Sleeping Beauty, Bronchitis, and Disney Magic

So, my little five year old Sammy and I have been sick in bed (literally) for the past few days with bronchitis. It has . . . not been fun. At all. But at least one good thing has come of it. Sleeping Beauty. I shall explain.


You know how us as humans tend to fixate on things? For example, I've been fixated on Robert Downey Jr. for the longest time now, my sister in law has been fixated on Stargate (the AMAZING TV series), etc. Well, Sammy has been fixating on Sleeping Beauty. She has probably watched this movie 20 times this weekend alone. We're working on the fourth time through just today, and it's not even dinnertime yet. We've also watched special features, and done the Sleeping Beauty Castle virtual tour three times in a row.

Well, while the two of us are sitting in bed, sniffling and hacking and dabbing at watery eyes and trying to breathe past the enormous invisible elephants on our chests, I've been having Sleeping Beauty related epiphanies left and right. Seriously. I can't even Facebook them all, otherwise people would start questioning my Nyquil intake. (For the record, none. I don't do medicine I have to drink, and gel capsules make me gag just at the sight of them. See, my throat is seizing just thinking about them. *Gag*) So, in order to share these priceless epiphanies with the world, hello pretty blog! Hold onto your hats, people. It's about to get Disney all up in here.

First off, a rant. I know, odd thing to start with, but we're going with it anyway. And I promise, this all ties in at the end, bear with me. It's been a big trend recently to redo classic fairytales into these big, grand, live action adventures. Snow White has been done twice, Hansel and Gretel inherited Jeremy Renner and some witches, Alice in Wonderland got the Tim Burton treatment a few years ago, Red Riding Hood grew up and fell in love with a werewolf. Now, on my part, I've pretty much been a big fan of these. Mirror Mirror: wacky, but I loved it. Julia Roberts was GENIUS. Alice in Wonderland is a favorite, Johnny Depp has yet to find a role he can't do. Red Riding Hood appealed in the most bizarre way, since I'm not a big fan of the creepy things.


However . . . It all fell apart when we put the hot factor of Chris Hemsworth, the acting prowess of Charlize Theron, and the fantastic story of Snow White, with . . . Kristen Stewart. We gave a girl with as much expression as a brick wall the role of the fairest in the land. No. As of yet, not even the lure of Chris Hemsworth's muscles and Charlize Theron as the wicked queen have convinced me to sit through two hours of snooze on the part of director-screwing, Stony-Faced Stewart. I can't do it.

Which brings me to one of the next live-action fairytale interpretations set to hit the scenes, rumored to give us the backstory of one of the most famous villains in history, Maleficent (see, told you this would tie in). I'm stoked for this. As stoked as I was for Snow White and the Huntsman before I found out about that the fairest of them all was really going to be the least expressive of them all. I mean, come on! This is going to be awesome. The actresses they are picking to play these evil queens is genius. Julia Roberts, Charlize Theron, Angelina Jolie, these women are top of the totem pole. Watching them apply their own particular talents to such huge, fantastic characters is or is going to be AMAZING.


And while we're waiting anxiously for the summer of 2014 to find out what the good goshdang happened to muck up Maleficent's life, I have a theory: She and King Stefan have a history. I'm not sure what kind, but there has to be something going on there. Why else would Maleficent just randomly show up at the royal baby shower and be uber-pissed about not having been invited? It's a baby shower, not like you're missing much, just oohing and ahhing over this season's cutest in haute for baby.

Unless . . . it's your ex's baby with his wife he left you for. In that case, I can see being a bit miffed. Especially when the other woman has the gall to actually talk to you when you crash the party, putting on the innocent act and asking if you're not offended. If that's the case, they kinda asked for it. Yeah people, this is where my brain goes. I have a good time.

So, Maleficent is pissed, plants an evil curse on (her ex's?) baby, and disappears in a cloud of green smoke, leaving everyone's favorite good fairy, Merryweather, to unsnarl this mess. I have one question . . .

