Michael & Liz are Bloggable

In 2009, I built the dogs a new dog bowl platform. It was partly due to the fact that we hated having to fill two water bowls when they always share anyway, but also due to the fact that these bowls were nasty and difficult to clean. So instead of getting rid of them when I built the new platform, we set these in the garage thinking we'd take them on trips with us. We didn't. Instead we brought just the bowls because believe it or not, they are able to stand up on their own without a platform.

So after finding these all dusty and gross in the garage, I washed them in water for the picture, and now they are ready to be ditched.

I have an issue just throwing them in the trash though. What should we do with these things? I feel like if I'm going to be doing this challenge and be throwing some things away, I should dispose of them correctly. For example, find a place that recycles metal and rubber and dispose of them that way. They have recycle bins at work for all those things. I think some research is necessary.

What's the point of holding on to books from college? I definitely do not have any interest in the 4 novels. As for the Personal Finance book, I am tempted to hold on to it, but I really don't have any interest in what it has to say. I've kept it for 6 years thinking it would be helpful, and I haven't even cracked it open once. If I am curious about something, I can just look it up online.

So these books are going bye bye.

Since we ditched 20 movies today from our queue, I thought it only appropriate to post the movies and shows we watched in Feburary. It was a month full of terrible movies, most my reviews are really critical and negative. Only 2 4 star movies and no 5 star movies. It really was a lame month.

• Cop Out (2010) - 3 stars - Funny, but forgettable.
• Eat Pray Love (2010) - 3 stars - Experts were very critical of this movie, but it wasn't as terrible as people make it out to be. It was long and slightly boring at times, but for the most part it was enjoyable.
• From Paris With Love (2009) - 2 stars - John Travolta can't go from this movie to "Old Dogs" and expect both of them to be good.
• The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010) - 3 stars - This was by far the worst Twilight movie. You should be disappointed if you liked the first 2.
• Killers (2010) - 3 stars - In casting for this movie, they should have chosen a serious guy who can act like he's goofy. Instead they went with Ashton Kutcher, who is naturally goofy and was bad at acting serious.
• Dinner for Schmucks (2010) - 3 stars - I really like Steve Carell and Paul Rudd, but this didn't live up to their normal high standard in comedies. I gave it 3 just because I still like them.
• Predators (2010) - 2 stars - The first predator movie was amazing because he moved around and hunted. They decided to go in a different direction for this, where the predators stood still and did very little hunting. Most grunted and moaned and set dumb traps.
• Crocodile Dundee (1986) - 3 stars - You can't help but like Crocodile Dundee, but this movie had NO plot. He hangs out in Australia and then hangs out in New York. That was about it. Where was the climax?
• The Burning Plain (2008) - 2 stars - A very downer of a movie, but I liked how they interwove the plots.
• Surrogates (2009) - 2 stars - Flat out silly movie. Was one of those movies I almost stopped.
• Billy Elliot (2000) - 3 stars - Liz liked this more than I did. The comical part was Mrs. Weasley was in it.
• Brooklyn's Finest (2009) - 3 stars - Average and forgettable.
• Daniel Tosh: Completely Serious (2007) - 4 stars - This guy is HILARIOUS. I really enjoyed this guy's stand-up comedy.
• This Film is Not Yet Rated (2006) - 3 stars - My opinion of the politics behind the rating system? Yes, it sounds like it's easier for big companies to get better ratings than independent films... but boo hoo. You make movies with nudity, foul language, and gore and stuff... don't be surprised if you are on the border of rated R and NC-17. If you want a PG rating, make a PG movie.
• Super High Me (2007) - 2 stars -Doug Benson's goal? See how it feels to smoke pot for 30 days. Surprise surprise, he enjoyed it and it changed nothing.
• Zach Galifianakis: Live (2006) - 2 stars - Zach is hilarious, and it doesn't even look like he ever tries to be funny. He's just naturally goofy.
• National Geographic: The Lord of the Rings (2001) - 3 stars - It was neat seeing how they compared the characters in the movie to historical figures of the world.
• Unknown (2011) - 4 stars - Saw this in the theater, it was a great movie, but reminded me a lot of Taken. Liam Neeson kicking butt in Europe. Also, Liam Neeson is AWESOME. 
• Real Genius (1985) - 2 stars - This was lent to us from our friends Penn & Mary Jo. It was kinda silly. It was definitely not made for adults. I can see how it would be that movie you loved when you were little.

