Though I’m not a winter fan, I do love this time of year in that tomorrow it’s like we get a clean slate. We set resolutions to change various aspects of our lives, and I always feel really pumped up and excited to get started on these new goals. I break down my goals into several categories. There are, of course, writing goals — typically broken down into when I want to complete what. Then I have goals regarding my freelance writing and editing; others for home improvement, like painting the little attic storage room (the previous owners fancied Pepto Bismol pink for some reason); and still others for personal growth. This last category includes my exercise and diet goals, spiritual goals, and other types of self-improvement and self-growth goals. These range from continuing to go to Curves 4 times a week to reading at least one self-improvement book per month to limiting ourselves to one meal out per month to save money. Thus, tomorrow begins the following:

1. Begin revisions to my latest young adult book (writing goal)
2. Day 1 of no sweets (health goal)
3. Reading one chapter of The Best of Living Cheap News (financial/self-improvement goal)
4. Reading an article in O, The Oprah Magazine (self-improvement goal)
5. Exercise — treadmill/bike (health goal)
6. Read a devotional (spiritual goal)
7. Work on RWA PRO duties (writing-related goal)
8. Listen to a conference workshop (writing goal)

I’ve posted my 2007 and long-term goals on the cork board above my computer so I can look up and easily see the lists. So, no excuses about not accomplishing something in every category every day.

What about you? Have you written out your goals for 2007?

When I went back and looked at a listing of all the movies released in 2006, I realized exactly how few of them I’d actually seen. There are a lot of them on my Netflix queue, but it’ll be a long time before I see all the ones I’ve requested. I might even be a decade older by then.

Anyway, here are my top movies for the year, in no particular order:

Last Holiday (Queen Latifah is, in turns, funny and touching)

Underworld: Evolution (What can I say? I love vampire movies. I own this movie.)

Munich (powerful, plus the added bonus of Eric Bana)

V for Vendetta (really liked this; makes you think while being entertaining)

The Promise (not as good as some of the other Chinese movies I’ve seen but still beautiful)

X-Men 3 (LOVE superhero movies, particularly the X-Men)

The Lake House (really like Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves together)

Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man’s Chest (I had an issue or two with this installment, but it’s still great fun.)

The Covenant (helped inspire my latest YA manuscript)

Two movies I saw which were released in previous years but which I still really enjoyed were Batman Begins and Ella Enchanted.

What about you all? What were your favorite movies of the year? Anyone there? Echoooooo!

Well, I’m guessing lots of people are still traveling or visiting with family for the holidays because I’m getting next to nada in the blog comments department. But will that keep me from posting? Nope.

Here are my Top 10 favorite TV programs from 2006:

10. Men in Trees
9. Survivor
8. LOST
7. Heroes
6. Prison Break
5. Battlestar Galactica
4. Veronica Mars
3. Jericho
2. Supernatural
1. Bones

I had a hard time deciding between Bones and Supernatural for favorite. I think they’re both my favorite because they’re different types of shows.

Honorable Mentions:

Ugly Betty
Stargate: Atlantis
Friday Night Lights
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

Tomorrow — favorite movies of the year. To get you in the movie frame of mind, here’s the teaser trailer for the second Fantastic Four movie, Rise of the Silver Surfer, due out next June.

I am not thinking very nice thoughts at the moment. After seeing an article on Yahoo about top vacation destination searchings using their search engine, I spent a long time working on a post about dream vacation spots, complete with Web links. But then my Web browser shut down and ate the post. GRRRRR!!!

Well, anyway, here’s a truncated version. If money and time weren’t issues, here are some of my top dream vacation destinations.

* A cruise up the Inside Passage to Alaska and then a land excursion to Denali National Park
* The Grand Canyon, including enough time to hike to the bottom and back to the rim
* Through-hiking the Appalachian Trail
* The 17-day Trans-Canada Rail Adventure
* A month to fully explore Yellowstone National Park, one of my favorite places
* A tour of the White House and plenty of time to fully explore the Smithsonian Institute museums
* Fall, leaf-peeping driving tour through New England
* Visiting the historical sites, including Colonial Williamsburg (also a favorite place), throughout Virginia
* Indian Country tour of sites in Tony Hillerman’s Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee mystery series

If I wasn’t scared of flying, I’d add these international destinations to my list.

* Ireland
* Scotland
* England
* Germany
* Greece
* China
* Italy
* Australia (particularly the Outback)
* New Zealand (all those gorgeous Lord of the Rings sites)
* One of those European river cruises. A friend has been on them and loves them.

So if money and time weren’t obstacles, what destinations and types of vacations would you have on your list?

