If you look at my Christmas Countdown ticker at the bottom of the right sidebar, it’s 31 days until Christmas. So I suppose mathematically, that’s four weeks plus a few days, but the way I look at it, there’s this whole week (Monday to Friday), and then four more weeks of Monday to Friday until Christmas. Okay, it’s weird math, but it’s MY weird math, LOL.

So, has anyone else started shopping for gifts? I’ve had three text documents saved since the beginning of last month, one for Kaitlyn, one for the boys, and one for Chris, and in each one, I make a note each time any of them say “you know what I’d like for Christmas?” Of course, Kaitlyn’s list changes pretty much daily, so anything she only mentioned once gets deleted from the list. The few things she’s mentioned over and over got bumped up to the top.

Last night I went to bed at about 11:30, and at 12:45 AM, I was still laying there wide awake. I realized that what I was thinking about was all of the people I’d like to give Christmas presents to, family as well as close friends. I was trying to think of a way that I could accomplish two goals: 1. find Cheap Christmas Gifts and 2. not have to run around to multiple stores dealing with huge crowds. What works best for me is coming up with one gift that works for everyone. So there I am at 12:45 in the morning, and I realized I had just thought of the PERFECT gift that works for everybody!

So, I jump out of bed, turn on the lamp, put on my glasses, pick up a pen off the floor, find a little notebook on my dresser, get back in bed, and start making a list of the families and friends I want to give gifts to.  I made that list, then I made a list of people to make sure to send Christmas cards to. I was done in about fifteen minutes, and when I finished, I put the pen and notebook down on my nightstand, took off my glasses, turned off the lamp, and fell sound asleep!  Apparently, all I need to be able to sleep is to write down all the thoughts swirling around in my head in a notebook!

Have you made your holiday gift list yet?  Done any shopping? Tell me in a comment what’s going on with you!

disclosure: this post contains a sponsored link

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I’ve been up for about two hours. I watched half an episode of Ally McBeal (Season One DVD. It’s awesome), helped two kids get their breakfast (Nathan, still sick, home today), made a pot of coffee, and turned on my laptop so I could start writing the approximately eleventy-billion posts I need to write (yes really, eleventy-billion. It is TOO a number).

Because I can never decide what site I want to have as my homepage, I’m currently using a customized iGoogle desktop. I have a section (module? widget?) for The Huffington Post at the top left corner, and the huge headline that Ahmed Karzai, brother of the President of Afghanistan, gets regular payments from the C.I.A. was too juicy not to click through to read, so I did, and…well.

I swear, I never mean to get as lost online as I do. I certainly never intend to look at the time in the bottom right corner of the system tray and realize that TWO HOURS have gone by, and that I have CHILDREN in this house. Okay, so they are pretty self-sufficient children, even Kaitlyn at 3 years 11 months is just fine amusing herself with a pile of Littlest Pet Shop animals for a while. But two hours? That’s like, bad, right? That I didn’t speak to the child sitting 3 feet away from me for that long, because I read an article on HuffPo and then clicked something else that caught my eye, and from there, something else, and so on?

So if you’re wondering what exactly I was doing for two hours that kept me so oblivious, I grabbed the URLs:

TV Squad DVD Review of Battlestar Galactica: The Plan- After reading the review by Mike Moody, I’m glad I didn’t buy this. I’ll add it to my Blockbuster Online queue instead. I was hoping for an original backstory, not recycled footage from the series with some new scenes added.  Then the banner ad caught my eye so I clicked and went to…..

Target StyleBoutique- Nina Garcia helps “frugalistas” find fashionable looks at Target. I can relate to Marci, the Mom of 3 who lives in jeans and t shirts. The blue/black plaid dress with the belted black cardigan is fine looking, but for me? I’d maybe have one time a year where an outfit like that would be appropriate. Still, the videos are interesting and I do love Target. From there I went back to Huffington Post and read about…

Kate Gosselin – who has renewed her registration as a nurse.  My first thought was, if she were to go back to working as a nurse, I hope she can get a day shift that would minimize the amount of time her kids would have to spend in after-school care or at home with a caregiver. Can you imagine what the cost would be for 8 kids, even part time?   Yikes.  Then, Kaitlyn came and sat down next to me with a Littlest Pet Shop poster and asked me if she could get the Cozy Care Adoption Center for Christmas. I said, “Let’s ask Santa to bring it”. She said, “how do we tell him?” I said, “I bet Santa has an email address”. So I googled “email to Santa”, and I found THIS!…

Email Santa-  So I told Kaitlyn we could send Santa an email and ask him to bring her the Littlest Pet Shop Adoption Center. I started suggesting what her email could say, got her feedback, and we came up with this:

Dear Santa,
I have tried very hard to be a good girl this year. I’ve been good to my brothers and to my Mommy and Daddy. I will help make chocolate chip cookies for you to eat when you come. Thank you Santa!
Love, Kaitlyn

I know, right? Seriously cute. Now “Santa” just has to start saving money to buy the aforementioned LPS toy, which costs FORTY SEVEN DOLLARS. Sheesh, kid. In my day we got an orange and a candy cane and WE LIKED IT.

