Let the water flow...

If you've ever wanted to read an article discussing the theme of baptism in "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" then you're in luck.
I would love to hear your comments and thoughts!

You might be a mother if: the "Mama Says" version

You might be a mother if you've ever had to say:

"no fishing on the table"
"please don't spit into the octopus"
"sit down on your bottom, please. We don't stand on chairs"
"because I said so, that's why"
"applesauce doesn't belong in your nose, okay?"
"please don't drag your brother around the kitchen"
"why is there a banana on my chair?"
"I don't care what HER mom said. Listen to what I'M saying."
"we only color on paper"
"not in your mouth!"
"please don't let the dog lick your goldfish"
"why is there an elephant on my back?"
"we don't bite Grammy's shoe, okay?"
"let's not leave cheese on the floor"
"why, yes. yes, I do have my hands full."
"you smell like poo...and strawberries."
"why are you growling? and where are your socks? and why am I sitting on a bunch of pretzels?"
"get your hand out of your pants"
"please don't eat things off the floor"
"I washed the Zebra"
"Please don't swordfight with me when I'm trying to change your diaper."
"If you shine that light in my eyes one more time, I will take your piggy."
"move your face, I'm using a screwdriver!"
"ballerinas don't thump."

Movie Wall

In our house, we love film. So much so, in fact, that we have large photos of Humphrey Bogart, Paul Newman, and Audrey Hepburn as part of our decor. (The Bogie poster shown is not the one that we have, I couldn't find a copy of that. We almost picked this one for our collection but didn't like the cigarette.) But my friend Jenn likes pictures, so I needed one of each poster. A bonus is that the black and white photos fit right in with my decorating style!

 We have determined that once we buy a house, there will be at least one wall, if not one room, solely decorated with film memorabilia. (My SIL helped last Christmas when she gifted us a large art board with 100 movie quotes on it.) And you better believe I just ran over to Pinterest and created a "Movie Room" board on which to pin ideas, why didn't that occur to me before??

With that in mind, I have started using some of my original photos as backgrounds and creating art pieces of some of our favorite quotes. This is just the first, there will be more! And please, tell me some of your favorite movie quotes!

Casting Crowns Inspiration

Heard this Casting Crowns song on the radio the other day, this lyric has stuck with me ever since.

Favorite Things Friday

Now that I have a full-time job, I keep forgetting about my poor little blog. But I had off today so here's a new 5 Favorite Things Friday!

Pre-heated cream. I have no idea how I drank coffee for 17 (ish) years without doing this, it's fantastic! Before, I never drank my coffee fast enough while it was still hot, and my window of opportunity was made even shorter by the fact that the refrigerated Half & Half cooled it way down.

The side-part. I do not like to wear my hair down, mostly because I hate when it gets in my face. I don't like it in my face, on my neck, it just bothers me. BUT I also didn't like how it looked, very plain and kinda frumpy. Enter NCIS. One day it just hit me that Ziva's hair looked so nice down because it wasn't parted straight down the middle. Lightbulb! I'm still not wearing it down a lot, but I'm wearing it down a lot more often now that I give it a side-part. I love it!

Domino's Gluten Free Pizza. Thanks to our diet, I've been gluten free during the week by default, but when it came to cheat day I was still eating the regular food. I finally got tired of feeling gross, and have gone totally gluten free. I knew Domino's did GF pizza, but thanks to a really bad experience a few months ago we have never tried to order from them again. Well, we tried again tonight and thanks to the Pizza Tracker I know what the status is and the delivery person should be here soon. BUT, did you also know that you can pick any one of their pizzas and make it a gluten free crust?? The only other pizza place we knew that did GF pizza you could only choose cheese or pepperoni. I'm pretty excited about this meal, not going to lie (Buffalo Chicken Pizza, woohoo!).

