Monthly Archives: March 2021

03.31.21
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Getting Personal #241: March Goals Recap

Image Credit: Pinterest

Welcome back!

Here were my goals for the month of March:

  1. Prepare for Camp NaNoWriMo, April 2021. —- Accomplished!
  2. Continue progress on the 2022 Virginia State Convention. —- Accomplished!
  3. Be elected P.E.O. Chapter President for 2021-2022. —- Accomplished!
  4. Do finishing work for the P.E.O. Virginia State IPS committee. —- Accomplished!
  5. Make sure the living room has no more clutter. —- Did not accomplish yet.
  6. Order the remaining curtains! —- Accomplished!
  7. Publish two Book Review posts. —- Accomplished!
  8. Publish one Commentary post. —- Accomplished!
  9. Take my iron supplements and daily vitamins to ensure I can give blood in April. —- Accomplished!
  10. Attend a couple fun events via Zoom. —- Accomplished!

I made a lot of progress this month. I’m excited to dive back into my second novel tomorrow!

I have several more Commentary posts in the works, and I’ve been rotating through several different books this month.

Keep your fingers crossed that I can give blood this weekend!

Until the next headline, Laura Beth 🙂

03.20.21
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Writing Prompt #250: “50 Masterpieces You Have to Read Before You Die, Volume 1” (Introduction Post)

Image Credit: Amazon

I’ve partnered with a friend, Kimberly, from a great Facebook group called The Book Drunkard, to read through Volumes 1 and 2!

The goal is to explore as many books as possible – I’m excited!

Here’s the list of the first 50 books:

Alcott, Louisa May: Little Women

Austen, Jane: Pride and Prejudice

Austen, Jane: Emma

Balzac, Honoré de: Father Goriot

Barbusse, Henri: The Inferno

Brontë, Anne: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Brontë, Charlotte: Jane Eyre

Brontë, Emily: Wuthering Heights

Burroughs, Edgar Rice: Tarzan of the Apes

Butler, Samuel: The Way of All Flesh

Carroll, Lewis: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Cather, Willa: My Ántonia

Cervantes, Miguel de: Don Quixote

Chopin, Kate: The Awakening

Cleland, John: Fanny Hill

Collins, Wilkie: The Moonstone

Conrad, Joseph: Heart of Darkness

Conrad, Joseph: Nostromo

Cooper, James Fenimore: The Last of the Mohicans

Crane, Stephen: The Red Badge of Courage

Cummings, E. E.: The Enormous Room

Defoe, Daniel: Robinson Crusoe

Defoe, Daniel: Moll Flanders

Dickens, Charles: Bleak House

Dickens, Charles: Great Expectations

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor: Crime and Punishment

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor: The Idiot

Doyle, Arthur Conan: The Hound of the Baskervilles

Dreiser, Theodore: Sister Carrie

Dumas, Alexandre: The Three Musketeers

Dumas, Alexandre: The Count of Monte Cristo

Eliot, George: Middlemarch

Fielding, Henry: Tom Jones

Flaubert, Gustave: Madame Bovary

Flaubert, Gustave: Sentimental Education

Ford, Ford Madox: The Good Soldier

Forster, E. M.: A Room With a View

Forster, E. M.: Howards End

Gaskell, Elizabeth: North and South

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von: The Sorrows of Young Werther

Gogol, Nikolai: Dead Souls

Gorky, Maxim: The Mother

Haggard, H. Rider: King Solomon’s Mines

Hardy, Thomas: Tess of the D’Urbervilles

Hawthorne, Nathaniel: The Scarlet Letter

Homer: The Odyssey

Hugo, Victor: The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Hugo, Victor: Les Misérables

Huxley, Aldous: Crome Yellow

James, Henry: The Portrait of a Lady

Keep an eye out for new Writing Prompt posts as I read through these books!

Until the next headline, Laura Beth 🙂

03.10.21
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Commentary #113: Thoughts on “Richard Jewell”

Image Credit: IMDb

Al and I watched this biopic on HBO Max. I had been interested in watching it since the first trailer was released in October 2019. We typically enjoy Clint Eastwood movies.

This one hit me a little harder, since it’s based on the real events of the Centennial Park bombing at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. I was about to turn eight that summer, and I was excited to watch several events on TV. I don’t remember much about the bombing until I was older.

The acting was superb in this film. I loved Kathy Bates as Richard’s mother. Sam Rockwell was an excellent choice for Watson Bryant. And Paul Walter Hauser was exceptional for Richard. The likeness of the actor to the real man was striking. Olivia Wilde was a good choice for Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Kathy Scruggs.

I won’t give away major spoilers – I try really hard to not do that in my Commentary posts and Book Reviews. But, this movie had me on the edge of my seat the entire time. I really liked how they used archival footage of news coverage, and if it wasn’t archival, it was a really good reproduction. Al pointed out the differences in aspect ratio.

