suziebeezieland

hydrangeas

Normally, if someone asks, I say that daisies are my favorite flowers. But then when the hydrangeas bloom each summer, I go out in the backyard and think, "Hey, HYDRANGEAS are my favorite flowers."

Every single summer.

fresh style

There are some cute ideas in this magazine. :)

alzheimer's and gospel transformation

... the darkness that shadowed his last days could not erase the blessing he had been to residents, staff, and families for so long.

There is a very thoughtful article over at Radical Womanhood on Alzheimer's, life, death, and the importance of preparing our hearts before God. I was blessed by the author's insights and wisdom.

I believe that we fail to see the fullest scope of God’s plan when we do not actively encourage one another to think rightly about God’s sovereignty over the last days of our lives. 

the british monarchy on flickr

I am so tempted to check that second box to see what would happen. :D

spare oom

I am happy about this sweet little piece of art we bought for the Spare Oom. It was made by the talented Catherine Thursby.

hop on pop

    I am a pup.
And I'm a cat.
    On top of Bob
We like to nap.
    We like to nap
On top of him
    Because he's warm
And has a lap.

 

the may garden

I think May is always the best month for our garden. I stick close to home.

parenting 001

It’s all so involved. There are so many rules and expectations. Kids can’t even eat sugar anymore. My parents were solid as a rock but we still had a cupboard populated with cereal royalty like Captain Crunch and Count Chocula.

I really like this article by Kevin DeYoung. It's not an article that justifies lazy, mediocre parenting, but it's also not an article that advocates getting your knickers in a knot trying to control every aspect of your child's existence.

What a nice balance. Common sense is not dead, after all. :)

I just know that the longer I parent the more I want to focus on doing a few things really well, and not get too passionate about all the rest. I want to spend time with my kids, teach them the Bible, take them to church, laugh with them, cry with them, discipline them when they disobey, say sorry when I mess up, and pray like crazy.

your head exists only as a home for your moustache

Chop Shop T-shirt available here. :)

(Uliana, I saw this on your Facebook photo and Googled it to find it. So cute. Thank you!)

richard armitage on thorin oakenshield

I'm posting this video clip for our Debbie H., because she has just finished watching North and South for the first time, and is probably missing Richard Armitage about now, because that's what happens. :)

He has, as you may know, been cast to play Thorin Oakenshield in Peter Jackson's upcoming film version of Tolkien's The Hobbit. (If you're on Facebook, "like" Peter Jackson if you would like to get first glance at the filming in New Zealand. He is posting on-set news, sneak-peek pics, and videos pretty regularly. I like seeing Hobbit news pop up in my newsfeed. Or check out The Hobbit blog. And if you really want to geek out completely, The One Ring is the place for you.) 

I guess there was some hubbub about this casting when it happened, because Richard, who is 6'2" and dreamy, seems an unlikely choice to play a dwarf. But Peter Jackson defended his choice by praising Richard's acting, adding, "Thorin Oakenshield is a tough, heroic character, and he certainly should give Leggie and Aragorn a run for their money in the heartthrob stakes -- despite being four feet tall."

Quick, unnecessary recap of Leggie and Aragorn:

And I defend Peter Jackson's choice by noting that Richard Armitage has the loveliest baritone voice ever created, and I feel certain that dwarves are baritones.

Anyhoo, here is the clip of Richard Armitage discussing the role of Thorin. (You may recognize Martin Freeman to his left, who of course has been cast to play Bilbo Baggins, and who starred in the original British version of The Office, as well as (more recently) Holmes in the new Sherlock Holmes BBC series, with Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock.) (I highly recommend these, if you haven't seen the first three. According to Ian McKellen's blog, Martin is currently off the Hobbit set and back in London to film the next three installments of Sherlock. Hooray!) (Also, fans of the oft-missed Pushing Daisies may be interested to hear that Lee Pace has just been cast to play Thranduil the Elven King.) (You really shouldn't get me going on all this Hobbit & LOTR business, because I will go off tangentially for days.)

the rules for turning my favorite books into movies

I posted these rules over on my Facebook wall yesterday as 25 individual status updates throughout the day, and had some really fun comments on them from like-minded book enthusiasts. I thought I'd go ahead and repost them all here, together.

It started because I saw a trailer for the upcoming Mr. Popper's Penguins movie starring Jim Carrey, and did not care for what I saw, although I loved that book.

