Music Obsessions: Valentine’s Day Special!

Happy Sunday, my lovelies!

We’re almost in the full swing of Valentine’s Day over here! I know its hard to accept it since tonight is all about Superbowl (if that’s your thing).  Well, we will be doing that while celebrating Chinese New Year’s Eve! Regardless, its pretty much in full swing this week.  I always try to keep it a little not all about romance, hence the beer chicken on Friday and some Oscar Best Picture reviews (if I manage to get it all watched).

However, romance is a big part in songs nowadays so let’s take a look at few.

Don’t Mess With My Girl – Jon McLaughlin

Stand By You/Stand By Me (Mashup) – Sam Tsui & Casey Breves

Save My Soul – Corey Gray

One Call Away – Charlie Puth (Cover by Mitchell Rose & Kurt Hugo Schneider)

Every Breath You Take (Deep Chills Remix) – The Police

Mashups, covers, remixes and originals: I think I got it all covered this time around! We’re back to regular Music Obsessions next month with some songs I’ve been obsessing over right now! I don’t see them leaving my mind or my playlist any time soon!

Hope you enjoyed! 

My Weekly Adventures: Crazy Overtime & Announcement!

Wow! I’m finally sitting down and writing an actual post at my computer at home.  You know what? I haven’t done that in quite a while.

Work has been killing me.  Just to give you an idea.  My huge work deadline is tomorrow and it has been a ridiculous week with extended work days and I went in this weekend. I actually just got back. Regardless, that doesn’t matter.  I think things will work out 😉

With all that said, it might be the event of the last two weeks so with a serious case of winter blues that was the week before that, I don’t really have a lot of stuff backlogged which means next week looks incredibly empty.  Haha! I guess stressed out days reminds me that I really love blogging and writing and just reading everything.

With that said, we’re keeping this Weekly Adventures short!

First, a song because the title says it all!

After that, a song that made me so happy because its so adorable and awesome all at the same time!

Finally! In the middle of next week, we’re going to kick off the Valentine’s marathon!

I have some pretty awesome movies lined up! First of all, you’ll be seeing me move along with the last two Nicholas Spark’s movie, The Best of Me and The Longest Ride. A year or two ago, I embarked on a “torture” fest (which turned out better than I expected) to watch all the Nicholas Sparks.  Let’s face it, the adaptations won’t ending any time soon so it will always be a work in progress. And before you ask: No, I’m not going to see The Choice in theatres.  I’m totally not feeling it for the trailer so maybe I’ll just skip that one completely.  Or wait till it lands on Netflix. Netflix A-Z will also be romance/rom-com heavier.

However, it won’t be just movies so don’t worry about it! I’m deciding on what to do as Valentine baking projects and I still have Pinocchio themed baking to do.  And of course, there’s also some unboxing to go up.  This time, its not my scheduling problem.  I just haven’t received it yet.

That’s really it for this time! Short and sweet!  Its not much of an adventure but you know, real life just takes over sometimes 😉
I’m off to go prepare for next week and maybe take a nap to recuperate or play some games to relax!

P.S. one more song as bonus because I’m so happy that The 100 Season 3 started and Netflix has it updated weekly! Episode 1 was so awesome!

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!! 🙂

Valentine Marathon: Sense and Sensibility (1995)

We’ve come to the final movie of the Valentine’s Marathon. My schedule has been sporadic and I even skipped a fun post yesterday but I’m taking this as a Valentine’s weekend of sorts so I might have a morphed up mash-up post later on today.  The problem is that I have a million ideas and I can’t do it without bombarding you with posts and I don’t like to do that. Regardless, lets get this last one done!

I had to make some serious decisions about this one.  On one hand, I wanted to see a few Netflix choices but I also received my package of Amazon a few days ago.  I finished Sense and Sensibility (the book) a few days ago and I just had to get the movie and it came in a timely fashion.  I also ordered another movie recommended to me for this marathon which I promise to watch soon but I just couldn’t resist the urge to wrap up this marathon with Sense and Sensibility.

