Paradise

If this doesn't describe my state of mind, I don't know what does. 

Addicted to it.

When she was just a girl

She expected the world

But it flew away from her reach

So she ran away in her sleep

Dreamed of para- para- paradise

Para- para- paradise

Para- para- paradise

Every time she closed her eyes

When she was just a girl

She expected the world

But it flew away from her reach

And the bullets catch in her teeth

Life goes on

It gets so heavy

The wheel breaks the butterfly

Every tear, a waterfall

In the night, the stormy night

She closed her eyes

In the night, the stormy night

Away she'd fly.

And dreamed of para- para- paradise

- Coldplay

Where did she go?

Where did she go? The innocent, cheerful girl, who started this blog seven years ago. Who thought that nothing was impossible in this world. Who was too romantic to believe in practicality. Who wanted to travel the world, travel to a new country and make a mark there. Who was little enough to not really understand what responsibility means but old enough to think she was responsible. Who was truly happy, without thinking too much about what happiness really means, where it really stems from. Whose world was wrapped up in her friends.

Where did she go?

I wish she had stayed. I wish she had never left. But no matter how deep I search within myself, I cannot find her. Worse, I can't even find a way to bring her back. Everyone says, life keeps moving forward. I'm not sure if that's necessarily a good thing. I want my life to move backwards, to a simpler time, a simpler life.

4 weeks ago, on a Sunday my mom told me, she had been seeing my father's heart doctor and is going to have to have a heart procedure urgently. That Thursday, when she told me it was scheduled for Saturday, I was sitting on the plane that afternoon, on my way. I have never felt so scared, so lonely in my life. The roles reversed. Suddenly, I had to grow up and be what my mom is always to me. A rock, a support, the grown up. The girl, seven years ago would have spilled out all her fears and the thoughts that went through her mind here. Me, I am too scared to even think them again.

Ever since I came back to the US, I have been waiting to feel normal again. Even though things went fine, and my mother is better now, I can't seem to get back on track. Nothing helps. I feel disinterested in any and everything. Mostly, I feel angry. If I am not angry, I feel depressed. I don't feel like doing anything. I don't even know why. I guess I do know why. Such vulnerability in life has left me shaken, and I can't seem to get out of it.

Please bear with me, as I try to steer my life, my mind and my heart to a regular rhythm. Please keep my mom in your thoughts and prayers.

Hope

Reading real life stories like this one, make me feel a warm glow inside me. I feel, slowly but steadily, we can bring about a revolution in our country. I know there is still so much to be done, but one day at a time, one child at a time, I do believe we can get to and go above our potential!

Sponsorship along with support from the family (probably most important) helped them become self-sufficient and pursue a happy life!

I sponsor a child and I am really proud of her! She sends me the sweetest letters every Eid and Diwali. I see her pictures every year, and in just 2 years I have seen her transform from a chubby child to a beautiful pre-teen, ready to spread out her wings and fly high! She loves to paint, and languages are her favorite subject in school. I sometimes day-dream about her becoming a writer, or a famous artist! But most of all, I pray for a healthy, happy and independent life for her.

If you have the means, I urge you to consider it. There is nothing more satisfying...

Edited to Add: Through Children's International, you can sponsor a child's education anywhere in the world (not just India). Helping any child anywhere to become educated and independent, is welcomed. This is not a sponsored post, this issue is just close to my heart and hence the post. 

Broken thoughts..

Darkness and cold. Lost and lonely. Desperate and hopeful. Distance and doubts. Sad and strong. Brave and defiant. Submissive and devoted. Prayers and faith. Bargaining with Him. Arguing and Negotiating.

Love. Family. Life.

The ironies that aren't funny!

My brother, who lives in a developing economy comes home from work at 10 pm, and sis-in-law who works from home finishes at 10.30, can walk into the living room and have food readily prepared on the dining table.

M &I, who work (and currently live) in a developed economy, come home from work at 9.30 pm and have nothing to eat.

Some ironies aren't that funny ha? Don't feel sorry for us though. We did have some "theplas" in the freezer that we were able to enjoy! ;)

In some other news - the weekend blended into this week so quickly, I did not even realize! This is going to be a long, busy week. But I am going to try my best to not bring home work this coming weekend! Touch wood. I just realized, that there are only 3900 weekends (out of which almost half are gone). I am determined to make the best of remaining 2000 I have left! 

