Tangled

I saw it this weekend. It was lovely. I will generally go for anything computer animated with either the word Disney or Pixar in it, so it wasn't a big stretch for me. This one is a musical, in the style of the (non-computer) animated movies I grew up on, which I haven't experienced in a while. I found myself drawing parallels between each song and some scene from Aladdin or Beauty And The Beast from my youth. Granted all of the movies are based on the same premise so the songs are bound to have recurring themes. But I kept trying to imagine children who would grow up singing these songs their entire lives after watching Tangled 8 million times. Like the way I still know the words to "Kiss The Girl" and "A Whole New World." God. I am getting old.

But, I digress. I was not disappointed. It was gorgeous. It was funny and heartwarming, and it was fun to watch with a theater full of children. The characters were endearing and the plot was well timed and constructed. There were a couple of scenes that were truly beautiful. It was predictable, yes. But there was a poignant moment when everything went wrong, and the little girl I'd gone with started crying about the unfortunate turn of events. And her mom leaned over and told her not to be upset, that everything would work out. And so, yeah, isn't that the reason we go in the first place?

So, I really, really loved it. You should too.

MixTape

After much agonizing, behold, it's The Wintry Mix of 2010:

1. Big Jet Plane - Angus & Julia Stone - Down The Way

2. Sounds Like Hallelujah - The Head & The Heart - The Head & The Heart

3. Heartbeats - Jose Gonzalez - Veneer

4. Off The Ground (Dub Remix) - Citizen Cope

5. Pyro - Kings Of Leon - Come Around Sundown

6. What Part Of Forever - Cee Lo Green

7. Airplanes - Local Natives - Gorilla Manor

8. Love Is Hard - James Morrison - Songs For You, Truth For Me

9. Hustle Blood - Big Boi feat. Jamie Foxx - Sir Lucious Left Foot...The Son Of Chico Dusty

10. Heart Skipped A Beat - The xx - xx

11. So Far Around The Bend - National

12. The Verb - The Swell Season - Strict Joy

13. 9 Crimes (Demo) - Damien Rice - 9

14. Gone - NSYNC - Celebrity

15. 3 Rounds And A Sound - Blind Pilot

16. Last Kiss - Taylor Swift - Speak Now

17. Come Pick Me Up - Ryan Adams - Heartbreaker

18. When The Night Comes - Dan Auerbach - Keep It Hid

So it's maybe not exactly perfectly what I had envisioned, but it's not a bad mix. Follow the links if you have some time.

Down The Way

Angus & Julia Stone: my musical crush of the moment. A brother/sister duo from Australia. I was recently introduced to their sophomore album, and I really can't stop playing it. It's gorgeous, mellow, sultry winter music. Makes you (and by you I mean me) want to settle in around a table with good friends, some sort of dark liquor in hand, fireside, with stories and board games.
I don't think I've ever said this before, but I'm sort of ready for the winter.
I'm working on a winter mix tape. I'll be sure to share it on here once it's complete. In the meantime, this song is sure to be featured:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFTvbcNhEgc

(Sorry, y'all, my internet savvy is relatively lacking, and the embed code was disabled, so link it is).

Broke

No money. Ever. Strugglin'. I mean, I can pay my bills, but I feel like I'm barely getting by. Gah. Something's gotta give here. It is so frustrating.

Recipe Reviews

So I made the first three recipes. The Spicy Cauliflower Stew turned out deliciously. The goat cheese gave it a great flavor. The second one didn't turn out as well. I used fat free milk instead of 1%, and so my creamy sauce didn't thicken the way it should have. Tonight I made the Vegetable Pie, and I had the same problem. I used less milk 'cause I thought that would help with the thickening, and it looked very promising until I baked it. The sauce got really thin during baking and lost all resemblance to the picture. It just looked watery. No creaminess. Next time I'll be sure to get 1%. I guess chemistry requires a little fat.

Now I'm making chocolate chip cookies. They never let me down. I've got that recipe down pat.

Tomorrow I'm going to a Pre-Thanksgiving Dinner hosted by some girls from work, and I'm making a butternut squash apple casserole. I hope it will be good. If not, I'll ply them with the cookies to distract them.

Recipes On Tap

Here are the four recipes that I'll be making this week (I figure since I cook for one I'll get two to three meals out of each dish):

1) Spicy Cauliflower Stew With Spinach - features carrots, cauliflower, red potatoes and spinach (from Time Life's Great Taste Low Fat Vegetables Cookbook). Flavored with garlic, dijon mustard, goat cheese, and yogurt.

