Last Friday we went to Grand Rapids to help Alexis celebrate her graduation. I made her the sweet afghan, of course, and I think she liked it. I didn’t really see her open it as we were on our way out the door, but I am pretty sure it was a hit. Besides that, both of her sets of grandparents, Mike & I, and another Aunt & Uncle went together and got her a laptop and a digital camera of her own. She was super stoked about that. She is leaving for Texas in September and will be gone for 3 months as part of a mission trip, so she really needed those things, and she was extremely happy to get them. The party turned out great, and it was good to see everyone.

On Sunday we hooked up with Bill & Deb and headed to Indiana because Bill needed to procure some illegal (in MI) fireworks. We had a blast! We started at the outlet mall and looked around there for a while, then hit the fireworks store. I’m not big on fireworks, so I settled for some morning glory sparklers and some of those popper thingies that you throw at the ground.  After that we decided to hit the Four Winds, but since it was a school night, we only stayed for about an hour. Bill was the big winner – he managed to wrangle $30 out of the place playing video poker!!

I finished season 5 of Lost, and that’s about as far as I can go right now, since season 6 isn’t available (legally anyway) on DVD yet. It got SO much better. When I said it was horrible, I was only about 2 episodes in, and once I got over the hump it was much more interesting. Also, I must say, I’m a big fan of Sawliet. Did Sawyer totally grow up working for the Dharma Initiative, or what? I was pretty much over Juliet as a character, but her hooking up with Sawyer totally reinvigorated her. And then there’s Locke. Alive! Dead! Alive! But not really? Anyway, I am eagerly awaiting the final season to see how this twisted story ends.

Mike & I also finished season 3 of Buffy, and it was quite awesome. I miss Spike though. I’m hoping he’ll be back pretty soon. I’m sad to see Angel go, but hey, if a dude can get his own show, he should jump at the chance. We are planning to watch the Angel episodes that crossover with Buffy as needed, with the help of our friend Dawn, who is an expert in all things Buffy/Angel. In the absence of Lost, I have been filling that hole with the first season of Bones. It’s a really good show, and I’m liking it very much. I just watched the Christmas episode where they are all trapped in the lab, and it made me weepy.

That’s all for today. I’m off to meet my mom for lunch. Toodles!

Another exciting thing that’s going on is that I am going to garden. I have zero experience, but I asked a lot of questions and I think I have everything I need. So tomorrow is the big day & I will actually be planting things in the ground and hoping like hell that they survive more than a week. For those interested, I will be planting orange & yellow Celosia in the front window box, pink & white Astilbe in the large planter at the corner of the backyard, and hot pink Impatiens for the window boxes on the shed. Mike even got me a wheelbarrow to haul my soil and tools around the yard. So I own a wheelbarrow and I am going to plant things. I am so hoping this doesn’t turn out badly. I have a long list of things I want to accomplish tomorrow and they all relate to the outdoors, which is typically not my thing. Wish me luck, dudes.

Yesterday was Mike & I’s 6th wedding anniversary. We went out for dinner at this place down the street called Zooroona. It’s a Middle Eastern restaraunt and the atmosphere was so cool. But it didn’t hold a candle to the food – it was AMAZING. If you dig Middle Eastern food at all, this is the place to go. We ended up getting a 2 person sampler platter and we were very happy with everything we got. I usually don’t care for lamb, but the lamb & beef kebab turned out to be my very favorite thing that we got. We had a great time together and a great meal. After dinner we just ran around and shopped a little. We had a fun date and a stellar anniversary.

Today was Crappy Movie Sunday, natch, and this week we watched Tank Girl. I had seen a little of it years ago, but stopped watching because it was terrible. I was lured in by being promised that Ice-T was in it. I am a big fan of the T. But, wow, even T couldn’t save this trainwreck of a film. Not only was I sad that he was involved in such a disgrace, but he was a Mangaroo on top of that!!

