Brave Town and The 100 Foot Journey

My family and I caught up on movie new releases, last week.

We watched, Brave Town with Josh Duhamel. It definitely was a movie that went straight to DVD. It had lots of twists and turns. It ended kind of oddly. The movie follows Josh, a wild, teenage DJ who uses drugs and lives with his alcoholic, single mom in NYC. He overdoses and is sent to live with his estranged dad (actor, Tom Everett Scott) in a small town in the south. Josh struggles fitting in. His counselor is Josh Duhamel's character. Apparently, most of the town has suffered the death of a friend or family member in the war. That brings a lot of emotion and brokenness.

A nerdy, underclassmen befriends Josh (he's the same kid that played SJ in the Blind Side). Josh ends up helping the failing dance team, by mixing tracks for their performances. The dance team captain, is Josh's older sister, Mary. The team starts winning with Josh's help. They're now competing for State! Josh works through his demons and starts dating Mary.

See what you think...


Next, we watched The 100 Foot Journey. It's quite charming and a feel-good movie. It features the timeless Helen Mirren as the nemesis. It's about an Indian family who has a family restaurant in India. The mother taught her son to cook, focusing on the flavor of spices. In a time of political upheaval, their restaurant was burned to the ground and the mother dies in the fire. The family moves to England. Then they move to France. As they drive through the country, their brakes fail. The dad says the mother spoke to him and they should live there. They buy a big house with a restaurant. It happens to be 100 feet away from a Michelin 1-star, French restaurant owned by Helen Mirren's character, Madame Mallory. She tries to sabotage them, but they open and are eventually successful. The son/chef gets interested in french cooking and Madame Melanie hires him to work and learn at her restaurant. Soon he does and earns her another star. Bigger restaurants start calling and he's off to Paris. There he becomes a star and his work envelops his life. Along the way, he finds love and where he belongs. Check it out!

22 Thrifty Tips

I'm all about saving money and being thrifty. Here are some of the big and small ways I've found to do it:

1. Cut Cable in favor of Hulu. Earlier this year, I gave up cable in a bid to save more money. This blog documented my process. I'd originally planned to also get Amazon Prime, but I haven't needed it. I've started watching HGTV and A&E shows from my laptop to my TV via Chromecast. I haven't missed cable much and love the money I'm saving!

2. Water: I hate wasting anything, especially water. When I take a shower, while waiting for the water to warm up, I collect that water and use it to water my plants or to fill my humidifier. I also use the water from when you're done showering and and hit the button to make the water come out of the nozzle. What can I say? I'm a nerd. :)

3. Thrift Stores: I'm not ashamed to shop thrift stores, I've found a lot of terrific name brand items for next to nothing. Also, I sell clothing and shoes at a trendy thrift store near my apartment.

4. Shut Your Blinds and Curtains to keep from having to run the heat or A/C more than necessary. In the summer, I don't sleep with any covers. I'm not paying to cool the place enough for me to need covers; to me that's ridiculous. I also run the unit fan continually in the summer when I'm home, which helps to save my A/C unit from having to run more. I also adjust my settings when I leave the apartment. I'm not paying to heat or cool a space I'm not currently in. In the winter, I use candles to make the place a little warmer. Pro tip: a colleague shared that adjusting your heat or air by more than 2 degrees will send your unit into emergency mode, which ramps up costs; knowing that has saved me lots of money.

5. Reuse Items: I use plastic shopping bags as trash bags for trash cans in my bathroom and bedroom. I reuse Ziploc bags and butter containers.

6. Airport Parking: I use a parking punch card and will get 4 days of free parking for my next trip. This saves me $40 I can spend on more bracelets (my weakness).

7. Product Samples: I save product samples as they're the best size for traveling.

8. Always Carry-on Luggage: this saves at least $25 per trip. The only time I don't carry-on is if I'm shipping home wine, as it's over the limit for liquids. I use a carry-on sized bag for trips up to 10 nights. The key is not to bring something you don't think you use at least four times. I went to Italy for 10 days and Ireland for 8 with a carry-on sized bag and I brought back lots of souvenirs.

9. Pack your own snacks: especially when traveling. This saves on the overpriced, unhealthy, poor selection at the airport. This also saves people from having to deal with my "hangry" attitude. ;)

10. Bring your own water bottle: fly with an empty bottle and fill it up along the way. If you're in another country make sure the water is drinkable. Recently, I went to an outdoor festival in the heat of summer. I packed three water bottles that came in handy and saved my friend and I a lot of money that we could then use for something else.

11. Coupons: I'm all about coupons for restaurants. Yes, I'll fill out that lame survey if I can get a free side next time! This makes me feel less guilty about spending money eating out.

