Archive for the 'Family Portrait' Category

March 8, 2010 | Family Portrait, Life in General, Movie Queue, The 4-1-1 on Me, Weekend Wrap-Up

There’s still time to inspire an at-risk teen to write. Donate a journal

Friday evening, I went to see VALENTINE’S DAY. This reminded me of the movie CRASH, in the way that all the characters in the movie were connected somehow. The best part was that I had the whole theater to myself. Yes. The whole theater. I could’ve run up and down the aisles, screaming my head off. And no one would’ve known. Or heard me. Pretty cool. So, I was impressed by the whole interconnectivity of it all, but they should’ve replaced Taylor Swift with Miley Cyrus.

Seriously. She already has the blonde wig.

Or maybe she should’ve received a few pointers from Miley’s acting coach. I was wholly unimpressed with her acting. It’s like she was trying too hard to be a ditzy, empty-headed blonde because we all know she’s not like that in real life. As the gang from High School Musical 2 sang, “stick to the status quo.” Singing is your “thang”, honeybabydoll. Don’t stray until you’ve got a few more lessons under your belt.

Moving on…..the rest of my weekend was pretty uneventful. Mr. Maul was sick all weekend, though we managed to eat at Ron’s Place on Saturday and do a little shopping afterwards. It was cold and rainy on Sunday and that called for staying in.

Still trying to upload pics from our Orlando vacation. I was going to do a daily breakdown and realized that it was going to take too long. If I had written it ahead of time, I would’ve done it. Now all you’re going to get is a link to my flickr account. So sorry. I’ll let you know when it’s all been uploaded.

So, how was your weekend? Did you watch the Oscars? Who won?

Technorati Tags: VALENTINE’S DAY, CRASH, Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, High School Musical 2

March 1, 2010 | "Whoa whoa I gotta go...back to schoooool...again", 2nd Semester, Family Portrait, LAS: Community and Social Change, Life in General, Prescott College, School Daze, The 4-1-1 on Me, Weekend Wrap-Up

Mr. Maul and I got home yesterday after spending a week in Orlando last week. My parents have a timeshare and they had a “use it or lose it” situation with their points, so they had to plan a trip before March, I think. Therefore, they paid for airfare for 5 people (Me, Mr. Maul, my parents, and my niece), lodging for a week, and SUV rental. My older sister and her husband moved to Orlando around July-August of last year so we spent some time with them.

The weather was cold (high 50’s to high 70’s during the day..but only on one day) and rained 3 out of the 7 days we were there. My Dad was able to get us 4-day Base Passes (he’s retired military) to the theme parks (visit one park each day, no same-day park hopping) and Mr. Maul and I paid extra for Universal Studios tickets. We stayed at Summer Bay Resort and needless to say, I wasn’t impressed with the place. Compared to the place we stayed at in Kauai, it was sadly lacking:

~ On the one day we decided to sleep in (Tuesday), we were awakened early by the sound of drilling and hammering. Apparently, they were replacing tile in the condo above us. Thanks for the warning, people.

~ We had to deal with an absurdly loud garbage disposal. Now, I know garbage disposals are loud, but this thing sounded like it was grinding glass every time it was turned on. According to Sonny, resident handyman, that sound is normal. Alll-righty then.

~ Wi-Fi was not free in the rooms. It cost $10 a day to have that privilege. However, it was free 24/7 in the clubhouse. So much for “like-home” accommodations.

~ The pool and the jacuzzi were heated and was not only enjoyed by people, but by ducks as well. We saw the pool guy scooping out duck shit one morning, but received no notification that the pool was being sanitized. Maybe we missed that phone call or people were given a verbal warning before they got out there. I dunno.

~ Housekeeping cleaned your condo only after check-out (in Kauai, they came on Tuesdays). If you wanted the room to be cleaned before then, it was extra. We might’ve had to pay extra for clean sheets and towels, too, I don’t remember. Either way, my parents requested clean sheets and pillowcases (we washed the towels ourselves). When they were dropped off, my parents gave them the dirty sheets and pillowcases. “Oh, you want us to take them?” was the response. Uh, yeah. What the hell are we supposed to do with dirty sheets? Really? C’mon people.

