Best Dressed Oscars 2011

Hilary Swank - some of my favorite dresses are worn by stars who aren't even nominated for an Oscar. Isn't Hilary Swank lovely in this dress? Best Dressed in my opinion.

Halle Berry - I just love trains! Fabulous!

Anne Hathaway - red was a trend on the carpet tonight although I only picked this one.

Jennifer Hudson - This was technically more orange than red. She looks AMAZING and her makeup was absolutely flawless. The dress really molded around her figure although this is a straight shot from the front. I need her gym motivation!

Natalie Portman - I always choose the jewel tone dresses because those are my fav and considering what she wore to the Golden Globes this is a much better improvement.

Mila Kunis - Again, I have to refer to the Golden Globes. Even though I think she looks great here, the emerald dress from the GG was much more elegant and I think she should have switched the dresses for the two occasions.

 

Mandy Moore - I'm only including her because I loved the deep blue dress she performed in at the Oscars, but I couldn't find a pic before I posted my blog. This dress was also very trendy with the flesh toned sparklies.

Reese Witherspoon - liked the hair.  

Helen Mirren - at 65 she is way sexier than I could ever hope to be! Gorgeous!

Camila Alves and Matthew McConaughy - If I didn't hate her for stealing my man I would tell her I really like her dress.

Maria Menounos - Did anyone else see see her interviews and notice how ridiculously skinny she is? She turned sideways and I literally thought there was an optical illusion on my tv screen because she all but disappeared. This is an angle any female celebrity would hate and you can still tell how skinny she is!

Sharon Stone - I saw her on tv and thought she looked great, but now looking back at pictures I'm less impressed. I still think the top of the dress is cool since I'm obsessed with all things feather.

Had to do it

I had to do a ballot. I'm so weak.

Get Ready - The Oscars are coming!

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the OSCARS! I picked up this habit when I lived in California because I worked for a guy who was obsessed with the Oscars and he would have a party where we would all fill out a pretend ballot and whoever got the most correct would win a price. It was a lot of fun and it got me hooked on watching the nominated films every year and trying to predict who would win.

  It's a lot harder than you might think, even if you watch a lot of the films because there are awards for short films and documentaries that are almost impossible to get your hands on unless you live in a big city with a theatre who will show all the nominated movies. Plus, there are ten movies nominated for Best Picture which is really just riduclous in my mind. Toy Story? Please.

If you understand how the voting works you have an upper hand on the ordinary guesser. First of all, everyone in the Academy votes for Best Picture while only peers vote for the others (directors vote for Best Director, actors vote for actors, etc). Secondly, there is a lot of politics in Hollywood - it's really a lot like a high school. The cool kids have a better shot at winning and the production studios literally spend tens of millions of dollars campaigning for Oscar votes. I'm not talking about commercials I'm talking about ads in industry newspapers or hosting parties for members of the voting Academy that are simply to troll for votes. Why? Because if a studio wins an Oscar it's the golden ticket - millions of dollars in revenue from an automatic boost in theatre/DVD revenue and you can forever say "Academy Award winning..." So the politics combined with the weird taste in movies of the Academy makes it incredibly difficult to guess who will win.

Here's my thoughts on the movies and who I think will win. If you haven't seen any of them yet then I highly suggest you rent or go to the movies to watch some of the favorites so you can yell at your tv screen all night like me!! Here are my thoughts on who will win. If I'm totally wrong don't come back Sun night or Mon to point and laugh at me because I'm not taking the time to look up the current front-runner. I'm literally just going by my own opinions here.

I'm only guessing the major awards because really, I have no idea about foreign language films than I do about, uh, foreign language in general.

Leading Actor: It will be either Jesse Eisenburg from "Social Network" or Colin Firth for "The King's Speech". Immediately after watching "Social Network" I figured Eisenburg would win this award, but that was before I had seen "The King's Speech". Both actors were amazing and the one who doesn't win will be second place. I would bet my life savings it will be one of the two and this in my opinion is probably the hardest vote to decide. I would have to vote for Colin Firth because although Eisenburg did a great job, I personally think that it's much more difficult to pretend to stutter when you don't have that problem than it is to act like a too-smart for your own good Harvard nerd.

