Becka's Babble

Ramblings of a Romance Writer

Saturday, July 29, 2006

My Poor Baby

So my kids have been looking forward to a sleepover at their aunt's house down in Salem, about 50 miles away from where we live. They've been bouncing off the walls, because today is the day my sister is coming to pick them up.

But last night, Miriam, my second oldest girl, began puking. I don't know what it is with my kids and puking lately, but it was pretty gnarly. One of those episodes where I was thankful I have two washers and dryers, if you know what I mean. And ever since then, she's been puking up nothing, the poor dear.

So, I had to call my sister and tell her that Miriam couldn't come. Miriam is disappointed, but she's at that point that she'd rather be in bed than not be in bed. You know the feeling, you're so sick you don't want to move.

But I've talked with my sis, and she says she'll still come to get Hannah for the sleepover, and maybe sometime in the future, perhaps August, she'll have a sleepover just for Miriam. I really hope so, because poor Miriam already has the middle child syndrome. Even though she's second born out of four, she's the middle girl, and she has it bad. She sees Hannah get to do things first, and Monie gets by on her cuteness alone. LOL Miriam is a beautiful girl, but she gets melancholy some times. So I want to do something special for her today.

I had planned on taking my two younger kids out to ice cream and a movie to make them feel better that they weren't going to the sleepover, but I don't think I can do that now with one of the kids pukey. Therefore, we're resigned to watch movies all day. And for my kids, I think that will be a pretty great day.

And I hope Miriam won't feel left out, although, I'm not sure how much Mommy can actually influence her on this. I have a feeling she's going to be my moody teen, and she's only 6. **sigh** :(

~~Becka

Friday, July 28, 2006

I Can Hear The Angels Singing From On High

Well since I've lost about 30 pounds, and my pants (which were once pretty tight on me) were getting loose, I decided to dig deeper into the recesses of my closet. Along with the Epic Cob Webs, Giant Moths, and The Swirling Vortex to Hell, I found a pair of pants I haven't been able to fit into for about three years. I decided "What the heck?"

So I put them on, and amazingly, they fit! And I didn't have to lay down on the bed before I zipped them up!! :D

This has made my day, as I'm sure you well imagine. Losing the weight, I'm pretty sure I went down two pants sizes. Being my fattest, I refused to buy a bigger sized pair of pants, so I was always stuffing myself into the ones I had. LOL But as I lost the weight, the pants started to fit again, until the point they were actually loose.

I haven't tried any of my other pants in the deep, dark recesses of the closet, mainly because I'm scared I might not fit into those other ones. That, and I'm terrified I'll find Beelzebub himself holding the pants on a hanger, while eating a luscious, German chocolate cake (the whole cake). LOL

But I've noticed that food isn't that important to me anymore. I used to think about it a lot, about what yummy thing I was going to eat, and now... **shrugs** it just doesn't matter. If I eat, I eat. If I don't, I don't. No big. I actually don't get ravenously hungry like I used to. Maybe my metabolizm is changing.

Here's hopin'.

~~Becka

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Does Anyone Actually Read This Thing?

Raise your hand if you're a reader of Becka's Babble. Post a comment to let me know. I have no idea if people actually come here and read my ramblings. I'm just curious.

Oh, and I've lost 30 lbs. since the end of March on Weight Watchers. Woohoo! My pants fit again! Hallelujah!

:D

~~Becka

Sunday, July 23, 2006

Becka's Truck Facts 101

Is it me, or are all big trucks driven by good-looking men? What's the deal? Little trucks don't count. The small Nissan pick-up doesn't factor here. I'm talking the GMC, the Ford, the Dodge, the Chevy. And I'm not talking the older rust-buckets. I'm talking newer trucks.

All nice-looking BIG trucks are driven by good-looking men. And I'm not just talking about "OK" men or "yeah, he's all right", I mean, hot guys. Even the older men who drive the bigger pick-ups are good-looking.

What's the deal here?

I want you to look around your hometown at all the men who drive the big trucks and see for yourself. I've noticed this phenomenon, but only just now realized it.

