Revolution of Love

Revolution of Love

Do small things with great love.

TV Talk – Once Upon A Time (The Stable Boy) & Grimm (Island of Dreams)

I think I am going to switch my organizing posts to Monday and save my TV post for Tuesday since it takes me a couple days to get caught up with what everyone watched over the weekend. It’s funny that when I heard that there were two fairy tale shows starting last fall I assumed I’d enjoy Grimm more than OUAT. Brian definitely prefers Grimm, but OUAT has really picked up and become one of my favorite shows.

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Once Upon A Time (The Stable Boy)



Regina – Sunday’s episode gave us The Stable Boy with Regina’s back story. We finally learn why she is so cruel and bitter. It is interesting to note that the abused has now become the abuser. It is also curious that we don’t see Regina take revenge on her mother, who killed her love. Instead, she takes it out on Snow. Then again, maybe she did get her revenge since we never saw her mother in the earlier episodes of Regina’s life in the castle. Do you think Regina’s mother could be the Queen of Hearts in Neverland, especially since her father was being held captive there in last week’s episode?
Little Snow – When I first saw the actress playing young Snow White I was trying to figure out what other movie I’ve seen her on but that was quickly forgotten as I watched her talk. Her facial expressions, the tilt of her head, the wide eyed looks she gave looked EXACTLY like Ginnifer Goodwin’s! It was amazing. I had to go back and rewind a few scenes because she was so good at portraying all the same nuances in Goodwin’s behavior. Awesome acting!
Mary Margaret – Thank God she decided to come back to the jail last week, although a lot of good it did with the DA twisting her words and making her sound even more guilty than before.
Emma – Her bit of temper actually served a purpose since she finally found the bug and realized the slimy Sidney was in cahoots with Regina. I am hoping that she continues to team up with the mysterious August Booth. And why was his leg hurting when he went passed the toll/troll bridge? Which fairytale character do you think he is?
David – David only had a few minutes screen time this week but I didn’t mind since I have been fed up with him long ago. The shabby way he treated Mary Margaret and Katherine, his indecisiveness, his wimpyness…all these things have been far from charming. His whole character has been so disappointing.
Mr. Gold – Mr. Gold is far from charming himself, is far from being a hero, and is a borderline bad guy, yet I can’t help but like and root for him. I keep hoping he is a double agent and working for Regina but secretly plotting her demise.
Katherine – Huh? I was not expecting to see her! Well, that should get MM off the hook!
The next episode won’t air until April 22 but it looks like another good one.

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Grimm – Island of Dreams



Are any of you Grimm fans? The last episode “Island of Dreams” had one of the creepiest creatures. I don’t know why it freaked me out more than the others. Monroe has a love interest! I am so happy. I heart Monroe. Who thought the neighbors who brought Nick and Juliette the quilt and pie actually poisoned them? Brian and I were certain they were tainted. I guess they are just trying to keep on their good side. Nick needs to come clean with Juliette! The longer he keeps his secret, the worse it will get. Besides, the girl can kick butt! She is stronger than she may even realize. What is going on with Hank? He seems to be the one getting sucker punched show after show. Give the guy a break already! What is Captain Renard up to?? What is happening to poor Sergeant Wu? Was he eating the couch cushion foam? Craaazy. Next week’s episode looks good too!
Let me know what you think…

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TV Talk Monday: A Date with Dickens – Great Expectations – Part 1

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I checked my DVR settings last night and noticed that I had a lot more recordings on there than I realized. Between the family recording favorite shows and movies, we were at 96% capacity. So I need to go and watch or erase some stuff! I almost never watch a show “live” so when I finally was able to sit down last night I was hoping to watch Once Upon A Time and Great Expectations but I never got to OUAT. I’ll come back and comment on OUAT’s episode later this week. (UPDATE: I posted about OUAT and Grimm here.)
It’s been many, many years since I’ve read Great Expectations and a long time since I’ve seen the 1999 version, which stared Ioan Gruffudd (currently on another fave show Ringer) as Pip, Justine Waddell (who I loved in Wives and Daughters) as Estelle and Charlotte Rampling as Miss Havisham. I was a little surprised, but excited, when I first heard that Gillian Anderson would play Miss H since I always pictured the character much older. However, I thought Gillian’s version made the character much more believable. Her mental illness and neurosis seemed plausible. Whereas before, the character seemed over the top.
The Setting – Masterpiece did a wonderful job conveying the somberness and a taste of despair in the setting and tone of the movie. I told Brian that after watching it I had the need to go take a fresh shower and open the windows or let some light in the room. The muck and grayness weighs on your spirit after awhile, but that only added to the story.
Pip and Estelle – Was Pip supposed to be that handsome in the book? I can’t remember. The actor had such a runway model/pretty boy look to him it was almost distracting. Either way, you can’t help feeling sorry for Pip and wanting to spare him the pain to come.
Joe and the Mrs. – Joe seems like such a loving character but how was it that he got married to his wife in the first place? Was she hiding her viciousness during their courtship or was he so passive that he let her call all the shots? Whatever the reasons, Joe’s bit of happiness seems to have left with Pip.
Orlick – The actor that played Orlick did an excellent job and thoroughly creeping me out. Kudos!
Jaggers – After seeing him I have to go watch a movie with Hercule Poirot. In fact, I think I already have one recorded on my ridiculously full DVR. Sigh.
That’s it for now but for more discussions about Great Expectations and OUAT go over to Dawn’s charming blog By Sun and Candlelight for Masterpiece Monday.
Have a great day!

