Rochelle's Blog ::: Subtitles Included

It all began with my tiny unofficial mission to listen to all of these Best of 2009 albums on lala.com.

So, I put on Jay-Z’s The Blueprint 3, which has made a few of those lists, and loved “Empire State of Mind.”

Of course listening to that reminded me of the Sex and the City 2 trailer…

Which naturally made me lust after things I cannot afford, like SJP’s gold aviator sunglasses, which are running for $525.

But then I think about how the sunglasses I usually buy are from the carts in the mall, where you get knock offs for like ten bucks.

Which then makes me remember the reality of my financial situation.

So then I update my budget sheet and see that I’ve got about $2 left to eat on for the rest of the month! Eek! (Okay, not really $2, but you get the point).

And that’s how I end up here, posting about the goodness that is budgeting, meal planning, and being wise about money…and just sticking to knock off cart at the mall if I’ve just got to have gold aviators, which by the way wouldn’t really be my thing anyway. But a girl can dream, right?

December 10 Album of the year. What’s rocking your world?

I used to be super into music in college, what student isn’t? But then I grew up and worked hard and did my thing and music took the back burner. I still listened to music while working of course and in my car, but not much at home. But that all changed a year ago when I started writing. Music is a requirement while I write, and so I’ve spent a good chunk of time (and money) finding new (to me) and inspirational pieces this year. Therefore, I had to go through and actually check to see when my favorite albums I discovered came out. Here’s my favorites of 2009:

No Line on the Horizon – U2. I feel like even listing this one is like cheating. Of course I liked it. Of course it’s good.

Strict Joy – The Swell Season. A recent release and oh so good, from the musicians in the movie Once.

500 Days of Summer soundtrack. Great movie. Great soundtrack!

Music from Glee. A surprise. I usually don’t like things like this, but I love listening to music from Glee. Especially while I’m cleaning.

But my favorite album of the year is….

Sea Sew-Lisa Hannigan. I am a huge Damien Rice fan and so I felt like I had to wait forever for solo debut. I’m so glad it came about. The album is quirky and fun and romantic. The lyrics are unique and her voice is spectacular. It may not be for everybody, but I sure love it.

Listen to it once for free at Lala.com.

Watch this cute live version of “I Don’t Know”:

As you know, Michael Jackson died today. Strange. I’m not sure how I feel about it and anything I say about the life he led will be said by millions of others. But I will share two things. Thriller was the first album that I “owned” as a small child. I remember listening to it on a chunky walkman while riding in the car with my family. And it’s that memory of being small and being with them that makes this day unique for me. And the second story is that both my brother and I thought the lyrics to Billie Jean was actually Village Inn. My mom remembers my brother in particular singing, “Village Inn is not my lover!”

Ever wonder why he loved to wear pants that were too short?

Well I totally spaced that it was the 16th of the month again, which is the day I’ve designated for self-portraits. So you can you expect to see my mug tomorrow.

For today’s installment, I’ve taken a picture of my work phone and my iPhone. Why? Because I’m trying desperately to win a radio contest to see U2 in Dublin at the end of July. To qualify, you have to be the ninth caller. There are four opportunities a day at fixed times, and then there will be a drawing. I’ve been known to have good luck, so I hope it comes around this time because I would love to go to that. I miss Dublin almost every day.

Wish me luck!

Welcome to an installment of Random Friday!

Technology madness

As the week winds down, I can look back and say that, without a doubt, my week was one long dance with technology. Whether it was getting my new TVs set up, launching this new blog, rebuilding my work computer, and installing new software to test and document for my job, it was just all technology, all the time. At some points it was like a perfectly choreographed mambo, at others it was like a mosh pit. It’s looking pretty likely that I’m going to end the week on a slow dance, where I remember how much I love that unreliable, yet irresistible force of nature that rules my life.

Palladia, Pandora, Persnickety

I go through music phases. Sometimes I’m all about music and other times it’s background noise. These days I’m all about it. So it shouldn’t be all that surprising that with my brand new cable package and television that I’m mostly watching and listening to music through it. I thought I’d be all about HBO and the other premium channels I got, but what I’ve really enjoyed is concerts on Palladia. For example, the past two mornings I’ve had a Coldplay concert from Japan playing while I get ready for work. It’s been great!

