Welcome to the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot, where we offer a place for bloggers to link up and get a fresh set of eyes on their posts. We also feature one blog a week, letting our readers know about the blog and providing a link so readers can learn more about it.Please feel free to post new blog posts or old ones you want to bring attention to again.
Look for the post to go live about 9:30 PM EST on Thursdays.
I can’t remember if I mentioned my injured cat on one of these posts or not but I thought I’d update that the cat with the injured paw is doing much better. In fact, she started walking on the sore foot again yesterday for the first time, the day before we were set to take her to the vet.
A new kitten was dropped off at our house a couple of weeks ago and she is also doing well, and we have not found her family so far, so it looks like she’ll be staying with us.
I told the kids, and my husband, that this is the last pet though. Three cats and a dog who want to go in and out all day and two cats who either chirp or yowl, plus the three cats currently fighting with each other is quite enough for me.
If any other cat gets dropped off at our house, they are going to the local no-kill shelter. There is no more room at our inn for stray pets.
Don’t get me wrong — I love the cats and our dog — I just can’t handle worrying about anymore animals.
With all that being said, let’s move on to introducing our hosts for this link up!
Marsha from Marsha in the Middle started blogging in 2021 as an exercise in increasing her neuroplasticity. Oh, who are we kidding? Marsha started blogging because she loves clothes, and she loves to talk or, in this case, write!
Melynda from Scratch Made Food! & DIY Homemade Household – The name says it all, we homestead in East Texas, with three generations sharing this land. I cook and bake from scratch, between gardening and running after the chickens, and knitting!
Lisa from Boondock Ramblingsshares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more.
Cat from Cat’s Wire is a bookworm, movie fan, crazy cat lady, armed with beads, cabs, wire and a very jumpy brain which loves to go down rabbit holes!
Rena from Fine, Whatever writes about style, midlife, and the “fine whatever” moments that make life both meaningful and fun. Since 2015, she’s been celebrating creativity, confidence, and finding joy in the everyday.
We would love to have additional Co-Hosts to share in the creativity and fun! If you think this would be a good fit for you and you like having fun (come on, who doesn’t!) while still being creative, drop one of us an email and someone will get back with you!
WTJR will be highlighting a different blogger each week this year! We invite you to stop by their blog, take a look around and say hello!
My blog is a wonderful way to reflect on life changes i.e., work commitments, getting older, children leaving the nest…. (then, returning, ha-ha), and relationships – the list goes on. My writing style is authentic and down-to-earth, probably my North East of England roots.
My mum worked in “high fashion” throughout my youth, which ignited my love of all things “couture”. Most days, after school, I would go to wait for her at her place of work. There was always the latest copy of Vogue and Marie Claire to read. I’d still rather read a physical copy than a digital one. This is partly because I don’t like to overdo being online. I enjoyed wandering through the classy showroom wafting through the new stock of the season, thrilled by the beautiful colours, sumptuous materials and wonderful cut of cloth. Sometimes, I would be asked to try things on for customers, which I loved. This is where I earned my pocket money. It awoke something in me that I have never switched off.
Thank you for joining our link-up!
And now some posts that were highlights for me this past week:
Welcome to the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot, where we offer a place for bloggers to link up and get a fresh set of eyes on their posts. We also feature one blog a week, letting our readers know about the blog and providing a link so readers can learn more about it.Please feel free to post new blog posts or old ones you want to bring attention to again.
Look for the post to go live about 9:30 PM EST on Thursdays.
I hope you are all having a great week. We had our first snowfall this week. I knew we might get some flurries but on Tuesday we actually had a full covering.
If the temps weren’t enough to show me that Winter is here, that was.
We plan to light our woodstove for the first time today. We had to replace some piping so hopefully it all goes okay. By the time you read this, we should know if it is working okay.
Now, let’s introduce our current hosts for the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot:
Marsha from Marsha in the Middle started blogging in 2021 as an exercise in increasing her neuroplasticity. Oh, who are we kidding? Marsha started blogging because she loves clothes, and she loves to talk or, in this case, write!
