Archive for December, 2008

Just A Few Things

December 19, 2008 at 10:50 am · Filed under Family, Friends, Life in general, Random Friday, holiday, movies, music, vacation

I know you are all dealing with snowstorms and we’re not, so please don’t roll your eyes too much at me. We’ve been getting quite a bit of rain. I love it. What I don’t love is just how stupid Phoenix drivers are when there is some rain.

I was leaving school earlier in the week and only about 2 drops of water hit my windshield. A VERY light mist of rain, if anything, and suddenly everyone is driving 20 miles below the speed limit! In a city where you are considered to be a slow driver if you’re doing anything less than 20 over any other day of the year.

Rain make Arizonians (or maybe just Phoencians???) absolutely nuts. On Wednesday we had a really rainy, windy, chilly day. Ches said his students were trying to convince him it was snowing. They were serious. Now, it was still about 50 degrees out, and I’m sure we all know it has to be a lot colder than 50 to get snow. However these kids thought it was snowing because “the rain isn’t coming down straight.” Seriously. You can’t make this stuff up. Have you ever heard of wind, kids????

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Tonight is my school’s Solstice performance. Every year they pick a children’s book as a theme, then each class picks a song to represent a part of that book and does a dance. I was pretty unsure of how it was all going to go until the dress rehearsal yesterday. The kids had parts of their costumes on and each class performed their dances so well. It was adorable!!! I can’t wait for tonight, now. This year’s book is called “The Yellow Leaf” and it’s about changing seasons (or something).

My job is to work the music. I get to press play on the stereo and pause it in between class performances. So exciting. ;-)

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I was looking for a copy of The Nutcracker to show to my students for Thursday and brought home a couple other movies for the family to watch. We got Wall-E (Dallin has been begging for it!) and A Muppet Christmas Carol (one of my absolute favorites growing up). We all loved Wall-E (and the kids have been watching it almost non-stop). Aiden surprisingly watched the entire Muppet movie and wasn’t scared by the ghosts or anything! He kept telling me how much he liked it. Yay! Someone to share my love of the Muppets with! I think I’ll go out and get the Muppet’s Treasure Island next. That’s a pretty fun one, too.

Ches brought home Hancock from Redbox yesterday. I really liked it! I pretty much like anything that Will Smith does, and this wasn’t one of his typical good-guy characters. If you haven’t seen it, I highly it (just watch out… there’s a bit of bad language, so it’s not suitable for young kids at all).

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Speaking of Christmas movies… My favorites are A Charlie Brown Christmas (the best part being where Linus quotes from the New Testament and the other Peanuts start singing “Loo loo loo”), A Christmas Story (“Fra-geeeee-lay. Must be Italian.”), A Muppet Christmas Carol, and Mr. Bean’s Christmas.

Ches hates A Christmas Story. When we were still at Ricks, I remember one night hanging out at our friend Randall’s house with Laural and her roommate, Amy. We were watching A Christmas Story, and Amy and I were just rolling on the floor laughing because we love this movie so much. I think it’s hilarious. Ches, Laural, and Randall, however, sat there complaining the whole night. “This movie is so stupid!” they would tell us, over and over again. “It’s not even funny.” So I never rent it and never watch it because it’s no fun to watch alone.

We’re going to be with my family for Christmas this year. My family loves this movie, so I will watch it with them. Ches can go play with the kids or something. I’m so excited!!! (I’d triple dog dare him to watch it with me, but the point would be lost on him.)

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The first time I ever saw Mr. Bean (it was the Christmas one!) was when I was a senior in high school. I was taking Music Theory, and a lot of the class was actually free time. We were all excited about the music of Jurassic Park once, so one girl was going to bring that in for us to watch. She couldn’t find it, however, so we watched The Hand That Rocks The Cradle. Yeah, I know.

Anyway, another girl, Brandi, brought in Mr. Bean once. I’ll never forget the first time watching Mr. Bean play with the Nativity. I could not stop laughing. We watched tons of Mr. Bean after that, and I love to especially watch the Christmas once every year. Even Ches enjoys it (and he’s not usually a huge fan of British humor).

Oh, and in case you were worried… we did learn music theory in the class. Just not everyday. It gave me enough of a background that when I started as a music major at Ricks I was confident enough in my theory abilities that I did well the first year. We won’t talk about Aural Skills or Keyboard Harmony. Blech. (After I finished at Ricks I had a chance to talk to my high school director once. I kind of yelled at him, “You didn’t tell me I’d have to sing. By myself! In front of other people! Sight-singing sucks!” He sheepishly smiled and said, “Oh, I forgot about that.”)

