Week in Review/Five Question Friday

I don't have much to say in terms of "review" right now. I'm reading and watching the same things as last time. We did have "Rodeo Day" at my daughter's preschool this morning. She had fun, and that's what's important {I was pretty bored}. I'm proud of myself that in my very limited alone time this morning, I actually went for a walk. I'm trying to "get healthy" yet this is maybe the 4th time I've gone walking in 2012.

My new favorite "thing" is that I bought plastic cups at Kmart a few weeks ago to stop using disposable. They were 4 cups for $2 and I bought 2 sets (so 8 cups for $4)--all red, so the kids won't argue who gets what color--and they are so handy. Exciting, I know.

Since I'm clearly out of clever things to say, I'll move on to 5QF.........

1. If you were free to just hop in the car and drive, where would you go? Or, if you could hop a plane and go anywhere, where?
Haha, I'm not much for spontaneity, so let's see. Assuming we're talking all expenses paid (and maybe we can throw in a nanny to accompany us, while we're at it), I'd like to fly to Indiana to see my BFF.

2. What's your most recently read favorite book?
Of the books I've read recently, my favorite was probably Minding Frankie by Maeve Binchy.

3. What's your favorite Spring Break memory?

I was spoiled as a kid and most years we would travel for Spring Break. We had what I think you'd call a timeshare in Kiawah Island, South Carolina--a condo on the beach (told you, spoiled). Those were great vacations: pool time, beach time, a little exploring, a day trip to historic Charleston. Fun!

4. What do you put in your child's Easter basket? Or, for those w/o kids, what was put in your childhood basket?

Because of my son's food allergies, I've always had to be creative to fill our Easter baskets with stuff other than candy. Now I don't even think about candy! This year I have a few things I got on clearance from the "stocking stuffer" aisle after Christmas and I think each kid will get one bigger toy (L would love a Lego Batman set). For a few years, I had a theme going that I'd put religious books in their baskets, but I've gotten out of that habit.

5. Do you get a summer haircut?

I don't have a tradition of getting a summer haircut, but this year I plan to chop my hair. Since having kids, I've gone back and forth between my "favorite" hairstyle (a bob about chin length) and a super short cut (similar to Rachel Maddow, see below). I have the bob right now, though it's approaching my shoulders and I'm at the point where I throw my hair in a ponytail Every Single Day so it's time to chop it! Once the weather gets a few degrees hotter, I'll get the short 'do and it should last the 6 months of heat. {I'm really ambivalent about how I look with the short cut, sometimes I think I look like a 14-year-old boy. Other times I think it's a more sophisticated and grown-up look, which I like.}

That's it for today, please head to Mama M's for more Q&A fun!

Week in Review 2/22/12

I was searching through this here blog the other day and was reminded of my Week In Review posts that I liked doing as a quick round up of what I'm watching, reading, doing etc. That fits well with my "plan" to post once a week so here goes.

What I'm Reading

I am currently reading In the Company of Others by Jan Karon, the second in the Father Tim series, which is an offshoot/continuation/sequel of the Mitford series. I don't love the Father Tim series as much as I loved Mitford, but right away I was drawn into this installment and it's nearing can't-put-it-down status.

What I'm Watching

Like the rest of the world/country/blogosphere, I've fallen in love with Downton Abbey. Love Love Love. And I can't get enough of their fashion, I have a board devoted to Downton Abbey Fashion on Pinterest. Sadly, the second season ended the other night (wasn't it a wonderful finale?!), I can't wait for it to return!

Hubby and I also like The Walking Dead, which just returned on AMC. However, we watched the most recent episode last night and were disappointed in the writing.

I watched the pilot episode of Smash because it looked like my cup of tea--I love musical theater and Glee and Broadway. I only sort of liked it. I think I'll watch another episode before I commit or give up.

One more thing I want to mention. Perhaps inspired by Downton Abbey, we've been watching other British dramas on Netflix. We found and loved Bleak House. It was confusing to follow at the beginning (it's Dickens so there are loads of characters), but we soon got into it. I highly recommend it.

In Other News

Not much life-shattering going on around here. We've all been sick a number of times this winter. The kids just never get over their colds. My new philosophy is "there is no normal, only troubleshooting." Lots of troubleshooting of illness lately.

Lent starts today. I suppose I could do a whole post about my "plan" but I'm here now so here goes. Last week in a bout of the blues, I emailed my BFF that I was struggling with What's my purpose? What's the point? Why do I bother? She didn't pretend to have the answer, just empathy and she reminded me that Hubby and the kids need me and she needs me as a friend etc. The next day, her words "clicked" and I turned her thoughts into a purpose statement, that my purpose is To Serve Others, to serve Hubby and L and T and my BFF and so on. So far, while not life-changing and not enough to fend off the negative thoughts, that has been a pretty helpful mantra/philosophy. And now it's Lent and I'm not motivated to give up sweets or caffeine or another bad habit (cough, computer, cough) for fear I'll lose whatever sanity I have left, but I can use this as my Lenten promise. Therefore, I have chosen this Lent to focus on how I can serve others and also Less Yelling. My kids are so crazy/rambunctious/loud that sometimes I'm not even yelling out of temper but just for volume. Just to be heard. Now I'm trying to get their attention by clapping. I can tell you that Day 1 isn't off to the best start. I will try to log my progress in future posts.

