There are times I don't love my job

Like when something breaks and I'm the only member of my team in the country and so I get to head into the office with rugrat in tow at 9:00 at night. It's now 11:40 and I still don't know what time we'll be heading home. Luckily for me Malia will fall asleep anywhere. Here's a lovely shot of her sleeping under the cubicle right behind me at work. She's been out and snoring for about an hour and a half.

she shoots, she scores!

Rugrat went GREEN yesterday! She was so excited. I rewarded her by letting her take a toy out of the "give to the daycare because you keep getting red or orange" bin and she got to pick dinner. I know I'm not really supposed to reward her with food, but I caved and bought her Arctic Circle. I made the mistake of trying their "new" ham and cheese. Well, if it had just been ham and fake cheese it probably would have been fine, but there was some sort of bizarro sauce on there that was like a cross between honey mustard and hot dog relish. It was not a good cross.

Back to the fugrat...

I'm hoping that my new strategy is what prompted her to behave. Aside from the whole teacher having it in for her feeling, she really does need to be better about following the classroom rules and the main reason she keeps getting to orange is because she gets told to pull a yellow card and then cries about it and throws a fit which results in her getting an orange card for the tantrum. New rules at home are

Red = two toys in the bin mentioned above
Orange = one toy in the bin
Yellow = neutral, nothing happens with toys
Green = Remove one toy from the bin

I told her we wouldn't do anything with the bin of toys until it's full so at the very least I'm sure she'll get enough greens and yellows to keep the level of toys down in the bin. We'll see how that works. I am getting more information from the teacher about her behavior and what exactly she's getting in trouble for so things are getting better. I will be continuing to keep an eye on things though.

Edit: I just noticed I referred to Malia as the fugrat. Makes me giggle so I'm not changing it.

More fun with the rugrat

I don't have anything particularly exciting going on right now except that I've finished up all my shopping completely. However I apologize in advance to JC/Carin/Zenock in case your package doesn't come before Christmas.

I realized last night that the recent stresses are taking a toll. After just about the crappiest last 5 days of work ever because of course everything breaks when I'm the only team member available, I needed a good baking to de-stress. I made chocolate chip cookies. Malia and my co-workers are quite happy about this. It was afterwards when Malia informed me that I wasn't any fun anymore and that I should take a hot bath and just relax and everything would be great. It just made me realize how in tune she is with my being in stress. I apparently need to deal with stress better and especially at home. I thought I'd share because really how many 5 year olds tell their mom to just take a nice hot bath and relax and everything will be just fine. She cracks me up and is such a delight even when she's a contributor to the stress sometimes.

Morning Drives like this one make it all worth while

Sometimes even the crappiest run of luck can have some outstandingly great times. Yes, I'm pretty sure I just made up a word, but it's my job so it's okay. This morning compared against yesterday was pretty fantastic. Not anything too spectacular, but just a good morning. Malia seems certain that she will get green today. She told me that every time she takes her Aurora doll as her toy for the day she gets green. So that is the toy she took this morning. The thought of this seemed to put her in a receptive mode because I only had to ask her one extra time to get dressed. I think the extra bedtime story is working to help her get to sleep. That and she enjoys it when I occasionally get tongue-tied reading her Dr. Seuss. We read two of the each night and her new favorite is Fox in Socks. That's the only one that really gets me because it's so easy to accidentally speed up when reading it out loud. She also really likes Green Eggs and Ham and has starting at least trying foods that I make instead of dismissing them outright as something she doesn't like. Who loves Dr. Seuss? I love Dr. Seuss.

As we jumped in the car to take her to daycare we were listening to a little Amy Winehouse. Again I must thank my friend for making me actually listen to her. I'd been reading about her in the tabloids for months but had never actually listened to her. I'm glad I did. Anyway, the following conversation took place:

Me: This is kinda dancing music, don't you think?
Malia: Yep, my bum cheeks are dancing!
Me: Oh yeah? Good music for it then.
Malia: My right one is doing the cha-cha and my left one is doing the ants in my pants dance.
Me:...
Malia: Oh wait, now they are both doing the Dave Mustaine rocks dance.

That's right, my five year old daughter referenced Dave Mustaine of Megadeth. She's also asked if I could get her some of his music because he rocks. This is due to an episode of Duck Dodgers where they defrost Dave Mustaine from being cryogenically frozen to come back and defeat the Martians easy listening Saxophone. I may have to hit up my Uncle Rick for some of his Megadeth collection since they are his favorite band.

She also popped out another gem as she was taking her jacket off at daycare. She told me, "My life was really great when I was three. I kind of miss those days." I wish I knew where she came up with some of this stuff, but that one had me and Dializ (daycare owner) nearly in tears laughing. My daughter is weird and I absolutely love it!

Here is the Dave Mustaine Duck Dodgers for your viewing pleasure:

I feel I must share - wall of text ahead

I apologize in advance. It's been a rather tough month or so and I haven't posted much happy stuff. This is not a happy post either so I'm giving you a heads up now. Please stop reading if you're looking for something happy. If you just want something entertaining, then I'm pretty sure this will hit the spot for you.

I've already had one of those mornings where I wish I'd never gotten out of bed and it's not even 9 am. Mainly because my morning started at 3:30. That's right. I said 3:30. And I didn't get to bed until 12:30. The guy who lives above me has absolutely no concept of what is an appropriate time to be hammering. What is he hammering you may well ask. I honestly don't give a rat's behind of caring about what he is hammering. I'd really love for him to not do it in the MIDDLE of the NIGHT! I wish he would do it during the day. You know, when no one else is home and he's spending it sleeping. He doesn't work, he's home all the time. Apparently from what I've gathered he really only leaves to do grocery shopping and that's in the middle of the night. I don't really care what he does for the most part, but the music and television at full volume all the time even into the night was bad enough and now the hammering has started over the last couple of months. He gets a talking to and I'm pretty sure he's being fined as well for it. Every night I know that I will have to ask him at least 3 times to turn down the radio/tv. He turns it down, but then it goes up again within an hour. I've lived here for over a year now and it's not really any better than when I moved in. Unfortunately I think that the HOA may have to bring in the police over it because he's disturbing the peace constantly during the night and I'm not the only one affected. From what I understand it's been like that for at least 5 years.

