It's probably best if you don't know me.

Posted by Ethne~

My latest obsession is Man of Steel.  That’s right, Superman.

That's right Bi#ches.  He's glorious.

This inspired the following text exchange with bff, Kari, who is the very same friend who introduced me to 50 Shades of Grey.  It is for that reason that she gets these texts.  She also may or may not be randomly shown binding marks on my wrists due to said introduction.  I’ll let you use your imagination to determine if that last sentence is true or just me being funny.

Me: OMG, I am in love w[ith] Henry Cavill from Superman.  Totally shoulda been CG.*  Too goody goody now as Superman to play a dom I suppose, as I’ve said b4.  Still.  Dreamy.  I decided if I ever met him I would ask to feel his Superman muscles.  Not the naughty ones.  That’s reserved for Jamie Dornan now.

Her: We can always dream…

Me: Totally!  In my Henry Cavill daydream I momentarily told him that people often asked to touch my belly when I was pregnant with the twins but then thought that would make him throw up and I wouldn’t get to touch his superman muscles.  I am very thorough.

The lesson here, people, is you need to be careful which books you suggest to me or you may be subject to inappropriate and/or pointless commentary for the rest of your life.

*Dudes, the first pic in the link about him being CG makes my point.  Don't taunt us with the gray suit, Henry.

Ho-Ho-Ho Pintester Movement: the kids can never see this.

Posted by Ethne~

NOTE: THIS POST IS NOT FAMILY FRIENDLY.  YOU’RE WELCOME.

Go see Pintester and all the genius Pintestes' holiday ornaments here - comments appreciated!

Dudes, I am a rubbish Pinteste.  Actually, I’m an awesome Pinteste, I’m just a rubbish Christmas crafter this year.

I searched Pinterest high and low for a Christmas ornament to make for this challenge.  Lori even pinned stuff for me.  Now that I am recovered from falling down the stairs (I don’t think I told you guys about that, but I did tell Pintester) I pretty much had no excuse but to try something.

I do love Christmas.  But Pinterest provided no inspiration.  I found no ornaments that I wanted to make. I was adrift.

I went to Target this week, figuring I could buy an ornament to gussy up.  Yeah, that didn’t happen either.  But a lightbulb went off.  LITERALLY.  A Phillips brand LED miniature light-up chandelier.

What to do?  Now I was Pinspired.  AS IT SO HAPPENS, the chandelier is perfectly scaled to elf-size.  And Barbie-size.

So my naughty little mind turned this lovely challenge of making a delightful Christmas ornament into an opportunity to set up a naughty Elf on the Shelf scene with our elf, Lyle, Barbie and the chandelier ornament.  And who hasn’t seen the twenty million Elf on the Shelf pins on Pinterest?  The naughty ones inspired me.  Oh, and the Bloggess’ elf stabbed her couch last year in case you missed that.

Just because you can never go too far for the Pintester, I thought that the Lyle-Barbie-chandelier scene should be set to the Red Room of Pain a la 50 Shades of Grey.  Because it’s been on my mind lately a few times.

This led to the following convo with Shaun tonight:

Me: I have to figure out some red fabric for the backdrop of the scene for Lyle and Barbie.  Do you still have that red satin robe you wore for Halloween that one year?

Shaun: I have no idea.  I know, you should have Barbie tied upside-down and naked from the chandelier and Lyle’s face can be in her crotch.

Me: No, that’s too far.  Lyle is our daughters’ Christmas spirit guide, he can’t be muff diving Barbie.

Shaun: Lyle is not their spiritual guide.  That’s ridiculous.  You could do one of him doing 50 Shades and one of him muff diving Barbie.

Me: No muff diving.

Later, I realized that my handcuff necklace (that Lori and I got for all of us on girls trip, a la Nancy Grace) is a PERFECT FIT for Barbie’s wrists.  Shaun told me to go away at that point.  Gladly, my children will never know about this exploitation of their spiritual Christmas guide.  He’ll be out for real visits in a few weeks.

