Marvel-ous

Sometimes I get the desire to blog but don't have an immediate idea of what to talk about. Now would be one of those times. However, in looking at what I've posted previously, I think I'll discuss the end of the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe). I will try very hard to keep what I say spoiler free as I know it can be hard to see movies right when they come out, even if you really really want to.
Before I tackle Endgame, I want to talk about Captain Marvel. I went into the theater expecting to like it, but I purposely tried not to learn too much about it beforehand. I've learned that doing this can really ruin your experience with a movie, so I now try to go into them knowing very little. Take my experience with Crimson Peak a few years ago. It was marketed as a horror movie, so that's what I expected and wanted to see. It is not a horror movie at all. Tom Hiddleston was right in saying it's a love story that happens to have ghosts. If I hadn't gone into it expecting something so different from what it was, I may not have been so disappointed. I won't wait any longer to say I. LOVED. IT. Captain Marvel gave me hope. Call me overdramatic or stupid, it did. Brie Larson, who plays Carol, summed up my feelings exactly here:

Those are the things that I learned too. It was so refreshing to see issues that women face daily being tackled on the big screen, like being told to smile, or to prove ourselves to men. It's really difficult to put words into how this movie made me feel, but suffice it to say that I was not prepared for it!! But Carol is my new favorite and I don't see that changing. (Even with her terrible hair in Endgame. I know that's how it is in the comics but I still hate it.)
Now....on to Endgame. Dun dun DUUUNNNNN!!! Hahaha, couldn't stop myself. It's crazy to think that this journey we've been on with these characters for 10-some odd years is now complete. I say complete instead of over, because I feel it wrapped everything up really well and didn't leave anything lacking. Others disagree with me, I'm sure, but this is my blog so I'm going to write my opinions. I've seen Endgame twice, and it's much better the second time around. The first time is (at least for me) so stressful because you don't know what's going to happen to who. The second time you can just relax and enjoy how well everything comes together. I cried tears of joy and sorrow. I know I'm not alone in that, so I feel less dumb admitting it. Again I'm finding it hard to explain how I feel about it. One thing that resonated with me that I will attempt to mention without spoilers is the concept of being worthy. Someone who thought they had lost their worthiness and value because of failing with Thanos was proven wrong. I really enjoyed that, as I've been struggling with my own worth for a while now. So lately Marvel has knocked it out of the park for me. For a lot of this time, I enjoyed the movies and the stories of the heroes, but I never really got the full of effect of what they can do for some people. But I get it now. And for that I am incredibly grateful to Stan Lee and Marvel and all those who have been involved in this universe.

When there's no more room in hell, the dead shall walk the earth

I did it!!! I finally finished going through my list of classic horror movies!! It took longer than intended, but isn't that how everything in life goes? Since I've already talked about some trends I've noticed in the movies, I'm just going to touch on a few that stand out.

Psycho

Norman Bates is one of the best creeps, psychos (ha!), oddballs, whatever you want to call him that I have seen in a long time. (I know this movie came out in the 60s, I'm just saying.) I loved to watch his twisted, subtly building creepiness. So, so good.  This was a highly entertaining slow burn that I could make a tradition of watching every Halloween. Will I? I don't know, that idea truly just came to me as I'm typing.

A Nightmare on Elm Street

I don't even know where to start with this movie. I freaking LOVE it. It made me laugh out loud due to some cheesiness, but also has some genuinely creepy concepts. Robert Englund is amazing as Freddy. Wes Craven is the king of horror, not John Carpenter. Sorry, not sorry. I've even watched almost all the sequels because I love Freddy that much. 

Evil Dead

Ah, the cult classic. I had major gaps in my knowledge. And I have some questions now. Why is Ash's iconic chainsaw hand not present until roughly 3/4 of the way into Evil Dead 2?! And was it intentionally as terrible as it is? Don't get me wrong, I didn't hate it. But I somehow had no idea that it was so bad. Also...the laughing deer head in Evil Dead 2?...and people think I'm crazy for my fear of taxidermy. That thing gave me ALL THE NOPES. Also, Norman Bates and his birds? I AM NOT INSANE. TAXIDERMY IS USED IN HORROR BECAUSE IT'S CREEPY AF. Ahem.

The Babadook

 This movie...I still don't even totally know what to say about it. It's hard to watch at times because of how the mom treats her son. It isn't as in your face scary as most movies, it's definitely more psychological. Normally I like this, but the ending kind of ruined the movie for me. I won't spoil it, and I'm not angry I watched it, but I feel like it's in a league of its own. If you want to watch it, I definitely think you should, but it's very difficult to describe.

