lewis and clark had a journal. you, beth-annie, have a diary.

Monday, March 31, 2003
Ah, baseball.
Well, actually that's not really true.  I'm not really a huge baseball-as-a-whole fan, except for any game i happen to actually be at or a relatively exciting World Series.  More like, "Ah, Cubbies."  I love my Cubbies.  And they have had a lovely opening day today, beating up on the Mets 15-2.  It's going to be a good season, I can feel it in my bones (and you all know by now that I CAN actually feel things in my bones ;)).  Sure, Sammy didn't hit his 500th career homer, but my Corey hit two, going 4-6 with 7 RBI.  That's my boy!  Nice, happy things.

(And, no, Annika did not win the first LPGA major of the year, because apparently she has decided that birdies are overrated.  But she did get second by only one shot, and though I of course want her to win every tournament, just being able to watch her play makes my day.)
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Friday, March 28, 2003
On a lighter note, I am very much enjoying being able to watch my Annika play golf again. Yet another reason spring rocks. :)
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In the words of Larry Eustachy... it doesn't matter what my opinion of the war is.  I'm not an actor.

But I'm afraid y'all are gonna get it anyway.  I ask your forgiveness for going into serious mode for a moment.

I'm not sure why I feel compelled to do this right now... no, I take that back, I do know.  With every day that goes by that I see yet another war protest more insane than the last, yet another celebrity speaking out against the war, yet another person, famous or non, claiming to be "ashamed" of our President...  I'm sorry, but I'm just pissed off!  (And anyone who knows me knows that I never say that.)

You see, here's the thing.  I was not in support of going to war.  I thought Bush was picking a fight where none was necessary.  I wasn't entirely sure what the real motivations behind war were, but unlike some people I didn't think it was really about oil, or revenge for things that happened a decade ago, or about puffing ourselves up and showing the world how big and powerful we are.  I just didn't know if the whole "weapons of mass destruction" excuse was a worthy enough cause for an action that would inevitably kill who-knows-how-many people, military, civilian, British, American, Iraqi, whatever.  I just didn't quite get it.

Then we went to war.  I am very strongly of the opinion that whether you are in favor of the war or not, you should support the troops who are serving our country.  If you don't, you are essentially spitting in the face of those who are risking their lives.  How disgusting.  It breaks my heart to hear stories of American prisoners of war being shown footage and more footage and more footage of anti-war protests by Americans as a psychological tactic by their Iraqi captors to make them doubt their mission and their whole purpose for doing what they're doing.  I mean, come on, how depressing to see that even the people on your side aren't even on your side?  Yup, all you people continuing to protest the war should be real proud of yourselves.  After all, it's free speech, right?  Who cares if it hurts people?  All you care about is getting you message out over and over and over and over and over again.  We get it.  You don't like war.  Who does?

And now.  Why has my opinion on the war shifted even further?  Because I've become more informed.  So many people are holding rallies for peace, and you know what?  I totally agree!  The difference is that these people seem to think that no war with Iraq is equated with peace.  I wonder if they would still protest if they knew how wrong they were.  For us living nice and snug in our homes in this country, sure, maybe that's true.  Our lives would be easier if we weren't at war.  But since when are we not supposed to care about the lives of people in the rest of the world?  People will claim that that's exactly why they are against this war, because it will injure, kill, or just generally make life horrific and terrifying for millions of innocent people.  True.  But what would they have to look forward to if we weren't attempting to intervene?  Injury, death, and a generally horrific and terrifying life.

For so many years we have heard about the "Big Bad Wolf" that is Saddam Hussein and his regime.  I think pretty much everyone in this country would agree that he's a "bad man," but until now it's all been in relatively abstract terms. Somehow things change when specifics start to be shown of the horrid and widespread atrocities committed by the Iraqi government against its own people and the disturbing lengths Saddam's forces will go to in this war (fake surrenders, disguising themselves as refugees and then firing on Coalition troops attempting to give them aid, attacking their own citizens if they try to flee their cities or won't agree to fight, even forcing children to fight or have their parents killed, etc.).  Yes, war is horrible.  But this war is also important.  If anyone doubts that, they need to read this article from the perspective of a few Iraqi women.  I wish I could force all those people who can't seem to keep their mouths shut about their disdain for President Bush and this war to read it.  Anyone who could and still not see what the point of this whole thing is... well... wow.

