Odd angles and empty glasses

We've been to see a lot of houses recently. (Not that we need to. Our house hasn't sold yet, or generated much interest. Ah well, we're lucky that if we don't sell, it's okay. We don't HAVE to sell, we just want to sell).

Anyway, in the process of looking at houses, we've seen a fair number that have obviously been staged, either "professionally", or by someone who read a few staging websites and thought they'd gotten the gist.

Here's my advice to stagers: Putting all the furniture at odd angles is not staging. We're not looking at mansions with big spaces. Having a table screw-jiggy in a rather small dining room is just not a good idea. Placing a couch at an angle blocking off 1/4 of a small family room is not a good idea.

Not to mention the fact that there are a number of left-brained folks who find all these non-right-angles incredibly distracting. Okay, fine, I'm talking about me. When I see these off-kilter rooms, I desperately want to straighten out all the furniture. It comes close to being a physical pain when I walk into a room and see it all out-of-whack.

Second piece of advice: empty martini glasses strewn about is not decorating, even if the glasses themselves are kind of pretty. All it does is make me worried that the boys will knock them over. And makes me wonder if James Bond is expected to visit.

Third piece of advice: setting your dining room table is just weird. Did we interrupt your dinner? It doesn't look homey, it looks like a fake photo-shoot set up.

That is all.

I realize that there are probably plenty of houses that have been well-staged that I don't even notice, and that it's only the badly staged houses that are cracking me up. I do have to say, though, that no staging is a vast improvement over bad staging! Of course, some houses, like the "velvet Elvis" house, could probably benefit from even terrible staging...

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Random unrelated thought: Thank you once again to those of you who gave me book recommendations. I've been starting to crack into the books you've recommended. I'll try to mention it, but if I forget, I'll always have brief reviews in my "books read" section on the right column. Some I may even review on The Book Nook...I have a review of Gig up there today! I also read Other People's Weddings by Noah Hawley, which I found to be a quick read, but didn't love. Anyway, I'm loving all these new books to try out, so thank you!

Just call me Crash!

So, I was in a car accident. With the boys in the car. I know, freaky, right? Luckily, it was a minor fender bender and we're all fine. And it was the other guy's fault, which in a refreshing "restore my faith in humanity" moment, he owned up to right away and apologized for not paying enough attention. Isn't that nice? No fake "why'd you stop sharply" or "you should have gone" junk.

Anyway, this guy rear-ended me. I was actually driving TK's car. Mine was in the shop, and the boys and I were just coming back from dropping TK at work when, exiting the highway, the guy behind me ran right into us.

It's not that bad. I drove away, though the cop wasn't too happy about it as I was missing a tail light (okay, fine, I was missing most of the left back side of the car. Well, missing is a bit of an exaggeration. I picked it up and stuck it in the trunk ;).

Only problem is I was driving a 2000 Civic. That's not worth a ton. So we're waiting to hear if it's totaled or not. For now, it just sits in our garage, with its big ol' owie.

In related news, the boys were totally excited about the whole experience. "That guy BOOMED us!" they tell me excitedly. "That BAD car hurt our car!" they say with total glee. They got to see a police officer! I swear, this was possibly the most fun activity we did all week.

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Random Unrelated Thought (ohhh, remember these? These had fallen by the wayside for a while, but are making a reappearance today!): Did you ever notice that Yellow by Coldplay was the last song they released that didn't become unbearably annoying by the third listen? Here's how it goes every time I hear a new Coldplay song:

First time: Hey, is this Coldplay? This is pretty good!

Second time: This Coldplay song again? I feel like I just heard it.

Third time: Oh geez. Let me channel check.

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Oh, bonus random unrelated thought, though it is marginally related to the coldplay thing but unrelated to the main gist of the post, though if I keep this up for too long, who's really going to be able to say what the main point of this post is: I heard Home Sweet Home by Motley Crue on the radio the other day.

That's it. It's kind of noteworthy, isn't it? I mean, what radio station is still playing Home Sweet Home? Did this one lose some kind of bet with another radio station?

