Happy Endings

#28: Watch every Best Picture Winner since 1961.
I can't believe it, but this is DONE...I've officially watched every BPW from the last 53 years! The last one, you ask? It was the very good, very epic Lawrence of Arabia. It's nearly four hours long, so Tom and I spread it out over Memorial Day weekend, watching it in increments starting on Friday evening and finishing it up yesterday morning. I loved it! What a great ending to my run of Best Picture Winners. This was definitely one of my favorite goals...I'm excited to cross it off, but I had so much fun with it that I'm a little sad to see it go!

#10: Read 30 non-academic books.
Speaking of yesterday morning, that's also when I finished reading The Hunger Games! (It feels so good to actually be finishing some books instead of just starting a ton of them!) We rented the movie about a month ago, and it was good; but I figured the book had to be better, and I was right. I'm definitely going to try to read the next book before the next movie comes out.

'Tis Better to Give

#23: Give a gift for no reason.
I love the idea of getting people little gifts just because. No special occasion required, just something to say "I was thinking of you." I've been on the receiving end of this several times (mostly thanks to my mother-in-law!), and I thought it would be nice to pay it forward.

Anyone ever heard of a purse hook? It's a wonderful invention, especially if you're a gal like me who hates having to put her purse on the floor. You just place the hook on the edge of a table and hang your purse at the bottom. The weight from your purse holds the hook in place! My mother-in-law gave me one on my last birthday, and I use it all the time.

A couple months ago, Tom and I went on a bowling date with our friends Matt and Heather. I pulled the purse hook out to use while we were waiting for a lane to open up (I love going bowling, but bowling alley floors can be particularly gross), and Heather just thought it was the greatest thing ever. So ever since then I've been on the lookout for a purse hook for her. Well, I found a really cute one at Target on Wednesday, and in yellow to boot, which is Heather's favorite color. I brought it to church with me to give to her on Sunday, and she really liked it; but actually, I'm not sure who enjoyed that exchange more: her or me! Giving gifts is such fun!

#28: Watch every Best Picture winner since 1961.
We rented Tom Jones on Saturday. This was actually my third attempt at watching it; I tried watching it on two different occasions when it was on Netflix instant, and never made it to the end. Well, let me just say I'm glad to finally get this one out of the way. By the end, Tom and I were scratching our heads wondering why this movie won Best Picture, or why it was even nominated. It wasn't exactly bad...just kinda boring and a little odd. Oh well. Now I just have one movie left to watch; I can't believe it!

A Good Saturday

#30: Get my car washed and vacuumed.
I decided that this past Saturday had to be the day to get my car washed and vacuumed. It's been way too long. I honestly can't remember the last time I did this, but it was most likely several months before I got married...so I would guess that it's been about four years, but probably longer. And trust me, it showed. The inside was a mess; the carpets had all kinds of dirt and grass and who knows what else, and the dashboard was covered in dust. Moving to Louisville hasn't been nice to my car's exterior either. The past three winters have really hurt the paint job, mostly because of the salt they use on the roads when there's snow/ice. Anyway, on Saturday morning, I took absolutely everything out of my car so there wouldn't be anything in the way when the folks at St. Matthews Car Wash went to vacuuming. (I wanted every nook and cranny clean, and I knew I wouldn't be able to do a satisfactory job myself.) And there was a LOT of stuff. Not surprising, since I feel like I've been living in my car the last few months. So, when the car was empty, I took it over to SMCW...and I was in and out in 10 minutes, tops! They were so fast, and my car looked a thousand times better afterward. I don't know why I put it off for so long!

#28: Watch every Best Picture winner since 1961.
Saturday evening, we rented Argo. I didn't really know what it was about beforehand, but I really liked it! I mean, come on...the CIA using a fake movie as a means of rescuing American diplomats from Iran in the middle of a revolution? I can't believe something like that actually happened; what a cool moment in US history. I'd even buy it on Blu-Ray, if the price was right. There haven't been too many BPWs about which I could say that.

A Productive Week

#28: Watch every Best Picture winner since 1961.
Taking a little break between ER seasons this week. Tom and I just finished Season 10 (!), but my work schedule for last week and this week has me working later hours (10:30-7:00 instead of 8:00-5:00), so we haven't have much time to sit down and watch anything together. Fortunately, most of the remaining BPWs on my list are movies that Tom doesn't really want to see, so I put a couple of those at the top of the Netflix queue this past week.

