Out of the Wilderness

It got all New Englandy on the gulf coast of north Florida recently. It was absolutely beautiful. I was really pumped to get my camera out before the sun burned off the fog. Here are a few photos from that day.

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Thanks for dropping in…

-Out of the Wilderness

Welcome to Out of the Wilderness! If this is your first time stopping by, check out a few of the pages to see what my writing is all about. And of course, thank you for reading along. In 2020, I posted a blog every single day and I continued that through 2021, also.

The trend’s going to continue this year, too, so you’ve actually read all my blogs for 2022 already. But there are 364 to come, so stay tuned. When I was thinking about what I should write about this year — more of the same, find a specific subject to focus on, include more photos, etc — I was also thinking what I want 2022 to look like for me in general. It’s also because the new year basically lines up with me turning a year older (birthday is December 26th) so it’s easy to have thoughts about life at the same time as what we call “new year’s resolutions.”

To set up what my theme will be for 2022 (age 43), I will confess one of my biggest fears as an adult is unrealized potential. Wouldn’t it really stink to reach the end of our lives and think there was more we could’ve done? So instead of assuming that’s what will happen, this year is about: taking chances, making hard choices if they come up, rolling with the changes, pursuing good things (and by “good” I mean healthy, positive, divine), stretching myself in the areas I enjoy most to see what my limits are. To sum all of that up, the theme for 2022 is…

FULL POTENTIAL.

I hope you accomplish things you want to this year, realizing your potential is even more than you think, more than what anyone tells you, and you can be part of significant things. That’s what I will be reminding myself of, too, and it will be fun 12 months from now to look back and see all what’s been done.

Gosh, I didn’t mean to get so heavy on the first day of the year, but then again…why not? Hope your new year starts off well.

Chat soon…

-Out of the Wilderness

My family is excited to watch the playoffs game this afternoon. Just like everyone who’s not already an Alabama fan, we’re anti-Alabama big time tonight! It just so happens that Cincinnati is the team opposing them, so we’re rooting for Cincinnati. Hopefully the game will be fun to watch, but to sweeten it up a bit we created a bingo board we’ll play throughout the football game. The board is attached below, but first here’s the list filling out the 24 squares. Feel free to copy these (we found most of them on other sites, as well), and have some bingo fun of your own!

Bingo squares:

Cincinnati touchdown

50+ yard play

Do your ownnTD victory dance

First down

Nick Saban angry

Alabama touchdown

Field goal made

Stadium design talk

Alabama turnover

Mentions everything is bigger in Texas

Mentions Nick Sabans houses

Alabama winning at half time

Cincinnati scores first in second half

Insurance commercial

Fan with no shirt on

Cincinnati turnover

Referees mic doesn’t work

Either mascot does literally anything

Plate sob story

Alabama band performs on tv

Field goal made

Beer commercial

Mentions Luke Fickles family

Truck commercial

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Thanks for stopping by!

-Out of the Wilderness

Against what my body was telling me (which was, “go to sleep!”), I stayed up to watch Minari because my brother-in-law and niece were excited to watch it. Granted, it was only around 915pm but what can I say, I was being an tired old grinch. Also, though, I was still feeling the affects of Covid so sleep seemed like good medicine.

I said, “I’ll give it 10 minutes,” and if I was still interested I’d watch. I wasn’t pumped the movie was 116 minutes and I figured after 10 minutes I’d shuffle off to bed.

Well, dang it, we connected an actor (Steven Yeun, who I liked in “The Walking Dead”) to “The Walking Dead” and I felt myself get a little more invested in the movie.

Also right off the bat, the young actor who plays the son, David, was the most adorable kid. Just wait till you see him in his little cowboy boots.

Then the grandma shows up and I’ll just say this, between her and the young boy, you’ll be laughing and rooting them on for the rest of the movie. In other words, I stayed up for all 116 minutes, and that includes about 15 minutes of an internet outage delay. 😬

I recently read a YouTube comment about the film saying it’s a feel-good movie. I wouldn’t call it that; there is more heartache than there are heartstrings being pulled. But I’ll say this in regards to what I enjoyed, even with all the setbacks the family faced – I love the humor, the raw emotion (in some of the arguments), the natural dialogue (flowing in and out of Korean and English), and the way the actors seemed to be working off of a loose script. It all just seemed so genuine, as if it was a documentary of a real family vs. actors reciting memorized dialogue. You know when it just seems like there aren’t things you can script? I’m thinking of when the son is trying to peal the banana. It’s a great but quick scene.

So the most important question, is it worth watching? For the wonderful acting, yes. But if you’re looking for a movie that will cheer you up or one you don’t necessarily need to pay detailed attention to, this is not the one.

If you watch it, or have already seen it, leave a comment below with your thoughts!

Thanks for stopping by…

-Out of the Wilderness