Year in Review: TV (2012)

2012 will be known as "the year I started watching great tv". And some of the shows on this list are so bad they are great so they still qualify, okay? My list, my rules.

1. Homeland
I have converted 4 people to the awesomeness of Homeland. And I'm only getting started on that.

2. Breaking Bad
So freaking artsy. And so freaking good.

3. Pretty Little Liars
Guilty pleasure, but nothing beats my excitement for some PLL on Tuesdays with friends.

4. Friday Night LightsThis show melted my cold heart and made me cry more times than I can count. I now have like a Pavlovian response to cry when I hear anyone say "I'm proud of you".

5. Parks and Recreation
Took a while to get its footing, but what an amazing group of characters that you want to hang out with. Great mix of humor and heart.

6. Mad Men
Well-made show that I like to deconstruct while watching, but doesn't bring the same excitement as the other shows.

7. Once Upon a Time
Only watched this recently so it is still sinking in. Love the parallels between fairytale land and reality. Love the twists on characters and stories that you know. Dislike Emma Swan the "savior" and the "precocious" kid is more annoying than cute. Also an incredibly cheesy show. But I can like cheese so.

8. Cougar Town
I've only watched one season of it and it definitely grew on me. I'm only placing it here because I've watched nearly all of the episodes of all the other shows so I like I couldn't justify a higher ranking. But I aspire to be like the cul-de-sac crew. Day drinking and playing penny can like nothing else in the world matters.

I thought this list would be longer. I mean, 8 new shows in 2012? Then I did a count of how many seasons that adds up to and realized I watched at least 24.5 seasons of television on top of shows I watch on a regular basis. Seems more accurate then.

Year in Review: CDs purchased in 2012

As 2012 comes to a close, I plan on reflecting on what new things

I chose to look at albums I purchased in 2012 rather than all songs added during the year or only the albums released in 2012. This narrowed it down to 11 albums. To simplify it, I excluded Vitamin String Quartet Pefroms Adele and Big Christmas Box due to the length of each album.

1. Sigh No More by Mumford & Sons

2.The Best of Mandy Moore by Mandy Moore

3.My Head is an Animal by Of Monsters and Men

4.Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga by Spoon

5.Channel ORANGE by Frank Ocean

6.Veronica Mars Soundtrack by Various Artists

7.Pitch Perfect Soundtrack by Various Artists

8.Babel by Mumford & Sons

9.Halcyon by Ellie Goulding

Holidays: Merry Christmas!

Each year my family celebrates Christmas on the night of December 24th. The tradition first started when my aunts and mother were still young. At the time, my grandfather was a milkman and had to leave early Christmas morning to deliver milk on his route.

The night starts out with a special dinner: fondue bourguignonne. It is only served twice a year - on Christmas and on Easter. After dinner is all cleaned up, we take what feels like a million photos of every possible combination of family members. Just grandchildren. Now grandchildren with grandmother. Okay, now just girls. Well, just another photo. Stop making funny faces. You can do that in the next photo. Now just the aunts. Add grandma to this one.

Once that is all over, we all entrench ourselves in our spots, building a fort of the presents that are being passed out. It is just madness as we pass presents and try to throw wrapping paper away and yell our "thank yous" across the room. By 11pm everything settles down and we clean up. Some already have presents open and are playing with new toys.

Then we have our traditional dessert of chocolate pudding and pears. Of course, there are some Christmas cookies on the table for snacking. A little after midnight Christmas day we're finally making our way to bed.

We have breakfast together on Christmas morning. Then we spend the rest of the day relaxing and testing out our new presents. All in all, I wouldn't have Christmas any other way.

Crafting: Hello Winter papercutting

I finally framed my Hello Winter papercutting. Here I have it on display at work along with my penguin piggy bank, snowman snow globe, and a fuzzy Christmas tree my mother crocheted. T'is the season! Only one week left until Christmas!

Holidays: Happy Birthday to me!

Happy Birthday to me
Happy Birthday to me

Happy Birthday dear Liz
Happy Birthday to meeeeee!

Baking: Christmas Cookies 2012

Christmas cookie baking is serious business in my family. Since 1957, we get together the weekend after Thanksgiving to bake hundreds of cookies as gifts to family friends. At its peak, cookie baking would yield 140lbs and 25 types of cookies. Things have scaled down recently given my grandmother's age, but it is still more than what some believe to be normal cookie baking. At one point, I was dipping 240 of one type of cookie into chocolate.