Melynda from Scratch Made Food! & DIY Homemade Household – The name says it all, we homestead in East Texas, with three generations sharing this land. I cook and bake from scratch, between gardening and running after the chickens, and knitting!
Lisa from Boondock Ramblingsshares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more.
Cat from Cat’s Wire is a bookworm, movie fan, crazy cat lady, armed with beads, cabs, wire and a very jumpy brain which loves to go down rabbit holes!
Rena from Fine, Whatever writes about style, midlife, and the “fine whatever” moments that make life both meaningful and fun. Since 2015, she’s been celebrating creativity, confidence, and finding joy in the everyday.
We would love to have additional Co-Hosts to share in the creativity and fun! If you think this would be a good fit for you and you like having fun (come on, who doesn’t!) while still being creative, drop one of us an email and someone will get back with you!
WTJR will be highlighting a different blogger each week this year! We invite you to stop by their blog, take a look around and say hello!
I’m an American expat who lives in Shëngjin, Albania with my exceptional husband, and a 7 pound chiweenie who rules the household. (I swear he was a cat in another life.) I love picking up shells on the beach, sunsets, learning about my new country, interacting with blogging community, and of course books!
I will read most genres. Mystery and science fiction are my favorites. I tend to avoid romances. My all-time favorite books are ProjectHailMary and the Murderbot series.
I add books to my to-be-read list almost daily and it is long enough to last me the rest of my life.
Thank you so much for joining us for our link-up!
And now some posts that were highlights for me this past week:
Here I am with another recap of an episode from The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries show from 1977 to 1979. This month it’s perfect because it fits in with my Nancy Drew November event.
As I’ve mentioned before in previous recaps, in the first season of this series, the episodes switched back and forth from The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew episodes and in the next season, which is the season I am in now, they started to join together. Eventually, they began to phase out the Nancy episodes and focus more on The Hardy Boys. A new actress also stared as Nancy part way through season two when Pamela Sue Martin became disenchanted with the lack of parts that were being written for her character.
According to trivia on IMdb: “Upon Janet Julian replacing Pamela Sue Martin in the second half of season two, Nancy Drew was only seen teaming up with the Hardy Boys, and never any solo stories. ABC however, did continue to air Martin’s episodes over rerun periods. For the third season, Nancy Drew was completely eliminated from the series, which was re-titled simply “Hardy Boys.””
I haven’t decided if I will watch the episodes that are just Hardy Boys, but I probably will.
This time around, I am tackling The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew: The Mystery of the Hollywood Phantom.
This is the second two parter I am writing about, with the first being The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Meet Dracula.
This time around I am going to share my recap in two posts, instead of one.
In this first episode, Nancy and the boys fly, separately, to Hollywood to take part in a detective conference. As Nancy is walking into the terminal, we see someone cutting a pol polaroid picture of her, removing her head. When she pauses at the payphones to call Bess (her sidekick for this season, but who does not show up in these episodes other than that call), we see someone cutting across a photograph of a man wearing a cowboy hat, and removing his head (in the photograph, I mean) as well.
We then see the Hardy brothers walking through the airport and picking on each other.
When Nancy looks across the airport, she sees a man trying to put a polaroid in the bag of the man with the cowboy hat. She runs to stop him, but the other man gets away and the cowboy thinks she’s the one trying to put something in his bag.
Frank and Joe see the interaction and rush to her rescue, telling the cowboy that they are with the airport police, juvenile division. Joe says to Nancy he thought he told her not to show up at that airport anymore.
The cowboy isn’t buying it and tells them he thinks they are all in on it together and were trying to steal from him.
As usual, Nancy is a bit uptight about it all when the cowboy leaves, but laughs a little at the boys. She catches a taxi and leaves them behind, being somewhat rude as usual.
The Hardy boys figure out she’s going to the same conference and will see her at the hotel.
While in the taxi, Nancy pulls out the photo of herself with the head missing. That means someone was able to shove a photo into her bag too. On the back are the words, “No one will shed a tear when you’re gone” written in sharpie.
Back at the hotel famous detectives are arriving but then we also see Fenton Hardy’s head being cut off in a photo too. Someone is using a typewriter to write, “The best shall also go.” The camera pans up, and we see a person wearing a creepy blue rubber mask.
