We went roller skating tonight for the first time in…  well, ever, for most of us.  My husband and I have never been roller skating together, and we go back 11 years, so needless to say, none of the kids have tried it before tonight.  The kids had a great time, and I was surprised to see how well our 3-year-old picked it up!  It doesn’t surprise me too much though – she’s always been the “physical” one.  Our 8-year-old is more creative and into arts and crafts than physical stuff, but she did well too…  I was surprised that when she kept falling, she didn’t get frustrated or upset or cry (for the first hour anyway) because she is a perfectionist with a VERY low pain tolerance.  Sure enough, by the end of the night, Taylor (the 8-year-old) was “hurt” and crying.  It was still lots of fun though.  And, living in an area with a small population is where the title The Mayor and the Macerena comes in – The mayor is the owner of the skating rink, and was spinning the tunes tonight.  When he played Macarena, hilarity ensued – I think he has the skating rink so he has a place to blast his ’80’s and 90’s music. 

Today when I was putting away laundry, it occurred to me that it’s almost that time of year when I need to pack away winter clothes and see if I have enough spring / summer clothes for the kids in the right sizes.  And, since I’m going to have another little bundle of joy, I started thinking about what I already have in the way of baby clothes…  Since this is my 4th girl, I have plenty of pinks and purples.  However, I really do need to check if any of these clothes are fitting for a July baby – I’ve never had a summer baby before!  Come to think of it, my girls were born in December (winter), May (spring), October (fall), and now, July (summer) – giving me miracles for every season!  We are so blessed!

Since #3 arrived not even 2 years ago, I still have ALL of her baby clothes, and my friends at the time were so nice to throw me a baby shower, even though she was #3…  I think it had something to do with my friend Sue insisting baby #3 (Disney) was going to be a boy, but it was very thoughtful of her at any rate.  This next part is weird, I’m warning you…  The problem is, all of my baby clothes are in the basement, and I have put myself on strike from going in the basement for awhile…  It’s a long story, but I probably won’t be ready to go down there until the end of summer or fall – it’s just not something I want to deal with these days…  maybe I’ll go into it in another post.  So, I guess I’m going to have to bribe my husband to dig around in the basement to find all of our newborn baby clothes in time for me to wash them and see if there’s any shopping to do before our new arrival.  The good news is, since it will be July, I shouldn’t need too many clothes off the bat…  some onesies and blankets will do it until fall, and maybe by then I will be basement-ready!

If you haven’t been to the site imdb.com and you like and/or watch movies, I give you permission to take a break from my blog and visit it now:  imdb.com

This site has everything about pretty much every movie:  a list of the actors and crew involved with clickable links so you can see where else you’ve seen them if they look familiar or where else to find them if you like their work, trivia about movies, quotes, discussion boards, and much more.  They also have a movie rating system for users, so you can see if a movie is going to be worth the time to watch it according to popular opinion.  Imdb lists keywords for movies, which I’ve often thought would make a fun game.  I’ve posted some below for you to try.  These are the keywords imdb has listed for some popular movies – I will give a hint – all but 2 are movies made pre-1990.  Keep in mind that I didn’t choose these keywords; imdb chose them for whatever reason and some can be quite strange!  Let me know if you would like additional hints, I can give you genre, actors, or just random hints, happy guessing!

1. Punch / Kiss / Muscleman / Eggs / Fistfight

2.  Bikini / Used Condom / Champagne / Broken Window / Brother Brother Relationship

3.  Coming Of Age / Controversial / Fantastic / Wish / Wish Fulfillment

4.  No Opening Credits / Tragic Incident / Talking Animal / Copyright Infringement / Falsely Accused

5.  Planet / Concert Scene / Box Office Flop / Laser / Physicist

6.  Miniaturization / Shrinking / Remake / Sword Fight / Toy Soldier

I hope you’re not getting the wrong opinion of me – I’m really not a big fan of email forwards…  it’s just that I get so many.  I don’t religiously forward every one to everybody I know.  And I am certainly not superstitious and don’t believe that I will get bad luck for not forwarding emails.  But occasionally, I will follow the directions on a forward, or sometimes I even pass it on to my friends and family because I find something cute, fun, or just a little bit entertaining.  One popular forward is the “4 Things About You” forward.  I’ve recently received this one for the umpteenth time (wish I had been keeping track), but I don’t mind since filling out questionaires about yourself tends to be fun, I don’t know why…  maybe to get a chance to think about your favorite things and put them in a list?  Anyway, I’ve decided to post my answers here: 

A) Four jobs I have had in my life:

Mommy

business owner

receptionist

office manager

B) Four movies I would watch over and over: (I’m just gonna put my favorites even though I wouldn’t watch them over and over – Forrest Gump is just too sad, but it’s still my favorite even though I haven’t seen it in years)

Wizard Of Oz

As Good as it Gets

Forrest Gump

Nanny McPhee

C) Four places I have lived:

Warrenville, IL

Lincoln, NE

Pioneer, OH

Wheaton, IL

D) Four TV shows I watch:

The Office – writer’s strike is OVER – can’t wait for new episodes!!!

