Frozen

Ok, all that stuff I said about healthy eating... is it too late to take it back?

It has begun.

The rain, the cold, and henceforth so have my cravings for "comfort food". Keeping in mind, the term "comfort food" is a way to pretend like I'm not talking about excessive amounts of pizza and mashed potatoes. Guess what those things are mostly made out of? Things I am not allowed to eat.

As far as I can tell, I've got two three options:

1. Give in and embrace my fat pants.

2. Move to a warmer climate immediately.

3. Practice will power and find new and innovative ways to incorporate healthy eating into the comfort food zone. 

Its pretty obvious which option is the clear choice here...
Number 2. Number 2 is the one.
Buuuuuuut since that requires a lot more than a whim, I guess I'll try number 3 on for size until I'm properly prepared to evacuate.

Its true, it seems as if winter has finally arrived. In my mission to remain positive through the endless search for my slippers, I came up with a helpful list of ways to cope with the colder months. You're welcome.

1. Find a really nice sweater that makes you feel like wearing it all the time. Because you will have to do that. You will literally never see your own skin below the face until summer.

2.

The entire series of Friends is coming to Netflix in January. End of point.

3.

Did you know you can get to Cancun for like $400? True story. Skyscanner. Check it out. Click the link. Just don't talk to me after you do it because if you're going to the beach and I'm not, then I hate you. And in case you didn't know, there is a fully stocked wealth of information on Central America and Mexico in my Travel Blog, "Postcards"

4. This recipe which I am giving to you because I care. You can view and/or download it by clicking this link Easy Tortilla Soup for People Who Don't Have Easy Access to a Mexican Market. It has, in the past, been referred to as, "The best soup ever!" Which was a real compliment coming from him.

5.  Baileys Coffee.

6.

Take baths. Like, proper baths. If you draw a good bath its kind of like sitting in a giant cup of tea. I've never particularly liked baths because I tend to get really panicky when I get to that point where I feel overheated and suffocated. Here's the trick: Make it a spa style bath. Bring a cold drink. Keep a window cracked, and halfway through, I add a little cool water so its cool enough for me to lay back and cover my ears with water because I kind of like the muffled sound of music from under the water. Here's the quick guide to things you can put in your bath:

Milk - Soothing and smoothing. No Joke. AND you will feel like an old world princess literally having a milk bath. Add it to the water and come out feeling like a cream puff. In softness, not shape 

Sea Salt - Again with the lactic acid, but this is meant to reduce build up which is what makes those muscles so sore after work. Sea salt in the bath should help ease that pain and relax you a little. 

Epsom Salts - All around pretty amazing. Adding these to the bath create whats called reverse osmosis, pulling toxins out of the body, and allowing all the goods to flow in. Magnesium and sulfates are naturally ocurring in epsom salts and are extremely effective in detoxifying your body. Among other things, they can help to reduce aches and pains, improves muscle function, blood flow, and joints. For chronic pain, bruises, soreness, or your pick of dozens of other issues, add a healthy handful or more to a bath and soak it up for at least 40 minutes. Unless you have open sores, then don't. Also don't use soap, it will mess it all up, for real. 

Ginger/Cayenne - Used with epsom salts, they help you sweat it out and increase the detox experience for the hardcore detoxer.
Honey - Again, it is a soothing agent for irritated skin but also, if you mix honey with any oils you're using in your bath, it will prevent the oils from just sitting on top of the water. Handy! 

Oatmeal - We all know the basic oatmeal bath, but you can keep the mess to a minimum by using a tea ball or mesh bag. 

Mineral/Essential Oils - different oils have different benefits. I like simple sesame oil because it has 1 millions uses and is usually hanging around the house, but a trip to your local natural foods store will have lots of options I'm sure. 

Lavender - Lavender is aromatherapy. Its soothing and relaxing AND helps relieve inflammation. I keep it in the little bag or tea ball from the oatmeal tip so it doesn't make a huge mess in the bath and drain.

That's all I have so far. I'm not much of a winter person, the whole "enjoying the seasons" thing is pretty new to me. I don't care what Princess Elsa says. When someone asks me if I wanna build a snowman I'll probably be unable to hear them from inside all of my layers, so no. No snowmen for me. You can find me sitting next to the heater vent scrolling through my photos from tropical trips.

Stay warm. 