That's Life 7/18/11

So much going on, where do I begin?

L finally recovered from his tonsil surgery. He's back to normal except he's no longer drinking his prescription formula. Mostly that's good, but it's also scary because that means we have to replace 900 calories from formula with actual food. And he's still quite a picky eater. So meal time is even harder than ever.

We succeeded in moving our speech appointments to a later time for the start of kindergarten and full school days. Amazing, miraculous achievement! So far, I'm enjoying our new schedule.

We had L's birthday party. Once again it was at Peter Piper Pizza and again they did a super awesome job. Everything went smoothly and I actually had time to talk to the other moms. And it ended up being a great group, really pleased how it turned out. :-)

As usual, I have tons of things I want to post about but I'm lousy at the follow through. We'll see if I can get some new posts up this week. Fingers crossed!

What have you been up to? Let me know in the comments. How's your summer going?!

That's Life 4/8/11

I have decided to rename my "Week in Review" posts because I never remotely kept up with a weekly review. I thought I would now call it "Life Update" because that's what it will be, but that's boring so I'm going with "That's Life." Clever, huh? ;-) So here's what's been going on lately.


First, I'm having so much fun at the Ultimate Blog Party, hopping from blog to blog {putting things right that once went wrong and hoping each time that the next leap will be the leap home--forgive my random Quantum Leap reference} finding new blogs to read and getting new readers (I hope!) in return. {Welcome new readers!} I haven't been able to hop around nearly as much as I'd like 1) because I have, you know, stuff to do and 2) because as part of Lent, I ban myself from the computer from noon till T is napping (about 3 to 4 hours). I would use that as an excuse for not posting more often, but we all know I've always only ever been inconsistent with posting. (Yes, I meant to be redundant.)


T has been a super pain in my rear this week. She had a fever one night, otherwise she doesn't seem sick, except for extra fussing and clinging. She wouldn't let me leave her side all day yesterday. Makes it hard to get anything done. This week's project is TAXES, yes I've put those off way too long, but now I've added up our medical expenses (are you ready for it? over $18,000--that's premiums, prescriptions, speech therapy, Neocate, doctor co-pays and L's endoscopy), and this morning I started Turbo Tax. Finally!


Books
I finished reading Memoirs of a Geisha. I'll write a full review soon but as a preview: two thumbs up. My new upstairs book (that I read during the kids' baths) is Casting Off. So far so good, though the writing is flat compared to Geisha, but the plot moves satisfyingly.


Movies
I'm way behind on reviewing the movies we've watched, so look for a long post soon. I can tell you that we watched Hot Tub Time Machine this week. It's not near as good as the Hangover (plot=bad) but it was very funny. BTW, John Cusack looked awful. Has he just aged or has he had a {bad} facelift/botox? I fear the latter. John, you should know better. Anyway, it was quite fun to have an '80s film icon in an '80s flashback movie. And the casting of Crispin Glover was inspired. Nice touch!


EE update
Not much new with L. I think I've mentioned before my frustration that even with his "favorite" foods, he eats like 3 bites. Or he'll say he wants "egg on toast" or a "peanut butter sandwich" (technically it's Sunbutter), but by the time I fix it, he barely takes one bite. Grrrr. On a positive note, we have found a way to make grilled cheese that he likes and doesn't make his tummy hurt. No butter. We use a non-stick skillet and layer GF bread, cheese, GF bread; cook, flip, cook. It's more toasted than grilled, but he doesn't seem to care. Yea, a new food!


T's speech
T still says very little and it can be quite frustrating. {She's very hard to put to bed and I'll ask what's wrong, what she needs, and she speaks a language I can't understand. :-(} However, she's been starting to put phrases together which is so exciting! Ugh, I can't think of any examples. "All done" + "hot dog." That's a simple one, but I know she's put together a few things that really surprised me. I'll try to keep you posted.


That's it. Have a great weekend! What have you been up to?!


P.S. As usual, these are NOT affiliate links.

Week in Review & Five Question Friday--2/24

Week in Review photo credit

What I'm Reading

I finished Agatha Christie's Pocket Full of Rye. This is the second AC novel I've read. The first was a Poirot mystery and I thought I followed along pretty well, had it mostly figured out, but at the big reveal, I had definitely missed some things. That was okay. This time, I feel like I was led on a wild goose chase and the perpetrator was a total surprise. I won't go into more detail so as not to spoil it for anyone, but it was a disappointment, and also pretty boring. Thumbs down.

