no, I'm not talking about Christmas here. I'm talking about this:
I decided to post on my blog this morning. Obviously this urge does not descend upon me often...hence the lack of posts in recent months. Even now, I don't have anything in particular to say.
But I thought this cold, rainy day called for some brilliant or witty or thoughtful post from me (preferably one accompanied by a picture, just 'cause that makes it more fun). However, brilliance, wit, and thoughtfulness is not flowing out of me, so I'll simply leave you with this: I haven't forgotten you (well, maybe I did, but now I'm remembering), my blogging friends, and when any semblance of brilliance, wit, or thoughtfulness descends upon me, I'll be sure to share it with you. :)
Hey everybody!! It's been a while, I know. :/ Sorry 'bout that. But I guess now is as good a time as any to get back into this blogging thing. :)
Hannah-banana just came and spent the night with us!! The weekend included yummy food, exploratory walks, picture sharing, and lots of laughs!! Thank-you Hannah, for a wonderful time!!!
Actually, this is my 101st post, because I posted a happy birthday salutation for Peter. I was going to post yesterday about Sarah leaving and have my 100th post moment then, but the power went out. :(
It's Sunday. June 19th. Happy Father's Day!!! I do feel kinda bad that it's been two weeks since I posted, but I'm doing it today!!! I don't really remember too much about the week before last, so I'm gonna just do a recap of this last week.
Sunday night - Kevin came down to celebrate his birthday (yes, it was a month late. Poor guy) and go to Riverbend with Dad. We had a delicious chocolate cake and everything!!!!
Monday night - we had a swim meet. we lost. :)
Tuesday night - We went to Riverbend and saw Casting Crowns!!! They were AMAZING!!! We went with a friend and picked another one up somewhere along the way. :) Kevin came down again with a friend and sat with us.
Wednesday - Kevin stayed overnight and on Wednesday he beat us at Scrabble. :P He went back to Riverbend that night and then went home. Mary and Sarah went to a movie with a friend.
Thursday night - We had another swim meet...and lost again.
Friday - I played Ultimate frisbee and got my nose busted.
Saturday - we celebrated Peter's birthday!!! Sarah will be in Uganda on his actual birthday, so we celebrated early. He got clothes, a book, a magazine subscription, a "hydro calculator" (it runs on water batteries?), and Lord of the Rings Risk...which is what I think will become our "Sunday" - playing Risk all day long. :)
Sunday - Actually, today we have secret Father's Day plans. But after them, maybe some Risk will be in order...
Sorry I haven't posted in so long. :) I really was going to a few days ago (after Riverbend), but then I tried (to no avail) to fix the date, and that used up all my post-writing time and energy. I'll try to do better. Really. Happy Father's Day!!! Have a great week!!!!
Okay, I still can't figure out how to fix the date thingy, so just ignore it. And if you really don't know what day it is, it's Sunday, June 5th, 2011. Now that that's out of the way, I will tell you what I was doing this morning.
It was actually a continuation of something I was doing last night. It was a celebration - that spanned two days!!! So, yesterday, we celebrated Sarah's graduation with a special meal which (of course) included APPLE PIE!!! It was yummy. :)
For the post-dinner festivities, we had decided to go to the drive-in movie theater in Trenton, GA. Last night/this morning, they were playing X-Men First Class (which Sarah has been dying to see ever since the first trailer came out) and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. The gates opened at 7:30 and the first feature was supposed to start at 9:15.
We got in line at 7:20, waited for it to open, paid admission, claimed our spot, parked the car, bought popcorn, and opened our Sour Dots (another of Sarah's favorite indulgences). We got situated and then the waiting began.
All in all, 2 hours isn't that long to wait, but when you know all you're waiting for is for it to get dark, it seems like the sun takes FOREVER to set. Dad, Kathy, and I threw the frisbee some and I don't really know what Sarah and Mary did. Knowing Sarah, she was probably reading. Oh, by the way, Peter and Mom decided not to go...they value their shut-eye more than we do, I think. :) It was the four girls and Dad out on an adventure!!!!
Actually, let me back up for a second. When we got there, there were two lines we could wait in before they opened the gates and let people in. We got in the shorter line. Then Dad started thinking "maybe one line goes to one screen and one line goes to the other. Wait a second, what if we're in the wrong line?" He voiced his opinion, and no one knew for sure if it mattered. I offered that I didn't think it mattered, but I wasn't positive, so my advice was overlooked. No one was behind us in line. We had no way of finding out if we were in the wrong place until we got up to the gate, and then it might be too late. so, what did we do? We pulled a James Bond move and reversed the car all the way back to the entrance to see if the sign there told us.
It didn't. We did, however, find two workers driving a golf cart, and Dad asked them. They assured him it made no difference which line he was in. That's what I had said to begin with.
Then we put the car back in drive and drove right up the line again. All we really accomplished was gaining the incredulous stares of all the people in the cars next to us.
Fast-forward to where I left off before. The sun had just set, and the announcer came on over the speakers and told us our first feature was about to begin. It was 9:36, and we were excited to finally get started!!! After being fans of the other X-Men movies (for the most part, anyway), we had high expectations for this, the newest installment. It did not disappoint. It was well thought through, and it carried the storyline that began so many years ago with the first movie really well.
After the first movie ended, there was a 15 (that turned into 20) minute intermission. People who had just come to see the first movie left, but not us. Oh, no. Not us.