Is it Freud? Bigger trucks mean bigger "ahem" you-know-whats-its? Bigger trucks attract the attention of females? Alpha men just do it bigger? LOL

I really don't know what's going on here, but I challenge you to find a newer, bigger truck, deisel or otherwise, and find an ugly man at the wheel.

In fact, if there happens to be a woman driving the big, newer truck is usually good-looking herself.

There is truth in this. Mark my words and see for yourself.

It's really odd. :P

~~Becka

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Finally Something to BLOG About! PICTURES!! :D

OK, remember the school-room remodel I told you about? The room with the nasty-ass checkerboard flooring? Well, here are the before and after shots. Hot dang, this room is smokin' now!! :D

BEFORE:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimgoings/14972210/in/set-361573/

AFTER:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimgoings/194493387/in/set-72157594206330803/

~*~

BEFORE:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimgoings/14972108/in/set-361573/

AFTER:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimgoings/194493517/in/set-72157594206330803/

~*~

BEFORE:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimgoings/14972227/in/set-361573/

AFTER:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimgoings/194493609/in/set-72157594206330803/

~*~

BEFORE:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimgoings/14972216/in/set-361573/

AFTER:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimgoings/194493753/in/set-72157594206330803/

~*~

BEFORE:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimgoings/16945959/in/set-361573/

AFTER:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimgoings/194493879/in/set-72157594206330803/

~*~

BEFORE:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimgoings/16945961/in/set-361573/

AFTER:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimgoings/194493961/in/set-72157594206330803/

~*~

See how awesome that turned out?? Holy moly, the room is TRANSFORMED. We LOVE spending time in there, and no longer does it look like a dungeon. The last thing we have to do is paint the checkerboard behind the staircase. But that's easy peasy. Oh, and some touch-up on the white trim around the room.

But don't we RAWK?? We should totally be on Trading Spaces. LOL

~~Becka

My Dad

My Dad is coming to my house to spend the weekend with us. He lives 50 miles away in Salem and we see him all the time, but the poor guy lives by himself and doesn't have decent meals, so I thought it would be great to invite him up to spend some time with us. We're going to have a lot of fun!

Some random Becka info... My father's name is Gilbert Keith Goodwin, born in 1935. Yup, he's a fogey. LOL His father, George Edward Goodwin, wanted his son to have the initials "GKG", just like HIS father before him. My great-grandfather's name was George Kitteridge Goodwin. You may recognize the name "Kitteridge", as I've loved it ever since I was a girl, and I gave one of my heroes this last name; Jeremy Kitteridge in UNDERNEATH THE MISTLETOE, a novella in Champagne Books's MISTLETOE MAGIC. :)

My grandmother didn't want to name her baby "George", so they looked for another "G" name. We even found the list of names they considered in an old photo album. Our favorite was Geoffrey. Perhaps they didn't pick it because of it's spelling. But that's the name of my hero in THE WOLVERINE AND THE ROSE. :P They decided on "Gilbert", and no one knows why. No one even liked that name.

My grandparents called him "Keith". And Keith he remains. He only uses his first name on "official" correspondence.

This is all probably boring you to tears, but once again, I have nothing to blog about. Aside from the fact that I think I have pushed through my muse-apation, what happens to writers when they are stuck for long periods of time without writing. However, the irony of this is; my dad is coming up for the weekend.

So I can't write.

Somewhere, fate is laughing at me. :)

~~Becka

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Hillsboro Airshow Tragedy

This past weekend, the city of Hillsboro, where I live, had an airshow. DH and I went to the airshow a couple of years ago, and had a lot of fun watching the Blue Angels do their arial acrobatics. This year, however, neither the Blue Angels or the Thunderbirds were going to be performing, therefore DH and I decided not to go.

Saturday, we had to console our dog, who is afraid of NOTHING except thunder and jet engines. LOL Anyhow, on Sunday, as we were painting our great room, I had to go back to Home Depot for something and saw a black cloud in the sky. Then I heard the sirens and my heart sank.

