Week in Review & Five Question Friday--2/24

Week in Review photo credit

What I'm Reading

I finished Agatha Christie's Pocket Full of Rye. This is the second AC novel I've read. The first was a Poirot mystery and I thought I followed along pretty well, had it mostly figured out, but at the big reveal, I had definitely missed some things. That was okay. This time, I feel like I was led on a wild goose chase and the perpetrator was a total surprise. I won't go into more detail so as not to spoil it for anyone, but it was a disappointment, and also pretty boring. Thumbs down.

I continue to read Memoirs of a Geisha and I'm entranced. Great writing, tons of details about the geisha culture. I'm really enjoying it!

What I'm watching

Ugh, lots of movie duds lately. So I'll just mention the good stuff.

Crazy Heart--we really enjoyed this, great performances (Jeff Bridges deserved his Oscar), though we never quite bought the "romance."

Inception we thought was okay, interesting to watch, but we felt like the movie was trying too hard to be clever at the expense of plot.

Brothers we thought was surprisingly good. I didn't think Natalie Portman had the maturity to be believable as the mother of two kids, though she was technically old enough. {I suppose that's the challenge for her, when she's been acting since she was a kid and she weighs about 100 pounds.} But Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal were excellent. And it had me on the edge of my seat.

Ondine was another good one. Charming, romantic, a little mystery. I really wish it had subtitles {I've mentioned before that we have to keep the volume low because our kids are asleep} because all the accents and mumbling were hard to understand, but even missing half the dialogue, we liked the movie. :-)

In other news

I posted my EE update the other day, so no news there.

I've been playing with my blog. I figured out how to change the color and font of my header. I added a welcome message and picture of my kids in the left sidebar. And I'm working on adding "pages" like "About Me" to go along the top.

Five Question Friday

1. Can you drive a stick shift?

Sadly no, I never learned that skill. My husband loves manual transmissions, so his current car is actually a stick shift. Therefore, I cannot drive my husband's car. Is that weird?

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2. What are two foods you just can't eat?
I am a picky eater, so there are plenty of foods I don't like. But I gag, literally gag, on ham and spinach. Once I was eating a tomato and bacon pizza and I gagged on one bite. I spat it into a napkin and looked down--there was a piece of ham (that had been hidden under the cheese). So I don't even need to know it is there. Now I just tell people I am allergic to ham and spinach, so they won't serve them to me.

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I also really don't like fish of any kind, but I can usually choke it down if I have to.

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3. Do you buy Girl Scout Cookies? What is your favorite kind?

Now don't call me unpatriotic, but as I was thinking about buying Girl Scout Cookies this year, I wondered "why bother?" My favorite is Thin Mints, which are basically the same as Keebler Grasshopper cookies, which are cheaper. So I'll just stick to Keebler. I know, so sad. :-(

4. How do you pamper yourself?
I don't do massages, pedicures etc. So I pamper myself with laziness. I like to curl up in pajamas on my recliner, with a blanket and a tub of ice cream and watch a movie. Yep, that's my joy. That said, I did get my eyebrows waxed for the first time last fall and those few minutes felt like pampering. I'm looking forward to doing it again soon.

5. What is your nickname and how did you get it?
I don't really have a nickname other than "mom" and that one I got by having my beautiful children. And Hubby calls me various stupid pet names, we're really quite childish, but we both have kind of long formal names that don't lend themselves to shortening, so "pookie" and "kwady" win out.

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Alright, it's time to get T up from her nap. For more Q&A fun, visit My Little Life. Happy weekend!

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By the way, those are not affiliate links.