The always fantastic Viggo Mortensen starred in this dramedy (that turned out to be more drama than comedy). In the movie, Viggo’s character’s wife dies and leaves him with six kids. The family happened to be living off-grid at the time. The wife’s family doesn’t like how the kids were raised, so this causes the major conflict of the story.
In a rare moment, all three of us watched (and liked, but not loved) the movie.
My rating: 3.5/5
No, I do not have my holidays mixed up. Rather, this was a James Patterson book. Much like all Patterson books, it was an easy read. I specifically chose it because I figured that I would be getting some books for Christmas (and I wasn’t wrong about that) so I wanted to make sure I could quickly finish whatever book I started so I could get on to my new books.
Patterson always has a twist, but he took this one to a whole new level. This time, everyone was the killer. Well, the ones you wouldn’t suspect. Because I’ve read enough of these, I did guess the one killer, but I was not expecting there to be multiple. So, I guess you could call that a surprise. A ridiculous surprise.
Now, on to my new Stephen King novel.
My rating: 3/5
Christmas has come and gone once again. We did Christmas Eve at my in-laws’ and Christmas Day at our house with my family. We had Monday off work, but did not do anything of consequence. Though, we did have a visit from my in-laws that night. Yesterday, Jake had a bunch of doctor-type appointments and we had Judy over for supper. That probably concludes our Christmas visits for the year, but you never know what else might pop up.
We’re both off alternating days this week (to ensure coverage at the office). Today’s my turn to go in. I have a few things that need to be done before the end of the year, so I plan on accomplishing those things today. Despite all of the recent days off, I am looking forward to an event-free New Year’s weekend. I have much to accomplish around the house. I keep thinking I’m going to get stuff done this week, but it’s just not happening.
This was definitely not one of the better books I’ve read this year. I think I’m going to have to become more selective with my reading.
The story was about some murders that happened at a remote boarding school. And of course, a big winter storm rolled in at the same time, so everyone was isolated. And, just when they figured out what was going on, there was a surprise twist (but not in a good way).
My rating: 2.5/5
Brian and I made my raspberry lambic for the 2nd time today. I would not have guessed that we first made it 4 years ago. But, here we are. We were waiting for a “nicer” day to do it. Today wasn’t terribly cold, so we seized the day. The only real snag we ran into was that the hose was frozen and we needed a water source, so Brian had to carry the giant pot of beer to our basement for the final cooling step.
This beer has to ferment at around 50 degrees, so that’s why we make it in late fall. That way, we can put it in Brian’s shop, which is unheated, to ferment. We did make one change this time–the first time we used fresh raspberries and this time we’re trying a canned raspberry product. Whatever one works out better is the way we’ll do it in the future.