Category — Daily Grind

I got an email yesterday asking me to please write. I was missed. At least one person missed me. Victory.

I don’t have much to say, so I haven’t been blogging. Not much is happening, in my life. Things are okay, drama free, relatively. I head home in less than a month. I’m all set to visit with my parents, my brother, my sisters in law, my nephews and meet my new niece!

Work is going great. I got put on a challenging, interesting project that is coming together nicely. I’m enjoying the work and I’m busy all day everyday, which makes the days fly by. I can’t stand to be bored. We’re set to move our Corporate office somewhere in the next few months, so that’ll be one more project to manage. Weeee!

I’m trying to make this interesting but… there’s just nothing. My life is kind of plain at the moment. I honestly like it that way. There are good things and bad things, but life is pretty good. I don’t have anything to complain (very loudly) about, no major issues at the moment. I just feel stupid whining about minor things when I know people who are balancing precariously on the edge of sanity. I just keep my issues to myself.

Clearly, it works best that way.

This morning, I have something to celebrate.

Many of you don’t know the financial struggles I’ve had in the last… oh… decade. We’ll just say that. It all goes back to my child rearing days, in which we were so poor we really did eat government cheese. We rarely got Christmas presents… money was just so very tight. When I started making my own money, I couldn’t WAIT to buy WHATEVER I wanted… but my parents had other plans for my money. Sometimes I paid the daycare bill. Sometimes I bought things that needed to be bought for the house. Sometimes I could keep it but then my dad was Mr. TakesTheFunOutOfEverything and insisted I save 75% of my paycheck. This was AFTER the 10% tithe to the church.

HMPH!

Like food, I developed a warped and bad relationship with money. It became more than a means to an end… it was the beginning and end to my happiness. Money meant freedom, to me. Still does.

I wish I hoarded money but I didn’t. When I left for college, I forgot all those lessons my dad tried to teach me about money- pay yourself (save), then pay your bills. You don’t need to buy everything you see. Be responsible with your money and don’t spend it all at once. The second I checked into the dorms, all of those lessons flew out of the window.

Yup, I fell into the trap. The credit card trap. It looks so appealing, when they hand you the form. You fill it out, knowing you ain’t got no gotdang money to pay no credit card bills. And miracle…. I was approved! I immediately went out to buy things I wanted and couldn’t buy, things I don’t even own anymore! A TV, a vcr, some clothes. Books, a jacket with my school’s logo on it. All things I later sold for pennies on the dollar– to pay my credit card bill.

After college, I worked one low paying job after another. I wasn’t paying any bills. Collections companies started calling. I started dodging their calls. Every time I moved, I wouldn’t update my address, so the bills would get returned. out of sight, out of mind, right?

My downfall was payday loans. I could walk into a store and borrow against a future paycheck. At only 300% interest! I had no idea what that meant… just give me money. Oh, but the kicker was that on payday, you paid it back. PLUS the fee. And then you were down again. So you turn it around, meaning you pay off loan and immediately take out another loan against your next paycheck. Soon I had 2 and 3 loans out at the same time, just trying to stay afloat. And then one day the bottom fell out. I had borrowed more than I was making and I wasn’t going to be able to pay them all back. When the checks were cashed, my account would be negative and I would have no money to replenish the account. I had to let everything bounce and then pay everything back.

I had no money for anything and my credit hit the toilet. My student loan went into forbearance, and then into default. My car was repossessed. I was thirty years old with the shittiest credit score I’d ever seen. EVER. Like… low 400′s. Low.

I pulled my credit reports. Page after page after page of collections. Delinquencies. Late payments. Shut offs. Charge-offs. It was a nightmare. I was overwhelmed and to be honest, I did nothing for a long time, until I was introduced to Dave Ramsey.

Who I absolutely HATED, the first time I heard him. Over time, he grew on me. His principles began to make sense. You know who he reminded me of, in a kinder, more gentler, less militaristic sense? My dad.  O_o. Turns out that guy was sayin’ something, all those years. Whatever.

