Monthly Archives: July 2008

Have you seen Wall*E?

movies



So I read the movie critic in my little local newspaper who said Wall*E got an A+. Not many movies get that kind of grade, so I thought it might be fun to take the whole fam to see it, including the little guy. It was showing at my very favorite theater, so off we went. First of all, the movie was fabulous, but in the words of Nick from the Big Chill, “You just have to let art . . . flow . . . over you.” The movie was very visual. It got mixed reviews from our family members. I personally thought the theater was extremely hot temperature-wise, so could not concentrate. Plus, Kepler thought the theater was really not as fun as being home sitting on the family room floor throwing his blocks, so Greg missed the middle of the movie and I missed the end. Joel thought it was brilliant, but I sometimes suspect that he actually has a mac in his head where his brain is supposed to be. The other three kids, you know, those other kids, all thought it was fine, but not the best they had ever seen.

What made me laugh laugh laugh was the incongruity between the message of the movie which seemed to be that humans are trashing the planet, literally, and the fact that all five of my children were presented with the little trinket I have pictured here. Ironically, the “wristwatch,” while it did fit on a wrist, in no way was able to keep time, and had to be thrown away as soon as I took the photo. A few of the “wristwatches” didn’t even make it out of the theater. Just ironic that they would present us with our own little piece of trash to take with as we pondered the problems we have with overconsumption and mindless disposal on this planet.

Funny Thing Happened on the Way To Bed

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So, last week, my beautiful daughter asked me to enter a contest to try to win Jonas Brothers concert tickets. Sadly, the deadline was 24 hours earlier than she thought, and I didn’t have a chance to sing my song for the radio station. I’m not really a Jonas Brothers afficionado but knew she loved them so I was busily learning a song to sing for the contest. I didn’t think much of it when we didn’t get the tickets, until yesterday when I saw the article in the paper about the concert. The JB were supposed to open for Avril Lavigne and I suggested that Val might want to try to get lawn seats for the sold-out concert. Then, I had a brilliant mother brainstorm. Why not see if there were single tickets still available? Got online, found a good seat, texted her to see if she was ok with going by herself, found out she was and went to order the ticket. Gone! Oh No! I cannot tell this girl she had a ticket but we lost out because we did not order it in 2 minutes and 15 seconds as required. I kept on trying and after about six tries, another single ticket showed up. Snatched it up!

Although I had no expectation yesterday morning that I would be going to a concert yesterday evening, off we drove at 5:30, eager to reach the Will Call window to pick up her ticket. Coolness abounds. The lovely people at the venue had opened up another pavilion where parents could sit, for free. So even though I did not have a ticket, I had a very comfortable seat. And there were even two screens showing the concert, although all the sound came from behind us from the actual concert.

Those boys really know how to put on a great show. And they didn’t open for Avril. She opened for them. They played for almost two hours and I was very impressed.

When we met up after the show, she was smiling from ear to ear. Couldn’t thank me enough. Couldn’t have been any better – her seat was great!

Had a moment of doubt when I chatted with some other moms. I was feeling pretty pleased about having gotten Valerie to the concert and then I was hearing about what these other moms had done to get their daughters back-stage passes, and I had this doomdart hit me, suggesting that I really hadn’t done anything special. Quickly, I realized that I actually had done something so special that she will never forget the experience. We were able to text back and forth during the first two acts until her battery started to run down. I was amazed at how much we got to enjoy together even though we were in two separate places.

The evening was topped off with her purchase of a Jonas Brothers t-shirt. It was a great time.

The Yearbook — It’s a Wrap!

yearbook


Yesterday, I finished the last page of the yearbook.

Today, I drove me, myself and my laptop to Kinko’s to find out how much each yearbook will cost.

Tomorrow, I will begin taking orders.

Today, I will probably also revise the cover since I found out about making the mosaic online. I think that would make a much better cover than the boring one I have right now.

Tomorrow, I will stop revising the cover since I have already spent MANY hours on this volunteer project and I will begin some other important project like planning for the homeeschooling year coming up.

Tomorrow, I will post more on my blog because it is one of my favorite things.

I’m So Organized It’s Scary

#humor, autostereograms, organizing


Remember this post about having such a hard time ordering the checks?

