1/2 way through challenge #6: Take a creative writing class

Remember when you were back in school, and there was always that over-achiever who wrote two pages longer than was required on the teacher's topic "Best homework excuse ever" and then he or she raised his hand and smugly asked, "Is it okay that I wrote, like, two pages longer than I was supposed to?" To which the teacher responded, "Sure, (insert name of suck up here). Why don't you read first today?" And then the kid reads his story, it's pretty much awesome, and he knows it, and the class knows it, and your turn is next, and you really don't want to follow that act because, even though you skipped watching Full House to intently work on it, you know yours just isn't as good as his was?

Er... this never happened to you? Have I totally lost you? Oh, well, I'll go ahead and be a clear writer by making my point:

Every member of my adult creative writing class is that annoying over-achiever.

Their writing is Pulitzer Prize winning brilliant. I'm not even just talking about the work they have time to go home, revise, edit, show to friends, or copy straight out of a Mark Twain book. The teacher gave us ten minutes to write to the prompt "My history as a writer." I wrote about A+ term papers, my poetry instructor, and this blog. The others wrote heart-wrenching stories full of angst, metaphors, and words that I had to run home and look up.

One forty-something man read how he had created little, construction paper fantasy stories for his mom about dragons that lived in their basement. When she passed away, he found the box with every story he had every written under her bed. It was so beautiful, my eyes welled with tears.

Just to clarify, those tears were not for the poignancy of his story. They were for how much my own writing sucked in comparison! Just kidding. Kind of.

Verdict: I've been to three classes, and have three more to take. I'm going in with a more positive attitude and will update you guys soon!

Because this challenge is only half way done, I'll also come up with my "Just do it" challenge #7 soon (in the next few days). Stay turned!

Oh, and as a disclaimer, the people in my class are not nerds like the picture at the top. I just included it because it cracked me up!

The "sweaty run" list

I pushed myself to do a three mile run today. Afterward, I jogged to my car, red-faced and gasping like a woman birthing triplets, a sweaty streak down the back of my tank top, and hair plastered to nape of neck. Oh, and I had a rather distinct lump where I had wedged my car keys in my sports bra. It kind of looked like a weird third nipple was growing smack dab in the middle of my chest.

Of course, this is when I run into two high school acquaintances.

Nice.

Just do it # 5: Learn to speak survival Italian

I wanted to learn thirty phrases of survival Italian because:

1. I have the bladder of a five year old and can definitely see myself needing to ask "Dov'e la toilette???" in a panic.

2. I think Italian is the sexiest language ever. Even "Where is the bathroom?" sounds better when it's in Italian (see #1).

3. My brain is becoming mushy from constantly surfing the most insipid websites. For instance, I spent a half hour tonight checking out an amateurish soap opera that was filmed in an Ikea. (Haven't seen Ikea Heights yet? Check it out for a laugh!) Learning even a little bit of a language will be a strenuous and much-needed mental workout.

4. I want to learn a few naughty phrases to whisper to Dan (see #2). Voglio il tuo corpo...


Dan and I board a plane for Rome in approximately 28 weeks, six days, two hours, and forty minutes. Not that I'm counting down already or anything! To start to plan our trip, we went to Tuscan Brio Grille, a chain restaurant near the local mall, and ordered several $3.00 Tuscan-themed appetizers and drinks during their happy hour special. We then set up camp reading our Rick Steve's travel book and practicing our Italian with flashcards. Before anyone says anything, I realize the irony of us going to a chain restaurant rather than one of the many authentic Italian hole-in-the-wall joints in town. We went to Brio for the cheap appetizers, but kept joking about the yuppie atmosphere. Dan wittily remarked at one point, "These marble tables must date all the way back to 2007."

What the restaurant lacked in authenticity, it made up with in cheap, yummy food that fit our Italian theme. We were able to dine on beef carpaccio, braised meatballs with marscarpone polenta, "Italian" burgers, two orders of roasted red peppers and fresh mozzarella bruschetta, and wash it all down with a little vino for under twenty bucks. I'm not sure what made the Brio burger "Italian", but it was still delicious.