Supporting Actor: Hands down it will be Christian Bale from "The Fighter". This is probably the easiest award to predict and if he doesn't win security better watch out for Kanye West to come on stage and interrupt the award-winner's speech. It is commonly said in Hollywood that actors win awards by playing horrible characters such as drug addicts, hookers, serial killers, etc and this will be no exception.



Side note 1: I used to be in l-o-v-e with Christian Bale because he was in a movie my brother and I were obsessed with called "Newsies".  Haha! Sadly, he looks nothing like this, or like himself, in "The Fighter".

Side note 2: This is not a glaring situation, but studios can actually influence who is the "leading" and who is the "supporting" actor to give their movies a better chance of winning by again using the trade magazines to their advantage (see above). Bale is the supporting actor in this film, but it could be argued that he is just as much of a leading actor as Marky Mark. Without Bale's character there is no movie, but Bale would have had a much more difficult time winning in the leading category because the competition is stiffer while he will easily win in the supporting category. By the way, I felt bad for Marky Mark in this film because he was so completely overshadowed by Bale's acting. It was probably a purposeful casting decision and a smart one at that.

Leading Actress - It's aggravating that I've only seen "Black Swan" out of all the movies nominated in this category so I really don't know. I will vote for Annette Benning because like I said above, she is the cool kid here. Could be Natalie Portman because she did have to work hard to do the ballerina thing, but it should be one or the other.

  

Supporting Actress - Melissa Leo from "The Fighter". This movie had the best supporting cast ever! All the women in Marky-Mark's family were HIGH-larious! All the way home from the movie theatre Brad and I talked about where they found these crazy actresses!! Watch for Helena Bonham Carter to pretend that she doesn't care who wins. She is one of those who tries a little too hard to pretend not to care. Don't know who she is? Look for the bird's nest hair. Sorry, Helena, it's true.

Animated Film - Duh, Toy Story 3.

Director, Film Editing, Original Score, and Adapted Screenwriting- Again, I know nothing about any of these, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say "The Social Network". All of these categories basically contributed to making America love a movie about how a website was created. Think about it. They deserve the awards.

Best Picture - I hate that there are ten nominations. Really, they should just pick how many they want each year and not force a number. I think there should probably be four nominees: The King's Speech, The Social Network, The Fighter, and 127 Hours. I haven't seen all the nominees, but Inception is not worthy of being mentioned at the Oscars and Black Swan and True Grit are overrated. Good movies, but not Best Picture worthy. Anyway, notice any trends here? How much does the Academy love movies about the Royal Family, boxers and biopics? About as much as we all want Simon Cowell back on American Idol. Take a minute to review previous nominees and winners and you'll see. Just look at the last five years and it's apparently obvious.

The award will either go to The King's Speech or The Social Network. I would vote for The Social Network simply because I could not stop thinking about this movie after I watched it, and because I believe the Best Picture winner should be a movie that is representative of the times in America. What will tell our grandkids we did in 2010? We will tell them we wasted all our time using Facebook, Twitter, and Blogging! That's what. Not only that, but the movie is also about wanting more greed, power and money than you ever need and that is also what America is about today, unfortunately. The King's Speech could win just because all the old people in the Academy don't understand what Facebook is, but I do think that ultimately all their grandkids will tell them to vote for The Social Network.

Are you excited now? I know I am!!

Tar Heel Born and a Tar Heel Bred

I was glad to hear that Kelly's Korner was featuring alma matters today because not only do I love talking about my college experiences, but I find it so interesting to hear about other schools. I just love schools with lots of fun traditions and wacky stories.



My alma matter is Carolina. THE Carolina - UNC. Ha! All the South Carolina alums are already closing their browser. UNC was my only choice of colleges - I knew the second I stepped onto UNC's tree lined campus for a tour that I was meant to go there. I never had any doubt and so I applied to their early decision program and I still remember the day I got my acceptance letter. It was the most amazing feeling!

