Um...

I just couldn't think of a clever title. My brain hurts. I've got so much on my plate over the next week and a half that I can't even begin to right a post on anything in particular. So revel in these random happenings of the past weekend and marvel at our upcoming schedule...

• Jacob is old enough this year to participate in this year's Christmas pageant at church. It was this past weekend (dress rehearsal on Friday, performance on Saturday, and performance on Sunday). I was one of the 2 helpers that blindly volunteered to lead the preschool group for the performance. Dave taped parts of the show and there are a lot of cute shots of the kids and my butt while I try to keep the kids from running willy nilly on the stage.
• Our church youth program has a fundraiser every year called Stop, Drop and Shop. It was on Saturday morning. You drop your kids off at the church for 4 hours and they babysit while you go out and shop....or get a massage like my friend did. Whatever.
• We spent 45 minutes of that 4 hour chunk in line at the post office to correct the fact that they had stopped our mail almost 2 weeks before i told them they needed to. Great fun when you are expecting Christmas presents in the mail.
• I went to the grocery.
• Today was lunch with Santa. Well, actually, it was lunch with the parents and then after lunch Santa came and read everybody a story and passed out presents to all the kids. As soon as Jake heard he was going to get a present, he said "Will it be my color-by-numbers??" which is the ONLY THING he has asked for for Christmas. He got a puzzle.

• Barring any snow delays, we have school on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
• On Friday, we have rehearsal for our choir cantata.
• On Saturday, we are going out to dinner and going to see Sweeny Todd.
• On Sunday, we have our choir cantata in the early evening immediately followed by cookies and caroling at the church.
• Monday and Tuesday involves packing and we leave on Wednesday for Illinois for Christmas
• We get back to Ohio on Christmas Eve day and then sing at church at 8pm (after a 7 hour car ride).
  

Crossing the line...

O.K. I will be the first to admit that I have crazy hair. I've always had crazy hair. I will continue to have crazy hair for the rest of my life. Unless I shave it off which I would never do because if it's crazy now...God only knows how it would grow back.

It's thick. It's coarse. Some parts are curly, some parts are straight. And overall, it's pretty unruly. I know that, which is why I'm pretty comfortable making fun of myself as far as my hair is concerned. I can't find any right now, but I'm sure that somewhere there are pictures of me when I had long hair and I would do my Cousin It impression...

Now it's a running family joke that whenever I wake up in the morning with particular bad bedhead that everyone must be sure to tell me that I have "Craaaaazy Hair". Another fun one is when people lose things and they come check to see if it got lost in my hair. Just the other day Jake was looking at a picture of my nephew (who happened to have long, curly hair in the shot) and said "Look, he's got Mommy Hair". And it's all in good fun. Like I said...I admit it, I have crazy hair.

But this morning, while we were watching Doodlebops, Jake said. "Rooney doesn't wear a wig, he just has crazy hair like you Mommy. Deedee and Moe wear wigs, though."

O.K. At what point did my hair turn into blue foam????

Thursday Thirteen

I know I sounded like a Scrooge when I said I didn't like Christmas music. But after having choir practice tonight, I realize that there are some songs that I do really love to hear...just not a gabillion times over a 3 month span.

1. O Holy Night
2. Go Tell It On the Mountain
3. Carol of the Bells
4. Oh Come All Ye Faithful
5. Here Comes Santa Claus (my mom has a music box that plays this and I've already told her that I want it left to me in her will...ain't I sweet??)
6. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
7. What Child is This
8. Hallelujah Chorus
9. Christmastime is Here
10. Jesus, Jesus Rest Your Head (O.K. so I couldn't come up with 13, this answer is from Jacob)
11. Jingle Bells (from Emma)
12. Away in a Manger (Jacob again)
13. Holy Baby, Holy Child

Visit other Thursday Thirteeners!

LW 08 - Week 11

You know what? I've been messing with the same pound for a few weeks now, but in the grand scheme of things, do you know how awesome that is? Considering the time of year and all the temptations that are around, I'm really, REALLY proud of myself for maintaining this week. I had 2 birthday parties and a staff Christmas party to go to and I still didn't gain. How can I be disappointed in that??

...Still no Fitness Magazine...the wait continues...the next best thing? I'm off to shovel snow!! Yippee.

Visit Tales from the Scales to check out other people's progress!

