Top of the Pops

On our most recent sibling email thread (these happen quite often, even though 3 out of 4 of us live within 40 miles of each other), my sister asked for a list of Top 20 songs of all time. The first to go turned it into 25, the last ended it at 49, proving the difficulty of this task. I capped mine at 25 for fear of continuing all the way up to 100, and thought I'd post it on here.

Top 25 Favorite Songs of All Time (in no particular order)

1. "Freebird" by Lynrd Skynrd
2. "Soul to Squeeze" by Red Hot Chili Peppers
3. "Beast of Burden" by the Rolling Stones
4. "Like a Rolling Stone" by Bob Dylan
5. "One Headlight" by the Wallflowers
6. "A Day in the Life" by the Beatles
7. "Walls" by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
8. "Islands" by the XX
9. "Gigantic" by the Pixies
10. "Sleepwalk" by Santo and Johnny
11. "If You Leave" by OMD
12. "Beautiful Day" by U2
13. "Somebody to Love" by Queen
14. "Tears of a Clown" by Smokey Robinson
15. "Piece of My Heart" by Janis Joplin
16. "Home" by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros
17. "You Shook Me All Night" by ACDC
18. "More Than Words" by Extreme
19. "Push It" by Salt-n-Pepa
20. "Save Tonight" by Eagle Eye Cherry
21. "Juiciy" by Notorious B.I.G.
22. "Patience" by Guns 'n Roses
23. "D'yer Mak'er" by Led Zeppelin
24. "The Passenger" by Iggy Pop
25. "I Won't Back Down" by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers

So there it is. Most of these have some emotional/sentimental attachment to them, so that's what qualified them for the ever elusive list. Some are just what I think are really beautiful and well written songs.

Pet Peeves

Ever have one of those days where everything irritates you? Well, as a result of one of those, I've compiled a list of pet peeves. I hope none of you are offended. With that said, here it is:

• Men who go into lingerie stores, especially by themselves. Being on your girlfriends arm doesn't make it much better though. I'm not a prude, I just find this extremely tacky. If you really want to buy your girlfriend a present, shop online...
• People who go out in public in their pajamas/sweats (the grocery store and random off days are forgivable). Also, when said girls are in full glamazon makeup. So you had 45 minutes to cake on all that makeup, but you couldn't throw on some clean clothes?
• "What I wore" blogs. I can't deny that I frequent a good amount of fashion blogs (or at least used to) most of which fall into the "what I wore" category. I can't tell you how obnoxious it is to post 5+ pictures of yourself in the same outfit staring off into space trying to look strung out, and then do the same thing the following day, and the next, and the next...I can appreciate an outfit post here and there, but come on girls! Put yourself to better use. There is much more to life than fabulous clothes.
• When people use lolspeak in real life. I just found out this was called "lolspeak" a few weeks ago-- thanks Flickr.
• Girls that knowingly flirt with other girls boyfriends. This one's pretty self explanatory.
• Girls who say they're "one of the guys". If you feel the need to make this proclamation, you aren't.
  
• When people list magazines under the Favorite Books section on facebook. Even worse: "I don't read", "books? what are those??", etc. I don't judge people about what they read, but to those that brag about being illiterate, shame on you. Pick up a book and grow a brain.
• When people don't know the difference between "your" and "you're." We learned this in 3rd grade. It really isn't that hard.
  

There are probably more, but for now, that was therapeutic. Again, I'm sorry if anyone was offended by anything on this list.

A Few Of My Favorite Things

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens...Okay not really. I do love The Sound of Music but that has nothing to do with this post.

THING #1: Disneyland! I'm not sure if it's a Southern California thing, but I love love love Disneyland. I would be willing to go on any given day. It's clean, bright, well maintained & organized, and they put on an amazing fireworks show. You can't help but feel like a kid after spending a few hours at the Magic Kingdom, which can be a nice break from all the chaos and drama in the grown-up world.

THING #2: The Holiday Season. Yes, it's true, I don't celebrate Christmas. I still can't help but be enamored by the lights, decorations and holiday specials taking over the radio and tv. There's also a slight weather change around this time of year, so you're finally able to take out your winter coats.

We've had family visiting since Thanksgiving, so we took them to Disneyland yesterday. You can only imagine how thrilled I was to see Disneyland taken over by Christmas. Lights and trees everywhere, christmas songs, a holiday parade and fireworks show, fake snow as the park was closing...it was so cute and I'm glad the kids we took got to experience it. Some pictures:

THING #3: Home Alone. This kind of falls into the holiday category, but I thought it deserved its own spot on the list. I love this movie, it's such a classic! Conveniently enough, it's also in heavy rotation on tv between Thanksgiving and Christmas. There are few things in life I enjoy more than sitting on the couch with a bowl of popcorn and watching Home Alone.

On a side note, I am avoiding all malls and shopping centers for the next 28 days.

Happy Holidays!

Past, Present, Future

image via amazon

Strega Nona was my favorite book as a child. I think I checked this one out every time I went to the library. It had an unusual plot compared to most other books about bunnies or puppies, and I loved the illustrations (especially of the overflowing pasta). I remember reading it and actually being able to smell the spaghetti. I wish I had a hard cover copy of it today.