A detective named Jason Fox arrives and the media all rush to talk to him. Fox chats with the media some, then brushes them off and see Fenton and goes to talk to him while the cowboy — Arlo Weatherly — comes in behind Fox and grabs him in a bear hug. They are all old buddies, I guess.
Weatherly sees Nancy, excuses himself, and approaches her. Nancy says she’s an investigator and Weatherly asks her why she put a photo of him with his head missing in his bag.
Nancy says she didn’t put the photo there and shows her own photo.
The Hardy Boys show up and together they all decide that this must be some sort of prank, even though Weatherly’s photo says, “You’re first, Cowboy.”
The boys later find similar photos in their room. “Brothers can disappear too,” is written on the back.
Soon Fenton, Nancy, and the boys are all comparing their photos.
Nancy says she thinks it is something important and dangerous and the boys laugh it off, because, you know, chauvinism.
Jason Fox shows up, and he says the same thing, reminding Fenton of all the pranks they’ve pulled in the past at this, and other, conferences.
The boys and Nancy start to walk back to their rooms later and Nancy says she still feels like something bad is going on. Frank pulls the sexist line, “Is this what you call women’s intuition?”
Then Nancy throat punches him. Oh. No. I mean. She should have.
Instead, she just roasts him by saying, “It’s called detectives intuition. Don’t you have any at all?”
Joe and Frank watch her leave and are like, “Girls. Psht. Whatever.”
Next, we are on a tour with the attendees. They are touring the sets and various sites of the movie and television making industry. Part way through, though, Nancy announces that Arlo Weatherly is missing.
She asks the boys if they remember the threat he got. That he’d be the first to go?
The boys brush her off yet again.
“Please, Nancy, don’t start on all that again,” Frank says with an eye roll.
Nancy shows them there was a polaroid on Weatherly’s seat and it’s the second half of his photo, his head.
The boys still aren’t buying it. Because they are stupid and don’t remember she helped solve the mystery with Dracula the last time they met her. Duh-uh!
So, Frank and Nancy go off to look for Weatherly and run into Columbo or Peter Falk who is shooting his show but wait — that’s not really Peter Falk. It’s an imposter! Something is off.
Oh, because that isn’t really Peter Falk. It’s ….. Casey Kasem?!
No. It legitimately it is. But his name in the show is Paul Hamilton and he eventually tells them that is who he is.
He does impressions and used to have a show in the 1950s called The Raiders, he says.
“Ever heard of it?”
Nancy and Frank have no idea what he’s talking about.
On the other side of the park Joe and Fenton are trying to find the Cowboy too but Jason Fox shrugs it off again and says it’s just a prank.
We see it isn’t a prank in the next scene when we see Weatherly sitting in a chair with his hands tied behind his back in a dark and empty cell.
Back in the park, a security guard questions Frank and Nancy about what they are doing there and escorts them out of the park.
Later that night at the conference, the boys ask Nancy if she’s heard anything on Weatherly.
She hasn’t but she has found a shooting schedule for a movie called The House on Bracken Moor.
The boys are confused and she explains that it is based on a book where eight people are stranded in an old house on an English Moor and they each receive a photograph of themselves and then each one disappears. (This is similar to the plot of And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, by the way).
The boys are still not convinced that it has anything to do with Weatherly’s disappearance but Nancy points out that they were on a studio tour when he disappeared and that studio is shooting The House on Bracken Moor.
To keep the plot going, the boys dismiss her again and she says she’s going to go find the set herself and investigate.
I don’t blame her this time around. I find Pamela’s portrayal of Nancy overly aggressive on a god day, but the boys are being absolute jerks this time around.
To speed things up a bit, Nancy goes to the studio were the movie is being shot and finds a set with a picture propped up that features photos of all of the main detectives at the conference. Someone laughs and she runs after him, chasing the down a dark alley. She eventually finds herself on a set that looks like a dock and soon is tilted off a platform into some water. A fake shark chases her (think Jaws style), but she’s able to get out of the water. Staggering down the sidewalk, much less soaked than she should be if she’d really fallen into water, a truck attempts to back over her, but she is rescued by a man on horseback.
