Lisa R. Howeler's Blog, page 52

Jane Austen January: Miss Austen Regrets

For the month of January, Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I watched a movie adaptation of Jane Austen books for our link up for Jane Austen January (you can find the link to our past posts at the top of the page).

Erin has been unable to participate the last two weeks so this week I watched Miss Austen Regrets (2007) by myself.

I enjoyed this movie over any of the others we watched. The movie was the semi-biographical (biopic) story of Jane Austen — not the polished, proper, and fantasy versions we see in her books (though there is a great deal of realism in them as well). Of course, there was a lot of fiction in this movie as well, since there isn’t a ton of information known about Jane’s real life.

This movie follows Jane later in life, exploring why her chances at love like she wrote about were never fully realized. Those chances either slipped away or she pushed them away according to the movie and other accounts. Taking creative license, mixed in with some truth, the movie weaves in the story of Jane’s niece with her own. Fanny Knight a wide-eyed young woman who has romanticized love partially because of her aunt’s books.

Through Fanny and Jane’s interaction, we are led through a bittersweet journey that carries the viewers through a series of regrets by Jane, that she may or may not have really had in life.

The story was beautifully presented, not because of beautiful settings or scenes, though there were those too, but because of the emotions, we lived with a woman we know very little about other than what we read between the lines of fictitious prose. That prose within novels she wrote became so popular there is now a new cinema adaptation of her work every other year and thousands upon thousands of fan fiction based on the books she wrote and released in her short 41 years.

When this movie ended, I actually had to pause to process it all and to stop crying over the ending.

There is way too much about Jane’s history to share in one blog post or in one movie so this movie specifically focused on Jane’s later life and this blog post will do the same. One thing I should mention is that we don’t know a lot about Jane’s personal life because her sister burned tons of letters Jane sent to her. Some historians believe Jane wrote thousands of letters to her sister Cassandra over the years, but in the end, only about 150 survived and many of those were redacted or cut apart to keep certain information out of the public eye.

Some historians surmise that Cassandra wanted to protect the privacy of her sister. Jane was known to be very blunt and straightforward in her commentary and it is possible she was a bit opinionated about some in the family or others the family knew and Cassandra didn’t want people to see those comments. Or she might have wanted to protect Jane’s love life from a curious family and public.

Either way, some vital information that would have shed even more light on who Jane was in her personal life is no longer available.

What we have in Miss Austen Regrets is a fictionalized telling of what Jane may have been like, what may have happened between her and her family, and how she may have felt as she became ill.

I think that Jeremy Loverling who directed it and Gwenyth Hughes, who wrote the screenplay, did an amazing job weaving an imaginative story with a bit of historical facts that we do know mixed in.

One of the biggest messages of this movie, starring Olivia Williams as Jane, is that we shouldn’t confuse fiction with real life. This point is driven home several times but first when Jane tells her niece, portrayed by Imogen Poots (that’s an unfortunate last name, right?), “”My darling girl. The only way to get a Mr. Darcy is to make him up.”

The other message is that a woman should marry for love not for protection and wealth, like when Jane tells her niece, “Fanny, do anything but marry without affection.”

She tells Fanny this when Fanny asks Jane for advice on a man who she feels will propose to her – John Plumtre, who was played by a curly-headed blond Loki – er, I mean Tom Hiddleston. That was a bit shocking to me because I’m used to an older Tom with darker hair but here he was – all in his young, blond glory and totally out of character for me as an anxious 17th century man.

Jane tells her niece she likes to flirt and that’s why she never married. Viewers can tell there are a variety of reasons Jane never married and one of them is because she’s afraid she will no longer be able to write if she is married and taking care of children.

Later Jane runs into a man – Rev. Brook Edward Bridges, played by Hugh Bonneville — who reminds her that he wanted to marry her and would have cared for her, her sister, and her mother. He’s such a tender character and he becomes even more tender when he sees she is not feeling well later in the movie. It is clear that he has always loved her and still loves her, even though he is now married to someone else.

I had to find out more about him so I did a deep dive online and found this article about letters between Cassandra and Jane that hints Edward did propose at one time. It also mentions Edward’s wife who Jane wrote: “for her health, she is a poor Honey—the sort of woman who gives me the idea of being determined never to be well—& who likes her spasms & nervousness & the consequence they give her, better than anything else” 

She used Edward’s wife as the basis for the sister of the main character in Persuasion – a woman who used her supposed illnesses for attention.

Ironically, Edward Bridges passed away five years after Jane at the age of 46. His wife lived another 40 years, despite all her “ailments”.

If rumors are true and similar to what happened in the movie, Jane didn’t have an easy go of it with her difficult mother who always held a grudge against her for not marrying someone wealthy to take care of them.

Watching this movie gave me an entirely different impression of the woman whose books I have resisted because of her fans who have what I saw as a silly obsession. Whether some aspects of the movie are true or not, I can now see that there were most likely many elements of Jane’s own life that she used for her books. Some of those were joyful moments, some heartbreaking, but all made up her life and allowed her to give readers a tiny glimpse into her life through her novels.

If some of what was shared is true, I think Jane believed that someday she would find love like she’d written about before her death. Before she could, though, she became sicker and too weak.

I have to agree with what Walter Scott wrote in his diary in 1926 after rereading Pride and Prejudice for the third time.

