Anemoneeeeees....

on March 31, 2011
Hmm... I'll condense all my flower fun to one post. That way you won't be subjected to several if you're not interested. (But there will be a quiz later.)

After three+ years of begging my boss we finally have in THESE:


ANEMONES.
I'm pretty excited. I spend most of my downtime at work perusing wedding blogs and a few years ago I spotted these for the first time and have pestered Pam to get them in ever since. I love their velvety centers, perfect colors, touches of greenery... They're so gorgeous in bridal bouquets and incredibly hot right now. And this is why we have them in the first place - in June there's a wedding that they're going to feature in (finally) and we're currently testing them to see how they do. Which means they're totally free for us to play with. Oh, so lovely!

Speaking of weddings, we've been in a wedding drought for the past year and a half at the shop and suddenly they're flooding in. Two the last weekend of April no less and one completely in tropicals. Which is also exciting, since my boss hasn't worked one in tropicals before.

(And supposedly the local prom is set for the last weekend in April as well. ...at least it's not on Mother's Day again? Eheh?)

In case you're curious: one of the weddings will be in tiffany blue & red, one in tropicals (with protea, birds of paradise & ginger) & one in hot pink & black with ostrich feathers & bling. And a few others in process.

I did attend a flower show in the city last week, which was mostly boring. But I did get a few good tidbits out of it and it helps me realize that I'm keeping up with trends, so that's useful. A few pictures worth sharing:




These three were the ones I liked the best, but the last one is my favorite. Outside of that, though, not much to share from the show.

March is wrapping up.

on March 28, 2011
For Regina's birthday we celebrated in Bricktown by eating at Zios, capping it off with Marble Slab & watching Suckerpunch. For the record, I had never had Marble Slab. It was delicious - not quite Coldstone, but delicious. Rainbow Galax*E. I just can't turn down cake batter ice cream (as long as its not blue.)

Suckerpunch was curious. I wouldn't go see it again, but it held my interest. The first twenty minutes were really beautifully shot, and the soundtrack is outstanding. While admittedly my expectations were sunk pretty low, it was better than I thought it'd be.

It's 38ish degrees outside. Why, March? Why?

There's not much more entertaining than watching the cast of my church trying to catch a squirrel. My favorite part was Carolyn telling Harold he better not get bitten because she didn't have time to take him to get a rabies shot.

On Friday some salesmen-in-training will apparently be coming to our shop to study how a flower shop operates, so they can better understand the inner workings? Our representative recommended us? I think this whole thing is really strange, especially when you consider all the hundreds of other shops in the state, but okay. Sure, we do a lot of business. But, uh. I'm still skeptical about this whole thing. It just sounds weird.

A few weeks ago iTunes stopped working on my computer. I have now completely - completely- uninstalled anything to do with realplayer, quicktime, iTunes, iPod, apple, etc. and reinstalled it. Nothing. iTunes has encountered a problem. Any thoughts?

I'm looking forward to the Medieval Faire this weekend. Hurrah!

I've spent the evening watching clips from Disney movies of the 90's. They make me smile.

Sandwiches. Everyone likes 'em. Sandwiches.

on March 23, 2011
My watch beeped twice today at 4:58. And then again once at 5:00. I find this very confusing. Is it taking after the watch in Stranger than Fiction? Well, if I start hearing voices...hm, never mind. :)

Roadtrip #2: HOUSTON!

"So have you heard about Cameron Mackintosh's latest musical? It's about these people who raise a pig and the rest of the town eats Spam."

How could you not miss misguided conversations like this? ;)

After three years of not making it down to Houston, I finally had the chance and had planned on flying. But I never bought the tickets. And something kept nagging at me. I had never really considered driving, simply because I usually flew. But I wasn't satisfied with the idea of flying. Until one morning in church when I was still mulling over the issue (I know, I know) and the lightbulb went off. What if I drove? But eight hours in a car? At these gas prices?

But Denton was almost halfway in between and if I didn't have to drive all eight hours in one go both ways, I was content. So Philip & Kelly graciously put me up again for another night and made it much easier. The drive though wasn't bad at all. I've never (that I can recall) been on a solitary roadtrip and it was pretty fantastic. Just driving to music? Or riding in silence? Perfect. Besides, no one needs to hear my rendition of Juggernaut after being in the car nine hours. Behind a van that won't go at stop signs.

