Hello and happy Monday. Did you have a good weekend? What's that you say? It's Tuesday?Already??? Yesterday was busy-busy-busy so I'm just now carving out a minute to check in.
Here's the situation:
1) SALES: Last week was THE WEEK of the consignment sale. I went to a large consignment sale Wednesday and procured a few things for the trio's spring and summer wardrobe. I needed a couple more things (literally) so went to another sale Friday afternoon. We picked up a few extra things..... and..... drum roll... two new chairs for our keeping room. LOVE them. We spent Saturday morning giving that room a make-over. The project was complicated by the fact that we need to seriously EDIT our entire home and eliminate about 50% of our accumulated goods. After working all day Saturday, we took the monkeys out for Mexican as a treat for being helpful while we worked.
2) ARTS: The duo kicked off the weekend by going to a children's theatre production Friday, and William George and I took the opportunity to attend story time at our library. Since George behaves like a wild animal sometimes in public (and privately as well, for that matter), we've been putting this off, but I have to say he did great. Maybe a little inhibition is a good thing for him to experience from time to time.
Of course, Skip says he was merely "casing the joint" and that he will "throw down" next time.
3) CELEBRATIONS: We had to reschedule my dad's birthday lunch from last weekend (turns out, 3/5 of our family members (Skip, Gracie & Lauren) had strep last week) for Sunday. We had a great visit, and cannot apologize enough for William George shouting: "Cake! CAKE! CAKE!!!!" repeatedly until he was served. He is going through something of a menace phase at the moment. Happy, HAPPY to Dad!
4) OSCARS: Did you watch? I missed the red carpet (bedtime prep routines, etc.), but watched the show through the best picture award (i.e., practically the very end). I did feel a bit hungover the next day; that's a lot of self-congratulatory excess to absorb in one sitting.
My favorite dresses/red carpet looks are:
A) Charlize Theron, B) Anne Hathaway (I realize the dress is controversial. Skip and I spent about ten minutes debating the... issue last night. I don't think there's an issue. The dress has darts. Period. Rachel Zoe is Hathaway's stylist; she wouldn't steer her wrong. Or... at least Zoe was her stylist, before this dress.), C) Jessica Chastain and D) Jennifer Anniston.
I normally don't drink the Charlize Theron Kool-Aid, but she looked amazing. I keep looking at the Jennifer Lawrence dress... wanting to like it... I feel like I should like it... it's Dior! I definitely don't like it better than the aforementioned dresses.
As for the wins themselves, I'm not sure how Jennifer Lawrence edged out Jessica Chastain for Best Actress. Also, I think the Argo Best Picture win was an attempt to correct the Affleck directorial snub.
Other than those categories, I'm sure the Academy members will be thrilled to know I concur with the remaining selections.
5) SMARTS: When you give compliments to your children (or other people's children), do you praise the person or their process? We read a few books addressing the perils of person praise when the duo were much younger, and we made an effort to praise their work versus their aptitudes or gifts, i.e., we praised them for working hard to learn something versus simply telling them they are smart. During the preschool and kindergarten process, we must have lapsed into reaffirming how intelligent we think they are because I often hear them both saying, "You're so smart," as a compliment. And, I also find written evidence of this line of thinking all over the house:
So. They really listen, don't they? Even when we think they don't. And you might be thinking, "We can't even tell someone s/he is smart now*?" Of course, we think our children are smart (I think yours are, too, of course), and we think they are beautiful, etc., etc. Last week I stumbled across a blog post entitled "The Curse of Praise" by Amy Hackworth, and it served as a good reminder. We will not stop telling our children they are smart, but we will be careful to celebrate their hard work even more.
*The research indicates doing so is tantamount to praising someone for being (naturally) thin or tall or strong... attributes we have no control over, whereas we have complete and total control of our work ethic and self-discipline.
6) MOBILE VIEW: Skip is the iPad user in our family. When Santa upgraded him to the iPad 4, I started using his original iPad, mainly as a reader. Until then, I had never viewed this site on an iPad. Because some of you utilize an iPad to visit here, I need to apologize about the mobile view. While Blogger's mobile view is perfect for the iPhone, it doesn't translate to the iPad... it's clunky... and just not good. The problem appears to be limited to the older software so hopefully I am the only one viewing the site with the older version.
So... your turn... what's happening with you?
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