It took me nearly an hour to fall back asleep only to be awakened by a huge crash of dishes in the kitchen. I admit I freaked a bit because I wasn't sure if someone had broken in or what. I grabbed a shoe and headed out there after verifying that the rugrat was in her room sound asleep. I know, a shoe is kind of dumb but I didn't have anything else and at least it has a pointy heel. To my relief there was no one there, but I did have a shattered bowl on my kitchen floor. It appears that one of the holder things for the shelf failed and dumped the contents. It was of course the top shelf in the cabinet because that's just how my luck goes. The bowl that broke is the middle size of a set of three I got at Costco. I'm sad because these were my favorite mixing bowls. Luckily I didn't use the middle size very often, so I'm not too sad. Along with the bowl on the floor there was a ton of silverware and my strainer. I'm a little behind on dishes and I got tired of doing them last night so I put all the silverware in the strainer on the counter. Yeah, they got caught by the falling mixing bowl. Is it bad that I just cleaned up the bowl and not the rest? I was too tired. Oh yeah and bleeding all over. Yep, you were probably waiting for that part weren't you? At least if you know me at all you were. I would have left the whole thing up except sometimes Malia gets up at night to get a drink and I didn't want her cutting herself. So I picked up the first piece and managed to slice open my left thumb. It doesn't look that bad, but that's because it's a pretty clean cut, just a bit deep. Not enough to warrant stitches thank heavens because I don't think I could have handled that this morning.

You may be wondering why on earth I wasn't asleep until 12:30. Well it was a not good day for Malia at school and the information I was given about her behavior. I talked about the color card system before. Well yesterday she was on orange. So I asked what she did and she told me she'd been patting one of the other girls on the head. I asked if she'd done it more than once because orange is the second card that you pull and she said that she hadn't. I admit that I didn't believe her and now I feel badly about that. She brings home a contract every day that is supposed to have her misbehaviors listed out on it. Starting the end of last week and the first part of this week it didn't say anything on it, just frowny faces and a comment that she was whatever color card she was. I wrote a note asking for the appropriate information because I can't back up their behavior program if I don't know what they feel she did wrong. Yes I phrased that correctly. I really think that the teacher has it in for Malia and has her pull cards for things that the other kids don't have to. Part of this is due to the mostly inane reasons given for pulling cards and the fact that the number of things she did wrong is not counting up to the number of cards she's pulling. She gets in trouble for things that all kids do. Like arguing over who gets to go first down the slide. She got a card pulled one day for climbing up the slide backwards. Seriously? That's worth a card? The other part is the way that Malia talks about it. She talks like she has to be careful about everything she does because she doesn't know if she's going to have to pull a card or not. I know she's not perfect and I know she misbehaves, but she's told me that she has to be extra careful in class to not get in trouble. She loves the school work but I can tell that she is noticing a lack of consistency on the teachers' part. I took a look at the contract for yesterday and sure enough it states she was on orange. It also says that the only thing she did wrong was pat a girl on the head. Nothing else. Am I just not getting their carding system? She's been on yellow before when she sat on a kid's feet. Is head touching considered way worse? I'm at a loss. I don't want to discount the whole thing to her because then she won't try to be good. I feel like I'm backing up a program that is inconsistent and frankly unfair as far as I can see. Anyway, I was up so late because I was trying to figure out if I'm incorrect in my perception and if there is something else I can try doing to get Malia to do what she's supposed to do. That is, if she doesn't start getting in trouble for looking at the other kids wrong. At this point in time I'm just kind of waiting for that. I added a note to her contract asking what else she did wrong yesterday because I didn't think that the information on her behavior was comprehensive as it didn't add up to Orange based on past contracts. Hopefully it wasn't too snarky, but it wouldn't surprise me if it wasn't.

Here is a picture of the remains of my bowl:

I was bored...

76 words

Speedtest

An adventure in shopping

This isn't really an adventure, but I'm irritated by others after spending yesterday afternoon finishing up Christmas shopping. I have determined that next year for sure I am not entering any store other than for essentials after halloween. People are idiots when it comes to sales. Sales associates are also idiots and I must share the one encounter yesterday that really made me angry.

I carried my purchases at the old Mervyn's going out of business sale (which was rather nice, but I'm not going back in there) to the checkout where the following conversation took place:

Cashier: (looking at one of the items) I hope you aren't going to be putting liquor in those.
Me: Certainly not! Those are beer glasses, not brandy snifters.
Cashier: Same difference
Me: Well no, it's not. If you'd said alcohol then you could say same difference.
Cashier: Whatever, I really hope you aren't putting anything alcholic in them.
Me: Well, they aren't for me so I won't be putting anything in them, but the person they are for does not drink, but will really enjoy them regardless. Outside of that, it's really none of your business and rather inappropriate for you to even be giving me such crap.
Cashier: Drinking is bad for you.

He then refused to speak to me while he finished ringing me up except to tell me my total. The lady running the register next to him apologized to me and he gave her a dirty look.

Regardless of feelings about alcohol and it's goodness or badness, this kid was not joking and I was really annoyed by his insistence that I must not put alcohol into BEER glasses. I kind of wonder what he says to the people that buy wineglasses. I have wineglasses, but the only thing that goes into them is martinellis.

Sorry, but this just made me angry.

On the upside I am now finished with my Christmas shopping except for my brother because I apparently managed to completely forget purchasing him something. Hope I remember JC, or you're sharing Carin's present. ;)

I have been busy - UPDATED

I haven't posted anything in awhile because I haven't care to. Also because I've been doing a lot of reading and enjoying not worrying about the internet. I spent a lovely Thanksgiving holiday at the parents. I also managed to remain completely off the internet until returning home Sunday evening. This may be a record for me. Malia also managed to only go to Orange at school yesterday so that's a good thing. Anything is a step up from Red all the time. It's nice to open up her backpack to get out her schoolwork and not have a big red paper in there informing me she was exteremely naughty and misbehaved. EDIT: She got green yesterday! Viva la bribery! I'm pretty sure the idea that if she gets 10 green days she gets to pick a new Ponyville or a Littlest Pet Shop toy is the reason.

She and I got up our decorations Sunday afternoon. Not like it's super exciting or anything because we don't have a lot of room. I got a lovely 3 foot pre-strung tree at ShopKo and we got some snowmen and Rudolph cartoon ornaments. We haven't hung the Rudolph ones because I keep forgetting to pick up some hooks so we can. Hopefully I'll remember today on my way home after the baby shower. Is it wrong that I truly hate baby showers. I love my family and I love that they are having kids, but I hate baby showers and I'm not overly fond of babies until they are about 6 months old. I realize I'm a mom, but that doesn't mean I have to like kids. Outside of my family and friends anyway.

I haven't taken a pic of our tree yet, so in order for you to not feel bad, I've included a crappy camera shot I took yesterday of one at work... where they didn't measure and there are a good 6 or so inches of the tree squished across the ceiling.

A note on behavior and the sometime suckiness of single parentdom

I realized that I mostly only blog about the fun stuff that happens leading a lot of people to believe that the rugrat and I lead a charmed life of rainbows and unicorns that poop marshmallows. This is not, in fact, reality.