Makeup Your Mind

On a health kick, I thought I'd give a peek into the reality of the transformation process that an average girl might go through. This is a tricky subject because every girl has a totally unique process, and just like we need 40 pairs of shoes for 100 different reasons, I have 100 different routines for 40 different occasions. I probably never replicate the same exact process more than once, actually. However, this is a good average idea of a little more than "everyday" makeup and a little less than "all out" which, if you have an Instagram account, you know is ALL THE TIME for some girls. 

To be clear, I am by no means against makeup. Obviously. I have more cosmetic products than I have hairs on my head... and I have a LOT of hairs on my head.

Alls I'm sayin' is that there is a pretty big difference between dressing up, enhancing your features, or playing up a side of your personality which you want to accentuate, and straight up trying to trick people into thinking you're J.Lo. Just as there is a difference between "liars" and "actors", there is a difference between that process and this one. 

I know I have a lot of photos on Facebook, Instagram, and everyone else's tagged photos. In every single one, I look a little different. Sometimes people tell me, "WOW you look great!" and I have to wonder a little, "yeaaaaaah, well that angle looks awesome, but trust me.. this morning in my sweats when my front camera on my iPhone came on by accident... I kind of looked like John Goodman. Like I think we might be related." The other thing I get a lot is, "Your makeup looks really good today... what did you do?" So just to clear it up....and this took a lot of deep breathing exercises because I've spent most of my life trying to keep my "no makeup face" OFF of the internet... Here's a no frills 100% real "how to". The good, the bad, and the au natural. This isn't your grandma's blog.

(If you are getting that "oh no, this is a chick post" feeling in your gut... you're only half right. Feel free to skip around. I won't be mad.)

This is me.

This is also me.

 And here's how THAT happened.

1. A thin layer of primer allllll over the whole face.

2. Contouring and highlighting. This is how Kim Kardashian gets to look the way she does. You can seriously make it look like you just spent $50,000 on a Jennifer Aniston rhinoplasty with like 3 minutes of strategic highlighting. I do NOT do this everyday. This is more of a "going to a place where the lighting is low, and I can get away with it" kind of look. Example: A pub, a dinner in a low lit place, a stroll in a dark alleyway after the opera with your husband and small child named Bruce. You know, the usual. Obviously I used a much lighter color than my skin, and a small brush to highlight the places I want to draw attention to. In my case, I go where the light hits naturally and don't alter anything TOO too much because lets face it, I live on an island, and not in any place where the Viper Room is. Someday I want to just go out like this.

3. Blend blend blend. Just when you think you're going to look like a freak forever because you drew dark brown lines all over your damn face, it starts to come together. When you think  you're done... keep blending. Don't forget your neck or it will look like you had a botched head transplant. Which I'm sure will be a thing soon. 

4. Eyes. There are more colors on my eyelids and more time spent blending and drawing lines than it took me to do my whole face, and the area is much much smaller. It blows my mind sometimes how much effort we put into something that people aren't even going to see that much. You know what they say though, its the little things. I shade my eyes with a dark color on the outside (nothing crazy, I'm not Captain Jack Sparrow.) (Today.) and line with a liquid eyeliner. Remember to angle everything slightly UP or you'll look like you just heard a sad sad story. Or watched Bambi. I highlight under the outside of my brow, the inside corner of my eyelid, and put a small amount of something bright and shiny on the part of the lid directly over where my pupil is. Eyeliner takes practice. A good trick is to do mascara first and use the stiff lashes as a stable surface to follow with the brush.

5. I also use fiber lash extensions by Younique. I love them. You basically brush on the black mascara (which is a little sticky) first and then brush on black fibers which stick to your existing lashes and make them longer. Then another layer of liquid... The more times you do this, the longer they get. Its up to you to know when enough is enough. It can get really Halloweeny if you don't take a step back now and then to make sure it still looks natural-ish.

6. Lips. I use red when I want confidence or to make my teeth look whiter. Or both. Honestly they usually go hand in hand. A little contour under your lower lip, and a little highlight in the cupid's bow (the little v above your upper lips) make them look more pouty and you can even go as far as to blend a tiny bit of a lighter color from the center out if you want a full blown Angelina moment. I dust a little translucent powder over them to keep it from coming off on literally EVERYTHING.

This is what I used.
ALL of it.

