Winner!! and The Bucket List

First, just an update, The Liddy Shriver Sarcoma Initiative (unofficially) won a total of $13,000 in prizes in the Facebook Giving Challenge, bringing the total of funds raised for sarcoma research to $30,780 in one month! The official results will be announced late this month. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! This will help SO much!

Second, I wanted to talk a little about The Bucket List movie. I thought it definitely had its positive points and a few downsides but don't most movies, I guess? Overall I was pleased. I am usually pleased with movies with Morgan Freeman, possibly my favorite actor. Jack Nicholson and Morgan played off each other very well as the main two characters, each coming from very different lives.

The synoposis is:

A long time ago, Carter Chambers' philosophy professor suggested that his students compose a "bucket list," a collection of all the things they wanted to do, see and experience in life before they kicked the bucket. But while Carter was trying to define his private dreams and plans, reality intruded. Marriage, children, myriad responsibilities and, ultimately, a 46-year job as an auto mechanic turned his concept of a bucket list into little more than a bittersweet memory of lost opportunities and a mental exercise he occasionally thought about to pass the time. Meanwhile, corporate billionaire Edward Cole never saw a list without a bottom line. He was always too busy making money and building an empire to think about what his deeper needs might be beyond the next big acquisition or cup of gourmet coffee. Then life delivered an urgent and unexpected wake-up call to both of them. Carter and Edward found themselves sharing a hospital room with plenty of time to think about what might happen next--and about how much of that was in their hands. For all their apparent differences, they discovered they had two very important things in common: an unrealized need to come to terms with who they were and the choices they'd made, and a pressing desire to spend the time they had left doing everything they ever wanted to do. So, against doctor's orders and all good sense, these two virtual strangers check themselves out of the hospital and hit the road together for the adventure of a lifetime--from the Taj Mahal to the Serengeti, the finest restaurants to the seediest tattoo parlors, the cockpit of vintage race cars to the open door of a prop plane--with just a sheet of paper and their passion for life to guide them. Adding and crossing items off their list while taking in the grandeur and beauty of the world, they grapple with the difficult questions and the even more difficult answers that plague all of us. And, without even realizing it, become true friends.

I think that it was sad and probably unrealistic that Carter (Freeman) spent most of his last months with someone that was essentially a stranger. But that is what makes a movie be a movie-not always intended to be completely truthful and very rarely is. When I was supposed to die (by medical standards) all I wanted was time with family and friends and yes, I traveled quite a bit, but it was to visit those people and most of the places weren't very 'glamourous'! True, they were glamourous because of the people and experiences but it wasn't because of a specific place.

Overall, I recommend the movie-it was mostly a feel good movie that made you think a bit about all our lives, which is a good thing!

Today, I am grateful for: peacefulness in my life, a splendid morning with Gabe and my pastor, a nice day ahead and for family, friends and God!

Rach