lewis and clark had a journal. you, beth-annie, have a diary.

Friday, January 31, 2003
An interesting acting note:  Tom Wilson, aka Biff in the Back to the Future movies, will be playing Molly's new love interest on "Ed."  Sounds very cool.  He's also dabbled in Christian music.

Luce is opening for Sixpence on their upcoming tour.  So now I think we will be going to the House of Blues show in Chicago on Feb. 15.  We originally weren't going to because it's in stupid downtown Chicago and we'll be seeing them presumably at three festivals already this summer, but now that I want to see the opening band, too, well...

ISU women's basketball beat Kansas State Wednesday night, the #3 team in the nation.  That is big considering how this season has been going.  Everyone should be very happy for them.

A problem I have with the following away message Steve quoted on his blog:  "If you were stranded on a deserted island and could only bring one thing, what would it be? For those of you who didn't say a boat, I don't think I'll be talking to you anytime soon. For the rest of you, feel free to leave me a message."  Now.  By definition, "stranded" means you yourself have no power to leave the island whenever you choose to.  If you have a boat, you are not "stranded."  If you had, say, a satellite phone, you would be stranded because you would have to wait for someone to come save you.  Ha.

Stupid conversation last night in bed:
Beth:  I would be in Matt's movie if I didn't hate my voice so much.
Josh:  Why do you hate your voice?
B:  It's so low.  Every time I hear my voice recorded I always think it's so low.
J:  Your voice doesn't sound low.  I always think my voice sounds high.
B:  Your voice doesn't sound high.
J:  See?
B:  You're a bass, your voice is low.
J:  I'm a baritone.  You're a soprano.
B:  I'm a second soprano.
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Thursday, January 30, 2003
This is a post just for Kaly.  (It's also for some other people, but don't tell her that.)
We're most likely moving the weekend of the 21-23, mainly on Sat. Feb 22.  But.  Josh found out last night that ISU's Kaleidoquiz is probably going to be that weekend, and of course he wants to do it if we can, but if Matt can come that weekend, we'll move that weekend.  Same goes for you, Kaly.  Basically, if it's easier for people to come the last weekend in Feb, that's when we'll move.  If it's easier for people to come the first weekend in March (which we already know Matt can't, and I'm guessing my parents couldn't since that weekend is probably a PHS service at church), we'll probably do that.  If it doesn't make much difference which weekend it is, we'll have to decide whether we want to postpone our move by a week and come to Ames the weekend before for KQ (I'm not so sure I would want to do that anyway).  So, everyone out there who might come up to help us, let us know which weekend would be better for you or if it doesn't matter.  We should probably get this figured out as soon as possible so we can reserve a truck.   Thank you and good day.

By the way, have you all heard of this television show called "Alias?"  It's really quite good.
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Wednesday, January 29, 2003
1.  Yes, the movies are now updated.

2.  Yes, we do actually have snow on the ground, about 2-3 inches.  I am glad to be wrong.

3.  Yes, I did actually get some packing done yesterday in my time away from the computer.

4.  Oops, Adaptation should have been included in our list of highly recommended movies from 2002.  Sorry.

5.  It's occurring to me that we will be needing more boxes than we currently have.  I just don't know where we're going to get them.  Perhaps we will have to go to some businesses and ask if they have any they'd like to get rid of.  I didn't really think we'd accumulated that much more stuff since we moved last, but, um, I was wrong.

6.  This is a joke.  It has to be.  Please.

7.  Alias.
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Tuesday, January 28, 2003
I've decided to spend the afternoon off the computer and actually getting things done around here, so not much of an entry today.

-- I have updated the movies list along the side of my blog, though our actual film page hasn't been updated yet, because it takes a little more effort.  I will let you know when we do, though.

-- We are supposed to have actual snow today and tonight.  Yeah, right.  I'll believe it when I see it.

-- On another movie note, our highly recommended movies from 2002, so far, are:  About a Boy, Catch Me if You Can, and The Count of Monte Cristo.  More, perhaps, as we see more movies from the end of 2002.  Perhaps.  Probably.  Incidentally, the only movies that make this list are ones BOTH Josh and I agree are good enough.  If it were just me, I would've put Spider-Man on there as well.  But, then, I'm biased.

-- And I'm serious about that "Alias" thing.
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Monday, January 27, 2003
"This is not out of the blue!  This is smack dab in the middle of the blue!"
I apologize for not writing a lot lately.  Occasionally I just don't have anything to say and don't feel like working really hard to come up with something.  So that's that.

