Life With Roo

2009 Movies

2009-12-31T11:20:00.003-05:00

Haven't blogged in almost a year, but I do this every year, so here goes. Here's my list of 2009 movies I saw in 2009.

Full list of movies released in 2009 here.

(bold, in movie theater/drive in)
Bride Wars
Hotel for Dogs
Paul Blart: Mall Cop
He's just not that into you
FanBoys
Confessions of a Shopaholic
Push
Fired Up
I Love You, Man
Monsters vs. Aliens
Adventureland
Fast and Furious
17 Again
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Terminator Salvation
Dance Flick
Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
Up
The Hangover
Land of the Lost
The Proposal
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
The Ugly Truth
Aliens in the Attic
Funny People
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Couples Retreat
The Box
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel

20 movies in theater or drive-in/ 32 overall

That's down 5 overall from last year and 4 from the theaters. I saw that's because this years movies weren't that great overall especially in the summer, but that's my opinion. It might be easier to pick my top 5 least favorite movies this year, but I'll give my 5 five favorites a try.

Top 5 for 2009:
1. The Hangover
2. Funny People
3. The Proposal
4. Couple Retreat
5. Hotel For Dogs

Looks like it was a year for the comedy for me.

Just for fun my top 5 LEAST favorite movies of 2009:
1. Adventureland (just pure terrible)
2. Push (I fell asleep)
3. The Box (it was bad)
4. Dance Flick (only funny as a trailer)
5. He's Just Not that Into you (not what I was expecting from such a great cast)

Christmas Gifts

2009-03-26T11:29:00.002-04:00

I know its March and a little late to be talking about Christmas gifts, but I never got around to sharing the gifts that I made for Riley's teachers. This year I decided to make cookies and cocoa. With Debbie's expert baking help, I was able to produce some decent tasting cookies, and with Doug's shrink wrap and bow tying skills, I was able to make the presentation look nice. Actually, Doug had no idea how to tie a bow, he watched a 5 minute You Tube video and was able to make these very cool bows all while I was still going.. "HUH????" He's good like that. I bought a big jar of Ghiradelli cocoa mix and separated it into smaller baggies which I placed into the mugs along with a candy cane to stir with. I hand wrote directions on how to make the hot chocolate on a tag which I tied to the hot chocolate baggie. I made up a quick tag that said "Cookies and Cocoa", listed out the types of cookies in the tin and put a few stickers on it. On the back side of the tag, I put the 4 photos of Riley that I used on my Christmas cards.

I waited until the last minute to make these, so I got the tins and mugs at 60% off at Joann's and I got the ornaments at 75% off at Kohls. I tried the best I could to match up the ornaments with something each teacher liked to do. Unfortunately, I don't know much about Julie, so I just gave her a standard bell. She was a student teacher at the time, but Riley absolutely loves her and insisted we give her a gift also.

I got a lot of compliments on the gifts, so I think the teachers liked them. By far the best cookies in there were the Oatmeal Butterscotch ones. I had never had them before, Debbie showed me how to make them in a bar shape and they came out super yummie. Just thinking about them makes me want to make some more!

Neglected Blog

2009-03-05T12:16:00.003-05:00

Well, I haven't started the year out very well on the blogging front. The whole point in doing this blog was to use it to help remember all the little things that happen in our lives. I'm going to try and do better with the blog from now on. I have a list of things that I should write about to catch up on, but since hockey has really been in the fore front of my mind lately, I think I'll focus this entry on how my hockey photography has improved over the course of this years RIT season. Hockey is a very new sport for me, I've always been a basketball girl, but after seeing a few RIT games last season, I am now hooked. I can't believe its taken me this long to realize how much fun hockey is, especially RIT hockey. Our whole family has gotten into it which makes it even more fun. It's something we can all do together. Photography is a hobby of mine as I'm sure you know, so putting them together seems logical. I love sports photography, but don't get a lot of opportunities to shoot it. Basketball really is the only sport I've photographed. Well, I guess also I could count the high school football games of my brothers I photographed with my 35mm camera, but that was Sooo long ago. Learning the game of hockey over the course of the year (Thanks Deb!), I can really see an improvement in my hockey photography. I can now somewhat predict where the good action will be. I still have a long ways to go, but here's a little look at how my hockey photography has improved over the course of this RIT hockey season.

First game:

Faceoffs, learning how to stop the action, so you can see the puck. Other than that not much good about this photo

Alittle improvement, I captured the celebration after a goal. Photos still alittle dark.

An okay in action shot:

Action shot, but way blurry:

A better angle on the faceoff

Good facial expressions

Getting better, goal shot

Better:

Nice angle:

Latest photos I've processed, very happy with these:

I know I still have alot to learn about the game of hockey and a lot to learn about photographing hockey, but I must say I am truly truly enjoying both! I'm so glad hockey is a part of my life now.. I can't believe I went so long without it.

GO TIGERS!

My InaguralPhoto.com Photo!

2009-01-21T10:46:00.002-05:00

This was fun. Couldn't go to the inauguration, Just go to MyInauguralPhoto.com, powered by online photo editing software provider FotoFlexer, and pretend you were there, right behind the new president of the United States as he was sworn in.

Can you see me?

Haven't done one in a while

2009-01-16T13:41:00.002-05:00

Friday Fill-in

1. Enough with the iPhones.

2. iPhone causes me to be conflicted.

3. I've been craving iPhone.

4. iPhone makes me laugh.

5. I wish I could go to the store and buy an iPhone next week.

6. iPhone has been on my mind lately.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to poker where everyone has an iPhone but me, tomorrow my plans include RIT hockey where everyone has an iPhone but me and Sunday, I want to go ice skating where everyone has an iPhone but me!

Ice Skating

2009-01-04T18:35:00.002-05:00

Riley finished her first Ice Skating lessons today. She's starting again in a few weeks. Debbie skated with us today. We didn't know she was coming, so we were surprised. Riley was excited to show off her new skates and what she's learned in skating so far.

Rest of the set here.

In other weekend news, we had poker and everyone had fun trying to solve the puzzles I got Doug for Christmas and Riley and I had fun playing the new game she got from the Gotobeds!

Happy New Year

2009-01-03T17:31:00.003-05:00

We had a very relaxing New Years Day. We watched the Redwings defeat the Blackhawks 6-3 in the NHL Winter Classic and Riley played hockey in our living room during and after the game. She warmed up to Let it Rock by Kevin Rudolf just like the RIT Tigers do and then she rocked back and forth during the Star Spangled Banner, and then she made 3 goals in 3 pretend periods. In between each period, I drove the Zamboni. After the game, I interviewed her and every answer was "good", then she took a pretend shower because she smelled like hockey stink, then a crazy fan (me) asked her for an autograph and a had my photo taken with her. Then we started all over again. Good times!

These photos didn't come out that great though, apparently there was a huge fingerprint smudge on the camera lens. Oh well, they are cute anyway.

2008 movies

2008-12-31T12:09:00.004-05:00

Thought I should at least have one post in December.. Here's my list of 2008 movies I saw.

List of all 2008 movies here

(bold, in movie theater/drive in)
27 Dresses
Cloverfield
Fool's Gold
Definitely, Maybe
Jumper
Vantage Point
Semi-Pro
College Road Trip
Horton Hears a Who
Drillbit Taylor
21
The Forbidden Kingdom
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Baby Mama
Iron Man
What Happens in Vegas
Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
Sex and the City
Kung Fu Panda
You Don't Mess with Zohan
The Incredible Hulk
Get Smart
The Love Guru
Wall-E
Wanted
Hancock
Hellboy 2
Journey to the Center of the Earth
The Dark Knight
Step Brothers
The Mummy
Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2
Tropic Thunder
Zach and Miri make a Porno
Madagascar 2
Bolt
Twilight

24 movies in the theater/drive in. 37 movies overall.

My top 6 for 2008:
1. The Dark Knight
2. Iron Man
3. Zack and Miri make a porno
4. 21
5. Hancock
6. Kung Fu Panda

Sappy but it brings me to tears

2008-11-26T10:42:00.003-05:00

Congratulations to Brooke and Derek for winning Dancing With the Stars season 7. I was really rooting for them to win more so for Derek than Brooke cause I gots a little crush on that boy, but I thought Brooke was amazing all season. I was also rooting for Lance (my Nsync boy!) and he so should have been in the final with Brooke. I think Brooke's Vienese Waltz might be my favorite dance this season and I'm glad she chose to do it again in the finals. It's the first time ever that I've actually gotten teary eyed watching someone dance. It must be because I'm a Mom now. Something special happens on this show when they pair the perfect music with the perfect dancers and the perfect choreography. And can I say I love that song with someone other than John Mayer singing it! Enjoy!

99 things and a bitch ain't one

2008-11-25T15:59:00.003-05:00

I never do these when they come to me in emails, but I'm a sucker for putting them on my blog. This one is called, Things I've done and I found it here. So you're supposed to copy the list of 99 random things and then cross off all the things that you've done. Hmm maybe it'll spark some potential scrapbook pages or stories to share here. Here goes:

~~Started your own blog~~
Slept under the stars
~~Played in a band~~
~~Visited Hawaii~~
Watched a meteor shower
Given more than you can afford to charity
~~Been to Disneyland/world~~
~~Climbed a mountain~~
Held a praying mantis
Sang a solo
~~Bungee jumped~~
Visited Paris
Watched a lightning storm at sea
~~Taught yourself an art from scratch~~
Adopted a child
~~Had food poisoning~~
Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
~~Grown your own vegetables~~ (Well I helped my dad when I little)
Seen the Mona Lisa in France
Slept on an overnight train
~~Had a pillow fight~~
Hitch hiked
~~Taken a sick day when you’re not ill~~
~~Built a snow fort~~
Held a lamb
~~Gone skinny dipping~~
Run a Marathon
Ridden in a gondola in Venice
~~Seen a total eclipse~~
~~Watched a sunrise or sunset~~
Hit a home run
Been on a cruise
~~Seen Niagara Falls in person~~
Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
~~Seen an Amish community~~
Taught yourself a new language
Had enough money to be truly satisfied
Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
Gone rock climbing
Seen Michelangelo’s David in person
Sung karaoke
Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt in person
Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
Visited Africa
Walked on a beach by moonlight
Been transported in an ambulance
Had your portrait painted
Gone deep sea fishing
Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
~~Gone scuba diving or snorkeling~~ (it was snorkeling)
~~Kissed in the rain~~
~~Played in the mud~~
~~Gone to a drive-in theater~~
Been in a movie - This is an interesting one, what's the definition of movie here. LOL..
Visited the Great Wall of China
Started a business
Taken a martial arts class
Visited Russia
Served at a soup kitchen
~~Sold Girl Scout Cookies~~
~~Gone whale watching~~
~~Got flowers for no reason~~
Donated blood, platelets or plasma
Gone sky diving
Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
~~Bounced a check~~
~~Flown in a helicopter~~
~~Saved a favorite childhood toy~~
~~Visited the Lincoln Memorial~~
Eaten Caviar
Pieced a quilt
~~Stood in Times Square~~
Toured the Everglades
~~Been fired from a job~~
Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
Broken a bone
Been on a speeding motorcycle
~~Seen the Grand Canyon in person~~
Published a book
Visited the Vatican
~~Bought a brand new car~~
Walked in Jerusalem
~~Had your picture in the newspaper~~
Read the entire Bible
~~Visited the White House~~
Killed and prepared an animal for eating
~~Had chickenpox~~
Saved someone’s life
Sat on a jury
~~Met someone famous~~
Joined a book club
~~Lost a loved one~~
~~Had a baby~~
Seen the Alamo in person
Swam in the Great Salt Lake
Been involved in a law suit
~~Owned a cell phone~~
~~Been stung by a bee~~

Interesting list. There are a lot of things on this list I want to do and some things I would not wish to do (kill and prepare an animal for eating). Wonder what the list will look like in 5 or 10 years from now?

If you've got an hour, enjoy some of my latest photos

2008-11-20T16:17:00.004-05:00

Ok I was seriously behind on my photo processing. I spent all last night catching up, and I managed to process and post all the recent photos waiting on my hard drive, but I still have a bunch still on my memory card that need to be uploaded to my hard drive and then processed, but hey one step at a time. When I say I spent all last night on this, I really spent a lot of time, (after all there is NOTHING on tv on Wednesdays and since I had control of the computer I wasn't about to give it up to Doug to play his video game), but it feels good to be mostly caught up. I had photos going back to September still to process. Here's a look at some of my favorites and links to the rest of the sets:

Dansville Hot Air Balloon Festival

Coloring with Riley

This was a game night turned coloring with Riley night. We were playing Wii and while Deb was sitting out one round she asked Riley to color, and from that point on everyone took turns coloring with Riley.

Doug's Poker Birthday

Barktoberfest

There's something about this photo I really love. It's not the best photo of Nyssa and its not even the best photos I took at Barktoberfest, but I just love it. I took it while we were waiting for Riley to finish jumping in the bounce house. It's like she's saying, "OK Dad, when's it gonna be my turn to play?"

Random Everyday Life

Riley actually took this photo. She's becoming quite the little photographer. There are some funny photos in this set. Some random everyday life kind of photos. Stuff that didn't fit anywhere else, but were fun and I wanted to share.

Kai's Poker Birthday

Riley Fall Photos at Tinker Nature Center

Riley at swimming lessons

I also uploaded 2 videos for the first time in this set. They are set to friends and family only. Uploading videos was cool. I like having them right in the set with the photos that go along with them.

Pumpkin Patch

Pumpkin Carving

Seneca Park Zoo Boo

Halloween Trick or Treating

And some RIT hockey photos. I think after the seasons over I'll do entry showing off my favorite from the season. Photographing hockey is hard, but I think I'm starting to get some good shots. The more I learn about hockey, the easier its getting.

RIT vs. Holy Cross
RIT vs. Clarkson
RIT vs. St. Lawrence

I came up with all kinds of ideas for scrapbook pages based on the photos I processed last night, so I'm looking forward to working on them. I think at least for some, I'm going to try some more digital pages.

Survivor: Probst is Fun!

2008-11-14T12:23:00.006-05:00

I have to share the link to this video. I couldn't find a way to embed it unfortunately. Jeff Probst is really funny in it and I got a kick out of it.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1815812964/bctid1817710962

Doug and I had a disagreement last night while watching Survivor about what happens to the Jury members when they are voted off. He insisted that they aren't allowed to see each other and are kept secluded and I insisted that they all get to stay together, hang out, and talk about the game. I had to prove him wrong this morning, so I found out that since last season Survivor has been producing webisodes called Life at Ponderosa. Ponderosa is what they call the Jury House. The current seasons webisodes are here, Life at Ponderosa. I also went back and watched a lot of them from Fans Vs. Favorites on you tube. It was nice getting alittle Ozzy fix. I forgot how much I love him. Anyway, all this talk got me thinking more about Survivor and I ended up on the Entertainment Weekly website, where I found out that Jeff Probst is blogging about the episodes and they have exclusive deleted scenes. Very cool. Jeff is a good blogger. His blog entries are fun to read. Anyway, I wanted to share that video just because I thought Jeff was really funny. "Now who's your daddy?, Tell me, Put you on Big Brother...... Bitch!" Classic.

10 TV guys, I secretly love

2008-11-13T12:25:00.020-05:00

I read this post this morning about the hottest hunks on TV, does anyone even use that word anymore, and I thought it would be fun to make my own list. Here are the 10 guys on TV I secretly, or not so secretly LOVE:

10. Bryan Datillo

I've been watching him on Days Of Our Lives on and off for a very long time. He plays Lucas Roberts and there is just something about him that I really like. He is funny and seems very down to Earth.

9. Seth Meyers

I love comedians. The way to my heart is definately through laughter. If you can make me laugh, you've got a great shot. He's such a funny guy and he's great on Weekend Update all by himself.

