Last night, I had the worst dream I’ve ever had in my life.  I didn’t realize it was a dream while I was having it, but I remember waking myself up on purpose anyway – it’s difficult to explain, as many aspects of vivid dreams usually are.

The gist of it was –  a member of my family (who in real life has been estranged from the family for 25+ years) was buckling my kids into her car for a sleepover.  She began doing so at a frantic pace, which alarmed me, so I called it off.  But before I could do anything, she was pulling out of my driveway with the kids, and I was screaming at her that this amounting to kidnapping and I was calling the police.  She didn’t stop.  My two older girls found their way home, but she still had my younger two – they’re 3 years and 20 months.  Meanwhile, the pre-planned game night at our house (but it didn’t look like our house) was beginning to take shape as guests were arriving.  A friend from college (who I haven’t seen since) shows up with my cousin (the kidnapper’s daughter) as his date, and she is sullen and seems really angry.  We manage to get out of her that her mother hasn’t been herself lately and somehow come to the conclusion that she is intending to commit a murder / suicide.  Where the police were at this point, I don’t know, but for some reason, I couldn’t go out and look for them myself, and I was inconsolable.  It was the most helpless, panicky, horrible feeling I could imagine, and I had to watch my parents watch their daughter go through this as well – the whole thing was just awful.  Even though I didn’t know it was a dream, I squinched my eyes shut and woke up – thank goodness.  It was one of those where I woke up out of breath, my eyes darting around my bedroom.  I realized it had all been a dream, and I suppressed the urge to get up and have a reassuring look at my kids – what good would it do to interrupt their sleep?  Besides they’d be getting up soon enough – I could see the light starting to come in through the window.  But when I looked at the clock, it was only 1:45 am!  What the heck?  I had felt like I had a full night’s sleep!  For once (and I honestly can’t remember the last time I felt like this) I felt well-rested and actually wanted to get out of bed – and I didn’t want to put myself in the position to have another horrible nightmare.  So I laid there and mentally composed my blog post depicting my terrible dream, and I was able to fall back asleep.  The dream I had next was actually quite a comical episode involving a (non-threatening) alligator in a restaurant.  When my alarm went off hours later, I was back to normal – tired as can be, not ready to get up…

There must have been something going on last night because my 5-year-old told me about a nightmare she had had involving a circle of chicken pox.

So was that light coming into my room at 2 in the morning the light of a full moon?  Do full moons cause nightmares or vivid dreams?  I know my family and friends in law enforcement tell me that they are extra busy and have some of their most interesting calls on full moon nights, but now I remember driving home last night and seeing the moon – and it wasn’t full.  So why was it so bright in my room last night?  Most nights I can’t see without my flashlight, but last night I could see easily – I had just assumed it was the sun rising until I looked at the clock…  that one’s a mystery that remains unsolved.

I have some guesses as to where certain parts of the dream came from – I had been reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban before I went to bed.  Could my dream have been my own version of a boggart (a magical creature from the series which is a shape-shifter that takes the form of its intended victim’s worst fear – ie, something bad happening to my kids)?  And I was listening to an old Don Williams song in the car yesterday (If You Could Read My Mind), which reminded me of a time when I was a little kid and Don Williams was playing as we were heading to my aunt’s house (the kidnapper in my dream).  I don’t know why my college friend suddenly appeared or why he was dating my cousin, but the game night significance could come from the game night we have scheduled for tomorrow…  just a few theories; I think the bottom line is obvious – dreams are WEIRD!!!

(and this is unrelated – but as I was looking for the Don Williams song, I came across this wonderful version of In The Ghetto by both Elvis and his daughter Lisa Marie Presley – a posthumous duet.  I’ve made my youtube references as links in this post rather than videos so as not to force anyone to watch/listen to anything if they don’t want to)

Today was a day to realize that I have a wonderful family, very good friends and life, while not perfect, isn’t too bad.

Over the years, I’ve had quite a few rough times. Some worse than others, but most of them were “the worst that could happen” when they occurred. During all of those times, I’ve been lucky to have a wonderful safety net. That net included the above mentioned people.

So on this St Patty’s Day, I leave those in my safety net this thought.

May you have warm words on a cold evening, A full moon on a dark night, And the road downhill all the way to your door.

I have been watching American Idol less and less.  Somehow, it has lost a lot of the appeal that it once held.  I have watched enough to learn that Northwest Ohio native, Crystal Bowersox, is one of the early favorites.  Good for her!  I have also watched enough to know that Ellen Degeneres has yet to become comfortable in her judging capacity.  She definitely has taken over the void as supreme cheerleader vacated by Paula Abdul… maybe a bit too much.  Enough about that because I really can’t say too much with the amount I have seen.

