The Love Pavilion

For Valentine's Day Clint gave me the traditional heart-shaped box of chocolates and mini-roses. Of course, as mentioned last entry, those were last minute "Oh crap" gifts due to the fact that he found out I got him something. But I don't mind. :)

The best part of our day was about two hours ago. Clint cooked us a really nice dinner, and we had the kids serve us, as if we were in a restaurant. The dinner was delicious: shrimp scampi, rosebud potatoes, veggies, blackberry merlot, and strawberry shortcake for dessert. And the kids were so darn cute. They took their role very seriously, even giving our so-called restaurant a name: "The Love Pavilion." I was cracking up when Elijah came up to our table wearing a little clip-on tie, ready to take our order with a giant green crayon. When he left the table, he and Trinity bowed, like waiters might in a formal restaurant. Then Elijah complained, "Trinity, you're a girl. You're not supposed to bow, you're supposed to tootsie." We laughed so hard.

Now Clint and I are playing Quiddler, but his turns are taking so darn long that I am typing this entry while waiting for him to lay down a card. Yaawwwwnnnnn.

Yet Another Story Butchered

We went to the movies today to see The Lightening Thief. I was really disappointed. Any time I watch a movie based from the novel, I am always prepared to deal with the producers' artistic licensing in tweaking the storyline to make it more suitable for the big screen. But this movie was such a loose translation of the book that it might as well have been a completely different story. The producers excluded major characters, deleted important scenes, and dumbed down the storyline to the point where it was nothing more than a generic remnant of the original. They also made Percy too powerful, which took away a lot of his appeal as a "normal" kid that just happened to have a god for a father. On the plus side, Annabeth's character in the movie has a lot more personality than the book-version-Annabeth, plus Grover offers a lot of comic-relief throughout the movie. I think the movie might be entertaining for those who have never read the book, but it pretty much just ticked me off the whole time.

The rest of today has been pretty uneventful. After the movie we went to lunch, then to Newbie's for frozen yogurt as a reward to Trin for getting good grades. Once at home, Clint began working on the kitchen countertops, and I did his homework. We have a nice bribery system going on; he'll continue to work on projects as long as I chip in with his homework. So today I created a concept map of "curriculum," and then a pictograph collage of "effective teaching practices." Meanwhile, he busted up some tile. I think I got the short end of that stick.

Tomorrow's Valentine's Day, but neither Clint nor I are romantic-types, so the holiday has always been a bit lost on us. Plus Valentine's Day falls a week after Clint's birthday, so I'm generally burnt out with shopping by the time this nuisance of a holiday arrives. Nonetheless, I decided to pick up some chocolate-covered peanuts for Clint, and a card, just in case he happened to get me a gift. I didn't want to feel guilty if I woke up tomorrow morning and he presented me with a gift, but I was empty-handed (I know, such a noble reason to get someone a gift). And if he didn't get me a gift, I was okay with that...we could just share the peanuts. Well, Clint found out that I got him a gift, so then he had to run out to get me a gift about an hour ago, which is just ironic because if I had just left everything alone, we both would have never bought each other anything and would have been perfectly content.

Stupid little holiday. *sigh*

Shaking Bed Syndrome

My bed has this bad habit of shaking at night. It's been doing this for about two years now; not every night, but about two or three times a week. In the beginning, I used to think it was an earthquake. In our old house, there were several times when I ran upstairs into the living room (back when Clint worked swing shift), sure that we had just had an earthquake. Clint would insist that there had been no earthquake, and at times, would even resort to going to USGS's website just to convince me.

The shaking isn't always earthquakish though...sometimes it's much more subtle, just like a small jolt. It often feels like a cat has jumped onto the mattress, or a person has just rolled into the bed. But added to this is the sensation I get from time to time that something is actually putting physical pressure on me.  Last week, for example, I felt a cat jump on my bed and put it's paws on my back. I was certain that it was my cat Pharaoh, but I was perplexed because I remembered Clint putting him in the garage (our cats sleep in the garage at night because I'm a light sleeper). I rolled over to grab the cat, but there was nothing there. I went to the garage to see if Pharaoh was indeed locked in, and he was.

The thing is, I don't believe in the paranormal. Well, I shouldn't say that. I do believe that there are things out there that we can't fully comprehend; it would be naive for humans to assume that we know everything there is to know about the universe we live in. But I am extremely cynical when it comes to ghosts and that sort of thing. If you try to tell me your little ghost story and insist that it is 100% true, I'll nod along and ooh and ahh at all the right places, but inwardly I will think that you're full of crap. Sorry.

So, being the skeptic I am, I have come up with a theory as to why my mattress won't sit still at night, and why I occasionally feel tactile sensations.  I have always been an insomniac. It doesn't seem to matter how tired I am, the second my head hits that pillow, my mind starts buzzing like crazy with this thought and that thought and I can't seem to turn it off. But it's almost becoming this thing that I do to myself. What I mean is, even on the nights that I go to bed feeling very relaxed and stress-free, I will slowly begin to drift to sleep when my brain suddenly announces, "You're about to fall asleep now, so don't screw it up by thinking about pointless things!" And of course that's like telling a small child to not touch the hot plate...naturally her rebellious nature is going to take over. And WHAM, now I'm up all night. I screw myself over like this constantly.

