Lisa R. Howeler's Blog, page 51

February Favorites: movie impression of Amelie

Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I had planned to write about our favorite movies this month and then she took a blogging break and it was a break that I realized I needed to because I’ve been spreading myself way too thin lately.

Erin has mentioned the movie Amelie a few times in the last year or so as being one of her favorite movies so this past weekend I suggested that I watch it since she was already watching it with her hubby and that we write about it today.

She, of course, readily agreed.

Amelie, for those not familiar, is a French film – so yes, I had to read subtitles because I am not fluent in French. It is about a young waitress who was raised by introverted parents who thought she was sick as a child and kept her inside most of her life. It was released in 2001 and the full name of the movie in France is The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain. Audrey Tautuo plays Amelie. It is directed by Jean Pierre Jeunet.

When she grows up she is very imaginative and begins to work behind the scenes to improve the lives of others. In the process, she might even improve her own. She begins to help others to combat her own loneliness.

This is a very quirky film with quirky camera angles and quirky writing and acting. Quirky is not a bad term in my book, in case you are wondering. I am a fan of quirky.

What is quirky about the film?

The writing, the camera angles, as I mentioned above and in how the narrator talks in present tense for part of the movie and then Amelie breaks the third wall to talk to us about her life in just one scene and then it is back to the narrator. I love when movies break “the rules” so to speak and breaking the third wall is one of those ways. If you don’t know what breaking the third wall means, it is when a character looks directly at the camera and speaks to the audience.

The movie features beautiful, vintage scenery throughout. The backgrounds are picturesque in an urban art style and the entire movie has a slight yellow tone like vintage film to give it a warm feeling. The main colors in the film (green, yellow, and red) are inspired by the paintings of the Brazilian artist Juarez Machado, according to IMDb.

Stories weave in and out of the main narrative of Amelie’s life, starting with her search to find the owner of a small box of mementos she finds in the wall in her bathroom and continuing when she works to return a book of photos from photo booths around the city so she can meet the man who collects the photos.

Each story is a life that Amelie touches and improves and each time she feels more alive and less isolated. Each character she interacts with is also strange and a bit eccentric, and the camera angles exaggerate these facts and the intricacies of Amelie’s imagination. She works to improve the lives of everyone around her, including her father who she encourages to travel the world by sending him photographs of his gnome in different locations around the world.

Eventually, helping others will inspire her to bring happiness to her own life.

There is only one person whose life she sort of messes with as revenge, but he deserves it. Trust me. And harassing him helps to improve the life of another person so it sort of evens out.

According to a couple of sources online, Jeunet said he originally wrote the role of Amélie for the English actress Emily Watson.  Watson didn’t speak strong French, however, and then she started shooting Gosford Park instead. Jeunet then rewrote the screenplay for a French actress. The film was shot in Paris for the most part with some studio shots filmed in Germany.

Tautou was nominated for a BAFTA for Best Actress for her role. She was 24 when the film was released.

Trivia on IMbD states that graffiti and trash had to be cleared from shots in Paris to keep the film’s fantastical feeling. This was sometimes a difficult task for staff.

Amelie has a 90 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which is a good thing if you don’t know. People love it, in other words. The movie was made into a musical on Broadway in 2015 and it was rereleased this year in theaters for Valentine’s Day. I have no idea if the musical was any good or not.

The movie is definitely fantastical – and a bit bizarre in places, to me, but not so bizarre that it’s creepy. More like whimsical bizarre. Not sure if that makes sense to some but it does in my brain.

One review I read of this on Rotten Tomatoes summed up some of my feelings about the movie: “I feel like it’s a beautiful love letter to the introverts out there with wonderfully magical imaginations who find it hard to connect to people in real life.”

This was a unique film that I don’t think I would have watched on my own, or discovered at all if it wasn’t for Erin’s suggestion. I will warn anyone offended by some sex and language, that this is a rated R movie. Neither is extreme but it still resulted in a R rating.

 I know Erin will have a lot more to share about it in her post, which you can find here: https://crackercrumblife.com/2024/02/15/february-favorites-movie-thoughts-amelie/

Have you ever seen Amelie? What was your impression of it?

Remembering Blockbuster

The year was probably 1994 (I don’t know. I’m a bit old. I can’t remember.) when my brother took me to the Mecca of video rental stores – Blockbuster. It was actually amazing we had one near us since we grew up in a very tiny town in Pennsylvania. It was about half an hour from us, but not such a bad drive really. It was located in a strip mall that now has seen better days with most of the stores gone and the parking lot a pothole haven.

(Not me in the photo *wink*)

If I remember right, I wanted to find a romance and he was probably looking for an action movie or maybe a foreign film. He watched a few foreign films and made me watch them at times. They were pretty good but I wasn’t a fan of reading subtitles back then. I’m better with it now.

Back then we would never have imagined we’d one day be able to download or stream our movies right from our TV. I mean, we didn’t even have cable at our house because the cable company refused to come to us since we were “in the middle of nowhere.” We had four channels brought into our TV by an old-fashioned wire hanger-style antenna on the back porch that Dad had to shift sometimes to get a better signal.

