Lexie circa 2001-2002 was in college and had a CD burner. I remember spending many hours - because that's how long it took - deciding which 15-20 songs I'd mash together on my CDRWs. This was also before Napster's immorality had been decided. So, as I begin the process of cleaning and packing for our upcoming move, I find myself relying on a very old binder of CDs. The ones I listen to more regularly are at work (and anything else comes courtesy of Pandora). So, I picked one out of the barrel entitled "Mix CD 2." I was quite creative, as you can see.

And now, I'll list for your entertainment, the 18 songs that I've been listening to as I am cleaning and packing. Lexie circa 2001-2002 didn't have bad taste. Although she really had no qualms whatsoever with mixing genres. And, I least I know all the words...

1. Jeremy
2. Desperately Wanting
3. Come as you are
4. Jack & Diane
5. You're Gone
6. Son of a Preacher Man
7. Jeremiah was a Bullfrog
8. Trouble Me
9. I'm Outta Love
10. Black Velvet
11. Lean on Me
12. Closer to Fine
13. I Try
14. Dust on the Bottle
15. Safe in the Arms of Love
16. Cumbersome
17. Sister
18. Whiskey in the Jar (Metallica)

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In the past year, Christopher and I have been on 4 business trips collectively. Perhaps for some people that isn't a lot. For us, it is. Especially since 3 of those 4 have been made solo leaving the other person at home. What we've reinforced, that we certainly already knew, is that we don't like being apart.

Not only does being apart suck for all the lovey-dovey reasons you'd expect, but also for the mundane stuff that you don't. For example, I spent ALL WEEKEND cleaning. And with Christopher away that same weekend, I thought it was a perfect timing. Ok, well perhaps the all caps is a slight exaggeration, but I seriously cleaned. A war on dust was declared, and I was the victor. I even borrowed the world's best vacuum from a friend, because wars are not won on hopes alone. I called in backup (by having the maintenance guys replace the air filter at the A/C intake). And I sacrificed my knuckles for cleanliness. When I was finished, the place looked amazing, and I was exhausted. But then, I could only look around and say, "good job self, you're definitely going to breathe better now." But my victory was a little hollow without Christopher there to also marvel at the sparkling counter and dustless baseboards.

It's also very hard to be motivated to cook dinner for one. A couple of nights I did well by making a normal-sized dinner and separating portions out to eat as leftovers on subsequent days. But it's much more fun to make dinner for others.

On the other hand, the fact that being apart sucks is just another reason our marriage is awesome, right? There are probably couples out there who'd like time apart, and fortunately, that's not us.

In other news - the kickboxing groupon I bought is paying off. It was my first groupon purchase, and the fact that it has been successful makes me want to continue to rely on groupon and try out new places. I can't believe my month of kickboxing is almost over already. I have 5 more days to go to classes and burn about 500 calories each time. The women I have met there all seem cool. There are men too, but they don't seem to introduce themselves. For those of you in town, the first class is free. So, if you'd like to go in the next 5 days with me, give me a call. And, I'll be filling you in on the next groupon activity in due time, I'm sure.

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What a busy busy end to 2011. I went to Israel, again. After finally finishing up a couple posts about our trip earlier in the year, I was already on my way to the Holy Land for the second time. It really is amazing that I got to travel to such an amazing city twice in one year. So, in this post, I have a couple new photos for you - as well as updates about normal life and holidays.

I went to Israel for two weeks, rather than the three-week stay the first trip had been. I was able to sight-see and visit additional religious and historic sites where I'd not previously gone.

This time, I was very set on going to the Mount of Olives. The day was absolutely gorgeous. Cool enough that I wore a sweater, but not too cold to make walking around outside unpleasant. The Mount of Olives is amazing, and I'm very glad I went. In my head, I hadn't really come to any conclusion as to why this place was called the Mount of Olives. When I arrived there, it was obvious - duh - the olive trees!

The sky was clear, and it was gorgeous. Did I mention it was gorgeous? I was able to enter the Church of the Ascension as well as Mary's Tomb and the Grotto and Garden of Gethsemene. This is a photo of the front of the Church of the Ascension.

I don't know why, but this is my favorite photo of the whole trip. I think the tall columns just look really cool. And, I have some good pictures. But something about this one makes it my favorite.

