2011 Paris Dishes Up 1929 Hollywood

At our film club meeting on Saturday we all had to come with our fave 2011 movie. The one for me? The Artist. Loved it.

I get excited about a movie with good acting and interesting camera work and a fresh take. This one has it. And a movie where there's a beautiful balance of plot (its simple and sweet, but with surprises up to the last second) characterization, setting, dialogue. And even though this one is pretty paltry on the dialogue - it's a 'silent movie' after all - and the special effects are more along Marcel Marceau than CGI and fast cars - it all came together beautifully. And it's up for best picture too. And its French.

So I say its a complete must-see.

"Our Father Below"

Right now I am reading the Screwtape Letters, which I got for Christmas. I'm sure many of you are familiar with this book. It is an account of letter correspondence between two demons who work to tempt humans and lead them down to Hell. It is very funny and also very serious at the same time. Here's a quote from a chapter I read today: "It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the light and out into the Nothing...Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one- the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts." How true that is. There are many scriptures that highlight that same idea. I recommend reading this book if you haven't yet!

Arches National Park

I finally got to visit one of Utah's national parks! And wow. The scenery is amazing. On Saturday of MLK weekend Andrew and I went to Arches. It's about a three hour drive so we left early and got back at night. Little did we know that it was a no fee weekend so we didn't even have to pay to get in! We went on a few hikes including, of course, Delicate Arch. That is the one on the Utah license plate for those of you who don't know. Here's a picture we got in front of it. We had a really good time and now I'm motivated to see all the other national parks here!

chocolate cake

So Spencer mentioned to me on Friday that it was national chocolate cake day. Whee! A few minutes earlier I had been toying with the idea of making one. Sometimes on the weekends I get in a baking mood. I was still undecided when he looked up from his computer and then I KNEW I MUST! I mean, when it's a national day... So I did. It was delicious! The key for me when I cook or bake now is to be sure to put on the delightful apron Mom made me for Christmas. It makes everything turn out just deliciously!!

Improv-a-ganza!! Drew Carey hosted!

Spencer texted me yesterday afternoon to see about getting to IMPROV-A-GANZA!! He'd just read that it was in LA that night!

I met Spence there, as it turned out, because traffic was... well... LA and I didnt leave early enough and at least one person from your group had to get there way ahead for reserved seats. But once we were there, it was just delightful to enjoy some dinner together in the restaurant area...

We finished up and headed down some stairs... there was Drew Carey! He was chatting with a few people. So cool! We figured we should try to get a picture. It wasn't too hard because he was really quite nice. As we asked about the picture he's like, 'I'm Drew,' and then shook Spencer's hand, then mine as I said, 'Lindsay.' Haha... I guess you forget to introduce yourself to someone you 'know,' right? Anyway, we got the picture and Spence's eyes are even open!



After this excitement we showed our tickets and were let into the theater. We had AWESOME seats! Right up at the front! There were lots of little tables so we were close to others watching which made it funny when we were all laughing so hard.

Drew Carey came out and introduced the show. It was neat to hear more from him. He was funny and energetic and looked just like I remember from TV except he's lost weight. He talked about this and that... about how it's impossible to hide a break up these days - facebook is bad enough, but for someone like him it's like, he might as well hire a marching band!! I guess he'd broken up with his GF that day.

then he introduced the cast!

The scenes they did were absolutely HILARIOUS!!! In one, two audience members were chosen to come up and make the sound effects. In another they had a long time married couple come up and talk about their first date.

Drew Carey and an actress acted it out and the real couple had to ding a bell if they got it right and toot a horn if not. SOOOO funny, because sometimes you heard the bell from one person and the horn from the other as the scene progressed.

One of my faves was a scene of two people pretending they were on the set of a soap opera. They had to randomly pull out lines written down on slips of paper by us audience members. The punch line/end was one Spence wrote... 'We're going to Disneyland!!'

We also loved it when they did 'worst professionals.' They imitated bad scuba instructors, psychologists, and teachers too-- (with things like, 'you don't need to learn this!! you dont need to learn anything!' or 'i hate kids!') I suggested 'Forensic Accountant, ' and it was so funny to see what they came up with. Drew pretended to be blind, another actor came up and counted... 'One, Two, Three, Four dead bodies...'

Hilarious!!!!! I love that Spence found this online and we made the drive and laughed away! It was fun to chat with the audience members after too (and actors a little,) because we'd learned a little about them along the way!

Love you, Spence!

"Let's talk about sex baby..."

I just found out this morning. It's so nice to know a bit more about this human being growing inside of me. I'm so excited to meet this little girl!

I am not so smart

So I recently discovered this youtube clip that talks about procrastination. Then I realized it is based on a chapter from a book called "You are not so smart." I also realized that there is a blog maintained by the same author at youarenotsosmart.com

I found this to be a fascinating take on procrastination. I struggle with procrastination, but at the same time I consider myself to be a pretty driven and motivated individual. So I never bought into the fact that overcoming procrastination is just a matter of willpower and time management or buying the perfect planner. The video suggests that you have to trick yourself into not procrastinating because of present bias.

