Category Archives: Entertainment

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Hallmark’s Countdown to Christmas 2020

If you have read some of my blogs, you know that I am a HUGE fan of the Hallmark Channel. Countdown to Christmas and Fall Harvest are my two favorite movie series on the channel…but let’s be real…they all are! I never miss a movie. I am so excited about this year’s holiday movies.

The biggest difference that everyone can notice this year is the diversity. I’ve never been prouder that Hallmarke is finally introducing an even more diverse group of actors and actresses to the line up. Don’t get me wrong, I love my staples such as Candace Cameron Bure, Lacey Chabert, Danica McKeller, Wes Brown, Victor Webster, Tyler Hynes and more but a newbie I have been enjoying is Chaley Rose. I’ve enjoyed both movies she has been in and even though I don’t think she has a Christmas movie this year, hopefully she gets a chance next year. So bring it on Hallmark! We have been ready for this.

Getting back to the Holiday movies though, I cannot wait to tally up the ones I enjoyed the most at the end of the season. I know they had a challenge getting us the 40 new movies for this season because of COVID, but they appear to have managed to pull it off.

In previous years, I saw every single one of the movies on the main Hallmark Channel and just a few on Hallmark Movies and Mysteries. This year, though, they seem to have arranged the schedule so that the movies are perfectly timed so that we don’t have to make a decision as to which channel to watch. The new movie on the main channel starts at 8pm EST and the new movie on HMM starts at 10pm EST so that means there will be a LOT more movie watching for me this year.

Anyway, I am so excited for this years movies and can’t wait to see all of my favorites to make me have all of the holiday feelings! I’m still waiting waiting to meet some amazing guy by getting accidentally pummeled with a snowball! Hard to happen in GA, but a girl can dream, right? So, this year’s movies started on October 23, 2020. Happy Watching!

Til next time……

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Fifty Shades Darker (Movie Review)

I’m a fan of Fifty Shades of Grey. If you read my top romance movies, you will know that the first installment almost made the list. I went to see the newest installment, 50 Shades Darker, this past Friday and just wanted to write down my thoughts.

I liked it. A lot. I may even be able to say I loved it, but I’m trying to give it a little time to sink in. If you enjoyed the first one, I don’t think you will be disappointed in this one.

Now, I believe that there were some parts of it (not sexual) that could have been slowed down or elaborated on, but it wasn’t a deal breaker on my enjoyment of the movie. I really LOVE Christian and Ana’s relationship. I love seeing it evolve on the screen. I really enjoyed seeing more of Christian’s turmoil and willingness to try to work on his “mommy” issues. I will say that the lipstick scene made me laugh out loud though. Ha!

The movie wasn’t exactly like the book, but touched on almost everything. Reading a book is very different from a movie, because the book is through your imagination. If I had to give one suggestion, I would have just said to add more in depth, longer scenes to the more important scenes.  The scene where Christian “submits” to Ana was so emotional in the book.  I would have loved to see MORE during that scene.  It just didn’t last long enough to give it the impact that it deserved. Never the less, though, the scene still made me gasp when it happened.  I knew it was coming and it was still good, but could have been great.

Anyway, enough of my rambling.  All in all, it was a very good movie that I’m sure will be in heavy rotation in my DVD player when it comes out.

Talk to you soon!

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Hallmark’s Countdown to Christmas 2016

As I do every year since it began, my television has not moved from The Hallmark Channel since the end of October.  I know the movies are cheesy and a little bit repetitive, but I love them.  I did not enjoy many of the movies that were done last year for Countdown to Christmas (the best movies from last year was actually from Fall Harvest), but this year  has many more that are giving me the warm and fuzzies.  My favorite, so far, has been December Bride.  A Dream of Christmas was pretty darn cute too. There is still a few more new ones to go, but I have been loving it….as usual.  One of these days, I’m going to do a list of my favorite movies from Countdown to Christmas in the last few years.  Are you watching?  What has been your favorite?

Talk to you soon….

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My Top 4 Christmas movies

As I have been enjoying watching all of the holiday movies recently, I decided to actually write down my favorite movies to watch during this time.  I determine my favorites by having the ability to watch them over and over.  I think I will have to make a separate list for my favorites on the Hallmark Channel because if you have read my page for a while, then you will know that is what is consuming all of my time for the past two months.  🙂

1.  Elf – I absolutely love this movie.  As far as Christmas movies, this is the most recently made holiday movie that was actually so good and unique.

