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| Time for an update...
I think I'm blogging more and more to give updates,
because I can't seem to find the time (or energy) to sit down and
write something witty or interesting on any regular basis.
So, for the update:
1.
Unemployment sucks. Especially when you have 2 kids and a mortgage.
But, Patrick is faced once again with the grueling and demoralizing task of
looking for a job. Big drag. We're just closing in on a month now, and we're hoping we don't have to go two, or three or six months. Just one is perfectly fine for us.
2. My newborn niece. What an
absolute doll. My sister Addie gave birth to her firstborn (and the
first in the family besides my two) on March 21st. I was privileged
enough to be with her in the room and it was an amazing experience.
She had that baby in record time and did 90% of the work without an
epidural. (The baby came too fast!) Anyway, here is a couple of my
favorite pictures with Sophie holding Claire Elizabeth:
For the record, Bella was given the opportunity to hold her and declined. Sophie, on the other hand, cannot get enough of her.
3. Bella's 6th Birthday. We took her and Sophie to the American Girl store and had brunch. It's such a fun experience for little girls. The food was actually pretty good (although pricey!) and they do a great job of making it as fun as possible with the doll menus, doll high chairs and all the extra little touches they do. My girls LOVED it. We then went to the carousel for a ride. You would think they would get tired of riding it, but they still love doing it every time we go to the mall. We forgot our camera, so we took these pictures with Patrick's phone...
  
Sophie is waving at herself in the mirror of the carousel.
4. A couple more recent pictures...
Patrick took it at my sister's house, and I love it.
Bella in another one of her famous sleeping positions. We found her like this at around midnight one night when I went in to check on them. Hilarious. For a minute, I couldn't find her (this side of the bed faces the window) until I pulled the covers back and saw her backside sticking out from under the bed.
5. Birthday Party for Bella. I'm finally getting around to having a birthday party for her this Saturday night. We are having 4 of her closest friends over for a cooking party. I have a feeling I will need a big glass of wine when the whole thing is said and done, but she is so excited. I'm sure it will be fun. And messy. I'm actually looking forward to the toned down invite list this year, although it's not easy to scale back when she attends parties that seem like they took months to prepare, and half of metro Atlanta has been invited. I'll let you know how it goes!
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| Bodies Exhibit
Did anyone watch 20/20 last night on this thing? I had no idea this was taking place - in fact, there was an exhibit recently in Atlanta. For those who don't know what it is, it is a museum exhibit with actual human bodies that have been "plasticized" and then placed on display. These are not mummified remains that have been discovered recently, these are people who have lived and died only recently, and then are plasticized to preserve them. The bodies are surprisingly intact, and most are posed in ways like someone throwing a ball, or dancing or other ways for the viewers to see the body in it's full form. Some are even sliced vertically so that you can view inside the bodies. These displays are extremely profitable too - it seems that there are many, many people that are going to see these exhibits.
20/20 raised the question about where the bodies are coming from. Clearly, just from viewing the bodies, you can see that many of them are Chinese, so of course, the question is, are these Chinese prisoners or dissidents that have been executed and used for profit in this way? And the answer is most certainly yes.
That is heinous in and of itself, but I think there is a greater moral dilemma. There are some companies that do not use Chinese citizens. They only use donors from the west who have given their consent. But, even with full consent from the donor, isn't the human body more sacred than to be put on display like that? I mean, these are people who have loved and lived and had children and wives and husbands. And now they are posed like they are about to shoot a hoop and people are staring at them and touching them. To me, it seems like a complete violation of the human body. And I know that the argument is that this is an amazing educational opportunity for people, but I have to agree with the rabbi who was interviewed last night (paraphrased) "Many things can be educational, but that does not mean that we should always use these things to educate us."
I was so disturbed by all of this, that it has been on my mind much of the day. I was tempted to put a link to the site on here, but somehow I feel
like I'm contributing to this just by clicking on their website.
Nevertheless, there are lots of sites on this stuff out there, and I'm
sure you can read more about it just by doing a simple search. I'm curious to know what some of you think. | | |
| Best and Worst of LOST last night
***Don't read if you haven't watched it yet!***
BEST
- Hurley and the "shack" out in the woods. Spooked me to my core.
- Hurley and the man who visited him in the asylum. I was a bit leary of him when he arrived, but when he asked "Are they alive?" I got chills.
- The battle between Jack and Locke. Classic LOST. I was thinking that the split may give us an idea of who the 6 are, but that doesn't make sense - why is Hurley in Locke's group if he got off the island and so did Jack?
WORST
- I'm sick of Kate running off into the woods like a little vigilante. I don't like her. She is to me what Jack is to Gayla. I find her arrogant and stupid. Each episode she falls a little farther down on the list for me.
- The stupid, stupid, stupid ploy to get us to watch Eli Stone by airing some ridiculous Oceanic commercial. I hated it.
Really, I have no other worsts. I'm a bit on the fence about having Charlie reappear in the future as a dead man. But, I'm going to let it play out before I make a judgement call.
I love this show and hardly ever have a criticism about it. It's simply the best show on TV right now. Oh, but the crazy number of commercial breaks did get old fast. | | |
| A few little gripes...
- Went and saw Atonement this past weekend. What an absolute bore. I didn't like it at all. I expected it to be emotional and gripping and heartbreaking. It wasn't. I wasn't even a bit sad. I didn't get the love story, the ending was HORRIBLE. And Kiera Knightly looks terrible! She is WAY too skinny. I know the book is loved by many. I haven't read it, so I can't comment on it, but if the book is as slow as the movie was, I have no desire.
- I hate the self-checkout lines at the grocery stores and other places like Home Depot. Today, I went to pick up a few items and hurry home to get Bella at the bus stop. There was one line open with a cashier and about 5 open lanes for self checkout. What the heck, I'll go ahead and check out myself. Surely it can't take that long. But it does - every time! Between Sophie wanting to “help” me scan the stuff, or just leaning on the
scale under the bags, it turns into a nightmare. You push the wrong button, you set your purse down in the wrong place, or you forget that you can't touch your bags until everything is paid for and you've gone through 5 security questions in order to take home your bag of apples and a box of Teddy Grahams. You
never know when you’ll do something minor that cocks up the entire
system and you have to stand in shame while you wait for the person
fifty feet away to come over with the key card and make you feel like
an idiot. I swear every time that I'll never use them again, but I get sucked in by the misguided thought that "this time it will be different". Meanwhile, I look over in jealousy at the cashier lane with 5 customers and watch as each one heads out the door - while I stand waiting for someone to "reset" whatever it is that I messed up. Hate them.
- Someone needs to send Paula Abdul to rehab. Did anyone watch American Idol last night? She practically passed out on the table after each contestant left the room. She's a mess. And did you ever see her reality show? WOW. That woman knows how to abuse an assistant.
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| 100 Years Old
So cute... I almost cried when she came home with this... And it must be just a little kiss from God that it comes home on the same day she has a total meltdown and calls me a "mean mom."
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