Sara reports that she is enjoying the weekend before spring break and also that she doesn’t know where she picked up this postcard (which is very large for a postcard) I’m thinking she got it in Norway, because the actual name of the picture is Björkskog/Birch Forest
Fun fact: I just learned how to make that “Latin small letter O with diaeresis” You type ö and it changes automatically. Magic! Thanks, random website I found while googling.
My re-read of the book last year was fairly “meh” so I didn’t have a lot of high hopes for the movie. And while it was visually stunning and populated with good acting, I found that overall the movie was lacking in things that were super engaging. The boyfriend summed it up best: “It’s a movie about watching children experience wonder, and that makes for a boring movie.”
Cost: $6.00
Where watched: McMenamins St. Johns Theater with Matt.
poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2018/wrinkle_in_time.html
One of the annoying factors of baking cookies is having to turn the cookies halfway through the baking time. If I’m using the oven timer I have to remember to reset the timer. It’s not unusual for me to forget this, usually on the last round of cookies.
However! I now have this timer that can have three different times running on it, and it occurred to me that I could set the top timer for half time and the second timer for the full time and then start them both at the same time. Then, as I’m rotating the cookies, that second timer just keeps counting down. Brilliant!
I was reminded by editor Graydon Carter that this was his last issue of Vanity Fair. It took me a long time to read this issue. It was so long that the new issue appeared on the racks at the checkstand before I had finished reading this one. “Whoa!” was my reaction. The new issue has a completely different look.
Let’s review the Graydon Carter era style.
This is the classic Oscar Issue, where the page folds out to show a variety of big Hollywood actors, some of which have not been nominated for Oscars, presumably because they shoot the spread earlier than the nominations are announced.
We’ve got full-body spreads, and floating type. A quick Google Image search of “vanity fair covers” shows that while there are some face-only covers, most of them are either from the navel up, or full body shots. There’s also a bold use of color and lighting that makes things crisp instead of arty.
I also love finding the tiny type quote on the front of every cover. This one says: “One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star.” –G.K. Chesterton. The quotes sometimes add extra illumination to the person on the cover, or a story listed on the cover.
Here’s the new cover, with editor Radhika Jones at the helm.
It’s so very different! Even though (I’m pretty sure) it’s taken by the same photographer. We’ve got a very close-up picture of Lawrence’s face, a very soft focus and half in shadow. Our floating text has disappeared, herded over to the sides of the cover. Compare this picture with the last time Jennifer Lawrence was on the cover in 2016.
This new cover was simultaneously off-putting–it’s Vanity Fair, not an art magazine!–and also instantaneously made the old style of covers look really garish and out of date. I’ll probably settle into this new style, but I will miss hunting for the tiny quote on the cover.
Side note: it used to be that when I was subscribed to magazines, my subscriptions would arrive before the magazine appeared on the newsstands (or, since there aren’t really newsstands anymore the racks in the checkout line at the grocery store.) Now, I see the new issue on the stands sometimes two weeks before my copy arrives in the mail. I can’t tell if this is just a Vanity Fair thing, or if there’s some new magazine strategy wherein magazines are hoping subscribers will purchase the magazine forgetting it will be arriving in the mail. At any rate, I think subscribers should be rewarded by having the first crack at the magazine, not have to be the second-class citizens waiting.
I’m not really sure what makes this a King’s Crown, but it’s a nice enough pattern. I’m experimenting with reducing the number of rows on the ends (right and left sides in this picture) to see if I can get two dishcloths from one skein of yarn. With seven introductory knit rows at the beginning and end, I am just short at the end of the second dishcloth.
February started off as a very depressing month, money-wise. My shoulder was aflame in repetitive-motion-type hurt, so much so that I went to the doctor who referred me to the physical therapist. This was great! Except! According to my insurer, I would first have to pay my deductible of $1,250 before any physical therapy would be covered. Much sadness ensued as I realized that all of the money going toward the Payoff! goal would have to be rerouted to the shoulder project. But my shoulder hurt a lot, so I made the appointment.