Case in point the ongoing saga with Malia's school which I've finally become calm enough to comment on. She's got some bad behavior issues especially tantrums when she doesn't get what she wants, she never stops talking, and she's got the biggest smartmouth around. Yes, she gets the mouth from me, but I do try to keep it somewhat under control. She hasn't learned that lesson yet. I had hoped that starting Kindergarten would help with this and for the first month and a half it appeared that it had. She was behaving much better at daycare and even at home. Unfortunately it was not the case at school. She was apparently saving up all her naughty for Kindergarten. Why did they wait a month and a half to FIRST make mention of this you may ask. I would not be able to answer that question. I had not gotten any indication that there were any problems at all at Kindergarten. No notes from the teacher asking for backup on her behavior or anything like that. That's one thing I have gotten from day one at her daycare. I get an update every day on her behavior and what steps were taken if she got into big trouble.

So after the phone call I received from her K teacher I was understandably pissed off and sad at the same time. I was pissed that this was the first that I had heard of it and I was saddened that I did not notice anything and that apparently I was not doing my job to encourage good behavior... or something like that. Not that I'm an expert by any means, but I probably should have known my daughter well enough to know she's going to push the limits in a new situation. I'm paying for this now because I'm pretty sure that bar a few exceptions I'm now the mean mom who makes her sad all the time. We did not go to my parents house this week because I told her that unless she managed at least 2 days on green or yellow we wouldn't. She managed 3 days on red, 1 on orange, and 1 on yellow.

I should probably explain the color system. The same time I got the phone call they instituted a new behavior system at the school. All the kids start on a green card for the day. The first misbehavior they go to yellow which is just a warning. Orange is for the second infraction and it results in the loss of half of recess and some center time (computer center, toy center, book center). Red is for the third and results in lost recess and lost center time and a note home. However, because of her continued issues, she brings home a note every day with whatever she's done and she has to meet with a Behavior Counselor something or other as well. I will give her credit in that she's not violating the same things every day, but she's not got a very good record. I now almost dread picking her up from daycare at the end of the day because odds are very high that she'll have gone red (Edit: Today she got Green!). Of the 15 school days, not including today since they instituted the new rules, she's managed the following:

Green: 1
Yellow: 1
Orange: 2
Red: 11

Does anyone else see a problem with this? Her daycare is backing this up for all the kids by making them do some extra practice school work based on what color they are. Even if they get yellow they have to do some extra work. Additionally if they get red, they have to do the extra work during the entire afternoon inside play hour. Guess Malia should be pretty good at finding words. Who knows, due to the extra work she may be reading by Thanksgiving instead of Christmas Dad! When she gets red it also means that she gets no TV at home which I'm starting to believe is more of a punishment for me than for her because she won't leave me alone for five minutes even if it's cooking dinner for her.

This would be a whole lot easier to deal with if I had someone else to help shoulder the blame, but being a single parent I can't do that. Nor can I say "hey, significant other, this behavior is your fault, fix it" because I am the only one doing the parenting. Additionally she threw a lovely "My dad wouldn't get so mad about this and he'd let me do what I want" at me the other night. I really wanted to reply with a "Yeah, the dad who apparently decided that he no longer cares to be your dad? In fact, he doesn't even want to be a dad to his biological children. You mean that one?" Thankfully I managed to refrain because I'm pretty sure that would only make things worse and then I'd have more reasons to feel guilty about my sucky parenting skills.

Anyway, that is the joy that is going on right now. On a lighter note, she's discovered the joy of showers. Feeling a bit bad about no TV time I've let her take long showers. Mainly because it gets her out of my hair for a bit and I can get stuff done. She's really loud in the shower (singing the theme song to Duck Dodgers mostly) so I'm not worried about her injuring herself. I did however discover that my water heater allows for about 1 1/2 hours of warm enough for showering water. I learned this yesterday when I lost track of time and she hollered to let me know that her shower was cold. Plus I remembered that I had this which makes it perfect for her:

Halloween - Fun or bust!

So, I thought about splitting this up into multiple posts about the different activities. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your view, I have decided against that idea. I've just created individual slideshows for the activities. I'll intersperse with my usual commentary.

First up for fun we had the Boo at the Zoo. Now, I love a good time at the zoo and I love that lots of people go because that means they make money and can stay in business. However, unless my life absolutely depends on it or Malia begs for months, I'll not be attending again. It was held the Saturday before Halloween. In theory it sounded great. Tables set up for trick or treating in a pretty safe zone sounded fantastic. Unfortunately every one and their dog also thought it sounded great. After the 4th 15 minute wait to get a sucker or a mini-candybar Malia and I gave up and just checked out the animals and then went home. I think the best part of the day was hitting up the Mexican restaurant not far from me with Krissy and Haylee and then having Malia drive off to Brigham with them for a sleepover with Haylee. Unfortunately for the parents, and fortunately for Krissy, Malia opted for sleeping at the parents instead. Boy was she glad to see me Sunday afternoon, and I was glad to see her. It's nice to have a break now and again, but I miss her terribly. I know, uncharateristic mush from me. I'll try to cut down. Here is the slideshow of fun. Note the terribly excited look on her face.

Next up we had the fun of having Ryan and Mel come over to carve pumpkins. Well, we actually went out to dinner to the New Ho Ho Gourmet and we bribed Malia into behaving with the promise that they would come over if she behaved. Following closely on the heels of the behavior stuff at school, it was handy. That whole cluster is an entirely different post that I'm waiting until I'm less pissed at her school to post. Anyway, it was a good time with Ryan assisting Malia with the actual cutting of her pumpkin. She drew the picture and he wielded the knife. This was probably best for all involved. I did my pumpkin all by myself because I'm too particular to allow help. Mel had the best idea though and refrained from actually touching the pumpkins. If I wasn't the parent, I would have opted to go this route. I swear my hands smelled like pumpkin for days. Here are the few pictures taken. I apologize that they are so dark. I only have the ones that were taken with Malia's camera and it appears that no flashing happened. Also, yes, she is hugging her pumpkin. We had to go out at bedtime so she could give it a hug and kiss goodnight. Added pictures that Ryan just sent me to the slideshow. HAHA Mel, got some of you too. Oh, and yes I just realized that Malia is indeed kissing her pumpkin in one picture and yes, her pumpkin has hands.

Halloween Day I was the favorite parent ever at Malia's school. I was in charge of donuts. Since in my quest to find glazed donuts I failed, I ended up getting maple and chocolate bars. Not only that, but they either had candy corn or bat/ghost/pumpkin shaped sprinkles on them. I feel rather bad for the parents that got their kids home after that gorging of donut. I'm pretty sure those bars count as two donuts, plus adding in the sugary toppings? Oh, that's pure insanity. I got much love from the class. Here are the pics. No Slideshow because there are only three. Also, note the lovely green down the front of her costume. That should teach me to allow watermelon yogurt for breakfast.





