Things with Wings

I had these elaborate Halloween plans of dressing up as Rachel Berry (I'm a bit of a Gleek.), coercing Lee to go as Finn and making a slushie costume for Zoey (puppy t-shirt with iron-on slushie cup + child's clown wig = adorable puppy slushie). But after a day of unsuccessfully searching for a cheap Rachel-esque skirt that would match my purple cardigan cardigan, I gave up. There would have to be an easier and cheaper solution.

So we went batty. Lee quite literally.

I drew my inspiration from here and simplified it even further. Just some fabric cut with pinking shears to avoid fraying or heming and sewed onto a black, long-sleeved tee. The ears are felt with a loop in the bottom so they would slide over a headband. Not to brag, but I was pretty impressed with myself.

Along with the theme of "things with wings", I picked up Zoey a butterfly costume at Target. I don't think she was as excited about her costume as I was about mine. 

But she was excited to be reunited with her ex-roomies Simon and Jenn. (I was too.) 

Week in Review: 2/12 (Valentine edition!)

I know just enough InDesign to be dangerous...

Kasey is going on a bit of a Valentine's run. Which inspires me to run my two miles tomorrow, even though the temperature is flirting with freezing.

Party Perfect has a cute, simple way to decorate Valentine cupcakes, which could be applied to other cupcake decorating themes (monograms, sports, boy/girl).

It's not too late to print your love a Valentine or a romantic Post-It.

My favorite morning radio show was talking about the "sexiest songs of all time" this morning but they totally forgot my two: Feelin' Love by Paula Cole and Turn Me On by Norah Jones.
Oh! And Kiss by Prince. So that makes three.

Have a wonderful Valentine's Day everyone! Lee and I will be continuing our tradition of V-Day dinner at Macaroni Grill (yum!). Of utmost excitement, Lee agreed to go see Valentine's Day with me so *fingers crossed* he won't change his mind! ;) It's like they redid Love Actually with more of my favorite people! (Anne Hathaway, Topher Grace, Julia Roberts, Taylor Swift, McSteamy, McDreamy, Jennifer Garner...!!!!!)

The Early Bird Gets the Giant Peanut Butter Ball

Interesting that this story is being told a little late. Anyways...

At Christmas my uncle always puts together a calendar with family photos. Also at Christmas, he makes tasty goodies for everyone. My favorite, most-beloved, will-not-share goodie is his chocolate-covered peanut butter balls. I have asked before to be given nothing but these. They are fabulous.

I got the e-mail request for us to send in our picture for the calendar. Apparently I was the first to respond because in a second plea for pictures my uncle announced that I was first and would get an extra bag of tasty treats. Of course, I asked for those extra treats to be peanut butter balls.

So when my holiday tasty treats arrived, what did I find? In addition to the usual cookies, fudge and peanut butter balls, there was one giant peanut butter ball!

Check out how thick the chocolate was! Yummy!

Later in life (like 4 years ago) I realized that peanut butter balls are generally referred to as buckeyes? Or maybe it's just a northern Kentucky/Ohio thing. But why break a 22-year-old habit of saying "peanut butter balls"?

Oodles of Resolutions

Ah yes, it's New Year Resolution time.

I love making resolutions. I know that every second of every day I have an opportunity to start over and be a better person than I was the second before. However, when there's a new calender start, the new beginning seems most natural. A new day, a new week, a new month, but most of all a new year, are excellent times to take stock of where you are, remind yourself of where you want to be, and try to get there.

I don't often really write down a lot of goals, or make a lot of plans as to how I will achieve them, so I'm hoping that that was the missing key to accomplishing past resolutions. I have a lot of goals for 2010, 12 to be exact, and I'm going to take them month by month. This month-by-month plan does not mean that I will ignore my goal until its month comes, but each month will have a focus as I try to accumulate some better habits and be a more well-rounded and generally cooler person.

 

January: Be kind.  I want to be kinder and less judgemental. I want to focus on my relationship with God more and living my Christian faith every day. I want to be a better wife, friend, sister, daughter and co-worker. I want to be less selfish. I had wanted to put this month off for more fun months, but this one I think is where I have the most need. By setting aside more time for prayer, seeking more volunteer opportunities, and being more involved at church, I'm hoping to see the big picture, not be so petty and judgmental and love, love, love more.