Yes, I am that old. Okay, I’m really not, but we were that poor.

Walking into Blockbuster back then was a bit overwhelming for this sheltered country girl but I loved walking up the rows and looking at all the different movies.

I’m not definite about this but I think the first time I watched the Irish movie Into The West was from a Blockbuster rental. Did you ever see that movie? It’s about two Irish boys who travel with a horse across Ireland after their dad, who is grieving their mother, hits rock bottom and tells them they have to get rid of this horse they found. That’s a very short version of what the movie is about, of course, but it is very good.

I also think it might be where my brother rented The Princess Bride for us to watch for the first time.

The movies weren’t the only thing that was tempting at Blockbuster. They had candy, sodas, and stuffed animals. I’m sure I bought some candy but never the stuffed animals because my mom always said I had enough and my brother said I was too old for such things by then. Little did they know that even as an adult I was buying stuffed animals and still cuddle many of them to this day.

Blockbuster sold all its corporate-owned stores in 2014. It no longer grants franchises to anyone but at one time there were 50 privately-owned stores. As of today, there is only one official Blockbuster store left open in the United States and it is in Bend Oregon, and is a popular tourist attraction, selling more merchandise than video rentals.

Do you remember renting videos at Blockbuster back in the day? What movies were you looking for when you visited?

Sunday Bookends: The irony of complaining about books with no plots, nice warm weather (for now), and mystery shows

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what the rest of the family and I have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.

This week I’m joining up with  Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer , Deb at  Readerbuzz,  and Kathyrn at  The Book Date.

What’s Been Occurring

After I wrote my post yesterday about how nice the weather was this past week and how we finally had some sun, the sky opened up yesterday afternoon and it started to rain. Not a ton, but still, it put an end to our sunny streak. That was sad but I was grateful we actually had sun last week. The people in our area are super pale and sad from the lack of sun right now. Some day I am going to write an autobiography and that will be in the running for the title: Super Pale And Sad. Other candidates are Lost in The Corners of My Mind and Always on the Edge of Chaos.

I stole that last one from our local library director who looked at me with empty, glazed over eyes last week when I picked up  my books and asked a question and then said to me, in a very spaced-out tone of voice. “I don’t know. We’re always on the edge of chaos here.”

I really want to make t-shirts up and give them the librarians down there. I wish I was an artist. I’d draw them all hanging in the sky off of a bookcase with the bookcase tipped and books falling all around them and with that quote emblazoned at the top of the shirt.

Right before I finished writing this post I also learned that we are supposed to get a major snow storm on Tuesday so. . . winter is not done with us yet.

What I/we’ve been Reading

I find it ironic that I complained a bit last week about a book I was reading not really having a plot when I read tons of no books without actual plots. Little House books, the books in the Anne of Green Gables series, the Cat Who books (Their plots are often very loose and the mysteries they are supposed to have sometimes aren’t even really mysteries!) Yes, the irony was lost on me but it isn’t now.

Currently Reading:

If I have more than one book listed here, that means I am switching back and forth and reading whichever one fits my mood at the time.

The Cat Who Went Into the Closet by Lilian Jackson Braun

Hell is Empty by Craig Johnson

(I have to be honest that I might not make it through this one. It’s heavy. Very. And I am not that far into it yet. I may need to skip ahead to the next one because The Husband says this is if of the darkest ones in the series)

Nellie by Amy Walsh

The Borrowers by Mary Norton (reading at with Little Miss. We’re almost finished)

Lost Names: Scenes from a Korean Boyhood by Richard Kim (reading with The Boy off and on)

Do the New You by Steven Furtick (reading this here and there to get ready for a Bible study at the end of the month)

Recently Finished:

The Bungalow Mystery (A Nancy Drew Mystery) by Carolyn Keene

Up Next or Soon:

Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly

Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny

Bats Fly At Dusk by Erle Stanley Gardner

The Thief of Blackfriars Lane by Michelle Griep

The Husband is reading Fields of Fire by Ryan Steck

What We watched/are Watching

This past week we watched a few episodes of Miss Scarlet and The Duke.

The Boy and I watched a few episodes of Psych together and that was nice because we don’t always like the same kind of shows.

I watched the latest episode from Forgotten Way Farms

And

The latest episode from Just A Few Acres Farm

What I’m Writing

I am working on Cassie still. If you’re curious what it is about, here is a rough description:

 It’s 1995 and 32-year-old Cassie Mason is an actress who made it big on a sitcom in the mid-1980s but hasn’t been able to find a job since the show ended five years ago.

After being fired by her talent agency, Cassie takes her sister Bridget up on her offer for Cassie to come back to their hometown for an extended visit to unwind and regroup.

While there Cassie finds out her younger sister – the one with the handsome husband and three kids and running a farm – is going to open a café and farm store in the small town they grew up near. Cassie decides to stay long enough to help with the grand opening of the local community center, though she isn’t sure what she can do since she doesn’t know a thing about cooking like her mom and sister and isn’t great at organizing either.