The ballpark total of all of these things is damn near $200
I took a little longer than usual this go around because I was trying to document in really poor lighting... I also used a curling wand to touch up my hair which probably added another 20 minutes to the process. I'd say this took me the better part of an hour with all the documenting and blending and cleanup. 

 So by all means, get pretty. I love getting pretty. Its kind of like doing art. It can be really exciting to see all the different things you can be, and all the different people you can morph into. The bottom line here: You can makeup your face, you can makeup your mind, but you've gotta know that underneath every "perfect" Hollywood face, is a good block of time, probably hundreds of dollars, and you're also not allowed to MOVE lest you ruin your perfectly curled hair (it does NOT stay that way if it so much as catches a breeze) and when it all comes off, you better hope your friends and loved ones still like what they see underneath. Why do you think there's so much chatter about women getting nervous to be naked in front of people? Because they DON'T LOOK LIKE WHAT THEY ADVERTISED. All Spanx aside, we all have a little cellulite. My face isn't totally symmetrical, and one of my eyes does this funny droopy thing when I'm retaining water. By the time I'm 50 I'll probably BE John Goodman, but at least I'll know how to be my BEST John Goodman. Whatever, we clean up nice, right?

Stay classy, San Diego. Or...you know...wherever you are. Be it a Wal Mart bathroom or a penthouse suite.

What I use:

Foundations: Bare Minerals
Eye Primer: NYX
Curling Wand: Proliss
Fiber Lash Extensions: Younique
Eyeshadow Pallet: EyesLipsFace
Brushes: Bare Minerals and Sephora
Lipstick: Revlon "Wine With Everything"

[From the draft archives] Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies.

Another post which I found floating around in my drafts from last summer. 

Today, as I was realizing that I have a very serious retail therapy problem, I simultaneously realized that that is just the tip of the iceberg.
Not only am I capable of spending a good few hundred dollars without even getting dressed or leaving my couch, I am also disturbingly enthused by my new vacuum (retail therapy vacuum).

You wouldn't be able to tell by looking at my house, as it is nearly always in shambles, but I am obsessed to the point of concern with keeping things how I like them.
The reason I can't clean the house all the time is that I don't have the time to do it in the ORDER that I need to do it, and if I can't do it 100% properly, well I'll be damned, I'm not doing it at all. The overwhelmed feeling arrives, and I sit down on the floor and find something else compulsive to do. Such as writing, or more likely, shopping.

So in the midst of all these epiphanies today, I found a common thread. Lies.
I tell myself a nice list of lies daily, don't we all? I'm not very convincing, but my brain is stupid and wants so badly to believe that I really really..REALLY need that set of bathroom towels, AND a new flat iron. Right now.

So here are the lies I (and probably most of you also, let's be real) tell myself everyday:

I'm gonna clean the entire house today!No, what's going to happen is I'm going to get 3 minutes in, realize I don't have the things I need to do it properly, get entirely overwhelmed, go to town and drop bank on cleaning supplies and organizers, come home and unpack it, and then have to go to work.

Diet starts NOW!Yeah. Diet of pasta and pub food.
Rationalization: I walk sooo much in one shift, and I work TWO every day! I can handle a slice of pizza...

I legitimately NEED to buy this.I NEED to be locked away, banned from the internet, and also from money. There is a brand new audio deck still in the box laying in the back seat of my Hyundai. I have more articles of clothing than there are boards in my ceiling, and no matter how hard I fight you, I do NOT need anymore kitchen accessories.

I'm gonna get up early so I can get stuff done before work today!When 7am rolls around, I'm going to start re-evaluating exactly HOW BADLY I need to shave my legs...I can just wear pants today, can't I? No one's going to be looking that closely. The dishes will still be in the sink when I get back. Breakfast? Who needs breakfast. Oprah's not on TV anymore, she can't make me feel bad about skipping it.

It's not THAT many hours, I'll be fine.Double shifts suck, and I am going to die. I think I'm hallucinating. If you want more butter for your scone, you need to re-think a few things, and maybe learn how to make scones because if you knew how much butter was in there ALREADY... you would realize I'm helping you by not giving it to you. I'm tired, don't ask me for anything.

"How are you?""Oh, so far so good, and you?"Shitty. Life is shitty. I am tired, I would rather be at the lake where all my friends are, but instead I'm gonna hang out here for the next 5-8 hours and pretend that its ok for you to complain to me about the temperature of OUTSIDE the restaurant. I really want to be drinking the wine that I am currently serving to you, but other than that, fine.

