Yesterday…

• left work early (half-day)
• got my hair cut even shorter
• had dinner with the ‘rents at Golden Corral for Grandpa E.’s birthday
• the ‘rents took out the boys to see WALL-E again
• rewatching Reservoir Dogs with my dear hubby
• got past the 1/2 way point in John Scalzi’s The Ghost Brigades (the follow-on to the one I just finished by him, Old Man’s War)

Today…

• overslept
• back to work for the day
• taking tomorrow off for a nice long weekend

Weekend…

• going to my brother-in-law’s for the 4th (2 hour drive)
• spending time with aunt-in-law on the 5th
• resting! on the 6th

Oh, yeah.  One other thing.  We stopped at Wal-mart yesterday for a few things.  Circling the parking lot for a spot, with my Park-Fu powers feeling low, a little yellow volkswagen bug (newer style) sped past the spot I had picked out, then stopped a car length past it, leaving me just enough room to scoot into the spot.  Of course, the VW’s intention was to backup past this spot and pull in, having missed noticing the spot until it was too far past it.  Normally, I consider myself a pretty ethical person, especially in driving situations… always letting cars in front of me, etc.  But something about this little yellow VW speeding through the parking lot annoyed me, so I willfully took the spot before it could.  The VW paused, confused that my station-wagon-like Subaru Outback would steal the spot of a perky yellow VM.  Then on our way in, the VW passed us and the woman inside gave me a dirty yet confused look.

I have no regrets.

Friday evening: A trip to the library (since the boys were there) resulted in me bringing home a book called Teach Like Your Hair’s on Fire: The Methods and Madness Inside Room 56, which I read on Saturday.  More about that later.  My brother came over to play Spore, sure that he had a new strategy.  The results seemed pretty even across the board though.  At least we weren’t “ganging up” on him anymore.

Saturday: My dear husband worked.  Boy #1 tried his hand at mowing the lawn for the first time.  Not bad results.  Then he headed off for a day at his friend’s house.  Meanwhile, Boy #2 stayed home and spent entirely too much time playing Spore, which he also posted about.  I spent the day doing dishes and reorganizing the boys’ room, and beginning to straighten up the library, so that we can move the bookshelves and books (yay!) in.

Sunday: Worked 6 hours overtime, then went to see Wall-E.  It was an excellent love story (my husband is a lot like Wall-E, and as such, I am his Eve), with some great laugh-out-loud moments.  Payday and a surprise child support check (they gave me his economic stimulus!) resulted in a splurge of a few more Munchkin expansions… Munchkin Impossible and Super Munchkin.  We played a game, but were too exhausted to finish, so went to bed.

Today: Working, working, working, then home to my loves this afternoon.  This evening the boys are spending the night at Grandma’s and my love is not working, so we’ll have to figure out what child-less thing we might do… perhaps something exciting like grocery shopping!!

Enjoyed a nice dinner out with Grandpa E., Boy #2, and my dear husband, at Denny’s. We had a nice discussion of politics - George Bush and North Korea, nuclear arms proliferation, and tulip mania.

Then I headed back into work for some much needed overtime.  Put in 3 hours and headed back home, and off to sleep.  This morning is a 6 to 2:30 shift and I am sssllleeeeeepy.

Last night they had “Family Game Night” at the library and the boys and I came and played Munchkin.  Today Grandpa E. is watching the boys while their Dad and I are both working.

No big plans for the weekend or anything.  Looking forward to getting my stimulus check soon.

Otherwise, life is same-old.

A few updates… went to drum circle this weekend, which was enjoyable.  The boys didn’t want to go this time so Boy #1 spent the night at his friend’s house and Boy #2 hung out with my cousin (and was an angel!). I made chicken tortilla soup and peanut fudge brownies.

My mom sent me a clone of my wedding dress - a muslin version for me to try on.  Even without it’s decorations, it is beautiful.  It fit fine.  Now I need to measure the straps and send them back to her.  However, I have no huge rush to take care of this now (don’t worry, mom, I will send it back soon), because we are going to postpone the wedding.

Basically, we reviewed our finances and budget for wedding, reception, honeymoon, etc., and decided it would be, well, fairly impossible to throw a respectable wedding reception this year.  So, we’re going to reschedule the whole thing and push it back til next year.  We’re already married by law, and in spirit, so while it disappoints us to do it, it’s not the end of the world.  Hopefully next year we’ll be able to manage our money better and plan accordingly.

