Movie Moments You May Have Missed: Legally Blonde

Hey everyone!

One thing I love to do is watch movies over and over again. Unlike some people, if I enjoy a movie I have to watch it again. And if I REALLY enjoy a movie, I watch it a lot. There are quite a few movies I have seen probably over twenty times. Legally Blonde is one of them. I saw this movie for the first time in middle school and I barely caught all the quirky moments or jokes. However now I have seen it over twenty times, easy, and I still find new things when I watch it. So here are some movie moments you may have missed while watching Legally Blonde whether you've watched it once, or twenty times like me.

1. The age of Elle and her sorority sisters
Elle is supposed to be an undergrad in college, yet somehow every person in the college scenes look like they're 30.

2. The reference to pill popping by Serena
When Elle is depressed about Warner and starts talking about going to law school, Serena says "can't you just take a Percocet?". I don't know why, but I found that hilarious. Probably because before I was a nurse I didn't even know what Percocet was.

3. When Professor Stromwell whacks a student on the head with a pencil
When talking about Aristotle's quote on the first day of class, Professor Stromwell asks David if he would be his classmates life on the fact that the quote was by Aristotle and whacks the kid she's referencing on the head with a pencil.

4. When Enid is talking to Warner about ovaries and semen at the party
Elle walks up to Warner in her bunny suit and Enid is telling Warner about how the word semester is sexist because it almost has the word "semen" in it and instead should be called an "ovester"

5. Paulette's ex-boyfriend lives in a "trailer park"
But it looks more like a junkyard...

6. Paulette and Elle are randomly shown sitting in the nail salon at Christmas
But really, so random? And why was this scene included?

7. The UPS guy lets Elle sign for Paulette's package
The UPS guy asks Paulette to sign for her package, but when she acts like a moron he hands it to Elle to sign... Weird.

8. When Elle shows Paulette how to bend and snap, she doesn't do what she shows her at all...
Not exactly the snap that Elle just did.

9. Elle leaves her Porche's top down with all her designer luggage piled inside of it
On a busy street... with people walking by... while she says goodbye to Paulette. Hmm.

10. David is wearing New Balances in court
Instead of dress shoes like everyone else, showing his uniqueness once again

Fun Fact: One thing I learned when looking up things about the movie (yeah I like to learn about movies when I watch them) was that the final scene where Elle says the inspirational quote was not originally in the film. It was supposed to end with her walking out of court after burning Warner. The film crew and cast had to fly to the UK where Reese Witherspoon was filming another movie and the scene was filmed at Dulwich College in London.

If you've never watched this movie, you're missing out on a laugh. It really is good and there are so many little funny things that you may miss the first time. It's hilarious. And teaches you a good message about not judging people or underestimating them! Have you seen anything else people may have not noticed in movies that you thought was hilarious or odd? It will be something I look for when I watch movies now! 

Thanks for reading,

- Olivia

#BookWorm The Summer I Turned Pretty Series

Hey fellow readers!

Well that didn't take me long. I read all three books in The Summer I Turned Pretty series in a week. Kind of sad, because it shows how much time I have on my hands, but it wasn't like they were a super complex read. The author's name is Jenny Han and the series was on the New York Times Bestselling list (all three books). That's pretty impressive for a YA romance series. I found out about this book from the "other items people bought" section on Amazon when I would look at Sarah Dessen books. I was intrigued, and ended up finding the whole series at my favorite used bookstore McKays this summer for about $12 total. Easy enough decision for me!

The premise of this series is about a girl named Isabel (Belly) who goes to a summer house every year with her mom and brother Steven. There they meet up with another family of two boys, Conrad and Jeremiah, and a mother Susannah. Both families are going through tough times, but have known each other forever. Belly has always had a crush on the older brother, Conrad, but starts to see the younger brother, Jeremiah, in a new light. However she is about to turn sixteen and has become more beautiful since the previous years which consisted of her awkward stages and so more boys start to notice her. This is really a coming-of-age book for Belly and was definitely relate-able for me. I think everyone hits that stage in their life where boys start to notice them more often. Overall I would give the series a 8/10. To be fair, it was a very easy read, however it kept my attention and I really wanted to know what happened next. Honestly, I was very turned off when I first read the description of this book because the main character's name is Belly and I thought that was kind of odd. But you know what they say, don't judge a book by it's cover! If you like Sarah Dessen's work, this author writes pretty dang well and I like her style so I think you would enjoy this series.

Up next on my list is a new series called The Testing. I only own the first book of this one, so I will have a harder time flying through it quite as quickly as I did with this read, however I have heard it compared to a mix between the popular Hunger Games, Maze Runner, and Divergent series, so I look forward to being able to start another trilogy that has potential to become super popular in a few years. So what else is everyone reading lately? Have you read The Summer I Turned Pretty? Let me know!

