I was bored at work today and browsing online for daily deals and coupons as usual when I stumbled across the latest in the news story of Brittany Murphy’s death.

I figured she had drugs in her system, but I never would have thought she died from pneumonia! These accidental overdose stories of otherwise young and healthy stars has led me to seriously worry about taking cough syrups and cold medicines. I even hesitate to take pain relievers because we just don’t know what’s in all this crap. It’s so sad that Brittany passed away-I thought she was so adorable. I think I loved her the most in Just Married. 2009 was a rough year for celebrities. Hopefully we don’t lose any of our favorite stars this year!

I was so excited for the LOST Season 6 premiere. I was shaking like when I get my public speaking anxiety even though I was just sitting on my living room couch. This show really is incredible.

I was a little disappointed with the lack of answers in the season premiere. At the same time, I was still completely entertained. Is it just me or did this episode bring up even more questions? The parallel story line was interesting, the idea of two different versions of what happened after the explosion. Personally, I hate the idea that once the bomb went off, everyone goes about their merry way.
I think the best moment in this episode was the part where the black smoke monster was revealed to be the new “evil locke” or Jacob’s enemy. I don’t have any theories about it, but I did think that was a pretty badass scene. “I’m sorry you had to see me that way” he says to Benjamin and I actually said, “Oh my god!” out loud. That’s what I love about this show-it sucks you in and leaves you wanting more. It’s a drug. And I can’t wait til next Tuesday for my fix.

This book was so suspenseful! I was on the edge of my seat through the entire thing. I love Dean Koontz-his Odd Thomas series is great, so I knew this book wouldn’t disappoint. Here’s the basic storyline, taken from deankoontz.com:

What would you do for love? Would you die? Would you kill?

We have your wife. You can get her back for two million cash. Landscaper Mitchell Rafferty thinks it must be some kind of joke. He was in the middle of planting impatiens in the yard of one of his clients when his cell phone rang. Now he’s standing in a normal suburban neighborhood on a bright summer day, having a phone conversation out of his darkest nightmare.

Whoever is on the other end of the line is dead serious. He has Mitch’s wife and he’s named the price for her safe return. The caller doesn’t care that Mitch runs a small two-man landscaping operation and has no way of raising such a vast sum. He’s confident that Mitch will find a way. If he loves his wife enough. . . Mitch does love her enough. He loves her more than life itself. He’s got seventy-two hours to prove it. He has to find the two million by then. But he’ll pay a lot more. He’ll pay anything.

This is a book in which the reader really sinks into the character’s view point. In the final chapter my heart was literally pounding!! I won’t give away any of it. I will just say that it’s an incredible story about what one man will do when his wife’s life is on the line, and what she does as well. Mitch and Holly are the most courageous characters I’ve ever read about. An A+ goes out for this book, and I can’t wait to listen to my next Dean Koontz novel. I think his stories are almost better read because the voice actors really make the story come alive. I still have goosebumps!

I watched this movie forever ago, when I was a little kid. Last night D decided to watch it on Netflix streaming, and I was cracking up. They need to make fun movies like this, where gods appear with harp music playing, and giant statues come to life and chase people down for stealing their gold. It was nice to take a break from the wedding planning last night and just watch a silly movie.

I’m amazed at how much stuff there is to do before getting married. I knew I had to reserve the venue, get the cake, photographer, stuff like that. I didn’t realize it would be a good idea to get wedding insurance quotes in addition to all the other stuff. But I will feel better if I have some insurance, since who knows what could happen, and this wedding crap is a bit cha-ching!

Back to the movie-I won’t say I was riveted, but it was fun to watch. A good ol’ classic, with Greek Mythology and men running around in skirts and no shirts. A definite B movie in my book, for a little weeknight entertainment.

With the wedding coming up, I’ve been thinking about having my teeth whitene

d. I’m thinking of trying the at home kits because they’d be cheaper than going to a NJ Cosmetic dentist to have them done professionally. Then I was watching an old episode of Friends. Remember the one where Ross bleaches his teeth and they get way too white? My favorite part is when Phoebe comes over to see Ross and he smiles and shows his ultra white teeth. She starts screaming, “Demon! Demon!” and runs away. So maybe I’ll try it now before it gets too close to the wedding. Otherwise I’ll be smiling about as much as Gwyneth Paltrow! Eeep.

The lastest episode of The Vampire Diaries was set with a 50s style theme because of the high school theme dance. Elena goes with both Stefan and Damon to try to keep the peace. I love her comeback to Damon when he asks her to dance. “I’d love to” she says and she turns to Stefan and they flit off, Stefan with a smug smile of victory on his face.
In this episode we learn that there is not one new vampire in town but three. The Salvatore brothers succeed in destroying one vampire who is out to kill Elena, but they are unaware of the other two.
Here’s where I’m confused. The sexy new teacher Alaric (who makes careers in teaching all the more appealing) knows the Salvatore brothers are vampires. He has a ring that he wears…but I still can’t figure out if he’s a vampire or not. Maybe I missed something in a previous episode.
We also learn that he used to be married to a girl named Isabelle, who was killed by Stefan. Isabelle just happens to be the name of Elena’s birth mother. Hmmm…
Here are the questions I have, hopefully to be answered in the next few episodes:
Is Alaric a vampire? Will he be staying on the show even though he’s just a guest star now? (pluhhhlease he’s way hotter than the others) Is Elena a descendant of Catherine’s? If so does that mean she could also be related to Stefan, as in their offspring? Or does that make this just way too much of a soap opera?
Despite it’s cheesiness, I can’t wait to watch the next episode!