In fact, Cassie isn’t sure what’s she is good at other than acting. Bridget hasn’t been able to help out at the Berrysville Community Center like she’d like to with all that has to be done to open the business so she asks Cassie to fill in for a couple of volunteer opportunities. That’s when Cassie finds out that her sister’s neighbor, Alec, isn’t only a small farmer – he’s also someone who knows how to cook and showcases those talents in a weekly cooking class at the community center.

During her visit home, Cassie struggles to figure out not only where she fits in and feels most at home but also to figure out if acting is all she is meant to do with her life or if there is another way God wants to use her talents.

And God? There’s someone else she needs to learn more about on this break from the career she thought she’d always have.

It will be released in August of 2024.

I hope to have the rough draft finished by the end of the month, set it aside for a bit, and then start the third book in the Gladwynn Grant series.

Last week on the blog I shared:

Saturday Afternoon Chat: foot injuries, warm and sunny days, friendly cats 10 on 10 for February Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot February 8 Faithfully Thinking: He did it for his own heart, not a pat on the back. Bookish Thinking: Comparing The Black Stallion book with the movie

What I’m Listening To

I’ve been listening to an Audible version of In This Mountain by Jan Karon.

Now it’s your turn

Now it’s your turn. What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.

Saturday Afternoon Chat: foot injuries, warm and sunny days, friendly cats

The wood stove is cold today because we have been given the gift of a short warm-up. Today it is going to be up to 55 degrees. We have been enjoying sun and warmth for the most part, but today it will be cloudy with a chance of rain.

Why did I bring you our local weather report? I have no idea. It’s just something I seem to do on our Saturday chats.

Can I make you some tea or coffee? Maybe some juice or water?

I’m drinking my peppermint tea today and loaded it up with local honey. For some reason, I’m often stingy on the honey. I don’t know if that is because I have a scarcity mindset at times, or what, but this morning I loaded that honey up. I have a huge, two-pound jar of it so it will last me a while.

I might as well get the full effect of that lovely sweet flavor.

Last night at 10 at night it was 44 degrees which was so welcome when most nights it is 32 or below at 10 p.m. at night. It was strange not to have the fire roaring in the woodstove or be huddled under blankets. It almost makes me think we might have the early spring that little rodent said we’d have after all. Of course, the temperature is supposed to plummet again on Monday.

Despite it not being super cold even this morning, I am sitting in bed under two fluffy blankets as I write this and I have disturbed our cat Scout who was napping in the middle of the bed before I set up here. I’d feel bad but this cat sleeps undisturbed quite a bit so I’m sure she will simply find another place to lay and fall back asleep again. She and her nemesis, our other cat, Pixel, have been outside almost all day for the last few days to soak up the warmth.

I was thinking the other day how sweet it is when Scout sees me after I haven’t seen her for much of the day and lets out a little excited trill of a meow and then runs toward me. Usually, she’ll do this if she is in the yard and I open the back door to check on her but the other day she even did it when I was in the kitchen and she came down the stairs in a sleepy fog after one of her morning naps.

“There you are!” I said to her and her eyes widened and she let out her trill and then came trotting toward me. It was the cutest thing. I’ve never had a cat who seemed excited to see me. My cats over the years have been fine with being petted and have even sauntered over and rubbed around my legs for attention, but they never ran toward me like they just loved me like Scout does. It’s a nice feeling and I remind myself of her love for me when she wakes me up at 5 a.m. by laying on my chest and rubbing her cheek against mine for attention. I’d prefer she want that attention not when I am asleep and not when I am in the middle of writing.

Both cats have no respect for my writing time and often choose that time to want to lay on my chest. I do appreciate their affection for me, however. They do not often lie on anyone else in the family other than The Boy. Little Miss moves around too much and The Husband only tolerates the cats because he has shut his heart off to all other cats since he lost his cat Smokey several years ago after he (we) had her for 17 years.

While some weeks I do very little other than running a few errands and homeschooling, this week I was somewhat busy as I spent one day in the emergency room with my dad and the next day in the office of an orthopedic surgeon after he injured his foot last week.

My dad is in a boxing class for physical therapy for Parkinsons. It is an amazing class where they work on cognitive skills, reflexes, and strengthening the things that Parkinson’s tries to steal from its victims. (Here is a site to learn more about it if you know anyone who deals with Parkinson’s. Maybe a similar program is available near them. Dad says that most doctors don’t even suggest physical therapy. He says when they tell a patient they have Parkinson’s they say two things, “Do you want meds?” and “See you in six months.”).

On Thursday morning he attended that class and was kicking a kicking bag but didn’t have any pain. Later that night he was stomping on cans to help them fit inside a container for recycling and it was after that that the pain started but he didn’t think much of it.

By Friday he really couldn’t walk well. By Saturday my ever-busy, always on-the-move Dad was sitting in his recliner with his foot iced, reading my book Gladwynn Grant Takes Center Stage (currently on sale at . . . Just kidding. I shall not slip into a sales pitch).

