What’s up with that?

* Another random internet ad:

What’s up with that?

* From Mr. T’s high school course catalog—this is a two-fer because first, we have me with a kid old enough to be in high school (next fall) and then there’s this course description:

Flex and Fitness (Grades 9-12, 1 sem, 0.5 credit)
This course is energetic and active yet suited to all levels of personal fitness. The main thrust of each class is to bring about a transformation of the physical body, relieve stress, sculpt muscles, develop flexible bodies, and gain a greater calmness.

(Emphasis may have been added.)

What’s up with that?

* Strange things are happening to me:

I am now officially a Bishop’s wife.

A HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
A HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
A HA HA H-!

WHAT is up with THAT?

How was your weekend?

This, that and the other

*Last night the school district had their awards for the annual PTA Reflections contest.  DynaGirl and Goose both came home with second place ribbons for their paintings.  They had photography entries as well, but didn’t place.  The theme this year was “Beauty is…”.  

DynaGirl’s painting:

Goose’s:

One of the photography entries from the senior category (high school students) was a black and white shot of assorted prescription drug bottles.  He took 2nd place.  I’d really like to have known the back story on that one.

*Does anyone else think this is stupid?  Why would babies need to know how to read?  And why would we want them to anyway?  One of the saddest days in the life of a parent is when you can no longer spell out things in front of the children to keep them from knowing what you’re talking about. 

*Paramore is coming to Seattle in May and DynaGirl really wants to go.  She’s 10.  Is that old enough to take her to a concert?  On a school night?  Can I take her without taking Goose (she’s 8)?  Should I just take them both?  Decisions, decisions.

*A couple nights ago I was getting after Mr. T to go upstairs and finish his homework while I was making dinner.  I turned my back to him to pull some things out of the fridge.

Mr. T, making fake stomping/walking noises: OK, I’m going, I’m going.

Me, not turning around: I know you’re still there.

DynaGirl: Yeah, Mr. T.  She’s not THAT stupid.

*Wednesday night I stayed up late watching Nights in Rodanthe.  I don’t know why I would do such a thing.  I’ve never had any desire to see this movie (I mostly hate Nicholas Sparks’ work), but it was on, so I watched it.  And it was dumb.  Like really, really dumb.  Do not watch this movie.  Total waste of time.  OK, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

*Big weekend ahead.  I’ll tell you about it Monday.  How about you?

Blog Years

So apparently my blog turned two last Friday.  And I missed it.  Oh well.  You know how it is, the older you get, the less exciting birthdays are.  And blogs seem to age at an advanced rate, much like dogs.  Only the blog seems to age exponentially rather than at a steady pace.

By the lbs is two years old, which is bordering on Senior Citizenhood in blog years, I think.  So by this point a blog is either an incontinent, senile, blathering but still somewhat endearing mess or an experienced and learned voice of wisdom.

I can feel my Depends riding up as I type.

When I started this little endeavor way back in ought eight, I had plans.  Big plans.  I was going to do some serious work.  I was going to hone my skills.  I was going to create an impressive portfolio of publishable columns that would springboard me into the real world of professional journalism. 

Well, we can all see how far I got with that.

So what do I have to show for it?  At least a dozen new friends I plan to treasure for years to come.  So thank you for that.  Have some cake.

All I am saying is give the music a chance

Feel free to hate the Twilight “Saga”.  Please.  You are fully justified.  But you don’t have to be a fan of the movies to appreciate the soundtracks. 

Last year I gave you a sampling of the music from Twilight.  It was one of my favorite cd’s last year.  Lots of good stuff on there.  This year I picked up the New Moon soundtrack, expecting to like it just as much. 

On first listen, I found myself skipping through the songs, only stopping for a minute or so on each one.  I wasn’t so sure I was excited about them.  This soundtrack seemed a little more subdued (is that the word I’m looking for?) than the last one.  A little slower?  A little…uh…I dunno.  It was kind of like trying to listen to an entire Cranberries album in one sitting, if that makes sense. No, that doesn’t feel quite right. It’s hard to find the right words. Fuzzy? Foggy? Hazy?