So, my friends, here is my ‘Who’s a Ho-Ho-Ho’ Pintester Movement submission.

Ms. Steele, you dirty girl.

You can see the ornament here, which I think I technically have to show since that's what this challenge is SUPPOSED to be. 

So then there's this.

Posted by Ethne~

So I got this photo via text from my bff’s yesterday.

Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson on the cover of Entertainment Weekly

Frank Ockenfels for Entertainment Weekly See more here

The jury’s out on Mr. Jamie Dornan. 

True, he’s smoking hot in those Calvin Klein ads, but let’s face it, he was probably air brushed.

If his acting can transport me to 50’s world, he’s a win.  I didn’t see his readings for the part with Ms. Dakota Johnson, after all. 

Until then, this picture didn’t quite get me there.

Ms. Johnson looked nice though, agree?   

50 Shades - It's Not The Actors I'm Worried About.

Posted by Ethne~

NOTE: This post is not family-friendly.  Come back tomorrow for regularly-scheduled broadcasting.

Now that I’ve had a few days to mull over the casting of Charlie Hunnam and Dakota Johnson as Christian and Ana in the 50 Shades movie(s), I must comment.  I suspect a good portion of you out there expected me to.  You’re welcome.

Of course I have something to say about this. Credit: tell me if you know.

A 5-year-old was doing my hair - DON'T BE PERVERSE.  It hurt.

My first response to the outcry over it not being Ryan Gosling was TOLD YOU SO.  I knew he never fit the part.  Even though I do love the “Hey Girl Hey” montages from Pinterest.  My second response to the petitions to the president that it’s not Matt Bomer was HE’S EFFING GAY, DUDES, HE CAN’T BE CHRISTIAN GREY. Not that there’s anything wrong with being gay, or playing straight, generally.  How-effing-ever, in this PARTICULAR role, I think you’ll agree with me that I need to wrap my mind around the fact that the actor is into the ladies when I’m watching him administer butt plugs and nipple clamps.

AS YOU WELL KNOW, I had done thorough IMDb research and cast Christian’s role myself.  I never selected Charlie Hunnam as a candidate, and had hand-selected Cam Gigandet, as you’ll recall from my 50 Shades of Wet Dreams post here.  BUT, who can blame me, he’s hot.  (Like Cam, Charlie does meet Kari’s and my criteria of being a minimum of 6’ tall – he’s 6’1”.)

Fortunately for me and my well-endowed ego, I’ve not gone without mention of Charlie Hunnam on this blog.  As it turns out, I said in this post that I wanted to have a foursome with him and, among others (including you, SHAUN), the tragically-departed Cory Monteith.  I also mentioned that I wanted Shaun to join a bad-a$$ biker gang because Jax Teller (CH’s character on Sons of Anarchy) is effing hot.  And by that, I mean he could flog me with a riding crop seven days from Sunday.  This from a girl who doesn’t like men with long hair. 

He's an effing chameleon. Credit: FX

When it comes down to it, it’s not the bad-a$$ biker that appeals so much as Charlie Hunnam.  He rocks my world in every episode.  And let me say, since SOA is on cable, not network, they let you see his butt and it’s FINE.  As a matter of fact, they let you see his butt while he’s banging his wife in a bathroom, and next to a guy he just offed, just for starters.  (Why are you not watching this show, ladies?  New season starts September 10.)  I will also not be rioting about him being British since I know this in advance and since I already know his American accent is impeccable.  (I riot when I find out LATER that a quintessential American character is played by a Brit actor, such as in Deadwood or Band of Brothers.  Shaun loves this.  I rioted when I found out about Charlie/Jax but I'm over it because of his hotness.)

Charlie Hunnam will clean up and do [it] quite nicely er... strictly?

I don’t have as much to say about Dakota Johnson.  I’ve not seen the movies she’s been in, which is pretty terrible considering that WE’RE RELATED.  That’s right.  And that’s how I know that that casting her will work – because I’m awesome.  It’s genetic.  (I admit I was a little off-put that a relative was cast for this particular role, but then I got over it, as she seems to fit the bill.)

