What I'm Reading

I'm not just obsessed with all things film and television, I'm also an avid reader! My Mom taught me to read when I was 4, way before I started kindergarten at 6. I've always had such a love for the written word, whether I'm reading it or actually writing it. So today I thought I'd share with you a review on my most recent adventure in literature land! I was so obsessed with this book I read it in two days.

The Doctors Wife by Elizabeth Brundage

I purchased this book on my Kindle Fire on night on a whim. I was looking for something new to read and the title caught my eye. The Doctor's Wife by Elizabeth Brundage is set in modern day Albany, NY and centers around the life of Annie Knowles, Dr. Michael Knowles' wife. Annie is a writer and a professor at a local University, and Michael is a hot shot OB/GYN at the local Catholic Hospital. Annie's affair with fellow professor and famous painter Simon Haas turns the world upside down, especially once his unhinged wife Lydia discovers the affair.

It's gonna be hard for me to not spoil the entire book for you, because I was so nuts about it, so I would say continue reading at your own risk.


The story starts off a bit confusing, or at least I was confused. There are close to 80 chapters in this book, but all are very short, 2+ pages long. It took me 15 chapters before I could put the book down. And I normally don't like suspense-y type books, they've just never been my thing but this one captured my attention like no other. 

This book jumps back and forth  between the past and the present a bit, for dramatic effect, and I didn't have too much trouble putting the pieces together. I usually could see what was going to happen before it happened, but always right before it happened, and I was always shocked. I found myself shouting out names closer to the end "SIMON!" I'd shout. "MICHAEL!" My husband thought I'd gone off the deep end.

The first few chapters of the book actually pick up during the latter part of the story. It starts one cold, snowy night when Michael gets an emergency page, when he wasn't on call to begin with, and has to go into work. It's made clear to us, the reader, that something has happened between the doctor and his wife to cause a rift, judging by the thoughts Michael has just before he walks out of their bedroom. But it's also obvious to us just how much Michael still loves Annie, no matter what she's done, no matter what he's done, he still loves her.

Once he arrives at the hospital, he gets a very uneasy feeling, like "they're after him." We don't know who "they" are until a little later, so that's what was confusing me. But he was right. "they" were after him, and just as he gets out of the car, he's attacked.

His car is found the next morning off the side of the road, burned out, a crispy body seat-belted in at the drivers seat. Michael Knowles appears to be dead.


But "they" have switched his body with that of a drifter, poor guy never saw it coming, and have taken him to an old, abandoned farm house way out in the country where he is being held captive in the basement. His eye is badly infected, his ribs and a hand are broken.

Annie is devastated by the news, but a phone call from the medical examiner changes everything. The body that they have in the morgue is not Michael. Spurred forward by the news that Michael is alive out there somewhere, she begins to think back on how things could have gone differently for them.


Annie was raised in Connecticut by her wealthy, well-to-do parents and by her 20's was married to the perfect man, a doctor, no less. Soon they added son Henry and daughter Rosie to the family and purchased a huge house in the country. Her life was pretty much perfect to anyone on the outside looking in.

But not all that glitters is gold. Michael's next step puts his family in all kinds of danger. He gets a call one afternoon from an old friend, an old girlfriend, Dr. Celina James, asking if he may be interested in coming to work for her on weekends at the Women's Free Health Clinic downtown. Essentially, she needs someone willing to perform abortions. Michael and Annie are more liberal in their thinking, and so, because it's extra cash, although not much, and because Celina is such a good friend, Michael agrees. The news that now his weekends are fully scheduled causes a rift to develop in his marriage with Annie.

Annie's mind is cloudy one afternoon and so she decides to go for a swim in the University swimming pool, there she encounters the eccentric, but handsome, art professor, and world renowned portrait painter Simon Haas. There is a bit of flirtation between the two. It's made plainly obvious that something is happening between Simon and Annie, right from the beginning.

After a while she and Simon begin a steamy affair, much to the dismay of his off-the-beam wife Lydia. Simon and Lydia's relationship is that of utter controversy. She's been the subject of his paintings for years, his muse, and had it not been for the paintings of her, he would not be who he is today. He met her when she was just 14 and after the passing of her father (which left her an orphan) Simon began to take care of her to keep her from having to go into an orphanage. He married her when she was 19. No one believes that everything was on the up and up all those years that they lived together in her father's house but it was. Simon didn't touch her until he married her. It's made quite clear to us that Simon has had to commit Lydia in the past due to her mood swings. Lydia is not a mentally healthy woman. A stunningly beautiful one, yes, but mentally, not at all. In fact at some points in the story she behaves quite like a scared child.

Lydia has found herself mixed up with a radical right wing group from her church, led by Reverend Tim. Their latest target is the abortion clinic and everyone involved.

Michael and his family begin to receive threats, strange phone calls, odd messages left around the house etc. It finally gets to the point where Michael starts wearing a bullet proof vest and carrying a gun.


Simon and Annie's relationship ends, by Annie's choice, but then things take a crazy turn and no one is safe from Lydia's unhinged sense of justice.


I should probably stop there, otherwise I'll go on and ruin the rest of it for you.


I could not put this book down. I read it in two days, and usually I take about a week to read a new novel. But nope, not this one. It was  page turner, from beginning to end, the twists and the turns kept me coming back for more. I couldn't stop thinking about the book during the times I wasn't reading it. I finally abandoned a basket full of laundry that needed to be folded last night, just so I could finish this book. Well worth my time.

Everything is written with such a great detail and feeling.  I've never read anything written by Elizabeth Brundrage in the past, but I was so very pleased with this book. I had no problems imagining this book into a film, and if it ever actually makes it to the screen, you can bet I'll be first in line with popcorn and Twizzlers waiting to see it! 

