Deja Vu All Over Again

Does anyone else feel like they're living the movie "Groundhog's Day?" I am struggling with it big-time. Every day feels exactly the same and the monotony is really making me depressed. Every day I wake up and go walking (okay, most days. Today I was too depressed.), come home, take a shower, get Macy ready and off to school. Payson sits on my toilet jibber-jabbering away while I finish getting ready for the day. I spend the morning doing one of about three things: taking advantage of only having one kid and going to the store, cleaning, or sitting and blogging if I'm really feeling lazy. Today I have no kids so blogging it is. Then I pick up Macy, argue with her about having a friend over, come home, make lunch, eat lunch, take a nap, wake up, clean until Bill gets home, make dinner (no, that wasn't a typo, I make dinner after my husband gets home. Oh, he loves it.), ignore the dishes since an hour earlier I just did the ones from the night before, collapse on the couch or play Dino Drop until I absolutely have to start getting the kids ready for bed. An hour later, usually at about nine, they're in bed, and normally this is when I would breathe a sigh of relief and take up residence on my couch and blissfully watch my shows. But lately, I have been too exhausted even for that, or maybe just too depressed, and I just go to bed! At nine! Then the next day it starts over. And the next. And the one after that. And so on and so forth.

I know I am not the only one who's days run together like this, but I seem to be the only one who is bothered by it. I don't know what's going on with me. It's always gotten to me, but lately it's really getting to me. Six years this has been my life (or something like it) and now I'm getting tired of the monotony? It makes no sense to me. Am I the only one feeling this way?

Happy Birthday

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!

Today is my mom's birthday. Here are some interesting facts about her:

1. When she was a kid, ker brother tried to jump through the swing she was swinging on on his horse and the horse kicked her in the nose, knocking her unconscious and breaking her nose.
2. She is a master flower gardener and would prefer to do it over pretty much anything else.
3. She is also a master quilter, seamstress, knitter, crocheter, baker, cook, you name it.
4. She has a gorgeous singing voice and has never had a lesson.
5. She is the middle of six kids, the oldest being ten years older and the youngest being ten years younger.
6. Her husband has always been her very best friend. She calls him "Richie."
7. She LOVES Hawaii and goes whenever she can.
8. Her favorite color has always been blue.
9. She has always said that she hopes in heaven she is put in charge of flowers and music.
   

I LOVE YOU MOM!

The Pursuit of Happyness

I've tried three different ways of introducing this movie and nothing feels right. It's such a hard movie to describe. How can a movie be both utterly depressing and yet have you walking away feeling so good?

The Pursuit of Happyness is based on the true story of Chris Gardner, a single dad trying desperately to raise his 5 year old son on next-to-no money. (The mis-spelled title comes from the sign outside a daycare.) Will Smith plays Chris Gardner and is beyond amazing. I love Will Smith as an actor, but this role put him on a whole new level for me. The role of Chris Gardner's son is played by Jaden Smith, Will's real-life son. This fact alone makes the movie interesting to watch. Jaden is a natural, and completely adorable.

T.P.O.H. can at times be hard to watch. Just when you think things can't possibly get any worse for this duo, they do. But laced between the awful hardships are moments of sweetness and hope, making it not totally unbearable. You walk away being completely overcome with emotion, seeing what this father went through and the lengths he took to take care of his child. The movie was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, as was Will Smith for Best Actor, and both were well-deserved.

I can't stress enough my suggestion to watch this movie. You will never look at parenting the same again.

Galletas Fiestas!

Kim's Cookie Monster post reminded me of my awesome baking incident last Sunday. My sister invited us over for an impromptu BBQ and said to bring anything that would go well with hamburgers. Being Sunday, I rummaged through my pantry to see what I could come up with. I have a million cake mixes and a few recipes from 101 Things to Do With a Cake Mix, so I decided to make the Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Bars. I always have what it takes to make them. So I mix all the stuff up and I come to the last ingredient, the chocolate chips. I pull out this giant bag that my mom gave me forever ago which I have always kept in my spice cupboard. I also have a giant bag in my freezer. It had been a while since I'd cooked with chocolate chips (curse you endless diet!!) and since I had some in the freezer I thought, "Hmmmm....I know I put those in the freezer because people told me you could freeze them, but why would you want to unless chocolate chips can go bad? And if chocolate chips can go bad, then these probably would have because they've been sitting in my spice cupboard forever." So I decided to try some to see if they were still good. I popped a few in my mouth. Blech. They tasted like my spice cupboard. But, I had gum in my mouth (I know, weird) so I thought it was perhaps compromising my taste buds, so I asked Bill to try some. He said it tasted a little like spices but it should be alright once it's combined with the all the other stuff. So I added the choco. chips and popped 'em in the oven. Fifteen minutes later they were golden brown and looking delicious.

