I Say, It Was A Good Day

Well this day started out very interestingly. I awakened myself with a severe and completely uncontrollable case of the giggles. I couldn't stop laughing....it woke me up out of my dead sleep and then woke Ben up out of his own deep sleep. Even after I was awake for a few minutes I couldn't stop laughing. I remember the dream very clearly, but you won't find it funny...trust me....it was one of those things that is only hilarious when you're half asleep. Lets just say, picture me as the 70's cartoon drawings of Holly Hobbie.....  See, I told you, not funny at all..........but in the stupor of sleep...it was hilarious. So I thought that was a good way to start off the new year......waking up in a fit of laughter. LOL

Next we kind of slothed around the house for a while, sucking up the last few hours of vacation weekday that we had. Finally when we were both withering away from mid morning hunger we decided to go grab some breakfast. It took us a bit longer to get out of the house than we had planned...too much time trying to find ticket info for a movie we wanted to see. So by the time we were on our way it was more of a lunch than breakfast. No problem, we'll go to the one place that ALWAYS serves breakfast. Well, what we had failed to take into consideration was that it was New Years Day......EVERYBODY and their brother sleeps late on New Years Day and they ALL want breakfast when they wake up. If everybody wants breakfast at 1 in the afternoon, who serves it that late in the day? You guessed it, IHOP.

 Sooooo here's a math problem for you, if everybody in the tri-county area goes to IHOP to get breakfast at 1 in the afternoon, what time will Benny and Frannie eat breakfast? That's right, good answer you there in the back! Benny and Frannie will eat breakfast at 2 in the afternoon! LOL

But wait, there's more! Soooooooo in an affort to save time and avoid the 30+ minute wait, what do Benny and Frannie do? They hop in their car, drive 20 minutes to the OTHER IHOP thinking THOSE people surely didn't stay up until midnight the night before......only to be greeted with a 20 minute wait. So we saved 10 minutes of wait time.......oh wait...nooooooo.........take the original 30 minute wait, subtract 20 minute drive time and a 20 minute wait and you get, -10. LOL.......YEAH!!! We're so smart! ROFL.......not. So NOW what time do Benny and Frannie eat breakfast? Yep, 3 in the afternoon.....it probably would have been sooner on a normal day but amid everything else the entire wait staff looked like they were fighting hangovers so they couldn't have gone any slower if they had glue stuck to the bottoms of their shoes. LOL.

Sigh..........it was funny.....it really was, the misadventures of Ben and Fran. This is why I can't complain about life with Ben......it's like living in a reality show. It's hilarious to me.

Oh well, so after our breakfast/lunch/early dinner...lol we went to go see the movie Sherlock Holmes. Now, I have been anxiously awaiting this movie for MONTHS...... I have been an avid fan of Sherlock Holmes ever since I was a little girl. I remember absorbing Conan Doyle's stories about him from a very young age and the first time I ever went to an antique auction with my parents I was elated when they brought out a book that turned out to be a complete collection of Holmes. To this day it's one of my most prized books, second only to my complete works of Shakespeare. I think I have seen just about every big and small screen portrayal of Holmes that has been created and watch them over and over with new found affection each time. Holmes was the reason why I first wanted to be a detective as a child.....then other favorites came along and fed the dreams of being a detective, or a spy! LOL.

So when I saw that they were making another big screen version I was thrilled. I was a little concerned that too much Hollywood affect might destroy it, but my hopes were high, especially when I found out Robert Downey Jr would be portraying Holmes. A perfect selection I think......I never would have considered him for the role, but when I saw the previews, ahhhhhh perfect.

So what did I think of the actual movie? I liked it. Obviously as a long time Holmes buff and truist there were details I didn't care for and little mistakes that I caught. Like the fact that the movie portrays Watson's fiancee is a woman Holmes has never met, when in the stories she was actually a woman they had helped which is how Watson met and fell in love with her. Also the fact that they implied there was an intimate sexual history between Holmes and Adler when that was never implied in the stories. Only that Holmes had an affection for her and esteemed her higher than all other women. Plus, to be honest, I really didn't care for the whole Irene Adler aspect of this movie at all....I mean, don't get me wrong, she did an excellent job acting the part and it was very well written...I just found it too much of a deviation from the original texts. Like I said, I'm a truist so while I don't mind some creative liscense, I just thought her character was a bit much.