I tease because I love it! I listened (and sang) to the whole song. Rockin'! Now Motley Crue, those are some songs that can handle more than 3 listens each decade!

Aaaahhhh! Broken TV!!!!

Oh my. Our television is broken. We only have one TV. I love TV. What am I ever going to do??? Wah!

I can't even play my wii! Oh me oh my!

Stupid technology, making me all reliant on you for my happiness. Well, it could be worse. It could be my computer. Of course, unlike TVs, we do have a few extra computers sitting around. You know, in case we had to supply computers for a small company. One of the perks (oddities?) of being married to a computer guy.

So how long do you think we'll last before we buy a new TV? I mean, Heroes and Terminator are both on Monday. So we don't have long...

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Shouldn't be playing around online as I still have much to do for the sale and have to leave in just a few short hours. So I'll reply to comments on my next post! Hope you're all doing well, and have working televisions...

Twilight Series Rant

Oh, hold on to your hats, because you're going to be subjected to some ranting the likes of which you haven't seen since I read that piece of trash My Annoying Sister's Annoying Keeper.

Okay, fine, that helped me get some perspective. I'm nowhere near as annoyed at the Twilight series as I was at My Boring Sister's Whiny Keeper. In fact, I found the Twilight series to be entirely engaging and surprisingly readable. I mean, there was never any risk it would make my "best books ever" list, but I was enjoying them quite a bit.

But I'm going to complain anyway. Because the further it got into this series, the more disappointed I became, until I was completely disgusted with how worthless Breaking Dawn was.

Before I go any further, let me say right now that I know Stephenie Meyer is a Mormon. I have no problem with that. In fact, anyone who knows me knows that one of my favorite authors is Orson Scott Card, who happens to be a Mormon. Many of his books make my "best books ever list". Heck, I even like his Memory of Earth series, which is based on The Book of Mormon. So I'm not going to give her a pass for the problems I have with this book simply because of her religion. Nor am I giving her a pass because she writes for a YA audience, since you all know I'm in love with YA fiction and it *can* be done well.

This just wasn't.

Anyone who hasn't read the series, go ahead and stop reading this post now. First, this is going to be filled with spoilers galore, and I don't want to ruin it for anyone who might read the series in the future. The author does a fine job of that all by herself.

Besides, this will probably be phenomenally boring if you haven't read the series. Okay, fine. It might be boring even if you HAVE read the series.


So last warning: Here be spoilers. Read on only if you want to be spoiled. Like a rotten tomato. Or my sweet boys. As an aside, I had a tomato sitting on my counter from last week's CSA, and it looked fine. Until I gently touched it. And it exploded. Seriously. It was disgusting and amazing all at once. I love science. Luckily, my boys have not yet exploded when I let them play one more game of Bingo or eat some ice cream. Yes, I spoil them. Okay, back to the annoying book. No way are my cute kids distracting me from my rant!

So, here's my main problem with the book: everyone sucks. Hee, get it? They're vampires? Okay, seriously, there is no one likable.

Bella: whiny, co-dependant, ignores her friends, treats people badly.

Edward: controlling, abusive, whiny, annoying.

Jacob: Okay, I kind of like Jacob. So of course SM totally emasculates him by having him be completely obsessed with Bella. And don't even start me on Nessie. What a cop out. "Oh, nothing makes me happier than to be tied to all the people I hate forever. That's awesome, and I'm not even being sarcastic. Thank goodness I had this lobotomy."

Alice: Ugh. She sees the future so uses that power to plan parties Bella will hate? And, she spends money obsessively. Great, you're going to live forever so you mess up the world by buying endless amounts of expensive clothes and only wearing them once? And, she became more of a means to progress the plot rather than an actual character.

Charlie: Completely helpless, and so detached from his daughter. And could he be at all effective as a police chief when he's completely clueless?

Renee: Not a very good mom, and doesn't really do anything for the story. Is she supposed to make Bella look mature? It doesn't. It's just odd, and a useless character.

