musings of Mother Hood

Holiday Recap

So I feel like I may have slacked a little on the holidays this year and I can't quite put my finger on it.  Let's see, I spent Thanksgiving - the unofficial kickoff of the holiday season - in sunny Africa. Which just kinda started off Holiday Season 2009 on a different page than years past. I must have been relying on Turkey Day for "the spirit" more than I realized. I got back from my trip just in time for December and I felt so behind. I hadn't started my shopping, I hadn't decorated the house. The time between Thanksgiving and Christmas always seems to fly by in a blur of parties and baking and shopping and traveling -- and I couldn't quite keep up.

I convinced myself that a tree was not in the cards for us this year. Honestly, I didn't think it would be any fun for Colt to have to stare at a big, beautiful, shiny, blinking, dangling temptation every day for a month but get his hands spanked every time he indulged. So we didn't put up a Christmas tree. I did put up our stockings - which are one of my favorite things about Christmas anyhow. And we went to visit Santa. We didn't go completely humbug.

   

This time of year always carries with it a kind of heightened level of emotion. Families are together. Or not. It's the end of one year, beginning of the next so it's a perfect time to reflect on both the memorable and forgettable moments of the past twelve months and beat yourself up about them. And this year, the emotion was not lost on me. I teared up at each and every clip I saw of a deployed soldier wishing his family back home a Merry Christmas. And I subjected myself to the last ten minutes of Marley & Me about seven times. What a mess.

And on top of everything. The Pampers - Silent Night TV spot. It absolutely melts me into a pathetic little puddle of mush. And I usually see it twelve hundred times around the holidays. But this year - nothing.  Not once. You know, this should actually be at the top of the list of pathetic reasons I feel like The Grinch this year. I didn't get my regular injection of peaceful widdle sweeping babies.

Told you.

So anyway. I am committed. Christmas 2010 will be different. We will decorate a tree. We will go see Christmas lights and leave cookies for Santa. We will take pictures in our jammies. Next year, Colt will be old enough to really get into things and I look forward to seeing the magic of Christmas through a whole new set of eyes.

***

Now that I've put a good, solid damper on things -- let's try to refocus. Despite my, ahem, minimalist attitude about Christmas this year, we had a holiday full of family and fun and memories.

Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before!
"Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store.
Maybe Christmas... perhaps... means a little bit more."

We left on the 22nd for Hood Christmas in Arkadelphia. It is the only time of year that all the Hoods get together in one place and these days there are 14 of us! The Atlanta Hoods made it to town right before us and we attended the 2nd Annual Holiday Steak Night at the Teeds'. Last year, Frank and John grilled steak for everyone (they kindly grilled me a chicken breast) and it was such a big hit that I believe it's here to stay.

Several months back I innocently suggested to Sarah and Lynn that we attempt a family photo at Christmas this year as the last time a photo was taken of all the Hoods was at Pop and Grandmother's 50th anniversary in 2004. Well I guess that's not even true because there's a photo of all of us at our wedding in 2006. Either way, it was high time. Little did I know how entertaining taking a photo of 14 people could be! We should do it EVERY year! If I had thought about it I would have been taking photos OF the photo taking - priceless! We don't have proofs yet, but of course I'll post them when I get them.

Colt was pretty excited about being allowed to rip things apart when it came time to open presents. It didn't take him too long to get the hang of it. Santa (and Aunt Lynn, Aunt Sarah, Courtney, and Grandmother!) was very good to him this year and we had a lot of fun.

 

 

That cellphone was a gift from Aunt Sarah. I have no idea how he knows how to hold it... so accurately...  

Colt has been all about the kitchen lately, mostly trying his hardest to sit or stand in the 10 inch space between my feet at all times. I can't blame him. The kitchen has all kinds of interesting noises and smells and stuff to bang together. And Grandmother was more than happy to oblige. Here they are making meringue.

  

Colt spent most of his time chasing Grandmother around the kitchen or dancing up and down the hallway to the music pouring out of the Barney music game Grandmother left out for him. Quite the musical little guy. Once he figured out how to push the buttons and turn the pages on Barney - it was all over. I love that you don't have to teach babies to dance. They just bounce their little bottoms and wave their hands. Adorable.

The weather was downright crappy while we were in Arkadelphia. It literally rained the entire time.

 

See Arkansas in there, under all the "weather"? See the part where the yellow circle of Severe T'Storms Possible overlaps the red circle of Flash Flooding Possible? Yeah, that would be Arkadelphia. It rained over 10 inches in the 48 hours we were there. TEN. INCHES. And it was getting worse. The forecast for late on the 24th was looking like snow as we approached Northwest Arkansas so we loaded up and tried to beat the weather back to our house.