After awhile, they're not really rules. They're just my book-into-movie related opinions, of which I have several, it turns out.  :) 

Sometimes I really love a movie adaptation overall, but dislike specific things in it that were off. That's the case with the two hour Matthew Macfadyen and Keira Knightley version of Pride and Prejudice, which is actually my second favorite movie.

**********

I'm going to start a society that keeps filmmakers from making bad adaptations of books I like. I haven't worked out the details of how I will do that, exactly, but I have a pretty good list of rules in my head.

Rule number 1: No fake penguins.

Rule number 2: Jane Eyre was plain. Not an exquisitely gorgeous woman who was just not wearing makeup. She was actually plain. It says so right in the book. Repeatedly.

Rule number 3: Adding rap music and making the kids bratty does not make any older story seem "fresh & modern for today's audience". It just makes it seem lame.

Rule number 4: Whenever possible, use Emma Thompson.

Rule number 5: If nothing exploded in the book, nothing should explode in the movie.

Rule number 6: You cannot compress 23 chapters of dialogue into a 2-minute music montage. Stop that.

Rule 7: Some children's books were written just to entertain. You do not need to shoehorn a political platform or huge moral lesson into every screen adaptation.

Rule 8: Let us never speak of Anne of Green Gables -- The Continuing Story again. Shame on you, Kevin Sullivan.

Rule number 9: The fake penguins in Mary Poppins are a valid exception to rule number 1.

Rule number ten: Let us rejoice in the film adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird, and watch it annually.

Rule number eleven: The antidote to "neurotic, silly, sex-obsessed clotheshorse heroines" is not "humorless, angry, sexless, gun-toting heroines." There are plenty of good novels with nuanced, realistic female characters. Adapt those.

Rule number 12: Marmee was not Susan B. Anthony. Also, THIS is Jo: "Fifteen-year-old Jo was very tall, thin, and brown, and reminded one of a colt, for she never seemed to know what to do with her long limbs, which were very much in her way. She had a decided mouth, a comical nose, and sharp, gray eyes, which appeared to see everything, and were by turns fierce, funny, or thoughtful."

Rule number 13: Elizabeth Bennett did not ask Mr. Darcy to call her "goddess divine." For crying out loud.

Rule number 14: Make the actor read the book first.

Rule number 15: Someone needs to make a movie of The Scarlet Letter. (That abomination in 1995 was not a movie, and was not The Scarlet Letter.)

Rule number 16: Crazy weather and dark portents are for the Brontës. Jane Austen liked calm weather but internal turmoil -- sunny day, stormy heart. Maybe the occasional rainstorm, to make Jane sick enough to stay with the Bingleys, but not to add gothic mood. Keep it straight.

Rule number 17: Christianity is neither quaint nor outdated. If the writer wrote about his faith and his God, keep it in the movie. Don't patronize us, Hollywood.

Rule number 18: Matthew MacFadyen.

Rule number 19: No amount of popcorn or Junior Mints will placate me if you mess up Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. I mean it.

Rule 20: Thank you for taking a lot of mediocre books over the years and turning them into some truly excellent films, mini-series, and television shows. (This is less a "rule" than a "thanks.")

Rule 21: There is a reason Mr. Darcy and Edward Cullen are bazillion dollar industries. We like chivalric behavior. Controlled desire is attractive. Give us more courtly romance, more gentlemen, and less trash.

Rule 22: Why are there still no decent screen adaptations of A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle, or Mandy by Julie Andrews Edwards?

Rule 23: I bet if you did a Nancy Drew series, and it followed some of the best books very closely, and you set it back in the day, and did right by Nancy and George and Bess, many girls and women would eat it up. The old series is dated and was never great, and the recent movie was a joke. Her hair is TITIAN BLOND. And please don't forget the powder blue convertible.

Rule 24: The Muppet Christmas Carol shouldn't work. It takes a Dickens book & turns it into a musical with Muppets. But it does work, because it is genius, & sticks to the best bits of the book, & has the best Scrooge ever. Let that be a lesson to you, that if you're faithful to the source material, & don't betray the readers, you can take a lot of creative liberties, & nobody will mind that Bob Cratchit is a frog.

Rule 25: In closing, may I say that really all I ask is that you take what is in my head when I read a book, and turn exactly that into the movie, and don't add or subtract from the secret world I've created with the author. But you can join us in our creation if you don't come in and mess it all up. Thank you.

self improvement

Speaking of Matthew Macfadyen, there is a very nice 75-minute program at BBC Radio 3 called Words + Music.

