BHB

When I heard that Mark Ballas and Derek Hough, two professional dancers, were putting out an album, I was skeptical, to say the least. But then I heard them on t.v., and I was pretty impressed. Their band's first album, BHB (that's Ballas Hough Band) is out now and well worth a listen.

For one thing, these guys can sing. Their voices, together with that of the lovely Emily Grace, form a nice, smooth harmony that's a pleasure to listen to. The album is an eclectic mix of styles and every tune is a catchy one. This is great workout (or dancing!) music. I could definitely see them performing "Do You Love Me" on Dancing With the Stars, while some of their pro friends danced along to a cha-cha. Or "Longing For" performed with a sexy rumba.

I'd have to say my favorite song is "Devastated." I find myself humming it long after I've turned off the music. Of course, if you visit Amazon, you can listen to samples of all the songs and decide for yourself which one you like. I'm even going to leave the link in my sidebar for a while so that when you can't get that song out of your head, you can come back here and order it. You're welcome.

Spring is springing

Here it is Friday already! I lost two days to a migraine this week, so I'm playing catch up on all my work and school with the kids, etc.

I did however manage to watch AI this week. I think the final three should be Adam, Allison and Danny. But that's just my opinion.

And finally, I've noticed things starting to turn green outside, so here is my tribute to the season:

Ode To Spring

The trees are budding, the birds do sing,
Both signs that it will soon be spring.
We have enough to do inside,
But soon the mower will need a ride.
The grass will grow at alarming speeds
But not as quickly as the weeds
Which pulling never rids us of.
(Those have thorns! You’ll need a glove!)
My eyes will water, my nose will drip,
What a lovely little allergy trip!
We can turn off the heat,
Air out the home,
And the children outdoors
Can finally roam
Until way after six.
They’ll bring home loads of ticks.
We’ll search them each night.
And the cat, what a sight!
He brings in ticks and burrs.
We remove them. He purrs?
No, he scratches and bites!
The ants will invade
And we’ll buy lots of Raid
Then the flies will appear
(with so many farms near)
And we’ll swat them all summer.
Oh, yes, it’s a bummer.
The stink bugs increase (they got here last fall
And we still haven’t gotten rid of them all)
The garden will grow us some squash
But the groundhogs’ hunger they won’t quash,
So the little rascals will eat my food
Never once thinking it might be rude.
All the things that spring brings
Have me feeling not fine.
Wonder if anyone else feels like
I do online?

When everything goes right

Usually, when there is something to be done, Hubby and I can count on it taking at least twice as long as we think it will. Whether it's fixing something on the car, building a shelf or digging a hole, we always seem to get into trouble. A tool breaks. A battery dies. Whatever.

This weekend, we went to one of our rental houses to fix a few things for a tenant. And I'm happy to report that absolutely nothing went wrong. We fixed her front door latch so she doesn't have to slam it anymore. We fixed her bathroom fan which wasn't running (and no wonder, as much dust as was caked on there). And we fixed the loose boards in her deck. All in less than two hours!

Sometimes it just feels really good to have everything go right!

Time travel for dummies

Recently, the story line on LOST has become somewhat confusing to some people. (Okay, maybe not so recently for a lot of people). However, I as always am here to help you because this is truly one of the best shows ever and if you're not watching it, you're missing out.

So first, go grab seasons 1-4 and watch them. Then watch season 5 online. Go ahead, I'll wait.


Done yet?


Okay, so this whole time travel thing has people upset. "What happened originally?" they want to know. When Sawyer wasn't there to save Amy, what happened? The answer, of course, is that Sawyer did save Amy. That's the way it happened. If you don't believe me, think about her baby's name: Ethan. Was Ethan around before Sawyer went back in time? Yes. Could Ethan have been around if Amy died? No. Sawyer always showed up to rescue her.

Still confused? I can make this simpler. Don't think of the timeline as a whole, think of each person's life as a timeline. Like this:

Sawyer is born -> Sawyer sees his parents die -> Sawyer grows up to be a con man -> Sawyer goes to Australia, returning on flight 815 -> Sawyer crashes on the island -> Sawyer goes through lots of bad stuff -> Sawyer goes back in time -> Sawyer saves Amy -> Sawyer becomes a member of the Dharma initiative -> etc...