“That young lady had a talent for describing the involvements and feelings and characters of ordinary life, which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with. The Big Bow-wow strain I can do myself like any now going; but the exquisite touch, which renders ordinary commonplace things and characters interesting, from the truth of the description and the sentiment, is denied to me. What a pity such a gifted creature died so early!”

We really did lose her too soon.

If you want to read about where this made-for-TV movie (which I thought was better than most movies on the big screen) was filmed you can read the post from Joy from Joy’s Book Blog. This concludes our Jane Austen January. Thank you to everyone who participated in it! I hope you will check out the links at the link up above. The link party closes on Saturday.

Have you seen this movie? What did you think of it?

Faithfully Thinking: When it feels unnatural to not worry and ruminate but you stop doing it anyhow

I didn’t feel like writing a post about trusting God this week but I did it anyway.

There are times it feels unnatural to let go of a situation and walking in the knowledge that you cannot fix that situation.

Sometimes it feels impossible to let God take care of something, even though we know he is the only one who can.

I’m going through that now.

I have gone through it before.

I will also go through it again.

I believe there are times we have to do what feels unnatural in our walk with Christ.

Natural for me is to lay awake and worry.

Natural for me is to try to fix it – whatever it is.

Natural for me is to manipulate a situation so I can fix it in my own power.

More times than not, trying to fix a situation on my own has resulted in disaster.

This week I am in a battle of the mind.

When I start to ruminate on an issue we are having as a family this week, I have been trying to tell myself to stop and that God will handle this situation. Sometimes it has worked and sometimes (like part of today) it has not.

Instead of lying awake in bed or walking around the house writing my hands, I have picked up a book, taught a kid a school lesson, watched a funny old show, cooked, or made myself a cup of tea and taken ten minutes to slowly sip it.

Am I succeeding in letting God take control of my situation this week?.

Sometimes I am. Sometimes I am not.

The last three days I have been anxious and paced, rolled over at night a few times, stared at the ceiling, and overthought a bunch – but I have done all of those things less than I usually have when life is stressful and I call that progress. Slow progress but still progress.

I’m not going to lie — It has felt like I’m doing something wrong by not worrying or ruminating or trying to figure it all out.

It has felt like I am not my normal self.

Sometimes, though, in certain situations, being our normal self is exactly what God doesn’t want us to do.

He doesn’t want us to be our normal anxiety-ridden self.

He doesn’t want us to have a God-complex and think that we can do what only he can do.

He wants us to know that he is in control, even when we don’t understand what he is doing.

All this could change tomorrow, but, hopefully, I will remember that even if it feels unnatural to trust and place my worries in his hands, I need to do that because God is God and I am not.

Sunday Bookends: Miss Marple, Little Women (yes, still!), Lark Rise To Candleford and the cold weather returns

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

I rambled about last week in yesterday’s Saturday Afternoon Chat post if you would like to catch up there. I will mention that today our weather doesn’t know what it wants to do as it is snowing and raining and switching back and forth. The weather has been warm this week so the ground isn’t as cold as it could be. It remains to see how much of the stuff will actually stick

What I/we’ve been Reading

Currently Reading:

Little Women by Louisa Mae Alcott and Sisterchicks Do The Hula by Robin Jones Gunn

Little Women is relaxing and enjoyable and I will have it done this week. I’ve been reading it very, very slow and only a chapter or two a day, in case you’re wondering why I keep saying I’m STILL reading it. (Since the end of November! Ha!). This week I’m just going to read it through and finish it up so I can move to another classic – which one I don’t know yet.

The Sisterchicks book is just a light, fun read that is a very nice distraction from life. I’m reading through it quickly so I will probably have it done this week as well.

Recently Finished:

Dysfunction Junction by Robin W. Pearson

Up Next or Soon:

The Cat Who Went Into The Closet by Lilian Jackson Braun

Hell is Empty by Craig Johnson

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

Little Miss and I are reading: The Borrowers by Mary Norton and The Cabin Faced West by Jean Fritz

The Boy is reading: Lost Names: Stories from a Korean Boyhood by Richard Kim

The Husband is reading: Fury by Salaman Rushdie

What We watched/are Watching

Yesterday I started Agatha Christie’s Marple, the BBC show that ran from 2004 to 2013 and was based on the Miss Marple books by Agatha Christie. I have never wanted to watch anyone as Miss Marple other than Joan Hickson but after someone mentioned the show to me on Instagram, I decided to give it a try since The Husband  had to work and the kids were doing other things.

There were so many actors in Season 1 Episode 3 who I recognized from other shows. The episodes, like the episodes from the Miss Marple series, were like mini-movies at 90 minutes each. Episode 3 was called What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw but was based on the novel 4.50 from Paddington.

The one actress I was most surprised to see in his episode was Amanda Holden who I’ve only seen as a judge on Britain’s Got Talent. I always wondered what the woman actually did to land her on that show as a judge. I had no idea she was an actual actress. I thought she was a talking head on a news show in addition to being a judge.

She wasn’t too bad of an actress but I kept waiting for her to say, “That was lovely. Good job.” And push the golden buzzer.

I also recognized Michale Landes who  played an American in the British sitcom Miranda. When I saw him in that show, I thought he was British doing a horrible American accent. I looked him up while watching this because he was playing an American again and it turns out he has a horrible American accent despite being an American.