This is what happened:

http://www.koin.com/news.asp?ID=5141

I feel so bad that an airplane crashed and the pilot died, but thankfully, no one on the ground was killed. The pilot did NOT eject, and the locals are calling him a hero because of it. The crash was video taped, and it's believed the man knew he was going down in residential, and so tried to make his crash less impactive on the neighborhood. If he'd ejected, the crash could have been much, much worse.

So if you're a religious person, please send up a prayer for the pilot's family, and for the families of the people on the ground, who's homes were damaged and destroyed. Thank you.

~~Becka

Monday, July 17, 2006

Yet Another Remodel...

Apparently, my DH has home improvement on the brain. But this is one renovation I didn't mind making. Unfortunately, I don't have any after pictures to share, so until I do, I'll just tell you what we did.

Our house is two stories (storeys? Who cares). The first floor is on the street level, with the living room, dining room, kitchen, etc. Then we have a daylight basement, so the second floor is downstairs rather than upstairs. This is great for the summer time, because the downstairs is about 10-15 degrees cooler than the upstairs. The rooms are floored with concrete, and are partway underground, so it stays very cool. Admittedly, it's hard to keep warm in winter. Well, not "hard", just "expensive". LOL

Anyhow, in our downstairs, we have my office/guest room, my eldest daughter's room, the Steamboat Willie bathroom I showed you guys a few blogs ago, our home theater (DH has a 57" TV) and a second kitchen with a second set of washer/dryer hookups. Yes, I have two sets. :P But that's a different story. I guess whoever renovated the daylight basement wanted this house to have two living areas. Because if you put a door at the top of the stairs, you could have a renter downstairs with their own kitchen, w/d, bathroom, and a couple of bedrooms.

Well, we've renovated the theater/kitchen area a while back, now it was time for our great room to get some TLC.

Here are some before pics of this room we took when we were looking at the house, before we bought it. That piano isn't ours.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimgoings/14972210/in/set-361573/

If you poke around in that picture set, the room we renovated is the one with the hideous checkerboard floor. No, it's not tile, it's paint. And no, it is not "cute", it is HIDEOUS. These people like, never mopped, and so there's these permanent stains and scrapes and scuffs, it's just so horribly ugly. We HATE that floor.

Anyhow, a long time ago, we ripped out that wall with the windows. Inside that wall is our theater, which has pictures here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimgoings/183082474/

All of those DVD's are on the NEW wall we built. Mind you, that wall is a LOAD BEARING wall for the house, and the previous owners took OUT studs to make the "cute" little window wall complete with screen door and screens on the windows. WTF? But I digress.

So, we added the studs back in and put some insulation in this wall and it looks great; from the theater angle. The wall has been unfinished drywall in the great room for a LOOOONG time.

We went online and found our paint color for the great room; Glidden's "Celestial". It is a light sky blue. Why that color? Because we wanted the room to be the kids' schoolroom/play area. Our ultimate goal was for the room to be a soft blue with primary colors here and there as accents. So away we went with the paint.

Mind you, if you've taken a look at all the pics with the checkerboard floor, you'll notice that the icky icky yellow color goes up the staircase and through the small hallway past the bedroom and behind the stairs. Needless to say, we had a shite-load of painting to do. The yellow did not make the room brighter or more homey. It looked nasty, like a dungeon. There's a concrete retaining wall that they'd painted black, and it was just dreary in there.

So, first thing we did was paint the concrete quarter-wall back to white, not black. Took a couple of coats of white primer and a coat of white paint. Then we primed the walls with tinted primer, tinted the same color as our paint. After that, we had to do about three coats of paint. Why so many? Because we were idiots, and our second coat of "paint" was actually a coat of primer. We'd gotten the cans mixed up. So we woke up yesterday, and all sorts of colorful words could be heard echoing in that room when we'd learned of the switcheroo. LOL

This set us back about two hours, as we had to repaint the room with the correct color. And the hallway. Thankfully, the stairs hadn't factored in our paint snafu.

Then we had to sand all the spackle on the unfinished wall and texture it. We had to buy a few cans of "orange peel" texture, and you just spray it on, to make the wall a little rough, not just like "Hello, I'm painting on drywall". LOL Besides, the wall needed to match the other walls. Finally after that was dry, we painted that wall. Yay! After months of unfinished wall, we finally had paint up!

