What I'm Loving Right Now

1. Mad Men Season 4
We just finished it on Netflix and it just may have been my favorite season yet. The Suitcase was one seriously amazing episode. I'm heartbroken that I have to wait so long for Season 5!

Luckily I found the amazing website, Tom and Lorenzo, that recaps the style of every episode and character. This has kept me entertained for HOURS.


2. My Book Club
My friend Kim started a real-life book club and I love it! So far we'd read Mennonite in a Little Black Dress and Cutting for Stone. I'll post reviews of them another day.

2. Fage Greek Yogurt with Fruit
I've always loved non-fat Fage Greek Yogurt, but it was always a bit plain for my taste. Then I discovered the yogurt + fruit topping combo. LOVE it. And I found it a Costco too. Double score.


3. Playing with my New Camera
I got my Cannon Rebel last week! I've been trying out a lot of the functionality and taking a lot of pictures of Judah since he's generally the only willing subject around the condo.

4. Working out to the Song, "All of the Lights" by Kanye West
I seriously put this on repeat with a couple of other upbeat new songs for my gym workouts. I don't usually listen to much Top 40 music, but for working out a lot of the current music is perfect.

5. Gina's Skinnytaste
Shoutout to Dee for introducing this to me. Turns out everyone knew about this website except me. I made this Southwestern Black Bean Salad on Monday. Yum! Perfect for Summer!

6. Long days
I love that when I get off work it's still sunny and we can dine al fresco like we've done the past couple of evenings.

7. Pacifico Beer
Is there any better Summer beer?


8. Your sweet comment on my post Tuesday
Thanks for your kind words and supportive words.

What We've Been Watching

The Mr. and I love to watch movies and TV series together on Netflix. It's something nice we can do after work with a glass of wine to unwind and reconnect.

We do however occasionally make it to the theater to catch a new movie.

Like this past weekend I (somehow) got the Mr. to see Bridesmaids with me.


It was so nice of him to go with me because this was SUCH a "girl movie" but he tolerated it and even had a few laughs. It was pretty funny, but not amazing. I'd give it 3.5 stars out of 5.

It definitely wasn't as good as some of the Academy Award nominated movies we've been watching on Netflix Lately.

We recently rented The Social Network, The Kings Speech, The Fighter, and Blue Valentine.


We LOVED The Social Network. For me, this should have won Best Picture. Great acting, great music, and a socially relevant story line. I give it 5 stars out a 5.

The King's Speech was very good. Fantastic acting. I still give it 5 stars out 5, I just don't think the subject matter was a relevant to our society as the Social Network.

The Fighter was good. It was pretty much the same as every other movie about boxing/sports/bad neighborhoods in Massachusetts/dysfunctional families ever made, but we liked it a lot. I'd give it 4 out of 5 stars.

Note: We've now seen 9/10 of the Best Picture Nominees from 2010. Not bad!

Finally, Blue Valentine. I had such high hopes for this movie. I'd heard it was poignant and superbly acted. Well, The Mr. quit watching at about the 40 minute mark. I soldiered on and in the end wished I had not. The movie was depressing, disturbing, and left me with nothing to take away from it. I give it 1.5 stars out a 5 (redeemed only by some good acting ).

We've recently also been watching some older TV Shows on Netflix: Rome, Twin Peaks, and Nip/Tuck.


Rome is fantastic! Great acting. Great history (esp. if you're a history geek like me).

Twin Peaks is a early 1990s show. It's a thriller/mystery filled with quirky, funny characters. We really enjoyed Season 1. But now Season 2 is disappointing us.

Nip/Tuck was also good for the first couple of seasons, but now that we're several seasons in, it's kind of jumped the shark. I think we may quit watching it.


Have you seen any of these movies or TV shows? What did you think? What have you been watching lately?

Watching TV on Netflix Together

One thing that the Mr. and I really enjoy doing together is renting TV shows on Netflix. We love to crack a bottle a wine and watch a few back-to-back episodes on our giant TV with surround sound (the Mr.'s baby).


What we've watched

We watched 5 seasons of The Office on Netflix.

We quit watching The Office this year, half-way through season 6, because, in our opinion, it got dumb. Sorry, current Office fans!

