Curse of the Babysitters

This was SUPPOSED to be a busy week, evening-wise. Last night we were scheduled for a date night with our MOPS group (bowling). I was really looking forward to it, especially after a 5-day weekend, courtesy of President's Day and the local school district (grr...)

But our first babysitter's mom called to tell us her daughter had been home from school all day with a "gastrointestinal illness." (Not sure why she didn't say "stomach flu." Perhaps her variation is supposed to be more impressive).

Tonight we were supposed to head out to Grass Lake for a birthday party for E's "other" wife, his mixed doubles partner Steph. Guess who left me a message last night that she is sick? Babysitter #2. Thank God I'm going out tomorrow with Supper Club (minus E...we already agreed on that).

Thank goodness, too, I took time this morning to do a quick LO on our current shared passion, watching Season 1 of The Big Bang Theory on DVD, borrowed from E's friend and co-worker, Jim. We haven't had this much fun since we bonded over That 70s Show.

After running errands in Chelsea with Ben, I sat down and watched two more episodes while Ben chatted in his crib for an hour and a half. So much for a break today.

Busy Bee

I've had an explosion of creativity this weekend. I've ignored housework, laundry, cooking, kids & hubby to get these done:

...good thing, too, because I checked the SIStv forum and they are due FRIDAY, the 20th, not the 28th like I thought.

These are ATCs (Artist Trading Cards) for a Rainbow ATC swap Stacey Fike is hostessing. You make six of each color, then get six different colors back. So I'll be getting 18 rainbow-colored ATCs in exchange, sweet!

In Valentines Day news, I got a new printer. My Epson may just need new toner cartridges, but it has been smearing black ink with its rollers lately, despite nozzle checks & head cleaning, and cartridges are $25 a pop (I need black and CMYK, so that's $50, ouch); it was time to try something new.

The new one (Kodak ESP 5) has a built-in scanner (something else I've been needing) but I'm not really thrilled with the print quality. E, of course, did his Consumer Reports (aka The Engineer's Assistant) and CNet research, and found this one to be the fastest on print time as well as one of the cheapest (ahem) on the market, so...Happy Valentine's Day to me.

Tess got conversation heart stickers, Ben got a Mack toy (Cars movie, naturally), E got a (very) funny card (let's just say it involved fuzzy monkeys and a banana joke), I got a printer (and some consolation flowers Saturday night...I might have shared Pitiful Husband Attempts at Valentines Day stories from Friday night with E earlier in the day...oops)...well, it was better than most romantic holidays around here :)

Retro Modern collection layout

I wanted to start ordering from Scrap in Style this year...I even cleared my scrapping account to help me save some dough each month. This is their first new collection, also known as Winter Detox. At first I wasn't too sure about the bright colors and busy patterns, but now that I have it in hand I'm really, really loving it and finding all sorts of photos to use with it!

I'd like to link right to my SIStv gallery, but for some reason, Blogger does not like their script. So here is my first LO with this collection, straight from my files!

Wish I could make that script work...anyway, this kit has exclusive Mod Sheets -- combo patterns you can cut apart or use as pre-planned LOs -- plus some cool vintage stuff (that's retro wallpaper in foil & yellow on the bottom there...too funny, I think we had something similar in our bathroom growing up, only with foil flowers, ooo la la, stylee!) and October Afternoon embellishments.

I added the playing cards, SIStv red gaffer tape, white ric-rak and crocheted dragonfly, and bling bling bling.

Kinda crazy for me, but it worked with this photo and I had LOTS of fun working with bright colors, for once!

If I could be any car...

Mmm...

Not too sure about this color combo.

I think it's growing on me, though.

I am spending waaay too much time watching Cars.

Which reminds me, I need to go get my free tokens!

Can you say, "cabin fever...?!"

Creative Therapy Challenge #46

This challenge was What is your favorite poem, and why?

Can you believe, despite being in AP English from about 8th grade on, I didn't learn to love poetry until I was in college? Prior to that, the only poem I remember studying was T.S. Elliot's The Wasteland, which my junior year AP English teacher absolutely loved and made us interpret the hell out of, line by line. I adored my teacher, but she couldn't make me love poetry.

Ozymandias was the first poem I "got" all on my own. It was like a light went on in my head. I loved it so much I memorized it, the first (and so far only) poem I'd ever memorized. I loved the imagery, the build-up, and the final comment on mankind's hubris. Frankly, I loved the big words like visage and colossal, I loved phrases like antique land. I loved that it made me realize we need to live in the now, and not try to build monuments to ourselves that we foolishly believe will live forever:

OZYMANDIAS

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

I learned to love poetry in teacher's college. I studied to be a secondary school English teacher, of all things, so I had to at least pretend to be interested in poetry. The book that did it for me was Sound and Sense. I still have a copy somewhere. It broke down poetry into layman's terms. Despite being so "advanced" all those years, I needed something simple to explain poetry to me, to make me love it. To turn the light on.

Not Dead Yet

An interesting article on blogging from Writer's Digest.

I can't imagine being so techologically hooked-up that it would kill you!

Well, as long as you're here, I may as well entertain you...

On Mondays we try to have a Family Night, which usually involves us all laying around watching a movie. A couple of months ago, E thought the kids would enjoy Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Yeah, I know, not smart. I remembered that it was a little racy, but forgot Christopher Lloyd's completely creepy end as Judge Doom (flattening a villian who then pops up and continues to come after you...the very stuff of children's nightmares. Thanks, E!)

Tess kept hiding under the covers, saying, "Turn it off! Turn it off!" but I wanted to assure her that Eddie Valiant & Co. get him in the end. She's at that age where you can draw the line between bad characters and the actors that portray them, so I mentioned that Lloyd plays a really great Good Guy in one of my all-time favorite movies, Back to the Future.

Santa was listening, and brought me the BTTF trilogy on DVD for Christmas. Not having learned our lesson, we spent a couple of Family Nights watching each in turn. The first movie isn't so horrible, some bad language and sexist situations (somewhat over Tess's head), then the second movie was too dark. At least Ben gave us all some perspective: he became obessessed with flying cars.

Both kids were bored by the third movie, wandering off during the romantic scenes (when Marty comes to get Jennifer off the porch, where they left her at the end of BTTF2, and leans in to kiss her, Ben actually turned away and said "ew" !!) (he is starting that way too early, LOL).

But we scarred Ben for life (again) when the modern freight train at the end completely destroys the DeLorean. He was taking in big gulps of air, near sobbing, saying, "Car! BOKEN!" At least we tried to assure him that Doc Brown would be able to put the car back together again. Sort of.

Holy cow, just looked up Lloyd's DOB. He is the same age as my mother. So is John Cleese. Maybe 70 is the new 50?

Resolutions

Hmmm, maybe mine should be to give up my blog...no...can't quite do that...but I am on facebook a LOT more often, so if you know me (or think you do), drop me a line and I can give you my moniker "IRL..."

At least I took the Christmas music off.