It was so much fun to dream, even if our trip is still so far off. We debated Sienna vs. Assisi, planned one stay in a nice hotel, and read the mouth-watering restaurant descriptions as we noshed on our chain restaurant food. To be honest, with all the gorging and planning, we certainly didn't learn all thirty phrases over dinner. At least I've made the notecards so I can practice over the next few months. After all, I've still got time.

28 weeks, six days, two hours, and forty minutes, to be exact.

Verdict of "Just do it #5": Mi dispiace, but this challenge is still in progress. I'll update again in April! I'll also update on fun trip details once we keep planning.

***

For my next "Just do it Challenge #6", I'm going to take a six-week, creative writing class. This has been on my to do list for years now. The class starts Monday, and if I come up with anything decent, I may even share a bit of my writing here. I've got to say that I'm a bit nervous and hope all the other participants aren't the next Mark Twains and Ernest Hemingways...

The "cheesy songs" list

A college friend (and fellow teacher) made me a mixed c.d. to cheer me up after teacher week. It definitely brought me back to the days when my friends and I made each other mixed tapes as little presents and wrote a description for each song (such as..."Song 1 is Mariah Carey's 'Hero' because 'a hero lies in you!'")

I've been listening to her c.d. at night while I'm packing for school. Here are a few of the cheesy songs and descriptions she wrote for me:

New Kids on the Block's "Step by step" - that's how we are getting through that pacing guide

"Take a bow"- because you just dealt with someone else's kid for seven hours

Beyonce's "Irreplaceable" - Call the sub because I am replaceable

Aretha Franklin's "Respect"- Boys and Girls, can you please just give me a little?

Snap's "I've got the Power"- I have the power... to fail you! Mua ha ha ha!

The Fray's "How to save a life"- I'm trying to save lives here, but don't know if it is working

Queen's "We are the champions"- of teaching that is!

Welcome back to school!

Isn't she the funniest? Isn't there nothing like 90's song "I've got the power" to pump up a person's spirit?? :)

Just do it #4: Do a random act of kindness/ charity

Isn't this an altruistic challenge? Cue Michael Jackson's "Heal the World"!

I started brainstorming for this challenge by being practical. I didn't have much time until teacher week, which I knew would go by in a stressful blur of decorating, copying, and trying to look alert by the millionth meeting. That meant no to adopting babies, Brangelina style. I would have to nix trying to save the whales. And I definitely wasn't going to be opening the Christen Zoolander Center for Kids Who Can't Read Good (and who want to do other stuff good too.)

What was this "do gooder" to do?

I decided I would start with something simple. The local school was asking for school supplies to help their large population of homeless students. I felt like this would be a very fitting act of charity, given that I'm a teacher and know how expensive those school supplies are. I can't imagine anything harder for an elementary student than being homeless: to sleep in different shelters, feel jealous of other students' new outfits and backpacks, hide embarrassment about their circumstances. And how heart-breaking must it be for a parent to send his or her student off to school unprepared?

Granted what I'm about to say reveals my nerdy side, but I remember feeling kind of excited on our annual Staples jaunt to buy school supplies, especially during elementary school. Something about my bright pink and purple Lisa Frank Trapper Keeper made the start to the new school year a bit more exciting!
(Any girls out there who went to school in the early 90's, ya'll knows what I'm talking about! Guarantee some of you had these folders, too!)

It makes me sad to think that there are many kids who miss out on all the exciting preparations to return to school, but it's easy to understand why when you start to add up the cost.

When I was perusing the school's website, I was initially shocked at the long list that each student's family was expected to buy. For instance, each kindergartner was expected to buy a bookbag, two composition books, four bottles of glue, ten (?!) glue sticks, 3 boxes of tissues, box of large Ziplocs, one three ring binder, box of small Ziplocs, wipes, three boxes of crayons, two three-tab folders, pink eraser, loose leaf, and a box of pencils. Dan and I reasoned that the school asks for more supplies than one student would ever use to compensate for the huge amounts of students who do not bring supplies. I can certainly see why lower-income families would struggle to spend $60 and up per child.