He has been acting since the late 1980s and has been on several shows, often as secondary or one-off characters.

He was really the weak link in this episode.

After I watched Marple, I watched a couple episodes of Lark Rise To Candleford. I had started to watch this show years ago but only made it to season three, I’m not sure why. I think there was some cast change I didn’t like. I don’t remember a lot of it so I am rewatching it and plan to go through all four seasons.

It’s a very nice distraction from life.

This upcoming week I will be watching Miss Austen Regrets for our last movie for Jane Austen January. The link up for Jane Austen January will still be up until Saturday if you want to add a post.

What I’m Writing

This week I worked on Cassie, which comes out in August of 2024. On the blog I shared:

Saturday Afternoon Chat January 27: warmer temps (for a bit anyhow), relaxing with Miss Marple, and kids should be able to play and get messyWeekly Traffic Jam RebootJane Austen January: Emma (1996 Theatrical version)Books I want to read for the remainder of the winterFaithfully Thinking: In full disclosure, I do not think I can love Judas.

What I’m Listening to

A Tale of Two Cities on Audible

New audible books I hope to listen to soon:

Moonflower Murders by Anthony Horowitz, The Jane Austen Collection by Jane Austen and In This Mountain by Jan Karon.

Blog Posts I Enjoyed This Past Week

Emma Film by Joy’s Book Blog

I love it when Joy writes about the real-life places you can visit in the Jane Austen movies.

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 January 27: warmer temps (for a bit anyhow), relaxing with Miss Marple, and kids should be able to play and get messy

I really enjoy our Saturday Afternoon Chats. I feel like I am talking to my friends – even if I can’t see most of you.’

I had considered dropping this weekly feature and rolling it into my Sunday Bookends but that would make that post very long and rambling so I’ve decided to ramble here on Saturdays instead. Ha.

The fire is not burning in my woodstove this weekend as we are in a warm-up after the horrible cold we experienced last week (the week before this past week I mean) and last weekend.

Yesterday it was 60 degrees in the little village I was visiting a friend in and our kids were outside playing barefoot in her yard..

Almost eight days of arctic and bitter cold are behind us for now and we can finally go about our business without worrying about our fingers and noses being frozen and asthma attacks being triggered.

We do, however, have snow and ice coming tomorrow so winter is not done with us yet.

Still, those nice warm temps and the sunshine were very welcome yesterday as Little Miss and I drove 40 minutes South to hang out with our friends.

The family has three cats and three dogs and the youngest dog is just a couple of months old, tiny, and very cute.

The youngest cat is also pregnant.

So in between cats and dogs running in and out of the house, there were also children running in and out of the house and onto the trampoline behind their house, an activity Little Miss hasn’t been able to do for a few months now. In other words, it was a very nice and fun day.

While we were chatting my friend and I spoke about parents who like their children to remain clean and not play in the mud and dirt too much. That concept is very foreign to us. Our children love to get messy, run in the mud and climb trees or play in creeks, or even wrestle at times.

The idea that they couldn’t do those things because we don’t want their clothes to get messy is weird to us.

That’s why I buy used or cheaper clothes – because I know my kid is going to roll down a hill or play in a pile of mud – okay, well, maybe not the mud. She’s always been a bit resistant to getting herself too muddy, but she was still running barefoot through our friends’ yard yesterday and I didn’t even think twice about it.

The drive back to our house was a little stressful because we have the headlight to replace the headlight that was damaged in October when we hit a deer but haven’t had time to set up an appointment with a mechanic to have it replaced.  I tried to leave our friends’ house before it got dark but that didn’t happen so I drove with my hands tightly gripping the steering wheel and trying to see the road in front of me with a busted headlight that was pointing up toward the top of the trees and the other one trying to light the road on its little own.

I already have horrid night vision so this added to the stress of night driving for me. There was a deer along the road at one point and I put the brakes on to see what she was going to do. She just stared at me with her buddies in the woods behind her so I laid on the horn and she and her friends took off, away from the road.

I was so grateful when we made it home. It felt like a much longer drive than it would have been if it had been light out. I made myself some dinner (The Boy had already eaten and Little Miss was snacking on these little cans of tuna fish salad that she likes), grabbed a blanket, curled up under it and just relaxed the rest of the night, with the plan not to leave my house again until at least Sunday.

Today I am watching Agatha Christie’s Marple, the series based on the Miss Marple books by Agatha Christie, that ran from 2004 to 2013. I will talk about that more in tomorrow’s Sunday Bookends post.

I have that blanket over my lap again and I’m sipping hot peppermint tea and munching on French fries cooked in the air fryer.

I could have cooked the fries in my oven, though, since my husband fixed it last week after a year of our oven not working. We had an idea of what was wrong with it but it would have cost $200 to have the repairman come so we kept putting off getting it fixed. We have an air fryer, a stove, and an Instapot that we can use to cook anyhow so we didn’t miss it too much. I use the stove and Instapot more than the oven anyhow. It turned out that the part for it was only $30 but neither of us are very mechanical and didn’t want to bother my dad to help us.

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the episode of Little House on the Prairie where Pa is trying to buy a new glass window for the cabin, but in the episode the modern glass windowpane repeatedly gets broken and he has to keep going back to the store for a new one. It’s a running gag throughout the whole episode. I don’t remember all the ways he breaks it but I think one time he drops it and another time Laura is upset and climbs into the back of the wagon and steps on it. I think someone in town runs into it or hits it with a broom handle too.

