gripe

I have a real issue with smokers. As we were driving around today, the driver in the car in front of us rolled down his window and tossed out a crumpled cigarette package. I almost got out of my car to knock on his window to politely return his trash but decided against it at the last moment. I wish I had done it!

In a country where a growing percentage of our population is obsessed with "going green" and recycling everything from water bottles to toenails, you would think that littering would be one of the first bad habits to go! Later, when I stopped to pick up some milk at the market, I stepped out of my car and onto another crumpled cigarette package. Honestly, people! And don't even get me started on cigarette butts being thrown all over the place!!

Smokers complain about the rising cigarette taxes. I say, raise them sky high! If the people who intend to smoke the cigarettes are incapable of putting their own trash where it belongs they deserve to at least pay the state enough money to hire someone to do it for them!

confession

I am a die hard Dancing With The Stars fan - partially because I love watching how the stars improve but mostly because I love ballroom dance. I am going to be a professional ballroom dancer in my next life. *oops! I think I left that off my list!*

As much as I enjoy the dancing, the show itself drives me crazy! Do they really need a second hour every week for a results show after they took two hours for the dancing? They spend more time chatting and showing clips of clips we have already seen. Then we get to the finale - tonight - and it takes two hours for them to rehash the entire season before they will tell us who won. I don't want to watch everyone who was already voted off dance again. There was a reason they were voted off in the first place. Seriously!!!

But just so you know, Helio and Julianne are going to win. You heard it here first!

music review

The Ultimate Love Song... for me anyway:
"I Don't Know Why" by Shawn Colvin

"I don't know why
the sky is so blue.
And I don't know why
I'm so in love with you.
If there were no music
then I would not get through.
I don't know why
I know these things but I do. I do."

It is a simple song, guitar accompanyment only, that just grabs you.
I wish it were legal to post songs on this but since we can't, I guess you'll just have to take my word for it.

lightsaber duels

We have quite a collection of lightsabers - partially because we have boys who are obsessed with sword fights and partially because John and I are Star Wars fanatics. I am talking stand-in-line-for-hours-to-get-tickets-to-Episode 1 fanatics.

Tonight Samuel decided that we needed to have a lightsaber fight. John brought down the mother of all lightsabers - his electronic light and noise lightsaber that you can join together to make the Darth Maul lightsaber. It is so cool! (Man, I sound like a geek!) Samuel armed himself with my purple lightsaber declaring, "Look dad! I'm Mace Windo!" I grabbed a red and blue lightsaber to try and hold off John (yes, I do have split personalities). James was offered a green lightsaber (a relic from Samuel's Halloween costume 2 years ago) but chose instead to fight with his little toy screwdriver that is about 6 inches long; he wasn't too effective but had a marvelous time anyway.

Anyway, once we were all armed we began the fight - everyone against Daddy. The kids sustained multiple pretend injuries but no fatalities. John and I would periodically act out dramatic death scenes only to be revived by kisses from the boys to resume the fight. Samuel has learned to use the force so every once in a while he would throw up his hand and make a buzzing noise and John would jump backwards as if pushed by the force. It was too funny!

I really love my boys!

goodreads.com

I found a new fun website called goodreads.com. You can enter all of the books you have been reading, rate them, and critique them. You can also invite friends to join and find out what they are reading too. It is a fun way to keep track of all the books you read... and if you are like me and can never remember anything, you now have a way to actually remember the titles and authors. A while back I was reading a book a day and I don't remember the names of half of them. I wish I had found this site a few months ago!

in my next life

I found a really cool blog (I wish I still had the address to it) that was all about lists: to do lists, grocery lists, lists of requirements for future spouses, etc. It inspired me to make a list of things that I may not get to do in this life but that I plan to do in my future lives - with the pretense of course that I believe in reincarnation.

1) Perform on Broadway. I mean seriously dedicate my life to acting - waitress for my living and everything.

2) Be a foreign diplomat in Russia. I have actually been there and I spent some time with a family who lived in the US embassy in Moscow. It would be crazy but so cool!

3) Work for the FBI. I have always been curious. I know it is not as glamorous as it is shown in the movies but I would love the traveling.

4) Be a lounge singer or sing with a big band - not like some skanky Jessica Rabbit type, more like Billie Holiday. She is the best!

5) Sing with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Shhhhh, don't tell anyone. I actually don't want to live in Utah, but to be able to spend all of my time singing with fabulously talented musicians and traveling the world in the process would be amazing!

there's no buisness like show buisness

Well, The Mikado is finally over. I had a great time and the show ended up coming together spectacularly well. I am so glad I had a chance to be in it! However, my boys (all three of them) are very glad it is over. By the last few performances the kids were asking me to stay home instead of going to the show. It was so cute but really sad too.

Here is a fun picture from the show. Can you pick me out?

of elections and yard sales

I have a pet peeve that seems to be especially aggravated this time of year. My problem is with people who don't clean up after themselves. Fall seems to bring a plethora of yard sale signs stuck to telephone poles and anything else that can help display the announcement to passing traffic. I have no problem with the way these signs are posted, just with the fact that the signs are left there for weeks and sometimes months after the fact. Is it really so difficult to pick them up? Is the yard sale so exhausting that people do not have any strength in the following weeks to put their signs in the trash? I have often been tempted to pick up the signs myself and wallpaper the offenders' house with them. Good sense and my children in the car have held me off from that particular course of action.
Political signs present me with the same kid of frustration. Election day was on Tuesday. You would think that the candidates who spent so many months promising to improve life in our community would be able to remove their signs from public property in a prompt manner. Alas, no. It would seem that they suffer from the same exhaustion or laziness which has befallen the hosts of the local yard sales.
For me, I think it would be appropriate to charge $5-$10 per sign that has to be removed by township workers. It is not like it will be difficult to find the persons responsible - their name and/or address is plastered all over the signs!

Halloween

I finally got around to getting our Halloween pictures uploaded from our camera. Here are some of my favorites. Sam was a zebra (obviously). He has been asking to be a zebra since last Halloween. Thank goodness for Old Navy! James was a chicken. We tried to sell him on an elephant costume but he wasn't having any of it.

John took the boys to our ward Halloween party (I was at rehearsal). As he was getting dressed, Samuel put his stuffed zebra inside his costume where his belly is really big. He walked around the party telling everyone that he had a baby zebra inside his tummy. John just smiled and nodded, he had no idea what Sam was talking about until they were leaving the party and Sam opened his costume. It was so funny!