I will comment on the act that was part of the results show tonight.  A “Breakout” artist of the new year, Ke$hia (that’s how it is spelled) performed something.  Hot off the heels of her 6 million seller, “Tick Tock,” she came on stage and performed “Blah Blah Blah” and that is what it looked and sounded like.  Or maybe I could not hear the lyrics because I was too busy laughing at the audacity of the spectacle. It really made me wonder where she broke out from! I think I’d rather hear “Pants on the Ground” but I think that has had its 5 minutes of fame.  The video on youtube just did not do the hilarious performance tonight justice.  I’ll look back and update the post.  It is definitely one that needs to be seen to be believed.  Honestly, I never understood the need to fill an hour with something that can be done in less than a half hour.

Here is Crystal taking on the Creedence Clearwater Revival song “As Long As I Can See The Light.”

And now for the moment tangenteers have been waiting a good 15 hours for…

Here we go, another movie review – have you seen or even heard of a movie called Triangle (2009)?  It’s not a mainstream movie; it only got about 5,000 votes on imdb.com
But my husband and I watched it the other night, and we both really enjoyed it – so much that I found it worthy of a little blog post.

So where do I start…  because as a reviewer on imdb.com so eloquently said:

How to talk about “Triangle” without giving anything away? It’s a puzzle equal to that which the movie presents its audience because this isn’t your standard horror movie.

I think that is very true about this movie – it’s one of those that is a puzzle all the way through, and while many of these types of movies end up disappointing me in the end, Triangle is the exception.  It’s a movie where I could see the viewer getting more and more out of it each time he or she watches it, and I will definitely try watching it again.  If you’re interested in a real puzzle of a movie, check out Triangle – but don’t read too much on imdb.com about it first.  And especially, DO NOT watch the trailer.  It’s better to watch it going in cold; knowing almost nothing about it, which is why I didn’t say much in this “review”.  I will only say that I recommend it as a very different type of movie-watching experience.  After you’ve seen it, you will want to read as many discussion boards about Triangle as you can; it’s really interesting to ponder the…  well, just see it, then we can talk 🙂

And one more interesting thing about Triangle – as I was reading the discussion boards, I came across comparisons between Triangle and an old poem called The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.  It seemed very strange to me that I had completely forgotten that I read The Rime of the Ancient Mariner way back when in school until I was reading about it the other day, which is when details of its plot flashed in my mind like déjà vu – an interesting thing to happen, considering the themes of the movie Triangle…

I’ve often wondered about the time change we go through. Why change the clocks for part of the year so it stays lighter longer in the evening. This really does nothing to the amount of light we actually received during the day, just how much we are awake for. For me, I wouldn’t mind if they just kept the time the same all year round.

I like the fact that I have a little more daylight to do somethings after work, but my astronomy hobby doesn’t like the fact that it takes so long to get dark. I sometimes like not having to drive into the sunrise in the morning, but give it a few weeks and I’ll be driving into the sunrise a second time this year. That actually makes 4 times a year that the sun is coming in so lo that the visor doesn’t help, too bright for no sunglasses, but not bright enough for my dark pair. I don’t want to miss the deer that like the dawn to move from place to place.

And I often wonder, why am I more tired during this week. Getting up an hour earlier? I don’t get any less sleep, but then again I don’t get anymore. But I get tired earlier too. Is it all in my head? Probably that is it. That is where all my sleep problems lie.

So, until next November we have daylight savings. I know it never saved me any daylight. I get up when I please, or when the alarm rings, and stay up until all hours. Heck, I work most of the sunlight away anyway, in my dark windowless cubical…

****** WARNING POLITICAL RANT INVOLVED *******

I hear at least one everyday on my way to work and it is beginning to bother me. They keep talking about not having funding when things change from year to year. PEOPLE please, the census only occurs every 10 years. It isn’t going to make much difference in the year to year running of your community. Are people really that dense that they don’t realize this? Do the people in charge of Census advertising think we are that dense? Ok, don’t answer that, some people are that dense.

I did get my census form today. Yes, hurry and fill it out for who will be in your house on April 1st. The government really doesn’t get it do they. Census on April 1st? Just who is the April Fool?

Today I read that the Census is over budget. 30 second radio spots everyday? Big TV spot during the Superbowl. NO, there is absolutely no way they could be over budget. But then our elected officials have no idea what a budget is. Ya don’t spend money when ya don’t have it.. ARRG!!

****** Back to your normal non-political blog *****

Just had to get that out Sorry…

This morning, I awoke to find a box full of donuts on the kitchen counter.  I found one that was half eaten inside so I decided that someone was full and left it.  Little did I know that a little five-year old (her pre-school doesn’t meet on Monday) was not finished and an hour after I finished the half-eaten donut, she demanded to know who ate her donut!  Poor Sydney was in tears because “Bad Uncle J ate My donut!”  To make up for my evil ways, I told her that I would take her out to the Bulldog Cafe for lunch so she could get ice cream which they just re-added to their menu after the height of the winter season passed.  Unfortunately, they are closed on Monday.

