Wow!

What a lucky girl I am!  

I was featured today on FTLOB!  One of the greatest & most fun blogs on the web!  

Thanks ladies!  

You can check out my featured post here!

UPS sucks giant balls

Last week I ordered party supplies for Emma’s birthday party.  She’s having two this year.  A combined one with her cousins who are all two weeks apart and another for just her preschool friends.

The party with family is a Knights & Princesses theme and Tori found a dragon pinata online at Party City.  Perfect!  The kids can slay the dragon!  I offered to order that and some princess plates and thank you notes.  Since I was ordering that stuff I went ahead and ordered the Strawberry Shortcake stuff for her friends party.

I knew the box would arrive today so all day I’ve been anxiously awaiting.  When we got home from preschool today I went searching in my office for something and I heard strange noises coming from the side yard.  The kids in the neighborhood have been breaking into our neighbor’s backyard so they can pick the oranges off our tree.  Echo barks like mad at them.  However, I didn’t hear barking though I could hear what sounding like someone climbing on the fence or shuffling around.  I peeked out the window and saw Strawberry Shortcake party supplies strewn everywhere.

WTF.

The asshole UPS guy put the box in our backyard.  With out giant dog.  Ignoring the sign on the fence door that says ‘Beware of Dog’.  And he had to have ignored the dog barking because she barks when someone gets even close to our backyard.

WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?!?!?!

In my heightened hormonal state I do the only thing that comes to mind and call up Ray to cry and curse at the UPS man.

Then I got online and tried to find a number to contact UPS.  Did you know that it is literally impossible to speak to a human being on the phone who works for UPS?  Unless you have a friend who works for UPS and you call them at home.  I’m not exaggerating.  There is no option to speak to an operator or customer service.  You can track packages, schedule a pick up or buy supplies, but you cannot speak to a human.

So I file a claim online.  Four times because each time I finish the form and hit submit I get an error message that the process is temporarily unavailable.  Plus, I can only enter in 3 damaged items and I have so much more than that.

Emma took the news rather well.  She followed me outside to retrieve the box pretty happily.  When she saw the damage she exclaimed ‘My Strawberry Shortcake party!  Oh no!.  Maybe getting a dog wasn’t such a good idea. I don’t think it was such a good idea to give the box to Echo.’

No baby, it wasn’t.

RT Booklover’s Convention

What do you think?  Is it worth it to drive 6 hours down to LA to spend 3 hours wandering around checking out 400 authors and their books?

I kind of think it is.

Saturday, April 9th the RT Booklovers’ Convention meets up at the Westin Bonaventure.  There’s workshops and panels, like Comic-Con, but for book enthusiasts only.  Really though, I just want to go to the book fair part that goes on from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m.  But Ray definitely doesn’t want to go with me.

Booooooo.

Check out the lineup for the YA authors!  Richelle Mead, Cassandra Clare, Kelley Armstrong, Melissa Marr…nuts and crazy man, nuts and crazy.

You can get scheduling info here.  Let me know if you’re interesting in taking a road trip with me!

yes, i too was shocked and surprised

I read a lot of books and have probably read well over 1,000 in my lifetime so far.  Generally I stick to the same genre (romantic suspense or psychological thrillers and government conspiracy types) but sometimes I’ll branch out when I feel like I’ve run out of books to read.  Reading Twilight opened up a whole new genre that I really hadn’t tried before, YA Fantasy and YA Fiction.  I was surprised to find how much I enjoyed the fantasy genre in YA though I’ve only just now started an adult fantasy book.

Sometimes in my branching out I’ll read something rather reluctantly because either the hype surrounding the book drives me to a frenzied state of curiosity (thank you spell check as I would’ve sworn curiosity was spelled cursiousity) or because the guilt of not reading some classic breaks me down.

And some of those I’ve finished and thought to myself ‘Self, you were right.  That was not your kind of book’ but sometimes I’m just in love with it and rather surprised at myself.