It was 12:15 a.m. when Pirates started. Our expectations weren't quite as high for this movie. After the first Pirates of the Caribbean, the next two moved downhill steadily. In the third one, they kill one of the main characters. Not exactly the best way to set up for a stellar fourth blockbuster. But, in it's defense, On Stranger Tides did seem to have more thought and depth to it than the others - even the first one, which was always a favorite for me. :) Of course, it still had it's not-so-great moments and overall, I wouldn't really recommend it, but it was nice that the creators at least seem to have tried harder to make it a worthwhile film.
The second movie ended at 2:25-ish. We then drove home and went to bed around 3. We went to the late service at church. Go figure. And everyone stayed awake!!! Poor Sarah has to work a 7-hour shift today. Plus, tomorrow she has freshman orientation at UTC. That dear, exhausted, girl. But we had a blast!!!!
I might post more thorough reviews of the movies, but not right now.
I can't figure out how to fix the date icon thing!!! It's driving me crazy!!! does anyone else know how to fix it?!?!
yeah. I haven't posted in a while. Unfortunately, I haven't really wanted to, either. I don't feel like I have anything worth saying to the whole wide world. Plus, it takes pretty much time and effort. Not that that's a bad thing, but sometimes (read: usually) I'm lazy about it and even if I do have something to say, I wait too long before saying it and it becomes irrelevant. So, I think I might close this blog down. I might start another one (or just redo this one) that has a clearer purpose. Maybe later in the summer when things settle down.
I know you've seen Sarah's, but I wanted to show you all *my* book pictures. I love old books. I like books about history, but my favorite kind of book ever is a book that *is* history. When I pick up an old book (i.e. over a hundred years old), the first thing I notice is the book itself - not what's written on the pages, but how they're cracked and torn - the signs of much use. And I wonder about the people who owned the book before me and which ones read it all the time and which ones just let it sit there on the shelf and age. And then once I stop imagining the lives of all the people who read the book, I add myself to that history by reading the book and discovering the people within it. I love old books. :)
This is the inscription on my third edition (1907) Ivanhoe, by Sir Walter Scott. I love finding things like this in my books. :)
These are pictures of the end of the preface in my copy of Yeast by Charles Kingsley. 1851. I'm in a blissful state.
And these last ones are random ones I took yesterday in the beautiful out-of-doors. *sigh* I think God just throws those perfect kinds of days at you and dares you to enjoy it to the fullest...which I don't think I did, but I love trying. :)
The last one was just thrown in there for fun. :)
I might do another post telling you specifically what books I got (both the ones in the pictures and the other ones), but I figured the pictures were more important for right now.
Wednesday movies are a dollar at the cheap theater here. Consequently, we went to see Tangled for a dollar a person last night. Everyone except Dad had seen it before. It was packed (the theater's tiny) with little girls and little boys (ages 2-12, for the most part). They were really loud. As I said, there were a lot of them, but they were restless. And the toddlers were upset. It was humorous, but not necessarily enjoyable. They settled down after previews, though. So, we were all sitting there watching the movie and right when we reached the climax, the film reel thingy melted. The screen went blank, and we saw the brown film melt (like bubble and disintegrate). The kids erupted. All the little girls and boys were outraged, upset, hyper, talkative, and overall LOUD. A worker came in and explained it would be fixed and running again in about 10 minutes. 15 minutes later, it started about 30 secs before it had stopped the first time, and we cranked out about 2 minutes (getting further into the climax, but not quite resolving it yet), and then lost video, but retained audio...for another 15 seconds. This time they didn't turn on the lights (they had the first time it stopped) and so we were left in pitch darkness with the restless kids and their frazzled parents. Keep in mind that at this point it was about quarter after 9, so most of these kids needed to be in bed. They tried to start it again, but that time no video came on at all, just the audio again. THEN, they turned on a couple of lights and a policeman came in to keep the people calm and told us the manager was on his way and we needed to stay in our seats. I don't know what people were thinking, but about half of them left at that point. Lots of people had left when the movie stopped the first time, and more left after the second time. So, the theater was only about a third of the way full with little kids who needed to be in bed and they were all talking at once, and not staying calm at all, and they were all discussing how the movie was going to end. It kind of felt like how I imagine it would feel to be in detention with a bunch of juvenile delinquents waiting for the principal to show up. The manager came in with replacement tickets, and most of the people who were left got up and were scrambling to be first in line for the refunds because they wanted to go home. Re-enter policeman. He made them all sit back down where they were and then he went from row to row with the manager and gave out the tickets. And some of those kids still don't know how it ended. You can totally guess, and most people had a sibling or parent who had already seen it, so their curiosity was satisfied, but I think there are still some confused little kids who don't know how it ends or why they couldn't see it. But now, we have replacement tickets and we can watch a (different) movie for free. It was an adventure, and I think, overall a success.
Happy St. Patrick's Day!
"Christ beside me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ within me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me." ~St. Patrick
Pi Day is one of the most neglected holidays. Which is really sad, considering it is one of the few that directly relates to food. Other holidays have food that is regularly associated with it, but Pi Day is just that: a day for Pie. All Pi(e), including, but not limited to, Apple, Blueberry, Cherry, Chocolate, 22/7, and 3.14. It's a play on two words - homonyms - but they are both equally important in the celebration of the day. You can't truly appreciate the day without a slice of pie and/or a math equation. So, whichever one appeals to you - the math or the food (or both) - use it to celebrate today!!!!
