Footloose

I have a confession to make:

I used to do this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9DABqqOpNw

Only it wasn't as cool back in 1990. But the idea was the same, the steps were the same, I LOVED it, and if I do say so myself, I was pretty good at it. My cousin who also used to do this sent me this video and it was such a blast from my past, I had to share it with you all. I have to say, when I see it, a part of me wishes I still did it. Can't you just see it now?

Relationships 101

Okay, seriously, I thought I had atleast eight more years before I had to start worrying about this stuff.

But..... my six year old daughter is already capturing the attention of her male classmates. It started a few months ago, she would come home and complain about how Cody in her class never left her alone and was so mean to her. Then it was that Cody chased her around at recess, always had to sit by her, and would write that he loved her on his paper. She had no clue what was going on, she thought he was a dumb, annoying boy, so I explained to her that Cody has what is called a "crush" on her, that for some reason when boys like girls, they sometimes act mean to them. She was flabbergasted, but I could tell inside she was flattered. When I went to her Thanksgiving feast in her classroom, Cody came up and more or less introduced himself to me. Eeeek!

This was bad enough, but then yesterday, the phone rang. It was Cole, from her class. He just "wanted to talk." They chatted it up for about five minutes and then hung up. I asked why he called and she said she didn't know, that he had asked for her phone number in class so she wrote it down on a paper for him.

Okay, SERIOUSLY?! I mean, I get it, these boys have good taste, she's beautiful, but 1ST GRADE???!!! I may be making a call to the phone company. Refer back soon for my new phone number.....

So today my four year old son comes home from preschool and says, "Mommy, Ethan has a crush on me." Luckily my back was turned because I was dying trying not to laugh. I asked him why he thought that and he said, so annoyed, "Because he's always hitting me and punching me and being mean to me." I explained that people being mean doesn't always mean they have a crush, and that boys have crushes on girls, not boys. (We hope. It is preschool.) He didn't believe me at first, but I finally convinced him. I hope I didn't give him a blow to his ego.

I miss the good old days when all I had to worry about was diaper rash and colic.

Bella is Cast

At the risk of revealing the full extent of my obsession, I just had to post this link to Stephanie Meyer's website. I googled "Twilight the movie" to see if anyone had actually been cast yet, and this is what I found. Meet the new Bella.........

http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/twilight_movie.html

What do you other Twilighters think? I think it will take some getting used to, but not too unbelievable.

Obsession

There are so many things I could blog about, but there is only one thing on my mind. All the time. To the point of obsession:

Vampires.

No. I can't believe I just said that either, and yet, there it is, in bold print. I am obsessing about vampires. Well, just one actually. His name is Edward.

The irony in all of this is that I hate vampires. Not in the "vampires are bad and scary" way that you're supposed to hate vampires, but in the "books and movies about vampires are ridiculous and juevenile and retarded" way. My husband LOVES them. His very favorite movies are vampire movies. I have never been able to sit through five minutes of any of them. And you know coming from me, that says a lot.

This is the reason I was so hesitant to read the Twilight series. Although everyone raved about the love story, I just couldn't get on board with the vamps. But, like anything else, once I saw that the hype was not dying away, my curiousity got the best of me.

Enter Edward. And my newfound vampire obsession. I think it will be a very good thing when I finish the third book, so that my mind might finally be free to think about other things. Until the next one comes out, of course.

Thankful

The gospel in my life, every day

Healthy, happy kids who love me unconditionally

A wonderful, loving husband who understands me better than anyone

Never having to go hungry, cold or homeless

Krispy Kremes

Friends who truly know me and love me

Urban-themed scrapbook paper

Lots of family close by

Have a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Lots On My Mind

I've got so many things swimming around in my brain I couldn't settle on any one thing to blog about today, so I'll just briefly mention what they are. Here's what's on my mind...