So...American Beauty. Where to begin? I guess I will start by saying that I was uncomfortable from the very beginning of the movie until the very end. I mean, there wasn't a single character that I didn't think was at least a little on the weird side, especially behind closed doors. Maybe that was the point, that so many of us have really weird quirks and really messed-up lives, but we've gotten really good at hiding it. The movie did have its up-sides: This was another rare one that actually made me notice the cinematography, which was great...you know, based on my limited knowledge of cinematography. Also, I thought Annette Bening was fantastic. Her character was a freak show, but hey, so was everyone else's; and she played hers incredibly well. That being said, I'm not a fan of this movie as a whole. In fact, it might be one of my least favorite BPWs so far. A little too much depravity for my taste, I guess.

Next up was The Deer Hunter. I can honestly say that I knew absolutely nothing about this movie before I watched it: the actors, the plot, nothing. OK, I did know it was about Vietnam in some way, but that was it. Based on that limited knowledge, I assumed it was going to be a lot like Platoon, which I wasn't crazy about, and I'd been putting off watching The Deer Hunter for that reason. So you can imagine my surprise when the movie ended and I was in tears (both happy and sad...the ending is bittersweet). It was so different from Platoon, mostly because it focused on the soldiers' lives before and after Vietnam, which I really appreciated. Actually, in that sense, it reminded me a little of The Hurt Locker, only better. It was a lot longer than I would've liked--just over three hours, the first of which was spent just establishing the main characters--but it really picks up after awhile. Overall, I guess it's not one of my favorites, but I did enjoy it. I'd probably even watch it again if the opportunity arose, and that's more than I can say for a lot of the BPWs I've seen.

#97: Take a self-defense class.
So, I get a Norton employee daily newsletter sent to my work email, and sometime late last week, one of the topics in the newsletter was for a free class on assault prevention and self-defense! I jumped on it; fortunately they let me register even though I'm not technically a Norton employee. This is something I've wanted (and needed) to do for a very long time. I take the stairs instead of the elevator and park in parking garages and stuff like that way too often; the way I see it, I can't afford not to know how to defend myself if I ever needed to. Thankfully, I've never been in a situation where I needed to, and hopefully I never will be; but in this day and age, especially as a woman, one can never be too careful. And the class was great; I learned lots of easy techniques; and when it came time to practice, the instructor even asked if I had done it before. (I guess that's a good sign!) Anyway, I feel so much safer with these techniques in my skill set. I highly recommend taking a class like this. Even if you never have to use the stuff you learn (and I pray you never do), you will feel so empowered!

The list is complete!

No, not THE list, unfortunately...

#28: Watch every Best Picture winner since 1961.
So, the Oscars were on last night. You know what that means...all of the movies on my list have now been revealed. Welcome to the list, Argo! Of all the movies that were nominated this year, the only one I've actually seen so far is Lincoln, and I really thought that would win because it was fantastic, but I guess we'll see if Argo is even better. (At least Daniel Day-Lewis won Best Actor; if he hadn't, it would probably go down as one of the biggest Oscar snubs of all time.)

In honor of the Oscars, Netflix has made a bunch of Oscar-winning movies available for instant streaming, including Ordinary People! It's been in dry-dock ever since Tom and I got Netflix, so I was more than a little excited when I discovered that I could finally watch it without even having to wait for it to come in the mail. And the verdict? It was...good. Not one of my favorites, but definitely not terrible. The ending was a little unsettling, but when you think about the title of the movie, it made sense: In real life, not every situation gets finished off with a nice, neat bow. Yes, I just revealed that the ending isn't exactly a happy one. Hey, the movie's been out for over 30 years; you've had plenty of time. So anyway, that's 48 movies down, and just 5 more to go...I think I might actually meet this goal!

#3: Participate in the Cooper River Bridge Run.
Speaking of goals I'm on my way to meeting, the Bridge Run is just over a month away; Tom and I are good and registered, and our packets arrived last week! I'd love to post a picture, but we had our stuff sent to my parents' house, so I haven't actually seen it yet...! Unfortunately, though, I don't think I'll be able to run it. I restarted the Couch-to-10K plan a few months back, but the holidays really slowed me down, so I won't be done with the program by the time the Bridge Run rolls around. Maybe I'll run as much of it as I can, and then walk the rest...we'll see. In any case, I am doing it, so in my mind this goal is as good as checked-off already!

Saddest Movie Ever?