Let’s check it out! 🙂

SENSE AND SENSIBILITY (1995)

Director: Ang Lee

Cast: Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant, Greg Wise, Alan Rickman, Imelda Staunton, Hugh Laurie

When their rich father Mr. Dashwood dies, he leaves his fortune to his son while making him promise to treat his three half-sister in his second marriage well and help in whatever way they could.  However, under his wife’s influence, he ends up leaving them with close to nothing.  The two eldest daughters, Elinor and Marianne, are at the age of marriage and its then despite the opposite personality, one emotionally reserved ruled by sense while the other full of romantic sensibility respectively, they find their love and fall into similar fates.

Sense and Sensibility is a wonderful adaptation of the novel.  If anything, because I didn’t enjoy Sense and Sensibility as much as Jane Austen’s later novels (that I’ve read), I may actually have enjoyed the movie more.  There is no shame in admitting that especially when its full of a talented cast.  Last year, on Valentine’s Day, in a mish-mash post, I confessed that I have a massive girl crush on Kate Winslet and she is extremely darling in this one.  I watch a little less of Emma Thompson normally but I love everything that she does.  She fully immerses herself in a role and just owns it every single time.  Both of them as Marianne and Elinor respectively are fantastic.  What I really do love most about these movies is the music: so elegant, beautiful, sweet.  And I don’t even think it has to do with the fact that I love piano music because thats the instrument I play 🙂

You know how sometimes adaptation have this really ridiculous casting choices and you can’t even picture that person you read on those beautiful pages as this person on the big screen? Its not the case here. I agreed with the choice of Marianne and Elinor, as I mentioned above.  The moment Greg Wise (who I know nothing about) popped on the screen as Willoughby, I was completely convinced. This guy who bashes in Marianne’s affection and attention but shows no restraint to his emotions even if he can’t really be the one.  He is charming and handsome and his character is kind of sad in the end.  Although they cut out the scene I thought was pretty important between Willoughby and Elinor, they did a fabulous job of putting to life is character.

Willoughby would not be as charming if we didn’t have the contrast of Colonel Brandon, same as Marianne to Elinor.  Alan Rickman is the perfect perfect person to play this role.  He can pull off that really unromantic person with hidden emotions but still kind of show his intentions in this quiet subtle way.  Thats the power of Alan Rickman because he is just so talented.  Honestly, Colonel Brandon is one of those characters who I love a lot in Sense and Sensibility.  He just deserves everything he desires because he’s such an honorable man, probably the most honorable in the story.

I kind of feel bad that I only took one paragraph to talk about the ladies while taking three to talk about the men.  Hugh Grant takes on Edward Ferrars, which is a role with rather little on screen time but has such an important role.  He literally has 3 actual phases in the story and its the same as the book in that sense.  Sure he’s sprinkled and we hear about whats going on.  There is no doubt that Hugh Grant was a great choice for Edward Ferrars and he really does a good job.  I mean, that ending scene with Marianne really defines his character a lot.  I read the book so I know what he does.

I love this adaptation of Sense and Sensibility.  I actually think reading Austen before I watch it, made me appreciate this more even if I believe I ended up enjoying my movie experience a little more.  Still, because it was so fresh in my mind, the dialogue is really true to the book and thats also something I appreciate.  With an incredible cast, Sense and Sensibility is a brilliant watch bringing Jane Austen’s characters to life one by one.  That is no small feat but Ang Lee does it and the cast themselves as well 🙂 I highly recommend this one!

Have you seen or read Sense and Sensibility? What are your thoughts?

Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone!

Remember, I have a finale post coming up later today (or tonight since I’m out of town for a day trip)!

Valentine’s and Being Thankful for Life’s Sweet and Bitter!

I’m writing this super late than usual and well, its mostly because its been quite a busy day and I slept early because I got hit with this weird mild stomach flu bug or something, but now I’m helplessly awake and unable to go back to bed.

Either way, it doesn’t change that I did know what I wanted to write today.

Honestly, this has been one of the best Valentine’s Day in my life.  Its not that anything big happened but somehow I realized this even more than anything.

Its been a crazy month and a half at work and I’m happy that it should slow down (hopefully) a little and I’ll be able to manage my time a bit better than I have for the whole start of 2014 till now.  Maybe it seems like things are going on schedule but believe me, its been quite hectic to get material onto the site and its made reading up on all of your wonderful blogs so much harder.  I’m working on it though.  🙂 I’m late but never not there!