If you know who gets credit for this, tell me.

[I’m totally not lying about this.  You can ask people who know me.  I don’t bring it up because it’s irrelevant in everyday conversation.  However, when Dakota’s mom, Melanie Griffith, was super popular in Working Girl with Harrison Ford, I was proud to proclaim it.  And when her dad, Don Johnson, was on Miami Vice in the ‘80’s when that was the coolest, I was proud to claim that he was related by marriage.  In elementary school, in North Dakota, you had to talk about something.  If you recall, we had given up on being pen pals with that East Coast elementary school because they literally thought we were still pioneers without wheels and Nintendo and we were super offended.

Anyway, here’s one of the rare occasions when it’s relevant.  Dakota’s maternal Grandma, Tippi Hedren, is first cousins with my paternal Grandpa, Tom Hedren.  My last name, also Hedren.  We are Swedish on that branch.  That would make me fifth cousins with Dakota.  I’ve never met any of them.  Grandpa and Grandma visited Tippi regularly in California though, on her big cat preserve, Shambala.]

Dakota looks more like Tippi than Melanie, I think.  And Don.

Tippi and her parents.

Just to make sure I wasn’t totally off-base in my affirmation that Charlie & Dakota’s casting would work out JUST FINE, I did a little research.  CNN had an article about other casting backlashes, a couple of which are particularly noteworthy in the article’s conclusion that the internet needs to settle the eff down: Robert Pattinson was rioted as an ill-fitting Edward for Twilight (myself included) and is now [my] beloved; Michael Keaton was highly questioned for Batman, but the movies were good anyway (though it was noted that it was not necessarily his performance that totally made the movies); Heath Ledger was thought to be an odd choice for the Joker, but his performance was so outstanding that everyone shut the hell up immediately and he won an Oscar; Vivian Leigh, when cast as Scarlett O’Hara for Gone With the Wind, had to adopt a Southern accent and demeanor for the role – and no one thought she’d ever pull it off since she was British with not much background.  She also won an Oscar for her performance.

I’d say what we 50 Shades devotees have far more to worry about is if the script writers and screenplay people and movie-making flunkies get it right.  Bringing a book to the big screen is no easy task.  I happen to think that aside from the casting of Kristen Stewart, they did a pretty decent job with Twilight.  50 Shades is a very particular sex book, however.  If the movie people don’t get it right, it won’t matter what actors they pick.  Personally, I think that if this thing gets anything less than an NC-17 rating, it won’t work.  And I’m not saying I want to stare at a bunch of vag for 2 straight hours.  But there’s no way you can address the subject matter (insert any single liaison in the Red Room of Pain, for example) with a less strict rating.  See the worry?  Let us quit with this foolishness over the actors and take to the power of the internet to ensure that the Motion Picture Association of America rates this effer properly.  PRIORITIES people.

So I say, my Friends, make sure your vibrators have fresh batteries.  If the movie people get it right, these actors should leave us twitching in our theater seats.  (Um, that’s totally disgusting.  Never mind about the ratings.  Make it G.)

Narcissim at its finest - I couldn't have the other one be my only picture in this post.  So I found one of me with Mr. T. Grey.

FINAL NOTE: After Dakota Johnson was cast, Melanie Griffith tweeted her pride (at the bottom of this article) that her daughter would be playing “Anna” Steele.  WTF.  That did not help your cause with the die-hards out there who are already rioting.  I felt a family obligation to forgive the oversight (no I didn’t) (surely it was autocorrect?) but no one else will.  Good one.

FRIDAY AT NOON: Ethne hates books today.

Posted by Ethne~

I hate books. 
I hate one book actually.

I read this really great book last night until midnight; the characters were great, it was a love story, and then the ending was crap.  Don’t mess with my tender heart be-atch.

The thing is, I really love literature.  You might remember from here and here where I talked about how even though Lori is ridiculous for not reading Twilight, and I am in love with Christian Grey, it doesn’t matter what books you like.  There is always one out there waiting to gobble you up and transport you away and transform your soul, at least for an hour or a day or a month.  Maybe forever.

