Wicked

Over the weekend, the book club I belong to traveled to Kalamazoo's Miller Auditorium to see Wicked.

As we are a book club, we read the book.  Well, some of us did.  One of us did not and I shall not name her here but she also said that she does not hear us saying one good thing about it that made her wish she had read it.

We weren't fans of the book, sorry if you are.  That said, we have never discussed a book to death more.

I read a synopsis on goodreads of the other books in the series and I won't be reading any of them.  The last one is listed repeatedly as "dark".  Well, I found Wicked to be dark so I wasn't interested in reading something MORE dark.

But here is this tricky little thing, I actually liked Elphie in the book so it wasn't a total waste.  I'll just never ever reread it.  Ever.

My book club, how I love it!  We have been the group since the beginning and we all decided we would do this thing, see this play.  We dressed up.  We painted our nails. We had sitters.  We were out on the town.

We settled into our balcony seats and I was trying to act all calm and not jump up and down in sheer excitement because this was my first musical play and I. Was. Excited.

I was also nervous to see all these little girls there to watch the play and I worried what they would see because the book was that bad.

However, whoever wrote the musical Wicked was brilliant because it didn't follow the book much at all and I. Loved. It.

I mean, I really really loved it.

As the play went to intermission, I thought it was over, and while an odd spot to end the play, I stood and cheered and was thinking it was great and then realized we were only half way through!

And it ended just beautifully.

Romantic sigh, beautiful.

The music is now one of my pandora stations.  I looked up the price of a t-shirt or book to remember this amazing show but the shirt was 40 and the book was 20 and I didn't purchase them.  I'll just add them to my "if I ever win the lottery or my chickens begin laying golden eggs" list.  

If Wicked is coming near you - Go. See. It.  Don't even bother with the book at all.  Just see the musical.  It's so amazing!

And, on a side note, while at Wicked, I was sent this photo in a text of what my boys were up to.

My son is holding a blue racer.  And it's still alive.  He is wearing gloves because it attempted to bite him but that is another story for another day.

Wait...You Are NOT Pregnant???

Yesterday, while at my job at the library, a woman needed help finding a book.  She regularly visits the library and while I have not had a heart to heart with her, I try to make small talk whenever she visits.

I asked her about a certain author she had just read and suddenly she turned to me and was chatty.  "How have you been, dear?"

"Fine and dandy," I replied.

"Now, when is your due date?"

Silence.

Then I stuttered over my words a bit..."Um, well, no baby for us."

She turned her full attention to me and comfortingly grabbed my wrist.  "Oh, my dear, what happened?"

"Well,"I began, touched by her concern for me, "I wasn't ever pregnant."

I will add that as this conversation had gone on, I had gone from lazily leaning against a book shelf to standing tall and maybe perhaps - okay, totally - sucking in my tummy.

The poor lady.  She blushed red.  "Oh, I m so sorry!  Why did I think you were pregnant?  I was sure you were!"

I didn't know.  I could not help her there.  Had I been smart aleck-y and quick on my feet I would have initially said, "I thought you said you were giving me a baby shower?" back when this conversation had begun.

I am not quick on my feet.

That's why I like to toss those bits in a blog post.

Anyhow, this poor lady remembered then that I had been making a big deal out of my birthday and she had just somehow switched that to think I was talking about giving birth.  As in, about to give birth.  Thus being pregnant.

And I was thinking, "I am so walking the track the entire time football practice is going on tonight.  And doing sit-up's.  And never eating food again."

Except immediately following this conversation with this lady we had book club and we had so many good foods to eat and I couldn't not eat the food - that would be rude!  I couldn't be rude.  I had to eat the soup, chicken pot pie, cream puff dessert, pumpkin bar, scone and ham salad sandwich.

Today I am wearing an outfit that makes me look thin - I think.  I hope.  I did not wear my spanx though so...well, I probably look like I am about to give birth.

The poor lady.  The thing that touched me though is she was so concerned about me.  I went from just being the library girl who isn't as good at the job as the head librarian but okay to being a girl she was willing to help and truly cared about.  That touched me.

I need to keep that in mind.  Putting your foot in your mouth isn't a bad thing - totally - when you sincerely care for the person.

But I am really wishing I had worn my spanx today.

Pukes NOT Pucks

(a post not for the soft stomached)

Yesterday, I left my house for the first time since Thursday morning.

After dropping the boys off at school

ON TIME

I went home to make Death by Chocolate Scones.

Then I went over the library that I love so dearly.

The library I just happen to work at.

There we ate scones, drank delicious tea from quaint tea cups with saucers and watched this movie.

I so love this movie.

I really love the book as well.

While I have read it before, I never did finish the book in time for this book club.

It was a grand time.

After the movie and chat (we are going to stick with reading woman authors and taking suggestions), we decided to read Little Women next.  My ultimate favorite book.  And Alice hasn't read it and this makes me a wee bit worried about her. ;)

After all that girl time, I picked the boys up from school and we headed to Meijer so they could spend the Christmas money that has been burning holes in their pockets.

S1 loaded up on clearanced hunting gear, and was shocked d things can add up to $45 dollars rather quickly.  He was nearly ready to get in an argument with the cashier, but she was right, not him.

S2 got BB's, air soft bullets, nerf bullets and a target.

S3 got a new game for his Leapster and a case to carry his Leapster.  It was fun to hear him say, "YES! Now I can do subtraction!"

S4 found himself a lego boat he can use in the tub (can it get any better?) and sunglasses.

I was thankful I had some girl time earlier in the day.

But it wasn't long after we were home that S1 informed me he wasn't feeling well, and it wasn't long after that he was puking.

It's been years since he has been this sick, since his Boar hunt, actually.

I don't handle puke well.

Like, at all.

Husband does things like that shockingly well.

I can change diapers, I can clean disgusting things, I can do most anything.

But not puke.

As we heard S1 puking throughout the night, husband (exhausted from hours of plowing and hours of fixing plow trucks) said sleepily, "Go help him."

To which I - and yes, I feel some shame in admitting this - said, "What am I going to do? Just let him puke it out and fall back asleep."

Yah, I'm that kind of a mom.

At around one in the morning, S2 came down and began puking too.

Thankfully, we have two buckets.

This morning I wrote a facebook status bemoaning the fact that I had puking boys.

But I wrote PUCK instead of PUKE.

Which is funny to me, hilarious really, and that could be because of my lack of sleep and the fact that I have been dealing with puke for nearly two weeks on and off.

I could well be sick of pucks.

Because this is a picture of my boys over the weekend.

And people know my boys well enough to know that they COULD have pucks IN the house and how that always seems to turn out.

I'd so much rather have that then this.

My poor sick boys.  I am bleaching and lysoling and hoping that I don't catch this bug at all.

Say a prayer for us.
Say a prayer that I can handle dumping buckets of puke.  I know that sounds awful, but it's really hard on me.  And my two oldest boys are as pale as the snow and lifeless today, I feel so awful for them.