I also bought a year subscription to Pandora so I could have a desktop client and skip the commercials. I love Pandora. My channels of the week are Death Cab For Cutie, Lady Gaga, and Everything But the Girl.

Nuts (literally)

I stupidly keep buying butter crunch cashews. Yeah. Not smart for a girl on a diet. But these things are good! Almost always I keep my portion down, and for a ¼ cup there’s about 3 points. Not exactly good in terms of budgeting points, but definitely worth it in terms of taste.

Sibby

My sister, Marissa, is my best friend. I love her more than anything in the world and I love to live vicariously through her. This month and next she’ll be doing an internship at the local newspaper. She’s been assigned to write features stories. This includes exercise features stories. So she’ll be trying out all of these different workouts across the city. Already this week she went up into the foothills for a two-hour yoga session and lunch, and she attended hip-hop aerobics. How fun, right? Maybe if I weren’t in the midst of working out four days a week, I wouldn’t find that nearly as appealing, but I think that’s rad. I was especially jealous of the yoga session. She invited me along, but I had another leadership seminar…booo!

Father’s Day

I constantly struggle when it comes to Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. The flowers I got my mom turned out to be a total disaster (long story, and not blog worthy), and my father is even harder to shop for. He’s not very serious about the holiday so we get a lot of slack, but I still want to do something nice for him. So, I decided to redesign his law practice website for him. Now that the blog redesign is done, I’m itching for something new to do in my off hours. So this weekend I’m going to try and get that going. I’ve got some great ideas for it.

Have a great weekend everyone! Check in on Sunday and you’ll probably see some Project 365 layouts.

So I’ve gotten some new TVs, and I’ve upgraded my cable package. I’m now one of the cool kids. At least on the surface.

Wanna guess what I’ve watched thus far in beautiful HD?

(Here’s a hint, it’s not what the cool kids are watching).

There’s been a little of this…

Yep, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2. Not even the first one, the sequel.

And way too much of this…

The Bachelorette.

So tonight I tried to get a little cooler and watch this.

Nine Inch Nails, Beside You on Palladia

But then I remembered it’s not 1997 anymore.

So I switched to this (read, I was sad NIN was over and wanted more concert and this was all I could find).

Apparently, this is O.A.R.

So pretty much the only “cool” thing I’ve watched, which I don’t think was actually in HD, but looked killer nonetheless on my new 1080 upconverter DVD player was this.

Lost, Season 3.

That’s right, LOST. The 40” television with a very high quality picture only makes LOST creepier. Especially when you’re watching this particular episode.

The one with the paralyzing spiders and Paulo and Nikki get buried alive.

And just because I feel like it, and I’ve also been watching this since the NIN concert ended, which is on YouTube and not on my beautiful new TV.

FAIL.

So the past week or so has been good. I’ve been living the way I love to live, with books and movies and dinners and good times with friends. I love weeks like this.

So here it is in a nutshell…

SpotBot to the Rescue!

Last Sunday I bought a SpotBot carpet cleaner. It’s the ultimate tool for lazy people. You just put this fancy contraption over the stain and push a button. How perfectly American. So I’ve put it to good use already. Now when the cats barf I get a little excited versus pre-spotbot when I would contemplate barfing on them in retaliation.

The manual part works really nicely too.

Welcome to Colorado Bitch!

Being that it’s “Spring” in Boulder, the weather has been all over the map. On Monday I woke up to a ton of heavy wet snow.

Colorado Part 1: Good luck with the commute.

But of course by the time I left to go home, the weather was beautiful and warm-ish.

Colorado Part 2: Break out the flip flops.

But seriously, Spring has been great. I stayed late one night this week and walked hiked out to my car at 7:30. It was so beautiful outside. The tulips are gorgeous, and there was that spring smell in the air. I love it!

Love the tulips.

Bookworm!

Ever since I bought some very excellent book lights, I’ve had my nose in a book for days now. Something about being able to actually see the words in my books somehow lends itself to reading. Amazing huh?

The cats love it when I read.