The only good thing about this place was the view. We were on the third floor and our balcony faced the jacuzzi/pool area and the lake beyond. I will be posting a daily travelogue of our trip this week.

School Daze – My community project for my LAS course has been a success. The goal of 200 journals donated has been reached, but the drive will continue until Mar 15th. If you’d like to donate, check out the details here

Technorati Tags: Universal Studios, Summer Bay Resort

December 28, 2009 | Family Portrait, Life in General, Movie Queue, Music Queue, The 4-1-1 on Me, Weekend Wrap-Up

Click here for Christmas pics. My Dad took more pics so I’ll have to get them from him. Needless to say, it was hard taking pics while unwrapping presents

I hope you all had a fabulous holiday. It was our first Christmas without my sister and B-I-L here, but we got a chance to speak with them. And we’re visiting them for a week at the end of Feb, so I’m very excited. Mr. Maul and I went to my parents house for breakfast and my niece and nephew were already there. It was good to see them. I live closer to my niece than my nephew and I’ve seen him more in the past two months than I’ve seen him all year! He just lives so far away (over an hr), it’s like a road trip to see him. Anyhoo, let me expound on all the goodies I received.

From Mr. Maul – bought me an iPod nano. I love it. For the past few days, I’ve been downloading onesie-twosie songs—from artists like Papa Roach, Coolio, Blur, Michael Buble, Godsmack, Drowning Pool, Disturbed, Faith No More, Course of Nature, and Chris Cornell– as well as downloading certain CD’s from my huge collection. I don’t plan on downloading ALL my music, just the stuff I’ve been listening to lately and stuff I’d like to have on there (like all my Linkin Park and Live CD’s). When I got it, he had already downloaded songs from GLEE. Whoo-hoo! I also downloaded new Creed and plan to download new Gavin DeGraw and 30 Seconds to Mars. Needless to say, it takes longer for whole albums to download. Especially if there’s a lot of songs. One of the many things I love about this little gadget is that I can listen to my favorite radio station while I’m at work…and I can record video. I got some footage of my niece teaching her brother how to tango. LOL. Funny.

From my parents – a trip to Orlando for a week. We’re going to visit my sis. Thank God for timeshare. My parents and nephew are going too and my parents paid for lodging and airfare. The most expensive part! I’m looking forward to the mini-vacay. I’ve never been to Orlando, but it’s been on my list of Places to Visit.

From Elissa – Mr. Maul’s best friend’s wife bought me a lotto ticket, a little bottle of Sea Island Cotton body lotion from Bath and Body Works, a gift card to The Body Shop and a $25 AMC movie card. She took our Halloween pic and somehow put it on the AMC card so it looks like we’re on the big screen. Very cool. We spent nearly all of it when we saw AVATAR in 3D opening weekend.

From my nephew – ROLE MODELS DVD (unrated version), Slinky Jr and a little popcorn cup.

From my niece – Tther than a little container full of baked goodies, I’m not sure yet. She left my gift at home! *rolls eyes*. She remembered Mr. Maul’s gift, but not mine. Go figure.

From Lisa – my coworker got me a sweater to wear at work. It gets cold in my area and I wore my other one so much, I wore a hole in the elbow and had to throw it away. I was bummed.

While we were at my parents house, my niece decided to pull out some old photo albums. It was a walk down memory lane that was highly enjoyable. And entertaining. Thought I might share a few with you all:

(more…)

Technorati Tags: iPod nano, Papa Roach, Coolio, Blur, Michael Buble, Godsmack, Drowning Pool, Disturbed, Faith No More, Course of Nature, Chris Cornell, Linkin Park, Live, GLEE, Creed, Gavin DeGraw, 30 Seconds to Mars, Orlando, Sea Island Cotton, Bath and Body Works, The Body Shop, AMC, AVATAR, ROLE MODELS

November 30, 2009 | Family Portrait, Life in General, Movie Queue, School Daze, The 4-1-1 on Me, Weekend Wrap-Up