This may be revealing more than I should about my taste in books (or rather lack thereof) but I’m going to tell you anyway.  These are the books that surprised me the most.

I can’t even remember when I read this one, but I know I was pretty young when I did.  At this point in my reading career I was obsessed with Dean Koontz & Stephen King.  The idea of reading a 1000 plus book that wasn’t It didn’t really sound that appealing, but I really wanted to watch the movie and even then I was a firm believer in reading the book before seeing the movie.  I devoured the book.  Scarlett was a brat, of course, but she was captivating and for some reason, against better judgment you rooted for her.  I guess what was even more surprising was that I loved Scalett by Alexandra Ripley just as much as I loved Gone with the Wind.  Oh, and the movie … the best.

In college I read this one as an assignment for my Asian-American Lit class.  To me, any book that is assigned is doomed to fail on my like-o-meter.  Amy Tan’s masterpiece wasn’t one of them.  While not Chinese myself I felt a kinship to Jing-Mei “June'” and her love-hate relationship to her more traditional mother.  I was intrigued and horrified at the lengths the women of the club went through to make their way to the United States.  I learned things I never knew before about a culture that I had grown up somewhat exposed to.  The book haunted me and stuck to me like very little else ever has in such a way.  It started my love of Gail Tsukiyama’s Chinese and Japanese based books.

At first I balked at reading this mainly because of the little sticker claiming Oprah loved it.  Now, I think Oprah is fantabulous, but she and I do not share the same taste in books, but my aunt passed it down to me so for lack of anything better to read I picked it up.  And boy, was I glad I did.  Definitely not a warm & fuzzy book Lamb delves into a twisted and complicated book about mental illness, sexual abuse, betrayal and heartbreak.  Sounds depressing, I know and it is, but so well written and multi-layered that I fell into the book and wished so badly I could reach in and fix Thomas and find some way to make Dominick happy.  The story had such a way of sucking the reader in and making you invest so much of yourself that in the end you feel wrung dry, but somehow wildly triumphant.

I generally don’t like books that take place earlier than 1970.  First I feel like I can’t relate.  I spend much of the book wondering how they could possibly get anything done without any sort of modern technology (I know, I’m a boob) and the author tries to write as they spoke back then and I just can’t get into it.  When my book club chose this one as one of our monthly reads I was slightly disappointed, but also mildly curious about the subject matter.  Taking place sometime during or just after the Crusades (I believe) the reader finds a town in England that is cursed with a child killer.  No one is able to solve the crimes and the King calls upon his Italian cousin to help.  The cousin sends a forensic investigator who is trained in ‘The Art of Death’ hoping maybe this professional might be able to gleam facts from the deceased children’s bodies and solve the murders.  The only problem?  She’s a woman.  The writing was superb.  Ariana Franklin gives the sense that people are speaking the way speech was back in the day, but doesn’t confuse you with the actual patterns.  The story itself is twisting and dark, the suspense – magnificent!

I loathe non-fiction (unless it’s true crime) and the touchy-feely-goodness of this book really put me off.  But again, I succumbed to the pressure of society and because I wanted to see the movie I picked up the book … and I loved it.  The beginning was an awakening for me.  I had been where Elizabeth had been.  I had been married and left for reasons my ex couldn’t really understand – nor did he really want to.  I fell into another relationship that drained me emotionally, but I didn’t have the courage to walk away from everything the way she did.  Oh, I was green with envy at the personal journey she took to find what she was looking for in herself.  I cried so many times throughout the book, was charmed by some of it and reflected on others.  I haven’t picked up Committed yet and not really sure I will, but this one’s a keeper.

And finally there’s Twilight.  I remember way back, way, way back I started seeing the name ‘Edward Cullen’ pop up in weird places.  Once I even saw something that said ‘Edward Cullen could kick Angel’s ass’ and thought ‘whoa there, you can just go straight to hell now’.  My sister and I wondered what all this Edward Cullen nonsense was until I discovered it was a teeny bopper book.  Dismissed.