Anyhoo, one hellish trip to Walmart finagling our cart through the back-to-school crowd and a much lighter wallet later, we succeeded in outfitting one first grader for the first day of school. I hope that whoever gets these supplies will think the blinking G.I. Joe backpack is as super-cool as Dan and I hoped it would be.

Verdict: Even though it was a small act of charity, I consider Just do it #4 a success! I am disappointed that I chickened out of giving blood as my act of charity, which was my initial plan, but that will be a great challenge for later...

******

For my next "Just do it Challenge", I'm going to learn to speak basic Italian. Very basic. I'm talking about two dozen or so survival phrases, like "Where's the bathroom?" and "Back off, thief!" Why the sudden interest, you may ask? Because Dan and I finally booked a nine day trip to Italy over spring break! I think Dan finally pitied me for reading all those Fodor's travel books, and we both decided to stop talking about it and just do it! (Very fitting for this challenge, don't you think?)

By my next update, I may not know all the phrases, but I plan on at least making flashcards so that I can gradually learn them over the next few months. Dan and I also have some fun theme oriented ideas about starting to plan the trip, so stay tuned for some of the details coming soon. If you've already been to Italy and have recommendations, definitely leave a comment because I would love to know about the best cities, hostels, restaurants, gelato stands, safety tips, etc. Also, if you know how the hell to pronounce "chiamo" (name), that would be helpful too!

'Til then, arrivederci!

The "Best year ever" list

This will be the school year that I...

* smile more and ask about people's weekends, rather than dashing to a free copier

* abstain from eating "just a sliver" of the secretary's famous pistachio cake from the resource room

* Call home for amazing kids as much as I do for the kids that make shrill squawking noises when my back is turned

* label all my boxes so I can actually find that my plastic raven for the Poe unit or my DVD for Shakespearean day or my vocab cards...dammit... where are my vocab cards?!

* stop going back to resource room to sneak two more harmless slivers of pistachio cake

* get more than six hours of sleep every night

* play "trash ball" without shooshing the kids a million times

* just say "no" to wrapping another slice of cake in a napkin to have for a snack later (after piling a bit of extra icing on top)

* refrain from staying up late to watch horribly trashy shows like Girls Next Door because I'm too exhausted to get up to take out contacts

* cook for Dan more

* don't snap at a single student, even when someone says "that's kind of cheap" when I "only" give him one piece of candy

* have Red Bull-level pep and enthusiasm

* not join in resource room bitch sessions about this year's super annoying student who got busted trying to Google pictures of celebrity's knockers on his school's ibook.

I always unconsciously start the school year as a hopeless optimist, not unlike every person who makes unreasonable New Year's resolutions. People see the pure and unspoiled stretch of twelve months ahead of them and think that finally this will be the year they will be motivated to lose those thirty pounds or finish that novel. After all, a lot can happen in a year, right?

I'm the same exact way. If I had been in a Disney movie today, I would have been dueting with my similarly in-denial colleagues, twirling down the hallways, and getting my animal friends to help me decorate my room with posters. When I walked into my classroom, I felt this charge of excitement that this could be the Best. Year. Ever. I thought of new station activities and theme days I could have. I feverishly boxed all supplies and printed out labels. After school, I bought myself my annual big box of Crayola crayons (the kind with the built-in sharpener in the back) and opened it to inhale that waxy, back-t0-school smell. Nothing says school euphoria like brand new supplies!

I know that this unrealistic optimism will not last, especially given the facts that I'm already feeling tired from waking up at 6:00 today and ate three "slivers" of apple and cheddar breakfast pizza this morning, and was too exhausted to cook for Dan when I came home. After a few weeks, I know I'll find myself sternly admonishing a class, "I think we need to address the amount of you who are forgetting homework assignments. Don't forget that this is 10% of your grade, I repeat, ten percent. One homework zero will negate about fifty other 100's you already made..."

