New Site

If you click on the title it will take you to the new site. Thought I would mention that since it doesn't always look like a link.

We've Moved

Well I'm both happy and sad to say that we will no longer be updating the blog from this host. In an effort to actually blog we are moving to wordpress which is much more friendly to mobile updating and well that is much more in tune with our current Internet use. So go here, http://twosomewhatdifferentepigrams.wordpress.com/, and I promise you'll get more updates.

Movie Review

I am finally going to write a post! About movies! Aren't you excited? And no, I'm probably not going to add in any new Rolo pictures because the iphone still befuddles me on this point. So, our movie watching has increased in the last six months, but most of the watching we do comes from Netflix or Redbox. Rosalind has been to two movies in the theater and we have had sort of mixed results. If she doesn't fall asleep halfway through then she becomes restless about halfway through. The reason we have been able to watch more, I think, comes from the fact that Rosalind no longer sleeps like a baby (the real way babies sleep, up every few hours) and now when she goes to bed at 8:30 we still sometimes have the energy to stay up for a movie. At least on the weekends during the summer. So here are some movie reviews from the last 6-9 months. As far as we can remember we did these out of a possible 4 points. (the last movie is supposed to show 3 clubs not four).

Kung Fu Panda 2 ♣♣ ¾
Fun and action packed. This was Rosalind's second attempt at a movie. We went after her nap so she stayed awake and all the action and colors and noise in the world couldn't keep her still and quiet for that long. The story is super sweet in this one, but then the last scene kind of leaves you wondering about everything you've just seen.

Bridesmaids ♣♣
We both wanted this to be better. It toned down some and got a lot better by the end. I remember thinking the movie seemed confused about what genre it wanted to be.

Rango ♣♣♣
This is a really pretty movie...sort of. The animation is stunning but sometimes it's almost grotesque since the subject matter are lizards and rodents. This was also Rosalind's first movie experience and she was pretty into it and then fell asleep. Perfect. The story is pretty much a basic western so adults can enjoy it and Rosalind enjoyed the cartoony aspect. Win/Win.

Harry Potter 8 ♣♣♣
I thought the movie did as well as it could to be faithful to the books so I really liked that. However, I somehow didn't feel much of the emotion you feel as you read the book. In fact, I found the first part of the last movie to be the better of the two. I have also heard from people who saw this without seeing any others or reading the books that they walked away with some false beliefs about the storyline and I can see how that might have happened with the way this movie plays out.

Wristcutter's: A Love Story ♣♣♣ ¼
This movie was recommended to me by one of my quirkier students last year and I thought it might be interesting. It sounds depressing as it is the story of a group of people who meet and have adventures after they have committed suicide and find that the afterlife for them is pretty much just a cruddier version of earth filled with other suicide victims. It's actually very sweet and kind of funny.

Black Snake Moan ♣♣ ½
I don't really know how to describe this movie. We saw the previews for it years ago and it looked kind of like a comedy. It's not. I liked it a lot and Sergio liked it a little. I think it is worth a watch, but beware that it is not for those squeamish with nudity or sex but that tones way down about 1/3 of the way through. Samuel L. Jackson and Christina Ricci are both very good in this.

Cedar Rapids ♣♣ ½
A comedy about insurance salesmen set in Cedar Rapids. Sergio liked it a little more than me. It was a good way to spend an evening.

Lincoln Lawyer ♣♣♣♣ ¼
I had no idea what this was about and was still confused at the end as to why the title referenced Abraham Lincoln. Sergio finally explained that it was because the lawyer's office was a Lincoln. I felt dumb. I would really recommend this movie. It's very good. I can't say much about the plot without ruining some of it. Sometimes watching lawyer movies with Sergio is bothersome because he gets mad when the movie has the lawyers do things wrong, but that didn't happen much with this one. Yay!

Potty. Trained?

It's a real question of how to phrase the title of this post. It could maybe be potty? Trained. A definitive answer. I'm just a little unsure yet. Rosalind has been totally out of diapers for two weeks or more. Even at night and nap. There have been a few accidents but ones that make sense. She was out of our care, playing with other kids, just didn't make it in time, etc. Then in the last couple of days she has gone really out if her way to tell us she had to go potty. Like, running to the door while playing in the sprinkler and yelling at us to get her out of the shower. That's dedication. So anyway, she seems to have crossed some sort of mental threshold that makes her know she doesn't want to go in her pants. That seems important. I think I'm going to call it. Trained! It seemed to easy. The pacifier is another story.
So, now seems like as good a time as any to discuss cloth diapers. I might be a little behind. Did we do it? Did we quit? Yes and yes. We cloth diapered for one year. When Sergio spent six months in Helena the system fell apart. He was the washer of the diapers. For the most part it was fine. The downsides were that the diapers eventually lost a bit of absorption and Rolo only produced more all the time. They also took on a bit of staleness after awhile. The positives were that they were not any grosser than any other diaper, they were super cute, reusable and FREE. Between breastfeeding, cloth diapers,and a midwife, Rolo could have been a poster child for the fictional magazine I just made up, My Bargain Baby! For six months, Rosalind was pretty much free. It worked well with our underemployed lifestyle. Pretty much as soon as I was employed she weaned and when Sergio got a job out of town she went to disposables. Oh well.
So, do I recommend the hippie, organic, granola approach to babies? Sure, but mostly because it's cheap as crap.

