Review: The Croods
I have vivid memories of going to the movies when I was a kid. It was THE thing to do back in the day and I loved it! My parents, sister or nanny would take me from time to time but I loved to go with my Uncle Magdy. He would pile 20 of us cousins into a car or two (totally legal) and take us to the movies. We took up an entire row, were loud and made one hell of a mess. But those were amazing times.
The movies aren’t exactly family budget friendly anymore. I remember paying $3.75 for a ticket and now to go on a Friday night I need to take out a personal loan from the bank! And yes we have Netflix, Kindles, iPads, etc. that give us access to movies and while those are nice – they lack the sparkle of going to a dingy movie theater and seeing it BIG! So every so often we try to catch an early weekend movie for only $5.00 a ticket. I like to take Sophia to movies. She gets so excited!!!!
Recently, we went to see The Croods 3D.
I don’t get the hype about 3D movies. I’ve been seeing in 3D my entire life!! But there is an undeniable need for the movie industry to make every kids movie in 3D and now even resurrect old movies to get more money for 3D showings. It’s apparently the latest trend. I’m usually not a fan but kids love those recycled glasses, pretending they can actually touch the things shooting out at them and what not. But anyways – I digress….
The Croods is a movie about the world’s first ever family and the adventure they embark on after their cave home is destroyed. It’s sprinkled with family stereotypes, prehistoric humor and some awesome fantasy land.
I will say that I was impressed with the 3D quality of The Croods. Usually there is this grainy feel to things but this time around it was very clear and I surprisingly didn’t leave with a headache. The relationship between the characters was spot on. Totally a realistic portrayal of family life now even though they are in the midst of the cave man era. We laughed out loud, my husband related to the over protective father, and Sophia thought the boy, awesomely named Guy, was cute (insert Mike’s eye rolling here). And talk about one hell of a cast! Emma Stone, Nicolas Cage and Ryan Reynolds – just to name a few. That doesn’t suck one bit. Sophia watched content, talked about it for 3 days and was excited to get a book about the movie in one of her Easter baskets.
All in all it was a solid 98 minutes of movie with an ending that had me a bit tearful {I am sucker for kids movies!}. It was a great family movie but not one I would put on my all time favorite must own or the world will end list of movies. If you aren’t an avid movie goer yourself – wait till it hits ABC Family movie weekends or Netflix.
Have you seen any new movies lately?
April Photo a Day
We are officially half way through April. Yesterday was Tax Relief Day {my ass}, which can be stressful for some. So I thought I would liven things up! 
This month I am participating in a photo a day challenge on Instagram. There are a ton of people who post photo a day challenges but I particularly love those of a blog I adore – Fat Mum Slim. I can’t even remember how I stumbled upon her – but I love her Instagram and blog. She has beautiful pictures that make me endlessly jealous and want to move to Australia. But oh well. Since I can’t do that – I follow along, dream and post my photo a day.
I love that she has no rules….’cause rules suck…. and I love searching her hash tag (#fmsphotoaday) to see what others have posted for the day. It’s global picture awesomeness!
April looks like this:
#fmsphotoaday
I thought I would share a few of my own pictures so far for the month.
April 5: Something Good – {strawberry shortcake}
April 6th: Air – {Redd’s Apple Ale full of air because I drank it all.}
April 9: Tiny {name, incredible meaning}
I am really excited about today’s picture prompt – your favorite color – but I just have so much to choose from. Of course you can continue to see my progress on Instagram.
Confessions
Every now and then I feel the need to admit to things on my blog. Sometimes rather shameful things, other times just things that need to be said or things I feel the need to share. And I write these items in my favorite format – a list! I usually feel so much better after confessing too. It’s similar to sitting in the confessional and admitting to your Father all the horrible and sinful things you have done. Expect this has nothing to do with the Catholic faith, is very public and in the end no one will absolve you of your sins. But it’s awesome nonetheless so here goes…
- Reese’s peanut butter eggs are evil little pieces of chocolate deliciousness that I can’t resist at all. I would do unspeakable things for one of those damn eggs. Judge me all you want – then have one and get back to me on the matter.
- It is ridiculous how behind I am on Modern Family, Castle, and CSI: NY. Shhh! Don’t tell me what happened!!!!! I need to dedicate a weekend to catch up.
- I missed my little monkey while she was away on Spring Break with my parents. But… the house was quiet, I wasn’t forced to watch SpongeBob and I didn’t have to argue with anyone over dinner.
- I’m excited for Spring. I know I know, I am a HUGE Winter person but with Spring comes grilling out, fire pits, flip flops, walks in the neighborhood and green grass. All things I have missed more than usual this year.
- I am also dreading Spring. It means yard work, bugs are back and Spring cleaning. All things I am not looking forward to at all.