But then my friends who were not book friends started asking me if I had read the books.  Shocked when I said I hadn’t they insisted that this was right up my alley and I must go pick it up at once.  When my friend Gina basically told me our friendship depended on me reading the books I shrugged and found the cheapest copy I could get online.  But there were four books in the series and I never read any series without having all the books on hand so I waited until I had all four.  This drove Gina nuts.

I dragged my feet.  I really didn’t want to read a teen romance and being a Buffy loyalist I couldn’t see loving any vampire more than Angel.  But I’d had enough bullying so I began reading.

I got to page 83.  Set the book down and called Ray and told him ‘I LOVE this book.’  Now, when I read a book I read 6 at the same time.  I divide the book into 1/6 sections read one section and move onto the next.  It keeps my ADD under control.  I got to the end of the first section and forced myself to put it down.  By the time I got to Eclipse my 6 book requirement went out the window.

And I get all the critiques on the book.  No, it isn’t well written, but it is a well told story.  Yes, Bella could be annoying and probably did take a whole generation of young girls back to the days before feminism, but dangnabbit I loved it.  I loved the courtship and the anticipation.  I loved to hate Jacob.  I loved the Quileute lore.  I loved the setting.  I loved the surrounding characters.  I loved the fierce loyalty both clans possessed.  Most of all, I loved remembering what it was like to be in love for the first time.  I am jealous of the people who have not yet read these books, but will someday pick them up and read them for the first time.

So there it is folks.  What books have you read that surprised you?

Project 365, Week 12

This week has been a lot of the kiddie pie.  I haven’t been feeling all that energetic and I’m kind of morning sickie-ness.  Plus it’s been raining cats and dogs here so outside pictures (which I love best) are a no go.  This upcoming week is supposed to be sunny so hopefully I’ll get out there more!

3.21.11 – My pretty Ikea light.

3.22.11 – Part two of The Great Bookshelf Swap.  The bookshelves are now in the bedroom, slowly making progress!

3.23.11 – A crib rail runner toy that was mine when I was a baby.  My dad’s kept it for 35 years!

3.24.11 – Jellyfish swim lessons begin!

3.25.11 – Relaxing with her shades on even though we haven’t seen the sun in weeks!

3.26.11 – My mom’s beautiful mini irises.  I’m jealous of her gardening prowess!

3.27.11 – Finally a break in the rainy weather means I can snap a quick pic of the new car!  Hello Ford Flex!

do you believe it??

Well, we finally did it.  I’m pregnant!  Nine weeks and counting.  We found out at around 5 weeks and my mom said ‘this is going to be the longest pregnancy ever!’  I tend to agree except thinking back I knew with Emma right away too so it’s not that bad I guess.

The whole thing has been rather surreal and honestly, it just hasn’t sunk in yet.  Though looking at me you would instantly know I’m pregnant since I already look about 20 weeks gone.  Yay second pregnancy!  But I’m okay with that.  We went out and bought some maternity pants at about 7 weeks because I was so uncomfortable.  Seven weeks.  Maternity pants.  To my utter delight my maternity jeans make me look skinnier than my regular jeans did!  How does that work?  I don’t know, but I’ll take it.

We told Emma first because we felt like she should be the first to know.  It was kind of iffy because I wasn’t far along at all, but so far so good.  She mainly giggled a lot.  She insists that the baby is a girl though she’s recently admitted that she would love the baby if it was a boy too.  She kisses my tummy and talks to the baby and right now is very excited to be a big sister.

One of the pros of going through the fertility clinic is that we’ve already had two ultrasounds.  Now, at this point there really isn’t much too see except for the heartbeat *squee!*, but there is something comforting about knowing for certain the baby is growing and thriving.  I don’t know if it’s because I’m older, or because it was so hard to get pregnant this time, but I am in a constant state of paranoia this time around. 