That man turns out to be Dennis Weaver who was acting in a show called McCloud at the time.
He takes her back to the hotel where the boys meet her, and Weaver tells them someone tried to run her over.
She tells the boys about the picture and as she goes in to change her clothes, she is thoroughly annoyed at them. After she leaves, they talk amongst themselves and finally agree that she’s been right all along after all.
They see Bronson, one of the detectives at the conference, get an envelope with a photograph and Frank goes to find Nancy. Nancy opens the door to her hotel room, but says, “Turn around, I’m getting dressed,” after he comes inside. Ummm…so what was she wearing when she opened the door?
Let us not think about that.
Anyhow, they confront Bronson and he says it’s a photograph of his son, not of him. They’re barking up the wrong tree, he adds.
He says Jason Fox is trying to play pranks on people and not to worry about it.
Nancy feels like the boys still won’t believe her now and they all go downstairs and see Jason Fox who is looking for Fenton because it appears that he is now also missing.
Joe, Nancy, and Jason start to go to look for Fenton, but Franks sees a photo in Bronson’s mailbox. He says Bronson sent him to get it. It’s a photo with Bronson’s head cut off.
They can’t find their dad and meanwhile we’re shown that Weatherly and Fenton are tied to chairs. Fenton says, “We should have believed Nancy. This guy’s crazy.”
Fenton’s ring, Arlo Weatherly’s watch, and some pendant belonging to Bronson are in a box given to Jason Fox. They all decide it is time to call the police, even though a ransom note in the box with the items says not to — just to bring money.
“Three of your detectives already gone,” the note reads. “$500,000 will free them. Don’t call the police.”
Jason says he will call the police and the boys apologize to Nancy for not believing her and they all agree to combine their forces and find out what is going on.
There is an argument between Frank and Nancy because Nancy was pushed into water earlier and could be in danger, but she points out she came there alone without them before because they didn’t want to believe her so she will be fine.
After Joe urges them to put their argument aside, they go onto the set and find the same photograph that Nancy told them about.
As they are talking someone begins to laugh again and they see the person’s silhouette outside the set window.
They all take chase. Joe gets onto a golf car type thing, while Nancy runs for help, and Frank gets stopped by studio security. Joe is busy searching an abandoned set when he is also snatched.
That ends episode one. I’ll share about episode two in a separate blog post tomorrow.
Before, I close, I will share what I liked about episode one: I liked the intrigue and how everyone was blowing off the idea that something dangerous was really going on util Fenton and Bronson disappeared along with Weatherly.
What I didn’t like was how all the men treated Nancy like she was a hysterical girl. I think that they could have moved the plot of the show along even if they had believed her. They really didn’t have to be so rude to her all of the time.
Even though, again, I feel Nancy is often rude in these shows. I think the writers, and Pamela herself, were trying to make Nancy appear confident, but instead I feel like it makes her look curt, abrupt and dismissive.
Welcome to the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot, where we offer a place for bloggers to link up and get a fresh set of eyes on their posts. We also feature one blog a week, letting our readers know about the blog and providing a link so readers can learn more about it.Please feel free to post new blog posts or old ones you want to bring attention to again.
Look for the post to go live about 9:30 PM EST on Thursdays.
Now, let’s introduce our current hosts for the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot:
Marsha from Marsha in the Middle started blogging in 2021 as an exercise in increasing her neuroplasticity. Oh, who are we kidding? Marsha started blogging because she loves clothes, and she loves to talk or, in this case, write!
Melynda from Scratch Made Food! & DIY Homemade Household – The name says it all, we homestead in East Texas, with three generations sharing this land. I cook and bake from scratch, between gardening and running after the chickens, and knitting!
Lisa from Boondock Ramblingsshares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more.
Cat from Cat’s Wire is a bookworm, movie fan, crazy cat lady, armed with beads, cabs, wire and a very jumpy brain which loves to go down rabbit holes!
Rena from Fine, Whatever writes about style, midlife, and the “fine whatever” moments that make life both meaningful and fun. Since 2015, she’s been celebrating creativity, confidence, and finding joy in the everyday.
