And the Oscar Goes To...

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In past years, I've managed an Oscars pool at work. This year and last it just didn't happen. I was much too busy and the Oscars snuck up on me. So, instead of submitting a secret ballot to the work pool, I'll put my predictions out in the open for all to see (for the major categories and ones I cherry pick.)

Let me preface my predictions by saying this:

I've seen ONE movie nominated for Best Picture.

Shots in the dark.

Anywho, my choices are in BOLD.

Best Picture
American Hustle (the one I've seen)
Captain Phillips
Dallas Buyers' Club
Gravity
Her
Nebraska
Philomena
12 Years a Slave
Wolf of Wall Street

Best Director
David O. Russell, "American Hustle"
Alfonso Cuaron, "Gravity"
Alexander Payne, "Nebraska"
Steve McQueen, "12 Years a Slave"
Martin Scorsese, "Wolf of Wall Street"

Best Actor
Christian Bale, "American Hustle"
Bruce Dern, "Nebraska"
Leonardo DiCaprio, "Wolf of Wall Street"
Chiwetel Eljofor, "12 Years a Slave"
Matthew McConaughey, "Dallas Buyers' Club"

Best Actress
Amy Adams, "American Hustle"
Cate Blanchett, "Blue Jasmine" (I actually saw this one, too!)
Sandra Bullock, "Gravity"
Judi Dench, "Philomena"
Meryl Streep, "August: Osage County"

Best Supporting Actor
Barkhad Abdi, "Captain Phillips"
Bradley Cooper, "American Hustle"
Michael Fassbender, "12 Years a Slave"
Jonah Hill, "Wolf of Wall Street"
Jared Leto, "Dallas Buyers' Club"

Best Supporting Actress
Sally Hawkins, "Blue Jasmine"
Jennifer Lawrence, "American Hustle"
Lupita Nyong'o, "12 Years a Slave"
Julia Roberts, "August: Osage County"
June Squibb, "Nebraska"

Best Animated Feature Film
The Croods
Despicable Me 2
Ernest & Celestine
Frozen
The Wind Rises

Best Costume Design
American Hustle
The Grandmaster
Great Gatsby
Invisible Woman
12 Years a Slave

And there you have it.

What are your predictions?

Lagging Behind

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That tiny little bird on the far right? That's me.

I need to catch up on posts!!!!

I thought for sure I'd write more than one with this being a long weekend (and even longer for me, as I took Friday off), but no can do.

Oh well, if this is the worst problem I have at this moment, I'll take it.

As I said, I took Friday off, as did John. For a few months, I'd been saying that I wanted to see a special exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston -- John Singer Sargent's watercolors.

I LOVE Singer Sargent's portraits (which he's known for). I can't remember if I first saw them in D.C. at the National Gallery or at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.

This is my fave:

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This is entitled, "The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit." It's a rather dark picture, but I love the youthfulness of it.

When I heard that Singer Sargent had done watercolors, I was pretty surprised. His portraits tend to be dark, like the one above, while as watercolors are generally much lighter.

I bought tickets online and on Friday morning, John and I drove into Boston to check out the exhibit.

We had to wait in line for maybe 20 minutes and it was VERY crowded.

This is the design that was on the elevator bank:

We made it to the lower level!

Once we finally got into the exhibit, the crowd didn't thin out at all. At first we stood "in line" and followed the crowd around the walls. At some point, I couldn't take it anymore and broke free. I realized that I didn't need to be front and center, but could admire the paintings from afar.

Here are some of my favorites (excuse the not so good pics, but not being front & center does have its drawbacks):

All in all, it was a real nice exhibit. I wasn't fond of the quarry series he did, I otherwise like the rest. Interestingly, there weren't as many watercolors as I thought there'd be and there were oils mixed in AND there were paintings from Edward Darley Boit mixed in. Huh.

What else has been going on?

My Mom was here for about five days. I had some time off with her before I got sick (ugh) and we had a nice visit. We shopped, we ate, we shopped, we watched HGTV, we shopped. OK...like mother, like daughter.

I've been engrossed in cookbooks that I've gotten from the library. I bookmark the recipes I like and try to find them online and Pin them. If I can't, I go the old fashioned route and photocopy. Here are the latest I've been plowing through:

Let's talk British TV, shall we?

As you probably know, Season 4 of Downton Abbey has started.

This is me and my reaction so far:

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It's sad, really. The first episode had promise, but since then it's all gone to crap. Grrr. (Of course, I'll still watch in case it makes a miraculous turnaround.)

