The Captive and Visiting the Grandkids

Another visit come and gone, 14 hours on the Greyhound Bus there and another 14 hours home.  It's a long trip, but worth every uncomfortable minute.

Whilst I was visiting the grandkids (and their mum and dad of course), I was invited to spend the evening with their day care provider, a delightful lady named Anna, and have dinner with her family.  After dinner we took in this movie, see what you think of it.

This is a Canadian thriller, directed by Atom Egoyan and starring Mireille Enos and Ryan Reynolds.  You may remember Mireille from "The Killing", a series of three distinct stories which revolved around a single murder.

The captive is essentially an abduction thriller, set over time span of eight years. Mireille Enos and Ryan Reynolds play the parents, whose daughter is kidnapped one day outside of coffee shop. The agonising search for leads on the identity of the kidnapper is set over a period of 8 years. Scott Speedman and Rosario Dawson provide strong support as the lead police officers assigned to the case. The audience is already aware of the identity of the kidnapper which allows us to empathise more with the parents and police officers involved.

There are frequent time shifts within the movie, centring around events just after the abduction, six years after the incident and finally eight years, leading to the film’s climax. Some reviewers have criticized this, as there was no indication, the audience is left to work out what has happened.

The main conflict which fleshes out the middle part of the movie are the themes of guilt, the distraught mother blames her husband for the abduction and in turn he blames him self.  I enjoyed this movie, they can't all be terrific but I think it was worth the price of entry.

As usual, I had a great time visiting and as usual, it went by way too fast.  Each time I try to stay a little longer.  Rhys is now in school full-time, in SK and seems to love it, Katherine still has a way to go before she starts JK.  Unfortunately both Niki and I came down with terrible colds (or was it flu) which put a little bit of a dampner on things, especially as my other son who lives in Toronto came to visit for a few days so I had to make an effort to at least go out with him a few times.  I'm still not over it two weeks later.

Just one little project to show you this time, gosh, I have been lazy, LOL  This is a rather unique shaped shelf.  Someone is going to love it for their knick-knacks.  I did it in grey and shabbied it.

It was another busy day at my little shop, The Church Street Boutique and this time I decided to give away one of my hand-crafted pendant necklaces with each purchase.  Everyone was delighted but some were reluctant to accept as they were already getting some great deals, but that's what we are all about, great deals and making people happy.

Not much to blog about this time taking into account my trip and my cold.

Here are a couple of photos of the darlings, they are always a joy to see.....

Rhys's first day at SK

Sweet Katherine

Rhys drying off

Katherine, finding Daddy amusing

And that's it for now my friends.  I hope you are all healthy and life is treating you well.  Until next time, take care....

Hugs, 

"Lucy"

Had a lovely evening with Helena and Janis at the movies and then still had time for coffee afterwards.  It has been ages since we have been able to get together because of "life getting in the way", so it was a real treat.  Hope it won't be so long until the next time.

Lucy is a 25-year-old American woman living and studying in Taipai, Taiwan. She is tricked to work as a drug mule by her new boyfriend for his employer, a Korean gangster and drug lord named Mr. Jang. Lucy delivers a briefcase to Mr. Jang's hotel room that is handcuffed to her wrist containing a highly valuable synthetic superdrug called CPH4 that can increase the user's brain function capacity. Through a turn of events the packaged drug is forcefully sewn into Lucy's abdomen and that of others who will also transport the drug for sales in Europe. While in captivity, one of Lucy's captors tries to rape her and kicks her mercilessly in the stomach, causing the bag inside her to leak, releasing the brain-enhancing drug into her system. As a result, she begins acquiring increasingly powerful mental talents and enhanced physical capabilities, such as absorbing information instantaneously, telekinesis, mental time travel, and can choose not to feel pain or other discomforts, in addition to other abilities. She fends off her present captors and arranges herself with the newly gained abilities.

Lucy travels to a nearby hospital to remove the leaking container of drugs from her abdomen. The bag of drugs is successfully removed, and Lucy realizes that she requires the bags inside the other three drug mules in order to continue expanding her neural capacity and that the process of rapid cell growth the drug is stimulating will eventually kill her. Returning to Mr. Jang's hotel, Lucy assaults him and telepathically extracts the locations of all three drug mules from his mind.

