Indy Jones is Back!

After almost 20 years, the new, long-awaited Indiana Jones movie came out last weekend – Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. To be honest, I went into this movie not expecting it to be as good as the originals. And in some ways, I wasn’t disappointed. I seem to recall the older movies having more humor in them and the Nazis always made such good bad guys, but then the flaws of the older movies may have been forgotten in the distance of time.

The action started out quickly when, in the very first scene, the bad guys broke into the infamous Area 51 in Nevada, with Indiana Jones tied up in the trunk of their car, to steal an artifact. The viewer’s first glimpse of our hero is, after he is dragged out of the trunk, his shadow as he puts “the hat” back on his head in that oh-so familiar way. Very thrilling!

In this movie, Indiana Jones, like his portrayer, Harrison Ford, is older. The year is 1957 and instead of the Nazi’s, the baddies are Russian Commies! The head bad guy is, in fact, a woman, played by Cate Blanchett. As a bad guy, she was pretty good, even though she sort of reminded me of Natasha (as in Boris and Natasha from the old Rocky and Bullwinkle shows) only with shorter hair. She dressed more like Fearless Leader, though. But I digress. Anyway, she is roaming around the world searching for artifacts with paranormal qualities.

Jones quickly meets “Mutt” Williams, played by Shia LaBeouf (you might remember him from the movies Transformers or Holes), who’s character may or may not be Indy’s son with former love Marion Ravenwood from Raiders of the Lost Ark. I won’t spoil it for you, but I will say.. DUH! :)
The ultimate quest for the movie is this crystal skull that needs to be found and returned to its rightful owners. They find the skull pretty quickly, but then the Russians find them and so begins the fun of trying to outwit the Russians while keeping the skull in their possession, and finding the place to return it – all of which is done in true Indy style.

As I said, I didn’t go into this movie expecting it to be the best, but it was very enjoyable. My favorite is still the 3rd movie, The Last Crusade, but this one is certainly better than Temple of Doom and will have a spot waiting for it on my DVD shelf when it comes out.
Two thumbs up!

Happy Memorial Day

As I sit here with bags of frozen veggie on my shoulders trying to cool down the sunburn I got on Saturday, I thought I should share about my Memorial Day weekend. For someone who originally had no specific plans for the weekend, I've been busy.

Saturday, I headed out to Wadesville. I'd been told that the yard really didn't need mowing, but that there were plenty of other things to do. We put newspaper and straw around the tomato, pepper and cucumber plants in the garden. Then I pounded stakes into the ground and we put cages around the plants. That of course has a two-fold purpose: 1) to help the plants grow upwards, and 2) to keep the cats from laying all over the plants because for some reason they think the plants are put there for them. A third, and more important purpose, as far as I'm concerned, is that by doing so, I earn a summer long supply of cukes and tomatos! So after that, I pruned and deheaded the snowball bushes and the forsethia (sp?) bush. Finally, we decided that since we won't be in town next weekend for me to mow, if I didn't mow this weekend, we'd need one of those big knives (whose name escapes me), you know the ones they use to whack their way thru the jungle in movies... anyway, we'd need one of those to get to the mailbox, so I mowed the lawn. Needless to say, I was TIRED by the time all of this was over, and I was sunburnt. I'm very fair skinned, and I know all about sunscreen, but I grew up in the 70's when the perfect female as blond and suntanned Farah Fawcett, so I want a tan. Stupid, yes, but... I have this desire to be tan. DON'T JUDGE ME! :)

So Sunday, after church, I went and bought some Solarcane (or CVS's version of it) and Mom, Dad and I went to go see Iron Man. Haley was right, it was a very good movie. And Robert Downey Jr. is hot. Machete! That's the big knife I was thinking of... Anyway, Iron Man was good and we went out for ice cream afterwards. I wanted to dunk my shoulders in said ice cream, but forced myself to withstand the temptation.

