Loquacious Lady

My family has been using Shutterfly for years. We use them to store photos online, get prints, make cards, and (our favorite) to create photo books. In fact, I was so used to using it, that it completely caught me off guard when I brought one to work a couple years ago and learned that no one I worked with had even HEARD of Shutterfly. How could that be? But it was true. So I told them all about it, and soon, there were quite a few new Shutterfly users.

So let me tell you what shutterfly.com can do for you, and why it is so great. In short, Shutterfly is a photo site. People can create a free account, upload all their photos to this account, and have them stored there for free. They can also turn these photos into all kinds of things (they call them “projects”). Not only can you order prints (from wallet size to poster size) of your photos, but you can have them printed on mugs, shirts, mousepads, calendars, stationery, and more. You can even have them printed in a book. That’s my favorite thing to do with them. You can also create a “share site” to share some or all of your photos and photo projects with family and friends. Then, they can order some of your prints as well or use them in their own projects.

These are high quality prints and books, by the way. You can pick the kind of cover you want, but I always go with a hard photo cover. Basically, that means that the book is hard cover, and there is a picture printed on the front and back. I oftentimes even have them printed on the side where the binding is as well (the other options are to have text printed on the side or to leave it blank). I have used other sites before to do similar things.

And if you join Shutterfly, you will get periodic freebies. Every year, I get one or two offers to get a free 8″x8″ photo book with 20 pages in it from Shutterfly. Throughout the year, I get offers for free cards, free stationery, and free prints. In fact, creating a share site with them gets you free prints as well. They also have deals going on all the time for buying something and getting something else free or very discounted. And there’s almost always free shipping codes online for orders over $30.

To top it off, they have excellent customer service. To ensure that you are completely satisfied with your work, they include a slip with your projects that say that if you are unsatisfied for any reason, they will replace your order or credit your account. I can give you two personal accounts for this.

First is from my mom. She ordered a big photo book from them of pictures from our family albums in the year 1981 (the year my sister went from infant to one year old). She noticed the package had gotten banged up in the mail, and when she opened it, one of the corners had gotten banged up a little. She got in touch with Shutterfly, and they sent her a new photo book to replace it, free of charge. Since she had two, she gave the first one to my sister, who now has a nice photo book of her first year.

The second story happened to me. I recently ordered a photo book for Will and his parents of some pictures I’ve taken of him since I started in February. He is so cute. Anyway, when it arrived, the adorable picture that I had on the front cover and last page (that had been so perfect online), was blurry. When it was online, it was so much smaller in the preview that it looked fine. But at an 8×8 size, it was not as focused. No way I could have known that until I got it. As I looked at the other pictures, I noticed that there was some color difference between how the pictures looked on my screen and how they looked when printed. I was so sad because I wanted to give this book as a gift. So I contacted them, and they credited my account. I went back through my pictures and adjusted them, uploaded the adjustments to Shutterfly, and switched out the pictures that had been in the book for the new ones. Then I changed a few things around (the cover and last page). I reordered it, using the credit. And less than a week later, I had my new book! Elizabeth got it this morning and loved it, and it was so fun to give them a gift of memories.

In fact, I’ll show you what a Shutterfly book looks like, in case you haven’t seen one. Keep in mind, that I chose to have a black background for Will, a dog background for Sam and Liam, a beachy background for a family vacation. They have a TON of backgrounds for you to choose from (themes, colors, etc). And they have all kinds of layouts so that you can make each page have the number of pictures you want in the layout you like. You can also choose a different size book. It takes a while to sit and create a book, but it’s worth it. It’s such a beautiful way to keep and display your memories of trips, childhoods, pets, special days, every day, and more. And if you just don’t have the time, you can have them “auto fill” a book for you so you don’t have to do the work. I never do that though. I like to choose which pictures to include and which to emphasize.

This is the book I made for Will:

Click here to view this photo book larger

This is one I made of the dogs when they were little:

Click here to view this photo book larger

And here’s one from a family vacation:

Click here to view this photo book larger

It’s also great for other things. Say you want to remember all the sweet little art that your children create, but you just don’t want to have boxes and boxes of macaroni glued to construction paper and squiggles of crayon on printer paper. One suggestion Shutterfly once made was this: You could scan it or even photograph it, upload the images, and create a book of their artwork. You’ve preserved their work in a way that you can all enjoy it. They will love showing off their art, and you will love not having clutter everywhere. Genius.

