Best Quotes from 2011 Academy Awards

Hollywood's big night

"Mister, I don't know any of those names."

That's actually a line from the 1985 western Silverado, a movie my family and I have watched so many times we have lost count.

But since award ceremonies are notorious for speakers who thank a gazillion people no one in the audience at home would know, well, you can see why that quote came to mind.

No big dramatic outbursts last night, the Academy Awards had to resort to replaying scenes from previous acceptance speeches, such as Cuba Gooding, Jr. and his "I love you" to just about everybody in the world.

These quotes from last night's telecast––Even a blind hog gets an acorn once in a while––reveal a few gems that sparkle amidst the gush.

Christian Bale thanked "… my little girl, who's taught me so much more than I'll ever be able to teach her."

David Seidler, who wrote the original screenplay for The King's Speech:

 "The writer's speech: this is terrifying. [a pause that writers can appreciate] My father always said to me I'd be a late bloomer."
         Next he said that as the oldest person to win this award, he hoped the record would be broken quickly and often.
         He thanked, "… Her Majesty, the Queen, for not putting me in the Tower for using the word Melissa Leo used."
         "On behalf of all stutterers, we have a voice, we have been heard thanks to the Academy."

Colin Firth did not stutter as he accepted his award. He began by saying, "I have a feeling my career just peaked."

Lee Unrik, who won in the Best Animated Feature category for Toy Story 3 said, [this was a movie about] "talking toys that had something very human to say."

Randy Newman, who won for Best Original Song, "We Belong Together," from Toy Story 3 spoke about the advice someone had given him if he got the opportunity to thank people, something about doing good television instead.
       "I don't want to thank these people. I want to do good television." And then, of course, he went on to thank people.

Tom Hooper, who won as Best Director for The King's Speech told how the idea for making the movie came from his mother who had seen a stage reading of the the play. His story enriched appreciation for the movie that went on to win Best Picture.
       Hooper concluded his acceptance speech saying, "The moral of the story is: Listen to your mother."


Here's a list of all the winners who got to take home the statuette.

And the NYT slideshow of the best dressed on the red carpet. This shows the best.

That's what I call gumption

The dictionary defines gumption: 1. initiative; aggressiveness; resourcefulness: With his gumption he'll make a success of himself.

2. courage; spunk; guts: It takes gumption to quit a high-paying job. 

A news report that aired on local TV prompted my brother-in-law to recall a time when he displayed gumption.

The television screen showed a worker in something that looked like a space suit spraying a chemical coating on playground equipment that had burned children playing on it in the record-breaking heat last summer in Dallas.

The white suit reminded David of a job he had between his freshman and sophomore years in college.

Showing vs. Telling 

David had gone to Baytown, TX to stay with his friend for 2 weeks until school started at Southwestern University at Georgetown.

"I needed to get a job. My buddy took me to apply at a company that did contract work for an oil company where his dad worked. But he said, 'You won't get a job working for them.'"

"Yes, I will. You just watch me."

The line of prospective applicants was long, David said, but before he got in line, David went to the bulletin board to read the job postings. "The only help wanted was for experienced sandblasters."

When David got to the front of the line, the man asked him what he could do.

"I'm an experienced sandblaster."

"Where have you worked?"

"All over Dallas," David said.

"Okay, we'll give you a try." And then the man told him how much they would pay him per hour.

"That's not enough. I'm an experienced sandblaster."

So the guy raised it to $6.00 per hour, "which was a lot of money back then. An obscene amount," David said.

The next morning David showed up for work and they gave him a 3-man crew, and then took all 4 to a work site.

David put one man in charge of the sand, another the machinery, and the third man to feed him the line. David did the actual sandblasting wearing a protective suit. He climbed up to a platform and blasted the top of a tank, finishing the job in 4 hours.

When the foreman came back at lunch, he was astonished.

"This is a cost-plus job. You've got to slow down or we won't make any money," the foreman said. "This job should have taken all day or a day-and-a-half."

David said he took lots of breaks after that. And when he quit at the end of 2 weeks, the foreman said, "Is it the money? I can get you more money."

"No," David said, "I gotta go back to school."

Now that's what I call gumption. 

Something's Coming

Could it be? Yes, it could.
Something's coming, something good,
If I can wait!
Something's coming, I don't know what it is,
But it is
Gonna be great! 