This entire episode was so eerie to me because it hit so close to home. The theme was choosing your career or love. Yang was of course advocating surgery over love any day of the week. Grey said why can’t you have both? Throughout the episode we see a patient come in who is a singer, who might have his lung removed. He pleads with the doctors, saying he’d rather die than not be able to sing. He says it’s who he is.

Last night D and I had a deep discussion about his career dreams. He wants to join the Coast Guard, either through OCS to become an officer, or he’d even be willing to go enlisted. I was horrified, because when I said yes to his proposal, I never thought it would mean giving up my life as I knew it. So we talked and talked, and I felt so hurt, because I thought he was choosing his career over love. At the end of our discussion he said, “Don’t you see though? I would never say yes if you weren’t on board. I wouldn’t risk losing you. I would choose you over the career. That’s why we’re talking about this.”

Back to the show. Cristina tells Teddy she would trade Owen for surgery. She says she’s not going to apologize for choosing her gift over a man. Teddy does the right thing and tells Owen.

Shocking twist was for Izzie and Alex. I’ve been waiting for them to patch everything up, and instead Alex tells Izzie he’s happy she’s ok, and he’s happy she got a new job in Tacoma, but he wants her to go and not come back.

Owen confronts Cristina and tells it like it is. “You think nothing else matters. People matter, we do matter. You don’t get to toss me aside. I won’t let you.” They kiss, I cry. It was a good moment.

Meredith and Derek have conflict because he turns the chief in. She feels that he chose surgery over love.

So that brings me back to my life. I’ve been researching Coast Guard careers on my Acer Aspire and trying to figure out if this is something I can get on board with. I want to be like Meredith. I don’t want D to have to choose career or love. Even though he says he won’t choose career, I don’t want him to suffer. I just keep hoping there is a civilian alternative. We’ll just have to see…

This book gave me goosebumps from start to finish. Here’s what the back of the audio book case says about it:

My name is Chloe Saunders and my life will never be the same again.

All I wanted was to make friends, meet boys, and keep on being ordinary. I don’t even know what that means anymore. It all started on the day that I saw my first ghost—and the ghost saw me.

Now there are ghosts everywhere and they won’t leave me alone. To top it all off, I somehow got myself locked up in Lyle House, a “special home” for troubled teens. Yet the home isn’t what it seems. Don’t tell anyone, but I think there might be more to my housemates than meets the eye. The question is, whose side are they on? It’s up to me to figure out the dangerous secrets behind Lyle House . . . before its skeletons come back to haunt me.

It’s the first book in the Darkest Power series, and I’m so happy there is more than one book! The first book leaves off on a cliffhanger that I won’t reveal. I will say that I can’t wait to ready what happens next.

The character development that Kelley Armstrong wrote helps you really visual each character. You can see Tori as the bratty teen who hates Chloe, when deep down it’s obvious she’s still jealous. You can almost see poor Derek’s  acne that Armstrong describes.
The scene that got to me the most was when Chloe gets trapped in the craw space. She’s tied up, with no lights, and all she can hear are the ghosts around her. Hopefully there is no asbestos in the crawl space either because on top of all her other problems, she’ll need a mesothelioma lawyer when she finally gets out. But the worst thing she does is in her panic, she accidentally summons two ghosts back into their human bodies. They crawl towards her and actually grab her legs. I think at one point I actually screamed out loud! It’s a vivid scene.

I give this book an A+ and I will definitely be checking out the next book in the series, The Awakening.

I may have mentioned it before, but I’m not very happy with my current career. I sort of fell into IT after college, and I’ve been wondering what else is out there for me. I spend my days sitting in front of a computer waiting for the phone to ring. It’s a very boring job.

With all of this free time on my hands, I’ve thought about getting an online degree. I’ve been thinking a lot about going back to school for teaching. I think I would be a great elementary school teacher. I love kids, and I love the idea of teaching multiple subjects. I found this website that offers an online teaching degree which would be perfect for me. I would be able to use all the free time I have during the day. I can’t afford to go back to school full time as a student so this is a great alternative. Also, WGU’s tuition is very reasonable, unlike the local University I contemplated going to. With the convenience of being online, I wouldn’t have to quit my job, so I could save up while I went to school. I’m really thinking about applying to WGU.

I give this dvd a D+. D and I couldn’t make it through the whole movie. We ended up turning it off right after the trio almost get eaten by alien creatures with two sets of teeth. I remember loving the Land of the Lost tv show, but this was nothing like I remembered. Will Ferrel was great in Anchorman, but since then his movies have gone way downhill. Maybe it’s because I’m getting older, or maybe it’s because all of his characters are exactly the same. I think I’d rather watch a movie about how to make industrial handles over watching the Land of the Lost. I was looking forward to some laughs too, but Will just isn’t that funny anymore.