74. Make a list of movies I’ve wanted to see, and rent/watch them all

Well, I wasted no time getting to work on this list.

Last night I stayed in and watched "The Other Guys." One of my friends told me that they were sure I would like it. I am more and more skeptical about Will Ferrell movies as time goes on (I'm not going to say 'sellout' or 'typecast'.....just that there's shall we say...repetition...in some of his roles.)

But, Mark Wahlberg is becoming a new favorite of mine, and the premise of this movie did seem pretty entertaining, so I went for it.


Um, it's hilarious. Laugh out loud by yourself in your apartment so that your neighbors are probably wondering what the heck is going on up there hilarious.

It's not the greatest movie ever made, but it's really funny.

It's so ridiculous and over the top, that it's entertaining. Ya gotta just go in with no cynicism.

And I wasn't sure how Marky Mark would do in a comedy, but ever since I saw this:



and this:




I have a hard time not laughing when I hear him talk. His character in this movie just yells a lot and is indignant most of the time, and I half expected a "say hi to your mothah for me" slip out.

So, next time you need a mindless, funny movie that you can bond with coworkers over by quoting in the office kitchen, try this one. If you don't mind language and violence and some crude conversation....hey I didn't say it was very redeeming. I said it was funny.

74. Make a list of movies I’ve wanted to see, and rent/watch them all

Alright so here is my list within a list. Movies I want to see. If I didn't go ahead and make one, I'd never get started.

Schindler’s List
The King’s Speech
True Grit
The Other Guys
Wall Street
Toy Story 3
Megamind
Shutter Island
What’s Eating Gilbert Grape
Body of Lies
Chocolat

78. Create a “favorites of 2010” playlist on my iTunes

Most of these are songs from 2010, a few aren’t, but they have all been, in no particular order, my favorites to play this year. Don’t judge.

Arcade Fire - Rococo



Carrie Underwood - Undo It


Arcade Fire - City With No Children


Mumford and Sons - awake my soul


Lady Antebellum - Our Kind of Love


Weezer - I Want You To


David Nail - Red Light


Van Morrison - Full Force Gale


Antoine Dodson & The Gregory Brothers - Bed Intruder Song


Andrew Ripp - Blue Sky Christmas Eve
https://noisetrade.com - find the song to download here by scrolling through to his name

Broken Bells - The High Road


Loane - Femme Qui Court


Eminem - Not Afraid


Usher featuring Pitbull - DJ Got Us Fallin In Love


Miranda Lambert - The House That Built Me


Zac Brown Band - As She’s Walkin Away (feat. Alan Jackson)

27. Cook my way through Paula Deen’s cookbook, “The Lady and Sons Cookbook”

Chicken and Dumplins.


Don't you feel better just reading those words? Total comfort food.

It's winter, snow was predicted for last night:

(correct prediction)

and I wanted some real food to have around for the weekend, so last night I tackled Paula's chicken and dumplins recipe.

Earlier in the week I was reading over the recipe and saw this:
Gulp. I'd never cut up a whole chicken before -- heck, I'd never even purchased a whole raw chicken before.

I got a tip from a friend that Whole Foods was having a sale on free range whole chickens, so I picked one up. Feeling like a very legitimate cook.

So then last night, I had to look up how to properly cut up a chicken, so I watched this video:



Deep breath, and here we go:


The before.....



And after.....
Let's just say, I think my chicken had more bones than Mr. Pampered Chef's did. Either that or his knife is amazing and slices through bone like it's butter. Or he just cracked a bunch of joints so quickly I didn't notice.

At one point I saw what I think is bone marrow.....eeesh. It was a little bit of a gross process, but worth it.