Now Amy:
Amy is part of the Dharma Initiative, married to Paul -> The Others show up and kill Paul -> Sawyer shows up and kills the Others -> Amy goes on to marry Horace -> Amy and Horace have baby Ethan -> etc.

And of course Ethan:
Ethan is born in 1977 -> Ethan leaves the island at some point to become a doctor -> Ethan recruits Juliet and goes back to the island -> Ethan pretends to be a survivor of 815 -> Ethan is found out and kidnaps Claire -> Charlie kills Ethan.

You see, each person's life only flows forward. Even though part of Sawyer's life is lived in 2004 and part of it in 1977, he's still always moving forward through his own personal timeline. I hope I've cleared that up for you all. Go forth and enjoy LOST!

AI Season 8

So, the new season of American Idol is in its second week of the voting portion of competition. I remember last year all the talk about "the best season ever." Well, this season has last season beat by a mile. Maybe two miles. I have been blown away by the sheer talent on the Idol stage the last two weeks.

Last night, I think the real stand-outs were Danny and Anoop. Not coincidentally, these two have been favorites of mine from the beginning. I have to say I didn't really understand the judges fawning all over Matt after he sang. Yeah, it was good. Better than Danny? I don't think so. Michael, unfortunately, is going to end up in the bottom two/three. And Adam was just, well... Adam. Not his best, but you gotta give the guy props for being original! Kris and Scott were both good enough they won't be eliminated yet.

On the girls' side, Allison was amazing, Lil was okay, and Megan was sooooooo much better than last week. They're not going anywhere. I think the one in danger here is Alexis. Strangely enough, Brooke White did a better job with that song last year, and she's not as good a singer as Alexis. I'm still not sure what I really think of Megan. She has that bizarre voice - it's like, it's not that she can sing, it's just that she can sing different than other people. I'm not sure if that makes her good. And if she picks another song like "Rockin' Robin" she will be gone faster than you can figure out what her tattoos are supposed to be.

So, in conclusion, my picks for the final three this year are Adam, Danny and Lil. I could be wrong - it's happened before - but that's the way I see it right now. What do you think?

Kiss

Take a political thriller, add a mystery, mix with a thriller, combine it with a romance, some sci-fi, and blend it all with suspense and you get Kiss, the new novel by Ted Dekker and Erin Healy.

Kiss tells the story of Shauna McAllister, who wakes up from a coma and can’t remember the last six months of her life. She’s told that the man standing by her bed is her boyfriend, but she doesn’t remember dating him. She’s told she caused the accident that left her in the hospital and her brother in a vegetative state, but she can’t recall what happened. And so, desperate for any details to fill in the missing pieces, Shauna begins searching for answers.

What she discovers is that her coma, her medications, or something more mysterious, has given her an odd new ability. And she quickly learns that this new ability can be the very thing she needs to find the keys to what caused her accident and who was behind it. The only problem is living long enough to put all the pieces together.

I enjoyed the plot of this novel, the non-stop action, and I especially liked the sci-fi twist of Shauna’s newfound talent. I think all of the elements of this novel work well together to create a story that will have you on the edge of your seat until the final scene.

Why?

My husband asked me this morning why I haven't been blogging. I guess I don't have any one good answer for that. The short answer is I haven't had anything I felt like blogging about. It's not that nothing is happening around here, just that I haven't felt like writing it down.

I guess the things that are heaviest on my mind are not things I feel like discussing in a public forum.

I've also been busy trying to revise one of my NaNo novels into publishable form, which admittedly takes up the majority of my creative energies. And it seems the more I revise, the more I see that needs to be fixed. I'm giving myself a deadline of the the last day of March and then I'm calling it done.

In the meantime, I will probably be talking books and television a lot because I don't have to think too hard about those things.

I am a famous American author (?)

I can't believe it's only Wednesday. I feel like I've already lived through five days this week. Maybe it's because Hubby's out of town. I don't know.

I gave an assignment to my class yesterday to start a research paper. The thesis must be that an American author of their choosing holds a particular philosophy on life (chosen from the different philosophies we have studied this year). For example, a thesis could be, "Nathaniel Hawthorne is an example of the romantic view of life as expressed through his literature." Well, that's not very good, but you get the idea.