Last night we watched the Super Bowl with about 20 other people from our church.  I tied another guy for guessing the game's total score, but then lost the grand prize of a set of beer mugs in a rock-paper-scissors tie-break.  Oh well.  We don't drink beer anyway.  How much did those commercials suck?

OKAY, people, we need to discuss something here.  That something is why you all aren't watching "Alias."  I know you don't, because if you did you would talk about it.  You wouldn't be able to help it.  I realize that I watch more TV than probably anyone else who ever reads this blog, but I am telling you now:  even if you watch nothing else on television except the news, you should be watching this show (you should be watching "Gilmore Girls," too, but this post is about "Alias").  Last night's post-Super Bowl episode, even with the shameless pandering to the bigger-than-usual-male-audience at the beginning of the episode, was so gripping, emotional, and twisty-and-turny that my hands were literally shaking with excitement for much of the last half.  There can be no excuses anymore.  If you still refuse to watch this show, I refuse to be friends with you anymore.

Okay, okay, so not every single one of the ads last night sucked, just most.  The best ones:  the zebra ref (though I couldn't tell you what it was for); the office linebacker (though I couldn't tell you what it was for); the FedEx castaway.  I also kind of liked the Mastercard commercial with the presidents (more than most people at the party, anyway), and I really liked the premise of the Willie Nelson commercial for H&R Block, though I think it could have been executed a little better.  But most of the rest basically sucked.

It occurs to me that perhaps I should actually really start packing.  You know, instead of just planning all the redecorating I'm going to do once we're there.  Moving comes first, Beth.  Moving comes first.
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Tuesday, January 21, 2003
It's that time again.
I'm thinking about getting a job.  Or, at least thinking about thinking about getting a job.  This happens probably two or three times a year, and with varying degrees of earnestness (and not yet enough for me to actually apply anywhere).  So, here's where I could see myself potentially enjoying working:  at a travel agency; in a flower shop; at a coffee house; as a proofreader for a newspaper or something similar; at a zoo or botanical garden or aquarium or nursery, providing none of my responsibilities would include actively keeping plants alive (I can't do it); or something I could do from home (perhaps via computer).  And there is still also that whole writing a children's book thing, but that would probably require me to have an idea or two to work off of.

There is one thing in particular that I am considering much more seriously than anything else, however, for several reasons.  Racine has a zoo.  They don't appear to have a ton of paid positions (probably because admission is free), but they have many volunteer positions.  So here's what I'm thinking.  After all the madness of moving and getting settled is over (and once the weather is starting to get a little less winterish), I may try to get a part-time volunteer position there (not nearly as difficult as getting a job).  Then if I decide I like working there, I'm getting experience that could eventually lead to an actual paid position.  And in the meantime I would have something to tell people I "do," that IS ACTUALLY biology-related (gasp), and on top of all that I would be donating my services, which would make me better than all you people who are selfish enough to require money for what you do.  So, ha.
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Friday, January 17, 2003
"He takes naked pictures of us, and then he eats chicken, and then he looks at them!"
Here, please look at some lovely photos of our new house. They are conveniently clickable to make them bigger. You are welcome.
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Wednesday, January 15, 2003
Back due to popular demand:

TOP TEN THE WAITING SONGS
10.  Look at Me  (Blue Belly Sky)
9.  Staring at a Bird  (BBS)
       --these two songs are similar, just catchy, good tunes
8.  Wonderstuff  (BBS)
       --like #9 and #10, but much better
7.  Give it Up  (Unfazed)
       --funky and cool.  and funky
6.  Never Dim  (The Waiting)
       --another catchy one, but with a little more substance
5.  Number 9  (TW)
       --probably their hardest song.  they should have done more like this
4.  Unfazed  (Unfazed)
       --classic The Waiting, and probably their best "classic" song
3.  I Am  (Unfazed)
       --a lovely, low-key song
2.  Israel  (BBS)
       --light years better than anything else off BBS
1.  Hands in the Air  (TW)
       --mere words cannot express my feelings toward this song.  it is quite simply one of the greatest songs ever written.  ever.

It should be noted that this list does not include their latest album, Wonderfully Made, because I haven't listened to it enough.  I will also admit that I very muchly like their cover of the Jackson 5's "I Want You Back," off the Blue Belly Sky re-release, but this list isn't the place for it.
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Tuesday, January 14, 2003
You can pick your nose, and you can pick your friend's nose, but you can't pick your friends.
Obviously, or I would never have picked ones that would be so demanding and inquiring, now, would I?  Fine, fine, I'll tell you all, just to appease your completely unreasonable expectations.

