Looking ahead
I'm coming up on my 200th post. Aren't I supposed to do something special? Some sort of landmark list of some form. I did it with my
100th post but I don't know what to do for 200. I'm trying to plan ahead so it doesn't bite me in the you know where.
6 Idiosyncracies
Lisa tagged me (who was tagged from
Colleen) to come up with 6 idiosyncrasies. I’m sure I can come up with about a million (and I’m sure there are those of you out there who can name a few as well).
idiosyncrasy (noun)
Pronunciation: "i-dE-&-'si[ng]-kr&-sE
Definition: 1 a : a peculiarity of constitution or temperament : an individualizing characteristic or quality b : individual hypersensitiveness (as to a drug or food)
2 : characteristic peculiarity (as of temperament);
broadly : ECCENTRICITYHopefully, you won’t think of me as eccentric. Maybe you do. I don’t know. Anyway, here’s my list.
1 - I cannot sleep in an unmade bed. Not sure where that came from but I have to make the bed every day (yes in the morning when I wake up). If I take a nap or someone else makes the bed and it’s not neat enough, I’ll straighten it out before I crawl under the covers. On a related bedding topic, whenever I sleep, I have to have covers on me. Even if I’m taking a nap in the middle of summer, I’ll be cuddled under a blanket.
2 - As we many of you know, I play the flute and most of you probably don’t know (except for Irene) that I’m a very lazy practicer. I will practice when a piece is challenging but lately, I only practice when absolutely necessary. That being said, when I finally decide to actually focus, pull out my flutes, my music and play, I cannot be interrupted. If the phone rings, whether I pick it up or not, I get really agitated. I guess I finally feel like “Hey, I’m practicing! Leave me alone!”
3 - I can’t drive my car with less than a quarter of a tank of gas in it. I’ve never run out of gas so it’s not like I’ve ever been stranded and I know even with a quarter tank left, there’s plenty of gas to get me where I need to go (or the next gas station) but anything below that line freaks me out.
4 - I HATE MICE (and rats). No real traumatic experience but they just give me the willies like you wouldn’t believe. Last year, we had some visitors in our garage thanks to some dog bones being stored. When we discovered the guilty parties, G called the exterminators and put out some rat traps. Once we removed the food, they lost their source and left the garage but he had to be the first one in the garage every morning in case there were any surprises. And while we’re on the topic, if I ever found one in the house, I’d simply move.
5 - I’m a gadget girl. I guess I am my Dad’s girl but I’m pretty good electronically, and generally interested in the latest and greatest gadgets. I’m also the remote hog of the family. I’m the one who knows how to program it, faster on flipping the channels and buttons, etc.
6 - I don’t like leftovers. Again, no real traumatic moment to make me not eat something a second time but I think I must like to vary my tastes. So, eating the same thing for two days (save for cold pizza) just doesn’t interest me. Yes, I know in many cases that food can almost be better the second day when all the flavors have really sunk in but somehow, with rare exception, eating leftovers isn’t thrilling to me.
Okay, that should pretty much do it. I was going to list that “spelling counts” in my book but then I realized that was more of a pet peeve than an idiosyncracy. It needs to apply to me more and generally I consider myself a good speller so it didn’t count. I’m sure I have more idiosyncracies and perhaps I’ll update when I can come up with more in depth ones. In the meantime, I tag Wendy, Sonia, Irene.
Prom 1982
The latest on the
Foxy MB has been sharing prom pictures. Here's my vision of loveliness from May 1982. My date was Mark E. and he was my boyfriend my senior year. He was a college boy (ooh) and went to
Santa Monica College. He ultimately went to UCLA and law school and is now an attorney on the Westside. He's still friends with my friend Nancy and I even sat with Mark at Nancy's wedding about 10 years ago. Anyway, Mark was a good guy. Loved him at the time but no, he wasn't the love of my life (that took another 17 years to find). But we had a good time. We ended up breaking up a few weeks after graduation. It had kind of run its course, I was off to summer camp and college. Another guy from my high school had asked me to the prom which I, of course, said no but that pissed him off. Usual high school shit. Anyway, enjoy a little throwback to the "olden" days of
Palisades High School, class of 1982.
Labels: Foxy Croppers, Palisades High School
It snowed!
I've been meaning to blog for a few days. It's been a busy week and yet, not so much.
