I’m not usually very interested in the Oscars because in the past all I’d done is read about the movies. This year though I’ve seen a nice handful of the movies in the running so I’m curious how they’ll do. I’ve seen:

• Lincoln
• Anna Karenina
• Amour
• Les Miserables
• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
• Snow White and the Huntsman*
• Brave

Not a huge list I realize, but big enough for me! Does it count that I saw The Hobbit twice?

*This is up for Visual Effects but I was disappointed enough in the whole thing that I can’t vote for it over The Hobbit…

I watched the second part of The Deathly Hallows, the last part of the Harry Potter tales. I admit to more than a few tears.

Now I’m back to sticking up little squares of fabric on the wall.

The cats have a little nap going on after a couple mice escaped the catnip jar.

I thought we might get some snow somehow, it was so grey and wet-feeling, for lack of a better word. Now it looks unlikely. The little birdies are no doubt happy with the feeders being filled.

Happy Official Day One of Vacation!

Things do not change; we change. – Henry David Thoreau

I get to look at this daily. When a friend remarked how she’s enjoying learning German:

Thoughts on German: I love love love saying words that have an ß in them. Also, “wunderbar”.

I remembered loving to write them LOL.

I haven’t written any haiku and such for a couple-few days and it’s always interesting to me when I notice that. It’s not that I haven’t had it in mind at all. I actually did write down a phrase as a potential starter for a possible sonnet… You know how it is about writing stuff down or losing it altogether.

I am starting a new quilt, sticking squares up on the wall. It will be the first entry in my new moleskine, even though it’s been up on the wall for a few days, growing. Mainly I need to settle on a size and do a bit of note-taking on it.

Found out by pure rummaging on my part that my quilts weren’t accepted to a show I’d applied to. That seems really rude to me, not to send an email to those not accepted. No one has commented that they got in, so perhaps they haven’t heard yet either, although the list of exhibitors is mostly unknown to me. It’s email people – it was a digital entry, it’s just polite to inform everyone.

I’m also nibbling away on a book about writing. It’s not that it’s terrible or terribly hard reading but rather that each sentence makes me pause and consider what it means and what it means to me. I’m impressed because often if I pick up some self-help book and it’s really preachily condensed, I read a bit and set it down never to return. I guess because the sentences ring true rather than preachily self-help I’m put into a mind set to ponder them rather than be turned away.

Yesterday I watched “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.” I have read the book several times and don’t remember if I’d seen the film or not. I was so impressed at the darkness of the story and events and also the superb job of setting up the maturing characters and the final events during this prelude. Character development and depth for the win! Even death is presented in a way that we mourn while hoping that it is another puzzle piece for the final sequence. The kids we knew as really unformed young children are older, flirting, trying out their understandings of being grown up and ideas about relationships. It was awesome.

Watching the whole series has given me quite a lot of insight about hero stories and all the parts that go into them to make them successful for the characters and the reader/viewer.