It's That Time of the Year

It's that time of the year.  Stores are roasting green chile, Labor Day is on Monday, and while the temperatures here haven't started to cool down...it's coming.

(photo from Hatch)

You know what else is coming?

Fantasy Football.

And football in general.  In fact, as I blog this entry from my laptop, I am sitting on the couch with my feet up watching the Husker vs. Wyoming game.  The score is currently 14-17 (Huskers).

I enjoy football.  The only college team I'm a fan of is the Huskers.  I don't know much about the other college teams.  I am much more into pro football, but that is strictly because of Fantasy Football.

This will be my fourth year doing it.  The first year I did it I came in 2nd place (out of 12 guys).  The second year I did it I came in 3rd place.  The 3rd year was cut short for various reasons that I won't get into here.  This year, we almost weren't going to do it.  In fact, my husband and I just started talking about starting a new league a few days ago.  And then, after some texting and emailing, we suddenly had 10 people in our new league and our draft is being held this Monday (Labor Day).

Honestly, I didn't start getting excited about it until today.  My husband and I went to breakfast and after breakfast we went to Hastings, where I purchased my two Fantasy Football magazines.  I always buy two so that I can compare them:  projections, stats, who to watch, how they did last year, who's injured, etc.  That's when I started to get excited.  The fun part is not really the draft, but afterwards when the games start and you're matched up with another member in your league each week.  It's especially fun when you are able to watch most of the games and watch your points rack up online in real-time.  There's waivers, injuries, breakout players, disappointments and more.  I never ever thought I would enjoy it as much as I do.

I'm the only girl again this year.  But that's okay.  I can hold my own.  I know how to draft, and that's the most important part.  If you draft poorly, your season won't have a good start and maybe won't be able to recover.

So that's what's happening on Monday.  It will be pretty low-key this year.  We're ordering pizza, soda, and I'll have a few other munchies on hand.  It should only take a couple of hours to draft.

I love fall!!!

Random

*Life has picked up again in the 'busy' department.  It seems like we had a week or two of down time, but for now that's over.

*I am currently blogging from Satellite Coffee, while drinking (decaf) tea with my husband

*I am still plugging away on my movie project, although we decided to start watching 'North and South', a miniseries from the 80s that is soooooooo loooonnnnngggg.  It's good, it's just taking forever to get through it.

*Yesterday was the longest day ever.  I went to work, after work picked up Bella, my mother-in-law's puppy, then picked up my mother-in-law from her work, we went to the vet with Bella for her heartworm meds, then we drove to American Toyota to drop off my mother-in-law, where her car was for the day.  Then she took Bella back to her house and we met my husband at Olive Garden for dinner.  It was a long day, but productive!  She got her car fixed and didn't have to cancel Bella's appointment.

Speaking of Bella, isn't she just the cutest?

*I have a Bible reading comment for our assembly which is next weekend.  Today I prepared it and timed it.  It is exactly 15 seconds, which is my allotted time frame.  Yay!  (1 Cor. 2:10, if you're interested).  My husband has one too, but he gets 30 seconds.

*I am in love with my new Orla Kiely iPad case.  It provides much better coverage for the back of my iPad, which was starting to get scratched up.

*This is my favorite picture ever of our Rottweiler:

I love him.

*Season 4 of Parenthood came out on DVD.  I'm going to try to get through more movies though before I start watching it (especially because I've seen all of Season 4 already).

*We've been watching Scrubs again.  Man, that is such a funny show!  I sent my husband a text a few weeks ago that said 'I love you more than J.D. loves Turk'.  He thought it was really funny.

*Tomorrow will be a busy meeting night.  We have the oral review in French, plus my husband has a service meeting part, and then we have assembly rehearsal after meeting.

That's all for now.  We are now going to read our lesson in Jeremiah in French.  At the coffee house.  Just another Tuesday night!

Movie Project Post #4

Two blogs in one day!  No, I haven't gone mad.  I'm just laying on the bed with my laptop being lazy watching movies, so I figured I would blog again.

I've watched four more movies since my last post.  Here they are, in the order I watched them:

Raising Arizona

This was a wacky comedy by the Coen brothers.  I like the Coen brothers, although I haven't seen most of their movies because they are rated R and I don't watched rated R movies.  However, I love 'O Brother Where Art Thou'.  And they also did the most recent 'True Grit', which I really liked.  I liked this one.  It was really fast paced and oddball-quirky-funny.

The Sound of Music

I don't know WHY I have waited 35 years to watch this gem of a movie.  Shame on me.  I loved it.  I already want to watch it again.  It was funnier than I thought it would be.  I thought I wouldn't like all of the singing.  Yes, it's cheesy.  Yes, they skip.  Yes, they wear clothes made from curtains.  But I don't care.  The movie is pretty fast paced, even though it's over 3 hours.  Oh, and I want to move to Austria now.

