1. I'm looking forward to not driving the kids to school next week. (They're off-track.)
2. I don't handle crooked tablecloths very well.
3. Homemade chex mix is something I could eat every day.
4. Warmth and sunlight annoy me in their more severe states.
5. Ireland, here I come! (I wish)
6. I don't have any tattoo(s).
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to watching Monk on DVD (we're on Season 3, Disc 2), tomorrow my plans include taking Amy to Build-a-Bear for her birthday and Sunday, I want to have a nice dinner!
I know it must seem like all I ever do anymore is watch movies, but here's another review. I was not aware of this movie being in the theatres, but thanks to Netflix, who knows me intimately now, this was one that was suggested for me to watch. The preview will tell you better what it's about than me:
This was filled with so many extremely charismatic and talented actors (when you watch as many British movies as I do, they're all almost like family!) the screen blazes with their presence. They managed to take a story that could be potentially boring and make it humorous, moving, and inspirational. (I can tell I'm talking this up too much and someone's going to watch it and think "What was Shelley thinking? This isn't that great") After watching it, it seems strange that William Wilberforce isn't a more well known name. Or maybe I'm the only one who's never heard of him. And I never knew the history of the song "Amazing Grace" before watching this. I feel so much smarter now. . . Not really. (We watched Jeopardy tonight and Kaylynn pointed out that I got 20 wrong in Double Jeoaprdy. Which leaves only ten correct. Oh, well--it's only trivia!)
The bottom line: Highly recommended. But I have to ask "Why? Why? Why? did men ever feel it necessary to wear wigs?"
Is it really any surprise that I loved this movie:
"The year is 1795 and young Jane Austen is a feisty 20-year-old and emerging writer who already sees a world beyond class and commerce, beyond pride and prejudice, and dreams of doing what was then nearly unthinkable - marrying for love. Naturally, her parents are searching for a wealthy, well-appointed husband to assure their daughter's future social standing. They are eyeing Mr. Wisley, nephew to the very formidable, not to mention very rich, local aristocrat Lady Gresham, as a prospective match. But when Jane meets the roguish and decidedly non-aristocratic Tom Lefroy, sparks soon fly along with the sharp repartee. His intellect and arrogance raise her ire - then knock her head over heels. Now, the couple, whose flirtation flies in the face of the sense and sensibility of the age, is faced with a terrible dilemma. If they attempt to marry, they will risk everything that matters - family, friends and fortune. Written by Orange" (from imdb)
At first when I saw that Anne Hathaway was playing Jane, I thought, "But she's not British!" But I thought it was a superb performance, my favorite roll of hers yet. And James McAvoy! My husband reads my blog, so I'll just stop there. Maggie Smith, James Cromwell, and Julie Walters are all in this as well.
This is a must-see for any Brit Lit Chick Flick fans out there!
Here's the trailer:
Here's an interview with James McAvoy, on a very uncomfortable looking bright-red couch, in which he elaborates on the story of the movie:
Despite some annoying acting by one of the characters, this movie had a few good laughs interspersed throughout, mostly involving a "green" dad who has to compromise his environmental standards in order to get to his children. We enjoyed a couple of cameos of Office actors, and all in all it had a good message.
I've decided to adopt a grading scale to rate those children's/family movies that come in all different shapes and sizes: Here are the grades with examples of movies that fit the description:
A-Excellent, riveting, inspiring, etc. (Wallace and Grommit:Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Shrek)
B-Pretty good--munching on snacks made up for anything it lacked. (Game Plan, Evan Almighty)
C-Worthy effort, but resorted to fake potty breaks to stay awake and sneak in a few pages of reading. (The Shaggy Dog, Ice Princess)
D-Spaced out during 73.56% of the movie. (Santa Clause III, Son of the Mask)
F-I would rather be scrubbing the toilet with a toothbrush. (Alvin and the Chipmunks, Land Before Time 1-100)
The verdict for Unaccompanied Minors: B-
This is a cute idea that I'm going to try to do every Friday. Here's the link if anyone else wants to join in.
1. Seeing new stuff is the best thing about traveling.
2. I love a good warm bed when I'm cold.
3. I often use two tissues at once when I'm blowing my nose (it's a waste, I know, but I can't stand the idea of the snot touching my hands, and then I still wash my hands.)
4. I'm reading Reporting Iraq right now; I am very interested by it.
5. Politics is something I dislike talking about.
6. When I visited Utah I most looked forward to seeing National Parks.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to Kaylynn's first piano lesson for four years, tomorrow my plans include helping out at D.I. and house projects and Sunday, I want to go to church and then come home and read!
I just downloaded pictures and thought I would post a few (this seems to be the routine now--it's easier than writing!)
