And just like the movies, we play out our last scene.

The past week I kind of went on a movie binge. I had to catch up on my Oscar Challenge, and ended up watching another (not nominated one) for good measure :-)

First of all, can I just say I'm *in love* with Redbox? My parents have Netflix, and I use that occasionally, but Redbox is perfect for me since I don't really watch enough movies to justify paying every month. $1 everytime I want to watch something is ideal.

Now, on to the movies...

Last Friday, I invited some friends over to watch Inception with me.


It didn't end well-the movie was too involved and none of us really ended up watching it. Plus, we are all old and they ended up leaving before it was over. I watched it by myself the next night and it went much more smooth. I thought it was a good movie-the special effects were obviously awesome, and while the story was interesting, I thought it was a little lacking. Also, as much as I like looking at Leonardo DiCaprio, I feel like he's playing the same character in most of his movies recently. Which is a shame, considering he's pretty talented.

That Sunday, I went over to my parents for dinner and we watched the Social Network.


I didn't like this one as much as the others, but I still thought it was decent. Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg was really good, but besides that I wasn't all that impressed. I thought that it was interesting, but only because I remember the creation of Facebook. I'm not sure, but in my opinion, this one might have been a streach for Best Picture.

On one of my days off, I watched Winter's Bone.

This was hands down my favorite of the one's I saw this year. I loved the score, I thought the acting was great and the scenery, costumes, etc, looked so real. I loved the story as well and thought it was perfectly paced. This one was definitely my pick for Best Picture.


Last night, I went to my parents and watched Toy Story 3 (I think I'm the only person on the planet who didn't see Social Network, Inception or Toy Story 3-ha!).

It was super cute-pretty dark for a kids movie, though. A lot of people told me it was really sad, so I was expecting to cry, but, amazingly, I didn't lol I teared up a little at the end, but nothing like I was expecting. The part I find the most amazing is the animation itself-it looks so realistic! I can't believe it sometimes!

Backtracking a little to Wednesday, my mom and I watched Zack and Miri Make a Porno. I probably shouldn't have watched it with my mother, but I thought it was hilarious! I mean, how can you not love Seth Rogan as the Loveable Loser? And Elizabeth Banks is pretty funny as well. The story was quirky, and pretty original. All in all, I really liked it.

As for my Oscar Challenge, I ended up seeing 8 out of 10, which I'm pretty happy with.

The List

1. Black Swan
2. The Fighter
3. Inception
4. The Kids Are Alright
5. The Kings Speech
6. 127 Hours
7. The Social Network
8. Toy Story 3
9. True Grit
10. Winter's Bone

The Oscars were on last night and I watched a little bit before I fell asleep. The Kings Speech won Best Picture and Colin Firth took home Best Actor. Like I said, my pick for Best Picture was Winter's Bone, but I thought Colin Firth was definitely the best actor in the films I saw. Natalie Portman won Best Actress and that was definitely deserved! She was so poised and graceful, yet kind of creepy and sad...I loved her performance!

I didn't stay awake for the whole ceremony, but I did get to see this and it cracked me up:

I guess I should rescind my statement from my previous post.
Me= HUGE nerd :-)

Take me for what I am, who I was meant to be.

Even though, on paper, my life looks only moderately busy, this week I've literally felt like I've been on hyper-speed. I've kind of wanted to pull my hair out everyday this week. I'm not even sure why. I suppose going to school part time, working full time, still trying to maintain a social life and fit some "me" time in, is more exhausting than it seems.

Maybe that's why I spent most of the week at my parents. Ha! I was supposed to house sit for a friend at work, but she got sick and ended up canceling her trip. I had told my roommate I'd be out of the house for most of the week, and she had invited her boyfriend and his puppy to stay for the week. SO between that, and my stress, staying at my parents was a much needed break.

Another source of stress, might be my seemingly endless car issues. On Tuesday, I met with my friend Ian for coffee. When I pulled into the parking structure, I noticed my brakes felt pretty mushy (i.e. my foot went all the way to the floor). I didn't think too much of it, but when I got back in the car after coffee, they still felt the same and when I was pulling out of the structure, the brake light on my dash came on.

I ended up taking it over the shop, driving super carefully (read: slow) the entire way. They called the next morning to let me know that the brake fluid hose was cracked so I needed to replace those. Ugh.

