Parents, do you know where your teen is? 

Better yet, teen, do you know where you parents are?

What is going through the mind of these teenagers that go around, stealing, vandalizing and creating crime?  Once again tragedy has struck our city again, caused by teens taking the life of a workingman.  I’m thoroughly disgusted by it!

What are they thinking?  I was a teen once; never in my widest dreams did I ever think to steal a car, beat another person or shoot them!  Heck, I wouldn’t even know how to fire a gun or where to find it!  I just don’t understand what is going through their minds. 

When I was 15 I think my biggest concern was my hair and clothes and what music I had on tape.  Now these kids are running around helter-skelter, killing, thieving and causing the rest of society grief.   Don’t they every think of cause and effect?  Do these crazy teens not realized that they will have to live the REMAINDER of their life knowing that they killed a man?  What a heavy burden to carry.  And all of this hurt and devastation occurred out of plain old stupidity. 

I strongly believe that these kids know the difference between right and wrong, but why do they do the wrong?  These seem to know they have the system beat and that they are protected by the Young Offenders Act.  But what happens when they are 18 and still doing this crap? Still nothing, our great judicial system does nothing.

All of this violence and crime is a terrible thing and it tells me a few things about what is going on in society:

Parents are not accountable and responsible for their kids.  Why are 15 year olds running around the streets at 15 years old?  They should be at home, behind locked door and under the care of their parents.  Parents, why do you NOT know where your kids are?  Too busy?  Then UNBUSY yourself!  These are your kids! Why would you let them run around?  If you, as parents, won’t look after your kids who else do you expect to look after them? WAKE UP! Control your children! 

Kids have too much!  They have too much money, they have too many toys, they just have too much stuff all together! Parents give them everything! Why do they need all of the latest gadgets given to them and have others beat them up and steal.  There are MANY people who have survived perfectly well with out the iPod hanging from their left ear and the cell phone from their right while wearing the latest fashions, jewelry and perfumes.  None of those things help a person to survive and grow up!  People, STOP enabling these kids to have EVEYRTHING!!  Look at what’s happening!  These brats don’t have an inkling to the value of a dollar.

These kids have no structure.  How many of these car-thieving kids have household chores to do?  Or even an afterschool job? I bet not one! The kids aren’t accountable to anyone and neither are the parents.  They’ve had no structure; they’ve never been told what to do and made to do it!  They can’t even show up to court on time for the crime because they are out trying to steal another car to get the courthouse!  Doesn’t that make you MAD????

I’ve had it hearing about the horrible nasty beasts of kids growing up!  I’ve never been one to feel it be necessary for boot camps and harsh prisons.... but now that’s all changed.  Throw them in jail, make them work, show them what they have to do to survive in life, make them be thankful that they have a roof over their head!  Give them bread and water in prison!  Better yet, don’t take them away from the accident, crime scene and hand them back to their unaccountable parents.  Make them stick around, see the physical damage they done to their surroundings and persons they’ve harmed.  Let them see the families of those that they’ve hurt emotionally and scarred for life. Let them see the pain, the heartache, the struggles that they put people through.  Really show them what their actions have caused.  No one seems to show these little criminals that. 

What is it going to take for society to turn around?  Why should we have to fear to walk down the street, to drive or park our cars that we work hard for?   Why do we have to continually shell out our hard earned dollars to fix, replace and repair all the damage these brats of have caused us? Don’t say a tragedy because there have been far too many of those already.

So... it’s been a little while since I’ve sat down and updated my blog.  Perhaps that means that I don’t have a very exciting life..... or things are so crazy that I don’t have time to write.

Well things have been busy.... but really not all that exciting.  Christmas and New Years went well.  We had a house for of people for both days with great food, company and drinks.  Greg even made it on TV to talk about our New Years Eve party to talk about having a safe party for our guests and being responsible with alcohol.  It was Greg’s 2 minutes of fame.

Since the holidays we have been trying to recover and catch up on rest.  Does one ever catch up on rest?  Well, I think that we have some wishful thinking as we plan to do a little resting in on the sunny beaches of the Bahamas!!!!   I can hardly wait!  Warm sun! White sand! And warm relaxing waters!  When I close my eyes I can almost feel myself there.... ahhhh...... it will be great!  Nothing is better in taking a swim in salt water.