Finally we have the joy of actual Trick or Treating in the parents neighborhood. Needless to say it was difficult getting out the door. It seemed like Malia and Haylee had been hitting the crazy juice because holy crap were they wired. Hannah wasn't so much but she's young and hasn't been completely infected by her cousins yet. It's not for lack of effort on their part though, trust me. I think it's just a matter of her getting better at keeping up with them. I foresee a madhouse at the parents for Christmas and I can hardly wait! I just wish JC, Carin and Zenock would be there too. Anyway, after a couple of houses Hannah was done so Krissy, Rob and I went on with the two riff-raff. We only did approximately 3 blocks worth of homes, but man did they get a lot of candy. I hope Haylee got some of hers... Rob, I'm looking at you! Malia and I have hardly made a dent in hers and it's not like we aren't snacking on way too many each evening. By the end, the girls were dragging and Malia made me carry her bag because it was just too heavy. In keeping with her drama queen crown, Haylee gave me her "worn out" look. I think she looks drugged, not tired, but she's young and has plenty of time to fine tune before she gets to Broadway. Here is the slideshow of fun.

All in all it was a good holiday, but now I'm worn out and am taking a small break from doing anything. Gotta rest up for the fun of sewing the girls' Christmas dresses. So excited!

I know I'm behind on stuff

But it's not my fault! My harddrive went out on my laptop so it was in the shop from last Friday until Tuesday. Then I spent Tuesday and Wednesday nights feverishly getting my music and pictures back on my laptop from my ipod because I'm too cheap to pay several hundred dollars for someone to pull apart my old harddrive and pull the information directly off the whatever they are called. Which isn't as easy as it should be. Apple.

I still haven't gotten them reorganized because don't think I can find a program that would keep the same organization, but at least I didn't lose anything. I think except for this one sweet background that I'll have to search the tubes for again. Also, I've lost my CD with my Leopard upgrade so things don't look the same and I'm floundering a bit. Grr!

Anyway, I hope to be back blogging and putting up all the fun pumpkin carving and Halloween adventures by this weekend at least.

Also, and sorry to get all political again, but I'm way excited. Yay for President-elect Barack Obama! Regardless of your thoughts about him, please take a look at the website he's put up for his transition. It appears to be set up for regular updating. I think I'm a bit more excited about this aspect of his presidency than just about anything else. The internet is becoming more and more a part of everyone's lives and I like his apparent desire to keep transparency with what he's doing and continuing his message that it's about all of us doing something. He's asking for our input and I think we should give it to him. I'll step down from my mini soapbox now, and sorry, but this is the first time in a long time that I've had a lot of hope in what the government can do for Americans.

It's becoming a habit...

At some point in the near future I may need an intervention. I leave it to all of you to determine when that needs to happen. After the fun I had sewing up Halloween costumes for the rugrat and I, it became necessary for me to branch out just to see if I could do it. So, I got patterns for the rugrat and myself that contain all the pieces necessary to make full outfits. Obviously I was smart enough to go with the easier patterns because even I am not willing to make the jump to insanely difficult right from the get go. At least with sewing. :) Sewing has seemed to replace baking as my stress reliever too. Which is weird because it's 100 times more frustrating than baking a cake, but the results last longer so maybe that's why it's working for me.

Last night I decided to break out the jumper pattern for Malia and give her a go. I needed to see how long it was going to take because the sisters and I have decided to make matching jumpers for our girls to do Christmas pictures. I need to know how long it's going to take me to sew them so I know how quickly I need to get going. Well, after two hours last night, I'm just about finished. I did not start until around 8 so I had to stop at 10 so as to not annoy the neighbors with my loud sewing machine. I don't know if it can be heard outside my condo, but I'd rather not take the chance given how much I complain about the crazy dude living above me and his tendency toward loud. I just have to finish up the hem on the bottom and finish hemming up the armholes as well. I'm sure there is a technical sewing word for the armhole finishing thingie, but I don't know what it is. I did learn that I will not be using flannel for these though. Holy crap that was a pain. Maybe it was just the type I got, but it stuck to itself and other parts and I think added in at least an extra 20 minutes to the whole process. I think I may move to fleece for winter wear because it would be nice and cozy.

Here are pics of the jumper. Yes, it's really long, but I still need to hem it and I figured longer was better what with winter coming up next on the season agenda.

Not a Halloween post - haha =P

I am shamelessly stealing this from another blog that I read. Here’s what you are supposed to do:

* Look at the list and bold those you have read.
* Italicize those you intend to read.
* Star the books you LOVE.**

Also, please note that I am irritated by some inconsistencies in here. Why is The complete works of Shakespeare in here and also Hamlet? Also, the same is the case for Chronicles of Narnia and "Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe? It makes me wonder how many people pick the full collection, but miss the individual selections. I really think that if you are going to put an individual one in, you should not also make selection of the entirety available. I'm kind of a jerk about stuff like this though.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. **The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien**
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5. **To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee**
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. **The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien**
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. **War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy**
25. **The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams**
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. **Emma - Jane Austen**
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. **Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery**
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. **Dune - Frank Herbert**
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. **Brave New World - Aldous Huxley**
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70. **Moby Dick - Herman Melville**
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. **Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad**
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. **Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl**
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Quickie - Malia ties her first bow!

Earlier this evening Malia asked me if I could help her by showing her again how to tie a bow. She's got little ties on the front of her pants and just decided she wanted to do it. She's tried before in the past but got frustrated and decided to wait until she got older. Apparently she was old enough tonight. I showed her the easy two bunny ears method and after about ten minutes she managed a half tie, but couldn't get both sides of the bow quite right.

Well after a couple hours of practicing she just came in to show me her very first bow that she ever tied by herself. I, being the dork that I am, took a picture:
















She then untied it and retied it and I took another picture:















Yay, how's that for perseverance?

I finished one and have half of another done

I finished up Malia's costume last week, and she decided to parade it for everyone. I also got started on my own costume and with the exception of the sleeves I have the upper half of the dress finished. Luckily all the skirts entail are gathering the waist and sewing one of them to the top half and then hemming both of them because I think the sleeves may be the death of me. I already had to add in extra material in the bodice because I'm an idiot and forgot to adjust the pattern to account for the girls. I thought I accounted for fat arms, but I forgot to account for being able to move them as well. If I want to walk around the entire time I'm wearing the costume I can leave them as is. I don't like this option so I'm working on some ideas about doing something to them so they fit better. I've yet to find exactly the right layout, but I do have some pretty cute little stuffed hearts that I may use to widen the sleeves. I may just give up all together and wear my black sweater underneath. It's really thin and would probably help in the making sure the girls are covered as the neckline is a touch low. Here are a couple pictures of mine. It's kind of hard to tell what it looks like, but use your imagination.
























Eh, here's the joy of Malia. Second picture is her "leopard face" a la batface from last year. It's not quite as good.