DH had an awesome idea which I was apprehensive of at first, but now I'm so glad we did.

We carpeted the room. Not professionally, but ourselves. We bought cheap, office-grade carpet in a dark blue that looks FABU with the wall color and glued it to the concrete floor with carpet glue. This was basically so we don't have to A.) look at the ass-tastic checkerboard any longer, B.) no more mopping, and C.) it gives the kids a nice play-area, and brings the room together very nicely.

We then bought 12 of those interlocking floor-mats, the soft kind that kids play on, in primary colors and set that up in the middle of the room. We found AWESOME lamps that have six "arms" that you can bend wherever you want light. On the end of each arm is a primary colored cover for the lightbulbs. I don't know what they're called, but it looks awesome. Then we bought some spray paint, because we're going to paint all the light switches and plugs in yellow and red. Against the light blue of the walls, it really stands out. Also, we changed out the one lightbulb fixture on the ceiling into a rectangular florescent light fixture, and it gives the room a "schoolroom" feel.

The room has been TRANSFORMED. It looks bigger, and 100,000,000 times better. I'll try to get some pics of it soon. The only thing that sucks is our ugly folding tables that have to be in there when I do school for the kids. We eventually want to get four individual school desks.

We're not done, as there's still some trim to paint, and shelves to put up for the school books and DH still needs to put up my whiteboard and stuff, but all the major things have been taken care of.

But the important thing is, this room no longer looks like a "basement" room. It just looks like a "room". And getting rid of that damned floor was like the last thing to get rid of the previous owner. Ah... Free at last. LOL

~~Becka

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Nothing to Blog About

That's right, folks, I have absolutely nothing to blog about. That's how boring my life is. :P Nothing much has been going on with me. Well, there's a little something. Hehe But nothing too wonderful.

So I went to the store today with my gaggle of kidlets. And my kids are good kids. There's just a LOT of them. ;P I've got one in the seat of the cart, one IN the cart, and two walking beside me. This is the "ughe" (Becka's slang for the word "usual". The "ughe"). Anyhow, I'm wandering through the store in the chip and soda aisle, and there's this *handsome* man coming my way. I'd say he's probably older than me by about 3 to 5 years.

My kids are literally dancing behind me, like ballroom dancing. :P They watch entirely too many Disney movies. So, I turn around and casually tell them to move over, and of course, my kids, being the angels that they are, complied.

This man looked at me like he was impressed that I had such a handle on my kids. He gave me an appreciative grin, which I of course, answered in kind. No words were spoken, but I had butterflies regardless. It's nice to be noticed by a handsome man every now and again. Every blue moon. Oh who the hell am I kidding? Once a millenia.

But hey, he was probably married too, right? It was still nice making eye contact and smiling, knowing by his look alone that he was impressed by my well-behaved children. That made my day. That and he was HOT!!!

LOL

That's it for today. Carry on. Perhaps something interesting will have happened by tomorrow. :P

~~Becka

Monday, July 10, 2006

SCRUBS - Holy Cow, How Did I Miss This Show??

So DH and I were lamenting that all of the umpteen shows we watch are now airing re-runs until September. What are we to do?

Find new shows to watch, of course!

So we look around and find a show that has gotten a lot of high ratings, SCRUBS, a comedy in a hospital. Now, this show has been on for FIVE seasons. I've heard of it here and there, but never had any reason to watch it.

DH and I finally watched a few episodes of the first season, and now we're hooked. We literally spent all this weekend and today watching the entire first season. (DH stayed home sick today from work. No, not to watch TV... He actually hurt himself this weekend, but that's a different story.)

Anyhow, we're watching this show, and it's just so wild, zany, and off the wall, that it's right up our alley. The humor is spot-on to what we crack up at and I swear, I haven't watched a show that has made me bust a gut so hard in a loooooong time. I highly recommend the show if you haven't seen it. DH and I are excited that we have 4 more seasons to watch. :)

In other news, I mentioned that DH hurt himself this weekend. Here's the scoop. He helped a buddy move into their new house, and after the move, all the guys came over to our house to cool off in our pool. We have a 24 foot above-ground Dough Boy pool. Well, they swam for awhile and when it was time to get out, DH climbed the plastic ladder on the inside of the pool.