February: Be well-read. This is probably the one that bugs me the most. I've read so little since college it seriously disgusts me, more than the muffin top (That's saying a lot.). In 2010 I'm going to read 50 books (I'm not even halfway through two books right now and I'm going to count those toward this, but will hopefully read more than 50 anyway.). Reading a book a week should not be hard, especially if I make time to read. Normally reading is that thing I'll do before bed but bedtime rolls around and I can't keep my eyes open. First then when I get home, I will read.

March: Be healthy. I would really love to be in good shape and have actual muscle tone. I don't mind the number on the scale as long as none of that number jiggles and some of my number jiggles. I'm going to investigate more ways to eat healthy, continue trying to buy foods that don't have ingredients I can't pronounce, and make some kind of physical fitness a regular part of my life. Hopefully this month it will be warm enough to start biking.

April: Be a better friend. It seems that as I start keeping in better touch with one friend, I stop keeping in touch with another. I keep thinking, "Oh, I'll call her when I have some free time" and that never really comes. Or I come up with lame excuses like maybe she's at dinner. Who knows when she's eating, she doesn't have to answer the phone or she can tell me she'll call me back. I'm going to make the time to call. And start writing real letters more. I love real letters.

May: Be Stylish. Have you seen the trailer for the new Sex and the City movie? I highly recommend it. At :18, you can see a glimpse into my dream life. Who doesn't have that dream? I could just watch :15-:25 of that trailer on repeat and drool. The opening scene of The Devil Wears Prada causes similar feelings. Since we'll hopefully be in a house at this point (Whee!) I hope to be thinking about decorating the house and myself. Perhaps finding a personal style and not just settling for fitted tees and boot cut jeans everyday. (Perhaps fitted tee and boot cut jeans with a fun belt? Brightly colored shoes? Skinny jeans since I'm sure I'll be jiggle-free by May? ;) )

June: Be a better photographer. Check out some books. Research some online tutorials. Figure out Photoshop Elements.

July: Be a better writer/blogger. Plan more posts. Participate more in the blog community, especially 20 Something Bloggers.

August: Be a better local. There's museums, amusement parks, free concerts, fun bars, tasty restaurants, bike trails, parks, old homes, all kinds of awesome stuff to do in Louisville (and the surrounding area. Hello Bourbon Trail.) that I have never seen. This goal could be subtitled: Get off your butt and explore.

September: Be crafty. Learn a new crafty skill or improve on one. Crochet, embroidery, and knitting are high on the list, although my sewing has tons of room for improvement.

October: Be a better cook. Work on trying new dishes and developing new skills. Cook more. I've been relying on frozen pizza a bit too much lately. (Digiorno flat bread with pepperonis and red peppers....yum!)

November: Be a movie buff. I'm hoping to watch 5-6 movies a month this year in an attempt to widdle (Is "widdle" not a word? Blogger is saying it's not. Hmm.) down my Netflix queue which is over 300. No, I'm not exaggerating that a bit. My DVD queue has 292 and my Instant queue has 69. There are a few repeats in the DVD and Instant queues, but that would probably trim off no more than 10.

December: Just be. Perhaps this would've been better at the beginning, but oh well. I'm hoping to do all of these things all year long, each month is just a focus and this is a reflection of this past (err...current) December and how my procrastination caused a mad holiday panic that did not result in peacefully enjoying the season. This year I want to enjoy Christmas. And all of those other moments where I let not-really-that-important-in-the-big-scheme-of-things tasks get in the way of my joy.

Do you guys have any resolutions? Crazy plans for 2010?

Happy New Year's! :)

A Crafty Christmas in Review

Christmas was wonderful! But I'm so glad that I have no plans with friends or family tonight. Not that I haven't enjoyed my time with them very much, but I have some catch-up to do, like telling you how I feel about my partially handmade Christmas now that it's over (finally).

The handmade Christmas started because I was learning how to sew, I didn't suck at it too much, it would be tons of fun, and a great way to save money on holiday gifts. My budget numbers aren't super accurate because this year I would occasionally buy craft supplies for non-holiday projects with holiday money (oops ;) ) and I can only find last year's planned budget, not what I actually spent. So I think I saved....

drum roll, please...

$60

Which is six months of Netflix. Three rounds of Applebee's 2 for $20. Twelve tickets to $5 Tuesday at the movie theatre. Not a terribly exciting amount, but better than nothing.

