The Time Between the Golden Globes and the Oscars 2019

I'm in the go-between time of the Golden Globes and the Oscars where I'm realizing all the movies and tv shows I never bothered to watch are up for awards.  I've decided to watch one movie/show per day (that might be too much, right?) and review each one.  There are two reasons I'm doing this.

The first reason is there are so many important things to watch.  Shows with a great message, maybe some lessons on how to improve how we live our lives.  Or many just how we view the world outside our own little bubble.  So few of us actually live outside of a bubble, but I don't think we really take the time to reflect on it.  Reflection brings guilt.  Guilt for things we just can't change........and guilt for things we could change but are just too uninclined to be bothered with.

The second reason is that there will likely be more Google searches going on over the next month or two and maybe one or two new readers would come across this page and feel that what I say might not be important, but at least it'll (hopefully) be entertaining.

Here's my list.  I took a peek at the Golden Globes website for these picks.  My goal is to watch everything that was nominated including those shows/movies that weren't nominated but had a participant (actor, writer, production, etc) nominated for working on that project.  (HOLY SHIT THIS LIST IS LONG!!!!)

Movies & TV Shows
Green Book
Vice
The Favourite
*Mary Poppins Returns (seen it - review coming soon)
*Crazy, Rich Asians (seen it - review coming soon)
Bohemian Rhapsody
Black Panther
BlacKKKlansman
If Beale Street Could Talk
A Star is Born
The Wife
A Private War
Destroyer
Can You Forgive Me?
At Eternity's Gate
Boy Erased
Eighth Grade
Tully
The Old Man and The Gun
Stan & Ollie
First Man
Beautiful Boy
Roma
Shoplifters
Spiderman: Into The Spider-Verse
Incredibles 2 (might be a good time to watch the first one, huh?)
Isle of Dogs
Mirai
Ralph Breaks the Internet (here we have the one entry I don't want to watch since I hated the first one)
Capernaum
Girl
Never Look Away
A Quiet Place (my husband talks of this movie often)
*Dumplin (FUCKING LOVED IT!!!!!)
The Americans
Bodyguard
Homecoming
Killing Eve
Pose
The Kominsky Method
The Good Place
*Kidding
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
Barry
American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace
The Alienist
Escape at Dannemora
Sharp Objects
A Very English Scandal
Dirty John
The Tale
Seven Seconds
Picasso: Genius
Patrick Melrose
Outlander
*The Handmaids Tale
The Americans
Ozark
Homecoming
GLOW
Will & Grace (nope, not happening.  I just never liked the show......ok, I'll try)
Murphy Brown
Who Is America?
*Atlanta
West World
Succession

Ok, a few of these I have actually seen.  Not many though.  I'll add an * in front of the ones I've seen.  I just need to do a review of them.  This might not go well.....I tend to dislike a lot of stuff.  Cross your fingers.  All total, this will take me over 100 hours to do this.  LOL - we'll see how it goes.  I've got the Women's March of NJ coming up in 11 days.........I'll just do the best I can and keep plugging away at it.  Up first?  Green Book.

Hungry! Yes! Wait? Am I?

Today is Monday, December 10.  It's my last day at work before my annual layoff.  Typically, I would be planning out my volunteer time which increases a lot over this time frame.  But, I left the leadership role I had in Art All Night - Trenton so I can concentrate on being available more for my son as he started middle school.  It was really the right choice because although he's doing well, he is needing a lot of help. 

This time though, I've decided to concentrate on me.  I want to use this time to see if I can get my weight down and make healthy improvements in my day to day existence.  Today's been pretty good.  I'm the only one at work so I used the time to sneak a work out into my day that wasn't planned.  Then I went for a walk at lunchtime.  I even did a 7-minute mini workout when I got back from that walk. 

(New goal.........skinnier shadow!!)

Now, I just finished lunch (3/4 of a cup of Panera Bread's baked potato soup).  I'm on my 7th cup of water.  And I feel like I'm hungry.  But I don't know if this is really I'm hungry or just I want to graze on something.  Or maybe this is from the walk?  I have no clue.  But I'm pushing through it right now by writing this instead of eating.  LOL, hopefully, this works. 