Now to get an idea of this ladder, it hangs on the inside of the water, has a top "landing", and then goes down the outside of the pool, so you climb up, stand on the top, and climb out.

Well, as my DH was climbing up, the ladder on the inside of the pool decided to detach itself from the top of the ladder just as my hubby has one foot in the pool, and the other foot on the outside rung. I have no idea why he didn't just step onto the top "landing" in the first place, but he was straddling the "landing" when this incident occured.

Needless to say, once the inside ladder gave way, my hubby went down, and thus, he did his first ever splits. Thank goodness he didn't smush the "boys" as he calls them if you know what I mean. But he did tear up his thighs pretty good. Oh, there were full-on tears, and anyone who knows my DH knows the man doesn't cry at anything. He's very much a "man's man". I felt his pain. Hell, I've had four babies. I've been spread to the four corners more times than I'd care to admit. LOL

So he stayed home from work today because the poor man is still hobbling along. But he's not whining and complaining much, and, oddly enough, he's not milking it. Strange. I should check to see if he still has his "MAN" membership card in his wallet . . .

~~Becka

Saturday, July 08, 2006

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

A little cheesy, a little epic, a whole lotta fun!

I have been anticipating the sequel to Pirates since the day I saw Curse of the Black Pearl for the first time in theaters. And this movie did not disappoint.

As always, Johnny Depp gave a fabulous performance as Captain Jack Sparrow. However it was Orlando Bloom's performance that I was most impressed by. Will Turner is a man now, grown from the boy he was in the first film. And this is reflected in how he performs. Aside from the Lord of the Rings movies, I haven't been that impressed by his acting chops. And he's made some similarly epic movies; Troy, Kingdom of Heaven, etc. But his acting as Will Turner in this movie impressed me just as much as his Legolas role, and for me, that's saying something. I believe he's trying to forge his way through Hollywood as more than the "pretty boy", and if he keeps performing like this, he'll soon be making movies as off-the-wall as his co-star Depp. Bring it on, I say!

Elizabeth Swan was also more grown up, more into her "own" in this movie. I enjoyed watching how much the characters had grown since the last movie.

And of course, Capt. Sparrow is notorious for getting himself in trouble. We finally see the Black Pearl as the ship it was first meant to be, merely a pirate ship, not a "ghost" ship, and that was great. Even the cute little monkey from the first movie makes an appearance, much to Sparrow's dismay. Instead of being a member of the crew, the monkey "Jack" is more of an annoying nuisance. But it works well for comic relief.

Davy Jones was amazing, I must say. Not only did the actor do a fine job, but the CGI was top-notch. You actually believe he's got tentacles on his face! And each member of his crew are covered in barnacles, clams, and all sorts of nasty sea creatures. Some even resemble hammer-head sharks and hermit crabs! The imagination put in to Davy Jones's crew wasn't lost on me. I loved looking at each one of them. It was amazing.

And the Kraken. Wow. That thing was just too cool! Davy can summon the thing at his whim, and many a ship is lost to it. The way Captain Sparrow and Will Turner battle the thing is just too cool, as they did something that I would have never thought of, but would seem so very obvious. I will not spoil that for you. :)

For those of you who've ridden the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at one of the many Disney theme parks will recognize an element from the ride in the movie. I was laughing at it because it was just too cool, pointing at the screen going "Look at that!"

Unfortunately the friend I was sitting next to had never been on the ride. Dang it. My elation at seeing it was deflated. :P But still awesome, nonetheless. I'll not spoil that either. I'll leave that for you to figure out for yourself. All I'll say is, think of the Blue Bayou. :)

The end of the movie HEAVILY sets up the third, Pirates III: At World's End. And I can't WAIT for that one, either! There's a surprise at the ending that I totally wasn't expecting, but probably made the entire movie worth it. And word of advice, stay until the end of the credits. I heard there was something at the end, and there is. Unfortunately, my friends left before the end and so they missed it. Their loss. One last chuckle. :P

All in all, even with some of it's cheesy situations (the natives on the island) this movie was fun with a capital F. If you liked the first Pirates movie, you'll love this one as well. I'd highly recommend anyone to go see it, but if you're going this weekend, better Fandango your tickets. Our theater was sold out, as was the shows before it.

