Joseph Smith Movie in Cary Tues. Aug. 23

One Night only:

Joseph Smith

Vol. 1: Plates of Gold

One night only in Cary, NC

Tues. Aug. 23, 2011 at 7 pm.

Galaxy Cinema

770 Cary Towne Blvd.,  Cary NC

For tickets visit  www.JosephMovie.com

Groups rates available:   eric@josephmovie.com

801-599-7973

2 Kristen Bell movies

Wayne and I enjoyed "When in Rome".  It was fun to see Jon Heder and "Pedro" again, and the plot was cute, and the best part about the plot, they were trying to get MARRIED!  I get so sick of movies where the goal is to go to bed together.  This movie was completely clean, with the exception of one scene where Kristen Bell's sister has on skimpy clothing.

I watched another movie starring Kristen Bell, and didn't like it as well.  "You Again" also starred Jamie Lee Curtis, Segourney Weaver, and Betty White.  I guess it was moderately satisfactory, if you are just wanting to see a chick flick, but I didn't really like the way it turned out in the end.

"Inception", and More Crooked Log Cabins

Yesterday Wayne and I went to see the movie "Inception", starring Leonard DiCaprio. He and his team go into people's dreams to steal things. I HIGHLY recommend it. It was amazing and it really made me think. The ending was stunningly abrupt. When our movie ended, I could actually hear people all over the theater let out big gasps.

And the special effects were great. My son Adam does digital animation, so I really want him to see it.



While I was in Texas, I taught full-day workshops entitled "Crooked Log Cabins for the Precision Impaired" at two guilds. One of the women brought antique embroidered linens which she cut up and used as the centers of her blocks. Another woman used photo transfers of her family. I thought both were great ideas.

Fun Little Trip

Wayne only took a half-day off for our 30th anniversary, because we consider the cruise we took in March to have been our real celebration.

But we wanted to spend time together, so we took a long drive in his Mustang, and drove through Pittsboro, Sanford, and Lillington. We took pictures of houses, we ate lunch at Mrs. Lacey's Magnolia Tea Room, we shopped in antique stores (We loved this purple leather chair) , and we browsed in the huge showroom of East Coast Classics Auto Sales in Lillington.

Then we ate supper at Carabba's, rented two movies "When in Rome" and "Alice in Wonderland", and came home and set up my new digital projector and played the movies on the wall, like a huge big screen TV.

It was quite a lovely anniversary.

P.S. I quite enjoyed both of the movies, and recommend them to everyone. It was great that neither one had any cussing or immorality. ( I guess the only warning I would give is that "When in Rome" showed a bit too much cleavage.) I probably won't buy them, though.

"When in Rome" made me laugh out loud many many times. I just loved Jon Heder's role as a street magician.

Etc.

It snowed on Friday night, so we basically did nothing on Saturday, church was cancelled on Sunday, school was cancelled on Monday and Tuesday (so no seminary). It rained all day Tuesday, so the snow was melted off the streets. Then Tuesday night, the school board announced that school would be cancelled again on Wednesday. THIS IS RIDICULOUS. Why in the world don't they let the kids go back to school?

They say there is a chance of another snowstorm on Friday again. Wow, that is going to seriously mess up my brain. I am not used to having all this free time.

While we were snowed in, we watched "Battle at the Smithsonian" and "G Force". They were both very enjoyable, well worth renting.

Here are some jokes we heard on Jay Leno or that were sent to us on email:

Did you hear that Tiger Woods is getting a new sponsor?

Lay's Potato Chips.

Because you can't have just one.

Scientists have just discovered the lowest form of life.

John Edwards.

Did you hear that Elizabeth Edwards has separated from John Edwards?

I guess Nancy Pelosi isn't the only one losing a house this year.

Julie and Julia and Wayne

(Two News Flashes:
1) Bryce bought Brenan's car.

2) Also, Wayne is switching away from the 3:30 am-noon work schedule, ending tomorrow evening. Then he has one terrible week next week where he has to work midnight to 8 am. Then he has the week after Christmas off.
Starting January 4 he will be a regular person again, working normal hours. It will be nice to have him back on a normal schedule after one year of weirdness.)






(This is a photo of MR. RIGHT. There's nothing better than a man in an apron!)

Yesterday Wayne and I watched the DVD of "Julie and Julia" while he cooked a big dinner for the sister missionaries (pan-seared cod and flounder, both with Yoshida sauce, and stir-fried vegetables), and I cleaned the kitchen and mopped the kitchen floor. We enjoyed the movie, I hadn't known anything about Julia Child before that.

It was nice to see the happy marriage of Julie Powell and her husband, and Julia Child and her husband in the movie. Its nice to see happy marriages. (At least in the film the Powell's marriage was happy. I saw later on the internet something about a divorce. But I'll just keep thinking about their cuteness together as depicted in the movie.)

As Wayne cooked and I worked alongside him, he kept grabbing me to hug me and he kept comparing us to the happy people in the movie. The women were happy cooking, and Wayne was happy cooking. And I am very happy being married to a man who loves to cook. (Below: Division of Labor. I love to do the dishes after Wayne cooks.)