• 1st grade Thanksgiving feasts. We had one today in my daughter's classroom and the food was actually really good! It was awesome to see the turnout of families that came to watch and it was nice to sort of get my foot in the door of her classroom and get to know her teacher better. I really haven't been as involved this year as I'd like. They were all wearing Indian headbands that they'd made (most of the girls had their hair in braids) and they each said a little line about the Wompanoag Indians and they told us their Wompanoag names. My daughter's was Red Flower. So cute.
• Baby showers. My sister's is tonight and I'm excited for it. I love showers, well, any kind of party really, but I'm especially excited to do my Celebrity Baby game.
• Dieting. We, as a family, are really trying to switch to a healthier lifestyle. We're doing well, but, you know, those first few days SUCK.
• Twilight. I finished it on Sunday and can't stop thinking about it. I'm dying to start the next book but have to wait for my wonderful Sister-In-Law to finish it first. I'm so desperate to read more about Edward and Bella that I'm this close (imagine my pointer finger and thumb barely touching) to starting the first book again!
• Christmas shopping. I'm starting to get that panicky feeling because not only have I not bought a single Christmas present, but I haven't even given it a thought and only just sat down yesterday to figure out who we even have to buy for. I need to get on the ball!

I could go on and on but my head hurts and I'm tired. (Also topics that have been on my mind.)

Blurb

So, like just about everyone else, all the recent blogs about safety issues online has got me thinking about what I want to do to feel I am protecting myself, my family and my friends to atleast some extent as I blog. I immediately thought of past posts I have done that definitely give away too much information, and went to go change them. But then I realized, I am in an interesting position. Because I took my recent hiatus (which happened to fall on my year mark) as an opportunity to change my blog address once returning, everything I have posted since coming back, everything from my "second" year of blogging, is safe in my eyes. So, I thought, instead of going back through a YEAR'S worth of posts and changing anything that may be deemed unsafe, why not just delete that entire year? Does it really need to be there? Especially if it's full of pictures and facts I now realize shouldn't be out there for Creepy McScaryguy to see?

I had already decided months ago, when Passionista first talked about Blurb on her blog, to publish my blog at my year mark. So now, I can publish, and delete it, and it won't be lost to me forever! I was so excited I instantly downloaded my blog to Blurb, but for anyone who has worked on Book Smart, the editing program on Blurb, you know that it can be a little time consuming. And I am a perfectionist. And if I'm gonna publish a book, it's gonna be perfect, dangit! And I have a year's worth of posts to edit and get perfect. So, this is my question: Even though I have not finished my blog on Blurb and sent it to publish, do you think it is safe to delete that year of my blog, since it is all saved on Blurb, or do you think there's a chance that if my blog disappears online, it might suddenly disappear from Blurb and be gone forever? I'm pretty sure it would be safe, but I'm terrified to delete it and have it be gone with no chance of ever getting it back.

So if anyone knows anything about Blurb, or for you computer savvy people, I would LOVE it if you could help me out here. (I've searched Help in Blurb and can't find my answer anywhere.)

Where Has G-Rated Gone?

In case you haven't figured it out by now, I'm a tad passionate about movies. I love everything about them, from the actors and music to the way they take you to a different time and place for a few hours.

It's not surprising that my kids love movies, too. I'm only a little ashamed to admit I was that mom that plopped my babies in front of Baby Einstein and Elmo often so I could actually get something done. But from the get-go my kids were mesmerized by movies. They would sit there, enraptured, even through the credits.

Fast forward to now. We don't have one kid tv station, not even PBS. If my kids want to watch something, it has to be a movie. This has it's plus-side, for all of you gasping right now: I know exactly what my kids are watching, when they're watching it, and there is a definite start and stop point, whereas before I would switch on Nick Jr. and walk away. Six shows later I'd suddenly realize maybe it was time to shut it off. The downside is fairly obvious: My kids are sick to death of the movies we own, and we have quite a collection. Needless to say, we are at Wal-Mart every Tuesday that a new "kid movie" is released on DVD, cash in hand.

But here is where my problem lies. Finding "kid" movies that I want my kids to watch, knowing they will watch it over and over til they have it memorized. It used to be frustrating to me that every kid movie, even Disney ones, had stuff in them I wasn't too keen on having my kids learn, ie the references to "butts" and how often they say "shut up." These just aren't words we say in our house.

Now, I miss the old days of "not-nice" words. Now I have to worry about actual swear words, and references to much worse things than bodily functions. Case in point: Ice Age? Great. Cute, funny, clean. Ice Age 2? My kids watched it once and we had to sell it on eBay after hearing three swear words in it. Do you know how much I hate to own a movie and not its sequel?

