Hobnobbing.

I lost the 4 ounces!!! In case you don’t remember, I needed to lose 4 ounces this week to go down a point. I actually lost a whole pound, bringing my total to 87.8 pounds!!! Even though I will miss that point and those 30-100 calories every day, it will hopefully give me a little boost in the weight loss. I am moving right along. I am thinking on most Saturdays, I am now going to stop having a cheat meal and just start giving myself regular points and then adding points for activity. That way, instead of a cheat meal both Saturday & Sunday, I will only get one Sunday but I will still get to be a little more loose on Saturday. I think this will also help…if I plan a special dinner or have a party on Saturday, I will use Sunday rules but I think this will be good for momentum. Anyway, the point is, I’m decreasing my food a bit to help out the drive I’ve got going.

On Wednesday night, I went with some friends to Birmingham to see Grace Potter & the Nocturnals. Before we went to the concert, we had dinner at this fancy schmancy place nearby. It was basically a pizza place with a few other dishes…the menu was in Italian and it was dark and narrow and well, it was kind of pretentious. I was happy to go because it was the choice of the birthday girl we were with and as a birthday diva myself, I fully respect the importance of doing what you want to on your birthday. I was mostly bitter because I couldn’t read the menu and they didn’t have a salad to speak of that I could order that didn’t include strictly watercress or arugula (not a fan) so I had to order a cheeseless pizza that I didn’t know how to count. It ended up tasting fine and we were having a good time and THEN...I started to hear chatter at my table about Grace Potter. I must have been in la-la land because it took me forever for me to realize that they were trying to decide if the woman one table down from us was Grace Potter. I jerked my head around, saw her, turned back around and screamed, “OH MY GOSH!” It was definitely Grace! I decided that I would wait for her to get done eating before I accosted her. When she was done and it looked like there was a break in conversation with her and her drummer, I went to her table and asked for a picture. She was really friendly and told me to sit down to make it look like we were having dinner, told me how fun it was to play in Birmingham and then asked if I had any requests. She gave me a hug and I got my picture (it’s below), I was pretty excited! The show was great, even though I had heinous shoe issues because it was a standing room only venue. It was a fun night! Thanks to Nish for the ticket and the ride up!!!



This weekend I don’t have too much planned (other than my usual, I am trying golf again though, I’ll let you know how it goes) so I will skip right to my Sunday night plans. I don’t know if you know this but the 83rd Annual Academy Awards are on this Sunday night. Jordan and I are going over to my friend David’s house to watch and we are VERY EXCITED! As you may remember, Jordan and I have seen all the movies in the major categories (and a couple in the minor ones) so we love to make picks and celebrate as if we are members of the Academy. I wouldn’t be surprised if I give an impromptu Oscar acceptance speech at some point in the night during a commercial. I thought that I would share some picks & faves with you so we can compare how I did next week. In fact, David is requesting we all make picks and then there will be a prize with the one who has the most correct! First, I want to give you pictures of MY TOP 5 FAVORITE movies in order.







Out of all the nominees, I think those are my favorites in order. It was tough to list. The nominations for best picture are: 127 Hours, Black Swan, Inception, The Fighter, The Kids Are All Right, The King’s Speech, The Social Network, Toy Story 3, True Grit & Winter’s Bone. It was hard not to put movies like The King’s Speech and True Grit on my top 5 because they are also great. I also thought about switching The Social Network and 127 Hours because I LOVED 127 Hours, thought it was great but The Social Network edged ahead because I could go the rest of my life and never watch James Franco acting out the scene where he cuts his arm off.

As I stated, those are my personal faves (as in I’d watch them over and over), not the ones I think have the best chance of winning. I also made a list of my favorites that I thought were the whole package of artistic merit, creativity and overall acting. I won’t list all of those but note that I chose Inception first on that list too, followed by The King’s Speech and Black Swan. There is a definite difference between movies that I would want to buy and movies that I think should win Oscars because of how well they were made. I think that the King’s Speech will win for best picture. It’s the clear favorite…however, if there were going to be a surprise, I think The Social Network would win…I thought that The Social Network was great and the writing was stellar but I don’t think it deserves to win…but who knows? It may be the sleeper. I doubt it though.

For Leading Actress, I think Natalie Portman should win JUST BARELY ahead of Annette Bening. Both were amazing in different ways but I felt Natalie Portman totally transformed herself. I also think that Natalie Portman will win the Oscar JUST BARELY ahead of Annette Bening…I may be wrong about this one but I think Natalie Portman will squeak it out. I should say though that Nicole Kidman should get an honorable mention in this category. She was fantastic. Michelle Williams and Jennifer Lawrence just weren’t up to par in comparison to those 3 women.

For Best Actor, I honestly would be satisfied if ANY of them won. The nominees are James Franco, Javier Bardem, Colin Firth, Jesse Eisenberg and Jeff Bridges. They were all awesome but I chose James Franco as my favorite. Anyone that can carry a movie completely by themselves and make it good and enthralling deserves an award. I chose Javier Bardem and Colin Firth in sort of a tie for second. They were all SO, SO GOOD. I think Colin Firth will win though. It’s his time, he could have easily won last year for A Single Man and he was great in The King’s Speech so, that’s my prediction.

My vote for Supporting Actress is Melissa Leo and I MOSTLY think she’ll win but when I made my official ballot, I chose Hailee Steinfeld. I did this strategically because even though Melissa Leo completely deserve the award, she put a bad taste in the mouths of many fans because she did a little self-promoting and maybe, just maybe they want her to eat a piece of humble pie? She’ll probably win but in case she doesn’t, I’m picking Hailee Steinfeld so I can gain a little ground. She was awesome in True Grit, she’s young, people seem to like her. We will see.

My vote for Supporting Actor is absolutely Christian Bale. I think he will win too. He 100% deserves it…Cute as Mark Ruffalo is, the only person who came anywhere close to being in the same caliber as Christian Bale in The Fighter was Geoffrey Rush.

I won’t bore you with other picks but I think The King’s Speech will be the darling of the Oscars for the most part but there will be a couple surprises in there too. I bet you are SO happy that the Oscar talk will be over (after I do a recap next week) soon! Don’t worry though, it won’t be long before I’m talking too much about American Idol because BOY do I already have opinions on that.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Bye!

“You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling.” Eames-Inception