Saturday Night Dinner

For the past few years I have felt the need to go out to a restaurant for Saturday night dinner. After all, I have just spent 40 hours this past week busting my butt at work, so I deserve a treat when I get off work on Saturdays. Unfortunately this takes a huge toll on my bank account. So I've come up with an even better idea: cook dinner at home! While this may not be a revelation to the average person, it definitely is in my life. My dinners usually consist of frozen pastas heated by the microwave while my husband eats whatever he can find in the cupboards. After trying this out tonight I have found that the food is just as good, the company just as marvelous, and the bill much less expensive. Plus we have an amazing view out our window which no restaurant can compare to. A tradition is made! Hopefully this will last for awhile!!

It's Snowing?!

I was driving home tonight and when I hit Federal Way I found snow. In late March. It's supposed to be Spring!!! What the hell?! I can't believe that it is snowing right now. In Seattle. I'm in shock.

The Poisonwood Bible

I just finished reading this book and it has made a fast rise up my favorite books list. It's a book about perception, stubbornness, and change. I picked it up because my younger brother had to read it for his high school English class last year and I needed a book to read. I was over at my parent's house and there it was--I no longer needed to risk my life visiting the downtown public library. I picked it up thinking that it was going to be this simple story of a conservative Christian family who stubbornly sticks to their own misguided views in the jungles of Africa. What I found out while reading the book that it was so much more than that. I admit that I don't know a lot about Africa. I thought that it was just that place where lions and giraffes roam and where some really poor people live. This book opened my eyes to the idea that it is much more complicated than that. The Poisonwood Bible is about a family changed by their experience in Africa. How Africa takes a hold of them and never lets go. I have a hard time imagining myself in a similar situation as those girls in that book. To be in a place where you have to fight to live and where there is so much political corruption all around. While I sit here on my cushy couch in one of the richest nations in the world I can't help but think about how fortunate I am and how blind we all are. The problem is that tomorrow I will go on with my life as if nothing has changed. And to tell you the truth, nothing has changed in my life. I can chalk it up to being a good story and nothing more, even though I know there was truth behind the fiction. So I guess the question is what can I do? How can I change the world? I don't have an answer right now, but the first step is admitting that there is a problem. The sign of a great book is when it makes you think about the world and life many days after you finish. This book gets an A+ from me!

Families & Holidays

I am just about to get off of work and drive to my family's house for dinner. I spend Sundays at my parent's house visiting and doing laundry (the dryers in my appartment complex suck!). I love my family dearly, but it always gets a little stressful during the holidays, especially since I have gotten married. It is so hard to juggle two different families with two different ways of life. My family is very organized and my husband's family is very last minute. So inevitably my husband and I have many stressful days leading up to any holiday. What to do? Both my husband and I are afraid that this will be the norm for all future holidays. Sigh. I guess that is life! Families can be so wonderful and so stressful at the same time! Well, lets look on the bright side, it is better to be wanted be too many people all at the same time then to be rejected by the people who should love us the most in this world. There is always a silver lining.

I'm back. . .for now

It has been awhile since I last posted. I have decided that I need a spot for my thoughts, as important as they are, so here I am back to my blog. Read on and enjoy!

Everwood

I have to say that this shows is one of my favorite tv shows of all time. I have been on an Everwood kick recently because they are showing reruns on ABC Family right now and I am having a hard time keeping up with all the episodes my Tivo tapes for me. Anyways, I have to comment on this show because it truely is a well-written show with insight and family values to share.

It's about a top-notch surgen in New York who neglects his family and gets a wake-up call when his wife is killed in a car accident. Now he is faced with two kids who he barely knows and the emptiness of losing his spouse. So he decides to throw caution to the wind and move everything to a small town in Colorado to fulfill a promise he made with his wife years earlier. In the four years that this show aired the Brown family touched the lives of many people in the small town of Everwood and learned to grow together as a family. I know this sounds cheesy, and it is, however if you watched the show you would know what I mean. I love watching television shows to see the relationships develop between the characters. That is why I am more drawn to tv that to the movies. It is hard to develop a great relationship between multiple characters in only 2 hours. These things take time.

That said, I have to comment on my favorite relationships between the characters in Everwood. My favorite relationship is not with any of the main characters (Amy and Ephraim who are soul mates and make "the perfect couple" or Nina and Andy who are best friends who share everything) but it is with a Amy's brother Bright and Hannah, a girl who appears on the show at the beginning of the 3rd season. I think what intrigues me about this relationship is how different the two characters are.

Bright is a guy who is a lady's man facing two charges of sexual harassment by the age of 19. He is a C average student with little ambition and was popular in high school, but somehow he steals my heart because of the truely kind person he becomes. He has heart and cares about people even if it isn't the "coolest" thing to do. He grows up a lot in the 4 seasons of the show and by the end you feel like he has made a positive effect on many of the characters throughout the show.