My 26th birthday...for the 4th time.

One of Sergio's talents is planning parties/gifts. Now, he only really gives parties and gifts to Rosalind and I now, and my nieces and nephews at Christmas, but I knew him even before we dated and saw what he gave former girlfriends, and he was good even then. It's a little distressing because I am never able to match it for his birthday. In fact, last year I was really proud of myself for arranging for our friends to all go to dinner and ordering a Boston Creme Pie. I honestly don't remember if there were any other parts to his birthday. He makes gift giving really hard, so I can't take the blame for that one. For example, a week before Father's Day he texted me that he had bought some shoes and that would just be his gift. What am I supposed to do with that?

Anyway, the point of all of that is to say that Friday was my birthday. Sergio planned a birthday that was targeted exactly at me. We went to a friends house for drinks and dinner, while watching the first part of the last Harry Potter movie (as none of our friends had seen it). My friend Nikki provided yummy...I can't spell the correct term so we'll go with...appetizers. Sergio had gotten sliders and mac n cheese (the best on the planet) catered from one of our favorite restaurants. Then he brought out the cake he had specially designed for me. It's the tiny details, like the dot in the date, that show just how much he thought about it. Apparently he also considered buying me some Potter gear to wear to the movie that night, but luckily chickened out. I'm not so much for the dressing up.

We arrived at the 10 pm showing of Harry Potter 3D at 9 pm. We were the last people inside the doors in the line that had already formed. That put us in the first third of the line. People are crazy. We got good seats and the movie was great.

So, yeah, I kind of like my birthdays to resemble those of pre-teens, but the fact that others will join me for that shows I have a good husband and good friends.

P.S. I also really appreciated all the texts, e-cards, and Facebook messages. It made cheer camp go by faster to have new stuff to read all day. Have I mentioned I am coaching Jr. High Cheer this year?

Our Last Six Months

Our Last Six Months

A New Bed

In an effort to ensure that Rolo never sleeps in a structure anyone else has, Dawn and I built this bed. It maintains the visual aesthetic that Dad and I were going for in her crib, mostly modern and entirely hardwood, yet still feels toddlery, though it is a twin bed. It is not done, the rails will be painted white, but I like it.

New Developments

So, for those of you that had ever expressed interest in one day seeing the little farmhouse that we were fixing up, sorry. We sold it. And moved. We're very quick. Blink and you'll miss us!
While there are any number of reasons we decided to sell (possum!) we really just could not get used to how far away from everything we were. We now live in a tiny yellow cottage smack in the middle of Fayetteville. It is an experiment in that tiny house living Sergio is so fired up about. Actually, it is a very good size for us.
It's crazy how fast we acclimated to being back in town. In fact, we periodically have to encourage each other to make that loooooong drive back to the house to move the rest of our stuff. Tomorrow is our last day to get it all cleaned up and moved and we are having to argue with ourselves that the new owners probably don't want the broken down shelves still in the living room or the box of yearbooks in the storage room. It's so far away.
So there you go. We moved and I have yet to find even one dead rat or live possum in the kitchen. I feel pretty good about that.

Summer Art Fun or Preparing for War

Irritating Dawn

Good morning all,
I thought I'd post something unrelated to Rolo, well, only Rolo tangential. I'm very into the idea of tiny or small homes, to Dawn's eternal chagrin, and I thought I would put some of my favorite ones here for some feedback. Why should you care? Because Rolo would have to live in one of these if I ever build one, see, Rolo tangential.







This is an 800 sqft. 2 Bed 1 Bath, obviously modern.











The floor plan is very simple and symmetrical, but where would you put the TV?














I really like the look of this house but it's really too small.









This is the living room, all of it, again though, where does the TV go?

I think I could convince Dawn we should here, appeal to Dawn's inner 9 year old and you're usually good.





Anyways, this post was going to be longer and full of great homes, but arranging the pictures and such is hard and I'm lazy.