Sunday Smiles

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The plans of the heart belong to man. But the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.

- Proverbs 16:1

30 x 30: Watch All of AFI's 100 Movies

One of the things on my 30 x 30 list was to watch all the movies on the American Film Institute's top 100 movies. I decided to go with the 10th anniversary edition (for no real reason). And the rule (that I arbitrarily set for myself) was that I had to watch all the movies on the list this year- even if I had already seen them before.

PS. I hate scary movies...

1. Citizen Kane 4/10/16

2. The Godfather 3/14/16

3. Casablanca 2/25/16

4. Raging Bull 5/6/16

5. Singin' in the Rain 10/10/16

6. Gone With the Wind 2/27/16

7. Lawrence of Arabia 4/5/16

8. Schindler's List 10/15/16

9. Vertigo 7/23/16

10. The Wizard of Oz 7/11/16

11. City Lights 5/8/16

12. The Searchers 2/23/16

13. Star Wars 3/18/16

14. Psycho 1/9/16

15. 2001: A Space Odyssey 3/28/16

16. Sunset Blvd. 12/27/15

17. The Graduate 6/11/16

18. The General 9/15/16

19. On the Waterfront 4/21/16

20. It's a Wonderful Life 12/23/15

21. Chinatown 2/24/2016

22. Some Like it Hot 4/4/16

23. The Grapes of Wrath 1/19/16

24. E.T. The Extra-terrestrial 3/1/16

25. To Kill a Mockingbird 1/7/16

26. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington 2/17/16

27. High Noon 12/27/15

28. All About Eve 8/5/16

29. Double Indemnity 6/9/16

30. Apocalypse Now 4/8/16

31. The Maltese Falcon 4/14/16

32. The Godfather Part II 3/15/16

33. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest 4/23/16

34. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs 6/1/16

35. Annie Hall 10/3/16

36. The Bridge on the River Kwai 3/10/16

37. The Best Years of Our Lives 11/20/16

38. The Treasure of Sierra Madre 4/20/16

39. Dr. Strangelove 10/4/16

40. The Sound of Music 11/12/16

41. King Kong 7/25/16

42. Bonnie and Clyde 2/18/16

43. Midnight Cowboy 8/7/16

44. The Philadelphia Story 11/7/16

45. Shane 2/6/16

46. It Happened One Night 10/27/2016

47. A Streetcar Named Desire 1/13/16

48. Rear Window 1/1/16

49. Intolerance 9/3/16

50. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring 3/26/16

51. West Side Story 11/25/16

52. Taxi Driver 3/7/16

53. The Deer Hunter 6/8/16

54. M*A*S*H 3/21/16

55. North by Northwest 4/22/16

56. Jaws 3/4/16

57. Rocky 1/25/16

58. The Gold Rush 8/24/16

59. Nashville 4/25/16

60. Duck Soup 10/13/2016

61. Sullivan's Travels 10/19/2016

62. American Graffiti 9/9/16

63. Cabaret 11/5/2016

64. Network 10/1/16

65. The African Queen 8/14/16

66. Raiders of the Lost Ark 3/23/16

67. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? 5/16/16

68. Unforgiven 2/5/16

69. Tootsie 11/15/16

70. A Clockwork Orange 3/30/16

71. Saving Private Ryan 1/23/16

72. The Shawshank Redemption 9/17/16

73. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid 1/1/16

74. The Silence of the Lambs 2/4/16

75. In the Heat of the Night 5/3/16

76. Forrest Gump 12/30/15

77. All the President's Men 7/11/16

78. Modern Times 4/29/16

79. The Wild Bunch 1/17/16

80. The Apartment 12/7/16

81. Spartacus 4/28/16

82. Sunrise 10/6/16

83. Titanic 5/21/16

84. Easy Rider 8/12/16

85. A Night at the Opera 9/12/16

86. Platoon 5/28/16

87. 12 Angry Men 5/23/16

88. Bringing Up Baby 12/4/16

89. The Sixth Sense 1/20/16

90. Swing Time 9/29/16

91. Sophie's Choice 1/10/16
92. Goodfellas 4/15/16

93. The French Connection 4/12/16

94. Pulp Fiction 1/5/16

95. The Last Picture Show 1/27/16

96. Do the Right Thing 9/19/16

97. Blade Runner 4/17/16

98. Yankee Doodle Dandy 10/21/2016

99. Toy Story 2/13/16

100. Ben-Hur 5/12/16

Whew! I took a long time on this one. I got a subscription to Netflix DVD, put all the movies in my queue and they just sent them back to back. It worked out great! And most of the movies I like a lot better than I thought I would- especially the "scary" movies. General thoughts: I'm a huge sap. I love romantic comedies. I'm not a big fan of westerns. I'm too ADD for silent films.

