Broken (pt. 2) #fiveminutefriday

Write. For five minutes straight. One-word prompt, five minutes, no editing. I'm linking up over at Lisa-Jo Baker (aka The Gypsy Mama) where we read, write and encourage.

I'm still packing here in Orange County. I'm sure I must sound like a broken record by now but the A-lister inside of me has been planning this move for weeks and now that it's finally (sort of) here I feel like I still don't have enough time.

I've gotten all of my tools out in preparation. My hammer- for all those pictures I hung with our without (and then again, with) my husband's help. My spackle- for all those damn holes in the wall, some from us and others a legacy we inherited. My paint and primer- because I was positive I'd go crazy with white walls but now that we have to repaint I'm fairly sure I would have done just fine. My boxes and my tape and my packing paper.

Mr. E and I are playing an exhausting game of Hide and Seek. I drag myself home each night in the summertime heat, weary and wilted, ready to sit down and veg out to some New Girl. Mr. E slouches in some five hours later, just as tired. We'd really love to hang out or watch a movie or run errands for pete's sake! but all we can do is revel in air conditioning and a soft bed and a puppy between us.

And that's okay. I'm tucking each piece of our lives away in boxes, carefully, carefully, so they won't break and he's breaking in our new car and generally sweating about messing up at his first job- but we're doing it for each other and that's what makes it worth it.

Kiss Me

Imdb synopsis: Young woman engaged to be married finds herself in an affair with her stepmother's lesbian daughter.

We had the HARDEST time figuring out what language this movie was in. Since we were streaming from Netflix, there isn't too much to say about the subject on the screen. So similar to French, traces of German, a little English (which we all know is quite the mutt language)...we were so lost. Finally figured out it was Swedish and spent the rest of the movie hoping they would say the name of one of our furniture pieces. Or a kitchen appliance.

I wanted romantic but Mr. E was at a loss for something we hadn't seen recently in our own collection, so we turned, as always, to Netflix. "Romantic Movies," anyone?

This movie is GORGEOUS. As in, almost every frame could be a still photograph in my house. The artistry behind a lot of the shots blew me away. There was bokeh and landscapes and Swedish simplicity around every corner of the frame. Just beautiful!

The story wasn't particularly new- sort of a coming-out- but I think it was the details and the imagery that got me. Romantic, but sort of racy too, with all of the sex. Fair warning.

Shepherd's Pie (with a twist!)

Hi! We haven't died! Though it kind of came close this week if you count stress-induced heart attacks (which you should).

When I'm not drowning under packing tape or cardboard boxes, I like to find the time to cook with the crazy canned food we don't want to move (can you say heavy?). Project numero uno? Shepherd's Pie. Except the poultry staple was substituted for pork and bacon, obviously, so we'll have to find another idyllic name for my creation. I'm thinking Blacksmith's Pie, because blacksmiths are incredibly manly. And Mr. E said this dinner was incredibly manly too.

Blacksmith's Pie

1 package shredded pork

1/2 package bacon (cooked according to Megan's recipe)

1 cup (more or less) of frozen veggies

5 or 6 small red potatoes

salt and pepper to taste

BBQ sauce to taste

a little bit of flour

pie crust

I have pie crusts in my freezer because I like to whip them out at a moments notice. And by moments notice I actually mean I need to defrost these suckers on the counter all day. Roll out (dear autobots) and place in pie plate. Poke it!

Cook bacon. Please don't eat.

Cook pork in left over bacon grease, because we don't waste things, ya'll. We used a package of pork that had been pre-cooked then flash-frozen, so all we were really doing was browning the edges a little bit.

Mix meats with frozen veggies. Add the rest of the ingredients.

Ideally I wanted to make a soppy, gooey mess that spilled over the crust like LAVA, but the bacon was mysteriously disappearing, so we just stuck it all in the pie crust and cooked for 30 minutes at 425F.

Since this recipe is a little dry we added more BBQ sauce. Delish. I would work on making that gravy or adding a little bit of water and flour and butter to congeal things a bit in the pie.

LOVED This Weekend

I didn't love this weekend. Not at all. Not even a tiny crumb-ful.

First, this happened.

 Behind that giant tree is our new apartment.

 Coming home from our new apartment (not home for much longer) we found the dog in the garage. NOT where she is supposed to be. She nearly gave us a heart attack when we opened the garage and found her tumbling into the daylight.

And then, this happened. 


And now I'm all out of happenings and excitement and all that's left in me is adulthood and boring-ness. Next is kids. Good grief.

Belong #fivemiutefriday

Write. For five minutes straight. One-word prompt, five minutes, no editing. I'm linking up over at Lisa-Jo Baker (aka The Gypsy Mama) where we read, write and encourage.