This book tackles some tough issues. Abortion and adultery being front and center themes of this book. The politics of abortion is abandoned, which I appreciated. Some people didn't see it that way. Some reviewers found this book incredibly pro-choice but to me, this book never made a plea for me to change my thinking on the subject. This isn't a book about abortion. It's a book that mentions it here and there. There's also murder. Let's not forget murder. There is a body count by the end of this book. There is a bit of bad language throughout and some "adult situations," but nothing too graphic on that end.


If you are looking for something a bit suspenseful, a bit romantic, something that will capture your attention, give this book a try. It was even left sort of open at the end, so maybe we might see a sequel in the future!! Ooh that gets me so so excited!!

I've read some other reviews saying that this book suffered from shoddy writing and would be easily dismissive if it weren't for the abortion subplot. I don't think so. I honestly enjoyed this book. I will admit that sometimes I found the writing, especially during the love scenes, to be a bit... robotic, but I was kind of glad for that. The last book I read was Fifty Shades Freed. I was happy for a break. I wouldn't have written it that way, but this is Elizabeth Brundage's book, not mine.


I've noted that, from other reviews on this book, you either love it or hate it. There doesn't seem to be much middle of the road with this tale. I was one that loved it.

If you'd like to read more reviews (better reviews, I get so excited I just want to tell it all) HERE is the link to The Doctor's Wife on Goodreads.  You'll find a wide variety of likes and dislikes.  Read this book, form your own opinion!

Tips to Keep a Clean House: The Before Bed Pick Up

I can't stand the thought of going to bed with my house a disaster. Even if I am dog tired and just barely going, I still take the time to tidy things up before bed. That way the next morning I can wake up and jump right into my day!

When Aaron and I first married, I was just 20 years old, and still figuring out this whole "adult/wife" thing. I complained one afternoon to my Mom about how I hated having to get up in the mornings and face a dirty house. She gave me the best advice ever, and it isn't something new, and it isn't something that she just magically thought up on her own. And honestly, after she told me, I felt like a dunce for not thinking of it myself.

I call it the "Before Bed Pick Up."

I don't clean anything before I go to bed. I pick up. The natural cleaning products stay tucked away in the cabinet under the sink for this one - unless I have to pull them out. Basically all I do is do a clutter sweep through the whole house (we have a small house, so if you have a larger one, maybe just sweep through the main living areas), taking about 15 or 20 minutes, sometimes longer, depending on the mess, and clear it all away. Part of this "trick," if you want to call it that, is having a designated home or destination for everything in your house. Organization is the key to running a smooth home.

If Aaron has left his dirty clothes laying on the bedroom or bathroom floor, I grab them up and stick them in the dirty clothes basket. I don't complain or wake him up and tell him he should do it himself. He works so hard for me so that I can stay home and do what I love doing- being a wife- so if he wants to leave his dirty pants on the bedroom floor that's fine, I'll pick them up, no big deal. If there are shoes laying in the living room floor I put them in the shoe basket by the front door or in the one in our bedroom. I make sure the throw blankets in the living room are folded and put where they belong, be it over the back of the couch or in the cabinet. I straighten the pillows on the couch and put the remotes in the basket where we keep them. If there is anything out on the counter tops in the kitchen, it gets put away. I never leave dirty or clean dishes out overnight. If they're dirty, I wash them, dry them and put them away. If they've been sitting in the drainer I wipe them down and then put them away. I always start my mornings with empty sinks. (No dishwasher, alas)And I never, never leave things piled up on my kitchen table. Never.

I make sure there is no clutter on the dresser top or on the vanity in the bathroom. There's nothing quite like paddling into the bathroom at 3 in the morning and tripping over things or knocking things on the counter over when you go to wash your hands. I usually always sweep the bathroom floor before bed, just because ours tends to accumulate lots of stuff over the course of an afternoon. That floor attracts dirt, I swear.



You'd be surprised how helpful it is to do this every night. You wake up in the morning ready to hit at the heavy stuff, because you don't have to spend half your morning "picking up" from the night before. It helps my brain to unwind and not have to go to bed with the knowledge that my house is a flipping mess all around me. It only takes 15 minutes. That's nothing. So why aren't you doing it? Your house will thank you! 

So give it a shot tonight before bed! Do the 15 Minute Before Bed Pick Up and see how clean your house feels!

Our Non-Pantry

My pantry is different from other people's. I envy those of you with a nice built in, matching your cabinets, floor to ceiling style pantries. Or those of you with whole rooms built to the sides of your kitchens that house all your food. Or even with giant closets in your kitchens that act as pantries. I go to other peoples homes and I just stand and stare into their pantries, taking a mental photograph. It's sad. I sometimes refer to it as our "non-pantry."

When Aaron and I first moved into this house it became very evident to me, very quickly, that we needed a pantry. We have a fair amount of cabinet space in our kitchen, but I was having to load all of our non-refrigerator food into one cabinet, and the weight of all the cans etc was starting to weigh the cabinet down and make it sag. I could just see the cabinet falling out of the wall in the middle of the night one night. It was terrifying. I needed a solution and quickly.

So I started searching Pinterest for ideas. Pinterest was a fairly new thing at the time - it's strange calling Pinterest a "new thing" - and it didn't have a whole lot to offer me -- (Of course now it has pages and pages of "no pantry" solutions. Of course.) until I saw this picture from marthastewart.com. I don't know what it was about this precise image, but the idea light bulb lit up over my head.

There was something in that image that made it all come together in my head. So, knowing my budget, I left work that night and headed to the Family Dollar store that was just down the road.



And this is what I came up with. We had this empty space here to the side of our fridge. It had housed our trash can (which I removed for the sake of the photographs. It's usually pushed up against the side of the fridge) and a broom. And when the idea finally came to me, I knew it was the perfect spot for something like this. It's nothing super fancy. It's not very visually appealing, but it's super functional and it works for us! That's the important thing. Now I'm not going to lie and tell you that this is the permanent solution to our problems, I'm looking into maybe upgrading my shelving unit soon. This has worked for us since 2011 with little to no trouble.


