Me On: The Movies

Does anyone have time to go to the movies nowadays?  The last movie that I went to see was Catching Fire.  That was almost a year ago.  I was pregnant and the movie was 2.5 hours long.  I went to the bathroom three times during the movie and decided that the inconvenience of having to walk to the bathroom three times during a movie wasn't worth the steep ticket price.  I never went to a movie since them.

My problem is that from the commute to and from the theatre, the painfully long commercials and previews, and the increasing length of the actual movie, going to the movies is a good 4+ hour investment.  I don't have that kind of time.  Even when I have that kind of time I feel so guilty using over 4 hours to do one thing.

First, I have to say that I actually love previews.  When I was in high school I was supposed to meet a couple of girlfriends at the movies.  They were coming together and I was coming from work.  I told them not to be late because I didn't want to miss the previews.  I literally NEVER wanted to miss the previews.  Long story short, they were late and showed up about 1 minute before the movie's start time.  I met them in the parking lot, bluntly said "You are late and now I will miss the previews", and maturely stormed off to my car.  I missed the entire movie and threw a temper tantrum in front of my friends because I was going to miss the previews.  That's love right there.

But today, the previews are out of hand.  It's not just previews.  I have to sit through the commercial about Coke, then a commercial about the movie theatre I'm in, then the preview for the A&E special coming this spring, then you get about 6 previews of terrible movies all of which you've already seen in television commercials.  What happened to those good old days where the only place you could see the movie previews was at the movies?

Second, the length of movies is unbelievable.  I just watched A Million Ways to Die in the West which is a comedy that is two hours and fifteen minutes long.  That is about 45 minutes too long.  I can tell you for certain that one way to die in the west is from boredom of the last 45 minutes of this movie.  I would say that most movies do not need to be longer than 2 hours.  There are some really good dramas that are acceptable when the go over the two hour mark.  But a comedy should never, ever, ever be longer than 1 hour and 45 minutes.  It's just not necessary.  Directors - I'll mail you a pin to pop your ego balloons.  No one wants to watch a bloated movie of crap that could easily have been left on the editing room floor.

Third, the price of movies is most definitely prohibitive.  Every single time I go into my movie theatre it seems as if the price has risen.  And they certainly aren't doing anything to improve the theatre, so I'm not sure where that money is going.  For two people to go to the movies and get popcorn and a soda you are paying the price of a nice dinner out.  I'd say one way that the theaters can really cut back is the size of the refreshments.  If anyone is drinking that much soda in three hours they should be bitch slapped.  

I used to love going to the movies, but now it seems like so much work.

How the Media Was Dumb

I went through a long period of my life where I did not watch the news or read the newspaper.  I was embarrassingly uninformed.  When I started to get interested in the news again, my main source was from the internet.  I would scan my local newspapers and read the articles that were of interest to me.  I can say that I probably had not watched the news for a good 5 years. 

As I began my maternity leave, I started to watch a lot of television.  And finally I was home and awake in the mornings, so I wanted to start my day off with a dose of what is happening in the world.  I tuned into the morning news show that I grew up watching, Good Morning America.  If you asked me in one word to describe that news program today it would be: dogshit.

I tried out every morning news program and they were all the same.  They were chock full of stupid, insipid, candy-ass content and for maybe 30 seconds they'd tell us about some fighting going on in the Middle East.  There was not one ounce of quality news reporting going on in those morning programs.  Watching those shows really got me thinking about the dumbing down of American media.

Then a few weeks ago, I listened to a wonderful program on NPR's The Diane Rehm Show.  The program was titled Judging the Credibility of News in the Digital Age.  It's definitely worth a listen if you have the time.  The takeaway from the program was that we really need to be careful about where we are getting our news from and whether it is accurate reporting.  Because today we can get "news" from anywhere, but we don't necessarily know the value of that news.  Was it fact-checked?  Who are the sources?  Was the story typed out by a unicorn in Westeros?  In the digital age, we can never be sure.

One of the most fascinating statements made on a show was by a journalist who was providing commentary.  She stated that in the last few years her most fact-checked story was a story that she wrote for O Magazine.  Do you get your hard, important news from O Magazine?  The journalist said this was a stark contrast from years prior when journalists had to back-up everything in painful detail.  But, now, in the digital age, we don't always have that luxury.  People can upload a photo to Twitter or Instagram in a second and *BOOM* it goes viral and they have scooped the  newspapers.  But no one fact checks that shit.  No one.

