classic film: the more the merrier

Yesterday I watched The More the Merrier (1943) starring Jean Arthur, Joel McCrea, and Charles Coburn.

It was totally adorable.  I love old movies, and that one just made me laugh.  It felt like an Emilie Loring novel, complete with a dashing hero, a reluctant romance, and wartime Washington DC.  It was funny, with unexpected little one-liners going off all the time without fanfare, and a few slapstick falls on the side, just for kicks.

(The only things I didn't like: the hairstyles (icksville) and Jean Arthur's voice.  It sounded so affected - unnatural and whiny.)

I especially loved the 1940s fashion.  Cute shoes with buttons, a-line skirts, and trim little blouses - mmmm. 


Old movies are just so nice :). 

chanson-o-gram

i'm sending this first chanson-o-gram to my wonderful husband, patrick :D

honey, you make me feel like this every day. thanks for always looking out for me.
xoxoxo

visitors: if you want to dedicate a song to anyone, leave a comment or message me!  i'll post it :D

dear people i've been mean to

dear people i've been mean to:
i'm sorry.

it wasn't you.  it was me.  i was having a bad day/being a jerk/feeling insecure about something/ignoring all the grace that has been extended to me.
and if i don't see you again, i likely won't have a chance to make it up.
and if i do see you again, i'm going to try harder to be nice.
because you, like me, have a bruisable heart.  you, like me, probably feel mean comments much more sharply than nice ones.  and their sting stains through your memories into the present, making you feel bad when you aren't even thinking about it.
:( 
i wish i could take it back.  sometimes i remember something mean i did and it takes my breath away with its horribleness.
and it's just stuck there in the past, permanently, like a name carved into a gravestone.

this is my hope for you, dear people i've been mean to.
i hope you meet Jesus, who is always kind and never mean.  i hope you let His grace into your heart, and let Him be king.  i hope you let him take out all the ugly stings i left.  i hope you find His love to be more than equal to any hurt you've suffered - from me, from anyone.  i hope His deep joy washes out the bitterness and leaves forgiveness.  i hope you let Him in.

and this is my hope for me.  i hope that i let Him reign in me, and let Him teach me to love with His love and be kind with His kindness.  i hope He teaches me how to bear hurt without hurting back, and to apologize to all the people i have hurt.  i hope He teaches me to walk softly, to speak carefully, and to love graciously.  i hope He helps me to give kindness instead of pain.  like He does.

dear people i've been mean to:
i'm sorry. 

smoothie love

this is the simplest, most magical smoothie ever.
recipe:

toss them in your blender and puree.  serves 2 (or 3, if you're being abstemious!)
it's the summeriest taste ever.  :)  happy august, friends!

celebrate august 25th

guess what day it is?

bet you can find someone who needs an apology, or maybe forgiveness.

i did.

nanowrimo

g'day.  a small announcement:
this year i'm going to do nanowrimo.

National Novel Writing Month

November 1-30.

Write a novel of 50 000 words.

Ta-dah!

*dies a little at the thought of writing roughly 2000 words per day*

how about you guys?  has anyone here ever done it?  plan to do it?  want to join me on my torturous, awesome month of madness?

while i'm not going to share the secrets of my story just yet, i totally want to share my cover with you.  (because i'm excited, y'all!)

xo,
j.

surprise!

yesterday, i gave sam a bath; and when i was done washing him and started opening up the towel, he leaned back in his tub, gave me a diabolical grin, and fountained-peed right out of the tub!

little monkey.

irony

this afternoon, i took sam for a walk in his stroller.  he was chewing happily away on his bugaloop, and i was impressed with his ability to get it into his mouth and keep it there.  his motor skills are really coming along.

anyway, we were almost home when i decided to give his gums a check (because he's been sporting tooth-bumps for a loooong time, and i was getting impatient).

AND I FOUND A TOOTH!! a tiny, freshly-broken-through tooth.  i was so excited that i had to tell the next people i saw.  two guys were biking toward me, and i called out "my son just got his first tooth!"  and they (very very nicely!) congratulated me and stopped to smile at my one-tooth-wonder.

they looked into his stroller and grinned.  like this:

the irony pretty much made my day. 

rock on, toothless nice guys.  rock on.

look out, haterz!

last night, i dreamed that rebecca black turned nineteen. 
(i just have to stop and let you know that the only time i ever listened to her song was when my friends were showing me how awful it was.  while i'm sure she's a very nice girl with questionable taste in lyrics, i've never really thought about her since then.)

so, i dreamed it was her birthday.
i gave her a bright orange cashmere sweater.

and i made this sign:

yup.  i spelled haters with a z.  

i think this beats out my dream earlier this month where i failed to save the world because i got 3 questions wrong on a multiple-choice quiz about jack black movies.  :S

free time chart

forward

AUGH!!! 

*rant warning*

i know i pay too much attention to spelling.  sometimes i miss the sentiment because i can't get past the poorly spelled writing. 
(it runs in my family, too. my sister sent me a pic of her kids posed by a memorial that read "LESS WE FORGET."  really.)

anyway.  this one seems to be haunting me, and i'm finding it everywhere.  (but mostly in the beginning of books.)