Ryan and Mel came over for enchiladas and entertainment by Malia (c). Malia also took pictures during the mini-party. Before they got here, she started taking rather random pictures. I was finishing up the velcro on the front of Malia's costume and had to pause because apparently her stuffed snow tiger was feeling under the weather and we had to heat up her rice bag and then she tucked the tiger into it. The first bunch of pictures are of that snow tiger and then of course she had to take a bunch of pictures of the birdcage. I say birdcage because I'm not sure you can see the bird. I don't remember where in the mix the picture is, but my favorite from the evening is when she let TC take a picture of her and Ryan. She got him to help her make a scary Halloween face. It was a lovely evening and there was only a minor break down when I turned off her Hello Kitty so I could check out the new show Crusoe. That didn't last long but not because of her tantrum. You'd think that you couldn't screw up a show based on a classic like Robinson Crusoe and involving pirates, but I had to force ten minutes of viewing before even I could no longer ignore the lack of goodness.

Here are the pictures from Malia's camera and Enchilada night.

Two unrelated topics

Saturday Malia and I decided to head up Emigration Canyon this last Saturday. We hadn't been up and she wanted to take pictures of the leaves. I know, we're a little late, but it was still fun. We got about 2/3 up the canyon before the rain turned to snow. We went up until the turn off for Pine something or other and decided to head back down since it was starting to really come down. I thought the snow would stop sooner as we came down the canyon, but it was still snowing as we passed the zoo. I think it was still snowing until we got to around 2000 E. I've added a link to Malia's gallery of pictures. Per usual, she decided to start taking pictures before we even left the house. Also, as an aside I noticed a ton of houses up for sale. I really wish I were in a position to purchase a home up there because I really like it. I love all the trees and being near the creek.

Malia's pictures

I slept funny a couple of nights ago and my neck has been sore ever since. I started getting the mother of all headaches earlier today and decided to leave work a touch early. After picking up Malia from school we headed home and I decided to finish up a project that I started well over a year ago. Possibly even two years ago. My mother gave me some great hand towels in an Elephant motif that match my bedroom decor. These were to make rice filled heating bags. They are simple but brilliant. They move around and mold way better than a heating pad and they don't get so hot, plus you can use them as a cold pack to if you freeze them. Anyway, I finally sewed mine up and have been wearing it for the last hour and a half and it's still plenty warm from the 2 minutes in the microwave. My neck feels a hundred times better.

Bonus gallery from my last visit to my parents. My niece Hannah is such a cheese for the camera.

8 Things - blame Carin

8 TV shows I love to watch:
-Bones
-House
-Fringe
-Dirty Jobs
-Deadliest Catch
-No Reservations
-Bizarre Foods
-The Office - only if I remember it's on.

8 things that happened yesterday
-Went to work and wished I'd stayed in bed - getting a cold
-Looked at Malia's Halloween costume and opted to watch TV instead of finishing it
-Looked at my costume pattern and opted to just not think about how long it was going to take
-Got lazy and fed Malia and myself frozen TV dinners
-Ate 3 grapefruit (NOT the best plan, I'm paying today)
-Opened a new account at the Credit Union that is lending me money for school
-Watched Fringe and laughed maniacally several times. John Noble's character is fantastic
-Woke up at 3 am to the crazy dude upstairs hammering something (technically this was today, but I'm counting it)

8 things I'm looking forward to:
-Finishing both Halloween costumes
-Boo at the Zoo trick or treating with Malia and whatever family can come down
-Halloween party with some friends/co-workers
-Finally getting my dining room table and chairs uncovered so we can sit down for dinner
-School starting in January - I'm more looking forward to the finish of that though
-Halloween party with Malia's Kindergarten class
-Crazy dude upstairs moving out (not currently planned as far as I know, but I can hope)
-The first big snowstorm and making snowmen with Malia (hate the snow, but love how excited she gets)

8 people who I'm tagging:
-None, I will force this on no one. =)

Christmas teaser

I can get away with this post because my daughter is only 5 and she doesn't read this blog (or much of anything just yet). I purchased her Christmas present today. She's been pestering me for awhile to play on the computer and for the first time last night she got really angry that I wouldn't let her play around on my Macbook. I've been meaning to get something that I can hook up to the internet to let her play around because every kids DVD anymore includes online games and stuff like that. I figure it'll help her with figuring stuff out and reading as well if she can play around. Also I don't want her on my laptop. Too many possibilities for it ending badly.

EDIT: This is not to replace the sweet kids laptop my parents got her for Christmas last year. She loves that thing and it's great, but it can't go online. :(

Long story short, I found the perfect computer for her today. It's not super fast and it isn't super fancy, but it should be a fun first computer for her.

This would be an iMac old school:

Specifications :
* Serial # : RN0115T2J89
* 400 MHz Processor
* 320 MB Memory
* 10 GB Hard Drive
* CD-RW Drive

Includes :
* Apple iMac Blueberry Computer
* Apple Power Cord
* Apple iMac Blueberry Keyboard
* Apple iMac Blueberry Mouse


The problem now will be me having to wait 2 1/2 months to give it to her.

Another Halloween teaser and fun with sewing

I broke out ye olde sewinge machine yesterday morning. After approximately 1 1/2 hours wrestling with it, I sewed the first stitch on Malia's Halloween costume. I'm apparently an idiot because it took me that long to troubleshoot and discover that not only had I not put the bobbin in correctly, but I'd strung it incorrectly. It's been about 6 years since I last sat down and sewed something so apparently in those years, I'd forgotten the basics of running my machine. I took the thing apart trying to figure out what was jamming things up before I noticed that it wasn't the bobbin jamming that was the problem.

After about ten minutes of sewing I realized that the 3rd step in the process was to sew the tail and stuff it with poly fill. I apparently forgot to purchase that fill in one of my many trips to the fabric stores over the last couple of weeks. So, up we went in the snow to JoAnn's to pick up some poly fill. While I was there I grabbed a scissor sharpener too because I've been meaning to. Mom, I'm bringing it with me next time I come up and sharpening yours.

I sat back down and 5 1/2 hours later I'm about 90% done with her costume. I still have to finish up the ears and attach them, put on the velcro for the front closure and finish up sewing the elastic into the mitten and boot parts. I also apparently have to do some quick fixing and tack on a few inches to the bottom hem because I'm somehow off by like 2 inches. I don't know how. I measured it three times and even measured it while Malia was wearing it. Yay, for extra material. Hopefully it's not too noticeable.

I did realize however that this was the easy of the two costumes and it's going to end up being around 9 hours total with cutting out and sewing. I'm probably looking at 15 or so for my costume. Luckily I'm not working on Friday so maybe I'll get up a teaser on it for the weekend. I also realized that while I love my counter height kitchen table with it's stool chairs, I'm too short to comfortably sit and sew and still reach the pedal. I had to sit on the edge of the seat to reach the floor to work the pedal. I may have to invest in a card table if I decide to continue sewing things. I probably will because the cutting out part aside, I rather enjoyed putting the costume together. I may do some real clothes for her now. It was surprisingly relaxing.

