It's all about meme this Cinco de Mayo

Thanks to Sunday Stealing for this meme- I love honor among thieves!

1. If your lover betrayed you, what will your reaction be?
Kick his ass to the curb

2. If you can have a dream to come true, what would it be?
money, money, money

3. What is the one thing most hated by you?
I hate stupid

4. What would you do with a billion dollars?
"I'd buy a blouse"....

5. Could you fall in love with your best friend?
nope--- well, if she had a penis and was a man, maybe

6. Which is more blessed, loving someone or being loved by someone?
being loved

7. How long do you intend to wait for someone you really love?
So far I've waited for 17 years.............

8. If the person you secretly like is already attached, what would you do?
Wait 17 years..............

9. If you'd like to act (movies, stage) with someone, who would it be?
Johnny Depp

10. What do you expect of your loved one?
security & love

11. How would you see yourself in ten years time?
almost 50 years old

12. What’s your fear?
death

13. Would you rather be single and rich or married, but poor?
single and rich, hands down!

14. What’s the first thing you do when you wake up?
hit the snooze button

15. Do you ever hold back in a relationship?
yes

16. If you fell in love with two people simultaneously, how would you pick?
uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, geographical proximity

17. Would you forgive and forget no matter how horrible a thing that special someone has done?
no

18. What are your three most important expectations in love?
trust, honesty, and communication

Random Hump day thoughts

Mac gave his last band performance and he was awesome. I was so proud of him. He even had a sax solo during a Beatle's classic. Wow. Just wow. And as he said when it was over, "well, that was the last time I'll ever perform on stage during high school." *gulp*

ITSam and I planned to take Mac and Jack (Sam's son) to a Japanese steak house and to see Thor in IMAX/ 3-D this coming Saturday. It's a last birthday gift for Mac and an early birthday gift for Jack- sort of smack in the middle of the two boys' birthdays & Jack will be 12 in two weeks. It's not Sam's typical weekend with Jack so he asked his ex-wife if she cared and she said no because she owed him a weekend; he and Jack talked about it and Jack was really psyched. He spoke with her last Saturday. He made reservations for dinner, Mac made sure he didn't have plans, I turned down a transport job and was actually online to order tickets for the movie. Sam called his exbiotch to check times with her and she canceled on him. He was PISSED! So, he got Jack on the phone. Jack said he didn't want to go because his mom's boyfriend's youngest son was having a bowling birthday party and he wanted to go to that instead. Sam is furious. I have no idea how she convinced Jack to give up the steak house he loves and begs to go to each weekend and to pass up an IMAX movie he's been begging to see for a month to go bowling, but she managed it. She's moving Jack to Florida in a month so Sam was really looking forward to this extra time. Not pretty.

Every spring my feet kill me for a couple weeks. I go from wearing sturdy winter shoes to flip-flops and sandals. During the adjustment my feet feel like they could just fall off.

I made a "crouton salad" last night which was awesome. I loved it. Yes, I know I should've taken pictures. Take my word for it and it was delish. Let me know if anyone wants the recipe! Very garlic-y which I consider a plus.

I found a vintage dining room table and chairs. It's a metal topped table- that's white- and metal legs. The chairs are soda fountain style and the seats are pink with red cherries. It's adorable. I think parents should get a graduation gift when their kids make it this far and I want this! It's at a local antique store. I'll try and get some photos to share!

The other morning we were running a little late for school so Mac used Daddy-O's bathroom. (He lets us so we weren't invading his space!) Now Mac is in LOVE with the bathroom and wants to call it his "temporary man cave." I find it hilarious.

I love cereal. When Mac was little he would go with me to the store and want some adult cereals like Special K and Mini Wheats. I always wanted the junkie kid cereal like Fruity Pebbles, Peanutbutter Captn Crunch, trix and Count Chocula. I love me some cereal and want it for dinner.

Cake Decorating Part I

Somehow cooking and baking with XRay Girl involves cleaning because she makes a super big mess whenever she cooks.

She is presenting a cake decorating workshop tomorrow at school for me. Free of charge. So, since she's helping me, I said I would make her a dinner and also help with all the prep work.

So I went shopping after school for supplies.

Actually, I was supposed to leave early, about 20 minutes. But when I got as far as the parking lot 2 boys were beating the crap out of each other and there were no adults around. I couldn't break up the fight but finally several guys got there and did but I stayed with the other boys until their adults-in-charge arrived.

So I didn't get to leave early. I did go shopping and after waiting behind idiots in line at Wal-Mart if was after 5pm when I finally got home.

XRay Girl and I proceeded to make 4 dozen cupcakes, a two layer round cake and we used a cake form pan of Garfield.