So, discovering that we had coupons for FREE FROSTYS at Wendy’s, I cleaned the beauty shop, took a shower, and took the little tyke to Wendy’s.  Then, we approached the door to the restaurant to fin that the dining room was closed until the blinds are installed and I did not relish the idea of going through the drive-up.  I could see ice cream all over the back… NO THANKS!  So we went to McDonald’s, ate lunch, and got a small milkshake to take home just in time for her one o’clock nap… seemed safer.

So… hopefully I more than made up for the donut mishap.  It wasn’t mentioned any further, but sometimes little things have a way of reappearing.

Well, Tony and I have gotten news that his parents will have to sell the house we’re living in because of their taxes. That means we are looking for a new place for us, the cats and Amie. Unfortunately, we cannot afford anything that isn’t a foreclosure. We know that we can afford $200 a month and so anything over that will most likely be pushing it. We have seen two house online, but we haven’t actually gotten the opportunity to take a look in them. One has five bedrooms and two bathrooms and really looks nice on the outside, but of course, the inside might not  be that great. It is two hundred dollars a month, so it’s at the top of our price range, but it has the space we will need. There would be two bathrooms, so Amie could have her own, and Betsy would be able to have a room when she stays the night, plus a room for our computers, and maybe a room for my stuffed animals. Kind of sad that my animals need a room for themselves, isn’t it?

The other house has three bedrooms, which would be enough. We don’t need the other two, it would just be a really, really nice perk. The one downside is that there is one bathroom. Though, if it’s bigger than the one we have now, it might be all right. It would be about sixty five dollars a month. That’s not bad, but the inside might look really bad. We are hoping to be able to see the inside soon enough. We would like to be able to find a house as soon as possible.

Of course, both houses we will have to pay electric and gas bill, but we already do that. It will be hard to find something in about a month, I think, especially since we would like to stay in Bryan because we only have one car and both of our jobs are in Bryan. We are hoping to be able to look at some houses later this week. Pat will be contacting a friend of hers, who helped find their house to help us out.

I feel bad for Amie, since she just moved in and she will have to move again and we haven’t even been able to tell her since she has been at work and we don’t know when she will be home. But if we find a good house, maybe we will be able to have a house that will let her spread out some more and let us not feel like our house is always dirty. Plus, give more room for our cats to run around and play. Pray for us. We really need it.

Okay, I’ve been back to post-lazy for the last several days, so time to post something even if it isn’t in-depth.  I have had a couple of posts in mind that I just haven’t gotten around to.  First, I have next to me some yearbooks, mostly middle school.  What can I do with those, I wonder…?  I have also recently started training someone.  Okay, I am one of a few training him, but he’s my first.  Something soon about that.  Lastly, though I tend not to get responses to retro-gaming posts, it is still one of my interests and it’s time for another one.  I will probably go the youtube route with this one.  Speaking of youtube, here are some videos from another Christian band I have become very interested in, partly due to growing up on metal in the 80s like Iron Maiden, Motley Crue, Scorpions and the like.  That’s right, it’s a Christian metal band called Kutless, but that’s not all they do.  In fact, they have done several versions of worship songs which tend to be lighter but still with a little metal flavor.  The first video from Kutless is a recent release.  In fact, this video comes in high-def  versions.  The second one is the title track from an older CD, one of the two CDs from them I own.  The third is the song that made me notice this band when it was played on the radio- they are not so heavy that they don’t get playtime on Christian radio and this song was one of their hits from a couple years ago.  The last song is a common worship song done Kutless style.  Enjoy!

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Amazon link for Kutless

Kutless on Wikipedia

Official Kutless site

Last week, my daughters were playing outside when I heard a bunch of shouting.  Since I was heading out anyway – just had to put on the little guy’s shoes – I brought him out barefoot and began to work on the shoes outside.  That’s when I realized that all of the shouting was because my daughter had found her friend from Kindergarten, but since neither of them were allowed to cross the street, they had been shouting across the street to each other.  Now that mom was outside, I took my daughter across the street to play with her friend, and her mom came out – which is when we realized a church friend is also our neighbor!  So I took the kids for a walk, and we set up a play date for later in  the week.  After the play date, my daughter was telling us about her friend and what she said was so cute – “My friend Chloe is moving to Mexico –  the new one.”  Chloe did indeed say that she is moving to New Mexico, but it’s not really wise to believe rumors started by 6-year-olds.  Until her mom says something to us, we will continue to enjoy Sammie having a friend just a block away, even if eventually she has to move to “Mexico – the new one”.  🙂