I gave several criteria: it has to be an author not covered in our book (can you believe a text on American literature doesn't have F. Scott Fitzgerald in it?), it has to be someone who has at least two published works (novels, preferably), and it has to be an American writer.

Almost without missing a beat, one of the boys asked if he could do his paper on me. Me. Yeah, nice try, but I don't think a couple of newspaper articles about Rockapella are going to reveal my philosophy on life. Granted, it would be a lot easier to get quotes from me as opposed to Fitzgerald.

I'm excited to see who they pick to write about. How much do you want to bet at least one of the girls will pick Stephenie Meyer?

Dolphin bubbles

If you like dolphins, and who doesn't, then check out the Dolphin Bubbles blog. They have a particularly cool video of dolphins blowing ring-shaped bubbles and playing with them. There's a badge over in my sidebar that will take you straight there. Enjoy!

Dental drama

Fake quote of the day:
"I don't see why people keep telling me to go to the dentist, baby." --A. Powers

Yesterday I had my six month dental checkup. I already knew one of my molars was cracked, but I'd been putting off getting it crowned until our insurance rolled over for the new year. So while I was already at the dentist, I decided to have the crown done.

Well, he started drilling my old filling out and, surprise surprise, the decay had snuck in through the crack in my tooth and was entirely too close to the nerve for just a simple crown. He had to do a root canal. Fortunately, I was plenty numb and didn't feel anything. And he sent me home with pain meds in case it gets unbearable. So far it's just a little ache, unless I try to chew on the right side of my mouth.

So for those of you keeping score, that's three root canals in three years.

Cheese!

Did you see The Amazing Race premiere last night? Okay, if you didn't, go to CBS.com right now and watch it - there's a link on the front page.

I have never laughed so hard at that show as I did when all those wheels of cheese were rolling down the hill. And the best part was all the Swiss guys standing at the bottom of the hill laughing at the contestants! Now that's some good television. HAHAHAHAHAHA (deep breath) HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Free books!

If ever there were two words I love to hear together, it's "free" and "books." Right now if you go to eHarlequin.com, you can get up to 16 books from many of their popular lines totally FREE. The books are available in PDF, as well as three other popular ebook formats.

Personally, I downloaded both the PDF and the .lit files and then I converted the .lit files to Kindle format so I can read them on my Kindle. But all you really need is Adobe reader, or the fancier Adobe Digital Editions reader, either of which you can get on Adobe's web site.

A word of caution - some of these books are for adults only. But Harlequin also produces the popular Love Inspired series, which are nice wholesome romances. Just so you know.

So what are you waiting for? Go get your free books!

Potty humor

Yesterday, my four year old wanted to know what the word "potty" means. I told him it's just another word for toilet.

"I have a word for toilet, too," he said. "When a boy uses a toilet, I call it a boy-let."

What's new with you?

It's awfully quiet around here, isn't it?

I went on a two-day trip down to Florida last week and got to see my parents, my bro, and my grandmother. It was a really nice vacation and I came back feeling so rested, I felt like I'd been gone for a week.

Now it's back to the craziness of my life. Things are going well with school this year. The two younger boys are both learning to read (and actually, the four year old is picking it up faster than the six year old). I spend about an hour a day with each of them. The older two need to put more time in, and it's been hard getting back in the swing since I was gone for over a month and then sick for so much of January. We'll get there, though.

I've been put on the ballot of my local homeschool association for the position of Head of Development or something like that. If I'm elected, that won't start until June. I would be the person new homeschoolers would call for advice and information, among other duties. I told them I already do that, so I'd be happy to do it "officially."

So that's what's new from here.

A proposition

I've come to a conclusion: laundry is by far my favorite household chore. And you can imagine how much laundry four boys and two adults generate. I just genuinely enjoy doing it.

My least favorite chore? Scrubbing the floors. Because even though I have my handy Scooba robot to do some of them, and my beloved Hoover Floormate for the day-to-day cleaning, I can never keep up. The floor is always dirty.

So here's the deal: I will come do your laundry if you will come scrub my floors.

What do you say?

