Thursday Ten: Not So Despicable Edition

1. It’s been a week since I was able to head to a sneak peek of the movie Despicable Me and I was SWORN TO SECRECY (til now) and couldn’t tell you about it.  My family goes to see quite a few kid oriented movies and it’s been a LONG time since I’ve enjoyed one as much as I enjoyed this one. I loved the story line, the voice cast is incredible (Steve Carrell, Julie Andrews – like, whoa). And usually 3-D is hard for me to watch – it gets too overwhelming. Not this time. I really loved it, as did my kids. Bonus: The music was done by Pharrell Williams – and I’ll be picking up the soundtrack when it becomes available on the 6th. Despicable Me is in theaters JULY 9.*

2. During the summer, guitar lessons are temporarily NOT on Thursdays, a change that somewhat throws me off. My lesson this week went well though. Next week, I take a break from telling my teacher what I want to learn and letting her pick something for me. I’m kind of excited to not know what comes next.

3. Speaking of guitar lessons and my guitar teacher… when I was in class, she mentioned her sister recommended a group to her and they reminded her of the folks from Once who sing “Falling Slowly”. She’s well aware that I love that song, so I asked her for the name of the group. They are The Civil Wars, and you can download their album free from their site (it redirects to their MySpace page). Lovely acoustic-y singer/songwriterly people. Love this song, “Poison And Wine” which was played on an ep of Grey’s Anatomy.

4. Puppy comes home tonight. We purchased his crate last night, and I’m in the process of researching everything I can about crate training and house training a puppy dog. Pumpkin got quite upset with me when I said that we’d be keeping DoggyDogg (no, not his name!) in the crate quite a bit initially — but, I think we’re all on the same page now. And if not, the crate is such a pain in the heinie to open that I know she won’t be able to sneak the puppy out.

5. Eclipse -did you see it? Are you going to? It’s funny when I think of how much I was looking forward to the original Twilight movie coming out… and then I didn’t love it. I’ve been kind of “over” it all since then. I’ll be sitting this one out.

6. Fourth of July weekend is coming up and I have no plans but house training a puppy. That sounds exciting, doesn’t it? I’ve never been one to make big July 4th plans though. I don’t even remember the last time I went out for fireworks – though, I’d kind of like to try to take some pictures of the fireworks this year.

7. Yesterday the Mother’s Helper was at our house to help me out while I was doing some work (and running Stepson from A to B back to A again – this ferrying around a teenager nonsense is tiring!), and she let The Princess use the Easy Bake oven. With my love of baking, I don’t know why I hate the Easy Bake as I do, but I really really don’t like the Easy Bake. Seems an awful lot of work for little scraps of cookies. It’s not even enough to knock the edge off a cookie craving. But she made a cookie for me to eat while I was working.

8. Yep, it was the Greek yogurt somehow making me sick. The thing is? Regular yogurt seems too sweet now (and I don’t love the texture). I will just take my chances. That’s some yogurt love, there.

9. I bought myself a new lens yesterday. It was not the priciest lens on my list (by far. Unfortunately I picked a really pricey hobby), but I’m hoping that it gives me a versatility I’m not currently getting with my 50 mm. I sure do love my 50, but I needed a little more flexibility in composing shots.

10. Reality TV Nit Picking: I really don’t like the way “So You Think You Can Dance” is set up this season. I think I was sleeping when they explained WHY they were doing this all-star version this way, but I kinda preferred when it was two contestants dancing versus a contestant and an all-star. And clearly I’ve already devoted too much time to thinking about it.

*Full disclosure: My family was given complimentary passes to the movie but the opinions are my own, as always.

Thursday Ten: Where Did Time GO?! Edition

1. I was in guitar lesson today and my teacher and I realized it was the 20th already. The 20th. My god, where did November go?! And Christmas is right around the corner. I have still got a lot to do before Christmas comes.

2. Speaking of Christmas… caught a sneak preview of “Four Christmases” last night. Was it rocket science? No. Does that matter? No. I still love Vince Vaughn and still loved the movie and I laughed so hard at some parts (and oh my god I didn’t even recognize Tim McGraw as Vince Vaughn’s brother. Wow).

3. Music this week… Well, I bought the whole soundtrack to “Twilight” which is actually pretty good (songs weren’t available individually – I almost never buy complete albums anymore). Also bought three tracks from David Cook’s cd. I’m a bit iffy on those – I like them but they seem pretty formulaic, radio-friendly, nothing new. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

4. Today, I started learning Beethoven’s “Ode To Joy” on guitar. She’s teaching me two parts so we can do a duet of sorts (for no good reason other than to teach me how to play when someone else is playing at the same time). She also started teaching me “Rodeo Clowns” by Jack Johnson which involves four chords I just learned today.

Seeing as how all four are barre chords and my fingers just don’t have the strength yet it may take me awhile. The good news is that the chords all have the same basic shape – it’s just a matter of moving them to different frets. I’ll get it. I’m determined and I hate not being good at things.

5. I think we’re finally done with getting our basement drywalled. Which is good, because you know, we finished our basement three and a half years ago and there was no good reason for it to be torn up now. So I’m not in love with this basement project. Now, I’ll have to figure out which leftover paint color to paint it down there. Blah.

6. Supposed to see “Twilight” this weekend with my mom and sis. Hello movie month. That will bring November’s total to… Five? Six if I take The Princess to see “Bolt” next week, which I fully plan on because… why not?

7. This weekend is also the BAKING EXTRAVAGANZA with my BFF and her sister in law and so that ought to be fun. I’m hoping to not eat my weight in powdered sugar or whatever it is that we’re making. One of the things we’re making is chocolate covered pretzels and that will DO ME IN because I love them. A lot. More than I should. Yum.

8. Actual conversation with my mom:
Me: “Well, I found that out from her Facebook status message.”
Mom: “Why won’t you check MY Facebook? Why do you check HER Facebook but you won’t check mine?”
Me: “Because you don’t HAVE Facebook, mom.”
My mom did just sign up for MySpace last week – because she can’t fight the overwhelming urge to see what everyone is up to. My MySpace account pretty much just sits there, though. (My quote on my MS is “She’s like the DaVinci code. Except harder to crack.” Points to whoever can figure out what movie it’s from.)

9. Sometimes I have a very difficult time talking about myself in third person. I notice it when I’m trying to write witty status messages, or having to write my Blissfully Domestic bio earlier in the week. I start writing in third person and all I can think of is this guy I knew in college who would get so drunk and start referring to himself in third person: “Jay is really tired now. Jay had too much to drink. Jay thinks he needs to go home now.” Fun times.

10. Anyone watching the new Top Chef? It’s taking me awhile to get into it. Of course, I was only half paying attention to it last night because I was just zoning.