Friday, April 09, 2010

The Pioneer Woman is one of the funniest bloggers out there. And she’s super talented.

She writes well.
She cooks well.
She photographs well.

She has adorable kids.

And she is hilarious. This post made me LOL the other day and This post got me LOLing today.

I have her cookbook and I’m very excited that she’s coming to a Border’s near me in early May. I plan to stalk see her there and I’m hoping to get my copy signed.

Wednesday, April 07, 2010

Sunday night I was putting Jesse to bed when I heard a crash come from our bedroom. I went in to find Beau standing in front our our closet(s) with a befuddled expression and random bits of stuff around his feet.

“All I was trying to do was put my sweater away,” he said, holding the sweater out to me.

“Just leave it for a minute. Let me get Jesse settled and I’ll come help,” I said.

About 15 minutes later I walked in expecting to see a couple of crates and boxes that had been on the shelf that stretches across our closet(s) had fallen. If only… No, the whole shelf had collapsed. Half of it was actually torn away from the wall where the other half was merely bent - we have the cheapo metal/wire rack kind of thing in there.

Beau called our landlord (left a message) and we moved all of the clothes and other stuff out of the closet. There are piles of my clothes on a chair and ottoman in our living room. Beau took his down to his office in the basement. There are crates/boxes in the hallway. It’s a mess.

Then we debated what to do on Monday. I was taking the day off, so we could work on the closet, but we were reluctant to do anything until we talked to the landlord first. So we decided to press on with our plans to go into DC, which is what we did. However, we talk to the landlord before we left that morning and he said we’re on our own. “You put too much stuff in there,” was his response. OK, so we get to pay for the new closet innards.

But we have a limited budget and it is not our house. So we’re reluctant to spend a lot of money, but we want something sturdy. So we think we’re going to build a wood shelving unit in the middle (we have one long closet along one wall, but it’s broken up with 2 sets of sliding doors to look like 2 separate closets). And then we’ll put up a double set of sturdy rods for hanging stuff. We’ll buy the least expensive materials possible and do the building ourselves. Big project to undertake with 2 little kids, but we think we can complete it this weekend - I’m taking Monday off for Molly’s 1 year check up, so we’ll have me at home for part of that day, too.

Good practice for when we do own a home, right?

Here’s the video of Molly’s first taste of chocolate in the form of cake at her birthday party. It’s a wee bit long, but I didn’t pare it down much in order to give her California grandparents a good bit of their Molly Ann.

If you want to FF through most of it, go to about 2:40 for about 30-40 seconds and then to the 6:25-ish point for the big laughs.

Tuesday, April 06, 2010

We went into DC yesterday, to view the cherry blossoms and to visit the National Air and Space Museum. Jesse has a fascination with rockets, comets, planets, the moon, etc. Seems like a good place to take him. And it’s been 5 years since Beau and I fell in love under the cherry blossoms and that long since we went to see them. Sadly, we missed the glory of peak, which is over the weekend. Hot days meant that what we saw were the last gasps of tender blooms.

I took this picture with my Blackberry. I think it’s the best picture I’ve ever taken.

Beau and the kids under the cherry blossoms.

Molly Ann just chillin’. She’s too cute.

Jesse and the spaceman (suit). We can’t get him to smile normally these days.

We had a fun day. The toughest challenge was finding parking at the Metro. We ended up driving to the next station in and parking in the private parking garage across the street. The kids charmed people on the Metro train.

Once in the city, we walked straight to the tidal basin where we picnicked under the trees. From there we walked back up to the Mall area to finish the afternoon at the museum. We didn’t spend much time there, the kids were very tired and we were all very hot and sweaty. But it was a fun, fun day and we think we’re going to try to go down there more, but in the off season to avoid the crowds of tourists who flock to the area in the warmer weather.

Sunday, April 04, 2010

First there’s this classic Keith Green version of Easter Song.

Then there’s this awesome 3 minutes from Matt Chandler.

Happy Resurrection Day - He is risen. Hallelujah!

Friday, April 02, 2010

Just finished the second of my two contracting/finance classes today. Hence my absence.

Molly’s birthday was Tuesday. We partied up on Sunday - pictures to come and video of her first taste of chocolate in the form of cake. However, my Uncle Bill gave her the greatest. shirt. ever. It’s really a onesie, but still. Greatest. Shirt. Ever.

If you don’t get it, you don’t get it.

