Friday Favorite – 99 Favorites

Posted on June 5, 2009June 4, 2009 by lizjohnson

In honor of my 99th post on this blog, I thought I’d share a very special Friday Favorite. Here are 99 of my favorite things across lots of categories. Are some of these favorites on your lists, too?

Top 13 Movies
1. Disney’s Beauty and the Beast beauty-and-the-beast 2. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
3. Anne of Avonlea
4. Anne of Green Gables
5. BBC’s Pride and Prejudice
6. The Count of Monte Cristo
7. Penelope
8. While You Were Sleeping
9. Newsies
10. Miracle
11. Frequency
12. Maverick
13. Bend It Like Beckham

Top 7 Novels
1. The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare
2. The Princess Bride by William Goldman
3. Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers
4. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
5. Splitting Harriet by Tamara Leigh splitting-harriet 6. Pants on Fire by Meg Cabot
7. How to Hook a Hottie by Tina Feraro

Top 6 Nonfiction Titles
1. No Wonder They Call Him the Savior by Max Lucado
2. In the Grip of Grace by Max Lucado
3. Wild Goose Chase by Mark Batterson
4. Through Gates of Splendor by Elisabeth Elliot
5. Confessions of a Pastor by Craig Groeschel
6. 90 Minutes in Heaven by Don Piper

Top 11 TV Shows
1. Friday Night Lights
2. Veronica Mars
3. Robin Hood
4. Sports Night
5. Burn Notice
6. Pushing Daisies pushing-daisies 7. My Boys
8. Life
9. West Wing
10. The Pretender
11. Psych

Top 7 TV Characters I’d Like to Hang Out With
1. Coach Taylor and the Panthers team (Friday Night Lights)
2. Ned and Olive (Pushing Daisies)
3. PJ and Bobby (My Boys)
4. Charlie Crews (Life)
5. Josh and Sam (West Wing)
6. Robin (Robin Hood)
7. Danny (Sports Night) dan-rydell-sportsnight

Top 6 Chain Restaurants
1. Red Robin
2. Olive Garden
3. Chili’s
4. Red Lobster
5. Panera
6. Texas Roadhouse

Top 5 Magazines
1. Reader’s Digest
2. Enteratinment Weekly CVR849.indd 3. People
4. US Weekly
5. Writer’s Digest

Top 6 Vacation Wish Spots
1. Prince Edward Island
2. Dublin, Ireland
3. Scotland – the whole country
4. New England (CT and MA in the fall to be exact) new-england-in-the-fall 5. New York City
6. England

Top 3 NFL Teams
1. Indianapolis Colts
2. New York Giants
3. Denver Broncos

Top 9 Musical Artists
1. Brandon Heath brandonheath3 2. Third Day
3. Chris Tomlin
4. Matchbox 20
5. PFR
6. Casting Crowns
7. Kelly Clarkson
8. Relient K
9. Natasha Bedingfield

Top 7 Brandon Heath Songs
1. London
2. Give Me Your Eyes
3. Red Sky
4. Soldier
5. I’m Not Who I Was
6. Wait and See
7. Beauty Divine

Top 5 Desserts
1. cookie dough ice cream
2. brownies3. white cake with white buttercream frosting
4. frosted sugar cookies
5. Little Debbie Nutty Bars

Top 3 Musicals
1. Aida aida 2. Beauty and the Beast
3. Phantom of the Opera

Top 5 Holidays
1. Christmas
2. Thanksgiving
3. My birthday!
4. New Year’s Eve
5. Easter

Top 6 Stores
1. Barnes and Noble
2. JC Penny
3. Target
4. Old Navy
5. Bath and Body Works bath-and-body-works 6. Kohl’s

Friday Favorite: Robin Hood-BBC Style

Posted on May 29, 2009May 25, 2009 by lizjohnson

Once upon a time … there was a sweet little blogger named Lady Liz. Hi LL.

liz-johnson-author-32

Liz liked swinging on swings, reading fairy tales, and watching TV on dvd. Then one day, her roomate Amy sent her a link for a free month trial of Netflix.