Thanks for reading with me,
- Olivia

DIY Fall Decor

Hello fellow crafters!

Fall is in the air, my friends! Since I am up in North Carolina now, and don't start my job for a few weeks, I have had lots of time to pin craft ideas on Pinterest to do for holidays and these two I loved! The first is a monogram pumpkin for your entryway and the second is a fall berry wreath. Michaels was having a great sale this week, so I got to it and completed both of these projects! Here are the steps to doing them and the final results! (And I threw in this adorable picture of Nike for your viewing pleasure. Ain't she the cutest thing ;). )

1. Monogram Pumpkin

What you'll need
- Fake craft pumpkin or real pumpkin
- Paint color of your choice
- Paintbrushes (variety of sizes and tip length)
- Monogram letter printed out
- Scotch or masking tape
- Scissors

Step One: Cut out the monogram letter, or letters, that you will be using on your pumpkin

Step Two: Tape the monogram to the pumpkin in certain spots so it lays as flat as possible.
--> TIP: Be careful not to press too hard so it won't will rip the paper or make the paper stick to the pumpkin when you take it off to trace where the tape was

Step Three: Trace the outline of the letter with a pencil

Step Four: Outline the letter with your choice of paint color and a thin tipped brush

Step Five: Fill in the spaces with the rest of the paint using your brush of choice

Step Six: Go over the outlines with a straight edge paintbrush and the paint to define the edges better.

Wallah! You have yourself a monogrammed pumpkin. Mine actually turned out WAY better than I had expected. I decided to use a craft pumpkin so that we can re-use it every year. Of course we will still carve our annual actual pumpkin. For this letter "F" I used the font Great Vibes as voted on by friends and family. This font is also one I used for our wedding invites and you can download it for free here.

There are lots of cute fonts to use for the monogram, however it is also hard to find a cute letter "F", just sayin'. I saw some adorable pumpkins with the first letter of the husband's name, the last initial and the first letter of the wife's name. I also saw some AWESOME pumpkins that were done with gold glitter. Some people did cream or white pumpkins for a different look. The options are endless! Pinterest has so many great ideas on it.

2. Fall Berry Wreath

What you'll need
- Wreath
- Berries
- Hot glue gun
- Scissors

Step One: Strategically place the berries so they are evenly dispersed with your wreath
--> TIP: have them all face the same direction around the wreath

Step Two: Cut off the end of the branch of your berries if they are too long to tuck within the wreath

Step Three: Tuck the berries in the wreath

Step Four: Hot glue areas which are sticking up too far or facing the wrong direction.

There you have it! This is a super simple wreath and you could do cute things like add a monogram to the middle with a thin wooden, painted letter or adding leaves into the mix also. I just liked the simplicity of the berries, giving it a festive-until-after-Thanksgiving look.

Nike was quite curious about this pumpkin

So there you have it! Some adorbz fall crafts that will make your doorway a little homier whether you live in an apartment or house! I am so proud of these two projects (as I am of most projects since I put so much effort into them) and I love that they are re-usable for each year! Do you have any tips or ideas for your own pumpkin or fall wreath? Share them with me and others in the comments below!

Since we are halfway through September already, I can feel that soon enough I will be sneaking out the rest of our fall and Halloween decorations into the Franek household. We also have our first visitors coming in October! My mom and Madi's sister! So we will be doing lots of fall festivities then and will share our adventures of course!

Thanks for crafting along with me!
- Olivia

Wifey Wednesday: How to Save a Quick Dollar

Hey everyone!

Since moving to NC, I have been trying to pinch every penny that exists in my wallet. Duke is expensive, and so is being a newlywed to a person who is full time in school, and so is moving. Therefore, we try to save as much as we can on basic things and we try not to pay full price if we decide to go outside of our normal realm and buy something not on the list. So here are a few ways that we have been doing that!

1) Target RedCard (debit), Target Cartwheel, Target RedPerks (new)
Basically Target is bomb. They give you SO many incentives to shop there. My advice? If there is a SuperTarget near you, do some browsing. Compare prices to your local Walmart, Publix, Kroger, wherever else you shop and think you save a pretty penny. In Tampa, we would shop at Publix and go to Target for whatever was on sale and on Carthwheel that week. Here in Durham, we've been sticking to Target for the most part, because a lot of other stores can be more expensive and the closest Walmart is a lot farther away. So what are these three things that I listed?
- RedCard is Target's card. It can be credit or debit (you choose when you sign up) but I went the debit route. It saves you 5% on every purchase in store and online, works just like a debit card hooked up to your main bank account. It also gives 1% of your purchases to the school of your choice (and BCS is on there fellow Panther parents and alum!). FREE to sign up and FREE to use. No fees or anything like a credit card has, because its a debit card.
- Target Cartwheel is a FREE app that you can download. Every week its updated with new deals. Typically 5% off this, 10% off that. But sometimes there is 30-40% off deals. And literally you do nothing but click on the app and search for whatever you're buying to see if its on sale. So awesome. I've saved like $50+ in the past year since downloading this thing. And its easy to use
- Target RedPerks is the newest in the line of apps and such for Target. I haven't even used mine yet, because I just heard about it this week. Again its a rewards system, and based of $ you spend you get points and points = discounts. Like Target really needed another reason for me to shop there even more, but I will take it ;).