What got me fired up enough to write this post was my experience last night. When Transformers came out on DVD, we knew we were going to have a problem on our hands as my husband had done his best to get our son OBSESSED with Transformers and we knew that as soon as the movie was in our home (Monday night at midnight of the release date) it would be torture with him begging constantly to watch it. YEAH RIGHT! Besides the obvious guns and shooting, there were completely unnecessary parts of the movie that made me squirm. So my husband, in all his wisdom and foresight, ordered the "vintage" cartoon Transformers movie that he grew up with. We waited anxiously for it to come in the mail, holding our son off from the PG13 version as long as we could. After over a month (yeah, someone's getting negative feedback) it finally came yesterday. I excitedly popped it in and watched with joy as my little boy parked himself a foot from the tv and started pointing out all the characters with glee. Halfway through it, however, my joy turned instantly to shock as I heard what I am 90% sure was the "sh" word. I thought I must have been mistaken, but was convinced I wasn't when five minutes later one of the transformers yelled, "work, da**it!" WHAT?! Are you KIDDING me? And this movie was made in the 80's, all our husbands grew up on this movie. A CARTOON. I was completely disgusted and devestated as I realized it would be the last time he would get to watch what was sure to be his new favorite movie of all time. How do I take this away from him now?

UGH! Why can't people just make kid-friendly movies anymore that are actually age-appropriate and have a positive influence on our future generation? Am I alone in this? Let me know how you feel about this.

Everyone Loves a Sequel

Alright, enough is enough. I stayed away as long as I could, but I miss blogging so badly I ache. After trying to get caught up on all the blogs I've fallen behind on the past few weeks, the desire to blog again became so strong I couldn't get back here fast enough. So..................................................................................................................

THE MOVIE QUEEN IS BACK

in all her crazy glory. And to prevent another disappearance like that, I've decided to lay down some ground rules for my peace of mind and, well, for the sake of humanity, really. It goes something like this:

1. I'm a crazy person. I have many, many levels to me. On any given day, you may get any of the following: Funny Me, Serious Me, Depressed Me, Normal Me, Sarcastic Me, Thoughtful Me, Nostalgic Me.....and this is my blog. I feel this makes it interesting. I hope you feel the same. Rule #1: I reserve the right to be all over the map.

2. Depressed Me tends to make an appearance and then set up camp for a week or three. Depressed Me is the anti-blogger. So if you visit my blog and get the same thing day after day after day, just know that Depressed Me is in town but hopefully packing her bags, and maybe check back in a few days. Rule #2: I reserve the right to not blog whenever the heck I don't feel like it.

3. I'm going to try my very hardest to not let the content or quantity of comments on my blog affect the way I blog. It's dang hard, but I'm going to try. I love reading the comments I get, I just don't love the way I depend on them. Rule #3: I reserve the right to be human and judge myself on the number of comments I get on a post. (However, I will try my best to not be human.)

So, that's out of the way. Whew! Let the blogging begin! Okay, here's a synopsis of the craziness that has been my life since my last post:

• The Crop For Her Cure consumed my life for a couple of weeks, but was totally worth it. We had an amazing turnout and an amazing amount raised. Everything came together wonderfully and the night was a huge success. After being so involved in getting this thing off the ground, I was emotionally invested and had a lot of pride in how great it went. Of course, none of it could ever have happened without this awesome gal.
• We had our primary program on Sunday, hopefully my last. The kids did great, although they really had fun stringing me along, making me believe the whole thing would be a disaster, only to get up there and be perfect angels for the actual performance. Crazy kids. Seriously, I don't think I can do another primary program. Ever.
• I decided not to be the last person on earth to read "Twilight." I'm three days into it and still trying to figure out what all the hoopla's been about. It's good, I just expected more. Much more. And I still have to get past the fact that I'm actually reading a book about vampires. But, I always, always finish a book, even if I hate it, and I know this one will get better.
• My sister had her baby boy five weeks early. He was 4 lbs. 14 oz., the tiniest thing I've ever seen, but has done stinkin' awesome since the moment he came out. He should be coming home any day now. We can't wait.
• My blog's birthday came and went on November 7. I'm sad that I missed it. It's pretty ironic that I missed my blog's year mark because I stopped blogging for a while. Anyway, Happy Belated Birthday Blog.

I think that's it. Wow, that felt good. I can't wait to come back tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.....it's good to be back.