In the end, Pa gives up and just puts up the old-fashioned glass paned window.

I thought that might be like what would happen with us after The Husband ordered the part, showed it to me so I could see how fragile the part (an ignitor) was, returned to the kitchen, sat it on the tabletop, and then it rolled off and broke. He had to order a replacement and start all over again. Luckily the second time was the charm and he didn’t break it. He replaced it on Monday night and was very proud of himself since he isn’t someone who often does house repairs.

Tuesday night I made some breaded chicken in the oven, made waffles in our new waffle maker, and tried chicken and waffles.

The Boy had started suggesting we try to make chicken and waffles since The Husband picked up the waffle maker in December.

My recipe didn’t come out exactly like real chicken and waffles, but everyone said it was pretty good. I’m trying to cut out gluten so I just ate the chicken with some peas (honestly because I had already had gluten earlier in the day. I’m not doing great at the no-gluten thing in other words.).

I’m looking forward to relearning recipes that I can cook in the oven.

We usually visit my parents on Sunday afternoons but we might have to skip it tomorrow since we are supposed to get a snow and ice mixture.

If we stay home, The Husband and I hope to try out the mystery show Vera and maybe some more Marple. We haven’t had a lot of time to watch things together because he has been working a lot lately.

The rest of today will be me watching more Marple, maybe some more Lark Rise to Candleford, reading and hopefully finishing Little Women (after leisurely reading it for a couple of months I now hope to finish it and move on to some other classics. I’ve been enjoying it). I will be drawing some with Little Miss too. She already has the sketch paper and markers all set up.

I want to sit down at least once a week for an hour with her from now on and just draw with her and talk about art.

She really loves art and has since she was a toddler. Her current sketching obsession is dragons. I haven’t really sketched in years so I try to draw people when we sit down to draw and then I notice that the proportions are off and crumple it up and throw it away.

It’s nice to take some time, though, even an hour or so, to step away from social media and my computer and use my brain for something other than trying to figure out how to promote my books or write them in the first place.

I think this week we will draw and listen to an audiobook or a story from Adventures in Odyssey and completely remove ourselves from the rest of the world, so to speak. What’s nice is that our art time can count toward our homeschool lessons for the week.

How was your week last week? Do anything fun or exciting or just relaxing? I’d love to know.

Weekly Traffic Jam Reboot

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 up to go live on Thursdays at 9:30pm EDT. 

The cold weather finally went away and gave way to warmer temperatures this week.

It was so nice to be able to go outside and not feel my muscles and face aching from the cold.

Ice and snow still fell on Tuesday even as the temperatures rose.

By Wednesday it was all rain and we were supposed to get up to two inches but luckily we didn’t!

As I start this post, I am watching Emma for the post I shared this morning for Jane Austen January.

We only have one more movie left to watch for next week – Miss Austen Regrets.

Our link-up for anything about Jane Austen is still currently open on our blogs – at the top of the page under Jane Austen January.

Now for our most clicked most this week. We had a three-way tie!

The Trauma Effect by Zetta Thomelin by Is This Mutton

Mid-January Thrift by Thrifting Wonderland

and

Quiet Moments Tablescape by Thrifting Wonderland

And for my three favorite posts:

Favorite TV Shows Growing Up in the ‘80s and early ‘90s by My Slices of Life

I loved this nostalgic post about TV sitcoms and dramas from the 1980s and early 1990s. I watched a lot of the shows mentioned in the post and have good memories of those days.

My Father’s World Kindergarten: W is for Water by My Full Hands and Heart

I love reading about what other parents are doing to educate their children, either through homeschool or other means. I’ve read good things about My Father’s World too.

A Walk Down Church Street in Marietta, GA by Chez Mireille Fashion Travel Mom

I loved these photos of a walk down an area with historic homes in this part of Marietta, Georgia. The photos were pretty and the post was relaxing.

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

Jane Austen January: Emma (1996 Theatrical version)

This month Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I are watching movie adaptations of Jane Austen’s books for Jane Austen January. We are also offering a link-up for anyone who wants to discuss the movies, or anything else Jane-related, on their blogs.

I feel like Erin and I batted maybe not zero but around five this week by choosing to watch Emma. Both of our choices really weren’t very good and both of us agreed we didn’t want to see the 2020 version at all. We did want to watch the 2009 BBC miniseries but it would have been about four hours long.  It might have been worth it to not to have to see the fifteen minutes of the 1996 televised version that I had to suffer through, however.

The 2009 version stars Romola Garai and to me it is very well done. Mr. Knightly is a mix of charming and playful, Emma is still a brat but shows a transformation more so than in the Paltrow version, and the characters are better developed. Of course, they had time to develop characters since they had two hours more than the other movies.

(Disclaimer: Please keep in mind that I have not read the book so I can’t say if any of the movies keep in line with the book or not.)

So, as I mentioned, Erin and I both abandoned our first choice of the 1996 televised movie with Kate Beckinsal after only about 15 minutes for me (maybe less for Erin. Ha.)

My word that version was so dull – in the acting and in their outfits. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie where everyone wore brown and white against a set of more brown and white. Ew.

