Oscar Week!

Happy President’s Day, y’all.  If you are like me, you had to work despite the holiday.  Oh well, I am just grateful to have a job, I guess.  I’m fighting off a bit of a sinus problem today.  It’s been creeping up slowly on me for several days and I’ve got quite a cough today.  I rarely get sick so I shouldn’t complain.  I should never complain because overall, things are usually pretty good but the fact that I shouldn’t complain has never really stopped me.  I’m pretty pooped today but I have a lot to do so I need to just suck it up.  I didn’t weigh on Saturday like normal because I had a four day weekend last week due to the trip to Nashville with my Dad.  I knew I wouldn’t like the results so I thought I’d give myself a break.  I’ll weigh this Saturday to gauge how much extra work I need to do.  I completed the first phase of Insanity last week and began the new one on Saturday.  The second month is even more insane than the last.  The videos are longer and the moves are more intense.  I am pretty sore today so I think that means it’s working.  If I can stick with that and stop eating too much on the weekends, I feel like the weight would come off but I don’t always do what I’m supposed to.

Dad and I had a great time at WWE Monday Night Raw.  I admit that even though I won’t be recording it on my DVR any time soon, it was pretty entertaining.  It’s the male equivalent of a soap opera.  It was fun to get into it with the crowd and I was excited to see the Rock.  Unfortunately, I don’t have my camera cord so I can’t post pictures yet.  I’m hoping to get them on Facebook this week so maybe I can share a couple in the next couple weeks.  I won’t have a blog post next week because I won’t have time.  I’m spending the night in Birmingham Sunday night for the Oscars, so I’ll post again on March 4th with pictures of wrestling, new weight and measurement updates, Oscar reaction, and pictures from the Pink concert I’m going to.  So, I’m slacking next week but I’ll make sure to fill up the next post.

I kind of cheated this week and I didn’t provide a full recipe.  I’m from the South and I adore okra, fried up in a cast iron skillet with bacon grease.  My mother is an okra frying champion and I also love the way my grandmother makes it.  It’s crispy and salty and just plain delicious.  It’s also terrible for you.  I don’t think I realized the you could have okra if it wasn’t fried until a couple years ago.  The problem is that okra can be slimy and nobody wants that so it’s kind of tricky to prepare it in a healthy way and make it taste good.  You can prepare it in a skillet with non-stick cooking spray but I find it easier to bake it.  I bought it frozen, put it on a cookie sheet sprayed with Olive Oil flavored spray, tossed the frozen okra on the sheet, sprayed it with the non-stick spray, put a little salt, pepper and garlic powder and popped it in the oven.  Since it’s from frozen, it takes time.  However, since it’s in the oven, you can fold laundry, catch an episode of Modern Family or something else while you wait.  After about 15-20 minutes, I tossed it with the spray again and added more salt.  I put it in for a bit longer and then when it’s fully cooked, I turn the broiler on.  I burned the first batch I made so make sure to watch it closely.  I think no more than 2-3 minutes is enough.  No, it’s not the bacon-fat ridden taste of fried heaven you are used to but if you make it right, it’s crispy and has good flavor.  It’s worth a shot at least.  I liked it. 

It’s OSCAR week and Jordan and I are totally ready.  We have seen the movies in the major categories and I’ve seen a few in the minor categories.  I hope to catch at least a couple more of those this week.  The last one we saw was Amour.  I pretty much hate this movie. It is nominated for Best Picture, Director (Michael Haneke), Actress (Emmanuelle Riva) and Original Screenplay (Michael Haneke).  I think the nomination for actress is well deserved but that’s it.  It was in French which wasn’t the problem at all but I thought it was worth mentioning.  The movie had two sides, painstakingly boring and tragically sad.  Seriously, it had one of the most disturbingly sad scenes I’ve ever seen.  When it wasn’t sad, it was so slow.  There were long drawn out moments of scenery and unnecessarily long moments of silence.  I had to pry my eyes open to stay awake.  I also saw Prometheus which isn’t nominated in a major category, just visual effects. I didn’t really care for it, either.  The visual effects were great (good make up and a gruesome alien baby birth scene) but it’s good thing that’s all it was nominated for because the dialogue was predictable and a good portion of the movie was spent watching the head of a decapitated robot talking.  It wasn’t my favorite.

So, I guess I could tell you my favorites and then my predictions…if you want to know…if not, feel free to skip ahead.  My opinions on who will win have changed a bit since the nominations first came out…and they may change again.

Actor-  Favorite-Bradley Cooper Prediction- Daniel Day-Lewis

Actress- Favorite-Jennifer Lawrence Prediction-Jennifer Lawrence

Supporting Actor- Favorite-Robert De Niro and Christoph Waltz Prediction- Christoph Waltz

Supporting Actress- Favorite- Sally Field Prediction- Anne Hathaway

Directing- David O. Russell-Silver Linings Playbook Prediction- Steven Spielberg- Lincoln

Adapted Screenplay- Favorite- Argo and Silver Linings Playbook Prediction- Argo

Original Screenplay- Favorite-Django Unchained Prediction- Zero Dark Thirty

Best Picture (I’ll give you an order of my favorites)… 1.) Silver Linings Playbook 2) Argo 3) Django Unchained 4) Lincoln 5) Zero Dark Thirty 6) Les Miserables 7) Life of Pi 8) Beasts of the Southern Wild 9) Amour

Prediction for Best Picture- Argo

That’s all.