The world is an extremely complex place, and sometimes it's just not as simple as
war=bad, no-war=good.  Sometimes the only way to peace is through temporary conflict.  Welcome to reality.  It sucks.
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Monday, March 24, 2003
If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.  How sucky.
My husband cannot paint.  This is what we learned this weekend.  He is essentially incapable of transferring paint from a roller pan to a wall in any kind of an even fashion.  At least with a dark color.  We painted FOUR coats of the reddish-orange paint on all but one of our living room walls this weekend, in the process staying up till about 2am on both Saturday and Sunday nights.  Most of this was done by yours truly after the aforementioned discovery, with Josh doing such things as waiting on me hand and foot and ironing six panels of curtains.  You know, simple jobs.  ;)

Anyway, I have to say it looks pretty good (it could probably actually use one more coat of paint, but quite frankly I'm so sick of it it's just staying the way it is--it's good enough), and it is quite bold.  We still have to paint hte other wall and hallway in a lighter color, which I will try to get done before the weekend.  As much as I would really like to take a break from painting (I never knew how much it would hurt my hands and work my arm muscles), I really just want to get the whole room done.  And I'm not taking any pictures till it's complete, either, so then you all can see the finished product sooner.  Luckily what we have left should take no more than two coats, and if I'm really lucky Josh actually might be able to help (lighter colors don't require nearly as much care).
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Tuesday, March 18, 2003
TOP TEN NO DOUBT SONGS
10.  Platinum Blonde Life  (Rock Steady)
        --sounds a lot like Garbage.  the band.  least icky song off this album.
9.  Excuse Me Mr.  (Tragic Kingdom)
        --upbeat and fun.
8.  Simple Kind of Life  (Return of Saturn)
        --the verses are the best part of this sad and sweet song.
7.  Artificial Sweetener  (RoS)
        --a good, unboring rock song.
6.  End It on This  (TK)
        --really cool music, happier-sounding than a song about breaking up should be.
5.  Bathwater  (RoS)
        --funky and catchy.   the drums really carry this song.
4.  Too Late  (RoS)
        --powerful guitars, sweeping strings, and a horn-filled bridge.  me likey.
3.  Tragic Kingdom  (TK)
        --sort of an epic of a song, with a bit of weirdness thrown in for good measure.
2.  New  (RoS)
        --just plain wicked sweet.
1.  Don't Speak  (TK)
        --this song was so overexposed it's easy to forget how beautiful it really is.

I don't know if anyone other than Josh would be able to have much of an opinion on this list, but here it is.
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Monday, March 17, 2003
I have just updated CDs and movies along the side. It's not much, but I haven't done it in over a month so it needed it. That is all. Back to your regularly scheduled programming.
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This weekend we put our new, pretty light fixture in the pseudo dining room and put the fixture that had been there in the kitchen.  And we bought a palm tree.  It's pretty and I am going to baby it and  try extra hard not to kill it.  ;)  And we bought painting supplies and... yes... paint.  There's no going back now.  We are painting next weekend.  But first, unfortunately, we have to sand all the walls in the living room and hallway.  After doing some research, we found out that this is what you have to do when the people who lived here before you painted the walls with too glossy a paint.  So we also bought an electric palm sander to make the job, well, actually doable (plus I'm going to need something like that eventually to strip the finish off our dining table and chairs and bedroom dressers).  So this week I'm going to be busy sanding and then thoroughly washing down the walls in preparation for putting this very scary paint on them.  Wish me luck.

*******

We got our taxes sent out today.  Somehow there's more motivation to get them out early when you're getting money back.