Now, as for our decision to shift our choice to the 1996 big screen version with Gwyneth Paltrow, I want to say up front that I am not always a fan of Americans doing British accents – especially in period pieces.

I don’t know what that is about but I guess it takes me completely out of a story knowing that the actress is really from California and not Sussex. It seems less refined somehow, which is funny since people from Sussex aren’t necessarily all refined either.

I have also been taken out of a story when a British actor is doing a Southern accent and I know there isn’t one Southern thing about him.

With that one complaint about Gwenyth not actually being British behind us, lets get to the rest of the movie.

First, the story of Emma.

Emma is about Emma Woodhouse, a young woman who is constantly meddling in the love lives of other people. She lives with her hypochondriac father and they are both often visited by their good friend Mr. Knightly.

Emma’s meddling sometimes is successful and leads to marriage, but other times, it leads to heartache, confusion, and people being hurt. It also keeps Emma from focusing on her own love life, which is beneficial to her because she doesn’t have to commit but hurtful to the men who fall for her.

Emma uses various schemes and tactics to keep some couples apart and bring other people together. She’s actually very manipulative and it takes most of the story and her being told by Mr. Knightly – a man who is a close friend of the family and almost like a brother to her – that her schemes are ruining people’s lives.

Like Pride and Prejudice, this movie had a lovely dance scene between Emma and her friend, Mr. Knightly. One of those where their attention is on each other and no one else. It was a lovely scene.

Unlike Pride and Prejudice (2005) the scenery isn’t as pretty in this movie to me. For example, at one point Emma and Mr. Knightly are shooting arrows and the pond behind them is covered in algae. The director couldn’t have set the shot up better to remove that from the background or had the body of water treated? I felt completely shallow, but I couldn’t even pay attention to the argument happening between the two because I was staring at the dirty, green water.

The movie was directed by Douglas McGrath.

He wanted Gwyneth Paltrow, according to Wikipedia, because, “she did a perfect Texas accent. I know that wouldn’t recommend her to most people. I grew up in Texas, and I have never heard an actor or actress not from Texas sound remotely like a real Texan. I knew she had theater training, so she could carry herself.”

Um..okay? I guess that’s a good reason to cast her?

Anyhow, it did not surprise me at all that Harvey Weinstein the co-chairman of Miramax at the time gave the movie the greenlight but said Gwenyth had to be in the movie The Pallbearer first.

She then had a month to herself while recovering from wisdom-tooth surgery to research for the part by studying horsemanship, dancing, singing, archery, and dialect.

If you don’t know the story behind Weinstein, you can look it up online but needless to say he was a big jerk who manipulated and physically attacked women but also controlled actors and actresses careers.

I thought it was interesting to read that the characters of Mrs. Bates and Miss Bates in the movie were played by an actual mother and daughter – Phyllida Law and Sophie Thompson.

Thompson revealed that it was a coincidence that she and her mother were cast alongside each other, as the casting director had their names on separate lists. She was actually one of the funnier and more refreshing characters to me.

I had to giggle when I saw Ewan McGregor as Frank Churchill and apparently, he cringes and giggles a bit as well for the same reason – his hair.

He told The Guardian that he chose to star in Emma because he thought it would be something different from his previous role in Trainspotting (a movie about a heroin addict).

“My decision-making was wrong,” he said in the interview. “It’s the only time I’ve done that. And I learnt from it, you know. So I’m glad of that – because it was early on and I learnt my lesson. It’s a good film, Emma, but I’m just… not very good in it. I’m not helped because I’m also wearing the world’s worst wig. It’s quite a laugh, checking that wig out.”

When I looked online for reviews of this movie, I found that most people generally liked it, including Roger Ebert who called it “a delightful film–second only to “Persuasion” among the modern Austen movies, and funnier, if not so insightful.”

Back in 1996, though, some college students called the film obnoxious. I had to laugh at the review of the review by Ebert when he wrote that the young student’s review was “posted on the Internet.” Ah, the early days of the Internet.

The college student wrote: “a parade of 15 or 20 or 8 billion supporting characters waltzes through the scenes. Each is called Mister or Miss or Mrs. Something, and each of them looks and acts exactly the same (obnoxious).”

I don’t know if I agree that the movie was that bad, or that there were really that many characters to keep track of.

I do agree that some of them were obnoxious – including Emma herself but we also have to remember that Emma was supposed to be young (21) and still learning about herself and how not to meddle in the lives of other people.

Ken Eisner, writing for Variety, said of Gwyneth that she shone “brightly as Jane Austen’s most endearing character, the disastrously self-assured matchmaker Emma Woodhouse. A fine cast, speedy pacing and playful direction make this a solid contender for the Austen sweepstakes.”

Ebert also liked Gwyneth in the role, writing, “Gwyneth Paltrow sparkles in the title role, as young Miss Woodhouse, who wants to play God in her own little patch of England. You can see her eyes working the room, speculating on whose lives she can improve. “

If you want to read about the different versions of the Emma adaptations yourself, you can see some comparisons at the following sites:

https://scottcahan.com/2020/06/27/emma-movies-which-is-the-best/

https://screenrant.com/emma-movies-adaptations-ranked-worst-best/

https://www.literarytraveler.com/articles/celebrating-the-fauxscars-why-the-2020-emma-outshines-the-1996-adaptation/

or watch this video:

or this one:

This was the last of our book adaptations. Next week we will be watching Miss Austen Regrets, which focuses on the life of Jane Austen.