I can start whatever it is tomorrow.I'm not even going to call this procrastinating, I'm just not gonna do it. 

Oh yeah I totally hate that new Taylor Swift song too. Gross.I know all the words and its not an accident.

Its just a teaspoon of butter......at a time. I'm going to melt a teaspoon at a time until it equals way too much and pour that sucker alllllll over that popcorn which I so "did not eat all of." Also a lie.

So why is it that its ok to lie to ourselves? Do we like ourselves that much that we forgive the lying? Because I feel like if I liked myself that much I wouldn't have to lie about it in the first place. Maybe its the media. Let's blame the media. Yeah. That feels good. Solid plan, team. After all, they do have a firm grip on telling us what we should and shouldn't do, like, or want. Maybe, just maybe, its ok for me to own one too many a set of towels. Ok, maybe towels is a bad example. But MAYBE someone will come over and I will NOT be out of clean towels, HMMMMM? Touche, life. Touche.

Take a minute, if you will, to think about all the lies you tell yourself daily. Its not a bad thing, actually sometimes its a really helpful thing! If I told myself that going for a run was terrible and I'm probably gonna hate it, I wouldn't do it. Its the little voice that goes, "YAY running is FUN! We're gonna look like Jennifer Aniston when we're 40! Yay!!" that gets me out of bed and into the shoes and onto the street. Although my definition of "running" varies daily. 

So what lies do you tell yourself?

Flawless

So this is a little behind schedule, I know. Seeing as it has been.... Oh, I don't know... a good couple YEARS since my last post... I thought I'd stick with that theme and tell you exactly HOW behind schedule I am.

Most people get all excited and twitchy about getting their "bikini ready bod" in time for summer.... I tried that.... and just got started just now. I guess you COULD say, I'm really just SUPER ahead of schedule for next summer.

I'm all too good at hopping on the health train in a big way and then having a life crisis and drowning in a tub of ice cream and retreating into my yoga-pants-cave ("Quick! To the pantscave!"). Problem is, that means an eventual return to the land of "NONE OF MY PANTS FIT I'M GONNA BE LATE FOR WORK!" as if it happened overnight. I swear it does. So here we are... October. Just in time for the WORST POSSIBLE DIETING TIME... The holidays.

But I've always like a bit of a challenge... either that, or I just have some kind of messed up spite issue. 

I'm trying out this low-carb thing, as suburban as that sounds. My Mom actually enlightened me to the effects of carbs, and as the all knowing mother of wisdom, I generally trust her guidance. She's doing some crazy math thing - I swear, she's got more homework than I did in all of high school - but its working! So I'm going to try a lesser, "I-still-like-bread" version. So far a lot of kale and salad have been thrown into the mix, but its really not THAT bad. 

Steamed Cauliflower with ponzu sauce
Seared ahi tuna loin seasoned with cayenne, salt, and pepper
Grated fresh savoy cabbage
Chopped fresh kale
Fresh cilantro
Green onion
Avocado
Ponzu Sauce
(We also threw on some fresh sliced cucumber and sauteed mushrooms.)

Of course with my brain in health-mode, I'm suddenly hyper-aware of all the crazy trends out there. People will really do ANYTHING to combat that "overnight-fat" phenomenon. I figured, the reason we all demand a quick fix is because we genuinely believe that we got fat QUICK. If you can get fat quick, you should be able to get thin quick too right? Wrong. It seems like today, celebrities names are getting thrown out there alongside words like "Garcinia Cambogia" and "Ann Chery's 2026 waist cincher" and "Raspberry Ketone"... No. They aren't using a $50 bottle of fruit pills. They have multiple people staffed to make sure they look good ALL THE TIME. They don't get breaks. They don't get to sit on the couch and watch Breaking Bad with a pint of Ben&Jerry's. So sure, you can look like them, but you're probably gonna hate it. Garcinia Cambogia probably is effective if it is ingested as it is originally found in nature, and probably not dehydrated and crushed into tiny plastic capsules. Raspberry Ketone....it says ON THE bottle that it is part of a healthy diet and exercise regime. So how do you know your weight loss isn't just from the diet and exercise? If you're going to be miserable because you haven't had an entire block of cheese in a month, why would you make yourself MORE miserable by also being broke from all the supplements you bought? Sure that waist cincher probably makes you look a little more slim, but what happens when that special someone sees you in your natural form? You go home, wipe off those eye lashes, wash off your contoured face makeup - taking you from Kim Kardashian to Mr. Potato-Head REAL quick, lose 4 inches in height from the heels you're no longer wearing, let the push-up bra down, and to top it all off, just let that belly roam free. I'm imagining the latex cincher flying off a la rubber band and smacking your prince charming directly in the face knocking him unconscious, which is probably for the best considering what he just saw. Maybe you can drag him into an alley-way and pretend none of that happened. He might not remember.