*******

It was freakishly warm this weekend.  We would have gone disc golfing, except that we didn't.  Too muddy from all the snow melting.  The next warm weekend we aren't painting we will go embarrass ourselves with our badness.

*******

We have given up pop (soda, for all you illiterates out there) for Lent, as well as unnecessary fast food.  This is the first time in my life I've ever really given anything up for Lent.  I guess the concept just wasn't something that was really focused on in the church I grew up in.  It's a little tough at times, but overall it's not really all that painful.  Is it supposed to be?  Is this not having as much of an effect as it should?  Or is this a good thing?  I have no idea.

*******

We have bought the "Don't Dream It's Over" single with the unreleased song "Don't Pass Me By."  For anyone who was less than impressed with the extra "Northern Lights" track on the first single, trust me, this song is better.  I don't know how good the song is in and of itself, but the arrangement is pretty cool.  Horns.  Oh, yeah.  It's worth a listen.

*******

Starting yesterday, we are each doing at least 15 minutes a day on our new elliptical trainer.  That may not sound like that much, but, trust me, it was downright painful, especially for two people who really aren't in shape.  We'll up that amount as we get better, but some things you just need to ease yourself into or you'll kill yourself.  And, in those 15 minutes the machine did say I'd burned 125 calories.  I wonder how accurate that is...

*******

Wow, was "Alias" great last night, or what?

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Tuesday, March 11, 2003
I be a big fat hippo.  Crite.
I get all annoyed when people whose blogs I read don't post for a while (*cough*Kaly*cough*), even while I am in the process of not blogging myself for almost two weeks mostly because I just haven't felt like it.  Sometimes I just don't feel like dealing with the pressure of coming up with something interesting to write, or even something uninteresting to write.  But it's kind of like a lot of things for me:  it's hard to force myself to get started on it, but once I do I don't have a problem continuing.  It'll all be better once I get back into some semblance of a routine.  But, for now, here's a bunch of thoughts from the past couple weeks.

*******

We went to Ames for the 26-hour marathon known as Kaleidoquiz.  One feature this year was a 19-hour scavenger hunt where we had to obtain items from all over the state of Iowa.  Josh and I personally drove to Des Moines to take photos of ourselves with the "Red Bull team" at the state capitol, and then to Osceola to get a casino chip from Lakeside Casino and Resort.  Others drove to Keokuk, Shenandoah, West Bend, Cedar Rapids, Dordt College, and probably other places I'm forgetting.  We were, quite obviously, a team of nutsos.  But, we got everything on the list and thus got a bunch of bonus points and ended up winning.  All Josh and I got personally were a few random CDs the college radio station was giving away, including one seemingly good one by The Church, a Ramona Silver CD, and a CD of 12 different styles of "Stairway to Heaven" covers, including Opera, Disco, and "Australian bubble."  Yeah.  We listened to it on the way home.  It was very interesting.

*******

Tell me, why do people drive about 3 above the speed limit when it's 55 mph, then when it slows down to 35 mph, still go about 45-50 mph?  I don't understand this phenomenon.  Me, I like to go a pretty consistent 4-6 miles above the speed limit, no matter what it is.  That way there's not much danger of getting pulled over.  If you're going to drive 10-15 miles over the limit, at least do it consistently.  Geez.

*******

We have snow.  Last Tuesday, we got about 7 or 8 inches, which is more than twice what we've gotten at any other single time this winter.  Then the next day we got another inch.  Then the next day we got another inch.  Then two days later we got another two inches.  Winter can be over now, thank you.  And I want a snow blower.

*******

Pete Taylor, the Voice of the Cyclones, died last week rather suddenly.  He was only in his 50's.  It was just one of those things that was hard to believe at first.  And, really, still.  Even as a Christian, death is something that always really bothers me.  I have been blessed enough to never really lose anyone who was that close to me, and I am seriously dreading the day when that happens.

