Maybe I’ll escape unscathed… The Dalek appears to be interested in something on the other side of the aisle.
I didn’t get a picture, but right after this, the Daleks talked to me, asking me why I didn’t have any crocheted Daleks. I said that it was because they were too complicated to do justice to in yarn craft. They seemed quite happy with that.
This movie went over a lot better than I thought it would, although I was thoroughly unprepared for the emotional aspect of the movie. It was an excellent choice to have the week before Remembrance Day. But please go check the website doesthedogdie before watching this. I was taken completely by surprise.
Not only was the movie well liked, but he loved every single activity.
I haven’t been doing much formally for this one. I’ll put music on and he’ll dance to it unprompted. (repeated from last week)
He has been diligent about practising his scales and doing the exercise from the book. He also says out loud what the scale letters are as he plays them.
We did quite a few stitches. There’s only one row left, and Pegasus is excited to be done and be able to wear it.
We alternated between listening to videos for the days of the week and months of the year (M, W, F), and attempting to put them in order with the pieces of paper (days on Tuesday, months on Thursday). He sang along unprompted. He’s still having trouble with the names and the order when the songs aren’t playing, but he’s needing much less prompting.
He enjoys doing this activity and completed it on the second day this week. He wrote g and e for himself above the words as a way of helping himself, which is adorable. (You can just barely see them under the eraser.)
He did well on his counting. He did not need me to write the numbers for him to copy, but did ask for me to trace them in the air.
We got reread the little French books from the library. We had the same French books this week, and I brought them to the COVID vaccination clinic with us on the Friday. He read most of the two Zoe books on his own, only needing help with a couple of the words. I was super impressed. We’ll have new French books for next week.
Make paper snowflakes – he needed help cutting through the multiple layers of paper, but he did the folding himself and told me where to cut. He wanted to make more.
Make a pop-up diorama – we did this slightly differently than the way I did it with Dragon. We printed a background and the characters from the movie and then had them standing in front of the background. I think it turned out really well. (Mostly, Pegasus doesn’t enjoy colouring, so I didn’t want to force him to do something he doesn’t like.) I forgot to take pictures while he was building it, so here is the completed project.
Learn how to make a PNG in Photopea – oh wow. I had no idea how much he’d enjoy this activity. We did the dice on Thursday, and then on Friday we moved on to more complex images. One of the things I really wanted to enforce was the idea that shadows and complex backgrounds are more difficult to deal with. He definitely understands that concept, but he also doesn’t care much. He also really loved putting his PNGs into Canva on a different background. (I helped a bit with the PNG creation, but he did most of it. I showed him how to upload into Canva and helped with the composition, but I just tweaked his designs.)
Hello Friends, Family, Fans, and Readers,
It’s happening again! AGAIN! Jen and I are writing another book.
This is the third Gates of Westmeath book and I’m absolutely loving writing and reading it.
I absolutely love writing with Jen. It’s like having a super-fan to pump you up for writing and like getting to read your favourite book as it’s being made!
This going to be book 3, and book 2 Monsters! Incidental Wedding Guests will be coming out spring 2024. We’ll post pre-order links as soon as we get them, and stay tuned for the cover reveal and other sneak peeks!
I’m so excited to be writing this book and I can’t wait to see what happens.
Stay safe and be kind,
Éric
How This Works – Read Other Reviews
Hello Cinephiles,
Today we’re talking about the 2022 film See How They Run.
The story tries really hard to be clever and referential while still respecting the genre. It’s not a spoof or an homage, but some sort of clever combination. The great thing is that it works on all levels. Everything is laid out in the intro narration and I was still pleasantly surprised.
Score: 1
The main detective characters are clichés brought to life. They’d be almost boring if it wasn’t for the quality and charm of the actors. Unfortunately, that doesn’t apply to the whole cast, which is populated by a checklist of quirky film noir characters.
Score: 0.5
The dialogue is a combination of period and modern and was a little jarring at times. It was however very clever and well thought out.
