Suburban Girl

I watched the movie Suburban Girl today. It's a B movie from 2007 that's sort of a romantic comedy but with a little more drama than comedy. Being a hardcore Buffy fan, I always like watching Sarah Michelle Gellar, and it was nice to see her in something other than a science fiction or horror flick. I thought she did a superb job in her role as Brett Eisenberg, a smart and witty twenty-four year old who ends up dating an older man (Alec Baldwin). The movie is about a girl finding her way in life -- in her career, in her romantic life, and with her family. I thought it was really poignant and sweet and a touch more realistic and full of witty commentary than most of your run of the mill date movies... overall, a nice movie for a lazy afternoon.

Today I also found out that sometimes you don't know people as well as you think you do. But life goes on anyway because you can find the strength to handle it.

And... I voted for David Cook and David Archuleta on Idol today. I think David Cook is more creative and a little more mature in his talent, but I think David Archuleta has better vocal skills and will only get better as he grows into his talent. Syesha has come a long way, but I think she should be voted out tomorrow. I'll be happy if either David wins. Go ahead and judge me for watching American Idol. I don't care.

For Mom

Today we celebrated Mother's Day with our families. Despite the weather, it turned out to be a pretty fun day. We had a feast of Chinese food for lunch with Paul's family which was really fun and different. Although, in case you were wondering, it turns out that Chinese food is a hot commodity on Mother's Day so be prepared to wait MUCH longer than usual for your take-out.

Later we visited my family and cooked dinner for them. We had lemon crusted chicken (chicken breaded with cornflake crumbs and lemon zest and then pan seared in olive oil and finished in the oven, yum), salad with an awesome homemade dressing courtesy of Susan, steamed asparagus, and oven roasted potatoes spiced with rosemary and topped with grated Locatelli cheese. Dessert was Susan's coconut cream pie and Tracy's strawberry shortcake. Tracy actually assembled the shortcake after dinner and everyone was laughing because it ended up looking like an igloo more than anything else... and OK, so maybe it wouldn't win any prizes for cake decoration, but we had some good laughs and the igloo was delicious.

The whole experience was sort of like a frenzied circus complete with dogs and cats running around. Cooking for 9 people was a little stressful, but everyone pitched in and it was completely worth it. We had a fabulous dinner and I actually thought the best part of the entire evening was having everyone together again. It's been a long time since that happened for any holiday. (We're glad you're back, Susan!) I think Mom liked having grown-up kids taking care of everything for Mother's Day, and if I do say so myself, I think we made it a memorable one. It didn't hurt that the Penguins won either.

Love you, Mom!

Twitter-pated

I think I'm getting just a tiny bit addicted to Twitter. I've known about it for quite some time, but I never really understood the point of it until I realized that you can pull your twitter updates onto other websites. In case you're unfamiliar, Twitter is a free service where you can send text updates that are about a sentence long to let your friends know what you are doing or thinking at the moment. It's very much like the update messages that you can change on your MySpace or Facebook page, except you can send updates via text messages from your cell phone and have them appear instantaneously on your blog! Technology is just amazing sometimes. It makes sense to be able to send updates at the most useful of times (like when you are minding your own business in Walmart and the THIRD person of the day physically pushes you in an attempt to get past you in a crowded aisle). You should try it, it's fun.

Here comes the sun!

I know it's a little ironic to talk about the sun right now when we had a beautiful few days earlier in the week and right now the forecast is dreary and rainy. But hey, those of you who know me already know that I'm an optimist at heart. Besides, a smart lady told me today that we need this rain so that May flowers can start blooming.

In any case, though, what I'm really referring to is a lifting of spirits. I feel like I have been under so much strain and pressure for the past six months or so that it is just an amazing release to get a chance to relax, to see the sun shining again, and to finally stop worrying about everything on my to-do list. I think the work on my research proposal was a big part of my stress this semester, but a lot of other things were going on too. Most of all, I felt constantly tired and frustrated that I couldn't ever just STOP for a while. Every day there was a new priority based on what absolutely needed done for the following day and I could never seem to get ahead. But all of that is over now (hopefully for a good long while). I got to catch up on all the shows that were piling up on my TiVo playlist and I bought a fiction book today that I am planning on reading just for the pleasure of it.

It's been such a long time since I read a book for fun instead of textbooks, journal articles and research methodology books. And for me, that's difficult because I've always been an avid reader. The book I picked up is called The Host by Stephenie Meyer. I loved her Twilight series so I have high hopes for this one. I'm really excited to get started reading it. I'll post more once I'm finished.

I also ordered -- drumroll, please -- my very first, brand spanking new iPod nano! Woohoo! I can't wait until it arrives... I realize this is probably old hat to many and that I'm probably one of the last people around to have never owned (or really even used) an iPod. Even my father who often cannot manage to work his TV remote control got one last year. So, OK, I'm a little slow. Hopefully it will be worth the wait. I am looking forward to hooking it up to the voice activated Sync system in my car.