There is a definite indie quality to it, even more so than the first one, I think, which I suppose can make it feel less immediately…accessible?  I decided to live with it for a few days in the car, and by the fourth or fifth time through I was pretty much sold.

Here’s a sampling of the cd.  You only get about 30 seconds of each song, but it will give you an idea.

1. Meet Me on the Equinox – Death Cab For Cutie  (The first time I heard this I thought it was like Willie Nelson meets Neil Tennant, and then I realized it was DCFC, and then I laughed at myself.)
2. Friends – Band of Skulls (This is DynaGirl’s favorite and one of the more up or fun songs, if you will. A good sing-along.)
3. Hearing Damage – Thom Yorke (This is Chuck’s favorite.)
4. Possibility – Lykke Li (I think I first heard this song on a SYTYCD routine, and the chick’s voice kinda bugged, but now I think it’s pretty—I still skip it sometimes, though.)
5. A White Demon Love Song – The Killers (I was surprised to find that this is not one of my favorites–you know how I love The Killers!–but it’s growing on me.)
6. Satellite Heart - Anya Marina (I like this song more and more every time I hear it.)
7. I Belong to You – Muse (Muse is always a good time.)
8. Roslyn – Bon Iver & St. Vincent (I cannot make sense out of these words, which I guess is just as well considering I can’t make out most of them anyway.)
9. Done All Wrong – Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (My favorite line: All the wrong I’ve done will be undone in song.)
10. Monsters – Hurricane Bells (Goose’s favorite—another fun sing-along and one of the few upbeat songs.)
11. The Violet Hour – Sea Wolf (My girls like this one, too. I hope they never really figure out what they’re singing, though.)
12. Shooting the Moon – OK Go (At first I found the drum beat a little overwhelming, but this one’s OK.)
13. Slow Life – Grizzly Bear with Victoria LeGrand (An apt title, but has that cool guitar thing going. Maybe one of my favorites, actually.)
14. No Sound But the Wind – Editors (The first time I heard this one I wanted to poke my ears out—”Help me to carry the fii-uh…it will light our way for-e-vuh”—but it’s cheese has grown on me some.)
15. New Moon (The Meadow) - Alexandre Desplat (Lovely instrumental.)

Definitely not as good as the first one, for me, but all in all a pretty decent soundtrack despite the lack of Paramore.

What do you think?

What I’m listening to

DynaGirl gave me Paramore’s latest album, Brand New Eyes, for my birthday last month, and I have to admit I like it.  I like it quite a bit, actually.

My two favorite tracks are at the end of the cd.  “Misguided Ghosts” is a pretty little melancholy number with that cool scratchy, squeaky guitar string action that I find so appealing, for some reason.

{Verse 1}
I am going away for a while
But I’ll be back, don’t try and follow me
‘Cause I’ll return as soon as possible
See I’m trying to find my place
and it might not be here where I feel safe
We all learn to make mistakes

{Chorus}
And run
From them, from them
With no direction
We’ll run from them, from them
With no conviction

‘Cause I’m just one of those ghosts
Traveling endlessly
Don’t need no roads
In fact they follow me

And we just go in circles

{Verse 2}
Now I’m told that this is life
And pain is just a simple compromise
So we can get what we want out of it
Would someone care to classify
Our broken hearts and twisted minds
So I can find someone to rely on

{Chorus}
And run
To them, to them
Full speed ahead
Oh you are not useless
We are just

Misguided ghosts
Traveling endlessly
The ones we trusted the most
Pushed us far away
And there’s no one road
We should not be the same
But I’m just a ghost
And still they echo me

They echo me in circles

“All I Wanted” is a little angry.  I’m digging the anger.

Anyway, say what you will about Paramore, but there’s some good, fun stuff on this cd.

1. careful
2. ignorance
3. playing god
4. brick by boring brick *This is my girls’ favorite–I think it’s the ba da ba ba da ba ba’s.
5. turn it off
6. the only exception *BigHugs likes this one–I think because she can sing the whole chorus.
7. feeling sorry
8. looking up
9. where the lines overlap
10. misguided ghosts
11. all i wanted

Moping

I have a plethora of ridiculously awesome wacky search terms, and I can’t do a thing with them.  I’ve been trying.  So far I’ve got: “cowbell for potty training—Time to get out of those gold-plated diapers, baby!”  Yeah, nothing’s coming.