Despite the feeling yucky and paranoid things are going swimmingly!  Ray moved the bookshelves out of my office and Emma’s baby furniture in.  My sister & brother-in-law with their sixth sense had bought Dominic a new bed and re-converted his old crib/bed back into a crib and had our crib ready to go.  We just have to get a couple of things moved around and it will no longer be my office/library, but our second child’s room.

How exciting is that??

flashback

I posted most of these pictures on Facebook awhile ago, but I thought I’d show y’all what it was like back in the day.

This had to have been sometime in 1977 so I would’ve been about a year and a half.  One of my favorite pictures of my mom and I is taken the same day and she doesn’t look like she’s pregnant with my sister who was born in the summer of 1978.  I know, my detective skills are amazing.

We wanted to get a picture of Emma in this kimono, but she wouldn’t do it.

When everyone said how much Emma looks like me I just don’t see it.  After going through these old pictures I finally saw how much we looked alike when I was a baby.  Here I am with my Uncle Robin who I share my birthday with!

This was our Christmas picture in 1978.  My sister was not even half a year old & I was 3.  Look how cute and happy she is here!

I guess you could call this cheater camping.  Since we’re watching TV we might be at my grandparents’ house.  Since they’re house wasn’t that big, but the property was my parents would bring the tent trailer with us when we went to visit.  This was probably around 1983 or ‘84.  My brother was so tiny and cute!  Well, he’s still pretty darn cute, but not so tiny anymore.

My favorite picture of my mom.

My parents started my obsession with Winnie the Pooh.  Notice the awesome curtains in the background.  It was the 70’s people!

it’s pretty bleak, people!

My book reading this month has been waaaaaaay down in the dumps.  I really need to step up my game if I’m going to get to my goal.  Well, actually at the rate I’m going I should reach my goal relatively soon, but still … if I reach my goal by June then I’ll just have to set another goal and stress myself out more.

It’s actually pretty 

I just got interrupted as I was taking a pill, looked up and saw this:

For Christmas two years ago Ray got me a dust buster.  I think the thing has been used twice to bust dust.  Mostly it is used to bust spiders and other creepy crawlies that find their way into our home.  The problem is that it does not kill the creepy crawlies.  Now  they make their home in the dust buster and we are afraid to empty out the thing for fear that one of the spiders will escape onto us instead of the garbage.  I wonder if maybe we should just buy a new dust buster.

OK, back to my original dilemma … I’ve been catching up on TV and not reading my books.  But I’m sooooo close to catching up.  Though, I’m not counting Castle or Gossip Girl because I’m about 17 seasons behind on both of those shows.

So I promise that I’ll get back to book reading when I finish these episodes! 

Oh yeah, and this stuff is delicious.  And chock full of vitamins.

the great bookshelf swap

We decided to move the bookshelves out of the extra bedroom and put them in the living room.  I’m constantly bummed that we have no places to put junk in the living room.  I’d like some shelves for picture frames and knick knacks and to kind of make the room look more like we live there.

So we went to Ikea which was a trip much better than I expected it to be.  Did you know that if you are planning on spending $100 or more on furniture Ikea will buy you lunch?  They do.  You go and get a bunch of food from the cafeteria then when you pay for your furniture you hand them your food receipt and they deduct it from your furniture purchase.  Very cool.  And the meatballs ARE delicious!

We bought three giant Billy bookshelves for our bedroom and a tall dresser.  We decided it’s time to start transitioning Emma into big girl furniture.  If anyone knows her in real life you will know that my kid is GIANT.  She’s a little over 3 and a half feet tall.  She just keeps growing lengthwise and remains about the same weight she was when she was two. 

Sometimes you read those horrifying stories about police discovering a two year old who only weighed 20 pounds.  When I see those stories there’s always this little voice in the back of my mind that was worried because in two years Emma has grown about 5 or 6 inches and has only gained about 5 pounds.  She’s skinny like a beanpole, but thankfully at her check ups the doctor tells me she’s a healthy weight.  I’ll go with that.

