Sing Alongs

My grandma moved into an assisted living home two weeks ago with many tears and much resistance. Although she knows she can't live by herself anymore, she just hates the idea of living anywhere except the house she has lived for the past 55-60 years.

Now that she's been there for a few weeks, she still isn't loving the idea by any stretch, but she seems to be adjusting a little more. She's made a few friends. She played Wii bowling last Wednesday. And she loves the sing alongs.

Every Saturday the resident beautician brings binders full of lyrics and CDs of old songs and the seniors gather in the lobby and sing along. I've made it to both so far. Most of the songs I don't know, but there are a couple hits! A little Sinatra, some songs I only know because they were on Mr. Holland's Opus, Singin' in the Rain. C'mon! Singing in the Rain!

My grandma says when she was growing up in Philadelphia, every summer her and her girlfriends would drive to the shore (yes, the Jersey Shore) and they would sing the whole way there. And then she'd mention how people don't just get together and sing anymore.

But now we do. Saturdays at 1 p.m. We sing. We sing off key and we sing the wrong words (well, I do), but damn it, we sing.

So if you'd like to try a sing along sometime, let me know. I know just the place to go.

Vintage

I got this great cream lace cover-up from Urban Outfitter last weekend and it's vintage look was just what I needed to bust out the Stella and Dot pearl Kelly necklace.

When the Water Goes Out

This past Christmas Eve, I was driving home from work just as the snow started to pick up. For those of you who don't live in the midwest, Christmas Eve and Christmas were beaten down by a giant snowstorm that left most people stuck at home. On my way home, I called Corey to tell him I was leaving early because of the snow and he asked me to pick up water on the way home.

I said, "Good thinking. In case the water goes out."
"In case the water does what?" asked Corey.
"Goes out," I replied.
"What are you talking about?" asked Corey.
"You know, sometimes you lose water when it storms," I said.
"No you don't. That has never happened to me. I wanted you to pick up bottled water because our filter is broken" replied Corey.

So the next few weeks I was on a mission to find someone else who had experienced losing water in a storm. People asked, "Do you mean your pipes would freeze?" No, that wasn't it because if there was a bad summer storm the water would go out too when I was young.

So I finally got around to asking my mom last week about this phenomenon that nobody else seemed to know about. APPARENTLY, on my parents farm we have a water well with an electric pump so if we lost power, we'd also lose water. Mystery solved!

And here I had gone 25 years of my life thinking everyone lost water during bad storms.

@kwortmann

Saw this on Twitter this morning. Protestors on 72nd and Dodge. So funny!



Do you tweet?

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

I received a lot of wonderful gifts for Christmas this year and in the pile was the book Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. I posted a status update one day on Facebook asking friends if they had any good book, CD or movie recommendations and this one came from my friend Katy.



I had no idea what to expect as I started this novel. I'm almost 200 pages in and I'm still not sure what to expect. It follows a neurotic little boy after his father is killed in the World Trade Center terrorist attack and also follows the lives of his grandmother and grandfather and their lives in Dresden and in the U.S.

Some parts are funny, some parts are confusing, some parts are depressing and some parts are just horrifyingly sad. One chapter is from the perspective of the grandfather and his first-hand accounts of what he saw and experienced during the bombing of Dresden during World War II. I've seen plenty of war movies with award-nominated make-up and special effects artists, but I guess I haven't read many war books. His descriptions were just so awful. And this is fiction!

It made me realize that unless I'm involved in a tragedy, I have a lot of life yet to live and so many things could happen in that time. My grandmother is 85 and in her time she has seen many wars, numerous inventions and has witnessed many new diseases. War seems like such a far away mystery in present times, but that doesn't mean that in our lifetime tables could turn and the U.S. could be a war-stricken country. It's terrifying to imagine. Too bad I couldn't get a look in the future 60 years from now. I might not even want to be around in 2070! But I'll take my chances and try to make it that far.

High Energy

I know a girl who once mentioned she is a low energy person. She needs down time and self time. She'd rather take things kind of easy. I had never really thought of that as low energy, nor thought what kind of energy level I possessed. I thought I probably had pretty normal energy, but based on her description of low energy, I must be an extremely high-energy person.

I really don't remember the last time I didn't have something going on in an evening. I thrive on activities and when I'm not doing something or have plans, I'm looking for plans. If I ever have a "down night", I fill it with cleaning, grocery shopping, the gym, dinner plans, etc. I never just take an entire night (or day) for myself. Unless I'm hung over.

Even though snow days we just had. I spent a lot of it cleaning and then Corey and I got out, picked up Stevie and ran errands.

But sometimes, just sometimes, I think it might be nice to be a low energy person. I could use a day of just relaxing.

Don't get me wrong though. Anything more than a day and I'd probably go crazy.

Three Years

Corey and I had our three-year anniversary last weekend. There was never a day when he said, "Hey wanna be my girlfriend?" but Halloween was kind of a jumping-off point for us so we just count that. We didn't do anything for the anniversary, but you better believe we celebrated Halloween!

2006: Cochese from Beastie Boys and a Geisha


2007: Andy Warhol and Edie Sedgewick (although Corey was out of town on tour)





2008: Where's Waldo and a Bumble Bee



Drumroll please...

2009: Leeloo from The Fifth Element and a person from the future



And a waist-up shot with Leah



Happy Anniwersary sug.

Tight

A few weeks ago I was at a wedding and a bunch of people were waiting in line to sign the guest book. This could've been fashion week the way people were dressed. A very fashionable couple=very fashionable friends I guess. In front of me in line was a girl with black lace and teal tights and they were so cute. I wondered where she got them and then it dawned on me, they might be two separate pairs of tights on top of each other and even if they weren't you could probably create the same look by doing that.

So the ol' hampster wheel in my head got to a'turnin'. A have some full-length hot pink tights and calf-length teal tights. So I went to Kohl's and bought some black lace tights. Today I put the pink ones on first and the black ones over the top and am quite pleased with the results!



The photo was taken on my phone so the pink isn't as vibrant here as it is in person. So far so good. No snags. A few compliments. But people probably think I'm taking a #2 every time I go to the bathroom b/c it takes so long to get two pairs of tights up!