This was such a great trip! I loved spending so much time with them. They're such a great family and Will is, of course, my very cool big brother so it was incredibly refreshing to hang out with all of them again and soak up his awesome hugs. We drove around the loop, watched the FIF documentary, had cheesebread, saw their cool library.... Ha, and we even got to go to Kroger. :)

While I was in Houston Kim began recommending books to me, and one in particular caught my eye that she had already checked out from the library: How I Killed Pluto & Why it Had it Coming. Written, as stated, by the guy who got Pluto kicked out of planet status (Michael Brown.) It's well worth the read if you have any interest in the topic, because it's not only very insightful on how astronomers and the international space community work, but it's also written well and pretty funny. Also, we almost had 100+ planets. There was so much going on at that time that we had no idea of!
As I was finishing up that one, Will highly recommended Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. I managed to read the first half while I was there (and it is really beautiful) and he kindly lent the book to me to finish. Game of Thrones, my ever backup, will be on hold for awhile because this one has caught my attention more and takes precedence. Even if I haven't returned to it yet. (Still, after GoT I still plan to return to finally finishing Good Omens.)

Also, one night Dave & I had the opportunity to babysit the kiddos! Hm. Mind you, this was the very first time I have ever babysat. I mean, I've watched kids a lot, but not babies. Mostly because they terrify me. But I really wanted to help, and Kim's a great teacher, so we went with it. And, a few hiccups withstanding, everything went fine. They were lovely. I was really happy to spend time with both of them.
And to give you an idea of how sweet Isaac is: babies that small I am ambivalent about. About six months and up, I'm better. But when they can't even hold their head up, there's just too much that can go wrong. So I keep my distance and usually go play with the older kids. But I have to admit that by about the third time Isaac fell asleep against me I was pretty smitten.

Robbie is also a total doll. We played with trains, trucks, in the sandbox, had pillow fights, watched the fish movie, sharks, read books, tickled... You can't beat that. (Okay, so he was bolted past me when I first arrived and hid in the kitchen. But thankfully that was over with pretty quick. :) )

I was able to bust through Texas on the way back - I made it to Denton in a little over four hours, had dinner with Philip & Kelly, and was flying until I hit a screeching halt right. across. the. border. Seriously, maybe six miles into the border. Construction. Ridiculous traffic. As we inched our way along I glanced out of my window at a lady with her foot sticking out of the window while driving. Then a man with a basketball started dribbling up and down the highway and then made a return route doing tricks on the side of the road. And then a laptop caught my eye out of a rear windshield with a phone number on it in huge font. The laptop was then taken down and when it popped back up it read "SO BORED. SOMEONE PLEASE CALL US."
Later I saw the girl in the passenger seat of that car pump her fists as someone had apparently called her. It was pretty funny.
But I made it from Houston on one tank of gas and with that in mind and a new route through the Thackerville construction, I'm ready to go again. :)

"Mis Sherri, Mis Sherri, why did you fill the bathtub so high?! Why did you fill the bathtub so high?!"

"Are you a pillow?"
"No. I'm a Robbie.
(beat) Trust me."

Roadtrip One: Denton, TX

on March 21, 2011
I now have a watch that beeps on the hour. I am not pleased.

My watch glitches. Despite the fact that I've fixed the date several times over the past few months, it now tells me its actually February 25th. And Sunday. Which corresponds with neither today nor this past February 25th. But I can live with that, which is strange, because I never know what the date is on my own. Nonetheless, a watch that beeps on the hour even after I have turned that particular feature off is not my friend. I don't need to know when the hour has changed, watch. I don't need your irritating, infernal beep in the background to remind me.

Anyway.
I've been MIA because I've been solitary roadtripping, which is awesome. Let me see if I can recall it all.

Part One: Denton, TX

Sometime a few months back I commented that watching Elizabethtown made me want to road trip. I would find it for you, but alas my subject titles don't help me.

Two weekends ago, I drove down to Denton for the weekend to visit with Philip & Kelly which was lots of fun & relaxing. We watched pieces of three new-to-me tv series' (Fringe, Better off Ted & the very curious documentary The Universe. Ever watched someone bowl with Jupiter?).

Kelly introduced me to downtown Denton which was a lovely smorgasbord of shops and restaurants, including one that serves homemade ice cream in chilled glasses. It was very delicious. And there was Pialo's Pizza (probably spelled incorrectly, but also incredibly delicious). And Chick Fil A breakfast. And Kelly's chicken parmigiana. And lots of Dr. Pepper. Chiptole. Wow. We ate really well. :) (Oh, and the gingersnaps! And chocolate/ginger candy bar!)