What I did was I went into the Family Dollar and purchased the units. I've got a million of these things all over my house tucked into various places. They're inexpensive, easy to assemble and fairly strong for how cheap they are. I ended up deciding to buy one 4 shelf unit ($30) and one 3 shelf unit ($20), and I combined them, omitting one shelf, but using all the hardware included.

All you do it take it out of the box, lay the shelf, insert the spindle and screw (no tools required). Do you call that a spindle?? I don't know what you call it, the stick thang. Screw the stick thangs together then add another shelf. Easy. I had it assembled in probably 10 minutes. I chose not to take the unit any higher than the fridge, 1) because it would look tacky and 2) because it might be too top heavy. Like I said this isn't the most sturdy piece of furniture you could ever purchase.

After about 30 minutes of moving my food stash around I was done and so proud of myself.

This is where we keep our stockpile of food. Our "extra" food, if you want to call it that. We keep our cereals and snacks and chips and things that are open or that we use all the time (like ramen noodles, peanut butter, bread, cereal, chips, pop tarts, cookies etc) in the cabinet, but everything else lives here.  I keep all my flour, sugar, corn meal etc in a cabinet by my stove, as I reach for those all the time.

I also keep a "bag bag" hanging on the wall here and my favorite apron hangs on the door that leads into my disastrous utility room. It's an insane mess right now, let's not even go there.

I keep our weekly meal plan posted on this side of the fridge as well. This is so easy for me because I can stand at the pantry and plan my meals out. ("yoyo means 'you're on your own' for those wondering) I just found this page online - did a Google search - and printed it off. I slid it into a sheet protector and use a dry erase marker on it to write my list. I also keep my grocery list pad of paper hanging here, with a pencil. I got the pad at the dollar store, you can find these things anywhere. As soon as I run out of something, I write it down. Makes it so much easier on grocery day!


So now, let me take you on a quick tour of how I have everything set up. 

On the top shelf I keep my large package of paper towels. I buy whatever is on sale, and this time, it happened to be Bounty Basics! And in the little clear plastic box I keep baking things. Cause I don't bake cakes or cookies much, so the powdered sugar and hot chocolate and cupcake liners etc live there.

On the next shelf down this is where I keep all of our condiments and honestly whatever else will fit. Because this is such a small space to work with I kind of just have to go with whatever fits wherever.  We keep lots of salad dressings on hand as well as BBQ sauce, bacon bits, gordita shells, taco sauce and tea bags!

On the next shelf I keep all our boxes of things, like hamburger helper, stuffing and boxes of like Zatarans Rice (it's hiding in the back). I can arrange things two deep on these shelves, which I really like. We love the Save-A-Lot instant potatoes... I know, I know. It's so lazy but I could live on mashed potatoes so when I want them, I want them now and don't want to chop up potatoes and boil them and mash them and... no. I want my potatoes now. So to avoid this whole shelf being boxes of potato flakes, I keep them in this airtight container. We also have a large bag (SAM's Club) of coffee that we keep here. (We have a keurig, but buying the K-Cups was breaking the bank. We bought the refillable cups and fill them ourselves every morning. Easy, and saves all kinds of cash.)

Here I keep all our spaghetti noodles (Aaron would live on Spaghetti if I'd make it every night) and macaroni. We keep our pasta sauce here, some pasta on the side packets, and I've got all our spice packets and yeast packets organized here, where they would fit. And one lone package of Ramen Noodles. I crunch mine up in the bag before I boil them, and after I crunched this bag up I decided I wanted something else, so I just laid it in the pantry to grab next time. 

 Canned veggies go here, I also have a few empty glass jars back in the back. I like frozen veggies and canned veggies both and I keep them both in the house at all times. Save-A-Lot has a huge selection of canned vegetables!

And finally on this bottom shelf is where the heavy soup cans live. I also keep our Chef Boyardee type things here. (Please excuse the mouse trap in the corner. Old house, recently bush hogged field across the road... mice. Ick.) We aren't big soup eaters, only when we are sick or in the winter, so I don't keep a whole lot of that kind of soup, but I do use cooking soups all the time, so I run through those quickly.



Not a bad job for $50 and 40 minutes of my night, I don't think. Do you? This works for us. I am always on the hunt for a more sturdy shelving unit that is the right width, because we are working with such a cramped space. But I haven't found one for the right price as of yet. I don't have to be in a huge hurry, because, I'll say it again, this works for us. I saw the need, I made it happen!

Do you have a non-pantry pantry like us? Share it with me! I'd love to see it!

Thanks for stopping by again today! I hope you, at least, got a chuckle out of this post, I know it wasn't much, but I thought sharing this - a way to create something where there is nothing on the cheap - would be a nice post to share!

I'm working hard on the kitchen evolution post so hopefully I will be able to get it posted tomorrow, but I won't make any promises.

Tips to Keep a Clean House: Make Your Bed!

Welcome to my new series, Tips to Keep a Clean House! This series is just what it says it is. I'll be offering you my tips on how I keep my house tidy, clean and "drop in" ready!


The fact here is, when your house is clean, don't you just feel better? I always think about that scene in the remake of The Stepford Wives with Nicole Kidman (it's back on Netflix btw). The part where she and Better Midler and their friend Roger walk into "Bobbie's" (Bette's) house, which is the biggest disaster I've ever seen, for the first time and Roger looks around and asks "Are you making Anthrax?" A clean home makes you feel better, makes your family feel better, makes any guests you have feel more welcome, and not like they just walked into a crime scene. I am HAPPIER when my house is spotless. My husband appreciates it and he is happier when everything is clean and in order.

I'm talking about a CLEAN house, not a tidy house. There are differences, and we will examine them later on in this series.