Oh, I forgot that I a couple less gifts this year in general, but let's still live with the assumption that I saved $60. Go me!

Making Lee a UofL snuggie (super easy pattern here) makes up for years of UofL smack talk, right? Both in the past and the future. As I was telling some friends this morning, with everything that's gone on with their basketball program in the past eight months THE JOKES WRITE THEMSELVES!

Were the stress and long nights worth the savings? Yes and no. If I can start early again next year, I think I'll do it again. If I procrastinate and realize that it's December 10 and I two purses, one snuggie, four notecards, and a year of happy to finish, then I'm just going to Etsy. (Should I remind everyone that I started planning my homemade holiday on September 3?! What went wrong?!) I would rather spend the holidays baking and watching Christmas episodes of Friends than cussing at Laura the sewing machine, swearing every ten minutes that if I ever get a machine with a serger stitch I will never iron open another seam again, and pouting about being the one-woman holiday sweatshop. (This is not meant to diminish the joy or heartfelt-ness of the handmade gifts I gave to my friends and family, because you are wonderful and totally worth it, but maybe next year, I won't procrastinate and you'll also get Christmas cards, cookies and a saner wife/daughter/sister/friend.)

I already have some ideas for next year, which I plan to start on in July at the latest. I promise.
magnetic calendar
argyle ornaments
typographic coasters

Note Cards for Everyone!

A lot of this gifts I made this Christmas were note card sets.

These went with the gifts I mailed.


Perhaps this will encourage my friends to write me real letters? I do love real letters. I should send more myself.

The cards were a nice break from sewing. You'll have to wait until next week to see how the totes turned out.

I made my sister some with Texts from Last Night on them. We love that site!

I tend to keep them pretty simple.

Not only is it easier, but I tend to have a clean, simple aesthetic.

I also stamped some simple gift tags and sewed some bags to wrap the cards in.

Finished

I think I'm finished. I'm sure something little will come up, but I think I'm done.

The presents are all made and I can see my dining room table again.



The gifts are under the tree.



And in about seven hours I will be home-home, snuggled on the couch with some of mom's pot roast (my favorite) and a bourbon slush (another favorite).

Ever since I buckled down into holiday craft mode about ten days ago, I've been going non-stop, staying up at least an hour later than normal. I'm exhausted, but happy. Next week we'll start seeing some of the goodies I made, but first, a nap.

2009 Nice List

After yesterday's Naughty List, it's time for the Nice List.




1. Glee
I don't think I could love this show more without someone needing to get a restraining order. (That would be you, Mr. Shue.)

2. Peppermint Mocha CoffeeMate
One of my favorite things about Christmas is the excessive amount of peppermint-flavored things. Of recent discovery is peppermint mocha coffee creamer. Joy!

3. Kentucky Basketball
3a. John Wall
3b. Coach Cal
3c. Patrick Patterson
Nothing makes the season brighter than a 10-0 start, especially after playing UNC, UConn and IU. There's a lot of problems in the world, but with UK in the Top 10, I can sleep with the peace of knowing that something is very right. ;)


4. The Hangover
A great movie or the greatest movie? Either way, it comes out on DVD today and is the perfect last-minute gift for me if you're looking. If not, I'll probably be at Target December 26 with my Christmas money.

5. You!
Is that cheesy? Lame? For real though, thanks for reading, saying nice things in the comments, generally being awesome and contributing to my inflated sense of self-worth. ;) May you all get very nice things from Santa this year.

image: alliet

2009 Naughty List

Last year around the holidays I made a naughty list, which was so fun I thought I'd do it again this year, and follow-up with a nice list tomorrow.


Learn more about Krampus.

1. Jane Austen mash-ups
Okay, yeah, I can laugh at Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I've flipped through it in the store once and was highly entertained. But now that there's Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters and Emma and the Werewolves (Although this seems to be from a separate person than those who created the previous two.), it has clearly become an attack on my beloved Jane which should stop. Spread the love. Pick on some Bronte sisters. I mean, they already have characters locked in the attic so that would be a good place to start.