2012 movie

Wayne had the day off on Monday so we went to see "2012". It was advertised as being about the end of the world. I was too much in the mindset of latter-day prophecy, so I was expecting to see plagues, signs in the heavens, crime and wickedness, people dividing into tribes because of political anarchy, etc., but it had none of those things. I was a little disappointed that the plot went totally differently than what I had expected.

The way they showed it, society was totally fine, everyone was healthy, and the polical leadership was intact in every nation. The only thing that was happening, which is in prophecy, is that the natural world was in commotion. There were lots of earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis, and the magnetic poles of the earth got all changed. And then after most of the people in the world died from those things, the world settled down and there were bunches of people who lived to repopulate the earth.

The ways the people escaped from the disasters were completely improbable and implausible, but as Wayne said, "It was a fun ride".

Janette's Blog, and Hobby for Eternity

I had the most fun ever reading Seth's girlfriend's blog. Janette had so many funny stories about Seth, and of course a proud mom like me wants to read exciting stories about her son. And about the girl he is spending all his time with*.

Also, she told many, many amusing anecdotes about her own life, and now I am feeling a bit stodgy and old, because so many of my blog posts are so matter-of-fact and informative and documentary and instructive, rather than amusing and funny. Sorry.

Also, I watched "Rebecca" on Saturday (the old movie from the book by Daphne du Maurier) and really liked it. I'm going to have to reread that book again. But my favorite book by du Maurier is "The House on the Strand". It is about a guy in the 1930's who rents a 1600's house in England, and by taking drugs, he can go back in time and see the people who lived there in the 1600's.

I have always had a fascination with that type of time travel. I have a plan for after I'm dead: When I finally get to talk to Heavenly Father, I am going to ask him to show me some spot on the earth, and watch a video of what happened on that spot from the beginning to the end of time. That will be the most enjoyable thing ever.

Then I'll have to do that same thing again and again, because I'll want to see what happened on every spot in the world. And thats what eternity is for.


*That sentence was not proper English grammar. However, I don't want to write "and about the girl with whom he is spending all his time." As Winston Churchill said, "That is the type of English up with which I will not put."

Some Fun Books

BOOKS BY A.J. JACOBS

The Know-it-all- One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World by A.J. Jacobs (this was the most enjoyable book I have read in the past several years)

The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible- A.J. Jacobs. Good, too, and it was especially meaningful to read while I was teaching the Old Testament in seminary.


NOVELS THAT WERE FUN

All Douglas Adams' books: Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy, Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Life, the Universe, and Everything, So Long and Thanks for all the Fish. I like the movie "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", I'm pretty sure it has parts taken from all the books. (Wayne hated the books).

Princess Bride by William Goldman, very different than the movie.

SHORT STORIES

Patrick McManus books. He write humorous articles about camping, hunting, fishing, for outdoorsy magazines. I bought his books for my dad for Christmas for several years. My favorite short story of all time "Blood Sausage" in his book Real Ponies Don't Go Oink.

My other favorite short story of all time is "Roman Fever", I don't know who wrote it.

My Bucket List

I thought of this list of Stuff I Want To Do Before I Die after I watched the movie The Bucket List, of course. (I liked that movie.)


See the Church's Granite storage vaults
Write my Life Story #2
Be in the audience of a TV show.
Attend Paducah, Kentucky AQS quilt show.
Go to Pigeon Forge car show with Wayne
Wear a Glinda the Good Witch dress in public.
See what its like to stand behind a 2-way mirror in some store or public building.
Go to all my children's and grandchildren's temple marriages.
Go to Newport CT and tour The Breakers
Go to Hearst Castle. California
Take kids and their families to England
Go on a cruise
Stay in one of the famous wooden National Park lodges
Go to New York City- see a musical on Broadway
Have a beautiful sky painted on a ceiling in my home.
Make baby quilts for every grandchild.
Ride a Segway- rent one for an hour or more.
Grow vegetables.
Publish a book.

Robert Redford

Tara was assigned to read "The Great Gatsby", which I read as a teenager. Seeing her reading that book brought back some memories. I remember when I was young I saw the movie, and was totally in love with Robert Redford. He was SO GOOD LOOKING. (He went seriously downhill when he got old, now he has one of the wrinkliest faces ever.) Anyway, he was definitely my favorite actor when I was a teenager, some of my favorite movies of his were "The Sting", "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid", "The Way We Were", and "The Great Gatsby".

Now my favorite actor is George Clooney (hubba hubba).

"Live at the Budokan"

The Beatles are one of my favorite subjects to read about. Also, "Wayne's World" is one of my favorite movies (I know, I should be ashamed.) Anyway, in one of their conversations, Wayne and Garth describe a girl as "She is Live at the Budokan." I never knew what that meant until I read Magical Mystery Tours, My Life with the Beatles by Tony Bramwell.

Bramwell told about the Beatles doing five shows at the famous martial arts venue in Japan.

"...security continued at the five shows at the Nippon Budokan...There was a great deal of protest over using the Budokan for pop concerts, the first time it had ever been used in such a way....It was a sacred place, more usually used for martial arts displays. Later, in the 1970 and 1980s, everybody did a "Live at the Budokan" album. "

Therefore, "she is Live at the Budokan" must be a real compliment, like she is famous enough or great enough metaphorically to be having a show at the Budokan, like all those famous rock groups.