Manses: All Are Welcome

Most kids go through a phase when they love action figures. But my husband and his siblings created a unique name for action figures that has been passed down to a new generation of children.

Manses.

Man + zes

I've studied every possible etymological evolution that could have led us from action figures to manses, and finally determined that manses means multiple action figure men who have little regard for grammar.

Or something like that.

And in case you are wondering...the singular form of the word manses, is mans.

But just like nearly every other word in the English language, (and many of the made up words my children have subsequently added) manses has morphed to mean more than just it's initial meaning. Apparently the manses have a fairly inclusive club.

This is a whole group of mans...hence they are called as a collection "manses". There are many of them. They are all strong and manly. Sort of.

This mans is actually the leader of a faction of intelligent robots. He can transform into a tractor trailer rig. He's earned the title of mans, even though he's not human because of his willingness to protect all forms of life. Also, the position of Robot Ambassador needed to be filled quickly.

This is a ninja. He is also a mans. His enviable stash of weapons makes all the other manses jealous. Luckily he's willing to share a nunchuk or two with other manses who've had their weapons suffer any untimely vacuum cleaner death.

This is a bad mans. Nobody really wanted to let him join the club, but bad guys are hard to come by, and he proved sturdy when he was tested for initiation by the infamous "little sister chew toy" test.

This is in fact a shark.

None of the other manses have the heart to tell him that he doesn't belong.

This one is actually a girl. There was an issue with gender equality...so she had to be let in. She spends most of her days lobbying for a name change. She's torn between
Wo-Manses, and SPAWM (Society for the Protection of Action Women and Men). The group votes in November.
Even Tom Selleck managed to get in.

This mans had an unfortunate training session with The Thing. He's really lost a lot of his swagger.

But, his other half has proved much more resilient since the accident and is really beginning to get ahead.

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Because He Knows Me So Well...

Tonight, I realized that I had promised the kids that they could take their lunches to school tomorrow. A quick look in the pantry revealed that unless the kids wanted to take rice or instant gravy mix, a trip to the store would be necessary.

I drug my feet, flailed my arms, and complained loudly to the dog about having to go grocery shopping when all I really wanted was my soft pillow and a cozy effortless novel that I'd almost memorized the words to.

Have I ever mentioned that I'm married to Prince Charming?

He swooped me up in his arms, carried me out to his gleaming silver charger of a mini-van, and turned a late night run to the grocery store into a laugh-fest.

And as we waited in line to check-out, he even slyly turned over the only remaining copy of Martha Stewart Living so that the impossible to recreate crafty elegance wouldn't tempt me into a guaranteed disappointment. I returned the favor by pretending that there were no white chocolate candy bars in any of the checkout lanes.

I had to laugh at how much fun I had on our atypical mini-date. 12 years of marriage down, with an eternity that I'm looking forward to.

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Tagging Photos

Every now and again I get a few minutes to myself. It's a rare enough occurrence that sometimes it takes me 2 1/2 minutes to realize those minutes are there, but it does happen.

This morning I had five minutes, and I decided the wisest use of my time would be to empty my memory card onto my computer, hoping that at some point in the future another five minutes would allow me the chance to actually view the photos, then later edit the photos, eventually share the photos, and maybe by the time my children sell my home, pilfer all of my stuff, and enroll me at the local retirement home...I'd eventually find five minutes to print those now vintage pictures for practical use.

I believe in setting long-term goals.

I plopped my memory card into the computer slot only to be greeted by this window.


Apparently my computer was giving me the option to tag these pictures so that they would be easier to find later on in the decade when I'd be given some more time to work with them. Excited by the chance that this might actually save some of my precious free time in the future, I thought long and hard about what tags would be best for this group of photos.

I had to use the one picture as a visual clue as to what moments I'd been trying to capture with my camera.

In this photo, we see my husband giving a long overdue trim to our son's hair. He's wearing his church softball t-shirt. A t-shirt that was accidentally ordered 2 sizes too small, and was further shrunk by his wife's superior laundry ability. In the background of the photo, there's a nice shot of our not-yet-clean electric grill, and a stack of stuff that needs to be filed.


And I still had 1 free minute to use the bathroom.

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5 Minutes

3 Bags of Orville Redenbacher Tender White Popcorn ($2.99)
+ 5 Cans of Store Brand Orange Soda ($1.00)
+ 1 DVD of The Backyardigans with episodes never previously viewed by your children ($11.88) =

5 uniterrupted minutes before someone pegs his brother with popcorn, causing said brother to spill soda all over the baby and the carpet, causing the baby to knock over the entire bowl of popcorn, causing the popcorn to turn orange and soggy, forcing everyone in the house to burst into tears = still blissfully worth it.

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Second Cousins (Once Removed)

Second Cousins (Once Removed)

My second cousin, once removed, is a special friend of mine
She walks with me...
she talks with me...
And all around us the world starts to shine.

My second cousin, once removed, looks like me, I guess.
We've both got fast legs.
We've both got bright eyes.
And we're too busy to notice the rest.

Her Daddy's Dad is my Daddy's Uncle, and vice versa, I think.
Sorting out cousins
can be lots of work,
but I know that we all interlink.

No matter how many times removed, I know she'll be there for me
'cause second cousins,
even once removed,
are faithful, friendly, and free.

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