Snippets of my (very random) thoughts

I feel really proud when my American colleagues travel to India for work and always describe their experience as amazing/scary. I am sure they are being kind to me, and that traveling to India evokes many more emotions in them - like pity of poverty, fear of traffic, flabbergasted(-ness) at the number of people, and many many more. Why do I feel proud? Every time someone tells me that, I remember this incident that happened to my sister. Born and raised in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, when she went for an MBA-entrance interview for a high end college in Mumbai, she was asked this question (no doubt by some snotty Mumbaikar, who thought everything starting from Borivali and the rest of the India is nothing but so-called "backward"  India) - "Why should we admit you to this school? Coming from a small town (since when Indore is "small", I have no idea, cos I always feel lost there) to Mumbai, how do you think you shall cope?". My sister, a proud Malwi, answered - "because, the difference between me and Mumbaikars is, I can come here and learn your ways, easily fit into the fast life, but if one of you were to go and try the same in Indore, you wouldn't stand a chance". Ha.

You can't be everywhere, and you can't do everything. It's that simple, and yet my mind refuses to understand this simple piece of information. I feel extremely stressed right now. Since Tuesday, my housekeeping started going down the hill. By Friday, the sink was overflowing with dirty utensils, the bedroom was covered in clothes lying everywhere, the dining table was full of "stuff", and the couches were all a big mess of cushions, throws, papers, measuring tape(?) and remote controls. I have not swept the house for 2 weeks now. Don't even get me started on the bathroom. AND I have a LOT of work stuff to catch up to this weekend. On the bright side though, I went to the Gym twice this week and spend some quality time with M yesterday.

Me: Shruti, you can't be everywhere, and you can't do everything!!
Me: I know, but I cannot live in this mess, but I also don't want to spend the entire weekend cleaning, and working.
Me: Just suck it up... 

Gentlemen who golf

"She figured out early what every man with a corner office has long known: To make it to the top, you need a wife. If that wife happens to be a husband, and increasingly it is, so be it."

"Seven of the 18 women who are currently CEOs of Fortune 500 companies—including Xerox’s (XRX) Ursula Burns, PepsiCo’s (PEP) Indra Nooyi, and WellPoint’s (WLP) Angela Braly—have, or at some point have had, a stay-at-home husband."

"At-home dads are sometimes perceived as freeloaders, even if they’ve lost jobs. Or they’re considered frivolous kept men—gentlemen who golf."

Says this article. Although it may, on the surface look like a good way of repentance for men, the question begs to be asked - Isn't this creating the same problem all over again, but this time with men? Won't there be a generation of men, sometime in the future, struggling to find their feet in the woman's world, while trying to manage household stuff at the same time. And even though at some level, my evil self would love to see it happen, to be completely fair - it's not fair. Is it not possible for both spouses to have a high-flying career AND a life AND a family? Is that really too much to ask?

I think what needs to happen, and what is slowly but surely taking place is, both need to own equal parts of the responsibility of earning the moolah, but also taking care of family and home. If that is not possible or feasible, then something about our attitude needs to change that makes the person who stays at home feel like this - 

"Caring for children all day and doing housework is tiring, unappreciated work that few are cut out for—and it leaves men and women alike feeling isolated and diminished."

Staying at home and taking care of children, is also what my mother did, and I respect and appreciate her for that. That is an important job, important enough to leave a job that pays, and it deserves it's due respect. But what is that change that needs to be made to make the person (man or woman) who now does a full time job of caring for home with no weekends, or paid vacation, feel the significance that they deserve?

Thoughts?

Check!

Hola! Hope you guys had a nice weekend! I did!

This weekend, I am proud to say I was able to check off one more thing off my list! You guys must feel so irritated by me, cos I have been going on about the list for like ever. Well, like I mentioned, I am obsessive. And the item I crossed off this weekend has been on my things-to-do list ever since we moved here. So yeah,  for almost a year now. What, I just have been really busy being lazy.Anyyway, lets focus on the positive, that this project has finally seen the daylight.

So let's get right down to what I finally accomplished -

Find and install a "devghar"
I was hoping to finally go went to Target and get got a small shelf to hang under the kitchen cupboards, but that never happened!

