My friend invited me to see a 20th anniversary showing of The Fifth Element last night.
It was just tremendously fun!
My family had the DVD, and I know I’ve seen most of it. But I don’t think I ever sat down and watched the whole thing from start to finish – and you really need to in order to know what’s going on!
Anyway, it was just a fun evening, on a Sunday when we didn’t have our usual gaming. And I’d already gotten a call from my son.
I had a week off, and thought I’d finish up with one of my favorite things to do – a 48-Hour Reading Challenge.
I got the idea from Mother Reader, years ago. I admit, it’s more fun when you join people from all over the internet doing it at the same time, but I didn’t plan enough in advance.
In the 48 hours from Friday morning at 8:00 am to Sunday morning at 8:00 am, I managed to read and review for 29 hours and 5 minutes.
I finished 7 books in that time, 4 of them started from the beginning.
I wrote reviews of 10 books, writing 5,466 words.
I posted 3 reviews.
I figure next year, when I’m on the Newbery committee, I’ll need to do this much more often! (Without taking time to post reviews!)
But in the meantime, it was a lot of fun.
Back in February, a friend pointed me to an exercise where you visualize what you’d like your life to be like 10 years in the future. You try to describe a typical day in great detail.
Somewhat to my surprise, Future Sondy was booking her Annual Personal Spiritual Retreat on the Isle of Iona for that springtime! In other years, she’d gone to places like Prince Edward Island and Mont St. Michel.
I got to thinking that Present Sondy should start this habit! But I don’t have any money for a fabulous place like that. But I realized that my own home is a nice place for a retreat. After all, I’ve got a lake view. So I looked on the library schedule for a time when I could take a week off, and chose the first week of May.
It’s been lovely, if not as peaceful as the Isle of Iona would be!
I did take some time for cleaning – hard to avoid if you’re staying home. But these last two days, I’m taking a 48-Hour Book Challenge and getting lots of books read and reviews written.
I also worked on Project 52, and got this week’s post done in one day, instead of stretching it out over three or four posts. And the week I finished was about the year when my divorce was finally final. And that felt good.
Then I found this verse. With that timing – finishing thinking through the hard years – I’d like to take this as my theme for the year – until my next personal spiritual retreat.
Song of Solomon 2:10-12
My beloved spoke and said to me,
“Arise, my darling,
my beautiful one, come with me.
See! The winter is past;
the rains are over and gone.
Flowers appear on the earth;
the season of singing has come.”
Here’s to a season of singing!
I live on the edge of the DC suburbs. One of my friends from church lives almost an hour further out – totally in the countryside.
Yesterday, I went out and spent a few hours at her place. And my soul was fed. (Deer and birds were fed, too!)