80's Movies can teach you alot

It’s no secret that I love the 80’s. Just look at my blog title and that says it all. I, of course, have some favorite movies  that I have watched many times over. I realized today that one can learn a great deal from your favorite movies if you pay attention. I thought I might just pass on some of this exceptional knowledge for your reading pleasure. Please see my top 15 favorite 80’s movies along with quotes and a little bit about what one can learn from these very movies ( strictly for entertainment purposes – I accept no responsibility for actions resulting in the information provided):


1. The Breakfast club:

Quote: John Bender: "So it's sorta social, demented and sad, but social. Right?"

Take Away - Always be sure that the social environment in which you engage is exempt of dementia and sadness.

2. Pretty in Pink:

Though many quotes could be taken from this movie lets just say that the best thing learned from this movie was what color to pick for you prom dress…..DUH!
3. Some Kind of Wonderful

Need to learn how to kiss? Step by step instructions provided all while your car gets an oil change. I am on the hunt for the nearest local mechanic who provides this service.
4. Ferris Buellers Day off

If you park your car in Chicago there is a chance your mileage may increase, therefore I take public transportation

5. Footloose

Need a work out? Get to your nearest train yard and do flips off the machinery, it’s the latest fitness trend – DVD to follow.
6. Sixteen Candles

Cake must be served while seated crossed leg on top of the table. This will however require that you purchase a VERY strong table.

7. St. Elmo’s Fire

Quote: "Fluff and fold, buddy. Soon as I make it really big, I'm going fluff and fold."

Take away – Honestly, who needs a guidance counselor when you have St. Elmo’s Fire. Everyone knows the money is in Laundry Mats because Emilio Estevez SAID SO.
8. Working Girl

The only appropriate way to vaccum is in your underwear.

9. Less than Zero

Quote: "Do you know that you girls have televisions between your legs?"

Take Away – Be sure to check for those pesky televisions between your legs before you go out

10. Back to the Future

On my next car turned-into-time-machine, I am picking a VW bug, This will allow for more slug bug games in the future.

11. Girls just want to have fun

Quote: Lynne: "He's a boy and he's alive, what's there to hate?"

I think this needs no explanation

12. About Last Night

Quote: Danny: "Oh, you're not leavin' are ya? "

Joan: "No, we're walking in backwards."

Perfect example of what to say to those annoying men at that bar, however I think she may have gotten confused because she was talking to ROB LOWE, Helloooooo he is the one YOU WANT to ask you out!
13. Weird science

Quote: Lisa: [to Wyatt's grandfather] "Stop hitting people with your Rex Harrison hat!"

Take Away – Always provide a hat rack for your guests before they go Rambo on you
14. Say Anything

Quote: Lloyd Dobler: "She's gone. She gave me a pen. I gave her my heart, she gave me a pen."

Take Away – thanks to Ione Skye, I had THE gift figured out for all my relationship break ups. It worked um……really well…….

15. Dirty Dancing

Quote: Johnny: "Nobody puts Baby in a corner."

Could any other quote be provided here? I think not. And what do we learn from this? Nothing really, its just the quote everyone knows

Honorable Mention:

She’s Having a Baby

quote: Davis McDonald: "You're the only one I ever loved."

Kristen "Kristy" Briggs: "No, Davis. You're the only one you ever loved."

Take away – I think this quote was spot on I mean she was talking to Alec Baldwin. Who doesn’t love him?



I hope you find this information helpful in your day to day lives. I know I have.  :-)

Memorial Day Fun

It was time for my annual trip home for memorial day and it was not short on fun!! It started with a stop at my new favorite cookie shop in Marion IL - One Hot Cookie - They have a cookie called the P.M.S. (Pretty Much Scrumptious)  which is to DIE for! 

Next on the agenda was a return to one of my favorite 80's activities - Roller Skating!  That's right, Carbondale has a new rink in town call Hot Wheels Skatium and they sure made it feel like it was back in the 80's.  My friend Monica and I had to go to take her 4 year old daughter there to learn how to skate.  I was a little apprehensive about skating as it has been say about 15 years or so since I last skated and given I had back surgery about 7 months ago falling seemed a bit more scary than it may have otherwise.  But after a few turns I started to get my "skatinglegs"  back and it was fun.  I didn't quite reach a comfort level with backwards skating but hey there is always next time :-)  Here is a photo of Monica and I sporting a pose in our skating gear (check out the carpet they picked for the rink - it is so totally awesome!)

Next it was off the Longbranch coffeehouse for some yummy vegetarian lunch and a fantastic Cafe Mocha.  I have to say it was one of the best Cafe Mocha's I have ever had!

On Sunday it was time for a family get together to celebrate my birthday and just plain see each other!  We enjoyed an outdoor BBQ and also sang Karaoke. Boy did we sing some Karaoke......we all got a little silly (especially me) with the songs but from what I was told everyone was quite entertained. 

