My Christmas Movies

Around this time of year certain things become tradition. How we put up the Christmas Tree, the songs we sing, the treats we make, and most definitely the movies we watch. I recently saw a "Top 20 Christmas Movies" list and it got me thinking about the movies I feel necessary to watch during Christmas time. Because, Heaven knows, it just wouldn't feel like Christmas without them. Now some are classics and some of them are quite unusual, and probably only I think of them as "Christmas" movies, but that is ok since this is my list... get your own! ;)

In no particular order, my "Feels Like Christmas" Movies List:

The Nativity Story:


We often think of the Wonder and Awe of the Savior's birth to a Virgin Mary, and the humble stable and manger, the Star, the Angels and Shepherds, the Three Kings with their gifts, and even Mary's long journey on a donkey while pregnant, and this movie captures all of that. But even more, when I watched this movie, it was the first time that I thought of the ridicule both Mary and Joseph had to endure, the fear they probably felt. And it definitely made me understand and appreciate Joseph in a way I never had before. And I still get chills when Christ's birth is portrayed! Love this movie!

It's a Wonderful Life:


Ol' George Bailey (HOT DOG) and his Building and Loan. Love the message. No matter the trials your are going through, if you have love, family, and friends, you have a wonderful life!

Miracle on 34th Street:

Must be watched on Christmas Eve. End of Discussion!

Home Alone:

My first Christmas movie first! I remember just waiting for Christmas so I could watch this movie. As a kid you just can't go wrong with bad guys stepping on sharp objects in their bare feet, catching on fire, and repeatedly hit in the face with Kevin zip-lining it to his tree house. Too fun!

Elf:

"Buddy the Elf, what's your favorite color?"
"I'm a cotton-headed ninny muggings"
"First we'll make snow angels for 2 hours, then we'll go ice skating, then we'll eat a whole roll of Tollhouse cookie dough as fast as we can, and then we'll snuggle"
I LOVE THIS MOVIE. It still makes me laugh.

And now for my atypical Christmas movies.

While You Were Sleeping:


"These potatoes are so creamy.... Mary mashed 'em"
"Hey Lucy, you ok? It looks like he is 'leaning'"
I could go on... Again, it's not Christmas until I have watched this one. And let's be honest, Joe Jr has some of the best lines in this movie.

Little Women:

I'm not sure when this one happened, but one year I didn't watch it and something felt like it was missing. And anytime I sing "Here We Come a Wassailing" I think of this movie.


What would be on your Christmas Movie List?

Wouldn't That Be Nice

Do you ever watch a movie and think wouldn't that be nice? Maybe you don't, maybe your life is absolutely perfect! Unlikely, but maybe you are content with it. Even happy. If you are, yay, I am happy for you! Let me in on your secret. But my recent thoughts while I have been to several movies this holiday weekend are, Wouldn't it be nice to be in a movie? It's like Insta-Boyfriend. Even in those overly testosterone movies that I too enjoy there is usually some type of relationship success. Wouldn't that be nice... 1.5 hours, 2 hours tops and BAM! Boyfriend!

I'm not sayin' it's realistic. I'm just sayin' it would be nice to have things work out that fast.

Merry Christmas! It's the most loneliest time of the year! (excluding the first 14 days of February)

Tales of the Bitter and Single are back!


What "Wouldn't that be nice" moments do you have as you watch movies?

Buffalo Chicken Bacon Ranch Mac N Cheese

When I first started this blog and I named it Sweet 'n Sour Sassiness, for several reasons. Sometimes I am sweet. Sometimes I am sour. And sometimes I am sassy. (Well, to be perfectly honest, I am almost always sassy in my head.) Another thought was that I am bitter about the lack of REAL men in the world and this would be a place for me to rant. And still another thought was, I love food. May I say that again... I LOVE FOOD!!! Especially the unhealthy kind. I don't even try to be healthy people. And the name is reminiscent of Sweet 'n Sour Chicken. Sweet 'n Sour Chicken... Sweet 'n Sour Sassiness. I know it is a real hard leap to make between the two. My creative flow just astounds you, I know. But I knew I couldn't be just a book blog, because I liked movies too much, and I couldn't be just a movies blog, because I liked food too much... and I like music too much.... and yada, yada, yada.

So there is the long way of introducing my very first food post. In fact, I am still not quite done introducing this. Hold on to your horses, I am getting there.

Since I am currently staying with my parents, my mom assigned me dinner for a night. She also requested I try to use the buffalo sauce I brought home with me. Challenge accepted! And I did what every other ration woman would do in this situation, I looked on Pinterest. For hours. Trying to find the perfect lazy buffalo sauce recipe.