On the other side of the spectrum, I started watching another British TV series (from the very beginning) and wasn't so sure about it, but by the end of the first episode of the first season, I'm sold!

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It's on Netflix, so check it out!

I have to do my 2013 "Year in Books" post -- I read some good ones. (The one I started 2014 with was a dud and I stopped reading it, which I almost NEVER do.)

Got about 100 pages in and couldn't take the arduous details anymore (it's close to 600 pages in total). My Mom loved it, but I just couldn't see wasting my time on it. If you read it and like it, let me know.

I was looking into taking a beginning sewing class, but....

you have to bring your own machine.

WTF? Some people I've told that to thought it made sense and others, not so much.

Needless to say, I won't be buying a sewing machine to take one class to find out I suck at it or hate it.

Phew.

I think that catches us up.

I'd promise that I'll write another post soon, but it might be a lie.

State of Affairs Here

We have a LOT of snow here in northeastern Massachusetts.

Like, 17-20".

I now know what it's like to live in the tundra.

This was from my Weather Channel app last night.

Brrrrrr.

Even the deer thought it was chilly and were hunkered down. (In my backyard.)

In other non-weather related news...

I have a blog to profile for my next installment of "50 States? 50 Blogs!" Georgia's up and I have a really unique blog to write about (at least I consider it unique). I'm  hoping to get that published tomorrow.

I've been a cooking maniac again!

I haven't been taking pics, but I can share the recipes with you.

For New Year's Eve, I made two new recipes:

Spicy Kielbasa Dip from the blog From Valerie's Kitchen. It was AWESOME! A hot dip (temperature and spice-wise) was perfect for a cold night.

PSA: I'm totally loving recipes From Valerie's Kitchen. Check it out. (I also made her Crock-Pot Cocktail Meatballs, which I'd made before. This time I just did them on the stovetop, though and they were just as good!)

The other recipe I made for New Year's Eve was not quite as good as the Spicy Kielbasa Dip.

Long story short -- I had a coupon for Stonewall Kitchen's Apple Cranberry Chutney, so I had to buy it (of course). I immediately set off on their website to find a recipe to go with it. I selected Cranberry Brie Bites, because who doesn't like brie and who doesn't like pastry? (I've also had good luck with other Stonewall recipes.)

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First let me say that I think I thought chutney was something altogether different. (I didn't realize it would have an Indian spice twist to it). 

Second, let me say that my bites didn't look quite as lovely/crispy as above photo.

They weren't bad, but they weren't superb, either. If you're into chutney you might like them. We didn't.

This is my next project:

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Chorizo-Queso Egg Rolls. Because again, who doesn't like cheese? I'll let you know how these work out.

After dining on our yummy apps on New Year's Eve, we watched this "interesting" movie:

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Jayne Mansfield's Car. Weird name for a weird movie. Admittedly it was the only non-kids/semi-interesting movie left at Redbox. It's a Billy Bob Thornton movie. Need I say more? (He's in it, too. What a weirdo.) To summarize it, I'd say Southern dysfunctional family meets British dysfunctional family. Ok then.

My Mom comes for a visit on Friday...I can't wait to see her! Hopefully it will have warmed up and maybe some cleaning fairies will have appeared and whipped this place into shape?

Oh, and yeah, about that last blog post? I lasted 48 hours and then reactivated Facebook.

Not bad.

It probably wasn't the best idea to quit cold turkey in the middle of a snowstorm during which it was too cold to go outside, my office was closed, etc..

It's all good, however. Social media relapse is a part of that personalized 12-step program I mentioned. It was fully expected. I can only hope to go twice as long next time I quit!

Step Away from Facebook

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Approximately 30 hours ago I took the first step in my personalized 12-step program.

I deactivated my Facebook account.



My name is Katie.

I was addicted to Facebook.


Sad, but true.

I found myself realizing that I was spending much too much time on Facebook.

I was using it as an excuse when I didn't want to do things that I should be doing, i.e., cleaning, organizing, working.

Don't get me wrong -- Facebook's not ALL bad.

A friend from college was reunited with a high school friend and fell in love and married on New Year's Eve. I loved watching their relationship blossom and seeing over the moon happy pics from their wedding.

I was reunited with friends that I had lost touch with over the years and was happy to see how their lives have developed.

You know what, though?

In addition to Facebook being an excuse for not doing the things I mention above, I tend to think it's hindered my personal contact with friends and family.