2) ShopKick
So this is an app that I downloaded like two years ago when I heard about it on Good Morning America. I don't take the time and effort like I should to actually go about my day and use it the way you could to get lots of free stuff. You sign up and can earn "kicks" AKA points by looking at their little catalog type things, also by walking into stores (literally thats it) with your bluetooth and location services on, scanning items in a store, and purchasing items through the app (I haven't done this part yet). You don't have to buy anything to get kicks. You don't have to use it every so often to keep your kicks. And its been around for two years and still offers a lot of kick opportunities. I mean come on walking into a store? It doesn't get much easier than that. I have earned I think $60 total on this app (you pick which giftcards you want from their rewards system and they appear on your phone), but like I said I rarely use it as I could. Every time I walk into Target (1x/day), 30 kicks, Best Buy, 30 kicks, Kroger, 30 kicks. It's easy. And free :)

3) My Coke Rewards
Many people have heard of this but don't drink Coke products, etc. However I started using it because we buy Powerade and that is what I drink to get myself off of buying soda at home. You typically get 3 points per bottle, but MCR has AMAZING point deals sometimes. Once I got a free shutterfly 8x8 book for 5 kicks. Costs $29.99 on shutterfly and I got it for drinking two powerades I was already going to drink. I recently ordered wedding pictures off of Shutterfly, and with my MCR I saved $239 and spent only $100. Bomb. You can use multiple coupon codes from MCR on Shutterfly in one transaction, which is what is so convenient about it. But they also have typical giftcards like Nike, Barnes and Noble, etc.

4) Rewards for Food
It was so funny because in Tampa we kept saying "man I wish Moes had rewards". Well some do! Not in b-town unfortunately, but in Durham at the one within walking distance from us when you buy 10 meals you get one free. So legit. Look for restaurants with these types of systems/points and you could save a couple bucks per year. Subway also is starting to bring back their points, we found one while  traveling that is starting the point cards back up. Keep your ear out and don't be afraid to ask people if they have a rewards system!

So those are just a few quick and free ways to save money. Do you have any other sites, apps, etc that can save a pretty penny? Let me know, we are always looking for a way to save!

Thanks,
Olivia :)

#BookWorm: Keeping Faith

Hello fellow readers!

Ahh the frustrations of this book. Keeping Faith was written by Jodi Picoult in 1999, so it is a bit older than most books I've been reading lately. When I was in Michigan, I spotted this book on the shelf and realized somehow I had missed reading it when I went through my Jodi Picoult binge reading phase. Now, I love Jodi Picoult. My favorite book Nineteen Minutes is written by her, and another one in my top list The Pact is also on her writing list. However, this book was frustrating. So, let's just dive right into the review, shall we?

Keeping Faith is about a seven year old girl who's parent's are going through a divorce and suddenly she starts performing miracles. Without giving away too much, she starts talking to God and sees her as female. That is the basic plot. The book is 500 pages long, and it feels like it. It definitely got to the point that you're saying "alright lets just find out what happens". The parts with the Rabbi and the Priest just made me so confused since I am not Catholic or Jewish. Lots of talk about the Vatican and how they determine if someone is actually seeing God or if they are faking, but lots of unanswered questions. Basically every person who interviewed Faith said, IDK. Like seriously a big bucket of IDK. Which is so annoying. And you get to the end of the book, and it leaves SO many things not answered. WHY. I hate that. Especially when it has to do with the main point of the book. I guess Jodi Picoult was trying to get you to decide for yourself based on your religious beliefs? But my beliefs won't change whether Faith was lying or Faith was actually performing miracles. Because the book is fiction.

All in all, this book gets a 7/10 for me. Not awful, some interesting parts, but got really long and didn't give us an answer! If you like Jodi Picoult's writing style of court rooms and character switching like I do, it is a read that you could enjoy. Just be willing to be okay with an ending that doesn't answer everything. Some things get answered. Some don't. Bleh.

So have you read this book? Were you as annoyed with the ending as me? Let me know! Next up I will be reading The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han. It's a three book series, and I purchased all three from McKays, so if I like it a lot I may just finish all of them at once and then post about it. We shall see :).

Thanks for reading with me,
- Olivia

My Random Addictions: Binge Watching TV Shows

Hey guys!