Nothing to read here

I am still sick. I had a fever last night. Consequently, I don't feel much like blogging today.

Fortunately, my latest post is up at Inspired Bliss - so you still have something to read today.

Hopefully I'll be feeling better by Monday. Have a good weekend!

Same Kind of Different as Me

Cover via Amazon
I just finished reading Same Kind of Different as Me by Ron Hall and Denver Moore, and I was blown away. From the first page, the story captivated me. Both stories. You see, Ron and Denver started out in two very different places in their lives. And when their stories come together, truly amazing things start to happen.

This true story is a book that will challenge you to see people in a new way. It is both heartwarming and heart-wrenching. And it will make you believe in miracles. I highly recommend this book to anyone who thinks one person can't make a difference, to anyone whose life hasn't gone exactly the way they wanted it to, and to anyone who needs a faith lift. I promise you, you'll never be the same.

Movie Monday

This Movie Monday I want to talk about some really BAD movies I watched this weekend. We spent the whole weekend sick in bed, so we had plenty of movie-watching time. I highly recommend that you SKIP the following films.

The City of Ember - While very family-friendly, nothing much really happened in this movie. Right about the time I thought they were finally going to a have a good, rollicking adventure, the movie ended. It takes so much time setting up the background and introducing the characters that there's no time left for the interesting stuff. Also, a lot of things go totally unexplained. One character asks how the bugs and moles got so large, and then they just never tell you. Overall, I was bored.

The Invisible - This is supposed to be a suspense/action movie, a race-against-the-clock sort of a deal. A teenager is going to die if they don't find him quickly enough. So why do they waste so much time doing almost nothing? Time drags on and on, and you just know in real life the kid would be dead. And then there's a sort of weird love story angle that never really pans out. I just kept yelling, "Come on!" Very hard to watch.

The Messengers - Who exactly are the messengers? They never tell you. This scary movie has its share of startle-you-out-of-your-seat moments, but other than that it's pretty lame. They never really explain how the bad guy doesn't happen to know he's the bad guy (until it's convenient to the plot for him to "remember"). The teenage girl is just stupid. I mean, I'd move into a tent in the back yard rather than go back into that house again. And if the ghosts were after the bad guy, why did they keep attacking the innocent family? Totally dumb movie.

The Game Plan - Another movie about a tough guy man's man who finds out he has a little daughter and by the end of the movie he's a cute, squishy, ballet-dancing, fingernail-painting fool. One or two cute scenes surrounded by hours of boredom.

Photo tag

Karmyn has tagged me with a photo meme. Here are the rules:
1.Go to your Picture Folder on your computer or wherever you store your pictures.

2.Go to the 6th Folder, then pick the 6th picture in that folder.

3.Post that picture on your blog and the story that goes along with the picture.

4.Tag 6 other peoples that you know or don’t know to do the same thing and leave a comment on their blog or an e-mail letting them know you chose them.

When I went to my sixth folder, I found nothing but more folders (yes, I am obsessive about organizing my photos). So I went to the sixth folder and then found the sixth picture there. Here it is:This is a picture of my oldest son looking out the open doorway on the end of our house. We have since installed a deck outside that door. Interesting side note: our neighbors' cat used to climb up that ladder to get into the house.

Now, since Karmyn thought this would be a good chance for me to share more China photos, I hate to disappoint, so here's a China pic for you:
We saw this on the sides of all the public trash cans on Mt. Tai. If anyone knows what the Chinese actually says, I'd love to know. I'm relatively sure it's not an invitation to live in the garbage can. But then, when you've got such a huge population, maybe this is free public housing.

LOST returns!

I have to say, in five years of LOST season premieres, last night's was my favorite. I think what I really liked about it was that for the first time we're really starting to get answers about the island and what's happening on it. I feel like we just got to the top of the first giant hill on a roller coaster, crested the top, and went speeding down into the part where all the fun happens.

Which is not to say there haven't been many important and memorable events so far. But I think by the time season six ends and we pull into the station, we will look back and say that the last two seasons are what really made the show great.

I really want to go into more detail, but I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it yet. Just know that it's not too late: you can still go rent or buy the first four seasons. I'm telling you, this is one of the greatest shows that has ever been or is likely to be.