My impatience stems from the fact that well…  I’m fairly impatient to begin with, I’m in pain, and have very little in the way of distractions currently.  As my sister-in-law so aptly put it: everyday seems like groundhog day in the last few weeks of pregnancy.  I go to work, pick up McClain, lay around nursing my back and waiting for Patrick to get home, do the night routine, do homework, go to bed and start over.

Speaking of sister-in-law I am an AUNT times two!!!  WoooWhoo!  (Am I jealous she already had her baby?  Oh you better believe that shit!  Though she was always supposed to go a few weeks ahead of me.)

Anyway, lack of creative exploits has created a general sense of malaise and laziness.  I can’t even be bothered to put together an inspiring blog post.

Oh well, just a couple more weeks and we can welcome Willis 2.0 and perhaps I can start to feel like myself again.  Well, a sleepy-self full of hormones… but you get the picture.

Tow Mater the Tractor Tipper

Cars

RMV Rating: No Dirty Diapers

Yeah, it’s been a few years since Cars came out, but with McClain’s obsession with HotWheels and all other things car, we thought we’d watch it with him. And let me tell you, it did not disappoint. I’m not sure where they got those cars that had eyes and could talk, but wherever they found them, they did a great job.

The plot, as you might expect, is pretty straightforward. Hotshot rookie car running for the “Piston Cup” must race in one final race to determine who wins the cup. On the way to the race in California, he gets lost and eventually pulled over in Radiator Springs. There he has to repave the road he destroyed before he can leave. Then there’s Tow Mater. And a love interest. And some nostalgia. You know the rest of the story.

The movie was cute, and while it was plainly obvious from about the 10-minute mark where the movie was going, it was still a fun watch. There was enough speed and action to keep it going through most of the movie, and of course Tow Mater added some nice little humor to the whole show. The movie had a good number of car puns and funny racing references so that those who know a little about racing could smile. And of course, McClain watched the whole thing. We split it up into two different nights, but he was captivated the whole way through.

All three of us would highly recommend this movie. This is the first one of 2012. Who cares if it’s 6 years old?!?

I admit, this week wasn’t the most original in terms of our discussions of American life, but we did manage to come up with a few conversation nuggets to hopefully add to your reading pleasure. One of the funnest things that has been happening for the last few weeks is that McClain is learning a whole lot of new words, which is really fascinating, and a lot of times, really funny. So as we continue to spread our wisdom on the blog, we’ll be adding some of McClain’s nuggets to the conversations. Of course, most of his expressions are only one or two words, but with the amount of jibberjabbing that he’s doing, we’re sure that will be changing very soon. Anyways, here you go!

*Sunday Morning about 10:30am*

Brianna: “Do you wan to go to the grocery store after breakfast. We can get everything we need for the week except beer.”

Patrick: *Pause* “Mmmmm, let’s wait until this afternoon.”

Brianna: “Wow, there’s lots of cool place to see in America”

Patrick: “Problem is they’re full of Americans.”

Brianna: “McClain has a new pet rock. I used to have a pet rock when I was little.”

Patrick: “McClain, what’s your pet rock’s name?

McClain: *No Answer*

Patrick: “You should name it Dwayne Johnson.”

Patrick: “McClain, what does green mean?”

McClain: “Go!”

Patrick: “Good job. What does red mean?”

McClain: “Stop!”

Patrick: “Excellent! Now what does yellow mean?”

McClain: *No answer*

Patrick: “Yellow means drive faster. The light’s about to change and you don’t want to get stuck.”

Brianna: “Patrick!”

McClain’s favorite phrases of the week (some of these are holdovers from previous weeks/months):

“Light!”

“Choo-choo!”

“Ew, Gross!”

“Bay-bee!”

This is the scene outside our house right now

In light of Facebook’s IPO this week, Brianna and myself have decided that now is the best time to finally make RMV public. So get ready, because Monday, we’re going to put out the opportunity for you to invest in Real Mountain Values and join us on this awesome ride that we’ve created. This IPO will generate not only some much-needed capital for some of the awesome projects we’ve got planned in the near future, it will, just like Facebook, literally create hundreds of millionaires overnight. Well, actually probably not. But those are just minor details.

Right now, we’ve planned on selling about 750 million shares of RMV (RMV on NYSE), most of which will of course, belong to us. As it is written up right now, I will receive 345 million shares, Brianna will get 32, and the rest will be for sale on Monday. Right now, we’re looking at probably about $89 per share, which while still being a bit behind some others like Apple and Exxon, should be a pretty fair value. At $89 dollars a share, that means that I will be worth approximately $30,705,000,000. Of course, this isn’t quite up to Bill Gates’ level (yet), but I feel there needs to be some goals left in life, so why not? BTW, if you’re wondering, Brianna’s net worth will be approximately $2,848. Not too shabby, if I do say so my self. She’s gonna have to be my sugar momma I guess.

