Artzy Carmen’s Friends and Family

please, and end to the drama already!

nobody@vox.com(AngieK) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 19:41:34 -0700

We decided to try a bed rail for the full size bed in Stephan's room. He's been asking to sleep in the bed and we want it to be safer for him. Of course this is yet another transition for him so the next week could be a mess. We're going to offer him the choice of the big bed or his crib mattress on the floor. For nap the past few days he wanted the big bed (and did a good job in the big bed at nana & papa's yesterday too) but that was with an extra pillow reigning him in, not a bed rail. He was a little wild this evening after we put it on the bed, but toddlers sometimes struggle with change.

He choose to sleep in the big bed tonight, we'll see if he falls asleep fine or not. He should be tired at least!

All I really want to say is ... damn you Jardine for even making us have to deal with this right now!

Whenever our voucher comes we'll head out and buy a new crib, take it all out of the box and make sure we have all the pieces and that the parts are fine, put it back in the box and sore it somewhere ... who knows where ... till we have to start getting ready for baby #2.

At least if Stephan transitions to the big bed we can be done with bed transitions. Here's to hoping for the best.

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Crap!

nobody@vox.com(Mello) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 19:40:59 -0700

I just wrote a long post about my week and now it's gone. Internet Explorer just completely flaked out.

Short version:

I'm exhausted. It's been a long week. Not in a bad way, just a lot going on.
Charter sucks. Fortunately it will soon be gone from our lives. I don't care if they offer it free, after next week we will never be Charter customers again.
My Norwex party went well. I'm getting free stuff! If none of my guests end up booking a party, I might book a second one so I can get a free mop. (I can't talk about having a mop without thinking about Michael Richards' character in UHF. Yep, the Weird Al movie. Rent it if you want a mindless laugh.)
For the first time in a month I'm feeling semi-caught up on school. I think it's because I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Just a couple more weeks, hopefully, until I get a break.
Bailey came home from camp yesterday. She had fun.
The bathroom remodel is going well. Brian had the place gutted as of last week and Monday-Wednesday, the plumber, electrician, and ductwork guy came & went. Yesterday Dale Earnhardt, Jr. came and hung the sheetrock. Who knew that was what he did during the week? I wouldn't think he'd need a second job, but whatever. :) Some pictures:

Kind of a before shot

Who knew ten-year-old girls liked demo?

Gutted

Shower on the left, ridiculously big built-in linen closet on the right

Sheetrock'd

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Ugh.

nobody@vox.com(Kelly) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 17:59:26 -0700

So Jen's already lost two pounds, which is awesome. :) I have not lost any weight although the positive news is, I haven't gained any either.

I've been really hungry today, but fortunately I got a bunch of 100 calorie snacks at the grocery store, so it's not as awful as it could be.

The bad thing about this diet is it feels like all I can talk about now is food--what I'm eating, what I want to eat, what I plan on eating...ugh. I'm boring myself so I feel for all of you. On the plus side, I know that since I'm telling Jen what I'm eating for meals and snacks, I'm eating a lot better than I normally would be.

I need to go to Whole Foods on Monday and pick up some green tea. I got the berry flavored kind marketed by Coke (which actually does taste like wine coolers, Janie!) but the Whole Foods kind is cheaper (and who would ever think that would be true?). It isn't flavored, but for something that will enable me to burn up to 150 extra calories a day, I think I can force myself to deal with whatever it does taste like.

Still reading The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, which is awesome. Also, while I was in Salisbury, I picked this up:

Zombie Blondes

Brian James

Mostly for the title. I think that'll be a really good companion to Breaking Dawn and the way I'm going on Edgar Sawtelle, there's a really good chance I'll only have a chance to read one book between the two of them.

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Vacayshun Memories

nobody@vox.com(sixweasels) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 17:17:52 -0700

I haven't done a Ten on Tuesday in a while (not having a computer at home means you tend to sneak in a few blog quickies rather than actually think through a post), but I saw this one in Florinda's blog and it struck me as a must-do. Plus, I brought home my work laptop and I'm all giddy about having a working computer here for the weekend, so I simply must write something!

10 Best Vacation Moments

West Virginia Summers
As a kid, I spent several weeks every summer with my relatives (my father's side of our family) in West Virginia. There was the great-grandma who let me bang out godawful noises on her living room piano (I never was very musically inclined), made me brush my teeth five or six times a day, and made sure she put me in a dress and dragged my butt to church on Sundays even though I tried my best to explain to her that dress-up was surely NOT what summer vacation was about. There was my great uncle who was a Ronald Reagan lookalike, had a fish pond in his backyard and a pet raccoon who hung out with me in the living room. There were my great-aunt and uncle who had never had children of their own but loved having a campfire and almost making me wet myself, first out of laughter over their fart stories and then in terror over some old mountain region ghost legend. And there was my other great-aunt and uncle who had children my age and let me join their family in the daily rituals of running their farm - milking cows, working in cornfields, and mucking stalls.

