So much life, so lttle time to blog...

Life has been busy. This news is no surprise as I've been droning on and on about it for weeks and weeks.

It's good, but it doesn't allow for much bloggy relationship building.

So, here are a few bullet points:

Izzy the Incredible just did a blog makeover for me at my family blog: So Cal Cinema. Check it out when you have a chance. It is very retro and fun and just my style.

While I still have a lot to do for school, my first ginormous paper is turned in. I don't know what grade I'll get, but I'm getting to the point where an assignment is not inducing quite so much intestinal distress. I'm proud of the preparation and work I did on the paper and I hope the teacher appreciates it, too!

There's been no time to bake up a Sleeping with Bread post, but I did make a cake from a mix and my daughter says I am the best cook ever. (Oh! How low the standards of a seven year-old!)

I'd love to start a series based on my Surprised by Waltzing post. I got the idea after watching Superman: Doomsday with Marley. (Slightly inappropriate at times, I have to say.) In the special features of this recently released animated movie, the decision to kill Superman in the comics and how they brought him back to life elicited that feeling of joy in me which I described in the waltzing post. The community of the team working on it moved me. The emotional involvement the artists and writers still feel is incredible. There are a couple of occasions where they are moved to tears as they describe scenes from the comics. Tears formed in my own eyes as I watched. You never can tell when joy is going to jump up and get your attention.

As if there were any need to confirm my geek status, I watched Transformers the Movie... and of course, I loved it. Optimus Prime is the coolest AutoBot ever!

Fires are raging -- all around us here in So Cal. We are literally ringed with fires to the North, South and West of us... probably to the East as well but I'd have to look it up to be exact. There are other parts of the country where you experience the smell of fire entwined completely with the air and ash adrift on the wind. I don't know how many places, though, experience this once to twice a year. This is a particularly bad batch of fires. At least one area is burning thanks to the sick minds of one or more arsonists. This is also the first time that I know someone who had to evacuate. Fortunately it was just for a few hours. The wind was so fierce last night that we lost a portion of the fence and some shades. A neighbor lost a tree. People are encouraged to stay inside and use the recirculate function on their air conditioning units.

It is definitely Fall in So Cal.

Friday Fripperies

Okay, okay... I know it isn't Friday. I said I was going to do a FF post last week and didn't and I don't have much of consequence to say so please allow me the use of FF on Wednesday.

Shall we proceed?

• Two performances of Mr. Eliot's Cats down, and three more to go. Make-up, costume, body mic'ing twelve 7, 8 and 9 year olds, feeding Paul sound cues, herding kids back to class to get out of costume and to clean up make-up. I am sure that a birds-eye view of these shenanigans would make for some great You Tube footage. Can I say that herding 33 kids is like trying to hold water in your hands?
• There haven't been any new reports of The Stomach Bug. I'm not foolish enough to think this means I've escaped it for the entire season, but I less than 48 hours to go and the play is over. Then... well, I still don't want to get it but at least there will be less to have others manage if I do.
• In my best Jerry Seinfeld impersonization: "What's the deal with cigarette butts and ashtrays?" The last few times I have been to my neighborhood Starbucks, there are at least a hundred--I kid you not--cigarette butts littered around 7 or 8 tables. Each of these tables has an ashtray on it! Is there some reverse magnetic effect I don't know about? Truly, walking through the gauntlet of butts is not pleasant.
• Audience Participation: I have a holiday newsletter question for you all. Where do you stand on them? Do you like getting them? Whether or not you like getting them, when you get one, how much detail do you like the sending family to give you? I am in the process of writing one for our family and it is only the second time I have ever done it. I'm not sending Christmas cards, because, Duh, school doesn't let out until the 22nd and I have no life until Marley gets out of school at 1:15 on Friday afternoon. What few presents I am buying for the kids, what housecleaning I have to do, what family gathering preparation I need to do--all this has to wait until Friday at 1:15 p.m. So, I'm not sending out Christmas cards. Instead I thought I'd do a newsletter in Publisher and save it as a PDF file and send it via email. As I'm looking at it, I realize I'm on my third page. Now, this includes a brief, "Hey, it's Christmas message, a few paragraphs about each of us and here's what we're up to for Christmas. The layout has lots of white space and room for pictures so it isn't like I'm sending out a single spaced, paragraph free, run on sentence. But I don't know. Should I bother? What kind of information should I put in it. Help me, Obiwan Bloggers! You're the only hope of those who will receive the newsletter. They need you!
• Over at Toddled Dredge, Veronica put a link to a HI-larious You Tube video. If you are a parent, you will appreciate and understand this video. I also posted it over at So-So Cal Cinema if you want to go there.
• As I mentioned in Monday's SWB post I was recently traumatized by Boromir's death--yet again--while watching The Fellowship of the Ring on TV this past weekend. With our Lord of the Rings appetite whetted, we pulled out our extended version DVD's and have been watching them one after the other for days. While I was getting mouse make-up on Marley this morning, I heard someone say, "Look! She has Eragon!" I heard "Aragorn" and I looked up to see Aragorn who? Aragorn where? That's when I noticed a copy of the book Eragon next to me on a desk. I have Lord of the Rings on the brain right now!
• I have realized recently again just how much of a visual person I am. I love blogging but I want pictures to go with everything. And buttons. I want buttons for EVERYTHING. Sleeping with Bread buttons, BSE buttons, Friday Fripperies buttons (don't have one of those. Need one.) I think I need to take a chill pill and R-E-L-A-X!
• Peppermint Bark candy is yummy. Very yummy.

Okay, I think I've fripperied enough for today. Thanks for indulging me!