What I’ve Been Into: July

Posted on August 2, 2012 by vanderbiltwife

I love these posts Mary does wrapping up her month, and since I’ve been a little low on writing inspiration lately, I thought I’d chime in for July.

Moving and travel summed up a lot of July for us. I was in Ohio and North Carolina, and moved apartments in the middle.

Here are some the books I read in July. City of Bones is the first in the Mortal Instruments series. It’s a young adult, fantasy series. I liked it enough that I think I’ll read at least a few more, but I wasn’t in love with them.

Pearl in the Sand by Tessa Afshar took me a while to get into, but I found it incredible. It’s a retelling of the biblical story of Rahab and really going into what it would have been like for a Canaanite to become part of Israel. There was so much Truth in this book without it being preachy.

I listened to The Crowning Glory of Calla Lilly Ponder in my car during all the travel. It’s by Rebecca Wells, the author of Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. I keep reading her books, hoping she’ll crank out another Ya-Ya book. No such luck. But it was enjoyable to listen to.

The last week, I’ve delved into my every-so-many-years rereading of the Harry Potter series. It just needs to happen. It makes me happy.

I’ve read a few other books, too, but you can read about them on my Read This Year page … when I get around to writing about all of them.

We’ve been making good use of our new Roku and watching Doctor Who on Netflix and New Girl on Hulu Plus. We’ve been itching to watch New Girl forever after missing it when it was on, and it definitely lives up to the hype. Hilarious. Doctor Who can be pretty amusing, too, and while it’s more Mr. V’s type of show, I really do like it, too.

I’m sort of having a hard time remembering whether it was in June or July, but we did go to see Brave in the theater (sans kids). Definitely loved it.

Other things I’ve loved this month:

listening to David try to sing the VeggieTales theme song. It is the CUTEST THING EVER. “Cer-eh-ree!”
Seeing my babies on the beach for the first time.
Swimming.
Wearing my two new maxi dresses to death.
Trying to stay up late enough to watching gymnastics on the Olympics.

What have you been into during July?

10 Favorite Movies from My Teens

Posted on April 23, 2012 by vanderbiltwife

Are there movies you could watch again and again … even though they are more appropriate for 14-year-olds? Maybe for you it’s High School Musical … or maybe you grew up Pretty in Pink?

All it took was one passing mention of one of these films and I was instantly transported to my own teenaged years. So just for fun, here are 10 of my favorite movies from when I was a teen [I turned 13 in 1995].

1. Camp Nowhere (1994) – Cute boys, four cliques brought together, innocent kisses, and life without parents. I’m pretty sure I could still watch this 18 times in a row. And my heart might still beat a little fast for 12-year-old Jonathan Jackson. Ha.

2. Now and Then (1995) – Four girlfriends in the 60s grow up a little bit and find out about themselves and friendships. I love the flash forwards to their adult selves, and I love the 60s soundtrack! I remember going to see this with my Sunday School class and gushing over Devon Sawa. As my sister said (very, very tired, on a road trip), “Sometimes you just need to see Devon Sawa’s booty.”

3. Casper (1995) – Yeah, I’m pretty sure this one was entirely to do with the 5 minutes Devon Sawa is Casper, the human version. And my 13-year-old self fumed with jealousy that Christina Ricci got to kiss him, again.

4. 10 Things I Hate About You (1999) – I’ve declared my love for this teen flick before. I’ve seen it a million times. It’s pretty darn funny. And the whole nerdy guy from 10 Things is the head elf in The Santa Clause is the dude from Numbers? Crazy.

5. She’s All That (1999) – As I “matured,” my love for Devon Sawa gave way to an intense love for Freddie Prinze, Jr. (Which also explains my prejudice against Sarah Michelle Gellar, his now-wife.) No, this movie is not really good. It’s your typical girl-takes-off-her-glasses-and-now-she’s-hot-and-guy-loves-her. But … Freddie!