This is Amy wearing the hat she made out of plates and cups. It makes me think of Go, Dog, Go and the party hat:
This is one scene of Jeremy's stop-gap-animated Lego movie, currently in production:
Of course I have a picture involving large amounts of food! This is the Chicken Potato Casserole I made for our ward dinner exchange:
Amy lost her first tooth. It made her cry a little nervously; you can see the tears under her eyes. But she got over it quickly.
This is just a few from about 300 pictures taken in the last few weeks. Many of them were photos from the Build-a-Bear photo shoot taking place in the "studio" on Amy's bed. They had a spotlight and everything. We also always have numerous mug shots of peculiar facial expressions. Thank goodness for digital.
Tagged by Lorena, and by law I have to tag two other people:
Tiffani, who has nothing else going on in her life right now, and
Christina, for the same reason. If you decline to participate, I will stop reading your blogs every day (and just check them every other day.)
10 Years Ago . . . I could eat whatever I wanted and wasn't fat.
5 Things That Were/Are On My To Do List Today . . .
1. Walk/jog (today was more of a walk--too much ice cream last night)
2. Finish laundry (that's sort of an oxymoron, isn't it?)
3. Review two Newbery winners on book blog
4. Finish this tag/meme.
5. This is hard because it's Saturday-because of the change in routine I'm usually in a fog on Saturday. I have no To Do List really.
What Would I Do If I Became A Millionaire?
What makes you think I'm not already?
5 Jobs That I Have Had . . .
1. Gless Ranch-cashier, pumpkins, Christmas trees
2. Ensign books-cashier
3. AVID Tutor
4. RCC Tutor-anatomy
5. Preschool teacher
5 Things People Don't Know About Me . . .
1. In third grade I was voted most popular girl, prettiest girl, smartest girl, etc.(This was my peak in life, it all went downhill from there . . . )
2. In fourth through sixth grade I got several student-given awards for being weird, and a couple for wearing socks and tennis shoes with dresses
3. For seventh grade volleyball this was my award: "Shy Shelley"
4. Senior year I was on the prom court (based on grades, NOT popularity)and pulled the plug on the lights and music on my way to the stage.
5. About a week ago I got two "You Make My Day" awards for my book blog.
Questions about my "Valentine" from Susan's blog:
How long have you been married? 14 1/2 years
How long did you date? about 9 months
How old is he? Almost 38--disturbing since I'm only 21.
Who eats more? The only thing Dan eats more of than me is peanut butter cups and double chocolate rolls.
Who said I love you first? No recollection. Is that terribly unromantic? I do know it is something my family NEVER said, and Dan's family says all the time to everyone.
Who is smarter? Dan, hands down. I probably have a higher emotional quotient.
Whose temper is worse? Me, hands down. Poor Dan--before we got married I tricked him into thinking I was nice.
Who does the laundry? Me.
Who does the dishes? Dan--I have a lot of tactile issues with dishes.
Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? This is a hard question for me--is this based on when you're lying in bed or if you are looking from the foot of the bed? If it's lying down, I'm on the right--the closest to the bathroom.
Who pays the bills? Dan. My job is to not spend money.
Who cooks dinner? Me and Kellogg.
Who drives when you are together? Dan.
Who is more stubborn? I don't see myself as a stubborn person. Am I blind to my own faults? No comment on Dan's level of stubbornness.
Whose parents do you see the most? Dan's--everyone in my family has the antisocial gene.
Who proposed? Dan.
Who has more friends? We're both loners.
Who has more siblings? Dan. I have just one sister.
Who wears the pants in the family? Well, if it were up to Dan, neither.
For Mutual last night, we were offered a bunch of free tickets (regular price $30.00 each) to the this family band Leahy play at the California Theatre in San Bernadino. Here's a little bit about them from their website:
Leahy (LAY-he): noun, verb, adjective.
A family. A musical group of brothers and sisters, a sound, a style of music, a way of life, a volcanic explosion of talent and energy, intense emotion, and feral passion.
Leahy is a Canadian powerhouse of eight musical brothers and sisters who have been playing together their entire lives. The band’s three acclaimed CDs—Leahy, Lakefield, and In All Things—have world-wide sales of over half a million copies.
There are 11 siblings (their mother is Scottish and their father Irish) who are a part of the band, but not all are always on tour at the same time. One of the siblings had just had her fifth baby! They can do everything--they all play all of the instruments and step dancing. It was totally awesome! All of the girls liked it too, which is saying a lot. Here's a sample of what they can do, although it's much better live. At the end, they all do the step dancing. (At the end of the performance last night, they all were playing fiddle and step dancing at the same time!)
This is one of those that popped up on suggested movies on Netflix. Why did I get it? Two reasons:
1) It's a Brit Lit Flick minus the Chick, and I thought that would be a novel change.