Our New House, by little Bethy-Annie Prins.
So we were going to go to a bunch of open houses in Racine on Sunday.  We went to the first one, where we didn't really like the house, but did like the realtor showing it.  How nice, we thought, that we now have someone we know we'd like to work with in looking for houses or writing up an offer, etc. should we find one that we especially like.  So we were on our way to our second open house of the day when we went by a sign for a different open house, which we detoured to just for the heck of it.  It was not a house we immediately would have chosen to look at just from the look of the outside of the house or the description in the paper, but why not just take a look?  And that, my friends, was our downfall.

After going through the house and getting an information sheet on it, we got back in our car and started driving to another open house.  But we kind of looked at each other, and Josh was like, "I like it."  And I was like, "I like it, too."  And then Josh was like, "I really like it."  And then I was like, "I really like it, too."  And then I was like, "It's cheap."  And then Josh was like, "I really, really like it."  And then we went back to the first open house and set up a meeting with the realtor for just after her open house was done, where we proceeded to write an offer on the house.  We walked through the house with our realtor again that afternoon, where the greatness of the house was reinforced, and about 9pm that same night, we got a call telling us that our offer had already been accepted.  Wow.  We went to church that morning completely unknowing that 12 hours later we would have a house.  Completely frightening.

So, we will be living in Racine, on Lilac Lane come sometime around the end of February/beginning of March (we're working out the closing date with the owners right now).  The house is a brick ranch, built in 1963, but you wouldn't know it from the inside.  It has been almost completely redone in the last year, including new carpet both upstairs and downstairs (half the basement is finished--and big enough for a pool table, I might add), completely remodeled bathrooms with ceramic tile, wood laminate floors in the entry and eat-in kitchen, new paint and window treatments, and new central air.  It also has hardwood floors in each of the three bedrooms.  The house is very bright due to lots of windows, has 1 1/2 baths upstairs and another full bath downstairs, is probably about 1600 finished square feet (upstairs and down), and includes all appliances except washer and dryer (even a built-in microwave--which we don't need, but we're not complaining).  It has a small backyard and a 1 1/2 car garage (yes, we're going to have to downgrade from our current 2-car ;)), but it also has an area next to the driveway behind the house that can either be used as a patio or a parking spot that won't block the driveway.  Overall it is very pretty and appears to be in very good shape.

Josh's commute to work will probably be about 12 minutes longer, but our drive to church will be about 18 minutes shorter, our drive to our cheap movie theater will be about 10 minutes shorter, our drive to our disc golf course will be about the same, if not slightly shorter, and we will be living in a city with a Best Buy, Circuit City, Barnes and Noble, and a regular mall (non-outlet).  Kenosha had none of the above.  So.  Any other questions?

Oh, and by the way, if anyone would like to help us move, you are more than welcome.  Seriously.
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Monday, January 13, 2003
Very Uninteresting House Hunting Update, Installment Two.
1.  The promising-looking house we had a showing of in Racine on Saturday, well, we didn't really like it too much.  Case closed.

2.  We went to a few open houses, including ones out in western Kenosha county's "lake country" (farther west than we'd probably want to live anyway),and didn't particularly like anything we saw.  Case less than promising.

3.  We started thinking more about new construction (again), and planned on Sunday to talk to one of the builders in length about what exactly all the hidden costs were to determine whether or not we could afford it.  Case 40% open.

4.  In the meantime, we planned on going to some open houses in both Racine and Kenosha, mainly focusing on cheaper, older homes.  Case potentially promising.

It is freaking cold!
The wind chill was below zero yesterday.  Is it summer yet?  Huh?  Huh?  Is it??

This stupid Christmas blog.
I just wanted to let everyone know that it is Josh's fault that my blog is still red and green instead of the pretty winter colors I have waiting in the wings.  Because I am now using HIS blog program, HE is now the only one who knows how to change it and keep all the settings intact and everything running smoothly.  I know you would yell at him with me if you cared.

Very Interesting House Hunting Update, Installment Three.
We bought a house.  Have a nice day!

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Friday, January 10, 2003
I am so spoiled.
With all the information you can get on the internet nowadays, I find myself getting frustrated and at times even somewhat angry when a certain piece of information I want does not appear to be available online.  Isn't everything in the whole wide world supposed to be somewhere on the whole wide worldwide web?  Um, no.  Take a chill pill, dear.

Lie of the Day
I did not watch the first episode of "Joe Millionaire."

