Family Trip

Left home on Friday morning and set out for Minnesota. We stopped in Des Moines for dinner with Beth and Family. I am planning on stopping there again on my way to Miles in a few weeks. We stayed the night in Iowa, and then headed up to Rochester in the AM. Got to spend some time with Braeden, who I have not seen in person since he was about 12 months old. We had a nice shower for Jennifer, she got lots of baby stuff. Stayed up late doing Facebook stuff.

So, the VT Football game...WOW. I was so sure that I was not going to enjoy that game...but we did SO well...thanks for the rain! At least that's what seemed to have to most effect on our offense. I am now off to have a look at the Steinspring blog to see what they say about the game...

Loooongest weekend in a while

On Friday evening, we too Nora to her new home down in Oxford. I made it through an hour and a half of chit-chat, asked them to leash her and take her into the other room, then got outside before I started to cry. I am very happy with where she is, but I still felt guilty about leaving her. So I cried. Saturday morning she wasn't there to rub her nose under my shoulder to wake me up...so I cried. I cried in the shower. I think I cried a little bit before falling asleep. I do feel better today, but now I get to start worrying about how she is doing. I will not call them. If they need help or advice, they will call. I think after a solid 2 weeks of her being gone...and them not having any trouble with her, I will be very happy. Because she is on a farm, with people who stay home all the time. She is going to get more attention than she can stand! It will be a great place for her.

I'm waiting until mid-October before I pick out a new one.

My Facebook Addiction

One of my most recent posts was about a Facebook application called Farmville. In Farmville, you basically virtually run a farm (with none of the actual work involved...just a lot of waiting around for things to grow). After I started Farmville, I also decided to try Mafia Wars. Then decided to try Vampire Wars. Now I have added Restaurant City and Pirates (Pirate Wars maybe?). Each morning I crawl out of bed to the computer and set everything in motion. I use my energy points and collect my monies. I shut down before a mad dash to the car to get to work. When I come home I crawl up the stairs to my computer and start it all over again. I usually play all the way until bedtime.

I am neglecting my books...I am neglecting my TV...I did vacuum last night, so at least the house isn't falling apart due to my neglect. But hopefully this long holiday weekend will allow me to overload on these games and maybe they won't have such a bad hold on me...or maybe I'll just go as far as I can and will have to quit. Or maybe, just maybe, I can find a healthy balance that allows me to read and or watch my TV shows while stealing quick glances at the computer screen...yay laptop computers : )

SO SAD...I need rehab

The Weather

I wish I could have taken a picture of the clouds this morning, but I was driving, and then it was raining in sheets. DARK DARK clouds...some of them looked like sand dunes in the sky (in shape, not in color). Then, while we were all ogling the darkness, the rain came streaming in. It was like a storm at home. Glorious.

FarmVille

So, on the Facebook, there is this application called FarmVille. You go in, set up a character, and then you are given 6 little plots of land to till and plant seeds on. Seeds cost $$ which you earn by helping other farmers, winning the daily lottery, harvesting crops, and tending to animals.

I don't remember how much $$ (Farm Coins) I had to start with, but I was right away able to buy seeds to plant my 6 patches of field. I also received a cherry tree as a gift from Mary. Jess has sent me 2 Pomegranate trees (they take a very long time to grow). You can buy trees, but they are very expensive, so I think I will get most trees as gifts from friends. Trees can be harvested for their fruit. I also got a pig, a sheep, and a chicken as gifts. I bought my own cow.

Diana sent me a black sheep to adopt. I bought a little bit of fencing, a water trough, and a bale of hay. Someone gifted me a picnic table.

Crops that you plant actually take real time to grow. Technically 3 days is the longest amount of real time, but they don't grow right away. So I planted my crops, and now I have to wait for everything to grow. I did learn this morning that I have to plow my own new little plots of land. I thought you had to have 8 neighbors to buy some new land. So at lunch today I need to go home and figure out how to get more land. Because without more land, I will never be able to buy a barn or more animals.

I should get to 8 neighbors before too long...because we are making Angelica play...she has no choice.

I also started Mafia wars, but that's another topic for another day.

Blush

Buying pregnancy tests is just as embarrassing as buying condoms and maxi-pads. It's all about someone else knowing your very personal business.

No I'm not pregnant...that's just fine by me for now!

Movies

This weekend I watched 4 movies (Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday).

Slumdog Millionaire
I had kind of been avoiding this movie. I am usually disappointed with movies that do REALLY well at the Oscars. I think it's all the hype. I also thought that it was suppose to be kind of a musical (I thought that was a trend in Bollywood. Yes I know that this was not a true Bollywood film, but it was suppose to be in that style).
What the movie WAS, was really good. It has a great soundtrack and manages to be uplifting while still telling a really heart wrenching story. All the poverty, all the strife...but still leaves you with warm fuzzies. I give it two thumbs up.

The Mist
I don't watch that many scary movies. Mostly because I don't like watching them alone...and Michael doesn't really care for them either (generally dis-interested). I mostly decided to watch this one because of the main actor Thomas Jane...hottie. So the movie did make me jump from time to time, the baddies were yucky without being nightmare disturbing (a la the Ring...never again). But the thing that got me (as I'm sure it was suppose to) was the idea that, should apocalyptic circumstances present themselves, the religious zealots might amass a bigger following. Because when people are really scared, they will turn to anything that they think makes sense.
The Zealot in this movie was a particularly hard hitting thumper. At the beginning she was referred to as being a little off her rocker. But by the end of the movie, she had convinced a majority of the people that she was God's vessel...and they basically did whatever she suggested in an attempt to appease God (aka, make the monsters from a parallel dimension go away). That plot line bothered me way more than the giant creatures! Real things usually do!

Bottle Shock
One of the previews before Slumdog was for Bottle Shock. This is basically the story of how California wines proved that they could stand side by side on the shelf with the French wines. It wasn't good enough for me to want to buy it...but very few are these days. It kept me interested for the whole movie and did make me want to visit Napa Valley. It also had Chris Pine (Captain Kirk from the new Star Trek movie). He had BAD hair, but those eyes are worth it! It also had Alan Rickman...who I love!

Watchmen
I am technically still watching this. I had to stop it last night after 2 hours of it ranging from mildly interesting, to dumb. It may have just started getting good when I stopped it, but if a movie has just started getting good at the 2 hour mark, it ISN'T good! I'll finish it today, just because I rarely leave a movie unfinished. But there is very little from this movie that I will remember fondly. So blah!