First bit of green peeking through

Bulbs amaze me. The life is in the bulb.

Come on, Little Bulb. Show us what you got.

Ooo-La La: A hyacinth

It always surprises me when something I planted before winter starts to show. I never know if what I put in the ground will grow.


A long time ago, I cross-stitched a bell-pull with these words:

Who plants a seed 

beneath the sod

and waits to see

Believes in God

I'll keep you posted on this portent of spring.

Taking Yoga to the mat

My husband gave me a new Yoga mat for Valentine's Day. Yes, I was surprised … and thrilled. It's a really great mat, a Jade Yoga mat to replace a basic entry level mat I got at Target.

Hey, in the seventh week of an 8-week beginner's class of Yoga, I will graduate next week. I said to my husband, "I guess this means you want me to keep going."

What has Yoga done for me? Well, for the first time in my life I can sleep on my stomach, if I want to. I don't. But it is nice to be able to lie on my stomach for more than 30-seconds. I learned in Yoga that lying flat on the stomach is considered a back-bend, and just that much of a bend compensates for all the time most of us spend butt-in-chair.

And I attest to increased mobility in a shoulder injured during our move to Lubbock 2 years ago this June. I can actually clasp my hands behind my back, place them at the sacrum, straighten my arms and then bend forward, lifting my arms. How far? Well, not as far as some people I know, but this is something I could not do before I started taking these classes.

Is Yoga a religion?
 
A lot of people worry about Yoga as a religion. It is. The language of Yoga is Hindu Sanskrit. But not everyone who practices Yoga holds Buddhist beliefs or subscribes to Hindu philosophy.

Meditation is optional, and personal, and who knows what goes on in someone's head and heart anyway? Even in church.

People who teach Yoga, I can tell you, use the same words Bible-believing Christians use. Words like compassion, perseverance and acceptance.

"That's because everyone wants to be spiritual," a friend said. But the problem is not with words but with the meaning a person invests in those words, and what sort of ideas a person formulates based on words. Nature abhors a vacuum.

A wise teacher shared this principle: "All people are worshipers and will choose someone or something to worship."

Yoga falls far short of leading me to worship my body. Instead Yoga heightens awareness that "… I am fearfully and wonderfully made …" (Psalm 139:14). Even imperfect me, I marvel at what my body can still do.

Personal Testimony
 
My daughter, who can bend like Gumbi, says when she goes to Yoga, she gets there feeling like hardened wax from the accumulated stresses in her busy life, and by the end of her practice she feels as if she has melted.

For me, Yoga practice provides a time and a concrete way to honor my body. Since I began Yoga, this awakening of how I have neglected my body has come into sharp focus.

I leave each practice session filled with gratitude for this amazing creation that carries me around, wandering thoughts and all, thankful and knowing whom to thank.

Happy Valentine's Day

For Valentine's Day, these are a few of my favorite romantic movies. 25 to be exact, both comedy and drama. I've included some great quotes from these movies and a couple of links to YouTube.

Have fun stormin' the castle.

"I want to do something for her... but what?"
"Well, there's the usual things: flowers... chocolates... promises you don't intend to keep ... "

Tale as old as Time: "… there may be something there that wasn't there before."

"Remember, when you go out not to put on too much makeup otherwise the boys will get the wrong idea and you know how they are ... They're only after one thing."
"What's that?"
"I don't know. Nobody will tell me."  

"I think you're a hopeless romantic who's discovered that romance is hopeless." 

"So close to reaching that famous happy end …"

"Face it, Rose. You're no picnic."

"A woman's heart is an ocean of secrets."

Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind …
William Wordsworth

"I felt that it was my heart only that I was risking … but my heart is, and always will be, yours."

 "All great beauties must suffer and sacrifice."

"After all the stops and starts, we keep coming back to these two hearts …"

"You know what's wrong with you, Miss Whoever-you-are? You're chicken, you've got no guts. You're afraid to stick out your chin and say, Okay, life's a fact, people do fall in love, people do belong to each other, because that's the only chance anybody's got for real happiness."

"Do they still really have prizes in Cracker Jack boxes?"
"Oh yes."
"That's nice to know... It gives one a feeling of solidarity, almost of continuity with the past, that sort of thing."

"This is true love. Do you think this happens everyday?"
 