Lost

Dr. Phil

Friends / Everybody Loves Raymond reruns

E) Four places I have been:

Orlando, FL

Washington, DC

Idaho

California

F) Four people who e-mail me (regularly):

Sue

Vickie

My mom

Elizabeth

G) Four of my favorite foods:

gyros off the spit

saganaki

spaghetti

cheese

H) Four places I would like to be right now:

home

somewhere warm

at a zoo

at an animal park
 

I) Four friends I think will respond:

Elizabeth

Jamy

Vickie

MB

J) Four things I am looking forward to this year:

The birth of our 4th daughter

having 4 kids

warm weather

the Cubs season

Here is my own review of the Thursday, February 29 episode of Lost:

To sum it up quickly, see title of post.  This show is intriguing, yet if they don’t start answering questions soon…  I don’t know what I’ll do.  I’d still watch it, but only to get answers to the thousands of questions the writers have put out there over the years…  That is, if I can actually remember all the questions…  there are literally hundreds of loose ends, with at least 5-10 new plot twists and story lines opening EACH WEEK!  Stop it already!  I am a busy person with a terrible memory!  Now that that is out of the way…  on to the actual synopsis of the latest Lost episode.

*WARNING – SPOILERS AHEAD – DO NOT KEEP READING IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED MOST RECENTLY ON LOST!!!*

First, let me refer you to the tvguide.com Lost blog – they do a great job and I really recommend reading their blog every Friday after the show airs.  Although I must say that the person filling in this week is not nearly as insightful and clever as the person who normally writes the blog, so if you don’t like it, I would suggest reading it another week when the regular writer is back: https://community.tvguide.com/blog/TV-Show-Blog/Lost/800062566

This episode actually opened with the answer to a question!  Albeit, it was a question only raised last episode, but still a step in the right direction – Sayid and Desmond are alive!  But, immediately following this revelation, we were introduced to 2 MORE CHARACTERS – Omar and Kearney – and YET ANOTHER plot twist – time travel!  I have to admit, the time travel aspect was interesting, if not confusing, but at least they answered some of the questions they raised about it this episode – they tell us what year Desmond is traveling back to (1996) and why he is time-traveling (exposure to radiation).  Unfortunately for Desmond, others who have traveled thru time in the show met an unfortunate demise – RIP Eloise and  George Minkowski, Desmond’s roommate on the ship.  Of course we will have to wait and see what Desmond’s fate will be, as that is yet another unanswered question at this point.  But Thursday’s episode was remarkable in that it showed (fast-forwards NOT INCLUDED!) the FIRST time any of the island-dwelling characters have gotten off the island!  Way to go Sayid and Desmond!  Unless, of course, the ship is a bad place to be – we don’t know what the ship is yet because that is an UNANSWERED QUESTION!

As always, we had some time for a bit of subtle comic relief this episode, such as the moment when Penny’s father said “Walk with me.”  to Desmond so they could have a chat, but then the scene cuts away, and he is in a urinal – it’s no secret how he feels about Desmond!

The tvguide blog likes to pose some questions to viewers at the end, so here they are with my answers in CAPS.  Since this week’s blog was written by a replacement writer, the questions are not nearly as thought-provoking, witty, or well-written as they usually are:

1. Was Penny expecting Desmond’s call? It wasn’t clear if Present Penny remembered Past Des’ promise.  TO ME IT WAS CLEAR SHE REMEMBERED HIS PROMISE!  SO SHE HAS BEEN LOOKING FOR HIM FOR 3 YEARS EVEN THOUGH SHE DIDN’T REMEMBER HIS PROMISE – UNLIKELY!

