Back to regularly scheduled randomness now that I’ve gotten my end-of-the-year-but-in-February posts out of system. There are many points in my day that I think, oh, I need to put that on my blog – I don’t know what this says about me, but we’re going to pretend it means that I’m a giver, I want to share with you (because I do).
- I have a little girl crush on Kristen Bell (formerly of Veronica Mars, which I never watched but now just in general actress in movies and tv) there was this adorable video on her on YouTube from the Ellen Show where she loses it over her boyfriend surprising her with a sloth visit for her birthday and then I saw her on Chelsea Lately and she was hilarious there. I really appreciate people who can tell a good story and have quick, dry humor.
- We watched Soul Surfer Friday night at Ladies Movie Night at church and in the moments leading up to the shark attack, I actually was physically uncomfortable, I got clammy and my heart was racing and I absolutely could not look at the screen – I have a problem with things in the water, I know this, but I have never reacted so dramatically. The movie ended up being really good and definitely one we’ll get because it tells the story of a girl, who despite losing her arm to a shark, beats the odds and continues on her journey to becoming a professional surfer – a great movie to show your child who doesn’t have two fully functioning hands.
- Panera has gotten super fancy now and they bring your food out to you when you are dining in and clear your table when you are done. Is this to justify raising their prices and charging $10 for pasta dishes?
- We had conferences for Liam and the first thing his teacher said was, “That is a kid who can talk. He never stops.” We were not surprised. Thankfully, his teacher was also the kid who never stopped talking so she has a soft spot for his kind. Phew. She also warned us that it never goes away so for the next twelve years, this is what we will hear at conferences.
- I had a sitter-heavy week last week and it was just what the doctor ordered – I’m feeling way more like myself after some friend time!
- Saturday night was date night with Simon and I surprised him with a gathering of some of our friends at Brewery Vivant (delicious food, very cool atmosphere) and a tour of the brewery; we had a great time and as I expected, Simon showed his surprise but not at all reacting to the fact that we were suddenly joined by 12 other people – he’s unflappable, he simply blinks a few times in the face of something unexpected. But he blinked a whole lot and had a great time so I’m chalking that up to a win!
- I also had a cold but ended up taking Muscinex D from a recommendation from my coworker and it was AWESOME – cold symptoms GONE. No more sinus pressure, no more randomly watery eyes and no more constant nose-blowing. I have finally found the magic pill. Plus standing in line at the pharmacy I got the chance to talk a mom into getting Nicorette gum for her son who said he would use it if she bought it but she was balking at the cost until I pointed out it was nothing in comparison to the cost of buying cigarettes for a year.
- One day last week my Facebook news feed was all lit up with pictures of friends’ new babies and people signing up for the Chicago marathon and I thought… hmmm… these are two things I won’t be doing anytime soon, if ever and for some reason it just tickled my funny bone.
- I am just a bit jealous of all my friends who are pregnant and have found out they are having boys – so fun! Though if I were to ever have another kid, I think I’d want a girl. Because a) we don’t already have one and b) we have a great girl name that I love [Fiona] and not a single boy name left.
- I had 2.5 hours to myself, alone in my house without any children on Saturday morning and it was so lovely. Though I did nothing super productive or special, it was a nice break since my dream is to have a whole weekend to myself in my house without any children so I got to realize about 1/24th of a dream.
- Right after we got back to Australia it snowed and on my way to the grocery store, just after having visited our other totalled car at the mechanic, I almost crashed our functioning vehicle because I was in the center turn lane and a teenage girl pulled out from the right, across traffic to enter into the oncoming traffic. Thankfully I was able to stop in time and thankfully it would have been her fault if I had hit her since she was the one shooting out in front of traffic but she stopped her car and I could see she was swearing at me and then she flipped me off for the longest time. And I was just overcome by how rude she was, especially when I DIDN’T hit her but at that point was tempted to hit the gas and smash into her. Obviously I’m still a little touchy on it since it’s almost three weeks later and I’m still thinking about it. Grrr.