I took the day off of work because I wasn't feeling to well to begin with. So I basically sat around and waited for my car to be done. I got a call around noon and Leto came and picked me up to get my car. I bought him some ColdStone ice cream as a thank you (and had a little bit myself hehe)

Since Thursday and Friday are my regular days off, I ended up having a "three day weekend" of sorts. On Thursday my mom and I ran some errands and ended up at Value World (2 pairs of jeans for $3 each!) and Savlation Army. I rarely buy anything but jeans from thrift stores, but they had brand new, in the box little Crock Pots! I think they are like 2 qts.-perfect size for someone who's by themself. Plus, it was only $7.50! :-) I'm so excited to use mine!

The next day involved a lot of catching up on the DVR, watching the snow collect (back up to 8inches, ya'll!) and very little of anything else. But I did get to see this on Glee:

I was seriously so happy when I heard they were doing this-and I love it!

Me=Nerd.

Today, I've been in kind of a funk :-( I'm back to work and after having three days off, I feel kind of out of the loop and things just haven't been going well today. I'm trying super hard to work on my temper and gossiping (not just today, but everyday) but today is *really* testing me. I'm really trying, but somedays, it's just really hard. Luckily, I only have one more hour and then it's home to restful night and hey, tomorrow's a new day, right?

My hopes are so high that your kiss might kill me. So won't you kill me? So I'd die happy?

On Monday, I ended up borrowing my mom's Netflix-ed copy of' The Kids Are Alright.

I liked it a lot, but I keep going back and forth about parts of it. Julianne Moore and Annette Benning were amazing (though I could've definitely done with more Mark Ruffalo, preferably shirtless as well hehe) but I think some parts of it were kind of predictable and I'm not sure how I feel about the ending. My mom loved it, so I'm thinking she may have a different view considering she has a family and all. Overall, I like it, but not my favorite so far.

Tuesday, my boss Jaison, my coworker Laura and I took a baking class at work. We made Barvarian Style pretzels and, oh lord, were they good! We got to taste a few right out of the oven-heaven! And we got to take about a dozen home as well (I didn't finish mine so my task for the night will be turning them into pretzel chips-yummy!)

I think I may have a future in the Prezel biz haha

Besides the wonderful pretzels, I think the best part of the whole experience was doing it with Jaison and Laura. Seriously, who did I end up with co-workers and a boss this cool? We giggled the entire time and talked about everything except work. I love my job to begin with, but that fact that I get to go and hang out with people who genuinely like me and who I like to spend time with, makes it that much better. Sometimes, I feel like the luckiest girl in the world :-)

Thurday and Friday were my days off so I tried to be at least a little productive. I took a trip out to Westland to visit the produce market. I'm making dinner for a friend this weekend and had to pick up a few things. I was really good about spending money-even though I was right next to IKEA, I didn't stop in *and* I went to Target and didn't buy anything! I'm pretty sure it was a miracle!

But I needed to get some spending out of my system so I made an impulse buy...at the produce market. That's right, I bought a pineapple. I have no idea how to chop it up or when I'm going to eat it, but I bought it. My roommate thought that was just the funniest thing! Especially when I told her I didn't buy the pair of shoes I was looking at and opted for the fruit instead. I believe the phrase "old lady" was thrown around haha

Thursday night, Dan, Darin and I watched a movie at Darin's place.

The movie was Devil and was written (though not directed) by M. Night Shyamalan. I had never even heard of it when Darin suggested we watch it and even thought I'm really not a fan of horror movies, I agreed. I ended up liking it for the most part. It was pretty creepy-a fair amount of blood and guts, lots of things popping onto the screen and I definitely did my fair share of covering my eyes haha But it was written decently well and the story was interesting. As far as Shyamalan movies are concerned, I definitely think it was one of his better ones.

Friday I headed out with Dan to see a band some of his friends were in perform at teh Dreamland Theatre in Ypsi. It was really low key (there were probably only around 20-25 people there) but we had a really good time! We didn't stay too late (see the above mentioned "Old Lady" designation) but it was nice to hang out and do something new.

Saturday was back to work as usual, except Laura wasn't here so Jaison was working with me today. And, because he is literally the best boss ever, he bought me lunch!

Why, hello there Mr. Patty Melt and Fries from the Roadhouse.

Seriously, luckiest girl in the world.

I wish I could have this moment for life, cause in this moment I just feel so alive.