Anyways, I hope you all are looking to diversify your portfolios soon. You won’t want to miss this opportunity to invest in one of the most innovative, efficient, and unique companies to ever hit the market. I don’t want you second-guessing yourself when all 750 million shares of RMV are bought up from the likes of Murdoch, Soros and Buffet. Get in on the action now!

Sure I did a couple of crafts you can read about here and here. And one that never even made it to posting (in the drafts file) but the plan was to show a comprehensive guide to low movement crafts. So what have I been doing instead of my challenge?

Pretty much nothing other than thinking, homework, and hanging out with my husband and son. Maybe, just maybe, that was what my impossibilities challenge should have been about the whole time. Trying to “Imagine” myself just taking it easy, relaxing, and being in the moment.

If you don’t know the “back”-story (bad pun intended) basically my unborn baby is pressing on my spine causing excruciating pain. Most days it is all I can do to make it to work and back home, and the only advice given from the doctors is lay down and relax as much as possible. Being the non-relaxing type my first weekend of couch laying was tremendously boring, but as the month has progressed I realized how lucky I am.  I have gotten to spend so much quality time with McClain. He gets on the bed or couch with me, runs his cars all over, talks in his sing-song language, plays with my hair, and generally makes himself at home where ever I am located.  As I simply lay and watch him play I have had time to enjoy these last few moments of just the three of us.  In a few short weeks he’ll be a brother and from that point on we’ll be a family of four.

Nothing like this staring you in the eyes to make the time pass all to fast.

These are the days I wouldn’t be able to get back.  Knowing myself, I would have spent the time trying to create the nursery, or clean the shelves, or basically anything other than just sit and watch my son if I physically had been able to.  Instead I have been given the gift of stillness.  Time to think about what matters, make plans for the future, and enjoy the present.  Patrick has always been better at taking in the moment, and I see more why as we sit side by side in the Sun watching McClain run about the yard.

Certainly, I won’t be spending the rest of eternity doing nothing.  In fact the new baby has dropped some giving me a little respite in the chronic pain and I already tried to take McClain shoe shopping.   Which left me limping and laying the rest of the weekend so hopefully I learned a lesson there as well.  So clearly as soon as I can; I will get back to “doing”.  BUT I hope I can remember that perfection isn’t necessary and take a few moments to just sit and relax.

So I failed on making wonderful crafts but I learned an impossible lesson: That sometimes just “being” is the best part of “doing”.

So here we are. The first of hopefully many Netflix movies reviews that will hopefully not only shed some light on the kind of crap we like to rent, but will hopefully direct you to see or (more likely) not see in the future. Since we have a two-year-old and have another kiddo on the way in a few weeks, we’re going to use the number of dirty diapers as our rating system theme. In this system, the higher the number of dirty diapers (up to 5), the worse the movie. If there are no dirty diapers, the movie was kick-ass; for example, Spaceballs. No diapers. On the other hand, a movie such as ‘Anaconda’ would get five dirty diapers.

Just so you know here’s the tale of the tape: We watch our movies on a 1080p 42″ Sharp Aquos HDTV with a Sony blu-ray player. Sound is through a Yamaha soundbar and powered subwoofer which gives us plenty of pop if we want it. So really, we are judging on the basis of the movie, and not the peripherals.

So here we go!

It's green. What more can you say?

Green Lantern

4 Dirty Diapers

When the opening sequence began, Brianna looked up from her homework and said, “This movie’s going to be shit.” Then she went back to her homework. And that’s all we really need to say about this movie. While I’m sure Brianna enjoyed looking at Ryan Reynolds for an hour and 45 minutes, that’s was about all the satisfaction we got out of it. Here’s the plotline:

Aliens are fighting in space. Good alien gets mortally wounded, crash lands on earth and gives a candy-machine ring to Ryan Reynolds, who flies around alot. Bad alien tries to kill him, gets sucked into the sun, and everyone is happy. While in reality there is more to the plot than this, it’s really not much more. One question I did have, well, actually there’s two. First, there’s this “evil” doctor guy who ends up becoming the minion of the evil alien. I’m not really sure what his true role in the movie as whole was, other than the overused “weird-looking guy turns into a nasty, vile-looking minion villain during the course of the movie” schtick. The second question, well, it’s not really a question, but it is, was that Tim Robbins was actually in this movie. Let me repeat, Tim Robbins was in this movie! Really, what the hey?!? He must’ve been smoking some really baaaad stuff when he signed that contract.

While the Green Lantern’s budget was somewhere in the neighborhood of $200 million, the director and producers probably thought that any sort of character development would have put the budget over the edge, so they neglected that portion of the movie.