The werewolves: "We hate the vampires. But I guess we're okay with *these* vampires. And I guess it's okay if they can kill people, as long as they go a few miles away. Because even though our entire purpose, passed down through generations, is to protect people, it really wasn't *that* important to us. Oh, and we're totally ninnys."

The "bad" vampires: "We're super powerful. No really. We are. Shut up! I mean it. We're the most powerful. Yes we are. Yes we are times one million. We're not? Okay, we'll go away now." Um, yeah, are we supposed to believe they just walk away? They don't plan to pick the Cullens off one at a time, even if it takes a hundred years?

Bella's school "friends": Just placeholders. Was Mike just there to prove how beautiful and desirable Bella was? Was Jessica nice or not nice? Was Lauren the "mean" girl? Or was Bella? The school friend stories were never fully developed, and just dropped at a whim. All they did for me was prove that Bella was a terrible friend.

Problem number two: I'd joked a few posts ago that what Twilight needed a little more of was some sex. Yuck, who thought getting my wish would leave me disgusted? First, the sex was pretty much all behind the scenes, which is fine (and even preferable) to me. But it was just...gross. I mean, the first sex scenes were pretty much abuse. But Bella *liked* it? That's messed up. And of course it immediately results in pregnancy. And later sex...um, it's just jokes about wrecking beds and houses. That's just disturbing. This wasn't at all entertaining. And, authors always give away a little about themselves when they write, but I hate for it to be obvious and have it pull you right out of the story. But there was plenty of it in this story. I have to give one example about sex, that was actually kind of disturbing to me. It's about Bella being nervous after her and Edward get married, about the first time they're going to have sex. Okay, that's a completely understandable emotion, and certainly could have been done well. But instead we get this:

How did people do this--swallow all their fears and trust someone so implicitly with every imperfection and fear they had--with less than the absolute commitment Edward had given me? If it weren't Edward out there, if I didn't know in every cell of my body that he loved me as much as I loved him--unconditionally and irrevocably and, to be honest, irrationally--I'd never be able to get up off this floor.

Really? That's your best argument against premarital sex? That all girls should be ridiculously insecure? That they should have so little confidence in their own worth that they should require a commitment of MARRIAGE before they are willing to expose their imperfections to the person they supposedly love? I mean, I'm certainly not one who is ever going to convincingly argue against premarital sex, but at least I can understand some of the arguments (i.e., risk of pregnancy, risk of disease, lack of maturity, etc). But not to have sex because a person is too embarrassed of themselves? That's not right. Geez, reading this makes me want to go out and tell some high schoolers to start having sex. Just kidding. I would never tell a high schooler to start having sex. I trust they can think of it all on their own. But seriously, if I had a daughter I would hope she would be a strong enough young woman to wait until the right time because it was the right time, not because she was embarrassed of her body, or even worse, embarrassed of who she was.

The ending of this series was just a mess, a "neatly" tied up "and they all lived happily ever after". And by "neatly" I of course mean, "cheatly". Because it was all a cheat. The Bella-Edward-Jacob triangle was interesting, but the Nessie solution was a big cheat. You can't solve the problem of Bella and Jacob being in love by introducing a magical creature who negates it with absolutely no ill-feelings. Cheat!

And all of the Cullens and their allies having the superest super powers? Cheat. Especially given that Bella was magicially the most powerful of the powerful immediately. I'm willing to suspend disbelief, but that was going a bit too far.

And the "bad" vampires just being so easily defeated? I read hundreds of pages gearing up for a fight. And no fight? Yes, a let down. And unbelievable, as I stated earlier that those vampires so committed to fighting Cullens at any cost would walk away so easily, presumably for all time.

Okay, I'm stopping now as this is getting long. I wish I'd picked these books for my book group choice, although I think they would have all shot me if I chose a 4 book series :)

Have you read the series? Please share your opinion. Love it, hate it...just tell me why! I'm just feeling incredibly let down by the end of this series. While I enjoyed the earlier books so much, I feel like I'll never be able to enjoy them again knowing how badly it all ends.

Wait, I forgot. I'm stopping now. Really. Right....now.

Potty Training is CRAP!

Any experienced moms in the house?