I've been thinking more and more about this in light of the story out of Ferguson, Missouri.  At work, during a criminal jury trial, one of the questions that is always asked of the jurors is: Have you had experiences with the police that make you unable to fairly weigh the testimony of a police officer?  In other words, do you hate the police because of a past experience or love them because of a past experience.  What we are looking for is a neutral juror.  A juror who can hear the testimony of a police officer and judge the credibility without allowing their past experiences to cloud their judgment. 

I would say the media is not a neutral juror when it comes to the police.  I would say the media loves to tell us shocking stories.  And it's more shocking to be stating that "police shoot unarmed man" than it is to say "we don't have all of the facts and are going to reserve judgment at this time." 

I miss those days in the media when we could really rely on what we were reading and seeing.  I miss hearing sweet Peter Jenning's voice tell me about what is going on in the world.  That might be less about the state of the media today and more about how much I loved Peter Jennings.  Ultimately I just miss having good news programs to keep me informed about the world and my community.

Lazy Girl's Workout

Since turning 30, I have learned a horrible secret.  When you get older, a moment on the lips can actually mean a lifetime on the hips.  Biology is no joke, my metabolism basically shut off when I turned 30.  It sucks. 

I've never really been one to formally workout.  I have never had a gym membership.  I hate the idea of spending money on fitness and I prefer to spend time with friends and family rather than in the gym.  This doesn't mean I never work out.  I go to community ed yoga/pilates classes and during the warmer months I love nothing more than long walks and hikes with my cutie Kirby.  Let's look at a picture of the sweetheart. 

He makes my world better.  Okay, so back to being lazy and working out.  Like I said I don't really like working out, but now that my metabolism has crapped out I have to fit in burning calories somehow.  Here's some simple little things that I do to try and burn more calories throughout my day:

1.  Standing as much as possible.  This is kind of a new thing for me, but I actually have been enjoying the rewards of it.  Have you heard of standing desks?  Well, I have and would like one at my desk, but due to the cost it's currently out of the question.  Which is a bummer, but I have taken to doing some of my daily tasks while standing.  I have researched and found lots of different information as to exactly how many calories an hour standing will burn, but the average is 100.  Sitting is around 70 calories per hour.  So, just that little bit will burn you an extra 30 calories per hour. 
2.  Short walks.  When my mom and I were last in Disneyworld, she wore an odometer, or whatever those things are called that count your steps.  We were walking an average of 13,000 steps per day.  And we were eating crap.  And I lost weight.  So, steps matter.  I try to find little tasks at work that will take me on a walk.  For instance, whenever I have mail I always take it to the furthest mail bin that I can find to get a little walk in.  I also pace, which could be it's own separate category.  Sometimes when I am thinking, I like to pace and lately I've been doing it for the calories burned benefit as well.  It's a nervous habit, but stressed out people are usually thin.
3.  Staying on my feet after work.  Sometimes when I get home from work it's really easy to just sit on the couch and watch TV until Mike gets home.  Lately, I have been avoiding this bad habit and staying on my feet until at least after we are done with dinner.  My routine is to feed the dog, take him outside on a short walk to go to the bathroom, then start dinner and do any little chores that need to be completed.  When Mike gets home we eat and then, weather permitting, take Kirby on a long evening walk.  Again, it sounds really dumb, but I have found on those days when I fall into the TV trap, my waistline feels it.
4.  Weigh-in every morning.  I weigh myself every morning.  EVERY MORNING!  I like to know exactly what food does to my poundage.  I think this is a good way to figure out what you can eat during the day.  For instance if I have gained a pound from the day before, I know to cut back on my snacking throughout the day or increase a workout in order to get back to my base weight.
5.  Five-pound weights.  One of my problem areas is my arms and back.  I always gain more weight in these areas and right now I'm feeling majorly top heavy.  I try to do simple arm exercises every day with five-pound weights in order to tone up those key areas.  They are simple to do and you can do them while watching TV, which is a huge bonus for me.  With more toned arms, I feel better in sleeveless and summery clothes.  Planks also help, but you can't do those while watching The Real Housewives.

I'm always trying to find good cheats to working out.  My grandma was (and still is) tiny and she never had a gym membership, but she does stay on her feet all day every day.  Just another useful thing I can learn from my grandma. 

