Get ready for February 4th! This Wednesday the WWRW link-up is making a comeback!
2. Our library is offering the Hoopla app!
What's the hoopla? Hoopla is a free app that lets me download movies, television shows, audiobooks, and music right to my iPhone for FREEEEEEEEE!!!!
Jill has been watching Max & Ruby cartoons, which are not available on Netflix or on Amazon Prime (without paying extra) for FREEEEEEEE!
And I've been downloading music left and right. Specifically all the classical music that is recommended by the Little Saints Preschool Program we're using. More on that another day.
This week's pre-school theme is At the Zoo, and we've been listening to Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals while she dances each animal's part. For FREEEEEEEEEE!
Someday you might read Wee Gillis by Munro Leaf to a three year-old, and she'll want to know what bagpipes are. With Hoopla, you can download William Boyle's Bagpipe Virtuoso compilation in a flash and for FREEEEE! (Confession: I love the pipes.)
Libraries are the best.
3. Grey Skies bringing you down?
Try eating peanut butter and banana sandwiches and listening to the Elvis Presley Pandora station.
You may call it inspired, I'm calling it history class.
4. Knitting shizzle.
 |
| My 3 teen girls and their handmade swag. |
For the mitts, I used Vintage Knit Gloves and Mittens: 25 Patterns for Timeless Fashions by Kathryn Fulton.
Why is that hat green? Because I used leftover yarn from the matching sweater. Why did I make a green baby sweater for my baby girl? Because I made the sweater before I knew the baby was a girl.
For both the bonnet and sweater, I used Vintage Knits for Modern Babies by Hadley Fierlinger. Can you tell I prefer the vintage patterns?
Jill really wants Elsa gloves, but I think she'll be getting Elsa mittens instead. #disappointed
5. What have we been watching? Maybe this should be it's own link-up. WHWBW. Waddya think?
Our regularly scheduled programming includes:
Wallander
Pros: KENNETH BRANAGH! Gorgeous Swedish landscapes.
Cons: Dark and twisted crime. My idea of Sweden is a now a mash-up of Flicka, Ricka, Dicka books, Ikea, and serial killers/sex traffickers. Also troublesome, BBC=1.5 hour long shows. Mama gets tired.
All Creatures Great & Small
Pros: Netflix has really cleaned up the sound of this 1970s show. We are huge Herriot book fans here, and the television show does not disappoint. I love Robert Hardy as Siegfried Farnon. I loved Robert Hardy as Professor Slugworth. I love Robert Hardy.
And Helen. I love her too. I covet her clothes. The midi skirts, the berets, sigh. I understand that she gets re-cast in the later seasons, but SHHH! I'm not there yet!
Bonus: This show is only an hour!
Cons: Could be totally acceptable for the entire family, if the entire family happens to be okay with footage of dudes with their arms up inside a cow's hoo-hah. (Remember my purse description?) Did these actors really DO that? Did they use stunt animals too? It is a puzzlement.
Foyle's War, Series 1
Pros: Police detective show set in Hastings, England during WWII. WWII is my preferred historical period. Gentle, quiet, yet brilliant Detective Inspector Foyle is often under-estimated, but always gets the criminal with some blinding stroke of genius.
Cons: Stupid 90 minute shows...too long...got work in the morning.
6. Netflix and Amazon Prime movies that have struck our fancy are...
If you like Napoleon Dynamite and Aussie accents, this is the film for you. It could be a family film, IF there weren't a few Eff bombs dropping. My 18 year old recommended it and we've been quoting it ever since. (No, we're not quoting the eff words.) Decent message too.
The Hundred-Foot Journey
Everyone enjoyed it EXCEPT the 12 year old who may have said, "PLEASE let me watch another movie so that wasn't the last movie I've seen!" There's no accounting for taste. It is a teensy bit violent in the beginning, what with the mother getting trapped in a burning building set on fire by terrorists and dying. Other than that it's a clean movie with great acting and FOOD!
WHYBW?
7. This Sunday starts the Seven Sundays of St. Joseph. (Thanks for the heads up, Mom!)
The Seven Sunday of St. Joseph is a seven day novena that takes place once a week, every Sunday (duh) until the feast of St. Joseph. Each Sunday, there are readings and prayers that focus on the different sorrow and joys from St. Joseph's life.
Selling a house? (Cari? Dwija?) Buying a house? Trying to make peace with the house you're in? Or just love St. Jose? It's only seven days! We can do this!
The hard part will be remembering every Sunday, because as I explained to my mother, I suck at novenas.
I always miss a day and have to double up once or thrice. I even signed up for the Pray More Novenas emails, and every now and then Satan sends one to my spam box! But my mom says, "There's no time in Heaven."
Phew. Because picturing the OCD angel with a clipboard ticking off the boxes on my incomplete and/or tardy novenas wasn't encouraging at all.
So Seven Quick Takes in January, done. Boom. Pow. Linking up with the new hostess of the weekend fun, Kelly at This Ain't the Lyceum.
Don't forget to link up your book reviews on Wednesday. I'm bringing WWRW baaaack!
That hat is one of my favorite patterns!! Also, Kenneth. Oh Kenneth. On my first date with my now husband I told him I would have Kenneth's babies. That was 1991. Sorry, Ken, it never would have worked out. ;)
ReplyDeleteI had a thing for Ken too. Then came Alan. Rickman, of course.
DeleteI am so excited for WWRW! I have a post already to go and was going to do it this week but decided to wait to link up!
ReplyDeleteI love those mittens and the sweater! And now my hands just want to start knitting (and it doesn't help that my knitting needles are sitting right next to me just begging to be picked up!)!
ReplyDeleteThe hardest part is getting started. I cast on at least three times before I can get going.
DeleteYour description of Wallander was hysterical. Is that because I'm part Swedish?
ReplyDeleteWhat did I tell you, woman?! Don't watch the crime, just how Kenneth brilliantly solves it!
ReplyDeleteAnd yes… they did stick their arms there:
When it came to the oft-joked-about insertion of an arm into a cow's rear end, Davison said: "People think we cheated, or something. I tell them that the BBC are not going to pay for a stunt cow that I can put my arm up." Robert Hardy added: "It's enchanting, because once you've got your hand inside you can understand how the interior works."
Oh, and… Robert Hardy was Fudge, not Slughorn, but you're excused because you have tired baby brain.
Oh Fudge! And I said Slugworth too. Shame. Shame. I'm going to get kicked out of Pottermore.
Delete10 points from Gryffindor!
DeleteI love funny! I'm going to check out The Castle. Great QTs!
ReplyDeleteDo you know about Hoopladigital.com? I just can't watch a film on my phone, but this way you can watch it on a computer screen.
ReplyDeleteThat sweater and hat are the cutest!