Merry Christmas!!

My favorite person singing my favorite Christmas song:

Eleven degrees of (napster) separation

I was looking for new music last night, following recommendations on Napster, and realized that by the time I got 5-6 clicks from my original search, I could be in a totally different genre. For example, a search starting with Harry Connick Jr made it to Metallica in about 9 or 10 clicks. So, I decided to challenge myself to see how fast I could get there from something more difficult.

Max and Ruby (Nickelodeon cartoon) - slightly tricky since most of the recommendations were Canadian

The Belmonts - I picked the least Canadian sounding group

Barry Mann - I thought that would get me closer than it did

Luciano Pavarotti - I was hoping he'd link directly to Sting or, even better, Suzanne Vega, because of the "and Friends" albums, but it didn't

Josh Groban -

Sting -

Suzanne Vega - key to everything - this game could be called Six Degrees of Suzanne Vega, but it would be too easy.

Gin Blossoms

Blind Melon

Alice in Chains

Metallica

My MP3 player has a lot more variety now (yes, I did add something from every artist along the way). Anyone have another challenge for me?

Right 'round

No reason, except that I had to Napster the new version so that I can play it for HEY later. "I don't know if I've ever even heard the original version." Whatever. And guess what, I didn't know there was a new version until tonight. Ha. I'm so cool.

I'm sitting in the driveway in the van because I dropped off 2 of the kids at a rehearsal and the rest of the kids, who have been home sick all day, fell asleep on the way home. Unwilling to drag 3 sleeping kids in and back out again in an hour, I just ran in to grab my laptop and pretend to study/write a paper. And download Right Round.

School was going well. I finished all but one class I had picked for this term in the first month. But now, a research paper... I started it the beginning of October and I have a thesis statement and...some research saved in my folder in the virtual library and...a couple of articles picked out to add to the annotated bibliography I had planned to finish the first week and...that's it. I don't know why exactly I'm dragging my feet on this. It's fairly ridiculous. As soon as I finish it, I can move on to classes I like again. I really want to move on to classes I like again. Classes that I can finish and feel accomplished again. I have a new, firm goal now though - must be done by Thanksgiving Break. If it's not, I might as well shoot for my original deadline (set by my mentor because we didn't know I was going to bust out 4 classes in the first month) of January 7. I can do this.

Hmm, my left ear just went silent except for some ringing. That's a weird and unpleasant feeling. It's a good thing my job doesn't depend on being able to hear things. Oh, wait...

I am actually kind of excited for Christmas this year. Generally, Christmas is usually bittersweet for me. The last time I spent Christmas with my family (sibling, parents) was 1998. Christmas growing up was always awesome, mostly because of family and family traditions and grandparents and cousins and games and etc. etc. etc. and quirky presents from my dad (matching hairdryers x3 for me and my sisters). And so Christmas has been kind of this giant reminder that Hey!! You live so very far away from all these people that you love and what if you never get to spend another Christmas with your grandparents? I don't know if it's because we did get to see so many this summer on the Epic Road Trip or just more resolve to just do the best I can to make Christmas awesome for my kids (note, I do usually do that, the bittersweetness stays inside) or maybe that there is a glimmer of hope that we will someday, SOMEDAY move closer or that in general, maybe, there's a glimmer of hope as I maybe, maybe get out of this funk that I've been in for way tooooo long, anyway...I'm actually kind of excited for Christmas this year. Making plans and all that jazz.

And now, it's time to go fetch the girls from rehearsal.

A Little Visitor

waiting at the dr's office with 3 crazy, wound up girls. They have the sillies, nervous energy waiting for shots all around.

Speaking of TV shows

I'm sorta in love with John Besh's new show on TLC, Inedible to Incredible. At first, I thought, hey, my husband could nominate me for that and then I could get John Besh to help me with some cooking, but then I watched it and now I just like it because it makes me feel like I suck at cooking just a little less. My food is seriously ehh, but I've never served pureed vegetables with frozen meatballs and sliced cheese on top.

In other news, it's my birthday. THAT birthday.

One of our family traditions is getting to pick dinner on our birthdays, but since DPY is at rehearsal, I voted for Kid Cuisine for the kids. And I'm having brownies and ice cream.

I just dropped the middle 3 kids off at VBS. I thought they were going to go just tonight because they were invited by a friend (who has already gone with them to one of our church activities), but they looked like they were having/going to have so much fun, I'll probably let them go all week. They wanted SPY to stay too, which would mean 4 nights of no kids....but....I didn't want to lead them on/take advantage. SPY cried when we left, of course. Sigh. (I tried to make up a phonetic for a sigh there, but I couldn't come up with anything besides phhhhh and that felt more like a raspberry than a sigh.)

