Mavid?

Another week as come and gone on American Idol. All four of the contestants who left tonight were mine. Lance is gloating and has annoyingly pointed out that in order for me to not lose (ahem, tie) this stage of our bet, I can't lose anyone next week. In the past couple of years, I've come to some realizations about, well, me. One of these realizations is that I'm a wee bit competitive and much more so when it comes to Lance. I do not want to lose this bet, frankly I don't even want to tie. I want to win outright, though I know at this point the most I can hope for is to tie now and win at the end. [Note: I was playing checkers with one of my third graders on Tuesday and I really wanted to crush him.]

Anyway, as I mentioned, another week of American Idol has come and gone. David Archuleta's still my favorite but there is one thing that has bothered me about him. I figured it out on Tuesday and had a good laugh. His mannerisms when he's not singing reminds me of a friend of mine from school. It's funny because as I was thinking this, Lance said the same thing. This kid could be a younger version of my friend. My friend reads my blog and posting his name is probably the kind of thing that would make him mad. Let's just say that I secretly refer to David Archuleta as Mavid Archuleta.

Birthday fun

I celebrated another birthday two weeks ago and last night I was fortunate enough to celebrate another passing year with my friends. We had dinner at California Pizza Kitchen and had a fantastic time karaoking at HMC. I haven't seen too much of my high school friends recently as for some reason life keeps getting in the way so it was great celebrating with them and my work friends. Matt gave me the best gift of the night, though. Brandi was home for an unexpected visit so I got a Brandi surprise for my birthday. :) Lance even agreed to wear the "matching" shirts that we bought last week at Ward after our birthday/Valentine's dinner. There was only a little complaining. For some reason, though, Lance and Brandi both thought that I should've been wearing the Decepticon shirt instead.

American Idol Picks

Before the destruction of my knitting, last night's blog was going to be about American Idol and my Top 6 picks. Anyway, here they are:
1) David Archuleta
2) Jason Castro
3) Michael Johns
4) Alaina Whitaker
5) Amanda Overmyer
6) Ramiele Malubay
Lance and I have a bet going as to who's going to make the Top 12. We both lost a boy and a girl from our lists last night, but I wasn't too attached to the ones that left. Not all of the people on my Top 6 list are on the list that I have with Lance because we choose people in draft format. I also like Danny Noriega, but he didn't make my Top 6 list because he didn't do very well during this week's performance. After last year's abysmal Sanjaya performances, I decided not to formulate my list until after the first week of Top 24 performances. Amanda Overmyer didn't very well either but she still made my list because she's cool and because I don't really have strong preferences when it comes to the girl performers.

M*Bark vs. Yarn

I walked out of the bathroom this morning and discovered that M*Bark had discovered the "secret" yarn hiding place in our bedroom. The scarf that I'm knitting for my mother's upcoming trip to Alaska was spread across the floor, the yarn lying in a tangled mess. Frantic, I picked up my needle and was relieved to see that none of my work had unraveled. As always, I was in a rush to go to work so I scooped the whole thing up and put it in a bag to take with me. I had wanted to work on it during whatever breaks I managed to have during the day, but resigned myself to a day of untangling. It was a fairly busy day so I had to just untangle and rewind in parts and I finally finished in the afternoon. In the picture, you should note three things: 1) Newly wound ball; 2) Needle and needle end, separated from each other and with bite marks; and 3) My arm protecting the whole thing. Why did I have to protect it? Because as I tried to take the picture, M*Bark came by and tried to repeat the whole fiasco:
M*Bark: 1 Yarn: 0

Current Favorite Music

I know I said this before, but I love music. And so I have added a new addition to the sidebar of my blog: Current Favorite Music. I shamelessly stole the idea from Brandi's blog. Matt also stole the idea for his blog so it looks like it's a popular idea. I have a bunch of "favorite" songs, but I decided to limit the list to twelve because the list was getting long. I was thinking about changing it to a "Currently listening to" list instead, though, because most of the songs on my Top 12 list are old so it's gonna take a really great song to knock one of them off the list and I really wanted to make it a list that changes frequently. Hmm...maybe I'll make another list.

Pain in the neck

My neck hurts. At least my head no longer hurts. At least the room's not spinning anymore. I was supposed to go to tennis tonight, but I'm in a wee bit of pain. How did I get hurt, you ask? Was it from doing something exciting? Rock climbing maybe? Bungee jumping perhaps? Well, I'll tell you. The thrilling, risky activity that I engaged in today was...wait for it...wait for it...walking across The Oval.

Yep, I managed to get hurt walking while in school today. The Oval is this large concrete area that connects the buildings at my school. It serves as an extremely large sidewalk, a gathering area, and, unfortunately for me, a recess area. I hate walking across The Oval during recess as there is often kids running, jump ropes swinging, and balls flying. The flying balls terrify me the most and today I discovered why they are so scary. They are scary because when basketball-like balls are kicked they can cause damage if they should happen to squarely hit the back of someone's neck and head.

Bloody hell, anybody got an advil?

Time flies

This weekend Matt and I participated in a friend's career day. We've all been friends since intermediate school, but this was the first time that I'd seen her at work. Before it was our turn to speak, I watched her address her students and give them instructions. She was dressed all professional-like, with her glasses and her hair pulled back and everything. As I watched her tell her students to be respectful and not to embarrass her, it suddenly dawned on me how old she looked. She looked and acted like an adult.

I don't know why this was so mind-boggling to me. We've all been adults for quite awhile now. It's funny how adulthood just kinda sneaks up on you. Sometimes I'll be doing something small like cooking dinner and it just amazes me that I'm old enough to be responsible for my own dinner. Once in awhile it hits me at work too. I'll be writing an evaluation report and it'll suddenly amaze me that writing reports is no longer just an exercise. It's my job, I get paid to do it, and people actually trust me with their child's communication. And I admit, sometimes I think, "For real? I'm not old enough to do this." And then I remember that I am.

After Matt and I spoke, our friend showed us around her office. I couldn't believe that she actually had an office. When did we all get to be adults? Why did no one warn us? It feels like it was only yesterday that we were signing yearbooks and chuckling over how many guys she flirted with and now she has an office? I know it's a cliche, but it's true - it's funny how time flies.