8. James Lafferty

He plays Nathan Scott on One Tree Hill. The show was created for Chad Michael Murray, and don't get me wrong, he's pretty nice looking too, but there is something about James that I just like more. He's athletic. He loves basketball and is good at it too. His character is a bad boy turned good. I think that's what drew me to him. I love the bad boys, but he's one with a great heart. Nathan's flaw though is he's a Duke fan. That's really a deal breaker for me, even if he makes up for it by loving Michael Jordan.

7. Michael Trucco

I first saw Michael as Hot Uncle Cooper on One Tree Hill and then he turned up as Sam Anders on Battlestar Gallactica. Another Badass with a good heart. You don't mess with him or anyone he cares about. He'll take you down.

6. Zachary Levi

Another funny guy. I really didn't know him before Chuck, but I love him. He plays a funny, hot nerd who can be a badass in his own way sometimes. That's the best combination. He's perfect!

5. Jensen Ackles/Jared Padaleki

I just couldn't separate these two. I liked Jared on Gilmore Girls, and I liked Jensen on Days Of Our Lives, but neither were really a standout to me in those roles. Put the two together and you get the Winchester Brothers from Supernatural. I love these two together. They are HOT, they kick evil butt, they make me laugh, and they are super loyal to each other.

4. Joshua Jackson

I loved him as Pacey on Dawson's Creek and I have a really hard time seeing him as any other character, but he recently returned to TV as Peter on Fringe and he's great on that show. As Pacey, he as always trying to do the right thing, but getting in trouble. Everyone thought he was a bad guy, but he was just misunderstood. As Peter, he is a mysterious genius, so much we haven't learned about him yet. I love Josh!

3. Derek Hough

I always talk about Maks from Dancing with the Stars, but secretly, I love Derek more. The all american boy. He's funny, hot, and wow can that boy dance. He's great at all the ballroom and latin, but a couple weeks ago I saw him in the group hip hop routine. Heaven help me, he was amazing. He's a singer too, his band just signed a record deal. He can do it all. I love his style. He's hard working and always very gracious. Some genes in that Hough family, man!

2. Brian Austin Green

What is there to say about Brian Austin Green, my David Silver. I grew up with him. He was always my favorite on 90210, even when he was young and dorky looking. I've stuck by him through the awkward growing years, the bad rap album, dropping off the grid, and then reappearing stronger than ever as Derek on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Cronicles. This is the best character he's ever played. He will kick your ass and not think twice about it. He's a shoot first ask questions later kind of guy. He's loyal. He's been through alot and I think there's alot still to learn about him. He brings a great dynamic to the show, but he needs more screen time, PLEASE!

1. Jason Momoa

It was hard picking a number one, and hard placing Jason in front of Brian just because of how long I've liked Brian, but Jason Momoa as Ronan Dex on Stargate: Atlantis. If you watch him on that show for just a few minutes you'll instantly see why he's my number one. I didn't even watch that show until he showed up on it. He caught my eye immediately. You don't mess with Ronan. He's a man of little words, but he gets his point across. He's a shoot first, NEVER ask questions kind of guy. He's extremely loyal, and if you mess with the people he loves, you're done. He kicks major butt on that show, he makes me laugh, and that's why I love him, plus look at him, he's ridiculously HOT!

So there it is my version of the 10 ten hotties, I secretly love on TV. It was hard to pick just ten. These guys almost made the cut, and it was hard to leave them off Adrien Grenier as Vincent Chase on Entourage, Maksim Chmerkovskiy on Dancing with the Stars, Chad Michael Murray as Lucas Scott on One Tree Hill (liked him better as Charlie on Dawson's Creek though, he's a bit of a whiner on OTH), and Jason Lee as Earl on My Name is Earl.

I Will Not!

2008-11-10T13:51:00.005-05:00

I'll warn you before I get started that parts of this story maybe too much information for you.

Sunday didn't start out so well. Riley woke up at about 8:45am, came into my room to let me know she was awake and would be playing in her room. I got up to go to the bathroom, I was feeling gas pains. It all went downhill from there. I started to get more intensified pains, began to lose control of my bowels, then I got very cold and started sweating like crazy. I had no idea what was going on, but I felt terrible. So I'm in the batroom trying to deal with this when Riley walks in and states she has to go potty. I tell her that it's going to be awhile and remind her that there are 2 other bathrooms in the house. She insists on waiting. So she's just standing there in my face staring at me not saying a word. That starts to drive me nuts. Then all the sudden I start to feel sick to my stomach. I think I'm going to throw up. I don't know what to do, I can't risk moving for fear of what might come out the other end. I call out a couple times for Doug to come and help me and also get Riley out of there and to a different bathroom, but of course he's sleeping on his good ear and can't hear me. I say to Riley,

"Riley, can you please go and get daddy for me?"
To which she replies, "I will not"

I will not, are you f'in kidding me! She must be kidding. I try again.

"Riley, please go get daddy for me, I really need him"
To which she replies again, "I will not"

What the F#@! Is this kid serious? I will not? What am I going to do? As I'm quickly surveying the bathroom trying to make a game plan, I hear Nyssa russling around on her bed. Nyssa, my saviour. I call out to her.

"Nyssa, Nyssa come!" She immediately complies.

"Nyssa, get daddy. Nyssa, get daddy." To which she very obediently complies. I'm thinking, thank god I trained her to do that. Who knew what was something funny and playful would actually be so handy? I hear Doug's voice and I call for him. He manages to get Riley out of the bathroom, but never comes through with an alternative location for my puke. His answer was "get off the pot" which as I stated really wasn't an option. Luckily, the urge to throw up subsided.

I'm still trying to deal with what's happening to me. When I hear Riley break into one hell of a diva tantrum. This was unlike any other she's had. She went into her room, slammed the door, and stood pushing on the door, trying desperately not to allow her father into the room, all the while crying and screaming. I was able to get my bowels and cold sweats under control long enough to go to her room and try to go in. (Doug was standing outside it, playing with his iPhone). Riley yells, "No don't come in" and I can feel her pushing on the door. I say, "Riley it's mommy!" and she lets me in. Now she's crying even harder. I pick her up and ask what's wrong? She doesn't have an answer. It turns out she was scared because something was wrong with me. She wanted to play in her room, and she wanted to use the bathroom of her choice which was occupied, and she wasn't going to budge on any of those things. I tell her I'm just not feeling well, but I'll be okay. She's able to stop crying long enough to say, "Are you done in the bathroom, now?" To which I reply, "for a few minutes I think" She goes in to go potty and I go lay down. As soon as she's done, she runs back into her room, slams her door, and is refusing to let Doug in and crying again.

I tell Doug, "She's upset because something's wrong with me and she wanted me to tend to all her needs this morning. You'll need to console her." He replies with, "I know". Then there is a few minutes of silence. All I can hear is her crying though the baby monitor. Next thing I know I hear:

Daddy: "Riley if you come out, I'll take you to Mcdonald's to get french fry thingys(breakfast hashbrowns). It's still early and they are serving them."
Riley: "Yeah!!! (stops crying and opens the door). YES! I'm happy now! Can I get two?"

Nice bribe Doug!

I had one more round of uncontrollable bowels, cold sweats, and almost puking and then I slept until 12:30. My stomach was off all day, but I was fine. I have no idea what was wrong with me?

Squiggly Ears

2008-11-08T20:47:00.003-05:00

We had a fun Saturday.

First up was swimming lessons in the morning. Last week, Riley swam all by herself with just 2 swimming noodles. She was very excited about it, so she convinced her Daddy to come to swimming lessons this morning so she could show him. It was safety day today though, so she barely got to go in the water. They spent all class reading pool safety books and walking around the pool reading all the rules. The only actually pool time they got was when they were trying the life jackets. They got to jump in and see how the life jackets helped them float. Both Riley and Daddy were bummed. Daddy said, "Pool safety is important, but not very fun, huh?"

After swimming lessons, we came home and relaxed for just a few minutes and then headed out to the movie theater to see Madagascar 2. Riley loved it. Doug and I thought it was good, but no where near the level of the first movie. There were 10 times as many monkeys in this one though, so Riley was happy!

After the movie, Doug took a nap and Riley and I had a fun project afternoon. We made squiggly eyed monsters and turkeys. Then Riley showed me how to color her Dora coloring pages and then roll them up together her.

After our projects were done, we had a little photo shoot with them, and when Roo was taking my photo she said, "Mommy, say squiggly ears!" and then she said the same when I took her photo. Together, we laughed about it.

And Riley's Xmas list looks like this so far:

Scooby Doo movies
Alvin and the Chipmunk movies
Tag reader
Piano
Singer microphone
Kung Fu Panda tag reader book
More art supplies (white glue, paint, dora coloring pages, paper)

Seriously??! Go see Zack and Miri

2008-11-03T14:22:00.003-05:00

Just read this article on Yahoo news about Zack and Miri make a Porno It's about a theatre in Utah that banned the movie because of graphic nudity and sex and because it was too close to an NC-17 rating.. Things I found interesting in the article:

"The company's standards seem a little odd considering that the chain had no problems screening ultra-violent fare like "Saw V," which features beheadings and explicit self-mutilation. When asked why Megaplex Theaters did not object to the gory horror sequel, Gunderson had no comment."
"Kevin Smith's surprisingly tame and sentimental movie has a few flashes of nudity, a handful of love scenes played mostly for laughs, and a whole lot of foul language. In fact, the film's raunchiness level is comparable to that of "The 40-Year-Old Virgin", "Knocked Up" and "Sex Drive," all of which screened at Megaplex theaters."

And the BEST PART of the article. Keep in mind what was just said about Zack and Miri Make a Porno and the movie Sex Drive.

"As a footnote to this story, this past weekend an audience full of children and pre-teens expecting to see the G-rated "High School Musical 3" at one of Miller's theaters in South Jordan, UT were surprised when the beginning of the R-rated "Sex Drive," which features nudity and swearing, was shown accidentally. But at least they didn't see Seth Rogen in his underwear."

In the words of Seth and Amy, Really? You refuse to screen a film because it's name has the word porno in it, but will play a movie called Sex Drive and then accidently play it to a bunch a kids there to see HSM3, Really?

By the way, Zack and Miri Make a Porno is absolutely hillarious! I haven't laughed that hard at a movie in a really long time. I was bent over, almost falling out of my chair a couple times. It is definitely Kevin Smith humour, it's vulgar and crude, but oh so good! Please go see this movie. It's getting a lot of flack for its 10.7 million opening weekend. It's being considered a flop even though it was only 5 million behind HSM3, Please go see this film. It's worth the money!

Photoshop Upgrade

2008-10-29T00:07:00.004-04:00

I just upgraded from Photoshop 2 to Photoshop 7. A huge upgrade. I'm so excited. I've been missing so much. There are so many new cool things I can do with my upgraded Photoshop. I've been playing with actions, they are so fun, but I still have a lot to learn. Check out these fun images. This is one I took of Riley at the Pumpkin Patch.

This one is the SOOC (straight out of the camera) image. Nothing done to it.

Here's what I did with it:

The first one is a very subtle enhancement, brighten and a little color pop.

The second one is alot of brighten and color pop

Not sure what to call the next one, but I love it!

This one is just fun, it's a grunge/urban look.

I'm having a really hard time deciding which one I like the best. They are all pretty cool. Which one is your favorite?

Random 10

2008-10-24T15:02:00.002-04:00

Been awhile, so here's one:

Random 10:

Losing My Way - Justin Timberlake
The Kiss(Skit) - Eminem
The Anthem - Good Charlotte
Without You - Motley Crue
Love Don't Live Here Anymore - Madonna
She's Crafty - Beastie Boys
Anything, Anything - Buckcherry
Re-Arranged - Limp Bizkit
Time After Time - Cyndi Lauper
My Place - Nelly

This was supposed to be a longer post but I got distracted

2008-10-21T15:16:00.002-04:00

A commercial on the radio this morning said that Dwight Howard's vertical leap is 5 ft. His vertical leap is as high as I am tall.

How you Compare

2008-10-15T11:09:00.006-04:00

I already know who I'm voting for, but I thought this quiz at Glassbooth would be interesting to take. First you have 20 points to weight the issues that are most important to you and then it asks you questions about those issues. The more points you give a particular issue, the more questions it asks you about that topic. The one thing that was disappointing was that there was no widget to add your results to your blog like many other quizzes out on the web. It does allow you take take the quiz on Facebook and share with friends, but that's it.

So I took the quiz and it told me that I had the most similarity with Barack Obama, 89% similarity. The breakdown looked like this for me (the issues are in no particular order):

Taxes and Budget	75%
Science	81%
Civil Liberties and Domestic Security	100%
Iraq and Foreign Policy	75%
Internet and Media	88%
Environment and Energy	88%
Health Care	100%
Education	88%
Abortion and Birth Control	100%

For the most part on the issues we didn't agree on 100% (it only asked me 1 question on Health Care and Civil Liberties and Domestic Security), I was a stronger supporter. There were no issues that we just had completely opposite beliefs on. Unlike McCain, were there were several where we were completely at opposite ends on. I had the least amount of similarity with McCain, but I was surprised at the number, 50%. I thought it would have been lower. I wish it also had a quiz for the Vice Presidential candidates as well.

Above Average, Thank you Mrs. Bloomfield

2008-10-14T16:12:00.003-04:00

I'm sure this is really old, but I came across this while wandering around some blogs today and as I looked through the list of books all I could think of is, Thank You Mrs. Bloomfield. She was my highschool english teacher and if it weren't for her I wouldn't have read most of the books I've read on this list. It's pretty sad that it was highschool when I read most of these. I have memories of sitting on the couch in my parent's living room trying to finish up A Tale of Two Cities before the test the next day. I'm almost positive I read the whole thing in one night. I actually loved it, but when it came to reading I was a terrible procratinator in high school. I also remember writing a paper about John Steinbeck and also a term paper about two JD Salinger books, Catcher in the Rye and Franny and Zoe, both of which I loved. No memory is as strong though as my attempt to read Moby Dick. I just could not read that book. I hated it. I really struggled, so much in fact my dad felt bad for me and actually bought me the Cliff's Notes, so I could get through the test.

The list also reminded me that I really need to pick out a book to read while Riley is at gymnastics. Right now I just waste the 45 minutes doing nothing, I could be reading a really great book.

Here is the Meme:

“The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books on the list.

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Colorize (RED) the books you love.
4) Asterisk (*) the books you have no intention of ever reading, or were forced to read at school and hated"

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte*
4 The Harry Potter Series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Romeo and Juliet - William Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy*
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy*
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
37 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
38 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
39 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
40 Animal Farm - George Orwell
41 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
42 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
43 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
44 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
45 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
46 Far From the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
47 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
48 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
49 Atonement - Ian McEwan
50 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert*
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon
60 Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On the Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jone's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville*****
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce*
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet in Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo*

LANGUAGE!

2008-10-14T13:11:00.004-04:00

It's no surpise to anyone that Doug has quite a potty mouth. He just can't seem to control his swearing around Riley. It really annoys him, but whenever he says a bad word, I immediately say "LANGUAGE!" to remind him to be careful what he says around her. She is at the age now where she picks up easily on words and is able to reuse. Luckily, I haven't heard her say any really bad words and there have been no reports from her school of such language and I'd like to think it's because I've made it very clear that these words are bad words and shouldn't be said. Doug thinks that I shouldn't make such a big deal about the swear words and if I don't call them out she won't even notice them. I strongly disagree, I think that if I don't call them out as unacceptable words that she will think they are okay and just start using them.

While playing Mario Kart on Sunday:

Daddy: "F*@!"
Riley: "Daddy, Language!"

I almost fell off the chair in laughter. To say Doug was annoyed would be an understatement. Now he gets it from both of us. Unfortunately, I am not immune to this. Making lunch this morning, I was having a hard time opening a jar of dip.

Mommy: "Shit, I can't get this jar open! What the hell!"
Riley: "Language Mommy!"
Mommy: "I know sorry."

