"The Mist"

Rating:	★★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Horror

Based on a Stephen King short story/novella, this movie stayed really close to that story. The CGI was used to great advantage and the mist was used to keep the suspense up. I really started to get into the whole feeling of being with these people, stuck in a grocery store (there are worse places to be stuck) when a mysterious mist containing even more mysterious creatures, rolls into town. Hats off to Marica Gay Harden, as the VERY religious Mrs Carmody, who get pushed just a bit over the edge. My beef is that the screenwriters chose not to go with the ambigious but at least a little upbeat ending in the story and instead gave it a depressing, but tied up ending. Whether they did the original ending and it tested badly, I don't know, but I dont' understand the motivation in messing with the original story when they had stuck so close to the source material up until then. Not nice.

"The Kite Runner"

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Books
Genre:	Literature & Fiction
Author:	Khaled Hosseini

This book was, in my opinion, a great read! It achieved what Forsyth's "The Afghan" did not. It managed to give and overview of the Afghan culture and the things that led up to the Taliban taking over, at the same time making me actually care about the characters. Now, granted, they are two different genres of books, but I enjoyed this one sooo much more, I was even able to overlook the "yeah right" factor at a couple of points. I would recommend this read to anybody. I tried to watch the movie, but found I missed the mental aspect, the getting into the characters thoughts and feelings, that are important to me with this story.

3:10 to Yuma

Rating:	★★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Westerns

I liked this movie a lot, overall. I just couldn't quite give it five stars. The acting was great, it was a good, suspenseful western with great scenery shots (required for a western in my book). The greatest fault I find with it is the ending. Without giving away anything, I just didn't find what Russell Crowe's actions at the end to be in line with the way the character acted through the rest of the movie. That was the only thing that caused me to give it only four stars. Overall, I felt it was a really good western.

Working on the house

Pictures of various work we have done to the house since we moved in

Never let Greg and Julie get bored

Ok, so I fat fingered that last entry and ended up posting before it was ready.  Here are the rest of the updates

Life goes on as usual.  Same ole' same ole'.  Kids have been playing and I have had to put the clamps on a couple of kids being over here all day, every day.  I am NOT a freebie babysitting service, or lunch counter.  If you want lunch, go home.  It has gotten better, though.  They are at least not showing up at 9am anymore.  Its usually 12 or 1 now and I insist that they are gone by 4:30. 

Greg and I were sitting around on the Monday after the 4th, watching DIY network and discussing things we want to do to the house.  One thing I wanted to do is to put a tin ceiling in the bathroom.  Where Greg likes to soak and steam, it is causing the paint to peel.  I think the tin ceiling would be a solution, as well as being relatively period to the house (Early 1900's-1920 some time).  We got talking about the carpet in the living room and entry and how it was getting threadbare in places and coming up in others and just smelled from pets.  I figured we had hardwood underneath it but he was afraid there had been a floor heater in the middle of the living room as there was a place that moved when you stepped on it.  So we decided  to pull it up, back to the soft spot and if it was going to be costly, we would lay the carpet back down and figure something out.  Well, we got the carpet up, and not only was it just one loose floorboard, this is what we found..

Now, understand, it needs sanded and refinished, but it is in really good shape, considering its age.  Where the floorboards change color, is where they intended for you to put an area rug.  So the pattern in the floor, which comes in about three feet, doesn't go to the center of the room, but it does in the entry.  Here is a picture of that.  As you can see, the floor here is in slightly rougher shape, but most of that is old finish that came off when I had to scrub to get the old padding up that had stuck to the floor.  The pattern reminds me of a log cabin quilt block pattern and does come all the way into the middle of the room.  So when the kids go to Colorado in the beginning of August, Greg and I will be sanding and refinishing the floor.   I love hardwood, it is soooo much easier to keep clean that carpet, and doesn't trap odors. I didn't realize how badly those rooms smelled until the carpet was gone.  And its funny to watch the cats try and run on it when they are playing.

I guess that is the major update.  I am going to try and spend some time catching up on other people's blogs now.  TTYL!

Join the Dark Side, Luke.

Or actually, Bekah.  I have converted another to the joys and frustrations of cross stitch.  Here is a photo of Bekah's first project.   I believe it is sideways in the photo.  Its a $2 kit from Michael's of a smiling daisy.  Not my cup of tea, but she is enjoying doing it.  We won't talk about the back.  She is still learning, but the front looks good, all the stitches go the same way.

 

And not to be out done, here are updates on my two projects.  First, "Great Lakes Lowland".  I have made some decent progress on this one. 

 

 

Next, there is "Eastern Seaboard".  not as much progress, but I finally finished the d*mned lobster traps.  But, only after frogging them 3 times!!!