Hope you all had a great holiday. I know you’re finding it hard to get back into the groove of work and/or school. I know I am. After being off for so long (well, what amounts to almost a week), one tends to get a little disoriented. Thursday was feeling like a Friday, and Friday was feeling like a Sunday. Thanksgiving was good to my family. It would’ve been better if my older sister had been here, but she called and we all talked to her via speakerphone. My Mom doesn’t do turkey. We haven’t done turkey in a very long time. We do Cornish hen and this year was no different (last year no poultry was involved whatsoever). Deviled eggs, stuffing, cranberry sauce, corn on the cob, rolls dripping with honey and butter, collard greens (yech! I don’t eat those) and two different kinds of Martinelli’s Sparkling Cider graced our table. My Dad blessed the table and then we went around and said what we were thankful for. That’s been a new tradition just within the past two years. Another tradition is walking down to the neighborhood park after eating. Of course, walking it off defeats the purpose when you go back and eat dessert—which is what we did. Hee-hee. My Mom made two sweet potato pies and a lemon cake with chocolate frosting. My niece and her boyfriend came over and my nephew was there, too, whom I haven’t seen in quite some time. I see my niece more often than I see him because he lives so far away. It’s like taking a road trip. Crazy. You can see pictures HERE.

Later that night, Mr. Maul and I went to see a late showing of NINJA ASSASSIN (whomever directed this movie must’ve been a Tarantino disciple) and then yes, we partook in the craziness that was Black Friday at Arizona Mills Mall. Utter. Craziness. He had shoes on hold at the Nike Outlet. He said the line for that store was so far back, he was up against the wall on the opposite side. My line at the Aeropostale store (a new favorite clothing store) wasn’t as bad as all that. But it was utter. Craziness. If I’d known ahead of time that the 50%-70% off sale was going on all weekend long, I never would’ve done it. I picked up a red sparkly sweat suit.

Did I mention that it was utter. Craziness?

What’s even funnier is that we hit the Anthem Outlet Mall the next day. And hit up the Aeropostale out there where I picked up another sweat suit (white with raised lettering and the hoodie zips up) and a yellow, long-sleeved thermal-type undershirt. Thingy. Mr. Maul picked up a T-shirt and a striped polo. Then we went to the Tommy Hilfiger and Polo Ralph Lauren stores where he picked up a couple more shirts.

The rest of the weekend was laundry, laundry and more laundry, cleaning house and catching up on “our” shows. I say “our” shows, because I still have 6 eppies of SMALLVILLE and 4, I think? eppies of HEROES to watch. Mr. Maul doesn’t watch those. And we just found out last week that CHUCK is coming back in January! WHOOOOO-HOOOO! Bet you anything they’re going to air it on Friday nights and then cancel it after this season. *wipes away a tear*

School Daze – Finally turned in the electronic self-eval for my Math Explorations class. Once again, I took the advice of my teacher and wrote what I got out of the class. What I didn’t realize was that I had to do it in 1500 characters or less. Gah! You know where this is going, right? I had many good things to say–about the teacher and the class–but like every good writer, I had to cut and hack and slash and burn off like a festering…well, you get the gist, I’m sure. Since I couldn’t submit the original version, I posted it here.

My final project for my EIS class is due this Sunday and I’m going all out…in the form of a PowerPoint presentation. No one else will see it but my teacher and the others in my class, but she said to get creative. This is about as creative as I can get for an online course. And then I’ll be done! And have to fill out another 1500 character self eval. Oh joy.

That’s it. How was your holiday weekend? Did you do the traditional turkey or non-traditional like Turducken? Have you started Christmas shopping yet?