#28: Watch every Best Picture Winner since 1961.
I'm a little behind with this one, but a few weeks ago, Tom and I rented Schindler's List. Actually...maybe I was putting off writing about it because just thinking about that movie makes me feel sad. Before sitting down to watch it, all I knew was that it was about the Holocaust. So right away, I knew it probably wasn't going to be a feel-good kinda movie. But wow, I was not prepared for just how sad it was. By the time it was over, I felt like crawling into a dark hole somewhere and curling up in the fetal position. The hardest thing about it was realizing that it was a retelling of real-life events. It's just so hard to believe that those kinds of things actually happened, that actual human beings were capable of such cruelty. The movie itself blew me away; it was incredibly well-made, but I don't think I could ever watch it again.

A Short Review

#28: Watch every Best Picture Oscar winner from 1961-2013.
I'm going to keep this short and sweet because 1) I'm not a movie critic, and 2) when I try to write lengthy posts, I usually end up publishing too long after the goal I'm writing about is accomplished. So, anyway...Saturday night, Tom and I watched The French Connection. I didn't really know much about this movie going into it; the only thing I did know was that it had a car-chase scene that was considered one of the greatest of all time.

Well, now I know that it is a fantastic movie! I must admit, I was on a Pinterest streak while we were watching this, so I didn't watch as closely as I could have, but I saw enough to know that there was never a dull moment, and Gene Hackman was great.

Oh, and that car-chase scene? Believe the hype.

Exciting Progress

#28: Watch every Best Picture winner from 1961-2013.
Scott and Amanda were visiting Louisville a few weeks ago, and we got to have a double-date with them! We met up for dinner and then rented The Artist to watch afterward. And you know, I really liked it! It was a big risk, doing a silent film in this day and age, but it was worth it..."the Academy" seemed to think so, anyway!

#1: 100 new recipes.
Crossing had a church-wide picnic on Sunday evening. Everyone with a last name beginning with A-M brought a side item, and N-Z brought a dessert. The Duttweilers' contribution was a tomato cucumber feta salad, which seemed to be a big hit; at least, that's what I'm going to assume since there were no leftovers. Then we had two new things for dinner this week: spinach artichoke pasta which tasted a lot like the dip, but you can eat it with a fork (what's not to love?), and crockpot chicken with a barbecue sauce made from pineapple juice and sriracha, among other things. Both were "faboo," which I've been saying a lot around the house lately...for some reason. So I'm up to 99 recipes now. Recipe #100 had better be a real humdinger.

#64: Watch every season of ER.
Speaking of humdingers, we're more than halfway through ER! We finished Season 8 last week, and boy, that season finale was...well, you know. Dr. Greene (my favorite character) is gone, and now we're seeing the beginning of what Tom refers to as the "Carter administration." Hardy-har-har.

#54: Donate my hair.
And in other news...I measured my hair yesterday while it was in a ponytail (well, OK, I held it up while Tom measured it); the longest layer is currently 12 inches, and the shortest layer is 7. The minimum requirement for Locks of Love is 10 inches, but I don't think it's too early to start psyching myself up for the big cut!

Shakespeare in What?

#28: Watch every Best Picture winner from 1961-2013.
I just watched Shakespeare in Love. Actually, I started watching it Sunday afternoon, and after finishing it last night, I have just one question...

How...in the world...did this movie win Best Picture?

Shakespeare in Love...? Shakespeare in Heat is more like it. "Oh, you're getting married next week? Let's have sex." "Oh, you were responsible for a man's death? Let's have sex." "A sword fight is breaking out in the middle of rehearsal? Let's make out under the stage." "Wait, you're still going to marry that other guy? But you and I had sex."

Good grief. Is that really what some people think love is? The two main characters didn't know each other at all; they didn't even have a real conversation until the end of the movie. I'm probably opening myself up to a lot of potential criticism here, but since not many people read this blog, I'm going to say it anyway: physical attraction is important to a good relationship (especially a good marriage), but it's not love. I'm not trying to be cynical or anything, just telling it like it is.

That stuff aside, I guess the movie had its entertaining moments (you know, the other half of the movie...the half that didn't take place in a bedroom?) and a boatload of great actors, but I didn't think it was Best Picture material. I'm no Roger Ebert, but there it is. Oh, and the final injustice? One of the other Best Picture nominees that year was none other than Saving Private Ryan! Unbelievable.