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New reason why I love Facebook: videos of my high school marching band have been posted recently. I got to watch my sophomore and junior years’ marching shows. SO. FUN. Sophomore year we did a 60’s show where we played “Yesterday”, “Aquarias”, and “House of the Rising Sun”. It was my favorite show. I always thought we did pretty well, and it was fun to watch it and realize that yeah, we were that good. I can still think that!!!

A lot of my friends have posted pictures from high school in “Remember When” type albums. So. Funny. I wish I had a scanner because I’ve got some great pictures to post. I think my mom has a scanner, and I’ll definitely be looking for stuff at her house over Christmas!

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Leaving for Texas on Sunday. My whole family is going to be at my mom’s this year. It’s going to be a very full house, but SO FUN. My dad has to work Christmas Day, so my brother decided to distract the kids from the Christmas presents, we are all going to the beach in Galvastan. My boys are overly excited about going to the beach. I don’t think they understand that it’s not like going to the beach in the summer. We aren’t wearing our swimsuits and playing in the water. But we’ll still have a ball, I’m sure. We went to the beach in New Hampshire all winter long when we lived there. It was cold, but we still found tons to do. I’m sure a beach in south Texas will be fun, too.

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Buy a Post Secret book for someone for Christmas this year to help support the website. I’m going to! (And I’m hoping to receive a Post Secret book or two myself)

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Since I’ve been so lax in my writing, who knows if I’ll write again before then, so…

MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY HANUKKAH

(whichever you celebrate) :D

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Ring Ring

December 12, 2008 at 1:14 pm · Filed under Life in general, memories, money

I haven’t worn my wedding ring in over 2 years. I had to quit wearing it when we moved here to Arizona, right before Parker was born. It was getting hard to get on and off as it was, but once we moved here (August, 8 months pregnant) I suddenly swelled up and couldn’t wear not only my wedding ring, but any of the shoes I had. Thank goodness for flip flops.

After I had Parker, I lost a few pounds initially, but then I developed a thyroid problem and started gaining weight. I still never go tmy wedding ring on, and I had taken to wearing another ring instead. It’s an heirloom… a white gold engagement ring with a sapphire for a center stone and four tiny diamonds (two on each side of the sapphire). It was my great-grandmothers, and it’s just gorgeous. My aunt passed it on to me when I was 20. I was able to wear that ring comfortable for quite a while, but then one day realized I could no longer get it off. I had gained too much weight.

Well, I still haven’t lost any weight. I think I’ve finally stopped gaining weight (it’s only been an extra 60 pounds), but losing weight is a lot harder than gaining weight. I don’t know if I’ll ever lose any of it, honestly. I’m not very disciplined when it comes to working out, and I refuse to cut foods out of my diet. I’ll cut back (no problem… done), but stop eating breads or sugars? Heck no. Not going to happen.

I miss wearing my wedding ring. It’s my engagement ring and wedding band sautered together. Ches bought it for me in 1997, when we were on a trip to Calgary. He had taken me up to meet his family for the first time over Labor Day weekend, and I had no idea he bought a ring that weekend. I’m the type of girl that always wanted to be surprised with the ring. I didn’t want to pick it out. I didn’t want to be proposed to without a ring. So it was a great surprise!! I love my ring.

I went in to a jeweler’s today and got my antique ring cut off. I got the pricing for the antique ring “repair” (which is what the resize is considered for that one, since it was cut), and the pricing for my wedding ring. The antique will cost $75. I can use money from my next paycheck to cover that. My wedding ring is a size 5. I need it resized up to a 7. It is going to cost $125. For just my wedding ring.

I don’t have $125. It’s Christmas time and we can’t even afford presents for each other, but this is something that Ches and I have been talking about for a long time and I know that he wants me to wear my ring as much as I do. So, do I come up with the money anyway?? We still don’t have that kind of money. Where would it come from? I can’t afford to get both rings done! I almost burst into tears right there in the jeweler’s. (It didn’t help that Parker and Dallin, who had started off being angels suddenly turned into devils and were acting up like mad). So I’m getting the antique ring repaired, and will have to do without a wedding ring for a little longer.

I’m now thinking seriously that I could be disciplined enough to workout regularly and I could give up breads and sugars and whatever else I have to give up to lose this extra 60 pounds and wear my ring again. It means that much to me.

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