Little Black Dress

Well, we are headed to Indiana tomorrow. The wedding that J has been waiting for since March is now upon us. J is to be the flower girl (a.k.a. Princess), which has been her heart's desire for a couple of years now. She wondered yesterday if she should practice, but I assured her we would have a practice tomorrow evening. All of our finery is hanging in the hallway, ready to be loaded into the van late tonight. I was thrilled to get a new "little black dress" which doesn't make me look like a frumpy, nearly 40-ish Mom, but actually like someone of the female persuasion. L was pleased to find a velvet dress in the hand-me-down box, and J has been eager to wear the blue silk flower girl dress for several months.

I remembered this morning that I hadn't done anything about a wedding present yet, so I went to the bank for plenty of $1's and some $5's and whipped up our standard wedding gift: cash presented in a unique way. The label says "M Medical Associates, JPM D.O. TCKM MPAS,PA-C, Rx: J & R, Take as needed when feeling stressed, overworked or underprivileged. Use only for fun and fulfilling activities. LIVE-IT-UP capsules, 1/1/09, No refills, No expiration"


Apparently our computer was feeling left out since this nasty GI virus has been going around, so it contracted one of its own yesterday. Hubby spent all evening clearing it off and fixing everything up. What a pain. We are still having problems with Google...it gives us links that don't go with our searches. Any one else with this problem?

I have decided to go along with Mo Rocca and make resolutions for other people this year, instead of for myself. For L, she will resolve to be potty trained. J will resolve to stop whining cold turkey. There's more...I just have to think of them.

Happy New Year!

T

Merry Christmas!

I have some really, truly free time this afternoon, so I thought I'd post a quick note to wish every one a very HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

For lack of any thing really amazing to blog about, I can offer a few movie reviews. We have found ourselves these past few weekends with no home repairs, no packing or unpacking, and no yard work to do, so with bad weather and luxurious laziness to revel in, we have been crashing on the couch!

PRINCE CASPIAN

Without ruining it for those of you who may not have seen it, I'm not sure that the screen writers read the same book that I did. The movie was quite interesting and well done, but they took MANY liberties in the story, including a long fight scene which never occurred in the book and the return of the White Witch.

X-FILES, the movie

One of my "bad habits" back in the day, was faithfully watching X-Files every Sunday night...Hubby and I were quite hooked! If you aren't familiar with X-Files, you can still watch this movie and it will make as much sense to you as it did to me. I was excited to hear about another movie, and disappointed after watching it. It felt contrived...they tried too hard to make a sequel.

HANCOCK

Usually I don't care for Super Hero movies, but this one was interesting (short too...just 1 1/2 hours). Will Smith plays superbly a Super Hero struggling with depression and alcohol abuse. It was a bit dark, but with a good and satisfying ending. It's worth checking out.

KUNG FU PANDA

I went into this one without high expectations, but all 4 of us were rolling with laughter. It is a fun take on being comfortable with who you are, but at an unsophisticated level.

KIT KITRIDGE: AN AMERICAN GIRL

This one is my favorite of all the American Girl movies, about Kit, a 10 year old girl in 1934. It features Joan Cusak as a zany mobile librarian (one of the best characters in the movie). Kit and her friends learn that people can be much different than they appear on the surface.

and finally a TV movie: HEIDI 4PAWS

This one was on PBS this afternoon, featuring dogs dressed up as the characters from Heidi, including the goats. The girls loved it, I was mildly amused. I have never before seen dog yodeling.

T

BRRRRR.....

The thermometer is registering 8 degrees outside at the moment, and the wind has been howling all day. We thought something was scratching at our front door half the day until we realized that is was our Christmas wreath blowing in the wind and finally brought it in. The sky was so blue and clear today that I was hoping we could get out and stretch our legs a bit (the girls weren't interested yesterday), but the wind nipped that idea in the bud.

I'm finding myself feeling restless already...and it isn't even January yet. Restless and anxious. Why aren't the builders out there DOING something? We drove past our old house today and I felt some jealously bubbling up. They have room to MOVE, room to get out the Christmas decorations, the freedom to go in a room and be by themselves! Oh lordy, it's going to be a long winter!

We are making do with our tippy-top of a tree, donated to us by the Lions Club Christmas tree lot. I discovered recently that J is highly allergic to trees, so perhaps we shouldn't have one at all! The girls are SO excited, and J has been counting down the days for a couple of weeks. We are done with school for the next 2 weeks, so now we can put more time and effort into celebrating! We are planning to bake cookies tomorrow, and perhaps I can get the girls to work on the Christmas gifts we have been planning.

J's allergies, particularly to dust mites, gives me license to fulfill my obsessive-compulsive desires to clean, although Hubby has mentioned that it could be the reason she has issues in the first place. I think it's more likely inherited, as my brother has terrible allergies and asthma, but that's neither here nor there. Unfortunately the cleaning takes me 30 minutes at the most, so at some point I'm going to have to face the piles of photos that need to be put into scrapbooks.

Well, the noise level next door is escalating at 11:45 PM, so I guess I should retire to my bedroom, where I can't hear them, but hear the Greene Street traffic and the train very well. Ah...for a house in the country!

T

And the other good thing about living in town...

Now that the family seems to have come through the tunnel of illness and we can see sunshine on the other side again, "normal" life must resume. I try to think of one thing about this housing situation every day that is positive. It is really not bad here, truly. We are comfortable, warm and have the things we need literally right at our fingertips. A strange thing happens most afternoons, however. Around 4:00 the walls start closing in and we need to get OUT, OUT, OUT! It is really nice that everything is in walking distance.

For some reason, J did not want to walk to the playground today, so I enticed the girls out by telling them they could take some money out of their piggy banks and buy a snack at the gas station up the street. Once they had chips in hand, we strolled along the sidewalks toward down town, looking at Christmas displays and finding the entire alphabet on signs. We enjoyed looking around in Honey Bees and the 10,000 Villages shop. The girls were amazed by the giant Christmas tree at the Courthouse with "candies" on it as big as their heads.

Our 30 minute outing stretched into nearly an hour. We came home happy and refreshed. Don't be surprise if one day we show up at your doorstep around 4:15!

T

Don't Pass Out....

but I'm posting. Yippee. It's been so long I'd almost forgotten how to do it! Pathetic I know.

Anyhew, pregnancy funk has once again been lifted due in part to Cockroft company. Thank you. :)

Other news....At the library open house, Ethan asked Santa for a Rainbow Bus.....Ben asked for a pink fire engine. When questioned by parents about whether Santa had access to such toys, reply was "He can make them." Egads. What to do??? Any pointers.

Both boys sleeping upstairs now. Awake at....6:20 am every day. Ben's comments "I woke up by myself." Good for you little man, now knock it off.

Already bored with being inside this winter and it's only December 5th.
Anyone braving the weather for the parade tomorrow?

Will try to post again, but will allow you to recover from the initial shock of this one first.

S.