Secret Crush ;)

At the risk of making myself sound really dumb, I'll let you in on a little secret… I have a huge crush in a non-romantic way on a certain silver haired, blue-eyed journalist with the initials AC! If you are a regular reader of my blog, then you know how much I adore Anderson Cooper! He and I go way back. I first became acquainted with Anderson in 2001 when he was the host of a TV show I liked called The Mole. (Anyone remember that show?!) Anderson only hosted The Mole for the first two seasons and then he left the show. (I can only assume it was to do something a little more important, like cover breaking news for CNN.)

After my accident I started watching lots of TV since my days were now free since I was no longer working or going college. One of my favorite shows to watch in the morning was (and still is) Live with Regis and Kelly (now just Live with Kelly, as Regis has since retired). When Regis would have a day off, different celebrities or other TV personalities would fill in for the day as a guest cohost. Anderson filled in for Regis many times over the years, and I always loved it when he would cohost the show with Kelly. (They have a great chemistry and it was always so fun to watch them interact.)

Over the years I've been getting progressively more and more interested in world news because I enjoy being well-informed and up on current events. I love getting my news from Anderson and I spend a lot of evenings watching Anderson's CNN show, AC 360°. If there's breaking news to be had, I want to get it from Anderson. He must have his own opinions about things since it's a natural thing for a person to have opinions, but you never know where Anderson stands on the issues because he's always so wonderfully unbiased and just reports the facts.

Anderson has many different sides to him. On one hand he's the serious journalist that you see on the front lines covering wars and disasters for CNN. Then there's his caring side where he shows his heart, compassion and empathy for others as he helps people tell their stories. I love it when he's interviewing someone and they're being unfair or less than truthful. Anderson's not afraid to ask tough questions and he doesn't back down. But what you might not guess about Anderson is that he's incredibly funny. Anderson almost always ends his serious AC 360° with a segment called "the RidicuList" which pokes fun at something or someone that's made it into the news (usually for a funny or unflattering reason). Anderson's delivery of the RidicuList is always so well done and so hilarious that I just can't help but crack up.

Here are my two favorite RidicuLists from the past few months. Take a look and see firsthand what I'm talking about!

I wonder what I have to do to get Anderson to come meet me?!! I don't have any desire to be on TV (although I do think I'm pretty interesting and would make a fascinating story), but if that's what I have to do to meet Anderson, then so be it!

Be So Happy

After my life-changing car accident I decided that I was going to be happy, no matter what. Even though my life had taken a drastic turn that most people would find hard to live with without getting discouraged or depressed, I made it my resolve to be happy even though my nice, normal life was over. I can't say that everyday's been a breeze, but overall, I think I've been really successful at maintaining a positive attitude and happy outlook.

I recently saw this quote on 'Pinterest' and I loved it because it sums up to a T what I've been trying to do these past eight years since my accident. I've just never been eloquent enough to phrase it in such a wonderful, concise way.

Have you ever been around someone that's a "downer?" If you have, then you know how emotionally exhausting it can be to be around someone that's constantly complaining about life. I definitely think a person's disposition can be contagious for better or worse and have an effect on the way others feel. That's why I always try to have a positive energy about me so that people don't come away from interacting with me with a gloomy feeling. I want to have an effect on people, "the Heather effect," if you will, where I make people feel happy. (And if possible, maybe even just a little bit brighter than they were before we interacted.)

2011 Year in Review

Here's my annual family slideshow. I started working on it back in September and if I added up all the time I spent working on putting it together it would amount to days…maybe even a week or two. All I know is that it was TONS of work, but well worth it in the end because I think it turned out really well. This is the third year that I've put together an end of the year "Year in Review," but the first year that I've used ProShow Producer (the new slideshow software that I bought last summer). It was expensive – about $350 with the extras that I bought to go with it, but worth it because I really love the effects available in this program.

The slideshow ended up being 27 minutes long and I could've easily made it longer, but I tried to keep it under 30 minutes. I come from a family of seven, and five my sisters are married with relatively large families of their own, so I had lots of material to work with. I'm not sure how many photos ended up making the cut into the slideshow, but there were a lot; I'm guessing between 600 and 800. I had tons of pictures to work with and there's no way I could include even half of them since I wanted to keep my slideshow under 30 minutes. The weeding out process was harder than you might think because I wanted to include ALL of the pictures since each one means so much to me!

I decided to upload my slideshow to YouTube because it's an easy way to share it with family and friends so that I wouldn't have to go to the hassle of burning the slideshow to a DVD and mailing it out. I split the slideshow into two parts to make uploading easier, and then I put each part on YouTube. (It took more than three hours to upload the entire thing!) Take a look if you like, and if you do, let me know what you think!

I hope that one day my nieces and nephews will look back on these slideshows with fondness and may even enjoy watching them with their own children.

What's in a Name?

Beyoncé and her husband, Jay-Z, had a baby this past Saturday. What did they name the baby? Blue Ivy. Weird! That poor baby! (It's a girl, by the way, not that you could really tell by the name.) I guess it probably won't matter that the name is quite unusual since the baby is basically music "royalty" considering who her parents are. But still, Blue Ivy? It sounds like the name of an exotic plant, not the name of a baby, no matter how famous her parents are! She IS famous, though, which is fortunate for her since weird celebrity baby names seem to be more accepted/expected nowadays since these celebrities are in a league of their own. All I have to say is, "Good luck, baby Blue!"  

Other celebrity baby names that are rather eccentric:

Gwyneth Paltrow's kids, Apple and Moses
Nicolas Cage's son, Kal-el and

David Duchovny's son, Kyd
Jessica Alba's daughters, Honor and Haven
Julia Roberts' twins, Phinnaeus and Hazel
Jason Lee's son, Pilot Inspektor
Mariah Carey's twins, Monroe and Moroccan

I'm definitely a traditionalist when it comes to names. I like names that sound like actual "people" names, instead of names of colors, foods, places or objects. I'm always left scratching my head when I hear of someone that's had a baby and they've saddled them with a horribly bizarre name that's going to set them apart for the rest of their life. I can understand wanting something kind of unique so that there aren't five other kids in the same kindergarten class with the same first name, but I think some parents take the name thing to an extreme, especially when they combine two relatively normal names to make one weird name, or they spoil a normal name with an odd spelling (where the child will constantly have to be spelling their name).

I'm so glad I had sensible parents who gave me a nice, normal name!

"Sherlock Holmes"

This past Saturday I went to the movies to see Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. It's been two long months since I've been to a movie, which is a long time for me, but life gets busy towards the end of the year with the holidays.

I really loved the first Sherlock Holmes that came out two years ago, so I was excited to see the sequel. It didn't disappoint, and I think it was just as good as the first movie. Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law do an amazing job portraying Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. They seriously have a great on-screen chemistry! Sherlock Holmes was very well made and didn't disappoint, so I highly recommend it. Heather's rating: 9.5/10 stars