Five on Friday - Labor Day Weekend edition

It's a 3-day weekend for me :)! Sadly it's pretty bittersweet because of things going on in my life, but at least I won't have to worry about work for 3 days. One less stress is better than nothing.

It's been another tough week, so I need to really appreciate what I do have. Here's my list for this week of what I am thankful for:

1. Wilfred - if you haven't heard of this show and have a strange sense of humor (or one similar to mine) I highly recommend seeing this show. It's our show not to miss during the week (even though I missed this week's, but we'll catch up). It's on Thursdays at 10pm on FX and I am shocked at what they get away with on this show. Plus, it was adapted from an Australian show and the main character is played by the same actor for both shows. From what I can tell both renditions are still aired on tv. Check it out, seriously. It's hilarious.

2. Red State - Okay, so I haven't seen it yet, but I'm really looking forward to seeing this movie. Hopefully I can get internet up and running so I can see it soon.

3. Chrysanthemums - I bought some pretty mums the other day for one of my new managers for a welcome present. I'm not sure if he will actually take care of them, but I really liked how they looked.

4. NO RENT!! - We have officially moved out and when my 1st of the month check hit my account this week it was awesome to know that I didn't have to automatically turn it around and pay rent. We also got most of our deposit back yesterday when we did our final walkthrough. It is lovely not to feel broke right at the beginning of the month.

5. Nostalgia - We moved back into the house I grew up in to help with finances and my family. With that comes a lot of memories from the house and the area I now drive to and from everyday. Added to that is a new radio station called GENX (probably KGNX) that plays nothing but music from the '90s - all stuff I used to listen to when I first started driving and when we first moved to the area. It's been fun recounting memories to my husband, even though he's probably heard all the stories already.

So there you have it for this week. Added bonus - 6. Labor day weekend!!!

Have a fun and safe weekend everyone!

"The colors of the wind"

I was randomly listening to tracks from the Hangover Soundtrack and it got me thinking about all the different CDs I used to have of movies I liked. I used to love getting them after I'd seen the movie and sometimes in anticipation of seeing it. My best friend and I used to go to the music store and specifically look for good soundtracks to buy. We've always had similar tastes in movies so it was always fun to see what the store actually carried. Once I started working in a music store (Camelot - they no longer exist, well now they are FYEs, but I think those all closed too) I was almost unstoppable. I had a huge CD collection until we got rid of them a few years ago when we converted to mp3s.

Some of my favorites in no particular order:

The Matrix

Strictly Ballroom

Sliding Doors

That Thing You Do!

Stealing Beauty

The Phantom of the Opera (although this was WAY before the movie came out)

The English Patient and many more.

I even had the sheet music for the theme to the English Patient; it is still one of my favorite movies. I also bought the soundtrack for Pocahontas before it came out in the movie theaters (hence the title of the blog). I memorized all the songs on the soundtrack and sang them in my room before the movie was out in theaters so I knew them before going to see another Disney musical. I still remember listening in my room and singing along to the music, trying to picture what the animation would be.

Movie soundtracks were fun to get after seeing the movie because it always reminded me of the scenes from the movie associated with the specific songs. Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs are some good examples of that. It's no wonder that my first ever CD I bought with my own money was the Twin Peaks soundtrack. I played that CD all the time and loved hearing the orchestration of Angelo Badalamenti along with the songs by Julee Cruise. Ahh the memories.

Soundtracks also provided more variety in one CD than most musician's albums. Hackers was an album of electronic music, but it had a bunch of different artists with different bpms depending on the style. Scream had some great remakes of classic rock songs done by artists of the moment. The Truth About Cats & Dogs got me into Suzanne Vega again and also got me into her poetry. Soundtracks opened me up to new artists and genres, but allowed me to have favorite songs and movie moments all in one CD.

If you haven't thought about listening to movie soundtracks I highly recommend it. You don't have to like every song on the album (Boogie Nights, 10 Things I Hate About You, and Cruel Intentions are some where I liked some songs, but always skipped others), but it's nice to have some variety sometimes instead of listening to the same artists the whole time. Not that I don't like that, it's just for a change of pace.

If you haven't noticed, I have a specific number of years (mostly the 90s, which might date me) that I collected soundtracks until I stopped pretty abruptly. Hence why I am talking about it now and reminiscing a bit. As a final thought, here are some others I used to love to listen to:

Corrina, Corrina

High Fidelity

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory - Gene Wilder version

Amadeus

Circle of Friends

Now & Then

and The Wedding Singer.

What soundtracks have you listened to or wanted to have?