Whip It

I have been wanting to see Whip It since it was in the theaters. I have a wee obsession with wanting to a roller derby girl. I actually went to see the championships at the Philly convention center and was just in awe. I was never a good skater, and I am too afraid of hurting myself to do it.

So anyway, this movie was aight, the story of an alternative girl stuck in a small town who has a mom who forces her into beauty pageants and she secretly takes up roller derby and is really good at it. She falls in love with roller derby and also a boy (Landon Pigg who I have seen in concert before, he was a little awkward). Eventually parents find out, she gets in a fight with her friend, boy doesn’t call, the big championship game falls on the same night as the pageant…kind of a predictable storyline. This movie was nothing too amazing to write home about with the exception of the actual roller derby scenes. Loved those. Ellen Page thankfully didn’t play Juno again, and I was happy she can actually act. The other roller derby girls were a little over the top, but I enjoyed Kristen Wig and Drew Barrymore.

So maybe one day, I will be my own hero and put on a pair of skates and get up enough courage to do it. Until then, going to roller derby matches may just have to do.

We bought a house!

So after the honeymoon, life went on. Blah blah blah. Our doggie got cuter (is that possible?), my job got better (promotion!), and we decided to look at houses. We stopped the search 3 times in order to save up some funds. On one of our trips, I fell in love with an almost Victorian built in 1912, and also used to house a dentist’s office. It was such a great house, except for the fact that it was “as is” and we couldn’t get financing with any outstanding repairs. Plus the house was in a bad neighborhood, so unfortunately we had to say goodbye to that house.

After that we saw so many houses…almost all of them horrible in our price range. We really didn’t want a townhome, or to move far away from our work (especially mine since my commute is a bitch). Then one day we went to see 2 houses. The first house we couldn’t even see inside, because the owner didn’t leave the door open and apparently didn’t want to sell the home because it was a foreclosure. The neighbor had a sweet pitbull though. I wanted to adopt him. That was the only thing we saw of the house, the neighbor’s pitbull.

Then we went onto the next. From the outside, we loved it. It’s a brick colonial in a good neighborhood with people who take care of their houses and don’t have mattresses on the laws (not kidding, we saw some with that). We fell in love with it! It’s got 4 bedrooms, a gas fireplace, a den in the basement, a door to the kitchen that swings!, and a nice backyard for the Bindo.

We decided to put in an offer, and the first one was a FAIL. Rejected. Then we decided to offer more, and it was accepted! We went through the inspection and found no major flaws, and after the U&O certification, the owner’s got all of those repairs taken care of. We also just got the appraisal and we close on Feb. 19th.

Now comes the fun part. Packing. We started with the computer room, aka the junk room. The husband dontated clothes this weekend and freed up 1/2 of a double closet. I packed some boxes, and at the rate we are going we are looking good to not feel rushed and to have everything neat and organized for the move.

We are hiring movers. Frankly I am too weak to move a sectional couch, a king size bed, mattresses, a huge TV, etc. I am thinking it will be the best $ spent in this whole process!

The countdown is on. I cannot wait to move. Here’s why:

1. Won’t have to hear Bindi snoring every night

2. Won’t have to smell pot from the neighbors next door

3. Won’t have to listen to the teenagers outside practicing their curse words every other second

4. Won’t have a major traffic road outside our door with all of that noise

5. I can finally paint!

The house needs some updates. The kitchen and bathroom mostly. I have been watching too much HGTV and looking at too many design blogs. This blog will probably have more blog posts on this stuff when we buy the house and get started on changing things.

Yay!

Married & Honeymoon

So it goes without saying that I haven’t blogged in forever.

 Anyway, we got hitched. Tied the knot. Hurricane Bill attended, taking away our outdoor wedding. My dog got an ear infection the day before and had so many medications I was worried all through the honeymoon. 

Even with the outdoor ceremony not happening, it was fine inside (and air conditioned bc it was hot as hell). The DJ was late, and made us wish we didn’t have checks written out for tips beforehand. I am pretty sure my ipod would have done a better job than him. The officiant was awesome. As was my photographer. All in all, a great day and I am happy to be a Mrs!

