First of all, it’s Monday, so as usual, I’m over at Fictionistas talking about cleaning off my desk this weekend. With pictures. (No…not the French Maid pictures. Those I’m saving for a very special occasion. Sorry…)

This was such a good, low key weekend. Rader had soccer on Saturday, which was slightly miserable. Being naked and covered in BBQ sauce standing in front of a group of hungry cannibals would’ve been only slightly worse. (see? silver lining) It was cold, rainy, and windy. But a trip to Beef O’Brady’s for lunch and a nice Guinness and bowl of potato soup warmed me right up.

And so did the Guinness induced nap Saturday afternoon.

I caught up on some Tivo’d shows, did some cleaning, and hung out with the kids. Yesterday afternoon, while Fishdog was at his soccer game and the boys were downstairs, I decided to watch a movie. You know, one of those romantic ones that I have to watch alone because noboy here in the house of penis will watch it with me?

I picked the wrong movie. Sigh.

I don’t like Nicholas Sparks novels. I take that back, I like 1 Sparks novel…The Rescue. It was the only one that ended with an acceptable HEA. The rest are tragic endings, the hero and heroine are inches away from getting their Happily Ever After and Sparks reaches down and yanks the rug out from under them.

Having said that, I really like a couple of the movies based on Sparks’ novels. I love The Notebook. (HATED THE BOOK WITH A PASSION. Threw it against the wall when I was finished) Even as tragic as it is, I love watching Message in a Bottle because the love story is strong. (as an aside I couldn’t stand A Walk to Remember in either book or movie form. Another wallbanger)

Since I’m a Diane Lane and Richard Gere fan and since I’m a sucker for anything on a beach (except for that awful movie Beaches) I wrestled with my love/hate relationship with Sparks and watched Nights in Rondanthe.

Ugh.

I didn’t buy the love story over all. Maybe I wasn’t feeling the lurve yesterday, I dunno. Usually I’m a sucker for all that love stuff, but yesterday I was a tough critc. By the time I started to actually root for the two of them, Sparks yanked the rug out.

Seriously, it wasn’t even unexpected. Which just made me even more mad at myself for watching it. All I wanted was a little love-feel good and all I got was sour grapes.

I hate it when that happens.

Did y’all do anything fun this weekend? Watch any good movies that you can recommend?