They'll nod like they understand, when really all they're hearing is "Wa wa wa wa", a la Charlie Brown's parents. I'll go to the lounge and complain. Later, those same kids' parents will e-mail, "What can John Doe do to make up his homework 0's?" Then, I'll have to decide: Do I want to be Mrs. Pushover or Mrs. Ballbuster? Either way, it will take me fifteen minutes to write a carefully worded response. When I crash on the couch after school, I'll be too exhausted to cook, instead eating greasy pad thai while watching 30 Rock with Dan, the highlight of my day.

(Not that this is a totally bad thing! Anyone ever seen the episode where Liz Lemmon's delusional brother is still stuck in 1984? Sooo funny.)

I know this progression from naive optimism to reality is totally natural. Honestly, I'm not giving a full picture of a typical day of my job. Yes, I do have stressful moments, but I also get to read the inspirational journals my students write. I crack up when my students get as competitive as Survivor contestants during a round of "Grammar Jeopardy". I love how when I teach about Edgar Allan Poe, a student will inevitably shriek, "He married his cousin?!" I feel so fullfilled when I can build a shy student up through compliments, high five students for raising their grade, and listen to their rambling stories.

I really do love my job, however demanding it may be. Still, I wish there were a few more days that I thought to myself,

"This will be the Best. Year. Ever."

The recipe list

For Just do it challenge #3, I cooked a full meal (appetizer, drink, meal, and dessert) for the family. A couple of you requested the recipes, so here you are:

1. Mango black bean salsa

* 1-2 red peppers
* 1-2 yellow peppers
* 1 can black beans, rinsed (very important)
* 1-2 mangoes (peaches can be substituted)
* green onion- one bunch (is that what this is called?)
* cilantro- one bushel/bunch
* cumin
* extra virgin olive oil (I refuse to do a Rachel Ray by writing EVOO)
* lime juice

Chop up all vegetables into small pieces. Put in bowl. Sprinkle with cumin. Add lime juice and a swirl of olive oil. Taste. If you want it more tart, add more lime juice. If you want more zing, add more cumin and olive oil. Serve with lime chips. Swoon.

2. Peach sangria

* 1 Bottle of white wine - (I used Riesling)
* 1/2 cup Peach Schnapps
* 1/4 cup sugar (or less, depending on how sweet you prefer your Sangria)
* 2 sliced peaches (frozen peach slices work well)
* 1/2 mango peeled and sliced
* 1/2 liter of ginger ale
* a few sliced strawberries

Pour wine and Schnapps in the pitcher and add sliced peach, strawberries, and mango. Next add sugar and stir gently. Chill mixture for at least one hour. Add ginger ale or club soda just before serving. Garnish with umbrella or strawberry. Drink while pretending you are in the tropics.

3. Fiery shrimp

* 2 sticks butter- melted
* 2 sticks margarine- melted (you can use 4 sticks of butter, but this way is slightly healthier. That's at least what I told myself.)
* ½ cup worcestershire sauce
* 4 tablespoons black pepper
* 1 tsp. ground rosemary
* 2 tsp. Tabasco sauce
* 2 tsp. salt
* 3 cloves of garlic- minced
* 4 lemons- 2 juiced and 2 sliced
* 5 pounds of raw shrimp

Heat oven to 400. Mix all ingredients except shrimp and lemon slices. Add ½ cup of sauce on bottom of a baking dish. Layer shrimp and lemon. Leave room at top. Pour all sauce on top of shrimp. Bake uncovered in oven 15-20 minutes at 400, stiring after 5 minutes and checking on it often. Serve immediately with hot, crusty bread and a salad. Be prepared to get buttery fingers.

4. Profiteroles with ice cream

* 1 qt coffee and 1 qt vanilla ice cream- I used Haagen Daz because my thought is life is short: splurge on the good ice cream!
* 3/4 stick unsalted butter, cut into pieces
* 3/4 cup water
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
* 3 large eggs