- In other driving frustrations, I was almost run down by the same person three times yesterday morning because apparently I wasn’t going fast enough for them on the Belt Line, though I was speeding myself. So they tailgated me, then passed on the right, then cut me off and then when I changed lanes, they drove in the middle of the two lanes so I couldn’t pass them. I retaliated by taking a photo of their license plate at the next stop light and gave them a thumbs up, I’m nothing if not friendly.
- Here are some things I’ve made from Pinterest in the last week: Gluten-free brownies, Quinoa salad with black beans, avocado and cumin lime dressing and carmelitas
- To make the carmelitas, I needed caramels to melt down but my lovely husband (who I totally appreciate) got the wrong kind at the store so rather than take the kids to the store just to get them (or horror, not make them) I made my own caramels – that’s totally normal, right? I did find it ironic I had all the ingredients to make caramels but not actual caramels in my house.
- I have about a billion hours (or like 20) of TV shows to catch up with on our DVR; we also reached our limit on the number of series we can have set to record so we had to remove some from the list, finding many cancelled shows that we just languishing in our queue.
- I love, love, love my friends – seriously, just love them.
- A week ago, Friday, when Sandy came over to hang out, my kids both called her Aunt Sandy because of Simon’s sister in Australia being named Sandi but then Jack started calling her Uncle Sandy and that made us laugh.
- I do sometimes think that I could handle a brood of children but I know that my husband could not – he’s kind of key to that equation. But when we had Jack’s birthday we also had 9 children under 6 in our house and it wasn’t bad. Of course there were also many other adults, but the kids really entertained themselves. Where I think it would get crazy would be feeding all those kids and getting them ready to get out the door. What is it with kids transitioning to leave the house – holy cow – it’s like a new concept to them EVERY DAY, multiple TIMES a day!
- The Super Bowl ads, per usual, were nothing great… but I did love the Detroit/Chrysler halftime ad with Clint Eastwood – made me a little verclempt. And as someone else noted on Twitter, totally annoyed by GoDaddy yet not at all put out by ogling David Beckham in the H&M ad – in my defense, his ad was actually FOR body wear, not internet hosting services.
And here’s a song for you since there was no Music Monday yesterday, yes it’s on the recent Twilight soundtrack but I didn’t know that when I started listening to it and I just love it:
A Thousand Years | Christina Perri
by George R.R. Martin | This is the book that locked me into the series, no matter how long and intense they are (and if I read the reviews right, the third book is kind of a letdown), I will finish the series because I have to find out how this all turns out. Martin has finished five books in the series and has two more to write (he says) so perhaps I will make it through them by the time he publishes the next one. There was a chapter in this book that surprised, no shocked, me so much I woke Simon up after I read it because I exclaimed, “What!? What just happened?” I can’t say this has ever happened before when I was reading a book and that is most definitely the sign of a good novel, or at least good storytelling.
by Cynthia Ruchti | A free book that my friend, Dawn, lent me through Amazon/Kindle. It was probably not my favorite, but it wasn’t bad, just not my typical type of story and a bit predictable. But I needed a mindless book to cleanse my literary palate after the long, intense “A Clash of Kings…”
by Susanna Kearsley | This was a cheap kindle book that I purchased shortly after I got my Kindle when I was getting “special offers” right and left. It turned out to be a thinking woman’s romance novel and I quite liked it with its back story and historical fiction added in. Definitely a good read and if I were looking for a beach read, I’d download more of her books.
by Richard Castle | Simon and I are huge fans of the TV show Castle and Amazon was running a special on the Kindle edition of the book “written” by the main character in the show, Richard Castle. I read the favorable reviews and found it to be a quick read that was true to the TV characters. It certainly wasn’t high literature, but I think this is the year of mindless books for me – either that or the super intense.
by Suzanne Collins | re-read on my weekend reality escape with my dear friend, Tracey. Cannot wait until the movie comes out.
by George R.R. Martin (my goodness is this one taking me FOREVER to get through). 
(George R.R. Martin), 
(Jane Austen & Seth Grahame-Smith), 
(Jennette Fulda), 
(Caroline Leavitt), 
(Yann Martel); and 
(Kevin Malarkey)
ememby 