I love Halloween.  I don't really put much effort into celebrating it, but I like the congenial, convivial atmosphere of all the kids and parents out together, getting candy and just having a grand old time.  And I get to wear my cloak of AWESOMENESS!  :)  And snitch candy from the younger siblings. :)

And I finally got all my grad school applications done just in time.  I finally realized that if I'm gonna spend 18 months in Brazil on a church service/proselyting mission, focusing entirely on that, I probably ought to get all the applications done before I leave.  I'd made half-hearted efforts before, but this last week I finally buckled down and got them all done.  All Mom has to do is send them in while I'm gone (hopefully it's that easy) and then when I return, I'll have (hopefully) been accepted and just have to work out the financing (hopefully). :)  But I got it all done just in time--I leave on Wednesday! :)

So we finally made it to Cedar Point--and no one died! We spent all day Saturday there, from 11 am to 11:45 pm (it got cold). The lines weren't as short as we would have hoped, but we still had tons of fun, including the frantic run to one of the big coasters as soon as the gates were opened. Mindy was faster than either Mike or I, but she saved us seats so we got to walk on without waiting on one of the biggest roller coasters, which was awesome. We rode almost all of the big rides, and had fun on the little kid/carnival rides too, including the swinging ship and the swings (I love the swings!). Mindy and Mike had their first elephant ear, and we all rode the huge ferris wheel. And of course, I rode the roller coaster and thriller rides in my own inimitable fashion: "I don't want to die! This is not fun--what kind of crazy culture thinks scaring itself to death is fun? Let's go home!" Apparently Mindy was quite amused... :)  And as fun as the rides were, it was great just being with each other--yay for siblings who are also friends. :)  I'm a big fan of planning and strategy, so I'd printed out a bunch of guides for how to do the whole park in one day, but Mindy and Mike scoffed at me, so we just kind of did what we wanted.  It was great. :)

But anyways, we left the park before it closed 'cause we were cold (sitting at the top of the Ferris Wheel for 5 minutes with the wind blowing really sealed the deal). But we get to the KOA "kabins" where we stayed the night and what do we find? No heat!! There was much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. And scavenging for anything of warmth. Mike had the foresight to bring handwarmers, and there was an extra blanket in the car, so we all wore tons of layers and snuggled up inside our sleeping bags and actually slept pretty well, despite the whining. And the constant "whisper whisper" giggle giggle "shh!!" cycle. Apparently when it's just the three of us, we get pretty silly. :D

We went to church the next morning before we headed home, looking forward to the warmth of a heated building. We were wrong! It was COLD in that there chapel!  Brr. Needless to say, the heat was cranked waaaaay up in the car on the way home. But overall it was a fun trip--I'm glad we finally got to do it.   And I'm glad that no one died.  :)

Ok, just posting this now 'cause I'm not sure how long they'll be free, and I've got 45 minutes while the baby is still asleep....

Amazon's got some great free music downloads, if anyone's interested.  The Sarah Chang is fantastic, and what I've listened to of "I love the '80s (1880s)" is great too.  Gotta love amazon freebies. :D

At everything.  I got caught up for a bit, and then life happens and one gets completely uncaught up again.  And by life I mean laziness. :)  Although that laziness did lead to some procrastination, which led to some AWESOME Music Man promo pics I yanked from flickr/ebay, some great Captain Blood pics from the same place, and bidding on some Broadway stuff on ebay (how can I possibly wait 4 more days to find out if I won?!  Yes, I finally get the appeal of ebay, about 6 years behind everyone else. :D)

Of course, I did manage to finish transferring all of our family videos/sundry other videos we've taped on VHS to DVD, which is nice. I feel so accomplished. :)  And my grad school application essay for Maryland is about half done, which is exciting.  What else--oh!  I finally managed to finish Rabelais and His World by Bakhtin.  Would have made more sense if I'd actually done any kind of extensive reading of Pantagruel or Gargantua. As it was, got some good "theory" ideas to use for my next paper, and then realized I won't be writing any more of those.... *shrugs* Glad I read it though, if only for the pride factor.  I think I may be the only person ever to read that book for "fun."  :)

Well, I guess I managed to make inroads on more things than I realized!  Good thing too, 'cause Mom and Dad are leaving again.  Dad's work is having some sort of couple's trip/conference thingy, so they are leaving Monday morning and back Thursday night or Friday sometime.  I swear, they've gone on more trips during the last month and a half than they have in the last two years.  But I'm still going to Cedar Point on Saturday, with the brother and sister, come hell or high water.  :)  We've booked our campsite, and we're ready.  Now please keep your fingers crossed that it won't rain--I don't care what the 10 day forecast says, we are THINKING POSITIVE!