In each program they play pieces of really beautiful, (mostly) classical music, interspersed with little bits of poetry and prose. The readings are done by different British actors, and are related to a particular theme each time. They programs are available for listening to for seven days after their initial broadcast on the BBC iplayer.

Sadly, and I'm sorry, but I forgot to tell you about the installment on May first, titled Self Improvement, and read by our Matthew Madfadyen, who has a wonderful voice ...

... and also the lovely Anna Maxwell Martin, who also has a wonderful voice, and whom you may remember fondly from both Bleak House and North and South.

An event not-to-be-missed. Matthew reads with an American accent in one bit, from The Great Gatsby. It's interesting to hear. And Anna's careful voice while reading Isaac Watts' "How doth the little busy bee" is so satisfying to listen to.

So I went looking, and found a link here at this French website (thank you, French fans of Matthew Macfadyen, whom I am sure agree with me that D'Artagnan should not be played by a California boy) to download it here as an .mp3. I did it, and it worked just fine. At the right under Premium Download (don't hit that) you will see time counting down. When it stops, a button will appear that says Regular download.  Hit that, and download the .mp3 to your computer. And then listen to it with headphones on while you do something else. :) It's lovely.

the three musketeers -- coming soon!

I've been meaning to tell you that the upcoming Three Musketeers movie finally has a trailer, as well as its own website up.

I must admit that I find myself rebelling wholeheartedly at the idea of the fresh-faced (nigh, pretty) and California-teenager-voiced Logan Lerman as D'Artagnan.

Were there no rougher-looking, British-sounding teenagers available in Britain? I know they are there. Go to any soccer match. Grab a random lad from the crowd. Cast him as D'Artagnan. You're good to go.

Or even real French people. Sometimes French characters are played by actual French people. The Musketeers of the Guard were French. The real D'Artagnan and the fictional D'Artagnan were also French. So I would be okay with a French teenager, even a too-pretty-to-be-D'Artagnan one, if he had a few convincing fake scars on his face and did not sound Californian. :)

And the trailer has the whole movie looking a bit long on special effects and cleavage (always the temptation with 3-D, I think), and short on actual acting.

However! The California teenager voice is wholly cancelled out by the dulcet tones of the trailer's brilliant narrator, whoever he may be. I find I have absolutely no problem with the trailer's brilliant narrator. Nope.

As for Athos, il est parfaitement parfait: un mousquetaire très beau et charmant, avec la voix la plus merveilleuse du monde, et la meilleure expression du visage jamais vu dans une salle de cinéma partout. Et vraiment les plus beaux yeux. Les plus beaux yeux.

london 2011: windsor castle

I think maybe my very best day in London was the day we went to see Windsor Castle. (It was on Tuesday, February 15. We returned to the U.S. on Wednesday.)

Windsor Castle is the largest inhabited castle in the world and the longest-occupied royal palace in Europe. It is more like a fortified town than a house: it covers thirteen acres, and includes the palace itself, a large chapel, housing for scores of the 500 people who work there, and a guard (and you will recall that by "guard," I do not mean "one guy". I mean, "a group of guys".) 

Nobody knows exactly when Windsor was founded. It was one of a chain of castles established as a defensive ring by William the Conqueror in the 1070s and 80s to protect London. (If you have forgotten who William the Conquerer is, he was the first Norman king of England. He invaded England in 1066. We talked about him a bit last summer.) 

Windsor is a good example of a motte-and-bailey castle. But you can call it motte-and-beezie for short.

Ha. :D

I was so excited to see Windsor that we were the first people to arrive that day! (You can get to Windsor from London's Paddington Station on a train that changes at Slough and gets in to Windsor & Eton Central in 30 to 40 minutes, total. They run pretty regularly.)

We pretty much had the place to ourselves for the first half hour or so. It was incredible. It is good to travel off-season, and to get to places first thing in the morning. I am not a morning person (AT ALL), but I make myself be one on vacation, and it is worth it. Groups started arriving about the time we left. Note the exciting lack of other people in the photos below. :)

The Castle contains a significant chunk of the Royal Collection (of art). The Royal Collection is managed from Windsor. It is worth more than 10 billion dollars.