Preheat oven to 425°F with rack in middle. Butter a large baking sheet. Bring butter, water, and salt to a boil in a small heavy saucepan, stirring until butter is melted. Reduce heat to medium, then add flour all at once and cook, beating with a wooden spoon, until mixture pulls away from side of pan and forms a ball, about 30 seconds. Transfer mixture to a bowl and cool slightly, 2 to 3 minutes. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well with an electric mixer after each addition. Scoop out warm mixture onto cookie sheet to about the size that you want your profiterole. I made them about the size of a scone. Bake until puffed and golden brown, 20 to 25 minutes total. Prick each profiterole once with a skewer, then return to oven to dry, propping oven door slightly ajar, 3 minutes. This is very important so that they are light and airy. Cool on sheet on a rack. Cut in half, put ice cream in middle, and replace top portion of profiterole so that you almost have an ice cream sandwich. This is delicious if you use both vanilla and coffee ice cream; it just gives it a more complex flavor. Top with dark chocolate sauce (jar is fine). Garnish with strawberry or whipped cream. Congratulate yourself on cooking oh-so-French dessert.

Hope you enjoy! Let me know if you venture to cook any of there. I'd love to know how they turn out for you!

The "summer, I love you" list

Dearest Summer,

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

I love you for...

1. bringing "sexy back"(that is, for allowing me to get away on our anniversary trip to the bed and breakfast with my hubby).

2. Making me feel pretty (AKA: allowing me an excuse to wear my new red dress at my sister's birthday).

3. Satisfying my every desire... by giving me time to visit friends in Boston and try a monster-size cannoli.

4. Giving me time and space... to finish projects like the horrendous yard and office.

(Big office reveal coming soon!)

5. Helping me to relax, at least at the beach.

6. Allowing me to see the world through different eyes (beer goggles after trip to mountain brewery with Dan).

7. Making me laugh (hysterically in bed with Dan when we recount our visit to Massachusetts and all the stories we heard about constipation, enemas, and a very sick cat who receives more medical attention than Sprinkles, Angela's kitty on The Office before Dwight finally mercy kills it.)

8. Celebrating little moments with me (Dan and Bethy's birthday, Father's Day, etc.)

You complete me.

Christen

The "fleeting moment" list

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday: List of Photos

Summer is almost over. Where did it go? I'm going to write an "I'm-going-to-miss-you, summer" list later. When I was searching around Etsy today, I found these amazing photos by Courtneyhood that seemed to fit my "goodbye summer" mood.




Don't these dreamy photos capture fleeting moments so perfectly? Go see Courtneyhood on Etsy to check out her other amazing photos. A big thank you to Courtney for letting me decorate my lowly blog blog with her incredible work!

Just do it #3: Cook full dinner for eight

I was inspired to try this "Just do it" challenge by the gourmet dishes from the Julie and Julia movie. Each dish, with the exception of Julie's swampy, over-cooked beef bourguignon, looked divine! I've got to say that I love eating fancy, borderline pretentious food. Artful swirls of sauce decorating plate? Let me embarrass Dan by snapping a picture! French food with names I can't pronounce? Ooh, la la! A dish arranged so that it has more height than a hat worn when visiting the Queen? Yes, please!

When doing this challenge, though, I knew there was one rule for cooking while on beach vacation:

No fussy food allowed.

I mean, during vacation, my family comes to the dinner table slightly buzzed and with sandy feet, so I knew that for my full meal (appetizer, drink, meal, dessert) challenge would have to be casual. So, without further ado, here is my beach appropriate full meal:

The Appetizer: Chips with homemade black bean and mango salsa


This homemade mango and black bean salsa is my version of crack. I make it four or five times a summer, sometimes devouring an entire bowl of it for lunch and then finishing it with a spoon when I run out of chips. It's that good. My sister loves it so much too that she made me promise to make it during our beach trip. Verdict: casual, fresh appetizer!

The drink: White peach sangria
My sister and I still like those uber-sweet drinks that every girl sucks down during her freshman year of college, so we loved this recipe. Add Riesling, peach schnapps, slices of peaches, strawberries, mango, a bit of sugar, and garnish with a strawberry (or better yet, a mini umbrella.)