"Death cannot stop true love, it can only delay it for a little while."

"You'll never find anyone as good for you as I am, to believe in you as much as I do or love you as much."
 "I know."

"Do you believe in love at first sight? Nah, I betcha don't, you're probably too sensible for that. Or have you ever, like, seen somebody? And you knew that, if only that person really knew you, they would, well, they would of course dump the perfect model that they were with, and realize that YOU were the one that they wanted to, just, grow old with … ."
 
"If you fit into my pants I will kill myself"

"Okay, um. What do you mean by the leaning thing? You mean because he gave me flowers?"
"And then you leaned."
" …Okay, how did I lean when I leaned?"
"It was a lot different from hugging. Hugging's very different. Hugging, that involves arms and hands; and leaning is whole bodies moving in like this …
Leaning involves wanting ... and accepting…"

"Rhett, don't. I shall faint."
"I want you to faint. This is what you were meant for. None of the fools you've ever known have kissed you like this, have they? Your Charles, or your Frank, or your stupid Ashley."

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a great fortune must be in want of a wife."

"I am determined that nothing but the deepest love could ever induce me into matrimony."

"Perhaps I didn't always love him as well as I do now, but in such cases as these a good memory is unpardonable."

"I wanted it to be you. I wanted it to be you so badly."

Movie's Ending: most memorable sequence 

"Can a man and a woman be friends, without sex getting in the way?"

 "When you realize You want to spend
The rest of your life with somebody,
You want the rest of your life
To start as soon as possible."

"You've ruined it for me, you know."
  " Ruined what?"
  " Being alone."

"That's your problem. You don't want to be in love. You want to be in love in a movie."

"That's a chick's movie"

"I've been taking pictures all my life––long before I had a camera."

"More isn't always better, Linus. Sometimes it's just more."

"So, I'm not a theatre buff."
"Buff? The most difficult tickets to get will be for a Broadway musical."
"Okay."
"That means that the performers will periodically dance about and burst into song."

"I love you, Loretta." 
"Snap out of it."

"Democracy can be a wickedly unfair thing, Sabrina. Nobody poor was ever called democratic for marrying somebody rich."

"A gentleman fits in anywhere."

"A sponge fits in anywhere."

 

"Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine."
"Play it once, Sam, for old times' sake."
"I don't know what you mean, Miss Ilsa."
"Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By.'" [not Play it again, Sam]
"Why, I can't remember it, Miss Ilsa. I'm a little rusty on it."
"I'll hum it for you … Sing it, Sam."

"Who are you really and what were you before? What did you do and what did you think, huh?"
"We said no questions."

"Here's looking at you, kid."

 

"The likelihood of one individual being right increases in direct proportion to the intensity with which others are trying to prove him wrong." 

"She loves me, Mr. Jordan."
"Joe, you must abide by what is written."

"You're the quarterback."

"I came to Hollywood over 60 years ago, and immediately fell in love with motion pictures. And it's a love affair that's lasted a lifetime. When I first arrived in Tinseltown, there were no cineplexes or multiplexes. No such thing as a Blockbuster or DVD. I was here before conglomerates owned the studios. Before pictures had special effects teams. And definitely before box office results were reported like baseball scores on the nightly news … Iris, in the movies, we have leading ladies and we have the best friend. You, I can tell, are a leading lady, but for some reason, you're behaving like the best friend."

"You knew what a frightful girl I was when you married me."

"Take love, multiply it by infinity and take it to the depths of forever … and you still have only a glimpse of how I feel for you."

 

Beau, Beck and Bowling

  

 

 

 

Wish I had gotten the picture when Beau crossed his eyes.

Fabulous Friday. The twins came to our house for lunch, ice cream and to fly balloons with Poppy.

Beck ate the cherry is why he looks so happy.

Chris, Erin, James and I went bowling tonight. So much fun. And I didn't come in last.

We had to wait for a lane but the bowling alley is now a smoke-free zone. I scored 120 my second game. w00t

Jazz hands

Erin and I discovered that Yoga breathing does not improve our bowling.

James quickly recalled his technique.

Chris got a groove and hit the most strikes.

Where's the ball, Paden?

The Dude still abides.

A word about other blogs

My granddad and I shared the same birthday

Faithful Readers,

Reportedly, there are now more bloggers than blog readers.
If you are still reading, you may have noticed the blogs I follow. Looking at that list may strike you as a bit eclectic. It is. I am.