Then, on top of that, I wasn’t going to be able to do my tax return until April 4, at the earliest. We were in line for a $1,300 tax credit for installing our heat pump, but the documentation I needed was not going to be sent to me until April 4, despite me having submitted my paperwork in late November. I’m someone who files her taxes in early February, so this was not good news.
Things got better by the end of the month. I pulled $1,250 over from my (now very small) emergency fund to use as a deductible and set a goal in YNAB to fully fund it to $1,250 by January 2019. That way, as I pulled money out to satisfy my deductible, the program would have me pay back a little each month until I was back to fully funded for the next year’s medical crisis.
And then the physical therapy didn’t cost as much as I thought it would. Despite being quoted as around $300 being billed to insurance for each session, when I got the bills, the insurance company would discount them by half and apply other mumbo-jumbo I don’t understand, so the physical therapy was costing me something like $75 per session, not $300. I hate how complicated insurance is, and though I read carefully the EOBs and also have a spreadsheet of my own to understand the system, I still don’t get it.
So, while I wasn’t able to make the full extra payment of $500 which is my goal, I made a bigger payment this month than I thought I would at the beginning of the month. Also, my tax form arrived sometime in late February, which meant I could start on my taxes sooner than April 4.
In February, I paid $595.12 which was my usual payment of $103.67 and an additional payment of $491.45. I was less than $9.00 from my $500 goal! $5.56 went towards interest and $589.56 to the principal.
My money for the extra payment came from $408 budgeted initially, plus $50 in cash rewards from my credit card. I also had $37.00 because I waited to re-up my gym membership until the month flipped, $10 in unused Dining Out money and $11.28 left over in my Random Fun Things To Do category. That adds up to more than $500, but I had to skim some off to pay for the amount I overspent on groceries this month. (That was another disappointing thing.)
My remaining balance at this point is just over $2,000. It is very, very, very tempting to use the last of my emergency fund to pay this off in one fell swoop, but I am going to try hard to stay the course.
Laurie, Kelly and I assembled at Laurie’s house to watch the Academy Awards. Kelly wrote up a BINGO game, which I won.
I created a new game called the Happiest Oscar Viewer wherein you pick all the people/movies you WANT to win. This is different from picking who you think will win. As the winners are called, you highlight any of your picks that the academy agreed with, and the person with the most highlights is the Happiest Oscar Viewer.
Laurie won that contest.
Overall, it was snoozer of a ceremony. And I have pretty high tolerance for Oscar ceremonies.
Most memorable for having the funniest preview before Star Wars: The Force Awakens; this was a fun animated film. I enjoyed the stereotypes of different kinds of animals, as well as the way stereotypes were fought against. I’m glad Ginnifer Goodwin is still getting work.
Cost: Netflix subscription
Where watched: at home, with Matt
poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2013/zootopia.html
I’ve wanted to see this ever since I saw Emma Thompson doing a southern accent in the preview, but I was reminded of it recently because Alden Ehrenreich plays young Han Solo in the upcoming movie, and I wanted to do some catching up with him.* This movie was great fun, having all sorts of movie delights: small town, southern, good/evil witches, an important birthday, first love, big weather things. Both Ehrenreich and Alice Englert** were enjoyable in this Southern Gothic frippery.
Cost: Netflix subscription
Where watched: at home
*He was delightful as Hobie Doyle in Hail, Caesar!
**Ehrenreich & Englert! Try saying that three times fast.
poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2013/beautiful_creatures.html
I won a drawing and the prize was a $50 Visa gift card. I spent it on a spiralizer and my goodness, but that is a fun, superfluous kitchen item.
I’ve made pasta from scratch before, and it’s a so-so endeavor. The pasta wants to break a lot as you are rolling it out, and my memories of it are that it doesn’t taste as good as dried pasta.
But vegetables? They don’t break! If the surface being spiralized is big enough, the strands just keep getting longer. It’s very satisfying.