Shutterfly is not the only photo site out there. Picaboo has given me a free book before, and I love it. Snapfish gave me something free, and it was a disaster. I will not be using them again. Shutterfly is my favorite though. They keep me coming back for more because they are so accommodating, so easy to use, and have products of such high quality.

~Meghan

Here are my books that I read this month:

1. The Host by Stephenie Meyer.

I’ve told you my thoughts on this book before. I was reading it earlier in the month when I posed the question of what makes something count as sci-fi. Whether you like science fiction or not, though, I think you’ll like this read. And, just for the record, it is NOTHING like Twilight. Really. Promise.

2. The Boy I Loved Before by Jenny Colgan.

My cousin, Theresa Anne, gave me two big bags full of books to read (I love my family), and this was one of them. It made me laugh. It is definitely chick lit (as are the next 3 books), and it was a fun read. I loved seeing how high school looked from an adult mind stuck in a teen body. I laughed and read some parts out loud to Tom just because I felt like I couldn’t help but totally agree with some of the observations made by the main character. High school wasn’t the disaster for me that it was for this character, but, oh, I’m so glad to be an adult.

3., 4., and 5. Watermelon, Angels, and Anybody Out There by Marian Keyes.

Okay. Marian Keyes is a new author for me. She’s Irish, and so are her characters, the Walsh sisters. I love that, especially when their mom is involved. She’s so funny. TA also gave me these books (and another one called Rachel’s Holiday), all about these sisters. First of all, if you read these, you should know that the author’s works are NOT PRINTED IN ORDER on the flaps inside the books. This is both strange and confusing for me, as I use that as a guide of where to start and where to go next when reading a new series.

Basically, based on the order of events in the stories of the books I’ve read, I think the correct order is supposed to be: Watermelon, Rachel’s Holiday, Angels, then Anybody Out There. And then I assume there is another book coming out about Helen, the last Walsh sister, sometime soon. What I find interesting about these books is that these are not sweet little love stories. They cover everything from divorce to overcoming addictions to death of a spouse. My heart would just break for some of these people (yes, fictional people). And it would also give me such relief to see them recovering and/or overcoming hard situations when they could.

These are not the only books by this author, and TA included some of the others for me, so I’m gonna check them out too.

6. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

Yeah, Yeah, I know you’re tired of hearing about it. So I won’t go in depth. I’ll just say that I’m re-reading these books before the third one comes out on August 24th. I read this one in 2 days and am going to get started on Catching Fire again as soon as I get it back. Please do yourself a favor and read these books. If you’ve read them for the first time anytime lately, did you like (or,…okay, love) them as much as I did? If you haven’t read them, read about them here and here.

And lastly, just for fun, I borrowed a copy of The Little Prince (in English instead of French, which I can’t read), and I’m going to read it probably before July is over. I’ve heard it’s a great story. It’ll have to go to the August books post though since this goes out before it’s completed.

What books did you read this month?

~Meghan

I have been watching babies and kids since I was 14 years old. And then I taught kids (ages 2-11) Spanish for a year and a half. So I feel like I have a pretty good grip on what is what with kids and babies. But being a nanny…that just puts a WHOLE different spin on the info I’m gleaning. It’s like taking a crash course in being a stay-at-home mom.

So today, I’m sharing something I just learned in the last couple of weeks. Something I would have learned eventually by being a parent, maybe, but not by babysitting most likely. Only spending several days a week nannying the same child could teach me this.

First of all, being preventative with diaper rashes is way better than just treating them later. Will’s parents always wipe him down (for some reason, some people don’t feel the need to wipe babies-especially boy babies- when they just have a wet diaper) with a wet wipe. Then, before putting him in a new diaper, (here’s tip #1) they smear some vaseline on his behind and between where his thighs are connected to his… “diaper area.” Basically, smear it in any creases. It makes it so much less likely that the babe will get a rash, trust me.

But then…finally…it happened.

Poor, poor Will’s behind. He got a HORRIBLE diaper rash in his 11th month on this earth. (Still, 11 months when getting your first diaper rash-that’s pretty good.) I mean, it was painful people. We all felt bad for him. At first it looked like Desitin Maximum Strength would knock it out. Elizabeth had figured it to be a yeast infection on her child’s poor diaper zone, and the zinc in Desitin is supposed to fix that. It started to at first, but then it came back with a vengeance.