This movie is a really good example of how damaging the media can be. As someone who studied mass media and journalism in college, it stung a little, but what these people and networks did for a story was flat out wrong. And this film captures those emotions so well, and shows many angles.

If you’re interested in a true-to-life film that captures a variety of perspectives, this is a great movie. It’s available on HBO Max until the end of March.

Until the next headline, Laura Beth 🙂

03.03.21
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Book Review #94: “Courtney: Friendship Superhero”

I wasn’t surprised at all when I powered through Courtney’s second book on Monday night before bed.

This book opens in the last few days of school of the 1985-1986 school year. The Hands Across America event is held, raising money for hunger and homelessness.

Courtney goes to the arcade, and continuing to work on her Crystal Starshooter character and levels of her video game. She meets a new friend, Isaac. He’s an even better video game player. Courtney eventually learns he’s also a talented artist.

As she navigates the waters of family and friendship, Courtney learns that Issac has an illness called HIV. Requests for privacy turn into anger about keeping secrets. Courtney feels like her friendship with Sarah, her best friend, is falling apart.

This book expertly navigated the fears of HIV and AIDS in 1986. I immediately drew parallels between Isaac and Ryan White, a teenager in Indiana who contracted HIV in 1984 through contaminated clotting factor that he received for hemophilia.

Courtney learns several lessons about true friendship along the way, even though she gets entrenched in the fight over Isaac and the local residents wanting to keep him out of school. How awful that these families and children faced such horrible discrimination, just like Ryan White and his family did.

The fun part of the story is when Courtney discovers the first Pleasant Company catalog, and falls in love with Molly McIntire!

I’m not sure if there will be more Courtney books, because American Girl revamped their book line several years ago. They changed the original six-book format to two longer books. This one covers the summer, fall, and winter of 1986.

However, I’m inspired to re-read Ryan White’s autobiography, Ryan White: My Own Story, and learn more about the 1980s. I was born in 1988, so I’ve always been intrigued by events that happened around the time I was born, and things that happened before I started forming core memories.

5 out of 5 stars.

Until the next headline, Laura Beth 🙂

03.02.21
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Book Review #93: “Courtney Changes The Game”

I don’t normally order items from American Girl directly, but they were offering a pretty sweet deal for the Valentine’s Day / President’s Day weekend – 3X the rewards points!

The newest historical character is Courtney Moore, who lives in Orange Valley, California in 1986. I’ve always been fascinated with 20th century history, so I knew I wanted to get her books! Courtney’s character was released in September 2020.

I ended getting the doll practically brand-new from the amazing American Girl Obsessed BST group on Facebook, and I also bought a few outfits and accessories with this purchase!

The AG historical books are typically shorter, as they are designed for readers 8+. Courtney Changes The Game rounds out at 120 pages. I was not surprised that I powered through the entire book on Saturday night before bed.

Courtney loves video games, especially PAC-MAN. She’s also adjusting to being part of a blended family – Her mom remarried Mike, and Tina is her 13-year-old stepsister. They also share a younger half-brother, two-year-old Rafi. Her dad just took a new job, and is moving several hours away. There’s a lot of personal upheaval in Courtney’s life, especially because Tina has quite the on/off switch. Sometimes, she’s happy and dances with Courtney to MTV, and other times, she’s really angry and sad.

The other big news is that her mom has decided to run for mayor!

As Courtney ponders her school project, creating her own video game, her class and school are all abuzz because of the upcoming launch of the Space Shuttle Challenger, and the first-ever Teacher in Space, Christa McAuliffe!

This was a great opening book. It had me hooked the whole time – I couldn’t put it down, even when I started feeling tired during Chapter 5.

Up next, her second book – Courtney: Friendship Superhero. If this book is nearly as good as the first, expect that Book Review to be here on the blog by the end of the week!

5 out of 5 stars.

Until the next headline, Laura Beth 🙂

03.01.21
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Getting Personal #240: March Goals

Image Credit: East Willow Grove

Welcome back!

Here are my goals for the month of March:

  1. Prepare for Camp NaNoWriMo, April 2021.
  2. Continue progress on the 2022 Virginia State Convention.
  3. Be elected P.E.O. Chapter President for 2021-2022.
  4. Do finishing work for the P.E.O. Virginia State IPS committee.
  5. Make sure the living room has no more clutter.
  6. Order the remaining curtains!
  7. Publish two Book Review posts.
  8. Publish one Commentary post.
  9. Take my iron supplements and daily vitamins to ensure I can give blood in April.
  10. Attend a couple fun events via Zoom.

What about you? Do you have any goals for the month of March?

Until the next headline, Laura Beth 🙂