The special effects were pretty good in some parts, but then reverted to “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” in others.

Overall, Green Lantern was a pretty craptastic movie. Really, the only reason why this movie didn’t get 5 dirty diapers is the fact that green is my favorite color, and there was lots of that.

In honor of one of Brianna’s current favorite videos on the web, it is my duty to do a “Sh*t Brianna Never Says” list for you. I’m sorry my video-making skills are too substandard to actually make a real video, so you’ll just have to bear with me and read the list.

“I love when you fart”

“Yes! More cat puke!”

“That’s okay McClain. I never want you to tell me when you have a dirty diaper”

“Man. This ‘Walking Dead’ show sucks”

“No honey, you do too much work around the house already”

“Can you burp for me again please?”

“Today I didn’t have a single stupid question at work”

“Leave your socks there, I don’t mind”

“I miss all the political ads on TV”

“DIY projects are so much easier in real life than on TV”

“Your morning breath smells fantastic”

“God I wish I could be Lindsay Lohan”

“Patrick, I think we need to start cutting back our spending”

“I wish I could be pregnant forever”

“I know where my phone is”

“I know where my keys are”

“Duke is a great team”

“Laundry is so underrated”

“I wish we got more junk mail”

“Country music sounds soooo different”

“I know exactly what my hair is doing this morning”

“McClain, don’t eat your vegetables”

“Cat hair looks so good all over my clothes”

“I just love when you leave your wrappers next to the chair”

“We need more cats”

“I am too skinny”

“Patrick, I wish you played the Wii more”

“No, you don’t have to take me out on a date”

“People drive waaaay too slowly on this street”

“I wish you weren’t so handy around the house, Patrick”

“There are not enough sports on TV”

“Man, that paper mill smells goooooooooooood”

“Let’s keep this mattress forever”

“I can’t wait to go back to work tomorrow”

“Our house is perfect just the way it is”

I’m not sure what exactly possessed me to take 15 hours of college credit, online, in the same semester I am having our second child.  Right…  What the hell do I think I am?  Superwoman?

So far the work itself hasn’t been horrifically challenging simply because it is the first part of the semester where you do review or learn basics. BUT (and this is a big but) online classes just take a hell of a lot longer to complete and keep organized.  I am a much bigger fan of hybrid (half online-half classroom) or traditional classroom format.  The online leaves me with a constant nagging feeling that I have forgotten to do something.

Instead of crafting something pretty I have been trying to craft ahead in my homework.  Of course all this work is my fault because I wanted to “change careers” and “find myself” *sigh*.  Should have figured that crap out with the BA the first time around.

Anyway, I’m going to count all this work as a couch craft!  In fact here is a pretty screenshot of my very basic inventory calculator I am learning to make in Intro to Programming:

Eat you heart’s out ladies!  This is WAAAYYY better than any silly doll clothes. (Insert Sarcasm Here)

Hopefully, now that I am pretty caught up I’ll have sometime for crafting this week.  Until then back to code!

Want to see what people, who have it together, and are actually doing the Impossibilities Challenge are up to?  Then Click Here!

Yes, there is a desperate shortage of masculinity on this website. But I'm aiming to fix that. Welcome to Manterest.com

Pinterest. Yes, you’ve all heard about it. It’s the next new craze to hit the outerwebs. Apparently with Pinterest, you can go to any website and if you like an image or the site, you can “pin” it to your “board” on your pinterest account. You can then look at this image again and/or share it with people that you know and people that you don’t know. And then it can be shared again, and again, and again. Basically, it’s the pictorial version of YouTube.

Well, after hearing Brianna chatter about Pinterest for the past 6 months or so, I’ve decided to join and see what all the crap’s about. And all I can say is, OMG!! I think that I must be the first man to ever join Pinterest. I have never seen so much girly stuff in my life. “Oooh, look a cupcake that says “I Love You” in pink frosting” or a picture of a butterfly tattooed on the back of some girls’ back. Man, I have NEVER seen one of those before. Or a picture of a purple shoe. Yep, that’s it. A purple shoe.  Or wedding dresses. So many wedding dress photos. C’mon ladies! I know you can do better than that.

After a little searching, I did manage to find a few photos of boobs here and there. But even that’s not all that exciting because most of the comments on these photos talk about the girls’ hair, not their other assets.  So what’s a guy to do? Well, I’ve decided I’m going to trademark “Manterest” and create a website for stuff for guys to look at.