Fast forward to the BBQ at my sister's. Dinner is finished, dessert is being put out. People start cutting the bars and eating them like crazy and pretty soon there is only about a fourth left. Payson decided he was done with his after a few bites, so I decided to finish it. I took one bite and could barely gag it down. It tasted like taco seasoning and cookies! I looked around in horror at the people sitting there and they of course started asking what was wrong, so I told them the whole story of the chocolate chips and everyone was like, "I had some, they were great" or "I couldn't taste anything wrong." Then my sister-in-law tried one to see and could totally taste it. The look on her face said it all. I was so embarrassed that so much of them were gone and that many people had eaten my disgusting taco seasoned peanut butter bars. So, the moral of the story? Don't keep your chocolate chips in your spice cupboard with the rest of your baking supplies.

My Baby Boy

My "Baby" Boy

can always put a smile on my face

Even when he's crying he somehow makes me laugh

He is all boy with his infatuation of trains,

fighting, and dinosaurs

yet he has every song on the High School Musical

soundtrack memorized and is more of a girl about bugs,

getting wet, loud noises (pretty much everything) than his sister

and even though he's almost four, he's still

small enough to curl into a ball in my lap,

and he still lets me call him...

My Baby Boy

Laughs

My kids aren't constantly saying witty things, or even things that crack me up, really. But for some reason they both said something within two days of each other that I felt was worthy of blogging. Sorry for those of you who've heard it.

We've been reading scriptures every night as a family, something that is, sadly enough, new to us. We're slooooowly making our way through 1 Nephi and have recently been reading the chapter where Nephi and his brothers are trying to obtain the brass plates. During said time, Payson is sprawled out on the floor, rolling around, playing with his trains, talking to himself, etc. while the rest of us, including Macy, are having a nice gospel discussion. I felt that even if he wasn't absorbing anything, he would at least have memories of having family scripture study daily and we would be setting the example.
Well, at church on Sunday he was getting antsy during Sacrament Mtng. so Bill pulled out of his scripture bag a flipchart thing he's had in there ever since his mission. It has the pretty basic pictures in it. I began asking Payson, "Who's this?" to which he would respond the correct answer. Picture of Christ? "Jesus." Portrait of Joseph? "Joseph Smiff." Picture of Joseph in the sacred grove? "Laban." No hesitation. Besides the hilarity of the fact that he called Joseph Smith Laban, I was in utter shock and amazement that he had even picked up on the name Laban. They really are listening!

The next morning Macy was waiting patiently at the table for her breakfast. As I poured her cereal, I listened to her occupy herself in her usual way by turning the nearest objects into dolls and creating a situation where a guy and girl are getting married. This time it was Crayons, and there was an added character, I'm assuming Maid of Honor. She had chosen a blue one for the man, of course, and red for the woman, obviously. I wasn't paying much attention until this part of the conversation caught my ears:

Macy using high voice for woman: "Well, does she even speak English?"
Low voice for man: "No."
High voice again: "Well, then why did you marry her?"
Low voice: "Because she's pretty."

I about died. All great relationships are based on physical appearences, despite the communication barrier right?

The Holiday

Let me start by apologizing to my loyal readers for being a little absent lately. For some reason it's been so hard to get to the computer the last few days. And literally five minutes after I had convinced myself it was okay to not blog every day, that this wasn't supposed to stress me out, and I relaxed about it, my most loyal reader called and gave me an earful for not blogging lately! So, here I am, and you can thank Dandee for it!

So, once again, Movie Madness Monday has been bumped to Tuesday. I'm going to play the whole "it's my blog, I can do whatever I want" card once more. I love that card.

