Saturday, March 31, 2012

Adult ADD...and how pinterest isn't helping

I keep talking about this but I really think maybe I have this Adult ADD thing - I'm not even sure I'm joking anymore.

Or maybe we ALL have this thing now because flippetyflapjack, our lives are so BUSY.

Right?

I told someone the other day that I'm ashamed of my former younger self who could not quite figure out what older women with older kids actually DID with their time. I mean once you have no diapers to change and your kids are practically fully functioning adults, it seemed to me that your time would be your own and well...what the heck are those ladies doing?  Especially the ones who don't work?

Geez.  Honestly, I had no clue.

Now that I'm a single mom that kind of adds to the stack of stuff I do.  When you're married there is one other person around the house to pick up slack.  You can say "Hey would you mind _________?"  I mean it might be as simple as picking something up from the store the that you forgot, or making a phone call, or moving a hose or cleaning out the pool filter.  They are all little things.  But they add up.

What was my point?

My point was that my head swims like this on a daily basis:

1.  I've got to understand linear regression by monday.  And why do they talk in so many double negatives in statistics?  Rejecting the null - failing to reject the null?  What does that even really say "failing to reject" which means you kept it.  But the null itself indicates a false thing or meaning your assumption is false...so that means you are keeping your assumption that your other assumption is false.  ARG....english double negatives...

2.  Did Brennan say he had an english paper?  I think he did and it's sitting here on the counter...why didn't he take that with him?  I need to text him in case he doesn't realize he left it...where is my phone...

3.  oh yeah, I think I forgot to make my phone payment...where is that bill...

4.  shoot, water bill needs to be paid...

5.  water...I have got to figure out how to get those sprinklers fixed...I need to email that guy...what did I do with that email address is that on my gmail?

6.  gmail...oh yeah, I was going to email everyone who said they would help with the wedding....

7.  wedding...I need to see where I found those photos of that idea for desserts on pinterest...

8.  pinterest...




















(____________30 minutes later________________)

9.  Shoot...where was I?  Oh yeah...linear regression.

This just goes on all the time.  I have to force myself to stay in my bedroom and leave my phone and the computer in the other room or I get distracted too easily (for those of you who get frustrated trying to get in touch with me...sorry, this is why).

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Anyone Remember Kukla Fran & Ollie?

Does anyone remember Kukla Fran & Ollie from the 70s - I'm not talking about their earlier show of the 1950s era - I was too young for that.  I'm talking about the Saturday Morning kids show where they would have a bit part in between the film they were showing (kukla, fran & ollie were two puppets and a human).  I have such odd and specific memories about that show.

What I remember is that I loved the movies they showed on Saturday morning.  It was a CBS show actually called the CBS Children's Film Festival.  And the shows were all foreign films.  Many of them dubbed into English.  It's where I first saw Pippi Longstocking and The Red Balloon and a bunch of other films that really stuck in my brain.  I remember realizing they were dubbed but not caring too much because the films were compelling.

It's interesting that they thought kids were sophisticated enough to want to watch something like The Red Balloon during the middle of Saturday morning cartoons.  Sometimes I think we really don't give kids enough credit.  But I just can't see us now having such a high brow concept for children's programming.

Anyway I suspect my liking foreign films started with this show.

But I really didn't see any from the time that show was cancelled until I went to BYU in 1987.  At BYU they had the french & italian cinema (which wasn't just french and italian films).  There I saw some of these:


synpopsis:  a film that observes life rather than dramatic happenings, the title refers to apocrypha which talks of Christ visiting Italy, but stopping short of going all the way to the remote village portrayed in the film.  A doctor is sent to live here as his prison sentence by Mussolini and he ends up helping the people. It is incredibly slow but beautiful in it's own way.


synopsis:  a heartbreaking story set in a boys school during world war II where a jewish boy is hiding amongst his peers.  The story is autobiographical for Louis Malle.  


synopsis:  a film set in rural provence, largely about land rights and water rights and a little bit about unrequited love.


synopsis:  sequel to Jean de Florette, and about a lot of the same material though we also spend a fair amount of time watching Emmanuelle Beart as a shepherdess


synposis:  The Green Ray is largely about a very out of sorts french woman who wanders around france for most of the film.  The Rayon Vert refers to when one sees a green ray at sunset as written about by Jules Verne - it means that you will be capable in that moment of understanding other people's thoughts and motives.  



Have I sold you on any of these yet?  I mean, with the exception of Au Revoir Les Enfants, I don't even think a single one of these could get made in the United States - there's just not enough plot driven action for most people.  But honestly?  Those films remain some of my favorites ever.  When a foreign film isn't good it can be really awful (though I would argue no more awful than a bad U.S. film) but when they're good?  They are really really great and often surpass anything else I see in a given year.  