At her shared apartment, in which she had resided with an actor friend, Lucy starts a research about her condition and connected scientific material in order to find experienced and trustworthy support. She contacts a well-known scientist and doctor, Professor Norman, whose research may be the key to saving her. After Lucy speaks with the professor and provides proof of her developed abilities, she flies to Paris and contacts a local policeman, Del Rio, to help her find the remaining three packets of the drug. Her powers continue to grow, leaving her able to mentally disable an entire police force followed by the men who made her a drug mule. Lucy recovers the drug and must hurry to meet the doctor, with whom she agrees to share everything she now knows, once each cell in her body is controlled. Mr. Jang and his henchmen also want the drug and a gunfight ensues with the French police.

While in the doctor's lab and in the midst of a time and space journey, Mr. Jang enters and points a gun at Lucy's head from behind, intending to kill her. He shoots, but in an instant before the bullet strikes, Lucy disappears within the space time continuum where everything is connected and existence is only proven through time. Only her clothes are left behind. The French policeman Del Rio enters and fatally shoots Mr. Jang. Del Rio asks where Lucy is. Norman takes a flash drive from the advanced supercomputer created by Lucy's body using the matter in the room and a text message from her answering the question appears on Del Rio's phone: "I AM EVERYWHERE." An overhead shot of Mr. Jang's body follows with Lucy's voice heard off-screen: "Life was given to us a billion years ago, and now you know what to do with it." - Courtesy of Wikipedia.

Here are a few projects I have been working on this past month.  You can't see the true colour of this table, but it is a light peach which of course has been dirtied up to look shabby.

This small pedestal table is also the same colour....

Changed this picture frame from this....

To this......

Here are a couple of shelves I had fun painting and shabbying up.  It's so strange how one can get such a kick out of turning something reasonably new into an item which looks like it has been left outside for years, LOL

This is an older mirror I picked up from a local shop - even the owner of the store said it was waiting for someone to come and take it home and re-paint it and she was right!!

My favourite piece of all is this bureau/desk which I have had in my Boutique for quite a few months and even though there were positive comments on this well-made Canadian item, no offers for purchase came my way.  I had been toying with the idea of painting it for months and finally decided to do it.  I love the new look and I am quite confident that this will sell very soon.

And here is the result.....

Well, that's it for any projects so I will leave you with a couple of photos of my darling grandkids, who incidentally I can't wait to visit again - just a few more weeks.

Well, that's it for now.  Please stay healthy and happy and I'll catch up with you again soon.

Hugs, 

Greyhound, Grandkids and Gadabout!!!

I'm beginning to get quite excited.  In just a few days I will be embarking on the Greyhound bus on my way to visit my darling grandkids and their parents.  It's about six months since my last Gadabout and can't wait to see the changes in the little darlings.  Of course I have Skyped with them but it's not the same as being in the same room with them, cuddling and kissing them and I aim to get me lots of that kind of loving.

Do you want to see what I have been up to since my last post?  Of course you do, LOL

I wish I had taken a photo of the before for this item - that's one of my weaknesses, I forget to do it and then once I have started to refinish, it's too late.  You will have to imagine how this looked just plain wood coloured.  It's much nicer shabby chic'd.....

A dear friend and neighbour needed to have her patio tables painted so I gave them a few coats of off-white paint and another couple of coats of varnish.  They look so nice now outside her patio doors with her flowers sitting on them....

I found these two chairs at one of the Thrift Stores and they were pretty ugly......

and with some inspiration and lots of hard work, I turned them into something very pretty and they are now in my Boutique waiting for their forever home.

I changed this flower basket from this...

into this.....

My biggest project was working on two end tables.  Actually, they were quite beautiful in their original state but there would be a better chance of them selling if I shabby chic'd them.  Not everyone likes the idea of painting good wooden furniture but it seems to be the trend these days.....

This is what they looked like before I transformed them....

and finally, into this....

I hope you like them.

A little black shelf I did....

and finally, a family sign, measuring just over two feet.

A box which could be used for so many things, shabby chic'd with a French decal...

and a shelf which could go with it...

That's about it for this post.  As usual, I will finish off with a couple of photos of my darling grandkids.  Did I say that I was excited at going to visit them soon?  I will get lots of new photos when I'm there.

Little Katherine (Kat)

and Rhys, who will be turning five when I'm there.

(being silly)

Well my friends, 'til the next time.... be healthy, happy and take good care of each other.

Hugs,