(100) Attend a UT Game

I just bought my UT football tickets for this weekend's craptacular game! Sure, it will probably be a pretty one-sided game *knock on wood*, but you can't beat $20/ticket. Tickets for the rest of the season are going for $60+ each. :) Also, it's been so long since I've been to a game period, I'm sure I'll enjoy just being in that atmosphere again. My brother just started his sophomore year there so maybe I'll run into him at the game.

I have a few other things to start (and finish) in the next couple weeks so hopefully I can cross a few things off the list fairly soon. We have some movies on the DVR as well as a couple rented from the library so expect some movie reviews in the near future.

(21) Perfect Start

Whew! I finally finished it! I posted about this book on my other blog a while back. If I hadn't taken time out of my schedule to just relax and read - exactly what this book promotes - I wouldn't have finished this quickly. As I read, I kept seeing more and more similarities between myself and the examples in the book. It was definitely eye opening in an almost painful way, but also in a liberating way because I knew there were other people out there that felt the same way or even more obsessed. One of the last chapters was about parenting and it really became evident that my perfectionist ways were definitely a result of how I was raised. Sure, I can almost guarantee that some of it is genetic, but with both nurture and nature taking part, I couldn't get around it.

Anyway, I definitely absorbed a lot of good advice and I'm learning to just let things go if they don't go completely my way or as I want it to be. There is more than one path to a goal. I'm a total control freak so it's tough letting go, but I'm determined to work on it, especially when we have kids. I think I'll read "1984" next so I can knock out another goal.

(54) Movie List

Watched "Modern Times" last night and I have to say, it wasn't quite the same entertainment level as "City Lights," but that's probably due not having seen Chaplin movies before "City Lights." On the other hand, there were so many more elements to this one. Since this was on Turner Classic Movies, there was some discussion before and after the film about Chaplin and his movie making. I learned that Chaplin produced his own movies so he was able to spend as much time and money as he wanted. He made "City Lights" in 1931, "Modern Times" in 1936 and then "The Great Dictator" in 1940 so you can see the fairly large gaps between each. I had to keep reminding myself during "Modern Times" that this was made in the mid 30's so it really put into perspective the topics and gadgets that were probably fairly new concepts at the time.

I think while the comedy is clearly slapstick, there were many more moments that were what I like to call "Ben Stiller" moments. Funny and a little bit frustrating situations that were caused by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I tried to look past those as the movie progressed and definitely enjoyed it overall. The scene that really surprised me was when he sang (some French/Italian mishmash). The movie had a soundtrack and while there was no straight up dialog, the speaking parts were played through machines, like a radio and even a telescreen. The other important dialog was subtitled, but there was a lot of talking that wasn't all subtitled so half the time, you could read lips to get extra dialog. I was wondering how he'd approach the singing scene and then all of a sudden, he belted out a tune. Much better than I expected and a cute scene overall. :)

Well, that pretty much sums up my review of the movie. I look forward to seeing "The Great Dictator" to see how his movie making evolved over the next 5 years.

(54) Movie List

Wow, I just finished watching "American Beauty" and I am so. emotionally. drained. We own the movie, but I hadn't seen it in a long time. I definitely have to agree with my brother that it's one of those really good movies that you can't watch more than once within a certain time frame. The movie touches on so many levels of emotion and drama while maintaining a healthy dose of comic relief, in a sense. Kevin Spacey's performance is amazing as you see the subtle changes in character as the movie progresses. The Oscar was definitely well deserved.

(54) Movie List

Watched "To Kill A Mockingbird" tonight. I think the last time I watched it was for my high school English class because I probably hadn't finished the book or something. I was such a slacker...

But anyway, I remembered some parts of it and not others. The story was simple, sad at times, but with spirit and I loved the kids' characters (although it took a few minutes to get through their thick southern accents). Gregory Peck was much better than I remembered as well. Chris and I discussed if the movie was made today, the outcome would have been more "feel good" than the original so I doubt it would carry the same raw feel.

(84) 365 Photos - Update

Quick update. Rather than post pictures here periodically, I went ahead and inserted a flash Flickr album on the right side showing the ones recently added to my "365days" folder. I only have 4 right now so there will be repeats, but not for long. :)

(73) Farmer's Market, (77) Life Insurance, (84) 365 Photos, (51) Yoga

Went to the Farmer's Market this past weekend. I didn't get that many pictures because it was too hot for my brain to fully function, but I did manage to get a few pictures (in B/W because I forgot to change it to color):

Market from across the street:

A piece of sausage rolled off my plate and the nearby pigeon(s) had some issues trying to eat it:


In other news, we signed the papers for life insurance today! Nothing special... just a 15-year policy for now. Because I like to document things with pictures, here you go:


I also officially started my Flickr 365-day self portrait project. I'll be taking a picture of myself every day for the next year and uploading to my album on Flickr. The first few have been the typical face/head shots, but I'll be getting more creative and goofy as I go, so enjoy! I may post pictures on here, but not sure yet.

And last but not least, I finally started doing yoga on Sunday, although it's not as involved as I expected. My parents gave me a couple dvd's, but I happened to have a beginner dvd that I bought over a year ago so I started with that. I'll definitely do it on the weekends, but since each routine (separate AM and PM ones) is only 20 min, I can at least do the PM one during the week.

