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Showing posts from January, 2008

Sundance Film Festival

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So this week was the Sundance Film Festival. Rob got one of the local passes and saw more movies this week than he had seen in nearly a year (not to mention the fact that we only see them after everyone else has and they come out on DVD, not before they're even distributed like these). He saw ten films, and I saw four with him. They were, in order of appearance: Love Comes Lately: based on three short stories about a Viennese writer living in New York. The acting was good, but the screenwriting needed to be beefed up. Rob liked it, but there isn't anyone I would recommend it to. The Wave: based on an experiment in Palo Alto to teach high schoolers about facism and the Nazis. Rob was excited that it's going to be available to German students (who have to read the book), but said that it looked like an American film set in Germany, and you could "see the seams" between the two. His friend said it was too much like the after school special. Absurdistan: (picture abo

Ruthless on Catalogs

So this is really one for my friend Lois , whose blog centers on consumerism and how to avoid it or at least knock it on the head. Right now she is on a hunt to fill up on food storage for next to nothing, but I'm not a fabulous coupon clipper like she is. I was excited about this for personal reasons, so I thought I'd share it here. I just got a link from Flylady.net to be able to cancel my catalogs at CatalogChoice.org and I just did it and I love it. I've been trying to weed out my catalogs because they clog up my mailbox, and waste my time. I also notice that when I've spent hours poring over the latest Westoration Potteryware Elmbarn catalog that I want to buy stuff. No, let me rephrase that; I find stuff that I absolutely must have in order to complete my heretofore lusterless life. Without the catalogs, I am better able to focus on the bills and read to my kids on the couch. So I'd already gotten rid of two or three big offenders and thought I only had one mo

Snow and Omega

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Only two things to report around here. First is that we've had a lot more snow than in recent years. More days of snow cover and more snowstorms in December and so far in January. We even had to cancel the first two hours of church because the power was out in half of our ward, and that never happens. The kids and Rob have made a snowman or two and gone sledding a few times. And we found out that Rob's truck is a good snow vehicle, which is helpful and makes up for the fact that most of the interior is held together with black electrical tape. Second is that Rob and I went in for the 21-week ultrasound on Tuesday. The big news is that our baby has a brain and heart and spine and kidneys and stomach and bladder, which things I spent time worrying about at night (when the baby tends to practice pre -dawn water aerobics). And we are having another boy. Maddie shed a few tears and Will told me that he was going to kill me because they wanted a girl. He doesn't seem to underst

Christmas Festivities

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On Christmas Eve we had Rob's grandmother Johanna over. We had his traditional New Mexican stacked enchiladas (minus the fried egg on top) which Rob made himself. There was the reading of Luke II with attendant acting out (Will was the surprise favorite as baby Jesus). We sang lots of carols in the original version and the kids' irreverent revisions (even in German which had Oma hooting). And Opa and Betsy were on hand with nearly an entire bookshelf full of books chosen especially for these three. Our new Christmas rave comes from Betsy: _How Murray Saved Christmas_ by one of the writers for The Simpsons. And they got their pajamas. I was relieved that they fit since I probably bought them in July and had to guess on the sizes. Sebastian was the one who asked "shouldn't we open the presents now?" all night long. Oma needed to be driven back to her house until her live-in helpers got back from their parties, so Rob took her. I was terribly worried that I wouldn&