Masterpiece Classics (PBS) has been a favorite of mine for years and is a usual Sunday night ritual for me to watch whatever gem they have on… and I am never disappointed. I own several of their box sets and I am always rewatching them.
and…
I love Jane Austen… Emma has always been one of my favorite characters… but I have never liked the actresses in the film adaptations, until now. On Sunday they aired the third installment in what is now my favorite version of Emma. Romola Garai (think Atonement) played the sometimes despised heroine of Emma to perfection. The photography was breathtaking along with the beautiful scenery… I never wanted it to end.
Thank you for “Merle’s Door”… I am so happy to meet you through Kateigh’s book swap. I love how you wrote in the card that you picked this book because it represents you “free spirit, nature loving, and compassionate” From what I can see from your lovely blog… you are, just those things.
and thank you again Kateigh for coming up with this great swap idea.
Dear Daughter ~
I am so proud of you for being 1 of only 2 Middle Schoolers that made it in to the Highschool production of “The Music Man” .
You are the sunshine in my life…
Dear Debra ~
Thank you for “Listen to the Warm” by Rod McKuen… not only because his poetry is beautiful, but because you shared just another piece of yourself with me.
Listen to the Warm By Rod McKuen
I live alone.
It hasn’t always been that way.
It’s nice sometimes
to open up the heart a little
and let some hurt come in.
It proves you’re still alive.
I’m not sure what it means.
Why we cannot shake the old loves from our minds.
It must be that we build on memory
and make them more than what they were.
And is the manufacture
just a safe device for closing up the wall?
I do remember.
The only fuzzy circumstance
is something where-and how.
Why, I know.
It happens just because we need
to want and to be wanted too,
when love is here or gone
to lie down in the darkness
and listen to the warm.
Thank you for what is the very best Valentine I have ever received. You handmade it with quotes and pictures from one of my favorite films. Once again your thoughtfulness brought me to tears. I love you m…
and finally…
Dear Blogger Friends ~
Thank you for your continued support of my little corner of the internet. I am sorry I have not been a faithful reader lately but I hope to catch up with all of you this week…
so i know i have been MIA. I have been neglecting my blog and yours and I am so sorry… Hopefully by this afternoon I will be able to do a recap post to get up to date and I will be able to catch up on all your blogs… I have missed them.
on to music monday…
This paticular artist has been a favorite of mine for years and she has been away for awhile…. but her new album is being released tomorrow and I can not wait to get my hands on it. One of her most popular songs is this one…Her voice is so sexy, she has a song that fits every mood, her music trancends genre and in my opinion NO one makes pain feel so good…
so … i have a serious crush on this girl. She is so bad ass but then so sensitive and fragile. I adore her ballads… and her up tempo music is perfect for working out. After my sister passed away, this song always played in my mind. In fact I wear a locket with my sister’s picture and engraved on the other side is “my darling, who knew.”
Last night I watched the Grammy’s and for the first time in a long time I really enjoyed the whole show. This being one of my favorite perfomances. It reminded me of how much I LOVE this song off her latest album.
“Have you ever hated yourself for staring at the phone?
You’re whole life waiting on the ring to prove you’re not alone
Have you ever been touched so gently you had to cry?
Have you ever invited a stranger to come inside….”
“When you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense. You try desperately to hold onto them. They are the lifeboats for the darker times. When the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely illusive.”
“So the question becomes
or should have been all along.”
“What would you do if you knew you only had one day or one week or one month to live?”
“What life boat would you grab onto?
What secret would you tell?
What band would you see?
What person would you declare your love to?
What wish would you fulfill?
What exotic local would you fly to for coffee?
What book would you write?”…
“I always figured that what he did was one thing and what he was was another. I was in love with what he was. Oh, maybe I was wrong, but you can’t argue yourself out of falling in love! You just can’t sit down and think it out.”
~ Evelyn “Billie” Frechette
The weekend is here at last and I am anxious to get to work on a project that I have been putting off.
