Journal Jar #3

Q: Have you ever been to a concert?


A: Yes, a couple.....


I was in the car the other day bringing kids home from somewhere and I pulled into my garage and finally mentally "realized" what song I'd been singing along to for the last minute or two... it was "The Right Stuff" by New Kids on the Block. It was playing on Radio Disney! This is the first concert I went to - it was New Kids in Sacramento at the Arco Arena. I'm not sure how old I was, but based on who I remembering going with, my best guess is 10th grade about 1988-1989.


In case you are not familiar with New Kids and their History, here is a synopsis from wikipedia:


New Kids on the Block was a boy band, and enjoyed enormous success in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Assembled in Boston in 1984 by producer Maurice Starr, the members consisted of brothers Jordan and Jonathan Knight, Joey McIntyre, Donnie Wahlberg, and Danny Wood. The group went on to sell over 70 million albums worldwide[1] , generated hundreds of millions of dollars in concert revenues, and paved the way for acts like Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC.


So basically, I was a fan of the very first boy band - yeah for me! Not something that I advertise too often, but it was a really great concert when I went!

Even worse than this was my second concert: Milli Vanilli... yes... you teens in the 80's laugh all you want!!!! In case you don't know who they are, we'll let Wikipedia take over for a brief explanation:


Milli Vanilli was a pop and dance music project formed by Frank Farian in Germany in 1988, fronted by Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus. The group's debut album achieved high sales internationally which earned them a Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 1990. The act sold over 30 million singles, 14 million albums and became one of the most popular pop acts in the late 80s and early 90s. However, their success turned to infamy when their Grammy was revoked after it was revealed that the actual vocals on the record were not the voices of Morvan and Pilatus.


So, yes, I'm going to admit publicly that we paid good money to see a couple of very skilled lip sync-ers! Of course, we didn't know their secret - yet! But I will say, it was a good concert performance, none the less!

There's Nothing Like....

... warm homemade bread with butter... hmmm....hmm!

Yes, that is MY kitchen, and I made that bread myself! And, I DIDN'T use the breadmaker! I may have cheated a bit and used my Kitchenaid mixer, but I even did the second kneading by hand! Here's the recipe I used, found here.

Basic Bread:
2 cups hot water
1 Tablespoon yeast
6 cups flour (I use 3 cups Whole wheat, 3 cups white bread flour)
1/2 cup sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 cup oil

I add a few other ingredients, but they are optional!
3 tablespoons ground flax seed
use 1/4 cup sugar, and 1 large tablespoon of Honey instead of 1/2 cup sugar.

Prepare as usual and bake at 350 for 25 minutes.

I wanted to try the honey for sugar substitute, but am currently out of honey. I also would have added the ground flax seed, but didn't have any of that on hand, either. Definately next time! I did however, substitute ground "white wheat flour" for the whole wheat flour. It's wheat flour that looks and tastes more like white flour. Maybe someday I'll work up to using the purest form of wheat... but not yet!

The added bonus to my accomplishment - my husband and daughter LOVED it! Eric grew up on homemade bread and was thrilled when he came home to find out I'd made some. Some domestic devil must have possessed my soul yesterday, because I've never been a woman to spend more than the necessary hours in the kitchen. In reality, I haven't made homemade bread since our starving student days.... back then I experimented with all kinds of things I could make from scratch... wheat thins, bagels, etc. Now, I'm definately more a woman of convienence and loath spending hours in my kitchen if I don't have to. But this was really FUN, so maybe I'll do it again... but definately no promises!!!

Sick Day

As if we haven't had enough of this already, yesterday after church, Ian said his tummy hurt and went to his room to lay down. He then fell asleep for at least and hour (yes, in the middle of the day!) and slept it off. He woke up acting normal, so I just brushed it off as a fluke. Then I'm making dinner and I realized I hadn't seen Ian in a while... I asked where he was and Taylor said he was asleep (again) upstairs. I went upstairs to check on him and he was laying on the messy floor, with his bedspread over him, sound asleep. He woke up just in time for dinner (and to tell me that he didn't want anything I'd made, just top ramen). I finally got smart and took his temp only to discover it was 99-100 (under the arm). Barnacles! (That's something that Ian says all the time - it's from Sponge Bob's way of saying "darn it"!) So I told him he'd likely be having to stay home from school, but he actually wanted to go - what? is this my child??? Only because the Running Club is having a pizza party after school to celebrate the end of the season. So this morning we got him up and no fever... but his 2 year old brother had thrown up in his bed and rolled over to the other side and gone back to sleep. (Gross, I know, but this happens with him when it's stomach flu season!) Even though Ian had no fever this morning, I just didn't feel good about sending him to school, so I sent him back to bed. After all, I've got another one sick today, so there's no going out of the house for me is there??? So now, it's 8:24 and all is perfectly still and quiet in my house. Both boys are sound asleep in their beds and the older two are off at school. I honestly don't mind sick days like this all that often, but today I was really gearing up to get back to the gym and start working out again! It's been too long since I've been to the gym more than once in a month! I guess today is going to be a laundry day (lots of sheets already needed to be washed before I discovered vomit in one set this morning....) and I'm bound and determined to finish my taxes and file them today!!!

MVP

Ian had his final soccer game for the season today. It's a winter league that runs for a six week season. Ideal for us (now that we have a boat) so we can keep the "warm" Saturdays free for wakeboarding, etc. With such a short season, the kids are just now starting to show improvement with their skills. Such is the case with Ian - the first couple games, he had really reverted to his "non soccer playing" self. The last two games were a dramatic improvement in both his skills and confidence! Today he scored 2 goals in the 4th quarter (something he's NEVER done before!) And, of course, he picked his day to be a superstar when I had to be home with a house full of girls who slept over! Oh well, maybe having dad there was his lucky charm!

