A Couple of Movie Recommendations

It's been a beautiful day today in Minnesota. Over the weekend we had Iowa-like humidity, wind, and rain. We needed the rain, but it sure made things sticky. I celebrated my birthday on Friday. DH and SD made me homemade beignets (French fried pastries) and chocolate flavored coffee for breakfast. They got the mix for them when they were in New Orleans and had the real thing at Cafe' DuMond. They were pretty tasty, but the deep frying sure made the house stinky for awhile. Then later in the day, DH and I went to a matinee and over to some friends for supper. The girls went and saw "Julie and Julia" and the boys went to "G. I. Joe". My friend and I loved "Julie and Julia" and I would highly recommend it. It was a real feel good movie...a few sad parts, but also a lot of humor and it made me want to go out and get a Julia Child cookbook. I learned a lot about her life; she was quite an interesting lady, and she had a real peach of a husband also.

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The other movie I saw recently on DVD was "Marley and Me". Another good movie, but I'm glad I didn't see it in public because I was practically sobbing by the time it was over. I'm not a big cryer, but this one really got to me. A great story and I don't think you'd have to be a dog owner to appreciate it.

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School is starting in many places, but we're lucky here to not have to go back for three more weeks. My kids and I all start the same day, Sept. 8th, although the college kids have to be on campus sooner than that. The big move in day for them is the 1st, so we'll see how I deal with having two kids in college. Poor TB will be the only one left at home for me to pick on. The poor thing is so tired from football and mowing lawns he probably won't even notice.

My Long Weekend

The weekend sure flew by and here it is Monday already. We don't have school today for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, so I'll be trying to tie up the loose ends from my weekend as I do most Mondays. Do you ever notice how so many things never get done because of all the mundane things that we feel must be done first? I don't think I ever really get done with the house cleaning, dishes, laundry, etc. and I have the mind-set that I need to before I do the fun stuff like sewing and going through photographs. It's funny how I find time for blogging and drinking coffee.

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One of the highlights of the weekend was going out with friends to see Gran Torino and have dinner out afterward. It was a great movie, both funny and touching, really the kind of movie where you laugh and cry. Clint Eastwood played the lead, a recently widowed retired Detroit autoworker who still lives in the old neighborhood. The neighborhood has vastly changed, becoming home to many immigrants, mostly Hmong, and the movie follows his relationship with the family next door. Their son, Thao is the other main character. He's a young man trying to find his way without a lot of opportunity except for the local gang trying to recruit and initiate him. It had a lot of themes, but mostly had to do with the racism of Clint's character and his enlightenment as the movie went on. I think most people can relate to it and probably know older people in their family very similar to him. Even without all of the racial epithets, there are a lot of people out there with the same kind of racism born from ignorance and lack of opportunity to experience diversity. Of course there are plenty of others who are taught to be racist and pursue it with a vengeance. Naming their child Adolf Hitler comes to mind. It will be an exciting day tomorrow with the inauguration. I believe that it's a great sign, but there is still a long way to go where racism is concerned in this country. In reading blogs before the election, I was appalled at some of the anti-Obama entries. Not all of them were coming from a racist perspective, but many were. Sweet little ladies who suddenly had this voracious interest in politics and would never have admitted that it had anything to do with racism. Anyway, I would highly recommend this movie, there was complete silence and many people in tears when it was over, attesting to its' powerful message.(Edited: I decided that I had better put in a cautionary note that this movie is rated "R", has a significant amount of foul language, violence, and racial epithets. I know that it is not everyone's cup of tea, however, I saw many older folks in the audience, really a cross section of (white) society.)

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The rest of the weekend was quickly consumed by painting the basement floor (pictures another day), taking CS back to college, bringing Quicken up to date, laundry, cleaning, etc. Oh yeah, and watching the Gopher hockey team sweep St. Cloud. I hope to get some sewing done today, but first I have to clean up the cat barf on the carpet and wash the dishes.