Another random addiction of mine: binge  watching TV shows. This has always been something that I love to do, starting with Gilmore Girls back in 7th grade. But in more recent years with the start of Netflix and HuluPlus people have the ability to do this way easier and cheaper than buying every season of their favorite shows (not kidding I have a lot of TV shows on DVD). Some of my favorite shows to binge watch on Netflix are listed below as suggestions for those of you who are looking for a new show!

1) Gossip Girl

Still haven't finished all of this but tend to watch half a season at a time. You can only get so much one person sleeping with the other person then cheating on their cousin's, brother's, ex-fiancé's mom. But it is interesting in small doses.

2) One Tree Hill

BEST SHOW OF ALL TIME. Hands down. Takes place in NC. I'm in the process of re-watching this with Madi and it is even better than I remembered. OTH is based on a small town brotherhood with a twist. And it has basketball at the center. And was filmed in Wilmington, NC. And the brothers are Chad Michael Murray and James Lafferty (swoon).  Can't get much better!

3) Hart of Dixie
If you like The O.C. and One Tree Hill, this is for you. It's with Rachel Bilson and was on the CW about a doctor who moves from NYC to Alabama to take over her late father's practice. It's quirky, romantic, and hilarious all wrapped into one. Rachel Bilson does such a good job and so does the rest of the cast. Jamie King is in it too, and she is also incredible.

4) New Girl

Have you ever watched this show? It's hilarious. Always keeps you laughing. I watched all of the seasons in like three months. So sad. But so funny. 

5) Parenthood

Currently I am watching through Parenthood, which is SO good. It only ended this year in January but they have all the seasons available, I'm pretty sure. Bomb.

6) Gilmore Girls
Saving the best for last obviously. If you love Lauren Graham in Parenthood, you'll love her even more in her first big hit show Gilmore Girls. If you've never seen an episode, you're missing out. This is a show about a single mother and her teenage daughter growing up in a small town. It's amazing.

Those are my favorites thus far. Have you watched all of those? Well you are a well enlightened Netflixer in my book. Any suggested shows to binge watch? I will keep adding to my list as I have three more weeks til I'm back to work  full time :)

Thanks for reading,

- Olivia 

Moffitt Cancer Center

Hey everyone,

As my journey with Moffitt has come to an end this week I just felt I should reflect on it for myself and for others whether you've ever been to Moffitt, worked at Moffitt, or have just heard the name. Moffitt Cancer Center is an incredible place. I started working there after my mom was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer and I watched how dedicated their staff is. I started as a patient observer AKA a sitter for confused or suicidal people and even back then I found out how special of a place Moffitt is. Working 8 or 12 hour shifts sitting in a room could really suck. At times it's hard to stay awake and it also can be scary too. But what made it all worth it was watching these people and their loved ones go through this journey fully fighting, giving their cancer everything they could. And when it was a case where the fight got the best of them, I would watch as the family came to stay by their sick loved ones side. It's quite humbling, watching people go through such a nasty disease but yet never give up. 

Transitioning from being an observer to a tech taught me so much about working as a team. I had never worked in such a large organization, and floating throughout the hospital I got to learn so much. I still had the interactions with patients that I did before, but got to learn about the aspect of nursing care at a higher level. If you're in nursing school and reading this: get a job as a tech. I've discovered the best nurses usually were a tech (CNA) first and they respect the techs they work with so much more. 

My final Moffitt transition was from tech to nurse and I couldn't have thought of a better place to work. I already knew what an amazing place it was from being in the environment for over a year. When I was offered the job at Moffitt I also had an offer from where I did my final preceptorship. The later was a Magnet facility, highly ranked, very nice. But I couldn't get Moffitt out of my head. I knew that is where I belonged. Nurse to patient ratios are better than any hospital in the area, giving you more time to answer questions for a patient who is going through this scary journey. I find that so important. Just this week I had an out of state patient who had so many questions about her care. She had just received a huge life shocking diagnosis and hightailed it to Moffitt because she had heard how amazing it was. She said, it didn't disappoint. I got to spend almost an hour with her, doing my best to answer her middle of the night questions stemming from fear of the unknown. That is the beauty of it, being able to have a facility that is so dedicated to patient satisfaction, family centered care, and education, it's incredible. Being on both ends from family member to staff, it truly is a one of a kind place. 

I cannot express how lucky I was to have worked at such an amazing hospital for the first portion of my career. I hope one day to be able to come back or give back because being apart of such an amazing place is really life changing. So with that I wanted to say thank you, to the amazing nurses, doctors, techs, secretaries, patients, family members, and instructors: it's been an honor to work with you. 

Today we finally arrived in NC, and as hard of a time it was this week saying goodbye to our Florida friends and family, I am looking forward to spending my time off exploring the Carolina's with Madi and  Nike. I will update as our journey continues! 

Thanks for keeping up,

- Olivia