We made it back before it started snowing, and we woke up to the first White Christmas for Fayetteville since the 70s. Christmas Day was nice and quiet at our own house. We napped a little and played in the snow a little. Merry Christmas, Buddy!

 

 

  

The next day (the 26th) Grandma and Grandpa Martin and Aunt Becky arrived from San Antonio to celebrate the second half of Christmas! That night Grandma and Grandpa helped Santa assemble Colt's new tricycle.

 

And the next morning was another round of presents and wrapping paper and BOWS!

 

 

 

 

 
 

Aunt Laura sent Colt some shakers from Botswana. They are used in traditional Setswana dancing, wrapped around your feet. I think Colt is definitely getting the hang of them...

   

Grandma and Grandpa were able to stay for several days and it was so nice to get to visit with them. I missed their visit in November while I was in Africa so I hadn't seen them in a few months. And they got to spend a few days spoiling the little guy.

 

Grandma Martin thinks it is borderline child abuse that we don't give Colt baths. (He takes showers with Jeff. I don't remember who told us about this technique but we've done it since day one and it is CRAZY efficient.) So. Guess what Colt got for Christmas from Grandma!

 

And Grandpa's contribution. Always with the coffee. Over the course of a few days, Grandpa taught Colt how to use our coffeemaker. (And everyone knows you have to wear protective gear when making coffee.)

 

 

A lot of good food and a few movies later it was time for Grandma and Grandpa to head home. Merry Christmas everyone!

 

(We had to go over to Becky's apartment to take our family photo in front of a Christmas tree.)

***

Dear Santa,

I wasn't very good this year, but I sure appreciate all the laughs you sent me anyway. It's all I truly wanted for Christmas this year and you delivered - as always.

You're the best.

Love, Sarah

Take Me To The Track!

I know how to pick 'em!

Feast your eyes on my "official" ballot. I filled this out at work on Friday -- before I even finished my "Road to the Oscars Moviefest".

I believe you can click on that image to see it full size. The starred items are my predictions and the yellow highlighted items are the winners. As you can see, they are often one and the same. I was 16 for 24 -- and I should have been 17! I don't know WHAT I was thinking not picking "Jai Ho" for Song!

But I got all the biggies -- Picture, Director, Screenplay, Actor, Actress. And it was enough for second place in the contest at my office -- and a prize of a $30 movie theater gift card. Yah! More movies!

And the nominees are...

Granted, this year I have not kept up with the politics and drama that always accompany the Academy Awards-- I've had, ahem, other priorities. And, regrettably, I haven't even seen as many of the precursor (and often prophetic) awards shows as I usually would have. Hell, I had to reassess my usual goal of seeing ALL of the Oscar-nominated movies and instead aim for seeing just the five Best Picture noms! And it almost didn't get done! That said, here are my two cents -- 

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Tells the story of Benjamin Button, a man who starts aging backwards with bizarre consequences. Honestly, I wasn't blown away by this one. If you've seen Forrest Gump, there's really no need to bother.  A baby boy is born and raised in a fatherless home. He suffers from an unusual condition that leads most people to the conclusion that he will never walk again -- his doting mother believes in his abilities and he takes his first steps. He falls in love with his childhood best friend, but is separated from her off and on for most of his life. He joins the military and serves long enough to heroically (and singlehandedly) save the day and see one of his best friends killed in the action. He returns to his family and his mother dies. He is reunited with his childhood sweetheart. They marry, have a child, and separate again. Despite his unusual condition, he is able to travel the world and see many of history's most landmark events. He falls backwards into a large sum of money. The couple is reunited long enough for one of them to slowly die in the other's arms. Interestingly, both movies were written by the same man... Rent it. Or skip it altogether. Cause who hasn't already seen Forrest Gump 20 times?

Frost/Nixon. A dramatic retelling of the post-Watergate television interviews between British talk-show host David Frost and former president Richard Nixon. I didn't see this one. And not for a lack of effort. I fanatically checked movie listings for the last several weeks because I knew this would be a tough one to catch. And last weekend, I caught a break. One of the Fayetteville movie theaters was offering an all-day Oscarfest -- showing all five Best Picture nominated films back-to-back, the day before the Oscars. So I knew they had to have Frost/Nixon in-house and surely they'd be showing it at other times, too. After all, it was an Oscar nominee -- why not? So I checked the listings on my phone this week and saw that Frost/Nixon was scheduled to play at 7am Saturday morning - today. A little early - but it was my only chance to see it. So I got up this morning and got to the theater before 7am. On a Saturday. In the name of the Academy Awards. And NO MOVIE! What?! So I went back home and climbed into bed to reclaim my Saturday morning. Later this afternoon I was back at the theater to see a different movie, and checked into the Oscarfest -- Frost/Nixon was scheduled for 10something tonight. Hmm. Kinda late, but again - worth it for my only chance to see the movie. But upon inquiry about buying a single ticket to one of the five -- denied! What. Ever. They would not allow me to pay money to see a movie - because "it's part of the package, all or nothing. sorry". What's the difference? I want to give you my money for a movie you're already putting on the screen. What's one more person in the theater going to hurt?? So I haven't seen Frost/Nixon. And I might never get to. But it was a landmark election year, it's a politically-themed movie. You do the math. 