And am I the only one who really wants to go see the Toy Story double feature in 3-D? For some reason, I really want to go and see it. I think I need to get out more... :)

Anyways, pictures!
( Madame Libraaaaaaaaaarian )   
( Olivia de Havilland! ) 

Oh, I'm so glad Mom and Dad are back and in charge.  Makes life so much easier.  I can get back to writing grad school essays (ick) and transferring all our old VHS tapes to DVD.  All the family videos, and all the old movies we taped off TV that you really can't buy on DVD now...it's actually been surprisingly relaxing. :)  Yea, this post basically has no point, just that my stress load has decreased exponentially and I am still procrastinating writing the grad school essays. :)

But how can you resist this?


Or this?



Why yes, I did get "Captain Blood" for my birthday, why do you ask? :)

I guess cliches are cliches for a reason, right?  They're usually pretty true.  Anyways.  So last night, late, we got the call that my maternal grandmother had passed away.  She's been sick for a long time, and they had called us Monday night to tell us that she wouldn't make it through the night, so we'd been expecting this call for a while, although more like Tuesday morning, not late Saturday night.  So what does this mean?  That clearly I shouldn't have been so eager to get Mom and Dad back.  Since we'd just gone out to see the grandparents as a family about a month ago, and since it is the second week of school, only Mom and Dad are going out for the funeral.  It's going to be Saturday or Monday (to give everyone a chance to get into town/into the country), so Mom and Dad are leaving Tuesday and won't be back until the following Tuesday.  And I'm gonna be really petty, but that means our Cedar Point trip is off again (I'm beginning to think we shouldn't reschedule it; people keep dying!), which I'm actually really disappointed about.

All our friends and everyone at church though have been really supportive, even offering to babysit the three year old since work has scheduled me every morning this week and the 15 year old and 17 year old have to go to school.  But I'm hesitant to let anyone babysit the baby, especially those with little kids of their own, cause he's so big and exuberant that he often ends up hurting other kids inadvertently.  And he's still learning how to share, which often results in advertent hitting and/or shoving.  So basically, I'm gonna go into work tomorrow and beg off as many of my shifts as possible (which probably won't be many, because I'm pretty much the only person they have who can open the store), and for whatever shifts I can't get off the kids will take turns staying home.  Oh boy, another week without Mom to calm and soothe the baby; it's gonna be fun.

And I'm gonna be petty again.  The first time in five years I'm gonna be home and with the family for my birthday, and Mom and Dad aren't gonna be home.  I'm really more upset about petty things than I am about my grandmother passing away.  She's been in such pain for a long time that it's hard for me to be sad that she isn't yet continuing to suffer.  And I'd only see her once or twice a year; I don't feel that I've really lost something yet--not seeing her is normal.  At the moment, I'm more upset and worried about the stress and responsibility that's going to come from taking care of everybody (again) for the next 8 or 9 days.  *sigh*  But Mom gets to go and say goodbye; that's the whole point anyway.

Seriously, babysitting one's siblings is quite exhausting.  Best deterrent for single parenthood/pregnancy I know. :)  I figured the three year old would drive me crazy, but I had no idea how exhausting it is to keep the 8 year old and the 10 year old from trying to kill each other.   And holy cow--all the cleaning and housekeeping!  A gabillion loads of laundry, and all the kitchen cleanup, and Saturday morning chores....and the 2 year old discovered where we hid the marbles (and the marble track/things), so we've been stepping on marbles all day and picking them up at least twice an hour.  I am exhausted.

