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.

Happy New Year 2010

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!!

2010

I had honestly planned on staying home tonight even though our church was having a coffee house. Not that I didn't want to go, I did, but honestly....it's a half hour drive, in the snow and I just wanted to stay home and chill. HOWEVER, Ben was all excited to go and made a big batch of his famous salsa and I don't ever want to be responsible for stealing a moment of joy from him, so we went. Now I'm glad that we did. It was a lot of fun and it's always nice to hang out with our extended family. Lots of good food, good music, good friends and good fun.

Here are a few pics from the night. I didn't get to take as many as I had planned, but that's ok.

The first one is Jess, she'll kill me if she sees the pic, but she doesn't read this blog so I'm safe...LOL. She was surprised by some of the girls on the worship team to do a karioke of the Grease song, Beauty School Drop Out. LOL......the girls put silver Christmas trees on their heads to re-create the scene from the movie. Oy-vey too much craziness for a non-alchoholic party.

Then after the ball dropped in Times Square there was an impromptu kick line to Auld Lang Syne.

Normally we stay and help clean up after this kind of thing, but honestly, neither of us felt like it tonight and there were enough people helping, so we made a run for it.

Anyway, it's super late, I'm tired, the bear is already sleeping and so is the boy...so it's short and sweet tonight.

May all of you have a year filled with blessings, joy overflowing and more peace, health and happiness than your lives can contain in 2010. May abundance cross your doorstep everyday and may hope fill every place in your heart that used to be filled with despair. Moreover, may the love and mercy of God flood over you and yours from the tops of your heads to the soles of your feet.

Good night all, and God bless!