Thank Goodness for Weekends

#28: Watch every Best Picture Oscar winner from 1961-2013.
About two weeks ago, I got an interesting email from Netflix. Apparently it was going to take longer than expected for our next ER disc to get here (Season 7: Disc 1, in case you were curious...making good progress on that goal!), so they sent the next available DVD in our queue, which was A Beautiful Mind. Well, Tom and I finally sat down and watched it the following Sunday evening. And can I just say...wow. It's so good. Heartbreaking at times but so, so good. This one might be a contender for a spot in the Top 5. Then last Friday we watched A Man for All Seasons, which was excellent as well. It reminded me of something I might've watched in a high school history class or something, but totally in a good way. That Thomas More was a pretty cool dude.

#1: 100 new recipes.
The weekend before last was another bad one, as far as what we ate. So we had another veggie night last week, and one of the things we had was a pot of stewed tomatoes (sorry no pictures...leftovers were gone too quickly!), courtesy of Paula Deen's Southern Cooking Bible.

#63: Go to 5 concerts.
Last weekend was a pretty crazy one. I got to go back to St. Louis on Saturday, this time to hear Ravi Zacharias, world-famous Christian apologist and one of my all-time favorite speakers. The next morning, I drove back to Louisville, and almost immediately after I got home, Tom and I jumped back in the car and drove to Indianapolis, where we saw...

SNOW PATROL!!! (Sorry the picture is so blurry, but that's definitely them.)

These guys are one of Tom's favorite bands, and they put on a GREAT show! The way we acquired these tickets was kinda funny. Shelli, one of the managers at my office, bought tickets to this show several months in advance, but back in December she hurt her knee pretty badly and ended up needing surgery. She's still got a long way to go in the recovery process, so she sold me her tickets. So I wish it had been under more pleasant circumstances, but the timing was actually kind of perfect for Tom and me, because Sunday was the 4-year anniversary of the day we started courting. Not a bad way to celebrate, I thought. :)

An Easter Update

#28: Watch every Best Picture Oscar winner from 1961-2013.
I watched Million Dollar Baby last weekend. For those who haven't seen it, I warn you: yes, this is a boxing movie, but Rocky it is not. If you only like movies with happy endings, this is not one for you. I went through several tissues in the second half. That being said, I thought it was great. Sad, yes, but very well-done. Way to go, Clint Eastwood! This weekend, I watched Amadeus. This was one of those movies that was available for instant streaming on Netflix but then went away at the beginning of the year. Well, it's back! This was also one of those movies about which I didn't really know very much, but I was very pleasantly surprised.

#1: 100 new recipes.
We went beyond Meatless Monday and didn't have meat in any of the dinners we ate at home this week! I tried another veggie burger, this time with sweet potato, and they held together much better than the last veggie burgers I tried. But that's probably because I didn't have any Magic Bullet-related complications to deal with this time. (I feel obligated to warn you, though: I followed this recipe extremely loosely. The person who posted it is vegan, and I am not. Vegans are cool with me, but her recipe had a lot of ingredients that I don't have and couldn't really justify buying, so I substituted almost all of the ingredients with things that were similar but not necessarily vegan; but the burgers were still fantastic.) I also made another pasta salad, this time with cheese tortelloni, basil, and lemon juice, yum.

Tom and I had a nice, quiet Easter brunch at home this year. For our "cocktail" we had a peach lemonade cooler (with green tea instead of vodka, hehe). I made some cheesy roasted tomatoes, revisited Paula Deen's breakfast casserole (tweaked a little so that I could make it in the Crock-Pot while we were at church), and for dessert?

A grapefruit pound cake! Clearly, this one turned out much better than the disaster of a pound cake I attempted on New Year's Day...

#82: Resist the urge to quote or reference The Golden Girls for a month.
Hey...! Today is Easter! That means Lent is over, which means that I have officially gone for over a month without quoting or referencing The Golden Girls! And you know, while I still think of lines or scenes from that show from time to time, it's definitely not as readily on my mind as it was a month ago. It feels good to be free of that...and isn't freedom ultimately what Easter is all about? :)

War is...well, you know.

#82: Resist the urge to quote or reference The Golden Girls for a month.
The Golden Girls is my favorite show of all time...but it's a little sad how much I love it. If I'm not watching it, I'm usually quoting it or relating a scene to some real-life situation or at least thinking about it. This show is, as one of the old men from When Harry Met Sally said, "burned on my brain." And quite honestly, I have a lot of fun with it, but I wish there were other things more readily on my mind (particularly Scripture...I haven't worked on memorizing Titus in months). So this is what I'm giving up for Lent this year. I realize that some people might think this is silly. To those people, I would say: spend 20 minutes around me, and you will soon discover how necessary this sacrifice is.