I've been wanting a cat for awhile now. I want to adopt one when it's this small and let her grow into a slinky housecat. 

image via flickr

There's definitely a cat in my future family. We'll name her Rio and maybe make her wear a little bell on her collar.

As for the present:

 

Movies, Movies, Movies

Last week, Best Friend and I had a little tiff over the fact that I never want to watch movies. It's true, but despite my love of cinema I'm never overcome with a strong desire to just go to the theater and watch a movie. Best Friend, the movie buff of all movie buffs, isn't too pleased with this. So, I decided to compile a list of upcoming movies that I want to see and promise to make an avid effort to cross most of these off as soon as possible. 

• Paper Heart
• The Ugly Truth (I'm sorry, I love rom-coms and funny gross out movies. Put those 2 together and you have The Ugly Truth)
• Funny People
• Julie & Julia
• 500 Days of Summer...I was supposed to watch the premiere of this at the Newport Beach Film Festival in April. Had tickets and everything. By some weird coincidence I got a throat infection that week and my doctor quarantined me :(

I'm a fan of all genres but for some reason, most of the movies on this list ended up being rom-coms. I can't help it, I'm just a sucker for anything light-hearted! Any suggestions to add to the list?? 

Life List Updated

Unfortunately, nothing new has been crossed off but I have added a few more things.

1. Learn to speak another language fluently
   
2. Sing karaoke in front of a large crowd
   
3. Fall in love
4. Bowl at least a 200
   
5. Go to a rave
6. Get married
   
7. Camp out for Black Friday
   
8. Write a short story/book
   
9. Have an elaborate birthday celebration
   
10. Start a blog
11. See/swim under a real waterfall
    
12. Learn to play piano
    
13. Visit Versailles
14. Take a rowboat into the middle of a lake
    
15. Take a dance class
    
16. Master the art of photography
    
17. Take classes at OTIS.
    
18. Buy a photo booth for my future home
    
19. See a show at the Moulin Rouge in Paris
    

Tangled Up

Have you ever woken up some place and you have no idea how you got there? So you retrace your steps, only to find that you've taken so many wrong turns you can't even find where it all started. It's been one of those weeks, or really the past couple of weeks. With that said, I'm making the executive decision that it stops here. To help improve my attitude, here are a few things I'm looking forward to in the upcoming week:

• A mini road trip to Palm Springs and Joshua Tree on Friday
• Going running
• A good friend's graduation party on Saturday
• Playing house this weekend
• The Lakers winning the finals (fingers crossed!)
• Guitar Hero with my dear family on Sunday

On another note, I somehow have been convinced to participate in a 5k mud run in July. For those of you who are unfamiliar, a mud run is a race through the mud with different obstacles strewn throughout it (hurdles, tires, walls, etc). When I first heard about it, it sounded fun but I never thought I would actually do it because I am so out of shape. Luckily my team is doing it purely for fun and not for competition (other than our naturally competitive spirits!) So now that I've actually signed up it's forcing me to start running. Here's the course that I'm doing. Has anyone ever done anything like this? Please, please give me some tips!

50 Nifty United States...and other lists

I was born and raised in Southern California and I'm just now realizing, some twenty two years later, that I've only been to a handful of the United States. I'm no Miss America (nor do I really care to be) but before I die, I'd like to say I've seen a fair amount of the country I spent my entire life in. So, over time I've slowly developed a list of places within the United States that I'd like to see sometime in the next 50 years. It's short, but it's a list in progress. 

• North Carolina- Bald Head Island, Cape Feare, Wilmington
• Savannah, Georgia
• Salem, Massachusetts 
• Mojave Desert
• New England

On the subject of Lists, which I love to make oh so much, I also started a life list sometime back in college. There aren't really many significant items on it-- a lot of them are everyday things I've overlooked-- but it's mostly just for fun.

1. Learn to speak another language fluently
2. Sing karaoke in front of a large crowd
3. Fall in love
4. Bowl at least a 200
5. Go to a rave
6. Get married
7. Camp out for Black Friday
8. Write a short story/book
9. Have an elaborate birthday celebration
10. Start a blog
11. See/swim under a real waterfall
12. Learn to play piano
13. Visit Versailles
14. Take a rowboat into the middle of a lake
15. Take a dance class
16. Master the art of photography
17. Take classes at OTIS.
18. Buy a photo booth for my future home
19. See a show at the Moulin Rouge in Paris

Currently working on #16.

And now for some favorites:

Places: The Village in Claremont; Maui, HI; Disneyland (I know, it's a cliche)

Foods: Popcorn, French Fries, Plain Yogurt. I couldn't live without these 3.

Music: Red Hot Chili Peppers, always will be no matter who else comes along or came along before them (although, I am a sucker for classic rock)

Movies: When Harry Met Sally & Home Alone-- still a child at heart :)

Color: Red

Accessory: My camera

Musical: I could never pick one....Grease reminds me of my childhood, The Sound of Music is a classic and personal favorite, Chicago is timeless, Rocky Horror Picture Show: no words necessary

Season: Autumn, but I do enjoy summer nights

I'll stop before this turns into a Personals Ad...

Feel free to add any suggestions for either list! What are somethings you've always wanted to do before it's too late?