Of course, LL accepted the free offer, and soon was filling her queue with movies and TV on dvd to her hearts desire. But the first couple TV shows she tried were bad. Yuck. Poo. Then Netflix recommended a new TV show, and LL shrugged and said, “Sure. Sounds like fun.” Two days later, a little red envelope arrived in her mail box with the first disc in the BBC show Robin Hood.

robin-hood-season-1

Minutes after putting the first disk into her computer, LL’s jaw dropped and her eyes bugged and she could not rip her attention from the screen in frong of her. Like every fairy tale she loves, the story of Robin Hood, Lady Marian, and Guy of Gisborne unfolds. What’s new is the snappy wit, amusing dialouge, ruckus sidekick Much, and utterly handsome Robin. Yup. LL discovered quite quickly that she had a little crush on the people’s hero, who robs from the rich and gives to the poor. And then she realized that if possible, Robin was cuter than ever because he shoots a bow and wears a …

robin-hood

… HOODIE! That’s right, a greenish/brownish hoodie. In every episode. LL could barely contain the pitter patter of her little heart.

With the arrival of each new disc of this action-packed show, LL found that happily ever after arrived. Until the disc ended. And began again with the next disc. And quickly ended again. Tired of the back and forth, she decided to ask for the dvds for her birthday. If she gets them (nudge, nudge, wink, wink), then she’ll be happily forever after …

Friday Favorite: Cake Wrecks

Posted on May 22, 2009May 21, 2009 by lizjohnson

I hope you won’t hold it against me that I’m offering another website for the second week in a row. But this website, is just so worth it!

Welcome to CakeWrecks.blogspot.com – when professional cakes go horribly, hilariously wrong. Cake Wrecks and its creator Jen, just celebrated it’s first birthday, and boy has it been a funny year!

Not sure what a Cake Wreck is? Allow me to show, not tell:

cake-wreck-1 — This cake started it all.

cake-wreck-2 — This was the cake requested for a lovely wedding.

cake-wreck-3 — This is the bride, looking at the cake that wasn't exactly what she was hoping for.

(Disclaimer: I hope it’s okay for me to borrow these pics.) I just can’t describe a cake wreck any better than these pics describe. But the real genius of the site is Jen, the host. Her snarky comments absolutely make the site the gem that it is.

Oh, and don’t miss out on Cake Wrecks the book! Only $9.55 at Amazon-available September 15. Oh, I’ll so be buying one of these. And you should too. 🙂

Laughing uproariously at cakes until next time. -LJ

Friday Favorite – Evotional.com

Posted on May 15, 2009May 14, 2009 by lizjohnson

This week, I thought I’d give a shout out to one of my favorite authors Mark Batterson and his blog Evotional.com. Mark is the pastor of National Community Church in Washington, DC (the church is something like 70% single 20- and 30-somethings, makes me think I ought to contemplate a move there) and the author of two of my favorite books: Wild Goose Chase and In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day.

wild-goose-chase in-a-pit-with-a-lion

Mark writes some of the most spiritually challenging books I’ve ever enjoyed! And he’s a great guy too. Check out his blog for fun stuff, and a really cool spiritual insights. Check out his books for a great read and a challenge for your walk with God. I love his section in Wild Goose Chase about setting goals.

I spent a day with Mark last summer at ICRS in Orlando. I was assigned to take him to all of his interviews one day, and, let me tell you, he is one of the most well-connected guys ever. He knew EVERYONE. I’m not even kidding! When I commented on it, he told me that there was no greater network than the kingdom of God. Got me thinking about how I relate to other Christians.

Plus, the man is a tweeting maniac! He tweets constantly and is the epitome of the tech-savvy pastor. Gotta love how he uses technology to teach Truth. Thanks, Mark.

Following Mark’s tweets until next time. -LJ

Friday Favorite – Live Concerts

Posted on May 8, 2009May 7, 2009 by lizjohnson

I LOVE going to concerts. Especially when I love the groups performing. Enter Revive, Brandon Heath, and Third Day!

So last Thursday my mom and I took off for Phoenix to see these guys perform at the Celebrity Theater, one of the coolest venues ever. The stage is in the middle of the room and the seats go all the way around. And the stage spins. Check it out in this clip.

So as if the venue isn’t cool enough, we were sitting in the 3rd row. Literally 10 feet from the groups as they performed. The theater tauts itself as the most intimate theater experience in the valley (Phoenix), and it totally is! I got some great pictures and loved being so close even when we were looking at the “back” of the stage.