So I started doing Dave’s Debt Snowball, where you take your lowest balance and push money toward it, until it’s paid off. And once that’s paid off, you move to the next, and the next and the next until your debt is taken care of.  It took a few years, but I paid off everything outstanding except for my student loan, which I brought out of collections and current in 2006. I have less than 10,000 to pay back, now. I started with nearly 20K. I paid off the Kia in 2008, making double, almost triple payments for a year. I bought a 2007 Camry just last year, something I never thought I’d be able to do.

Within a few months of clearing up some accounts, I was able to open a cell phone account. Couldn’t do that before. I was on metroPCS (prepaid cellular). I tried to open an account with Wachovia when I first arrived in Atlanta. They took one look at my credit history and said, uhm...no ma’am. Embarassed, I slinked out of that bank and have never been back. I had an internet bank account that I opened at ACE Cash Express and had that for a few years. I started using their Bill Pay service– online bill pay changed my life. I swear! I haven’t had a late payment in… years, probably. Literally.

In 2007, I think? I opened my Bank of America account. And an account with Orange. Last year I opened an account with a credit union. Just a few years ago, I couldn’t PAY to get an account open.  I had bounced  ton of checks and had to pay banks back… I was in ChexSystems in perpetuity, it seemed.

My credit score climbed and climed, as I paid things off and got my finances in line. 505. 550. 590. 600 was a milestone for me. I hung out at 630 for more than a year. For so so SO long, every time I checked my score, it would be hanging out in the ‘Bad’ category. “Fewer than X consumers have a score below this number.’

Yeah. Well. They can suck it.

Today one of my friends happened to mention that she checked her score, which reminded me that I hadn’t checked mine in awhile.  I logged into my best friend, EVAR, MyFico.com. Effing love that site. Not free, but I absolutely don’t trust any other site.  I subscribe to the ScoreMonitor, which lets me know when I get an inquiry, when I rise or fall below a certain threshold, when I qualify for a lower interest rate and especially when anything new pops up. I logged in today to see a number I have never seen before. Suffice it to say I am within 20pts of 700. Which… OMG. If I hit 700, I would throw myself a party!

Not only that but as I was paging through the report, I saw this:

My report has never said that before. All of those yellow bars? That ‘good‘? Has never been there before!  I went a little further to the collections tab. I have never been so happy to see this:

“You have no collections.”  I HAVE NEVER SEEN THAT STATEMENT BEFORE.

This… this, today, makes the last 5 years of scrimping and pinching and not doing anything fun, just to pay off bills and get collections and creditors off my back all worth it. I still have one or two things to clear up, but even with those issues, I am just under 700. Thinking back to that day I bit the bullet and ordered my credit report and saw that horrendously low number and wanted to keel over and die, I don’t think I ever thought I’d be here. And I have further to go… but this is great, for me.

*looks at it again* Good? That’s GREAT.

Hello Blog people. I’m here. No one asked where I was, but just to let you know, I’m here. Guess I am taking a bit of a blog break. I just get tired of yammering about myself… do you ever just get sick of yourself? I’m there.

I’m a wee bit emotional, for reasons I haven’t yet uncovered but it is resulting in a lack of desire to work out or blog or… comb my hair… it’ll pass, I am sure. Till then I am holding steady and trying to keep my head above water.

Last night I wasn’t feeling particularly bad, but things have been so pent up, lately. Despite arguing with myself and a few stops and starts, I sought relief in food. I actually enjoyed eating it. I didn’t overeat, though the meal was not even remotely in the same atmosphere as my eating plan. I did not weigh today, and didn’t feel weird about that. I’ll give it a couple of days and, in the meantime, veer myself back toward my plan.

The interesting (or sad, however you take it) thing is that I felt better. I still do. I don’t regret it. Old habits die hard, hm?

Note the boys- Girl Talk henceforth.

Me to GreenEyes: Good News

Me: According to my GirlyTimeTracker, my lil friend should be here next week.

Me: This means that I am a moody bitch and the scale is up a few lbs because I am about to experience Rage Week and not because I’m a moody bitch who eats too much.

Green Eyes: That sucks.

Me: I know. I like to be a bitch on my own. I don’t need a reason.

Oy. I will be happy when this week is over. The older I get, the more I notice PMS symptoms. Thankfully they aren’t that severe.

And also if you know me and I bit your head or ass off, don’t worry, it’ll grow back.