First of all, Valentine’s to me is not just about love as in love with my boyfriend but just sharing time with the ones that mean the most to us.  My boyfriend had to work that night while I work the day so we didn’t have many celebrations and I ended up going out to run errands with one of my really good friends. Which comes to the point that this post as to what revelations I had on Valentine’s instead of recapping my boring week.

It started with a little fun bit of picking up something from this place that I’ve always wanted to try out called Cafe Ceramic. Its where you can choose a piece of things you want to paint from their collection and you sit down and do it, then they bake it for you and you go back to pick it up for a certain hourly rate or whatnot.  I’m not sure how it works exactly but it looks crazy cool and I’m planning on doing that even with my limited artistic skills 😉 While I was waiting for my friend and taking a washroom break, the bathroom had these cute pictures on top of the faucet.

Cute, right? After going to check out a few things around that area, we went back to dinner at Five Guys Hamburger joint.

Simple meal but a good evening with good company sometimes is just so fulfilling.

I didn’t expect to go out late at all but when I got home, I received snail mail from one of my awesome high school friends who also happen to be my travel buddy in the form of a Valentine’s Day card and also, a surprise bouquet of red roses from my boyfriend.  I’m not a girl that asks for anything on Valentine’s but little gestures still make me happy.

This part is where life is sweet and I celebrated and as always, am so thankful for these fabulous people in my life.  Valentine’s Day could not rock more than that.

**Its a good time to say that as positive as the outcome of the below section is I’m slightly rambling and just discussing some deeper feelings.  If you don’t want to read about it, I completely understand and you can scroll down for the ending**

With that quote on the top, you know something else will happen, right? Actually, its not a bad thing because its true.  I had a really huge revelation that suddenly became really clear to me.  Its actually a few things but that one little trigger made me remember that sometimes, it is time to let go, move forward and grow.  It has to do with my friends and something they said that was honestly quite hurtful but I don’t think they realized it.  But its at that moment I realized this…

I’m not perfect and I’m so far from it.  I give second chances, third chances and even more than that if I see that its really worth it but at a certain point, yesterday, I realized that as much as I want to keep being friends with someone who utters hurtful things without knowing it  and especially when they are drunk and I let it slide, I’ve also come to realize that its time to let go because it is toxic.  I’ve become that person that this particular friend will go to when they are only a depressed and drunk and when they are happy (and probably drunk also), well, they just say these ridiculous things that probably means they don’t really care.  I guess it also means that my best thing is to know they are happy when I don’t hear from them. Thinking about that reminds me of a post I wrote back in the first year about two types of friends: drains and radiators.  There was a time in my life this person was a radiator but things change and it just becomes painful and hurtful to keep them in my life right now.  Maybe its time to slowly back away…I’m just one of those people who don’t want to ever give up on anything or anyone but I don’t know anymore. Do I sound mean or overly sensitive? I’m really just protecting myself at this point.  There are a lot of people that probably deserve my time more than shedding only their ugly baggage on me, like people who not only confide in me with their sad thoughts (which really doesn’t bother me because I’m flattered that they trust me) but respect me enough to also share with me their happy thoughts because they want to share their joy with me also. Is what I’m doing wrong? Its really been bothering me a lot and kind of still is…in time, I’ll figure that out.

**resume here if you skipped**

However, this has a positive turn to it because other than that revelation being slightly troublesome, this week and especially that event has inspired me to really look into branching out with a new blog solely for some (amateur) writing.  Its not something new.  I’ve been thinking about it near the end of 2013 when I started feeling like this particular space covers way too many things and you can see that I’m slowly shedding things off year by year until I find the perfect balance. I’m still thinking if thats a good idea but I’m feeling very inspired to do it…the only thing missing is a title for a new blog.  If I think of a good one, well, maybe you will see the birth of something new.  Just maybe 😉  Actually, once I find a good wording for a tagline that a fellow blogger inspired (and he should know who he is if he reads this), I’ll be also adding that on.

Honestly, I’m gearing up for some possible career changes and I don’t think I would’ve found the inspiration if that whole above thing didn’t happen.  Its one thing to be remove toxic people but there are also times when life just moves on and I think its time for me to do just that.  Its time to start setting up a game plan and doing what needs to be done and giving what I want to do a fair shot 🙂  See, I told you there would be more positive than negative.  There always is with me!