It started off on Monday with babysitting for Ever. Alli had to work the Golden Globes Pre-Show so Ever spent the day here. Grandma came over and helped for most of the afternoon which was good once C came home from her playdate. We did the tag team thing and had a good time. You know how I've complained about how my child isn't a good sleeper. Well, Ever, at least on Monday, beat C which is really impressive. While C was never a regular napper, once we actually did go down, she'd sleep for and hour or two. Ever took two 25 minute naps. That was it. Oy. But it all was good. Ever didn't seem too traumatized and C had fun with her cousin and I don't think Ever was horrified by spending the better part of a day with her Auntie Julie.
Cutie girl arriving all bundled up (see below about weather)
Sitting in C's old rocking chair.
Tummy time. It was nice to bring out C's old baby toys and watch Ever have so much fun with them.
The weather continues to suck here in So Cal. Windy and way too cold. Have I mentioned that I hate the wind? It's really getting to me. And it's been ridiculous, record breaking cold. It was a low of 29 the other night here. In fact, there was a hail storm on Wednesday which left a little snowball at the bottom of the slide in the backyard. That happened last year too. And the little pile of snow was there the next morning too so it stayed cold overnight. Okay, I know my Iowa fans are laughing their asses off but hey, as the song goes "It never rains in Southern California" so you do you explain snow??
They got 1.5 inches in Malibu, black ice, snowballs, the whole thing. It's always fun here in California, that's for sure.
Last night, at Staples Center the Kings retired
Luc Robitaille's jersey. He's the highest scoring left wing in NHL history and spent 14 of his 19 seasons with the Kings. And from day 1 (I'm sure I was there for his first game back in 1987), he was a fan favorite. Every time he touched the puck, the sound of "LLLLLLUUUUUUUCCCCCCC" filled the arena. The retirement ceremony was very nice, even if a little bit long. They brought out some old favorite Kings like Butch Goring,
Wayne Gretzky, Rogie Vachon, Larry Robinson, Jari Kurri and many others. I'm just bummed that my all-time favorite Marcel Dionne couldn't be there (family commitment the LA Times said) I've been now to all 5 Kings jersey retirement ceremonies and this one was special. Luc retired last year and is still so popular here in LA. The Kings rarely get much respect in the hockey world (and the way they're playing this season, you understand why) so it's nice to see someone so deserving get some attention. Now, we'll just have to wait another 2 seasons for his inevitable induction into the
Hockey Hall of Fame. That's going to be an impressive group of inductees since Luc and Steve Yzerman are shoe-ins. Luc, we'll miss you, we honor you and are you sure you don't wanna lace 'em up one more time? We sure could use you right now.
Admittedly not a great photo from my little camera. But I don't think they would've let me bring in my nice digital SLR. Too bad. But I did get some nice mpegs of Luc's speech, some of the video highlights etc. so the little camera is good for somethings.
Oh and I managed to seel about $400 worth of crap on
ebay. Now, if only everyone would pay, I could continue my daily dropoffs to the post office. I'm just glad it's getting out of my house.
Labels: Golden Globes, Hockey Hall of Fame, Luc Robitaille, snow
1 down, 9 to go
For those of you who actually read this little speck of blogdom and remember anything that I said (has there been anything worthy of taking up grey matter?), I mentioned that I wanted to read 10 books this year. My mother,
sister and
Irene are laughing their butts of since they're avid readers and get through multiple books per week. Well, while I enjoy, I've never been a great reader. When I go on holiday, I can get through 3 books in a week but I haven't been on a vacation in over 2 years so, you get the picture. Anyway, while I finished
"Scrap Everything" in 2 days the week between Christmas and New Years, I'm not counting that because it was read before the 1st of the year. (the book was ok) Last night I finished
"Little Children" by Tom Perrotta. Yes, it's the current movie starring
Kate Winslet and
Jackie Early Haley (of
"Bad News Bears" fame) who could both be nominated for an Oscar if you believe the buzz. Haven't seen the movie and probably won't at the rate I'm going, but darn it I read the book. I liked it. It's not exactly a happy story about a SAHM and SAHD who have an affair and there are lots of other story offshoots but I enjoyed it. So yeah, I would recommend it.