Score: 0.5
The director and cinematographer must have been big fans of Hitchcock and Anderson. It mostly worked as a mashup, but lacked originality and felt a little forced.
The music was strong but unmemorable.
Score: 0.5
This movie was a mystery lover’s good time. All the adults loved it, but the kids found it slow and talky. I will re-watch this one.
Score: 1
An excellent homage/comedy to the mystery genre, Christie in particular, and a fun movie. Its odd directorial choices are held together by the impressive acting from the leads.
Final Score: 3.5 Stars out of 5
Hello my friends, family, and fans;
I’m getting to the age where technology and habits I adopted as a kid are now considered old fashioned. I still like physical media (CDs, Blu-ray, etc), I like having a watch, and I miss going to the cinema.
The older I get, the worse my vision gets, the more I prefer to avoid fancy wrap around screens, or 3D, or that kind of thing. We went to see Taylor Swift’s concert movie (fantastic btw) and it remined me of how much I miss.
I have trouble sitting and doing nothing for 2 hours. It makes me feel like I should be multitasking and getting some work done. So I constantly stop myself from being able to fully enjoy the movie.
There’s also the fact that I have two kids and they tend to either be completely absorbed or making a racket during a movie.
I like cinema popcorn. Its tasty, comes in large sizes, and gives me something to do with myself so that I can relax and enjoy the movie. Even if I do go now, it’ll be a little while before I’m comfortable eating in a crowd again.
Arguably I make better popcorn, but on a regular day with the kids bed times if we have time for a movie we don’t have the 10-15 minutes it takes to make.
It’s an event to go to the movies. When I was a kid it involved researching in a newspaper, driving over an hour each direction, and waiting in line for a ticket. Now it’s much easier but I still get that joyful excitement and anticipation when I walk into the building.
I never liked crowds and people are the worst. At the Taylor Swift movie there were several people in front of me that decided to check their phones every ten minutes. They also seemed to have their phones set to the highest brightness level.
It’s only 15-20 minutes away but it feels like forever and I hate the anxiety of feeling like I’m going to be late for the movie. It’s a small thing, I know.
I wish they put CC’s on all movies. There was a time where radio and cinema was highly influenced by theatre and public speaking. This meant the actors were encouraged to speak loudly and clearly. Now there are directors who prefer mumbling and who don’t care about dialogue, not to mention incorrect sound mixing.
I feel like I miss 10%-15% of the movie because I don’t have subtitles.
I look forward to returning to the cinema, but I’m still not comfortable going as often or in the same way. That being said, I hope to see The Marvels sometime soon.
Later days,
Éric
This week is Abominable. I loved doing it with Dragon, and look forward to repeating them with Pegasus.
Here is the link for the downloadable materials. (I hope this works…please let me know if you have any problems so I can fix it!)
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday |
| pork buns | Watch movie | paper flowers | Flex | endangered species |
Summary of the week
Daily details:
Ballet and martial arts on alternate days
Singing, listening to different pieces, learning piano, learning guitar
The project he is working on (currently he is making himself a poncho)
We talk about the days of the week and play games with the cutouts of the names. We do the same thing with the names of the months of the year. You can find the print-outs here.
Download material
Practice counting objects and writing how many of each type –(in download material)
Make pork buns (link to recipe) links to recipe we used (filling, pastry)
Make paper flowers (link to instructions)
Learn about endangered species (link to resources)
Next week: Raya and the Last Dragon
This week was disrupted greatly, due to illness in the household needing a hospital visit (thank goodness for CHEO). However, Pegasus greatly enjoyed watching Coco, although the bonus features got a little long for him (I don’t blame him).
I haven’t been doing much formally for this one. I’ll put music on and he’ll dance to it unprompted. (repeated from last week)
He has been diligent about practising his scales and doing the exercise from the book. He also says out loud what the scale letters are as he plays them.
We did not crochet this week, as I needed to be upstairs to be near Dragon.
