Confused.

Yesterday's double feature was Pinocchio and W. Warning: Here be spoilers :)

Both confused me, but thoroughly entertained me. Here's why:

Pinocchio - classic children's movie. But I do not think Leah will watch this movie until she's in high school. It starts with the cheesy, motivational, when you wish upon a star theme, but once Pinocchio comes alive, it's all downhill. He is kidnapped not once, but twice by bad men who want to exploit him. Then he goes to some carnival where little boys smoke cigars, play pool, and drink some concoction that turns them into donkeys? Seriously?

Once he somehow gets free of the donkey juice, he returns to Geppetto's to find him, Cleo, and Figaro gone. Where are they? Looking for their wooden boy/puppet creation? No. They are in the belly of a whale Can this kid get a break?

Anyways, somehow he makes the whale sneeze and out come Geppetto and his pets. And I think they lived happily ever after. I covered my eyes after the Monstro incident, scared of what else might curse this poor puppet... :)

So, bottom line is if I let Leah watch this movie, I must be prepared to talk about kidnapping, exploitation special talents, fox and mouse combos who walk the streets and lure you away to the circus, etc. I'm not ready for that. Good thing Leah's not here yet.

And now for W. - We all know I'm no Bush fan, so I went into this movie thinking it would make fun of his outlandish one-liners (check), outline all the things he did wrong in his life (check), and make me feel like he was just some jack-ass who lived a spoiled, privileged, care-free life and had everything handed to him on a silver platter (half a check). But I wasn't expecting the pity I felt for him, or a new feeling that we might have misunderstood what was really going on the White House between 2000 and 2004. I know, I know Cecily...it's just a movie. I'm not sure what feelings Oliver Stone wanted me to have, but I have a feeling i was not supposed to empathize with W by the end.

I'll explain.

His whole life he was trying to prove something and get attention from his father. Jeb was the favorite son, and W acted out to get daddy's attention. After he was done effing around and getting C averages at Yale and Harvard business school, he decided he wanted to go into politics. Instead of George HW saying "good for you, son" he told him he wasn't a politician-type. He was never supportive of W, because he was trying to promote his own political career. Once W was successful at politics (according to Texas' 19th district), he decided to run for Governor. Once again, HW wanted W to take a backseat to Jeb, who was already running for Governor of Florida. He ran anyways, and won, while Jeb lost.

Skip ahead several years and W is in the post-9/11 White House. His closest allies are Colin Powell, Condy Rice (who is portrayed as whiny and meek in the film - I don't think that's the case), Karl Rove, and of course, shot-my-friend-in-the-face Cheney. This team convinced him there were WMD's in the middle east and didn't stop until we were at war. I feel like he was their puppet, and when he was taking the fall for the lack of said WMD's, they no longer wanted to be his ally. They jumped ship and he was left to pick up the pieces.

Whether or not any of the specific conversations in the movie actually took place, the W I watched on screen for 2 hours is not a man that deserved the public lashing that he took. Real life W is different.

That's my take. Bush fan or not, I think this movie was well-made.

Influenza

I'm not sure why I've never gotten a flu shot, but now that I am experiencing the flu as a an adult who can't just put life on hold, stay home from school, and have mommy take care of me, I will be first in line next season.

I have been in the house since Saturday, except for a trip to the grocery store for bread and Best Buy for Pinocchio. While that sucks, having the flu is good for catching up on movies that I've been wanting to check off my list.

Here are the ones I've watched, in no particular order, along with some commentary.

A Haunting in Connecticut - no not the movie that's not out yet, the Discovery channel version of the story.

Them - French flick that The Strangers is based on. Very good, and there's really no need for the subtitles because most of the movie is people being chased in the woods. The sound of terror is pretty much the same in any language.

The Changeling - great movie. The saddest part about it is that it's true - a boy goes missing and the police return some random kid to the mother to make it look like they solved a crime. But I'm glad to see how far the LAPD has come since the 20's, when it was corrupt - oh wait...

Over her dead body - waste of 2 hours, but once I started, I was committed and couldn't turn it off. I liked it the first time when it was called GHOST.

Zack and Miri make a porno - yep you guessed it. SPOILER ALERT - Best friends decide to make a porno to make money because they're broke. They have sexual tension but act like they hate each other. They have sex (a scene for their porno, of course) and literally in the middle of it, they decide they're in love. And then there's the obligatory romantic comedy break-up and make-up. Roll credits.

I feel like that only accounts for 10 hours of my time, which makes me wonder where the other hours have gone. I've been high on codeine, so I'll blame it on that.



Today, I have cabin fever, so I made myself a message board for my craft room. I have a bulletin board in there now, but it's a bulky, dorm-room style cork board, so I wanted to upgrade a little. Here's a pic:


Lastly, with the springtime weather we've been having, some flowers have bloomed in our front beds - here's our first of the season:

Anderl Tree-Removal Service

The other morning, Dave and I were walking to our cars to go to work, and we noticed that there was a Christmas tree next to our house and trash can. We looked at each other, both with a look of "how'd that get there?"

