Politics, politics, blah, blah, blah

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Cute things, Friday night edition

Four year old attempting to say "lasagna" and coming up with something like "ah-zahn-yeah!"

Books!

Today was payday, and so Big Girl and I went book shopping. First we went by the library and checked out a few, and then we went to the lame bookstore at the local dirt mall, which had a pretty pitiful collection, and finally we hit up the Wal-Mart, since my efforts to locate a copy of Twilight had been unsuccessful at the previous two locations (checked out at the library, natch). I've wanted to read it forever, and now I have my own copy. I'll likely read it this weekend, unless Hubs throws one of his you-love-your-books-more-than-me fits. Yeah, he gets jealous of books. Considering how I get wrapped up in books to the exclusion of all else, I kind of understand, but I still get really annoyed when he does this.

Big Girl has a couple of new McDuff books (he's a cute little white terrier) from the dirt mall bookstore, plus some interesting reads for the weekend. She checked out a book about building a barn for her brother to enjoy as well, thoughtful sister that she is. I only checked out one book - Mary Roach's Stiff, which I've wanted to read for a while - as pretty much everything else I looked for was checked out or not even in the library's collection. The library here is both a wonderful resource and woefully underfunded. Huge circulation numbers, but serious holes in the collection. It makes me sad. I'm on the board of directors, but since I'm not independently wealthy and prepared to fund serious solutions, I fear that any fix will be a long time coming.

Plug pulled: update

Decided to postpone aforementioned dinner party until next month. May go out to eat with some people this weekend anyway. Hubs bellows, so I must go now.

Today is September 11

and while I can't help thinking some about what happened on this day in 2001, I'm trying not to dwell on it. Instead I'm spending today thinking about my family, and how it all began twelve years ago on this day. On September 11, 1996, Hubs and I went on our first date. We went to dinner and a movie, and I knew then, as we were driving to dinner, that I would marry him one day. I thought the whole notion of knowing such things so early in a relationship was ridiculous until he came along. And it's not as though either of us was really looking for someone to marry just then. But we found each other, and we needed each other, and we just fit. My friends thought I was crazy. His friends may have though the same thing. Most of them probably thought we'd never last beyond a few dates, a brief fling. And here we are, twelve years, two kids, three dogs, and seven cars later - still together. We're a bit of an odd pairing in some ways, but then, we're both strange people, and it works. Today I'm thinking more about our past, and looking forward to our future. It's healthy and appropriate to remember, but we have to keep moving forward.

How do I know if I should pull the plug?

Hubs and I have been trying to start a new group for parents at our church, to get together once a month for dinner sans kids. We scheduled the first dinner for this Saturday and I began publicizing it about three weeks ago. I had already floated the idea in the abstract starting last spring, and lots of people expressed interest. However, after two weeks of having this publicized in the newsletter, on the backs of bulletins, etc. only one couple told me they would attend.

So on Sunday, I approached numerous people directly, and almost all expressed interest and wanted me to e-mail the information to them. So I did that, and now, most people haven't replied at all. Those who have replied have said they can't come - some are interested but have a conflict this month, and others aren't interested at all (I send out the message to most of the potential members in the congregation). So now, on the Wednesday before the dinner, it's still just Hubs, me, and one other couple.

Should I just cancel this thing? Try again next month? Forget the idea entirely? It's pretty frustrating, because I am making a concerted effort to get this thing going and right now it's going nowhere. I have a lot of personal energy and emotion tied up in this, as well as less personally-vested goals - I don't have a lot of close friends, and I was hoping to get to know some people better through this group - so I just don't know what to do. I feel like the kid who has a party but no one shows. I've been that kid, for real, in the past, and the feeling sucks.

Quick post (sneaking on)

Hi! I was in a BzzAgent campaign a while back for Ziploc Big Bags, and I just got an e-mail about this: a website to print a BOGO coupon for the Big Bags. Just wanted to share - while I don't always love everything that BzzAgent sends me, I was a big fan of the Big Bags and I use them all over the house and even in the backyard storage shed.