#28: Watch every Best Picture Oscar winner from 1961-2013.
On Saturday night, I watched Platoon. As one reviewer put it, this is definitely one of those movies that you endure, not enjoy. It was incredibly hard to watch, which was to be expected; it was set during the Vietnam War, which was just such a dark time in history, on so many levels. I don't consider myself a particularly emotional person, but about halfway through Platoon, I had moved beyond crying and onto sobbing uncontrollably. That being said, I won't say that I liked it, but it did make me think. Moreover, it made me want to pray even harder for our troops overseas, not just for their protection, but for relief from the internal struggles they inevitably face.
On a lighter note, the Oscars were on last night, which means I have another movie to add to my list...please welcome The Artist!

First and Last

#1: 100 new recipes.
I've finally found an easy, flexible breakfast casserole recipe, from who else but Paula Deen? Her recipe calls for a pound of sausage, but I think you could keep the base ingredients the same and easily substitute a pound of any other ingredient you wanted (bacon, veggies, some sort of meat/veggie combination, etc.). Did I mention it was easy? Well, it was also really yummy. Once again, I wish I'd taken a picture (I feel like I've been saying that a lot lately...sorry), but we took it over to our friends' house for dinner the other night and sort of...left it there! Oh well. There will definitely be a next time!

#28: Watch every Best Picture Oscar winner from 1961-2013.
The Last Emperor is the last remaining BP winner available for instant streaming on Netflix. (There were several others I hadn't seen yet, but they went away at the beginning of this year...boo.) I've been having to watch it in increments, but I like most of what I've seen so far!

In other Oscar news, this year's nominees were announced last week! Unlike last year, I haven't seen any of them yet, so I don't really have one that I'm rooting for. We'll see what happens!

#85: Jeff Street once a month.
And finally, we made our monthly trip to Jeff Street this past Saturday. Unfortunately, they already had way too many volunteers when we showed up, so our visit was a very short one. (Actually, that's not unfortunate at all, because it means that a lot of people want to help out there. I was also feeling a little under the weather that day, so I was honestly thankful for the chance to go home and rest. But I digress.) Since there wasn't much to say about this month's visit, I thought I'd take this opportunity to talk about something pretty awesome that's been happening over the last few months: Some of the Jeff Street residents have started coming to our church. In fact, one Sunday, the whole row in front of Tom and me was full of guys who are in the Fresh Start program. I don't think their showing up has anything to do with Tom or me, but it's just been so cool to know that God is using Crossing to play a part in their spiritual growth. It's also been nice to see some of these guys once a week, instead of just once a month. Exciting stuff!

Winner? Eh.

#28: Watch every Best Picture Oscar winner from 1961-2013.
So, I watched The English Patient while I was doing laundry the other night, and I gotta say: I had pretty high hopes for it, and I was a little disappointed. However, I think there was a lesson to be learned from it: Husbands, never leave your wife alone in the desert with Ralph Fiennes.

What is it with all these cheating movies winning Best Picture...? I've seen a lot so far where that's either a side story or the main plot, and I don't like it. (And yes, I know it's based on a novel which is very loosely based on a real person, but does that really make a difference? Really?) I hate to just write it off, but I guess that's the world we live in. Well, in any case, I'm giving it a reluctant thumbs-down. The music, direction, and acting were all fantastic, which makes me think that the people who do this sort of thing professionally might disagree with my final verdict; but the plot just didn't do it for me, and that's kind of an important element, in my humble opinion. Then again, I looked up the other Best Picture nominees that year, and the pickings were a little slim, so I guess I would have given it to The English Patient too, just by default, if I were part of the Academy.

As a side note...To anyone else who's seen it, am I the only one who thinks the horribly-burned Count Almasy bears a slight resemblance to another character also played by Ralph Fiennes? Just sayin'.

Much to Celebrate!

A LOT has happened in the last few weeks!