- Mopping is a serious problem for me. I hate doing it, will find any excuse to avoid it and put it off all the time to do silly things like play on Twitter and Pinterest.
- My obsession with Arabic music has gotten out of hand. If I don’t hear one Arabic song a day – my life feels incomplete. Almost as bad as if I left my phone or planner at home. Yeah, that bad.
- I have a box of Ester Price milk chocolate caramels in my night stand drawer and I’m totally not ashamed. They are there for those life is so stressful I can’t believe I have to do this why is this happening to me I hate myself moments that we all experience from time to time. Most people come home and have a beer. I hate beer. So I come home and have one piece of milk chocolate heaven.
- I am addicted to Scentsy. It’s my neighbor’s fault. She sells it and now… I religiously buy it. But I have a small house with a man, six-year-old, two dogs and a cat so it’s ABSOLUTELY necessary.
- I totally failed to log any of my Weight Watcher stuff last week. Opps.
- Sometimes I can’t stand our cat, Kiko. There I said it. But he’s annoying so it’s justified.
- My doctor says I need to tan to help calm down my eczema. The man seriously told me to fake and bake! Not sure if I can do it.
- I am so scared to take out the trash because it’s warm enough that neighborhood raccoon, whom we lovingly call Rocky, is back. I am horrified of him and his 4 obese children! I know, it sounds stupid but you’ve never met Rocky.
Spring Break
I’ve come to the conclusion that EVERY working individual should get a Spring break. As in a paid time off break from work to sleep in, be distracted, shamelessly watch Harry Potter movies and occasionally trashy television. Listen, after a week like that people would come back to work rejuvenated and ready to kick some memos, work emails and conference calls in the ass. I know I would!
How is it remotely fair that my first grader gets a week off? From what? Learning to read, write stories and count coins? COME ON!!! I get that it’s more of a break for the teachers and trust me they are way deserving of a break. They spend all day with our children so we don’t have to, right? You couldn’t pay me enough. But that’s besides the point – why do kids get a break and their hard-working parents don’t? I get that some families are able to take vacations to warm or tropical places for a week. When I was a kid, that’s exactly what we did! But we aren’t one of those families. Instead – my kiddo got to spend the week with my parents (a whole 5 miles from my house) and live like royalty for the week. I can envision my daughter laying on the leather couch with her feet up, watching SpongeBob while my mother serves her grapes and Capri Suns on a silver platter. NO JOKE. She got a week of luxury spoiling while my husband and I worked our usual 40+ hours a week each.
I think it’s only fair (I know life isn’t fair – shut up) that parents get a break too. Right? Who wouldn’t want to spend the week in PJs, eating junk food and watching stupid amounts of Food Network and ABCFamily? Especially, while their children go to school and are forced to learn “valuable” things they will never use in real life like cursive (who writes in that besides teachers and your grandmother?), long division and the history of the ball point pen. I think it would be a good dose of reality because in the real world we don’t get weeks off to play for free. Sadly, it doesn’t work like that. There are a few other things we should be teaching in schools too. Etiquette and common sense would be good additions to school curriculum…but that’s an entirely different post in and of itself.
Okay – I am finished complaining. For now anyway.
Did you get a Spring Break? If so, what did you do? Oh and I totally hate you.
Hot Yoga
It is rare that I try something new. I’m kind of a wimp so it takes a lot to muster up the courage to even consider trying something new. BUT…. I am in the midst of this weight loss journey and new is necessary. So I tired my hand at hot yoga.
I did yoga back in the day. Like 10 years ago back in the day when I was a fourth the size I am now. And I’ll admit – I was pretty damn good at it. So hot yoga would be a piece of cake right? That was kind of my initial thought. I paid in advance for my class just to ensure I wouldn’t bail and even met a friend there. Accountability is key when trying new things.
We took a hot vinyasa class. You go through a variety of poses and focus on the power of inhaling and exhaling… for 75 minutes in a 95+ degree room. Yes, you read that correctly. We did yoga in a room as hot as hell, by choice! I cannot begin to describe the heat. I am Egyptian (from the mother land itself) and I thought was I was literally going to die of heat stroke in that tiny little room with 10 other people. Hot doesn’t even scratch the surface of the level of heat. At first – I thought my lungs would collapse. Then I felt extremely claustrophobic – the walls were closing in on me by the second. Focus on breathing? Please - who can breathe when it’s that fricken hot? There was a short period of dizziness and then just insane amounts of sweat. This all took place in the first 3 minutes of class. The remaining 72 minutes were a whole laundry list of emotions that I just plain spare you from. But there was no doubt… it was HOT yoga.