Erin didn’t get a chance to write about Emma today as she isn’t feeling well, but if you want to share your thoughts on the movie(s) or book Emma, or anything else related to Jane Austen, you can add a link to our link-up HERE.

Have you seen this version of Emma? Or the 1996 television version?

Let me know in the comments.

Books I want to read for the remainder of the winter

Winter can last a long time in Northern Pennsylvania, which is why choosing what I want to read for the rest of winter here means I am choosing books for the rest of January, all of February, and a good portion of March. It has even been known to snow in April and the first week of May here, but I still consider the end of March and all of April to be spring, so that will require a new list.

I always list a lot of books I plan to read, or want to read, knowing full well I will not get them all read and will probably become distracted in the middle by another read.

For example, this week I am reading Little Women and finished another book I’d been reading for a bit but I got distracted by a lighter read called Sisterchicks Do the Hula by Robin Jones Gunn. After finishing the one book, I needed something lighter. Little Women is lighter but I like to read that book before bed as my nightly routine. I’m a bit of a creature of habit sometimes. I would, however, like to finish Little Women since I’ve been reading it leisurely since the end of November, so I will probably start reading it at other times as well. Anytime I need a bit of downtime and breather from life, I think.

Anyhow, enough rambling. Here are the books on my winter to be read list (subject to change):

The Bungalow Mystery and The Mystery At Lilac Inn (Nancy Drew Mysteries) by Carolyn Keene.

These two came together in one volume from Thriftbooks. I enjoy disappearing into these light, sometimes silly mysteries as a way to escape my worries.

Can I tell you how stupid I felt this week when I read that these books were written by several authors, just like the Hardy Boys? Talk about a facepalm moment. I had heard that years ago and then completely forgot that Carolyn Keene was simply a pen name.

Well, it doesn’t really matter. These classics are still a nice escape.

The Cat Who Went Into The Closet by Lillian Jackson Braun.

Braun’s books are a comfort read for me. I’ve already started this one and will probably continue it this week or next since I did get distracted by the fun Sisterchicks book. It will be a perfect read for the darkness of February – the month that seems like it will never end even though it is shorter than other months of the year.

Blessed Is the Busybody by Emilie Richards

This is a cozy mystery I picked up. It looked like it might have some faith elements but after reading part of Chapter 1 I see that the main character is a member of a Unitarian Universalist church and . . . well, I won’t comment here but that’s probably not the type of faith book I’m looking for. I don’t think? Still, most cozy mysteries I pick up have been clean and fun so I’m sure this one will be too.

I doubt it will be preachy because most cozy mysteries I’ve read aren’t, even if they are in the Christian fiction category. I only picked up one that went off about breast cancer and the importance of getting checked for a few pages, which totally threw me off since I read books to escape and this book read like a non-fiction book. I put that one aside and haven’t read anything by that author since, just as a way to protect myself from finding non-fiction subjects shoved at me in my fiction.

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

My son and I started this classic in the fall, became very bored and disenchanted and set it aside but now I am listening to it on Audible and it is making more sense. I am going to try to finish it and then he and I will “read it” (probably listen to it) again in March or April as part of his English course. This way I’ll have more of an idea of what is happening and can explain it to him instead of us both wandering around in the dark looking for a clue.

A Taste of Fame by Linda Evans  Shepherd and Eva Marie Everson

This is a Christian fiction/cozy mystery and is part of a series of books. I’ve never read any books from these authors so I’m looking forward to seeing if the book is good or not.

Midwinter Murder by Agatha Christie

I have been saying I would read this book for the last two years and I am determined to do it this year. This is a collection of stories from Agatha, I believe.

Hell Is Empty by Craig Johnson

I didn’t read one Longmire Mystery book last year so I hope to remedy that this year. Johnson’s books are pretty dark but also have some humor in them. Still, the darkness is what often keeps me away from them in winter (when I deal with some seasonal depression but better than in the past) so I will probably read this one toward the end of the winter.

Do The New You by Steven Furtick

I’ve already started this book and hope to continue reading it and I know I’ll be reading it with my online Bible study group through February.

Under the Magnolias by T.I. Lowe

I heard about this book when it first came out a couple of years ago and I’m finally deciding to tackle it now. This may end up getting pushed into the spring, though.

Have you read any of these books? What did you think of them if you did?

Faithfully Thinking: In full disclosure, I do not think I can love Judas.

I read a quote recently about the real test of the Christian faith is not if we love Jesus but if we can love Judas.

Ouch.

That’s something I had never really thought about.

Loving Judas.

Have you ever thought about loving the man who betrayed Jesus to the Romans and whose actions led him to his death?

I mean, if he hadn’t done that then Jesus wouldn’t have been led to the cross and died there for our sins, right?

Or would God have found another way?

Sometimes I wonder why God couldn’t have found another way.

Was it God’s plan or Judas’s free will that led him to do what he did? God gave him free will but he also knows the future so he allowed Judas to condemn himself to hell – I have to be honest that this kept me awake last night because I didn’t like the idea that a man was allowed to go to hell to complete God’s plan.

This is how my brain worked as I thought about it all: Did he walk himself to his doom and direct path to hell or did God help him along?

