Senna

One of my Brazilian friends posted a trailer for this movie via YouTube on Facebook a few years ago, and I remember being really excited to go see it. As far as I know it never came out in a theater around me but I was excited to find it on Netflix. Meeker watched this one with me and he loved it. 

Spoiler Alert - I am going to talk about what happens in this documentary.. I don't feel bad because it's a biography.. but thought I would warn you in case you want to watch it blind.  

Senna  is "A documentary on Brazilian Formula One racing driver Ayrton Senna, who won the F1 world championship three times before his death at age 34."

Just to be clear, I have no interest in racing. The culture is weird to me, and I don't really get it. However, I was in Brazil in 1994 when Ayrton Senna died and it was an experience I will never forget. 

Ayrton Senna was a Brazilian Hero in the early 90s. Brazil had nothing going for them- a corrupt government, corrupt police system, an out of control economy (the currency changed 3 times during the 5 years I lived there).  Ayrton Senna was a light in a dark place.  

When he died in a tragic racing accident, the country completely lost it. Think Michael Jordan dying in the middle of a basketball game when he was at the peak of his career.

Brazilians do not suffer in silence. People wore all black for the whole week of his death. At my school, the teachers put a Black stripe across all the Brazilian flags on display. The flags were at half mast the whole week.  This wasn't just his family, or Formula 1 fans- it was the whole country. People were openly weeping about it. I remember watching the evening news and the newscaster started sobbing during the live broadcast just mentioning it.. and the camera just stayed on him because everyone else was weeping too. 

The Documentary does a great job telling Ayrton Senna's story and it actually makes Formula 1 driving interesting. Sorry if you didn't know he died. I remember telling Meeker something about him dying while we were watching it and he was like "HE DIES?!" I forgot that most Americans have no idea who he is. 

 (PS- Brazil recovered from its mourning a few months later as they won the World Cup '94!) 

Searching For Bobby Fischer

Warning. This is going to be a long story that doesn't really go anywhere.

Background 

My family lived in Brazil from 1991-1996 and we did most of our banking down there. My parents, being foreigners and not speaking the launguage and all, tried to open a savings account -did it incorrectly and lost some of the money the process (prob only like $200). 3 years later we found out that the money was never "lost" but put into some type of mutual fund and now had $800-ish. So my missionary parents did the only sensible thing that you can do when you get a surprise income. They bought a humongous TV! 

This TV was awesome and had the "SAP" feature (remember, this was in 1995, and we were in Brazil). Brazilian TV was all dubbed in Portuguese, but if you put it in SAP it would turn it to the original language, so we could watch all of the American shows in English! Well for some reason, when we put it on SAP, the shows would be in English, but all of the commercials would be in Spanish, not Portuguese.

One of the commercials on Brazilian cable would be for a movie called "Searching for Bobby Fischer". But the commercial was in Spanish, "En Busca de Bobby Fischer".. and I couldn't  understand what they were saying, so in my 13 year old head, this movie was a mystery movie about a child abduction. Bobby Fischer was a little boy who was kidnapped and his mother and father looked for him every where and couldn't find him and it destroyed their marriage. I was dying to see this movie. Where was Bobby Fischer?! Who took him? Did they ever find him? Maybe they found him when he was an adult, and the story had a happy ending? Who would kidnap a child!?  I probably saw this commercial a million times but the movie was never on when I was watching TV! Or it had already started or something and I wanted to watch the whole thing.. Well, the goal of watching this movie was pushed a side by my desire to be cool and hang out with high-schoolers while I was still 13, so I quickly forgot about this movie, and moved on with my life. 

Flash forward to 2013.

I am searching through Netflix and what do I find?! None other than "Searching for Bobby Fischer" I added into my insta-queue, where it was quickly passed over for bigger and better things. So when Meeker went out of town, I thought it would be the perfect movie to watch on a Saturday afternoon. So, I am watching, and watching... and no one's name is Bobby.. and no one is getting kidnapped.. and they keep playing chess.  and more chess...chess chess CHESS! about half-way through, I realize.. this movie has nothing to do with Kidnapping.. Turns out, Bobby Fischer is a famous chess player, and the movie is about "A prepubescent chess prodigy refuses to harden himself in order to become a champion like the famous but unlikable Bobby Fischer." (thank you IMDB ).. so yah..quite different from my original interpretation of the Spanish trailer.  I was a little disappointed. The actual story line was okay- a little long...I organized my kitchen while it was playing... 

