How I Spent My Winter 2011 Vacation

I have been a major posting slacker for the last little while due to the fact that I gave myself a little winter vacay and did whatever I wanted for the last two weeks. It was as glorious as it sounds. But now it is back to real life and time to get down to business.

I have a lot of things I need to get out of my brain and post about, including (but not limited to) a 2011 wrap-up, what I’m looking forward to in 2012, midseason progress reports for my Friday and Sunday shows (whoops—never finished that…), and a new edition of Ask AJ. Those will all happen in time.

But for now, I’m going to share how I spent my winter vacation:

- Went to the movies by myself for the third time in my life

As you may know from previous posts in which I lament this reality, I live in a rural area and my local movie theater kind of sucks. If it gets any movies I actually want to see, they are often only there for a couple weeks at most. Due to other people not loving the Muppets as fervently as I do, I had to go see Jason Segel’s Muppet movie, The Muppets, alone the week before Christmas. I’d been trying to convince others to see it with me since it opened on Thanksgiving, but to no avail. So, I seized the last possible opportunity for me to see it in theaters. I quickly found that it was so worth it to brave the theater on my own. The film was absolutely delightful and it was such a warm, happy, familiar place to be—hanging out with the Muppets. And now I shout, “I got more cheese than super-size nachos!” everywhere I go.

- Caught up on season 6 of Doctor Who

I hesitate to admit this, but I haven’t been as enthusiastic about Doctor Who with this cast for the Eleventh Doctor. So, I kind of slacked on watching it during the recent sixth season and let episodes pile up on my DVR. But when BBCA started airing promos for the Christmas special, I knew I had to get back on the Eleventh Doctor horse. Now I am officially all caught up and I think I’ve found a way to be fond of this cast, even if the fondness comes and goes. I might be getting nostalgic a bit early since Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill recently announced that next season will be their last and that’s softened me a bit. Either way, Eleventh Doctor, Amy, and Rory ain’t so bad. Do I still cry when I think about Rose and Donna? Of course. But this is what we have right now and that’s that. Plus, I love me some River Song. I’m getting quite antsy for next season, actually now that I think about it.

- Did not watch nearly enough Christmas movies

I need to remember for next Christmas season to start watching holiday movies earlier. I didn’t get a chance to watch any of my favorites like A Muppet Christmas Carol or Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. I even recorded Mixed Nuts when I had a free Starz weekend, but never got around to watching it! So now it will sit on my DVR until December. Let this be a lesson to myself and to everyone out there—take advantage of the whole month. Not just the few days around Christmas. Sincere regrets over here.

- Watched tons of other movies though

I decided not to do a TV project during this winter break so I would have time to focus on books and movies while my TV shows were on hiatus. I recorded mad movies during the aforementioned recent free Starz weekend and I watched a ton of those. I’m not going to lie about it: A lot of them were rom coms. Some of those were pleasant surprises—like How Do You Know with Reese Witherspoon and Paul Rudd and Going the Distance with Justin Long and Drew Barrymore. Also, The Invention of Lying was shockingly moving and even thought-provoking. I was really impressed with it actually. And if there were any duds, then I stopped when I got bored and deleted them because TIME IS PRECIOUS! I was also able to rent movies, as well, and started catching up on all of the 2011 films I was unable to see in theaters. Like Crazy Stupid Love, which turned out to be one of my favorite Ryan Gosling roles of all time and was just overall a truly great film and story. I’m going to try to keep my movie-watching momentum going, but once the winter hiatus ends for more shows, it’s going to be difficult.

- Started reading The Chronicles of Narnia, which I said I would do two years ago

Remember the time I found a book that sounded really interesting called The Magician’s Handbook: A Skeptic’s Adventures in Narnia in which the author describes her journey to reconcile her favorite childhood literature series with the religious overtones she discovered about it as an adult? And how I needed to actually read through the entire series before I read that book? Well, I’m finally doing it. I had started the first book, The Magician’s Nephew, a month or so before my winter vacay. I finished that, blasted through the second and third books, and am now idling on the fourth. That's another thing I want to keep my momentum going for, but it will take some serious focus.


So that’s it! Those are the major highlights of how I spent the last couple weeks while I was MIA from SWTS. It was nice being a bum for awhile, but it feels good to be back. And back I shall be with more posts very soon.

I hope everyone out there had an awesome end of 2011/holiday season. Happy New Year to all!