We would love to have additional Co-Hosts to share in the creativity and fun! If you think this would be a good fit for you and you like having fun (come on, who doesn’t!) while still being creative, drop one of us an email and someone will get back with you!
WTJR will be highlighting a different blogger each week this year! We invite you to stop by their blog, take a look around and say hello!
Welcome to the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot, where we offer a place for bloggers to link up and get a fresh set of eyes on their posts. We also feature one blog a week, letting our readers know about the blog and providing a link so readers can learn more about it.Please feel free to post new blog posts or old ones you want to bring attention to again.
Look for the post to go live about 9:30 PM EST on Thursdays.
Good grief, Pennsylvania. What is with this super cold weather even before November hit? Wait. That’s pretty normal, I just don’t like to remember it because I’m not a fan of cold unless I can be inside wrapped up in a blanket? Oh. I see.
Well, anyhow, winter is upon us at the moment it seems as our temps dip into the low 30s and high 20s at night.
This gives us extra snuggle time with the pets who like to snuggle at the most inconvenient times these days. I’ll take it, though, because I always look forward to when they slow down a little and let me cuddle them a little bit. They had plenty of time to cuddle as I am writing this because it is pouring outside.
Now on to introducing our hosts.
Marsha from Marsha in the Middle started blogging in 2021 as an exercise in increasing her neuroplasticity. Oh, who are we kidding? Marsha started blogging because she loves clothes, and she loves to talk or, in this case, write!
Melynda from Scratch Made Food! & DIY Homemade Household – The name says it all, we homestead in East Texas, with three generations sharing this land. I cook and bake from scratch, between gardening and running after the chickens, and knitting!
Lisa from Boondock Ramblingsshares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more.
Cat from Cat’s Wire is a bookworm, movie fan, crazy cat lady, armed with beads, cabs, wire and a very jumpy brain which loves to go down rabbit holes!
Rena from Fine, Whatever writes about style, midlife, and the “fine whatever” moments that make life both meaningful and fun. Since 2015, she’s been celebrating creativity, confidence, and finding joy in the everyday.
We would love to have additional Co-Hosts to share in the creativity and fun! If you think this would be a good fit for you and you like having fun (come on, who doesn’t!) while still being creative, drop one of us an email and someone will get back with you!
WTJR will be highlighting a different blogger each week this year! We invite you to stop by their blog, take a look around and say hello!
Hi there! My name is Arpita Singh, and I believe myself to be a creative soul with an undying love for art and writing. I find myself constantly drawn to anything that allows me to express a matter creatively, and I am thrilled to have the opportunity to share my interest with you through this blogging website.
Nothing compares to starting the day with a fresh, warm cup of coffee, to get the energy and focus one needs to tackle the day ahead.
I have been fortunate enough to have lived two totally different lives in two distinct cities, providing me with an exceptional opportunity to learn from both. The experiences I have gained through these two vastly different worlds have taught me invaluable lessons that I am eager to share these with you.
Thank you so much for joining us for our link-up!
And now some posts that were highlights for me this past week:
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.
This past week I received book-related stickers in the mail and was thrilled because I love stickers and putting them in books. I don’t have a lot of places to stick these stickers but it is still fun to have them. I have a reading journal, so I stuck some there and Little Miss took some for her phone.
Do you keep a reading journal? I was all excited to get one (which is just a journal with blank pages that I fill in) but then I ended up not taking the notes about the books I was reading, or doing much of anything I planned to do with it. I do keep a list of the books I’ve read throughout the year (which is much lower this year than last year) in it. I also keep a list of books recommended to me, books I want to read, my favorite books read, movies I’ve watched, and movies I want to watch.
I have a list going of Nancy Drew books I’ve read so far in it and that list actually isn’t that big. I think next year I will start a list of The Hardy Boys books I’ve read. So far, it’s exactly one.
I also ordered a set of magnetic bookmarks with cats on them last week. That was also exciting for me, but I will lose them quickly because I always seem to. I don’t know how. I lay them down next to me, get up, and they’ve fallen into some sort of portal! For example, I stood up tonight while reading to go pick up my kids after they were trick-or-treating and I dropped the bookmark and it was gone. Just gone. It’s possibly buried in my all-black purse, but even the purse seemed like some sort of portal because when I looked inside, it was gone.