One of my boys hasn't had a single accident in three days, and the other has only made it to the potty ONCE in three days. Ugh. What would you do? Stop potty training the one with little interest? Keep trying? I think I'll give it until the beginning of next week, but I really am READY to have them potty trained. I know, it's not up to me.

Yuck.

I'm not big into the stay-at-home vs. working mom thing...each have good parts and bad parts and I think people should do what works for them. Having said that, though, let me admit for one of the first times in three years, I'm really second guessing my decision to stay home. Is it wrong to go back to work just so I can get a break from potty training??? Hee!

Complaining about allergies

One of my sons has a peanut and tree nut allergy. It freaks me out on a regular basis...just the idea that something that most other kids enjoy on a regular basis could potentially kill him, well, it's a bit unsettling. Having said that, though, I don't get too down about it. I mean, it's only a nut allergy. Nut allergies are so common nowadays that it's reasonably easy to avoid. We know plenty of other kids with nut allergies. In the grand scheme, a nut allergy is a pretty minor blip.

But once in a while, it just hits me. Recently an ice cream truck has been coming through our neighborhood. B-man will never be able to get ice cream from an ice cream truck. It's just not worth the risk. Yes, maybe he could get a prepackaged ice pop, but he's never going to be able to run up with a couple dollars and just get something without worrying. Or perhaps I mean without ME worrying.

I know, not a big deal. It just hits me whenever I hear that tinkly music coming down the road.

Random unrelated thought: I finished The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao a few days ago, and really enjoyed it. I'm not sure why...it has footnotes, which I LOATHE with a passion**. It has far more Spanish than I understand. And it out-geeked even me. I wonder how all the totally non-geeky members of my book group are fairing. Unless you have a PhD in Lord of the Rings, you're certainly missing some of the references. I'm really looking forward to discussing it, but I'll refrain for now since I know a large portion of my readership is members of my book group :)

**See, it's annoying, isn't it? Okay, fine, I do it myself in blog posts, and it's acceptable when I'm reading nonfiction, but it just pulls me right out of the story when an author chooses to use them in a novel. I mean, work it into the story, can't ya??

1k Wednesday, Destroying our trees edition

Here it is: the very hungry caterpillar. Our trees' leaves are becoming lacier by the day. When will the tree service get here to spray? Soon these stupid winter moth caterpillars will have eaten entire leaves!

They're little, but annoying. This is one on my son B-man's hand. When we're outside, the inchworms fall out of the trees on to us. I'm not sure if I'm ever going to go outside again after having caterpillars rain on me. Yuck.

Stupid very hungry caterpillar!

Our trees are infested with something called winter moths, or more precisely, the larvae that will turn into moths. These crafty little buggers turn the leaves of the trees into swiss cheese. Swiss cheese leaves are not very effective at, oh, little things like photosynthesis. Last year it was wicked bad...our trees had hardly any full leaves. We got the trees all sprayed. Okay, it didn't make the leaves come back, but the trees managed to limp through the rest of the season and most branches survived.

Yeah, now the new leaves are out, and TA DA, swiss cheese. Stupid stinkin' winter moths. Now we have to get them treated. Again. Apparently, we'll probably have to treat for years. It costs a gazillion dollars (yes, that was the official estimate), and it's not even effective in the long-term. I'm being outwitted by a caterpillar! A bug! Frick!

So, any good bug infestation stories to share? Misery loves company! I could tell about the time termites swarmed all around me in our basement and I didn't notice since I was hard at work on the computer writing a paper while I was in grad school, but that was more funny, especially since the termites didn't establish a colony in our house. I hope one day I'm amused by these winter moths, but as of right now, they mostly just make me want to declare war on nature.

Random unrelated thought: My parents are coming up this weekend, and we're all going to visit my grandparents for Mother's Day. It should be fun, I'm very much looking forward to it.

I did something I almost never do and told TK what I want for Mother's Day: Wii Fit. Of course, it's already sold out everywhere and it hasn't even been released yet :) Oh well...

Recovering, slowly

We're all slowly on the road to recovery from this bout of colds/flus/whatever the heck has knocked us on our butts.

