The New Set-up

Lately Avril's gotten into the habit of rearranging my furniture in such a way that it creates her ideal fort/jungle gym/house... you get the idea. I came into my living room to hear, "Mommy, look at my new set-up!"

MI:4 "A Dangerous Cereal Party"

Yes, that's right folks. Avril has embarked on just such an adventure. I saw her sitting next to Derek eating some Cheerios this afternoon and asked if she was having a cereal party with Daddy.

She replied, "Yeah, I'm having a cereal party. A dangerous cereal party."

She keeps saying that word lately. I do not think it means what she thinks it means.

Script for Charlotte's Web 2 Preview

A good friend of mine from high school, Dave, wrote this "comment" in response to my last post. It was too funny not to post, so here it is... enjoy!

Finally, someone else who has seen Charlotte's Web 2: Ariel's Revenge. Vindication. I am not crazy. I was starting to think that I had dreamed all of that.

Voice over for preview:
Two years after the "teerriiffiicccc" "radiant" "humble" "some pig" incidents. Fame has driven Farmer Zuckerman to madness. He wanders around the farm with his once proud blue ribbon stapled to his collar like a necktie repeating "He's some pig... he's some pig." The farm has wasted away--the animals have struggled alone for survival, fighting and eating each other. Only Wilbur and Jeffery the gosling remain.

Zuckerman lives alone--his wife left him to take her "buttermilk bath" idea on "Invent America".

Lervey the farm hand committed suicide when he realized that his name was Lervey. and that he was a farm hand.

In these dark times, Mother Earth and Father Time have come together and formed a new and deadly offspring: mermaids. And Ducks. Which were already around.

Now, gangs of merducks roam in packs in the wasted cities of Nebraska picking off sick children and pigs that can read. When Ariel, the mermaid and Ferdinand, the duck from babe (that is how he always introduces himself) hear that there is a pig in a town up north who was in the paper a few years back, they decide to take action. And this time...Charlotte isn't around to save the day.

Some pig? Some dead pig.

Quips

Avril jumps around the kitchen, saying "Boing, boing"... "Mommy, I'm a pig!"

"Pigs don't jump Avril."

"Yes they do, they jump like this." (demonstrating a jump reminiscent of Wilbur from Charlotte's Web)

"Is that how Wilbur jumps?"

"Yeah!"

"He's SOME PIG, isn't he Avril? He's TERRIFIC!"

"No he's not. He's dead!"

"....What?"

"The duck and the mermaid killed him!"

"..."

my word

I've decided to choose a word to focus my life on this year. I'm inspired by {A}, whose word for 2008 is {vitality}. I'm having a hard time not stealing her word, because it is really quite perfect. However, I did decide on a different word for myself- somewhat of a synonym, but encompasses so many meanings that I need to focus on.

So, my word for 2008 is

{live}

live [liv] verb, living:

1) to direct or regulate one's life
2) to experience or enjoy life to the fullest
3) to practice, represent, or exhibit in one's life: to live one's philosophy

live [lahyv] adjective,

1) full of life, energy or activity
2) having resilience or bounce
3) being in play, as a football or baseball
4) vivid or bright

This is how I want to live my life this year- that being the key phrase: to live my life. I want my life to be an active thing, a time for growing and learning and progressing. I want vibrance. I want to enjoy life. I want to live my principles. I have so many theories and soapboxes, but upon that closer examination, do I truly live the things I believe? The heroes I hold on their pedestals: would they be honored by my actions or disappointed?

I'm so tired of being tired. I want so much to attain what every true yogi does: to live in the present moment. I live so much in my mind that it seems life just slides by and at the end of the day, I can't really account for my time. I want to be accountable. I want to know where I spend my energy. I want to be able to show what my priorities are through the way I spend my day and organize my life. I want to organize this life I've been given- to live it!

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.
-Benjamin Franklin

Tagged...

Ok, so I got tagged clear back in November... (thanks Crystal!)... so here's me finally sharing what there is to share. Supposedly this is the "10 things you don't know about me" tag. Hopefully, I can come up with 10. I talk too much to too many people for you not to know that many things about me!

1) I got a 5 on my AP English exam and I love myself for it. I was the only one in my class and I like to take full bragging rights on that. I love to write, I love to read and at one time I thought I would be a writer. I think I'm coming full circle on that one since I crave it so much!

2) I've always had a thing for redheads. I can't really explain it. Clearly it didn't take all the way, there's not a redhead in my family, in-laws or not. But redheads are hot.

