The Ikea Virgin

Well....I considered doing my usual (as of late anyway) burning of the midnight oil and writing my daily adventures, but I was tired last night. Actually, I wasn't tired....I was flat out, tail dragging, eyes propped open, barely able to function, EXHAUSTED. So at 11:28 I curled up into bed next to the bear and the boy and went to sleep knowing I would just write Tuesday's entry on Wednesday morning.
So happy repeat Tuesday..LOL.
   So Amber and I decided that we needed to get some supplies for the daycare. The main item being pillows for nap time, no not our nap time although we would LOVE to do that...lol. No, this was a mission with real purpose. As of late we have had an influx of loving parents who have been bringing in pillows for their children to use on their cots during nap time. Very nice gesture and we wish ALL the parents would bring in pillows for their kids to sleep on. The problem however is that some parents are bringing in pillows that are full bed sized pillows. Again, a very nice gesture, HOWEVER....we are working with children under 5, most of which are smaller than the pillows themselves....lol. Not to mention the lack of storage space we have. We have ample storage for their things if they only have what they actually need, but we have no room for giant items and the other parents hate having to cram their child's items into a cubby that is bursting at the seams with another child's bed pillow. So after letters home to the parents and no co-operation we decided we needed to enforce marshal law. We will be sending all over sized pillows home and sending out another note to inform the parents they can either send in a travel size pillow for their child or for a few dollars purchase one from the daycare. Hopefully that will get the point across politely. 

Soooooooo we decided to go to Ikea to pick up some inexpensive yet nice travel size pillows. Well I have never been to Ikea before. I've seen the catalogs obviously and I have seen lots of things other people have purchased from there, but I've never been to the store. Partly because they are almost an hour from our house and really.....there just aren't that many stores I'm willing to go out of my way for. Christmas Tree Shops...well, that's another story. LOL So after driving a half hour and getting lost in downtown New Haven we finally found the store. I have to say, I saw a lot of stuff I really liked.....the furniture however, not so much. I would rather save up and spend a lot of money on a quality piece of furniture I can pass down to my children, than spend a little on a crappy version of the same piece of furniture that will fall apart and I have to replace every two to three years. So the furniture I wouldn't waste my time or money on, plus it just isn't really that attractive unless you're into the ultra modern Euro look.....which I'm not. They do however have a lot of nice accent pieces and home accessories that aren't that bad and a pretty good price. I saw a few decorative items I would consider.
It was fun though and I'll probably go back at some point for some small accent pieces, but I definitely don't feel as excited about it like other people I know.
Anyway, talk to you in a few hours when I blog about today's activities. :)

A weekend in the Life

Well I decided that for the sake of my own sanity and to prevent burnout, I will take the weekends off from blogging. My original intention had been to blog every day, but I think wisdom is to refrain from it.
So, a quick weekend in review...

     You may have noticed a new link in the left column of this blog titled "One Year Bible Online". I put it there in case any of you are interested in joining me and my entire church in reading through the Bible in a year. It's broken down into very user friendly 15 minute daily readings and if you follow the link you will also see it's from the New Living Translation which is in the language of today. Much more user friendly for those of you that aren't frequent Bible readers or for those of you that may have tried reading it years ago, but got a bit frustrated with the old English. So if you've ever wanted to do this and just haven't gotten around to it, or felt a bit overwhelmed then join me and we can do this together. Feel free to contact me with questions or if you want support.
      So Saturday I joined Ann and a few other ladies from church in taking all of the Christmas decorations down at both campuses. I thought it was going to take much longer than it did, but we were done in record time. Afterward I came home and still had the energy to take down and put away all of our own Christmas decorations.  Now we have a tiny house, more of a bungalow really...so even though I love Christmas and love decorating for it, I'm pretty frugal with my decor otherwise it would be far too cramped. So we have FAR less than the church does, you would think it would take me not time at all to pack it all away. LOL....NOT! Since I've been in my de-cluttering and cleaning mode lately, there was no reason why it shouldn't extend to the extra Christmas decor before I have to drag it back to the attic. I began my decor D-day at 4 in the afternoon.......I finished at around 1 am. After giving away 6 large bags and boxes of excess decor and then condensing about 8 remaining tubs, bins, baskets, bags and boxes of various sizes I got it down to only 2 large tubs, 1 small tub and 2 boxes.....along with the giant storage bag the tree and wreaths go in. Not bad....thank God it's a year before I need to drag them back out. LOL