I aim to change that.

As I told my friends from my Facebook-based chat board, "This may only last 5 minutes, 5 hours, or 5 days. Who knows."

I'm taking it one minute at a time (spoken like a true addict!)

I may go back.

I may not.

And maybe...just maybe...with all this free time, I'll even blog more!

Christmas Hangover

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I'm talking about the kind you get from shopping, not booze. (Although, as you'll see, there are similarities.)

I've noticed over the past few years that soon after Christmas (as soon as the day after) I'm completely burnt out on material goods. 

Between shopping for others and gathering a list of things that I'd like, I never want to look at Amazon.com again or set foot inside a Target again.

Like when you drink heavily and the next day swear you'll never drink again (at least, so I've heard that this happens...). I'm swearing I'll never shop again.

It's not the truth long-term, but it's the short-term truth.

John and I took his son shopping today for some clothes and each store that we went into, I initially thought, "Oh, I'll just look at this." Took one step in that direction and immediately felt a sense of dread come over me. I even tried on a pair of Bearpaw boots (Ugg knock off) that were my fave color and I could've easily bought them, but I just wasn't feeling it (I may regret that later.)

I have gift cards to spend, but it will probably be a few months before I even feel like browsing.

Does anyone else feel this way?

Book Reviews: Twice As Nice

How often does it happen that you read two really good books in a row?

Almost never.

Or in my case, NEVER. Ever.

Never say never, my friends. It has happened.

I read these two books back to back and they are AMAZING!

Mother Daughter Me by Katie Hafner

Coming Clean by Kimberly Rae Miller

Both of these books are memoirs and center heavily on parent/child relationships.

Mother Daughter Me is about three generations (grandmother, daughter, granddaughter) who decide to live together under one roof. The grandmother was an alcoholic and mostly absent in her daughter's life while she was growing up and not overly present in her granddaughter's life growing up. As you might imagine, this "year in Provence" (as they like to call it)/living together experiment does not turn out so swell.

Coming Clean is about growing up in a house with parents who are hoarders. The author chronicles the squalor that she grew up in, but more importantly, her relationship with her parents and others around her and how they were different because of the hoarding.

Things I love about these books:

• Mother Daughter Me prefaces each chapter with great quotes. From page 104:

"What do girls do who haven't any mothers to help them through their troubles?" by Louisa May Alcott

• Mother Daughter Me addresses a really interesting topic -- women and money. From page 70:

Kate Levinson, a psychotherapist in Northern California, specializes in the topic of women and their relationship to money. In her book, aptly titled, Emotional Currency, Levinson wrote that if we have enough money to cover our basic living expenses, much of the angst we experience around money stems from what she calls, "our inner money life." For women, it also represents a tangled skein of emotions. We use money to act out feelings we're unable to acknowledge or express in other ways. Nowhere does this play itself out more poignantly than in family dynamics.

WOW.

First, I have added Emotional Currency to my "must read" list.

Second, this sentence - "We use money to act out feelings we're unable to acknowledge or express in other ways" makes total sense to me. What do I do when I'm stressed, annoyed, need a "break?" I spend money. I'll admit it. Shopping (spending money) is my way of releasing these feelings. (Granted, it's only a temporary fix...) I'll stop my psychoanalysis there until I read the other book. :)

• While my relationship with my Mom is completely the opposite from the grandmother/daughter in Mother Daughter Me (I didn't grow up as a child of divorce or with an alcoholic parent), I could relate to wanting to care for my Mom as she gets older.

• As I mentioned, Coming Clean is so much more than a "Hoarders" episode. I loved reading about the author's relationship with both of her parents and trying to imagine living in one of those "Hoarders" episodes, yet protecting fiercely and caring for deeply the hoarders.

• Again, my childhood was so different from that of the author of Coming Clean (I didn't grow up with parents who are hoarders), I found it fascinating to try to envision myself in Kimberly Rae Miller's childhood. Rats. Sludge. Having to take showers at a gym. Not being able to invite friends over. That last one is the one that really struck me.

• I admire the author of Coming Clean for seeking answers through therapy and addressing nightmares that she had much later in life about the hoard.

Read both of these books. You won't regret it!

Happy Birthday My Love!

The past 16 1/2 years that I've known you have been the best of my life!

Today we celebrate YOU -- and all of the good things about you.

Thanks for being you!

Talented

Great Dad.

Great Husband.

Cute.

Sensitive & Caring.

Funny.

And so much more!

Love you!