11/28/07 weight: 158

12/5/07 weight: 158

This week's goal - Journal my food before putting it in my mouth

Winning Outcome for Lose Weight in 2008 Challenge
“I will to maintain my weight between 154 lbs and 157 lbs throughout this challenge. I will increase weight training to 2 times a week. I will continue to do cardio work for 3 or 4 days a week. I will walk between 8,000 and 10,000 steps a day EVERY DAY.”

Wordless Wednesday - Tree Skirt

These crack me up. Who knew a tree skirt could be so much fun? Jake looks like some sort of folk dancer that you would see it an international Christmas festival... There is one of Dave, too, (where'd you think they got the idea?) but I'm afraid it will never see the light of day...

Check out WW or 5 Minutes for Mom for more pics.

Who's that girl?

Have you ever heard a song on the radio that took you back to a time in your life that you never really think about until you hear the song?

I've got one. And those who know me (and even those who don't) might find it a strange choice for a song that conjures up good memories. It's Closer by Nine Inch Nails. I never really liked the lyrics, but the song was good to dance to at the "club" I used to go to a long, LONG time ago. I use the term "club" loosely because this wasn't your typical college campus, meat market, everybody knows about it type of place. To say this place was on the fringe would be putting it mildly.

If there was any color other than black that was worn in the place, it would be the electric blue of the lint that showed up on your black shirt as you walked under the black light at the door. Things were displayed at the bar that make me blush just thinking about it (hot candle wax anyone?), but I really liked the music. It was music you could dance to without the implication that you were only there to find a date. It was just a place to go and hang it with your friends...who were all dressed in black and laid claim to several different body piercings.

But anyway, one of the songs that was played quite regularly was Closer, and it makes me smile and start to dance in my seat a little bit whenever I hear it on the radio. It just brings back this feeling of youthfulness...memories of a time when being home by 1am was early and the only person you had to worry about was yourself and where you parked the car.

On Monday, Dave and I had a parent/teacher conference at Jake's preschool and one of the things we discussed with them were the pros and cons of all day Kindergarten. We decided we needed to visit the classroom before registration in March so we can weigh the full-day curriculum against the half-day's program. We then went out to lunch where we finalized our travel plans for Christmas so that we could make a stop in Indianapolis to visit the children's museum there. And on the way to pick up the kids from the bad spellers is when I heard Closer.

How can these two lives both belong to me????

There's something in The Mist

Dave and I went to our favorite theatre over the weekend to see The Mist. I have never read a single Stephen King book or novella, but I really liked The Green Mile and The Shawshank Redemption so I was hoping that I wouldn't spend the movie with my face buried in my hands.

No such luck.

This was one of the most gruesome movies I've seen in a long, long time.

That being said, I can't say that I didn't enjoy it. It was not a fun movie. It was not at all a happy movie. And I would never watch it again if given the opportunity (purely because I'm a big scaredy cat), but all in all...the movie was really good.

The premise of the movie is that after a big storm in Maine, a town tries to pick up the pieces the next day. As the day begins, however, a strange mist starts rolling in off the nearby mountain and across the lake. And, as they say in the movie...There's something in The Mist. And it's not very nice.

The majority of the drama (and I do mean DRAMA) plays out in the town grocery store where people are trapped once The Mist rolls in. The movie takes the very best and the very worst of the human condition and throws them into the fire together to see which side makes it out on top. Neither side does very well, though. And although I hated Marcia Gay Harden's Mrs. Carmody with every fiber of my being, she really deserves some kind of award for that role. Andre Braugher (who I loved in Glory and City of Angels) is totally wasted in the movie.

The lead was played by Thomas Jane and he was awesome, as was the little boy who played his son...although I kept wishing someone would give the poor boy a Kleenex. They WERE in a grocery store for goodness sake. Couldn't someone have just popped over to aisle 3 and helped him out? Anyway...

The end of the movie had me crying as we left the theatre. Not in a good "I feel better now" kind of way...but in a "I feel totally violated" kind of way. Not necessarily a bad thing as far as things go, just not what I was expecting for my date night.

Bottom line...if you like horror movies, definitely go see it. The movie was really well done and very well acted. If you don't like horror movies, wait for it to come out on DVD and then watch it with the lights on. And pray that it's not foggy the next day.