My first tip is a simple one, but it always seems to be overlooked. Every time I go into someone else's home to clean, the first thing I notice is that 90% of people leave their beds unmade. I can't handle it. I just can't.

From the time I was a tiny girl, my Mom was ingraining it into my brain to always make my bed. "Always make your bed before you leave your house!" she advised me once. "That way if you get into an accident and die, and people come into your house to get your things, they won't think you're a slob." Her exact words. I mean, if I'm dead it won't matter to me that people think I'm a slob because I didn't turn up my bedsheets. I remember laughing, out loud, at that statement, telling her that I didn't think it was that severe, and she agreed, saying she was just trying to comically make her point.


All it takes is a minute. Sometimes less, to make your bed. So why don't you do it?  For me, its the second thing I do in the morning when I get up. The first is taking Tabby out for some relief. Bless her little bladder. Next I walk back down the hall, into our bedroom, and make the bed. It's part of my routine, it's easy.

This is what our bedroom looks like when I first get up. I usually sleep for another half hour/hour after Aaron leaves for work, then I get up and start my day. And yeeees we sleep with a fan in our bedroom. We only have 1 window air conditioner and it lives in our living room. Please pardon my pink water glass. Keepin' it real, guys. I love you!

Our bedroom is always kept clean, and tidy. But to me, you couldn't tell because of the unmade bed and the stack of pillows on the bench. You can see them in the bottom right corner of the above photo.


I kind of feel stupid giving you a blow by blow about how I make my bed, but.... I'm gonna.

1. Straighten your fitted sheet. This is a must for me, because I cannot stand to get into bed and feel the sheets wadded up around my feet. So if it's popping off of the corners, tighten them back down, straighten it out as best you can. 
2. Adjust your pillows. Whether you lay them down or stand them up, get them into position. I've been standing ours up recently, it makes for a nicer appearance when our bed is fully made, I think.
3. Grab your flat sheet and pull it up and straighten it out.
4. Do the same with your quilt/comforter/blanket. 
5. Once they're lined up and even with each other, fold them over, back towards the middle of the mattress. I sometimes fold it back over on itself, to hide the sheet, but usually that's only when I'm feelin' fancy.
6. Pile on the pillows. I start with the shams that match my bedding set, then I layer my decorative pillows. What's on our bed now is a hodge podge, mish mosh of a couple of different sets, but I like the look, so I go with it.
7. Turn on your pretty little lamps (thinking about changing them out. What do you think?). move your ugly fan to a corner of the room (I usually move it to between my side of the bed and the window, it blows into the hall that way, cooling that end if the house) and take a breath. That took so much energy and so much time. You deserve a break. Go get a glass of sweet tea and rest your achy bones.

But doesn't it look so much better? It frees up the space where I store our pillows at night, so it instantly de-clutters the room.

I change the sheets on the bed once a week, usually on Mondays. However, I am a clean freak, as we all well know, and I sometimes change the sheets twice or three times a week. It depends on a number of things, including how hot it is outside-how much we sweat during the night-, how violent Tabby gets in her sleep, sometimes she tosses and turns so much I swear she's rubbing her butt bald, how much the sheets have stretched etc. I wash our mattress cover and pillow covers (the hypo-allergenic anti-bedbug type covers) once a month or so, along with the quilt or comforter that is on the bed at the present moment. Depending on my mood, I sometimes go through phases where I spray the bedding down daily with Febreeze. I mean, we do have a dog that we share the bed with, so... there's that.


So that's my first tip to keeping a clean house. Make your bed. EVERY DAY. Even on Saturday. Your bedroom will feel more clean and more glamorous if you do!

Mama's Perfect Sweet Tea

Can we just talk about how amazing a good cold glass of sweet tea is during the summer? Well, all year long actually, but particularly during the summer? Just plain ol' sweet tea over ice, nothing fancy added. No lemon, no mint, just sweet tea?


During my childhood my Mama's sweet tea was touted as the best in the county. She always brought the gallon jug full of sweet tea to any gatherin' or event. Anyone else's tea just didn't quite pass muster, something was always missing.


So today, I'd like to share her secret. I thought about not even doing this post because it is so simple, but at the same time, people ask me all the time how I make my tea. And, after all, this is The Simple Life. This drink is a southern staple, it's a must have if you are below the Mason-Dixon line. And it's not iced tea. No. It's SWEET TEA. Actually it's more like sweetea, one word.

Let's get started!

First you're gonna need the following items:
A Gallon Jug
Sugar
Tea Bags
Water
A Tea Kettle
A Wooden Spoon
An awesome girly glass to put your sweetea in when you're done :)



Here we go!

First off grab your tea kettle and fill it full of water. Put it on your stove, turning the burner on high heat, and let it boil.

 

While you're waiting on your water, grab your sugar. (Don't you like my super fancy label on my sugar container? Keepin' it real guys.)

Pour 2 cups of sugar into your gallon jug. I know, it seems like a lot of sugar... that's cause it is. This is SWEET TEA people.

 By the way, I hope ya'll appreciate my mad sugar pouring/picture takin' skills. This was NOT EASY!


After you've got your sugar in your jug, cover it with water. 

 
And stir. Again, mad skills.

While your sugar and water is sitting, and your tea kettle is still on the stove, pull our your tea bags.

This is the secret weapon folks. Mama always used LUZIANNE DECAFFEINATED TEA. It's not the same with Lipton or Nestle or Nestea or any other brand. It has to be Luzianne. You can get 2 48 packs at SAM's Club for like $10 and it will last you forever. Dollar General carries Luzianne, but only carries the caffeinated version. Tastes the same, just gives you a bit more kick. 

Use 4. Yes. 4.

 Oh look! The kettle is boiling! I am on fire with these pictures today, no? :)

Tie all 4 of your tea bags together, like this. 

And lay them into your water. Leave the strings out. 