But now she's taken it to a whole new level. I also said things like:
Mommy: "I can't get this jar open. How annoying?"
Riley: "Is that a bad word?"
Mommy: "no annoying is not a bad word"
Mommy: "Crap why won't this open" "What the heck?"
Riley: "Is that a bad word?"
Mommy: "No crap and heck are not bad words"

I started to get annoyed that she kept asking if words were bad just so she could say language mommy, so I proceeded to explain to her what words were bad which I'm not sure was the best idea.

Mommy: "Riley, the bad words are F!@#, Shit, Bitch, Hell" (These are the words that are most commonly said around her, so I just used those as examples. No need to introduce ones she's never heard at this point)
Riley: "oh"
Mommy: "Daddy says those alot huh?"
Riley: "yeah"
Mommy: "They are bad words and we shouldn't say them especially outside of the house"
Riley: "You forgot F@#! (mommy trying to ignore what Riley just said) Mommy, You forgot F@!#"
Mommy: "Yes that's a bad word too. Don't say it just say Gosh instead okay"
Riley: "Ok, Gosh"

13 for the 13th

2008-10-13T12:45:00.006-04:00

It's already October 13th and I haven't made a single blog posting for October yet. I'm such a slacker. A list of random things in my head:

Went to Jimmy Fallon at RIT on Saturday night. He was hillarious. Our tickets were printed with the wrong start time, but it worked out to our advantage. The four of us were there very early and we ended up with second row center seats for the show. I just wish I was more prepared to hide my camera. I didn't think cameras would be a big deal, so I didn't make much effort to hide it. I ended up not bringing it in. Luckily, Deb's friend was able to bring hers in. I'm dying to see the photos and videos from the show. The minute Fallon walked out on stage, I immediately had this feeling come over me which reminded me why he was in my top 5 for so long. He's been off my top 5 for sometime, but seeing him live reminded me why he was there. He's awesome! Love the RIT hoodie! Photo from Rochester Metro Mix

Andy took Riley to a haunted hayride which she loved! As soon as she woke up on Sunday she started telling me all about it. She ended her story with, "I like Andy. (pause) he doesn't have any hair on his head" :)
We had planned to go pumpkin picking yesterday, but it was 80 degrees outside. Pumpkin picking is supposed to be a fall thing with cooler weather, so we decided to hold off until next Sunday when its supposed to be 57 and sunny. Seems more like fall to us. So instead we just hung out at home, resisting turning on the air conditioning for as long as possible. We did end up turning it on for a few hours. We played Mario Kart and were trying to figure out how to unlock content with no luck.
I somehow got motivated on Sunday to sort through my clothes, organize my closet and get all my clothes off the floor in our bedroom. I packed up 4 bags of clothes to give away. I came to a couple realizations during this process. 1. Doug's clothes take up 3/4th of the floor space in our bedroom. Now that my clothes are cleaned up you can see the rug in a small square near the bedroom door.
2. I have a WAY better maternity clothes wardrobe than I do regular wardrobe. If I were pregnant right now I'd had way more clothes to wear and more stuff that I actually liked. I have a pretty crappy, small regular wardrobe. I need to work on that :)
While cleaning up my clothes I found $20 which we immediately turned around and used to get Macaroni Grill take out that night. Basically free money, not counted in our budget.
I also found several scrapbooking sticker purchases that I had forgotten about and 4 concert ticket stubs (INXS Foxwoods, Justin Timberlake Buffalo and New Hampshire, and Fall out Boy Rochester)
I ended up with one bag full of old Riley clothes that somehow found their way into our room.
Now if I can only get Doug to organize and purge his clothing.
Riley had her second swim class this weekend. She loved it. The first day she was super scared and I didn't she'd get in the water. This time she jumped right in and was kicking and playing around.
Love that according to Riley, "Mommy's Ipod is better than Andy's"
Wishing it wasn't Monday.
Looking forward to RIT hockey starting this weekend.

Digital Layout #4: Favorite Show

2008-09-30T23:46:00.003-04:00

Another digital layout. After I asked Riley the other day what her favorite shows is, I started thinking how I would answer that question. Thinking about that along with being frustrated over how many shows I like are on Mondays led me to this layout. I watch too much tv, yeah I said it. I like TV, I just do, but I have to say this fall tv season is a bit crazy. Like I said before thank god for DVR and internet tv. I can watch the shows on my own time and I really don't feel like I'm spending an insane amount of time in front of the TV. I'm pretty sure this is the most amount of shows I've watched in any tv season. Some of it is related to the writer's strike, like for example, Entourage is usually a summer series. Stargate is also usually on mid season break during fall season, but because this is the final season they decided to play it out straight through and not take a break. I only picked up three new series this season.

This was a fun layout to do digitally. I grabbed all the images off Google. I think this one will be a fun one to look back on years from now. It was a template that came with week 6 of the digital class. I rearranged the template a little. I chose all solid color papers since there's so much going on in the photos. I also added the text path around the outside just cause they came with the class and I wanted to play with them. I can't create text paths with Photoshop Elements, its one of the things that you can only get with the professional version, but I can edit text paths, so as part of this class we were given a pretty decent amount of precreated text paths. One of the many cool things about this class.

Tuesday so far

2008-09-30T14:58:00.002-04:00

When I woke up this morning I was wondering why I even started this whole capture a week in my life thing. I was planning to quit, but here I am sticking with it. I didn't take a single photo yesterday, so I don't know how that will work out. I did take a few today though. I was really in no mood to go into work today, so I decided to work from home. Riley stayed home with me today too. Doug had to go in early, so I would have had to take Riley to school. Also, she's been complaining that her lower back itches alot and we found some bumps on her back and were worried she had some kind of rash, so I decided to call the Doctor and see if I should take her in. They found an opening for us at 2pm. During the morning, Riley watched Scooby and Curious George while I worked. She got pretty bored though so I had to stop work and entertain her for a bit. We read books, and played with legos. Then we had lunch (leftover dinner from last night), did some art projects, and then got ready for the doctor visit. Turns out she just has some dry skin. I paid a $25 co-pay to have them tell me its just dry skin. Don't I feel retarded. Oh well, better safe then sorry I guess. Riley is napping now and I'm enjoying the quiet of the house. Guess I better get back to that working thing.

The rest of Monday

2008-09-30T12:03:00.004-04:00

I picked Riley up from school. She was drawing a picture of circles when I got there. She was excited to have found a pen to draw with. We headed over to gymnastics as we do ever Monday. Riley changed and went into class. We're not allowed to watch because they say it's distracting to the kids, but I've been curious about what they do in class, so I went out to the car which I parked in front of the big window to the building and was able to watch Riley from there for most of class. After class, I picked Riley up. She had a ton of energy and kept running away from me all over the gym. I got pretty annoyed. She ended up losing her Scooby Doo TV privileges because of it. She cried all the way home and they even more once we got home. She tried to use the sympathy card on her daddy, but luckily for me he stayed strong and we were a united front. Doug started dinner and Nyssa and I went for a run. The run was hard last night. I hadn't run in 4 days, but I made it through. We ate dinner, watched Chuck, put Riley to bed, watched Terminator and Heroes and the second half of Dancing with the Stars and then went to bed.

Told ya it was gonna be boring...LOL...

A week in my life: Monday

2008-09-29T14:50:00.004-04:00

So I came across this blog post about documenting a week in your life and making a scrapbook about it. I thought it would be fun and figured I'd put it on my to-do someday list, but this blogger is doing it this week and I figured, I might as well play along. We'll see how long it lasts :) I just decided to do this at about 2:3pm today, so I didn't photograph any of my morning routine, but that is okay. I consider my life to be quite boring. My weekday routine is pretty much the same everyday. I spend most of my day at work, I also spend a lot of time during the fall season watching TV. I think it'll be interesting to see what the finished project looks like.

Thoughts in my head today:

Thinking about another scrapbook page I'm considering doing about my excessive TV watching, I counted 16 TV shows that I'm currently invested in this Fall TV season, yeah I said that, 16. That doesn't even count the random things I watch, that's just the shows I'm invested in, and watch on a weekly basis. Thank god for DVR and internet TV though, best inventions ever. I can record and watch the shows on my own time which often means I'm watching a show that aired at 8pm at 11pm the next day. What wonderful things DVR and internet TV are.
So my Monday is pretty typical so far. I woke up showered, made Riley's and my lunch, and then spent a few minutes eating my cereal and browsing the internet. Then it was time for Riley and Daddy to wake up and me to get ready and go to work. Every Monday morning I have a team meeting. It's about the only day during the week that I HAVE to be to work at a certain time. The rest of the week I take full advantage of my flex time.
I spent some time this morning reading the blogs in my Google Reader as I always do and wound up off on a tangent looking at fitness related stuff. I wandered into a couple blogs about people training for marathons and a couple about people documenting their weight loss journey. That lead me to think about my own fitness and the weight loss journey I should start. I've been trying to add running back into my life, I loved it in high school. It's been a hard road so far. I am doing the couch to 5K program, and am repeating week 4 this week because I had an extremely hard time with it last week. I suffer from shin splits or I suppose weak shin muscles. I'm just hoping as the program goes on my legs get stronger and the pain goes away. I'm realizing to reach my goals, I'll need to do more than just running 3 times a week. I discover a few things on my blog reading journey today:

This fitness DVD which is supposed to be awesome.

Jillian Michael's Wii Fit game comes out in October.

I'm thinking of getting both and starting up a stricter fitness routine. I was inspired by the blogs I read. I want to be one of the success stories.
As I have been for quite some time now, I'm concerned about my job and what will happen now that my company has been bought out and specifically what will happen with the account I'm working on. Wondering if I'll be looking for a new job in the next few months or in the next year. Wondering if I'll find a job if it comes to that and will it be one I like. It's always better to change jobs on your own terms when you can be picky. Not so fun when it's urgent and you have to take what you can get. Very uncertain times for me and it stresses me out alot.
I watched the HBO special, Chris Rock: Kill the Messenger over the weekend and it was hillarious. I highly recommend it.
I really want to sign up for a scrapbooking class called Scrap your Travel and Vacation that starts today, but I have no more money in my scrapbooking budget for this month. October is almost here so maybe it'll be part of my October budget. Although the class is $25 and that is almost my entire monthly scrapbooking budget, so I'll have to think about it some more.
A few weeks ago Doug and I for I think the first time ever developed and actual budget. I was motivated to do this when I realized that we EAT way to much of our income. My bank website has a reporting and budgeting feature that lets you categorize your spending and create a budget. We spent something like $500 eating out in August and then another $600 ish on groceries. I'm embarrased to even admit this. It's absolutely insane. Nobody needs to spend that much on food. So we sat down one night and categorized everything, made a very realistic budget, something that I know we can easily stick to with the least amount of lifestyle change. I mean hell if all we did was eat at home all the time think how much money we'd save. The budget is going well and we are staying within our limits for the most part. After a few months go by I'm sure we'll need to make adjustments in some areas, but one I know we won't be adjusting is our food budget. We're sticking to that, believe me!
Doug doesn't believe I can stick to the budget.
Someone commented on the My Jam scrapbook page I created and said that Riley has eclectic music tastes. I took that as a compliment on my music tastes. What she listens to is in direct relation to what I like. That felt good.
I think we'll soon be adding In the Ayer by Flo Rida to Riley's playlist. I've been singing it alot lately and last night at dinner (All three of us sat at the kitchen table and ate, pretty cool huh?), she busts out with, "This is my jam. Don't understand. hands in the air" while waving her hands in the air. It was quite cute.
I was in a really crappy mood on Friday and I'm thinking Deb might have noticed when we were talking on the phone Friday evening. I hope she knows that I was just in a crappy mood. I don't even know why. It had nothing to do with her.
Need to get my camera and make sure to capture my boring week.
This blog post killed a good amount of time, yeah! Just one more hour until the work day is over.

Digital page #3: My Jam

2008-09-28T14:30:00.002-04:00

"Oh hot damn, this is my jam. Keep me partying till the AM. Ya'll don't understand, this is my jam." - Flo Rida (In the Ayer)

Here's my 3rd digital layout. I've been wanting to do a page about the Riley's music for awhile now. I took some photos of her listening to my Ipod to go along with the journalling. I'm pretty happy with the way this one turned out.

When I paper scrap, it takes me forever to pick out the paper I want to use with a layout and I'm finding digital scrapping is no different for me. I think I went through about 4 paper/color combinations before I settled on this one. I'm still not 100% that I love it, but I got tired of staring at the layout. :) Cool thing about digital is I can mix and match a lot of different paper without worrying that I'm wasting paper.The bad thing is that if you don't find free paper that you like, it can get kind of expensive. This is the first digital paper that I didn't find free online somewhere or didn't come with the class I'm taking.

Digital Layout #2: GCH Meet & Greet

2008-09-25T00:44:00.005-04:00

Well here it is, the GCH meet and greet scrapbook page. This is another all digital page. I really struggled with this one. I used a template provided as part of a digital scrapbooking class I'm taking. I put all the photos in the circle, added the title, and the circle journalling, and then quickly realized I had a huge journalling block that told the story and absolutely no place to put it. I loved the way the photos, title, and circle journalling looked so I didn't want to abandon the layout, but I also knew the layout wouldn't be right with out the story to go along with the photos. The story makes the photos. This is what I eventually ended up with. I'm happy with it for the most part although, I'm still wondering how to best add a large journalling block without it overtaking the entire page like mine does.

I blurred out the phone number in the final layout, didn't think it would be a good idea to plaster it all over the internet.
What do you think? Does the page work?

GCH Meet and Greet

2008-09-23T09:45:00.004-04:00

I want to get down some thoughts for a scrapbook page I'm formulating.

Debbie and I had meet and greet tickets to a Gym Class Heroes club show in Buffalo, but at the last minute the location of the show changed, we couldn't find the new club, and missed the meet and greet completely. We were pissed, so we complained to anyone who looked like they were important. We were directed to the merchandise area where we eventually spoke with GCH's tour manager, Seth. He was super nice and apologized profusely. After a little negotiation he offered to give us a tour of the band's bus and introduce us to the them after the show. We quickly agreed. After the show he gave us the tour, introduced us to each band member, and gave us some Blue Moon beer and asked us to hang out. The guys ran out of beer during our visit, so when we found out we had meet and greet passes to the show in Rochester, I immediately thought we should bring them beer as a thank you. Deb and I each bought a 12 pack of Blue Moon beer and began scheming how we would get the beer to them, but had no plan going in. At the meet and greet, the guys were all sitting behind a table to sign autographs. I went first, then Andy, then Deb. Deb spent a lot of time at the table while we watched and discussed. At one point, she called me over to talk to Travis. She told him about the beer and left it up to me to arrange a drop off. Travis wrote the phone number of his assistant on the tube I was carrying my poster in and told me to call after the show and we could bring the beer to the tour bus. I walked away and Andy says to me, "You been here like 5 minutes and you have digits already?" To which I reply, "That's how I roll" LOL. The show rocked! Andy didn't stick around after for the beer drop off. We called Travis's assistant, but he didn't answer, so we stood around outside the bus like dorks figuring out what we should do. Eventually, we got up the nerve to just go knock on the door. Travis's assistant answered and we explained what we were there for. He smiled and invited us in. We got to listen to Travis playing unreleased tracks from his room in the back of the bus, and talk with Eric for a little. He was much nicer and more fun then the previous time we had met him. Everyone was excited that we brought beer and I remember at one point looking around at everyone drinking Blue Moon (including Eric) and thinking, We brought that beer.

November 18, 2007.... Blue Cross Arena....Young Guns Tour... Gym Class Heroes Meet and Greet... Andy, Me, and Deb.

With Seth

The Beer

hmm, not sure how I'll fit all that journaling on the page I'm planning....