Organizing. With the whole bug treatment thing, all of our stuff has been packed up for a couple weeks. Now that I can unpack it, I'm totally using the opportunity to revamp some of my storage spots. So far I've gotten some bins for the wall for mail/bills/keys, and I'm rearranging the shelf unit in the closet. I'd like to get another shelf unit for the other closet to hold extra food since we don't have a pantry.

Pinterest. I know, I know. But I'm a visual person and it's literally like a feast for my eyes. I have tried a handful of the things I have pinned, and plan on trying much more, but I have a few boards that are solely for looking pretty. And they make me happy.

You might be a mother if:

-you spell something so your kid doesn't understand what you're saying, and then realize you spelled the wrong word
-you've ever had to rescue your child out of the toilet because they forgot to put the potty seat on first
-there are teeth marks in your chapstick
-you've ever made a tent (or as my kids call it: "the bear cave") out of blankets and chairs
-it doesn't matter what time you set it for, your children will always wake you up before the alarm goes off
-all your sidewalk chalk sticks are nothing but nubs
-you've gotten really good at drawing Mickey Mouse, robots, hearts, and aliens
-you've ever found your missing shoe...in the toybox
-you have to hide your 4 year old's clothes because she changes her outfit every 27 minutes
-you have more than 3 different kinds of Crayola products on hand at any given time
-a helium balloon is as good as the party itself
-you put the kids to bed and then fall asleep on the couch waiting for them to go to sleep
-you're experienced in removing (among other things) crayon, marker, chalk, chocolate, toothpaste, and strawberry jam from the walls
-you're okay with walking like a duck so your munchkin can "help" push the shopping cart
-your nails are currently sporting purple and blue glitter nailpolish
-getting dressed in the bathroom means something is going to get cleaned in the process
-your kids aren't the only ones who like those smiley-face fries for lunch
-you've ever been woken up by one of your kids asking "mommy, are you awake?"

Ch-ch-ch-changes!

I haven't posted in a long time, but I have the best reason ever: I finally got a job!
in another state.
We're moving to said state on sunday. Away from all of our family and friends (although we'll be 2 hours closer to my parents...good news for Christmastime!) It's going to be a huge change, for sure. 3rd floor walkup, traffic and people everywhere, much higher prices because we'll be close to a major government organization. We've set a super strict budget for ourselves that we're going to stick to as closely as possible, we're hoping that by the end of our 12-month lease we'll either be out of debt or ready to buy a house. Both would be super sweet, but I don't think that's possible unless we won the lottery or something.
It's going to be a rough weekend, there will be lots of packing, sorting, cleaning, organizing, etc, not to mention the drive. I've been staying down there during the week to work, then coming back home every weekend to see the kids and Bogie. I'll be glad when we're all together in one place again! That's an exhausting way to live.
Say a little prayer for us, it's going to be a long weekend, especially with a 2 year old and almost 4 year old thrown into the mix.
Where's my coffee?

Going Gluten-Free

Let me preface this post by saying several things. I am not a doctor, pediatrician, dietician, or expert. I am going to discuss a small child's bowels. Talk to your doctor before attempting your own dietary changes. If you're easily grossed out, you will either want to skip certain parts or just hit the back button.

I have 2 children, the youngest is our son D. His older sister is smart as a whip, outgoing as all get out, and is clearly born to be a leader (and possibly an actress/gymnast/president). Until about 2 months ago, it appeared as though D man (while obviously quite smart) was a little more laid back, observant, chill-out kind of personality. The only indication that something wasn't right was his little tummy. (Poop discussion!) He was pooping with almost every diaper, 6-7 times a day like a newborn, and it was unformed and raunchy as all get out. I mean, we're talking smell him from across the room before he's even done. With that much pooping going on, he was almost always battling diaper rash in varying degrees. There were some days where I could never get ahead because he wouldn't stop pooping long enough for the diaper cream to do its job. I would slather the rash in cream, and then sprinkle a rash powder on top of that to form a sort of paste that would prevent the cream from soaking into the diaper before it had a chance to do its job. Unfortunately, he kept pooping so much that it was not unusual to have small spots that were bleeding on his poor little heiney, and after one particularly bad day I decided I'd had enough. There was no way this was normal, and I was going to figure out what was wrong with his gut.