#58: Order fish 5 times.
So...I turned 25 two weeks ago! For my birthday dinner this year, I chose to go to Ramsi's, this great multicultural restaurant in the Highlands. And when I say multicultural...whoo, boy. It's the perfect place to go when you're with a group of people who all want different types of food. There was Italian, Greek, Moroccan, Indian, Chinese, Thai, Mexican...you name it! Personally, I was in the mood for Italian that night, and I ordered the Salmon Sonesta, which was salmon (duh) served over mashed potatoes, with a sun-dried tomato cream sauce (and Asian stir-fry vegetables on the side...random). So, so good! And it was fish dish #5, so consider this goal complete!

#63: Go to 5 concerts.
This is on the list because I looooove going to hear live music, but the last year or so has been pretty dry in the live music department. Well, we try to do something fun and musical every year at Christmastime. Last year we went to hear the Louisville Chorus, and they were fantastic. We're not exactly music critics or anything, but we were both in choirs all through college...speaking of which, the LC actually performed a piece that Tom and I did in college: Rachmaninoff's Ave Maria, which was always one of my favorite pieces that we did. We sang it in Russian, and the LC sang it in Latin. Just beautiful.

#14: Host a themed party.
Last Saturday was the Duttweilers' First Annual Christmas Extravaganza Party! (Tom shot down my original title.) We were talking maybe a month ago about how it would be nice to get together with all our friends here in Louisville before we all part ways for Christmas. Well, I honestly didn't think that idea would become a reality, but sure enough, there we were on Saturday afternoon, chatting with our friends, exchanging gifts White-Elephant style, and snacking on a whole lot of food...! (And wouldn't you know, I brought my camera to the party, but forgot to make sure the memory card was in it...doh.) I think a good time was had by all...and Tom and I are already coming up with ideas for next year!

#1: 100 new recipes.

Our party gave me a reason to try five new recipes! In Tom's family, it's not Christmas without buckeyes. This was the first year that he wasn't going to be with his family during "buckeye season," so I got the recipe from his mom and made a HUGE batch of them for the party! For the next treat, I found a P-Dub recipe for these little chocolate cookies, halfway dipped in white chocolate and crushed peppermints (we used candy canes). I made the cookies, and Tom took care of the dipping. Cute and delicious! Next came this cranberry chutney that we served over cream cheese, to spread on crackers. It was probably the easiest thing to make, but I think it was my favorite! And what's a Christmas party without Christmas cookies? I made them waaaaay too big, so we only ended up with 19 instead of 36 like the recipe said...but they sure were tasty! In keeping with the finger-food/bite-size theme, I got a recipe for tomato tarts from my Christmas with Paula Deen cookbook (found it online too though, so the link is posted!).

#28: Watch every Best Picture winner from 1961-2013.
I had Tom's laptop with me in the kitchen this week, mainly so we could listen to Christmas music while cooking. While I was dipping the buckeyes on Wednesday night, I thought I'd put on a movie instead. So I wandered over to Netflix to see what BPWs were available for instant viewing. Well, to my surprise and delight, one of them was Rocky! Not exactly a Christmas movie, but a great one nonetheless.

Didn't get a chance to send cards this year, but definitely next year! I recently started a Pinterest account, so I'm already getting some good ideas...! Merry Christmas, everyone!

Dinner and a Movie

#28: Watch every Best Picture Oscar winner from 1961-2013.
In my parents' house, there is a music box that has some cherubim sitting around a piano, and the song it plays is the theme from Chariots of Fire. Until recently, that beautiful tune was all I knew about the movie. See, I've declared Monday to be movie night, at least for this semester; Tom's in class until 10 that night, so I've been watching the movies he either doesn't care about seeing or has already seen. And this week's selection was Chariots of Fire, courtesy of Netflix instant streaming. (That's right, we are still loyal Netflix subscribers, come what may.) Oh, what a movie. I discovered pretty early on that that song was kind of a silly choice for a music box with some cherubim sitting around a piano. To be honest, my training for the Bridge Run hasn't been going very well lately, but thanks to Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams, I am re-inspired!

#1: 100 new recipes.

Cold weather is finally starting to set in, and cold weather means soup weather at the Duttweiler residence. One of our favorites is minestrone; when we have the option of ordering soup at a restaurant, we get that from time to time, but I had never made it myself. Well, I recently came across the cookbook that came with the Crock-Pot my mom gave me, and it had a minestrone recipe. Unbeknownst to me at the time, the day I made it was cold and rainy: the perfect kind of day for soup, and this one did not disappoint!

More Recipes, and a Movie

#100 new recipes.
I need to start keeping a list of all the pumpkin recipes I've tried, for future reference. This fall has been very good to us in that respect...so much pumpkin goodness!