Or you can wait a few weeks. But seriously, how can you put off Captain Jack Sparrow? He's a pirate after my own heart. :)

~~Becka

Friday, July 07, 2006

Have You Hugged Capt. Jack Sparrow Today?

As you may or may not know, today is the release date of PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST. And DH has graciously offered to watch the kids so I can go see it tonight with our friends. Why would he do such a kind and unselfish act? Because he's a good, wonderful, loving man who thinks of my needs before his own.

That, and he saw SUPERMAN RETURNS before I did.

It's only fair that I get to see Pirates before he does! LOL But I'm excited! Don't get me wrong, I love Orlando Bloom as much as the next guy (or gal), and even gave the heroine in my book IN YOUR ARMS his last name "Lissa Bloom". Yup, I'm a fanboy. Or girl.

But in my heart of hearts, my love and devotion belong solely to Johnny Depp. He's pretty much sexy in anything he does, and even before he was "Captain Jack Sparrow", I loved his movies. And let's face it, Pirates wouldn't be Pirates without his familiar swagger.

So bring on Orli and Johnny, and I'll be back sometime this weekend with a review of this super-cool, highly anticipated sequel to one of my very favorite movies. :)

~~Becka

Thursday, July 06, 2006

Bathroom Update

Instead of hiring our friend to paint Steamboat Willie on our girls' bathroom, DH hooked up a projector and projected the image on the wall and painted it himself! I was VERY impressed with how it turned out. It's soooo totally awesome.

First, he traced the lines with a Sharpie. Then, he used some fine detail brushes and some black paint to carefully paint over the Sharpie lines using his template picture as a guide.

It's just too cool for words! Check it out! :D

Steamboat Willie Pics!

Awesome!

~~Becka

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

Mommies Aren't Allowed to Get Sick

Where was I when this "law" was passed? Who accepted this as "common knowledge" the moment a baby is born? Whose "bright idea" was it to belittle the groanings of an ill mommy?

Because they deserve to be shot.

I have been sick for a few days now, that much is obvious. It's moving on from spinning head to head cold. Joy of joys. But does this mean I can rest? Does this mean I get to vege on the couch while gnarly little germs ravish my immune system?

Hell no!

DH has a four day weekend due to July 4th. Whenever he's off for an extended period of time, he gets this wacky idea in his head that he must "do" something, be "productive". And ever since we bought our house a year ago, that means home improvement.

I've never been one to love change. I like things just they way they are, thank you very much. Granted, our house is like a bajillion years old, and as such, needs a few coats of paint here and there in various rooms. However, it would seem as if home improvement trumps my couch fantasies. Bugger.

I must admit, we worked on our bathroom downstairs and it is leaps and bounds better than it was before. And regardless of my snuffly nose and my semi-spinning head, I was able to suck it up and cut in my paint with the best of them.

How did I do this? Because I'm a woman, of course.

What Mr. Deserves To Be Shot doesn't tell you is this. Yes, it's a "rule" that mommies aren't allowed to get sick. However, there is a clause to that rule, that states "Sick mommies are troopers."

Because let's face it, ladies. If our husbands had snuffly noses or felt like they were on a Merry-Go-Round from hell, you better believe their ass would be growing roots on that damned couch. I highly doubt if my DH had felt today the malady that plagues me, we would not have made the "home improvement" run to Lowe's.

