It's Magic

Ok, here it is a week later and I've got time for a post. My daughter is gone to Florida and soon I'll be following her.

See, I have a surprise trip to Disney planned for her.

She's with her grandparents for 2 weeks, and all she knows is that I'm flying down to get her and we'll be flying back together.

What she doesn't know is that the flight will be 4 days later - after we spend time at Disney World.

I have an on property hotel booked, I've been researching and planning our days, I've got tickets for Cirque Du Soleil and dinner reservations every night we are there.

It's going to be great. Even if it's 100 degrees out we are going to have fun.

Star Trek 2009

In my youth, I was a Star Trek fan. There were so few scifi shows as a kid that I watched all I could. Even if they were not good, or I had seen them 100 times before, I would still watch.

Then along came the Next Generation series. It wasn't too bad, in fact it had some good stories. Then we got Voyager and DS9 - I liked Voyager better. There are still lots of DS9 I have never seen.

Then came Enterprise. With all respect to Scott Bakula, whom I loved from Quantum Leap, Enterprise stunk. I can't say I sat through much more than the first season, and even that was a struggle.

So when this new movie came out, starting from the beginning with Kirk and Spock, I was completely uninterested in going to see it. The commercials didn't appeal to me and the snippets I had heard about time travel - which is what made Enterprise so sucky - really sounded awful.

But, my husband asked to go see it last night and I agreed.

My opinion? It was about a 70 out of 100. Ok, sure, I get it. They can't retell all the stories from the first TV show and make it interesting, so they 'reboot' the series. Whole new timeline, whole new future. A plot contrivance that has to be swallowed. 10 points off for that, even if they did an ok job with how they told it.

Now the cast. Only McCoy and Spock got their characters in line with the old series. In fact, McCoy was perfect. I didn't see Kirk in that portrayal. It just didn't click. The rest of the cast each had their token moments to define them: Sulu and his sword, Chekov and his accent, Scotty and his love of engineering, Uhura and her linguistics talent. But did I see the original characters? Not really. 10 more points off.

Of course, you can argue that the idea is these people are all 'green' and they have not developed into the well oiled Enterprise crew we know. But if they got McCoy and Spock right, my conclusion can only be the actors didn't nail the characters.

The other 10 points? Keeping Old Spock around. Blowing the Kobayashi Maru scenario. Promoting an Ensign to Captain and then giving him the fleet flagship. Uhura and Spock as love interests. No Nurse Chappel. Ejecting the warp core and still being able to escape the black hole. Spock shooting Kirk off the ship in a life pod instead of sending him to the brig. That alien guy in the engine room with Scotty at the end. All those lense flares. No Finnigan.

Would I go and see another one of these movies? Yes, I think I would.

Weekend Review

Well, I survived!

My inlaws showed up around 1 pm on Saturday. Knowing that we had dinner plans for 6 pm we went out to lunch right away. My inlaws knew about the surprise dinner party, but my daughter and husband (obviously) did not.

We spent the afternoon visiting and such and with careful planning I managed to go with my inlaws to the restaurant first while my husband walked and fed the dog and followed with our daughter.

There were already guests at the restaurant when we got there. In fact, all the guests but one arrived before my husband did, so we were set to shout "Surprise" when he came in.

Oh boy, did we get him good.

He had no idea when he walked in the room (we had the back room to ourselves) and his jaw dropped when he saw everyone. I was so pleased - it could not have been scripted any better.

He had a chance to visit with everyone, we had a nice dinner. A few guests ignored my polite request to not bring gifts but no one went overboard.

The rest of the weekend went well. They stayed through Sunday and left at 8 this morning, taking my daughter with them for 12 days. Then I am going to fly down to Florida and take her to Disney for 4 days. What a summer she's going to have!

But for now - rest!

Bear Grylls

It's just funny.

Last Day

Yesterday I finished all the house cleaning - and still had time to wash the dog and do some yard work. Sure, I was outside with the weed trimmer at 8 pm, but it got done!

Today I am doing the last of the chores - laundry. Since I neglected it all week long I should have about 7 loads to do.

Yes, really.

Once it's all washed up, I have to pack my daughters suitcase. Tomorrow my in-laws will be here for my husband's surprise 40th birthday party and then Sunday they are leaving and taking her with them for two weeks.

As for the surprise party, everyone I invited except one couple are coming. I'm amazed at that. I figured many would be on vacation already and we would have a modest crowd. Final count is 19 people.

Monday, I sleep for about 12 hours. Yes, really.

Seven

Seven Things I Did Today:

1. Took my daughter to a playdate with a friend
2. Cleaned my bathroom, including reorganizing the cabinet
3. Went to the library and returned some books
4. Picked up the dry cleaning
5. Went to the bank
6. Emptied the dishwasher and put away the dishes
7. Washed one load of laundry

And I'm still not done with what needs to be finished before my in-laws arrive on Saturday. But I'm close and I think I'll get all the cleaning done early tomorrow, leaving me with time to do some small projects.

Family Photos

I'm appealing to my audience for advice, tips or tricks.

I am in need of a good solution to storing photographs. I have several boxes of photos, some loose, some in albums, that I have no place to keep them.

They had been in boxes in a closet, which was not convenient as they took up space for actual clothes. Right now the boxes are stacked in the spare bedroom - which I will need to have free for our visitors this weekend.

So I need a better, permanent place for them. But where? Not in closets, and I have no shelf space anywhere. There must be a solution. Anyone???

Father's Day

With all the activities on my plate these past couple of weeks, Father's Day got a bit overlooked.

I didn't get him a gift, only a card. We did have dinner plans out of the house. My father invited us all out - there were 13 of us at dinner at a very nice restaurant. We were there for two hours and it was a nice time.

Hope you all had a nice Father's Day too.

Slumber Party

I was invited to a slumber party - an all women, no husbands or kids party.

Of course I went. Who can resist such a thing?

There were 7 of us at a friends house. We had snack foods, blender drinks and chocolate! We sat and gabbed, and watched movies, and stayed up until 2 am!

It was so much fun.

Four Oh

40 years old. No, not me - my husband, very soon, will be turning 40. I've been busy planning a surprise party for him. Nothing very big - I sent invitations out to some of his friends and we'll be having dinner out. No cooking for me, no playing hostess, no cleaning up after. That's my kind of fun.

So far we've 7 confirmed guests, but I expect to hear from a few more between now and the party.

It's amazing to me that I've been pulling this off - I'm good at keeping secrets but not at juggling so many things at once. A few years ago I would not have even attempted to do this.

But before then, we have Father's Day. Now that's one of those 'holidays' that I think was just made up to sell cards, tools and steakhouse dinners. Not really a big holiday with us.