Watched Disney’s Tarzan with Jesse last night. At the part where the ape-mama shows Tarzan the ship and he sees the pictures of his parents, he turns to me. “Mama, can I have a picture of you and Daddy for my room?” How sweet is that? I just printed pictures of the fam for his room. We’ll hang them when he wakes up from his nap.

I dithered over doing Easter baskets for the kids. To me, Santa isn’t a huge issue since St. Nick was real and while he gets a mention it’s really all about Jesus. However, I do have issues with the Easter Bunny. After a short discussion with Beau this morning before I left for class, it was decided that candy at Easter is fine, but it will be from us instead of the bunny. So I stopped to pick up the stuff on my way home from class.

So the class this week was in DC. I dreaded the commute into the city because it involved 40+ minutes of driving followed by 40 minutes of combined Metro ride/walking. However, once we got past the drenching rains of Monday the rest of the week was not too bad. I did notice a steady increase of tourons (term by Robbo Llama Butcher - combo of tourist and moron) each afternoon as the weather got nicer. Today I left the class post-exam at about 11:30am - the trains that arrived at the station heading in-bound were packed to the gills. I got to Vienna to find the platform packed with 100s of people all headed into the city at noon. I think I heard that the Nats open today? So that might explain it.

We have decided to check out the cherry blossoms on Monday - I’m taking the day off so we’re going to brave the crowds. We may be insane. I’ll let you know about that on Tuesday.

And the kids are both awake, so I should go say Hi to them.

Happy Easter, everyone. May the hope of his resurrection be renewed for you as we celebrate our risen Lord.

Monday, March 22, 2010

I shared about the blog with my small group tonight. We’re reading Jared Wilson‘s Your Jesus is Too Safe together and they asked how I knew him. Since I have never met Jared in real life, I had to explain the blog.

What amazed me is to remember that I’ve been blogging since August 2002. I first met The Thinklings sometime before their infamous What Color is This Liquid? post. I was comment #61, posted on May 6, 2003, asked to chime in by Bill. I was the first non-Thinkling (unless you count Bird’s and Bill’s wives), to post a comment. It was all downhill from there in blogland.

It’s yellow, by the way.

Friday, March 19, 2010

Peggy Noonan has a column out today about the health reform bill about to be passed (most likely) by the House this weekend. You can read it here.

Robert mentions it in this post. He quotes the following:

And so it ends, with a health-care vote expected this weekend. I wonder at what point the administration will realize it wasn’t worth it—worth the discord, worth the diminution in popularity and prestige, worth the deepening of the great divide. What has been lost is so vivid, what has been gained so amorphous, blurry and likely illusory. Memo to future presidents: Never stake your entire survival on the painful passing of a bad bill. Never take the country down the road to Demon Pass.

Eloquent and right. Right? Maybe not…

Money quote:

Uh, Peggy?  One might also say to certain otherwise responsible members of the press, “Never beer-goggle coyote-ugly presidential candidates.”  I vividly recall you with a funnel in your mouth, dizzily guzzling the hopenchange jagermeister back in the fall of ‘08, while some of us more temperate souls saw something like this coming even then.  I am still waiting for the column in which you say, “What in God’s name was I thinking?” and promise to gnaw off your own arms in order not to do it again.

Yep.

From my father, via email:

During a recent password audit, it was found that a blonde was using the following password:

“MickeyMinniePlutoHueyLouieDeweyDonaldGoofySacramento”

When asked why she had such a long password, she said she was told that it had to be at least 8 characters long and include at least one capital.

Love it!

From the inbox yesterday came the word that all employees that use government credit cards to make purchases are required to take a 2-hour online traning class called “Green Procurement.”

Most gratifying was the reaction of the guys in my office, which included colorful language and was quite hilarious.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

I saw an ad for Lysol’s No-Touch Hand Soap System the other day and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. Isn’t it kind of super germ-phobic to want a germ-free soap dispenser? I mean, you’re touching the soap dispenser in order TO WASH YOUR HANDS. Who cares if there are germs on the dispenser? YOU’RE WASHING YOUR HANDS. Am I missing something here?

Last night during dinner. We’re on Time Out #lostcount. Jesse is in his TO spot in front of a glass-front bookcase. Beau and I are in the kitchen - he can see Jesse, I cannot. B: “He’s licking the glass.” What I heard might have been that, but could have been “looking in the glass.” I turned to see Jesse licking the glass and faced back to the front, l…aughing. B: “He’s kissing the glass now.”

And behind me I heard what sounded like a passionate make-out - heavy breathing and moans. I busted out laughing. And then the timer went off. B: “Go hug your mother.” Evil man.