Then there is Hannah, who is Bright's total opposite. She is the brainy girl who has no confidence and believes that she only deserves a mediocre life. She is probably my favorite character on this show. She is the girl who brightens up a room without even having a clue that she has that power. She seems to have matured beyond her years and doles out much insight to the Abbott family. She even touches Amy's dad who is kinda like the Scrooge of the town (although he goes through a transformation as well). Maybe I like Hannah so much because I can relate to her. I was that shy, brainy girl in high school. Plus it's fun to watch her confuse a situation because of her innocent, naive thinking.

It's fun to watch Hannah and Bright develop a friendship (with Bright getting over the fact that Hannah is not cool enough for him) and later a romantic relationship where they both bumble through it because of their lack of experience in the arena (even though Bright has dated a lot, he had never been in a committed relationship before and Hannah had only "dated" one boy before Bright).

I think my second favorite relationship has to do with multiple people. Really it is about the whole Brown family, but my favorite part is how the relationships develop regarding Dehilia. She is the youngest Brown, starting the show off at 9 and ending at12. She is a tomboy who turns into a popular girl during puberty. She mostly gets thrown in the middle of the fights between her dad and brother and ends up teaching them a thing or two. She is a sweet girl who has to endure all the changes of puberty with a daft father who knows very little about raising a girl and a brother who is having a hard time being a teenager.

So I guess that is my take on the tv show Everwood. If you love watching people in relationships than this is the show for you. You will learn about love and death and how a community pulls together to support each other and impact each other through the good and bad. And it is narrated by the bus driver who married Harold's mother only months after his father died and who ends up writing a book about A Mountain Town (I believe the narrations are supposed to be excerpts from his book). So watch and enjoy!!!

What's the deal?!

Lately my husband and I started watching this little game show called Deal or No Deal? It is THE MOST ridiculous game show ever made! I kid you not. A five-year-old could go on that game show and win $1 million. All the contestant has to do is guess numbers. There are 26 cases with amounts of money from $0.01 to $1 million. The contestant first picks his or her case. Then the contestant eliminates cases, with the logic that whatever amount is in those cases is not in your case.

It's a simple numbers game. After each round a banker calls the host, Howie Mandell, and offers the contestant an amount based on the probability of the $1 million being in the contestant's case. And then Howie gets to say the magic words: "Deal, or No Deal?" What a dumb game!

But I still watch it every night it is on. If I wasn't home, I would Tivo it. What's the deal?!

It's the suspense. Each time a contestant picks a case there is a slight pause and suspenseful music before the case is opened. Will it be a high or low amount? And then the banker poses an amount and my husband and I always end up yelling at the screen. "No deal! No deal!" And then it gets down to 4 cases and the contestant has a 75% chance of not picking the $1 million that is still on the board. Man, we are at the edge of our seats.

The worst part is when the game is over and the contestant has his or her money, Howie makes the contestant choose the case s/he would have chosen if the game hadn't ended. And tells the banker's offers as well. The last contestant that we watched actually had the $1 million in her case. We were yelling at her "No deal! No deal!" but she didn't listen. She took the $265,000 and my husband was jumping up and down and yelling for 5 minutes. At the end Howie made her play out the rest of her moves and the banker's offers and opened her $1 million case. Way to crush her spirit! She walked out of there with $265,000. That's a chunk of change. I wouldn't want to know how good or bad my deal was. I would be much more satisfied walking out with my money and the knowledge that I just made a lot of money! Cest la vi!

This is an addictive show. Beware if you are thinking about starting to watch it. It will grab you and suck you in. I am a grown woman with a husband, a home and my master's degree and I love Deal or No Deal? Craziness.

TV Overload

The new season of television is finally here bringing WAY too many new tv shows. I am a tv fanatic. I can't get enough of the drama that is on tv today. I come into this season already hooked on Gilmore Girls, One Tree Hill, and Scrubs and am now thinking of adding Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Brothers & Sisters, 'Til Death, and Ugly Betty. That's 5 hours of tv per week that I am committed to and that doesn't even count the news, my husband's shows, and the reruns during dinner time that I watch. TV Overload.

Gilmore Girls is in it's seventh, and possibly last season. Two seasons ago Luke and Lauralai finally hooked up and now with last season's cliffhanger they are in danger of breaking up for good. How is this series going to end? Do Luke and Lauralai end up together? Or does Lauralai go back to Rory's dad, Christopher? I don't know what I would like to happen. I LOVE the scenes with Christopher. Him and Lauralai always have great chemistry. But then Luke and Lauralai are supposedly MFEO (Made For Each Other). I am warming up to Luke. And what will happen to Rory? Will she end up with the rich Logan? I don't think I like him very much. He treated her very poorly last season and I don't think she should have taken him back. My hope is that she ends up with Jess. Yes, he was totally screwed up when they dated before and he didn't treat her right. But he has grown up since then and I feel like he is finally ready for that kind of relationship. And I think that they work really well together. But that is just my opinion. Milo Ventimiglia got a new tv show this season, so unfortunately he probably won't be back unless that show tanks.

