End of January Roundup

January 2014 didn’t start off so great for me due to a couple personal emergencies/tragedies. But that just means it can only go UPhill from here, right?

I did okayish on my healthy eating this month. I had a few stumbles due to being sad over the aforementioned badness, but I tried not to let that throw me completely off track. I’ve been doing yoga and barre classes/videos on a fairly regular basis, hopefully to become even more regularish next month.

I read 3 books this month! The first book I read was The Nerdist Way, by Chris Hardwick of Nerdist podcast fame. I read The Road in one sitting on a particularly lazy Saturday. I’ve never seen the movie, though now I would like to. After seeing Catching Fire in theaters (twice!) I had a hankering to continue the story by reading the book sequel Mockingjay. I've read it before, but this time as I was reading, I tried to predict where they’ll be splitting the story in half for the movies (and I'm pretty sure I figured it out).

I also saw 9 new releases (both in theaters and on screeners):

The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug

Dallas Buyers Club

American Hustle

The Legend of Hercules

Saving Mr. Banks

August Osage County

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit

Captain Phillips

Plus 16 other movies on DVD and Netflix!

What I’m Watching Wednesday - American Idol!

I like watching the audition rounds of American Idol (once they start the voting rounds, I no longer care). This year, Harry Connick Jr. joins the judging panel, along with Jennifer Lopez and Keith Urban. He is seriously the best one, because he gives actual constructive criticism. He’s taking it very seriously, and seems to have a very technical know-how about singing. Plus, he's really charming and funny.



For example, this happened last week:

HCJ: “What were the first words of that song?”

Contestant: “I’m screaming out”

HCJ: “Boy, were you ever.”

And!

JLo: “You don’t have to be such a jerk all the time.”

HCJ: “Well, you don’t have to suck all the time but you sure do, so...”



Also, he starred in Independence Day and Hope Floats, so he’s awesome.

Some Links for a Monday

An open letter to the worst wax museum in America.  "They look like something from the nightmares of a person who has been blind since birth and has no real concept of what human beings look like." I've been to the Hollywood Wax Museum and this is SO accurate. Those wax figurines are terrifying.


I watched Flowers in the Attic on Lifetime this week. I never read the book growing up, so I had no idea what to expect besides attics, flowers, and incest. Holy crap, it ended up being a quite a disturbing drama fest. Doing some more research after it was over, I found this about what happens in the sequels to the book. Um, I really hope they don't make those into movies too.


Check out these aerial images of Disneyland that show how much the park has changed since it opened.


Dogs meeting Pluto is the best thing ever. Check out this adorable video of a fluffy white dog interacting with Pluto, and also these pictures:

Look at that grin!!

Things I Love Thursday

*sparkly bracelets

*feeling sore after a great workout

*mini bottles of hot sauce

*purple nail polish

*reorganizing my craft drawers and finding stuff I forgot I had

*green plants

*free pizza (is there any better pizza than free pizza?)

*taking the time to just sit down and read a book

*winters that feel like spring

It’s Not Me! The Gillette Venus Embrace Sensitive Embrace Razor

Shaving your legs in the winter can be the worst, especially if you have sensitive skin. You’re already all crocodile-skinned from the dry air, and scraping any old razor along your legs just makes things worse. (And don’t even get me started on trying to shave when you’re so cold you have goosebumps - that’s a form of torture.)

The new Gillette Venus Embrace Sensitive razor is perfect to use on sensitive skin. You know how most razors have that tiny little moisture strip just above the blade part? This razor has a large band of it (with Aloe!!) wrapped all the way around the entire head. It feels so smooth as you shave, and leaves your skin smooth too! Plus, the head swivels a lot more, so it’s easier to navigate around those tricky knees and ankles. Also, the handle feels really soft, and is this really pretty iridescent green-blue. If it feels good, it should look good, too, am I right??

Full disclosure! I received this product complimentary from Influenster for testing purposes! Don’t judge, I love free stuff!

Foodie Tuesday: Healthy Eating!

I’ve been trying to eat healthier this year, and I think I’m doing pretty well so far. Here’s my eating schedule:

7:30am

Peanut butter toast with sliced bananas

OR

Omelette with cheese and jalapenos

10:30am

Strawberries, blueberries, grapes

OR

Banana

12 noon

Chicken with brown rice, green peppers, spinach, and jalapenos

From Picky Palate

3:00pm

Apple

OR

Odwalla bar

6:00pm

Chicken burger with peas, carrots, corn

OR

Turkey burger with peas, carrots, corn

9:00PM

1/3 of a bag of popcorn

OR

Dark chocolate

I’ve been pretty good about sticking to it, barring some necessary cheat days. I never feel like I'm starving myself, and anytime I get hungry, that usually means it's about time for my next snack or meal! I have a few different options for each snack, so it doesn't feel repetitive. I've been feeling really good, and full of energy!

Some Links for a Monday

The entire Hunger Games movie, in 8-bit, in less than 2 minutes!! It’s pretty accurate...

24 Bizarre & Sociopathic Life Lessons Every Child Learned from The Sims. Those graphics were taken from the first Sims game. Love it.

If Lisa Frank Designed the Game of Thrones Sigils.  They only have Houses Targaryen and Stark, but they're super cute!

In honor of the Academy Awards nominations that were announced on Thursday, here is a random Oscar winner movie plot generator.

Bunnies Doing Things

You know how sometimes you see something clever, and you think to yourself, "Now why didn't I think of that?" That's how I felt when I saw Benjamin the Bunny and his movie recreations.

Jaws

Rambo

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

I have a bunny (Coco!), but the closest thing I've done is put a tiny laptop in front of her and Mickey ears on her!

Books & Movies: 2013

I like to keep lists of movies I watch and books I read over the course of a year. This year, I read 14 books. That’s down quite a bit from 2012, when I read 26, with the blame placed solely on the Song of Ice & Fire series (perhaps better known as Game of Thrones) and it’s millions of pages. Of the 14, ASOIAF counts for 3 of them, so.... yeah. I think it took me 8 or 9 months to read the whole series. Now that I’m done with that, 2014’s number should be quite a bit higher!! I think I’d like to try to read 2 books a month this year. I guess I read roughly 1 book a month this year, but, once again, ASOIAF kind of screws up that average.

As far as movies, both in theater and on DVD, I saw 163. That number is also quite a bit less than 2012’s number, which was 224! But I binge-watched a lot of TV series this year, so that’s likely the reason for that. No regrets, though, I discovered a lot of great new shows this year. Maybe I should start making a list of TV shows/series that I watch...  Anyway, of the 163, 34 were first-run in theaters, with an additional 26 that I saw in theaters but that weren’t new movies. The rest were your average Netflix, DVD, Redbox, TV, etc. That comes out to approximately 3 movies a week.