I have a lower level in my house that is basically just a catch-all. My excercise equipment is down there with a mounted wall T.V and my husband’s bachelor days ping-pong table has become a landing-place for all of my scrap booking and crafty supplies. I don’t feel bad about this because my DH refuses to play ping-pong with me because according to him I am a “dink and dunker”. If you know what this expression means my hat is off to you. My husband is extremely athletically inclined and well…. I am not. So golfing, tennis, ping-pong as a couple is sometimes and excercise in futility for him. Although he is always very NICE about it… the truth is in his expressions.
but I digress… I am wanting to revamp this room into a craft/workout/all me room. I want to make a whole wall like one big collage with some motivational quotes stenciled on the wall as well as photos, magazine clippings etc. Make sense?
Below is a picture of the way the room looks now. That computer desk and that low table will be donated to a Thrift Store. I was hoping you all might have some inspiration.
Here are some fun collage walls…
If I do magazine clipings.. will I need cork board?
So If you have any ideas please HELP… I have a feeling I will be looking for photo ideas on the internet all weekend.
Inspired by the Kateigh’s Top 5 Tuesday posts about her 5 boy celeb crushes and her top 10 (she couldn’t pick just 5) celeb girl crushes, I thought I would make my lists (cause after all I love lists).
I have tried to get husband to do the “pick 5 celeb girls that you would be allowed to cheat on me with”… but he flatly refuses… he says “this is a trick question and I refuse to play”… He’s NO fun.
But that certainly hasn’t stopped me.
so in particular order…
My Top 5 Celebrity Girl Crushes ~
5} Evangeline Lily- so natural
4} Eva Mendez -this girl has the most rocking body…ever.
3} Rachel McAdams -she can pull off any hair color and still be beautiful
2} Marion Cotillard -stunning
1}biggest crush ever – Kate Winslet
Top 5 Celebrity Boy Crushes ~
5} Ryan Gosling ~Ok, it’s not just because of the Notebook… have you seen him in Half Nelson?
4} Kevin McKidd ~Long before he was Owen on Grey’s he was in HBO’s series ROME… and I’ve loved him since.
3} Leonardo DiCaprio ~I fall for him in every movie
2} James McAvoy ~did i mention i am a sucker for Scottish accents?…um yah! I first saw him on the British drama series Shameless. Amazing!
1} Joshua Jackson ~ so if you have read my blog for sometime than you are well aware of my HUGE crush on Josh. I have had a major obsession with him since his Dawson’s Creek days and it has only progressed over the years. I have seen everything he has ever been in not to mention every interview. I love the way he walks, talks, laughs… it’s crazy. My darling husband is aware of said craziness and has accepted that this is the one and only celebrity I would consider cheating on him with… however seeing as this will never happen I will have to live vicariously through his beautiful girlfriend Diane Kruger… hate love her!
so… there is this little shop we have here in downtown Fargo called Zandbroz. It is a coffee shop, book store and all things vintage shop. I LOVE it and sometimes spend way too much money there. When I went in this weekend they had little tins filled with postcards. I had to have one of each…OF COURSE.
Since I was snowed in yesterday and was having a You Tube issue, I will do my music monday post today!
Friday night I watched the Hope For Haiti special with bestie via text messaging. Sometimes we do that… watch the same things at the same time and comment throughout via text. I love that… just that little connection makes my day!
anyways~ the show was beautifully done with lots of moving performances and heart wrenching stories but this paticular performance sent me over the edge and I was sobbing like a little girl. I see that I am not the only one cause when I went on i-tunes to download it yesterday it was the in the Number 1 spot. I have always been a HUGE fan of Justin Timberlake and Matt Morris has such an amazing sound but put together with this beautiful classic song gave me chills.
I remember him saying this to me quite often through my early teens.
“I can’t do it”… “attitude is everything” “It’s to hard”…“attitude is everything” “I am angry”…“attitude is everything”
etc…
At the time of course this was extremely annoying but the older I get the more I realize how true this statement is.