Austin’s mom is a nurse practitioner, and while she was in town for Will’s 1st birthday, they tried some medicine that’s a little stronger. (I can’t remember the name.) This didn’t help either. I ended up going to meet Elizabeth (who is a pediatric nurse), at her office for Will’s one year check up. It was great for me to be there because she would have had to repeat to me everything the doctor said anyway, so I just heard it first hand and saved her the time.

As he checked out the rash, he confirmed it was a yeast infection. Since the medicine Austin’s mom tried didn’t work, the doc knew not to prescribe it, and said sometimes yeast infections are resistant to it anyway. So then, he prescribed some other medicine (again, I don’t remember the name, sorry). Without insurance, it was $130.

Good. Night. That is some dang expensive diaper rash cream.

I’m not sure how much it would be with insurance, but he said it could be pretty pricey depending on how much the insurance would pay of it. So he had this suggestion, which is my second tip: Try a topical treatment of Monistat cream instead.

Huh?!? That’s for adults!

Well, really it’s for yeast infections. And it costs about 20 bucks. WAY cheaper to go over-the-counter on this one.

So how did it work? Will’s rash was 75% gone in two days. It was 98% gone a week later (there’s still a tiny bit of redness on one leg). Wow. Such a great way to save money and get rid of the worst diaper rash I’ve ever seen. I’m talking blistered, red, oozy skin on this poor baby’s bottom.

Who knew the answer would be so simple? I surely wouldn’t have had I not been Will’s nanny and privy to the info. These kinds of tips are things I’m storing away for when I’m a mom. You might think it’s gross, but trust me, if your child has a diaper rash like Will’s someday, you will thank me.

~Meghan

If you ever read anything I posted on More Than Useless back when it was more than a defunct website, then you’re all too familiar with the midnight adventures that occur in our house.

The rest of you may be in for it.

So there I was, Saturday night, asleep. Full on REM sleep. Out of nowhere, I’m shaken awake – Meghan, with a firm grip on my right shoulder, has rolled over and thrown her other arm across my chest to grab my left shoulder and is violently shaking me.

Meghan: [near shouting] Come on – let’s go..!
Tom: [wide awake, irritated, prepared to punch] What?! Meghan [shakes loose] what are you talking about!?
Meghan: [releases death grip, sighs] Man – you are heavy!
Tom: [rolls over]
Meghan: [maniacal laughter ]

…then there was silence. Utter silence.

Laying on my side, heart racing, and totally irritated, Meghan has dropped completely back into whatever dream she was having and I’m left wide awake against my will.

Two years ago, I would’ve attempted to decipher what she was dreaming about or what prompted such a ridiculous outburst. But we’ve been married long enough and I’ve experienced more torture in the middle of the night than any spouse should ever have to endure to know better than to bother.

This isn’t the last time I’m gonna have something to share about this.

Trust me,
Tom

I’ve been trying to learn how to get a great picture of my subject while also showing the pretty colors of a sunset/sunrise/golden clouds/whatever pretty lighting background. I don’t want to have to fix it in photoshop. I want to get a pretty picture with my camera. I don’t own a nice flash, and I don’t like the way that the flash that is built into most cameras (including mine) seems to make a person look washed out/shiny/generally unattractive and takes away the beautiful light. But if I have the settings set to good lighting for the subject, it seems to blow out the light in the background.

Here’s an example (though I didn’t use flash in any of these). When Tom and I went to Molena, I was trying to get a picture of him but also wanted the sky to show in all it’s blue glory.

First, I had a picture of Tom that showed his face. The sky was washed out.

Then I changed the settings to show the sky better. But, as you can see, Tom isn’t well lit.

Next, I tried to go middle of the road. But I didn’t like it because he was still in the dark while the sky was still not rich in color.

I tried again to get the sky in colors I liked, but I still couldn’t figure out lighting the subject.

And finally, with Tom over the whole “stand there and smile so I can figure this out” thing I was doing, I got one more blown out photo. Then I gave up and ran down the road to see if these folks wanted to give me their farm.

I could definitely use some advice. I ran into this problem again at a wedding Saturday night. There was a gorgeous sunset, but I couldn’t get a picture with a well lit subject AND the sunset in it. I tried doing aperture priority instead of manual to see if it’d help, but it didn’t. What do y’all do to make this work?

Thanks!

~Meghan

Tom is pretty much part droid. The dude walks around with a Fitbit on, runs with a Nike Plus, and works with computers all day. He carries a cell phone, and he has a flip and an iPod that travel with him.