<--- Here I am with my fellow Diva otherwise known as Payton (Monica's daughter)  singing a tune together. 

On Memorial Day Kousin Kelli was kind enough to invite me and some additional family over to the house for  dip in her pool.  It was little stormy now and then but turned out to be a great afternoon to be in the water.  I also got to try my hand at something new - Farming!  Yep Uncle Ed let me take a turn at driving the tractor.  I even got to put the discs down in the ground for some good tilling!  Here is a photo of Farmer Kristal: 

As you can see I came prepared with the proper farming headwear  :-) 

It was another fun and memorable weekend.  Lets hope there is more to come the rest of the summer!

All Hail the Moms of the world!

Mother's day. The day we all say thanks to mom.  Lately I have been thinking about motherhood. Not so much for me but more in the sense of "I don't know how you mother's do it!"  I am not a mother (except in the eyes of my cats Felix and Duncan)  and I still often struggle with fitting in all the things that need to get done in life!  My question to all mothers is How the heck do you do it???????  Let's face it, Mom's tend to be the ones who really keep it all together. No offense to the Dad's!  I know many fathers who are fantastic.  But as I have conversations with many women in my life who are mothers they seem to be the ones who are keeping track of the schedule, carting people to and fro,  making sure there is food in the house for all the picky eaters,  getting clothes and supplies everyone needs (sometimes including the husbands!)  making dinner, keeping up with the laundry, getting everyone to the doctor when they need it, etc the list goes on and on and on. 

So I say to the mother's of the world,  I take a bow to you, because this childless individual does not know how you fit so much into one day.  I of course thank my own mother for all her time and love in doing these very things, but I also say to you, mothers I know and those that I don't,  YOU ROCK!


A bit off the subject, but  somewhat mom related:

This morning I had the sliding glass door open in my living room to let in some fresh air.  The screen was closed but sometime back the lock broke.  Now I have some rather smart cats and at times they have figured out how to open screen door (the jump up on it a few times until it slides over a bit each time).  I left the living room for just a few minutes to get something and when I came down the stairs I saw the screen door open just enough for a cat body to get through.  At first I was be a bit frantic, but I was amazed to see not only was one of my cats (Felix) still in the house, he was staring up the stairs at me as if he was waiting for me to come down before he would attempt to go out.  Even more amazing was that Ducan, my black cat, was just outside the screen door staring in at me as if he was waiting for me to come and join him.  He saw me coming and still when I stepped out the door he just meowed as if to say " Its about time mom, lets go!" 

I don't know if they were waiting or me but I have noticied that they don't really like to go outstide without me so maybe they didn't think it was okay unless I was there!  Or could they just have been behaving because it's mother's day? 

Girls just want to have fun

"Oh girls just want to have fun"  That is what this girl got to do this past weekend.  I hopped in my car and drove two and a half hours north of Chicago to the Wisconsin Dells to meet up with my childhood friend Sonya, her daughters, two of Sonya's adult friends and their 4 daughthers, That's right 10 females together ready to laugh, eat and spend time on a waterslide.

I started the weekend by first meeting up with a friend from work as she lives nearby the Dells.  We had a nice lunch and then decided we needed to check out the local Casino - Ho-Chunk.  I did pretty well actually.  At least I always say I do well when I come home even or a winner. In this case,  I broke even.  Good enough for me!

After the gambling my work friend heading home and I headed to the Wilderness Territory Hotel and Resort to meet up with my friends.  Upon arrival we promptly headed to the indoor water parks.  There are 3 of them and plenty to keep us happy.  We had a great time. 

My friend was lucky enough to get a 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom two story condo equipped with a full kitchen, washer/dryer and a nice screened in patio for our group of ten and we used it all.  We brought our own food to save on money and all took turns cooking and cleaning.  Such a great plan for a big group!

On Saturday we started the morning with a visit to their in-house pottery place and made our own pottery creations.  Here is a photo of mine BEFORE it got painted:


After we finished our creations we headed back to the waterparks.  Then in the afternoon it was time to get out of those suits to see the real reason the Dells exsist and take a boat tour of the Wisconsin Dells themselves. For anyone who might not know what the Dells are here is a brief history lesson :  The Dells (term used in the singular) was formed during the last ice age approximately 15,000 years ago. During the ice age it was part of the large Driftless Area that was bypassed by the ice. The melting of the glacier formed Glacial Lake Wisconsin. The lake was held back by an ice dam of the remaining glacier. The eventual bursting of the ice dam unleashed a catastrophic flood, dropping the lake's depth to 50 feet (15 m) and cutting deep, narrow gorges and unusual rock formations into the sandstone.

So  you can understand what this says here are some photos from the tour.  The one with the walkway was part of the walking tour. It was really amazing to walk through these tunnels of cool looking rock formations.  I highly recommend the tour if you are ever in the Dells!

