aMiE Mentality...

Friday, June 10, 2016

Yummy!

Mexico Chiquito's Cheese Dip

1 stick of butter
4 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon ketchup
a dash of salt
2 cups milk
1 pound Kraft American cheese (the real kind), cut into cubes
Melt butter in a saucepan. Add flour and stir around until flour loses its raw taste, about 2 minutes. Add the remaining ingredients including the milk. Then add the cheese. Stir until cheese is melted.

Monday, May 9, 2016

Mother’s day 2016

Mother’s day, typically a day to recognize mothers. A day for presents and love and hugs and kisses.. so many of us go out to dinner and celebrate a special mother..

I think yesterday was one of the best mother’s days for me. Don’t get me wrong all of the past mother’s day with big gifts or small have been great. However, yesterday my kids and husband truly gave me the best gift. To see there little eyes all on me to open my special gifts, gifts they had carefully thought (and perhaps fought) over. My sweet little 9-year old man could not wait for me to open his package. He had been so eager to hide the fact he had something special for me. As I opened, the package and found a bracelet, one he told me all about. “It has pink cause that’s your favorite color and I know you have pink stuff to wear. It has peach too cause last year your bracelet was peach/pink”. Then I had to open the card. It was a sweet card telling how much they loved and cared for me. Then my sweet 14-yeare old daughter with her crazy rose gold colored hair handed me a large candle and a night gown. All eyes on me to smell the candle and let them know if I thought it smelled good.. of course it did but even if it had smelled of dirty feet I would have said it smelled great. They followed me all over the house to make sure I lit the candle put the gown out for the evening so I could sleep in it and put my bracelet up so I could be ready to wear it today (I did of course). My husband told me the story of how they walked all over the store to pick out items. Returning to the candle aisle 2-3 times.

What’s so great about a bracelet, night gown candle and card… well nothing really it was the way they were so determined to keep it a secret and how they all wanted to make sure I loved my gifts.. funny thing, I love them and their actions more than any gift. The love they showed and the excitement they had to give their Mom a gift meant the most.

I think sometimes we get so wrapped up in what we get or didn’t get we forget to really feel the moment and take in all the love our peeps give us..

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

What's Wrong With Cussing/Swearing?

This post is NOT for those under 18 without consent of a caring adult! It took way to long to write, but I wanted to get it just right!

I am 'cusser' or you could say I use 'swear' words. There are a few words or phrases I don't use but for the most part I do, my favorite one starts with an F, I mean you can really use this one in every way possible... you can check that out here.

But I have never really understood WHY some people are offended by cussing... So I decided to try and find out, I mean what really is the big deal... I found the below lists at http://www.cusscontrol.com/swearing.html and found some other other stuff at http://carm.org/cursing :

Swearing Imposes a Personal Penalty
It gives a bad impression
It makes you unpleasant to be with
It endangers your relationships
It's a tool for whiners and complainers
It reduces respect people have for you
It shows you don't have control
It's a sign of a bad attitude
It discloses a lack of character
It's immature
It reflects ignorance
It sets a bad example

Swearing is Bad for Society
It contributes to the decline of civility
It represents the dumbing down of America
It offends more people than you think
It makes others uncomfortable
It is disrespectful of others
It turns discussions into arguments
It can be a sign of hostility
It can lead to violence

Swearing corrupts the English language
It's abrasive, lazy language
It doesn't communicate clearly
It neglects more meaningful words
It lacks imagination
It has lost its effectiveness

I have educated both of my kids that cussing is not a "sin". But anytime I slip they get on to me. So in front of them I try to hold my tongue, but to be really honest... WTF??!? Aren't I just falling victim to the he-who-must-not-be-named scenario??

Why Swear?

http://harvardsciencereview.com/2014/01/23/the-science-of-swearing/

So, if taboo phrases are cultural “no-no”s, why do they persist? The simplest answer is that in certain situations swear words and taboo phrases have their uses: mainly to evoke a strong negative reaction from someone. Speech perception is nearly automatic in mature individuals (Pinker, 2007). Try this: don’t think of an apple. Did you think of an apple anyway when you read the word “apple”? With swear words, your mind immediately drags up whatever offensive combination of denotations and connotations are associated with the word in question when you hear it. These make swear words powerful insults and forceful descriptors of the nastier aspects of things we may not want to think about.

Swear words are also useful and effective ways of conveying that you feel very strongly about something or of inciting strong feelings in someone else, even when used outside of their traditional definitions (Jay, 2009a; Pinker, 2007). Saying that something is “bloody amazing” does not mean that that thing was literally bloody, but adding the term “bloody” to the phrase gives it extra emotional emphasis. The attention-grabbing qualities of the swear words used in this task make it especially difficult (Pinker, 2007). In a similar experiment, the use of taboo phrases in a word-location task increased subjects’ ability to correctly remember the location of the word (Mackay, 2005). Swear words effectively stir up strong emotions and grab our attention.

However, swearing is not always about evoking negative emotions; swearing itself can also be a cultural phenomenon. The willingness to break a cultural taboo in front of others creates an atmosphere of informality and sense of community. If taboos are defined by the greater society, an environment where subverting those taboos is acceptable creates a smaller, more intimate society inside of the greater society (Pinker, 2007). Another interesting use of taboo language is as a cathartic experience, a way of expressing and alleviating pain, frustration, stress, or regret (Jay et al. 2006). A classic example of this would be shouting “damn it” after hitting yourself with a hammer while trying to nail something down. Interestingly, studies have shown that, when compared with people who do not swear frequently, frequent swearers also tend to have lower pain tolerance (Stephens, 2011). Swearing was also shown to increase the ability of subjects to tolerate pain (Stephens, 2011). All of these uses contribute to the propagation of swear words and taboo phrases in language, despite their inappropriateness in certain contexts.

In the end I will continue to swear (cuss) because I have a Voldemort / "he-who-must-not-be-named" kinda philosophy... if you make it taboo you continue to give it life, if you don't people tend to accept it. My reasons for cussing are truly only used for informality and sense of community, I never want someone to feel 'outside' and that comes from many forms of language.

Till next time... aMiE

Thursday, January 8, 2015

A New Year 2015...

Well its a new year...

I started this blog a few years ago, and I have NOT been very good at keeping it up to date. This year I have committed to myself that I WILL post once every 7 days, minimum.

Not that, my thoughts or knowledge is of any use to anyone, but hey it gets stuff off my chest anyway! Hopefully you’ll have fun reading it...

That said... Welcome 2015...

aMiE

Friday, October 31, 2014

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