Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Netflix or Nothing

Pretty laid back day today with the usual playing, boys biking and playing with friends, Josie learning something new every two seconds and giggling, I don't have much I have to do so I relax (more than I should), I made eggless salad last night so lunch is easy and didn't take up much room since the Legos have now taken over our dining room table, I resisted any possible fight of wills with my second-born, beautiful weather. Not too bad of a day...

I am looking casually around the house for the movie Sandlot which Rob rented for the kids a couple days ago from That's Rentertainment (our favorite movie store). Incidentally, I am going insane. The boys came home saying they had "The Sandlot" and I turned to Rob and said, "The STEPHEN KING one?!!" He looked at me very perplexed (he was never a Stephen King fan...I had a boyfriend, D, in high school who got me hooked on King's books) and says very slowly, "I don't think so...". It wasn't (now this is the insane part...I searched for Stephen King and Sandlot and apparently he didn't write a book by that name so what was I remembering??), but it did have a scary "beast" dog in it which Parker found waaayyy too scary and so did Dema (thus, he watched that part over and over and over...what shall we do with him?). Not the best pick and I was not happy to have to explain the boy faking his own drowning in order to kiss the female lifeguard...why isn't Rob ever home for these things? It isn't as if I'm a prude, but they just did not GET IT. They are learning to swim themselves and it was just not computing why a kid would jump of the diving board when he couldn't swim. I explained it over and over to no avail.

Time passes, I pay bills and do other things and sort of look for the movie as I go about my day. Then, it starts getting later and I need to run some errands...

Nope, I still haven't found the movie. The darn movie that is now causing me more grief because it is due back today and I can't find it...as usual! We love being TV-free, but in order to watch movies, we have a portable DVD player and this means that movies are taken in and out in all sorts of places in our house so movies can be anywhere. I have this renewed sense of life and the need to not sweat the small stuff, but it is starting to wear off a bit as I search and search for this silly movie.

I call Rob twice at work and IM him once because I'm pretty sure he knows where it is, but doesn't think it is important so he is keeping the information from me. I try to say as sweetly as possible to the kids that we really need to find the movie because I'm not paying late fees or driving to the video store twice to take back movies. If we can't keep track of movies then we can't rent movies anymore. (Sadly, they have heard all this before and somehow they still pay attention to it and Parker actually helps me look...he is more often than not the one who finds said movie and it is usually not him who places it in the hiding place...Dema looks like his dad and searches the ceiling or plays with his toys waiting for it to jump up and say "here I am".)

Okay, I am tired and I hate losing things and I need to get to the UPS Store with a shipment to a customer and where oh where is the %$@#@* movie? I am still outwardly keeping my cool and being quite sweet which reminds me of the McBloggy's glass post (yes, I've read to many blogs today which is a big part of the problem) and I think about how I probably need to work on cleaning the inside of my glass, but for my children's sake the best I can do right now is keep the outside looking good. I think of everything I've ever read by Scott Noelle and how I know the kids can see through the clean glass to my stress inside. I let go. It is what it is and I will just do my errands and the movie will turn up and although money is quite tight these days a late fee will not break us. I love my life, I love my husband, I love my kids....ahhh!

I run the errands (in the car which starts to stress me out again because I hate the car and I know I should have walked, but it would have been a very long hot sweaty walk and here I am making excuses...it is what it is and I have four people in the car so I was HOV, but AM580 was disturbingly down so I turned on music and Dema kept saying he wanted "the music with drums" which I apparently was not finding although they all sounded like they had drums to me.) and arrive home, calm and happy with three (count 'em, three!) sleeping children. I sit down with Josie, after lugging my eight year old who is way to heavy and long to lug these days, and Dema in from the car and settling them down to remain asleep (there is a God!), and think about all the things I will get done with this extra and unexpected time I have on my hands.

My phone rings...

Rob: I know where "The Sandlot" is.
Me: Really? (expecting it to be in his work laptop, but wait that doesn't make sense...)
Rob: Yep, it is at That's Rentertainment!
Me: What?
Rob: In "The Assassination of Jesse James" cover.
Me: Oh no...
Rob: Yes, they won't check it in until they have the right cover so we'll be late on both movies.
Me: *Groan* But, that means I have to go all the way back to the movie store and all the kids are asleep... *whine*
Rob: By the way, Jesse James is in your computer. (I can hear his smile over the phone.)

7 comments:

Miss Jenny said...

I LOVE The Sandlot. I know, not the point. But still.

Leighann of Multi-Minding Mom said...

I'm constantly having this struggle with library books. No matter how many times I say to make sure they don't get interspersed with our own books, it's inevitable that they do and then I spend half an hour looking for them.

We check out most movies from the library because (1) they are free, and (2) the daily late fee is only 10 cents.

No matter how many times I try to justify Netflix to my husband, he reminds me that the library will always be cheaper even if I keep every single movie a week past it's due date.

But oh how convenient it would be to use Netflix!

Lisa -- Cravin' Veggies said...

I just found out that our local library has downloadable movies. I haven't looked to see exactly how it works (like a downloadable book? or do you just watch it online?) I hate misplacing books/movies, so I think I get how you were feeling. My kids know that all library stuff needs to be put on top of the piano, but, you know, they're kids, so I still end up searching for at least one thing on the day the books/movies are due...

VeganLinda said...

Miss Jenny, The Sandlot is not a bad movie. In fact, the lead kid sort of reminds me of Parker, but it lost its cuteness when the kids won't walk into a different room from me because they are scared of "the beast". :-)

Leeanthro, Nextflix isn't worth the money really, but it is nice to not have to go anywhere (we do library movies too, but adult movies need to be back in two day and I usually go once a week and we lose those too LOL).

CV, I just need to be more organized. I'm trying, but it seems every week we have a couple of hours wasted finding something. I'm working on simplifying our lives and having less "stuff". At least with dh riding his bike to work everyday for the last several years we've gotten rid of the morning search for the car keys. LOL

the sandwich life said...

oh Linda....very funny post!!!

Lavender Lemonade said...

Oh, I feel your pain! We can NEVER get movies(or books) returned on time to the library.
We also have Netflix. What's bad about Netflix...it is so easy to lose a movie for months. I mean without a due date hanging over your head, its easy to just completely dimiss that whole concept of "return the movie". I think we had one movie for like 6 months. (of course having watched it only 1 time in first 5 days.) Aargh.

VeganLinda said...

Lavender Lemonade, I hear you on the one movie for six months...it is like the movies go to that place where all the missing socks go. We are getting better though. As I get rid of stuff out of the house it becomes easier to find things. :-)