So I have to tell you a funny story … my mom isn’t what you’d call a big concert goer. She’s more of a praise and worship kind of gal than a rockin’ Christian music chica. But she agreed to go to the concert with me so we could get some quality bonding time together. When I first bought the tickets, she was talking to a younger guy in her Bible study and said we were going to see Three Days in concert. At first he didn’t understand, then he made the connection. We were going to see Third Day, and he was totally jealous. That made my mom smile. 🙂

I warned mom that she might want to get some ear plugs. But she didn’t bring any. The show was LOUD, but amazingly wonderful. Here’s a snippet from the actual show that we were at.

And of course, my main reason for going was actually Brandon Heath. Nothing surprising there. Except that he was more wonderful than I even hoped he’d be! And I know Amy is going to ask about Joe. He was fantastic too! 🙂 Here’s a clip from the show of Brandon.

Brandon closed out his set with a song called Soldier. I’d never heard it before, and it was really great! Here’s a clip of him singing it several years back. I’m pretty sure it was on one of his first independent albums. I’m hoping I can find it on iTunes or something because I need it on my iPod.

So I really love concerts. I love the noise and the excitement in the air. The freedom to dance like a crazy woman and have no one think any the less of me. The fun of hooting and hollering after my favorite songs and at my favorite performers. But most of all, I love how God always unexpectedly gets a hold of me.

Take for example this show. There a was a young man with Down’s syndrome just a few seats over from me who quite verbally expressed his disinterest in Brandon. He was there to see Third Day and just wanted them to perform. I on the other hand really wanted to see and enjoy Brandon. I found myself getting irked that he was stealing a bit of my enjoyment of the show and irked at his dad who was with him for not quieting him. And then Brandon began “Give Me Your Eyes” and my heart squeezed. I’d been doing a terrible job of seeing this young man through God’s eyes. I needed to have love and concern for my neighbors. My heart softened and I found myself enjoying the show even more.

I love it when God does stuff like that.

Anyway, here are a few more pics that I took at the meet and greet and during the show. Hope you enjoy.

mac-powell-meet-and-greet

mark-lee-meet-and-greet

I'm quite possibly the worst photographer ever!

brandon-heath-2

mac-powell-and-third-day-2

Still hoping to meet Brandon until next time. -LJ

Friday Favorite – Firefly

Posted on May 1, 2009April 26, 2009 by lizjohnson

firefly

I blame Jess Barnes. My current obsession with Joss Whedon’s Firefly is all her fault. Oh, and it might be the incredible stories, actors, and the fact that it’s a western set in space.

That’s right. I said it’s A WESTERN SET IN SPACE!!!

I know what you’re thinking. How could that be? For your consideration, I present the opening credits of this fabulous show.

This cult favorite aired on Fox back in 2002 and was on air for only 11 episodes (or something like that–the dvd set has several unaired episodes). Set in the future as earth can no longer hold the number of humans, people have begun settling the planets and moons of a new solar system. But just like the old west, settling these new territories is savage and uncertain.

Enter Captain Malcom Reynolds (played by a delightful Nathan Fillion) and the crew of his ship Serenity, a Firefly transport ship. These smugglers fight the rules of the Alliance, which they fought in the war years before. His crew includes Jayne (played by Chuck’s Adam Baldwin), a gun-loving guy with a penchant for getting in trouble and wearing terrible hats. Kaylee is the wide-eyed mechanic. Zoe, the first mate and an old friend of Mal’s from the war, and her husband Wash, the pilot, add both humor and depth. And of course, there’s Inara, a registered companion, who brings respectibility to the ship. Oh. Right. A companion is in fact a high end escort.

It’s such a strange world that Joss Whedon has created, but it’s thrilling and unique and oh-so entertaining. They get around swearing by speaking in Chinese and have some of the best one-liners in any TV series. Smart and funny and filled with characters you can’t help but love. Mal is worth watching the entire show. Wash, his Hawaiian shirts, and the rest are just the icing on the cake.

When the show was cancelled half way through its first season, Joss sought to wrap up the story lines in Serenity, a widely released feature film that was much more violent and lacked so much of the heart that I loved in Firefly. But it still had to be watched because you have to find out what happens. Right?

Jess, this is all your fault. Yours and Joss’s. So maybe you’re both in good company.