WHAT WAS MERRYWEATHER GOING TO GIVE THE PRINCESS BEFORE ALL THAT HAPPENED?! Seriously, this has been bothering me for years. The kid already has beauty and song, which seems like a pretty good deal to me, so what could the third gift have been that would have been equal to those gifts already given? Mysterious. But, as before, I have a theory. I would bet that Merryweather, being the adorable thing she is, was either going to give Aurora the gift of happiness or love. Because those are the kinds of things the spunky, cheeky fairy would value. And yet, despite this happy theory I have formed, I'm still going to drive myself nuts every time I see this movie. Which will probably be another two or three times before bedtime, if the day continues as it has been.


Since we're on the topic of Merryweather, that brings me nicely to my next thing. I have decided that dressing up as one of the fairies for Halloween would be totally awesome! I totally have the body type for it, short and round. And I could totally make that hat, I have some pretty mad hat skills (ask me about my Mad Hatter top hat). And, since my mother-in-law and sister-in-law are as big of Disney fans as I am, we could totally do a trio of all three!

Then my daughter threw in her two cents, and I was surprised. Sammy wants to be the green fairy, Fauna, Grandma can be Merryweather, sister-in-law can be Flora, our dog can be the dragon Maleficent, I can be Sleeping Beauty, and Daddy can be the prince. Of course I was delighted to be the princess in this scenario, so I graciously accepted. The temptation to do a dress that is splattered pink and blue is irresistible. If I am being Princess Aurora this Halloween, I am so doing that.

Ok peeps, a couple of quick tidbits of trivia will wrap this thing up, so here we go (I'm a BIG trivia fan, deal with it). The voice of Maleficent = Same woman who voiced the stepmother, Lady Tremaine, in Cinderella! The sound of the dragon snapping its jaws = Castanets! And this last one is my favorite: when Maleficent is taunting Prince Phillip in the prison in the Forbidden Mountain fortress, and his subsequent daring escape, all of that was originally meant to go to Prince Ferdinand in Snow White. The reason it didn't? When Snow White was being done, Walt Disney didn't think his animators could do a convincing enough human male (look at that picture, he had a point), so it was scrapped and put in Sleeping Beauty years later instead! Cool, huh?! Told ya, trivia nerd over here. I love this stuff.


You wanna know the best thing about this movie, and even all Disney movies in general, especially the classics? That they never stop being as awesome as the were the first time you saw them. I still get that thrill of romance when Prince Phillip starts dancing with Briar Rose, waltzing through the forest. I still laugh in delight as Flora and Merryweather bicker back and forth while the fairies are all preparing for the birthday party. I still feel that deep sense of foreboding and fear as Maleficent appears in the fireplace and lures Aurora away up the tower to the tune of that creepy music. It's magic. Disney magic. And even when I'm old and gray, looking far more like a Fairy Godmother than a princess, I will still see with wondering eyes everything that those movies have to offer.


P.S. Have you ever noticed that the horses in Disney movie are the most hysterical, outrageous creatures! The attitude! It's fabulous!

Politically Uncorrect, and I like it.

I am going to be politically and culturally offensive here for a minute, are you ready? Judge me, I dare you.

Ok, here goes for some cultural offenses. I think that Robert Pattinson, the guy who plays Edward in the Twilight Series (never seen it, never read it) is one of the fugliest guys I have ever seen (thing ugly with a very meaningful F on the front). And Kristen Stewart, who plays Bella, constantly looks drugged, grumpy, and like she is so totally above everyone else. I can't stand either of them. I hated Robert Pattinson in Harry Potter, and his position has gotten worse on my Like List. However, kudos to whoever cast Taylor Lautner. I don't know if he can act, but through sheer gift of his genetics, he brought millions of people to watch those movies. He is very hot.

Another Twilight related culture offense. I cannot decide if I want to read or watch them. I don't like vampires, I don't like werewolves, I think the whole storyline is creepy. I like romances, but that kind of stuff sounds way too screwed up for me. And I have heard from several people that it's cheesy. I like some kinds of cheesy, but there is a point at which I lose complete respect when it ventures into that zone of cheesy that not even a desperate person would go to. I'm pretty sure I don't want to read it. Also, that fact that I was able to glean almost the entire plot simply from reading the absolutely RIDICULOUS number of flairs on Facebook was incredibly annoying. Anything that has that many crazed fans I am not interested in.