Today’s topic is an art piece. I confess to being completely lost and stuck on this topic. It’s not that I don’t love art. It’s that I don’t have a favorite art piece, or sculpture or drawing, really. Not one that comes to mind. I don’t have a favorite artist or a favorite period. I’ve been struggling for a few days on what to post and have been :shrugging:

So I guess I’ll post something from an exhibit that I wish would come to Atlanta. It is the Tim Burton exhibit that was at the Museum of Modern Art. I found out way too late that it was in NYC, otherwise I might have tried to go. I had to settle for pics tweeted from friends who went. This is one of the drawings that I liked the most.

Tim Burton. Untitled (Cartoons). 1980–86. Pencil on paper, 13 x 16” (33 x 40.6 cm). Private collection. © 2010 Tim Burton

That cupid looks kind of evil. Love most certainly hurts.

Do you have a favorite art piece, artist, drawing, sculpture! Share!

Oh, and HAPPY FRIDAY of a THREE DAY WEEKEND!

Today’s topic is pretty timely.. a song that makes you cry.

Depending on the time of the month, anything can make me cry. On a certain day, you might find me curled up in a ball on my couch, listening to TLC’s FanMail and so very upset that they’ll never release another album because Lisa Left Eye Lopez is gone. *shrug* I’m not going to deny that. I’m vulnerable, yo.

On a normal day, during a normal time, there’s only song that can bring a tear to my eye these days. It is the sound of young Michael Jackson singing I’ll Be There. Around the time of his death, I believe that the Red Cross was using his sweet voice in their ads. I couldn’t watch that commercial for a long, long time. I had to turn it or my chest would become tight and I would be overcome with emotion.

It’s not the words, at all. It’s the voice, from the A Capella version. It’s so clear, the tone perfect and strong and confident. It’s beautiful. I miss him, and can’t believe we’ll never hear it again.

Is there a song that brings you to tears? Share it with us!

I don’t know how a person forgets to talk about themselves but my post today completely slipped my mind, till right now. So today’s topic is kind of funny:  A fanfic.

Uhm. Har. Funny because I was talking with Terita from BerryHotChicks, a long time friend, about the difference between fanfiction and original fiction. I explained that fanfiction is based on characters that have already been established by someone else– then you take those characters and create stories around them. Easy, because the world your characters live in has already been built. Hard because you have the constraints of characterization to adhere to– you can’t make a character from a show/movie/ sullen if they’re usually vibrant– not without a good reason.

I HAD to mention that I kind of want to write a Criminal Minds fan fiction (we are both stupidcrazynuts over this show) and over BBM earlier, we have decided that Agent Hotchner needs to go all ‘Hotch MAD, Hotch SMASH’ and run about town beating the sh*t out of people, beating them to death with his bare hands, a la Foyette. And this needs to be because Erin fires Hotch and gives Morgan his job and… well there is some other stuff but I basically laughed until I cried. Uhm… yeah look for that to be written. *sniggle*

Yes. Well. So am I supposed to talk about a fanfic? Lord.

*dons embarrassingly sparkly cape and foil hat for this*

[Read more →]

Today’s topic is a non-fictional book.  Mkayyyy.  I don’t read a lot of non-fiction, admittedly.  Real life is enough for me. I like to escape into something made up. The only exception is books on writing. A lot of people have mentioned Stephen King’s On Writing. I’ll post a review that I did on his book last year.

On Writing by Stephen King My goodreads review
rating: 4 of 5 stars
I picked up this book on a whim from Amazon, while searching for some books on Writing. It comes pretty highly recommended from those who have read it.

The first third is basically King’s autobiography– events in his life that have made him who he is. I enjoyed the first ten pages but I am a ‘get tot the point’ kind of girl, so I skipped to the second part, which was most enjoyable.