I think men expect a little surprise when they see their woman au natural, but I'm pretty sure none of them really know the concept of a waist cincher, or spanx for that matter. So while they may be able to handle the initial shock of seeing your ACTUAL bone structure underneath $200 of carefully applied makeup.... I feel like its our duty to spare them the potential cardiac arrest or post traumatic stress induced from watching that go down.

Don't get me wrong, your body is glorious the way it is and by no means do I mean "get skinny or go home". I just mean, why try and convince everyone you're a shape that you aren't? We already convince everyone that our face and hair look like Beyoncé when really....I don't think even Beyoncé looks like Beyoncé when she wakes up. Well maybe she's an exception. She woke up like that (flawless).  (Disclaimer: This video, while fierce, includes profanity.)

You get what I'm saying though right? It's one thing to catch the eye of someone looking like you (or a slightly dressed up version) but its another thing entirely to deceive someone by assuming a fake identity. Like in the movies when the giggly glowing lady lures someone into an alley and then turns into a creature from the underworld and attacks them. It doesn't make them shallow if they realize that they may not be into it anymore once they see you in your natural form. Maybe if they'd known from the get-go, they would have still been down, but imagine yourself in their shoes. You go home with Ryan Reynolds

Only Blake Lively gets this. This is why we hate her.

 and you wake up with Danny Devito. 

I'm sure he has a wonderful personality.

Wouldn't you feel a little peeved? I mean, if you meet Danny Devito and you really hit it off and he's the one for you, then by all means, go for it. But at least you know what you're getting into. He's gonna wake up and look just like that. If you're really that insecure about how you look, do something genuine about it. Do something permanent. Do something that when you go home and get comfortable you won't freak out if someone comes a knockin' on your door. You'll just be able to go answer the door and when they say "wow you look great!" you can say, 

"I woke up like this."

Did you think I WASN'T gonna rant about Valentine's Day?

Tomorrow is the day. February 14th. Whaaaatever. Yeah I'm one of those. Actually I'm one of those when I'm single on Valentine's day. Like, unless you're about to profess your undying love for me, actually if you're in love with anything, anyone, or have ever even had a friendly thought towards someone, I hate you. Go away. I do not want to see you on this day.

This year I actually feel like I'm getting ready for an apocalypse. Like, I'm one second away from hopping into a door frame because I guess earthquake and Valentine's day are pretty much the same thing.

I bet Beyonce never has this problem. And even if she did, it would be ok cuz she's so fierce.

So what do you do with a day like that? How do you get through it? I know most people go for the whole, "Love YOURSELF" thing, but come on, really? No amount of ice cream and pedicures are going to make you go, "Actually, yeah, this is great. I love cats anyway, this could really work out for me."

They told me to make valentines...

I have a few options in mind, hear me out, I think I might be onto something:

1. Go full hot mess. Sweatpants, broken dreams, wine, food that you're not supposed to be eating, and a few thousand Nicholas Sparks movies. If you do this you HAVE to do it right, or its sad. Its only sad if you kid yourself. You've gotta be fully committed to crying your eyes out because "HE WROTE HER EVERY DAY FOR A YEAR AND SHE DIDN'T EVEN KNOW IT AND NO ONE IS EVER GONNA LOVE MEEEEEEE", you know, that kind of thing.

2. Stop caring about the normal stupid things you care about like what other people think or what your "thing" is or isn't and do something totally out of character. Relax, I don't mean like meth, or jumping out of a plane. I'm more on the, go on a random date with someone you just saw in the grocery store and is totally hunky, train. Seriously, why the hell not. Might as well, right? This isn't lame like the cliche, "Try something new because your life is sad" since its not about soul searching or anything deep, its just about doing something different because, why not. I would suggest trying a bad pick up line, or a good one.. Going to a show last minute, driving to a beach somewhere, or something like that. Just don't go on a date with yourself because you KNOW you're going to be surrounded by people being stupid and kissing and loving each other. Whatever.