On the bright side, the parents return tomorrow night and can resume their parenting duties!  I am quite anxious to relinquish power. :)

On the anticipatory side, we've rescheduled the Cedar Point trip and bought the tickets and booked a campsite and everything.  *is excited*

Guess who discovered Warner Brothers Archive today?  They were gracious enough to send me a birthday (birthmonth) coupon, and so I decided I might as well poke around in their shop.  After lots of drooling, I narrowed the list down to three movies from their archive:
"Hard to Get" starring Olivia de Havilland
"Strawberry Blonde" starring Olivia de Havilland and James Cagney
"How Sweet It Is" starring Debbie Reynolds and James Garner

And then happened to look at the total and nearly had a heart attack, even with the coupon.  $60!  But oh, there is a large part of me just wanting to press that lovely orange "checkout" button.  I like fluffly romantic/screwball comedies, especially those with Olivia de Havilland or James Garner (like the movie he did with Doris Day--"The Thrill of It All".  Very funny. :D)  I think I'll wait until it's closer to my birthday and happen to direct the family to the site... :)  In the meantime, this is the digital equivalent of tying a string to my finger to remember which ones I want! :)

( The crazies! )

My brother and sister and I have been planning a trip to Cedar Point for a week or so, which has now been delayed.  We just found out that a family friend passed away, and the funeral is on the day we planned our trip for.  We used to be really close to this family, but then they moved and we moved, and so we kind of lost touch.  But you know the kind of people that you're always close to, even if you haven't talked in a while?  That's the way this family was with my family.  So when we found out that he died, my parents immediately booked plane tickets out for the funeral, and so the Cedar Point trip is off so that me and the brother and the sister can stay home and babysit the kids.  Which actually, I'm really happy to do.  I mean, we haven't talked to this family in probably 3 years, but the wife asked Dad to speak at the funeral, and seriously, the minute Mom and Dad heard that he died, they had me looking at plane tickets to see when they could get out there.  It'll be good for Mom and Dad to go; they used to be really close to the family--the rest of us were really little when our families were close.  And hey, Mom and Dad had no objections to us doing our Cedar Point trip three weekends from now, instead of this weekend, so we're even happier to help out. :) 
(sorry about the horrendous pronoun--antecedent relationships in that paragraph...to

 

It's been quite a busy week here!  I kept picking up extra shifts at work (including one more tomorrow), which is good, but requires a lot of standing.  My feet hurt.  But earning money is always nice.  Especially since the wallet took quite a hit this week.  I bought a bunch of new skirts (they're swooshy and swishy, quite nice, actually :D), and then found the second season of "Full House" in the bargain bin ($8--yes, I know it's cheesy, but childhood memories!!) so I bought it.  Apparently this was also the week for childhood nostalgia, 'cause on the strength of my liking for "The Swan Princess" I bought the second and third movies.  Yes, they're lame, but hey, they have halfway decent musical numbers, and Douglas Sills is in the second one... :D

Then my brother got all four of his wisdom teeth taken out today--poor guy can't talk, but he has some strong pain meds, so he's pretty ok, instead of dying in pain.  I've been telling hiim all week it's like having your brain sucked out through your teeth, but really I can't remember much about having my wisdom teeth out, so I've just been having fun teasing him. :)  But he's doing well, so we're happy.

Of course, while they were gone getting his wisdom teeth out, I had to stay home with the 2 year old.  Which isn't usually bad--we put in "Cars" and he's usually pretty content.  But today the power went out really soon after they left, and of course, only flickered back on once they got home.  Annoying as anything--I couldn't figure out how to entertain the baby without tearing the house apart at the same time!

