I Want to Eat All the Christmas Treats (and ten other random facts)

Fact #1: My lap top is currently "out of order." This complicates my life, although I could take it to the shop near Moochies and use it as an excuse to get a Philly cheesesteak sandwich.

(But who needs an excuse?)

Fact #2: Every day when I'm nowhere near a computer, my mind is full of ideas for blog posts. Then when I sit down to actually write something, I draw a complete blank.

I swear I write amazing stuff in my mind while I'm driving my van! I'm sorry you never get to read it.

Fact #3: During the past few weeks in primary, I've been singing "Away in a Manger" with the kids (I'm the primary music leader). Today Zoe told me that it just might be "the most beautifullest song in the whole wide world." She told me that I shouldn't keep it for myself, and that I should share it with everyone - like I own the copyright or something. Thank you, child, for believing that I am personally responsible for "Away in a Manger." It's my life's greatest accomplishment. Maybe she'll go around telling everyone that her mom wrote it. It will be like in sixth grade when Jessica Murkwood told everyone she choreographed the Bunny Hop.

Fact #4: I usually have an audiobook available on my phone at all times (my current practice is to have two audiobooks - one Harry Potter and one other). I always wonder, when I listen to an audiobook, whether I would like the book more or less if I read it in my own voice. In other words, how does the narrator affect how I feel about the book? I wish I could experience a book both ways and then compare, but once you've experienced it one way (either by reading it in your own voice or by reading it yourself) you can't undo it and go back and experience it the other way. The way you experience a book the first time will always affect the way you experience it the next time.

Know what I mean?

Things got a little wordy there.

Fact #5: I'm currently listening to Memoirs of a Geisha. I really don't think I've ever read it, but at some point I gave it a rating on Goodreads. Am I a liar or am I just really forgetful?

I really could be forgetful. I once read a book all the way through, didn't recognize a word of it, and then saw from my Goodreads profile that I'd read it several years prior. And by the review I wrote, I very clearly did read the book.

Fact #6: Memoirs of a Geisha was written over twenty years ago. This kind of surprises me because it seems like it didn't come out that long ago. Then again, I'm fashionably, technologically, and mentally stuck in 2006, so I no longer know where I am in space and time.

Fact #7: Speaking of twenty years, it dawned on me the other day that I've been visiting my mother-in-law on Sunday evenings for twenty years.

I'm at a point in life where I can say I've been doing stuff for twenty years! And that such and such happened twenty years ago!

Like Party of Five. That show ended 20 years ago. And I am watching it now, and I'm on the last season, and can I just say that it is awful? The show has it's good moments, but by the time it went off air it was a total mess. I'm a few episodes from finishing it, and good heavens! What is wrong with these fictional people?

I do love revisiting the 90's though. The haircuts! The baggy men's clothing! The pagers!

Fact #8: My kids were watching Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer in the van today, and I realized, based on listening to the audio, how incredibly annoying that deer's nose was. Not because it was red but because it made a horrible screeching sound anytime it glowed. How did his parents deal?

It reminded me a lot of my own son... who also makes a lot of horrible screeching sounds.

Fact #9: This is a commonality that I've noticed among all boys Nicky's age (and up to 15-ish). They are always squealing like pigs, yelling one-syllable words like "oi" or "oof," and snapping or popping their hands. The only time they are quiet is when they are doing the floss or the orange justice, and that's only because they can't multi-task. Do they have an overwhelming desire to be heard and seen, or are they just bored?

Fact #10: Since the new year us approaching, Scotty and I talked about transitioning to a digital calendar that we can both access. That way when he gets assigned to go to somewhere like India for work, he can check our calendar and (gasp!) put the dates in it himself! So as I do every year, I started messing around with a few calendaring apps and immediately gave up. I can't do it. I can't keep a digital calendar. It makes me crazy! So paper it is.

Maybe next year.