Well, either the recipes were too fancy, too much work, or contained things I did not have on hand. (And heaven forbid I go to the store!) So after looking at several recipes I thought, I got this!

And I did. I decided I was going to make Buffalo Chicken Bacon Ranch Mac 'n Cheese. (I think we need to come up with a different name, that one is forever long. Suggestions? Death in a Pan?) I was going to make my normal homemade mac 'n cheese, with a few modifications.

So here is my normal Mac n Cheese

1 lb. Elbow macaroni

1 lb. Cheddar cheese, shredded
1 package of bacon, cooked
¼ cup of butter
milk

Prepare macaroni as directed by package. Drain, and cool. Pre-heat oven to 350. In a 9x13 glass pan, layer macaroni, cheese, bacon, and macaroni, cheese, bacon again. I lightly salt and pepper the top. Cut the ¼ cup of butter into thin slabs and place strategically on top. Pour milk into the pan just until you barely see it coming up the side (about a centimeter of milk, I know that is not exact, but I was never told how much either, just until you start seeing it on the side). Put it in the oven for about 10-15 minutes, or until all the cheese is melted. Let it sit for 5 minutes and then devour... I mean enjoy.

This is a dish that is even better the second day.

Now for the Buffalo adjustments.

The above ingredients ( except I only did half a package of bacon), plus:
2-3 chicken breasts, boiled, cubed (this can be done ahead and frozen)
1/3 cup buffalo sauce (add more if you like the heat)
1 Tbs. Ranch

Once I've fried up my bacon and drained the grease, I put my chicken in there to warm it up. Add the buffalo sauce and the ranch. Layer the pan macaroni, chicken, cheese, macaroni, cheese, and lastly bacon. Then cook like above.

I chose to put this up here as my first food post because I got the best comment from my dad. He puts ketchup on everything! I mean everything! But he said to me, “It doesn't even need ketchup!” Praise indeed !!!

Since I was also making this for my grandparents, I was worried about the buffalo sauce being to hot for my G-ma, but the ranch seemed to tame it enough for her. Phew! But to be honest I would have liked more zip. So next time I will try it with ½ cup of buffalo sauce.

So try it out. Let me know how I did. This being my first food post, was it clear enough? Do I need more directions or clarification? Clear as mud? Thought so.

Still Kickin'

As you can see, I am clearly a woman who sticks to her convictions and goals........ NOT. Ok I do to some of them, but for whatever reason, the blog has been, well for lack of a better term... a chore. Something I need/should do. And to be honest that is not what I want from this. UGH. How sad that most of my blogging experience recently has been "what do I want to do with this blog." I thought I knew when I start, but apparently not... There is just too much pressure out there! Stop it with the pressure people!

Ok, so I know you are not pressuring me. If anyone besides Suey visits I am sure the thought is, wow this chick is lame. Or, boring blog. NEXT.  So I am not really letting anyone down by my infrequent posts, and thoughtless pointless ramblings, except for maybe one person... two if you include me.

But I am here, and still alive (just in case you were worried). Brain function is still at a normal level... well for me. So to make this feel like an even semi worhtwhile post here are the things I was doing instead of blogging.

Watching season 3 of Downton Abbey. Yup I couldn't wait for it to air in the states so I used the facebook fan page to get it as it aired in the UK. People if you are as obsessed with this show as me, lets be friends.

Watching Revolution. I loved the idea behind this show, unfortunately the acting is a little meh. However Billy Burke is in it and he was my favorite thing about the Twilight movies. So yay for him.

Reading Mrs. Mike and Reached.

Saw Breaking Dawn. (hanging my head is slight embarrassment) Though I was surprisingly pleased with this one (maybe it's because I always expect the absolute worst). But still with the really awkward "love scenes", just stop already... awkward.

Went to MO, and moved my crap all there. WooHoo.

Went to Reached launch party. It was my second launch party! And it was lots of fun. Love hanging with Suey and Jenni Elyse!

Totally got into Dancing with the Stars this season. I think I am going to put "Dance with Derek Hough" on my bucket list. The guy is good. Seriously people!

Tried Zumba. Can I just say, my calves hurt for a week. LOVED IT!!!

Oh, and I got beat up by a couch. The bruises were AMAZING. Hey maybe I'll blog about it.

And I bunch of other stuff that I can't remember right now.

Aren't you so glad you dropped by?

IGA-Day and Other News



I opened the door, and immediately my “stressed mother” radar went off. The tension in the air was palpable. My survival instincts kicked in, and I knew if a spec of dirt fell off my shoe and onto her pristine carpets I was done for. Yes there was something different about today. Like my mother's D-Day, only it was IGA-Day. International Guest Arrival Day. We have been preparing all week, nay, all month for this day. We rearranged when I was moving for these people, and let's just say folks, I wasn't ready to move... My mother has cleaned every surface of her house, and my job... to find a place for all of my crap that I am going to be packing up again and moving in two more weeks...again. But needless to say, I did want to survive, so I continued the task at hand. You don't play with my mother about the appearance of organization, especially when guests are coming.