(where have all the editors gone?!?!?!)

so, i get a new book.  i'm blissfully opening the cover.  turn a page or two.  and then it strikes:

FORWARD

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
really?  really?  forward?  in a book?  not just some random person blogging, but an actual, published book?

the thing about the correct spelling is it actually makes sense.  "fore" meaning first, as in first word. 

and when the first word of your book is spelled wrong, my eyeballs roll so far to the back of my head that i can't even read your lame book.  my tendons are snapped.

gah!

i want to send marked-in-red copies of all the FORWARDS back to the publishers. 

*scowl*

maybe if i'd had some raspberry cordial?

my parents-in-law (awesomely!) lent us their car.  so now, when i want to go to the mall with sam, it's not a three-hour ordeal involving multiple layers of sunscreen, a case of water, a few yells for the crosswalk-ignoring-jerk,s and two diaper bags full of stuff.  (okay, that's a stretch, i refuse to be a stuff-laden mommy.  what doesn't fit in one bag stays home.)  but sometimes when i pack for a walk to the mall, it looks more like a camping trip than a shopping trip.

anyway, the other day i really really enjoyed driving to the mall, lifting the stroller out of the trunk, popping sam in, and strolling through the mall.  i wasn't sweaty, red-faced, windblown, or reeking of sunscreen.  in fact, i was probably smelling pretty good, since i'd even managed to keep sam occupied and had taken a shower in the morning.

i wasn't really in a hurry or anything, just enjoying my stroll, when i saw her.

she was pushing a stroller out of a clothing store.  she, too, looked relaxed and happy to be in the mall.  she just looked like the right sort of person.  tall.  happy.  a newish mom.  she even had freckles.  she smiled, and i smiled back. 

and then she was gone.

i wish i had thought to stop and admire her baby.  we could have bonded over the sweetness of our sleeping angels, the ridiculous price of diapers, and the lusciousness of mallwide air conditioning. 

i really want a mom-friend, a tall one, a happy one, with freckles!  i want someone to hang out with who also smells like spit-up instead of fresh laundry.  someone who gets a little euphoric at being around a whole store full of adults with the potential for grown-up conversation.  someone who is a stay-at-home mom, so we can hang out in between breakfast and supper.  someone who doesn't moan about calories when we go out to eat.  someone who's ready to laugh and tell funny stories about herself.  a kindred spirit.  an anne&diana friend.

next time i see her, i am so going to leap on that stroller and not let go until we're facebook friends.

or until security pulls me away and i'm banned from the mall for life.

whatever.

wins & fails

yesterday was not the most spectacular day.
sam and i had 2 (pretty awesome) wins, but they were offset by 2 (pretty sucky) fails. 

sam's been trying SO HARD to crawl.  for a long time, he's been able to get his bum up in the air and squirm forward on his face. he is pretty hardcore for a five month old.

 

like i said ... hardcore.

yesterday, he figured out how to prop himself way up on his arms while his bum is up in the air.  no more crawling on his face?  winning!

unfortunately, once he got himself all propped up on his hands and knees, the only direction he could go: backward.  he growled angrily at his toys as he tried to get closer to them and they just got farther away.  fail :(.


in the afternoon, patrick texted me that one of his coworkers wanted to pay me to make him a braid.  doing something i love and getting paid?  winning!

this is a braid.

i knew patrick would be super-duper hungry after a long day of digging trenches, so i thoughtfully decided to turn some leftovers into a delicious casserole.

ha!

it was so delicious i only had a few bites.  patrick hammered through a serving (he was starving, and didn't want to join me in my plan b.  plan b was popcorn.), but admitted it was pretty bad.  then we both ended up fighting for the bathroom. and canceled our evening plans. 

greeting my hard-working husband with the Grossest Casserole Ever and a side of Rumbles?  fail.

here's hoping today will be a better day.

xo.

family project

i'm not very familiar with a lot of tools.  sure, i can hang my own pictures and curtain rods, put together easy furniture, and glue things.  but that's about it.

so when i put together our gorgeous new table, i was pretty bummed to see that our chairs were too tall for it.  how could i fix this?

i thought about setting the table up on blocks - but i definitely wanted a more permanent and pretty solution.  we thought about getting a hacksaw and shortening the chair legs, but i doubted we could make them all straight and even and smooth.

so my smart mother in law suggested a pipe cutter!  i had never heard of one, but it sounded like just the thing.

we were having company for supper yesterday, and wanted our guests to be able to sit at the table in comfort.  so sam and patrick ventured to home depot while i enjoyed a very luscious and uninterrupted shower :).

i love my family!

when they got home, i was so excited to start operating.  and the pipe cutter was awesome.

while i cut chair legs with all the glee of a kid at christmas, patrick removed the feet from the ends to place on the freshly shortened legs.  (and my 1st chair needed a little bit of extra padding in two of the feet - he manned that too.)

it was totally fun and the pipe cutter is now my favourite tool.  i don't know what i'm ever going to use it for again, but i'll keep my eyes open ;).

the results?  absolutely great :).  much cheaper (and more fun!) than buying new chairs.

tah-dah! 
c'mon over and visit.  i've got a place for you to sit :)