I did start on my online application for grad school, which is good.  Now I just need to remind the people I asked about letters of recommendation, and look at financial aid possibilities.... *crosses fingers*

Anyways, the two year old just woke up--off to watch him for a bit longer!  Hopefully he''ll be calmer than he was this morning--he was taking all the cushions off the couch and building a combination slide/tower.  The living room was a wreck! :)

Lots and lots of books, necessitating a rearrangement of the bookshelves factoring in room to grow.  I'd say "too many," but something in me wrenches at the thought... Oh well, it's a good excuse to put on The Mummy and be conveniently looking away at the violent/gory/scarab beetle bits. :)  *needs Mummy icon*

Those who like Neil Diamond, and those who don't.  :)  CBS or ABC or one of the networks aired a Neil Diamond concert tonight, and it was great.  He got old(!), and can't/didn't sing as well as I remembered, but it was still good.  Gotta love "Sweet Caroline" and "America" and "Cracklin' Rosie" and all the others. :)

Seriously, I *really* want popsicles.  Specifically Big Stick popsicles, which are apparently a blend of cherry and pineapple, but which are unavailable in boxes due to being an "impulse item."  Lame.  I want a popsicle or ice cream to cool down my sore throat (yes, I know that makes no sense, but it really helps), and I can't even have my popsicle of choice.  And I can't really have ice cream 'cause the goal now is to lose the 20 pounds or so that I've gained this summer.  On the bright side, 3 of those pounds have been lost--hopefully permanently!   :)

But seriously, I want popsicles.

I have no voice! I woke up Saturday with a sore throat, same thing on Sunday, and after my Sunday nap, I had no voice at all. None. I squeak and rasp; comparisons have been made to "The Godfather." (which I don't really get, but apparently someone with a raspy voice makes a prominent appearance?) And everyone thinks its hilarious to pretend they didn't hear me so I squeak out my request again. Curse them all! And then yesterday was my first day of work with a couple of people (including the manager) and do you know how hard it is to do that whole small talk/rapport building stuff when you can't talk? Very hard...very hard indeed.  Luckily my voice is a bit better today, since I had to work again.  Hopefully it fully recovers soon--I feel like an idiot rasping and squeaking when I talk! 

And now I have the urge to watch The Scarlet Pimpernel. I've been on an Anthony Andrews kick recently--just found out he played Ivanhoe in the 1982 miniseries of the same name.  I rushed out and bought it, and while I liked it, it wasn't nearly as good as Pimpernel.  Having never read Ivanhoe, this was the first time I'd really encountered the plot, and I disliked how a). Ivanhoe was out of the action wounded for a large amount of time, and b). how this miniseries implies that Ivanhoe's a bit of a heel, professing undying love for Rowena in one breath and talking about the love that "might have been" for Rebecca in the next breath, and in the next breath after that, kisses Rebecca.  And then keeps talking about possibly loving Rebecca, and then seeing Rowena again and going back to professing undying love for her.  I suppose it can be handled well, but here it just looked like waffling and made Ivanhoe seem weak and a bit of a heel.  I dunno how it's handled in the book, but I didn't like it at all.  Anyways.  Did you know Anthony Andrews played Prof. Higgins in some West End productions of "My Fair Lady"?  That I definitely want to see.  When I saw MFL on stage, Higgins was portly and exuded no charm whatsoever--I truly didn't want Eliza to end up with him, which really puts the whole musical in a different light.  But I would love to see Anthony Andrews as Higgins--swoonworthy! :D

My first day of work--first time ever as a retail employee--was good.  Coworkers were helpful, customers were understanding, and the shift was only 4 hours.  Only problem?  I forgot how much standing is involved in these types of jobs (cashier type jobs).  My feet hurt, and it made my strained/pseudo-sprained ankle start to swell up again.  Lame.  Other than that, life is good. :)

Samuel French has published the script/libretto to "Anne & Gilbert" and it's available for purchase here.  Yes, I'm a dork for liking this show, and I not it's not "great art" or anything, but I enjoy it.  And it's awesome! :D  I was quite excited to see it available, since I'm not going to PEI anytime soon and I want to know the storyline for the musical and how all the songs fit in.  Yea!

So, I (am 95% sure I) got a second job!  Ever since work cut my hours from 40 to 10 a week since I basically finished my big project, I've been looking for a second job.  After about 6 or 7 interviews, I think today I finally got hired--and it's not food service (thank goodness!).  Tomorrow I go in and do all the paperwork and stuff.  The lady did tell me she thought I'd average about 9 hours a week, but hey, any little bit helps.  And hopefully running around a retail store (without any food for sale in sight) will help me lose the 20 pounds I gained this summer (isn't that insane?  I have no idea how it happened--curse a sedentary job and money for junk food). 

