Top 10 Movies

I don't buy a lot of movies, so I only purchase the ones that I'll watch over and over. Here's the top ten list of movies I own that I can watch repeatedly :)

1. You’ve Got Mail
2. While You Were Sleeping
3. Where the Heart Is
4. When Harry Met Sally
5. Sleepless in Seattle
6. Return to Me
7. The Holiday
8. The Lake House
9. The Wedding Planner
10. Riding in Cars with Boys

Disney Top Ten

Luke and I watched The Rescuers tonight, which got me to thinking about which Disney movies are the brightest and best (probably the ones called the "masterpieces," but that's beside the point), so I have endeavored to create my own list of the top 10 Disney movies. This actually turned out to be harder than I thought! But, alas (sighs, wipes brow), I have composed the following and have, for added suspense, listed them in reverse order like any good countdown.

First, honorable mention goes to Fox's Anastasia. Although not produced by Disney, this is one of the BEST full-length, animated feature films ever created. (Bartok: Just wishing I could do the job for you, sir. I'd give her a HA! And a HI-YA! And then a OUU-WA! And I'd kick her, sir.) And it has a great soundtrack...and I never care about the soundtrack.

And for the list:

10. Toy Story (But not #2. That was bad.)

9. Finding Nemo (just keep swimming, just keep swimming)

8. Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs (How do you do WHAT?!?)

7. 101 Dalmatians (I just like it when they dye themselves black and then the snow washes it off :)

6. The Emperor's New Groove (Did you see the sky today? Talk about BLUE!...Wrong LEVER!!!)

5. The Lion King (Let me get this straight. You know her. She knows you. But she wants to eat him. And everybody's OKAY with this? Did I miss something?)

4. The Jungle Book (Whadda ya wanna do? I don’t know whadda YOU wanna do? Now don’t start that again!)

3. The Incredibles (THAT WAS TOTALLY WICKED!!)

2. The Little Mermaid (Down here all the fish is happy / As off to the waves they roll / The fish on the land ain't happy / They sad 'cause they in the bowl / But fish in the bowl is lucky / They in for a worser fate / One day when the boss get hungry...Guess who's gon' be on the plate)

1. Aladdin (Mind if I kiss the monkey? Oh, hairball!)

Hello, happy. I remember you!

I love my job! I do. I really do!

This is the first Sunday night in years that I haven't dreaded the Monday to come.

Looking at the pictures from before "life" hit over the past four years, I've spent a lot of time discouraged, feeling like the joy in my eyes was somehow just out of reach. But tonight, at this very moment, I FEEL the way I LOOK in those pictures!

I can't wait to go to work tomorrow! Eeeee! Happy dance!

Unexpected

It was just like him to go without telling anyone. He was always the adventurous sort.

He was a legend. Truly. I would bet on 300 people at the funeral because everyone knew him, and he tried everything at least once. And if you ever ate beef or lettuce or used something that came out of a pipe, it’s likely he may have delivered it on his truck, where his true passion was.

He didn’t like chocolate. I remember learning that Grandpa didn’t like chocolate when I was very small, and my brain has yet to comprehend it. However, my brother found a bag of gummy bears on the counter. What 80-year-old guy eats gummy bears? (Exactly. That was the type of guy he was.) I knew I got that from someone.

Like a lot of men in his generation, he didn’t always know how to show love, and he was certainly not the cuddly grandpa type. But he always praised my successes, came to my graduations, and had a bit of advice for just about any situation.

This will change our family, as death always does. How do 5 adult children divide memories and possessions gathered over a lifetime when there was no warning, no plan, and a lot of memories that will make it difficult? Binding together at THIS time is the key to staying together when the head of the family is no longer there to lead. I will pray for that unity.

Our (Rent) House

Renting our house is like an adopting an old dog from the pound.

It's not the cute, new puppy everyone says "Awww" when they see. It's the half-blind, grey-behind-the-ears, flea-bitten grandpa dog off by itself in the corner. You know he's seen better days...and probably a few worse ones. If not for a gracious caretaker, he would sit there, sad and alone to finish out his days with nothing but memories.

Our house, like grandpa dog, was alone for several months before us. Because of a new children's center, we are the last occupants the house will likely ever see. Casting aside its years of service, the city's going to dismantle it or, at best, move it out of city limits to join a graveyard of houses that have met similar fates. Meanwhile, we are borrowing its last few months, and I always wonder what it has seen and what memories it holds.

Our visitors give me a few ideas. No one walks in and exclaims, "What a NICE house!" Instead, they get misty-eyed and reminisce about the place they lived when they were first married. They touch its hardwood frame and smile knowingly as if remembering the first meal they shared sitting on milk crates across a cardboard box that served as dining room furniture.

They tell us it looks like a mansion compared to where THEY lived (and we think where they live now actually IS a mansion). And then come the stories of the lives they have lived, their eyes envisioning for us the hope of our memories that are yet to be made.

They say, "You'll have the best times of your married life in this house." And that's good to remember when I kill a spider in the bathtub or suffer near heat exhaustion baking my first cherry pie in the distant-from-a/c-kitchen.

But it feels like home, and I feel honored to join the others who have shared the house's history. Like an old pet, the house and its memories will be difficult to part with at the end, but I'm looking forward to the life we'll share while we are together.