"I am no bird; and no net ensnares me..."

Okay, I need your help! Please disregard the annoying ads. I may be moving to a new blog site soon.

Anyway, I just got a new pair of Converse/Chuck Taylors/Chuckie-Ts (my latest favorite name for them, as heard on the show Castle :P). They are grey (gray) and lovely. I got them for my trip to the UK. See the thing is I love chucks, I've only owned 3 pairs but I wear them till they are falling to bits and I form quite an attachment to them and, as with most things I form an attachment to (car, camera, computer, future pets, hiking boots) I like to name them (respectively, Action, Benjamin, Ty Cobb, Rumples McTavish, Brad and Roger). My first pair--bright green low tops were named Nick and Lindsey after 2 characters from the awesome-but-short-lived show Freaks and Geeks. My second pair were black hightops with blue interior/stitching named Dan and Casey after 2 characters from the also-awesome-but-short-lived show Sports Night. So now you have a little background into how much thought I put into these names..so here are some ideas I have on what I should christen this new pair. I think it should be something British in honor of my trip. Specifically something Doctor Who-ish, especially because The 10th Doctor is pretty iconic in his wearing of chucks. But I don't know if I can, in all good faith, name my shoe The Doctor... So here are some choices:

Doctor Who:
Rose and Donna (my favorite companions)
David and Christopher (my favorite actors to play the Doctor)
Nine and Ten (my favorite, okay let's be truthful, my only Doctors)

any other ideas?

Edit:
Becky- Captain Jack and Rose
Nicola- Algernon and Bunbury (or something else fussy and very english) St. John?

R.I.P. John Hughes

Here is one of my favorite scenes from my favorite John Hughes movie Some Kind of Wonderful (which ended the way he wanted Pretty in Pink to end-- the best friend gets the girl, er guy in this case). In our (Holly and my) list of the best on screen kisses, this is pretty high up there.



So sad.

I'm getting in right under the wire here so here goes:

My mom being back home: She's been traveling with/visiting a lot of her family since the first week of July and I've really missed her. And with Becky's week in the hospital with her mom, I'm very grateful to have my own back home and healthy. :) Okay schmaltz over.

Weekend celebrations to come: This weekend I am seeing one of my best friends perform as Ulla in The Producers, seeing another best friends get married, and celebrating another's birthday at an Astros baseball game. So there is much celebrating to be had!

Talking to Jen/getting even more pumped up about the trip: Talked to Jen today and we discussed important things like, what to pack, and what books each of us are going to bring. Vital stuff.

Shopping for Robin's dorm: My baby sister is leaving for college and we're running around trying to get everything she'll need for her first year. It's so weird! :)

Rereading favorite parts of my favorite books: While we're on our trip, Jen and I have decided to make up alter-egos (elegant ladies) so we can doubly enjoy our trip, and we're going to journal as both ourselves and our alter-egos. When she asked me what my name was going to be I was reminded of Betsy and Tacy's imaginary lady's maids from the Betsy-Tacy books by Maud Hart Lovelace. So of course I had to pull out Betsy and the Great World and read my favorite parts, and then I had to drag myself away. So good. So good.

Drawing Basset Hounds: Well just one really. His name is David and he belongs to Holly, my college roommate, and her husband Alex. For one of her classes last semester she wrote a children's book about David and she wants me to illustrate it. Now, I am no where near talented enough for this endeavor but I'm looking forward to the challenge and I've already started sketching him from pictures I took the last time I saw him. The task will be made more difficult since they live in Missouri...

Packing for cold weather: So I've been planning in my head what clothes I'll take to UK and today when I talked to Jen she made it clear to me that it's not going to be hot there. So now I'm reevaluating my clothing choices. Less sundresses, more cardigans etc. It's hard to think that way since it was 101 outside today at 5pm..I believe the high today was 106?So 70 degree weather will be fantastic. I almost don't care if it rains the entire time :P Almost..


Things I don't love this Thursday: Something is UP on my blog. I now have ads? I'm sorry about that, wish they weren't there. I can't find the script for them in the code or I would delete them and can't find away to turn it off. As Holly (or Zaphod Beeblebrox) would say, Huma Kavula!

Good night all!
Sti

Starting this early so I don't get swept up in the day and forget, or rush myself.

This week started off with a funeral for the priest who baptized me and both sisters, Monsignor Braden. He was 93 and had had a lot of health problems but it was still a blow to realize he was gone. The Rosary/Vigil was Monday night and I held it together, only sobbing quietly twice when a few people talked about him. Tuesday morning at the Funeral I was much more at peace. I don't know if you've ever been to a Catholic funeral but I find them very comforting. There were more than 30 priests there and the church (which is fairly gigantic) was practically full. It was beautiful and that's one of the things I love today, people gathering together to celebrate a life well lived, and comforting each other in difficult times. During the Homily, the priest (Father T) was talking about living each day full etc. usual carpe diem stuff and he said "Life is today. Love is today." I love that and I think it's now at the top of list for Things I Might Get a Tattoo Of.

Then there was a disturbing little episode at work on Tuesday evening that I won't go into because it upsets me.

Let's see, things I love Thursday.

