7 Quick Takes Friday

1. I am typing with a cup of coffee in front of me. If you know me at all, you will understand how shocking that is. I am a DIE HARD tea fan. I have a cup every day of my life–cold in summer, hot every other time. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

But I found THIS:

For someone who CAN’T STAND the taste of coffee, but loves caramel, Bailey’s Coffee Creamer in caramel is Ah-MAZING. Now I can have the joys of coffee-strength caffeine without the nasty, awful, rotten taste.

Sorry, coffee lovers. Please no hate mail!

2. Jim left today for a 9 day trip (including drive-time) to Michigan. We are sad. We love him and want him home with us. He does this every year and we are sad every year. I have no clue how mom’s with husbands who are deployed do it. I can barely handle a week!

3. I had the distinct pleasure of sitting through (well, part of at least) my first math class since, oh, about 1990. One of our two cyber kids is struggling in this class, so I am working with them. Did you know I had completely forgotten how to estimate fractions up or down to whole numbers? I DID! I learned it all again two days ago. How DID I live without this skill, lo, these past 25 years as an adult?

4. Pursuant to #3, and I’m not really mocking middle school math like it sounds, but why can’t they teach kids how to balance a checkbook or make up a budget or figure out how much rent they can afford? These are all very useful maths, none of which I personally learned in school. I didn’t learn how to balance a checkbook until my sister taught me when I was 21!

5. I’ve been watching Sleepy Hollow lately. It’s amazing what Hollywood can do to the book of Revelations. As someone who has read it, I’m intrigued (ok, and a little disgusted) by what they can twist around to try and make a television drama. I’m not saying I’m going to stop watching it, but I’m not keeping my Bible open to compare, either!

6.  Just watched THIS and howled for 15 minutes straight. Warning: Not kid friendly.

7. One of the advantages of having older kids? Neater pumpkin carving! We didn’t get pumpkin guts all over the table OR all over them! WooHoo!

DVR

Digital Video Recording. This, folks, is AWESOME. I fought my husband on getting it, because, well, I’m cheap. Let’s be honest. But for the first year of DirecTV, we got a great deal, so we went with it.

I LOVE IT.

No more tapes, no more forgetting to set the VCR or tape over something else…nope. It can tape every new episode of House for me, so I can watch at my leisure (and fast forward through the commercials). Bliss.

The only downfall I have come across is taping so much stuff and then never getting around to actually watching it. So I’m playing catch up this week. In between laundry loads, I’ve watched Becoming Jane (totally worth it!), Raising Waylon (Lifetime…so so), Recipe for Success (Lifetime, so so), Bella (VERY good!), and still have The Pursuit of Happyness and Fantastic Four II to watch. And five episodes of Star Trek Voyager that is on at 1am for some odd reason. But hey, since I can watch it at 2:30 in the afternoon while folding darks, who really cares?

Big Love

Have you seen this show? It’s on Showtime, I think, or maybe HBO (which we’re getting for three months free and then no more). I’ve watched it three times and come away half fascinated and half appalled. Fascinated because I know that people truly live like this in our country–plural marriages are alive and well in America in the 21st century. And it’s like getting a peek into their window–however fictional the peek may be.

The appalled side comes from the feeling that man, this is just not how God intended us to live! One man, one woman, that’s it. yes, there are examples of multiple wives even in the bible. Was any one of them happy? Rachel and Leah? Yes, that’s a pretty good example of an unhappy situation! It must have existed in the early church if Paul felt it was necessary to cite “a husband of one wife” as a prerequisite to being an elder.

I think, as much as I “like” the show, that the amount of time I spend actually obsessing over it tells me that I need to stop watching it. I have more to do in my life than get upset over a TV program.

A Regular Week

Since all the insurance stuff is finished, I’ve actually settled back into a normal existence–one where my life does not revolve around the phone and who I need to call and argue with. Can I express how grateful I am that I am finished with it?? I have a little less than 5 weeks until Ethan and I head out, and I’ll be spending that time catching up with the house, getting organized so as to make it easier on Jim, cleaning and laundry, the normal things of life.

You know, instead of cleaning ladies, they should make a service where someone comes in and does laundry–gather, separate, wash, dry, fold and put away. I’d pay big bucks for that!

Catie has become a TV-aholic. Now that she’s home all day, she can watch what she wants (within reason, of course!). Right now I hear Handy Manny in the background. He’s one of the less annoying shows out there. A few words of Spanish tossed in for educational value, as well as the teamwork methodology.

I’m not-so-patiently waiting for DirectTV to show up and install our new satellite. Man, I hate typing that word. It feels like it should have two t’s instead of 2 l’s! Anyways, we’ve had Dish Network for almost two years and want to go with one we can bundle and therefore save money on. By switching we’re going to save $302 for the first year. After that, I’m not sure. But hey, $302 works for me!

The Strawberry Festival is this weekend. This will be our 2nd year attending. It’s one of few things we do as a vacation-type thing. Maybe next year we’ll go somewhere….it will depend on Ethan, I guess. Dutch Wonderland is the other big thing we do. LOVE that place! Anyway, the Strawberry Festival is a lot of fun and food. Ethan’s not overly fond of it, but everyone else has a blast.

Ah, DirectTV just got here. I’m so glad Jim decided to stay home until the guy came. He’s definitely the technical guru in the house. We’re both geeky, but he’s a super geek.

Sept 26, 2007

Irony
Current mood:  calm

I came downstairs this morning to a sick little boy. Poor Ethan with his snotty nose and bad cough. I decided that he should stay home. Here’s the ironic part of the story. Catie has her first “Lunch Bunch” today–she stays an extra hour at preschool and eats lunch there. A whole extra hour for Mommy. Hah. NOT!

Last night we watched Torchwood, which I am still undecided about. Then I flipped back and forth between House and Reaper. I have to give all these new shows a chance. Tonight will be the new Bionic Woman vs. the already loved Hotel Babylon (no, it’s not that bad!) (on BBC America).

I have to get off my tushy and get FlyLady’s routine going or the day will literally slip away from me. 15 minutes here I come!