You know, there are people in this world with real problems.  People who are sick, people who are unemployed, people who are homeless, people who are going through divorces, people who have lost everything in natural disasters, and yet I seem to think that my life sucks enough right now to justify wallowing in self-pity.  It’s disgusting, really.  I’m moody and angry and apathetic and irrational and selfish and disgusted.

I think I’ll go wash some dishes.

Something I decided today

Life’s too short to be eating stale-ish crackers.

I threw the almost full box away and opened a brand new one!  Yes, yes I did.  I didn’t even put it back in the pantry, pretending that someone else would eventually eat them.  It was all quite liberating.

What have you decided lately?

Week in the life

Sunday

Went to church, cleaned house (not exactly an activity typical of the Sabbath for me, or any day of the week, for that matter), removed all the painter’s tape from the stairs and upstairs hall that had been there since August 2008 (yes, I still need to put a third coat of paint on, but it looks so much better without the tape), made fried chicken and mashed potatoes, burned a pan of butter on the stove and immersed the house in smoke and a vague oily, fried-chickeny, scorched buttery smell.  But the gravy was darn good.

Monday

Spent all morning finishing up the cleaning I had started over the weekend so our realtor friend could come over and tell us how much he thinks we could get for our house.  (We’ve been seriously contemplating a move.)  I apologized for the leftover smell and he was very kind to say he hadn’t noticed.  He also said our place was “very cute” and that I had “done a great job with it” and quoted me a very acceptable price.  Then I spent the rest of the day running kids around to piano and such.

Tuesday

Told myself I would not clean a single thing in the house that day.  I’m pretty sure I stuck to that.  There may have been some dish-doing.  Also beat my head against the wall while volunteering in Goose’s classroom, went to take a second look at a house we went to see over the weekend, ran Goose to gymnastics and finished off Catching Fire, the sequel to Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, both of which were very enjoyable, by the way.  Oh, and had my birthday celebration with the girls that I mentioned before.  I will blog more about this next week.  It really does deserve a post of its own, but I’ll give you a sneak preview of one of the evening’s more notable quotes: “Big boobs…toggle, toggle.”

Wednesday

Took BigHugs to the store to pick out her snack for preschool.  I tried to steer her towards the more healthy fair, like maybe cheese sticks and some crackers, but we ended up with the chocolate chip candy cookies.  Whatever.  They were cheaper than the cheese option anyway, so that was a bonus.  I decided to skip out on volunteering in Goose’s classroom again, sat around and did pretty much nothing until I remembered I had a date with awesomeness via phone.  We had a short but lovely conversation then made the daily kid pickup/dropoff run.  The evening brought an unexpected and unwelcome turn of events (that I will share with you another time) and I spent the rest of the evening miserable and crying.  (Don’t worry, no one is sick or dead.  Just my hopes and dreams.)

Thursday

Woke up with puffy eyes and a headache, but pulled myself together to take BigHugs to gymnastics.  Had half a wheel of laughing cow along with half a box of crackers, some chips, a half dozen York peppermint patties and a bunch of other crap of which I have no recollection.

Goose came home from school with some stories she had published.  As you know, I so love reading my children’s stories.  This one is called “Clean Up!”

One time I got out a whole bunch of toys and it was so messy whenever I tried to get somewhere I heard something break.  Like…crash!  Bang!  Ow!  My foot would get hurt.  When my mom came in she yelled… “You know what you have to clean this mess up first thing in the morning!”  Then she tucked me in gave me a hug and a kiss and I went to sleep.  The next day I did not clean up and the next and the next!

When my mom found out I was not cleaning, she said… “You know what you have to clean up tomorrow or else you will be grounded off of no computer, Wii or friend playing.”  The next day my friend came to my house and my mom had to clean my room.  We got out all of the same stuff I got out yesterday.  When she left I said thanks to my mom for cleaning.  The next day I woke up early in the morning and started organizing stuf all the dolls and cloths in one bin and objects and other things in the other bin.  When mom was awake I was done.  I told her and she said “Rock on”  “Your welcome” I replied.

The End!

