Friday Randomness
Just a few random things I’m thinking about today. First off, while I appreciate the humor of the joke above, I am a firm believer in the Oxford Comma, so the first line bugs me. Enough of that. On to randomness.
Kyria posted about things she has learned, and one of them was about how she uses Feedly. I don’t use Feedly, but my blog does have an option when you comment, that you can get an email if someone replies to your comment. However, I have heard (from Ally I think) that it does not work. Color me pleased to read in Kyria’s comments that you need a plugin to get it to work. I wonder if that’s true? I have installed the plugin that Michelle at MG Doodle Studio suggested, so if you are going to comment today, please check that box and then let me know if you get an email when I reply. 🙂
Suzanne posted about Halloween Decorations, and how she loves happy ghosts, which reminded me of these cheerful ghosts that were up in our neighborhood a few years ago. I love them.
Jenny posted the other day about her daughter wanting to wear a tuxedo instead of a dress for school band, and how she wished she had handled it differently. I mentioned that I wore a tux to my prom. If anyone wants to see me with my bad perm in my tux, I wrote about it way back in 2007. I’m not sure any of the people who commented are still blogging. Maya’s Granny is my mom, obviously.
Nicole posted about some of her favorite book series, which got me to thinking about some of my favorite book series.
- Little House books – Laura Ingalls Wilder. Like so many kids my age, I adored these books. I wore them out. I have read them so many times, I can open any book in the series and know exactly what is going on. Sometimes I feel like reading a specific chapter, and not the rest of the book, so I’ll do that. My mom introduced me to the series, because of my love for horses. She suggested I might enjoy Farmer Boy, because of Almonzo’s love for horses, and the rest is history. I was hooked. Side note, have any of you read Caroline, by Sarah Miller? It is the events told in Little House on the Prairie told from Ma’s perspective. It’s beautiful. There is one scene in Little House where Pa is gone overnight, and Ma stays up with the gun in her lap. The author wanted to get deeper into that scene, and Ma’s life and what that must have been like for her.
- Narnia books – C.S. Lewis. This is another series that my mom introduced to me because of my love for horses. She suggested that I might enjoy The Horse and His Boy. I did love it, and of course I went on to read the entire series, over and over again. I haven’t read them as many times as I have read the Little House books, but they are the same kind of comforting to me. I have my favorites – The Magician’s Nephew and The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. And I really dislike The Last Battle, though if I’m reading them all in order, I will read it and wonder why I’m doing that. Maybe for Jewel the unicorn.
- Paddington Bear – Michael Bond. I have only read these books once, and perhaps not all of them, but I have to mention it to talk about my mom. My mom was a voracious reader. She had wall after wall of books, mostly paperbacks, on her board and brick bookshelves. She had them categorized and alphabetized. She had some literature, but she said what she wanted was stories. Lots of mysteries, some romance, historical fiction, etc. Lots of non-fiction too, which I pretty much ignored. Anyway, she loved to read. She would often read what I was reading, so we could talk about it. With the Paddington books, we enjoyed reading about Paddington’s love for marmalade and tea. That was one year when my mom had a decent paying job, and she started collecting tea pots and marmalade. We thought we would have tea together in the afternoons or something, I guess. She must have bought 4 or 5 teapots and teas and types of marmalade. What’s funny about this is that neither of us enjoyed tea that much, and I didn’t like marmalade. I remember talking to my mom about this and how she loved to collect things that she wasn’t going to use, and laughing so hard. She wrote about it on her blog the next day, and my comment was that we talked so long and laughed so hard, I had to gargle with salt water the next day. She also taught me how to make little patchwork quilt squares, because we were reading the Little House books. Gosh I miss her.
- Amy and Laura – Marilyn Sachs. I think I got these books from the bookmobile, a library on wheels that used to come to our house. There were several books in the series: Amy Moves In, Amy and Laura, and Laura’s Luck. Then there were a couple of other books written about side characters from the A&L stories, Veronica Ganz and Peter and Veronica. They take place in Brooklyn in the 1940s, and tell the story of Amy and Laura, two sisters who move to a new neighborhood and have to make friends and figure out school and so on. I feel like they started off pretty care free, but got more serious in the second book. I loved these books, and I remember my mom making up a song about Veronica Ganz (who was a bully and always beating kids up). All I remember of it was “Veronica Ganz has hot little hands!” Sigh.