The discomfort continued through Sunday and by Monday I was on the phone with Dad telling me he thought he should probably go to the emergency room and at least have it x-rayed in case he broke something.

Luckily, he did not break anything.

What he had done was severely bruised the bottom of his foot and caused a condition called plantar fasciitis. It is essentially blood and bruising under the foot muscle. This was confirmed in the ER and then again at an appointment the next day by his orthopedic surgeon, who did his knee surgery several years ago.

I was grateful Dad let me drive him to his appointments because normally my dad pushes through the pain and does things on his own despite it. This time, though, he was concerned about causing more damage to his foot and I was called into action.

At the hospital, while waiting for his x-rays (which they now wheel right into the patient instead of making the patient go to it), there was a man across the hall who had fallen off a ladder and complained that the only reason he was there was that his wife and daughter had made him go to the ER. The man couldn’t even sit on the bed he was in so much pain. It sort of made me giggle because he was fitting the stereotypical opinion that men won’t go to a doctor unless they are dragged there while my dad had decided to go on his own because he was afraid he was going to do more damage.

The ER doctor had suggested still keeping the appointment with the orthopedic doctor, who used to be a surgeon, but now only sees patients for consultations and refers them for surgery or not.

The orthopedic surgeon is a very interesting man and seems to know as much about other medical topics as he does orthopedics. He’s very fascinated with all aspects of medicine and reminded my dad and I to take vitamin C and honey throughout cold and flu season before we left. He has worked in our area for maybe 40 years and used to provide orthopedic services to local athletes as well as support on the sidelines at sports for local school districts.

Dad’s foot woes were not over with the visit with him, however. On Wednesday he noticed blood under the skin on one toe on the injured foot. It was also red. So he called a podiatrist because the orthopedic surgeon was now on vacation and drove himself to that appointment and found out he had an infection in a toe on that foot – possibly unrelated to the injury.

It’s hard for Dad not to be going places and getting things done but he has been resting and taking care of the foot with Epsom salt soaks and his medicine.

Hopefully, he will be up and around later this week.

As for me, I am hoping for a week with a little less running around. Last week I left the house every day except Friday. I know. I know. I have such a tough life. (insert eye roll here). I didn’t end up getting our groceries yesterday like I usually do because Little Miss and The Boy both had friends over and I met the mom of Little Miss’s friend halfway from her house and picked The Boy’s friend up on the way back.

In the afternoon I took all four of them to the tiny playground in our town. The boys ate a couple of subs from the local Subway (yes, this town is tiny but it actually has a Subway in the gas station. And, of course, there is a Dollar General, though it is located about a mile outside town.), chatted, and waited for the little girls to exhaust themselves on the teetertotter and playground equipment.

The rest of the afternoon was spent watching Psych and James May’s show on Amazon.

Today I hope to write a couple other blog posts, work on my novel, and read. Tomorrow we will go visit my parents for lunch.

So that is my week in review –  how about yours?

Do anything exciting or relaxing? Go anywhere interesting? Even if nothing you did was interesting, I’d love to hear about your week in the comments.

(P.S. Scout curled right back up at my feet in a little ball and went back to sleep. Apparently, I didn’t disturb her too much after all.)

10 on 10 for February

Today I am taking part in the 10 on 10 with Marsha In the Middle as host.

Here are the questions we are supposed to answer and the answers are below the graphic:

I looked at this one for a bit and was grossed out with both ideas but then decided that I’d rather have the potato chips dipped in chocolate because, well, it’s chocolate. I could eat almost anything dipped in chocolate except crickets and, well, other gross things one shouldn’t eat, but you get my drift. (Looks like Gertrude Hawk actually makes this product!)

2, I would definitely prefer to recite an original poem to my husband than sing anywhere, let alone in front of a bunch of people. I don’t write poetry but I come from a family of poets so I think I could pull that off. I could not pull of singing or singing in front of a bunch of people. I’d probably giggle while reciting the poem and my husband would probably make funny faces to make me laugh, but it would be a lot better than doing anything in front of a bunch of people.

3. Oh gosh – this one was a little hard. I think both of these singers would be interesting to have dinner with but I guess I would choose Dolly because I want to see how old she really looks close up. I mean, the woman is 78 but has so much makeup and plastic surgery done, she’s got to really look old close up right? I just can’t imagine a human’s skin can stretch that much through plastic surgery and not rip somewhere. I’ve got to see for myself how wrinkled she really is. Plus I think she’s hilarious and I’d crack up at her jokes while she’d probably crack up if I told her I want to see how old she looks close up.

4. This one was easy – I would love to have only one red rose. I love red roses the most and I’m also not a huge flower person. I like them but I can take them or leave them. If my husband came home with one rose and said “We’re going to sit tonight and watch a mystery together tonight” that would be a better gift than a dozen roses and chocolate. I kid you not. I’m very, simple like that. If he threw a book I wanted in the midst of all that I’d be even more over the moon. Not that I’m hinting because he does a fine job with gifts for birthdays, holidays, and Valentine’s Day, etc.