Enchanted

A very cute Disney movie.  I remember it getting a lot of hype when it first came out.  I liked it, but honestly I dozed off a couple of times.  Oops.

Mr. Mom

Ha ha, this one was funny.  Michael Keaton getting addicted to soap operas, ironing his kids grilled cheese, fighting with 'Jaws', the vacuum.  It made me laugh a few times.

My favorite of the four:  The Sound of Music (no contest with this bunch).

I started off with 54, and currently have 40 left.  I'm not even halfway!  Oh well, I'll get there.

Next up:

Funny Face

Citizen Kane

Did You Hear About the Morgans?

Ipsy

I am not into makeup.  I don't wear a lot.  A little powder foundation, a little mascara, and usually a clear lip gloss.  That's it.  Frankly, I don't know what to do with makeup.

However, I still am somewhat of a product junkie.  Hair, body, skin and nail products mostly.  I love lotions, masks, gels, etc.

I used to be a member of Birchbox.  Birchbox is a 'box of the month' club basically.  You pay $10 each month, and each month they send you 4-5 full-sized samples (isn't that an oxymoron?) of different high end beauty products.  The first step is creating your beauty profile on their website and choosing the kind of products you're most interested in.  I chose hair and body products, as opposed to makeup.

So what did they send me mostly?  Makeup and granola bars.  I'm not kidding.  The first few boxes I got were great.  But then I'm not sure what happened.  It all went downhill from there.  When I started getting nothing but perfume samples (which I specifically requested NONE of) and granola bars, I cancelled my subscription.

But I missed it.  I missed that little exciting surprise each month and the fun of opening up my box and discovering what new goodies I could try.

Then I discovered Ipsy.  It's the same concept, but MUCH better.  I've been with Ipsy for about 8 months now I think, and I've loved every single bag I've received.

Each month, Ipsy sends a little (reusable) makeup bag full of products selected for you based on your profile.  And so far (with me anyways) they've been pretty right on.

I believe this was my June bag:

This was a great bag.  A full-sized lip gloss (they send full-sized products sometimes), which I love.   And I fell in love with the Pacifica Coconut Crushed Pearl lotion.  I've never smelled anything so good.

And nail polish!  Whenever they send nail polish, it's always full-sized.

Here's the July bag:

I haven't tried anything in this bag yet.  I'm most excited about the Beach Spray.  And the nail polish, of course.  I've been wanting an orange color, now I have one!

And the August bag I just received on Friday:

I will use everything in this bag except for the cheek stain, which I will send to my sister-in-law.  Whenever I get makeup products other than lip gloss and mascara, I send them to her.  She's good with makeup and actually knows what to do with it!

I like that all of the makeup bags are reusable too (and different every month!).  I don't know about you, but I carry my makeup in my purse.  That's where it lives.  There's maybe 4 things in my makeup bag, so it's nice to just switch it every couple of months with a new bag.  Makeup bags tend to get icky pretty quickly.

It's a little indulgence, but it's only $10 a month.  And it makes me happy.  I'm really liking Ipsy so far.  And the best part?  I have not received one perfume sample or granola bar.

(FYI - I believe there is a waiting list still to join Ipsy.  I waited about two months before I got to subscribe).

Max and Macy

We have five animals in the house.  3 cats and 2 dogs.  At least once a day, we are hollering at one animal or another to behave him/herself.

Hannah (little dog) doesn't particularly care for anyone except for Max (big dog), whom she adores.

Max likes everyone, although he is scared of Howie (orange cat).

Howie hates Max and Hannah.  He tolerates Macy and Masami (girl cats).

Masami doesn't mind anyone....she just wants to sleep (she's 17).

Macy tolerates everyone....but she loves Max.

She didn't always love him, but over the past year or so, they've gotten closer.

I took these pictures a couple of months ago.

I was lying on the bed, and Max and Macy joined me.

She looks at him adoringly:

They truly do like each other.

Then Hannah jumped up on the bed.

If looks could kill...

Macy jumped down right after I took this picture.  Hannah tends to shake things up a bit when she's around.

There's never a dull moment at our house!

Busy Week + Movie Project Post #3

This week has been crazy. I sound like a broken record and I know it probably seems that I’m whining about it, but being busy is not necessarily a bad thing!

Here’s a little recap of everything that’s happened in the last 7 days: 

 *The weekend was busy, but good. It was a tax-free weekend here in New Mexico, so I got a new laptop, which I am blogging from at the moment. She’s pretty and shiny and I love her. Ms. MacBook Pro. (I need a better name for her). 

 *I finally backed up my phone and downloaded all (800) pictures on there. It took a while to get them organized, but it’s done! 

