ya. Good stuff. A good tattoo artist makes all the difference.

In the years that followed my hubby has added two more tattoos. One on his forearm and one on his calf. I still have not gotten my lower back done. At this point I really don't want the "tramp stamp" as it's a little overdone. A couple of years ago I decided what I wanted was stars. I saw a couple of different star tattoos and really liked them. I also saw a couple of tattoos that went down the side of the ribs and really liked that too. What I really want to do now and have been decided on for about a year is a trail of stars that goes down my right side, around my back, and ends on my left hip. It's a pretty big piece and talking my hubby into it has been a challenge. He's not that into lots of tattoos on girls. Especially his girl.

Now I don't want a bunch of dark black stars all over me. Don't want to end up looking like a leopard when I'm 80. I'm going for subtle. I'm thinking white and just the outlines of the stars. It's going to be cool. I like the idea of having a huge tattoo that nobody will know is there unless I decide to show them. I think it's kinda funny that most people who meet me think I'm very conservative when I am in fact pretty crazy. Even with the tattoo on my leg, most people don't notice it because they aren't looking for or expecting to find a tattoo on me. I've almost got the hubby talked into it. We got some star stencils and I'm going to get a white eyeliner pencil so we can draw it on and he can see my vision. I think he will see that it won't be that shocking even though it will be pretty big. Then I can finally go do it. I'm pretty excited.