5. I’m going to pick the pink with purple hearts because those are my favorite colors. As long as the hearts aren’t too big and I don’t look like a clown. Hopefully, it can be a comfy cotton dress that I can just lounge around the house in. *wink*

6. Uh, can I have both? I mean, both sound cool. This is “would you rather” though so I will go with the carriage ride in the Scottish Highlands because my ancestors are from Scotland and I absolutely want to visit there one day. On the list is Grant Castle because my family members were Grants (hello…why do you think the main character in my book series is Gladwynn Grant. One, it was my grandmother’s name, but two, to keep the Grant name alive in my family.).

7. This one was easy. The Rock, but not for the reason you think. I don’t agree with him politically and I want to give him a piece of my mind. Ha! That and I think we probably agree on more things than I think and I’d like to ask him some questions about WWE and if he thinks Vince McMahon did all those things he is being accused of.

8. I think Satin sheets are pretty slippery so I’d go with the flannel sheets with Teddy bears on them. This question doesn’t tell us what season we would  have these sheets in, but I think even in the summer I’d rather have the flannel sheets. I’d simply not have a top blanket and put the fan on me so I wouldn’t get too hot. Yes, I thought of this way too long. I may have issues.

9. I will go with the box of chocolates with my least favorite fillings. I have dealt with some pretty bad allergies before and they affected my breathing so I’d rather not like chocolates than not be able to breathe!

10. Oh dear, my husband might read this and I don’t want to offend him but he likes surprise dates and I don’t. I mean, I’ve always enjoyed the surprise places he’s taken me but I like knowing where I’m going and what we’re going to be doing. I have anxiety and if I can plan for contingencies like how I’m going to be able to escape if I feel anxious or if I’m going to get carsick or not because it is a long drive, then I prefer to know ahead of time. If I planned the date then I’d know everything that was going to happen and that would help my control freak tendencies and my highly-prone-to-anxiety brain.

I’m so glad I was able to remember to do the 10 on 10 this month. I usually forget about it until I see Marsha post about it but this time, I remembered the day before. I simply didn’t write about it until after I saw Marsha post about it. *snort*

If you want to read more responses to these questions, visit Marsha’s blog here: https://marshainthemiddle.com/10-on-the-10th-february-3/

Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot February 8

Welcome to another Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot hosted by Marsha in the Middle, Melynda from Scratch Made Food & DYI Homemade Household, Sue from Women Living Well After 50, and me.  Look for the link party to go live on Thursdays at 9:30pm EDT. 

This week has been very busy for me.

I have had to leave the house every day except today. Two of those days I took my dad to doctor appointments for an injured foot. Thankfully the foot was not broken but it has been causing him a great deal of pain.

Luckily the sun came out this week, even though the temperatures were very chilly still. Today the temperatures are in the low 50s and it feels like a heatwave. My daughter and I went outside and played with the dog (nicknamed Zooma The Wonder Dog here on the blog) by throwing her ball across the yard, something she has only done once before all winter. She won’t give up the ball so we throw one ball and to get her to drop it, we throw another one.

She was having a ton of fun because she absolutely loves being outside and being able to run around. I needed to just sit and watch her run around because our trials from last week with broken down this or that have continued into this week. First, my dad broke down (Har. Har.) and now our dryer, which was starting to die before.

Unfortunately, we only have a limited budget to have all of this fixed.

I need new eyeglasses at the end of the month because the “anti-glare covering” on my lenses is peeling, making it hard for me to see through and aggravating the floaters I already have.

It will all get worked out, though. God has always provided for us.

Now, on to our most clicked posts for this week and a list of my favorite posts.

The most clicked:

First February Thrift by Thrifting Wonderland

My top three or three favorites:

Lean Into Grace by A New Lens

I cheated a bit by choosing this one because the book that Pam talks about here is written by the daughter-in-law of a family friend and I was pleasantly surprised to see it up on someone else’s blog. The woman’s husband’s family grew up not far from me in my little corner of Pennsylvania.

8 Ways to Make February Fabulous by Women Living Well After 50

I don’t know if it is proper to pick a post from one of the hosts or not, but I did really enjoy all these ideas for surviving February by Sue from Women Living Well After 50. She called it: ‘It’s February – 8 ways to make it Fabulous’. The ideas on how to make life more relaxing and easier to work through are ideas I’m going to be taking to heart for the rest of February.

Winter at Nelson Crest: Saturday Snippets by Debbie Dabbleblog

I chose this one because – babies. Yep. Beautiful babies. That is all.

I hope you had a great week and have a great week ahead.

Now it is your turn to link up your favorite posts. They can be fashion, lifestyle, DIY, food, etc. All we ask is that they be family-friendly. You can link up posts from last week or even from years ago.

Also, please take the time to visit the other blogs on the link-up and meet some new bloggers!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enterhttps://fresh.inlinkz.com/js/widget/load.js?id=c0efdbe6b4add43dd7ef

Faithfully Thinking: He did it for his own heart, not a pat on the back.