Wishing I was in Mal’s company until next time. -LJ

Friday Favorite – Twitter

Posted on April 24, 2009April 23, 2009 by lizjohnson

Do you tweet? As you’ve likely noticed in the far right column, I tweet pretty regularly.

Don’t know what tweeting is? Haven’t heard of twitter?

It’s a social networking site–of sorts. It allows you to, in no more than 140 characters, answer the question: What are you doing? It’s a snippet of insight into daily life on potentially a minute by minute basis. While it’s been accused of being a rather self-centered invention, I love it, not because I get to talk about myself, but because I get to follow some of my favorites. It’s amazing what you can learn about people just by the way that they twitter.

For example, I follow Mark Batterson, pastor of National Community Church in Washington, DC, and an author that I had the privilege of working with on his last book Wild Goose Chase. So what have I learned about Mark in 140 character incriments? The man is a twitter maniac. He tweets more than anyone else I follow. He loves good food, and oh, he has some amazing spiritual insights.

I also follow Jess Barnes and Rachel, who are both quite funny. I love hearing a bit more about their day to day lives, not to mention whatever new fandom they’ve discovered. They are wonderful to follow!

Then there’s Nathan Fillion (of last week’s favorite: Castle). I just started following him, and I’m learning all sorts of cool things about him. Like how he supports the Kids Need To Read campaign (I’m a fan of kids reading), and how he was at a book launch party in Oceanside, CA last week. Wish I’d been in Oceanside last week. (Yes, twitter could be a first step to stalking someone–but I like to think of it as legal stalking.)

Speaking of legal stalking, I absolutely follow Brandon Heath. How could I not? He’s not s super-regular tweeter, but it cracks me up everytime he says something about being somewhere cool or meeting cool people like Bob Barker then says “Is this my life?” Yes, Brandon, in 140 characters this is your life.

Now I love tweeting, and I love following new and old friends. But I really love seeing who ends up following me. For example, after I tweeted about watching Brandon Heath on CBN’s 700 Club, the CBNProducers started following me. Then I tweeted about the lost library book saga, and who started following me? The PPLD (Pikes Peak Library District)! They even congratulated me on finding my lost book when I returned it. It kind of cracks me up!

If you’re not tweeting, then maybe you should be. When you start, give me a shout out, and I’ll follow you too!

Tweeting like a mad woman until next time. -LJ

Friday Favorite – Castle

Posted on April 17, 2009April 17, 2009 by lizjohnson

While I am a fan of castles in general, this is not a blog all about old-school housing structures. Nope this is about one of my other favorites: Castle, the TV show starring Nathan Fillion.

I think ABC is trying to redeem itself in my eyes after cancelling Pushing Daisies. Of course, nothing really compares to the Pie Maker, Chuck, and Olive on PD, and Castle isn’t exactly a similar show. But it is quite amazing!

Castle, which first aired in March of this year, follows Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion, who is one handsome man, if I do say so), a best-selling mystery author who has just killed off his main character. In the pilot he is called in by the police chief to investigate two murders that copycat killings in his books. He’s paired up with Detective Kate Beckett (Stana Katic), who quite obviously can’t stand having him around. But by the end of the pilot, Castle has sweet-talked the chief into letting him tag along with Beckett, who he is basing his next character on.

castle-fillion-and-katic

While the relationship between Castle and Beckett is amusing and so obviously going to turn romantic at some point, the really amazing part of the show is Castle’s relationship with his mother–an immature partier, who spanned the globe looking for a bad review of her son’s book just to make sure he stayed humble–and his daughter Alexis–a non-angsty teenager, who really has her life together, despite a weathly father, absent mother, and crazy grandmother. Castle and Alexis together are the most fun to watch. I loved the episode about nannies in which Alexis asks her dad why he never hired a nanny for her. He tells her he was her nanny and the episode ends with him looking at a picture of them at the park when she was young. But they’re not always sentimental moments. There’s laugh out loud ones like the laser tag game they shared in episode 5.

castle-cast1

Jess B. asked me if I wanted to watch this with her when the first episode aired. After all, we already get together every Monday night to write. Now we write from 8-9 and watch Castle from 9-10. It’s become a tradition rather quickly. One I don’t want to end, even for the summer hiatus.

