The World is Going Mad!!

Now, I don’t claim to be a die-hard football fan. You won’t see me subscribing to Sports Illustrated or paying a bajillion bucks for season tickets to a Yankee’s game in this lifetime, however once in awhile I get caught up in a headline that draws my attention (and just so happens also pertains to sports)

San Francisco 49ers Kyle Williams Accepts Blame After Hateful Tweets Swirl



This just helps me to realize that the world has really gone bonkers when a guy is sent death threats via social media for fumbling the football…wait for it…in a game!

I feel for this guy, Kyle Williams. I may have no clue who you are and vagely remember from the article that you play for the 49ers, but no one deserves to have their family threatened (even in jest or other non-seriousnesses) for something like this.

Point Uno: Tis just a game people!!! Chill out!

Point Deux: I’m positive he just feels sick about it already without you offering to put an exploding football in his car. How would you like it if you did something on accident and then hundreds of people pointed, laughed, and rubbed your nose in it?

Point Three: Takes a big man to just be able to stand up after something like that and admit fault.

Give him a break! We’ve all been there in some form or fashion (Just maybe not on as grand of a scale as thus) but I’m well versed in the sweaty, red, hot flashes that come with extreme embarassment (Today is not the day for sharing stories however ~shifty eyes~)

I know a lot of people would just say “Oh, I didn’t really mean it!” or “It’s all just talk” but in my head if you’re angry enough at the outcome of a game (defined as an amusement or pasttime for entertainment) that you feel the need to spout off death threats at someone you don’t know over a social media forum of other strangers just because things didn’t turn out the way you wanted, it might be time to step back and re-examine your existance.

Maybe get a dog? Or a girlfriend? (We’ll put boyfriend in there too just to be fair…)

It helps to see that the dude is getting support from his fellow teammates and others, but I look at this and how we respond to fellow human beings (even strangers who we don’t cohabitate with!) and it’s no wonder we're all heading towards the zombie apocalypse…

OM NOM NOM!!!!

I want cheesy potatoes…

In a bad way…

With bacon…

This is what’s running through my head like a mantra this morning thanks to my newly revised struggle resolution to achieve this…

(Thank you, Pinterest Home Page, for always posting such similar images when I’m in the middle of a food pinning binge. The guilt feels nice.)

Maybe it’s not so much a resolution as it is a continuous cycle that started back when gas cost $1.09 a gallon, O.J. was acquitted, and Montell Jordan showed us how we do it. Needless to say it’s been a constant battle with more physical and emotional ups and downs than an episode of the Bachelor (well, maybe a tie)

It always seems to ramp up this time every year though with the start of a new year and new goals (usually after a particularly brutal holiday season). Fresh year, fresh start, fresh fruits! It all jives, right?

I know I will likely never have the body as seen above and it’s truly more about being healthy than being thin. It doesn’t make it any easier to rid myself of that ideal image. Just chalk it up to a form of motivation and work with it right?

One of the hardest obstacles I find though is getting past that initial New Year’s hungriness (and as a direct result, crankiness). Right now I find myself in that place where I just want to eat everything in sight. These are the times that even the weeks old English muffin sitting in my fridge covered in some sort of green fuzzy frosting, starts to look the slightest bit appetizing. Each time I keep telling myself that if I just control myself, eat only good and healthy snacks, then my stomach will eventually shrink to a decent normal size after heavy holiday meal abuse. I’m waiting, stummy!

(Promise me one thing though. If I ever become one of those women who eats half a pea and says she’s full, please feel free to shove a steak sandwich down my throat.)

The process has been a long time going, but it has worked for me. For someone who has always battled with her genetics, I’m at a healthier weight than I’ve ever been before. I’m more active now than I ever was back in school. It’s also helped me in turn to become more confident and happy in myself. I know it’s not all about what’s on the outside, but when you’re not entirely happy with what’s on the outside it’s harder for that inside confidence to shine. I'm not quite where I want to be yet, but it's getting closer and closer by the decade!!

In the meantime, while I wait, I will sit here and chug my water like a fiend. I will walk to the fridge multiple times in an evening and open it just to make sure it’s all still there. I will exercise a ridiculous amount and hope the burnout holds off as long as it can. I will allow myself some rewards every now and then for my good behavior, lest I lose self-control entirely some lonely weekend night and eat a whole pizza myself (I've never done this, ever....~shifty eyes~).