Behold...pumpkin risotto. (I know it's dark...we were trying to go for natural lighting, and it was dark and cloudy outside at the time, so...yeah.) Yes, I made risotto earlier this year, and the basic concepts of risotto are usually the same, but some of the techniques in this recipe were different. I think this one was also a little more authentic, and it looked more like risotto is supposed to look. But the recipe was from Wolfgang Puck, so what do you expect?

My church is in the middle of a six-week campaign called Change for a Change. Each week we have a different event after each service, and the proceeds from each event go toward the digging of a well in Ghana. The events have varied each week, from passing out water bottles to fill up with loose change, to a kids' craft day, to a carnival, to this past Sunday's event: a bake sale. My contribution this week was a batch of pumpkin cookies with a crazy icing drizzle. Tom bought two...he was very excited about them. :)

Next was a non-pumpkin recipe...Friday afternoon, I came across and saved P-Dub's recipe for homemade restaurant-style salsa. I wasn't sure when I'd get to try it, but then Lyndie suggested having nachos at small group this week! Perfect timing! So I've now learned how to make both guacamole and salsa...Mexican restaurants better watch out!

My aunt emails me recipes by the virtual truckload, and one of them was for a simple pumpkin soup, with onions and cumin. I was amazed at how quickly it came together; I'm definitely glad I have this one in my arsenal, especially for days when I work late and don't want to take a long time on dinner!

And last but not least was another non-pumpkin recipe: white chicken chili. [insert shameless plug for other blog here] This one's been on my cold-weather recipe to-do list for awhile, and it was well worth the wait!

#28: Wath every Best Piture Osar winner from 1960-2013.
Monday night, I watched Midnight Cowboy. It was easily the most depressing movie I have ever seen. Granted, I have not seen many movies in my life, but I'm saying it anyway. Every second was just dripping with hopelessness and all the depravity of the 1960s at its worst. I had to watch something else immediately afterward, just to take my mind off of how sad it was. I hope this goes without saying, but I would not recommend it. However, if I had to pick one (figuratively) bright spot, it would be Dustin Hoffman's performance...but that shouldn't surprise anyone at this point.

A Movie-ful Week

#13: Buy a new kitchen gadget and use it 10 times.
This goal is officially complete! I used my mandolin slicer for the tenth time earlier this week, and it was to make the one thing I was most excited about when I first bought it: french fries!

They turned out perfectly...well, the part that I used the julienne blade for, anyway. I probably should've baked them longer, 'cause they're looking a little...floppy. Anyway, just because this goal is done doesn't mean I'm done with my mandolin. It's been a huge help to me; I think I'll be using it for years to come.

#28: Watch every Best Picture Oscar winners from 1961-2013.
Thursday night, I watched Rain Man. Oh my goodness...I think that one might rival One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest as my favorite so far. Dustin Hoffman was incredible. I never realized what a great actor he was, and then this year I've seen three of his best movies: Rain Man, Kramer vs. Kramer, and The Graduate (which wasn't a Best Picture winner, but whatev...it lost to In the Heat of the Night, which I can't really argue with).

#76: Go to a drive-in movie.
I've never done this, but I always thought it would be a lot of fun. Louisville actually used to have a lot of drive-in theaters, but they're all closed now. Fortunately, we found one that's still up and running about half an hour away, across the river in Georgetown, Indiana. We've been checking the website for months, waiting for them to show movies we actually wanted to see, and this weekend, we finally got the opportunity. It was good timing, too: they're just a few weeks away from closing for the season. Hello, date night!

In case you're wondering, we saw the two grown-up movies on Screen 2. :-p It was so much fun! The low temperature was around 40 that night, so we got to wear lots of layers and curl up in our slankets (that's a blanket with sleeves, by the way, but NOT a Snuggie...these were handmade by Tom's mom and sister). And we saw two pretty good movies for half the price of what we'd have paid at an indoor theater.

Workin' On It!

#28: Watch every Best Picture Oscar winner from 1961-2013.
Last week, we watched In the Heat of the Night. I think this is one of my new favorites on the list. I'd never seen a Sidney Poitier movie before, and he was great in this one...especially the famous "They call me Mister Tibbs!" scene. That was one of the AFI's Top 100 film quotes, and if you've seen the movie, you know why. Fantastic.