Dave said he saw the tree in the neighbor's yard (Mrs. Kim) the previous day, and coincidentally, Sonny (Mrs. Kim's appropriately-named son), was getting into his Woodstock van to go to work. We waved him over and instead of allowing us to clue him in on the reason we waved him over, he asked us 40 questions about how much we paid to get our driveway sealed. Some ass was going to charge him $400 - poor Sonny. Anyways, we asked if that was his tree in our trash pile, and said we had seen it in his yard the previous day, and he got out of his truck to come look at it. As if looking at it closer would help him decide whether or not it was his. So after his closer look, he informs us that they have a "man-made" tree, not a real one, so this couldn't be theirs.

We realized that there's really nothing we can do about this mysterious tree in our trash pile. We can't put it out with our trash, because they won't take it. We can't leave it on the curb with a sign that says "if this is your tree, please take it back and dispose of it yourself, you asshole" - although that's my favorite so far. So what can we do? I will not be taking it to the dump, because if I wanted to do that (or even knew where the dump was), I probably would have bought myself a real tree, instead of my "man-made" one.

It will probably end up in the woods behind the house - our shrubbery graveyard.

People are assholes. Here's a picture of said tree:

I'm a tool...

I know I'm a tool for only listening to the Alison Krauss/Robert Plant album, "Raising Sand," after it got Grammy buzz, but it is everything that is good about music. Two true musicians collaborating to create this brilliant album makes me feel happy inside.

Craft Night...

Tonight's craft night was successful! We weren't brave enough to start a second square, but we finished our first.

We used the fair and square pattern and each of us picked our own fabric combinations.

See pics below. We'll have to schedule another craft night to do our second square. It takes surprisingly long for 3 girls to make 1 square when we're sharing cutting tools.

But, that will have to wait, because next craft night is hosted by the Bonnie and we're scrapbooking...

What a mess, but it was worth it!

Mine:

Ashley's:

Bonnie's:

Happy Valentine's Day!

After we got home from Stamp Club I was inspired to make my valentines for work and family/friends. Sunday, during the superbowl, I set everything up and put them together like working from an assembly line.

I decided to go with a simple design so I wouldn't kill myself making ~20 cards. Here's how they turned out. I'll take these, along with some candy, to our work potluck the week of Valentine's Day. The rest I'll mail with some cute stamps... :)

Stamp Club

Saturday, we went to stamp club to help Delaine use up all her scrap paper. She had all her paper laid out, and we just brought blank cards and tape. If there was a piece of paper she had that we needed, we could buy it, and she let us use all her stamps and markers.

We got there at 10 and the first time we thought to ask what time it was, we found out it was 1:30 already! Time flies when your creative juices are flowing, I guess...

We made a ton of cards. I wish I had started making cards for specific occasions earlier in the session than I did, but now I know my strategy for next time. I'll make a list of upcoming birthdays, holidays, and events, and make cards accordingly. OCD is fun!

Here are some pics of the cards I made, and some close-ups of my favorites. Enjoy!

Craft night at Pritchard!

This Friday, the girls and I are getting together to have the first of many craft nights - hopefully we'll have them monthly!

This week's project will be a sampler quilt. 4 squares, 4 different patterns and quilting stitches, using complimentary colors. My mom helped me make one in high school and it was how I learned to quilt.

Below is a pic of the one I made back then and the fabrics I chose for the one I'll make this week! More pics to come once it's in the works :)




Notice my absurd color choices from 1995 versus now?

Who's in the back of the bus now?

What a great day...

1864: 3/5 of a person
2009: President of the United States





...and now for some snarkiness.

President Obama: You are the 44th President of the United States. You are not, however, the 44th person to take the presidential oath. You are the 43rd - Grover Cleveland makes you wrong.

Chief Justice Roberts: You had one job today. Stand up at your cue and say 35 words in order. No wonder Obama opposed your appointment.

So how do you spend your Friday nights?

Last night I was tired of listening to the sounds of WW2 and Russians on the game the boys were playing, so I went upstairs to my craft room.

I dragged out all my stickers (they were in 3 different places) and put them in categories – like animals, beachy, fall, kids/school, etc.

I had bought these magazine type holders a while ago with hopes of organizing my paper but realized I had way too much paper to use them!



The ones I got came with 4 individual folders and dividers, so I used those to put the stickers in different sections, and labeled the sections with my DYMO! I put them on the shelves in the closet…it looks so much better than just having a drawer full of stickers. I had no hope of finding a sticker I needed unless I emptied the whole drawer or little sticker holder I had onto the bed and sifting through it all…no thanks!

I stayed up til 230am doing that. Now I want to go make some cards now that I know where everything is! First on the list - Nate's mom's birthday card that I should have made days ago :)



I know what you're thinking and I can't think of any possible way to make the top shelf look organized.