Anyhoo … she’s in one of those toddler beds that uses the crib mattress.  Pretty much every night I hear her thump something on the wall because her lanky little limbs cannot be contained by crib mattress alone.  When we brought up the exciting news of getting a big girl bed she quickly vetoed that idea.  My mom offered the trundle bed she has in her extra room.  That’s the bed that Emma sleeps in whenever she spends the night at Ba-Chan & Ji-Chan’s house.  She was much more amendable to that idea since she loves that bed.  So done and done. 

Now onto the books.

I moved all the books off of one bookshelf in the extra bedroom.  This is what that looked like.

ugh.

Ray spent the better part of the day building the bookshelves and moving them into the bedroom.  I got one filled.

So now, the day after this was taken they pretty much look the same except there are some clothes piled up on the nearly empty one.  Ray did laundry and I haven’t organized the dresser yet so I needed a place to put clothes and voila.  I promise that I will finish this tomorrow.

I love organizing my books.  Sometimes I do it alphabetical, sometimes by size, but most of the time it’s by author and then publication date.  The thing that’s been depressing me about this whole ordeal?  There are at least 3 full shelves on one bookshelf full of books I haven’t read yet.  So many.

So why all the furniture moving?  That’ll be a post for another day!

Project 365, Week 11

I know, I know … I am SO behind.  There’s just so much going on which I will get to at some point.  But here they are!  Pictures from the last week.

3.14.11 – For some reason I really love the back of these flowers.  It’s such a soft pink and green.

3.15.11 – Still in love with my flowers.  Look at how vibrant the pink is and I love the edges of pink on the white flowers too!

3.16.11 – A trip to the library earned me an exciting bunch of books that friends have recommended to me.  Can’t wait to get into these!

3.17.11 – Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

3.18.11 – My little puddle jumper!

3.19.11 – Chloe, my niece is checking out the car we’re thinking of buying.  She gave us her approval.

3.20.11 – The pile of books from one bookshelf.  We’re staring The Great Bookshelf Swap.

Dangerous Territory

My Notie Natalie got me interested in For the Love of Blogs and I’ve been addicted ever since.  I go there several times a day to see what’s new and hopping and I’m starting to get used to all the hops and link ups and whatnot they’ve got going on.

My favorite is Comment Love Sundays.  You add your blog to the list, comment on the post and then visit the blogger who commented before you.  You make sure to leave them a genuine comment and then you can hop over to some other bloggers who have listed their blogs as well.  It’s so much fun.

The downside?  Every week I find new and interesting blogs to read and add them to my RSS reader.  Today alone I started following 8 new (to me) blogs!  And I like to go back in time and start from the beginning if I can.  I feel like I might miss all the good bits if I skip to the end.

Now, it’s not really a downside except that now I’ve got well over 50 blogs to follow and little time to do that.  And I know I’ve really just scratched the surface of all the goodies that are out there.  Maybe sometime next week I’ll take a page from Natalie’s blog and list some of my favorites so I can share the love.  Until then, I’ve got some blog reading to do!

I’m Not Allowed

Ray went to the Ford dealership down the street to go buy a car.  I’m not allowed to go.

I am horrible at negotiations. 

So I’m supposed to be building bookshelves that we got at Ikea yesterday.  The dealership let us borrow the Flex that we are thinking about buying so we took ourselves to Ikea to load up on stuff we wanted and knew wouldn’t fit in the Element.

So he’s off wheelin’ & dealin’ and I’ve got to get my books reorganized.  While I love organizing my books I am just not motivated.  It’s rainy outside and warm inside and all Emma and I want to do is lay around in bed and watch Scooby-Doo.  Well, that’s what Emma wants to do.  I’m okay with just laying around snuggling with my baby girl.