Now for the actual yoga itself. It was challenging as a big girl to do some of the poses. I tired my hand at it but it wasn’t easy in the least bit. And I’ll admit – there were discouraging moments when these little skinny young things were bent into pretzel shapes but I took comfort in that I wasn’t the only person taking breaks or unable to do certain poses. The instructor was great! She was encouraging and not the least bit pushy knowing that there were a variety of levels in the class. She did ask us to do some crazy poses though but some people were all about it. My yoga buddy was helpful too (Thanks Jacque!). She is one of those beautiful mothers of three that is ridiculously skinny it makes you mad. She was patient with me and didn’t judge my inability to do things even though she was awesome. It’s always helpful to have buddy.
I did learn a few valuable lessons.
- I am not remotely as flexible as I used to be – before motherhood. Not even close.
- I nearly suffocated in my boobs on multiple occasions. Having big girls in compromising yoga positions makes it hard to breathe. True story.
- I sweat like a pig. Never in my life have I sweat so much from one activity (THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID!). My shirt was drenched and I shamelessly showed my husband when I got home. It was gross but almost exciting.
- Hot yoga kicked my ass! I was sore for three full days after my one class. The day after, I woke up feeling a little soreness but nothing horrible. As the day progressed though… I was sore from head to toe. Everything from my hands to my toes was in pain when I moved. I totally got owned.
I won? I think I’m in shock…
Sorry I have been away. I was on a business trip at my company’s National Sales Meeting. It’s the biggest event we host all year long so I had a lot of work leading up to my week of travel. Naturally I had to get myself ready and of course, Mike and Sophia too. For some reason, traveling so so very stressful no matter how much I plan ahead.
At any rate – the trip went really well. I had the most wonderful roommate (Hii Boo!!). If I were to have a sister wife – it would be Shannon! Seriously, the absolute perfect roommate EVER! Our room was freezing, we didn’t wake each other up, we were on different shower schedules… couldn’t have been better. And we had a great time!! The food as always was a disappointment but the company was good so it made up for it. This wasn’t my first business trip so I knew what to expect, how to behave and what stupidity to expect from others. Overall it was rather entertaining.
On our last night we have our own grown up version of prom night and an award ceremony. I was very fortunate enough to be one of the winners of an award known as Circle of Excellence (COE) for my 2012 sales performance. It’s one of the highest and most prestigious sales awards within our sales organization. It was an amazing experience and honestly, I can’t put into words what it was like to hug my sister, friends, VPs, and CEOs. It’s rare when I am truly speechless but at that moment, I certainly was. I’ll confess – I was nervous. And once they called my name, I kept thinking to myself as I was walking to the stage - Don’t trip like a dumb ass and do not cry. Both will ruin your face. Afterwards – we drank tasty libations, danced, laughed till it hurt, socialized till late into the night. Much later that night I got a call from homebase – my munchkin woke up puking neon Valentine’s Day candy. Less than ideal for the hubby but he handled it like a champ. I think I went to bed around 4AM when I was done walking Mike through another vomit clean up situation in my hotel bathroom as to not wake my roomie up. I traveled home on Friday fine (thankfully) and did nothing on Saturday. Literally – NOTHING.
Hell, it’s been a week and it still hasn’t truly sunk in. I won COE? Did I really? I walked up on stage with truly incredible sales professionals and accepted such an honorary award? Did that really actually happen? I think I am definitely in shock. I keep looking at pictures just to make sure it’s true. They actually take video of the entire event and I can’t wait for it to be available so I can watch it. I think only then will I be able to truly believe that it happened. Is this winner’s high? I’m not sure but I am truly very excited (despite my shock) and blessed. Thank you to my family and friends who have supported me and given me so much guidance during those dark hours. I would have never have made it this far without you.
Oh and if I don’t post again within the next week it’s because I’m still sitting here… in shock.
Bedazzled
I am all for a little bling on your clothes from time to time. A special event, New Year’s Eve, or a night out on the town is a legit reason to get all fancy with it…if you’re a woman!
Someone got the bright idea to bedazzle men’s jeans. While I’m okay with a showy belt buckle or shiny buttons on your favorite karaoke shirt, I draw the line at pants that look my 6 year old took a hot glue gun and glitter to. It’s not masculine or macho. In fact it’s got the opposite effect. It makes me want to vomit and or judge until my eyes bleed. Who thought this was okay? And moreover – why are people stupid enough to purchase them? I have never been out shopping for my husband and thought to myself, You know what’s hot? My husband. You know what’s hotter? My husband in bedazzled, blinged out jeans that will be over priced and that’s totally okay. Anything for fashion, right? Nope. NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN. In fact, they would have to pay me to even consider it much less actually purchase the pants.