I read an article in the New York Times this morning about the link between breast cancer and hormone replacement therapy, and I’m thinking I’ll be going sans hormones when I hit menopause. There was a significant decrease in new cases of breast cancer therapy that coincided with a decrease in the use of a hormone replacement drug, Prempro I think.

This got me to thinking about staying natural as much as possible. I’d love to buy all organic foods, but they are often twice or three times as expensive. Maybe if I had the endless bank account, I would go all organic, but I have to balance that with capital outlay for groceries.

And then every time I look in the mirror and see all that gray in my hair, part of me wants to get it colored. But there have been links to certain types of cancers from use of hair coloring, particularly dark colors which is what I’d have to use. So, I guess I’ll go gray gracefully. Vanity isn’t worth upping my risk of cancer. If there’s an all-natural way to color hair, please someone tell me. If not, I hope I’ll go as beautifully gray as my friend Maureen.

One thing I have done is give up soda pop. I pretty much drink all water now with the occasional pineapple-orange juice or lemonade. Come Jan. 1, I’m going to cut out sweets. I’m going to limit myself to only one sweet per month, and if I can go without that I will. Sugars sometimes feed cancers, contribute heavily to weight gain, and can lead to diabetes — none of which I want, thank you very much.

And exercise. This time of year, everyone seems to get on an exercise kick. I started mine early, the week after Thanksgiving. I joined Curves and have been going four times a week. The other days I try to either ride our stationary bike or walk on the treadmill. I can read while I do either of those, so I’m killing two birds with one stone.

So, do any of you have any health-related changes you’re going to make in your life? I’m not going to say New Year’s resolutions because those often are abandoned by Valentine’s Day.

***
Whedonverse Quote of the Day:

“Neural clamping. That sounds skippable.” — Xander, Buffy

Because of how Christmas falls on a Monday this year, we’re actually going to be home for Christmas. Since both families live out of state, we travel two weekends in a row. But we arrived home from our travels this afternoon, and thankfully the weather also cooperated this year. So I’m going to kick back and watch some movies (Netflix delivered Batman Begins, Just My Luck, and Last Holiday while we were gone), read, listen to my new Evanescence CDs (my sister got me their great live CD/concert DVD combo, Anywhere But Home, and I picked up their newest, The Open Door, which I’m listening to as I type this), and eat sweets like hubby’s grandma’s jam cake and the Doubletree chocolate chip cookies my sister sent me — sweets I’ll be pretty much giving up come Jan. 1. So the rest of today and tomorrow are lazy days except for some treadmill exercise because come Tuesday, it’s back to work on RWA-related duties, revisions on the partial of my latest YA manuscript so my agent can send it out, and the regular workouts at Curves.

Happy Holidays to all of you and your families.

***
Whedonverse Quote of the Day:

Mal: “How’s business?”
Inara: “None of yours.”

Firefly

I’ve been watching quite a few movies lately — some from Netflix, some on TV. Here’s a rundown:

The Lake House — Ever since Speed, I’ve loved Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock together. No different here. An interesting tale of time-crossed love.

Take the Lead — An enjoyable film about a teacher who teaches inner-city kids to ballroom dance. Not one I’d probably watch again, but it’s not a stinker either.

The New World — This one was much, much closer to stinkerland. This is the type of movie I normally like, but it was so boring. There were a couple of interesting parts toward the end, but for much of the movie I was thinking, “Okay, when does this thing get started already?” Seriously snooze-worthy despite some beautiful natural scenery and the casting of Colin Farrell as Captain John Smith, Christian Bale as John Rolfe and Q’Orianka Kilcher as Pocahontas. I remember being excited seeing the trailer. What a disappointment the movie turned out to be.

Behind Enemy Lines – It was interesting to see Owen Wilson play something other than a total doofus. In this movie, he’s a Navy pilot shot down in enemy Serbian territory. Not exactly an Oscar-worthy movie, but it was entertaining enough on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

King Arthur — I’d actually seen this movie before, but when FX was running it again last weekend I couldn’t resist rewatching it. I mean, it has Clive Owen as King Arthur, Ioan Gruffudd as Lancelot, Hugh Dancy as Sir Galahad and Keira Knightly as Guinevere (who can do well on the battlefield herself) — what’s not to like? And I like how they twisted the King Arthur legend into something new and different. Some people may disagree, but I really enjoyed it.

Talladega Nights — We got this movie mainly because hubby wanted to see it. It’s full of every cliche about Southerners and Frenchmen they could throw into it, but it had it’s funny moments — particularly a reference to Tom Cruise.

The Four Feathers — I remember when this movie came out that it was panned by many critics, but I don’t know why. I found it to be an enjoyable movie. After being accused of being a coward, Harry Faversham (Heath Ledger) goes to incredible lengths to protect his friends as they and the rest of their British regiment fight in the Sudan. He even deliberately gets himself thrown in a prison so he can rescue one of his captured friends.

