swedes, trekkies, mothers, and reality TV
marshall and i enjoyed a rather full weekend this past weekend. i was still sick, but we were busy nonetheless. it all started once i was finished with my final project on friday. marshall came home and we hurried our little butts to ikea for more furniture. yay for press-board and wooden dowels. we picked up doors for our billy bookcases, which we got about a month ago, an end table for the living room, which matched our coffee table), and our biggest piece: the expedit. we finished the bookcase doors and end table friday night and left the biggest for saturday. my sister commented last week that marshall and i go to ikea a lot. well, all the furniture in our apartment are hand-me-downs. what we were using as a pantry really needed to go. it had limited space and it was getting old. i think i got that bookcase when i was a freshman in high school. anyway, the expedit was an interesting thing to put together. it's almost scary that this huge piece of furniture is held together with hand screws and wooden dowels. luckily it's screwed into the wall and hopefully won't fall over. i think if it does, that will be the least of our worries.
i was worried that a piece that big in the dining room would make the area that much smaller. it actually did the opposite and opened up the room a lot. it really changed the dynamic of our room and everything is starting to look really nice. everything matches, too. the cabinet we were using as a fish cabinet for our old fish tank is now our bar and sits under the window. i don't feel like college students and putting our liquor on display. i'm at that point in life where i feel comfortable hiding my liquor in a cabinet. plus, this will help keep our wine longer, since it's out of the sun. it also is a great place to put my thriving christmas cactus. my plan will now get the maximum amount of sunlight. that freed up my plant stand and i brought in the revived spider plant i took home from work. it was literally dying. the thing was root-bound. i took it all apart and replanted it in fresh soil. it has a ton of new growth and is doing really well. since it's an indoor plant, i brought it inside and it looks great. we got little cabinet doors for some of the squares in the expedit bookcase and that really has helped with putting away some of our food. i don't mind with things like cereal, crackers and cookies. but baking ingredients, canned foods and candy - i just want to put it all away. it's really helped organize our things. yeah, it's more dusting, but that doesn't bother me. i'm really excited and our kitchen looks awesome.
yes, our living room and kitchen look like a page from an ikea catalog, but i don't care. it looks awesome!
to reward our carpentry skills, we headed out for a late showing of star trek. i never watched the original star trek series. i did, however, watch plenty of star trek: the next generation, which i fell in love with. plus, it was a way to bond with my nerdy cousin, who happens to be my favorite cousin. i really REALLY enjoyed this movie. honestly, i'd see it again. i'd actually pay another $10 to see it in the theaters again. it's fun and funny and everyone plays their parts so damn well. they had some big shoes to fill and they really filled them. i was worried about zachary quinto as spock, but he did a great job. of course, chris pine was a fantastic kirk. i loved karl urban as dr. mccoy and simon pegg had me in stitches. oh, and the little ruskie who played checkov was awesome! of course, all of this just made me replay the episode of futurama, "where no fan has gone before". "ooo, say nuclear wessles" "*sigh* nuclear wessles" "eee!" :P anyway, i loved it. this is definitely a movie i'll be purchasing when it comes out.
sunday i was lovingly volunteered to host mother's day. if you've just tuned in, i was sick all last week. my house was a wreck. luckily i didn't have to cook anything. i was in charge of appetizers (veggies, dip and olives) and dessert (grilled pineapple, ice cream and dark chocolate sauce). i even offered to take on the tabouleh salad my mom was going to originally make, since i had more time. i mean, she was preparing the main dish (moroccan-style leg of lamb) and a lentil salad, it's freakin mother's day! marshall and i cleaned our asses off sunday afternoon and everything was ready to go once my parents arrived. my sister and her brood joined us later and we had a great dinner. sadly, my mom's lamb became untied and we ended up overcooking it. but, it was still really yummy and tender. the lentil and spinach salads and the tabouleh were all delicious, too. dessert was refreshing and yummy (although my chocolate sauce was a little runny). we had a lovely time hanging out. my mom enjoyed her gift and can't wait to use it with my sister and i (a spa gift certificate for a mother-daughters spa and dinner night). my sister also enjoyed herself, even though she was exhausted from the mother's day events with her in-laws earlier in the day. i'd say it was a success and the leftovers make great lunches! :)
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i'm not afraid to admit that i really enjoy dancing with the stars. it's entertaining and there rarely is any kind of drama at all, at least between the contestants. they don't have to live with each other and they're free to live their own lives while training endlessly for each week's competition. it's good clean fun. marshall and i are usually really good at predicting who will leave each week. we were CERTAIN ty murray (jewel's cowboy husband) was set to go home last week. he's just not as good as the other contestants. i was SHOCKED when lil' kim was voted off. i love ty, but i hate that he was still in the competition. lil' kim was entertaining and added so much life to the group of dancers they had. plus, her pro-dancer is such a little cutie. i think everyone was really blown away. it showed a little when ty finished his first dance and bruno was giving his comments about his dance. bruno was severely pissed that lil' kim was voted off and it actually showed. i'm really REALLY pulling for ty to leave this week. it's really evident that the three other contestants (giles marini, shawn johnson, and melissa rycroft, of the bachelor fame) are MEANT to be in the finals. these people have all proven they are dancers. ty...ty just can't dance. and, really, i think he feels he's done.
