Sunday bookends: A trinity of movies, winter depression, and ready to burn the house down

/ Lisa R. Howeler

Desperate to stave off the deep depression that normally besets me during winter, I’ve been burying myself in movies and books and writing this past week or so.

I watched two movies and a mini-series this past week (in between waiting on children and letting a dog in and out the back door, cooking, suffering with a cold, petting the cat, and pondering our earthly existence) and continued reading The Cat Who Lived High, slowly since I couldn’t see through the watery eyes from the cold earlier this week.

51tIxEH0QoLWith my eyes a little better I’m back to reading a little more and have added The Misadventured Summer of Tumbleweed Thompson by Glen McCarthy, an independently published book for middle school-aged children, to my reading list (again). It is so creatively written and I tried reading it to my daughter since I’m much better at Southern accents than British ones, but she rejected it and asked for Paddington again for her nighttime reading.  In case you are interested in finding out a little bit more about the book, here is the blurb on Amazon: For Eugene Appleton, the summer of 1876 in Rattlesnake Junction, Colorado promises to be just as sleepy as the ones before, his only excitement provided by the pulse-pounding Dead-Eye Dan adventure novels he devours. But Eugene’s life takes an unexpected turn with the arrival of Tumbleweed Thompson, a gangly, red-haired boy who spins yarns about whaling voyages in the Atlantic and hidden stashes of gunpowder. Drawn into Tumbleweed’s orbit, Eugene soon finds himself chasing smugglers, firing rifles, and competing for the attention of the lovely Charlotte Scoggins.”

I also rambled in some blog posts about a bunch of things because this blog is called Boondock Ramblings. I’ll link to those at the bottom of the page.

MV5BYjBkOTZlNmYtN2NjOS00YWM2LTk0MzMtOTEwMmIyNWIwMDA5XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjg3MDMxNzU@._V1_After seeing a preview for Wild Rose at one of the only movies I saw in the theater this year (Brittany Runs a Marathon, which was pretty good, but not my favorite.), I was interested to see it when it popped up on Amazon. The movie is about a young Scottish woman who wants to become a country singer in Nashville but lets her temper and her propensity for alcohol to get in her way. Her other issue is that she is a young, single mother with two children. The movie opens with her being released from jail and returning home where her mother has been raising her children for the last year.

Without spoiling anything, the movie does not take the darker paths I thought it would and it does not end the way I thought it would either. It was rated R and with that rating, I thought dark scenes would abound, but thankfully, they didn’t.  I don’t watch too many rated R movies and in case you are curious, this one is rated R because the main character, Rose-Lynn Haran likes to use the “F” word a lot. In other words, I watched this one on my laptop with the earphones in so my children couldn’t hear it. I also watched it with close captioning because I’m not Scottish and their accents were very thick.

(Incidentally, my husband has been watching old Siskel and Ebert episodes on YouTube and because of that when I share my thoughts about a movie lately I hear Roger Ebert in my head. Is that weird? Yeah. I knew it was.)

Next up on my list Jane Eyre, for some reason, I have no idea why. I guess I was looking for something different to watch while I blew my nose all day long Tuesday and got caught up in it. Like many movies based on either Charlotte Bronte or Jane Austin books, there are about 1,000 movie versions of this story, but this series was from the BBC in 2006. It starred some British guy and some British girl I’d never heard of. (Okay, I looked it up instead of being lazy… it was Ruth Wilson and Toby Stephens). I have never read the book (I know. I’m sad) but for some reason, the story was very familiar to me when I got to the end.

It’s possible I had seen a movie version of it before or heard the story somehow I suppose. As far as plot, Jane Eyre is a bit bizarre, but the actors in it won me over and I had to keep watching to see how it all turned out.

On the recommendation of my brother, I watched Stranger Than Fiction (on my phone, in case of bad language or scenes) and then made the rest of the family watch it a couple of days later. Starring Will Ferrell, Dustin Hoffman, Molly Gyllenhaal, and Emma Thompson, it came out in 2006, but I’d never heard of it, probably because in 2006 I was busy with a newborn and working full-time at the newspaper. The movie is about an IRS agent who begins to realize someone is narrating his life and he needs to find a way to stop the narrator when she announces she plans to kill him.

I could relate to the author in the movie as she struggles to complete the book she is working on, her first fiction novel in ten years. She was part of my inspiration for an upcoming blog post about the mental torture writing fiction can be.

In the midst of contracting my son’s cold (which is no surprise since he came over to talk to me one day and had an uncontrollable coughing fit  . . . in my face.), winter came back with a vengeance – frigid temperatures, snow and all.  So, here I sit on Saturday, writing this post while snow swirls around the house and wind slams it against our windows. I’m writing this in-between cleaning the house for yet another house showing tomorrow. This is our tenth and I’m pretty much ready to burn the house down at this point to get rid of it. Of course, I am absolutely not serious, but there are days the thought has crossed my mind.

As for blogging this week:

I shared a flash fiction entitled “Carrying Out His Wife.”;

Shared a guest blog post by Lisa at The Manitoba Mom Blog;

Shared aRound-up of Blog Posts from around the blogosphere;

Chapter 13 of A New Beginning;

Chapter 14 of A New Beginning;

Remembering Truett, in honor of TobyMac’s son, who passed away suddenly at 21 a couple of months ago.

This post is part of Readerbuzz’s Sunday Salon.

So, how about you? What have you been up to this past week? Let me know in the comments!

