Hello Again!

School has started again, which means that I now have access to the Internet and can resume blogging. Actually, I have a confession to make. School has been back in for almost a month and I've been blissfully keeping tabs on my peeps through their blogs, but couldn't quite muster a blog entry for myself. For those of you who probably checked my blog a few times this summer, then gave up because there was nothing new, I repent. We've moved from Bloody Basin to Peach Lane in Strawberry. We LOVE having wood floors again and space to move around. Jack has gotten over his pre-mid-life crisis and has decided to go back to school at NAU (Flagstaff) for an Art Ed/History degree. I love this school year so far, things have been great. Right now I'm seeing the world through non-existent glasses because Max broke my Gorilla Glued glasses with a fierce hug. But hey, I sure got my money's worth because they were ghetto fixed back in February. I have my eye on some purple frames. How perfect is that? I promise to model pics of them when I can see again. The only other exciting thing in my life is that I'm playing one of the twelve virgins in a Stake musical. Lucky for me I get to be a wise one. Snicker, snicker. I find it pretty ironic that there is only one out of the twelve of us that's actually a virgin. We're talking old ladies and married women. Call it creative licence. The last time that I played something for church was in high school when I was "Billie" from Billie and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Classic acting skills, let me tell you. Keanau Reves would be proud! Well, another day and another dollar. I'll try to post something more interesting, I promise.

Anti-sweatpants in Public Mafia

I'll admit, there was a time when I wore pyjama pants to college classes, and the store, and a trip on the greyhound bus. But I am vehemently opposed to sweat pants in public. When I saw this ad, I laughed for a good 5 minutes. I think that a member of my family (who shall remain nameless) has those exact pants, only he wears them with a turtleneck (gag. . . ) Please let me know your feelings about sweatpants. Do they give you flashbacks of the 80s, or do they give you the uh oh feeling because perverts are caught wearing them. Please, elaborate.

Sir Robin of Loxley!

Hello all. Yesterday was fantastic. Jack and I celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary with a movie, dinner, and a trip to Home Depot. You have no idea how long it's been since we've watched a movie in the theater, and Robin Hood was a good choice--romance for me, and arrow violence and minimal fire for Jack. Is it sad that we were cuddling next to each other during the movie, quoting Monty Python in some parts and laughing at the excessive ending? Here is my review of the movie--

Ever since I was a little girl, I've been obsessed with the Middle Ages and King Arthur and Robin Hood and all that jazz. What I've discovered over the years is that people were stinky, had bad teeth, and were lucky to live past the age of 30. The movie did a good job of depicting filthy, nasty medieval men (surprisingly, Maid Marian looked pretty fresh most of the time) and awesome, bloody battles. I was actually intrigued by the new take on the storyline. However, the ending just ruined it for me. The climactic battle between the Frenchies and England on the shore was pretty good--and then Lady Marian and her army of "feral children" (yes, they were listed as feral children in the credits!) ride into battle and start kicking butt---WHAT???? Okay, I was willing to overlook that, even though Jack and I were snickering, then there was the overly cheesy slow mo "Noooooooooooooooooooo . . . " (imagine distorted faced-Russell Crowe brandishing sword in fury) from Robin as he avenged Marian's battle wounds. Too much!!!!! And did I mention that my new favorite Mr. Darcy (Matthiew McFayden) is the skeezy Sheriff of Nottingham? If you want to distort P&P visions, just check out rotten-toothed had-to-be-reeking Sheriff. Ewwwwww.


So,

decent storyline, nice costuming, excessive violence and ruinous ending. But a fantastic date night, and I will always remember quoting "There's some lovely filth over here" to Jack's amusement, eating fried cheesecake and pretty good hamburgers, and staring into the eyes of the person I want to be with forever! I love you Jack!

Happy Mother's Day to me!

Hello all of the wonderful mothers out there! (And someday to be mothers) I am going to share with you some gorgeous pictures of my abuelita and abuelito on Mother's day. She is so beautiful. I hope that I look that dang good when I'm 80 years old! If I'm even half as cool as her when I'm a grandma, then I'll be happy. Gramps lucked out when he found her over 50 years ago, and they still love each other and give each other grief :) My mother's day turned out to be pretty spectacular! Max and Jack made me pancakes with berries, then Max helped me make pot roast to put in the crock pot. For the rest of the day, he smelled like garlic. Yummm! Then (I wish I had a video of this!) Max and the primary sang songs at church, which I conducted. Max was hanging over the podium, as expected, but he was singing the words that he knew at the top of his lungs and was conducting with me. How adorable is he? Then in the afternoon we got to camp in our yard with our friends from Sierra Vista, where Jack almost burned down the rental house with a gas can and a barbeque grill. I won't even elaborate on that, just imagine Jack running around the yard with a flaming gas can, waving his arms and leaving burning patches of gas in the yard--that Gary promptly stomped out with his foot. It's not very often that I get to laugh about dumb mistakes that Jack has made, because 99.99 percent of the really crazy ones are my fault, so I shall bring this even up often. Tee heee heee.

