Monday, August 31, 2015

Movie Monday


Not a movie, actually, but a TV series... The BBC's The Musketeers...


Based on Alexander Dumas' novel The Three Musketeers, but aside from the names and perhaps a few background basics, I think that's where the similarities end--though in the interest of full disclosure--I have not read the book.

Anyway, it's a bit cheeky, though not in any way a comedy, and full of lovely men and women and sword fighting!

The series focuses on the core group of Musketeers Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and newbie D'Artagnan and their various missions and the bits of personal trouble each one of them gets themselves into.


Have you seen it? What do you think?



Friday, August 28, 2015

American Fun Fact!


I forgot to post this Wednesday, so here it is today...though I don't if this fact is "fun" so much as interesting or just plain sad...

Apple Headquarters in Cupertino, CA
(Photo taken by Joe Ravi, CC-BY-SA 3.0)

The fact... Apple, Inc. has more operating cash than the U.S. Treasury.

Yeah...

Happy Friday, friends. Have a great weekend. :)

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

I'm movin' on up...


Today I get a smart phone!

(image from apple.com)

Well, technically I have the phone--it's Sonshine's old one--but I'm going to Verizon today and switching out my old dumb phone for a smart phone. Can't wait! I'll have Google maps when I'm driving around and weather access if power goes out. But also, yeah, Internet access & social media access wherever I go. Oh, and Netflix...

Can't wait!!


Monday, August 24, 2015

Movie Monday


My latest movie find is called WEEKEND, a British made film of two men finding each other and spending the weekend together right before one of them leaves for two years in America. Warning: The film does have some nudity and a fairly explicit love scene.


During the course of the weekend these two men make a connection and find it hard to say goodbye once their time together comes to an end, though their final interaction leaves us believing that it isn't the end of their friendship.

I really enjoyed this film. If you've seen it, what did you think?



Wednesday, August 19, 2015

American Fun Fact!


Did you know that, collectively, Americans consume 100 pounds of chocolate every second!

("FD 3" by Original uploader was Klaus Höpfner at de.wikipedia(Original text : Helge Höpfner) - Transfered from de.wikipedia(Original text : Fotoarchiv Höpfner). Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FD_3.jpg#/media/File:FD_3.jpg)

I do love chocolate, as well, though I don't eat as much of it as I used to. My favorite forms of chocolate are ice cream and candy. My all time favorite chocolate is a Bordeaux patty or single bite candy made by the See's Candies.
(Image borrowed from See's Candies website.)


Do you like chocolate? What's your favorite form?


Monday, August 17, 2015

Back to School -- Speed Traps


Yep, it's that time of year again... We had tax free weekend recently, and back-to-school sales are in full swing, but another sure fire sign of the impending school year, especially if you live near a school. In my case, there are two, no, three elementary schools and the high school in close proximity. The middle school is too far to actually affect us.


So today as I turned onto the main thoroughfare, there were two motorcycle cops in the church parking lot with their eagle eyes and radar guns. School starts next Monday and it's time to remind motorists just exactly what the speed limit is!

School buses will be out en masse soon too! Only Sonshine ever rode the bus to and from school, and that was only during middle school for like a semester. Once he got to high school, it was before-school band practice and after school band practice or football games, or, in the off season, it was his favorite after school activity keeping him there until six o'clock.

Do I miss those days? Not so much the days themselves, but certainly the reason for them: Sonshine.



Friday, August 14, 2015

ONE THOUSAND BLOG POSTS



 So eight or so years ago, because in the romance writing world, aspiring writers were encouraged to establish an online presence prior to becoming published. I also just wanted my own little corner of the Internet.


If I was going to have a vast readership at some point, I didn't want to blog about the nuts and bolts of writing. There were enough people out there already with more experience and knowledge on the subject and coming from the other side of the fence (a fan person), when I visit the website or blog of a person of interest to me, I want to connect with the person. Learn about them and whatever part of their life they feel compelled to share.

So I decided to just randomly blog about me, my life, my interests, etc. If you find them interesting or even amusing, well, thanks, and I'm glad. If you don't or didn't, I'm sure you've moved on and stopped visiting. The added bonus was that my mom could sort of follow along since I'm terrible about phone calls. (Sorry, Mom.) The unexpected value add was that I have a diary of sorts (public and shallow though it is) of what's been going on in my life for the last five years at least, as well as my fleeting and more long term interests.