Silence of the Lambs

 I love the character Hannibal Lecter. There, I said it. He's deliciously evil. Anthony Hopkins' and Mads Mikkelsen's portrayals really can't be compared. They're both great for their own reasons and I loved seeing this one since I watched the tv show first. I definitely plan to watch the other movies in this series.

Rosemary's Baby

This one made me truly uncomfortable. Maybe it's because what I've been through with pregnancies, but I do not recommend it. It wasn't the fun kind of uncomfortable or scary and I truly felt awful for Rosemary. Honestly, this one gave me worse feelings than The Exorcist.

Child's Play

I didn't think I'd like this movie as much as I did. All the craziness at the end won me over with this one, although I don't plan on watching the sequels. I guess it illustrates how much the ending of a movie really can make it or break it.

Some final thoughts-Hollywood tends to ruin Stephen King's concepts. Carrie was terrible and The Shining could have been much better. I am very grateful that George A. Romero started the zombie craze and I enjoyed seeing where that whole genre started. And The Exorcist...yes, I watched it and didn't feel it was scary. I really felt like a lot of what was done was done for pure shock value and so it fell flat for me. I also didn't realize how much of Dracula was just Bela Lugosi staring at the camera. And he had armadillos! I read somewhere that the reason they used armadillos was because at the time, they weren't a widely known creature so people would think they were more otherworldly. How funny is that?! It's been really fun to see the origins of some things and fill the gaps in my horror knowledge.

A tale of two pies

For Thanksgiving this year, I was asked to make two pies. Guys...I'm finally arriving as someone who is good at making pies! I wasn't overwhelmed by this, in fact I was excited. The recipes I settled on can be found through these links: triple berry and salted caramel apple. Last Christmas (I think, it all tends to blur together) I asked for some pie crust cutters to make cute shapes with the crust. So my plan was to use a leaf for the triple berry and an apple for the salted caramel apple pie. I've mastered lattice tops, they're really not as difficult as everyone seems to think they are. Remember weaving paper strips in elementary school art? It's the exact same thing. Easy, I promise. Anyway, I wanted to try something different.
I made the triple berry first. The recipe calls for cooking the berries down with sugar and such, and the mixture was still quite liquidy when I poured it into the bottom crust. I briefly considered placing a few large braids for the top crust instead, but then I thought cutting out leaves would be easier and I should stick with what's easy. I folded the crust in half to make placing it on top of the pie easier. Aaand the filling spilled out of some of the cut outs and ruined their shape. I maintain it was the ugliest pie I have made yet. On the plus side, though, the filling did hold together when it was time to slice and serve. It was a good, simple berry pie, just not the pretty one I had in mind.

Now on to the salted caramel apple. Normally I like to make pies the night before I need them to decrease the stress. But this one I tried to make the morning of Thanksgiving for dinner later that day. I made the salted caramel sauce about a week in advance, again to decrease stress. I got the top crust on and it was dang adorable and I was feeling super proud of myself. But then I realized I forgot to pour the sauce over the apples before adding the crust. No biggie, I thought, we'll just pour the sauce over top when we eat it and stuck it in the oven. Then I sat down for a few minutes and realized...I ALSO FORGOT THE DAMN SUGAR. At this point, I completely melted down. Crying in the kitchen Thanksgiving morning over pie. In my pajamas. Ryan convinced me we had time to make another pie, including pie crust. So we zipped over to Walmart to get more apples and crust ingredients. In our pajamas. I then made new crusts, praying they would be as good as the others. While the crusts chilled in the fridge, I got myself ready for the day. Then I remade the whole dang pie. Making sure to include the sugar and the salted caramel sauce.

I had a Clark Griswold type moment when it was in the oven and I realized it was going to turn out in time for dinner and still be cute. (You know the scene at the end of Christmas Vacation where he's thinking "I did it" after everything went wrong? I felt like that.) And I have to say, that pie is the best pie I have ever made. It's amazing. I highly recommend trying it. Don't let my stupidity deter you. This Thanksgiving I made the ugliest and cutest pies yet, and I'm just going to keep getting better.

They're coming to get you, Barbara...