Nosy Nelly

Does anyone else love spying on their neighbors? I use the word spy in a loose sense. What I'm talking about is fascination with neighbors that results in excessive curiosity. Does anyone else experience this?

When I was a kid, there was a family that lived behind us who did the weirdest things. My mom and I would creepily watch them out the windows and talk and talk about what they were up to. For instance, instead of walking their dog in the summer, they would let him out into the yard and then stand on the deck with a mirror so the dog could chase the sun's rays reflecting off the mirror. Or, they wouldn't cut their grass for 4-5 weeks in the summer and then the husband would come out on the hottest day of the year at 2:00 P.M. in sweatpants and a sweatshirt to cut it. It would take hours because the grass was so long and he looked like he was going to have a heart attack. They were strange.

Now that I'm in my own house, I've found my fascination with neighbors is still enthusiastic. Just a few weeks ago a neighbor sent out an email to the association asking for realtor recommendations because he was moving. That was all the email said. This is a guy who has lived in the neighborhood for 20 years and who was always out working in his yard. Since the email has come out, we haven't seen him once and his house isn't on the market yet. We haven't seen his dog either, which is weird because his dog is always outside. It's caused me great concern.

Also recently, there was a moving truck at another neighbor's home. We think that the couple split up and the woman moved out. The woman had an evil Siberian Husky with great rage in his heart for Kirby. Once, when Kirby was on a walk and the woman came to pet him, the husky actually pushed his way through the window screen and came running at Kirby. So, I'm not very sad that the husky is gone. I am, however, curious about what happened between the two people. The couple used to be really friendly with us, but in recent months the guy wouldn't even look in our direction when he was walking past. I kept thinking "What did we do?", but now I'm wondering if he was just in a dark place because of his relationship (and also probably the husky).

Snooping on your neighbors makes me feel like I'm living in the 1800's and am all "Why I do declare, Mr. Jones was drunk in his yard in his knickers last night looking for his cat." I love it. Does that make me a bad person?

Me On: Skincare

I was just with some girlfriends and we were talking about skincare. More specifically, we were talking about how our skincare needs are changing now that we are in our 30's. I've been noticing that my skin isn't quite as smooth as it once was and also that the skin around my eyes is showing its age. Ruh-roh. I think I need to look for some eye products before I start looking like an old grandma.

I am really into skincare. I've tried multiple products over the years and these are my favorites:



When I went through puberty, I had horrible skin. I used all of these awful products prescribed to me by a dermatologist and nothing worked. The Retin-A was the worst. It left my skin with this weird, filmy feeling and caused my skin to burn so badly even while wearing the highest level of SPF known to man. A classmate of mine had the most perfect skin, so I asked her what she used and she told me Clinique. I wash my face every night with the soap bar and then detoxify with the toner. I love the feeling that my skin has after I'm done washing it. It feels soft, clean and cool.

During the summer, I use the toner multiply times during the day whenever my skin starts feeling icky and oily.

I use Fresh's Umbrian Clay Face Treatment as needed. Usually that's once a month during the winter and once a week when the weather is humid. This clay mask is the best thing that has ever happened to me. You put this goopy clay on, leave it for 5 minutes and you can see it seeping into your pores. Then I wash it off with warm water and my skin instantly feels rejuvenated. It also clears away blemishes. If I start to feel a blemish forming, I use this mask and it never comes to surface. It's amazing!

The last product that I use is toothpaste. You heard that right, toothpaste. When I was a teenager, I read somewhere that toothpaste will zap a zit overnight. It sounded too good to be true, but it's totally true. Any zit that I feel starting to form, I first dab with extra Clinique toner, then dab a tiny bit of the umbrian clay mask and then glob on toothpaste. When I wake up in the morning the zit is always gone. Only once has the toothpaste failed me and I think it's because I waited too long to apply it.

My routine is really simple, but effective. Now, I need to find some old lady eye cream to add to the mix. Anyone have suggestions?

The One Where I Feel Fat

Friends, about a year and a half ago, I had a big problem. I became allergic to a medicine that I was taking, and my entire body puffed up like a blow fish. It was awful. In order to combat the reaction, I was given a variety of medications including Prednisone, which is a steroid. I'd never been on a steroid medicine before and holy hell was it awful. When you are on steroids, you have to eat all of the time. And you aren't hungry for fruits and vegetables. You are hungry for meat, cheese, doughnuts, meat, meat and meat.