So how does this relate to the shaking mattress? Well here is where I would need my sister's psychological expertise, but I think that all of those vibrations and jolts are actually hallucinations. Not of the "seeing" kind, but of the "feeling" kind. Do those exist? I almost always feel the shaking when I'm on the brink of falling asleep, so I think that my sadomasochist brain might actually be creating these tactile manifestations to keep me up at night. A sort of insomnia to the Nth degree.  I can't think of any other way to intelligently rationalize what I am experiencing, so I think I'm going to stick with this theory for awhile.

Bloggiment

I'm trying an experiment to see if I can create my own blog background, so you might see weird changes in the next hour or so...just ignore them. :)
Update: It's an hour later and I did manage to apply a new background, but there are still way too many kinks to work out, so now I'm back to my old template. I think I'm going to have to wait until summer break to really play around with it. At least now I know it's somewhat doable. :)

Update #2: Apparently I'm a glutton for punishment, because I'm going to go back and try some more. So again, expect weird crap all over my page for a little while...or a long while if my stubborn-butt refuses to let up on this lovely time-wasting endeavor.

Update #3: I got my background to work! Clint had to help me, because I am clueless when it comes to editing HTML. I'm not going to stick with this template forever...I'll get bored again in a few months, I'm sure. But at least now I know that I can put in my own graphics and am not limited to the already-created templates online...it makes it a little more personal.

P.S. It's interesting to observe the domino-effect of blogging. One person changes her blog's appearance, then shortly after everyone on that person's blogroll is doing it too. It's a cyber "keeping up with the Jones's" phenomenon. Hey, I'm not claiming to be immune to this--I'm constantly feeling inspired by other blogs and itching to try new things.

One Weekend Warrior and One Grunt

We finished our kitchen backsplash a few days ago. It took much longer than I had anticipated, but it came out cute! Overall the project was a bit time-consuming (grout has to cure for three days before being sealed, etc.) and very messy, but it wasn't difficult at all. Of course, Clint did most of the actual labor...I just did grunt work (like filling buckets with water and doing his "Diversity in the Classroom" homework). Now that we're finished, I feel so eager to start the countertops, because the new backsplash is making the tile on our kitchen counter look blinding white. Luckily, we already have the supplies to start the countertops. About two years ago, we purchased soft gray granite tiles to install in our kitchen, but then wound up moving before we got around to installing them. So we're going to begin installation of those tiles this weekend. I'm thinking it's going to take us at least three weeks to finish, since we really only have time to work on this project over the weekends.
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It's frustrating because when we first moved into our house, I took lots of "before" pictures, but now I can't figure out where I stored them. I did find two random pics that "sort of" show what our kitchen looked like before we began renovations, so here they are:

Unfortunately Elijah is taking center-stage in that second pic, but it was the only photo I could find that shows what our our kitchen looked like before we started attacking it with paint, etc. The kitchen cabinets used to be an oak-brown color, and there was a long row of cabinets blocking the view between the kitchen and the living room. Since we've moved in, we have torn out that row of cabinets, installed an island light, painted all the cabinets a cream-white color, installed pulls and knobs, installed a microwave over the range, and now, finished the backsplash. We still need to do the countertops and replace our sink. Here are some pics I took yesterday to show how everything is coming out so far:

The flash on my camera made the kitchen look a lot whiter than it actually is...in real-life it's not as blinding. Plus the gray granite tiles, once installed, will soften up the room. We still have a lot of work left to do, but I'm so proud of what we (and by "we," I mean "Clinton"--LOL) have accomplished so far, and I can't wait to see the end result!

Basket Cases

I recently complained in a previous entry that Trinity and Elijah refuse to be normal kids who sleep on real beds with pillows and blankets, and all that good healthy stuff that is generally associated with sleeping. Well, the good news is that last night, my kids actually slept in a bed! Woo hoo!

However, this is how Clint found them in the middle of the night. Yes, they are sleeping with their heads shoved in laundry baskets. *Sigh*

The Sea of Monsters

I'm discovering that I have no issues whatsoever reading novels for the Bookworm Challenge; it's posting the reviews that I'm slacking on. I still have not written a review for Kite Runner, but at this point I doubt I ever will. I sort of consider including this book as "cheating," since I pro-rated the book toward the challenge when technically I had finished reading it two days before I signed up. I'll probably wind up adding one more book to my list to compensate for this.

I finished reading The Sea of Monsters about two weeks ago, but of course still have not gotten around to writing a review. So I'm going to write one right now, but I'll keep it short.

The Sea of Monsters is very similar to The Lightening Thief...in fact, in many ways, they seem almost like the same book, but with different quests and a few more added characters. Like the first book, it's enjoyable and easy-to-read. However, it is missing some of the character development and self-discovery that makes the first book so appealing. Furthermore, some of the quests, although interesting and fun to read, seem like they are thrown in there just to take up pages, and don't really contribute to the overall theme. I still am disappointed with Riordan's lack of character development with Annabeth...two-and-a-half novels now and she still bores me (in the movie trailer for Lightening Thief, Annabeth seems to be full of personality! Go figure. Maybe the author just couldn't figure out how to create a colorful, interesting heroine).

On the plus side, while the novel is not incredibly deep, it is unquestionably entertaining. And Riordan does give this particular installment a great, cliffhanger ending. He also does a great job of tying loose ends at the end of each book, while constantly weaving that underlying theme-thread that will continue through the rest of the series.