Ocean City Summers
Each summer when I was growing up, my parents also made sure we took a family beach vacation to Ocean City, MD each year. Thrasher's french fries doused in vinegar, playing endless games of Pac-Man and Skee-ball in the arcade, laughing with Mom on the beach over men in "bird suits" (I never was much on Speedos), swimming way too far out into the ocean and scaring the heck out of mom, buying cheesy tee-shirts and getting up early to sit out on our balcony with our binoculars for the occasional glimpse of dolphins swimming out at sea.

"THAT" Ocean City Summer
When I was fifteen, I brought my friend Joyce along for our weeklong family vacation. The morning we were supposed to leave, Joyce and I were packing up our bedroom and watching my little sister while my mother and father started loading up the truck. Mom knew we were all bummed that it was time to go home, and decided to cheer us up. She stood outside the bedroom window, flattened her face up against it, bugged out her eyes, made a fish-face and said "I seeeeeeee you."

The only problem was, all the hotel bedroom windows looked alike, and she had miscalculated by one. A little old lady lounging about in her PJ's got the surprise of her life. Mom's mission was still accomplished though - Dad told us what had happened and we all laughed all the way home.

Deep Creek
Another favorite childhood vacation was the year we rented a cabin at Deep Creek Lake. My mother swore that Jason Voorhees was alive and well and hanging out at our resort (and took the fact that someone had carved "Jason' into the dock by the lake as evidence of this) and was going to come kill us all. My father drove into West Virginia and brought my cousins up to spend the day with us. They had never seen anyone eating steamed crabs before and were so traumatized by our gleeful abandon as we chowed down on what to them must have looked like big red spiders that one cousin burst into tears and wouldn't come out of the cabin again until it was time for Dad to take her home.

Spring Break
I was too poor to do the whole spring break trip to Florida in college. No "Girls Gone Wild" for me. But one year, three girlfriends and I did trek to Ocean City for a few days, where rates were cheap in the chill of March and we could still see the ocean. There was a group of guys from another college in the room next to ours, and other than that our hotel was pretty empty. Of course, we all became party buds - especially since one of the girls in my group was the only one old enough to buy beer. One night I had a bad reaction to having way too much alcohol in my system and having my room filled with loud, belching, beer guzzling college boys when all I wanted to do was pass out. In a fit of annoyance I huffed out of our room wearing nothing but shorts and a tee-shirt. I got down to the boardwalk and realized it was actually SNOWING. But I was too drunk, stubborn and fascinated by the sight of snow on the beach to go back to my room, so I sat on the edge of the boards until my butt was completely numb. At some point, two guys came walking up the boards talking in bad Irish accents. They saw me and plopped down beside me, telling me they were theater students on spring break. One of them gave me his trenchcoat. We sat and watched the snow fall and talked forever, and I explained in my college-girl-drunk way that I had a bunch of morons partying up in my room and that's why I wasn't warm and toasty in my bed.

They walked me back upstairs and told the next-door gang to "get their dooomb arses out of the lassie's room." My friends were sick of the beer-bongers by that point too, and relieved. The next morning, we all realized how dumb we were - my friends for letting complete strangers in our room and me for bringing up even more complete strangers to help me get rid of them. But since it all ended well, it became a funny tale instead of a stupid-college-girls-get-drunk-and-get-hurt story.

I did one other college spring break in OC - this one with my friends Sully, Stevie and Moose and my roommate Krista. My favorite memory from that one is Krista and I getting ready to go out in our room one night (the guys were already out) and getting a knock on our door. The guy half of the couple staying next door was standing there looking quite uncomfortable.

"Ummm....your Moose is in the parking lot," he said awkwardly.

"He is?"

"Yeah ...he's kinda passed out under my truck."

I may not have had an "Animal House" college experience exactly, but it came pretty close sometimes.

Florida
Another favorite memory is when my ex-husband I took my niece to Orlando by train. We stayed with a couple I had inadvertently hooked up - one of my closest girlfriends from high school and a guy buddy from college who met when they both happened to visit me and my ex to go pub crawling when we lived in the heart of downtown Baltimore. They both worked for Disney and got us passes to the parks, yet we had a hard time dragging my niece out of their home. She was amazed by the fact that she could go swimming in March, and found their pool even more enticing than The Big Mouse.

But the funniest part of the trip was the train ride. I was snoozing uncomfortably in my seat with my niece beside me in hers, her legs sprawled over me. An attendant came by and asked my niece how she was doing.

"Not good at all," she replied. "My breath stinks because I've been eating Fritos." As if that wasn't bad enough, she hoisted herself up, added a "see?" and breathed right in his face. By the way his nose crinkled, she was right.

OK ... that's only six, but I've been going on forever and its time to curl up and watch a movie or with Lee. I'll write out the last four later, or maybe just cheat and make it a Six on Tuesday. I've already mucked it up by doing it on Friday, so what's a bit more cheating?