Me? Not so much. (Besides my cell. And my slr, which shouldn’t count.)

Until now.

I finally decided to get the Fitbit. And I love it. Let me tell you something- if you are looking for a pedometer, look no further. This thing ROCKS. Here’s why:

It’s small, and it slides onto your clothes.

(source)

This is awesome because you don’t have to wear something that looks like a watch or clips to your shoe. Ladies, it was specifically designed so that we could clip it to our bras if we needed to wear something like a dress. HELLO. Love that.

It comes with a belt clip, but I don’t recommend it. Tom and I have both had ours come out from the belt clip. Now we both wear ours as is.

It can hold a charge for a week, and you don’t need to remember to upload info.

Why is that? Because the docking station, as seen above (next to the quarter), will automatically send the information to your profile on their website for you. You don’t have to put the fitbit onto the docking station for this to happen. The fitbit will automatically search for the station every 15 minutes. If you are near the station, it will dump the information. If not, it will store the information (up to 7 days) and search for a station once a minute until it finds it and can dump the info again. Then it will take a fifteen minute break.

To charge the fitbit, simply place it on the docking station for about an hour to an hour and a half. Then it’s good to go for another week.

The website is super helpful.

It allows you to follow your weight, food intake, activity, sleep and more. Let me show you.

First you set up your profile. (There’s an entire community within fitbit, and you can share as much or as little information about yourself with them as you want from your profile. You can also add friends who use fitbit so you can keep up with each others’ progress.)

Here are all the things you can track:

And a bit more in depth…Here’s a look at how the food looks.

First, you click on “Food” and are taken here.

Then you type in something you have eaten. It will give you either just the item, or the item with brand and restaurant options. You want to be as accurate in nutritional content as possible.

Then, all of your foods are shown throughout the day as you entered them:

It’s great.

Another thing I love tracking is my sleep. Now I know why I’m so tired in the morning even when I don’t remember waking up during the night. (I never do remember my sleep walking/talking/laughing/singing/punching/etc.) So what you do is: when you get in bed, press the little button down on the fitbit (see picture above) until it says START. Then, when you wake up, press the button again until it says STOP. Then you can hop online to see how active you were in your sleep.

See that pretty active spot around 3:28AM? That’s when Sam and Liam decided it would be a good idea if mom took them out to potty and got them some water before going back to bed. Do I have dogs or toddlers here?

Okay, there’s also an activity tracker. Say you go swimming and have to take the fitbit off or are cycling and it might not read it accurately. You can update your profile with those active times. This also shows how many calories I’d burned and steps I’d taken at the last information upload.

Of course, it generally just tracks you throughout the day, and you can see that too.

But you don’t have to get online to see all of this information. You can check how many steps you’ve taken, calories you’ve burned, miles you’ve walked, and just how generally active you are at the moment just by pushing the button on the fitbit.

(source)

The more active you are, the more the flower grows. As I sit here typing this, my flower is pretty short. But an hour ago, when I was playing with Will, it was medium-tall. On my walks with Tom, it’s as tall as the one in the picture above.

It comes with all the accessories you need.

(source)

The docking station, the wristband (for sleep), and the beltclip all come with it! You don’t have to pay extra for all the things you’ll want or need.

The customer service kicks boo-tay.

How often do you get to write THAT in a review? But it’s true. I am actually on my second fitbit, and here’s why. The weekend that Tom and I went to Molena, and I decided to run up and down the road for pictures, my fitbit came flying off (I was using the beltclip), and we didn’t realize it until we were home…two hours away. Even if we could have called someone to look for it, it was this teeny-tiny, black piece of technology on a dirt road at night. No one was gonna find that thing. It was gone. And it was the first day I wore it. I cried on the way home.

I emailed them telling them what happened, and they sent me a new fitbit immediately, free of charge. (It was still under warranty.) They even sent me a response that was obviously not a generic email.

If you’ve read my posts about books consistently, you’ll know that I LOVE The Hunger Games Trilogy. I reviewed it twice, once in January and again in June. The first book, The Hunger Games, and the second book, Catching Fire, were so captivating, fast-paced, and packed with suspense, danger, and action that I couldn’t put them down.