3. Go into a V-Day coma. If you want to avoid it entirely, this is the only possible way. You might need to start early since apparently Valentine's day starts right after New Years is over with, but its the only way. I swear, the only thing on TV that WON'T be all about looooove will be that channel that runs crime scene shows all day and even that might be a stretch because you know every commercial will be for how great love is.

The homeless are taunting me. And earning money doing it.

4. Party party party. Find a posse and get down.

I know I sound like a horrible person, and really, I love love, usually..

but Valentine's day is only fun if you're dating Ryan Gosling's character in...any movie. And since I'm not, obviously that means I hate you and your kissing and hugging. Get out of here with that nonsense.  I'm talking to you, Channing Tatum's wife.

Happy freaking Valentine's day.

Salt Spring Pride Weekend 2012

It's PRIDE WEEKEND again on Salt Spring Island.

Horses, Umbrellas, Feather Boas, Beach Balls... There is so much going on here...

I love this weekend for one reason.

LOVE!

No matter your orientation, everyone joins together and the whole day is full of love and acceptance and dancing. Everyone dresses up however they want, and there is COLOR EVERYWHERE.

Lucky for us, the parade ended right outside of Barb's so we could see it from the deck for a moment at a time while the restaurant was empty.

Working in the public, I always expect to have at least one person spew negativity at me about the whole thing, since it can be such a controversial subject. I am always pleasantly surprised at how that NEVER HAPPENS. Every year, I serve what feels like a billion people, and every year all I hear is love. Maybe those people are staying home this weekend, I don't know, but it sure helps keep the mood in a loving place.

Barb's Baristas got style!

The even more eye opening, humbling part of the weekend is seeing who comes out and supports it so fully. Again, I work in a very public place, I see a lot of people, some daily. You sort of get to know these people over time, or at least sort of. I'll admit that after a million and one days of serving your breakfast and having small talk, I might start to think I know a thing or two about you, and maybe I do, but not everything. I'll admit that some of the people I would have expected to stay home this weekend are some of the most dressed up, most colorful people I see in the conga line thats making its way down the street in the annual Pride Parade.

The beautiful thing about this weekend is that it doesn't matter who you are, you can put on a rainbow and some feathery wings or glitter and rock out in the middle of town and celebrate acceptance. No one has ever asked me my orientation when they see my rainbow shirt at work, and I've never felt the need to clarify anything to anyone. Everyone is just happy to be there, and happy that you're there too.

Your friendly Barb's staff, watching the parade for a second at a time while the restaurant was empty.

This is the side of humanity that I feel like gets lost in all the debates about whats "right" or not. No matter what your religion is, the basis is usually about loving one another and not causing harm to others, and - somewhat ironically, perhaps - This is the weekend that I feel that happening. Not in theory, but actually actively being practiced by everyone.

Maybe Salt Spring is unique, but it seems like the best side of everyone comes out this weekend, no matter who you love.

I realize that this may strike a chord with some people, and not everyone agrees with me here, but the point is, Pride Weekend or no, that we all should spend more time loving each other and accepting who we all are. Everyone is entitled to their own religion, opinion, and feelings, but this weekend, we've set that aside to just be together as people, dancing in the the street, in the middle of town, because, why not?

The Pride parade coming to its final street corner, conveniently right outside of Barb's.

The Intouchables

I have been terribly neglectful of this page, and I apologize for that. Subject matter has been seemingly dwindling away - I know I say that every time, and I know that every time, it is, in fact, untrue. There is always something to share, maybe the more appropriate excuse would be that I couldn't find any words which I thought would be deserving of your attention.

Having said all that nonsense, I am making a goal to share more things with you, whether they are long, short, text, photographs, or just some thought I had during the day.

So, starting now.

Last night I went to go see a movie called The Intouchables on a recommendation and a sheer lack of anything else to do with my evening.
Its in French, subtitled, and looked like it had the potential to make me cry my eyes out, so I wasn't particularly excited about it, but it was so. Good.

Like, seriously, so. So. SO. Good.

Go see this movie.

It is so refreshingly NOT Hollywood, and wonderful.

Its based on a true story. I don't even want to tell you anything about it except that it is a wonderful movie.

Here is the trailer. Look for it. Watch it. And know that your life is that much better for having seen it.