Five and a half years ago.......... 

Good evening,  I am about to write my very first movie review/critique!

The movie was called The Town.  If you have a strong desire to watch this movie, I am going to give you a giant spoiler alert: stop reading here.  But if you want to be enlightened and chuckle, keep reading.

So, the story:  A group of professional bank robbers rob a bank in a violent manner, beating up a guy in the process, in order add some gratuitous violence. Meanwhile, conveniently (and for no apparent reason except to build a story) they blindfold a pretty girl bank teller and take her captive for a short time. They pick her up, blindfold her, drive her around town, sit her real close to Ben Afflick in the back of a dark van, then drop her off a bit later by a lake so she has an opportunity to get really frightened so a hansome man will need to come to her rescue later in the movie.

Not only did they kidnap the girl, but they took her driver’s liscense. So the girl goes straight to the police, but then directly home where she lives by herself, even though all the bad guys are killers who all know where she lives. (But hey, one of them is exceptionally attractive, so who cares?)

So, of course, it was a big OOOPS to kidnap the girl for no reason, (except to probably build a romance so girls will pay to go see this movie) because now she is a witness to a crime, therefore she must die.  But of course, they must send the hunk to do the job, who immediately forgets his mission to kill her so he can ask her out on a date.

Are you excited so far?  Well you should be.  Know why?  Well, on this amazing couple's first date, right at minute 24, lo and be hold there is a windsor nature discovery poster. Windsor Nature Discovery is a wildlife indentification charts and poster business that we own and we proudly support our award-winning and amazing poster to be presented in this hollywood feature film. Okay, so I am not sure if our posters have won awards, I have to ask about that one.  But they are pretty amazing.

So, now that the very, very cute bank robber and pretty girl are officialy dating and our fish poster is involved, the movie gets VERY exciting.  Because now the cute bank robber has found his love match, but she does not know that he was her abductor.  They go on several dates and he is really sweet to her, thus completely redeeming him from all previous evils he has committed.  While he never tells her his secret, the FBI does.  When she learns he once abducted her she becomes a bit skeptical of her new boyfriend, but since he talks sweetly to her and promises her that he has never lied about anything else, it’s all good in the hood . . .

Until he MUST commit one last shoot-em-up robbery.  Don’t worry—this is all part of his journey toward redemption. You see, some other bad guy threatens to kill his true love unless he robs a baseball stadium. Because you can't be redeemed unless you kill people and rob a bank in order to rescue your true love, he goes forward with his plan and it’s all exciting because there are guns and lots of crazy driving involved, thus getting lots of guys to pay to watch this movie.  Unfortunately (yet conveniently for plot purposes), cops found out what he was going to do because he told his very irate ex-girlfriend about his plan for some reason that remains unclear. So, in the process of seeking redemption by protecting his girlfriend's dignity by robbing a baseball stadium of a million dollars, he kills a bunch of cops and all of his friends die. Fortunately, he escapes and then goes to kill the bad guys who set him up for the robbery (because he is not bad himself, of course). In a sudden fit of altruism, he takes the money (that he stole) and buries it in his girlfriend’s garden so she will find it later and be able give the STOLEN money to charity. He leaves her a note telling her all about how bad he has been, and basically implying that he was going to go away, maybe to a cabin on a lake somewhere where he can think about his bad behavior.  Everyone is relieved that he learned his lesson and escaped his just punishment.  The End.

This was a movie we would not typically have ever invested a few hours in.  But it was well worth it, because we have been happily making fun of it ever since we saw it. And in the end, we saw a Windsor Poster in a famous movie!!!!!

The other day we went to Ron's house.  Ron is a guy who Isaiah works with who does not know yet that I am writing about him in my blog.  We will tell him later. Ron  was very excited to introduce the Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University course to us so we have been meeting him at his house every Sunday, then driving over to a church where they hold the conference.  This week we got to introduce Jedidiah to the doggies and the sheep they own, because he was not asleep by the time we got there as he usually is. 

Also, we really like "The Financial Peace University." And highly recommend it to anyone who is struggling to understand how to deal with their money (or lack of.)  I have mentioned this to several people who have a general idea of who he is and maybe even has read some of his book.  Please don't stop at that. Watch his videos (or listen to them) they are amazing!

 

Weird songs

I am listening to Simon and Garfunkel's "Frank Loyd Write."  There are two things wrong with this song: The first is that it is a song about Frank Lyod Write.  The second is that it is creepy.

Man-poker night.

 (This was written several nights ago.)