Milk. His life changed history. His courage changed lives. In 1977, Harvey Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, becoming the first openly gay man to be voted into public office in America.This one was much better than I expected. I didn't know the story of Harvey Milk and I think it's a story people in my generation need to hear. I intentionally try to stay away from politics in this space, but I hope that the theme of this movie - that "ALL men are created equal" - is one that resonates with moviegoers. And I sincerely hope that the attention this film is getting via the Academy Awards encourages more and more people to buy a ticket and hear the story. Oh! And I would LOVE to see Sean Penn win the Oscar for this film. Give this one a look see. You won't regret it.

The Reader. Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes star in yet another Oscar-baiting, Nazi-focused film about the ambiguities of war. Years after the end of WWII, Fiennes' Michael Berg is forced to choose between aiding or condemning his former lover, Winslet's Hanna Schmitz, who is on trial for horrific war crimes. Does Kate Winslet have some sort of clause in her contract that requires gratuitous nudity? Seriously. I thought this was such an original story and a heavy, thought-provoking film - and I didn't need to see Kate Winslet's boobs to think so! My biggest hang-up about this movie was the flashbacks -- it's easy to lose track of what year you're in and how old the characters are supposed to be and is that little boy supposed to be the Ralph Fiennes character? Wasn't he just in high school? What's he doing now? Oh, back in the present. Now back to his childhood. What the? All of the jumping around distracted me. But other than that, great story. This is a rental.

Slumdog Millionaire. The story of how impoverished Indian teen Jamal Malik became a contestant on the Hindi version of "Who Wants to be A Millionaire?" -- an endeavor made without prize money in mind, rather, an effort to prove his love for his friend Latika, who is an ardent fan of the show.  This movie evoked more emotion from me than I'm really comfortable admitting. What makes a truly great movie (in my humble and sometimes uninformed opinion) is one that gives you the full range - laughing, crying, cheering, deep thought. This movie did it all for me. I am a firm believer in the idea that every experience - good or bad - makes you who you are and every minute of your life so far has brought you to where you are, like it or not. The only choice you have is to move forward.   And Becky assured me that the music video ending was totally normal. Hmm. If you see one movie this year - see Slumdog.

The obvious choice? Slumdog. You heard it here first.

Twilight!

I got an iPod six years after the rest of the world, and was recently heckled at work for disclosing that it's full of country music and showtunes. I do have an iPhone but have been informed by Andrew that apparently I'm not with-it because the only "apps" I have are for my bank and Facebook. When the seventh and final installment of Harry Potter was released, I stood in line with a million other people -- but I was there to buy the first book.  I'm a little slow. I can just hear future teenage Colt groaning at me, "Mo-om! You're so embarassing!"

But last night I went to the movies with my friend Angela. (The last movie I saw in the theater was Sex and the City. In June. That was - count it - SIX months ago.) And we saw Twilight.  Twilight! Twilight is cool, right? It's what all of the cool kids are going to see. Actually, I think we may have been the oldest people in the theater. By about 10 years...

I don't even feel qualified to give a proper review of the movie - having never read the books (or really even heard of them until Angela's birthday party a few months ago. My friends and I are full grown adults AND huge nerds and we have themed parties. Angela's birthday party had a Twilight theme. She's a big fan.) The movie was so unbelievably cheesy, but wonderful. The worst part was the constant distraction of the striking resemblance between the main character, Edward, and Edward Scissorhands.

 

You see it, don't you?

It was a lot of fun, and nice to have a Girls' Night Out. We decided we should definitely do it more often. The boys had a nice night at home.

I even dug out some photos of the Twilight-themed birthday party for you.

    

Angela's outfit was complete with black cape and wooden stake. And yes, those are vampire and werewolf petits fours. 

And since I've completely outted my innocent and unsuspecting friend, (who will likely never go anywhere with me again, for fear of being plastered on my blog...) here are a few more gems.

Here we are at a Mexican-themed birthday party a few weeks ago.

And, my personal favorite, tailgating before the Tennessee game a few years ago.

  Yep, taking applications for the Cool Kids Club.

Taken!