A couple of years ago a large church near us sent out an invitation online for people to come be baptized at their church.

My husband decided he wanted to do it.

This church is like a mini-mega church in our area.

I didn’t feel totally comfortable with it because their service seemed more like a show to me than an actual church service. I feel bad saying that because quite a few people we know attend the church and they are very kind, lovely people. Still, it’s the feeling I get when I attend.

My husband wanted to do it, though, so he called the church. The secretary said she’d send him some info and told him to send it back and he’d be on the list.

He filled out some personal information and sent it in, but had to fax it because they’d literally given him one day to have it back by and the church is about an hour from us so we knew it wouldn’t get there in time with the mail.

I thought the pastor would call him ahead of time, chat with him a bit, ask him about his decision, etc.

That never happened. No one from the church called except the secretary to tell him what time to be there.

We all went, including my parents, and he was placed in a line of other people getting baptized.

Still no one from the church spoke to him to tell him they were proud or good luck or how great his decision was or anything else.

Surely the pastor would come to speak to him before he was led up to the baptismal they’d set up in front of the worship team, right?

I didn’t see that happen but I was sure it had before he’d walked up and been dunked while the worship team sang a song from Elevation Worship in the background and right after a man read a small testimonial from my husband.

From my point of view it was like a conveyor belt. People went down and came up and then they handed them a towel and moved them on. They were already in T-shirts with the church’s name emblazoned on it. It was a great marketing opportunity, of course.

There was even a professional photographer.

No one from the church spoke to our family afterward, other than my parents who some of the parishoners knew. The pastor didn’t shake our hands, no staff members thanked us for coming – we just left the church like we just went through the line at the drive in.

I asked my husband in the car if the pastor had spoken to him at any point.

He shrugged. “Nope.”

I was indignant. “Are you serious? So this was just a marketing opportunity for them? What, they needed some publicity shots or something?”

I was angry and disappointed in the people who called themselves Christians.

My husband had at least hoped for a certificate but he didn’t even get that in the mail later.

None of that really mattered to him, though, he told me.

To summarize what he said: It wasn’t about the show for him or a pat on the back from the pastor or anyone else from the church. He did it for himself. For his own soul and for his family

I was sitting there feeling bitterness toward the church while he felt joy at having made a decision for his own heart and his own salvation.

A little background might be needed here. I was brought up in the church. I’ve been a Christian since I was five years old. My husband has been a Christian for several years, but more committed the last four or five. Yet he was the one who had an attitude of what really mattered was why he did it and who saw it and acknowledged it.

His response was a wake up call to me — a reminder to stop focusing on what I see as the failings of the church or God’s people.

People will never be perfect. They will never live up to the expectations I have for them because only God can reach our highest expectations.

In the end it truly didn’t matter that the pastor didn’t talk to him or the secretary never sent the certificate. There may have been very good and plausible reasons for those things not happening but even if there weren’t, it doesn’t matter.

What matters is my husband’s heart and the choice he made that brought him closer to Christ in a way that felt tangible to him.

Bookish Thinking: Comparing The Black Stallion book with the movie

At the end of 2023, Little Miss and I finished the book of The Black Stallion (1941) by Walter Farley and then watched the 1979 movie based on it.

There are movies that stick with you from childhood to adulthood. The Black Stallion was one of those movies for me. A longtime horse lover, I was infatuated with horses, but knew I could never have one.

“They’re too much work,” my parents always said.

I had two childhood friends who had horses so I knew they were right. I also knew we didn’t have the space for the horses. Still, I loved to watch them, look at photos of them, and read about them. Enter Misty of Chincoteague and King of the Wind and My Little Ponies and – The Black Stallion.

If you don’t know what The Black Stallion is about, it is about a young boy (Alec Ramsey) who is on a ship sailing back to the United States from visiting his uncle in India when the ship is caught up in a storm. The ship sinks and the boy is rescued by a black Arabian stallion who was brought on board at a port along the way. The boy and horse live on a deserted island for twenty days before they are rescued by a fishing ship. They then return to Long Island where Alec fights to keep the horse, even though they live in a fairly populated area. His parents agree to let him keep the stallion because he saved Alec’s life, but they find a place for him in a neighbor’s barn (so this isn’t a super, super urban area, clearly.)

I will say right at the start here that we enjoyed the movie more than the book, only because we felt the book was a bit slow as in repetitive at times, and overly descriptive, especially when it came to the scenes of Alec riding The Black (the name of the stallion).

 A good quarter of the book could have been cut by just trimming those scenes down. We already read about how it felt for Alec to run the black on the island. I don’t think it was important to describe that feeling every single time he rode the horse after that.

Despite not liking the slow parts, we did like the book overall and Little Miss was anxious to see the movie to see how similar it was. I watched the movie when I was around her age and was completely enamored with it and knowing she loves horses as much as I always did, I couldn’t wait to show it to her. I insisted we finish the book first, though, because I had never read it and I thought it would be good to compare the two.

