Monday Mornings With Zachary

Today Zach gives you his thoughts on the latest Narnia movie and heaven.

Untitled from Suzanne Mosley on Vimeo.

Love Thine Enemies

I mean, really...even though he hates me, Little RFL sure is cute.

Gotta Catch Up...Can't Let Him Win

So, in my quest to match my brother Eric's Academy Award nominated movie watching talent, I've gotten through 127 Hours, The Social Network, Winter's Bone and True Grit. I'd seen Black Swan, Toy Story 3 and Inception already. So that only leaves 3 more Best Picture noms to watch. I also watched Blue Valentine.

My personal favorite so far, of the Best Picture nominations? Hard to say...I must have loved Black Swan, as I paid to see it twice in one weekend. 127 Hours was equally breathtaking; the first movie ever that I've had to hit pause during so I could take a few minutes and recover before pressing play again. I've never felt so relieved at a movie's ending.

But Winter's Bone killed me dead. The darkness of that backwoods life...True Grit so far is my personal favorite for feel good-ness. I laughed out loud and smiled out loud quite a few times during that one.

The Social Network was really good as well. The only thing that bothered me about that one was knowing it wasn't the true story. When a topic is so current, I really want to see the real story of how it all went down. I know it wasn't supposed to be a documentary, but I couldn't get past that.

I have to say that so far Inception has been my least favorite. Yes, the CGI is amazing, but the story didn't grip me nearly as much as any of the others. I was more moved by Toy Story 3.

Blue Valentine is nominated for leading actress, Michelle Williams. She's amazing, as usual. Bleakest movie so far, although I'm assuming Rabbit Hole is going to beat it in terms of bleakiness.

Well, I'm headed back into the land of catching up with ELew. Maybe I'll have a more decisive opinion as to my favorite after I finish...

Porkchop Milkshakes!

The state of the internet, Winter 2010.

Bible In A Minute

Oh my sweet LORD, I must memorize this asap!



(stolen from Victoria, thanks)

Alex The Fat/Skinny

Oh, Alex was the fattest baby of all time for awhile. You'd never have known he'd end up being skinny as a rail as an adult.


But such a cute little booger he was back then....now it's just hard to tell; does drinking alcohol out of sippy cups at my cocktail party kill the cute factor??

Monday Mornings With Zachary

What Zach is learning about in school...(sorry about the quality, my camera's dying a slow painful death)

Untitled from Suzanne Mosley on Vimeo.

...and the Mosleys at John Young's Roller Ball, with Zachary in his traditional party stance.

Ava's Fashions

Cotton candy pink sweater and cotton candy hair. That's what little girls are made of.

All Skate!

Woot! John Young's Roller Ball birthday party at Caln roller rink tonight!

Topsy Turvy

The balance of power is shifting in my household. I've been feeling very blah lately, I've lost all motivation to do anything

On the other hand, my husband's has turned over a "get up and go" leaf. It's a little disconcerting. Usually I can count on him to stay in bed until 8:30 every morning. Now, he's out the door by 7. It is kind of hot, though, when he's up early and whistling and ironing his shirt...

On the flip side, I doubt he's looking at me all depressed on the couch wearing pizza stained old pajamas, stuffing Doritos down my face, with hair that hasn't been washed since Christmas and thinking "that's kind of hot..."

I Swear I Can Dance

Today we have Marc Davidson and Sylvie Raymond, UCWDC Masters Showcase World Champions two years in a row. They are my favorite French Canadians, although I have to say I pretty much love them all. I rarely know what they're saying but I love hearing them say it. At times it seems as if they're laughing at me but I don't even care....Sylvie taught me how to says "testicles" in French and I've been in love with her ever since.

Richard and I were sitting in the bleachers watching Pro-Am one day at Worlds and Marc walked over to say hello and he leaned over to kiss my cheek. I jumped up to accept his offering (duh, have you seen those eyes up close???). Marc kissed one cheek and I backed up, but then I remembered that those Frenchy types kiss both cheeks, so I was caught between "just be cool and sit back down, don't look desperate" and "I don't want him to feel like I snubbed the second kiss so I need to lean forward again so as not to leave him hanging, not to mention GET ANOTHER ONE WHILE YOU CAN, DUMMY!"......

While in that horrible purgatory I made the unfortunate decision to sit down. I was so flustered by my moment of fuzziness that I forgot that once you stood, those theater-style seats folded back up. So I plopped my not-your-usual-5'2"-tall-dancer rear end down and just kept falling. My backside hit the underside of the seat and the entire section of bleachers shook as if every Pro-Am contestant had continued their polka off the competition floor and up into the stands. I was holding a cup of soda in my hand, so people around me were dodging ice cubes as well as droplets of mortification.

I walked around for the next week with a giant bruise on my tail. Lesson to be learned here? When it comes to French Canadians, always turn the other cheek. Otherwise it's a giant pain in the ass.

:)

Bless You

Ava learned about haiku yesterday, and wrote her first one:

A flower is like
a pretty little lady
sitting on the dirt.

Duets

Yesterday was Duet Day during piano practice.



I could watch Zachary's Ray Charles head bob all day long.




And I love how Colson sells his mistakes in the exact style of Uncle Andrew. I mean really, played with confidence, can anything really be a mistake?




Miss Cool Cucumber. I'd given her a few corrections seconds before we took this video, and we didn't practice them. Sure enough, under pressure, she incorporated all of the corrections and played her piece the best when the camera was rolling. Momma's girl.

Monday Mornings With Zachary

Sometimes I just don't know why he does what he does.......

Ava's Fashions

Waiting for painted toenails to dry...while wearing a lavender ruffled halter top.