After this it was pretty smooth sailing --- threw a bunch of stuff in a pot and let it do its thing:






I don't know why it just now occurred to me to start doing videos on the blog instead of photos. So I don't claim to be destined for the Food Network, but here is some commentary:





Now would be a good time to let you know that I got some AMAZING Christmas presents this year -- I had asked for a food processor and when I opened it and it was from my sister, I wondered what on earth my parents were going to give me, because I kind of expected them to be the ones to give me the big ticket item I was asking for.....so I was blown away when I got a Kitchenaid stand mixer. I've been using the food processor this week and it has already changed my life (I'm not joking). I have yet to use the Kitchenaid, but I have no doubts I will use it soon. In the mean time it looks realllll purrrty sitting on my counter.


Ok so after everything cooked, I had to pick the chicken, then throw it back in the pot to cook the dumplins. Given that it was Friday at about 6pm and I was a bit braindead from the week, I read "cut into 1 inch strips" as the width the dumplins should be and made them really long. Next time I'll make them smaller (and OH H-YES there will be a next time).

So, final step:



I then ate a bowl full and shared some with my sister. If you're wondering if it's any good -- it is probably one of, if not THE best things I've ever made. Delicious. Next time I might add some carrots or other vegetables to make it even more hearty. But the flavor....amazing. Thank you Paula Deen.

Recipe here

41. Do something crafty with Grandfather Walker’s journal & 48. Use my 2 Groupons before they expire

2 birds with one stone in this one -- I used my other Groupon (remember this previous entry?) to do something crafty with Grandfather Walker’s journal by using one of his paintings to order some stationary cards. Grandfather Walker is my great-great grandfather who spent some time at sea when he was young and did some paintings in a journal he kept while on his trip. If you’d like to hear more about it sometime, let me know. Pretty interesting family history stuff there. In any case, I used an online company to create some cards with one of the images and they turned out well.

But - there are several reasons why I would highly encourage you to never use A&I Books - but the most entertaining is that they sent me someone elses’ Christmas cards by mistake ---





And then sent me a FedEx label so that I could mail those cards directly to the correct (I mean..I guess it was correct) recipients.

Finally my cards arrived in time for Christmas -- so I split them up among my immediate family as gifts.

Ch-ch-check ‘em out:




What’s that? The image looks familiar? ohhh why yes, that is the image from the header of my blog. It’s one of my favorites from the journal.

Now I’m thinking I should use these cards to fulfill number 22 or 67....

34. Go visit the Scogins in Tacoma, Washington

I made a detour on my work trip and got to visit old Augusta friends the Scogins and meet their son, 6 weeks old at the time, Oliver. I neglected to take any photos with them while I was at their house, so I’m stealing one from FB (thanks Becca, though I doubt you’ll ever read this!)


And I did get to do a quick tour of Seattle -- I’d never been to the Pacific Northwest, and let me just say that I loved it. It’s gorgeous. Although apparently I couldn’t have picked a better day to be there, as it was sunny and clear with amazing views and temps in the 50s.

Pike's Place Market --



Tug Boats -- toot! toot!



The Scogins live in Tacoma, so I even got to see the school where this happened:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6XGUhzfutc


Can you imagine going to high school here?


Check out that view!


A great day overall and I’m glad I was able to make this work and got to see these friends.

95. Eat an oyster or escargot

A friend had recommended a restaurant for me to check out while in San Fran called “The Stinking Rose” - everything there has garlic in it. And who has two thumbs and loves garlic......

So I took the opportunity of eating by myself to get some terrible breath while eating delicious food.

Then I decided to expand my culinary experience by ordering clams with black fettuccine. I have never had an oyster, clam, mussel, etc. so I added this to the list so that I would try some sort of bi-valve creature.



The pasta was AMAZING. I couldn’t finish it all and accidentally left the rest of it in the fridge in my hotel room -- guess those cleaning folks were in for a garlicky surprise when they opened the fridge.

As for the clams, I enjoyed them for a while, but the texture got to me after a bit.

59. Jump on the bed like I did when I was little, just for the fun of it

I recently took a trip West for work and to prevent myself from going a little crazy with how much alone time I had (I’m definitely an extrovert), I decided to cross off as many things on my list while I was there that I could (the indie movie post below was one of those).

And what better place to jump on a bed than at a hotel?