I'm now going to be politically offensive. I found out the other day that someone very close to me got an abortion last year. I wasn't exactly shocked, but I was still very, very sad. Abortion should be illegal except in cases where the baby will not live anyway or have life-threatening deformities, or in rape cases. That's it. When you get an abortion, you are not just taking an easy way out on your own screw up. You are murdering a person. You have no right to do that. It's not just an inanimate bit of tissue that you're removing, it's a living being. Shame on anyone who has ever done that. There is ALWAYS a better solution. You just didn't look hard enough. For the record, this person that I know that had the abortion regrets it. If she could go back and change it, she would in a heartbeat. She hates herself knowing that she did it. She can't even say the word abortion, she feels so horrible. Hindsight sure is a bugger.

Now I'm going to offend sports players, politicans, celebrities, and businessmen who make more than $50,000 a year. I think that for all of those people we should halve their salaries. Did you know that some athletes make more money in a single game than teachers, firemen, nurses, military servicemen, and police officers make in a whole year? Sometimes ten years? And politicians and celebrities are often the same. Celebrities spend more on an outfit that they will wear once than I spend in an entire year on groceries. That is sick. And some politicians, especially the high up ones like Senators and Presidents and offices like that get salaries and benefits that are often continued throughout their whole lives.

I am one of the thousands of uninsured Americans. My family of three, with both myself and my husband working part time earns about $600-$700 every month. One visit to the doctor is about $130, not including prescriptions. I know this because in the past 2 weeks we have had to go to the local Instacare three times, once for each of us. I had a virus that mimics strep throat, then an ear infection, and now a cold and I still have that ear infection and a very sore throat. We're going on three weeks with that now. My husband got everything I had except the cold, then he got pink eye. My daughter got the cold, the pink eye, and an ear infection. It was $75 for my husband and I just to see the doctor, then we had lab work for the strep cultures and two prescriptions for my husband (I didn't get anything, which is probably why I'm still sick). Luckily we're poor enough that our daughter is covered by Medicaid. Now wouldn't it be nice if we could take half of all the earnings of all of this country's filty rich people and funnel it into the bank accounts of people who need it?

Those politicians and businessmen who write speeches and plan projects wouldn't be able to without those teachers that taught them to read and write. Those athletes wouldn't be playing without the nurses that healed all of their injuries. Those celebrities would probably have a lot harder time if the police weren't there to assist with crowd control. And everyone would be in for a world of hurt without firemen and servicemen and every other public service employee that goes to work every day for a short wage, long hours, and little appreciation. Food for thought.

Ooh, I though of another culturally offensive pet peeve! This country is America. We speak English here. If you're gonna live here, learn the language. I totally know that learning a second language takes time, and I know people have to work to live. But if you can't speak English or your accent is too thick to be understood, do not take a job where you will be speaking. Fast food restaurants are out. If I can't understand a fricking word you are saying when I'm in the drive through, you should not be working there. And whoever hired you should be fired. I have absolutely no problem with immigration (as long as it's legal) but acclimate already, people! We're a melting pot of cultures, but we speak ENGLISH here. Learn it.

Did I offend anybody yet? I hope I at least made you think. You know, few things actually really piss me off, but I guess I'm just in a griping mood tonight. It's been a crappy day, I'll admit it. Except between 6 and 9 p.m., I was playing with my daughter then and we had fun. But the rest of the day pretty much sucked. I had to do an extra batch of laundry thanks to a leaky sippy cup, a dog that is not mine threw up ALL OVER my bedroom carpet, I'm still sick, and since I have been sick my check this week is going to suck. We have to buy two textbooks for my husband for school, we have two doctor bills to pay, and our phone bill. All with about $150. It's gonna be a great week.

My final thought: I finally have a firm grip on reality. Now I can STRANGLE IT!!! Have a nice day!

Fairies, Big Toys, and Cliffs Notes

So, I was going to do my Things Your Waitress Won't Tell You, but I'm not functioning very well right now and I only got to number two and realized I was rambling. So we'll try for next time with that.