I pinned this funny quote on Pinterest.

That's right.  Pretend you didn't read this Shaun, I'm joking.

And this apt one for me when I get my mind blown by a good read.

It reminds me of what Snape says about Lily Evans Potter, but it's totally true about everything.

Ok, maybe one more

So I have been on the hunt for a new good book.  Amazon recommends books for me all the time on my Kindle.  I’m thankful, I really am.  Usually they’re either zombie-related (cuz I recently read World War Z), romances (cuz of 50 Shades and Bared to You) or vampire-related (if you don’t know why, you don’t know me at all – ok, so if you’re new to this blog, I love Twilight and I’ve also read the House of Night series and several others, FYI).  But I am NOT one of those gals who latches on to a Nicholas Sparks or James Patterson.  Those stories don’t turn my crank, no offense.  They’re a tad repetitive to me.  And I don’t particularly like to be inspired by books.  I like to fall in love.  I like to have my insides all twisted up with longing.  And, if it’s zombies, I don’t mind a little blood and guts.

BUT, I can’t spend $10 every other night because I’m an effing fast reader, and I can’t ignore my family, because I pretty much want to pretend I’m lost on a deserted island when I’m falling in love with a book.

So when this book came across my Kindle two nights ago, it was only like $1, and it had lots of GREAT reviews, a pretty cover (yeah, I know) and the author was self-published (which was a roll of the dice, but with a ka-jillion great reviews, which mentioned other books I liked, I thought I’d give this brave author a chance).

Stupid. 

I’ll be clear.  I couldn’t put the effer down.  It was FABULOUS.  The characters were awesome and sweet and twisted and broken; the plot was well-developed, which is a fete; and it wasn’t some Nicholas Sparks broken record (again, no offense).  BUT…AND SPOILER ALERT…it was the author who was the twisted manipulator in the end.  She didn’t bring them together!  And up until the last page, she wasn’t clear; and I even had to re-read the last two paragraphs of the epilogue just to make sure.  TORTURE.  And then I couldn’t sleep.  It’s like the classic literature I read in college where the ends weren’t all neat and tidy.  But I like my ends all neat and tidy, so I say, EFF YOU B!T%H.

So, Tarryn Fisher, if you make it big and get published by some big publishing house, and this book gets made into a movie, I am totally not going to see it.  And I am so going to go public with my midnight, January 2013 review entitled “Argh!” which, I just realized in my shock and delirium I gave 5 stars.  Sh!t.

Just so you know, I did get my act together (after I b!tc^ed to Kari about it via text) and go to work and actually get work done, so the book did not take up my whole brain, just a little teeny part that annoyed me and nagged at me.  I’ll think about it more tonight.  And then Whit and I are going to try to wax our legs with homemade leg wax tomorrow, so that’ll be fun.

 

HONEY, IT'S TIME.

Posted by Ethne, Lori, Kari~

Well, here’s Shaun’s quote on the lefse: ‘epic fail’.  You heard it here first, Friends.  It’s not pretty.  I could be that I’m Swedish and Kari’s Polish.  It also could be that you probably needed to learn how to make it on your momma’s hip in order to do it well.  Regardless, it tastes awesome and we’ll blog about it soon.

Lefse is purely a time-filler though.  We’re counting down the last ever seconds until Twilight Breaking Dawn, Part 2, opens up.  That’s right bit&he$, we got tickets for midnight opener.  Decision Done.  The reviews said this is the best Twilight movie by far.  Hell to the Yes.

Now Shaun is telling Kari stories how every “bad” (according to him – “bad-a$$” according to me) thing that has happened to him in North Dakota (which I can’t deny has been every trip) has been with Lori and Steve.  That’s because he doesn’t have ND Tiger Blood.

Oh, this is what best friend evenings are made of. 

Lori, E and Kari - lefse is rocked out!

And here’s a special little giveaway:  If we get 3 new followers by 3pm tomorrow, I will post a picture of what I look like when I wake up tomorrow morning.