I will post in a couple weeks!

Bye!

“And it would be a fine proposition, 

If I was a stupid girl…” Girl at Home-Taylor Swift

Shrimptastic

Hey y’all.  I know I’m not the first or the millionth person to say this today but I seriously think the day after the Super Bowl should be a national holiday.  I am not a fan of professional football but I am fan of Super Bowl food.  I know this is supposed to be about weight loss but you certainly couldn’t tell I was on a diet last night.  My mother really out did herself.  When I got to dinner, it was like a festival of bacon.  She made cheeseburger sliders with bacon, potato skins, pigs in a blanket, wings, ribs.  Seriously guys, I know everyone thinks their mom is the best cook in the world but you are totally wrong, unless my mom is your mom.  It was worth every gluttonous calorie.  By the description of food I had, it’s not hard to know why I had no weight loss this weekend when I weighed.  I hadn’t gained which I consider a success.  I’ve been kind of loose on the weekends and it must come to an end.  I am not going to post next week because…well…I’m almost embarrassed to say…my Dad and I are travelling to Nashville on Monday to go to Bridgestone Arena…to see WWE Monday Night Raw.  I’m not what one would call a wrestling fan but my Dad is so that’s what I got him for Christmas.  I admitted that to not only tell you’ll there won’t be a post next Monday but also so I could say that I know my diet won’t be great on that Monday and Tuesday.  Even though the weight loss momentum I had has been put on a temporary pause,  I’m doing my best otherwise and hopefully the hiccup won’t last long.  On a positive note, I have now lost a total of 3.25” after beginning Insanity.  I have 8.2 pounds I need to lose to reach my first goal of 2013.  Persevere y’all.  You can do it.

This week I am sharing a baked version of Popcorn Shrimp from the Hungry Girl. The Hungry Girl loves to use Fiber One cereal for her fake frying.  Let me just say, I was skeptical because Fiber One cereal looks like rabbit poop and tastes like dirt. No disrespect to the folks at Fiber One…they are doing great things for the fiber needing community.  I decided to give it a fair shot.  Normally, if I have to get a kitchen appliance out and plug it in to make the recipe, I avoid it because I’m lazy.  The popcorn shrimp required a finely ground Fiber One cereal to act as the breading.  Rather than making only one serving’s worth, I made a large batch so if I want to make other recipes with it, I can just grab it from the fridge.  I think it has a pretty good shelf life…let’s be honest, there’s probably not a lot of fresh ingredients in the cereal to go bad.  I used Egg Beaters to coat the shrimp and then shook them in a baggie with the cereal.  I added salt, pepper, garlic powder and chili powder to the Fiber One to give it some flavor.  The shrimp was crispy and had great flavor.  It took me more than five minutes so I probably won’t make it much  but it was quite good.  I made it with some sautéed veggies. It’s not pretty but I enjoyed it.

As the Oscars loom closer, Jordan and I are trying to wrap up our adventure.  We have actually had an easier time this year than ever before.  We’ve had to go to Atlanta, Huntsville and Chattanooga before to see all the movies before the show but we managed to stay between Tuscaloosa and Birmingham this year.  A big shout out to the Edge theatre near his house because they listen to requests for movies and they are great about having ones that are hard to find.  We were able to see the Master yesterday which wasn’t nominated for Best Picture but did have acting nominees.  Joaquin Phoenix is nominated for Actor, Philip Seymour Hoffman for Supporting Actor and Amy Adams for Supporting Actress.  This movie had potential. It had several good moments.  I guess agree with the acting nominations and I definitely agree with the fact that it wasn’t nominated for Best Picture.  It was about an alcoholic, ex-sailor who encounters a non-religious evangelist of sorts in Philip Seymour Hoffman and they set on a journey to fix people by connecting them to their spirit…awaken them.  It was too long and at the end, I don’t have any idea what I’m supposed to take away from it.  

My mother said that Moonrise Kingdom was the dumbest movie she’d ever seen.  At first I resisted that statement thinking surely I could think of a dumber one but after filtering out movies that were intentionally dumb but in a funny way, I really couldn’t disagree with her.  Maybe in some pretentious land of coolness this movie has an epic-ness that I just don’t understand but overall, I have no idea what this movie was supposed to accomplish.  The cast was amazing…Bruce Willis, Ed Norton, Bill Murray and others but man, was it weird.  It’s only nominated for Original Screenplay (Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola) so I’m not sure if the pool for that was small this year or what.  I guess if I had to say something positive about it, it would be that it is, in fact, original.  It’s about two misfit kids falling in love and “getting married” and taking a trip in the woods…or something.  I pretty much hated it.

The Invisible War is not in a major category but I thought it was worth mentioning.  It’s nominated for best Documentary and it brings to light the horrors of sexual assault that women sometimes face in the military.  This movie is well done and highlights the problems that women soldiers face.  It also calls for action in the way the military handles these situations.  It’s sad but eye-opening and at the very least, food for thought.  It’s the only documentary I’ve seen so far so I can’t speak to the quality of the others.

That’s it.

I hope you all have a wonderful week.

Hopefully I won’t get hit over the head with a folding chair next week.

Talk with you soon.

Bye.

“You’re a lovely creation, I’d like to think that I am too.” Love On The Rocks-Sara Bareilles