Then we made 6 batches of icing and colored it, bagged it and put the rest in containers.

I also fixed, from scratch, a Greek Crouton salad and beef stroganoff for dinner, in the middle of all this.

After all the cakes were cooled, I boxed up all the cupcakes, which included finding all the containers for them to fit. I covered cardboard with foil for the Garfield and layer cake. We made a list of things to not forget to do in the morning, for her and one for me.

ITSam showed up and he helped with the clean up. I washed all the dishes that wouldn't fit in the dishwasher. I ran the dishwasher. ITSam vacuumed the dining room floor and he mopped the kitchen floor. I gathered up a bunch of trash from the kitchen and then topped off the bag which involved collecting more around the house. Mac carried it to the trash can outside.

Then I went to work at 10pm to drop off all the stuff for tomorrow's event. I froze cakes and chilled the frosting and unpacked supplies.

And I forgot to take a single picture to illustrate any of it, damn it.

At least we have a nice, clean. Pin-Sol smelling house.

And a whole lotta cake to decorate.

Mags

Two movie thoughts

1. When I first moved back here from the Wild West, I bought tons of magazines and newspapers and followed online sites of all the movies I wanted to rent and see in the theater. It wasn't anything for me to go see movies along, 2 or even 3 during a week, and that many or more on the weekends. Okay.

I'm still enamored of films of course, but now I have a "serious" boyfriend which puts a spin on movie going. If I just go to the movie and don't tell him, then he wonders where I am. If I go to see a movie without him I have to explain that it wasn't a 'I don't want to be with you' thing but just a spur of the moment thing where I wanted to see a movie. He could get his feelings hurt that I didn't ask him.

And it's not that I don't want him to go with me, but I get off work about 90 minutes before he does and I could be at the theater and have the movie almost over by the time Sam is leaving work. Sometimes I like to go so I don't have to talk about a movie afterwards. I want to sit where I want and eat all the popcorn alone,

Hey, I'm just saying...

2) Does anyone have "go-to" movies? I have several movies I love to watch over and over again. If I'm grading papers (okay back in the day when i graded papers), want back ground noise, am doing some sort of project, blogging or whatever, I have a certain collection of movies I want to throw in the DVD plays and will watch over and over again. I know all the dialogue and I know what's going to happen. I don't have to sit glued to the screen.

Does anyone else have movies like that?

Mine are pretty unlikely, too: Twister, Volcano, When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, and Apollo 13. And usually Harry and 13 are at the bottom of my choice list over the other three.

Food glorious food!

I've been starving lately. I'm not pregnant, so for God's sake get that thought out of your collective heads. But lately I've been just extremely hungry all the time. I have no idea why. I can't even begin to speculate but I'm famished.

And it's not that I really want junk food, though I do. I really want food. I've been craving steak and mashed potatoes. Yesterday there was a port-a-pit chicken fund raiser and I wanted some so badly. We have a new local pizza place and I can't get enough of their pizza: green olives, meatballs, Italian (beef) sausage. I want breadsticks with cheese and Starbucks coffee. I've been so hungry for seafood salad or a HUGE lettuce salad with croutons and ranch dressing and shredded cheese. And stove top popcorn with butter.

Yup, I'm just hungry.

I've been cooking lots lately, too. We fired up the grill and have had steaks a few times. I learned how to grill so I made brats and I have big plans for chicken.

I went to the grocery store yesterday and bought food like it was going out of style. And not just junk; I got all sorts of meat to grill and all kinds of cheeses and potatoes. I found some wonderful organic salad greens, which I want to cover in green olives, croutons, cheese and ranch dressing. I'm so hungry for strawberries. And orange juice- not together, but separately.

Chocolate is another "food" I've been dying for. And pastries but not chocolate pastries, if that makes any sense. I've wanted to go to the local Mongolian bar for food (okay, SisIL, we should go there for lunch one day for your birthday. Or Curly! Or anyone!!!!).

Believe it or not, since I've given up eating pork, that seems to be the one thing I'm not craving. Go figure. I'm sure the time will come when I'm ready to kill for a slice of bacon or a big, fat, greasy pork chop, but so far, so good. Turkey bacon and turkey sausage have been satisfying the taste when the craving has hit.

Right this very second I want a turkey sandwich on white Wonder bread with a huge slice of tomato and a piece of Cheddar cheese. With chips on the side.

Mac and I went to the Cheesecake Factory for part of his late birthday celebration just to eat dessert. I swear I could've eaten about 5 pieces. I only had one- a slice of Lemon Creme Cake with strawberries. It. Was. To. Die. For.