Technorati Tags: NINJA ASSASSIN, Tarantino, Black Friday, Arizona Mills Mall, Nike Outlet, Aeropostale, Anthem Outlet Mall, Tommy Hilfiger, Polo Ralph Lauren, SMALLVILLE, HEROES, CHUCK

October 26, 2009 | "Whoa whoa I gotta go...back to schoooool...again", Book Stuff, Book Three, DA Series, Draven Atreides, Family Portrait, How coolio is THAT?, Life in General, School Daze, The 4-1-1 on Me, The Family Jewels, Weekend Wrap-Up, Writer Moment, Writing Movements

On this Saturday morning’s episode of The Gurl House: paint and shaving cream. Yes, it’s as messy as it sounds. Mr. Maul spent some time with his BF, but when he got home that afternoon, we went to look for more stuff for his Halloween costume. We hit up Savers, where he found a nightgown and then Bubbles of Joy to pick up some claw gloves. And no, I’m not gonna tell you what his costume is. You’ll just have to wait and see when I report back next week. On Sunday, we had a late, late breakfast (we’re talkin’ late morning, early afternoon) at our favorite place, Original Pancake House and then we hit up the mall. For the past few years I’ve been Storm for Halloween, but took a break a couple of times. In 2004, I left the cape in the closet and wore a trench coat as Niobe (THE MATRIX): CLICK FOR BIGGER VIEW

And in 2005, I “grew” some horns as Darth Maul’s wife. If the Sith are allowed to mate, I imagine she would look something like this: CLICK FOR BIGGER VIEW

Great make-up job, yes? The hubby’s real good at that. For the record, breathing was not an option in that corset. This year, I’m only doing Storm at work. I’ve decided to be something else this year for the actual event (again, you’ll see next week). And it involved buying these sexy heels that I will probably only wear once:

I found these puppies at Hot Topic and had one helluva time trying to get them closed. They didn’t buckle—or snap—because really, that would’ve been too easy. Instead they button. Yes, button. Revolutionary, I know, but I’ve come to discover that only shirts and jeans are allowed to have buttons. Not shoes. I’ll be breaking them in this week, a little at a time, because my feet are already protesting at being crammed inside these babies for hours on end.

At this store called Shiek (I’m really hoping this was spelled wrong on purpose), I picked up a pair of Dereon’s:

Yes, Dereon as in Beyonce’s clothing line. Now, I can wear the shoes with the jeans. LOL. I may want to hurl every time I hear “Single Ladies”, but I like the design of some her jeans. And these are the only pair of shoes from her line that I would wear in public and not feel like a complete and utter dorkus.

School Daze – Working on my research paper this week for my EIS class: The Art of Healing: The Benefits of Art Therapy for Young People. I get to read books like The Freedom Writers Diary by teacher Erin Gruwell as research. By choice, not by requirement. If you’re a writer, you need to see this movie. And read this book. If you’re an aspiring teen writer, or you write for teens, then you really need to see this movie. And then read this book. I had an English teacher like Erin when I was in high school—Mrs. Smith—and she is the very reason I stuck with the writing. Not that I was ever thinking about quitting, but the encouragement was always positive and consistent. The rough draft of my paper is due this Sunday, so wish me luck. I haven’t done a research paper since college.

Writing Movement – I’ve been preparing for NaNoWriMo. Last week, I got two more chapters outlined. Altogether, I now have 6 chapters. At this point, I’m going to stop. On the blogs I’ve been reading lately, there’s been some posts about preparation for this challenge. On one blog I was reading (can’t remember for the life of me which blog it was) about the tips for getting through it. Turning off the editing mechanism won’t be hard for me. I tend to write the first draft all the way through without editing anyway. However, the “no time for getting stuck” part (a.k.a. writer’s block) may trip me up. As I mentioned in last week’s Weekend Wrap-Up, I’m a pantser by nature.

When I have a story in mind, the only thing I have is the title, the names of the characters, and a vague idea of the plot. The story itself emerges as I write. For this challenge, I decided to outline first and I’ve discovered that it’s really, really, hard. And I don’t like it. You have to know how the story is going to play out ahead of time and it was difficult for me to picture that. In regards to the “no time for getting stuck” tip, I’ve decided to stop the outlining process at Chapter 6. I’ve got a good start. I think I’m just going to wing it from that chapter on. If you’re looking for a writing buddy, look me up at DravensMom.

So, how was your weekend?

Technorati Tags: Savers, Bubbles of Joy, Original Pancake House, Niobe, THE MATRIX, Hot Topic, Shiek, Dereon, Beyonce, Single Ladies, The Freedom Writers Diary, Erin Gruwell, NaNoWriMo