Zombies, Laura Ingalls Wilder and Valentine's Day

The past week of my life has been spent completely immersed in zombies. I have been watching all three seasons of The Walking Dead at a fairly quick pace. I watch zombies on my lunch breaks at work, I stay up late and watch zombies until I get scared and have to go to bed.  I text every single shocking thing that happens to my friend, Mary Jo.  If you have seen The Walking Dead, you know that shocking things happen frequently on this show (and if you haven't- maybe you should do that RIGHT THIS MINUTE!)

But while I've been living and breathing zombies and putting together my zombie apocalypse plan (those things don't put themselves together, you know,) Mary Jo has been re-reading all the books in the Little House on the Prairie series.  Then she texts me every single shocking thing that happens.  If you have read the Little House books you know that shocking things happen frequently (well, maybe not frequently, but sometimes.) PS- If you haven't read the Little House Books, we cannot be friends.

So our texts have been real messes of frantic nonsense.  (ME: "Let's talk about the woman that has the zombies as pets" MJ: "How come every single time Pa and Ma go to town there is a disaster?") Of course they make total sense to us, but I can't imagine what someone would think if they stumbled upon our "conversation" by mistake.

Then, as if we don't have enough going on with the zombies and the prairie, we both have to WIN Valentine's Day.  Yes, I know we are competing against no one.  Or everyone.  Sometimes it's hard to tell.

They are GUMMY FISHES in FISHBOWL BAGS y'all.

Cute little Valentine collection box made out of a cereal box.  

So, with all this winning out of the way, and zombie watching complete, I am pretty exhausted.  And maybe a little bit mad at Mary Jo.  For introducing me to the zombies, you know. She must have sensed my anger (or perhaps she read the repeated texts I sent her during my marathon Walking Dead watching that said "I hate you.")  Whatever.  She KNEW.  And to make it up to me she sent me MY VERY OWN XANADU CD!!!!  I always knew that I loved Xanadu, but I think I might have underestimated the number of times I listened to this, because after 25 years I still know EVERY.  SINGLE.  WORD.  I immediately popped this CD in my car player and soon ELO was all up in my business.

Only a true friend would say "I'm sorry for the zombies" with a homemade card and an 80's soundtrack.

Hobbies, Fun Facts and Trick Questions

Someone called me the other day at work and asked me to answer a few questions for a regional newsletter.  They wanted me to tell them my hobbies and a few fun facts about myself.  To me, it felt like a trick question: hobbies for a person that works in a bookstore- I'm guessing a large amount of these surveys will include reading as a top hobby.  But what else do I like to do:  crafting, spending time with my family, driving kids around, playing school, playing American girl dolls, volunteering?  How many of these things are things that I like to do, or just things that I do?

Fun facts about myself- well, I think I'm fun, but somehow it didn't translate into "3 fun facts."  It didn't help that every time I mentioned something the person on the phone would make disapproving sounds,  like perhaps my facts weren't as fun as he had hoped.

I left work feeling a little boring, invisible and un-Natalie-ish.

I got home and did my usual: played, made dinner, played, cleaned, played, did homework, played.  Later that night I found my flag raised on my Valentine mailbox, indicating that someone had left me a note!

There are many times when your life belongs more to others than to yourself, and I'm good with that.  Maybe PTO board member, room mother, crafter, game player, and homework helper isn't who I am in the future, and definitely isn't who I was 10 years ago, but it's who my kids need me to be right now- and I'm good at it!