- The Black Stallion – Walter Farley. There were a LOT of books in this series, about a boy, Alec, who survives a shipwreck in the Indian Ocean, and is marooned on a desert island with a beautiful black stallion. They become best friends, and when Alec is rescued and goes home to New York state, he brings the horse with him. I loved this series so much, though I don’t think I owned many of the books. I got them from the school library. When I was in 6th grade, I knew a girl who loved the series even more than I did, who would say that she was going to have that exact same adventure. “You’re going to have a beautiful black racehorse?” I asked, wistfully hopeful. “No,” she said, “I’m going to be on an ocean liner in the Indian Ocean, and it’s going to sink, and the only survivors are going to be me and The Black, and we’re going to survive on a desert island and be rescued.” Oh….Kay. I wonder if that ever happened? (Short answer, likely not.)
- Saga of the Phenwick Women – Katheryn Kimbrough. This is a semi-gothic series of historical fiction. I think there are probably about 40 books in the series. My mom had these on her extensive shelves, so I just read them one after the other. I remember really liking them at the time, but I suspect that they’re not that well written. The first book tells of Augusta, a young British woman, who comes to colonial America (Maine, I think), and the other books are her descendants.
OK, what else. We’re watching lots of TV, as always. These are our current shows:
- My Brilliant Friend – The fourth and final season just started on HBO. I could not love this series more. If you have HBO, give it a chance, even if you didn’t love the books.
- The Perfect Couple – We have watched the first episode of this murder mystery starring Nicole Kidman, and I’d like to get back to it at some point, but I keep forgetting. Available on Netflix.
- Industry – This is our current go-to, as we are behind and have several seasons to watch. We’re on season 2 right now. It’s the story of a group of recent college grads, competing for jobs at an investment bank in London. HBO, so watch for lots of somewhat graphic sex scenes. We fast forward through them, so if any important plot points happen during the sex, we miss them.
- Bad Monkey – Vince Vaughn is a former Miami Police Department member turned health inspector who investigates a case involving a human arm. Kind of reminiscent of Moonlighting in a way, because Vaughn’s character reminds us of Bruce Willis. Apple TV+.
- The Golden Bachelorette – WHY. The new season just started, and yes, we’re watching. We never watched any seasons of this franchise until The Golden Bachelor, and somehow have watched all of the seasons since. When Maya told me she wanted to start watching this season, my first reaction was, No, I don’t want to. She said no problem, she would watch it on her own, and then within 1/2 hour I decided I wanted to watch it after all. So whatever with me. I will say that I find the Golden series more compelling than the ones with younger folks, but that’s probably because I’m in that demographic.
That’s a whole lot of random! It’s 3pm on Friday afternoon, and I need to get busy reading your blogs and saying hello.
43 Comments
coco
thanks for the TV series recommendation! I love finding out good ones. I’m now watching monsters that just came out on netflix, it’s quite good, although disturbing too.
have a good weekend.
J
I haven’t heard of that one, I’ll have to keep my eyes out for it!
Maya
We just finished The Perfect Couple–it’s based on an Elin Hildebrand and worth it. I LOL-ed at “so if any important plot points happen during the sex, we miss them.”
I replied to your comment about Scout, but I don’t know if you’ll be back to see it, so I’m reposting it here:
J–I’m so sorry about Mulder. I always thought Scout was too young at 10, so I can only imagine your anguish at losing Mulder at 8… I grieve Scout every day (I think he may have been my once-in-a-lifetime soul dog), but Max is adorable and requires attention and makes me get on with my life. I hope there will be another Mulder in your life soon.
J
Thank you Maya,
I miss my Mulder every day, as you do your Scout. And a big part of it for me is the unfairness of losing him so young. I’ve had two other dogs, and they were 16 and 13 when they died. They had long slow declines. It sucked losing them, I still love them and miss them, but losing Mulder at such a young age, I resent it and feel robbed. But boy, he was a cuddle bug and had the best big smile. Sigh.
Tobia | craftaliciousme
First of, the “Notify me via email when someone comments” has been working flalessly for years for me. I love love love having this option because I can notgo back to every post and see if it was answered.
You mom sound liek she was such a fun mom and her love for books clearly has shaped you. Lovely that she read books so you could talk about it. That is way I read all the books i give to my godchildren so I could talk about them. I rarely do so.
I have not read any of the series you mentioned here. I have watched the Narnia movies but I am sure they only do them half justice.