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7 Quick Takes (3/30/12) – A Contest, The Hunger Games Movie & The Flu Edition

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Hosted by Jen at Conversion Diary.

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TTIF Already? – How can it possibly be Friday already? The days we were absent from school has thrown me off so in my mind it feels like it’s only Wednesday. On the one hand, that’s great news since it is the weekend already. On the other hand, I’m two days short with the things I had to get done this week. Oh, well. That means I better quickly get this done and get back to work.

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BaSP Blog Contest – First things first, I have to tell you that you must go over to my sister’s blog Barefoot and Sometimes Pregnant and enter her Year 3 Blog Birthday contest. She is simply fabulous! Whereas I share with you my struggles to keep a clean house or get more crafty or not kill my garden within the first few weeks, EL is a Martha Stewart-like chica. She is the sister most likely to be in labor with her fourth child and in between contractions she’ll manage to bake a loaf of bread, can a jar of preserves, gather vegetable in her garden for a homemade stew, milk the cow, sew a new outfit for the baby and whittle a baby crib. I kid you not. She amazes me. Anyway… she says:

Since barefoot and sometime pregnant is all about homemaking, I am giving away the perfect gift for any homemaker or future homemaker. Enter to win a copy of Style, Sex and Substance by Hallie Lord (if you already have a copy, you can give this one away to a friend), an All-in-one Organizer from the company thirty-one, and a custom apron. Yes, I will sew you an apron of your choice! (I will give you some pattern types to choice from and fabric options.) The giveaway will close on Sunday and I will post the winner on Monday.

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Click on over and tell her that I sent you! šŸ˜‰

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Call Me Aunt B. – Oh, and also keep my sister in your prayers because she is now 39 weeks pregnant and any day she could have baby #4 (although she tends to go late.) We are all excited to meet our new family member! I can’t wait to see if I’m an auntie to a little niece or nephew.

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RoL – Speaking of Blog Birthdays, this year our original website Revolution of Love.com will be ten years old in November! Can you believe it?! We started it when we were newly married and only had Bella. I had a lot more time to write back then! Since I was still new to mommyhood I wrote more for newly married couples and Catholic singles. There are a few articles about dating/courtship and chastity that still get a lot of hits. That’s why we haven’t pulled the site off the web. Over the next few months I’ll be reposting some of those articles here since the blog gets a lot for traffic that the website does.

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Man, I’m Old – As for this blog, next month I’ll have been blogging for nine years! My first post was back in 2003. That’s just crazy. Although I’ve been around awhile, some years I only posted a handful of times. In 2003 I have only 22 posts. (Although, I did delete a few that had dead links or outdated info.) I think 2011 is the first year that I posted consistently with over 100 posts. Okay, okay. Useless facts. I’ll celebrate next month and, inspired by my sis, I’ll put together a little contest too. šŸ™‚