It is unbelievable. I would just be standing inside one of the rooms in the Castle, looking out a window or at a piece of furniture or something, and look up and notice I was standing an inch away from some famous painting. I am sorry that I don't have photos of the interior to show you, but of course you're not allowed to do that. We were able to tour the Semi-State Rooms as well as the State Rooms, which was exciting, because the Semi-State Rooms (which are the private apartments created by George IV) are only open to the public sometimes during the winter months.

Queen Elizabeth spends most weekends, as well as a month over Eastertime and a week in June, at Windsor. She also likes to do much of her entertaining there. It is reported to be her favorite residence. When she is there, The Royal Standard flies. It looks like this:

When she is not there, the Union Jack flies.

She wasn't there. :)

If any of you have seen documentaries on Windsor (I recommend this one), or watched footage of Charles' and Camilla's wedding, you'll recognize the quadrangle here, where William and Harry threw rice on their car as they drove away. :) The quadrangle is not open to the public.  I'm photographing it here through a window from inside the castle. 

That thing with the clock on it is the entrance to the State Apartments, which are all along that north side.

The stone tower below (called The Round Tower even though it is a very wobbly type of round) is a good example of how castles evolved. The earthen motte (little hill) was constructed by William the Conqueror. Henry II began the circular(ish) stone keep on top of the motte. Jeffry Wyatville added the battlements to it (on behalf of George IV), because it improved the skyline.

I'm hoping Elizabeth II will add a nice pom-pom fringe to top it all off. 

The moat around Windsor has always been dry. Nowadays, it's a pretty garden.

Here's a statue of King Charles II on horseback.

Do you see, to the far left of the picture, a big open arch? That is the George IV gateway, which is the main entrance to the Upper Ward (the Quadrangle) from the Long Walk. You'll see the Long Walk in a bit here.

Anyway, if you rent that video about Windsor from Netflix, you'll see Prince Philip and others driving in and out of Windsor through that gateway. They just pull their Range Rovers into the quadrangle, zip. 

If any of you like aerial maps, this might help you orient yourself a bit. Top of the map is north. :) This shows you the Upper Ward/Quadrangle area. (The Lower Ward is to the left/west.)

You can click on it to make it bigger. The side of the quadrangle on the far right (east) are the Private Apartments, where the family actually lives when they are here. It looks out over the East Terrace, which has a lovely, symmetrical rose garden in it.

A pretty good chunk of my novel takes place at Windsor Castle, so I really needed to know it, and know where things were. It was so helpful to actually go there and see stuff.

These guards are marching close to where you enter for the interior tour of the castle. I was amazed at their focus. Bob and I were the only people out there, and they must have felt self-conscious with me clicking away like that.

The waiting area before the interior tour begins is a room full of some of the royal china. It's fun to look at while you wait to go in. You can also see Queen Mary's Dollhouse, which we did. It has working elevators in it. And lights. I wanted to play with it so bad. :)

Sweet yellow signs of spring. :)

See that plaque below? That's the emblem of the Order of the Garter. It says "Honi soit qui mal y pense," which is interpreted in modern times as "Shame on him who thinks this evil." 

The Order of the Garter is the highest and oldest chivalric order in Britain. Edward III founded it in 1348. People are appointed to this Order solely at the discretion of the Queen. (She doesn't have a whole lot of decisions solely at her discretion, so I think that must be really fun for her.)

The number of knights in the Order of the Garter is limited to 24, plus "Royal Knights and Ladies of the Garter" who are those knights belonging to the Royal family. (Prince William became the 1,000 member of the Knight of the Order in 2008.)

Here is a list of the current members of the Order. You will probably recognize Margaret Thatcher's name. You may not recognize the name "Baroness Soames," but she is the youngest of Winston and Clementine Churchill's five kids.

The British Honours System is pretty complicated. (You're going to love this, Valeria. Ha.) You won't find "Sir Elton John" or any of those "celebrity" knights on the list of the Order of the Garter. There are several different chivalric orders, and there is also something called Knights Bachelor, which is the most basic rank for someone who has been knighted by the Queen. Sir Elton John, for instance, is a member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, which is why he has "CBE" after his name, and is a member of the Knights Bachelor, which is why he has "Sir" in front of his name.

Each year in June a procession and service take place at Windsor Castle for the Order of the Garter.