I wanted to write  a bit more but you know what? This was a heavy post and with my still somewhat sickly health, I will try to get some more sleep.  But you know me, I won’t leave you hanging.  Saturday proved to be very fun as well, also running about but they were cheered up by not only good company but also seeing these beautiful cats.  I know a lot of you like cat pictures so this is for you!

Also, I’ve been just tracking Olympics on social media and new sites and not officially watching but apparently, at 10am while going back to the office from a work errand, I realized how many people have free time to sit and watch free TV.

Honestly, I wish I was them.  That would be pretty sweet, right? And don’t you love this concept? Bringing in people with free Olympics coverage.  I think its amazing! Have you been following the Olympics? Talking about Olympics, have you checked out the Screenkicker Olympics Blogathon? If you haven’t, you should check it out.  I linked it to the name so you can get all the info and see if maybe you’d like to join in.  I sure am! 🙂

My Valentine’s turned out to be very unexpected and helped push and inspire a bit of soul searching.  How was your Valentine’s Day?

Hope the weekend has been awesome for all of you so far (and healthier than mine)! 

Valentine’s Special: Last Minute Mish-Mash!

I’m having technical difficulties with posting up the normal specials I do, usually a piano cover.  I will try to still get one in before midnight EST :).

I sat around thinking about it and realized that I could just do a mish mash of some stuff I feature here. Maybe invite you to check out some past posts and tell you a bit of some more stuff. Lets get the formality out of the way!

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!!!

One of the growing and developing segments is the movie section.  Of course, you can head over and check out this year’s theme: Nicholas Sparks marathon.  I even reviewed a few other romantic comedies to help with the mix. You just need to head over to the Valentine’s marathon up in the menu under movies 🙂 HERE‘s the link the page if you’d like to get quick access to this year and last year’s Valentine marathon picks.

I always like to do lists for any events and I’ve done a romantic comedy lists in the past already HERE!

Movies that I know aren’t good but I love to watch

If you dropped by my place, I would NEVER admit that I actually like it.  I’ve probably only admitted it to my boyfriend but thats because he witnesses me watching these once in a while.  They aren’t great but there is a fun aspect to it.  Most people probably will hate it and its totally dumb teen flicks but everyone has an appealing factor. For me, the likes of these female leads were enough to make it enjoyable.

Nicholas Sparks Quotes

If its anything you learn reading and watching Nicholas Sparks books and movies, you know they have some really romantic lovey dovey quotes.  You know which ones I’m talking about.  Those that if my boyfriend said it to me, I’d well up with tears holding back my laugh.  I’m romantic but these things only work in movies.  I mean that last quote especially.  I’m seriously, even when Zac Efron said it, I laughed out loud.

My TV Guy Crushes (or I know from TV)

Ian Somerhalder
(Damon in Vampire Diaries)

Alex Skarsgard
(Eric in True Blood)

Alex O’Loughlin
(from Moonlight & Hawaii Five O)

Colin O’Donoghue
(Captain Hook in Once Upon a Time)

Top Girl Crushes

Emma Stone

Zooey Deschanel

Kate Winslet

Amy Adams

After doing that, my brain has momentarily stopped on heavy thinking.  For the girl crushes, I had so many but these are the most recent 🙂 They are all sweethearts in their own way and just so awesome!

I’ll leave you with some music and videos to leave a warm lovely feeling in your hearts, hopefully.

1) Disney’s Declaration of Love 🙂

2) Jackie Cheung- Love You More Every Day

3) Leehom Wang- A Simple Song

I actually  had done this song with karaoke but it had some third party issue that youtube alerted me when I uploaded it so to avoid problem, I just removed it.  Maybe if I get the piano I’ll do that.  I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing just me singing but the lyrics are lovely.

I’ll try to translate the lyrics here:

This world is complicated, it twists the words I want to say. I don’t understand complicated cultures. What kind of present will make you remember forever? Let happiness not leave so quickly.

Clouds and sky, butterflies and flowers, they never need to say anything.  It cannot break the connection and will always miss each other. Sing love songs and say love quotes, I only want you to hear clearly, I love you, this is the only thing I want to say.

Chorus: I write a simple song, to make you happy.  Love is a river and its unavoidable that we will hit road bumps. This simple song is nothing special, just like me, so normal but profound.

