Every Day in the Garden: January 25 - 31

I've made it through one month in this series but admit to fudging a couple of days this last week.

 [Ha! Fudge #1, this is actually a photo our daughter took from her car and sent us, saying that this is their idea of a traffic jam in their town in Montana.]

[RH and his brother on our backyard project.]

[Fudge #2, since James Mason made it in the pics this week, BreeBree thought she should too! Like her mama, she's a little bit too much of a couch potato.]

Thank you for visiting here! I've had a tough time getting pictures for my blogs since Christmas when my normal lens on our camera stopped focusing. So I've had to use either the close up lens or the telephoto lens. Or my phone where sometimes my Mac just refuses to import them. 

Our son, a professional photographer, has advised me to forget about using the camera and retire my Android phone for an I-Phone. I know I need to do that but goodness gracious, I dread learning how to use one!

Any bloggers or Instagramers visiting? What do you use for capturing good pictures?

Every Day in the Garden: January 11-24

I've always thought of March as fickle but this January is borrowing from her younger sister's fame. Bright and sunny one day, dreary icy cold the next, blustery clear, twice dustings of snow. 

What to wear? What to do, stay home or go somewhere?

What have you been doing these January days? Have you been out and about or cocooning inside? 

Here's the second part of my new Every Day in the Garden series, a way to get me outside for a few minutes each day even if once or twice my pajamas were underneath my coat.

 

                     [as far as I ventured one day; still loving
                     the little wreath on kitchen door]

                    [never made it outside at all on 22nd;
                     borrowed pic from 1/22/2019]

                          [RH's backyard project is coming
                            along nicely.]

Little Women Movies

I've not yet seen the new Little Women but if you have, please tell me what you thought about it. 

When I saw this picture of Jo and Laurie, I started thinking about the actors who played them in three previous movies.

 This must be how Norman Rockwell thought of them when commissioned to paint this full page color illustration for Women's Home Companion in the January 1938 issue to accompany Katharine Anthony's four-part biography of the author, Louisa May Alcott.

Honestly, not how I pictured either of them. What do you think? And what was Norman Rockwell thinking?

Not counting some television adaptations, I thought back to the three movies I've seen, from 1933, 1949, and 1994.

In 1933's version Katharine Hepburn played Jo and Douglass Montgomery played Laurie.  Despite the distinctive two s's in Douglass (is that how to type it-- two s's?), he left no lasting impression on me. 

Hepburn? She was okay, I guess. But Spring Byington as Marmee, never!

However, Edna May Oliver as Aunt March was inspired! Remember her in Pride and Prejudice as Lady Catherine? Same type and perfect. 

Then in 1949 came June Allyson as Jo and Peter Lawford as Laurie. I love June but think she belongs better in WW II movies as the soft voiced patient wife, not as Jo. Lawford wasn't bad as Laurie, but oh my goodness, handsome Rossano Brazzi as Professor Bhaer won my heart!

I liked Mary Astor as Marmee and Elizabeth Taylor was darling as Amy.  Whatever incredible genetics went to make up Taylor's eyes, I want some!

I admit to being partial to Winona Ryder as Jo in the 1994 production. I just think she played Jo right. And I thought Christian Bale was Laurie! Gabriel Byrne was good as the professor, Claire Danes as Beth, and Susan Sarandon as Marmee. Kirsten Dunst was perfect as spoiled Amy and Samantha Mathis, however unrealistically, turned into a lovely Amy grown up. Mary Wickles was a delightful Aunt March. 

The one character I've failed to mention is sister Meg. Why do we not really think of Meg? It's been years since I read Little Women and I can't remember whether the written character was as forgettable as the movie versions of Meg.

In the biography of Louisa May Alcott in the 1938 Woman's Home Companion, Katharine Anthony wrote a lot about Alcott's trip to Europe as paid companion to the invalid daughter of a wealthy family. On the trip she met a handsome Polish pianist named Ladislas Wisniewski. A lot is known of the time the two spent in Paris where he kissed her hand goodbye when she had to return to America, and it was assumed that the young man who was thirteen years her junior had proposed marriage.

Nothing is really known about why nothing ever came of it. 

Several American men thought themselves to be Laurie but Alcott herself later said that "Laurie was really Ladislas Wisniewski."

Have you seen the new Little Women movie? I'd love to know what you thought about it! 

Of all the Little Women movies you've seen, which did you like the best?

           Who was your favorite Jo? Laurie? etc.?

 

Every Day in the Garden: January 1 to 10

This series is just to coax me into the garden every day, or to at least send RH out there with the camera. Baby steps.

No words, no explanation, and please, don't feel as if you have to comment. It's just an experiment for me so I won't cocoon too long inside. Thank you.

 

Our Three-Year Anniversary at Home Hill

Three years ago today RH and I pulled up the driveway of our new home with Otis and Milo for the first time. 

I could fall down a never-ending rabbit hole with that one sentence but won't.

Instead just let me tell you that I love this little house with a passion. And this morning I am especially thankful that I am able to wash dishes at the big window over my kitchen sink.

I'm burning a candle from the Sweet Tea Candle Co. of Tennessee called Mistletoe, and listening to Pink Martini's old Christmas album called Joy to the World. 

Yes, I know it is January but Christmas is still present in our house and in January I listen to every single Christmas album once more before packing them away until November 1st comes again.


My kitchen window faces South and with leaves gone from the big trees now today's brilliantly bright sunshine pours in the window.

I love this window with the same passion that I love all of Home Hill. I wish I loved washing dishes as much. 

I envy those of you who actually love washing dishes. You even become poetic talking about it. You know who you are.

But this morning even I want to burst out in lyrics and sing my heart out, now that my dishes are done.

I'm so thankful to God for these three years at this dear little house and for all those family members who made it possible.