Not only will that include boobs, but a host of other categories as well. You want beer? We’ll show you beer. Trying to find power tools? We’ll have tools. Cars? Of course. Hot women, boobs, tools and cars together? Absolutely.  We’ll show you images of what you want to see, not what your girlfriend/significant other thinks is “cute”. But more than showing those and other awesome categories, Manterest in fact, will also ban girly images and ideas from its site. No, you won’t find anything to do with “puppy love” or “flower angels”. “Diets” will be instantly deleted as will “fat chicks”, “tube tops” and “Valentine Day’s Presents”.

In reality, Pinterest is actually pretty interesting (pun intended, haha!) but it is still a bit on the girly side of the masculinity spectrum. Where’s the manly stuff? There’s 46,000 images of high heels but only 10 pictures of “homebrew”. (Really. Go ahead, look it up.)  But…I can honestly say that I’m happy I joined. Looking at completely random images for hours on end has never been so easy!

Patrick assisting with swatch selection.

Yes, I am cursed blessed with a husband that has real, valid, opinions as to our home decor.  Patrick, may not blog about crafts and decor but he sure as hell is involved in the decision making.  So we work together, with only a minimum amount of grumbling from me.  Currently, we’re picking out paint colors to use after the baby is born.  I thought I would share our process for choosing paint that is realitively painless and reliably chooses a color we are both happy with.

Step 1: Choose a brand of paint with a curated bank of colors

I know the wall of Valspar paint at Lowes is so freaking beautiful, but you aren’t doing yourself any favors by starting with that many color choices.  Pick a brand of paint that has a smaller selection with large color cards or paint chips.  It doesn’t matter if you intend to use Behr, Valspar, or another brand in the end; just start with a smaller selection.  Psychological studies show while humans like choices we get overwhelmed when given too many.  9,000 shades of orange is to many for anyone.

Step 2: Pull out every card that speaks to you

Now I’m not saying take home swatches for no reason.  In fact those craft projects that use paint chips kind of piss me off.  Those cards cost money for someone (probably the consumer, i.e. me), but  to make the best choice you’ll want 6-10 shades in the color you are considering.

Step 3: Lay the cards out on a neutral surface under bright lights

Decide at that point if you are going for “warm” shades (reds, yellows, oranges) or “cool” shades (blues, greens).  Discard any of the chips that fall under the wrong category.  If you think your chip doesn’t fall under one of the other think again.  Even a red paint chip will either have more blue (leaning toward purple) or more orange.  I always consider, “Do I want warm and cozy feeling or cool and relaxed.”  Your aiming to narrow the selections down to 4 or 5 per room.

Step 4: Take your color cards and tape them along the a wall

Not the most exciting colors but you can see how we immediately removed one of the choices for being too "green" once we hung them on the wall. My that is a fine looking switch-plate cover (sarcasm).

The next two steps are going to be the longest part of the process.  You are going to need to leave the swatches taped to the wall all day.  It is super important to look at them in the morning, afternoon, evening, under natural, and artificial light.  As the day progresses if you find it looks horrible under a lighting condition rip that paint chip off the wall.  The goal is to have two or three after 24 hours that you both like and agree upon.  I have to reiterate this: look at it under every single lighting condition.  For example, I thought we had a clear winner in a greige (grey-beige) for the bedroom until it got dark out.  What went from a warm grey-beige all day turned eggplant colored at night and as purple as Prince’s rain under the overhead lighting.

Step 5: Spend the money and get test pots of paint

Since you have already narrowed each room down to one or two colors then you will not need to many test pots of paint.    If you are doing a bunch of rooms and feel a little embarrassed about getting 9 paint testers then just make sure to go at a less busy time (8 on a Sunday morning?  Trust me I hate asking for 9 colors at a time but it is worth it).  If you are using a different brand of paint than the color cards you selected I find the easiest thing to do is go over to the brand of choice color card area and find the closest match.  Certainly the store can match colors for you but there is a much better chance that the test pot will be slightly different than the final gallon if you don’t use a pre-coded mix.  Ask at the paint counter for test pots even if the paint area comes with tiny testers.  The test pots the mixed on site are usually larger, only slightly more expensive, and more likely to match your final selected color.

Step 6:  Paint large sections of the test colors

Yes there are more than 3 selections. Do as I say and not as I do.

I grab a small pack of cheap sponge brushes when I am at a craft store to keep on hand for projects just like this.  Then I can quickly paint a large (at least 1ft X 1ft) area on a test wall and toss the brush when done. Though, I always have eco-guilt when I discard so casually.  If I have areas that get really different amounts of light then I might paint swatches on two walls.  It only takes a second to run primer over the unused choice.  Then live with the paint swatches at least 24 hours again to see all the lighting conditions.  I am pretty lazy so mine usually stay up for quite a few weeks days.

Voila you have a paint winner!  While the prep work of choosing a color in this method takes more time and a little cash, it is a hell of a lot better than repainting a room or throwing out a can of paint because the color wasn’t good once you got it on the walls.