Six with Roo

2008-09-22T11:41:00.004-04:00

Riley: Mommy, I want to watch another Scooby.
Me: Ok. Answer 6 questions for me and then you can.
Riley: Ok.
Me: What's your favorite color?
Riley: Purple
Me: What's your favorite TV show?
Riley: Scooby
Me: What's your favorite dinner?
Riley: chips
Me: chips are not dinner, what about pasta?
Riley: No,chips
Me: Who's silly?
Riley: you are mommy
Me: Who's your best friend?
Riley: Siobhan
Me: What's your favorite toy?
Riley: Mommy, come here, I want to show you.
Me: Just tell me what it is?
Riley: I can't! come here.
We walk over to her toy area.
Riley: This is my favorite toy (points at a box). Hmm. This is my favorite toy. Watch what I do with this. (puts a knight hat on her head). So much toys. I don't know.
Me: How about books? Are they your favorite?
Riley: yeah books
Me: What about all your art supplies for projects, is that your favorite toy?
Riley: Yeah
Me: What about Monkey Doodle, is he your favorite toy?
Riley: Monkey Doodle's not a toy, He's Monkey Doodle!
Me: My bad.
Riley: Can I watch Scooby now?

Block Cake

2008-09-21T15:07:00.003-04:00

I've never been interested in trying digital scrapbooking before. I spend ALOT of time on the computer and the thought of sitting in front of the computer to create an entire layout made me cringe. Scrapbooking is a creative outlet for me and always something I've enjoyed away from the computer being able to physically touch all my supplies in the process. There are elements of digital scrapbooking that I really like and I could even go as far as calling myself a semi-hybrid scrapper. I often use the computer to create text, titles, and manipulate photos in photoshop for the layouts. I came across a beginner digital class being taught at Get it Scrapped and decided I'd see what its all about. I'm pretty good with Photoshop, so I figured there wouldn't be a huge learning curve. I've finished the first assignment from the class (which started two weeks ago, I'm slow), my very first ALL digital scrapbook page. I actually enjoyed it, still not as much as paper scrapping, but I enjoyed it. It's very easy to just sit in front of the computer for a few minutes at a time and work on a layout. I don't have to get out all my supplies, sort through everything, or clean up afterwords. And I can do it at work during my procrastination time which is a big plus. So without further ado, I present to you my very first ever all digital scrapbook page, Block Cake.

Photoshop a Vintage Look

2008-09-14T17:59:00.006-04:00

Andy shared this interesting article in Google Reader about how to give your photos a vintage look. I thought it would be fun to give it a try. Mine doesn't look as good as the example, but it was fun learning some new things in Photoshop Elements.

Before:
After:

I think it's still alittle darker than I would have liked, but I like it.

Hey Sharon, Me Too!

2008-09-13T10:51:00.001-04:00

My Liberal Identity:

You are a Reality-Based Intellectualist, also known as the liberal elite. You are a proud member of what’s known as the reality-based community, where science, reason, and non-Jesus-based thought reign supreme.

Take the quiz at www.FightConservatives.com

Ain't Nothing Like the Real JT!

2008-09-10T16:16:00.001-04:00

Hot Hot Hot!

Itunes Genius

2008-09-10T13:52:00.003-04:00

So I downloaded the new iTunes 8 because I was curious about the new Genius playlist feature. (shuffle with a brain) While I'm VERY less then pleased that in order to use it, I have to allow iTunes to upload information about my library, I still turned it on. Gizmodo from the link above said the information uploaded is anonymous, so I'm just going to pretend like I believe that and move on. The feature is pretty cool although it's choices are alittle odd at times (it chose Colorblind to go with SexyBack). I'm surprised at how much rock it chose to go with SexyBack and no hiphop or rap. Hopefully it will get better. My first try at it was using SexyBack by Justin Timberlake. Eight of the 25 songs I have rated at 5 stars, 1 at 4 stars, 1 at 3 stars, and the rest are unrated. Here is the playlist it came up with:

1. SexyBack- Justin Timberlake f./ Timbaland
2. The Queen and I - Gym Class Heroes
3. A little less Sixteen Candles - Fall Out Boy
4. Hate (I really don't like you) - Plain White T's
5. Love and Memories - OAR
6. Perfect Situation - Weezer
7. Cry Me a River - Justin Timberlake
8. Here's to the Night - Eve 6
9. I Just Wanna Live - Good Charlotte
10. Colorblind - Counting Crows
11. These Walls - Teddy Geiger
12. Pop - Nsync
13. Behind Bleu Eyes - Limp Bizkit
14. Don't Speak - No Doubt
15. My Own Worst Enemy - Lit
16. Losing My Way - Justin Timberlake
17. Luxurious - Gwen Stefani
18. But it's Better if You Do - Panic at the Disco
19. Rumors - Lindsay Lohan (this must be a bug, I swear I don't have this. LOL)
20. That's What You Get - Paramore
21. Pieces of Me - Ashlee Simpson
22. Dark Blue - Jack's Mannequin
23. Senorita - Justin Timberlake
24. She's No You - Jesse McCartney
25. Smile Like You Mean It - The Killers

Looking to waste some time, google image search meme

2008-09-10T11:15:00.002-04:00

Another one of those Google image search Meme's. I like doing these because image surfing on google if fun and I like posting photos on my blog. I got this one from a scrapbooking blog I read.

The rules:

a) Answer the question below, do a Google Image search with your answer, take a picture from the 1st page of results, do it with minimal words of explanation; and
b) Tag 5 people to do the same once you’ve finished answering every question. Just like where I got it from I won't be tagging anyone to do it, but feel free to join in the fun.

When I do these I always go with the first thing that pops in my mind, I don't put a ton of thought into them, so here it goes:

1. The age you will be on your next birthday.

2. Place you want to travel to

Always wanted to vacation at the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas. It looks fun.

3. Your favorite place
Favorite place was actually very hard for me to pick. Nothing came to mind right away, so I actually had to think about this one which is something I don't like to do with this. I like to just got with the first thing that pops into my head. I ended up searching for ocean. I love the water, so any place on the water big or small is perfect for me.

4. Your favorite food

Or so everyone tells me. :) I've decided to accept it. I do order them ALOT.

5. Your favorite pet.
So cool that this photo showed up on the first page of the image search for Nyssa since she was actually named after a vampire from Blade 2. We were watching the movie and after we both said, "Wouldn't Nyssa be a cool name for a dog?"

6. Favorite color combination

Guess this comes from my days at CSH.

7. Favorite piece of clothing

Can't go wrong with a good pair of jeans.

8. Your all time favorite song

Asking me to pick an all time favorite song, so not fair.

9. Favorite T.V. Show

Asking me to pick a favorite TV show, even more not fair than picking my favorite song. I love so many shows, new and old, picking one is just too hard, so I went with one that I'm most excited about at this very moment.

10. First name of your significant other/crush
I went with crush on this one. Later on it asks about your husband, so why have 2 of the same answers. Besides, I like working Justin into these. :)

11. Which town do you live in?

12. Your screename/nickname

Searched on a couple different ones, but ended up with carinh since I was surprised to see so many of my own photos show up. This was my livejournal avatar.

13. Your first job
Yes, I was a maid. Can you believe it? I hated it. I HATE cleaning. When I was 15 I worked as a maid for an eight room motel in my hometown. Doug thinks it scarred me and is why I hate cleaning now.

14. Your dream job

This changes all the time, and I'm not even sure I'd really love doing this as my job. Sometimes when your hobby is you job it ruins it.

15. One bad habit that you have

16. Worst fear

I couldn't even look through all the images. I had to go with the first one. Cringing just looking at it. I can deal with one or two of these at a time, but a whole mess of them together. YUCK!

17. Things You’d Like to do Before You Die

Cross country road trip.

18. The first thing you will buy if you get $1,000,000

If I had a million dollars, month long Hawaiian vacation here I come.

19. Your husband/wife

20. What present would you like for your next birthday

I saw Miley Cyrus playing Living on a Prayer on Rock Band 2 during the VMA's. Now that's a song I could really get into. Not sure I want those drums in my living room though. Too many toys in there already.

Nyssa, I'm Full!

2008-09-09T13:04:00.004-04:00

I have a pretty awesome Dog. I love her. She is a cute, fun, good, smart Black lab. She understands many words and commands; sit, stay, down, come, wait, nicely, walk, and ride to name a few. She's a quick learner, but has a hard time understanding commands from Riley even though Riley tries hard to get her to sit, wait, and okay. Today, I think she picked up her very first Riley command.

Mommy: "Riley honey are you eating your lunch?"
Riley: "I'm full!"
Nyssa wakes from sleeping in the hallway, runs over to Riley and plops herself in front of her patiently waiting for what always comes after those words, Riley's food. :)

One in Four

2008-08-29T16:41:00.008-04:00

Last week Andy sent me this email link from Deadspin.

"One in four stories about the Olympics has been about Michael Phelps. Frankly, we can't fathom what the other 75% of stories might be about. Reporters eating seahorses on sticks, we guess."

And said, "Much like your GReader posts... :)"

I laughed. Today I noticed there were ALOT of Michael Phelps blog posts and I realized as I kept hitting share that Damn, Andy's right I share alot of Phelps stuff.

Okay, so I'm alittle obsessed with Michael Phelps right now. I actually had to stop myself from hitting the share button a few times today because I realized maybe everyone else isn't quite as obsessed as I am. This doesn't mean I'm going to stop though, oh god no. That would be tragic.

Things are slow on the Justin Timberlake front these days, he's really not doing much but buying furniture with Jessica. Justin will always be my number one, heck he has his own category of posts on this blog, but I need something to obsess about during the JT lull and why not Phelps. He's got a lot going on right now: VMA presenter, SNL host, Entourage guest spot.

You have to admit he's a pretty freakin kick ass athlete and I can't stop wondering what those abs feel like in real life and just what he's barely hiding and teasing me with underneath those Speedo swim pants and board shorts.

Blueberries

2008-08-29T16:38:00.001-04:00

294_9447_copy, originally uploaded by carinh.

We ran out of these blueberries that we picked ourself from Brown's Berry Patch so I had Doug get me some from Wegman's yesterday. They have been my afternoon snack of choice at work for awhile now. And I'm so disappointed, the ones from Wegmans just don't taste anywhere near as good as the ones we picked. I don't know if the ones from Brown's are just better or if they tasted better because we picked them ourself. Either way, I want more of these because the ones from Wegman's aren't very good right now. Maybe Deb's got some left steal I can aquire during game night tonight or maybe I can convince Doug to go blueberry picking this weekend provided Brown's blueberry's are still good for picking.

Sounds Fun

2008-08-29T11:15:00.004-04:00

I'll play too. Here are my answers to Deb's iTunes random questions (using my iTouch):

What would the world be like if everyone were just like me? Just the Two of Us - Will Smith

What's the worst song on this iPod? Theme from Save the Last Dance - Fedro Starr

What should I be when I grow up? Board Meeting - Timbaland

What song should I never, under any circumstances, admit that I like? Wait a Minute - Pussycat Dolls

What's my horoscope for tomorrow (Friday)? Smalltown - John Cougar Melloncamp

What should I name my first born child? SexyBack - Justin Timberlake (Already have a first born so this would be my second born, Justin's a great name for a boy, don't you think? LOL)

I will also follow in Sharon's footsteps and provide a not so random 10 today of some off the beaten path or not in the top 40 songs I enjoy. Also, like Deb, on random till I come across ten I want to share:

Rescue Me - Hawthorne Heights (it's new and probably will be in the top 40 soon, but hey I like it alot)
Lips Like Morphine - Kill Hannah
Facing up - Kate Voegele
No Strings Attached - Nsync
Your Guardian Angel - Red Jumpsuit Apparatus
My Hallejuah Song - Julianne Hough
Call of Distress - Lovehammers
Let Me Take You There - Plain White T's
Stay Away - The Honorary Title
Chloroform the One You Love - Flickerstick
One of Those Nights - The Cab
Happy - Saving Jane

Ok I'll stop now :) I noticed something, it appears I don't like a lot of off the beaten track hip hop. The majority of the above list I guess would be classified as alternative rock. Interesting.

August in a nutshell

2008-08-26T15:06:00.003-04:00

I have really been slacking on this blogging thing this month. I thought I was getting better at it. In my defence alot has been going on this month and blogging just wasn't at the top of my mind. I suppose it should be quality of posts not quantity, huh.? Here's August in a nutshell.

We started the month off celebrating Riley's 3rd birthday. The theme was Scooby Doo, of course. Her party was so much fun, my favorite party so far. I loved the way everything turned out from the setup of the party to the decorations to the cake to it not raining. She had 3 friends from school come and I loved seeing her play with them outside of school. I also remember the look on her face when everyone was singing Happy Birthday to her. I wish I could have captured her joy on film. I've never seen a kid blow through presents as quickly as she did. I couldn't keep up. I really need to get the thank you cards in the mail.

Entire set Here.

Then we had some very sad news a few days later that basically turned our lives upside down. My father in law passed away. It was not sudden and something we all knew was going to happen, but still none of us were ready for. I miss him very much. I'm not going to go into details because I don't think Doug would want me to.

This photo was taken on Thanksgiving and I think is one of the last photos I have. I wish I had taken more. I'll never forget the last things I remember him saying to Doug. "You just out in the neighborhood driving around and decided to stop in?", "I told you I wouldn't make it to Riley's next birthday, but I did." Doug helping him with water, "That hit the spot."

We had several vacation plans for August that we continued on with because Doug's Dad told him, "Go out and live your life, have fun. Don't worry about me." So we did and those words will be with me forever.

We went to Alexandria Bay with my parents. We took a boat tour, Riley got to drive the boat, saw two castles; Boldt Castle and Singer Castle, and Riley had Smoore's for the first time. I found a really expensive dark chocolate to use in hers since she can't have milk.

Entire set Here.

The next weekend we went to Camp Mead in the Adirondacks with our friends the Gotobeds. We went to Great Escape, did some hiking, canoeing, and swimming, played some games, watched Michael Phelps kick ass!, and then stopped in Lake George on the way home for another boat ride. Some of my favorite photos from the trip:

Entire sets Here, Here, and Here

The fun didn't stop there. I also attended a wedding, bridal shower, and wedding poker night for our friends Kai and Hannah. Riley ate chicken feet which I don't have a photo of. I'm so happy for Kai and Hannah. They are such nice people. Hannah is incredibly greatful for everything and she makes me realize just how much I take for granted in my life.

This is by far one of my all time favorite photos. To me the exposure and composure are great and I really captured the emotion. I think this is probably one of the best photos I've ever taken. I love it.

Rest of the sets, Here, Here, and Here.

And guess what there's more. We managed to find time to go blueberry picking, goto the zoo twice, have dinner at Chris and Deb's new house twice, play some Rock Band, goto the Drive-in a couple times, and if you can believe it even relax and do nothing a couple days. I think the rest of August will be more of the relax and do nothing. Now that I've put it all out there, that's ALOT in one month.

Dad Heckman, We are having fun, we are living our lives. We love you so much and miss you terribly.

What the F#@!? Isn't she alittle young to be shaving?

2008-08-12T16:18:00.003-04:00

Daddy and Riley are on vacation this week by themselves. It's nice that they get to spend some quality time together. When I arrived home from work last night, I immediately noticed that Riley had a new bandaid on her leg and it in fact was covering a boo boo. When I asked what happened, this is the story I was told from Daddy:

"I was playing Guitar Hero and Riley was in the bathroom. She had the door closed when I went to check on her. I tried to go in and she said, NO! I'm doing something, go play another song. What she was doing was shaving her legs. She had my shaving cream on her legs and was using my razor to shave her legs. She scraped her leg. "

I had to laugh and then worried what could have happened with that razor. Oh boy! Next I'm told of another interesting thing that happened. Daddy and Riley were outside most of the day. Riley playing in her sandbox and Daddy working on our new backdoor landing steps (which I should take some photos of). He had a piece of wood sitting on saw horses and Riley walked right into it and bumped her head. She didn't cry, instead she looked up all angry and said, "What the Fuck?" I didn't believe it, but Doug swears that's what she said. He said that he told her that was a swear word and not to say it, and I said, "Well at least she's using it in the proper context?"

I can't wait to find out what interesting adventures they had today.