I really wanted the huge university with lots of people, classes with hundreds of students, the historic architecture and traditional brick walkways everywhere.



I ended up becoming BFFs with a girl that I remember not liking at all in high school - haha! - and we lived together off campus for three years after spending almost every waking moment together during freshman year. She didn't go to my high school, but she went to a rival school and obviously I had no reason to think ill of her. Now I think she is one of the sweetest and most kind-hearted women I know. She is actually more like a sister to me because we spent so much time together and lived with one another sharing clothes, food, electricity bills, etc. We really grew up beside each other and learned how to be adults who maintained a living environment, balanced work with play, paid bills and made important decisions for ourselves. I got to see her meet the love of her life, go through all the different stages of dating and now they are married. I love having her in my life and without UNC I would have missed out on a great friendship.

We shared custody of a dog, Maggie, while we lived together and my roomie still has Maggie to this day!



My roommate's parents gave us some great furniture when we lived off campus and it was amazing to walk into an apartment each night that felt so cozy and warm. We were super lucky!

My brother went to UNC for one year before transferring. He wanted to go to a small school where he already had a lot of friends didn't want the big campus experience. I'll never forgive him for doing that! Tear...

I met my husband in high school, but we ended up attending UNC together and that was also a great experience. It's been really nice always knowing the same people and having the same group of friends. It was also fun to experience different parts of UNC that I wouldn't have if it hadn't of been for Brad.

Halloween was a big deal at UNC. The city closed down Franklin St and everyone would walk around in costume doing who knows what. Here's a good one - haha!

 While at UNC I was super busy. I still have my planner that I kept my senior year. I kept it color-coordinated for class projects, tests, group meetings, work, etc. It makes me tired just looking at it now!

UNC was so challenging academically! Every class I took was soooo hard! I don't remember taking one class and thinking that it was easy. I can even remember people telling me "don't take Intro to Music" or "Spanish will kill you". I never heard "take this class it's an easy A" - although a few more A's definitely would have helped my GPA! I don't even think I ever heard of an easy B now that I think of it.

My freshman year was definitiely the most memorable because that was when I made most of my friends and when I learned about "life" and just going out with friends without having to ask for permission or walking across campus at night by myself after a late meeting and thinking how scared I was. I probably went out more when I was 18 than I've gone out since the ten years after that - combined! Life was just so new and I enjoyed the new independence that college brought.

I think one of the best things about UNC was the diversity. I met so many people who were just different from me and I LOVED it. I came from a really small high school where everyone was the same more or less, and I just loved that college was a clean slate and there were rich, poor, black, white, gay - one of everything! I really didn't know anyone who didn't get along - it was just a perfect little bubble world.

Obviously sports are a huge part of most UNC's student's lfie and that was definitely true for me. I went to pretty much every football and basketball game when I could just because I knew that I probably wouldn't be able to do that after graduation. I could not have been any more right. Football was easy to get into with a student ID, but for basketball tickets there was a huge process that involved getting a wrist band with a number on it during a specific week, going to the Dean Dome on Sat at 6 am and standing in line for several hours in order to get TWO basketball tickets for maybe three home games. That was done about three or four times in the fall, but it was still late enough to be freezing at 6 am! You could take your student ID and a friend's to get a ticket. The problem was if you didn't get a good number on your wrist band then you wouldn't be near the start of the line and you may not even get tickets! So the smart thing to do was get a group of friends together, have half of them go at one point in the week to get wristbands and the other half go at another time. That way you had a better chance of getting a good number and whoever got the better number would go get tickets and take the IDs of the other half of the group. I'm telling you, it was serious business! And only students could go to get Duke tickets. That was a whole distribution just by itself, obviously.

Our whole family loves UNC - even our neice!

This was at the UNC v Duke home game my senior year. I think we were a couple rows from having our backs against the wall, but it didn't matter! It was worth it! (Sorry for the bad quality. Scanning pictures is so 2001, huh?)