I continue to read Memoirs of a Geisha and I'm entranced. Great writing, tons of details about the geisha culture. I'm really enjoying it!

What I'm watching

Ugh, lots of movie duds lately. So I'll just mention the good stuff.

Crazy Heart--we really enjoyed this, great performances (Jeff Bridges deserved his Oscar), though we never quite bought the "romance."

Inception we thought was okay, interesting to watch, but we felt like the movie was trying too hard to be clever at the expense of plot.

Brothers we thought was surprisingly good. I didn't think Natalie Portman had the maturity to be believable as the mother of two kids, though she was technically old enough. {I suppose that's the challenge for her, when she's been acting since she was a kid and she weighs about 100 pounds.} But Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal were excellent. And it had me on the edge of my seat.

Ondine was another good one. Charming, romantic, a little mystery. I really wish it had subtitles {I've mentioned before that we have to keep the volume low because our kids are asleep} because all the accents and mumbling were hard to understand, but even missing half the dialogue, we liked the movie. :-)

In other news

I posted my EE update the other day, so no news there.

I've been playing with my blog. I figured out how to change the color and font of my header. I added a welcome message and picture of my kids in the left sidebar. And I'm working on adding "pages" like "About Me" to go along the top.

Five Question Friday

1. Can you drive a stick shift?

Sadly no, I never learned that skill. My husband loves manual transmissions, so his current car is actually a stick shift. Therefore, I cannot drive my husband's car. Is that weird?

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2. What are two foods you just can't eat?
I am a picky eater, so there are plenty of foods I don't like. But I gag, literally gag, on ham and spinach. Once I was eating a tomato and bacon pizza and I gagged on one bite. I spat it into a napkin and looked down--there was a piece of ham (that had been hidden under the cheese). So I don't even need to know it is there. Now I just tell people I am allergic to ham and spinach, so they won't serve them to me.

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I also really don't like fish of any kind, but I can usually choke it down if I have to.

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3. Do you buy Girl Scout Cookies? What is your favorite kind?

Now don't call me unpatriotic, but as I was thinking about buying Girl Scout Cookies this year, I wondered "why bother?" My favorite is Thin Mints, which are basically the same as Keebler Grasshopper cookies, which are cheaper. So I'll just stick to Keebler. I know, so sad. :-(

4. How do you pamper yourself?
I don't do massages, pedicures etc. So I pamper myself with laziness. I like to curl up in pajamas on my recliner, with a blanket and a tub of ice cream and watch a movie. Yep, that's my joy. That said, I did get my eyebrows waxed for the first time last fall and those few minutes felt like pampering. I'm looking forward to doing it again soon.

5. What is your nickname and how did you get it?
I don't really have a nickname other than "mom" and that one I got by having my beautiful children. And Hubby calls me various stupid pet names, we're really quite childish, but we both have kind of long formal names that don't lend themselves to shortening, so "pookie" and "kwady" win out.

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Alright, it's time to get T up from her nap. For more Q&A fun, visit My Little Life. Happy weekend!

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By the way, those are not affiliate links.

Week in Review--1/7/11

Before I get on to Five Question Friday, I thought I'd share a few tidbits.



In my quest to get organized and cleaned up, today I:



-Printed out this January cleaning calendar from Clean Mama.



-Bought the e-book: Tell Your Time ($7 with code CLEANSLATE), recommended by Simple Organized Living--because time manangement is a huge problem of mine.



And I actually cleaned... because the exterminator was coming over to do our annual indoor treatment. Eek. I finally sorted all the little itty bitty toys that have been on the floor since before Christmas and were added to on Christmas {the place looked worse than ever!} and got them in all their various baskets and into the cabinet. Awesome! I left plenty of odds and ends, but it looks So Much Better. Then I wiped down my master bathroom, which was in half-decent shape because I cleaned it at the beginning of Nevember {I told you I'm a mess!}. Sadly, my bedroom was beyond the reach of a short cleanup time. Embarassing. I like to tell myself the exterminator has seen worse.



Meanwhile, we've been watching a French movie this week, Tell No One. It was weird and complex, one of those films that reveal just a little bit at a time so you spend much of it confused (and even annoyed--I almost gave up on it after the first night), but ultimately it all made sense and it was pretty good. Not great, but interesting and kind of romatic. Kind of.




Okay, on to this week's Q & A, some unusual questions so I thought I'd join in with Mama M. Here goes:



1. What is your current favorite book, and why?
I'm not sure I understand the "current" part of this question, do they mean of the books I'm currently reading or the book I would tell people (currently) is my favorite book ever? If it's the latter, my favorite book {that everyone must read} is Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Awesome! If it's the best of what I'm reading right now, I'll say Memoirs of a Geisha, because I'm further along in it than the other novels I'm reading {more on those in a future post} and though I'm not sure yet about the plot (aren't geishas prostitutes?!), the writing is very good.