One Tree Hill is in it's fourth season and the teen drama just keeps a coming! This show has always intrigued me because it completely does a 180 with plot and characters EVERY season. It started out with Luke and Nathan hating each other, the loosers against the popular kids. By mid-season Luke and his gang became popular and suddenly the loosers and the popular kids were all getting along. By second season you had new characters to hate and a teen marriage to get used to. By third season Luke had fell in love with one main female and changed to the other lead female in like 3 episodes. Who knows where is heart is these days? The teen marriage split for a huge portion of the season and now they are back together. Dan is STILL trying to cause trouble in Tree Hill and someone is ALWAYS trying to kill him. Good times! Let the teen drama continue!!

Scrubs is an awesome show. It started in January of this year, so I am thinking it might do the same this season. Which means that I have awhile before I have to worry about inserting it into my line-up. I don't have much to say about this show except that Zach Braff rocks and this show is amazingly funny. Watch it. You will love it!

I am VERY impressed so far by Studio 60. It has this all-star cast and it is literally the fastest hour of my week. I am glued to the tv the entire hour and am always surprised when it is over. I have a feeling that this show will become a fast rising hit and will continue to stay in my line-up.

Brothers & Sisters premiered last night and the jury is out on this one. I wasn't that impressed, but I am intrigued because I really enjoy watching Calista Flockhart aka Ally McBeal. She still seems Ally-like without the crazy daydreams. And she is a very conservative political analyst?! I don't know about that. I will give this show a few more weeks, but I think that it is trying too hard and is not interesting enough for me to waste my time on it.

'Til Death is a great sitcom. I love sitcoms and hate that reality tv has taken them over. I was NOT a fan of Everybody Loves Raymond, but I do enjoy Brad Garrett, aka Robert, on this show. It also has Finch from American Pie. Together they make a pretty good team making funny comments about married life. Maybe I enjoy it so much because I recently got married. It will most definetely stay in my line-up.

Lastly, there is Ugly Betty. America Ferrera from Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants stars in this show, making it mildly intriguing. Unfortunately it airs the same time as 'Til Death. Hopefully I will get my Tivo soon so that I can watch both shows. We will see if this one sticks. I don't know much about it, so I am not really that interested. We will see.

Lastly there are all these shows that I pick up because my husband watches them. Like the Simpsons, Family Guy, The Daily Show, and the Colbert Report. All-in-all not many hours, however added to my shows and it becomes a lot of tv in one week. I need to get a life!

Movie Madness

Tonight my husband and I sat down to relax and watch a movie. I picked out 3 movies from our collection (Ocean's 11, Bridget Jones 2, and Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants). Now I admit that two of these movies are what most people classify as chick-flicks, but my husband is usually okay with watching these as long as there is some humor involved. I figure that he is somewhat "metro" and doesn't mind doing girly things with me every once-in-awhile, so asking him to watch a chick-flick really isn't too far out of his comfort zone.

Tonight he chose to watch Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, a movie about 4 girls and their adventures apart during one summer. This movie is not humorous, extra girly, and in my opinion, pretty far out of his comfort zone. Now I know what you are thinking: Why in the world would my husband choose this movie? I was baffled too, but you don't question these gifts. I had been wanting to watch this movie for the past week, so it worked out beautifully for me.

That is until we actually started watching the movie. He decided to tinker around with one of his many electronic gadgets (he is a multi-tasker, so he tells me) through the beginning of the movie, which was fine because I knew that this movie wouldn't be his type of thing. He finished whatever he was working on about a third of the way through and actually decided to give the movie his undivided attention.

Then it happened: the laughter in the worst possible moments. I am locked into the movie, crying along with Tibby as she visits her dying friend in the hospital and suddenly I hear a burst of laughter in my ear. I look over and my husband is having a jolly good time laughing at an intense, emotional part of the movie. I roll my eyes and continue watching and sure enough a few minutes later when the girls go over to comfort Bridget as she tells this emotional story about her dead mother I hear more laughing. My husband has a strange sense of humor. Or maybe that is just how he deals with the touchy-feely moments of life. Or both. At any rate, I am thrilled to have a husband who will sit down willingly and watch a chick-flick with me, but I will definetly think twice before doing it again anytime soon. . . unless it actually has some humorous scenes in it.