Recommendation

If you haven't read the memoir One Child by Torey Hayden, you should. It's both heartbreaking and wonderful.

Favorite Show

While I hate to admit it, I've become a bit of a reality TV junky. Ok, a big reality TV junkie. In my own defense, I don't watch those horrid dating shows like "The Bachelor" or "More to Love," nor can I stand the shows featuring washed up G-list "celebrities" like "The Surreal Life" or "A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila." Blech. Just by typing the names of those shows I feel like I've somehow violated the integrity of this blog...

I do, however, love the documentary-style shows, such as "Ace of Cakes," "L.A. Ink," "Unwrapped," and "Deadliest Catch," and I also like the competition shows that either motivate me ("Biggest Loser") or are just pure entertainment ("Project Runway," which I'm starting to watch for the first time this season). By far my favorite show, however, and not just in the reality TV category, is "So You Think You Can Dance." I know, I know, it has a ridiculous title and is just begging to be made fun of, but I'm telling you, when this show is on I can't take my eyes off the screen. I like that it showcases ALL kinds of dance, from ballroom to Latin, swing to krump, ballet to Bollywood. It also shows ordinary people who are trying to make it in the world of dance, unlike "Dancing with the Stars" (another show featuring washed-out "celebrities"). These people are SERIOUSLY talented dancers. Some of them have been training since they were tykes, and some for only a few years. All of them are outstanding and they make the show something I truly look forward to every week.

In honor of the show staring it's sixth season on September 9, here are my all time favorite routines from the past four seasons in no particular order (I didn't start watching until Season 2...gotta go back and rent that first season!). Yes, there are a lot of them, but part of the reason I'm doing this post is so I can catalogue all of my faves in one place. Enjoy!

Lacy and Cameron: Contemporary


Katee and Joshua: Bollywood


Jamie and Hok: Pop Jazz (Hummingbird and Flower)


Chelsea and Mark: Hip Hop


Katee and Joshua: Hip Hop


Kayla and Kupono: Contemporary


Neil and Sabra: Jazz


Katee and Twitch: Contemporary


Kherington and Twitch: Viennese Waltz


Kherington and Twitch: Broadway


Katee and Will: Broadway


Courtney and Mark: Contemporary


Jeanine and Philip: Hip Hop


Travis and Heidi: Contemporary


Caitlin and Jason: Bollywood


Karla and Jonathan: Contemporary


Karla and Jonathan: Cha Cha


Kayla and Max: Salsa


Evan and Randi: Hip Hop


Evan and Randi: Jazz


Courtney and Joshua: Hip Hop


Courtney and Gev: Contemporary


Chelsie and Twitch: Hip Hop


Season 5 Top 16: Group Number


Brandon and Janette: Argentine Tango

Place This in the "Completely Random" Category

This guy was there to greet me on my walk home today...

I don't know either.

Extreme Makeover, Hair Edition

I met my good friend Ann at work nearly two years ago. When I first met her, her hair was about shoulder length. Ever since that time she's been growing it out in an effort to donate it to Locks of Love, a charity that makes wigs out of real hair for cancer patients. It's taken quite a while, but yesterday she finally went in and had it chopped off...all ten inches of it.

Here is what Ann looked like yesterday at work:

And here is what she looked like today at work:

Did you notice how she's not really giving a full smile in the picture from yesterday? That's because you always have to look kind of sad in the before picture, like your life sucks and won't it be great when you can transform your whole world with a simple hair cut???

When she came home after cutting her hair, she expected Owen, her three-year-old to either not recognize her or at least say something wild. He didn't even blink an eye.

The girl is a rock star.

Summer Flowers

House guest.

This is the Fillmore. He is a little peanut of a boy who stayed with Clara and me the past eight days while his dad (my neighbor) was out of town on a business trip. Fillmore is a Boston Terrier, and his raisen de vie (does that mean "reason for living"? I'm hoping it does...) are tennis balls. Truly. The dog is on crack and by "crack" I mean tennis balls. Yes, he has an addiction, and no, he can not stop at any time and don't let him try to tell you otherwise. The minute he wakes up in the morning he grabs one of his myriad tennis balls, and from that minute on he has one either in his mouth or in a 1-foot radius of himself until the very....last....second before he falls asleep at night. It's completely insanity. Clara and he get along pretty well, but both are very jealous of each other so Clara was probably more than satisfied to see him go today. Especially considering he insists on sleeping under all the covers on the bed, which, added to my mom sharing my bed while she was here meant that there was no room for Clara on the bed, where she normally sleeps for at least half of the night. She did make a valiant effort to try to continue her routine, however. It failed miserably.

I did manage to get a few good shots of him/them over the week, so here they are, for your veiwing pleasure:

Long time, no blog.

Well hello there! I know, I know, I haven't blogged in like two weeks. There's no excuse for this kind of behavior, but of course I have one, which is that I've had company ever since the Wednesday before last (I'm very popular, you know), so my blogging/doing anything in my normal routine time has been cut severely short. In some ways this has been great, as I've had the perfect excuse not to work out, answer emails/voicemails, or do the dishes/laundry (hoo boy is that laundry piling up...). On the other hand, it's been rather...great.

Last Wednesday my Aunt Sheri, Uncle Bill, and cousin Emily came to visit from Des Moines. Emily, age 15, was supposed to go to South Africa with her youth choir (yes, you read that correctly, and no, I still have not yet left the country at age 29), but in an extremely unfortunate turn of events, the company planning the trip for the group went bankrupt and all of the kids (read: the kids' parents) lost all of the money they had invested for the trip (around $3,000/kid). Ouch. So in an effort to cheer Emily up, my aunt and uncle let her choose where she'd like to take a trip (domestically this time) and she ended up choosing Chicago. Which suits me just fine because not only did I get to see/hang out with them, I also got several days' worth of free meals, as well as free admission to the Science and Industry Museum which was good fun. Emily spent the night at my place on Friday night, and we went and saw "Orphan" which was so scary that I don't think my hand left my mouth the entire two hours we were in the theater, except for the few times it traveled up to cover my eyes. Yikes. I took the crew to all my favorite spots in Chicago: Walker Brothers Pancake House, Wildfire Grill, Bookman's Alley, the Evanston Lakeshore Art Fair (which just happened to be last weekend), Ethiopian Diamond, The Museum of Science and Industry, and, as previously mentioned, the movie theater. Yes, more than half of those involve food. No, I don't care that I totally derailed my efforts on Weight Watchers (I lost 3.6 pounds last week! And now I've probably gained it all back!). Why? Because it was fun.

The Des Moines contingent left on Tuesday, and on Wednesday my mom flew in to continue the party. Lots of good times ensued, including a full day at the beach, more movie watching (this time we saw the very un-scary "Adam" and "Julie and Julia"--both excellent), lots more eating (which ensured that if I hadn't gained back the weight I lost when the Des Moines-ians were here, I certainly have now, and oh, what a way to go), shopping (wherein I discovered Target was having a huge sale on their underwear and bras, so I basically overhauled my collection--and I got an immersion blender--woohoo!), sleeping in (because I took THREE DAYS off of work), playing with the dogs (yes, I added that "s" on purpose--I have also been dog sitting for a friend of mine for the past 8 days), and generally basking in the glow of having numerous possibilities but no commitments.

So now it's back to reality and back to my crazy job, which will be especially crazy this week since we have a huge deadline on Friday. But all the while I'll be thinking about the last week-and-a-half: laying on the beach with my mom, seeing movies, and generally being care free.