We watched 4 seasons of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia on Netflix. LOVE. THAT. SHOW. I know it can be crude and not-PC, but it's SO funny. We're super excited that season 5 is on Netflix in September!


Also, we watched all 9 seasons of The X-Files. Don't judge us for being geeks, ok?

Although, I quit watching someplace in Season 8, because the show really jumped the shark toward the end.


What we're currently watching

We finally jumped on the Mad Men bandwagon and started watching Season 1. Despite all the cheating, I really like it! We'll definitely be renting more Mad Men soon.




What's up next

Obviously more Always Sunny and Mad Men.

Also, maybe Dexter, Season 4. We watched Seasons 1-3 of Dexter back when I had Showtime. But the Mr. quit half-way through Season 3 because he hated that Dexter and Rita were getting married and having a baby. I'm trying to convince him to rent Season 4 with me because apparently Rita dies in the last episode.


We're also going to rent the 1990s cult-classic, Twin Peaks.


I'm also trying to convince the Mr. that The West Wing is not liberal propaganda and that we should start renting those (even though I watched many of them live in the late 1990s/early 2000s.) So far I've gotten a "maybe" out of him.


Also, I've been watching Friday Night Lights and How I Met Your Mother on my own on DVR and borrowed DVDs -- But I've been unable to convince the Mr. that they are not "girl shows."


What TV shows do you and your husband/significant other love to watch together?

LOST

You may have noticed that I'm not a huge TV watcher.

I watch a few shows on and off (like American Idol and Grey's Anatomy) but I pretty much only watch a few shows religiously: How I Met Your Mother, The Office, and my #1 favorite, LOST!

So you can bet that I am pretty darn excited for tomorrow night. Why? It's the season premiere of the last season of LOST!

I have watched every episode since I watched the series premiere with my apartment-mates back at USC (wow, I've been watching this show for a long time). In the middle seasons when things got a little weird and off-track, a lot of people abandoned LOST, but I stuck with it. And now it's finally time to watch the beginning of the end.

Who is Jacob? Is everyone dead? Will Jack and Kate ever be together?

I can't wait to find out!

(Yes, I am holding on to an insane thread of hope that all of the questions that have been posed over the last five years will be answerd in the sixth year)



If you don't see me blogging or tweeting from now until tomorrow, it's because I'm on lostpedia gearing up for tomorrow night!

Is anyone else a die-hard LOST fan?

Falling in Love with Fall

Even though the first day of Fall is officially September 22, I've always felt that the day after Labor Day marks the end of summer and the start of Fall.

When I was young I loved summer so much that Labor Day was a day of mourning for me. I'd mope around the house and sometimes even cry over the loss of Summer.

Now that I'm "an adult" working for "the man" in an air conditioned office every day, and I don't go back to school, seasons matter less to me. And since I live in a Southern California beach city where the weather rarely drops below 60 all year, and the palm tree leaves don't turn to shades gold and brown, the concept of Seasons is sometimes irrelevant. But nevertheless, in recent years Fall has grown on me.

So since "Fall" is right around the corner I've been thinking of the reasons that I've fallen in love with Fall.

1. College Football! Specifically, my Alma Mater, the USC Trojans!
I love the excitement around college football in general. But there is almost nothing I love more than tailgating on the USC campus with my alumni buddies and watching the Trojans demolish a team in the Colosseum.


PS- Can you believe that a true Freshman, Matt Barkley will be starting at quarterback on Saturday? It's the first time ever in USC history a true Freshman has started at QB.


2. Holidays
I've always loved Halloween. And now I love Thanksgiving because it is always such a fun and special time with the Mr's family in Oregon (where they actually have seasons). Plus my MIL is a great cook and does a lot of fun dishes with the leftovers too.



3. New Fall TV Shows
I don't watch a TON of TV, but I am excited for new episodes of three of my favorite shows (my other favorite show, LOST, will not back on until January)

The Office premires on September 17.


How I Met Your Mother premires on September 21.


Grey's Anatomy premires on September 24 (thank goodness for DVR!)


What parts of Fall do you enjoy? Or do you still hate Fall like I used to? What are you looking forward to in Fall?