Juno

Most “bucket lists” are filled with unique items, such as reading the literary classic "Moby Dick" or  “skydiving” (which is on my list) or “seeing the pyramids of ancient Egypt”…so…it is important for me to remind you this is a “Not Quite” a Bucket List. Which means, a number of items are simply things I just haven’t gotten around to doing. I’m quite confident I would die a happy woman with…or without…seeing Juno. Juno made the list because ever since the movie came out I’ve either heard people refer to it in conversation or people have told me I’d appreciate the humor…and generally speaking…enjoy the movie.

I think I mentioned it in another entry, but one of the things I like about this list is I don’t have any real plans for “how” or “when” I’ll go about accomplishing something. Over time, I decided if someone randomly organizes an outing/event incorporating one of my list items, then I “have” to do it.

What does that have to do with Juno? A few times a year, my church has a movie night after the evening service. Since Sunday night is “family dinner night” I generally don’t attend. However, when I heard the next movie was Juno…I knew I’d have to break the disappointing news to my family that they’d have to eat dinner sans-Holley.

Honestly, I don’t have too much to say about the movie itself. I enjoyed it. I appreciated the quick wit of Juno and some of the other characters. The movie itself is kind of slow so the trade off was good character development. The movie is about a 16 yr old girl (Juno) who gets pregnant and decides to put the baby up for adoption. Throughout the movie, Juno bounces back and forth between her own chaotic/messy family and the prim and proper soon to be adoptive parents. SPOILER ALERT….In the end Juno’s chaotic/messy family exemplifies unconditional love and the prim and proper adoptive parents turn out to be the “messy” ones.

The post-movie discussion focused on the fact that the gospel message is all around us. More specifically it’s not found only in Christian music, art, books, etc. All of us are “Junos” in the sense that we make mistakes, are a little awkward at times, and may have some "messes" in our life, BUT just like Juno’s family loved her unconditionally, we too are loved by our Father in Heaven.

In short, I’m glad I saw Juno, but it wasn’t life changing or anything.

Oh, for those of you wondering...so far I've completed 7 of my "non-bucket list" items.…almost 25% completed.  A few other things (i.e. marathon training) are in the works, but have yet to be completed...