The final book of the trilogy is slated to come out on August 24th, and I can’t wait. I’m SO excited. I search for it every now and then to see if any new buzz has come out about it, but all I would see is that “the third book is due out in August.” But yesterday I finally saw that it has been named and even has cover art online. The third book is to be called Mockingjay. Here’s the cover:

I had a miniature freak-out at the computer when I saw this. I am so pumped. Elizabeth and Austin (Will’s parents) were so sweet and gave me a gift card to Barnes & Noble for my birthday. It’s been designated for Mockingjay from the moment I saw it. Elizabeth is even reading my copy of the books, and she just finished The Hunger Games and is now reading Catching Fire. I’m trying to get the word out to anyone I can because these books are a lot to miss out on if you love to read.

In other exciting news for fans of the trilogy, The Hunger Games is being turned into a movie. Lionsgate has bought the rights, and Suzanne Collins is writing the screenplay herself. If it’s anything like the books (which it might not be because of the somewhat gory violence), it is going to be awesome. I remember thinking so many times as I read it that it would make a great action/thriller movie. Tom and I will definitely be seeing this in theater. I just want to get Tom to read the books first. (He said he will, but he has too many other things lined up first. This drives me nuts. I had to bug him for years to read Harry Potter, and, when he did, he loved those books. I know he’ll like these too, but it’s almost impossible to fight his schedule.)

But listen up folks: You need to read The Hunger Games and Catching Fire. Then you need to get yourself to a book store by August 24th to get Mockingjay. If you like to read, you don’t want to miss this.

~Meghan

Here is a tale from my childhood that I’ve never been able to forget. Mostly because my family thinks it’s hilarious and they like to tease me about it.

Alrighty, it all started 21 years ago, the summer I was four years old. (Summer of ’89.)

This is me in June of 1989.

My sister, Kristen, my brother, Jordan, and I were all outside running through the sprinkler in our front yard. (And on a side note, isn’t it crazy how much more active we are for fun as kids than as adults?)

I had just learned how to do a cartwheel over the sprinkler that summer, and I hadn’t shown Kristen or Jordan that I could do this. I was really excited to show them and kept asking for them to watch me, but, as older siblings sometimes do, they ignored me. Repeatedly.

One thing to note, before moving on in the story, is that I sing. ALL the time. I always have. My mom said I sang before I spoke as a baby. I don’t even realize I’m doing it. Tom sometimes points it out to me because he thinks it’s funny (you do find it funny, right, Tom? you don’t find it…annoying…do you?). I just sing constantly. Sometimes I’ll start a sentence in speech and end it in song. And I come by this honestly. My parents would make up and sing little songs to us and about us all the time growing up. My family is just like that. But I think I’m the most like that. Always singing.

Okay, so what do you think I did when I got sad? I went and sat down on the retaining wall for the front yard, and I sang to myself. I was feeling sad, so I was singing a dirge-like chorus of “la-la-la.” (I didn’t know a lot of songs at four years old, so my songs were usually made up and often consisted of “la-la”s.) Well, this finally got Kristen and Jordan’s attention.

Kristen came over and sat beside me. She said, “What are you doing?” I replied, “I’m sad, ‘cuz I’m singing a sad, sad song.” (Apparently, I didn’t quite understand cause and effect back then, or I’d have gotten that the other way around.) When Kristen heard this response, she did what most of you would have wanted to do. She burst into laughter, and then she went off to tell my brother so that he could laugh with her.

This was not the response I was going for. My little four-year-old heart was broken; I jumped up, ran inside crying, and went to my room to play alone.

That yields absolutely NO sympathy for the sad, dejected four-year-old. Not in my family. It yields a life-time supply of laughter and teasing. Which I can handle, having grown a thicker skin since the age of four. I kind of had to, especially in relation to that story, because any time I would be upset about something or look sad, any given sibling or parent might ask, “Are you singing a sad, sad song?”

After this happened one night in high school in front of Tom, he obviously wanted to hear the story. So he did. And, OH, did he laugh. And then he told Ben, his brother. And if you’ve read this, you know that he loves to give me a hard time. Anytime we would all have the same study hall, if I looked bored or was concentrating on something  with a frown on my face (most likely AP Calculus; I hate math), I would hear a round of “la-la-la”s softly being sung across the room. I’d snap my head up and see one or both of those two trying not to burst into laughter and get demerits for disrupting study hall.