12. Eat at home: If I know I have food that must be eaten by a certain date, I'll turn down that lunch invitation or throw the item in the freezer. I try to limit the amount of times a month that I eat out. My goal is less than once a week. For me, as I'm single, eating out is more of a social thing. Last year, when I had three unexpected bills related to my car, for four months I had to turn down invitations for eating out. Instead, I offered to cook for my friends, from my stash of food in my freezer, that way my friends didn't feel abandoned.

13. Pick up that penny. Money is money: even if it's only a penny on the sidewalk, I pick it out. So far, this year, I've collected almost a $1. Though this may not seem like much, it adds up.

14. Check out Books and DVDs from the local library for free: I go online, place a hold on it, and when it comes in they contact me and I pick it up right at the front desk. I get books for 3 three weeks and movies for 1 week. Libraries are great about getting what you want via interlibrary loans. In the winter, my parents and I rent movies nearly every weekend. I'm now saving $10/weekend by getting free movies. They're pretty good about getting new releases fairly quick.

15. Research Studies: I live in a town with a university that is always looking for people to help with research by answering surveys. They generally pay and don't take much time at all. For a 10 minute survey, I was paid $10 this spring.

16. Discounted Theater: the local university also shows movies that have left the theater, but haven't yet been released as DVDs. My dad and I saw American Sniper 3 months ago for $2 in a spacious, nearly-empty theater-style room in the student union.

17. Student Discounts: even though I work full time, I'm also taking one class a semester towards my MBA. As a student, I get into our university's baseball games for free. I also get discounts at our town's movie theater, among other places. Using student discounts really saved me a lot of money when I was in Ireland.

18. A Second Job: through my university's daily emails, I learned about job openings for Track & Field officials. The pay was great for a few hours of work on the weekends. I also get to choose what meets I work. Also, recently I've been pet-sitting for friends. Just a couple hours on the weekends and I can give people the peace-of-mind that their pets are being cared for.

19. Shop at Aldi's: though the place isn't glamorous, the prices are unbeatable. They're even starting to get healthy and organic items. You bring your own shopping bags and pay with cash or debit card, but the savings are terrific. There I've found my favorite granola and applesauce.

20. Buy and Sell Things Online: I buy and sell my textbooks online. This helps me find books for competitive prices and gives me a larger audience to sell my books and clothes to. I've made terrific money doing this. In college, in the space of a year and a half, I made $1,500 selling textbooks on Half.Ebay.com and that was over 10 years ago!

21. Choose Water: this can save you up to $2.50/meal. I'd rather save that money and use it to travel; one of my greatest passions. Money on soda adds up fast, plus soda isn't good for you anyway. I try to only drink it when I'm sick.

22. Pay off your credit cards every month. The interest on credit cards is enormous!

Let's all be thrifty together!

Blog Readers from 39 Countries

The end of this month, marks two years since I started this blog. It's been a wonderful adventure for me. I've been really impressed with the number of countries my readers represent. Here are the 39 countries, I've had readers from: Macedonia, United Arab Emirates, Cayman Islands, Italy, Ireland, Latvia, Australia, Dominican Republic, Argentina, Brazil, Turkey, Russia, China, Serbia, Netherlands, Venezuela, Poland, Ukraine, Germany, Mongolia, France, Israel, Czech Republic, South Korea, Romania, Spain, India, United Kingdom, Malaysia, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Lithuania, Azerbaijan, South Africa, Canada, Cameroon, Slovakia, Hong Kong, and obviously the United States.

How'd you all find me? I'm so curious!

Unspoken

Last week, my mom and I saw the Christian band, Unspoken at the Sundown Salute in Junction City, KS. Their lead singer, Chad Mattson has a memorable voice; together they're a joy to listen to. It was neat listening to the lead singer talk about how God delivered him from drug addiction. Yes, our God is that big! Their music has always been a big encouragement to me.

Here are some of my favorites:

How to Remove Nail Polish from Carpet. IT WORKS!

Last week, I vacuumed my carpet and moved my 20+ nail polishes in a container to my bed. At 1:30 that morning, I stretched and launched the polish in the air. The result, my black nail polish broke and black polish was all over my tan carpet. This picture does not do the damage justice.

So, I got on Pinterest for how to get it cleaned. I didn't think anything would actually work, but I had to try. So, I tried this suggestion to try rubbing alcohol and a rag.

I tried that and a little nail polish remover. After 90 minutes and lots of work, 99% of the stain is gone. The downside? My apartment smells like rubbing alcohol, but I'll take that opposed to ruined carpet. :) Try it, it works!
After:

Electronic Marketing

Last summer, I finished my 4-week, weekday, 2 hour a day class with an A. I really enjoyed the class. I found it interesting and beneficial for both my job and blog. My class had a phenomenal, FREE textbook. It's by Rob Stokes and is called eMarketing: The Essential Guide to Marketing in a Digital World. I took this class through Kansas State University. I've really enjoyed my undergraduate and graduate marketing classes and professors.

