Movies! Movies! Movies!

I had a couple of different different movie challenges on my list.  The one that was the most fun completing was watching a new movie for each letter of the alphabet.  Some were definitely better than others, but I watched some movies that I don't think I would have otherwise would have watched!

A=Avengers

B=Big Trouble in Little China

C=Captain America

D= Dark Shadow

E=Eat, Pray, Love

F= Fearless

G=The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

H=Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

I= Inglorious Basterds

J=Jumper

K=Kick Ass

L= Looper

M= Men in Black 3

N= The Nightmare Before Christmas

O= Oz: The Great and Powerful

P=Prometheus

Q= Quartet

R= Rise of the Guardians

S=Sherlock Holmes

T=True Grit

U= Unbreakable

V=The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (Narina)

W=We Need to Talk About Kevin

X=X-men First Class

Y= Youth in Revolt

Z=Zac and Miri Make a Porno

I also said that I was going to make a Top 10 list of my favorites...  I will not apologize in anyway for any of these choices.  They are movies that I could (and have) watch over and over and over again.

10. Zoolander

9. Top Gun

8. Ocean's 11

7. A Few Good Men

6. The Wedding Singer

5. Good Will Hunting

4. Legends of the Fall

3. Little Miss Sunshine

2. Harry Potter series

1. High Fidelity

Drive In...a really late night of fun!

We (Joe and I) used to go to the drive in theater all the time when we were in college.  It probably had to do with a couple of things.  First, we love movies and the drive in was a cheap way to see not one, but two first run movies.  Second, we loved cuddling up in the back of whoever's pickup truck we happened to fill the dorm mattresses up with even though we were usually with other people too.  For clarification, Joe and I were the only ones cuddling with each other.  There very well could have been others cuddling with each other but we had/have a strict "only cuddle with each other rule".  Third, we were resident assistant's in those dorms who had missing mattresses from them during the summer and so we tried to keep our behavior on the up and up.

Anyway, before I go down memory lane too much, I have to say that it is exciting that we have a drive in so close to us here in Salem.  It is only about 25 miles away in Dallas and we haven't taken advantage of it nearly enough...which is why it ended up on our list.

It is tough thing to get away for a drive in movie when you have a little kid. It is a super late night, so it is pretty much impossible to find a babysitter willing to hang out until 3 in the morning unless you can talk your sister or your mother in law into it.  But, we they are actually here, it is nice to hang out with them instead of letting them hang out in the house when the main reason they have come to visit is sleeping down the hallway.

So, I have been waiting for the drive in to have a kids movie for the first movie and this last weekend I got lucky!  Despicable Me 2 was playing as the first movie with Superman as the second movie.  Despicable Me (the first one) is an adorable movie that both Taelin and Joe love.  (Joe giggles so much as the little yellow minion guys that it just cracks me up.) Anyway, when I saw that the sequel was at the drive in, I knew our time had come!

Last Friday there was a mandatory nap in the later afternoon for both Taelin and I so that we could both make it through the movie/s we were going to try to make.  Taelin had a really hard time understanding how we were going to drive into the "movie center" and stay in our car and hear the movie.  It was all very foreign to her so she wasn't too excited until I told her that during the second movie (that was going to be very late and not at all appropriate for her) she was going to get to sleep in her sleeping bag in the back of the car.  Now that was cool and something to get excited about!

We got there around 8:30 (because I didn't know that "dusk" and "sunset" were two different things) and barely found a spot up in the front but off to the side.  Sunset was at 9:00...dusk was at 10:00.  The movie started at dusk.  (Let's just say that we were all grateful for the mandatory naps earlier!)

We wouldn't do it all the time but I have to say it was a lot of fun!  The movies were good, not great, but the whole experience was great.  We rolled in around 3 a.m. and because I am a planning kind of person, Taelin was in her p.j.'s and ready to plop in bed.  We were all a little sleepy the next day but luckily didn't have a huge day planned, just a trip down the river in the kayak.