And speaking of favorites, the food in Israel didn't disappoint. I went twice to a (tiny!) restaurant called P2. The pizza was made by hand after you ordered it with ingredients bought fresh daily (including fresh pizza sauce and dough) and stoked in a pizza oven. The crust was so paper thin - just barely strong enough to hold the toppings which included fresh mozzarella. Luckily, I stayed away from the falafel and convenience store snacks (think mixed nuts and candies) this time, so my waistline didn't expand as it did on the first trip. Phew!
There wasn't much time between that trip and Christmas. Christopher and I traveled to California to spend an early Christmas at my parents as well as attend a wedding of an old friend. The wedding was lovely and Christmas was great. The only negative aspect of the trip was Christopher got pretty sick. He was basically sick the whole trip, but he managed to enjoy himself anyway.

I had taken my vacation from work for the rest of the week after our return home. Of course, since I was finally home and able to rest, I got sick. I stayed pretty sick for 5 or 6 days, which included the time we spent with Christopher's family to celebrate Christmas. And I finally got well-enough just before the end of the year.

New Year's Eve was a lot of fun. We went to dinner, out to the symphony, to a bar to spend about an hour until midnight, and then finished the night hanging out with friends. That was much more active than our usual New Year's Eve activity of staying in and watching a movie.

Perhaps this post isn't as long as I expected it to be when I started. The end of the year definitely flew by, and this year doesn't seem to be slowing down any. And, if I haven't spoken to you in person recently - Happy New Year!

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Why do I have all this free time in the first place? Well, it may help to know that the first 9-hour movie marathon started as an attempt (success!) to stay awake for the full 9 hours of a 9-hour international flight. The second movie marathon, which I am about to describe, was an attempt (fail!) to stay awake for the even longer return flight. I don't think I can remember all the different programs I tried. I do know that I at one point watched an episode of Say Yes to the Dress - Atlanta. Sad.

While on my trip, I described the outbound flight to another person including the stipulation that I wanted to watch things that Christopher and I would not watch together. She recommended that I watch The Ugly Truth on the way back. "But isn't Gerard Butler a jerk?" I asked. And I may have used a less polite, insulting common noun. "I don't know about that, but his character is that way through the entire movie, so it works." She replied. So, this was my first film on the trip. I give it a yawn and a single smirk. Gerard Butler isn't recognizable from his 300 breakout. (Was it a breakout? It was the first time I'd heard of him anyway.) And, I felt oddly distracted by his manner of speech. Katherine Heigl (sp?) was ok. She was a little less goofy than I would have liked. I feel like she's trying to fill Meg Ryan's shoes. But Meg Ryan does a much better job at playing neurotic romantics. So anyway, I gave it a smirk, because there is a scene where Katherine's character gets stuck in a tree, and that was humorous. It's a rom-com, so I'll let you fill in the plot, and you'll likely be right.

I briefly tried to re-watch When Harry Met Sally. This was a movie I thoroughly enjoyed between the ages of 16-18. In this case, it insisted on including Chinese subtitles and a black border bar on the top and bottom of the screen. I had little patience, so I turned it off.

After that, I moved to.... let's see, what was it? Oh yes, Vicky Christina Barcelona. I liked the music in this one. Penelope Cruz was in it, as was Javier Bardem. They both did great work. I really like Penelope Cruz; she played a very believable manic ex-wife. The plot revolved around two friends (Americans) who spent a summer in Spain. This one was more a drama than rom-com. In fact, it was all drama, no comedy. Scarlett Johanson (sp? - I have no idea how to spell these actors' names, and I don't care enough to look it up, even though I'm clearly on my laptop as I type) played a flirty open-minded girl looking for love. This was the same character she played in He's Just Not that into You, which I watched in my previous movie marathon. These being the only two things I've seen her in, I have to wonder if that's all she can do. Anyway, this was a pretty good drama, and I stayed awake. You have to be ok with voice-over narration, and the plot is very (VERY) simple. But Penelope Cruz's performance really did it for me. So I'd have to say I can recommend this one.