Next on my list, is
"Wicked". As obsessed as I am about the Broadway show and I'm seeing it again in March, I haven't gotten around to reading the book. I know a bunch of my friends (
Bucket,
Yez) have read it and said it's great so now it's my turn. I'm on page 12. Review to come. Got a pile of books by my bed that I'm determined to finish. I'm actually excited about it.
So 1 down, 9 to go.
Next topic, went to dinner tonight with Alan and Marie (FIL and his wife). Had a lovely time. Miss C wanted to take photos. What else is new? So here are the two snaps she took tonight. And she's finally figured out how to turn the knob to the review setting to check them out herself.
Annie Liebowitz, watch out.
And one more thing of local interest. Who out there is a fan of
"Ugly Betty"? Well, I'm a huge fan. Anyway, I was half (if that much) watching the Golden Globes last night in which "Ugly Betty" and its' star
America Ferrera both won. Yay for everyone. Well, it turns out that America Ferrera is a local girl. I was driving past
George E. Hale Middle School today (our local school where C may go one day) and the marqee said "Congrats Hale Alum America Ferrera Golden Globe win". Turns out she went to
El Camino Real High School as well which is even closer to my house. So real local girl does good. Cool dontcha think? Good for you America! You deserve it!
Labels: books, Ugly Betty, Wicked
GOTTA BRAG
Directors Guild of America award nominees were announced today and G got nominated not once, but twice!! Woo-Hoo! No, he didn't get nominated as a director but as the Associate Director on the nominated directing teams. So if the director wins the award, G gets one too. He's been nominated 4 times previously. Anyway, this year's nominations were for the "American Idol Season 5 Finale" and "The 60th Annual Tony Awards". We all know that neither will win since it's a shoe-in that Rob Marshall for "Tony Bennett: An American Classic" was brilliant. But hey, you never know and it's two more nomination plaques on the wall. And yay for Bruce Gowers and Glenn Weiss who were the directors of those shows. And yes, it is nice to be nominated.
Promoting another friend
As you can see on the right hand side, there's a link to my fabulous friend
Sonia's business called
Sunshine's Designs. She does WAY cool crystal blink designs on t-shirts. They're beautiful. She's got tons of designs and styles and if you have something personal and custom you need, contact her. I'm sure she can work something out. Sonia's just uber-creative. Good luck with your business girlfriend and everyone else, check it out.
And for those who were wondering, yes the Will Smith show is on tomorrow (Friday) night on Bravo.
You better watch!
Or what? Well, okay I won't do anything but hey, humor me. On Friday night on Bravo at 8PM (check local listing), the
Museum of Moving Image Salute to Will Smith will premiere. Why do we care? BECAUSE G DIRECTED THE SHOW!! Yes, G's been lucky in the last few years to get some directing gigs and they've been segment directing or the overnight on the Telethon, that kind of stuff. This is the first show that he got called from the producers to direct. They thought of him! Awesome. I haven't seen it myself but I love Will Smith and G says it turned out nice. It's a salute show where celebrities /friends/family that he's worked with come out, tell an anecdote from their working experience and then we see clips from Will's films. If you've ever see the
American Film Institute Lifetime Achivement Awards, it's very similar. But THIS one, G directed. It's a big deal. So set your Tivo's, curl up in front of your TV's and watch 90 minutes if you have the time. No quiz will be forthcoming but just had to do the shameless plug. Watch, darn it!!
College Memories
Where did you go to college? Did you go to a school with a big sports program? I didn’t. I went to
UC Santa Barbara, a school more famous for burning a Bank of America in 1971 than their sports programs. We have no football team. The Gauchos’ claim in the college sports world pretty much boils down to baseball and water polo with some brief moments in the bottom levels of the NCAA basketball tourney. Anyway, since it’s college bowl season and the big BCS Championship game is tonight, I definitely feel like I missed something from my college experience by going to a school with no real sports program. And I do acknowledge that I’m probably the only person walking the planet who pretty much hated going to UCSB. I know I got a good education and I have no issues with that, but I always felt that I was missing “something” in my college experience. Growing up a die-hard, devoted
LA Kings fan, I should’ve realized that sports is a pretty big part of my life. I went to visit some friends freshman year who went to
Arizona State and went to a Sun Devils game. That was awesome. I didn’t need to be in a sorority or a cool dorm or anything. When you’re in a stadium on a Saturday afternoon rooting for YOUR team, you’re cool and it starts a life long devotion and rooting interest in your team. I didn’t get that from my college experience. I suppose it’s the one thing I really regret so when I hear people talk about their kids going to college, I always bring up the sports program. If that’s something that interests the kid, then that’s something to consider when selecting a college.