3) I have a passion for philosophy and theology. I love studying them and thinking and discussing. Of course, I'm also very opinionated, so I usually think that my opinion is right. But I like to think I'm logical, too, so if you were to debate me on a point that I consider open, I could reconsider. But there are some beliefs that I hold as absolute truth so strongly that will never be budged.

4) I hate chores. Not that very many people like them. But I absolutely loathe cleaning my house. I also loathe having a dirty house. So I guess I have to clean it. I really don't mind vacuuming, though...

5) I have nurtured a secret desire to be an actress slash model for ages. Mostly because I really like to play dress up and takes pictures (hence the faery hobby). No, seriously.

6) I played the lead female role in my high school musical, "Oliver!" Yes, that's right, I played Nancy. And I did a good job. But you'll have to take my word for it, because if I show you the tape, you'll just laugh. Yes, that was the one night that I completely goofed my lines. Twice. And not just a little slip-up. I honestly sat there, completely blank for like 15 seconds. That's a loooooong time.

7) I have a really good French accent. Or so I've been told. When I say that, I mean that I speak French accurately, not that I can speak English with a French accent. When I do that, I just sound silly.

8) I kind of wish I'd been a cheerleader or a soccer player in high school. Or both. I think I could have been good.

9) I love to karaoke. I want to be in a band (I kind of was for a while, but it was more of a joke than anything. I can only play like 4 chords on the guitar. And I certainly can't sing and play at the same time. And do two people constitute a band? Our name was Aphrodite at any rate.) or be a lounge singer. It sounds sexy.

10) I love playing RPG games. My favorite ever was Baldur's Gate on the Gamecube. I'm terrible at shooter games or anything where you have to aim or walk in a straight line, but let me create a character and go do some quests and I'm your girl.

And now, since I don't know who hasn't been tagged, I'm tagging YOU- but only if you haven't been tagged yet.

Derek's Birthday

So it was Derek's birthday on Monday- the man is back to a youthful three syllables at twenty-eight years old. He was king of the world for a day- even though he was studying for a test Tuesday morning. He picked his meals for the day: German pancakes with apple pie filling for breakfast, banana bread and smoothies for lunch (I learned that it's highly advisable to use the black bananas. Otherwise... it's just weird. It turned out white and a little mushy and way too banana-flavored. 'Course, I think I may not have cooked it quite long enough. But still.), and "spider pizza" for dinner. (This one turned out even better than the one pictured, but since I didn't take a picture this time, this is what you get.) Then of course, the usual as far as cakes go: Dark Chocolate with chocolate pudding "frosting".

Well, ok, maybe picking your meals for the day doesn't really make you king for a day. But I did give him extra back and head scratches (he's a very itchy guy) and back rubs. As for gifts, it was somewhat anti-climactic. Thanks to my dad and Ethan and Amiee (youngest siblings), he got a little pre-birthday something (a cd about Joseph Smith by Truman Madsen and some delicious snacks. He also hoardes snacks.). Thanks to Zan he got a weird rose card- which he then opened to read, "Ok, honestly, who cares what the card looks like? Just take your cash and be glad I remembered." He loved it.

So what did I get him? Well, first of all, we gave him a bag of fun-sized Snickers, some dark chocolate Cadbury bars and some other gourmet dark chocolate squares. Then I followed this up with a world map. Which begs a background story. We once had a world map. A lovely world map. It was mounted on this styrofoam-type mounting stuff (yeah, no idea what, can you tell?) and it was wonderful. Well, last year I started playing around with antiquing altered books and other things and thought it would be a good idea to try that on the map. Well, shoe polish did NOT work on this stuff. I ruined probably a good quarter of the map with it. About a month ago I started trying to mask the damage and used a stain- which worked perfectly on everything I hadn't already ruined, but did nothing for the damaged portion. So it's already ruined. What can it hurt? I took a match to the corner.

Well, I guess it looks... alright. But mostly weird. Not like a cool display piece. More like a weird burnt map that would need explaining anytime anyone looked at it. So I got him a new one. Frankly, I like this one better anyway.

Finally, I got him a new Lord of the Rings sword. He already has Anduril, the sword of Aragorn, which he reforged from the shards of Narsil; as well as the sword of the Witchking. I got him Herugrim, the sword of King Theodrin. Unfortunately, the sword didn't arrive until today, so it missed the actual birthday. In any case, he opened his package today and loved the sword. Here he is, weilding his new toy:

Meanwhile... what do you think was happening to the packing peanuts?







They had a ball. And then we spent at least 1 1/2 hours cleaning up the mess. It was atrocious. But I did figure out that you can eliminate the annoying static cling by spraying them with water. Amazing.