I keep thinking of how to let you see all my good, but I forgot to smile to you regularly.  What I’ve lost and forgot, I will try to make up for it.  You are my most precious treasure.

I’ve been into the Chinese music phase these days *blush*.  Hope you like it!

Since my plans for this didn’t turn out as I had wanted, here’s to make up for that. I’ll try to see if I can get something that I originally planned 🙂

This is going up pretty late so a lot of you have passed Valentine’s Day (you know, time zone differences).  Hope all of you had a wonderful Valentine’s Day!

Happy Valentine’s Day my lovelies!

Valentine’s Marathon: Safe Haven (2013)

Happy Valentine’s Day, my friends! I hope that you’ve found some plans to share with your loved ones whether it be spouses, partners, boyfriend/girlfriend or even best friends.  Its really about celebrating love, right? Hey, I have a date with my oven and baking supplies and my TV and stack of rom-coms.  Oh, wait, you meant a living thing? My little cat is my date tonight 🙂

From the beginning of February till now, I’ve spent two weeks watching a few others but mostly focused on the Nicholas Sparks marathon.  We’ve finally reached the last one and his most recent adaptation from his novel, Safe Haven.  I read one review back then that revealed the twist so I already know that going in.  Either way, I didn’t even remember much of the plot and I never read the book.  Honestly, I was near finishing the last season of Gossip Girl and I almost didn’t even watch this, but I did because I like to wrap things up nicely 🙂 Lets check it out, shall we?

Director: Lasse Hallstrom

Cast: Josh Duhamel, Julianne Hough, Cobie Smulders, David Lyons, Noah Lomax, Mimi Kirkland

Katie (Julianne Hough) runs away from her home in panic, jumps on a bus evading the police and ends up in South Port.  There she meets the widowed father, Alex (Josh Duhamel) who runs a gas station/corner store.  She watches as he tries his best to keep his family moving forward while trying to move on from losing his precious wife to cancer. After Katie settles in at the local restaurant and slowly adapts to this new secluded and slower lifestyle, she also starts getting closer to Alex and his family.  At the same time, she builds a relationship with another nearby neighbor Jo (Cobie Smulders) who helps her sort out her feelings.  But when her past starts chasing after her, she is threatened to leave South Port and the people that she has learned to love and appreciate and she also may lose the only safe place that she has finally found.

I went into this marathon somewhat dreading it and honestly, other than a few road bumps in the middle, I’m glad that I found and bought Safe Haven. I mean, I knew the twist and maybe you know it, heard of it or just don’t care or you’d like to find out so I kept that hidden.  Its somewhat silly in a way but then would it be such a bad idea if that actually happened? I don’t think so.  I’d like to think that I could do that also if it ever happened.  Safe Haven may be pretty much hated by a lot of people and if its anything I’ve learned from this marathon, a lot of people are just not fans.  It suffers from being formulaic and attempts to manipulate our emotions but I mean, isn’t that what romance movies usually do? Anyways, I’ve accepted it.  As long as its within reasonable tolerable levels for me, I can deal with it. With that said, Safe Haven really does give a solid love story.  Maybe one of the few where I bought a lot of it.  Sure, there’s things that don’t make sense here and there but its a romance, ok? Love doesn’t have to make sense.

We are grow from pain and we move forward and we have to have the courage the better and the good that happens to us. Sure, it doesn’t evolve at the pace of Nicholas Sparks novels but sometimes, maybe it does. I’m not a love expert.  Either way, point being these two characters here Alex and Katie are played by Josh Duhamel and Julianne Hough respectively.  I don’t know much of what they did and they’ve never impressed me much, so I didn’t really care much but I think I just fell a little more in love with Josh Duhamel after this movie.  Plus, I take back all the chemistry comments about the previous movies in the Sparks marathon (except A Walk to Remember) because these two are awesome.  I think its because of the chemistry and more slowly developed relationship due to the kids involvement, it turns into some sweet.  Its two people trying to move forward slowly from their pain and trust and love each other. I guess it resounds to me because feeling safe is really an issue for me and when I found it, its quite inexplicable and thats how I felt about that here.