Ok, as for TV, I’m plugging away at Lost, but season 5 is really tough for me. I really think this is the worst part of the show so far. I really don’t think it bodes well that every season I have thought it couldn’t possibly get any worse, and yet I am shocked to find that it has. I’m still hopeful for a great payoff in the end, but I’m really not holding my breath. Mike & I are still watching Buffy too, and we are about a third of the way through season 3. We still have a LONG way to go, but we are really enjoying it. I’m considering watching Dark Shadows on Netflix, too, but there are SO MANY episodes! I’m not sure I’m ready for the time commitment it will take. A season is about 40 episodes, and there are 20 seasons!! I’m still mulling this one over, I don’t know if I can handle all that. Anyone seen it? If you have an opinion about it either way, I’d love to hear it. And I’m talking about the original BTW, from 1966, not the 80s redo.

Houseboating last weekend was awesome as always! I didn’t take many pics because the landscape really hasn’t changed, plus it was rainy and/or overcast for most of the trip this time. The weather has been better, but trust me, none of us cared. We made the best of it and still had a ball. Shawn & I finally decided that we are equals when it comes to drunken Scattergories. So the grudge match is finally over and we can all rest easy. Pics are over at my Flickr, and here’s a video that I LOVE. Casey & Mike are singing along with 90’s on 9 and it’s so great. You’ll love it. Click here: Just a Dream. NSFW because Mikey says a naughty at the end. I know, I’m disappointed, too. I would have loved to embed it BTW, but Flickr and Wordpress can’t seem to play nice. I am having some kind of ongoing issue with uploading stuff to Wordpress. Super frustrating! Grrrr.

The week went by super fast since we didn’t get home until late Monday night, then Mike had Tuesday off. That left me only 2 days to get all of my usual stuff done before Friday!! So I was pretty busy with chores & such. We had another busy weekend, too. Sunday we had the latest edition of Crappy Movie Sunday – the dance classic Breakin’. Our rehash will be on the CMS blog in a day or 2. After the movie we grilled some yummy ribs (that Clovis made) and some burgers. It was quite a fiesta! We had a full house and tons of yummy eats. After we ate, the whole gang, except for Mike & I, headed downstairs to watch the big Lost finale. I’m not caught up yet and Mike has no interest, so we went to the man cave and had a romantic date watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. We’re about halfway through season 2 and it’s really starting to get good. As for Lost, I’m about 2/3 of the way through season 3. Man, is it a crazy and intense show.

My friend Dawn has convinced me that I need to sign up for Netflix so I can get all the sweet TV shows streaming. You know I love television, so it was pretty easy to sway me. As soon as I finish season 3 of Lost, I am going to sign up for the 2 week trial thingy and get rolling on season 4. I can’t wait to get a look at hat my options will be!! I’m really really excited about this.

Friday afternoon we went to Noah’s school for a music program. It was very cool. They sang a song about a bull and acted out different parts with song and they played intruments, and they had a fun little parade. It was really awesome, and we were very impressed by the kid’s music skills. Here’s some pictures.

On Saturday, we took my mom out for a mother’s day dinner. She picked Red Lobster, so we took her there. We had a great time and we gorged ourselves on cheesy biscuits and seafood. We had a great time and I hope she did too. Since I’ve been doing so much artwork lately, I made her a pretty watercolor painting of a vase of flowers in a little glass frame. I think it turned out pretty nice and she seemed to like it too.

On Sunday we went to Grand Rapid for Mother’s Day with Mike’s family, which was also nice. We went to Frederick Meijer gardens, which I love anyway because I like flowers and sculpture, but there is a new exhibit of blown glass sculptures by Dal Chihuly. I LOVED it to say the least. It was amazing and beautiful. I took some amazing photos, here are a few of my favorites.

These are just my favorites, there are so many more at my Flickr page, link is on the right. The second photo is a new piece called Blue Moon, and it was my favorite. I took several photos, and none of them do it justice. I just couldn’t seem to get a good photo from where I was. It is so amazing in person. If you get a chance to visit the gardens before this exhibit ends, you really should. It’s so worth it. I definitely would go back. One thing I found interesting is that for the larger sculptures made up of thousands of pieces of glass, the pieces arrive individually, and then it takes a team of 90 three weeks to put them all together to prepare for the exhibit. Incredible. I loved the blown glass reeds, as pictured in the third photo here, the tall blue pieces. There were lots of these around the gardens in all different colors and I think they are so cool.

