Footprints on the Moon

Guess who came to my house last night!

Nothing makes a happier auntie than babysitting the nephew! My dad happened to not be home when Ryan and Ash-lee stopped over there, so they called Aunt Jennifer. I went from having no plans at all to spending a couple of hours of just me and Killian. It was nice to get a chance to have him without having to share him with anyone at all. All went well until a stunning display of digestive pyrotechnics, but it was all good! I can handle a little baby barf. I spent a lot of time rocking him while he slept… babies are made for rocking, and I was content to sit there all night long. I’m definitely enjoying it while I can because it’s only a matter of time before he’s crawling and then walking and would prefer to be down exploring rather than cuddling with me!

I finally got to see the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie last week… my major reaction throughout the whole movie was “what the heck?” Erica and I kept looking at each other and saying “Wait. What’s going on? Where did they come from? When did that happen?” and pretty much any variation of those questions you can think of.
I thought they were trying to do too much with the movie– there were so many characters doing different things that a lot of times it was hard to keep track of everyone. Much of the movie, especially the beginning, left me with the feeling that they’d skipped large chunks of the story. The millions of Jacks notwithstanding, there just wasn’t enough Captain Jack Sparrow in the movie. I do have to admit that Will Turner looked pretty darn good at the end of the movie though, and I’m not a huge Orlando Bloom fan.
All in all, it was a good movie, though probably not as good as the first two. They wrapped up most of the story lines, but left enough things open to make a fourth movie if they wanted to. I’d be happy with the three that are out now, I think. This is definitely a movie that I need to see again– I feel like I might not be so frustrated with the beginning of the movie now that I won’t be spending the time trying to put everything together.

And so continues the saga of me versus the mailman. Or I should say, the mailman versus apartment mailboxes. Sometimes I wonder if this is all a game to him. Yes I realize that I don’t have a nice, normal sized residential mailbox, but that’s not my fault!! Yes, I get a lot of mail, yes I have a small mailbox. That is not an invitation to see how seriously you can mangle my mail before I complain to your supervisor.
I know I don’t have it quite as bad as Loretta (whose mailman does, or did, bark at her dog through the door), but man, it’s annoying! Mr. Mailman, I would gladly install one of those large commercial mailboxes if I had the option, but I don’t, so can’t we reach a truce? I won’t return all 4 of my Netflix DVDs and all 3 of my rented video games all at the same time if you stop bending my pictures, and balling up my bills. Fair enough?

Welcome to the Father’s Day Edition of the Postie Carnival! Since we (hopefully) spent the day yesterday letting our fathers know how much we appreciate them, today posties get together to share their posts about dear old Dad!! Without further ado, I give you

Fathers

Tess presents Being A Dad Again posted at Musings From Me.

Amy presents Happy Father’s Day posted at Whatever I Feel Like.

skeet presents Dad posted at skeet’s stuff.

Jennifer presents Happy Father’s Day posted at Footprints on the Moon.

evelester presents Happy Father’s Day posted at Confessions of an Everyday Housewife.

lucia presents My Father Haiku posted at The Knitting Fiend, saying, “I usually stick to haikus to describe knit designes, but today I had to write about Dad.”

Loretta presents handmade father’s day gifts posted at Just Not Martha.

Karen presents Sperm Donation 101 posted at The Pond.

Martin presents Hot Or Not ? posted at TotalDismay.com.

Suni presents In Honor of My father posted at Bucket O’ Bulletz.

People who didn’t post about Dads

kumiko suzuki presents 7 Phrases That Send Your Readers Running posted at Make Money Online at Kumiko’s Cash Quest.

Rickey Henderson presents This is where Rickey posts recommendations of note… posted at Riding with Rickey.

TherapyDoc presents Women in Pink posted at Everyone Needs Therapy, saying, “Just seeing these incredible women is inspiring.”