So I have 3432 songs in my iTunes.  That's insane.  And I would bet 3300 of them are soundtracks or show tunes.  Yea for Broadway!  I'm rediscovering "Ragtime" and seriously, "Back to Before" is an amazing song.  I found the sheet music for $5 at a used bookstore, and there have been many happy hours of me playing and singing along.  I love my sheet music collection, which is also all Broadway and soundtracks (like the gorgeous Dario Marianelli "Pride and Prejudice").  Now, if the powers that be (whoever they are) would publish the sheet music for Rachel Portman's gorgeous score to the HBO movie "Grey Gardens" I would be quite ecstatic.

And what with my finds this weekend and last weekend (especially at some wonderful used bookstores) my collection is rapidly outgrowing the shelves of my bedroom.  But look at the pretties!  The Art of Anastasia (for $10!), some Georgette Heyers (really, I'm one away from completing my collection--well, excepting her modern novels), some Pride and Prejudice continuations (leave my fluff alone--I figure if I'm reading Bakhtin's Rabelais and his World for fun, I can read bad P&P chick lit), The Mummy novelization (same deal), and Jean Kerr's Please Don't Eat the Daisies which I bought only 'cause it had a picture of Doris Day and David Niven (from the movie of the same name) on the cover, but was surprisingly hilarious.  And DVD wise, I got the second seasons of both Pushing Daisies and Early Edition.  *swoons over Gary Hobson*  Apparently, Anna Friel is in a stage production of "Breakfast at Tiffany's"--I want to go see it!  I also got Possession by A. S. Byatt.  I've read it before, but over a period of months, so this time I'm gonna try and read it without all the gaps in between.  The movie was pretty good, I thought (from what little I remembered of the book!)


Sometimes I think my favorite part of road trips/vacations is the long car ride on the way there, or the way back.  I always get so much reading done, although never as much as I'd like--too many distractions in the forms of my siblings!  But this time around I finished The Triumph of the Scarlet Pimpernel, both the 3rd and 4th volumes of L. M. Montgomery's journals--one more to go.  That poor lady had such a depressing life....I almost don't want to finish her journals.  But she has (forgive the cliche) such a way with words.  Compelling, even in the worst times.  Oh, and the novelization of The Mummy--that author sounded like a wannabe Nobel Prize for literature winner, or something.  Very overblown prose.  But still enjoyable, if only for Evy's proud declaration of librarianship. :)

And vacation was quite enjoyable.  Always good to spend time with the family, and Nauvoo was gorgeous, and not humid at all.  I especially loved the fair/games/dance before the pageant, although I think the dancing was the most fun!  But it's nice to be back home.  Even if I do have to go to work tomorrow and yet still have nothing to do.  *shrugs*

I was rereading some of my earlier entries...this has really turned more into a chronicle of my fandom obsessions.  Oh well; I guess I took that whole internet/safety/don't reveal too much personal information thing to heart. :)

Dear Target,
I love you.  So much.  Really--I do.  After you first got me hooked on the wonder that is "The Pretender" due to your awesome (awesome!) deal where I got the first two seasons together for $20, I looked all over the world for a fairly cheap price on the last two seasons.  After I was unable to find them for less than $40 (including trying to order them used at a reputable online shop only to be told they were no longer available after waiting for 2 weeks), and was getting ready to buy them from amazon, I went shopping again and what do you have for me?  The last two seasons bundled together for $20.  It made my week.  Thank you for being amazing.

And I'm only slightly kidding. :)

Switching subjects: I watched the whole Oceans trilogy over the weekend (yes I realize I'm like way behind the times) and after I finished, I wanted to go read some good Danny and Tess fanfic, cause I thought they were cute.  And I couldn't find any--none at least that weren't hinting at Danny and Rusty being romantically together or anything like that.  It made me mad-why can I never find fic for the pairings/fandoms I want?  This happens fairly often, although to be fair I do want fic in some fairly obscure (or completely nonexistent) fandoms, but there is apparently a lot of fic for the Oceans universe--just none of it for the CANON PAIRING that is Danny and Tess.  Curses.