Oh, and Sylvester's feelings are hurt because I do NOT trust him near the work laptop. I'm such a meanie, not wanting to have to explain to the powers-that-be that I need a new one because the cat somehow managed to destructo-kitty it. I mean, how could you not trust THIS face?

I Swear I Won't Break It ...

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BABIES!!!!!!!!!!! runs away FAST

nobody@vox.com(Robbbiedobbbie) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:21:17 -0700

The people across the street just had twins. I hope they don't expect me to hold one of them. Yich. Now if they were KITTENS......... *sigh*

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Rescheduled

nobody@vox.com(Nacwolin) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:42:55 -0700

Tonight's showing has been rescheduled for Sunday at 1:30 PM.

SUNDAY!?!?

This really sucks.

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Thinking about tonight's showing

nobody@vox.com(Nacwolin) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 10:21:28 -0700

Picture0018.jpg

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Another one

nobody@vox.com(Nacwolin) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 09:36:04 -0700

We have the second showing of the week scheduled for tonight between 6:30-7:30. We do not have any other Intel on it, nor have we heard a peep about Wednesday's showing.

This is soooooo hard...

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To Write Love on Her Arms

nobody@vox.com(courtneyldavidson) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 09:23:25 -0700

To Write Love on Her Arms - INTRO.

To Write Love on Her Arms is a movement/non-profit organization, raising awareness of suicide, depression and self-injury. It's really an amazing thing, and I am so excited that it is happening. I never thought that when I was thirteen years old, that such a movement would evolve. But now it is happening, people are becoming aware of the battles that teenagers fight. And I am here to say that it is not just a phase that they will overcome. I wonder how many people know my struggle, how many have walked the bloody battle grounds, in order to find themselves. Hope has always been a faint whisper in the back of my mind. I have been there and done it all. The cutting, the drugs, the alcohol, the sex, and I am on the other side looking back, and I am alive and happy. Although the pain from self-injury is gone my scars will remain forever on my body. I hate them, even though they tell a powerful story. I have a really big scar on my right arm, which is about an inch across and four inches long. I should have gone to the hospital, I should have gotten stitches, I should have gotten antibiotics, but I never did. I let this gaping wound throb and heal for years. I have a dark secret in my soul, it is depression. And I should have gone to the hospital, and I should have gotten medication, but I didn't. I let the gaping wound throb and heal for years. I tell myself that I shouldn't here. That I if it were not for Jesus I would be dead. God only knows how things would have ended up for me. But I can guess and it isn't good. I am left with a story on my body, and even though the pain has dissipated the scars remain. I hate them, but I think that God loves them because the tell a story of his redemption and love. Not everyone has their testimony on their body. And no matter what language you speak we can all understand pain. I like to think of my scars as musical notes, maybe separate they are only one note that can go unnoticed, but together they are a symphony and they sing a song for everyone to hear.

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“Zealots” is Worth 48-pts with a Triple-Word-Score*

nobody@vox.com(Steve Betz) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 08:45:21 -0700

The other book about zealots I read was on a much lighter topic than religion, violence, polygamy and society: Scrabble.

The book “Word Freak” from Stefan Fatsis chronicles the author’s foray into competitive Scrabble. Initially, Fatsis (a Wall Street Journal reporter) had decided to cover competitive Scrabble from a human interest story – a get to know ‘em piece, but also one with a bit of “hey, look at these crazy obsessed folks” angle – and in the “walk a mile in a man’s shoes” idea, he begins playing competitively. And he gets hooked.

Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive ScrabblePlayers

Stefan Fatsis

The book covers a couple of years of Fatsis’ obsession as he tries to climb the ladder towards the top ranks. He’s a good writer and his self-observations are pretty funny as he goes from smirking observer to obsessed insider. He interleaves his story with those of some of the more colorful players that he meets and gets to know. These folks are really savants – memorizing tens of thousands of words, and analyzing (and re-analyzing) game-strategy – as much as any chess champion. The ultimate back-handed compliment is “pretty good for a kitchen table player”. It's a really fun, easy read, and I recommend it for anyone that enjoys the game.

This has been especially fun for me since (as many of you know) I’ve been playing a fair amount of online Scrabble these days – the book was lent to me by a friend who routinely wipes the board with me. Fortunately, I’ve got enough other things going on in life that I probably won’t fall into a pit of obsession about just-one-thing (like the players described in the book), but memorizing a few word lists couldn’t hurt, right?

* I know, I know – there’s a DLS in there and if you play all seven letters you get an extra 50 points, but I was going for simple.

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Artzy Carmen’s Friends and Family

please, and end to the drama already!

Crap!

Ugh.

Vacayshun Memories

BABIES!!!!!!!!!!! *runs away FAST*

Rescheduled

Thinking about tonight's showing

Another one

To Write Love on Her Arms

“Zealots” is Worth 48-pts with a Triple-Word-Score*

BABIES!!!!!!!!!!! runs away FAST