And I will dream of this:

~in my mind~ It's so worth it, it's so worth it.........

I Want Me a Scooter Now!

Over this past holiday season I indulged in a bit of home cinematic entertainment (translation: I watched a lot of DVDs). As a result, chances are pretty good that my next few blog posts might be pretty heavy on my world famous movie reviews. I’ll do my best not to disappoint.

To start us off is a movie that I really didn’t hear much about when it was in the theaters but is a special little feel good gem, Larry Crowne. 

                                           Here's my quickie synopsis:                                      

Larry Crowne (portrayed by the One and Only Tom Hanks, and yes you’re required to use “one and only” in the introduction) is a divorced, middle-aged retail salesman. He’s loving his job at U-Mart (translation: Walmart) and very good at it until he is fired for lack of a college education. (Aside: U-Mart must think pretty highly of themselves to require their floor people have college degrees. Some of the workers I see everyday at Walmart look like they can barely spell Walmart)

Underwater on his mortgage and unable to find another retail job, Larry decides on a major life change and starts taking courses at a nearby college. Larry finds his mind opened to so much more than just communications class and microeconomics as he makes new friends in classes and finds himself inducted into the campus “scooter gang”.

It’s during his Speech 217 class where Larry meets Mercy Tainot (played by screen goddess and all around “Pretty Woman” Julia Roberts). Ms. Tainot (Tay-no, not Tie-knot or Tae-Bo), who teaches 217, has become disillusioned with her job and her life in general.  Cynical, a bit of a boozehound and married to a porn-seeking, unemployed former professor turned “blogger”, Mercy also finds her own life changed with the unexpected new arrival to her class. Fun and hilarity ensue.

Now for the meat to this cheese: My take

I really wasn’t sure what to expect of Larry Crowne. Sure it has two of the biggest A-listers in Hollywood in it and was written by Nia Vardalos (my mad respect to anyone who can tell me her biggest claim to fame), but it didn’t really make any huge screen buzz and couldn’t be anywhere near considered a blockbuster. When it was over, I was so glad I took a chance on it (Figured any movie with Julia Roberts and Tom Hanks in it couldn’t be half bad). It was a lighthearted look at reinventing yourself when life takes a turn for the worse. Larry is a lot braver than I might be in a similar circumstance. I suppose in this case you could say necessity was the mother of reinvention. He gets fired for lack of education so he goes to get more education. He is spending hundreds a month on gas for his big honking SUV so he gets himself a scooter. Things old Larry Crowne wouldn’t normally do.

Tom Hanks is a good match for the optimistic and amiable Crowne. He creates a character that is likeable and relatable. One way or another we’ve all been in Larry’s shoes at some point in life. In contrast we have Mercy who seems to have more or less given up on the joys of life (minus the more than occasional margarita). It isn’t until Larry with his infectious personality comes into her life that she finally begins to see what’s been missing in hers and finds her joy again.

The plot was a bit contrived and very predictable and the comedy not exactly of the “laugh out loud” variety, but I still got much amusement out of watching Larry get into what would normally be very awkward situations for most middle-aged men (c’mon now, riding around on a Zipper and giving a thumbs-up to the guy on the Harley?) We don’t get overly dramatic here so if you’re looking for that then best move on from this movie.

I also quite enjoyed the ensemble cast. The free-spirited, Talia (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and her gang of scooter enthusiasts, Larry’s outrageously self-promoting neighbor, Lamar (Cedric the Entertainer), and Steve (Rami Malek) and the rest of his fairly clueless Speech classmates just add more personality and fun factor to the variety of people that come into Larry’s life throughout the movie.

 If you’re looking for something extremely thought provoking and intense, this is not your movie. Go see Inception or something similar. If you’re looking for lighter fare with a good cast of characters then give this movie a try.

On my own personal scaling system I would give Larry Crowne 7 out of 10 stars.

Budget is a Six-Letter Word...

Well 2011 is almost gone and 2012 will be here before we know it. Typically I do not do the whole New Years Resolution thing as I believe that when you feel something needs to be changed, why wait for the New Year to do it?

