Excited

YAY!!! :)

Rooting for the Other

Hang on to your seats. It's a double-feature night!

Natalie Portman's in a new movie titled, "The Other Woman". The trailer depicts her character as a sweet ingenue who falls for and sleeps with a married guy. Awwww look at that! In the blink of an eye she gets the guy divorced, gets pregnant and married!! And double-aww! She works soooo hard to earn his son's affection. Life's awesome!

Wow. I think I have an issue with that. Then again it's Hollywood. *shrug*

American Idol Greats

Random alert.........

I was just going through an entertainment website's "Top American Idol performances", and out of 20 these were the ones that I had to look up to watch, just because they're so memorable:

- Allison Iraheta's "Cry Baby" (Exit performance)

Yes, she botched a note or two on this one; this was, however, her exit performance and she was literally singing through tears. Her passion on every word, every syllable is palpable. If only she would've sang this way the night before:

- Kris Allen's "Heartless"

This guy was in trouble before this performance; the judges hammered on the idea of a Danny Gokey/Adam Lambert showdown, but no amount of persuasion was able to take him out of the competition (or the AI victory, ultimately). The arrangement was fearless and so much more attractive than the original. Above all, it just takes guts to rearrange and perform a song that had been sung not long before on the same stage, by Kanye:

Kris Allen - Heartless (American Idol 8) [HQ] en Yahoo! Video

- Kelly Clarkson's "Stuff like That There"

It's amazing to me that this girl was a nobody when she sang this; to this day she's my favorite AI winner not only because of her talent, but her charisma as well. This was Big Band week and let's face it: there have been very very few performers on this show who have been able to pull it off on similarly-themed weeks. Kelly not only pulled it off, she freakin' nailed it:

No Sweeter Sound

One of my favorite sounds ever is hearing Sam sing Christian hymns at church. He was musically trained as a little boy so he hits the notes just right; his voice is very deep yet has a softness that I can't explain... above all, there is an amazing passion when he sings. Amazing music to my ears, amazing love for our Creator... it brings tears to my eyes every now and then. Tonight once again, I thanked God for the man He put in my path.

Finally Feeling the Christmas Spirit!

As I adopt more responsibilities and write increasingly long to-do lists in life, it seems like every year it takes me a little longer to get into the Christmas spirit. Which makes me a little sad. This year though, I'm just happy that I'm finally feeling it. And it's amazing! :)

In light of so many holiday photo cards we have received from friends and family, I decided to experiment a little and come up with a couple of designs for cards of our own. Granted, we don't have too many peeps to send them to but it's just a fun Photoshop project and well... let's face it, I LOVE Photoshop. :)

So here they are! I think we'll end up printing the one with our photo on it because it seems more personal. Yes I know: they all look like generic store-ordered cards. I'm still proud of them, especially because that picture of us with Mr. Snowman is actually a merge of TWO photos! It was only the two of us out in the snow so we took pictures of each other. Ahhhh I love having the time to create :)

In case I don't post before then, MERRY CHRISTMAS! :D

Surprising Developments?

So after pounding my head over the decision to continue with grad school applications or not (as if whatever happens is up to ME, duh), Sam and I sat together one night and talked about every possible route we could take; we wrote a good ol' "pros and cons" list for each option and surprise! Once we were done the decision was staring at us, all full of lead and clear as crystal, from the piece of paper. We finally decided that grad school should not be in our minds for 2011, since we're not where we need to be financially speaking (there were other reasons behind the decision but if I started talking about them all, I'd end up writing the equivalent of a 20-page paper, single-spaced). It was hard to imagine where I'd want to be professionally in 5, 10 years, but after giving it some thought I realized that I wouldn't mind being a licensed architect once our kiddos are old enough to be in school. So ever since then, I've moved forward with GRE and portfolio prep; if I get accepted to start on the Fall of 2011, I'll defer for one year and continue working full-time until I do go back.

Took the dreaded GRE today... I got a better score than I thought! To be honest I didn't know if I'd even pass given the questions I saw on practice tests. But I did, and I think the score is good enough to be a serious candidate for the M.Arch program. Now I need to work on my portfolio; I've got a couple of months to make it as good as I can make it. And I have to say...

...I'll take working on portfolio over taking the GRE any day!!!

Whoop for no more GRE! :D

Slowly Pulling Toward a Better Life

Just working on my portfolio and grad school application papers is driving me crazy. I don't have time to clean the house, or take care of my yard, or have much fun with Sam. I don't care what people say, if I don't take care of my husband and my house I feel miserable. I know that some people thrive under pressure, but I'm not one of them. I love admiring architecture and working at an architecture firm, but I don't have a thirst for architectural design.

I have a thirst for being a dang good wife. And having children. And raising a good, God-loving family. I feel strongly passionate about this. Why does society look down on this? Because I don't want to earn more money I should be termed a lazy person? Taking care of our own kids and making time for LIVING, yeah that IS lazy. When was this notion established? We still have debt from undergrad, and here we are considering incurring more debt. And what will I get out of the degree? A raise in pay yes, but from what I hear not a great one. And extra hours at the office. Weekends. Stress. Abandonment of house-related work. And less time with my husband. *whispers* oh guess what: the divorce rate in the architecture field is super high. Let's go for it yea!! *sigh*. I want to have a job that does not become my life. I have better and more important things to do.

A few weeks ago, the priest during Mass was talking about how we (i.e. a lot of college students) are so eager to go to grad school and become more knowledgeable in a certain field, yet so few of us want to pursue a deeper knowledge of the Bible. This has stayed in me since then. I become terrified at the thought of having to face God and tell Him, "yeah I didn't have time for you or Your Word. I was too busy architecting".

As I write this I'm getting to realize that I've made up my mind about Architecture: it's not for me. Not yet, at least. Maybe in a few years. Family comes first, that's what Mimi and Papito taught me. Well, riiight after God. I'm setting the priorities straight. Sam and I have been talking about possibilities and what me not going to grad school could possibly mean; we've contemplated a number of situations including myself working part-time eventually. This sounds SO appealing. It'll sound like heaven when we have kids, I'm sure. I saw too many moms at the daycare miss their babies' "firsts" because they were working and their babies were with us. I refuse to let that happen.

So... no more GRE. No more portfolio. WEEEEEE! Who CARES what "profligate" means anyway?? (Not me.)

I'll let this simmer for a few nights, but I think I'm pretty much done thinking about this. In the meantime, enjoy this hysterical video a coworker shared with me (it's got some bad words but it's fuuunny if you can get past that):

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/7429337/?ref=nf