three day weekend

   To enjoy our three-day weekend this week, Andy and I decided to (finally) visit the Houston Zoo on Saturday. We'd been talking about going for ages now, and we finally had a good excuse with the free time we've been enjoying. It was a great zoo and the weather was so nice. It had been chilly the entire week before, but a nice warm front came through just in time and warmed us up to about 70F - perfect zoo weather. Andy and I love visiting zoos, so we spent most the afternoon wondering around and enjoying the atmosphere and talking with some of the zoo keepers. I always love finding out about the individual animals and learning who has had babies recently, etc. I thinking working at a zoo would be great fun, even if just for a little bit. I find the level of bonding between keepers and their animals amazing. It's something you don't really get to experience working with animals in the field. After the zoo we decided to find a movie theater to see if we could catch a movie that hasn't been released in our parts of the woods. We ended up at an Angelika theater downtown in the theater district (seems appropriate). I've driven through downtown Houston many times, but never actually stopped. After Hurricane Ike last September I wasn't sure what to expect but everything was very clean and calm and the streets weren't very busy, either. We decided to see Slumdog Millionaire. I was iffy about this movie until it began sweeping the awards. After seeing it for myself, I must say, it completely deserved every award. It was so great! If you have a chance to see this movie I definitely recommend it. I have seen a lot of great movies this year, but this one is my favorite so far. It had the perfect mix of everything - romance, comedy, drama, suspense. Wonderful movie! After the movie we headed out of town in search of a restaurant on the way back home and found a great Japanese place that was delicious and just what I needed after the very active day (and stressful city driving). It was a long, but super fun day! The rest of the weekend we've just been a bit lazy. Watching tv, doing shopping. This afternoon we're headed to check out another movie: Last Chance Harvey. One last little escape before heading back to work tomorrow. I hope everyone had a great weekend! Happy MLK Day and I hope everyone gets a chance to watch the Inauguration tomorrow!

the duchess. review.

Just got home from seeing The Duchess which opened this weekend in our theater. Since Pirates of the Caribbean I have been a fan of Keira Knightley and see most of her films if I read good things about them. It was Joe Wright's Pride and Prejudice, for which Keira received an Oscar nomination that cemented her in my list of favorite actresses, so I was definitely looking forward to seeing this film after being teased by the trailer on my television for weeks now.

I enjoyed the movie, but it definitely was not one of her bests. Not because of her performance, which was absolutely great, but due to the lack of development of the different relationships within the film. Central points in this film hinge on these relationships, but I couldn't quite bring myself to feel as emotional about the happenings as I would be if the relationships with the Duchess had been better developed. Overall though it was an enjoyable, beautiful film to look at and well acted by everyone in the cast.

I hope to be able to see The Express sometime soon, but so many great movies are coming out that I want to see I just don't know if I'll have the time between school and work. Lucky for me, movie tickets aren't too expensive here, especially for students, so even with these economic woes I can still afford to steal away to the movies every once and awhile and escape. 

I'm always looking for more great movies to watch, whether in the theater or on dvd, so if any of you have a suggestion be sure to drop be a comment!

falling into place.

School has definitely been taking a toll on me lately. Test after test after test. It's been a never ending cycle that is finally approaching the end. 

In good news, though, I think the Christmas sale season has kicked in because I've been making a sale on etsy almost every day for the past week. It's been a welcome extra "burden" on the plans finding a few couple minutes to package up these slippers send them out to their new homes. So it looks like things are falling into place both in the realms of etsy and school as both things pick up and begin to lead to exciting new places (with a little more money in my pocket to spare). 

Still no sign of autumn here, but the my favorite movie season has begun to pick up. One of my favorite things to do is keep up with movie news and when Oscar season rolls around I get a little more excited for all the great new movies that are soon to be coming out. Next week I already have several movies I want to see including the new Keira Knightley movie The Duchess. I've been trying to keep up with the trailers for new movies, too. Some of the ones I've seen recently that look like they should make good movies are The Soloist (I'm a huge Joe Wright fan), Australia, and Milk. Maybe I'll get around to posting some of my thoughts on these movies when they come out. 

Hope everyone is having a spook-tacular October! 

Whew, I've been busy. A couple weeks ago I moved into my new apartment. I'm still not totally unpacked. It seems like everywhere I go I find something new I need to put away. But I'm really enjoying it. My roommate is out of town for the summer so I have the place all to myself. Work started two weeks ago, too. I'm really enjoying it. I love the place and the people there and I'm really liking what I'm doing. I'm working in a cotton pathology lab for the USDA. Right now my job consists mostly of getting DNA out of cotton leaves so we can run tests to see what genes are there (and if they are the ones we want), but I also work in germinating the cotton plants themselves. Everyone is so nice and flexible that I can work as much or as little as I want and as long as the work gets done it's alright. So I love my flexible hours. Summer school is starting tomorrow. I'm taking organic chemistry. Oh joy. Chemistry is not one of my strong points, but I'll live through it. A little hard work never killed anyone, I suppose. It'll be my first class on my new campus. I have pretty much no idea where I'm going, but that's what friends are for. Andy has volunteered to ride with me to campus early tomorrow and show me what building my class is in. So it's mostly been work around here, with a little play now and then. We went and saw Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End on Thursday and I loved it, of course. The next big thing I'm looking forward to this summer is the double Harry Potter release. The etsy shop has taken a back seat during all of this, sadly. I'm still making good sales though and I'm finally making some headway on my custom orders. I'm enjoying the excitement of life, but I'm beginning to feel ready for things to calm down again so I can get back into etsy and crocheting. I'll keep you updated .... hopefully sooner rather than later.

spring is here.

I took a break from my busy school schedule and went to visit Andy's (my boyfriend) new puppy in Dallas with him this weekend. I don't have pictures of the adorable yellow lab puppy (deemed Lemonbutt) because Andy's mom stole the memory card I put the pictures I took on, but hopefully I'll have them soon. However, I do have pictures from all the great wild flowers that were in bloom along the way. The pictures aren't that great because I took them from the car as we sped by, but I thought I'd share them anyway.

My favorite are the bluebonnets, the Texas state flower. We don't get them up where I'm from so it's very exciting for me to see them in bloom out in the wild. Very gorgeous. Sometimes we'd drive past these huge fields of them that just took your breath away. When we weren't driving and playing with puppies, me and Andy had a Sonic Spinball marathon on his Wii. Here's Andy playing with my wiimote (it has sea life on it!) in his glasses from seeing Meet the Robinsons in 3-D, which was totally worth seeing because the 3-D was awesome even if the movie wasn't the greatest. "I have a big head, and little arms. I'm just not sure how well this plan was thought through." But anyway, we found these glasses hilarous because they were like Horn Rimmed Buddy Holly glasses. Just proves that "Heroes" is an influence in designing 3-D glasses.