 Graduation was such a happy, but also sad time. I knew I was leaving Chapel Hill and up until that point, it had been the greatest time of my life. College was hard because, well it's college, but I really became who I was meant to be when I was living in Chapel Hill and so I'm really grateful to UNC for opening the world to me.



I remember thinking that life was so great at UNC and thinking that I wanted time to just stand still.

I will forever be a Tar Heel born and a Tar Heel bred!

I really can't even think about UNC without getting a smile on my face. It was such a great experience for me and I have such a connection with that school. I love being able to say that I went there. Thankfully, I never took one moment of UNC for granted and I'm glad I had the time in Chapel Hill that I did. I cannot imagine going to any other school.

Happy Valentine's Day!!

To celebrate Valentine's Day Brad and I went here:

To do this:

  

To get this:



The meal didn't look quite like that, but it was close. This restaurant is Brad's favorite Barbeque restaurant in Spartanburg, so we just had to go. It was sort of embarrassing, but pretty much everyone in the restaurant was kissing for 20 seconds, so it was sort of fun to watch all the different couples making out to get free food. I thought it was worth it!! Entertainment and a meal for free - who can beat that?!?

Brad and I don't really do the whole V-day thing (although by this post I'm sure you don't believe me). However I am going to surprise him tonight with a subscription to his favorite magazine. I'm not supposed to be getting him anything, but he mentioned it a few days ago and I really want to surprise him. I know he'll like it and it's the small things like that that really make marriage fun so I'm excited to give him the news tonight.

I know this is an older one, but I wish this was his first copy. If you don't know the awesome-ness that is Taylor Kitsch from "Friday Night Lights" then you need to introduce yourself this spring when the final season premieres on NBC. You can thank me later.



Besides Brad and Boomer, the other love of my life right now is this limited edition flavor of ice cream from Edy's. Usually I'm not an adventurous ice cream indulger. I usually stick with the tried and true vanilla or cookies and cream, but this stuff is crazy good. I love the Girl Scout's Samoa's cookies and so I thought I'd give the ice cream a try. It's amazing and it comes in a "light" version that is 1/2 the fat. If you like the Samoa's cookies then go grab a carton of this ice cream and you'll love it as well. I found mine at Target last week and I've almost eaten the entire thing which is an extreme rarity for me because usually I end up throwing away almost a full carton. Not this time! I don't like ice cream that has a lot of junk in it or if the chunks of whatever are too big and overpower the ice cream. This is really great because the pieces of cookie are pretty small and it really just has the perfect amount of the Samoan flavor. Love it!!

Happy Valentine's Day to all the Lovers out there!!

Work from Home = Few Beauty Secrets

Since I have been blessed with a job that allows me to work from home I have very few beauty secrets, and in fact, I need to try harder to actually keep up with trends. I just thought I'd share a few of my favorite items that I think are the key essentials to getting through a basic day.

The only thing I really L-O-V-E is Oil of Olay Total Effects Daily Moisturizer with SPF. I think my love affair with Oil of Olay started when I was in elementary school because I told my friend that I thought her grandmother was beautiful and she told me it was because her grandmother used Oil of Olay everyday. Ha! True Story. I actually saw the lady in a nursing home recently and she is still gorgeous! I am not lying. So Oil of Olay is probably what I will always stick with :-D I wish they made the tinted formula with the SPF formula and then I'd never buy foundation again. That's probably the reason they don't make it like that.

My next favorite product, which I actually do believe is still fairly unknown, is Neosporin Lip Health. This stuff is great because I personally feel that it does live up to it's hype that it "heals" dry cracked lips instead of just masking the appearace of dry lips like chap stick does. If you don't believe in chap stick addiction then just Google it to see how real it is. If you really want to heal your lips try this instead.

