Thursday Thoughts

1. It was move-in day on campus yesterday. Woo boy, did I have a hard time finding a parking spot after lunch. The building's parking lot was full and so were two parking garages. I've never seen a full parking garage on campus. I felt really bad for all the parents who received tickets for parking illegally.

2. My favorite words are noggin and paprika.

3. I bought a pair of earrings when we were on our cruise. I haven't worn earrings for years so it was an adjustment wearing them. Things were going good until I lost a back for one of them and now I'm back to not wearing earrings. No one noticed the addition to my wardrobe though so I guess it doesn't matter.

4. I watched an episode of the UK Office. I was surprised at the similar story lines. I didn't realize the American version outright stole from the original series.

5. Speaking of television, we now have satellite TV. I had hoped to just have cable but apparently we live in the middle of nowhere. So we now have a two year contract with Dish. I'm not convinced it's worth the money and I'm very worried about time and brain suckage. Especially for the little ones. Plus I'm already tired of the stupid commercials.

6. A friend recommended I try Bosnian food. She had some in Seattle and said it was delicious. I wonder how close I am to a Bosnian restaurant? Btown has Thai, Mediterranean, Indian, Pakistani, Tibetan, Ethiopian, Japanese, Burmese and many more. But no Bosnian.

7. I used to watch all my tv on Hulu.com. But you can only go a few episodes back before they want to charge for their plus service. And some series have no free episodes. It's super annoying and now Hulu wants you to connect with them on Facebook so your friends can see what you're watching. Uh, no thank you. I'm not going to help you advertise a service you CHARGE for, Hulu.

8. It's a beautiful day today! The sky is blue and gorgeous. I wish I was home planting flowers in my imaginary flower bed. Hopefully I'll be able to do some landscaping soon.

9. My professional and personal lives are getting in the way of my hobbies. I'm slowly getting behind on my One Flower Wednesday flowers, I never have time to read, and I haven't done any quilting lately. Not mention I still owe y'all some blog posts (vacation and Seeger at camp). This working and house organizing (which I really don't enjoy) is too distracting.

10. I'm all for regifting but only if it's not so obvious. Just sayin'.

11. The boys aren't doing cup scouts this year. It's getting to be too much work for the parents (does any boy really do all those requirements on their own?) and our lives are busy enough. If I'm paying $45 a week for the boys to take tae kwon do, you can bet I want them to go to as many classes as possible. Nicklas is also doing basketball and I've love for them to be in drama or music lessons.

12. This weekend, the Polack and I are going on our anniversary trip. It's his year to plan so I don't know where we're headed. It will be a quick but much needed trip.

13. The tractor my dad gave us is awesome. I remember when my parents bought it back in 1985. I loved driving that thing. I'm actually looking forward to cutting the grass. It's a John Deere and it's a little rusty but my dad put a new yellow seat on it. It's pretty spiffy. (I can't believe I said spiffy but that's the most accurate description of the seat, I promise!)

14. Do you ever hear of a colleague's job promotion and you think, wow, I wonder how that guy got that job? And then you realize you're selling yourself short.

15. Tonight will be busy - tae kwon do, Nicklas has to finish a project, we have his back to school meeting with the teacher, and we need to pack for the weekend. I'm just hoping to watch Project Runway. It would be great to watch it on tv, instead of my computer screen.

16. I asked Seeger if he thought I was the most awesome mom in the world. He said he'd have to think about it. He couldn't name another mom more awesome than me but he also wouldn't commit to giving me the number one spot.

17. I went out to lunch with a friend the other day and the restaurant was a converted from a single family home. We're sitting there talking when my friend looks up, above my head, speechless (which is a rarity). I look up and behind me, a few feet above my head, is a praying mantis. It was just hanging out at the window, probably sleeping. I think praying mantis's (manti?) are pretty cool so I tell my friend to chill out. (She couldn't though because she grew up in Samoa where she was surrounded by big furry spiders. So now she hates all kinds of bugs.) She tried but after several minutes, the praying mantis started watching us and paying more attention to what we were doing and all of a sudden I panicked because it looked like it was going to jump on my head and I even made a comment about it and my friend was like, dude, he's totally going to jump on your head. (We guessed it was he because he was green and brown and not completely green.) So we had to call our server over and he very politely and gentally rescued the praying mantis.

18. I just looked up the different between a male and female praying mantis. It has nothing to do with color. Males have 6 segments on its abdomen and females have 8. There you have it.

19. And the plural of praying mantis is praying manti.