Now, go off and do something. Start a load of laundry. Make the bed. Flip through your DVR. Pay a bill. Walk the dog. Let the tea sit - steep is the "official word" to use, but we're in the South, honey - ya'll let yer tea sit fer about 10 minutes. (The longer it sits the stronger it is.)

Pull your tea bags out and let them drain. I like to help mine along by putting the bags in the hollow of my spoon and wrapping my strings around them tightly. Plus, by doing it this way, I don't leak on the way to the garbage can.... eew.

Fill your jug the rest of the way up with cold water, load your glass up with ice (a lot if it will melt on contact because you have hot water still in the jug), pour and enjoy my Mama's Sweet Tea!

Thanks for stopping by again today! I appreciate anyone and everyone that takes time to read this lil' blog!

What I'm Watching! (Bad Foreign Film Edition)

Good afternoon everybody! Today I'd like to take you on another What I'm Watching journey.... cause that's what this is.... a journey. Ooh, should I start doing "What I"m Watching Wednesdays??" Would that be fun? Comment below if you think it's a good idea!

I'd like to start off with a movie that was so wildly talked about during awards season that I was chomping at the bit to see it. It was even so "good" it was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2014 Academy Awards. (The spoken language is Flemish.) So to me that says, "this movie is probably awesome, you must see it." I mean, after all, I've had great luck with foreign language films in the past. Anyone remember my post about A Royal Affair??

It's called The Broken Circle Breakdown. (Click the link to go to the IMDb page.)


I watched this film for free (with my Prime Membership) on Amazon Instant Video last night, finally.

Let me just start out, right off the bat, by saying that this is one of those unfortunate instances when the trailer that Amazon Instant had for me to watch completely outdoes the film itself. The trailer left me standing on my feet with my hands knotted in my hair I was wanting to see this film so bad. But after I finally watched the film itself... it was a total bummer. I thought.

The summary on Amazon Instant led me to believe that this film was, and I quote "intensely romantic." I beg to differ.


I'm gonna spoil the whole thing for you, so if you want to watch this movie for yourself and not be tainted with my opinions, you'd best stop reading after a certain point. But you can skip this one as far as I'm concerned, so read ahead!

So in The Broken Circle Breakdown we are told the story of Didier and Elise. Didier is an atheist, and a banjo player/singer in a bluegrass band. Do they even have those in Belgium? I didn't think it was a thing. Anyway, he is obsessed with America. He loves American music and basically just thinks America is the end all be all.

Elise is an artist in a tattoo shop, and according to the IMDb summary, she is a religious realist. Honestly the only "religion" ques I picked up on where the anti-religious rants Didier went on towards the end of the film, but maybe I missed something.


This film jumps back and forth A LOT. And it left me pretty confused most of the time. I know films do that sometimes, cutting between the past and present, for dramatic effect, but the way it was done here left me scratching my head. It starts off when Didier and Elise's daughter, Maybelle - named after Mother Maybelle Carter from the famous Carter Family - is diagnosed with cancer. I should have known right then that this film was gonna leave me lacking. Anyway then it flashes back to Didier and Elise's first night together, ever. Like they drive up into his yard (he's renovating an old looks like a church type building but living in a little travel trailer) and wham bam bada bing. No explanation of how they met, why they met, how long they've known each other, not a clue on who these people are, other than the fact that we know that 7 years into the future they have a child with cancer. Didier talks to Elise about America, and about how stupid tattoos are ('nothing is worth writing it on your body,') and then he wakes up the next morning to the sounds of her taking his truck. She shows up, I'm assuming, a few days later wearing the Old Glory bikini shown in the poster above, with an American Eagle "tattooed" on his truck hood.  Thus begins their "intensely romantic" (hogwash) relationship.

The bluegrass music, while I love it as a genre and I actually enjoyed the musical numbers contained in the film, seemed SO out of place. Maybe it's because everyone was speaking Flemish and then singing Bill Monroe's greatest hits in PERFECT English. It made me wonder, do they even know what they're singing?? To me, that's the point of bluegrass and gospel music (of which there are a few songs towards the end), it's knowing what you're singing about. I never could understand why, if it was Didier's band, why he was singing gospel songs if he was an atheist.  Riddle me that one.

It is obvious that he loves Elise, who somehow magically has a songbird's voice (I think she screeches through her version of "The Wayfaring Stranger," completely killing the emotion of the song, even though it was supposed to be a highly emotional moment) and is instantly the female voice in the band. But when she shows up telling him she's pregnant, he acts like a complete turd and drives off. He shows up a little while later with a bunch of carpentry supplies and tells her that they can't have a baby living in the "caravan." So we are supposed to take that as an "Ok."

Maybelle is an adorable child. I cannot tell you how cute this girl is and frankly I think she's the best little actress in the whole film. She takes her cancer like a champ. There is one scene in particular where a bird flies into a window and dies. She cradles the dead bird in her hands, sobbing, and Didier tells her it's dirty, that he's going to throw it in the trash can. I was sitting in my recliner hollering at the TV. "Can't you see she needs you to BURY that bird?? Your child NEEDS that comfort!!! She's dying and she knows it! What are you gonna do with her when she dies? Throw her in the trash can!!??" And then he goes on a rampage saying that the birds are stupid and they need to learn not to fly into glass. When Elise puts some decals on the windows so that the birds will see and not fly into the glass, Didier tells her it's not fixing the problem, it's just covering it up. They're birds. They're never going to learn. They're birds. Get over yourself. Maybelle finally tells her Daddy that the dead bird became a star and instead of breaking her heart, which I was expecting him to do, he says "Ok, sweetie." Whoa. Deep, man. Real deep.

Maybelle is given some stem cell treatments which the doctors tell Elise and Didier are going to be nearly 100% effective and that they expect the little girl to be completely cured of her cancer. (SPOILERS on the end from here on out!!!) She dies. It's heartbreaking. She was the light of the entire movie. At her graveside, in the middle of the rain, the band sings "Go To Sleep You Little Baby," you know, the song the three sirens sang on the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack. I admit, I sang harmony along with it... just because I like that song.