Part 2, On Writing, was basically King’s best advice to writers. In summation, here’s pretty much what I picked up:

1. Read a lot. Read, read, read, read. Turn off the TV, remove all distractions, read because you enjoy reading.
2. Write. Write because you want to write, because it’s crawling to get out of you. Write like it’s your job. Set a goal to write daily (1000 words at first, then 2000-3000) if you can do it. Don’t leave your ‘spot’ until you’re done writing.
3. Don’t do all the cliche things writers supposedly do, i.e. write for money, or ‘plot’ your story.
4. Don’t assume that you control the story– the story controls you. Let it tell itself, don’t try to push it in any direction.
5. Remove unnecessary words. Use fewer words whenever possible. In descriptions, in narration, in character, in dialogue– delete the uncessesary
6. On the other hand, don’t tell, show. Don’t tell me that someone is uneducated. Show me with crafty use of dialect in conversation. Don’t tell me someone is tired, overworked, frustrated– SHOW the reader.
7. Create an IR- an Ideal Reader. Decide what your Ideal Reader would want to see and write to them.
8. Never write because it seems like a job. The hardest part of life should be when you’re purposely not writing.
9. From time to time, read bad prose. It will teach you what not to do!
10. (I’ve heard this a lot and have only seen it done really well a few times) Don’t use flashbacks. Talk about what’s GOING to happen and not what already has.

The last third of the book is talking about his 1999 accident in which he nearly died. After which he decided to finish On Writing and get back to the business of writing great fiction. It ends with an example of a piece of a chapter that he had edited and polished and allowed readers to see the transformation from an ‘okay’ piece to something that he’d call ‘good’.

Reading this reminds me that I used to follow these principles, and they sort of fell by the wayside after a time. I didn’t make them a habit and a part of my writing life.  I’d love to promise that I will, but I probably won’t. Right now I write when I want to, as often as I want to. When it stops being fun, I stop doing it.  Works for me.

Have you read a great nonfiction piece lately? Share!

I am skipping a bunch of days because I don’t have any pictures of me, or pictures of me from ten years ago. I absolutely hate how I look in pictures, so I’ve never really taken any.

Today’s topic is a fictional book. I’m not quite sure what I am supposed to do with that, so I’ll post one of my reviews from last year of a book I read that I loved loved loved. This book was great but really confusing. I need to read it again, because some of it just didn’t make sense to me.

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I didn’t read The Time Traveler’s Wife. The synopsis never struck me as something I really wanted to read and I couldn’t get into it. I can’t decide if that was a good or bad thing. Probably good, because from the reviews, a lot of people went into reading Her Fearful Symmetry on the heels of Time Traveler’s Wife and expected it to be similar. It apparently wasn’t. I also didn’t know the two books were written by the same author– this book came recommended by two different people in two different circles of friends. I picked it up on a whim and started reading it. I find the best books that way!

This story begins oh, so right. Niffenegger jumps right into the middle of the story and wades around in it. Our main character… dies on Page One. And I figure if someone dies on Page One, there’s a good reason for it and a good story behind it.

This novel is the story of two sets of twins: Edie and Elspeth, and Edie’s twin daughters Julia and Victoria.  Edie and Elspeth are estranged. Have been for nearly twenty years. Elspeth’s terminal illness does not change this. Elspeth lives in London, in a flat above  companion Robert. Edie, her husband Jack, and the twins live in the States.

When Elspeth dies, she leaves her flat, all of her belongings and her money to the twins, with the stipulation that they have to live in the flat for a year before they can sell it. And that their parents, Edie and Jack, must never set foot in it. Her papers and diaries are removed, property of Robert. No one is to see them. Robert avoids reading them until absolutely necessary.

The twins are 20, but are small and thin and alarmingly co-dependent. Victoria is a mirror image of Julia, down to the beauty mark on her cheek. Victoria is weak, with a heart defect and severe asthma. Julia delights in taking care of Victoria, and is a constant companion. Victoria is the more artistic and fashionable one. She creates and sews and makes her own clothing. Julia is the smart, the healthy and strong one. The trade-off, Julia thinks, isn’t fair. Victoria is the pretty one, despite their being twins. Julia is envious of the attention Victoria receives without even trying and insists on clinging to her. They have to do everything together. One cannot attend school without the other. One cannot work without the other. Both are still virgins because…what one does, the other must also. The suffocation is palpable.