By the way, we were not planning on sharing this information with my step-mom.  Why?  Earlier this year, she said she couldn’t make the wedding because she had to do the photography for her nephew’s wedding, which was on the same day (even though we’d had our day picked for almost a year or more).   Against my husband’s opinion, I offered to move our wedding date so that they could still attend.  It was up in the air for a little while, possibly even moving to June.  Then she came back and said not to worry about it because her nephew had moved his date back to later in September, so we could keep the 6th.

Just recently, in the last few weeks, my step-mom said again that she would be going to his wedding on the 6th.  I reminded her that she said it was moved to the 20th, and she just seemed confused on how that could have happened.  She said that she would have to see if, depending on timeframes, she could attend both weddings in the same day (even though the locations are at least 4 hours apart), and if she couldn’t, she would have to make a decision about which one to attend.

So, we’re just going to leave it out there as if the wedding is going on, just to see if she will plan to attend ours or her nephew’s.

Next challenge… we’ve been discussing having Dad homeschool the boys full time instead of my step-mom, for various reasons.  He recently decided that yes, he is up for the job.  He would continue to work evenings as scheduled and I would move my working hours to 6 to 2:30 to accomodate.  We hadn’t yet decided when to begin this plan.

And then… last night my dad calls and says I need to find someone to watch the boys for the next few days.  My stepmom is in the hospital due to chest pains, possibly a heart attack.  He insinuates that this hospital visit is caused by stress caused by worrying about the boys (this is a whole different story).  I don’t respond to this insinuation.  So, today begins the 6 to 2:30 shift instead.

There’s a new game coming out this fall (September 7th if you’re counting) which promises to be, well, awesome.  It’s called SPORE.  They’ve been talking about it / developing it for a few years now, and I have been waiting with bated breath.

Right now, you can download a trial /demo version of the Spore Creature Creator.  All you get to do in it is makes creatures for Spore, but it’s awesome enough that just that seems good enough.   Also, you can download the full version for $10.  We spent hours fiddling with creatures yesterday.

Spore is a multi-genre “massively single-player online game” under development by Maxis and designed by Will Wright. It allows a player to control the evolution of a species from its beginnings as a unicellular organism, through development as an intelligent and social land-walking creature, to levels of interstellar exploration as a spacefaring culture. It has drawn wide attention for its massive scope, and its use of open-ended gameplay and procedural generation.

One new thing I did fail to mention… I finally got around to reading Old Man’s War by John Scalzi this weekend.  My love read it as well (though much quicker!).  It was excellent.  One of the reviewer comments on the outside suggested that John Scalzi was a modern Heinlein, and I tend to agree.  Sharp wit, occasional philosophy, and strong characters.  He did actually have me laughing out loud at one point (when the main character named his BrainPal), which rarely happens to me when reading.  I plan on reading the rest of his books now as well.

I’ve been a reader of John Scalzi’s blog since I got the book from my mom… now I feel like a more authentic subscriber.

Not much new to update you with.  We had a nice Munchkin evening on Friday with my brother, and introduced it to radiantreader.  Saturday we went to my cousin’s kid’s birthday party, and then afterwards went to an old friend’s housewarming party.  Today is father’s day… Boy #1 made a card for Dad and James offered his hugs and undying love.  It’s laundry/cleaning/otherwise lazy day.

We’re starting to feel a little broke right now, so we’re beginning to watch our spending more closely, which translates to no more McDonald’s Iced Coffee or Starbucks Iced Tea (black, unsweetened).  And more ice water.  And shopping at Aldi’s.  And saving coupons and looking for deals.  All things we should probably do anyway.  No terribly exciting plans for the week.  Work, sleep, etc.  Woo.

Not much going on this way that is blog-worthy.  Boy #1 is enjoying his digital animation class.  Work is fine.  Staying up too late lately for no particular reason, so am generally tired.

And a link of interest…

• Is teh InterWeb Making Us Stupid? - an article about how reading the internet is making us less likely to have patience for lengthy text… rather shortening our attention span…
  

Most of the weekend was spent not really doing much of anything, or playing Munchkin. 

Boy #2 starts a Digital Animation course this week at the local university.

This week, I actually have to work all week.  I actually only worked, with vacation days, travel days, sick days, and comp days, 12 days, from the beginning of May til now.  Nice.

This weekend we have a birthday party for my cousin’s kid, followed by a friend’s housewarming party.

Life is good.