Amazing Five: January

Movie/Television: I really loved The Big Short. I thought it was so interesting and smart and really well put together. 

Music: I listened to Christmas music until Epiphany and even after that a little bit. I haven't really been listening music this month. 

Book: My favorite book I read this month was Accidental Saints by Nadia Bolz Weber. I think that Christian women writers like her and Rachel Held Evans and Anne Lamott share a message of grace and humanity that is so impactful and speaks to the heart of what it means to truly be a Christian. It's a welcome counterpoint to the message of evangelicals and the religious right. 

Food: Stove Top stuffing is my favorite food this month. I love dressing and I love using Stove Top in "short cut" recipes. Orange Pork Stove Top was my first foray into Stove Top years ago and it remains my favorite use of Stove Top. 

Potpourri: Podcasts are my new favorite thing. They are the reason I didn't listen to music this month. Here is a list of the podcasts I subscribe to: Happier with Gretchen Rubin, How to Be Amazing with Michael Ian Black, Fresh Air, This American Life, Serial, Planet Money, Another Round, Our National Conversation about Conversations about Race, Eliza Starting at 16, The New Yorker Radio Hour, Lore, Reply All, Dear Sugar Radio, and Pantsuit Politics. 

My Five Favorite Instgrams:

We started the year off with a girls' weekend. 

Happy birthday, hubby. 

Our village wrap place makes good food. We don't patronize it often enough. 

Family time at the indoor soccer stadium. 

Our favorite coffee shop. 

Currently: January 29 edition

Currently I'm...

Obsessed with my reading list. I took my step-daughter to the mall on Sunday. We got there before most of the stores were open so we went to Barnes & Noble. I bought 3 new books from my reading list. I should also note that it isn't really a list, just some ideas, a structure, and a goal. Every month I want to read a fiction book, a self improvement book (widely defined), something else and then in the leftover time, read Lord of the Rings. I know I won't be able to keep this pace up come summer so I want to cram in loads of books before lawn mowing season starts. 

Done with people who believe and comment that the Oscars are about "talent." Educate yourself, understand the process, think about the institutionalized racism that exists in the Academy and the movie industry and in America in general. If the Oscars were about talent, I would expect that the actor who won the SAG award for best supporting actor in a movie would at least be nominated by the Academy. I suspect that because his movie was produced by Netflix, among other reasons, many member of the Academy didn't even bother to open the screener. 

Stressed about work. One of my co-workers turned in her two week notice on Monday. It's bad timing. 

Finding funny that my husband's friend gives me such good Christmas presents. I think it's payment for letting my husband hang out with him so much. 

Oversharing: In years past, I've gotten bad cases of the winter blues. This year it feels completely opposite. There are a couple reasons for this. First, my husband got a job in November. It made scheduling Christmas celebrations difficult, but we don't have to face the January belt tightening that we've done some years. I actually spent my Christmas money on myself instead of using it to pay for other people's Christmas gifts. Second, I just keep reminding myself how great it is to hibernate. I come home, put on my comfy pajama pants, bake casseroles or make soups, drink hot tea, curl up for some Netflix, and cuddle into bed with a book. 

Currently: January 22 edition

Obsessed with the Goodreads app. I love the little rush of achievement when I get when I can mark a book the app recommends as one I've already read. I also like update my progress for books that I'm reading.

Done with days of dizziness. On Friday, I was slightly dizzy all day. As usually, the feeling intensifid when I changed the position of my head and sometimes it got worse for no reason at all. Atypically, after dinner, I got the worst headache on the right side of my head. The headache didn't alleviate the dizziness. I went to bed at 9:30 on Friday night and woke up at 3:30 on Saturday morning because I went to bed so early. 

Stressed about: It's been a difficult week. My brother broke both his arms and had surgery this week. My husband came home from picking Lily up from gymnastics with complaints of pain in his lower back. I'm super sensitive about him and back pain because he's already had one surgery for a herniated disc in his lower back. And then Wednesday (the same day as my brother's surgery) he got in a car accident.

Finding funny Saturday morning I was eating my yogurt with the pictured spoon. This spoon doesn't match the rest of our silverware. Once I was cleaning out my purse and I found this spoon in my purse. I had been out to eat with some friends and I can only assume it fell off the table and into my purse. It seemed funny after waking up at 3:30 in the morning. 

Oversharing: The lobby of the branch of the police station we went to for my husband's accident had this display in the lobby:

I'm still puzzled about what this display says about American law enforcement. There wasn't any contextual information that I saw, so I guess it's open to interpretation. I don't know if these are guns ones that KCPD used in the field or if they were confiscated or what. I suspect that the United States is one of the few countries that would have a display like this in a police department.

Also this happened and it made me lose faith in the future.

Currently: January 15 edition

Currently I'm...

Obsessed with painting my nails. As a part of one of my New Year's Resolution in service of a never-ending goal, I decided to keep my fingernails decked out in the fun and festive palette of nail polish that clutters our bathroom closet. Three weeks in, I'm on my third color. I mostly love the extra-special fancy feeling that the glints of color on my fingertips provide and the forced minutes of doing nothing more strenuous than tapping out a blog post on my phone that the paint drying time necessitates. And yet, the little nicks and chips that develop in the otherwise smooth facade transport me back to my angsty preteen days in which my jeans needed to be re-pegged several times in the morning to get my tight-roll in the optimal position, my socks had to perfectly match my shirt (slight fading of a pair of socks meant they got surreptitiously discarded into my mother's sock drawer), and my morning curling-iron-hairspray-teasing bang routine could leave me in tears. While I have probably retouched my fingernails' paint job more times than is healthy for my psyche and my brain (paint fumes), living with the imperfections inherent in me doing my own nails and also doing the dishes reminds me that I survived all the internal and external drama of growing up and that I'll survive whatever comes my way in the future, even if my nail polish doesn't. 

Done with (literally speaking) knitting this scarf and reading these books. I used up some leftover yarn to make this scarf. 

Stressed about the weather. I love bad weather as long as I don't have to go out in it. This week the weekend was fine but the work day weather was really not conducive to a 45 mile commute. I hate having to make the decision to bail on work to get home safely. 

Finding funny: Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling. I'm a sucker for a clever turn of phrase. 

Oversharing that I only left the house twice during the three-day MLK Day weekend. Once to take recycling to the bin. I barely have to leave the carport to dump the recycling so I'm not sure if that qualifies. The second time was to go get a burrito the size of my head from Longboards. 

Terrible Movie Poster Quotes: The Revenant Edition

The Revenant is a beautifully done movie.  The cinematography is amazing. The supporting cast is great. Here are my terrible movie quotes. 

"The wilderness was really crowded!"

"Leonardo DiCaprio does excellent...with the material he's been given."

"Hugh Glass is the Energizer Bunny."

"Leonardo DiCaprio emotionally reenacts the tauntaun scene from Empire Strikes Back."

"Hugh Glass's and Jim Bridger's life stories are the stuff movies are made of, but not really this movie."