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of the Postie Carnival using our carnival submission form.
Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

I found a site today that would have been useful back in January when my mom and I were planning Ash-lee’s baby shower. It’s called All in One Fun Favors, and you can find just about anything you are looking for! One of the things I found on the baby shower favors page was a set of three baby-themed cookie cutters. That would have been cute to have as a favor because we actually made baby-themed cookies and had a cookie decorating station at the shower– it would have been perfect!! There’s always next time I suppose.
Right now, we’re busy planning a reception/wedding celebration for Ryan and Ash-lee. They got married at the courthouse, so we’re turning our 4th of July cookout into a party for them so the family can join in the celebration. Now I’m looking at the Wedding and Bridal favors to see if there is anything there we could use. I know it’s a 4th of July party, but I feel like there should be wedding decorations or favors since we didn’t have a big to-do for that when they got married.

I just went in this morning and added the last 3-4 movies I’ve watched and decided to go through and add it all up. When I decided to start this movie list back in January, I honestly didn’t think I’d make it to February before I forgot to keep it up, and that would be the end of it. Here we are, though, halfway through June and the list is still growing! I’m sure there are one or two movies I’ve forgotten along the way, but for the most part, they are all on there. I haven’t been watching as many movies since I no longer have a position that allows me to watch movies to kill time, but I still watch plenty on the weekends! As of this morning, I have watched 119 unique movies so far in 2007. If you count the movies I watched more than once, the number climbs up to 141. And none of those figures include TV on DVD. I’m really interested in seeing what this number rises to by the end of the year. I was thinking today about whether or not I’d continue the movie project next year, but I don’t know yet. I guess we’ll see when 2008 rolls around if I’m starting to feel forgetful!
If you want to see what I’ve been watching for yourself, visit The Movie Project.

I realize they are considered architectural classics, but I’m really just not a big fan of chandeliers. Now, I can appreciate a chandelier in the lobby of a beautiful theatre, or the ones linked above, but around here, you tend to see chandeliers in the foyers of homes in the “rich” area of town. It’s just a way of showing how much money you have and I think that’s tacky.

Now, elsewhere on the blog I linked, they have pictures of Luminox, in Oxford in which they cut off all electric light and powered the chandeliers by fire. Those I can get behind!! Though, that might have more to do with being a pyro than with liking the chandeliers. As far as my own home, I’ll take a nice, understated ceiling fan, thanks.

Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there, and of course to my own father. I had my dad (and his wife) over this afternoon for a delicious meal, if I do say so myself. I made a white chicken parmesan, salad, and cherry cheesecake for dessert. The food was good, but the family was better. Ash-lee even came by with Killian, so I think I played second fiddle to the grandson, but that’s okay.
When I was younger, I used to go to work with my dad on Saturdays. This required getting out bed at three o’clock in the morning, but I loved doing it. He fills vending machines, so I got to spend all morning with my dad, eating junk food off his truck, and hearing his stories. Whenever I went with him, so did a bottle of cleaner and paper towels, so I have the suspicion now that I was some cheap slave labor, but I still wouldn’t trade it for anything.
I moved out on my own a little over a year ago, and I don’t see my dad as often as I’d like. This is kind of a recent realization… by the time I moved out, he was driving me insane, but isn’t that what parents are for? He remarried less than a year ago, so I don’t necessarily feel comfortable just dropping in. He doesn’t think I need an invitation. We’ve got some give and take to figure out, but I’m looking forward to building an adult relationship with my dad. The older I get, the more I realize how important family is to me… I want to have relationships with my family, and not just the “highlights”. It’s an interesting transition, that’s for sure.

Happy Father’s Day, Daddy.

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I took today’s Self Portrait in the kitchen because that’s where I spent a decent amount of time today. I made dinner for my Dad and his wife, and I wanted to make sure that everything was good. (It was really good, so yay!)

To play along, take a picture of yourself every Sunday and post it to your blog. Then visit DigiCass to let the rest of us know. You can also go see this week’s pictures.

I am amazing!! I have a weird obsession for playing endless games of Minesweeper. I do it to kill time, and I also play while I’m waiting for webpages to load, that sort of thing… I almost always play the advanced level. A few days ago, I reached a new best time of 101, but I forgot to get a screen capture before I closed it. That’s okay though because I just did SO much better than that *and* I remembered a screen capture! Check it out:

(The colors went all wonky… I blame it on this computer and its lack of proper programs. I’ll attempt to fix it when I get home.)

A 92!! Heck yeah!! Something I will probably never replicate, but I’m pretty dang excited about it. (Is that sad?)