Went on an awesome honeymoon to Belize where I enjoyed spa treatments, blue water, and experiences that I never would have thought of experiencing.

 I’ve also never had a trip where I thought I would die so many times! The first day we arrived we met our guide from the hotel and he proceeded to drive us to the hotel 2 hours away. Belize drivers are crazy. They go about 90 mph between speed bumps and also take driveways up steep hills at the same speed! Almost death #1. He took us to the Belize Zoo, where he put his hands through the electric fence like he knew the big cats. Pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to do that.

Another excursion took usjungle horseback riding, while the hubby was recovering from either a stomach bug or being hungover. I am leaning towards the latter since he drank so many free mixed drinks the night before. True love is trying not to puke and rubbing your husband’s back as he heaves into the toilet.

The jungle horses seemingly took us down a mountain (it’s slippery mud and the horses feet were slipping, thank goodness they have 4 legs). And my horse did not listen to me. Almost death #2.  The view was incredible at our first stop, and we saw a coatimundi near the river. On the way back I got a much better horse who I really liked. Much easier to get away from eating the leaves.

Another trip we took was to the Mayan ruins. Here I am thinking take a few photos, walk around the bottom, climb up a few stairs and take a picture to prove you are there, done. Nope. Our guide starts the day with digging tarantuas out of their holes, and then scaling the ruins. And I am afraid of heights, but figured, once in a lifetime. So I follow. And we get to the top. And this is Belize people. Not some American tourist trap with lovely railing and glass walls to keep you from falling to your death. To top it off, a thunderstorm rolls in. We began our descent, and the rain starts falling. Making the giant stairs slippery. Almost death #3. We finally make it down with only one person slipping and thankfully not taking us down with him and take refuge in a picnic area with armed military with machine guns and howler monkeys growling overheard. Military guards do not like their pictures taken FYI. And howler monkeys sound like jaguars and get pissy when it rains.

The next day decidedly a spa day to rest our muscles. I have never had any spa treatments done and I am ashamed to say this, but if I could have them every day I would. Hot stone massage yes please.  I literally spent 4 hours in the spa, then swam in the infinity pool looking into the ocean.

We decided to go snorkeling, which was fun. We did see a giant sea ray, which screamed Steve Irwin to me, so death experience #4. And at one point our guide says he can’t leave the boat because the tide is getting stronger and you know, it might float away. And to  just yell if we want him to come get us. One of the other couple on the boat was extremely sea sick, and I’ve been there before. So I asked Joel if he was done and we went back and thankfully saved her from spilling her guts. And after all the swimming, my back decides to practically light on fire with sunburn. On the plus side I did get to see a seahorse, and honestly they are freaky little animals.

Now with a  ridiculously red back, the next day we go on the Sittee River tour, where we saw crocodiles, some really mean looking cows, turtles, lots of iguanas, and birds. We went into a lagoon, where the guide takes down the canopy of the boat to allow for ample picture taking.  However he doesn’t put it back up. My back again decides to burst into flames through a t-shirt. He tries to take us out into the open sea to drop us off at the resort, however the waves are so choppy he decides to spare our lives. Almost death #5.

The last day at the resort, we decide to save time and take the 15 min flight to the major airport on one of those tiny little hopper planes. You know it’s not going to be a fun time when another couple on the same flight as ours decides to drive the 2 hours because they don’t want a repeat of that flight that they took in. Needless to say, I squeezed Joel’s hand so hard during the flight, it was red. We also sat literally right behind the pilod. I shouldn’t see him texting on his phone, turning dials, and pushing pedals. But at least I would have known if we were going down. So that was almost death #6, but I must say he landed that plane better than any other plane I’ve ever been on.