2. Do you go to the dentist regularly?

I am embarassed to say it's been YEARS since I've seen a dentist. I won't tell you how many years, let's just say more than five. {Hangs head in shame.} I blame the IBS as well as our lack of dental insurance.


3. What is your worst memory from High School?
I've said before that I hated high school, so let's see if I can choose one moment. Oh here's a good one. I was skinny in high school and had no boobs (not that I've got much more up top these days, I was not blessed by the boob fairy). One day in Geometry (I was a freshman, these annoying boys were sophomores), we got a test back. One boy saw my good score and said "let's give her {meaning me} a medal" and the other boy replied, "yes, and a chest to put it on." Yeah, good memories! (That's just off the top of my head, I can't say for sure it's the worst memory.)

4. What do you hope to be remembered for in your life?
I wish that I would make the history books or be a published author one day, but it's not looking like that's in the plan, so it will just be friends and family who remember me and I hope they say I was a good person, that I was kind, and I hope my kids have good memories of our times together, that they'll say I was a good mom.

5. Are you superstitious or do you have any superstitions?

Funny, this reminds me of when I was a kid and I was watching something, like beauty pageants or award shows, and I was rooting for someone, I'd cross my fingers--and then I went through a phase where I thought it was better to un-cross everything so I'd sit there with my fingers all fanned out rooting for Miss Tennessee to make the finals or for Janet Jackson to win best album. Funny to think back to that, now I hate beauty pageants with a (feminist) vengeance and I'm lucky if I catch the Oscars.



So am I superstitious these days? I guess a little, because I don't like to "jinx" myself (not that I actually believe in jinxing or tempting fate but I can't help it) by saying, for example, "my kids haven't been sick in 2 months" for fear they will promptly get sick. I like to keep an umbrella in my purse because, Murphy's Law, it will rain the one day I forget it. And so forth. Not really susperstitious in the black cat/broken mirror kind of way.

Or just now, I thought of putting as my facebook status that "I'm having a good day," but I can't because then surely the day would take a turn for the worse. So I won't post that--I can, however, wait till the end of the day and declare "it was a good day." So there you go.

For more Question fun, go here. Have a great weekend!!!

Week in Review--August 21, 2010

Back from vacation but still two weeks "off" before school starts, it should have been a pretty easy week, just speech on Monday and Wednesday. But L's GI office called on Tuesday and offered us an appointment the next day. Thus, suddenly Wed. was going to be crazy--GI appointment at PCH (downtown Phoenix) at 10:30 am and speech in north Scottsdale at 2:00 pm. So I was hoping we'd make it home by 12:30 (allowing for an hour at the doctor's plus drive time) and leaving for speech at 1:15. In other words, it would be hell.


Normally, when something comes up like this, I tend to cancel speech, but as we'd just missed two sessions for vacation and they have a policy of dropping clients if attendance drops below 80% in 30 days--that wasn't a viable option this week.


So Wednesday comes and it was a nightmare as expected. The first IBS episode happens after we pass Dollar Tree, I take 2 Imodium and stop at my usual McDonald's bathroom. Back on the road, we hit construction and I get another episode and there's nowhere to stop before PCH, so I pop another Imodium, make it through the construction and eventually get to the hospital.


Although it felt like we waited forever (and the waiting room was packed), it wasn't even 11am by the time the doctor came in. So that was good, we made it home about 12:10, moved straight into lunch, and made it to speech, exhausted but on time.


We were like a traveling circus at the doctor's office. In the waiting room, my kids were jumping off the furniture and squealing like banshees. In the exam room, I'm trying to talk to the doctor while L and T wrestle on a chair. And I'm a mess because the whole thing gives me great (IBS-related) anxiety. Circus!


So having survived Wednesday, I promptly do nothing on Thursday or Friday, can't even manage to take us to the grocery when we run out of whole milk, I just feed T skim milk instead. Fail.


Saturday was "workday" at L's preschool. Two hours passed super-slowly as I bleached toys and cleaned a fan and generally tried to make myself useful. Never mind that I don't clean my own home, I cleaned up the preschool. Thank you, Hubby, for not pointing out that irony. Bright side--I met several nice moms from L's class.

GI Appointment

All four guaiac cards were negative. I asked for a "big picture reality check" because hello, my son is 5 and drinks a bottle and poops in a diaper. First, she said these issues derive from a medical problem. Second, "we messed up" on behavior (her words--I think she means we didn't break the bottle habit soon enough, on her advice) but we are all grateful he never needed a tube (amen to that!). We talked about the poop issue, which she called a normal developmental stage, and told me a few tricks to try including a laxative. She didn't have any new input on the getting-through-the-school-day issue, I said we're sending a lunch box full of food plus a thermos of Neocate and he's just going to have to figure out that if he's hungry he has to either eat or drink.

The young girl in the waiting room in a wheelchair with a breathing tube gave me a "big picture reality check" too. Things could be a lot worse!