"Mmmmm, noodle soup."
Everything in my life seems to be in the middle of... something, and all those somethings always seem to be at one extreme or the other so that very few things are ever in the middle with me.  Make sense?  Nah, I didn't think so.  Allow me to give an example or two.  Politics.  I'm pretty much a straight, middle-of-the-road moderate.  I lean toward the left on about half the issues and toward the right on the other half.  Very seldom do I ever have the option of voting for someone who isn't too much one way or the other for my liking.  Poo.  Also, houses (yeah, yeah, surprise, surprise).  In our area, it seems most of what's out there is either crappy, old, and cheap, or new, huge, fancy, and expensive.  We just want something moderately sized, moderately nice, and moderately priced in a decent neighborhood.  Unfortunately, what we're looking for seems to comprise only about 3% of our real estate listings.  That's just not great odds.  Unless we want a townhome or condo.  Um, no.  Yup.  Middle all over the place.

It just shows to go you, sometimes you never know.
Something I have put online has been useful to someone I do not know.  Like, actually USEFUL.  My painfully stale vacation page from last May recently prompted some guy from Pennsylvania to email me asking if I had any pictures of the Laramie, WY area he could use in a presentation.  I did, I posted them for him, and he is happy.  How weird.

I want something to paint.
That's all.
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Wednesday, January 08, 2003
I so lied about all that updating my blog and movies and stuff.  Quelle suprise.  I've been kind of preoccupied with catching up on all my usual internet surfing I missed for two and a half weeks and looking for houses and learning exactly how the whole process of buying a house works and generally becoming very discouraged with the whole thing that is the idea of buying a house.  Soon though, really.  The updating, I mean.

But because all this house stuff is what's on my mind lately, that's what y'all are gonna get.  And so I present you with:

Very Uninteresting House Hunting Update, Installment One.
1.  A very pretty, cute, charming, cheap, and not terribly old house was found via a drive-by to be by far the biggest and nicest house in a not so desirable neighborhood.  Case closed.

2.  A building company with a good reputation and unboring-looking houses with layouts we actually really liked after visiting a model or two was found to be not quite as affordable as we thought upon discovering that the base prices they quoted did not include lots.  A very affordable house suddenly becomes quite expensive when you have to add $40-$60K to that price for a place to plunk it down.  Case 95% closed.

3.  We are in the process of working out a time for a showing of a nice-looking,  quite affordable, less-than-20-year-old, smaller-than-we-were-originally-looking-for-but-quite-franky-big-enough house that we will hopefully like and won't have anything horrendous wrong with it.  If we don't or it does, we've pretty much run out of viable options for the time being.  We shall see.  Case remains open.

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Monday, January 06, 2003
She's baaa-aack...
Now that all of our Christmas family stuff is finally over, it's time to start that annoying blogging thing again.  Because I've been away for so long, here's a bunch of... stuff.

1.  Matthew, please enlighten us with your Newsboys top ten.  Joshua, please enlighten us with both your Sixpence and Newsboys top tens.  I would ask Karleen to do the same, but I know better than to waste my breath on something that will never happen.

2.  For anyone who doesn't already know, we are looking at houses.  We have a couple of potentially realistic prospects right now that we are looking into, and we will keep y'all updated if anything major happens.

3.  I cannot believe the level of nonchalancity with which the news of Mr. Steve Taylor performing in concert at both Creation and Cornerstone has been received by some people.  Perhaps it is because, unlike yours truly, these people have all already seen Mr. Taylor perform 351 times and so #352 just isn't that big a deal.  I, myself, am so looking forward to #1 that I can hardly keep from peeing on myself.

4.  Royce D. Applegate died in a house fire on January 1.  He played Chief Manilow Crocker on the first season of "seaQuest" and was just in the movie The Rookie this summer.  I have a real affection for anyone who was on that show, so this is very sad for me.  My prayers are with his family.

5.  My Christmas blog will only be around for another couple days probably.  Winter blog arriving shortly.

6.  Movies (both on this page and our actual movie page) will be updated within the next day or two.  We have many additions.

7.  The 20th Anniversary edition of Trivial Pursuit is bad.  Do not buy it.  Or, if you do, buy it at Goodwill and do not pay any more than $6 for it.

8.  We want to buy a piece of exercise equipment so that we can be not quite so inactive (during the winter especially).  We want something less than $100, that will burn calories but not be extremely painful to use (i.e. not a stair climber), and be quiet enough that we can listen to music or watch tv while we are using it.  We welcome any suggestions.
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