Archive for the 'Books & Movies & TV & Technology' Category

I want a Wii

Seriously.

And I want a Wii Fit to go with it.

This is the first video game system I actually REALLY want.

Okay, maybe it isn’t the first because I coveted Nintendo with the Track & Field game and the mat my best friend had when we were kids.  Oh, how I loved that game.  The only time in my life I was good at any sort of sports, especially hurdles :)

Anyway, I want a Wii.  I am saving my money and when I find one in stock somewhere, I am buying it!

Healthy Child Healthy World

I heard about this book Healthy Child, Healthy World the other day.  Since I’ve been thinking a lot about what kinds of things we eat and use in our daily lives, it seems to fit right into what I want to do.

The book just came out this last week and since I had a gift card and a coupon for Barnes and Noble, I picked it up the other night. 

And then I read the introduction.  The people behind the organization that put out this book, Healthy Child Healthy World, started it because they lost their 5 year old daughter to Wilms’ Tumor in the early 90s.  Since they could not find a genetic reason for her cancer (nor is there one for my diagnosis), they wondered if something in their environment had played a role.  They decided to start advocating to create change in the types of products/chemicals used in our lives, particularly those children are regularly exposed to.  My mother and I have both wondered if there was an environmental factor behind me getting cancer as a kid because I have been the ONLY child in either side of my family for generations to have cancer (I actually don’t know of any child in my familial history).  In fact, the only cancer diagnoses have been with the older adults and those have been very few as well.  Anyway, I was surprised to learn that in the past, chemicals and products have been rated on how they affect a 155 lb adult male, not a smaller much more susceptible child.

While I’ve only gotten a chance to read the first couple of chapters, I love how they present ways to change your lifestyle to a greener and healthier one by giving you 10 steps to change in each chapter.  I’ve already gotten a lot of good tips on cleaning and products to use as well as why the products I have used in the past are not healthy, particularly for kids.

So here’s my recommendation, if you are looking for ways to change your lifestyle, this book is a good one start with :)  Also check out their website.

Woo Hoo!

T brought home a computer he got from a guy who apparently decided that his barely two-year-old tower wasn’t worth putting a new hard drive in.  So T put a new hard drive in and switched out the video card with parts he wouldn’t be using at work, and woo hoo I have a very speedy computer!  We did have to buy a monitor but Target had one on sale (widescreen no less!). 

It is fast!

It plays online videos with sound and picture at the same speed!

I’m all excited, even if it is a Windows computer.   I will get a Mac again someday as I’m a Macgirl at heart.

This and Spamalot tickets- I’m having a lucky week :P

A post likely to get you sacked

Saturday morning T & I are getting tickets for Monty Python’s Spamalot, which is coming to west Michigan in May.  They even have a show on my birthday! We’ve been talking about seeing Spamalot since it opened in 2005.  I would have LOVED to see the original cast!

Monty Python and the Holy Grail is “our movie”.  We quote it randomly and I always start giggling.

Needless to say, I was very excited when I heard the show was coming here :P

Book Review: I Love You More

A couple weeks ago, I received an e-mail from a gentleman asking me if I would be interested in reviewing a children’s book. Being that I have an almost 3-year-old who loves books, I said sure. I received the book shortly thereafter in the mail and sat down to read it with Widget.

First, basic information about the author and the illustrator. I Love You More was written by Laura Duksta. Duksta lost all her hair due to alopecia areata at the age of 11. Upon dealing with this and learning to love herself without hair, she realized that anything is possible when you are loved. Illustrator Karen Kessler apparently earned the nickname hippie because of her intense love for people and the planet. Teamed together, the two call themselves “The Hippie and the Bald Chick” and have their own website at www.hippieandthebaldchick.com.

Now for the book itself.

bookimage.gifWidget and I really enjoyed that the book was a flip book.  One half the story is about love from a parent’s perspective.  Flip the book over to read about love from a child’s view.   The story is easy to read with simple rhymes describe how much greater, deeper, higher, faster, and so on each’s love is for the other.  Each half ends with them giving each other a hug and the other saying I love you more.  Each page had a bright and colorful picture that showed the different things love was being compared to.  Widget liked to point to each picture and talk about what was there.

This is a very cute book about love, with the flip book showing how the love between a parent and child is endless.  Widget and I enjoyed reading it and I suspect it will be one we read rather often.

Madeleine L’Engle died

This makes me very sad :(

I have read, really devoured, her books since I was nine-years-old and the wife of our priest suggested A Wrinkle in Time to me.

I have longed for a new book from her for years since her last fiction one A Live Coal in the Sea several years ago.

I know she has found joy and everlasting peace now.  She is one person I’ve never met but I will truly miss.

Bought, Read & Finished

the last Harry book.

I found it very, very interesting and the last 100 pages or so were by far the best!

Wonder what will be up J.K. Rowling’s sleeve next?

Must Avoid

all possible internet locations where I will find out the ending to Harry Potter until I can get us a copy of the book!

Not a chance that I would stay up until midnight and later to pick up a copy as soon as it is released but I do think I’ll hit Barnes & Noble today to see if they have any copies left :-P

Who knew?

I am rereading a series of British mysteries (actually written by an American author). Now that, in and of itself, not a very interesting thing to write about.

But here’s the thing:

In the second to last of the series to date, a main character dies. When I read that book and came to that part, I literally put the book down and cried. I felt shock, rage, anger as if it were people I really knew going through this. I thought about it for day, “How could she (the author) do this?” “Why?” “It has to be a mistake. This character will be alive in the next book.” The character was, technically, alive in the next book because it ran parallel to the previous story. However, the character will not make a miraculous resurrection in the upcoming book.

Anyway, I am rereading the series for the first time since that book.  I keep noting all these things that are said and done which have extremely different meanings knowing what happens.  What is odd, though, is the closer I get in the series to the book, the slower I’ve been reading them as if I want to put off getting to that book and that incident.  I was talking to T about it last night and I started getting all teary-eyed about what was to come.

Who knew you could get so attached to characters in a book?

Beerfest

Yeah, so the third movie we got from Netflix was Beerfest.  Same guys as Super Troopers.

Not exactly my choice.

:P

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About Me

I'm Erin since May 1977

Wife to T since June 14, 1997

Mommy to Widget since November 2004

Widget joined our family through a domestic open adoption. We have a fully open adoption with her maternal first family, seeing them 3-4 times per year.

About this blog

A place for me to ramble about my life as a Christian mom, wife, ethical adoption advocate, childhood cancer survivor, depression fighter.

E-mail Me

momtowidget at gmail dot com
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