My baby is sick. *Sad face* I'm fairly certain we got colds after having that virus, and since she was a lucky bug and escaped the virus, she got slammed by the cold. She's got huge dark circles under her eyes and they're red and puffy, her nose is running like a train and she's just as ornery as a bear. I'm keeping her loaded up on kid's ibuprofen and nighttime cough and cold, but she's still having a hard time. One of her favorite movies is Polar Express, which she endearingly calls "Choo choo" but I hardly let her watch it because there's just something sacreligous about watching Christmas movies when it's not Christmas, but I've let her watch it as much as she wants today. Which is, like, 8 times. At least. I was at work this morning, so who knows. I'm hoping her cold wasn't made worse by playing outside the other day.

We spent the night at my parent's house and they live right across from the elementary school, so we all went over and played on the Big Toy for about an hour or so. We're talking 4 adults, two over the age of 40, a 17 year old, then 3 kids from 10 to 2. Us adults discovered via the monkey bars and zip line that we have muscles that have lain dormant for a good 10 to 20 years! I'm sure it was a riot to see us all playing around. My daughter was having a ball climbing up the slide and going down, and climbing up, and going down over and over. My littler sister was climbing everything, my other older sister was trying to simultaneously hold onto the dog (a very spazzy miniature American Eskimo named Miko) and jump on the tires in the sand box. My mom was alternating between spinning on the twirly stool-looking things and testing the zip line. My dad was busy crashing himself into the rest of the big toy while testing the zip line and helping my daughter climb back up the slide. My hubby was everywhere getting into everything, particularly the toy that's like a log in the water that you run on and try not to fall off. My brother was climbing around on the big tires in the sand box, and I was going between the zipline, the tires, and the Maryland bars (I'm not actually sure that's what they're called, they're two parallel bars that slope down to the ground from the Big Toy. You just hook your legs over the bars and zoom on down. In my case I was more of very slowly creeping down since my jeans weren't very slidey). It was a blast and we were all SO sore the next morning! And then before we left my baby insisted that we go back and we climbed up and down the slide for another half hour.

Anywho, I got the funnest package in the mail today! I have a favorite site called Collections Etc. and they have the coolest stuff! It's one of those catalog places that have all sorts of stuff that you don't really need, but at the same time you can't live without it, you know? I ordered a couple things last week and they came today! Joy! I got a set of three blown glass art necklaces, they're really pretty, and a figurine set of fairies in the woods! I didn't know if I expected them to be bigger or smaller, but for some reason I was so surprised and downright tickled when I opened them up! They've got glittery wings and the details are so cool! They are now in a spot of honor on the shelf on my nightstand, next to my musical doll my daughter got me for Mother's Day and the silk flowers in the white pail that I change when I'm in a mood to. So today was a lovely package day! I am going to have the hardest time deciding which necklace to wear first! Gah!

On a side note here, I have discovered that I love Cliffs Notes. I see them at the library all the time, so a few weeks ago I just grabbed a handful and took them home. They are so awesome! You get the whole plotline without having to read hundreds of pages! I read Wuthering Heights (depressing, glad I didn't read the long version), King Lear (want to see it now), Othello (depressing), The Iliad (interesting), My Antonia (glad I never read it in school), I tried to read Canterbury Tales but there were just too many flippin' characters, I did Beowulf (pretty nifty, I love mythology), and Henry V (cool). Who knows how many pages I would have had to read and Shakespeare I would have had to decipher? I love the story of Little Women and the Jane Austen's, but I can't stand the language. It's fantastic, but it takes you a freaking eternity to read! So I am more than happy to settle for the movie versions, or, in the case of this paragraph, Cliffs Notes! Hooray for Cliffs Notes! I have another 50 or so that I'm going to check out, and Don Quixote is the next one in the stack on my dresser. I'm excited!

Okey dokey, I think my mouth runneth over enough for tonight, and I shall now . . . do something. I was so tired earlier that I actually slept for an hour, and it was 9 o'clock! I'm still tired, but my mind is going 110 mph so I'm going to have to find a calming activity. It's a challenge when the last 2 discs of NCIS are beckoning and I also have 2 movies from the library to watch. David and Bathsheba with Gregory Peck and Immortal Beloved with Gary Oldman, it's about Beethoven. If either are remarkable, I'll let you know. But not tonight! I am not staying up til 3:30 in the morning again, no way! And so, I take my leave. G'night, y'all!