2. The United States Government
Since Lee co-signed his friend's mortgage and was on the title for a year, we don't qualify for the $8,000 tax refund for first time home buyers. I know this isn't really the government's fault, but it makes me sad even though I'm not a big fan of government spending in the first place.
Even after they expanded the qualifications, we still don't make the cut since we haven't lived in the same home for five years.
(Yes, I could get a mortgage without Lee but Lee qualifies for the VA loan which is better than the FHA loan.)

3. Ice storms
We lost power for four days. That was not cool, Mother Nature.


4. Cat pee
While I have forgiven Reagan, I can't forget. We still have a long way to go on the road to building back trust.


Note: I just realized that last year's naughty list was titled "2009 Naughty List..." Oops.


5. Jon and Kate Plus Hate
I have a high tolerance for over-publicized celeb fiascoes and miscellaneous celeb non-sense. If I get tired of your crazy life, then you must have already crossed the line 70 miles back. Although, I will admit to the unpopular opinion of siding with Kate.


image: annia316

Zoey's Holiday Photo Shoot

Yes, I like to dress my dog and no, I'm not ashamed nor do I feel bad about it. Zoey does get cold sometimes outside in the winter and it entertains me. I mean, I have to smell her breath and pick up her poop everyday! Don't get me started on the time she ripped up my carpet. So the least she can do is entertain me by sitting still for some photographs of her wearing holiday accessories. And it's just so cute!

I don't know if you can tell but those antlers have flashing lights!

This is actually Reagan's but we can't get her to wear it. (She might have poked her head out of the bedroom during the photo shoot, gave a bewildered look, and ran back under the bed.)

Jingle bells rock!

Welcome Christmas

We finally got our Christmas decorations up! Joy!


Welcome to our home.

The tree is complete!

Umm...since we have these random nails along the top of our porch I tried to string lights across them but it turned out pretty ghetto.

Lee decided the situation needed some TLH (Tender Loving Hammer) to even out my uneven light swag.

I did a much better job with the mantel.

Camera Shy

I didn't take any pictures Thanksgiving. I didn't even take my camera with me to Grandma's, which is where we do the bulk of our holiday celebrating. Even though I have an awesome new camera that I love playing with and need to practice more with. I left it at home, because sometimes, taking pictures makes me feel socially awkward.

It's one thing to take pictures when you're traveling or at a big event. Duh. That's what you do on those occasions. But I feel very self-conscious taking pictures of the Thanksgiving spread. Or secretly snapping shots of my family members chatting. Or taking pictures of the area around my Grandma's yard, which is actually pretty photogenic (dinner bell, old barns, antique farm equipment, huge areas of farmland).

This seems totally irrational. I'm sure it's irrational. But do you ever feel this way? There's almost something pretentious in taking pictures at times. Taking photos makes me feel like I'm saying, "I'm an artist. I'm talented. I'm capturing things that will be awesome, artistic and beautiful." And while I would love for that to be true, I don't really feel like it is. Yet. Sometimes I feel that way about blogging too. And maybe that's why this blog is about the only thing I've written outside of work or school in several years.

On a humorous note, my sister snuck out her Veggie Tales nativity scene (Laura and I love Veggie Tales! Mom thinks we're nuts!) and put it on our entry table. Mom was not amused. I did take lots of pictures of this. It was awesome.

Happy Thanksgiving!

This year I'm thankful for:

• My job. I get to work with amazing people in a wonderful environment. And things are going well for us so I'm not too worried about getting fired! 
• There are some friends that I have been much better about staying in touch with this year and I'm so happy about that. (And some that I need to work much better at, but we'll reflect more on that at New Year's.)
  
• Glee.
• Learning how to knit and sew. It's been a lot of fun spending the time with Aunt Billie so she can teach me these things and I love knowing how to do them. Next year I shall make a Jane Austen dress (fingers crossed!).
  
• My hair grows out really quickly and I'm glad we're back to messy bun length.
• My family. And Lee's family. They're all awesome. Kind, loving, funny, good at making tasty treats and sending care packages and the like.
• Most of all, cheesy drum roll...I'm thankful for Lee. He really is like the coolest guy ever. And I get to hang out with him everyday and snuggle. He makes me laugh. He empties the dishwasher. He saves me from the certain doom that awaits if I take Zoey outside to potty at night. And he smells nice. Oh! And he does some great animal sounds (He's best at turkeys and monkeys.) and has a cool squeaky voice too. I'm determined to get him to let me YouTube these skills someday.
  

