A day of Love....

  So it's February 14th.  Valentine's Day.  Before moving to Europe, I, probably like most Americans assumed (making an ass of U and Me) is International.....Not so.  Like many people have said before, it's a commercial holiday, fabricated by Hallmark and the likes to make money in between holidays.

 Turns out, "they" were right.  Valentines Day was something pretty much non-existent here in the old Eastern Bloc 7 years ago.  Within, I'd say, the last 3- 4 years Valentine's has started catching on, with people opting to spend money they really don't have on a fabricated American Holiday.  Don't get me wrong I absolutely LOVED getting flowers and chocolates, and or a nice night out which included, dinner and a movie.  But, now, I'm older, and detached from American sentimentality, I've realized I don't need one day out of the year to remind me to tell my husband how much I love him.  He doesn't need it either.  Neither of us ever needed it.

  Yes, Valentine's Day is nice.  It's nice and great to get away from the house, the dog, cat, kids, and just BE adults.  The adults you were before marriage and parenthood took over.  But really every married couple should have Valentine's Day at least once a month.

  Women, especially stay at home moms, need that time to feel like an adult woman.  As a SAHM, I can tell you, we want to be dressed and have our hair and make-up done for our husbands when they come home, but chasing kids and animals around all day kind of puts a hamper on doing that.  We don't like to be the "nagging wife" who says, I need you to do that, and fix this when you come home after a long hard day at work.  We want to listen to you and your problems and issues, offer our two cents when and if it is needed.  But we also want to have you listen to us.  To look at us and see us as that beautiful girl who took your breath away, not the vomit covered house wench we think (and in reality do) we look and smell like.

  So in my mind, EVERYDAY should be Valentine's day, especially for us married couples, with little people still occupying our houses.  So with that said, I would like to wish, my husband, my own personal Funny Valentine, Marius Toma, a very happy and very beloved Valentine's Day!

Social Media, or Social Criminals?

  Okay, so my oldest, a 13 year old of the female variety has begged me and her father for her very own Facebook account, to which we both said NO!  Not just No, but the 'HELLO NAW, the Lawd Gawd would hav ta come down out da sky and command us to give ya skinny behind permission' type no!

  I trust my kids to a point.  I'm not naive (I had to spell Evian; as in the bottled water company;backwards there); teenagers are sneaky, I was one not too long ago.  Okay yes it was many moons ago, but my memory is still in tact.  Hell, I was one of the sneakiest kids you'd ever meet.  Had every parent I met fooled, with the exception of my "Auntie Mom".  Yes that was a play on the Rosalind Russell character.  My actual mom wasn't really around, so my Aunt (dad's sister) filled in as mom after my grandma died.  Any who, I remember what it was like to be 13.  We thought we knew it all and that our parents were complete imbeciles who had fallen off of the proverbial turnip truck yesterday.  I mean hello!  They like music by Bobby Darin for cryin' out loud!  And now, my kids here me jamming out to Radiohead and are like, WHAT IS THAT?!?

  So back on point.  I and my better half explained to our  taller than me daughter......yes, she is taller than me by 4" and 1 shoe size,  that the world is full of crazy people!  We showed her a video of an adult guy who with parental consent, set up a fake Facebook account, posing as a 14 year old boy, who contacted these girls, and set up meetings with them.  ALL 3 of these girls agreed to meet with him.  They thought they were meeting a boy their own age.  Our daughter said she would allow us to check her page, etc.  We gave her a trial run, letting her use MY Facebook to message friends.  She was in the house on my android, while me and hubby sat outside at patio table on the tablet, and watched as she chatted with a boy, and quickly deleted messages thinking we would NEVER see them.  We busted her then and there. Tears were shed by both her and hubby, cause well, it surprised him that she was being sneaky....me, not so much!

  To drive our point home about crazy people, I also noticed she had befriended and messaged a Disney Europe star.  This singer/actress was actually responding to my daughter.  I pointed out to my daughter that celebrities have pages, but they NEVER respond to private messages like this one was doing, that this was probably some sicko who was saying, "Oh I would love to be able to perform in your town, but I'm already scheduled to be in 'such and such' city on that holiday"  This starlet is from Spain, so why would she be performing in Romania, on a Romanian Orthodox holiday?!?  That was another point I made......sorry got sidetracked.....I've noticed I do that  in my writing not just verbally!   Hmmmm....