But I do really want to get this stuff organized and out of the way.  Maybe it will give me that kick in the butt I need to get some other projects completed.  Well, probably not, but one can hope, right?

Oh yeah, it’s Comment Love day on For the Love of Blogs!  Happy Commenting everyone!

Well, Yes, I’m a Geek.

I used to watch movies a lot.  A lot a lot a lot a lot.  Lately they’ve kind of taken a backseat to reading and other stuff.  I think I’ve mentioned before the gross amount of TV I have backlogged as well.

There’s quite a few movies slated to be remade (or as they call it now ‘rebooted’ so as not to seem tired and boring).  I can honestly say that I have never once been excited about a remake.  There have been ones that I’ve liked, but I never heard of a remake and thought to myself, now that sounds like a good idea.
So it got me thinking about movies I do love and because you all know how I love my lists I’ve decided to compile a list of my faves.  These aren’t in any particular order.  If I were to do that I would be here all day.

1. Dream for an Insomniac – Beautifully written, dialogue centric.  This movie literally changed my life.
   
2. Annie – I still know every song and have the greatest memories of playing Annie in my cousins' closet.  Pretending we were all orphans trying to escape after Ms. Hannigan locks us up.
   
3. Grease – For some reason my mom thought this movie was appropriate for children.  Of course, it wasn’t until I was older that I realized just how scandalous those songs were!
   
4. Charade – Audrey Hepburn, Cary Grant.  Comedy, romance, intrigue.  Need I say more?
   
5. Casablanca – I remember thinking that this movie was probably going to be overrated.  Oh, but it wasn’t.  It’s called a classic for a reason people!
   
6. You’ve Got Mail – *gasp* A remake??  Yes, but out of the Meg Ryan & Tom Hanks pair ups this is my favorite.  I love the script, I cry every time she sees herself twirling with her mother in the bookstore and it’s about books!
   
7. Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back & Return of the Jedi – I loathe the newest additions to the Star Wars saga, but these three (in my mind they will always be the first three) were the most amazing and perfect movies I had ever seen as a kid – and they still are.
   
8. Chasing Amy – Oh, Kevin you slay me with your words.  The dialogue in this movie is priceless.  Do people really talk like this?  Who cares!  It’s so awesome and even though he’d done amazing things before this (ahem Clerks!) this is the movie that put Kevin Smith on everyone’s radar.
   
9. Clerks & Mallrats – I love the quote-ability of Kevin Smith’s movies, but these are the classics and they are not to be messed with.
   
10. Memento – This movie blew my mind the first time I saw it.  Genius.
    
11. Amelie – charming, sweet, funny and in French!
    
12. The Godfather Part II – The first was great, the third was okay, but the second was my favorite.  And the reason why I always loved Robert DeNiro.
    
13. A Place in the Sun – This was the first black and white movie I had ever seen.  I was sick, home from school and it was on Channel 36.  Not only is this movie based on a book, but it was also a remake!  Originally a book, An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser (which was based on a true story) the movie of the same name was released in 1931.  When Paramount began to make noises about not making A Place in the Sun, director George Stevens sued them for breach of contract.  His movie began filming in 1949.  Elizabeth Taylor was only 17 at the time and she was exquisite.  I remember being stunned by her beauty and the story was so heartbreaking and tragic.  It was a piece of art.

I could probably go on and on some more, but I fear you would all either lose interest or find my taste in movies to be nuts.  Though, I will readily admit that most, if not all of the movies I would add to this list haven’t seen a movie theatre in at least 10 years.  You’ll also be so kind to note that I didn’t include any of the Twilight, Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings movies.  While I love them, I love them more for being a visual version of books I love more than just movies I love.  But I still love ‘em!

So what’s on your list?  Are there any movies coming out soon that you’re excited for?  I think the only thing I’m excited about right now is Sucker Punch.  It looks AH-Mazing!

For Japan, With Love

What Would You Do??