On Saturday Kelly & I visited the Dallas Zoo, which I had never been to before. What a beautiful zoo! The perfect combination of easy to view areas as well as lots of conservation information. They had recently opened a huge new section of the Zoo up (The Giants of the Savanna) filled with six elephants, impala, ostriches & giraffes to run around in (and Vern, the lone zebra!) All the exhibits were full and we managed to see almost all the park in four hours. Nicely done. Always something to look at.
But the real reason you need to go is because for $5 you can feed the giraffes. Okay, so you only get four splices of the lettuce, but it's totally worth it. I have never been that close to these gorgeous creatures. Had the Zoo lady not been constantly on guard and repeating "Reminder: Do not pet the giraffes. Please! Do not pet the giraffes! Do not pet the giraffes!" you could have hugged their sweet necks. That close. They were so beautiful. The whole thing just made me want to go to the Elephant Sanctuary of TN even more.
Mind you, I say all that as if I was the one who paid. I had no cash. Which means Kelly is my hero! Thank you!!

Hm... and we browsed through World Market and an antique...? shop full of everything from perfectly intact letters and magazines from the 40's to vintage signs to pink violins.

Meanwhile, Borders was having a closing sale and while Kelly browsed books I found over 65 hours worth of B-movie sci fi (and Gamera) in a collection. I now own it (as well as Godzilla: Final Wars), so if anyone's interested in Santa Claus Conquers the Martians or The Wild Women of Wongo please let me know.

The whole weekend was lovely. Thanks guys for such a beautiful weekend!

Stay tuned for....HOUSTON!

Also, we're almost to that 100th post. Hm.... I'm open to suggestions. I'm currently feeling a lack of creativity on the matter. Maybe we'll celebrate 101, so that I can keep my roadtrip posts together. And one more day to think about it. Ha.

I would love to have a real update for you.

on March 8, 2011
I know you could say, and it may be true, that he has to say things like this to promote the movie, but still, I love this interview.

"It's a great, great story," says Oldman, though he confirms that he hasn't read the full script yet, "You look at 'The Dark Knight' and you think, 'How's he going to top it?' But I think he has."

Oh yes. That's what I like to hear.

In other news, rumors are a big annoucement will be coming tomorrow regarding Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark. Expected changes are giving the cast a break for a time, revising the show and opening much later, potentially after the Tonys in June. There are even murmurs questioning if Taymor will stay on as director. Curious, curious.

Several of you have asked me for an update on Tate. They seem to be doing great. Tate has discovered bubbles it seems, and its awfully cute. I love this laugh! He's quite the ham and we think he's lovely! :) Thanks for asking!

Apparently I'm now three posts away from one hundred. Hmm...

"My name is Dug. I have just met you and I love you!"

on March 7, 2011
I really loved Up, so this made me grin. And even if you didn't like the movie, this is still pretty awesome. The images are fantastic!

Not all hot air: 'Up' in Real Life

On another note, do you like autotuning and Up? Check this out then:



Squirrel!

Hold it. Wait. I got it.

on March 6, 2011
I really had a beautiful weekend.

It all started with Kaden's birthday party yesterday! You can see his sweet face squished between his sisters here:

This is not from yesterday, but I haven't taken pictures from my own camera in forever. Plus, this pic shows all of those three off. I adore these faces.

Happy birthday, sweetheart!

Then that evening was spent at the newly opened Pink Swirls (delicious) with the Plumbs & Pucketts. Considering there were ten of us, we left early for good seats to the children's show Androcles & the Lion.


Be sure to catch little Anna's eyes, sitting on the empress' lap. She seems very curious of that Lion so near!

The children's show was lots of fun. I think it only ran this past weekend, but if you have a chance to catch it as it runs during the day this week, you really should.

So between...
Watching Kaden's excitement over Star Wars Legos.
And defending my glass of water from Khloe's ever moving hands.
And getting to spend some time with Kylie.
And kissing on Lexie.
And getting to watch Amy, Ashia & Ashlyn sit on the stage during the performance.
And Anna giggling in her seat.
And having Carson sit on my lap at the show.
And getting to teach Jace about which stage lights would go out.

It was a pretty perfect Saturday. :) I hope everyone else had as much fun.

Before I go to bed....
These are some amazing pictures from the Discovery Channel. Also, there's some fantastic audio commentary included. If you have a few minutes, definitely check it out. The pictures are absolutely beautiful. (Thanks Chera & Kelly!)

The Broadway Bears have been released! For those who don't know every year these bears are released for auction, dressed as characters from shows, to raise money for Broadway Cares/ Equity Fights AIDS. I love seeing their creativity (the Lion King one is particularly well done this year).