But, Seriously.. how can you have a cover box like this and not be about getting kidnapped... 

Prologue to Netflix Blogs

My hubby and I decided not to pay for cable because we are trying to save some money (thanks Dave Ramsey- we are saving about $400 a year!), so we only have Hulu Plus and Netflix. We also rent from Amazon here and there- it's a bit more then Redbox, but we don't have to do any work - and to be honest, I usually end up paying like $5 for Redbox movies because I forgot to return them, and in most cases, don't watch them.

The second week of our marriage, we turned to Netflix to get us through the huge transition and procrastinate unpacking all of  my crap. As a result we watched 9 seasons of Law and Order in about 2 months (maybe 3). (RIP Lenny). There are still like 10 seasons out there that we have yet to watch, but they aren't on Netflix yet.. probably for the better...

In an attempt to fill our Law and Order void- we tried other things:

-SVU (no thank you..I can tolerate murder crimes but cannot tolerate sex crimes.)
- Freaks and Geeks! (awesome!)
-How I Met your Mother (good for me, but Meeker is not a huge fan)
-Myth-busters (good for Meeker, but I can only take so much)

Well, I started getting bored of TV shows, and decided to work my way thru my Instant Queue and I found the wonderful world of Netflix Documentaries! I can rarely convince Meeker to watch one with me so when he went out of town for a long weekend I watched probably 8... and it was magical!

So, that's how this started and I want other people to know about some cool and not cool things to watch on the Netflix.

Most of the movies/docs fall under these categories: Food, At-Risk Youth/Education, Sports (thank you ESPN films ), Biographies, and the rest are super random. We also found an "Oscar" genre on netflix so we may watch some older movies.

We decided not to watch TV/netflix/hulu etc during the week because as you see by the list above, we were spending wayyyy too much time watching TV and not doing things like budgeting, laundry, sleeping, talking, etc.. So we usually catch up on network shows on the weekends.. but I already have a lot to work with here.

And Another Thing...

Has anyone ever tried to Meal Plan? Because it's impossible. 

Every week since I have been married (5 months last week!) I have thought "next week, I am going to make a meal plan" and then I try and realize how hard it will be because these are the things it needs to have.

1200 calories for me (unless I start working out)
2000 calories for the meeker
dinners that can be turned into work lunches
foods that take less then 1 hour to make
meat (for meeker) that i can cook (so far, chicken and ground turkey)
and low on the dairy products and
nothing processed if possible.
Incorporates Juices and Smoothies...


and after reviewing all that i think "I don't have time to make a meal plan" .


-So I  just Google search "meal plans" and find a ton of really intricate meals that I would have to quit my job and devote my life to cooking and grocery shopping.
-So I Google search "meal plans for busy people" and I either find meals that feed a family of 5, or are full of casseroles, cheese, milk, and overly processed food.
-So I Google search "healthy meal plans" or "whole food meal plans" and run into the same issue as the first Google search.
-So I ordered Jillian Michael's cookbook with a meal plan for busy people, but it had a lot of processed food and or milk/dairy products or meat that I didn't know how to cook.
-So I then I asked a friend and they gave me a meal plan program sample (the basic 5 or something) meal plan for busy families but again, it's portion sizes are for 4 not 2.


So I think I am actually going to have to make one myself.  Which I probably could have done in the amount of time that it took me to Google search. Live and learn.

I actually found the Fit2Fat2Fit to be the best one to meet our needs if I tweak it a bunch and cook everything on Sunday, but may need to add calories to it for the hubby since its really low calorie and my big guy needs a lot more since he does all those boot camp workouts.. we shall see.

Other things I want to Blog about but probably won't get to

I have other things I would love to write about on here.

But who has the time!? Seriously, how do these Bloggers do it?

I feel like if I write the ideas down on the blog its like I am blogging about it. So here it goes.

1. Ode To Kroger - My love for the Kroger grocery store, their gas station, and their reward system.

2. Grocery Store Loyalty Dilemma - Despite my love for Kroger, I am thinking about switching to Trader Joes and Whole Foods and the Farmers Market because I can only shop in 1 aisle at Kroger because everything else is full of the evil ingredients. And Trader Joes is funny (have you seen the way they name things?!) Problem is that Whole Foods and Trader Joes are totally out of the way, the Farmers Market is only on Saturday and Kroger is across the street and open 24/7. (First World Problem Alert).

