Eet

I've been rockin' it to this CD the past few days. Oh, how I love me some Regina Spektor and all of her quirky, catchy tunes...

Can't wait!

I saw this over on Alexis' blog and had to share. It's snippets of the movie trailer set to a fun little catchy song that isn't a problem if it gets in your head. :) I'm very much looking forward to this movie, although my secret confession is that I never read this book as a child. Seriously. Me. The biggest bookworm child there could have been -- never read this one. So obviously my boy and I have some catching up to do before the movie debuts October 16th!

Finally!

New Christian music that I LOVE.
(Oh yeah, believe it, sister, I just used "Christian music" and "love" in the same sentence!)

If the Christian music market would start discovering more new artists like these gals, it would be the perfect marriage between my love for Indie music and the Word of God. 'Cause lately, I've only been loving the Indie music, and not the other. Come on, Christian music industry, find me some more!

(A big shout-out to my beloved iTunes for this fun new discovery -- one of their singles is the free Discovery Download, but after I heard them, I downloaded the whole album. These chicks are right up my alley.)

Check them out -- Tal & Acacia.

In my head. In my head. In my head...

I woke up this morning with this song in my head stuck on repeat. Enjoy.



Check out The Bird and the Bee for more quirky, catchy tunes that won't get out of your head.

The word of the day is...

DISOBEDIENCE. Wish someone had gotten the memo to me before the day started so I'd know what was going to be coming at me all day long. Disobedience. Consequences. Then while he was "serving time" for the disobedience, more disobedience ensued. And all day long, the vicious circle continued. Ah, to be a three-year-old boy.

Monday again, already? The weekend came and went, slipping quickly through my fingers. My son continued his successful use of the potty, so our weekend was sublime, to say the least. It's like having a whole new kid! (Well, until today and the disobedience. Apparently, being naughty erased his memory because we had not only a poo-in-the-pants incident, but a pee-in-the-pants incident only hours later.) I'm still holding out hope that our weekend of potty success will return tomorrow.

Great news regarding the Wheeler family, the ones I had posted the prayer request about on Friday. They were able to get down to Guatemala to be with their baby girl. She was also released from the hospital and is doing so much better. Thank the Lord. I couldn't bear to see this family go through any more heartache.

This might be a bit random, but I do love this next video clip. (It is quite soothing, especially on big disobedience days like today.) There is one children's movie I haven't gotten tired of watching with my son. He could watch the new version of "Charlotte's Web" over and over and over, and surprisingly enough, so could I! It has beautiful colors, a vintage vibe with the costumes and sets, and such a sweet simplicity. I also love the song from the movie, "Ordinary Miracle", by Sarah McLachlan. It is the first song on the mix CD we play every night when my son goes to bed.

Gettin' down with my bad self.

Let me preface this post by saying that I normally DO NOT ENJOY rap or hip-hop music. Not at all. Except maybe for that once in college when one of my apartment-mates and I had a dance party in our kitchen listening to Kirk Franklin and the Family. Ha.

Anyway, this year I have gotten extremely into music from commercials. Most of my latest downloads on iTunes have been songs that I have discovered from those very same TV advertisements that Tivo was invented to save us all from. So, if you want to join me and have your own little dance party in front of your laptop, click play on the video below. (The song is "Daydreamin'" by Lupe Fiasco featuring Jill Scott. And forgive me for the part where the lyrics say something about needing some more "half-nekkid women up in the pool" -- otherwise I think it is pretty clean, but somewhat strange and fun song. I love how the vintage girl on the record sings the chorus throughout. Oh, and the song is from a current AT&T cell phone commercial.)

Whoever you are, Lupe Fiasco, props to you. I like your video.

Girls' Night Out

Hurray for grandma's that babysit (known around our house as Abuela). Hurray for up-and-coming musicians that stop to play at small-time venues. Hurray for girlfriends willing to leave their kiddos at home as well on a weeknight to enjoy a much-needed girls' night out.

Tonight I got to go with two of my best gal pals to see this lady live in concert:


(Feist -- "1-2-3-4")

Hallelujah.

Will wonders never cease.

I turned on "Idol Gives Back" and caught the last thirty minutes thinking they would announce the contestant eliminated this week, but then remembering that they are nicer than that and don't eliminate anyone on the same night they are asking for donations. Anyway, I was about to turn it off at the very end, when Ryan Seacrest said something about "let's welcome back our Idol contestants to sing 'Shout to the Lord'".

WHAT?????????!!!!!!!!!!