Well, "Snow-pocolypse" ended up being a whole lotta nothing. I think we got between 6 or 7 inches. Some other parts of the midwest ended up getting a lot more, but on this side of the state, it was a lot of hype and not much actual storm. The worst part of the whole thing was thet everyone was a) driving like idiots (there is no reason to go 55, nor is there a reason to go 15. Can we find some sort of middle ground here?!?!) and b) though the world was literally going to end and bought out all the milk, bread, etc. in every store. Pretty ridiculous, if you ask me haha

The view from my office after round 2

But instead of panicking-I went sledding! haha Hannah, Darin, Leto, Dan, Molly, Sammy and I went up to the high school and enjoyed the freshly fallen snow. It was a lot of fun! I was surprsied that I was able to find people who wanted to go with me, but everyone ended up having a really good time. Sammy was born in New Orleans and had never been sledding and he was *so* excited! After we got some good sledding in (and did some doughnuts in the empty parking lot) we headed to Dom's Bakery to warm up with actual doughnuts and hot chocolate. Yummy! A pretty perfect end to the night, I think.

Friday was my birthday-I turned the big 2-3! haha I woke up and headed over to my parents and my mom made me waffles for birthday breakfast. After that, we got ready and headed out to see a movie.

I absolutely loved it. I don't think my mom liked it quite as much, though. I though Natalie was perfect-so graceful and confused and just amazing. Mila Kunis, besides from being strikingly beautful, was so twisted and played her part amazingly well also. As for my Oscar challenge, I've got a few more left to see:

1. Black Swan
2. The Fighter
3. Inception
4. The Kids are Alright
5. The King's Speech
6. 127 Hours
7. Social Network
8. Toy Story 3
9. True Grit
10. Winter's Bone

My mom got The Kids Are Alright from Netflix, so I'm going to try and watch that this after noon and I think we're going to see 127 Hours this weekend. I have untill the 27th to see them all :-)

After the movie, we went to the Creamery and got some birthday gelato and stopped by the Bakehouse to pick up some brownies for our Superbowl dinner. I also got a birthday doughnut and between that and the gelato, I was just about in a sugar come-so delicious! We also went to Kohl's and Target, where I broke down and got some jeggings and to be completely honest, I'm kind of upset it took me this long! They are so comfortable! I'm pretty much in love with them!

My mom and I stopped by Trader Joe's before heading home to take a nap and get ready for dinner. We went to Carson's American Bistro in Ann Arbor. We had never been there before, but it's owned by Main Street Ventures, so it couldn't be too bad. It was really good actually-I was pleasently surprised. We started with fried calamari and I got beef medallions and crabcakes for dinner, which was really, really good! Perfectly cooked-I had to stop myself from eating all of it that night! We got pineapple upside down cake for desert and I took my left overs home to eat the next day. My mother has been using the excuse of "It's for your birthday" to buy me things for the past 6 weeks, which ahs included the sequin tunic, a new chest of drawers, a few new nail polishes and a tank of gas (although I think that was a joke ha!), but she still got me a new shirt which is pretty cute and I'm excited to wear it.

I was so tired by the time dinner was finished, I fell asleep at my parents and had to get up and go to work the next morning. We got about 6 more inches of snow Saturday afternoon so between taking forever to get home (because of the aforementioned horrible drivers) and shoveling the snow, I wasn't really in the mood to go out on Saturday night. So I curled up with some reality tv and hot chocolate and was asleep by 10pm. I'm so lame! haha

Aside from the texts, phone calls and literal day-long barrage of Facebook messages, a few friends got me some treats, as well:

Pretty flowers from my wonderful roommate, Jen

Delicious cupcake from my sweet friend Sider at work (and the rest of the Cake Ladies, too :-)

Sunday after work, I headed over to my parents to watch the Superbowl. We had Buffalo Chicken Dip, Prosciutto and Carmelized Onion Pizza and Seafood Pizza with Shrimp, Crab and Scallops-seriously, I can only hope to be able to cook like my mother some day. It was all so good! We also had Brownie Sundaes for desert-yummy!

Unfortunately, the Steelers lost to the Packers, 31-24. I didn't really have a vested interest in the game, but I would've liked to see Troy Palamalu and Heinz Ward win. I don't usually pay too much attention to the commercials, but this year there was one that stood out for sure.

But I think the E*Trade Baby was a close second hehe