WHAT DOES THE COW SAY?

One of the things about me that my daughter in law Emily finds highly amusing is my awesome talent at making realistic animal sounds.  With nine grandchildren this talent is used a lot and is particularly handy when it comes to singing 'Old MacDonald Had a Farm".  I have no problem showing this talent off and I can be very dramatic when it comes to the animal sounds (you should hear my elephant).

Last week I took one of my little grandsons to the Early Years Centre (a government sponsored drop in centre for children up to age six) and met up with Brittany and her two kids. Just before lunch it was circle time and we gathered to sing some action songs.  The facilitator changed it up this week and added 'Old MacDonald' to the repertoire.  I was disappointed when the first animal chosen by one of the kids was a horse (I haven't got that one down yet).  As we sang the second round the facilitator paused as we came to the part "and on his farm he had a ......" a little girl next to me shouted out cow and the facilitator continued "E-I-E-I-O , with a... and that is when I bellowed out a loud, deep moooooooo while everyone else said "oink".

DIVERGENT

I'm almost embarrassed to make an appearance here after not writing for months.  There has been plenty to write about but recently a part of me thought it a little vain to be writing about my personal life and putting out there for all to see.  Does that make any sense? I guess I have been listening to some complaints from friends about bloggers they follow who write long and involved posts about every detail of their lives. It made me wonder if they thought that about me and they were giving me a gentle hint.
Anyway, tonight was the first time in a long time that I thought to myself "I have to blog about this."

Earlier this week while watching TV an ad came on for the movie Divergent.  Having read the book (the first of a trilogy) I mentioned to Emily and Nathan that I would like to see it.  Ian even expressed that it looked interesting. Knowing Ian's distaste for sci-fi, fantasy, or dystopian movies I told him that it wasn't his kind of movie and then went on to explain the premise of the film and he quickly agreed that he wouldn't like it.  Fast forward to tonight.

Driving past the theatre.

Ian: "We should go see a movie tonight."

Me: "That would be nice."

Ian: " Oh look Divergent is playing. We saw an ad for it remember?  It looked good."

At this point I thought he was joking and was going to say something sarcastic but then it dawned on me that he had completely forgotten the conversation we had after the ad. Now I was in a bit of a conundrum. This is more or less what went on inside my head.
" Should I remind him that he won't like it and we can go see something else or should I keep my mouth shut and go and see the movie I really want to see?  He might end up liking it... he said himself it looked good...  he really doesn't like that kind of movie....  but this one he might like... yeah, he's not going to like it... but it's Divergent and it's at the nice theatre with the comfy seats."

We saw Divergent tonight. Depending on who you talk to, it may or not be good.

CHRISTMAS LETTERS

For the first time in a number of years I managed to get our annual letter out before Christmas.  I usually end up writing a Groundhog Day letter and even then it's sometimes late so you can understand why I've been patting myself on the back.   I was feeling pretty pleased with myself being all organized and everything until I was at my daughter in law's place the day she received a card and letter from her friend, opened it, read the first paragraph, threw it on the table and announced"her letters are always too long, I don't have time to read them". (She's a busy mom.)
"Uh, oh" I thought, ""my letters tend to be on the long side."
I voiced as much to her and being the nice person she is, she quickly justified the length of my letters saying that I had a lot of people to write about.
This got me to wondering about how many people actually read the letters that often accompany a Christmas card from friends they don't see very much.  Personally I read every letter that comes in the mail.  I may not read them the same day they arrive if I am really busy but I do take the time at some point over the holidays to read them.  I like hearing what is going on in the lives of my friends and I don't care that they often paint a picture of a more perfect family than they actually are (apparently some people do... take offense that is) because at the time of writing the author is seeing the very best part of their family and that's a good thing.  It doesn't bother me in the least either that it is a generic letter being sent out to many.  I know that at least as the sender was addressing the envelope, they thought about me because I know I think of them as I stuff the envelope and write their name across it.
So don't worry if you have cast my letter aside because it was too long, there's no test at the end and I won't ask you about it, you're off the hook, rest easy, I usually get someone else to write mine anyway.