Graceland

Monday, December 8, 2008

Why I Love LMN

Ah... Lifetime Movie Network. I'm a fan. Here's why.

1) Predictable Plot. Often I just have a few minutes at home to eat or relax. I really don't want to get involved in anything that will suck me in. I can flip on a good Lifetime movie and walk away at any time because I know how it will end. In college, I used to joke when I walked in on one of my roommates watching a Lifetime flick. "Is this the my-daughter-is-a-teenage-prostitute or my-abusive-ex-got-out-of-jail-and-I-will-eventually-have-to-kill-him show?" Either way. Always a good laugh.

2) If I ever want to see the beginning or end of a show that I missed, it will replay approximately 187 times in a month. No DVR necessary.

3) Full of B actors from the 80's. I'm sad I can no longer catch a rerun of Charlie's Angels, but never fear, I can get a solid dose of Jacqueline Smith, Cheryl Ladd, and occasionally even Farrah. Do you wonder what happened to Laura Engles? I belive she lost her memory and then fell in love with a mysterious stranger. It's all on Lifetime.

4) It annoys most everyone else in the room. :) I also achieve this with the Osmond Greatest Hits blasting from my ipod. Perhaps this is why I've lived alone for so long.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

A Very Catchy Tune

This has been stuck in my head all day

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2Ml-tJuQ3o&feature=related

Friday, November 28, 2008

Wedding Invitations

This weekend we were trying to figure out the wording for our wedding announcements. Yes, I know, we are late on this. We're hoping to get them printed and out by mid-December. So please don't let it get lost in all the Christmas cards. :)

Anyway, I was reading sample wording on line and writing out various versions. Then Rick wrote one and handed it to me. It really captures my feelings exactly, but may not be appropriate. What do you think?

Betsy & Rick are getting married.
Betsy is super excited!
Please come and make her feel like she has
lots and lots of friends.
(Rick is excited too!)

Monday, November 10, 2008

Meet my boys

Since I'm about to have a new family and will be blogging about all of us frequently, I decided I should give you a little better introduction to the new boys in my life. Originally, I wanted them to each do their 100, but we settled on 100 total = 50 from Rick, 25 from Zane, and 25 from Isaac. Enjoy.

Rick's 50 (some of these are my submissions)
1. Likes Boysenberry pie
2. Teaches Elders Quorum
3. Likes Battlestar Galactica
4. Majored in Italian
5. Likes all kinds of music, except country
6. Favorite color is blue
7. Stays up late to watch Formula 1 racing
8. Loves black licorice
9. Is a total roadie when it comes to biking
10. Enjoys dressing well
11. Likes to cook
12. Likes to drive around and look at Christmas lights
13. He is 15 days younger than I am
14. Enjoys snowshoeing
15. Gets into birdwatching with me
16. Likes to look at clouds
17. Eats everything with a knife and fork
18. After all these years, still loves Souxie and the Banshees
19. Often falls asleep on the couch
20. Produces videos
21. Doesn't like to take any kind of medicine
22. Enjoys a big breakfast
23. Claustrophobic
24. Can talk with a variety of foreign accents
25. Has gold glitter toes
26. Catches up with Andy during Sunday School
27. Likes to shop
28. Likes his hot chocolate warm
29. Is into all things European

(He submitted the rest of these as a list of his favorite things)
30. Betsy (aw, thanks)
31. Nice hand-made shoes
32. Foreign music
33. Movies with good scripts
34. Alfred Hitchcock movies
35. Zombie movies
36. Halloween
37. Christmas
38. Christmas music
39. Traveling
40. Traveling to Italy
41. Italy (& France)
42. Basketball
43. Skiing
44. Working from home
45. Being a dad
46. Winter
47. Snow
48. Roaring fire in the fireplace
49. Foggy mornings
50. Walking in freshly fallen snow