In other news, Bloggiesta goals are still going on for me. I have visited all of my 31 newly added blog friends. My google reader was at 329 and is now at 0... until someone posts again, blast it all! And I have added about 30 books to my Goodreads list. However, given that I have been organizing crap, harvesting grapes, taking care of grandparents, saying goodbye to my friend who has gone to Afghanistan, and going to a book launch with Suey, I feel quite accomplished. Now I just have to figure out what to say to some of you in the comments... Intimidations, galore! But I am excited to at least have somewhere to start. I look forward to seeing how far I have come when the next bloggiesta hits in March.

So I went to a book launch with Suey, my first ever! While everyone else in the nation was watching the debates, we were listening to Rob Wells talk about his struggles while he had been writing Feedback, the sequel to Variant. It was enlightening as he discussed his advice to writers, and the importance of community when trying to be an author... interesting. But the best part of the night was when we go to get our books signed and my sister hands her book over and says something to the effect of “make it to Suey.” And he responds, “Oh, Sueysays!” Just so you all know, that makes my sister a celebrity in my book! It was awesome! So that was fun! Now I am just getting into reading Variant, so I will let you know how it goes.

And to make my goal of blogging at least three times a week, I will be doing my first real review on Edenbrooke... but it will probably be unlike a normal review, so don't get too excited. Just sayin'

Bloggiesta Wrap-Up... The Road of Discovery

 



As most of you know, I am the kid sister of Suey over at It's All About Books, who was one of the amazing co-hosts of this Bloggiesta. She was very excited about this weekend and dragged... I mean got me hyped up on it too... And though it was an exhausting weekend for me, and I didn't get as many "things" done as most people in Bloggiesta did, it was quite the illuminating weekend for me. Intentional or not, I made some self discoveries because of Bloggiesta, and so I declare it a success!


So let's numerate the things I did, shall we.
1.) I "participated" in two of the Bloggiesta chats. I say "participated" because I logged on, would mostly read whatever everyone else was saying, because with my limited experience I had little to add, unless it was an attempt to be funny here or there. But because of that I did have the chance to meet a lot of new bloggers out there and visit their blogs and do some networking. I have added 31 new blogs to my google reader, so if I haven't visited or commented on your blog yet, don't you worry... it's coming! (So that is goal 2 and 4 down! woot, woot!) (Well and that was kind of a mini challenge too so I am going to cross #8 off too.)

2.) I did get better acquainted with Twitter, though not nearly as much as I need to be, so that is still a work in progress.

3.) Got on Goodreads and organized and friended people there. Score!

4.) I didn't get a header photo because I am apparently too picky in that department. BUT I did get a picture for my profile, so when I leave a comment it's not just an orange blob. Yay!

But here is what I discovered during Bloggiesta, which I feel is more important... well most of them.
1.) Wooden chairs are NOT my friends after an hour and a half sit! Friday night my butt and back were very angry with me! So that is a very important discovery for next time! Noted!

2.) The book blogging community is a very friendly and loving one. I thank all of you who have reached out, given me a read, or encouraged me this weekend. I needed it, Thanks!

3.) I discovered I love the story. Not necessarily books. I love the story a book tells. The story I envision during a song. The story a good, well done movie captures. The story behind the person. The story that is in my head. The untold story. It's not just books for me, it's everything...

4.) On Saturday, during my reading of about my 57th book review of the day, I discovered this is not me. "This" meaning a book blogger. I was amazed at the passion that so many put into their reviews, or how many books some are able to read. I was so impressed and ... so overwhelmed! There is no way I could do keep up. All of my insecurities of being a "slow reader" from school came flooding back. I love to read, but not compared to the likes of these people. I am no where near Suey in her ability to consume books, digest, and review them. So essentially, I discovered I had to be me. And though I know who I am, I don't necessarily know how that is going to translate on my blog. So I am still discovering that. I know I need to get organized and be more active here, but that will come with time. I also discovered some do not like personal posts, well I am sorry, but I have a feeling that you will see them here more often than not. I have gained a fear this summer of not being remembered when I die since I have no husband or kids to "think of me fondly", so I feel the need to put myself out there somewhere... And I think that somewhere is here. I have random thoughts that I feel the need to express on random subjects... So I guess what I am trying to say is... WELCOME to my WORK in PROGRESS. I hope I don't scare you away.