Ihop and being annoying resteraunt patrons....

Lois is scheduled to work Fri (yesterday) today, and tomorrow. Well last night we met up at Ihop and grabbed some food. We talked about our Thanksgiving dinners and got caught up.

I then asked if she had a thing on her phone that when you open your text messages and press pound a computer reads your texts to you. She said no, so I let her listen to some of mine. This computer tries to pronounce things EXACTLY as they are typed. Which is really funny when you text in pirate talk. We spent half an hour or so just listening to my text messages and laughing so hard tears were rolling. The manager came out to see if we were ok. The waitress was trying to figure out why we were laughing, so I let her listen to one of my texts. She started laughing so hard I thought she was going to hit the floor.
We lost all the calories we ate just by laughing. It was a good night.

Comical little mishap.....

I decided yesterday that I would put up my Christmas lights. It's nothing too difficult. USUALLY takes MAYBE 20 mins to do. I outline my front porch eave with lights. I put two strands up and realized I was a strand short, and I couldn't find my extension cord. I figure it's probably "borrowed" by some local musicians that used to practice in my garage.
Well, I had to run Austin to work since his car is without a heater. I decided to run to Alco after dropping him off. We got there WAY to early so he hung out with me for about a half hour. I picked up what I needed to finish my light job, dropped him off at work, and was looking forward to finishing up.
I got home put up the last strand and realized I strung them up BACKWARDS. My extension cord would be hanging right in the middle of my front steps and across my front porch. Thankfully I didn't have to take down the last strand. Just the first two. After hanging them back up CORRECTLY I was able to sit back and wait for the timer to turn them on.

Now, I have my lights up, my shopping FINISHED, gifts halfway wrapped, It's a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Story, How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the cartoon) and Charlie Brown's Christmas watched, and now to get my tree up and wrap the rest of the gifts. And it's not even December. LOL.

Parental Warning.......

There's a children's movie coming out Dec 7 "The Golden Compass". I read the reviews and it sounded like a good movie until I started researching it.....

This movie is based on the book by the same name. It's written by a devoted ATHEIST who HATES CS Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia so much he decided to write this book... In it the kids "Kill God" (Which we all know is completely impossible) and take control of their own lives doing whatever they want.

Here's just ONE of the editorials I found when I googled this title......
The New York-based Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights already is calling for a boycott of the film The Golden Compass, saying the book on which it is based furthers an atheist agenda. Now it's calling on the book's publisher to disassociate itself from any future films based on author Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series.

"The author of these books, Philip Pullman, does not disguise his hatred of Christianity, especially the Roman Catholic Church," league President William Donohue wrote in a letter to Richard Robinson, CEO of Scholastic Corporation. "Why, then, would Scholastic be associated with such bigotry?"

Donohue goes on to write, "Christians need to be convinced that Scholastic will never again work with militant atheists who have an animus against their religion. Catholics, in particular, want to be certain that purchasing Scholastic materials does not indirectly fund campaigns against them. To this end, we look for Scholastic to pledge that in the event a movie version of Pullman’s other two books, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass, is launched, it will have nothing to do with them. This would reassure Christians that the "Golden Compass" venture was an anomaly."

The league is on record as saying The Golden Compass is the least atheistic of Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, and has acknowledged that the movie, to be released Dec. 7, may very well leave out some of the elements it finds most offensive (the filmmakers are on record saying as much). But that's not enough for league officials, who say they fear the movie's success could lead to increased sales of Pullman's books.

All I ask is that you do your own research and decide for yourself.

A strange request......

I know it's safe to put this here since he NEVER reads my blog.. here goes.....

I asked Austin what he wanted for Christmas and besides music he wrote.... “Heart felt letters.” Now I took that literally so I cut out a heart out of construction paper and cut out L-E-T-T-E-R-S out of felt and stuck them in an envelope.

Then I thought, what if he’s serious? So here’s where you come in. From now until Dec 19 I will be collecting letters. They can be
1. handwritten, typed, or emailed.
2. as short or as long as you want.
3 You can write one letter for the whole family, or each individual members can write one. Choice is yours.

