Peg-A-Leg: October 2008

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

I've been tagged!

My lovely sister Janet tagged me with The 8's tag. About a week and a half ago, actually. She's probably been wondering if I'd ever get to it! Here goes:

8 t.v show's I like to watch (online, though. We never actually watch them when they are on tv)
1. Bones
2. Heroes
3. The Sarah Connor Chronicles
4. Um... that's pretty much it. And I can't say I've been loving those three lately, either.
5.
6.
7.
8.

8 Things that happened yesterday
1. I spent the morning doing homework.
2. I went to school, then ditched early because my 2nd teacher was sick. Yipee!
3. I went to lunch with Lance and had a Chinese quesadilla.
4. I finished writing a paper for school EARLY. By a day and a half, even! Can you believe it? I didn't let the defeated perfectionist in me procrastinate. Well, at least not on that paper...
5. I took Kyle to scouts
6. I drove 15 minutes to Alecia's cheer practice, only to find out it had been canceled.
7. I was ornery. That made my kids ornery. Which made me ornery. And that made my kids ornery... not a good cycle.
8. I decided 1/3 of the way through reading my kids Fablehaven 3 that Brandon Mull has become a much better writer.

8 of my favorite places to eat
1. Olive Garden
2. P F Changs
3. Kneaders
4. Brick Oven
5. Outback
6. At any function Tammy plans the food for
7. Pizzeria 712, I'm sure (although I haven't been there yet)
8. At Kristine's, during Girls Night

8 things I am looking forward to:
1. Finishing Kyle's Halloween costume
2. Getting Christmas shopping done (hopefully) early.
3. Having a few moments to read The Hero of Ages.
4. NEVER taking two writing classes in the same semester again
5. Figuring out what to write my "creative non-fiction" paper on, then getting it written before class tomorrow.
6. November 5th, the end of campaigning!
7. Writing again. It's been so long since I've gotten a writing high, I'm starting to wonder if I still can.
8. Thanksgiving! And then basking in the Christmas season.

8 things on my wish list
1. An ipod
2. A clean fridge
3. Deep sleep until I'm no longer tired (‘cuz I hear that helps with orneryness :))
4. To have whatever is causing my check engine light to come on in my car be fixed, without me having to give up my car to have it done.
5. A new kitchen floor.
6. A sparkling clean house, organized in a way that would even put Erin in speechless awe.
7. My kids saying nothing but sweet and loveable things to one another, and being blissfully happy whenever they are in each other's presence.
8. A root beer float.

8 people I tag
Now this puts me in quite a quandary. I am torn, because I LOVE to hear these things about other people, but I know people don't always love being tagged. So, here's my compromise. I tag everyone who is willing. If you don't like to be tagged, you can walk away feeling completely un-tagged and guilt free. If you'd like to feel tagged, then I tag you!

Friday, October 24, 2008

We Adopted!

Remember how we said goodbye to poor, sick Mr. Ponderosa a few months back?

He just left such a hole in our lives, we had to fill that hole with something! The grandparent adoption program was out, so we opted for adopting a child. I'd like to introduce you to our tyke, October Glory Red Maple. He has already become well rooted amongst our family of growing things. He seems to really be flourishing in his new digs!

He's just a kid now, but when he is older (and presumably in October), this is what he will look like:

Pretty, huh? I first found him at a local nursery for $200. Yikes! And, after the passage of some time, I had resigned myself to paying that much. Then, in an uncharacteristic (for me) bout of Erinesque Shopping Prowess*, I only had to shell out a cool $4.76! Happy day!

I still miss Mr. Ponderosa, though. The very first freezing temps of the year did this to my plants:

I REALLY appreciate now how many of those first frosts that Mr. Ponderosa protected my plants from!

*Erinesque Shopping Prowess: [er-in-esk shop-ing prou-is]

-noun

1. An uncanny, innate ability to be drawn, as if by an unseen power, to incredible deals on the exact products and / or services one is in need of. Although there have been many instances of this amazing feat, a few examples of this ability can be found HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, or HERE.

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Inspiring

Remember how I said that J Scott Savage was pretty dang cool? Well, he just moved up to pretty dang AWESOME! in my book (if you and me use a different scale, that's two notches above pretty dang cool). Here's why:

Kyle gets a little more excited about going to author events than your average 11 year old boy. Mostly because he plans on being an author. And not in a when-I-grow-up kind of way; in an as-soon-as-humanly-possible kind of way. So, he waited around until the line to sign books / posters was gone, then went to talk to Mr. JSS. Kyle told him that he was writing a book, and that he had his own writing blog. JSS told him that he thought that was very cool, and asked Kyle to email him his blog address, and he would check it out.

On the way home, Kyle said that when he gets his first book published, in the acknowledgements section, he was going to thank JSS for "being inspiring." About 1.5 seconds after we walked in the front door, Kyle was on his computer, emailing JSS.

The very next day, Kyle got a comment from JSS on his blog! He was so excited to be validated / encouraged by an actual author. He is still floating around on the high from that, and probably will be for some time. If you see Kyle out and about, ask him about it-- you'll likely see his enthusiasm level immediately raise tenfold. What a great thing for that author to do! Inspiring, indeed.

You can check out Kyle's blog HERE. Just click on the comments for "What the areas are like...." and you can see the comment JSS left for him.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

J Scott Savage Visit

Tonight, we got to do one of my very favorite things-- hang out with an author! Just how far did I have to drive to get this privilege, do you ask? Only to the church! How cool is that? J. Scott Savage (author of Far World, found right now in your local bookstore :-)) came to our ward's pack meeting. How cool is he? I'll answer that with a "pretty dang."

Anyway, he did some magic tricks, and Alecia got to be one of his helpers! She was pretty excited about that. It was impressive that she volunteered, given the fact that he prefaced the request for volunteers with a "but you have to be willing to be embarrassed," and she took that to mean "I'm going to do something that will make your pants all wet." Turns out she wasn't embarrassed at all, just very excited.

I'm very excited to read the book to them. There's nothing like being a kid and reading a book when you have met the author of said book. When it was all done, he signed posters for the kids, and signed our book. It was a lot of fun! We even got to be first in line to get our stuff signed. (That was WAY cooler than the 2 1/2 hours we waited on Tuesday to get Brandon Sanderson to sign our books!) I think I probably owe Amber a tasty homemade treat for lining this "treat" up for us!