If you want any movie recommendations, just let me know!

Sunday Smiles

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Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

- Hebrews 4:16

My Brother is Coming

The title says it all. My brother is coming into town today and will be here until next weekend when he flies out of Nashville back home. In case you didn't know, my brother moved to Seattle at the beginning of the year for a job. This is his first time coming back home in almost a year. He is staying at my house which I'm super excited about, but that also means that I have had to get my house "guest ready," which has included taking all the stuff I was storing in the guest room up to the attic and putting up a Christmas tree. I also took a trip to the grocery store the other night while my mom stayed home with Molly and binge-watched Gilmore Girls.

We have a few things planned- starting with a welcome dinner at Houston's. Of course! And since he's staying at my house, he'll be on puppy duty next week which means at least another week that Molly doesn't have to be in the crate all day. (The next few weeks my mom will be on Christmas break so I'm trying to talk her in to coming over some {or every day} to play with Molly so she's not left alone all day).

I'm excited to hang out with my brother and think that it will be a good trip! I'll write all about it when he leave!

Molly the Mini

If you follow me on any social media, then you already know but... I got a dog! I have wanted a great dane for as long as I can remember, but it has never been the right time or I haven't been in the right place. Now I have a house and space and a yard and no reason not to do it (minus the time...)

I looked for a while and found one in Johnson City that I immediately fell in love with her pictures. I called the owners and arranged a time to meet and pick her up. My mom and I drove to Nashville on Saturday to hang out with my sister and her family and then left Sunday morning to drive to Knoxville and get Molly. She is absolutely adorable and slept in my mom's lap the whole drive back. We stopped in Nashville again on the way home because my nieces were dying to meet her. I think she was a little overwhelmed by it all, but overall did great. Then we drove the rest of the way back home.

I took the week off for bonding (and a training bootcamp) and so far it has been lots of sleeping! I'm trying to get her on a good schedule and get her crate trained and house broken before I go back to work next week. Wish me luck!

She's tiny! The owner told me she was 9 weeks, but the vet thinks that it might be closer to 6- or she's just the runt! We are waiting until her adult teeth come in to know for sure. Her mom was 130 lbs and her dad was 150 lbs. She's about 10 lbs right now so she has a lot of growing to do!

I can't wait to see how much she is going to grow and transform. I already feel like her paws have gotten bigger and I can't help but laugh anytime she runs because she looks so clumsy! It's going to be such a fun adventure!

Give Thanks

First of all, can I just say that I am really bad at taking pictures? Really! I don't think I have any pictures from this weekend. The only few that I did take were on Snapchat and are no lost to the interwebs.

But overall, it was a good weekend. I got off work on Wednesday, ran by Fresh Market to pick up some flowers, rested for a little bit, drank some coffee, and then got up and cleaned my house some. I was trying to get as much finished as possible on Wednesday so that I wouldn't be so stressed on Thursday morning.

Thursday morning, I finished cleaning up a little bit and then met up with a friend and my sister for the Turkey Trot. It's an annual tradition with my sister and me but I was a little worried about it because I have not been running regularly- at all. Katie and I ran together for the first 3 miles and then I could tell that she was starting to speed up, so I told her to ditch me and I ran the last mile (slowly) by myself. It was a lot of fun, but I'm hoping that it will be good motivation for me to be more consistent with running. Sheesh!

After the race, I went back home, prepped some food, and jumped in the shower. My mom initially told me that she was going to come to my house around 11 so I was nervous that I was in a major time-crunch until I called her and she was still out on a bike ride. So I basically got ready a lot faster than I had to and had time to spare, which gave me time to open up a bottle of wine and put on music and dance around my house! Then the chaos hit all at once. Family all arrived and we got all the food set up and then the eating started! Everything was delicious!

After dinner the guys watched football for a little while and then we busted out Kinect and had some dance battles. So much fun! And it got all our heart rates up a little bit!