As you all know I was alone Friday night, so I took the opportunity to rent a chick flick. Instantly I knew what I was going to get.

When I first saw the previews for this, I thought, "Kate Winslet and Jude Law, are you kidding me?" They could offer free cheesecake with the movie and it wouldn't be beat that combination.

Jack Black is an odd choice for a romance, but he's funny and likeable. But Cameron Diaz? Seriously. This is the equivalent of ordering your favorite dessert and just before digging in seeing a suspiciously black hair poking out. Yeah, don't like the Cameron. See, I am incredibly picky when it comes to actresses. I just get easily irritated by them. (Don't get me started on Julia Roberts or Meg Ryan. Basically, if the title of "American's Sweetheart" is ever bestowed upon them, my gag reflex kicks in. And I'm pretty sure Cameron Diaz has been called this. Enough said.) There are very few actresses that don't make the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. One of these is Kate Winslet.

Can I just pause for a moment and send out some love to Kate? She is my all-time favorite actress. It started with Sense and Sensibility. Loved her. Then Titanic secured her spot on the pedestal. Then she sort of disappeared into Indie World for awhile, and came back with a vengeance, better than ever!! She is so down to earth and the fact that she refuses to succumb to the pressure from Hollywood to be anorexic just makes her, well, my idol. I love you Kate!!

(I would start in on Jude right here, but I have a husband who pops into my blog unexpectedly. Let's just say I enjoyed my 138 minutes with Mr. Law.)

Okay, back to the movie. Iris (Kate) and Amanda (Cameron) find each other on a website for swapping houses for two weeks. So Iris, wishing to leave her pathetic one-sided relationship with an engaged man behind, goes to Amanda's mansion in L.A., and Amanda, wanting a break from her workaholic life and latest breakup, goes to Iris's picturesque cottage in Surrey, England. Their first few hours in each other's lives is pretty funny, watching Iris bask in the glory of wealthy living and Amanda trying to adjust to a house the size of her bedroom with nothing but a dog to keep her company. They soon meet the people in each other's lives, Iris meeting Miles (Jack Black), a guy who works with Amanda's ex, and Amanda meeting Graham (Jude), who is Iris's brother. Cue loves stories.

One thing I was pleased by was the way each couple met and became involved. It was shockingly possible. I get so tired of romances where they meet once and are suddenly making out or, even worse, in love. Yeah, we all know that happens all the time in daily life. (Note the sarcasm.) I'm not saying there was no instantaneous making out, but there was a reason behind it and it actually seemed possible. And it was funny.

Unfortunately, Cameron Diaz gets more airtime than Kate, with the relationship between Amanda and Graham being the main focus. But it didn't take long for me to not care. Although I enjoyed Iris's storyline and watching she and Miles slowly progress towards a relationship, I would have gladly watched an entire movie that took place at the snowy cottage in Surrey. I was completely sucked in to Amanda's and Graham's relationship. There were even times (I can't believe I'm saying this) that Cameron Diaz was likeable and not cheesy or annoying. That was kind of painful to admit.

The ending was a little predictable on both sides of the story, but would we have it any other way? My only complaint, which isn't much of a complaint, is, SERIOUSLY, how much more perfect could they have made Jude Law's character? We already love him because he is HOT, but then they keep adding things to his character and background that make him the poster boy for The Perfect Guy. I half expected to see him walk out one scene holding a wounded puppy dog that he'd rescued off the street and announce he was starting a charity for under-privelaged kids. Seriously, no guy THAT perfect would still be single. And why is it always these guys in the movies that want the damaged, non-commital girls who don't appreciate their perfection? It makes me crazy!! But of course, I loved every second of it. I even bawled at parts and THAT'S NOT ME!!! I was obviously in an emotional place. Obviously.

Some of the funniest parts:

• When the little girl says in her little British accent to Amanda "You look like my Bah-bie."
• When Iris chooses the drink with the most whipping cream and Miles says, "Hel-lo! Big Dollop!"
• There is an ongoing thing throughout the movie that I won't attempt to explain because it will never come across as funny as it is, but it involves Amanda and what she does for work. It's totally funny, but you'll just have to see for yourself.

So, who else has seen it, and what did you think?