It is a twisting and turning journey in my brain that I don’t want to take. I’ll never really know no matter how many times I think about it anyhow. Not until Jesus calls me home. Then it will be one of the first questions I ask him.

This past week I thought about who the Judas are in my life. Or who were.

The people who did things to me or those I loved that were so horrible I can’t imagine how to forgive them. I’ve actually come a long way in forgiving those who did things to me or maybe those who were rude and dismissive to family members of mine.

But those who sexually and mentally abused children I know?

To be honest and open — I can’t say that I’ve been able to forgive that person. Not even a little bit. And I don’t know how I ever will. In the Bible it says we must forgive those who sin against us, but how? How do you forgive the monsters in the world? That, to me, is only a forgiveness God can give because as humans it’s too big of a task.

As soon as I read that question a few months ago about loving Judas two people came into my mind. One I’ve slowly been able to forgive but might never fully trust again. The other? I see only red when I think of them.

I wish I could write here, right now, that I thought to myself about that one person when I read that quote, “Yes, I can love the Judas in my life because God has called me to,” but I didn’t think that. Not at all. I thought, “Oof..” like I’d been punched in the gut. I thought “Wow. What a question.”

But at no time did I think, “Yes, Lord, I can.”

Because I can’t.

Not now, and without Jesus supernaturally hallowing me out and replacing my humanness with his holiness, I don’t see how I ever can.

Jesus loved Judas therefore he can love even us when we are at our lowest and darkest.

This is something I’ve read and heard before and the next question is if he could love the real Judas, can I love the real Judas in my life?

For now, all I can say is, “I’ll keep praying about it.”

Because at this point, at least in one case, – even though the Bible says God can not forgive us if we do not forgive others – the answer is no.

As Thomas who asked to be helped with his unbelief, I am asking God to help me with seeing others as he sees them. Maybe one day I will.

Sunday Bookends: Cold temps, a winter booklist, and lots of shows to watch

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

Yesterday in my Saturday Afternoon Chat I wrote about how cold it has been here, as it has been across much of the country. I mentioned that I had mainly been staying at home for the most part and didn’t really want to go anywhere until Sunday when I usually have lunch with my parents. I did decide to go to their house yesterday, though, on the coldest day of the year, because I wanted to help my mom get back into the house after she and my dad attended a dinner after the funeral of a friend.

Mom is getting older but also dealing with fibromyalgia and some issues with her shoulders.

She did very well despite the 13-degree temps with a wind chill of -2 or -4, not sure because I stopped looking at the weather app because it was depressing, but she was very tired when she came back. We sat her in her chair, covered her with a blanket, gave her some chamomile tea and she fell promptly fell asleep. In her defense, she’d been up quite early and the cold really takes it out of her.

Before my parents came back from the dinner they’d gone to Little Miss and I vacuumed and cleaned up some messes. My mom called when they stopped at the Dollar General and updated me on the funeral and dinner, thinking I was still at home. We kept it a surprise and I wish I had recorded the looks on their faces when I walked to the car to help Mom get in the house and they tried to figure out how I’d gotten to the house so quickly.

We hadn’t seen them in person in a couple of weeks, thanks to the weather, so it was nice to visit for the afternoon.

What I/we’ve Been Reading

Currently Reading:

Right now I am reading Dysfunction Junction by Robin W. Pearson and Little Women. Yes, still. Dysfunction Junction is a bit of a “heavier” read in some ways and Little Women is a nice and leisurely read. Plus I’ve been reading books to Little Miss during the day and at night, which takes up some of my reading time.

Recently Finished:

Up Next or Soon:

The Cat Who Went Into The Closet by Lilian Jackson Braun.

Planned reads for the rest of winter:

The Bungalow Mystery and The Mystery At Lilac Inn (Nancy Drew Mysteries) by Carolyn Keene.

Blessed Is the Busybody by Emilie Richards

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

A Taste of Fame by Linda Evans  Shepherd and Eva Marie Everson

Midwinter Murder by Agatha Christie

Hell Is Empty by Craig Johnson

Do The New You by Steven Furtick

Under the Magnolias by T.I. Lowe

Little Miss and I are reading The Borrowers at night or Paddington Goes To Town.

The Husband has been reading John Connolly books.

The Boy is reading Lost Names: Tales of a Korean Boyhood by Richard Kim for history and English for homeschool and listening to The Witcher.

What We watched/are Watching

Yesterday I watched a video with Darling Desi on YouTube when she visited Powell’s City of Books, the largest bookstore in the country and I found myself living vicariously through her, imagining I’d be overstimulated in a bookstore so large but also in a type of readers heaven.

Last weekend I watched Pride and Prejudice to write about it with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs for our Jane Austen January. You can read her impression of it HERE.

I was so excited this week to see that the new season of All Creatures Great and Small is available on Amazon so I watched the first episode. The Husband also told me that the fourth season of Miss Scarlet and the Duke is available, or will be soon, but I am still in season three so that will have to wait.

I also watched a couple of episodes of Northern Exposure and then watched them again with The Boy who at first told me he didn’t want to watch anymore because he couldn’t stand the main character. I thought we were done after the first episode but after a few minutes of sitting there he said, “So are we watching another one or what?”

