Diane’s World

Hi everybody! Look how well I’m posting these days. What a good girl am I.

I have to admit that the hardest part of writing this blog is picking out the song of the week. I just sat here for the past half hour dinking around my music collection.

The sad thing is that I know that half of you either A) can’t even hear my music in some countries (like Germany) and B) even more of you shut your sound off the moment you reach my website.

Oh well. Turn your music off. See if I care.

Well anyways, what you are (or aren’t hearing) right now is a song from Muse’s new CD, “The Resistance”.

Many of you have heard me gush about Muse as my favorite band, and over and over again have I praised the genius and absolute-incredibleness of my dearest love of loves, Matthew James Bellamy, lead vocalist, guitarist, pianist and songwriter  for this marvelous band:

However… this CD is… different. If I didn’t love and respect Matt Bellamy’s musical genius as much as I do, I might just give up on him. Unfortunately this CD sounds a little bit of a weird mix of Queen / U2 / System of a Down / and Indian/Arab music. I never thought I’d have all those words in the same sentence! Generally: If you don’t know MUSE very well, please don’t start with this CD. Start with Absolution or Origins of Symmetry… those two were flawless.

The most redeemable point of this CD is the last three tracks, which you are currently listening (or not listening) to. Muse wrote a Symphony! Hooray! It’s called “Exogenesis” and I believe they did brilliantly, though I am waiting for my classical geeky family to tear this statement down. *and now I’m holding my breath for negative comments*.

And to make matters MUCH MUCH WORSE (believe me, I’ve cried over this already), MUSE SOLD THEMSELVES OUT… to none other but the horrifying vampire-crazed teeny boppy series of Twilight! *gaaaaaasp!*

Which I know even more about because I actually watched it this week. I almost choked on the sappiness. My sister Sarah, however decided to marathon it through reading all four books this week… and yes, she managed to read the entire series in 9 days.

So I’m threatening to buy Sarah a Edward cut-out for Christmas, though I wouldn’t want Andrew to get jealous.

Anyways… I have exciting news!  After one painful month-long hiatus from running, I am back on the road again!!! Hooray that Washington weather is temperate for me to run outside most of the year, and that the Washington terrain is a lot more interesting than in Iowa. Unfortunately, more hills makes my mile average slag a little bit… I’ll be a much stronger runner overall because of the terrain.

Here is my stats for my Friday run!

So yes, it’s a bit slower than usual, but what’s to be expected?

And my new Nike LunarGlides?  I’m in love! My feet have never felt so cushioned and so light at the same time! So hooray for that!

Wow, I really missed my endorphines.

Anyways, I’ve been primarily living at the Flanagan home lately. I absolutely love the atmosphere here… it’s just rediculous.

I mean, this morning I woke up to Sarah saying, “DeeDee, get out here. You HAVE to see this.”

Dragging myself out of bed, I walk into the bathroom to see this lovely scene:

That wasn’t even all of it… there was a lot of foam lining the hallways. I guess they just wanted to help me clean the bathroom, right?

Like when they did this to the back window two weeks ago:

They were just trying to be artistic.

I love being with the nephews. Today me and three of the boys had an impromptu dance party to “ABBA” when their parents left me to babysit them. The boys love ABBA. Good job raising them, Sarah and Andrew!

And yes, the boys do like to run around mostly naked most of the time. I don’t care how many times you try to put clothes on them, they just keep coming off. So it’s not that we don’t clothe them, I promise!

Sarah and I decided to try a new hobby today… we were dyeing OBV fabric with shaving cream. Although the results quite literally went down the drain (there is a lot of tweaking to be done before we get this dyeing thing right!) we had a lot of fun in the process!

Maybe too much fun:

(Yes! I remembered to wear gloves this time! I can’t go to church tomorrow with green hands now, could I?)

So… yup. I don’t feel much like explaining what we are doing, because we failed miserably and the less you know the better. Just look at the purty colors!

So yes, my day started…. and ended, in foam. That’s the life of living with the Flanagan Clan.

Ok. So that’s all there is. I’m still jobless. It’s kind of nice. Sarah and I took our blood pressure in the mall the other day and mine read 76/50. Though I know it’s most definitely that the machine was broken (we had the kids with us for goodness sakes! Just seeing the four little monsters together adds about 70 points to my diastolic number), I feel like I’ve been a lot more at ease and healthier than when I was working myself to death in Iowa. I hope never to do that again… Diane will not do crazy hours anymore.  Diane will find a less-stressful job. It’s a promise.

ANYWAYS::: Next week is my fourth annual PUMPKINFEST!!! (hooray!) So look out for a post in a week. If you live in Washington and are my friend and haven’t been invited yet, then let me know and I’ll invite you.

I hope all of you are having fabulous weeks.

Much Love, Deedles Marie