I thought, "Ok, you just made it through a drama. A drama, Lexie. Good girl. Let's try another." I enjoy a good self pep talk, don't you? So I clicked Larry Crowne without restraint. It has Julia Roberts in it, and I love her. Christopher and I definitely would not watch it together as he doesn't like her. My apologies, Julia, I've tried to convince him. Sadly, I didn't make it far enough into the movie for Julia's character to make an appearance. Larry Crown (Tom Hanks) is a middle-aged man who loses his job and decides to go back to school. I think I got through 20 minutes before turning it off and sleeping. It moved so slowly! So, if you're trying to stay awake, I don't recommend it.

And that's it. It was a very poor attempt on my part to stay awake. After waking, I moved to TV episodes. I figured I'd set smaller goals. That way, I could just stay awake for 50 minutes at a time, rather than pay attention for an entire movie. As I mentioned, this portion of the trip included episodes of reality TV not limited to Say Yes to the Dress. To be honest, I'm actually a fan of TLC, I think that some of their reality shows are fun. But I was just not in the mood for it, so it was almost a chore to get through the show.

After my layover, I slept for the full 3-hours of my final leg. Thankfully, on both legs, I was in a row of three with no one in the middle seat. Score!

Jet-lag and general apathy towards housework led me to spend the day following my trip on the couch, scrolling through Netflix. I started with 28 Days and remembered how much I like Sandra Bullock's hair. I ended my movie marathon with Girl, Interrupted (I know, drama!). I didn't realize how old his movie was, but the information on it said it won an award in 1999. Winona Ryder plays the main character with general issues coping with life. I thought the movie was good overall, but I wanted more of the time leaps that displayed Suzana's illness. That, and it didn't quite keep me fully awake. Luckily, Christopher called at some point in the middle and that woke me up so that when we were done talking I could finish the movie.

And there you have it. Hopefully now you can add or avoid a movie or two in your own Netflix queue. I don't have any more international flights in the very near future, so I can thankfully know that my rom-com watching days are over, for now.

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Ever have 9 hours with nothing to do and no where to go? I found myself in this situation Saturday. To pass the time and stay entertained, I had my own personal movie marathon. I chose four rom-coms, and settled in with low expectations.

The first movie I watched was The Backup Plan with Jennifer Lopez. I almost couldn't make it through the opening credits, they were so boring. I generally don't give these types of movies very much lee-way before I decide not to waste my time. However, after the first 15 minutes or so, it actually got a little funny. I think I even laughed out loud once. And by laughing out loud, I of course mean audibly chuckled. Let's not exaggerate. I remember the turning point was when I discovered that Jennifer Lopez's occupation was pet shop owner. And her two-legged dog was present throughout the movie. That dog was so adorable.

The plot revolved around a single woman who had in-vitro and met the man of her dreams on the very same day. I'd describe the rest, but I'm sure you can figure it out. There were no special twists, it pretty much was exactly as you expect it to be.

Since that movie wasn't a total disappointment, I started up the next one. Friends with Benefits with Justin Timberlake. My movie choices were a bit limited. I wanted to watch something that I wouldn't want to see with Christopher. And the two of us rarely watch romantic comedies. We like more of the satire or slap-stick comedy. Of course I didn't want to see an action movie, because we definitely watch those together. I don't watch horror at all. And I generally can't stand dramas, unless they are suspense thrillers. That left romantic comedies. In retrospect, I should have looked at the "World Cinema" category, because there may have been a good French film to watch. But, I didn't think of that at the time.

Anyway, this movie centered around a couple of friends. The plot, again, was predictable with no twists to speak of. I suspended reality as best I could. But, occasionally, Justin's poor acting made me think... gosh, why did they cast him for this again? They made pot-shots at romantic comedies in the movie itself. I suppose they were trying to be clever. But, it just seemed to make the movie feel less and less original as the minutes ticked by. The only good scenes were with Justin's family. His sister was played by Jenna Elfman, and she did a great job.

Second movie down, two more in the line-up. The third one was He's Just Not That Into You. I expected this one to be the funniest. After all, it had a superstar cast, and was shot a bit like a series of short stories. Alas, the descent into Boringsville just continued at lightening speed. This movie was set around a handful of characters, all at various stages of relationships. Each person had to work out their own relationship delusions and find their own path to happiness. I will say that the actors each did a good job of playing their role. I never once thought, oh man, if only so-and-so wasn't cast. Or, why did they choose so-and-so? Unfortunately, that was not enough to help this movie. Not even close. I think this was a book first. I'm guessing the book is better. At least, I hope it is for its sake.