I entered his symptoms into the WebMD symptom checker (due to my having been laid off, we don't have health insurance right now and I wanted to do my research before we paid for a pediatrician visit.) and 2 of the results stuck out to me right away. Lactose intolerance and Gluten intolerance. I remembered my good friend Jenn saying at one point that their oldest had gut problems and when (for other reasons) they took him off gluten & dairy those symptoms resolved. I shot her a message and asked her about what they did to get some more details. Mid-October, we cut dairy from his diet and observed the results. After 5 days, there was no change whatsoever so we concluded that wasn't it. It would be almost 2 months until we could try gluten free since it's expensive, we have no money, and the foods can be difficult to track down if you don't know where to look. The week before Christmas I had accumulated enough GF items that we could do a GFree week for D, which should be long enough to notice any changes. Within 4 days his tummy issues resolved. He was down to pooping twice a day, max, his rash cleared up, and while it still stunk (it's poop, after all) it wasn't nearly as raunchy as before. But it's what happened after that that was truly amazing.

Remember earlier when I talked about our children's (supposed) opposite personalities? Turns out, they're not that different after all. Little Man's hanging back, shyness, and clinging to mommy was because he didn't feel well! Nobody, including himself, realized just how badly he felt because he'd never felt any different. Not only did most of his shyness and clinginess disappear, but his vocabulary nearly doubled in a week. In one month, he went from saying a few words to speaking in complete sentences. Granted, they're not long sentences (he's 22 months old, after all) but he's talking out the wazoo, asking questions and learning new words. Just this morning he brought me a book and started pointing to things, asking me "mommy, dat?" because he didn't know what they were. He's interacting more, speaking more, and overall is much less grouchy. It's rather hard to describe, because it's not like it changed his personality. He isn't doing anything now that he wasn't doing before, it's just magnified. Brightened. Increased. The best way I can describe it is: it's as if we only got to see him out of a dirty window before, and since we'd never seen "clean window D" we didn't know just how dirty the window was until it was cleaned. Now that the window is sparkling clean, we realize just how much he (and we) were missing.

I know what some of you are probably thinking, "There's no way one ingredient could make that much difference, it must be coincidence". Honestly if I hadn't observed it with my own eyes, I wouldn't believe it either. Bogie didn't believe me at first when I started mentioning D's demeanor changes, but now he's just as amazed as I am because he can see them too. It is quite possible that some of D's vocabulary changes are due to the fact that he's a month older, but trust me when I say that those changes didn't occur over the course of a month. Most of them occurred almost overnight, right around the 4-5 day mark. It was clear that all the harmful gluten had worked its way out of his body and he was coming out of the fog. It wasn't that he didn't know the words, letters, numbers, etc, it's that he wouldn't say them, couldn't focus, couldn't remember, didn't care...who knows what all went on in his poor little head and body.

Example One: Wakey, wakey. Before we went GFree, whenever he woke up from a nap or sleeping, he cried until I came to get him out of his crib. I would often wonder why he cried since he was long past object permanence stage and knew that mommy or daddy would come get him, but I figured it was just a stage or a personality quirk. But now? Now, Little Man talks to himself, opens the curtain and watches the cars go by, talks to the cars, talks to the birds, talks to his pacifier. He just chills out in his crib, chattering away and playing with his stuffed animals until I get him. (He does still occasionally cry when he wakes up after naptime, but it's pretty clear it's because he wasn't ready to wake up.)