*******

Hopefully this tidbit will not have any connection to the last little tidbit, but "Ed" is moving to Fridays at 8pm (9 est) starting March 21.  It had lower-than-average ratings during February sweeps, which quite frankly is never a good thing (this was mostly due to competition from stupid "American Idol" and stupider "Star Search"--blech).  This is just bringing back horrendously horrible memories of the third season (same season) of "seaQuest" when NBC (same network... eeek) moved the show from Sunday nights to Wednesday nights.  And then cancelled it a few months later.  Yikies.  This kind of programming move is often considered "The Kiss of Death," a.k.a. "Let's Move a Struggling Show to a New Time-Slot and That Way if the Ratings Go Down We'll Have a Perfect Excuse to Cancel It."  I'm think I'm going to have a heart attack.   Please, all of you, promise to watch it on Fridays!  Promise to write to NBC telling them how much you love it and that you will never watch anything else on their network, ever, if they cancel it!  Do it for me?  Pitty pitty peas?

*******

On a lighter note, a recent episode of "Everwood" contained a lovely slam of "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno."  I've never understood why almost twice as many people each night watch Jay instead of Dave when Dave is actually funny.   ("Ummm, Beth-Annie, are you implying here that Jay is in turn NOT funny?"  "Why, yes.  Yes I am.")  I don't remember the exact quote, but an elderly man was talking about how he had busted a gut last night watching "The Tonight Show."  Dr. Brown deduced from this that he was senile and didn't know what decade it was.  Dr. Abbott wanted to know how he could tell just from that, and Dr. Brown said, "When was the last time someone busted a gut watching 'The Tonight Show?'"  Now, THAT made ME bust a gut.  We apparently are not the only ones.  How nice.

*******

For anyone who cares about my decorating ideas, in the living room I had told some people I was planning to paint the walls a sort of dirty medium yellow color and find floor-length drapes in a sort of rusty red color.  Well, as I was being quite picky about the shade of red I wanted and couldn't find it anywhere, let alone for a not-too-expensive price, I have changed my plan somewhat.  Instead, (right now) I am planning on painting the WALLS a rusty red color (the one I like is called "Tabasco"--and here is a good idea of the look I'm going for, walls and trim-wise), and buying curtains that are either a very dark cream or maybe a sort of cappuccino color--much easier to find curtains I like in a neutral color.  Now, this method is also not without its problems.  1)  One wall of the living room runs right into the hallway to the bedrooms, and we're not sure we want that hallway to be red.  2, 3, 4, 5, and 6)  I have a wall tapestry with a red background (except for a neutral border) that I really want to hang in the room, as I absolutely adore it and I've kind of been basing my color scheme off it, except that its red color slightly clashes with the red color I want on the walls.  I'm pretty sure it would be okay if I could put it on a non-red wall, but that would mean that one wall in the room would have to be not-red.  That could be the wall that runs into the hallway, and then the hallway also wouldn't have to be red, but then I would have to figure out a color to paint that.  I would paint it the dark cream color the curtains would be, except that color was going to go on the ceiling, as I don't think a stark white ceiling would look too good against the red walls (we looked into crown moulding to separate the wall and ceiling color, but decided it's too expensive right now).  So basically I don't want to put the same color on the ceiling and one of the walls, since I think it would look weird to have most of the room have a contrast between walls and ceiling but have one wall just not really have a break between the two.  Make sense?  Yeah, right.  So then my only real option is to have the ceiling and that one wall (and hallway) painted different shades of the same color, with the ceiling lighter and the wall darker.  But if I leave the wall the dark cream, I don't think I can find something for the ceiling that's lighter enough to be enough of a contrast with the wall and not be so light that it's too stark against the red walls in the rest of the room.  And if I put the dark cram on the ceiling like I want, I then have to find something darker for the walls, which might even look nicer with the red, except that the stupid trim and baseboard wood color ends up semi-clashing with anything I find that's dark enough but not too dark.  So should I just put the tapestry up on the red ayway and have it not look perfect and the hallway be red?  Or should I just paint the wall darker and have it not look perfect with the wood trim?  Aren't you glad you all bugged me to post again?  Yup, I thought so.
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