What I really liked about this is that one also is that its not just a love story and then a little climax with whatever was going on, a death or a loss or whatnot, this time there’s a physical shift to the cop chasing down Katie and how he inches closer and flashbacks of why she had to leave.  It reveals who she truly is, whether she’s good or bad. It adds a bit more of a complex situation and because the cop (played by David Lyons and shown up there)  turns out to be more and he’s expands on the set of problems already, it adds a bit of intensity.  Its a nice up in pace after watching the previous ones.  The feeling is a tad different as well and honestly, as a movie, its more well-rounded than I’d have imagined.

Overall, I enjoyed this one.  Julianne Hough does good and Josh Duhamel is charming as hell.  I just actually realized it.  They have really good chemistry which makes a good part of a romance.  The supporting characters add positively to the script.  The twist might turn some off but I felt like it was a nice idea.  The movie itself gave me a feeling of freedom and the comfort of finding safety and feeling secure.  All this had some pretty lighthearted music when they were in South Port.  Honestly, it had a feel good factor and hints of intensity and changed the pace from an expected Nicholas Sparks adaptation.  I was happy with it overall.

I’m sure there’s some epic Oscar nominated or winner romance that will beat this and you know before you walk into this one, its not going to be one of those so you just need to go in with an open heart and enjoy what it offers if you’re into romance of course.  I’m saying right now, Nicholas Sparks is really meant for those full-on romantic at heart (which I am because I like corny and mushy romance-y things).  If you know you’re more the realistic lover, well, this is not your thing.

What did you think of Safe Haven? What are your thoughts on Josh Duhamel and Julianne Hough? Are there movies of theirs that you like? 

I’m a bit behind schedule with today’s posts but I promise another post this evening.  I do want to get a special post out but I’m having some technical difficulties and can only deal with it after work so I’m looking for an alternative right now 🙂

Valentine’s Marathon: Letters to Juliet (2010)

This 4th movie in my marathon was in last year’s favorite romantic comedies.  That list changes quite a bit over the year as it goes on. Lets see if I still have the same love for it this year.

Director: Gary Winick

Cast: Amanda Seyfried, Christopher Egan, Vanessa Redgrave

Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) is a fact checker in New York City but she dreams of being a writer, however, the opportunity had not shown up.  However, she is engaged and soon to be married with a future restaurant owner and perfectionist cook, Victor.  They are scheduled to have a pre-honeymoon to Verona, Italy.  The second objective is for Victor to meet his suppliers also.  When they arrive, Victor gets carried away and Sophie ends up going sightseeing by herself.  One day, she visits the House of Juliet where Romeo and Juliet had met.  Its also here that women from all over the world go to write the letters to Juliet about their problems: family, illness and love.  As Sophie sits in the area facing the wall and starts writing, she sees a woman come by at the end of the day to take down the letters and put them into a basket with care.  She is curious as to what she is going to do with them and follows it.  She then meets a few Italian women who call themselves the “secretaries of Juliet”.  They take their own time to write back to each and every letter that is left there.  Sophie decides to help them out and in the process, finds a letter stuck behind a brick in the wall of the house of Juliet that has been nestled there for 50 years.  

She decides to write back.  A while later, a guy comes by to find them who is the grandson, Charlie (Christopher Egan) of the woman who wrote the letter, who has accompanied his grandmother, Claire (Vanessa Redgrave) there but doesn’t think its a good thing that Sophie has written back so long after to give his grandmother false hopes. Together, they embark to look for Claire’s true love, her Lorenzo.  When the first stop proves to be wrong, Claire decides to have Sophie tag along to try to seek out Lorenzo in the Tuscany area over the next few days.  As they search for Lorenzo, Charlie and Sophie become closer and understand his other a bit better.

This is a cute romantic comedy.  What makes this movie special is the message it wants to send out through the concept of true love never being too late, even if it was 50 years later.  At the same time, a young romance is developing.  The story is quite generic so it won’t catch a lot of people’s immediate attention. However, I do remember that when I had first seen this one.  I had bought it because I had just finished a really awesome novel called Juliet.  Nothing connected to it but it just made me want to look at different takes of this story even if this is more just a tangent.

Vanessa Redgrave was pretty good at doing her role and she was the experienced actress here.  Amanda Seyfried does what she does best and I appreciate her roles usually.  Her vibe that she gave off with Christopher Egan.  The little bickering and the growing spark that happened was at times entertaining.

