My Life, the Original Soundtrack

Found this meme over at (mis)Adventures in... when scrolling through the Unschooling Blogs blogring. I have to say, this may be the most fun meme ever!

Directions

If your life was a movie, what would the soundtrack be?

1. Open your mp3 library
2. Put it on shuffle.
3. Press Play.
4. For every question, type the song that's playing.
5. When you go to a new question, press the Next button.
6. Don't lie and try to pretend you're cool.
7. Don't skip songs. (Unless they happen to be podcasts/foreign/downright perverted and you don't want your sister to think you're some sort of dirty whore.)

My Movie:

Opening Credits ~ Lipgloss - Pulp

Waking Up ~ Sally's Song (from Nightmare Before Christmas special edition) - Fiona Apple

First Day of School ~ Sometimes You Can't Make it On Your Own (2005 Live from Milan) - U2

Fight Song ~ Get It - Peaches (oh, that's a good one)!

Breaking Up ~ How's It Going to Be - Third Eye Blind

Happiness ~ Let's Go - the Wiggles (And YES, I'm cool enough to admit that)!

Life's Okay ~ Dani California - Red Hot Chili Peppers

Mental Breakdown ~ Slippery Dick - Peaches

Driving ~ Prison Food - Ben Folds

Flashback ~ Wonderful - Everclear

Getting Back Together ~ Go or Go Ahead - Rufus Wainwright

Wedding Song ~ Mysterious Ways - U2

Birth of First Child ~ Not the Doctor - Alanis Morissette

Final Battle Scene ~ Lust for Life - Iggy Pop (No, I'm not making this up...this would make an awesome battle scene)!

Death Scene ~ Shake Your Rump - Beastie Boys

Funeral Song ~ Until You Come Back to Me (That's What I'm Gonna Do) - Aretha Franklin

End Credits ~ Darling Nikki - Prince


Enjoy, and if you happen to do this meme, send me a note and let me know! Some of mine are right on!

How Quirky Are You?

Your Quirk Factor: 65%

You're so quirky, it's hard for you to tell the difference between quirky and normal. No doubt about it, there's little about you that's "normal" or "average."

How Quirky Are You?

Pretty accurate, I'd say. If I meet someone who's a little out there, I automatically think they're pretty awesome, and chances are good we'll become the bestest of friends. Hey, why be normal?

Taste the happy.

You Are Gonzo the Great

"Is something burning in here? Oh, it's just me." You're a total nutball who will do anything for attention. The first to take a dare, you'll pull almost any stunt. You're one weird looking creature, but your chickens don't mind!

The Muppet Personality Test

Of course...Gonzo! He likes chickens, too! Coo Coo Ka CHA!

Coo Coo Ka Cha!

What can I say? I'm sick, and mopey...and this show really cheers me up when I'm down. Come on!

Unschooling flicks?

Unschooling and movies just go together, dontcha agree?

We have been watching some great ones lately...Animaniacs (remember them?), Sherrybaby, An Evening with Kevin Smith, Fruits Basket (Japanese Anime), The Pillow Book, etc. I've been on a big documentary kick, lately. One of my recent faves was This Film is Not Yet Rated.

All of these great flicks courtesy of Netflix.com, which I'm lovin'. Do any of you Netflix users want to become one of my peeps? Check it out:

"Connect to me and we'll be able to see what each of us is watching, share suggestions, and leave notes on movies. There is a world of cool movie browsing using these Friends features. Let's do it!"

http://www.netflix.com/BeMyFriend/P6cNPt3s6mFK0UZrPflB

And if you have any ideas for fave movies that show unschooling in ACTION, do pass them along. Don't worry...we've seen Ferris Bueller's Day Off already!

Scanned pics

Here are some pics of my parents, when they got married in March of 1971. My sweet Aunt Nida sent them to me. God, they look young!

I have been terribly down lately...I don't know if it's hormonal or seasonal or just a mix of the two. Lately I've been questioning everything I've ever believed about parenting...specifically, I've had doubts about my parenting of Lolo.