Saving the worst for last, I managed to then sit through Confessions of a Shopaholic. I'm really not even sure why I tried. I guess I was already at the bottom of the barrel, so I figured I'd try to see what else I could scrape up while I was down there. Not funny at all. Terrible acting. And the writing was even worse. The chemistry between the lead actress and the lead actor was non-existent. Please save yourself an hour and a half and just trust me. It's not worth putting in your Netflix queue at number 62.

Still under my 9-hour wait, I just napped for the last hour or so, because my movie choices had only gotten worse and worse. I was not to be trusted to choose another at that point.

In good movie news, last weekend Christopher and I went to see Immortals, which we both liked. Lots of special effects, battles, and gory drama. If you're into that kind of thing, I recommend it.

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My birthday happened over a month ago now. And, if you read this blog, you were probably there for part of the day. Unless you're a cyberstalker. In which case, you wouldn't have been invited. Maybe next year. It was an amazing day all around. I decided to do a birthday crawl and invited my friends and family to stuff that I felt like doing all day long.

It started out with manis and pedis. Then lunch at the Salad Stop. After that, we hit up Starbucks and drove to the aquarium. There were too many people to be able to efficiently move through the aquarium as a group, but we tried! Then, there was a break for a little while until dinner, coffee, and cake at the Global Peace Factory.

We'be been very social lately. Much more social than normal, and that's a good thing because we are seeing our friends more than quarterly. We still like our homebody time. And last night we decided to watch Jonah Hex, which had been in our Netflix queue. We popped some popcorn and turned out the lights, movie-theater style.

The movie was much better than I anticipated. I knew absolutely nothing about the comic or the story, in general. But the action sequences were good, and the main characters were believable in their roles. I really liked the make-up on Jonah Hex, because he had a whole in his mouth where you could see his teeth, and I think whoever the makeup artists were did a really good job.

I also liked Megan Fox as the independent hooker. I don't know her from anything else as I have not seen Transformers. And, her character was one-dimensional. Nevertheless, she complimented the guy who played Jonah Hex well.

This past weekend, we both had an appt with the optometrist. I decided a while back that I wanted to switch back to contacts. I haven't worn contacts as my primary form of vision correction in many years. I've had back-up contacts that are an old prescription since 2004 (Yes, I know. You don't have to tell me about the dangers of keeping contacts around past their life span.). And, I wore them when going to places where I wanted to see, but couldn't wear glasses (like the pool). But I'm ready to switch back and wear contacts daily only using my glasses at the end of the day when my eyes are tired. Plus, my prescription didn't change at all since last year, so my glasses don't need any replacing. Anyway, the next time you see me, you'll see my whole face instead of my face with glasses. Get excited.

And speaking of birthdays, I had no idea how many people I know have fall birthdays! You'd think that it wouldn't be surprising since it was the same last year. But, it definitely feels like the majority of the people I know are having birthday-related celebrations. Hopefully they are enjoying their birthdays as much as I did mine!

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Sorry for the wait, we've been so busy with work during the week and with our social life on the weekend (surprising, I know!) that I left you hanging with more info on the Jerusalem trip. I'll try to make the rest brief and only hit some of the best highlights. Overall, the trip was well worth it, and we're both very glad to have had the opportunity for this passport stamp. The people, food, and sights are one-of-a-kind. I think I left off the last blog having just spent our first night/day in Jerusalem. From there, we did a lot of walking around the Old City, and we even went to the Dead Sea!

The Old City is amazing. The architectural influence of all the people who conquered, immigrated, worshiped etc is clear. One can't miss religious site for Christians is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This one building includes the altar where Jesus' body was prepared for burial, the site of the crucifixion, and the site of the tomb. I'm no archaeological historian, so I'm not going to argue the possibilities that these three things are not what they are said to be. I just accepted it. And, they are certainly treated with the respect and sanctity that one might imagine. Here is a view from over the heads of the people there to lay their hands and objects on the altar.