Riley's first ride

2008-08-12T16:11:00.003-04:00

Thought I'd share another layout. This is from the day Riley got her first bike and it's using the Basic Grey scrapbooking paper line called Euphoria which I was extremely happy to have back in June when it first came out. This was my first time being on the cutting edge of scrapbook products. LOL!

Journaling reads: After four trips to the toy store and you telling me you didn't NEED a bike, I finally convinced you we should get one. Surprisingly, it's not been the first time it's been me thats really wanted you to have something. We got it home and you helped Daddy put it together. You took it for a spin and were so happy. You loved it!

Is that coming soon?

2008-07-28T15:56:00.003-04:00

We went to see Batman:Dark Knight last weekend and took Riley with us. She loved the movie, but more important was something interesting she did during the movie. It happened during the trailers. The trailer for The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor came on and Riley sat there wide eyed ooh and ahh through the whole thing.

When it was over she whispers to me: "Is that coming soon?"
I said "yes, do you want to see it"
To which she whispered: "Yes I do"

Okay a three year old understanding that it was a trailer and wanting to know basically when the movie comes out. That just blows my mind.

In other news its rated Rated PG-13 for adventure action and violence, so I guess that means she won't be able to see it. Who knows what her friends in Preschool might be learning on the playground because she got watch this movie? I got into a "discussion" on the two peas message board about young children in pg-13 and R rated movies. Let's just say I was in the minority on this issue. After arguing that it was a parent's right to decide what their child can and can't see and a parent's right to bring their children to the movie theather anytime they want as long as the child behaves and is respectful of others, I decided to ask my Mom what she thought because I don't ever remember a time when I wasn't able to see a movie I wanted to see. She told me other than some R rated movies when I was very young, they never restricted what I saw. The key to what she told me though was that we ALWAYS watched the movies together. I think that's the main thing, watch with your kids so you can discuss, answer questions, and explain things.

So Riley, you obviously want to see this movie, You are WELL under the PG-13 rating for this movie, but guess what? We are so there on August 8th! (I don't even want to see it that much and didn't even know it was coming out, but how could I say no to those big eyes and all that ooh and ahhh during the trailer?)

Everyone say it with me

2008-07-28T12:43:00.001-04:00

It will not rain on Saturday August 2nd until after Riley's party.
It will not rain on Saturday August 2nd until after Riley's party.
It will not rain on Saturday August 2nd until after Riley's party.
It will not rain on Saturday August 2nd until after Riley's party.

Stall Tactics

2008-07-28T12:04:00.005-04:00

As soon as Riley hears those three words, "Time for bed" from mommy she immediately goes into stall mode. Her most commonly used tactic is aimed directly at Daddy and it goes like this:

"I want to watch Dr. Who, Daddy."

What this means is I want to cuddle with Daddy while he watches Dr. Who and I get to stay up an hour later because that's how long the show is. This is the tactic that works most often for her, but what she hasn't realized yet is that Dr. Who is only on once a week and therefore only works once a week. That doesn't stop her from trying it the other 6 days of the week. What Riley doesn't know is that Daddy has freely admitted that if Dr. Who were on 7 days a week, it would absolutely work for her every single night.

She tried this last night, but it didn't work because it worked earlier in the week. I had to laugh as I had finally realized what she was doing. I had heard her say that to Daddy before, but didn't really put all the pieces together. I told Doug that I should really do a scrapbook page about this particular stale tactic because it is quite funny, and also is why I'm blogging about it now, so that when I get around to actually doing the scrapbook page, I will have remembered what I was thinking. (Note to self: get a photo of Riley and Daddy cuddling watching Dr. Who)

Doug tried to convince me that she just LOVES Dr. Who because it is an awesome show to which I fell off my chair in laughter.

What Describes Me?

2008-07-27T22:33:00.004-04:00

I cleaned up my laundry room today, can you believe it? I really should take a picture of it all clean. It looks really good. During the cleaning process, I sorted through some storage bins in the room and came across some school stuff from a few years ago when I was finishing up my degree. In particular course work from a class I took called Small Group Communication which was part of my communications minor. I think it was about day two or three of the class and the professor had us do an in class group exercise. He gave us each a page of label stickers with a bunch of different words on them. We were to walk about the room and stick words on the backs of our classmates that we thought described them. We had only been in class for a couple days and had only done one other group exercise and gone around the room and introduced ourselves, so these words were basically first impressions of people. I found the paper that had all the words that were stuck on my back and to this day I am still intrigued by the words. I remember thinking that most of the words were pretty good descriptions of me. When I was handed the notebook paper with the words from my back they read:

good listener, secretive, intellectual, secretive, good listener, trustworthy, mysterious, and creative.

I feel as though I am intellectual, trustworthy, and a good listener. I didn't think I had much of a creative side, but I'm finding out that I am more creative then I ever thought I was. I understand why secretive and mysterious showed up on my back. I have a hard time opening up to new people. When I first meet people I am very reserved and guarded of my feelings. It takes a little while for me to open up and even then I still don't always completely open myself up. I think I get it from my parents who are VERY private people. They don't like to talk about their business with anyone not even family really. It is something that I'd like to improve on. I'd like to be more open and less "secretive and mysterious".

I signed up for an online scrapbooking class called "Scrap Yourself" and to get prepared for the class the teacher asked us to think of 3-5 people and then 2 words that those people would use to describe you. Then which words you most agree with and which you least agree with. What I'd like to change, and what I'd embrace and take further.

When I came across this paper from my communications class it reminded me of this assignment from the scrapbooking class and although it doesn't fit completely, it works.

I wonder if I asked some of friends and family today what words they'd use to describe would I find words my classmates chose in the list?

Poker Birthday's are Fun!

2008-07-23T14:00:00.003-04:00

I was processing the photos from Debbie's Redwings poker birthday night yesterday and realized that I was WAY behind on poker birthday photo processing, so I spent the evening process all the back birthday photos. Debbie's entire set here.

Then I did Chris's Super Mario Brother's party.

Full set here. This was from March 2008.

The I did Andy's Furbyland Fair party.

Full set here. This was from April 2008.

Then my Survivor birthday party.

Full set here. This was also April 2008.

I thought I was done, but as I was looking through my photos, I realized I never posted Doug's Thanksgiving birthday from September 2007. Full set here.

So now I think I'm completely caught up on ALL the past poker birthday nights. These were all some really fun times and I hope you enjoy looking at the photos. Our poker birthday nights are always alot of fun. As stressed out as I get, I always really enjoy planning, and pulling them off. I tell Debbie all the time that we'd make great party planners.

I'm really proud of the cake I made for Debbie's party. I thought it was going to be easy, but it was deceivingly hard. I'm very happy with the way it turned out and in fact, I was still eating as of last night. It's still nice and moist. I need to learn how to make cakes on a smaller scale though.

This prompted me to gather together ALL of my cake photos and put them in a set of there own found here. Every cake from the very first one I ever made to this most recent one is in there. When looking at them all together, I really haven't made that many since I took the Wilton Cake Decorating 1 class in June 2006. It's a fun hobby that keeps me always learning even though it really stresses me out. I'm a perfectionist when it comes to this kind of stuff so I can always pick out stuff I don't like or wish had come out different. I need to take some more courses.

Soundtrack to my life brought to you by Ipod random shuffle

2008-07-16T14:17:00.003-04:00

Another one of those fun things to do with your ipod. I saw this on another blog and though it would be fun to do

Create the soundtrack of your life - Set your iPod to random shuffle and fill in the blanks below as each song comes up. No cheating! It actually makes for a great play list -

Opening Credits: Fighter - Christina Aguilera
Waking up: To Be With You - Mr.Big
Falling in love: Give It To Me - Timberland
Fight song: Regulators - Warren G
Break up song: Why Do I Keep Coming? - The Killers
Making Up: Sexy Back - Justin Timberlake
Life's Okay: State of the Union - Rise Against
Mental Breakdown: Crash - Gwen Stefani
Driving: Warning(Intro) - Ludacris
Flashbacks: Teenager In Love - Ricky Nelson
Happy Dance: This One's for the Girls - Martina McBride
Regret: Drift Away - Uncle Kracker
Final Battle: Underneath it All - No Doubt
Death Scene: Our Time Now - Plain White T's
Final Credits: Pretty Vegas - INXS

Who taught her that?

2008-07-15T22:11:00.007-04:00

A few days ago, Riley peed on her Yankees bear. Whether accidental or not, it makes me wonder just what Andy, the Red Sox fan, has been secretly teaching her?

Here's the bear patiently waiting for his turn in the washer.

My Favorite Things

2008-07-12T18:26:00.003-04:00

I found this while browsing around some new blogs I found on two peas and it looked fun, so I did one for myself. It's a flickr mosaic about me. I used Big Huge Lab's Mosaic Maker to create the mosaic.

The photos answer the following questions:

1. What is your first name? Carin
2. What is your favorite food? Chicken Tenders (that's what people tell me anyway lol)
3. What high school did you go to? Richfield Springs School
4. What is your favorite color? Purple
5. Who is your celebrity crush? Justin Timberlake
6. Something you collect? postcards
7. Favorite dessert? Chocolate ice cream
8. Favorite flowers? Cala Lilly
9. What do you love most in life? my family
10. One Word to describe you. thoughtful (I asked Doug and that's what he said)
11. Dream vacation? Beach house in North Carolina
12. Your favorite holiday. Christmas!

Ok, you try now, and if you do let me know so I can check it out.

Watch out Ebert, there's a new critic in town

2008-07-12T12:34:00.004-04:00

We went to see Hellboy2 at the drive-in last night. When it was over, I leaned over to Riley who watched the entire movie sitting on her daddy's lap and asked her, "What did you think? Did you like it? She said, "I liked Hancock better." Laughing, I said, "Me too honey, me too."

On the way to the bathroom between movies,Roo asked where Hancock was and I point to the screen playing it. She tells me her favorite part of Hancock was the lightning, and asked me what my favorite part was? Then she said she did like Hellboy and I said I liked it too. Then she said, "but I still like Hancock better."

Feeling Old School

2008-07-11T12:15:00.002-04:00

1. Oh, I can't wait until I have another vacation.
2. Milk is the first thing I see when I open my refrigerator.
3. I never leave home without my purse.
4. If I were a condiment, I would be ketchup I guess because it was the first condiment that came to mind.
5. Smoking is really high up on my list of pet peeves.
6. The last thing I thought of before I went to bed was not something I should write about here, it had to do with JT and bringing Sexy Back LOL.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to the drive-in again if the rain lets up, tomorrow my plans include poker and Sunday, I want to be lazy, but we'll probably go to the fair and do some yardwork!

Random 10: (lots of old school stuff this week)
1. When I see you Smile - Bad English
2. OPP - Naughty By Nature
3. Ain't it Funny - J.Lo
4. Lady - Kenny Rogers
5. Diddy Rock - Diddy
6. Just Got Paid - Nsync
7. She's Crafty - Beastie Boys
8. Funky Cold Medina - Tone Loc
9. Superhero -Jane's Addiction (Man I miss Entourage!)
10. The Old Apartment - BNL

Got Steam?

2008-07-10T16:20:00.003-04:00

Here it is, my first scrapbook page based on something I blogged. Part of the plan when I switched to blogger was to use my blog to journal for potential future scrapbook pages. Finally, I got around to doing one. I love the way it came out.

Blog post its based off

Now I need to find a better way to digitize my scrapbook pages. I should play around with photo stitching I guesss since my scanner won't scan an entire 12x12 layout. I'll add that to my list of things that don't get done. Hope you enjoy this page as much as I do.

This is what our IM conversations are like

2008-07-10T00:44:00.004-04:00

Part of an IM conversation tonight between Deb and I. Doug laughed out loud when I read it back to him, so I knew it was funny and I should share.

The video in question:

The conversation:
Deb I'm gonna send you a forward, but it's not really dumb, honest

Carin:They really need to set that video to the ok go song. it's cute

Deb: Bex sent it to me. I really don't forward stuff that often but that cracked me up

Carin: I just asked Doug to watch it and he's all like "I've seen that". and I'm like: When? and he's says "Like a couple months ago or a year ago, it's really hilarious though"

what an ass

Deb: well it's new to me so poop on him

Carin: me too. Hang on let me go poop on him

Deb: thanks!

Then right before we said goodnight:

Carin: I'm serious about adding that one section about pooping on Doug to my blog. You okay with that?

Deb: I'm more than OK with that

Carin: lol

Damn, I love hockey!

2008-07-02T13:40:00.002-04:00

Riley: I want to wear my hockey jersey!
Me: It's too hot out for it, that's for winter.
Riley: I want to wear it!
Me: Okay, but just until we get ready to leave.
Riley: (Looking down at the jersey on) This is the Redwings.

These are for you Deb!

Riley say: Damn I love hockey!

Baboons @ the Zoo!

2008-07-01T17:59:00.004-04:00

283_8350_copy, originally uploaded by carinh.

Roo and I went to the Seneca Park Zoo today to see the two new attractions, the Elephant splash pool and the Baboon exhibit. The baboons were really cool, they were getting fed a snack (oranges, apples, and grapes) while we were there. The zookeeper was throwing the fruit all over the place so the baboons were running all around chasing after the fruit. The exhibit has an outdoor viewing area through fence and then a small covered area that is glass which the baboons can walk right up to the glass and you can stand right at the glass. It very cool. We watched a baby baboon find a grape which must be a favorite of the older dominant baboon because the baby was hiding behind a tree eating the grape so the older one wouldn't see him. Then all the sudden the older one noticed and chased him across the pen, and then walked back towards us eating the grape.

The elephant splash pool viewing area is also really cool. You get an unobstructed view of the elephants, no wires or fences in the way and you are so close to the splash pool that the elephants could splash you if they wanted. Unfortunately they didn't wander over to the water while we there. On this trip I was also finally able to get a great photo of the Meerkats who arrived last fall.

284_8402_copy, originally uploaded by carinh.

Riley had a great time too. She was all excited to take her Curious George stuffed animal to the zoo, it was his first trip. She said his favorite animal was the alligator. She waded around in the water and was very excited to get a purple monkey souvenir cup filled with apple juice. Three of her favorite things: purple, monkeys, and apple juice all in one!

I really enjoy the zoo, they are making some great improvements to it. I can't wait for the Lion habitat which breaks ground next year. I renewed my membership today so we'll be spending many more fun afternoons checking out the animals.

scrap your childhood

2008-06-30T11:11:00.003-04:00

So I happened across this message board entry on the two peas site about a challenge to scrap your childhood and seeing how I've been bothered lately about not being able to remember things from my childhood I was very intrigue by this challenge. I don't have many photos from my childhood with me, my mom has most of them, so I thought I would start with journaling the challenges first and see if they turn into scrapbook pages. The challenges are weekly and there have been 35 of them so far, so I have some catching up to do, I suppose. This weeks challenge is about stores and restaurants you used to go to as a child that don't exist now.

When thinking about this topic the very first thing that came to mind is the Dairy Creme. When I was a teenager we used to go there just about every night. Before any of us could drive we would walk there in the summer(it was only open during the summer months). It was about a 1 1/4 mile walk from my friend B's house where we used to gather for the night. Once we got there, if we were eating dinner, I'd order and hamburger and french fry with a rootbeer float with chocolate ice cream. If it was just ice cream it would always be the rootbeer float. I remember the food used to be really good there. At this age, I must have been 14 or 15 when we used to do this, my curfew was to be home when the street lights turned on. We planned it so that we would have just enough time to walk to the Dairy Creme and then back to sit in the park and hang out with friends. At the time, there used to be a fast food type restaurant, I think it was called Speedies, across the street from the park where we would sit and we used to stop in there a lot also. We never ordered more than french fries there and most times we didn't order anything. My cousin worked there so we'd always stop in to see him.