This was a last minute vacation decision.  We saw it in the paper and had to take up the offer.  Besides, the last time we got a holiday from work was our cruise last year.  It’s about time and we are ready for the get away.  That means the summer will be spent at home in the yard... just where I like to be.  And a few trips out to the lake during the summer will be just fine with me.  Perhaps Greg and I should plan a camping trip this summer.  The Whiteshell is one of the better places to go, but I think I will make those plans after the snow has melted. 

 So, less than a month from now I’ll be sipping cool drinks while soaking in the warm sun!  

This past weekend as a pierogie making weekend! The Hasse clan had their assembly line working hard on a Sunday morning.   It’s been a year since the family had been together to make the wonderful tasty treat.  Our freezers were empty and our tummies were craving therefore we had a day of hard work a head of us.

We start with a giant bowl of mashed potatoes with melted cheese, onions and butter... it’s cooled and we roll it into potatoes balls.....mmmm.... it’s so tasty just like this, Jillian would agree as she would sneak a few potato balls in her mouth.

Then comes the dough, rolling it thin with a pasta machine, s ee how everyone is working so hard.... rolling... rolling and  more rolling.....

Then there is the cutting...  placing the potato balls into the dough and cutting it into those recognizable half moon shapes.

Even the kids try to help.

 Hey try not to look so HAPPY Doreen!

Then comes the best part... the perogies are boiled and smothered in gobbs of butter...

There is nothing better than the hot buttery perogies... right Hillary??

Hopefully we will have enough pierogies left over for Christmas... I better hide them from Greg! And in all of this... Troy, where were you hiding?

Dance Dance Dance... that’s what we did on Wednesday night.  Greg signed us up for some dance lessons at our local community club.  I was all shocked when he did it, and I’m surprised he agreed to it.  But now I have to write about it.  I’ll probably get burned at the steak for the things that I say about it because it was so darn funny. 

To start, Greg signed us up for Latin dancing lessons.  We are learning Salsa, Merengue and Cumbian dances.  I have never taken a dance lesson in all my life and I have always wanted to do something like that.  Now, thanks to Greg’s generosity I’m doing it. 

I must say, Greg is an awesome sport for taking part in this because he has a huge handicap when it comes to music, beat, rhythm and tone.  Essentially he can’t feel the music or duplicate it in any way, shape or form.  I feel sorry for him because he tries so hard and yet he just can’t get it.  And I admit he tries hard, if I want to dance he will dance with me... I even caught him moving to a beat one time while he was cleaning up the bedroom.  It was the cutest and funniest thing I ever saw, I also scared the crap out of him because he didn’t know I was watching.

So here we are in a room, a bunch of couples learning to Salsa.... left foot, right foot, left foot.... 1,2,3, pause, 5,6,7...quick, quick, slow, quick, quick, slow... ya not so hard when doing it by yourself.  But adding in that partner... jeepers!  I thought after the first ½ hour   that was going to be it, Greg is going to quit!  Me...I admit I was bad... . I can’t stop giggling because he looked like the squeamish girl trying to jump away from that creepy crawly spider! I tried to be kind and not laugh... but I couldn’t help it.  But as the evening went on he got much better.  As they say, practice make perfect. 

The last ½ hour of the night we did some Merengue dance.  It’s easy.... but for the guys... well it definitely looks ridiculous because there is a lot of hip swinging.. and how many guys out there like to make their hips go pop, pop, pop when they dance?  Not too many.  Well when Greg started this... that was it, I cracked.... he looked cute... and yet sooo funny.. I’m still laughing about it.  I couldn’t help myself but giggle.. (this is why I will probably be burned at the steak, I shouldn’t laugh at him).  But he put in sooo much effort and we really want to make this work. 

I think that we have 6 or 8 weeks of dance classes left.... I can't wait to see what next week brings us.  It's either going to be more giggles or graceful moves that will impress the both of us.  Only time will tell.  Maybe Greg has been secretly practicing and will have some fancy moves....... A girl can dream, right?