6. Grease (1978) – I’m pretty sure Grease is part of every woman’s teenaged life since 1978. My husbands claims all the words to all the songs are implanted on the second X chromosome. What sleepover is complete without an off-key and window-shattering rendition of “Summer Nights”?

7. Drive Me Crazy (1999) – A little twist on the “one of them changes and now it’s OK” relationship, in this one girl tries to change guy to make her ex jealous. But it’s OK, because she figures out that she likes him for him at the end. I like Melissa Joan Hart and thought Adrian Grenier was adorable in this movie before he got famous on Entourage.

8. Down to You (2000) – More Freddie, more Julia Stiles. I love Julia Stiles. She was in a bunch of teen movies, but she really was and is a great actress. Other than that, I really have no defense for this one.

9. Cruel Intentions (1999) – Apparently 1999 was a HUGE year for teen flicks. Yeah, the premise of this movie is just flat-out awful. But I can’t say I didn’t watch it five or ten times. Besides, I liked being able to legitimately hate Sarah Michelle Gellar.

10. Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999) – I remember going to see this with my sister and some friends in the theater and thinking it was one of the stupidest movies I’d ever seen. And then I watched it again … and again … and suddenly it was flat-out hilarious. Kirsten Dunst was perfect in this black comedy set in Minnesota.

What movies do you still love from your teen years?

added to top ten tuesday at many little blessings.

Can’t Keep My Eyes off You

Posted on January 24, 2008 by vanderbiltwife

If you have read about my total infatuation with the movie 10 Things I Hate about You, I am sure you know how struck and sad I am about the death of Heath Ledger. While he was in some crappy movies (A Knight’s Tale, being the exceptional example), I thought he was a great actor and so incredibly handsome to boot. He was 28, which is only 3 years older than me (I always thought he was older than that. In 10 Things he seemed like one of those 29-year-olds who was playing a 17-year-old, and that was in 1999). I’m not Princess-Diana kind of heartbroken, but I do think Hollywood lost a great star and someone with potential to make great films. (I was reading my diaries the other night from when I was 15, and I really was pretty sick over Di dying. More to come on diary revelations later.) (Sorry for the excessive use of parentheses in this entry.)
In reading about Heath Ledger, I came across a list of other actors who died in their 20s. Of course, there was Brad Renfro who died just last week–is this some sort of epidemic? Who I was really surprised to see on the list was Jonathan Brandis. I don’t even remember what I liked him from, but I specifically remember having a short-lived obsession with him when I was about 11. My next-door neighbor and I wrote him a fan letter and he wrote us back with signed pictures and a letter-length ad for his upcoming show, SeaQuest DSV, which premiered in 1993. The only other thing I know I’ve seen from his filmography list on imdb is The Neverending Story II, so maybe that was the root of obsession. Anyway, finding out he killed himself in 2003 was a second blow to my childhood fantasies! I guess I was too busy being an English major at the time to hear about it.

Now I really want to watch The Neverending Story movies. And not think about how I could easily die in my 20s too, and then worry about if I’ve wasted my 25 years.

Legen …. dary

Posted on January 22, 2008 by vanderbiltwife

I think at some point this weekend we realized how insanely obsessed we are in our household with the TV show “How I Met Your Mother.” As far as I know, no one over 30 thinks this show is remotely funny. We think it’s incredibly hilarious.

HIMYM, as we true fans call it (Mr. V and I say him-yim), is the story of five twenty-somethings in New York. The story claims to be about how Ted meets his wife, and is told in a series of flashbacks as future Ted (voice of Bob Saget) tells the tales to his bored teenage children. In three seasons, we have yet to see the mother but it’s been a lot of fun. I am dying for the writer’s strike to be over so we can have some new episodes!!!

So Mr. V and I decided to play the HIMYM trivia on a facebook group. I think we started Saturday. We now each have more than 10,000 points–that’s 10 points per correct question. Hmmm … can we say giant waste of time and procrastination tool?? But then we also keep going, “Hey, what episode is that from?” and pull out the DVDs and watch it (again).

We’re sick.

Please, please, PUH-LEASE writers, come back from strike!!!