Storytime! During the school year I visit about 5 area daycares once a month for Outreach Storytimes. It's one of the only times I get to work with groups of really little kids, since I usually work with the tweens and teens. I love it! During the summer we only go once, since we're so busy here at the library and I really miss my little kiddos. I get a big rush when the kids remember me and the song I sing with them to start and end storytime. :) They are so sweet.

End of Summer!: This is our last week of summer programming here at the library. My last thigns are my end of summer parties on Friday and Saturday evening, which I'm looking forward to. Then I've got the first 2 weeks of August to get all of my fall programs planned and printed out before I leave for the UK!

Getting off work early, again: Yup. :)

Seeing Katie again so soon: My middle sister Katie lives in New Braunfels but she came into town last week to have her wisdom teeth removed (ouch :/) and she came back yesterday for a follow up appointment, and the four of us (dad, Katie, Robin, and I) went to dinner at Ellie's a local family-run Greek restaraunt that has the most amazing food. It was a good night, then we watched tv all night. Love.

Jonathan Coulton: This is not a new thing. But I just love this guy. Especially this song:

I think it is so beautiful.

DFTBA you guys,
Sti

This is going to be a quick one because after the longest day ever of complaining about it being the Longest Day Ever I realized I could've been spending my downtime writing today's blog. But of course I spent it complaining and now it's almost time to go. So, I'm going to just write a quick list of things I love today. If you have any interest in any of those topics I could possibly write a longer post at some indeterminate point in the future to talk about said topic in more detail. Okay, here we go:

• BEDA Buddies
• ARCs of good- scratch that GREAT- books
• reading instead of watching tv
• baking cakes at 10pm
• Philadelphia
• having my honor defended
• people complimenting my shoes
• having 'fans'
• cake decorating class
• hanging out with Eileen and Mike (aka M & E)
• seeing my sister even though she's in lots of pain (wisdom teeth :/)
• the finale of Here Come the Newlyweds
• a good though bit unnerving dream
• finally having a conversation on the phone with my mom
• the best hamburger ever
• the Onion
• and leaving work early :D

Which I'm about to do, leave early that is, so it's off to Cake Decorating class for me. We're going to create some creepy clowns I think. And Autumn I will try to finish Fire and get it in the mail to you tomorrow!

DFTBA,
Sti

Let's see, gotta make this quick since things are about to get crazy in here. Nothing too spectacular this week but some nice, fun things

Not waiting in lines at Harry Potter premieres: So we have this theater called Star Cinema Grill, I think they're a chain, you know the kind that sells drinks and food with a goofy pun-tastic names like Nachos Libre and Hawaii Five-o Pizza. When we showed up at 10:30 expecting to get in a line, they took our tickets and told us to go on in and pick a theater, we sat right down, ordered junk food (fried pickles! wings! pizza!) and settled in till the movie. Which was awesome! Probably my favorite of the series so far, though now I want to rewatch them all.

Throwing parties for my kiddos at the library: Last night, with the help of my lovely Teen Advisory Group, I threw a Harry Potter party to celebrate the movie coming out. I'm calling it a hit, we had 50 people total. We ate snacks (the potion Dumbledore has to drink in Half Blood Prince, cockroach clusters, Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, brownies etc.), hung out in a few classes and did some crafts. The classes represented were Charms-(we made lucky charms), Care of Magical Creatures (made funny little animals), Transfiguration (masks) and the most popular Defense Against the Dark Arts (flinging rubber bands at a Death Eater, played good-naturedly by Taylor). Judging from the volume of the kids, they had a good time.

*Update* it's now Friday and I'm grateful that I get to leave soon! And tomorrow I jet off for Philly, but tonight I have to pack and clean the kitchen because it's gross.

Did I tell you about my cake decorating class? I'm taking one with my sister, yesterday after several epic fails we made it to class and together iced a guitar shaped cake. It was awesome, and tasty. Also our hands hurt afterward.

Sorry I keep walking away from this blog spending time looking at other tabs...I just took a little thing to see what celebrities I look most like. Just not satisfied. First I got Jodie Sweeten aka Stephanie from Full House. What? Now the best one I'm getting is Lucille Ball. And now I got boys! BOYS! Unacceptable. I am glad it is not Thursday because I did not love that. :P

Okay, we're about to close then Chinese food with dad and Robin and packing for Philly. Did I mention I'm going to Philly this weekend? I am. Just for a party, because that's how I roll. Have a great weekend all!

Well, Becky and Nicola posted today so of course I had to follow suit. This weekend my good friend Jen came to visit and we (mostly her) laid out our itinerary for our UK trip next month! We decided to drop the Wales portion so we could spend more time in Dublin and Scotland (planning on Glasgow, Nicola!) Here it is so far:

August 17, leave Houston
Aug. 18 arrive London
August 19-22 In London
Aug. 23 day trip to Winchester/Chawton area to see JaneAusten's house
Aug. 24 fly to Dublin
Aug. 24-26 in Dubln
Aug. 26 fly to Edinburgh
Aug. 27-29 Edinburgh and probably Glasgow for a day
Aug. 30 fly back to London by way of Dublin
Aug. 31 fly back to Houston

We are so excited!!!! Among our plans are at least 3 pub crawls, and lots of walking, some Doctor Who nerdiness, and seeing lovely friends! And the Sherlock Holmes museum. Any more ideas for cheap/fun things to do?