Fa la laaaa!

Deck the halls with boughs of holly!
Fa la la la laaa, la la la la.
'Tis the season to be jolly!
Fa la la la laaa, la la la la.
Don we now our gay apparel.
Fa la la, la la la, la la la!
Troll the ancient yuletide carol!
Fa la la la laaa, la laa laa laaaa!

And I have other favorites, too!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjYUzpdKMZs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCFCeJTEzNU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-krz1QVLjsY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcC2LUIdLKs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ycWObpi73Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loXa69CB_4I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i-VlUiGxEQ&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFBIJgkj_-g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkbuHu2D_Ro&feature=related

If you didn't just go and listen to ALL of those, you should be ashamed. Really. It's that important.

We're still trying to force our holiday plans into submission. Josh may or may not have to go in to work on Christmas morning for overtime in addition to working that afternoon as scheduled. Brother MIGHT come tomorrow, weather depending, and MIGHT drop in on me and the kids Christmas day. We MIGHT be visiting Josh's Uncle Jim sometime...but he isn't clear on when. At least I know that I will be at his mom's Christmas Eve, and here Christmas day. And at work all weekdays with no time off.

I'm about ready to snuggle into my nice, warm (pre-heated, in fact. everyone should have an electric blanket) bed and read to the kids. Ahhh!

I want to get out my cookie cutters, but it's getting to the 11th hour, don't you think? ^_^

Happy Almost Christmas. Go listen to those songs.

Meh.

It's cold and rainy outside. If I didn't have taiko tonight, I would crank up the electric blanket, make some British tea with milk and sugar, and snuggle in bed until the kids came home. Then, after some dinnering and Red Folder Time, I would go RIGHT BACK!

Instead, I'm going to feed the dogs and let them out, go out in the rain and wait for the bus, walk home with the kids and have Red Folder Time, clean the bathroom and vacuum, get dinner started and then run off to taiko, getting gas (yes, in the cold rain) on the way. Probably I'll unlock the doors there and turn on the heat. Then - TAIKO! Grr! Only slightly less than grr, because we will be learning the end of Sumo In St. Louis, which does not exactly burn calories. I'll be sure to bring a sweat shirt. BRR!

I've been reading Agatha Christie's The Unknown Adversary....to the kids. They love it. It's quite the vocab lesson, too. Builds character, you know.

My brother is scheduled to be here on Thursday, I think. I should really get more into this cleaning thing....but I'm just feeling..... Meh.

Well. It's time to be productive. Wish me luck.

"Phoenix Egg"

Do phoenixes have eggs? Is phoenixes plural for phoenix?

As has been pointed out to me, it has REALLY been a long time since I have written anything here. In fact, I think I should start all over, beginning with an introduction:

So. Who am I?

Not the easy question you might think. I just wrote a whole bunch of stuff and deleted it. Going to try a new approach:

Here is what I am, based on what I do:

1. Mommy. I adore my kids, and I spend an enormous amount of energy on making sure they get the right kind of parenting. They are expected to have extremely good manners, I am careful of what they are exposed to, and I have successfully instilled a love of reading. If I can get them to learn how to apply their minds to diligent study, then I can take a backseat and continue in a largely advisory parental role.

2. Taiko Player. In September of 2008 I took the beginner class, auditioned and became a performing member of St. Louis Osuwa Taiko. I'm not very talented, but I can just scrape by with a LOT of hard work. Plus, it's great fun, and I love it. I will be inviting you to my performances. Be prepared.

3. Employee. I work from 5:30 to noon at Citigroup in O'Fallon. I work in the Imaging department, prepping mail to be scanned. It's a long process, and tedious, but not difficult. It requires a lot of attention to detail. I have re-discovered that I am a VERY good employee. I work hard, I try hard, I am easy to work with, I ask before doing something STUPID - but can also work independently, and I keep a tidy desk. No one seeing my house would ever believe it, but it's true.

