Five Things

This week, I went with my book club to see a pre-screening of War Horse. Much of it was as I expected, a bit trite and sentimental. But there was a much darker side, that I didn’t get from the previews. There was not a lot of blood and guts, nor was there much, if any, foul language; but the one word I kept thinking when it was over was “Brutal.” It was very depressing and even though the battle scenes didn’t include a lot of blood, I thought they were pretty violent. I’m sure much of that is due to the fact that combat was so much more up close and personal at the time of World War I. It also didn’t help that many of the horses ended up dead. Since seeing the movie, I’ve been trying to figure out who the target audience is. I knew that the movie was based on a book, but did not realize it was a children’s book until a friend asked me if the movie was appropriate for kids. It’s very long and dark throughout much of the movie, with little levity to lighten the mood between battle scenes. I thought it did a very good job of giving the audience the feeling of what it must have been like to be involved in the war. I would be hesitant to take kids to this movie. War Horse is rated PG-13.

random abs

Have I told you how much I love Pinterest? My latest discovery via Pinterest was the Random Abs website. Each day the site lists a variety of ab exercises. I’ve been doing it every other day for the past week and can really tell a difference.

I’m currently reading Room for book club. I’m having trouble getting into it. It’s the story of a mother and son that are held captive in a small room. It’s told from the viewpoint of the five year old son. He was born in the room and it’s the only life he’s ever known. I was surprised the one of the reviewers on Amazon read it in one day. I can only read it in small doses. It’s definitely not a light holiday read.

Looking for some music to get you in the holiday mood? I’ve always loved the music Pottery Barn plays in their stores. It seems they no longer sell their CD’s, but Amazon has most of them available used. If you don’t want to pay $70 for a CD (really, who would pay that for something they can download?), Amazon makes it pretty easy to recreate the albums. Each listing includes the song name and artist which should make it simple to create your own playlist by downloading from Amazon or iTunes.

Country Living via Home to Three Duncan Boys

The weather is supposed to be pretty crummy here this weekend which will means its a perfect time to decorate the house (inside anyway) for Christmas. About a month ago, I found a Norfolk Island Pine at Lowes.  When I was a kid, we had one of these in the dining room that we would decorate. I don’t remember decorating it for Christmas, but for Halloween we decorated it with little witches on brooms. Mom gave me those a few years ago, and I had been searching for a tree ever since. I hope it turns out like the one above for Christmas. I just need to find an urn to give it some height. Have you decorated for the holidays?