1. So my children both have October birthdays (Alex on the 4th and Miranda on the 30th). And my parents are here this weekend to house hunt for a place to move into next month. So I thought, let's just invite the rest of the family over for snacks and cake. But when you say "birthday party" to Miranda, she imagines it in Olivia terms. Balloons, every present she's ever wanted or dreamed of, cake and ice cream, prizes, games, crafts, moon bounce--the works. Well, thanks to my mother, there will be a craft. I have made a cake and Mimi is making a cake so there will be enough for everybody. I may pick up enough balloons for each child to take one home. (I hate, hate, hate party bags and refuse to make them.) We will have all kinds of appetizers to munch on, even healthy ones, and tea and diet soda to drink, before we fall, like ravening wolves, upon the chocolate cakes. But that's it.
Now, you mention to my mother, "We're going to be having a few people over for the party" and she wants to clean up every cluttered corner in the house and yard. Now, in her defense, all the cleaning that we've done together has been great and our place is the better for it, but I had been automatically ignoring all those piles for so long that it was a little shock to my system to look at them in the face again, as it were. There is still a pile in my bedroom and I have yet to tackle the filing of school papers that I've been avoiding for almost 6 months now, but the rest of the house looks tremendously better.
2. Since my mother is here, we qualified for free babysitting last night and so Marshall and I were able to meet our friend at the movies and see Moneyball, which we both enjoyed. Even though the Phillies lost last week and are out of the running for the World Series, I have begun watching the Ken Burns' series of Baseball and while it is a little slow and dry, it is informative. Since I've made it to 1920, I now have a much better grasp of the 8 Men Out scandal.
3. 2 new books came in the mail for me this week: Richard Castle's Heat Rises, which I read in one sitting on Tuesday night when Marshall was at a meeting at church and my mother was looking over some realty options, and Rick Riordan's Son of Neptune. I haven't read The Lost Hero yet; it's been sitting on my shelf gathering dust for six months because I hate cliffhangers. I was able to read the whole Percy Jackson series in one fell swoop and have hated waiting between books on Riordan's excellent Egyptian series, so I've decided to wait to start his new Heroes of Olympus books. Or life just got busy. Richard Castle's books are fun fluff to pick up, read, and pass along to my sister-in-law. I should be able to get it in the mail to her on Monday.
4. DVR Update: I decided to stop picking up A Gifted Man because I just didn't have the time to watch it and even though it stars 3 actors I like very much (Patrick Wilson, Jennifer Ehle and Margo Martindale), I couldn't muster interest or energy even to watch the pilot, so it went overboard. So did Ringer. I am a huge SMG fan because I am a huge Buffy fan, but her new show is all about lying to the people you care about and even with its great cast of actors, it's not keeping my interest. I'm still behind on a whole stack of shows, which is what happens when your husband builds you a DVR with almost infinite amounts of space.
5. The Avengers trailer was released this week! This might be the trailer I watch once a week until the movie comes out, like I did with Star Trek. Sigh.
6. Surely I did other useful things this week. Wrote some cards. Enjoyed my mother's company. Cleaned. That seems to be about it.
7. Bathsheba's Lament. Order it. Read it. Review it. Hooray!
And here's Jen.
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