2) Pasta With Vegetables In A Creamy Cheese Sauce - features scallions, bell peppers, cauliflower, and rotini (from Time Life's Great Taste Low Fat Vegetables Cookbook). Flavored with salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, and Cheddar and Parmesan cheeses.

3) Vegetable Pie - features potatoes, rutabaga, parsnips, mushrooms, pearl onions, carrots, and green beans (from Time Life's Great Taste Low Fat Vegetables recipe). Flavored with garlic, salt, black pepper, milk, sage, and Parmesan cheese.

4) Spicy Kale With Baked Salmon - features kale and onions flavored with vinegar and red pepper flakes (from Moosewood Restaurant Cooks At Home). The salmon isn't from a recipe book (just my brain) so I'll probably just cook with olive oil and some 21 Spice from Trader Joe's.

So I'm pretty excited about making these delicious and nutritious meals! I hope that they turn out well.

Saturday

This morning I woke up at 8 and got to work cleaning the treehouse. Not quite as thorough as I'd hoped since I didn't have any dust-type cleaning product. But I dusted. I swept. I vacuumed. I moved my bed to make more room in the living area. I rearranged the rug about three different times. I'm 98% sure that it looks way more spacious now! I put away clutter. I hate clutter. I live in one room, clutter makes it seem even smaller.

Then I went to the Produce Place to pick up all of the produce on the list for the recipes I'm going to try. Stopped by Border's to pick up this month's book club selection, "Moneyball" by Michael Lewis. Then I went to Trader Joe's to get everything else on my list. I had to ask the guy at Trader Joe's what parsnips look like (I'd imagined small onions). They didn't have any. So I stopped by Harris Teeter to get the three things I was missing: parsnips, rutabaga, and ground mustard. At Harris Teeter someone helped me find rutabaga (was way off on what that one looked like as well). I spent a total of $134 on my groceries (which was $16 short of my budget! Yea!).

I stopped by a garage sale on my way home in search of a butter dish, but I didn't find one. I love putting away my groceries. It makes me feel like a successful grown up to have a full refrigerator and cupboards. Unfortunately I have a somewhat smaller than average fridge, so putting groceries up sometimes becomes a test of endurance.

But. After that. I made my first batch of banana muffins. They are currently cooling. They smell amazing. I was planning to go out to Smyrna this afternoon to see "Life As We Know It" (which I heard was pretty cute in a chick flick kind of way), but my date cancelled. Instead, I think I'm going to settle in with a banana muffin and disc 2 (season 1) of Nurse Jackie.

We might go to the dog park later. The evening is wide open! I love a lazy Saturday almost as much as I love a lazy Sunday.

Changes Good

So. How does one go about making positive changes in her life? Changes that she recognizes need to be made. Changes that she's been contemplating time and again. But bad habits are hard to break. And while I can very clearly see what changes I need to be making, I never seem to be able to stick with things. For me, it's money and health. I've already addressed my gradual weight gain in a previous post, so I don't want to gripe too much. The difference between the self of my now and the self of my youth is that I know what I'm doing wrong and I know what I need to do to fix it. Really my goal is not to focus solely on calorie counts and expenditures, but rather to make healthy changes in my life and then to see the results in the way my jeans fit.

So how do people resolve to make changes and then actually stick with them? If I did it once, I can do it again.

Ch-ch-changes:

1. Stop using my credit card and start paying it off. The balance just keeps going up. I have to be firm with myself and just say no. And learn to budget better.

2. Exercise more. And in different ways. There's no excuse for this one. It gets harder for me once it gets dark and cold, but I need to suck it up and do it. Especially when I know that it actually makes me feel good. The dog is not an excuse to not go to the Y!

3. Prepare and eat nutritious meals at home. I really want to start eating more whole foods and to expand my cooking abilities. I've been wanting to do this for a few months (since I read The Omnivore's Dilemma), but I basically haven't had enough money left over to try the new recipes that I've bookmarked.

I also need to drink less beer. But I might be condemning myself to failure if I try this during the holidays. So, we'll see about that one.

Anyway, there you have it. Probably the same three things that every girl aims to change every month or two. But maybe now that I've written it down it will make me hold myself accountable?