(51) Yoga, (73) Farmers Market, (84) 365-Self Portrait

Ack! So I still haven't actually taken the time to learn some basic yoga and start doing it. I'll find a quick youtube video or something and at least do 10 minutes tomorrow morning to start.

We're also going to the farmer's market tomorrow so that'll be my once-every-three-months visit. It's so far away so I didn't want to push it and set a goal for once/month, but I'd like to go that frequently if we can.

Oh, Chris and I will be starting the 365 day self-portrait challenge very soon so stay tuned! I expect I'll update once/week on that with 7 thumbnails of that week's pictures.

(54) Movie List

Apparently, they did a Charlie Chaplin movie marathon on TCM and 3 of those were what I DVR'd since they were on the IMDB list. We watched "City Lights" (1931) tonight and it was not at all what I expected from a silent movie. Apparently, it was in the midst of sound movies so Chaplin was still grasping to the old method when he made this one, but because he created more of a soundtrack rather than your typical piano and framed dialogue boxes, it wasn't your normal silent movie. I'm horrible at writing movie reviews so I'll just say that while it was clearly slapstick, I went into it expecting less clever slapstick and ended up enjoying it so much more. Chris and I were laughing through most of it and the story was cute so it was definitely a feel good movie and much needed. :)

(76) Look in the attic

So I'll admit, this goal was a bit of a cop-out, but I really needed a reason to look in the attic to assess just how much, if any, storage room we had up there. My parents' attic has a lot of space so I was a bit hopeful, but I found out today that there's not much space up there, even to stand in there. Sadly, we didn't even have a ladder tall enough for me to climb in, but I managed to get a few pictures of what I could see... I hope to get a better look of the area so we can figure out if new/more insulation would help our heating/cooling costs. That was one of the main issues the home inspector pointed out with this house. I guess we should consider ourselves lucky that there weren't any other major issues. Anyway, without further ado.

Ceiling in our bedroom closet:



Not sure if those pictures really mean anything to you, but I took them so I'm posting them...deal with it. :)

(87) New recipe every month

I totally forgot about this goal, but luckily, I already have something for this month. We bought bulk chicken breast tenderloins at Sam's Club so I found an easy recipe that we can use until they run out. I'll admit, I'm fairly inexperienced when it comes to cooking meat so any time I have bulk of anything, I try to find a fairly fail-safe recipe to fall back on. I can't seem to find the exact recipe/measurements online anymore so here are the basics:

Chicken breasts/tenderloins
Milk
Italian bread crumbs
Parmesan cheese
Butter

Mix bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese together. Heat and butter skillet. Dip chicken into milk, then breadcrumb/cheese mixture. Cook chicken in skillet, flipping until done. The end.

There are tons of similar recipes that require eggs, but we happened to be out of eggs that day so I found a recipe that didn't use them. The chicken remains juicy and tender while creating a nice lightly buttered, crispy, cheese-crumb crust. Yum. :) This isn't exactly what mine looked like, but it's quite close for something I found online quickly:

(23) Start a garden

Quick update...

I spent ~20 minutes at Walgreens the other night, sitting on the floor sorting through their $.12 seed packets (clearance section!) making sure I pick ones we can plant in late summer in our area. I just noticed that one of them is an annual so I may skip that one, but we'll see. Now to grab some good soil and I'll be ready to start...

(22) Snail mail

I probably should have started this list on the first of the month to make things easier for once/month things, but oh well. I'll figure it out. Anyway, I'm sending my first snail mail postcard tomorrow. I have so many postcards and blank greeting cards (and I still continue to buy new ones) so hopefully I'll go through those faster than before. :)

(82) Push-up challenge

Just a quick update...

We started the push-up challenge a couple weeks ago and in the midst of going to Houston and tubing and getting back into the swing of things, we didn't quite keep up with the curriculum. Luckily, we can start over fresh and try again starting today.

That's all for now...

(43) Get a library card

So we apparently have an awesome library in our neighborhood and didn't even know it. We've been in that building twice to vote, but hadn't actually gone into the library part. Well recently, a friend of mine who doesn't live as close told me she drives all the way out to this library because of their children's program. Didn't really apply to us so other than a quick "oh, that's pretty neat", I didn't give it much more thought.

Well, Chris reads a lot of books and while we have a lot at home, he's read most of them already, some at least twice. Buying new ones or even ones at Half Price Books can add up quick. Silly me didn't even think about the library and the fact that we could probably borrow movies there as well. The last library I had a card to was the one in my parents' neighborhood and I remembered it being fairly small (that was years ago though) so that impression stuck in my head.

Boy am I kicking myself for not getting a card earlier! Not only is this library huge, they're quite technologically advanced. Maybe this is something a lot of libraries are doing, but I wouldn't know. We didn't have much time as they were closing, but here's what we borrowed today:


We did the self checkout with our new card and walked out. It was awesome! You can even go on their website and put holds on books or renew what you have. Libraries have definitely come a long way. Because of the subdivision we live in, our application fee was waived...I guess this is yet another reason our property taxes are so incredibly high. :)