St. George's Chapel is independent of the Royal Household, but sits geographically within Windsor Castle. It's in the Lower Ward. It is one of the great masterpieces of English Perpendicular Gothic.

 

St. George's is the "spiritual home" of the Order of the Garter. It is what is known as a Royal Peculiar, which means that it falls directly under the Queen's jurisdiction, rather than under an Anglican bishop. This is a working church, with daily worship services that are open to everybody.

Queen Elizabeth's parents (King George VI and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother)(I still haven't seen The King's Speech, by the way) are buried in a little chapel room that is inside St. George's. Princess Margaret's ashes are also there, and there is room on her parents' gravestone for her own name to be inscribed.

I liked the room, because it felt small and personal and familial amidst the splendor of Windsor. 

One of the nicest things about our time at Windsor was that, because there were so few people there that early, all the guides and docents wanted to talk to us. They all had plenty of time to answer anything we wanted to know. I had a long, interesting talk with a woman in St. George's whom I would have liked to be friends with. She was so nice. She volunteers there twice a week. 

One interesting plaque on the floor notes (almost casually and incidentally) that "In a vault beneath this marble slab are deposited the remains of Jane Seymour Queen of King Henry VIII (1537), King Henry VIII (1547), King Charles I (1643), and an infant child of Queen Anne."

If you have kept up with Henry and all his wives, you will know that Jane died a few weeks after the birth of her son (Edward VI) from childbirth complications, and was Henry's only wife to receive a proper Queen's funeral. He didn't have time to get mad at her and chop off her head. She is his only Queen to be buried with him. If you ask me, they should have just buried him by himself somewhere, off in a corner, or maybe out in a field. Or a horse stall. But nobody asked me. :)

I could talk about St. George's all day, because it was so neat, but you should just go see it yourself. I could have stayed inside it much longer, just looking at everything.

If you look at the columns on the roof, those are some of the Windsor Beasts. There are a total of 76 of these stone animals holding wind vanes and coats of arms. There are fourteen different animals, all associated with the Plantagenet & Tudor Royal families.

Bob is standing just to the left of the main entrance to the Chapel.

Do you see more Windsor beasts? There are also gargoyles lower down on the chapel.

This guard is not just for tourist show. None of them are.

This is the West front of St. George's chapel.

When we had toured the outside and inside of Windsor, we left the Castle and walked a few blocks down a bit to see The Long Walk. I have been waiting and waiting for ages to see it, and it did not disappoint me. The Long Walk links Windsor Castle to Snow Hill in Windsor Great Park. A copper statue of King George II atop a horse sits on Snow Hill. It is 2.64 miles from the Castle gate to the statue.

All that land you see (Windsor Great Park) used to be private deer hunting grounds for the castle. It still has a lot of deer in it, but it's open to the public now.

So when I was facing the Long Walk above, the Cambridge Gate entrance to Windsor (also known as the Royal Tradesman's entrance) shown below was to my back. Do you see that Royal Tradesman looking at me? :) 

A guard at Windsor told us to check out this lovely pub called The Two Brewers. It is a few steps away from the Castle gate above. It was really great. Lots and lots of very interesting stuff on the walls, lots of interesting castle-related chatter going on, and the food and drink were fantastic.

We laughed so hard, because they had this typical pub sign displayed, which becomes quite funny, given their location:

Please be quiet when leaving the pub.
This is a residential area,
And we do not wish to disturb our neighbors. 

The neighbors. Hee hee hee. 

chicken cupcakes

Last weekend, for Easter, Claire and I made these chicken cupcakes. And by "chicken cupcakes," I mean cupcakes that look like chickens. I do not mean cupcakes that have chicken in them.

And by "look like chickens," I mean that if I tell you ahead of time that they are chickens, you will see the chicken resemblance.

Afterwards, I wasn't really sure how Easter-y chickens are. I guess you could dye them yellow and then they would look like chicks. They are really delicious if you remove the Mike 'n Ikes and licorice before eating them. :) That buttercream frosting is extremely buttery. Yum.

After the first one, we decided to make the rest without feet.

As the buttercream frosting gets warm, the project and the chickens get messier. But do not let that deter you. Also, do not become discouraged if you run out of red Mike 'n Ikes. Other colors also work well. Because as long as you tell everyone these are chickens, they will believe you.

(It is true that during Easter dinner, Faith noticed that if you remove the red comb from the head, they look like Violet the Puppy cupcakes.)