Catch Up Blog

Wow! I've had quite a break from blogging, so I thought I'd better catch up my reader(s) on everything I've been doing instead of blogging.
***I hurt my back shoveling snow and was laid up for a couple of days with back pain. I found that the old "push and scrape move" with one foot on top of the shovel is a sure killer. I missed church and one day of work. When I went back I foolishly demonstrated to a coworker the "move" sans shovel, that hurt too, but fortunately there was no reinjury. I've got to find a new move!
***Baked more cookies. Ate a lot of cookies. Baked more cookies. DH made two kinds of lefse. He's still feeling proud that his kringla made one of my coworkers say she was weak in the knees. A friend tells me that someone may try to steal him away.
***Moved CS home from college late last Weds. night. It was great to get that done and nice to have him home although he spent most of the weekend at his girlfriend's family Christmas somewhere up North.
***Surviving bitterly cold weather and lots and lots of snow. The actual temp was -13 F. this morning. More snow predicted tonight and tomorrow. I mean come on, this is getting a little ridiculous! But we've passed the winter solstice, so the days are getting longer!! Yay!!
***Went caroling to a couple of area nursing homes. Very heartwarming and the old folks appreciate it so much.
***Read the "Twilight" book and DH took me out to eat and to the movie last Friday night. I liked the book, liked the movie better I think. Not fantastic or anything, but enjoyable and I'm reading the second book now. DH has read the entire series already, SD owns all of the books.
***Watched a lot of movies at home, some from TV, some from Netflix, some from our own collection. Watched "ELF" from TV last night. Looking forward to our annual watching of "A Muppet Christmas Carol". I love that movie, the music is great too.
***Had a "Snow Day" from school finally. Last Friday was our final day of school before winter break, so it was a little weird to miss that, but the kids are so excited that day anyway that noone missed much. Some classes watch a movie or play a game, but there aren't any real parties or anything anymore. The high school kids have a huge assembly, so it was too bad they missed that. They spend the month of Dec. raising funds for a particular charity and then have the assembly as a final push and celebration. Each of the high schools in town pick a charity and there is always competition to see who raises the most money. They do all sorts of creative things like selling "Saran Wrapping" where they go into a class and plastic wrap someone either alone or with another person (maybe a potential couple or something) or even a teacher. The person has to pay an equal amount to get out of the saran wrap, so it makes a lot of money.
***I finished all of my decorating and cleaning once. Things are a little messy again, so I need to do a little more cleaning, wrapping a few gifts, and a little shopping to be totally ready for Christmas. We are keeping things a little more low key this year with the amount spent on gifts, traveling, cards, decorating, entertaining, etc. Really the only place we've overdone is the baking.
So, I think that's about it, all has not been wonderful, but I'm focusing on all that is and there's a lot to be thankful for. More holiday cheer later!!

Meals, Music, Movies, and More Meals

We had quite a nice weekend, I know it's Tuesday, but I'm still thinking about all that happened. On Friday night, our church choir participated in a choir benefit for an agency that supports homeless families in our town. Churches, including mine, take turns hosting the families for a week at a time. The church provides the evening meal and places to sleep, usually on air mattresses in Sunday School rooms. During the day, the clients go to a day home where the agency works with them to find housing, jobs, etc. It has been a pretty successful program and has really changed my view of what it means to be homeless. Most are young women with children. Anyway, there were about a dozen choirs participating along with an orchestra and a brass group. It was fun to hear the other choirs perform and also to sing two pieces as a mass choir. The event raised $9,000 plus, so that was nice considering the tough economic times for most people. Afterwards, most of the choir went to a Mexican restaurant for a late supper and drinks. On Saturday, I did some things around the house and also got the leaves in the front yard picked up again. It was cold enough to see my breath, so I felt a little silly, but I used the mower with the bagging attachment to get the leaves. Late in the afternoon, we met four other couples to go see the new James Bond movie Quantum of Solace. I didn't really like the movie that well, but all of the "boys" did. After that we went to an Italian restaurant for a fabulous meal, so that made the evening worth it. I was pretty exhausted by the time we got home. I had recorded the Gopher hockey game, so I watched that mostly on fast forward. We had to be to church early on Sunday as the bell choir and the regular choir I'm in performed at the early service. We played bells at the beginning of the late service too and then I came home for a quick nap. I had to make it quick since we were hosting a Fellowship Tables meal Sunday night. For this there are four couples who get together three times during the year for a meal. It is a nice chance to get to know some people we wouldn't otherwise. I knew the other couples only a little, so I wasn't sure how it would go, but we had a really nice time. Everyone brings part of the meal, so it isn't so much work for the hosts. I also managed to watch most of the Sunday afternoon hockey game while I was working around the house and kitchen. I've never been much of a hockey fan, but the goalie is from our town and I know his parents, so it has been fun to keep up with it. He had his first shut-out and is undefeated so far this year.