It was so hot here today that my rear view mirror melted off the front window. This would be the second time this has happened. Seriously, we’re moving to Canada. This is not normal. Either that, or we just need a new car. The steering is off too. It makes this metal on metal noise when I make left turns, like it’s in pain or something. My mom’s car, which we’re currently “borrowing” isn’t any more reliable since it tends to just not start sometimes with absolutely no explanation or known cause. We’ve taken it in twice and each time the mechanics shake their heads in confusion.
I had a horrible day at work on Friday, simply never felt as disheartened about my job as I did leaving the parking lot that afternoon so I can’t even begin to explain how wonderful it was to escape to Jarrett Farm and enjoy a six course meal that ended in a double layered chocolate fudge cake with rasberry topping. Besides having a fancy dinner with my husband and being able to sleep in on Saturday, my ultimate birthday wish was to simply have time alone to read. I read from three different books, a total of 73 pages. I know that probably doesn’t seem like a lot to many of you but it was an amazing feat for me. I haven’t read that much in such a short time since before Liam was born. I also got some wonderful smelling candles and a set of magnetic frames from Cindy, a yoga outfit from my mom and a gazing ball from my friend Crystal. The last item has a funny story behind it but I don’t think I’m going to tell it on here since it involves the over-consumption of alcohol and I’m trying to maintain a responsible reputation.
I had a beautiful weekend. It was one of those normal weekends that felt like a 3-day weekend. It was that good. It was Carleen’s birthday, so I tried to bust ass as much as possible to make her life just a little bit easier (coulda done better, but didn’t do too bad). On Friday, Carleen’s parents bought us dinner at Jarrett Farm - a cozy little Bed & Breakfast in between Bartlesvill and Tulsa where we had our honeymoon. It was a good time in spite of the Mothra-sized wasp that hovered nearby and an amount of cream/cheeese on all the food that gives new meaning to “lactose intolerant”.
On Saturday our gaming group came over and we played Blockus (I lost big-time - again. I used to rock the house with that one. I’m slipping), Killer Bunnies (despite not being able to play for 3/4 of the game due to lack Bunnies - I did manage to squeak a few in at the end and also collected the winning Carrot - Go Mediocrity!), and we finished the night up with Zombies!!! (this was a serious cut-throat game - I’ve never seen so many vicious Event Card plays.)
I was able to get several sessions of Yoga in this weekend. I now feel all stretchy and bendy, however, I did over-work my shoulders so I’ll hvae to give them a break for the rest of the week. I’ll work on my forward bends since they seem to be giving me a bit of a problem, mostly in that I tend to arch my back too much going into the bend, probably due to my hamstrings not being as stretchy as they need to be.
And to top it all off, me and Carleen and a few friends went to see The Simpson’s Movie - which was all that it could be, the perfect comedy that I’ve been in dire need of for several months now: dumbass humor, witty satire, and of course, Spider-Pig. I think, to top this weekend off, I’ll head to bed early and get a fresh start on the new week and hope my new-found optimism lasts longer than it takes for me to finish this post.
When Emmeline did a Nazi salute in the middle of the Jewish Community Center and then strode goose-stepping under a wall-sized quote by Anne Frank, I sensed my penchant for teaching her random, silly parlor tricks had taken a turn for the worse. The alphabet, numbers, real animal sounds — I think we’ll be doing a lot more of those from now on.
I guess this just proves that you can have the best of intentions as a parent and things will still go awry.
I brought Mike back a book called Daddy Needs Drink after he emailed me at work with another frustrating experience trying to get Liam down for his afternoon nap. He’s reading it as I write this and I’m relieved to hear him chuckle every once and awhile. There is something cathartic about reading blogs/books about parents who are having similar experiences with their kids, especially when they manage to put a humorous twist to things.
It’s amazing how much time you can waste online. I’ve just spent the last hour fooling around with my Facebook profile. I’m constantly cursing social networking sites as adolescent and narcissistic. Yet, I find myself on them all the time, accepting invitations, sending invitations, changing templates, adding bling. I’m such a hypocrite. Facebook does have a lot of neat applications. You can run your Shelfari and Twitter feed into your profile. Flixter is another. Tonight, I just added an application called Dog Book (Thanks Amy…really, thanks). I can’t believe this. I’ve just created a profile for our dogs. Yup. Chani and Turbo are now on Facebook. Just in case any of you, you know, wanna friend them or something. I think part of my brain just died. It’s crazy how the internet world makes you feel like you need this stuff.
Just kidding. However, Liam is progressing right along. I think we’re almost walking. Besides the basic mama and dada sounds, he’s also forming a ga sound and is very nearly saying doggie. He can also make an array of animal sounds, growling and mooing.
He has a strange desire to crawl underneath things all the time, desks and chairs and such which makes things tricky since he almost always bumps his head in the process. One of our biggest frustrations right now is keeping him away form the dog bowls. Sticking his hand in the dogs water bowl has become a kind of game to him. He knows he shouldn’t do it and despite our gentle protests (Liam, no. No water), most of the time he’ll do it anyway while looking up at you with a very cheeky grin. He can also get pretty creative with things. According to Mike, one day he got a hold of the dogs bowls, turned them upside down and was using them to scoot himself along the floor. Good problem solving skills, I guess.
