Today

I have ...

• Gone to work from 7:45 to 12:15
• Cooked (meals for the week and beyond) from 12:30 to 5:00
• Worked in the yard from 5:00 to 6:30
• Cleaned dishes from 6:35 to 7:05
• Watered the indoor plants and straightened the living room from 7:06 to 7:33

I am tired. Sitting feels good.

And when dinner is over - studio time!

Easter

... is never over.

Hear the bells ringing
They're singing that you can be born again
Hear the bells ringing
They're singing Christ is risen from the dead

The angel up on the tombstone
Said He has risen, just as He said
Quickly now, go tell His disciples
That Jesus Christ is no longer dead

Joy to the word, He has risen,
Hallelujah
He's risen, hallelujah
He's risen, hallelujah

Keith Green, Easter Song

Dilemma

I should update my recently read list - I have five new books to add to it and it's a very long list as it is for a blog sidebar. But that would mean removing The Thirteenth Tale from the bottom. I have an extreme aversion to removing The Thirteenth Tale from the list of books I've read recently. It was well over a year ago, but that book still gives me chills sometimes.

Two

In the interest of getting my blog caught up, here is a list of movies I can remember seeing for the first time (and probably only time ever) in the past few months:

Here's What Happened: Robert DeNiro plays a movie producer ... producing. It's literally what happened in a week of his life. Or something like that. I like weird movies. And I think I liked it better than anyone else I watched it with. And I'm recommending that you NOT watch it. It's just not good. And if there's supposed to be some interesting insight into life in it, there are other movies that have done it a lot better.

The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Veggietales works best in short story formats that are interspersed with silly songs. They shouldn't mess with that. And they shouldn't make ANYTHING without Junior Asparagus. Cuz when they do I just get sleepy.

A Good Year: This is a chick flick. It just has a guy as a main character instead of a girl and a little bit less pink. That doesn't have to be a bad thing. It's fairly well done. It just amuses me when my husband and his guy friends are the ones recommending it.

Sex Drive: Speaking of my husband's guy friends ... this is the travesty that was brought into my house by all of his unmarried ones. Fortunately they at least have the sense to watch the rated R side of the DVD instead of the unrated side. Unfortunately we don't have the sense to throw people out when they bring a sex comedy in. Lucky for them a large portion of the movie went away from what the title would imply and starred Seth Green as a rather hilarious Amish guy. Considering where we live, that was a pretty big redeeming quality.

I so need girl friends who live up here.

Anyway, on with the reviews ...

Spy Game: Brad Pitt may be annoying in the magazines that line the grocery check out aisles but I don't think he's ever ruined a movie, especially when it costars Robert Redford and is an intelligent and unique spy movie. I think I'll need to watch it again to pick up every detail, but I won't mind a bit. This was an enjoyable and intriguing movie.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed: Documentary by Ben Stein about the division in the scientific community banning the idea of Intelligent Design and those who even suggest it as a remote possibility. Very very very interesting. No way I can go into all the things I would love to discuss on this subject in a blurb. Except to say that Richard Dawkins has gone from scientist to professional Atheist and I think he believes in evolution more for his sake as a celebrity than for any other reason.

Nobel Son: Ah, now this was an interesting movie. The kind with so many plot twists it might as well be a slinky. Seriously. It ends so very far from where it begins. Yet the road it takes to get there is very fluid and pulls you along. And includes serious conversations about cannibalism. To tell you more would ruin it. All we knew going in was that it had Alan Rickman, Eliza Dushku, Bill Pullman, and Danny DeVito in it and it was weird. *shrug* That was enough for us and we enjoyed it.

One

No way I can get all caught up in just one or two posts, so I'll split stuff up that I've been thinking about. No special order.

Myst. Everyone remember the Myst games and books? Oh how I adore those. I have Myst, Riven, Exile and all the books but I hadn't played any of the other games: Revelation, End of Ages, and Uru. Then my wonderful Nick downloaded those a few weeks ago. There are few pleasures (or obsessions) in life that rival playing a Myst game for the first time. Nick is very sweet for being patient with me in the week where I wanted to do nothing but play Revelation. Actually he's been especially sweet a lot lately - between Revelation and art stuff I've mostly been wavering between the rapture of discovery and the utter despair of things not working. With a manic sleep-deprived focused on only one thing look in my eye too. More on that later though.

I try not to let myself get too caught up in things like computer games and video games for a few reasons. One being that there really aren't that many which particularly interest me just from their descriptions. Another is that I rarely have anything to show for it afterwards other than lost time which could have been better spent being productive. I don't think I've played a new game of Myst since high school though, so this was lots of fun :) I love everything about the games - the characters, the puzzles, the artwork. I want to build houses that reflect the D'Ni styles of design. I love that the entire premise is a literal interpretation of something I've always known. A good book is a link to another world.

Nick won't let me start End of Ages till he's finished Revelation so I've started rereading the books again too. Love them :)

Side note: I wouldn't actually have started playing End of Ages right away. I have an insane pile of art stuff to go through, and I really do know my own limitations. Again, more on that later. If you all haven't given up on this hopeless creature up here.

Hi!

So... I haven't been around much lately :( I'm sorry. My readers are few but they are some of my very favorite people and this is one of the easiest ways to keep in contact when the physical distance between us is great. So know this: I miss you! Don't take my silence to mean that I haven't been thinking about you or that a boulder has squashed me to the ground somewhere. I've just had bad experiences with online communication in the past and sometimes it gets away from me. So here's me attempting to return to blogging.

Just not now. Right now I have to go back to work. And it's Good Friday which means we won't have any Amish customers and so I made taco dip to fill in the time. And you all know about me and taco dip...