 *Our little Chihuahua got bit/stung by something and when I came home on Tuesday her whole face was the size of a grapefruit. I tried not to panic, shoved a children's Benadryl down her throat and kept a close eye on her for hours. She’s fine now. (she was fine about an hour after the Benadryl) She looked awful though…she could barely open her eyes and when she tried to yawn, her mouth would only go like halfway (her cheeks were swollen). Poor thing. 

 *My husband did a French Bible reading Wednesday night. He was awesome, especially considering he wasn’t feeling well at all. AND he stayed within his 4 minutes, which is difficult to do while reading another language. AND he managed to remember all of those odd ‘French’ grammar rules….like pronouncing the ‘e’ when there’s an accent at the end of the word, and running together two words when the first word ends with an ‘s’ and the next word starts with a vowel. Like ‘des oeuvres’ (DAYZEUV instead of day-euv) and ‘nous establisons’ (NEWSESSTABLAHSAWN instead of NEW ESSTABLEHSAWN). I was so proud of him. 

 *Thursday after work I took our little Chihuahua to the vet for her annual checkup and shots. She did good. Everyone said how pretty she was. She trembled and shook though the entire time we were there. She’s kind of a scardey dog. 

 *Thursday night we met 3 people from our French group at Starbucks and then McAlister’s Deli for dinner. We were supposed to be studying French, but we wound up just talking for a few hours. It was nice! 

 *My boss is leaving. She’s moving to Arizona next week. I am totally bummed about this. I gave her a cake and ice cream party today at work. It was a good turnout, although we still had a lot of cake leftover. I will miss her. My new boss is nice though, and it sounds like she wants to shake things up a bit in our department (for the better, especially for me). So that may be a good thing. 

 So…it was just a busy week. Lots going on. Tonight after work was busy too.  I got groceries, then picked up Chinese takeout from Budai Gourmet Chinese.  Green Onion Tofu for me and General Tao Tofu for my husband.  It was delicious!   Tomorrow we have a full ‘French’ day. We won’t get home until probably 6:30 or 7:00. Sunday is free though, thankfully. 

I’m still plugging away at my movie project!

Here’s the next 3 that I watched:

Dave 

This was a pretty good comedy. I don’t really care for Sigourney Weaver though. But I like ‘presidential’ movies. Although it can’t come close to ‘The American President’ (my favorite presidential movie).

All About Eve

I am used to Bette Davis in more ‘creepy’ roles than this one (Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane, etc.). In this movie, she starts off not really creepy, but just sort of selfish and a little evil. But then…well, I won’t spoil it. It’s a good movie.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close 

The book was good. The movie was good. And sad. I think if you see the movie without reading the book though you will get annoyed with Oscar (the kid). But by reading the book you really see what Oscar’s issues are, and in the movie he really acted well. 

 My favorite of the 3: All About Eve 

 Next up: 

The Sound of Music 

Raising Arizona 

Enchanted

Movie Project - Post #2

I've been crossing more movies off my list!  (see post below).  Since my last post, I've watched three more.  This is kind of fun!

First one watched:

I had read this book a couple of years ago (or whenever it came out) and I loved it.  I loved it so much that it became a permanent fixture in my collection.

So I was really surprised that when they made a movie they advertised and promoted it as a comedy.  In fact, I had to look it up to make sure it was the same book-movie combination.  The book is definitely not a comedy.  And (in my opinion), the movie is definitely not a comedy.  It is a great drama....but not a comedy.  I think that's why it didn't do very well at the box office.  I think if they had marketed it as a drama instead of a comedy it would have done much better.  I like both Tina Fey and Paul Rudd, so I enjoyed this movie.

Next up:

Empire Falls.  Another book that I read years ago and enjoyed.  This was a miniseries, but it wasn't that long.  The whole thing was about 3 hours I think.  I liked it okay.  It was a little too long.  The casting was wonderful - Paul Newman, Ed Harris, Robin Wright Penn, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Joann Woodward and more.  Paul Newman was the best.  I liked the book better, but that's usually how it goes.

And finally:

500 Days of Summer.  This was a cute, quirky movie as far as romantic movies go.  And on IMDB, it got a 7.8 (out of 10).  I'm not sure if you're familiar with IMDB, but that's a pretty good rating, especially for a romantic comedy.  Most romantic comedies get between a 4-6 rating.  French Kiss got a 6.3 (one of my favorites).  Under the Tuscan Sun got a 6.6.  The Proposal got a 6.7.  Runaway Bride got a 5.2.  My Best Friend's Wedding got 6.2.  My point is, usually movies like this don't rate as well as dramas or action movies.  Not a bad movie at all.

My favorite of these three?  Admission.

48 left to go (I totally miscounted on my last blog post.  Oops.)

The next three on my list are Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, All About Eve, and Dave.  (I am going in no particular order as you can probably tell).

If I keep watching at this rate, maybe it won't take me as long as I thought!