After the gardens, we raced home for Crappy Movie Sunday. Last night’s feature was Purple Rain. We will have a rehash up on the blog in the next few days, so keep an eye out.

I finally finished season 2 of Lost, and I am just about to embark into totally unknown territory – season 3. I’m excited and also terrified. Wish me luck!

Oh, and houseboating is this weekend!! I could not be more excited!! I’m going to be on a boat!!! Definitely packing my flippy floppies and planning to ride a dolphin.

At this point, I notice a second lady slumped over onto the curb with her feet in the street and resting on top of a 2 liter of Ohana Lemonade. Lady 1 tells me that she was driving down my street, and noticed Lady 2 lying there. She had stopped to check on her and make sure she was ok. She shook her several times and Lady 2 did not respond at all. Lady 1 tells me that she has called 911 and they will be there in 5 minutes. Ok, wow. I take a closer look at Lady 2 and I can see that her chest is rising and falling, so she is definitely breathing. After a few minutes Lady 2 started moving a bit – she scratched at her face, but then went right back to catatonic and wouldn’t respond again. We waited way longer than 5 minutes, but finally, a cop showed up. He did the same things Lady 1 did – shake her, try to talk to her. She opened her eyes for a sec, but still no response. Then the paramedics got there. The siren seemed to rouse her a bit, and the paramedics actually were able to get Lady 2 to sit up. They spoke to her and she spoke back, but she definitely wasn’t coherent. They finally put her on a gurney and took her away. I sure hope that she’s ok, but I don’t know if I’ll ever know. It was a scary situation, that’s for sure.

Anyway, I was late for my first day at the shop! I explained what happened and they were super understanding, though. I had a good time there! I was mostly working the front of the store, but I am also eager to work in the back and actually accept donations and then sort through them. It’s been really fun and a good experience so far.

I’ve been watching Lost, and I am about halfway through Season 2 right now. I am trying to power through it so I can get to True Blood. I am trying to stay caught up on my regular weeklys too. George & I are almost caught up with Vampire Diaries, and I am only a week behind on everything else. Man, I love me some tv.

Oh, and I obviously changed some things around again. I kind of like it for now, but you know I’m sort of indecisive, so we’ll see how long this lasts.

I finished this scarf recently, and it is for sale at Fuzzy Paws Knits. It took me forever to finish this thing because I used the tiniest little bits of yarn to create my own yarn for this. It took along time to collect all the yarn bits and then tie them together and then knit them., Whew. I think the result is worth the effort though. I call it “Fluffy Fingers”.

And just for giggles, here’s Dawn & I boozing it up at Gallagher’s last week. We are making a dent in the beer list. Distinguished status, here we come!

We bought a grill (FINALLY!!) on Thursday, so on Friday Mike put it together. Then we hit the grocery and bought an assortment of smoked sausages and buns. We came home and Mike made magic happen. Well, actually, he just grilled some smoked sausages, but it seemed a little magical since we didn’t have a grill for so long.

After we finished eating, we heard from Clovis, who decided to stop over. He & I ended up MST3K-ing the original Clash of the Titans while Mike slept on the couch. It was fun!We also made plans to hit up Marmalade Dog the next day and see Hot Tub Time Machine.

OK, Marmalade Dog is a gaming con that happens at WMU every year. We heard about it a few weeks ago and decided this would be the year that we check it out. So Mike, George, Clovis and I headed ver there. First of all, there was a costume contest, which is always sure to make it entertaining for non-cosplayers like ourselves. Since we weren’t actually playing any games, and just wanting to look around and check out the vendors, we got in free. SCORE! We were there for about an hour just checking things out, and it was pretty cool. There were lots of cool things to see, and plenty of costumes for us to gawk at. As soon as we rolled into the Bronco Mall there was a Guy dressed up in a long red cloak and a pimp looking hat waiting in line at Subway, so we knew we were in good hands. Anyway, I met a Jedi! Yes, really. Look!! And the second pic is a dude called Pyramid Head or something from a video game. Mike knew who it was supposed to be. To me, it was just weird. 