That was probably confusing to read ha? Basically, long story short, I finally got my sweet behind to Target and bought a small shelf that will fit on the wall under the cabinets and not block my microwave.
Take a look!

And I am not trying to show off but I also managed to check this off - Finally donate the stack of books set aside to be donated a few months ago
That too on a weekday! Thanks to a very helpful friend. To my utter disappointment, the library refused to take all the books, so I had to recycle some. Such a shame.

And just so you guys don't think I have turned into a total religious nutso, I want to share some awesome ideas I wish I had found, before I created my photowall -

My Photo Wall

I did not search online at all when I thought of doing this, but I wish I had cos I found some pretty classy ways of making a photo wall, much better than clipping some photos to a ribbon. Oh well, the good thing is I can always take my photos and implement these ideas -

 Make A Stylish Photo Frame For Several Photos

Decorate A Boring Blank Wall With Photo Mosaic

DIY: Cheap and Easy Photo Wall

Very easy and affordable ideas! Love them! :)

Faith

I woke up this morning, and grew up a little. Usually, I listen to pandora or dhingana.com while getting ready for work. This morning, I found it too inappropriate to listen to "Ooh la la", in the face of a beautiful sun rise. Instead I searched for bhajans and bhaav geet and listened to those. I was never a big fan, but today the soothing sound, restored a little bit of faith I had lost recently.

While growing up, I remember waking up to the sound of bhajans many times, as both my parents though not deeply devotional in a conventional way, are very spiritual. Although I didn't fully appreciate it then, it maybe the most pleasant thing to wake up to. Especially when the mind is full of chaos.

One of my favorites is this one by Ajay-Atul, sung by Shankar Mahadevan -

Words are not enough

What do you say to someone you're close to when they are in so much pain, that you can practically feel it half-way across the world? No words can ever convey the way your heart wrenches, every time you think about them. All I have been doing is having conversations in my head so far, and even those don't go well. Even in my head, I am not able to express the grief I feel, or make them feel any better. All I can do to keep breathing, when I feel I will choke myself thinking why it has happened, is remember what my Mom told me - "We are too close to the picture to understand why anything happens. He knows what's best for us because only He can see the big picture."

Some one very close to me is going through a really tough time. It's extremely unfair and they don't deserve it, nobody does. Please keep them in your prayers and thoughts.

Bedroom fun!

This isn't what you think. I am not going to reveal funny stories (or any other story) of M & me from the "bedroom", not that anything funny has ever even happened. Really. No funny business. And before I completely bury myself into this self-dug-grave, let me start over. Remember I promised to bring you glimpses of my home, when I showed you my kitchen. Well, here's more of the series. Before I get into the "good" stuff, a lil background is in order - I am obsessive. Most of the time, my obsessions are short lived. But sometimes they become a part of me. That’s what has happened with me and my home.

These days (since several months), I obsess about my apartment being clean and organized. I love coming up with creative and less-expensive ideas to keep my home organized and make it more beautiful. Furniture is expensive in the US, and furniture shops (read ikea) are really far. It is impossible to buy stuff without spending a boat load of cash. It is even less possible to have it custom made, cos that might lead to bankruptcy. People DIY here. I was skeptical with the idea of it. Painting chairs myself? Are you kidding? But then I had some free time and nothing to do at one point in my life. I got into it, and have been in love with it ever since! I am still learning, but I love my projects (even the ones that failed).  This is one of the projects that I finished in April last year.

We had just moved to our new apartment in March and the older bedside tables (ikea lack table) were not working in this new space. I did not want to spend too much money buying new ones, cos well they are expensive (even $25/table makes it $50). I decided to wait and do some research, look at some pictures and see if I could think of a solution. I looked at this picture and loved the minimalist bedside shelves -

Source

I wanted to do something similar, and I took a trip to ikea (disclaimer: I just love the store, I don't get paid to write ikea so many times on my blog, though it wouldn't hurt :>). I was browsing through the store when I saw this - 

Source

I bought two of these at $6.99 each. Bought a stain color (can't remember which),  that matched our existing bed, a polyurethane can and a paint brush, all of which must have cost around $12. And then I went to work. I stained the box with at least 3 layers of stain between drying (it's a thin ply so it kept soaking up the stain) and two layers of polyurethane. At this site, I had read the tip of sanding between coats, which really worked. I hung them on each side, along with some cute lamps and ended up with this - 