Although this is one of my family's longest running traditions, it was only my third year as a helper. School schedules and distance kept me away for 21 years, but now that I'm a grown-up, this never has to happen again! I took Friday off to get an early start on the weekend. And boy, I was put to work almost immediately after walking through the door. Here are some photos of various points of the cookie process: baking, dipping, jellying, and reusing leftover chocolate.



In the end, it is definitely worth it. The cookies are delicious, even the ones that don't meet the "standards". We had some leftover chocolate this year so we made chocolate pops as well. As if we didn't have enough sweets.

Crafting: Intro to Papercutting

Things I have learned this Thanksgiving break:

1. That I collect crafts like they are Pokemon
2. How to cut paper, or scherenschnitte if we want to be fancy and foreign sounding

Story behind this: one of my aunts always asks for homemade presents for Christmas. This year she specifically requested some scherenschnitte art. So feeling bored with everything else I was doing with cross-stitch and decoupaging stamps, I went to the craft store and bought some paper, a cutting mat, and an X-acto knife without any idea of what I would actually do. 

Fastforward through several google searches, I find this site with some papercutting templates of varying degrees of difficulty. Great! Awesome! I jump right into it with a Hunger Games pattern [link]. Relatively easy with all the straight lines. I finish it in a couple hours. 

After admiring my handiwork, I am just itching to do more. I didn't screw up my first paper cuttings so obviously the next step is to move on to making my aunt's Christmas present. Sticking with simple typography still. I made the template in Google Drive/Docs. I chose Austin because she lives there and I'm thinking of pairing it with a photo of the city in a frame. 

Long story short: I have a new addiction. I want to find more templates to use or create more of my own. But all that papercutting left my right index finger a little sore. So temporary break from scherenschnitte until inspiration strikes or my finger heals, whichever comes first. 

Crafting: Cross stitch Turkey

I've been in the full swing of cross stitching Christmas themed projects, so much so that I felt I needed to give Thanksgiving some love. I had bought this super cool turkey pattern at Sewingseed's shop on Etsy. Being my usual procrastinating self, I waited until a week before Thanksgiving to start the project. It was nothing too complicated; just a lot of stitches that can take up free time. Anyway, I wanted to finish it on Thanksgiving but spending time with my family seemed like the more appropriate thing to do. Instead of being squished at a Black Friday doorbuster, I finished my little turkey. I'm quite proud of it. Now I just need to frame it and wait for next November to put it on display.

Gobble, gobble!

Holidays: Happy Halloween

A long, long time ago in a hometown far, far away, I dressed up as Princess Leia for Halloween. In light of the Disney-Star Wars news, I thought it was the perfect costume to post.

Crafting: Christmas Raccoon

I put the finishing touches on my Christmas raccoon during my Hurricane Sandy free time. There are a couple of mistakes here and there but they are pretty invisible unless pointed out. His eye is a little wonky too. Better be careful before I get a reputation for screwy cross stitch eyes.

Watching: Catch-up time!

I am back from a two-week vacation in Switzerland, which was fantastic in every possible way. But now I have some serious catching up to do. So much TV happened while I was gone. Just look at how many shows I need to watch.

30 Rock
7x02
7x03
Boardwalk Empire
3x04
3x05
3x06
Elementary
1x03
The Good Wife
4x02
4x03
4x04
Homeland
4x02
4x03
4x04
How I Met Your Mother
8x02
8x03
Nashville
1x02
Parks & Recreation
5x04
Raising Hope
3x02
3x03
Young Justice
2x09

That is 19 freaking episodes to catch up on. Or 11 hours. And I have this nagging feeling that I am forgetting some in this list. Oh, I hate falling behind with TV.

On top of this, I find out today that Community did not air on October 19th as scheduled. Which, on second thought, is not that surprising because NBC has an unparalleled skill at Britta'ing things. Must keep calm.

To round out what is becoming a tv news post, NBC will pull Animal Practice in November and place Whitney in its timeslot. Gross. This makes it the second new show cancelled in the 2012 season. (The first being CBS' Made In Jersey)

In brighter news, Homeland was renewed for a 3rd season. Anyone could see this coming after the show dominated the Emmys in September. And if you don't watch Homeland, you need to stop what you're doing and watch Homeland. It is a riveting show with a shocking twists and a phenomenal cast and it is worthy of all the praise it gets. Seriously, go watch it now. I will be tonight.

Traveling: Switzerland

Traveling: Las Vegas

This past weekend, I went on my first trip to Las Vegas along with my grandmother, mother, and four aunts. I had an incredible time with them as we celebrated recent birthdays, including my grandmother's 80th. When we weren't drinking cocktails in the lounge or sharing delicious dinners, we were at the slot machines until all hours of the night. I didn't win any big jackpots - and let's not talk about net total spent on the trip -but I felt like a winner because I was there with my family and you can never lose when going out with them. We know how to celebrate in style. Sappy, I know, but it's true. We've already started talking about our next trip in 5 years for Grosi's 85th birthday which will include a recently turned 21 year old cousin. I can't wait!