My ex-fiance is an
Ohio State Buckeyes insane fanatic. Words cannot describe the insanity that would prevail on college football Saturdays. Up at 8AM to watch ESPN Game Day, pacing the room watching 3-4 games in a day, talking on the phone to armchair quarterback the Buckeyes. And heaven help the world (okay, me) if the Buckeyes lost. He’d literally mope around for 5 days until it was time to gear up for the next game. Even the players had moved on with their lives. I did go to the Rose Bowl in 1997 when the Buckeyes played Arizona. That was actually really exciting being in that kind of atmosphere, rooting for ‘your” team.
Well, Ed is no longer in my life having nothing to do with the Buckeyes, but I still root for a Big 10 team. G went to
University of Iowa, home of the Hawkeyes. They’re not exactly at the same level as the currently unstoppable Buckeyes but still, it’s fun to have a team to root for. I just wish I had experienced that whole thing first hand. Having grown up going to Westwood every weekend and
UCLA being 10 minutes from home, I thought I needed to get further away from home in SB. Looking back, I might’ve been a lot happier at UCLA afterwards. Whatever. It’s done. Just pondering that whole college thing.
And who am I rooting for in the big BCS game? Gotta root for
Florida. Yup, I’ll admit it. I’m still a little bitter about how the Buckeyes influenced my previous life and hey, when you’re rooting for anyone in the Big 10, you have root against OSU. Go Gaters!
Cousins
Stole these photos from my sister's blog. C definitely loves her cousin.
And already, they're in deep conversation.
I'm going to the Moonlighter tonight to scrap until (hopefully) 2AM. I'm very excited. It's been awhile since I did some serious scrapping. Can't wait to scrap the photos above, but it won't happen tonight.
The Santa Barbara Zoo was...
SO last year. Okay, so C and I had another little excursion on the 30th. Yes, that was last year. But we had a bit of a girls day, even if we were only there for a little over 2 hours. The
Santa Barbara Zoo is so nice and cozy and very doable in 2-3 hours which is nice with little kids. Just enough time to see lots of cool animals and get them tired, but not bore them to tears with the endless schlepping. Besides, the animals have the coolest view being across the street from the Pacific Ocean. If you have to be held in captivity, you might as well have a nice view. The only nicer zoo I've been to is the
Taronga Zoo in
Sydney which overlooks the Sydney Harbour. Doesn't get better than that.
Anyway, we had a nice time, just us girls, checking out all the cool animals. They now have penguins at the zoo. They're from Chile so they are "warm" weather penguins. We got there right at feeding time. They were eating and swimming all over the place.
Giraffes including the one with the crooked neck.
Lions. It's got to be such a tease that they're right next to the giraffes.
And of course, so many more monkeys, flamingos, birds, gorillas, etc.
Of course, the carousel and the playground also scored lots of points on the fun scale for C.
And my little photographer took a perfectly centered shot of her mom. I'm always impressed when she picks up my big camera, looks through the eye hole and takes a shot. She loves playing with the camera.
Now, on to New Year's. As previously mentioned, my child doesn't sleep much. She's a great, fun, funny kid but sleeping is her one vice. So after a badly times crash, she woke up and we knew we were in for her joining us to ring in the new year. So here's Miss C enjoying a glass of the bubbly (sparkling cider) at the stroke of midnight.
Taking another photo of dear old mom and dad. At least one of us was in our pajamas at midnight.
And the first family photo of 2007.
We also went to visit my beautiful niece Ever on the 1st. Here are two stinking cute photos of my perfect niece. She's definitely a happy girl.
Okay, no more major photo events are on the schedule. I'll give you all a break from the pictures for awhile.