Plus, there is some amazing Italian scenery. During the driving scenes and the vineyards and other locations, its all very nicely set. You know I have to mention this.  They used pretty upbeat feel good music.  I mean the theme song was wonderful music by Colbie Caillat and Taylor Swift.  The movie started with a nice little feel good song that always makes me smile called You Got Me by Colbie Caillat and ends with Love Story from Taylor Swift.

In between of all that, we also had another one of Colbie Caillat`s songs called What if.

Awesome music, nice set, and a cute little romantic comedy is what I got out of Letters to Juliet. It was a feel good flick. 🙂

Whats your feel good movie?

Dried Cranberry Shortbread Hearts

I promised that I would get you some Valentine’s baking yesterday but something came up and I didn’t quite manage to get that up.  You know, life happens.  I guarantee it was nothing bad though.  Just some changes might or might not happen in life and if it does settle down, I’ll share it with everyone.  For now, let’s turn our focus to my first Valentine’s baking.  I know I know, Shortbread…again, right? To be honest, shortbread is starting to grow on me. And I can actually eat this and its easy to make.

Doesn’t this look cute and delicious?

Right here is the recipe if you’d like to try it out.  Found this on the Martha Stewart site.

http://www.marthastewart.com/338922/dried-cranberry-shortbread-hearts?center=276967&gallery=874690&slide=338922

This is a super easy one. Unless you can cut beautiful hearts out of a sheet, I’d recommend a cookie cutter.  That’s the reason why its taken me so long. I was going to make them into cupcakes.  You know its sweet to give someone you loved a cookie shaped in a cupcake, its like calling them that, right?

Other than being easy to make, this one had a wonderful texture.  Its probably one of the best shortbread recipes I’ve had.

Just look at it. Its not too dry and crumbly but was balanced with a bit of nice slightly moist balance.  The dried cranberries really give it a nice little touch.

I managed to get 5 hearts out of this with a whole bunch of tidbits on the sides.  So far I haven’t found the heart to eat the beautiful shortbread hearts.

 How could you right? They just look so nice!

10 days from Valentine’s day now! Any ideas what else I should bake?

I probably will be back with something else on Friday. The office is still a bit hectic and have a few sudden things resulting from what happened to take care of.  Lets hope I can still manage to keep up with my posts 🙂

Happy Monday everyone!

Valentine’s Marathon: Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown (1975)

I’ve posted multiple times about our fellow Peanuts cast, whether its during my Christmas marathon with A Charlie Brown Christmas review to January 19th’s Happy Saturday Charlie Brown Medley.  I’ve even posted about Linus and his security blanket for a weekly writing challenge.  If its any that I’ve learned, this is a perfect choice for my Valentine’s marathon.  This one randomly got picked and came in 3rd to celebrate Valentine’s.  Its nice to break all the giddy romance and rom-coms before it with a family-friendly animation.

There were 3 short TV movies in this DVD.  The focus being Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown. I’m not exactly sure how known this is but seeing as it is with Charlie Brown, its always a lovable option for these wonderful festivities of all sorts.

So the first one and the main feature is Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown. Its about the time around Valentine’s Day and the Peanuts gang is looking forward to giving and receiving all sorts of goodies.  Linus wants to express his admiration for his teacher with a box of chocolates.  Snoopy runs off to play Cupid.  Of course, we have Charlie Brown waiting to receive a Valentine’s card and hoping that he’ll receive one from the little red-haired girl.  Its an adorable time with the Peanuts as always. I think all Peanuts TV movies are worth a watch so if you haven’t seen it, I hope you get to soon.

Second up, we are followed up with You’re in Love, Charlie Brown.  Its where Charlie Brown learns through a course of events that he is deeply in love with Heather aka the red-haired girl, especially after talking to Linus. After that one, we have the final feature called It’s Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown.  This one goes into Charlie Brown learning that he has to escort the red-haired girl to the ball and give her a kiss at the annual ball after their football game. May I add, a fitting option seeing as it was Superbowl yesterday.  When he embarrasses himself at the game because he misses all his kicks due to Lucy pulling away the football every time.  At the ball, he finally has his first kiss.

