Mandy knows best

TV Show This is a weird TV show. See it's a lot of people acting like angels and demons acting like humans... Which leads to a lot of good acting. So you have Kristin Bell and Ted Danson as the big names in this show but there are a lot of other big names that come and go. Adam Scott, Maya Rudolph, Lisa Kudrow to name a few but there are a lot of other names. Chidi is my favorite character because he spends his whole life studying how to be a good person but still ends up alienating people proving that obsession with anything can lead to negative consequences. I don't want to spoil too much but basically the show follows 4 dead people around while they try to figure out the afterlife. Naturally every season ramps up to a big finisher and we have to wait to see what the next season will bring. Kristin Bell's character is kind of weird. Like a hot mess all the time but she keeps things light and chill, in fact she doesn't focus on anything too long. Basically all of th

Podcast This is a podcast set up as a missing person case. But it wasn't a missing person case initially either. The issue was that we had a wealthy world traveler type that randomly left and broke up with his girlfriend over text and sent only emails to his parents and brother. He was depressed and over-worked and in the middle of legal troubles, so when he decided to sell his company and leave it all behind everyone went with it knowing about the pressure he was under. This went on for about a year and then he just stopped messaging anybody. That's when his family got worried and they filed a police report. Even then his family had no idea what really happened. The case opens up into an almost soap opera storyline full of lies and addiction and a possible murder. I literally did not expect this ending at all. The missing person Chris Smith was a likable guy, he was a surfer and just a seemingly chill guy. He wasn't the kind of guy that could work a 9-5 job as he just w

TV Show I think I actually liked this one better than Hill House... But maybe just for the accents. Although I think I'm going to try to watch that again this season too. But the twins, Cheryl and the younger dad are in this one too. I really like the characters in this show. I like the premise of having a big beautiful house with a big garden area and an old story. I like the way this series throws in random episodes about people's past. Like eventually we get all the back story but it's not all at once. I like the way this show gets tense but doesn't do anything so the tension keeps longer. This one has a weird dream element too. I wonder how these producers and writers dream because Hill House and Bly Manor are both very dream oriented. I don't have a lot to say about this so it will be a short post but it's also a short series. I watched it in 2 days and I probably could have finished it in one but I had to go to soccer.

Podcast This is a very short podcast series. It's only 4 pretty short episodes. It's about an unsolved murder in Illinois but instead of getting all invested and in the way and trying to solve the case themselves they talk about what these web slueths can do to help but also how they can hurt an investigation. It's a very different take on all this true crime stuff. I'm pretty sure this case is still open so I'm not sure why it only went 4 episodes. Maybe it will come back but anyway it's a good listen for a couple hours.

Book Yeah I guess this is a self-help book... But I'm already in therapy so I just get to embrace it more now. This was a very touching book. It talks about many different reasons why people go to therapy and mine was kind of talked about. See I'm in therapy to try to be more vulnerable. It started as trying to see if I was hiding something dark in my life and then it turned to getting past my divorce but the truth is that I don't talk about any of that. I can't talk about any of that. People think because I'm "open" and talk about many strange facets of my life that I am an open book. That's not the truth. I talk so much so that I can control the narrative. I don't tell people things that I don't want people to know. It's like the song by Kaitlyn Bristow, "just cuz I'm an open book don't mean you get the whole story" I am that way constantly. I will tell everyone in my life everything and I'll give my therapist the r

Ok I'm to the age where most of my friends are married. And of the religion where most of my don't have traditional weddings and they definitely don't serve alcohol... So I was excited for the wedding I went to this month. They had the ceremony the same place as the reception, they had an actual wedding party, they shared vows, and they had alcohol at the reception. It was strange as hell anyway though. See even though I consider the bride and groom to be good friends of mine, the groom and my ex-husband have been best friends for the last 6 or 7 years. See Ex became friends with Groom's older brother in high school, then when they all graduated they all moved into a townhouse together (not groom, he's younger.) Then they all moved out and went on 2 year missions. Then when they came back 5 of them all moved into a house together (groom included.) So around the time they all moved in together Groom got my Ex his job and they have worked together ever since. This was

I'm not geo-tagging. You can find your own way here. But let me tell you why you should. 1) It's hiking in the desert mountains, so a different experience. 2) Treasure hunting! Yeah you can find a lot of amber topaz (I filled a whole pill bottle) and Red Beryl (very rare) and Bixbyite (which I did not find.) 3) People die out there so there is that risk factor... 4) The night sky, there are many old country songs about the western sky and they're no joke. The sky is so clear in that area. Currently it is very smoky so it was hard to see even the mountain when we were driving to it but I had so much fun digging in the dirt and breaking open rocks! So basically we get there and we hike a little ways and then we find a section of rocks and my friend hands me a hammer and tells me to hit the rocks until I hear the right sound. So I go around hitting rocks and then I heard it and I sat down and just crushed this rock! Slowly so I could find the stuff in it but honestly

Movie Remember my current favorite movie? You might not because I try to keep it a secret... Because it's techically a "kid" movie. Yeah it's a Disney Channel Original Movie or a DCOM. It stars Milo Manheim and Meg Donnelly. I wrote about the first one in passing but I have watched it so many times this year. It's the one that helps me relax enough to fall asleep. The music, the dancing, the story and the meaning behind the story are all fantastic! But a couple of weeks ago I went to watch it again but saw the sequel was on Disney+ now too so I watched that instead. And it's even better! The production value was clearly better. They were able to spend more money on it and it really paid off. The music and choreography were even more fire. I don't have all the songs memorized yet but I'm working on it. This movie also adds a whole new kind of cast and they are so cool! I want to say I would be part of the new crew but I don't know if I'm cool

Podcast This one actually made me really upset. Like I get that people are afraid of evil and they think that if they don't understand something they think it's evil but that doesn't mean it's ok to falsely imprison someone or worse kill them. There is a quote in the podcast that says it's like the witch trials all over again. And I agree with that and feel emotionally attached to the all the victims. This podcast is from Canada and they mostly focus on one town but we know that it took place many places in the 80s and 90s. This story starts out by talking to a cop who first took the report of child abuse, which is tragic and never acceptable but it just escalated from there. They traced it back to the day care place and then sent out letters to all the other parents asking if any of their kids had been abused. Have you ever had your parents ask if you had been abused? Trust me, they don't believe you if you tell them no. It gets awkward and you start wanti

I think I realize why my gratitude journals suck. It's because I didn't go deep enough. I'm so surface level all the time. I think I'll do this again later but I need a little break to refocus myself. I made the realization recently that I'm not vulnerable... I need to be vulnerable but I don't know how to even start. I think I thought that eventually I would find some perfect man who would open me up and all of sudden I wouldn't be so scared of myself. But that doesn't happen. For example my exhusband just closed me up more. I felt even more ashamed than I ever had before. So I need to stop expecting life to change me and change myself. Yeah I'm not going to go into any specific details because I emotionally can't. I need to keep everything on the surface after all. But I am going to start working on vulnerability, I've check Pinterest for ideas and I've read a couple self help books on the subject but I don't think just reading is