She was fine with that, as long as I skipped over some of the overly descriptive parts with the running and the very repetitive and mundane dialogue in some places.

There were parts of the movie that were similar but there were also some very big glaring changes between the book and movie.

For one, in the book, Alec Ramsey is a redhead with freckles. I don’t remember him being given an age in the book, but I guessed him to be around 14 or 15.

In the movie, the boy looks about 10 or 11 and he has freckles, but very dark hair. (I looked this up and the actor was actually 11. Maybe Alec is supposed to be that young in the book. I may have missed his age when we were reading.)

In the book, Alec’s parents are waiting for him at home but in the movie, Alec’s father was on the ship with him.

So there is definitely a different dynamic from the book to the movie.

The action, of course, moves a bit faster in the movie. The imagery in the movie, especially when Alec (portrayed by Kelly Reno) and The Black are on the island and Alec is learning to ride him is gorgeous and mesmerizing. The riding scene is one of the most enchanting and relaxing scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie. When I was a kid and watched that scene, everything around me faded away and it was almost like I was on that beach, riding a horse across the sand and through the waves. It was the same watching it again as an adult. My heart pounded, my skin tingled, and I leaned forward as if I was the one holding on to the mane of the horse, my body crouched low as the horse picked up speed.

Looking back, I sometimes wonder if watching that movie is what lit the spark for my passion for photography.

In the movie, Henry, the man who ultimately ends up helping Alec train The Black to run in races, is portrayed by Mickey Rooney. Little Miss said he didn’t look anything like she imagined Henry to look and, though I had grown up only knowing Henry to look like Mickey Rooney, I sort of had to agree. I pictured someone completely different in my mind when I read the book.

Still, I think Mickey does an amazing job portraying Henry – a slightly grumpy, retired jockey and horse trainer. He was even nominated for an Oscar for his performance.

Teri Garr portrayed Alec’s mother in the movie. It was produced by Francis Ford Coppola and directed by Caroll Ballard.

I always found the scenes with the horse amazing. Like how did they get the horse to film the scenes where he was getting used to Alec? And the race scenes were amazing. The movie was filmed before CGI, which makes it all even more amazing.

Wikipedia is not the most reliable source for information at times, but if what they shared about the horses used in the film is true, it is very interesting.

“Cass Ole, a champion Arabian stallion, was featured in most of the movie’s scenes, with Fae Jur, another black Arabian stallion, being his main double. Fae Jur’s main scene is the one where Alec is trying to gain the trust of The Black on the beach. Two other stunt doubles were used for running, fighting, and swimming scenes.

El Mokhtar, an Egyptian Arabian racehorse, was the producers’ first choice to portray The Black, but they were unable to secure his services for the film from his owners, who declined any offers. He does appear in The Black Stallion Returns, alongside Cass Ole, by which time the studio bought out the syndicate of owners to secure El Mokhtar’s services.

Napoleon was portrayed by Junior, who previously appeared in National Lampoon’s Animal House as Trooper, Niedermeyer’s horse.”

I also found it interesting to read on IMBD’b that Kelly Reno, who played Alec (as I mentioned above) did his own stunts in the movie because he was the son of a cattle rancher and was used to riding horses. He did have a stand-in part of the time but for the most part, the stunts were his own when he was riding The Black.

Kelly was injured in a very bad truck accident involving a semi-trailer after he graduated high school, which ended his acting career. He became a cattle rancher, like his dad, and then a truck driver and lives in Colorado from what I could find out online. There is not a ton of information available about him online since he no longer works in acting, but I did find this really interesting interview from this past year on a site about Thoroughbred Racing.

“It was a friend of the Reno family who noticed an ad in the Denver Post calling for young riders to audition for a role in a movie,” writer Jay Hovdey writes in the article.
“I wasn’t trying to be an actor,” Reno said recently. “For me, it was a day off from school, so why not?”

The article is also where I learned that the shipwreck scenes in the movie were filmed in Italy. The beach scenes were filmed in Sardinia. Reno and his entire family were flown there to film that scene. When we see him shivering from the cold rain and the waves crashing over the ship, that was real because they were using fire hoses to create the illusion and he was very cold.

I’ve always wondered how they got The Black to follow Reno around on the beach and he answered that in this interview.

“There was a pocket in my shorts with oats I’d feed him,” Reno said, “so when I’d take off running across the beach, he knew where those oats came from and follow me around.”

He also said the horse bit him in the shoulder, lifting him up and shaking him like a rag doll the one time he didn’t feed him fast enough.

““He picked me up and shook me like a rag doll. I reared back and punched him right in the nose. The director yells: ‘Don’t be punching the horse!’ But I’m 11, a ranch kid. I think he was mad because the horse was the star.”

Reno said Rooney was amazing to work with and only got “mad” at him once when they were at a horse race and he bet on a horse that won 50-1 and Rooney lost.

About the movie, Hovdey wrote: “As for the legacy of the movie, which was produced by Francis Ford Coppola of The Godfather fame, the Los Angeles Film Critics honored Caleb Deschanel for his cinematography and composer Carmine Coppola for his music.