Last night I watched “Invictus” with Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon. It was an inspiring film about how we must strive to make each day a good one no matter what our circumstances maybe.
How we think determines how we feel!
This poem by William Henley is what the movie was inspired after and I have it printed at the front of my quote book…
it reminds me that I am the only person standing in my way….
“Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul”
P.S. If I were to imagine God’s voice…. It would sound like Morgan Freeman’s.
I am ashamed to admit that way back at the beginning of December Micaela tagged me with this great award and put a fun spin on it. Take pictures around your home that may show a little about you. Then last week I got this tag and I decided that I would combine the two, seeing I have just been really slacking off on my blog lately. I do have a good reason… i sware.
so…. 7 things i love and/or pictures that tell about me.
1. I love to paint… and I took an acrylics class several years ago and this is what I did. I am ashamed to admit that all my other “projects” have never been completed… half jobs. But I am proud of this one. A good friend of mine had it framed for me awhile ago and it hangs in my hallway. 2. I collect old books… I am guessing this is not really news to most of you, seeing as I talk about it all the time but I thought I would share a picture. I have stacks and stacks that I have received as gifts, found at thrift stores and antique shops. These are my newest treasures that I am filling up a chest with. Hopefully someday soon I will be able to display them properly.
3. My grandfathers cuff links/tie pins… he was my hero and a wonderful example of what a truly generous heart is. I was honored when my grandmother gave these to me. I love to open the case and just run my fingertips over them. If I close my eyes I can feel is presence.
4. My movie collection…. is so big that I can not even keep them in one place. We have shelves down in our family room but they are so full that I had to take over some of my dresser drawers in my bedroom. Some people need extra space for clothes, I need it for movies. So many movies speak to me, affect me and like a good book I want to know that if I am in the mood for a certain story, a certain moment that I can find it in my collection.
5. I am completely incapable of taking cute photos of myself… i always love to see the adorable self portraits of all of you beautiful bloggers… but when I try to do it, they turn out like this.
6. i love Apple…. i just got my 15″ Mac Book Pro over the weekend. I have been wanting one forever and finally it’s mine.
and 7. my angel painting…. I lost my sister in 2003 at the age of 20. It is and probably will always be the most devasting thing I have ever had to go through. My heart is forever missing a huge piece and still almost 7 years later… if I hear a song or see something she would have loved , i cry. Shortly after she left us my aunt gave me this most beautiful painting. Her face reminds me so much of my sister and I just love looking at it… i just know that she is watching over us…
i hope this gives you all a little more in sight into little old me…
i am a lover, a fighter and a walking contradiction.
i am a lover of words and music.
i believe i was born in the wrong decade on the wrong continent.
i am a mother, a wife, a sister, a daughter and a friend...
"Are we not like two volumes of one book?" ~ Desbordes-Valmore
… completely thought provoking
a real human is somebody who feels and who expresses his or her feelings. This may sound easy. It isn’t.
A lot of people think or believe or know what they feel... but that’s thinking or believing or knowing: not feeling. And being real is feeling... not just knowing or believing or thinking.
Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but it’s very difficult to learn to feel. Why? Because whenever you think or you believe or you know, you’re a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you’re nobody ... but ... yourself.
To be nobody ... but ... yourself ...in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else ... means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
As for communicating nobody...but...yourself to others, that means working just a little harder than anybody who isn’t real can possibly imagine. Why?
Because nothing is quite as easy as just being just like somebody else. We all of us do exactly this nearly all of the time ...and whenever we do it, we are not real.
If, at the end of your first ten or fifteen years of fighting and working and feeling, you find you’ve loved just once with a nobody...but...yourself heart, you”ll be very lucky indeed.
And so my advice to all young people who wish to become real is: do something easy, like dreaming of freedom ...unless you’re ready to commit yourself to feel and work and fight till you die. ~ "a poets advice" ~ ee cummings
