Since today is a list sorta day…
~I hate Ohio weather. No wonder all the retirees who have the funds move to Florida for the winter. It’s in the single digits (with windchill) here today, but we’re supposed to gain an extra 10 degrees every day this week. So, by Friday it’ll be 60 degrees out. Grrr, no wonder I’m STILL sick.
~I’m going to come out and admit that I’ve now seen Twilight not once, but twice. I feel so bad because I cheated on my friend–we had agreed to wait to see it (together) until it comes out on DVD. Oops, sorry A! (She knows–and has forgiven me readily–but I still feel guilty.) I’m now totally, amazingly, pathetically hooked, and I can’t wait to see it again! Now I desperately want the soundtrack, too. It’s awesome 🙂 (As a side note, hubby took me to see the movie the first time I saw it and he thought it was OK–which is a compliment.)
~God bless my mother. I received no fewer than four emails from her last night. They were timestamped 1:11am, 1:47am, 1:47am, and 3:20am. (The middle two were duplicates.) The one from 1:47am read (in part),
here is quiet. and middle of the night. I had a very long spell with very little sleep 2 births back to back. now my day/night is mixed up.”
As I learned well by a very young age, such is the life of a dedicated midwife.
~Hubby and I watched The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King on TV last night. We had two totally random conversations based on the end of the movie, one about “gay hobbit love” (forgive my hubby’s lack of tact) and the other about “elf-mutts”. The GHL conversation began during the scene when Pippin, Sam, Frodo, and Merry are back in the shire, sharing a drink together. Hubby claims they’re making eyes at each other. (It is, admittedly, a sappy scene.) I explained to him that they’re just happy to be home and alive after their adventure, but no, he’s certain they all madly want to jump each other. I explained that Sam was going to marry Rosie, his hobbit lass. Just a cover up, says hubby. (Yes, I know this topic has been debated previously elsewhere. Don’t tell hubs, it’ll just fuel his side of the debate!) 
The E-M story centered around Aragorn & Arwen’s kiss at the end of the movie. My dear hubby is convinced that elf parts & human parts don’t line up, and, even if they did, Aragorn & Arwen would produce weird, mutant elf-mutts. I contend that it doesn’t matter how many chromosomes they have, their babies would be GORGEOUS!
~I just finished reading Trickster’s Queen by Tamora Pierce, one of my favorite YA authors. I might feel a little guilty reading her books–I’m probably a bit old for them (??)–but nonetheless I love them and I love her. One of my favorite Tamora Pierce quotes is this:
I am deeply unhappy that college education standards, as evidenced by all those online lists, is still that of white men who died over a century ago and fear for the best and brightest minds educated on a standard that does not address the fact that we live in a global culture that does not recognize the primacy of the values of dead, white, European men.”
Also:
Books are still the main yardstick by which I measure true wealth.”
And finally (in reference to her early years as a very young writer):
I tried to write the kind of thing I was reading, with one difference: the books I loved were missing teenaged girl warriors. I couldn’t understand this lapse of attention on the part of the writers I loved, so until I could talk them into correcting this small problem, I wrote about those girls, the fearless, bold, athletic creatures that I was not, but wanted so badly to be.”
~I also recently read Ironside by Holly Black, The Parting & The Forbidden by Beverly Lewis, Club Dead & Dead to the World by Charlaine Harris, and Trickster’s Choice by Tamora Pierce (prequel to Trickster’s Queen). They are all very different books, but all of them good in their own way and definitely worth reading.
~I usually give up something for Lent, so this year I decided to do something instead. I chose to pray twice a day (morning and night). I did really well Ash Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Not so much this weekend. Routine helps me, so hopefully I’ll get back on track by tomorrow.
~We found out Saturday that friends of ours here in Dayton are expecting! We have out-of-town friends with kids, but this will be our first friend-baby close enough to visit on a regular basis. I’m very excited! Congrats A and T!
Aspiring Alverna 