Reading

Before our vacation, I checked out 3 Jane Austen spin-offs from the library.

I started reading An Assembly Such As This thinking it was a Pride & Prejudice "sequel" but it turns out that it is a retelling of P&P from Darcy's perspective. No thanks, I won't be reading that.

Next up, a P&P sequel called Desire and Duty. I read the first page and a half and set it down because it was so poorly written.

Book #3: Jane Austen in Boca, a modern-day P&P that takes place among retirees in Florida. I loved her Jane Austen in Scarsdale (see my review here) and this time I enjoyed that she was describing the culture and manners of a society I knew nothing about. Sadly, I just couldn't get into the saga of an old folks home and I gave up. (Also, the plot departed too far from Austen for my taste.)

So I picked up Desire & Duty again. The writing style is awful, painful sometimes, but I like "hanging out" with my friends from Pride and Prejudice and the plot follows Georgiana's quest for a mate--and the book (thankfully, because the style is so lacking) is plot-driven (no analysis of culture or manners) so I can, for the most part, ignore its faults. I'm not loving it, but I'm enjoying it.

All this puts into perspective Pride & Prescience that I read last month (and partially reviewed here). When I finished the book, I was disappointed that the "solution" to the mystery involved the paranormal. Lame, I thought. Now, I think I will forgive that shortcoming because the style was the closest to Austen that I've yet read. Or at least she's readable. Anyway, I'm willing to try her next novel in the "Darcy mystery" series.

Watching

We just finished "The Last Station" starring Christopher Plummer and Helen Mirren as Mr. and Mrs. Leo Tolstoy (technically Count and Countess, but whatever) at the end of his life. We loved this movie! My husband is a huge Tolstoy fan, which helped because at the beginning I didn't know what was going on. (Don't worry if you don't have a Tolstoyan to watch it with, the movie explained everything a few minutes after Hubby did.) Great acting, fast-moving story that was almost a comedy at some points, fun to watch. And Paul Giamatti, James McAvoy, a little love story among the younger characters, made for many surprises. I highly recommend it (and would like to see it again, maybe even own it, so two thumbs up).

That's what I've been up to. Another school-free week ahead but it will probably be full of errands. Lots of cooking, I'll try to post my meal plan tomorrow.

What I'm Doing, Reading, Watching

It's summer in Phoenix. HOT doesn't begin to describe it. It's scorching! Makes me never want to leave the house, especially with both kids because loading and unloading them from car seats is several minutes under the blazing sun. (I turn the car on so AC blasts on the kids, but I'm standing under the sun and on the black pavement that radiates heat up onto my sandal-clad feet, ouch!) But life goes on and the kids have places to be and I have errands to run.



L goes to camp two mornings per week. Monday and Wednesday afternoons, both kids go to speech therapy. Thursday is my happy day with nowhere to be. :-)


L is doing great in speech. They are working on the "l" sound so he's finally learning to correctly pronounce his name.

T has turned out to be a very difficult therapy "client." She's very resistant! Her SLP is frustrated and wondering if T has more underlying problems. A hearing problem? General apraxia (making it hard for her to sign)? A visual over-stimulation problem?! I think she's just stubborn and not a quick learner. We now have her signing want, and she can put two signs together like want more, want sleep etc. And last night she finally learned open. So it's coming, just slowly.


I need to schedule a hearing test for her, but I'm worried about the expense and I'm procrastinating. Bad mommy!


L and the food. Ugh. We quit feeding therapy when T started speech because of the expense. Also, we felt we could take the techniques she taught us and run with it. Yeah, that hasn't really worked, he's regressed, lost some of the foods he'd been eating. The latest food he dropped was turkey sandwiches, which poses an extra problem: What the heck do I send in his school lunches??!! {Sorry, deep breath.} Next time, I've decided to send the turkey and cheese in a tortilla (since he told his teacher he couldn't chew the bread (liar, liar, pants on fire), I'll get rid of the bread). Anyway, I know I need to make some sort of reward chart and I have some ideas, I just haven't figured out the how and what yet. L is really hard to bribe! If there's something I know he wants, I'll say "you can have {{that thing you really want}} as soon as you {{do the desired behavior}} and he'll say "that's okay I don't really want {{that thing}} anymore." :-(



T went through a Scooby Doo phase that I really enjoyed. He still plays with the toys and likes the books, but he's moved on to watching other things like the Rugrats (awful!). Occasionally I've been able to steer him to Super Why, which has some educational value. ;-) (But today he's watching Barney--eek, I'm convinced that was created to drive parents crazy. Hence, I'm not in the living room right now.) T loves Pingu, the claymation penguin from Sweden. She cracks up and dances to the shows, and that has given me a new tantrum remedy.