We alternated between listening to videos for the days of the week and months of the year (M, W, F), and attempting to put them in order with the pieces of paper (days on Tuesday, months on Thursday). He sang along unprompted. He’s still having trouble with the names and the order when the songs aren’t playing, but he’s needing less prompting.
He enjoys doing this activity and completed it on the second day this week. g and e are still a struggle.
He did well on his counting. He did not need me to write the numbers for him to copy.
We got reread the little French books from the library. I am getting him to read the small words that he knows, like ‘le’ and ‘la’, ‘un’ and ‘une’, and I’ve started him on the bigger words that show up in multiple books, like ‘voici’, ‘regarde’, ‘dit’, and ‘ballon’.
Remember the dead: go through old photo albums and hear stories about your ancestors. We had my mom bring over photo albums and tell stories about Pegasus’s great-grandparents and greatx2-grandparents, and some greatx2-aunts and -uncles as well. It was fun to hear about them. Pegasus did a great job remembering and linking stories about the different people, which I found impressive.
** Note the picture on thick cardboard – it was taken in early 1800s!! (my mother’s grandmother’s grandmother when she was 19! – who is just barely on the family tree in the bottom corner)
Bake traditional food – we made conchas again because they were so delicious last time. Pegasus requested yellow icing.
Learn about Dia de Los Muertos (+ watch Elena of Avalor special episode) – this one we only watched the episode. No pictures.
Dear Dragon and Pegasus,
The past few weeks you’ve both been disturbingly “down with the sickness“. Dragon brought home a cold and it wasn’t long before Pegasus caught it; he always wants to do what his big sister is doing.
Just when we thought the cold was under control, Dragon went to school… for a couple days before calling home with a sore tummy. She vomited twice on the way home.
So we went to CHEO (which Dragon kept calling CHEREO for some reason.) Mum was with her for the first part of the ten hour wait and I was for the rest. It was exhausting and because of her non-standard symptoms, they missed that she had an ear infection. Dragon, sadly, missed Halloween because of it.
Two days later, her ear hurt and we went to the after-hours clinic. (Mum adds: MUCH faster than the hospital, but we had thought she had broken a rib or something and would need x-rays!) They figured out the ear infection and sent her home. The antibiotics seem to be helping, but it’s slow and the upset stomach, dizziness, and nausea are still there.
As previously mentioned, Pegasus insists on doing everything his older sister does and got himself an ear infection too. So off to the clinic on Sunday for him. Antibiotics are started and hopefully he’ll feel better soon.
The two of you spent a long time not getting sick because of COVID isolation and I forgot how hard it is watching you be sick. I feel completely helpless and I hate it. I’m the parent, I should have all the answers right?
I hope you feel better soon.
So far, Mum and I are still okay. Tired and ragged, but okay.
I love you my little Dragon and Pegasus,
Papa
How This Works – Read Other Reviews
Hello Cinephiles,
Today we’re talking about the 2023 film Totally Killer.
A fascinating homage to both time travel and slasher movies. The story is well thought-out and avoids a lot of over explanation of time travel.
Score: 1
The characters are an interesting mish-mash of tropes. The 1987 group seem cartoony at first, but then remind me heavily of the way people behaved in my high school years (ten years later but still similar).
They managed to have a nice balance between the façade of the character and who they really are, using the quiet moments after the murders for character depth.
Score: 1
The dialogue is peppered with science fiction references and digs at the innocence of the eighties. The complete insensitivity of 1980s vs the much more progressive ideas of the 2020’s.
There’s also a few really funny lines.
Score: 1
The visuals were not as stylised as I feel they should have been, but the sets, costumes, and makeup were perfect.
I would have liked more music from the time period and the score was little bland.
Score: 0.5
The movie is a lot of fun and fits great with both time travel and slasher films. It’s not scary but I still wouldn’t watch it with the kids. It’s first and foremost a dark comedy and works great in that sense.
Score: 1
A dark comedy with time travel, generational humour, and lots of 80’s nostalgia. It’s fun, funny, and a great mash up of the two genres.
Final Score: 4.5 Stars out of 5