The other thing I didn't particularly care for was the extreme focus on, "the dark arts". Now by it's very nature Holmes stories were edgy for their time and pretty macabre, but the EXTREME deviance into the occultic subject matter here was a bit much for me. I'm sorry, I've had my fill of that kind of thing with years of Harry Potter garbage in the media and now the whole Twilight saga garbage in the media.....I'm really tired of it. I want a good mystery, a macabre mystery....like the original works......NOT yet another occultic study.

SIGH............so, I'm not implying I didn't like the movie, I did actually, very much. It was EXTREMELY well done, Guy Ritchie did a phenominal job with it, he really did. I sincerely hope they make a sequal, a little closer to the original stories though. The actors were all very well chosen and all did a superb job with their characters. The effects were spectacular, the picture was literally a visual work of art to watch as far as the creative cinematography, and the soundtrack!!! Ohhhhhhhh the soundtrack! IT was honestly my favorite part of the entire movie! As soon as I can work that into our budget I'll be making a purchase of the soundtrack cd.

I appreciated the fact that there weren't hoards of foul language, there were no gratuitous sex scenes or nude romps. Not that I'm a prude, I'm really not.....I'm a writer, I have no problem with those things if they TRULY further the story.....but honestly, how often is that the case? So I really appreciate any screenwriter who is sufficiently talented to completely carry a story that isn't lacking in any way and not use a single one of those things. So I don't know what other reviewers think of the movie....I don't really care actually...I rarely listen to them, but overall I liked it, maybe you will too.

So all in all it was a really good day, and a good cap for the week.

The Reason My Heart Sings

Isn't it funny the things that bring us comfort in life? I was sitting here thinking of what I would write about today and as I mulled over the days events I decided to turn on the tv and see what was on. To my pleasant surprise one of the things on tv was the movie The Sound of Music. It's been a favorite of mine ever since I can remember....some of my earliest memories in fact, include sitting with my parents on their bed, eating dinner and watching The Sound of Music together. Back then it was normal for certain movies to be on tv every single year, and without fail this one always aired around Easter. I remember that little detail vividly because the windows in our home were usually open and the fresh smell of new Spring growth filled the air of our rooms and I always imagined it was how the air smelled in the mountains. I remember when I would see the scenes of Maria singing and dancing in the mountaintop fields a feeling of total peace and happiness would overtake me. For weeks I would spin around my grandmother's backyard or my bedroom singing the title song over and over and over again.....probably until my parents wanted to strangle Rodgers and Hammerstein.

The lyrics that made my heart sing as a child were these.....as you read them, you may understand why I couldn't help but sing everytime I heard them. Even now I can't help but sing along in my head as I read them.

The hills are alive with the sound of music

With songs they have sung for a thousand years
The hills fill my heart with the sound of music
My heart wants to sing every song it hears
My heart wants to beat like the wings of the birds
that rise from the lake to the trees
My heart wants to sigh like a chime that flies
from a church on a breeze
To laugh like a brook when it trips and falls over
stones on its way
To sing through the night like a lark who is learning to pray
I go to the hills when my heart is lonely
I know I will hear what I've heard before
My heart will be blessed with the sound of music
And I'll sing once more

Years later as I was going through a particularly difficult time those lyrics resonated on a deeper level to me. I remember lying across the bed, brokenheated and down and yet again on the television was The Sound of Music. I remember watching it and listening to the all familiar words and suddenly the last four lines grabbed me like they had never grabbed me before.

I go to the hills when my heart is lonely
I know I will hear what I've heard before
My heart will be blessed with the sound of music
And I'll sing once more

I remember when I heard Psalm 121 read for the first time I envisioned those majestic Swiss Alps from the Sound of Music. For years it was just a mental picture of what the hills would look like....but that day when I needed to hear God speak to me.....He used the lyrics of a song to remind me of His word.

Psalm 121 (New King James Version)
1 I will lift up my eyes to the hills—from whence comes my help?
2 My help comes from the LORD,who made heaven and earth.
3 He will not allow your foot to be moved; He who keeps you will not slumber.
4 Behold, He who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.
5 The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade at your right hand.
6 The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.
7 The LORD shall preserve you from all evil; He shall preserve your soul.
8 The LORD shall preserve your going out and your coming in from this time forth, and even forevermore.

That day I realized that there IS music in my heart...there IS music in my soul....but it's not the lyrics to a song....it's the written word of my God and the gentle pull of His spirit in mine....He is the music my heart hears, and He is the reason my heart sings. Now what used to just be a song has become a reminder of the real sound of music that I hear when I go to the hills for His help.