Naturally Didier and Elise's not legal marriage (they said "vows" to each other one night after a gig with one of the band members impersonating Elvis as the officiant, whatevs)  begins to suffer when Elise falls into the expected depression that comes along with the death of a child. And then the blame and name calling starts getting thrown around. Didier says that maybe their house wasn't clean enough, that maybe she ate something she shouldn't have, that Elise drank and smoked for the first 3 months of her pregnancy because she didn't know she was pregnant... Elise slams back saying that there's no cancer in her family and that his Dad and two of his uncles died with it.

She leaves him. She covers up the tattoo of his name on her stomach -something she tends to do with her boyfriends apparently, as we find out in a flashback to how they met, FINALLY- and says she's changed her name to Alabama. Ok. Didier complains that if she isn't Elise anymore, then who is he? Who is he supposed to be with her? (That part I kind of thought was romantic... you know. "Who am I without you? There's no me without you!") She thinks for a moment and says his new name should be Monroe.

They're still singing together as a group and after a few more musical numbers we start seeing flashes of Didier in his white performance suit (they all dress in white to sing) driving his truck with blue lights flashing ahead of him. These go on for ever, cut in and out of scenes.

Didier goes coo-coo-bananas at one point during a gig and starts shouting about there being no God.  As a Christian, I did not agree. I believe in God. I know he's real. Elise, by the end of his little speech in which he calls himself an ape and says that he's afraid, looks like someone has let all the air out of her. She believes Maybelle has gone on to a better place, and Didier believes that she has just ceased to exist. How depressing. Didier calls his beloved dream of America stupid and evil, I think, because at the time President Bush has just vetoed the embryonic stem cell bill. Didier says its America's fault his daughter died. Because America is putting the breaks on stem cell research, Belgium, who has no issues with it whatsoever, is being pulled back. He's upset, he's irrational. I moved on.

FINALLY we discover that Elise, after giving herself a mysterious tattoo, overdosed on some sort of pills. Didier finds her in the tattoo shop, where she's been living since their split, and calls an ambulance. We eventually discover that she's brain dead. So as a final farewell, the day they turn all the life support machines off, Didier and the band play her a final bluegrass jig... not a solemn goodbye song, a freaking jig, around her deathbed. But honestly, if you're gonna die, there's probably no better way to do it than with a lively bluegrass song.

The final shot of the film before it goes dark and the credits roll is Elise's final tattoo.... Alabama & Monroe. *tear*



No more spoilers!


So.... the story to this film was a good one. I'll give it that. The idea of the plot was good. The downfall of a marriage between two wildly different people after the death of their child, mixed in with bluegrass music... yeah. But somewhere I think the execution went wrong.

And can I just say this? PHOTOGRAPHICALLY.... like the technical side of photography, not the composition side, THIS FILM SUCKED!!! There was like NO CONTRAST whatsoever in any shot in the entire film. It made everything look bleak and grey and nothing had any definition to it, at all. I suppose that's the look they were going for, but me, personally, no way. Emotions tend to run higher when everything is in bright, bold detail I think. Ok, so the bleak and grey worked for the funeral scenes but come on... the beautiful shots of the horses running through the fields could have been so much more beautiful if they'd cranked the contrast up just a bit!!

IMDb gives this film a 7.8 out of 10 and I have to give it a 6... maybe a 5. I REALLY REALLY wanted to like this movie. There are 48 user reviews on IMDb and only about 3 of them have anything negative to say.  I just wasn't feeling this movie, at all.

I did like the name though. The Broken Circle Breakdown... pretty awesome if you ask me.

Again, this movie wasn't my cup of tea, it didn't live up to how amazing I thought it was supposed to be from the trailer and the "intensely romantic" comment in the Amazon Instant summary.  If you are interested, give it a look, see what you think.


Just as a warning, as I do for all of my reviews, there is some bad language towards the end. (The "F" word must be universally pronounced the same way) And, of course, there are some adult situations..... I don't know how she got her feet to press up against the truck window like that, but I applauded her flexibility. And also, if you're a softie like me, you may want to have some Kleenex handy for Maybelle.




I watched this next film way before I started doing the What I'm Watching posts. But since I was talking about Foreign Films today, I thought I'd throw this one in. Unfortunately, I didn't like this one either. And I thought for sure I would.


To The Wonder stars Ben Affleck (it was great to see him on screen again, it feels like it's been forever since he's worked, except for Argo, which I still haven't seen) and Rachael McAdams and was directed by Terrence Malick, the man that directed on of my favorite movies The New World. I assumed that because The New World struck such a chord in my soul, that this film we be the same way. Nope. Uh-uh. No way! Not even Ben Affleck could make me like this movie, and I generally love him.

I am not even sure where to start with this movie. It's another one of those where I'm not sure there is an actual story line.

Ben's character, Neil meets this woman, Marina, in Paris. But we never know their names until the very end. Weird? Yes. Anyway he falls in love with her, and her daughter and she comes home with him to Oklahoma. Talk about a culture shock.

Well as you'd expect, free spirited Marina doesn't exactly fit in in Oklahoma. Never mind the fact that they're living in a huge house in a fancy subdivision, which would be enough for me. Right?

All Marina does is spin. The entire time she's on screen, she running and spinning. I got tired just watching her.

Eventually she goes back to Paris, as you'd expect. And while she's gone, Ben Neil runs into Rachael Jane (how unique). Apparently these two had been "friends," if you know what I'm saying, before and then something happened and they split and I think, if I remember correctly, that she got married and was widowed... IDK, in any event she owns this big ranch.

And they're awesome together. Jane doesn't spin. Thank God. Rachael McAdams is simply stunning, visually, in this movie. She's really gorgeous, wearing her pearls with her mud boots. Love it.