One part of the tour has a very special part in that one of the rocks formed in an interesting way, like a tower on its own.  For many years people of jumped from the main rock to this tower and back.  So now they have dog that jumps it ( no worries it was a cinch for the dog and they had a net) So I caught of picture of the dog in the act:
 
 

And here is a photo of the whole group of us enjoying our tour:

After the dells tour we spent some time browsing the local shops and stopped for some yummy chocolate. Then it was time for dinner and one more trip back to the  waterparks. 

On Monday we packed up and headed back to our homes. I had a great time and met some wonderful people.

Walking in Wonderland

Recently I had an unexpected injury and I popped a muscle in my calf.  I checked in with the doctor and she suggested taking a break from running for about 2 weeks.  Thankfully I was still able to get in some exercise using the elliptical at the gym but tonight I headed out for my first trek on the trail since the injury.   Sadly, this time period definitely affected my ability to run without becoming to winded so I mostly walked, but I can tell I should be able to hopefully get back to where I was in a week or so. 

It was a beautiful day today, cool but sunny and just right for being outdoors.  I decided to head out to a local forest preserve for my walk/run and found some delightful sights.  First, I encountered a beaver!  He was cute! I didn't see much of him but it was still a treat.  Spring has provided sprouts on all the trees, baby flowers popping out of the ground to reach the sun rays and the grass is pretty much green everywhere you look. 

One especially cool sight was some mushrooms I found, though they weren't where you might usually find them.  They were growing from a tree!  This is when I thought maybe I had visited Wonderland (only I could not find that rabbit with a vest on screaming "we're late for a very important date! ")  It was really cool to see these large mushrooms growing sideways out of the tree.  Thankfully I had my phone with me so take a look:

After I saw this I thought sure the Mad Hatter would come around the corner to offer me Tea.  Alas, he did not but maybe I will catch up with him next time  ;-)

Dreaming of an Education

I have been thinking lately about how many things I would like to learn to do.  There is quite a list actually.  Take a look:

1. Learn to play golf
2. Learn how to keep this webpage looking the way I want it to without getting so frustrated I could scream
3. Learn to play guitar (i.e. learn web languages)
4. Learn how to do home improvement projects myself (mostly because I am annoyed about how much it costs to have others do them!)
5. Learn how to save money with coupons the way some amazing people do ( I went to the grocery store and got 6 bags of grocerys for 8 dollars - really?)
6. Learn to read music (it is just stupid that I don't know how to do this already)
7.Learn how to latin dance
8. Learn how to eat healthy meals without missing things like McDonalds, Pizza or The biggest Cold Stone Creamery ice cream you can get :-)
9. Learn what it takes to audition for a local musical play
10. Learn how to get up the courage to actually audtion for a musical play
11. Learn how to bake yummy deserts (hmmmm  - that may not work with #8)
12. Learn how to play tennis ( i don't get the scoring at all)

That is all I can think of tonight,  But I am sure there is more.

The problem is it seems all of these either take time or money.  I can't seem to figure out how to fit either one of those things in (especially the money part)  I am currently on plan for financial improvement and there is not much room for extras at all.  So ho hum, it stinks to think about all the things you want to learn and can't quite figure out how to fit them in.

The one thing I do know is that eventually I am going to fit some of these in. Like Tennis for example, I just bet if I really wanted to, surely I could get my mom to show me the ropes in Tennis. The only problem with that one is time. It is hard for us to ever have time to spend on something like this. 

Another would be Guitar.  Surely if I really tried I could learn to play the guitar just by practicing at home on my own.  Again time is part of the issure here and actually a second one is when it comes to things like this for me there is just no stubstitue for learning from someone.  I have found that I dont learn things well just by reading up on something. I need to be shown how it works etc, at least at the beginning. Which is really what I need, I need that beginning instructions to make sure I am holding the guitar right, hands right, strumming right etc etc. 

One day I should be able to fit all this stuff in.  I hope sooner than later.  Maybe I will keep you posted when I actually do :-)

Trying to get back on track

It always seems to be something, right? 

I have been working out like crazy these days.  Running, walking yoga, all kinds of things. But unfortunately I have fallen off the wagon of following my appropriate diet for about a month now.  One would think with all this exercising it might not matter and I would still see some weight loss BUT OH NO NOT ME.  ARRGH.  Thankfully I have not gained any weight but it just goes to show that my body does not allow me to LOSE weight unless I do it all the correct way ****sigh****

So I am trying to spend the time to put together meals and plan ahead for the rest of my week because plannig out what you eat really does seem to be the key. It keeps you from the "grab and go" mentality of eating. 

In other news, I had a major car repair pop up.  I think it is very interesting how this happened right when I just happened upon enough money to PAY for the repair. Isn't that a little interesting?  I think so. Nevermind that I had big plans for the money, I suppose there was another plan in place I was not aware of.

Not much else to report.  I am already looking forward to my next trip home to visit friends and family at the end of May just really sad it will be nearly two months from now.  I wish I could visit sooner but its just not possible. 

Happy Easter all!!