Moving right on (past the crinkly bedsheet) - our bed does not have a headboard, cos when M bought this bed (it's his originally), for his "bachelor pad", he thought this one looked very manly (Men!). To add some color and interest I bought this, cos I love maps, this is what our bed area looks like now -

I love it! That fact that the bedside tables cost a total of $26, and the fact that I love them more cos I DIYed them adds to all the fun! :)

I have some favorite sites that I read everyday (like this, this, this and this), and they inspire me. These sites are also where I learned how to paint, decorate, organize etc (I didn't know the first thing about even holding a paint brush) and get most of my ideas here! The learning process continues and there is a long way to go. And these are my proud baby steps :)

That's all from my bedroom for now!

Everyday life and a beautiful thought

Yesterday evening I read this. When I went home I told M (in almost an accusatory tone of what have you done?) "You know one of the blogs I read, her boyfriend (now husband) came all the way from US to India for one day just so he could be with her on her birthday". M, completely understanding my implication, without a pause said "Don't you mean her boyfriend *went* all the way from US to India for one day just so he could be with her on her birthday"? 

And now that the daily dose of amusement from my life is over, this wonderful blogger (who also happens to be one of my coolest aunts) sent me this, saying she read this and thought of wishing us :) - 

"May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself."

Made my day!

Wordpress or Blogger?

I was trying out Wordpress today for fun. I moved all my posts there. I thought I would get so much more sophistication with Wordpress, but I really didn't. Or maybe I am just not used to it yet!

Also it seems to have screwed up the formatting of my blogger posts :(

I have a question to all the wordpress users out there - why do you use it? do you like it? what do you like about it?

I need heeelp!

Taking stock

I made a list of things to accomplish in my 10 day holiday, (which is now very very sadly coming to an end) and I want to thank the blogosphere, cos if it weren't for the fear of losing face in front of the blog world, I wouldn't have done even one of these. But I am proud to say that I was able to cross off a lot in this list. Let's see shall we?

1. Sew the button on M's jacket, fix the zipper on it too
It took me only 8 months and 15 minutes to finally do this!

2. Find and install a "devghar"
I was hoping to go to Target and get a small shelf to hang under the kitchen cupboards, but that never happened!

3. Buy a new mattress
Went to ikea and bought one, and also a new comforter (and a bunch of other stuff ;))

4. Finally donate the stack of books set aside to be donated a few months ago
Hopefully soon!

5. Finish painting letter 'S' and hang it somewhere
This too!

6. Figure out a way to DIY frames for inspirational cards I've been collecting, and find a place to hang them
Bought frames from ikea, cos they are so darn cheap there, and hung them too. The cards say - "Be Colorful", "It's a world of possibilities" and "Be Bright". All of these are marketing cards from AT&T, Vera Bradley, that I have been saving to frame and hang some inspiration around the home! I finally decided to hang them in the bedroom over the drawers.

This last one was a greeting card of some sort. It has Ganesha face on it, that I hung in kitchen! :)

7. Vaccum the entire house (yes, it's been a couple of weeks since I did that :( )
Done!

8. Craiglist some extra furniture lying around the house
Now just waiting for buyers to pour in!

9. Sleep a lot
I kind of went above and beyond on this one ;)


10. Go to the library and borrow some books and finish reading them
I cheated on this a lil bit, I borrowed from the digital libary, so didn't technically "go" anywhere and still reading the books -

11. Hang a clock in every room
I tried to do this one, and could not find the spare clocks I thought I had :(


12. Watch episodes of "The Dewarists"
I was too busy doing number 9 most of the time, never got to this one..haha


I did some other stuff too, that was not on my list - 
- Threw a New Year's Eve party at my place complete with the decorations and party hats!
- Made a photo wall for "the year that was" as a tribute to the first year of my marriage that ended yesterday (the first year, not the marriage). Yes, my anniversary is on January 1st. There are photos for each month signifying what we did that month. Everyone was really amused with it in the party!