So at some point at school Emma’s preschool teachers told the kids that if they had rainbows around (drawings of) on St. Patrick’s Day the leprechauns will come and leave treats and maybe some coins.

Whaaaaaaat??

We don’t do that here.  We never even thought about doing that here.  We wear something green and have corned beef & cabbage.  Maybe we’ll have some green kind of dessert.  But we don’t leave treats around the house from the leprechauns.

I wish that her teachers would have maybe forewarned us.  This afternoon Emma realized that she didn’t have a rainbow in the house so she drew this:

A rainbow complete with a pot of gold and her name so the leprechaun would know who to leave treats for.

I have no treats!!!  I don’t really want to start this tradition.  Emma really doesn’t want for much.  We do Valentine’s Day, Easter, Birthdays, Christmas … I don’t think we need to do St. Patrick’s Day too, do we?

Thanks Lazy Girl!

While perusing the blogs I love I noticed that lah over at Lazy Girl Reads had these awesome progress bars on her sidebar.  Each one was for a different challenge she was participating in and how far along she was.  I thought that was the coolest thing ever!

So I got up the nerve and sent her a message asking her for help and you know what she did?  She helped me!  She’s such a sweetheart!  She sent me the tutorial that Small Review did.  It was so easy to follow!  So thank you to Small Review too!

Blah

I have the blahs.

Boooooo. 

I am completely unmotivated to do anything except clean my kitchen, which is a good thing.  Smells really get to me and I HATE the kitchen smelling like something from The Walking Dead.  But I really need to get other crap done.

We’re moving the bookshelves out of my office and into the living room.  That requires a lot of motivation on my part.  I need to take all the books off.  All. Of. Them.  Unfun.  I need to thin out some of Emma’s 700 toys.  Her room looks like a tornado hit it everyday, no matter how much she ‘cleans’.  It would also be nice to wash all the blankets and sheets today as I’ve put it off for way too long.  The floors need to be cleaned, carpets vacuumed. 

I also have this project I started a year ago.  I have tons of food magazines so I thought I would cut out the recipes and such I wanted to keep and put them in little plastic sleeves then put them all in a binder.  I have gotten as far as buying the stuff.  Meanwhile, the magazines are slowly taking over my bookshelves in the bedroom.  Agh.

But on the bright side I have my St. Patrick’s Day socks on.

And the corned beef is in the crock pot!  Woohoo!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone!  Go out and pinch someone!

Car Shopping

Today Ray and I went looking at cars.  I loathe going to car dealerships.  I hate car salesmen.  And yes, salesmen.  I did not see one saleswoman today.  For the most part it wasn’t so bad.  Ray pretty much fends them off really well, except for two places.  One was a Chrysler/Jeep/Dodge dealership and every single employee there accosted us at some point.  The other was a Toyota dealership.  One sales guy followed us around for about 5 minutes while we studiously ignored him.  When he finally left us alone another one came out and proceeded to drive me nuts with his fake laugh.  Ugh.

But I did find some fun stuff to look at.  Forgive the pictures as they were taken with the phone.

I can’t remember where this was.  Honda or Toyota.  But apparently, they have lots of #1 priorities.  How is that possible?

What’s Emma checking out there??  (With my finger in the way)

Oh!  It’s a teeny frog!  The teeny frog almost jumped right on me in his panic to get away from us at first.

 

And lest we forget the all important purchase of the night …

Glee messenger bag at the Borders that’s closing!  30% off and it was the last one.  Yipee!  Car shopping is great!

Oh, No

I just read this article on /Film about Josh Hutcherson wanting to play Peeta in the Hunger Games.  At first I thought, oh yes that would be great.  Better than Alex Pettyfer who (let’s face it people) might be a pretty face but is pretty limited in his acting ability.  And not to mention seriously over exposed already.  Oh yeah, and like 100 years older than Peeta (though so is Jennifer Lawrence who will probably play Katniss).

