An Attempt At Catching Up

We are almost recovered from the craziness that was the luau. Crazy fun, that is! Thank you all so much for coming. I just wish we would have had more time together. We still haven't done any major grocery shopping, but due to beverage leftovers our fridge could be mistaken for something you might see on "Cribs." So sorry about the bug bites. Jon and I were largely unaffected. But as far as I know, none of you rolled around in the grass - where did you find chiggers?

I'm not really sure how to say this next thing that I want to tell you. I scored (for lack of a better word) some free tickets at work for the American Idol Live tour and my mom and I went to the show last week. I am only a casual viewer but my mom watches religiously and has a special gift for picking the top three each season. As soon as Hollywood Week begins she posts her favorites in a central spot in the house so everyone knows her choices and she can't make casual revisions. She has been spot on everytime. Except I don't think she predicated a 3rd place finish for Melinda - that girl was robbed. I digress. The concert, I must grudgingly admit, was quite good. I was really only going for my mom's sake and started to regret my decision when even she was worried that we would "run into someone we know." Not that that would really be an issue because they would probably be just as embarrassed and both parties would either ignore each other completely or sheepishly wave and roll our eyes with a silent understanding to never mention this again. The audience at the Scottrade/Savvis/Kiel/Whatever Center was made up off a lot of families, especially mother/daughter or father/daughter dates. We got 3 hours of solid entertainment - even Sanjaya was decent. I said decent, not good. All of the top 10 finalists seemed much more confident and relaxed and they all seemed to be having a good time, even though I suspect in Gina's case it was more condescending amusement (and her recent engagement) that kept her smiling.

Jon is sporting a new look, or rather an old look revisited. Since the wedding and luau are finished he has cut his hair again. I like it a lot, but now I'm married to a thug.

We traveled from one St. Charles to another over the weekend for a family picnic. St. Charles, MO, was about 105 degrees and dry when we left and St. Charles, IL, was 72 degrees and rainy. Despite the weather, the diehards still went out on the boats for some wakeboarding and tubing. So far, I've brought rain with me to every family event in Chicago. All of my memories so far are of us huddling under tarps and umbrellas. Don't get me wrong, we always have a great time, but it's always a soggy, muddy, chilly kind of fun. On the way home last night we stopped at Ikea and got a few small items for our apartment, including a TV stand. I spent the day today building furniture and we should get our couch by the weekend (finally!).

I'm trying a new thing for keeping up with the many blogs I enjoy reading. Instead of just accessing them from the links on the righthand side of this page, I'm using Google Reader. If you have a Blogger account you can use that to login to Google and do this also. You just tell Google which sites you're looking for and it creates a list which automatically updates. When you login, it will tell you which sites have new posts. You can also create folders and tags to keep them all organized. I've got friends in one (the most important), funny stuff in another (Planet Dan and Improv Everywhere, for example), etc. There are lots of feed readers out there, but I tend to like what Google does and I didn't have to create a new account. I tried the Yahoo reader, both from within Mail and My Yahoo! - and found it to be lacking.

Has anyone seen Becoming Janet yet? I got a new book this weekend called Lost In Austen, by Emma Campbell Webster. It is essentially a Choose Your Own Adventure for adults, based on the Jane Austen novels. I haven't had much time to start it yet so I can't give a review, but I thought the premise at least to be very clever.

In other news, I've already started Christmas shopping and making. The only beneficiary so far is Sophie - I couldn't help myself. *** Christa's blog is now linked in Kristy's list on the right. For creating such an entertaining and informative blog, Christa gets 2 thumbs up! *** I took zero pictures the weekend of the luau except for a few of the kids at Cracker Barrel, so girls, if you'll send them to me, I'll post them all together. *** Kelly, I read some interesting news on Miss Monkey's blog. Or maybe you told me and I wasn't paying attention through the hairspray fumes and pins poking in my head. Tell us more about the triathalon, please!

Heya!

Hope you had a great birthday Jo! As far as American Idol goes, I haven't watched it much since the very beginning of this season. I know Kelly mentioned that "One" singer is out of his league and i have heard other people say he needs to get out, but I liked the little bit that I saw of him at the beginning only because he was so sad when his sister didn't make it in the initial rounds. He seemed sweet at that point. I know y'all will have a blast on the cruise and I wish so much that I could be there. Have a few fruity tropical drinks in my honor!!

Kelly's Fabuless Post

Jo asked me to post for her birthday. I really don't have much of consequence to say (do I ever?) so here are a few random thoughts.

I love the Target comercials with the play on the words that end in "less." Those are so clever that I can even forgive the "fabuless." I'm still not sure why the men in ties are playing volleyball, but I do enjoy a boy in a suit, so who am I to complain?

Go see Amazing Grace. It's a great inspirational movie. I seriously wanted to go crusade for something after seeing it. I am currently weighing different crusades to go on. A potential crusade is against stupid American Idol viewers. Now, I am often chastised or told I'm stupid for watching this show. I don't care. I like it. So there are a few clearly untalented singers on the show. One in particular is so untalented that I literally feel bad for him because he so clearly out of his league. Yet, the bottom two singers this week were two singers definitely in the top half of the competition. There are people out there who purposely vote for the worst singers. I think that is stupid and a waste and makes me have to listen to more bad singers. Of course this does not mean I will stop watching. And now I have just defamed the memory of William Wilberforce comparing his abolitionist crusade with my stupid pettiness. So sorry.

I got my official acceptance letter into grad school for school counseling. Now I just have to figure out how I can A) pay for it and B) do school and full time teaching.

Official cruise countdown: 12 days. Sarah and I are gearing up for the trip. We are currently looking for reading suggestions. So if you have any book ideas, let us know! Think beachy. I am currently in a nonfiction reading phase, which is pretty nerdy, so I need some help pulling myself out of this!