Bad Monkey is on our TBW lists. And Perfect Couple sounds fun. When we get Netflix again I think well check it out.
J
I love that you read the books you buy for your godchildren. Maybe at some point you will have conversations about them. I hit the jackpot with my mom, though of course in some ways she drove me nuts.
nance
I loved the Little House series. I don’t think I ever read Farmer Boy, though. I didn’t care for the TV show because it wasn’t strictly The Books. I am a purist.
I also read the Betsy, Tacy, and Tib series. One had blonde hair, one dark hair, and one red hair. I have two good friends–one redhead and one blonde, and I bought them the first book in the series (I have dark hair, as you know) just for fun.
The joke at the top of this post is wonderful, despite the lack of an Oxford comma. So clever!
Rick and I just finished Inventing Anna on Netflix. Have you seen it? Pretty good.
J
I loved the TV show Little House, but it had almost nothing in common with the books, you are right about that!
I did watch Inventing Anna, with my cousin in France. I enjoyed it! Did you perhaps watch because you heard she was going to be on Dancing with the Stars? I mean, huh?
J
I had to come back and express my wonder that you never read Farmer Boy! It’s one of my favorites.
nance
I’ve never watched Dancing With The Stars, but I’m intrigued because the Olympic Pommel Horse star is on it, the one they call Clark Kent. Still, I won’t watch it. I find it annoying even in the promos.
You know, I just yesterday checked IMDb to find out who played the lead in Inventing Anna and to see if I’d ever seen her in anything else. I’d never heard of her!
J
No, I don’t think I had heard of her either. But the real life con artist is the one that is going to be on Dancing with the Stars. And no, we won’t be watching either.
Kyria @ Travel Spot
I checked the box and am crossing my fingers! ?? I am glad my comments spurred you to try again with the comment replys!
I just binged The Perfect Couple while in Portland and I enjoyed it! I did not know it was based on a Hildebrandt novel; maybe I need to read it!
Also maybe I am blonde but I don’t get the rabbit joke.
J
It took me a minute Kyria. Type O = typo (rabbit should be rabbi)
Lisa’s Yarns
Paul and I read some of the Paddington books over the winter. I received a boxed set at his baby shower so it was fun to read them and then we watched the movie which was so different from the book but still fun to watch.
I sometimes run into a client at the library I go to with the boys and he had suggested Industry to me. I saw him 2 weeks ago at the client event in Charlotte and he said, ‘I have watched more of Industry and I have to worn you that there is some sexual content.’ I guess he was worried about making the rec to me before disclosing that. We don’t have HBO so we hadn’t watched. I would like to watch it at some point, though, since I work in an industry that is adjacent to IB!
J
I haven’t seen the Paddington movie. It’s been so long since I read the books, I doubt I would notice that it was different in story.
Regarding Industry, I feel like with any show on HBO, you’re going to get some fairly graphic sex scenes, especially the first season. Why? They’re HBO, I guess is why.
Suzanne
I am super interested in watching The Perfect Couple and Bad Monkey. I am not a Vince Vaughn fan, though, so I am avoiding the latter. But will probably get around to it someday.
Love your cheery neighborhood ghosts! Thanks for the shout out. 🙂
J
I find the Vaughn character mildly annoying, much like Bruce Willis. He’s good in the show, though yeah, still Vince Vaughn.
Michelle G.
Hello J! I’m so happy to discover your blog and so happy if my comment on Kyria’s blog was helpful! Thank you for the mention!
I enjoyed your post of lovely random things! I always love a joke, a list of books and shows, and Halloween decorations!
J
Hi Michelle, I hope it works! I hope someone reports back to me that they got an email comment. We shall see!
Michelle G.
Yes! It worked! ?
Michelle G.
Sorry about the question mark – unintended! Yes, it really did work!
J
Yay! Thank you for letting me know!
Margaret
I need some programs to watch although I’ve been hooked on the Long Lost Family series (British) lately. I’m such a genealogy nerd. 🙂 I loved the Little House book series but was crazy about Anne of Green Gables. I don’t know if I’ve ever read the Narnia series.
J
Oh, I forgot to mention the Anne of Green Gables books. I loved those as well, though I think the first book was the best.
Elisabeth
I’m so glad the e-mails about comments being answered is working! I need to do some more work on my comment section because there are few things that don’t work properly but I don’t know enough about coding to do the tweaks myself and it’s a custom template…so I just do nothing. But I think my new option is working as well, but I installed it before I saw what Michelle had recommended so I might try her recommendation instead.
