One Thing is For Sure: I Have Six Seasons of LOST to Re-Watch

POTENTIAL SPOILER ALERT!  With Lost finally coming to a conclusion, the internet has been a-flutter with vocal lovers and haters.  Kudos to the tonnes of bloggers that have already put forth their reviews. Other than saying that I loved the final episode and I am satisfied with how it fits into the rest of the series (regardless of all the unanswered questions and who Sayid ended up with), I'm going to leave it to the many more hard core fans on the internet to write the reviews.  I want to give myself the opportunity to watch the entire series again before I thoroughly judge it beyond my initial reaction.

I celebrated the series finale at my Bro’s, making a few party favours to honour this show that has provided 120 hours of excited "what-is-going-to-happen-next" entertainment.

Following some suggestions from  The Ack Attack, I made the Bro’s and I each a boarding pass to attend the party:

I also picked up some snacks and re-labeled them with the Dharma logos (print your own here):

I am really looking forward to watching all six seasons again so I can experience some “Ooooh!!!  I get it now!!” moments on previous episodes.  Should be fun.

If you are looking for analysis and reviews, both positive and negative, here are some links you should check out to see what people are saying:

Entertainment Weekly

The Ack Attack

io9 (hated it) or io9 (liked it)

Or just Google "Lost Review" and you'll come up with about 300,000 results.  Lots of people are talking about it.


So long Lost! See you in DVD/reruns!

Signs of Summer

I was making my turn into the grocery store parking lot earlier today, just as Journey's Don't Stop Believing came on the radio.  I parked the car and naturally had to delay my entrance into the store - there was a party happening in my car!  I belted out all the lyrics in the parking lot, enjoying a great song in gorgeous weather.  I am overjoyed that the summer temperatures are finally here!  Have a great long weekend everybody!

All Dressed Up

I am working through the easy projects I put into my Ravelry queue.  I knit this fancy little dishcloth dress rather quickly and I think it came out quite well.

It is supposed to be a dishcloth, but I don’t think it’s all that practical.  It looks super cute though!  The photo that went with the pattern had it hanging off of a bottle of dish soap.  So sweet!  I couldn’t get mine on a bottle of dish soap (it is resting on a bottle of hot sauce in the above photo!), as I didn’t make the neck opening as big as the pattern suggested.  To make the neck opening bigger I would have had to crochet a chain, and I wasn’t in the mood to learn to crochet the day I knit this.  Maybe next time.

While knitting this dress, I was reminded of the cute little dresses that my Nanny and Aunt Shirley used to make for Barbie dolls to wear that would cover up a toilet paper roll.  When I was young, I think every relative we would visit had one of those Barbies in the bathroom guarding the toilet paper.  :)

Eating Healthy - One Day at a Time

Did you watch Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution?  There were only six episodes from March to April, and the episodes I saw drew me in and kept me glued to the television.  I am always inspired by passion, and Jamie Oliver is extremely passionate about educating people about healthy eating.  He has critics, naysayers, people telling him he can't do it - but I find some people tend to name-call the person starting the revolution.  For too many, change is easier to ridicule than embrace.  Jamie Oliver was out there, using his passion to try and help people for the better.  I applaud him for that.

It was timely for me to watch the Food Revolution, as I have recently started making myself more aware of what I am eating and actively trying to make healthier food choices.  I'm not on a diet, but I am cutting back on all the junk that I have been eating for the past while.  I have a few bad habits when it comes to food, the worst of which is late night snacking.  The later I stay up, the worse it is.  And it isn’t just snack food that I have - many times I have ‘second dinner’ late into the night.  I am well aware that this isn’t the best way for me to treat my body.  With summer on it's way, I needed to change my bad habits. So far I have made three specific changes regarding what I consume.

First, I made a Do Not Eat list.  Basically I brainstormed a bunch of foods that I should not eat on a regular basis.  Some foods that made the list are: doughnuts, chips, pop, fried chicken, fast food, and entire bags of candy.  I am not yet willing to completely cut these foods from my life, but I don’t want to eat them very often either.  My new mindset is that treats should be just that - treats.  Believe me, I love food.  I find it to be one of the most satisfying, comforting, and social things to do.  So for one day a week (generally a weekend day) I have set myself a ‘treat day’ where I can eat any of the bad foods on my list.  The other six days in the week, I respect the Do Not Eat list. 

Second, I scheduled healthy snacks and keep them on hand. I know that I love to eat late at night, so I have scheduled snacks to eat late so I don’t just eat a hot dog.  My favourite snacks currently are almonds, applesauce, yogurt, fruit smoothies, air popped popcorn, and granola bars.  Having these options in the house has definitely kept me from making bad choices.  The logic is simple: if the decision has already been made before I get hungry, I won’t impulsively eat something unhealthy. 

Third, I (mostly) measure my food.  I don't follow any real guidelines, I just have either 1/2 cup or 1 cup of most things.  Or if there is an option to have more than one of something, I try to stick with just one (i.e. potatoes, dinner rolls, etc.). I feel full when I eat, so I am not starving myself by any means, I am just not eating a giant plateful of food now.

I have been on this ‘plan’ for about two months and I like that it is simple and easy going.  I am too obsessed with food to have strict rules about it, but having some general guidelines has been beneficial.  Some days it is incredibly easy to stick to the plan, other days it is practically painful.  I just have to remember to take it one day at a time.  I recently made an amazing discovery that is encouraging me to keep with it, though: my thin jeans fit.  Those jeans have not fit for a few years now, and it definitely feels good to get back into them.  Beyond that, I’m pretty sure my body is happy to not have to process french fries while it is trying to fall asleep.  On the whole I would say, so far so good! :)

Plants in the Ground, Plants in the Ground

With the weather looking great for at least the next week, we took the plunge and planted our vegetables and herbs on Sunday.  Upon planting them, we realized that we started our sprouts far too early, as many of them grew very tall in their Jiffy Pots.  At least four of our bean plants had grown beans on them!  Crazy!  We will know better for next year to start them a lot closer to planting day.

The Garden - 2010

As some of the sprouts were very tall, we had to use steaks to hold them up until their roots grow strong enough to hold them up on their own.  Hopefully the roots take hold soon and all of our plants make it.  We already lost some of our sprouts prior to planting day, as the dill, a few carrots, a spinach, and a romaine sprout died.  I think they were probably mad about being in the Jiffy Pots so long.  Sorry sprouts. :(

Here are some photos of what made it into the garden this year:

Basil (2), Oregano (2), Cilantro (2)

 Green Beans (12)

 Peas (5), Carrots (5), Onions (4)

Romaine (4)

Spinach (10) - we like spinach!

Tomatoes (3)

From back: Corn (10), Zucchini (3), Cucumber (3)

We left room in the garden for some pepper plants that aren’t yet big enough to transplant.  Pretty soon we’ll have red, green, jalapeno, and mini-bell peppers!  So excited!

Pepper Sprouts

I am very happy that we were finally able to plant.  I hope the weather stays nice and all our little veggies take root!  Some of them were looking a little weary out there today - but we'll have to see how they are in a few days.  Hopefully they all grow really big so there are lots of yummy veggies to eat throughout the summer!