  I went on to explain that, perhaps not immediately, but eventually this "starlet" would message saying, "Hey, look I've got a gig in X city, I'll be passing through your little village at this time on this date.  Why don't you tell me where to meet you and what you'll be wearing, and I'll pick you up and you can come to the show with me, stay backstage, and we'll drop you off after.." She'd run down thinking she's been hand-picked, that's she special in some way to this person, and then she gets picked up not by the "star" but by some HUGE, ugly men, who will take her out of the country and sell her as a slave to some God-forsaken country where horrible things will happen to her.

  Part of her believed me and was scared, but I could see that part of her thought I was just being "mom" and making stuff up to scare her.

  I guess my point is that, perhaps I am paranoid.  Maybe I'm crazy, and should be medicated, however with all the messed up stuff I see on the nightly news from all over the globe I seriously doubt it.  I'm probably to most normal, most rational person on the planet!  Not literally, but ya know, compared to those running things, uhhhh, Yeah, I am!  I don't understand why parents let their kids under the age of 17 have unfettered access to the internet.  It just completely baffles me!

  Ok, my dog is barking at something, probably a fox out in my vineyards.....GOD I miss the 2nd Amendment!  I'd give anything for a rifle and scope!

♪♫ Baby, It's Cold Outside ♫♪

So Snowstorm started here Saturday night around 10:30 p.m. GMT +2.  At first it was melted as soon as it hit the ground cause it was only 3 degrees Celsius.  Well it is now Monday, I'm not sure exactly how much snow was dumped on us from Saturday until sometime early this a.m.  But I've got snow drifts in excess of 7 ft. high.  It's not snowing now, but the wind is blowing at around 50 km/hr with gusts up to 70 km/hr.  in the roads the snow is at least 2 ft. deep.  Roads throughout the entire "state" or county of Tulcea are closed.  Schools are closed today and tomorrow, and will probably be closed Wednesday as well.  My kids are getting cabin fever, they keep asking if they walk the 1 km down to the store, for what I have no clue, as we don't need anything.  But I don't go out in this unless it's to grab more wood for the fire, or to shovel the snow from around the house, especially the front door.

  Snow completely covered my bedroom windows this morning.  It was kinda cool the way it stuck, cause it looked as if it had been swagged.  But I had to get out there this am.m and clean it off.  I don't like this kind of weather, especially where I am out in the country.  The reason, local officials are NOT at all worried with cleaning the roads to make them passable, especially for emergency vehicles.  The laws clearly state that they must do that, but don't.  2 years ago, we had a similar snow storm and at around 1 in the morning my neighbors house caught fire.  Fire trucks couldn't get up to the house to put out the fire because the roads were impassable.  She lost nearly everything.  That scared me, cause what if it had been a medical emergency, like one of my kids severely injured????  My oldest is now bigger than I am.  I'm about 5'4", she's 13 and 5'7".  I weigh about 115 lbs, she's probably right around 100 lbs.  I would not be able to carry her through 4-5 ft. snow drifts, 1 km downhill to meet an ambulance at the main road.  There are several older people up here on the hill around me, what about them?  We all pay our taxes, so what are they doing with the money?  It looks like government officials all have new cars, nice homes and or apartments, which are completely renovated to be modern, with new shiny furniture, and nice new clothes.

 Perhaps I shouldn't have bought a house on country roads you might say, but why should I be denied rights, because I loved the house, and the property and the exquisite view of the Danube I have?!?  Like I said, we pay our taxes, we have no back taxes or unpaid bills anywhere, well, I'm a little behind on getting my water bill paid, but only because I generally can't find anyone in the office when I go to try to pay it.

  Anyway, rant over, snow is pretty and all that, but dang it makes country life hard.  Once it starts to warm up, and the snow starts to melt, it's gonna be UGLY!  I'll be dealing with mud for a month or so.  So basically I will not be able to drive to my house till probably late March or early April!  Ugggghhhh......gag me with a spoon.

  Okay, so rant wasn't over, but it is now.  If you're reading this from my home state of Louisiana, I'm jealous!  Eat some crawfish for me will, ya please?!?  If you're in a cold, snowy climate like me, sorry.  Stay inside where it's warm, cause Baby, it's cold outside!