A little something
We know I'm a scrapbook junkie and I need to scrap more and buy less, bla bla bla. But there's this GREAT monthly scrapping kit from
Scrapologie. My friend
Lisa raves about it every month. My friend
Bucket as well. Anyway, I've also only heard that it's so popular and sold out and it takes months and months to get on the subscription kit list. So I sent an email like a month or so ago figuring I'll hear from them eventually, or not. Well, I got an email from Stacy tonight that there's a spot available. I'm really excited. Definitely some HAPPY new year's news. Now, hopefully, with their fabulous goodies, it'll motivate me to scrap more and use the fun stuff in each month's kit. YAY for me!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
I hope everyone had a happy and healthy new year ringing it in with friends and family. We had a quiet night at home. We were going to go to my friend Lainee's house but by the time we finished with dinner at Islands (special C request), it was a little late to schlep out to West Hollywood. So we just came home, played some games and watched the ball drop in Times Square. We celebrated with some sparkling cider and of course, C was up at midnight. Annoying but she took a late nap after being out for the afternoon doing a condolence call. We fully expected it. Boy, she'll be in for a rude awakening when school starts tomorrow and she has to go to bed before 10. Personally, I'm looking forward to it.
Okay, so it's that time of year again. I won't say resolutions because, let's be honest, how quickly do they fall by the wayside and it just gets discouraging. I'll set a few goals. I know I did this last year and I don't think I accomplished any of them but I'll get back up on the horse and give it the old college try for 2007.
1 - the evergreen resolution... lose weight. I need to lose a real 15 pounds. I'm really going to try for a myriad of reasons starting with the fact that I simply need to lose the poundage. IF I'm lucky enough to get pregnant, I'm over where I started with C so that's not a good thing either. So we'll see how far I can get in the next few weeks to jump start this thing.
2 - tied to #1, go to the gym. I'm actually motivated to do that. I've gone a couple of times in the past two weeks. I've scoped out the classes that I'd like to hit since I generally don't like using the equipment but I will if the class thing doesn't wor
k out. My goal is 3-4 times a week. I went twice this past week so it's a start.
3 - read more. My goal is 10 books this year. For your voracious readers out there that doesn't seem like much. But when you have a 3.5 year old who doesn't sleep (see above mentioned ringing in the new year reference), there's not a lot of extra time. Once C finally goes to sleep, there are a million other things to do so reading isn't high on the list. But even one chapter a night would be a step in the right direction. I'll do my best to keep the completed books updated here. I read
"Scrap Everything" over two days last week. It was pretty good, not overly scrap related but a pretty good girly story. But it's a book read so it's a start.
4 - Scrap more. Yeah, another constant. I have trouble motivating here in my house but since I can't get out to scrap more often, I need to figure something out at home. I think I did pretty well with my total number of layouts completed last year so I'm not going to put a number goal like some other people do. I'd only get depressed when I'm behind. So I just need to scrap more. Oh, and clean my scrap area to make the actual scrapping easier. Which leads to...
5 - Clean the clutter. G and I made a promise for our anniversary to clean the considerable amount of crap from the surfaces of our house. I hate it but I can't seem to figure out how to stop it. I think it'll be a little easier when C goes back to school since over this break, we have to entertain her. But we'll get to it come hell or high water.
6 - I need to figure out how to not take things so personally. That's a thing I've always been plagued with. I hate feeling like this but I haven't figured out a way to go around it. Whether it's work or friends or school or whatever, I feel like I'm the third wheel, overlooked, not considered qualified and it just gets old. I guess I need to either let it go or somehow prove myself, which with work, I haven't worked out how to do that. I know there are certain things I can make more of an effort with but when I've tried in the past, it's still bitten me in the ass so it's hard to motivate to keep trying. I'm feeling a little 98 pound weakling getting kicked with the sand again. But I'll figure something out, one way or another. But it's something to think about this year.
7 - Keep in better touch with my emails. I'm intermittent about returning emails. I mean, the immediate ones I do and then I get lazy with some of the not so immediate needs to respond. I need to get better at that. I have some wonderful friends out there that I need to correspond with better. Please know that I love you and I do think about you even if I'm a lazy bum with emails sometimes.
That's all I can think of for the moment. I'm sure I'll come up with a few more. Or not. Maybe this is enough to work on. When/If I accomplish some of these, I can tackle a few more. Gotta start somewhere.
Happy New Year Everyone!
Sitting in C's old rocking chair.
They got 1.5 inches in Malibu, black ice, snowballs, the whole thing. It's always fun here in California, that's for sure.