in my other reality TV show of choice, the biggest loser is down to the finale. i watched last week's episode today and was almost giddy when the dad of "team brown" was below the yellow line. he was actually at the bottom of the weigh-in list. sadly, his son is in with him. i am hoping that everyone votes off the dad. yeah, it's kinda sweet that the father-son team made it all the way to the end. but seriously, the dad's gonna keep losing weight. he has a ton of it to lose and unless he completely falls of the wagon, he's gonna lose it. plus, has the biggest loser had a winner that looked like this dad? i'm not being mean, but if you look at past winners, they've all been young and pretty. i'm really pulling for tara, the 24-year-old former model. she's REALLY made a change and she's really pretty. i also like the mom from the pink team. she seriously looks 10 years younger now that she's lost all her weight. the son...he's sweet, but he gets on my nerves. he's gotten a lot of publicity since he's the largest 18-year-old they've had on the show. he's also lost more weight on campus than any other contestant (no feat considering these contestants are the biggest they've had in biggest loser history). yeah, the past few winners have been women, but i think they make the best winners, especially from a marketing stand-point. anyway, i was looking forward to the finale tonight, until i realized it was going to be THREE HOURS LONG. really, nbc? really? you're taking an entire prime-time broadcasting night and dedicating it to ONE SHOW? wow. i was going to watch it, but a) it conflicts with my other show and b) it's fucking three hours long!
lastly in my reality TV list...hell's kitchen. last week's episode was a freakin throw-away episode. it could've been 30 minutes of content and actually could've been tacked on to the finale and fox could've stretched it to 2 hours. it wasn't even that exciting. a lot of the episode was looking back at the season and lots of cut scenes and flashbacks. lame. i won't be watching the finale on thursday, as it conflicts with my NBC shows (the office and 30 rock), but i'll watch it on hulu on friday. :) i'm pulling for paula. the guy from florida is kind of a douche.
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alright, tuesday, i'm ready for you to be over. you've crawled by long enough...
i was worried that a piece that big in the dining room would make the area that much smaller. it actually did the opposite and opened up the room a lot. it really changed the dynamic of our room and everything is starting to look really nice. everything matches, too. the cabinet we were using as a fish cabinet for our old fish tank is now our bar and sits under the window. i don't feel like college students and putting our liquor on display. i'm at that point in life where i feel comfortable hiding my liquor in a cabinet. plus, this will help keep our wine longer, since it's out of the sun. it also is a great place to put my thriving christmas cactus. my plan will now get the maximum amount of sunlight. that freed up my plant stand and i brought in the revived spider plant i took home from work. it was literally dying. the thing was root-bound. i took it all apart and replanted it in fresh soil. it has a ton of new growth and is doing really well. since it's an indoor plant, i brought it inside and it looks great. we got little cabinet doors for some of the squares in the expedit bookcase and that really has helped with putting away some of our food. i don't mind with things like cereal, crackers and cookies. but baking ingredients, canned foods and candy - i just want to put it all away. it's really helped organize our things. yeah, it's more dusting, but that doesn't bother me. i'm really excited and our kitchen looks awesome.
yes, our living room and kitchen look like a page from an ikea catalog, but i don't care. it looks awesome!
to reward our carpentry skills, we headed out for a late showing of star trek. i never watched the original star trek series. i did, however, watch plenty of star trek: the next generation, which i fell in love with. plus, it was a way to bond with my nerdy cousin, who happens to be my favorite cousin. i really REALLY enjoyed this movie. honestly, i'd see it again. i'd actually pay another $10 to see it in the theaters again. it's fun and funny and everyone plays their parts so damn well. they had some big shoes to fill and they really filled them. i was worried about zachary quinto as spock, but he did a great job. of course, chris pine was a fantastic kirk. i loved karl urban as dr. mccoy and simon pegg had me in stitches. oh, and the little ruskie who played checkov was awesome! of course, all of this just made me replay the episode of futurama, "where no fan has gone before". "ooo, say nuclear wessles" "*sigh* nuclear wessles" "eee!" :P anyway, i loved it. this is definitely a movie i'll be purchasing when it comes out.