Probably about a year ago now, I decided I wanted to watch all the iconic horror movies. Not necessarily the scariest, as that is totally subjective, but the iconic ones. The ones everyone has seen, or at the very least heard of. For weeks I looked for a cumulative list online only to be disappointed. All the lists I found were pretty subjective and tended to deal more with "scariest" or "best of all time" or "guaranteed to give you nightmares!".  (eyeroll) Again, not really what I was looking for. Not even the American Film Institute has a list. So, after much searching I decided I would make my own list combining elements from the ones I had read as I did notice many of the same films appearing over and over again. I also wanted to watch the originals of things that have been remade or have several films in a series. I wanted to see where it all started. Ultimately I ended up with 25 titles because that felt like a good, even number.
Why did I make this list? Purely for fun and the fact that I love Halloween. I wouldn't consider myself a horror junkie or anything like that, there are some films I have no desire to see and they are not on my list. I simply was and am really curious about why these specific films have gained such notoriety and still loved by many today. I'm about 3/4 of the way through my list, and I have noticed some trends. And since I felt like blogging and have been on a Halloween kick lately, I'm going to discuss them now, rather than when I am completely finished as I had originally planned.

• The vast majority of the iconic horror films came out in the 1970s and 1980s. The power four villains from Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, for starters. Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, and Leatherface for those not familiar with horror-I find people often know the characters but not necessarily the movies they are from. (Myself included, it took me forever to remember which movies Jason is in when I was making my list.)     

• Horror movies used to show the audience a lot less. Granted, the birth of the slasher genre kind of kills this point (see what I did there?), but still. Directors relied so much more on the fear of the unknown and unseen. Personally, I LOVE this concept. I don't want to see victims literally being chopped up multiple times...I'll pass on that one. There needs to be a balance of seeing the scary and being left to imagine the scary on your own. This I think is where so many recent horror films fail-they show too much. This leads me into my next point...
• The majority of recent horror movies are forgettable. Fight me. I think the most recent one I watched came out in 2012 and I hesitantly put it on my list because I saw it on several others and was intrigued by the idea of a more psychological horror. I'm talking about The Babadook, and will discuss that one more in depth when I do a sort of review post after finishing up my list. It is a very different one and I still can't totally decide how I feel about it even though it was one of the movies I watched first. 
• There are some films that while iconic, I have no desire to see. These include Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Saw. I just don't like the idea of watching people be tortured in extremely grotesque manners for 90ish minutes. Personally, I'm okay with having these gaps in my knowledge because I know I wouldn't like them and they'd leave a bad taste in my mouth. In my mind, horror should be fun. It's fun to get scared. I love me a good villain, but I do have my limits. 
• My last point is basically going to reiterate what I just said. Scary movies are meant to be fun! People go to haunted houses and watch these movies because it's fun. So if there's a movie that you think would be too much for whatever reason, there's nothing saying you have to watch it! So far, my favorite hands down is Nightmare on Elm Street. Both because I found it to be hilarious in some of its dated-ness, but also because it was truly enjoyable. 
• Aaaand...one last thing: how scary something is will always be subjective. Certain movies it seems everyone thinks are scary I personally don't, and vice versa. I only know of one movie that seems to be heralded as universally the scariest of all time and that is The Exorcist. Is it on my list? Yes. Will I watch it? ...Honestly, I don't know. While I am extremely curious to see why this movie has this reputation, I just don't know if I can do it. Every time I think I could, I change my mind. It's never felt like a good idea, so I really can't say if I'll end up watching it or not.

Lastly, if you are interested, here is my list:

(Keep in mind I am watching originals, not remakes. They are in no particular order)

Psycho

The Exorcist

Nightmare on Elm Street

Halloween

Blair Witch Project

Poltergeist

Evil Dead

Alien

An American Werewolf in London

The Babadook

Carrie

It

Cabin in the Woods 

Night of the Living Dead

Dracula

The Thing

Silence of the Lambs

Nosferatu

The Fly

The Sixth Sense

Dawn of the Dead

Friday the 13th

Rosemary's Baby

Suspiria

The Shining

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Hellraiser

Child's Play

Security blanket

I'm going to get a little geeky for a bit, here. I'm going to talk about something regarding Avengers: Infinity War and I will do my best not to spoil anything.

Universe and Thanos, please forgive me: some characters die in this movie. I'm not going to say who, or how, or when, just that it happens. If that is a spoiler, I'm terribly sorry. However, you REALLY shouldn't be surprised by this given the premise of Infinity War. Just saying.