That top joke is hilarious 🙂 You come up with the best blog openers…
J
I go through periods where I really try to make things work on my blog, and then there are times when I think, eh, who cares. HA!
Nicole MacPherson
I did read Caroline! It was good and a different perspective. Sometimes I think how young she would have been, travelling to unknown places with unknown hardships.
J
Yay! I’m so glad that someone has read Caroline! I really loved it.
Tierney
I love the lead-off joke although I did have to read it twice in order to get it.
Have you listened to Wilder, the podcast on LIW? Glynnis MacNichol is the host and it’s quite good. I liked the episode where they went to the LIW reunion that happens annually at important locations within the series.
I also finished MacNichol’s book I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself about an August stay in Paris. It was really good!
J
It took me more than two tries to get the joke, sadly.
Yes, I listed to Wilder and loved it! I thought they were a little too hard on Pa, though.
Ally Bean
I liked the Little House series when I was a girl, too. I really liked Nancy Drew more, though. Probably an early indication that I was going to like mystery books. We’re watching English Teacher, a new show that is very funny, and re-watching Northern Exposure, an old show that never ceases to charm me.
J
Oh, I don’t think I’ve heard of English Teacher! And oddly enough, since I lived in Alaska, I’ve not watched Northern Exposure. My mom liked it a lot.
Ernie
Love the happy ghost on the swing. Cute. The joke at the top of the post made me laugh. I’m bothered by the comma thing, but until now I didn’t know that it was an Oxford comma rule that was what I prefer. Good to know.
My mom was a school teacher. She encouraged us to read, but she didn’t really get involved, no suggesting titles and I don’t know that I ever saw her read a book herself. I didn’t grow up reading a ton. I love to read now. I did read the Little House books. My aunt got me a set for Christmas and I still have it. I was obsessed with the tv series. My 5th grade girlfriends and I would chat about last night’s episode the next morning on the playground.
I didn’t know The Perfect Couple was on Netflix. Good to know. We don’t have HBO. Sometimes shows appear at the library on DVDs that we can rent. We rarely watch TV, and when we do finally find time to watch something we have a hard time finding something we want to see/agree on/is appropriate to watch with high school kids (if they’re around and WANT to watch something with us).
J
We’re at a different stage in life from you, for sure. Only one child, and she’s an adult, so nothing is really inappropriate for her to see (though it can be uncomfortable to see together, hence the fast forwarding…)
My friends and I would talk about LIttle House, too! We LOVED it. So different from the books, though.
Stephany
Yes – your comment emails are working! I received it on the last post I commented on. 🙂 Now I need to find out if MY comment emails are going through. They should be!
I loved the Narnia series and have a perpetual almost-goal to reread them, but never get around to adding it to a yearly goals list. I try to do one bookish goal a year and I already have my goal for 2025 so maybe it’s a 2026 goal, haha.
I am so intrigued by The Perfect Couple and need to give it a try! I’m such a lazy TV watcher, though.
J
You read so much, I’m guessing it’s hard to go back and reread. I sometimes crave comfort reading, and that’s where the Narnia books are for me.
We watch WAY too much TV around here.
Kyria @ Travel Spot
Stephany, I can confirm that yours does work.
Kyria @ Travel Spot
I don’t know why my other comment ended up where it did. Damn you, tiny phone screen!!
J
LOL, no worries! Also, glad you told what you learned on your blog, thank you!
San
WordPress used to not need a plugin but that changed somewhere along the way. I have a plugin but it also doesn’t always work consistently (or so I was told). I am going to be curious if it works on your blog.
I am not into decorating for Halloween myself, but I always love to look at other people’s decorations. The friendly ghosts and funny skeleton setups are my favorite 🙂
J
So far the plug in SEEMS to be working? Hard to know without a big spreadsheet and everyone’s feedback.
I do a few pumpkins sometimes, that’s it for my decorating.
Daria
Series…. I wish I could find a series of books for adults that I can get into… For kids it’s easy: Paddington, Bruce the Bear (he is always grumpy), the Bad Seed books,Unis books (all about Unicorns), Amelia Bedelia, Olive and Bean, Star Friends. Paw patrol lol
I love those ghosts!
J
Daria, do you like mysteries? I feel like there are a lot of series that are mysteries. O sometimes romance novels too. I feel like you tried My Brilliant Friend and didn’t love it. That’s a 4 book series.