Flying Milk

Ten Things!!

1. For the second time this month, a gallon of milk decided, of its own accord, to fly out of the back of the car the second I opened it, bursting open and spilling all over the driveway. FOR THE SECOND TIME THIS MONTH! Boo milk.

2. See this? it's a picture of myself, taken with my camera. Notice I did not say camera phone? YAY! Thanks to wonderful friends and family, and the amazing generosity of Katie Cowan. This girl has a camera.

3. Now that I have a camera, I can document all the glamorous things that happen to me, like Rousseau dumping out a box of cereal on the carpet. It's a rite of passage at our house.


And Astoria thought it was hilarious, obviously.



4. Today is one of those days where every time I think about teaching Zumba tonight, I feel like i'm going to barf all over my new dancy shoes...

5. Look! new dancy shoes!



6. I have a strange desire to make a Hogwarts gingerbread house this year. Awesome? Or just nerdy?

7. I have seen Blair for a total of 4 hours since Thursday. Welcome to basketball season.

8. I love the way Elliot says "Chilly"

9. It seems as though I will not be completing my book list by the end of the year like i'd planned. I'm still going to make a push for it, but the small amounts of free time I have can either be devoted to reading, or finishing my sister's Christmas present, and well, my sister wins hands down.

10. Note to self and others as well: Watching The Walking Dead right before bed? not the best of ideas.

Summer Reading

18 books. 18 weeks.

I'm not in school anymore, so a summer reading list might not make a ton of sense, however I do like goals, and I do like lists. So I'm giving myself till Aug 30 (Elliot's first day of Preschool). In the spirit of diversity, I put a few books on my list that I wouldn't normally pick up. I tend to gravitate towards YA, and anything fantastical, so for me Vonnegut and Cormac McCarthy are a big deal. If you're into this, make your own summer reading list, and I'll link it here!

Here are my books. (green = currently reading) (red = finito!)

1. Something Wicked this way Comes - Ray Bradbury
2. The Magicians - Lev Grossman
3. The Alchemist - Paulo Coehlo (Greenslake ward book group May book)
4. The Mysterious Benedict Society - Trenton Lee Stewart
5. Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut
6. When you are Engulfed in Flames - David Sedaris
7. The Hiding Place - Corrie Ten Boom (Greenslake ward book group June book)
8. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
9. The Princess Bride - William Goldman
10. A Passage to India - E.M. Forrester
11. Scott Pilgrim (the full series) - Brian Lee O'Malley
12. A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
13. Rift - Todd Petersen
14. A Study in Scarlet - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
15. And Then There Were None - Agatha Christie
16. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
17. The Wizard of Oz - L. Frank Baum
18. Blankets - Craig Thompson

Also, I'll admit that probably half of these will be audio books. So what of it? You wanna fight about it? Anyway, It makes things like doing dishes, working on the Elliot/Astoria/Rousseau quilts, and long drives infinitely more interesting.

~Maryposa

***

So I have found myself in a new and weird spot in my life. No school. Leave it to me to be done with school . . . and then create a summer reading list. Anyway. Here are the books, in this particular order that I think I will tackle. None are re-reads (I don't think) and I am open to suggestions as replacements if there are a few that may not be as good as I hope.

1. 1984 - George Orwell
2. Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy
3. The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman
4. Notes From Underground - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
5. Haroun and the Sea of Stories - Salmon Rushdie
6. Fear and Trembling - Søren Kierkegaard
7. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
8. A Farewell to Arms - Ernest Hemingway
9. The Lord of the Rings (The Fellowship of the Ring) - J.R.R. Tolkien
10. Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne
11. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
12. Dune - Frank Herbert
13. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World - Bryan Lee O'Malley
14. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim - David Sedaris
15. Y: The Last Man - Brian K. Vaughan
16. Ulysses - James Joyce

Yes I know that some of these may come across to some of you as pretentious or otherwise but I spent a long time being pretty one tracked on my reading and I reserve the right to read a pretentious or especially bad book.

~Blair

5 is a really big deal.

5 things i love about Blair:
1. he kept a really good secret for our anniversary date, which is a pretty tough thing for him to do.
2. he is the most perfect combination of freckles, eyes, and handsome.
3. he takes anything he is interested in very seriously. He doesn't just like LOST, basketball, and literature, he is consumed by it.
4. he doesn't laugh out loud often, but when he does it's absolutely magical
5. he tells me i look good, even when i'm 7 months pregnant


5 amazing things we got to do on our 5 year anniversary:
1. watch Thriller by Odyssey dance company
2. stay in a gorgeous room at the Anniversary Inn
3. eat some intensely delicious local cuisine
4. play in rose petals and waterfalls
5. watch our very adorable offspring play in a hay maze and pumpkin patch


5 happy moments we've had together:
1. the monsoon in AZ
2. ocean kayaking at Catalina
3. front row for Format, RXB, Straylight Run and Jack's (with a very pregnant belly)
4. NCAA tourney 2006
5. that one time when we watched Will Ferrel on Jay Leno doing the Goulet thing, and he laughed so hard he had tears


5 ways i know he'll be my sweetie for ever and eternity:
1. we still make CDs to listen to on long car drives and never get to hear them because we are too deep in conversation
2. he is an amazing, fun, and creative daddy
3. he always believes that i can do something amazing, even if i don't
4. he does P90X with me, and doesn't make fun of me when i wuss out on the pull-ups
5. he eats what i cook, even if we both know it's disgusting


5 adorable things you should know about Blair:
1. he loves Glee, Annie, Moulin Rouge, Little Shop of Horrors, and a host of other musicals.
2. if he really likes something at a restaurant, he'll try to find a copy cat recipe for it and make it at home
3. once he was very tired and made himself a sandwich and took it with him to bed. 5 hours later he woke up, ate the sandwich, and spilled his cup of milk.
4. he would probably die (literally) if he had to live a week without technology
5. he claims to dislike low forms of comedy such as physical humor... but laughs his face off whenever he watches the youtube video of the afro ninja doing a back flip and landing on his face


it's been the best 5 years of my life so far. thanks Blair, you are rather awesome.

I've got a fever...

Yes, i've got my brackets all filled out, my stat tracker updating me on scores here at work, and a killer instinct. All those clueless LearnKey kids are going DOWN!!!

Just for the record, i've got Syracuse and Villanova both going to the Final 4. People who only pick #1 seeds are pussies.

Next weekend is the Sweet 16, and we have tickets to the games in Phoenix. It's still up in the air whether or not we will get to go, but it would be fun. A couple years ago we saw the first round games at the U of U, and it was an absolute blast! There is so much you just don't get watching the games on TV. For example: the pep bands playing Fall Out Bow and Yellowcard. And the Xavier cheerleaders just plain being awesome.

Snow Day

Try as I might to ignore the fact that winter even exists, there are occasions where taking the kids out to have fun in a snowy backyard can be rather enjoyable. So last Sunday morning before church, (1:00 meetings are the best) we got dressed all warmly and had some adventures.


Getting ready to go. With matching hats.


Making footprints.


Some serious posing. Kevin? I found you a model for your next TEP class.


Exploring in the trees.

This Family . . .

Not to be outdone by my sisters-in-law, I'm jumping on the family blog bandwagon. Blair would probably say I've been all about bandwagons as of late. This is not the case. I liked Vampire Weekend the minute i heard them, popularity had nothing to do with it. Anyway, I've never been super good at journals, and i can't promise that I will be any better at blogging, but for the sake of those who care, I'll give it my best shot.