Anyway, now I'll get to my point. Thanos is the most powerful foe the Avengers have ever fought. He's responsible for Loki sending these to destroy New York in the very first Avengers movie:

Thanos has also been working to gather all six infinity stones to become even more powerful. So, an incredibly powerful being adding to his powers leads to an adversary that is not easily overpowered. Or even overpowered with extreme difficulty. So, when he comes head to head with our heroes, the security blanket of knowing the good guys will always prevail is taken away. I found myself saying "oh no" under my breath countless times watching this movie, because you no longer have that assurance that everything will be okay because they're the good guys. That's the basic idea behind superheroes, right? They fight the bad guys to keep the world safe and they always win because they are motivated by good. You can always count on them because you know they will risk themselves to protect you, but ultimately still win because, well, they're superheroes. You can sit back and watch the thrilling climax of a Spiderman or Thor movie and know that your favorite is going to come out alright because that's how it works with superheroes.

Not with Infinity War. This is the first half of the giant battle they've been building up to for some ten odd years with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And, many people have pointed out that the contracts are expiring for some of the actors. So therefore, it makes unfortunate sense that some of our beloveds might have to die. I'm not saying I like it, that's just how it is. Infinity War took away our security blanket of knowing our favorite characters are going to prevail in epic ways, and I think that's why some people are reacting so negatively to this movie. No one wants to see their hero fail. The question when things reach their absolute worst in all other Marvel movies isn't "will they survive?" it's "how are they going to beat this?" Again, Infinity War doesn't give us that second question...it's now the first. And that can be hard to deal with. That's really the gist of my little theory about some of the negative reactions to Infinity War. Nothing super profound, but it's been on my mind lately and before I have to write about a case study involving someone who is addicted to meth, I wanted to write something fun.


...Also, related to almost nothing here, but during this scene in Infinity War, I couldn't help thinking DAMN Chris Evans has perfect teeth. (Unfortunately this angle doesn't help in proving my point...sigh. There is a better shot in the movie, I promise I'm not that crazy.)

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Heartbreak beat

I've been wanting to post for a couple weeks now, but have just been too busy with school to be able to. Until today! I wanted to talk about my experience in Chicago and the big challenge I've given myself for this year.
As I mentioned before, I went to Chicago for a week for part of my masters degree in February. First of all, getting there was an absolute nightmare. I'd never flown completely by myself. Even when I went to Europe without my family in high school, I was still with a huge group of students led by my best friend's dad. Anyway, my plan was to fly in the night before the day we needed to check in with the school. So Husband took me to the airport and walked me up to the counter to check my bag since I was freaking out a bit. While in line to check my bag, I saw those flight status screens said my flight was cancelled. I thought that couldn't be right since I hadn't received any notification of this. So we went up to the counter and tried to get my boarding pass to scan, but it wouldn't. We asked the worker for help and he informed us that yes, my flight had been cancelled. The earliest he could get me to Chicago was Saturday, the day after I was supposed to check in. Chicago was being hit by epic snowstorms and according to him, Midway airport was completely closed. (Side note: this is exactly why I didn't want to go to stupid Chicago in February! S-N-O-W.) So, we asked him for a refund and went to try another airline to see if they could get me there Friday. Luckily, another airline was able to put me on the first flight the next morning to O'Hare.
The next morning, we tried again. I was already frustrated and feeling pretty drained. Throughout the night and morning, we checked the status of this flight to make sure it hadn't been cancelled or delayed. Things were looking good, so I got to the airport the requisite two hours early. I got through security super fast and settled in at my gate. Then the delays started. First my gate changed with a delay, then another delay, then another. All in all, I was waiting at the airport for SIX HOURS before I got to take off. Once I got to Chicago, things were fairly smooth. I took Lyft to the hotel and got myself all checked in with the hotel and school.
Then, Saturday morning, residency officially began. I won't go through the activities day by day, but I will say that I hit the jackpot with our professor and her doctoral student aide. There were both super helpful and knowledgable. Our professor has a background in things that I am interested in, and she also taught us about a bunch of different counseling techniques we could try. It became very apparent how much of a blessing this was when we switched cohorts with some students of a different professor. This other professor's students were very robotic and it was frustrating acting as their clients. When we were counseling her students, she told us we were doing things she told her students not to do, and was pretty abrasive in her delivery. It was clear that her approach was "my way or the highway" and I am SO GRATEFUL I wasn't in her cohort because we would have butted heads. Hard. Role playing as counselor and client for 5 1/2 days straight was a bit exhausting, but I learned so much and grew much more than I could have anticipated. By the end of those 5 1/2 days, our cohort felt more like a little family. I already miss the experience and being able to be surrounded with amazing people who share similar worldviews and values. Everyone was so supportive of each other, including our professor. It was clear very early how much she wanted us to succeed.