Five Observations

Ok, so I don't have much time right now because I have to get up at 8 in the morning for work, and after sleeping for about 45 minutes last night, I NEED SLEEP!!!! But I have several thoughts to share.

The first is that I do not like rhubarb pie. My mom explained what rhubarb was when I was a kid and I think I tasted it, but I remember what it smelled like. One of our neighbors made a rhubarb pie and brought it over, and while the crust was perfection, I do not like rhubarb. It smells pretty good, though, almost like apple pie.

The second thought is that I saw a movie that was almost a complete waste of time. It was Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakel. It was kinda boring, pretty cheesy, and the only thing I got out of it was a very severe case of song-stuck-in-my-head-itis. I'm now glad I never saw the first Chipmunks movie. I used to watch the TV show, and I love the Christmas albums, but they should have stopped there. It was not near as big a waste as Napoleon Dynamite or Kingdom Something that Orlando Bloom was in, or the Garfield movie, but it's probably Top 5 on my Worst List. On a side note, I love Garfield too and used to watch that all the time. My dad has the comic books and I laugh every time I read them, and Garfield's Christmas is one of my very favorite Christmas shows.

The third thing is that I pissed off and 8 year old today. Ok, so I pissed off two 8year olds today, but one was my sister, so she doesn't count. It's a requirement that you irritate your sibings. I ticked off her friend, and I'm glad I did. She's a twit and she deserved it.

The fourth thing is that I hate being allergic to cats. My first younger sister has a mixed breed cat, he's very handsome with gray and black striped long hair, and I am allergic to cat hair. And penicillin, but that's beside the point. I love cuddling soft fuzzy things, and not being able to cuddle a cat without suffering a rash and very itchy eyes is just unfair.

The fifth and final thing is that I profoundly hate air mattresses. It does not matter if they are brand new fresh out of the box, they will leak. It's like they are programmed to spring a leak and deflate hours before morning. And that's only half the problem! If you get warm or start to sweat on an air mattress, it's too bad! You're sleeping on plastic! You just have to lay there and suffer. Stupid air mattresses.

Ok, I think that's all the random observations I collected that I can think of right this second (I'm sure I could think of more, but I REALLY need to go to bed) so I'm going now. I think I got a cold right on the heels of that virus I had, which means that two and a half weeks after first getting sick, I am still sick. *Grrr* So I'm going to set my alarm *whimper* and work on that whole myth of healing. Ta!

Still Sick, But The End Is In Sight!

I am thoroughly sick of being sick. It has now been 8 days since I first got a sore throat, and today is the first day since that I do not have to take 1200 miligrams of ibuprofen (they gave me 800 after I had my daughter) just to keep from bawling at the pain. And I do not cry easily. I have had stuffy noses before, we're talking massive amounts of . . . well, I guess I can say snot here, it's my blog after all. I have thought for years that inventing a snot vacuum would be a fabulous idea, that whoever inventing this fabulous machine would become a millionaire. I would buy one. I've also thought of inventing an air conditioned wig. I would shave my head in the summer and wear my AC wig. Ok, so I might not, but I have long, thick hair and sometimes I am sorely, sorely tempted.

Anyway, snot vacuums. This week has been no exception to my normal sicknesses as far as snot output, and in the short time of one week, I have personally gone through 4 boxes (big boxes, not the little square ones) of tissues. And I get the more expensive ones, with the lotion on them. Because when you're wiping and blowing your nose every other minute, you are not going to want to do it with a tissue that could qualify as sandpaper by day 5 of this routine. Four boxes! Needless to say, I have to buy more tissues now. As well as chicken noodle soup, because that was one of the very few things I could eat without making my throat feel like I was ingesting acid. Although I think if I have to eat anymore chicken noodle soup anytime in the near future I may prefer to starve. I'm making dinner tonight, and it's tuna noodle casserole, and I can't wait! Something solid and tasty and not chicken! *Happy Dance*

I'm also downloading Sims 2 on my laptop right now. So, with Sims, I love to create the characters and build the house, but after that I completely lose interest. I really don't care about having them "live". I get so bored. My husband kinda gets a kick out of that part, though, so I build, he plays. I'm in one of those moods right now, and since I've been watching NCIS, I'm going to make NCIS team, and the house they're in is going to be the NCIS building! I'm going to do the teamroom, autopsy, the director's office, MTAC, Abby's lab, and everything! How possessed am I? I think I'm going to do a Stargate team as well, but figuring out a way to do a Stargate could get tricky. Maybe I'll do a wall mosaic. Yeah, I'm possessed.