Friends' Thanksgiving episodes are the best.

In the Holiday Spirit

see more Epic Fails

I love Christmas. Christmas is easily my favorite holiday. Out of respect to Thanksgiving and to maintain my sanity (I can only function at 100% Christmas Cheer for so many weeks.) I wait until the day after Thanksgiving (sometimes staying up until midnight) to begin my holiday crazies. But really, my Thanksgiving excitement revolves more around days off from work and getting to wish people "Merry Christmas" in 24 hours than Thanksgiving just for the sake of it.

But I just don't feel that excited yet. It's not that I'm not excited, just not nearly excited as normal. I have some theories on this.

• Since I'm making a lot of my gifts this year, Christmas is now a huge deadline. It's always a deadline, but one that can be knocked out one diligent Saturday. Not this year though. My original goal had been to have everything made by Thanksgiving, or at least be at 75%, so I would not be exactly where I am at this moment: lots to do and less than a month to do it in. 

• I don't want this statement to be taken in the wrong way and -- oh dear, am I getting misty typing this?! -- but this will be my first Christmas not at home. I love Lee's family very much. I have been blessed with truly wonderful in-laws whom I enjoy so much and I'm looking forward to spending this Christmas with them, but it breaks my heart a little that I won't be at home with my family. I will be celebrating Christmas with them the weekend before, but it's not the same. 

• I'm really excited about 2010. Not so much the New Year holiday, but the whole year 2010. For the past three years I have been waiting for 2010 because that's when Lee's Army Reserve contract is up (September to be exact.). 2010 has been this illusive magic year when Lee's contract would end and we could start thinking more about babies and this wonderful year starts in like 35ish days! We're also going into serious house hunting mode in January, so as I put up our tree on Saturday, I'm really just thinking about our tree next year. In our front window. In our home. And Lee hanging lights outside. And holiday baking in my kitchen. And really starting our "home".

I'm still looking forward to Christmas. I will still get up on Friday morning and switch to my holiday ringtone and put on Zoey's holiday collar. Perhaps I'm just a little too excited about other impending excitements to really absorb this Christmas? But life is too precious for that.

Must. focus. on this. Christmas. Because I'm sure it will be plenty of wonderful.


Image inspired by Amy.

Super Crafty Weekend!

It feels like super crafty weekend but then I didn't get nearly as much done as I had hoped. I also suspect that those hopes were unrealistic. Anyways...

I finished the square of the baby blanket I was working on, and counseled with Aunt Billie on how to do the border. She's modified it some which will make it easier, but it still seems kinda daunting so I'm procrastinating on it now. Oops.

I used this tutorial to make a check book cover. Although a little tight, it works and I'm super excited since my old checkbook cover was ruined in the great cat-pee-tastrophe of 2009.




And I completed one of the purses that I had planned on making for several people's Christmas gift.

It turned out a little smaller than I thought, and I had toyed with switching to fabric cubes with fun things in them instead, but everyone needs a small purse for some occasions so I'll be churning out more of these very soon!

Thanksgiving is this week which means my free time is now totally devoted to gift making. *sigh* If I had only started sooner...

UPDATED: Oops! Totally forgot to link to the purse pattern which is here. And all the lovely fabric is from Joann!

I'm a Weeper

I cry. A lot.

More often than not, I cry over fictional things. Common examples include: Steel Magnolias, the Friends series final, Gilmore Girls series finale, Extreme Home Makeover, Grey's Anatomy (When Alex and Izzie got married I cried so hard I had to have Lee come sit with me. I could barely ask him to come sit with me because I was crying that much.), Nicholas Sparks (I hate his books but they make me cry and I hate him more.), The Lovely Bones, and the list goes on. It's kind of sad. Especially when you consider how many times I've seen Steel Magnolias and the Friends season finale. Oh, I can't even talk about the Gilmore Girls finale without choking up. When Luke stays up all night making the tent and then Rory and Lorelai pull up and it's raining and everyone...yeah, I can't do it.

And for some reason, Christmas has become one of those things that makes me cry. I mean, I love Christmas and it's happy tears, but the moment they start to sing "Oh Holy Night" on Christmas Eve, even if the soloist has a horrible voice, I cry. Really though, have you ever thought about the words? They are absolutely stunning: Long lay the world in sin, and ever pining, until He appeared and the soul felt its worth. That's pretty sweet.