- Celebrated my anniversary, by going to a nice Moroccan restaurant where we enjoyed - delicious food, some awkward moments cos a belly dancer came and danced at each table (mostly on my part, M & the dancer seemed very comfortable) and some mind-blowing music! We also went to a fondue place to enjoy some molten chocolate dipped goodies! During the day we enjoyed a 3-hour Siesta after partying till late the previous night! 
Sidenote - When I told one of my friends, she seemed disappointed with how we spent our day. I asked her, what did you think we would do, bunjee-jumping, and she said yea, something more exciting than dinner. Ahhh, the naivety of being single ;)
This is us, ready to go out and have fun - 

And here's the amazing belly dancer teaching me some moves - 

That's all from me to account for the holidays and the new year. All in all, I think they were very well spent! How was the new year's eve and the new year for you?

Happy New Year!

I did not want to make any resolutions this year. They don't last for me. I make lists and forget about them. Remember I made the list of things to do in the 10 days holiday. I haven't done even half of them! But I did do some other things, so why bother making more lists to not stick to. Instead I only have a few wishes!

Here's to a healthy and happy year! Have fun guys, see you next year!

Weird alert

Before I get into that - Merry Christmas! Hope you had a wonderful holiday weekend :)

And now for the actual post. So, I saw a random tag going around the Blogosphere and decided to pick it up! The tag is to list weirdest things about your other half (I like to think I'm the better of the two halves, hence the use of "other". I tried to think of ways to put this in less boastful sounding statement, but then again why hide the real me from you. Our (you-blog world and me) relationship is based on trust and the truth is - sometimes I show-off).

Thankfully, M won't be doing this tag, cos I bet he will have more weird things on me, than I have on him (Like - she is strangely delusional about how awesome she is).

I think the original tag was just listing facts, and somewhere along the way "weirdest" got added to it. I am fine with it either way! ;)

Anyway, enough chit-chat. Here we go -
1. M can break into the most random songs that he is the lyricist as well as the composer of. Like yesterday, I was mad at him and after some back and forth on the peace treaty, he went into the kitchen to heat up frozen Rotis for us and promptly broke into a - "She really hates me right noooooow....but she really loves meeeee...so what should I dooooo". I sat outside listening to it, trying not to laugh. This is not the first time, in the span of 3 years I have heard counless such compositions, that make no sense and range from cute to super annoying.To me that's really weird...Who does that?

2. M doesn't know how to tie his shoelaces. Or to be more specific, how to tie his shoe laces for one of the shoes. I swear, every time we are walking to some place just one of his shoe's laces will come undone every 5 minutes.

3. M is super scared of canines. Even little puppies.

4. He looks different in every photograph. Not kidding. If I go back to see his pictures for the 3.5 years we have been together, I cannot find one picture that looks the same as the other. My friends and parents had a hard time picturing what he looks like before they met him cos his pictures are so drastically different.

5. Crazy fan of SRK. Like worse than even teenage girls are for Twilight. He was excited for Don 2 for more than a year I think. I am afraid to watch the movie with him, in case he squeals in excitement when SRK first appears.

And now I will go and hide somewhere until M can forget that I "exposed" him so openly to the blog world. In my defense, I was feeling lazy and couldn't think of anything else to write about! I am sure everyone has already done this tag, but if you have not, feel free to pick it up! I would love to read it...

PS: Yesterday, we took a trip to ikea and I snapped pictures of some cool ideas! Will share them with you very soon!

I want to remember every moment

Dear Husband,

I want to remember every moment of my life with you. I probably won't. I will probably only remember the special few, but I don't want to forget yesterday evening's everydayness, that I keep wanting to go back to.

You did not want me to drive to work, cos I was not feeling well. You thought I wouldn't be able to drive back. I wasn't so sure myself. I went anyway, and when I reached work I knew I wasn't feeling up to driving back in the evening. I asked you to take a train, 20 miles outside the city to come meet me and drive us both home. You said yes, without a moment's hesitation. And we had the best time. We went to your favorite Indian Restaurant. I like the food there, but the service always manages to drive me nuts. As it did yesterday, when the waiter told us we were ordering too much food for two people - Mirchi Bhajji, Uttapam, Daal Tadka, Goat Biryani, and Lassi. Okay, I agree, it was too much food, it always is. But I don't like to be told that. But you did not even care, and we got into our usual discussion about who is right - me or you! The restaurant was playing old hindi songs on the TV and we watched them together, sitting on the same side of the table. Me singing along the songs and you saying things that I did not know how to respond to, so I just sat there amused.