2) Heath Ledger
Strangely, this was on its way when Dan told me of his suicide (my only contacts with the entertainment world news are Dan and the magazine covers on the checkstand. Can anyone tell me why he was on the cover of a magazine with Mary-Kate Olson? Were they an item?)
The movie is about a young soldier named Harry who decides to leave the British army when they find out they will go to battle in the Sudan. His friends and fiance each give him a white feather, which represents cowardice. He realizes that he has made a mistake, and sets out on his own to the Sudan, working in disguise to help his friends in any way he can. There's a little bit of romance, and a lot of action/war scenes. It's main themes are loyalty, redemption, courage, etc., etc. To me it was like a mix between Dances With Wolves and Lawrence of Arabia.
If you're interested in watching this just to appreciate the face of the late Heath Ledger(which honestly I wasn't), don't waste your time, because it is usually in darkness or covered with a beard and lots of tangled hair.
There wasn't much on youtube about this movie, but here is a video that will take you back in time with a good 80's rock ballad. This one had to have been made by a girl, because it focuses on the romance portion that only took up about ten percent of the movie. Of course, I suppose it could have been made by a guy--maybe a fan of Brokeback Mountain?
1) It's a Brit Lit Flick minus the Chick, and I thought that would be a novel change.
2) Heath Ledger
Strangely, this was on its way when Dan told me of his suicide (my only contacts with the entertainment world news are Dan and the magazine covers on the checkstand. Can anyone tell me why he was on the cover of a magazine with Mary-Kate Olson? Were they an item?)
The movie is about a young soldier named Harry who decides to leave the British army when they find out they will go to battle in the Sudan. His friends and fiance each give him a white feather, which represents cowardice. He realizes that he has made a mistake, and sets out on his own to the Sudan, working in disguise to help his friends in any way he can. There's a little bit of romance, and a lot of action/war scenes. It's main themes are loyalty, redemption, courage, etc., etc. To me it was like a mix between Dances With Wolves and Lawrence of Arabia.
If you're interested in watching this just to appreciate the face of the late Heath Ledger(which honestly I wasn't), don't waste your time, because it is usually in darkness or covered with a beard and lots of tangled hair.
There wasn't much on youtube about this movie, but here is a video that will take you back in time with a good 80's rock ballad. This one had to have been made by a girl, because it focuses on the romance portion that only took up about ten percent of the movie. Of course, I suppose it could have been made by a guy--maybe a fan of Brokeback Mountain?
Here's a great trailer that captures the essence of it, but maybe y'all are already familiar with the movie or have seen it:
It seems that I have gone from having too much to blog about to nothing much to blog about! I just transfered some pictures to the computer, and I thought I would share a few to let you know what we've been up to in January:
Dan started painting the house, but we have been delayed in getting it done due to wind and rain. Hopefully this weekend the painting will be mostly done, and then we want to get a new fence and new windows for the front:
The kids are showing off their Build-a-Bear Collection here. The all seem to be going "full monty":
Here the kids decided to make some modifications on Jeremy's doorway:
I had a wonderful birthday! I feel very old, and yet so childish. Here you can see the ice-cream cake that Dan got for me and my new digital kitchen scale:
I felt compelled to take a picture of our mass PB&J production--I like to make a full jar of peanut butter's worth of sandwiches, and keep them in the freezer for the kids to grab for their lunches or a snack. We have to limit them to 2 sandwiches per day, or they would disappear:
Along those same lines, here are photos of our mass pancake production. We keep them in the freezer, and then warm two-three up for 40 seconds in the microwave. We have to limit these to three per person per day. Sometimes they just eat them frozen. (They also like eating corn and peas frozen. Weird kids.) The batch made 54 pancakes plus one snowman--Amy was my assistant:
Here's the recipe for the big batch of pancakes--if anyone is possessed to make them. It takes less than an hour from start to finish using a few pans. I had two skillets on the stove, and our round lefse iron (room for 5 pancakes.) The house smelled so good! This is my own variation on a basic recipe:
Makes about 54:
2 cups whole wheat flour
4 cups white flour
1/3 cup brown sugar (or white)
4 T baking powder
1 T cinnamon (optional)
1 1/2 t salt
6 beaten eggs
6 cups milk
3/4 cup canola oil
In mixing bowl stir together flours, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. (I use a wire wisk). In another mixing bowl (my 8-cup glass measuring cup is perfect), combine eggs, milk and cooking oil. Add to flour mixture all at once. Stir mixture just till blended but slightly lumpy.
Using a 1/4 cup measure, pour batter onto greased griddle or pan . . .
I'd like to experiment using some oat bran or ground flaxseed. We'll see how that goes over with my family.
Well, that's our month in a shell much larger than a nut!
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