Good morning everyone!

I hope at least one of you is enjoying some sunshine somewhere in this world.  Let's just say, the weather here is BLAHHHHHHH!  It's been cold and the forecast for today was rain/snow mix and then turning into snow (6-8") tonight.  Well, to my surprise, I woke up to about 2-3 inches on the ground this morning.  Thus, making me very nervous to leave the house.  And, for those of you who know me well, I HATE being inside all day.  I got all pumped up last night when I planned some new workouts and now I can't even start them today.  Ugh.... I'm also supposed to go to a lunch w/ some girls from our new town but I'm not sure if I'll make it.  I'm also supposed to have a doctors appointment today in the city but I'm not sure if I'll make that either!  For those of you from the south who, like me, have grown up thinking snow is awesome.... yeah, not so much.  I just keep thinking, "only about a month and a half left of this junk"!  Then, I'll be super happy with the flowers blooming, leaves popping out and the northeast summers with little humidity!

So, I mentioned in the last paragraph that I am planning on going to lunch with some girls from our new town today.  Well, this got arranged when I contacted the president of the "Moorestown Newcomers".  It's a social group in Moorestown for new folks in town and it sounds like so much fun.  They have cocktail parties, progressive dinners, lunch outings, golf outings for the guys, etc, etc, etc.  So, some of the ladies are having a lunch today and they invited me so I could check out a few people from the group.  It seems to be families of all age ranges; newly weds, young children all the way up to empty nesters.  So, I think we'll try it out.  I have to tell ya, the people in New Jersey are so dag-gum nice!  Maybe it's just our little town but I swear, it's crazy!  Christian and I walked into town from our house yesterday afternoon and people were passing us on the sidewalk and they'd say "hello, how ya doin'".  I'm just not used to that stuff anymore!  I LOVE it!  I also found out (not sure if I've told you guys this) that Moorestown was rated the number one town to live in in the U.S. in 2005 by Money Magazine!  How cool is that?  And, we get to live here!  I couldn't be happier about where we're living right now.  Christian says I get my hopes up too much but I can't help it.  It's such a change from the "stick-up-your-ass" place that we just moved from!  Plus, we have no association rules at our new house!  I can put up a wind chime and my cute little red birdhouse and not have to worry about hearing crap from the crazy strict homeowners association!  Happy happy happy.  The people we're renting from are really great too.  Shirley and John are the owners and I could see us hanging out with them quite a bit.  We're actually going to dinner with them and another couple this Saturday here in town.  They live about a mile from us and they're a young-ish couple who seem to have the same age difference as Christian and I do.  Shirley and I went to lunch together last week and it was fun.  She grew up around here so she was SUPER helpful with giving me suggestions for doctors, dentists, restaurants, wine shops, and she told me about the Moorestown Newcomers group.  John plays golf and was here at the house when we were moving stuff into the garage and saw that we had golf clubs so I'm sure he and Christian will be playing quite a but once it warms up some.

So, enough about all of that.  I actually made a list of things I wanted to blog about today and I've covered a few of them so far.  So now, I want to talk a little about the State of the Union Address, new books, my 2011 Bucket List, and the Oscar Nominations!

So, first, the State of the Union Address.  I'll admit, I did NOT watch the address.  I have become so annoyed with politics within the past year or so and I have now become so uninformed that I assumed it would make zero sense to me so I refrained from watching.  However, I've been listening to my normal talk radio all morning here on the computer and I've heard some pretty good reviews.  I also like the fact that the members of Congress didn't keep their normal partisan seating chart!  I love that they all mingled in with one another.  That's refreshing.... I keep thinking "Can't we all just get along"!?  I may get a wild hair and google some parts of the speech.  But, don't hold your breath.  haha

Next topic: new books.  Every once and a while I'll be reading a magazine or internet article that strikes my fancy regarding a new book.  The one I'm very interested in right now is Bluebird: Women and the new psychology of happiness.  If you don't know, I'm obsessed with being happy.  I think happiness is a choice and I'm very intrigued with the title of this book- especially the "psychology" part.  So, I'm going to pick that one up this week and check it out.  Right now, I'm trying to get into the book "Freedom".  It was an Oprah's Bookclub choice this past year but I'm not one for fictional books so it's not really grabbing my attention.  I prefer those that I can learn or be a little more enlightened from.  One of my favorite books I read last year was The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin.  I love how funny and honest it was and it really made you think about the choices you can make in your life to be happier!  So, Bluebird seems to be the one that is tugging at my purse strings right now!  I'll let you know how it is once I start it.