Both of us were bewildered by episode two of the first season and the third episode irritated me because Joel and Maggie were already flirting and, first of all, they haven’t known each other very long and, two, they are both in relationships. I’ll still keep watching because the quirky characters are interesting.

The Husband and I also watched an episode of CB Strike and an episode of The Manor Born, which I watched throughout the week because it is a comfort watch for me.

Last night we watched Treasure Planet with the kids. It came out in 2002 and I had seen it but years ago and forgotten all about it.

What I’m Writing

This week I made some definite progress on Cassie, a book that will release in August with a multi-author project.

It is not available for pre-order yet but I will keep you updated.

I have been starting a lot of blog posts but not finishing them. Hopefully, I’ll have more of them done and shared this week.

What I’m Listening to

I haven’t been listening to as much music this week but I have been listening to old Jack Benny episodes before bed.

Photos from Last Week

Blog Posts I Enjoyed This Past Week

I’ve been trying to read more posts from some of my favorite blogs recently and here are a few of my favorite posts:

Sounds of Silence by A New Lens

I enjoyed this reminder to find the time to sit in silence with our savior instead of just bringing requests to him throughout our day.

This is a nice story from Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian about a quick, simple gesture that made his day.

This was such a touching post from Alicia at For His Purpose about sitting with her ill grandmother who is currently in hospice care.

In this post, Becoming His Tapestry wrote about the cold temps, snow, and how it relates to the sacrifice of God of his son for us.

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: Cold weather, a warm fire, and making myself sit down and read.

The fire is still burning away today in our woodstove, orange and yellow merging together in a cacophony of raging warmth to chase away the insanely bitter cold outside. All week the family has been stuck inside because of the fall in the thermometer and the additional lower temperature brought by the windchill.

The fun of playing in fallen snow by the youngest was stolen by the cold. She lasted about ten minutes outside before she announced she couldn’t feel her face, her fingers, or her toes, even with all her thick winter gear on.

Zooma the Wonder Dog was quite depressed that the ground was white with snow but she and her favorite playmate weren’t out, rolling in it, tossing it in the air, and catching snowballs.

Instead, we had to find inside activities to do. I tried to read and work on my book. Little Miss was able to talk to her friends on the phone and play online games with them. The cats slept almost all day every day, especially when the fire was roaring. The Boy played some video games, did some homework and helped bring in wood to keep the fire going.

He also walked to the neighbor’s house one day and helped clean the snow off her steps and car. He only had one day of school again this week. He attends the morning session of a vocational school and if the local school district calls for a two-hour delay then the morning session is canceled.

He has been enjoying his time off and is a bit disappointed that the weather looks better next week and he’ll have to go back. We encouraged him to take a building and construction course at the local trade school as part of his education but so far it is not his favorite thing to do. He might change his course next year or try something else, but at least he has some experience and knows more what he doesn’t want to do when he gets out of school.

I’ve been missing going to my parents but either our driveway was slippery or it was super cold outside. I mentioned in the Sunday Bookends last week that I had tried to go to my parents on Sunday afternoon but there were tree branches in the road and ice forming as the temperatures dropped as we tried to drive there so I turned around. It will still be cold this Saturday but it shouldn’t be slippery or windy so we will be heading there for lunch and maybe a movie and a game of cards.

A couple of days this week I forced myself to sit down in front of our woodstove with a book to feel the warmth and enjoy some quiet time. I don’t sit down and just read like I want to very often so I have to say to myself, “No. You’re not going to pick up the room.  You’re not going to wash dishes. You’re not going to work on your book or scroll through Instagram. You’re going to sit on this floor and read this book and lose yourself in it.”

It’s like I feel like it is wrong to just be sitting and reading but really, there are times we need to do that. We need to sit and take even 15 minutes to ourselves to settle our brains and calm our souls. We can either read a book we like, read the Bible, read a verse, listen to an encouraging sermon, worship music, or journal but we need to take that time for ourselves more than most of us do.

I don’t know why we don’t take the time we should for ourselves but I say this year work to feel less guilt when you sit in some quiet for yourself. I know that’s a goal for me.

I had to laugh the one night because both of my kids kept talking to me as I tried to read, as if I wasn’t sitting there, on the floor, with a physical book opened, clearly reading.

“Oh. You’re trying to read, aren’t you?” asked my son.

“No. No. I’m just holding this book to make myself look smarter,” is what I could have said, but what I really said was, “Yes, but it is okay. I like to talk to you.”

And I do like to talk to him because soon he will be grown up and out of the house and I won’t have as many opportunities to talk to him. He and I are both night owls who open up at night. I am not as much of a night owl as I used to be because I am old and start to fade by 11. If I get a second wind, though, I’m often up until 1 a.m. reading. After 11 is the only quiet time I get to read unless I wake up early to do so instead.

The Boy might not talk to me all day but when midnight hits that’s when he wants to talk so that’s when we talk. I’m fine with it unless I’m fading and feel guilty because I am not really listening.

How was the weather where you were this week? I know most of the United States was thrown into an arctic freeze and I think most of us will be out of it next week.

Have you been trying any new teas?

This week I drank my regular tea and some hot cocoa. I have tried a new probiotic tea and that was okay. What I hope to get some more of soon is some elderberry tea.

Let me know how you’ve been in the comments and I’ll see you again tomorrow for Sunday Bookends.