Perhaps, however, I am part of the problem. Since we women are such troopers when we get sick, our menfolk simply cannot gauge exactly how sick we are. We get up, we do dishes, laundry, take care of the kids, Hey, she must be feeling GREAT! they think. **shakes head**

No, we do all this because if we didn't do it, it wouldn't get done. And if it DID get done by some miraculous intervention, it would be done wrong. LOL

Don't get me wrong, my DH is a good man. He takes care of me when I'm down-and-out sick. The walking pneumonia I had last Christmas or the severe Labyrinthitis I had a couple of years ago (yes, it REALLY is a medical term. I can hear you laughing, you know). However, it would seem as if men breathe a sigh of relief whenever their wives are back to 100% (or at least 50% pretending to be 100%). Why is that? Because women are the backbone of a family. Hands down, period, case closed, the end.

The men can bring home as much damn bacon as they want, but when mommy ain't happy, ain't NOBODY happy.

Learned that one from Oprah. :D

Now that I've ended my rant, I thought I would entertain you with pictures from my new and improved bathroom royale. Please note that even though the room is painted, it is still bare. We are planning on putting a print of (or having our friend paint) Steamboat Willie on the wall with a few little pics of him. The kids love Mickey and Disney, and since the black & white checkered floor was there already, it wasn't too much of a stretch to think of the black and white themed room. This room was a HIDEOUS yellow before. Now, it's a 1,000,000,000 times better than before. Enjoy my husband's Flickr pics:

Before & After Bathroom Pics

~~Becka

Saturday, July 01, 2006

Superman Returns

To sum up in one word the entire movie of Superman Returns:

WOW.

Two words:

FREAKIN' WOW.

Many were the groanings and misgivings of avid Superman fans, myself and my DH included when, years ago, they announced the making of a new Superman movie. Who could possibly replace the noble and sexy Christopher Reeve?

Thank the Superman gods that it was NOT Nick Cage. Yes, there was a collaberation a few years back that had Tim Burton of Beetlejuice fame and Nicolas Cage as Supe. I believe every Superman fan on the planet breathed a sigh of relief when THAT fell through.

This movie, Superman Returns picks up where Superman II left off. It is a sequel of sorts, as if the third and fourth movies were never made. A wise move, in my opinion. Never did like the Richard Pryor (Supe III) one or the nuclear warheads one (Supe IV). And I don't think the public at large did either.

So the new movie opens with Superman returning to earth five years after he left, to find out if anything of his homeplanet of Krypton still existed. Of course after five years, much has changed. Lois has a son, AND a fiance, and Lex Luthor has his "get out of jail free" card.

First of all, Brandon Routh as Supe is not only noble and sexy, but he seems to CHANNEL the spirit of Chris Reeve at times. Listening to him talk is sometimes creepy at how WELL he paid homage to an icon. Obviously, he did that on purpose, and that only helped to suspend the audience's disbelief that this Clark Kent/Supe was played by a different actor. Close your eyes, and you don't have a clue that it's not Chris Reeve on screen.

Kevin Spacey is WONDERFUL in his role as Lex. Let me just start by saying I love Kevin Spacey. He is such an awesome actor and commands the audience's attention. He was the perfect fit for the diabolical Lex, and in fact, makes him more sinister than Gene Hackman's "comical" take on the character.

Kate Bosworth as Lois is a breath of fresh air, because, let's face it. Margot Kidder isn't exactly a "looker", and Lois is supposed to be a good-looking woman. Her performance was good and I enjoyed watching her grow throughout the movie from being completely "over" Supe, to falling in love with him all over again.

And let's not forget the opening credits or the score. KUDOS to the movie makers for keeping the original John Williams score, as it wouldn't be a Superman movie without the "Duh Duh Duh Bum Ba Da Da Bum De De Bah!!!" (like my rendition? :P ) Ahem. Moving on.

And YES!! They kept the cheesy blue floating letters at the beginning! However, overlaying it with some awesome special effects while flying through space was a NICE touch. Keeps the audience from being bored while watching these blue letters fly at you. LOL

This is a wonderful flick, and I highly recommend it for anyone to watch, even those who might be on the fence about it. This film will NOT ruin your Superman fantasies of yesteryear, but rather, re-ignite your excitement for sequels to come.

Bryan Singer (the director) has breathed new life into the Superman franchise, and I'm happy to say that this is one Supe fan who is anxiously waiting to see what they do next.

GO SEE IT NOW! Why are you still here reading my blog??

~~Becka