Pretty much the only make-up I wear on an everyday basis is concealer and mascara. I literally look like I'm on my death bed if I do not wear mascara and so I usually wear it even when I'm at home in case any neighbors see me or just so I don't scare the pants off my husband. I pretty much like any of the mascaras Maybelliene makes. I'm currently using The Colossal Volume Express, and in my opinion Maybelliene makes just as good of a mascara as any department store brand.

My concealer is currently Victoria's Secret that I got with a $10 off coupon. I've been pretty impressed though, and I would definitely consider buying it full price. I believe it's around $12. I have major black eye circles so I really have to force myself to spend more on a nice concealer.

In the summer I also consider sun screen to be my best friend. I usually keep it in several places in my house and in my car. I usually sometimes have it in my purse if I think I even might need it. I consider the Aveeno brand to be the best because it goes on with a light airy feeling and does not even feel like sunscreen at all. I love the smell as well! I just think when you put it on you can tell that it's made for women and it's a high-quality product.

I guess the only real "beauty secret" that I go by is that I do not buy shaving gel. I used to when I first started shaving, but it always irritated my skin. So, I usually just slather on some regular hair conditioner instead, but I've also used baby oil, an extra dollup of body wash or anything I have laying around in the shower that will add an extra layer of sensitivity between legs and razor. Try it - it works and you'll never use shaving gel again. I think it's a total waste actually.

Other than these few items, I have a hard time spending money on make up because I do work from home and a lot of the time the make up I do buy actually goes bad before I even use it all. I mostly look for sales or deals before I buy anything - especially the items that I only wear on the weekends or on occasional business trips.

Today is THE DAY!

Boomer is READY! First thing this morning he said he wanted to pimp out his Carolina gear and sing the UNC fight song. The UNC vs. Duke game is way bigger than the Super Bowl when you're in this family! Haha!

I'm a Tar Heel born and Tar Heel bred

and when I die I'm a Tar Heel dead!

GO HEELS!!

This Time Last Year

This time last year was a nightmare. 2011 hasn't been that kind to me yet, but the beginning of 2010 was AWFUL! Christmas night 2009 my five year old baby Dodger was hit and killed by a car at my mother's house. He died in my arms a few moments later. I really can't say more than that without crying, but it was like someone ripped my heart out. I could barely eat or move for days and just getting on with life was so hard. Every day was awful without him and everywhere I looked I could see Dodger or was reminded of something he did.

My wonderful coworkers got me this plaque because they knew how much Dodger meant to me. It was very touching and I will always cherish it.

Dodger really was my baby because I had had him since Brad I were first married and he was my little side kick during the years in CA when Brad travelled a lot and worked very long hours.

When we moved to SC and I started working from home Dodger became even more of a shadow to me because I was home all day and night. We were literally together almost 24 hours a day, everyday.

I still miss him so much and I have several constant reminders of him throughout my house.

His loss was so significant to me and so shocking that getting over it was nearly impossible. I thought I would have Dodger for 20 years. I thought he would not only meet our children, but be a big part of their lives and he would be there as they wrestled him in his younger years and snuggled with him in his old man years. Brad and I miss Dodger so much but we do believe that dogs are in heaven and we will see him again one day.

Everyone in my family loved Dodger - especially my nephew who said "Dodger" as one of his first words and went through a stage where all he wanted was to hug Dodger. Dodger always had a slight look of terror in his eyes while being hugged by Grayson, but he was a good sport.

A lot of people say that they don't want another dog when their dog dies, and I think every situation is different. But for me, my house seemed so empty and I could barely stand to be by myself. I also suffered from a lot of guilt over Dodger's death and so I felt very strongly that if I could not save my baby, I would save another dog's life. Brad and I searched through a lot of online rescues and finally found one that we liked. After we put in an application, we were contacted almost immediately by the lady from the SC division of the National Yorkie Rescue. She brought two dogs to our house and let us meet them. One dog stood out to us. He was petite, beautiful and the perfect picture of what a Yorkshire Terrier should be. We didn't pick him. He was standoffish and barked - a lot. Instead, we went with the bigger, crazier looking dog that was so sweet and immediately bonded with us.