If you haven’t given this show a watch, I recommend you do! ABC on Monday nights. If you miss it now, don’t worry. It’s scheduled to arrive on dvd in September.

Of course, as a mystery writer, I have to love watching a show about another writer. But even if I didn’t have to love it, I probably would anyway.

Thinking that there will probably be more Friday Favorites about Nathan Fillion until next time. -LJ

Friday Favorite – Louie Giglio and the Hubble Space Telescope

Posted on April 10, 2009April 8, 2009 by lizjohnson

I first saw Louie Giglio speak in person on the Indescribable Tour with Chris Tomlin. As you will likely guess, Chris was singing his song Indescribable and Louie … well, Louie was speaking about the magnitude of who God is. He used pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope to talk about how huge God is. When we consider that God spoke the heavens into existence (according to Isaiah) and then think about how massive they are, it’s pretty incredible the size of the God who still knows us each by name.

One of the things that Louie said that really stuck with me was that the heavens are created to bring glory to God. That the starry hosts tell His story and declare it to us. In honor of Good Friday and Easter this Sunday, I thought I’d share a couple pics from Hubble that tell the story of Jesus Christ.

But first, a quick note about Hubble and where I found these and you can find other amazing pictures of God’s creation: According to the official website www.hubblesite.org Hubble Space Telescope’s launch in 1990 sped humanity to one of its greatest advances in that journey. Hubble is a telescope that orbits Earth. Its position above the atmosphere, which distorts and blocks the light that reaches our planet, gives it a view of the universe that typically far surpasses that of ground-based telescopes. It has beamed hundreds of thousands of images back to Earth, shedding light on many of the great mysteries of astronomy.

Officially this is called "X" Structure at Core of Whirlpool Galaxy (M51). Unofficially, I call this amazing!

NASA, ESA and W. Harris (McMaster University, Ontario, Canada) FoxNews.com called this the Crown of Thorns Galaxy. Wow!

That Christ suffered the crown of thorns and the cross so that we could have forgiveness and life amazes me. I hope it amazes you this Easter too.

And because I love Louie too and he speaks truth, here’s a clip of the end of his Indescribable talk. It’s available on dvd along with several other great talks by him. Check out his cool Passion ministry here.

Just thankful for grace until next time. -LJ

Friday Favorite – My Boys

Posted on April 3, 2009April 2, 2009 by lizjohnson

First off, my apologies for being very unfaithful in posting this week. I will blame it on my writing retreat to Estes Park this last weekend. As previously confessed, I usually write my posts on the weekends, and I didn’t do that this weekend. So I missed my Monday Movie and a lot of really fun stuff that happened this week. But I’ll try to catch you up over the next several days.

Anyway, on to my Friday Favorite – My Boys!

If you think I’m talking about some guys friends, you obviously don’t know me very well. I haven’t had good guy friends since college. Man I miss having dudes around …

Anyway, My Boys is a sitcom on TBS, which just started its third season on Tuesday. It’s all about P.J. Franklin, a sports columnist in Chicago and her boys. There’s Mike, the guy who has no furniture in his home and strikes out with women at every turn. And, of course, Bobby, the adorable and very down to earth millionaire who happens to cover the Cubs for another Chicago paper. Brendan, who went to college with P.J. and is a recently fired DJ trying to open his own club. P.J.’s brother Andy, who is the only married one in the group finally fessed up in season 1 that his wife isn’t a domineering jerk–he just likes going home at 9 to spend time with his family and get to bed early. Last there’s Kenny, who we want to succeed so much, but he too has no luck with women or most things in life.

my-boys

What could be just another show about sports and just hanging out is instead the story of friendship at every level and the love between those friends. When they’re on a high, they celebrate together. They help each other out. And at the weekly poker game, they begin to take chances by opening up.

The third season opener started with a bang and probably one of the funniest contests yet (even better than when the boys decided they would make their own shirts). While standing around at Bobby’s wedding, Mike and Kenny and Brendan decide to have a mustache growing contest. When Andy learns that they’re each going to grow a ‘stache, he says, “Interesting … So even if you win, you lose.”

Amy and I started laughing so hard we had to pause it because we were missing some really great parts. Anyway, don’t miss this show! It’s great and so deserves a strong fan following. It has at least one. Me!

Until next time. -LJ

Header Right Box

Header Left Box