3. WORK STORIES! - I have the funniest job. People call in with the craziest problems and I want to document them! And Quote them ("I have bipolarism" "I feel smothercated")! And make fun of them! or feel sorry for them. But I can't because I will get fired and probably lose my license because it's in "poor taste" and controlled by "HIPPA" :-)

4. Co-worker stories- Again same problem. But come on, fake weddings, a luau party in Feb, the refrigerator thief, stomach wrap weight loss stories! It's like an episode of the office every day. I would feel horrible if they ever read this though, just like I would feel horrible if I read a blog that was making fun of me. So I will refrain!

5. Caller Email Address- people have the weirdest email addresses, and I write all of the funny ones down. I want to list them on here. The best are from stay-at-home moms that have some form of the word "patootie" in their handle. Again that "HIPPA" thing.. and my whole "license thing" and my "steady income thing"...

6. My Old Dating Stories- Not to brag or anything, but I think I have had some of the worst dates ever. Or weirdest, or creepiest, etc.. but again, I would feel really bad if one of the past dates ever read this.

That's all. I would say most of these would just be making fun of other people, which is cheap humor.. and not very creative (but super enjoyable to read). So I am not sure what that says about my heart. I may need to go examine why I have a desire to make fun of others so much (it's funny!). But I will harness my inner-bully and make my blog a nicey.

it's happening.

I have been wanting to blog lately but I haven't really had anything to write about.. (except transitioning into marriage... but that's so 2012!).


I was going to blog about our Juice Fast (which was inspired by Fat Sick and Nearly Dead) but it only lasted 2 1/2 days and ended with a meal at Cheese Cake Factory--So I didn't think that would be too inspiring.


I also thought about blogging about me trying to learn how to cook but also thought that would be too Julia + Julie movie (what was that called?).. but I know what I am going to write about now:

NETFLIX DOCUMENTARIES!


yah. that's actually the real thing I am going to blog about not a joke. I have watched probably a million (14) in the last month and I want to document them so I don't forget what I learned. And so I can recommend them to other people (Kimi).


So that's whats happening but I'm probably not going to get around to it until Saturday. Get excited.

No TV day 2-23

Okay, so obviously, blogging my progress has not been a priority!!!

Mainly because I always forget the password to get into this site....

Anyways,

No TV is AWESOME! Things are going really well. Meeker and I decided to go the rest of the summer without TV.

I think the first week was the hardest of them all, after that, I didn't really notice it...


Some memorable moments...
1. On day 2 Meeker was so bored that he went to bed at 8:30pm.
2. Memorial Day - Meeker came over and we were bored- he didn't bring a bathing suit so we couldn't go to the pool, so normally we would have just watched TV. Instead, we set up a table outside and played 90s trivial pursuit and drank lemonade and listened to pandora stations! it was sooo fun!

Reflections
-Initially, I think I just found other ways to waste time instead of actually being productive- doing a puzzle, reading harry potter, and listening to every episode of This American Life via podcast... but all of those things were a little more stimulating then sitting on the couch..
-I really do not miss TV that much. There are some days that I want to just come home and zone out, usually on stressful days or when I feel overwhelmed. I didn't realize how much I was using TV to cope with stress..
-Not watching tv has also helped me reconnect with friends- I think I made TV a "friend" because if Meeker couldn't hang out I would just catch up on the DVR or watch netflix instead of engaging with other people...
-I realize now how lazy TV makes me- physically, emotionally, and spiritually.


anyway, I wanted to update my list of things I wanted to accomplish

These are the things I wish to accomplish
1. stay on top of my paperwork (not as good as I had hoped, but def moving in the right direction)
2. keep my desk organized at home (nope!)
3. Read Harry Potter 2 (yes, and I am now on book 4!)
4. finish the puzzle on my desk (almost)
5. finalize my budget (no)
6. clear out my email (yes)
7. talk to more friends on the phone (yes)
8. do a bible study with my mom. (not yet)
9. Read "on death and dying" (i think i want to work for hospice). (1/2 way)

I start volunteering for hospice soon! yaya

okay, that is all for now.. .i hope i post more.. i definitely have time!