Crafting: Cardinal Cross-Stitch

Finally finished the little cardinal cross stitch kit. Well, mostly finished. I haven't figured out how to make the French knot for an eyeball. But he looks fine without it. It seems like he is closing his beady bird eyes to take in the peaceful nature surrounding him. Yes, I did give my cross stitch a little backstory.

Reading: Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green & David Levithan

I picked up this book because I thought it would be the perfect for me. Back cover description: 

One cold night, in a most unlikely corner of Chicago, Will Grayson crosses paths with... Will Grayson. Two teens with the same name, running in two very different circles, suddenly find their lives going in new and unexpected directions, and culminating in epic turns-of-heart and the most fabulous musical ever to grace the high school stage. 

 I had read books by John Green and David Levithan before so combining them into one book was like this unbeatable dynamic duo. I immediately latched on to the idea of meeting someone with the same name because as a Liz with a fairly common surname this could potentially happen to me. Add in a musical and I .

What I learned is I really need to stop reading back covers because I get all caught up in how I think it will go based on that brief description and it is almost never right. That's not to say I didn't enjoy the book at all. It's more like that feeling that people get when they see a movie based on a book. They always say "Well, I imagined it differently and the book is much better." Same deal here. 

There is no doubt to who wrote which chapter. John Green inserted his typical nerdy tone of an average kid with few friends while David Levithan experimented with form in his chapters. For example, Levithan's will grayson spends much of his time online so capitalization is rarely used and dialogue is told as if it it was being messaged.

 Did it replace the other books I read by these two authors? No. There wasn't enough emotional resonance for it ever to achieve that. But I don't mind that at all. Though the book wasn't life-changing, it was a very pleasant read to distract yourself from whatever might be bothering you.

Thinking of my favorite part, I thoroughly enjoyed John Green's opening chapter about picking friends, picking noses, and picking your friend's nose. And no, the book did not suffer a shortage of musical numbers. In fact, there was a bonus musical number in the back where John Green and David Levithan discussed how the book came into being. Now it just needs a soundtrack...


Some videos about the book that might spark your interest more than I might have done here in this post.
[ John Green reading an excerpt of the first chapter ] [ John Green promoting the book on its Amazon page ]

Watching: Fall 2012 TV Schedule

Here's a list of what I'll be watching and/or obsessing about this fall. I might update this later to add some of the shows I'm on the fence about. But right now, these are the shows I desperately want back in my life. 

 9PM - Boardwalk Empire (HBO)

9PM - The Good Wife (CBS)

10PM - Homeland (Showtime)

8PM - How I Met Your Mother (CBS)

8PM - Raising Hope (FOX) 

9PM - Happy Endings (ABC)

9:30PM - Don't Trust the B in Apt 23 (ABC)

10PM - Nashville (ABC)

8PM - 30 Rock (NBC) 

9:30PM - Parks and Recreation (NBC) 

10PM - Elementary (CBS)

8:30PM - Community (NBC)

10AM - Young Justice (Cartoon Network)

Stats: Aubergine August 2012

Success! How awesome is this? According to my stats, 69.9% of my pageviews came during Aubergine August. I consider this a bonus success to completing my main goal of wearing purple for 31 straight days. 

Fun fact: I love graphs and charts.

Reading: The Realm of Possibility by David Levithan

I first read The Realm of Possibility in high school and I liked it instantly for its relatability. When I was bored, I would go to the library to pick it off the shelf and read some of my favorite passages just to be reassured. Years later I would walk into libraries or bookstores to make sure it was in stock. So when I heard that David Levithan would be at this year's National Book Festival, I decided to give in and buy what I consider to be a hugely influential book from my high school years. I thought I would get him to sign it for me at the book festival, but it turns out that I will be out of town that weekend, but that is besides the point

 

Anyway, I do not regret this purchase at all. I picked it up immediately and read it in a less than a day (which is less impressive than I make it sound - it's only 210 pages).

End of Aubergine August 2012

Well another August is over. I definitely think this was an improvement on last year. I didn't hit my breaking point 12 days in. I kept up with posting photos despite the increased difficulty with no internet. I'm really proud of myself for sticking with it. It is the little victories that matter.

Will I do it again? Hell yeah! Who knows what new purple outfits I'll have by then?

Last fall, my friend AC and I brainstormed a list of other possible months.

