.jeri.

Hey all! Happy Monday morning to you, or if you're Nobody, good evening. Sorry, I've been watching far too much Alfred Hitchcock Presents lately, and just had to share that wonderful voice.

I had a full weekend, though a productive one. I've been trying more and more to be productive with my time, which doesn't allow for a lot of rest, but I do feel good bout myself when I keep busy. Friday I came home and practiced some chords on the guitar, and then Ric and my sister and I went to see The Informant! No, I didn't add that exclamation point because of how excited I am about the movie - it's part of the title. The movie is good, though.

Saturday I slept in and then got straight to business. I read some of my Kurosawa homework, did some house work, and then Ric and I went to check out Hellmen Park in Whittier. There are several trails there, and we started out with an easy one because of time constraints. I'll have to visit again before I write up anything about it, because we were there for less than an hour. There are some great views from up there, though! We came home and cleaned up, then took Ellie to the vet for a shot. I think our male nurse was high, because he was very confused and mumbled a lot. I mouthed "drug testing" at the camera in the upper corner of the room. Seriously.

That night my sister and I went to the House of Blues in Anaheim to see the Happy Mondays and the Psychedelic Furs. Most of the audience was there only to see the Furs. We got there just in time for the Happy Mondays, who were big in the 80s English dance scene, if you haven't heard of them. If you want to learn more, rent 24 Hour Party People, which is named after one of their songs. Anyway, they're back, and they still know how to party. The audience around wasn't impressed, but if they had played in a smaller venue where the audience was actually there to see them, it would have been so cool! I wasn't even looking forward to seeing them all that much, but thought they were great. The audience was mostly 40-somethings who were there to live out their fun times from the 80s. They were drunk, tone-deaf, the ladies were trying to dance to prove their youth and retained sexiness, and the guys who were there with them spent most of the time taking bad-quality photos of the show with their camera phones. I hated almost all of them. The Furs turned out to be quite different than I had expected, and I learned that I only like their hits, and that their hits are much better on the radio for me than in person. They did have a great saxophonist, though!

Sunday Ric and I went to church. We were late so only made it to Sunday school, where we continued watching the Peasant Princess series from Mars Hill. If you're a married Christian couple, especially in your first few years of marriage, but really at any point, I would recommend checking this series out. It goes through Song of Songs and really delves into marriage stuff that hardly any church ever talks about. I like that the pastor gives questions you can ask your spouse and suggests conversations you as a couple can have. I know Ric and I have talked a little after watching a couple of these, and it's been good. I would have loved seeing this even earlier in my marriage.

In the afternoon I spent quite a while going through my Kurosawa text. Now I remember why school was so difficult for me. I really am a slow reader, and it took me so long to complete anything because I spent so long just going through texts. I spent a long time going through it. Thankfully, now that I'm back at work and looking at my syllabus, I also completed the reading for next week and part of the week after that! Anyway, once that was done, I set to work in our downstairs bathroom. Ric removed the shower doors because they were old and had lots of rust and moldy stuff on them around the edges. I'm surprised we lived a year with them, because they've always grossed me out since we moved in. Once they were removed, there were rust/mold stains and a lot of silicone caulking. I like that caulking, aesthetically speaking, but to remove it is a pain. Basically, I spent 3-4 hours just scraping the top of the bathtub wall and some of the side shower wall. I probably still have a few more hours or work to go in order to finish it completely.

In the late evening, I got to work on more guitar practice (oh yeah, it came in the mail on Wednesday!). It's frustrating, but I may be making progress. My hands are so small that I have a really hard time stretching my fingers across the frets without accidentally touching other strings. This is a scaled down guitar (7/8), and it's better, but still difficult. Right now I know all my major chords but can barely play them. It's just not like piano, where you can just press a key and it rings clearly. Here's hoping for more improvement!

Up this week: we don't have a ton going on. Hopefully we'll just get some work done around the house, besides the usual shopping chores. I kind of want to go see The Secret Life of Walter Mitty at the Egyptian on Thursday, but since we're heading out of town for the weekend and I don't have someone to go with me, I probably won't.

Health: All that jogging caught up with me and I had a hard week last week. It's so frustrating. I just want to be healthy and to be able to do real exercise. Both my back and hip bothered me all last week, and my hip is still irritated today.

Hope you all have a good week. I'm just planning to plug away at work, since nothing exciting is happening around the office. I did order a bunch of photos so I can decorate our boring hallway cubicle walls, so hopefully those will come soon and give me a way to spruce up this beige world of ours!