Example Two: The church nursery. The aforementioned shyness and clinginess really reared its ugly head when I had to drop him off in the nursery. He'd start crying before we even got to the door. The girls would tell me that once I left, he'd settle down but he never really showed an interest in the toys, and usually clung to one person the whole time & fell asleep on her at some point. When I would come to get him, he'd start bawling as soon as he saw me and wouldn't stop until I picked him up and made it clear he was coming with me when I left. That first sunday after all the gluten was out of his system, I went to get him and he was on the floor playing with toys. He saw me and came running over with a ball in his outstretched hand saying "mommy! look! ball!" I said "I see that ball! What color is it?" "Orange!!" he yelled, then gave me a hug and turned around and ran back to the toys. Yes, I said "ran back to the toys". He had NEVER done that before, not even close. The closest we had ever come to that moment would be the days that he didn't cry when I got him (which happened maybe once or twice). I was shocked, as was the girl who was in the nursery because she was used to pre-gluten free D.

Example Three: Vocabulary. Like I said, it's hard to tell just how much of this he had already learned and just wouldn't say, but I was not kidding when I said his vocab doubled. He's speaking in full sentences (again, he's 22 months old, so those sentences are around 3 words long, but still) and picks up on things very quickly. He's got most of his colors down, misses a few letters in the alphabet but can recognize quite a few of them, and it appears he's going to be good with numbers. I was holding him on my hip while boiling some eggs, so we were watching the timer together when he suddenly started counting backwards from 10 to 1. Over and over again, pointing to the timer as each number changed, he recited them correctly the whole time. I was amazed.

Had I known the switch to GFree was going to change more than his tummy issues, I would have taken videos of typical D to compare with GFree D. As it is, I went back through my videos to find one as close as possible to right before we switched. The best one I could find was him going through one of his books, naming objects. On 1/29 I took another video, with the same book. I was hoping for some type of difference between the two, but this surpassed even my hopes. There's a noticeable difference in my son. While he's clearly cheerful and participating in the first video, he's just sitting there letting me do the prompting and pointing. There's nothing wrong with that, and without something to compare it to we'd never have thought it could be any different. Enter video #2, taken 3 weeks after the first one but these kinds of results we saw after 4-5 days of being GF. Notice that all I'm doing in this one is holding the book and confirming his words. He's more alert, focused, interactive and intent.

Besides the differences I've already mentioned, he's more cheerful, more active, and more confrontational (in a good way, mostly) with his sister. ZaZa is 3 1/2, going on 20. She likes to give orders and command the situation and before, he would either go along with it or ignore her. Now, he'll either happily join in or tell her "no!" and go off to do his own thing. He's also more mischievousness, and you can see the little twinkle in his eyes that tells you he knows exactly what he's doing. He's still a little lovebug, only now it's in hugs and kisses and piling me up with cars rather than clinging to me all day. He's still a little reserved around people he doesn't know, but now it's a small smile and a couple minute warm-up period whereas before it was a stern "I don't know you" glare and a good 20 minutes before it was even "safe" to get out of mommy's arms. I wish I had more than words to show how much of a difference it made, but it really did. I would totally encourage you, if you or your kids have been having similar problems, to try going gluten free and see if it makes a difference. We gave it a solid week, but it only took 3 days to notice a difference in that boy.

When we can afford it, I'm going to take D to the pediatrician and get him tested to make sure his intolerance isn't more severe than we thought. I will also get tested eventually because I've had tummy problems of my own for as long as I can remember. This diet that Bogie and I are on is Gfree simply because we're not eating any grains anyway, and it's the best I've felt in years (and the best my gut's done in years). I also remember both my dad and my Grandma saying (at different points in time) that whole wheat foods taste bitter to them so I wouldn't be surprised if that's where I got it, and maybe we're ALL gluten intolerant! Again, I'm not a doctor or dietitian, so talk to your health professionals before you make any huge changes. If you're already eating Gluten Free, please feel free to tell me about it! What prompted the change? What are your favorite foods? Where have you found the best deals on Gfree foods? I'd love to hear any tricks or tips you have!

