All Rileyed Up

I can only award one Perfect Post, but I have three posts I’d like to recognize. Little No Limit has graciously offered her time and artwork to these bloggers.

Here is a bird, who might be saying “Behold my incredible wingspan!” or perhaps “Hear ye! Hear ye! My daughter has something to say about Jebediah Springfield” or possibly “I am the Dread Pirate Roberts.” I don’t actually know what he’s saying, but I bet Mary would be able to find out with her stealthy listening skills, so wonderfully displayed in this post about a conversation she eavesdropped. (Note to self: never discuss indiscretions around Mary :p)

This is either a shield or a man’s awkwardly-shaped face, and clearly on fire. I bequeath this artistic masterpiece to Heather of The Extraordinary Ordinary for her post, The Fire, an interpretation of the Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego story and how it applies to her life.

I think part of walking through the fire involves handling confrontations, which I am massively bad at. I wouldn’t say I avoid all confrontations. When push comes to shove, I do manage to summon the courage to face the conflict, but it is a long hard road to get there and performed most unwillingly, often while avoiding eye contact.

I would really prefer my children both take after Husband’s ability to confront an issue. He steps up and says it like it is. Little No Limit appears to be taking after him, though her conflict resolution tactic these days is to cry, which simultaneously cripples Husband and fires me up. The Boy, though, oh, my sweet boy. I do worry.

Edj at Planet Nomad echoes my feelings on conflict resolution. Here is an excerpt from her post, and my choice for an October Perfect Post: “I want him [my son] to be take-charge and stride-forth, while maintaining that basic kindness and consideration that comes so naturally to him. I don’t want him to get taken advantage of. I wish we could choose which parts of our make-up get passed down to our offspring. (And would we choose to pass on what they would choose to receive?).”

In addition to the fancy little October Perfect Post button, I also bequeath to Edj this masterpiece:

I call it “Portrait of a Conflict-Riddled Parent”

For more Perfect Posts, visit Petroville and Suburban Turmoil.

This post also contributed to Magic Marker Monday.

Do you ever have any favorite commercials or commercial memories? When I was younger, I used to love the commercials for music compilations where they played bits and pieces of songs.

I especially loved the one for the novelty answering machine messages, which had a “rap” message that went “You gotta WAIT FOR THE BEEP! Ya gotta leave yur name, ya gotta leave yur numbah – WAIT FOR THE BEEP—(and then the machine beeps).” They also had one to the tune of Beethoven’s Fifth that went “Nobody’s hooome, Nobody’s hooome.” And in case you’re wondering, I never bought that tape. I just remember that kind of inane stuff.

The novelty music fun continued in college, when my friends and I were up late and some commercial came on for country songs about fishing. They had a song called “I Lobster and I Never Flounder.” And let me tell you – I don’t know when I have ever laughed like that (I won’t lie – we were not sober).

And how ’bout those SuperBowl commercials? Do you remember the one where the old guy paints Chefs on the football field instead of Chiefs? Ha! That was awesome. I don’t remember the product. I think it was Snickers. Something about got some extra time on your hands? Have a snickers. Because that makes complete sense.

My absolute favorite commercial, though, is for New Orleans furniture store Frankie and Johnnie’s. Ask anyone from New Orleans about this store, and they will say one of these things:

“I say I say!” “See the special man!” “Let ‘em have it!” “Noooooooo problem!”

Here is a commercial I found on YouTube. I beg you to watch it. You will not believe it, but it’s for real. This one isn’t quite as classic as the one with the older Special Man who wore a hat and I believe smoked a cigar. But the free chicken makes up for it. I think that was a limited time offer.

Anyway, I’m talking all this talk about commercials because I read the most delightful post at Storm of Thoughts about her little girl love for Cheerios and her dream to be in a Cheerios commercial.

I only just found her blog the other day and while I don’t normally up and award a Perfect Post to a blog I’ve only started reading, I couldn’t help myself.

Hope you enjoy it!

For more Perfect Posts, visit Suburban Turmoil or Petroville.

By the way, in case you didn’t know, the Perfect Posts are only going to go on until the end of 2008. Then - poof! – they’re over. You will get the opportunity to award what you consider the BEST POST EVER. Have fun thinking about that one…