This year however my incredible knack for procrastination has allowed me to make a New Years resolution regarding moolah. It's time to get a handle on me money-spending and pay down my debts!

 For the past 3-4 months I've been keeping track of practically everything I spend money on. Hanging onto all receipts, noting all bill payments, even vending machine purchases! My purse has since become a bottomless pit of paper and yuck at any given moment. The goal of this little project? To actually see where most of my money is going of course! And what did I learn from this?

I spend an obscene amount of money on FOOD!

My list of catagories for each purchase reads like this:

Restaurant

Restaurant

Groceries

Bills

Restaurant

Restaurant

You get the picture.

May seem like a hassle to keep track of everything that you purchase over the span on a month (I did 3 months but I'm an overachiever) but I'll tell you it is really helpful to know just where it's all going in the first place so you know where to make the proper changes.

My first attempt to set up a budget resulted in my staring at a blank Excel spreadsheet for 5 minutes then giving up and switching to Facebook. When a friend suggested that in order to prepare her budgets she periodically keeps track of all spendings in a month, a little lightbulb went off in my head. Of course!!

~Blushes while pretending she knew it all along~

So the next step will be to sit down with all my awesomely created spreadsheets and figure out a decent average to keep as my budget for every catagory. The hope for this process will be to keep it reasonable and realistic.

Let's be honest. There's no way I'm eating cans of tuna and ramen everyday for the forseeable future no matter how tempting the money savings might be.

I really don't see how this could fail unless I just completely ignore my budget altogether. Hoping by 2013 I will be a student-loan and credit card paid off free kind of girl.

 Will continue to keep updated on this part of the experiment.

Random Christmastime Musings

I quite enjoyed this whole "Who's Still Standing" show on NBC this past week. Nothing says Merry Christmas like dropping random strangers down a trap door for answering insanely easy questions wrong. Way to perpetuate the stereotype my friends!

I've been spending way too much time on this Pinterest thingy...Whoever created it I would love to shake your hand, then smack you in the back of the head. I can now create a holly garden wreath out of pine cones, hot glue and a paperclip.

I am starting to wonder if Christmas brain is a real thing. This time of year people seem to forget how to drive, common courtesy, how to walk a straight line...(I see you out there with the heavily spiked egg nog!)

I resolve to go on a diet come New Year. Then in 3 months when I've dwindled I resolve to go on a diet again...lather, rinse, repeat until next New Years.

I do believe that Elton John's "Step Into Christmas" has got to be the most annoying Christmas song ever...

To me, Christmas doesn't really feel like Christmas unless it's cold. Do Australians feel the opposite? (If I ever get a viewer from Australia, please feel free to let me know!)

Midnight Mass is at 6pm this year. It's like the Early Bird Special for Spirituality.

Yes, yes I did watch "My Big Fat Gypsy Christmas". I do have horrible taste in reality TV.

I watched an online video recently. Some parents were asked by Jimmy Kimmel to film their children getting crappy gifts a few weeks before Christmas. I found it hilarious and cruel all at the same time. Reminded me of that year my parents tried to psych me out by giving me a can of spinach which I had specifically said I did not want per my letter to Santa. That was traumatic. Thanks Mom and Dad!

Why is it that whenever I'm asked what I want for Christmas, I come up blank yet now two days before I can think of a half dozen or more little things that I wish I would have asked for instead.

It's Festivus today! I can whip all y'all in Feats of Strength...

Top 3 Christmas movies of all time (according to me): 1) Christmas Vacation, 2) A Christmas Story, 3) Elf (Yes I'm non-traditionalist)

Ryan Gosling and Ryan Reynolds should fisticuffs shirtless, oiled up (I will do the oiling). This has nothing really Christmas related but just to make it so we can put some Santa hats on them or some tight elf pants...

But I digress.

And last and actually least, 

Because it's in my head now, it should be in your as well: You are welcome.

(Thanks YouTube, without you I will not have a plethora of horrible music videos and useless but wildy entertaining viral videos to choose from)

Safe Travels and Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all!