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The Hunger Games vs The Flu – My mom called while I was typing and she asked me how the movie was last week. I forgot I was going to mention that. (Thanks for the reminder, mom.) As I mentioned last week, I had just finished reading The Hunger Games and planned to go see the movie on Saturday. That is a story in itself. Friday night my stomach was a little queasy but I didn’t think much of it. Matthew woke up at 6:30 AM but I was really feeling awful. Brian took the baby, I got sick and then went back to bed and slept until 10 AM. I woke up feeling a bit out of it but not too bad. I figured I must have gotten food poisoning. Brian said if I was up to it I could go ahead and go to the movies since I already bought my ticket and who knows when I’d get another afternoon off. True. I got ready and went. The movie was packed but luckily I found a secluded seat where I wouldn’t be touching anyone, in case I really was sick.
The movie started and from the get go it was amazing. I thought they did a great job making the book come alive on the screen, editing what they needed to but still keeping the tone of the book. I certainly think you’d get more out of the movie if you read it first because there are a lot of subtle things that you won’t pick up on unless you’ve read the book first. And although it was not gory-graphic it was still incredibly disturbing to see little kids get murdered like that. More disturbing was the fact that it was also viewed as reality tv/entertainment. With the current obsession with reality TV and the growing lack of disrespect for life, it does not seem too far fetched to think that we could one day return to the days of the martyrs in the Roman Coliseum.
As the movie continued we got to the part where Katniss was looking for the hurt Peeta and we lost our picture. We could hear it but not see it. We sat there as they tried to fix it. The manager came in and told us they were working on it but they couldn’t rewind what we missed because it would throw off the show times for the people behind us. The theater nearly had a District 11 riot (that was one of the last scenes we just saw) when he told us that. Finally they got the movie back on and they rewound it to the part where Rue and Katniss were together. We yelled, “NO!!!” We were not going to sit there and watch Rue’s death all over again. It was hard enough the first time when we could hear people in the theater quietly sobbing. Fifteen minutes later, they found the right spot and continued the movie. The end seemed a little rushed but I still loved the movie. Did you see it? What did you think?
After we were leaving the theater, the manager gave us all free passes so at least I got a free movie out of it! Plus, I got over my phobia of going to the movies alone, so I am ready to go! On a side note, however, I got home and by the end of the day I was much worse. I realized I had the flu and not food poisoning. As I lay on my bed dead to the world I kept praying I didn’t get anyone sick in the theater…from touching the seat or the handrail or the door handle. I kept picturing the movie Contagion. Sorry, my fellow movie goers!

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Tiny Bubbles – That’s it for now. I better get back to my boys. While I type I’ll often put the bubble machine on the bookshelf and they play happily trying to pop bubbles or catch them on their tongue. (Ew.) Here is a photo of them right now still in their pj’s. Although Matthew looks like he’s ignoring the bubbles and looking for a good book. Maybe he’ll have a little more Brian than Bobbi in him. šŸ˜‰


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Have a wonderful weekend!!

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{pretty, happy, funny, real} – vol 27

Wouldn’t you know it. Yesterday I carved out a half hour where I could post this week’s {p,h,f,r} and the power went off. Blast you, Murphy’s Law. Once we got our power back on I didn’t have time for the computer so I am posting this now instead. Enjoy. šŸ™‚

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~ Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~



{pretty}




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It’s a Lenten Friday so of course I am craving meat. There is a juicy turkey burger in the fridge just calling my name. If that was not enough, I am also craving something sweet. Like a delicious pastry from one of our favorite Carmel bakeries. If you are ever in downtown Carmel, you must stop and visit there. It is a local and tourist favorite.

{happy}




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I was so excited and happy to take this photo! There was no wild craziness, screaming or wrestling. The baby was sleeping peacefully and the boys were quietly painting and I was washing the dishes. For a few precious moments I felt like one of those picture perfect families where the members smile and white sparks shine off their perfect teeth. It only lasted a few minutes but what glorious minutes they were!

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Okay, this is more like the family photos I am used to. It seems that John-Paul finished his yogurt but still had a bit left in the container. Not wanting to waste, Matthew decided to finish it for him.

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Is it my imagination or are kids getting tech smart earlier and earlier. JP knows how to work my iphone with ease and the other day I saw Matty playing for Andrew’s Leap Pad. Kinda crazy.


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Weigh-In Wednesday: Vol 2

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**Sharing the triumphs and missteps in my journey towards a healthier physical, emotional and spiritual life.**




It’s late so this will be a short post!

Physical – I haven’t been walking as usual because the family was hit by a flu bug. It started with JP then made it’s way down the line, including me. Thankfully I got sick on the weekend so Brian was here to help me. We timed it well because after I got better, he became sick. He and Andrew were the last two. Hopefully we’ll be back to normal soon.
Spiritual – Being a nursemaid to sick children (and a hubby) is a perfect way to teach you patience and humility (nothing like cleaning up vomit to humble you.) I had to keep telling myself that this is where God wants me right now at this moment…this is a gift of love I can offer God….this is a great Lenten sacrifice, etc. It was invigorating at first but after the novelty wore off, about five minutes later, then I was begging for God’s grace. As usual, he gave it and I survived. It was a good way to jump start the final two weeks of Lent, so for that I’m thankful.
Okay, it’s after 11PM so I better get to bed. Have a restful night!
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