There were illustrations, but none that featured me, so obviously they weren’t essential to the story.

And our furnace went out yesterday.  It was coming on, but only blowing cold air, and the garage had that lovely eau d’ gas smell going on.  I only entertained the possibility that our house would blow up or that we would all die from some kind of asphyxiation for like half a second. 

Chuck came home early to check it out, and ended up calling a repair guy.  We don’t have a regular furnace guy, so he just looked up some random company in the phone book that promised 24- hr same day service and no driving charges.  It turns out our ignition switch was out, so they replaced it. 

With the service call charge, diagnosis fee, parts and labor, the total came to $500 for about 30 minutes of work.  “That’s like a thousand dollars an hour!” Chuck exclaimed in his best Napoleon.  The guy very generously threw in a “furnace service and tune up” (read “run a shop vacuum over it for about 30 seconds), regularly a $200 charge, for free. 

Chuck’s favorite part of the whole experience was having the guy tell him that sometimes they get calls where it turns out all they need to do is replace the batteries in the thermostat, and the people end up dishing out $350 for a service call and diagnostic fee for a couple of double As.  So basically he was saying, “I just screwed you over, but not as bad as some other shmucks out there.”

Friday

Still in pajamas, writing this blog post, which I was tempted to title “Weak in the life”, but feeling slightly more optimistic this morning.  At least for the moment.  The kids have early release today, and I should probably spend the afternoon preparing for the birthday party we’re having for Goose tomorrow.  I haven’t done a single thing other than send out invitations.  Not.  One.  Single.  Thing.  I think the main event will be playing Dance Dance Revolution on the Wii.  I figure we can throw in some cake and a little present-opening and call it good, right?  This party will be the first one I’ve had in I don’t know how long that hasn’t had some kind of theme, which is totally cool with me.  I think I’m ready to give up the pretense of over-achieving parent.

The rest of the weekend, who knows?  Anyone have big plans?

Born of awesomeness

I was supposed to volunteer in Goose’s classroom today, but yesterday I was supposed to volunteer in DynaGirl’s classroom, only when I went down there they had a sub who knew not what to do with me, so I headed over to Goose’s classroom instead, and I even told Goose’s teacher that I would plan to be back again tomorrow (today), but today I decided that I had more important things to do than volunteerism and helping to educate the future of America, plus also I didn’t think I was up to a repeat of yesterday’s banging my head against the desk whilst trying to explain how to count money to a third grader. 

Me: How many cents are in a nickel?
Kid I wanted to strangle:Ten?
Me: No, there are ten cents in a dime.
KIWTS:  One? 
Me: No, a penny is one cent. 
KIWTS: Fifteen? 
Me: No.
KIWTS: Six? 
Me: No, there is one cent in a penny, five cents in a nickel, 10 cents in a dime and 25 cents in a quarter. 
KIWTS: Oh yeah.
Me: If there are 5 cents in a nickel, how many cents are in two nickels?
KIWTS: Seven! 
Me: No.
KIWTS: Six?
Repeat for 25 minutes.

So what are my more important things to do?  Apparently, my more important thing to do is sit here.  And do nothing.

I am sitting wearing my watch now restored to its former non-glorious glory.  So that’s nice.  And I also got to eat my chicken pad thai leftover from last night’s GNO birthday club dinner, which happened to be celebrating yours truly.  I’m going to have to tell you more about this birthday club thing.  Because it’s fun-filled awesomeness.

Speaking of fun-filled awesomeness…

Mid-conversation with DynaGirl.

Me: Aren’t I full of awesomeness?

DynaGirl: Yes.  And that means I was born of awesomeness, which makes me the most awesome of all.

Hard to argue with that.

 

At the dinner table.

DynaGirl: Ew, I got gravy on my elbow. Mom, could you get me a napkin?

Goose: Just lick it off.

DynaGirl: I can’t lick my own elbow.  That’s impossible.

Mr. T, in all seriousness: It’s not impossible, but not everybody can do it.  I looked on youtube for instructions how to, and it said if you can’t do it after following the instructions, then you just don’t have that talent. 

Also born of awesomeness.

Hallelujah!

Guess what Goose found under BigHugs’ bed on Sunday?  Come on, guess.  Guess!