Today, I slept in until about 8. Not sure why, but Sophie allowed me to sleep in, maybe she realized it was a holiday. We had plans to go out to lunch, my Aunt Marilee and Uncle Doug were taking the 'Rents out for a belated anniversary present, and then we were all going to go see the Indiana Jones movie. Until it was time for them to pick me up, I sifted the litter box and took out the collective trash. Then I made a very momentous phone call.. See I have Dish Network, and I get their "Top 100" channels. But every month they give a couple three free channels to try to encourage you to upgrade to the next level. Well, one of May's free channels has been the Turner Classic Movie channel, and I've taped all the Saint movies, a bunch of cowboy movies for dad, a bunch of Alfie Hitchcock movies, and a variety of stuff for mom. We discussed it and figured we should investigate what the difference is between what I currently have and what I'd have to get to get TCM for good. So I called and the difference wasn't that big, and now I get several other new good looking channels, too. But the part that really wigs me out is WHILE I'M ON THE PHONE, she turns a switch, and I turn on the tv and I have all those new channels. How freakin' cool!

So then we had lunch at Red Lobster and then went and saw our movie (more on that later) and now I'm back here with quickly thawing veggies on my shoulders, and I'm it's time to decide what to have for dinner! :)

Hope all had a Happy Memorial Day.

TGIF! (or, Stop the World, I Need a Nap!)

I am SO sore and tired this morning. Remember, now, part of why I joined Curves was to NOT feel like an old woman as I tromp thru my daily life. And remember that I sort of took it easy last week due to the sore joints/cholesterol medicine thing. Well, both last night and Tuesday night, I worked out back at my usual pace, and both this morning and Wednesday morning, it was all I could do to get out of bed. Working out is supposed to make me feel great and peppy, right? Well, there was no pep in me this morning when I was crying while the alarm went off. Although I did have a slight smile when I turned it off and realized that I could turn the alarm off entirely until Monday night.

Anyway, in honor of the holiday weekend, Curves is closed until Tuesday, so I can't work out Saturday (like I normally would) or Monday (like I normally would), so I'm thinking I might as well just take the week off next week since after a long weekend of no exercise (well, no organized exercise, I'll still mow the lawn), when I start back on Tuesday, I'll be half dead . Was that all one sentence? Hmm.

But on Wednesday of next week, it'll be my one-month weight/measure day... and we'll find out just how much/little effect all this has had.

Yes, I AM Almost 40, What's it To You!?

Ok, so I've written before about my addiction to Webkinz. Well, I really am not that bad anymore. Really! But they just recently came out with a dragon Webkinz, and he's SO cute (see pic). My long-time fans know that I LOVE dragons... cute dragons, not the fierce mean ones. And I have a collection of MANY dragons, I can generally count on getting one dragon for either birthday or Christmas each year.

So, knowing that they were coming out soon, I headed to my local Hallmark store to see if they were in. They were not, but I was told they were expecting a shipment and they would take my name and number. They could not guarantee me one, but they'd try. The very next day (Wednesday), I got a call that my Dragon was in!! I was so-o-o happy. After work, instead of going to work out (yeah, I have my priorities straight), I went and picked up my dragon.

I rushed home and entered the code and named him Snuffles. I don't know, I just find a nifty dichotomy in naming such a fierce creature as a dragon a cute and fluffy name like Snuffles. I'm odd, what can I say. Anyway, the little cartoon dragon that plays online is just adorable. I've created Snuffles a sort of castle room. And he is currently wearing boppers.

Anywho, I just had to share the new light of my dragon collection.

I hope I haven't broken any rules by putting the pics in here - my apologies to Ganz, if I have.

Epiphany!!

I'm so very excited. I was sitting at my desk this morning when it occurred to me that Monday is Memorial Day! And more importantly, this upcoming weekend is a THREE-DAY WEEKEND!! Whoo hoo!
My neice Natalie graduates on Saturday May 31st, so I guess I just thought that that was Memorial Day weekend.

Now that I've got a clue, I get to figure out what to do. My sister highly recommends going to see Iron Man with Robert Downey Jr. She says he's hot, and she likes that he's over 40 and playing a superhero. I already had plans to go see the new Indiana Jones movie, despite early panning by critics. And then there's always the ubiquitous mowing of my parents' lawn. Curves is closed Saturday thru Monday for the holiday, so I can skip working out without any guilt.

Speaking of Indiana Jones, last week I bought the first three movies on DVD. I already had 1 and 3 on VHS, I never really cared for #2, but when I decided to replace my VHS with DVD, I figured I ought to get the complete set. Anyway, maybe I should schedule a marathon some evening to watch all three of them before going to see the new one.