But then I actually looked at Josh Hutcherson and realized he’s the idiot best friend in Cirque du Freak.  Oh, no no no no no no.  Please, 100 times no.  He’s a cute kid and all but he is not Peeta.  I cannot get behind this. 

Project 365, Week 10

I did not have the heart to get into photography this week.  I was so sick & miserable I just snapped pictures whenever it came into mind.  There wasn’t really much thought put into any of these early in the week!  Hopefully next week will be better!

 3.7.11 - I took a picture of this same plant on our night walk and I still don't know what it is!

3.8.11 – Emma drew me pictures to make me feel better.  Sweet girl!  This is her happy sunrise.

3.9.11 – I would say that being sick makes me want to dress weird, but really I wear these socks all the time.

3.10.11 – They should really come up with a reason why we should be able to buy chocolate eggs filled with sugary goodness year round.  But since they don’t, Easter is my favorite candy holiday!

3.11.11 – Last day of Ballet class.  Emma’s with her two favorite classmates, Sofia & Autumn.

3.12.11 – Set up the futon bed in Ray’s office and immediately afterwards Emma and Ray had to lay down and test it out for comfy-ness.

3.13.11 – Caught this little guy on one of my mom’s freesia’s.  Who can blame him for hanging out here?  They smell so wonderful!

Let’s Talk About TV

I watch entirely too much of it.  But in a weird way.  See I get distracted by books so I generally will put off watching TV until the number of shows on our DVR reaches almost triple digits or I get sick.  For some reason I don’t like to read when I’m sick.  It’s like there is too much effort in holding a book up.  Much easier to lay there staring mindlessly at the TV.  Since I’ve been miserably sick this week I’ve just banged out some TV and I am now only a week behind on my shows.

Let’s discuss what I watch, shall we?

1. Being Human
2. Bones
3. Blue Bloods
4. How I Met Your Mother
5. Perfect Couples
6. Traffic Light
7. CSI
8. CSI: NY
9. Castle
10. The Mentalist
11. Top Chef
12. Private Practice
13. Raising Hope
14. Modern Family
15. The Office
16. 30 Rock
17. Shameless
18. The Big Bang Theory
19. The Defenders
20. The Ricky Gervais Show
21. The Vampire Diaries
22. Criminal Minds
23. True Blood
24. Gossip Girl
25. Project Runway
26. Glee
27. Lie To Me
28. Mr. Sunshine
29. Parenthood
30. The Walking Dead
31. Fringe
32. Nurse Jackie
33. Haven
34. Warehouse 13

That’s a lot of shows.  Granted, some of them aren’t on right now and some of them will probably get cancelled this season, but that’s what I watch.  What’s worse is that I’m about a season and a half behind on both Castle & Gossip Girl.  Ugh.  Everytime I think about maybe watching a new show I remember that I hardly watch these ones!

If I were to whittle away at this list and watch only the ones I could not live without … it would be:

1. Bones
2. Criminal Minds
3. Shameless
4. How I Met Your Mother
5. Modern Family
6. Glee
7. Top Chef

But really, I’m not going to do that.  I figure I’ll catch up during the summer when there’s not much else on.  Though, I’ve got a lot of book reading planned so who knows?

What’s your favorite TV show?  Anyone out there watch more than I do??

Goodbye

My grandmother passed away this morning.  She was almost 93 years old.  She’d been sick for some time now and we went up to see her just a couple of weeks ago.  I am grateful that Emma knew her ‘Amo’ Grandma and I hope, despite how young she is she remembers her when she gets older.

I have the best memories of my grandparents’ house, running around like wild things, playing in the ‘forest’, watching out for the black widows my Dad assured us were around somewhere.  One of my favorite memories of my grandparents was them taking us to this little pond to go fishing.  Grandma was the coolest because she didn’t think it was gross to hook a worm.  She did it the best.

Grandma & Grandpa at their wedding.  October 18, 1942.

I love you Grandma.  I hope you are resting peacefully with Grandpa now.  Sweet dreams.