#13: Use new kitchen gadget at least 10 times.
We had roasted zucchini with dinner the other night, and I got to use my mandolin to slice them up. Then yesterday, I got to use it again, to slice cucumbers and tomatoes for a salad!

#1: 100 new recipes.
When people find out how much I love to cook, one of the questions I get asked most often is: "Do you make Indian food?" Well, now I can finally say "Yes, I do!" Behold: chicken tikka masala!

Ugh...I wish my phone had a better camera. Have I ever mentioned how much I dislike this camera? I'm kicking myself for not taking a picture at home the day I made it; this was taken a couple days later, when I took it to work for lunch. Just trust me, the chicken tikka masala tasted a lot better than this picture makes it look.

Well, Labor Day was earlier this week! To celebrate, Tom and I went on a brunch picnic, and I made overnight blueberry french toast. Now, I know, I made overnight apple french toast awhile back, but I think this recipe was different enough for me to count it as a new one.

If you try this recipe, please do me (and yourself) a favor and make the blueberry sauce to pour on top instead of regular syrup. Oh my goodness. So good.

#60: Start a new family tradition.
Actually, we decided to go on a picnic because we did one for Labor Day last year, and it was so much fun, we saw no reason not to keep doing it every year, even after we have kids. *dun dun dun* Hopefully this is the first of many Duttweiler family traditions!

#36: Take photos to spell out our last name and frame them.

While I was out running the other morning, I noticed the end of a rail in our neighborhood and was pleasantly surprised at how much it looked like the letter R. On our way home from our Labor Day "bricnic" (term for a brunch picnic, coined by my mother-in-law), I finally remembered to take a picture of it. I might crop this picture or something before printing it out, but I thought it was a pretty good one, especially since I don't know how many other places I'm going to find this particular letter. R is a tricky one!

Oh Brother!

Look what we brought back from the family reunion!

Here's a hint: it wasn't the cake. Tom's younger brother Patrick flew back to Louisville with us and stayed for a week! Originally, he was going to come stay with us so he could help us move, but as it turns out, we're not moving quite yet, but Patrick came anyway just to hang out. :) And we had a GREAT time with him!

#1: 100 new recipes.
I can't believe it's been over a month since I tried a new recipe, but I think I made up for lost time this week because I tried three new ones!

Patrick turned 25 the day after we got back from San Antonio. I thought it might be nice to make him a cake instead of buying one, to maybe somehow make him feel better about being away from home on his birthday. He requested chocolate, and Allrecipes had a highly-ranked recipe for something called Black Magic Cake. Sounded good, so I gave it a go. I flipped through the pictures of some of the finished products, and one of them had Oreo frosting! That sounded like the only thing that could make this cake even better, so I looked up a recipe for that too! I'm pretty sure it's the first time I've made frosting from scratch. It was delicious, not that you could really go wrong with something like that...! And the birthday boy was very happy, as you might have guessed from that very first photo up there.

The last recipe is one that my mother-in-law sent me awhile ago: overnight baked apple french toast. I made it in a bundt pan instead of a 9x13-inch baking dish...mostly because you have to invert it onto a serving dish when it's done baking, and we didn't have one long enough. Anyway, who cares about its shape?! It tasted great! And isn't it pretty?

***By the way, I've finally done something else I've been meaning to do for quite awhile: every recipe I've found online so far now has a link on the Tracking page! Thought I'd share the wealth. :)

#28: Watch every Best Picture Oscar winner from 1961-2013.
Patrick had Gladiator on DVD, and he was nice enough to bring it with him. We watched it Thursday night. Fantastic...such a manly-man movie. Saturday afternoon, we watched Unforgiven. Good movie, also pretty manly. But I was outnumbered 2-to-1 in that area this week, so I guess it's to be expected.

#85: Volunteer at Jeff Street once a month.
We took Patrick along for this month's visit, and he really enjoyed it, even though we had to get up really early on a Saturday morning. The three of us were in the kitchen, handing out toiletries; during the slow period, Tom and Patrick provided the entertainment...or at least came up with interesting things to talk about. Those two together are really something to see.

#58: Order fish at a restaurant 5 times.
On Patrick's last night in town, we went to Cracker Barrel for dinner, and I ordered lemon pepper grilled rainbow trout. It was really nice! I think I'm starting to appreciate how fish can make you feel full without feeling heavy, because I felt pretty good afterward...though I could've done with a few more biscuits...! But isn't that always true at Cracker Barrel?