Courageous, the movie

Watch the trailer here:  http://www.courageousthemovie.com/

Apparently the Sherwood Ministry, from the Sherwood Church in Albany, GA, has produced several independent movies in an effort to expand their outreach, but I've only seen one:  Courageous is due in theaters September 30.  My sister got advance screening tickets from one of her sales reps and asked me to go along.  The screening was intended for local ministers and while I thought for a moment I might feel a bit out of place, the audience was a bunch of people from several walks of life, all who believe in the value of a father's place in the family.

The movie is about 5 men, 4 friends who are police officers, and one Hispanic man who's a manual laborer struggling to keep food on the table and a roof over his family's heads.  They become friends, the 5 men.  One of them suffers a tragic death in his family and struggles to come to terms with his loss.  During that struggle, he thinks about a quote by his sheriff:  that a high percentage of children without a positive father figure/role model eventually wind up doing drugs, committing crimes, walking away from their own children...

These men resolve, in a beautiful family ceremony, to be there for their children, to guide them, to teach them, to show them the way to God, to love them...

The movie follows their lives through loss, success, tragedy, and just the every day.

Sure, there were a couple of too-easy conclusions to some of the situations, but I LOVED THIS MOVIE.  I was lucky enough to have an awesome father, a tremendous mother.  I grew up confident in their love and support, knowing what was expected of me, what they hoped and prayed for me.  I have two sisters who will most likely agree that we had a pretty Leave It to Beaver/Father Knows Best sort of childhood.  We were loved, protected, guided.  I BELIEVE that not only should fathers step up, PARENTS should step up.

But the purpose of this movie was to show how important it is for a father to be there for his family.  It was an inspiring, powerful movie.  At the end we found out that the movie was created by the Sherwood Ministry.  The "stars" are not actors, the writer acted in the movie, people in church and in town donated a lot of the set props, the actors are "just people."  They did a tremendous job, and quite honestly, I'm eager to see some of the other movies they did, too.  Apparently their last movie, Fireproof, was the #1 independent movie of 2008.

I can't wait to retire.

One of the first things I'll do is convert all of DH's bill paying to online status - I've already saved $15 on stamps!!! I just figured it out! God knows I can use that $15 elsewhere...

To pay for last night's scrapbooking purchases, perhaps? We had a SB Garage Sale at the Days Inn. I believe there were 7 people selling; I bought from 4 of them... I got a nice Creative Memories cropping bag from AM for $20 - I'll sell the two smaller ones I have that are not working for me. This one stands upright and is large enough for albums and paper. I like it! I also got a small trimmer and some adhesive from AM, some SU stamps from JP, some doodads from MB, and a stamp from DR.

I spent $55.50 - AND I got some FREE kids videos from SR. Despite my current almost-deep-and-abiding loathing for all things Lindsay Lohan, I used to like her when she was young and cute and relatively innocent. I got a copy of her version of Parent Trap!!! I could watch that - or the original with Hayley Mills, Maureen O'Hara and Brian Keith - every day!

Actually there are several movies that fall into that I'll-never-get-sick-of-them-no-matter-how-many-times-I-watch-them-in-one-day category (in no particular order): Gone with the Wind, Dirty Dancing, While You Were Sleeping, You've Got Mail, Sleepless in Seattle, Parent Trap (either version), Pretty Woman, The Sound of Music, any Clint movie, Ghost, to name but a few...

I got a little off topic... When I retire, I also want to take cooking lessons, learn how to digitally scrapbook, travel, learn (again!) how to swim, keep a clean house (still haven't figured that out - I'm too much of a clutter person/packrat, and I have a high tolerance for "stuff"), and loads of other things...

What do you want to do when you retire? Or grow up, whichever is applicable... *wink, wink*

WARNING: Bodily functions will be discussed below. Proceed at your own risk.

Who knew I could blow my nose so darn much?!? And who knew that it would be productive blowing each and every time?!? Each and every five minutes... I'm soooooooooooooo tired of blowing my nose. I should have stock in Boroleum Ointment. It's the only thing keeping the skin from peeling off my nose.

Had a lovely Easter weekend, despite the cold. On Friday, I spent the day cleaning my house, making homemade mashed potatoes and homemade cole slaw. Yum! Two of my specialties, I must admit. Then on Saturday I went for breakfast with Jack, then to the bridal shower. It was fine. Although there's a big difference between young 23/24-year-olds and people of my generation. She was so naive that she didn't know to announce who the gift was from, what it was, or hold it up for people to see it. We were all wondering who gave what to her. She wasn't a very gracious bride-to-be, and I sincerely don't mean that in a malicious way. She just didn't know what to do.

A woman who thinks she used to date my husband was there. This is the 2nd time I've met her. She also attended a funeral that I went to; she's Patty's sister-in-law's best friend, or one of them, anyway.

Check's in the mail, Patty! I overheard my sister-in-law telling this woman (who claims she dated my husband, but he only remembers taking her out once or twice with Patty's sister-in-law, sort of baby-sitting them both, and avoiding her the rest of the time... Patty says she used to come to the house and stalk him and he'd just walk right past her, ignoring her...) - anyway, Patty was telling her that I was so wonderful, so sweet, the best for Jack, so loving, that they all love me... I told her, sure, on a good day, but obviously you haven't seen me on a bad day!!!

Apparently she's a sharer - we all know much more than we really want to about her - I know she's dating a cop from Bensalem, PA, and that she met him on singles.net, or some such website. I know that she's skeeved by replies to her own post that include pictures of guys with their shirts off or their tongues sticking out in an ostensibly sexy pose... And Carrie knows a lot about her personal life, details she didn't ask for but that Vicky shared with her. (I did not ask for examples!) Why would you tell someone you've met once in your life the private details of your love life (or sex life, as the case may be)?

Now, I realize I'm posting all this out in cyberspace for anyone to read and respond to, but I'm not going to be putting that kind of really private information out there. My life is pretty much an open book, but what goes on in the privacy of my own love life is going to stay there, with the exception, perhaps of a comment or two when my husband absolutely drives me up the proverbial wall!!! But that's not private, between-the-two-of-us-stuff...

Anyway, after the shower, I drove home and Jack took me out to dinner and to the movies. He must have been absolutely insane for the entire day; it was too cold to do anything outside and the house was cleaned up for the holiday so there was nothing for him to do, a fate worse than death for my workaholic, Energizer Bunny of a husband! We went and saw The Last Mimzy and I really liked it! The opening and closing sequence didn't particularly add anything to the movie, but in general, it's a good one!

Well, it's 8:56 and I have to skedaddle - I'm already a 1/2 hour into my work day without a bit of work-related productivity to show for it... More another time...