sunday i was lovingly volunteered to host mother's day. if you've just tuned in, i was sick all last week. my house was a wreck. luckily i didn't have to cook anything. i was in charge of appetizers (veggies, dip and olives) and dessert (grilled pineapple, ice cream and dark chocolate sauce). i even offered to take on the tabouleh salad my mom was going to originally make, since i had more time. i mean, she was preparing the main dish (moroccan-style leg of lamb) and a lentil salad, it's freakin mother's day! marshall and i cleaned our asses off sunday afternoon and everything was ready to go once my parents arrived. my sister and her brood joined us later and we had a great dinner. sadly, my mom's lamb became untied and we ended up overcooking it. but, it was still really yummy and tender. the lentil and spinach salads and the tabouleh were all delicious, too. dessert was refreshing and yummy (although my chocolate sauce was a little runny). we had a lovely time hanging out. my mom enjoyed her gift and can't wait to use it with my sister and i (a spa gift certificate for a mother-daughters spa and dinner night). my sister also enjoyed herself, even though she was exhausted from the mother's day events with her in-laws earlier in the day. i'd say it was a success and the leftovers make great lunches! :)
+_+_+
i'm not afraid to admit that i really enjoy dancing with the stars. it's entertaining and there rarely is any kind of drama at all, at least between the contestants. they don't have to live with each other and they're free to live their own lives while training endlessly for each week's competition. it's good clean fun. marshall and i are usually really good at predicting who will leave each week. we were CERTAIN ty murray (jewel's cowboy husband) was set to go home last week. he's just not as good as the other contestants. i was SHOCKED when lil' kim was voted off. i love ty, but i hate that he was still in the competition. lil' kim was entertaining and added so much life to the group of dancers they had. plus, her pro-dancer is such a little cutie. i think everyone was really blown away. it showed a little when ty finished his first dance and bruno was giving his comments about his dance. bruno was severely pissed that lil' kim was voted off and it actually showed. i'm really REALLY pulling for ty to leave this week. it's really evident that the three other contestants (giles marini, shawn johnson, and melissa rycroft, of the bachelor fame) are MEANT to be in the finals. these people have all proven they are dancers. ty...ty just can't dance. and, really, i think he feels he's done.
in my other reality TV show of choice, the biggest loser is down to the finale. i watched last week's episode today and was almost giddy when the dad of "team brown" was below the yellow line. he was actually at the bottom of the weigh-in list. sadly, his son is in with him. i am hoping that everyone votes off the dad. yeah, it's kinda sweet that the father-son team made it all the way to the end. but seriously, the dad's gonna keep losing weight. he has a ton of it to lose and unless he completely falls of the wagon, he's gonna lose it. plus, has the biggest loser had a winner that looked like this dad? i'm not being mean, but if you look at past winners, they've all been young and pretty. i'm really pulling for tara, the 24-year-old former model. she's REALLY made a change and she's really pretty. i also like the mom from the pink team. she seriously looks 10 years younger now that she's lost all her weight. the son...he's sweet, but he gets on my nerves. he's gotten a lot of publicity since he's the largest 18-year-old they've had on the show. he's also lost more weight on campus than any other contestant (no feat considering these contestants are the biggest they've had in biggest loser history). yeah, the past few winners have been women, but i think they make the best winners, especially from a marketing stand-point. anyway, i was looking forward to the finale tonight, until i realized it was going to be THREE HOURS LONG. really, nbc? really? you're taking an entire prime-time broadcasting night and dedicating it to ONE SHOW? wow. i was going to watch it, but a) it conflicts with my other show and b) it's fucking three hours long!
lastly in my reality TV list...hell's kitchen. last week's episode was a freakin throw-away episode. it could've been 30 minutes of content and actually could've been tacked on to the finale and fox could've stretched it to 2 hours. it wasn't even that exciting. a lot of the episode was looking back at the season and lots of cut scenes and flashbacks. lame. i won't be watching the finale on thursday, as it conflicts with my NBC shows (the office and 30 rock), but i'll watch it on hulu on friday. :) i'm pulling for paula. the guy from florida is kind of a douche.
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alright, tuesday, i'm ready for you to be over. you've crawled by long enough...