I'm packing tonight. Nursing a root beer and serenading my dog to feel a little less lonely. The paper towels are peeling off of rolls, the packing paper is in piles and my beautiful china sits nestled in a box that is destined for storage.

I'm not stranger to this dance of stuff to stay and stuff to go, the sloughing off things that we've gathered over the last two years. This isn't my first rodeo. In fact, I think it's my twelfth. And this next one still won't be a forever home. 

In between the moves, the disassembling and the reassembling, the friendships tentatively made and subsequently lost, I've realized that I never needed a place to feel like I belonged there. It's never a house I remember, or a neighborhood. It was things like tupperware cereal bowls filled with Cheerios and raisins and honey. It was playing musical chairs with my parents' bedroom set because their room was too small to house it all.

It's the frames we hung on the alter on our wedding day. The Alice in Wonderland tea-mug from my world-travelling bestie. The road-sign that reads "NO STOPPING ANY TIME" we hung above the desk to inspire our inner writer.

I am the sum of all my memories. My experiences define who I have become, but sometimes it's the "things" in our life that have a meaningful impact too. Packing my great-grandmother's china isn't pleasant, but my inheritance keeps me grounded. Let's me know that I belong here, too.

Pack Pack Pack

This week was busy. Busy. Busy. Busy.The big news? Mr. E has his first job as a college grad! 

I want to do cartwheels and back flips but I'll just settle for raising my cup (of coffee) because I've been packing and cleaning the house in preparation for moving, so my energy is zilch. He's working as an Office Production Assistant on the new Zach Braff movie "Wish I Was Here". Such a good jump for his resume because it's very well-known and looked-forward-to in the industry. Here's the Kickstarter webpage; it has a very well-written concise explanation of exactly what making a movie means, what it costs and how you get all of those kittens herded into the bathtub while rolling it down a street in New Orleans made to look like LA. 

This means that Mr. E left the house before I did this morning- SO. WEIRD. We've been operating within our norm for quite some time now and this has kind of shaken things up. New sleeping schedules, I can't ask him to take food out to thaw for dinner, the dog's at home all day...Very strange.

Missing her morning snuggle buddy

I have two weeks left at my job and after that I'm floating free. Casting my net wide, here, applying to anything and everything I can get my hands on, hoping that the more resumes I send out, the sooner I'll get a bite. As great as it is that Mr. E's working, it's still project-based, meaning that he's working on this project which has a run time of approximately 9 weeks, and after that he's looking again. Which is how you do it apparently- constantly networking and keeping an eye on the date of "un-employment". Ugh. It creates a very stressful working situation, but we are so lucky to have two working adults: it makes things bearable! I can't imagine having to jump into the industry by yourself.

We're still looking for an apartment after a few hits (and misses). It's tough to find our price-range or our size, so we're jumping at every opportunity. Almost signed papers for a two bedroom in Burbank (PERFECT?) but stopped at the last minute because really the kitchen was so. small. And since I don't have a reliable job-lead yet it just seemed a little premature. But those days are ticking away!


Just to keep things interesting, Mr. E and I took a trip to see how the other side lived: visiting friends in their new loft apartment in the fabric district of Los Angeles. It's not just in the movies, people. They've converted a loft apartment into a four bedroom bachelor/bachelorette pad with a STUNNING view of the city. We fell into over-sized off-color couches and scoffed authentic LA Mexican food while watching the sun dip behind the twinkling skyline through giant industrial windows. Not only is it refreshing to catch up, but it's reaffirming to know that there are other people that are going through the exact issues that we are. We're not alone!

So while our energy is sparse and our attention spans are filled with budgets and job applications, we are still SO excited to be moving on. We need to stop fighting the change because come August this will all be over.

The Fisher King

Imdb synopsis: A former radio DJ, suicidally despondent because of a terrible mistake he made, finds redemption in helping a deranged homeless man who was an unwitting victim of that mistake.

Mr. E and I are unsure about exactly how we feel about this movie. For one thing, it was very 90's...for another, seeing Jeff Bridges play anything but The Dude is strange. But we stuck through it to get to the end and overall enjoyed the movie

This movie was pretty run of the mill- it had some interesting elements to it: production design for Robin Williams and his living space, the careful tread between reality and insanity. The acting was really good but I thought they focused too much on Jeff Bridges in the beginning to the point where the movie didn't really start until much later than it should have.

I liked the themes of the movie, the accountability in this technological world where there is no accountability, the avoidance of permanence and of stability, and the desire to look for meaning in life even when it's not part of the accepted societal bounds.

Robin Williams was kind of a diamond in the rough in this movie. You don't really see him do serious very often and even though his character was amusing, it wasn't focused on his comedic antics. So he could sit naked in Central Park and it worked for him. Even if I didn't really want to see Peter Pan in all his glory (sorry, childhood).