I recently learned that the word “slapdash” is a synonym for the word random.  After laughing about it for a while, the thought occurred to me that it would make a fabulous title for an ongoing blog series about completely random things.  One of the goals of our blog, along with sharing our work and giving our clients a way to share their photos with others, is to be able to document our personal lives and help our readers get to know us personally.  Well, up to this point, we’ve never been very good at the “personal” part :-(  Maybe it’s because we worry that people won’t really care?  (And maybe they really won’t – I don’t know.)  But if there’s one thing that Facebook and other forms of social networking have taught us, it’s that people just want to connect and sometimes that means finding common ground on the most mundane of topics.

So, in the interest of relationship building, personal disclosure, and overall slapdashery (yep, I think I just made up an awesome new word) – the first ever addition of Slapdash!

Movies are a big deal in the Gotcher house.  We have A LOT of them and watch A LOT of them.  No particular genre either – our taste is pretty much all over the board: comedy, drama, romance, action, classic black and white, even the occasional documentary.  In our house the true test of how much we liked a movie isn’t just based on our initial viewing.  The next day, one of us inevitably asks the other one, “So, did you think about [insert movie title here] today?”  (I tend to think about the previous night’s movie in the shower the next morning – not that you needed to know that.)

Recently, the movies that have been leaving the most lasting impression on us have been independent films.  There’s something so awesome about low-budget, film festival type movies that just blows the big name blockbusters out of the water.  It seems that when filmmakers don’t have the benefit of an actor who’s name can open a movie all by itself or the money for huge stunts and crazy special effects,  they have to get back to the heart of what makes movies so amazing – like story line and character development, making you actually FEEL something and THINK about something.

Here are two of our recent favorites you should totally check out:

Adam: An incredibly heartfelt love story of a man with Asperger’s Syndrome (a form of Autism), that falls in love with a woman who moves into his apartment building.  Not only is the story super charming and heart wrenching at the same time, the film does a great job of surrounding the central story line with supporting characters that have purpose and are thoughtfully written (a major drawback in a lot of movies.)

500 Days of Summer: If you’ve seen it already, SEE IT AGAIN.  Yes, it’s that awesome.  It’s a quirky, clever NON-love story that’s great on too many levels to describe.  And of course, Zooey Deschanel is in it – one of the few women Ryan would probably leave me for if given the chance and I would pretty much totally support his decision.

All kidding aside, check these movies out – they’re so great!  And you won’t walk away thinking, “Well that was two hours of my life I’ll never get back.”

A couple of shout outs to other random things that have made my life especially happy these last few weeks:

New Boots!: Ryan got me these AMAZING knee high boots for Christmas and I simply can NOT have a bad day when I’m wearing them!  (I couldn’t find a photo of my exact pair online, but this ought to give you an idea.  Mine have a slimmer heel and awesome detailing on the side and top – they’re way cuter actually!)

Apple TV: Ryan’s dad got us Apple TV for Christmas!  Yay!!!  Being the avid movie watchers that we are, it gives us access to tons of great movies without having to go to the video store (who does that anymore?) or wait for a Netflix movie to come in the mail.  We can just browse the selections and a great new movie is only a click away!  I also love that we can listen to all of our iTunes music and view photos on our big TV screen – so cool!

Twitter & TweetDeck: I have to admit, I’ve been a little lax in my Twitter duties for a few months, but with a little extra time in my schedule lately, I finally took the time to do a little Twitter clean up.  I’m now following a bunch of new awesome “tweeters” and I’ve unfollowed all the random people that I’ve unknowingly collected while I’ve had my account set to automatically follow everyone who follows me – big mistake!  Now that things are back in order, I’ve fallen in love with Twitter all over again :-)  TweetDeck, the ultimate desktop Twitter management tool has made this all much, much easier, although I have to admit that my productivity at the old day job has probably taken a bit of a hit with all those happy little notifications flying in all day.  If you want to follow me on twitter I’m @denisegotcher and Ryan is @ryangotcher.  We also have a Simply Knot Photos account @simplyknot, but we don’t update it quite as much as our personal ones.

Have a great week everybody!