Zane's 25

1. Favorite video game is World of Warcraft

2. Plays the guitar

3. Hates mac & cheese

4. Can moonwalk

5. Panic at the Disco is his favorite band

6. Is in 7th grade

7. Favorite color is pink

8. Was Emo for Halloween

9. X-Play is his fav TV show

10. Hates school (but gets good grades)

11. French is his favorite class

12. Likes smoothies

13. Twix is favorite candy bar

14. Has to be home by 9:00 (self-imposed) to shower and get ready for bed

15. Goes to bed early so he can get up early and play video games before school

16. Has red and gold glitter toes

17. Good at saving/managing his money

18. Getting braces this month

19. His birthday is 149 days before mine

20. Likes to skate board

21. Takes a shower in 3 minutes

22. Loves waffles

23. Afraid of bugs that are indoors

24. Loves Take 5 candy bars

25. Good at drama

Isaac's 25

1. Likes to make his own video games

2. Enjoys playing Scratch

3. Loves mac & cheese

4. In 4th grade

5. Thinks he's smart enough for 5th grade

6. Knows how to moonwalk

7. AFI is his favorite band

8. Favorite color is orange

9. Was a Ninja for Halloween

10. I Carly is his favorite TV show

11. Good at math

12. Likes white rice

13. Loves pumpkin pie

14. Likes to play laser tag with his friends

15. Plays on the bars at recess

16. Likes Runescape

17. Has pink glitter toes

18. His birthday is one day before mine

19. Is really good on his heelys

20. Picky eater

21. Has gotten over the fear of having lots of girls like him (he still doesn't like them back though)

22. Likes Take 5 candy bar

23. Wants to be an Electrical Engineer

24. Good to take shopping

25. Loves magic

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

More Decisions

OK, the next thing that is causing me unnecessary stress is my hair for the wedding. I went and had someone do a test run last night and did not like it. Too traditional and made me feel like a little girl. I'm looking for elegant, now, but nothing too out there. Please send me your ideas....

In response to Afton's comment- I don't have my veil yet. That's why I was going for a test run on the hair to decide on the veil. I have my final dress fitting next week and will get my veil then. Unless some perfect hairstyle dictates otherwise between now and then, I'm getting just a single layer veil about fingertip length and with a comb, no embellishments.

My Movie Reviews

Quiet Earth. B-. Another SciFi recommended by Netflix, although this one was actually interesting and enjoyable. A guy wakes up and everyone is gone. Made in New Zealand, it claims to be one of the top ten movies in the US in the year it came out (sometime in the 1970s). After it was over, we agreed that it was good, but the ending was a little confusing, so we watched the ending again with the directors comments. Lame. Apparently the whole movie was supposed to have an anti-nuclear message and the director takes credit for his movie making New Zealand nuclear free. So.... pretend you don't know that and enjoy the movie.
Sunshine. C-. Netflix. That's it. We are not trusting Netflix's rating of sci-fi movies again. The sun is dying so a crew is going with a nuclear missle to "re-start" it. I kept hoping aliens would show up or at least something would happen to draw me in. A lot of things almost happened, but when they did, it did not make much sense.
Warm Bodies. B. Red Box. I was surprised by this movie. I'm a fan of a good zombie flick, but when I heard about the plot, it seemed a bit too much. It turned out to be very entertaining. I'd rate it pretty high on the must see zombie film list and very high on the cheesy teenage romance film list.
Wolverine. B. I'm a fan of the X-Men movies. I'm also a fan of Hugh Jackman. It was hard to go wrong going in with those two biases. The fighting sequences were too long, but that was expected. If you've like the X-Men movies, you should like this one too.
The East. B. I forget how much I love the indie flicks at the Broadway. This also had an environmentalist-based plot, but was written well and I liked how it ended. A women goes under cover in an environmental terrorist group. It goes with the obvious plot of her having sympathies for members of the group and trying to balance that with her personal beliefs. Worth seeing.
World War Z. B. I was in the middle of the book and didn't want to see the movie until I finish, but I couldn't help it and saw it opening weekend. Not a big deal as they are very different. This is a different kind of zombie movie. While most are horror flicks, this was more of a suspense movie. They cut out the gratutious gore associated with most zombie movies and gave it more of a plot. Fun for zombie fans and non-zombie fans.
Silent Running. D. Netflix. I have no idea why this is rated so well on Netflix. Sci-fi movie made in the sixties with blatant environmental message. Forests have died on the earth so they are growing them in a space station orbiting Saturn. Earth decides to abandon the project and for some reason that means they have to blow up the forests. One man understands the impact of losing all our forests so he kills everyone. My description made it seem way better than it is. At one point, he programs his robot helpers to play cards and you watch them play cards for about 10 minutes. Skip this one!