What I'm Reading

Inspired by this giveaway (that I didn't win), I've been reading some Jane Austen spin-offs. First up, I read Jane Austen in Scarsdale by Paula Marantz Cohen. I really enjoyed this. It's a modern-day Persuasion--lots of stuff was right out of Persuasion (you'll recognize Bennick immediately, for example) but there are plenty of twists (the equivalent of Captain Wentworth is engaged). It was a fun, easy read. My only complaint was I think Cohen was trying to mimic Austen's gift for reading people and her social commentary etc. as Cohen describes all the SAT- and college-application stuff Anne sees as a guidance counselor. In that, I don't think the she was successful. First, Austen is a genius at that, way ahead of her time at pointing out the absurdity of various customs etc. Therefore, Cohen has big shoes to fill. And I just don't think she had particularly witty or special observations about her characters. Perhaps that's because I went to the type of competitive high school where the story is set, so I knew all these types of people up close and personal, so there were no great revelations. That's okay, I still enjoyed and would recommend the book, and I'll be seeking out Cohen's Jane Austen in Boca soon.

Now I am reading Pride and Prescience by Carrie Bebris. This is another quick, fun read. This is the first time I've read an Austen "sequel," Bebris takes off where Pride and Prejudice ends, at the wedding receptions of Jane and Elizabeth Bennett. It's a mystery--right away strange things start happening. I'm towards the end now and I have a variety of suspects and suspicions, I'm curious how it will all turn out. The plot is interesting, the characters are true to Austen's novel (which is probably the best reason to read this type of book, to spend more time with our "friends" the Bingleys and Darcys), but the style of writing... it's a nice style, readable, not inconsistent with Austen's style, but again, Bebris has big shoes to fill and it just isn't as robust as Austen's prose. That's okay--Austen wrote long novels, we follow all the Bennett sisters through several seasons--Prescience has only covered a couple of weeks and contains about 8 characters. I wasn't expecting Austen reborn, I'm just grateful I'm not cringing. And I'm not, far from it, it's a lovely read, and I'll come back when I've finished and tell you how I liked the resolution and whether or not I'll seek out more of Bebris' works.

What I'm Watching

I've found two new tv shows recently. I don't know why, but I started DVRing reruns of Castle this summer. I like Nathan Fillion and I've been looking for a new mystery show since Without a Trace was cancelled. So I tried Castle and I like it. Fillion plays a mystery writer (named Castle) who shadows a homicide detective (played by Stana Katic). Fillion is fun to watch, though he is sometimes over the top. The mysteries (I've seen 3 episodes so far) have been pretty interesting, though in 2 cases, I caught on to a clue before the characters did (boo). There's supposed to be a "will they or won't they" thing going on between Castle and the detective, but I'm just not feeling the chemistry. Regardless, I'm enjoying the show.

TNT has a new show this summer (there have been 3 epsiodes so far, of which I've seen 2) called Rizzoli and Isles. Angie Harmon is Rizzoli, a homicide detective, and Sasha Alexander is Isles, a medical examiner, and they solve crimes. It looks like the premise is Isles dresses well and Rizzoli doesn't, but whatever, it's nice to see two strong, smart female leads. And the mysteries have been pretty good. And I like Angie Harmon. So I'm sticking with it for now.

That's a little of what's been going on in my world. Now I'm off to write my next Piggy Tale....

Week in Review

This past week was insane! (Oh and I know I didn't "review" the week before that, let's just say L was sick the whole week and leave it at that.) I knew it would be insane going into it, but it was actually worse than expected because T was sick and then I got sick--so I had to do all this running around while I was congested, sneezy, nose-running and with a sore throat. As added incentive, I told myself that once I made it to Friday, I would bake myself a cake.

We went to bed Sunday night planning that L would go to preschool the next morning (after being sick the whole week before), but at 12:45am my husband and I were still awake from listening to T cough on the monitor. So plan B: turned off the monitor so we could sleep (if she started to cry, we'd hear her on L's monitor), turn off the alarm clock so no 6:45 wake up call, L would miss school and I would take T to the doctor.

Monday morning, I call in L's absence to school and hubby calls the doctor's office. Then hubby goes to work and I drag L and T to the doctor's office. I should pause here to mention that I rarely think it's worth a visit to the doctor's office for "just a cold" or really anytime I know what the problem is. Hubby, however, always wants me to take the kids to be seen. On this particular day, I really didn't want to try to do both the doctor in the morning and speech in the afternoon, and the doctor's office is far away. But now L was missing school and I reminded myself that at least the doctor can look in her ears and throat. Despite T's awful night of coughing, she was dancing around the doctor's office and everything checked out fine.

We headed home, ate lunch, then went to speech. Oh and I called potential preschool #1 to set up a visit for the next day. We were in the process of choosing a pre-K program for L next year. We are "holding him back" or "redshirting" him: he turns 5 this summer, but we don't feel he's ready for kindergarten. Crazy day #1 = finished.

Also, at some point on Monday I went to Target and bought a humidifier for T's room. How did I manage to fit that errand in, I don't even remember!