I almost fell off the couch. With all the big deal that society makes about not mixing church and state, about not pushing any religious beliefs on anybody else, you know, all of that, they, and I mean they as in "the American Idol Corporation", INTENTIONALLY PICKED THE SONG "SHOUT TO THE LORD". With lyrics that are very much straightforward about Jesus and about how we all should shout to the Lord, all the earth hear us sing, power and majesty praise to the King, etc., etc.

I just about started crying. Hallelujah. It was beautiful to hear them lift their voices to the Almighty, regardless of whether or not all of them believe in Him or not. I am DEFINITELY going to be buying that one on iTunes tomorrow.

What a beautiful surprise. A brief moment to see Hollywood actually embracing Jesus, even if just for a few minutes.

Across the Universe

Man. Jim Sturgess is a force to be reckoned with. You may not recognize his name if you have not yet seen "Across the Universe". It arrived this week in a Netflix envelope, and I am so glad I decided to try it out. I'm usually not a fan of PG-13 movies anymore -- I know, I know, I am really making myself sound like a granny here -- but it is really because they have gotten so much worse and in my mind usually should be rated R instead. It's definitely not a movie for "little eyes" though, so make sure you watch this one after they've nodded off to dreamland. I was very skeptical about watching it -- just the night before I had tried to watch the movie "Once". It had gotten rave reviews for its music and storyline, but I just could not get past the first few minutes and how many times the F-bomb was dropped in a single conversation. This one does have some drugs, sexuality, and nudity, but man, it is a fantastic flick. I'm also not a fan of anything with the whole late 1960's/70's hippie vibe/Vietnam War thing, but again, I really enjoyed this movie. I am amazed at all the work and thought and creativity that went into this movie, and it is incredibly clever how a storyline is woven around these Beatles' tunes. And Jim Sturgess? Incredible singer. Even if you are not a fan of musicals, you might be pleasantly surprised by this one.

Go out right now and get it.

That's an order.

I was blog-surfing yesterday, and on one of my favorite blogs ("Me" by Tara Whitney, and no, I haven't learned how to put that in here underlined where you could just click on it to visit it automatically), and she was talking about a new CD she bought. Out of curiosity I hopped on over to iTunes, listened to a few snippets, and fell. in. LOVE. It's like the CD was tailor-made for me and my personal taste in music! I had trouble at first remembering who Zooey Deschanel is -- she is an actress, and I remember her from the movies "Elf" and "Failure to Launch" (as SJP's roommate, or sister, was it?) although she has been in more than just those two movies. Anyway, apparently this girl sings on the side. She's a fine actress, but I think she should quit her day job and take this gig on the road!

See what you think. I found this video on YouTube -- I guess she recently performed at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin.



By the way, this is the first full album I have actually downloaded on iTunes. Usually I only buy songs one at a time because I never hardly like every song on the album (unless it's Pink Martini or Sondre Lerche or one of my faves). But yes, I downloaded the whole entire thing late last night, and I love every song. But poo on iTunes for not putting the album up on it's new releases since it just came out Tuesday. I always check those to see if anything good came out, and had I seen it listed there, I definitely would have checked it out.

Kick-start your day

If you're anything like me, you might need a kick-in-the-pants to start your day off right. I know I do, especially after last night and having to bid adieu to the lovely Gilmore Girls. I almost started crying during the last episode, and even my husband kept saying, "This is sad!". I'm telling you, I think both Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel both looked a little bit puffy around the eyes throughout the whole thing, like they had already been crying before having to shoot the episode.

Today is day three in my Spring Break week of trying to knock stuff off the list, and today is going to be a doozy. I am going to tackle my guest bedroom. I don't have any pictures yet, but I promise to post a "before" and an "after" picture, but at least I can describe what it looks like in there right now. It basically looks like a craft store threw up in my guest room. There is so much stuff piled on the floor that you cannot walk in there. I have three windows that have lovely drapes (made by myself) hanging up, and one poor window that has been bare. The worst and most pathetic part is that I made the drapes over a year ago, and the fourth one is only missing the hem at the top. All of those hours spent making the drapes, and I couldn't find the 15 minutes to finish the measly hem across the top?! I am lame, lame, lame. So, today will be spent fixing the guest room. And by "fixing" I don't mean cramming all of my junk into other rooms and re-stuffing it in other closets -- I do mean to fix it all properly, finding a place for everything.

So to kick myself in the pants, won't you join me in watching a very cute video? This is one of my favorite songs by The Ditty Bops, and what makes it especially cute is the fact that it is a video of one of the girl's grandmother's Jazzercise class exercising to the song. I dare you not to get up and shake what God gave you when you watch this...



(Oh, and I was successful yesterday in dropping off my quilt for professional quilting. Go me!)