I'll wait until 3pm to eat the banana I brought for a mid-afternoon snack.  I might sneak a diet coke.....one of my favorite things to have.  I haven't had any soda in about 5 days.  I'm working on a set of specific goals for January and February.  Hoping I can get myself on point.  Realizing that snacking between meals is a big problem for me.  Now..........how do I fix it? 

PrettyUnlimited - Episode 11: The Halloween Spooktacular

Tis the season for ghost and goblins! In this special two-hour Halloween themed episode, we run through a number of Top Fives, from our favorite Movie and TV monsters to our favorite scary movies, creepy voices, Halloween candy and...serial killers? Keep the light on! 

Big shouts for the PrettyUnlimited theme music that was produced by Rediculus for Platformz Music.

PrettyUnlimited - Episode 09: Make Me Laugh

This week's episode is hilarious! Well, it's about things that we find hilarious. For fans of our top fives who also love comedy, get ready for our picks for the five funniest TV shows/specials we've ever seen!

The Pretty Unlimited theme music was produced by Rediculus for Platformz Music.

Weigh In Day (August 12, 2018)

Today is weigh in day! 204.1 lbs. Not too bad, but unfortunately, I drank and ate too much on vacation a few weeks back + I've been slacking on everything at home since then. So that's a loss of 2.5 lbs since last Sunday but it was just weight I had regained last month. I need to lose 1 more lb to be where I was before vacation. So here's the whole package:

204.1
Left Bicep 14.5 down .25"
Right Bicep 13.75 same
chest 44.25 down a full fucking inch!
belly 42 down a full inch!
hips 45 down a full inch!
left thigh - 26 same
right thigh - 26 same


Last week I half-assed my workouts. Part of it is laziness (most of it actually), part of it is knowing how sore I'm going to be (scaredy cat) and part of it is this fucking humidity (dripping sweat feels like bugs). Ugh. But it's mostly me being lazy. So this week, I'm setting up a plan in my calendar with what I want to do. I also downloaded Lose It! app to see if I like this one better for tracking my food and exercise.

Sunday - no workout but a fair amount of walking since I have errands to go do today. Plus I'm on my feet meal prepping for a couple of hours.

Monday/Wednesday/Friday - My strength training day - I'm going for the 3 rounds of my own workout that I made to target areas I need help with then I'm going to go use a strength training video that's on YouTube. Tons of free workouts all over YouTube.
Click here to see the workout I'll be doing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DrOlw2yEHc

Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday - Cardio days. I plan to go walking. One hour on this bridge next to my house. It's very steep on both sides. So I'm hoping to get out there for one solid hour each day REGARDLESS of the weather. I need to do this because we bought a treadmill (and an exercise bike) but we are still in the process of cleaning out our gross basement and can't put it down there yet. Once that's done, (about a month or so from now) we'll be able to get that space together for cardio and strength training. Our living room floor is too bouncy and me jumping around knocks things off of shelves. How fucked up does that sound?

Anyway, my only other goals for the week are to meet my calorie goals for the WEEK, drink 700 oz of water for the week, and to NOT eat and unhealthy snack before dinner all week. That's my weak moment, right when I get home from work, I'm starving. I have to reign that in. Good luck to all of you who are dealing with these struggles. The only challenge is me.

ELF Cosmetics (Eyes Lips Face) Series (1st)

I've been using ELF for about 5 years now and since I'm finally starting to get time to do my own thing, I thought it'd be a great way to talk about how much I love ELF, even if I'm not a fan of all the products.  And the prices are well worth letting me try out all the products I want to try.

Someone else helped me trip over ELF through a friend of a friend of a friend.  I don't even remember that chick's name.  Ah, well.  Online shopping is a favorite past time of mine so this was right up my alley from the rip.  Second, was that they don't use animals to test or any animal bits or pieces in their products.  Awesome!  I'm not a huge makeup purchaser since I've been trying to simplify my spending, space, routine and life in general.  But I'll be sharing my thoughts on the products I do buy.