Buckin' Mike Eads And Annick Paquet...

Remember last year at Worlds when Mikey Eads and Annick Paquet did their Hot Rod Lincoln showdance? Well, this year they took their undeniable cuteness to a whole other level with their Buckin' showdance. The only thing missing was cowhide dance pants.

Alphabet Night!

Alphabet Night at Awana. The kids were supposed to choose a letter and wear things that started with that letter. We love to get down and dirty with a theme around here....we're like tazmanian devils tearing through closets and costume boxes.

B: Boots, blue jeans, ballet skirt, belt, baseball jersey, beads, bandaids, braids, beret.

P: Purple shoes, pirate pants, pirate shirt, purple tie, purse, pantyhose, pillowcase, pins

S: slippers, shin guards, sweatpants, shorts, sweatshirt, scarf, santa hat

Cock Of The Walk!

On my birthday, in Nashville, my student Paul Grande and his wife Ginny took me to my favorite restaurant in the world, Cock Of The Walk. I ate until I almost birthed my stomach.

My mother took me to Cock Of The Walk in Pensacola when I was a teenager, and that experience ruined me for ever feeling satisfied at a restaurant again. Cock Of The Walk offers mainly fried proteins; specifically chicken, shrimp and their specialty, catfish. The cornmeal that they use to fry the catfish in is super fine and creates the most amazing crunch. With your entree you receive fries, divine homemade coleslaw, pickled onions, and the best hush puppies you'll ever put in your mouth.

The appetizer offerings are equally insane; you can get a Pot 'O Beans, a Pot 'O Greens, or fried dill pickles which will send you over the moon. You also get a cast iron skillet cornbread that the server flips high into the air. (The cornbread has jalapenos in it.....rawr!!)

And I can't forget to mention that they serve their drinks in....wait for it.........TIN MUGS!! The diet soda is so cold it almost freezes to your tongue.

If you're ever in one of their 6 locations, don't miss your chance to stuff your face with the best fried bottom dwellers this side of the Mississippi.

The Big C

If you haven't seen "The Big C" on Showtime, I highly recommend that you rethink that decision. Laura Linney plays a middle aged wife and mother who finds out she has Stage 4 cancer. She chooses not to tell anyone, but begins to live her life very differently. She kicks her lazy husband out of the house and starts making up for lost time with her son.

She gets tired of her son not flushing the toilet, so one night she grabs him by the shirt and slams him against the wall and says:

Someday I am going to be dead, and as a courtesy to the world I don't want to leave them the guy who doesn't know how to get his shit to flush. And let me be clear, your dad isn't living here because I only wanted to raise one kid and I chose you. And from now on, I'm going to raise you so hard your head's going to spin.

She then hands him a plunger, throws him into the bathroom with a toilet full of chili, and locks him in.

How bad can a show be that starts off that way??

How To Save $$$

Oh my word. My sister pushing me into a dumpster when I was 12 to dig for coupons seems so tame now....

Coming home today to see my baby daddy and our 3 cute offspring!!

Sent from my iPhone

ANDREW!!!!!!!

My birthday message from my brother Andrew:

"happy b'day to the saddest girl on my wedding weekend ... who thought my wedding was a wake for her favorite brother ... who had no idea she was about to gain the coolest sister-in-law!"

(or, maybe I was just sad about that dress........ ;)

Or as Ed likes to say, "ANDREW!!!!!":

Clocks With Manners

I love the alarm clocks in the rooms at the Opryland hotel. The buzzer starts very soft, and gets a little louder with each consecutive buzz. It goes something like this:

"Pssst, you might want to think about getting up..."

"Hey, you're gonna need to get up..."

"If you don't wake up soon I'm going to hit you over the head with a hammer..."

"WAKE YOUR ASS UP, YOU LAZY BASTARD!!!!!!"

Worlds XIX

I'm on my way to Nashville for the World Championships. I love the Opryland hotel, but this year will be tough since the floods...the Opry Mills mall across the parking lot won't be open, so there won't be much to eat outside the hotel within walking distance. I have a feeling I'm going to be a prisoner of the Opryland for a week. Pro-Am all day Wednesday, 4 workshops to teach throughout the week, judge certification test to take, apprentice judging, rehearsals, and competing on Saturday night....looooong week ahead of me.

But it's the first Worlds I'll have been to as a Master, so that will make up for all the work.

Monday Mornings With Zachary

Zachary and his best friend Luke Tabasso, the only child who doesn't irritate Zachary. Thank goodness for Luke, or Zachary might go through his whole childhood with only adult "friends".

Ava's Fashions

Thankfully, Ava's grown out of the "add a lot of mom's undergarments to your neck to enhance an outfit" stage.

WELCOME 2011

While I don't usually make New Year's resolutions, this year I have decided to set a few creative goals. One is to become a certified UCWDC judge, but since that is already in the works, I won't really count that one.

My musical goal is to learn to play two of my all time favorite pieces, Debussy's Clair De Lune and Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata by the end of the year. I so loved the heavily structured early classical music, Bach, Hayden and the like, when I studied piano that I never let myself move on to the darker middle stages of Beethoven, and wouldn't even dream of letting myself learn impressionistic composers like Debussy. Theirs was the music I played in my dreams, but didn't then fit into my teenaged everyday structure of scales and Dozen A Day technical exercises.

Now I'm ready to tackle classical melodic structure that, in my mind, requires more emotional maturity and less metronome.

As for my dance goals, I'm determined to learn to do one foot turns as well as Tatiana Mollman.



And I will also learn to glide like Guyton does at 1:20 of this video...or like how Michael T. does at his house in the kitchen on New Year's Eve.




Maybe I'll post periodic updates on my progress....