My family was out to dinner and we saw a man with his (floozy-dressed-I’m-clearly-trying-to-get-some-cause-I’m-easy) girlfriend going up to the counter to order. My husband noticed this man’s pants and was ashamed for him. He kept giving him this look like, “Why man, why?? Why you gotta ruin our whole gender with your tacky ass pants?” And it’s not like it was 11PM and he was at the club. It was 6:30PM at Submarine House (best subs in Ohio!!) on a Wednesday night. I kind of brushed it off, like this was a one time incident. No more than two days later I saw a man in the produce section of Kroger wearing similar pants. At that moment I knew this was a social issue that needed addressed.
I am sure there is someone out there who is reading this and getting all pissy with me about calling them out on their bejeweled men’s jeans. To those people, I am sorry if I have offended you. What I need to know is what was going through your head when you decided to pay money for something beyond tacky? I don’t have a crafty bone in my body but for the right amount of money – I’ll make the damn jeans for you! All I need is a hot glue gun, some plastic jewels for JoAnn’s and sequence so your butt reflects light like a disco ball. Also – did you think this would attract a mate? Was there some article in Maxim discussing the pros of flashy butt pockets on jeans? A little advice from a woman – your bedazzled ass will most likely ruin your chances of mating. FOREVER.
Furry Family
Recently, one of my closest friends lost a beloved pup. She was furry family to everyone she met and boy did she have spunk! I found out about her loss on Facebook. They posted the most somber picture of her that made my cry in my cubicle at work. I couldn’t believe that I wouldn’t see her again… and she wasn’t even my pup.
This got me thinking – I’ve never lost a furry family member before in my life. When I was 10 years old I got my first dog, Casper. He was a Bichon Frise but not the ugly ones with a fro. He had the sweetest eyes, wore my glasses and would sing with me when I played music. It took years of whining to finally get him and we were best friends the instant we met. Despite the fact that father (Hi Daddy!) will never admit it – he loved Casper. We all did. I moved out for college, got married and had a kiddo of my own and though I tried to visit often, he wasn’t the same. We loved to see one another but he was getting old and incontinent. Shortly thereafter, my parents built a beautiful house and decided that it wasn’t fair to him to have him locked up all the time because of his bladder/old age issue. We found a local Bichon rescue and a wonderful family adopted him. And that was it. I have no idea if he is still alive or not but I took comfort in knowing he was in a good home.
We now have two Yorkies, Alvin and Ollivander. They are my babies and most days I like them more than my moody-all-attitude-foot-stompin’ little brat girl. I can’t imagine life without them. When thy are at the groomer’s, the house feels empty and when we go out of town, I FaceTime with them every night. I’ve already warned Mike that if anything were to happen for them he would need to put me in a padded cell, call in reinforcements and a priest because I will not do well. At all.
I can’t imagine how my friend and his family feel right now. I sent them my love but I just know it’s not enough. Have you ever experienced a furry loss? What helped you cope?
Rest in Peace
Emma Jane
<3
Bourbon Chicken
I won’t lie – I’m a good cook. I think it’s one of the few reasons my husband even married me in the first place {amongst other things, long story}. And although we have our favorite go to recipes during the week, I try to switch it up every now and then to keep life interesting. Bourbon chicken has become a new family favorite to have at our house! And best of all – this is one of those meals you prep from the night before so it makes things a bit easier the next day. If you are like me – I hate cooking after a long day {like a Monday} so this is a great recipe to prep on Sunday nights. I serve ours with a cup and a half of white rice, however that is optional. For those of you who are on Weight Watchers like myself or trying to stay fit – this recipe serves 4 and is about 8 points per serving, the rice not included. Enjoy!
Ingredients
- 4 skinless chicken breast halves, cut into cubes
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 4 ounces soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons dried minced onion
- 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
- 3/8 cup bourbon (I use Jim Beam but you can use whatever you like.)
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
Directions
- Place cut chicken into a 9×13 inch baking dish. In a small bowl combine the ginger, soy sauce, onion flakes, brown sugar, bourbon and garlic powder. Mix together well and pour over chicken. Cover dish and place in refrigerator. Allow to marinate overnight.
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
- Bake dish, uncovered in preheated oven for 1 1/2 hours or until chicken is browned and juices run clear . Baste frequently.
My husband’s first of MANY helpings of bourbon chicken that night.
Do you have favorite go-to recipe? Please share!
New Job
When I graduated from college in the Spring of 2011, I was thrilled to be headed in a new direction: Corporate America. I had landed a entry level sales job at a large company in my hometown before I even had my diploma. So many of my friends still didn’t know what they were going to do after graduation but I was fortunate enough to have a new path and was eager to get on my way. Best of all – no more school! {For now anyway…}
Have you ever had a job you loved? What was it?
Grab My Button
<div align="center"><a href="http://www.thebluntestblog.com/" title="The Bluntest Blog"><img src="http://www.thebluntestblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/ImageButton.jpg" alt="The Bluntest Blog" style="border:none;" /></a></div>
Recent Comments