It is nine forty four.  Isaiah is not in my house.  Actually, he is in the garage with some big, burly boys.  Okay, so some of them are big, some of them are burly, and some of them are kind of in between.  And, there might be a few who are not big or burly but are happy that way.  None the less, the presence of Isaiah and many man friends in the garage playing poker is a very common occurrence.  Many man friends, I might add, who are often too excitable and eat way too many potato chips.  I am in my house thinking about how much I pretend that I hate man-night.  I tell myself and Isaiah that too much ridiculousness goes on, and that there will be way too many man dishes that are sticky with things like greasy pizza cheese that I will dutifully wash for them.  I will claim that they play too late, and will be very tired for bed long before I hear him coming up the stairs apologizing to me for plating too late and for loosing our life savings to his best friend.  I will pretend that I am already asleep and act very annoyed but inside, I enjoy these evenings. I enjoy them because it reminds me to be thankful for the good men in my life, even if they get greasy and slightly irresponsible, because then I am reminded of how important women are to men  because we can curb their enthusiasm to a healthy level.  I also am so glad to have a quiet evening once the children are asleep, but at the same time I know that there is a room full of men just an ear shot away.  This first of all makes me feel like I can have solace without feeling alone, and secondly if anyone came in the house and tried to hurt me, they would be very sorry.  I also confess that I am thankful for the leftover Doritos.

There are lots of things I have learned having two children. Some of them I already knew, but you really don't "know" something until you experience it sometimes.  Here are some things that my children have tought me:

Even the smallest of us sand in awe of another human being.  This is true of my littlest son.  He often will stare at his older brother as if he is the best thing  he has ever seen.  I mean, being shy of his five month birthday, he has not seen much.  But of whatever he has seen, his big brother is the best!

This love radiates even though the one being admired just poked him in the eye, grabbed his face, dragged him across the couch by one foot and sat on him, all while saying "Oh, its a baby, oh its a baby Mat-son."  Don't worry, all of these beatings did not really happen all at once. I tried to make it sound like it did for dramatic effect. They are only examples of random acts of  "I think Matheson is a toy so I am going to play with him like so"  that happen through the day.

No matter what you try to tell the one being admired so much, (the older one) they always hold the younger child personally responsible for pulling their hair, knocking down their statues, stuff like that.  They will never understand that their younger sibling is not committing a personal offense against them, but only doing their duty of being a baby.

Children have no concept of another person's feelings.  They are full of emotions, but don't seem to get that other people have them too.  For example, the other day, the older son was expressing some of his many emotions.  He was weeping and whimpering and boogers and snot were flying everywhere.  Needless to say, the world was falling apart. As I was fulfilling my motherly instinct to comfort him, I turned to my littlest, and found the biggest grin on his face that he has had since the day he was born.  And then Jedidiah's sobs grew even louder,  therefore funnier.  Matheson's big smile turned into a full blown chuckle.  So I had two children in hysterics, one in hysterical laughter and one sobbing hysterically.  The one being laughed about took no notice at the laughter whatsoever. Children are amazing. 

Derek: Hi. thank you SO much for calling T-mobile. My name is Derek, how can I help you?
Me: Yes, we have a land line through t-mobile and I do not know how to check the messages.
Derek: I am SO sorry to hear that! Let me see if there is ANYTHING at all that I can do for you to remedy that problem.
Me: Uh, thanks? (Pause for a moment of silence, perhaps to commemorate the fact that I couldn't understand how to check my messages.)
Derek: (After the long silence) Actually, deepest apologies, I am going to have to send you over to our technical support who can better assist in this particular problem.
Me: Uh, okay?......(wait....wait...wait....)
Andrew: Hi my name is Andrew. Thank you SO Much for calling T-mobile. Hopefully you are well this afternoon, what can I do for you?
Me: Well, they switched me over to you. All I want to know is how to check my voice mail on my land line. I don't know how.
Andrew: I am SO sorry to hear that. Hopefully we will get that working for you right away.
Me: Okay thanks.
Andrew: Well, I looked over the situation and I was wondering, did you try dialing 123?
Me: No why would I do that?
Andrew: Because you might get to your voice mail by dialing 123. Why don't you give it a try for me and see if that corrects the problem.
Me: Okay.....(I dialed 123 and lo and behold, there are three messages) Okay I think I got it thanks!
Andrew: So you dialed 123 and received your messages?
Me: Yes.
Andrew: Okay, well now that you received your messages, would you like to verify that it works? Why don't you try it one more time to make sure?
Me: Uh, okay. (I dialed 123) It worked.
Andrew: Ok great. But let me make SURE that your messages are going through. I will call you and leave a message to make sure that you got it.
Me: I don't think that its necessary. (my children are both screaming in the background by this point.)
Andrew: Well, we want to assist you to our best capabilities, and it would be helpful for you to know for sure that it works.
Me: Uh, okay.
Andrew: (Calls my house, leaves a message)
Me: Well, you left a message, but its on our home answering machine because the home answering machine picks it up first.
Andrew: My apologies, would you like to go and pick turn off your answering machine to be sure your t-mobile voice mail works? Let me explain to you how to do it.....(Children are screaming louder in the background.)
Me: No, I really need to go you have assisted me enough. Thanks.
Andrew: Alright, thank you so much for choosing t-mobile is there ANYTHING else I can do for you today?
Me: Can you send me a check in the mail so I can buy some nice shoes? (Okay I really did not say that but I was about to). I said: No thanks, I am good to go.
Andrew: Well, thank you SO much for using t-mobile. We REALLY appreciate your business. Please call again with ANY questions. Have a good day.