And with that, another thing is checked off the list!  Here are some super grainy pictures from our evening of fun!

Man, I love this girl!

And he is pretty cool too.  :)

We were WAY off to the side!

Not much cuddling for me during the first movie!

Chopsticks are tricky...and a few other updates

I have had some computer troubles lately but since I have my own built in tech support, I think everything is back up and running.  Unfortunately, one of the side effects is that I am a little behind in updated a few things that I have been able to check off my list.

First, as the title of this post implies,chopsticks are tricky.  I was able to meet Joe for a quick lunch one day and we decided to meet at the local Hawaiian place (think meat, rice, mac salad) and when getting the napkins, extra sauce and silverware, Joe brought back chopsticks.  He has provided me with lessons in the past but I mostly gave up and reached out for my fork.  This time, however, he didn't bring a back up fork which forced me to eat my whole lunch with the chopsticks unless I was going to give up and shamefully go back up to the counter and get a fork (which at this point wasn't going to happen because I am too stubborn.)  But, I am happy to report that I manage to eat the whole lunch (which for me does NOT include mac salad because...um...gross) using only my chopsticks.  I will admit that I scooped a couple of times, instead of pinching, but my list just said I needed to "learn" not master using chopsticks and that I have done. So it is checked off!

There has been a lot of sickness going around in this house (mostly of the congested kind) and so between that and the cold/rainy weather, we have been more apt to look for low energy things to do.  Which for us has always meant watching movies.  I was able to check some of the letters off from my A-Z movie list. We watched at home as a family Despicable Me which was adorable.  We got some movie gift cards for Christmas so we went and saw Rise of the Guardians which was super cute and a lot of fun.  Then Joe and I saw Looper which was more a Joe movie than Jodie movie.  It was an interesting story, but pretty violent.

I also started a gratitude journal.  This one has been mulling around in my head for awhile.  Actually for a long while and I almost wrote it down when I did some editing of the list a long time ago but I didn't because I wasn't sure I wanted to commit.  But the beginning of the new year and a 2013 calendar/journal for a Christmas present prompted me to start.  So, every night right before I go to bed, I am writing down 3 things that I am grateful for, mostly focused on the day.  There have been several times that as I am going throughout the day I think "I can write that down tonight!" so, so far, it has been a great exercise.  I am also asking Taelin to tell me one thing she is grateful for when I tuck her in at night.  It is pretty funny to hear what she comes up with.

So, there you go.  I officially have 56 items completely checked off and 16 items "in progress".

Nursery University (2008)

I haven't watched very many documentaries in my life.  I am not sure why that is exactly because the few I have seen, I have enjoyed.  I think part of it might be that when I want to watch a movie and relax, I don't necessarily want to learn something.  (That sounds really bad typed out.)  Maybe a better way of saying it is that I want to be entertained.  So, in an effort to broaden my horizons, I challenged myself to watch 10 documentaries.  (I know, not very many, but it is a start.)

So today, while I had a sick toddler sleeping on me making it impossible to do really anything else, I watched Nursery University.  From the description, I kind of expected an episode of Toddlers & Tiaras with the exception that instead of parents (and toddlers...kind of) competing for a crown, they are competing for a spot in a prestigious preschool in New York City.

There were definitely a few "um...you realize your kid is only 3 right?" moments as I watched some of the parents talk about what was at stake.  I can only imagine the pressure that some of those 3 year old kids are going to be under in 15 more years.  There were actually people that talked about how what preschool their child gets into could determine the college they could (or more distressing, couldn't) get into.

Some of the craziness aside, there was something that struck me as true for all of those parents.  Every single of them were doing it because they wanted the best for their child.  When I was in the classroom, before I had Taelin, I wanted to believe that I believed that most parents were really doing the best they could.  (Notice all the loopholes I left myself?)  People would tell me I would understand more when I had a child of my own, which made me kind of angry and later hurt when we were struggling to get pregnant.