We took this picture at the end of our last day, and I already miss everyone so much!! I suppose that's the very quick overview of my experience in Chicago. It's hard to try to adequately explain it and try to condense everything into a blog post. So if you're still reading, thank you!

And now that leads me to the big challenge I've set for myself this year that I mentioned at the beginning of this post. It came to me as I was reflecting about all the things I did within that week that I never thought I could. I already flew by myself and stayed away from home for a week by myself. I'm about a year into a graduate school program. So throughout this year, I want to do things that I never thought I could. I'm not sure exactly what those things are, or how many things that will be, but that's my challenge for myself for 2018. And as I do these things, I will try to post about them.          

Radio gaga

Wow.
I only blogged five times last year...yeesh. That is really sad. 2017 was overall a pretty standard year. There were hard times and good times, crazy busy times, and fun vacation times. I know I keep saying it, but I really do want to try to be better about this. My recipe blog is still on hiatus while I'm in grad school, so I apologize to anyone who's been missing my recipe antics. I did successfully make my first homemade pie crust for Thanksgiving. You can find the recipe I used here.
My first year of grad school has been an interesting adventure, and it still doesn't seem real in some ways. Next month I'll be going to Chicago for a week for what they refer to as a residency to basically practice the techniques I've been learning on my classmates. That thought makes the whole thing seem a lot more real, which freaks me out a bit. I really am not looking forward to going to Chicago in the dead of winter. It is going to be FREEZING. But oh well, it's happening whether I like it or not.
I was able to overcome some struggles in 2017 that I'm kind of proud of myself about. For example, my last post involved my progress in being able to handle being around taxidermy. I also worked through a lot of my negative feelings about my experiences trying to have kids. While I still have my bad days, I definitely feel like I've come a long way. As trivial as it may seem, I was also able to overcome my dislike of my naturally curly hair and embrace it. Screw straight perfection.
For whatever reason, last spring I also kept getting a nagging feeling that I should find a dentist. Up until that point, I hadn't been in about 5 years, as I got married and developed a pretty severe fear of dental needles thanks to a really bad filling experience around the time I graduated. Spoiler alert: I fainted. And hit my head on the corner of the wall behind me. (Fun fact, I still have a scar on the back of my head where I hit.)

Fast forward to not having gone in 5 years and knowing no one out here, I had to try to do some research. I didn't want to simply pick a random dentist who took our insurance-I wanted to attempt to find one who handles basket cases like me well. This proved to be somewhat difficult, as most of my search results brought up sedation dentistry, which in my mind only masks the problem. I don't want to have to be completely sedated for a filling or root canal. However, I know there are those people out there who do need it, and who even need it just to make it through a cleaning. No judgment here, we all have our struggles. 

Anyway, after a bit of searching, I finally settled on one I felt good about and made an appointment. And guess what? I needed two fillings. 😫 So, scared out of my dang mind, I came back a week or so later for said fillings. As a kid, my dentist didn't offer nitrous for some reason, so I had no experience with it and the idea of having nitrous also scared me because I had heard it makes you feel lightheaded and sometimes nauseous. I HATE those feelings because I generally associate them with fainting. So all around, I felt like this was a lose lose situation. Cry from fear without nitrous vs. feel like I'm going to faint and want to cry for an hour-ish. But...you can probably guess where this story is going, since I started it in reference to things I've overcome in 2017. I did end up using the nitrous, but it really didn't seem to make me feel much different. I certainly didn't feel high or anything, like some people claimed I would. I was still scared, but was able to manage. As I first walked into the room, I saw the novocaine needle set out for me and truly wanted to sob. But damn, you guys...this dentist is a freaking saint. He knew I was freaked out, didn't judge me one bit, was patient with me, and for reals...I didn't feel the injections AT ALL. That has never happened to me before. He was that good. So, while I can't exactly say my fear is 100% gone, I do know I trust this dentist 100%, and that I can survive if or when I need another procedure. That in and of itself is a huge accomplishment for me. 

I don't really have any things I want to overcome in 2018, as these things just tend to happen as life goes along. But there's my positive little story for the day, and I hope to be back here posting soon.