   Sunday was nice, Lori has been in town visiting and we got to spend a few precious hours with her last night before she had to leave for SC this morning. She moved down there a few months ago and quite honestly I'm praying she comes back soon. ;) There are precious few people in my innermost circle of what I consider to be the true definition of an intimate friend, those that are considered close enough to be family, she is one of them. Having her move so far away and then come to visit I realize just how much I am thankful for her. She's crazy (in a good way) and irreverent, but also honest and transparent and would give you her last dollar if she felt you needed it more than her. She is the kind of friend I hope and try to be. She doesn't care if you're rich or poor, have a little or a lot, are refined or not...you're God's child and that's good enough for her. She's sort of a modern day Melanie Wilkes from Gone With the Wind. Being judgmental isn't in her blood.  She accepts people the way they are and offers loving friendship that is completely unconditional...in short, she reflects the same love and kindness that Christ does. That sets the bar pretty high....and I'm glad for it, I need that kind of standard to reach for. Love ya and miss ya Lor....come home soon!

Today was the first day back at sprout central after Christmas vacation. Amazing how 8 days away from total toddler anarchy can make you miss the little rugrats. Yeah there were some I didn't miss....mmmm.......well, truthfully just one I didn't miss....but I'll be good and not go there. LOL
The rest however I missed greatly. It was nice to be back with them and with the girls I work with. Nothing really tremendously eventful happened with them today...honestly they were all very quiet. It was kind of amusing because they had been away from us for a little over a week they had to readjust to being back with us. So it was a nice, quiet day...nobody got duct taped to the wall...lol.
Well, that's enough for today........hope all of you had a great weekend and a pleasant Monday.

                     

I Say, It Was A Good Day

Well this day started out very interestingly. I awakened myself with a severe and completely uncontrollable case of the giggles. I couldn't stop laughing....it woke me up out of my dead sleep and then woke Ben up out of his own deep sleep. Even after I was awake for a few minutes I couldn't stop laughing. I remember the dream very clearly, but you won't find it funny...trust me....it was one of those things that is only hilarious when you're half asleep. Lets just say, picture me as the 70's cartoon drawings of Holly Hobbie.....  See, I told you, not funny at all..........but in the stupor of sleep...it was hilarious. So I thought that was a good way to start off the new year......waking up in a fit of laughter. LOL

Next we kind of slothed around the house for a while, sucking up the last few hours of vacation weekday that we had. Finally when we were both withering away from mid morning hunger we decided to go grab some breakfast. It took us a bit longer to get out of the house than we had planned...too much time trying to find ticket info for a movie we wanted to see. So by the time we were on our way it was more of a lunch than breakfast. No problem, we'll go to the one place that ALWAYS serves breakfast. Well, what we had failed to take into consideration was that it was New Years Day......EVERYBODY and their brother sleeps late on New Years Day and they ALL want breakfast when they wake up. If everybody wants breakfast at 1 in the afternoon, who serves it that late in the day? You guessed it, IHOP.

 Sooooo here's a math problem for you, if everybody in the tri-county area goes to IHOP to get breakfast at 1 in the afternoon, what time will Benny and Frannie eat breakfast? That's right, good answer you there in the back! Benny and Frannie will eat breakfast at 2 in the afternoon! LOL

But wait, there's more! Soooooooo in an affort to save time and avoid the 30+ minute wait, what do Benny and Frannie do? They hop in their car, drive 20 minutes to the OTHER IHOP thinking THOSE people surely didn't stay up until midnight the night before......only to be greeted with a 20 minute wait. So we saved 10 minutes of wait time.......oh wait...nooooooo.........take the original 30 minute wait, subtract 20 minute drive time and a 20 minute wait and you get, -10. LOL.......YEAH!!! We're so smart! ROFL.......not. So NOW what time do Benny and Frannie eat breakfast? Yep, 3 in the afternoon.....it probably would have been sooner on a normal day but amid everything else the entire wait staff looked like they were fighting hangovers so they couldn't have gone any slower if they had glue stuck to the bottoms of their shoes. LOL.