 

25 thoughts on “Sunday bookends: A trinity of movies, winter depression, and ready to burn the house down”

  2. You do make a lot of us laugh, love reading your sense of humor through your post, bet you are a fun one in person to be around. We all have our down days though, don’t we? So sad you got your son’s cold but we all knew that was going to happen, us moms always get our babies colds.
    Believe it or not but I am still going back and forth with watching Bringing up Bates, there are a lot of seasons to watch. Then I had a chance to watch a movie called Photograph where and Indian man who takes photos of tourist to make money. He convinces another Indian girl to pretend to be his fiance to make his grandmother happy but that girl comes from a richer family. It was beautifully shot but I wasn’t a big fan of the ending.
    I finished that romance book from up north and am now reading a book from Glen Beck that my husband picked up free somewhere. We will see if I can get involved enough to stick with it. Political anything always makes me a little sad and hopeless.
    I hope you start feeling better. Stay warm inside writing and reading all those books.

    Liked by 1 person

    • I have a hard time with the political books, as well. They might be great but I can only read so much before I feel like you – hopeless.

      I don’t know if my family would think I’m that fun to be around. hahaha! I think I’m like other people with an odd sense of humor in that I can find the funny in a lot of things but then the pendulum shifts and I sink into deep depression for awhile. My mom would always say that sometimes it is the funniest people who have the darkest corners in their hearts (or something like that, not an exact quote) and she’s right. Sometimes we are funny to hide some of our sadness, but most of the time I think I’m funny and figure other people probably find me annoying or obnoxious.

      I have had people tell me I’m so funny and fun to be around but then no one actually invites me anywhere or asks to hang out with me or wants to get together with me so I’m not very sure they are telling me the truth or just trying to be nice.

      I saw that Photograph movie – as in saw it in a list on Amazon, but for some reason didn’t click on it to watch. Now that I know you didn’t like the ending, I’m a little leary to watch it.

      My cold is much better now..though the cough doesn’t want to go totally away just get. Thanks for stopping by and commenting!

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  3. I’m glad you are feeling better!

    I think I read Jane Eyre once, but I have seen the Michael Fassbender movie version dozens of times. Lol. And it is kind of weird I agree!

    We watched Troop Zero last night, it wasn’t bad but there was something that held me back from loving it – I guess besides the fact that it is probably aimed at a younger audience?

    Fingers crossed for the showing – and stay warm! It’s freezing here too.

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    • The people didn’t want the house, but we have another one tomorrow, so who knows. I’m about six of showings. This is our eleventh in about two months. 13th if you count the guy who came three times and still didn’t buy it.

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  7. I tell you: we have got to be long-lost sisters. 😀 I had that exact thought about our house when selling it and am glad you liked “Stranger Than Fiction.”

    You ought to read Jane Eyre. It drags a bit in the middle, but is one of my favorites.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Yes, I am actually thinking of reading Jane Eyre now that I’ve seen the movie. I usually read books before I see the movie so I’ll switch it up this time. I have a feeling I’ll like the book better.

      I really won’t do that to the house. I’m grateful we have a roof over our head but oh man..some days…trying to figure out how to get it sold makes me want to scream!

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  8. I hope you are feeling better soon. I went through a spell when I first started blogging where I watched as many Jane Eyre movies as I could. I think I made it to 4 or 5 before I couldn’t take anymore 🙂 I loved the book and it’s so hard to get Mr. Rochester just right. I just checked and the 1983 version with Timothy Dalton and Zelah Clarke was my favorite. I’ve never even considered watching old Siskel & Ebert’s on youtube. That could be fun.
    Enjoy all of the beautiful snow – we have about 4 inches and are expecting more.

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    • I think one Jane Eyre is probably enough for me but I did read some positive reviews about the 1983 version. My goal is to read the book now and then I can tell which one is truer to the movie.

      We’ve laughed so hard at some of the reviews Siskel & Ebert did back then. They were brutal on a few movies that really are truly awful and some I’d never even heard of.

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  9. It’s all this grayness that pulls me down in winter. I could never face an actual January with heaps of snow and ice and big puffy jackets and an inability to leave the house.

    Why can’t our children like the books we choose for them? I understand that God apparently finds his wayward people amusing but doesn’t He see that we parents would like a little compliance?

    My daughter-in-law and my husband have both been taken down with colds in recent weeks. I’m waiting for mine to arrive after I’m on the plane to Paris.

    I wanted to encourage my dad to write and so he and I signed up for a lifestory class at our college. It’s for seniors, but I’d say it’s for senior seniors, as at 63, I was at least ten years younger than anyone else in the class. One of the men in the class is 91 and from Mississippi, and one of my favorite stories from the class was how his aunt and uncle would buy a house and get short of money and move everything out of the house and then set it on fire. They managed to do this successfully over and over because this was during the Depression and they’d buy from many different insurance companies and no one could track them with computers like we do now. Not that I’m suggesting you follow their lead….

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    • Oh my gosh, of course that’s when you might get sick…on the way to Paris. That’s when I get sick. During a big trip and if I ever got the chance to go to Paris? I’ll be in the ER probably. lol. No kidding. I need to write a blog post about all the times I have got sick while on trips.

      That story about the man from Mississippi is hilarious, but NO, we won’t try that. lol. Much different time now and the insurance men will find us. And we do like our house and are grateful to have a roof over our head and somewhere warm to live during this bitter cold week of winter. We just don’t want to be still living here by next winter 😉

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  11. 😂…your posts always make me laugh! I like your sense of humor. We just finished watching the entire 9 seasons of “The Office,” for the second time since we’ve been married. Now we’re into “Lost in Space” on Netflix. (Which is just a bit more anxiety provoking than “The Office.”) I’m reading “My Journey to Heaven” by Marvin J. Besteman, which has me rather hooked. And I’m trying to get through the book of Lamentations because I don’t think I’ve ever read the whole thing before.

    We also finally got another blizzard. Too bad it’s on a weekend because school would have been cancelled for sure! The roads are awful.

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