At first it was random, but I finally got into a regular routine, and eight years later, I have 1000 blog posts under my belt.


It's finished, it's finished!!


And I'm super excited!!!

My Sherlock sampler is finally finally done, and while there is one specific thing I'd do differently, overall, I'm terribly pleased with how it turned out.

Here is the whole thing:


All the text comes from the show and are either popular quotes or ones I find particularly amusing.

It took me three or four weeks to created the pattern itself. There was a lot of erasing as I moved things around for optimal placement or to move things one or two stitches to the right, the left, up or down or to fix a mistake. Then it took another two months or so to complete it, although I did not work on it on a daily basis. I already have a frame for it, although I do need to buy a mat for it. More pictures to come, once it's framed and on the wall.




Wednesday, August 12, 2015

American Fun Fact!



If you have or have had a teenager in your house, pizza is probably a well loved meal. It certainly was in our house and I bought frozen pizza every week for probably years. It was a fairly inexpensive meal and it was certainly an easy one.

 (image from Wikipedia)

This week's fun fact: approximately 100 ACRES worth of pizza is served every day in the United States! That's a lot of sauce and cheese.

I love meat and veggies (except mushrooms or jalapenos), thin crust, thick crust, whatever.

Are you a pizza eater? What's your favorite?



Monday, August 10, 2015

YES!


I have convinced my momma to go to Seattle. We haven't seen each other since 1999 when I moved here to Texas. A few years later, she moved from Nebraska to Oregon, and the rest is obvious. We've never made a trip to Oregon and she's never come to Texas.

But the stars have aligned and, thanks to Sonshine, we'll finally get to see one another. I can't wait!

I'm counting the weeks/days...


Friday, August 7, 2015

Well, TGIF


Well, I'm not as excited this Friday as I was last, but it is Friday and that's a good thing. I'll be finishing my Sherlock sampler this weekend, so I'm excited about that. I still have my Mother's Day gift card from my Brown Eyed Girl, so I'll be able to frame it.

Other than cross stitching and chores, I'll just be keeping cool and taking it easy.

Hope you have a great weekend.




Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Gonna see my Sonshine!!!


Making a trip to Seattle sooner than anticipated! DH was invited to speak at a Microsoft convention in Seattle, so YAY I'm tagging along to see my baby and check out his new world as much as the Navy will let me.

(Seattle from the air and thanks to Wikipedia.)

Since my momma lives (relatively) close I'm trying to convince her to join us so I can see her and she can see me and Sonshine and her other friend who also apparently lives in Seattle. It's shaping up to be a jam packed trip, but if all I did was sit in a hotel room and visit with Sonshine for two days, I wouldn't care!!

Seattle here I come!

Monday, August 3, 2015

Movie Monday


No, this isn't about a movie I've never seen before though I've watched plenty of late, but a Facebook friend asked people to name some movies they;ve watched more than five times and that have never lost their charm. It seemed like a good blog topic, so here we are.

In the order of most watched to least watched:

1) Star Trek (the 2009 reboot) - I saw it three times in the theater and then well over a hundred fifty times once I got the DVD. Why? I have no idea. Part of the watching was grief. My dad had died about the same time the DVD came out and so watching was one of my coping mechanisms. Every day for almost four months. Not that I necessarily watched the whole thing. I'd watch, then pause when I was ready to stop, then hit play the next day or the next when I was ready to watch again. When the movie was over, I'd start it again. And even after all that, I still love it.


2) Top Gun - I watched this over and over back when my oldest was itty bitty. Not sure what struck me about this movie, but I've seen it well over one hundred times as well.


3) Dirty Dancing - Back in the day, after Top Gun, this movie was a close second for re-watching. Re-watch count has probably not crested one hundred, but well over fifty for sure.


4) Star Trek Into Darkness, the second of the reboots -  I don't love it quite as much as the other, nor have I watched it quite as much as the films that come before it, but it's Star Trek and my celebrity crush Benedict Cumberbatch is a huge draw for me.


5) Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, book/film no. six of the franchise -  Mostly because of the Harry/Ginny romance, so sue me. Ya'll know by know I'm a romance junkie. :)


What about you? What films never get old for you?