Moving to London begins to change the lives of the twins in ways they could never plan for, or imagine. They meet other characters and cast members in Elspeth’s life– Martin, the OCD genius who lives upstairs, who showers three times a day and is compelled to scrub the floor for hours and stacks his life in plastic bins around his apartment, whose wife loves him more than life itself, but left him to have a life of her own. Robert, who lives downstairs, who avoids the twins like the plague when they arrive, whose sorrow over the loss of Elspeth is driving him mad, daily, who thinks he feels her presence, in her flat. Her ghost seems to haunt the place, knocking books over and pushing paperclips around and stirring curtains.

As the girls enjoy life in London, their relationship begins to change. A bigger world means more opportunity, more to explore, more to do. Their interests begin to divide. They bicker and the threads that once tied them together start to unravel. Robert meets the girls and it takes his breath away how much Victoria resembles Elspeth. More than he wants to, he likes her. He can’t help but approach her and want to be near her. But there is the issue of missing Elspeth.

Who isn’t really missing, at all. She is there, in the flat. Stuck in the spirit world, as an energy. Haunting them until she’s able to find a way to let them all know she’s there. Using a crudely concocted OUIJA board and later a pencil and paper, the girls finally meet their Aunt Elspeth– if only after death. There are questions yet unanswered and mysteries yet unsolved.

Why didn’t Edie and Elspeth talk?

Why did Elspeth leave her worldly goods to two girls she had never met?

Why couldn’t their parents visit, and why couldn’t the girls read her diaries?

SECRET, Elspeth says. Oh. And a secret it is!

There are so many elements to this story, and one- no, two!-amazing plot twists. I do so love a plot twist! So many interwoven story lines, existing on their own course until they converge. The twins are the crux… everything else, everyone else are like the spokes of a wheel.

There are three parts to this story, each equally intriguing, but I don’t think that all are weighed equally. Part One begins slowly, unfurling the tale, lazy in its reveal, raising more questions than it answers. Part Two is full of change and discovery and adventure and drama and mystery, a tearing a part and a putting back together and a horrid plan that NO ONE should agree to, but all involved, unfortunately, do.

Part Three is the carrying out of said plan. And the backfire. And the end result. Part three made me gasp, made my eyes bug out, made my heart ache. And the end made me shake my head and say, ‘well that’s what you get, now isn’t it?’

For the writers in the room, I think what was most off-putting actually was the third person omniscient. The reader reads what everyone is doing, thinking, feeling. I found this POV to be really confusing. Perhaps the story would have been more gripping if we weren’t so privy to everything. A little mystery adds a lot. Make me guess, don’t tell me everything. Even simple third person might have made it a tad easier to understand, but I got it figured out, so I guess it wasn’t that bad.

There are some twists in this book that I still sort of don’t understand, involving the decades long estrangement between Edie and Elspeth. I think I’ll have to read it again soon, concentrating on that part, to understand it better. Overall I really enjoyed the book. Part Three, especially is un-put-down-able!

It doesn’t make me want to read Time Traveler’s Wife, though.

So… not sure if that’s what I was supposed to talk about today but there’s something fictional.  What have YOU read lately?

New Tuesday Weigh in and diet-y ramblings under the New Life Tuesday page. Getchu some!

Today’s topic is: A picture that YOU took.

Hmmm. You know… I don’t take a lot of pictures. Here’s one I like a lot.

It’s a picture from the Glass Museum in Tacoma. These pieces make up the ceiling of a short bridge from the street to the museum. It’s gorgeous in there, how the light reflects off of the glass. This is a Chihuly exhibit… just beautiful. The walls of the bridge are cubes holding different blown-glass creations. From this bridge, you can see the Tacoma Dome and far, far in the distance, you can see Mt. Rainier. We sat and watched them blowing glass for about an hour… I was mesmerized!

Show me a photo that you took!  Blog it and link me! Or just post the link in the comments. I THINK if you post the HTML link the pic will show up.

I THINK.

I don’t know for sure. Let’s find out! :D

I am skipping Day 6. Nothing quite tickles my fancy, yet. The topic for Day 7 is: A Picture that makes you happy.

I have two. These are my nephews, #1 and #2. Thought about them a lot on Father’s Day, especially since Joe isn’t here to celebrate.

Those photos are pretty old but I adore those baby pics of them. Chubby cheeks and fat legs! What picture makes you smile?

First of all, my monthly progress report is up, with some good news and progress pics! Head on over to New Life Tuesday to check it out!

