Six for Saturday

1. We got a little early for a Saturday today so we could have our first Skype session with Anna, whose birthday was today! It was good... except that I was up really, really late (more on that in a bit) so my brain was kind of oatmealy. It was good to see her smiling face - she looks very happy and healthy and says she's eating well and enjoying her time there. One of the little boys, Ethan, popped in for a visit while we chatted and said hi. :) She "showed" us her room, which is lovely, and we brought her cat, Ranger, in for a quick hello (wrapped in a towel to reduce the hair flying around, lol). We talked for an hour before we finally said our goodbyes, which were made much easier by the fact that she looked so happy (and that we'll get to see her again next Saturday!).

The next three go together in a weird sort of way...

2. We had drama rehearsal yesterday - I had two of them (I was worried about Maggie going to two rehearsals after having her acupuncture session, so I released her from the VBS drama, and she drove up with the rest of the kids for the spring musical rehearsal). VBS drama is finally getting off the ground - though I still get easily frustrated sometimes when we get "sidetracked" by "big ideas" (set design, advanced acting, etc), I can see it coming together, and that's exciting. We have a good group this year, and I'm enjoying it.

We also had our final dress rehearsal for the spring musical - Patch the Pirate's "The Lone Stranger" - in which I am only singing. This is a first for me, but I have to say, it was nice. I'm usually the one herding cats and tearing my hair out and wondering WHY I was doing this... it's a lot easier to just get up and sing. :)

We got out of drama early so when we got home Maggie and I decided to chill out on my bed and pop in a few movies we'd picked up at Redbox earlier - the Mighty Macs, which I've wanted to see ever since I saw the previews for it and realized that David Boreanaz of Bones was in it - and Captain America, which I've also been wanting to see after I realized I have a thing for superhero movies. :)


3. First, Mighty Macs - David Boreanaz was hugely underutilized in this movie, and that's probably my biggest issue with it. It's decently cut, gets around being sappy by not really exploring any issue deeper that "trust gets teams to the championship." That said, it's 100% family friendly and entertaining, and makes you want to root for the team. :)

4. Captain America - I have issues with this movie, most of which revolve around the ending (bad ending! :( Made me sad, and I can think of at least three other ways that you could have ended it which would have made me sad, but at least would have felt resolved).
But it was fun to see so many actors we recognized. :) Actually, we started joking that its main purpose was to introduce somebody we knew and loved every ten minutes, and it mostly worked out that way, lol. First it was Tommy Lee Jones, then Hugo Weaving, then Toby Jones, and meanwhile all the time we're saying "I know that guy!" whom we eventually realized was Stanley Tucci, and then - two minutes from the ending, when we were sure the parade had stopped, in steps Samuel Jackson.
It was a fun movie, bad ending or not.

5. Except that I stayed up so late watching movies - til after midnight - and then couldn't seem to settle down - and the electricity went off, turning my fan off as well - and it ended up being after 2 when I finally got to bed.

6. I woke up friend, and knowing I had to accomplish two chores: I had to clean the bathroom, which badly, badly needed it, and I needed to clean out my chicken's cage. There aren't really any shortcuts to cleaning chicken cages, sadly, but I thought I'd share with you the most magical way to get a tub really, really clean - like, so clean it looks newly installed: Mr. Clean Magic Erasers (I used the bathroom scrubber types this time but I've used the regular and extra strength ones in the past and honestly, they all do pretty much as well). Wet, squeeze, wipe. You don't really even have to scrub. It's the first product I've ever seen that is actually underadvertised - in other words, it works better than they show on TV.