What I realize now is that I was right.  I just really believe it now.  There isn't anything I wouldn't do for Taelin and I don't really care how crazy what I am doing might seem to others.  I also think that most other parents think the same thing, I am just lucky enough to have my life together enough that other people could see that too. The timing of this particular documentary comes at an interesting point as I am watching, as a teacher and a parent, of the dismantling of our public schools.  I want to be a champion of public education. But as I look at what class sizes are going to be when Taelin gets to kindergarten, along with the insane focusing of data and testing I am not entirely convinced that Taelin will attend public school.  I could see myself in some of those parents in the documentary.  And I am completely okay with that.

As I read the reviews on Netflix, I found that my personal view of this documentary was not shared.  I actually thought to myself, "They must not have kids."  Shame on me...(but it is probably true)

E is for Eat, Pray, Love

I have avoided both this book and movie for awhile.  While is had some good reviews in some places, I had also heard that main character was kind of a whiny, spoiled brat.  I didn't really have much interest in reading or watching anything like that and with all there was out there, I just didn't bother.

Then Saturday night, I was upstairs organizing pictures and matching them to patterned paper, when I decided I needed something to watch in the background.  So, onto Netflix I went and new to Netflix instant watch it now was Eat, Pray, Love.  I decided to look no farther and if nothing else, if I hated it, it would give me something to blog about.

Let me first off say, that I completely understand why some people get the whiny, spoiled brat vibe.  Not many of us could imagine taking a month off from our life "to figure things out", much less an entire year.  But, I decided that if I was going to go that direction that what I was truly feeling was a tinge of jealously for someone that had the position to do that kind of thing.  There wasn't any harm in doing what she did; she had the money, wasn't abandoning children or a 9-5 job.  So...more power to her.

I have to say, for the most part I enjoyed it.  I can't think of a movie that I have seen with Julia Roberts that I haven't liked so I am sure that had something to do with me liking it.  It was fairly predictable in plot, but I kind of expected that so it didn't bother me.

After watching the movie, the thing that I thought about was the people that she met along her journey and how they impacted her.  She learned to be quite grateful for the people in her life and what she had learned from them.  I know for myself, I can get caught up in the craziness of my life and forget about the people that bring so much happiness and love into it.  I really am lucky.

Y is for Youth in Revolt

Choosing 26 movies that I have never seen (one for each letter of the alphabet) might seem to some a strange thing to put on my list.  But I know there has to be someone that is reading this that is like me.

Hi, my name is Jodie and I am repeat movie watcher.  There are a chunk of movies that I will watch over and over and over and over again.  Usually I am doing something else when I am watching these movies, but not always.  Usually Joe is either gone or has his headphones on when I am watching these movies...well, because he has seen them already...a lot...without even really trying.  I considered not giving some examples of these movies, but in the interest of full disclosure I will share.  The problem that I will have with listing these is now I am going to want to watch them.  So...in no particular order, some of my favorite repeat watchers:

• Oceans 11, Oceans 12,  and Oceans 13 (preferably in a row but that hasn't happened since having Taelin);
• all of the Borne movies (I should probably be able to rattle them off, but I can't); 
• any of the Harry Potter movies (never tried them all in the a row...but maybe I should make that the replacement for the Rubik cube?)

This is certainly not the whole list and I completely understand that these are not necessarily the best films every made.  But I like them...a lot.  

The problem with this however is that I rarely want to take a chance and spend my time watching something I haven't watched.  This has always been true but it especially true with Taelin in the picture.  So, that is why watching 26 movies I have never seen before is on my list.

That being said, this weekend Joe and I watched Youth in Revolt.  It is a Michael Cera movie about teenage angst.  Aren't all Michael Cera movies somehow about teenage angst?  We got about half way through it and I turned to Joe and said, "There is no way I write about this on my blog."  It is rated R and has earned that rating in all it's teenage sexual frustration glory...and that is all I am going to say about that.  It was certainly not Michael Cera's best movie (it would be hard to beat Juno and Superbad) but it did have some funny moments and Joe and I were both glad we watched it.  

1 new movie down...25 to go!