I loved talking about social media and trends. It boiled down to the fact that online marketing doesn't have to be very complicated.

How to Kill Fruit Flies

I forgot to use my garbage disposal to get rid of some rotting strawberries and the next day when I opened my trash can, a SWARM of fruit flies emerged. I tried to kill them with a fly swatter, but with that many it wasn't making a dent. So, I checked Pinterest and saw this solution:

I didn't have a mason jar or parchment paper, so I used a juice glass. I also used cling wrap, a pen to make holes, apple cider vinegar, and two drops of Dawn dish soap.
My attempt

My results?
12 hours later: 2 fruit flies
24 hours later: 17 fruit flies
2 days later 40ish fruit flies
3.5 days later 44 fruit flies
Now only a few more icky bugs to go!

This solution definitely worked!!!

StrengthsQuest

StrengthsQuest has been really popular for the last roughly five years. I first took it at my last job. I'd since forgotten what my top five strengths were and recently, for a class I looked up my strengths. It has been really interesting to re-access these after five years. All I feel are still accurate.

StrengthsQuest helps you to know yourself better and it can help you understand what's important to others and essentially how they operate, thus helping you work together better.

My top 5 strengths are: Responsibility, Harmony, Belief, Consistency, and Connectedness. After reading the descriptions for each, I realized how well they do represent me. Also, these happen to be similar qualities to those that I look for in friends. I was initially surprised to see harmony in my top 5. Previously, I hadn't reflected on how important harmony really was to me, but I hate do drama, so it does makes sense.

Here's info on StrengthsQuest. It does cost to complete the accessment, though not too much. What are your strengths?

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McFarland, USA

By now, you know I love movies. I saw terrific previews for McFarland, USA and knew I had to see it. We all love movies where the underdog wins. Plus, it's about a Mexican community which I identify with as a Mexican.

The only big name star in the movie, was the polarizing Kevin Costner. I love his voice and movies. The movie is based on a true story; my favorite! Costner plays hot-headed football coach, Jim White whose temper gets him fired...a lot!. Yet, again his family of four has to move to another town for work, McFarland, California. There he helps coach football and teaches science and P.E. His hot-head gets him fired from football. His family struggles to get used to a new town. As he drives, he sees high school students run really fast. There, he gets the idea to form a cross country team. Valente Rodriguez, from the George Lopez show, plays the funny principal who okays Jim starting a cross country team. His first recruit is a boy he protected on the football team which got both of them kicked off. That boy helps him recruit more, including the three Diaz brothers, including slow Danny. Danny, Coach White explains will be the teams anchor.

The hard working kids get up at literally the crack of dawn to help their families pick fruits and vegetables in the fields, go to school, run, then help in the fields again. White wakes up one morning and helps in the field all day to see what their lives are really like. He gives the boys hope that with cross country they can go to college.

Focusing on cross country causes Coach White to miss his daughter's birthday. With the help of his new friends and the Mexican community, he gives her a Quinceañera. This celebrates her becoming a woman.

His team loses it's first competition, but learns from it and trains to do better. All their hard work pays off and they qualify for state finals, despite many ups and downs along the way. The team grows to respect Coach White. They end up winning state with the support of their community. All the boys end up going to college. Coach White leads several more cross country state titles before retiring. Most of the guys on his first team, live and work in that same community, most even teaching at local schools. They continue to run with the cross country team to stay connected. My friends and parents really liked it. A bonus is the fun Mexican music throughout the movie. Pretty sweet story! Check it out.



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Riley and Max

The summer after our beloved, Franky died, my mom felt it was time to think about getting a puppy. I didn't want a puppy, it felt disloyal to Franky. So there we were traveling around the 4th of July weekend to rural Hanover, KS. It was a small, farming town. I wasn't sure about this whole puppy thing. Then I saw all the glorious golden retriever puppies come out from under the porch. They were so cute. We started picking up puppies and trying to decide which to pick. We knew we wanted a male. My mom said she'd found "the puppy," a sweet-faced puppy that became our Max. I told her she could say that all she wanted until she picked up the sweet puppy I was holding. When I picked him up, he cuddled me and I was a goner. His sad tail sloped down. Mom held him and announced we'd be getting two puppies! Riley had won her over. So we paid the fees and waited until we could bring them home, weeks later when they were weaned. We were so nervous. Two puppies is a large undertaking.

The trip home with the puppies was fun and they slept most of the way. They were so cute! We were excited! We knew our lives were about to be flipped inside out and that's about what happened.

Riley always looked so serious with his expressive eyes. If you tried to get him out from under the bed, he'd growl and snap. He had giant ears and paws, that he's now grown into.

Max was all over the place, happily exploring. Max always wanted to escape their kitchen enclosure. He had such bright eyes. Some things never change.

They brought smiles, laughter, and joy back into our family!

Riley and Max :)