If you are sending more than one letter you can put them all in one envelope or separate ones.

There are 3 ways you can get them to me.....

You can mail the letter(s) to me (email me for address if you need it..), you can give them to my mom when you see her, or you can email them to me.

If you mail them and you put it in only one envelope please write Austin somewhere outside the envelope so I won’t open it.


I am hoping to have a medium size box FILLED with letters from family and his friends. (Thank you Ashley for helping with the friends part)

Remember this is a Christmas surprise so please don’t tell him.

Thank you for your cooperation,
Angela

Things I never knew about the Sound of Music.....

I was looking at Carrie's blog again recently and I had this overwhelming desire to watch The Sound of Music... I do have the 40th anniversary 2 disk set and I NEVER watched the second disk.... OH..... WOW.......

They had an interview with ALL seven of the "children." They each told of bloopers they did that got in the film. For example.... Have you ever noticed that little Martha is mouthing the words to "My favorite Things" before the kids were supposed to "know" it?
or that during the Do-Re-Me song the two oldest girls are supposed to mirror each other as everyone is going up the steps? Lisel and Louisa are supposed to be on the same step. Lisel is on the step below, so Louisa steps down at the same time Lisel steps up so Louisa steps up too. Or how about the fact that the oldest boy had to dye his hair? Or that third oldest girl was asked to wear a blond wig until they decided to go with her natural hair color?

The "children" also talked about the relationship between them and Julie Andrews and Christoper Plummer. Supposedly the kids were terrified of Chris. He was standoffish and never spent time with them. Julie on the other hand played games and told stories to them. It really showed in the movie. There was always that tension in the father/kids scenes.

Also I found out that the scene where the kids are singing for the first time for the Baroness was the very last scene they did together. Right before the scene, the director pulled the kids aside and said "This is it, after this scene you are completely done." The tears in that scene were genuine.


The second disk also has interviews with Julie and Christoper. Plus the story of the real Von Trapps. (The real Maria sold the book rights to a Foreign movie Director for $9,000. Rodgers and Hammerstein bought them from that director for several million.)
It also has the premiere of the Sound of Music singalong. Which is EXACTLY what it sounds like. In some of the bigger cities they showed the movie in sold out theaters. Some people came in dressed up as different characters. There was even two girls dressed up to look like curtains hanging on a curtain rod. During the movie whenever a song is sung the words are on screen for everyone to sing along with. I think that would be so much fun.

I watched the movie last night, and now I have the "hankering" to watch it again. LOL

Holiday countdown........

Well I'm now officially counting the working days till Thanksgiving and Christmas. We only have 7 working days till Thanksgiving. We get a 3 day weekend this weekend, and a 4 day weekend for Thanksgiving...

Also been hearing RUMORS (you know how those go) that we're going to have from Thanksgiving till Jan 2 off work. Hey you won't hear me complain if that's true. If it's not true..... Well.. that's ok too. It will only mean I'll have 27 working days till Christmas.

I'm ready for turkey (and no, I'm not talking about my siblings, although they are big turkeys. Ashley I know what you're going to say....... "HEY" LOL)

Playing the poor victim role very well.....

I went to a department store this weekend and I decided to get 10% off by applying for a charge card. My whole idea is to apply, pay it off, and then cancel. I'm SOOOO glad I did....

I was asked to enter my Soc Sec. number. When I did, the cashier looked at me strangely and said "Are you Ryan?" Of course I said NO. She cleared it out and I tried again. Some Ryan guy in Columbus IN is USING my SSN. I wrote down his full name and address. To say I was feeling a little nauseous would be like saying the Mississippi River is a little creek.

I went home and IMMEDIATLY checked my credit report... There's NOTHING out of the ordinary. This Ryan's name never came up. No strange charge cards, and no loans in my name. So, I then went to the SS website and requested an updated Social Security statement thats mailed out every year.

First thing tomorrow morning I'm hightailing it to the SS office in K and see what they can do to help. I know they can give me a new number, but the old number would still be used. I'm also going to ask if I should report it to the police.

Anybody have some chocolate????