Yesterday, Liam and I were playing with his shape box. He’s never really shown much interest in this toy until now. All of a sudden he got real quiet like he had decided that there might be something interesting about this funny looking box after all. I started putting the shapes in and he started copying. I called Mike over and he managed to get a little of it on ifilm.
I don’t brag about Mike as much as I should on this blog. I mean, he really is somethin’. Cuz let me tell ya, this staying at home stuff with baby all day is rough. You think you know stress? You don’t know stress until you’re dealing with a 11 month old gremlin like creature with a nose for trouble. Liam has gone through various nicknames since he’s been born. He’s always been little seal to me because of his middle name Roan, but I’ve since decided that Loki is better. He is very Loki-like.
This whole switch to Mike staying home and me working full time has definitely been quite the change for all of us. The best part of it though is that I actually get to have dinner at the table with my husband. Four years of working night shifts pretty much meant that we were constantly eating and sleeping at different times. Still, you’d be suprised what you get used to though. It’s strange now being able to come home and actually have him and Liam standing in the kitchen with smiles.
Another plus? Mike cooks pretty much all the dinners now. This is a big deal for someone who has barely had time to eat since popping out a baby last fall. Mike is very good in the kitchen. Today he cooked meatloaf. I love meatloaf. Nothin’ like a big aluminum tin full of mashed up baked meat. I swear, when Mike proposed to me after eight months of dating, I don’t think I was thinking “I love this man, want to spend the rest of my life with him and have kids”. Nope. I was thinking “The best damn meatloaf I’ll ever have for the rest of my life. Pancakes. Apple brine pork chops. Barbie-Q hamburgers”. Yup. He’s a keeper.
I’m trying once again to get back into Yoga. I’m taking a different approach this time: no set schedules, no set amounts per week. I’m just going to do yoga when I can and when I feel like it. Also, I’m going to start working out of a book Carleen has, called Yoga Mind Body & Spirit. It really goes into detail about Yoga in general, but also the asanas specifically. And that’s what I need right now is not to learn more poses, but to do the poses I know, better. After working with the book this morning, I’ll say, doing Yoga right feels a lot better than doing Yoga wrong.
First off, our site template is all whacky for now while Mitch tries to figure out what’s up with it. Bear with us as we get this taken care of.
Me, Carleen and the library gang went to see The Order of the Phoenix on Friday. I should forward this review by saying that this was my favorite book of the Harry Potter series so far, so I was expecting a lot out of this one. First impression: underwhelming. This is the longest book of the series and yet the movie clocked in at a mere 2 hours 7 minutes. The two previous movies ran over 2 1/2 hours. Bad omen right off the bat. The next bad thing was not the movies fault, but the theatres - no sound for the first couple minutes of the film. I need that Harry Potter Main Theme music to really get me into the movie and without that the experience was a bit flat. On the music: could someone please get John Williams back to score these movies? The music just does nothing for me.
It was nice to see Dan and Rupert with shorter hair - I really hated their previous haircuts. But everyone is really getting comfortable with their roles, all three: Dan, Rupert and Emma were all able to step up to the plate to handle the more “adult” themes of this movie. Where was Hermione in this movie, though? I feel like we hardly got to see her at all. A couple of new faces in this movie, namely Imelda Staunton and Evanna Lynch playing Dolores Umbridge and Luna Lovegood respectively. Both wer fantastic choices for their roles, though my personal favorite new face was Evanna. She simply was Luna.
I know it sounds like a stale complaint from a ravenous fan, but there was just too much left out of this one. It was inevitable, given the length of the book, but at 2 hours, I feel like there was a bit too much *snip* *snip* in the editing room. Much like Goblet of Fire - only worse - there is very little “breathing” room. Slow down, take some time to show us the good stuff.
Pretty much the summation of my feelings toward this movie is: Not Enough.
The Great Flood of 2007 has come and gone. It was a little rough finding routes to work for a few days but other than that…nothing major. However, our local SPCA had to move all their animals to the county fairgrounds because they were flooded out. We stopped by yesterday to drop off some money and the guy I handed the check too said they were “fixin” to move to another temporary location. I can’t imagine having to move all those animals.
Here’s a shot Mike took from one of the more flooded areas in town.
There have been many times during the Bush Administration which I have felt disgusted at being an American; but never so much as after hearing this news story on NPR. The First Lady visited a school in Mali, Africa this week for a photo-op. In preperation for the visit, the U.S. embassy came to the school and gave it a significant face-lift. The front door, where the photo shoot would take place, was painted. Nothing else was painted, just the front door. Two water fountains were pulled out near the entrance because they weren’t visually appealing. Electrical outlets and a generator were installed in order to power fans to cool Mrs. Bush and the crowd. The trash in the courtyard was picked up, new gravel was laid in the driveway so that Mrs. Bush wouldn’t slip in the mud (only the part of the driveway that Mrs. Bush would see, of course) and bushes and plants were planted.
The photo-shoot came and went - it only took a few hours. The trash from the First Lady’s visit - water bottle lables and donut cartons - was left on the ground. Electrical outlets, generators and fans were yanked out. Would it have been so terrible to, at least, paint the whole building and maybe clean up after themselves?