We had useless discussions about work, what kind of people are good dancers, gossiped about our family, and friends. It was hilarious. I had the best time. The drive that seems to go on forever everyday, got over too soon with you. And I am afraid, our life will pass me by too quickly in your company, and I won't even notice. Well, I guess that's the whole point. But at least I know I will have a good time. Life will keep throwing curveballs, and we will keep going through ups and downs. And, I am glad I will have you by my side, through everything. And I know you will always be there to drive me home.

Love,
Just same ol' me

Thoughts to live by!

Source

Source

Source

Source

Source

No Title

I am sorry people, I cannot think of anything to write here. My thoughts are pre-occupied by a mouse. A pest *says with great disgust* that has plagued my thoughts. Yesterday morning, I was making coffee in the kitchen when it ran OVER my feet. YUCK. DISGUSTING. I went to get mouse traps the same evening while coming back from work. It has not been caught yet.

I am going to be wearing boots around the home till it gets caught.

PS: Sorry to have ruined your day with the disgusting image. I am so disgusted, I want to run away!

Genre I don't normally enjoy

In recent times (which can range from anywhere between last week to last year), I have started to enjoy a new genre - violence. Did I just make it up, or is that really a category? Who knows..

This year, I read trilogies of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and "The Hunger Games".

Until now I have been into mysteries, but more of the quieter tone like - Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot by Agatha Christie or subtle ones from Jeffery Archer. Occasionally, I also enjoy me some Dan Brown. I love reading legal dramas by Jodi Picoult (My Sister's Keeper etc.), or emotional dramas like - The Help, or even some light-reads like Chetan Bhagat or Mitch Albom. But I have never been into Science Fiction (which is what some people consider Hunger Games), or a disturbing fiction like - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. And I was surprised to note that I really enjoyed these books. So much to the point that I could not wait to read the second and third books of both series. Lets talk about them a little bit, shall we?

Embarrassingly, I was more into "The Hunger Games" trilogy than I care to admit, cos it's targeted audience is teenagers, which I clearly am not. In my defense, I was a little annoyed with the love triangle at times. But the plot blew my mind away. Read it if you haven't. I promise you will not be able to stop at the first book. The premise is (and I am not giving anything away, it's all on the back of the book) - In the post-apocalyptic future, North America is a nation called Panem consisting of 13 districts, and ruled by The Capitol. Some decades before the story begins, the districts have an uprising and they rebel against the Capitol. The Capitol wins, completely destroying one of the districts in the process. The outcome of the uprising is - Hunger Games, where a girl and a boy between the ages of 12 & 18 from each of the remaining 12 districts are sent into an arena, where they must fight each other to death, until there is only one left - the winner of the Hunger Games. When I heard about this book, I was shocked to hear, there could be books like these out there and people could actually be reading them. But in the end, everyone around me was reading it (including my manager and my book club) and I buckled under the pressure. I read it and it was a very interesting and engrossing read.

Now - "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" trilogy, was a completely different type of book, thankfully targeted towards adults. It's well written, and even though I did not relate to any of the characters, I was absorbed by the story completely. The main character (you know - the girl...with the tattoo...of a dragon), was disturbing, intriguing and amazing at the same time. I think the Swedish names in the book, was a detail that I really loved. Random but interesting to me. Not to say that I did not enjoy the plot. I did. It is at times disgusting and terrifying, but very exciting! It is very intricate and detailed, and though I enjoyed reading it, I don't think I should attempt to describe it. In short, it's a story of a girl who also happens to have a dragon tattoo (ha ha).

And the point is (yes, I was trying to make one when I started writing this post, even thought it seems like I lost it somewhere along the way) - Although I don't usually enjoy reading about or watching violence (and both these books have a fair amount), I am glad I was able to explore it through these books. Change is not easy for me, and I am glad I was able to expand my horizon just a little bit more.

I am not usually into movies made from books (even though I always watch them, to compare), but I am really looking forward to watching the movies for both these books! The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (starring Daniel Craig (James Bond) and Rooney Mara (from the The Social Network)) comes out today, and The Hunger Games sometime early next year! Can't wait!
Sidenote - The only book-based movie that I thought was as good as the book - "The Help".

Has anyone read either of these trilogies? Did you like them?