Hopefully I can apply this. I like the idea of thinking "what would the future me think of the present-day me, because I didn't start on the assignment or didn't do this certain thing?" It's a cool way of thinking and hopefully I don't go schizophrenic thinking like that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJ2T4-rUUcs

Home Renos

We are in the middle of our home reno! We were supposed to be finished last week, but unfortunately we still have a long way to go! Below is a list of do's and don'ts I've learned over the past few months.

1. Do all your shopping before you start. My contractor kept telling me this wasn't necessary and we'd have lots of time during the renovation to find faucets, railing, stair posts, and tile at the prices in our contract. But I wish I had at least window-shopped so I understood pricing and added another 15% to our contractor's sometimes unrealistic allowances.
2. Do add an extra 30% for permits, structural engineering, and architecture fees on top of the price from your contractor.
3. Do understand that for the construction-challenged among us it's really impossible to visualize how the plan is going to actually look in real life, and once you get started and it's all in 3d in the space you have you'll want to make a few changes. Add another 20% for those.
4. Don't ever be both working full-time during your renovation. It's really going to slow down your decision-making and add 30% to your timeline. Of course, it's also going to help pay all those extra charges from 1-3!
5. Don't live there while it's happening, you are going to slow things down by another 20%. Impose upon friend or family or pay two monthly housing fees, although that can be problematic too!
6. Don't have four little boys at home during your reno. The boys will want to play in the sand piles, dirt piles, climb up the ladders, walk on the strewn about nails, trip over the lumber, and give your contractor heart attacks.
7. Do allow your contractor to develop a fondness for your boys if you happen to have them. Allow them to give him hugs every time they see him and get gum from him.
8. Do allow yourself to be super-excited about finally having a home that will allow for a person to bedroom ratio of 2:1 and provide place for guests to stay so everyone can get a good sleep! Hurray!
9. Do keep reminding yourself of all the benefits you're going to enjoy when it's finished!
10. Don't expect too much of yourself during your crazy reno. If people offer to bring you meals, accept them and any other offers for help that come your way!
Hopefully we finish at the end of next month- but I'm thinking it's probably going to be more like March. Oh boy!

ABC's to ON MY WAY HOME

I was very impressed by the First Presidency Message for January by Pres. Monson. It was called 'Living the Abundant Life'. We want to achieve all we can in our mortal journey, and Pres. Monson gives a simple but very effective way to make this happen.

A - for an Attitude that's positive. We all face challenges. But far more important than the challenge itself is how we react to it. We can choose to be positive or negative. If we're positive, we're far more likely to achieve the abundant life, as well as influence others for good.

B - for Belief in yourself. This is part of the principle of agency. If we believe in ourselves and visualize ourselves succeeding, we achieve great things.

C - for Courage to make difficult choices and keep moving forward even when we face great opposition and some failure.

I would encourage all of us to take these words from the Lord's prophet and use them to evaluate our own lives. The promise is that we can have the abundant life if we follow these ABC's.

Restaurant Review: The Counter

So one of my favorite places to go when you want a really good hamburger is The Counter. It's a "build your own burger" style restaurant and allows you to customize your burger with almost anything you can think of.

You can choose between beef, turkey, chicken, veggie and a location-specific type of patty for your burger. Then you choose the type of bun to put it on, one of several different kinds of cheeses (ranging from the typical hamburger cheeses to exotic ones such as goat cheese and gruyere), different toppings and sauces. Pretty much you can build whatever your taste buds are wanting at that time.

My personal favorite is the beef burger, yellow american cheese, pickles, lettuce, tomatoes, red peppers, guacamole and BBQ sauce on either a regular bun or a sourdough bun. Yum!

So I thought it was just a Los Angeles restaurant, but when I was looking up the menu, I saw they have a downtown Seattle location. So those in Seattle should go check it out too! Here's the website.

Greendale's Finest: Community

So I used my amazon gift card that I received over Christmas (thanks Santa!) to go towards buying the first two seasons of Community. They arrived today! I have already seen most of the episodes and I have been watching the third season on hulu. Part of the reason why I got the DVDs is that it is not on Netflix but also because...

Community is easily my favorite comedy show currently on the air (though it is on a brief hiatus). Some of the reason why I like it so much may have to do with the bias that the lead star (the guy resting his head on his hand in the picture, Joel McHale) went to Mercer Island High School in the early 90s.

But I just love the craziness and cleverness of the show and the way they creatively reference other movies/tv shows, etc.

Most shows on TV love to play on the concept of adults behaving childishly. Arrested Development executed that concept perfectly. I never thought I would say this, but I think Community is in the same league as Arrested Development. When Arrested Development went off the air I never thought I'd see a show that could compare to it, but then Community came around. So thanks Community! I know I'll be taking you with me on airplane rides or long road trips.