I can (sort of) smell the casserole and I'm starving!!! Ooh, I think my daughter may finally be getting to the princess stage. Up til now she has LOVED all the cartoons and movies with the animals. One Hundred and One Dalmatians was a HUGE favorite for months, also Aristocats, Monsters Inc., Bambi more recently, just all the animal ones. Well, these past few weeks we've been watching the princess ones, Cinderella, Snow White, Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and she's been enjoying them! It's kinda fun, especially since I am a Disney kid through and through, so I'm enjoying it too! Perhaps not over and over and over how she likes to watch them, but still. It's been fun.

Ok, Sims is almost done downloading and dinner is almost done cooking, therefore I am done blogging! Have a lovely day!

Sickie Sickie

You wanna know what I hate? Being sick. You know what I hate even more about being sick? When it hurts.

I had a sore throat last Wednesday, and it has escalated since then until I was finally prompted to visit and InstaCare this morning. I was looking at my reflection in the mirror (I looked like death, not even warmed over) and had a sudden wonderment if my excruciating painful sore throat might be tonsilitis. I looked it up online and I have all the symptoms, so I figured getting some antibiotics in me ASAP would be a pretty good idea.

So on a Sunday morning with me in my pajama pants still looking like death-not-warmed-over we took a jaunt to the doctor's office and paid a visit to Dr. Starbucks. No, that's not his name. I don't remember his name, but when he was checking my incredibly swollen glands I smelled coffee. Since neither I nor my husband drink coffee, it must have been Dr. Starbucks. He was really nice though, and aside from the incredibly painful double q-tip swab that felt like the entire back of my throat had come off, it was one of the most pleasant doctors office visits I have ever had. Except for the $75 fee that will be refunded when we turn in our financial aid form. That part sucked.

Anywho, I didn't get a prescription because Dr. Starbucks thought it would turn out to be strep throat, but it wasn't, so he thinks it is a virus that mimics strep. So after leaving we took another jaunt to Walmart to get Sudafed, the "good stuff" that you have to show your ID to get. I'm not really feeling a difference yet, but it's only been . . . 15 or so hours. The part that sucks beyond sucking is that NOTHING will make my sore throat hurt less! I tried ibuprofen, I tried Tylenol, I tried two other cold medicines, and I tried Aleve. NOTHING!!! Do you know how much it hurts to cough and swallow when it feels like you have enormous ruptured blisters lining the back of your throat? The only thing I have found that eased that pain slightly is honey, so I've been practically drinking it out of the bottle. Ok, not really, I'm dripping it on my finger and sucking it off, but I'm still consuming more honey right now than I usually do in a month or more. I'm very glad I got an extra bottle last week, we'll be needing it. So if anyone out there has a miraculous rememdy for a sore throat, I would love to hear it!

So, here I sit, alternating between a cold sweat, normal temperature, and a hot sweat, with my throat burning and stinging, my nose stuffed to the rafters, and a rather irritating itch on my back, deciding how bad it would be to mix Aleve with ibuprofen. Probably bad, huh? Yeah. *Pout*

I think it's time for bed. I'm going to call in sick for work tomorrow (I cannot express enough how much I love my job. One of the reasons is that they actually don't want you to come in if you're sick. I LOVE my job!!!) and perhaps the day after, depending on how I feel in the morning. If it is anything like now, I will be staying home for two days.

Ooh, before I forget, my handsome hubby is starting school tomorrow! He's going to get a degree in Computer Science and starts his first two classes tomorrow. He's been excited about it for a couple weeks, we got him new shoes and pants and a new backpack and a new laptop so he can do his online class. We have a couple laptops that we have adopted, but he needed a good one for school with a really nice battery. So yay for my husband!!!!

Yeah, I'm gonna go now. I'm going to finish this episode of NCIS, imbibe some more honey, and go off into a painless oblivion. *Crossing fingers* Night, all!