And moving through the church, you can see how closely these events all took place. According to the layout of the church, the hill on Calvary is about from the garage to the front door of a big house. Here, you can see the temple structure that now encompasses the location of the tomb. They have dug out the earth and when you go inside, you are able to touch the stone that would have lined the interior. It's located in one particular rotunda of the church, and tourists and pilgrims line up to go inside.


And this is only one holy site in the Old City of which there are many. Pretty much the entire square kilometer is a holy place. What's interesting, in addition, is people live and work there as well. So they could spend the majority of their life living in one square kilometer if they so chose.

As I mentioned, we also went to the Dead Sea! It was awesome! I wasn't 100% that day, so unfortunately, I didn't get to enjoy floating around in the salty water as long as our companions did. But when I wasn't floating around on the water, I was hanging out on the beach people watching.


The weather was surprising cool and overcast for that area and that time of year. So, although I drank a couple liters of water while we were there anyway, I probably didn't need to.

And the last highlight I'll impose upon you is the food! (well, and the markets) I don't think that every street vendor was awesome and served the cleanest freshest food. BUT, when you have capable locals telling you where to eat, you really can't go wrong. We loved so much about what we ate while we were there, not the least of which were the falafels, aerated dark chocolate, lattes, halva and whiskey ice cream! The market was filled with baked goods, spices, vegetables, etc. I'll leave you with a couple pretty good pics from the market (shouk).

This is paprika!


Here are some baked goods (no - they don't use butter at all...).


Dried fruit!

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No need to wait any longer friends and cyberstalkers. It's time to hear about the wonders of the Holy Land. We went overseas earlier this year, partially for work, partially for vacation.


Let's start with our flight over. It was a long one. We flew Air Cananda through Toronto. In the airport before our first flight, we met a random guy outside the ticketing area. He, like us, was waiting for the ticket counter to open. Apparently, there is such a thing as too early for your flight. We started up a conversation, and then went through security and ate Dunkin Donuts (or Einstein's, I forget) together. We swapped business cards, and generally had a pleasant wait until boarding. His stop was in Toronto, so he didn't get to experience the most exciting part of the flight.

From Toronto to Tel Aviv, we watched movies. The whole time. No sleeping for us. I do not remember everything we watched, but I do remember enjoying it. I was in the middle of the middle. But with Christopher on the aisle, it was easy enough to get up and walk around, etc. We would have liked to have had an uneventful flight, but over France we were told that we'd have to make an emergency stop at Heathrow. So, we were almost to Lyon when we had to turn around. This added about 5 hours to the already long flight. Luckily, it wasn't anything life threatening. The toilets on the plane stopped working - all of them. There is some rule about the length of flights and toilet breakage/use. So, we had no choice. I got the impression that the issue was the waste tanks were full. Pretty gross. So, we stopped and then got traveling once again. Given that and the overly chatty families to our right and front - the last part of the flight was the most exhausting.

After arriving, we were taken by taxi to our furnished rental apartment for our stay. the apartment was awesome. There was anything that we could need to settle in, including a stocked kitchen (pasta, some milk, instant coffee) and internet. Not to mention, the first level had a pool and workout area, which we used a couple times. The view out the living room window was very nice. A building next door, part of the garden area downstairs, and then out towards one of the city's parks.


The night we arrived was Independence Day Eve. There was a party in the streets, so we went out to see what was going on. It was a lively evening, generally a lot of merry making and drinking. The photo at the top of the post comes from that first night.

The next day was equally nice as the entire city was off from work and throwing barbeques. We went to a friends house for a party they were having and had some really great food. We also met very nice people. Sorry, no food pictures, but we did walk there rather than take a taxi or other method, so we were able to get some nice shots of the city between our apartments.

Here, you can see one of the city parks where families and friends had gathered to throw down their grills and picnic blankets.

Here is one of the highways as we were walking on the bridge over it.

It was kinda warm/hot that day, but I don't remember being overly sweaty or anything. And the walk took us about 45 minutes. So, I suppose the weather must have been a nice temperature. It was a really great first full day in the country.

As this has already become rather long, I think I'll break it up, and you'll have to wait a bit longer for some more info on the Dead Sea and the Old City.

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