But then Neil hears that Marina is having some problems in Paris and he rushes back to rescue her, marrying her. WHA?! Seems kinda sudden, but whatever.  And of course, back to boring ol' Oklahoma they go, without her daughter, who has decided to stay in Paris with her Father.

In the middle of all of this Marina meet Father Quintana, played by Javier Bardem, who is having a "crisis of faith." I'm not sure why his character is even in this movie. He mainly wanders, muttering to God.

Of course, all that glitters is not gold, and Neil and Marina are back in their problems again. She treats him almost like her warden, like he's holding her prisoner, but, if she would just think back, she's the one that called him and said "help I need you, take me back to Oklahoma. Dump the woman you love, the woman you can have a real life with and come back for me, I'll spin in the open fields for you. I'm French and fabulous." Yeah. It got on my nerves.

Did I mention that there IS NO DIALOGUE in this movie?? NONE! Hardly anything at all. It's mostly Marina muttering something in French, or Jane or Father Quintana praying, all in VOICEOVER. Every bit. Jane maybe says 5 words to Neil. I don't recall hearing Ben's voice much at all.

It just WORKED in The New World. IDK what the difference was. But in that film the voice overs and the running and spinning in fields just worked, in this movie it DID NOT.

I read in the Trivia section on IMBd (click the linky above to go to the IMBd page) that Terrence Malick did not have an actual script for this film. He just gave the actors notes every morning and told them to run with it. Basically this film is improvised from beginning to end, and given that, the performances are really good. Terrence Malick said he wanted the emotions conveyed with their actions and their bodies, not with words. Idealistically (is that the right word?) that's all well and good and sometimes it works, i.e. The New World. But it did nothing for the structure of the film, or for the story, really. Again it could be such a good story. Fall in love in Paris, come home, things don't work out, she leaves, guy finds love with an old flame, but then the French girl suddenly reappears, who does he love more??? It could be good, right? I see potential in that.

And, apparently, this is semi-auto-biographical. Plus the trivia section states that Christian Bale had been cast as Neil but had to drop out and was replaced by Ben Affleck.... nothing against Ben, I think he's lovely, but maybe I would have liked it more with Christian.... we will never know.


Apparently I'm not the only person that thought this film was a bust. IMBd gives this movie 6.0 out of 10 stars. I think that's being generous.  I give it a 4, maybe even a 3. Rachael McAdams was my favorite part, and I enjoyed looking at the house that Neil and Marina lived in during her first stay in Oklahoma, I'm a bit of a house nut, in case you couldn't tell.

Just.... pass on this movie. Really. I say it every time that you can watch it if you want to, see for yourself, gather your own opinions, but... honestly... this movie is not worth the effort it takes to pull it up on either Netflix or Amazon Instant. Seriously. It's bad, It's... it's baaad. If you want to watch a good Terrence Malick movie, one with a story, and a beautiful setting and beautiful people, plug in The New World.



So that's it for the Bad Foreign Film Edition of What I'm Watching Wednesday!!! I think that this could possibly become a regular Wednesday thing. I really enjoy my time with my TV, in case you couldn't tell, and watching things I've never watched before and then hopping onto Blogger and writing a review about it makes me feel all special, and important!

I wish I had something to rant and rave about and tell you that I absolutely love it and cannot imagine how I lived my life before watching it, but, alas, it was not to be in this weeks edition.

Maybe next week ;)

 

Home Style Evolution: Living Room

One of the things that my husband always made abundantly clear to me about this house, before I had a chance to see inside (people were living here!), was that the living room was huge. It is the biggest room in our house and I have had no trouble filling it up with large pieces of furniture.


This room is the most important room in the house, it is the room we "live in." Fitting that it's called a "living room," isn't it? So it's imperative that this room be inviting, and, above all clean and not cluttered. This is one of the rooms that seems to always be undergoing some sort of re-do. Whether I'm rearranging the placement of photographs hanging on the wall, changing the tablescapes or changing out decor, the living room is always my go-to place when I need a change. 





The photos below were shot the day we started to work on the house.

I swore that renovating this house would kill me. I'm not even gonna sugar coat it when I tell you that Aaron and I nearly broke off our engagement more than once because of the stress (and severe time crunch) we were under. 



At the end of it all, we got married (we're you worried?), and this is how our living room turned out. Keep in mind, it is decorated for Christmas here, because we moved in on 12/20, the day we got back from our honeymoon.

 

As you can see, we chose to paint the room two different colors. Honestly, folks, looking back at these photos, it doesn't even look like my house. I can't remember it ever looking like this. And what's more, I can't remember ever being happy with it looking like this. We chose a geometric print rug, because it had all of our colors in it. Reds and tans for the living room, greens for the kitchen, purples for the bathroom... they're all represented in that rug. I loved it for that reason, but nearly blew a vein when I read the price tag...

Here are some more shots from then...

Aaron broke the couch in the right way. Curtains are from Burlington Coat Factory.

Sofa table and lamps from Lowe's. In this shot you can see that our entertainment center hadn't been placed yet. These lamps are the same lamps sitting on either side of our bed now, but with different shades. Shop what ya got!!

Our handmade entertainment center.

This entertainment center was custom designed and made, by hand, by my Father-In-Law as our wedding gift. It is HUGE, taking up one entire wall in our living room, but it is loaded with storage spaces that I'm always coming up with new ideas for, and it is always a conversation piece when company comes over. I absolutely adore it.

In the Spring of 2010, we finally filled up the empty space in the red part of the room, which we had decided to turn into our own little music room.

Decor is a bit sparse in that area, as you can see!! haha!


For a while, honestly, nothing in the room changed, except for the placement of certain nick-knacks and the addition of wedding photos once we got them from the photographer.