TUESDAYS AT NOON: Lori's Coming to Town!

Posted by Ethne~

O.M.G. Friends, I have awesome news: Lori and Mur-Man are hopping Amtrak in biggish city, ND, at 2:00 a.m. tonight/a$$-crack-of-dawn tomorrow morning to head here and stay with Shaun, the monsters and me for a couple of days.

New mom Grizz on the right is also Norwegian (that makes sense in a minute)

Why, you ask?  Well, I’ll gladly tell you.  One of our very fave blog authors in the WHOLE WIDE WORLD, younghouselove, are coming to big city, MN, to sign their brand new book tomorrow evening.  Just about one second after they posted notice of this, Lor and I RSVP’d for the event.  One of Steve’s best friend’s wives, RM (he only has one wife, but I think that’s proper grammar – WTF English language, and I was an English major in college, so I oughta be right on this, though I could re-word it to make it sound better but I’m not gonna cuz now I think this run-on diatribe is funny, sorry RM) is coming too!

We plan to bring a little gift for them, and something for them to autograph, in addition to their books.  I could about wet my pants with excitement.  Luckily I delivered my kids by c-section, so my urinary tract didn’t get all stretched out and stuff, meaning I don’t leak when I laugh or get excited.  No offense; and I really don’t think that’s TMI, since it doesn’t happen to me.  It would only be nasty if it actually occurred.

ANYWAY, the next day, Lori and I have decided we are making LEFSE!  For any of you who didn’t grow up in the Northern Midwest, lefse is kinda like a tortilla except it’s made with potatoes and flour instead of cornmeal or flour only, and it’s pretty much on par with deviled eggs for awesomeness in my extremely important opinion.  You usually eat it at the holidays, spread with butter or butter & sugar.  I prefer butter-only most of the time.  Mainly because I eat it alongside Christmas cookies and deviled eggs so I have the balance of savory and sweet and awesome, which is the holy trinity (not capitalized so as not to be sacrilegious) of eating anything inmyextremelyimportantopinion. 

When I eat mine I just fold it in half so it lasts longer

The problem with lefse is that homemade is a ka-zillion times more delicious than store-bought.  Don’t be mistaken; I buy store-bought here in MN, and I LOVE IT, but it’s not the same by a mile.  And lefse is a Norwegian delicacy, and I’m not Norwegian, I’m Swedish-German-English by ancestry, so we don’t have the lefse-making tradition.  Like, I grew up with it as a holiday tradition, but then my family moved away from Williston, so I have no way to get it homemade now.  Torture.  It’s possible that Thrifty Nana (my mom) has the implements to make lefse, but I don’t think we’ve ever made it but once, two decades ago, so I’m not sure if that counts.

Here’s where having a Norwegian best friend comes in.  Lori has agreed to pack all of her lefse-making-supplies, including the giant lefse griddle in her suitcase and bring it on the train to big city.  Is that the coolest ever?  Yep, the key here is that I will once again make a mess in the kitchen, which Shaun says is my specialty.

And to make sure we pack every possible adventure in, Lori, KS, and I are viewing the 11:30 p.m. showing of Twilight Breaking Dawn, Part 2, following the lefse-making marathon.  This was STEVE’S IDEA, AND LORI’S SUGGESTION, mind you, which shocked the socks off of me.  I told her I would agree to go if she didn’t trash-talk Twilight once.  She told me that just because she hasn’t read the books doesn’t mean she doesn’t think the actors aren’t hot (do all those double-negatives cancel each other out, English major?).  Well, that’s a start.

Then, Friday, Steve is coming to town for a conference and they’ll spend the rest of the weekend at JM & RM’s house (the non-polygamists).

We will for sure be blogging about our adventures, so you will FOR SURE want to check back a whole bunch this week and next week.  I am not sure if we’ll have a super awesome post for Friday since we won’t be getting to bed until breaking dawn (I’m hilarious) and I have to work Friday.

When I advised Shaun of our genius plans he said, and I quote: “Are you really trying to pi$$ me off?”  Success.