Sigh..........it was funny.....it really was, the misadventures of Ben and Fran. This is why I can't complain about life with Ben......it's like living in a reality show. It's hilarious to me.

Oh well, so after our breakfast/lunch/early dinner...lol we went to go see the movie Sherlock Holmes. Now, I have been anxiously awaiting this movie for MONTHS...... I have been an avid fan of Sherlock Holmes ever since I was a little girl. I remember absorbing Conan Doyle's stories about him from a very young age and the first time I ever went to an antique auction with my parents I was elated when they brought out a book that turned out to be a complete collection of Holmes. To this day it's one of my most prized books, second only to my complete works of Shakespeare. I think I have seen just about every big and small screen portrayal of Holmes that has been created and watch them over and over with new found affection each time. Holmes was the reason why I first wanted to be a detective as a child.....then other favorites came along and fed the dreams of being a detective, or a spy! LOL.

So when I saw that they were making another big screen version I was thrilled. I was a little concerned that too much Hollywood affect might destroy it, but my hopes were high, especially when I found out Robert Downey Jr would be portraying Holmes. A perfect selection I think......I never would have considered him for the role, but when I saw the previews, ahhhhhh perfect.

So what did I think of the actual movie? I liked it. Obviously as a long time Holmes buff and truist there were details I didn't care for and little mistakes that I caught. Like the fact that the movie portrays Watson's fiancee is a woman Holmes has never met, when in the stories she was actually a woman they had helped which is how Watson met and fell in love with her. Also the fact that they implied there was an intimate sexual history between Holmes and Adler when that was never implied in the stories. Only that Holmes had an affection for her and esteemed her higher than all other women. Plus, to be honest, I really didn't care for the whole Irene Adler aspect of this movie at all....I mean, don't get me wrong, she did an excellent job acting the part and it was very well written...I just found it too much of a deviation from the original texts. Like I said, I'm a truist so while I don't mind some creative liscense, I just thought her character was a bit much.

The other thing I didn't particularly care for was the extreme focus on, "the dark arts". Now by it's very nature Holmes stories were edgy for their time and pretty macabre, but the EXTREME deviance into the occultic subject matter here was a bit much for me. I'm sorry, I've had my fill of that kind of thing with years of Harry Potter garbage in the media and now the whole Twilight saga garbage in the media.....I'm really tired of it. I want a good mystery, a macabre mystery....like the original works......NOT yet another occultic study.

SIGH............so, I'm not implying I didn't like the movie, I did actually, very much. It was EXTREMELY well done, Guy Ritchie did a phenominal job with it, he really did. I sincerely hope they make a sequal, a little closer to the original stories though. The actors were all very well chosen and all did a superb job with their characters. The effects were spectacular, the picture was literally a visual work of art to watch as far as the creative cinematography, and the soundtrack!!! Ohhhhhhhh the soundtrack! IT was honestly my favorite part of the entire movie! As soon as I can work that into our budget I'll be making a purchase of the soundtrack cd.

I appreciated the fact that there weren't hoards of foul language, there were no gratuitous sex scenes or nude romps. Not that I'm a prude, I'm really not.....I'm a writer, I have no problem with those things if they TRULY further the story.....but honestly, how often is that the case? So I really appreciate any screenwriter who is sufficiently talented to completely carry a story that isn't lacking in any way and not use a single one of those things. So I don't know what other reviewers think of the movie....I don't really care actually...I rarely listen to them, but overall I liked it, maybe you will too.

So all in all it was a really good day, and a good cap for the week.