Oh, this one is a toughy (for me at least, Liz couldn't care less).

I love movies. I love movies a lot, but ever since we became members of Netflix in February 2006, there has just been no need to purchase movies. We have probably watched an average of about 15 movies a month since 2006 and we are only paying $16. That's enough to buy 1 new movie every month. So it economically doesn't make sense to buy movies anymore. We also aren't even watching most of what we have anyway, so why hold on to them?

Our "collection", if it can be called that anymore, has continued to dwindle and this month that trend continues. Here are the list of movies we are ditching:

Batman Begins
A Beautiful Mind
Battlestar Galactica - Season 1
Bewitched
Bruce Almighty
Da Ali G Show - Season 1
Da Ali G Show - Season 2
Eight Below
Friends - The "Best of" Collection
Lost - Season 1
Kate & Leopold
Legally Blonde
Million Dollar Baby
Ocean's Eleven
Serendipity
Signs
The Simpsons - Season 3
Spiderman 2
Stripes
The Terminal

Of course this is only round one of movie ditching that we are doing. The second round will include the movies I want to ditch but I also want to watch one more time before I do it.  Look for that later on in the month.

Everyone knows how much I love a challenge. Well 2 days ago I was reading our friend Jess' blog and one of her posts inspired a new challenge for March.

Her post (which I link to here) referenced a blog she discovered (which I link to here) called "What I Got Rid of Today". The point of this blog is for this guy to get rid of 1 item in his life every day for 1 year. I think that's BRILLIANT. Everyone always has something they don't need anymore. There's no reason for us to have crap lying around that builds up dust. I think our house in particular is pretty empty as it is. We don't even have a couch in our living room and we went 3 years without a table in our dining room. But regardless, this has prompted my new challenge for March.

I will call the challenge "A Ditch A Day" and everyday I will post on what I have gotten rid of out of this house. I think at first it will be easy because I can already name 5 things I'm looking forward to getting rid of. As the month goes on, I think this will be more difficult.

When I say "get rid of", I mean either trash, donate, or sell. The goal is to get it out of the house regardless of the means. I actually don't have time to take items to Goodwill every day so anything I'm not throwing away, I will probably set in a box in the garage until the end of the month and then take care of them all at once. I hear some libraries takes books so that might be easy if we get rid of some books.

So here's my Day 1 Ditch:

There is absolutely no reason for me to own 3 pair of yard-work shoes. I had 3 pair piled up in the garage and yet every day when I go to the gym I pass a box that says "PLEASE DONATE YOUR OLD GYM SHOES HERE!" I passed that box one too many times, but today that box received one pair of old running shoes and another pair of old walking around shoes. Coincidentally, my gym bag now reeks. Goodbye shoes.

Well, "Go Till Failure" Month has come to an end. It was certainly a success but I'm a little disappointed in my effort. I'll reveal the numbers and then my opinion because that's probably the order people would care to read it. I did set records on the last day, so that's awesome:

	Push-ups	Plank
02/01	25
02/02	30	:54
02/03	33	:55
02/04	33	1:09
02/05	35	1:11
02/06	32	1:17
02/07	37	1:20
02/08	35	1:11
02/09	37	1:24
02/10	34	1:27
02/11	12	1:42
02/12	43	1:19
02/13	45	1:26
02/14	42	1:24
02/15	44	1:35
02/16	45	1:52
02/17	35	1:30
02/18	35
02/19
02/20	45	1:41
02/21	42	1:23
02/22
02/23	40
02/24	47	2:02
02/25		1:42
02/26
02/27	46	1:09
02/28	50	2:11
Totals:	902	31:44
Avgs.	38	1:27

So it was definitely a success going from 25 push-ups to 50 and then more than doubling my plank. But I'm disappointed that I didn't stick to the month and do both activities every day. There were some days where I didn't realize I forgot until I was already about to fall asleep. I just wish I made it more of a priority and really succeeded in doing it EVERY day.

I had a conversation with John at the beginning of the month and he made a good point, that the month was more about mental will than physical strength. It made me think, sure I did 25 push-ups to start, but was that really all I could do? Did I really give it my "all"? I think I've gotten more mentally tough than physically as the month has progressed. I think that's really what the plank is all about.

You think you can't do it, but you can. It's not necessary fail month as much as it is quit month. You can always go one more second or one more push-up.

So while February is over, I think I'll continue trying to increase my limits with both push-ups and plank. Maybe I'll post an update at the end of March.