The Devil Wears Prada — Again, a fun movie, but it felt a little thin in spots. That’s because I read the book, and Andi endures so much more and the reader feels it so much more on those pages than she does on the screen.

***
Whedonverse Quote of the Day:

Giles: “Yes, I must consult my books.”
Xander: “Oh, 8 minutes and 33 seconds. Pay up! I called 10 minutes before you’d consult your books about something.”

Buffy

We went to visit my parents out of state on Saturday, and among the stuff Mom gave us for Christmas was a copy of a photograph from her youth. It’s kind of odd to think of Mom as a little girl. And when I see pictures, there’s no doubting I’m her daughter because we looked so much alike as kids. Here’s the picture showing her, her brothers and sisters, and her dad. My Mamaw was taking the picture, so she’s not in it. This was Christmas Day 1948, when Mom was 6 years old. She’s the smallest girl, at the far left in the front row. Looks like she’s holding a doll, which she might have gotten for Christmas that year.

After blogging about how much I really liked this season of Survivor yesterday, I decided to take a stroll down Survivor Memory Lane today and talk about my favorite contestants from each season. Feel free to post your agreement, disagreement or other faves.

Borneo (aka Pulau Tiga) — Infamous for naked guy Richard Hatch (who managed to the somehow forget to pay taxes on his million-dollar prize and is currently, I believe, doing prison time for that offense). Don’t really have any favorites from this inaugural season other than crusty old guy Rudy Boesch.

Outback — My favorite was Roger Bingham, the nice guy from Kentucky. Final two Colby Donaldson and Tina Wesson were good too.

Africa — I didn’t watch this season, or the next one, because Friends got really good at this point. But through their appearances on the All-Star season later on, I can say I really liked Ethan Zohn and Lex Vanden Berghe was fun.

Marquesas — Didn’t watch, but liked Kathy Vavrick-O’Brien when she appeared on All-Stars.

Thailand — Worst Survivor season ever. I pretty much liked no one on this season. Bleh.

Amazon — I liked Christy Smith, the girl who broke Survivor barriers because she was deaf.

Pearl Islands — Rubert Boneham. Need I say more? Rupert is an original.

All-Stars — See notes from other seasons.

Vanuatu — Chad Crittenden (another barrier breaker because he had an artificial leg) and Twila Tanner (I often wonder what she’s up to these days.)

Palau — The first season where I had lots of favorites: the really tattooed Angie Jakusz, Bobby Jon Drinkard and Stephanie LaGrossa (who were fierce competitors and got invited back to play again in a later installment), Ian Rosenberger and winner Tom Westman

Guatemala — Another season with lots of favorites: Amy O’Hara, Brandon Bellinger, Cindy Hall, Gary Hogeboom, Rafe Judkins (sometimes) and winner Danni Boatwright

Panama — Cirie Fields (who went really far for a girl who was scared of leaves and all things natural) and Terry Dietz

Cook Islands — Yul Kwon and Ozzy Lusth were my big favorites, but I also liked Sundra Oakley, Nate Gonzalez, Jessica “Flicka” Smith and Becky Lee.

Comments? Bueller? Bueller?

***
Whedonverse Quote of the Day:

“Are you crazy? You don’t just sneak up on people in a graveyard. You make noise when you walk, you stomp, or…yodel.” — Buffy

Great finale of Survivor last night. Against all odds, the Aitu Four made it to the final four in the game. I’m so glad they stuck together. What a classy foursome Yul, Ozzy, Becky and Sundra made. I’d been a big fan of Yul’s from the beginning and Ozzy’s almost from the beginning. By the end, I would have been really happy for either one of them to win. Yul ended up taking the million-dollar prize, but online voters awarded Ozzy the new Mercury Mariner.

Yul Kwon, the Sole Survivor

Ozzy Lusth, second-place finisher and new car owner

The big twist was that the final tribal council included three people instead of two — this after the hilarious and long fire-making challenge between Sundra and Becky. Sundra came out on the short end of the match, so to speak, so she was the final member of the jury.

I always come away from the reunion show wishing it was longer. I want to know more about what the contestants think and what they’ve been doing since they’ve returned from the island. And it’s always striking how different they look at the reunion. Ozzy looked quite a bit different. I thought Sundra looked beautiful while some of the other girls looked too made up. Overall, it was a really fun season, and I’m looking forward to the 14th installment in Fiji.

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Whedonverse Quote of the Day:

“Everyone does seem to be going a bit made lately. Faith has something of a head start.” — Wesley, Buffy