Luckily, I have about 20 other bookmarks I can choose from to replace it. And then lose them as well.
In addition to the stickers and bookmarks, I also received an order of five books from Thriftbooks.
One of them is for Little Miss for school. It’s called Secrets of Civil War Spies by Nancy LeSourd.
The other four were:
Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
Bombs on Aunt Dainty by Judith Kerr
The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis
Murder, She Wrote: Aloha Betrayed by Donald Bain
The week before I received three new Nancy Drew books via the True Drew Podcast shop.
Those books were two from the 80s and 90s: The Nancy Drew Files Win, Lose or Die and The Nancy Drew Files Pure Poison. I also ordered an original book, The Mystery of the Fire Dragon.
This week I finished Trick or Treachery by Donald Bain, a Murder, She Wrote book. I finished it in three days after Little Miss told me I couldn’t finish it by the weekend. I showed her. I finished it three days early. She may have had an ulterior motive because with me reading she could get away doing what she wanted during the day. Hmmm…wait a minute!
I also started Home to Harmony by Phillip Gulley and The Nancy Drew Files Win, Place, or Die by Carolyn Keene. The Nancy Drew book is one of the books from the 1990s series. I’m about 50 pages from the end, which isn’t saying much since these books are only 150 pages total. I’ll finish it today. I have to say, I know these books are for kids or preteens, but the plot of this one really isn’t that bad. This is the first one I’ve read as an adult from this particular series. I am certain I read one in high school.
The Husband ordered me a copy of the latest Mitford book by Jan Karon (My Beloved) as a surprise, and it came yesterday. I’d had a bit of a rough few days with a sore tooth and feeling overwhelmed in life, so it was a wonderful surprise that brought me to tears.
I am going to start it sometime in November or maybe even December because it has a Christmas theme. I will not lie, I opened the book after I took a photo of it and inhaled deeply. It was so comforting.
Little Miss and I finished The Good Master this week, and we have been listening to — I kid you not — a Murder, She Wrote book before bed at night.
She said she’s actually enjoying it, so she requests it.
We are also reading the Civil War themed book for school and finishing the second Caddie Woodlawn book, which we forgot to finish when we got distracted by The Good Master.
The Husband is reading….? Oops … forgot to ask but it was Boone’s Lick by Larry McMurty.
The kids and I watched Mrs. Doubtfire last night. It has been years since The Boy has seen it and Little Miss has never seen it.
Earlier in the week I watched Petticoat Junction and yesterday I watched part of The Big Trail with John Wayne from 1930. That movie — wow. That was a crazy journey with very realistic scenes of the wagon trains traveling into the West.
I think I will write a post about it once I finish it. I would love to know more about the making of that movie.
I also watched another two-part Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mystery. Yes, I’ll definitely recap this one because it was a crazy ride with more romance between Nancy and Frank.
What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.
Welcome to the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot, where we offer a place for bloggers to link up and get a fresh set of eyes on their posts. We also feature one blog a week, letting our readers know about the blog and providing a link so readers can learn more about it.Please feel free to post new blog posts or old ones you want to bring attention to again.
Look for the post to go live about 9:30 PM EST on Thursdays.
This week, we have a little announcement because we are saying goodbye to Sue from Women Living Well After 50.
We are all sad to see her go, but Sue has some other things she wants to pursue and may take a break from blogging altogether for a bit.
I know Marsha, Melynda, and I certainly appreciate her being part of this link party and hope to see her in the blogsphere in the future. If you are interested in being a co-host please leave a comment and I will put you in contact with Marsha, our fearless leader.
Now, let’s introduce our current hosts for the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot:
Marsha from Marsha in the Middle started blogging in 2021 as an exercise in increasing her neuroplasticity. Oh, who are we kidding? Marsha started blogging because she loves clothes, and she loves to talk or, in this case, write!
Melynda from Scratch Made Food! & DIY Homemade Household – The name says it all, we homestead in East Texas, with three generations sharing this land. I cook and bake from scratch, between gardening and running after the chickens, and knitting!
