I am thinking of writing a horror movie that combines Jaws with Children of the Corn.   Title suggestions?  Plot Ideas?  You’ll be awarded a prize!

>I have a high school reunion that is just around the corner, and I had a 6 month plan to become fabulous before the big night. This plan mostly involved joining a gym and dragging myself there 3 times a week for the past 6 months. And I got my hair cut.

Zzzz. Oh, sorry, I was so bored I fell asleep. See also: tired from the gym.

But I decided to take a break from my constant self improvement plans to work on something else! A blog improvement plan. I thought I would start off first by blogging a lot, but then I thought, that’s way too logical. First, I am going redo the whole blog, and THEN I will start blogging all the time. I’m in a hurry though because July is commenting month, and I need to have everything in place for all my awesome commentors. (Hi Laura(s)!)

First point of order:
Should I…
a.) Keep my current wonder woman graphic that I stole from the internet and cropped down to a smaller size. (Pro: Cute. Con:Stolen.)
b.) Use my facebook profile pic – (Pro: Cute, sort of anonymous, free advertizing for Jill since she took the picture. Con: Jack is in it. Would I crop him out, or photoshop Luke in?)
c.) Get someone to create a metamegan/wonderwoman one of a kind graphic. (Pro: Cute! Con: Who would do it?)
d.) Use a picture of myself as wonder woman? (Pro:Cute! Con: Horrifying if I become famous and everyone in the world sees it.)
e.) Other

Please leave your suggestion in the comments. Ha! Comment month is starting early!!!

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Luke on the first and last day of second grade.
You may also be interested in first grade, and kindergarden is here and here.

>I am trying to wrest my life back from the cold dead hands of my job. Sometimes I have to work for hours and hours and have no time to blog. Sometimes I stay far away from my laptop to avoid working, and I can’t blog then either. Sometimes I am working and watching TV, and my fave tv character, Leslie Knope, says the following:

“We need to remember what’s important in life: friends, waffles, and work. Or waffles, friends, work. Doesn’t matter. But work is third.”

It’s all clear to me now.

>As I said yesterday, I am very excited that Luke has gotten so into reading. Coincidentally, or not, Jack is also really into reading. He likes to say that he can read chapter books, even though he is only five. Which is very interesting for a 3 year old who can’t read. I’ve been humoring him, and I have to admit I was mildly shocked/disturbed when he pointed to a big advertisement at the gas station and correctly said, “That says Pringles.”

So now Luke and I have our “people who love to read” bond, and Jack and I have our “people who love to go to the library” bond. Fortunately for me, he no longer likes to go there just to poop. Luke was never too excited about the library, and every time we went he just picked out two Curious George books and then wanted to leave. To this day, I cringe when I see that shelf full of yellow. But Jack always wants to go, and there is often a heated discussion about whether we should go to the one by our house or the Main Branch. I am sure you can see where this is going. We have been checking out a million books, and I have been working 20 hour days, completely missing Easter, and not having any time for reading. So we have some late fees. As part of my plan to get my life back, Jack and I went to the library last night. I returned all the books except one, and I am embarrassed to even type this: Lose your Mummy Tummy. Women of Boulder are currently being deprived of this method (The Tuppler Method) for shrinking their waistlines because I have the book that they have been waiting for for months. I thought I would give it one last shot, and last night as I picked it up I thought, if I don’t have time to read this book, I bet I don’t have time to do the 1000 reps of the simple exercises that you can do anywhere anytime. The premise of the book is that pregnancy, and doing regular situps improperly can cause a separation of the stomach muscles called diastasis. Apparently that happens to 98% of moms, and unless you close that gap, your waist won’t get any smaller no matter how many sit ups you do. There is actually a class you can take in Boulder, and when I was looking around at the beginning of the year for some different form of exercise, I thought about taking the class. Specifically, I tried to get a friend to take the class and then tell me how to do the exercises. My main reason for not signing up was the emphasis on “no matter how many sit ups you do” angle. It might matter if that number is 0, right? Also the classes seemed to be during times when I am busy, such as during a work day.

Short story long, I skipped over a very disturbing drawing of a grocery bag with groceries falling out the bottom that seemed to have something to do with what will happen to you if you don’t do kegels, and I just read the part about how to diagnose how bad your diastasis is. And guess what? I am one of the lucky 2% of moms who do not have this problem. Maybe it’s because I am genetically blessed, or maybe it’s because I am just now trying to lose my mummy tummy (shudder) 3.5 years after having my last baby. Regardless, I can happily categorize myself with the women who are just in need of some exercise, and a significant reduction in ECI. (Easter Candy Intake.) The book goes back today.

Happy Mother’s Day to Me!

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The last month was a bad egg. But I am changing my attitude starting today.

>Before we went on vacation, we had been watching a lot of Toy Story 3. And by that I mean, I think I (we) watched it 3 times in 2 days. Jack was horribly ill with cough that sometimes made him throw up, and there was a lot of snuggling and TV watching going on. I cried the first time, but managed to hold it together during the ending the last 2 times I watched it.

Long intro to say, that I just realized I watched a lot of TV as a child. And by, “just realized” I mean, “I have always known”. There were a lot of movies that we had on tape, once I was in high school and we had a VCR. So that explains why I know all the words to some random movies that we happened to record. But why, (really, why??) would I have an episode of Laverne and Shirley memorized? I am sure we didn’t have it on tape? But I know it was something that I used to quote all the time with my brother and sister. (Even though, in my preliminary blog post research today, they both had no idea what I was talking about.)

Short story long, when Jack started quoting Woody, of Toy Story 3 fame, by saying, “Reach for the sky!” I couldn’t stop myself from saying, “You wouldn’t dare….!”

I tried to get Dave to help me remember the origin of that famous quote, but he ignored me. I was able to place the quote into a Laverne and Shirley episode, and when I googled “Laverne and Shirley Reach for the Sky” I came up with the following.

I probably saw this episode when? 25 years ago? And it stuck in my head for what reason? I’ll tell, you. It’s comic gold. I can even remember being disappointed that when the cousin says, “You wouldn’t dare” he doesn’t say it with the right inflection. But now, 25 years later, I think it’s perfect. And the best part is, when I showed it to the boys, they laughed and laughed. And now whenever one of them says, “Reach for the sky,” I know the other will answer with “You wouldn’t dare.”

>Man, once I can reflect back on this, there are going to be some funny funny stories. Yup. Some day.

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>Well, I made it through 30 days of daily posts. I’d love to post an awesome and insightful summary of my month and everything I learned, but I am late for my dodgeball game, and I am worried that if I wait till after the game to post, I may not be coherent.

*Edited to add that we WON! And to fix some “typos”.