2.  Miracle on 34th Street (the 1994 version) – Mara Wilson is such a cute little girl in this movie, and Richard Attenborough plays the best Santa!  Then of course, there is the bonus of staring at the beautiful Dylan McDermott for the entire movie.

3.  National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation – The squirrel in the tree gets me every single time.  I often have to pause the movie to finish laughing before I can continue.

4.  The Holiday – Of course there would have to be a romantic one in there.  I don’t think this one is that popular, but I have to pop this DVD in every Christmas.  I love it.

These are the movies on repeat at my house during the holidays in between the Hallmark movies.  What is your favorite Christmas movie?

Talk to you all soon!

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Fun filled weekend

This past weekend, I celebrated my best friends birthday.  We had a blast.  We enjoyed a boat ride on Lake Allatoona in a friends boat.  I even got to drive it!  I thought he had lost his mind when he asked us if we wanted to drive.  I figured we would end up on some rocks somewhere, but alas we are safe. 

After the two hour boat ride, we picked up gifts from her mom then headed to a concert at Chastain Park.  Chastain Park is an open amphitheatre that patrons bring food and drinks to.  It looks a little fancy to see people sitting at the provided tables or in the seats but the viewers bring little tables with them so they can enjoy their meal while watching the concert.  It was super hot that day, so they gave everyone little hand fans as they came in the gates.  We had a throw back concert, so we went to see Boys II Men and EnVogue.  It was a nice concert, but HOT. 

The next day, we went to an Atlanta Falcons game.  Now, neither of us are sports fans, but we figured it would be a fun experience.  It was. We had a blast and I was good and tired by the time Sunday came.   Here are just a few, fuzzy pictures to share.

Talk to you all soon.

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Saturday Afternoon Tea

This past month, I have decided to get out and experience more things. I just felt like I have been getting in such a rut, and becoming so boring. Most weekends, I would just sit in the house or go shopping. Now, of course, there is nothing wrong with shopping! Let’s not go crazy, but I just wanted to get out of my comfort zone a little bit. Sometimes when people would ask me to go places, I would just say no because I can be a little anti-social. I do have a little bit of social anxiety, nothing to huge but sometimes being around new people make me uncomfortable. So, yesterday, I went out with friends to a tea room. It was interesting.

My friends and I went to Tea Leaves & Thyme in Woodstock, GA. It’s a tiny little place, but we went there for the experience, and they even have a dressing room where you can choose a gown and hat to take pictures of your “British” experience. I passed on the gown and hat since I dressed for the occasion anyway. This was another dress day for me. I can’t believe how many dresses I have purchased in the last few months, I purchased this cream and white belted Jacquard skater dress from boohoo.com. I was not sure of the sizes so I went up a size in this one and got a size 22 (good choice, in my opinion). At first, I thought the dress was too short, but my friend thought it was fine. The was to my knees all the way around. There is nothing, I hate more than seeing someone with the front of a dress hanging low, and the back hiked up to reveal the butt cheeks! That was my fear, but I was given the thumbs up that all private body parts were far from being exposed. I made special effort to gloss and shine the legs up since I was wearing a shorter dress. Oh I also used a sample of a Glamglow Thirsty Mud hydrating mask, but I will have to save post of my new found love of that product for later. Unfortunately I chose to wear practical flat beige and tangerine sandals instead of pulling out a pair of the MANY wedge sandals that I have in my closet. I knew that somehow, we would end up doing a lot of walking and we did. We left for lunch at 12:30pm and ended up making a day out of. I returned home at 9pm. However, back to lunch.

We ordered the afternoon tea which came with tea (of course), a savory dish, in which I chose a chicken salad croissant, and a tower of desserts, fruits, and mini hand sandwiches. I finally got to see what a cucumber sandwich was about. Hmmm, it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. We had pimento cheese sandwiches, which I thought was alright and another mini sandwich that I have no idea what it was. Now, these sandwiches were miniature, except of course the chicken salad croissant. They were just giving you a taste of them. Then they had fresh watermelon and cantaloupe and scones. The scones were served with cream and jam. They were pretty good. For desserts, we had chocolate covered strawberries, mini muffins (well everything was mini), and a few other little bits. It was a nice little sampling of things, but I felt like I was starving a few hours later.