I’ve been so dorky about books lately that I’ve set up an upstairs book and a downstairs book (and yes I have two book lights). That way, wherever I am, I can read. As a result of all this reading I’m doing, I finished Jennifer Weiner’s Good In Bed this week and made a lot of progress on The Alienist. Two very different books, but both are excellent.

I can't believe I had never read it before. Silly me.

So besides reading a ton, I’ve been buying more books than I have space for and thus also depleting my Kindle2 fund in the process. But I love buying books. I can’t help myself. So this week I picked up….

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies...oh my!

Which I’m looking forward to reading very much. I’ve heard some great things about it, and there are actual illustrations of Elizabeth Bennett kicking zombie butt. How good.

And on Friday night after a delicious dinner at the Chop House, we went over to the Boulder Bookstore and I picked up three other Jennifer Weiner books. Sadly, they didn’t have Certain Girls. But that’s okay, I’m sure I’ll find it.

I forgot how nice it feels to support my local bookstore.

The Pearl Street mall was really mellow. It was a cloudy evening, but it made it so gorgeous.

The Pearl Street Mall and FlatIrons

Friends and such!

I saw two movies this week. First, I saw 17 Again with Marissa and Johnny, and that wasn’t half bad. Marissa and Chris are totally crushing on Zac Efron right now. I feel a touch pervy about finding him cute, so I’m trying to stick to boys a little closer in my age range, but not by much. And then we went to see Adventureland on Friday night in Boulder.

I spy with my little eye, Bella Swan. And I couldn't not think that the entire time.

Well the movie begins and about ten minutes in, two dudes come and sit right next to me in the theater. This is my ultimate pet peeve. I cannot stand it when people sit next to me when there are other open seats. But alas, this happened to me.

It turns out that these two guys were stoned off their ass. They coughed, laughed, and munched their way through the movie. The worst part is that the one sitting next to me smelled. Not like weed or patchouli or even B.O. Those things I’m used to after 12 years in Boulder. Nope, it was like stale cologne and meat on a fleece jacket. I leaned closer to my friend who happens to smell much nicer to make it through the film.

Then yesterday I got to hang out with some work friends at a child’s birthday party. It was a fun time, with tons of delicious food and really delicious cupcakes. I love hanging at Jody and Michelle’s house. They crack me up! I went over there with Mike and his daughters, Erica and Isabelle. They had a fun time playing with the other kids. I snapped this picture because at first they were so shy and wouldn’t leave Mike’s side. It made for a cute picture.

It was a big Chicago sports day yesterday so Mike was decked out.

So today I’ve been hanging around the house. I took a two hour nap, ate french toast for breakfast, and then leftover mashed potatoes for an early-bird dinner. Gotta love an easy day just like this. The cats love it too…

My sleep buddy, Persephone.

Today is Easter, and although it is not my favorite holiday it was a great day. I was down in Pueblo and staying with my mother. I always get spoiled when I stay with her, so how could it be bad? I woke up to lots of thick wet snow splashing against the awning below my bedroom window and the smell of burned sausage downstairs. After a fast breakfast I garbled up some Advil (bad headache) and went back to sleep until noon. Around 1:30 we sat down at a spring themed table and ate a very traditional Easter dinner. I didn’t get an Easter basket, but my mom placed Dove chocolate bunnies on each place setting. It was quite fancy. Afterwards, I drove back home to Superior on very wet roads, with my iPhone blasting some of my favorite rainy day songs.

I still haven't tried my chocolate bunny. But I will!

Yarnity yarn

I finally visited my local yarn shop to have them special order some yarn for me so I can complete a pair of socks I’ve been making forever. I was also able to pick up some more yarn I needed to complete this scarf I’m making…

I love buying new yarn!

The never-ending cold

So I’ve now had a cold of some sort for the past month. It’s ridiculous. I’m beginning to wonder if I actually just have allergies. I’ve never had allergies in my life and I’m not used to my nose running so much, but things change right? It doesn’t help that it’s completely and horribly dry here. It’s drier than I ever remember it being in Colorado. This winter has been horrible. I’m dying for some snow and there just isn’t any on the plains. Thankfully our mountains are getting snow so our drought won’t be too bad this year. Hopefully.