With my parents pending move to the country for their retirement, we’re coming into some furniture (downsizing!) soon. Pieces included a bedroom suite for Molly that is perfect for her room - antique white with gold leaf trim. There are two dressers with a shelf-hutch and a corner vanity and a headboard for a full size bed. I think there’s a night table, too. The headboard and night table will be stored until Molly is ready for the big girl bed, but we plan to take the other pieces as soon as possible.

We also inherited some paint. One color is a lovely light sage green that we used to paint Molly’s room on Saturday. Her room was yellow, but I didn’t want to bring in the white furniture to that harsh colored room. It’s now a lovely, soothing green and the white furniture will look very pretty in there. I also bought this vinyl wall art (in brown, with some extra butterflies in pink - click on the second picture in the listing to see the art itself) to put on the wall where her crib is and the bed will eventually be. It shipped yesterday, so I’m hoping it arrives before the weekend so that I can put it up. The extra butterflies will appear in other places around the room, like at the door and window. I’ll wait to put some of them up after we get the furniture into the room.

I also bought this vinyl wall art for Jesse’s room, in red. We’re keeping his walls white, but his bedding is primarily blue with red and yellow in it. Since he loves Little Einsteins’ Rocket, who is red, it seemed appropriate to get the art in red, too. He was curious about the painting we did and wanted to decorate his room, too. Since I’m reluctant to put any framed art in his room because of his destructive nature, this seems like the better option. My mother asked if I was afraid that he’s pick at it and I guess that is a concern, but I’m hoping he’ll think it’s painted on there.

And the great thing is that the art comes off the walls easily when we move. It’s not reuseable, but it’s cheap enough that I can live with trashing it when the time comes.

I’ll post before and after pictures later.

I subscribe to The Goldberg File - Jonah Goldberg‘s email newsletter, which is hilarious.

In his latest missive, he mentions his appreciation for the vampire ouevre:

I can understand why John Miller wants the culture to move on to werewolves, Frankenstein, mummies, or whatnot, but I don’t think that’s likely. Vampires are better literary devices for, I think, obvious reasons. Werewolves are nice people who turn into mean animals. Mummies are zombies wrapped up in Ace bandages. Frankenstein is a DIY zombie with a slightly better operating system. (Note: Lord knows I’m not dissing Zombies. But two points need to be made on that score. Individual zombies are not particularly scary or interesting. For zombies to work cinematically, pretty much the whole word has to go zombie. Second, even then it’s not like there are a huge number of plot innovations for zombie themed movies). Meanwhile, vampires are smart and wise (thanks to their age) and they can have sex and so on. Oh, and they’re subversive: They live among us.

He then expands on a thought I’ve had myself, which is why I never read the sequels to Twilight (aside from the terrible movie, which is the other reason I won’t be continuing with the stories in either dead tree or celluloid versions).

But I do have a problem with the vampire mania sweeping pop culture. There’s something gross about it.

In Twilight, the romantic lead is Edward Cullen, who’s about 120 years old and falls in love with a 17-year-old girl.

In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel was born in the 1700s, and he’s in love with Buffy, who’s 16 or so when the relationship starts.

In The Vampire Diaries, Stefan Salvatore is about 160 years old. His girlfriend seems to be about 17.

In True Blood, Bill Compton is roughly a century-and-a-half old, and he seduces a woman in her early twenties.

Anyone see a trend here?

Put True Blood aside, since it’s intended for adults. Imagine if the 17-year-old girls in Twilight, Buffy, or Vampire Diaries were being seduced by 65-year-old guys. That would be gross. But when the teenage girl is seduced by a guy two, three, four times as old, it’s like-totally-OMG-super-romantic. Why?

The explanation, according to the girls, seems to boil down to: Because he’s good looking. Because he’s mature. Because he’s mysterious (“I’ve never met anyone like him!”). And because he’s at war with his urges.

The problem is that if you take away the good-looking part, you’re describing a run-of-the-mill dirty old man. If you keep the good-looking part, you’re describing a slightly younger but really, really sleazy dude who cruises high schools looking for jailbait.

Ick.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Instead of watching the Academy Awards show on Sunday night, we watched The Hurt Locker.

You all know that it won Best Picture, with the director winning as well. In my humble opinion, it totally deserves those awards. And Jeremy Renner deserved his Best Actor nomination.

My only quibble is with the commissary scene - at no point in my experiences of going to the commissary did I ever see one so barren of people. I told Beau that every time I went with my mother the place was over-crowded with people.

Excellent movie that gets 4 stars out of 5.