2. Why would Faraday need a “constant”?  MAYBE HE WAS JUST PARANOID AND WANTED ONE IN CASE – I WOULD!

3. Does Miles still have that grenade in his gob?  WHO CARES – MILES WAS AN A-HOLE!

4. Are Sawyer and Kate still in bed back in New Otherton?  AGAIN WHO CARES – THOUGH I BET THE ACTORS WHO PLAYED THEM WERE IN FOR A SURPRISE WHEN THEY READ THE SCRIPT THIS WEEK AND WERE NO WHERE TO BE FOUND – ALSO JIN, SUN, HURLEY, CLAIRE, LOCKE, MICHAEL (where IS Michael, anyway?!?) ETC, ETC.  THAT’S WHAT THEY GET FOR HAVING SO MANY CHARACTERS IN THE SHOW!!!  UNFORTUNATELY, IT’S NOT THE ACTORS’ FAULTS!

5. Where was Ms. Hawking? I missed her.  WHO IS MS. HAWKING?

Now that that’s out of the way, here are the questions I have about this episode:

1.  How does Desmond know what Daniel looks like in 1996 at Oxford?

2.  How come Penny doesn’t look any different between 1996 and 2004 – what is her secret?

3.  If Penny was so fed up with Desmond, why was she looking for him for 3 yrs. (since 2001),  even though he said he wasn’t going to call her until 2004?

If you are an avid watcher of the show, give me some feedback!  Let’s pick our brains and come up with some insights and possible answers to all these questions!  They have said that they have put the show on a timeline – meaning, they know when they want it to end, so they are writing it so that ALL (so they say, yeah right) questions will be answered by the time the show is finished.  My husband thinks maybe what the show is about is that the island is pergatory, and that when someone dies on the island, they are going to Heaven if they’ve passed their test, or ahem, the other place if they haven’t.  It had certainly seemed this way at times, and this is a good theory, but I don’t think it’s going to be that biblical in the end.  Especially after this last episode, I’m starting to think the island is about time travel…  maybe it will turn out the Oceanic survivors were only missing for a matter of hours or days…  all we can do at this point is hang on tight and wait and see!

What do YOU think?!?

The subject of this post, my friends, is the result of an email forward I got today.  It’s one of the stupidest forwards, yet somehow irresistable at the same time.  I posted it below if you want to try it.  I didn’t have the nerve to bother my friends with this at work, so I decided to post it on my blog instead.  Imagine my surprise when I got an email from a neighbor my mom had like 4 years ago (I somehow got on her forward list) with a subject of: “I love an ipod because I think I need some serious help.”

This is funny, and silly but fun..keep it going..Type the sentence you end up with, in the subject line and forward to your friends… Pick the month you were born: January——-I kicked
February——I loved
March——–I karate chopped
April———-I licked
May———-I jumped on
June———-I smelled
July———–I did the Macarena With
August——–I had lunch with
September—-I danced with
October——-I sang to
November—–I yelled at
December—–I ran over

Now type out the sentence you made, in the subject line and forward to your friends. 

How ’bout them Cubs?  Ok, it’s only been one game of spring training, but they are undefeated!  Whoo-hoo!  I am so ready for baseball season; especially with all this snow – had ANOTHER snow day today, by the way.  Which means we have 2 make-up days now in the summer, and counting, probably since I’m sure with the way the snow has been falling out of the sky that it’s not done yet…  but that’s ok, because come June, when the kids have their extra days of school, I will be at home, sitting on my very pregnant behind, watching the Chicago Cubs WIN some baseball!  GO CUBBIES!

Hubby and I watched this movie last night.  Plot inconsistencies aside – it is a horror movie after all, so we weren’t expecting much – it was actually better than I thought.  I really enjoyed how they let the main characters keep slipping away from the Hitcher, the bad guy, only to be back in danger…  but I kept wondering, ok they’re safe now, but the movie can’t be over, so how are they going to get back in The Hitcher’s clutches?  The answers to these questions are an entertaining combination of extremely stupid and horrible decision making on the part of our “heroes” and also some pretty good plot manuvers on the part of the script.  There was also a lot of police involved in this movie, which, for a horror movie, is pretty rare.  Usually once the main characters encounter the police, they are safe, but without spoiling TOO much for you, this film is different from the norm.  Like I said, it was better than I expected.  Not super-great, but I was never bored or grossed-out, both of which I can’t say during my recent viewing of Saw IV – now that was an awful movie.  I think part of it is the pregnancy, but I just couldn’t handle the gore.  It never bothered me before, but I always did find it annoying when they use lots of gore just for shock value.  Now it’s both annoying AND so gross I can’t even watch it.  And what was with the casting of Saw IV?  They chose 2 actors who look exactly alike!  Even if I was making a serious attempt to follow the plot of the fim, which I wasn’t anyway since I constantly had to divert my eyes and ears from all the gore, I wouldn’t have been able to follow the movie because of the 2 identical actors they cast who were not supposed to be the same character but looked like it!  Anyway, back to The Hitcher – I liked it better than Gone Baby Gone, but then again, it’s a totally different kind of movie.  If it weren’t for some plot unbelievabilities and some of the STUPIDEST decisions I’ve ever seen main characters make, the movie would have been better.  In review, if you like horror / suspense movies, see The Hitcher.  By the way, I’m talking about the newer version, don’t know anything about the older version, maybe I should give it a try.  If you like pointless gore fests, I still wouldn’t recommend Saw IV – I wouldn’t recommend that movie to my worst enemy.  If you want to sit through a terrible movie, try The Night Listener – at least it has Robin Williams! 