The meal: Butter, fiery shrimp with lemon, French bread, salad, corn on the cob
I'm still sweating butter a week after eating this meal. The shrimp recipe called for four sticks. This is a great meal for vacay because having to peel your own shrimp paces the meal nicely. We talked for over two hours while peeling the shrimp and dunking the already buttered bread into the sinfully buttery, spicy shrimp sauce and nibbling on the corn. (After coating said corn in butter.)
The dessert: Profiteroles with scoops of coffee and vanilla Haagan Daaz, dark chocolate sauce, and strawberries
In case you've never had these before, profiteroles are basically fancy eclairs sans the filling. I admit that any dessert that I have to define is breaking my initial rule: "No fussy food at the beach." These homemade profiteroles are decidedly prissy. They would definitely wear high heels and red lipstick just to go errand shopping, and I can imagine them turning up their flaky, pastry noses up at the generic ice cream cakes sold at Dairy Queen. Still, a little pretention never hurt anyone, and no one from my family was complaining!
This dessert was actually the trickiest of everything I made because I had to time the profiteroles perfectly so they would be airy. If you try this, simply bake the profiteroles, cool, slice in half, put ice cream in middle, and top.

My sous chef/ hubby enjoying his profiterole:

Verdict: I may never master the art of French cooking, but I damn sure mastered the art of beach cooking! :)

For my next "just do it" challenge, I'm going to do a random act of kindness or charity. After a week of hedonism (floating in pool for hours, impromptu water volleyball games, ice cream for breakfast, it's-five-o-clock-somewhere mantras), I want to do a little giving back.

The secrets list

Secrets, secrets are such fun!This secret and illustrated card are courtesy of Post Secret.

How can you not want to read a juicy secret like the above one?!

Since I'm on vacation right now and can sleep in as long as I want tomorrow, I've been doing a bit of late night Internet searching and checked out a website called Post Secret that a friend had told me about. Basically, it's a blog (and series of books) where anonymous people write down a secret on an illustrated post card to post to the world. I wasn't crazy about all of the secrets I read. If you go to the website, you'll see that some are pretty disturbing. I did, however, chuckle or empathize with several of them, and thought, What a great list idea!

My List of Secrets:

1. I'm scared that some day dinner at T.G.I. Friday's will be my idea of an amazing date night.
2. The biggest reason I want a dog? I love how freakin' excited they are when you come home!
3. Sometimes I peak at the ending of a book. And then get mad at myself.
4. I want to win teacher-of-the-month to feel validated for the hard work I put in (and because I want to win the handful of gift cards.)
5. I think about what kind of mother I will be whenever I talk with my fellow mommy friends.
6. Going along with #5: I constantly wonder how I will know when it is time to try for a baby.
7. I tried to finish an easy level Soduko puzzle with Dan on a recent plane flight. We gave up.
8. I've become a bit obsessive about wearing sunscreen now because I'm trying to reverse the minor tanning bed damage I did in college. I also love fake tanning lotions.
9. I love writing posts on this blog and am so grateful for those who actually read them. :)
10. I sometimes compare my blog to others that are absolutely brilliant, that are funny, and that have a hundred followers. Then I wish my blog was more brilliant, funny, and followed.
11. I like reading celeb magazines because it's refreshing to judge without any guilt.

Hope you enjoyed my little secrets! Here's another one from Post Secret you might like:

On my next post, I'll let you know about my "Just do it #3: Cook a full meal for eight".

The "I-need-endorphins" list

Get ready for a very word Wednesday...

I need a drink. Okay, well it's not that bad, but I at least need to look at a few fun photos from a recent trip because this whole Blogger situation is ticking me off!

Here's a little ditty I put together tonight to the tune of "My favorite things":

When the dog bites
When the bee stings
When I'm feeling sad,
I simply bitch about my missing follower list
and then I don't feel so bad

Or something like that. Well, I went on the help forum, and I am definitely not the only one who is missing her follower updates. There were some pretty annoyed- panicked- manic- crazy- homicidal posts on those boards. Worse yet, none of us can click "follow" on new or old blogs at all.

What does this all mean? No updates for this girl for a while. I kind of feel like my blog is a tiny, disconnected island, but hopefully Blogger will send a search plane out soon and find my marooned follower list.