A Quick Tasty Bite

I've always been a huge broccoli fan, even as a child. I was that strange kid in the lunch line who always asked for 2nd of the mushy cheesy broccoli thing. My mom is the one who actually got me on to eating it this way.

Not having much experience with balsamic vinegar, I was a little leery at first. The smells coming from the over that first time were very pungent but not necessarily in a bad way. Can't get more simple recipe-wise though.

What you need:

Fresh broccoli florets--enough to cover a baking sheet of your choosing

Balsamic vinegar (or balsamic vinaigrette)

A wee bit o' oil (omit the oil if you're going with vinaigrette)

(Sorry I don't have precise measurements on the amounts of vinegar and oil. Just enough to give the broccoli a nice coating.)

What you need to do:

Just mix together the oil and vinegar and lightly toss the broccoli in it to coat them and spread them out on a baking sheet. I'll even go so far as to drizzle a little of the excess over the broccoli but that's up to you and how much baked on balsamic vinegar you really want to scrub off the sheet pan when you're done.

Bake them in the oven for 10-20 minutes or until you achieve your desired degree of broccoli done-ness. I like mine pretty tender.

Voila! Balsamic broccoli!

I'm sure it can be used as a nice side dish if desired but the first time Mom and I made them together they didn't make it to dinner! We were just popping them by hand off the baking sheet! The balsamic adds a sweet and tangy taste to the broccoli and I like the contrast. Baking the broccoli allows it to achieve a different texture.

Because of the inconsistencies in broccoli floret sizes in a fresh broccoli head, the smallers often get very well done. I almost like them better! It's a very small concentrated burst of tartness and chewiness.

Give this recipe a try if you dare!

Big Pimpin'...Spendin' G's

So, it's that time of year again!

The air is crisp, lights are being strung upon evergreens, the smell of clove and cinnamon permeates the air, and Walmart is quickly becoming a place I can only hope to get out of alive and without being pepper sprayed over a $300 40" flat screen. (If I ever do Black Friday, I'm wearing pads)

Of course we all know should know and focus on the real reason for the season, however it can be difficult with ads blowing up our newspapers and email inboxes stuffed with offers to free ship just about anything you could think of buying,

This has all got me started thinking of my own Christmas to do list. It's not always easy to stay budget conscious while still trying to provide your loved ones champagne and caviar gifts. (~sings~ If I had a million dollars, I would buy you a green dress...)

This year my sister has suggested (since her dishwasher decided to go on permanent strike and her stove isn't that far behind) that we keep our gifts to $20 and under...or homemade.

Now while I would love to be (and keep trying to learn!), I admit I'm not exactly the most creative or talented when it comes to making stuff with my hands. What does that leave? $20 and under.

Seems simple and easy and great for someone trying to stay on a budget right?! 

WRONG!

I cannot for the life of me figure out what to get her that would be unique and fun enough to fit her wonderful personality yet can still be found near the clearance rack. I know, I know I'm more than likely over-thinking this whole thing. She's going to love whatever I get her, but the moral of this story is:

My sister is hard to buy for!

and

Gifts for under $20 aren't as easy as they may seem!

I am hoping maybe a stroll around Retail Shopping Hell (aka: the local mall at Christmastime) will result in something decent to send to my sister in her holiday care package this year. Wish me luck with that...it's highly likely she'll be getting a scarf and some form of semi-goofy hat.

She will not be the most difficult on my holiday list this year however. That title has always been held, and will likely always be held by my dad. Here is how our annual Christmas gift conversation almost always goes with little variance:

Me: "Hey, Dad! What do you want for Christmas this year?"

Dad: "Huh?"

Me: "Christmas, Dad. What do you want?"

Dad: "Oh...nothing. You don't have to get me anything"

Me: "You're not helping. I'm not NOT getting you something."

~Me walks away and asks Mom who inevitably gives me a good Dad idea~

But for however much I may complain I love this season, I love my family, I love the feeling of giving those I care about something with love from me. And, I do love and try to keep my eye on the true meaning of Christmas. Thank you, God, for letting us have your son on that day. I may sometimes get distracted, but it always comes back to You.

Happy Retail Shopping Season, everyone! 

Be safe, be good, and know that Drunk, Creepy Mall Santa has his eye on you!