Enjoy the pic I took last night. Sorry it's so blurry.

Family Fun Walk

Good times were had this evening. Malia and I attended our first official party thing at her school. Yay! I ran the ticket booth. I was scheduled for an hour, but ended up there for like 2 1/2 hours because Malia was having such fun running around I couldn't bring myself to make her leave. As it was she was unhappy to be leaving because there were still people there... the PTA cleanup crew.

Anyway it was fun. I chatted with a mother of one of the afternoon kindergarten kids. I am a horrible person and can't remember her name, but should she happen upon this, you rock! I chit chatted and Malia ran around the playground. The GOOD playground. She was excited to play on the big kids playground because when she is at school she only gets to play on the little kid playground. Maybe I am blind, but the only difference I noticed was color. I think they just have to play on the one that is closer to their classroom, but when you are five (or 32) it's all about the grass being greener.

Grand tally for the evening:
4 hotdogs
1 Pepsi
1 bottle of water
2 face paintings
3 balloon "animals"
1 colored hairspray

Pictures here

Fun fact to share with you all. I apologize that this picture is not more clear, but it's still pretty good. On the bench in the picture there is a woman with a gold belt. That gold belt is on a denim jumpsuit. That's right. I didn't think that they still made them. While I think it's a fashion don't for multiple reasons (jumpsuit, denim need I say more) it did not look bad and I think was actually pretty flattering on this lady. However, they really should stop making these.



















Bonus video from the last time we went to the zoo. Wrestling bears!

It's a better day than I thought it would be

I kind of figured that today would not be a good day. It has however turned out to be a pretty good one. I think it's because I'm very happy with my new pants and my birthday shoes. This is the first time I've worn my birthday shoes to work and it's great. I scored the new pants at the DI.

Malia and I had to go get her a new jacket since she managed to lose her last one that fit somewhere between daycare and school but not on the bus. Yeah, I don't know what she did. She decided on a lovely jean jacket with embroidered flowers on it. It fits perfectly which means it may or may not last until it's time for winter coats.

Here's to keeping my fingers crossed and to my cute shoes.

Oh, and I got Malia's costume all cut out I just need to begin the fun of sewing it together. I am now reminded why I sew so rarely. I HATE pinning and cutting out the pattern. I think I need to look into paying someone else to do that part.

Malia fun and a Halloween teaser

Malia decided to tell me a story from school this morning while we were getting ready. Apparently her "boyfriend" at daycare told her that she didn't look pretty because her socks were never matched. She told him that it didn't matter what he thought because she thinks that she looks pretty with them. She elaborated that she doesn't care if someone else doesn't think she's pretty because she thinks she's pretty and that is what is important. I teared up a little bit to hear that she's so comfortable with herself. I realize she's only 5, but how many kids that age do you know who would make the statement? I'm so proud of her!

Night before last as I was delivering HOA fee to the HOA president Jeannie, her son Andy decides to challenge Malia to Mario Kart. He bets her a dollar that he can beat her. Andy is 17 almost 18 and likes to tease Malia. Well, she took him up on it and they shook hands. Andy brought his little brother over (I can't remember his name exactly, I think it may be Arlen) and they get to playing. Malia wiped the floor with him. He was so surprised that she beat him so handily. I tried to warn him that she uses at least 45 of her 90 minutes of tv/game time each night to play Mario Kart, but he didn't listen. Malia, of course, will probably tease him for quite some time. Or at least until she gets her dollar from him.

They came by again last night. This time we managed to talk Malia into letting him use the steering wheel with some fancy BS from me. I let her use my controller which has a green stretchy cover on it and told her it was my lucky one so she would be just fine to use it without the steering wheel. Well apparently it is lucky in that she still managed to beat Andy even with him using the steering wheel. She wasn't quite as good, but she realized that she needs to practice with the regular one so that she can beat anybody at any time. I did realize however that she's a very poor winner so we'll be working on that a bit.

And finally, the Halloween teaser you've all been waiting for. I purchased patterns for costumes about a month ago, but just haven't have time/money at once to get the material. Well, I went and picked up the material last night for Malia's costume. I'm going to hold off getting mine until I'm done with hers so I don't get confused/distracted. Malia decided last year that she wanted to be a cat for Halloween. Over the year she's been going back and forth on what kind. Well, about 3 months ago she finally decided on the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland. She then informed me that I needed to be a character from the show too so we could match. Well, I'm just not young enough to pull off Alice, so I'm going to be the Queen of Hearts. Should be a good time. Back to material. Do you know how difficult it is to find pink and purple striped material? I looked all over the place and no one had any. I'm all for effort, but frankly I'm not going to cut up material and sew it piece by piece to make my own stripes. Luckily I was able to find a animal print in purple and pink flannel at Hancock Fabrics. They are usually way more expensive than anywhere else, but they are having a sale so I got it for 40% off... or the regular price I would pay elsewhere. They also had no solid flannels so the part for the tummy and the inside of the ears has little pink hearts on it. Malia informed me that I'm to try and get the hearts to be over where her real heart is because that would be cool. So anyway, it appears that instead of being the Cheshire Cat, she's going to be the Cheshire Jaguar or Leopard or whatever animal the print is supposed to be. I don't know these things, I just know stripy types like tigers and zebras. Those are easy to figure out. Eh, at least we found purple and pink in one fabric and we're both okay with that. Here is a picture of the material:

Fun with food and school

Due to many requests, here is a link to the recipe for the peach cobbler. Instead of the pineapple and cherries use peaches. I generally try to use enough to cover the bottom of a 13x9 pan. It's like 6-8 good size peaches. Hale peaches work the best.

http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Spiced-Pineapple-Upside-Down-Cake

I also add 1/4 tsp of cloves to the cake batter and I grind a little pepper over the top of the peaches before I put the cake batter on. I don't even bother to try to turn it over. Peaches are way juicier than pineapple so it isn't as sturdy as it would be with pineapple.

I also just found out this afternoon that my student loan went through for school. I get tuition reimbursement from work, but still have to pay out of pocket up front so I was kind of stressing things what with the economy tanking and all that fun stuff. Yay me!

Unrelated, this picture just completely cracks me up. Thanks to a co-worker for sending it my way! The eyes!

Random entertainment

Can you say you have ever passed the Great Leslie on the way home? Well I did yesterday and he was driving a red Dodge Neon. I didn't have a chance to take a picture because he turned too quickly for me to grab my camera but here is a visual for you all to appreciate my fun drive home. He's the one in the middle for those of you who haven't seen the movie. Also, his gloves weren't white, they were a dark brown.

