A Grinchy Krank... or a Kranky Grinch?

As the first day of Thanksgiving Break comes to a close, I have to say that this holiday season isn't kicking off as I had planned.

Following my abbreviated summer, I promised myself not to bring home work for Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks, and really enjoy the time away from a classroom. Yeah... anyone that knows me in the least knows how that plan ended. Let's put it this way, we were unable to take my car to dinner last night because three of us could not fit in my four-door station wagon due to the amount of school stuff... stuffed in there.

I was a bit out of sorts yesterday and couldn't get into the swing of my routine to line up the day as I wanted, which would have helped in bringing home less work. First, was just some of the teenage drama that is occasionally expected of being immersed into high school life, but secondly Benjamin was at home sick. I was getting updates and pics from Jason at the doctor's office throughout the day as they gave him breathing treatments (his smoke-breathing dragon mask) and ruled out asthma - pneumonia - bronchitis...

There are moments in life when you are reminded how distinctly motherhood has changed you. Diving beneath your toddler with cupped hands to catch his vomit would rank high on that list of moments... each of the three times I did it last night.

The long-standing plan had been to take the boys and a friend to see "Catching Fire" today. Not knowing what Benjamin's condition would be today though, those plans got changed because I didn't want to leave town.

Jason and I grabbed breakfast at Fred's, where he told me how much he would like to get the house set up for Christmas this weekend... ... ... I haven't mentioned lately how much I hate the holidays (Doesn't count).

Justin is in town for Thanksgiving week. One of our primary goals during his visit here was to get his driver's license straight. We went to DMV today and found out it would be a pretty easy feat to accomplish... if we only had one more day. They are not open tomorrow or the next day for the Thanksgiving holiday. When did the Friday after Thanksgiving become a state-observed holiday? Grrr! Of course, this issue could have been easily solved too if we had went one of the past two days, but Monday was Key Club commitments x 3 until 7:30 at night, and Tuesday everything was thrown completely out of routine with a sick Benjamin. So, unless Justin's schedule will allow him to stay through Monday, this might be an issue left unresolved.

On a more productive, less stressful note... I did watch a couple of movies (that's the less stressful, not productive part of the day).

 

"The Internship" was an interesting look into the world of Google. While free cafes, Quidditch intramural games, and nap pods may make it one of the most desirable and competed-for employers, I just cannot imagine I would be productive in that environment. I need absolute quiet and no disruptions in order to get "real" work done.

 

"The To Do List" was set in the post-graduation summer of 1993, which was only a few years after my own high school years. So, the nostalgic nod to lots of music and icons from my teens years was totally awesome. However, the extremely vulgar sexual nature upon which the whole movie was centered was a bit over the top, especially to watch with the boys, of legal age to watch rated R movies though they may be.

Reunited

Cameron came home from Boy Scout camp today. It's the first night the whole fam has been under the same roof for about ten days. Heh, as a retired Navy family this isn't the big deal I am making it sound. Nonetheless I cooked dinner as a celebration. Yes, it takes a celebration for me to cook these days... and even then, it's questionable. It's just a summer thing, I swear... Just a summer thing, I swear... How many more times do I have to repeat this to make it believable? And, since said "Celebratory Dinner" involves the acts of shaking and baking, I will spare you the culinary details.
I need to get much better about planning meals and cooking meals.
Our Menu "Planning" looks much too much like this these days...

I'm tempted to make a resolution to cook dinner for five days straight. However, with plans to go out of town to amusement/water parks, museums, and shopping, that's not going to be an easy... or convenient... task. Sooo, I will just blame it on summer again!

The past couple of days have been home bound, cleaning and organizing, and listing odds & ends on a local Facebook sales page. Jason drove to the depths of Chesapeake, and then some, to pick up a Shoo-Shoo track & table from one of those sites last night.

Last night, Benjamin was enthralled with the trains. He woke up this morning talking about his trains. Today though, he was much more fascinated with taking the track apart and trying to (sometimes) rebuild it.

We've also watched some movies over the past few days.

Friends with Kids was excellent. I love a good movie set in New York City. Several of the cast of main six characters looked familiar, though not "big names," and all of them were excellent in their roles and interactions with one another. The plot is a bit predictable. The sextuplet group of friends are two married couples and two single friends, of opposite sex. The single friends think marriage has made their friends miserable and boring, yet they want to be parents.  They decide to have a baby together because it would be the perfect arrangement to be a parent 50%  of the time, and single/happy/free to date the other half of the time. Well, of course they fall in love. Despite that predictable plot, it was well acted with just enough twists to make the development interesting. The movie had a really good soundtrack too!

Wanderlust was also excellent. I am a big Jennifer Anniston fan and the cast of this movie too was just well put together. I am intrigued by communal living and this was a humorous twist to several of the stereo-types associated with "Intentional Living communities." Anniston and her husband, played by Paul Rudd, are forced to move out their New York City micro-apartment and find themselves thrust into a world of truth circles hosted by hallucinatory tea and naked grape crushing. It's a light-hearted witty plot with some good twists and the occasional overdose of corniness.

Chatroom was... odd, in that way foreign movies often are- the bad way not the good way. A psychologically disturbed teen created a private chatroom where he meets with four other teens on a regular basis. He uncovers the insecurity of each of his on-line peers and manipulates them to control the behavior of the the teens to the point of near-suicide. Although there is some aspects of a good psychological thriller weaved into the plot, the metaphor used throughout the movie of a mangy hotel room where chatters check into and out of each of the rooms becomes confusing, especially when the chat room guests realize that their host is trying to push one of them to suicide and they must come together to stop him "IRL."

Guy Night

We have a saying in our home for those "guy movies" I don't want to watch: "one brain cell movies." Tonight, I may have left that one brain cell in the movie theatre.

Justin & I went to see "Ted." You know how you think a movie about a teddy bear come-to-life that smokes pot and brings home hookers is going to be predictable and immature? Well yeah, you'd be right.

Eh, honestly, I have to admit I did laugh... quite often.