When everyone left, my head was killing me! I think between running and wine I was super dehydrated! I grabbed some water and tried to relax on the couch for a while, but it didn't help much. I final gave up, put away the food that was still out, and went to bed. When I woke up Friday, I did more cleaning. Finished cleaning the kitchen and washing all the dishes and sweeping and vacuuming everything! Then I did something I have never done before... went Black Friday shopping! It's not as exciting as it sounds. I didn't go until like 11 on Friday and because all the craziness starts on Thursday night now, it wasn't bad. Also, I went to Hollywood Feed. I had looked at the one in Collierville and the guy said that the kennels would be on sale on Black Friday so I picked up a kennel and some BOGO dog food. (Oh yeah, if you don't follow me on Snap, I'm getting a dog. This weekend I think, so she'll get her own post next week!)

The family came back over on Friday afternoon for leftovers and my nieces were itching to play Kinect again so we got it back out and had another dance party. When they left, it was still early so I bundled up and went over to a friend's house for a Gilmore Girl's Revival watching party!

We only watched Winter and Spring that night, but I finally finished it last night. That may need an entire post of it's own. If you have already watched it and want to have a postmortem just let me know. I'm pretty sure I cried the entire way through Fall. I went through a whole gamut of emotions as I related to various aspects of the show. I think I ended the night on a mix of anger and sadness. I will probably be the only one, but I don't want another season. I don't know if my heart and my emotions can handle it. Whew! I told you this needed its own post!

The rest of the weekend was pretty relaxing. Saturday I did a little shopping. Having a bunch of people over made me realize some things that I still needed around the house. I have also had an empty guest room for months and my brother is staying with me in a few weeks so I needed to buy a new bed. I actually bought a new bed for me and I'm going to move my current bed into the guest room. But then I had an "if you give a mouse a cookie" moment and wanted new sheets and a new pillow and a new headboard... The list continues. So my mom and I went out and knocked some things off the list. Then we hung out on Broad for small business Saturday and did a little Christmas shopping. When I got home, I made a list (or 7). I plan to do a little more shopping online tonight during cyber Monday. There are a few things that I still need to get (no one sells large, elevated dog bowls in stores!) and my goal is to finish all my Christmas shopping this week! Wish me luck!

What did everyone else do for Thanksgiving? Anyone else knock out some shopping?

Sunday Smiles

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Give thanks to the Lord for He is good; His love endures forever.

- Psalm 118:1

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving, guys! Hope everyone has a wonderful day! I am running the Turkey Trot this morning and then... I'm hosting my family for Thanksgiving dinner at my house! I'm excited about having the space to entertain. Hopefully it will go okay.

Tomorrow, everyone is coming back over for "Liquor and Leftovers" before my sister and her family have to get back on the road for work. It will be a fun, family-filled weekend. I'm sure I'll be back with plenty of stories next week.

Reflections

In case you have been hibernating for the past year or so, there was an election recently. And... I'm not going to talk about it. It has been everywhere! It's all over social media and the news and, to be honest, I'm kind of sick of it. But even more than that, I don't even know what to say. There are so many thoughts swirling through my head (per usual) that I can't even really pin down a complete statement. So I won't even try.

But what I will say is that through all the crazy social media explosion, I have seen some friends that have said things far more eloquently than I could. Friends who have put into words what I was thinking and feeling. I have been reflecting a lot on some of the things that I have read and I can honestly say that I am so thankful.

I have talked about this a little before, but my parents were very intentional with my siblings and me. They placed us in situations of diversity constantly. We celebrated Christmas at home, but I had vivid memories of playing with dreidels and eating potato latkes in elementary school when we were learning about Hanukkah. I remember learning about Kwanza and Ramadan- not just because it was part of the curriculum, but because there were students in my class that observed each of these holidays and we were able to experience some of their traditions with them.

In high school, I had many conversations with peers who had differing opinions and beliefs. These were not arguments or persuasions. They were discussions of differences. Through those discussions, I was challenged to think through what I believed and why. Some conversations caused me to question things, but in the end my faith was strengthened through those discussions.

As I have been perusing facebook and other sites, I can honestly say that I am proud of my friends and the way that they have handled tough conversations. They have asked thoughtful questions and facilitated difficult conversations. They have shown compassion and tolerance and love! They have continued to show that we don't always have to agree, but we can always be kind! For this I am forever thankful!

Sunday Smiles

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And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord.

- Hosea 2:19-20