We adopted a dog in 2010 who was a living terror. The three of us simply were not compatible. She created utter chaos in our house, so we surrendered her back to the shelter where she was promptly adopted by a family that she was compatible with, so no worries there! But because of her utter chaos, our geometric print rug was ruined (shampooing after shampooing did nothing to get rid of the smell). So we went ahead and purchased a new, more neutral one. I broke my heart to roll up my expensive rug and send it off to the dump, but I was so happy with my new rug that I danced for joy back down the driveway on trash day!

 

This is the best shot I have of it from that time. It's a cream color shag texture rug, size 5x8 from Wal-Mart and it was only around $80. A GREAT value. By this time, we had, clearly, adopted Tabby, who is the best behaved dog I've ever seen in my life. She'd rather explode than pee on this rug. 

We also got a new TV. The big one we had had earlier slap blew up on me one afternoon when I was watching a movie, so we got a new one, and unfortunately we had to basically sit the darn thing on the floor because our cabinet didn't have a TV stand built to match it. The one pictured above was a $30 put-it-together-yourself-er from Family Dollar. It served it's purpose very well for a good while, but we did so dislike the tv practically being on the floor.

 

This little TV stand came from a consignment shop in our town and I decided I wanted to put it here, to house all of our internet wires and cords and what not. Behind this table is where the only telephone jack in the entire house lives. 

 

 The "music corner" as we refer to it, filled up fast with music books!

Not long after the above photo was taken I finally took the plunge and painted over those red walls. And when we did, I changed out all the curtains in the room to a pretty cream set I found at Lowe's, of course.  You can see the difference the paint job did in the photo below. I repositioned my shelves (Family Dollar special!) and added a vase with some lit branches, both from Kirklands, in the corner, to lighten things up. (I started a trend, both my sisters in law now have something similar in their homes! :)

We re-purposed the red wood TV stand that had been sitting in the corner or the room, in front of the recliner, and actually turned it into a TV stand! We're wild like that, a TV stand into a TV stand... such rebellion! We had to saw the little nubby legs off of it to get it to fit, but at least out TV isn't practically sitting on the ground anymore! It made the room look much more put together!

It was so obvious. I don't know why I didn't think of it before!!

In 2013 we ended up purchasing new leather furniture (reclining sofa and loveseat!!!!) from Ashley Furniture, and a coffee table/end table set off of Craigslist for a steal! I'm in love with our living room furniture. It's US. It really is. And the best part about it is that with the right accesories (i.e. pillows, throw blankets) I can take the theme really modern or really country, or anything in between!

I'm slowly including more and more blue accents in my house, I'm simply obsessed with that teal blue color that is so popular in home decor these days. 

When I said slowly, I meant all at once. It feels like overnight my house went from tan and red to tan and blue. I love the blue so much, it's such a fun color and it makes me very happy! Aaron is the one that wanted the red in the beginning, not me, but now he's all about the blue too! We go to stores and he's like "hey, babe, wouldn't this blue sumthin-er-other look great in our house?" He's the best.


As of the present moment, this is what our Living Room looks like! (I will say this, the color of the walls is photographing MUCH darker than it actually is.) It's funny, I've been working on this post for about three weeks, and, because I've been working on this post, I've been really working on de-cluttering this room, and making it more open and airy. From the photographs I'd taken before, it became clear that I needed to rethink some of my decor choices. Including my el-cheapo Family Dollar bookshelves. No more words, here's the tour! (Excuse the gloominess outside. It's very rainy and yucky here today. So I've got Bewitched streaming on Crackle to chase away the yucky weather blues!)

 This is mainly my little area. I sit here, it's my "Sheldon Spot." (Did you catch that Big Bang Theory reference?)

 Our beautiful Entertainment Center is still as gorgeous as ever. Samantha and Endora were arguing over how to plant flowers at this particular moment on Bewitched!

Like I said before, I disassembled our Dollar Store shelves and put our least used books away into storage. The ones we use the most often I put into baskets and they are sitting in the corner.

Our lovely blue front door. At church I'm now known as "Lady with the Blue Door." As you can see in the bottom corner, we use the shoes in the basket method. It works very well for us. About once a week I go through all the shoes and put some away in our bedroom. Keeps me on top of the mountain!

Here's the main part of the room. We like big furniture, in case you couldn't tell.

Our couch, and the pillows that I think perhaps started the blue craziness. We got them at Kohls for about $10 a piece... marked down from $40 a piece. Yeah. It was a deal.

Recognize this table? It had been our entry table, but now it's a pretty little place for our phone to live. Yes, that's Germ-X, I'm a germaphobe. We keep our remote controls in the little basket that I bought in Charleston, SC years ago. And, of course, our beautiful wedding pictures above. I'm thinking about changing them to something a little different, but not sure what I want to do yet. I'll keep you updated! 

The piano area. I wish I had a bigger trunk. That one has all my childhood memories inside. 

This is the view you get coming down the hallway.


So there it is, folks! FINALLY my Living Room Evolution! I'm aware that my house isn't super fancy. I know that it isn't uber shabby chic. If my house could basically be Brooke's from All Things Thrifty, then I'd be a happy happy happy girl, but we just aren't there yet in our life. This is our first house. It's an old house. We are doing the best with what we have. But I am proud of the hard work we've done in making our house a home. Now, more than ever, I feel like this is home... for the time being. Thanks to fabulous people like Brooke, I'm always getting ideas for my house, and taking inventory and filing away ideas for our next house. That's what's so great about blogging. You don't have to have a cookie cutter house, you can get ideas and run with them in your own space. So Brooke, I doubt your reading this, but thank you for your amazing blog. My house would probably still be red and gold without you! 


Who's to say this is the end of the transformation for my living room? Certainly not me! 

I hope you enjoyed looking through the transformation of my living room and walking down memory lane with me.

Up next is the KITCHEN post. And... let me just tell ya, I'm excited to share it with you! 

So thanks a ton for stopping by! I'll see you next time on The Simple Life!