Last week I saw "The Skin I live In".  It was GORGEOUS.  It was like a feast for the eyes.  The colors and the photography were so good. The plot was super interesting too.  I really enjoyed it.  But if I told you the plot, I think I'd have a hard time selling you on it.  

Set in Spain.  Weird Dr. who develops a synthetic skin.  

Are you sold?

didn't think so.

Anyway...

I blame Kukla Fran & Ollie.  



Monday, March 26, 2012

Architectural Identity

I notice that over and over again there are two architectural styles I'm drawn too in almost equal measure.

One is a homey little cottage or bungalow like this:


And the other is this sort of modern linear feel like seems fabulous to me:



They sort of seem like two sides of my personality, sometimes I feel like this persona:


And some days I'm this persona


Some days I want to swim in these kinds of pools:



And some days this seems more appealing:



And to be honest, I'm never sure which one is more my actual personality.  

This:



Or this:




But this is the house I live in:



And I really love it.  If I won the lottery, I'm not even so sure I would move.  But if I did, I probably opt for something like this:



How about you?  

Sunday, March 18, 2012

The future is now...

Remember back in the day when you had to find out stuff by looking them up in the encyclopedia britannica? I was trying to explain that whole concept to my kids an they just could not understand this idea of buying a book - nay, a VOLUME of expensive books in which you would have to look stuff up for reports or if you wanted information.  My kids said "How would that even work wouldn't it be outdated soon?"  and "Weird."  Because my children cannot imagine a world without the internet and all it's information being at their fingertips.

And honestly, I almost can't imagine that anymore either.  And yet the majority of my youth was spent without any notion of this idea whatsoever.

I like to tell my kids the story of when I was at BYU in 1987 - there was this guy named Dave and he was a computer major (of what sort I can't recall...computer engineering or something) and he was one of the only people I knew who actually had a computer in his dorm room and he explained to us that he was talking with one of his friends on the computer while he was sitting at his desk.  I mean the concept of email was just this weird foreign concept.  I remember we were like kind of laughing at him behind his back.  We were saying "Dave...you've heard of phones right?  Couldn't you just like CALL him?"  We thought we were so hilarious.  He was trying to explain this new thing called the internet and email and we just were comparing him to guys that are into ham or cb radios.  Big nerds and no one else is ever going to care about that except other big nerds.

I kind of look like an idiot now.  It must have been frustrating for him to know all this information that he was trying to share with us and we just didn't get it at all.  I know by about 1992 I had email myself.

We certainly never thought everyone would have cell phones and that we would be able to text each other.

The future is now, is how it kind of feels to me a lot of the time.  The future looked so different and well..."futurey" when I was a kid.  It looked kind of like Star Wars or something.  And it turns out the future looks a lot like the past except with cool gadgets.  We aren't all wearing polyester jump suits like Captain Kirk.

I kinda like the future.  I have no idea what my kids future is going to look like but I doubt it will have polyester jumpsuits in it either.

I'm not all that sentimental about most things really  - I don't lament the demise of the encyclopedia britannica at all.  But at the same time there is something really cool about SOME old school things.

Bookstores:



How gorgeous is this bookstore in Holland?  I LOVE a cool bookstore.  I hope that iPads and nooks and amazon.com don't become so popular that we ever reach a point where we don't want actual books and when we don't have cool bookstores like these

(another cool book store in Paris France)

Who doesn't love the smell of old books?  You can't replace that with an e-reader.

One thing the computer has effectively done away with is the typewriter.  I would LOVE to find one like this.


If I see one like this I have to buy it.  Just for nostalgia's sake.  

Granted, typing on a computer is so much easier.  You can fix a mistake a million times faster and more efficiently!  But still.  There was something great about learning to type like this (which is how I learned, Thanks Miss Singleton and Miss Gray - possibly one of the best and most useful "Skills" I ever learned in my secondary education).  Holden bought one of these old ones in a case the other day at a rummage sale because it was "cool".  I mean, I don't know who uses these, but it seems like we should never totally quit using them.  Just for the sake of coolness.  Actually Woody Allen still types all his stuff on an old black typewriter.  


I also really love these, and will totally buy one if it comes in a cool color.  In fact Jordan and I have bent talking about maybe getting our phone line back.  It just doesn't make that much sense when we all carry cell phones around all the time - I eliminated the home line a couple of years ago and I really haven't missed it that much.  But I'd like to get one back if only to have a working rotary dial in the house again.

Is there stuff you miss from the past?

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Crazy in a good way!

Sometimes I say this about other people.  Sometimes I even say it about myself.  "She's crazy...in a good way!"  These interiors are kind of crazy in a good way too - bold, not for everyone's taste, but fun if you dare.



















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