If you haven’t been following Laura’s African adventures, you should definitely check it out. If nothing else, it’s fascinating to me the differences in cultures. We don’t eat chicken feet for dinner, for example…   

 

One such American cultural point-of-interest struck me this weekend while we sat in the crowded theatre waiting for Indiana Jones to start. The show we intended to see (at 1:20) had sold out, so we waited around for the next one at 1:40. The ticket girl helpfully suggested we go ahead and get seats – so we wandered in to the theatre around 1:10 to find it already nearly full. We found 2 seats on a row that kind of stuck out in the aisle enough that they weren’t behind other seats, but WERE behind a little bar I could put my feet on – perfect! We soon began to notice there was somewhat of a commotion behind us. There were 2 people attempting to save 11 seats in the row directly behind us. 11! That is almost an entire row in the movie theatre – and for a movie that was likely sold out! That’s gumption. 

 

So it’s one thing to attempt to save 11 seats in a movie theatre during opening weekend of the 20-years-in-the-making fourth installment of Indiana Jones. But what blows my mind is that people respect the idea of “saving seats”. What is that?? What is it in a person that makes them heed the phrase “These seats are saved.”??

 

We sat by and watched poor sap after poor sap spot the mirage of empty seats from the floor of the theatre – only to climb the stairs to engage in the following:

 

Seat Saver: Sorry – these are saved.

Poor Sap: All of them?

Seat Saver: Yeah, sorry.

Poor Sap: (Walks away - defeated - to find a less desirable seat.)

 

No argument. No protest. Crazy! I decided right then and there that I would not have tolerated this nonsense. There is no movie theatre rule about saving seats and if I didn’t already have a seat and needed one in that row – you better believe I would have sat there. I almost wish I had had the opportunity to prove this to myself.

Tuesday September 18, 2007

It's been an eventful few days!

This week, the NWA Sam's Club moved from Springdale to right across the street from us! Which is very much a double-edged sword... We now have Sam's gas prices and Sam's Cafe at our immediate disposal -- but they've added 2 stoplights and about a jillion cars to our quiet little neck of the woods. Before this week, the only excitement the neighborhood ever saw was the Washington County Fair - which really only got crazy on Friday and Saturday night of fair week. Now we have a Sam's Club... so we went to check it out on Saturday -- along with the rest of northwest Arkansas... We went in (before eating lunch) to check out the place and discovered that it's a really bad idea to go grocery shopping - at Sam's! - while you're hungry. We bought food for an army. Then we headed home to watch the game.

There has been no mention of the game at our house since the final score was posted -- so you know how it went. We suffered the first quarter then decided to go to the movies. Don't see 3:10 to Yuma. Nothing happened for about the first hour of the movie - and we were so bored we kept checking the score on Jeff's phone. Though the game was looking up, I'm not one to walk out on movies (I've only walked out on one in my life - I Heart Huckabees) so we stayed through the end - which was just a notch above 'just OK'. So we got out of the movie - and listened to the last part of the game on the radio in the car. I didn't know if we were going to make it home in one piece - the game was getting intense. We made it home in time to watch the last play on TV. And that's that. Poor hogs.

So we went to Dickson and helped Angela celebrate her birthday.

Sunday. I went to Heather's house to ride horses. Before I left, Jeff was watching The Hill Have Eyes right before I drove through the backwoods of Madison County to get to Heather's house - it was terrifying. Horse pictures!

We were more or less 4-wheeling through un-mowed fields for 2 hours -- it was SO fun. (My horse's name is Brownie.)

Sunday night, Becky and Jeff and I drove to Fort Smith to eat dinner with Aunt Janet -- who was only in town for a few days. We went to Outback and visited for awhile and had to get home because crazy Becky works at 4:30 in the crazy morning!

Oh! And Sunday was our first wedding anniversary! 

 

We were too full on Sunday night, so last night we busted out the top tier of our wedding cake -- which has been taking up more than its fair share of our freezer for the last year.

It was beyond delicious a year ago --

Also last night, we had a bit of a TV fiasco. We decided this week to join the rest of you in the 21st century and we added DVR to our cable service. So I went yesterday to pick up our shiny new box and new remote -- and planned to have everything set up and ready by the time Jeff got home. It SO didn't happen that way. I messed with the TV and the box and the 20 new cords for no less than an hour -- and made zero progress. When Jeff got involved we discovered that it wasn't entirely my fault that the DVR was yet to be hooked up -- as the TV we have is so old that it doesn't have outlets for anything except cable - no red/yellow/white plugs and certainly no USB port. So as we worked against the clock (Rules of Engagement was coming on!) we shuffled 3 TVs around the house and since you have to re-activate the damn thing every time you plug it in -- and since we tried 8 or 9 different combinations of the red/yellow/white before we finally got it to work -- I was on the phone with Cox automated service all night. We decided it was almost as good as the time we set up a tent with no instructions... couples therapy. :) I suspect this is part of Jeff's secret plan to buy a new TV.

Nothing like a random spatter of random weekend news. There's a bit of a shake-up going down at work -- I'll keep you posted when I know something.