"Coraline" is freaky-deaky!

Elizabeth and I enjoyed a girls' night out Friday. I whisked her away to the movies right after school, the 3-D premiere of "Coraline". We loaded up on Icees (FOUR BUCKS APIECE, for crying out loud!), donned the 3-D specs (which are infinitely fancier than the paper ones I remember), and settled in for what we both hoped would live up to our expectations.

We tried really, really, really hard, but it didn't.

I know it took FOREVER to make this movie, what with the stop-action photography and all. And E and I both enjoyed the soundtrack, which I believe was an assortment of creepy French lullabies. But the movie itself was disturbing. Most notably the buttons-for-eyes theme. Ick.

We dusted ourselves off and drowned our sorrows at The Cheesecake Factory, though, so the night wasn't a total loss.

It was a thirty-minute wait, so we camped out at the fireplace in the Food Court. Every teenager in the immediate area was in attendance at Jordan Creek Town Center. I got a big kick out of E's observations.

"Wow, look at all those crazy teenagers, Mom. I bet they're all on dates. Oh my gosh, Mom! That girl is wearing shorts, SHORT shorts! That's EMBARRASSING! Look, Mom, they're texting. ALL OF THEM. I won't be like that when I'M a teenager. I promise!"

You read it here first. E promises to defy genetics and spend her teen years as a responsible, well-dressed, polite and non-texting young adult. I tell her that teenagers are weird because that's just how they are, and it's OK because you eventually grow out of it. She doubts she'll ever grow into it in the first place. Which would be nice, I'm sure, for her parents. It's a very sweet sentiment, but I don't think you can avoid teen angst without a frontal lobotomy.

Our restaurant buzzer snapped us out of people-watching, and E got down to business by ordering a mega-omelet. Does The Cheesecake Factory serve un-mega portions of anything? She took a few tiny bites, and pushed the plate away.

"Still have room for some cheesecake?"

"YEAH!"

Wow, what a shock.

We partook of the Godiva chocolate cheesecake. Well, E did. Most of it. For someone who was supposedly full, she sure did wolf down dessert.

I've said it before: if sweets were nutritious, E would be the healthiest health nut of them all. Her sweet tooth awes me.

We rolled our cheesecaked selves to Barnes & Noble for a little browsing. I was hearing Mrs. Jaros' voice in my head, prodding me to push Elizabeth to the More Challenging Books section, but she skillfully meandered to the Disney Fairy shelf and picked up a copy of "Rosetta's Daring Day". And me, setting an excellent example, chose a stack of books from Crafts & Hobbies. And there we sat, mother and daughter, enjoying each others' company free of our noisy boys.

According to Joel, the boys were, well, NOISY! But they enjoyed pizza and ice cream at home, so no harm done.

We've been graced with beautiful weather for February. Saturday's high was 54 degrees! I had to get outside and get me some of that. So I decided it was time to bite the bullet and prune some trees. I grabbed my clippers and headed to the backyard. I intended to clean up our Japanese maples a bit...they're taller than they are wider, and they're supposed to be wider than they are taller. Armed with my limited knowledge of what I should and shouldn't cut, I started clipping away. Three hours later, I realized I'd forgotten gardening gloves. For the manly-looking things they are, my hands are actually quite delicate. Especially after three hours of hardcore pruning.

Let's just say I'm going through a lot of Band-Aids.

I don't know what in the world I'm supposed to do with the clippings. Yard waste pick-ups don't start until March, so I guess I keep the bags by the side of the house for a few weeks. Or maybe I call Grandpa Jerry and truck the stuff out to his place for some good old-fashioned burning?

TANGENT: Sam tells me today he likes the smell of fire. It reminds him of marshmallows. Should this scare me?

I'm going to stop being a chicken and sign up for an art class. This one in particular: Collage On Vintage Surfaces @ The Art Store. I'm chicken because I'm not a "real" artist, remember. Not brooding or dressed in black or in any way otherwise credentialed. I want to do this sort of thing so badly, but I'm just not sure where to start. Once I get the hang of it, though, I think I'll finally gesso and Mod Podge all the scraps of ephemera I've been hording since God-knows-when. I'm also a chicken because the class instructor is none other than Brandi Butcher-Isley, who I've mentioned here before. I'll feel like a total poser, I know, but hopefully I'll remember to take my attitude with me March 8.

Before I go, I'd like to share a prayer with you that my little Fire Starter Sam drew in Religious Education class last week:

I hope Jesus doesn't feel slighted by being crossed out. I bet he understands. God is, like, totally AWESOME, dude!

And one more, Ben's first piece of non-abstract artwork:

I finished Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1) last night. And I read it to E. Now, before you go and get all moral on me, I casually skipped over any of the parts that I deemed a bit too risque for young ears. And she really got into the story. We started reading last night about eight o'clock, and E kept begging for just one more chapter, so we finished the entire book from about page 300. The tingle-inducing stuff is more contained to the first 300 pages, afterall. I ordered New Moon (The Twilight Saga, Book 2) this morning. You'd be impressed with how I can censor on the fly!

Now I'm going to get ON my butt :) and Photoshop some of my knitted and crocheted bits (hearts and vines), which might actually become some sort of element pack at ScrapArtist tomorrow. We'll see. It's a pain to extract fuzzy things, but it's doable. Just takes a long time. I'm spending more time trying to discover some unknown trick to make it happen in a couple of clicks, but I'm not there yet. Might as well just succumb to the Pen Tool and get it over with, I think.

And with that, a happy Monday to you!