Woo-hoo, Blogathon 2009 is here and I’m so excited, I just can’t hide it, … (sung to the tune of that Pointer Sisters’ song, “I’m so excited”).

It’s a one day event on July 25 and I’ll be up all night blogging for 24 hours straight, no sleep, just posting like crazy every half hour. This is my 3rd year at the Blogathon and I’m so addicted!

I’ll be blogging for the ASPCA again, just like last year. Those of you who read my blog know I’m the wierdo who won’t order ‘live’ seafood and who will chase a mosquito out of my car instead of just smashing it.

Yes, and I’m always up for something crazy to do, are you? Well, you can find out more about Blogathon 2009 here or register to join us. It’s really fun and it’s for a good cause.

If you can’t do without your beauty sleep, no problem, you can still earn some good karma by donating. Sponsor me here and I promise I’ll stay up all night and do the donkey work. Your donations will go directly to ASPCA, not to me, so you can be sure I won’t be going shopping with your money . I appreciate any and all donations, no matter how big or small.

I’ll be posting updates as we get closer to the date so stay tuned…

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I got dragged, kicking and screaming, to watch The Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen. When my kids were little, they never even looked at Ultra Man or whatever man so we never had to buy them those ugly plasticky toys with the stiff arms and legs, thank gawd .

To be quite honest, I never thought they’d be interested in this kind of movie either. But then again, free movie tickets are just too hard to resist.

So there I was, smack in the middle of two hours of mutating tin cans trying to kill each other off while piddly humans dodge around their huge metal feet trying not to get killed. Clashing tin cans, clanging tin cans, flying tin cans, so who’s the good tin can and who’s the bad ?

Just a few minutes in and my eyelids grew heavy from the glare of tin cans and more tin cans. Duh! Yawn…. zzZZzzz…. snore! The only consolation was my kids loved every minute of the movie. Good for you guys, I said, and good thing too you’re all too old for those ugly Transformer toys, pffft! And no canned food this week, ya hear?

Up until dinner last night, we were still talking about Michael Jackson’s passing. Such talent, such catchy music, such slick dance routines, such a crying shame he’s gone too soon.

Somewhere in the conversation, we were discussing how prescription medication might’ve been detrimental to his health.

Skye: What’s detrimental, Mom?

Me: Bad.

Raine: Hazardous.

There’s our walking dictionary. Looks like I’d better brush up my English . I’m bad, I’m bad…. who’s bad?

My cousin and nieces were in town and they suggested going for the movie “Night at the Museum 2″. I was going “Ben who?”. Okay, so I have no idea who Ben Stiller is! I mean, he isn’t exactly Paul Walker now, is he ?

I didn’t know what to expect of the movie either since I didn’t watch Part 1 so I assumed it was a ghost movie from the title. Of course, it turned out to be a comedy worth a few, not many but a few laughs. I mean, there’s not much of a story line. Okay, so the Pharaoh’s lisp was quite cute for a while, and Amelia Earhart was nice to watch for a while. Definitely remind me not to watch Part 3 if it ever comes out *yawn* *zzzz*.

Though it wasn’t a ghost movie, it was still kinda spooky that we were the only ones laughing. The only times the other people laughed were at the very obviously slapstick scenes like Ben and the monkeys slapping each other, and that bouncing fuchsia animal balloon. What’s so funny about that, honestly ?

The way I see it, comedies canNOT be very funny if you have to read the jokes from badly translated subtitles and if you don’t have a clue about what or who the characters represent. So where’s the fun in that? Might as well stay under your shell and save your money, eh?

So we spent a good half hour fussing over what to wear and making sure - no shorts, no t-shirts, no jeans, no sneakers. Finally we were all starched up (bleh, I feel old, Skye sighed when she looked in the mirror!), all set for the *drum roll please* …

Philharmonic, you guessed it! Yo, we’re cultured, we’re cultured! Just look at us sitting stiffly in the second best seats in the house in an auditorium of hoity-toities, tilting our heads to the symphony of violin, cello, tuba, clarinet, grand piano and xylophone (not the one on the letter X page of the kids’ picture dictionary, mind you )!!

The uniformed ushers, stationed stiffly at the end of each aisle, curtly told off anyone who dared touch their cellphones and cameras! So when no one was looking, I randomly pointed my camera skywards and clicked. Beautiful, ain’t it? Just looking up at the ceiling transported me to the far reaches of the Milky Way where planets swirl and violins play under an infinite night sky… and my eyelids grew heavy.

Okay, so if we were Philistines before, we’re cultured now! We sat through an entire hour and a half of classical music. Wait a minute, are snores part of a classical composition? But hey, whatever, we all enjoyed it and it was definitely well worth the excitement and dressing up.

We’ve been so busy having fun this past week I’m getting really behind in my posts. Yes, I said we had grand plans but we didn’t know they were going to be this fun, honestly .

Meantime I’m so excited about what we’ve got planned for today that I’m going to let you in on a sneak peak. We’ve got these… yes!

Five tickets for Steev, Raine, Skye, me and Hip2bDad (who’s going to grace us with his presence by skipping the last two holes of golf, yay!) to go to ……. er, can you guess what/where?

I’ll post the answer tomorrow as we’ve got another big event to go to right after this. But I promise I’ll sit down next week and spill the beans on all the exciting things we’ve been up to, so stay tuned…

I was so inspired after visiting Great Aunt at the nursing home where she now lives after her fall. Rarely is there such a fiesty and beautiful 89-year-old as my great aunt. In her younger days, she was a raving beauty. I’ve seen her black and white photo, taken wa-ay wa-ay before Photoshop, that bears testimony to her movie star looks.

Even at her age now, she sports a tuft of white punk hair and is slim and trim. As if her looks aren’t enough, she speaks fluent English (she’s English-educated like most of our family) and has the brains to go along with it.

She was her usual chatty self, thrilled at the sight of my kids and asking each in turn how they’re doing in school. She likes to keep herself updated and she usually has some motivational advice to dish out after hearing us out.

Of course, me being the proud mommy, I couldn’t help boasting about Steev being a good public speaker. Moms have a license to boast, okay ? Great Aunt was positively beaming with pride. After all, she watched my kids grow from the time they were babies.

Eager to dish out some public speaking tips to Steev, she leapt to her feet in a single bound from her sitting position on her bed and holding onto her walker, she proceeded to demonstrate how he should stand and make eye contact with his audience. I was like man, just look at her , she’s simply amazing!

Then she noticed Steev was wearing a t-shirt with words on it. She signaled him to lean closer and she rattled off the words on his shirt - I make everything look easy! Hahaha, I really salute this grand old lady. She’s somethin’ else. She’s truly inspirational. She’s an 89-year-old that everyone would be proud to be!

Bliss! The school break is here, for the girls at least. We have a few things in mind to do this time though we’re not much good at sticking with plans. My vegetarian diet ends today and after this, oink-oink, who knows??

I have grand plans to drive us all downtown for a super-duper lunch, bake some muffins, do some creative projects with the girls, catch a couple of movies and just stuff myself silly with the food I’ve been missing!

I suspect the girls will mostly have their heads buried in the 30 books we bought at a book sale recently. I had the box of books quarantined in another room till after their exam week. Well, the minute they came home last Friday, they dragged this out and hauled it to their room .

Many of my mommy friends have been asking what I’m going to be doing this school break. Let’s see how we go with these grand plans . Have you got any plans coming up?