Tuesday, T and I visited preschool #1 while L was at school. By this time, I have caught L and T's cold and am feeling miserable. I rested as much as possible knowing the next two days would be crazy.

Wednesday, I took L to potential preschool #2 for an assessment. The director wanted to meet him to see if he fits in their pre-K or their K1 classroom. She asked him a few questions and proclaimed him pre-K, which suits our needs perfectly. Then lunch, then speech. Crazy day #2 is over.

Wednesday night, hubby informs me that he has to be in Tempe by 8am the next morning. I have to leave for Scottsdale by 7:45am--so this leaves no one to take L to preschool. Thursday morning is T's speech evaluation (she is 20 months old and doesn't talk at all) and I scheduled it for 8:30am specifically so L wouldn't be there. Eek!

Thursday morning I rushed to get both kids ready to go while hubby headed to Tempe. I took L and T to the speech evaluation and apologized that I had to bring L with me. They put him in the office (so he could be supervised by the receptionists) and that solved the problem. Yea! The evaluation took less than 90 minutes (she scored 12-15 months on receptive language and 6-9 months on expressive--so she'll be getting therapy twice a week forever, just like L).

We collected L from the office and set up our future appointments and went on our merry way. Then lunch etc. and then went back to the same place for L's feeding therapy at 3pm. Before L got sick, he'd started eating hot dogs, but now he associates it with being sick and he won't eat them any more. Poop!

Once we were home from speech, crazy day #3 and insane week were over, praise the Lord!!!

Friday was a normal day, L went to preschool and I did as little as possible. I didn't even manage to make my cake.

So those were the big events of the week. This doesn't include all the feeding, bathing, housework, cooking etc. that took place as usual (and despite my cold). We also reserved L's birthday party at Peter Piper Pizza and I sent invitations to school on Tuesday. Oh and yesterday (Sunday), the 4 of us went to a travel expo that was a lot of fun--T sat patiently in her stroller and L was great about not running off and he enjoyed all the free candy and exploring the RVs on display, while hubby and I gathered information about various Arizona vacation spots.

No successes and failures this week. The success was just getting through the week.

Movies (this includes those I would have reviewed the previous week)
-We rewatched Pandorum and I am upgrading my rating to a B. It was pretty good--it held our attention through two viewings, which is saying something. Still, it didn't make a lot of sense.
-Paris 36: lame, several plots, none of which went anywhere. C
-9: Cute characters and a cool look, but the plot and action were of Saturday morning cartoon quality. C
-Devil's Tomb: Wow, was this movie bad! And what was Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Jr. doing among these B- and C-list actors? Bad! D (I was going to give it an F, but after all, we watched the whole thing rather than turning it off.)
-Cache: Hubby liked this more than I did (as is typical of foreign films). It was very intriguing for about 60% of the film and then the rest was like what the %^&*@!. And there was no resolution--which bugs me because I like everything tied up in a bow but my husband likes the mystery. I'll give it a C+ (because there were some cool elements at the beginning).

As you can see, we've been watching lousy movies lately. Please share your recommendations in the comments so we can rent some good movies, thanks!

TV
Glee: As usual, I loved the music. Doogie rocked! As for the plot, I'm confused. I thought Jesse hooked up with Rachel to sabatoge New Directions, now Vocal Adrenaline's coach is Rachel's birth mother? So are they still sabatoging Glee or is the point to have Rachel meet her mom, and if the coach is Rachel's mom, then why is she trying to sabatoge her daughter's glee club?!

24: Jack is out of control and not very likeable at this point. And all of this because Renee was killed? Like she was the love of his life or something? He didn't even go this crazy after his wife was killed! Anyway, there are still lots of ends to tie up in tonight's finale. I'm curious to see if Jack survives....

This week should be much more pleasant--no therapies! Have a great week!

Week in Review

So this is basically a roundup from last Saturday through Sunday (yesterday). The week started off normally with school, speech, feeding therapy. Thursday night, two of my sisters arrived for a visit. They stayed at a resort down the road and the plan was for us to all enjoy time at the resort's many pools. Friday, L went to preschool, then I picked him up, then picked up my sisters and took us all to our house for an early lunch and then we'd head over to the pool. But almost as soon as we got in the house, L threw up. Of course I assumed this was just overexcitement with the aunts being in town, till I felt his forehead and he was burning up. Thermometer confirmed a slight fever (100).

So... change in plans! Friday, Saturday and Sunday were spent taking care of L. My sisters went back and forth between our place and the hotel so they could still enjoy their vacation. (They even went out to a movie on Sunday.) Hubby and I were hoping to go out to dinner Saturday or Sunday night with my sisters babysitting, but even Sunday night we weren't willing to leave L (too unpredictable). I was feeling a little bit down about Mother's Day until I just said okay, what do I want to eat tonight?! I chose pizza even though we'd just had some on Friday night. I chose cheesecake even though neither of my sisters eats it. And we all hung out for dinner and after and opened gifts etc. and in the end (thanks in no small part to L finally feeling better) it was a very nice Mother's Day.

