YouTube Tuesday: Thank You

We hit 1,000 page views today!

Wa-hooooo!!!!

When I started this little blog back in January, I had no idea that it would become such a big part of my life. If any of you are searching for a way to express your thoughts or ambitions or just share a happy moment with your friends (or the entire online world) I highly encourage you to start a blog. Sometimes there isn't a friendly ear around to hear your rant. Sometimes you want to say something that isn't short or appropriate enough for Facebook. Sometimes you want to just let your writing talents grow and thrive and there isn't always an appropriate way to let your thoughts out. Starting a blog is a fantastic way to express everything you've go going on inside. Let me clarify, that I firmly believe that blogs should NEVER be used as a way to publicly humiliate someone. Cyber-bullying is a real problem and to use your words as weapons is never okay. Think before you type. Remember who could be affected by your words. With that said, I have to say starting a blog is one of the best decisions I've ever made just for the sake of my own sanity. It's easy for thoughts to get all jumbled up inside your head. What a fantastic way to help organize your thoughts all the while exercising your funny bone.

What an amazing journey these 9 months have been! I'm still in the beginning of my blogging life and while I'm still a very small fish in a very big blog-o-sphere pond, I am forever thankful for my 10 awesome followers. Without you guys, I might not have kept this thing up after the move. Your kind words are more appreciated than you know. And for that, today I want to say Thank You. Thank you for listening to me. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. Thank you for never judging me and letting me tell my story, in my words. Thank you for being a friend.

Rest in peace Andrew Gold.

Movie Review Monday: Drive

There isn't much I can say about "Drive." I thought it looked pretty bad when the previews came out so long ago but with a star-studded cast, I felt that it must be at least okay. Yeah, no. It is terrible. Truly an awful film.

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I will say this: the special effects were amazing and the acting was very well done.

This makes it at leaset worth watching...on silent.

The violence was very realistic and I bet the car chase scenes would be downright fantastic in IMAX. But why with all of the gruesome effects? The violence was unrealistic and unnecessary to the story. And don't get me wrong, I'm not some bleeding heart sap that can't take some gore. Puh-lease. I like action movies even more than my husband. I'm a hockey fan for goodness' sake. I'm not afraid of a little blood. But seeing Ryan Gosling crush some guy's skull in with his foot? Dear God. That was not something that I needed to have in my head. And when a very beloved (by me) actress literally gets her head blown off? Isn't that a little excessive? I think so, but what do I know?

Can we go back to when he was Noah Calhoun and all was right with the world?

Maybe that was part of the problem, maybe my past love affairs with some of these actors and their on-screen counterparts made me a little biased toward their roles in Drive. Maybe if I didn't know Brian Cranston as Walter White, or even as the dad from Malcolm In The Middle, I wouldn't have held such a grudge against his role in Drive. Cranston and all of the cast members of Drive did a fantastic job portraying their characters. They are all world class actors, that's for sure. But even when the cast is perfect, the acting cannot make up for the crapfest of a plot.

Chatkins Diet Rating: D+

Addiction is ugly

Hi my name is Mrs. Chatkins and I'm addicted to caffeine. (you don't have to say hi back, it's ok, I promise)

For the last 3 years or so, I've established a horrible addiction to caffeine. Not just coffee but red bull and monster and rock star...oh my.

I used to start my day off with a hot black tea. Not bad right? Well by noon my eyelids would be drooping and off to Target I would go for a pick-me-up. As long as I didn't have any caffeine after 3 pm my sleep habits didn't suffer. All was well (except presumably my health but whatevs).

These days, life is a little different. You see, we live in the boonies. I mean middle of freaking nowhere. BFE. Nowheresville. The smallest town you've ever been to is a major metropolitan city compared to the area around our house. Being that we live like the freaking Ingalls family (if you don't get LHOTP references, we can no longer be friends) there isn't much in the way of gain full employment. So I haul my little pioneer ass to the big city every morning, a whopping sixty minutes away. In order to get to work on time at 7:30 am, I have to wake up no later than 5:30 am. No matter how early I go to bed 5:30 is just not a time when I can function. If you want to see a good zombie impression, you should see me when I wake up. Except instead of searching for brains, I'm searching for caffeine and news. The news really is the only thing shocking enough these days to jolt my brain out of sleep-mode.

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Last night, after taking a nap at 6 pm (what?! I'm exhausted from being up and at em at the crack of dawn!) I came up with the most brilliant plan. Like, you should get out your Blue's Clues handy dandy note book and write this down. It's ok....I'll wait.

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Ready?