January Movies

So February's almost done and I haven't posted  January's movies yet. Oy. My excuse is that we all got sidelined with a nasty stomach virus, but that only lasted a week from first symptom to feeling completely normal, so don't ask me what my excuse is for the other 3 weeks. Totally watched them though, 2 B&W and 2 color (and one extra). For those of you that followed along at all with last year's NYR to watch 2 films per month, this year it's been upped to 4. I'm trying very hard to review the films and give my reactions to them without giving away major plot points or spoilers. If I liked a film, my intention is to make you want to go see it while avoiding discussing enough of the movie that it makes you feel like you've already seen it. Okay? Okay.

Sylvia Scarlett (1935, George Cukor) was a little odd. I recorded it off TCM and Robert Osbourne's intro said that it wasn't well received because audiences were on some sort of Katherine Hepburn boycott. Nothing she did could make her more liked, which from what I've heard about her, might not have phased her all that much. The movie itself apparently bombed. I thought it was cute and flowed well, had an odd chunk in the middle that seemed to take a weird turn, but it evened itself out at the end to resolve nicely. It was fun to see Katherine go from girl to boy to girl, she's one of my favorite actresses and she pulled it off marvelously. A tad annoying in the very beginning because it seemed like she was trying too hard to be girly girl, but that could just be me knowing how girly Katherine herself is not. Was not. Sorry. This was the first film that Katherine and Cary Grant appeared in together, they went on to star in 3 more, including one of my all time favorites "Holiday". If you haven't seen it, go find it. Excellent film, I love it to pieces. Sharp comedy, snappy dialogue, nice solid story with a purpose and a good ending. Totally getting sidetracked, I know. I probably won't watch this one again, but I mostly enjoyed it and didn't feel like I wasted my time when the film was done.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011, Rob Marshall). Um, wow. Can I just say that they have officially franchised the snot out of this series? Oh, and I don't blame Keira and Orlando for not coming back, but that left a huge cliffhanger on what was the best (for me) plotline of the whole story! Not that I don't enjoy seeing Johnny Depp act all crazy-go-nuts or a pregnant Penelope Cruz attempt to look like a pirate's daughter, but enough is enough. Hands down, best part of the film was the relationship between the mermaid and the preacher. Hands down. They could have pretty much cut the rest of the film down to just those scenes and I would have been happy.  I would have had a 45 minute film, but I would have been happy! (just found out from Bogie that they're making 5 and 6. Apparently there is still some snot left to franchise out of the series. maybe they'll get Keira and Orlando to come back for a couple scenes! I like it when stories are resolved.)

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011, Joe Johnston). I am a giant sucker for comic book movies. I just am. They might suck (coughcoughcatwomancoughcough), but I'll watch them all the way through anyway. This one did not suck. I loved it. I haven't the faintest idea how they made him look so puny in the beginning, but it was well done and made his changes (biceps the size of my head, holy smokes) appear that much more impressive. I can't really talk about much else without giving plot points away. It was slightly cheesy (yet necessary for a comic movie), partly funny, sometimes sad and sometimes clever film that one would expect from the guys who write for comic books and the man who directed "The Rocketeer" (another of my favorites, go get that one too! Jennifer Connelly in a white silk dress that I would gladly steal, come on!)

The Help (2011, Tate Taylor). Whoa. I am completely in agreement for everything this got nominated for. Well written, well acted, beautiful scenery, it was very well done. I have no problem liking a film that Bogie doesn't like, because we each have our own tastes, but when we both like a film you KNOW it's good. Go watch it. Find it somewhere, watch it, and then watch the Oscars to see what it wins, because it's going to win something!





Jailhouse Rock (1957, Richard Thorpe) was fun! I've watched several Elvis films but hadn't seen this one somehow. The storyline was a bit cheesy, but I let it slide because hey, it's the 50's. I was sad to read that the woman who plays Peggy died in a car accident several days after shooting wrapped. She never got to see the premiere, and Elvis refused to watch the film. I also read (thanks, IMDb) that the songwriters were locked in their hotel room by their music publisher because they were under deadline, they came up with "Treat Me Nice", "You're So Square", "I Want to be Free" and of course "Jailhouse Rock" in 5 hours! Amazing what a little motivation can do, huh? I wonder if they got room service in those 5 hours, I find it hard to be civil when I'm hungry, much less write songs. If you're an Elvis fan (or a fan of his songs) and you have a couple hours to kill, watch it!