Feeding therapy:
This week we tried hot dog and L loved it. He had a hot dog with dinner Thursday night and got his sticker, but then as of Friday, he had a stomach virus, so no more feeding successes.

Successes:
-I cut up a watermelon for the first time ever.
-Last Sunday (not yesterday, obviously), all of us went to church and made it through the whole mass!
-Made a delicious cake for my sister's belated birthday celebration on Friday. (I'll try to post the recipe soon.)
-Successfully salvaged Mother's Day (see above).

Failures:
-I was out of clean straw-sippy-cups on Monday but I wanted to bring water with us to speech, so I brought another type of sports bottle instead. As I was getting the bag and kids out of the car at speech, I felt a gush of water down my back--the bottle had opened and spilled. Oops!
-I really lost my temper on Wednesday and yelled at my kids. :-(
-I didn't get my mother's gift to her in time for Mother's Day. Midweek I realized it was too late to get to the post office, so I put the card in the mail (I hope it got there on time) and I'll send her gift this week.


Movies:
-I've Loved You So Long. I'd give this movie a B. It went at a nice pace, revealing just a little bit at a time, but ultimately wasn't that interesting except that Kristin Scott Thomas was speaking fluent French. :-0
-Frozen River. We only made it through about half an hour, then gave up. Hubby wasn't interested; I could've gone either way, but it was depressing so I chose to skip it. Maybe some other time.
-Rudo y Cursi. I'd give this a C+. It was enjoyable to watch but the characters weren't good people and the ending was disappointing.
-Pandorum. Another C. Good enough to keep us watching but not good enough to recommend. However, we might watch it again because we missed the beginning (this was on Starz, we caught it about 20 minutes in) and we missed a lot because I couldn't figure out how to turn the closed captions on on our upstairs tv (long story). So maybe a B-.

TV:
I loved Glee this week (the music, never the plot). The "Physical" video complete with Olivia Newton-John: priceless! And I adore "Total Eclipse of the Heart." I would really like to hear Jesse sing more. I didn't understand why all the guys were ticked at Rachel after her stupid video--because she lied to them? because more than one guy was in the video? because she used them? I didn't get it. Also, I assumed that Jesse, since he's a spy, had written the Glist, but then it turned out to be Quinn. What?

Week in Review

I thought I'd try something different today, a little Week in Review, don't expect this to be a consistent feature, since nothing I do is consistent, but here goes. I am also inviting the Company Girls over for coffee for the first time. Welcome!
Successes
-Went to the library on Sunday and finally returned the 3 children's books we've had out since January.
-Called a potential preschool for next year.
-Scheduled a speech evaluation for T (I'd been procrastinating).
-Whole family went to church on Sunday.


Failures
-The usual poor time manangement. Got sucked into the internet and failed to play with my children. :-(
-Still haven't written Easter thank you notes.
-Forgot to defrost the beef for today's crockpot beef stew so I'll be scrambling to make something else for dinner instead.
-No exercise. None, zilch, nada. :-(

Feeding therapy
We've been doing feeding therapy for a few months to try to expand L's diet. We have sticker charts for a bunch of foods. So far, he's added chicken nuggets, american cheese, and ham (dipped in ketchup, yum); we're working on rice, mac 'n' cheese, french fry/tater tots, and guacamole/avocado.
-This week he got stickers for eating chicken, rice, and tater tots, earning a prize for the tater tots.
-Yesterday I sent cheese ravioli and chicken breast. L wouldn't eat the ravioli, but apparently he enjoyed eating the chicken dunked in marinara sauce. (We tried to replicate that success at dinner and he grudgingly ate one bite.)


Movies, tv, media
-Last weekend we watched The Squid & The Whale. It was awful--bad, disturbing, kids in trouble but not getting help. Bad.
-Finally saw The Blind Side. Loved it! Want to own it.
-Started watching Moon. Weird, but intriguing.
-Project Runway finale (I know it aired last week, but it took me till the weekend to watch it)--I think Seth Aaron's win was totally deserved, he had the best collection. Although Emilio rocked throughout the season, I didn't like his collection. Mila did a great job and I thought she had a better attitude during the final episodes than she had during the season. (On the other hand, I think Emilio's head swelled to enormous proportions, I didn't like that.)
-Glee this week--I didn't love the songs (except for the Beautiful number, which was awesome), but I LOVE Kristin Chenowith and I liked that Mercedes and Kurt both got to shine. Love Kurt's voice but didn't love his song. Kinda bummed that Sue got credit for doing the Beautiful thing, but whatever.
-I love that Sandra Bullock adopted a child in January. It makes me happy to know that through all the ugly divorce and tabloid stuff, she had this little boy to love and focus on. Congratulations to her.