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Okay! So I remembered a year or so ago, my dear friend and book club fellow Laura gave me the best method for making iced coffee (a must when it is a hundred and hell degrees outside): brew a big pot of extra strong coffee and pour it into a pitcher that has a lid. Place said pitcher in the refrigerator over night and in the morning...voila! She also recommended using agave nectar for syrup but I just go straight for the creamer that will inevitably give me cancer and/or diabetes in the near future.

So I'm brewing my coffee and I remembered something that I repinned on Pinterest a few days ago. Ice cubes made out of coffee for all of your iced and frozen coffee drinks! Ermahgerd! Kerfee! Since posting on facebook, my totally stolen from Pinterest ingenious idea, my childhood bestie K suggested using xanathum gum to "keep it from seperating." I really don't know what that means...I'm assuming it's something that happens when you make a frapp. I won't be doing that in the morning anytime soon as long as the hubs is working nights. He might make his own very realistic zombie impression if I bust out the blender at 5:30 am. My "soul twin" Christel also reminded me that I could use said coffee iced cubes in a glass of Bailey's. Probably not first thing in the morning, but I'll make damned sure to try that one of these weekends.

So I know my caffeine addiction is a problem. I'm sure that it will push me toward an early grave and I should try whatever herbal remedy you're ready to throw at me. Plus I should exercise and hug trees and volunteer and adopt kitties and then my chakra will be aligned and the mother earth Gaia will keep me naturally energized and awake. Um yeah, the next gym isn't for like 20 miles. I'm allergic to trees and kitties...and volunteering (ok not the last one but the other two for sure). So spare me hipsters. We all have our own brand of poison and I think as long as mine is coffee and not heroin, I'm on a pretty good path.

***And no I do not want to try Spark from AdvoCare. I swear to Josh that I will unfriend your butt in a matter of seconds if you try pushing that crap on me. You can partake in any pyramid scheme you want but I don't want any part of it. No ma'am.

YouTube Tuesday: The New Girl

Hey there strangers! Long time no blog, right? Sorry about that. We are still very much in an adjustment phase at the new house. I promise, once it doesn't look like a bunch squatters with hoarding tendencies live there, I will share pics.

I am also very much in an adjustment phase at work. Every one is really nice here, and it's the same job I've had for like...forever but it's still always strange to become a member of leadership at a new store. It's all like "Hey I just met you, and this is crazy. But this is your job. Do it maybe?" hahaha oh I just kill myself. Just kidding. That was lame and I know it. Anywho, in honor of being the new girl at work I thought I would utilize YouTube Tuesday to share one of my favorite television shows. If you haven't seen Fox's The New Girl yet, you're cray cray. It's bar none one of the funniest shows I've watched.

Zooey Deschanel plays Jess Day, a quirky hipsterette who moves in with three guys after a bad break-up. Jess has serious chemistry with one of the guys, Nick, a bartender with mild hygiene issues. Schmidt is always there to provide douchey comic relief and Winston is not just a token African American character...okay so maybe he is. But he's funny anyway. I hope this clip inspires you to become giant New Girl fans like us...and maybe come over and play The New Girl Drinking Game (that I invented and will share with you on another post).

What up dao?

I'm not dead.

I promise.

This past weekend we moved into our new house and we won't have the interwebs set up until Monday. I'm not really comfortable blogging at my new workplace except when I'm on lunch, and 30 minutes really just isn't enough time to say what I wants to say.

See ya next week kiddos!

Wedding Recap Wednesday: Other People's Wedding

Since we are moving this weekend, the whole house (or at least a solid 70% of it) is packed up and ready to move including the desk-top computer where I do my wedding recap blog posts. So this week I want to share with you some of the brides that provided inspiration for our wedding. Oh I'm sorry. Did I just rock your world? No, I did not have many original thoughts during wedding planning. You can go ahead and pick your jaw up off of the floor now.

Note: I had a single source for all of these ideas. Weddingbee was more than a source for inspiration. It also acted as a catharsis when I thought I was going to go cray cray. Here are the wedding-blogging brides that rocked my world for two years.

Mrs. Cannon
Mrs. Cucumber Sandwich
Mrs. Dalmation
Mrs. High Wire
Mrs. Honey (seriously, I stole like half of her wedding. even the precipitation)
Mrs. Jaguar (the first weddingbee bride I stumbled on...so thankful for that google search)
Mrs. Lioness
Mrs. Panther
Mrs. Unicycle
Mrs. Waffle (Austin-y goodness)
Mrs. Zebra (she's still my favorite blogger. possibly my favorite imaginary interwebs friend. it was her recaps that got me through the last couple of weeks where I wanted to go on a murder spree)

You might be thinking, what's with the weird names? Do all of these people have cartoon husbands? No, their husbands are very real and dashing to boot. The monikers are simply "just a hive thing."