After Marmalade Dog, we decided to grab some lunch before the movie started. At the theatre, my homegirl Dawn joined our little posse, and we went in to see the movie. It was AWESOME. If you have not seen Hot Tub Time Machine, you totally should. It is so worth it. Excellent movie. Right up there with Old School in my opinion.

Once the movie was over, Dawn needed to watch the Kentucky game going on with this March Madness thing. They were in the Elite 8, so she was nervous and thought it would be better not to watch it alone. We went to Gallagher’s and she waved her foam finger. Sadly, the Cats did not win, and Dawn was very sad. We decided to ply her with booze to make her forget her troubles. We all went over to our place and played Would You Rather for a little while, but then ended up in deep discussion about life and love until the wee hours. I think Dawn DID forget her sad loss, but then the next morning it all came crashing back to her – along with a bad headache and a deep resentment of beer.

We all went out for brekkie, sans Clovis who decided to sleep in (good man).  Sunday afternoon, we decided to start a new tradition – Crappy Movie Sunday. Basically we will all get together and watch an awesomely bad movie. We decided to start huge, with the mother of all awesomely bad movies – Flash Gordon. Dawn had never seen it! I know, I was shocked, too. She was in awe of it’s awfulness, of course, but you can’t help but love the rockin’ Queen soundtrack, glittery, shimmery, sequin-rich costumes, and the Hawkmen. So this one was a winner. Next time, we are screening Conan. Clovis totally sold Dawn and I when he mentioned James Earl Jones with Rick James hair turning into a snakeman.

So that was our kind of crazy weekend. I am sort of hoping this weekend will be a little more low key. Sidenote – I am all finished with all 5 seasons of Weeds, and I just started watching Lost (thanks Clovis!). I’ve seen the firt couple of seasons before but then I stopped watching. Re-wtching season 1 is kind o a chore so far. It’s really boring. I’m not sure why, maybe just because I’ve seen it before. However, I watch the same stuff over & over with zero issues, and this is exceptionally boring. I am trying to stick with it. Wish me luck!

For dinner, Mike took me out to Carrabas, and we had a great meal. I love the food there, it’s so good. After dinner, I wanted to hit Gallagher’s so I could get a Guinness and have it listed on 3/17. It was kind of a trainwreck! The place was totally crowded, plus they weren’t doing lists because it was too busy! I tipped the server a couple of extra bucks and she promised to add my Guinness for St. Patty’s Day for me. Plus, they were so busy that they served my Guinness in a plastic cup!! EWWW! So mission accomplished! After that we headed home. I have had so much cookies, cake & cupcakes this week that I am pretty much sweating frosting at this point. Life is good.

Today I had a lovely lunch with my mom & sister at Center Ice, and afterwards we colored Easter eggs with Noah. We did 3 dozen! Noah and I do eggs together every year, and I was thinking earlier this week that we probably don’t have too many years left before he is too cool for eggs with Aunt Kitty. He is 7 this year! Anyway, one of our traditions is that we always wear bunny ears when we do our eggs. This year, he wouldn’t wear them because he said he was too embarrassed! I convinced him to wear them for a few minutes so I could take some pictures, but he made me promise that Uncle Mike wouldn’t see him wearing them. Oh my goodness, we probably don’t even have a few years. We had a blast, but I was a little sad, too, realizing these days are almost over. Here’s some pics. In the first one, he was trying to hide his face because of the ears, but still wanted to make sure I got the egg in.

Noah is also staying over tonight, so I made chicken nuggets, tater tots (Noah calls them teeter totters), and broccoli (trees). After dinner, George & Noah were playing around and Noah said “Curse you George! I will have my revenge!” It was kind of awesome. Now we are all in our PJs, watching Star Wars The Clone Wars. Well I am writing this, and the boys are watching the movie. Oh, we are also nomming cotton candy. It’s been a fun day.

As a side note, Noah told me today that he watched a Star Trek show once when his mom fell asleep. He told me all about it, and it was a Next Generation episode. He liked it! He was a little scared of some parts, but he had a million questions. Mike & I immediately dragged him downstairs and introduced him to Star Trek the Animated Series. He liked that too! I think I may be able to make him a trekkie yet! WOOT!