Website - https://www.elfcosmetics.com/

First up!  Lips.  Ok, it might not be a good idea to start off with the negative shit but it is what it is.

Aqua Beauty Radiant Gel Lip Stain - Thoughts?  It's shit.

$4 ~ The color (I picked Dewy Berry) wasn't crazy bad but when I think stain I think of a vibrant color that's going to stay put.  I don't blame that on them as that was just my own personal thought.  But it does neither.  The color was more like a tint and the stain aspect just didn't happen for me.  It doesn't go on even either.  That drove me bonkers.  I mean, this is just stuff to smear on my lips so why doesn't it go on evenly and why is it purposely fighting me in my battle for an even coat?  WTF?  But all that aside..........it fucking tastes gross.  And the smell is just like the taste and right under my damn nose.  Ugh!  

Click here to see what it looks like so you won't make the same mistake I did.  

AQUA BEAUTY RADIANT GEL LIP STAIN 

Ok, that's it for today's lesson in stank ass stains.  I'll be looking for another stain through ELF when my next paycheck kicks in.  See ya later, alligator. 

Mistakes Push You Forward

July 5, 2018

Last night, I made the mistake of noticing a bruise on my ass that hadn't faded from a week or so ago.  So I thought I'd be cheeky (is ass-cheeky a thing?) and send my husband a cute picture of my ass.  BIG mistake.  I hadn't realized how icky I looked on my ass.  So I did the whole check myself out in the mirror thing.  WTF was I thinking!

The overall quality of my skin, the stretch marks, the fatness.  None of that is appealing.  Now I'm not a screwball so I'm aware that the stretch marks are here to stay and could even get worse during this journey.  But I'd like to be better toned and not have the percentage of body fat I'm currently carrying around.  For someone who hates to carry stuff, you'd think I'd be wanting to carry less around on my body, right? 

My back and ass are in really bad shape.  I knew it but I didn't know it was quite so bad. It was about 10pm at that point so I sat there and thought about it for a bit. I decided to restart again.  I went on to Sparkpeople.com, got myself logged on and set a calendar reminder for this morning to do weight and measurements along with a fitness test.  So here are my new goals. 

Adding in exercise water and vegetables daily.  30 minutes of exercise (might have to break that into sections) 8+ glasses of water and at least 3 veggies since I hardly ever eat any at all.  I feel like that's a good start for me.  Also, I'm going to push myself NOT to snack or eat sugar or salt that's not needed.  We'll see how this goes. 

Today's weight is 201.7 and my ass is 47 inches wide where that bruise is.  Holy fucking smacks!

My 11 year old son, Jayden, entered a contest to promote businesses in the city of Trenton, NJ. He's hoping to use the money if he wins for a class in coding. He picked his favorite spots and we made this video. If you have a moment and would like to help, please click this link. It'll take you to YouTube, once you view the video he made, please hit that Thumbs Up while on YouTube. The winner with the most thumbs ups wins! Thank you so much! 

Click here to help Jayden win:
Come On, Let's Hang Out In Trenton!

This is Jayden...attempting that dapper look.  LOL

Being Flexible

This morning's weather is not exactly cooperating for me to have my morning 3-mile walk. It's raining and overcast this morning.  But I feel like that's no excuse.  The weather report says the rain should be over about 1pm.  I think I'll switch up my routine for the day which was to walk then clean my kitchen and meal prep for the week. 

Today's meal prep will be dishing up all the leftovers from my daughter's birthday party last night so I can put them into the lunch.  I'll be making snack packs with carrots, edamame, and some yogurt (no, not mixed together....LOL).  Meal prepping on Sundays really does make the mornings much easier.  And since I'm going back to work on March 5 while trying to maintain this new workout schedule, I need as much time in the mornings as I can. 

I'm very happy right now typing this.  I'm not using the rain as an excuse.  I'm simply working around it to make it work for me.  For first and only current goal is to break away from the 200 lb mark.  I don't know if I can do this.  But I know I can try. 