I don't have many other memories of stores or restuarants that I went to as a young child. I remember vaguely that there used to be a bakery across the street from our house and it cost 25 cents for a Bavarian Creme donut. Whenever my Dad was home with me, I'd always ask to walk over and get one. I was young enough at the time where he didn't like me walking around by myself too much. He would sit in his screen house reading his New York Post newspaper and I would walk over and get a 25 cent Bavarian Creme donut. I also used to like to go to the 5 and dime store on Main Street. I think I used to buy candy there, Ring Pops and Fun Dip mostly.

And then lastly, The Great American, the local grocery store where my mom worked. I'd go there ALL the time. At one point about around the same time as the Dairy Creme trips there was an older boy working there that both my friend B and I thought was really cute. He worked the night shift and so we'd go in all the time to see him. My mom hated it because she didn't like me hanging out and causing trouble at her place of work. The two of us used to hang out there so much the boy used to call us the Lot Lizards which at the time we thought was the coolest thing, but really its not so nice. B liked it so much she eventually got a tattoo of a lizard. At the time there was also another boy that used to hang out with us alot, I forget, but he had a nickname too relating to the whole lot lizard thing. I eventually went to prom with this boy, but I'll save that for another story.

Everyday Life and Childhood Memories

2008-06-25T13:24:00.005-04:00

I haven't been blogging as much as I have wanted to since I moved to blogger, but more than I did when I was on Livejournal. I guess I feel like I don't have a lot to say and I feel like the day to day stuff in my life probably isn't all that exciting. Like for example, yesterday, I went to work for 8 hours give or take a few in either direction (haha). I'm not going to write about my work even though it gives me plenty of material. I don't want to get dooce'd. After work, I picked Roo up from school, we came home, had McDonald's for dinner. She got the Master Crane in her happy meal. She really really wants Master Monkey! anyone surprised? Then we went upstairs so I could get some materials for her birthday invitations. She threw a massive temper tantrum because I wouldn't let her bring downstairs the huge pile of crap she had collected together. "But I Love it Mommy, I don't want to put it back!!" Too bad! After that I worked on her birthday invitations, talked to my brother on the phone for a bit, put Roo to bed, played Wii Fit for about 45 minutes, watched some HGtv shows from the on-demand channel, some Chelsea Lately, and went to bed. See very boring, nothing exciting happened, no funny or insightful stories to tell, just everyday boring. Who wants to read about that. Anyway.

I've been thinking alot lately about my childhood memories. Lately, I've been seeing alot of scrapbook pages and blogs about things your mom used to say, or memories from childhood, etc. I feel like I have no memories, I mean I have memories about my childhood, but I don't feel like I have those meaningful stories, life lessons and awesome words of wisdom from my parents that most people seem to have. It's starting to really bother me. Why can't I remember things my Mom used to say or things my Parent's used to do all the time? They are amazing parents so why don't I have these types of memories? I know I must have them, but how do I pull them out, how do I remember them or how do I better convey the memories I have? Maybe that's my problem? I wish I could sit down and write a detailed recount of interesting things that happened in my childhood like this guy. Or why don't I have a scrapbook page all about my mom's words of wisdom like on page 35 of the July Scrapbooks, etc? I want those things, but everytime I try to think about it, I got nothing?

I remember the time I made my mom so mad once she pushed me up against the back door, but I don't remember what I did? I remember my dad worked late alot and everynight no matter what my mom was doing she'd sit in the kitchen with him while he ate his dinner and they'd talk. I remember that my brother and I used to fight, A lot, so much it would make my mom nervous leaving us alone. We'd call her all the time at work. My dad can't turn down stuff. He'll pick uneaten food out of the garbage (at home only) and eat it. He'll pick anything up off the street. We joke about it all the time, how he'll ask Mom to stop the car so he can get that sock laying on the side of the road. I told my brother when he was about 3 or so that he'd played basketball and love it and he told me he never would, that he hated it. I remember my Dad made the best snowmen, he'd collect aftershave bottle tops for eyes and a nose. I have a lot of photos of us making snowmen together. I remember my senior year I got drunk on a school night and had a terrible hangover, puking, and the works and my mom forced me to go to school, but I don't remember what she said to me. So I have memories, lots of them I could go on forever, or moments, but I don't seem to have memories of conversations, I wonder why?

Quotable Riley

2008-06-19T13:03:00.002-04:00

Before leaving Grandma and Papa's house
Me: Riley, are you going to give Papa a hug and kiss bye. We are going home now.
Riley: No
Me: Are you sure? He really would like a hug.
Riley: I'm too old to hug
Me: You're never to old to hug.
Riley: Yes, I'm too old!!

In her bedroom
Me: I hear Nyssa barking she wants to come in. Let's get up and go downstairs and let her in.
Riley: That's not going to happen.

In the toy store:
Riley: Let's go see the bikes
Me: Okay, want to try this one? (a 12inch bike with training wheels)
Riley: Yeah sure
Me: look you're peddling that one. Cool. Do you like it?
Riley: Yeah I do
Me: Do you want to buy it?
Riley: No
Me: Are you sure? Wouldn't it be cool to have a bike at home to ride?
Riley: I don't need it.

Happy 60th, I mean 59th Birthday Mom!

2008-06-18T14:53:00.005-04:00

282_8271_copy, originally uploaded by carinh.

For a few weeks now I've been talking about going home for Father's Day/Mom's Birthday. They were on the same day this year. We usually don't make the trek home for this holiday, but this one was special. Mom was having a milestone birthday, 60. I talked with my brother and he was going home to. We talked about it being her 60th birthday. The day before we left to go home, he told me about this really cool hardcover book he got Mom about 1948 as I was headed to Factory Card Outlet to get her balloons and lots of fun 60th birthday stuff to make her day special. Heading home after purchasing all the stuff I had a major freak out moment, "Oh crap, is it really her 60th birthday?" I start to think to myself, Dad was born in 47 (I know this because it's part of yahoo id). Mom's two years younger than him, no wait one year. Oh CRAP! So I immediately call my bro who is already at our parent's house and ask him:

Me: Mom is turning 60, right?
Bro: Yeah, why?
Me: I had a freak out moment, all the sudden wondering is she?
Bro: Dad, how old is Mom going to be?
Dad: 59
Me: No, he's messing with us. right?
Bro: Nice job, sis. Great misinformation.
Me: Well, you never corrected me
Bro: You're the one that's supposed to be on top of this stuff.
Me: Oh Crap. Well at least we figured it out before we presented her with all this 60th Birthday stuff.

I'm officially the worst daughter in the world. I felt like a complete jackass. How could I screw something up that bad? It has nothing to do with her looking older than she is that's for sure. It has everything to do with my terrible sense of time. I was sure that dad's 60th was 2 years ago. I was convinced that my Bro or my Dad would rat me out for sure, so I figured I better fess up before they did. I called her that night to fess up and she laughed and preceeded to pick on me all weekend. Later, my brother says, "Why did you tell her? I wasn't going to say anything?"

At least it made her 59th birthday memorable.

He Got Game!

2008-06-13T10:24:00.004-04:00

I love this play from last night. What you can't see is Ray Allen waving off Kevin Garnett when he tries to come over for the screen.That's one of the best parts of this possession. Ray says no thanks I got this!

From Yahoo Sports:
"Allen, one of the game’s purest shooters, then drove to the basket and made a reverse layup as dramatic as the Celtics’ comeback.“It was huge,” Boston coach Doc Rivers said. 'It was really supposed to be a middle pick-and-roll with Kevin and Ray, and Ray waved Kevin off because he liked the matchup that he had already, so he didn’t want to bring another defender in to help. It was a great call by Ray. The layup was just tremendous.'"

Oh poor Sasha. What's wrong? Face it you just got burnt.

I loved seeing Ray Allen so confident and aggressive, no doubt he could school Sasha one on one. He wasn't given up that ball for anything. He's the best free throw shooter in the history of the game. Lakers didn't want him going to the line and if anyone was going to the line in that possession Ray made sure it would be him. He didn't need to though apparently the Lakers thought Sasha could defend Ray one on one.

He Got Game!

Keep it or give it to the babies

2008-06-12T16:58:00.005-04:00

281_8187_copy, originally uploaded by carinh.

A couple of days ago we went through another round of "keep it or give it the babies that need it?" toy purge with Riley. Her toys were starting to get out of control, I had just brought home another round of garage sale finds, and her birthday is coming up, so we decided now would be a good time. We have a small house and no playroom, so this is the only way we can keep things under control. Riley is great at this. She's able to decide whether or not she wants to keep the toy or give it away and she almost never changes her mind once she's decided. When going through her downstairs toys, she's also allowed to choose "take to my room", but knows that means something from her room has to go.
Me on the other hand, I'm terrible at this. Even though I'm the one enforcing the toy purge rule, x number in x number out, It's still painful for me. For one, I've always been a pack rat. I like to keep everything, but slowly Doug is digging me out of that hole. Two, I feel horrible when Riley chooses to give away a toy that a family member or friend has given her as a present. I always want to keep those. I just feel like they shouldn't be given away and I don't want to hurt someone's feelings by them knowing that we got rid of that toy they spent so much time picking out, and giving her. It's so much easier with clothing gifts, she just outgrows them and that's it, time to move on, but with toys it's different. Sure, she can outgrow them, but it's a much greyer line. I found myself struggling several times in this last purge because so many of the toys were gifts. I insisted we keep them even though Riley had made her choice and as many times as I continued to ask her about the same toy hoping she would change her mind, not once did she. I guess I just have to remind myself that even though its time for these toys to go, Riley LOVED playing with them and got much joy out of them during her time with them and hope that the friend or family member that gave them to her understands and thinks the same. However, I have found a way to circumvent my loss of the battle by suggesting that certain toys (ones I'm having problems letting go of ) should make the trek to Grandma and Papa's house along with a toy storage unit and wala Riley has a toy collections at their house to play with. This was unanimously agreed to by Daddy and Roo withouht much fight, so a few of the toys you see here will find a new home very soon much to the surprise of the homeowners, I'm sure. Sneaking one I am, aren't I?

UPDATE: PS- "Give to the babies that need them" really in all fairness means gather in a big bag and put in the basement until Doug insists I actually DO something with them. Remember I am a pack rat after all. Don't tell Riley! :)

I'm with you on this one Kobe

2008-06-12T14:12:00.003-04:00

Bryant to Schilling: "GO YANKEES!"

Asked if he was disappointed in Schilling’s comments, Bryant responded, “Go Yankees!” and pumped his fist, drawing laughter from reporters Wednesday."

What did my mom always say?

2008-06-06T14:26:00.001-04:00

Idle hands are Bad.
I love very hot water in the shower.
My favorite time of the day is when when I pick Roo up from school.
The last tea I drank was none, don't drink it.
I like to vacation in the Summer.
My mother always said wait till your father gets home.
And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to the new Adam Sandler movie at the drive-in, tomorrow my plans include garage saleing and poker and Sunday, I want to watch game 2 of the NBA finals!

I wish I remembered more pieces of wisdom from my mom. I'll have to start really thinking about that, I know there are some better ones.

Random Ipod 10:

Smack That - Akon f./ Eminem
Jesus Walks - Kayne West
Hella Good - No Doubt
Write You a Song - Plain White T's
Sam's Town - The Killers
Release - Timbaland F./ Justin Timberlake
Waiting - Red Jumpsuit Apparatus
Far More - The Honorary Title
Yeah Yeah - Cyndi Lauper
Touch Me - Samantha Fox

Try it Left Handed

2008-06-06T11:57:00.005-04:00

My alarm woke me up right in the middle of a really fun dream last night. Another strange one, but fun. All I remember about it is I was playing mini golf with the guys from Entourage. They were betting me whether or not I could make shots a specific way. Right before I woke up they were trying to get me to take a bet where I tried to get a hole in one while shooting left handed. It was a fun dream and I was actually mad when I woke up because I never got to find out if I took the bet and if I made the left handed hole in one.

Four Things about Alpha Dog

2008-06-05T11:39:00.006-04:00

It was late, but I decided to watch a few minutes of TV before bed last night. I came across Alpha Dog on HBO, it had just started. I ended up watching almost the entire thing. I turned it off just before the kid gets killed because that's a horrible part of the movie. I've seen this movie several times, it has Justin Timberlake in it after all, and each time a couple things about the story really bother me. For one, I can't get over what a pussy Johnny Truelove really is. I mean he's supposed to be some badass drug dealer, but he comes across as a complete pussy. It really drives me nuts. Two, the kid is a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, but he never fights back and he has several times when he can leave and he doesn't. Three, Why doesn't Frankie just make the kid leave in that scene right before they take the kid to kill him? And Four, how can those kids possibly believe that murder is better than kidnapping. The scene where Frankie and Elvis try to rationalize why they have to murder the kid and they talk about how if they let him go they are all looking at life in prison, so it has to be done. What did they think was going to happen after they murdered the kid?
Like I said, I've seen this movie several times and I know the outcome and I know the story it's based on yet I still find myself everytime yelling at the TV for Frankie to just tell that kid to leave in the scene where they are watching Austin Powers. Frankie knows what's about to happening and he doesn't want to do it, he wants the kid to leave why or why doesn't he just force him to go or tell him what's about to go down?

Okay enough of that heavy stuff... Damn isn't Justin Timberlake HOT in that movie!!!!

In my dreams Justin can't Iron

2008-06-05T11:25:00.002-04:00

I have the strangest dreams. Last nights was short what I remember of it. I was at Justin's house in LA for a visit which appears to be the first time I had been there. He was getting ready to go to Dancing With the Stars. All I can think is that he was for some reason performing on the results show because I can't imagine in any world he was one of the celebrity dancers. So anyway, he was getting dressed to go and the shirt he wanted to wear to the show needed to be ironed. He started to freak out because his Mother wasn't there and apparently she's the only one that can iron his shirts properly. Finally I say, just let me do it, how hard can it possibly be. So, I iron his shirt very carefully and very slowly making sure to get it just the way his Mom does. I'm just about done with it and his Mom walks in surprised that I'm ironing Justin's shirt. He yells at his Mom wanting to know why she's so late and that he needed his shirt ironed. I finish the shirt and his Mom inspects it and gives it the okay saying I did an excellent job. Everyone is relieved and I stand at the window watching him get into his car to leave for the show in the shirt I ironed NOT his Mom. He comes home and he and I are on the couch watching a movie, the movie gets over and I make a comment on how late it is and that I should go to bed. He asks me if he were to ask me to spend the night in his room, what would I say? I pause for a half a second and then say, yes absolutely! We start to walk to his room and then I wake up! (Right before the good stuff, I'm sure!!)

She speaks the truth

2008-04-29T12:12:00.004-04:00

On our way to the drive-in over the weekend. Out of nowhere, Riley says:

Riley: Justin Timberlake has steam.
Me: Justin Timberlake has steam?
Riley: Yes
Me: Why?
Riley: Because he's super hot.
Me: Justin Timberlake has steam coming off him because he's super hot?
Riley: YES!!!! Justin Timberlake has steam cause he's super hot!!!!

I did not teach her that. She came up with all on her own. Even Doug laughed!

The Last thing

2008-04-28T18:46:00.004-04:00

Nobody ever tags me for these things, but this one looked fun, so I'm just going to do it. I know I'm weird but whatever.

Last music you listened to: Justin Timberlake
Last thing you watched on TV: Dexter
Last movie you saw: 21 and Vantage Point at the drive-in
Last book you read: The Lance Bass book
Last person you spoke to: My Brother
Last thing you ate: a Milky Way Mini
Last time you laughed: About 5 minutes ago talking to my brother
Last place you visited: SpringDale Farms
Last website you visited: Popsugar.com
Last thing you scrapped/crafted: An Anniversary card for my parents.

Party, It's my Birthday!

2008-04-28T15:31:00.004-04:00

Today is my Birthday! I'm 35 today. I can't believe it! Will my brother remember? That's the only thing I've been thinking about today. It's been a running joke with my family because he always seems to forget. Guess I'll see when I get home today if I've received an email from him. I think I'd fall over if he actually called me... Stay tuned.....