1. Jet-Black January
2. Fe-blue-ary
3. AquaMarchrine
4. Apricot April
5. Mauve May
6. Juniper June
7. Jewel-Tone July
8. Aubergine August
9. Scarlet September
10. Ochre October
11. Neon November
12. Yellow Yuletide

There's no way I could possibly do all of these months. But perhaps in between Augusts, I'll have a couple of days and celebrate the other colors in the rainbow.

Aubergine August 2012: Day 31

The last day of another successful Aubergine August. I really wanted to go out with a bang this time so I wore as much purple as I possibly could. How much purple, you ask?

• Lavender thistle jeans
• Purple knee-high socks
• Grapevine Converse
• Purple plaid underwear (not pictured, pervs)
• Teal/purple plaid shirt
• a secret layer of my purple/light blue striped shirt
• purple nailpolish

I felt like I was an advertisement for the color purple (not the movie). I had expected coworkers to point out my purpleness, but they overlooked it just as they had all month. I did get one comment "Oh! Nice purple jeans."

But now, it is time to wear other colors. So long purple, see you in a week or so when I run out of other colored clothes to wear. I look forward to wearing you on a not-daily basis.

Aubergine August 2012: Day 30

Orientation hell week is over! Tonight I went out celebrating a friend's birthday and here's the metro ride back. Another appearance of the business camouflage shirt.

Aubergine August 2012: Day 29

Day 3 of orientation week. Ugh, I feel exhausted. Currently waiting in a hotel lobby. Fun stuff.

Aubergine August 2012: Day 28

Day 2 of orientations at work. Definitely kicking it up a notch with my new purple dress I bought a couple weeks ago. And in honor of the Pretty Little Liars summer finale (#thebetrAyal), here is my best "got a secret, can you keep it, swear this one you'll save" pose from the opening credits

Aubergine August 2012: Day 27

I've got a busy week of work ahead of me. I'm leading a few orientation sessions at work meaning I have to look put-together and somewhat presentable. Well, I'm just happy that day 1 is over.

Aubergine August 2012: Day 26

Hanging out at my apartment's computer center late at night. My hair is more uncontrollable than usual.

Aubergine August 2012: Day 25

Still making weird faces. But this time with the cross-stitch I've been working on all day. What a lovely incomplete golf course.

Aubergine August 2012: Day 24

Typical Friday night - making weird faces in my mirror. Are my eyes crooked?



Aubergine August 2012: Day 23

Three-peat! I really love wearing this shirt at work. Deal with it. Also, what lovely fluorescent lighting we have in today's photo. 

Aubergine August 2012: Day 22

I wonder how observant my coworkers are. I mean, you think people you see on a daily basis would notice that you have worn the same color every day of the work week. Perhaps they have noticed but are too polite to mention it.  Though I'm going back to the idea that maybe they don't see it. For example: I couldn't tell what colors or outfits they wore today or yesterday. Memory is an interesting thing.

Anyway, my outfit for today is a simple purple T-shirt with a grey sweater to tone it down a bit.

Aubergine August 2012: Day 21

This one is called "Liz didn't know it was going to rain today so she didn't bring an umbrella."  I need to invest in a good (possibly purple) umbrella. And no, the shirt is not grey. It is a fine purple and white check that apparently photographs in a sickly grey color, especially when soaked.

Aubergine August 2012: Day 20

Wooooooooooooooork.

My hands are terrifying.

Close up of purple pinstripe.

Aubergine August 2012: Day 19

Another lazy Sunday. I spent a solid 5 minutes making silly faces in my mirror for this photo. All you're gonna get is this one, where I look sort of creepy and have a weird side braid going on.

Aubergine August 2012: Day 18

Off to enjoy a baseball game with my aunt and uncle who are visiting this weekend. Despite our differences in baseball teams, we can still get together for a photo. 

At a Nationals game with the aunt and uncle.

Aubergine August 2012: Day 17

Casual Friday! PURPLE JEANS. Best purchase ever? Yes x infinity.

I repeat: PURPLE JEANS!

Aubergine August 2012: Day 16

Surprise! Light purple pattern highlights.

Aubergine August 2012: Day 15

Changing it up again. Purple skirt. C-c-c-combo breaker. 

Aubergine August 2012: Day 14

Dressing business casual is what really makes Aubergine August difficult. I only have a handful of work appropriate tops and bottoms. So it's impossible for me to have non-repeating outfits in a month. Today I'm bring back the purple fake business camouflage top with pants this time. Oh la la. Add a dash of jewelry to make it a little special.

Blurry picture of a shirt you've already seen!

Purple bracelets