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By kilax, April 12, 2009 7:03 am

What’s with the SUPER long posts lately? And having more than one post in a day? I think what I really need to work on is my blogging addiction!

Well, it’s Easter, so it must be time for the big recap post on Lent.

Basically, you can read this list here and just imagine that all it says is “give up sugar treats,” because that is ALL that I was successful at for Lent (since 2/25 – I didn’t cheat on Sundays). I did have a few granola bars with bits of chocolate, and sports beans, but other than that, I completely gave up cookies, chocolate, soda, muffins, candy, and so on… and I feel GREAT!

I am about to spend the day making cookies, but I don’t think I’ll eat any. I am probably going to wait and have a sweet treat after my office’s Biggest Loser Challenge ends on Wednesday (there are 3 boxes of Girl Scouts cookies waiting to be eaten in my house). I plan on staying off the soda, and only having it on special occasions.

As for the rest of the list? A lot of it had to do with attitude and communication. I didn’t progress very far, but I DID figure out a lot of what is bothering me and why, and I tried different ways to handle it. I think I am getting there! Already I have tried to tackle my frustration this weekend by communicating better.*

And the “frivolous items”? Well, I DIDN’T buy a single magazine or book, which is what I had in mind when I wrote that. But uh, yeah, I did buy new clothes (twice), running outfits, a new computer, and… a new car. Good thing I wasn’t buying any magazines, right? Jeez.

We cut back on eating out, not that we did it much before, but I think that can be attributed to the fact that we are so conscious of what we put in our bodies now.

What did I learn? I learned that I CAN reach a goal, but that it can be too overwhelming to try to tackle a lot at once (perhaps I should follow Nilsa’s “challenge a month” lead?). Upcoming goals for me include really committing to cutting out swearing, and trying veganism, and apparently, working on my blogging addiction (any tips with that?).

Unrelated topic: My sister, Christina, was inspired to make a rainbow cake after seeing this set on flickr. Check it out, it’s pretty cool! Here are her photos below. I totally thought of Tori’s rainbow cake when she told me about this!

It looks like you just use yellow cake mix, then separate it and add food coloring to make the fun colors! Or maybe not food coloring? I am not sure what’s in those little white tubes.

Doesn’t it look so fun?! Christina’s so fun.

Yummy! I hope everyone enjoys it!

Christina made this cake to share with my family for Easter. They are all together, with my mom’s side of the family. I decided not to join them this year, so Steven and I are going to take it easy at home (If you can call him running 12 miles taking it easy! HA HA! I only have to run 6 today.).

I hope everyone has a wonderful day!

*”What’s bothering me?” you ask. Well, how nice of you to ask. Thank you. 1. My face is STILL numb and it’s bothersome to eat. 2. The kids in our neighborhood were damaging the trees in our yard yesterday, playing in the street, and harassing a goose. I went outside to talk to them, calmly and nicely, about all three things. I wondered why their parents were no where in sight, letting them play in the street! 3. We saw Fast and Furious last night, and once again, there were a bunch of very young children in the theater. One woman sat down and let her toddler climb up and down the stairs on his own. Well, of course he fell and started crying. There were 5 or 6 kids that probably got up at least 10 times (no, seriously) and literally ran up and down the stairs, very loudly. And the kids behind us would not shut up the entire time. I finally asked them, again, as nicely as I could, to please be quiet so the rest of us could enjoy the remainder of the movie. It was a fluff movie, but that experience really put me in an upset mood last night. 4. My frickin’ cat keeps waking me up at 6:00 am, and I can’t go back to sleep, and I am lonely, up by myself. (Data just goes back to bed!)

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By kilax, March 29, 2009 10:37 pm

Has anyone else seen Knowing?

Steven and I saw a preview for this when we went to see Taken. I turned over to him and said “That looks really good, but… Nicolas Cage is in it…” I had kind of written off Nicolas Cage movies as “immediately in the Netflix Queue” movies. As in, “not worth seeing in theater!”

But Ebert gave it 4 stars (like that means anything, I know), we love “the world’s coming to an end” movies, and had a free movie ticket*, so we decided to go.

Wow. I was completely shocked by this movie. We all know from the previews that the movie is about a sheet of paper with a bunch of numbers all over it. Nicolas Cage gets a hold of the paper and figures out the numbers correspond to dates of horrific events and the number of deaths. Pretty freaky already, right?

Well, I don’t want to give it away, but the movie is a little bit more complicated than that. It took on a much more different angle than I expected it to based on the preview. And it seriously creeped me out. As in, I was grabbing Steven’s arm in the theater, and will probably have nightmares.

I wish I could say more, but I don’t want to spoil it. If you were thinking about seeing it in the theater, I think it is worth it.

*We are signed up for the free rewards program at our theater, and they keep giving us free drinks, and popcorn and tickets! They gave us another ticket tonight! Sweet!!!

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By kilax, March 2, 2009 5:45 am

I’m not an economist, but I’ve been making my own internal speculations about products and services that may be affected by the current economy. I figured activities like library visits, grocery store shopping and working out from home would be up, and eating out, going to the movies and getting haircuts would be down.

The Sun-Times featured an interesting article yesterday on the same topic (click here for a visual version of the article). Their lists of “ups” and “downs” reinforced some of my assumptions, but shattered one of them (okay, and some of the things on their list are just silly).

UPS:

1. Seed Sales
2. SPAM Sales
3. McDonald’s Sales
4. Book (American History, Romance, Science Fiction and Fantasy) Sales
5. Library Book Borrowing
6. Wine Sales
7. Movie Attendance

DOWNS:

1. Frozen Meals for Seniors
2. Shark Attacks (???)
3. Stocks
4. Fortune-Telling
5. Cigarette Sales
6. Plastic Surgery
7. Hotel Occupancy

What do you think of the list? Have you been making any speculations of your own?

(I hope this post doesn’t offend anyone or make anyone think I am not taking this very seriously. I just found the article interesting and wanted to share it.)

Comments (14)

By kilax, July 15, 2008 5:48 am

Whenever I write a seemingly personal post, like yesterday’s, I feel like I should follow up with something more generic. Something true, but something that doesn’t make me feel so exposed.

And I think I am trying to do that with today’s topic, but I really think it makes me sounds like a… jerk. Oh well. Maybe you can relate to the topic.

So, here’s a truth about me: I don’t trust other people’s judgment in movies AT ALL (except Steven – because he knows what I like and don’t like). If someone tells me a movie is good, I really won’t believe them. I’ll ask them questions about WHAT they liked about it, but I won’t believe it is good until I see it for myself.

We all have different tastes. And when someone recommends a movie to you, they are just trying to be nice. I understand that, because I DO IT TOO. I am such a hypocrite. I often find myself telling people, “I watched whatever movie this weekend and I really think you would like it.” I am even guilty of sending people DVDs in the mail because I think they will like them (so dad, what did you think of Idiocracy?).

And I really hate feeling disappointed when I see a movie, and don’t like it. Especially when it is something A LOT of people have told me they liked (and even critics liked), and I was actually starting to look forward to seeing it – like Wanted. I felt bored in the theater, and that a lot of it was predictable. I didn’t find the action that exciting, or the story even that interesting. I did love seeing the scenes in Chicago… but I wouldn’t see it again. Or recommend it to anyone else.

But who cares, right? I’m sure some people would never want to see the movies I am looking forward to this summer. Again, it’s all personal taste. But it’s also something we feel compelled to share with each other for some reason.