Oh, I got New Moon! Mike picked it up for me today at Toys R Us, and it even came with a free little New Moon trunk to hold my Twilight Saga Blu-ray discs. I am hoping to watch it tomorrow night right after a lovely bath.

After a looong debacle involving several different worker dudes here for many different days, my tub is finished! As of last night, I’ve used it twice and it is officially the BOMB. We still can’t shower in there because we haven’t hung the bar for a curtain. We haven’t hung it because we are still deciding what color to paint. We had a clear idea of what we wanted when we went to look at paint (iced mocha), but then we saw all the fancy swatches, and we were totally confused. So now we have 62,086 swatches and still have no idea which way we will go. So, we’ll see what happens there. It’ll be interesting.

Other excitingness is that I am making headway in my Beer Society adventure. I decided to start rating the beers and keeping track. View my progress here via a Google Spreadsheet. I’ve also added that link to my Blogroll on the left over there. It’s moving along, and it is quite fun. Here’s a pic of George & Mike hanging with me on Sunday while I tried a couple of brews.

Ok, a couple of other quick things. Mike & I went to a matinee last Friday and saw Percy Jackson & The Lightning Thief . I really enjoyed it. It was definitely formulaic and similar to Harry Potter, but that didn’t bother me too much. It was funny, interesting, and the effects were great. I did feel like the story was a little bit obvious and it was pretty clear how things would turn out, but still very enjoyable. I started reading the first book as well and I am really liking that too.

I also started watching Weeds on DVD which Voldemort and his lovely wife got me for Christmas. I just finished the second season, and it’s genius. I still have 2 more seasons, plus the fifth came out recently as well. I can’t wait to see what’s going to happen, it’s always hilarious.

Just for giggles, here’s a cute pic I snapped of Nemo the other day. :)

WRONG. George tried to shower last night in the main floor shower, and there is no hot water getting to it and we can’t figure out why. Sooo, that leaves us with zero usable showers. I feel like a hobo right now. I am thinking I will wash my hair in the sink today and then just sort of wash up whore’s bath style. Should be awesome. We have a dude coming to look at our problems tomorrow night. Hopefully after that we will have at least one working shower, maybe 2. It’s getting pretty ripe around here.

The good news is that since we have to replace the tub & shower in the master bath, we decided to upgrade to a fancy Jacuzzi whirlpool tub!! It is supposed to be installed on Tuesday and I am pretty excited! We spent pretty much all day yesterday trying to figure out what we wanted to replace the current enclosure. We went back and forth a million times, but ended up choosing the whirlpool tub, & shower/tub walls that we both like. We also decided to ditch the shower doors we have and go back to a regular curtain, and while we were at it, change up our fixtures and all the accessories like the toilet paper holder, towel bars, etc. I can’t wait until it’s done @ I can soak in my whirlpool tub!!! Woot!

I have been reading quite a bit lately. I am working on the series of books that The Vampire Diaries TV show on the CW is based on. It’s an interesting story, but the writing is super lame. I have got to get off of these teen books. I am sticking with this one because I really like the show and I am interested in the back story of it, but if not for the show I would have ditched these long ago. Luckily they are a quick read – I am on the 4th of 5 books and have only been reading these about a week.

Next up, I am torn between starting the Percy Jackson books, or the Sookie Stackhouse True Blood books. The new Percy Jackson movie looks sweet, and I definitely want to see it. I’m just not sure if I want to read the book or see the movie first. As for Sookie Stackhouse, I tried to watch True Blood but couldn’t get past the first episode. Maybe I will enjoy the books more. I have a bunch of other stuff I want to read, too, so maybe I’ll go in another direction completely. Hard to say. I have a TON of Star Trek ebooks that I have been itching to read, so maybe I’ll give some of those a spin. Ok, actually I have every Star Trek novel ever written including all of the scripts from every episode of every series and also every movie. Oh, and all of the autobiographies of all of the actors too. So that could keep me busy for quite a long long time.

Sure wish I could take a shower.