The Birthday Girl

Thursday was Megan's 11th birthday - I posted a tribute to her on her blog - check it out!


On Friday night we had 5 of her friends sleep over, which was very interesting! The girls were really very good, but the boys in our house (including Eric) didn't know how to handle such a large group of loud and gigglin' girls. They painted toenails, watched Aquamarine and played Barbies. It was a fun night for Megan!

The Power of Paint

Before: During:
After:

So I finished painting my bathroom on Thursday - I LOVE it! I'm so happy to say it's all finished and now I'm wanting to put up some pictures and things on the walls that I've been saving from my last house and hadn't really found a home for them. Now I have a plan for them and can't wait to dust them off and hang them up!

Lost

I was a "late comer" to Lost. I remember when it premiered, and I missed the first episode. Then a week or two later, as I was hearing all the "buzz" about it, I was flipping through channels one time and it was on, so I lingered a minute. As I sat watching for a few minutes, I was baffled even more. A woman (presumably Kate) was running through the jungle in the rain away from an unseen monster. I followed this for about 3-4 minutes and gave up. I was "lost" as to what was going on.... and I was a bit creeped out by what I was seeing. So, I flipped to another channel and forgot about Lost entirely.



Fast forward - just over one year later - the second season of Lost was well underway and I was talking to a good friend (Jenn Baxter) about our favorite TV shows. She told me how they named their new puppy after a character on Lost - Sawyer. (The dog turned out to be very like his namesake - lovable but a troublemaker, too!) She had the 1st season of Lost of DVD, so she lent it to me. So, I sat down one afternoon with many loads of laundry to fold and popped in the DVD. Needless to say, I was hooked within about 15 minutes.... and 3 episodes later I realized I didn't want to keep watching this show without Eric. So that night, I sat him down and re-watched the first 3 episodes with him. Every night after that , whenever possible, we put kids to bed and watched Lost. At least 2 episodes, sometimes 4! The beauty of the DVD is that you get to completely bypass commercials and you even have the bonus of reading the subtitles (for added clarification on what they are saying....) By this point, I was recording season 2 on the DVD, but we were missing some episodes, so we downloaded them on itunes. We burned through season 2 just as it was finishing up and couldn't wait for season 3! And so it goes... our Lost addiction has continued until today.....



So here are my thoughts about Lost. I think it's BRILLIANT - and I'll tell you why. They start the show with a survivor of a plane crash waking up to chaos of a disaster on a tropical island. As the mysteries of the island are revealed, you get the back story on each of the main characters in the form of flashbacks. It's very well done and always leaves you wanting MORE information. So the first 3 seasons all flash backed to things the characters were doing before the crash, until the last episode... where we get our first "flash forward" of Jack after life on the island. All this past/future info is spread into what is already a very elaborate and detailed plot on the island itself in the present. All of season 4 has been "flash forwards" of what happens to people after the island. We see who gets off the island and how it has affected them in the future, and all this is happening while the survivors are struggling with how to get off the island, how to protect the island from the wrong people and we still are wondering what Ben is really all about! The great thing about how they are doing this, is that when the show is over and the survivors are rescued (or escape) or whatever, we will already have the "ending" we wanted. I always hate movies that have really abrupt endings and don't give you the details you crave. With Lost we are already getting those details well before the survivors get off the island! Of course, it's not always a "happy" ending.... time will tell what else is going to happen!



Some of the nagging questions that I just want to know the answers to, but maybe I don't really want the answers, because that would mean that the series would be over:

• What is Ben's true purpose and what makes him tick? I've always assumed he was the "bad guy", but more and more I'm realizing that it's just not that clear cut. Yes, he's done some terrible things, but what I really want to know are his true motives behind what he does.... and what happens to Sayid to make him trust Ben post-island?


• How did the people on that freighter get the picture of Penny and Desmond? I think the "black guy" who hired Naomi (and visited Hurley in the hospital) works for Dharma and is trying to get Ben (and avenge the deaths of all the Dharma people way back in "the purge").


• Why can't women conceive and give birth on the island? If Sun leaves the island, will she be able to successfully give birth?


• Who is Jacob and is he real? What power does he have? Can he control the monster?


• Who is "Patchy" and why doesn't he ever seem to die? I'm totally expecting him to pop up again... a grenade explosion should be nothing for this guy who seems to have nine lives!


• What is the "force field" around the island that makes it unplottable, and constantly thwarts attempts by planes, helicopters, etc. to reach it (or leave it).


• What ever happened to Michael and Walt? They had one of the most intriguing story lines during the first 2 seasons and then it just went away - like that! I think Walt still has a part to play in the story of the island... at least I hope he does!


• What did the "time" experiment Daniel did mean?


• Why can't Jack and Locke compromise just a bit?????


• Why can't Kate choose between Sawyer and Jack and stop dangling them both along?


• Do certain people get to "stay" on the island when the others get rescued (like Locke, Rose, Sawyer, etc.) Maybe their is a second "purge" in the works.... Why does Kate leave the island with Aaron (and not Claire?)

So what are your thoughts? What are your theories? What are your burning questions? What part of this show is keeping you up at night?

And why did those darn Hollywood writers have to go on strike? According to this article, this season will only have 13 episodes (instead of the planned 16!)

If you haven't become a Lost Fan yet, it's not too late! Do yourself a favor and go buy the early seasons on DVD - don't bother renting them, because you'll wish you had just bought them, anyway!