Let's Stroll Together (Vlog)

I'm hoping that if I can start with this video and written journal and you guys (hopefully) expect me to keep this going, it'll be some motivation to keep me accountable.  I had to start a medicine for toenail fungus called Lamisil.  It has some strong side effects (for some people) and shouldn't be mixed with caffeine or alcohol.  So I decided to NOT be depressed about that when I realized that caffeine is in chocolate.

Today's goals are my warm lemon water, SMAP Smoothie (Spinach, mango, apple, pineapple, plain greek yogurt, whey, and water), 90 oz water, Food Bowl (quinoa, beets, egg, beans, turkey and shredded cheese), two slices of whole wheat pizza.  5 miles walking.  100 squats. 

As I'm writing this, it's close to lunch time but with all this smoothie and water, I'm not even hungry. I might need to walk a little earlier tomorrow so I can get breakfast started earlier.  Little steps. 

Click here to watch just a few minutes of today's walk:
Let's Stroll Together! 

One Day at a Time, Season 2 Review

Growing up in North Trenton, I didn’t have too many friends. Well, actually, I did have one friend: my television. I spent many hours taking in all kinds of entertainment with that TV. I was glued to everything on MTV, grew to love Tales From the Crypt, and memorized many episodes of Full House while watching that thing, but some of the best times of day were the early afternoons, when sitcoms from years past would play during summer vacation. One of them was One Day at a Time, which ran for nine seasons, from 1975 to 1984. It was created bit sitcom svengali Norman Lear about a divorcee raising two daughters (one of which was Valerie Bertinelli, who was kind of a crush).

At the time, I recognized it for its worth, from the memorable theme song (“This Is It” by Polly Cutter) to its legacy of bringing feminism and real-life parenting to television. It was one of the beauties of a Lear program, and was something I was intrigued about when I’d heard that Netflix was remaking the series to air in January of 2017. The new series was about a Cuban family and featured a divorced mother of two children (this time a boy and a girl), her exiled Cuban mother...and a dude named Schneider (hey, if it ain’t broke). My wife had peeped the first few episodes on Netflix and was enamored, and suggested we watch. While my TV viewing has always gone back to sitcoms, my day job has me watching more series than I can keep up with, meaning that it’s hard to just watch TV to enjoy TV. That said, once we started running through this new iteration of One Day at a Time, which brought in everything from PTSD (the mother, Penelope, is a veteran who’s on anti-depressants) to LGBTQ issues (her eldest child, Elena, comes out as a lesbian during the first season) to the plight of immigrants living in America today...it was heaven.

You see, while some of my favorite shows are about superheroes or fantastical situations, you need television that makes you laugh (and more importantly, think) about the world around you. This new school edition of One Day at a Time did that, and well. And when word hit that season two would be premiering on Netflix on January 26, 2018, I was excited. My regular TV viewing needed this.



All of that said, this second season hits all of the notes of the first, and then some. Justina Machado’s Penelope had a lot to deal with in season one, from her ex-husband coming back and completely shunning their lesbian daughter to trying to find a way to focus on having her own love life. Season two touches on both, with the family having one truly-emotional episode drawing parallels between Elena’s birth and their current-day.

One of the series’ shining stars is Rita Moreno, who at 86 is still a pistol, playing Penelope’s mother Lydia with grace and fire. She’s always around to remind the family of the old ways, but will surprise you with how current some of her feelings about life are. The children, Elena and Victor, are growing as well, with Elena growing up as a woke Latinx in today’s society, while Victor is caring, but also trying to work his charm into a cushy life.

I’d love to sit here and spoil this series for you; there are some awesome standalone episodes, with others that will hit you all in your feels. It’s a quality binge, with hope for a season three (we’re waiting on you, Netflix). From the Gloria Estefan-remake of “This Is It” to this glorious cast reimagining a quality sitcom series, One Day at a Time’s second season is one you shouldn’t miss. And now, I have a friend (my wife) and my son to watch the show with as an adult, allowing us to have discussions about what’s really real in today’s world, from LGBTQ issues to what it means to be a good person. We’re walking through it, together, one day at a time.