Stupid is as Stupid... is

Ok, so as I already mentioned, my doctor doubled my cholesterol medicine, I had side effects, and she took me off of them. Well, this morning, I went to go take my pills and I realized as I was refilling my pill dispenser for the week that last week when I sat there and picked/tossed out the cholesterol meds from the days last week, I actually tossed out one of my blood pressure meds. Sigh.. I have a good excuse, though, see, my blood pressure pills used to be yellow, and the cholesterol meds (prior to the doubling) were pink. On the day I got the doubled Rx for the cholesterol meds, I also got a refill on the BP meds. The new doubled meds were now white and the refilled BP meds were pink. So it made perfect sense to me that I remove the big pink ones that looked exactly like (only bigger) the little pink ones that my cholesterol meds previously looked like. Does that make sense?
Anywho, this morning, I made this realization, and filled my dispenser correctly. So today is my first day without the meds that were making my joints ache. I guess that's why my knees were never feeling any better.
I know, it's a duh moment for Rose, but who's really surprised? :)

T.G.I. Saturday!

So I was supposed to participate in a walk for (against) juvenile diabetes today. One of my nieces and a nephew were even going to come down to Holiday World and hang with me for the day. I was really excited about it, and I think Natalie and Duncan were too. But as I mentioned previously, I've had this knee and hip pain, and although it is feeling somewhat better, there was just no way I had any business walking a mile, let alone walking around Holiday World. So I had to cancel my walking plans and dash Natalie and Duncan's hopes and dreams of a Saturday with their favorite aunt! For those who sponsored me, I'm sorry I didn't get to go walk, but your donations went to a good cause and thanks.

As it turned out, despite being deprived of my presence, Natalie managed to buck up and go to HW without me. She and a friend came down, had a good day at HW, and then drove to my place, via Kentucky (don't ask!), to spend the night.

It's was a beautiful day here in So. Indiana. I went to Curves this morning for a slow workout - I don't want to lose the ground I may have gained already. Then I went to mom and dad's to mow their yard. This was the 4th Saturday in a row that I've mowed their yard. I enjoy it, the breeze as I ride around listening to my mp3 player, but you'd think I hated it by the way I've been treating their mower. Two weeks ago I managed to dent some wheel inside the blade housing, and couldn't finish the lawn. Dad fixed it with no lasting damage, but then last week, after filling the gas tank, I failed to put the gas cap back on, so for like the first hour as I'm bumping around I'm smelling gas... I thought I'd got it on me, but no, it was just escaping out of the tank! I got the gas cap back on and finished the yard. Dad makes the comment that he hopes I didn't get gas in the tank. (Not that I have any clue as to exactly what that would do, but..) The important thing is I don't think I did any lasting damage to the mower today! Whew!

Curves

It's been a while since I blogged. :) But I've been busy.. I made a dramatic decision a couple of weeks ago. I joined Curves. I'd been thinking for a while that I needed to do something, and then my doctor who had recently put me on cholesterol medicine DOUBLED the dosage because it wasn't working well enough. So I'm sitting in the Pharmacy area at Sams and thinking that something has to give. I had already talked to a lady at my office who goes to Curves, and she'd given me a Guest Pass, and I knew that the place was open until 7pm, so on my way home from Sams, I drove by it, and then I went in. I talked to the trainer, Lola, and she's very nice and excited about me joining (yeah, I know, she's paid for it, but still). Anyway, after talking to her, I decided to do it. I had to break down and put the membership fee on my credit card. That hurt because it's been almost 2 years since I've used my credit cards. But May was(is) a 5 payday month for me, so I decided it would be alright.

So now, a little under three weeks later, I've been going pretty regularly, a minimum of 3 times a week, and last week I went 5 times! I'm enjoying it and it's making me feel somewhat more energetic.

On a side note, that cholesterol medicine has had a side effect of giving me INCREDIBLE knee and hip pain, so I've had to discontinue it entirely and slow down a little at Curves until the pain goes away, but that' s ok. I figure the exercise will do its job and I won't need the cholesterol medicine at all pretty soon!