October 30th, This and That

Can you believe tomorrow is the last day of October?  2020?  What a year, right?  I hope you're enjoying a beautiful autumn wherever you may be.  We have some pretty colors here in our town, but we've seen prettier.  Weekend before last, we drove up to the mountains for the day, and the colors were so dull; it was as if the leaves were seriously considering just skipping the whole show this year.  It was a disappointment, for sure.  Chalk another one up to 2020.  I am thankful for mostly blue skies and puffy white clouds today.  Yesterday, we suffered the leftover wind and rain of  Hurricane Zeta, and I realize that what we had was mild indeed compared to what the people of Louisiana have been hit with.  There were several large trees down in our neighborhood and the surrounding town; this morning we heard that about 100,000 residents in North Carolina are still without power.  In looking at pictures of the Gulf Coast, we were very fortunate.   

   

Watching "Dunkirk," Reading Ken Follett, and Spending Time With Family

Happy Columbus Day everyone.  Before I get to the rest of my post, I want to say that I've really had a challenging time lately with blogging, and especially visiting other blogs.  At first I thought it was Blogger, but now Mr. Forest Manor and I have determined the problem is with my browser, Google Chrome.  Certain blogs would open and load immediately for me, and others refused to load.  I was not able to visit my friend Betsy at Estelle's, and I wanted to leave some comments for her.  I also tried to visit Michele at Finch Rest and Martha at Lines From Linderhof.  I've now switched to using Microsoft Edge as my browser, and that is working well (for now).  Is anyone else out there having these kinds of problems?     

   

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Hello Dear Friends.  Once again, I've been absent for a bit, but right now, I imagine everyone is so shell-shocked they haven't even noticed.  At the moment, I'm dealing with a case of Bell's Palsy for the third time in 26 years.  If you're not familiar with it, the short explanation is the doctors aren't sure what causes it, although a virus (not CoVid 19) is one of the possibilities.  At any rate, there is pressure on one of my cranial nerves, which causes a temporary (I sincerely hope) paralysis in the right side of my face.  It's difficult to blink my right eye, to eat and drink, and to talk.  Today makes a week since it first started, and I finished my round of steroids yesterday.  We're seeing a very slight improvement, so I hope it will heal completely, as it did the first two times.             

Happy Weekend

Hello dear friends!  I can't believe it's Friday, but I sure am glad!  I hope you've all had a good week.  You might have gathered that we were at the coast last week, and it was so nice to get away.  The weather was some of the nicest we've ever had for a whole week, and that in itself was a blessing.

Happy Halloween and A Blast From the Past

Happy Friday and Happy Halloween everyone!!  I hope you've all had a good week.  Do you have your costumes and candy ready?  :-D

This afternoon I had another post almost finished with two of my favorite oldie songs.  I wasn't really satisfied with the post because for one thing, it didn't relate to Halloween at all, and well, tomorrow is October 31st.  Then this evening I saw something on television that made me realize I needed to re-do my post and save the first one for next week.

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What Kind of Movies Do You Like?

I love movies!  I have for as long as I can remember, and I have to say, I like an eclectic mix of movies.  If asked what my favorite kind of movie is, I would be hard pressed to say.  Here are some of my favorites over the years --

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A Movie Review

I finally got to watch "The King's Speech" this week.  I voted it worth the wait.  After being gently persuaded to watch it with me, The Mister enjoyed it, too ;)  We thought that Geoffrey Rush and Colin Firth did a fantastic job, and so did Helena Bonham Carter.  It was interesting to see Queen Elizabeth and the late Princess Margaret portrayed as young girls, and they even had their Welsh Corgis.

After having watched the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton this Spring, it was fun to see this bit of history about the Royal Family and the period leading up to World War II.  Until this movie was released, I knew relatively nothing about Prince Albert (later to become King George VI).  We had seen a piece earlier about his brother, Prince Edward VIII, and the infamous Wallis Simpson on the History Channel.

Some critics have said the movie was not quite historically accurate.  I found the story  to be entertaining and inspirational.  Just call me Ms. Ebert/Shalit/Maltin.  What did you think of "The King's Speech"?

Denise

Hooray For Harry

On Saturday, DH and I saw the last Harry Potter movie.  We drove to the theater with mixed feelings; we were excited because we'd been looking forward to seeing the movie, but a bit sad because we knew that it was the last one.  The end of the journey.

Our son convinced me to read the book the summer after his fourth-grade year.  I loved it; I encouraged my husband to read it, and thus we began a wonderful family adventure.  Seven years of reading all the books in the series, and ten years of going to see the movies.

The character, Harry Potter, was 11 years old in the first book, and our son was eleven when we chaperoned his fifth-grade class to see the very first movie.  Yep, there were kids there from age 10 to age 40 :-)  Then when our son got a little older, he went to see the movies with his friends and their parents, or his friends came along with us.  And finally, after sophomore year in high school, he decided he was too old for Harry Potter.  A lot of his college friends are still seeing the movies, but our son has moved on.

I noticed when we saw the last movie that most of the audience was our age (which might have been because we went to the matinee showing).  But my husband says that a good story has something in it for everyone.  The Harry Potter books have excitement, imagination, wonderful humor, poignancy, and unforgettable characters.  And they're allegorical.  Yes indeed; they teach wonderful lessons about friendship, loyalty, courage and the choices we make in life.

The actors began acting in these movies as children about the age of our son.  Like him, they've grown up too.  But to us, they'll always be those beloved Hogwarts students -- Harry, Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Luna and Neville.

Thanks for the memories, J.K.R.

Denise