Mt. Hood sunset

Sometimes the mountain is so pretty it hurts.

Card from Finland

Is this not lovely?  It was a cold and rainy (as well as grumpy) day when I received it and it immediately cheered me up.

Inside, along with the temperature and a picture of the weather, it says:

Greetings from Finland!

I liked to paint card to you with acrylic colours. Yesterday we were on ice fishing. I fick four fishes and then I ate them. Outside I have snow heart and (drawing) of snowballs and candle is inside it. I hope all the best to you.

Oh Postcrossing!  So wonderful!  I checked this postcrosser's profile to see if she painted everyone a card.  She does not.  I'm not sure why I was the lucky one, but I'm happy she picked me to receive such a beautiful card.

Not the right Patty.

As someone who spent the first 20 years of her life as a "Patty" I can tell you that they mean St. PADDY, which is the shortened form for Patrick.  It's not Saint Patricia's day, no matter how much I might want it to be.  Of course, if you look at their logo, you can see that spelling isn't really their strength.

Three sentence movie reviews: The Lego Movie

While I was tortured with a few days of the relentlessly perky "Everything is Awesome" theme song stuck in my head, it was worth it, due to the general hilarity of this film.  It was fun to see the different Lego worlds and the many famous Legos were enjoyable.*  As someone who liked to assemble my legos as instructed and leave them that way forever, I wasn't a huge fan of the third act, but I didn't disagree with their message.

Cost: $5.00
Where watched:  St. John's Theater

*My favorite being the "1980-something space guy," but Batman was hilarious.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2014/lego_movie.html

Postcards from Korea & Belarus

I really must speak to Postcrossing about the fact that I send off two postcards per week (on Monday and Wednesday) but often the postcards sent to me arrive on the same day!

This is from Oksana who tells me these three facts:

I'm from Russia, but now I live in Korea

I'm married and having daughter

My hobbies are reading, cooking, baking and postcrossing and stamp collector-ing.

This is from Katerina who is 23 years old and live in a small town called Smolerichi.

I love this little bird. He's super cute!

Three sentence movie reviews: Downton Abbey Season 4

I didn't take well to the BIG THING that happened at the end of the second episode, and thus was not really enthralled with the whole shebang.  However, the season did have its charming moments, like the scene with Mary, Tom and Isobel sitting in the nursery, talking about when they knew they were in love.  They managed to wrap everything up nicely in the end and I'm interested in seeing what season five brings.

Cost: free for me
Where watched: mom's house, because she DVR'd the season, thus sparing me from late Sunday nights

poster from: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/programs/series/downton-abbey-s4/

Oscar Party Food

Kelly provided the house and the TV plus the prize for correctly predicting and the Oscar BINGO. I provided the food.  We had one item for each best picture.

For Dallas Buyer's Club: an antioxidant salad

For Nebraska: Mac & Cheese

For Philomena:  Buttered Cabbage

For Captain Phillips:  a traditional Somali Lentil dish

For American Hustle: Vegetarian Pigs in a Blanket

For 12 Years a Slave: Vegetarian Collard Greens

For Her: Jello Jigglers cut in heart shapes

For Gravity:  the Cosmonaut, which was Tang and Vodka, shaken.

For Wolf of Wall Street: Mini Quiche 

(which were not available, so I bought Nancy's Quiche and cut them up)