Saturday Dose of Randomness

It's been a while, so here's a little randomness for your reading pleasure...and my blogging delight! :)

I am turning into my father! I received a movie last night (thank you Netflix!) and as I write, it's playing for the third time! I remember when I was a kid, Daddy would play the same movie over and over again on Saturday afternoons...it wasn't every Saturday. I guess maybe when he was stuck in the house because it was raining or something, but it's a definite memory. It was usually some movie that he liked but had seen too many times to count, so it would just play continually and he'd stop from time to time, watch some scene, and then go back to whatever he was doing. The movie I remember him doing this with best was Dune. I still don't know if I completely understand that movie, but I've seen it (or parts of it) more times than I can count! I thought Kyle MacLachlan was SO cute! Anyway, it's something I think of every time I do the same thing...

Speaking of Dad, I read a story to my 7th graders yesterday. It was this paper that I'd written in an Advanced Composition class in college. The assignment was to write about some event or experience that taught a greater truth or 'bigger picture' lesson. I wrote about the day my dad died and how that taught me about the transient nature of life. I thought about posting the paper on my blog last year, but it's kinda long and I rather morose. Anyway, I made the mistake of mentioning the paper when we were talking about expressive writing in my 7th grade English class a few months ago and several of the girls have been hounding me to read it ever since! I'm not sure WHY they were so interested, and I told them several times that it's somewhat depressing, but they wanted to hear it. We finished a Lit unit earlier this week and as I hate starting a new unit on Friday, I took the time and read the story. It had been a while since I'd read it and it really brought that 'big picture' lesson home to me all over again...and it was a little embarrassing that it was happening in front of my 7th grade Literature class! My friend Jen wrote about the way God's been speaking to her in themes and the same has been true with me as well. It was just neat that God would use something that I had written to remind me of a lesson that He is re-teaching me now! Pretty cool...

Speaking of yesterday, after listening to my junior girls talk about their mothers...I have decided NOT to have children!! :) They were saying all of the typical, "my mother drives me nuts" things and OF COURSE their mothers are the worlds worst. (Sorry girls, not trying to downplay your angst. It's just that it's a song sung by adolescent girls the world over!) I used to really want to have children. I thought that was THE thing to do when you grew up. You got married and had kids. I've been doing other things for so long that I'm really beginning to re-think those childhood dreams a bit. I'm not saying that I don't want to get married or have kids anymore. I'm just realizing that there are other options and that I can't allow myself to think that marriage and kids is the be-all, end-all! I guess I've just decided to accept the role as the fun, eccentric aunt...which means I need to start doing cooler stuff! Otherwise I'll be the old-maid-English-teacher aunt! That means I need to start traveling more and collecting weird things with which to fill my home because weird--oh excuse me eccentric--aunts need to have neat, weird things in their homes! Speaking of home...

I hate my apartment...more specifically my kitchen...even MORE specifically the fire alarm that is hardwired into the ceiling in my kitchen! I cannot bake anything without this thing going off and it drives me crazy! I have to do this thing where i bump the air conditioner/heater on so that the intake vent will suck up the hot air (it's right across from the oven) any time I need to open the oven...it does not matter if the oven door is open for two seconds, or 15...that darn alarm goes off! And it's not a weak, 'hey, there might be a fire' kind of alarm. It's this obnoxious "OMG, you're burning down the whole freakin' complex!" kind of alarm! I've never heard my neighbor's alarms so either, 1. they don't bake, 2. we have well-insulated walls, 3. I am doing something terribly wrong!. There is never smoke (because I do know HOW to cook!) so I can only guess that it's detecting the hot air. Ugh! So aggravating!! AND the darn thing is wired into the building, so no batteries (which I guess is good from a 'it might save my life' standpoint, but frustrating otherwise.) So baking in the apartment is a LITTLE frustrating which is sad because I enjoy baking...

So I'm tired of all my default dishes and, while 'picking up a few things' in Albertsons the other day, I decided to try something a little different. I saw those little individual-sized pre-made pizza crusts and so I thought that would be fun! I began to think otherwise after I went through the check out! I think I could have bought two or three regular-sized pizzas with what it cost to buy the stuff to make my own! But it was fun! I make a mean ricotta and Roma tomato pizza! :) ...In a very frustrating kitchen!

Alright, I've run out of ways to connect my random stories. The movie I'm watching for the third time today is Must Love Dogs with Diane Lane and John Cusack. The movie I just sent back to Netflix was Under The Tuscan Sun with Diane Lane and lots of cute Italian men. ;) Apparently, there is a "divorced woman rediscovering life and love" theme going in my movie-watching these days. Not sure why as I'm not a divorced woman...but maybe I need to rediscover life and love? That could be it. Anyway, I just wanted to mention that I have had a long-time crush on John Cusack. Love him! Since Better Off Dead...! I realize that he's playing a part in all of these movies but there is something about his personality that creeps into his roles and I think it's cute! But someone once told me that you're not supposed to call guys cute...so it's attractive?! Anyway...

Alright, I think that's enough randomness for today. I'm sure I'll be back with more some time soon!