On an unrelated note, for those of you who have read my Walmart rant, during my weekly visit today, the “magic price increase of the day” was yogurt – up from $.44 per container to $.46 each.  By the way, have you noticed that computer keyboards do not have a cents sign?  If I’m mistaken, let me know, I have actually gone to use them before!

You think you know where I’m going with this, but it’s actually not a complaint.  A lot of places have their own smell.  I’ve driven through towns in Georgia that smell like peaches.  Gary, Indiana smells like what I can only descibe as “burning rubber french fries” – a term I invented as a kid, and I haven’t been able to think of a suitable replacement description that doesn’t involve a 4-letter word.  A place in Idaho I visited one time smelled like mint – there was a mint field nearby…

In the town where I live, we have a number of factories.  You might think because of this, our noses would meet the same fate every morning as the poor residents of Gary Indiana, but fortunately for us, one of our largest factories manufactures CANDY!  So, our town literally smells like candy almost every day.  Chocolate some days, unidentified sweetness on the others…  it is wonderful and really puts a spring in your step!  Ahh, now there’s a post that’s short and sweet! 😉

From time to time, I will be talking about what it’s like to live in various places throughout the midwest because I have a lot of experience in that area.  We’ve lived in central Illinois, northern Illinois, and various suburbs of Chicago.  We also lived in Lincoln, Nebraska and rural Ohio.  Of all these, I love rural Ohio the best!  But it is really interesting how different things like dialect and attitudes can vary from place to place, even places that are only hundreds of miles apart and in virtually the same climate.  One thing I’m still getting used to in rural Ohio is their attitude about weather.  I spent my childhood in Illinois, specifically the suburbs of Chicago, so I am used to the attitude of snow days being a rarity.  I wonder what the average is there, but I would guess it’s one per season or even less – they will not cancel school unless the schools are buried.  There was one time when my mom’s car was snowed in, she couldn’t get it out of the driveway, and so she wanted to take the school bus with me to school – she worked at the same school I attended.  So I did what any mature 12-year-old would do – I cried.  Foolish, maybe yes, but I figured I had suffered enough with her working at my school – why should I have to face the humiliation and ridicule of her riding my bus?  It had nothing to do with how cool I thought I was; it was more about how MEAN kids can be…  I was so afraid of what the kids would say or do once they found out my mom was riding the bus!  So anyway, lucky for me, she got her car out, and I was saved.  But my point is, her car was stuck in the snow, yet they hadn’t cancelled school.  Here in Ohio things are MUCH different.  We are on our 6th snow day already this season!  And I’ve lost count of how many 2 hour delays we’ve had – which luckily (for them, not me) the kids don’t have to make up.  Coming from Chicagoland, I had never even heard of a 2 hour delay before we moved here – they don’t exist there.  But in Ohio – they are quite common, most of the time because of fog – FOG!  We actually have fog days!  School has been CANCELLED because of fog…  it was really hard for me to get used to at first…  you’d think we live in a swamp or something!  Oh, wait, – that’s just it…  this area used to be the Great Black Swamp before it was turned into farmland a few hundred years ago.  So I guess that explains it…  but I would be willing to bet that if Illinois had a fog problem, they still wouldn’t cancel school.  I don’t know anything about Nebraska’s attitudes about weather and school since we didn’t have a school-aged child while we lived there.  I don’t really have an opinion about who is right or who is wrong – it’s not that Ohio devalues education or anything like that…  they are just over-sensitive about childrens’ safety when it comes to weather (is there such a thing?), and the school days and curriculum are made up in the end so they’re not behind.  I’m just enjoying my role as an amused spectator observing the differences in weather attitude between different regions.