My Birthday Random 10: (Happy Birthday to me!)
1. Still on my Brain - Justin Timberlake
2. Just Don't Tell me That - Nsync
3. One Shot - Danity Kane
4. Party - Nick Swardson
5. My Name is - Eminem
6. Look What the Cat Dragged in - Poison
7. Go Home - Barenaked Ladies
8. LoveStoned - Justin Timberlake
9. Allstar - Smash Mouth
10. Going Back to Cali - L.L.Cool.J

Cheese and Popcorn, yum!

2008-04-25T11:28:00.003-04:00

1. When I fell in love with Doug, I knew it was forever!
2. Spring is when the flowers bloom and it heats up outside!
3. Oh no! The internet connection is down, F*!#.
4. Rock of Love is the craziest tv show ever.
5. Cheese and popcorn make a great meal!
6. I don't have a garden.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to the Paramore concert, tomorrow my plans include going to the drive in to see 21 and Sunday, I want to go clothes shopping, it's my birthday present from Doug!

Random Ipod 10:
1. Space Cowboy - Nsync
2. Pretty Boy - Danity Kane
3. Just Don't Tell Me - Nsync
4. Something to Believe In - Poison
5. Beverly Hills - Weezer
6. Clothes Off - Gym Class Heroes
7. Switch - Will Smith
8. You and Me - Plain White T's
9. Happy - Saving Jane
10. No Good - Kate Voegele

Right now

2008-04-07T14:15:00.013-04:00

I recently migrated from Livejournal to blogger because I wanted to try something new and sort of get a fresh start on my blog. One of the things I want to use this blog for is to capture thoughts that will eventually turn into journalling on my scrapbook pages. Looking back at scrapbook pages I've done in the past, the one thing that is lacking from all of them is journalling. I really want my scrapbook pages to be a story about mine and my family's life and right now they just aren't completely capturing that story. Journalling seems to be hard for me, so I want to work on that. I saw a scrapbook page in the Two Peas Gallery that sparked my interest. It's a page about the person right now. I liked it, and started thinking about a similar layout, so here are 10 things about me RIGHT NOW:

1. I THINK about exercising everyday, but rarely do it.
2. I'm still in disbelief that the Tarheels lost in the Semi-finals of the tournament.
3. I'm constantly daydreaming about what it would be like to have enough money, so that I never had to work again.
4. I'm still as obsessed with Justin Timberlake as ever.
5. When I'm laughing with Riley, it's the happiest I've ever been.
6. My MUST see TV includes: Dexter, Dirt, Rock of Love 2, Dancing with the Stars, Beauty and the Geek, Survivor, My Name is Earl, and Battlestar Gallactica. (Alot of my favorites are on Hiatus due to the Writer's Strike)
7. I read WAY more about scrapbooking than I actual do it.
8. I have a hard time asking for help, but I'm getting better at it.
9. It's possible I'm more excited about the Wilper's ground breaking than anyone.
10. Everyday I wonder why it's so hard for me to make new friends.

I dare you to watch it

2008-03-27T12:00:00.003-04:00

Up until last night the worst movie I had ever seen was George Clooney's Solaris. Last night we watched Southland Tales and it was BAD, really Bad. I rented it mostly because it had Justin Timberlake in it, but also because it had The Rock, Sean William Scott, Sarah Michele Geller, and Amy Poehler among several others we were soon to find out. I can't even begin to tell you what the movie was about. Early on I said to Doug, "Do you have any idea what's going on?" His response, "No". There were two positives for me in the movie that might make it better than Solaris and they are Justin narrated the whole movie which means I got to hear his voice ALOT, and I bought Justin as a crazy weirdo, so his acting was good. However, those two positives don't outweigh the bad and the worst thing was, it was 160 minutes long, 160 minutes. After I woke up from my nap, I thought "great it must be almost over now" 15, 20, 30 minutes go by, and I say outloud "Is this movie EVER going to end?" I have no idea what the movie was about and I couldn't even begin to tell you what happened in the movie other than half way through it broke into a music video with Justin's character and I laughed out loud. I think if I ever meet Justin I'm going to ask him "Come on, be honest, did you really have any idea what was going on in that movie?"

What gets me by

2008-02-08T12:40:00.000-05:00

I was reading one of my scrapbooking message boards and I came across a thread that really made me stop and think.

"What gets you through the day..week...month? We all have things we enjoy. Just curious as to what everyone needs to keep things rolling."

Here's what I came up with. The things that get me through are (In no particular order, just what came to me):

- Playing and laughing with my daughter
- Watching my favorite TV shows and movies (I'm somewhat of a pop culture junkie) Even more so watching them WITH my hubbie.
- Music definitely, especially when I'm at work. My Itouch gets me through the day.
- Guitar Hero 3
- My comfy clothes: The clothes I only wear around the house.
- The 5 or 10 minute calls I get from my brother to discuss some tidbit of sports or music information. I really look forward to those calls.
- Friday poker nights
- My dog: spending just a few minutes with her and all the stress just melts away.
- Knowing my Mom and Dad are just a phone call away.
- photography and scrapbooking
- My computer: it keeps me in touch with my long distance friends and family and keeps me always learning.

I feel a layout brewing....

I'm Listening

2008-01-25T12:38:00.000-05:00

1. Riley makes me happy.
2. I would like to win poker tonight, please.
3. A Milky Way tastes SO good!
4. Saturday is my favorite day of the week because I'm home with my family.
5. My heart is my best feature.
6. We could learn so much from from listening.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to Poker, tomorrow my plans include maybe the children's museum and Sunday, I want to organize my scrapbooking stuff!

Random 10:
1. Genie in a Bottle - Chistina Aguilera
2. Don't Close Your Eyes - Kix
3. Miami - Will Smith
4. Last Night - Diddy f/Keyshia Cole
5. In My Daughter's Eyes - Martina McBride
6. It'll Be Ok - Limp Bizkit
7. Damn Regret - Red Jumpsuit Appartus
8. No Diggity - Blackstreet
9. Party Starter - Will Smith
10. Beverly Hills - Weezer

Soundtrack Day

2008-01-18T12:49:00.000-05:00

1. The last compliment I got was from Riley, she said you have a tiny belly. (I wish! LOL)
2. I'm reading "The Big Picture - Scrapbooking Your Life and A Whole Lot More" by Stacy Julian.
3. I woke up today and thought Yeah it's Friday!
4. Why does every additional fun feature have to cost more.
5. The last thing I ate was blueberries.
6. January... one month closer to summer.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to seeing my family, tomorrow my plans include Poker at the Gotobeds, Yeah! and Sunday, I want to not have to drive :( !

Random 10:
1. Just Lose it - Eminem
2. Wild Side - Motley Crue
3. Shot You (Interlude) - Bad Boys 2 soundtrack
4. Pressure - Paramore
5. Fame '90 - David Bowie (Pretty Woman soundtrack)
6. Tell Me - Diddy f/ Christina Aguilera
7. The One Thing - INXS
8. When I Come Around - Green Day
9. Where is the Love - Black Eyed Peas F/ Justin Timberlake
10. Colorblind - Counting Crows (Cruel Intentions soundtrack)

Justin and Ice Cream, a match made in Carin Heaven

2008-01-11T13:14:00.000-05:00

1. My favorite Movie of 2007 was The Bourne Ultimatum.
2. I'm most tempted by Justin Timberlake, and Ice Cream.
3. Today I want The work day to be over, so I can go home and have fun with my friends.
4. The last thing I took a picture of was Riley, of course.
5. You and I have memories that will last a lifetime.
6. The most recent movie I’ve seen that I really enjoyed was hmmm, this is a tough call, I enjoy most movies I see, so I guess I just list the most recent movie I've watched which was Music and Lyrics.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to Poker, tomorrow my plans include Don't really have any, so who knows and Sunday, I want to It's a pretty open weekend, so I'll play it by ear!

Random IPOD 10:
1. I Love you More - Eminem
2. Mystify - JD Fortune
3. The Queen and I - Gym Class Heroes
4. Sexy-Interlude - TLC
5. Unsheathed - Live
6. From This Moment On - Shania Twain
7. Crawling - Linkin Park
8. Possibilities - Teddy Geiger
9. What Goes Around - Justin Timberlake
10. The Magnificient Jazzy Jeff - DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince

ooh how fun!

2008-01-08T10:02:00.000-05:00

Got this from

buddiststrega

. How fun and the results are funny too.. I'm scared of The Fixx and J.LO is my biggest secret and to all my Friends, "I'll be good for you" :)

Directions:
1. Put your iTunes, Windows Media Player, iPod etc. on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS

1..IF SOMEONE SAYS "IS THIS OKAY" YOU SAY?
Predictable - Good Charlotte

2..HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF?
Thriller - Fall out Boy

3. WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
All I have - J.LO

4..HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
Love and Memories - O.A.R.

5..WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
When you put your hands on me - Christina Aguilera

6..WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
Peace - Weezer

7..WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
Hip Hop Dancer's Theme - Dj Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince

8..WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
Playa - Nelly

9..WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
Two Way - Lil Romeo

10..WHAT IS 2 + 2?
My 1st Single - Eminem

11..WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR EX?
Here we go again - DJ. Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince

12..WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Without You - Motley Crue

13..WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
Cherry Bomb - John Cougar Melloncamp

14..WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
Lump - Presidents of the USA

15..WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
I'm Holding on to Love - Shania Twain

16..WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
This ain't a Scene, it's an Armsrace - Fall Out Boy

17..WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
Diamonds and Pearls - Prince

18..WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST FEAR?
One Thing Leads to Another - The Fixx

19..WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
Jenny From the Block - J.LO

20..WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
I'll be Good for You - Nsync

Carin's iTouch

2008-01-07T16:20:00.000-05:00

Santa brought me an Ipod touch for Christmas. I was not expecting it and was very surprised. I love it. I've been playing with it for days, but today is the first day I've used it just to listen to music. I've spent days cleaning up my itunes library and making sure I have all the cover art for my music. My last IPOD was black and white and didn't do images, so this is a big change for me. Here's my very first Random 10 on the new Ipod touch:

1. Colorblind - Counting Crows
2. Where is the Love? - BEP f/ JT
3. Bubble Pop Electric - Gwen Stefani
4. Need you Tonight - INXS
5. Big Pimpin' - Jay-Z
6. Idiots vs. The Internet - Jason Mewes (movie clip from Jay and Silent Bob)
7. Longview - Green Day
8. Mystify - JD Fortune
9. Don't Stop the Music - Rhianna
10. Move Along - All American Rejects

2007 movies I saw

2008-01-03T00:29:00.000-05:00

I did this last year and it was fun. I also made it one of my goals to watch more 2007 movies in 2007 then 2006 movies in 2006. So, here's my list of 2007 released movies I saw in 2007. This list is based on the film release schedule for 2007 here.

* Alpha Dog
Catch and Release
Epic Movie
Smokin' Aces
Bridge To Terabithia
* Black Snake Moan
Wild Hogs
300
Premonition
The Last Mimzy
Reign Over Me
* Shooter
Blades Of Glory
* Disturbia
In The Land Of Women
Vacancy
* Lucky You
* Spider-man 3
* Shrek The Third
* Knocked Up
* Ocean's Thirteen
Surf's Up
* Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer
Evan Almighty
* Transformers
* Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix
* I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry
* The Bourne Ultimatum
* Underdog
* Bee Movie
* I Am Legend

Tried to watch, but fell asleep:
Ghost Ride
The Number 23

* Movies I saw in the theater or drive-in.

My top 5 movies of 2007:
1. The Bourne Ultimatum
2. Disturbia
3. Transformers
4. Ocean's 13
5. Alpha Dog

I saw 31 2007 movies in 2007 and that is 3 movies more than 2006 movies I saw in 2006, so that means I met that goal, Yeah!

oh, it's one of your favorites

2007-12-18T10:06:00.000-05:00

Driving in the car with Riley. "Rock Your Body" by Justin Timberlake comes on the radio.

Me: Listen Riley. It's Justin.
Riley: Justin?
Me: Yeah, it's an OLD Justin song
A long pause
Riley: It's not an old Justin song, it's a GOOD Justin song.
Me: (smiling) You're right, it is a good Justin song. It's one of my favorites.
RIley: oh, It's one of your favorites?
Me: Yeah, it's one of my favorites.
Small pause
Riley: It's one of my favorites too.

Duplicate Carin's IPOD, like the real thing or different?

2007-12-17T13:25:00.000-05:00

So, my IPOD broke again. I took it back to Best Buy and this time instead of fixing my broken one, they opted to exchange it for a refurbished one, unfortunately, the same model I already had. Anyway, it proved to be a good idea since my new to me IPOD showed up 3 days later instead of 2 weeks later like last time. But this leaves me with a question, It's no secret that I say that I believed my other IPOD new me well and we had a "relationship". Well this isn't that IPOD, even though its got the same name. It's like a duplicate. Like that last episode Stargate Atlantis, but anyway... so how well does this one know me. Well let's see, Here is the first random 10 with my duplicate IPOD:

1. La Isla Bonita - Madonna
2. Look Where we are now - Teddy Geiger
3. Switch - TLC
4. Never Tear us Apart - JD Fortune and Suzie Mcneil duet
5. Second Best - BNL
6. My Own Worst Enemy - LIT
7. Shadow - Ashlee Simpson
8. Basement - Puddle of Mudd
9. Strike It Up - Black Row (Jock Jams, Vol. 1)
10. Ordinary Average Guy - Joe Walsh

If you ask me that looks different then what my normal Random 10 looks like, sure the bands are the same, but the songs. It's almost like this IPOD is still channeling its previous owner or something.. LOL... Guess we need to spend some time getting to know each other. (smirk)

Friday

2007-12-07T12:13:00.000-05:00

1. I LOVE Christmas.
2. Red,green, and blueis/are my favorite color(s) for the Christmas tree lights.
3. The candles in the window (down the street) have white bulbs.
4. Elf is one of my most favorite Christmas movies.
5. My favorite Christmas lyric(s) is/are Shrek the halls with puss and donkey. (Shrek the halls is on repeat in my house right now thanks to Riley. Can't get it out of my head)
6. I'm dreaming of a fun family white christmas with lots of Wii bowling.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to poker, its been to long, tomorrow my plans include hopefully some Christmas shopping and maybe a trip to see Santa and Sunday, I want to relax!

Friday Fill-in on Monday

2007-12-03T15:08:00.000-05:00

Just cause:

1. When my blog is broken, honestly I probably wouldn't even notice. I've been thinking of switching to google and I really should post more.
2. I saw the most amazing smile from Riley this morning!
3. I am Legend (w/Will Smith) is the new movie I'm most looking forward to seeing.
4. Work: Necessary and pays the bills.
5. Of all the new tv shows, I enjoy Chuck the most.
6. If only I could win the Mega Millions lottery.
7. And as for the weekend, Friday we played games with Chris and Debbie, Saturday we got new family photos taken, got our Christmas tree, and decorated it, and Sunday, I we stayed home and watched alot of tv!

It would be different if you had something maybe like a J.O.B.

2007-11-28T15:39:00.000-05:00

I was particularly impressed with this random 10 when I turned on my ipod this afternoon, so I thought I'd share.

1. Nookie - Limp Bizkit
2. Step - Salt -n-Pepa
3. Walk Away - Kelly Clarkson
4. Pretty Vegas - INXS
5. Rock Steady - No Doubt
6. What a Girl Wants - Christina Aguilera
7. Baby Seat - Barenaked Ladies
8. 99 Problems - Jay Z /f. Linkin Park
9. Rooftops - Lostprophets
10. Celebrity - Nsync

2007-11-16T15:03:00.000-05:00

Young Wild Things tour is finally here. It's this weekend, I can't wait. I've been listening to GCH, Fall Out Boy, and Plain White T's all day. I'm really excited.