Mr. Fox is Fantastic!!!!!

Jack grabbed some kids movies from the library this weekend and I discovered a treasure: The Fantastic Mr. Fox!!!!!! Turns out the only thing kid-like that kept Max's attention was the moving animals and neat yellowish coloring, but the dialogue was definitely adult. My favorite scene is when Mr. Badger (played by Bill Murray) and Mr. Fox (played by George Clooney) get into an argument in Mr. Badger's lawyer office. They start growling and spitting at each other as they circle around and around. Watch this clip and pay attention to how Mr. Fox eats--Max has been duplicating it all weekend.

Chocolate Covered Peeps and Mississippi Tornadoes

I was surprised yesterday by a package from my best friend (YOU ROCK LULU!)--A huge box of dark chocolate covered peeps! What could be better than cheap marshmallow goodness made stale by sitting it on the counter for a few days? Adding chocolate, of course! Stale peeps have been my guilty pleasure for about 15 years now, and my true Giuli friends indulge my passion by buying them on sale after Easter and passing them on. My habit has been aided by living in the dry climate of Arizona. One year in Mississippi, I slashed the packages open and put them on top of the fridge. I waited and waited for them to get stale, and 6 months later they were still moist and soft--yuck! Here in Zonie land, it only takes a couple of days for them to get to their peak state of chewiness. On a similar subject, has anyone noticed that bread gets moldy very quickly in the South, but only gets very hard in more arid climates? Except good old bunny bread, which has some sort of unmentionable chemical that keeps it "fresh" for about a month.

On a more somber note, I'm a little slow on the national news because Jack and I don't have TV, but as soon as I heard about the twisters in my beloved Mississippi, I ran to school and looked it up on the Internet. I read dozens of stories and watched the videos, and almost cried when it showed all of the homes and roads devastated. My goodness, it looked just like Hattiesburg after Katrina!!!!! I can still smell the chainsaws cutting through the pine trees so that we could get out of our neighborhood. The troopers of Yazoo City have a tough road ahead of them, but in true Southern fashion, the residents and volunteers are rolling up their sleeves and gettin it done. One of the neatest things about the storm aftermath in Mississippi was attending the block "pot lucks", where everyone cleaned out their freezer and cooked it up on the gas grills for friends and neighbors. Some of the fare that we ate one night was barbecued pork, steaks, fish, and hot dogs. Once the streets were clear, everyone on my block cleaned up limbs in surrounding yards, tarped roofs, and surrounded battery powered TVs to get the latest news updates. Our good ol' neighbor, Bob, spurred by homemade moonshine, mowed the yards of the entire street in a fit of good humor one day. It was surely the most scary experience of my life to be at the mercy of Nature, but the love and support of family and friends made it bittersweet. I absolutely ADORE the wonderful people of Mississippi, and I will love them until the day I die. Please keep these folks in your prayers, and share the love-Mississippi style-with your neighbors.

Louisa May Alcott was a genius!

First of all, I'd like to share with you my random teacher's lounge tear off calender quote of the week:

While faith makes all things possible, it is love that makes all things easy.

Isn't that just stinkin profound? It has been a boring, AIMS state testing week experience. I've had hallway duty. Oh, don't gasp with excitement! For 12 hours this week I've been guarding the hallway--not from intruders or masked ninjas--but from noise causing 4th and 5th graders getting rowdy while on potty break. The bad news is, I discovered that the hallway stays a frigid 60 degrees, the good news is that I've read two good books!!!!! In desperation yesterday morning I realized that I hadn't picked a new one, and grabbed an ancient one from the bookshelf that I probably haven't looked at in 17 years--"Little Men" by Alcott. It is strange how motherhood (and especially being a mother to a raggedy toddler boy) changes your perception of classic novels. I was at times rolling with laughter at the playful antics of Jo's boys, and then at other times brushing away tears as Alcott describes the search for Jo's little son Rob, who gets lost in the woods picking blackberries for his mommy. When Jo and the search party discover him, he is fast asleep in the woods, with a berry stained mouth and sweaty red face. He only eats just a few berries, despite his fearful hunger, because he was saving them for his "Marmar". After clutching him to her, Robby says "I knew that you would come!", and then proceeds to shove the berries into her mouth. Reading this novel reminds me of the sweaty dirt-stained hands that wrap so tightly around his Momma's neck and the incessant goodnight kisses bestowed upon me by my Max. I admit that I indulge him with caresses and loves and kindnesses a lot, but I don't think that he will ever fault me for not loving him enough. I am ever realizing that he is more of a miracle than I ever supposed. That unique little body and stout mind were meant to come to us, and I pray that we can grow him into a fruitful tree before long.