Now, usually on Wednesdays, I simply post one or two artsy pictures. Because I'm in need of some serious endorphins, I'm posting a few favorite pics from my recent visit with one of my closest friends and her hubby in Boston. Hope you enjoy too!

Dan and I sucking at Guitar Hero. Yes, the virtual audiences kept booing us off stage:

Dancing divas:

Camera at arm's length capturing a night of clubbing, which I hadn't done in fooorrevver.
Toasting after Samuel Adams tour:

Cheers to feeling a little better already! :)
xo,
Christen

Just do it #2: Go to a movie by myself

(Image via here)

Anyone out there ever seen that episode of Sex and the City where Carrie goes to see a romantic French film by herself on "date night", sighing contentedly with only her box of Whoppers to keep her company?

I remember thinking to myself, I could never do that.

It's not that I have to have constant company to feel happy. It's just that I don't particularly want to have other people see me hanging out by myself, especially at a place where people are coupled up or with their posse.

There are certain situations where people can "go it alone" without being judged. Widowed octogenarians can go to the ballet by themselves. Traveling businessmen can opt for a sit-down dinner for one. But a twenty-eight year old alone to a movie... well, that just seems kind of odd. I felt like strangers would make assumptions about me that were not true, or worse, that I would run into a friend who would ask me, "So, who are you here with?"

Still, I posed this as my next "Just do it" challenge because I had seen it on so many other lists, so I thought I would give it a whirl. I didn't want to go alone to just any movie. Instead, I decided there needed to be a reason why I was going by myself. Then, I came up with this list of seven reasons about why Julie and Julia would be the perfect movie to see alone:

1. My closest friends were out of town on vacations. (Lucky bi-atches.)

2. Dan declared after seeing the preview that he would rather have a root canal without anesthesia than be dragged to a showing.

3. I didn't want to press my luck anyway because he had just gone to 500 Days of Summer with me the previous week. (Loved it, by the way. How sweet is that 3rd Rock from Sun guy?)

4. My mom and sister were both too busy.

5. It wasn't a shoot-'em-up movie where I would want to bury my head in Dan's shoulder.

6. It wouldn't have a complex plot I would be dying to talk about afterwards.

7. I didn't want Dan's good-natured jabs about how my idea of cooking is heating up a Lean Cuisine.

So, folks, yesterday my box of Junior Mints and I went to the matinee of Julie and Julia. At first, I was a bit of a nervous wreck. I kept rehearsing what I would say if I saw somebody I knew. Would I claim that a friend was going to meet me and that I had just come early to save us seats? Would I say that Dan was in the bathroom? Or would I be honest and tell them the long, drawn-out explanation that I have a blog called La Vida Lista, and one of my lists is about "Just do it" challenges, and the most recent one is about going to the movies by myself, and yes, I do have friends, and yes, Dan is doing great, he just didn't want to come to this particular movie, it was nice to run into you, thanks for the offer for me to sit by you guys but I'm honestly fine by myself because that's what this challenge is all about, no, really, I'm fine, so just back off, nosy-ass!

I'll save you all the suspense: I didn't run into anyone I knew.

After I stopped scouring the rows, I relaxed and really enjoyed myself. I love that the movie is about a woman who becomes a famous writer through through creating a blog! I mean, if twenty-eight year old Julie Powell can boil a writhing lobster, cook 524 elaborate French dishes in one year, and still write hilarious blog entries about all of it, then maybe there's hope for all us slacker bloggers out here. I know ya'll love blogging as much as I do, so my advice to you is to see this movie and read The Julie/Julia Project if you want to feel inspired. If nothing else, the movie got me to give Panera Bread a rest and actually cook a decent meal this week.

Verdict of going to movie by myself: Success! I already feel a little braver than yesterday. Honestly, I don't think I'll do this again, though. I love wrestling with Dan for the arm rest, and sighing over girly movies with friends. It was definitely a good one-time challenge.

My next "Just do it" challenge: Cook a delicious meal for eight during my beach vacation. I'm going to do the works: a cocktail, appetizer, main dish, side dishes, and cap it all off with a dessert that is almost too pretty to eat.

Told you I was inspired!

Life itself is the proper binge.
- Julia Child