Easter post - yeah it's a few months old

Since I was on a photo kick, I also organized some other pictures that Malia has taken on her camera. She took pictures over Easter when she got her bike. I'm not sure why there are half a dozen pictures of her Candyland game. It may be part of a plot to guilt my mom into playing with her again. Malia stacks the deck when she plays the game. I don't know exactly how she does it and it just may be dumb luck after all, but she always wins. She manages to get the right special cards to jump way ahead on the board, and always manages to get my mom to have the card that sends her way back near the beginning when she's close to the end and winning. Yep, my daughter is a Candyland shark and has now been banned from play for several months now. Maybe around Christmas time we'll play with her again. If she can refrain from cheating.

As a bonus to these pictures there are quite a few (blurry - sorry!) pictures of Hannah crawling around. She looks so adorable. Well, as adorable as you can look when you are blurry.

Enjoy!

Pre and Post Adventure to the Zoo

It appears that I am an idiot because I'm having difficulty figuring out this new gallery that I'm setting up. So you'll just have to click a link to actually see the pictures until I can figure it out. Also, I can't get her actual pictures from the zoo to load up so you get to see the pre-zoo and post-zoo ones.

On with the fun. Prior to going to the Zoo on Sunday, I replace the batteries in Malia's camera. She wandered around the house taking pictures while I was getting things ready to head to the zoo. I think my favorite is the picture she took of the light switch. Apparently she liked the way it looked against the green. You can't tell it's green because the flash on her camera went a little bright. I haven't figured out how to turn it on or off yet.

Enjoy!

After we left the zoo and jumped in the car to head home apparently Malia decided to take some pictures. I had no idea that she even took these until I was unloading pictures from her camera. I wondered why she was giggling the entire ride home. Now that I think about it, I should have noticed a flash. It appears that the flash on her camera is auto-adjust to light. That makes it even cooler than I previously believed.

Enjoy!

I promise to continue trying to get the actual zoo pictures up as soon as possible.

Hogle Zoo visit

I'm messing around with my MobileMe account and I'm not sure how to connect everything up yet. Go here for the Zoo post until I can figure stuff out.

Unless I figure out something really cool, I'm not going to continue with that blogging attempt. I am now too tired and irritated to post the stuff here so I'll do it tomorrow.

I've got some good adventures coming up

I really enjoy teasing people with the future of posts of mine. Rugrat and I hit up the zoo yesterday with Aunt Allee. After a slight delay in start, we had a grand old time. I actually took pictures so I'll put together a slide slow post about it tonight while I'm getting angry at the Presidential debates. I know I shouldn't watch because it's just going to make me pissy, but I can't stop myself. After the fun of the zoo we hit up the DI and got some sweet items. That's a whole other post of fun. And, the piece de resistance will be happening tomorrow. We'll be attending the Gem Faire. That's right, it'll be a grand old time.

Just thought I'd give you all a teaser so you knew I was thinking of you.

Brigham City Municipal Airport Appreciation Day

Not all the time when we head up to visit the parents do we just sit around all weekend and just hang out. Occasionally random fun things come up for us to do. Krissy called and invited Malia and I to head on out to the Airport Appreciation Day. They just recently finished up adding a new runway. Now, I know most of you are thinking what, Brigham City doesn't have an airport. Au Contraire my friends, it's just really small. Think Airport 2 small in the SLC Valley except I think that one may be slightly larger than the Brigham one. Anyway, apparently with this new runway they can now land up to a 737 size airplane. Pretty sweet eh? Yeah, I don't really know, it just sounds cool.

We were lured out by the promise of free hotdogs and soda. Unfortunately either they didn't plan for many people or they just forgot to say when they would be available because we go there before one and they were packing up the grill already. That tells me they'd stopped cooking hotdogs awhile ago because you sort of have to wait for it to cool down before breaking it down. They did still have some desserts left which you will see in the pictures. I have encountered the elusive candy bar on a stick. This one didn't have the candy coating stuff on it, but they were still delicious.

I didn't have my real camera with me so the pics aren't super good. Plus it was really windy and so it was hard to get shots that didn't have hair in the way. Haylee and Malia got to get in ambulances, University Hospital Life Flight helicopter and some crazy contraption some guy in Layton is still building which appears to be a one-person helicopter. Or as Rob called it "death trap". Enjoy!

Political Rant - may contain cursing

I have to admit a real disappointment in my gender. Recently all I hear and see are references to women throwing their hat in with McCain now that he has picked Palin as his running mate and Clinton is no longer in the race. This pick completely banks on Hillary supporters only being supporters because she is a woman, not because of her stance on issues. The posts I've read and comments I've overheard even outright admit that it's because she's a woman (I'll have to look them up, I'm too tired and irritated to do it right now). I have a real problem with this. I am not even remotely opposed to women being high up in government and I would have gladly voted Clinton come Election Day were she to be an option. NOT because she is a woman though. Her stances on most issues most closely reflect mine out of all the candidates over the last year and a half of campaigning. That is what my choice was based on, not that she is a woman.

These women who have determined they now support McCain when six months ago he was considered the devil to them because he was in opposition to their chosen female candidate should lose the vote. Frankly too many women over the years fought too hard to have a say in what happens in government for some to throw that away in my opinion. You should vote for the person you think would do the best job and who has beliefs and stances on subjects that are how you feel. You don't switch based on gender of the candidate. Palin and Clinton are nearly direct opposites when it comes to stance and policy. They don't believe in the same things nor would they fight for the same things. For women to make a switch because "She's a woman, she'll do stuff for me even though we don't agree on any issues and I really just want a woman up there because it's about damn time a woman was in the big time" is stupid and bullshit. Yes, I just called them all stupid and I just don't care anymore. To be fair, it's certainly possible that those who have now determined they are voting for Palin carried the same beliefs all along and were only backing Clinton because she was a woman, but my comment stands.

You shouldn't base your decision on who should be President and Vice President of the United States based on the gender of the person or even the race of the person. These are not what makes the person qualified or not qualified for the position. Also, why the big hubbub over experience in general? I don't get it. NONE of the candidates who have been part of the race have ANY experience being President of the United States. NONE!!

I honestly don't care who people vote for come Election Day if they are voting for who they truly believe will be the best person for the job. That's how I will make the choice. You look at the candidates and what they say and more importantly what they do to back up what they say and you make a decision on who you think should be elected. It's not difficult. It won't kill you to be informed. Don't vote for someone because that's how everyone else you know votes, or that's how your parents or your third cousin's uncle's sister votes. Inform yourself and make an INFORMED decision.

Sorry about the rant, but lately it's been driving me batty. Maybe I'm wrong though and it's all about which oppressed group's turn it is to have someone in a position of authority.