Random Ipod 10:
1. Just Lose it - Eminem
2. My Love - Justin Timberlake
3. Rapper's Delight - from Wedding Singer
4. Swing Life Away - Rise Against
5. I just Wanna Live - Good Charlotte
6. 99 Problems - Jay-z & Linkin Park
7. ... But What Will They Say? - This Providence
8. Boyfriend - Ashlee Simpson
9. Scandalous Scholastics - Gym Class Heroes
10. Living on a Prayer - Bon Jovi

It's Friday

2007-10-26T10:31:00.000-04:00

1. The last good thing that came in the mail was a postcard from my agility instructor saying she's starting her own place .

2. This week I'm grateful for getting through the week with no drama.

3. A Milky Way is the most delicious thing ever. (It's all your fault Cindy LOL)

4. Riley inspires me.

5. I'm most happy when I spending time with Riley, Nyssa, and okay even Doug.

6. And all the roads we have to walk along are short .

7. As for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to poker and Guitar Hero , tomorrow my plans include RIT Hockey with the Wilpers and Sunday, I want to sleep!

I've been getting very excited for the FOB, GCH, Plain White T's concert and been listening to them alot. Let's see what my IPOD thinks:

Random IPOD 10
1. Thriller - Fall Out Boy
2. Insatiable - Prince
3. Fight for Your Right - Beastie Boys
4. Let me Take You There - Plain White T's
5. Feel It - Black Eyed Peas
6. Face Down - Red Jumpsuit Apparatus
7. So Damn Clever - Plain White T's
8. The Real Slim Shady - Eminem
9. Tell Me, Tell Me - Nsync
10. Cupid's Chokehold - Gym Class Heroes

No joke, I am seriously not making this up!

Random ipod 10

2007-10-08T13:39:00.000-04:00

I haven't done this in a while and in fact I've been neglecting my ipod for some time. I really need to add alot of new stuff to it, but anyway, I was in the mood today, (and I thought this was an interesting mix) so here it goes:

1. Jungle Love - Morris Day and the Time
2. Off The Hook - BNL
3. Watch What you Say - T.I. f/Jay-Z
4. Bright As Yellow - The Innocence Mission (Off Empire Records soundtrack)
5. Self Control - Laura Branigan
6. Hold it Now, Hit it - Beastie Boys
7. Who Knew - Eminem
8. You and Me - Plain White T's
9. I want you Back - Nsync
10. Hum Hallelujah - Fall out Boy

Justin or not Justin

2007-10-03T15:15:00.000-04:00

Riley knows her fair share of Children's songs (yankee doodle, wheels on the bus, ring around the rosie, etc.) but when it comes to pop music Riley understands two distinct genres of music, Justin and Not Justin, as in Justin Timberlake or Not Justin Timberlake. This has been fine, Justin comes on the radio and Riley says "Another Justin" and then proceeds quickly with "Dance Mommy.... Dance!" And we dance together in the car. These two distinct genres pose a small problem with songs like Timbaland's "Give it to me". How could only part of the song be Justin. It's got to be either Justin or Not Justin. Doug, Riley, and I were in the car last night and "Give it to me" comes on. I explain that this particular song is very confusing to Riley, she doesn't get that only part of the song is Justin. Doug says, "There's one way to remedy that" Doug proceeds to change the radio station. I complain and his reasoning is "I'm just trying to help our daughter, I don't want her confused"

I had to laugh even though I was mad he turned Justin off.

come get your bad luck bad

2007-10-02T17:54:00.000-04:00

Ok I've had enough. Could things get more unlucky for me? I feel like I'm in the middle of that horrible Lindsay Lohan movie "Just My Luck" that comes on HBO all the time and sucks me in everytime regardless of how very very very bad it is. Anyway in the movie Lindsay plays a girl who is unbelievably lucky and she freakishly switches luck with a guy who has the worst luck ever. (Like freaky friday only with luck, anyway). So I feel like whatever luck I did have has been freakishly swapped with someone bad luck. Whoevers bad luck I have PLEASE come take it back, I've had enough. I can't take in anymore. Want to know what's been going on? Are you sure?

Okay, so thinking back I think it all started when we found out that Doug's Dad has cancer. That's obviously the worst of it, but annoying things have been happening to me every since.

The power supply went in our PC and it took BOTH our harddrives with it. One of those hard drives being my media drive with all my music, videos, and photos on it. And of course its been quite some time since I backed everything up. I should know better, I do know better, but hey I haven't backed up and now I'm paying the price. We're in the process of trying to repair the drive and if that doesn't work its being shipped off to some ridiculously expensive company to retrieve my priceless photos and videos of Riley that I haven't backed up or posted anywhere yet. So that's fun.

I was sick for two days.

Nyssa got fleas. None of my pets have ever gotten fleas. We've had Nyssa for 5 years and Dakota for 10 years and not one flea. Then we took Nyssa out to the country this weekend to visit Doug's parents and we find out that a family of fleas has hitched a ride home on her. So we treat her with Frontline which we had and of course we're not proactively treating. I felt so bad for her, she looked miserable yesterday scratching and scratching. Seems the Frontline has finally kicked in today though. Then I had to get stuff to treat the house and wash everything. I sprayed the everything that I could. Had to take Dakota to the vet to get some treatment for him just in case. He hasn't been to the vet in 3 years. Had to go buy a cat carrier and pray he wouldn't tear me to shreds when I tried to put him in there. He was very good, he got the treatment and a side of 2 shots with it that were out of date. Vet says he's under weight by 1-2 pounds so we need to keep an eye on him. That cost about $200 including the household flea treatment, cat carrier, and vet visit. Yippeee.....

I leave to head to pick Riley up this afternoon and the hear this horrible pop sound while I'm backing out of the driveway. It actually sounded like I hit something. I started driving down the road and noticed that the brakes were making this horrible sound. I have no idea what's wrong with them, I probably snapped a brake line for all I know. So I sit hear waiting for Doug to come home with Riley and tell me the bad news. God only knows how much that's going to cost. On a side note I start to wonder what the hell I would do if this happened and I couldn't get a hold of Doug. Doug was in class at the time and I had to call him about 5 times to get a hold of him. What would I do if his phone was dead???

To add to the crappiness of all this, I had to go to a funeral last Thursday for a co-worker whom I've know for about 10 years. She died suddenly in a motorcycle accident.

Then to add to the fun, I got my period!!!! Thankfully that's over this week. :)

It doesn't sound like alot when I write it all down, but it all happened over the course of a week and a half, so it feels a hundred times worse then it is.

So, person who's bad luck I have, come and get it damn it... I don't want it anymore!!!!

who's more famous?

2007-08-10T16:55:00.000-04:00

Popsugar.com has this game called faceoff and the point of the game is to guess which celebrity is more famous. They give you two to choose from and you choose who's more famous and the point is to see how many you can get right in a row. The person who is at the top of the leaderboard at the end of the day wins a $100 gift card to amazon. I tried to play this game and I can't seem to get past 30 in a row simple because THEY ARE WRONG!!!! Now some are incredibly easy like Angelina Jolie wins against everyone as does Brad Pitt. George Clooney, Julia Robets, and Oprah Winfrey are all good against just about anyone. Then there are the ligimately hard decisions like Angeline Lilly vs. Rachael Mccadams or Paris Hilton vs. Victoria Beckman. That's a tough call. (Mcadams and Hilton won by the way) Then there are the ones that make me go huh, but I can rationalize why one won over the other, ex. Ellen Degeneres vs. Matthew Mccognhey (Matthew won). Then there are the WTF you people are so insanely wrong ones which are the ones that keep me from getting past 30. Mary kate Olson vs. Jerry Seinfield and Fergie vs. Martin Scorcese. Fergie and Mary Kate Both won. PLEASE!!! And there were worse ones. Someone beat Martha Stewart. Yeah okay.
The leader is 116 right now and the highest I got was 31 and I end up getting overly mad at the screen because obviously they are WRONG!

It's Friday, Field trip day

2007-08-03T10:59:00.000-04:00

Fill in Friday, Riley's Birthday edition

1. Last weekend, I was thinking that I can't believe next weekend is Riley's Birthday already!
2. If the weather continues like this, It's going to be extremely hot for Riley's outdoor birthday party.
3. Will my daughter's weight ever grow?
4. Often, on a summer's night, I think it's summer why do I have to go to work tomorrow.
5. Right now, I could use a good strong maid/helper to clean up my house, finish my yard work, and go pick up the chairs for Riley's party.
6. My favorite summertime meal is ice cream, of course.In the summer time it's definately one of my meals..
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to seeing Deb and Chris, hearing about their trip to Turning Stone and getting some much needed help preparing for Riley's party., tomorrow my plans include Riley's Birthday Party and then some relaxing poker with friends and Sunday, I want to sleep of course, this week has been crazy getting ready for Riley's party and today will go by so fast. I have a million things to do and I know I won't even come close to finishing any of them. Why do I always wait till the last minute!

Ipod 10 (lets see if it reflects the craziness of my week):
1. SexyBack - Justin Timberlake
2. Bye Bye Love - Everly Brothers
3. Cold as Ice - JD Fortune (from Rockstar:INXS)
4. Gone - Kelly Clarkson
5. Freak me Out - Weezer
6. If I had - Eminem
7. Nightmare - Eve 6
8. When the Children Cry - White Lion
9. Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous - Good Charlotte
10. Smile - Flickerstick
11. I want Action - Poison
12. Work it - Justin Timberlake
13. Switch - Will Smith

I couldn't stop at 10, this was an excellent playlist. And for Andy and all the non-believers, I just finished talking about how crazy the week has been for me and how much I have to do today and how I'll never get it done and how I wish I had a maid, and look at some of the song titles that came up "Freak me Out", "If I had", "Nightmare", "I want action", "Work it", "Smile" So there!

Friday Fill In

2007-07-27T13:41:00.000-04:00

1. Yesterday I was on the phone with Debbie for a much needed catch up session.
2. Today I am bored.
3. Tomorrow I will be at my parents house for 2 family picnics and the Richfield Springs Pride days. Yippeee.
4. Someday I'm going to finish Riley's scrapbook.
5. I will never understand why Nicole Richie only got 4 days jail time.
6. I might sign Nyssa and I up for a beginner agility trial.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to meeting my brothers girlfriend, tomorrow my plans include garage sales, and family picnics and Sunday, I want to spend some time with my brother and his girlfriend!

Ipod random 10: (please give me some good music today)
1. Batter Up - Nelly
2. Allstar - Smash Mouth
3. Back on the Chain Gang - The Pretenders
4. My Love - Justin Timberlake
5. Take a Look Around - Limp Bizkit
6. Seven Days without you - Teddy Geiger
7. Start me up - Rolling Stones
8. Boom! Shake the Room - DJ Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince
9. White and Nerdy - Weird Al
10. Love and Memories - O.A.R.

Not too bad..

Friday Fill In and Random 10

2007-07-13T13:52:00.000-04:00

1. I bet everyone is saying Harry Potter is the book I'm most looking forward to reading this summer. I wish I had more time to read books. I'm not even sure what book I'd read first.
2. Dogs RULE!.
3. Nantucket is a town I'd like to explore.
4. Silly people are fun.
5. I'm longing to see JT in concert again.
6. Cow barns and bats are so scary!
7. What are you doing this weekend? Tonight I'm looking forward to doing nothing, tomorrow my plans include garage sale in the morning, INXS in Barrie, Ontario in the evening and Sunday, I want to Sleep, I'm gonna be tired!

Random IPOD 10
1. Rebel Yell - Kill Hannah
2. Smile - Flickerstick
3. Before He Cheats - Carrie Underwood
4. Shake Ya Tailfeather - Nelly f/ Murphy Lee and Diddy
5. The Lion Sleeps Tonight - The Tokens (Where'd I get that from?)
6. St. Jimmy - Green Day
7. Country Grammer - Nelly
8. When I Come Around - Green Day
9. Headed For A Heartbreak - Winger
10. Baby Got Back - Sir Mix-A-Lot

Don't Stop Believing a hit AGAIN?

2007-07-11T15:23:00.000-04:00

Thought I'd share the top 10 artists I'm listening to these days too since Andy did it.

1. Justin Timberlake
2. Plain White T's
3. Red Jumpsuit Aparatus
4. M.I.M.S.
5. Rhianna
6. Fall Out Boy
7. T.I.
8. Carrie Underwood
9. Saving Jane
10. Timbaland

And while I'm on the subject of music. I've been meaning to ask this for some time now. WHY is Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" #10 on the Sirius Hits most requested top 45 countdown. You have no idea how many times I've heard it on Sirius Hits. Is it on a movie soundtrack or something? I can't figure out why the hits station is playing it. Somebody enlighten me.

Be thankful he waved

2007-06-28T12:51:00.000-04:00

I read a blog entry recently about how Justin Timberlake needs an attitude adjustment because some girl asked him for an autograph and he said "You want me to juggle too?" and because he was taking photos of the paparazzi and calling them assholes. Big freaking deal. Yeah I think Justin's attitude can be jerky sometimes who's isn't once in a while, but I don't think these particular examples are good enough to make a valid point about Justin's attitude. There was no background on the comment he made to the fan. The fan could have been annoying,could have been stalking him and bothering him for days, not like that's never happened before.(No not me, I hear the comment forming already ANDY!) I've seen first hand how rude and annoying some of his fans can be. And who says, "Do you want me to juggle too?" I don't believe that he actually said that for a minute. I've seen first hand how nice he can be to his fans. I had the chance to speak to him once and he was very nice, even stopped walking turned around and spoke to me. He even offered up additional information to the very very short conversation. I've also seen him more often completely ignore fans. I think all celebs are like this, you can't expect them to be perfect. And he's not the first person to take photographs of the paparazzi and call them assholes.

I think the bigger news story is the fact that his fans waiting for him outside his hotel ACTUALLY got a wave and acknowledgement from him. Now THAT's a big deal!

Random 10

2007-06-28T12:45:00.000-04:00

1. Bounce - Timbaland f/ Justin & Dr.Dre
2. Getcha Getcha - Nelly
3. Harder to Breathe - Maroon 5
4. Rockstar - NERD
5. The Real Slim Shady - Eminem
6. Pieces of Me - Ashlee Simpson (I know shut up!)
7. Shoot Down The Stars - Gym Class Heroes
8. Hold me Now - Thompson Twins
9. The Rain - Akon
10. Try Too Hard - Teddy Geiger

Did he really just say that?

2007-06-20T11:24:00.000-04:00

I was watching the premiere of Making the Band 4 yesterday, I can't seem to resist Diddy shows for some reason. If for nothing else to watch Diddy, he is so funny sometimes. Anyway, in Diddy's opening monologue he talks about wanting to find the next great all boy soul/R&B group to follow in the footsteps of the greatest ones. He then lists some great male R&B groups, "The Temptations, New Edition, Boys 2 Men, Nsync". I rewound just to make sure I wasn't hearing things. Yes that's right he included Nsync in that list of great R&B Boy groups... Sweet!!!!

Debbie told me about this contest on the Gym Class Heroes fan club site. It's to create the best "Ill Summer Mix". It got me thinking, what would be my "Ill Summer Mix"? So far I've got a list of 14 potential candidates, but I'm not going to share them with you until I finalize my list. The GCH contest is 15 - 20 tracks, so I have to come up with more and then narrow down to the best 15-20 songs. Since I've been thinking about it since last night, I thought I'd see what my IPOD had to say about it, so I said "IPOD give me an Ill Summer Mix" and this is what it had to say:

1. Somebody to Love - Jefferson Airplane
2. Blurry - Puddle of Mud
3. Stay - Madonna
4. Locked Up - Akon
5. A little less Conversation - Elvis Presley
6. Because of You - Kelly Clarkson
7. Dreaming - Blondie
8. No Sleep till Brooklyn - Beastie Boys
9. Holiday Inn - Chingy, Snoop Dogg & Ludacris
10.In too Deep - Sum 41

There is one song in this list that actually IS already on my list, can you guess which? But other then that I'll have to say while I respect my IPOD's opinions most of the time, this just doesn't look like MY Ill Summer Mix. Maybe my IPOD doesn't understand what Ill is? hmmm.....