Who I am, based on what I love: Well, here's what I love, anyway:

1. Books. The ones made out of paper. I love to read, and I read fiction. Some of my fiction can be categorized as Literature - but really, who decides what is and isn't literature? Some of my favorite works are James Harriot's collections (I would refer them to their book titles, but I recently found that originally they were grouped differently), Angela Carter's Wise Children, The Harry Potter Series, Daphne DuMaurier's Rebecca, Seventeen by Booth Tarkington, Some of Agatha Christie's stories, Jane Austen, Daddy Long Legs, by Jean Webster (I always read this when I'm sick), The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Hobbit (and The Lord of the Rings, too), and Judith Martin (I actually consider her works to be non-fiction, however). I also read Janet Evanovitch's Stephanie Plum series, although I recognize that she is only an average writer, and the Twilight series, though I recognize that Stephanie Meyer is a hideous writer. (What can I say?) I also like Dracula, Little Women, The Arabian Nights, The Three Musketeers (inconsistencies and all), Jane Eyre, Terry Pratchet's City Watch books, The Hunger Games, and Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events. I love quotes by Mark Twain and Ben Franklin, and really need to get a hold of their larger works. I like Edgar Allen Poe a lot, Nathaniel Hawthorne a little, and the only thing of Kate Chopin's that I ever liked at all was Desiree's Baby.

2. Movies. I have strange taste. I like adventure movies and comedies with clever dialog the best. I watch foreign movies......that are adventures or comedies with clever dialog. I've been known to watch stuff with deep messages, but really I can come up with my own deep messages. Usually what I ask for from a movie is entertainment. Here are some of my favorite movies: Amelie, The Red Violin, The 13th Warrior, The Hunt for Red October, Raiders of the Lost Arc, Willow, The Apartment (Jack Lemon and Shirly Maclaine), Ball of Fire (Barbara Stanwyk), Snatch, My Cousin Vinny, Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na, Scent of a Woman, Second Hand Lions, Muppet Christmas Carol, Sliding Doors (Gwenyth Paltrow), Wide Awake, The Secret of Roan Inish, Wasabi, Bringing up Baby, Chocolat, The Cutting Edge, Dark City, Dear Frankie, Midnight, Emma (Gwenyth Paltrow), Young Frankenstein, Galaxy Quest, For Roseanna, Naussica of the Valley of the Wind, Gosford Park, The Slipper and the Rose, Serenity, the Fifth Element, Gaslight (Ingrid Bergman), Maverick, Laura (Gene Tierney), Grosse Pointe Blank, Jab We Met, Little Shop of Horrors, Miss Congeniality, The Natural, How to Train Your Dragon, Shanghai Noon, Independence Day, Howl's Moving Castle, Men In Black...and probably a bunch more.

3. Music. To continue with the strange taste: I like what I like. Occasionally it includes opera, Broadway musicals, country, rap, old blues, metal, "Obnoxious Teenager Music", or dance-y stuff, but I would have to say that the bulk of my music can be categorized as: Sentimental favorites (stuff that reminds me of a person or a time) "New Orleans Ladies", "Let Me Clear My Throat", "To Be With You", "Loser", "Funk 49", "Man In The Box", "La Vida Su Carnival"; Catchy indie-rock or alternative: "Another Day" by Pomplamoose, "Level" Raconteurs, Foreign music: Animal Jazz - Dvoinoi Shenoi, Kyo - Dernier Dance, Bonnie Pink - Your Butterfly, LAMA - Meini Tak Treba, Sertab Erener - Mechbursun, Damien Dempsey - Rocky Road to Dublin, Fiach - Sea Taim, Emily Loizeau - Jalouse, Tikhi Mirch, Teoman - O, Mujhe Teri.... Mostly Turkish, Russian, French, Hindi and Irish. Yep. It's true.

4. Other stuff: MY FAMILY! I even think my husband is kind of cute. I love my dishes. They're pretty. I'm also emotionally attached to my kitchen counter. I picked it myself, you know. It's green. If you look at it, it looks kinda like cracked clay, but my brain sees leaf patterns instead. I love flowers. Especially wild violets, surprise lilies, pink roses, pink peonies, purple or white crocus, blue iris, red tulips and flowering fruit trees. I like jasmine bubble tea. Okay, I just like jasmine tea. It's my favorite. I also like knee socks. I wear them to work a lot, and they always match my shirt....but they are hiding under jeans. I sit in the part of the room that judges one's clothing. I like sushi, and I like buttery crab bake, and I like sweet breads, especially with cranberries, and brisket. Oh, yum. And vanilla cupcakes. And strawberries.

Now I'm hungry. :(

Okay, so mainly I'm an eccentric. But you love me anyway, right? Right?

I will write soon to tell you what I'm up to. I hope you have all just had a wonderful weekend. Off I go to whip up some macaroni and cheese shells! I am a gourmet, no?

What!?!?!? All this time later and they still haven't fixed the "Publish Post" botton? Geez...