I do agree with Palin on one thing though. I too have no clue what the hell the Vice President does.

edit: I found out what the VP does. Wikipedia is helpful.

Two unrelated pictures

Yesterday a friend and I did some recon at the nearby Harmon's grocery store for additions to our Zombie Apocalypse Preparation kits and encountered the following:



I think they meant spigots. At least I hope that's what they meant, because that's what was in the basket.

Today I've decided that my boss may finally be dropping over the edge into true insanity. I glanced over to ask him a question and he told me to talk to the apple. This is the apple:



I'm not entirely sure what to make of this outside of insanity. That or he's in a good mood because he's on vacation for the entirety of next week.

Another conversation with Malia

Malia and I went to the Hogle Zoo yesterday. I'll wait while you recover from the shock. I know it's a surprising thing. Because it's nearing the end of the visit of the white aligator, and she managed to behave all week without a big tantrum or snotty mouth, I bought her one of the stuffed white aligators. Okay, mostly because they were half off the regular price and I still got my 20% as a member after the 50% off. I like to think that I'd have bought it otherwise, but I probably wouldn't because I'm too cheap. Malia decided while we were at the zoo (on the carousel in fact) that her alligator's name would be George. Yeah, I don't know either. I thought it was settled until I had the following conversation in the parking lot of her daycare this morning;

: Grab George and let's get inside.
: Mother, I told you that's not my alligator's name.
: Um, you didn't, but okay, what is your alligator's name now?
: white alligator
: That's not really a name, that's just describing what it is.
: Well, then what is the name of the white alligator at the zoo.
: Well, there wasn't a name on the sign so I guess it doesn't have one.
: Then if the one at the zoo doesn't have to have a name, mine doesn't either.

After delivering that last line, she walked off to the door. I really couldn't argue with her logic. Sometimes I feel like the kid, not the parent. Welcome to the loony bin, white alligator. Also, I am not a chocolate caramel and candy coated pretzel, but it just looked so yummy I decided to use it to represent me in the conversation.

Another post a long time in the works (AKA I'm lazy)

It's finally my turn to toss up pictures for others to steal. I have another lovely post that I've been meaning to toss up for awhile. Kami brought Hannah down a couple of months ago for her first visit to Hogle Zoo. She loved it! The day we were there happened to be opening day for the Conservation Carousel so there were people dressed up and they handed out cotton candy. Nothing like free sugar to start the day off right. There are pics from when we went to breakfast beforehand. I'm way too lazy to post each picture individually. This shouldn't come as a surprise since I'm just now getting around to uploading the pictures and creating a couple of slideshows. Photobucket only allows for 50 pics per slideshow so I had to split all the pics into two slideshows.

Maybe I'll add videos later, but they aren't really exciting. If you have an overwhelming desire to see videos of a pacing cheetah, weirdly calm meerkats, and I think there is one of me trying to get Hannah to pay attention to me, please let me know and I'll get around to posting them sometime this year.

Quickie

I'm sure all of you know my feelings on the subject of the 3 Star Wars movies and the 3 Star Wars ripoff attempts for more money. I just found this quote on Great White Snark and had to share because I completely agree:

"One day, I’d like to see “Star Wars enthusiast” become synonymous with “American” and anyone who enjoys the prequels be labeled “pinko commies.” That’s the world I want to live in."

This is what procrastination on my part gets you...

It's a blog of all blogs today. Seeing as I've been behind on updating with many fun adventures. Also, these are not in any order other than the one I've inadvertantly created by uploading the pictures associated.

Malia and I went to the Willow Park Zoo in Logan a few months ago. We happened to be there on a day of fun where they had a Curious George theme going. We spent the majority of the time there avoiding the dude dressed as the Man in the Yellow Hat and the one dressed as a clown. Malia wasn't too bothered by the clown guy, but he bore WAY too much resemblance to Pennywise for my comfort level. That aside it was nice to wander through and check out all the birds. They don't have many animals, but it's a peaceful little zoo. Malia loves the playground there because there are swings and slides and apparently it gets no better in life than that. This picture was taken at the tail end of the trip which you can see in the what the crap are you making me do mother? look on Malia's face:




A couple weeks ago on the one weekend in August we didn't head up to Brigham, Malia and I hit up the Hogle Zoo. Do you sense a theme here? If not, wake up. We wandered around as usual and she harassed me into taking a picture of her sitting on the brass Tiger statues in the Asian Highlands. The Asian Highlands is the newer area they built over the original cat house. Yes dad, I said it, the cat house! Is it bad that I'm 32 years old, but I still have the sense of humor of a 12 year old boy?




Another fun day was the day eBay had our summer employee party at Lagoon. This was Malia's first trip to Lagoon and she absolutely loved it. Her favorite parts of the day were riding on the Puff the Fire Dragon kids coaster and the Log Flume Ride where my butt got all wet. She barely got wet at all, but was more than a little excited that I ended up with water soaking both sides and the butt of my pants. I am pretty sure it took at least an hour to all dry. Malia was excited that they had hot dogs at the BBQ so all was good in the world even though she said the train ride was not as fun as the one at Hogle Zoo. Here is the lone picture I managed during the whole day:



Well over a year ago my sister Kami had a party celebrating Hannah's blessing. There was much fun and I just found this picture I snapped of my cousin's boy Cayden wearing Malia's princess crown. No real story there, just thought it was funny. You can also see in the picture that this is pre-hair chopping off for Malia.




Another phone picture I discovered. This is one of Malia's favorite outfits to wear:




My most recent adventure was not one really involving Malia except that it was for her class at school. Her teacher asked if I could help out with some things at home since my work schedule doesn't really allow for me to come help in the classroom during the day. Of course I said I would do what I could. I received a stack of 12 of these:



Which I then was tasked with tearing out all the pages and grouping them together by page number. Do you know how much fingers hurt after spending 3 1/2 hours tearing about reading workbooks? I still don't understand why they can't give the kids the actual books instead of just the individual papers at a time. Did I mention there are 151 pages in this thing? ARGH! Anyway, here is what I ended up with:



I also made the apparently inappropriate choice of working on these while sitting on my bed and sort of watching TV. Have any of you seen that Hole in the Wall show on Fox? It's painfully addictive and even though it hurt to watch, I couldn't bring myself to change the channel. Especially the larger people who it doesn't matter how you bend, there is no way your fat butt is fitting through that hole. Anyway, since after tearing out the first book one page at a time I came up with the brilliant plan to just use a razor blade to slice through the pages instead. I say brilliant because I managed to not cut myself one single time. Anyone who knows me knows how impressive this is. Unfortunately the razor cuts didn't always match so I ended up creating a little bit of confetti... which I now get to sleep with each night until I change my sheets because I can't get it all off.



Maybe I'll keep up to date better so you all don't get marathon posts like this to slog your way through.