His name was Tyson, but we changed it to Boomer, haha! It sounds weird, but he never really responded to that name anyway so I'm not convinced that was his real name. Boomer was SO different than Dodger! I was actually kind of sad at first because he acted like he did not like us. He would sit near us, but not touching us. He wouldn't eat for days no matter what kind of food or treats I offered him. He acted really, really sad.

I didn't know what was going on with this dog until my mom told me that Dodger used to act the same way when we would leave him at her house occasionally. So, we gave it a few more weeks and he started to perk up. Nowadays I can't imagine life without Boomer. He is my new shadow and I know Dodger would be glad that Boomer is taking care of his Mama!

This is Boomer after a recent snow day!

Actually, I would say that Boomer is more attached to me than Dodger was, if that's possible. He really will not leave my side and he pretty much has to be touching me at all times if I'm sitting down or asleep.

He loves to wear clothes. When we first got him last January I had a couple of sweaters of Dodger's and when I bent down to put one on Boomer he went crazy just jumping all over the place! He still loves to wear sweaters and we have bought him several sweaters throughout the year.

I call this Boomer's "over the shoulder, eye smolder" pose!

I used to withold from buying Dodger a lot of doggie stuff, but now if I see something that I want Boomer to have I ususally buy it. I figure their lives are too short and I wish now more than ever that I had bought Dodger more toys and treats in his short little life. So, Boomer is living the high life on my past regrets!

This was about five seconds after laying his new bed on the ground. I didn't even have a chance to cut the tag off!

Surprisingly, Boomer actually helps keep Dodger's memory fresh and alive in my mind. They are similar because obviously they are the same breed, but Boomer is much lazier than Dodger ever was. Boomer never plays except every blue moon he will find a sock on the ground and run around with it for about thirty seconds. We don't know how old Boomer is, but his lack of playtime makes me think he is a little older, maybe 8 or 9ish.

Yes, he sleeps under the covers. When he gets cold at night he will scratch on my shoulders for me to lift up the blanket and let him under. It works because (a) it hurts and (b) I'm usually dead asleep so I don't even know what's going on. He loves to cuddle in blankets as you can see from some of the pics.

Boomer is more of a sissy than Dodger. Dodger thought he was a tough dude and L-O-V-E-D to play with other dogs. Hated cats. But loved dogs so much that he would wait every afternoon on our back porch for our neighbors to come by with their big dogs so he could bark and invite them into our backyard to play. Every day he did that! It was really amazing that he knew what time to expect them to come by. Boomer barely notices other dogs if he sees them and he's been known to growl at dogs who try too hard to introduce themselves. He loves cats, and in fact there is a black cat who wanders around our neighborhood and I call her Boomer's girlfriend because he's friendlier to her than he is other dogs! But the one thing Boomer cannot stand is....SQUIRRELS! We have these big window doors all across the back of the house and all day Boomer watches from the couch and if he sees just one fluffy gray tail he goes NUTS! It's actually quite annoying when you are on a conference call with your boss and your dog is barking like a madman. He will not stop, though. No matter what you try. Thankfully I just open the door and he flies out to go chasing squirrels that he never, ever catches.

Dodger loved walks, but he wasn't so great at walking on a leash because he would stop at anything over a foot high to sniff it or pee on it. He also had some stomach issues and had to be on expensive prescription dog food. I couldn't really feed him anything except for his food or carrots that we gave him as treats. Boomer on the other hand is even more well-behaved than Dodger. He walks better on a leash and basically never has accidents in the house. He also doesn't bark at company as much as Dodger did.

Now that I have Boomer, I will probably never get another puppy. Having such a wonderful experience with getting an adult dog has been awesome! Boomer came with built in manners and house-training (whoo-hoo!). It took a few weeks for him to warm up to us, but other than that it is like he's always been with us.

All in all, Boomer is a wonderful addition to our family and I am so happy that we've had him for over a year now. But he's not a replacement dog. Dodger was one of a kind and will forever be remembered as my oldest fur baby. I love you and miss you so much Dodger!