Don’t get me wrong, this was one of the most amazing trips of my life. I loved every minute of it, even with thinking I was totally gonna die. It made getting through the experiences even better and made me so proud that I faced some fears I didn’t even knew I had! The resort was amazing, and so worth every penny. Belize relies on tourism and they treat you so well down there. All of the staff was amazing, doing anything to make you happy. I forgot my bathing suit (the one thing I forgot, and of course it’s my bathing suit) and they were all willing to go out and find me one. Thank goodness the spa had one! We even went to a local karaoke bar with the bartender and got to see what the locals do. It is a beautiful country and an amazing adventure

Happy Go Lucky

Saw Happy Go Lucky this weekend, basically I wanted to know why Sally Hawkins won an award for the role.

And I now know why! Pretty amazing performance. The story was simple, a story of a young woman just plain happy with her life.  Even when life hands gives her some hard times, like a mean driving teacher, a student dealing with problems at home, or even a pulled muscle in her back, she goes through it with an optimistic attitude to get through to the other side. Her laugh was infectious, her funny sayings hilarious.

One of my favorite parts was her younger, pregnant, married sister told her that she has to be secretly unhappy with her life and that it’s all a front. Poppy explained that she had great friends, a job she loves, and that it’s OK that she’s not married, she’s just happy where she is, and you believe her, because she is happy.

All throughout the movie, you are waiting for the ball to drop. For something to crack this girl. You sit on pins and needles, and when it finally happens, again her sense of self shines through. When she finds love, it’s magical on the screen, and you wonder why girls like her would ever not be lucky in love.

Glad I got to see it. Oh and the flamenco teacher’s performance was priceless.

If I ever get rich, I am hiring a driver.

So I am driving home from work, minding my own bidness. And then I hear this flapping sound, like maybe a bird flew too close to my window and flapped it’s little birdie wings out of the way to not to, I don’t know, die.  So I go to the next stop light, and look down. And, HELLO MR. BUMBLEBEE, CRAWLING ON MY LEG! I immediately swat him so he’s now riding shotgun, and then Mr. Bee FREAKS THE EFF OUT. More so than me, panicked driver, who is operating a moving vehicle with something that could potentially get stuck in my hair and sting me! How dare he!

So down the windows go, all the way, hoping the bee found it’s way out. I have no idea if he made it to the outside. He’s probably dead in my trunk. At least now I have a hatchback and don’t collect dead bugs like they are those felt bobble head animals on that trunk cover thing that cars have.

I am kinda proud of myself for not crashing into a tree or rear ending another driver all because this bee (who is definitely not a friendly Jerry Seinfeld bee!) decided to spaz out in my car.

Then I am continuing on my bee drive, and a too-nice-for-a-teenager-to-be-driving it-Nissan pulls out in front of me, swerving all over the road. Either a teenager or a grown ass man who still likes to wear baseball hats tipped to the side. (Think Jamie Kennedy in Malibu’s Most Wanted). Seems as if the blunt they just rolled might have dropped in the car, or something to that end. They then throw trash out of the windows.

Seriously, who litters anymore??? I littered once in my entire life and to this day I will never do it again. My stepbrothers were fighting in the car over an empty slurpee cup (they were hitting eachother with it or something) and I got fed up and threw it out the window. The look of shock on my parents faces made me never want to litter again.

Anyway, they continue to drive insanely slow. And me, still trying to be a calm driver to as not to upset the bee that might or might not be in my car, took it all in stride. Although I have a feeling they were driving that slow because they were too high to be operating the vehichle and 35 mph must have felt like a roller coaster. Then we happen upon a bike rider and boy did I fear for that man’s life.  Then they just so happen to be turning where I am turning, the joy.

We get to a red light. We stop. It turns green. We are still stopped. For awhile. I don’t blow my horn, because I don’t want to freak out the bee if it’s still there, or get shot because some people can’t control their road rage (search it on msnbc and you will find way too many stories!). The guy behind me decides to take it upon himself to do the beeping.

Then I get treated to the finger waved at me outside the sunroof. Three times.  Because once was not enough. Like I was the asshat who was STOPPED AT A GREEN LIGHT. WTF??? It wasn’t even me! And if it was, did the sound inconvenience him so much, like delaying me from getting to my destination by not going through the intersection in a timely manner?

Where’s a traffic cop when you need them? Pulling over people with a broken tail light or something I bet.