Later today ITSam is coming over to grill. We're going burgers and dogs and brats. Jack is there this weekend and he's a picky eater so we're just doing the basics. I'm going to make baked beans and we have chips. Just picnic type of food, so it should all be good. And I love the smell of food cooking on the grill. YUM!

I realize this post had not conclusions drawn and no thought provoking process and was nothing but a list of food I've been craving lately. And that's okay. Because I can't think other than WANTING food!

Maggie

The last song

Last night was Mac's last choir concert of his high school career. It's also supposed to be the most fun concert of the year because it's full of special acts featuring seniors, and the most talented kids in the choir, but mostly a focus on the seniors. In the past, these have been amazing and so much fun!

And I am sorry to say it was the worst concert I'd ever been to, in all the years I've been going to these; it was not good. I was soooo bummed, especially since it was Mac's last performance.

The music was good- at least the concept was. It was "through the years" and sort of an evolution of music from the '50s to now.

But it was obvious to the audience that the kids were just not into it. There were few special acts and most of those weren't very good. It was just a very lackluster performance on the kids part.

Usually the kids are smiling and laughing and you can just feel the air pop from their energy. There was none of that. Many of the kids weren't even smiling. There was no energy to the dancing. They seemed depressed. Kids were lagging behind on their dance moves.

It was just sad.

I asked Mac about it, being nice and doing the mom thing rather than ask "what the hell was wrong with all of you at the concert?" He said the kids were just burned out and the choir director tried to "cram" rather than start practicing months ago like usual, she tried to do it in a few weeks. There are about 170 kids in the choir and they did excerpts from about 100 songs. It was not something to cram.

Mac said that the kids were tired, didn't want to do it, and there had been lots of fighting and "drama". And rather than the director stopping it, she sort of fanned the drama flames, which is sad. Lots of the kids also said that since the director's children had graduated and were no longer in choir she didn't care about making a good spring concert. Whether that's true or not, it seemed to be the perception of many of the students in choir and as we know, perception is everything.

Mac and the director had much angst between them this year for various reasons, both faults of BOTH people, not all just Mac. And the director had several personal things happen that would strain her abilities, I'm sure but it was just sad that it seemed.... depressing rather than a show case for all the talent in that choir.

I did go ahead and buy a copy of the DVD and will be posting, via youtube, two clips of Mac's solos. I'll keep you updated when that goes up. (Even he didn't have his normal performance face on!)

As for "Mac High School Milestones" all we have left if graduation and the open house. Then we're off to college! Oh thank God!

Mac's mom,
Maggie

Random life crap outta my brain

The movie Fast Five came out. It has Dwayne Johnson AND Vin Diesel. This could help or hurt me. Doesn't make sense? Remember my confusion? If not, click here....

My friend Photographer has a very dear friend. Her very dear friend is beautiful and has money, an excellent job, and a PHd. She's sexy and silly and just what most men consider to be a "perfect catch." She met a guy who is as handsome, well moneyed, well connected, as she is. They met in Oct. '10, got engaged at Christmas and are getting married in May- as in next month. Everyone thinks it's wonderful and romantic. I think of doing that and people think it's crazy. Is it me, or is it connected to the rich and beautiful?

And, following the above thread, why can't I meet a guy who is rich and handsome and smart?

And also following that thought process, it could be when Photographer asked me how it was going with ITSam, my response was , "fine." Not in that snotty woman "fine" way, but her follow up questions led me to say "boring." Oh god. I called my boyfriend boring. Maybe I was just having a bad day? Because he's really nice and would do anything for me. And I'm at an age where I need to settle down and stop gallivanting all over the world on search of adventure. Right?

And speaking of Sam, the email server went crazy at work this week. All sorts of stuff was happening: people could send internally but not externally, people couldn't get their emails, some could see they had mail but couldn't read messages, some could receive but not send at all... just a variety of weird stuff. He's been working on it for days, and last night he didn't get home from work until 11pm. So while all this is going on, I had one person yell at ME over it. I don't think she'll ever get her email back again; Sam was pissed that someone would have the nerve to say anything to me, let alone yell at me about it. Also, I had a weird issue with mine. I could sent internally and externally. I could receive BUT I couldn't read my externally received emails. I could see them sitting in my in-box and who they were from but the content wasn't there. Furthermore, I could receive internal emails and some I could read and some I couldn't. He told me that since the entire campus was having issues, he didn't even want to hear from me. And he said my issue was the only one like it on campus. He called me his "little anomaly". Awwww, shucks. He's so sweet.

So, when Mac is an evil asshole, is that my fault since I did most of the raising of him?

Maggie