Two days later

Two days. It's only taken me two days to get back on this time! That's an improvement. I'm trying to actually get on. I've found that there is almost a direct correlation between me blogging and thinking about eating healthy. The time in between blogs doesn't involve thinking about cutting back, eating sensibly, or exercising. When I get on here though, it's an immediate thought, even if right now it's just about how I've failed so far. That's why there are always new beginnings. :)

So, Makenzie is getting baptised tomorrow. We're really proud of her. It will be nice to see everyone this weekend too. My parents are on their way here now. Yahy. I hate that word only because I just don't know how to spell it and no one will tell me. It's not yeah, and I know it's not yahy, but yay looks stupid. Blah.

Also looking forward to Angie and Trevor coming home for Spring Break. Another yahy would go in here if someone would tell me how to spell it so it doesn't look stupid. Thanks. They will get here just in time for Riley's 5th birthday. That's nice for us. Speaking of his 5th bday I just got a call from a gal in our ward. She wanted to know if I would be willing to possibly sing a duet at the Relief Society birthday party on the Wed after next. I think my immediate hesitation was a give away, but I did finally muster up the ability to get past the absolute shock that someone would actually ask me to sing, almost alone mind you(the awesome gal she was trying to get to sing with me is in the Primary presidency with me and she doesn't like singing in front of people either), in front of a group of women I know. I told her, as kindly as I could, that I wasn't comfortable with that. (I told my mom this and she told me that I was missing out on an enriching experience and I told her that I was just making sure someone else had an opportunity to enjoy that enriching experience. I'm so unselfish like that.) She then asked if I was comfortable enough to sing in a larger group, say 6 to 8 women. I told her, yes, that makes me more comfortable and I don't mind that, but what night was this again. I looked at a calendar and darn it! Wouldn't you know, it has the bad luck to be on the 17th. Well shoot. Guess I just miss out on all the enriching experiences this time around. :)

Oh, and this is going to be a long one. Angie won't text me back & I'm all sorts of chatty right now. I went to the public library and they had a bookmark with a picture of the two main characters of a new version of Emma on PBS Masterpiece Classic. I picked one up because I'm such a sucker for all things Jane Austen. I'd missed it, but I got onto PBS and they had it there. 3 parts later, I was done. Really enjoyed it. I always felt something was lacking in the Emma done a few years ago (actually quite a few years back since after it came out Melanie - my best friend from high school- gave me a copy of Emma with pictures of Gweneth Paltrow in it and on it from her version of the movie) and this was more satisfying. I'm a total baby when it comes to favorite books being adapted to film. Just ask Kristen, she'd love to enlighten you on this particular quirk. They did an excellent job following the film and the characters were much more pleasant to look at. I never liked the actor they picked for Frank Churchill in the last version. This one was much better. I also thought that Gweneth Paltrow's Emma was just a tad bit too likable. She never came off as really wrong and truly judgemental. Or maybe it's been a really long time since I've seen that version. Anyway, the PBS one was great. I noticed that you can rent it on Netflix.

On the back of the bookmark, I noticed that they've done a newer version of Persuasion as well. Now, while I liked Emma well enough, Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice are by far my favorite novels by Jane Austen. I admit that I struggled with the Pride and Prejudice that came out not that long ago with Keira Knightly, but I was able to get past some of that and accept it for what it was and not what it was lacking. I even bought it. It's not my favorite version, as that is reserved for the unbeatable version done by the BBC that is 5+ hours long with the adorable Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy, but it was enjoyable none the less. Long way to get to my point about Persuasion. Wow, this might be too much for this post. There's a bit of a back story to Persuasion for me. Oh well, I will push onward and if you stop reading, well, I understand.

I read Pride and Prejudice my senior year of high school. I loved it. I then got more of her novels and the next one I read was Persuasion. I will admit that when I read Persuasion, I was baffled by it. I didn't understand the language and it just honestly didn't make a lot of sense. Shortly after I read it, I went to the video store with my dad. While wandering I found a copy of the BBC version of Persuasion that had two people on the front leaning in for a kiss. The man was handsome and the girl was very pretty. I showed it to my dad and he told me I wanted it just for the picture on the front. Maybe...But anyway, we sat down and watched it. Yes, my dad watched it with me. We watched it and we both tried to puzzle through it. We then decided we needed to watch it a second time to see if it made any more sense. So we did and it did. And I found I wanted to read the book again to see if it made more sense. Wow! It was suddenly very clear to me. So, that's how my love of Persuasion came to be. It has a much closer bond than Emma ever did, thus my apprehension in watching a new version of the movie. Now, the BBC version (which they both probably are in all actuality) was really only about 111 min long. Not quite 2 hours. The PBS one comes in at less than that by about 15 min I think so I wasn't terribly optimistic. Also, it wasn't on PBS so I had to rent it from Netflix. I loved Captain Wentworth. Not to be disloyal to the original (for me) Captain Wentworth, who I can pick out of any film I see him in, but I did like their Captain Wentworth choice. I like their Mr. Elliot choice too. Anne, was okay. I didn't hate her (my problem with Edward from Twilight) so I was okay with it. They definitely cut and rearranged, but I guess I can live with it. Is it a new favorite? No. Did I despise it? No. I wasn't as impressed with it as I was with the artsy 2 hour Pride and Prejudice, but it was passable and I'm okay with that. I would still recommend the other version because it was a little truer to the story than the new, but the new was passable. Oh, and the picture on the front of the video rental was sooo not pictures of the actual actors in the movie. They'd taken some other, more attractice people & used them. But the funny thing about that original version of Persuasion was that Anne was so unatractive at the start, but as the movie went on, she just got prettier.

So I'm finally done. Kudos to any who read this far. :) You're my favorite people.