When I'm at a crossroads, of when things are "not quite right" in my little world, I'm a bit of an ostrich. You know...stick my head in the sand until things are better. Bear with me, let me post my BS, and I'll be back to normal (whatever that is!) later on.

Chai Latte Cupcakes!

From Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. This cute little book is quickly becoming one of my faves.

First thing: I love cupcakes.

Second thing: I love Chai Lattes.

So it was a no brainer when I decided to give these a whirl. Here's the recipe, if you'd like to try them. They're quaint and light...you can taste the "healthy" in them (as opposed to cakey, full-of-frosting cupcakes), but it's a YUMMY kind of "healthy". My husband, who is nothing close to a Vegan OR a Vegetarian, thought they were delicious.

Ingredients:

1 cup soy milk or rice milk

4 black tea bags or 2 tablespoons loose black tea

1/4 cup canola oil

1/2 cup vanilla or plain soy yogurt (I didn't have any, I subbed silken tofu)

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground cardamom

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

Pinch to 1/8 teaspoon ground white or black pepper

For topping:

1/2 cup confectioners' sugar

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg or ground mace

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F and line muffin pan with cupcake liners.

2. Heat soy milk in a small saucepan over medium till almost boiling. Add tea bags, cover, and remove from heat. Let sit for 10 minutes. When ready, dunk teabags a few times in soy milk and squeeze gently to extract any soy milk before removing. Discard tea bags. Measure the soy milk/tea mixture and add more soy milk if it is less than 1 cup.

3. In a large bowl, whisk together oil, yogurt, sugar, vanilla, and tea mixture until all yogurt lumps disappear. Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, cloves, and pepper into wet ingredients. Mix until large lumps disappear; some small lumps are okay. Fill tins full and bake about 20 to 22 minutes until a sharp knife inserted comes out clean.

4. Make sure cupcakes are completely cool before adding toping, or sugar will melt and not look pretty and powdery.

To assemble:

If desired, prepare a stencil to make pretty designs on the top of the cupcakes. (I wasn't feeling artsy enough to try this...maybe next time). Or you can just go ahead and sprinkle it on anarchy-style (my method, of course). Either way, sift confectioners' sugar over cooled cakes first. Then mix together cocoa, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a small bowl. Sift mixture onto each cupcake with or without stencil. Enjoy, but don't wear black when eating these babies!

Recent goings on

Kiddos: They can drive you crazy, right? (Meant in the nicest way possible, of course)! :-)

Shelby was sick last week for a day or so, which meant that I ran out to stock up on emergency supplies: soup, ginger ale, cold and flu meds, and Clorox wipes. I don't think she had an actual virus, but sure enough, Lolo, Dave, and I are all feeling a little out of sorts this week.

Lolo was running a fever Sunday night and most of Monday, yet I still went with Dave to see George Carlin's show last night. Hey, what can I say...we've had tickets for a month and a half, and they weren't cheap. And if Lolo had been blowing chunks, I would have stayed behind...as it was, she slept the whole time we were gone. (Gosh...all this rambling on. Could it be that I've got a case of good 'ol Mommy Guilt?)! Anyway, excellent show, although I got the impression that some folks there didn't realize that Mr. Carlin is an atheist. Some of his religious stuff got fewer laughs, I thought.

We had our taxes done, and it looks like we're getting a decent chunk back. David and I have decided that we absolutely cannot do without a 2nd desktop 'puter. Keep in mind we own one desktop and two laptops, but nevertheless...4 kids + 2 parents = 4 computers. Let me tell you, it's no easy thing to find time on the "big" computer, by the way. I need to be on fairly often because we have the printer hooked up here, and this is also where I like to load most of my pics. Tori would eat and sleep right here, beside the desktop, if I let her. The desktop computer is the only one that has Maple Story installed, and Tori absolutely adores this game. I also have tons of the kids' Favorites stored on this computer.

Ashlyn hates using a laptop (her words). She likes using a mouse, but hates "that wittle box that you put your fingers on"! (Ashlyn is a big fan of the word "hate", lately...no wishy-washy vocabulary with this one). Somewhere, we have a portable mouse that you can hook up to a laptop, but who the hell knows where it is? Lost (or tossed) in the move, probably.

