Recommendation City-

These recommendations are due to my sister Bonnie asking what movies I've seen and enjoyed lately. I watch a lot of movies and would rather have skipped those movies that were a total bust. A. Kraft, ignore this list. I cannot fathom how our movie preferences are so distinctly different with no apparent pattern.

Movie Recommendations

1. The New World (2005): A more believable telling of the Pocahontas and John Smith story

2. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010): An epic of Persian proportions with a time twist

3. The Paradise (2012-2013): Or as Charles calls it, the Irish version of Downton Abbey

4. Big Eyes (2014): About a woman artist whose husband pretended to paint her paintings

5. Love and Mercy (2014): About the Beach Boys, specifically Brian Wilson

6. Far From the Madding Crowd (2015): A sort of Pride and Prejudice vibe but also quite strange in other aspects. I think I liked it.

7. Kronk's New Groove (2005): A lovely sequel to a golden first movie. Very good on its own merits and charming in similar ways to the first- also has the same voices.

8. Little Boy (2015): Told from the perspective of a young boy during WWII in America.

 Movie Un-Recommendations

1. Tomorrowland (2015): Futuristic and underwhelming

2. Jurassic World (2015): So dumb

3. Mr Holmes (2015): Uninteresting in the ways you would expect a Sherlock Holmes movie to be

4. The Conversation (1974): Terrible, just terrible.

I have also been participating, with a small group of friends, in No Munchie March. We decided to only exclude sugar treats from our diets for a month. Thus far it hasn't been too bad. Lots of people from my work bring treats in, but they're usually store bought. My main temptation test will be today, since I decided to make a blueberry cheesecake with our extra cream cheese. I had to, the cream cheese was going moldy. Good luck with that Charles.

Since I cannot currently eat treats, I would like to invite you to try these treats when you have some time.

Treat Recommendations

1. Tiny fruit pizzas- sugar cookies, topped with cream cheese/powdered sugar/milk whipped, topped with fruit of various orders(mandarin oranges, pineapple, berries, kiwi, bananas), topped with glaze. Then you can eat one or two and still feel healthy- because fruit.

2. Chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwiches- Look on your Nestle bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips, follow the recipe exactly, and make some cookies. Then put tillimook mudslide ice cream in between two cookies right after they're out of the oven. Mmmm.

3. Peanut Butter balls- Apparently there are many types of peanut butter ball recipes. My mom has one that's equal parts honey, powdered milk powder, and peanut butter. We have lots of powdered milk that just hit its expiration date, so we are using it for these. If it's too runny, add more powdered milk. If you're out of honey, use sweetened and condensed milk. If you feel dippy, dip them in chocolate, cookie crumbs, coconut, sprinkles, or powdered sugar.

These work well for making treats when you have baking ingredients and a random assortment of other items. We make a batch of cookie dough treats and freeze the dough for extras so we don't have to plow through a whole recipe's worth of treats by ourselves. The peanut butter balls thaw quickly and Charles can snack on them when he's doing homework and wants a little snack.

4. Hummus and veggies- We've been a big hummus kick lately because we haven't eaten many vegetables in the past and we wanted to be better. So we've been making hummus or buying it and separating it into tiny Tupperware to easily take to work and school. A giant bag of carrots is $3, so we're going big on carrot sticks.

We like to eat treats and watch movies. You can also exercise while watching movies. I also recommend crafting while watching movies. I had a couple of pairs of old jeans that have since made it to jean short status. Their counterparts have been made into a jean quilt. I'll post pictures when this is completed. So far, it is a mishmash of color and asymmetrical. Good thing I'm just going to show you guys and anyone who sleeps at our house. That shortens the list considerably of people who will see it.

Quilt Recommendations

Plan(read pin) first, sew second

I did not cut my pieces nearly this small. My pieces are nice and huge.