Lisa from Boondock Ramblingsshares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more.
Cat from Cat’s Wire is a bookworm, movie fan, crazy cat lady, armed with beads, cabs, wire and a very jumpy brain which loves to go down rabbit holes!
Rena from Fine, Whatever writes about style, midlife, and the “fine whatever” moments that make life both meaningful and fun. Since 2015, she’s been celebrating creativity, confidence, and finding joy in the everyday.
We would love to have additional Co-Hosts to share in the creativity and fun! If you think this would be a good fit for you and you like having fun (come on, who doesn’t!) while still being creative, drop one of us an email and someone will get back with you!
WTJR will be highlighting a different blogger each week this year! We invite you to stop by their blog, take a look around and say hello!
Welcome to the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot, where we offer a place for bloggers to link up and get a fresh set of eyes on their posts. We also feature one blog a week, letting our readers know about the blog and providing a link so readers can learn more about it.Please feel free to post new blog posts or old ones you want to bring attention to again.
Look for the post to go live about 9:30 PM EST on Thursdays.
This week, we have a little announcement because we are saying goodbye to Sue from Women Living Well After 50.
We are all sad to see her go, but Sue has some other things she wants to pursue and may take a break from blogging altogether for a bit.
I know Marsha, Melynda, and I certainly appreciate her being part of this link party and hope to see her in the blogsphere in the future. If you are interested in being a co-host please leave a comment and I will put you in contact with Marsha, our fearless leader.
Now, let’s introduce our current hosts for the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot:
Marsha from Marsha in the Middle started blogging in 2021 as an exercise in increasing her neuroplasticity. Oh, who are we kidding? Marsha started blogging because she loves clothes, and she loves to talk or, in this case, write!
Melynda from Scratch Made Food! & DIY Homemade Household – The name says it all, we homestead in East Texas, with three generations sharing this land. I cook and bake from scratch, between gardening and running after the chickens, and knitting!
Lisa from Boondock Ramblingsshares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more.
We would love to have additional Co-Hosts to share in the creativity and fun! If you think this would be a good fit for you and you like having fun (come on, who doesn’t!) while still being creative, drop one of us an email and someone will get back with you!
WTJR will be highlighting a different blogger each week this year! We invite you to stop by their blog, take a look around and say hello!
I’m Val , Canadian born, Vancouver BC raised! Here you’ll find top resources to plan your dream trip: In the USA, Canada & Europe. We are experts in travel to Portugal , the Pacific Northwest, Vegas and other Hidden Gems Around the Globe. Thx for joining my journey!
Thank you so much for joining us for our link-up!
And now some posts that were highlights for me this past week:
Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I are hosting Comfy, Cozy Cinema again this year and up this week was The Young In Heart.
And, yes, that title is the actual title: The Young IN Heart.
I feel like I cheated a little bit this week because not only have I watched this movie, but I also wrote about it when I watched it for the Winter of Douglas Fairbanks Jr. That means I had an advantage to Erin when it came to writing this week’s post because I am going to quote a lot of my original post.
This is part of what I wrote in that post: “I absolutely loved Douglas in this one. He played a more prominent role than in Gunga Din and was simply … shall I sound completely cheesy? Yes, I shall. He was completely delightful.
At one point, I texted my friend Erin that a drunk Douglas is adorable.”
Yes, I did text Erin this past January to tell her he was adorable. Yes, I am weird.
Before I forget, I found this one for free on YouTube.
So, let’s get to the movie.
The Carlton family, of which Douglas is a part of in this movie, are not a family you would want to know in real life. They are swindlers and grifters. They mooch off and manipulate people to scrape by in life.
We open the movie in the French Riviera with Douglas’s character (Rick) ready to marry a young woman whose father is rich.
Everything falls apart, though, when the police find out about the family and reveal their conniving ways to the family of Rick’s future wife. The family is told to get out of France and end up on a train where they meet a ridiculously sweet woman (Minnie Dupree) who has only recently come into a great sum of money.