Secondly, today’s topic is your favorite quote. I can’t say I have a favorite quote… they aren’t things I really collect? There are a few snippets of poetry and such that I love, though.

For example, from Maya Angelou’s Phenomenal Woman:

Now you understand
Just why my head’s not bowed.
I don’t shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It’s in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
‘Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

Or from The Invitation, by Oriah Mountain Dreamer:

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain. I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

Or this passage from motivational speaker Marianne Williamson, called Our Deepest Fear,which is probably the one I think of the most:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.
It is not just in some; it is in everyone.

And, as we let our own light shine, we consciously give
other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.

Almost forgot to post this today!  Share with me (and others) your favorite quote!

Today’s Topic– What is your favorite book?

Oh boy. Here’s what separates the men from the boys, or the avid reader from the voracious one. There seems to be such a caste system among literary fans… the classics vs the contemporaries, those that look down on people who even consider John Grisham to be an author, those that read high brow texts in wingback chairs and those that read chick lit while lying on the beach…ugh. I can’t be bothered. Ya’ll fight it out. I’ll watch.

What’s sad is that I can’t even remember why, but To Kill a Mockingbird has been my favorite book since I was about 9yrs old. Maybe it was the first book I read? I don’t know. I’ve read so many amazing books since then, but I’ve yet to find one that could replace To Kill A Mockingbird.

Other faves- I like legal thrillers but not all legal thriller writers. Of course I’ve read everything that Grisham has written in the genre (not so much on his other stuff, doesn’t hold me and even his latest books don’t hold up to The Firm, The Client, or the Pelican Brief), but I also enjoy a San Francisco author named John Lescroart. His books are great, specifically the ones that follow Dismas Hardy, embattled attorney and his best pal Abe Glitsky, homicide lieutenant. I believe there are 13 books in the “Hardy Series”. Love them.

I also like historical romance– basically a love story set in, say, the 1800′s or early 1900′s. I…. don’t know why. Perhaps it explains my love for Jane Austen? Not sure. I think I just liked the simpler time, when a lady was a lady and a man was expected to be a man, not this sniveling whiny, entitled thing we have to deal with these days. SIGH.  One of my favorite writers of historical romances is Lavyrle Spencer, but she retired so, so long ago. Booo. My friend Anjel lent me some books to read by a new (to me) author that I totally can’t remember right now but I’m diggin’ em.

It’s very hard to describe my reading tastes. Sometimes it’s just by chance. I see something I think I might like… I pick it up. Sometimes I love it, sometimes I don’t. If you’re interested in what I’m currently reading, look me up on Goodreads! I’m mostly into drama and I don’t need a happy ending. I do NOT like snappy, sarcastic, ‘oh my God this book is HILARIOUS!’ books. I’m guaranteed to not find it funny.

I would love to be philosophical. I’m not a shallow reader but I’m not a deep one, either. Give me a good story line, some great dialogue, not too much description and a main character I can either love OR hate and I am probably going to read it.

Oh. And no vampires. And no magicians. And no magical dragons and rings and such. I guess I am not much of a Fantasy reader. I can’t suspend my reality that far.

Your turn! My favorite book is To Kill A Mockingbird. Yours?

Day three question- What is your favorite TV program?

I’ll just be short and sweet right here:

Missing Gideon, but here is the incredible cast of a superbly written and acted show, Criminal Minds

I missed the first few seasons of this show, until it started airing on A&E in reruns. I watched one epi and I was HOOKED. Shemar Moore? HELLO?! And Matthew Gray Gubler… he’s just delightfully nerdtastic. He’s so well written as the awkward overly smart brilliant man -child, and the saccharine sweet friendship between Garcia and Morgan lights my heart up. Adore them. It took me a few episodes to not see Thomas Gibson as Greg from Dharma and Greg, but not long because Unit Chief Hotchner is a take-no-prisoners, will beat your ass without breaking a sweat kinda guy. Grrrr.

And, I say this every episode, but I rue the day that Mandy Patinkin left the show as Gideon. The cast had a palpable, amazing chemistry that has never been the same since the addition of Joe Moantegna as Rossi (who I really dislike, a lot). Lastly, they dumped Elle in Season 2 and got Prentiss and YAAAAAAASSSSSS I love her. This cast was perfect, if only for a short while. And now even though I have to see Moantegna, it’s still pretty good, so knowing we’re going to have a season without AJ Cook (JJ) and fewer Prentiss episodes is just… blech. Please don’t kill my show, CBS!

Other shows I like:

Almost anything that comes on Investigation Discovery, Science Channel, History, A&E. Lots and lots of crime drama, investigation shows, nerdy stuff

I loooooooooove documentaries. One of my fave documentaries is called Maxed Out, about the credit card industry and how people get caught up in the trap. It’s just… so well done. I actually cried at some parts of it.

I like some shows on TLC like Little Couple, but I miss when TLC was a lot of documentaries and actual educational material. Now it’s just the Sunday freakshow.

Also used to like Discovery, and I still catch the occaisional Shark Week or Earth presentation, but *shrugs* I don’t watch it much.

What I don’t watch? Sitcoms, a lot of reality tv, like competition shows, except for America’s Best Dance Crew because uhmmm I like one of the judges A LOT. A LOT. If he wasn’t there I wouldn’t watch it, but since he is, bring it on!  Also day time talk shows, soap operas, tabloid TV, anything on E!… I start to drift off after awhile.

There we go, now! My fave tv show is Criminal Minds. What’s YOURS?

Today’s topic is: What is your favorite movie?

Like music, I have a few favorite movies. Okay, a lot. For someone not really into movies, I have a lot.

There are a couple of actors that I really like, such as Harrison Ford, Tommy Lee Jones, LL Cool J (hush), and Will Smith. If Luda is in a movie, I’m gonna be seeing that. If Mark Walhberg is in a movie, Ima be seeing THAT, though I like Donnie, too.  Of the women, I really enjoy Kathy Bates a lot and Meryl Streep– that woman is a GODDESS. I also like Regina King, Jada Pinkett Smith, and my GIRL! Queen Latifah. OMG I love that woman, though I haven’t seen many of her latest films. I’m not that much into fluff. Ooh, Loretta Devine, Angela Bassett, Nia Long… uhmmm the entire cast of Waiting to Exhale….. so many. I can’t even make a list, but if the above are in a film, I will probably try to see it.

I run fast and hard from movies starring Gwyneth Paltrow or Gabrielle Union. I just. don’t. like. them. Woo.

I have a number of really great movies I love, some chick flicks (Beaches, Steel Magnolias, Terms of Endearment, Fried Green Tomatoes), some more mystery/horror based (Misery, What Lies Beneath, Jaws),  and some classics like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.  Sigh. There’s nothing quite like old world Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Crawford (no wire hangers!), Judy Garland, Bette Davis, Audrey and Katherine Hepburn. Love love love Turner Classic Movies. Of course I have to pay homage to classic black actresses who made it possible for women like Halle Berry to win an Oscar. For what, I don’t know because that chick cannot act. Big ups to Dorothy Dandrige and Lena Horne, Pearl Bailey, Josephine Baker and others.

I don’t really dig romantic comedies but put Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in a movie and even if it is a schmoopy lovefest, I am all. over. that sucka. “You’ve Got Mail” is probably one of my most favorite romantic movies. You know… of the few I can sit through. Sleepless in Seattle, is great, too.

Fave scary movie? *ponders* Sleeping with the Enemy. IS THAT NOT A THRILLER?! Especially when he finds her! And he’s in the House! The towels! The cans! And then she shoots him! And you’re (I’m) on the couch screaming at her to not stand near him cause HE’S NOT DEAD!!!

I love that movie.

But my favorite movie… is The Shawshank Redemption.

This is a movie that, when it comes on TNT, no matter where it is in the movie, I have to stop whatever I’m doing, sit down and watch it. Because… it is gold. It is one of my FAVORITE movies of all time.  I mean… Morgan Freeman is in it. *shrugs*

“Get Busy Livin’… or get busy dyin’.”

A close second? A Beautiful Mind. You know what?  I’m just gonna put this out there:  If Ron Howard even looks in the direction of a film, I am going to see it. There, I said it, and I’ll not take it back.

“Terrified. Petrified. Mortified. Stupefied. By you.”

There we go! My favorite movie is The Shawshank Redemption. What’s yours?