A little ha-ha postscript. The new checks arrived safe and sound a couple days after I ordered them. As I conscientiously parked them on my desk shelf, I noticed a box of checks there which had some deposit slips in it. I picked up the box, and lo and behold, guess what was tucked right under the deposit slips? RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME.

I’ve included this autostereogram for your viewing pleasure, to give you a sense for how close the checks were. Let your eyes go out of focus and you will see some mushrooms springing up from the picture of leaves. No mushrooms, actually. For some reason, the picture disappeared and I had to put in another. Try this one!

If only I had crossed my eyes when I was looking for those checks!

Road Rage Directed at lil ol ME?

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Some guy drove up beside me today, did a little honk, and gave me the finger. For what? Hmmm. Not sure. The only thing I can imagine is that maybe I pulled out of the parking lot a little slower than he was wanting. People don’t direct that particular gesture to me very often, and I took it really hard. I had to talk to myself for the next ten minutes to remember it was more about him and his need for speed and perhaps his level of anger, than it was about anything I did. If I pulled out slowly, I am sorry if he had to touch his brake pedal, but I personally think it would have been a little more instructive if he had honked and yelled “Don’t pull out so slow” and then flipped me off, if he really had to get that out of his system.

Picking ze Blackberries

life is good


Finally, the blackberries are ripe and ready to pick. Unfortunately, there is only ONE place around here when you can pick blackberries, aside from thorny bushes along the sides of some of the hiking trails. The berries can never get big by the paths because people pick them the second they are ripe. Anyway, my mother picked me and my daughters up at 7 am this morning so we could get there nice and early.

I noticed that people seemed to be feeling rather competitive this morning. Although we got there early and started out in the front-ish of the group, many people who came later walked around the group and more toward the front in order to get to the bushes first.

This place only allows people to pick on Saturdays, so it’s a great family outing, but there are a lot of people and only so many berries. The bushes were completely picked out in less than 45 minutes. We ended up with 4 1/2 pounds, which was a far cry from the huge quantities I was hoping to get.

My companions were wanting to push forward a bit so we could get to the bushes sooner, but I just didn’t want to do that. Maybe we would have gotten the bigger berries, but I couldn’t see getting all fashed up about picking blackberries. There will be several other Saturdays to pick, plus there is a place in northern Kentucky, which is quite a bit farther away, but they pick every day. I expect we will end up with enough.

Hoping you get to enjoy some blackberries this summer . . .

Lemming Love for my Pet

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The concept:
1. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
2. Using only the first page of results, pick one image.
3. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into Big Huge Lab’s Mosaic Maker to create a mosaic of the picture answers.

The questions:
1. What is your first name? Susan
2. What is your favorite food right now? Blackberries
3. What high school did you go to? public school/christian school (the names of my schools did not get any hits)
4. What is your favorite color? Cranberry
5. Who is your celebrity crush? Edward Norton — what can I say
6. What is your favorite drink right now? cold water
7. What is your dream vacation? Queensland, Australia
8. What is your favorite dessert? Tiramisu
9. What do you want to be when you grow up? Childlike
10. What do you love most in life? Being in nature with my family
11. What is one word that describes you? Beautiful
12. What is your flickr name? SunbonnetSioux

I got this idea from Stephanie at No Cleaning Here.

Let me know if you try it. It’s fun to see what shows up with each search word.

1. Lake Susan, 2. Curly, 3. debaters: brains, not money!, 4. Secrets., 5. I LIKE MYSELF!, 6. Passion in the rain…, 7. ….Leave Only Footprints, 8. tiramisu, 9. Chasing the Bubbles, 10. Will do tricks for fish…:O), 11. wham:a different corner, 12. kissed by the sun

My daughter is bored

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I think there is a reason they say youth is wasted on the young.

This summer has been such a wonderful, free time for me. I still have five kids, still have stuff to plan for homeschooling this year, still have the yearbook to finish, still have MY BLOG to write, but this summer has had such lovely times of learning, and relaxing, and loving, and I wish I could inject Val with the excitement I have for all the daily things I love to do.

I suppose it’s just part of being 15. We have four more weeks before school starts again, so I’m enjoying the fact that we still have A THIRD of the summer left. I know she is counting the hours until she can get back into the swing of school. I think when she gets her learner’s permit on Monday, her life will perk up considerably.

Until then, I’m enjoying this day and I hope you are too!