You might be a mother if

-the drawstrings on your hoodie are always uneven
-you have mastered the art of stirring your coffee without letting the spoon touch the mug so that you don't wake up the child who fell asleep on the couch
-you regularly get play-by-plays on the retrieval of boogers ("got it, mommy!")
-you've ever used your child's carseat for securing something other than your child (2 1/2 dozen eggs, for example)
-you have used the seat of a vehicle as an emergency diaper changing station (more than once)
-you wear tights because A) you're out of clean socks and B) it sucks in your baby flub like magic
-the longer you sit still, the more matchbox cars get lined up on your leg/arm/shoulder/foot
-you're listening to your preschooler yell from her bed during quiet time "I can't reach the booger!"
-you finally get everything cleaned and think "okay, now who should I invite over so I don't waste this perfectly clean house?"
-you get home from a full day of running errands and realize that the stickers your son put on your pants and shirt that morning are still there
-sometimes you let your kids watch the obnoxious cartoon you swore you'd never let them watch because they're so enamored with it that you actually get the dishes done in one sitting
-despite your best efforts to the contrary, you watch dismayed as an entire toy bin is emptied in search of one toy that wasn't even in there to begin with
-you borrow the baby's diaper bag to use for yourself because it's so much cuter and roomier than any of your bags
-you serve the kids a nutritious and balanced meal...and then eat a bowl of cereal while standing up
-you've ever gotten a matchbox car stuck in your hair
-you wish for a cleaning fairy...and then remember that YOU are the cleaning fairy.
-you have more laundry in baskets than in dressers & closets
-you're not ashamed to run from the imaginary dragon, even if it means letting the pasta boil over once or twice

Beware the Writer!

As a writer, one of the things I love to do is write down when people say funny things. And now you all get to benefit from that. Below are a collection of quotes from the past several months. (and if you find yourself included in this list, well... that means you're funny!) Enjoy!


"I can't even remember the last time my eyeballs were on fire."

"but it was the only color fanny-pack I had!"

"my news sources are a carefully blended mix of CNN, NPR, BBC, The Daily Show, and The Onion."

"you make my hockey stick float"

"only if it matters. If it doesn't matter, then it won't matter"

"I've been up here preaching these great sermons, why aren't you all any different?"

"you'll KNOW when I burp, I'm like a T-Rex when I do it."

"I was going to do Black Friday but I'm out of pepper spray & ammo"

"would you rather be shot in the fracas or the brouhaha?"

"you shouldn't make fun of spaghetti when you are a waffle!"

"her boobs wouldn't stop staring at my face."

"I don't mind if he gets offended. I get over it pretty fast."

"no, I don't want to read the tutorial, I am awesome at this game! oops. Wait, how do you kick?"

the Resolution to my Resolutions

January- 10 months, and 2.5 years

Happy New Year!

February- Eating mulch.

In the words of my husband, "I think 2012 is going to be our year. Hopefully we don't all die." It was a pretty rough year for us, no lie. January was spent packing our things because my layoff meant we could no longer afford our rent, so we moved in with my in-laws. In March we celebrated the Little Man's First Birthday, June was ZaZa's 3rd Birthday. In July, D broke his left tibia (he lost his balance and sat on it oddly), September saw us with a not-quite-3-day power outage thanks to Tropical Storm Lee that pounded the East Coast. October was a fun month with both my and Bogie's birthdays and a BBQ at my Uncle's house. The end of October saw a several inch snowstorm, and a few weeks later into November it was up in the 60's. We had a lovely Christmas in December and were blessed financially by several different sources. My job search continues and we are now searching everywhere, if the job pays enough to warrant a move, then we'll go there. So if ya'll want us to stick around, pray somebody in the Lancaster area gives me a job or we could potentially move halfway across the country!