Peanuts gang is always sweet, funny and awesome to watch.  Don’t you agree?

Valentine’s Marathon Kicks off with…

How many of you guessed that I’d be doing a Valentine’s day marathon? Well, I think I probably talked about it here and there, but I don’t remember if I did.  So today, I finally finalized the list.  Last year, I did a Ten Faves Romantic Comedy (which you could find HERE).  No full reviews or anything since I wasn’t really doing many reviews then. So this year, seeing as I am committing myself to reviewing more and seeing that my whole (hectic, for me) Christmas marathon turned out pretty good and I had loads of fun.  I learned to lower my burden of movies and selected randomly from what I own a list for this year’s Valentine’s marathon.  Rest assured..so are new to my collection, maybe not new releases per se but I haven’t seen them so it’ll be a fresh look.  I plan on doing 10 movies for this marathon but the list won’t be revealed, you’ll just have to come back and check it out :).  It’ll have rom-coms and romantic dramas, that sort of thing.

So let’s start this off!

First movie up is FRENCH KISS (1995)! If you’re in Canada and only had bunny ears (like I did and still do), I remember my high school years having this movie come up at least 2-3 times EVERY YEAR.  You’d think I’d be sick of it but somehow it grew on me. Maybe its because I love Meg Ryan but we’ll see later…once I give you all a little plot and details.

Director: Lawrence Kasdan

Cast: Meg Ryan, Kevin Kline, Timothy Hutton, Jean Reno

Kate (Meg Ryan), a woman waiting for her Canadian citizenship in Toronto, and Charlie (Timothy Hutton), a doctor in Toronto are engaged.  Charlie has to fly to Paris for conferences and asks Kate to go with her but because of her citizenship issues and her fear of flying, she stays in Toronto until one day, Charlie calls and tells her that he wants to call off the engagement because he’s found the love of his life, Juliette. Kate picks up her courage and flies over to Paris to get back her fiance.  On plane, she meets Luc Teyssier (Kevin Kline) who is French and also puts his vine and stolen bracelet into her bag to cross customs.  Because of that, Luc eventually gets tracked down by an inspector (Jean Reno) who is also a good friend of his. With a few accidents and mishaps, they end up having to cross paths and eventually accompany each other through Kate’s journey in France.

This is a fantastic way to start my marathon because this may not be one of the best romantic comedies widely known but to me, it holds a place in the awesome.  I say that not due to the plot because it is predictable at times but to the cast and characters.   I’ve probably mentioned it before, but romantic comedies are all about the chemistry between their characters.  In this one, Meg Ryan is great at being her scared of everything self, a woman who is scared of change or feeling hurt and the negatives in life.  When she meets someone who appears to be her complete opposite, you just can’t help but to laugh.  Kevin Kline has this charisma when he talks (or maybe its his French accent).  Their debates and his reasonings for everything is plain awesomeness.

For example: When he first meets her on a plane and she panicking about it taking off.

Luc: What do you think, the plane is going to crash and we are all on the ground in a thousand pieces dead? I promise you, if it happens, you won’t feel a thing.
Kate: You’re French, aren’t you?

I grabbed that from IMDB quickly to give you an idea but its not the same with the whole scenario and acting going on.  Plus, I’m starting to notice these trivial things but the glimpse of the TV in the beginning of the movie was a NHL game of Habs/Montreal Canadians as one of the teams playing on the hockey game.  I have a thing against NHL and the team but whenever a Habs game goes on, I still want them to win…secretly.  I’ll explain that another day but back to the last thing about the movie…

The music.   It introduced me to the French version of a song that I extremely adore and not to mention lots of other great songs that went great well with this movie.  So here it is, the French version of Dream a Little Dream of Me (is that the name?) called Les Yeux Ouverts.

This may not be a strong point for a romantic comedy but I’m happy that my Valentine’s marathon started with this.  It was fun and charismatic set in the beautiful France.  Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline was fantastic. Best of all, it was just an awesome feel good movie.  I recommend it with the warning that you have to be okay with a normal story line but in it only for the chemistry.  If that’s the case, you can come out of this happy.

I feel like I watch a lot of movies that aren’t great or haven’t really been popular.

Does anyone know this rom-com? Like it or dislike it? How about a Meg Ryan fan? I know I miss her appearing on screen a lot.