Les Misery

No, sorry, this is not about Les Miserables I am sorry but at least with this title you do not have to exert any phlegm and can actually pronounce it correctly.  This post is actually about the 1990 Thriller "Misery" starring Kathy Bates and James Caan.  The movie is awesome and I found it to be a very fitting post considering Kathy Bates' latest role in "American Horror Story:Coven" which she is nailing every week since its premiere so far in my opinion.

I really wanted to do this post because a lot of my friends did not know who Kathy Bates was and I freaked out and thought it was my duty to make sure others knew who exactly this great actress was.

So "Misery" is a thriller based off of Stephen King's hit novel "Misery" where a famous novelist gets into a car crash up in the snowy mountains and is rescued  by his self-proclaimed BIGGEST FAN (played by Kathy Bates).  The writer soon finds himself in deep trouble when his Biggest Fan drowns him with her obsession and will not let the man leave.

Like how creepy is that!?! And don't worry, I did not spoil anything because I was told that exact same plotline and was still freaking out as my sister and I watched the movie and were definitely screaming at the TV screen and sweating with blankets tightly wrapped around ourselves.  

Sweet ol' Kathy Bates from "Titanic" and "Fried Green Tomatoes" decided to give me a whole new perspective on her acting capabilities with this movie and she also gave me enough reasoning to always road trip with somebody and never drive anywhere far with terrible weather conditions unless I want .... well, you'll find out what happens.

The movie won Kathy Bates an ACADEMY AWARD and a GOLDEN GLOBE both for Best Performances by an Actress and let me just say that she was up against Julia Roberts, Michelle Pfeiffer, Susan Sarandon, Angelica Huston, and the head honcho - MERYL STREEP so if that does not put it into perspective of how well she did I have no idea what other way to tell you to watch this movie.

I think it is on Netflix but I am not 100% sure, but either way if you do not have netflix I am sure you have some means of finding a way to watch it and SUPER DUPER RECOMMEND it especially since it is October and it is perfect for Halloween especially for those of you who are not Horror fans but LOVE a good thriller

Be Careful Though, She is Out There

Straight Up Muggin' It

Shopping for Birthday gifts most of the time (at least I have found them to be) can be one of the most difficult things to do especially when you want to express to someone you care about how awesome they are.  Typically what happens to me is that I realize it is someone's birthday soon and then I think, "OK, what is it they like? Well, they like that stuff so much they ALREADY have everything they would want from __________ .... well maybe I can give a gift card? But typically family members you don't speak with on a regular basis give those....shit."

[This is what I look like, LOOK I EVEN SIT DOWN TO THINK ABOUT WHAT TO BUY]

Perhaps a lot of you go through the same thought process, or maybe you are actually awesome at buying birthday gifts, and if so I envy you.  If you are more like me and struggle sometimes, I have a solution... at least for one gift.

Starbucks actually has this cool mug you can buy that you can draw whatever design you want on it, bake it for like an hour or something, and then the design stays imprinted on it permanently.

LOOK! Isn't that cool?

And since Starbucks is in just about every city across America, I am sure you could easily find the nearest Starbucks location and pick one up.  It's really fun designing whatever it is you wanna make for said birthday person (or Christmas person since that season is approaching too) ((Or whatever holiday you wanna celebrate, everyone could use a good mug))

Anyway, it comes with a double sided pen with white ink to draw on the lower black region, and on the reverse side of the pen is black ink to draw on the upper white area.  I actually bought one as you could guess and made one for my sister for her birthday!  It was a little nerve wracking since it is kind of marker that I was drawing with but I found that you can first draw with pencil and it easily erases by wiping it with your finger.

So if you could not guess from the design I did, my sister loves Disneyland and all things Disney so I put a popular quote from Walt Disney himself "It's Kind of Fun Doing the Impossible" and I even looked up Walt Disney Font online and was able to draw it by looking at a template.

I was nervous at first and it definitely took me some time to figure out what it is I was going to draw but I was really happy with the end result and think it summed up Disney and my sister fairly well.. my favorite is the Pocahontas at the bottom on the back of the mug

I tried to capture the majestic beauty in her hair which admittedly was really difficult, I mean look at those locks, but I managed to do it and had a lot of fun doing it.  Also, I guess I forgot to take a picture of it but I drew a star on the inside of the mug so after finishing a drink she could see the evening star/ wishing star/ second star to the right/ pretty star.

But yea, I honestly had a lot of fun and might even buy another DIY (Do It Yourself) mug and make one for someone else but I am not officially sure.  I definitely recommend it and think that someone will love it especially since making something homemade shows a lot of love.  It shows a lot of effort in my eyes, and would love a homemade gift since you realize that when that person was making the gift, they literally saved time in their day to work on something FOR YOU.

Pretty Much Pretty Patties

What do I love almost as much as food you ask? That's easy ... Dessert!

Let's be serious for a moment, dessert is a whole separate category from food because you eat food for meals and for snacks and what not, but you can never be too full for dessert.  Like when you are at a restaurant and you are stuffed full of delicious FOOD ...and then that rapscallion of a waiter/waitress comes over with the dessert menu because they saw into your eyes that you have an on-again-off-again love/hate relationship with sweets and just know you cannot say no.

OR WORSE! When they actually bring the freaking cart around that has the example desserts and you know they have been sitting there for a while because every server uses it to tempt every customer into desserts but yet it all looks so good.

ANYWAY! I am not even talking about desserts at restaurants in this post but that was my rant about sweets/desserts and now to the best part.

1. Macarons are amazing. 2. I think they look like "Pretty Patties" from Spongebob Squarepants. and 3. I think if I ever went to Europe and tried legit macarons I would probably cry, then die, then come back, stuff my face with macarons, cry some more, and then die again - in that order.

[Look at that, these things are so good the gif is bugging out]

I do have one place in particular I must talk about though that sold me some awesome macarons and that is Dolcissimo Bake Shop.

Located at:

13885 City Center Drive, Suite 3010

Chino Hills CA 91709

Ph: 909.591.3646

Store Hours:
Monday to Thursday 10am-8:15pm
Friday & Saturday 10am-9pm
Sunday 11am-7:15pm

At the Shoppes at Chino Hills (North of LA) in California my sister and I were walking around and found this little shop on side of the shopping center, went in, and were super happy with our find.

Now we unfortunately did not get a chance to try everything since we had just eaten BUT if you understood what I was ranting about earlier, we did buy some macarons without too much guilt. 

YEP, YOU READ THAT RIGHT, NUTELLA & FRUITY PEBBLE FLAVORED MACARONS

and not only were the Nutella macarons flavored like nutella, the insides were creamy nutella spread

... you know, maybe it wasn't even nutella flavored... but I just know that they were delicious.  At that moment I really wished I had not eaten lunch and rather we had just gone straight to Dolcissimo and filled ourselves with macarons and cupcakes.

So if you are around the area or visiting LA or maybe even just in some part of California... Go to Dolcissimo and you will not be disappointed.