March- D turns 1!

In other news, last January I made 3 resolutions and 1 long-term goal. I'm happy to report I'm 2 for 3 on resolutions and underway on the long-term goal.

Resolution #1: To watch 2 films (1 color, 1 B&W) every month that I'd never seen before.
Result: I watched 42 films that I had never seen before, averaging 2 per month minimum until the last couple months where the count steadily increased until I hit 11 films in December. Yowza. I had a ball doing this and I'm going to do it again this year, with some changes.

May- outside bubbles!

Resolution #2: Lose the baby weight.

April- helping out.

Result: This one is a work in progress, but it is progressing! Last I checked (which was several weeks ago) I was down 13 pounds (we started mid-November) and several inches off various limbs. (I should add that although my weight loss has stalled the past few weeks, I'm on a supplement per Doctor's orders that makes me retain water. If you're trying to lose weight, make sure you take your measurements too and not just weigh yourself, as muscle weighs more than fat. The scale may not always change but you might still be losing inches, so measure yourself because you need all the encouragement you can get!) With that being said, these results are only the outcome of a diet change, I have not exercised at all yet. We're still on our diet and going strong, and once I add in some exercises I think it'll make a big difference. Just the diet alone has really helped because we cut out all of the junk and then some. No sugar, no dairy, no flour, no

June- 3rd birthday in SC

August- Mom's day off

July- Little Brother breaks his leg.

calories via drink (water, tea, and black coffee only) and lots of veggies and proteins. It's not the most interesting diet, but we always eat the same things over and over again anyway so we're just transferring from junky food to healthy  food! Plus, we get 1 cheat day a week and that has really helped us psychologically stay on this diet. 1 day a week we get whatever we want to eat & drink, and we're actually at the point where we avoid certain foods on cheat day anyway because they just make us feel too gross. If you're interested in what diet we're doing, go here. We have the book but we're nowhere near doing everything in it, we've really only made it to basic SCD foods so far.

October- family BBQ

September- Tropical Storm Lee.

Resolution #3: Complete my list of films that I've watched.

November- snowstorm

Result: Failure. I totally forgot all about this one until the day after Christmas. I briefly considered pulling a book-scanning/Excel typing marathon and then decided against it. I will be adding it to this year's list, though, because I do want to get my list up to date before I start adding to it again.

Long-Term Goal: Read through the New York Times' List of 100 Best Novels.

December-decorations

Result: We are on book #2. or rather Bogie is, I'm done and ready to start book #3. We randomized the list to remove any bias based on NYT's opinion. I don't care what book they think is #1, I want to read something with a clean mind and be able to form my own opinions without influence. Our first book was Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse 5" which...I dunno, I'm still forming an opinion on that one. Not my favorite anytime soon, but I enjoyed it more than Joyce's "Portrait of an artist as a young man". I won't say any more since Bogie's not done with it, but man...how'd that book get so high on the list??

December- Christmas tree!

That's the outcome of my 3 resolutions from 2011, and my new resolutions from 2012 are to continue with all of the above! I'll add a fourth resolution: get a job. And I'm thinking about adding 2 movies to my movie list because I can easily watch 4 a month. Watch 2 B&W and 2 color movies per month that I've never seen, finish my movies watched list, continue to get healthy and fit, and get a job! Bogie and I set up a schedule/calendar for ourselves so that we will be more disciplined with our time, so we have a set time every week that we have to read for at least 30 minutes, no excuses. I think we'll be reading a lot more than that, but it's nice to know that we have a time set aside for it. It's like restricting ourselves to scheduling a time for it has given us the freedom to do it whenever we want. A paradox to be sure, but it works!

I wish a happy New Year for each and every one of you, I know that 2011 was a very hard year for many of us. Even if my personal circumstances are no more improved this year, I resolve not to let my circumstances determine my moods/emotions. I will choose joy! And if I don't, I have two beautiful little people that get ecstatic over cars and balloons, so it's kind of hard not to!