I feel bad for B-man. When he gets sick, he gets REALLY sick. Like up all night, every night sick. Like totally not eating sick. Like comes down with a double ear infection right after he starts getting better sick. Like needs four nebulizer treatments a day sick. Like spikes a fever of 105 sick. Basically, when he's sick, it's a non-stop worry-fest.

I also feel bad for N-man. When he gets sick, B-man is always so much sicker that he doesn't get nearly the sympathy or cuddles he deserves. He's such a good kid. Easy going, silly, wonderful. I wish I could have given him more attention this past week.

Hopefully, we're getting better. Or at least I think the boys are getting better. I'm worried I might be getting an ear infection myself, but I'm hoping it's just my hypochondria kicking into high gear.

Random related thought: Two days ago, when I was completely losing my mind from being stuck inside for so long with two sick needy kids, I called TK at work to let him know we ran out of children's tylenol. And that he needed to come home early so that *I* could be the one to go out and get it. He's so wonderful, he agreed to that separation of duties.

I ran out to the grocery store, got the tylenol and did a quick food shop so we wouldn't all starve to death. Well, somehow in my cart ended up all of the following:

• A Caramello candy bar
• Two Cadbury Cream Eggs
• A package of Pepperidge Farm Chocolate Chessman cookies
• Emergency Cake (I hope I'm not the only one to keep emergency cake on hand. You know those Betty Crocker single serve microwavable cakes? I always have one on hand, just in case I have an emergency and feel like I really must eat cake immediately, without waiting to make a real cake. I don't have cake emergencies often, maybe once every two or three months, but I do like to keep some emergency cake on hand just in case!)

I rarely buy that much crap at one time. I guess no sleep and non-stop sickness of everyone in the house brings out my sweet tooth!

It must be MIRACLE syrup!

I went to the coffee shop today, to feed the coffee addiction. Mmmm. While I was there, I had a very depressing conversation with the coffee-wench. I refuse to call her a barista, one: because it seems like a vast overstatement of her skills, and two: because she was kind of wench-y, as you'll soon hear about.

I ordered my non-fat decaf caramel macchiato (because apparently I love to waste my money on overpriced coffee drinks. It's so yummy, though! Why couldn't I become addicted to some cheap truck stop coffee?). Do you know what she has the nerve to ask me? "Do you want sugar-free caramel syrup?" No, I don't. If I did, I would have ordered it. That was what I thought, but what I said was, "No thanks, I don't like fake sugar."

Her response: "There's no fake sugar in this." Really? Do you have miracle syrup? If it's sugar-free and there's no fake sugar, what makes it sweet? I'm sarcastic in my head, but what came out of my mouth was a friendly "I'm sure there must be some kind of artificial sweetener in it. Otherwise, it wouldn't be sweet."

"No," she assured me. "Here, you can even look at it." She handed me the bottle, which I spent one second perusing until I found it, right near the top of the ingredient list. "This has sucralose in it," I tell her. She stares at me blankly. "That's Splenda," I clarify.

"No, it doesn't say Splenda," she insists, starting to really get an attitude. Her opinion that I'm an idiot is just dripping from every word by now.

"I know," I answer. "Splenda is a brand name..." Here's where I finally decide to drop it. "I'll just have the regular syrup, please."

She makes my coffee, I take it and rush out as my boys are really starting to get a little crazy. As I sit in the car and take the first sip, I realize, yep, she used the sugar-free. See, wench-y. What did I tell you. If I hadn't already strapped both boys in their car seats, I would have gone back in and asked for a new one. Of course, that probably would have been a spit-flavored coffee, so perhaps this is for the best.

Oh, I drank my coffee anyway. What can I say, I'm addicted. But now I have this gross tinny-metallic aftertaste that I just can't get rid of, even with brushing. Yuck.

Random unrelated thought, adult humor warning: B-man is allergic to peanuts and tree nuts, so we've been trying to teach him about it so that he knows not to take food from people and to ask if things have nuts in it. Both boys are getting really interested in talking about it. That's the set-up to the story.