My birthday has been quite lovely for the most part and uneventful, which is lovely. Breakfast in bed - scrambled eggs and toast with a diet Coke, lounging about, playing on FB, ignoring pretty much everything on my to-do list (except the trash dude and some mail that had to go out today and the bank and the grocery store briefly). Really awesome card from the kids and one of my favorites ever from DPY - one I'll even save, which is a BIG DEAL for me.

I think it's time for a little more lounging before work (and picking up the VBS kids). As HB would say, because she's retro like that, Peace Out.

Summer+ime

and +he living is easi. Unless u're +rieing +o +ipe on mi poor lap+op. +ee, whi, +ab, lef+ shif+, page down, and backspace; all missing or nonfunc+ional.

o+her +han +ha+, +he girls have been going +o +hea+re camps, we've been hi++ing up +he librari, and jus+ chillin' ou+ awai from +he ho+ sun. And ge++ing readi for our grea+ +rek nor+hwes+ward in a li++le less +han a mon+h. 18 dais of driving, hanging ou+ wi+h famili, more driving, hanging ou+ wi+h friends and famili, Pioneer Dai in SLC or Logan, more famili in Logan, +hen home again, home again, jiggi+i jig via Carlsbad Caverns (from hubbi's bucke+ lis+, if he had one).

+he smalle+ one is asking me how do I spell "boi +oi" which he apparen+li learned from +oi S+ori?

+iping +his is wai more annoi-ing +han fun.

In the interim

Things that have gone on since December:
*not much.
*school is going fine and it's almost done for this semester. Two more tests, two more assignments and maybe 2 more at home tests that are really more like quizzes but the teacher in that class is so far behind that I doubt she'll get both ready and posted before the end of the semester.
*we've been making plans to visit family far and wide this summer, but I said it out loud and jinxed it, so that's probably not really going to happen. Really.
*my sister found out that she's having another boy and my sister-in-law found out that she's having another girl. How convenient for both of them, though I doubt that my sister has much left from the last one since he's almost 8-1/2.
*my youngest/last baby is potty-trained. It happened in a day and not because I wanted it to. I wasn't ready, but he wouldn't leave his diaper on anymore so I said, fine then. I think this is probably the last of my gifts-from-God-because-you-had-this-kid-even-though-you-were-so-totally-done-at-4-kids because mostly being potty-trained just means that he runs around naked anytime he can get away with it and at least I don't have to worry too much about him making messes while he's doing it, but I do have to worry that he's going to just whip out his junk wherever we might be. Today he was jumping on the trampoline and had to go, so he dropped them and peed through one of the holes in the mat. His sister says he made it straight through the hole without getting any on the mat, which is great for his aim - not that it matters since he's too short to reach standing up yet - but isn't exactly what I was concerned about. I guess the bright spot is that he night trained the same time, which is a great big miracle. Seriously.
*my oldest is starring in her first play. It opens tonight. I'm not there because I have to work AND we couldn't afford a babysitter this week so I might as well work. I'm going tomorrow night and Daddy is getting her the appropriate opening night flowers tonight.
*My inlaws are moving to Logan, Utah. Kind of ironic (at least in the Alanis way and I don't care enough to figure out if it's true irony) since we moved here from Logan to be near them. Ha.
*That middle one over there is turning 8 in May so we will have parties and baptism and a visit from my parents.
*I'm spring cleaning in preparation for the above which includes Kilzing and painting my cabinets. I'm debating between using the color I bought back in December and heading out to the Lowe's to find the color I really want.
*I am, in general, feeling much better lately - less tired, less stressed out, less blah. This probably means that something is about to hit the fan. See, I'm still pessimistic at least.
*I am also, in general, having a lot of dejavu. Someone once told me that this means that something big is going to happen in your life and though I know that I've had other periods heavy on dejavu, I can't remember if they preceded big events so that's no help at all. I've also been randomly remembering things, events, etc. from the fairly distant past (not childhood or anything crazy like that - those are still mostly gone except the ones from pictures), which is extremely weird since my mind has been a deep, dark hole on all that kind of stuff for a long time. Curiouser and curiouser.
*I just realized that I'm like 3 episodes behind on Project Runway and so that's what I'm going to do tonight - fold clothes, veg and watch a bunch of Project Runway. Awesome.
*We took family pictures on Easter and there are several pictures of the children that I don't hate, two that I love, and even one of ALL OF US that I kind of love too, which is pretty cool, 'specially since we were using a tripod.
*And that's all the news from here.