In 2002, the National Film Preservation Board added The Black Stallion to its list of significant films, then in 2005 a poll published by the American Film Institute placed the movie at No. 64 among America’s 100 Most Inspiring Movies, ahead of Cool Hand Luke, Thelma & Louise, and The Ten Commandments.”

You can read the full article and interview with Reno here: https://www.thoroughbredracing.com/articles/5835/jay-hovdey-movies-black-stallion-bonafide-classic-among-greatest-horse-fables/

There was a sequel of the movie made, The Black Stallion Returns, which was the second in Farley’s 21-book series that featured the stallion.

Kelly and Teri Garr were both in the sequel. They were not in the television series that ran from 1990 to 1993 and starred Mickey Rooney and Richard Ian Cox.

So my final thoughts on the book and the movie is that the book is worth a read if you are okay with skimming over some of the scenes that drag a bit.

The movie is worth a watch because you won’t want to fast forward past any scene since it is beautifully acted, filmed, and `presented.

Have you read the book or seen the film?

What was your impression of it or them?

Here is an interview about the making of The Black Stallion and the trailer that ran in 1979 for it.

For additional reading about the movie and the making of it and the book and author, visit Tim Farley’s site here:

The Black Stallion Web Site

Sunday Bookends: Books with no plot, Lark Rise to Candleford, and praise music

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what the rest of the family and I have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.

This week I’m joining up with  Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer , Deb at  Readerbuzz,  and Kathyrn at  The Book Date.

What I/we’ve been Reading

Currently Reading:

The Cat Who Went Into The Closet by Lilian Jackson Braun

Hell is Empty by Craig Johnson

Do The New You by Steven Furtick

Recently Finished:

Sisterchicks Do the Hula by Robin Jones Gunn

This book wasn’t horrible but there wasn’t really an actual plot and that annoyed me. I kept waiting for something to happen – like a mystery or a trial they had to overcome or .. well, anything really. Like a plot maybe. Once I decided and accepted that was never going to happen it was much easier to skim ahead and just see what happened at the end and moved on to the next book.

Up Next or Soon:

Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly

Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny

Bats Fly At Dusk by Erle Stanley Gardner

This week Little Miss and I finished The Cabin Faced West by Jean Fritz. I hope to finish The Borrowers with her this week but she’s been reading Fortunatly the Milk by Neil Gaiman to me.

What We watched/are Watching

This past week I watched Miss Austen Regrets and wrote about it on the blog. I really enjoyed it. The rest of the week I watched Lark Rise to Candleford and Miss Scarlet and the Duke.
What I’m Writing

I’m plugging away on Cassie and hope to have it finished at the end of this month so I can start the third book in the Gladwynn Grant series.

Last week on the blog I shared:

Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot February 1 Jane Austen January: Miss Austen Regrets Faithfully Thinking: When it feels unnatural to not worry and ruminate but you stop doing it anyhow

What I’m Listening To

This week I listened to this song on repeat:

And loved this version of it:

Now it’s your turn! What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.

Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot February 1

Welcome to another Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot hosted by Marsha in the Middle, Melynda from Scratch Made Food & DYI Homemade Household, Sue from Women Living Well After 50, and me.  Look for the link party to go live on Thursdays at 9:30pm EDT. 

Our cold weather came back this week with a vengeance and some snow will just not go away because it’s been too cold for it to melt.

Luckily, we did not return to the arctic temperatures we were faced with the week before last.

This has not been an easy week in our house. While everyone is healthy (for the most part), everything has broken all at once, including cars, trucks, washers, dryers, the sink and my sanity.

It has been one thing after another and we’d love some prayers.

In the midst of all that I have wanted to find some time for relaxing, reading, and watching things, but that really hasn’t happened this week. I need to find a way to have that break this weekend or I think I might crumble into a weepy mess.

This week for our Weekly Traffic Jam Reboot Link Up we had another tie for the most clicked!

The most clicked posts were:

Snow Leopard for the Win by Marsha in the Middle

And Be Mine Valentine by Thrifting Wonderland

My favorites for this week were:

Winter Wonderland Trees & Villages in the Den, 2024 by Debbie Dabbleblog

I loved this tour of Debbie’s trees and den decorated for winter! It was relaxing to take the photo tour!

A Sweet Valentine’s Day Table At Sunset by Life Is Better Lakeside

I really enjoyed how this table was decorated and amazed with the view as well!

Beauty Update and Makeup Bag Rummage by Is This Mutton

I don’t know enough about makeup so this was an amazing crash course for me. I loved the details about the makeup, her skincare routine, and other things she takes or does for her skin and health.

It is hard choosing favorite posts some weeks because I really enjoy so many of them so please go check out the links each week so you can see what everyone is sharing.

Now it is your turn to link up your favorite posts. They can be fashion, lifestyle, DIY, food, etc. All we ask is that they be family-friendly. You can link up posts from last week or even from years ago.

Also, please take the time to visit the other blogs on the link-up and meet some new bloggers!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

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