So, last night at dinner, N-man busts out, unrelated to anything we were currently talking about, "Mommy eats peanuts!" I don't know why he said this. For the time being, we keep a nut-free house so I *don't* eat peanuts. Okay, this doesn't sound like adult humor yet, right? Well, when the boys say "peanuts", it sounds like a word for the male genitalia. So, his happy announcement of "Mommy eats peanuts" sounds like something far worse than he intended. TK and I couldn't keep a straight face, which is the hardest part of parenting. Because as soon as you laugh, they do whatever they're doing, except more. So, B-man picks up the chant, and now both of them are practically yelling "Mommy eats peanuts, Mommy eats peanuts".

Thank goodness we were in the house and not out to dinner. Although I'm sure they'll try this one again. They're probably waiting until my in-laws are in town.

Even my *Trapper* Keeper was more interesting!

I should know by now the more good things I hear about a book, the less likely I will be to enjoy it.

I just finished My Sister's Keeper, by Jodi Picoult, and I highly DON'T recommend it. First problem: I found the method of telling the story through different character's voices to be distracting and a cop out, from a story-telling point of view. I could see how it might have been interesting or well done, but it sadly wasn't. I didn't find that individual character voices were captured. In fact, more than once I had to return to the beginning of the chapter to remind myself which character's POV we were in. That can't be good.

Second problem: it was the most predictable book I think I've ever read. The big "surprise" at the end...um, I kept hoping she wouldn't go there. But she did. And the whole "why" of Anna's lawsuit...also not a big surprise. What, were her lawyer, parents, and guardian complete idiots? Wait, you don't need to answer. I read the book, and yes.

Third problem: why were certain things kept a secret from the reader when everything was told in the first person? It wasn't interesting to have the lawyer keep his need for a guide dog secret from the *reader*...we were supposed to be reading from his point of view! If I'm inside his head, why don't I know the reason? Same thing with all the secrets of Anna and Kate, or what Jesse liked to do in his free time. It wasn't like the story was unfolding to the reader. Things were alluded to, mentioned, but left unanswered. That's a cheat. If you want to keep things a secret, stick with one character's 1st person POV...then all the other characters' internal motivations and secrets can remain a hidden for as long as you'd like without damaging the structure of the book.

Fourth problem: Jesse. The character was completely flat for me, and what a cliche. It was kind of like a preacher's daughter who is a bad girl. Once again, was his way of acting out supposed to be a surprise? It was only surprising that something that trite would be in such a popular book.

Fifth problem: The topic of this story (a girl who sues to gain medical independence at the expense of her dying sister) is just dying, if you'll excuse the pun, to pull at the heartstrings. Number of tears cried during this book: Zero. Sorry, I cry a lot while reading, but this book just made me angry at how badly it was done.

My Sister's Keeper made me want rewrite it the RIGHT way. I mean, the story idea is phenomenal. I haven't felt so strongly annoyed about something like this since Star Wars: Episode One came out. Yes, that pissed me off, too, in a way that made me want to redo it correctly instead of just pretend it never existed.

But, I didn't fan-wank a new Episode One, and I won't rewrite My Sister's Keeper. But I will get it off my bookshelf.

Anyone who read My Sister's Keeper, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Random Unrelated Thought: I did go workout today, and left the boys in the gym daycare for the first time. Well, I got back about forty minutes later, and they were both hysterically crying. I don't know what happened. They go to a drop off playgroup once a week and do fine. I took them to the gym daycare once and stayed with them to make sure they were okay. I dropped them off today and played for a few minutes before letting them know I was leaving and would be back soon.

I feel so guilty. I'll give it another try, but this daycare is really subpar. The facility is nice, but there are way too many kids for the number of adults in the room. Mine were not the only children crying, and there just weren't enough daycare providers to comfort them all. I'm upset because we paid extra to join the "nice" gym mostly because of the daycare option so I'd be able to workout. If I can't leave them there, I can't workout.

If I can't workout, I can't justify my breakfast of chocolate chips. Just kidding. For the record, I had eggs this morning. Chocolate would have been better.