Ooops! Almost forgot O!!!

Stretching here with this one I think....

On this 20th day of the A-Z Challenge, my O topic is..... O'Hara. As in, Scarlet :)

I adore Gone With The Wind...and would have liked to talk about it on G day...but I went with Gaga instead :) So we'll talk about it today. But I think it's a good O topic, since the family's name and heritage was such a huge part of who they were.

I remember hearing about this reeeeeeaaaalllllly long book when I was in college I think. Before that, I hand't really known much about GWTW. Why, I really have no clue. But somehow I heard about it and what it was about and it seemed interesting. And I liked the challenge of reading this insanely long book. So I borrowed it from my college's library. And read. And read. And read some more. It really did suck me right in and keep me hooked....though the war did go on kinda long and was kinda dragged out...but really...I guess that was true to how it really was. I remember bawling my eyes out at the end...so wanting the HEA for Rhett and Scarlet, but loving the book even without it.

Then I had to see the movie. I remember being home for the weekend or on break and renting it with my boyfriend (who I am now married too!) and laying together on my parent's couch for the 3 hours or whatever. And I loved that too. The sets and costumes, so gorgeous and amazing. The story I'd come to love had come to life. Though it did disappoint me somewhat....but obviously you can't include every part of a book that long in a movie...the thing was long enough as it was!

Fast forward a few years. Hubby and I were married and took a road trip to visit friends in Charlotte. And while we were there I came up with the brilliant idea to visit a bed and breakfast I'd read about- Inn Scarlet's Footsteps, just outside Atlanta. So we left Charlotte a day early and drove to Atlanta. We visited the Margaret Mitchell House, where she lived when she wrote GWTW and stayed at the gorgeous plantation house that had been transformed into a B&B. We ere int he Rhett room! So so amazing! As a native northerner, it really was a whole different world for us. I remember the owner exclaiming at breakfast in a very cheerful tone, "We're full of Yankees today!" There was a couple there from Ohio on their honeymoon and it completely amused me that the woman referred to us as Yankees!

And I did read the sequel to GWTW- Scarlet, and saw the movie. Not great, but not awful. I guess it gave fans the HEA they were craving and didn't really get originally.

Movie Monday

It's Movie Monday, week 2!!! Wondering what movie should be next....the first was so easy...no brainer. But the next one...a bit tougher. But I'll go with a classic.

This story is one I read first, in college. It wasn't a requirement for a lit class or anything. It was a challenge to read it (all 1048 pages of it) and I just wanted to prove to myself that I could read a book that long. But I didn't expect to fall completely in love with it.


Aside from a few slow chapters during the war, I devoured the book, reading it in my dorm room bed every night (I was a senior and I didn't have too much studying that semester). When I was home on break after finishing it, I rented the movie. And I adored seeing this grand epic come to life before my eyes. This was the early days of Hollywood...no computer generated special effects, no fancy cameras. Plain, simple movie making and I was in awe. Vivien Leigh is breathtaking in every scene and who can resist Clark Gable as Rhett Butler...the original bad boy.

Now, I do admit, I was a bit disappointed...there was so much that was left out. But geez....the movie was over 3 hours already...had to cut some stuff out of a 1000+ novel!!

Trying to pick a favorite scene and I'm not sure I can. I do love the beginning...the barbecue at Twelve oaks...before the war starts. And the icon scene where Rhett lifts Scarlett and carries her up the stairs!

And who can't identify with Scarlett O'Hara, lusting after a man she cannot have???

A few years ago we took a trip to visit friends in North Carolina and decided to take a side trip to Atlanta before coming home. I had heard of a Bed and Breakfast called Inn Scarlett's Footsteps and I checked into it. They had a room available!! Being a northerner my entire life, I had never experienced anything like this before...I'd only seen places like this on tv. And we were actually going to sleep there!!!! We got the Rhett Butler room. We also visited the Margaret Michell house while in Atlanta, the place she lived while she write Gone with the Wind.