So that was my morning. I also reviewed two Halloween episodes of WordGirl, drank coffee, and chatted with my Internet Twin about life and blogging and stuff. Maybe not the most productive morning, but definitely an interesting and enjoyable one.

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Based on a short story by Philip K. Dick, who wrote the stories that were turned into Blade Runner, Minority Report and Total Recall, Paycheck stars Ben Affleck as Mike Jennings, an engineer who invents a machine but then agrees to have his memory erased in exchange for a $90 million dollar paycheck. When he “comes to”, he finds that he has mailed himself an envelope full of seemingly random objects, and has a girlfriend Rachel that he doesn’t remember (played by Uma Thurman). And, he learns he also turned down the $90 million dollars, so he turns to his friend Shorty (Paul Giamatti) to help him figure out why.

The man who hired him to invent the machine, played by Aaron Eckhart, doesn’t want Mike to remember what he invented, so he has guys chasing Mike and Rachel trying to stop them from learning the truth. There’s lots of dodging of poorly-aimed bullets, some very cool futuristic technology, and great action from director John Woo.

The special features are a commentary by John Woo, a commentary by screenwriter Dean Georgaris, a featurette about designing the future world that the movie takes place in, a featurette about the stunts, and extended/deleted scenes. Visually, the colors are bright and the sound is excellent, I don’t own the movie on regular DVD so I don’t have anything to compare it to, but it seems like a good choice for a Blu-Ray collection. Pick it up on Amazon.com or in stores.

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It’s been a long time since I saw a truly scary movie. It seems like the horror genre has become dominated by movies that call themselves scary but are really just gory (the Saw movies, the Hostel movies, etc.).  I love scary movies, jump outta your seat, hands over your eyes peeking through your fingers SCARY.  I can’t ride rollercoasters and I freak out if a fly gets trapped in the bathroom with me, so I get my adrenaline rush watching scary movies.

The Uninvited, which came out last week on DVD and Blu-Ray is a SCARY MOVIE. As in, prepare to keep your hands glued to your face (which might possibly be pressed into your husband’s shoulder as well).

The Uninvited is the story of Anna (Emily Browning, “A Series of Unfortunate Events”), a young girl who is just getting out of a 10-month stay in a mental institution after attempting suicide. Her bed-ridden mother had died in a fire, and when Anna is released by her psychiatrist with the suggestion that she “finish what she started” (he means working through her feelings about her mother’s death but boy do those words take on a different meaning), she learns that her father has become romantically involved with Rachel (Elizabeth Banks, “Scrubs”), the nurse who was caring for Anna’s mother.

Anna is also reunited with her sister Alex (Arielle Kebbel, “The Grudge II”) who is one year older and her best friend. At first Alex is upset about Anna going away and leaving her there to deal with the horrible Rachel, but they quickly resume their close friendship.  Rounding out the cast is the always terrific David Strathairn (“The Spiderwick Chronicles”) as their father Steven, who is just trying to resume his life and find some happiness after his wife’s tragic death.

So the question presented to viewers is this- is Rachel really a dangerous person trying to sabotage the family? Was Anna’s mother’s death really an accident?  Don’t watch the behind-the-scenes bonus feature before you’ve seen the movie, it’s got major spoilers. This bonus video clip courtesy of Paramount Home Entertainment won’t give anything away, I promise:

I liked this movie, the DVD itself was sorely lacking in extras, though. Besides the “making of” feature (which is interesting), there are just four deleted scenes and a short alternate ending. I would watch this DVD again if there was a commentary track to listen to.  It would have been nice to get a look at the original Korean film and see how the two movies compare and contrast.  Nevertheless, I recommend The Uninvited on DVD or Blu-Ray for lovers of scary movies.

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I reviewed the original 1951 movie The Day The Earth Stood Still back in December, and in that post I wrote that I wasn’t sure if I was going to like the remake because the original is just so darn good, and because reviews of the theatrical release were so negative.

So, when Click asked for reviewers for the remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still on DVD, I said yes. And you know what? I have to respectfully disagree with everyone who posted a “oh god this is the worst movie ever” review on Amazon. Okay, it’s not the best movie ever, and the changes made from the original are pretty drastic, but I enjoyed watching it.

If you aren’t familiar with the story, The Day The Earth Stood Still is about an alien sent to Earth with the mission of telling everyone on Earth that they need to stop destroying the planet or else the rest of the Universe is going to have to take action. In order to prove how serious they are, the alien makes, well, the earth stand still by shutting down every single bit of electricity.

But even before that happens, the U.S. government gets freaked out about an alien and his “bodyguard”, a giant metal robot who is standing in front of their spaceship not moving. They try to take the alien prisoner and destroy the robot, because it’s all so threatening to our “peaceful” existence.  In the remake, this point is hammered home even more strongly by having the Secretary of Defense argue that no good can come from letting the alien discuss anything with anyone.

This movie has a terrific cast- Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Connolly, Jaden Smith, Kyle Chandler, Jon Hamm, John Cleese. It gets overly dramatic at the end (Jennifer Connolly pleading with Keanu Reeves not to destroy Earth, sobbing “we can change, we can change”),  but like I said, I found it enjoyable to watch. You can get a two-disc set, a three-disc set that includes the original movie and a digital copy, plus it’s available on Blu-Ray. Rent or buy it and decide for yourself!

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