The Pioneer Woman and Bakerella

While most of my blog reading trends toward writing, you will see that The Pioneer Woman and Bakerella relate to cooking and photography.

What's not to love about The Pioneer Woman? Creative, upbeat and humorous, Ree Drummond provides the perfect antidote to the sky is falling. If the sky did fall, Ree would find a way to make something wonderful out of the pieces.

Bakerella, just in time for Valentine's Day, is new to me. Already my daughter has made cake pops. And I love that this clever girl just does what she loves and takes the time to share with others recipes, pictures and her ideas.

Nathan Bransford

My son, the reader, suggested I check out Nathan Bransford. He's cool. Nathan, not my son. Oh well, my son is cool too but he has yet to launch a blog because he spends so much time reading.

Today Nathan wrote about writers, in particular their striving to make something change. Referring to The Great Gatsby, which Nathan has just reread, "there has to be a pretty intense fire burning inside you to devote the amount of time it takes to write one [a book] … writing is an act of getting down on your hands and knees and hoping the world spins on a slightly different axis. It's the art of not taking life for granted and trying to make something, anything change."

That pretty much says it for me, the hands and knees part, and about not taking life for granted.

Aspire2 and RetroChristianity

Two of my favorite professors from Dallas Theological Seminary blog.

The blog Aspire2, written by Sandi Glahn, who besides working as an adjunct professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, she nears completion of a PhD from UTD.

Sandi taught a couple of the writing classes I took at DTS: Journalism and Advanced Creative Writing. Both classes gave me a much-needed sense of direction and redeemed my time at DTS. Sandi also co-taught the Preaching class my Master's degree in Media and Communication required. There, she played an even more pivotal role as friend.

Sandi also writes regularly for the Tapestry blog on bible.org, a site that has world-wide readership. I took the pictures of doors used on the Women's page, and occasionally I blog as a substitute.

Mike Svigel, who teaches in the theology department recently updated his RetroChristianity blog, accounting for his long absence because he has written another book. Can't wait to read it. This guy is brilliant and grounded. A student of real life, not simply ideas in books, he doesn't blow smoke.

Rachelle Gardner, Literary Agent

While I keep working to complete a manuscript, I follow Rachelle Gardner's blog. She's an agent. Don't have an agent. Don't know if I will ever need one. Don't know if I will ever finish this book. But Rachelle offers lots of good advice for writers, would-be and otherwise.


Chip MacGregor

Agent Chip MacGregor wrote a blog that I read for ages, and when he up an quit a few months ago, I thought, whoa. Blogs are so yesteryear. That post combined with the holidays derailed my blogging engine.

Keepin' it simple, I stop short of endorsing a bazillion other blogs. If I blog too much or read too many blogs, I will never finish writing this book. It's easier to blog, because deadlines tell me when to stop.

Ho, hum. For now, I will keep reading, writing and stretching my creative muscles to build a blog. Whether or not I have that intense fire burning inside, these few blogs serve as my Energizer to keep going.

Nikki Heated

Continued from yesterday's post, my Nikki Heat story has a happy ending. Usually try to save the best for last, but this iPhone photo tells a better story than all the rest.

Beau and Beck have to wait for Gran's rolls

Lightly flour work surface and rolling pin

Plop out the dough and start rolling into a rectangle

An imperfect rectangle, I might add. Then slather with REAL butter, room temperature.

Mix high quality cinnamon and sugar, about half and half.

Spread to within an inch or half-inch on all sides.

Start rolling along wide side of rolled-out  dough.

Gently, so the sugar and cinnamon stay put.

There you go. Press seam into dough before cutting.

Cut about one-inch wide slices and leave room for rolls to rise. Cover with a towel and let rise overnight.

In the morning, voila. Ready to bake.

350 degrees for 15–18 minutes. Do not over bake.

Baby Bear porridge: just right

Glaze: 2 T. butter, 2 T. milk, 1 t. vanilla, 1 1/2 c. powdered sugar

Keep stirring

Stir until smooth and not a bit grainy.

Start icing while rolls are still warm.

There will be "orpha-lans"–end pieces and ugly rolls that don't fit in the pan.

Luscious

Share these delectable rolls so that you don't wind up on The Biggest Loser.