So why bring it up now? Well, I recently bought the latest Lady Antebellum album on iTunes. And it has a song on there called Love This Pain. In the bridge, Charles Kelly sings:

It’s like I love this life
When nothing’s right, yeah something’s wrong
It’s like I’m just not me
If I can’t be a sad, sad song

The first time I heard the song, I thought, “WHAT did he just say?!” The second time I listened to it, I knew I’d heard correctly. And I knew, for once, that I was NOT the only person who gets it. Thank you, Lady Antebellum, for understanding me. Though, to be fair, I don’t think this song is supposed to make me laugh, but that line does. Every time. Just because of my own take on it.

~Meghan

Alrighty, so I’ve had some great feed back on the photos I asked you to manipulate in this post. I can’t wait to hear your thoughts on these. First, let’s look at the landscape shots. Here’s the straight-out-of-the-camera picture I asked you to edit.

And here’s what y’all did with it:

Kristen Thompson is up first. She said:

“I love anything antique, vintage, old or that looks like it is antique, vintage, old. So I usually try a lomography action or two on my favorite shots to see if I can make them look older and more “well loved”. Your picture with this style on it reminds me of old Hawaiian postcards.”

Kristen, I think this looks awesome. Seriously love it. Thanks!

Next up is Jay Caruso.

Jay, I love this because it looks like the true colors of what I saw that day. Awesome.

And third, we have Sunira Moses. She gave me two of this photo.

First is kind of an HDR effect, which is cool. My favorite part is the land itself. It’s so clear and crisp. It reminds me of the way that parts of Africa look in a Discovery Channel special or Planet Earth when they fly over the land.

Honestly, I was so in awe of your creativity here that I just had to show it to Tom early. He did a double take with it just like I did. It was unexpected to turn it into a night scene. I love it.

Okay, so those are our landscapes. Next up is this picture of Will with a messy face:

Here’s Jay’s take on it:

I love the cropped in focus, the bright colors, the way it’s so clear. I’m still learning how to achieve this with darker photos, and I’d love to hear what steps you took to do this.

Next is Sunira:

Clearly, the messy face doesn’t appeal to Sunira. She cleaned him up, but she did it so well that I didn’t even notice at first. And she did black and white but left his eyes a little blue, which (at least for me) pulls the viewer’s focus to his eyes. Like Jay, she cropped the photo to focus on his face. I really like that.

And now for some weird ones. Tom McFarlin, my husband, did this:

It appears that he made Will’s eyes a little too big (and too dark) for his face and quickly scribbled a Harry Potter scar onto Will’s forehead. And he added some more messiness to the food on Will’s face. Then he turned it into a Polaroid. Overall, random and a little creepy. But it made me laugh.

And last, but not least, Brett Barner:

I cannot tell you how much I laughed when I saw this the first time. It was SO not what I was expecting. But it’s what I should’ve expected, because Brett and Tom love to give each other a hard time. Looks like he pulled some picture of Tom making a face off the internet and merged it with Will’s head. That is one disturbing baby.

So there you have it. If you would like to know how they did this, feel free to ask in the comments. I’m sure that these wonderful photo editors would be happy to give out some tips. Thanks for your participation to all who sent in an edited photo!

~Meghan

I just have to say that ol’ Leo has certainly come a long way since Titanic. And he was worried that he would forever be seen as “Jack.” Hardly.

I am impressed with his work in Catch Me If You Can and The Departed. But Inception tops them all. And it’s not just Dicaprio that deserves credit. The entire cast for this movie was killer.

I don’t want to overdo how amazing I found the movie to be, because anytime people go on and on about how awesome a movie was, then I see it, I always feel a little let down. I just want to say this: PLEASE do yourself a favor and see this in a theater. Go see it NOW before someone tells you about it. You should definitely see it for yourself.

Tom and I purposely avoided seeing anything about it but the trailer that was played on TV. We saw it in the IMAX theater near our house with some friends on Saturday night. Our theater was packed. Not one person got up for any reason during the entire movie. No one’s phone rang. No one spoke. And when it ended, we all turned to look at one another and burst into conversation about the movie with anyone who was nearby. (You’ll have to watch it yourself to see why.)

And I now know at least one thing that will be on our Christmas wish-list.

Seriously. Go see this movie.

GO.

If you have seen Inception, I would LOVE to know your thoughts, but NOT IN THE COMMENTS  (unless it’s really general and not about what happens in the movie) because I don’t want any spoilers for people who haven’t seen it. Feel free to email me your thoughts though! Or direct message me on Twitter.

~Meghan

ps- Check back tomorrow for the photo-manipulations of the pictures from this post. I can’t wait for all of you to see each others’ work!