My Book Reviews

The Rent Collector. B. I loved this book while I was reading it. Then the author's comments on the back disappointed me. It was fiction! I was so inspired by the "true" story of this woman living at the dump in Cambodia and learning to read. The whole way through I thought it was true. I was mad when it wasn't. Although toward the end, it started getitng a little unbelievable. It was based on real people which bothers me wondering how much is true and how much is fiction. I still recommend the book, but know what you're getting into.
Divergent. B+. Fun, quick read. YA fiction. Your basic strong female in post-apocolypic world fighting to make change. Even though the story's been told over and over, this one was very engaging. I can't wait to read the next in the series!
World War Z. B+. For staters, this is very different from the movie. It's 10 years after we won the zombie war. The book is a series of interviews with survivors. I was hesitant about the way it was written and that I wouldn't stay involved without a central character. However, the book created a very real world. So much so that when I was getting off the freeway one morning and saw some homeless people waking up under a bridge, for just second, I thought they were zombies. I also wanted to bring it up in conversation. Like when someone was talking about North Korea, I wanted to say, "Did you hear how they handled the Zombie Apocalypse?' It was a fun book. I've never read a zombie book before and I may never again, but I'm glad I read this one. It also was welcome to read a book that isn't a strong female character overcoming incredible odds. I'm seriously weary of that plot line.
Waiting to be Heard. B+. I've followed the Amanda Knox case for several years. I thought, since I knew most details of the case, this might be boring. I was surprised at how engaging and well written it was. She is a quirky girl and, while the complete lack of physical evidence makes me sure she is innocent, I can see why people think she is hiding something. The book was haunting to think the someone who doesn't understand a culture coupled with a corrupt prosecutor could put an innocent person in jail for years.
Girl Gone. C-. Maybe it was called Gone Girl. I don't remember. Book club book. I've never gotten into mysteries. This one took a while to get into, then I couldn't put it down, then it ended and I wished I never picked it up. Ridiculous ending.
The Kitchen House. B-. I have no idea how to rate this book. It was slow to start. Once things started to happen (murder), I found myself sucked in and not wanting to put it down; however, once I did put it down, I didn't look forward to picking it up again. I'm not sure why. Maybe because it's similar to a bunch of other books I've read. I'm just getting weary of the genre and need to mix it up a little. Overall, an interesting read. The story of a young white girl who is indentured when her family dies on the boat from Ireland to America. Her relationship with her new family (the slaves whom she is sent to live and work with) and how her life is different from them because of the color of her skin.
The Happiness Project. D. I'm reviewing the book, but I'm not going to finish it. I knew this wasn't my favorite genre, but it was the book club pick this month so I thought I'd give it a chance. I didn't see the point of reading someone's goals. I sometimes feel like these "self-help" books are an excuse for people to feel like they are doing something to be happier, when really they are an excuse to avoid working on yourself by living through someone else's experience. Instead of reading the book, how about spend that time working on your own "happiness project". As I read, I kept thinking it should have been a workbook for readers to complete their own project while reading hers. I'll be interested to hear how others in book club liked it.