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movies

Better late than never?

Nov 21st, 2011
by gazelle.
4 comments

My weekend report (I know it’s been killing you all day that I haven’t told you what I did when I wasn’t regaling you with my life stories):

Thursday night: book club! And science lesson! It was pretty awesome. Even though I hadn’t read the book (for shame!), I felt extremely well educated by the end of the evening. Thanks, Mr. Pi for the free, impromptu science lesson!

Friday: I worked in the morning, started my lefse, and watched eleventy hundred episodes of Torchwood. I feel like I must have done something else productive that day, but I couldn’t tell you what. I know that I certainly didn’t leave the house.

Saturday: I went for a run/walk, discovered that all the park bathrooms are padlocked for the season, and then spent the afternoon making lefse! YUM! I also did some cleaning & cleaned out my entire dresser! YAY!

Saturday night, even though I was exhausted, apparently I wan’t exhausted enough. I woke up about 1:30 am and was awake until about 5. Needless to say, I was a cheery, cheery beacon of fun Sunday morning.

Sunday morning was spent cleaning out the fridge (I am slowly but surely making my house clean….of course, by the time I get to the last room, I’m pretty sure that the first room will be completely filthy again; of course also by then, I can make dusting a mandatory chore for my pre-teen). Sunday afternoon, I went swimming with the Ambitious One, and then headed to my favorite theater to see Breaking Dawn.

It was just as insane as I expected. No – it was more insane than I expected. I especially enjoyed the wedding night sex bits. Valuable lessons:  sex is truly terrifying, it might kill you, and when you wake up covered in bruises the shape of your husband’s hands, you should definitely reassure him that a) it’s okay; b) he didn’t mean to; and c) you liked it, really. Great message for our teen girls! Although since pregnancy and childbirth involve a lot of broken bones, blood (both for drinking and for making messes of) and emaciation, perhaps it’s a really great way to keep the kids from getting it on. (A well-placed message about birth control wouldn’t have gone amiss, either.)

ANYWAYS – I thoroughly enjoyed the shitstorm, giggled through most of it, and had a great time with some super fun girls women.  My only real complaint (because my issues with how sex & violence were handled are not real) is that Jacob only takes his shirt off once, and that was in the opening scene. What good are sexy teen wolves if they’re always clothed? I’ve read the books, and I believe there was supposed to be lot more nudity. WHERE IS YOUR ARTISTIC INTEGRITY?

This is why I enjoyed the previous movies:

 

Gratitude Journal

November 21, 2011: I am grateful for my excellent co-workers that make my days much less crappy (and more productive).

November 20, 2011: I am grateful for my beer theater. It is close to my house, has $4 first-run movies before 6 pm, serves decent pizza, and has beer and wine. Also, it has bottle water, which is what I had today.

November 19, 2011: I am grateful for random port-o-potties on my running route.

November 18, 2011: I am grateful that I have a connection to bits of my cultural heritage; I can’t imagine a world without lefse, and am so pleased that I have learned how to do it and have a skill I can pass on to Alvie Bean.

November 17, 2011: I am grateful for coffee. I know it seems like I mentioned it yesterday, but yesterday I only said I was grateful for the coffee maker (in a list of other things). But I really wanted to draw attention to coffee as deserving of its own special day. Coffee is the best beverage ever invented. I don’t understand how I got through so many years never drinking it and thinking it really wasn’t that great. Mmmmmm……coffee.

November 16, 2011: I am grateful for all the little luxuries I have that I often take for granted…my car, my phone, the coffee maker (so very grateful for my coffee maker). It’s so easy to caught up in the things I don’t have that I occasionally forget how very lucky I am. My life is so freaking awesome.

November 15, 2011: I am grateful that I have the kind of job/life/etc. that allows me to afford pretty shoes, and the level-headedness that keeps me from buying (very many) shoes that wouldn’t be practical.

November 14, 2011: I am grateful that I work in a place with lots of little food nooks. It’s always an easy walk to grab more food. Which I do more often than ever, lately.

November 13, 2011: I am grateful for streaming Netflix (and Hulu Plus!). Also, I am grateful for John Barrowman. And my new found love of Torchwood.

November 12, 2011: I am grateful for my awesome friends! I got so much good quality friend-time this weekend! Walks & cocoa & thrifting with her! Ornament painting and dinner and movies with Alisa, Jen, Lisa & Sarah! Cocoa and a chat with her! (I should maybe also mention that I’m grateful for hot cocoa.)

November 11, 2011: I am grateful for laid back evenings at home with the architect.

November 10, 2011: I am grateful to live in Portland, Oregon. It is so beautiful here. I love that we have four seasons, and I especially love autumn.

November 9, 2011: I am grateful for modern medical conveniences that help eliminate unnecessary surprises from my life. Yay for ultrasounds!

November 8, 2011: I am grateful for my brand-new employee who started today, who I am hoping will help take some of the financial reporting burden off my plate & allow me to do a better job on the more big-picture things.

November 7, 2011: I am grateful for weekends and the opportunity to relax and recharge.

November 6, 2011: I am grateful for running – and grateful that I am still able to run. I am also grateful for my proximity to the most awesome running park in the history of the world: Forest Park.

November 5, 2011:I am grateful that I was able to discover enough courage to join Toastmasters. I know this sounds super cheesy, but it’s really made a HUGE difference in my life.

November 4, 2011: I am grateful for the internet, which gives me the ability to work from home, in my pajamas, this morning.

November 3, 2011: I am grateful that I have a good job that is challenging & interesting, if not necessarily catering to my life interests.