So, talking about books brings me to one of my next topics: my 2011 Bucket List.  Here it is in no particular order:

1. Start a family (ok, yes, this one is at the top for a reason)

2. Finish 12 books (I had the same goal last year and only got to 10)

3. Take the GRE (as I continue to marvel at getting a masters degree, I figure the first step is taking this dang test)

4. Take a real, romantic vacation for just us (done and done!  We're going to Vegas and the Grand Canyon for our anniversary!  Many of you may think this one is a bit ridiculous because of all the travel that we do but in reality, Christian and I have done VERY few trips where it's just the two of us.  So, needless to say, I'm PUMPED!)

5. Visit two new European locales: Rome & Paris (Rome is happening in March w/ my momma!  Paris is another story and still up in the air.  We usually go to Frankfurt, Germany in September and apparently, the train to Paris isn't too bad.  So, if we have time, we may be going to the City of Lights!)

6.  Blog at least once a week (this starts now)

7. Make a decision on a graduate program (obviously, this links to number 3 but it's a far more complicated feat.  The one I REALLY want is Family & Marriage counseling but, unfortunately, not all schools offer this program; especially since I really want the sex therapy track for this program.... which I've only found at two schools around here.  Also, we have to move again in two years so I'm not sure if I'll even realistically be able to start and finish here or even transfer somewhere else.  So, there I stand)

8. Do yoga once a week (luckily, our gym offers a wide range of classes and each time I do yoga, I feel so peaceful.  So, I am attempting to do yoga once a week now.)

There you have my 2011 bucket list!  I tried to make it to 10 items but I got stuck at eight.  I will keep all of you informed of how I'm tracking towards my goals as the year moves on.

And, on to my last topic: Oscar nominations!!  I LOVE this time of year because this is when those really great movies get their recognition and when I strive to see as many as I can get my hands on!  This year, I've seen four of the ten best picture nominees.  If you haven't heard, here are the 10 Best Pic nominees:

1. The Kids are Alright (haven't seen it but I definitely want to.  I think it's a brave story to tell and I love that something like this got credit)
2. Inception (interesting but weird and hard to follow)
3. Toy Story 3 (haven't seen it but I've heard all good things)
4. The Fighter (dying to see this!!!)
5. Black Swan (AMAZING movie!  It was so dark and twisted but I LOVED it)
6. The King's Speech (also dying to see this one)
7. The Social Network (Great movie.  It's a very interesting story and amazing how Facebook has taken on a life of it's own)
8. True Grit (Christian and I saw this the other night and I loved it!  I love anything that the Cohen brothers do.  I haven't seen the original but now I want to.  Jeff Bridges and Hailee Steinfeld are amazing.)
9. 127 Hours (I'm sure this is good but I truly don't have a desire to see this.  It seems too heartbreaking.)
10. Winter's Bones (I've never even heard of this one so I'll have to do some research)

So, I've seen Inception, Black Swan, The Social Network and True Grit and just based on those four, I'd say it's a tie between Black Swan and True Grit.  The movie I want to see the most out of all 10 would be The King's Speech.  It looks soooo good!

I hope you all have enjoyed my LONG blog today!  Hopefully it broke up some of the monotony of a typical Wednesday.  Also, just an update from the beginning of my blog: it's still snowing... hard.  Looks like I'm going to be stuck inside all day.  :-/

Have an awesome day!

xoxo,

Chrissi