Ironically, her last name is Fortune. George-Anne sets out to swindle the woman out of paying for their lunch, but the plan expands as the woman explains she lives alone in a big mansion left to her by a former suitor. She is saying how lovely it would be if all of them came to stay with her when there is a train derailment. Their car tips and at first Rick and George-Anne believe the old woman has died. She’s still breathing so the siblings carry her from the car and George-Anne covers her with her own coat.
We begin to wonder if the family is rotten through and through and are still playing things up as the woman later recovers and invites the family to come live with her.
George-Anne suggests to the family that if Miss Fortune believes they are a respectable family she will be more willing to let them live there and maybe even leave them money when she leaves. To play up this ruse she suggests the men get actual jobs and she and her mother act like caretakers and women who don’t swindle people out of money.
This is all very baffling to the family who has always cheated and stole for a living. When the men decide George-Anne’s plan might work and go to look for jobs, the scenes that follow are some of the most hilarious tongue-in-cheek moments I’ve seen in a movie.
Spinning around in the background of the family’s drama is the romance between George-Anne and Duncan Macrae (Richard Carlson), who she originally considered marrying when she thought he was rich. Duncan learned she was a con-artist along with everyone else and was shattered but still ends up chasing her down on the train back to London to tell her he still loves her.
The rest of Rick’s family — father, Col. Anthony “Sahib” Carleton (Roland Young), mother Marmey Carlton (Billie Burke), and daughter George-Anne (Janet Gaynor) — are thrilled with this plan because they know it will also set them all up for a rich life. George Anne might be even more thrilled because then she can marry a poor Scottish man who she’s fallen in love with, and the rest of her family will support her financially.
She tells him to get lost, believing he’s much too good for her and . . . well, you’ll have to see where all that ends up.
Rick is also having his own romance with Leslie Saunders (Paulette Goddard), a secretary and the engineering business he applies at for a job.
This is the second – or shall I say third – movie I’ve watched in recent months with Billie Burke and there is no mistaking that voice if you have seen The Wizard of Oz.
Yes, she is Glenda the Good Witch.
The screenplay for this movie was written by Paul Osborn and adapted by Charles Bennett from the serialized novel, The Gay Banditti by I. A. R. Wylie. That title certainly would have had a different connotation in the modern day, eh?
Anyhow, the novel appeared in parts in The Saturday Evening Post from February 26 to March 26, 1938.
The movie was released in November of the same year. They certainly worked fast back then.
I found it interesting when I read that Broadway actresses Maude Adams and Laurette Taylor screen-tested for the role of Miss Fortune and that the footage is the only audio-visual samples that existed of both of them.
The movie was produced by – can you guess? Because it feels like every movie I write about lately is produced by him.
Yes. David Selznick. The man who produced what is considered one of the biggest movie triumphs in the world — Gone with the Wind.
This movie was one of many he produced leading up to Gone With The Wind. The Prisoner of Zenda, which I wrote about a couple of weeks ago, was another. Goddard was actually rumored to be being considered to play Scarlet O’Hara in Gone With The Wind, which later, of course, went to Vivien Leigh.
While I was watching the part of the movie where Mr. Carleton goes to apply for a job, I was fascinated by the fancy car they showed. It was spinning like a pig on a spit at the front of the building and it was a very modern looking car and a very modern looking set up altogether.
The six-passenger 2-door sedan Flying Wombat featured in that scene was actually the one-of-a-kind prototype Phantom Corsair. The Phantom Corsair concept car was built in 1938 and designed by Rust Heinz of the H. J. Heinz family and Maurice Schwartz of the Bohman & Schwartz coachbuilding company in Pasadena, California.”
I also found it interesting that this was Gaynor’s last movie before retiring while she was at the top of her career. She made one last movie in 1957 called Bernardine.
Like I said above, I loved this movie. It was just what I needed to watch this week with so much sadness going on in the world. There was a lot of humor from all the cast, but Douglas really had me smiling throughout. Not only because he is my latest old Hollywood star crush (watch out Paul Newman!).
Have you seen this one? What did you think of it?
You can read Erin’s impression of the movie on her blog.
Next week we will move into a bit of spooky with Coraline.
The rest of our movie list can be found on this graphic:
