It’s The Waiting That’s A Virtue

After moving into our new house in 2012, I can finally unpack the boxes of files, books, documents and office supplies. As you can see, things were getting claustrophobic in my little office.

What the photos do not show is that my computer monitor sits on a piece of plywood, between two filing cabinets, that are not the same height, so there are four blocks of wood under the right side.

BeforeDeskArea

Back Wall Area

I can’t work in a messy office very well. It’s that way in my kitchen too. I have to clean up and do dishes, before I can start making a brand new mess.  After using this desk & office you can imagine how nice it is to ‘go to work’ now 😉

My “new” office has gorgeous oak filing cabinets, bookshelves, and a custom-built desk. I am loving it! I want to get back to work, but I must put things away first. [I could not help myself this afternoon, so I took a break to write this post and let y’all know why I’m not posting so much right now.]

The only issue I foresee is the fact that I’m not even half-way unpacked and running low on filing cabinet space. I suppose that I could put a lot of things into binders and on the book shelves, but I have a ton of reference materials and books to put away.

AfterCustomDeskAfterBackWall

I am trying NOT to panic. I don’t have a deadline to be moved in. Our two guest rooms are stuffed full of boxes for me to go through and organize one by one.  There are no guests scheduled to arrive in the next month, so I do have time.

Who knows? Maybe there are still some files I can toss. Maybe I could let go of old files stuffed with ideas and the beginnings of a few new novels and short stories, but I doubt that will happen. Some of them I’ve had since I was twelve years old. (And that’s a hella long time!)

Hubby has a storage basement under his shop if things get out of IMG_1221hand. Or, I could sneak some things out into our new cabinets in the garage…

Somewhere on this property, my stuff will get put away.

I. Have. Spoken.

Ranting About Remakes

I decided to boycott remakes.   100x100_neverend

They (meaning Hollywood big-shots and producers) are taking our favorite movies, and screwing them over.  Do they need more screenplays? I have a couple in the works – where do I send them?  Something needs to be done to stop this insanity!

For example, I saw a movie I wanted to watch listed on the cable menu, and I set it up to record. When I start to watch the recording,  I realize that it’s a remake of the film I wanted to watch. This spikes my blood pressure.  Footloose without Kevin Bacon and Christopher Penn is like  The King and I without Yul Brenner. Oh, wait, they remade that film too. They call it Anna and the King. Like that’s going to fool anyone.

When Walt Disney re-released classics like Bambi to a new generation, they were the same movies you watched with your daughter, and she with hers. That makes family traditions that reach across generations. When the family talks about Bambi, we are all talking about the same movie.

100x100_three_men_and_a_baby  The number of re-makes in the past couple of years astonishes me. And I’m not talking about the re-makes of A Christmas Carol or new Star Trek movies. Nor am I talking about the classics. They are re-making movies that debuted in the 1980’s. Perfectly good movies that don’t need to be  remade.

Just because people liked the film does not mean it needs to be made again by someone thinking they can re-do a good thing and make money off of it.  People must be going to the theater to see these copy-cat movies, because  re-makes are being thrown out at us from every genre.

I researched  (OK, I did a Google search for “remake movies”), and discovered that Hollywood is remaking some of my very favorite films in the near future. I refuse to watch ANY of these debaucheries.

I put together a list of movies being remade soon or for 2015 release. I was astonished. Perturbed. Pissed. Ready to write a letter pissed.

Read it and weep…

  • War Games
  • Commando
  • Poltergeist
  • Drop Dead Fred
  • Overboard
  • Porky’s (a more tasteful version?)
  • The Orphanage
  • Soap Dish
  • Stephen King’s It
  • Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure
  • Honey I Shrunk the Kids
  • The Never-ending Story
  • Flight of the Navigator
  • The Wild Bunch
  • Cliff Hanger
  • Three Men and a Baby
  • House Party
  • Videodrome
  • Endless Love
  • About Last Night
  • Agent 47
  • Fantastic Four
  • The Harder They Come
  • Police Academy
  • Dirty Dancing
  • Escape From New York
  • Fletch
  • Highlander
  • National Lampoon’s Vacation
  • Short Circuit
  • Pet Semetary
  • Scarface
  • Time Bandits
  • Romancing the Stone
  • Weird Science
  • The Toxic Avenger
  • Godzilla
  • Gremlins
  • Jumanji
  • Van Helsing
  • The Monster Squad
  • Annie
  • An American Werewolf in London

See what I mean!

A website shows 20 of these films and gives details about the remake and the actors being cast. I read a few of these and things are WAY worse than I thought. If you are prone to depression – do not go there!

I’m serious.

Music For Listening

EricsLeverHarpBach’s Prelude in C-major, played on a Lever Harp,  by my cousin Eric, was posted to Facebook by his brother (my other cousin) Luke. And, because we are “friends”, as well as cousins, I got to play the video.

This was a surprise. I totally forgot he plays that instrument. Eric plays so many different ones that I can’t keep up. The entire Steitz branch(s) of the family tree has incredible musical ability.  I, alas, am not from that talented branch.

I play the iPod Nano these days, and I’m cool with that. I did play the piano in my youth, but the only keyboards my fingers bang on now belong to computers.

I feel remiss that I have not been frequenting YouTube, Facebook, and other sources of my families music. I get all caught up in my mind and the “little things” are pushed aside so I can get stuff done. I’m wound tighter than rattlesnake – so I’ve been told.

But – today, I stopped. I closed my eyes. I cleared my mind.  And LISTENED.

Really listened.  And when it ended, I listened four more times.
The harp music did what 3 kinds of depression/anxiety/sleep medications that I’m on didn’t do.  It made me feel relaxed.

Maybe that is why the angels play…

Thanks Cuz!