November 2, 2011: I am grateful for the architect, who is simply wonderful. He picks up the household slack when I’m busy with schoolwork, brings me chicken fingers on his way home from work, and is simply the most wonderful husband I could ask for…

November 1, 2011:  I am grateful for my (so far, knock on wood) easy and wonderful pregnancy.

Weekend in Review

Jul 18th, 2011
by gazelle.
8 comments

These two-day weekends are still taking a bit of getting used to! I was sooooo tired last week. I haven’t been sleeping well (hyposomnia!) (yay book club!), and have been working a few ridiculously long days.  So, Friday date night was supposed to be Harry Potter (totes just typed Happy Potter, which would be his less well-known and irritatingly optimistic cousin) at the beer & pizza theater down the street from my house, but by the time the architect picked me up from work, I was all “need sleepy! no movies!”

So, we went and grabbed a quick bite o’ food and went home to veg on the couch (and watch Harry Potter [typed Harpy this time; what is wrong w/ me?] #7A in preparation). I barely even dozed off during the movie! Go me!

Saturday morning, I met Sarah for our long run. On the schedule we had 10 miles, we’d decided to do 12 miles, and had picked out a figure 8 loop in Lake Oswego. We’d never run there before, so thought we’d mix things up a bit.

The weather couldn’t have been more perfect for the run. Overcast, cool, and occasional mist to keep us cool. The route? Beautiful. The bad? HILLS! I think the entire first loop was uphill. Seriously. Also, we got lost. Which we should’ve expected. That pretty much happens every time we try a new route. Glad I had my phone, though! After a while, when we hadn’t come to our turn, we looked it up on the map & realized we’d passed the turn about a mile previously. We decided to roll with it, and instead of running on the North Shore road, we did the South Shore. It really was gorgeous.

Pretty bridges

Sarah

 

Doesn’t Sarah look happy & full of energy? She is a GREAT actress! 

We got back to the start at about 8 miles, and decided it was good. As Zach pointed out yesterday, you have to take into account the vertical gain during the run, which probably added another couple miles, right? RIGHT?

After running, we grabbed some bagels & coffee and then headed to the Portland Farmer’s Market to pick up our CSA share. We are splitting a share, which was advertised as enough for a family of four each week. Since we are each families of two, it seemed great!

The CSA share has been a bit sparse. And a little disappointing. For instance, in this week’s share, we got two heads of broccoli. One of which looked like this:

IMAG0460

Also included were some wilty looking greens, 11 roma tomatoes (that were mysteriously placed under the other items in the bag, leading to some tomato bruising), a bag of green beans (that looked great!), and 4 zucchini. Previous shares have included apples (that were obviously from last fall) and potatoes (ditto).  So sad, right?

ANYWAYS, Saturday afternoon, after I got home, was packed with homework. Lots of stuff to do. I seriously don’t know what I’ll do with my life when I’m done with school!  I will have so much free time!

By the time Saturday evening rolled around, I was (again) exhausted. We had a low-key evening with Harry (spelled it right the first time!) Potter, el fin, and I was in bed early again.

Sunday was a busy day – I can’t even believe that was just yesterday!

I woke up at about 7:15 so I could get read to go spectate Jen’s triathlon at Vancouver Lake. When I woke up, I had a text from her saying it was pouring & she might not go. A couple minutes later she texted saying it was ON! so I got up, got dressed & headed to the ‘Couv to meet Emily. We loaded up on caffeine & headed through the drizzle to the race site. We got there just in time! Jen was in transition #1, having killed it on the swim! We were able to see her get on the bike & take off!

IMAG0465

The skies were low and heavy, but the rain was holding off…for now.

It started raining while we were waiting for her to come back, but it mostly wasn’t too bad.  At least for us spectators :)

We got to see all the charity leaders (and never did quite figure out what that meant) come into the bike & start on the run, and then Jen came back in, looking really strong. We stalked her down the transition, yelling at her over a hedge (yelling at her encouragingly, of course), and then cheered her out of transition two. It was raining a fairly decent amount at this time, so I kept my phone safely tucked away in my pocket so it wouldn’t get wet. (Or, perhaps I just forgot.)

I did manage to check Emily, Zach & I into Frenchman’s Bar on Facebook (it’s not really a bar), so maybe I wasn’t too concerned about my phone!

We cheered for all the runners coming out of T2 for about 15 minutes before heading over to the finish area.

Pretty soon, Jen zoomed across the finish line.

IMAG0466

She placed second in her age group – pretty good considering her year-and-a-half hiatus from triathlons, right?

Shortly after that, it started raining in earnest. Driving back home was a little nerve wracking! The freeway lane lines were barely visible in the rain and there were a few big puddles to navigate through after I got off the freeway.

The rest of the afternoon was spent alternately lazing about & working on the bathroom remodel. (The architect is doing the plans & drawings now, and I occasionally helped by sending pictures of tile.)

Around 5, we headed to Rogue to meet up with birthday boy Andrew & his lovely wife Lisa for celebratory beers and gifties.

All too soon, the day was over, and I was tucked in bed in anticipating of the 5 am alarm clock.

This week is supposed to be warmer & sunnier than last week, but I am hoping that tomorrow forecast of gray skies and drizzle holds true for my planned afternoon run!

Happy week, y’all!

There’s a Bathroom on the Right

Nov 27th, 2009
by gazelle.
1 comment

After recovering from the food coma, today was a fairly productive day. There was cleaning & homework & a gym visit. And then, a movie with some of my best girls (including the blogless Kris).

I must say that although I was a little embarrassed to be going to the movie in the theater, I’m glad I went. It was a lot of fun -and better than the first. There were audible gasps at certain points, and except for the asshat who brought her six year old, it was an awesome evening.

Where’s a countdown clock when you need one?