(I also got misty on Palm Sunday this year, what can I say?!)

So Saturday I'm at Target with my mom perusing Christmas cards with my cell phone calculator for advanced price analysis and I see this card.

I don't technically cry but I get all choked up and so does mom (I inherit my weepiness from her. You do not want to be there when we watch Stepmom.).

A debate ensues over if I really like this card or not. I mean, it's kind of cheesy but it did make me cry. Then the woman down the aisle reminds me that if it made me cry then clearly it's the one. That's how you pick out your wedding dress after all. (I cried when I decided on my wedding dress, but I still doubt I picked out the right one. Anyways...) So I got a box.

In other shopping news, I got a new purse (50% off at Kohl's!) to replace the one Reagan used as a litter box. Oh, and she appears to be perfectly healthy so that's strike one for the little punk! (Who am I kidding?! I can't get rid of her. I still love that crazy fluffy cat.)


And since it is Music Monday, I just found this Single Ladies cover via @tugonthis and I think it's awesome.

Birthday Lazies

My birthday was on Monday. I am 26 which is a pretty boring age. I've decided it's the Year to Remember to Use Eye Cream Every Night (because I just remember a couple nights a week).

No good pictures were taken of me on this day, as evidenced here:



The only decent picture of me, is of me and Lee, except the way it's angled my tank top looks like a brightly colored bra under a see-through sweater. Words cannot begin to describe how much I am opposed to visible brightly colored bras (some exceptions regarding tank tops and summer).



Oh well.

I've had a difficult time shaking the birthday lazies. Have I always been this lazy around my birthday? I've been using the "It's my birthday" excuse since last Friday. I'm hoping to shake it off and start being a responsible, pro-active, non-smelly apartment 26-year-old today. *fingers crossed*

Happy National Poetry Day!

My senior year of college, to procrastinate from writing a paper that was very likely about a poem, I made a list of my Top 10 Favorite Poems. Sadly, I have lost this list, but I will try to recreate it for you now. I think I can recall all the poems, and the 11th poem that I struggled to find a spot for, but the order is a little fuzzy so I've broken it down as well as I can. Now it's more like My 11 Favorite Poems in a Mildly Particular Order.

Cute story before we begin: Lee and I had been dating for a couple weeks and this list came up in conversation. This was when I still had the list. I shared the list with Lee and he read all of them that he could find on the internet! How sweet! This was when I started to suspect he was worth keeping around. ;)


My books are organized alphabetically by author by genre. Here's the poetry section.

1. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot
2. One Art by Elizabeth Bishop

Rest of the top tier:

Wild Nights by Emily Dickinson
Love is Not All by Edna St. Vincent Millay
A Valediction Forbidding Mourning by John Donne
My House by Nikki Giovanni

Bottom tier:

Sonnet X from Astrophel and Stella by Sir Phillip Sydney
Sonnet 116 (Let me not to the marriage of true minds...) by Shakespeare
Roma by Sarah Arvio (If you click on the link and click on "Read Excerpt", it's the first one.)
Clear Night by Charles Wright
Song Five (Give Me One Thousand Kisses/Da Mi Basia Mille) by Catullus

Christmas!

 Some homemade by moi Toaster Strudel art from last Christmas.


I've been thinking about Christmas for quite some time because A. I love Christmas and reflect on it year-round (What gifts do I want? What gifts should I give? Is it acceptable to watch a Charlie Brown Christmas in April? I miss it.) and B. I'm trying to do a lot of homemade gifts this year so the time to start planning is yesterday!

I have been planning for some time now and things are finally starting to come together so I can start crafting.

Is it wrong that I love making these homemade gifts (or I think I will when I start very soon) because it's like buying gifts for me?! Beads and fat quarters and stamps and card stock! I don't get to keep the fruits of my labor, but I get to keep the tools and have fun crafting!

So far, I'm thinking about some purses, cards and earrings. Oh the fun I will have with my 10% off entire purchase at Joann Labor Day coupon fiesta!

And on the Fourth of July They Signed It

Happy Fourth of July! Do you have any special holiday traditions? I always try to watch some Schoolhouse Rock and 1776 because I'm a huge dork. Lee's hoping to squeeze in a History Channel special on the secret lives of the Founding Fathers.

Yay for democracy and freedom!