Now, for the tea. It was delicious. I had what I felt was probably a dessert tea, but it was so good. It was one of their teas of the day, I believe. It was a chocolate hazelnut tea. It was so yummy. I drank my entire pot and shared none. I had a really nice experience at Tea Leaves and Thyme. They have a a cute little gift shop as well where they sell their teas, tea cups, tea pots, etc. I ended up buying a little heart tea cup and saucer because I have some heart shaped Alessi spoons that goes perfect with it. I had to have one. If anyone is ever in Woodstock, GA… try them out. Anyway, a fun Saturday was had by me and my friends.

Talk to you all soon!

***Tea Leaves & Thyme http://www.tealeavesandthyme.com

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Pirates and Vikings….Oh My!

A couple of blogs ago, I mentioned that I had really become a fan of the show, Black Sails, on STARZ which is about pirates.  I can’t believe that I only have three more episodes of this show to watch before the season ends and I have to wait a full year for the continuation.  Well, this past weekend, I found something new to watch in the interim.  As I was searching for something to watch while suffering from a nasty stomach virus, I came across Vikings on The History Channel.  I watched the entire ten episodes of the first season in one day!  I found this show just in time too as their new season starts this week!  Now, while Vikings doesn’t have the eye candy that Black Sails offers me in the glorious form of Captain Vane, I’m still enthralled by all that heathen behavior! Besides, Ragnar and Rollo are still pretty decent, just not up to Captain Vane’s stature…but I digress.

Now, I can say that I struggled more with some of the violent things that the Vikings did as opposed to the Pirates on Black Sails, and I’m trying to figure out why.  They are all murderers and rapists.  I assume that it is because Vikings is trying to remain true to their ways?  I mean after all, it is on The History Channel so they need to be more careful with accuracy, right?

Anyway, Vikings and Pirates were the main characters in many of the historical romance books that littered my youth, so I am enjoying them being on my television screen.  All that testosterone is invading my dreams!

Talk to you soon…..

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Crazy Week

It has been a crazy week for me.  I spent a day in a half stuck in the house because of the ice storm in Atlanta.  The snow storm from two weeks ago really scared us crapless.  I know I did not want another ten hour drive home and apparently no one else did either!  Our streets were almost completely abandoned except for the news people who covered the weather non-stop. It was a little over kill on their behalf, but I appreciated the effort I think.  Thank goodness for YouTube.  I spent the time searching for new vloggers watch.  Even though, I really should have been working on a blog post since I have been missing in action for about two weeks.

On top of the storm, I was preparing for a test for the last class I was in and writing a paper.  Because of the storm though, the last class and test was cancelled.  I can’t say that I was sad to hear that. Tests always stress me out.

In addition to finding a couple of new vloggers, I have become slightly addicted to the new series on STARZ, Black Sails!  OK, now anyone who has been reading my blog knows that I love romance books.  Historical romances can certainly romanticize pirates, and looking at the extremely sexy but dangerous Charles Vane has given my fantasies a very needed boost!  Woah….long, dark hair, light eyes, scruffy beard, and a commanding presence is all that is needed to make me a happy viewer!  He has filled the void that Game of Thrones left when they killed off my Khal Drogo!  Thank you STARZ.

Talk to you all soon…..

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Restless

Do you ever just want to get in the car and just drive until you run out of gas? I have dreamed about doing this so many times and just live in whatever small town I land in. Whenever I envision myself doing this, I always see me working in some diner like the movie, Alice doesn’t live here anymore, and better yet the series that followed, Alice!

I don’t know. Sometimes I just feel like starting all over again. Lately, I have wanted to toss everything out of my house and just….start over. I think that this feeling is just a metaphor for how junky my life feels. It’s not just the things, it’s everything. Everything just feels a complete mess. What would it be like to not have feelings? Not have a care in the world? Not feel pain, sadness, boredom, etc. Is that selfishness?

Overwhelmed with feelings and maybe just a little sleep deprived.

Sharon