I've managed to jot down (on paper) some unschooling "Aha!" moments, and will be posting them here in the next little bit. I'll leave you with just one:

Tonight Ashlyn was writing letters, and also some words she likes, and she got really frustrated when she "reversed" a capital Z. I asked to see her paper, and she had written each letter perfectly, with the exception of that pesky Z, so I said, "Ash...this is brilliant work! Don't worry so about one little letter"! She seemed to feel better after that, but then I took a pink pen and drew a big check-mark and (without thinking) wrote "A+".

Ashlyn promptly read it, and said, "What does a letter, PLUS mean? I just don't get it".

Funny.

I just told her it meant super-great-terrific. No further explanation necessary.

More pics of Mika

Our new kitten, Mika

Pretty frickin' adorable, right?

The first couple of days, she slept a lot. Now, she's a little wildcat, exploring our home and becoming supremely spoiled by the girls (OK, I confess...me, too!).

B-day gifts

My friend Danny gave me a dee-lish! vanilla scented candle, and a Gnarls Barkley tee. We recently saw GB in concert (they opened for the Red Hot Chili Peppers), and I loved their show. Really...almost as much fun as RHCP.

Oh, an early B-day present from Dan-O: The Color Purple (2006 Original Broadway Cast Recording). That's the next show we want to go see. (We saw Les Mis in NY back in November, and it was unbelievable).

My amazing David (tha MAN) gave me a new iPod Nano. GREEN, baby! I have a 30 Gig video iPod, but the screen cracked (well, Loryn threw it, actually). It still works, but I wanted a Nano because it's smaller, easier for me to carry around, and there's no way in hell I'd ever fill up the video iPod anyway. So now the big iPod can stay in the player in the kitchen, and the little one I'll take with me when we go out. Coolest thing about the new one? It matches our Kiwi Honda Element!

Yeah, tha man loves me and spoils me rotten. He's a wonderful friend and partner.

We're also getting new carpet in the family room downstairs, and on the stairs. Well, we're getting an estimate, at least. I'm pretty sure we'll re-carpet the stairs...the carpeting is pretty scruffy. I guess because of all the traffic, and the guy we bought the house from had four doggies. The family room we'll decide on after getting the estimate.

Oh, speaking of pets! Shelby brought home a kitten (a sort-of-birthday-present) from her Dad's house. Her cat Gypsy had kittens back in December, and Mike and Kelly (Shelby's dad and step-Mom) are keeping two, we're taking the little dark-grey girly runt, and Shelby's friend Erin is taking the last girly kitty. I think Shelby has decided on the name Mika. I'll post pics of the kitten tomorrow (she's beautiful), and also give an update on the name. Now we just have to get our beloved-and-oh-so-spoiled cat Cutie Pie to like Mika as much as we do already.

New fave restaurant?

We had a blast when we recently had dinner at Chipotle, in Charlottesville. I love Mexican food, and I'm always happy to find a kewl new restaurant with neat-o music and atmosphere. The price was right, too (and when you've got a family of 6, that really is important)!

Happy B-day to me!

It's official: I am now 34 years old! This is a pic of Dave and I at dinner Thursday night. Dave has to work till 5 Friday, but he was off on Thursday so we had our little birthday date then. Granddad graciously agreed to stay with the girls so that we could get away by ourselves. And yes, I drank way too much, but hell...that doesn't happen so often. It was all good.

Tonight, I'll fix dinner (as long as Dave helps clean up the kitchen, LOL), and we'll eat well, do a little Netflix viewing, and play Monopoly. I'll probably make a cake, and let the girls decorate it. That'll be fun.

Today: Lowe's is coming to measure our family room and stairs to give us a carpeting estimate. And we're also having our fUNschool Valentine's Party. I don't know why, but I'm already exhausted! ;-)

Check out Lolo's artwork!

I really like the litle guy in the bottom left-hand corner. He looks like I feel sometimes.

My first geocache, May 2004

My friend Dan took me on my first geocache a couple of years ago. I'd love to go again, and I think the girls would enjoy it. I wish this video had sound. (Then again, maybe silence is golden)!