t minus three days and counting

today is sunday and i am in my office for the second day in a row to do homework. yesterday, i put up my little two-foot christmas tree and made ornaments for it out of business cards and paper clips; caught up on facebook; and printed one journal article for school before my printer crapped out; all while listening to ella fitzgerald christmas music. today i finished printing articles (still haven't read any of them); took pictures of my little christmas tree for this post; caught up on facebook; texted with my parents; looked up a bunch of stuff on the internet (how cool is google tv gonna be?!); all while listening to harry connick jr christmas music. homework? mmmm...














yesterday i met flambliva (flavia-sam-blake-ziva) for brunch and then we walked around the westtown mall for awhile. we played in the play area with seventy-five other children until i noticed a kid coughing and motioned to flav to keep ziva away from her. flav took one look at the little girl, scooped up ziva, grabbed blake, and said, 'that little girl has pink eye, we're outta here'. between my motions and flav's announcement, we pretty much cleared out the play area. it was like a horror movie, moms grabbing their kids, running around like crazy, everyone trying to get through the 'you can't be taller than this' entry/exit way while putting on winter coats and rubbing anti-bacterial gel on every available surface.* seriously, pink eye? why would you bring your child to the mall, especially the mall play area with tons of other children, when she has a highly contagious infection? the big story here, of course, is that i was at a mall on a saturday, the day after black friday even. shows how much i love those kids; if that's where i had to go to spend time with them, so be it.

watched ocean's thirteen the other night. so funny. two of my favorite moments: george clooney says to andy garcia, 'you ready?' to which garcia replies, 'i'm always ready' as he puts his sunglasses on and walks away. clooney waits a beat and then rolls his eyes. awesome. the second moment is george clooney and brad pitt watching the operah winfrey show. i won't detail it here, you'll just have to watch it. i love when a movie or television show makes me laugh out loud.

let's see, what else is new and can help me procrastinate while i write about it...oh! i'm heading to california for the first time in fifteen months this coming thursday morning. it's only for a few days, i'll be back on monday, but i am so so excited. my mum's having surgery tomorrow so i'll be there while she's recovering. someone asked me what type of surgery she was having and i said it was something internal. really penny? i asked her this afternoon how she was feeling and she said she was stressed because she wasn't done cleaning the house so i might have to deal with dust. not exactly what i meant by 'how are you feeling' but that's my mom. fortunately for her, i like dust and am coming to see her, not make a house cleanliness inspection.

and speaking of, if i don't get enough homework done before i leave, i'll be stressed out, so here i go, doin' homework now.

*ok, ok, it was one other mom who heard flavia and my very subtle conversation but it would have been mass panic if any of the other parents had been paying attention.

thanksgiving and beyond

'hi penny, great to meet you', said my friend kristin's dad as he stuck out his hand to shake mine.
'hi...i'm penny', was my brilliant reply. awesome.

my friend kristin invited me to come celebrate thanksgiving with her family in beaver dam, a town about an hour north of madison. so this morning, i met up with her, her two sisters and a boyfriend (he only belongs to one of the sisters, they don't share), her mom, and as mentioned above, her dad. the seven of us piled into the minivan and were on the road by 10 am.

we arrived at kristin's aunt's house just before 11 which was good timing, 'cause apparently, there's this game on tv people like to watch and if you don't watch it from the minute you step in the house until the minute your wife drags you away from it to go home, something terrible happens. i'm not sure what it is since, of course, it didn't happen, but that's the conclusion i came to after five hours.

kristin has a lovely family with aunts and uncles and cousins (oh my!). one of the cousins brought his two-year-old son who is adorable. fortunately, he likes trucks and cars (pixar) so i used my experience with blake to talk to the little guy. he was super shy and didn't want to go in the room where everyone was hanging out (watching football, did i mention?), but he was talking up a storm with kristin and me in the front room. he told me all the names of his trucks and i let him pick up my ring with his little bulldozer. i may not be able to talk to adults ('hi...i'm penny') but two-year-olds still learning to pronounce basic sounds, bring it. my favorite moment was when he corrected me and told me mater is a tow truck not a tractor. my bad. ok, i also loved when he said 'ekavator' (excavator) and 'backhoe' (...backhoe).

the afternoon went on, guests left, and soon it was down to a small group of eleven with the men watching football and the women sitting around the kitchen table talking. the ladies were nice and let me share something i thought was funny from my textbook (what, you don't bring textbooks to your thanksgiving dinners?). i had to spend several minutes explaining the context before i read the sentence about how poor survey methodology could be considered a crime, and it may not sound funny now, but believe me, it's funny. survey methodology, conan o'brien, pretty much the same. do i know how to entertain a crowd, or what. (the two-year-old was gone by then, i had to talk to adults and i believe we've already covered my skill set there)

over all, it was a lovely day. i've already planned and strategized my black friday activities. can you guess where i'll be at 3 am when the sales start? that's right, in my bed, asleep, probably snoring. i pick up sam, flav, and the kiddos tomorrow night from the airport and i am so so so excited to see and hug my favorite niece and nephew! i am thankful they are coming back, i am thankful to kristin and her family for letting me be a part of their day, and i am thankful i get to sleep in tomorrow. thank you.

good idea bad idea - my weekend

can you guess which category each of these belong to? good idea or bad idea:

• cleaning out my car (finally) after moving, what, two months ago?


• costco on a saturday afternoon


• talking to my mum on the phone


• target on a sunday afternoon


• the pumpkin cupcake i got from the grocery store (hint: yummy!)


• starting my homework at 3:00 on sunday afternoon


• stocking up on toiletries for the next six months


• watching the movie 'jonah hex'