The picture above was on my 4th or 5th day of the steroids and you can see the puffiness and bloatedness in my face. My poor baby brother had to experience some of my roid rage. We were going to the Twins playoff game that day and my dad decided to park about 4 miles from the stadium. It was hot, I was walking for what seemed like forever and I hadn't eaten anything in a few hours. Chaos ensued. I threw a temper tantrum at my brother telling him that I needed to eat immediately and I couldn't walk another minute before I ate something. The only thing that I wanted was a hot dog, so I'm pretty sure I tried to convince him to run to Target Field and get me a hot dog and then run back and find me and give it to me. When we finally made it to the stadium, I ran to the hot dog stand. It was weird.

Anyhow, the Prednisone made me gain weight and I've never been able to shed it off. It's frustrating. I've never had a problem with weight and have never, ever dieted before. I know, boo-effing-hoo. But, now it's been a year and a half and my Prednisone bloat is still upon me and I feel humiliated that I don't know how to get rid of it. I go for long walks, no change. I cut out red meats, no change. I limit the amount of times I go out to eat, no change. I stop eating snacks during the day, no change. I try using My Fitness Pal, no change.

I really want to get rid of these lingering 5-10 pounds. Any suggestions on a diet that won't make me crazy? Because when I'm hungry I get cray-cray. Also, this problem makes me terrified of getting pregnant. Because if I can't get rid of my roid weight, how the hell will I get rid of baby weight?

Ashes to Ashes

Today is Ash Wednesday. I actually love the Lenten season. Fish fries. Enough said. Okay, I'll say more. I love picking what I am going to give up, I love that Lent starts in the middle of winter and when it's over spring is usually at your doorstep, I love getting ready for Easter, I love the ominous music they play during mass. So, I'm a Lent lover.

Just a couple of days ago, Mike and I had a talk about what we were going to give up this year. I told him that I didn't think I could do Diet Coke right now (wedding planning, being crazy busy at work and giving up Diet Coke do not work for me). Then I thought about giving up shopping, but I'm actually really in need of new work shoes and don't think I can go 40 days in the current pair of work shoes so that's setting myself up to fail.

Mike finally said "What about sweets?" So, I agreed. No sweets. It will be good for my health, for my pocketbook (Easter candy is my favorite), for my wedding dress waist. It seemed like the perfect idea. Then today, on Ash Wednesday, I realized that I have only had 1 Shamrock Shake this season. Shamrock Shakes are most definitely a sweet. So, now, thanks to Michael, they are banned from my life until April 8th, when they will most likely already be gone from McDonald's for a whole year. Did you think about that Mike when you forced me into this crazy no sweets bullshit? DID YOU THINK ABOUT THE FACT THAT WE CAN'T GET ANOTHER SHAMROCK SHAKE?! Because now all I can think about is how much I want one. Thanks a lot asshole.

I don't think Lent 2012 is going so well for me.

Sick Baby

I realize that getting a cold is a necessity of life. It helps us build immunities and then we might not get as sick later on in life. Blah, blah, blah. I am such a baby about getting a cold. I literally revert to my young self and just want to mope around in jammies and order people to make me grilled cheese sandwiches and soup. But, now that I'm an adult I have realized that I can't not go to work every time I come down with the sniffles and even if I did, there would be no one staying home with me making me food. It's a lose-lose.

I came down with a cold this week. It's my first one in awhile. I'm getting over it today, but I'm at that stage where I feel and sound like I'm a chain-smoker and no amount of water or tea will change it.

When I came down with this particular cold, I had an internal debate about whether I should go to work. This is the worst part about being an adult. Sick guilt. Because, I really felt lousy and knew that laying in bed all day would do me a world of good. On the other hand, we were busy at work and was I really sick enough to call-in sick? That's a tough question. How sick do you have to be to call in sick to work? I feel like you have to at least have a fever.

So, I went in. It was miserable and I was a huge baby about it. I'm a baby about a lot of things.

As I was sitting there at work, I realized that I rarely notice when other people are sick at work. Why is that? Do they just not come in? Or do they have a secret weapon against colds that they aren't telling me about? One very worldly co-worker told me today about a British thing called Lemsip that apparently stops colds dead in their tracks. I guess you put it in hot water. But you have to order it from someplace overseas because it's not FDA approved. Anyone else ever heard of this? Why are Americans always the last to know?