TV and other entertainmenty things

A couple things to note here…

First of all, I’m re-watching Lost from the start with a friend who has never seen it. It’s been a ton of fun to go back and watch. We’ve come a long way on that show. It’s amazing how little we all knew back in season one.

Second, DOOL is picking up again. Sami is back in town and finally sharing scenes with EJ, so the board is picking back up again and it’s fun to chat with my online friends. On that same front, I’m delighted to report that I’m now following Alison Sweeney on twitter. She’s so great. She’s even replied to me, which is super cool. Now I always joke about how my friend Alison is doing this or doing that.

Current annoyances

I freaking hate these Comcast commercials. They drive me up the wall. It is completely horrible. It almost makes me want to get rid of my service.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTcol9UVkWs]

I’m totally pissed that U2 isn’t coming to Denver. What the hell? All day I’ve been blaming Pat Bowlen and the stupid Denver Broncos for somehow interfering because of the stadium use. But I really have no idea why they aren’t coming here. I’m bummed out to say the least. Chances are they will come in the summer of 2010, but that might not be soon enough for me. So I might go up to Vancouver and see them with my friends Amanda and Jeremy.

Changes around the house

My household is expanding a bit and it’s been a nice shift. No longer can I be completely lazy and messy. It’s also pushed me into making some changes around here, like relocating the cat box. This might not be permanent, but it’s shown me that I don’t have to live like a hermit. It’s not bad to have someone around the house again.

I started this post as my Project 365 post of the day and realized it was becoming kind of long and thought I would shift gears and make a real post out of it. So here goes…

I woke up this morning feeling utterly terrible and flu-ish. I didn’t think it was going to be possible to go into work, but then I remembered that today was the day that U2 released their album No Line On The Horizon, which I pre-ordered through iTunes. I had to go into work so I could get it onto my phone. So I pulled myself together and did just that. The funny thing is that I’m just now listening to it. How did I become so busy that I don’t have time to listen to an album all the way through? And I could have easily listened to a pirated copy weeks ago, but that just didn’t happen. How silly!

I truthfully don’t know a whole lot about this album, and that’s just weird. I guess my U2 obsession isn’t quite the obsession that it used to be. After all, I wasn’t waiting outside of Albums on the Hill last night for a midnight release. I’m not even sure Albums on the Hill is still open. I hope it is. It’s amazing how technology and instant gratification is so different these days. I could have downloaded it at 10 p.m. MST time last night but like I said earlier, needed to do it at work. Back in the day I would have devoured every interview, watched every appearance, you name it, but that just hasn’t happened this time around.

I have purchased another U2.com membership and that should be fruitful. And of course I plan on making it to their concert, whatever that might entail. I can’t wait to see what they come up with for that.

Anyway, as I listen to the tracks (I’ve heard the first five tracks a few times) and now finishing up the last tracks), I like it a lot. It’s actually the kind of U2 that I love. And that probably means that it won’t be wildly popular. It’s got the kind of sound that just gets me going. It reminds me of The Unforgettable Fire in some ways. Or maybe more like the B-sides to The Unforgettable Fire, especially “Magnificent”. That is CLASSIC U2!!! Now considering that I literally haven’t read anything nor have I watched anything about this album, I think it’s a love album. Maybe the love is for God. But there seems to be some traces of romantic love in there that has sort of gone by the wayside for U2. Perhaps I’m off, but I’m going to enjoy figuring it out.

I really like the sound. I know I’ve already said that, but I feel like it needs to be emphasized.

Anyway, I’m pleased that the fourth year has finally come around. U2 is so predictable. Every four years you get a release and then a big tour. They are like clock work. I love them for that. And now that I’m older and the years pass faster, it’s not so painful. If you knew me in 1997/98/99, you saw how frantic I was for a new album. That was the height of my obsession. It seemed like forever between POP and All That You Can’t Leave Behind.

So now I guess its time to immerse myself in it. Understand it, read about it, and dissect it like I always do. Find my meaning, find the meaningful lyric spots that will make me cry, and find myself with my band and see where we intersect.

But first, I think I’ll listen to it raw a few more times before my study begins.

I love that eyeliner. It's going to be a good year!